Category: Semafor

Hezbollah rejected a ceasefire in Lebanon on Thursday shortly after it was announced, denting hopes for peace in the region. Israel pounded southern Lebanon with strikes just before the truce — which was brokered by the US following Israel-Lebanon talks a day earlier — took effect, leading to a “grimly ...

Australia, the UK, and the US agreed new measures to protect undersea cables and pipelines from sabotage, including the deployment of autonomous submarine drones. Marine cables carry more than 95% of the world’s intercontinental telecommunications data and ever more electricity. Australia’s defense minister said these “arteries of modern civilization” are ...

Liz’s view The AI bill is coming due. For years, Alphabet did what most big companies do when flush with cash: It bought back stock. But after averaging $14 billion per quarter in buybacks over the past five years, the most profitable company in the US didn’t buy back a ...

Jensen Huang’s magic touch isn’t limited to Nvidia. Shares of AI infrastructure provider Nebius, chip design company Cadence, and hyperscaler CoreWeave all rose as much as 10% this week after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang complimented them on stage at a company event in Taiwan, according to an analysis from market-intelligence ...

The Scoop The owners of a top-tier Spanish soccer team had to move fast. Coming into the final game of the season, the club was on the brink of getting kicked down to a lower league, which would have meant millions in lost ticket and broadcast revenue. So they turned ...

It’s that time of year again — private credit withdrawal season. Investors in Blackstone’s flagship private credit fund sought to yank 10% of their money this quarter, showing that the jitters engulfing the industry may be deepening. At Cliffwater’s main lending fund, the figure was 17%. Requests at both funds ...

, by Sufiyaan Salam. Composed in English and flavored with Pakistani Urdu and Arabic slang, this debut novel by a director of music videos for Elton John follows three young men of South Asian descent on a single boisterous evening on Manchester’s “Curry Mile.” A young Salam began reading James ...

President Donald Trump said Wednesday he will nominate acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to the AG position permanently. Blanche will face a tough road to confirmation in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Judiciary member Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told Semafor in April that Blanche’s statements about Jan. 6 put him in “dangerous ...

House Republicans aren’t having the best luck seeking higher office. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota and President Donald Trump-endorsed Randy Feenstra of Iowa both lost gubernatorial primaries this week, joining statewide primary losers Buddy Carter in Georgia and Wesley Hunt and Chip Roy in Texas. Those losses may multiply. Trump ...

The AI boom is creating considerable wealth, raising the question of who should share in it. Nvidia’s CEO this week pitched hundreds of family office and finance representatives on the “insane” returns they could get from investing in AI, Bloomberg reported. US Sen. Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, proposed a bill that ...