TheChek News Flow

According to the latest edition of the Power On newsletter from Mark Gurman, Apple is reportedly considering making some changes to its App Store. The goal? To increase the potential revenue it brings in.

It isn’t exactly clear what changes Apple could have planned for the App Store. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reports that Apple wants to “figure out ways to raise margins and squeeze additional recurring revenue from the platform,” and that this effort is largely driven by new CEO John Ternus and existing services SVP Eddy Cue.

Supposedly, this effort was part of the reason why longtime Apple executive Phil Schiller left the company last week. After departing from his role as marketing SVP in 2020, Schiller became an Apple Fellow – where part of his role was running the App Store. Schiller wasn’t a fan of the idea:

Schiller, on the other hand, seems to believe that such moves will only further irk developers and governments. While there was no internal blowup or anything like that, it’s something he wanted no part of.

There’s a multitude of ways Apple could potentially raise margins from the App Store. It could get rid of its manual app review process, which is likely costly and not super effective in the age of agentic coding. People likely wouldn’t appreciate further automation of app review, though it would certainly be a way to cut on costs.

Top comment by SF Liked by 29 people

Considering how Apple is on and off as valuable company in the world, if true, this is terrible news and absolutely unnecessary. This would be a potentially very bad sign for the new CEO. I was hoping that putting a hardware person in charge of the company would bring us back to an Apple that puts products above services again, but this would be a needlessly greedy move. I hope it’s not true.

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It could charge more for its developer membership, currently priced at $99/year. Given the fact that many small developers are spending $200/mo for Codex and Claude subscriptions to develop apps, you could argue Apple could charge more and get away with it. The company could also charge large developers a subscription fee based on traffic, to offload some of the infrastructure costs.

ArcelorMittal faces green steel price test at flagship low-carbon plant

Company has ‘no real visibility’ over whether its new electric-arc furnace will be able to pass on added costs to buyers

ArcelorMittal may struggle to charge more for steel produced at its new €1.3bn low-carbon plant, the Dunkirk facility’s boss has warned, exposing the challenge facing the industry in Europe: how to curb emissions while remaining competitive and profitable.

The group’s flagship electric-arc furnace, which should cut greenhouse gas emissions per tonne of steel by two-thirds compared with a traditional blast furnace but whose costs are far higher, is scheduled to start production in 2029.

Bruno Ribo, chief executive of ArcelorMittal France, said the company had “no real visibility” over how quickly demand for green steel would grow or whether buyers “will be able to pay more”.

Pointing to European carmakers, among the region’s biggest consumers of steel, Ribo said the company had made certain assumptions over how much it would be able to charge, “but the uncertainty level on this hypothesis is very, very high”.

Green steel is typically 20-30 per cent more expensive to make because of the large upfront investment needed for new plants and the electricity required to power them.

Decarbonised steel production also uses a higher than normal proportion of recycled steel, presenting a further challenge because processes need to be adapted to the differing chemical composition of scrap metal, according to Ribo.

The decision to go ahead with the Dunkirk furnace followed months of lobbying by ArcelorMittal and steel industry bodies for greater protection against cheaper imports, which have undercut European producers already suffering from lower demand.

Data from the continent’s steel industry body Eurofer shows that imports of the alloy from outside Europe rose to 26 per cent of the region’s supply from 20 per cent between 2016 and 2025, while EU production declined to 57.3mn tonnes from 69.3mn tonnes.

“Our market is being flooded by imports . . . normally if you have a recession imports also go down,” said Axel Eggert, Eurofer director-general. “But imports didn’t go down. Only our own sales went down and that’s not normal.”

Measures introduced by the EU this year have raised hopes within the industry that some of the pressure will ease.

The carbon border adjustment mechanism, which aims to impose the same carbon cost on imports as on goods made in the EU, came into force at the start of the year. New trade quotas introduced on July 1 are intended to cut the amount of steel that can be imported duty-free by 47 per cent compared with 2024 levels.

Brussels also eased the requirements of the EU emissions trading system in July in response to industry concerns, delaying a planned phaseout of free carbon permits by four years.

