Core Lithium Ltd. has restarted mining at its Finniss project in Australia’s Northern Territory, as a rebound in prices of the battery material prompts some companies to resume mothballed operations. Mining activities including blasting and excavation works are now underway, and first exports of spodumene concentrate are planned for the December quarter, according to an exchange filing from Core L...
Core Lithium Ltd. has restarted mining at its Finniss project in Australia’s Northern Territory, as a rebound in prices of the battery material prompts some companies to resume mothballed operations. Mining activities including blasting and excavation works are now underway, and first exports of spodumene concentrate are planned for the December quarter, according to an exchange filing from Core Lithium on Wednesday. The company is progressing a staged return to production, it added. Prices of spodumene concentrate have rallied since mid-December, hitting the highest level in more than two years this month, although they still remain significantly lower than a record reached in late 2022. Another miner, Mineral Resources Ltd., announced earlier this week that it would restart its Bald Hill operation in Western Australia following an 18-month hiatus. Earlier this year, Core Lithium sold a stockpile of ore to Glencore Plc to raise cash for a potential restart of its Finniss mine, which was shuttered in 2024 after prices tumbled. Lithium is extracted from hard rock spodumene. Read More: Australian Miner PLS Plans Output Growth as Lithium Recovers Companies controlled by Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart , are also planning to build a mine in Western Australia with Chile’s lithium giant Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile. A development plan for the Andover project was disclosed to federal government regulators this month.
US wheat futures led grains lower as sentiment soured due to a lack of confirmation from China on the Trump administration’s announcement of billions of dollars in agricultural purchases. Benchmark wheat contracts fell by as much as 0.9% on Wednesday after jumping almost 5% in the previous two sessions, with hard-red winter varieties dropping more sharply. Soybean and corn futures also declined. W...
US wheat futures led grains lower as sentiment soured due to a lack of confirmation from China on the Trump administration’s announcement of billions of dollars in agricultural purchases. Benchmark wheat contracts fell by as much as 0.9% on Wednesday after jumping almost 5% in the previous two sessions, with hard-red winter varieties dropping more sharply. Soybean and corn futures also declined. Wheat jumped sharply on Monday after the White House announced China had agreed to buy at least $17 billion of US agricultural produce annually until 2028, on top of its initial soybean pledge. That followed talks between President Donald Trump and his counterpart Xi Jinping in Beijing last week. But with no official confirmation of the agreement yet from the Chinese government, lingering concerns about the trade dispute between Washington and Beijing are putting downward pressure on prices, said Tobin Gorey, a strategist at Cornucopia Agri Analytics. “You can make promises about, we’ll buy this, we’ll buy that, and it’s helpful. But people want to see it,” he said. Wheat futures in Chicago fell 0.7% to $6.63 a bushel as of 11:50 a.m. in Singapore Corn fell 0.6% to $4.72 a bushel, while soybeans were down 0.4%
Samuel Boivin | Nurphoto | Getty Images Global artificial-intelligence chip leader Nvidia will launch a new research center in Singapore, one of a slew of new AI-related measures announced by the city-state on Wednesday. Nvidia's new lab represents its first Singapore research hub, and its second such presence in the Asia Pacific. The company has increasingly focused on embodied AI deployment in r...
Samuel Boivin | Nurphoto | Getty Images Global artificial-intelligence chip leader Nvidia will launch a new research center in Singapore, one of a slew of new AI-related measures announced by the city-state on Wednesday. Nvidia's new lab represents its first Singapore research hub, and its second such presence in the Asia Pacific. The company has increasingly focused on embodied AI deployment in recent years, launching models, systems and chips for robotics. The new lab will focus on advancing embodied AI and increasing the efficiency of AI infrastructure, working alongside university researchers, industry partners, and government agencies. U.S.-based Nvidia's move comes as Singapore pitches itself as a regional AI hub, ideal for real-world development, testing and deployment of AI solutions, despite the city-state's relatively small size. The city-state appears to be placing a specific focus on embodied AI -- a category including robots, autonomous vehicles and drones -- which is widely seen as an important next frontier in AI development that could allow for breakthroughs and augmentation across the service sector and manufacturing. Also on Wednesday, Singapore said it will launch a testbed later this year to help private companies co-design, deploy, test and validate commercially viable AI robotic technologies. Industry leaders like Certis, DHL, Grab and QuikBot are expected to be among the first to use the testbed. The government will also collaborate with AI robotics companies such as Slamtec, Unitree and QuikBot to trial embodied AI use cases through a new Center for Intelligent Robotics. Tests will include using AI robotics for food and parcel delivery, as well as cleaning and security patrolling, to complement existing human operations. The announcements came on the first day of Singapore's ATxSummit, a technology conference with a heavy focus on AI deployment this year. Choose CNBC as your preferred source on Google and never miss a moment from the most tru...
