Category: Semafor

Major Hollywood studios are largely avoiding this year’s Cannes Film Festival, which opens today. The event is traditionally a showcase for some of the year’s biggest movies, and is “Hollywood’s most glamorous overseas outpost,” per The Guardian. But this year, only two American entrants are competing for the Palme d’Or, ...

Energy executives and analysts are bracing for a severe, prolonged spike in prices for gasoline, jet fuel, and other refined fuels. The depletion of fuel inventories is “rapidly accelerating” and could reach “critically low levels” ahead of summer, Amin Nasser, CEO of Saudi Aramco, said on Monday. Even if the ...

China is widening its lead in global clean tech, raising new security concerns. An analysis of $1.1 trillion in global clean energy manufacturing investments between 2019 and 2025 by the research firm Atlas Public Policy found that more than half were made by Chinese companies. Out of China’s more than ...

The Scoop Paramount is racing to reassure Hollywood that its takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, with its HBO streaming service, isn’t aimed at killing movie theaters. “Theaters will continue to be an essential part of the moviemaking business and social fabric,” Paramount legal chief Makan Delrahim, a former Justice Department ...

The Iran war, frozen in a shaky ceasefire, appeared to expand and envelop more belligerents. US intelligence said that Pakistan allowed Iran to use its bases for military aircraft despite its role as a mediator in negotiations, CBS reported, while the UAE — which has been more anti-Iran than any ...

UK government bond yields rose to their highest levels in decades with Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s leadership hanging by a thread. Disastrous local election results for Starmer’s Labour Party have led to 70 lawmakers — including members of his cabinet — calling for him to resign; populist parties on both ...

OpenAI launched its own cybersecurity initiative in response to Anthropic’s. The ChatGPT-maker’s recent GPT-5.5-Cyber model, like Anthropic’s Mythos, can detect vulnerabilities in most software. Mythos was only released to a select few organizations to help them patch problems; OpenAI will do likewise. Almost all the institutions with access to Mythos ...

Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund is investing $500 million with General Atlantic as part of a deal to deepen their partnership, in the latest sign that the Gulf’s biggest funds are still actively seeking deals even as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz hits state revenues. The Qatar Investment Authority ...

Access to chips is not the only bottleneck in the UAE’s AI ambitions, according to executives involved in Abu Dhabi’s multibillion-dollar push into advanced technology. While GPUs have been a focus for Gulf states, other factors are also delaying progress, Paul Bloch, co-founder of data storage provider DDN, told Semafor. ...

The News Republican senators who visited China last week left optimistic that President Donald Trump can clinch deals on aerospace and key agricultural goods when he lands in Beijing on Wednesday. The leader of the latest Hill delegation, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., on Monday summed up his goals for Trump’s ...