TheChek News Flow

The moonshot idea of putting AI data centers into outer space just moved one step closer to reality, despite doubts about its feasibility.

Last week, Google’s Project Suncatcher launched a refrigerator-sized satellite carrying four AI chips into orbit on a SpaceX rocket, in an early test of whether the technology behind today’s power-hungry data centers could someday operate in space.

The satellite, developed in partnership with Planet Labs, took off on Oct. 1 and is operating as expected, according to a Google blog post. The point of the mission is to see how Google’s custom TPU chips handle the intense vibrations of launch as well as the “radiation and thermal extremes of space,” the company said. The satellite will conduct experiments in low Earth orbit for about a year, the New York Times reported.

Google’s satellite is powered by solar panels that harness energy from the sun. Because space makes it difficult to dissipate heat using water or fans, Google’s researchers designed a system of heat pipes and radiators to keep the chips from overheating. Still, the satellite’s cooling capabilities mean Google will run their chips for 15 minutes at a time before shutting them down to cool off, NPR reported.

However early the experiment might be, the launch is a milestone for an emerging technology that has the potential to help meet AI’s growing demand for compute while avoiding the constraints on resources like power, water, and land on Earth. As companies pour billions of dollars into building out terrestrial data centers, and have faced backlash from community members and politicians in the process, building AI infrastructure in space seems increasingly attractive.

The idea of orbital data centers gained mainstream attention in early 2026 when SpaceX, led by perennial tech optimist Elon Musk, filed plans with the Federal Communications Commission to launch a network of up to 1 million data-center satellites in space.

“The lowest-cost place to put AI will be space, and that will be true within two years, maybe three, three at the latest,” Musk said at the World Economic Forum in January.

Jeff Bezos’s space company Blue Origin in March also filed a proposal to deploy 51,600 satellites in a satellite network dubbed Project Sunrise.

Yet, before the concept went mainstream, Google was already working to make it a reality. In November 2025, it launched Project Suncatcher, to explore “how an interconnected network of solar-powered satellites, equipped with our Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) AI chips, could harness the full power of the Sun.”

With its recent launch, it has taken a significant step toward proving out the orbital data center concept even as experts have warned of major obstacles ahead.

For one, operating data centers in space would require massive solar arrays to capture the sun’s rays and turn it into energy. These large and heavy arrays, along with other equipment, would be expensive to transport to space, Jeff Thornburg, the CEO of Portal Space Systems, previously told Fortune. The expensive price tag remains an obstacle, despite SpaceX, which transports the majority of payloads into space, having cut its estimated launch costs by 95% since 2008 to about $1,000 per kilogram, according to research from Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest.

Another factor is the effect of radiation on the chips powering the data centers which can cause errors. This is something Google is studying with its Project Suncatcher satellite. Although Google said it tested its chips on Earth and found they “can survive a radiation total ionizing dose greater than what they would receive during a five-year space mission,” the company acknowledged that solar events and cosmic rays pose a risk.

There’s also the question of repairing equipment, which is much more difficult in space.

Still, Google isn’t the only company already testing AI chips in orbit. Last November, startup Starcloud launched a satellite carrying one of Nvidia’s high-powered H100 chips into space and showed it could use the chip to run Google’s lightweight AI model, Gemma.

Another startup, Cowboy Space Corp., founded by Robinhood cofounder Baiju Bhatt, also launched a satellite aboard the same SpaceX rocket as Google last week.

The satellite, called Reason-1, plans to test sending solar energy down to Earth using a powerful laser. The company has established contact with the satellite and is preparing to demonstrate its technology for the first time in the coming weeks, Bhatt said in an interview with Bloomberg published Thursday. Bhatt also said Cowboy Space’s ultimate ambition is to build a vehicle to put data center payloads into space.

The Oct. 1 launch is just the beginning of Google’s ambitions with orbital data centers.

The company is planning to send two more satellites into space in 2027 to test how they can communicate via lasers, which it said in a blog post requires precision “similar to hitting a coin-size target from miles away while both points are in motion.”

Still, the ultimate dream of putting data centers into space may not come to fruition even in the next few years, James Manyika, Google’s senior vice president for research, told the New York Times.

“Remember how Google was researching for like 15 years, before anything showed up? I think this is going to look like that,” he said.

The maker of non-text AI model Jev valued at $7.5B just weeks after launch

TypeSafe AI, the developer of Jev, a new type of AI model that gained rapid popularity after launching just a few weeks ago, has raised $870 million at a $7.5 billion valuation. The round was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Sequoia and existing investor DCVC.

The massive fundraise comes as little surprise given Jev went viral almost instantly after its September 15 release. The startup claims that a third of Fortune 500 companies are already using the model, a remarkably swift adoption by enterprises.

Jev is based on a transformer architecture, but it is not a large language model (LLM). It doesn’t output text, but instead produces probabilities, or what the company calls “calibrated decisions.” What has users and large corporations so excited about Jev is TypeSafe’s claim that it works significantly faster and uses far fewer tokens than LLMs. The company positions its approach as uniquely suited for automating tasks rather than generating text or code.

