TheChek News Flow

The soccer tournament has helped propel the prediction markets to new user records, creating what may be the largest gambling event in history.

When Argentina and Spain take the field on Sunday for the World Cup final, more than $5.55 billion will be riding on the winner on the prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi.

People are also betting millions on who wins third place and the Golden Boot award for top scorer. Others are wagering on what the announcers might say or whether it will be the final tournament for the Argentina team captain, Lionel Messi.

The event has helped drive new users to the prediction markets, which have grown rapidly and transformed into a cultural phenomenon in recent months. The sites allow users to wager on the outcome of just about anything, from elections to details about Taylor Swift’s wedding to the winner of the reality-TV show “Survivor.”

Prediction market users are poised to make the World Cup the largest gambling event in history, analysts said. In June, total wagers on the platforms topped $50 billion for the first time, much of it driven by the soccer tournament, according to data from Dune Analytics, a crypto data tracker. That was up from about $2 billion the same month a year ago.

The performance of prediction markets during the World Cup has “surpassed every estimate that any of us have projected,” said Chad Beynon, a gaming and lodging analyst at the financial services firm Macquarie Group. He estimated that the World Cup had helped quadruple monthly trading volumes across both platforms.

Nearly 270,000 people downloaded the Kalshi app the week the tournament began, according to data shared by the company from Apptopia. Two weeks earlier, it had about 60,000 downloads.

Isaac Arizmendi, a Mexico team fan, downloaded Polymarket for the first time in June to bet on the tournament. The 24-year-old, who lives in Los Angeles and works in social media marketing, said he was wagering on the winner of every game.

“You have a purpose watching that game,” he said. “You bond with people at the bar, like, ‘Ah, you put money on the game, too?’ Pow!”

The explosive success of Kalshi and Polymarket — which earn revenue by collecting fees on each bet — has drawn attention. Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, has directed employees to create a prediction markets app.

Traditional gambling firms like FanDuel and DraftKings have started offering their own prediction markets, as has Gemini, a cryptocurrency exchange. Trump Media & Technology Group, President Trump’s social media business, has also rolled out plans for prediction markets.

The growth has also stoked scrutiny over concerns about insider trading and other problematic behavior on the platforms.

More than a dozen states have sued Kalshi and Polymarket, citing local laws that ban sports betting. In late June, a judge in Michigan ordered a temporary halt to Kalshi’s offerings in the state after its attorney general, Dana Nessel, sued the company, accusing it of violating state sports betting laws.

Kalshi’s operations are “unlicensed” and “predatory,” Ms. Nessel said in a statement.

Still, the markets have surged, with a boost from the World Cup. The tournament started June 11 with an expanded roster of 48 teams playing 104 games — even more to wager on than usual. The markets have also benefited from increased interest in soccer in the United States, which was one of the hosts of the tournament.

Polymarket and Kalshi have spent heavily on marketing throughout the event. Polymarket launched an ad campaign featuring the music producer Rick Rubin and the rapper Future pegged to the U.S. team’s making it to the final. “Can the U.S. win it all?” Future asked in the ad.

Kalshi became an official partner of FIFA, soccer’s global governing body, through a branding and product deal with the World Cup’s existing prediction market partner, ADI Predictstreet, a little-known platform. Kalshi’s logo was displayed around the field at game time, and its ads blanketed commercial breaks.

After seeing ads for Kalshi “everywhere,” Trisha Kvien, 42, downloaded the app at the start of the World Cup. Ms. Kvien, who works in advertising technology in central California, put $25 on the United States to beat Paraguay during the group stage. She won about $11, and was hooked.

She used Kalshi when she attended the Spain-versus-Belgium game last week in Los Angeles, wagering on how many corner kicks both teams would take — and even got the rest of the crowd into the action counting with her. (She lost.)

“I’m not betting money that I’m not willing to lose,” she said, adding: “I’m putting it in for the experience and the good time. And if I win some money off of it, I’m having an even better time.”

The company recently opened a new production line to keep up with strong demand for its 737 Max, though orders for its new planes lag rival Airbus.

One morning this month, a bay door opened at an enormous Boeing airplane factory north of Seattle, where workers rolled in an emerald-green fuselage.

It was only the second 737 Max to enter production at this factory in Everett, Wash., and it was a milestone of sorts for Boeing.

Ever since the 737 debuted in 1967, the plane has been almost exclusively produced in a factory in Renton, a Seattle suburb. But Renton is nearing its capacity, and the addition of a second production site in Everett will help Boeing fulfill its ambitions to build more of the 737 Max, by far its most popular plane.

