Shares of WK Kellogg, the cereal maker behind Froot Loops and Frosted Flakes, skyrocketed as high as 50% after the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that Ferrero was nearing acquiring the company for $3 billion.
The Wall Street Journal reported the deal, in which the Nutella and Ferrero Rocher maker would acquire WK Kellogg for $3 billion, could be finalized as early as this week.
Ferrero, which began as a family business in Italy in the 1940s, has been foraying across the pond into North America. In 2022, it acquired Wells Enterprises, the US-based ice cream company that owned Blue Bunny and and Blue Ribbon popsicles, and had also bought Nestle’s US chocolate business. The addition of WK Kellogg, which has a market cap of roughly $1.5 billion and a portfolio of household cereal names from Raisin Bran to Corn Flakes to Apple Jacks, could be its most substantial acquisition yet.
In its latest financial year, Ferrero reported a revenue of 18.4 billion euros. WK Kellogg and Ferrero Rocher did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In 2022, Kellogg announced it was spinning off its cereal business, a major shakeup for the more-than-century-old company. Its snack unit was renamed Kellanova. The company said at the time that spinning off the companies will “better position each business to unlock its full potential,” especially as the company has grown with acquisitions in recent years
Last year, Mars bought Kellanova in a deal worth $35.9 billion.
The sale of WK Kellogg to Ferrero would be another upheaval in a volatile time for the snack industry, as consumer change preferences and pull back spending amid higher prices. WK Kellogg’s CEO Gary Pilnick came under fire last year for encouraging customers to eat cereal for dinner as shoppers grappled with skyrocketing food prices.
On June 23 the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, located in Cerro Pachón, Chile, presented its inaugural data release of images that will drive a new generation of astrophysics research. It features first-of-its-kind technology, and the largest digital camera ever manufactured.
The observatory’s 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope can capture the largest field of view of any telescope currently in operation, covering the entirety of the night sky over the course of a few nights. It creates composite images approximately 70 times larger than the apparent size of the full moon. These images are 3,200-megapixel in resolution—more than 65x times more detailed than the latest iPhone.
Virgo Cluster Credit: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory
For the U’s own astrophysics researchers, there is palpable excitement as they plan on utilizing the Rubin data for new research projects.
“We’ve all been preparing for this day, and it’s finally here! There’s already some cool science being done with just the First Look images; imagine what we can do with the full data set!” said Yao-Yuan Mao, assistant professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy.
Mao has been involved with the Rubin research community for more than a decade, most actively in the Dark Energy Science Collaboration. The operation of the Rubin Observatory represents the culmination of years of design and planning.
“I am particularly excited about how Rubin data will enable us to find some of the smallest galaxies in our neighborhood, helping us understand how galaxies form and grow throughout the cosmic time and even reveal the nature of dark matter,” added Mao.
In addition to the ability to capture gigantic still pictures, the Rubin Observatory can also record the movements in the cosmos. The Observatory had been designed from its inception to detect up to 90% of near-Earth asteroids, advance the study of how our solar system formed, and observe phenomena such as supernovae or tidal disruption events with greater ability.
Rubin Observatory Credit: H.Stockebrand
“I’m really excited for Rubin and have been looking forward to it for many years. For me, the most exciting part of Rubin will be its ability to detect tidal disruption events, which happen when a star comes too close to a massive black hole and is torn apart by the black hole’s gravity,” said Anil Seth, professor of physics and astronomy. “We have previously detected about a hundred of these events, but Rubin is predicted to detect more than 10 new tidal disruption events each night. My PhD student Christian Hannah has been working on predicting how we can use these events to understand for the first time whether small galaxies still all have massive black holes at their centers. These observations will help us understand the currently not understood formation mechanisms of the massive black holes we find at the centers of galaxies.”
The observatory honors the legacy of Vera C. Rubin, whose pioneering research on galaxy rotation produced the first accepted evidence of dark matter’s existence. All-in-all, this marks the beginning of a new and exciting era of astrophysics research. The Rubin Observatory is planned to operate for at least ten years for its Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), producing hundreds of images and data for researchers and the general public.
The Rubin Observatory project was jointly funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science.
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Lisa Potter Research communications specialist, University of Utah Communications 949-533-7899 lisa.potter@utah.edu
It turns out colour isn’t just fashionable for guppies: According to a new UBC study, the more orange a male, the more virile it is.
The research published in Nature Ecology & Evolution shines light on an enduring evolutionary mystery: why male guppies have such vibrant and varied colours and patterns.
Virile me up
Zoologists Drs. Wouter van der Bijl and Judith Mank used deep learning, genetic studies and bred three generations of increasingly orange guppies to investigate. They found the more colourful males were up to two times more sexually active, performing for females at a greater rate and for longer periods of time, and attempting to sneakily copulate more often.
Orange you glad to see me, baby?
It’s known that female guppies prefer orange, and unusual, patterns in their male partners, but the team found that the colour diversity of guppies comes from the same cells that are responsible for forming the brain, suggesting a genetic link between how guppies look and how they behave.
“Previously, people thought perhaps males realized that if they were more orange, they were more sexy. With the genetic link, it may be that they’re healthier and fitter,” said Dr. Mank.
Let’s recombine sometime
The researchers found the guppy colour genes, and the locations they appeared in, were tied to multiple chromosomes, creating a vast architecture of genetic possibilities. Seven orange and eight black colour types were identified overall, allowing for a potential 32,768 unique pattern combinations.
“Genetic variation is the raw material that evolution uses to produce resilient, adapted animals and plants, including for things like climate change or disease,” said van der Bijl. “We often look at extreme examples to understand where genetic variation comes from and how it’s maintained.”
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What – and I ask myself this question with increasing frequency and seriousness – are we going to do about people? What, more specifically, are we going to do about the number of irredeemably wicked ones and the amount of suffering they bring into the world?
If you can get through the two-part documentary Poisoned: Killer in the Post without sliding down on to the floor in despair as these questions thunder through your mind – well, you’re a better viewer than I.
Poisoned is a meticulous chronicle of the equally meticulous investigation conducted by Times journalist James Beal into the identity of the online supplier of lethal chemicals to people who had congregated on a forum where they shared their suicidal thoughts, discussed methods and, often, plans for taking their own lives.
Beal was alerted to the potential story by David Parfett in 2022. A year before, Parfett had lost his 22-year-old son, Tom, to suicide. “It’s just a different world after that.” Parfett had found the forum that Tom had posted on, posed as a new user, and soon found himself directed to a website that, hidden in plain sight among a variety of other goods either permanently sold out or astronomically priced (salt for $9,999 and so on), sold the poison to anyone who ordered it, with no registration requirements and no checks. Tom continued to post on the forum for a short while after he had taken the poison, about his racing heart, then creeping numbness. “That’s my son dying,” says David.
Louise Nunn lost her daughter Immy in the same terrible way after years of supporting her through mental health crises that had led to her being sectioned. She took the poison a few hours after her latest release, about which her parents had not been informed; Dawn her stepson Adam – “He was so loved”; in Arizona, Malyn lost her brother, and Lynn her son, Miles. Like Parfett, they all tried to track down the responsible parties and interest the police in their findings and their growing certainty that one man was behind the distribution of potentially thousands of packages and deaths.
Beal synthesises what they have learned with his own discoveries and finds the man behind the website. Pretending to be a customer with concerns about the efficacy of the product, we hear his extraordinary conversation with a Canadian chef called Kenneth Law, who cheerfully confirms for him that people “in the UK, US and Canada” and other countries have died from his supplies. “At least a dozen … I’ve been kept busy, yeah!”
Louise Nunn, who lost her daughter Immy after she took the poison she bought online. Photograph: Wonderhood
On we go, covering Beal’s exposé after further investigations, which leads to Law being charged with 14 counts of first degree murder and 14 of counselling or aiding suicide in relation to Canadian deaths. Investigations into multiple deaths linked to him in other countries are ongoing, and the National Crime Agency is considering the possibility of extraditing him.
Law has not been found guilty, and did not respond to the allegations made in the series. The documentary does not, I think refreshingly, dwell too long on Law’s possible motivations. Sociopathy? Psychopathy? Badness? Some unholy combination of the above? Would it help us to know? Can we protect ourselves against any of them? The more you hear, and the more technology facilitates the spread of the worst of humanity, the more unlikely it seems.
Beneath the giant shadow cast by Law, however, are others. There are the failures of the police to link the deaths of people found with the same poison in their possession or who had been posting on the same forum. There seems to have been a readiness across forces to tick the box marked “suicide”, close the case and feel no wider sense of responsibility to prevent further harm. There is the lag between old laws (in the UK, around the sale of poisons, the requirements to report, what constitutes assisting suicide, and international compatibilities) and new technology. There is the widespread and ongoing failure of all sorts of authorities and corporate megaliths to monitor even the vilest, most dangerous tracts of the internet.
Whatever happens, of course, it will not bring any of the beloved lost sons and daughters back to their stricken parents. It will not restore her brother to Malyn, or any of the untold number of victims whose deaths may ultimately be laid at Law’s door. What a terrible, terrible world.
Poisoned: Killer in the Post is on Channel 4 now.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
[This story contains mild spoilers from the first two episodes of Ballard.]
Sometimes when you’re not looking for something, forces of nature beckon you to the opportunity you didn’t know you needed. That’s what happened to Maggie Q with Ballard.
In the Bosch spinoff, which released all of its 10-episode first season on Wednesday, Q plays Detective Renée Ballard in the next phase of the Prime Video universe. She says she believes that fate was at work when she got sent the scripts to play the Ballard lead, who was introduced in the finale of the first Bosch spinoff that recently concluded, Bosch: Legacy with star Titus Welliver.
“I was on a flight to New Zealand and was sent the first six or seven scripts,” Q explains to The Hollywood Reporter. “I said to my agents, ‘I will let you know when I land what I think.’ It was a 14-hour flight and sadly, most things you read, you don’t like — if you’re discerning. So with no expectation, I dove in on the plane and I remember immediately going, ‘I really like this. It’s a page turner.’”
Q says she had her hesitations, but they weren’t related to the material. “I honestly was not looking to lead a show again. It was not on my list — I was not looking for this. So it makes it even more special that it did find me, especially because it wasn’t something I was looking to do,” she says. “I totally understand what they’re trying to do with her and why her journey would matter to people; why they might want to follow this woman was very clear. And that doesn’t happen very often.”
When audiences first meet Ballard in the three-episode premiere, the detective is running full speed through Los Angeles — pump-action shotgun in hand — to chase down a criminal who has eluded LAPD’s finest. Viewers may be struck by Q’s physical capabilities, as this character is no shrinking violet. Ballard puts herself in dangerous situations to go toe-to-toe with some of the city’s most violent criminals in order to seek justice for cold case victims who can’t advocate for themselves. But Q has several martial arts films under her belt (she was trained by Jackie Chan), as well as action-espionage TV series such as Nikita,Designated Survivor and Stalker.
“It is a different kind of physical demand,” however, Q explains. “The physical demand of a cop is different than if you are doing a Marvel movie. There are no wires, no acrobatics. It is grounded action, but very exhausting action. The reality of the fast-paced lifestyle in this profession is that it can be very exhilarating. I think the action is placed well [in the show], it’s grounded and not gratuitous.”
Some of that action translates into chase sequences, whether on wheels or on foot. But it all moves the story forward, she says. “There’s something very exhilarating about justice when it’s about to be served, and how does that happen?” says Q. “Especially for Ballard as a woman. She is incredibly physical, and I am sure that is part of what she had to prove, being in a department of predominantly men. Not only showing the goods and proving that she is good at what she does, but I am sure she worked very hard on the physicality so she’s not left behind.”
Maggie Q as Renée Ballard with Titus Welliver as Bosch in Ballard.
Tyler Golden/Prime Video
So though the appeal had dulled initially for Q when it came to leading another show, the lure was too strong for her to resist embodying thecharacter from the novel pages written by best-selling author Michael Connelly. And the creator of the Bosch/Ballard couldn’t agree more.
“We talked to a few people when we started out,” author and executive producer Connelly tells THR. “Amazon was very involved in the casting and, I don’t remember the exact details, but more or less we were told, ‘Hey, Maggie Q is looking for a project. Do you think she’s right for this and do you want to meet her?’ And that’s really all it took — because it’s Maggie Q. Then we met with her and — I don’t often say this, and you probably talked about this with Titus — but you kind of know it in the room when you’re with the right person. And that’s what happened this time.”
He continues, “There’s a certain fierceness that Maggie has about her career and what she wanted to do next, and I quickly within minutes thought that fierceness that she’s showing about her own life is the fierceness that Ballard has. It could be a perfect match. It’s very esoteric to say it that way. Obviously, she is at a level where she did not audition. But it was like her personality could be taken and transferred to Ballard. I wasn’t in the room alone; it was a whole gang of people who were involved in developing this who all came to that conclusion right away.”
