Washington DC has the highest unemployment rate in the US Alicia Contreras was in Tunisia, working as the deputy country representative for Libya for USAID, when she received the news: she was fired. The Trump administration had ceased the cooperation agency’s operations and terminated most overseas staff. What she didn’t expect back then was that after a double major, an MBA and 17 years of exper...
Washington DC has the highest unemployment rate in the US Alicia Contreras was in Tunisia, working as the deputy country representative for Libya for USAID, when she received the news: she was fired. The Trump administration had ceased the cooperation agency’s operations and terminated most overseas staff. What she didn’t expect back then was that after a double major, an MBA and 17 years of experience as a public servant, she wouldn’t be able to find a job back at home. Contreras moved back to the Washington DC area last September and immediately started her job search. She looked for positions in both the public and private sectors, in-person, hybrid and remote. She focused her search mostly on the US capital city and its two nearby states, Maryland and Virginia, because of her family commitments: she has two children, ages three and six. Six months later, none of her close to 100 applications have been successful. Continue reading...
Our expert spills the beans (sorry) on everything you need to know about coffee. Plus, chefs on cooking the perfect roast and Jess Cartner-Morley’s April essentials • Don’t get the Filter delivered to your inbox? Sign up here The Filter recently did its very first live reader Q&A , where you had the chance to serve up your deepest, darkest roasted questions about coffee. There were so many that we...
Our expert spills the beans (sorry) on everything you need to know about coffee. Plus, chefs on cooking the perfect roast and Jess Cartner-Morley’s April essentials • Don’t get the Filter delivered to your inbox? Sign up here The Filter recently did its very first live reader Q&A , where you had the chance to serve up your deepest, darkest roasted questions about coffee. There were so many that we didn’t have time to answer them all on the day. I’ve enlisted the help of Ben Young over at Craft House Coffee in Sussex to put some of your more challenging questions to his team in the roastery. Many of you just wanted to know how to make better coffee – and without spending big money. Several readers professed their love of the moka pot, wanting to know the optimal technique. “Start with boiling water and lower the temperature once coffee starts flowing,” advises Ben. “As soon as you see any signs of bubbling or spurting, take it off the heat and cool the base to stop the brewing process.” Jess Cartner-Morley’s April style essentials: fancy brollies, Biscoff eggs and the perfect holiday dress Scrimp on moisturiser, splurge on serum: the secrets of a great skincare routine The nine best bean-to-cup coffee machines in the UK, tried and tested How to wear a quarter-zip jumper without looking like a finance bro (and 14 of the best) ‘Rich, indulgent and full of flavour’: the best hot chocolate, tasted and rated Continue reading...
The Trump administration’s pushing of the war in Iran reflects a sporting culture driven by clipped-up content, shameless tribalism and a lust for escalation Among the more surprising continuities of 2026 has been the visual kinship between the Winter Olympics and the US’s illegal and unprovoked war in Iran . High-speed camera drones were a highlight of TV coverage of the recent Games in Milano Co...
The Trump administration’s pushing of the war in Iran reflects a sporting culture driven by clipped-up content, shameless tribalism and a lust for escalation Among the more surprising continuities of 2026 has been the visual kinship between the Winter Olympics and the US’s illegal and unprovoked war in Iran . High-speed camera drones were a highlight of TV coverage of the recent Games in Milano Cortina, bringing viewers within kissing distance of the action as Olympic athletes hurtled down the slopes and around the tracks in the skiing and sliding events. The incessant screech of the drones aside, the introduction of quadcopter-borne cameras felt like a real step forward in coverage of the winter sports, bringing a (literal) new perspective to events that had become, over recent decades, fairly static as a viewing experience. No sooner had the Olympics finished than aerial video was back on our screens – only the footage, in this case, was of a far darker variety. In place of the ludicrous hip flexibility of the slaloming skiers and the high-speed cornering of the monobobbers, for the past month our feeds have been flooded with satellite and drone imagery of the US military blowing Iranian aircraft, ships, vehicles, munitions buildings, and citizens to smithereens. The aerial perspective that brought the strength and speed and elasticity and joy of Olympic competition to our screens now transmits the daily horrors of war in easily snackable, two-minute clips on to our phones. In the era of the milkshake duck , it’s almost expected that anything positive in our culture will eventually turn sour – and technology, of course, is ethically agnostic, a tool that can be used for both good and evil ends. But even in a culture as depraved and hypocritical as ours, the seamless transition from drone-supplied footage of Olympic excellence to drone-supplied footage of war crimes has felt genuinely jarring. Continue reading...
Venture capital firm Eclipse has raised $1.3 billion to invest in startups working in physical industries such as artificial intelligence infrastructure, manufacturing and defense. Eclipse, an early backer of Nvidia Corp. rival Cerebras Systems Inc. , disclosed the fundraising in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The total includes $720 million for investments in early-stage sta...