ArcelorMittal has secured electricity for the Dunkirk plant from the nearby Gravelines nuclear power station at a guaranteed price through an agreement with French state energy group EDF, as well as subsidies via a French energy certificate scheme.

Improved conditions in Europe have helped lift steelmakers’ share prices. Thyssenkrupp is up 55 per cent this year, Salzgitter over 30 per cent and ArcelorMittal almost 70 per cent.

Talks for India’s Jindal Steel to buy a stake in Thyssenkrupp’s steel unit were halted in May after the German company said assumptions underpinning the sale had “significantly changed in recent months”.

Jindal had pledged to invest €2bn in an electric-arc furnace and a direct-reduction plant, which extracts iron from iron ore using natural gas or hydrogen rather than the traditional coke-fuelled blast furnace, with the project supported by €2bn in German government subsidies.

Thyssenkrupp has struggled to find a buyer willing to meet its asking price for the steel unit and assume pension liabilities estimated by analysts at about €2.7bn. Earlier talks with Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský also stalled and were abandoned last year.

As restructuring measures progress and market conditions improve, unions have urged Thyssenkrupp to list the steel division.

“Financially, the conditions have not been so good for a long time,” said one person close to Thyssenkrupp’s supervisory board.

However, the person added that the steel business would need to show investors it could generate enough cash to fund the investment needed to reduce emissions.

Stronger market sentiment is not enough to resolve the industry’s deeper problems. Decarbonisation projects across Europe have stalled as concerns about energy security and economic competitiveness have taken precedence over emissions reduction.

Those postponing projects include Germany’s Salzgitter, Czech steelmaker Třinecké Železárny and Sweden’s SSAB. The German company, however, in late July formalised plans to install a new electric-arc furnace at its site in Duisburg, backed by €200mn of federal and state funding.

The industry initially presented such projects as part of an “ambitious vision”, said Alon Olsha, metals and mining analyst at BloombergNEF. But the expected subsidies, regulatory frameworks and a touted hydrogen network have not materialised, so steelmakers have “retrenched from a lot of their plans”.

ArcelorMittal’s Dunkirk project is a scaled-back version of its original €1.8bn plan, which included a second electric-arc furnace and a direct-reduction iron plant. The company also scrapped a similar project in Germany.

“The pace of the transition has proven more complex and challenging than anticipated, as economic, technological and geopolitical factors have shifted many of the assumptions our earlier plans were based on,” the company said in its latest sustainability report.

Geert Van Poelvoorde, ArcelorMittal’s former chief executive for Europe who left last month, told the FT the electric-arc furnace in Dunkirk would only replace one of the site’s blast furnaces, meaning the financial risk was limited.

France was also one of the few European countries where the economics stacked up, he added. “In Germany I have no electricity at a decent price, in Belgium they are working on nuclear, and in Spain they are working on renewables, but we have no back-up for the moment.”

The EU’s carbon border adjustment mechanism did not go far enough to fully protect Europe’s decarbonised industry, Van Poelvoorde added, because it did not cover downstream products such as the electrical steel used in electric vehicle engines.

“You will just move the imports from steel to imports of engines and doors and car parts,” he said.

The tighter trade quotas are expected to cut imports by about 10mn tonnes a year. But the industry’s optimism about reclaiming that market share also creates risks, according to Olsha, as steelmakers restart capacity or increase output.

“Everyone’s gearing up to push more metal into the market,” he said.

“But if those imports actually remain more elevated than expected or demand remains weak . . . they could be bringing volumes into the market when there’s already enough and then put pressure on prices.”

Russia’s uranium push raises concern over nuclear fuel supply

Report forecasts that Russia-controlled mines will supply a greater proportion of an already tight market by 2040

Russia could control more than a third of mined uranium supply by 2040, a dominance that would compromise western energy security as demand from new nuclear power plants soars, researchers have warned. 

Supply fears are compounded by an existing deficit because of limited investment appetite and permitting delays to new mines.

At the same time, Russian and Russian-owned uranium mining capacity will keep growing, the Centre for Strategic Advantage (CSA) non-profit said in its inaugural report. 

That sets up greater dependency on a country that has demonstrated its willingness to weaponise its control over energy supplies, and risks Europe and other nations being unable to secure the material they need, it warned. 

