We have put together stories from our coverage on science from the past two weeks to help you stay informed. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing China’s Shenzhou-20 spacecraft returned to Earth with no astronauts inside – just metal, heat and a cracked window – touching down at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia on Monday. Healthcare workers in the ...
We have put together stories from our coverage on science from the past two weeks to help you stay informed. If you would like to see more of our reporting, please consider subscribing China’s Shenzhou-20 spacecraft returned to Earth with no astronauts inside – just metal, heat and a cracked window – touching down at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia on Monday. Healthcare workers in the southern Indian state of Kerala wear protective gear as they attend to a man with symptoms of the Nipah virus in September 2023. Photo AFP An outbreak of the highly fatal Nipah virus in India’s eastern state of West Bengal has sparked widespread attention and public concern in China ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday when millions will travel. The People’s Liberation Army said more than 10 experimental quantum cyber warfare tools were “under development”, many of which were being “tested in front-line missions”, according to the official newspaper Science and Technology Daily.
Keir Starmer has said he will “raise the issues that need to be raised” on human rights with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, as he arrived in Beijing for the first trip to the country by a UK leader in eight years. The prime minister has come under pressure from rights groups to try to secure the release of Jimmy Lai, the jailed former media tycoon and one of Hong Kong’s most significant pro-democracy...
Keir Starmer has said he will “raise the issues that need to be raised” on human rights with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, as he arrived in Beijing for the first trip to the country by a UK leader in eight years. The prime minister has come under pressure from rights groups to try to secure the release of Jimmy Lai, the jailed former media tycoon and one of Hong Kong’s most significant pro-democracy voices. The British citizen faces spending the rest of his life in prison after he was found guilty by a Hong Kong court of national security offences that the UK sees as politically motivated. Starmer told reporters on the flight to China: “In the past on all the trips I’ve done, I’ve always raised issues that need to be raised. But part of the reason for engaging with China is so that issues where we disagree can be discussed.” Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, has called for Lai’s immediate release and summoned the Chinese ambassador after his conviction. In December, Lai’s children voiced alarm for their father’s health, describing his dramatic weight loss, teeth rotting and nails falling off while in solitary confinement. The prime minister may also raise the fate of the Uyghurs, a persecuted Muslim minority in China who have been co-opted into forced labour programmes. In opposition, Labour pushed for formal recognition of China’s treatment of the Uyghurs as a genocide, with a number of senior party figures backing the move. View image in fullscreen Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai is facing spending the rest of his in prison. Photograph: Vincent Yu/AP Downing Street has said that while Starmer wants to improve economic relations with China on the visit, he would maintain “guardrails” on national security, and would not trade one for the other. They said he would raise areas of disagreement, including human rights abuses. Yasmine Ahmed, UK Director of Human Rights Watch, told the Guardian: “It’s imperative that Starmer doesn’t abandon principle in pursuit of prof...
Resist opting out early All employers must automatically enrol their employees in a workplace pension scheme if they meet the eligibility criteria: the employee must be a UK resident, aged between 22 and state pension age, and earning more than £10,000 a year, £192 a week or £822 a month, in the 2025/26 tax year. The total minimum contribution to a workplace scheme is 8%. This doesn’t all come out...
Resist opting out early All employers must automatically enrol their employees in a workplace pension scheme if they meet the eligibility criteria: the employee must be a UK resident, aged between 22 and state pension age, and earning more than £10,000 a year, £192 a week or £822 a month, in the 2025/26 tax year. The total minimum contribution to a workplace scheme is 8%. This doesn’t all come out of your pay, as your employer will stump up a chunk of that and your contribution will be boosted by tax relief. While your employer must automatically put you into the scheme, you can opt out, and this may be tempting if you are on a low wage. However, that means turning down free money from your employer and through tax relief. It also means missing out on the growth of that money. “The earlier you start, the better,” says Mark Smith, a spokesperson for Pension Attention, an industry-led campaign. If you opt out, you’ll be automatically enrolled again three years later, but Smith says that is a long time to be missing out on potential stock market growth. “Set a reminder for a year’s time to see if you can manage it then,” he says. “Better still, say no to opting out to begin with – see if you can manage financially with that contribution. If you really are struggling, you can think again.” Balance money priorities Early in your career you may have priorities that come ahead of planning for retirement. If you want to save up to buy a home, for example, there are difficult decisions to make. Research by pension provider L&G found one in seven recent and prospective homeowners have paused, reduced or never paid into a pension, to prioritise buying a property. “For many younger people, rising living costs and the pressure to build a deposit mean tough trade-offs, including cutting back on pension saving,” says Katharine Photiou, the director of workplace savings at L&G Retail. “While understandable, these decisions can have a lasting negative impact on retirement outcomes.”...
