George Yip, a distinguished visiting professor in international business and strategy in the D’Amore-McKim School of Business, breaks down the potential global impact of the agreement.
The White House’s agreement with NVIDIA and AMD has been met with resistance. Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via AP
The White House’s recent deal with NVIDIA and AMD to get a cut of their chip sales to China is a sign that the U.S. is moving away “from free market capitalism to state-interventionist capitalism,” says a Northeastern international business expert.
This week, the Trump administration announced that it had come to an agreement with the two large US chipmakers to allow them to sell a select range of lower-powered AI chips designed for the Chinese market in exchange for a 15% cut of their sales in the country. The deal could bring in more than $2 billion to the U.S. government, The New York Times reported.
The arrangement has been described as “highly unusual” and “unprecedented,” raising concerns from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress regarding its legality and national security implications. It comes months after the Trump administration initially placed sharp restrictions on the sale of AI chips in China.
Northeastern Global News spoke with George Yip, a distinguished visiting professor in international business and strategy in the D’Amore-McKim School of Business, to understand its impact on global business.
Can you speak on the nature of the deal and its implications?
It’s very strange, actually, and is not normally done. … What’s unusual is to apply a sort of export tax – and I consider this an export tax – on this. It’s a bit of a contradiction here. On the one hand, we’re so worried about sending them to China, a strategic rival, that we’re going to tax you. On the other hand, it’s not so important after all and it’s not going to hurt the U.S. It just strikes me as a way of raising tax money given that the deficit is too large.
I think the bigger issue is that we are moving away from free market capitalism. There was a recent article in the Wall Street Journal that said the U.S. is becoming more like China in terms of state intervention capitalism. This is just another example of the state intervening in free market capitalism.
What do you believe could be the second-order effects of such a deal?
The second-order effect is that the government interfering with what companies do just slows down what they do. I think it’s one thing to review whether or not they can export to China. That’s a standard approach. Now we’re getting companies to pay to export, and it’s just adding a lot of bureaucracy and admin. It just means that business executives will spend more time lobbying the government to get exceptions. We are already seeing this with all the import taxes – I call them import taxes not tariffs. People are trying to get special concessions already.
What does this deal mean for Nvidia and AMD?
They want to make money out of selling something they made, right? This is their business. They make chips related to AI and other things. They are not stupid companies. They think it’s OK to sell these chips to China. They’re not afraid of creating competition, so it’s probably safe for them to do this.
The way that Japan’s and South Korea’s shipping industries were built up was that some European shipping companies gave away their technology because they were already weak. It helped build up Japanese and South Korean ship makers and eventually destroyed European ship makers. But that’s not the situation with Nvidia and AMD. They’re not weak, they don’t have to sell. They just see this as an opportunity to make some extra money from lower level technology that they can sell.
Could you speak on the deal’s impact on international competitiveness?
I don’t know enough about the specific technologies as to how much this will help China. Obviously, China is trying to build up its AI activities. It’s actually a delicate line because wherever you block another country from buying your technology, they are incentivized to develop their own. We saw this in the case of DeepSeek, where China seems to have a faster AI that is more efficient than American ones. It’s a very complex issue that should be managed very strategically. Certainly, China and other countries such as Japan and South Korea have state industrial policies to develop national strategic plans.
China has many five-year plans and long-term plans to develop their own technologies. I think the U.S. would do well to have longer-term strategic plans on industrial policy, which has been opposed until recently by traditional economists. But clearly we are dealing with complex long-term technologies like artificial intelligence, like EVs.
Iga Swiatek has seen the theories. The Hologic WTA Tour’s biggest Taylor Swift fan is ready for October after the pop star’s recent announcement that her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, is coming out this fall.
Competing this week at the Cincinnati Open, Swiatek said that she was “awake, but wasn’t on the internet” when Swift dropped the news of the album at at 12:12a.m. on Aug. 12 — via a teaser trailer of her upcoming appearance on the weekly sports podcast “New Heights,” hosted by Swift’s boyfriend and Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce and his brother Jason.
But catching the news after it broke did little to temper her excitement.
“Oh my God,” Swiatek gushed on Tennis Channel with Steve Weismann on Wednesday when asked about her reaction to the news. “I’m just super happy. But first, I’m waiting for the podcast and we’ll see what she tells us … there’s a lot to think about and to be excited about.”
Speculation on the track list, tone and tenor of the album — which was developed during the mega-hit global ‘Eras Tour’ last year — has already been spreading like wildfire online, and Swiatek says she’s been scrolling.
