FT : Biotech deals surge to record as fear of missing out grips Big Pharma Prosp

Biotech deals surge to record as fear of missing out grips Big Pharma
Prospect of patents expiring on lucrative drugs prompts drugmakers to hunt for next blockbuster medicines

Big pharma groups are snapping up biotechs at a record pace as they race to bolster their drug pipelines, spend windfalls from blockbuster medicines and capitalise on lighter-touch regulation under the Trump administration.

The number of biotechs acquired for at least $1bn this year has reached 37, already surpassing the annual record of 35 set last year, according to US investment firm Stifel.

Executives and bankers say the most powerful catalyst for the deal fever is what is known as the “patent cliff”, a recurring feature of the industry in which drugmakers lose the exclusivity on prized medicines, paving the way for generic manufacturers to sweep in and produce cheaper versions.

The cut-throat hunt for experimental drugs with the potential to become the next generation of blockbusters means the pharma industry stands out even amid the wider global boom in mergers and acquisitions this year.   

“It’s the liveliest market I’ve ever seen,” said Eric Tokat, co-president of New York-based Centerview Partners, one of the sector’s best-known and busiest dealmakers. “There’s always these periods when certain pharma are active and others are on the sidelines. Today, everyone is active.”

In the latest sign of the deal frenzy, Eli Lilly last week agreed to pay up to $3.8bn for AtaiBeckley, a psychedelic drug developer backed by Peter Thiel.

The acquisition pushed the total value of biotech deals so far this year to $216bn, up from $118bn over the same period last year, according to LSEG data.

The hunt for the hottest biotechs has also made this year the second busiest on record for all pharma deals, including those struck between established drugmakers.

The dollar value of takeovers in the first half trails only the same period in 2019, when a wave of megadeals, including AbbVie’s $83bn takeover of Botox maker Allergan, boosted the total.

The deal bonanza propelled the XBI biotech index to a five-year high this month.

Ben Wallace, Goldman Sachs’ co-head of mergers and acquisitions in the Americas, said that while the patent cliff was the “biggest driver” of the wave of M&A, the “tremendous balance-sheet capacity” of pharma groups had emboldened chief executives to pursue deals.

“Investors like when pharma are using a decent amount of their balance sheet capacity towards adding next-decade growth and they are rewarding them for it,” said Wallace.

After AbbVie last month sealed a $10.9bn deal for Apogee Therapeutics, whose treatment for atopic dermatitis is in phase 3 trials, shares in the Chicago-based company jumped almost 10 per cent over the following week.

Flush with the windfall from its best-selling obesity drugs, Eli Lilly has led the charge, hoovering up a string of biotechs, including last week’s purchase of AtaiBeckley.

Eli Lilly, the world’s largest drugmaker with a market valuation of $1.1tn, spent up to $7bn on cancer biotech Kelonia Therapeutics and $7.8bn on Centessa, a maker of treatments for sleep disorders.

Biotechs that are already generating revenues or are on the cusp of launching a drug have also drawn interest from industry heavyweights.

London-listed GSK in June paid $10.6bn for oncology biotech Nuvalent, which has two drugs that could hit the market late this year if they secure approval from the US Food and Drug Administration.

“They’re looking for later-stage assets that are commercially ready,” said Ailsa Craig, fund manager at Schroders’ International Biotechnology Trust. “That makes sense since the intellectual property patent cliffs are around the corner, so they need the assets tomorrow.”

In a sign of how important patented drugs can be to a company’s fortunes, Keytruda, the world’s best-selling drug, last year raked in $31.7bn in sales for US-based Merck — almost half its total revenues. The cancer drug loses patent protection in 2028.

Biotechs are no longer the exclusive hunting ground of Big Pharma.

Rising interest from midsized drugmakers — such as France’s Servier and Denmark’s Ipsen, both of which have struck two deals this year — is also driving increased competition for coveted assets.

“Mid caps — both in US and overseas — are also competing for assets,” said Stuart Cable, a partner at law firm Goodwin Procter. “Another important trend is the sheer number of private targets selling in the billions.”

Industry executives say the spree of deals has also been spurred by a number of policy changes in the US. 

The spectre of tariffs has been averted while agreements between pharmaceutical companies and the Trump administration on drug pricing have allayed most concerns over the risk to profits.

At the same time, the light-touch regulatory approach championed by the Federal Trade Commission, the competition watchdog, has allowed deals to pass through.

By contrast, the FTC under Biden-era appointee Lina Khan adopted a more stringent approach to takeovers, including biotech deals.

Dave Gardner, chief strategy officer at Incyte Pharma, a US biotech, said that large pharma groups were also gripped by “Fomo”, or the fear of missing out.

“With more buyers at the table and the feeling that you can miss out on exciting assets if you don’t take action, the path of least resistance” was to pursue deals, Gardner said.

9to5 : iPhone 18 Pro’s new A20 chip rumored to bring two major upgrades

iPhone 18 Pro’s new A20 chip rumored to bring two major upgrades

Every year, Apple has a new chip ready for its latest iPhones. But the A20 Pro chip for this fall’s iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone Ultra sounds like it could be extra special. Here are its two big rumored upgrades.

#1: A20 Pro will be the first 2-nanometer iPhone chip
You can always bet on Apple to offer improvements in its latest generation chips. But some years bring bigger upgrades than others, and the new A20 Pro chip is expected to be a standout.

That’s because with A20 Pro, Apple will use TSMC’s new 2-nanometer process for chip fabrication.
The switch to 2nm from the current 3nm process means A20 Pro will be able to offer more power and run more efficiently within a similar-sized chip footprint.

Every time there’s a notable evolution of fabrication technology, we see this play out. That’s why Apple works years in advance to secure TSMC’s most cutting-edge offerings. It helps the company maintain an edge in the chips that power not only iPhone, but also, iPad, Mac, and more.

We don’t know which specific areas Apple will focus on improving with A20 Pro, but thanks to 2nm the company will have more headroom than usual.

#2: Switch to Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module will bring even more gains
Adding to the gains of 2nm, A20 Pro is also expected to have another unique improvement thanks to a packaging innovation called Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module.
Here’s my colleague Marcus with the details:

For the first time, Apple is set to adopt Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module (WMCM) packaging for its iPhone processors. WMCM allows different components, like the SoC and DRAM, to be integrated directly at the wafer level, before being diced into individual chips.

It uses a technique that connects the dies without needing an interposer or substrate, which can bring both thermal and signal integrity benefits.

In other words, Apple’s next-gen chip won’t just be smaller and more power-efficient thanks to N2. It’ll also be physically closer to its onboard memory, enabling better performance and potentially lower power consumption for tasks like AI processing and high-end gaming.

With WMCM, A20 Pro is expected to be especially capable at AI tasks. Which is no surprise, since iOS 27 is heavily AI-centric.

TechCrunch : Trump’s latest AI czar has already resigned Julie Bort 3:21 PM PDT

Trump’s latest AI czar has already resigned

Chris Fall, the director of the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI), has resigned, the agency confirmed to multiple news outlets.

He was appointed just three months ago after the last appointee, Collin Burns, left in less than a week, The Washington Post reported at the time. Burns was reportedly “pushed out” of the job in April because he previously worked for Anthropic and the Trump administration had been battling with the company, sources told the Post.

No reason was given for Fall’s departure. Prior to leading CAISI, Fall was the director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Science during the first Trump administration and had been the acting director of the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy. He worked in the DOE’s Office of Naval Research (ONR) prior to that.

Before Burns and Fall, the agency was led by venture capitalist David Sacks, whose title at the time was White House AI and crypto czar. Sacks stepped down in March.

CAISI, which operates under the National Institute of Standards and Technology, is the primary organization for developing technical standards and testing methods for AI models as well as assessing cybersecurity risks. Yet it was not the agency at the center of the most recent model-risk brouhaha.

That occurred in June when the U.S. Commerce Department invoked an obscure export control directive that effectively forced Anthropic to pull its Mythos and Fable models from the market. The ban was lifted by the end of the month, when Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said he was satisfied with Anthropic’s safety plans.

Earlier this month, the White House also signed an executive order for a new AI safety oversight program called “Gold Eagle” that creates a clearinghouse for cybersecurity vulnerability coordination. A host of federal organizations were named as part of the program, including the Commerce Department and Department of Homeland Security. But, as CNBC pointed out, CAISI was not among the federal organizations mentioned.

Meanwhile, after Anthropic’s models were freed from the ban, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis began calling for the creation of an independent, industry-run standards body to regulate frontier AI modeled after FINRA — the same sort of mission that CAISI was formed to tackle.

Fall’s resignation also follows this weekend’s handwringing over Chinese AI lab Moonshot’s new version of its open model Kimi, which performed competitively against flagship frontier models. The administration was weighing efforts to somehow ban Chinese open models, Axios reported. This sparked immediate debate and outrage over the weekend, including from Sacks, who argued that regulations shouldn’t be used as a protectionism strategy for U.S. proprietary AI labs.

While CAISI has released a few reports on the capabilities of Chinese open-weight models Z.ai’s GLM-5.2 and DeepSeek V4 Pro, it hasn’t talked much about its processes for testing. (Open weight means these models can be publicly downloaded and run locally, but its training code and datasets are not available). Since July 9, TechCrunch has sent multiple inquiries to both the DoC and NIST about how its LLM evaluations work and has not received a response.

WWD : Reformation Eyes IPO Valuation of Up to $1B The sustainable fashion brand

Reformation Eyes IPO Valuation of Up to $1B
The sustainable fashion brand estimated it would price its shares at $15 to $17 each in its upcoming offering.

“REF” is getting ready.

Reformation, which is prepping its initial public offering under that ticker symbol, is looking to land on the New York Stock Exchange with a valuation of up to $1 billion.

The company, which filed for its IPO late last month, said on Monday that it expected to price its shares at $15 to $17 each. If the sustainably minded brand hits the lower end of that range, it will be valued at $886.1 million.

At the midpoint, Reformation itself would raise $151.7 million, or $134.5 million after expenses, and plans to spend most of that to repay a term loan.

Investors are also cashing out some $73.3 million worth of their shares, at the midpoint of the pricing range.

Permira, which took control of the company in 2019, plans to cut its stake to 46.9 percent from 64.4 percent, while founder Yael Aflalo’s family trust will bring its stake down to 18.9 percent from 26 percent, assuming underwriters exercise their option to buy shares.

Reformation is part of what’s seen as a wave of fashion-related companies looking to try their luck on the open markets.

This month, menswear specialty retail leader Tailored Brands Inc. filed to go public on the Nasdaq, while ultra-fast-fashion player Shein plans on listing in Hong Kong after coming up short in New York and London due to regulators’ reluctance.

Brand management giant Authentic Brands Group has also said it would pursue an offering while others are seen in the wings, including Kim Kardashian’s Skims, Vuori and Alo.

Reformation, which is led by Hali Borenstein, chief executive officer, is coming into the market with 1.1 million active customers, annual revenue up 15.7 percent to $507.1 million and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $45 million.

The company has a strong message on sustainability, but will need to keep growth up to stand out on Wall Street.

If the company hits the market at that $1 billion valuation, it would rank ahead of Canada Goose Holdings, which has a market capitalization of about $952 million, but behind Mytheresa and Net-a-porter owner LuxExperience at about $1.1 billion and The RealReal Inc. at roughly $1.4 billion.

The Information : The Debate About Chinese Open-Source AI

The Debate About Chinese Open-Source AI

How protectionist is the Trump administration? Sure, President Donald Trump loves tariffs. But does he really want to drive up AI costs for U.S. business by banning Chinese open-source AI? Chatter about that is growing in the wake of a story we published on Saturday, which revealed that the administration had discussed the idea of banning open source last year.

Axios, meanwhile, reported on Monday that last week’s release of Kimi 3 from Chinese firm Moonshot had stoked conversations about banning foreign open source AI (more on the new Kimi model). A ban would set off an uproar. More and more companies are finding that ever-advancing Chinese models—such as the one from Moonshot released last week—are a good way to control their AI spending.

Chinese models have accounted for 30% of tokens used by U.S. firms since February, according to a report from Wall Street firm William Blair published on Monday, citing OpenRouter data. And in some cases, companies have found Chinese models can do things the top U.S. models can’t do, thanks to guardrails imposed on U.S. technology, as former White House AI czar David Sacks noted in an X post Sunday night.

In a separate X post, Sacks said the guardrails put on American models are “only making ourselves less competitive.” On Monday, investors Chamath Palihapitiya and Bill Gurley both warned of the damage to U.S. companies of banning Chinese open-source AI. As Palihapitiya put it, forcing U.S. companies to spend “50-100X more than their competitors abroad” on American tech will make for “financially impaired” American companies, which will eventually lead to problems for the AI labs.

Hopefully Trump can be persuaded not to go down this route—although given his stance on tariffs, never say never.

WSJ : The New Jersey Financier Behind Trump Media’s Pivot Into Nuclear Energy As

The New Jersey Financier Behind Trump Media’s Pivot Into Nuclear Energy
As the first family expands its business empire, it is turning to unconventional financial partners such as Yorkville Advisors

  • Yorkville Advisors helped engineer a planned merger between Trump Media and fusion firm TAE Technologies to create a $6 billion publicly traded company.
  • Trump Media’s shares have fallen more than 80% since March 2024 highs, and the company posted a $406 million net loss in the first quarter.
  • Sen. Ron Wyden sent Yorkville Advisors’ Mark Angelo a letter in June probing its ties to the first family over a SPAC he said could funnel hundreds of millions to Trump’s businesses.

President Trump’s media company was headed in the wrong direction, and Mark Angelo was ready to try something different. Very different.

Angelo’s Yorkville Advisors, a small New Jersey investment firm, wasn’t just a large stakeholder in Trump Media & Technology DJT 0.83%increase; up pointing triangle, home of Truth Social. It was an adviser and dealmaker, and by last year, with the company racking up losses and its stock in the tank, Angelo was open to ideas.

A radical one began to emerge as he chatted with a close associate during a car ride into New York. The conversation set off a chain reaction that ended with Trump’s social-media firm agreeing to merge with a nuclear-fusion company, making the first family a player on the energy industry’s frontier.