An exhilarating account of Bowie’s spirituality and the quasi-religious nature of his work, from Space Oddity to Blackstar It has become a tired cliche among fans to say that everything went wrong in the world after Bowie died in 2016. It also misses the point: rather than being one of the last avatars of a liberal order that has crumbled around our ears, Bowie prophesied the mayhem that has repla...
An exhilarating account of Bowie’s spirituality and the quasi-religious nature of his work, from Space Oddity to Blackstar It has become a tired cliche among fans to say that everything went wrong in the world after Bowie died in 2016. It also misses the point: rather than being one of the last avatars of a liberal order that has crumbled around our ears, Bowie prophesied the mayhem that has replaced it. In his later years, he thought that we had entered a zone of chaos and fragmentation. This is what allowed him to be so prescient about the internet – not its promise, but its menace. There is no plan and no order. There is just disaster and social collapse. Those looking for reassurance should not listen to Bowie (please listen to something, anything, else). His world, from Space Oddity through to the background violence of The Next Day and Blackstar , was always drowned or destroyed or incinerated: “This ain’t rock’n’roll, this is genocide” as he exclaims at the beginning of Diamond Dogs. Continue reading...
‘Question the status quo!’: Britain’s queer immigrants – in pictures Asafe Ghalib photographs his friends and fellow artists with one aim – to transform them into their ‘rawest, most beautiful and most empowered’ form
‘Question the status quo!’: Britain’s queer immigrants – in pictures Asafe Ghalib photographs his friends and fellow artists with one aim – to transform them into their ‘rawest, most beautiful and most empowered’ form
Keir Starmer has accused the Reform UK candidate in the Greater Manchester byelection of pursuing the politics of “toxic division” after he refused to disown his claim that UK-born people from minority ethnic backgrounds are not necessarily British. The prime minister suggested that Matthew Goodwin, a hard-right activist, would try to “tear people apart” in Gorton and Denton, and that voters wanti...
Keir Starmer has accused the Reform UK candidate in the Greater Manchester byelection of pursuing the politics of “toxic division” after he refused to disown his claim that UK-born people from minority ethnic backgrounds are not necessarily British. The prime minister suggested that Matthew Goodwin, a hard-right activist, would try to “tear people apart” in Gorton and Denton, and that voters wanting to stop Nigel Farage’s party should coalesce around the Labour candidate. Senior Labour figures have warned that the party needs to rapidly present itself as the “stop Reform” vote, acknowledging that in the recent Caerphilly byelection, which was won by Plaid Cymru, they were too late in becoming the beneficiary of tactical voting. The Greens, who came third in the Gorton and Denton seat at the general election, are set to stage an all-out fight to win the upcoming race, with officials in the party arguing they have a real chance of victory after Andy Burnham was barred from applying to be the Labour candidate. But speaking to reporters on his way to China, Starmer said: “There’s only one party to stop Reform and that’s the Labour party. We can already see what the bybelection is going to be about, which is Labour values which are about delivering on the cost of living with a strong record in that constituency of what we’ve already done versus Reform.” He added: “You can see from their candidate what politics they’re going to bring to that constituency: the politics of division, of toxic division, of tearing people apart. That’s not what that constituency is about, it’s not what Manchester is about, so this is a straight fight between Labour and Reform.” Goodwin, who was presented on Tuesday as the party’s candidate in the demographically diverse seat in south-east Manchester, has been criticised for claiming recently that people from black, Asian or other immigrant backgrounds were not always British. Starmer confirmed that he had spoken to Burnham on Monday after an a...
Now a ‘wild river national park’, the Vjosa needs more trees to be planted to preserve its fragile ecosystem. And visitors are being asked to help … Our induction into tree-planting comes from Pietro, an Italian hydromorphologist charged with overseeing our group of 20 or so volunteers for the week. We’re standing in a makeshift nursery full of spindly willow and poplar saplings just above the Vjo...