“By 2040, we could be looking at a dependency on Russian-mined uranium akin to our reliance on Russian oil and gas in 2022,” said Gareth Heywood, special project lead at the centre, ahead of the annual World Nuclear Symposium taking place in London.

Uranium, a silvery-grey radioactive element, is mined predominantly in Kazakhstan, Australia, Namibia and Canada. But mining analysts have forecast a growing supply deficit over the next decade, after years of low uranium prices saw mines shuttered and exploration spending fall to a fraction of the levels seen before the Fukushima meltdown.

By the middle of next decade, “there is no question that the sector will need new supply”, said Alex Bedwany, analyst at Stifel. Countries including Canada had the potential to bring more mines online, but “these things carry significant development risks, and it appears the market is quite reliant on them”, he said.

Canada-based NexGen Energy is developing a huge project in Saskatchewan, while miner Cameco is licensed to expand its McArthur River mine by more than a third to 25mn pounds a year, or 11,340 tonnes.

The question facing the industry is whether there is “enough resilience and flex in the system”, said Sarah Forman, head of strategy at uranium enrichment specialist Urenco.

“It takes a long time to build new mines,” she said. “What you’re looking for is for governments to send a clear signal that nuclear is going to be part of our energy mix for a long time, [to say] ‘industry, you can put capital into this’.”

Russia produced about 5 per cent of the world’s mined uranium in 2024. But its domestic production masks the nation’s much greater international operations: when accounting for Russian-controlled mines overseas, its share of global production capacity across the world’s major uranium sources was almost a quarter in 2024, the centre found. 

A subsidiary of state-owned nuclear company Rosatom, Uranium One, controls about 10,000 tonnes a year of uranium mining capacity outside Russia’s borders, in Kazakhstan.

The CSA said that if all countries went ahead with their existing, committed, planned and prospective production, and mined each asset at full capacity, Moscow’s share would rise from almost a quarter to 36 per cent by 2040.

Russia is developing mines in Tanzania and Namibia via Uranium One. Moscow also signed an agreement with Niger last year to boost co-operation over uranium. French nuclear group Orano was in effect expelled from Niger last year and has launched legal proceedings over the expropriation of its assets.

Western nations have moved to impose sanctions on an array of Russian businesses since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. 

The UK, US, Canada, Japan and France have also stated their intention to counter Russia’s dominance in the nuclear supply chain, and invested in the crucial processing of uranium — though the nation remains a major supplier to Europe of the enriched uranium needed for reactors.

The US has banned Russian uranium imports, though waivers have allowed them to continue until 2028.

Higher uranium prices, a recent legal change in Kazakhstan and international action taken to prevent Russia from exploiting assets in Africa could push its share of global production down to about 14 per cent, the CSA said. 

That could mean, for example, bans on Russian uranium sourced in Niger, Namibia and Tanzania. The planned legal change in Kazakhstan is expected to increase the host country’s share of what is mined domestically. 

UxC’s long-term price forecast rose from $80 per pound a year ago to $94 per pound in its latest assessment. “Whether we have reached a true long-term incentive price [for new mines] remains unclear,” said UxC president Jonathan Hinze, adding that he expected prices to keep rising.

The centre recommended that policymakers in OECD nations promote investment in new mines by subsidising long-term contracts between producers and utilities to lock in prices for producers.

Tax losses have become a hot property in sports M&A

Should BC Partners win the LIV Golf auction, it will be in possession of tax-offsetting firepower

In the world of golf, Jon Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau are rare talents. But for BC Partners, the private equity firm negotiating to acquire the remnants of troubled sports league LIV Golf, real value lies somewhere else: in tax losses.

The Saudi-backed LIV, which was launched as a renegade rival to the much more established PGA Tour, managed to rack up an impressive $5bn in net operating losses over five years a s it signed up acclaimed players and awarded big prizes. Those losses can be used to offset future taxable income, should there be any. LIV is now marketing their charms to potential suitors.

