President Donald Trump justified the lethal military strike that his administration said was carried out against a Venezuelan gang as a necessary effort by the United States to send an unmistakable message to Latin American cartels. Meanwhile, the Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello accused the United States of committing 11 extrajudicial murders. For in-depth analysis and a deeper perspective, FRANCE 24’s Oliver Farry welcomes Colin Harding, Director of Latinform, and Veteran Journalist specialising in foreign affairs, with a focus on Latin America and the Caribbean.
This story originally appeared on France24
'Highly unusual': Normally anti-drug operations involve international cooperation
£181 blood cancer stat lays bare why UK needs change for 91% of patients | UK | News
Blood cancers are the fifth most common cancer type in the UK, impacting hundreds of thousands of people, and are the third biggest cause of cancer deaths. Unlike solid tumours, blood cancers cannot be treated surgically. They often require immediate, aggressive treatment, which can lead to long-term side effects such as infertility and other health issues. The impact of this is felt not only physically, but also emotionally, psychologically and financially.
Leukaemia alone affects more than 60,000 people in the UK. At Leukaemia UK, we hear daily from patients who face hidden costs, disrupted careers, and the emotional toll of living with a weakened immune system. Many patients who are diagnosed with chronic leukaemia are placed on “Watch and Wait” plans, leaving them uncertain when, or if, they will need to begin treatment. This uncertainty significantly affects people’s mental wellbeing and quality of life.
The financial burden faced by people with leukaemia is equally stark, with the median financial impact on a blood cancer patient standing at £181 per month, compared with £120 for a patient with breast cancer or £52 for prostate cancer. This includes food costs associated with specialist diets and additional use of home heating to keep warm, due to treatment side effects.
Additionally, nearly 65% of patients are forced to reduce working hours or stop work completely following diagnosis, as the often-harsh nature of leukaemia treatment makes an impact. This can also be because many leukaemia patients must immediately start chemotherapy, whereas solid cancers can usually start with milder treatments if caught early.
Despite these impacts, we have found that only 9% of people with leukaemia have been offered a Holistic Needs Assessment (HNA). This simple but powerful tool helps identify a patient’s physical, emotional, and practical needs.
A HNA is a simple questionnaire which is completed by a person affected by cancer.It allows patients to highlight the issues which they feel are, or are likely to be, most important to them. They should be conducted by a leukaemia expert clinical nurse specialist (CNS).
The results then guide the development of a care and support plan by a specialist nurse or expert key worker to ensure these needs are addressed.
Multiple assessments should be conducted throughout the patient’s cancer experience – at diagnosis, during active treatment, and in the post-treatment phase. Given that physical and psychological burdens frequently persist or worsen beyond treatment completion.
We are proud to support the Daily Express campaign that all cancer patients should be offered a holistic needs assessment, so they can have a personal care plan that is holistic and recognises the mental impact of cancer diagnosis and treatment.
This is also something we are calling on the Government to address specifically for leukaemia patients in the upcoming National Cancer Plan, ensuring everyone with leukaemia is offered a HNA at the point of diagnosis, during and after treatment.
We urge the Government to recognise the unique needs of leukaemia patients and ensure that they take this opportunity to close the existing gaps in care and provide the resources that leukaemia patients so desperately need.
This story originally appeared on Express.co.uk
From Gere to Gaga: The best celebrity looks created by Giorgio Armani | Ents & Arts News
Italian fashion designer Giorgio Armani, known for ready-to-wear fashion and staple suits, has died.
The 91-year-old started the fashion house in 1975 with his partner Sergio Galeotti, but it is the 1980 classic film American Gigolo that is credited with launching Armani’s career.
He designed the wardrobe for the film’s star, Richard Gere, who was launched into the spotlight as America’s new favourite heart throb, and Armani as one of the most popular designers. Over his career, he earned over 200 wardrobe credits.
Giorgio Armani latest: Follow live updates
As well as dressing actors on screen, red carpets were filled with Armani’s tailored black tie outfits and evening gowns, with everyone from Jodie Foster, Beyonce and Diane Keaton wearinghis designs.
Here, we look at some of Armani’s iconic looks created for both the big screen and the red carpet.
Diane Keaton wore a custom double-breasted jacket to the 1978 Academy Awards where she won Best Actress for her performance in Woody Allen’s romantic comedy Annie Hall.