“We have been super good at human language for four years, but it’s not useful for automation because computers speak a different language,” TypeSafe co-founder Diogo Almeida told TechCrunch last month.

Along with Almeida, who was previously a researcher at OpenAI, TypeSafe was co-founded in 2024 by former Meta research engineer Sasha Sheng and Erik Gafni, an engineer and entrepreneur.

Why Extra Cushioning in Your Shoes Might Actually Increase Stress on Your Feet

Max-cushion shoes are all the rage. But some doctors worry they could pose long-term risks to feet, ankles, knees or hips.

If you don’t own a pair of so-called high-stack or max-cushion running shoes yourself, no doubt you’ve seen others wearing them, whether at the gym, on trails or just knocking about town. Sandwiched between the tire tread-like outer sole and nylon upper is as much as 2 inches of soft and springy foam, which gives these shoes both the look and feel of walking around with mini-mattresses on your feet.

It all started back in 2010 with the introduction of the Hoka line of max-cushion shoes, which led other brands to develop similar styles, each stacked with its own patented lightweight foam. Now it is difficult to find running or walking shoes that aren’t raised on a platform of puff, some with the added oomph of a layer, or plate, of carbon fiber.

While max-cushion shoes may feel super comfy, and can improve running efficiency and performance if embedded with a carbon plate, there are concerns among podiatrists, orthopedists, kinesiologists and sports-medicine doctors about the long-term effects, not only on your feet, but also your ankles, knees and hips.

“They change people’s biomechanics in a way that can be unpredictable, and brings up the question of potential injury risk,” says Dr. Adam Tenforde, director of running medicine at Mass General Brigham’s National Running Center.

A matter of mechanics

The problem comes down to basic biomechanics, says Dr. Kenrick Dennis, a podiatrist in Houston who served as medical director for the Houston Marathon.

“If you are standing on that marshmallow, it allows your foot to torque in and out a little bit more, the leg rotates to follow it, and that rotation is translated through the ankle, the knee and the hip,” he says.

It takes a bit longer to sink into the cushiness and subconsciously find your balance before you push off again, similar to the extra effort required when walking on sand. The wobbliness, he says, plus the added height of max-cushion shoes, also increases the risk of twisting an ankle or falling.

Moreover, max-cushion shoes diminish proprioception (awareness of where you are in space), since you have less sensory feedback of where you are vis-à-vis the ground.

A number of civil lawsuits have been filed against shoe manufacturers by track stars, including an Olympian, who allege, among other things, that wearing high-stack shoes with carbon plates caused injuries that derailed their careers. Nike faces one such suit in California Northern District Court. Puma—the parent company as well as some of its divisions and partners—was named in three cases filed in Massachusetts Superior Court.

Nike declined to comment on pending litigation, but in court filings the company denies its product is “defective and unsafe for its intended purposes” and neither “caused injury and/or contributed to the risk of injury.” Puma said in a statement that it strongly denies its shoes cause injury. The company is further pursuing a countersuit against its three accusers in a German court.

While the suits focused on shoes that included a carbon plate, Tenforde says max-cushion shoes can modify biomechanics independent of that feature. Hoka didn’t respond to requests for comment about safety concerns.

Of course, back when barefoot running was the rage in the mid-2000s, alleged injuries caused by zero-stack, or “barely there,” shoes resulted in lawsuits against manufacturers.

“The pendulum has swung from the barefoot shoes to now having a marshmallow under your foot,” says Dennis, the Houston podiatrist.

Proponents of max-cushion shoes, particularly those with an embedded carbon plate, point to studies that suggest the shoes improve running economy and performance by 4% and 2%, respectively. A 2023 review published in Sports Biomechanics says that every world record from the marathon to 5 kilometers has been broken by athletes wearing these kinds of shoes. The comfort and springy design may allow athletes to tolerate higher training volumes or intensities.

“If a shoe makes running easier, you will run faster,” says Dr. Laurent Malisoux, a sport and physical-activity research leader at Luxembourg Institute of Health. “But people should remember that if they get an injury, it’s because they probably ran too much, too fast or too soon, not because of the shoe.”

Stressing the muscles

Nevertheless, concerns remain. A 2018 study published in Nature indicates max-cushion shoes actually increase the total load on muscles, bones and joints compared with more-moderately cushioned shoes in part because the foot is on the ground longer.

“You’re hitting the ground with the same magnitude of force,” says Dr. Daniel Lieberman, a Harvard evolutionary biologist whose research focuses on how modern footwear has altered human biomechanics. “But you’re spreading that force over a longer period of time.”

Your leg also appears to stiffen more when you land, intensifying the jolt, according to the authors of the Nature study. If there is a carbon plate in the shoe, it can help you spring back into the air a bit faster, but Lieberman says more research is needed to determine whether the total load is larger than in more moderately cushioned or minimalist shoes.

