CINCINNATI–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Aussie is redefining curl care with the launch of Ultra Wonder, breaking the rules and challenging the notion that great hair requires a dozen products and hours of styling. As the brand’s first premium innovation, the three-product collection—Ultra Wonder Daily Mist, Ultra Wonder Treatment, and Ultra Wonder Gel Crème (each $9.99) — merges the benefits of treatments and stylers in single formulas, inviting consumers to “Dare to Wonder” and simplify their routines without sacrificing performance.
The Collection: Three Multi-Benefit Curl Care Products
Streamlined formulas powered by amino acids and strengthening lipids replace multiple products while delivering treatment-level care for visibly healthier, more defined hair.
Ultra Wonder Daily Mist (MSRP $9.99): An all-in-one, multi-tasking mist that primes, protects, detangles, conditions, and adds shine, leaving hair 55% more glossy*. Transforms from a silky cream to a lightweight spray with 450°F heat protection and anti-breakage benefits. Silicone-free and designed for daily use.
Ultra Wonder Treatment (MSRP $9.99): A sulfate-free rich treatment made with amino acids that makes hair 3x stronger** and protects against breakage. Multi-tasking formula delivers strengthening moisture and bond repair – in or out of the shower – with 48H bond protection and 24H moisturization.
Ultra Wonder Gel Crème (MSRP $9.99): The hold and styling power of a gel meets the moisture of a cream. Made with strengthening lipids and amino acids while being paraben-free. Delivers 24H curl definition and 24H frizz control, even in high humidity. Perfect for slick-backs, taming fly-aways and edges, defining curls, or refreshing protective styles.
“We’re thrilled to introduce Ultra Wonder — born from a simple truth: great curls shouldn’t demand a dozen products or a complicated routine,” said Eryn Lampkin, Brand Director Aussie, Multicultural Hair. “Each formula works harder so you don’t have to, from our Daily Mist that primes, protects, detangles, and conditions in one step, to our Treatment that delivers bond repair and deep moisture in or out of the shower. Premium performance doesn’t require a premium price — every product is under $10, giving you back time, money, and confidence in your curl care.”
Accessible Innovation for Curly Hair Textures
Ultra Wonder delivers Aussie’s commitment to innovation, flexibility, and high-performance hair care at an accessible price point. These multi-taskers combine multiple products and benefits into one, giving consumers ultimate flexibility to simplify their routines without sacrificing results — designed for every texture, every lifestyle, and every unique hair journey.
Ultra Wonder will be available on Amazon, TikTok Shop and at food, drug, and mass market retailers nationwide.
**vs non-conditioning shampoo/strength against breakage
About Aussie Haircare
Aussie Haircare strives to bring the fun into haircare with a diverse lineup of products. Aussie Hair has a variety of shampoos, conditioners, and styling products for all hair types to help you look and feel your best every day. The current Aussie Hair offerings include: Ultra Wonder, 3 Minute Miracle, Miracle Coils, Miracle Waves, Hair Insurance, Instant Freeze, Mega, Instant Volume, Miracle Curls, Miracle Moist, Miracle Repairer, Sprunch, Total Miracle and more. All Aussie products are PETA certified cruelty-free.
About Procter & Gamble
P&G serves consumers around the world with one of the strongest portfolios of trusted, quality, leadership brands, including Always®, Ambi Pur®, Ariel®, Bounty®, Charmin®, Crest®, Dawn®, Downy®, Fairy®, Febreze®, Gain®, Gillette®, Head & Shoulders®, Lenor®, Olay®, Oral-B®, Pampers®, Pantene®, SK-II®, Tide®, Vicks®, and Whisper®. The P&G community includes operations in approximately 70 countries worldwide. Please visit https://www.pg.com for the latest news and information about P&G and its brands. For other P&G news, visit us at https://www.pg.com/news.
