When I was growing up, she rarely dispensed advice. Instead, I watched her closely, holding on to her quiet wisdom I often picture my mother that wild, hot summer we moved to the house of my childhood. She is 5ft 3in in the long grass, wearing a vest and a pair of small cut-off shorts. She is digging borders and battling the sticky bobs. She is telling me about the patch of tiger lilies and the co...
When I was growing up, she rarely dispensed advice. Instead, I watched her closely, holding on to her quiet wisdom I often picture my mother that wild, hot summer we moved to the house of my childhood. She is 5ft 3in in the long grass, wearing a vest and a pair of small cut-off shorts. She is digging borders and battling the sticky bobs. She is telling me about the patch of tiger lilies and the cooking-apple tree; about the light speckling through the unkempt branches. “Glory be to God for dappled things,” she says. My mother has always been a rare combination of poetry and practicality – I know few others given to quoting Gerard Manley Hopkins while simultaneously hacking down nettles, or tiling walls while listening to John Betjeman records. She has a remarkable gift for transforming the ordinary: a bedroom skirting board would be decorated with a mouse and a mouse hole; a packed lunch’s sandwiches cut at unexpected angles; the most mundane shopping trip often accommodated a detour to the art shop to admire the bottles of Winsor & Newton inks. Continue reading...
I won the lottery. Out of around 8,000 artists, my name was randomly chosen to be one of the 2,000 who the Irish government would pay a basic income. This pilot scheme was a test of whether a policy of supporting artists would pay off in terms of creative work, wellbeing and, calculated down to the cent, the money that society would make back. For three years, we were paid €325 a week with no stri...
I won the lottery. Out of around 8,000 artists, my name was randomly chosen to be one of the 2,000 who the Irish government would pay a basic income. This pilot scheme was a test of whether a policy of supporting artists would pay off in terms of creative work, wellbeing and, calculated down to the cent, the money that society would make back. For three years, we were paid €325 a week with no strings attached, other than filling out a survey. We could continue earning and applying for artist grants. I am a freelance writer who, like most artists, has always had to work outside my creative focus to afford to live, constantly worrying I will never be able to afford a home myself or to start a family. As such, the basic income was life-changing. Only months into the scheme, I found out I was pregnant. The basic income helped me decide to have my baby, knowing I could continue creative work and keep my small studio space in a light-filled warehouse in the heart of Dublin. The Back Loft, one of the few affordable spaces left for artists, is a strong community of visual artists, musicians, writers, tattooists and knitters. The basic income gave me more freedom to experiment in my work, to write for independent publications and engage with community initiatives. I helped to create events that brought together artists across forms and raised money for a local rape crisis centre. The collective successes of the pilot resulted in the Irish government’s decision to launch a permanent basic income for the arts scheme, opening this May. It turned out that artists on the pilot made back millions. The state’s own research found that for every euro the government spent on supporting artists, society received €1.39 in return, and the scheme was estimated to have generated more than €100m in social and economic benefits. The pilot also highlighted the systemic precarity of the creative sector and what that does to artists’ mental health and livelihoods, which the basic income signifi...
Nearly three-quarters of England’s woods are off-limits to the public, buried government documents show. The study by Forest Research, which is a government-funded quango, found that 73% of English woodland is publicly inaccessible. The research also found that more than a third of the trees on the Woodland Trust’s ancient tree inventory are inaccessible to the public. Many woodlands are off-limit...
Nearly three-quarters of England’s woods are off-limits to the public, buried government documents show. The study by Forest Research, which is a government-funded quango, found that 73% of English woodland is publicly inaccessible. The research also found that more than a third of the trees on the Woodland Trust’s ancient tree inventory are inaccessible to the public. Many woodlands are off-limits as they are used for business interests such as pheasant shoots and timber plantations. Ancient trees are those that are particularly old for the species, with some of them over 1,000 years old. The Woodland Trust has called for greater awareness of these precious plants, but a large number of them are in areas that would require trespassing to visit. Campaigners have called for the government to come up with a right-to-roam policy that allows people to walk around their local woodlands. While in opposition, the Labour party committed to a Scottish-style right to roam, under which anyone could walk around the countryside as long as they left no trace and did not disturb farmland. However, after being lobbied by landowner groups, the party U-turned on this. The government instead announced it would create nine river walks and three national forests. The Right to Roam campaign is planning a series of mass trespasses in woods across England during March and April. At these events, dozens of people gather to go on an illegal walk and picnic on land usually off-limits to the public. Previous mass trespasses have taken place in woods owned by a duke, by reservoirs, and in the grounds of the country home of a lord and former Tory minister. The campaigners are demanding the government introduce a right-to-roam bill to give the public responsible access in the countryside. Right to Roam’s Guy Shrubsole said: “If you go down to the woods today, you’re in for a big surprise – most of them are closed to the public. “It’s appalling that three-quarters of all the woodland in England is...