Now a ‘wild river national park’, the Vjosa needs more trees to be planted to preserve its fragile ecosystem. And visitors are being asked to help … Our induction into tree-planting comes from Pietro, an Italian hydromorphologist charged with overseeing our group of 20 or so volunteers for the week. We’re standing in a makeshift nursery full of spindly willow and poplar saplings just above the Vjosa River , a graceful, meandering waterway that cuts east to west across southern Albania from its source 169 miles away upstream in Greece. Expertly extricating an infant willow from the clay-rich soil, Pietro holds up the plant for us all to see. Its earthy tendrils look oddly exposed and vulnerable. “The trick is not to accidentally snick the stem or break the roots,” he says. Message registered, we take up our hoes and head off in pairs to follow his instructions. The volunteering week is the brainchild of EcoAlbania and the Austria-based Riverwatch . Back in 2023, these two conservation charities succeeded in persuading the Albanian government to designate the River Vjosa as Europe’s first “ wild river national park ”. It was a timely intervention. According to new research co-funded by Riverwatch, Albania has lost 711 miles (1,144km) of “nearly natural” river stretches since 2018 – more, proportionally, than any country in the Balkans. Now, the question facing both organisations is: what next? On our first evening, Riverwatch’s chief executive, Ulrich (“Uli”) Eichelmann, gives a presentation setting out his answer. But before he does, we have a dinner of lamb and homegrown vegetables to work through. The traditional spread is a speciality of the Lord Byron guesthouse in Tepelenë, a small town in the heart of the Vjosa valley and home to EcoAlbania’s field office – our base for the week. Continue reading...
A gang of bank robbers return to the scene of their crime to free the two employees they imprisoned in a vault in this suspenseful British thriller from 1962 Vernon Sewell’s outstanding British crime picture from 1962, co-scripted by veteran screenwriter Richard Harris, is now re-released. It is a taut, tough suspense thriller in black-and-white, leading to a sensationally grim final shot. It is i...
A gang of bank robbers return to the scene of their crime to free the two employees they imprisoned in a vault in this suspenseful British thriller from 1962 Vernon Sewell’s outstanding British crime picture from 1962, co-scripted by veteran screenwriter Richard Harris, is now re-released. It is a taut, tough suspense thriller in black-and-white, leading to a sensationally grim final shot. It is in fact a B-movie, one of the support features that once made up a complete evening’s entertainment: a cheap’n’cheerful genre which, though often awful, sometimes liberated talented people to create terrific, unheralded work, and whose importance to film history has been valuably elucidated by critic Matthew Sweet . A character in this film in fact, about to go out to the cinema, talks about the importance of seeing the full programme. Griff (played by Derren Nesbitt) leads a trio of robbers who raid a suburban bank just as it is about to shut up shop for the bank holiday weekend. In a horribly cynical touch, Griff poses as a postman to gain entrance using his dead father’s old uniform. Having manhandled the straitlaced manager Mr Spencer (Colin Gordon) and his demure secretary Miss Taylor (Ann Lynn) down into the basement to get them to open up the strongroom with all the cash, they lock the two employees in there and make their getaway. Continue reading...
Across borders, cultures and faiths, most ordinary people want the same things: the ability to earn a living, put a roof over their heads, feed their families and watch their children grow up with a future. These are not radical ideas, but they are today routinely sacrificed on the altar of geopolitics. When power and profit take precedence, governments abandon the everyday realities of those they...
Across borders, cultures and faiths, most ordinary people want the same things: the ability to earn a living, put a roof over their heads, feed their families and watch their children grow up with a future. These are not radical ideas, but they are today routinely sacrificed on the altar of geopolitics. When power and profit take precedence, governments abandon the everyday realities of those they claim to protect and serve, especially when domination of another country’s resources, markets or political direction is at stake. In 2026, the pattern is unmistakable. War is not only waged with bombs and soldiers, but through its quieter sibling: sanctions. These encompass a broad range of coercive measures, including trade and investment restrictions, financial controls, banking blacklists, asset freezes, and visa and travel restrictions. Sanctions are sold as targeted … In practice, they function as broad blocks on trade and finance that ripple through populations Deployed under the language of democracy, they are routinely weaponised against weaker states that fall outside the western orthodoxy of governance and market capitalism, with devastating consequences for societies that often pose no threat but refuse political subordination. Sanctions are not benevolent tools for guardians of human rights; they are a means of economic warfare, with civilians as collateral damage. Sanctions are sold as “targeted” – aimed at elites, corrupt officials or illicit industries. In practice, they function as broad blocks on trade and finance that ripple through populations. Empirical research confirms that sanctions in Latin America and the Caribbean significantly reduce economic growth, worsen income inequality and amplify poverty, with financial and trade restrictions among the most damaging. For more than four decades, governments from Washington to London and Brussels have wielded sanctions as instruments of pressure, presented as principled diplomacy. The lived reality across t...