In the premiere, viewers find Ballard with a team of four (half are civilians) working in the basement of police headquarters, which has been transformed into an office for cold cases. This task force was pushed to be created after a city councilman lost his younger sister in a violent unsolved crime. He wants Ballard and her team to concentrate on the death of his loved one, but Ballard sees the city official’s daughter’s murder as just one of several that needs to be solved and moved out of the cold case files.
But there is a deeper reason for why Ballard is relegated to the basement of the department. It’s not completely clear yet, but Ballard is being ostracized by many of her colleagues for filing a complaint in the department for an accident that happened awhile back. She is even being made by the top brass to visit an LAPD-sanctioned psychologist. Whatever happened to her weighs heavily on the character.
“In the beginning of Ballard, she has lodged a complaint with the LAPD. Because of that, she has become enemy No. 1,” Q explains. “You don’t go against your own department. That put a target on her back, because seeking the truth and wanting it to come out is very detrimental to her career. That is what the first season is about. Detective Ballard doesn’t have as many years under her belt as Bosch does, so she is still in the stages of proving herself.”
In deciding why Ballard would be the next character to be explored out of the Bosch universe, Connelly says the decision wasn’t anything complex.
“I just thought that she could be a TV show,” Connelly explains. “I have a few characters out there; so, it’s not like I always get to do the choosing. Sometimes it’s when they come knocking on your door. [Head of TV] Vernon Sanders over at Amazon Prime is very interested in Ballard as the next extension of the Bosch universe. I couldn’t complain about that, it’s a character that I’ve written a lot about in the last decade and is close to my heart. I also knew what would help make a TV show, as Ballard is based on a real-life detective. So we could have that detective in the room and on the set when we filmed.”
And what about Bosch?
Welliver’s beloved character popped up in episode two of Ballard, but Connelly says that, unfortunately for the fans missing their favorite TV cop, there will not be a lot of Bosch sightings during the season.
“He may be in four episodes,” Connelly says. “The good thing is there won’t be any walk-ons. It’s not a cameo. He’ll only be on if he is actually helping to solve a case.”
Q recognizes that the special — yet distant — bond between Bosch and Ballard will develop over time.
“Bosch was interesting, but he was a take-no-prisoners sort of rule breaker,” Q says. “He was that guy who always stepped and colored outside of the lines. And with Ballard, she certainly has the same spirit, and that’s why she and Bosch connected at times; but Ballard says to Bosch at the end of the series finale, ‘I like you; I respect you. And you are good at what you do. But at the end of the day, you don’t have to worry about consequences. I do. I have people to answer to.’
“And so Ballard just had to learn how to play the game a bit smarter, because her way of survival is not as good as his,” she says.
***
All 10 episodes of the first season of Ballard are now streaming on Prime Video.
Water ice is everywhere in space, from frozen moons to frosty dust grains in interstellar clouds. However, researchers at University College London (UCL) and the University of Cambridge have recently discovered that ice in space isn’t like what we thought it was.
On Earth, the relatively warm temperatures in which ice exists gives the water molecules enough energy to form an ordered, crystalline structure akin to the symmetry of snowflakes. However, in space, temperatures plunge much lower, down to –148 or –328 degrees Fahrenheit (–100 or –200 Celsius) and colder, and it wasn’t thought that water-ice could crystallize under such conditions. Instead, water ice in space was thought to be purely amorphous; in other words, no crystallization and no ordered structure between molecules.
When plumes of water vapor from Saturn’s moon Enceladus spew into space, that water vapor freezes and snows back onto the icy moon’s surface, but those snowflakes would, according to previous theories, not have the intricate structure of snowflakes on Earth. But now, new research suggests that it could, at least to a degree. Matching computer simulations of how amorphous ice freezes to X-ray diffraction measurements of real amorphous ice suggest that in some cases, up to a quarter of amorphous ice can be made up of crystals.
“We now have a good idea of what the most common form of ice in the universe looks like at an atomic level,” said Michael B. Davis of UCL and Cambridge, in a statement. “This is important as ice is involved in many cosmological processes, for instance in how planets form, how galaxies evolve, and how matters moves around the universe.”