More broadly, the expansion of the 737’s production is a sign of the progress Boeing has made as part of its turnaround efforts more than two years after its last major crisis. In January 2024, a poorly installed panel blew off a 737 Max jet during a flight, unleashing renewed federal oversight and public scrutiny of Boeing. At the time, the company had only just started to recover meaningfully from a much more serious crisis prompted by Max crashes in 2018 and 2019, in which 346 people died.

The panel episode led Boeing to shake up its leadership, culture and practices yet again, and those changes appear to be paying off. Boeing delivered 314 jets in the first half of the year, its best performance for that period since 2018. Earlier this year, it had $576 billion worth of commercial plane orders, its most ever.

And on Friday, the Federal Aviation Administration said it would allow Boeing to resume issuing airworthiness certificates for all its 737 Max and 787 planes, a significant step forward from the oversight that regulators imposed on recent years. A year ago, the F.A.A. partially restored this authority to the company, allowing it to issue airworthiness certificates on alternating weeks. Now Boeing will be allowed to sign off on all its planes, the agency said, citing “consistent production quality.”

“Boeing is on a very upward trajectory,” said Jerry Lundquist, an industry consultant whose firm, the Lundquist Group, advises aerospace company executives but does not currently work for Boeing. “It certainly hasn’t gotten to smooth, stable, sustained cruise yet, but it’s continuing to do well. It’s a very good story.”

It helps that airlines are desperate for new jets to satisfy growing global travel demand. Hundreds of more orders for planes are expected in the coming days as Boeing and other companies gather at an airport near London for one of the world’s largest aerospace events, the biennial Farnborough International Airshow.

“It has been a particularly strong order frenzy,” Stuart Hatcher, the chief economist and chief data officer at IBA, an aviation advisory firm, said during a webinar this week.

In most cases, an airplane order that is placed today for a jet made by Boeing or its European rival, Airbus, is not expected to be fulfilled until the 2030s. Still, Boeing lags behind Airbus, which has received more than twice as many plane orders this year and has a larger order backlog.

Despite that disparity, Boeing is working through its own backlog of about 6,200 airplane orders. That’s good news for its bottom line. But Boeing executives have warned that its commercial plane unit won’t generate consistent profits for a while, partly because of investments like the $1 billion the company spent to expand the production of the Max in Everett.

About 1,000 employees are supporting the effort. Half of the mechanics building the plane worked previously in Renton, while the other half are new hires, according to Jennifer Boland-Masterson, a senior director overseeing the expansion.

The F.A.A. is auditing the process and must sign off on the production line, known as the North Line, before planes built here can be delivered. But the work has already started, slowly, and Boeing says nearly every part of the process mirrors that of the three Max production lines in Renton.

The work is being carried out in a space formerly used to build the much larger 787 Dreamliner, a twin-aisle plane whose production was consolidated to a factory in South Carolina. Boeing also makes the 777, 767 freighter and KC-46A Pegasus military tanker in Everett. The factory, which the Guinness World Records describes as the world’s largest by volume, was also once home to the iconic 747, the last of which was delivered in 2023.

The 737 Max accounts for about 70 percent of Boeing’s commercial aircraft backlog. Deliveries of the plane were frozen for almost two years after the fatal crashes. During that time, regulators required Boeing to make several changes to the plane, which started flying again in late 2020.

After the 2024 panel blowout, in which no one was seriously injured, the F.A.A. capped Max production at 38 planes per month until the agency was satisfied that Boeing had improved manufacturing quality. The company later put in place a quality-control regimen it described as a “war on defects,” and the F.A.A. cleared Boeing late last year to produce 42 jets per month, and 47 per month this year.

Boeing is working toward reaching a sustained rate of 47 planes per month, and the Everett line was added to help the company reach its next goal of making 52 per month and eventually more.

“It’s pretty important,” said Sheila Kahyaoglu, an equity analyst at the financial services firm Jefferies who focuses on aerospace and defense companies. “Going up in rate is super helpful.”

Ms. Kahyaoglu estimates that each delivered 737 can generate $10 million to $20 million in cash after accounting for necessary costs and investments.

While Boeing has made progress on Max production, it has been hampered by three long-delayed planes. But the company now says it is nearing certification of each.

Boeing said the certification work on the smallest and largest Max variants, the Max 7 and Max 10, was very far along. The company also said it was making substantial progress on the 777-9, a behemoth designed for long-distance international travel. All three planes are years behind schedule, but Boeing said it expected to begin deliveries of each next year.

“The path is clear,” Mike Sinnett, a Boeing senior vice president, told reporters this month. “We know what we have to do. We meet with the F.A.A. very, very regularly.”

The Max 10 will ship with a new system that was required as a result of the crashes. That system, known as Enhanced Angle of Attack, is designed to simplify the alerts that pilots receive when an error is detected with a sensor that measures the plane’s angle relative to oncoming airflow, known as the angle of attack.

