TheChek News Flow

Technological upgrades to make rocket artillery capable of striking aerial targets may rewrite the rules of warfare

The Chinese military marked the world’s first recorded use of rockets in combat nearly eight centuries ago, when they deployed fire arrows and possibly gunpowder-launched grenades against Mongol invaders in the Battle of Kaifung-fu in 1232, according to Nasa.

Today, Chinese scientists and engineers are pursuing technological upgrades to transform the affordable, mass-producible traditional rocket artillery into a system capable of striking aerial targets.

A research team led by professor Zhang Shifeng at the National University of Defence Technology’s College of Aerospace Science and Engineering has developed a small rocket named Tianxing-1 or “Sky Star-1”.

Unlike conventional rocket artillery, this guided munition features lift-enhancing wings and adjustable tail fins for extended range and powerless-flight manoeuvrability.

Launched at an angle from ground-based platforms, the rocket rises to a designated altitude before transitioning into a glide phase, where it autonomously adjusts its trajectory to engage targets.

The Tianxing-1 operates on principles similar to hypersonic glide missiles, but travels at a far slower pace. Its maximum speed of 200 metres (656 feet) per second, or just over half the speed of sound, may see it struggle to chase high-speed aircraft or drones.

But it can lie in wait for the enemy – in large numbers if necessary – with its low cost and high-precision manoeuvrability offering extra advantages.

Zhang’s team has developed a novel guidance algorithm, slashing targeting errors from 50 metres to under one metre while enabling multi-angle attack profiles.

Some military experts say that mass deployment of such rockets could significantly boost the Chinese military’s area denial capabilities.

Published in the April issue of the Journal of National University of Defence Technology, the study highlights the challenges of guiding unpowered, low-speed gliders to hit “targets in the air”.

These munitions must rely on natural lift for extended flight and sharp manoeuvres in dynamic environments. Traditional algorithms have been proved inadequate, while AI-driven solutions – though precise – require costly computational hardware.

Zhang’s team overcame this by refining classical guidance equations with six new empirical parameters, achieving precision through streamlined calculations validated via hardware-in-the-loop simulations.

However, the technology cannot be used immediately for weapon development.

The published algorithm, for instance, was limited to striking stationary aerial targets. And the performance metrics of the Tianxing-1, initially designed as a training tool, differ vastly from operational weapons.

However, a successor – Tianxing-2 – has completed successful tests at a military base in northwestern China, according to an article on the defence university website dated August 9, 2022.

An upgraded integrated navigation system and other innovations have been able to “drastically reduce targeting trajectory deviations”, according to the article, which did not reveal the nature of the weapon.

OpenAI is poised to help develop a staggering 5-gigawatt data center campus in Abu Dhabi, positioning the company as a primary anchor tenant in what could become one of the world’s largest AI infrastructure projects, according to a new Bloomberg report.

The facility would reportedly span an astonishing 10 square miles and consume power equivalent to five nuclear reactors, dwarfing any existing AI infrastructure announced by OpenAI or its competitors. (OpenAI has not yet returned TechCrunch’s request for comment, but to put that into perspective, that’s bigger than Monaco.)

The UAE project, developed in partnership with G42 — an Abu Dhabi-based tech conglomerate — is part of OpenAI’s ambitious Stargate project, a joint venture announced in January that could see OpenAI, SoftBank, and Oracle build massive data centers around the globe stocked with powerful computer chips to support AI development.

While OpenAI’s first Stargate campus in the U.S. — already under development in Abilene, Texas — is expected to reach 1.2 gigawatts, this Middle Eastern counterpart would more than quadruple that capacity.

The project is emerging amid broader AI ties between the U.S. and UAE that have been years in the making, and have made some lawmakers nervous.

OpenAI’s relationship with the UAE dates back to a 2023 partnership with G42 aimed at driving AI adoption in the Middle East. During a talk earlier that same year in Abu Dhabi, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman praised the UAE, saying it “has been talking about AI since before it was cool.”