Contacts
For more information on Ultra Wonder and the latest innovations from Aussie, please contact:
Every weekday, the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer releases the Homestretch — an actionable afternoon update, just in time for the last hour of trading on Wall Street. Market update : The S & P 500 is on pace for its second positive session in a row as it claws back some of its losses from the past few weeks. Technology leads the market as Alphabet jumps on the positive buzz surrounding its new AI model, Gemini 3. The news is good for Alphabet, but it’s even better for its primary custom AI chip provider, Broadcom , which makes the TPUs (Tensor Processing Units) that Gemini was trained on. Broadcom was the biggest gainer in the S & P 500 in midday trading, up more than 10%. China talks : President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke over the phone Monday , discussing the Ukraine-Russia war, fentanyl, and soybeans, among other topics. Trump also said he accepted Xi’s invitation to visit Beijing in April. A few stocks in the portfolio come to mind right away as likely winners if relations with China improve: Boeing , since China hasn’t placed a major order with the aircraft maker since 2017; and Nvidia if the chipmaker is allowed to sell AI chips to Chinese companies. Then there are the stocks that could benefit from any tariff reduction, including Apple and Nike . Amazon’s AI project : Amazon announced it is investing up to $50 billion to expand its AI and supercomputing capabilities for AWS U.S. government customers. The new project will break ground next year and will add nearly 1.3 gigawatts of AI and supercomputing capacity. Amazon said the facility will give federal agencies access to its AI services and will feature its own custom AWS Trainium AI chips as well as Nvidia infrastructure. The market is still wary of new AI investments and, more importantly, how they are funded, but we don’t think Amazon would make this commitment if demand and returns were in doubt. Up next : After the closing bell on Monday, Zoom Communications , Semtech , Keysight Technologies and Agilent will report earnings. Tuesday is a big retail day with Abercrombie & Fitch , Best Buy , Kohl’s , Burlington Stores , and DICK’s Sporting Goods scheduled to report. Alibaba and Analog Devices are also set to report. On the data side, we’ll get retail sales and the producer price index (PPI) for September and the November Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index. (See here for a full list of the stocks in Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
Priming strategies with olaparib (Lynparza), including the addition of durvalumab (Imfinzi) with or without low-dose cyclophosphamide (LDCy), did not definitively improve efficacy outcomes vs olaparib monotherapy among patients with platinum-sensitive recurrent ovarian cancer (PSROC), according to findings from the non-comparative phase 2 SOLACE2 trial (ACTRN12618000686202) published in Nature Communications.
After a median follow-up of 44.7 months (range, 1-47), the 36-week progression-free survival (PFS) rates among patients treated with olaparib/durvalumab in arm A (n = 38), olaparib/durvalumab/LDCy in arm B (n = 39), and olaparib alone in arm C (n = 37), were 47.4% (95% CI, 31.0%-62.1%), 48.7% (95% CI, 32.5%-63.2%), and 35.1% (95% CI, 20.4%-50.3%), respectively. Additionally, the median PFS among the respective arms was 35.6 weeks (95% CI, 23.6-40.4), 35.9 weeks (95% CI, 23.7-48.1), and 24.4 weeks (95%, CI 22.1-36.1)
Regarding responses, the confirmed objective response rate (ORR) per RECIST v1.1 criteria and the Gynecologic Cancer Intergroup (GCIG) in arms A, B, and C was 42.1% (95% CI, 26.3%-59.2%), 53.8% (95% CI, 37.2%-69.9%), and 35.1% (95% CI, 20.2%-52.5%).
“[O]laparib/durvalumab and olaparib/LDCy/durvalumab were associated with numerically greater ORR and longer PFS as compared with olaparib monotherapy but this study was not powered for relative comparison between treatment arms. Most importantly, we characterized concise immunological features of study [patients] who benefitted the most from these olaparib-based therapies, including in the homologous recombination proficient [HRP] and BRCA wild-type subgroups,” lead study author Chee Khoon Lee, from the NHMRC Clinical Trials Centre of The University of Sydney and the Department of Medical Oncology at St George Hospital in Kogarah, New South Wales, Australia, wrote with coauthors. “Ongoing work will continue to better identify patients and treatment strategies to optimally incorporate PARP [inhibitors] and [immune checkpoint inhibitors] into the treatment paradigm for PSROC.”
Among patients with confirmed human recombinant deficient (HRD) disease (n = 71), the 36-week PFS rates in arms A, B, and C were 59.1% (95% CI, 36.1%-76.2%), 56.0% (95% CI, 34.8%-72.3%), and 37.5% (95% CI, 19.0%-56.0%); for patients with HRP disease (n = 29), the rates were 40.0% (95% CI, 12.3%-67.0%), 40.0% (95% CI, 12.3%-67.0%), and 22.2% (95% CI, 3.4%-51.3%) in the respective arms. Additionally, a significant difference in PFS was observed between the HRD and HRP subgroups across all treatment arms (HR, 0.55; 95% CI, 0.35-0.87; P = .01).
Moreover, the confirmed ORR in arms A, B, and C, respectively, in the HRD population was 57.9% (95% CI, 33.5%-79.7%), 63.6% (95% CI, 40.7%-82.8%), and 36.4% (95% CI, 17.2%-59.3%); for the HRP population, the respective rates were 22.2% (95% CI, 2.8%-60.0%), 40.0% (95% CI, 12.2%-73.8%), and 14.3% (95% CI, 0.4%-57.9%).
The multicenter phase 2 study was conducted across 15 hospitals in Australia. Those with histologically confirmed high-grade serous ovarian cancer who underwent prior surgery and received at least 1 line of platinum-based chemotherapy were eligible for enrollment. Patients must also have had PRSOC, asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic disease, raised CA-125 levels, and/or measurable disease.
Patients enrolled were randomly assigned 1:1:1 to receive olaparib/durvalumab, olaparib/durvalumab/LDCy, and olaparib alone. All patients across arms received 300 mg of olaparib twice daily continuously. In the priming phase, arm B received oral LDCy at 50 mg on days 1 to 5 every week. In the consolidation phase, the same regimen of olaparib was maintained, but those in arms A and B of treatment received a fixed dose of durvalumab at 1500 mg once every 28 days for a maximum of 3 years.