Investigators have said multiple alerts related to faulty data from that sensor made it harder for the pilots in the fatal crashes to respond. Once certified, the new system is expected to be added to all Max planes within two years.

Both the Max 7 and Max 10 will also feature a fix to the engine anti-ice system to address concerns about overheating in certain conditions.

The 777-9, a twin-aisle plane capable of carrying more than 400 passengers over long distances, is also making progress, the company said. The plane has taken more than 1,700 test flights, and Boeing says it expects to deliver its first 777-9 next year.

On a lot near the Everett factory, Boeing is subjecting a 777-9 airplane to tests that simulate real-world flying, including flexing its wings and body and repeated pressurization and depressurization of its cabin. So far, that airplane has endured the equivalent of nearly twice as many flights as the company expects it ever to operate with no major structural defects.

Since the 2024 panel incident, Boeing has also worked to revamp manufacturing quality and corporate culture. The company replaced several top executives, expanded training and inspections, simplified documentation and reduced allowances for certain work to be performed out of sequence. Boeing said that, as a result, in the first three months of the year employees spent nearly 20 percent less time fixing defects or repairing or replacing parts on the 737 line than they did in the same period last year.

Boeing has also intervened more in its suppliers’ operations in an effort to improve quality and capacity issues. In 2025, it bought a struggling supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, which made the Max fuselage. Boeing said the number of fuselages arriving with defects this year had fallen 40 percent compared with 2025.

And in an effort to improve its culture, the company solicited feedback over many months from tens of thousands of employees. That process resulted in the company’s devising five guiding values and 15 recommended behaviors for employees.

Those guidelines are mostly straightforward and conventional like “follow through” and “collaborate respectfully.” But one speaks bluntly to the frustrations of workers who have endured repeated crises, and to the company’s push to regain public trust: “Give a damn!”

An attorney for Gérald Marie said he "firmly denies these allegations, as he has consistently done."

Six women have filed civil complaints against Elite Model Management’s former president Gérald Marie, alleging rape and human trafficking at the Paris Judicial Court. But an attorney for Marie said on Friday he “firmly denies” the allegations.

Marie, who exited Elite years ago, is also facing a civil complaint that was filed last month by the model Carré Otis. In recent years, she has accused Marie of rape and human trafficking that allegedly occurred when she was starting out as a model at the age of 17. Otis along with 14 other women had initially filed complaints against Marie in Paris in 2020, which were later dismissed by the Paris prosecutor’s office due to the statute of limitations having run out.

Asked about the six new civil complaints, Marie’s attorney Céline Bekerman said in a statement Friday, “My client firmly denies these allegations, as he has consistently done. There is nothing new in these complaints. A thorough investigation conducted by the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office was already carried out and resulted in the case being dismissed in 2023.”

Mathias Darmon, the attorney who is representing the six women, said Friday, “These complaints are part of a broader movement of speaking out, sparked by the formal complaint filed by Carré Otis on June 5, 2026. Gérald Marie potentially raped dozens of young women between the 1980s and the 2000s, acting with a sense of total impunity and within an utterly intolerable culture of rape. Today, voices are finally being raised to denounce these heinous crimes.”

Some of Darmon’s clients had filed complaints in the 2020 case. In this week’s filing, he wrote, “However, the investigations undertaken at that time failed to provide a judicial response commensurate with the gravity of the allegations, even though new victims have since come forward and new evidence has emerged.”

Bekerman’s statement closed with, “The justice system has better uses for its resources than reopening, 40 years after the alleged events, a case that is both time-barred and has already been dismissed. The same allegations cannot be endlessly recycled. This amounts to harassment. Gérald Marie has rights, and he intends to assert them.”

In an Instagram post Wednesday, Otis wrote: “Dozens of women have been telling their stories of this man and his world in their own books, television series, media interviews, documentaries and more without a drop of legal recognition or any semblance of justice.” She noted that she published her own account in her 2011 book “Beauty Interrupted.”

“Encouraging” any others who have allegedly been raped, assaulted or harassed “to join us,” Otis posted that “survivors” can file Jane Doe cases. Otis asked that anyone who witnessed or has relevant information to come forward. She included contact information for the Innocence in Danger and Model Alliance.

In addition to those two advocacy groups, there are organizations such as Victorious Angels, which is composed of survivors including many from the modeling industry who are calling for greater accountability. In March, former model Ebba Karlsson and Lisa Brinkworth, a Victoria’s Secret Angels advocate, presented a letter to the Paris public prosecutor’s office that requested an inquiry into Marie in relation to Jeffrey Epstein. Brinkworth alleged that Marie assaulted her while she was working as a journalist on an undercover investigation about the modeling industry for a BBC documentary that was released in 1999. She was among those who filed a complaint in 2020 that was subsequently dismissed. Brinkworth had also appealed that decision unsuccessfully, and has since taken her case to the European Court of Human Rights.