Broadcasters are letting down voters by relying on so-called vox pop interviews and failing to scrutinise political claims during election campaigns, according to researchers. The study by Cardiff University looked at how this year’s national elections in Wales and Scotland, alongside the local elections in England, were reported on UK-wide television news between 2 March and 6 May. The report, wr...
Broadcasters are letting down voters by relying on so-called vox pop interviews and failing to scrutinise political claims during election campaigns, according to researchers. The study by Cardiff University looked at how this year’s national elections in Wales and Scotland, alongside the local elections in England, were reported on UK-wide television news between 2 March and 6 May. The report, written by Stephen Cushion, Keighley Perkins and Maxwell Modell at the School of Journalism, Media and Culture, found that strict rules requiring balanced coverage directly undermined the media’s ability to thoroughly examine political pledges. For the first time, the BBC’s election guidelines labelled Labour, Conservatives, Reform, the Liberal Democrats, the Greens, Plaid Cymru and the SNP as “major parties”, so it is expected that they all broadly receive similar levels of coverage. The researchers found that “large chunks of airtime were dedicated to vox pops”, which featured in 26.3% of all Welsh television news items covering the election, at the expense of coverage of actual policy or political claims. Cushion, who led the project, said: “In an age of multiparty politics, our new research raises serious questions about whether the UK’s current due impartiality rules are fit for purpose during an election campaign period. This does not mean impartiality should be abandoned in a Fox News-style way, but the rules need to be rethought to give broadcasters the flexibility to provide greater scrutiny in day-to-day news reporting. “The public expect broadcasters not only to cover political parties during a campaign, but to scrutinise their promises and challenge false or misleading claims.” Because “election rules require broadcasters to broadly provide roughly equivalent coverage of parties during the campaign”, the media’s ability to “interrogate specific policies in-depth” was severely restricted, the authors said. While broadcasters successfully provided the six main parti...
In this article TGT Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT Facade of Target store in San Ramon, California, April 18, 2026. Smith Collection/gado | Archive Photos | Getty Images Target is set to report its fiscal first-quarter earnings and offer a read on the consumer Wednesday, as CEO Michael Fiddelke leads a turnaround plan for the retailer. The company has struggled to prove to investo...
In this article TGT Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT Facade of Target store in San Ramon, California, April 18, 2026. Smith Collection/gado | Archive Photos | Getty Images Target is set to report its fiscal first-quarter earnings and offer a read on the consumer Wednesday, as CEO Michael Fiddelke leads a turnaround plan for the retailer. The company has struggled to prove to investors that it can end its sales slump and win back brand loyalty from consumers. The earnings will come as Wall Street keeps a keen eye on a more selective consumer, hit by soaring gas prices and macroeconomic uncertainty. Here's what Wall Street is expecting for the retailer's fiscal first quarter, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG: Earnings per share: $1.46 expected Revenue: $24.64 billion expected Target said last quarter it expects net sales to rise about 2% for the fiscal year compared with last year, and it said it's expecting revenue to climb during every quarter of the year. Fiddelke, who assumed the role earlier this year, told CNBC last quarter that strong February sales indicated an upward trend and gave him "confidence" that Target can return to growth. Target on Tuesday took another step to try to boost that effort, naming former Walmart executive Jeff England as its chief supply chain officer as part of its efforts to revitalize the business. Still, the company has been in a sales slump for multiple quarters, reporting falling revenue and decreasing customer traffic. While Target believes it's poised to reverse those trends, its annual sales have been roughly flat for four years. Its stock has sank more than 40% over the past five years as of Tuesday's close, but is up roughly 30% this year. Chief Financial Officer Jim Lee said in March that Target would increase its spending this year to accelerate its turnaround, with capital expenditures totaling about $5 billion for the year, a more than $1 billion increase from last fiscal year. Those investments will go...
Primer leadership team pictured left to right. Top row: Pierre-Edouard Jumel (CFO), Gabriel Le Roux (Co-Founder and CEO), Sam Elgar (VP Merchant Experience) and Theo Spyrides (VP Product). Bottom row: Caitriona Staunton (VP People), Alex Mallet (CTO), Jade Maitland (VP Marketing) and Mikael Minvielle (COO). The round was led by Sofina with participation from Peak XV Partners and existing investors...