BC understands those charms as well as anyone. It invested $150mn last year into ContextLogic, a publicly traded investment company that has amassed nearly $3bn of net operating losses. Should it acquire the bones of LIV, which could fetch as much as $300mn, it could apply its tax perk to more sports-related businesses, or any profitable enterprise it chooses to buy.

Judging by ContextLogic’s performance, this isn’t a bad strategy. What was once an internet retail business that listed in 2020 fell in value from $14bn to $200mn by 2024. Since BC bought a stake, the company’s shares are up about 80 per cent. It acquired US Salt, which does what its name suggests, and is currently buying gChem, a speciality chemicals maker.

Mostly, ContextLogic leaves its acquired businesses to run themselves without interference. Layered over that is some financial engineering: a private partnership that includes BC as well as Abrams Capital, a buyout firm that was also a previous owner of US Salt.

Granted, sellers of companies ContextLogic tries to buy know it comes armed with tax benefits, so are likely to tweak their terms accordingly. How effective its strategy is in terms of financial returns is therefore yet to be seen. Still, the parent company itself isn’t vulnerable to a takeover, or activism because of rules that limit the use of operating losses against future tax bills when a company undergoes a change of control.

Should BC win the LIV auction, it will be in possession of something that looks similar, with plenty of tax-offsetting firepower, albeit in private rather than public hands. Perhaps, if they adhere to the golfing theme, talented players may stick around too. But don’t count on it: unlike the Saudis, BC is probably more concerned with profit than prestige.

CEO Francesco Milleri has reshaped the senior team at Milan-based eyewear group

The boss of EssilorLuxottica has overhauled the eyewear group’s senior management after a bitter public clash with its founder’s son and as the company steps up its push into North America.

Chief executive Francesco Milleri has streamlined the senior team at the Milan-based group, as the Franco-Italian company tries to integrate its traditional eyewear operations with its growing medtech business, according to people familiar with the reorganisation.

The changes follow several high-level departures and come as EssilorLuxottica seeks to boost growth in North America, its largest market. Milleri spent almost three months in the US this year overseeing its expansion into medical services and smart glasses, the people added.

The overhaul comes after the departure of the founding family’s scion Leonardo Maria Del Vecchio, who abruptly stepped down last month as the group’s chief strategy officer and president of Ray-Ban. The head of R&D and marketing, as well as the chief commercial strategy officer, also left this summer. 

Del Vecchio will not be replaced, according to the people. The responsibilities of the other departing executives have also been consolidated into other roles, with Chrystel Barranger appointed chief growth officer, Davide Schinetti taking an expanded role as chief operating and R&D officer, and Alfonso Cerullo promoted to oversee optical retail and medical and surgical activities in North America, they added.

The family of late founder Leonardo Del Vecchio, who died in June 2022, is locked in a bitter dispute over the future of his business empire, which includes a 32 per cent controlling stake in EssilorLuxottica. Leonardo Maria cited a breakdown in his relationship with Milleri and concerns over the company’s transformation as his reasons for leaving the group.

“The enthusiasm is not what it used to be. The sense of belonging is not what it used to be. You can feel the distance,” he wrote in his resignation letter.  

Speaking at the Ambrosetti business forum at Lake Como on Sunday, Leonardo Maria said it was “not a given” that Milleri would be reappointed when his current term expires in April 2027, a decision that will require the backing of the Del Vecchio family.

The relationship between the pair has soured rapidly. As recently as March, Leonardo Maria told the FT he regarded Milleri as his father’s business heir and the best person to spearhead EssilorLuxottica’s transformation.

During Milleri’s tenure, EssilorLuxottica’s revenues have almost doubled as the group cemented its position as the world’s largest eyewear company. The company employs more than 200,000 people globally and has become known for extensive employee benefits and share ownership schemes.

Leonardo Maria earlier this year failed to secure the backing of the family holding company — which is chaired by Milleri — for a €12bn loan needed to buy out two of his siblings. That fuelled tensions that ultimately erupted into his dramatic departure from EssilorLuxottica, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions.

They added that Leonardo Maria had become less involved at EssilorLuxottica over the past year as he focused on building his own family office, with multibillion-euro investments spanning Italian hospitality, consumer brands and media.

His half-brother Rocco Basilico, the only other member of the Del Vecchio family working at EssilorLuxottica, resigned last year amid the continuing dispute.

