Mideast war lights fire under energy transition plans

Shares in Intel soared on Thursday after it smashed quarterly earnings expectations in what could be a sign that the US chip maker is on a path to recovery.

Intel reported revenue of $13.6 billion in a 7 percent increase from the same quarter a year earlier, but logged a $3.7 billion loss that was less than the market had anticipated.

It forecast revenue in the current quarter would range from $13.8 billion to $14.8 billion.

Shares soared more than 19 percent in after-market trades.

"The next wave of AI will bring intelligence closer to the end user, moving from foundational models to inference to agentic," Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said in the earnings release.

"This shift is significantly increasing the need for Intel's CPUs and wafer and advanced packaging offerings."

A hot AI trend of digital "agents" specializing in handling computer tasks independently means more work for networks using the kinds of processing units made by Intel local networks rather than cutting edge GPUs in datacenters, according to Tan.

Shares in Intel took off late last year after AI giant Nvidia announced it would invest $5 billion in its lagging rival.

"Intel delivered the kind of report that the bulls needed to justify a stock that's soared over the past year, with data center momentum and foundry progress both pointing in the right direction," Emarketer analyst Jacob Bourne said of the earnings.

"These results make Intel's turnaround look less like a hope-fueled blip and more like a steadier longer-term trajectory."

- Intel allies -

Nvidia joined Japanese investment giant SoftBank and the US government in backing the once-dominant chipmaker, which has fallen behind in recent years after missing key technology shifts.

President Donald Trump's administration surprised the tech industry last year by taking a 10 percent equity stake in Intel, recognizing the strategic importance of the company that powered the PC and internet revolution with its processors.

Intel largely missed the smartphone boom and failed to develop competitive hardware for the AI era, allowing Asian manufacturers TSMC and Samsung to dominate the custom semiconductor market.

Most notably, Intel was blindsided by Nvidia's rise as the world's leading AI chip provider.

Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs), originally designed for gaming consoles, have become the essential building blocks of artificial intelligence systems, with tech giants scrambling to secure them for their data servers and AI projects.

Tan, who took over as Intel CEO a year ago amid layoffs and market challenges, has acknowledged the difficulty of turning the company around, particularly as US-China trade tensions complicate the semiconductor landscape.

"A year ago, the conversation about Intel was about whether we could survive," Tan said.

"Today is about how quickly we can add manufacturing capacity and scale our supply to meet enormous demand for our products."

Tan noted a recent announcement that Intel has joined Elon Musk's companies in a project to make chips for AI, robotics and data centers in space.

Terafab, a manufacturing facility based near Austin, Texas, will aim to produce one terawatt of computing power per year, Musk said last month.

That is slightly less than the total power generation capacity of the United States, according to an industry group.

Musk said the project would be run jointly by his electric-vehicle firm Tesla and his rocket company SpaceX.

An "advanced technology fab" in Austin will have the facilities to design, manufacture, test and improve each chip, Musk said.

Musk did not give a timeline for the Terafab's output, and has previously promised grand results from other projects on compressed time scales.

"Elon and I share a strong conviction that global semiconductor supply is not keeping pace with a rapid acceleration in demand," Tan said on the call.

gc/sla

In the heart of the US capital, a fence stands adorned with 20,000 teddy bears to represent the Ukrainian children who, according to Kyiv, have been abducted by invading Russia, as war rages on.

Activists held a gathering of US lawmakers on Thursday at the somber display located a stone's throw from the Capitol, with a simple plea: "Bring Them Home."

"When you see the scale... you then start to understand how terrifying this is, and that all this time, while we are waiting for some kind of negotiations, there is children's life at stake," said Mariia Hlyten, a 24-year-old Ukrainian activist. 

"They have to be returned immediately, as soon as possible."

Congressmen Richard Blumenthal, Jamie Raskin and Michael McCaul took turns speaking about the plight of Ukraine's missing children at Thursday's event, coordinated by Razom for Ukraine in partnership with the American Coalition for Ukraine.