“I heard some rumors that it might come out before October but I’m not sure,” she said, doubling down that she has no insider knowledge on what’s coming.
“Swifties have a lot of theories, so I don’t know what to listen to, but I’m super excited and I hope it’s going to be a good one.”
There’s one aspect of the album that’s confirmed, however: Its cover art was revealed in the aftermath of the announcement, and it centers a glittering image of Swift an orange and mint-green.
And if Swiatek has her way, her apparel sponsor On might be working those colors into a match kit that’ll debut after the album’s release.
“I think they’re quite set for the US Open — no orange there,” she said, “but I’ll ask them for the next ones!”
The Marshall Islands’ first international team took on the US Virgin Islands in Springdale, Arkansas
A football team has said they “made history” of playing its first ever international match for its country.
The Marshall Islands’ first faced off the US Virgin Islands on Thursday in Springdale, Arkansas.
Despite a 4-0 loss to the recognised FIFA nation, the Marshall Islands Soccer Federation posted on Facebook to say it was “so proud of what was accomplished”.
Head coach Lloyd Owers, from Banbury in Oxfordshire, previously said it was “definitely surreal” and that even the team “thought it wouldn’t happen”.
Marshall Islands Soccer Federation
Lloyd Owers from Banbury was tasked to build the Marshall Islands’ first international team three years ago
The Pacific Island nation is home to about 40,000 people and had previously been the self-proclaimed “last country on Earth without a football team”.
Its first match formed part of the 2025 Outrigger Challenge Cup – the Marshall Islands Soccer Federation annual competition to create more opportunities for nations in our region to play competitive soccer and raise awareness of the sport.
The team’s group shot after the game has an inscription “Whatever the score, so proud of what was accomplished. Tonight, we made history”.
They will also be playing against Turks and Caicos.
Marshall Islands Soccer Federation
The country used to be the self-proclaimed last nation on Earth without a football team
The four team tournament in the US was organised by the Marshall Islands Soccer Federation, and is seen as first step towards the team joining FIFA and competing in World Cup qualifying matches.
“We’ve got players that are coming from all different parts of the world, we’ve got a lot of US-based players that are experienced but we’re also combining them with players from the Marshall Islands,” Mr Owers said of the playing squad.
For four arduous years, so much of Emma Raducanu’s life has played out in public. Every decision relating to her career has been dissected and debated. The most banal details surrounding her personal life have been transfigured into headline news. In order to find herself on and off the tennis court, Raducanu has had to learn how to tune out the noise, which at times can be deafening.
Only one month ago at Wimbledon, the discourse surrounding the 22-year-old reached diabolical lows. Even though her on-court performances were strong, it was impossible to escape the speculation surrounding her personal life. In the bowels of center court at the Cincinnati Open, I offer my own blunt perspective: I have never cringed as much as I did while watching people trying to pry into her romantic relationships at the All England Club. “Yeah, and Cam’s questions, too,” Raducanu responds, laughing. “That was terrible. Terrible.”
Raducanu was referring to her compatriot Cameron Norrie’s post-match press conference, when a reporter asked him whether he was dating Raducanu. Norrie, who was being supported in his player box that day by his long-term partner, was as baffled as he was bemused. For Raducanu, though, such brazen intrusiveness from strangers has simply become part of her everyday life. “I know, I know,” she says, smiling. “I guess I’m like, it comes with the territory, people being so curious. I think they’re more curious about this news than any tennis results and tennis news. But I just keep myself to myself, my private life to one side. It’s always funny when people try to find something out, but I try not to read into it so much.”
That curiosity is not isolated to the internet and tabloids. When Raducanu is out in London, paparazzi photographers will find her, even when she is doing nothing more than stepping on to a 345 bus somewhere in Wandsworth. “It’s really freaky, because you don’t know that they’re there. And then you’ll see a photo of yourself the next day, and you’ll be like: ‘There’s no way they were there,’” she says.
Emma Raducanu with the US Open trophy in 2021. Photograph: John G Mabanglo/EPA
Considering her well-documented encounters with stalkers – one was arrested and handed a five-year restraining order after stealing items from her front door in 2021 and another fixated person followed her across four different countries earlier this year – Raducanu has genuine concerns regarding her safety: “I think after the Dubai incident, that was probably the worst [public attention] I’ve had,” she says. “I remember straight afterwards, I found it very difficult going out. I definitely had a bit of a leftover lag effect. But I’ve been a lot more astute, a lot more, I’d say, safe and have someone with me. I don’t really go out on my own as much. No solo walks. Just always having someone watching my back.”
