Moderna led the S&P 500 in August after reporting promising results from a late-stage trial of a personalized mRNA cancer vaccine it co-developed with Merck, according to CNBC. The data challenged years of skepticism about whether the company's mRNA technology could produce another major breakthrough following the decline of its Covid-19 vaccine business. "This is miraculous, so it got a miraculous welcome," CNBC's Jim Cramer said Monday.
Enterprise software stocks accounted for many of the index's other top performers. Palantir, Veeva Systems, Salesforce, and ServiceNow had each come under sustained selling pressure as investors grew skeptical that traditional software models could remain competitive against the backdrop of accelerating AI development, according to the outlet. Those declines were compounded by large short positions held by Situational Awareness, a leveraged hedge fund that had bet against software companies based on that thesis. When the fund was forced to unwind its trades in late July, those shorts became a tailwind for the stocks it had targeted. "As August comes to a grinding end, it's hard to believe that the reverberations of a hedge fund implosion could color so much of the month's action," Cramer said.
Situational Awareness, which was run by Leopold Aschenbrenner and peaked at $45 billion in **** ets at the start of July, lost roughly $35 billion after margin calls from prime brokers Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase forced a distressed sale of its publicly traded holdings to Ken Griffin's Citadel. The fund had used as much as 400% leverage and held large short positions in software names including Adobe alongside bullish bets on AI infrastructure stocks.
Among individual software stocks, Salesforce bounced back after better-than-expected quarterly results quieted fears of what Cramer called a "SaaSpocalypse," while ServiceNow gained ground after showing investors that AI could be folded into its platform without disrupting existing operations. Veeva Systems climbed in tandem with the wider software sector after the anticipated AI threat to its life sciences niche failed to materialize in any meaningful way. Gartner also joined the recovery, as worries that large AI models would erode the market for its research and advisory services turned out not to be borne out by the company's actual results.
Outside software, Newmont benefited from a recovery in gold prices, while Coinbase climbed as cryptocurrencies rebounded amid concerns about U.S. debt and government spending. Super Micro Computer and Sandisk also surged on strong demand for memory used in AI data centers.

#cramer

Big dealmaking continues at a rapid clip for AI infrastructure play Hut 8 (HUT).
Hut 8 is developing the data center in Nueces County, Texas, that will be leased by Nvidia (NVDA) as part of a new $35 billion cloud-computing deal between Anthropic (ANTH.PVT) and Nvidia-backed Lambda, according to a new report from the WSJ.
Hut 8 shares rose as much as 4% in premarket trading on Tuesday.
"We have many projects that we are at late stage on," Hut 8 CEO Asher Genoot said on Yahoo Finance's Opening Bid in late August (video above). "We have early-stage [projects] across the whole pipeline. We have 11 that we've disclosed publicly. That doesn't include any behind-the-meter opportunities that we're working on. That doesn't include any M&A opportunities. So we have a ton of projects we're working on."
Hut 8 has a remarkable transformation story, evolving from a bitcoin miner to one of the most important AI data center operators in North America.

#NVIDIA

CHICAGO — Last mile costs continue to rise. On Thursday, FarEye released new research putting that cost into perspective using survey data.
The survey found median last-mile costs rose 12 percent in 2026, matching the increase operators saw a year ago. Six in 10 operators reported increases above 10 percent, and one in five reported increases above 20 percent.
Eighty-eight percent of operators said delivery cost is growing as fast as revenue or faster. Only one in eight operators is creating operating leverage. FarEye CEO and co-founder Kushal Nahata presented these findings Thursday at the Last Mile Leaders America event in Chicago.
"We thought probably it's an anomaly, it's not in double digits, but we saw that again this year as well," Nahata said. "So now it's probably the new normal that our delivery costs overall are increasing by almost double digits year on year."
The survey gathered more than 3,000 data points from U.S. delivery operators in the first half of 2026. Control figures are based on the 41 operators who answered the control question. Fleet-mix figures are based on 84 operators.

#percent

Napco Security Technologies (NASDAQ:NSSC) held its fiscal fourth quarter 2026 earnings call on August 24, and the numbers it reported were close to a best-case scenario in the company's own history. Net revenue hit a quarterly record of $55.8 million, full-year revenue crossed the $200 million mark for the first time, and the company raised its dividend while sitting on $138 million in cash and zero debt. Buried in the same call, though, is a $16 million litigation charge still working its way through the income statement.
The engine under all of this is Napco's StarLink radio business, which reports monitoring fees the way a cable company reports subscriptions. Recurring service revenue reached $25.3 million in the quarter, up 12.9%, and carried a gross margin of 90.1%. Based on July 2026 activity, the company said its annualized recurring revenue run rate is now around $103 million. Starlink radio sales grew 40% year over year and 30% sequentially in the quarter, which CEO Kevin S. Buchel called one of the highest growth rates in company history, adding, "Radio sold today becomes recurring revenue tomorrow." That growth has a long runway attached, since Buchel said the shift away from copper phone lines will keep running until the end of the decade across more than 2 million buildings still needing to switch to cellular communicators.
The rest of the business held up its end too. Intrusion and access control sales rose 20.9% in the quarter, powered by a 35.8% jump in intrusion products including StarLink radios, and door locking revenue climbed 11.1% for the full year on a 19.7% increase in Alarm Lock sales. Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter grew 44.3% to $20.6 million, and full-year non-GAAP diluted EPS rose 34.5% to $1.60. Free cash flow reached $59.2 million for the year, funding a dividend increase to $0.17 per share, a 13.3% raise payable Oct. 2, 2026, while the balance sheet carried $138 million in cash and marketable securities as of June 30, 2026, and no debt at all.
The headline profit numbers hide a rougher full-year picture in one spot. A $16 million litigation settlement recorded in the fiscal third quarter pulled full-year operating income down 1.3% to $45.6 million, even though quarterly operating income jumped 52.5%. Some of the quarter's gross margin expansion to 61.3% also came from a source that will not repeat indefinitely, since about 600 basis points of it was tariff refunds tied to the American Infrastructure and Industrial Power Act. CFO Andrew J. Vuono also flagged that data center expansion is pushing up the cost of electronic parts, even as the company says it can still ship on time.

#year

Lantronix (NASDAQ:LTRX) closed out fiscal 2026 looking like a different company than it was a year earlier. Revenue for the fourth quarter, which ended June 30 and was reported on August 26, came in at $31.2 million, up 8% from a year ago, while non-GAAP earnings per share jumped 300% to $0.04. The company also finished the year debt-free with $60.5 million in cash. What used to be a niche embedded-connectivity supplier is now leaning hard into drones, edge AI compute, and recurring software revenue.
That shift shows up most clearly in unmanned systems. A year ago the company had roughly 10 active engagements in the category; by the end of fiscal 2026 that number had tripled to over 30. Unmanned systems revenue hit $12.6 million for the year, above the midpoint of the $10 million to $14 million range management had guided to, and embedded IoT solutions overall grew 34% on the strength of that business.
CEO Saleel Awsare pointed to the company's US Army short-range reconnaissance program win, tied to Teal Drones' Black Widow platform and its status as a Blue UAS approved supplier, as proof of its camera tuning and sensor fusion expertise. Management is layering in partnerships too, including a deal with AVT Australia to build its system-on-module tech into gimbal camera payloads and a collaboration with Swarmer that roughly quadruples onboard processing power for Group 1 drones. For fiscal 2027, management expects unmanned systems to reach 15% to 20% of total revenue, more than $25 million.
The balance sheet backs up the ambition: a $44 million capital raise during the quarter helped push cash to $60.5 million while the company paid off its remaining $8.7 million in debt. On top of that, the $11.7 million purchase of Vecima Networks' Industrial IoT business, including the Nero Global Tracking platform and its 125,000 device tags, is expected to add $5.3 million in annual revenue and push software and services to about 10% of total revenue on a pro forma basis, up from 7% to 8% previously.
Not every input is cooperating. CFO Brent Stringham flagged that memory availability has tightened and prices have risen as AI infrastructure and hyperscale data centers absorb a growing share of global supply, a dynamic he described as industry-wide rather than specific to Lantronix. The company's IoT Systems Solutions segment, which grew 16% sequentially to $15.3 million, was still recovering from federal government shutdowns that slowed procurement in the prior two quarters, a reminder of how exposed that business is to Washington's budget calendar. And despite the non-GAAP profit, Lantronix posted a GAAP net loss of $269,000 for the quarter, an improvement from the $2.6 million loss a year earlier but still red ink.

#gaap

CrowdStrike Holdings (NASDAQ:CRWD) just posted the best quarter in its history, and the numbers back that up. Net new annual recurring revenue hit $333 million on August 26, accelerating to 51% growth and beating the high end of guidance by more than $45 million. Total revenue climbed 26% to $1.47 billion, a fifth straight quarter of accelerating growth. Buried in the same earnings call, though, was a guide for the current quarter that points to a much slower pace ahead.
The clearest story here is Falcon Flex, the bundled subscription model that lets customers consolidate security modules under one contract. Ending ARR tied to Flex reached $2.29 billion, up 101% year over year, and the company added more than 935 new Flex accounts in the quarter, over ten a day. Customers who converted from a standard subscription to Flex boosted spending by an average of 40%, and new logos signing directly onto Flex made up a record 34% of net new ARR. That bundling machine is now feeding a new category of demand.
Artificial Intelligence Detection and Response, built to police rogue AI agents, saw its ending ARR nearly triple versus the prior quarter, while identity products like Falcon Shield and privileged account protection grew more than 185% and more than 35 times year over year. Endpoint security, the original business, accelerated for a fourth straight quarter as customers locked down AI tools running on their machines. None of this came at the expense of profit. Non-GAAP operating income rose 46% to $372 million, a 25% margin, and free cash flow grew 33% to $377 million. Management raised its full-year net new ARR guidance by 1.15 thousand basis points from its initial outlook, to $1.35 billion to $1.36 billion.
Look past the headline print and the picture gets more complicated. CrowdStrike earned just $5 million in GAAP net income for the quarter, only its third straight quarter in the black on that basis, a reminder that the far larger non-GAAP profit figures still lean on add-backs like stock-based compensation. The company's own outlook for the next quarter cools things off too. Third quarter net new ARR is guided to grow 29% to 31% year over year, roughly half the 51% pace just posted, and revenue growth is guided to slow to 23% to 24% from the 26% delivered in the second quarter. Some of that is routine caution, but it still means the acceleration does not carry forward unchanged.