Japan’s retail investors unwound bullish bets in the yen during the height of a recent rally, potentially capping its gains as talk of official intervention buoyed the currency. Individual traders reduced ¥85.7 billion ($561 million) of net short positions in the dollar-yen pair from Friday to Tuesday, data from the Tokyo Financial Exchange Inc. showed. The wagers, which amounted to bets that the ...
Japan’s retail investors unwound bullish bets in the yen during the height of a recent rally, potentially capping its gains as talk of official intervention buoyed the currency. Individual traders reduced ¥85.7 billion ($561 million) of net short positions in the dollar-yen pair from Friday to Tuesday, data from the Tokyo Financial Exchange Inc. showed. The wagers, which amounted to bets that the yen would strengthen, shrank by the most for any three-day period since October 2022, according to Bloomberg’s analysis of the figures. Japan’s army of retail investors are a formidable force in domestic markets as their currency trading volumes surpass that of spot transactions compiled by the Tokyo Foreign Exchange Market Committee. The latest positioning suggests that these investors may have cut their losses as the dollar-yen pair rounded off its biggest three-day drop in well over a year. “While a narrow interpretation would be that the Japanese retail investors are indeed contrarian to the broader FX market moves, a broader view would be that they continue to see the low-yielding yen as a carry-funding currency,” said Valentin Marinov , head of G-10 FX research and strategy at Credit Agricole. “The yen may not rally on a sustained basis so long as the Bank of Japan is seen as significantly more dovish than other central banks.” The size of the net shorts in TFX is relatively small but it provides an indication of the direction of ¥451 trillion in monthly retail flows. The yen fell 0.3% to 152.62 per dollar in the Asia session on Wednesday. Japan’s currency jumped at least 1% in each of the past three sessions amid speculation that the authorities are ready to join forces with the US to halt its recent weakness. “Levels around 158 or 159 yen are where the risk of intervention becomes very high,” said Takuya Kanda , head of research at Gaitame.com Research Institute in Tokyo. “So I expect to see more trading strategies where investors buy dollars around the 153-154 leve...
PayPoint Plc Trading update for the three months ended 31 December 2025 28 January 2026 Significant progress in key third quarter and on track to deliver record profits for the year KEY GROUP METRICS Net revenue Q3 FY26 Q3 FY25 Change Group £52.7m £53.0m (0.5)% Shopping division £16.1m £16.1m - E-commerce division £4.2m £4.1m 2.4% Payments and Banking division £14.3m £14.0m 2.1% Love2shop division...
PayPoint Plc Trading update for the three months ended 31 December 2025 28 January 2026 Significant progress in key third quarter and on track to deliver record profits for the year KEY GROUP METRICS Net revenue Q3 FY26 Q3 FY25 Change Group £52.7m £53.0m (0.5)% Shopping division £16.1m £16.1m - E-commerce division £4.2m £4.1m 2.4% Payments and Banking division £14.3m £14.0m 2.1% Love2shop division £18.1m £18.8m (3.2)% Nick Wiles, Chief Executive of PayPoint Plc, said: “PayPoint continues to be an entrepreneurial, agile business and the progress delivered in our Q3 FY26 results further demonstrates these attributes alongside the resilience of our core businesses, with a strong performance from our peak seasonal trading businesses. These results reflect our focus on operational delivery in the business, achieved against a continued background of subdued consumer spending and a challenging market environment. We remain on track to meet FY26 expectations and deliver progress in the current year. We have successfully navigated the operational disruption experienced earlier in the year to deliver a record peak performance in our parcels business with positive transaction growth of 6.7%, Yodel/InPost volumes recovering and our Royal Mail partnership continuing to gather pace as we expand the Royal Mail Shop Branding and provision of postage services in our Collect+ network. In our other seasonal businesses, Love2shop Business traded strongly and our partnership with Incomm Payments delivered exceptional billings growth. Billings across Love2shop are strongly ahead of the prior year and we remain confident that the division will deliver a strong finish to the year, reflecting both good billings growth and the timing of revenue recognition as cards expire in the final quarter. In Park Christmas Savings, we delivered another robust performance in line with expectations, with the focus now on the rollout of a strong 2026 Christmas campaign. Elsewhere in the business, we have c...