As soon as the barrier broke, a flood of poison brought death to the river. Gushing through the fragile wall built to hold back mining waste in Zambia’s copper belt in February 2025, more than 50m cubic litres of acid and heavy metals poured into the Chambishi stream – a tributary of the Kafue River, the country’s longest waterway. Thousands of lifeless fish rose to the surface as a plume of acid ...
As soon as the barrier broke, a flood of poison brought death to the river. Gushing through the fragile wall built to hold back mining waste in Zambia’s copper belt in February 2025, more than 50m cubic litres of acid and heavy metals poured into the Chambishi stream – a tributary of the Kafue River, the country’s longest waterway. Thousands of lifeless fish rose to the surface as a plume of acid floated downriver, leaving dead crocodiles and other wildlife in its wake. For the millions of Zambians that depend on the Kafue, the tailings dam collapse at the Chinese state-owned Sino-Metals Leach copper mine triggered a national environmental emergency that is yet to end. The spill shut down drinking water supplies for Kitwe, Zambia’s third-largest city, home to half a million people. double quotation mark It looked like diesel mixed with oil. We had already planted our crops, but they died Mary Milimo Signs of pollution were detected 60 miles downstream from the collapse. Helicopters chased the spill downriver, dropping lime into the water in an attempt to neutralise its corrosive potency. The affected region is home to rare wildlife, including the Kafue lechwe zntelope, the Zambian barbet bird, and the wattled Crane. “It looked like diesel mixed with oil. We had already planted our crops, but they died. When you now turn up the soil to till it for planting, it has become yellowish and has a pungent smell,” says Mary Milimo, a 65-year-old smallholder close to where the Mwambashi River joins the Kafue. “There are no more fish here,” says Patrick Chindemwa, 66, who farms nearby. “I planted maize in October using irrigation. All the maize dried up. “The ground is yellow and soil here is like grease; it is slippery and when it rains, it melts. We need help,” he says. Sino-Metals did not respond to a request for comment. View image in fullscreen Dead fish floating in the Kafue River near the Zambian town of Luanshya. The toxicity of the water means farmers cannot irrigate ...
When I was six years old, my entire body went up in flames. It was 1992, in my home town of Hawthorne, Nevada. My older brothers were out playing and I went to call them for dinner. I followed their voices, just a few houses down from ours, to find them playing with a bowl of kerosene they’d found and a lighter. When they flicked the lighter, the bowl caught fire. My brother freaked out and kicked...
When I was six years old, my entire body went up in flames. It was 1992, in my home town of Hawthorne, Nevada. My older brothers were out playing and I went to call them for dinner. I followed their voices, just a few houses down from ours, to find them playing with a bowl of kerosene they’d found and a lighter. When they flicked the lighter, the bowl caught fire. My brother freaked out and kicked it over in a bid to contain the flames. They weren’t aware I was just inches away. Soon I was submerged in flames. The pain was excruciating. I was tackled to the ground by a neighbour I’d never met, who covered me in a sleeping bag, extinguishing the flames. It haunts me to this day to think of what he would have seen: a six-year-old boy on fire outside his house. View image in fullscreen ‘I was submerged in flames’: a six-year-old Terry McCarty. Photograph: Courtesy of Terry McCarty I had sustained third- and fourth-degree burns on 73% of my body. I was taken to a local hospital, but I needed specialist care, so was flown to a centre in Las Vegas. It took me a year of being treated at a number of hospitals to recover. Bandage changes would take five hours, and even bending down would cause my sides to crack open because the skin was so thin. I lost all grasp of reality, and tried to survive day by day. My family really struggled through it all, but we stayed closer than ever. My brothers were only 10 and 13 then, so the experience was also extremely difficult for them in a different way. double quotation mark I had an epiphany. For the first time, I knew I was in control. I turned on the hose Soon, I was even suffering from surgery burnout – where the body has had too many surgeries and can’t recover – and was sent to a medically trained foster home. I stayed there for four years. My dad was always my rock throughout. When I was 17, he passed away from brain cancer. Once again, I found myself questioning why I’d been dealt this horrendous hand in life. Integrating into s...