#year #flex #gaap

America is debating data centers as though technological leadership and affordable electricity are competing goals. That framing misses the opportunity. Hyperscale campuses should enter the grid as integrated energy projects that add generation, storage, flexibility, and resilience, not merely as large loads.An April 2026 Pew Research Center **** ysis found more than 3,000 operating U.S. data centers and more than 1,500 in development, with 67% of planned facilities in rural communities. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory projects data centers could consume 11.8% of U.S. electricity by 2030. Goldman Sachs projects demand could rise from 31 GW in 2025 to 66 GW in 2027.
COMMENTARY
Those figures demand a legal and regulatory model that rewards projects capable of solving the problems they create. Hyperscale facilities seeking expedited approval should bring enough new supply and flexibility to serve contracted demand, pay the infrastructure costs they cause, and provide enforceable grid support during emergencies.A 2025 executive order accelerated permitting for qualifying artificial intelligence (AI) data centers and supporting power infrastructure. The White House's 2026 Ratepayer Protection Pledge called on hyperscalers to bring new generation, pay grid costs, and protect existing customers.In October 2025, the Energy Secretary used Section 403 of the Department of Energy Organization Act to ask the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to consider reforms for loads generally exceeding 20 MW in Docket No. RM26-4-000. FERC declined to impose one national process, instead opening separate Federal Power Act Section 206 proceedings in June 2026 for all six regional transmission organizations (RTOs) and independent system operators (ISOs), Docket Nos. EL26-67-000 through EL26-72-000.The orders question whether existing tariffs are just and reasonable, and identify five reform areas: study procedures, cost-shifting protections, co-location and behind-the-meter generation, flexible transmission service, and generation serving nearby loads.
[evtx_block slug="ep-dpx-26-textblock"]
Texas has responded by requiring large-load customers to shoulder infrastructure costs and by developing curtailment and co-location rules under Senate Bill 6. New York has paused certain hyperscale permits while it develops ratepayer, grid, water, and community protections. Both approaches point toward the same durable result: a power-positive approval pathway that converts legitimate public concerns into measurable design and operating obligations.Other states are building tariffs around that principle. Wisconsin extended its very-large-customer tariff to a 15-year minimum, lowered eligibility to 100 MW, and strengthened cost-shift protections. Long commitments, minimum-demand payments, security requirements, and exit charges are now central project economics.That makes the interconnection agreement co-equal with the engineering, procurement, and construction cont

The wait for a large gas turbine now runs longer than the time it takes to design, permit, and build the plant it will sit in. Order one today from any of the three largest manufacturers, and the delivery slot lands four or more years out—if a slot is available at all. The queue to connect a new plant to the grid runs about as long. For developers racing to power the data centers hyperscalers are building, the timeline no longer works, and it is pushing the U.S. generation build toward whatever can be constructed without waiting in either line.That dislocation is the backdrop to a quieter story about where capital is moving, and it surfaced in July when a familiar U.S. plant operator changed hands. IHI Power Services Corp., a company with roughly four decades of experience running American power plants, became Kyuden Energy Partners Corp. on completion of its acquisition by Kyuden International Corp., the overseas arm of a company fully owned by **** an's Kyushu Electric Power Co. The rebrand is the news of the day. The more instructive part is what a foreign utility chose to buy: not power plants, but the capability to run them.
Tony Dabbene, who led IHI Power Services through the transition and stays on as CEO, was blunt about the market. "We are seeing the most dynamic environment in decades," he told POWER, pointing to demand tied to the hyperscalers' data center buildout. Major gas turbine manufacturers, he said, are quoting lead times of four-plus years, with interconnection queues running about the same. The manufacturers' own disclosures bear that out: GE Vernova's gas turbine backlog and slot reservations reached 116 GW by mid-2026, and Siemens Energy has described itself as booked into the back half of the decade, treating 2029 delivery slots as near-term availability.What Dabbene described next was the market's response. Rather than wait for an interconnection that may not clear before mid-decade, developers are building behind the meter and on private grids that sidestep the queue entirely. To power them, they're reaching for whatever can be deployed the fastest: reciprocating engines, fuel cells, and battery storage paired with microgrids, engineered to achieve the high-availability targets that around-the-clock computing demands while managing the power-quality swings that come when those loads shift in an instant. "It is a brand-new world in the energy **** e," he said.This is where a multi-fuel operator has the edge. A company that already runs natural gas, hydro, biomass, wind, solar, and storage has done the work developers are now rushing toward—operating mixed generation and meeting high availability targets. The turbine shortage may be a headache for those building facilities, but it's an opportunity for reliable operators.