Richard Gere in American Gigolo. Pic THA/Shutterstock
Richard Gere stars in American Gigolo. The suits made by Armani were originally for John Travolta, who later dropped out of the film and was replaced by Gere.
Grace Jones wears an Armani blazer on the cover of the album Nightclubbing. Pic: AP
Grace Jones wore a man’s wide-shouldered Armani blazer on the cover of the 1981 album Nightclubbing.
Julia Roberts wearing an Armani men’s suit at the 1990 Golden Globes. Pic: AP
Julia Roberts wore an oversized men’s Armani suit at the 1990 Golden Globes. The look has become iconic in fashion history as the actress stepped away from wearing the conventional ballgown.
Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci in Goodfellas in 1990. Pic: Warner Bros/Kobal/Shutterstock
Armani collaborated with Goodfellas director Martin Scorsese to create suits for Robert De Niro, Ray Liotta, Joe Pesci in the 1990 classic film.
Actress Jodie Foster at the 1992 Oscars. Pic: AP
Jodie Foster wore an Armani suit at the 1992 Academy Awards, where she won Best Actress for The Silence Of The Lambs.
Armani designed Katie Holmes’ wedding dress when she married Tom Cruise in 2006. Pic: Reuters
When Tom Cruise tied the knot with actress Katie Holmes in 2006, it was Armani who was tasked with creating her wedding dress.
Beyonce at the American Music Awards in 2008 wearing custom Armani. Pic: AP
Performing her hit song All The Single Ladies at the 2008 American Music Awards, Beyonce wore a custom Armani bodysuit.
David and Victoria Beckham wearing Giorgio Armani at the 2008 Met Gala. Pic: AP
David and Victoria Beckham wore Armani at the 2008 Met Gala in New York. The theme was superheroes: fashion and fantasy and Armani co-chaired the gala that year.
Lady Gaga at the Grammys in 2010. Pic: AP
Lady Gaga wore a galactic-inspired dress at the 2010 Grammy Awards, which was part of Giorgio Armani Prive – the designer’s haute couture collection. The outfit turned heads as it was unlike Armani’s typical styles.
Demi Moore at the 2025 Golden Globes. Pic: Reuters
Demi Moore wore a sculpted gold gown at this year’s Golden Globes, where she won Best Performance by a Female Actor for her role in The Substance.
This story originally appeared on Skynews
The NFL is back. Here are 3 big questions as the season kicks off : NPR
The NFL season is here and the league has made its season kickoff a weekend-long event, with a season opener hosted by the Super Bowl-winning Philadelphia Eagles against the Dallas Cowboys Thursday night followed by three more primetime matchups on Friday, Sunday and Monday.
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Patrick Smith/Getty Images
The NFL season is here, and what a start: The league has made its season kickoff a weekend-long event, with a season opener hosted by the Super Bowl-winning Philadelphia Eagles against the Dallas Cowboys Thursday night followed by three more primetime matchups on Friday, Sunday and Monday, each pitting together two Super Bowl hopefuls in matchups with plenty of narrative intrigue.
This season, the league’s ever-expanding quest to win fans and screens worldwide will include a record-setting seven international games, including new host cities Dublin and Berlin, and games broadcast exclusively on four different streaming platforms — including the returns of Prime Video’s Black Friday game and Netflix’s Christmas doubleheader — alongside the usual weekly TV lineups on Fox, CBS, NBC, and ESPN.
And this week, after pop star Taylor Swift’s Instagram-breaking engagement announcement to Kansas City Chiefs celebrity tight end Travis Kelce (the 9th most liked post on Instagram ever), NFL commissioner Roger Goodell coyly declined to deny the possibility of a Swift halftime show at the Super Bowl.
“It’s a maybe,” Goodell said with a smile on the Today show.
What’s not a maybe: Football is back, and with it the storylines and drama of a new season about to unfold. Read on for three big questions looming over the start of the year.
Does the trade heard round the world make the Green Bay Packers Super Bowl favorites?
For fans of the Cowboys, this season is already a nightmare. In genuinely stunning news last week, the Cowboys traded away their biggest star, the 26-year-old defensive end Micah Parsons, to the Green Bay Packers after negotiations over a contract extension had fallen apart.