Solid results in a challenging environment, reflecting a resilient business model LONDON, January 28, 2026 – Stolt-Nielsen Limited (Oslo Børs ticker: SNI) today reported unaudited results for the fourth quarter and full year ended November 30, 2025. The Company reported a fourth-quarter net profit of $59.6 million with revenue of $680.6 million, compared with a net profit of $91.4 million with rev...
Solid results in a challenging environment, reflecting a resilient business model LONDON, January 28, 2026 – Stolt-Nielsen Limited (Oslo Børs ticker: SNI) today reported unaudited results for the fourth quarter and full year ended November 30, 2025. The Company reported a fourth-quarter net profit of $59.6 million with revenue of $680.6 million, compared with a net profit of $91.4 million with revenue of $709.4 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. The net profit for 2025 was $350.2 million with revenue of $2,769.0 million, compared with a net profit of $394.8 million, with revenue of $2,890.6 million for 2024. Highlights for the fourth quarter of 2025, compared with the fourth quarter of 2024, were: Stolt-Nielsen Limited (SNL) consolidated EBITDA 1 of $186.0 million, down from $212.7 million Earnings per share in the fourth quarter was $1.12, down from $1.71 Stolt Tankers reported operating profit of $54.8 million, down from $83.4 million The STJS average time-charter equivalent (TCE) revenue was $24,518 per operating day, down from $30,185 Stolthaven Terminals reported operating profit of $24.1 million, down from $26.2 million Stolt Tank Containers reported operating profit of $8.1 million, down from $16.6 million Stolt Sea Farm (SSF), Stolt-Nielsen Gas (SNG), Corporate & Other reported a combined operating profit of $8.5 million, up from $4.2 million ($6.6 million before the fair value adjustment of biomass, up from $3.1 million) Acquisition of Suttons International Holdings Limited (Suttons) in November and proposed deconsolidation of Avenir LNG Limited (Avenir LNG) after the year end Udo Lange, Chief Executive Officer of Stolt-Nielsen Limited, commented: “Our businesses delivered a solid finish to 2025 while maintaining strong market positions, reflecting the resilience of our business model. The Company has achieved EBITDA1 of $186.0 million for the fourth quarter of 2025 and $775.5 million for 2025 overall, at the upper end of our guided range. “Our strategi...
EU's Deadly New Weapon Against Press Freedom: Already Wreaking Havoc Via Remix News, In an extraordinary case that could decide the future of press rights in Europe, Berlin-based German-Turkish journalist Hüseyin Doğru is currently under European Union sanctions for his reporting, which left him completely unable to access his bank account for months. Under orders from the EU, his assets were froz...
EU's Deadly New Weapon Against Press Freedom: Already Wreaking Havoc Via Remix News, In an extraordinary case that could decide the future of press rights in Europe, Berlin-based German-Turkish journalist Hüseyin Doğru is currently under European Union sanctions for his reporting, which left him completely unable to access his bank account for months. Under orders from the EU, his assets were frozen, and these sanctions were dispensed with no trial or appeal. Currently, Doğru says he is not even allowed to leave Germany. As Berliner Zeitung reports, Doğru completely exhausted all financial means, telling the paper that his bank has completely blocked access to his previously approved minimum subsistence allowance of €506. He stated that he can no longer support his family or even buy food for his two newborn children. “Not only I, but also my wife and my three children are effectively being sanctioned,” Doğru, a left-wing journalist, said in the interview. “The sanctions themselves stipulate that I am entitled to access to essential funds. The fact that my bank is nevertheless blocking these funds violates applicable law in my view,” he told the Berlin newspaper. Since then, he has won some reprieve and regained access to his account on Jan. 22 through the actions of his lawyer, but a legal battle over the sanctions is continuing. UPDATE: Comdirect finally (and unwillingly) restored my account access—only after public and media pressure. Thank you ALL for supporting me. Next goal: lift the sanctions, not just against me, but against all punished for expressing their opinions. https://t.co/P6rdkNhCC8 — Hüseyin Dogru (@hussedogru) January 22, 2026 There are now fears that the extraordinary case may be a sign of where the future is headed, where an authoritarian EU can censor and financially ruin dissidents and journalists with no oversight or judicial review. Notably, similar sanctions could also be deployed against others, such as Roger Köppel, the Swiss editor-in-ch...