#corp #runs #plant #four

Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) just posted a quarter that would make any other chipmaker blush. On its August 26 earnings call, the company reported $96.2 billion in revenue, more than double what it made a year earlier, and said AI demand has crossed into something it calls an inflection point. But buried inside the good news sat two admissions that matter just as much: memory costs are rising faster than expected, and Nvidia is now underwriting some of its own customers' growth. Both cut against the simple growth story.
Data center revenue reached $89 billion, up 117% year over year, and the ACIE segment, which covers AI labs, cloud providers, industrial and enterprise customers outside the big hyperscalers, grew 138% year over year to $40.0 billion. Management said that segment now represents roughly half of Nvidia's data center business, a sign that governments and specialized cloud operators are becoming nearly as important as Amazon or Microsoft. Sovereign AI revenue, sold mostly through regional NeoCloud partners, grew 35% sequentially and more than tripled from a year ago, and those partners are expected to exit the year with 8 gigawatts of installed capacity, up from roughly 3 gigawatts at the end of 2025.
The bigger shift is how much of each data center dollar Nvidia now keeps for itself. Management said the revenue potential per gigawatt of capacity has climbed from $18 billion in the Hopper generation to $40 billion with the upcoming Vera Rubin platform, as Nvidia sells the CPUs, networking gear and software around its chips rather than just the chips themselves. Networking revenue hit a record, up 18% sequentially, with Spectrum-X Ethernet sales growing 2.6 times year over year. Amazon deepened its own commitment too, agreeing to deploy an additional 2 million Nvidia GPUs through the second quarter of fiscal 2029 alongside new Vera CPUs, while adopting Nvidia's Omniverse and robotics software for its warehouse fleet.
None of this looks like a company running out of runway. Nvidia returned $26 billion to shareholders in the quarter, split between $20 billion in buybacks and $6 billion in dividends, with about $99 billion still left on its repurchase authorization. Global venture funding into AI topped $400 billion in the first half of 2026 alone, with roughly 70% of that money earmarked for compute, which happens to be exactly what Nvidia sells.
Growth this fast is not free. Gross margin held at 75% this quarter, but CFO Colette Kress told investors it will bottom out at 71% to 72% in the fourth quarter as memory component costs spike, and that the size of those price increases has already exceeded the company's own expectations and is set to climb further into next year. Operating expenses are rising too, up 11% sequentially to $8.2 billion, with guidance near $9 billion for the next quarter, and inventory swelled to $31.6 billion as Nvidia stocks up ahead of the Vera Rubin launch.

#vera

Many famous acting duos have had undeniable chemistry both on- and off-screen, going from costars to couples.
Following the series finale of That '70s Show in 2006, it would be a few years before cast members Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis reconnected at the 2012 Golden Globes and ultimately said "I do" in 2015. Though some actors have attempted to keep their budding romances and marriages low-key (looking at you, Zendaya and Tom Holland!), Yellowstone castmates Ryan Bingham and Hassie Harrison tied the knot while still working together.
From Jon Hamm and Anna Osceola's Mad Men beginnings to Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos' soap opera fairy tale, here's a look at the stars whose Hollywood love stories went beyond the set to the wedding altar.
01 of 23
Tom Holland as Peter Parker and Zendaya as Michelle 'MJ' Jones in 2017's 'Spider-Man: Homecoming'
Credit: SONY PICTURES ENTERTAINMENT INC.

#zendaya #many #kunis

Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) spent its fiscal 2027 second quarter proving a point it has been arguing for months: that artificial intelligence is expanding its business rather than replacing it. The company used its August 26 earnings call to unveil Claudeforce, a joint product with Anthropic that layers Claude's reasoning on top of Salesforce's customer data, while posting numbers that gave management fresh ammunition against the idea that AI agents make traditional software obsolete.
The headline metric was Agentforce annual recurring revenue crossing $1.5 billion, up more than 240% year over year, with AI and data ARR nearing $3.9 billion after growing over 210%. That growth showed up in usage too. Customers generated 3.2 billion Agentic Work Units in the quarter, a 97% jump from the prior quarter, and agentic activity through Model Context Protocol and Claude calls surged sixfold as customers moved past standard software interfaces.
Slackbot became the company's fastest adopted AI product ever, reaching 1 million active users just five months after launch and growing 150% quarter over quarter. Current remaining performance obligation climbed 14% in constant currency to $33.5 billion, a point ahead of guidance, while net new annual order value growth hit its strongest level in four years. Bookings from the premium Agentforce 1 Edition and Agentforce for Apps bundles more than doubled from the prior quarter, and contract terms lengthened across every segment.
On the data side, the Data 360 platform ingested 104 trillion records, up 355% year over year, with Zero Copy architecture usage climbing 731%. Nine of the top 10 AI companies now run on Salesforce and Slack, and their combined spending rose 435% year over year, a detail management used to argue that frontier AI firms depend on CRM infrastructure rather than displacing it. Free cash flow reached $1.1 billion, up 81% year over year, and the U.S. Army expanded its contract to potentially drive up to 55 million monthly Agentforce conversations.
Not every line told a clean growth story. Non-GAAP operating margin actually slipped slightly to 34.1% from 34.3% a year earlier, even as revenue and earnings per share climbed. Overall revenue growth remained a comparatively modest 11%, and management pointed to continued volatility in licensed revenue within its integration and ****** ytics segments, even as Slack and Agentforce carried the results. The raised full-year guidance also comes with an asterisk. Of the $300 million constant currency increase to fiscal 2027 revenue guidance, only $100 million reflects organic momentum, while $200 million depends on the anticipated closings of the Contentful and Fin acquisitions in the coming weeks, deals that have not yet closed.

#revenue #billion #data #guidance

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There hasn't been this much buzz about ticket charges since the Department of Justice settled its long-running antitrust case against Live Nation, the owner of Ticketmaster.
But this isn't about concerts and the gargantuan markups on the resale marketplace. And the story is much bigger than almost anything else in ***** et management and financial advice this year: Vanguard is buying the fintech-powered RIA custodian Altruist. From an ETF angle, the deal could affect the platform fees that issuers pay other custodians — or decline to, which can limit their distribution.
"The RIA platforms / custodians could not have been happy to hear of the Vanguard / Altruist arrangement," said Neil Bathon, managing partner of Fuse Research Network, noting that the deal stands to boost distribution of Vanguard ETFs via its model portfolios. "It is only natural to ***** ume that Vanguard's core positioning as the industry's most efficient operator will reflect itself in downward pressure on platform fees."
Sign up for The Daily Upside at no cost for premium ***** ysis on all your favorite stocks.