Former Dallas Cowboy Micah Parsons speaks to the media during a press conference last week after being traded to the Green Bay Packers.
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Jayden Mack/Getty Images
Usually, in sports, it’s a bad thing when a team sends away its best player when that player is in the prime of their playing career. This was not an exception. (And the pain is double for Dallas fans, whose Mavericks inexplicably traded away the generational star Luka Doncic back in February.)
The Packers, in return, sent Dallas two future first-round draft picks and defensive lineman Kenny Clark. “Those draft picks could get us top, Pro-Bowl-type players,” team owner Jerry Jones told reporters afterward.
But there’s an obvious problem with that logic. The Packers are a good team, meaning their first-round picks are likely to be toward the end of the round. The odds of drafting a starting-caliber player (let alone a Pro Bowler) late in the first round are essentially a coin toss. Not to mention, of course, that those picks were already a “Pro-Bowl-type player” in Micah Parsons, who’s been named a Pro Bowler in each of his four seasons in the NFL so far.
For the Packers, the Parsons trade was Christmas in August. The Packers were already dark house Super Bowl contenders. Now, Parsons immediately levels up the Green Bay defense, putting the rest of the NFC on notice. They’re now in the mix for NFC betting favorites right alongside the Eagles and last year’s top-seed Detroit Lions (who meet the Packers Sunday for a high-stakes Week 1 matchup).
Which second-year quarterbacks will take a leap forward … and which will step back?
Never before last year were so many quarterbacks chosen so early in the NFL Draft. A record six quarterbacks were chosen in the first 12 picks, from Caleb Williams to the Chicago Bears through Bo Nix with the Denver Broncos. All but one (J.J. McCarthy of the Minnesota Vikings, who suffered a season-ending knee injury before last season began) saw the field last season — and all of them showed promise, including last year’s Offensive Rookie of the Year winner Jayden Daniels of the Washington Commanders.
Now, for these six players — who make up nearly 20% of the league’s starters — a critical Year 2 is on deck. But forward progress isn’t a guarantee these days, as the patient development of quarterbacks seems to have become a thing of the past in the NFL.
Washington Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels celebrates after rushing for a touchdown against the Cincinnati Bengals during a preseason game last month. Daniels, last year’s Offensive Rookie of the Year winner, hopes to build on his success this year.
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Greg Fiume/Getty Images
One exception is Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell, who has repeatedly shown he can bring out the best in quarterbacks who’ve floundered with other teams, like Sam Darnold and Josh Dobbs. That bodes well for McCarthy, as does the Vikings’ top-tier receiving talent — including the superstar Justin Jefferson — who can help compensate for beginner mistakes.
For leaps forward, look to Nix, who proved he has a solid foundation to build on with a low sack rate and great arm strength, and Drake Maye, whose Patriots worked to improve the pieces around him on offense during the offseason. Meanwhile, any list of regression candidates has to include Daniels, who was excellent last season but whose Washington Commanders could have a tough time repeating that 12-5 record against a tougher schedule this season. The Atlanta Falcons’ Michael Penix undoubtedly has a big arm, but his accuracy issues remain a question mark.
Maybe the biggest wild card is Williams, who came into a chaotic situation in Chicago last year and lost his offensive coordinator, then his head coach, before the end of November. Then the Bears made the splashiest coaching hire of the offseason by bringing in Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson. That’s a lot of change for Williams, who has to start again from the ground up in Year 2. “It’s different — a whole new playbook, different terminology, different reads, different footwork, different things like that,” he told reporters in July. “Being able to handle it all is what we get paid to do.”
Williams and McCarthy will each get their season premiere in the bright lights when their teams meet on Monday Night Football. Circle that one.
Is this the year another AFC contender finally breaks the Kansas City Chiefs’ grip on the conference?
The Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens are powerhouses with MVP-winning quarterbacks at the helm. Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and the Cincinnati Bengals are due for a rebound season after missing the playoffs last year. The Denver Broncos have made leaps with Nix at the helm. The Los Angeles Chargers are in year two of the Jim Harbaugh turnaround plan. The Pittsburgh Steelers, with 41-year-old Aaron Rodgers under center, are a wild card contender. The Houston Texans should be improved, as should the Las Vegas Raiders, amidst an overhaul that has brought coach Pete Carroll and quarterback Geno Smith to town.
