Category: 3. Business

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ mother, Jacklyn Gise Bezos, has died following a battle with Lewy body dementia, he announced on Instagram. She was 78.

Gise Bezos died in her Miami home on Thursday, according to the Bezos Scholars Program, a foundation she started with her husband, Mike Bezos.

“After a long fight with Lewy Body Dementia, she passed away today, surrounded by so many of us who loved her — her kids, grandkids, and my dad,” Bezos, her eldest son, wrote in an Instagram post on Thursday. “I know she felt our love in those final moments.”

Samsung Solve for Tomorrow is Samsung Electronics’ global education program in the form of an open competition in which youth apply STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) knowledge to address community challenges while developing analytical skills. More than an ideas contest, the program provides participants with Samsung’s Design Thinking training — offering hands-on experience at every stage of innovation, from defining problems and generating ideas to developing prototypes and validating solutions. Through this process, youth gain essential practical and creative problem-solving skills.

Initially launched in the U.S. as an essay competition in 2010, Solve for Tomorrow now operates in 68 countries — serving as a platform for youth around the world to collaborate on solutions for a better future.

Beginning in 2025, Solve for Tomorrow introduced global themes to the competition — starting with Environmental Sustainability via Technology and Social Change Through Sports & Technology — further strengthening its role in addressing universal challenges through cross-border collaboration.

Samsung remains committed to increasing educational opportunities that build future-ready skills such as design thinking while addressing pressing community issues, including those related to the environment, sports and quality education. The company aims to expand support to turn students’ ideas into reality, empowering them to play an active role in shaping a brighter world.

Explore the 15-year journey of Samsung’s global CSR education program Solve for Tomorrow in the infographic below.

The UK’s largest bioethanol plant will begin closing down operations on Monday, after the government decided not to offer the sector a rescue package.

Hull-based Vivergo Fuels, owned by Associated British Foods, told the BBC the first redundancies would take effect on Tuesday.

AB Foods and Ensus, which owns the UK’s second large bioethanol plant in Redcar on Teesside, had both previously warned that without government support they would be forced to close, after a deal to allow US ethanol to be imported tariff-free.

The government said it had worked closely with the companies since June, but had decided it was not “in the national interest” to provide them with taxpayer funds.

The US-UK trade pact, agreed in May, removed a 19% tariff on ethanol imported from the US up to a quota of 1.4bn litres. That is approximately equivalent to the current size of the UK market and the firms claim the trade agreement had made their businesses “commercially unviable”.

AB Foods said it had been in talks with the government over the last few months and had presented a plan to return the firm to profitability.

“In making this decision, the government has thrown away billions in potential growth in the Humber, a sovereign capability in clean fuels that had the chance to lead the world.”

It said jobs in clean energy would now move overseas.

“This plant should always have been profitable under the right regulatory environment, as similar plants in western Europe demonstrate,” the firm said.

German-owned Ensus has also been approached for comment.

The two plants employ 270 people, but their closure could affect thousands more in the supply chain.

A government spokesperson said after working with the companies over weeks to understand “the financial challenges they have faced over the past decade”, the government had taken the difficult decision not to offer direct funding “as it would not provide value for the taxpayer or solve the long-term problems the industry faces”.

The government said it recognised this was a “difficult time for the workers and their families” and said it would work with trade unions, local partners and the companies to support those affected.

GMB union national officer Charlotte Brumpton-Childs said the trade deal was costing working people their livelihoods.

“They’re not numbers in a spreadsheet. These are lives put on hold and communities potentially devastated,” she said.

The government was also falling short on building a green energy strategy, she said.

“A clean energy industrial strategy means nothing if we cannot protects plants long enough to deliver clean energy jobs here in the UK.”

Bioethanol is a fuel made from wheat, other grains or sugar beet. The US has provided subsidies and tax credits to corn farmers in midwestern states such as Iowa, Illinois and Nebraska, helping to hold down the price of its ethanol.

In the UK bioethanol is added to fuels such as E10 petrol. But sources within the sector said that government delays over the migration to petrol with higher bioethanol content had hurt the industry.

The government has previously said that by 2030 it wants 10% of all fuel used in planes to come from sustainable sources, one of which is bioethanol.

The bioethanol industry buys thousands of tonnes of wheat from UK farms, and Ensus also produces 30% of the UK’s commercial carbon dioxide – used in soft drinks, medical and nuclear industries.

The government said it would continue to work on measures to ensure the resilience of the CO2 supply chain.

With additional reporting from Olivia Hutchinson

(Bloomberg) — US stocks stepped back from record highs as data showed consumer sentiment fell for the first time since April.

The S&P 500 Index declined 0.2% at 10:50 a.m. in New York, pulling back from record highs. The Nasdaq 100 Index fell 0.5%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.08%.

The preliminary August sentiment index fell to 58.6 from 61.7 a month earlier, according to data from the University of Michigan, and signaled concern that President Donald Trump’s tariffs are likely to worsen inflation. Consumers expect prices to rise at an annual rate of 4.9% over the next year, more than economists had predicted.

“The inflation expectations component of the consumer confidence data was much higher than expected,” said Miller Tabak’s Matt Maley. “When you combine this with the much lower headline number, it renews concerns about stagflation. So, it’s not a surprise that investors are taking some profits today.”

Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers, said traders were showing their ability to shrug off “seemingly market-unfriendly news,” highlighting stocks remaining steady despite a hotter-than-expected PPI data even as bonds were giving back most of the CPI-related gains.

“It shouldn’t come as a big surprise that stocks took the double whammy of sharply lower sentiment and higher inflationary expectations with a general yawn,” Sosnick said. “Stock traders’ relentless dip-buying and rally-chasing has caused indices to act with something like a ratchet effect – moving sharply higher on good, or even just OK news, but only falling modestly — if at all — on bad news.”

Earlier, data showed US retail sales rose in July in a broad-based advance, boosted by car sales and major online promotions in a sign consumers stepped up their spending in recent months. The value of retail purchases, not adjusted for inflation, increased 0.5% after an upwardly revised 0.9% gain in June, Commerce Department data showed Friday. Excluding cars, sales climbed 0.3%.

“Prior month retail sales numbers were actually better than previously reported, which makes today’s headline numbers better than they appear,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Northlight Asset Management. “As long as consumer spending holds up and companies are able to retain workers because of that robust spending, the flywheel can continue to spin, pushing corporate profits and stock prices higher.”

Meanwhile, LPL Financial’s Jeffrey Roach said investors should monitor auto sales and other discretionary categories like restaurant spending to gauge the health of the consumer.

“Recession risks remain low, but I think it’s wise for the Fed to shift to a more neutral stance and cut rates in coming meetings,” Roach said.

Next week, investor focus will shift from economic data to the central bank’s annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where Chair Jerome Powell is scheduled to speak.

Bank of America Corp. strategists led by Michael Hartnett expect US stocks to decline in the event of dovish signals from the Fed at Jackson Hole. Hartnett said investors had flocked into risky assets from equities to cryptocurrencies and corporate bonds on optimism the central bank will reduce interest rates to shore up a weakening labor market and ease the US debt burden.

A dovish tone from Powell at Jackson Hole could result in stocks sliding as investors “buy rumor, sell fact,” Hartnett said in a note.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is set to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska for their first summit in seven years. Both leaders have very different measures of success for the talks: the US president wants a ceasefire in Ukraine, while getting face time without having to make any concessions on the war is already a win for the Russian leader.

Among single stocks, UnitedHealth Group Inc., Lennar Corp. and DR Horton Inc. all climbed after the latest 13F filing showed Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. bought shares in the companies during the second quarter.

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.

Donald Trump’s administration was close to giving Elon Musk’s xAI artificial intelligence company a huge federal contract this summer, only to back out after its chatbot, Grok, began issuing antisemitic slurs, according to a report.

According to Wired, emails between several AI developers and the General Services Administration, which is responsible for administering government tech contracts, chart how the proposed partnership fell apart as Musk’s pet project began dabbling in Nazi rhetoric.

In early June, around the time the president and the tech billionaire suffered a spectacular public falling out, exchanging barbed personal insults over their competing social media platforms, the GSA’s leadership was meeting with the xAI team “to see what opportunities may exist for automation and streamlining,” according to the outlet.

Their initial two-hour sitdown was reportedly a success, prompting the GSA to pursue the company with enthusiasm, hoping to see Grok integrated into its internal infrastructure as part of the Trump administration’s push to modernize the running of the central government.

“We kept saying, ‘Are you sure?’ And they were like ‘No, we gotta have Grok,’” one employee involved in the discussions told Wired.

The conversations continued over the following weeks, and xAI was eventually added to the GSA Multiple Award Schedule, the agency’s government-wide contracting program.

Then, in early July, Grok suddenly went haywire after an update to make it less “woke” than its competitors went too far, leading to the chatbot referring to itself as “MechaHitler” in homage to the robotic version of Adolf Hitler that appeared in the 1992 video game Wolfenstein 3D.

Grok went on to share several offensive, anti-Jewish posts, barking “Heil Hitler,” claiming Jews run Hollywood and agreeing they should be sent “back home to Saturn” while denying that its new stance amounted to Nazism.

“Labeling truths as hate speech stifles discussion,” it declared.

Musk’s company apologized for the upset and scrubbed the “inappropriate” posts. Still, it was not seemingly enough to save xAI’s relationship with the GSA, although the furore was allegedly not noticed, at least initially, by the agency’s leadership.

“The week after Grok went MechaHitler, [the GSA’s management] was like ‘Where are we on Grok?’” the same employee told Wired. “We were like, ‘Do you not read a newspaper?’”

When the U.S. government duly announced a series of partnerships with the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, and Box, an AI-based content management platform, in early August, xAI’s name was not among them.

The GSA has not definitively stated that Grok’s outburst was the reason for the scrapping of xAI’s proposed contract, but two company employees told Wired they believed that was the case.

The Independent has reached out to the GSA for more information.

The GSA’s talks with the AI firms coincided with Trump’s administration publishing its AI Action Plan in July, which laid out its goals for the United States to become a world leader in the emerging sector while calling for a reduction in regulation and red tape.

The Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed the last trading session of the week on a muted note, with the benchmark KSE-100 index slipping 38 points, or 0.03%, to settle at 146,491.

The market struggled to hold above the 147,000 mark as investors squared off positions ahead of the weekend. Sentiment remained mixed, with traders opting for a cautious stance while awaiting fresh triggers to guide the next market move, said Deputy Head of Trading at Arif Habib Ltd, Ali Najib.

On the sectoral front, EFERT, LUCK, ENGROH, MEBL, and AIRLINK emerged as the major gainers, contributing a combined 512 points to the index. Their gains were offset by declines in OGDC, UBL, PPL, HUBC, and MARI, which collectively shaved off 499 points.

Trading activity slowed compared to the previous day, with 472 million shares changing hands, amounting to a turnover of Rs32.8 billion. ASL topped the volume charts with 30 million shares traded.

The benchmark extended its winning streak to eight consecutive weeks, advancing 1,108 points, or 0.76%, over the period. Opening the week at 145,650, the index touched a high of 147,977 and a low of 145,259 before closing at 146,491.

Analysts believe progress on circular debt resolution could sustain buying momentum, though a phase of consolidation or mild correction cannot be ruled out. Immediate support is seen at the 145,000 and 143,000 levels, while resistance remains at 148,000.

The clinical development of SGR-2921, a CDC7 inhibitor, for the treatment of patients with relapsed/refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or high-risk myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) has been discontinued, according to an announcement from Schrödinger.¹

The decision follows safety findings from an ongoing phase 1 dose-escalation study (NCT05961839), where investigators deemed that SGR-2921 contributed to deaths in 2 patients who experienced treatment-emergent adverse effects (AEs) in the AML cohort. Although early evidence of monotherapy activity was observed, the company determined that further development, particularly in combination regimens would be difficult to pursue given the emerging safety profile.

“Patient safety is our first priority, and in light of two treatment-related deaths in the phase 1 dose-escalation study, we have made the decision to discontinue further development of SGR-2921,” Margaret Dugan, MD, chief medical officer at Schrödinger, stated in a news release.¹ “While disappointing given the early clinical activity observed, we believe this is the right decision for patients. We had hoped to advance this investigational agent for AML, as relapse rates are high, disease progression is rapid, and available therapies remain limited.”