In June 2023, Barry Keoghan texted Cillian Murphy to wish him a happy Father’s Day. The pair had shared the screen six years before, in the film Dunkirk. “Cillian and Colin [Farrell] are people I admire greatly, and always keep in touch with,” says Keoghan. A reply from Murphy pinged back soon after: “Thank you. Would you like to play my son in Peaky Blinders the movie?” Murphy remembers it a bit ...
In June 2023, Barry Keoghan texted Cillian Murphy to wish him a happy Father’s Day. The pair had shared the screen six years before, in the film Dunkirk. “Cillian and Colin [Farrell] are people I admire greatly, and always keep in touch with,” says Keoghan. A reply from Murphy pinged back soon after: “Thank you. Would you like to play my son in Peaky Blinders the movie?” Murphy remembers it a bit differently: that he was the one initiating contact (which is how Tim Roth and Rebecca Ferguson came on board). But he’s happy to let Keoghan’s version be recorded as fact. “That’s a better story!” he says. “And I’d definitely forgotten it was Father’s Day. Maybe no one was paying attention to me at home?” Anyway, Murphy continues, Keoghan was always his first choice to play Duke, errant idiot son of Tommy Shelby (Murphy) in the BBC and Netflix drama’s big-screen swan song. (The character was first introduced in season six, then played by Conrad Khan.) “Barry’s a firecracker – put a camera on him and all of a sudden he’s riveting,” he says. “There’s a danger to him … an unpredictability, which I think you need for that character. But also this vulnerability. And vulnerability on screen is a superpower as an actor.” double quotation mark Barry’s a firecracker – there’s a danger to him, an unpredictability. But also this vulnerability Peaky Blinders’ sixth season – in which Tommy battled Oswald Mosley, navigated the end of prohibition, avenged the murder of his aunt Polly and grieved his daughter Ruby, all while being fooled into believing he was terminally ill – wrapped up in 2022. The final scene saw Murphy’s brooding antihero riding off into the mist on the back of a white horse to do who knows what. The film picks up six years later, in 1940, with Nazi bombs falling on Birmingham. Tommy is holed up in his draughty country mansion, having cut himself off from his family. He tries to write his memoirs, but is regularly distracted by the lure of his opium pipe and harrowing ...
Sweden churns out more billion-dollar startups per capita than anywhere in Europe, but a lot of its rising stars are heading to the US, and calls are growing for deeper capital markets to help stop them. In recent years, Daniel Ek of Spotify Technology SA and Klarna Group Plc ’s Sebastian Siemiatkowski have publicly positioned a US listing as the natural next step in their companies’ expansion. Th...
Sweden churns out more billion-dollar startups per capita than anywhere in Europe, but a lot of its rising stars are heading to the US, and calls are growing for deeper capital markets to help stop them. In recent years, Daniel Ek of Spotify Technology SA and Klarna Group Plc ’s Sebastian Siemiatkowski have publicly positioned a US listing as the natural next step in their companies’ expansion. That framing continues to influence a new wave of Swedish founders, many of whom see tapping US capital markets as a milestone on the path to global scale. The Swedish government was early to offer support to digital services, in part by liberalizing its tax regime and investing in fiber-optic internet. By the mid 2000s, it was one of the world’s most digitally connected countries, and since then has produced 50 unicorns valued at $1 billion. Its booming tech scene is dubbed ‘Silicon Valhalla.’ Yet more than 70% of those unicorns have left the Nordic nation so far, through foreign acquisitions or seeking higher valuations in listings elsewhere, according to a 2025 report by consultancy firm McKinsey & Co. European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi are among politicians calling for more harmonized legal systems and capital markets in Europe to counter the appeal of the US. But progress has proved elusive. Europe’s fragmented market structure — involving multiple exchanges, clearing systems, currencies and regulatory regimes — can add complexity to the listing process. Swedish drink company Oatly Group AB and driverless truck firm Einride AB, for example, found the US framework a more attractive alternative when planning to go public. Markets have already waited more than a decade for the EU to make progress on a unified system of savings and investments. Its failure to match the US’s ability to create companies with a public valuation exceeding $10 billion will have serious implications for the continent’s future pro...
Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group’s recent launch of a series of high-priced gold-inlaid accessories on the mainland has sparked online debate amid China’s slowing consumer market. Last week, the Hong Kong-listed jeweller showcased several items on its official Weibo account, including a diamond-studded gold AirPods case priced at 788,800 yuan (US$115,000) and gold-inlaid hair clips costing 2,080 yuan...
Chow Tai Fook Jewellery Group’s recent launch of a series of high-priced gold-inlaid accessories on the mainland has sparked online debate amid China’s slowing consumer market. Last week, the Hong Kong-listed jeweller showcased several items on its official Weibo account, including a diamond-studded gold AirPods case priced at 788,800 yuan (US$115,000) and gold-inlaid hair clips costing 2,080 yuan each, containing 0.42 grams of gold. The earphone case, made with about 350 grams of gold, was produced as a single piece and sold in February at the company’s store in Shanghai’s Grand Gateway 66 mall. Advertisement Chow Tai Fook said it also accepted custom orders, with prices tied to prevailing gold rates and production typically taking two to three months. Chow Tai Fook’s diamond-studded gold AirPods case is priced at 788,800 yuan. Photo: Handout While some social media users praised the design as resembling an art piece, much of the online conversation focused on the price tag. “Poverty really limits my imagination,” one user wrote.
As Lesley-Ann Foster packs up her office in the South African coastal city of East London, putting years of patient records and funding applications into boxes, her mind wanders to the events that led up to this moment. There was the sudden closure of the United States Agency for International Development the previous January. The reduction in aid from European donors. The layoffs she was forced t...
As Lesley-Ann Foster packs up her office in the South African coastal city of East London, putting years of patient records and funding applications into boxes, her mind wanders to the events that led up to this moment. There was the sudden closure of the United States Agency for International Development the previous January. The reduction in aid from European donors. The layoffs she was forced to enact in November. And finally, the holidays, when Masimanyane Women’s Rights International had to turn away roughly 300 survivors of sexual assault because there simply wasn’t enough staff to care for them. Foster started the nonprofit three decades ago to address escalating violence against women and children in the region, which is among the poorest in South Africa. Masimanyane initially provided counseling and guidance for about 100 people a month, before expanding its capacity by fivefold. It stationed employees at local hospitals to help trauma victims navigate the system and ran community outreach programs. At its height, it had a network of 14 shelters and offices. Now, that number has fallen to five. “We were overexposed to US funding,” Foster said, pointing to the end of USAID as the moment when the dam broke. About 30% of her budget disappeared overnight, and that had “a knock-on effect.” Germany and the Netherlands stopped supporting Masimanyane, and other European donors downsized their contributions. Ultimately, only Norway left its funding untouched. With her organization’s budget reduced by a third, Foster had no choice but to lay off dozens of social workers and administrators. Compared to two years ago, when foreign donors viewed public health funding as an important economic stabilizer, she said, “the global value system has changed.” This hasn’t only been true at the government level. While countries are by far the biggest international donors, health funding in Africa from private philanthropies has dropped 15% to about $3 billion from over $3.5 billi...
Eighteen months after selling his startup to chipmaker AMD for $665 million, Finnish entrepreneur Peter Sarlin has left his role as CEO of the unit now known as AMD Silo AI. He is now chairman at two new ventures: physical AI lab NestAI, and QuTwo, an AI startup aimed at helping companies prepare for the era of quantum computing Currently fully funded by Sarlin’s family office, PostScriptum, QuTwo...