It is the sort of unorthodox deal that has helped the Trumps rapidly expand their business empire into new industries. To pull it off, they have turned to a growing roster of financial partners who aren’t part of Wall Street’s blue-chip elite but are comfortable raising money and striking deals that might seem risky to others. In other words, guys like Angelo.

The nuclear deal, which is expected to close later this year, is “our attempt at really trying to get Truth stock substantially higher,” he said in an interview. “I think the market is bored of Truth until that deal happens.” Angelo later clarified that he meant the Trump Media stock was “rangebound” in the interim.

As Trump returned to the White House, he and his sons launched crypto ventures that netted the president $1.4 billion in income, according to his 2025 financial disclosure. But the Trumps and their advisers have more recently pushed into real-world assets from drones to mining. Many deals follow a similar playbook: entering a new industry by merging with companies that are already there.

Dominari Holdings, a Trump Tower-based investment bank partially owned by the president’s eldest sons, is getting the family deeper into defense by taking two drone makers public through mergers with a construction firm and golf-course operator. The Trumps gained exposure to minerals when Dominari helped engineer a deal involving a proposed tungsten mine in Kazakhstan that has drawn potential financial backing from Washington.

In the Trump Media deal, Yorkville is helping to facilitate a merger with TAE Technologies to create a $6 billion firm set to become one of the first publicly traded fusion companies. Trump’s family trust, of which he is the sole beneficiary, owns 41% of Trump Media and will retain a large interest in the combined business.

For TAE, the deal will allow it to tap public markets while getting up to $300 million in much-needed cash from Trump Media in the process. Fusion is still an unproven technology, and TAE is one of several companies trying to make it commercially viable.

TAE “had to go in a vehicle. It had to get funded,” Angelo said. “If it happens to be the president’s vehicle, great.” TAE declined to comment.

Trump Media needs its own pick-me-up. While the president’s overall business empire has generated a windfall, the media outfit’s shares have plunged more than 80% since March 2024 highs, erasing more than $6 billion in value.


A company spokeswoman said in a statement that its media business, coupled with the growth opportunity in the fusion sector, will help Trump Media build durable value. “We are focused on execution, with results that will define [Trump Media’s] next chapter,” she said.

Democrats and government ethics watchdogs say the Trumps’ sprawling web of business interests creates stark conflicts of interest, particularly as the president promotes crypto, nuclear energy and other industries in which the family has invested. And while the Trumps have made out well, investors in some ventures have wound up big losers.

“All of President Trump’s assets are held in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement. “There are no conflicts of interest.”

If the deal closes, Trump Media will pay Yorkville a fee equal to six million shares, according to securities filings, holdings worth more than $50 million.

‘Goldman wasn’t looking for me’
Based in a leafy New Jersey suburb 17 miles west of Wall Street, neighboring a funeral home and an optometrist, Yorkville would seem an unlikely candidate for financial adviser to the president’s namesake company. Angelo’s team joined a multibillion-dollar plan last year to create a Trump-branded digital-asset treasury meant to scoop up digital currencies like bitcoin. They also help oversee a suite of exchange-traded funds that invest in Trump-aligned industries, with tickers such as YALL.

Angelo is a New Jersey lifer who attended Rutgers University. “Goldman [Sachs] wasn’t looking for me,” he said. He launched his firm in an office on the 77th floor of the World Trade Center just before terrorists struck on Sept. 11, 2001. Unscathed, his team scrambled for new digs across the Hudson River, growing into a major player in debt and equity financing for mostly small and midsize companies.

In 2012, the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Yorkville for fraud, alleging it overvalued holdings to attract investors and boost fees. While a federal judge threw out the case after a yearslong legal battle, Angelo said investors fled with about 90% of Yorkville’s assets under management. The company ground back, funding real-estate investment trust Service Properties Trust and data-center company Applied Digital, as well as many companies strapped for cash.

They are often “companies that can’t get traditional financing, can’t get a traditional IPO,” said Justin Hibbard, founder of equity-research firm CapitalScope, which runs the ShortFinder platform.

The firm is known in part for so-called standby equity-purchase agreements, in which companies raise cash by selling discounted shares that Yorkville can flip into the market.

Angelo said he often makes such trades to build relationships with partners and pursue more deals. “You have to win the game,” he said. “And usually to win the game, you need something called ‘money.’ ”

A substantial risk
Before Trump Media went public in 2024, Yorkville was slated to be part of a $1 billion private financing deal, but it fell apart. Angelo’s team hung around in the hopes the Truth Social parent, then led by former Congressman Devin Nunes, would come calling down the road.

It did. After the company’s shares began trading, Yorkville bought $450 million of stock at a 2.75% discount as part of a standby equity-purchase agreement, securities filings show. Last year, the firm added to its holdings in the crypto treasury deal, and now has a roughly $70 million stake, making it the third-largest shareholder, according to FactSet.