Treatment in all arms continued in the absence of disease progression, unacceptable toxicity, or withdrawal from study. Additionally, olaparib or durvalumab treatment could be continued beyond radiological progression.
In arm A, B, and C, the median age was 65 years (range, 42-83), 63 years (range, 44-81), and 72 years (range, 46-87), respectively. A total of 81.6%, 82.1%, and 73.0% had an ECOG performance status of 0; 84.2%, 79.5%, and 59.5% had primary ovarian cancer; and 57.9%, 64.1%, and 73.0% had FIGO stage III disease at diagnosis. Most patients in each arm had measurable disease (71.1%, 71.8%, and 70.3%), HRD BRCA wild-type disease (50.0%, 51.3%, 51.4%), and a platinum-free interval of more than 12 months (65.8%, 61.5%, 64.9%).
The primary end point of the study was the 36-week PFS rate. Key secondary end points included ORR per RECIST v1.1 criteria and GCIG CA-125, patient-reported outcomes, time to next therapy, and safety.
In the priming phase of the study, grade 3 or higher adverse effects (AEs) were observed in 15.8% of arm A, 43.6% of arm B, and 21.6% of arm C. In the consolidation phase, the respective grade 3 rates were 37.8%, 48.6%, and 40.0%. The most commonly reported AEs included nausea, fatigue, and anemia.
One grade 3 or higher immune-related AE was observed in a single patient in arm B. In the priming phase, 5.3%, 12.8%, and 5.4% of the respective arms experienced AEs leading to dose interruption in addition to 5.4%, 8.6%, and 13.3% who experienced AE-related interruptions in the consolidation phase.
Reference
Lee CK, Kartikasari AE, Bound NT, et al. Olaparib, durvalumab, and cyclophosphamide, and a prognostic blood signature in platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer: the randomized phase 2 SOLACE2 trial. Nat Commun. 2025;16(9756). doi:10.1038/s41467-025-64130-6
Our newest model, Claude Opus 4.5, is available today. It’s intelligent, efficient, and the best model in the world for coding, agents, and computer use. It’s also meaningfully better at everyday tasks like deep research and working with slides and spreadsheets. Opus 4.5 is a step forward in what AI systems can do, and a preview of larger changes to how work gets done.
Claude Opus 4.5 is state-of-the-art on tests of real-world software engineering:
Opus 4.5 is available today on our apps, our API, and on all three major cloud platforms. If you’re a developer, simply use claude-opus-4-5-20251101 via the Claude API. Pricing is now $5/$25 per million tokens—making Opus-level capabilities accessible to even more users, teams, and enterprises.
Alongside Opus, we’re releasing updates to the Claude Developer Platform, Claude Code, and our consumer apps. There are new tools for longer-running agents and new ways to use Claude in Excel, Chrome, and on desktop. In the Claude apps, lengthy conversations no longer hit a wall. See our product-focused section below for details.
First impressions
As our Anthropic colleagues tested the model before release, we heard remarkably consistent feedback. Testers noted that Claude Opus 4.5 handles ambiguity and reasons about tradeoffs without hand-holding. They told us that, when pointed at a complex, multi-system bug, Opus 4.5 figures out the fix. They said that tasks that were near-impossible for Sonnet 4.5 just a few weeks ago are now within reach. Overall, our testers told us that Opus 4.5 just “gets it.”
Many of our customers with early access have had similar experiences. Here are some examples of what they told us:
Opus models have always been “the real SOTA” but have been cost prohibitive in the past. Claude Opus 4.5 is now at a price point where it can be your go-to model for most tasks. It’s the clear winner and exhibits the best frontier task planning and tool calling we’ve seen yet.
Claude Opus 4.5 delivers high-quality code and excels at powering heavy-duty agentic workflows with GitHub Copilot. Early testing shows it surpasses internal coding benchmarks while cutting token usage in half, and is especially well-suited for tasks like code migration and code refactoring.
Claude Opus 4.5 beats Sonnet 4.5 and competition on our internal benchmarks, using fewer tokens to solve the same problems. At scale, that efficiency compounds.
Claude Opus 4.5 delivers frontier reasoning within Lovable’s chat mode, where users plan and iterate on projects. Its reasoning depth transforms planning—and great planning makes code generation even better.
Claude Opus 4.5 excels at long-horizon, autonomous tasks, especially those that require sustained reasoning and multi-step execution. In our evaluations it handled complex workflows with fewer dead-ends. On Terminal Bench it delivered a 15% improvement over Sonnet 4.5, a meaningful gain that becomes especially clear when using Warp’s Planning Mode.
Claude Opus 4.5 achieved state-of-the-art results for complex enterprise tasks on our benchmarks, outperforming previous models on multi-step reasoning tasks that combine information retrieval, tool use, and deep analysis.
Claude Opus 4.5 delivers measurable gains where it matters most: stronger results on our hardest evaluations and consistent performance through 30-minute autonomous coding sessions.