One of the 15 former models who signed that letter in March was Laurie Marsden, who has alleged that Marie assaulted her after a party in 1982. She said in April, “We asked them to investigate Gérald Marie’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein given an association among Jean-Luc Brunel, Gérald Marie and Epstein.”

Separately, in March of this year, The Model Alliance’s founder Sara Ziff and 25 models sent a letter to U.S. House of Representatives Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie requesting an investigation into “the modeling industry’s role in facilitating Jeffrey Epstein’s [alleged] trafficking operation.”

In 2022, Brunel, a cofounder of MC2 Model Management, died of an apparent suicide in a Paris cell, where he had been awaiting trial on charges of rape of a minor and sexual harassment. The agency was started with some financial support from Epstein.

Thysia Huisman, who alleged that Brunel drugged and raped her in Paris after a party in his apartment in 1991, filed a civil case against his estate in 2024. She said Friday, “The courage of these six survivors is extraordinary. To take on someone as powerful as Gérald Marie through a civil case takes strength most people will never fully understand. I know that courage. I know what it costs.”

Huisman this year released an updated English version of her book, “Close Up,” which explores “the dark side of modeling.” “The same principle: accountability does not end with power, money, or even death. What was done to us matters and it demands justice,” she said Friday.

She added, “These women are not just telling their stories. They are forcing a system that has protected powerful men for far too long to finally confront the truth. This is what change looks like — not silence, but resistance. Not fear, but action.”

Earlier this year, Karlsson appealed to French prosecutors about the alleged trafficking, rape and sexual harassment that she faced as a model 35 years ago. She said in March, “We have got to keep the momentum. People cannot stop talking. People who have been involved with Epstein should be transparent, come forward and share everything they know. Otherwise, how can we change the system, if people are still in the shadows and are hiding things?”

Huisman said Friday, “I will keep speaking, no matter what it takes.”

Geotagging yourself in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is no longer cutting it. These days, refined travelers are turning to something a bit less tacky and a bit more tasteful when it comes to flaunting their globetrotting, Amex Platinum–having, passport stamp–collecting pursuits — by wearing that frequent-traveler status, quite literally, on their sleeves.

We’re talking about the intimate, and relatively new, marriage between the world’s top hotels and luxury designers, which over the years has served a few key purposes: helping a particular resort’s top one percent of loyalists identify each other from Ibiza to Innsbruck and sending guests home with a more sophisticated souvenir than a fridge magnet, all while feeding into the universal obsession with collectibles (all the better if the items are marked by a distinctly “IYKYK” air).

The Dominick, Soho, New York’s only hotel with an AAA Five Diamond designation, recently ran a partnership with Alexis Bittar, allowing clients to coordinate a bespoke jewelry box delivery to their rooms for an added fee. America’s oldest premium luggage brand Hartmann, meanwhile, is ringing in the Semiquincentennial hand in hand with Providence’s The Beatrice hotel — by letting bestsellers from its new Reserve collection for women take part in the latter’s “Rhode to Everywhere” package, on offer through the summer.

And the W Florence just teamed up with local designer Domenico Orefice on a custom leather bag that overnight guests can enjoy in the historic city and take back to wherever they’re from — repping the country’s rich legacy of leather craftsmanship with the accessory’s tanned leather finish and woven intreciatto handle.

So too can shoppers utilize this growing trend to vicariously live out adventures in destinations they’ve yet to visit, with the help of hotel merch collaborations that can be easily bought online — no plane ticket needed.

Drake’s x St. Regis, Left on Friday x Hotel Saint Vincent, Petite Plume x Viceroy, Kilometre x The Ritz-Carlton, and a handful of other unlikely duos start feeling like a more organic fit once you decipher what it is the labels and hotels have in common. That is, a desire to give consumers a one-of-a-kind experience amidst the sea of increasingly monotonous, repeatable ones across both industries — making sure no aspect of their travels goes unaccounted for, from check-in to what they’ll be wearing to dinner.

Thinking of things to pack for your next upscale and well-deserved getaway, or simply want to co-sign the wanderlust mindset without so much as stepping out of your own abode? Start here.

Eberjey x The Ritz-Carlton

Eberjey’s sleepwear and intimates have been spotted on everyone from Meghan Markle to Kylie Jenner, frequently clinching coveted placements on the Oprah’s Favorite Things list, too. Now, the circa-1996 brand is setting sail to celebrate 30 years — with its new, exclusive pajama capsule made alongside The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, an ultra-luxury cruise line offshoot of the famed hotel and resort group.