Low-density amorphous ice was discovered in the 1930s by condensing water vapor onto a metal plate cooled to –166 degrees Fahrenheit (–110 degrees Celsius). High-density amorphous ice was found to be possible in the 1980s when researchers crushed amorphous ice at –328 degrees Fahrenheit (–200 degrees Celsius). And in 2023, Davis’ team learned how to create medium-density amorphous ice for the first time. This medium-density amorphous ice has the peculiar property of having the same density as liquid water, so it neither floats nor sinks.
Low-density amorphous ice is most common in the universe, though, and that’s what Davis’ team used to conduct their experiments.
First, they ran two different simulations. One created virtual ice cubes by cooling water to –120 degrees Celsius (–184 degrees Fahrenheit), but at varied rates so that they froze differently. The other simulation started with large cubes of ice molecules packed together with equal spacing, and then randomly disordered those molecules.
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The first simulation produced ice that was not purely amorphous, but was up to 20% crystalline, with the ice crystals measuring just 3 nanometers across and embedding into the disordered gaps within the amorphous ices’ structure.
The second simulation managed an even higher percentage of ice crystals, up to 25%.
However, these are still simulations, so how do they stack up to reality? By firing beams of X-rays through supposedly amorphous ice formed through a variety of methods, and watching for how those X-rays were deflected by the molecular structure of the ice, Davis’ team found that the amorphous ice’s real structure matched that produced by the simulations.
To confirm matters, Davis’ team then ‘re-crystallized’ the amorphous ice that they had created, and found that the crystal structure that the ice adopted varied depending upon how the amorphous ice had been formed in the first place. Purely amorphous ice that is totally disordered should retain no memory of its earlier form, unless there is some crystalline structure remaining.
“Ice is potentially a high-performance material in space,” said Davis. “It could shield spacecraft from radiation or provide fuel in the form of hydrogen and oxygen. So we need to know about its various forms and properties.”
The findings also potentially place constraints on the search for the origins of life, particularly how the building blocks for life came to be on Earth. Some of those organic ingredients for life are thought to have been transported to Earth on icy dust grains, and while these new findings about amorphous ice don’t rule that out, they do limit what’s possible.
“This is because a partly crystalline structure has less space in which these ingredients could become embedded,” said Davis. “The theory could still hold true, though, as there are amorphous regions in the ice where life’s building blocks could be trapped and stored.”
The research was published on 7 July in the journal Physical Review B.
(Bloomberg) — A rally in several big techs spurred a rebound in stocks, with Nvidia Corp. briefly hitting $4 trillion. Treasuries climbed after a solid $39 billion sale. Brazil’s real tumbled as President Donald Trump said the US will impose a 50% tariff on imports from the South American nation.
Equity traders brushed off trade angst to send the S&P 500 just a few points away from its record high. The CNN Fear & Greed Index is now signaling “extreme greed,” an indication of the market’s bullish momentum. A gauge of megacaps added 1.1%, with Nvidia extending this year’s surge to more than 20%. In another sign of risk appetite, Bitcoin topped $112,000 for the first time.
Trump unveiled a new round of tariff demand letters on Wednesday, with Brazil’s rate being one of the highest so far announced for the levies which are set to hit in August. He cited the treatment of former President Jair Bolsonaro in his letter to the nation, calling on authorities to drop charges against him over an alleged coup attempt.
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“Markets have moved into a period of calm despite a wave of trade headlines,” said Mark Hackett at Nationwide. “As the market reaction to the ebb and flow of tariff news has become muted, the next catalyst is earnings season. This handoff may come with some choppiness given the dramatic rally since April, the elevated expectations of investors, and the likely need for a period of consolidation.”
The Treasury market snapped a five-day selloff, with 10-year yields down six basis points to 4.34%. A sale of the bonds drew a yield of 4.362%, slightly lower than indicated by pre-auction trading just before the bidding deadline, indicating demand exceeded expectations. A $22 billion offering of 30-year debt is set for Thursday.
The emerging divide among Federal Reserve officials over the outlook for interest rates is being driven largely by differing expectations for how tariffs might affect inflation, a record of policymakers’ most recent meeting showed.
“While a few participants noted that tariffs would lead to a one-time increase in prices and would not affect longer-term inflation expectations, most participants noted the risk that tariffs could have more persistent effects on inflation,” the minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee’s June 17-18 meeting said.
