"Going Through Some Pain": Dick's Smashed Most On Record As Foot Locker Bet Goes Limp

Taiwan Tech Insiders Warn Beijing's Germanium Squeeze Is Hitting Production Nikkei Asia reports that China is restricting or delaying exports of germanium- and quartz-based materials to Taiwan, creating "painful supply-chain bottlenecks" across the island's key aerospace, semiconductor, and optical companies. The supply disruptions reinforce the urgent need for the US and its allies to accelerate supply-chain decoupling and secure alternative sources of critical materials. Beijing's ability to weaponize shipments could prove devastating during a military conflict or allow China to slow Western semiconductor and AI infrastructure buildouts while its domestic AI...

Suspected US Drone Strike Kills Alleged Al-Qaeda Member In Yemen Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com, A suspected US drone strike hit a vehicle carrying two alleged al-Qaeda members in Yemen's southeastern Hadramout province on Tuesday, China's Xinhua news agency has reported. A local security source told the news agency that one of the men in the vehicle was killed while the other was wounded. So far, there's been no confirmation of the strike from the US, but the US hasn't officially acknowledged an airstrike against Yemen's al-Qaeda affiliate, known as al-Qaeda...

Oracle Kills $7BN Tencent AI Chip Deal Under Trump Pressure Trump administration officials went to Oracle with concerns about its chip leasing contract with Tencent, and the deal has since been cancelled, two people familiar with the matter told the Financial Times.The five-year lease, worth an estimated $7 billion, would have given the Chinese tech giant access to as many as 100,000 advanced AI chips across a string of Oracle data centers in Southeast Asia, chips it can't use at home because of curbs from both Washington and Beijing. It...