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  • Pakistan’s Hassan Ali wins Asian Youth Games wrestling bronze

    Pakistan’s Hassan Ali wins Asian Youth Games wrestling bronze

    Pakistani wrestler Hassan Ali on the Asian Youth Games podium with his bronze medal. PHOTO: Pakistan Olympic Association

    Pakistan’s Hassan Ali grabbed…

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  • Meta to raise $25bn from bond sale amid soaring AI costs

    Meta to raise $25bn from bond sale amid soaring AI costs

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    Meta is planning to raise $25bn from a bond sale to help it pay for soaring artificial intelligence costs, even as the Big Tech group’s share price fell amid concerns that its spending is too high.

    The social media group has hired Citigroup and Morgan Stanley to raise up to $25bn in debt, ranging from five to 40 years in maturity, in what would be one of the biggest bond sales of the year, according to two people close to the matter.

    It comes a day after chief executive Mark Zuckerberg warned that the US tech group would spend even more aggressively as part of an arms race to build the data centres and infrastructure powering the AI boom.

    Meta’s shares fell 12 per cent after Wall Street’s opening bell on Thursday — wiping out about almost $240bn from its valuation — as investors fretted over the tech group’s huge outlay.

    The sale underscores how technology giants are increasingly turning to the debt markets as they spend record sums to build AI infrastructure.

    Meta raised $27bn of private debt from credit providers, including Pimco and Apollo, in recent months to fund construction of its huge “Hyperion” data centre in Louisiana. Oracle sold $18bn of bonds in September.

    Large tech companies are projected to invest $400bn on AI infrastructure this year, including buying computer chips and building data centres. On Wednesday, Meta, Microsoft and Google’s parent Alphabet all disclosed larger than expected spending plans in the current quarter.

    The social media company said capex could hit $72bn by the end of the year and that spending growth would be “notably larger” in 2026, implying a number far in excess of an earlier forecast for $105bn.

    Zuckerberg defended huge spending on infrastructure for Meta’s own use. He told analysts on Wednesday that it was “the right strategy to aggressively frontload building capacity” as part of the tech group’s bid to be the first to build artificial superintelligence. 

    At a recent dinner with US President Donald Trump, Zuckerberg said the company planned to spend $600bn on US data centres and AI infrastructure through 2028.

    Meta, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley declined to comment. The bond sale was first reported by Bloomberg.

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  • Advances in diagnosis and management of systemic light chain amyloidosis

    Advances in diagnosis and management of systemic light chain amyloidosis

    Systemic light chain (AL) amyloidosis is a rare and life-threatening disorder characterized by the deposition of misfolded immunoglobulin light chains as insoluble amyloid fibrils in various tissues and organs, leading to…

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  • U.S.-China Truce Brings Little Peace for Businesses Caught in Superpower Standoff – The Wall Street Journal

    1. U.S.-China Truce Brings Little Peace for Businesses Caught in Superpower Standoff  The Wall Street Journal
    2. Xi and Trump find temporary truce as China plays longer game  BBC
    3. Trump and Xi reach trade deal, easing tensions in fierce US-China rivalry  

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  • New Mechanism Enables Precision Biased GPCR Therapies

    New Mechanism Enables Precision Biased GPCR Therapies

    About one-third of all drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration target the largest family of cell membrane receptors called G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs).

    GPCRs are indispensable for maintaining human health as they play a…

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  • Just a moment…

    Just a moment…

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  • New chemotherapeutic agent shows remarkable efficacy against multiple tumor types

    New chemotherapeutic agent shows remarkable efficacy against multiple tumor types

    A research team led by the Medical University of Vienna, the HUN-REN Research Centre for Natural Sciences and the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest has developed a groundbreaking new chemotherapeutic agent, LiPyDau, which…

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  • Seth Meyers on Trump’s South Korea visit: ‘Getting the royal treatment he so desperately craves’ | Late-night TV roundup

    Seth Meyers on Trump’s South Korea visit: ‘Getting the royal treatment he so desperately craves’ | Late-night TV roundup

    Late-night hosts recapped Donald Trump’s lavish visit to South Korea, where he received a ceremonial golden crown.

    Seth Meyers

    Trump continued his tour of Asia on Wednesday, where he’s been “getting the royal treatment he so desperately…

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  • Apple (AAPL) earnings report Q4 2025

    Apple (AAPL) earnings report Q4 2025

    FILE PHOTO: Formula One F1 – United States Grand Prix – Circuit of the Americas, Austin, Texas, U.S. – October 23, 2022 Tim Cook waves the chequered flag to the race winner Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

    Mike Segar | Reuters

    Apple reports fiscal fourth quarter earnings on Thursday after the bell.

    The fourth quarter, which runs through the end of September, is the first quarter that includes a little more than a week of sales of the new iPhone 17 models.

    Analysts have said that early signs are pointing to improved demand for the iPhone 17 models, especially the entry-level and Pro models. Investors will be looking for any color from CEO Tim Cook and CFO Kevan Parekh on the demand they’re seeing for the new devices.