While concern about the inflationary impacts of tariffs is one reason why the Fed has continued to postpone lowering rates, Chris Zaccarelli at Northlight Asset Management doesn’t believe this changes the dynamics in the bull market.
“Most investors believe that the economy is strong, corporate profits will be resilient and are eager to buy stocks, however, we believe more caution is warranted because we haven’t yet seen the impact of tariffs on corporate profits and consumer spending, because there have been so many delays in implementing them,” he said.
With the S&P 500 back at cycle-high valuations, the market seems to be signaling a robust appetite for risk, according to Hackett at Nationwide. This heightened sentiment likely reflects positive interpretation of recent data as supportive, he said.
The S&P 500 has repaired some of its technical damage, bolstered by impressive market leadership from industrials, financials, and the technology sectors, Hackett noted.
“Nvidia’s march today as the first company to surpass a $4 trillion market cap is only the latest example of this,” he said.
Nvidia’s surge to the new milestone marked a stunning rebound following a rough start to the year, when spending fears sparked by China’s DeepSeek, along with Trump’s trade war, weighed on risk sentiment. The stock is up more than 1,000% since the beginning of 2023. Nvidia now accounts for 7.5% of the S&P 500, near its highest influence on record.
“Historically, megacaps have tended to continue their rallies after reaching various $1 trillion market cap thresholds,” according to Bespoke Investment Group strategists.
Fast-money investors are edging their way back into US stocks after sitting out a furious rally, bolstering the case for equities to extend their advance further into uncharted territory.
A BNP Paribas measure of equity positioning among investors including commodity-trading advisors, volatility-target funds and hedge funds has been steadily rising and now sits at just above neutral. That follows a monthslong rally that saw the S&P 500 rebound to new highs from the precipice of a bear market. The last time institutions were this light on stocks in the midst of a sharp recovery was in 2023, according to the bank.
“We believe the setup for equity markets looks bullish, even in light of renewed trade-war jitters,” said Craig Johnson at Piper Sandler. “While equities may come under some near-term pressure, investors are increasingly becoming numb to the tariff headlines and instead focusing on the trendlines.”
Just this week, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. strategists raised their outlook for US stocks, citing among other factors the continued strength in the largest US companies as reasons why stocks are likely to keep heading higher.
“If the script goes as planned and economic activity remains firm, corporate profitability remains solid (especially across tech), and the inevitable unexpected speed bumps in the road don’t throw the market off track too much, stocks have an opportunity to grind higher through year-end,” said Anthony Saglimbene at Ameriprise.
Yet Saglimbene remarks there’s now an elevated risk of disappointment, “especially after seeing how quickly the overall investment narrative can change based on the constant barrage of White House announcements.”
Corporate Highlights:
Microsoft Corp. was upgraded at Oppenheimer on Wednesday, adding to a growing consensus on Wall Street that the software giant is in a strong position within artificial intelligence.
Apple Inc. thinks it is “too big to tariff, in some sense, and it’s used that line,” White House trade counselor Peter Navarro told Fox Business.
France’s antitrust regulator said it notified Meta Platforms Inc. of a potential violation of competition rules relating to the online advertising sector.
Merck & Co. agreed to buy respiratory drugmaker Verona Pharma Plc for around $10 billion as part of its ongoing search for ways to fill the Keytruda-sized hole that will emerge over the next few years.
Meta Platforms Inc. bought a minority stake in the world’s largest eyewear manufacturer, EssilorLuxottica SA, deepening the US tech giant’s commitment to the fast-growing smart glasses industry, according to people familiar with the matter.
Autodesk Inc. is weighing an acquisition of rival engineering-software provider PTC Inc., according to people familiar with the matter. PTC rose as much as 19% on the news.
UnitedHealth Group Inc. promoted a new leader for the company’s Medicaid insurance segment, filling a role that was vacant after recent executive changes.
Starbucks Corp. has received proposals from prospective investors in its China business, most of whom are eyeing a controlling stake in the operation, said people familiar with the matter.
AES Corp., which provides renewable power to tech giants such as Microsoft Corp., is exploring options including a potential sale amid takeover interest, people with knowledge of the matter said.
Samsung Electronics Co. introduced three new foldable smartphones in an effort to cement its grip on the category and broaden mainstream appeal before Apple Inc. debuts its first version next year.
Some of the main moves in markets:
Stocks
The S&P 500 rose 0.6% as of 4 p.m. New York time
The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.7%
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.5%
The MSCI World Index rose 0.7%
Bloomberg Magnificent 7 Total Return Index rose 1.1%
The Russell 2000 Index rose 1.1%
Nvidia rose 1.8%
Currencies
The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
The euro was little changed at $1.1718
The British pound was little changed at $1.3594
The Japanese yen rose 0.2% to 146.35 per dollar
Cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin rose 2.9% to $111,832.69
Ether rose 6.2% to $2,760.5
Bonds
The yield on 10-year Treasuries declined six basis points to 4.34%
Germany’s 10-year yield declined one basis point to 2.67%
Britain’s 10-year yield declined two basis points to 4.61%
(UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM – 10th Jul, 2025) ABU DHABI, 9th July, 2025 (WAM) – Khaled Mohamed Balama, Governor of the Central Bank of the United Arab Emirates (CBUAE), and Chairman of the National Committee for Anti-Money Laundering and Combatting the Financing of Terrorism and Illegal Organisations, stated that the European Union’s decision to remove the UAE’s name from the list of high-risk third countries in the area of money laundering and terrorist financing, reflects the vision of wise leadership.
‘’These aim at establishing an advanced financial ecosystem based on a forward-looking national vision and effective governance that ensures the safety and integrity of the financial sector,” said Balama in a statement following the EU’s decision.
He commended the diplomatic efforts led by H.H. Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chairman of the Higher Committee Overseeing the National Strategy on Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism, which resulted in this important achievement.
This decision, he emphasised, reflects the UAE’s firm commitment to addressing challenges and risks in the financial system as a priority to enhance the UAE’s competitiveness and development journey.
‘’We appreciate the commitment of regulatory entities and authorities, licensed financial institutions and the private sector for their cooperation to achieve this progress and success for the UAE,’’ he added.
A disabled BMW worker was discriminated against and unfairly dismissed after bosses authorised covert surveillance on him, believing he was exaggerating his back pain, a tribunal has found.
Mohamed Kerita, who worked in the firm’s manufacturing factory, suffered with back pain from 2017, the tribunal in Reading heard.
In March 2023, a physiotherapist emailed the absence manager Richard Darvill to say that Kerita had been signed off work by his GP for two months.
The physiotherapist said he could not explain the level of pain Kerita was experiencing and why he remained unfit for work, the tribunal heard.
Darvill and the HR manager Akhil Patel instructed the security firm G4S to carry out surveillance of the claimant, which the employment judge, Emma Jane Hawksworth, said was a “highly unusual step”.
A G4S surveillance operative followed Kerita and filmed him from behind walking about three miles in about one and a half hours, even though the claimant never said he could not walk, the tribunal heard.
In a report, they said that there was “no indication whatsoever that the claimant had lower back, leg or shoulder pain or was experiencing sickness or dizziness”, despite not filming Kerita’s face.
Darvill later approached a senior manager to get more funding for further surveillance to ensure a “robust outcome”, the tribunal heard.
In May 2023, Kerita was dismissed for gross misconduct, including a fraudulent claim of company sick pay and unacceptable levels of absence.
During a disciplinary meeting, he had said that he was in the wrong area and needed light duties but his managers told him there were none and sent him home, the tribunal heard.
The tribunal found that Kerita’s back pain met the definition of a disability under the Equality Act 2010.
Judge Hawksworth said it could be inferred that managers “had a level of distrust or hostility towards associates with back conditions, and were unwilling to take their word for it that they had a back problem, or were quick to conclude that a person with a back condition was not being honest about their symptoms”.
The judge added: “We have found that the respondent made assumptions about what the claimant had told them about his ability to walk and about the G4S surveillance film.”
Kerita’s claims of failure to make reasonable adjustments, disability discrimination and unfair dismissal succeeded.
Senior officials from three of OPEC’s core producer nations — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait — lined up on Wednesday to say that the super-sized addition of supply by the producer club at the weekend was needed by the global market.
Oil prices eked out gains this week, a sign that the market has largely shrugged off the larger-than-expected output hike announced on Saturday by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies. Despite the current tightness, forecasters are pointing out that supply growth is at risk of outpacing demand later in the year.