The business, now a hybrid of social media and crypto, has hit a wall. Trump Media generated less than $1 million in first-quarter sales. The company posted a $406 million net loss in that period due largely to slumping bitcoin prices, according to securities filings.

“I took a substantial risk position that did not work out,” Angelo said.

Angelo heard of TAE on his commute to New York last year from Kevin McGurn, who was then an adviser to Trump Media. McGurn, who has a college friend at the fusion company, was also chief executive of several Yorkville-linked special-purpose acquisition companies, blank-check firms that raise capital to take other companies public. Initial talks focused on taking TAE public via a Yorkville SPAC but—after Angelo brought in Nunes—shifted to using Trump Media as the vehicle.

Under the deal announced in December, shareholders of each firm will own about 50% of the combined business. Michael Schwab, a TAE board member and son of Trump ally Charles Schwab, is expected to chair the combined company.

“If it hits,” Angelo said, “it’s going to be an astronomical payout.”

Nunes resigned in April after White House advisers told Trump his company was languishing, according to people familiar with the matter. Nunes didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Three other board members have also left, securities filings show, and Trump’s personal lawyer, Boris Epshteyn, now chairs the board. McGurn, who is also chief executive of a separate SPAC backed by Trump’s eldest sons, took on the role of interim chief executive. He also recently became chief executive of a Yorkville-backed SPAC seeking acquisitions in countries including Venezuela, according to securities filings.

Sen. Ron Wyden is probing that blank-check company. In a letter to Angelo in June, the Oregon Democrat sought information on Yorkville’s links with the first family, citing concerns the SPAC could help “funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to strengthen Donald Trump’s businesses.”

Trump Media and Yorkville didn’t comment on the inquiry. The Trump Organization declined to comment.

Angelo added that he wasn’t on an ideological mission. The president’s role in American life has limited relevance to him—as long as there are deals to be done.

“My joke is: Within reason, elect whoever you want,” Angelo said. “I’ll wake up and figure out capitalism.”

WSJ : The U.S. Puts Once-Unthinkable Ideas on the Table to Disarm Hezbollah Prop

The U.S. Puts Once-Unthinkable Ideas on the Table to Disarm Hezbollah
Proposals such as enlisting Syria, vetting Lebanese troops or relying on Israel alone face steep hurdles

  • U.S., Israeli and Lebanese officials are seeking to disarm Hezbollah, but proposals to use local or foreign forces face steep hurdles.
  • One plan would train and vet Lebanese Armed Forces units to disarm Hezbollah, but critics fear it could spark a civil conflict.
  • President Trump suggested Syria could help cut off Hezbollah supply lines, but Syrian military involvement is unpopular in Lebanon.

Israel has battered the Lebanese militia Hezbollah over two years of fighting. Many Lebanese are turning against the militant group. And there is growing consensus in Beirut that Hezbollah must finally be forced to give up its weapons.

But American, Israeli and Lebanese officials are finding there are no easy options to disarm a U.S.-designated terrorist group that is embedded in society and bound to its cause with religious zeal.

Complicating matters is Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and its continuing occupation of swaths of the country’s south, creating a point of tension with Beirut just when the two countries’ leaders are aligned on disarming Hezbollah.

The dilemma has opened the way for once-unthinkable ideas.

  • U.S., Israeli and Lebanese officials are pushing ahead with a plan to train and vet elite units of the Lebanese Armed Forces. While the Lebanese military takes over the country’s south town by town in coordination with Israel, vetted Lebanese military units would later work toward disarming Hezbollah, using force if necessary. Operations began Monday to clear the way for the Lebanese military to regain control of three southern villages, according to the U.S. State Department.
  • President Trump has floated the idea that the new Syrian government under Ahmed al-Sharaa—a former al Qaeda jihadist whom the president has praised—could take on Hezbollah and choke off the group’s vital supply lines.
  • A final option is the Israeli military, a powerful force whose political leaders have vowed to disarm Hezbollah and eliminate it as a threat.

Proponents say fresh ideas are needed to finally disarm a group that the U.S. and Israel say destabilizes the Middle East. Critics warn that each path carries fatal flaws.

Vetting Lebanese soldiers
A plan that is steadily taking shape puts the weak and underfunded Lebanese army on the front line of dismantling Hezbollah. Israeli soldiers occupying Lebanon would gradually hand off responsibility to Lebanese troops. The two sides agreed on a structure for the handover process during direct talks in Rome last week, and began early implementation this week.

The Trump administration is trying to address the Lebanese military’s weaknesses by training, equipping and vetting individual units to go after Hezbollah.

“The ideal outcome here would be one in which you wouldn’t need an Israeli presence,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in April in a Fox News interview.

Proponents of the idea say it would allow the Lebanese state to preserve its sovereignty and build legitimacy by doing the work itself. But Rubio acknowledged it was a tall order for the country’s untested military.

Lebanese soldiers don’t want to be perceived as doing Israel’s dirty work, and many don’t have the will to fight their countrymen. The military also harbors Hezbollah sympathizers. The U.S. Treasury said in May that Hezbollah gets intelligence tips from officials within Lebanon’s state security organizations, including the military.

Critics of the plan question the U.S.’s ability to vet Lebanese soldiers and fear that it could fracture the Lebanese army along sectarian or political lines. Successive Lebanese governments have generally avoided confronting Hezbollah militarily due to fears of civil conflict. Hezbollah has made clear how it would react if U.S.-backed forces moved against it.

“We will fight [them] just as we fight the Israeli army,” said Hassan Fadlallah, who represents Hezbollah’s political wing in Lebanon’s parliament.

Looking to Damascus
President Trump has repeatedly suggested that Sharaa’s Syria could help tackle Hezbollah.

“He would do a very good job,” Trump said of Sharaa, as the two leaders sat beside each other at a North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Turkey.

Trump later said that Sharaa made commitments to help the U.S. counter Hezbollah.

Iran has long smuggled weapons and supplies to Hezbollah through Syria. U.S. officials say Syria could play a larger role in securing its porous border with Lebanon.

“I think that’s something Trump could buy into—Syria putting more muscle into cutting off these smuggling networks that continue to operate across the border,” said Randa Slim, Middle East program director at the Stimson Center think tank.

But direct Syrian military involvement in Lebanon is unpopular across Lebanese society. Lebanon remains haunted by periods of Syrian dominance and military occupation from 1976 to 2005.

“Plans that are being floated to involve the Syrians in an armed engagement with Hezbollah bring back bad memories,” said Ghassan Hasbani, a former deputy prime minister and now a member of a Lebanese parliament opposed to Hezbollah.

Syria’s new military includes radical Sunni Islamists accused of killing Syrian minorities en masse, raising fears of a cycle of atrocities and revenge killings, analysts say.

Beyond that, Syrian troops are spread thin on their own turf, where power continues to be centralized under the government from various armed factions born out of the civil war.

Sharaa, who took power in December 2024 after leading a coalition that toppled President Bashar al-Assad, has worked to stay out of the regional fray, establish stability within his own borders and build ties with the West. A military campaign in Lebanon risks derailing those gains.

“Sharaa kept Syria out of the Iran war by treating every external pressure as a reason to consolidate at home,” said Nanar Hawach, a senior Syria analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank. “The result is a country that emerged from a regional war more relevant than it entered it.”

Limits of Israel’s military
Israel has devastated Hezbollah’s senior leadership, depleted its missile stockpile and thoroughly infiltrated the militant group. Now many Israeli leaders have called on the country’s military to press on and destroy Hezbollah itself if no one else will.

Israel could intensify its military campaign and push Hezbollah farther north. Skeptics point to Israel’s multiyear campaign in Gaza, which caused widespread destruction but left the enclave’s rulers, Hamas, still armed and in control of territory, albeit largely defanged.

“We are talking about a group that for 42 years has been rooted and embedded in the majority of the Shia population in Lebanon,” said Khalil Helou, a former general in Lebanon’s military who is opposed to Hezbollah. “Israel, the strongest army in the region, is recognizing that disarmament of Hezbollah will take years and could involve invading all of Lebanon.”

Israel has passed intelligence to Lebanon about Hezbollah and needs Lebanese help to achieve Hezbollah disarmament, Israeli security officials say.

“Israel doesn’t have the option to disarm Hezbollah,” said Yossi Mekelberg, a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House in London. “It can keep fighting Hezbollah and erode its capabilities, but disarming is part of a much bigger process.”

WSJ : Israel Believes Iran Moved Nuclear Centrifuges Into Pickaxe Mountain The U

Israel Believes Iran Moved Nuclear Centrifuges Into Pickaxe Mountain
The U.S. has reviewed the Israeli assessment, and President Trump has threatened to attack the site

Israeli intelligence believes Iran moved thousands of uranium-enrichment centrifuges into tunnels deep inside Pickaxe Mountain last fall.
President Trump has threatened to attack the Pickaxe Mountain site, which is estimated to reach 300 to 450 feet deep beneath solid rock.
Iran has provided the International Atomic Energy Agency no information about its work or plans at the Pickaxe Mountain site.

Israeli intelligence believes Iran moved thousands of uranium-enrichment centrifuges into tunnels deep inside a mountain last fall, Israeli and U.S. officials say, a development that would heighten concerns that Tehran could reconstitute its nuclear program.

Israel passed along the intelligence findings to the U.S., saying the centrifuges were transferred to the Pickaxe Mountain site last fall after the 12-day war in June when American and Israeli strikes pummeled Iran’s three main nuclear sites.