Las Vegas Raiders Head coach Pete Carroll speaks to quarterback Geno Smith during a preseason game against the Seattle Seahawks in August.
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Steph Chambers/Getty Images
But one team has stopped them all in five of the last six seasons: the Kansas City Chiefs. If you’re not from Kansas City, you’ve probably got major Chiefs fatigue. But the fact is that, since Patrick Mahomes took over as the Chiefs’ starting quarterback, the Chiefs haven’t fared any worse in the playoffs than an AFC Championship Game loss … in overtime.
Last year was the perfect opportunity to knock the Chiefs off their throne. They were far worse than their 15-2 record and ultimately got their due in an embarrassing Super Bowl loss. But the Bills and Ravens missed their chance, and now, the Chiefs might somehow be better this season — at least their offense might be — if reports out of training camp about the performance of their offensive line and wide receivers are to be believed.
The Bills and the Ravens are favorites to topple the reigning AFC champs, and we’ll see very soon which might have the upper hand, as the Ravens travel to Buffalo to open the season on Sunday Night Football.
This story originally appeared on NPR
American Eagle Sales Up After Sydney Sweeney Great Jeans Ad
While many people were wringing their hands over the controversial ad in which Sydney Sweeney is said to have “great jeans,” American Eagle Outfitters CEO Jay Schottenstein is applauding.
“The fall season is off to a positive start,” he wrote in an earnings release statement. “Fueled by stronger product offerings and the success of recent marketing campaigns with Sydney Sweeney and Travis Kelce, we have seen an uptick in customer awareness, engagement and comparable sales.”
Related: Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce Engagement Sends H&R Block Employees Home Early
Detractors of Sweeney’s ad accuse it of promoting eugenics (the idea of breeding a “superior” human race) by playing on the word “genes,” equating blonde hair and blue eyes with superiority.
The Travis Kelce ad, on the other hand, was a fairly straightforward introduction to a collection you can see here.
While the company’s total net revenue $1.28 billion was down 1% from last year, Sweeney’s jean collaborations “sold out within a week,” CNN reports.
During the earnings call, Chief Marketing Officer Craig Brommers declared that the Sweeney campaign “is a winner, and in just six weeks, the campaign has generated unprecedented new customer acquisition.”
American Eagle’s Executive Creative Director, Jennifer Foyle, added that combined, the Sweeney and Kelce campaigns have “generated a staggering 40 billion impressions.”
The retailer’s stock spiked 25% in after-hours trading after the call.
In less rah-rah news, CNN reports that American Eagle expects tariff impacts to be $20 million in the third quarter and $40 million to $50 million in Q4. They said they utilize price increases to mitigate the impact on their bottom line.
Related: ‘A Necessary Decision’: Nestlé CEO Ousted After Revelation of Romantic Relationship With Subordinate
While many people were wringing their hands over the controversial ad in which Sydney Sweeney is said to have “great jeans,” American Eagle Outfitters CEO Jay Schottenstein is applauding.
“The fall season is off to a positive start,” he wrote in an earnings release statement. “Fueled by stronger product offerings and the success of recent marketing campaigns with Sydney Sweeney and Travis Kelce, we have seen an uptick in customer awareness, engagement and comparable sales.”
Related: Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce Engagement Sends H&R Block Employees Home Early
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This story originally appeared on Entrepreneur
United Airlines adds new flights after bankrupt Spirit axes service to 11 cities
United Airlines on Thursday rushed to cash in on rival Spirit Airlines’ financial troubles, beefing up its footprint in the bankrupt discount carrier’s main markets, including Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, and Las Vegas, as Frontier Group announced new routes to Latin America and the Caribbean.
Florida-based Spirit Airlines, which filed for its second bankruptcy protection last week, has been shrinking its operations and retreating from a number of markets, which has opened up an opportunity for rivals.
The company said it has discontinued service to 11 US cities, including Portland, Oregon, and San Diego, and no longer plans to launch service to Macon, Georgia, which was scheduled to start in mid-October.
“As part of our efforts to transform our business and position Spirit for long-term success, we are adjusting our network to focus on our strongest performing markets,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.
United will start selling tickets on Thursday for new flights to 15 cities where Spirit operates.
The Chicago-based airline said it will fly larger aircraft between Chicago and New York LaGuardia to help customers outside of its hubs connect to the newly added flights.
“If Spirit suddenly goes out of business, it will be incredibly disruptive, so we’re adding these flights to give their customers other options if they want or need them,” said Patrick Quayle, United’s senior vice president of global network planning and alliances.
Frontier introduced 20 new flights to Spirit’s strongholds in late August. On Thursday, the low-cost carrier announced 22 more routes, increasing its service in the US, the Caribbean, and Latin America, including launching service to the Turks and Caicos.
“We expect these carriers to continue to see a sizable benefit from Spirit’s retrenchment, despite having less total overlap,” TD Cowen analyst Tom Fitzgerald wrote in a note this week.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
Pro-Hamas US hatefest in Detroit reminds us of our enemy within
If you had any doubts about the true agenda of the “pro-Palestine” movement, just consider last weekend’s annual People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit.
It was a gathering of martyrdom fetishists, Hamas supporters and antisemites, all bathing in an atmosphere of hate, rage and despair as they condemned Israel but reserved their deepest scorn for the United States.
The focus was a kind of patriotism and love of country — for Palestine. No American flags were in sight, though a prominent “Glory to Our Martyrs” banner kept everyone mindful of their ultimate duty to the cause.
Speakers vied to outdo one another in their fury at Israel, America, the West and Jews.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) used her favorite “M-word” to whoops and applause, telling the crowd, “I wanna say to every genocide enabler, look at this room, motherf—ers, we ain’t going anywhere!”
America, explained the potty-mouthed pol, was built on “slavery, genocide, rape and oppression.”
Among her big ideas: “Keep AIPAC out of US politics!” — though the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is an American organization funded entirely by Americans; the lobbyists and “activists” relying on foreign funding and anti-American priorities would be AIPAC’s critics.
Aisha Nizar of the Palestinian Youth Movement called for interrupting the “supply chains of death that we can intervene in and must intervene in” to disrupt, for example, the construction of F-35 combat planes.
Nidal Jboor, an MD who spoke of his dedication to life and love, also insisted that “Jewish supremacists” be “taken out, neutralized.” Jewish supremacists? “We know who they are,” the loving doctor assured the crowd.
Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University protest organizer, explained that Hamas — the rapist child-burners and rabid Islamists, though of course he didn’t spell that out — is the model for action against the worldwide “Zionist genocidal project.”
Another star of the lunatic left, podcaster Hasan Piker, urged the crowd to motivate themselves through “spite for the worst people in the world, like Michael Rappaport and Amy Schumer.”
If resenting the social media posts of a couple of C-list actor/comedians is how you fire up your base, either your cause is off-center or your followers are emotionally unstable.
In all, the People’s Conference for Palestine wasn’t much different in tone than what the “River to the sea” gang offers on any given day — except that so much unhinged rage, gathered in one room, nicely exposed what a toxic stream of filth this movement truly is.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
Congressman Says Speaker Mike Johnson Lied To Epstein Victims’ Faces
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House Oversight Committee ranking member Stephen Lynch (D-MA) said that when Speaker Mike Johnson met with Epstein victims, his remarks about wanting justice amounted to a lie.
Transcript from CNN News Central:
LYNCH: “If Speaker Johnson wanted transparency and wanted to make progress here, you know, he would allow that discharge petition to succeed and we would get the documents that we’ve been asking for. It is unbelievable that 10 minutes, 10 minutes after he assured those victims that we would leave no stone unturned to get them justice, 10 minutes later, he was in front of the press saying, we’re not going to allow the records to be revealed.”
BOLDUAN: “Do you think he — do you think the Speaker lied to the victims behind closed doors?”
LYNCH: “It amounts to that, right […] Some of these women are looking for their own files on what the government had on them. So he’s telling them that they’re going to get transparency and then steps outside, you know, several minutes later and says, you know, that’s moot, we don’t need to get at that. We don’t need to have that information. There is a direct contradiction in both those statements.”
Clip of Rep. Lynch:
Mike Johnson tells Epstein victims that Republicans will do everything to seek justice, but 10 minutes later, Johnson goes in front of the cameras and announces that the Epstein files won’t be released.
Most of what was released on Tuesday night by House Oversight Committee chair James Comer was information that was already in the public record, and duplicate pages to make the document dump look bigger.
Not only is Mike Johnson getting called out by Gavin Newsom for being a hypocrite on gun violence, but he is also lying to Epstein victims, you know, in the way that good Christians do.
Republicans can’t be shamed. They have no conscience. They will ignore kids shot at schools, lie to Epstein victims, and work to only serve the 1%.
The only way to stop Republicans is to defeat them.
What do you think about Johnson lying to Epstein victims? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This story originally appeared on Politicususa
iPhone 17 Pro lineup may get modest RAM increase versus iPhone 16 Pro
Apple’s iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro will feature faster chips with some models getting more RAM than ever before, according to a last-minute analyst report.
iPhone 17 Pro – Image Credit: AppleInsider
With Apple set to announce a raft of new iPhones at its “Awe Dropping” event on September 9, Trendforce analysts have had their say on what we should expect. And while the rumors largely match up with previous reports, it’s another indication of big things to come.
The report suggests that Apple will give the upcoming iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Air a new A19 chip, while those buying an iPhone 17 Pro or iPhone 17 Pro Max will get the more capable A19 Pro.
Rumor Score: 🤯 Likely
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This story originally appeared on Appleinsider
As AI cuts entry-level jobs, young workers are left wondering what’s next
Welcome to Eye on AI! In this edition...entry-level job loss due to AI breeds uncertainty…OpenAI acquires Statsig for $1.1 billion – and one of its top executives changes roles…French AI startup Mistral is reportedly finalizing new funding round at $14 billion valuation…is Amazon getting into the AI agent game?
Life has always been uncertain, but for generations, young college grads could count on one thing: an entry-level job. It wasn’t glamorous—maybe you fetched coffee, made photocopies, or slogged through low-level tasks for little pay—but it gave you a foothold, the first rung of whatever ladder you hoped to climb.
Now there are signs that, in some industries, that “sure thing” is slipping away. A new paper from Stanford University’s Digital Economy Lab drew wide attention last week: it found that since late 2022, early-career workers aged 22 to 25 in jobs most exposed to AI automation—like software development and customer service—have seen steep relative declines in employment. The researchers tested other possible explanations, from pandemic-related education setbacks to economy-wide factors like rising interest rates, but concluded that the rise of generative AI was the most likely driver, while noting more data is needed to prove a direct causal link.
There is also a new Harvard study which also found that the release of ChatGPT in November 2022 marked a turning point in the labor market From 2015 through mid-2022, hiring was on the rise for both junior and senior roles. But beginning in 2022, entry-level employment stalled and then slipped into decline. According to the study, headcount for early-career roles at AI-adopting firms has fallen 7.7% over six quarters since early 2023. The study also found that senior staff, were largely spared. Employment for more experienced workers has continued its steady climb since 2015, avoiding the downturn hitting their younger colleagues.
A third study, carried out by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, did not look at whether younger and older workers were affected differently, but it did examine the link between occupations that had adopted AI most intensively and job losses and found a distinct correlation. The impacts were greatest in occupations that used mathematics and computing intensively, such as software development, and much less in blue collar work and fields such as healthcare that were less prone to being automated with AI.
As my colleague Jeremy Kahn said in Tuesday’s Eye on AI, none of these studies disentangle the effects of AI from the possible effects of the unwinding of the tech hiring boom that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, he explained, “many large companies bulked up their software development and IT departments. Major tech firms such as Google, Meta, and Microsoft hired tens of thousands of new employees, sometimes hiring people before there was even any work for them to do just in order to prevent rivals from snapping up the same coders. Then, when the pandemic ended and it was clear that some ideas, such as Meta’s pivot to the metaverse, were not going to pan out, these same companies laid off tens of thousands of workers.”
Whatever the reasons, the prospect of post-college unemployment is an uncomfortable place to be—especially for students who thought they could count on steady pipelines into fields like IT or consulting. PwC, for instance, says it plans to recruit a third fewer grads by 2028. Uncertainty, in turn, tends to spread, breeding anxiety—which explains surveys like a recent one that found that 60% said they felt pessimistic about their career prospects.
Some may tell young people to pivot, persist, or simply pray. But we can’t afford complacency. Society will need these workers one way or another, and that means building real pathways into today’s jobs—and tomorrow’s. What’s happening on the ground to guarantee young people are both prepared for—and included in—the future of work? Opportunity has to exist, even in the face of uncertainty.
With that, here’s the rest of the AI news.
Sharon Goldman
sharon.goldman@fortune.com
@sharongoldman
FORTUNE ON AI
The Google antitrust ruling gives its AI rivals one big reason to cheer — by Jeremy Kahn
Figma is getting crushed in its post-IPO earnings debut; CEO Dylan Field is focused on AI’s long term power to ‘raise the ceiling’ — by Allie Garfinkle
Is an ‘AI winter’ coming? Here’s what investors and leaders can learn from past AI slumps – by Jeremy Kahn
The new thing on campus: Why universities are appointing their first chief AI officers – by John Kell
AI IN THE NEWS
OpenAI acquires Statsig for $1.1 billion – plus executive moves. OpenAI has snapped up product development startup Statsig in a $1.1 billion deal, according to CNBC—the latest move in its acquisition streak following the purchase of Jony Ive’s hardware venture, io. As part of the deal, Statsig CEO Vijaye Raji will join OpenAI as chief technologist for its applications unit, reporting to Fidji Simo, the former Instacart CEO appointed in May to lead OpenAI’s applications business. In addition, OpenAI’s chief product officer, Kevin Weil, announced in a post on LinkedIn that he will become VP of a new group called OpenAI for Science, “to build the next great scientific instrument: an AI-powered platform that accelerates scientific discovery.” Weil said he will work closely with Sebastien Bubeck, an OpenAI researcher and the former VP of AI and Distinguished Scientist at Microsoft.
French AI startup Mistral reportedly finalizing new funding round at $14 billion valuation. Bloomberg reported that Mistral, the French AI startup founded by former Meta and DeepMind researchers, is finalizing a new funding round that will value the company at $14 billion. Mistral, an OpenAI rival, develops open-source language models, a chatbot tailored to European users called Le Chat, and other AI services for enterprise companies. In March, I interviewed CEO Arthur Mensch, who denied reports the Paris-based startup is planning an IPO but highlighted its growth and a renewed focus on open-source AI to compete with China’s DeepSeek. Many argue Mistral is benefitting from not just the capabilities of its models, but also from geopolitical tailwinds. European countries, and France in particular, are increasingly talking about the need for “sovereign AI” that would enable them to escape dependency on U.S. or Chinese AI systems.
Is Amazon getting into the AI agent game? Amazon, which far better known for its AWS cloud computing division than for big moves in enterprise software, is testing new agentic, AI-powered workspace software called Quick Suite, according to internal documents viewed by Business Insider. Quick Suite empowers “every business user to make better decisions, faster, and act on them swiftly by unifying Al agents for business insights, deep research, and automation into a single experience,” said one of the confidential documents. According to the reporting, several companies have been given a private preview of the new technology, and Amazon recently sent out invitations for an internal beta test, which said: “With over 40% of business users expected to adopt Al-enhanced work environments soon, AWS is positioned to lead this shift by providing integrated solutions that help organizations — including our own — effectively deploy and scale Al agents in the workplace.”
AI CALENDAR
Sept. 8-10: Fortune Brainstorm Tech, Park City, Utah. Apply to attend here.
Oct. 6-10: World AI Week, Amsterdam
Oct. 21-22: TedAI San Francisco. Apply to attend here.
Dec. 2-7: NeurIPS, San Diego
Dec. 8-9: Fortune Brainstorm AI San Francisco. Apply to attend here.
EYE ON AI NUMBERS
30%
That’s the share of workers who say they’re comfortable with AI acting as their boss, according to recent research from enterprise software company Workday.
While 75% of employees say they’re fine teaming up with AI agents, only 30% draw the line at being managed by one. The survey highlights a clear tension: adoption is surging—82% of organizations are expanding their use of AI agents—but trust remains uneven.
“We’re entering a new era of work where AI can be an incredible partner, and a complement to human judgement, leadership, and empathy,” said Kathy Pham, vice president of AI at Workday. “Building trust means being intentional in how AI is used and keeping people at the center of every decision.”
This story originally appeared on Fortune