"What Vladimir Putin is doing here is not trying to take territory alone. He's not trying to defeat a nation alone," Blumenthal, a Senate Democrat, said. 

The Russian leader is "trying to destroy the people, that is the purpose of abducting children, changing their names, re-education. Killing their identity, if not the children themselves -- making sure that they never grow up speaking their own language, knowing their own religion and culture," Blumenthal added.

Democrat Jamie Raskin called Putin's actions "a blatant violation" of human rights, international humanitarian law and the laws of war. 

"It's a war crime and if it's done intentionally... it is part of the proof of genocide," Raskin said.

Hlyten's relative, fellow Ukrainian Arkady Dolina, stood nearby with a large blue and yellow flag draped over his shoulders at the event.

"Absolutely horrible," the 28-year-old exclaimed, referring to what he said was a vast number of kidnappings from occupied territories by Russia since it invaded Ukraine in 2022.  

Moscow denies the claims.

"This is the continuation of a centuries long Russian policy to abduct, indoctrinate kids and then send them as their cannon fodder to fight their stupid, useless, brutal wars," Dolina said.

In February, President Volodymyr Zelensky said 2,000 Ukrainian children had been brought back from Russia and Russian-occupied territories, but that thousands more remained "captive."

In March, the United States announced the creation of a $25 million fund to aid in the return of Ukrainian children, a cause that First Lady Melania Trump has also spoken out on.

The International Criminal Court in 2023 issued an arrest warrant for Putin and his children's rights commissioner "for the war crime of unlawful deportation" of children.

Kyiv says Russia has indoctrinated them, forced many to adopt Russian citizenship and tried to scrub them of their Ukrainian identity -- accusations supported by testimony from Ukrainians who managed to leave Russian occupation. 

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Iran's footballers will be welcome at this year's World Cup, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday, distancing the US government from a proposal that Italy could take their place in the tournament.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Rubio denied that Washington had asked the Iranian team not to come to the World Cup -- but warned the United States may yet bar entry to members of the Iranian delegation it judged to have ties to Tehran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is regarded as a terrorist organization by Washington and several other governments.

No-one "from the US has told them they can't come," Rubio said of Iran's World Cup participation. 

"The problem with Iran, it would be not their athletes, it would be some of the other people (they) would want to bring with them, some of whom have ties to the IRGC. We may not be able to let them in, but not the athletes themselves," Rubio added.

Rubio was responding to a reported proposal from Italy-born US special envoy Paolo Zampolli, who told the Financial Times he had floated the idea of Italy taking Iran's World Cup place to US President Donald Trump and football's world governing body FIFA.

The proposal was dismissed out of hand by the Italian government and sports officials earlier Thursday.

Rubio said the proposal did not reflect the US government's position. 

"I don't know where that's coming from, other than speculation that Iran may decide not to come, and Italy would fill their spot," Rubio said. "But that's if they decide not to come on their own, it's because they decided not to come."

Zampolli told the Financial Times on Wednesday it would be a "dream" to see Italy at the finals in the United States, Mexico and Canada despite the fact they lost in a qualification playoff last month.

- 'Not possible' -

However, Italy's sports minister Andrea Abodi said on Thursday that a reinstatement of Italy "first, is not possible; second, is not appropriate, you qualify on the pitch", according to Italian news agencies ANSA and AGI.

That view was echoed by the president of Italy's Olympic committee, Luciano Buonfiglio.

"I would feel offended. You have to earn your place in the World Cup," he said.

The Iranian embassy to Rome responded saying that the suggestion showed US "moral bankruptcy" and that Italy did not need "political privileges" to demonstrate its football greatness.

Italy has won the World Cup four times, but it missed out on the tournament for a third successive time after losing a penalty shootout to Bosnia and Herzegovina in their qualifying playoff final.

Iran's participation at the World Cup has been thrown into doubt by the war with the US and Israel that broke out on February 28.

The Iranian football federation (FFIRI) had said in April it was "negotiating" with FIFA to relocate the country's World Cup matches from the United States to Mexico.

But FIFA President Gianni Infantino told AFP last month that Iran will be at the World Cup and that they will play "where they are supposed to be, according to the draw".

The FIFA chief reiterated that stance in Washington last week.

When contacted by AFP about Zampolli's suggestion on Thursday, FIFA referred to Infantino's recent comments.

In 2022, Zampolli made a similar suggestion, proposing to FIFA that Italy should replace Iran at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar because of the Islamic Republic's crackdown on protesters at that time. His proposal fell on deaf ears.

Zampolli is an Italian-American socialite, businessman and founder of a modelling agency, who claims to have introduced Trump to his current wife Melania Trump.

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The Los Angeles Lakers, up 2-0 on the Phoenix Suns in their first-round NBA playoff series, could have Austin Reaves back from injury in game three.

Reaves has been sidelined by an oblique muscle injury since April 4, a devastating late-season blow to a Lakers team that also saw league-leading scorer Luka Doncic sidelined with a hamstring strain.

Nevertheless, with 41-year-old LeBron James leading the charge, the Lakers won the first two games at home in their best-of-seven Western Conference series and will try to press their advantage as the series shifts to Phoenix on Friday.

Reaves, who averaged a career-high 23.3 points per game in the regular season, was upgraded to "questionable" on the Lakers' Thursday evening injury report, and Suns star Kevin Durant was downgraded to "questionable" with a sprained left ankle.

Durant, who arrived in Houston from Phoenix last July as part of a blockbuster seven-team deal, was a late scratch from game one with a bruised knee.

He returned for game two but struggled in the second half, scoring just three of his team-high 23 points after the break and finishing with nine turnovers as the Lakers double-teamed him relentlessly.

The series was billed as a renewal of the James-Durant rivalry, which stretches back to 2008 and includes three clashes in the NBA Finals.

bb/js

(The Center Square) – A federal appeals court ruling upholding a Texas law requiring Ten Commandments displays in public school classrooms is setting up a potential challenge before the U.S. Supreme Court over the role of religion in public education.

In a decision issued this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit upheld Senate Bill 10, which mandates that public schools “shall” display the Ten Commandments in classrooms across the state. Opponents of the law said they plan to appeal the ruling to the nation’s highest court.

The case is Rabbi Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District.

David Hacker, vice president of legal services and senior counsel at First Liberty Institute, told The Center Square that the decision means schools must comply with the requirement as written in the law.

Hacker noted that the Ten Commandments have educational value. 

They are “a foundational moral, literary and historical text. Their influence on Western legal traditions is widely acknowledged and needs to be part of any complete education,” Hacker told The Center Square. 

Hacker said the 5th Circuit ruling makes clear that the establishments of religion “historically involved coercion: mandatory church attendance, enforced religious taxes and legal penalties for noncompliance. 

“By contrast, simply displaying a religious text on a classroom wall bears no resemblance to these practices,” he added.

The defendants include the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Texas, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

In a joint statement, the defendants said they were “extremely disappointed” in the ruling, arguing it conflicts with First Amendment protections and longstanding Supreme Court precedent. They said the decision undermines the separation of church and state and interferes with families’ rights to decide how their children receive religious instruction.

The Center Square reached out for comment to all of these organizations, but did not receive a response from any of them but the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the foundation, criticized the ruling, noting the narrow margin of the court’s decision and calling it inconsistent with established precedent.

"We take a little solace in the fact that, despite its being the most conservative appeals court, the vote was so close, 9-8. It is nevertheless shocking that an appeals court would presume to do what only the Supreme Court itself can do and overturn long-standing precedent,” Gaylor told The Center Square. 

The organizations said it plans to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court “to reverse this decision and uphold the religious-freedom rights of children and parents,” and expressed confidence the court will reaffirm its decision in Stone v. Graham, a 1980 case addressing religious displays in public schools.

The state of Texas has also discussed potential changes to how social studies is taught under the state’s Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills for K-12 social studies curriculum, including references to biblical texts. 

At the federal level, the Trump administration has expressed support for expanding religious expression in schools and earlier this year issued guidance regarding prayer in public education.

Shock images of Argentine football icon Diego Maradona lying dead in bed, his stomach grotesquely swollen, rocked the negligence trial of his medical team on Thursday.

Maradona, regarded as one of the greatest football players of all times, died in November 2020 at age 60, while recovering at home from surgery for a brain clot.

The larger-than-life footballer died of heart failure and acute pulmonary edema -- a condition where fluid accumulates in the lungs -- two weeks after going under the knife.

The emergency room doctor, Juan Carlos Pinto, who arrived by ambulance at his home, on Thursday testified about the condition in which he found the star after his death.

"He had a lot of edema, his face was very swollen, there was edema on his limbs, and a globular abdomen, like a balloon."

The court was shown a 17-minute video shot by forensic police of Maradona on his deathbed, wearing a pair of football shorts and a black t-shirt pulled up to reveal a cavernous stomach.

Pinto said the swelling was caused by a large quantity of both fat and ascites, an abnormal buildup of fluid in the abdominal cavity often linked to cirrhosis of the liver.

Maradona's daughter Gianinna, who was in court for the hearing, wept as Pinto spoke and buried her head in her hands as the video was shown.

Seven medical workers, including a neurosurgeon, a psychiatrist and a nurse, face prison terms of between eight and 25 years if convicted of homicide with possible intent -- pursuing a course of action despite knowing it could lead to death -- over the conditions of Maradona's care in his final days.

Both Pinto and a police officer testified about the lack of medical equipment in the rented residence where Maradona was recuperating.

"There was no defibrillator, no oxygen, nothing. In the room, there was nothing to suggest that the patient was in hospital at home," Pinto said.

The accused deny responsibility for Maradona's death, saying the star of the 1986 World Cup, who battled cocaine and alcohol addictions, succumbed to natural causes.

The first trial over his death was annulled last year following revelations that one of the judges took part in a clandestine documentary about the case.

A second trial, conducted by a new panel of judges, began last week. 

It is expected to last at least three months.

mry/pbl/cb/md

(The Center Square) – The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has reopened an investigation into the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Black Student Achievement Plan following a request from Defending Education, which alleges the program allocates funds and resources based on race in violation of Title VI. 

The complaint targeted LAUSD’s Black Student Achievement Plan, launched in 2021 to improve academic outcomes and well-being for Black students through culturally responsive teaching and expanded family and community engagement, The Center Square previously reported.  

In a letter Thursday to Defending Education, the Department of Education said it would open an investigation into the issue. “OCR evaluated this complaint … and has decided to open the complaint for investigation.”

The Office for Civil Rights said it will examine whether the district’s Black Student Achievement Plan violates Title VI and its implementing regulations by providing services and programs to students based on race and excluding students of other races.

The department noted that opening an investigation does not mean OCR has reached a final determination on the merits of the complaint.

In 2024, the Office for Civil Rights dismissed a similar complaint, finding “no evidence of a current violation.”

An invitation to the December G20 summit in the United States will be sent to Russia as a member of the organization, a senior US official said Thursday.

Such an invitation would come as the Trump administration pushes to further ease the international isolation Russia brought on itself by invading Ukraine in 2022.

"All G20 members will be invited to attend ministerial meetings and the leaders' summit," a senior Trump administration official said in a statement.

The Kremlin said earlier in the day that Russian President Vladimir Putin had not yet decided if he would attend.

"No such decisions have been made yet," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in Moscow.

Putin has not participated in a meeting of the world's top economies since 2019, first because of the coronavirus pandemic and then due to the war in Ukraine.

Russia was invited at "the highest level" for the December 14-15 summit in Miami, the state news agency RIA Novosti quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Pankin as saying.

After sending troops into neighboring Ukraine in 2022, Russia was slapped with numerous international sanctions and faced diplomatic isolation from the West.   

In 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin over the war, limiting the Russian leader's travel. 

The United States is not a member of the ICC and Putin travelled to Alaska last August for a summit with US President Donald Trump. 

Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has sought to revive long-frozen relations with Russia in a bid to end the war in Ukraine. 

Initially promising to end the war in 24 hours, Trump's attempts so far have delivered few tangible results, even as Moscow and Kyiv met multiple times for talks.   

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(The Center Square) – Time is ticking for Iran, as President Donald Trump says he won’t be rushed into giving a timeline regarding the conflict and ceasefire with Iran.

Pessure appears to be mounting for the fractured Iranian government though as Trump said Thursday that he is ordering the U.S. Navy to “shoot and kill any boat” used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The president noted many of the boats being used by the IRGC are smaller, fast-attack-type boats, claiming the Iranian Navy’s 159-ship fleet is “at the bottom of the sea.”

He warned the remaining boats may be used to place mines around the Strait of Hormuz, as the U.S. is currently engaging in mine sweeping operations to clear the waterway.

The order comes after Iran seized two cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz, testing the fragile ceasefire with the U.S.

Iran claims the ships “operated without required authorization,” adding that the ships were “endangering maritime safety.” In addition to the two ships seized, Iran has been accused of firing on a third ship in the strait.

Trump appears to be capitalizing on the fractured Iranian regime as he is waiting for a unified peace proposal from the Islamic Republic. The president believes the nearly two-week-old naval blockade on Iran is choking the regime economically, arguing Iran is losing $500 million a day by not being able to sell its oil.

The president claims that time is not on the side of Iran, adding that a “deal will only be made when it’s appropriate and good for the United States of America, our allies and, in fact, the rest of the world.”

During an event in the Oval Office Thursday afternoon, the president indicated he was waiting on Iran to come up with a deal, though he is open to further military action.

“I took it out militarily. Now all we’re doing is sitting back and seeing what deal and if they don’t want to make a deal, then I’ll finish it up militarily with the other 25% of the targets,” the president told reporters.

U.S. forces have intercepted 33 ships since the Naval blockade began nearly two weeks ago.

Shares in Intel soared on Thursday after it smashed quarterly earnings expectations in what could be a sign that the US chip maker is on a path to recovery.

Intel reported revenue of $13.6 billion in a 7 percent increase from the same quarter a year earlier, but logged a $3.7 billion loss that was less than the market had anticipated.

It forecast revenue in the current quarter would range from $13.8 billion to $14.8 billion.

Shares soared more than 15 percent in after-market trades.

"The next wave of AI will bring intelligence closer to the end user, moving from foundational models to inference to agentic," Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan said in the earnings release.

"This shift is significantly increasing the need for Intel's CPUs and wafer and advanced packaging offerings."

A hot AI trend of digital "agents" specializing in handling computer tasks independently means more work for networks using the kinds of processing units made by Intel local networks rather than cutting edge GPUs in datacenters, according to Tan.

Shares in Intel took off late last year after AI giant Nvidia announced it would invest $5 billion in its lagging rival.

Nvidia joined Japanese investment giant SoftBank and the US government in backing the once-dominant chipmaker, which has fallen behind in recent years after missing key technology shifts.

President Donald Trump's administration surprised the tech industry last year by taking a 10 percent equity stake in Intel, recognizing the strategic importance of the company that powered the PC and internet revolution with its processors.

Intel largely missed the smartphone boom and failed to develop competitive hardware for the AI era, allowing Asian manufacturers TSMC and Samsung to dominate the custom semiconductor market.

Most notably, Intel was blindsided by Nvidia's rise as the world's leading AI chip provider.

Nvidia's graphics processing units (GPUs), originally designed for gaming consoles, have become the essential building blocks of artificial intelligence systems, with tech giants scrambling to secure them for their data servers and AI projects.

Tan, who took over as Intel CEO a year ago amid layoffs and market challenges, has acknowledged the difficulty of turning the company around, particularly as US-China trade tensions complicate the semiconductor landscape.

"Intel delivered the kind of report that the bulls needed to justify a stock that's soared over the past year, with data center momentum and foundry progress both pointing in the right direction," Emarketer analyst Jacob Bourne said of the earnings.

"These results make Intel's turnaround look less like a hope-fueled blip and more like a steadier longer-term trajectory."

gc/sla