While max-cushion shoes may feel great initially, repetition of these minute wobbly, twisting moments plus the extra mechanical load on muscles, tendons, joints and bones could lead to injury in the long term, critics say. During a mile run, each foot will strike the ground on average about a thousand times. Running 20 miles a week adds up to a million foot strikes a year.

There is also the concern that the squishiness of max-cushion shoes and/or the location of the flex point, particularly if there is a carbon-fiber layer, may also shift where on your foot you land and push off. That might make you more vulnerable to foot fractures, according to a 2023 analysis of high-stack running shoes with carbon-fiber plates published in Sports Medicine, with Tenforde as the lead author.

Scott Christensen, lead endurance instructor for USA Track & Field, says while he appreciates the potential performance-enhancing qualities of bouncy foam and carbon springboards, “everything has a cost-benefit ratio to it.” One of the more counterintuitive costs, he says, is the shoes’ exceptional comfort. Runners don’t get as sore, which is the body’s way of saying: Hey! Back off before you do damage.

“As a coach, I want soreness,” Christensen says. “I depend on soreness in my athletes. Soreness is the governor of training.”

Making good choices

So, what is a person to do when confronted with a wall of shoes in a run shop or sporting-goods store? “The answer is there is no one answer,” Christensen says. People have different physiologies, exercise regimes and injury histories which might dictate not only level of cushioning, but also support, stability and heel-to-toe drop of the shoe.

Whether you’re a runner, walker or maybe someone whose job requires you to be on your feet all day, the best shoe is the shoe that fits. You may think you’re wearing the right size, but a 2018 study in the Journal of Foot and Ankle Research suggests as many as 72% of people wear shoes that don’t accommodate either the width or length of their feet. Your shoes shouldn’t hurt or feel uncomfortable either during or after physical activity.

And don’t pay attention only to the pillowy feel under your feet, Dennis says. Test your ability to maintain balance and coordination in the shoes by doing things like raising up on your toes and holding and then rocking back on your heels and holding, as well as doing quick turns and pivots. Notice any additional workload or twisting moments demanded of the joints and muscles in your legs and hips. Also listen to your footfall. It should be light and have a steady, crisp cadence—no clomping, scuffing or shuffling, as can happen when you have too much bulk under your feet.

Beyond that, Christensen’s advises training in more than one kind of shoe, varying amount of cushioning and stack height. The combination will vary stressors on your body and reduce the chance of repetitive foot strike and motion injuries.

Dr. Stéphane Bermon, director of the health and science department at World Athletics—the international governing body for track and field, cross-country running, road running, race walking, mountain running and ultra running—is also a proponent of the shoe-rotation strategy, but he cautions to introduce any new shoe “very, very progressively” to avoid injury. Maybe running or walking in a new kind of shoe once a week for one week and then twice a week the following week, and so on.

“In biomechanics, in human physiology, what kills you is routine,” Bermon says. “Whether it’s your bone, whether it’s your muscle, whether it’s your tendon, you have to challenge yourself every day with different things.” In shoes, just as in life, “There is nothing worse than monotony.”

JPMorgan bets on European asset management growth

Patrick Thomson, who heads the bank’s asset management business in Europe, said he was ‘bullish on the UK’

JPMorgan Asset Management has outlined ambitious targets to double its assets under management in Europe to $2tn in the next five years, in a bet that the continent’s wealthy can drive growth at the investment division of the Wall Street bank.

“Europe is a very good place for us to continue to grow,” Patrick Thomson, chief executive of JPMorgan Asset Management for Emea, said in an interview. “Our three strategic priorities — active ETFs, alternatives and developing partnerships with the biggest wealth managers — are going to drive our growth.”

JPMorgan Asset Management has already doubled its assets in Europe over the past nine years from $500bn to $1tn, boosted by rising markets and inflows from new and existing clients.

Alongside BlackRock, JPMorgan established an early lead in Europe in the market for active exchange traded funds, which combine an ETF wrapper with active management rather than passively tracking an index.

Its European active ETF business has grown to $60bn since its launch five years ago. Thomson said the products had further potential, with ETFs becoming the first point of entry into investing for mass affluent and younger investors.

Thomson said there were opportunities for investors in European equities and European fixed income, where volatility in government bonds makes for a fertile environment, and in infrastructure, where there is huge demand for capital to invest in energy grids and transition.

More than 85 per cent of JPMorgan Asset Management’s funds ranked above median over the 10 years to July 31, according to data from Morningstar Direct. 

JPMorgan’s ambitions come as Europe’s asset management industry is forecast to grow 5.6 per cent a year to reach almost $50tn by 2030, according to a PwC report. 

PwC predicted the amount allocated to alternative assets in Europe — in investments such as private equity, private credit and venture capital — will grow from $3.3tn in 2020 to $7.7tn by 2030 as regulators seek to widen access to private markets.

“There’s a significant effort by policymakers to move savers to investors,” said Thomson.

The industry is increasingly split between scale providers such as JPMorgan, that offer a broad range of strategies, and specialist players. Firms have sought scale and diversification, sometimes through mergers and acquisitions, in pursuit of cost efficiencies and new growth channels.