#daily #deal

Barcelona are preparing to reward Xavi Espart for his rapid emergence under Hansi Flick, with the club set to offer the academy graduate a significantly improved contract once the transfer window closes.
According to Que T'hi Jugues, Barcelona have already begun working towards a renewal for Espart, whose importance to the German manager has considerably grown since the start of the season.
At the same time, journalist Nil Sola has also reported that negotiations over new deals for Gerard Martin and Marc Bernal are progressing well.
As stated by Flick himself, the German manager has been particularly impressed by Espart's mentality, adaptability and consistency, having played every available minute across Barcelona's opening three La Liga matches.
The midfielder has demonstrated an ability to operate in several positions, something that has significantly increased his value to the manager.

#Barcelona #significantly #according #t 'hi

ONEOK has agreed to acquire Brazos Midstream's natural gas gathering and processing ******* ets in the Permian Basin's Midland sub-basin for $4.425 billion in cash, expanding the midstream operator's footprint in one of the largest U.S. oil and gas producing regions.
The acquisition will be funded as part of a separate $9 billion nonvoting minority equity investment from funds and affiliates managed by Apollo Global Management. ONEOK plans to use roughly $5 billion of the Apollo proceeds to extinguish existing debt, while the remainder will fund the Brazos acquisition.
The structure allows ONEOK to finance the transaction without issuing common equity. The company said the combination of the Apollo investment and planned debt reduction is expected to bring its pro forma 2027 debt-to-EBITDA ratio to about 3.25 times.
Brazos' Midland Basin system is supported by roughly 600,000 dedicated acres under fixed-fee contracts with a weighted average remaining term exceeding 12 years, according to ONEOK. Producers operating on the acreage include ExxonMobil, Diamondback Energy and Double Eagle, with 14 active drilling rigs currently supporting the system.
After completion of the Cassidy II processing plant, which ONEOK expects in the third quarter of 2027, the acquired system is expected to comprise about 700 miles of gathering infrastructure and 1.2 billion cubic feet per day of gas processing capacity across seven Midland Basin counties.

#basin

PetroChina reported record first-half operating results for 2026, with profit attributable to shareholders rising 22% year over year to RMB103.94 billion as the Chinese energy giant expanded across natural gas, new materials and lower-carbon businesses.
Revenue increased 5.3% to RMB1.527 trillion, while basic earnings per share reached RMB0.57. PetroChina said it was the first time its attributable profit had exceeded RMB100 billion in a half-year period.
The company's oil, gas and new energies business remained its biggest earnings contributor, generating RMB100.45 billion in operating profit during the first half.
PetroChina reported oil and gas equivalent production of 921 million barrels, domestic crude production of 393 million barrels and marketable natural gas production of 2.66 trillion cubic feet.
The company said it made six new discoveries and advanced 19 new developments during the period. It also established two large gas reserve areas in the Sichuan and Junggar basins and a major deep conventional oil reserve area at Tarim Fuman.

#petrochina #first #production #rmb100

FIRST ON FOX: A multi-agency operation in Arizona's Yuma Sector led to the arrest of 95 illegal alien truck drivers earlier this month, striking at the heart of human and drug smuggling operations at the U.S. southern border.
All 95 drivers had acquired state-issued commercial driver's licenses; 76 from California, six from New York and the rest from a handful of other states, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
The apprehensions continue to demonstrate the high volume of narcotics and human trafficking smuggling operations that are alive and well at the border — even as immigration numbers have plummeted in recent months.
Chaotic Border Chase Ends With Illegal Immigrants Found Crammed In Semitruck Sleeping Area
"We are committed to protecting our citizens from all international threats, whether that is from unlicensed or untrained drivers, or transnational criminal organizations engaged in human or drug trafficking," Acting Chief Patrol Agent Dustin Caudle said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

#border #trafficking

Elon Musk's Tesla (TSLA) has plenty on its plate right now. The EV giant is pouring billions into high-profile bets such as robotaxis, humanoid robots, and a massive chip fabrication plant, all in the hope of unlocking its next phase of growth. But those ambitious investments are already showing up in the numbers, weighing on profits and pushing free cash flow into negative territory. Now, a major policy shift from Washington could give Tesla's energy business an unexpected boost. On Aug. 27, President Donald Trump signed an emergency order aimed at keeping certain foreign-made transformers and other critical power equipment out of the U.S. electric grid.
The order broadly restricts the purchase, import, or installation of certain foreign-made bulk-power system equipment and related software if they could create cybersecurity or operational risks. It also opens the door to new rules that could affect equipment already installed across the U.S. That could be a big deal for the U.S. energy industry. China currently accounts for roughly 80% of the world's battery and solar inverter manufacturing capacity, according to the International Energy Agency.
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#order

Houston, Texas-based Chevron Corporation (CVX) is one of the world's largest integrated energy companies, with operations spanning oil and natural gas exploration and production, refining, marketing, chemicals, and lower-carbon energy. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, Chevron operates across the U.S. and numerous international markets. The company has a market cap of $364.5 billion.
Companies with a market capitalization of $200 billion or more are typically referred to as "mega-cap stocks." CVX fits right into that category, with its market cap exceeding this threshold, reflecting its substantial size and influence in the integrated oil and gas industry. A major strength of Chevron is its vertically integrated and geographically diversified portfolio. The upstream business provides significant exposure to oil and gas prices, while refining, marketing and chemicals operations can provide earnings diversification when commodity prices or refining margins move in different directions.
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#market #texas #Stock