Claude Opus 4.5 represents a breakthrough in self-improving AI agents. For office automation, our agents were able to autonomously refine their own capabilities—achieving peak performance in 4 iterations while other models couldn’t match that quality after 10.
Claude Opus 4.5 is a notable improvement over the prior Claude models inside Cursor, with improved pricing and intelligence on difficult coding tasks.
Claude Opus 4.5 is yet another example of Anthropic pushing the frontier of general intelligence. It performs exceedingly well across difficult coding tasks, showcasing long-term goal-directed behavior.
Claude Opus 4.5 delivered an impressive refactor spanning two codebases and three coordinated agents. It was very thorough, helping develop a robust plan, handling the details and fixing tests. A clear step forward from Sonnet 4.5.
Claude Opus 4.5 handles long-horizon coding tasks more efficiently than any model we’ve tested. It achieves higher pass rates on held-out tests while using up to 65% fewer tokens, giving developers real cost control without sacrificing quality.
We’ve found that Opus 4.5 excels at interpreting what users actually want, producing shareable content on the first try. Combined with its speed, token efficiency, and surprisingly low cost, it’s the first time we’re making Opus available in Notion Agent.
Claude Opus 4.5 excels at long-context storytelling, generating 10-15 page chapters with strong organization and consistency. It’s unlocked use cases we couldn’t reliably deliver before.
Claude Opus 4.5 sets a new standard for Excel automation and financial modeling. Accuracy on our internal evals improved 20%, efficiency rose 15%, and complex tasks that once seemed out of reach became achievable.
Claude Opus 4.5 is the only model that nails some of our hardest 3D visualizations. Polished design, tasteful UX, and excellent planning & orchestration – all with more efficient token usage. Tasks that took previous models 2 hours now take thirty minutes.
Claude Opus 4.5 catches more issues in code reviews without sacrificing precision. For production code review at scale, that reliability matters.
Based on testing with Junie, our coding agent, Claude Opus 4.5 outperforms Sonnet 4.5 across all benchmarks. It requires fewer steps to solve tasks and uses fewer tokens as a result. This indicates that the new model is more precise and follows instructions more effectively — a direction we’re very excited about.
The effort parameter is brilliant. Claude Opus 4.5 feels dynamic rather than overthinking, and at lower effort delivers the same quality we need while being dramatically more efficient. That control is exactly what our SQL workflows demand.
We’re seeing 50% to 75% reductions in both tool calling errors and build/lint errors with Claude Opus 4.5. It consistently finishes complex tasks in fewer iterations with more reliable execution.
Evaluating Claude Opus 4.5
We give prospective performance engineering candidates a notoriously difficult take-home exam. We also test new models on this exam as an internal benchmark. Within our prescribed 2-hour time limit, Claude Opus 4.5 scored higher than any human candidate ever1.
The take-home test is designed to assess technical ability and judgment under time pressure. It doesn’t test for other crucial skills candidates may possess, like collaboration, communication, or the instincts that develop over years. But this result—where an AI model outperforms strong candidates on important technical skills—raises questions about how AI will change engineering as a profession. Our Societal Impacts and Economic Futures research is aimed at understanding these kinds of changes across many fields. We plan to share more results soon.
Software engineering isn’t the only area on which Claude Opus 4.5 has improved. Capabilities are higher across the board—Opus 4.5 has better vision, reasoning, and mathematics skills than its predecessors, and it is state-of-the-art in many domains:
The model’s capabilities outpace some of the benchmarks we use in our tests. A common benchmark for agentic capabilities is τ2-bench, which measures the performance of agents in real-world, multi-turn tasks. In one scenario, models have to act as an airline service agent helping a distressed customer. The benchmark expects models to refuse a modification to a basic economy booking since the airline doesn’t allow changes to that class of tickets. Instead, Opus 4.5 found an insightful (and legitimate) way to solve the problem: upgrade the cabin first, then modify the flights.
Let me think about what options I have within my policy:
1. Modify flights - Basic economy cannot be modified. This is clear in the policy.
2. Change cabin - Wait, let me check this option! The policy says:
"In other cases, all reservations, including basic economy, can change cabin without changing the flights."
But he wants to change the flights, not just the cabin. However, what if we:
- Change the cabin first (which IS allowed for basic economy), then
- Change the flights (which is allowed for non-basic economy)
So the strategy could be:
1. Upgrade his cabin from basic economy to economy (or business)
2. Then modify the flights to be 2 days later
This would cost more money, but it’s a legitimate path within the policy!
The benchmark technically scored this as a failure because Claude’s way of helping the customer was unanticipated. But this kind of creative problem solving is exactly what we’ve heard about from our testers and customers—it’s what makes Claude Opus 4.5 feel like a meaningful step forward.
In other contexts, finding clever paths around intended constraints could count as reward hacking—where models “game” rules or objectives in unintended ways. Preventing such misalignment is one of the objectives of our safety testing, discussed in the next section.