There are just three pieces to enjoy, because both The Ritz-Carlton and Eberjey know that true opulence comes from intentional, if limited, designs and experiences. Cutting the ribbon on a never-before-seen print of easy, undulating waves over a shade called Memorable Blue, the 100-percent mulberry silk pajamas for men and women are meant to accompany you on your most extraordinary journeys: inviting rest, reflection, restoration, and stillness, despite the “ever-changing views on board,” according to a press release.

“As we celebrate Eberjey’s 30th anniversary, this capsule is a beautiful expression of what has always been at the heart of our brand — designing pieces that bring softness, confidence, and intention to each day,” Ali Mejia, Eberjey co-founder, wrote in a statement. “Collaborating with The Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection allowed us to bring that philosophy to life through the lens of travel, with a print inspired by the tranquility of the sea.”

Frame x Ritz Paris

Chronic collaborators, Ritz Paris and renowned denim purveyor Frame come out with updated takes on their “Cali cool”-meets-“Parisian sophistication” merchandise practically every year — which means stock is strong online and you can find exactly what you need at frame.com to make your next visit to the City of Light even more unforgettable.

Sweatshirts dolled up with the Ritz’s sprawling, curvy signature, crisp pajama shirts, half-zips, cable cardigans, cashmere tees, and silk scarves abound. No, you won’t receive early check-in by showing up dressed in the co-branded garb from head to toe, but you just might get a knowing wink from the bartender.

Kilometre x The Ritz-Carlton

Different Ritz, same genius concept. Ahead of summer 2026, Parisian accessories maker Kilometre tapped The Ritz-Carlton to bring to life a slew of handmade straw bags nodding to the chain’s most beloved coastal locations — Laguna Niguel, Santa Barbara, Amelia Island, and Key Biscayne, to be exact.

“At The Ritz-Carlton, the most meaningful travel experiences are those that connect guests more deeply to place, culture, and community,” Jamie Hoffman, director of global marketing and partnerships at The Ritz-Carlton, said in a press release. “Our collaboration with Kilometre is an opportunity to tell that story through design, translating the spirit, color, and character of our resorts into pieces shaped by craftsmanship and sense of place.”

Come here for the vivid palm tree, flamingo, and sunset motifs; stay for the top-tier compositions and trend-aware bucket silhouette. Each bag serves as an excuse to settle down under the sun and just linger. We don’t need to be told twice.

Staud x St. Regis

Casually mention hotel fashion collaborations and people’s minds are likely to go straight to Staud for St. Regis, which had such a welcome reception last summer that the two partners continued their love affair right into winter: debuting an alpine drop that takes a page from après-ski style.

Why the joint venture continues to make sense? “Staud brings an unmistakable modern edge to glamour, and St. Regis has always been the home of glamorous travel,” George Fleck, senior vice president and global brand leader of St. Regis Hotels & Resorts, told WWD for a previous story.

Naturally, everything is sold out besides the two picks below — ideal for keeping on hand until winter-sports season commences once again.

Drake’s x St. Regis

St. Regis, clearly, is in high demand right now, as labels are lining up for a chance to create limited-edition merch with the hotel brand known for stunningly competent butler service and the invention of the Bloody Mary on its premises.

One of St. Regis’ latest co-conspirators is the London-based menswear mecca Drake’s. Just this month, the two put their heads together on a Father’s Day accessories assortment for the polished gentleman — complete with silk neckties, pocket squares, and hats.

“It’s been an extensive and deep collaboration, working together closely to develop some essential items for the men’s wardrobe that reflect our… values, love of craft, and history,” Michael Hill, creative director of Drake’s, shared with WWD earlier.

Elegance and quiet luxury will be his as soon as your dad (or husband) outfits himself in one of these silk neckties, pocket squares, and hats: whether he’s jetsetting to Toronto for a business meeting or relaxing stateside.

Petite Plume x Viceroy

Award-winning hospitality venture Viceroy Hotels & Resorts joined forces earlier this year with our editors’ favorite sleepwear brand, Petite Plume, to unveil a line of color-happy, stripe-clad pajamas and eye masks (perfect for packing into your carry-on or savoring from the comforts of home sweet home).

The shade choices here might seem arbitrary, but those familiar with both Petite Plume and the Viceroy should know that nothing the two companies do is ever haphazard. Per the former, the clothes contain “pale blue inspired by the Caribbean hues of Sugar Beach, rust orange echoing the Mexico’s Baja desert, and teal pulled from the lush countryside of Portugal’s Ombria Algarve, all layered with Viceroy’s signature red and warm neutrals.”