North Chicago, Illinois-based AbbVie Inc. (ABBV) is a global, research-driven biopharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing medicines for complex and serious diseases. Valued at a market cap of $386.3 billion, its key therapeutic areas include immunology, neuroscience, oncology and aesthetics, with operations spanning more than 75 countries.
Companies with a market capitalization of $200 billion or more are typically referred to as "mega-cap stocks." ABBV fits right into that category, with its market cap exceeding this threshold, reflecting its substantial size and influence in the general drug manufacturers industry. AbbVie combines a large established pharmaceutical portfolio with a rapidly expanding immunology franchise and a broad pipeline.
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#abbvie #abbv #billion

Rahway, New Jersey-based Merck & Co., Inc. (MRK) is a global research-driven biopharmaceutical company focused on developing medicines, vaccines, and animal-health products. Known as MSD outside the U.S. and Canada, Merck operates through two main businesses: Pharmaceuticals and Animal Health. Valued at a market cap of $297 billion, its pharmaceutical portfolio spans oncology, vaccines, cardiometabolic disease, infectious diseases, and other therapeutic areas.
Companies with a market cap of $200 billion or more are typically referred to as "mega-cap stocks." It fits right into that category, with its market cap exceeding this threshold, reflecting its substantial size and influence in the general drug manufacturers industry. Merck combines a dominant oncology franchise, a broad vaccine portfolio, an expanding pipeline of newer medicines, and a large animal-health business. Its key investment consideration is balancing the continued strength of Keytruda and newer products against pressure on mature franchises such as Gardasil and the eventual impact of Keytruda's patent expiry.
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#animal #medicines #products

Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America Corporation (BAC) is one of the largest financial institutions in the U.S., offering a broad mix of consumer banking, wealth management, corporate banking, investment banking, and trading services. Valued at a market cap of $435.8 billion, the company operates through four segments: Consumer Banking, Global Wealth & Investment Management (GWIM), Global Banking, and Global Markets.
Companies with a market cap of $200 billion or more are typically referred to as "mega-cap stocks." BAC Energy fits squarely into that category, with its market cap exceeding this threshold and reflecting its substantial size and influence in the diversified banks industry. Its competitive edge lies in its massive deposit franchise, broad financial-services ecosystem, strong digital capabilities and ability to deepen relationships across consumer, wealth and corporate clients, giving it multiple avenues for growth across market cycles.
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Tesla Stock Could Benefit as Trump Locks Down the U.S. Power Grid
Tesla Just Killed Its Solar Roof After Years of Struggling to Scale. What It Means for TSLA Stock.

#global #tesla #investment

With a market cap of $192.5 billion, PepsiCo, Inc. (PEP) is a global leader in the manufacture, marketing, distribution, and sale of a broad range of beverages and convenient foods. The company distributes its products through direct-store-delivery, customer warehouses, third-party networks, and e-commerce platforms, serving a wide variety of retail and foodservice customers worldwide.
Companies valued at $10 billion or more are generally classified as "large-cap" stocks, and PepsiCo fits this criterion perfectly. Its diverse portfolio includes iconic brands such as Pepsi-Cola, Frito-Lay, Quaker, Gatorade, Tropicana, and Mountain Dew, operating across seven segments spanning North America, Latin America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and the Asia Pacific region.
Wu-Tang Clan Member Raekwon Is a Palantir 'OG,' Visiting Headquarters 16 Years After Receiving His Custom PLTR Jacket
Tesla Stock Could Benefit as Trump Locks Down the U.S. Power Grid
Tesla Just Killed Its Solar Roof After Years of Struggling to Scale. What It Means for TSLA Stock.

#tesla

On August 28, Pinterest (NYSE:PINS) said that the Chief Financial Officer, Julia Donnelly, will leave the company on October 30, kicking off an external search for her replacement. Vikram Naidu, the company's vice president of finance and business operations, will serve as interim principal financial officer in the meantime. Donnelly is departing to join a private, early-stage company after roughly three years in the role, a stretch CEO Bill Ready credited with 11 consecutive quarters of double-digit revenue growth. The timing puts a spotlight on whether Pinterest can keep that momentum going without her.
The financial picture Donnelly leaves behind is a strong one. In the second quarter of 2026, Pinterest generated $1.18 billion in revenue, up 18% year over year and the fourth straight quarter above $1 billion. Global monthly active users climbed to 640 million, an 11% increase and the eleventh consecutive quarter of double-digit user growth, with Gen Z now making up more than half the platform's user base.
The United States and Canada region, Pinterest's most lucrative market, shows the acceleration most clearly. Revenue there grew 18%, a five-point jump from the prior quarter, helped by a restructured sales team and tighter account coverage for mid-market advertisers. Average revenue per user in that region rose 14% to $8.30. Management has also leaned hard into artificial intelligence, rolling its conversational Pinterest ****** istant out to most US users by the end of July and pointing to open-source models that run at less than 8% of the cost of comparable closed systems.
Profitability improved alongside growth. Adjusted EBITDA reached $311 million, a 26% margin that expanded 130 basis points from a year earlier, and free cash flow totaled $1.3 billion over the trailing twelve months. Pinterest used some of that cash to retire nearly 111 million shares this year, spending more than $2 billion on buybacks.
Donnelly's exit adds a layer of uncertainty to a company that just forecast a deceleration. Pinterest's own guidance calls for third-quarter revenue growth of 13% to 15%, down from 18% in the second quarter, a slowdown management attributes to the shift in when Prime Day fell, a smaller currency tailwind, and continued pressure from Asia-based cross-border retailers hit by regulatory actions in Europe. Competition from Meta's Instagram for digital advertising dollars is compounding the squeeze.