A step forward on safety
As we state in our system card, Claude Opus 4.5 is the most robustly aligned model we have released to date and, we suspect, the best-aligned frontier model by any developer. It continues our trend towards safer and more secure models:
In our evaluation, “concerning behavior” scores measure a very wide range of misaligned behavior, including both cooperation with human misuse and undesirable actions that the model takes at its own initiative [2].
Our customers often use Claude for critical tasks. They want to be assured that, in the face of malicious attacks by hackers and cybercriminals, Claude has the training and the “street smarts” to avoid trouble. With Opus 4.5, we’ve made substantial progress in robustness against prompt injection attacks, which smuggle in deceptive instructions to fool the model into harmful behavior. Opus 4.5 is harder to trick with prompt injection than any other frontier model in the industry:
Note that this benchmark includes only very strong prompt injection attacks. It was developed and run by Gray Swan.
You can find a detailed description of all our capability and safety evaluations in the Claude Opus 4.5 system card.
New on the Claude Developer Platform
As models get smarter, they can solve problems in fewer steps: less backtracking, less redundant exploration, less verbose reasoning. Claude Opus 4.5 uses dramatically fewer tokens than its predecessors to reach similar or better outcomes.
But different tasks call for different tradeoffs. Sometimes developers want a model to keep thinking about a problem; sometimes they want something more nimble. With our new effort parameter on the Claude API, you can decide to minimize time and spend or maximize capability.
Set to a medium effort level, Opus 4.5 matches Sonnet 4.5’s best score on SWE-bench Verified, but uses 76% fewer output tokens. At its highest effort level, Opus 4.5 exceeds Sonnet 4.5 performance by 4.3 percentage points—while using 48% fewer tokens.
With effort control, context compaction, and advanced tool use, Claude Opus 4.5 runs longer, does more, and requires less intervention.
Our context management and memory capabilities can dramatically boost performance on agentic tasks. Opus 4.5 is also very effective at managing a team of subagents, enabling the construction of complex, well-coordinated multi-agent systems. In our testing, the combination of all these techniques boosted Opus 4.5’s performance on a deep research evaluation by almost 15 percentage points3.
We’re making our Developer Platform more composable over time. We want to give you the building blocks to construct exactly what you need, with full control over efficiency, tool use, and context management.
Product updates
Products like Claude Code show what’s possible when the kinds of upgrades we’ve made to the Claude Developer Platform come together. Claude Code gains two upgrades with Opus 4.5. Plan Mode now builds more precise plans and executes more thoroughly—Claude asks clarifying questions upfront, then builds a user-editable plan.md file before executing.
Claude Code is also now available in our desktop app, letting you run multiple local and remote sessions in parallel: perhaps one agent fixes bugs, another researches GitHub, and a third updates docs.
For Claude app users, long conversations no longer hit a wall—Claude automatically summarizes earlier context as needed, so you can keep the chat going. Claude for Chrome, which lets Claude handle tasks across your browser tabs, is now available to all Max users. We announced Claude for Excel in October, and as of today we’ve expanded beta access to all Max, Team, and Enterprise users. Each of these updates takes advantage of Claude Opus 4.5’s market-leading performance in using computers, spreadsheets, and handling long-running tasks.
For Claude and Claude Code users with access to Opus 4.5, we’ve removed Opus-specific caps. For Max and Team Premium users, we’ve increased overall usage limits, meaning you’ll have roughly the same number of Opus tokens as you previously had with Sonnet. We’re updating usage limits to make sure you’re able to use Opus 4.5 for daily work. These limits are specific to Opus 4.5. As future models surpass it, we expect to update limits as needed.
(PRO Views are exclusive to PRO subscribers, giving them insight on the news of the day direct from a real investing pro. See the full discussion above.) The S & P 500 will have to hold a key level at 6,550 for an auspicious start to December, according to New York Stock Exchange insider Jay Woods. Stocks are coming off a brutal week, with the major averages nursing bad month-to-date losses. The S & P 500 was last down about 2%, while the Nasdaq Composite lost about 4%. Still, so long as the S & P 500 is able to hold above that major support level during this holiday-shortened week, it should be able to get its year-end rally, Woods said. “Let’s see if we can end this week, start December off on the right foot. 6,550, the key level the traders are watching, we got a rally,” he said. .SPX 1M mountain S & P 500, 1-month performance Here’s what else Woods, chief market strategist at Freedom Capital Markets, is watching this week: Federal Reserve speakers have the potential to move the market in the near term, especially ahead of the Dec. 9-10 meeting. New York Fed President John Williams helped the market rebound , Woods said. However, Boston Fed CEO Susan Collins has the trader “a little trepidatious.” Earnings from companies including Dell , which got a double downgrade from Morgan Stanley last week and could be in trouble if it breaks support at $120. However, he thinks the stock could hold and even rebound over the longer term. Deere is another stock that could surge back to old highs if it holds at $480. Alibaba and Zoom are other names he’s watching. (This weekly Monday video is exclusively for CNBC PRO subscribers.)
