In late May 2026, Meta Platforms unveiled global paid subscription plans for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and its Meta AI chatbot under the new Meta One brand, adding recurring fees for enhanced features and services alongside its existing advertising model. This marks a material shift in how Meta seeks to cover its very large AI infrastructure spending, layering subscription revenue onto a busin...
In late May 2026, Meta Platforms unveiled global paid subscription plans for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and its Meta AI chatbot under the new Meta One brand, adding recurring fees for enhanced features and services alongside its existing advertising model. This marks a material shift in how Meta seeks to cover its very large AI infrastructure spending, layering subscription revenue onto a business still rooted in digital ads. We’ll now examine how Meta’s push into Meta One subscriptions alongside heavy AI capital spending could reshape its investment narrative. The future of work is here. Discover the 34 top robotics and automation stocks leading the charge in AI-driven automation and industrial transformation. Meta Platforms Investment Narrative Recap To own Meta today, you need to believe its ad engine, AI products and messaging ecosystem can justify huge AI and data center spending without crushing margins or cash flow. The Meta One subscription rollout speaks directly to that thesis, but the most immediate catalyst still sits with AI driven ad performance, while the biggest risk is that capital expenditures of US$125 billion to US$145 billion leave earnings lagging if new revenue streams scale slowly. Among the recent announcements, the renewed quarterly dividend of US$0.525 per share stands out in this context. It signals that, even as Meta commits to massive AI infrastructure and pushes into paid subscriptions, it is still returning cash to shareholders. For investors weighing catalysts like AI enhanced ad conversion and WhatsApp monetization against spending and regulatory risks, that continued dividend may factor into how they balance growth ambitions with capital discipline. Yet behind the subscription story, investors also need to watch the mounting legal and regulatory actions that could eventually reshape how Meta makes money... Read the full narrative on Meta Platforms (it's free!) Meta Platforms' narrative projects $366.7 billion revenue and $110.6 ...
In late May 2026, Meta Platforms unveiled global paid subscription plans for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and its Meta AI chatbot under the new Meta One brand, adding recurring fees for enhanced features and services alongside its existing advertising model. This marks a material shift in how Meta seeks to cover its very large AI infrastructure spending, layering subscription revenue onto a busin...
In late May 2026, Meta Platforms unveiled global paid subscription plans for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and its Meta AI chatbot under the new Meta One brand, adding recurring fees for enhanced features and services alongside its existing advertising model. This marks a material shift in how Meta seeks to cover its very large AI infrastructure spending, layering subscription revenue onto a business still rooted in digital ads. We’ll now examine how Meta’s push into Meta One subscriptions alongside heavy AI capital spending could reshape its investment narrative. The future of work is here. Discover the 34 top robotics and automation stocks leading the charge in AI-driven automation and industrial transformation. Meta Platforms Investment Narrative Recap To own Meta today, you need to believe its ad engine, AI products and messaging ecosystem can justify huge AI and data center spending without crushing margins or cash flow. The Meta One subscription rollout speaks directly to that thesis, but the most immediate catalyst still sits with AI driven ad performance, while the biggest risk is that capital expenditures of US$125 billion to US$145 billion leave earnings lagging if new revenue streams scale slowly. Among the recent announcements, the renewed quarterly dividend of US$0.525 per share stands out in this context. It signals that, even as Meta commits to massive AI infrastructure and pushes into paid subscriptions, it is still returning cash to shareholders. For investors weighing catalysts like AI enhanced ad conversion and WhatsApp monetization against spending and regulatory risks, that continued dividend may factor into how they balance growth ambitions with capital discipline. Yet behind the subscription story, investors also need to watch the mounting legal and regulatory actions that could eventually reshape how Meta makes money... Read the full narrative on Meta Platforms (it's free!) Meta Platforms' narrative projects $366.7 billion revenue and $110.6 ...
Kenyan inflation accelerated to a more than two-year high in May, driven by a sharp Iran-war induced increase in local fuel prices. Annual consumer prices rose 6.7% in the month from 5.6% in April, Nairobi-based Kenya National Bureau of Statistics said Friday in an emailed statement. The median estimate of three economists in a Bloomberg survey was 5.9%. Core inflation, the central bank’s preferre...
Kenyan inflation accelerated to a more than two-year high in May, driven by a sharp Iran-war induced increase in local fuel prices. Annual consumer prices rose 6.7% in the month from 5.6% in April, Nairobi-based Kenya National Bureau of Statistics said Friday in an emailed statement. The median estimate of three economists in a Bloomberg survey was 5.9%. Core inflation, the central bank’s preferred gauge of underlying price growth, quickened to 3.2% compared with 2.8% in April, reflecting spillover effects from higher gasoline prices. Diesel costs in Kenya have jumped 40% and gasoline prices 20% since the start of Iran war on Feb. 28, which led to the near closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway for crude supplies from the Gulf. The high fuel prices have also fueled protests in Kenya. This is the second month in a row where inflation has breached the 5% midpoint of the target range where central bank Governor Kamau Thugge prefers to anchor expectations. The central bank’s monetary policy committee in April held the policy rate at 8.75%, in order to gauge the impact of the war on its forecasts and is expected to do so again on June 9.
哈薩克舉行歐亞經濟聯盟峰會 托卡耶夫倡智能物流 以AI幫助農業生產 To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video 【有線新聞】歐亞經濟聯盟峰會召開，東道主、哈薩克總統托卡耶夫致辭時提倡區內智能物流一體化，同時聚焦AI及數碼轉...
哈薩克舉行歐亞經濟聯盟峰會 托卡耶夫倡智能物流 以AI幫助農業生產 To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video 【有線新聞】歐亞經濟聯盟峰會召開，東道主、哈薩克總統托卡耶夫致辭時提倡區內智能物流一體化，同時聚焦AI及數碼轉型，令農業等多種產業受益。 哈薩克總統托卡耶夫：「機械人和雲端在工業、礦業等，這數碼孿生兒增加生產力又減省成本，又節省用水和減低環境影響。一些數碼系統亦用於畜牧，消除紙本文件和改進會計準確度，逾650家智能農場已在全國運作，裝備自動取乳、餵飼和微氣候管理系統。在穀物和種子生產方面，實施『農田到餐桌』原則的追蹤體系，多得數碼力量的詳盡規劃和預測，哈薩克連續2年獲得紀錄穀物產量2,700萬噸。」
Spencer Platt/Getty Images News The Thesis Think of Reddit ( RDDT ) as a plot of land. This plot of land is a space on the web. As AI-generated content continues to overrun the internet, the places that become the last bastion of human life will be the most valuable—not only for humans, but for advertisers. As advertisers face a growing share of impressions served to bots and AI agents, these rare...
Spencer Platt/Getty Images News The Thesis Think of Reddit ( RDDT ) as a plot of land. This plot of land is a space on the web. As AI-generated content continues to overrun the internet, the places that become the last bastion of human life will be the most valuable—not only for humans, but for advertisers. As advertisers face a growing share of impressions served to bots and AI agents, these rare plots of human land will only increase in value. Giants like Meta have billions of dollars’ worth of behavioral data on who you are, your age, your relationships, and your job. Meta feeds this data into algorithms that infer user intent so well that it squeezes roughly $57 from each user annually. Reddit cannot do that. Its users are pseudonymous by design, and it has no comparable identity graph. There is a beauty to Reddit’s handling of this constraint, however. Meta and Reddit are trying to answer the same question for advertisers: what does this user care about, and are they in-market for what I’m selling? Meta answers it by inferring intent or watching what users do and building a probabilistic model of what they want. Reddit answers it by declaring intent. The subreddit is the unit of declaration. The act of joining r/personalfinance or r/mechanicalkeyboards is itself the data. The result is what’s sometimes called an interest graph or, per Quartr , “a map of what users actively care about.” Reddit doesn’t know who you are, but it knows what you care about. And what you care about, increasingly, is what advertisers want to know and what AI labs need to train on. When ChatGPT or Google AI Overviews needs to answer “What's the best budget espresso machine?” they’re disproportionately pulling from Reddit. In July 2025, Semrush published a study of more than 150,000 LLM citations, which found that Reddit was the single most-cited source across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. Reddit appeared in 40.1% of citations, with Wikipedia trailing at 26.3%. Se...
is a deputy editor and Verge co-founder with a passion for human-centric cities, e-bikes, and life as a digital nomad. He’s been a tech journalist for 20 years. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. While Blue Origin investigates the root cause behind last night’s spectacular explosion of its New Glenn rocket, it’s already clear that this will be a...
is a deputy editor and Verge co-founder with a passion for human-centric cities, e-bikes, and life as a digital nomad. He’s been a tech journalist for 20 years. Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. While Blue Origin investigates the root cause behind last night’s spectacular explosion of its New Glenn rocket, it’s already clear that this will be a major setback for NASA’s Moon base plans and Amazon’s fledgling Leo space internet constellation. The incident occurred at about 9pm at Blue Origin’s Florida launch site during a hot-fire test, where seven engines in the booster stage are lit while keeping the 322-foot-tall rocket fixed to the launchpad. The explosion and ensuing fireball severely damaged the only launchpad Blue Origin has for its New Glenn rocket. “It’s too early to know the root cause but we’re already working to find it,” wrote Blue Origin boss Jeff Bezos on X. “Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it.” According to sources speaking to Ars Technica, the transporter-erector and one of the lightning towers at LC-36A may not be salvageable. “New Glenn almost certainly will not launch again in 2026, and frankly a launch during the first half of 2027 would be heroic given the launch site concerns,” writes Eric Berger, senior space editor at Ars Technica. Such a delay would affect NASA’s Moon base plans. NASA announced on Tuesday that New Glenn would deliver a robotic lunar lander as soon as fall 2026. In 2027, Blue Origin is also scheduled to participate in the upcoming Artemis III mission, which will see astronauts docking their Orion capsule with lunar landers developed by SpaceX and Blue Origin. “Spaceflight is unforgiving, and developing new heavy-lift launch capability is extraordinarily difficult,” said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman on X. “We will work with our partners to support a thorough investigation of this anomaly, assess near-term mi...
Warut1/iStock via Getty Images Investment Thesis I reiterate my buy rating on Suzano ( SUZ ) stocks. My coverage initiated on May 19, 2024, and my last article about the company was published on June 12, 2025. In this article I analyze the reasons for the poor performance of my latest recommendations, and I'll also talk about a new catalyst that supports a bullish view yet. Corporate Profile Suzan...
Warut1/iStock via Getty Images Investment Thesis I reiterate my buy rating on Suzano ( SUZ ) stocks. My coverage initiated on May 19, 2024, and my last article about the company was published on June 12, 2025. In this article I analyze the reasons for the poor performance of my latest recommendations, and I'll also talk about a new catalyst that supports a bullish view yet. Corporate Profile Suzano is the largest pulp producer in the world, with 9 mills and 13.4 million tons of capacity per year. The company is also representative in paper with an integrated strategy, especially in Brazil, with a 41% market share. The big competitive advantage of Suzano is its scale combined with the lowest cash cost in the world. Suzano At A Glance (Presentation) Revisiting My Recommendations I started covering Suzano stocks here on Seeking Alpha on May 19, 2024. After that, I made an article on September 22, 2024, and my last article about the company was published on June 12, 2025. In these three recommendations, the same thing occurred. Suzano stocks delivered a negative return while the S&P 500 delivered a strong return. Recommendations (The Author) My investment thesis did not materialize, and I'll explain why. Actually, the pulp market was marked by price volatility last year, and also by a trend of lower profitability for producers like Suzano. Pulp Industry Profitability (Fastmarkets) This trend was not expected by me, and the main reason is that China's pulp production from wood grew significantly and is transforming the sector. Actually, such an increase in supply was not expected by anyone, and China went from being just a player in demand to a player in supply too. This remains the potential threat to the thesis: the low visibility for the pulp market, especially after China became a relevant player in supply. Not to mention the volatility in manufacturing inputs caused by the Iran war, but this last risk also created an opportunity. The New Catalyst Suzano is the large...
Week in wildlife: a baby pangolin, a gorilla super-mum and Formula One geese This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world A hammertail, also known as a robber fly, in Juno Beach, Florida, US Photograph: Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
Week in wildlife: a baby pangolin, a gorilla super-mum and Formula One geese This week’s best wildlife photographs from around the world A hammertail, also known as a robber fly, in Juno Beach, Florida, US Photograph: Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto/Shutterstock
PHU QUOC, VIETNAM - MARCH 20: People walk on Ba Keo Beach on March 20, 2026 in Phu Quoc, Vietnam. The country welcomed nearly 21.2 million international visitors in 2025 — a new record. Allison Joyce | Getty Images News | Getty Images Trips to smaller "secondary cities" across Asia-Pacific are getting a boost this summer as travelers opt for destinations closer to home amid concerns over geopoliti...
PHU QUOC, VIETNAM - MARCH 20: People walk on Ba Keo Beach on March 20, 2026 in Phu Quoc, Vietnam. The country welcomed nearly 21.2 million international visitors in 2025 — a new record. Allison Joyce | Getty Images News | Getty Images Trips to smaller "secondary cities" across Asia-Pacific are getting a boost this summer as travelers opt for destinations closer to home amid concerns over geopolitical tensions and rising costs. Nearly half of global travelers are scaling back their travel plans, with many choosing domestic trips instead, according to Allianz Partners' Global Travel Confidence Index. The survey of about 11,000 respondents, published in May, found that around 60% of respondents from China and India planned to travel domestically. The trend is expected to fuel visits to Tier 2 and Tier 3 destinations such as Goa and Xiamen, which are popular with local travelers but remain less familiar to many international visitors. Some travelers are keeping their international vacation plans but choosing destinations within Asia, Rajeev Menon, Marriott International's president for APAC ex-China, told "Squawk Box Asia" on May 21. "People have pivoted and shifted their plans to stay within Asia," which is driving interest to up-and-coming places such as Phu Quoc, Vietnam, he said.. "A few years ago, it was really all about Phuket, Bali and maybe Langkawi," he said "Now you've got many destinations within Vietnam that are getting hotter." watch now VIDEO 2:11 02:11 Despite Iran war, hotel demand is back on track, says Marriott APAC President Squawk Box Asia China's outbound market is also shifting — into Southeast Asia, he said. "They may not be going to the Middle East or Europe," he said. "But when you look at the numbers coming into Vietnam, coming into Malaysia … those numbers are pretty strong. Even Thailand – there's bounce back from Chinese travelers." Menon said revenue per available room at Marriott's India's properties dropped after the Iran war began, as tr...
(Platoon) The Chilean-German producer’s shapeshifting vocals stir Latin rhythms, ghetto house, trance and more into a playful party Over the past two decades, Chilean-German vocalist and producer Matías Aguayo’s mutable, instinctive singing has been an instantly identifiable ingredient of leftfield electronic music. On Battles’ 2011 track Ice Cream , he squealed and tripped through syllables again...
(Platoon) The Chilean-German producer’s shapeshifting vocals stir Latin rhythms, ghetto house, trance and more into a playful party Over the past two decades, Chilean-German vocalist and producer Matías Aguayo’s mutable, instinctive singing has been an instantly identifiable ingredient of leftfield electronic music. On Battles’ 2011 track Ice Cream , he squealed and tripped through syllables against a thunderous synth backing, while Japanese synth-pop group Crystal’s 2017 track Kimi Wa Monster saw Ayuayo singing a keening, childlike melody over instrumental. His own releases featured layered chants and scatter-gun vocal rhythms over pulsing Afro-Latin beats. While his last record, 2019’s Support Alien Invasion, marked his first foray into instrumental music, Anenoa heralds Aguayo’s welcome return to the mic across a selection of hard-hitting, dancefloor-focused arrangements. The fast-paced syncopated Latin rhythm of opener Sentimientos Encontraos sets the ebullient tone, with Aguayo’s nonchalant repetition of the title creating a hypnotic motif as bubbling and kinetic as the beat. Sprechgesang gives way to soulful falsetto on the ghetto house-influenced Asuka, Rock, Roll , while vocal processing transforms Aguayo’s party chants into a growling baritone on thumping trance number Avestruz en Veracruz. On the 80s-styled synth-pop of La Heredera, he croons delicately alongside featured Latin American singers Iarahei and Camille Mandoki. Continue reading...
Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami; All Flesh by Ananda Devi; The White Desert by Luis López Carrasco; The Home of the Drowned by Elin Anna Labba Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Laurel Taylor and Hitomi Yoshio (Picador, £16.99) Kawakami’s latest opens with a bang, as narrator Hana learns that her old friend Kimiko has been charged with abduction. This MacGuffin takes us to thei...
Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami; All Flesh by Ananda Devi; The White Desert by Luis López Carrasco; The Home of the Drowned by Elin Anna Labba Sisters in Yellow by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Laurel Taylor and Hitomi Yoshio (Picador, £16.99) Kawakami’s latest opens with a bang, as narrator Hana learns that her old friend Kimiko has been charged with abduction. This MacGuffin takes us to their friendship in late-1990s Tokyo, when teen Hana and the older woman open a bar called Lemon: “Yellow attracts money.” But it’s a turbulent ride and soon Hana is in a world of organised crime. “The world is crazy. I feel like I’m living in a manga.” She’s not the only one, and you need an appetite for Kawakami’s style, which prefers to explore rather than explain – people come and go, buildings burn down, cancer is diagnosed, almost at random – but the relentless rush means there’s no time to get bored. At its best – as in a scene where Hana’s unreliable mother wants to borrow 2m yen for investment in lingerie that helps “your spine and organs move back to where they’re supposed to be” – this is a story both absurd and horrifying. All Flesh by Ananda Devi, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman (Pushkin, £12.99) “Forgive me for starting this story with bodily, unpalatable origins.” You may as well – it’s all like that. In an unnamed European country, a schoolgirl “born with no urge but to consume” is getting bigger and bigger. “My gut, my ass, my thighs – they were all set on reaching the farthest corners of the world.” She blames her gluttony on the need to silence the voice of her dead twin sister, who was “absorbed into my tissues” in the womb. She hates school, where other kids mock her, as though her own self-disgust weren’t enough. After a blackly comic scene where she gets stuck in her bedroom doorframe like “an uncooperative cork”, she falls in love with the lonely carpenter who arrives to widen the door – but there are more twists to come. This powerful story is deeply ph...
Pick of the week Dead Man’s Wire The spirit of the Al Pacino classic Dog Day Afternoon is alive and well in Gus Van Sant’s ripped-from-the-headlines drama. Both feature a desperate man driven to extremes, a frantic police operation to contain him and a 1970 media circus that creates an antihero. Bill Skarsgård is all gangly, edgy energy as Tony Kiritsis, a low-level Indianapolis land developer who...
Pick of the week Dead Man’s Wire The spirit of the Al Pacino classic Dog Day Afternoon is alive and well in Gus Van Sant’s ripped-from-the-headlines drama. Both feature a desperate man driven to extremes, a frantic police operation to contain him and a 1970 media circus that creates an antihero. Bill Skarsgård is all gangly, edgy energy as Tony Kiritsis, a low-level Indianapolis land developer who believes mortgage broker ML Hall (Al Pacino in a superbly unlikable cameo) cheated him on a deal. So he takes Hall’s son, Richard (Dacre Montgomery), hostage using the titular contraption connected to a shotgun. It’s surprisingly funny amid the sweaty tension, with Kiritsis’s delusion that he’ll get away with the crime almost endearing. Friday 5 June, 8am, 8pm, Sky Cinema Premiere Propeller One-Way Night Coach View image in fullscreen Fly guys … Kelly Eviston-Quinnett and Clark Shotwell in Propeller One-Way Night Coach. Photograph: Apple TV John Travolta’s drama is the definition of a vanity project. He wrote and directed it from his own children’s novel, as well as narrating, and it features members of his family. But there’s something cosily nostalgic about his stylishly retro tale, set in the golden age of air travel. It’s 28 December 1962, and Jeff (Clark Shotwell) and his actor mother (Kelly Eviston-Quinnett) are flying TWA from New York to LA overnight. It’s an eye-opening experience for the eight-year-old on his first flight, with glamorous cabin crew, actual beds and “chicken cordon bleu”. Out now, Apple TV Ghost Trail View image in fullscreen By the book? … Adam Bessa in Ghost Trail. Photograph: Alamy In 2016, a group of exiled Syrians in Europe are tracking down war criminals from the Assad regime. Hamid (Adam Bessa) thinks he has found one in Strasbourg, posing as a university chemistry student. But as he surveils him, Hamid’s increasing certainty that this was the state official who tortured him in prison bumps up against a lack of definitive proof. In Jonathan...