United Airlines reaches labor deal with flight attendants, union says
United Airlines reaches labor deal with flight attendants, union says
United Airline flight attendants picketed outside Terminal B at Logan Airport Thursday morning seeking a new contract.
John Tlumacki | Boston Globe | Getty Images
United Airlines reached an “industry-leading” tentative labor deal for its 28,000 flight attendants, their union said Friday.
The deal includes “40% of total economic improvements” in the first year and retroactive pay, a signing bonus, and quality of life improvements, like better scheduling and on-call time, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said.
The union did not provide further details about the deal.
United flight attendants have not had a raise since 2020.
The cabin crew members voted last year to authorize the union to strike if a deal wasn’t reached. They had also sought federal mediation in negotiations.
Read more CNBC airline news
U.S. flight attendants have pushed for wage increases for years after pilots and other work groups secured new labor deals in the wake of the pandemic. United is the last of the major U.S. carriers to get a deal done with its flight attendants.
The deal must still face a vote by flight attendants, and contract language will be finalized in the coming days, United said.
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Judge strikes down Trump order targeting law firm Jenner & Block, calling parts of it a “screed”
Judge strikes down Trump order targeting law firm Jenner & Block, calling parts of it a “screed”
A federal judge ruled Friday that President Trump’s executive order targeting the law firm Jenner & Block is unconstitutional and permanently blocked the administration from enforcing it — a second setback in Mr. Trump’s push to punish certain law firms.
U.S. District Judge John Bates, who was appointed by President George W. Bush and is based in Washington, D.C., said the executive order is “violative of the Constitution” and found that the order infringes on the First, Fifth and Sixth amendments.
“This order, like the others, seeks to chill legal representation the administration doesn’t like, thereby insulating the Executive Branch from the judicial check fundamental to the separation of powers. It thus violates the Constitution and the Court will enjoin its operation in full,” Bates wrote.
Bates continued that parts of the order resemble “something of a screed airing the President’s grievances with Jenner” and display a “great deal of animosity” towards the firm.
Earlier this month, another judge who sits on the U.S. district court in Washington, D.C., also made a summary ruling against the administration’s executive order against Perkins Coie, another firm that sued after it was targeted. Some other law firms have struck deals with the Trump administration to avoid punishment from the federal government.
In March, Mr. Trump issued an executive order that targeted the Chicago-based firm Jenner & Block, which has been active in legal challenges against his wide-ranging swath of executive orders.
In a statement posted online, Jenner & Block said that the firm was “pleased with the court’s decision to decisively strike down an unconstitutional attack on our clients’ right to have zealous, independent counsel and our firm’s right to represent our clients fully and without compromise.”
The Justice Department and White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The executive order against Jenner & Block instructed officials to review and revoke firm members’ security clearances, identify any goods, property, material and services provided by the federal government and stop providing them, terminate any government contracts that may exist with the law firm, and not hire any employees of the firm for any future federal jobs.
It specifically singled out Andrew Weissmann, who worked on Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and worked at the firm until 2021.
The executive order, Bates wrote, “makes no bones about why it chose its target: it picked Jenner because of the causes Jenner champions, the clients Jenner represents, and a lawyer Jenner once employed.”
Bates previously issued a temporary restraining order blocking the executive order’s implementation. Following Bates’ earlier decision, Attorney General Pam Bondi criticized him in a court filing after Bates said that the Justice Department was required to inform him of the steps it had taken to comply with findings.
In a memo from Bondi to all department and agency heads, which was included in the filing, the attorney general informed them of the injunction against provisions of Mr. Trump’s order and said Bates had “mandated” she “personally send” the notification.
“On March 28, 2025, an unelected district court yet again invaded the policy-making and free speech prerogatives of the executive branch, including by requiring the Attorney General and the OMB Director to pen a letter to the head of every executive department and agency,” Bondi wrote. “Local district judges lack this authority, and the Supreme Court should swiftly constrain these judges’ blatant overstepping of the judicial power.”
She went on to attack Jenner & Block as purportedly “committed to the weaponization of justice, discrimination on the basis of race, radical gender ideology and other anti-American pursuits.”
Jacob Rosen
Jake Rosen is a reporter covering the Department of Justice. He was previously a campaign digital reporter covering President Trump’s 2024 campaign and also served as an associate producer for “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” where he worked with Brennan for two years on the broadcast. Rosen has been a producer for several CBS News podcasts, including “The Takeout,” “The Debrief” and “Agent of Betrayal: The Double Life of Robert Hanssen.”
Melissa Quinn
contributed to this report.
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DOJ confirms it has a deal with Boeing to drop prosecution over deadly 737 Max crashes – NPR
DOJ confirms it has a deal with Boeing to drop prosecution over deadly 737 Max crashes – NPR
DOJ confirms it has a deal with Boeing to drop prosecution over deadly 737 Max crashes NPRBoeing to Avoid Guilty Plea With DOJ Over 737 Max Crashes The New York TimesBoeing, Justice Department reach deal to avoid prosecution over deadly 737 Max crashes NBC NewsTrump’s DOJ may let Boeing escape guilty plea. Victims’ families aren’t happy. Yahoo FinanceUS senators urge DOJ not to let Boeing avoid criminal prosecution Reuters
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At Trump’s $148 million meme coin dinner, ‘the food sucked’
At Trump’s $148 million meme coin dinner, ‘the food sucked’
Crypto investor and $TRUMP token holder, Nicholas Pinto, attends gala dinner for contest winners.
Nicholas Pinto
The price of President Donald Trump’s meme coin plunged 16% as of Friday morning, just hours after he hosted a ******-tie gala at his Virginia golf club for its biggest buyers — an elite crowd that spent a combined $148 million on the token for the chance to be there.
It was billed as “the most exclusive invitation in the world.”
Among the 220 attendees were crypto influencers, industry executives like Sandy Carter of Unstoppable Domains, and former NBA star Lamar Odom, who used the occasion to praise Trump as “the greatest president” and promote his own token, $ODOM.
The top 25 wallets were promised a private reception and guided tour. Others, like 25-year-old Nicholas Pinto — whose dad drove him to the event in his Lamborghini — left underwhelmed and still hungry.
“The food sucked,” Pinto said. “Wasn’t given any drinks other than water or Trump’s wine. I don’t drink, so I had water. My glass was only filled once.”
Trump made only a brief appearance. “He didn’t talk to any of the 220 guests — maybe the top 25,” Pinto said.
All in, the president was there for 23 minutes, Pinto said. Trump delivered a brief address re-hashing old crypto talking points, then he left on a helicopter before taking any questions or pictures with his meme coin contest winners.
Phones weren’t locked in RFID pouches, and security was lax, according to Pinto.
“Once Trump left, they didn’t really worry about anything else,” Pinto added.
The opulence was on full display.
“Richard Mille watches weren’t even rare,” Pinto said. “I saw at least 16 people wearing them. I never see that unless I’m at a high-end restaurant in Miami or Dubai.”
But the vibe was more muted than expected, he said: “Lots of people didn’t even hold the coin anymore. They were checking their phones during dinner to see if the price moved.”
Protests
For lawmakers and regulators, the dinner set off alarm bells.