Meta reports fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday, and Wall Street expects strong revenue growth—but the company’s AI buildout is driving a surge in capital and operating costs.
Meta reports fourth-quarter earnings Wednesday, and Wall Street expects strong revenue growth—but the company’s AI buildout is driving a surge in capital and operating costs.
Novak Djokovic's bid to make more tennis history is still alive as he scraped into the Australian Open semi-finals after Lorenzo Musetti retired injured when leading by two sets. Djokovic, aiming for a standalone record 25th Grand Slam singles title, was wayward, error-strewn and irritable against the inspired Italian in front of a stunned crowd. Musetti was 6-4 6-3 up and looked set for the semi-...
Novak Djokovic's bid to make more tennis history is still alive as he scraped into the Australian Open semi-finals after Lorenzo Musetti retired injured when leading by two sets. Djokovic, aiming for a standalone record 25th Grand Slam singles title, was wayward, error-strewn and irritable against the inspired Italian in front of a stunned crowd. Musetti was 6-4 6-3 up and looked set for the semi-finals when he pulled up early in the third set. The fifth seed took a medical timeout for treatment on his thigh but, unable to serve or move properly, he walked to the net and shook hands at 3-1 down in the third. A heartbroken Musetti had to be helped down the corridor by a member of his team as he left the court. "He was a far better player - I was on my way home tonight," the 38-year-old Serb great said. "I don't know what to say except that I feel really sorry for him. "I really wish him a speedy recovery. He should have been a winner today, there's no doubt."
(RTTNews) - Wacker Chemie (WCH.DE) reported that, according to preliminary figures, reported earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization or EBITDA was some 430 million euros, down 42 percent from previous year. The company said the decrease was due not only to lower volumes and prices, but also to lower plant-utilization rates. EBITDA excluding special effects was around 530 mil...
(RTTNews) - Wacker Chemie (WCH.DE) reported that, according to preliminary figures, reported earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization or EBITDA was some 430 million euros, down 42 percent from previous year. The company said the decrease was due not only to lower volumes and prices, but also to lower plant-utilization rates. EBITDA excluding special effects was around 530 million euros, 29 percent below the prior-year figure. Preliminary earnings before interest and taxes, or EBIT was negative around 180 million euros. Net result for 2025 is projected to be loss of 800 million euros, after valuation adjustments of around 600 million euros. Sales were around 5.49 billion euros, 4 percent less than prior year. The company noted that the declines were mainly due to lower capacity utilization rates in all divisions, lower volumes and prices in some cases, as well as negative currency effects. Wacker Chemie will publish its outlook for 2026, together with its Annual Report, on March 11, 2026. At last close, Wacker Chemie was trading at 71.70 euros, down 2.8%. For more earnings news, earnings calendar, and earnings for stocks, visit rttnews.com. The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
STORY: SoftBank could be ramping up its bet on OpenAI. The Japanese firm is in talks to pour as much as $30 billion more into the ChatGPT owner. A person familiar with the matter said that the money would be part of a funding round that could raise up to $100 billion, valuing OpenAI at about $830 billion. CEO Masayoshi Son has made what he calls an “all‑in” bet on OpenAI as it seeks to improve its...
STORY: SoftBank could be ramping up its bet on OpenAI. The Japanese firm is in talks to pour as much as $30 billion more into the ChatGPT owner. A person familiar with the matter said that the money would be part of a funding round that could raise up to $100 billion, valuing OpenAI at about $830 billion. CEO Masayoshi Son has made what he calls an “all‑in” bet on OpenAI as it seeks to improve its position in the artificial intelligence race. In December, the company said it had completed a $41 billion investment, giving it an 11% stake. OpenAI is facing rising costs to train and run its AI models as the race against Google intensifies. SoftBank declined to comment, though its shares were up 3.5% in Tokyo morning trade. Reuters reported last month that Son had scrambled to gather funds for the earlier investment, slowing dealmaking at the company's Vision Fund. Both OpenAI and SoftBank are backing Stargate, a $500 billion initiative to build AI data centers for training and inference that executives say is key to the U.S. government's ambitions to keep ahead of China in AI.