The situation has weighed on the company’s reputation and staff morale, according to the people, despite revenues reaching a record €28.5bn in 2025. EssilorLuxottica’s shares have more than halved since reaching a record high last November.

Shanghai is a favored destination, with lower costs than the West and innovation in biotechnology

SHANGHAI—Michael Walters, 25, had just begun his first full-time job out of university when he was diagnosed last year with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a blood cancer.

Walters, who hails from New Zealand, underwent several unsuccessful rounds of chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy in Auckland. Then doctors told him about CAR-T treatment, in which a patient’s immune cells are extracted, re-engineered in a laboratory and reintroduced into the body to fight cancer cells.

Walters looked at the U.S. and India as well as Australia, where a hospital in Melbourne said it could treat him with the therapy—at a cost of as much as $600,000, a prohibitive sum for his family.

At SinoUnited Hospital in Shanghai, Walters paid less than half that amount—and, on Aug. 18, learned that the treatment had succeeded in pushing his lymphoma into complete remission.

“I feel more appreciative of life,” Walters said. “If this was 10 or 15 years ago, I wouldn’t have this option.”

CAR-T therapy, short for chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy, was pioneered in the U.S. Today, however, Shanghai is emerging as a favored destination for patients from America and other rich countries—a testament not only to China’s low costs but also to the country’s emergence as an innovator in biotechnology.

“China has basically done to CAR-T cell therapy the same thing that it’s done to other industries, which is, they’ve industrialized it,” said Sairah Ahmed, director of the CAR-T program in the department of lymphoma and myeloma at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

In some cases, China has jumped ahead of the U.S. In June, Beijing regulators greenlighted a CAR-T treatment for a cancer of the stomach and upper small intestine—the world’s first approved CAR-T therapy for solid tumors.

Josh Bronkhorst, the 59-year-old chief executive of a financial services company, was among the first to get the treatment after approval. Diagnosed in December, he went through four months of chemotherapy and immunotherapy—only to find that the tumor was still growing.

His doctors told him another round of chemotherapy would have only a 15% chance of success. So Bronkhorst, also a New Zealander, headed to China.

“Every day is getting better,” Bronkhorst said in a faint voice on Aug. 6 from his bed at Jiahui International Hospital in Shanghai. By then, 10 days after the re-engineered cells were infused into his body, the buildup of extra fluids caused by Bronkhorst’s cancer had come to a halt, allowing doctors to remove a drainage tube.

“It’s not a miracle drug, but this was by far the best option I could find,” he said at the time.

On Aug. 16, he flew back to New Zealand, where he continues to recover.

Ahmed of MD Anderson said she has advised some of her overseas patients to seek treatment in China, where CAR-T therapy can range between $150,000 and $230,000, versus $550,000 to $850,000 in the U.S.

Regulators in dozens of countries have approved CAR-T therapy for blood cancers, including leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma. The therapies Bronkhorst and Walters received are among nine CAR-T products approved by Chinese regulators, the most in the world.

Bronkhorst’s stomach-cancer treatment was developed by Shanghai-based CARsgen Therapeutics, which won Chinese approval for the solid tumor CAR-T therapy following a clinical-trial program that included U.S. patients at MD Anderson and Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

“We have more and more new weapons to fight cancer,” Li Zonghai, founder and chief executive of CARsgen, said in an interview. “A lot of people said we couldn’t treat it, and now there are more and more modalities—so many treatment options.”

For all of its advances, China has also found itself in controversy over the transparency of its clinical trials, after three people, including a 6-year-old girl, were reported to have died while receiving experimental medicines. In general, Chinese regulators allow hospitals to start clinical trials with less central government oversight than the U.S. requires—a system that has enabled innovation but also increased risks for patients in trials.

By contrast, China’s private international hospitals have generally been more cautious, steering clear of clinical trials and sticking only to therapies, including CAR-T treatments, that have been approved by regulators for commercialization.

Harnessing the immune system to attack cancer is the principle behind many of this century’s medical advances, and the pace is accelerating.