The #1 token holder was ********-born crypto mogul Justin Sun who is currently facing Securities and Exchange Commission fraud charges that were recently paused, with the agency citing “the public interest.”
Sun holds over $22 million in the $TRUMP token and another $75 million in World Liberty Financial’s native token.
“As the top holder of $TRUMP and proud supporter of President Trump, it was an honor to attend the Trump Gala Dinner,” Sun posted on Friday. “Thank you @POTUS for your unwavering support of our industry!”
Outside the gates of Trump National Golf Club in Potomac Falls, Va., about a hundred protesters gathered, according to NBC News. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., joined them, backing a new End Crypto Corruption Act with Senate ********* Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Signs read “Crypto Corruption” and “Trump is a traitor.”
President Donald Trump speaks at dinner for meme coin contest winners at his golf club in Virginia.
Nicholas Pinto
Crypto on Capitol Hill
“The Trump family activity in the memecoin space makes my work in Congress more complicated,” Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., told CNBC Friday.
Hill, who’s leading negotiations on a bipartisan stablecoin bill known as the GENIUS Act, called the gala “a distraction from the good work we need to do.”
Now, the GENIUS Act, a bill to regulate stablecoins, is at risk.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., recently added a controversial rider to the bill that would cap credit card late fees — what’s seen as a poison pill that could alienate banking allies and stall final approval.
On Thursday night as the meme coin contest dinner was underway, a bloc of Senate Democrats announced they’d be pushing for a new provision that would ban presidents and senior officials from profiting off crypto ventures while in office — a direct challenge to the Trump-linked stablecoin USD1 that launched this spring.
in Washington, there’s growing concern that political infighting over Trump’s crypto ventures could derail the stablecoin bill altogether. That poses an even ******* risk.
According to the Wall Street Journal, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citi, and other major banks are in early talks to issue a unified digital dollar to compete with Tether, the foreign-controlled stablecoin that now commands over 60% of global market share.
Those plans hinge on legal clarity.
If the GENIUS Act stalls, the U.S. could lose its window to regain ground in the global race for digital payments.
The White House has tried to draw a line between Trump the president and Trump the private businessman.
“The president is attending it in his personal time. It is not a White House dinner,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters when pressed on attendee transparency.
The administration declined to release a guest list. But blockchain data — and a patchwork of guest photos — tell part of the story.
A Bloomberg News analysis found that all but six of the top 25 wallets used foreign exchanges, ostensibly off-limits to U.S. users. More than half of the top 220 wallets were linked to similar offshore platforms.
One Nasdaq-listed penny stock, Freight Technologies, disclosed in an SEC filing that it spent $2 million on Trump’s token to push U.S.-Mexico trade policy. It didn’t make the cut for the dinner — finishing 250th.
Since its January debut, the $TRUMP coin has generated more than $324 million in trading fees. Roughly 80% of the $TRUMP token supply is controlled by the Trump Organization and affiliates, according to the project’s website.
WLFI, the Trump’s parallel token, has sold $550 million in two token sales.
Still, White House AI & crypto czar David Sacks remained bullish on “significant bipartisan support” for stablecoin legislation.
“We already have over $200 billion in stablecoins — it’s just unregulated,” Sacks told CNBC’s “Closing Bell Overtime” on Wednesday. “If we provide the legal clarity and legal framework for this, I think we could create trillions of dollars of demand for our Treasuries practically overnight, very quickly.”
“We have every expectation now that it’s going to pass,” added Sacks, though he didn’t answer a question about concerns from Democrats that there aren’t sufficient safeguards in place to keep the president and his family from profiting from legislation.
While Sacks sold $200 million in crypto-related holdings before taking his White House job, according to a disclosure filing, Trump and his family have been leaning into building a crypto empire.
The Trumps are financial backers of World Liberty Financial, which is behind the UDS1 stablecoin that is backed by Treasuries and dollar deposits.
Abu Dhabi’s MGX investment fund recently pledged $2 billion in USD1 to Binance, the world’s largest digital assets exchange. It’s the company’s largest-ever investment made in crypto.
Read more about tech and crypto from CNBC Pro
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United Airlines reaches labor deal with flight attendants, union says
United Airlines reaches labor deal with flight attendants, union says
United Airline flight attendants picketed outside Terminal B at Logan Airport Thursday morning seeking a new contract.
John Tlumacki | Boston Globe | Getty Images
United Airlines reached an “industry-leading” tentative labor deal for its 28,000 flight attendants, their union said Friday.
The deal includes “40% of total economic improvements” in the first year and retroactive pay, a signing bonus, and quality of life improvements, like better scheduling and on-call time, the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA said.
The union did not provide further details about the deal.
United flight attendants have not had a raise since 2020.
The cabin crew members voted last year to authorize the union to strike if a deal wasn’t reached. They had also sought federal mediation in negotiations.
Read more CNBC airline news
U.S. flight attendants have pushed for wage increases for years after pilots and other work groups secured new labor deals in the wake of the pandemic. United is the last of the major U.S. carriers to get a deal done with its flight attendants.
The deal must still face a vote by flight attendants, and contract language will be finalized in the coming days, United said.
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Government delays publication of child poverty strategy
Government delays publication of child poverty strategy
The government’s child poverty strategy, which had been due for publication in the spring, has been delayed.
The Child Poverty Taskforce is still working on the strategy and has been considering, among other measures, whether to scrap the two-child benefit cap, a move some Labour MPs have long been calling for.
The BBC has been told the strategy could be set out in the autumn in time for the Budget, allowing ministers to say how any policy changes would be paid for.
Speaking to the Mirror, Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall said: “We will publish that strategy and set out how we will pay for it and you will, I’m afraid, have to wait.”
A senior No 10 source said the government was not waiting to take action to tackle child poverty, pointing to the roll out of free breakfast clubs, benefits uprating and the rise in the minimum wage.
The delay, which was first reported by the Guardian newspaper, was branded “disgraceful” by the SNP.
The party’s work and pensions spokeswoman Kirsty ********* accused Labour of being “more interested in imitating Nigel Farage than tackling the scourge of child poverty, which has risen to record levels on Keir Starmer’s watch”.
Dan Paskins, director of policy at Save the Children ***, said: “Every month that goes by while Keir Starmer does not scrap the cruel two-child limit means thousands of children are plunged into poverty.”
However, Helen Barnard, director of policy at the Trussell Trust charity said the delay “may be good news”.
In a social media post, she said: “Better a delayed child poverty strategy with measures to really protect children from hunger and hardship, than one hitting the deadline but falling short on substance.”
The Child Poverty Taskforce – which is being co-chaired by Kendall and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson – was launched last July.
It came at a time when the prime minister was coming under pressure from the SNP and some of his own MPs to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
The policy – which prevents most families from claiming means-tested benefits for any third or additional children born after April 2017 – was introduced in 2017 by the then-Conservative government and is estimated to affect 1.5 million families.
On coming into government last year, Labour ministers argued that they did not have the resources to lift the cap.
At the time, Sir Keir Starmer said there was no single policy that could solve a complex problem.
“The point of the taskforce is to devise a strategy, as we did when last in government, to drive these numbers down,” he told the House of Commons.