As with much of the AI world, these relationships are… complicated. Founded in 2018, G42 is chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security advisor and younger brother of the country’s ruler. Its embrace by OpenAI raised concerns in late 2023 among U.S. officials, who feared that G42 could enable China’s government to gain access to advanced U.S. technology.

These concerns focused on G42’s “active relationships” with blacklisted entities, including Huawei and Beijing Genomics Institute, as well as ties to individuals connected to China’s intelligence efforts.

Following pressure from U.S. lawmakers, G42’s CEO told Bloomberg in early 2024 that the company was shifting its strategy, saying: “All of our China investments that were previously made are already divested. Because of that, of course, we have no need anymore for any physical China presence.”

Soon after, Microsoft — a major shareholder in OpenAI with its own broader interests in the region — announced a $1.5 billion investment in G42, and its president, Brad Smith, joined G42’s board of directors.

Misery loves company, as they say. Friday’s announcement that two of the three biggest cable-broadband firms, Charter Communications and Cox Communications, are combining is a logical next step in the consolidation of a stagnant but still significant industry. Charter, whose biggest shareholder is controlled by aging cable magnate John Malone, is buying Cox Communications for $34.5 billion in cash, stock and assumption of debt. The resulting company, which will take the Cox name, will be by far the biggest cable-broadband company in the U.S., ahead of Comcast, which is now roughly equal to Charter in subscriber numbers.

Why should you care? Sure, if your focus is growth, then Charter, Cox and Comcast are yesterday’s companies. Malone, a star media dealmaker of the 1990s and early 2000s, is all but retired (the man once called the “Darth Vader” of cable last year gave up his nonvoting director emeritus position on Charter’s board). But the big cable companies are still the primary source of internet access for many, if not most, Americans, which makes them a little like the water company—a service people only think about when it doesn’t work. That makes their financial health important, given that they need to maintain the pipes that carry the internet to people’s homes and businesses.

The backdrop is instructive. Cable’s original business of selling packages of TV channels has shrunk to a shadow of its former self. Selling internet access, which replaced TV as the industry’s growth engine, has peaked. In fact, Charter and Comcast have lately started losing internet customers, as phone companies like Verizon and T-Mobile have ramped up their internet-at-home services. The cable guys’ growth business now is selling mobile phone service, although they’re doing so by renting Verizon’s cellular network—even as they compete with Verizon and others for customers! The end result is that revenue growth in the past couple of years has been anemic for everyone in the industry, including the phone companies.

Charter’s recent financial performance highlights the industry’s challenges. Its free cash flow shrank 30% between 2022 and 2024 as capital expenditures jumped while cash generated from its operations fell. To be sure, before this deal, Charter had forecast that its capex would start declining after this year, as big network upgrades come to an end. But the business is always going to be a capital-intensive one, which isn’t ideal given the lack of growth. Moreover, integrating Cox will eventually require some capital investment, Charter executives acknowledged Friday.

The Cox acquisition creates some opportunities for growth. Cox, a smaller company by customers than Charter, hasn’t made anywhere near the inroads into mobile phone service that Charter has, for instance. Charter can change that. Its management hasn’t given up on rejuvenating sales of TV service, either, a business from which Cox has almost disappeared (it has only 1.7 million TV customers compared with 5.9 million broadband subscribers). Charter stock rose 1.8% in response to the deal. The only question is, how long can Charter eke out the gains from this combination?

It was a big week for health and fintech funding, with companies in these sectors securing a majority of slots in the top 10. In total, there were seven rounds of $100 million or more, mostly skewing later-stage.

1. Pathos, $365M, AI drug discovery: New York-based Pathos, a startup using AI technology to develop precision medicines, raised $365 million in Series D financing at a post-money valuation around $1.6 billion. With the new financing, Pathos says it plans to build out its foundational model with a focus on oncology.

2. Addepar, $230M, financial services: Investment platform Addepar locked up $230 million of Series G funding in a round led by Vitruvian Partners and WestCap. The New York company says clients currently use its platform to manage and advise on more than $7 trillion in assets, up from $5 trillion a year ago.

3. Stord, $200M, e-commerce: Atlanta-based Stord, a provider of e-commerce software, fulfillment, warehousing and transportation services, raised $200 million in a combination of Series E equity funding and debt financing. Strike Capital led the equity financing, while Silicon Valley Bank, a division of First Citizens Bank, and Orix USA provided the debt facility.

4. Stash, $146M, personal finance: Stash, a consumer-focused automated investment and investing advice platform, raised $146 million in a Series H round led by Goodwater Capital. The New York company plans to use part of the proceeds to build out its Money Coach AI, a financial guide that “translates expert-level investing strategies into real-time, personalized recommendations for everyday users.”

5. (tied) Bestow, $120M, life insurance: Dallas-based Bestow, a provider of life insurance software for carriers, raised $70 million in a Series D financing led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives and Smith Point Capital, as well as $50 million in debt financing from TriplePoint Capital.

5. (tied) Owner, $120M, restaurant software: Owner, a provider of software for independently owned restaurants, raised $120 million in a Series C round led by Meritech Capital Partners and Headline. The Palo Alto, California-based company’s tools enable restaurants to offer features such as online ordering, mobile apps, loyalty programs and zero-commission delivery.

7. TensorWave, $100M, AI infrastructure: TensorWave, a startup focused on building what it says is “the world’s largest direct liquid-cooled AMD GPU deployment” raised $100 million in Series A funding led by Magnetar Capital and AMD Ventures. The Las Vegas-based company says its goal is to develop infrastructure adept at handling modern AI workloads.

8. Cohere Health, $90M, healthcare SaaS: Boston-based Cohere Health, a developer of digital tools for healthcare authorization and compliance, raised $90 million in Series C funding led by Temasek. The 6-year-old company says it will use the capital in part to build out its AI-powered product offerings.

9. Stylus Medicine, $85M, genetic medicine: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Stylus Medicine emerged from stealth this week with the announcement it has raised $85 million in financing from backers including Khosla Ventures and RA Capital Management. The startup will use the funding to develop its in vivo genetic medicines and therapeutics programs.

10. Avicena Tech, $70M, semiconductors: Avicena Tech, a developer of ultra-low power optical interconnects for AI datacenters, raised $65 million in Series B funding led by Tiger Global. The Sunnyvale, California-based startup plans to use the capital to expand its team and to put its first product into production.

President Trump and his supporters accuse former FBI director of advocating violence

WASHINGTON—James Comey’s active presence on social media has been unusual for a former FBI director. On Thursday, it landed him in a pickle.

In an Instagram post, Comey wrote “cool shell formation on my beach walk,” under a photo of seashells arranged in the numbers “86 47.” Trump officials pounced, accusing Comey of calling for President Trump’s assassination, as “86” is old-time slang for “get rid of” and Trump is the 47th president.

Comey later said he didn’t realize the numbers could be associated with violence and took the post down, but not before drawing the attention of the Secret Service and spurring Republican calls for his arrest. Secret Service agents were questioning Comey Friday night at their Washington office, a law-enforcement official said. Comey voluntarily submitted to the interview, the official said.

“It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind,” said Comey, whose long career in law enforcement included investigations of organized crime and the Italian Mafia as a federal prosecutor in Manhattan.

“He knew exactly what that meant,” Trump fired back Friday on Fox News, adding that he would leave it to Attorney General Pam Bondi to decide whether to pursue Comey, a case current and former prosecutors said would be difficult to bring and even harder to prove in court.

A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment.

Trump fired Comey in 2017, during the bureau’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign was connected to Russian interference in the 2016 election. The president and his allies continue to seethe about Comey, complaining of disparate treatment in the way he handled the Hillary Clinton email investigation compared with the Trump-Russia probe, which dogged his first presidency. (The special counsel investigation it spawned concluded the campaign didn’t conspire with Moscow.)

Comey, who has since become a top Trump critic, talked about his career and experience with the president in his memoir, “A Higher Loyalty.” His latest social-media dust-up comes just ahead of the publication of his third novel, “FDR Drive,” a crime thriller about a radical right-wing podcaster who incites murder in the name of patriotism.

Comey didn’t respond to a request for comment Friday.

“He is the former head of the FBI, so he’s got to know that whenever he does something like this there’s going to be eyes on it,” said John Fishwick, who served as the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia during the Obama administration. “If you’re in law enforcement, it’s different than being a politician. You should know not to fool around with stuff like this.”

Even if an investigation doesn’t end in charges, Fishwick said it could drag out over time, with searches of Comey’s devices and interviews of neighbors “to see exactly what happened here.”

After keeping a low profile immediately after his ouster, Comey later that year confirmed he was the author of a previously anonymous Twitter account under the pseudonym “Reinhold Niebuhr,” the theologian featured in Comey’s undergraduate thesis at the College of William & Mary. A reporter at Gizmodo traced the account to Comey.

The revelation was unusual at the time, as it was unheard of for the leader of the nation’s premiere law-enforcement agency to have a social-media presence, though it appeared he was mostly just liking tweets about the bureau and himself. Comey had the account concealed, albeit somewhat thinly, under the handle @projectexile7, a reference to a federal gun-violence-prevention program he created when he was a top federal prosecutor in Richmond.

Later in 2017, Comey stirred rumors that he was running for higher office when he tweeted a pensive photo of himself standing alone—wearing running shoes—along a road in Iowa, with the message, “Gotta get back to writing. Will try to tweet in useful ways.”

The curiosity it generated is now a distant memory, as Trump’s current FBI chief Kash Patel has embraced social media for personal and professional purposes. Patel created the first official X account for a bureau director, where on Thursday he shared that the FBI was aware of Comey’s seashell post and would “provide all necessary support” to the Secret Service.

Moody’s downgrades the U.S. government, citing large fiscal deficits and rising interest costs

Key Points

The U.S. has lost its last triple-A credit rating.

Moody’s Ratings downgraded the U.S. government on Friday, citing large fiscal deficits and rising interest costs.

Expanding budget deficits mean U.S. government borrowing will rise at an accelerating rate, pushing interest rates up over the long term, Moody’s said. The firm said Friday that it didn’t believe that any current budget proposals under consideration by lawmakers would do anything significant to reduce the persistent gap between government spending and revenues.

The move strips the U.S. of its last remaining triple-A credit rating from a major ratings firm, following similar cuts by Fitch Ratings in 2023 and S&P Global Ratings in 2011. Moody’s downgraded the U.S. to Aa1, a rating also held by Austria and Finland.

“Successive U.S. administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs,” Moody’s wrote in a statement.

Kush Desai, a spokesman for the White House, blamed the Biden administration for adding to the nation’s debt and criticized Moody’s for the timing of its downgrade.

“The Trump administration and Republicans are focused on fixing [former President Joe] Biden’s mess,” he said. “If Moody’s had any credibility, they would not have stayed silent as the fiscal disaster of the past four years unfolded.”

The Moody’s downgrade comes as Republicans in Congress are trying to fashion a giant tax-and-spending bill that would extend expiring tax cuts, add some new tax cuts, reduce spending on Medicaid and nutrition assistance and boost border enforcement and national defense. It is expected to increase budget deficits by about $3 trillion over the next decade, compared with a scenario where the tax cuts expire as scheduled Dec. 31.

House Republican spending hawks blocked the bill on Friday, trying to accelerate spending cuts and hasten the end of clean-energy tax breaks.

At the margin, the Moody’s downgrade could put pressure on the market for U.S. Treasurys, which has already been hit by expectations for greater borrowing and stubbornly high inflation.

Treasurys, however, rallied after S&P’s 2011 downgrade, in part because the economy was weak, demonstrating that investors still considered the U.S. the world’s safest bet. Few expect the Moody’s downgrade to spur market turmoil this time. The U.S. remains the world’s largest economy and the benchmark against which other countries are measured.

But some investors said the downgrade could exacerbate the damage the recent trade war has done to that exceptional position. And that might compel global investors to lift the premium they demand to buy U.S. debt, which could drive benchmark yields beyond their recent level around 4.5%, likely stressing growth and market sentiment.

“That could generate an even bigger deficit because the cost of servicing our debt would also go up,” said Michael Goosay, global head of fixed income at Principal Asset Management.