Everything leads back to those three fateful weeks at the US Open in the summer of 2021, where Raducanu became the first qualifier to win a grand slam title. The spoils of victory were significant but Raducanu’s rapid success yielded considerable challenges. Along with the difficult results and constant criticism, her body constantly betrayed her. In 2023, after struggling physically for a long time, she underwent surgeries on both wrists and her left ankle.
While she tried to prove herself on the court, Raducanu says, people within her team would tell her she wasn’t tough: “I was obviously like: ‘Oh, no, I am tough enough.’” says Raducanu. “And it wasn’t good to hear, because I always prided myself on being a hard worker and being tough. And I believe I am. I actually think it was more the people around me that were maybe incorrect, and I think it led me down to having three surgeries and double wrist surgery, because I was overtraining and just covering it up, not saying anything, and not saying I was in pain, even when I was. So it was really tough to hear. But I think as I’ve grown with experience, I kind of realised my body a bit more and trusted myself a bit more.”
Mentally, things were even more challenging. As she failed to follow up her breakthrough victory with similar results, there were times when her mind twisted her US Open triumph into a negative memory, the source of her struggles. It was not until this year that she understood how to focus on her improvement and daily work, however gradual, rather than comparing every result to the 2021 US Open. Still, it remains a work in progress. “It’s [comparisons to the US Open] something that never fully leaves you,” Raducanu says. “I think it’s been four years now, I don’t think it’s fully gone away. Maybe in a few years, maybe when I’m older, more mature, but it’s hard to put that aside completely. It’s always in the back of your mind, but it’s more just being aware of those thoughts and then not letting it crash your day or ruin the work that you’re doing, and bringing it back to what I’m doing now, and the process.”
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Considering her many difficulties, an obvious question is whether sports psychology or therapy have been a part of her life over the past few years: “I’ve tried. I’ve tried,” she says. “I’ve been obviously recommended a lot to do it with what I went through. It was something that not many people, well, actually no one has gone through, which is probably the reason that I did like two sessions and I stopped. I was like: ‘Look, these guys, they don’t relate.’ And, to be honest, no other athlete has done what I’ve done, so I don’t know why I’m taking advice from them. So I was like: ‘OK, well, the only person who can help me is myself.’”
For a long time the four defining cities of Raducanu’s life were listed in her biographies across her social media platforms. Her parents, Ion and Renee, originally come from Bucharest, Romania, and Shenyang, China, respectively while she was born in Toronto, Canada, and grew up in London, England. Her mother’s solo immigration from China to Canada has been an inspirational tale throughout her life. “I would say it’s funny when people ask where you’re from,” she says. “Obviously, I feel British. I’ve always grown up there, But there are certain things, the way I think, I don’t think I am completely. So you have a little question about your identity. But I try not to read too much into it and try to just take the best from all the different worlds that I’ve been exposed to and grown up in.”
Regardless of the subject at hand, Raducanu frequently notes the support and significance of her parents. She describes her upbringing as rigid and strict, but their tough love has made her the person she is today: “I was always brought up with really high standards, high expectations of myself, not much sympathy,” says Raducanu. “So when I was younger, that was tough, and even now. But I think it really shaped me to be the player I am, the person I am; pretty down to earth. They never got impressed by anything glitzy or high or anything.”
Emma Raducanu during her narrow defeat by Aryna Sabalenka in the Cincinnati Open. Photograph: Dylan Buell/Getty Images
Both Raducanu’s parents worked in finance and they passed on their numerical, logical mindsets. Over the past few years, however, part of her evolution as an adult has been understanding herself as a person. Her injury layoff in 2023, which initially seemed like a catastrophe, turned out to be essential for her personal development. Raducanu spent her time away from tennis travelling, including a long trip to China, trying different hobbies and gradually learning more about herself. She learned that she is also creative, which has significantly influenced her playing style on the court. “I kind of discovered the more artistic side – the piano, the painting, the reading, the philosophy, all of those things,” she says. “And I really think it opened my eyes to another world. Now I’m kind of seeing how I can find an area where those two intersect, and have the creative side, but also have the quantitative side.”
With age and experience, Raducanu also has a greater understanding of her preferences when making general decisions. While discussing her decision making, Raducanu’s mind shifts to another source of criticism: her coaching history. “I think I’m a lot more clear on what I do and don’t like,” she says. “I think the experiences that I’ve had with different coaches – people love to say I’ve had so many different coaches but, if I went into the details of a lot of them, people would not be kind of saying the same things. I just don’t do that, because I don’t want to ‘out’ these people. So keep it to myself.”