Primer leadership team pictured left to right. Top row: Pierre-Edouard Jumel (CFO), Gabriel Le Roux (Co-Founder and CEO), Sam Elgar (VP Merchant Experience) and Theo Spyrides (VP Product). Bottom row: Caitriona Staunton (VP People), Alex Mallet (CTO), Jade Maitland (VP Marketing) and Mikael Minvielle (COO). The round was led by Sofina with participation from Peak XV Partners and existing investors including Balderton, Accel, ICONIQ, Tencent, and Speedinvest. The round was oversubscribed, reflecting strong investor conviction in Primer as the unified infrastructure to make merchant payments fully AI-enabled. Funds will be used to accelerate Primer's investment in AI for payments and finance teams and to drive its expansion in the US, where it plans to grow revenue to more than a third of total revenue by 2028. NEW YORK & SINGAPORE, May 20, 2026--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Primer today announces a $100 million Series C funding round, as it continues to build the AI-enabled operating layer for global payments and finance. The round is led by Sofina, with participation from Peak XV Partners, and continued backing from all existing investors, including Balderton, Accel, ICONIQ, Tencent, and Speedinvest. You can't build intelligent payments on fragmented data: AI is only as good as the data it runs on. In payments, that data is rarely complete. Many organisations run payments across fragmented processors, acquirers, and fraud tools, with no single system providing a complete view. As payments and finance teams turn to AI to move faster and make decisions, that fragmentation becomes a critical vulnerability, risking it to make incorrect decisions at scale. Primer was founded in 2020 on the premise that payments needed a single, unified infrastructure layer before they could benefit from the intelligence built on top. Today, the platform sits across a merchant’s entire payments lifecycle, from checkout to payout, capturing over 400 data points per transaction and managing more than 9...
Before music, these women had worked as nurses, foster carers and ice-cream van drivers. Now, they’re booked solid at clubs and festivals. How did they become the real-life Riot Women? When Sally Wainwright’s series Riot Women burst on to screens last autumn, the overwhelming critical acclaim was punctured by a few questions about authenticity. “There is a fascinating TV series to be made about a ...
Before music, these women had worked as nurses, foster carers and ice-cream van drivers. Now, they’re booked solid at clubs and festivals. How did they become the real-life Riot Women? When Sally Wainwright’s series Riot Women burst on to screens last autumn, the overwhelming critical acclaim was punctured by a few questions about authenticity. “There is a fascinating TV series to be made about a menopausal rock band – Riot Women isn’t it,” opined Tiff Bakker in the Guardian , denigrating the fictional group as a “bunch of middle-aged punk rockers who, until now, seem to have heard of only Abba”. If Wainwright needs inspiration for the second series, she could do worse than head to south Wales to meet the real life version of the Riot Women. The NaNaz are a six-piece punk band formed last year by a group of women in their 50s and 60s. Their repertoire of songs tackles everything from unaffordable care home fees, to male attitudes towards older women, to the frustrations of recycling. And they are possibly the only band to have ever been featured on both the homepage of guitar.com and a poster campaign for Age Cymru. Continue reading...
Leaves from Dolly Parton’s front garden, a Yellow Submarine cookie jar full of ashes, a branch from the tree Marc Bolan’s car hit … our writer explores Holy Pop, the exhibition where superfans are sacred Alice Hawkins has a unique way of dealing with the unwanted attentions of Jehovah’s Witnesses seeking out converts door to door. “They come around here every Thursday,” says the photographer. “So ...
Leaves from Dolly Parton’s front garden, a Yellow Submarine cookie jar full of ashes, a branch from the tree Marc Bolan’s car hit … our writer explores Holy Pop, the exhibition where superfans are sacred Alice Hawkins has a unique way of dealing with the unwanted attentions of Jehovah’s Witnesses seeking out converts door to door. “They come around here every Thursday,” says the photographer. “So I get my Dolly Parton book out and explain to them that Dolly is where I find my belonging, Dolly is where I find my belief.” One presumes that does the trick, but it’s worth noting that Hawkins isn’t joking. Parton was always her favourite singer, but her obsession flowered in the wake of a friend’s suicide, which left Hawkins “a mess”. In an attempt to cheer her up, her husband suggested visiting Dollywood, the singer’s 150-acre theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. “I just felt like I’d found some kind of spiritual home, like my mecca,” says the photographer. “I found some solace. When we drove home, I said to my husband, ‘I’m going to go back there and start making work. I’m going to do a project.’ It just made me feel really alive.” Continue reading...