In August, Cambridge, Mass.-based Moderna and its partner Merck said their mRNA-based vaccine succeeded in preventing cancer from coming back or spreading in high-risk melanoma patients. The potential breakthrough could extend the lifespans of hundreds of thousands of people with the deadly skin cancer.

Meanwhile, the Food and Drug Administration last month approved a therapy for pancreatic tumors, a breakthrough in fighting one of the deadliest forms of cancer.

Chinese regulators first granted approval for CAR-T therapy to be administered to overseas patients in 2021. Since it began offering CAR-T in 2023, Shanghai SinoUnited Hospital has treated roughly three dozen patients from 12 countries, said Dr. Kathy Shi, the hospital’s founder and chief executive. Shi, a cardiologist who did her postdoctoral work at Emory University in Atlanta, said most of them were now cancer-free.

As word has spread, SinoUnited Hospital says it has welcomed patients from MD Anderson, Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Shi says the hospital has also seen an uptick in inquiries from across the U.S., Canada, Europe and Southeast Asia.

“A year ago, I was frequently talking to Chinese patients seeking international treatment,” said Xuan Linli, chief of medical oncology at Jiahui Hospital. “Now, more and more overseas patients are requesting consultations with us.”

CAR-T therapies have been studied in the U.S. since the 1980s and in China since the 1990s. A breakthrough came in 2012 when Pennsylvania native Emily Whitehead, then 6 years old, became the first child to beat leukemia after undergoing the therapy. (She is now an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania, steps from where she received her CAR-T treatment.)

CAR-T remains a niche within cancer treatment because it can treat a limited number of cancer types. For now, CAR-T treatment generally comes only after other treatments have failed, in part because of potential side effects such as inflammation caused by the infusion.

Patients choose China not merely for the low cost of treatment, but because the country’s international hospitals offer a range of services—a critical factor, since CAR-T therapy can require intensive care and intervention from cardiologists, neurologists and other specialists.

Because CAR-T requires tailor-made cellular therapy for each patient, China’s ability to crank out the therapies in a matter of days—in laboratories just a short drive from Shanghai—can give it an edge over countries where the wait is longer.

The possibility of immediate treatment in China makes it an attractive choice for patients fighting aggressive cancers.

Bronkhorst and Walters also describe better customer service than they found when considering other countries, including help in securing medical visas and a higher level of English-language proficiency.

Walters said he was reassured when he got on a video call with SinoUnited Hospital hematologist Lily Zhou, who did her postdoctoral work at the University of California, San Francisco.

In New Zealand, “I felt like I had done more research and knew more about it than the doctors I was talking to,” Walters said. “But she has so much experience.…It was nice to talk to someone who knew exactly what she was doing.”

Walters and his friends started a crowdfunding effort online to cover most of the costs, and in late June he flew to Shanghai to begin his treatment under Zhou. It was his first time traveling there. On his 25th birthday, the staff at SinoUnited Hospital presented him with a cake.

For his next birthday, he is planning to be home in Auckland, with his cancer still in remission.

“I’d give anything to be healthy right now,” Walters said. “I want to be able to worry about the normal everyday things that everyone worries about: university, work, girlfriends, gossip.”

This marks the second round of capital infusion in less than two years

China is bolstering its biggest banks and insurers with a massive capital injection to strengthen the financial sector and shore up economic growth.

Eight of China’s biggest financial institutions, including major commercial and policy banks, said over the weekend that they are seeking 360 billion yuan, equivalent to $53.64 billion, in fresh capital. The finance ministry is providing the bulk of the funding through the issuance of special treasury bonds.

This marks the second round of capital infusion in less than two years and comes as China’s growth momentum is sputtering, with robust exports failing to offset the drag from tepid domestic demand. Despite rising calls for more stimulus, Beijing has held off on additional monetary easing, choosing instead to focus on accelerating the allocation of fiscal funds.

While China’s major state lenders are generally well-capitalized, Beijing’s drive to spur growth through cheap credit is eating into their profits. The fresh cash injection could help ease that squeeze on margins, bolster safety nets against bad loans and encourage increased lending.