Is it ever tempting? “I would say, like, when you see things and you’re like: ‘Oh, Emma on her ninth coach’ or something, I’m like: ‘Guys, come on.’ Certain ones don’t count. If you’ve had a trial, you don’t have to carry on after the trial. A few have been trials, a few have been other situations. And I just try and take the high road,” she says. Then she laughs. “And try to do what the royal family would do.”
After years of rolling with the punches and gradually coming to understand herself, Raducanu seems to finally be in a positive place again. She speaks effusively about the great enjoyment she has found in her consistent daily work and she has thrown herself into becoming the best player she can be each day. Raducanu’s results are reflective of that shift and her ranking is clearly on the rise. Her time in Cincinnati, her first week with her new coach, Francisco Roig, ended with a colossal three-hour battle with Aryna Sabalenka, the world No 1, where she narrowly lost 7-6 in the final set. Over the next few days, she will return to New York for the US Open more self-assured than she has been since she won the title.
Our second conversation ends with a final question on Raducanu’s ambitions for the next few years beyond her results. After a beat, she shrugs. The hope, she says, is that the passion and joy she now feels each day about her daily work will endure. “I want to continue for the next few years, to just keep enjoying because I would rather not do anything else or be anywhere else,” she says, shrugging. “I see my friends, like, somewhere in the south of France, and they’re chilling on a boat or whatever, and I’m just like: ‘OK, well, it looks amazing,’ but when I’m putting in double session practices with the people around laughing, that fills me up so much more. So I’m really happy to have gotten to this place and [I want] to just continue that.”
COLOMBO, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) — Sri Lanka’s benchmark All Share Price Index (ASPI) of the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) closed above 20,000 points for the first time on Friday, marking a significant milestone in the capital market’s history.
The ASPI closed at a new high of 20,218.36 points, up by 289.69 points from the previous close, CSE data shows. ASPI surpassed the 20,000 mark on Aug. 4 but fell below the 20,000-point mark before the end of trading that day.
Meanwhile, the S&P SL 20 index closed at 5,894.84 points after gaining 114.26 points on Friday. The day’s turnover was recorded as over 9.54 billion rupees (about 31.8 million U.S. dollars).
The ASPI measures the overall market’s movements, while the S&P SL20 tracks the performance of 20 leading publicly traded companies listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange. ■
A woman shops at a local market in Ankara, Türkiye, on Aug. 14, 2025. (Mustafa Kaya/Handout via Xinhua)
by Burak Akinci
ANKARA, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) — In the bustling open-air market of capital city Ankara’s 100th Yil district, shoppers weave between stalls under a patchwork of canvas awnings, their eyes darting from price tags to their shopping lists.
The air is filled with the scent of ripe tomatoes, fresh herbs, and melons stacked high, but customers’ baskets remain light.
“We are buying less and less every week,” said Zeki Arin, an architect in his early 60s, clutching a bag containing just a few vegetables.
“The current annual inflation rate is around 30 percent, however, the impact of inflation is much more pronounced in our experience,” he lamented.
Despite the country’s inflation rate gradually declining in accordance with a consistent downward trend, Turks are continuing to reel from elevated food prices.
Arin said his family’s food purchases have been halved compared to a couple of years ago. “More and more, we buy what is the bare minimum and nothing else, sliced portions or by the piece rather than the kilogram.”
“I have never seen an economic crisis so deep in my life. Food prices have doubled compared to the same period last year,” he said.
According to official data, Türkiye’s food and non-alcoholic beverage prices rose 28 percent year-on-year in July. This is below the headline annual inflation rate of 33.5 percent, the lowest in nearly four years, but food inflation remains a daily concern for millions of households.
“Citizens’ purchasing power is not keeping pace with inflation, which remains very high despite the recent slowdown,” Istanbul-based independent economist Mustafa Sonmez told Xinhua.
“Even if the official rate is declining, prices remain at a level that severely limits what ordinary people can buy. The gap between wages and prices is widening, and this is what is feeding public frustration,” Sonmez said.
While policymakers forecast inflation could fall to around 24 percent by year’s end, many consumers expressed concerns about persistent cost-of-living pressures.
“Food prices are very high,” said Sevgi Binici, a retired teacher. “We wait until the late hours here because prices slightly drop in the evening.”
“I want to be hopeful for my children and grandchildren, but I cannot stop worrying about how I am going to manage to put food on the table,” she added.
Economists say the discrepancy between official inflation data and consumer sentiment stems partly from the way price changes affect different income groups.
Low-and middle-income households spend a larger share of their income on essentials like food and housing, categories that have seen some of the steepest increases in recent years, Sonmez explained.
“If something has doubled or tripled in price over the last few years, a slower increase now does not restore affordability,” he said. ■
People shop at a local market in Ankara, Türkiye, on Aug. 14, 2025. (Mustafa Kaya/Handout via Xinhua)
People shop at a local market in Ankara, Türkiye, on Aug. 14, 2025. (Mustafa Kaya/Handout via Xinhua)
Kylie Jenner, Bella Hadid and Hailey Bieber were spotted enjoying a night out in West Hollywood, dining together at Alba following the launch of Bella’s latest fragrance.
The trio coordinated their looks for the evening. Bella and Kylie wore black dresses, with Bella styling her hair in a sleek bun and Kylie leaving hers loose.
Hailey chose a black-and-white polka dot bodycon dress. All three accessorised with black sunglasses, with Bella wearing Velvet Canyon’s The Noghties.
Kylie and Bella carried black handbags, while Hailey was seen holding her phone in a yellow Rhode Beauty lip gloss case.
Earlier in the day, Kylie, Hailey and Kendall Jenner attended the garden launch event for Bella’s fifth Orebella fragrance, Eternal Roots.
Kylie posted photos with Bella, Hailey, Kendall, model Alex Consani and others, taken under pink umbrellas with signature cocktails.
Hailey marked the occasion with a video of Bella holding the perfume, captioned: “love you ethereal princess.” Later in the evening, Kylie, Hailey and Alex ended their celebrations with martinis garnished with olives.
Photo: Instagram/Kylie Jenner
The gathering came shortly after Kylie’s 28th birthday celebrations. Her festivities included a cake decorated by children, a paint-and-sip session recreating her “rise and shine” meme, and an outdoor dinner hosted by Kendall Jenner. Hailey and Justin Bieber were among the guests.
Posting about the celebrations on Instagram on 12 August, Kylie wrote: “Best birthday ever!!!!!!! I’m so grateful to my family and friends for making this weekend so special and full of love. 28 feels so good!!!!!”
The West Hollywood dinner marked another high-profile outing for the close friends, combining a milestone fragrance launch with continued birthday celebrations.
The Space Force’s deep-space radar hit a testing milestone in recent weeks, using seven of its antennas to track multiple satellites in orbit from a site in Australia.
The Deep Space Advanced Radar Capability, or DARC, is being built by Northrop Grumman to detect and track activity in geosynchronous orbit — from space debris to hostile movement that could harm U.S. or allied satellites.
The ground-based system is slated to be fully operational by 2027 and is the first of three radars the service is building as part of a partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom to improve their visibility into what’s happening on orbit.
The recent demonstration was part of DARC’s integration and testing phase, which started in the last few weeks. The radar will ultimately use 27 parabolic antennas for its deep-space tracks. Kevin Giammo, Northrop’s director for space surveillance and environmental intelligence, told Defense News the ability to use a subset of those shows that the company’s design is solid and ready to scale.
“Each of those parabolic dishes have a certain amount of capability on their own, but as you are able to make these dishes work together as a set of arrays, what you’re really doing is you are creating the equivalent of a very large radar with immense capabilities,” Giammo said.
As the program moves through its test campaign, it will continue to increase the number of antennas it’s using, making its observations more accurate and persistent.
In parallel to its development of the first DARC radar, Northrop is also beginning work on the second system, which will be based in the United Kingdom. The company received a $200 million contract for DARC 2 last year.
The Space Force is currently working with the U.K. government on the environmental assessments and other processes that have to occur before they can begin building on the site. Giammo said the completion of that work will dictate Northrop’s schedule for producing and delivering the radar.
“We certainly will be working to optimize when different aspects of the activity are executed based on how things are progressing with that government-to-government coordination,” he said. “There’s a lot of work that we’re already doing, but there’s certainly more that’s to come.”
Northrop will be able to take advantage of much of the work it’s done on the first radar as it starts to build the second — and eventually the third — system. Giammo noted there may be some design differences between the systems, and the company is working with the Space Force to define what changes are needed for the U.K. radar
“They’re fielding similar sites in different locations, so there’s always some uniqueness that will happen,” he said.
The Space Force’s fiscal 2026 base budget request does not include funding for DARC, though the service has said it plans to use $281 million from Congress’ $150 billion reconciliation bill for the effort.
Courtney Albon is C4ISRNET’s space and emerging technology reporter. She has covered the U.S. military since 2012, with a focus on the Air Force and Space Force. She has reported on some of the Defense Department’s most significant acquisition, budget and policy challenges.