In other words, you can sample a sizable chunk of Viceroy’s portfolio from thousands of miles away as you wind down for the night and climb into something cozy. No, you’re not dreaming… yet.

Thomas Lélu x W Hotels

Artist, creative director, and curator Thomas Lélu has gone viral multiple times for his witty, handwritten aphorisms posted on social media — now also seen on billboards, stationery, and clothing alike. In 2024, W Hotels fell in love with Lélu’s playful yet thought-provoking poetry, deciding to immortalize it on a range of canvas totes and bucket hats that will first make you think and then promptly inspire an unexpected wave of goosebumps.

Sayings like “Are you in love? No, I’m at the pool”; “Wake me up when there’s no WiFi”; and “Can I stay a bit longer? Stay forever” pay tribute to humans’ collective ennui, yearning, and unfettered joy.

Fleck, at the time overseeing Marriott’s W Hotels branch as well, said the following about the launch: “Lélu’s sense of humor and style makes so much sense for us. With W Hotels, we can be more daring and take some risks.”

Here’s to stepping out of your own comfort zone and getting a little cheeky this season, goaded on by none other than the catchall resting lightly over your shoulder.

Domenico Orefice x W Florence

Last but not least, a special-edition hotel collaboration that recenters the importance of in-person connection — by being available only to those temporarily settling down in Florence’s Santa Maria Novella neighborhood. By taking advantage of the W Florence’s new “Crafted in Florence Suite Experience,” guests can get a firsthand introduction to Italian leatherwork with an architectural and capacious bag from the aforementioned Orefice.

The piece will be waiting for them in one of the hotel’s modern, light-soaked rooms, to be hauled from the Boboli Gardens and Uffizi Galleries to late-night dinner at Trattoria Zà Zà (consider it a personal recommendation from yours truly). A dining credit for a meal at one of the W’s inventive, on-site culinary hotspots also comes included in the package, so save your appetite on the last night in town — and don’t forget to put a bow on the whole vacation at the upstairs Zefiro Rooftop.

The only thing more magical than that direct view of the Duomo is Orefice’s artisanal mastery and keen attention to detail, at play in everything from the bag’s removable fringe to its gleaming hardware.

To get your hands on the product, reference the promotional code “A1475” when making your W Florence booking, valid until December 14.

OpenEvidence previously raised nearly $700 million in funding from investors including Thrive Capital, DST Global, GV, Sequoia Capital and Kleiner Perkins.

Its CEO and cofounder, Daniel Nadler, previously sold an AI startup to financial research firm S&P Global for hundreds of millions of dollars in 2018.

Nadler owned 58% of OpenEvidence when the startup was valued at $12 billion, according to Forbes.

What to Know About the Chinese AI Models Rattling U.S. Stocks

Rise of products such as Moonshot’s Kimi K3 raises concern about tech boom’s staying power

U.S. stocks fell Friday after China’s Moonshot AI released a new artificial-intelligence model. Shares of chip companies such as Nvidia and Micron Technology were particularly hard-hit, with a major semiconductor stock index down 10% over the past week. Here is what to know about China’s AI models.

A: It is called Kimi K3 and comes from Moonshot, a Beijing-based startup whose name is inspired by the Pink Floyd album “The Dark Side of the Moon.” Moonshot released Kimi K3 this past week and said it planned to make it fully open-source later this month, meaning people will be generally free to download and adapt it. Moonshot says Kimi K3 is the world’s biggest open-source model with 2.8 trillion parameters, a shorthand for a model’s capabilities. External researchers estimate that Anthropic’s Claude Opus 4.8, released in May, has more than 1.5 trillion parameters.

A: Chinese AI models are generally designed to operate using fewer computing resources and offer better cost efficiency, in part because American export controls limit China’s access to advanced chips. This year’s stock market in the U.S. has been driven by expectations of huge demand for technology hardware to develop and use AI from the likes of Google, OpenAI and Elon Musk’s SpaceX. If Chinese models gain market share, such demand may not explode after all. That is what worries some investors.

A: The AI benchmarking site Artificial Analysis ranks Kimi K3 in third place for intelligence, behind Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 and OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol.

The consensus in both the U.S. and China has been that the best Chinese models are months behind their top U.S. counterparts, perhaps a half-year or more.

But even if the Chinese models are slightly inferior, they are good enough for many tasks. Food-delivery company DoorDash says it uses an Anthropic model for cutting-edge tasks and a Moonshot model for lower-level workloads, achieving better performance at lower cost.

A: That’s right. A similar bout of selling took place in January 2025 when a new model was released by DeepSeek, another Chinese AI startup with a cost-efficient open-source model. But stocks soon resumed their upward move. U.S. AI companies announced hundreds of billions of dollars in investments after the DeepSeek shock, reassuring markets that the AI revolution was real.

A: Beijing has implemented some censorship of the data that companies use to train models and of the output of those models. Users of Chinese open-source models can tweak the models to bypass most censorship, though some say they can’t fully undo the influence of biases built into the training data.

Some lawmakers in Washington have called for limiting or banning the use of Chinese AI models in the U.S., saying reliance on Chinese technology could be weaponized by Beijing. For his part, Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Friday cast China as a champion of AI openness and said, “We should oppose overstretching the concept of national security in the field of AI.”

A: Here are five companies to know, in two baskets:

Startups: Moonshot, DeepSeek and a third Chinese company, Z.AI, are among the top runners in this category. All were founded by engineers from leading Chinese universities. Z.AI is listed in Hong Kong, while the other two are planning initial public offerings.

Older internet companies: E-commerce leader Alibaba and TikTok parent ByteDance have invested heavily in AI. Alibaba has an AI model called Qwen, including open-source versions, while ByteDance’s AI offerings include a model called Seed and a video-generating tool called Seedance.

A: Talk of an AI bubble has dogged stocks for years now, yet downturns have never lasted long. Investors are focused on whether companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI can garner enough business to justify their estimated trillion-dollar valuations.

Traders are increasingly betting against SpaceX just weeks after IPO

Shares of Elon Musk’s rockets and AI company have slipped below their listing price for the first time

Traders are raising their bets against SpaceX’s equity and debt just a month after Elon Musk’s rockets and AI company went public in the biggest initial public offering on record.

SpaceX’s shares this week slipped below their initial listing price of $135 for the first time, down 40 per cent from an intraday high of $225 in mid-June in the days after the billionaire’s conglomerate raised $86bn at a valuation of almost $2tn. On Friday, the stock fell more than 5 per cent to close at a fresh low of $123.99.

Short sellers betting against the shares have in the past month booked paper profits of about $4bn, according to S3 Partners data.

About 30 per cent of the roughly 640mn SpaceX shares available to trade have been borrowed to sell short, up 10 percentage points over the past 10 days, highlighting how traders are becoming increasingly sceptical of the company’s market prospects.

“Investor enthusiasm for SpaceX seems to have cooled,” said Dec Mullarkey, managing director of SLC Management. The company’s equities and bonds are suddenly “pricing in more risk”, he added.

SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.

The sell-off has come against the backdrop of a broader downturn for richly valued, previously high-flying tech stocks at the centre of the AI investment boom. US semiconductor chips on Friday ended their worst week since last year’s “liberation day” market rout.

About 900mn further SpaceX shares could become available to trade as soon as next month when certain lock-up provisions for pre-IPO investors expire. Traders who doubt there is sufficient demand for the deluge of extra equity are cashing out now as a result, market participants say.

“With more shares coming to market in August, [SpaceX] could announce that they’ve conquered the moon and found gold inside it and there still wouldn’t be enough money out there to buy the stock,” said the chief investment officer of a small North American hedge fund. His firm made $20mn shorting SpaceX earlier in July, he said.

Investors are also selling out of the company’s freshly issued debt. SpaceX raised $25bn in a huge bond offering in late June shortly after receiving an investment-grade credit rating from major rating agencies.

Yields on the company’s bonds are now trading at levels closer to those of junk-rated borrowers. The yield on a 30-year SpaceX bond has risen to 7.4 per cent from 6.7 per cent when it was sold three weeks ago, dragging the price of those notes to about 91 per cent of face value over the same period.

In a further sign of investors’ waning confidence, a market for SpaceX credit default swaps — derivatives that pay out when a company defaults — sprang up in late June.

SpaceX CDS are now trading at 158 basis points, Bloomberg data shows, meaning it would cost about $158,000 a year for five years to insure against the default of $10mn of the company’s bonds, up from $110,000 at the end of June.

Tit-for-tat strikes undermine efforts to reopen Strait of Hormuz

Iran has attacked Saudi Arabia for the first time in nearly four months, intensifying the conflict with the US across the Gulf.

Tehran also launched strikes against Kuwait and Bahrain on Saturday, as US President Donald Trump sought to pile economic pressure on Tehran in the battle for control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump said he would reimpose a naval blockade on Iranian ports this week. The US president had lifted the blockade last month after the warring parties signed a memorandum of understanding that extended an April ceasefire by 60 days and was supposed to reopen the strait.

The tit-for-tat strikes in recent days have posed the most serious threat to the ceasefire and upended diplomatic efforts to reopen the vital waterway.

The US military said it targeted “surveillance sites, military logistics infrastructure, underground weapons storage and maritime capabilities” in Iran overnight on Friday.

Iranian state media said on Saturday that the Islamic republic targeted Prince Sultan Air Base in the Saudi city of al-Kharj, which hosts American forces.

Saudi Arabia’s civil defence issued a warning on Saturday for a threat over Al-Kharj, 85km south-east of the capital Riyadh, as well as Yanbu, a Red Sea port with a refinery and a crude export terminal. However, it was not clear whether Yanbu was targeted.

The kingdom has shifted the majority of its oil exports to the Red Sea using an east-west pipeline after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

Kuwait, which along with Bahrain has borne the brunt of Iranian attacks recently, said Iran hit a power generation and water desalination plant on Saturday, the second attack on its infrastructure in two days.

The country’s military said its air-defence systems intercepted multiple waves of drone and ballistic missile attacks, while Kuwait Airways said it had to reschedule most of its flights after its airspace was temporarily closed. Several firefighters and energy sector workers were injured in the attacks, a defence ministry spokesman said. 

In neighbouring Bahrain, sirens were sounded several times as the army said it intercepted multiple aerial attacks.

The Revolutionary Guards said it attacked an American base in Bahrain and targeted the main Artificial Intelligence centre in the island kingdom.

The guards warned regional states that host US military forces and allow their territory to be used for attacks on Iran to prepare for a “corresponding response and activate their civilian defence units to protect the lives of citizens by keeping them away from potential targets”.

It said Iran limited its counterstrikes to military targets overnight, in an effort to give the US an opportunity to “change its dishonourable approach”.

In the Iranian city of Jask, desalination facilities were attacked by US forces, cutting the water supply to 10,000 people in 20 villages, according to the region’s water company.

The governor’s office in Hormozgan said the local transportation network, including a tunnel and three bridges, was also hit overnight. The tunnel collapse blocked one of the routes to Bandar Abbas, Iran’s busiest port. Three people were killed and eight injured in the strikes.

It was not a holiday week on the funding front, as a raft of largely AI-focused companies closed big rounds. The largest of these was a $1.5 billion financing to enterprise AI startup Fireworks AI, and a Series D for meal and delivery provider Wonder. The week also included some big financings for enterprise tech, food delivery, drones and construction automation.

1. Fireworks AI, $1.5B, enterprise AI tools: Fireworks AI, a developer of tools for enterprises to turn “general-purpose models into specialized intelligence trained on their own data,” raised $1.505 billion in Series D funding. Atreides Management, Index Ventures and TCV led the financing, which set a $17.5 billion valuation for the San Mateo, California-based company.

2. Wonder, $650M, meals and delivery: Wonder, an operator of kitchens and meal delivery services, closed on $650 million in Series D funding at a $9 billion pre-money valuation. Capital will go in part toward expanding operations for the New York-based company, which currently has 140 locations.

3. Chai Discovery, $400M, life sciences AI: AI drug discovery startup Chai Discovery secured $400 million in Series C funding at a $3.8 billion valuation. Index Ventures led the financing, investing alongside Sequoia Capital, Dimension, Kleiner Perkins and others.

4. Walden Robotics, $300M, robots: Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Walden Robotics, a startup building general-purpose robots for work in manufacturing and logistics, launched out of stealth with $300 million in funding. Toyota and Deviation Capital led the round, which values the company at $1.1 billion.

5. Brinc, $125M, drones: Seattle-based Brinc, a developer of drones for use in public safety and emergency operations, raised $125 million in fresh funding. Motorola Solutions led the financing, with participation from Index Ventures, and Figma founder and CEO Dylan Field.

6. (tied) TerraFirma, $100M, construction automation: Austin-based TerraFirma, a developer of AI-enabled software and autonomous robotics technology for the construction industry, landed $100 million in new funding, bringing total investment to date to $115 million.

6. (tied) Spectro Cloud, $100M, enterprise AI: Spectro Cloud, a provider of AI infrastructure management software, said it raised more than $100 million in a Series D round led by Goldman Sachs Alternatives. The financing brings total capital raised by San Jose-based Spectro Cloud to $260 million.

8. Singularity, $80M, defense tech: Singularity, a startup focused on developing air defense technology, emerged from stealth with $80 million in Series A funding. Khosla Ventures and Felicis led the financing, which set a $400 million valuation for the Los Angeles-based company.

9. (tied) Flex, $70M, fintech: San-Francisco-based fintech startup Flex, a private banking platform for high-net-worth business owners, raised $70 million in a Series B1 financing led by Halo Fund. The round follows the company’s $60 million Series B in December.

9. (tied) State Affairs, $70M, AI and policy: State Affairs, an AI platform for policy and regulation, secured $70 million in Series A funding led by Khosla Ventures and Founders Fund.