In explaining the downgrade, Moody’s focused almost exclusively on the U.S. fiscal position, playing down other issues such as President Trump’s criticism of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, which has raised questions about the central bank’s ability to maintain its independence.

“While recent months have been characterized by a degree of policy uncertainty, we expect that the U.S. will continue its long history of very effective monetary policy led by an independent Federal Reserve,” Moody’s wrote.

While institutional arrangements, such as separation of powers, “can be tested at times, we expect them to remain strong and resilient,” the statement read.

For years the U.S. was one of a select group of nations rated triple-A by Moody’s, but the rise of debt levels around the world has pared that figure to 11.

Moody’s shifted its outlook on U.S. debt to stable, noting the nation “retains exceptional credit strength such as the size, resilience and dynamism of its economy and the role of the U.S. dollar as global reserve currency.”

Top lawmakers quickly issued statements responding to the downgrade.

“This downgrade is a direct warning: our fiscal outlook is deteriorating, and House Republicans are determined to make it worse,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle (D., Pa.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee. “The question is whether Republicans are ready to wake up to the damage they’re causing.”

Rep. French Hill (R., Ark.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said that the downgrade was “a strong reminder that our nation’s fiscal house is not in order.” House Republicans, he said, “are committed to taking steps to restore fiscal stability, address the structural drivers of our debt, and foster a pro-growth economic environment.”

Rest, recharge, renew — seeking solace in testing times

The body tells us when we have reached our limits. We should learn to listen

Lately, no matter where I happen to be on my travels, when someone has asked me how I’m doing or vice versa, the word “tired” has featured somewhere in the response. In a more challenging week there might be a rally of exchanges, where we go back and forth for a few minutes about feelings of exhaustion, and what we wish we could do about it, like “sleep for two days straight”.

I’ve been thinking about how often over the past few years we’ve been answering questions about our wellbeing by describing some variation of fatigue. Maybe it’s just me and the people I’m engaging with. But I suspect it might be true for others as well. We have all to varying degrees been exposed to stresses and challenges as a result of political tensions, economic shifts, intensifying climate calamities and a world seemingly in disarray. These realities, coupled with the daily pressures we all face, have made me wonder if we’re paying enough attention to the reasons for this tiredness, and what, if anything, there is to do about it.

The 1882 work “Seamstress, Whit Sunday Morning” by the Danish genre painter Wenzel Tornøe shows a young woman who has fallen asleep in the middle of her work. She sits at a small table laden with fabrics and a sewing machine. There is a lighted lamp on the table that suggests she has been working in the early morning darkness. But now, the sunlight falls across her sleeping face and the wall on which her head leans. She is wearing a blue apron over her brown dress, and on her lap is the jacket she’s been working on.

The title implies that she has been making clothes for Whit Sunday, and this scene reminds me not just of the fatigue that comes from pushing ourselves beyond our limits, but also of the commitment that is involved in sustaining communities — even when it comes to celebratory events — and that often goes unrecognised.

This type of tiredness will be familiar to many of us. Driven perhaps by a sense of obligation, sometimes guilt, sometimes just not feeling that there is enough time to do it all, we so often push our bodies and minds beyond the obvious warnings that they need rest.

I found this painting particularly endearing because it captures so well that sense of wanting to get just one more stitch done, and it reminds me that it is a blessing that our bodies have their own boundaries. Even when we try to ignore signs of exhaustion, at some point our physical selves will win the fight over the desire to keep working.

“Despair” is a late 18th- or early 19th-century work by Bertha Wegmann, a Danish artist with Swiss roots who, among other accomplishments, was the first woman to hold a chair position at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. In the painting, a girl or young woman lays her upper body across a table and buries her head between her arms. She is wearing a loose white top that might be a nightgown, and around her waist is a blue cloth that looks like a blanket. Her outfit gives the impression that she has neither bathed nor changed out of her nightclothes. But light has filled the room. Who knows how long she has been there or will stay in this position? Perhaps she is only momentarily surrendering to feelings of despair before rousing herself to the day’s demands.