Agricultural Bank of China 601288 -2.16%decrease; red down pointing triangle plans to raise up to 160 billion yuan, while Industrial & Commercial Bank of China 601398 -1.97%decrease; red down pointing triangle intends to raise up to 100 billion yuan, to shore up core Tier 1 capital, according to stock exchange filings on Sunday.

The finance ministry is stepping up as the largest investor, covering 130 billion yuan for AgBank and 70 billion yuan for ICBC, alongside major investments from state-run China National Tobacco Corp.

In addition to the commercial banks, the finance ministry will fully fund an up to 15 billion yuan share placement for People’s Insurance Company of China. The ministry’s support package also includes 35 billion yuan for China Life Insurance, 30 billion yuan for Export-Import Bank of China, and 10 billion yuan for China Export & Credit Insurance Corp., alongside smaller injections for China Taiping Insurance 966 -3.18%decrease; red down pointing triangle and China Reinsurance.

In total, the ministry will issue 300 billion yuan of special government bonds to fund its capital injection plans, the ministry said Sunday.

Replenishing the core Tier 1 capital of these eight institutions will strengthen their operational stability, risk resilience and capacity to support the real economy, the ministry said. For publicly traded state financial firms, shoring up these capital buffers will also help create greater value and deliver steady, long-term returns for investors, it added.

September’s move, first unveiled during the annual parliamentary meeting in March, extends a funding mechanism that supported other large state lenders last year.

In 2025, the finance ministry injected 520 billion yuan into four of China’s largest state banks—Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of Communications and Postal Savings Bank of China.

Exit polls show the Alternative for Germany well ahead of rivals, but it is unclear if it can form its first state government since its creation

BERLIN–Germany’s Alternative for Germany scored a historic victory at a regional election on Sunday but it was unclear whether it would secure enough support to form Germany’s first far-right government since World War II, according to exit polls.

With between 44.5% and 44% of the votes, the party ended up ahead of earlier predictions and with more than twice the score of its closest rival, the center-right Christian Democratic Union.

Yet initial estimates suggested the party would fall just short of the absolute majority of seats in the parliament of Saxony-Anhalt, a state of 2.3 million inhabitants in the former East Germany, that would allow it to form a government without the support of other parties.

The figures could evolve in the AfD’s favor through the evening if some smaller parties failed to reach the 5% threshold needed to enter parliament.

The ballot is a stinging setback for Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government in Berlin, one of the most unpopular in recent history, and marks a new milestone in the shrinking of the political center that has made Europe’s largest economy increasingly difficult to govern.

The AfD’s apparent victory—the party’s best performance at an election since its creation 13 years ago—could shatter the political firewall that has kept the group out of power as all other parties refused to form a coalition with it, even as it leads in national polls.

The party’s populist agenda includes speeding up the deportation of undocumented migrants, increasing welfare benefits for native-born Germans, ending sanctions on Russia and German aid to Ukraine, and pulling the country out of the European Union.

Many of these are beyond the powers of a state government. Still, the AfD has pitched the election as a chance to show it can govern and implement policies outside of the mainstream consensus that has endured in the postwar era.

SpaceX and Tesla directors back academic research and commercial venture seeking approval for MDMA-assisted therapy

Antonio Gracias and Steve Jurvetson made a fortune from their bets on SpaceX when it was still a risky space startup. That isn’t the only long-shot wager the billionaires have placed.

Gracias and Jurvetson, who are directors at SpaceX and allies of Chief Executive Elon Musk, have spent millions of dollars on philanthropic efforts to mainstream psychedelic drugs, including MDMA, the drug commonly known as ecstasy and molly.

Last year, Gracias cut a $25 million check from his family foundation to help recapitalize the pharmaceutical company Lykos Therapeutics, after federal regulators rejected its application for MDMA in conjunction with therapy to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, sending the company into a financial tailspin. Lykos had drawn criticism for missing serious side effects in some study subjects, including suicidal thoughts.

When Gracias took over, he renamed the company Resilient Pharmaceuticals and moved its headquarters to Chicago, which is also home to his investment firm Valor Equity Partners. Resilient is in talks to raise new funding and recently resubmitted a new drug application for MDMA to the Food and Drug Administration, people briefed on the plans said.