Apocalyptic forecasts are a national sport. But while polls point to a National Rally president in 2027, it’s still all to play for One reassuring thing about France is its consistency down the years: trains still run mostly on time, coffee in the land of cafes remains undrinkable, and, whatever the season, the intellectual class continues to supply elegant variations on the same theme: France is ...
Apocalyptic forecasts are a national sport. But while polls point to a National Rally president in 2027, it’s still all to play for One reassuring thing about France is its consistency down the years: trains still run mostly on time, coffee in the land of cafes remains undrinkable, and, whatever the season, the intellectual class continues to supply elegant variations on the same theme: France is always about to collapse. The present mood feels familiar – and fatalism, of course, is a habit in France. At a recent dinner among friends in Paris I was treated to a typically balanced menu: great food and mood, paired with apocalyptic forecasts. After nine years of Emmanuel Macron’s right-leaning rule France stands at the abyss, one guy said, as he cut the head off an asparagus. The country hovers somewhere between civil war and financial bankruptcy, another added, cooling her forehead with a glass of cold white wine. Joseph de Weck is a fellow with the Foreign Policy Research Institute Continue reading...
En una mañana de jueves de octubre, a pocos pasos del Parque del Oeste de Madrid, miembros de órdenes católicas de toda España se reunieron en un salón del Instituto Teológico de Vida Religiosa. Algunos estaban vestidos con hábitos, otros llevaban alzacuellos o ropa laica con cruces colgadas al cuello. Junto a ellos había asesores financieros y banqueros. La ocasión era una jornada de estudios org...
En una mañana de jueves de octubre, a pocos pasos del Parque del Oeste de Madrid, miembros de órdenes católicas de toda España se reunieron en un salón del Instituto Teológico de Vida Religiosa. Algunos estaban vestidos con hábitos, otros llevaban alzacuellos o ropa laica con cruces colgadas al cuello. Junto a ellos había asesores financieros y banqueros. La ocasión era una jornada de estudios organizada por una entidad religiosa nacional y la gestora de activos Ibergestion. Durante la mañana, monjas, monjes y analistas cuantitativos debatieron sobre las consecuencias de Trump 2.0, el auge de la inteligencia artificial, el futuro de la democracia y los límites éticos del progreso tecnológico. No son temas habituales en los claustros, pero influyen en la gestión del dinero de las órdenes religiosas. El evento mostró cómo las órdenes católicas en España profesionalizan su enfoque financiero ante la caída en el número de feligreses en Europa. Aunque muchas de las cerca de 70 diócesis y cientos de congregaciones poseen inmuebles valorados en millones de euros en grandes ciudades, tradicionalmente no han buscado rentabilizarlos. Han dependido de donaciones y de una ley que permite destinar el 0,7% del impuesto sobre la renta a la Iglesia. Ahora, con menos donaciones y vocaciones, comunidades envejecidas y mayores costos de mantenimiento, los tesoreros de las entidades católicas han tenido que ser más estratégicos para rentabilizar activos. En paralelo, ha surgido una industria de fondos y asesores alineados con la fe. En gestión financiera, las organizaciones religiosas han tenido que ponerse al día. Guillermo Vanrell es responsable de finanzas y administración en una diócesis de tamaño medio en el este del país. Recuerda lo sorprendido que se sintió hace 12 años cuando, en su primer día, en su oficina se encontró con una máquina de escribir. “No había visto una máquina de escribir Olivetti desde que era niño”, dijo Vanrell con una sonrisa, señalando que se utilizaba par...
On a Thursday morning in October, a short walk from Madrid’s Parque del Oeste, members of Catholic orders all across Spain gathered in the assembly hall of the Theological Institute of Religious Life. Some were dressed in habits, others wore clerical collars or lay attire with crosses hanging from their necks. Joining them were financial advisors and bankers. The occasion was a day-long seminar ho...
