Category: Semafor

The Trump administration reclassified marijuana as a less harmful substance on Thursday, removing barriers to research and generating tax benefits for the legal industry. Cheered by advocates and criticized by some Republicans, the move doesn’t legalize marijuana use nationwide, but removes cannabis from the same federal category as heroin and ...

China stashed more than three times as much crude oil as the US in 2025, new data shows. The US government report underscores how intensely China worked to bolster its reserves ahead of the Iran war, giving it a crucial buffer in the face of energy supply disruptions during the ...

The News The US government will buy a stake in Spirit Airlines if it can “get it for the right price,” President Donald Trump said Thursday. “We’re thinking about doing it, helping them out, meaning bailing them out, or buying it — I think we’d just buy it, we’d be ...

Liz’s view When we broke the story of Microsoft’s $10 billion investment in OpenAI in January 2023, I said two things that now seem pretty stupid. First, I asked my colleague Reed Albergotti what OpenAI was. Second, I confidently said on CNBC that people should think of the deal more ...

Lululemon’s shares dropped 11% Thursday after the athleisure brand picked Heidi O’Neill as its new CEO, an indication the market knows what everyone in the retail business already did. O’Neill was passed over in 2024 to run Nike (Elliott Hill came out of retirement for the gig) after a quarter ...

Oman and Saudi Arabia can expect a windfall from higher oil prices due to the Iran war, according to Goldman Sachs. Oil revenues for the two countries have risen as crude prices have surged due to the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz; with all its ports outside the ...

Florida might redraw its congressional maps to add red seats after Virginia voters cleared the way this week for a Democratic gerrymander. But some in the state’s Republican delegation are warning they won’t be able to squeeze that many more seats out. Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., said they could add ...

Americans have grown more pessimistic about the US economy in the weeks since the US-Israel war with Iran began, underscoring a key challenge for the White House as it looks to blunt the impact of rising gas prices and other goods. Gallup’s Economic Confidence Index dropped 11 points since March, ...

A robot beat elite human players at table tennis, a landmark victory in a competitive sport. Sony Ace defeated top amateurs in three matches out of five, although it lost twice against pros. It follows a running robot beating the human half-marathon record, albeit in a highly controlled environment. Ace ...

The Scene For years, booking the Gulf’s most coveted hotels meant months of planning or very deep pockets. Prewar, spending a night at the St. Regis Saadiyat in Abu Dhabi over the weekend was more than $2,000. A villa at Shebara, the futuristic overwater resort on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea ...