Colom would be Mississippi’s first Black U.S. senator since Reconstruction.
Why are major Democrats and Republicans flocking to Mississippi in recent weeks?
In a climate where polls show President Donald Trump's approval ratings cratering, Democrats are unusually optimistic about Scott Colom's chances of flipping the Senate seat held by incumbent Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith -- even in deep-red Mississippi.
"We got to have a senator that looks out for Mississippi, that puts Mississippi farmers first, Mississippi small businesses first, represent our values by not allowing corruption to ruin our country and actually delivers on the commitments to put America first," Colom told ABC News in an interview earlier this week.
The incumbent's campaign dismisses the Democratic push as the last-ditch effort of a campaign that will fall short.

#first #black #reconstruction

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's plans for a more private Ohio retreat have run into some very public objections. Neighbors of the $5.35 million Lake Erie estate are challenging proposed landscaping and fencing, raising concerns about a shared sewer line, wildlife, and how the changes could affect their longtime homes.
A six-foot fence has already received approval, but parts of the landscaping remain unresolved. The property's representatives, meanwhile, say they have adjusted the plans, paid for sewer repairs and added gates to accommodate residents.
ZUMAPRESS.com / MEGA
According to the Daily Mail, the dispute centers on an estate in Bratenahl, a village outside Cleveland. Property records cited by the outlet show that an LLC linked to Kelce purchased the mansion in March. The 21,000-square-foot property features eight bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, and a two-bedroom guest cottage. Built in 1895, it also has a former ballroom converted into a game room and home theater.
But proposed changes to the grounds have become a sticking point with nearby residents. Katherine Bolton, who has lived next door for 35 years, described news of the new owners as a "tremendous blow" to "the peace and quiet in Bratenahl."

#estate

Like a toddler, Joby Aviation (NYSE: JOBY) seems to be growing up fast.
No longer is it the speculative aviation stock of yesterday, the company with big ambitions but zero revenue and nothing to its name but an experimental aircraft. There are still unknowns to be solved -- how to scale its business while keeping costs under control -- but if last month's flight demonstrations in Texas showed us anything, it's that Joby is getting very close to turning its air taxi dreams into a commercial operation.
Missed AI's "Act 1"? Act 2 Could Be 14x Bigger. Most investors think they missed the AI boat because they didn't buy Nvidia in 2005. But according to our **** ysts, we're only at the end of "Act 1"—the R&D phase. "Act 2" is the global rollout. Continue »
Where, then, will Joby Aviation be in three years? And how much will a $5,000 investment today be worth by then?
In a nutshell, Joby wants to commercialize a passenger electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. Although it does not have regulatory approval to fly paying customers in an eVTOL, I believe it will in three years.

#missed

Apple's 2.5B active devices and 1.5B paid subscriptions let it monetize AI without heavy data center spending, fueling a 9th straight EPS beat.
Microsoft's AI infrastructure spending surged 79% to $116B, shrinking free cash flow, while Apple's customers fund AI hardware themselves.
Siri AI awaits EU and China approval, iCloud+ upgrades haven't launched yet, and a $30B Broadcom chip deal gives Apple untapped upside catalysts.
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I added to my Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) position this month and expect to add more after the October 29 earnings report. The market has misunderstood Apple's AI strategy.

#Apple #broadcom

On Tuesday morning, Meghan Markle shared a new video on her Instagram account, offering an insight into her ongoing business acumen, which started as a young girl, before she later launched her lifestyle brand, As Ever.
The video montage showcased a never-before-seen glimpse of her young daughter, Princess Lilibet, who was helping her test her famed jams and preserves. The five-year-old, who has inherited her dad Prince Harry's redheaded locks, looked joyful as she enjoyed a spot of baking.
Princess Lillibet's wore the cutest embroidered T-shirt
As always, the little girl wore a lovely outfit, featuring the most adorable T-shirt. The casual style had Lilibet's girly stamp of approval - it featured floral bouquets embroidered over the pink fabric. With her tumbling red hair, Prince Archie's younger sister looked just like an adorable little pixie.
At the start of September, Meghan shared a birthday post for her husband, Prince Harry, marking his 42nd birthday.

#prince #meghan #looked #embroidered

By Ann Saphir
Oct 7 (Reuters) - The interest rate on the most common US home loan jumped last week to its highest in almost ‌three years, worsening affordability for buyers four weeks before elections that ‌will decide if President Donald Trump's Republicans keep control of Congress.
The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage surged 19 basis points to 7.49% in the week ended October 2, the Mortgage Bankers **** ociation said on Wednesday. It was last higher in November 2023.
Mortgage rates are tied closely to the yield on US 10-year Treasury notes, which earlier this week ‌hit a 24-year high, ⁠driven by worries over inflationary pressures from soaring oil prices and data showing stronger US economic growth.
The cost of living is ⁠the top issue on Americans' minds as they decide how they will vote on November 3, a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Monday showed, and is one reason why Trump's approval rating is at a record low of 32%.

#week #rate

It will be the first U.S. military execution in more than 60 years.
Nidal Hasan, who was sentenced to death for the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, will be executed by firing squad on Dec. 3, according to a memo from the acting Army secretary.
The execution, the first carried out by the U.S. military in more than 60 years, is scheduled for 1 p.m. CT, according to the memo issued Tuesday by acting Army Secretary Adam Telle.
The Pentagon announced Monday that Hasan would be executed by firing squad after President Donald Trump approved the decision Friday.
Under the military’s execution process for prisoners on death row, the Army secretary initiates the proceedings, which then require approval from the defense secretary and eventually the president.

#military

An XRP holder proposed raising XRP Ledger fees 100x, but even that hike would cost only $0.0015 per transaction, which amounts to a negligible dent across 63 billion circulating tokens.
David Schwartz called higher fees 'truly bizarre,' warning they would drive away payment processors and undermine XRP Ledger's core advantage of cheap, fast settlement.
Higher fees would force active users to subsidize passive holders, and any fee change requires validator approval, which is a threshold this proposal hasn't reached.
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Recently, an XRP (CRYPTO:XRP) holder made a bold proposal on X, suggesting that XRP Ledger fees be raised 10 to 100 times to enable a larger XRP burn with each transaction. Burning tokens reduces the total supply, a move many holders support because it could increase the value of their remaining tokens.

#tokens #ledger

A federal judge has granted final approval to AT&T's $177 million settlement resolving lawsuits over two 2024 data breaches that exposed personal information belonging to millions of customers.
U.S. District Judge Sidney Fitzwater in Dallas approved the settlement Oct. 2, along with $59 million in attorneys' fees for lawyers who negotiated the deal, according to Reuters. The settlement faced dozens of objections, including arguments that the amount was inadequate compared to a $350 million settlement in separate litigation involving T-Mobile.
For AT&T customers who filed valid claims, the amount they receive depends on which data breach affected them, what information was exposed and whether they can document financial losses. Most customers receiving the tiered cash payments are expected to get far less than the settlement's advertised maximums.
Customers could receive between about $6.50 and $40 through the tiered payment system, according to court documents. Here's what to know.
The settlement has two funds totaling $177 million: $149 million for customers affected by the first data incident, known as AT&T 1, and $28 million for customers affected by the second incident, known as AT&T 2.

#million #settlement #information

Nidal Malik Hasan, a former Army major who killed 13 people in a 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, will be executed by firing squad, the Pentagon announced Monday.
"Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has recommended — and President Donald J. Trump has approved — death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan, the jihadist who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009," chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell wrote on X.
He added, "The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution. Judgement day for Hasan has finally come."
The U.S. military has not carried out an execution since 1961 and has not used a firing squad to execute a service member since World War II.
The announcement of Trump's approval came days after a failed attempt to execute Christa Pike by lethal injection. The failed execution prompted Tennessee's governor to halt further executions this year and order a third-party review.

#firing #squad #nidal #fort

Robert De Niro is ramping up his criticism of the Trump administration in the final weeks before the 2026 midterm elections.
The 83-year-old Oscar winner did not pull his punches while speaking at Indivisible's Hands Off Our Vote event in New York City on Sunday, Oct. 4. He called out "weak and spineless" Republicans in Congress who "won't protect our rights" as voters, accused President Donald Trump of trying to "our votes away" amid record-low approval ratings and encouraged voters to "take back the House, take back the Senate, take back the power, take back our country."
"The Trump administration knows that their policies are not only crazy and cruel, they're increasingly unpopular. They can see it. They're not stupid. Well, OK, they are very f---ing stupid," De Niro said from the podium. "They're stupider than I ever thought, but they recognize what they're doing is turning away people. They can't get support from the voters. So what do they do? They try to take our votes away. Are you kidding me?"
He added, "And when that coward, that f---ing piece of s---, Donald Trump, tries to take our voice and power away, what do we tell him? Keep your f---ing hands off our vote!"
In response to De Niro's remarks, the White House reissued a statement previously provided to USA TODAY criticizing the actor.

#they 're #back #voters #House

Latino voters helped propel Donald Trump back to the White House. Now, they are turning on him, according to a new NBC News/Telemundo poll — a shift that gives Democrats a major opportunity to capitalize in a 2026 election that could hinge on states and districts with sizable Latino populations.
Like the broader electorate, Latino voters are racked by major concerns about high prices and Trump’s approach to immigration enforcement. The president’s approval rating sits at 27% among Latino voters. Two-thirds say his administration’s deportation policies have gone too far and three-quarters disapprove of how he has handled the economy and the cost of living.
There are clear signs his party is paying the price.
A greater share of Latino voters hold negative views of the Republican Party than at any time since 2016, and Democrats have leads on issues like dealing with the economy, immigration, the cost of living, corruption and healthcare. Two years ago, Latino voters gave Trump a 4-point edge over then-Vice President Kamala Harris on handling the economy. Today, they give Democrats a 21-point advantage on the same question.
Against that backdrop, Democrats have a 24-point lead on whom Latino voters want to see in control of Congress, 59%-35%.

#latino

Four weeks to Election Day, a growing number of House Republicans privately fear their chances of holding onto the majority are vanishing and have begun focusing on how to limit the size of a potential Democratic wave.
Inside the House GOP, Republicans have watched with alarm as President Donald Trump’s approval ratings have sunk in their own internal polling — including on traditionally red turf — over the last two weeks, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the discussions.
Now, the House GOP is entering triage mode. Republicans are discussing pulling money from once-competitive races they see as too difficult to win, including Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks in Iowa, Rep. Tom Kean in New Jersey and an open seat in Nebraska, according to three people familiar with the talks.
But the GOP does have a huge cash advantage, and not all Republicans are pessimistic. Speaker Mike Johnson is “absolutely still convinced” that he can hang onto the House and is not taking any seats “off his board,” according to a political aide. Johnson just returned from New Jersey and is planning a rally with Miller-Meeks in Iowa next week, according to his team.
The House GOP’s campaign arm, too, strenuously denies that the majority is lost.

#johnson

By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON, Oct 2 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump said the US government will send a one-time $90 payment to more than 20 million ‌Americans enrolled in Medicare, a health insurance program for the elderly, ‌to help offset the cost of their monthly medical insurance premiums.
Trump said on social media late on Friday the payments will come from the Medicare Improvement Fund, which he said was given $2 billion by Congress to improve the Medicare fee-for-service program.
The announcement is the latest in a series of financial promises the Republican leader has made to ‌voters heading into the November ⁠midterm elections where control of Congress is at stake.
Trump's Republican Party currently has a narrow majority in both the Senate ⁠and the House of Representatives but his approval rating has been low over his handling of the high cost of living for Americans during the US-Israeli war on Iran that has spiked oil and gas prices.

#americans #insurance #program #singh

This year's Kennedy Center Honors will be held at Washington's Capital One Arena, not the riverfront building that's been at the center of a legal fight over adding President Donald Trump's name to the building.
The 49th annual awards are set to take place at Washington's downtown arena, a Kennedy Center spokesperson said Friday. Few other details were immediately available, and an explanation for the change wasn't given.
The center's board voted last month to close the iconic performing arts venue along the Potomac River waterfront after a federal judge blocked the institution from returning Trump's name to the building.
Trump has said in social media posts that the center needed to close for safety repairs. But he said the repairs would only happen if the board was allowed to move forward with plans to add his name to the building.
A federal judge has twice said that can't happen without the approval of Congress, which has allocated $257 million for repairs.

#judge

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Group of Seven wealthy democracies said Friday that they plan to release 100 million barrels of oil and fuel products in the coming weeks, starting with "substantial" amounts of diesel after the fuel recently hit record high prices in the United States.
President Donald Trump said the diesel release would happen "immediately," echoing a G7 promise to start "immediately" with a "frontloaded substantial release" of diesel within the next 20 days and the rest over four months.
Trump and his Republican Party face pressure to address surging prices ahead of the Nov. 3 midterm elections, and Trump announced the action Friday on social media. The president's approval ratings on the economy hit a new low, according to an AP-NORC poll, as the Iran war and his trade battles have increased U.S. prices for oil and other goods.
Gas prices in the U.S. and abroad have soared during the eight-month-long war, a cost Trump has repeatedly said is worth it for making sure Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons. The national average for a gallon of diesel in the U.S. was $6.37 on Friday, according to AAA, after hitting a record $6.52 on Sept. 22. Diesel prices have hit records in Europe, too.
France holds the rotating presidency of the G7 group and made the announcement in a statement released after videoconference talks that Macron presided over. The G7 countries are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, ******* an, the U.K. and the U.S., plus EU representation.

#Diesel #prices #release #substantial

Apple Martin has officially gone from fashion campaign star to runway model. The 22-year-old daughter of Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay frontman Chris Martin made her runway debut on Thursday, Oct. 1, stepping onto the catwalk for Chloé's Spring/Summer 2027 show during Paris Fashion Week.
For the milestone moment, Martin wore an airy white maxi dress that leaned fully into the romantic, free-spirited aesthetic **** ociated with Chloé under creative director Chemena Kamali.
PARIS, FRANCE - JANUARY 24: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY - For Non-Editorial use please seek approval from Fashion House) Apple Martin attends the Chanel Haute Couture Spring Summer 2023 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on January 24, 2023 in Paris, France. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) (@ Getty Images)
And while Martin has spent the past few years steadily building a fashion résumé, walking a Paris Fashion Week runway puts her in an entirely new category.
Martin made her first-ever runway appearance at Chloé's Spring/Summer 2027 ready-to-wear show in Paris, where she joined an established cast that included models Mona Tougaard, Edie Campbell, Mariacarla Boscono and Eva Herzigová. Cynthia Erivo and Claire Danes were among the famous faces watching from the front row.

#Paris #show #Apple

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Coat season is here, and while autumn may have some reaching for their trench coats, Kylie Jenner just put her stamp of approval on another trending outerwear style: the car coat.
The it-girl approved staple has been having quite a moment. With its easy, light fit, mid-length design, and sleek silhouette, it makes for a totally versatile piece that goes well with just about anything. The style was born in the 1900s, and its name came as it was designed to allow easy movement for its wearer while driving or using transportation.
Now, decades later, the car coat has found its way to the hottest runways: Prada, Dries Van Noten, Lemaire, Meryll Rogge, and Tory Burch, to name a few. Even Burberry, best known for its polished khaki trenches, has reimagined the car coat with funky prints for the modern It girl (or It boy).
All this to say that Jenner's seemingly trivial outerwear choice—for her girls' night with Stas Karanikolaou at Sushi Park in Los Angeles—actually has a long and rich fashion history behind it. (Her sister Kendall Jenner is also a fan of the staple.)
The Khy founder styled her sharp beige car coat with a little white tee and straight-leg blue jeans in a light wash. For footwear, she traded her go-to thong sandals for a pair of strappy black heels. And to match, she carried a slouchy black leather tote. Rosy blush, paired with a bronze eye and lip, completed her effortless look.

#outerwear #name #black

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), antifa and the Muslim Brotherhood will be labeled domestic terrorist organizations under a new state law, after Florida leaders OK'd the designations at their Sept. 29 meeting.
These designations were in a 427-page packet submitted by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for approval by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Cabinet members: Attorney General James Uthmeier, Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson and state Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia.
The packet also named numerous other groups labeled by the federal government as foreign terrorist organizations.
Although the Governor and Florida Cabinet approved these notices without any discussion, these designations don't come as a surprise. Weeks earlier, the governor and Cabinet approved an emergency rule setting procedures under a new state law (HB 1471) allowing them to designate terror groups.
Additionally, the day this law took effect, DeSantis announced his intentions to declare CAIR, the country's largest Muslim advocacy group, and antifa as domestic terror groups.

#Florida #muslim #governor

(NEXSTAR) – The days getting shorter serve as a reminder that we’re barreling toward the end of our seasonal observation of daylight saving time, but the wheels may be in motion to stop that – a move more than a dozen states have been waiting to happen.
Earlier this year, the House passed the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time permanent throughout the U.S., with few exceptions. It’s been held up in the Senate since July but, now that the chamber has returned from recess, there’s a chance the legislation could be picked up.
If it can pass the Senate, the bill seems to stand a fair chance of becoming law, with President Trump already expressing support.
For more than a dozen states, this is the closest they’ve been in years to seeing some of their own legislation finally take effect. The U.S. hasn’t been this close to permanent daylight saving time since a version of the Sunshine Protection Act passed in the Senate in 2022 but fizzled in the House.
At present, states are only allowed to opt into year-round permanent standard time, as Hawaii and much of Arizona have done. But that hasn’t stopped 19 states from enacting legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent in their jurisdiction, pending approval from Congress.

#House

President Donald Trump’s sinking ratings threaten to drag down Republicans in November’s midterm elections, as voters blame him for high prices and a shaky economy, according to a new NBC News poll.
The president’s approval rating stands at 41% among registered voters, a second-term low in the poll, with a majority (55%) of voters saying they believe Trump’s policies have hurt the economy. That’s up from 48% in March, before the Iran war pushed up prices on gas and other goods and cemented the rising cost of living as voters’ most pressing issue.
Democrats hold a 5-point edge in the battle for control of Congress, 50%-45% — not nearly as large a lead as the 12-point advantage the party enjoyed at this point before the 2018 election, when Democrats rode an anti-Trump wave to the House majority in his first midterm as president. Despite that lead, the Democratic Party is still viewed more negatively than Trump and the GOP.
That could help Republicans, along with the fact that the fight for control of the House and especially the Senate is playing out in traditionally Republican parts of the country. Democrats would have to flip multiple states Trump carried by double digits in 2024 to win the Senate.
“We have a classic battle between these numbers and the political geography in which this campaign will be decided,” said Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, whose firm conducted the survey alongside Democratic firm Hart Research ***** ociates. “And the Republicans are still standing because of the geography in which this election will be won or lost.”

#president

Definium Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:DFTX) has now delivered a third consecutive positive Phase 3 readout for its LSD-based medication, the second in generalized anxiety disorder. The result puts the company on a viable route toward a potential FDA approval of an LSD-based treatment for generalized anxiety disorder, and considering how closely psychedelic stocks have historically traded on each other's data, the reading carries far more weight than Definium's own ticker.
On September 14, Definium Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:DFTX) announced that its drug DT120, an orally disintegrating tablet formulation of LSD, was successful in Panorama, the company's second late-stage anxiety trial. Over 12 weeks, patients who received a 100-microgram dose experienced a 9.8-point decline on the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale, a typical clinical measure, compared to a 4.7-point drop with placebo.
The resulting 5.1-point placebo-adjusted improvement is similar to what the company's first pivotal anxiety trial, Voyage, showed back in August: an 11.6-point improvement versus 6.2 for placebo, a 5.4-point separation that Jefferies called one of the strongest placebo-adjusted efficacy results ever seen in generalized anxiety disorder, and that Stifel simply described as "a clean win."
Psychedelic equities have a history of trading as a group rather than as individual names, and this tendency applies both ways. In February 2026, when Compass Pathways, the sector's other clinical leader developing a psilocybin-based drug for treatment-resistant depression, reported positive late-stage data, shares of Definium Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:DFTX), Atai Beckley, GH Research, and Helus Pharma all rose, some by double digits.
That correlation is significant here because Definium's win is an independent validation of the broader therapeutic argument on which Compass and others are betting: a single dose of a classic psychedelic, administered in a controlled clinical setting, can produce lasting improvements in serious mental health conditions via pathways different from existing SSRIs and other standard-of-care drugs.

#definium #placebo

NextEra Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NEE) announced on September 8 that it had secured a loan of up to $1.9 billion from the U.S. Department of Energy to support the restart of a shuttered nuclear power plant in Iowa. The Duane Arnold Energy Center ceased operations in 2020 after 45 years of service. The plant is now expected to resume operations in early 2029, pending regulatory approvals.
The federal funding is intended to help restore the facility and add reliable generation capacity as the US electricity demand soars to record levels amid the AI boom. To help meet the growing demand, President Trump is making efforts to accelerate the expansion of nuclear energy. He has signed an executive order to get 10 large conventional reactors under construction by 2030 and has also called for federal funding to support the restart of shuttered nuclear plants.
John Ketchum, Chairman, President, and CEO of NextEra Energy, commented:
"Restarting Duane Arnold is about delivering new power to meet new demand while generating billions of dollars in economic value for Iowans. Just as importantly, it shows how America can support rapid economic growth and rising electricity demand while helping keep power affordable for existing customers. By bringing new generation online to serve new demand, we can strengthen the grid, create hundreds of good-paying jobs and help ensure Iowa families and businesses are not asked to bear the costs of growth. We appreciate the Administration's leadership in advancing America's nuclear renaissance and share its commitment to an all-of-the-above energy strategy that expands supply, strengthens energy security and keeps America competitive."
Photo by Frédéric Paulussen on Unsplash

#duane #arnold

NextEra Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NEE) has outlined its growth targets for 2026 and beyond. This comes as the company advances plans to acquire Dominion Energy Inc (NYSE:D). It's a $67 billion all-stock transaction expected to close before the end of next year. If the merger is completed as expected, it would result in the largest US electricity producer.
NextEra's business is already growing, and Dominion is expected to increase the growth rate. The deal's promise is exciting, but its value to investors ultimately depends on NextEra securing regulatory approvals and successfully integrating Dominion ***** ets.
NextEra Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NEE) has reaffirmed its 2026 adjusted EPS guidance of $3.92 to $4.02 and said it was targeting the high end of that range. NextEra also said it expects adjusted EPS to grow at a compound annual rate of at least 8% through 2032 and is targeting the same growth rate through 2035, off the 2025 base.
NextEra also plans to continue rewarding its shareholders with higher dividends. The company expects its dividend per share to grow at a roughly 10% annual rate through 2026, off the 2024 base. It expects the dividend to grow 6% a year through 2028 from the 2026 base.
The EPS and dividend growth projections give investors a financial foundation for evaluating the Dominion deal. NextEra does not need Dominion simply to prevent a growth slowdown. Instead, it's looking to add another growth engine through the acquisition.

#dominion #rate

Credit card companies are racing to claim a place at the checkout when AI agents start shopping on behalf of consumers—even as shoppers remain skeptical of letting bots spend their money.
Mastercard rolled out a payment option Thursday that lets people give an AI agent a virtual card and allow it to buy things online without checking in before each purchase. Cardholders can limit how much it spends, restrict which retailers it buys from, or require approval before checkout.
"This is a land grab for infrastructure standards," Phil Bruno, chief strategy and growth officer at payments company ACI Worldwide, told Fortune. "If they set the standards for agentic commerce, they can keep the commerce in their environments for decades to come."
Rival Visa partnered with Alchemy earlier this year and has also announced its own AI shopping and payment product, Visa Intelligent Commerce, which the company says is still being deployed. Similarly, Meta has Muse, which can search for products and navigate checkout, but presents the purchase for the user's final approval.
It seems, though, that shoppers appear far more interested in using AI to find a deal than letting it pay. Just 7% of U.S. and U.K. consumers surveyed who buy fashion items said they would allow an AI ***** istant to make purchases without approval under predefined conditions, according to research commissioned by ACI Worldwide. More than half said they were uncomfortable allowing AI to purchase on their behalf.

#purchase #consumers

The Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) cryptocurrency is up 5.8% at 2:17 p.m. ET, floating atop a broad surge across the crypto sector. It's the kind of day where you almost expect stablecoins to rise, as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) moved one step closer to permitting token-based trading of stock-type securities.
And Ethereum would benefit directly if tokenized stocks ever get the SEC's final stamp of approval. The news is a day old, but traders needed time to process the situation after a tumultuous week in which the Clarity Act failed to move forward.
Missed AI's "Act 1"? Act 2 Could Be 15x Bigger. Most investors think they missed the AI boat because they didn't buy Nvidia in 2005. But according to our **** ysts, we're only at the end of "Act 1"—the R&D phase. "Act 2" is the global rollout. Continue »
The SEC is allowing a new kind of venue to trade blockchain versions of regularly listed stocks without first registering as a stock exchange. It's temporary, it's capped, and it comes with strings attached.
This isn't retail investors buying tokenized stocks on a public blockchain tomorrow. It's explicitly a placeholder for further announcements. The tokenized securities venue (TSV) designation is essentially a bold but limited experiment.

#stocks #missed #investors

Choosing the right mortgage lender could save you thousands of dollars. Shopping for one should be one the first steps you take when buying a house.
Comparing lenders and lining up preapprovals early gives you some benchmarks to work from, and when your real estate agent recommends lenders, you'll have a better sense of whether they're offering a good deal. Plus, having preapprovals in hand lets buyers and agents know you're serious.
Real estate agents typically have a roster of recommended lenders, often built on years of repeat business. "Choosing a lender is not just about obtaining financing," says Matthew Martinez, a California real estate broker. "It is about choosing one of the most important members of the transaction team."
Agents vet lenders to add to their networks, and they know what separates a good one from a bad one. Here are the four questions they say you should ask any lender you're considering.
A lender may offer a special program based on your profession, income or location that can make the mortgage more affordable.

#agents #estate #good #know

Coinbase Global (NASDAQ: $COIN) has filed for regulatory approval to list perpetual futures tied to individual large-cap U.S. stocks, opening the door to 24/7 leveraged trading of shares such as Apple, Microsoft, Tesla and Nvidia on a regulated U.S. platform.
The exchange plans to offer contracts linked to roughly 50 to 60 major stocks, with trading potentially starting later this year if regulators approve the products, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Perpetual futures, commonly known as perps, are derivatives that do not have an expiration date. Traders can keep positions open indefinitely, while leverage can magnify both gains and losses.
More From Cryptoprowl:
U.S. Regulators Push Crypto Rules As Clarity Act Stalls

#perpetual #global #coin

The State Department's approval of two potential arms sales to Saudi Arabia totaling $5.75 billion, including JDAM-ER munitions and AGT-1500 tank engines, offers a modest but meaningful data point for two very different defense players. For The Boeing Company (NYSE:BA), the potential sale represents an additional international defense opportunity as the company continues working through margin pressure elsewhere. For Honeywell Aerospace Inc. (NASDAQ:HONA), the package reinforces a stable business line while the firm tackles its first quarter as a standalone public company.
The State Department approved a potential $5 billion sale of JDAM-ER guidance kits and bombs to Saudi Arabia, along with a separate potential $750 million deal for AGT-1500 tank engines. The JDAM package consists of 5,004 KMU-572 and 5,000 KMU-556 JDAM guidance kits and 5,004 BLU-111 and 5,000 BLU-117 bombs. Boeing has been identified as the principal contractor for the JDAM-ERs, with Honeywell handling the engines. The State Department said the sales would strengthen Saudi Arabia's airborne defense capabilities and improve interoperability with U.S. and Gulf partner forces.
Boeing stands to gain only modestly from the deal, given its roughly $85 billion Defense, ******* e and Security backlog. International orders already account for 27% of that total. The segment reported a second-quarter operating loss, largely due to charges tied to the VC-25B (Air Force One) program. That makes mature, lower-risk munitions programs such as JDAM-ER a more dependable part of the portfolio, though the deal is unlikely to have a meaningful impact on margins. For Honeywell Aerospace, the contract is smaller, but the AGT-1500 fits within its established defense propulsion business. It also adds to the company's international defence business, which makes up about 30% of its total Defense and ******* e revenue.
Honeywell Aerospace is owned by 74 hedge funds as of Q2 2026, which is consistent with Honeywell (NASDAQ:HON) hedge fund ownership prior to the spinoff. Unlike Honeywell, the number of hedge funds holding Boeing stock dropped from 99 at the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2026 to 90 at the end of Q2 2026.
Neither potential sale is large enough to have a meaningful impact on either company's short-term results by itself. Still, each supports a different investment story. For Boeing, the potential sales add to international defense exposure if finalized, as its defense unit continues dealing with fixed-price losses. For Honeywell, they support the steady flow of high-margin legacy revenue across its broader defense franchise.

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On September 15, Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc (NASDAQ:JAZZ) completed its acquisition of privately held Actio Biosciences for $820 million upfront, adding a clinical-stage epilepsy drug called ABS-1230 to its rare disease pipeline. The deal lands weeks after Jazz posted its highest quarterly revenue ever on August 3, and raised its full-year guidance, so a fresh acquisition now sits on top of a business that was already accelerating. The question for investors is whether that combination adds up to durable growth or just a bigger bill.
ABS-1230 targets KCNT1-related epilepsy, a rare and hard-to-treat form of the disease. In an early clinical proof-of-concept trial, children who received the drug experienced meaningful seizure reductions, and preclinical testing showed it inhibited KCNT1 across every pathogenic mutation researchers evaluated, hinting it could work across the whole patient population rather than a narrow subset. The FDA has already granted ABS-1230 Orphan Drug, Rare Pediatric Disease and Fast Track designations, and accepted it into the agency's Rare Disease Evidence Principles process, a set of regulatory advantages that can speed a drug toward approval.
The acquisition also arrives while Jazz's existing business is firing on multiple cylinders. Second-quarter revenue climbed 16% year over year to $1.2 billion, the company's highest quarterly total on record, and management raised full-year 2026 revenue guidance to a range of $4.6 billion to $4.75 billion. Growth was not confined to one product. Xywav sales rose 13% to $471 million on 525 net new patients, Epidiolex grew 16% to $292 million, and Zepzelca jumped 42% to $106 million. Zanidatamab, sold as Ziihera in biliary tract cancer, also received Breakthrough Therapy designation from the FDA for a form of colorectal cancer, adding another avenue for the oncology franchise Jazz has been building beyond its epilepsy and sleep businesses.
None of that came free. The $820 million upfront payment for Actio lands on top of $4.4 billion in long-term debt that Jazz already carried as of June 30, even after the company used part of its cash to repay $1.0 billion of exchangeable notes that matured this year. Cash, equivalents and investments stood at $2.2 billion at that point, meaning the Actio payment alone accounts for a meaningful share of the company's liquid resources.
Jazz's recent history also shows how acquisitions can distort the bottom line before they pay off. A $905.4 million in-process research and development charge tied to the 2025 Chimerix acquisition pushed second-quarter 2025 GAAP earnings to a loss of $11.74 per share, and a smaller $77 million IPR&D charge from the AbCellera and Werewolf deals still dented second-quarter 2026 results. ABS-1230 itself remains early, with only proof-of-concept data in hand and no late-stage trial results yet. The portfolio is not without setbacks, either. Jazz is moving to voluntarily drop the second-line indication for Zepzelca in meta