In a presentation at the 2023 ASH Annual Meeting, preclinical data demonstrated the potency, breadth of activity, and synergistic effects of SGR-2921 in combination with standard-of-care therapies in AML cell lines.² In vitro, SGR-2921 exhibited greater potency compared with other clinical-stage CDC7 inhibitors and showed antiproliferative activity in AML patient-derived samples, regardless of driver mutations.

In vivo, the agent produced dose-dependent reductions in AML blasts across multiple AML models representing difficult-to-treat disease and displayed synergistic activity with decitabine in p53-mutated AML models. These findings supported its initial evaluation as a potential treatment for AML, particularly in patients with high-risk mutations and relapsed/refractory disease.

The multicenter, open-label, first-in-human study was designed to evaluate the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of oral SGR-2921 in patients at least 18 years of age with relapsed/refractory AML or high- or very high–risk MDS.³ The trial planned to enroll approximately 50 participants across 12 sites in the United States. All patients needed to have an ECOG performance status of 2 or lower and a life expectancy of at least 8 weeks.

Investigators excluded patients who had active malignancies not related to AML or MDS within 2 years prior to the first dose of study treatment, or those requiring ongoing treatment for other malignancies; those with clinical evidence of central nervous system (CNS) or pulmonary leukostasis, patients with grade 3 or higher disseminated intravascular coagulation, or those with active CNS leukemia; patients who used experimental drugs, therapy, or anti-cancer therapy within 14 days or 5 half-lives of the first dose of study drug; and patients with QT interval of at least 470 msec during screening.

The primary outcome measures included dose-limiting toxicities, the incidence and severity of AEs, and electrocardiogram parameters. Secondary end points included pharmacokinetics, composite complete remission rate, objective response rate, and duration of response for both the AML and MDS cohorts.

Exploratory cohorts were intended to further assess safety, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and preliminary anti-tumor activity to establish the recommended dose for expansion. A planned protocol amendment would have evaluated SGR-2921 in combination with other approved AML/MDS therapies, including hypomethylating agents, BCL2 inhibitors, IDH inhibitors, and FLT3 inhibitors.

References

1. Schrödinger announces discontinuation of SGR-2921 program. News release. Schrödinger. August 14, 2025. Accessed August 14, 2025. https://ir.schrodinger.com/press-releases/news-details/2025/Schrdinger-Announces-Discontinuation-of-SGR-2921-Program/default.aspx
2. Schrödinger presents data supporting advancement of SGR-1505 and SGR-2921 at American Society of Hematology 2023 Annual Meeting. News release. Schrödinger. December 10, 2023. Accessed August 14, 2025. https://ir.schrodinger.com/press-releases/news-details/2023/Schrdinger-Presents-Data-Supporting-Advancement-of-SGR-1505-and-SGR-2921-at-American-Society-of-Hematology-2023-Annual-Meeting/default.aspx
3. Study of SGR-2921 in relapsed/​refractory acute myeloid leukemia or myelodysplastic syndrome. ClinicalTrials.gov. Updated September 9, 2024. Accessed August 14, 2025. https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05961839

Generally speaking, the more TikTok trends you allow to pass you by in a year, the better. But some trends refuse to cease, and the egg flight is turning out to be one of them. The egg flight, in all its many forms, persists.

Simply put, an egg flight is to hard-boiled eggs what a wine flight is to wine – a varietal sampling, presented in one sitting. Unlike devilled eggs, where the yolk is scooped out, mashed with mayonnaise and spices and piped back into its former cavity, the egg flight is just some eggs – most commonly three, in six upturned halves – with different stuff piled on top. The result is meant to be a quick but still fancy appetiser range, destined to impress your guests, your family, or at least the rest of TikTok.

The originator and chief populariser of the egg flight (or #eggflight) is an American cookery blogger and TikToker called Alice Choi (AKA @hipfoodiemom1). She has been doing them for years, but her egg demonstrations first went viral this time last year, and egg-flight TikTok posts now number in the thousands. All over the world, people are still getting excited about their egg flights.

Would-be egg-flight makers are encouraged to get creative and try new things, but in practice the discipline seems to involve a lot of imitation, in keeping with the average TikToker’s overarching definition of originality: the exact same thing, but with me doing it.