In some ways, Wegmann’s work is similar to the Tornøe painting, but it depicts a very different kind of exhaustion. There is nothing in the room to suggest the figure has been working, or even that anyone else has been present. The room is empty. The figure’s hidden face creates a distance between her and the viewer, and to me this mimics the way someone can feel distanced from the rest of the world when they are overwhelmed by despair. Such emotional fatigue can feel isolating. Yet the proximity of the figure to us as the viewer creates a kind of intimacy, too: we are on the verge of stepping into this room.

I imagine many of us could at certain points in our lives relate to this painting. It is a wonder to me that the body communicates physically when it has surpassed its emotional capacity. And yet how often do we recognise and respond to the physical cues? In the current era, in which we are both seemingly endlessly busy and dealing with the uncertainties of a challenging world order, how do we identify the cause of our tiredness and best seek to alleviate it?

I love the 2016 textile work “The Dreamer” by the Johannesburg-based artist Billie Zangewa. She makes scenes of ordinary daily life from scraps of silk fabric, with the nuanced understanding that life, just like the formation of silk, is a process.

In this work, a woman wearing a yellow patterned dress and sandals lies curled on her side in a field full of tall pink flowers. Green hedges line the background, and a silver blue sky is stitched above her. She uses something, a scarf perhaps, as a small pillow to cradle her head. She is clearly tired but her posture is that of someone who is wise in listening to the requirements of her body, mind and spirit. Alone in the field, with her eyes closed, she conveys a sense of quiet and momentary disengagement.

This is not a cure for deep fatigue or a quick fix for the accelerating pace of our lives. I suspect that requires a larger decision to stop and reflect on the patterns, routines and habits we permit or have simply fallen into. But Zangewa’s work does remind me that there are moments, and perhaps hours, and even days, when we can make choices that protect our wellbeing, small acts that can help recalibrate us towards more of an equilibrium, even in the midst of ongoing demands and challenges.

BT nears deal to sell TNT Sports stake to Warner Bros Discovery

Deal could be announced as early as next week that would bring telecoms group’s involvement in sports rights to a close

BT is in advanced talks to sell its 50 per cent stake in UK broadcaster TNT Sports to US joint venture partner Warner Bros Discovery, according to two people familiar with the situation. 

A deal could be announced as early as next week, they added, when BT is set to release its full-year results. However, that timing could still slip depending on how negotiations progress, one added.

The move would end BT’s involvement in sports broadcasting after more than a decade, bringing to a close the telecoms company’s multiple billion pound bet that offering exclusive football games would win it new broadband customers and keep existing ones loyal. 

Warner Bros Discovery has an option to buy out BT before the end of next year. Striking a deal will give the US media giant better control over the future of the sporting channels, which are a key part of its business in Europe.

Sports will be a cornerstone of WBD’s streaming service when it launches in the UK next year, alongside HBO series such as Succession and The White Lotus. The platform — which was this week renamed HBO Max, rather than just Max — will also show the new Harry Potter series.

BT and WBD declined to comment. 

BT entered the sports rights market in 2012 with an aggressive strategy to compete with Sky on the broadcaster’s home turf, matching bundled offers of TV, broadband and mobile services.

However, the TNT channels — which have the rights to some exclusive Premier League football games — have been identified as non-core by BT chief executive Allison Kirkby. Since taking over in February 2024, she has looked to refocus the company on its traditional mobile and broadband offering.

TNT has long been a cash drain for BT, because of increased competition with Sky and Amazon to secure rights for key competitions such as the Premier League. The business booked a £187.5mn pre-tax loss in the 2024 financial year, according to accounts filed at the UK’s Companies House. 

The joint venture is valued in the BT accounts at more than £750mn. However, people close to the talks said that the book value of the business was not reflective of the deal value, and that any deal struck with WBD would be significantly lower than this figure.

TNT Sports, which has rights to show other competitions including the Uefa Champions League, was created after BT merged its sports division with Warner Bros Discovery’s Eurosport UK business in 2022. 

The company has a four-year deal to air 52 Premier League live matches per season until 2029, and a four-year deal with the Football Association to show the FA Cup from 2025.