#revenue #year #company

On August 29, Reuters reported that Honda Motor Co. Ltd. (NYSE:HMC) and Nissan Motor could reach an agreement as soon as the following Monday to jointly develop a vehicle operating system and onboard computer, according to ***** an's Nikkei newspaper. The tie-up would target new models arriving as early as 2029 and marks the clearest sign yet that the two ***** anese automakers are rebuilding cooperation more than a year after their $60 billion merger talks fell apart. Honda has plenty riding on getting both the technology and the timing right.
Honda told Reuters it is discussing "potential areas of collaboration" with Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors under their existing strategic partnership, though it stressed no deal has been finalized. A Nissan spokesperson said the company is exploring "various possibilities" and would share details once something is confirmed. Nissan CEO Ivan Espinosa said earlier this month that talks with Honda over software collaboration were underway, and on Honda's own fiscal first-quarter earnings call, management confirmed it is exploring cooperation with Nissan on software-defined vehicles, batteries and shared vehicle platforms to pool volume across both companies. A shared computing platform could let Honda spread the cost of software development across a far larger base of vehicles, an advantage smaller automakers rarely get on their own.
That potential collaboration comes as Honda's core business is performing better than expected. Operating profit for the fiscal first quarter, reported August 5, reached a record JPY530.7 billion, powered by an all-time high JPY233.9 billion motorcycle profit on strong demand in India and Brazil. Automobile operating profit held at JPY192.1 billion despite a rough patch in China, a 5% margin management attributed partly to a JPY78.1 billion positive tariff impact. In the United States, high gasoline prices pushed buyers toward Honda's hybrids, and the company captured a 10% share of the market in April and May, its best showing in five years. Management responded by raising full-year operating profit guidance to JPY650 billion and adjusted operating profit, which excludes EV-related losses, to JPY1.17 trillion, while holding the dividend at JPY70 per share and keeping a JPY3.3 trillion net cash position.
China remains the biggest drag. Management said the country's combustion-engine and hybrid market shrank by about 40% in the quarter, and Honda's retail units there fell 50% year over year, even after the company moved early to extend its joint venture with GAC through 2028 to calm dealers. Honda is also still absorbing the cost of its shifted EV strategy, forecasting JPY520 billion in EV-related losses for the full year, a figure it revised to reflect foreign exchange effects on compensation talks with North American suppliers that remain unresolved.

#billion #nissan #profit #talks

Headquartered in Los Gatos, California, Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) is a global entertainment company and one of the world's leading streaming platforms, offering TV series, films, live programming and games across a broad range of genres and languages. Its core business is subscription-based streaming, with revenue primarily generated from monthly membership fees, while its newer advertising business provides an additional monetization channel.
With a market cap of approximately $340.3 billion, Netflix sits firmly in the 200-billion-or-more mega-cap tier, giving the streaming giant substantial financial firepower. That scale provides the flexibility to invest aggressively across its next growth avenues, from scaling its advertising business and expanding into gaming to strengthening its technology infrastructure and growing its in-house content studio, while continuing to fund its core streaming operation.
Wu-Tang Clan Member Raekwon Is a Palantir 'OG,' Visiting Headquarters 16 Years After Receiving His Custom PLTR Jacket
Tesla Stock Could Benefit as Trump Locks Down the U.S. Power Grid
Tesla Just Killed Its Solar Roof After Years of Struggling to Scale. What It Means for TSLA Stock.

#tesla #advertising

Guns and ammunition retailers have faced financial distress, leading to store closings and bankruptcy filings as sales have fallen significantly over the last two years.
Industry experts believe some of the decline in sales might have resulted from buyers delaying purchases to take advantage of the reduction in the National Firearms Act tax from $200 to $0 beginning Jan. 1, 2026, the National Rifle ****** ociation's American Rifleman reported. The decline of sales, however, has continued in 2026.
Financial issues had led firearms and ammunition retailer White Oak Armory LLC to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to reorganize its business, owing a disputed tax debt to the Tennessee Department of Revenue.
White Oak Armory filed its petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee on Aug. 24, listing $500,000 to $1 million in ****** ets and liabilities. The petition did not reveal whether the company's sales had declined, and the debtor did not give a specific reason for filing for bankruptcy in its petition.
The retailer was not immediately available for comment. The firearms dealer's website and telephone were still operating on Aug. 30.