Seven Labour MPs were suspended from the parliamentary party for voting against the government on an amendment to scrap the cap. Four of these were readmitted in February but the remainder continue to sit as independent MPs.
Pressure to remove the cap has remained, with Labour figures such as former Prime Minister Gordon Brown saying it was “condemning children to poverty”.
Concerns over the cap are part of a wider discussion in the Labour Party about benefit cuts.
Earlier this week, Neil Duncan-Jordan Poole MP told the BBC there is “a very healthy debate inside the Labour Party at the moment about how we should be raising funds rather than cutting benefits”.
On Wednesday, the prime minister announced a U-turn on removing winter fuel payments from all but the poorest pensioners.
In the House of Commons, he said he would make changes to allow “more pensioners” to qualify for the money, but did not provide details on how many people this would affect or when the change would be implemented.
Labour backbench worries about the winter fuel payment – and other cuts to benefits – have intensified since the party’s poor performance in the recent local elections.
There is also criticism from the some in the Labour ranks over the government’s cuts to disability benefits, which will be voted on next month.
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2K preparing a BioShock announcement
2K preparing a BioShock announcement
Publisher 2K is prepping some sort of BioShock announcement. At this time, it’s unclear if this could be tied to an existing project announced years ago, something fresh, or the Netflix adaptation.
Per a report from MP1st, 2K has some sort of announcement planned potentially sooner rather than later, though, it still doesn’t know exactly when. While it’s not super clear, the report does indicate it could be a remake or remaster of the original 2007 BioShock, which would track based on previous reporting. It could also be news tied to BioShock 4. Chief things about it include Rapture playing a big role in the announcement.
A possible timeline for the announcement could be during Summer Game Fest, which kicks off next month, considering it’s the next big gaming event hosted by Geoff Keighley.
Gabriel Stanford-Reisinger Editor-in-Chief
Gabe has been a gamer since he was young, playing games like Pajama Sam, Freddi Fish, Guitar Hero, and whatever looked cool on GameFly. Ever since 2018, he’s been infatuated with the inner workings of the gaming and entertainment industries, covering a wide range of topics from video games to TV and film. Starting as a contributor for PSX Extreme, he’s worked his way up to its Managing Editor. Using what’s he learned over the years, he founded Smash Jump to remind everyone to smash jump.
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Strong magnitude 5.2 quake rattles northern NSW
Strong magnitude 5.2 quake rattles northern NSW
A 5.2-magnitude earthquake and a 4.1-magnitude aftershock have rattled parts of north-central NSW.
Geoscience Australia seismologists said the initial quake struck at 2.36am AEST on Saturday in the Orana region and was followed by another tremor at 2.43am nearby.
Preliminary information indicated both quakes occurred at a shallow depth of 10km.
A 3.6-magnitude earthquake was also recorded in the region at 5.43am.
According to seismologists, earthquakes above magnitude 5.0 occur on average every one to two years in Australia.
About 135 people reported feeling the earthquake by 4am, according to Geoscience Australia’s website.
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Thousands of NSW residents face a heartbreaking clean up after deadly floods
Thousands of NSW residents face a heartbreaking clean up after deadly floods
Tens of thousands of NSW residents face a heartbreaking clean up after deadly floods left a wave of destruction.
Five people were killed as a catastrophic weather event left 50,000 people isolated in the Mid North Coast before the rain pummelled Sydney on Friday, triggering train delays and cancelled flights across the city.
The SES received 6800 call outs and estimate about 10,000 properties have been damaged in the devastating floods.
Camera IconTaree resident Marlene Masters cleans up after floodwaters devastated Mid North Coast communities in NSW. NewsWire / Scott Calvin Credit: News Corp AustraliaCamera IconFire and Rescue workers Sue Taylor, Ricky Campbell and Luke remove mud and debris from the town centre after devastating floodwaters that swept through Taree. NewsWire / Scott Calvin Credit: News Corp Australia
Flooding is affecting large parts of the state east of the Great Dividing Range from the Northern Rivers to the South Coast.
Sections of the Pacific Highway and Macquarie Pass were shutdown due to roads being inundated with water.
The worst hit areas were located near river systems on the Mid North Coast and Hunter regions including Taree, Kempsey, Port Macquarie and Wauchope.
Comboyne in the Manning River catchment recorded 700mm of rainfall with other places receiving 500 to 6oomm of rain across the week.
Camera IconThe SES estimate about 10,000 properties were damaged by floodwaters in NSW. NewsWire / Scott Calvin Credit: News Corp AustraliaCamera IconPulteney St in Taree after torrential rain inundated the region and cut off communities. NewsWire / Scott Calvin Credit: News Corp Australia
Authorities warned as rainfall eased along the NSW coastline across the weekend the risk from flooding was far from over as water from heavier falls made its way downstream.
Meteorologist Miriam Bradbury said there would still be widespread significant flooding before another weather system hit the state on Monday bringing strong winds and moderate rainfall.
“River peaks are flowing through lower parts of the catchment, and major flood warnings are in place for the Macleay River, the Hastings River, Wollombi Brook and Tuggerah Lake, with minor to moderate flood warnings for much of the entirety of NSW east coast,” she said.
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The surging bond market’s flashing warning signs: What to know
The surging bond market’s flashing warning signs: What to know
00:00 Speaker A
As we’ve been talking about, the bond market has been flashing warning signs once again. For more, bringing in senior reporter Ali Canal with the Yahoo Finance investor playbook.
00:21 Ali Canal
Long-term treasury yields surging this week, driven by growing fears over America’s mounting debt crisis. The 30-year yield spiking as high as 5.15%, the biggest single day jump since 2023 and flirting with levels not seen since 2007. Wall Street experts say the recent move to the upside is a warning sign that investors are demanding higher returns to offset growing fiscal risks. At the center of it all is President Trump’s newly advanced tax bill which just passed the house. The bill proposes sweeping cuts to personal and corporate tax rates, but it’s also projected to add $4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade. Despite its size, the bill offers little in the way of immediate spending cuts, something that’s further spooking markets. Here’s more of what Wall Street watchers told us this week.
02:01 Speaker B
What’s making things worse is that we have an unsustainable fiscal situation that is leading to very challenging dynamics in the bond markets where we’re having to pay higher interest rates to service our debts.
02:42 Speaker C
long end of the curve, there’s a tremendous amount of uncertainty and we’re starting to see investors get a little spooked.
03:03 Speaker D
Listen, there is not good news here. Congress has the ability to reverse course. They have the ability to not pass this legislation and that would be really good for the economy and I think that’s what the bond market is saying right now. Woah, let’s not go down this path.
03:51 Ali Canal
Now, sources tell me that while the US deficit appears to be the main driver of this bond market volatility, it’s not the only factor. We’re also seeing cracks in demand, a weak treasury auction earlier this week raised some eyebrows and over in Japan, a deepening fiscal crisis there is sparking fresh fears that global bond market stress could bleed into US markets as well. So a lot to keep track of over the coming days. We’ll be watching closely as this tax bill moves to the Senate. I’m sure, especially if this week was any indication, Wall Street will be reacting.
04:52 Speaker A
Thanks, Ally. Appreciate it.