As Israel’s war aims have increasingly diverged from the U.S.’s, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tried to persuade President Trump to resume all-out attacks on Iran to further set back Tehran’s weapons programs and rebuilding effort. The U.S. has stepped up attacks in the past 10 days, and Trump said the U.S. was prepared to attack Pickaxe Mountain.

Iran’s foreign minister and the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, didn’t respond to requests for comment. The White House referred The Wall Street Journal to interviews Trump gave last week about the site.

Pickaxe is “a possible target for a nice big fat shot,” Trump told conservative broadcaster Hugh Hewitt on July 13. It was the first time he has explicitly talked about Pickaxe as a target, although he has previously mentioned an Iranian underground location buried in granite.

Known as Mount Kolang in Iran, Pickaxe has been under surveillance by the U.S. and Israel for years, and what little is known about Iran’s activities at the site suggests it would present challenges to any airstrikes. Located near one of Iran’s main nuclear installations, Pickaxe was commissioned as an underground replacement for an Iranian centrifuge-assembly facility that was badly damaged after a 2020 explosion, which might have been an act of sabotage.

Activity has continued there steadily for the past 15 months, with truck traffic, tunnel reinforcements and a security perimeter springing up, said the Institute for Science and International Security, a think tank on nuclear and nonproliferation issues. There was also work around an older tunnel network that dates from 2007, which Iran has since sealed up.

“It is plausible that Iran moved centrifuges into the tunnels” in Pickaxe, said David Albright, the institute’s president.

Experts estimate that the subterranean complex reaches 300 to 450 feet deep beneath solid rock, with enough room to accommodate several nuclear-related facilities.

Nate Swanson, a U.S. National Security Council director for Iran in the Biden administration, said Tehran’s history of covert nuclear activity means any undeclared activity in a hardened underground site is cause for concern.

“A covert breakout is the worst-case scenario. We don’t know what Iran’s intentions are, but the fact that we can’t verify this site underscores how problematic the status quo is,” Swanson said. “We have to have the IAEA in there to inspect these things.”

Pickaxe wasn’t considered a priority to bomb last year during the Israel-Iran war and hasn’t been targeted in the round of fighting with the U.S. that began on Feb. 28. But officials and experts have long worried that Iran could use the tunnels to store or build nuclear equipment and to set up a small enrichment facility for producing fissile material.

An Israeli military official familiar with the targeting effort expressed concern that the recent war’s airstrikes hadn’t sufficiently targeted nuclear-weapons-related work, saying that there was more work to be done, including at Pickaxe Mountain.

Centrifuges are machines that are used to spin uranium gas, separating isotopes to enrich the material for civilian nuclear energy or potential weapons production. Iran denies ever seeking nuclear weapons but has produced about 1,000 pounds of 60% enriched uranium, near weapons-grade.

The placement of centrifuges at Pickaxe doesn’t necessarily mean Iran is building an enrichment site there. After the June 2025 bombings, Tehran may have put its surviving centrifuges there to minimize their risk of destruction.

It isn’t clear where the centrifuges Israel told the U.S. were taken to Pickaxe came from. Spare centrifuges might have been located at Iran’s main nuclear sites.

But Iran has given the IAEA no access to the site and provided no information about its work or plans there, the nuclear agency has said. Director General Rafael Grossi said in March that Iran in 2021 announced its “intention to have nuclear activity” at the site.

FT : Ebola death toll rises to 930, as outbreak spreads at record pace Africa Ce

Ebola death toll rises to 930, as outbreak spreads at record pace
Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and partners plan trial of two existing jabs

The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed at least 930 people, the country’s health ministry said on Monday, adding urgency to efforts to find a vaccine to counter the disease’s rapid spread.

The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is developing a possible trial on whether the Bundibugyo pathogen driving the crisis can be combated by jabs against other ebolavirus species.

The Ebola outbreak is the fastest-growing ever by some measures, more than two months after the World Health Organization declared it a public health emergency of international concern. The WHO said last week that more than 80 per cent of new cases were not on known contact lists, suggesting that track and trace protocols were missing many chains of transmission.

“When you start seeing cases with no known contact, that’s a big red flag because it means there are a lot of cases out there you don’t know about,” said Paul Hunter, professor in medicine at the University of East Anglia. “The concern clearly is how long it will stay in Congo and whether it will start spreading to surrounding countries: the bigger it gets the more likely that is.”

DR Congo authorities recorded 37 Ebola deaths in the previous 24 hours, one of the highest recent daily totals, the health ministry said. Last week, the ministry reported that the disease had reached two new provinces and it has now been found in five in the country’s east, where it remains centred on the Ituri region. 

The sustained surge in case numbers to 2,365 by Sunday, including 20 in Uganda and one in France, has dismayed the WHO. Last week its director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus conceded that health authorities were struggling with an outbreak that was “continuing to outpace the response”.