Venture capital firm Eclipse has raised $1.3 billion to invest in startups working in physical industries such as artificial intelligence infrastructure, manufacturing and defense. Eclipse, an early backer of Nvidia Corp. rival Cerebras Systems Inc. , disclosed the fundraising in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The total includes $720 million for investments in early-stage startups and $591 million for later-stage deals. Founded in 2015, Eclipse focuses on companies building technologies for the physical world. Its investments include self-driving software startup Wayve — Eclipse co-led its Series D fundraising in February — and $6 billion battery supply chain company Redwood Materials Inc . Eclipse founder Lior Susan also sits on the board of AI chipmaker Cerebras, which is expected to go public as soon as April . The latest $1.3 billion haul is the firm’s largest to date, nudging out the $1.23 billion in new funds it raised in 2023 . In a statement, Eclipse said that the firm has spent the past 11 years building an ecosystem of startups focused on national strength, sovereignty and security. “Companies in physical industries are built differently,” it said. “We believed that, with the right partners, a new generation of builders could take the baton from the last wave of industrial innovators — and go even farther.” Eclipse’s cash influx comes as investors pour money into so-called hard tech companies, driven by recent innovations in artificial intelligence technologies and geopolitical pressures. One such pressure, spurred by President Donald Trump’s emphasis on international tariffs, has led to new efforts to revive US manufacturing. This year, Eclipse co-led a $220 million funding round for American manufacturing startup VulcanForms. Other companies that have recently attracted VC attention for technology beyond software include nuclear energy upstart Valar Atomics , which just hit a $2 billion valuation, and AI-for-robotics startup Physica...
The co-founder of Cluely — an Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup with the motto, “ Cheat on everything ” — ignited a controversy earlier this month after confessing to lying to a reporter about his company’s performance on a popular Silicon Valley metric: annual recurring revenue, or ARR. Cluely Chief Executive Officer Roy Lee told a TechCrunch reporter the company’s ARR doubled in one week to $7 ...
The co-founder of Cluely — an Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup with the motto, “ Cheat on everything ” — ignited a controversy earlier this month after confessing to lying to a reporter about his company’s performance on a popular Silicon Valley metric: annual recurring revenue, or ARR. Cluely Chief Executive Officer Roy Lee told a TechCrunch reporter the company’s ARR doubled in one week to $7 million . Later on X, Lee said he “got a random cold call from some woman asking about numbers and told her some BS,” calling it “the only blatantly dishonest thing I’ve said publicly online.” He added that the post would serve as “my formal retraction,” adding that the actual number was $5.2 million. While Lee may be unusually bold, taking liberties with ARR is common for artificial intelligence startups, Silicon Valley investors say. A measurement of current sales extrapolated over 12 months, the metric is squishy enough that it leaves plenty of room for interpretation. Even as it’s become ubiquitous in the AI era — it’s also become one of the least trusted yardsticks for gauging a startup’s growth. “The startup world has always been a bit more of a Wild West,” said Chuck Eesley, a professor of management science and engineering at Stanford University. “There are no audit requirements, there are no SEC definitions, so basically there’s no cop on the beat other than the VCs and acquirers doing their due diligence. So essentially, the number can mean whatever the founder needs it to mean when they walk in to do a deal or do a fundraise.” The basic components of ARR calculations are simple: Take one month’s revenue from recurring contracts and multiply by 12 for an annual projection. It’s also not to be confused with “annual run rate revenue” — a similar, perhaps even more popular metric with an identical initialism, but that doesn’t concern itself with whether the sales are recurring. Companies reporting ARR for individual products or overall sales have included Anthropic ,...
In this article NVO NVO LLY Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT watch now VIDEO 2:57 02:57 How Novo Nordisk's weight loss pill is drawing in new patients for obesity treatment Digital Original After years of trying to lose weight "the right way," Jane Zuckerman realized that "putting in the work just wasn't enough." Zuckerman, a 32-year-old data analyst based in Washington, D.C., said ...
In this article NVO NVO LLY Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT watch now VIDEO 2:57 02:57 How Novo Nordisk's weight loss pill is drawing in new patients for obesity treatment Digital Original After years of trying to lose weight "the right way," Jane Zuckerman realized that "putting in the work just wasn't enough." Zuckerman, a 32-year-old data analyst based in Washington, D.C., said she lost 90 pounds in college and spent years cycling through nutritionists, therapy and strict routines — only to find herself at her heaviest after the pandemic, at 270 pounds. Zuckerman said GLP-1 injections were out of the question, because she's afraid of needles. But when the first GLP-1 pill for obesity became available in early January, Zuckerman called her doctor immediately, she said. Almost a month after starting Novo Nordisk 's new Wegovy pill shortly after it launched, she said, she had lost around 11 pounds. Zuckerman is among tens of thousands of patients who drove an explosive demand for prescriptions for Novo's pill just three months into its launch. Many of them share a common thread: They had long held off on using GLP-1s due to barriers such as high out-of-pocket costs for injections or a fear of needles. That's one of the earliest takeaways from the rollout: Novo's pill appears to be expanding the obesity treatment market, largely drawing in new patients rather than converting existing ones from injections. CNBC spoke with five U.S. patients who recently started the pill following its launch, all of whom said they have not previously taken branded GLP-1 injections. But it's early days for the pill. Many patients have yet to reach higher doses of the drug, and their experiences vary. It will take more time to determine how effective the pill is in supporting patients' long-term weight loss journeys, whether it helps keep users on GLP-1s for longer than injections do and whether demand for Novo's product will hold in the face of fresh competition from Eli...
Blackstone Inc. raised $10 billion for its latest opportunistic credit fund, signaling sustained appetite from institutional investors to capitalize on upheaval in the private debt market. In the firm’s largest-ever haul for opportunistic credit, Blackstone Capital Opportunities Fund V was oversubscribed and closed at its hard cap, according to a statement seen by Bloomberg News. It will include b...
Blackstone Inc. raised $10 billion for its latest opportunistic credit fund, signaling sustained appetite from institutional investors to capitalize on upheaval in the private debt market. In the firm’s largest-ever haul for opportunistic credit, Blackstone Capital Opportunities Fund V was oversubscribed and closed at its hard cap, according to a statement seen by Bloomberg News. It will include both performing investments and opportunistic ones, the latter of which target assets that may be undervalued. The $1.8 trillion private credit market has been scrutinized in recent months over its exposure to the software industry, which faces an existential threat from advances in artificial intelligence. Sell-offs in software firms have spooked retail investors in particular, and several private credit funds catering to individuals have enforced redemption limits of 5% of total shares. Lou Salvatore , co-portfolio manager of Blackstone’s capital opportunities funds, said the firm’s ability to raise $10 billion amid “a noisy backdrop for the industry” reflects its strength in credit. In recent weeks, private equity executives have stressed that turmoil creates new opportunities for investors who have cash on hand. “Periods of complexity and uncertainty can create some of the most attractive investment opportunities, but only for those with the flexibility to act decisively,” Apollo Global Management Inc. said in a letter to investors last month. Blackstone manages $520 billion of assets across corporate and real estate credit. Its flagship private credit vehicle was hit with a record number of redemptions this year, spurring some of the firm’s senior leaders to pitch in their own money to meet the roughly $3.8 billion of requests. Blackstone’s prior capital opportunities fund closed in January 2022 at a final size of $8.75 billion.
PixelsEffect/E+ via Getty Images This article was written by Kody Kester (Kody's Dividends). In the world of income investing, the Dividend Champion is a rare breed among publicly traded companies. Out of the thousands of stocks that pay a dividend, only around 150 companies have raised their dividends for at least 25 consecutive years to be classified as such. This is more than a financial milest...
PixelsEffect/E+ via Getty Images This article was written by Kody Kester (Kody's Dividends). In the world of income investing, the Dividend Champion is a rare breed among publicly traded companies. Out of the thousands of stocks that pay a dividend, only around 150 companies have raised their dividends for at least 25 consecutive years to be classified as such. This is more than a financial milestone. It’s just as much of a testament to the durability of a company’s business model. Achieving such a feat currently requires a company to have endured the Great Recession, the 2020 pandemic, and the highest inflation rate in four decades back in 2022. That brings me to my focus for today, which is the triple net lease REIT, NNN REIT ( NNN ). When I last covered it with a "Buy" rating last December , I was encouraged by its higher investment volume guidance for 2025. I believed that the net lease REIT’s BBB+ S&P credit rating and war chest of liquidity could support continued investment volume. At the time, shares were also deeply undervalued. Four months later, I’m reaffirming my "Buy" rating. NNN can self-fund the bulk of its $600 million midpoint of investment volume guidance for 2026 to remain leverage neutral. The net lease REIT continues to sport an investment-grade credit rating and has plenty of liquidity at its disposal. Finally, NNN’s shares are still priced at a double-digit percentage discount to my fair value estimate. More Acquisition and Lease Escalator-Fueled Growth to Come NNN REIT Q4 2025 Earnings Press Release On February 11, NNN released its financial results for the fourth quarter ended December 31, 2025. The company’s total revenue grew by 9.1% year-over-year to $238.4 million during the quarter. For more context, that was $5 million ahead of Seeking Alpha’s analyst consensus in the quarter. Even factoring in a 1.3% uptick in the diluted weighted average share count, this was still a high single-digit growth rate on a per-share basis. So, what factor...
Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - April 7, 2026) - SuperQ Quantum Computing Inc. (CSE: QBTQ) (OTCQB: QBTQF) (FSE: 25X) ("SuperQ Quantum", "SuperQ", or the "Company"), a leader in sovereign quantum-safe infrastructure and AI-orchestrated cybersecurity, today announced it has joined forces with Quantum Security Defence (QSECDEF). This move integrates SuperQ into an elite ecosystem dedicated to add...
Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - April 7, 2026) - SuperQ Quantum Computing Inc. (CSE: QBTQ) (OTCQB: QBTQF) (FSE: 25X) ("SuperQ Quantum", "SuperQ", or the "Company"), a leader in sovereign quantum-safe infrastructure and AI-orchestrated cybersecurity, today announced it has joined forces with Quantum Security Defence (QSECDEF). This move integrates SuperQ into an elite ecosystem dedicated to addressing the rapidly escalating threats to global data sovereignty and national security.This...
New capability showcases the intersection of AI, connectivity and real-world robotics Serve has partnered with T-Mobile to power Maggie using T-Mobile's 5G Advanced and edge computing, enabling real-time responsiveness and more seamless human-robot interactions. Leveraging T-Mobile’s next-generation edge network, including ultra-low latency, enhanced security, and localized data processing, Maggie...
New capability showcases the intersection of AI, connectivity and real-world robotics Serve has partnered with T-Mobile to power Maggie using T-Mobile's 5G Advanced and edge computing, enabling real-time responsiveness and more seamless human-robot interactions. Leveraging T-Mobile’s next-generation edge network, including ultra-low latency, enhanced security, and localized data processing, Maggie can process and respond to inputs instantly for more natural, interactive experiences. SAN FRANCISC
Bryson DeChambeau is spearheading an investor group that is acquiring Sportsbox AI, a company specializing in AI technology and 3D motion capture for mobile sports and fitness coaching and training applications. Terms of the deal were not disclosed but DeChambeau said the transaction is worth eight figures. Sportsbox AI will debut its AI assistant SAMI later this year. SAMI will use 3D motion tech...
Bryson DeChambeau is spearheading an investor group that is acquiring Sportsbox AI, a company specializing in AI technology and 3D motion capture for mobile sports and fitness coaching and training applications. Terms of the deal were not disclosed but DeChambeau said the transaction is worth eight figures. Sportsbox AI will debut its AI assistant SAMI later this year. SAMI will use 3D motion technology to capture golfers’ swings and then provide coaching and feedback after processing their movements as well as equipment improvements. The group also announced a collaboration with Google Cloud , Sportsbox ’s infrastructure provider. As part of the partnership, DeChambeau will don the Google Cloud logo on his golf bag for the Master and other tournaments moving forward, marking the first time the Google Cloud logo will be on display for a professional golfer. DeChambeau said he’s been using the technology ahead of the Masters and will continue to use it during the tournament and after it as well. DeChambeau is nicknamed “the Scientist” because of his analytical approach to golf and said this is just the beginning of his investments in tech businesses. He emphasized that Sportsbox and SAMI are not a replacement for golf coaches. “This is something that adds to their toolbox,” DeChambeau said in an interview. “If anything, it’s going to make the teaching credentials more competitive. I think that’s actually a value add — the camera and the phone are only going to tell you so much. They can’t make you feel what you’re doing.” Sportsbox was built by former LPGA Tour player Jeehae Lee and software engineer Samuel Menaker. “As a former player, I’ve always wanted to demystify the process around improving one’s game,” said Jeehae Lee, Sportsbox AI co-founder in a release. Our work with Bryson proves that 3d motion data — when delivered via easy to understand insights and instructions — can provide real, positive outcomes for one’s mechanics. Sign up for Bloomberg’s Business o...
China has broken ground on a 50-megawatt concentrated solar power plant in Tibet at an altitude of 4,550 metres (14,900 feet), making it the world’s highest-altitude parabolic trough solar thermal facility. The project, located in Dangxiong County, incorporates a 400-megawatt photovoltaic system and is scheduled for full operation by 2027, Xinhua reported. Preparatory digging at the site began on ...
China has broken ground on a 50-megawatt concentrated solar power plant in Tibet at an altitude of 4,550 metres (14,900 feet), making it the world’s highest-altitude parabolic trough solar thermal facility. The project, located in Dangxiong County, incorporates a 400-megawatt photovoltaic system and is scheduled for full operation by 2027, Xinhua reported. Preparatory digging at the site began on Monday. Global energy supplies have grown increasingly volatile in recent years, due to climate...