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Anthropic adds Claude 4 limits to prevent weapons instructions
Anthropic adds Claude 4 limits to prevent weapons instructions
Omar Marques | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Anthropic on Thursday said it activated a tighter artificial intelligence control for Claude Opus 4, its latest AI model.
The new AI Safety Level 3 (ASL-3) controls are to “limit the risk of Claude being misused specifically for the development or acquisition of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) weapons,” the company wrote in a blog post.
The company, which is backed by Amazon, said it was taking the measures as a precaution and that the team had not yet determined if Opus 4 has crossed the benchmark that would require that protection.
Anthropic announced Claude Opus 4 and Claude Sonnet 4 on Thursday, touting the advanced ability of the models to “analyze thousands of data sources, execute long-running tasks, write human-quality content, and perform complex actions,” per a release.
The company said Sonnet 4 did not need the tighter controls.
Jared Kaplan, Anthropic’s chief science officer, noted that the advanced nature of the new Claude models has its challenges.
“The more complex the task is, the more risk there is that the model is going to kind of go off the rails … and we’re really focused on addressing that so that people can really delegate a lot of work at once to our models,” he said.
The company released an updated safety policy in March addressing the risks involved with AI models and the ability to help users develop chemical and biological weapons.
Major safety questions remain about a technology that is advancing at a breakneck pace and has shown worrying cracks in safety and accuracy.
Last week, Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot from xAI continued to bring up the topic of “white genocide” in South Africa in responses to unrelated comments.
The company later attributed the bizarre behavior to an “unauthorized modification.”
Olivia Gambelin, AI ethicist and author of the book “Responsible AI,” said the Grok example shows how easily these models can be tampered with “at will.”
AI researchers and experts told CNBC that the push from the power players to prioritize profits over research has led to companies taking shortcuts and forgoing rigorous testing.
James White, chief technology officer at cybersecurity startup CalypsoAI, said companies sacrificing security for advancement means models are less likely to reject malicious prompts.
“The models are getting better, but they’re also more likely to be good at bad stuff,” said White, whose company performs safety and security audits of Meta, Google, OpenAI and other companies. “It’s easier to trick them to do bad stuff.”
CNBC’s Hayden Field and Jonathan Vanian contributed to this report.
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Pfizer’s 7.5% Dividend: Income Haven or House of Cards?
Pfizer’s 7.5% Dividend: Income Haven or House of Cards?
A dividend yield that surpasses 7.5% from a pharmaceutical sector giant like Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:) certainly catches the eye of income-seeking investors.
Such a substantial return often signals a mature, stable company generously rewarding its shareholders. However, a closer look reveals a complex picture for the New York-based drugmaker.
Does this impressive payout actually represent a secure income stream, or does it mask underlying concerns regarding the company’s future growth trajectory and financial resilience as it continues to evolve in a rapidly transforming healthcare sector?
Unpacking Pfizer’s 7.5% Promise
Pfizer’s commitment to returning capital to shareholders is evident in its current annual dividend of $1.72 per share. This translates to a quarterly payment of $0.43 per share. As of May 22, 2025, this payout results in a dividend yield of 7.5%. For context, the dividend yield represents the annual dividend payment as a percentage of the stock’s current price, offering a measure of the income return an investor can expect.
Pfizer has a noteworthy track record, having increased its dividend for 16 consecutive years, a history that often appeals to investors looking for reliable and growing income.
Crucial to assessing any dividend’s reliability is an understanding of the company’s payout ratios. The dividend payout ratio measures the proportion of earnings or cash flow paid out to shareholders as dividends. Pfizer’s dividend consumes approximately 47.69% of its cash flow. A payout ratio below 100% based on cash flow generally suggests that a company is generating sufficient cash to cover its dividend payments, which is a positive sign for sustainability.
However, when looking at its trailing 12-month earnings, the payout ratio stands at a much higher 124.64%. This figure indicates that, based on recently reported profits, the company paid out more dividends than it earned. This disparity highlights the importance of future earnings growth and cost management in maintaining the dividend at current levels.
The Revenue Squeeze: Pfizer’s Top-Line Test
Pfizer’s recent financial performance reveals shifting revenue dynamics. In the first quarter of 2025, total revenues decreased by 8% year-over-year to $13.7 billion, primarily due to a sharp 75% drop in Paxlovid sales as COVID-19 demand normalized, creating challenging growth comparisons. Beyond this, Pfizer faces a significant long-term hurdle: the company is at the edge of an impending patent cliff.
Key drugs like Eliquis (losing exclusivity in April 2028), Prevnar, Ibrance, and Xtandi (facing competition in 2026–2027) are expected to cause an annual revenue loss of $17–$18 billion between 2026 and 2028. This type of revenue threat requires that Pfizer create a strong defensive strategy to develop new revenue streams.
How Pfizer Aims to Refill Its Revenue Engine
In response to these revenue pressures, Pfizer is actively pursuing a strategy centered on pipeline rejuvenation, with a pronounced focus on oncology. A cornerstone of this strategy was the $43 billion acquisition of Seagen in March 2023. This acquisition significantly built upon Pfizer’s capabilities in antibody-drug conjugates, a promising class of ******* treatments, and Seagen’s portfolio contributed $3.4 billion to Pfizer’s revenue in fiscal year 2024.
More recently, in May 2025, Pfizer entered into an exclusive global licensing agreement (excluding China) with 3SBio, Inc. for SSGJ-707, an investigational bispecific antibody targeting ***-1 and VEGF for multiple ******* types. The deal includes a $1.25 billion upfront payment and could be worth up to $6 billion in total, underscoring Pfizer’s commitment to sourcing external innovation. The company aims to launch eight new ******* medicines by 2030.
Positive developments in the oncology pipeline include a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for Adcetris in large B-cell lymphoma and encouraging clinical data for Padcev in urothelial *******. Talzenna also showed positive overall survival data in prostate *******, though an FDA advisory panel has raised questions about its broader application.
Outside of oncology, the Abrysvo RSV vaccine has seen expanded recommendations in Europe and the U.S., potentially increasing its market reach. However, the path of drug development is not without setbacks, as evidenced by the discontinuation of the oral GLP-1 candidate danuglipron in April 2025.
Pfizer’s Payout: A Sustainable Reward or a Yield Trap?
Pfizer’s current 7.5% dividend yield undeniably offers an excellent income component for investment portfolios. This payout is backed by a history of consistent growth and, importantly, by the company’s cash flow generation. However, this attractive yield exists within a context of significant operational and strategic challenges. The decline in revenues from COVID-19 products and the impending loss of exclusivity for several major drugs create a considerable hurdle for future top-line growth.
As concerning as that might seem, the company is not standing still; aggressive cost-cutting measures are underway, and significant investments are being made to rejuvenate the pipeline, particularly in the high-potential oncology sector. The success of these strategic plan executions will be critical in determining Pfizer’s ability to navigate the upcoming patent expirations and to return to a path of sustainable revenue and earnings growth.
For investors, the decision hinges on balancing the allure of the current high yield against the uncertainties tied to Pfizer’s multi-year transition. The long-term viability of the dividend at its current relative level will ultimately depend on the successful execution of its growth strategy.