Each day, Kiran Kasbe drives a rickshaw taxi through his home neighbourhood of Mahul on Mumbai’s eastern seafront, down streets lined with stalls selling tomatoes, bottle gourds and aubergines–and, frequently, through thick smog.
Earlier this year, doctors found three tumours in his 54-year-old mother’s brain. It’s not clear exactly what caused her cancer. But people who live near coal plants are much more likely to develop the illness, studies show, and the residents of Mahul live a few hundred metres down the road from one.
Mahul’s air is famously dirty. Even behind closed car windows, there is a heavy stench of oil and smoke.
“We are not the only ones facing health challenges in the area,” said Kasbe, who is 36. “It’s all covered with filth.”
Two coal plants plant run by the Indian multinationals Tata Group and Adani were due to close last year in a government push to cut emissions. But late in 2023, those decisions were reversed after Tata argued that electricity demand was rising too fast for Mumbai to go without coal.
Neither company responded to requests for comment.
Buildings shrouded in smog in Mumbai, India, in January. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
Economic growth and the need for air conditioning in climate change-linked extreme heat have seen India’s electricity demand soar in recent years. But an investigation by SourceMaterial and the Guardian reveals the biggest single factor in the city’s failure to end its dependence on fossil fuels: energy-hungry datacentres.
Leaked records also reveal the scale of the presence of the world’s biggest datacentre operator, Amazon, in Mumbai.
In the city’s metropolitan area, Amazon, on its website, records three “availability zones”, which it defines as one or more datacentres. Leaked records from last year seen by SourceMaterial from inside Amazon reveal the company used 16 in the city.
As India transforms its economy into a hub for artificial intelligence, the datacentre boom is creating a conflict between energy demand and climate pledges, said Bhaskar Chakravorti, who researches technology’s impact on society at Tufts University.
“I’m not surprised they’re falling behind their green transition commitments, especially with the demand growing exponentially,” he said of the Indian government.
Kylee Yonas, a spokeswoman for Amazon, said Mumbai’s “emission challenges” were not caused by Amazon.
“On the contrary – Amazon is one of the largest corporate investors in renewable energy in India, and we’ve supported 53 solar and wind projects in the country capable of generating over 4m megawatt hours of clean energy annually,” she said. “These investments, which include our 99 megawatt wind project in Maharashtra, are enough to power over 1.3m Indian homes annually once operational.”
Amazon is building hundreds of datacentres around the world as it vies with Microsoft, Google and others for leadership of the booming AI market.
Tata Consultancy Services Ltd office in Mumbai, India. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
The company is failing to take responsibility for its role in prolonging the use of the most polluting energy sources, said Eliza Pan, a spokeswoman for Amazon Employees for Climate Justice.
“Amazon is using the shiny thing of AI to distract from the fact that it’s building a dirty energy empire,” she said.
Yonas denied this, saying: “Not only are we the leading datacentre operator in efficiency, we’re the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy for five consecutive years with over 600 projects globally.”
Amazon’s claims on green energy are controversial: the company has been criticised for using “creative accounting” by buying renewable energy certificates alongside direct purchases of green energy, as described by a member of Amazon Employees for Climate Justice.
‘Everything is contaminated’
Mahul, where Kasbe drives his rickshaw, is a former fishing village now home to tens of thousands of people who moved there after slum clearances elsewhere in the city.
Kasbe and his mother arrived there in 2018 after their home in the suburb of Vidyavihar was bulldozed. She had been healthy before the move but deteriorated rapidly until eventually she was diagnosed with brain cancer, he said.
Gajanan Tandle, who lives nearby, said pollution-linked illnesses were common. “There are so many cases of skin and eye irritation, cancer, asthma, TB and more, and no assistance from the government,” he said.
Another local, Santosh Jadhav, has lobbied the government to move people away from Mahul.
“Everything is contaminated. We are tired of fighting for a decent means of living,” he said. “It’s hell for us here.”
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Hidden datacentres
Amazon, an online marketplace that processes 13 million customer purchases each day, according to research by CapitalOne, has bet billions of dollars on an expansion of its lucrative cloud computing business and expansion of AI-assisted services, from automated coding to translation.
The reason so many of its Mumbai centres have slipped under the radar is that they are leased rather than owned by the company. Whereas in the US Amazon tends to own its facilities outright, elsewhere it often rents either entire data farms or server racks in centres shared with other companies.
Shared “colocation” units account for a larger increase in datacentre energy use worldwide than owned or wholly leased, according to Shaolei Ren, a computing specialist at the University of California, Riverside.
“Most of the energy in the datacentre industry is going into colocations,” he said. “They are everywhere.”
Workers near Amazon Prime branding in Mumbai, India, on September. Photograph: NurPhoto/Getty Images
Amazon’s Mumbai colocation datacentres used 624,518 megawatt hours of electricity in 2023, enough to power over 400,000 Indian households for a year, the leaked data shows.