Eighteen months after selling his startup to chipmaker AMD for $665 million, Finnish entrepreneur Peter Sarlin has left his role as CEO of the unit now known as AMD Silo AI. He is now chairman at two new ventures: physical AI lab NestAI, and QuTwo, an AI startup aimed at helping companies prepare for the era of quantum computing Currently fully funded by Sarlin’s family office, PostScriptum, QuTwo describes itself as “an AI lab for the quantum era.” Rather than waiting for quantum computing to mature, however, it is already working with enterprise customers — including European fashion retailer Zalando, with which it is developing what the two companies call “lifestyle agents,” AI tools designed to go beyond product search and proactively suggest products and experiences. QuTwo is built on the premise that AI is hitting an efficiency wall that quantum computing may eventually help solve. But the company is not betting on when that will happen, Sarlin told TechCrunch. Instead, the startup is building QuTwo OS as an orchestration layer that allows companies to shift from classical to quantum computing — making use of hybrid computing along the way. Sarlin invested in Finnish quantum companies IQM and QMill through PostScriptum, and is one of a growing number of investors who believe it will eventually outperform classical computers in a wide range of industry applications while easing AI’s energy demands. But he also thinks that initial use cases will require mixed hardware environments, and that enterprises would rather focus on their business problems while QuTwo OS takes care of the routing. In that respect, the potential advantage of the middle ground known as “quantum-inspired” computing is that it is already viable today, because it uses classical hardware while simulating quantum behavior, working around the hurdles that still hinder quantum hardware. Meanwhile, QuTwo OS is designed to be flexible, supporting quantum or non-quantum algorithms and chips alike. Q...
gopixa/iStock via Getty Images By Sara Carter Global sovereign debt issuance – when a government issues bonds to finance their public spending – is expected to be high again in 2026, following a record 2025. As this issuance wave continues, and investor demand for government debt remains strong, it’s worth considering how this debt moves throughout the global financial system and its impact on the...
gopixa/iStock via Getty Images By Sara Carter Global sovereign debt issuance – when a government issues bonds to finance their public spending – is expected to be high again in 2026, following a record 2025. As this issuance wave continues, and investor demand for government debt remains strong, it’s worth considering how this debt moves throughout the global financial system and its impact on the key parties involved. Connecting Through Repo Markets Repo markets are the plumbing behind sovereign debt distribution, ensuring bonds can be financed, hedged and reused as collateral. The journey of sovereign debt begins with government auctions and syndications, where primary dealers (large banks) and wider market participants, such as buy-side institutions, purchase bonds, which are generally offered at a discount. Corporate bonds are similar, however, issued by a firm. To avoid utilizing the bank's own capital and balance sheet, dealers "repo" the bonds – selling them to cash-rich institutions like money market funds with an agreement to buy them back at a specified future date (terms vary per market). While the cash bond market is an outright purchase or sale, the repo market is treated as a collateralized loan, meaning banks have to manage the associated credit risk of the underlying bond and counterparty during the term of the trade. Government and corporate bonds, in addition to the risk positioning in outright markets, serve as collateral to finance longs/cover shorts for market participants and are utilized in margin calls. This plumbing further assists the breadth of market participants to cash reinvest, increase leverage, enhance returns and support market liquidity. The plumbing is sensitive to some friction: 1. Balance Sheet Pressure Balance sheet pressure arises when capital requirements, deriving from the implementation of Basel Standards, such as the Leverage Ratio / GSIB / LCR / NSFR / HQLA / RWA / UMR, cause banks to actively manage their balance sheet a...
AMD has finally revealed the name for the next stage of its FSR ecosystem in the context of Microsoft’s Project Helix: FSR Diamond. And no, this isn’t just the next nicely polished marketing pebble in the now completely overheated upscaling sandbox, but a pretty clear indication that AMD is currently reorganizing its previous FSR strategy, linking it more closely to hardware and docking more close...