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Judge temporarily blocks effort to ban Harvard from enrolling foreign students – The Washington Post
Judge temporarily blocks effort to ban Harvard from enrolling foreign students – The Washington Post
Judge temporarily blocks effort to ban Harvard from enrolling foreign students The Washington PostJudge Blocks Trump Effort to Bar Harvard’s International Student Enrollment After Lawsuit The New York TimesWe’re ‘poker chips’: International Harvard students describe fear after Trump administration moves to revoke their enrollment CNNSupporting Our International Students and Scholars Harvard UniversityBelgium’s future queen caught up in Trump administration’s Harvard foreign student ban effort NBC News
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Birmingham Mastermind winner finds love with rival finalist
Birmingham Mastermind winner finds love with rival finalist
Gavin Kermack
BBC News, West Midlands
Mary Rhodes
BBC Midlands Today
John Robinson/Claire Reynolds
Rivalry turned to romance after John Robinson and Claire Reynolds met on the set of the Mastermind final
Becoming the BBC’s Mastermind champion is something even the most ardent quiz fanatic can only dream of.
But the man who won this year’s final walked away from the competition with a lot more than the coveted trophy – after he and the woman he pipped to the post became an item.
Love blossomed on set for John Robinson and Claire Reynolds, both from Birmingham, as the pair bonded over their shared love of quizzes.
“They say opposites attract,” said Mr Robinson. “But I think in this case, very similar personalities are attracted.”
John Robinson/Claire Reynolds
Mr Robinson beat Ms Reynolds in the final – but only just
Mr Robinson, an English teacher in Kings Heath who previously took home £500,000 following an appearance on ITV’s Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, won with a total of 30 points – just one more than Ms Reynolds’ total of 29.
“I have forgiven him now, just about,” said Ms Reynolds, who is originally from Kingstanding but now lives in Stratford-upon-Avon.
During the final, though, Mr Robinson’s thoughts were anywhere but love.
“It is very nerve-wracking indeed,” he told BBC Midlands today. “Especially with the studio lights, and pitch ****** around you, and the spotlight, it can be quite intimidating.
“But I thought, I’m just going to stare straight ahead at Clive [Myrie, the presenter], focus on him, and and try and block out everything else around me.
“And somehow it worked.”
Mr Robinson said sitting in the famous ****** chair was quite nerve-wracking
In fact, it was only after the finalists were able to put all thought of specialist subjects – for Mr Robinson, the Empire State Building; for Ms Reynolds, the early 20th century ******* mathematician Emmy Noether – out of their minds, that romance had a chance to bloom.
“During the actual filming of the final [in Belfast], there’s not an awful lot of time to actually talk,” said Ms Reynolds. “We did have a little chat, we said hello and said good luck.
“But we spent more time chatting on the flight back to Birmingham afterwards.”
John Robinson/Claire Reynolds
Now that their Mastermind performances have gone public, the couple say they might have to avoid pub quizzes for a bit
Despite only missing out on first place by a single point, Ms Reynolds is adamant that the trophy is not for them to share: “No, no. I didn’t win it so absolutely not.”
“You can reapply to go back on a future series,” added Mr Robinson. “So it might be that she goes back on in a few years and gets one of her own.”
Now back home, surely the Mastermind champion and runner-up are destined to become the pub quiz power couple of the West Midlands?
“We’ve been to a couple,” said Mr Robinson, “but before anyone knew about our Mastermind experience. They went… rather well, shall we say?
“But I’m not sure we can go back to any now.”
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Pegatron preps 1,177 PFLOP AI rack with 128 AMD MI350X GPUs
Pegatron preps 1,177 PFLOP AI rack with 128 AMD MI350X GPUs
Pegatron showcased a unique rack-scale solution based on 128 AMD’s next-generation Instinct MI350X accelerators designed for performance-demanding AI inference and training applications at Computex. The system precedes AMD’s in-house designed rack-scale solutions by a generation, so for Pegatron, this system will serve as a training vehicle to build rack-scale AMD Instinct MI450X-based IF64 and IF128 solutions that are about a year away.
The Pegatron AS501-4A1/AS500-4A1 rack-scale system relies on eight 5U compute trays, each packing one AMD EPYC 9005-series processor and four AMD Instinct MI350X AI and HPC accelerators for AI and HPC. The CPU and the accelerators are liquid-cooled to ensure maximum and predictable performance under high loads. The machine comes in a 51OU ORV3 form-factor, making it suitable for cloud datacenters relying on the OCP standards (read: Meta).
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
The machine connects GPUs located in a different chassis using 400 GbE as AMD does not have proprietary switches for Infinity Fabric connections (in any case, the maximum scale-up world size of AMD’s Instinct is eight processors today). This contrasts with Nvidia’s GB200/GB300 NVL72 platform, which has 72 GPUs interconnected with the company’s ultra-fast NVLink connection. To that end, the Instinct MI350X system will barely match the GB200/GB300 NVL72 in terms of scalability.
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The new machine will be used by OCP adopters for their immediate workloads and for learning how to better build AMD Instinct-based systems with loads of GPUs both from hardware and software ports of view. Pegatron’s machine is hard to overestimate for multiple reasons, main of which being setting the stage to challenge Nvidia’s dominance in rack-scale AI solutions.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
Given what we know about AMD’s Instinct MI350X, Pegatron’s 128-GPU rack-scale system based on these units offers up to a theoretical peak of 1,177 PFLOPS PFLOPs of FP4 compute for inference, assuming a near linear scalability. With each MI350X supporting up to 288GB of HBM3E, the system delivers 36.8TB of high-speed memory, enabling support for massive AI models that exceed the capacity of Nvidia’s current Blackwell-based GPUs.
(Image credit: Tom’s Hardware)
However, its reliance on Ethernet for GPU-to-GPU communication limits the system’s scalability. With a maximum scale-up domain of eight GPUs, the system is probably built for inference workloads or multi-instance training rather than tightly synchronized LLM training, where Nvidia’s NVL72 systems excel. Still, it serves as a high-performance, memory-rich solution today and a precursor toward AMD’s next-generation Instinct MI400-series solutions.
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Posts reveal family schism before deadly mushroom lunch
Posts reveal family schism before deadly mushroom lunch
Devices seized from Erin Patterson’s home allegedly reveal frustration with her husband’s family in the months before she served them a poisonous meal.
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Pentagon lost contact with Army helicopter on May 1 flight, causing 2 planes to abort D.C. landings
Pentagon lost contact with Army helicopter on May 1 flight, causing 2 planes to abort D.C. landings
Military air traffic controllers briefly lost contact with an Army helicopter for about 20 seconds as it neared the Pentagon on the flight that caused two commercial jets to abort their landings on May 1 at a Washington airport, the Army told The Associated Press on Friday.
The aborted landings on May 1 added to general unease about continued close calls between government helicopters and commercial airplanes near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport after a deadly midair collision in January between a passenger jet and an Army helicopter that killed 67 people.
In March, the Federal Aviation Administration announced that helicopters would be permanently restricted from flying on the same route where the collision occurred. After the May 1 incident, the Army paused all flights into and out of the Pentagon as it works with the FAA to address safety issues.
Brig. Gen. Matthew Braman, the head of Army aviation, told the AP in an exclusive interview that the controllers lost contact with the ****** Hawk because a temporary control tower antenna was not set up in a location where it would be able to maintain contact with the helicopter as it flew low and rounded the Pentagon to land. He said the antenna was set up during construction of a new control tower and has now been moved to the roof of the Pentagon.
Braman said federal air traffic controllers inside the Washington airport also didn’t have a good fix on the location of the helicopter. The ****** Hawk was transmitting data that should have given controllers its precise location, but Braman said FAA officials told him in meetings last week that the data the controllers were getting from multiple feeds and sensors was inconclusive, with some of it deviating by as much as three-quarters of a mile.
“It certainly led to confusion of air traffic control of where they were,” Braman said.
The FAA declined to comment on whether its controllers were unable to get a good fix on the ****** Hawk’s location because of their own equipment issues, citing the ongoing ****** investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is pushing to have the agency modernize its air traffic control systems and equipment, which has failed controllers responsible for Newark Liberty Internal Airport’s airspace at critical moments in recent weeks.
In the initial reporting on the aborted landings, an FAA official suggested the Army helicopter was on a “scenic route.”
But the ADSB-Out data , which the Army shared with the AP on Friday, shows the crew hewed closely to its approved flight path — directly up the I-395 highway corridor, which is called Route 5, then rounding the Pentagon.
FAA air traffic controllers at the airport aborted the landing of a Delta Air Lines Airbus A319 during the ****** Hawk’s initial flight toward the Pentagon because they realized both aircraft would be nearing the Pentagon around the same time, Braman said.
Because of the 20-second loss of contact, the Pentagon’s tower did not clear the ****** Hawk to land, so the helicopter circled the Pentagon a second time. That’s when air traffic controllers at the airport decided to abort the landing of a second jet, a Republic Airways Embraer E170, because they did not have a confident fix on the ****** Hawk’s location, Braman said.
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New Clip Reveals Implosion Before Final Message
New Clip Reveals Implosion Before Final Message
Originally appeared on E! Online
More details about the Titan submersible tragedy have come to light.
Nearly two years after the OceanGate Expedition’s vessel imploded with five people onboard—including CEO Stockton Rush—new footage shows the moment when the sound of the catastrophe reached the ocean’s surface.
As Wendy Rush, the director of OceanGate and Stockton’s wife, monitored data and text communications at a computer alongside employee Gary Foss on June 18, 2023, they heard a muffled thump as the submersible reached 3,300 meters. She asked Foss in the footage released by the U.S. Coast Guard on May 22, “What was that bang?”
The USCG—which used the footage as evidence to the Marine Board of Investigation as for the 2024 case into the incident—wrote alongside the clip that the sound heard “later correlated with the loss of communications and tracking” and explained that it “is believed to be the sound of the Titan’s implosion reaching the surface of the ocean.”
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Moments after the bang, Wendy received a message at 9:17 a.m. ET (10:47 a.m. NDT) from the submersible that it had “dropped two weights,” which helps the vessel change buoyancy and either descend or surface.
She appeared relieved as the message came in after the sound. However, contact with the Titan—which imploded 90 minutes into the voyage—was lost almost immediately after the messages were sent, the agency confirmed in a model animation viewed by E! News.
EyePress News/Shutterstock
Just 30 minutes before, while the Titan—carrying Stockton, Hamish Harding, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood—descended to 2,178 meters, the team in the accompanying ship asked three times whether the vessel could see them on their navigation system. The Titan responded, “Yes, lost system and chat settings.”
Among its final messages was, “all good here” as the team made it to 2,288 meters, almost 1,000 meters before the implosion.
EyePress News/Shutterstock
While there was a race to locate the submersible above water, four days after the voyage, OceanGate shared in a statement that they believed those on board, who were headed to view the ****** site of the Titanic, had all died.
“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” the company’s June 22, 2023 statement continued. “Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew.”
For more about the five passengers who died during the voyage, keep reading.
Shahzada Dawood & Son Suleman Dawood
On June 18, 2023, a deep-sea submersible Titan, operated by the U.S.-based company OceanGate Expeditions and carrying five people on a voyage to the wreck of the Titanic, was declared missing. Following a five-day search, the U.S. Coast Guard announced at a June 22 press conference that the vessel suffered a “catastrophic implosion” that killed all five passengers on board.
Pakistani-born businessman Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman Dawood, both British citizens, were also among the victims.
Their family is one of the wealthiest in Pakistan, with Shahzada Dawood serving as the vice chairman of Engro Corporation, per The New York Times. His son was studying at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland.
Shahzada’s sister Azmeh Dawood told NBC News that Suleman had expressed reluctance about going on the voyage, informing a relative that he “wasn’t very up for it” and felt “terrified” about the trip to explore the wreckage of the Titanic, but ultimately went to please his father, a Titanic fan, for Father’s Day.
The Dawood Foundation mourned their deaths in a statement to the website, saying, “It is with profound grief that we announce the passing of Shahzada and Suleman Dawood. Our beloved sons were aboard OceanGagte’s Titan submersible that perished underwater. Please continue to keep the departed souls and our family in your prayers during this difficult ******* of mourning.”
Stockton Rush
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush was the pilot of the Titan. The entrepreneur—who founded the research company in 2009 in Everett, Wash.—had long been interested in exploration. Rush, 61, previously said he dreamed of becoming the first person on Mars and once said that he’d “like to be remembered as an innovator.”
In addition to leading voyages to see the remnants of the Titanic, Rush had another surprising connection to the historic 1912 event: His wife Wendy Rush is the great-great-granddaughter of a couple who died on the Titanic, Ida and Isidor Straus.
Hamish Harding
British billionaire Hamish Harding confirmed he was a part of the mission in a June 17 Instagram post, a day before the submersible went into the water and disappeared.
“I am proud to finally announce that I joined @oceangateexped for their RMS TITANIC Mission as a mission specialist on the sub going down to the Titanic,” he wrote. “Due to the worst winter in Newfoundland in 40 years, this mission is likely to be the first and only manned mission to the Titanic in 2023. A weather window has just opened up and we are going to attempt a dive tomorrow.”
Harding—the chairman of aircraft company Action Aviation—said the group had started steaming from St. Johns, Newfoundland, Canada and was planning to start dive operations around 4 a.m. on June 18. The 58-year-old added, “Until then we have a lot of preparations and briefings to do.”
His past explorations included traveling to the deepest part of the ocean in the Mariana Trench, telling Gulf News in 2021, “It was an incredibly hostile environment. To travel to parts of the Challenger Deep where no human had ever been before was truly remarkable.”
The Dubai-based businessman also circumnavigated the Earth by plane with the One More Orbit project and, last year, took a trip to space on Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin New Shepard rocket. Harding shared his love for adventure with his son Giles, described as a “teen explorer” on his Instagram.
Paul-Henri Nargeolet
As for the fifth member, a representative for French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet told the New York Times that he was a passenger on the Titan, with Harding also referencing him on Instagram as a member of the team.
The Times described him as a maritime expert who was previously part of the French Navy. The 71-year-old was a bonafide Titanic specialist and has traveled to the wreckage 35 times before. Nargeolet served as the director of RMS Titanic, Inc., a company that researches, salvages and displays artifacts from the famed ship, per the outlet.
Alongside fellow passenger Hamish Harding, he was a member of The Explorers Club, founded in 1904.
The Titan
As Harding noted in his post, the submersible—named Titan—was a part of an OceanGate Expeditions tour that explores the wreckage of the RMS Titanic, which infamously sank in 1912.
The company expressed its sympathies to the families of the victims. “These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans,” OceanGate said in a statement. “Our hearts are with these five souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew.”
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EU tariff may backfire on Trump, according to trade, freight experts
EU tariff may backfire on Trump, according to trade, freight experts
US President Donald Trump prepares to sign executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 23, 2025.
Mandel Ngan | Afp | Getty Images
President Trump’s social media tariffs threats against Apple and the European Union reflect a worrying issue for the markets and economy, according to trade experts and logistics experts: the negotiating process isn’t going the way Trump wants.
“Trump is not wrong that the EU has been less forthcoming than other countries, but the EU also has good reason to be reluctant to engage in this kind of exercise, and so they are at an impasse,” said Josh Teitelbaum, senior counsel of Akin. “Trump’s frustration reflects that underlying dynamic,” he said.
Apple, threatened by Trump on Friday with a 25% tariff on any iPhone not made in the U.S., is in a difficult spot, Akin said, as the broader investigation launched by the Trump administration on national security threats linked to key technology, and imports of semiconductors and derivative products, could put iPhones under its umbrella. “He has a mechanism to make good on this threat,” Akin said.
But with Europe, the tariff runs the risk of adding damage to a key trade relationship which had been showing signs of recovery. Ocean freight bookings tracked by SONAR show after a drop in bookings from the EU to the U.S., ocean freight bookings have steadily recovered. The fear is the new threat will slow down freight orders again.
Andy Abbott, CEO of Atlantic Container Line, an ocean carrier that specializes in the Europe-to-US trade, said that has significant implications for core U.S. industrial operations. Unlike Asia, which is primarily a supplier of consumer products to the U.S., Europe is mostly a source of industrial products that help American manufacturers produce.
“Europe was stable and steady,” said Abbott. “A big tariff on European imports will backfire, making American products more expensive to produce,” he said.
Manufacturers have stressed to the Trump administration in talks that any tariffs need to take into account the cost of running and expanding operations in the U.S., and the administration’s policy may run counter to the reshoring aim.
In addition, U.S. exporters will suffer as a result of reduced trade. Container rates to Europe are only one-third of U.S. import container freight rates, so a reduction of European imports will raise U.S. export rates, adding more cost to American products overseas, Abbott said.
“The EU is a significant trading partner, and a 50% tariff would potentially cause economic harm and the EU could retaliate, which would further escalate the economic harm,” said Timothy Brightbill, partner at Wiley and co-chair of its international trade practice. “It’s a dangerous situation.”
According to Dan Anthony, president of Trade Partnership Worldwide, the impact would vary across the U.S., but would be felt state to state.
“Needless to say, a 50% tariff would be a huge, costly tax increase,” Anthony wrote in a LinkedIn post.
According to his organization’s data, tariffs paid at the state level last year range from a low of 0.23% (Indiana) to a high of 2.36% (New Jersey) based on the types of products imported.
“Implementing a 50% tariff represents an effective rate increase of 20-200x depending on the state,” he said.
Brightbill said the EU has a significant number of trade barriers, and this trade negotiation could provide an opportunity for both agricultural and digital trade.
“There are many long-standing trade problems with the EU, for years and years, and I think that is why the administration wants the EU to come to the table,” Brightbill said. But he added that doesn’t ensure the EU responds in the way Trump is looking for. “There are a lot of countries and a lot of varying degrees of views on whether to negotiate in the first place, so, it will be very difficult to reach a consensus,” he said.
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You’ll be as annoyed as me when you learn how much energy a few seconds of AI video costs
You’ll be as annoyed as me when you learn how much energy a few seconds of AI video costs
AI chatbots and videos use up a huge amount of energy and water
A five-second AI video uses as much energy as a microwave running for an hour or more
Data center energy use has doubled since 2017, and AI will account for half ot it by 2028
It only takes a few minutes in a microwave to explode a potato you haven’t ventilated, but it takes as much energy as running that microwave for over an hour and more than a dozen potato explosions for an AI model to make a five-second video of a potato explosion.
A new study from MIT Technology Review has laid out just how hungry AI models are for energy. A basic chatbot reply might use as little as 114 or as much as 6,700 joules, between half a second and eight seconds, in a standard microwave, but it’s when things get multimodal that the energy costs skyrocket to an hour plus in the microwave, or 3.4 million joules.
It’s not a new revelation that AI is energy-intensive, but MIT’s work lays out the math in stark terms. The researchers devised what might be a typical session with an AI chatbot, where you ask 15 questions, request 10 AI-generated images, and throw in requests for three different five-second videos.
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You can see a realistic fantasy movie scene that appears to be filmed in your backyard a minute after you ask for it, but you won’t notice the enormous amount of electricity you’ve demanded to produce it. You’ve requested roughly 2.9 kilowatt-hours, or three and a half hours of microwave time.
What makes the AI costs stand out is how painless it feels from the user’s perspective. You’re not budgeting AI messages like we all did with our text messages 20 years ago.
AI energy rethink
Sure, you’re not mining bitcoin, and your video at least has some real-world value, but that’s a really low bar to step over when it comes to ethical energy use. The rise in energy demands from data centers is also happening at a ridiculous pace.
Data centers had plateaued in their energy use before the recent AI explosion, thanks to efficiency gains. However, the energy consumed by data centers has doubled since 2017, and around half of it will be for AI by 2028, according to the report.
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This isn’t a guilt trip, by the way. I can claim professional demands for some of my AI use, but I’ve employed it for all kinds of recreational fun and to help with personal tasks, too. I’d write an apology note to the people working at the data centers, but I would need AI to translate it for the language spoken in some of the data center locations. And I don’t want to sound heated, or at least not as heated as those same servers get. Some of the largest data centers use millions of gallons of water daily to stay frosty.
The developers behind the AI infrastructure understand what’s happening. Some are trying to source cleaner energy options. Microsoft is looking to make a deal with nuclear power plants. AI may or may not be integral to our future, but I’d like it if that future isn’t full of extension cords and boiling rivers.
On an individual level, your use or avoidance of AI won’t make much of a difference, but encouraging better energy solutions from the data center owners could. The most optimistic outcome is developing more energy-efficient chips, better cooling systems, and greener energy sources. And maybe AI’s carbon footprint should be discussed like any other energy infrastructure, like transportation or food systems. If we’re willing to debate the sustainability of almond milk, surely we can spare a thought for the 3.4 million joules it takes to make a five-second video of a dancing cartoon almond.
As tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude get smarter, faster, and more embedded in our lives, the pressure on energy infrastructure will only grow. If that growth happens without planning, we’ll be left trying to cool a supercomputer with a paper fan while we chew on a raw potato.
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Nvidia Earnings Preview: Why a Messy Guide Won’t Derail the AI Trade Rebound
Nvidia Earnings Preview: Why a Messy Guide Won’t Derail the AI Trade Rebound
Nvidia (NASDAQ:) is expected to report earnings next week. Although we expect a messy guide, the expectations for Nvidia’s earnings are very low (much lower than consensus indicates).