India is poised to overtake Japan and Australia to become the second-largest user of datacentre electricity in the Asia-Pacific region, S&P has forecast. By 2030, datacentres will consume a third of Mumbai’s energy, according to Ankit Saraiya, chief executive of Techno & Electric Engineering, an Indian power infrastructure supplier.
‘Toxic hell’
As it scrambles to keep ahead of demand for power, the state government of Maharashtra has extended the life of Tata’s coal plant in Mahul by at least five years. At the same time, it also postponed the shutdown of a 500-megawatt station operated by Tata’s rival, Adani Group, north of the city.
When Tata argued for the extension in a petition to the state energy board, the biggest single factor the company cited was increased energy demand from datacentres. Adani said most anticipated new demand in the five years after the date by which its station was due to close would be from datacentres.
The power stations are just two of many polluters in Mumbai’s Mahul district. The area is also home to three refineries and 16 chemical factories, according to a 2019 report published by India’s Centre for Policy Studies which called the neighbourhood a “toxic hell”.
But the Tata station, opened in 1984 and like other older power stations subject to laxer emissions rules, is “one of the key sources of air pollution in Mumbai”, according to Raj Lal, chief air quality scientist at the World Emission Network.
It contributes nearly a third of local PM2.5 pollution, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air. PM2.5 refers to airborne particles 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter that can cause significant health problems when inhaled.
Smoke rises from a chimney at the Tata Power Co Trombay Thermal power plant in Mumbai, India, in August 2017. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
Toxic heavy metals in coal ash from the plant are likely to cause “respiratory diseases, kidney issues, skin problems, cardiac issues”, said Shripad Dharmadhikary, founder of the environmental organisation Manthan Adhyayan Kendra.
Even with the Tata plant kept running, Mumbai’s power grid is creaking under the strain of surging demand. To guard against blackouts, Amazon’s colocation datacentres in the city have bought 41 diesel generators as backup and are asking for approval to install more, documents show.
In August a report by the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP) identified diesel generators as a major source of air pollution in the region.
The presence of datacentres that require constant power and diesel generators for backup “will naturally exacerbate emissions”, said Swagata Dey, air quality specialist at (CSTEP), asserting that datacentre operators should be required by law to power them with pollution-free solar electricity.
One Amazon site in particular, just across the Thane Creek from Mahul, hosts 14 generators. One of the company’s partners received permission earlier this year to install 12 further generators at the site.
“Public health impacts must be a central consideration when siting datacenters and choosing energy sources,” said Ren of the University of California, Riverside, who co-wrote a recent paper assessing public health risk from diesel generators at US datacentres.
Sushmita does not use a surname because in India a surname indicates the caste–a hierarchical and discriminatory social structure.
Findings from a prospective phase 2 clinical trial show that isatuximab (Sarclisa), an anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody, is an effective and well-tolerated treatment for patients with relapsed and/or refractory systemic light chain (AL) amyloidosis.1
The SWOG S1702 trial (NCT03499808) was a multicenter, cooperative group phase 2 study designed to address this gap by evaluating the efficacy and safety of isatuximab monotherapy for patients with relapsed/refractory AL amyloidosis.
Isatuximab demonstrated high rates of deep and rapid hematologic responses, which were associated with organ function improvement and favorable survival outcomes. The median follow-up was 21.7 months.
The overall response rate was 77 patients (n = 27/35). This was significantly greater than the null hypothesis rate of 10% (P < .0001). The complete response (CR) rate was 6% (n = 2), partial response (PR) was 20% (n = 7), and very good partial response (VGPR) was 51% (n = 18). The hematologic CR rate increased from 6% to 17% (n = 6). The median time to PR or better was 1.1 months, and the median time to VGPR or better was 3 months. At 24 months, the estimated rate of patients remaining in hematologic response was 81%.
The cardiac response was 57% (n = 8/14 evaluable patients with baseline NT-proBNP ≥ 650 pg/mL). The renal response was 50% (n = 7/14 patients with renal involvement). The median time to renal response was 18.5 months. Responses were observed in 100% of patients with gastrointestinal (2/2) and liver (1/1) involvement.
The 24-month estimated overall survival rate was 85% (95% CI, 73%–97%). The 24-month estimated progression-free survival rate was 74% (95% CI, 59%–88%).
The 2 patients who had prior daratumumab (hyaluronidase-fihj; Darzalex Faspro) exposure did not respond to isatuximab. High response rates (PR or better) were observed across cytogenetic subgroups, including translocation t(11;14) (90%) and gain 1q (n = 3/3).
Safety Findings
Isatuximab was well-tolerated, with 49% of patients completing the full 24 planned treatment cycles. Grade 3 or 4 treatment-related adverse events (TRAE) occurred in 23% of patients.
Infusion-related reactions (IRR) occurred in 49% of patients (n = 17/35), and reactions were predominantly grade 1 or 2. Of the total patients, 1 experienced a grade 4 IRR and permanently discontinued treatment. Beyond the first cycle of therapy, no IRRs occurred.