Gracias has also endowed a Harvard program with a $16 million donation to fund a professorship and research on psychedelics in society and culture.

Jurvetson and his wife, Genevieve Jurvetson, have been some of the most high-profile supporters of psychedelic medicine. She is a board member of a nonprofit dedicated to advancing psychedelic philanthropy, and the couple previously donated from their family foundation to support the Lykos drug trials.

Musk’s brother, Kimbal, who is a Tesla director, and his wife, Christiana Musk, have also funded research, including an academic fellowship to understand the effects of psychedelics in society.

Philanthropists looking to expand access to psychedelics have zeroed in on MDMA due to its promise in studies. MDMA, which remains illegal at the federal level, induces euphoria and sociability by increasing levels of neurotransmitters including serotonin and dopamine. Some researchers believe that when taken in a therapeutic setting, it can help patients open up and tolerate revisiting past traumatic events.

But the use of MDMA in therapy is controversial because of its popularity as a recreational drug, and the potential for abuse. Critics also have been concerned about the methodology of drug trials and whether the science supports the high hopes for the treatments.

Elon Musk, who has said he was prescribed ketamine to treat depression, has previously spoken of the benefits of psychedelics, including MDMA. The Wall Street Journal reported in 2024 that Antonio Gracias and Steve Jurvetson had consumed drugs with the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, along with Kimbal Musk.

Other high-profile donors supporting research into psychedelics include David Bronner, CEO of the soap maker Dr. Bronner’s, New York Mets owner Steve Cohen and his wife, Alexandra Cohen, and Joby Pritzker, a member of the wealthy Pritzker family that founded Hyatt Hotels.

Support in Washington

President Trump in April signed an executive order to speed up the approval process for psychedelics to weeks, instead of years, for treating illnesses like PTSD and depression. He credited podcaster Joe Rogan for bringing his attention to psychedelics like the root ibogaine, which has been touted as an anti-addiction treatment.

At the event, Trump highlighted the drugs’ “life-changing potential for those suffering from severe mental illness and depression, including our cherished veterans.” An FDA hearing is scheduled for later this month on the potential therapeutic uses of psychedelics.

Steve and Genevieve Jurvetson, a board member of the Psychedelic Science Funders Collaborative, attended the president’s April signing ceremony at the White House.

“After losing a family member to opioid addiction, I dedicated myself to this work because I don’t want other families to endure the same heartbreak,” she said.

Research into psychedelics was largely banned around 1970 and the substances remained off limits for researchers until the 1990s, when the FDA approved their use in some studies. More well-heeled investors funding research and broader interest from pharmaceutical companies over the last decade have led to better data on how the drugs work in the human body.

“Now we’re starting to see high-quality research studies,” said Gerard Sanacora, director of the Yale Depression Research Program, whose research supported the FDA’s approval of a ketamine nasal spray to treat depression.

New promise

The Lykos takeover idea was broached with Gracias during a dawn rave at the Burning Man festival in 2024: “I asked Antonio to be a white knight and take it over,” said Rick Doblin, a longtime psychedelics advocate and founder of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, the nonprofit that created Lykos.

Renamed as Resilient, the pharmaceuticals company has spent the past year working on getting FDA approval and solving problems that regulators had outlined in its first application.

Sanacora, the Yale researcher, said that current research shows clear benefits to psychedelics including MDMA for people with PTSD and depression, but that there can be downsides.

Drug trials involving conventional double-blind studies are a particular challenge with psychedelics. Since the drugs change how patients think and experience the world, it can be obvious to both the patient and the clinician when the patient has taken the drug instead of a placebo, which can influence the data.

“It is very exciting but there still are some hurdles,” he said.

For its new application, Resilient conducted a third-party audit of its prior trials to compile new data on adverse events, which had been left out of its earlier application, according to people close to the company. It also ran additional studies, including a Phase 1 trial launched in April to evaluate the safety of MDMA on healthy adults.

Supporters of psychedelics are putting hope in companies like Resilient getting the green light from regulators.

“A year from now, I hope we’ll have multiple FDA-approved psychedelic therapies so patients can safely access treatment under the care of trained medical professionals,” Genevieve Jurvetson said.