On a Thursday morning in October, a short walk from Madrid’s Parque del Oeste, members of Catholic orders all across Spain gathered in the assembly hall of the Theological Institute of Religious Life. Some were dressed in habits, others wore clerical collars or lay attire with crosses hanging from their necks. Joining them were financial advisors and bankers. The occasion was a day-long seminar hosted by a national religious organization and the Spain-based asset manager Ibergestion. Over the course of the morning, nuns and monks and quants discussed the geopolitical and economic consequences of Trump 2.0, the rise of artificial intelligence, the future of democracy, and the ethical boundaries of technological progress. These aren’t topics often raised in the cloisters, but they do shape how religious orders manage their money. The event offered a glimpse into how Spain’s Catholic orders are professionalizing their approach to finances as the number of worshippers dwindles in Europe. While many of the country’s roughly 70 dioceses and hundreds of congregations hold multi-million-dollar real estate in major cities, they’ve typically not looked to those portfolios for profit, instead relying on voluntary donations and a law that allows taxpayers to direct 0.7% of their income tax to the Church. Now, with donations and vocations declining, religious communities aging, and real estate becoming more expensive to maintain, Catholic bursars have had to get savvy about sweating their assets, and a cottage industry of faith-aligned investment funds and advisors has cropped up to help them. When it comes to financial management, religious organizations have had a lot of catching up to do. Guillermo Vanrell is head of finance and administration at a medium-sized diocese in the east of the country. He recalls how taken aback he was 12 years ago when, on his first day, he walked into his office and encountered a typewriter. “I hadn’t seen an Olivetti typewriter since I was a kid...
Chinese researchers claim to be outpacing international competitors in the development of stem cell therapies for Parkinson’s disease, citing higher efficiency and a faster clinical trial timeline. Parkinson’s is often described as a movement disorder. Its symptoms are caused by the brain’s failure to produce sufficient dopamine, because of the death or dysfunction of the specialised neurons respo...
Chinese researchers claim to be outpacing international competitors in the development of stem cell therapies for Parkinson’s disease, citing higher efficiency and a faster clinical trial timeline. Parkinson’s is often described as a movement disorder. Its symptoms are caused by the brain’s failure to produce sufficient dopamine, because of the death or dysfunction of the specialised neurons responsible for generating the chemical. In the search for a cure, researchers around the world are exploring stem cell therapies aimed at replenishing lost dopaminergic neurons – a field in which one Chinese company is claiming to be taking the lead. Advertisement Nuwacell Biotechnologies was founded a decade ago in Hefei, Anhui province, by stem cell biologists Yu Junying and Zhang Ying upon their return to China from leading US institutions. Speaking to the South China Morning Post after an academic exchange conference in Beijing, Yu – the company’s chief scientist – said Nuwacell’s therapy was showing “significantly higher efficiency” than rival international teams from the US and Japan. Research teams around the world are racing to develop cutting-edge treatments for Parkinson’s disease, with leading contenders mainly based in Japan, the United States and China. Photo: Shutterstock “Our cells, once introduced into the body, convert into dopaminergic neurons at a rate of 80 to 90 per cent, whereas published data from other teams are below 25 per cent,” she said.
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Europe’s surge in defense spending is starting to spill over to the real estate sector, luring investors with expectations that a trickle of funding for development, manufacturing and storage space will soon become a wave. In recent months, Sirius Real Estate Ltd. spent nearly €100 million ($117 million) to buy a German business park in Kiel that’s home to tank-maker Rheinmetall AG , an Airbus SE ...
Europe’s surge in defense spending is starting to spill over to the real estate sector, luring investors with expectations that a trickle of funding for development, manufacturing and storage space will soon become a wave. In recent months, Sirius Real Estate Ltd. spent nearly €100 million ($117 million) to buy a German business park in Kiel that’s home to tank-maker Rheinmetall AG , an Airbus SE supplier has leased space near Hanover and the British Ministry of Defence is taking space near the town of Swindon. Elsewhere, landlords say that they are seeing an increase in leasing requests from defense companies, including those involved in newer technology like drones. “What we’re really seeing is technology, manufacturing and logistics capacity all being required at the same time. That has to be underpinned by real estate,” said Angus Fay, a retired British major general who is a strategic adviser to Sirius. The landlord intends to invest about €1 billion in defense-related property over the next 18 months. Defense spending in the European Union has surged by more than 50% since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Concerns about the US withdrawing troops and security protection for the region under President Donald Trump has further boosted government outlays for military equipment. That’s filled order books and created pressure on contractors to expand. In the UK, the defense manufacturers and their supply chains made up 8.5% of leasing deals last year, more than triple the 2.3% share from a decade ago, according to data compiled by Savills Plc and CoStar Group Inc . More is expected once the government publishes its Defence Investment Plan, which is due this summer. Similar activity is happening in other countries, especially Germany and Poland, and existing defense landlords are already seeing an increase in interest as companies expand or relocate. Shortly after completing the deal for the business park in Kiel, Sirius was in talks at a “senior level” about...