    Analysts polled by FactSet expect Apple’s fiscal 2025 to be the first year of iPhone sales growth since 2022.

    Apple has also been negatively affected by Trump administration tariffs, although the company has gotten praise from President Donald Trump over its plan to spend $600 billion in the U.S. and boost American semiconductor manufacturing. Apple also announced last week that it was shipping artificial intelligence servers from a factory in Houston.

    In July, Apple said it could incur $1.1 billion in tariff costs. Investors will be watching to see if its actual costs came in under its forecast, as well as what tariff costs it sees in the current quarter.

    Some investors want to see Apple step up its level of capital expenditure and AI spending. Apple has largely sat out the data center and AI chip investment boom that other large tech companies are spending tens of billions on.

    Last quarter, Cook said that it was “significantly” growing its investments in the technology. That will likely show up in the company’s capital expenditures, but commentary from Cook may provide insight into the company’s AI strategy.

    Cook will also likely praise the company’s five-year deal with F1 to broadcast its races in the U.S. on Apple TV, the latest development in the company’s sports and media strategy.

    Expectations remain high for Cook and Apple. In the June quarter, Apple reported 10% year-over-year revenue growth. For the September quarter, analysts polled by LSEG are expecting 7.7% sales growth.

    Here’s what Wall Street is expecting, per LSEG estimates:

    • EPS: $1.77
    • Revenue: $102.24 billion

    Analysts polled by LSEG expect Apple to guide to $132.31 billion in December quarter sales, and earnings of $2.53 per share.

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  • Amazon (AMZN) Q3 earnings report 2025

    Amazon (AMZN) Q3 earnings report 2025

    Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, speaks during an unveiling event in New York on Feb. 26, 2025.

    Michael Nagle | Bloomberg | Getty Images

    Amazon is slated to post results for the third quarter after the closing bell Thursday.

    Here’s what analysts polled by LSEG are looking for:

    • Earnings per share: $1.57
    • Revenue: $177.8 billion

    Wall Street is also looking at other key revenue numbers:

    • Amazon Web Services: $32.42 billion expected
    • Advertising: $17.34 billion expected

    AWS growth will be a major focus for investors once again, as the company faces intensifying pressure from cloud competitors Google and Microsoft, which also reported quarterly results this week.

    Revenue at AWS is projected to expand 18.1% year over year, which is about the same growth rate as the second quarter. Google’s cloud revenue accelerated 34% during the third quarter, while Microsoft Azure recorded growth of 40%.

    AWS stumbled last week during an extended outage that lasted more than 15 hours, taking down numerous websites as a result. Microsoft experienced outages in its Azure cloud and 365 services on Wednesday, hours before its scheduled earnings release.

    The Amazon unit is also battling the perception that it’s missing out on a flurry of highly lucrative artificial intelligence deals for cloud services.

    Anthropic and Google deepened their cloud partnership last week in a deal worth tens of billions of dollars, while Meta has inked hefty cloud deals with Google and Oracle in recent months.

    Amazon on Wednesday opened its $11 billion AI data center called Project Rainier, which was first announced last December and is intended to train and run models from Claude chatbot creator Anthropic.

    Amazon, which has invested $8 billion in Anthropic, said the startup will use 1 million of its custom Trainium2 chips by the end of 2025.

    During last quarter’s earnings conference call, investors grilled Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on AWS growth and AI competition.

    Jassy reiterated AWS has a “pretty significant” leadership position in cloud market share, while noting that it’s still “early” days in the AI industry that remains “very top heavy” with a “small number of very large frontier models.”

    Amazon’s core retail business will also be top of mind for investors as the company gears up for the start of the holiday shopping period. Amazon said earlier this month it planned to hire 250,000 workers to staff up for peak season, the same number as the last two years.

    Adobe Analytics recently projected that online holiday spending in the U.S. will jump 5.3% year over year to $253.4 billion, which is slower than last year, when online sales grew 8.7% over the same period.

    During the third quarter, Amazon held its annual Prime Day deals event. Online spending reached $24.1 billion in the U.S. across the four-day stretch in July, according to Adobe, exceeding its estimates and representing growth of 30.3% year over year.

    Jassy told investors last quarter that President Donald Trump’s shifting tariff policies haven’t dented demand or driven up prices so far this year.

    Amazon’s third-quarter sales are expected to increase 11.9% year over year, compared with growth of 13% in the second quarter.

    For the fourth quarter, analysts surveyed by LSEG are projecting sales to reach $208.1 billion, representing growth of 10.8% from a year earlier.

    Amazon on Tuesday initiated massive layoffs, cutting about 14,000 roles across nearly every area of the company. Executives hinted that more cuts may be on the way in the new year as the company looks to get leaner, reduce bureaucracy and invest further in AI.

    Once the job reductions are complete, they’re expected to be the largest corporate cuts in Amazon’s history, CNBC previously reported. Amazon laid off more than 27,000 employees between 2022 and 2023.

    Shares of Amazon have increased 4.9% so far this year, while the Nasdaq is up approximately 24% over the same stretch.

    Stock Chart IconStock chart icon

    Amazon year-to-date stock chart.

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