Scale was particularly important “on the technology agenda,” said Thomson. The JPMorgan parent bank invests $20bn a year in technology, while its asset management business invests $600mn a year in its technology platform globally, and employs 1,400 engineers. “That’s an expensive commitment but we think it’s necessary,” he added. 

JPMorgan has resisted dealmaking, however. “We’ve not done any major acquisitions because we think they’re hard,” says Thomson. “We favour organic growth.”

Looking ahead to the first Budget under Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government later this month, Thomson said he was optimistic about the UK’s prospects.

“I’m pretty bullish on the UK because everyone is so negative about it,” he said. “We would like to see stable, sensible policies that are pro-growth in the Budget.”

Private equity can cut ‘best’ deals in current climate, says Permira boss

Lower valuations and reduced competition should help sector to ‘exceptional returns’, says Dipan Patel

Private equity will be able to cut some of its best-ever deals in the current climate, with lower valuations and reduced competition helping the sector to “exceptional returns”, according to the co-head of one of Europe’s biggest firms.

Dipan Patel, co-chief executive of UK-headquartered buyout group Permira, told the FT Private Capital Summit in London this week that deals cut after the dotcom crash and global financial crisis were “among the best” ever. “We’re right back there today,” he said.

“This will be among the better vintages . . . and I think the top quartile will have exceptional returns,” said Patel, referring to the funds that firms are currently seeking to deploy in deals.

The buyout sector has struggled through several tough years, with initial public offerings proving challenging and higher interest rates making sales of companies difficult to achieve at the desired valuations.

Many firms invested in companies at high valuations during the period of ultra-low interest rates and have resisted selling at prices that would crystallise underwhelming returns, reducing cash returns to the sector’s institutional backers.

“It’s a problem to be in a low-rate environment,” said Patel of Permira, which manages about €100bn in assets. “Being in a high-rate environment, eyes wide open, is not a problem for private equity because it translates into deal pricing.” 

John Redett, co-president of Carlyle Group, said that “free money” and a long period of economic expansion after the financial crisis had caused complacency in the sector. “People were generally benefiting from multiple expansion. They didn’t really have to focus on value creation.”

However, with fewer funds sitting on piles of uninvested cash, there were still “attractive opportunities out there to invest in”, added Redett, referring to acquisitions of defence companies and unloved divisions of large conglomerates.

The disruption caused by AI would also create opportunities, Patel said, such as in software. Software deals, long a favourite of the sector, ground to a halt earlier this year after new AI agents cast uncertainty over established business models.

“From the equity side, [software] has gone from overcapitalised to undercapitalised,” he said. Whereas Permira previously had up to 30 per cent of its investment activity focused on software, it did no deals in the sector for three years after the launch of ChatGPT, he added.

However, investors betting on other sectors in the belief that they were insulated from AI disruption could be disappointed: “There’s no sector immune from AI,” he said. “It’s just a lot more capital chasing a lot fewer assets in other sectors . . . There’s a trap.”

Nic Humphries, executive chair of software-focused buyout firm Hg, said that only firms that invested in using AI in their portfolio companies and could “scale that internal capability” would survive in the new era. “People who do no nothing — dead,” he added.

Julian Salisbury, co-president of US private capital group Sixth Street, said the “pig in the python” — companies stuck in buyout portfolios — would present attractive opportunities for investors who could make tailored investments mixing equity and debt.

“[Buyout firms] need solutions providers who can help them recycle [cash to investors] . . . provide incremental capital to keep growing the business, provide them incremental financing so that they can refinance and extend the hold of the asset.”

Best for Britain says alignment between London and bloc would speed up any rejoining process as Andy Burnham prepares ‘options’

Britain could rejoin the EU in the space of a single parliament if London and Brussels were politically aligned, according to a new report backed by a senior former bloc official and a leading member of the European parliament.

Pro-EU pressure group Best for Britain said fears that the UK reaccession process would be bitter and “take a decade” were overblown, citing Finland’s completion of its EU joining process in less than three years in the mid-1990s.

Ten years after Brexit, the possibility of the UK rejoining the EU was thrust back on to the political agenda by Andy Burnham last month, when the prime minister said Britain could “go all the way” to reversing the 2016 referendum.

In his speech to the Labour Party conference, Burnham warned that the current Brexit settlement was damaging the UK economy and promised a national debate about “options” for future relations ahead of a major UK-EU summit due to take place next month.

UK ministers have not given details of how the government intends to hold the discussion, but Burnham’s overture was quickly welcomed by several EU leaders, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron and Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez.

Polling by YouGov after Burnham’s speech found that 52 per cent of Britons would vote to rejoin the bloc, while 27 per cent would vote to stay out. More than one-fifth of 2016 “Leave” voters would now vote to rejoin, it found.

Rejoining the EU would require the British government to apply under Article 49 of the EU treaties, triggering a process during which London would need to negotiate across 35 different chapters of EU law. 

Once agreed, membership must be unanimously approved by existing members of the bloc and then ratified in national parliaments.

The report, led by former UK trade department official Oliver Nicholls, said the combination of the UK’s limited regulatory divergence from Brussels since Brexit, its strong market integration and shared values should lead to a much faster process than smaller, less-developed countries.

“Reports that accession would take a decade are wide of the mark,” it said. “The example of Finland proves that the process can be far quicker when there is a high degree of existing alignment and strong political will.”

Issues likely to be contentious, such as whether the UK should join the euro and the Schengen passport-free travel zone, were solvable, it added, noting that several current member states, including Sweden and Denmark, did not use the single currency.

Ireland, which shares a common travel area with the UK, is outside Schengen and has shown no interest in joining.

Nicholls said: “No country has ever walked this path as a former member, already closely aligned and sharing the EU’s values . . . with the political will, Britain could be back at the table within a single parliament.”

His view was endorsed by European lawmaker Sandro Gozi, chair of the UK-EU Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, who said London would not begin any rejoining process “from scratch”. 

“As a former member, and with much of the regulatory framework already in place, I personally do not see any serious reason why an application from the UK would not be achievable within one parliament,” the MEP added.

Sir Jonathan Faull, the former senior EU Commission official who acted as Brussels’ point person when the UK renegotiated the terms of its EU membership in 2015, welcomed the report as a “sober and useful contribution” to the Brexit debate.

The UK would enter any reaccession talks in a unique position because it bore the “imprint of decades of membership”, he said, adding: “The timetable would depend on the clarity and constancy of political will on both sides.”

But others are more cautious. In a paper for the European Policy Centre think-tank this year, former MEP Andrew Duff warned that reaccession would take more than one parliament, partly so UK politics could demonstrate that any decision was not at risk of being reversed by a change of government.

“Accession for the UK can be swift but only if the UK is crystal clear that it wants full membership, with no cop-outs or opt-outs,” he said.

Even more sceptical was Lord Peter Ricketts, former UK national security adviser and ambassador to France, who said Finland was not a useful comparison.

“My instinct is that it will be a longer process , even if the political will is there. Britain is not Finland; we’re a bigger economy. There are those in the EU who will want to weigh the competitive benefits and advantages of having us back,” he said.

“There will be big issues over Schengen, Europe and the size of UK contributions to the EU budget. I think it will be a difficult and long line-by-line negotiation because of the scale of the UK economy and what it means to have us back in again.”

Donald Trump’s administration hopes the company will rival cheap Chinese alternatives such as DeepSeek

Nvidia is in talks to acquire or deepen its investment in US start-up Reflection AI, a developer of open-weight models that President Donald Trump’s administration hopes will rival cheap Chinese alternatives, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

Talks are at an early stage and a deal could take a number of shapes, including a so-called ‘acqui-hire’ where Nvidia would hire staff and license technology without the drawn-out regulatory review that comes with a full acquisition, the people added.

Nvidia, already one of Reflection’s largest shareholders, may also choose to deepen its ties with the start-up via a further equity investment or a deal to provide it with more chips and computing power.

A deal between the two companies could be reached in the coming weeks according to multiple people with knowledge of the matter, although they cautioned discussions could fall apart. Deal terms under discussion could not be established but Reflection was last valued at $25bn in a March funding round.

Reflection and Nvidia declined to comment.

Acqui-hires have become increasingly popular among Big Tech companies looking to avoid antitrust scrutiny of AI dealmaking. Nvidia used a similar format with chip designer Groq in a $20bn deal in December. That deal attracted a lawsuit from jilted Groq employees this week.

Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, has been on an investment spree over the past two years in a bid to bolster the AI economy and shore up its position at the heart of it. The company already has an open-weight family of AI models known as Nemotron, but lacks a frontier-scale model of its own.

In recent months it has increasingly focused on fostering a market for open-weight models, which users can customise and run on their own hardware. They can be far cheaper for businesses to operate than the most advanced versions of OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Anthropic’s Claude.

In July, Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, led the industry in calling for a domestic open-weight “ecosystem” he said was essential for “creating opportunities for innovation and prosperity across the country”. In September, the $5.5tn company agreed to acquire Hugging Face, a repository for millions of models and data sets, for $13bn.

Nvidia has poured tens of billions of dollars into large AI labs including OpenAI, neocloud businesses such as Nebius and a string of smaller groups. That in turn has created additional demand for its chips, which remain the crucial commodity for companies building or running AI models.

Reflection is considered a strategically significant asset for the US in its AI race with Chinese rivals such as DeepSeek. This week it unveiled its first public, customisable AI product, which runs on Nvidia chips. Reflection claims the model is on a par with Z.ai’s GLM-5.2, a leading Chinese competitor.

The group’s founders Misha Laskin and Ioannis Antonoglou previously worked on Google’s AI model Gemini.

Nvidia has already invested $800mn into Reflection, which is also backed by venture firms including Sequoia Capital, Disruptive and 1789 Capital, at which Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr is a partner.

Reflection has partnered with the Pentagon and the Department of Energy, and struck agreements to develop AI models for US allies such as South Korea.

How a Western Consumer Giant Is Thriving on China’s Social-Media Shoppers

A change in Reckitt’s sales tactics led to 12 consecutive quarters of double-digit sales growth in the country

Several years ago, China-based executives of Lysol maker Reckitt RKT 1.18%increase; up pointing triangle leveled with their boss. More consumers were skipping supermarket runs and buying household staples while they scrolled on their phones, the executives said.

Could they have some funds to get ahead of the trend?

Chief Executive Kris Licht figured they were talking about China’s equivalents of Amazon.com and Walmart+. “But no,” Licht recalled in an interview, “I was told that e-commerce was a yesterday technology.”

The result: a pivot in Reckitt’s China sales tactics, one that has propelled 12 consecutive quarters of double-digit sales growth in the country and helped the British firm weather a sales slowdown in established markets.

What the CEO’s colleagues said Reckitt needed to jump on was the rapid rise of a different venue for shopping in China. In what’s known as social commerce, people scrolling through their social media apps for entertainment end up buying after seeing an ad.

Reckitt’s success capitalizing on Chinese consumers’ shift points to how Western firms that once counted on China for growth can still thrive there, though local competitors have made it a tougher place to do business. It’s also an example of how social media and shopping are converging.

After its China team’s tête-à-tête with Licht, Reckitt pulled out the stops to go to the social media apps where many Chinese wind up shopping.

The company built 18 studios inside a five-story building on the outskirts of Shanghai. On videos broadcast from there, employees sell Veet hair removal cream, Lysol’s international equivalent Dettol and other Reckitt goods on China’s popular social-media platforms.

In some of the studios, company staffers join guest actors and influencers making quick comedies and mini-dramas about domestic life featuring a Reckitt brand.

“This is the way forward,” Licht said. “Those that don’t figure this out will be left behind.”

Some 800 million of China’s 1.4 billion people now each day use social media like Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, and apps like Kuaishou. The users spend an average of about 90 minutes a day scrolling through short videos, Reckitt estimated. Key for consumer-good companies: Half of them have bought items on the platforms.

Social commerce is starting to catch on in the U.S., where shoppers are now buying products by clicking links in TikTok and Instagram videos, and watching live-shopping streams on apps like Whatnot.

“We all have the experience of finishing the day, relaxing on the sofa, watching videos and clicking ‘buy’ without thinking too much about it,” said Vivien Huang, Reckitt’s director of marketing in China. “Next thing you know, you wake up with some new products at your doorstep.”

It was around 2022 that Reckitt’s team in China sought Licht’s support getting Reckitt to invest in social commerce.

The team initially struggled to hire influencers or agencies with the right experience, so staff did it themselves. Out of a conference room converted into a makeshift studio, customer-service staff answered questions on video about the chemical composition of disinfectants.

Sales shot up, boosting the company while it grappled with stagnating sales in the U.S. and other developed markets. Reckitt’s emerging-market sales grew 8.5% to 2.23 billion pounds, equivalent to $2.95 billion, in the first half of this year, compared with the same period a year prior, while inching up 0.8% in North America and falling 3% in Europe.

The company’s success in China makes it an outlier among big Western brands. After years of rapid expansion, consumer companies from Starbucks to LVMH to Nike have stumbled as consumer preferences have shifted and competition from local brands has increased. Also cutting into sales of Western firms are the economy’s slower growth.

Reckitt’s China livestream strategy “enabled its brands to hold their own against steep local competition,” said Sky Canaves, an analyst at Emarketer. “It’s part of a broader commitment to deeply localizing its brands, and positions digital as the primary sales channel, rather than relying on traditional store distribution as the foundation.”

From the company’s Shanghai studios, crews broadcast live on the apps for 12 hours a day, while shoppers bombard them with comments and questions in a chat that dominates part of the screen.

The Reckitt hosts respond rapidly, a sort of interactive infomercial. A team monitoring the livestreams guides the hosts and adjusts the featured products they talk about in real-time.

In other studios, short dramas and skits are filmed. The videos, which are often under a minute, might depict a scene from a living room or highlight a domestic dispute. In one, a parent argues with their teenager about smelly shoes—and Dettol comes to the rescue.

The short-form video team drove 40 million new customers to Reckitt last year, drawn by videos they produced that the company said were viewed 15 billion times.

Reckitt predicts social commerce will catch on in some form in the more than 100 other countries where it sells its products, and has begun replicating its China playbook in markets including Brazil, Mexico and Malaysia.

Trump suggests Volodymyr Zelenskyy should be replaced after Ukraine’s leader criticised diesel deal with Moscow

US officials stepped up pressure on Ukraine to stop striking Russian oil refineries and threatened to cut off vital intelligence sharing as Donald Trump suggested Volodymyr Zelenskyy should be replaced as the country’s leader.

Zelenskyy’s negotiating team met Trump’s representatives for nearly eight hours on Friday in Miami, where they were meant to discuss ways to convince Russia to end its war.

But the meeting was derailed when the Ukrainian team was blindsided by Trump’s announcement that he had cut a deal with Russia’s Vladimir Putin to release diesel on to the world market, according to three people with direct knowledge of the talks.

During the meeting, Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner raised the possibility that intelligence sharing could be cut off if Kyiv did not heed Washington’s warning to halt the strikes, according to people familiar with the matter.

“It was a firm request from POTUS,” one of the Ukrainians involved in the talks told the FT, referring to Trump.

Ukraine uses US intelligence to carry out the attacks in a bid to choke off a vital source of revenue for Moscow’s war economy.

A senior Ukrainian official said after Trump’s announcement that Kyiv would continue. “We will burn [Russian] refineries,” the official said. Hours later, Ukrainian forces struck the Yug Rusi oil terminal in Rostov-on-Don, according to Russian authorities.

That official added that the Ukrainian team was cutting its trip short instead of holding a second round of talks on Saturday.

Trump said on Saturday that it was time Ukraine got a new president who was willing to make a deal with Russia.

“I suggest they get a new leader who can make a deal,” he told reporters outside the White House.

“He could have settled it many times and he chose not to. We said you can do whatever you want to Russia. Don’t hit the refineries because that’s a world problem that’s caused. And he wants to make problems for the world.”

Trump has repeatedly pressed Zelenskyy to halt the long-range drone strikes because of the impact on the global diesel market and its spillover to US consumers. The US president and his envoys have grown increasingly frustrated that Ukraine has been ignoring their pleas.

One person familiar with the talks said the US relationship with Ukraine had been improving but Kyiv’s resistance to stopping the strikes had left a bad taste in Trump’s mouth. Despite the tensions, the negotiators in Miami had worked on a peace proposal that could be sent to Russia before the winter, the person said.

In Friday’s meeting, Witkoff and Kushner informed their Ukrainian counterparts that the US was poised to lift sanctions on Russian diesel and that Moscow intended to lift its export ban, according to another person familiar with the discussions.

Ukrainian officials viewed the request for Kyiv to unilaterally halt strikes without pressing Moscow to do the same as unfair and relayed this message to the US side, according to other people familiar with the discussions. A senior Ukrainian official said the move had “ruin[ed] the trust completely” between the two sides. 

The developments sparked anger in Ukraine, where Russian missile and drone strikes have killed more than 80 people since Wednesday. A glide-bomb attack on the city of Zaporizhzhia on Saturday killed at least 17 civilians, including three children, Ukrainian authorities said.

On Saturday afternoon, Russian ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones attacked Kyiv. Sirens blared as explosions rocked the Ukrainian capital and air defences shot down at least one drone over a densely populated neighbourhood. 

“What allowing Russia to sell oil products means was heard most clearly in Kyiv just now,” Zelenskyy said after the attack. “Russia’s choice is war. And they will be ready to end it only when they feel that their ability to drag the war out is diminishing.”

He added that “every additional billion dollars [Russia] can earn from exports will be spent on nothing but sourcing and importing critical components and equipment to manufacture weapons, upgrading [attack drones], producing missiles and recruiting even more mercenaries”.

The “signals Russia received” from Trump’s deal had suggested to Putin that Moscow “could simply keep attacking” and what was needed were “strong signals” from the US side that it could not do so, Zelenskyy said.

“President Trump’s decision seriously undermines [the] reputation of the US and his credibility as a president, because this decision might lead to strengthening [the] Russian war machine,” said Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee.

He said Putin was “trying to make Trump complicit” in his war against Ukraine and that the “diesel deal is a dangerous step in this direction”.

Kaja Kallas, the EU’s chief diplomat, said: “Suspending sanctions on Russian diesel provides Moscow with more revenues to wage war . . . This is not the time to ease pressure on Russia, and Europe won’t.”

A year ago, Trump encouraged Ukraine to hit Russian refineries harder as part of a co-ordinated effort to weaken Putin’s economy and force him to the negotiating table. At the time, he said he wanted Kyiv to “make them [Russians] feel the pain” and compel the Kremlin to negotiate, according two people briefed on the call.

The Trump administration has suspended intelligence sharing with Kyiv in the past and on numerous occasions threatened to do so again if Zelenskyy did not fall in line with Washington’s positions, according to Ukrainian and western officials.

In March last year, Washington halted intelligence co-operation with Kyiv for eight days after a heated Oval Office clash between Trump and Zelenskyy.

That November, Zelenskyy said he was facing an ultimatum from Trump to agree to his Moscow-friendly peace terms or else lose US support for the war effort.

Trump threatened to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine in April to pressure European allies to join a “coalition of the willing” to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, according to people briefed on the discussions

-Wall Street is preparing for a potentially fundamental transformation as financial institutions explore tokenizing stocks, bonds and other assets on blockchain networks. Tokenization could allow securities to trade and settle through shared digital ledgers, reducing reliance on traditional intermediaries and potentially lowering transaction costs. Unlike cryptocurrencies, the emerging market focuses on conventional financial assets represented digitally. Its success will depend on regulatory acceptance, interoperability between competing platforms and whether major institutions can integrate blockchain settlement into existing financial infrastructure.

-Evercore ISI analyst Stephen Kim sees unusually pessimistic sentiment toward housing stocks as elevated mortgage rates constrain affordability and discourage construction. He cautions that conditions are not yet sufficiently favorable for a broad recovery, although the outlook could improve over the next six months if builders reduce supply and mortgage rates decline. The timing of a rebound will depend on financing costs, housing inventories and consumer purchasing power.

-Meta Platforms’ Muse AI agent has topped Apple's iOS App Store since shortly after its September 8 launch, capturing 40% of internet AI-agent traffic and helping drive an 18% increase in Meta shares. However, its economics remain challenging. The free tier offers up to 100M tokens weekly, equivalent to roughly $1,100 annually at comparable API prices, against Meta's average annual revenue of just $63.54 per daily app user. Muse's promised privacy protections could also undermine Meta's advertising model by limiting access to user data. The company is instead exploring subscriptions and e-commerce to cover potentially substantial computing costs.

-Small-cap stocks are attracting renewed interest after a sharp selloff driven by rising Treasury yields. The Russell 2000 gained 22% in the first half of 2026, compared with 10% for the S&P 500, but has fallen 4.3% since September 1 as higher borrowing costs disproportionately affect smaller companies. Meanwhile, AI enthusiasm has helped large-cap stocks reach new highs. Francis Gannon of Royce Investment Partners points to accelerating earnings, attractive valuations and subdued expectations, while RBC's Lori Calvasina notes that small-cap valuations have fallen below their post-financial-crisis average. Heavy bearish positioning could amplify a recovery if yields stabilize and sentiment improves.

-Caterpillar shares fell 6% after federal regulators opened an inquiry into competition in agricultural equipment, despite farming representing a relatively small part of its business. The stock remains up 33% this year and has tripled over three years, benefiting from mining investment, higher commodity prices, construction demand and gas turbines used to power AI data centers. Its price-to-earnings multiple has doubled from 13 in 2023 to 26, while 61% of analysts maintain Buy ratings. However, its 25% retreat from June highs and elevated volatility underscore its sensitivity to interest rates, economic growth and AI infrastructure spending

-Citigroup could appreciate approximately 30% as its restructuring improves profitability and narrows the valuation gap with JPMorgan Chase, according to Barron's. The investment case rests on management's ability to simplify operations, control expenses and generate more competitive returns on equity. Citigroup continues to trade at a substantial discount to its larger rival, reflecting years of weaker profitability and execution concerns. Sustained operational improvements could encourage investors to reassess the bank's valuation.

-Skydance faces substantial financial and operational challenges following its merger, including elevated debt, ambitious performance targets and the difficulty of integrating entertainment businesses amid changing viewing habits. Barron's questions the investment appeal of the combined company, suggesting that its financial obligations and execution risks may outweigh the potential benefits of consolidation. Streaming competition, production expenses and declining conventional television revenues continue to complicate efforts to restore profitability.

-Bond-market instability in Europe could expose vulnerabilities in American government finances, according to economist Desmond Lachman. Rising borrowing costs and concerns about fiscal sustainability abroad illustrate how quickly investors can demand higher yields when confidence in government debt weakens. The US faces its own combination of substantial deficits, rising interest expenses and heavy Treasury issuance. Although American securities retain important advantages from the dollar's international role, overseas debt-market turbulence offers a warning about the potential consequences of persistent fiscal imbalances.

-President Trump has temporarily eased sanctions on Russian diesel imports following an agreement with Vladimir Putin aimed at reducing US fuel prices, which have surged more than 70% over the past year to $6.28/ gallon. Russia will initially supply 300,000 tons, equivalent to roughly 2M barrels, followed by another 500,000 tons in November. However, the latter shipment represents less than 10% of America's daily diesel exports, making a significant price reduction unlikely. Diesel futures fell 1.4% following the announcement. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized the sanctions relief, warning that it undermines pressure on Moscow without securing a lasting de-escalation agreement

-Brazil faces mounting difficulties containing public debt as high interest rates compound borrowing costs and complicate fiscal stabilization. Budget deficits approaching 10% of GDP have contributed to the central bank's decision to maintain elevated interest rates. The country's debt dynamics create a self-reinforcing problem: high yields increase interest expenditure, adding pressure to government borrowing even as policymakers attempt to improve fiscal balances. Persistent concerns about spending discipline and debt sustainability can further increase the risk premium demanded by investors.

-Barron's examines the sudden appearance of unusually high dividend yields among certain stocks, questioning whether payouts approaching 5% represent attractive income opportunities or warnings of deteriorating fundamentals. A rising yield can reflect falling share prices rather than improving shareholder returns, particularly when earnings and cash flows come under pressure. Investors must distinguish companies capable of sustaining distributions from those facing potential dividend reductions, especially as higher bond yields offer competing sources of income.

Related: EVR C AAPL META RY RAGSX CAT SKYD RY.CA