During the quarter, there was a big announcement about the US restricting exports of H20’s to China. As a result, Nvidia wrote off $5B of inventory, resulting in a margin hit of about ~15% (we expect GMs to drop from the low 70s to high 50% in the current quarter.)
At face value, $5B of inventory would be ~$15B of revenue impact for the full year and ~$5B in 2Q-4Q per quarter, which is now in buy-side expectations. This is in-line with what Jensen highlighted at Computex. However, we found it interesting that Nvidia did not mention the revenue impact in the press release, implying that there could be significant offsets.
To summarize, we expect a beat in F1Q26, a messy F2Q26 guide, and a very strong F2H26. Consequently, all eyes will be on commentary related to the Blackwell ramp, which we expect will more than offset the negative impact of China.
Here is why a messy guide won’t matter:
Investors have abandoned the AI trade, and with a positive 2H outlook (see below), they will have to come back and chase the high-quality AI stocks.
Export Restrictions and Potential Regulatory Upside
While export restrictions to China weighed on Nvidia’s stock and most analysts took their expectations down for both margins and revenues, a more interesting development that didn’t get as much attention was the US BIS rescinding the AI Diffusion rule, which was introduced in January of this year and was expected to take effect on May 15th, 25.
For background, the Diffusion rule aimed to limit the global spread of advanced artificial intelligence capabilities. It’s goal was to restrict the export of certain high-performance chips—not just to China, but to other countries as well. The rule was designed to prevent the proliferation of U.S.-origin technology that could be used in military or surveillance applications. But its broad scope could unintentionally weaken the global competitiveness of U.S. chipmakers like NVIDIA by restricting access to key international markets and undermining the advantages of proprietary platforms like Nvidia’s CUDA.
In fact, with all the export restrictions to China (introduced under both administrations), Nvidia didn’t complain a single time but continued to modify its products to fit updated regulations. However, when it came to the AI Diffusion rule, the company issued a public statement.
This indicates to us that the positive impact of canceling the diffusion rule will outweigh the negative impact of the China restrictions, which is already in consensus numbers.
We highlighted the potential of cancellation back in April, when the US introduced the incremental China regulations.
All Eyes Are on 2H25
Here is why:
Grace Blackwell is in full production – Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, was much more confident in the rollout at Computex and highlighted very strong demand.
The transition to the next-gen Blackwell Ultra GB300 systems will be significantly easier, given the similarity in structure and infrastructure requirements.
Sovereign build-out: Last week’s Middle-East deals could benefit 2H enough and offset the China drag. Benefits will extend for 5 years with more pronounced impact in ’26 and beyond.
The bottom line is that the incremental news for Nvidia has been positive: Cloud Giants’ capex surprised to the upside, Deep Seek was a non-event, the Dffusion rule got canceled, and Blackwell is ramping nicely, but the stock has gone nowhere, which could imply significant upside once sentiment turns.
In summary, institutional investors, both hedge funds and long-onlys, reduced exposure to the AI trade and will now have to chase it regardless of 2Q earnings, as fundamentals are expected to step up in the second half of this year.
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Boeing Reaches Deal With U.S. to Avoid Guilty Plea Over 737 Max Crashes – The New York Times
Boeing Reaches Deal With U.S. to Avoid Guilty Plea Over 737 Max Crashes – The New York Times
Boeing Reaches Deal With U.S. to Avoid Guilty Plea Over 737 Max Crashes The New York TimesTrump’s DOJ may let Boeing escape guilty plea. Victims’ families aren’t happy. Yahoo FinanceDOJ confirms it has a deal with Boeing to drop prosecution over deadly 737 Max crashes NPRUS senators urge DOJ not to let Boeing avoid criminal prosecution ReutersBoeing reaches $1.1 billion deal with Justice Department to avoid prosecution over 737 Max crashes CBS News
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Use of US military force to be careful, decisive: Vance
Use of US military force to be careful, decisive: Vance
US Vice President JD Vance says the United States under President Donald Trump will choose carefully when to use military force and will avoid involvement in open-ended conflicts in what he called a break from recent US policies.
Vance, delivering the commencement address at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, also said that the United States faces serious threats from China, Russia and other countries and will have to maintain its technological edge.
“The era of uncontested US dominance is over,” Vance said to the graduates, who will become officers in the Navy and Marine Corps.
Vance said Trump’s order to use force against Houthi rebels in Yemen ultimately led to a ceasefire as part of a deal in which the group agreed to halt attacks on US shipping targets in the Gulf.
“We ought to be cautious in deciding to throw a punch but when we throw a punch, we throw a punch hard, and we do it decisively,” Vance said.
Vance, a former Ohio senator who served in the Marine Corps, said some recent presidents got the United States involved in conflicts that were not essential to the country’s national security.
Vance did not identify past presidents for criticism.
But his comments suggested he was talking about former president George W Bush, a Republican who launched US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his successor Barack Obama, a Democrat who kept up the war in Afghanistan.
A chaotic US withdrawal in 2021 after Joe Biden became president continues to be sharply criticised by Trump.
“We had a long experiment in our foreign policy that traded national defence and the maintenance of our alliances for nation building and meddling in foreign countries’ affairs, even if those foreign countries had very little to do with core American interests,” Vance said.
“No more undefined missions, no more open-ended conflicts,” he said.
Vance said the United States enjoyed a ******* of dominance after the fall of the old Russian-led Soviet empire and that US policies aimed at the economic integration of competitors had backfired.
Vance’s sharp rhetoric echoed the isolationist tendencies of Trump, who has badgered members of the NATO military alliance to spend more on their own defence to ease the burden on the United States.
Trump has called for increased US military spending and this week ordered the construction of the Golden Dome missile defence system, a vast network of satellites and weapons in earth’s orbit set to cost $US175 billion ($A269 billion).
Trump will speak to graduates of the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, on Saturday.
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Trump announces “partnership” between US Steel and Japan-based Nippon Steel
Trump announces “partnership” between US Steel and Japan-based Nippon Steel
Trump says U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel will enter “partnership”
Trump says U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel will enter “partnership”
00:24
President Trump said Friday that U.S. Steel will keep its headquarters in Pittsburgh as part of what he called a “planned partnership” between the iconic American steelmaker and Japan-based Nippon Steel, which has sought to buy it.
Nippon Steel’s nearly $15 billion bid to buy U.S. Steel was blocked by former President Joe Biden. After Mr. Trump became president, it was subject to another national security review by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
“I am proud to announce that, after much consideration and negotiation, US Steel will REMAIN in America, and keep its Headquarters in the Great City of Pittsburgh,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “For many years, the name, ‘United States Steel’ was synonymous with Greatness, and now, it will be again. This will be a planned partnership between United States Steel and Nippon Steel, which will create at least 70,000 jobs, and add $14 Billion Dollars to the U.S. Economy.”
The president also said he’ll hold a “BIG Rally” at US Steel in Pittsburgh on Friday, May 30.
The White House didn’t immediately offer further clarification, and US Steel did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Trump has levied 25% tariffs on all foreign steel imports in an effort to keep industry players in the U.S.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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