AMD has finally revealed the name for the next stage of its FSR ecosystem in the context of Microsoft’s Project Helix: FSR Diamond. And no, this isn’t just the next nicely polished marketing pebble in the now completely overheated upscaling sandbox, but a pretty clear indication that AMD is currently reorganizing its previous FSR strategy, linking it more closely to hardware and docking more closely than ever with Microsoft’s next Xbox generation. At first glance, this sounds like progress, but as is so often the case, it’s a double-edged sword. Because what looks like technical superiority on stage can quickly turn into a cold shower for owners of older Radeon cards. FSR Diamond is not an update, but a change of direction with advance notice Anyone who, based on the information available so far, still believes that FSR Diamond is simply “FSR 5 with a little more AI” has either spent the last few months in a deep sleep or taken Wccftech too literally. In the context of Project Helix, AMD is not talking about a simple version jump, but rather a package consisting of next-gen neural rendering, ML-based upscaling, ML-based multi-frame generation, and a new form of ray regeneration for ray tracing and path tracing. Translated into plain English: AMD no longer wants to just reconstruct images, but is finally starting to tinker with the entire render pipeline, just as NVIDIA has long been doing with DLSS, only with a delay and the typical attempt to make it a slightly more open narrative in the end. The only problem is that, for the time being, it is mainly the packaging that is open, not necessarily access. Because if FSR Diamond really does intervene so deeply in ML-supported rendering paths, then we are no longer talking about a universal software feature that, in case of doubt, can be rolled out on any reasonably modern GPU with a little willingness to compromise. Then we’re talking about architecture dependencies, dedicated accelerators, scheduling paths, data moveme...
Yuji Sakai/Stockbyte via Getty Images The European Union as a whole has found itself in a precarious situation, with relations with the United States coming under strain, while Russia remains a threat in the east, and a burgeoning trade deficit with China threatens to spark deindustrialization. But perhaps tough medicine is the best medicine? For years now, Europe has plodded along, some of its in...
Yuji Sakai/Stockbyte via Getty Images The European Union as a whole has found itself in a precarious situation, with relations with the United States coming under strain, while Russia remains a threat in the east, and a burgeoning trade deficit with China threatens to spark deindustrialization. But perhaps tough medicine is the best medicine? For years now, Europe has plodded along, some of its industries slowly becoming less competitive and innovation hard to come by. If the European Union (and wider Europe) is to affirm its position as a leading global power, Germany will need to start firing on all cylinders. This makes the iShares MSCI Germany ETF ( EWG ) an intriguing option. The ETF is well diversified but has large stakes in Siemens ( SIEGY ), one of the companies I think could benefit from a resurgent Germany more so than most. A large stake in Rheinmetall ( RNMBF ) is also attractive as the European Union is looking to rebuild its military capabilities. For now, I am rating EWG as a hold, as I don't think it's found the bottom yet. In the near term, I'd be looking for the end of the Iran war to signal a potential bottom. If the war drags on for more than another month, I may start to recalibrate my expectations. Germany Gets Off To A Slow Start In 2026 Unfortunately, Germany has gotten off to a slow start in 2026, and the ongoing war between the United States/Israel and Iran is unlikely to do it any favors. In January, imports shrank by nearly 6% (on a monthly basis), while exports were down 2.3% . On a seasonally and calendar-adjusted basis, Germany's orders fell by more than 11% compared to the previous month, catching many analysts off guard and greatly exceeding the expected 4.5% decline. The drop was primarily in large orders, and when those were excluded, the decline measured just .4%. On top of that, analysts had expected industrial output to rise by 1%, but it instead fell by .5% (compared to the prior month). I'm confident that Germany will rise of...
WANAN YOSSINGKUM Meta’s ( META ) new foundational A.I. model, which the company has been working on for months, has fallen short of the performance of leading A.I. models from rivals like Google ( GOOG ) ( GOOGL ), OpenAI ( OPENAI ) and Anthropic ( ANTHRO ) on internal tests for reasoning, coding and writing, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing sources. The model, code-named Avocado, o...
WANAN YOSSINGKUM Meta’s ( META ) new foundational A.I. model, which the company has been working on for months, has fallen short of the performance of leading A.I. models from rivals like Google ( GOOG ) ( GOOGL ), OpenAI ( OPENAI ) and Anthropic ( ANTHRO ) on internal tests for reasoning, coding and writing, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing sources. The model, code-named Avocado, outperformed Meta’s previous A.I. model and did better than Google’s Gemini 2.5 model from March, two of the people said. But it has not performed as strongly as Gemini 3.0 from November, they said. As a result, Meta ( META ) has delayed Avocado’s release to at least May from this month, the people said. They added that the leaders of Meta’s A.I. division had instead discussed temporarily licensing Gemini to power the company’s A.I. products, though no decisions have been reached. Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads, has spent billions hiring top A.I. researchers and committed $600 billion to building data centers to power the technology. In January, Meta projected that it would spend as much as $135 billion this year, nearly twice the $72 billion it spent last year. More on Meta Wall Street Lunch: Ex-Meta AI Chief LeCun's Startup AMI Secures $1B Meta: Time To Sit On The Fence (Downgrade) Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) Presents at Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference 2026 Transcript Meta Platforms stalls work on Persian Gulf cable project amid Iran war: Bloomberg Microsoft also shows interest in unfinished Oracle Stargate site in Abilene: report
WANAN YOSSINGKUM Meta’s ( META ) new foundational A.I. model, which the company has been working on for months, has fallen short of the performance of leading A.I. models from rivals like Google ( GOOG ) ( GOOGL ), OpenAI ( OPENAI ) and Anthropic ( ANTHRO ) on internal tests for reasoning, coding and writing, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing sources. The model, code-named Avocado, o...