The deadliest outbreak of Ebola, which is transmitted between humans primarily by direct contact with bodily fluids, killed more than 11,300 people in three West African countries in 2014-16. It led to the development of the Ervebo vaccine by Merck, which is known as MSD outside North America, against the Zaire ebolavirus species responsible.

The Bundibugyo pathogen in the current DR Congo Ebola crisis has no vaccine or treatment. International health organisations including the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations are investing in a quest to find a viable new jab for it within months.

The Africa CDC and partners are planning a trial of a two-vaccine combination on frontline health workers in eastern Congo, the health body has said. The first dose would be of the Ervebo vaccine, while the second would be an experimental jab against the Sudan ebolavirus species. The proposal is expected to be submitted as soon as Tuesday for approval by the Africa CDC’s executive committee.

The approach would have the practical advantage that Ervebo already has regulatory approval. The experimental vaccine, developed by the international biomedical research non-profit IAVI, was used during a Sudan pathogen outbreak in Uganda last year.

Efforts to control the DR Congo outbreak have been further undermined by suspicion among local people about the cause of the disease and the motives of outsiders. More than a dozen health facilities have been attacked, some after refusing to release bodies over concern about the further spread of the virus through traditional funerals. One facility was attacked last week in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, according to the WHO.

FT : London Stock Exchange plans to launch round-the-clock trading next year New

London Stock Exchange plans to launch round-the-clock trading next year
New overnight venue will initially offer access to exchange-traded products

The London Stock Exchange has unveiled plans to allow round-the-clock trading, in the latest sign that traditional exchanges are trying to win back retail investors whose attention has been captured by 24-hour crypto platforms.

The LSE said on Tuesday it would launch a night-time trading venue in the first half of 2027. The new exchange will operate separately from the LSE’s main market, and initially offer access to exchange-traded products such as funds tracking the UK or US stock market. 

The move highlights the fierce competition between mainstream exchanges and crypto venues, which have wooed younger investors by allowing them to trade 24/7 on their smartphones. Crypto companies such as Coinbase and Kraken have muscled in on the territory of traditional venues by giving investors round-the-clock access to stock trading. 

The shift to longer trading hours also comes as London faces questions over its competitiveness amid a prolonged listings drought, with the government seeking to urgently revive appetite for IPOs.

The LSE’s main venue will continue operating under its standard hours of 8am to 4.30pm and the new exchange will operate from 5pm to 7.50am, with a 30-minute pause between 6.30pm and 7pm to apply end-of-day processes. 

“London has always been a facilitator of both domestic and global flow and this is very much building on that,” Julia Hoggett, chief executive of the LSE, told the FT.

She added that there was increasing appetite, particularly from retail investors around the world, “to use London given our particular timezone, to gain exposure to not only UK assets but global assets”. Asian retail traders in particular would benefit from trading through the LSE at times that suited them, she said, adding: “Increasingly, retail are used to trading when they wish to trade, not simply the hours [when markets] are open.”

The move echoes a similar push by traditional trading venues in the US. Nasdaq, the New York Stock Exchange and Cboe Global Markets have either launched or are planning to launch extended trading hours, subject to approval from US regulators. 

“We are seeing huge demand from our retail customers to get access to 24/5 soon to be 24/7 access to markets,” said Elad Lavi, vice-president development strategy at retail brokerage eToro, adding: “Crypto opened the mind of retail investors . . . they want to react to breaking news and they want to react immediately.”

While retail trading is driving the move towards longer trading hours, institutional investors have generally been more ambivalent about round-the-clock trading. 

The World Federation of Exchanges said last year that “in particular, Apac retail investors are interested in being more active on US markets”, but that overseas institutional investors wanted extended access “to a lesser extent”. “Extended trading is not appropriate or desirable in all contexts,” the WFE added.

The Federation of European Securities Exchanges said that “it remains to be seen whether such models are sustainable or beneficial in the long term”.

Hoggett said there was a “large retail component of this” and “we’re increasingly seeing institutional demand to interact with retail flow”, adding that she expected institutional demand to increase over time. 

The LSE aimed to allow extended trading of the more than 2,600 exchange-traded products that were listed on its exchange, said Simon McQuoid-Mason, head of new product and market structure and equities at the exchange. Starting with ETPs was easier than stocks, because individual companies would have to grapple with various complexities around timing and regulations that the LSE was working through, Hoggett said. 

McQuoid-Mason said that agentic trading would also be built into the new exchange. “Certain types of players are pushing into the adoption of agentic AI tools as it relates to portfolio assessment, market assessment, portfolio repositioning and trading. It’s right to build in this capability because there is an evolution towards it,” he said. 

The FT reported last year that the LSE was exploring launching 24-hour trading.