#sales

On August 28, Affirm Holdings (NASDAQ:AFRM) gave investors two very different signals in the same breath. The buy now, pay later company posted a fiscal fourth quarter that blew past Wall Street's numbers, yet CEO Max Levchin used the moment to flag something less comfortable: gas prices are squeezing the very shoppers driving that growth. The stock barely moved on the news, leaving the market to sort out which story matters more.
The headline numbers were hard to argue with. Revenue rose 33% to $1.17 billion for the three months ended June 30, ahead of the $1.11 billion ****** ysts expected, while gross merchandise volume climbed 36% to $14.1 billion against a $13.39 billion estimate. Adjusted operating income reached $353 million, a 30% margin, and the GAAP operating margin expanded six percentage points to 12.6%. For the full fiscal year, GMV hit $50.2 billion, up from $36.7 billion, on $4.26 billion in revenue.
The user base kept expanding too. Active consumers grew 21% to 27.8 million, and transactions per active consumer rose 20% to 7.0, while the Affirm Card's active user count more than doubled to 5.2 million. Newly appointed president Michael Linford, who moved into the role Thursday, Aug. 27, after nearly two years as chief operating officer, called it the eleventh straight quarter of GMV growth above 30%. Credit quality held up alongside that growth, with the 30-day delinquency rate improving to 2.5% from the 2.7% to 2.8% range of the prior three quarters, something Compass Point's Giuliano Bologna called evidence of "resilient credit performance." Affirm also deepened its Shopify tie-up, extending Shop Pay Installments into Australia after last year's UK expansion, part of what Linford described as Shopify "pulling us into a new market" as both a partner and shareholder. Susquehanna's James Friedman raised his price target to $110 from $105, calling the guidance for fiscal 2027 "exceptionally strong."
Levchin's own commentary complicated the celebration. "The US consumer undoubtedly sees the higher gas prices, so can't, can't ignore that," he told CNBC, noting shoppers are increasingly turning to Affirm to manage costs across "all the various inflationary points." The national average gas price sat at $4.09 a gallon as of August 28, down from above $4.50 in May but still well above pre-Iran war levels, and it hasn't dipped below $3 since March 2. Levchin was direct about the risk: "I do think that sustained pressure on prices isn't great in the long term, and so can't ignore that either."

#prices #Growth #can 't

On August 17, Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT) launched a new manufacturing workforce commitment in Arkansas, a modest headline next to the numbers coming out of its other businesses. Just two weeks earlier, the company posted its first-ever $20 billion sales quarter, and a fast-growing power generation arm is quietly becoming its most important source of growth. Together, these threads point to a company reshaping itself well beyond its bulldozer roots, and a stock market that has already started pricing in the shift.
Caterpillar's power and energy division brought in more than $8.2 billion in the second quarter, a 17% jump from a year earlier that pushed it almost even with the $8.3 billion generated by the company's traditional construction segment. Its operating profit, at just over $2 billion, actually topped construction's, a sign that demand from data centers building out AI infrastructure carries real pricing power. Caterpillar's order backlog stood at $72 billion at the end of June, up 92% from a year earlier, suggesting this shift has room to keep running.
The broader business backed that up. Sales and revenues for the quarter reached $20.5 billion, up 24% from $16.6 billion a year earlier, the first time Caterpillar has crossed $20 billion in a single quarter. Profit per share rose to $7.77, while adjusted operating margin expanded to 21.9% from 17.6%. Alongside $4.4 billion in operating cash flow, the company kept investing in the workforce feeding that growth. The Arkansas commitment, worth up to $3 million, is the fifth allocation under Caterpillar's five-year, $100 million Building the Future Workforce Initiative, following earlier launches in Indiana, Texas and Illinois. It brings in training partners including the University of Arkansas Pulaski Technical College and the Little Rock Regional Chamber around a North Little Rock plant that already employs more than 530 people and works with 60 suppliers in the state.
None of that growth comes cheap. Caterpillar shares have climbed nearly 90% over the past year on AI-driven optimism, pushing the forward price-to-earnings ratio above 30. That makes the stock more expensive than Microsoft, Alphabet or Nvidia, three companies most investors would call the faces of the AI boom rather than a maker of generators and mining trucks. For decades, Caterpillar traded below the S&P 500's long-run average multiple because its construction business tends to grow in the single digits, a pattern that made the market wary of paying up for the name.

#caterpillar #arkansas #company #Growth

Ziaire Williams has the opportunity to become a key contributor for the Los Angeles Lakers this season. The 6-foot-9 forward, whom the team signed to a one-year, $2.45 million contract in July, is not a finished product yet, but if he continues to improve and refine different aspects of his game, he could perhaps earn more playing time than he has gotten thus far in his NBA career.
Last season, he averaged 10.2 points and 1.4 steals in 22.9 minutes a game with the Brooklyn Nets. At this point in his career, the 24-year-old is known as a capable defender who has ample athleticism.
Per Benjamin Royer of the Southern California News Group, Williams talked to coach JJ Redick and general manager Rob Pelinka about his role. Redick and Pelinka laid out a specific role for him on the defensive end.
"Williams said in his early conversations with Lakers coach JJ Redick and President of Basketball Operations Rob Pelinka, they have told him that their focus for him is "first and foremost, being a main defender, point-of-attack defender."
The Lakers have lacked plus defenders on the perimeter for the last few years. In Williams, Quentin Grimes and Matisse Thybulle, they have three men who could help fill that void right away.

#last

MOSCOW, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday that the war in Ukraine needed ‌to end for humanity's sake and that New Delhi would support ‌every peace effort to stop the fighting.
Modi, who made his comments at the start of talks with Putin in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, called Putin "my friend" and hailed growing economic ties between the two countries which he said were guided by the need to put the interests of both nations above all else.
India, along with ‌China, is one of ⁠the biggest buyers of Russian oil, which has helped Moscow replenish its budget since it sent tens of thousands of ⁠troops into Ukraine in 2022 and was hit with sweeping Western sanctions.
"As you are aware, India supports all peace efforts in this regard, and we shall continue to do so in the future," Modi told Putin on the sidelines of the ‌Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, according to a Kremlin transcript of their exchange.
"Every day that the war continues, humanity is, in effect, set back a step, whilst every step towards peace gives all of humanity real hope for peace. We need to move from endless war to an end to the ‌war, to a cessation of hostilities. And we will need to move precisely in this direction," said Modi who has said before that he wants a peace settlement for Ukraine.

#modi #moscow #russian