格隆汇5月23日｜国际货币基金组织（IMF）敦促欧盟实施内部改革、推进财政巩固并统一成员国市场，以解决日益高企的债务与支出压力。（欧洲央行行长拉加德曾担任总裁的）IMF向欧盟财长们警告称，未来十五年内，欧盟各国将面临在国防、能源和养老金领域的巨额账单；建议欧盟内部改革、财政巩固（削减赤字）、以及发行共同债务相结合，来应对。迄今，（欧洲）许多国家采取的“走一步看一步”的消极应对方式已不可持续，呼吁全欧范围内采取具有战略意义的统一行动。欧盟各成员国在是否通过发行“共同债务”来筹集国防、能源和科技创新资金的问题上依然存在严重分歧。

下一个杀手级AI产品，是眼镜、是Agent，还是某个尚未命名的“物理世界入口”？这场圆桌没有标准答案，却达成一个共识：单纯套壳大模型的应用注定短命，只有长期在线、连接物理世界、能完成真实交互闭环的产品，才可能成为下一个百亿级赛道。从AI眼镜到具身智能，入口之争已悄然打响。 硬件先行还是生态为王？C端规模还是B端付费？最终指向同一个逻辑：纯套壳应用、弱交互硬件注定被淘汰，只有“多模态底座+AI原生智能体+可穿戴硬件”三位一体，才能让AI从聊天框真正走进现实。 以下为圆桌对话内容，经36氪整理编辑： 刘子豪丨杭州颜柯教育联合创始人（主持） 赵维奇丨乐奇全球开放生态负责人 路少卿丨商汤科技研究院技术管理负责人、多模态产品负责人 刘子豪： 各位上午好，我是来自杭州颜柯的刘子豪，欢迎来到这场杀手级的AI产品赌局。今天不聊虚的，只聊一个事：下一个全民级、百亿级的AI产品到底长什么样，又会诞生在哪个赛道。今天有幸请到两位嘉宾，分别代表了不同的赛道，有请两位老师介绍一下自己。 赵维奇： 大家好，我是赵维奇，来自乐奇。我是一个持续创业者，之前一直在做多模态和人工智能软硬件设备，to C看得比较多，目前负责乐奇全球开放生态，从芯片、硬件、OS、API、应用到高校、非营利组织，都可以看有没有合作的机会，推动整个行业。 路少卿： 大家好，我来自商汤科技，主要负责多模态交互相关技术研发、产品化及产业落地工作。 刘子豪： 感谢两位老师。如果必须押注一个赛道会诞生下一个杀手级的AI产品，您会押哪一个？可以用自家落地的案例证明您的判断。赵老师。 赵维奇： 先有一个定义，下一个杀手级AI产品一定是长期在线的，跟物理世界能连接的一个入口。从我的角度，这个品类一定是AI可穿戴。可穿戴在不同时间阶段可能有不同的产品出现，目前来说，AI和AR结合的眼镜是最合适的，相对离人更近，在线时间也更长，能够更容易连接物理世界。 人每天看世界的时间应该比看手机的时间长很多，大部分时间是跟物理世界进行交互。如果是杀手级AI产品，一定是高频、刚需并且能够持续使用的。从这个角度，眼镜是最好的长期在线的部分，手机是你主动打开的，不能做成持续在线。 再说AI Agent。有了AI Agent以后，每个人都搞智能体或者其他的解决方案，都希望你的Agent是长期在线的。什么硬件或者什么产品能够让Agent长期在线，并且能陪伴在我们身...

Key Points Claiming Social Security benefits before your full retirement age and continuing to work could subject you to a retirement earnings test. The annual retirement earnings test exemption amounts increase in most years. Retiring midyear means being subject to a monthly instead of an annual test. The $23,760 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook › While many people don't want to rush through time, many look forward to retirement, when they can put work either completely aside or on the back burner. In either case, retiring doesn't mean you have to quit earning money. If you claim Social Security before your full retirement age, however, you'll need to monitor how much you earn if you continue working, or you'll be subject to Social Security's retirement earnings test (RET). Every approaching retiree should be aware of the RET, but especially if you're retiring midyear, because it has different implications. Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue » How much can you earn before being subject to the RET? If you won't reach your full retirement age in 2026, the earnings limit is $24,480. Earning above that amount will reduce your benefits by $1 for every $2 you earn over it. For example, if you were to earn $10,000 over, your annual benefit would be reduced by $5,000. If you hit your full retirement age in 2026, the limit is $65,160. Earning above that amount will reduce your benefits by $1 for every $3 over that amount. For instance, going over the limit by $15,000 would reduce your annual benefit by $5,000. The annual limit is based on changes in the national average wage index, so they generally increase each year (with a couple of exceptions). Last year, the limits were $23,400 and $62,160, respectively. So, what happens if you retire midyear? Many people find themse...

AXP260626C00350000 互動股市圖表 | AXP Jun 2026 350.000 call 股市 Yahoo 財經

By Wen-Yee Lee and Ben Blanchard TAIPEI, May 23 (Reuters) - Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on Saturday that his forecast of a $200 billion market for CPUs ‌includes China, signalling Nvidia still sees significant long-term demand in the market ‌amid ongoing U.S.-China technology tensions. Central processing units have taken centre stage as companies and businesses gravitate towards agentic ​AI - systems that perform autonomous functions - broadening demand beyond graphics processing units, or GPUs, that are used to train large models. Huang on Wednesday aimed to assure investors that the world's most valuable company can keep up its blockbuster growth with the help of a broad ‌base of customers and that ⁠new products will help it beat the $1 trillion in sales it has forecast for its flagship AI chips. During an earnings call on Wednesday, ⁠Huang said Nvidia's new "Vera" central processors give it access to a new $200 billion market. Speaking to reporters upon arrival in Taipei on Saturday and asked if that forecast included China, he ​said: "I would ​think so." Nvidia has received licenses from the U.S. ​government to sell its H200 chips ‌but has not received approval from Chinese officials who are fostering China's own chip suppliers. U.S. President Donald Trump's talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing this month produced no immediate breakthrough for Nvidia to sell H200 chips. Huang was also there as part of the U.S. delegation. Reuters reported last week that the U.S. has cleared around ‌10 Chinese firms to buy Nvidia's second-most powerful AI ​chip, the H200, but not a single delivery ​has been made so far. "H200 has ​been licensed to ship to China. It would be terrific to ‌be able to serve that market. The ​Chinese market is very ​important. It's very large, of course," Huang said, speaking at Taipei's downtown Songshan airport. Huang is in Taipei ahead of next month's Computex trade show. He said he ​would also meet with TSMC ‌while in Taiwan, the wo...

Pope Leo on Saturday called out companies who seek “dizzying” profits at the cost of environmental pollution, on a visit to an area in Italy known as a hotbed for illegal dumping of toxic waste. On a visit to Acerra, ‌about 220 km (137 miles) south of Rome, the first US pope urged the world to “reject temptations of power and enrichment linked to practices that pollute the land, water, air, and social coexistence”. Leo said he wanted to come to the area near Naples known as the “Land of Fires” – where the European Court of Human Rights ruled last year that authorities had failed to protect residents from waste dumping since at least 1988 – to “gather ⁠the tears” of families who had lost loved ones to related illnesses. Pope Leo meets families of victims of environmental pollution during his visit to Acerra, near Naples, on Saturday. Photo: AP Arriving by Popemobile on ‌a sunny day, Leo was greeted by people waving small yellow and white Vatican flags and wearing yellow hats, some holding up poster boards with pictures of family members who ‌had died. Advertisement Leo, who in recent months has been speaking more forcefully and will issue his first ⁠major document on Monday, ⁠said “unscrupulous people and organisations have been allowed to act with impunity for too long”. During his four-hour visit to Acerra, he also referred to “the ‌dizzying profits of a few, blind to the needs of people, their work and their future”. Advertisement He also met victims.

Pzena Investment Management LLC lessened its position in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Ltd. (NYSE:TSM - Free Report) by 38.0% during the fourth quarter, according to its most recent 13F filing with the SEC. The institutional investor owned 26,342 shares of the semiconductor company's stock after selling 16,143 shares during the period. Pzena Investment Management LLC's holdings in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing were worth $8,005,000 at the end of the most recent reporting period. A number of other hedge funds and other institutional investors also recently modified their holdings of TSM. Brighton Jones LLC raised its position in shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing by 20.9% during the fourth quarter. Brighton Jones LLC now owns 10,930 shares of the semiconductor company's stock worth $2,159,000 after purchasing an additional 1,892 shares during the period. Gamco Investors INC. ET AL acquired a new stake in shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing during the second quarter worth $701,000. Bank of Nova Scotia raised its position in shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing by 12.8% during the second quarter. Bank of Nova Scotia now owns 15,697 shares of the semiconductor company's stock worth $3,556,000 after purchasing an additional 1,784 shares during the period. FWL Investment Management LLC raised its position in shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing by 26.5% during the second quarter. FWL Investment Management LLC now owns 253 shares of the semiconductor company's stock worth $57,000 after purchasing an additional 53 shares during the period. Finally, Main Street Financial Solutions LLC acquired a new stake in shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing during the second quarter worth $270,000. Institutional investors own 16.51% of the company's stock. Get TSM alerts: Sign Up Wall Street Analyst Weigh In TSM has been the topic of a number of recent analyst reports. Barclays boosted their target price on Taiwan Semiconductor...

The dust is just settling on Cerebras' (CBRS 8.90%) impressive initial public offering (IPO), in which the stock price soared 68% on its first day of trading. If there were any lingering doubts about investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI) stocks, they've certainly been put to rest. Cerebras' large-wafer technology claims to be a game changer in AI processing, potentially more efficient than Nvidia's (NVDA 1.86%). While the jury is still out on its long-term impact on its rivals, Cerebras' blockbuster IPO proved investors have high hopes. So, with a new AI infrastructure play in town, should investors skip Nvidia stock for Cerebras right now? Here's what investors should know. The case for betting Nvidia remains the center of the AI hardware universe Before you cast Nvidia aside for a shiny, new stock, it's important to take a quick look at why Nvidia has become the most valuable company in the world. First, it dominates the graphics processing unit (GPU) market, thanks to its near-ubiquity in AI data centers. The latest data shows that Nvidia holds a phenomenal 86% of the AI data center market by revenue. Its competitors can only dream of that level of dominance. Second, it's still investing in new tech to keep itself at the top. Nvidia recently released its new Vera Rubin AI platform, which it says delivers 10x higher inference throughput per megawatt than its Blackwell processor platform at just one-tenth the token cost. And CEO Jensen Huang said recently demand for Vera Rubin and Blackwell will lead to $1 trillion in orders through next year. Nvidia is benefiting right now from the investments it made in superior processors years ago. And companies are still clamoring for its tech, as Huang's estimates suggest. With tech leaders including Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Amazon, Microsoft, and others on track to spend hundreds of billions of dollars this year alone in data center investments, Nvidia's growth likely hasn't peaked. Expand NASDAQ : NVDA Nvidi...

Growth stocks come with pros and cons. They can supercharge a portfolio, but they often come with a lot of risk. If you invest in growth stocks, make sure to buy a basket of different ones -- you won't know which will climb and which will crash. Diversify further by owning safe and secure stocks to balance them out. However, your best bet is buying growth stocks that don't come with a lot of risk. Think they don't exist? Check out Nu Holdings (NYSE: NU). Changing finance in an underpenetrated region Nu is a digital bank based in Brazil and also serving Mexico and Colombia. It's been in business in Brazil for about 10 years, and although it's firmly established there, it's still growing at a rapid pace. Overall, revenue increased 64% to $2.7 billion in the 2024 first quarter. It added 5.5 million customers in the quarter for a total of 99.3 million, with monthly add-ons in Brazil of 1.3 million customers. It has more than half of the adult population there as customers and is now the fourth-largest financial institution in Latin America by customer count. Net income increased from $141.8 million last year to $378.8 million this year in the first quarter. That was partially driven by a robust credit unit, which is quickly becoming a key element of its growth strategy. Deposits increased 53% year over year in the first quarter to $24.3 billion while cost of deposits was 84% of interbank rates. The interest-earning portfolio increased 86% to $9.7 billion. Net interest income soared 93% to $1.6 billion, while net interest margin widened to 19.5%. Its cross-selling strategy is also leading to profitability at scale. Average revenue per active customer (ARPAC) increased from $8.60 to $11.40 in the quarter as customers purchased more products and more expensive products, while cost to serve remained relatively steady at $0.90. New market = new opportunities Most of Nu's business still comes out of Brazil, but it's making a concerted effort to break into Mexico and Colombia....

Climate change threatens global plant species as habitats shrink Reuters

格隆汇5月23日｜据沙特媒体哈达斯（Alhadath）：巴基斯坦技术和法律代表团前往德黑兰。

KentWeakley/iStock via Getty Images This article discusses Pebblebrook Hotel Trust 6.375% RED PFD G (NYSE: PEB.PR.G ) , which I'll refer to as Series G from hereon. As a value investor with liquidity and patience, I've identified Series G as a solid total return opportunity. The issuance currently trades below its liquidation value and offers a competitive yield. Moreover, Pebblebrook's balance sheet shows contained credit risk. Although cyclicality and tail risk remains, I deem Series G a strong buy; here's why. Series G Series G is a callable, cumulative preferred share issuance with quarterly distributions. The issuance surpassed its call date in May, holds a current yield of 8.14%, and a original coupon of 6.375%. Preferred Stock Channel Series G traded at $19.75 intra-day on May 18th, roughly 21.6% below its liquidation value of $25 per share. The recent deterioration in Series G market value occurred alongside a decline in U.S. interest rates , suggesting refinancing risk. Moreover, the REIT slumped into an accounting loss during fiscal 2025, which likely influenced investors' confidence. The last time Series G traded above its liquidation value was in February, 2022. Seeking Alpha Figure 3 provides an overview of Pebblebrook's preferred share waterfall. Based on yield and call date alone, Series G would arguably be one of the first the issuer would look to re-finance. However, based on issued amount, we'd possibly look at Series G being one of the last being re-financed. Pebblebrook Hotel Group Fundamentals Credit Risk Analysis The REIT has an assets/(debt + convertible notes + preferred share) ratio of 1.86x, which heuristically suggests a broad distance-to-default, especially if we consider its restricted cash position of $8.4 million. Pebblebrook Hotel Group Fixed charge coverage ratios of 1.9x and 1.8x were reported in Q1 and full-year 2025, respectively, suggesting an ability to cover fixed costs with relative comfort. Moreover, net debt/EBITDA ratios be...

The Nvidia CEO also said the company remains dominant in "physical AI," including robotics and autonomous systems, a market he said Nvidia serves "practically" alone today. "Every single frontier model company will jump on Vera Rubin from the get-go," Huang said, adding that the platform is already off to a "tremendous start." Huang also projected strong demand for Nvidia's next-generation Vera Rubin AI architecture, which is expected to succeed the Blackwell platform. "VeraRubin is going to be even more successful than Grace Blackwell at this point." He added that Nvidia previously had limited exposure to Anthropic workloads, making the expansion especially meaningful for its inference business. "The amount of capacity that we are going to bring online for Anthropic this year and next year is going to be quite significant," Huang said. Huang highlighted Nvidia's growing partnership with Anthropic , saying the company is helping secure large-scale computing capacity for the startup across platforms, including Amazon.com, Inc. Web Services , Microsoft Corp Azure and CoreWeave . Still Learning the Market? These 50 Must-Know Terms Can Help You Catch Up Fast Speaking during Nvidia's first-quarter earnings call, Huang said the company is "growing share in inference very, very quickly," pointing to the rising number of frontier AI companies entering the market and increasingly relying on Nvidia infrastructure. On Wednesday, Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang said the chipmaker is rapidly expanding its dominance in AI inference and expects every major frontier AI company to adopt its Vera Rubin platform as demand for advanced AI computing accelerates. Benzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. Story Continues The AI chip giant also reported adjusted earnings of $1.87 per share, ahead of Wall Street estimates of $1.76 per share. For the second quarter, Nvidia projected revenue between $89.18 billion and $92.820 billion, to...

An association representing native English-speaking teachers (NETs) in Hong Kong has warned that less-attractive pay offered under a new hiring scheme risks lowering the quality of recruits and standards, with the contracts of some experienced educators not being renewed. Most public primary and secondary schools seeking NETs have decided to switch to the flexible scheme, which no longer ties remuneration to years of service and generally offers substantially lower pay. But the Native English Speaking Teachers’ Association warned that the model, introduced this school year, risked lowering the quality of education. Advertisement “Any sustained move away from an experience-based pay structure risks gradually diminishing the overall depth of expertise within the NETs cohort and, by extension, the quality of English education delivered to students,” chairman Andrew Monks said. “The instability of the NET scheme will make it more difficult for quality educators to make Hong Kong their home or persuade experienced teachers to bring their families to Hong Kong.” Advertisement Under the new scheme, each primary or secondary school that opts for the government’s NET grant receives HK$900,000 (US$114,900) and HK$1 million respectively every academic year.

Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning

It all started at around half past 10. We were at Hen, Cock and Pigeon Rock which is a good route with views of the Mourne mountains and the sea. We were walking up a path when we saw smoke in the distance. It wasn’t very much so we kept going. It has been unusually dry here, and the top grass was crispy, with squelchy mud underneath. We saw tadpoles in a puddle, but the puddle seemed small. As we were going up one of the mountains, we saw how much smoke there really was. Soon after that we could see a ring of flames. We weren’t close, but and we could hear it across the valley. The smoke was starting to block out the sun. We decided to head back to go on another walk. We were planning to try Bloody Bridge on the other side of the mountains, but as we were driving there, the sky became filled with smoke. We saw six more fires and 12 fire engines. After that we decided to play it safe and go to Tolleymore Forest Park instead. We walked along Shimna River and threw big stones into the deep pools. I saw later in the news that the fires had continued for many days and had destroyed a huge area, and it said someone probably started them on purpose. The people who look after the forests say it could take decades to recover. I feel sad and angry about the damage that the fires caused to the wildlife. Benjie, eight

Earlier this year, the city was hit by its longest power cut since the second world war. But were those responsible eco-terrorists, agents of the far-right, or even Russian proxies? Sebastian Brandt, chief technician of the Immanuel hospital in the leafy, affluent Wannsee district of Berlin, guessed something was wrong as soon as he opened the window of his home and smelled diesel. It was 3 January, a freezing Saturday morning, and luckily the hospital opposite had relatively few patients on this post-holiday weekend. As he looked out, the diesel fumes told him that the emergency generator – a huge, deafening, decades-old machine in the basement – had kicked in. That meant the hospital was no longer getting power from the grid. And that meant Brandt was not going to have a quiet weekend. Although an emergency generator keeps a hospital running, it has its limitations. Surgical procedures have to be cancelled, and though generators are tested regularly, no one can be certain what will happen when they are kept running for days on end. The generator tank in the Immanuel hospital contained about 3,000 litres of diesel, and Brandt had calculated it would burn about 550 litres a day; when the grid operator informed the hospital that the outage might last until the end of the following week, Brandt was quickly dispatched to fetch more diesel from the nearest petrol station that was still on the grid. Meanwhile, he’d heard that a neighbouring hospice was going to move its patients to the hospital, too. Continue reading...

The diving tragedy in the Maldives – which claimed the lives of four Italian divers inside an underwater cave, followed by the death of a Maldivian navy diver – has renewed warnings from experts about the risks of cave diving without proper training, planning and specialised equipment. On Thursday, the Divers Alert Network (DAN), which coordinated the complex search and recovery operation at the Dhekunu Kandu dive site in Vaavu atoll, announced all the divers’ dead bodies had been recovered. The victims were identified as Monica Montefalcone, an ecology professor; her daughter Giorgia Sommacal; marine biologist Federico Gualtieri; researcher Muriel Oddenino; and diving instructor Gianluca Benedetti. The body of Bendetti was recovered earlier outside the cave. Mohamed Mahudhee, a member of the Maldivian national defence force, also died in the tragedy, as a result of decompression sickness after taking part in a recovery mission. View image in fullscreen A Maldives sea ambulance conducts a search and recovery operation in the Vaavu atoll after the diving accident which claimed the lives of five Italian nationals. Photograph: Sophia Nasif/EPA After initial attempts by the Maldives National Defence Force, DAN deployed a specialised rescue team to the site. It included Finnish cave diving experts Sami Paakkarinen, Jenni Westerlund and Patrik Grönqvist. Working with Maldivian authorities, the team recovered all the bodies during multiple long dives over several days, using closed-circuit rebreathers, underwater scooters and extensive backup equipment. Investigations into the circumstances of the fatal dive by Maldivian and Italian authorities are still still ongoing. But diving experts are already calling for stricter adherence to established cave-diving safety protocols. Experts have also stressed the need for greater awareness of the many factors involved, including proper training, equipment configuration and even diver mindset. Speaking to the Guardian, Jonathan Vola...

Arya the great dane was two years old when this image was taken. She was at home in Pretoria, South Africa, with Johan Van Aarde and three other dogs. “It was May 2021, which is our winter season,” van Aarde says. “The courtyard doors that lead to our pool would usually be open, but as the sun and the moon exchanged places and we started getting cosy inside, I closed them.” That evening, as he prepared dinner, Van Aarde noticed Arya sitting on the sofa, gazing into the distance. “It was as if she was contemplating time and memory, admiring the reflection of the moon on the pool,” he says. “Great danes are majestic creatures with gentle souls who communicate their thoughts with their facial expressions – and, oh boy, do they tell a story.” Just before Arya’s second birthday, she got lost. She was found safe and well the next day, and Van Aarde remembers ending that evening with “a glass of wine, warm soup and good music”. But the incident had quite an impact on him, and how lucky he feels to have her around. The average life expectancy of this breed is between eight and 10 years; Arya is seven now. “Great danes are soulmates for life, but as a result of their size the time they share with you is limited,” Van Aarde says. “The photograph evokes a feeling of sadness and longing for me, and the fear of ever having to say goodbye.”

As Abba’s Dancing Queen played, Donald Trump walked across a lawn featuring cornhole, oversized Connect Four, a ferris wheel and a food tent offering short ribs, mac and cheese and apple pie. Members of Congress and their families had come for the annual White House picnic. But not every member of Congress. Missing the fun was Thomas Massie, a longtime thorn in the US president’s side. Massie was at home in Kentucky, suffering a primary election defeat that made him the latest victim of Trump’s revenge tour. “We won the Massie thing,” the president told guests at the picnic on Tuesday evening. “He was a bad guy. He deserves to lose.” It was the latest imperious demonstration of Trump’s enduring stranglehold on the Republican party, and his determination to purify it of dissenters. But at what price? In his quest to consolidate power, critics say, the president could also undermine his own legislative agenda – and his party’s fragile majority on Capitol Hill. Massie joins a growing list of purged Trump critics who now feel liberated to stir up trouble because they have nothing left to lose. The president also faces opinion polls suggesting that, while his support base remains as fervent as ever, it is losing touch with the middle ground where November’s midterm elections will be won and lost. Charlie Sykes, a conservative author and broadcaster, said: “He’s tightening his grip on his party, for better or for worse. The problem is that most of his victories are coming at the expense of the Republican party rather than the Democrats at this point, which ought to be something of a warning sign.” No slight is too small for Trump to wage a vendetta. During his first term, he ousted – or made life intolerable for – Republicans including Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Justin Amash, Bob Corker, Jeff Flake and Will Hurd. His second term is proving equally unforgiving to those deemed to have failed his loyalty tests. In Indiana, five state senators lost their seats after resistin...

On Sunday morning, I was pottering in the garden wondering what to do. I saw a flapping coming from my wildflower patch, so I went to my clump of clover. I pushed it away, only to reveal a large white butterfly fresh out of its chrysalis. It had been drying its damp wings in the sun. Then I realised that part of the butterfly’s chrysalis was still on its wing, and the other wing was already dry and ready to fly. I watched the butterfly for a while. The butterfly tried to get the chrysalis off, but it had used up all its energy. I realised that it needed some help, so I tugged the chrysalis as gently as I could. The butterfly didn’t move but the chrysalis did, so I tugged a little bit harder and off it came. View image in fullscreen Ottoline with the scrap of pupa. Photograph: Family handout But it still didn’t have its energy. So I went to the kitchen and got a banana and cut a slice off and put it in front of the butterfly. The butterfly stood on top of the banana and used its long proboscis to eat it. After a while the butterfly flew off. I will dearly miss that butterfly, but I also wonder why it was in our garden. This butterfly lays its eggs on cabbages and we don’t have cabbages in our garden. We do have an old kale plant that was covered in lots of caterpillars last year. Maybe that is where this butterfly came from. It was also a lucky butterfly because sometimes this type of caterpillar gets found by a wasp that likes to lay its eggs inside it. Then the wasp babies eat the caterpillar. Ottoline, nine

Cuts to foreign aid budgets by the UK, France and Germany could contribute to more than 11.5 million preventable deaths by the end of the decade, according to a new report, which warns that Europe is abandoning its role as a pillar of global health and development. Three separate studies within the report reveal the extent to which the nations have slashed their foreign aid budgets, and illustrate the impact worldwide. UK official development assistance (ODA) spending is projected to fall by 45% between 2020 and 2026, Germany’s by 37% between 2023 and 2026, and France’s by 30% over the same period, according to the research. “Led by its three largest donors, the continent is moving toward a ‘new normal’ of significantly reduced international engagement – not as a temporary adjustment, but as a structural realignment,” said the report, produced by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal). Researchers estimate that Britain’s cuts alone could result in 5.1 million additional deaths by 2030, while France’s reductions could lead to 3.5 million and Germany’s to almost 2.9 million. Gonzalo Fanjul, an author of the study, said: “Much of the debate focuses on Trump and his administration, but our estimates suggest that Europe’s shifting spending priorities will prove equally devastating for some of the most vulnerable communities in the world, while undermining the very rules-based order and international solidarity the UK, France and Germany demand and claim to defend. “The Ebola outbreak now declared a global health emergency is a stark reminder that a weakened global health system leaves everyone exposed,” he added. “The priority now must be to reaffirm global health as a public good of a new era in international relations: with predictable and multi-sourced financing, genuine multilateral commitment, and the political intelligence to align stated values with actual budgets.” Last month, UK spending on foreign aid hit its lowest level in nearly two decades. Of...

A US and Philippine-led military drill seen as targeting China grew this year into the largest yet, prompting Chinese experts to warn that the annual event will exacerbate regional instability amid heightened tensions in the Indo-Pacific. The decades-old drill called Balikatan , which means shoulder to shoulder, reached record highs in terms of scale, scope of participation and training complexity this year, according to a report published by the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative (SCSPI) this week. From April 20 to May 8, seven countries – the Philippines , the US, Canada, France, Japan, Australia and New Zealand – sent 17,000 personnel to train along the Philippines’ western sealine, stretching from the South China Sea to the northern Philippine island of Itbayat, just 155km (96 miles) from Taiwan’s main island. 01:36 China slams Japan’s first overseas missile launch in 80 years Tensions have run high in the Indo-Pacific in recent years, with increasing incidents occurring between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea. Advertisement And relations between Beijing and another participant, Japan, have been further tested, particularly since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested in November that a crisis in the Taiwan Strait could justify military intervention, crossing one of Beijing’s red line. “The scale of the exercise is massive and it is becoming more complex. This is the trend,” said Hu Bo, director of the Beijing-based SCSPI. “It will, for sure, exacerbate regional instability. Advertisement “It can’t really change regional balances. But the more drills they conduct, the more responses will be coming from [the People’s Liberation Army].”

AMD has confirmed that production ramp-up has officially begun for its next-generation Zen 6 processors, starting with its upcoming 6th-generation EPYC “Venice” server CPUs. These chips are being manufactured using TSMC’s advanced 2nm process technology, marking a major step forward for AMD’s data center roadmap. The term “production ramp” refers to the point where a processor moves beyond limited engineering samples and into high-volume manufacturing intended for commercial deployment. In other words, AMD’s Venice processors are now considered production-ready and are preparing for widespread rollout to enterprise customers. Built on the new Zen 6 architecture, EPYC Venice will offer up to 256 CPU cores, a 33% increase over the current EPYC “Turin” lineup, which tops out at 192 cores. AMD is also projecting performance gains of up to 70% compared to the current generation. Memory and connectivity improvements are equally significant. Per-socket memory bandwidth is expected to rise to 1.6 TB/s, more than doubling the 614 GB/s available on Turin processors. CPU-to-GPU bandwidth is also getting a 2x increase, which should greatly benefit AI, cloud, and high-performance computing workloads where data throughput is critical. The move to TSMC’s 2nm process allows AMD to improve efficiency while increasing core counts, cache, and I/O capabilities. This gives data center operators the option to either boost performance within existing power limits or reduce power consumption while maintaining similar performance levels. AMD also confirmed another upcoming Zen 6 EPYC family called “Verano,” which will use the same 2nm process but focus more heavily on efficiency and AI-oriented workloads. Verano will reportedly feature native LPDDR memory support aimed at next-generation AI systems. The announcement comes as AMD continues gaining ground in the server market. Recent reports indicate AMD EPYC processors captured a record 46.2% share of server CPU revenue during Q1 2026, the c...

Chile's MAGA-inspired border control toggle caption John Bartlett/NPR ARICA, Chile—Out on the wide open plain on Chile's northernmost coastline, dust billows in the cool breeze which sweeps across the pampa. In front of a row of concrete markers tracing the border with Peru, two sandy-yellow Chilean military excavators crawl along a deep trench, digging three metres down before swinging sharply to dump bucketloads of earth into a rising embankment. A few hundred yards across the pampa from where Chilean soldiers patrol the boundary, stern-faced, the Peruvian border police sit under wind-torn blue awnings, eyeing the Chileans warily. This barrier is newly inaugurated far-right President José Antonio Kast's answer to the migration crisis that propelled him to power in December's runoff election, where he won 58% of the vote. It also echoes President Trump's pledges to build a wall along the U.S.–Mexico border, a key element of his immigration agenda. Sponsor Message During the campaign, Kast regularly threatened the 336,000 migrants living illegally in Chile, according to official estimates, with expulsion. So far, he has deported just 40 people on a single outbound flight. "We want to use excavators to build a sovereign Chile… which has been undermined by illegal immigration, drug trafficking, and organized crime," he declared on a visit to this frontier just five days after assuming the presidency. Kast, an ultra-conservative Catholic father-of-nine, has made a career on the extreme fringes of Chilean politics with his hardline views. Over the last five years, he has made illegal immigration – and the public security fears which have accompanied it – his battleflag, drawing comparisons to President Trump. "We have made 53.6% progress, which means about six kilometres in this area," says Cristián Sayes, President Kast's delegate in this, Chile's northernmost administrative region. "The ultimate goal is to have constant control of the border so that we can stop illega...

Summer electric bills sizzle as the cost of cooling climbs toggle caption Brandon Bell/Getty Images Temperatures are climbing, and so is the price of electricity. That's a one-two punch that could result in sharply higher utility bills this summer. "Climate scientists think this could be the hottest summer on record or at least close to it," says Mark Wolfe, who heads the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA). "So families need to use more of an increasingly expensive product to stay cool this summer. And that's going to be tough." NEADA is projecting that electricity bills will be 8.5% higher this summer than last, on average, with residents in some Southern states seeing even bigger increases. Sponsor Message Robin Westphal lives about halfway between Houston and Galveston, Texas, where the feels-like temperature in midsummer can easily soar past 100 degrees. "It's very difficult to come here and try to breathe with this kind of humidity and hot weather," Westphal says. Even though her home is insulated well, Westphal says, her summer air-conditioning bills topped $300 a month last year. She's bracing for higher-priced power this year, so she and her husband are cutting corners elsewhere. "We might not be able to spend as much at the grocery store," says Westphal, a third-grade math teacher. "Maybe not going out to eat. Limiting our extra activities." In northwest Arkansas, seminary student Matthew Kolb has taken to donating plasma twice a week to help cover his bills, which include about $250 a month for electricity. Kolb says money is tight even though he has a full-time job and serves in the Army Reserve. "We have two kids under 2," Kolb says, noting that his wife and older daughter are especially sensitive to the heat. "Higher utilities in the summer always stretches us a little bit and makes budgeting a little more of a complicated feat." Nationwide, the cost of a kilowatt-hour has risen faster than overall inflation: more than 6% in the la...

With a sprawling empire spanning electric vehicles, rockets, artificial intelligence, and social media, Elon Musk has built a reputation as one of the most influential—and unconventional business leaders of the modern era. And as SpaceX eyes a potentially record-setting public offering, the billionaire’s path to potentially becoming the world’s first trillionaire is once again fueling fascination with how he built his success. But few people have witnessed how Musk operates up close quite like Jon McNeill. As Tesla’s president from 2015 to 2018, he worked alongside Musk during one of the company’s most pivotal stretches, helping oversee the rollout of the Model X and the turbulent production ramp-up of the Model 3—a period when Tesla came perilously close to bankruptcy. However, the success of Musk, and subsequently Tesla, wasn’t necessarily driven by charisma, luck, or even raw intelligence alone, according to McNeill. Instead, it came from an obsessive willingness to challenge assumptions. “He’s a pretty uniquely-wired individual, obviously,” McNeill told Fortune, reflecting on his former boss. “He’s thinking about stuff at a depth, constantly, and he frees up time in his day to think about these big challenges, and then figures out a way to go after them.” While Musk’s leadership style can often appear chaotic from the outside, McNeill said there was a repeatable logic behind it. In his book, The Algorithm, he distilled Musk’s operating philosophy into a five-step framework: Question every requirement, Delete every possible step in the process, Simplify and optimize, Accelerate cycle time, Automate last. The framework proved integral during Tesla’s growth years, McNeill recalled, helping solve manufacturing bottlenecks tied to the Model X and scale the company from roughly $2 billion in revenue to $20 billion. And since leaving Tesla, McNeill has carried the philosophy throughout the rest of his career—from serving as chief operating officer at Lyft to joining th...