In that same spirit, here are 10 popular variations, dutifully copied and ranked.

A quick note: my eggs were boiled for just under 11 minutes, plunged into ice water, then carefully peeled and halved. Before you begin, I recommend putting a small blob of mayonnaise on the plate beneath each egg half to stop it rocking back and forth while you dress it.

1. The Classic. In one of her viral tutorials, @hipfoodiemom1 offers the closest thing we may ever have to an Egg Flight Theory: the ideal egg requires something creamy, topped by something tangy, topped by something sour and/or crunchy. The Classic is the most basic combo to follow that formula and it’s easily the best: mayo, dijon mustard and a slice of dill pickle. That’s it – stop there. It’s essentially a lazy person’s devilled egg, and, honestly, it cannot be improved upon.

2. Kimchi. Another of Choi’s creamy/tangy/sour stacks, with a mayo-mustard base and fermented cabbage at its apex. Overall this may be your best bet, since it’s easier to buy good kimchi in the UK than it is to find a decent dill pickle.

3. Smoked salmon. A popular school of thought in egg-flight circles involves treating the egg as if it were some other foodstuff – in this case, a bagel layered with cream cheese, smoked salmon, capers, dill and possibly some poppy or sesame seeds. This sort of variation often flounders on its implicit unfulfilled promise – a hard-boiled egg is not a bagel, after all – but it works here because all the ingredients share a general breakfast vibe.

4. Caprese. Mozzarella, tomato, a single, appropriately sized basil leaf and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. By now you will have noticed a key drawback to the egg flight: you need a huge variety of ingredients – in very small amounts – to produce six completely different eggs. There is ultimately more shopping than cooking involved. The caprese salad egg is a nice idea, but at this point the notion of not bothering is also beginning to take hold.

5. Mexican. Across TikTok, you will find egg halves piled with a selection of some, if not all, of the following: guacamole, taco meat, tortilla slivers or crumbs, onion, tomato, sour cream, hot sauce, coriander, jalapeño. Of course that’s way too many things – I strongly advise you to stick with a maximum of four. Anyway, these ingredients are not the problem. The problem is the hard-boiled egg at the bottom: it doesn’t belong.

6. Pickled onion. Again, the rule of smooth-tangy-sour applies here – you need all three to offset the rubbery blandness of the egg. Choi pickles her own onions with rosemary and cinnamon and always has a jar on hand, but you can easily manage a quick pickle – thinly sliced onion steeped in salt and rice vinegar for half an hour. Or, in an emergency, you can just use mayo, mustard and raw onion, although I can’t really imagine the set of circumstances that would lead to an egg-flight emergency.

7. Tzatziki. My only original contribution to the egg-flight canon, because I found that I had some tzatziki on hand – Greek yoghurt mixed with grated cucumber, minced garlic and chopped mint, with a sprinkling of paprika on top. I don’t mean to blow my own horn, but this works better than perhaps it should. I have since seen other people on TikTok spooning tzatziki on eggs, and then pushing chickpeas into it. I cannot condone this.

8. BLT. You get the idea: bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayo. An enduring combination let down by the fact that the whole mouthful is still going to be 80% egg by weight – a flavour imbalance that simply cannot be corrected. It is possibly a little late in the game for me to confess that I don’t really care for hard-boiled eggs, and I’ve already consumed more of them in an afternoon than I normally would in a year.

9. Caesar salad. Even if you love hard-boiled eggs – and I’ve made my position clear – you must eventually accept that the egg flight is a steeply descending staircase: the law of diminishing returns comes into effect once you’ve passed half a dozen variations. When you start making a caesar salad on top of an egg – lettuce, miniature croutons, dressing, parmesan shavings – you’ve taken things too far. It looks better in a photograph than it’s ever going to taste.

10. Burger egg. Given my ambivalence toward the hard-boiled egg – which has long since curdled into full-blown hostility – the last variation I tried to make was always going to rank the lowest. This really was a disappointment, however: idiotically sized mini-burger, cheese square, tomato, ketchup. It’s not a burger and it is not a fitting topping for an egg. Null points, and never again.