WANAN YOSSINGKUM Meta’s ( META ) new foundational A.I. model, which the company has been working on for months, has fallen short of the performance of leading A.I. models from rivals like Google ( GOOG ) ( GOOGL ), OpenAI ( OPENAI ) and Anthropic ( ANTHRO ) on internal tests for reasoning, coding and writing, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing sources. The model, code-named Avocado, outperformed Meta’s previous A.I. model and did better than Google’s Gemini 2.5 model from March, two of the people said. But it has not performed as strongly as Gemini 3.0 from November, they said. As a result, Meta ( META ) has delayed Avocado’s release to at least May from this month, the people said. They added that the leaders of Meta’s A.I. division had instead discussed temporarily licensing Gemini to power the company’s A.I. products, though no decisions have been reached. Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads, has spent billions hiring top A.I. researchers and committed $600 billion to building data centers to power the technology. In January, Meta projected that it would spend as much as $135 billion this year, nearly twice the $72 billion it spent last year. More on Meta Wall Street Lunch: Ex-Meta AI Chief LeCun's Startup AMI Secures $1B Meta: Time To Sit On The Fence (Downgrade) Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) Presents at Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference 2026 Transcript Meta Platforms stalls work on Persian Gulf cable project amid Iran war: Bloomberg Microsoft also shows interest in unfinished Oracle Stargate site in Abilene: report
New Fortress Energy (NFE +1.82%) is a liquefied natural gas (LNG) company operating worldwide. It's a company with significant assets and a place in the growing global LNG market. But it's also a company in active financial distress, and investors need to understand that investing in New Fortress Energy is extremely risky. 1. NFE's debt situation is dire There's no gentle way to put this: New Fort...
New Fortress Energy (NFE +1.82%) is a liquefied natural gas (LNG) company operating worldwide. It's a company with significant assets and a place in the growing global LNG market. But it's also a company in active financial distress, and investors need to understand that investing in New Fortress Energy is extremely risky. 1. NFE's debt situation is dire There's no gentle way to put this: New Fortress Energy is on the brink of collapse. The company is saddled with massive debt and has fallen behind on payments even as it sells assets to stay afloat. The cash burn is immense. The company's trailing-12-month free cash flow (FCF) was negative -- a whopping $1.73 billion out the door. That is a major problem for any company, but New Fortress Energy has nearly $9 billion in debt to contend with. Oh, and $6.5 billion of that is "current" -- that is, due within one year. And New Fortress is already behind on payments on about $500 million of that. It is temporarily in forbearance while negotiating with its creditors to avoid default. If the talks succeed, the creditors would receive preferred equity and significant company assets in exchange for relief. While the company has said it may avoid a total wipeout of common shareholders this way, there is no guarantee of that -- and there is certainly no guarantee that the negotiations will be successful. There is a very real scenario where common shareholders are left with nothing. Expand NASDAQ : NFE New Fortress Energy Today's Change ( 1.82 %) $ 0.02 Current Price $ 1.12 Key Data Points Market Cap $313M Day's Range $ 1.06 - $ 1.15 52wk Range $ 0.98 - $ 12.59 Volume 12M Avg Vol 9.8M Gross Margin 19.59 % 2. There could be upside -- but I wouldn't bet on it The company's current market capitalization of just over $300 million stands in stark contrast to its $1.7 billion in trailing-12-month sales and enterprise value of $9.6 billion. It has a very low price-to-book value ratio; if common shareholders survive a restructuring, the...