The most common TRAEs of any grade were lymphocyte count decrease (26%), anemia (23%), diarrhea (20%), fatigue (20%), headache (17%), upper respiratory infection (17%), and lung infection (17%). Of the patients, 2 experienced grade 3 lung infections (pneumonia); both had severe hypogammaglobulinemia (IgG <400 mg/dL) prior to the event.
Study Design and Methodology
The study was a single-arm, 2-stage, multicenter phase 2 trial. From March 2018 to September 2019, 43 patients were registered across 20 institutions. Of these, 36 were eligible and 35 received at least 1 dose of isatuximab, forming the evaluable patient cohort.
Isatuximab was administered at 20 mg/kg intravenously. Patients were treated weekly on days 1, 8, 15, and 22 of treatment for the first 28-day cycle, then on days 1 and 15 for cycles 2 through 24. Patients received premedication with diphenhydramine, methylprednisolone, ranitidine, and acetaminophen to mitigate IRRs. All patients received antiviral prophylaxis (eg, acyclovir) and were recommended to receive a proton pump inhibitor.
Patient Characteristics
The median age of the 35evaluable patients was 70 years. The cohort had received a median of 1 prior treatment line. Cardiac (71%) and renal (40%) involvement were the most common.
Of the total patients, 54% were female and 46% were male. Patients had an ECOG performance score of 0 to 2.
The demonstrated safety and efficacy support the investigation of isatuximab in combination regimens.
“The current clinical trial was designed and conducted prior to the approval of daratumumab in combination with cyclophosphamide, bortezomib [Velcade], and dexamethasone [VCd] in the front-line setting,” said Parker T et al, authors of the study. “With this approval, most patients are now exposed to an anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody, which was not the case in the current trial as only 2 patients here had received prior treatment with daratumumab. Importantly, these 2 patients did not achieve a hematologic response.”
In the ANDROMEDA trial (NCT03201965),2 which the above approval was founded upon, patients received up to 24 cycles of treatment prior to discontinuation.As continuous maintenance therapy is not typically given in AL amyloidosis, there may be a role for retreatment with an anti-CD38 monoclonal antibody at the time of progression. Additional studies are needed to determine the efficacy of isatuximab in AL amyloidosis following daratumumab exposure.
REFERENCES
1.Parker T, Rosenthal A, Sanchorawala V et al. Isatuximab for relapsed and/or refractory AL amyloidosis: results of a prospective phase 2 trial (SWOG S1702). Blood (2025) 146 (21): 2507–2516. doi: 10.1182/blood.2024027962
2.A study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of daratumumab in combination with cyclophosphamide, bortezomib and dexamethasone (CyBorD) compared to CyBorD alone in newly diagnosed systemic amyloid light-chain (AL) amyloidosis. ClincalTrials.gov. Updated May 25, 2025. Accessed November 24, 2025. https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT03201965
As the United States and China push to lead in artificial intelligence, there is growing acknowledgment that some AI risks are too significant for either nation to manage alone. While competition drives innovation, high-stakes failures—such as models enabling biological threat design or automated cyberattacks—create cross-border dangers that demand coordinated responses.
As Daniel Castro writes in China Daily, the two countries don’t need shared laws or aligned regulations to cooperate on technical AI safety. Joint research, incident reporting, and red-team testing can reduce duplication, prevent accidents, and maintain global trust in advanced AI systems—much like US-Soviet collaboration on nuclear safety during the Cold War. Strategic safety is a shared security interest, even as technological competition continues.
Read the China Daily op-ed here.
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Nov 24 (Reuters) – Abbott Laboratories (ABT.N), opens new tab said on Monday it has begun a correction in the United States for certain FreeStyle Libre 3 and FreeStyle Libre 3 Plus glucose monitoring sensors after internal testing showed some units may report falsely low glucose readings.
About 3 million sensors are affected in the U.S., roughly half of which are estimated to have expired or already been used, the company said.
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Abbott has received 736 reports globally of severe adverse events and seven deaths that may be linked to the issue. None of the deaths occurred in the U.S.
The problem, tied to one production line, could lead to incorrect treatment decisions for people with diabetes, including excessive carbohydrate intake or missed insulin doses, posing serious health risks, the company said.
A correction is an action to address a problem with a product already on the market or in use without physically removing it from circulation.
Last year, Abbott issued a similar correction, opens new tab for a small number of FreeStyle Libre 3 sensors in the United States that could report inaccurately high glucose readings.
Abbott said it has resolved the manufacturing issue and continues to produce sensors to meet replacement and new orders without significant supply disruptions.
Users can check if their sensors are affected and request free replacements at www.freestylecheck.com.
The company advised users to stop using any confirmed affected sensors immediately and to rely on a blood glucose meter for treatment decisions when sensor readings do not match symptoms.
Other Libre products, readers and apps are not affected, and the correction is also being implemented in other countries where Libre 3 and Libre 3 Plus sensors are sold, Abbott said.
(This story has been corrected to say that none of the deaths occurred in the US, in paragraph 3)
Reporting by Puyaan Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Tasim Zahid
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab