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The countdown to the first 48-team World Cup begins in earnest on Friday as the draw for the 2026 finals takes place in Washington, with Donald Trump set to dominate much of the attention. The most logistically complex World Cup in history will be held across North America from June 11 to July 19, with 16 more teams added to the global showpiece, up from the 32 nations involved in Qatar in 2022. Friday’s ceremony, at the Kennedy Center on the banks of the Potomac River, will be a star-studded event but Trump will take centre stage. FIFA president Gianni…
People walk next to the Google Cloud logo, during the 2025 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain, March 4, 2025.Albert Gea | ReutersGoogle Cloud announced Thursday a multi-year partnership with artificial intelligence coding startup Replit, giving the search giant fresh firepower against the coding products of rivals, including Anthropic and Cursor. Under the partnership, Replit will expand usage of Google Cloud services, add more of Google’s models onto its platform, and support AI coding use cases for enterprise customers. Google will continue to be Replit’s primary cloud provider. Replit, founded nearly a decade ago, is a leader in the fast-growing AI…
PM Shehbaz Sharif had forwarded a summary to the President’s House for formal approval, as per official releaseField Marshal Asim Munir. Photo: ISPR Field Marshal Asim Munir has been appointed the country’s first Chief of Defence Forces after a formal approval from President Asif Ali Zardari. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif earlier approved the summary for the appointment and forwarded it to the President’s House for formal approval, according to a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s office on Thursday. Field Marshal Munir will hold dual responsibilities as both Chief of Army Staff (COAS) and Chief of Defence Forces (CDF), marking…
A sign at a NYS Department Of Labor job fair at the Downtown Central Library in Buffalo, New York, US, on Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025.Lauren Petracca | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesThis is CNBC’s Morning Squawk newsletter. Subscribe here to receive future editions in your inbox.Here are five key things investors need to know to start the trading day:1. Silver linings playbookYesterday highlighted the relevance of a market adage: Bad news can actually be good news for investors. After private payroll data showed weakness in the labor market, stocks climbed as investors hoped the report would strengthen the case for an interest rate…
Australia pace bowler Mitchell Starc said Thursday he could not be compared with Wasim Akram after he surpassed the Pakistani great as the leading left-arm pace bowler in Test history. Starc’s six-wicket haul on day one of the second Ashes Test in Brisbane gave him 418 Test wickets, four more than Wasim. “Wasim’s still a far better bowler than I am,” said Starc. “So as far as I’m concerned, he’s still the pinnacle of left-armers and certainly he’s right up there with the best bowlers to ever play the game. “It’s nice to be spoken of up around that, but…
A Fanatics advertisement on the sideline billboard during the NWSL match between Houston Dash and Washington Spirit at Shell Energy Stadium on March 14, 2025 in Houston, Texas.Aaron M. Sprecher | Getty Images Sport | Getty ImagesFanatics has struck a deal to run retail and merchandising for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the company announced Thursday. The global competition will see 104 matches played in 16 stadiums across the U.S., Canada and Mexico this coming summer. “There is no larger sporting event in the entire world than the World Cup … we’ve been doing a lot of events; this is…
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repositioned the social media giant as an AI company. Vincent Feuray | AFP | Getty ImagesMeta Platforms shares popped about 4% higher on Thursday after Bloomberg reported that CEO Mark Zuckerberg was looking to make significant cuts to the company’s metaverse resources.Bloomberg said that executives have considered budget cuts as high as 30% for the unit, citing people familiar with the talks.The move would be notable for the Facebook parent company, which changed its name to Meta in October 2021 to signal its pivot beyond social media.Zuckerberg said at the time that “the metaverse is…
Joe Root finally scored his maiden Test century in Australia on his fourth Ashes tour to guide England from a precarious 5-2 to 325-9 at stumps after a pulsating first day of the second Ashes Test in Brisbane on Thursday. Mitchell Starc became the most successful left-arm fast bowler in history as he claimed 6-71, but the opening sessions of the day-night contest were dominated by Root, who scored a masterful 135 not out. Number 11 Jofra Archer thrilled the travelling army of fans as he smashed a career-best unbeaten 32 off 26 balls with two sixes to provide some…
Key PointsFamily office dealmakers have yet to pick up the pace even as the end of the year draws near.But investment firms of billionaires, including those of Jeff Bezos and Bernard Arnault, are still banking on AI health-care startups.For family offices looking to tap into the AI boom and make an impact, investing in health-tech is an attractive strategy.A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox. While deal-making on Wall Street typically picks up…
CNBC’s Jim Cramer said Thursday that OpenAI reminds him of the kind of speculation and leveraged, aggressive bets that caused the 1990s dot-com bubble to burst. “OpenAI is 2000 in a nutshell,” Cramer said on “Squawk on the Street,” comparing the current everything-AI-mentality to the everything-internet that got the market in trouble roughly 25 years ago. The Nasdaq seemed unstoppable in the late 1990s, reaching all-time highs in March 2000. When it all came apart, the tech-heavy index lost nearly 80% over roughly 2½ years, bottoming in October 2022. The Nasdaq took about 15 years to return to record highs.…