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Trade Wars
Huawei Plans New Smartphone Chips This Fall As Rivalry With Nvidia And Apple Heats Up
Chinese tech giant Huawei on Monday touted a new approach to developing advanced semiconductors despite U.S. sanctions, as Nvidia struggles to sell its high-end chips in China. Huawei said it developed a new engineering approach called “LogicFolding” to manufacture its Kirin smartphone chips this fall. That breakthrough comes as Nvidia faces U.S. export restrictions in China and Apple contends with renewed competition from Huawei in the world’s second-largest consumer economy.
Huawei’s Mate 60 smartphone, launched in 2023, included 5G connectivity powered by an advanced chip that helped the company regain market share from Apple. While U.S. restrictions have kept Nvidia from selling its most advanced chips to China in recent years, Beijing has pushed to support homegrown technology instead. Last week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told CNBC the U.S. chipmaker had “conceded” the Chinese market to Huawei.
Read more at CNBC
Employment in New York Stat Drops in April But Higher in the Mid-Hudson
According to preliminary seasonally adjusted figures released last week by the New York State Department of Labor, the number of private sector jobs in New York State decreased over the month by 10,200, or -0.1%, to 8,451,200 in April 2026. The number of private sector jobs in the U.S. increased by 0.1% in April 2026. New York State's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate held constant at 4.6% in April 2026. At the same time, New York State's labor force (seasonally adjusted) decreased by 14,300. The statewide labor force participation rate decreased from 61.8% in March to 61.7% in April 2026.
For the 12-month period ending April 2026, the private sector job count in the Hudson Valley rose by 7,500, or 0.9 percent, to 850,300. Job gains were largest in private education and health services (+2,700), trade, transportation and utilities (+1,700), financial activities (+1,200), professional and business services (+600), leisure and hospitality (+500), mining, logging and construction (+400) and manufacturing (+300).
See the Labor Market Report
Barilla To Expand New York Pasta Plant
Barilla Group announced May 20 that it would expand its Avon, New York dry pasta factory. According to a release from the New York governor’s office, the pasta manufacturer plans to spend a total of $170 million on a two-stage expansion process. The first stage of the expansion will spend $145 on the construction of a new, 52,000-square-foot building containing a new production line and three new packaging lines; the pasta maker did not specify what the second stage would spend the remaining $25 million on, except that the company says the expansion will add in total 90 new jobs to the site.
According to Empire State Development, New York granted Barilla a performance-based tax credit worth up to $2.75 million in exchange for hiring the anticipated number of employees. In a statement, Barilla Americas leadership said the expansion would help the company meet demand from U.S. customers. “Rooted in our Italian heritage, we continue to innovate and evolve to meet the needs of our U.S. customers,” Barilla Americas President Melissa Tendick said. “This expansion supports our ability to meet growing demand while remaining focused on what matters most — delivering high-quality pasta that consumers know and trust.”
Read more at Plant Services
Lockheed Breaks Ground On New THAAD Interceptor Plant
Lockheed Martin on Thursday broke ground on a new 87,000 square foot production facility in Alabama, an investment that lays the groundwork for the company to quadruple the rate of THAAD interceptor production. The newly christened, and notably-named, “Building 47” in Troy, Ala., nearly doubles the current production space for THAAD interceptors, and will also house future work on the Next Generation Interceptor program, the company stated. During the groundbreaking ceremony, Lockheed CEO Jim Taiclet said the new facility was an example of “[Lockheed’s] willingness to make formal major investments before we have a contract.”
The Trump administration has made boosting munitions stockpiles a critical priority following the war in Ukraine and ongoing conflict with Iran. Pentagon leaders hope to push defense contractors to invest company funds to stand up new production facilities or upgrade older ones by cementing multiyear production deals that would give companies more certainty that demand for weapons will be sustained years into the future. Lockheed intends to spend between $8 billion and $9 billion through 2030 on new or modernized facilities for expanded munitions production, Taiclet said.
Read more at Breaking Defense
Airbus, Air France Found Guilty in 2009 Plane Crash That Killed 228 People
Airbus and Air France have been found guilty of the involuntary manslaughter of 228 passengers and crew, 17 years after what remains the worst aviation disaster in France’s history. A Paris appeals court on Thursday ordered each company to pay a 225,000 euro ($260,600) fine. The penalty is the maximum for corporate manslaughter in France. The court sided with the public prosecution, which had argued that negligence by the plane maker and the airline “had undeniably contributed” to the crash of flight AF447 over the Atlantic in 2009.
Air France and Airbus said they would file appeals with France’s Court of Cassation—its highest court—citing earlier rulings that acquitted them of guilt. Air France said it is aware that its decision to appeal “prolongs what has already been a lengthy process, particularly for the families.” In the case of AF447, the French court found that Airbus had long known that a critical airspeed sensor on the A330 jet was prone to freezing, and had underestimated the risk that it posed. Air France was found guilty for failing to provide sufficient safety training for pilots.
Read more at The WSJ
Scaled-up SpaceX Starship Megarocket Finds Mixed Success In Debut Test Flight
SpaceX launched the newest version of its Starship vehicle for the first time May 22, completing most of the test objectives planned for the suborbital flight. Starship lifted off from the company’s facility at Starbase, Texas, at 6:30 p.m. Eastern on a mission designated Flight 12. The launch took place one day after SpaceX scrubbed the first Flight 12 launch attempt after a hydraulic pin in the launch tower failed to retract, preventing an arm with propellant lines from swinging away from the vehicle. The Super Heavy booster fired its 33 Raptor 3 engines for the initial ascent, although one of the engines shut down about one minute and 40 seconds after liftoff.
Two and a half minutes after liftoff, the Starship upper stage ignited its six engines and separated from Super Heavy. Super Heavy was then scheduled to perform a “boostback” burn to prepare for a targeted splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. However, only a handful of engines ignited, and those that did shut down less than 20 seconds into the minute-long burn. The booster made a hard splashdown in the Gulf, with onscreen telemetry showing it was going nearly 1,500 kilometers per hour 100 meters above the surface. Once in space, SpaceX opened the “Pez” payload bay door on Starship. The vehicle then deployed 20 Starlink mass simulators followed by two other spacecraft dubbed “Dodger Dogs” because of stretched propellant tanks that extend beyond the body.
Read more at Space News
It’s China’s Answer to a Rolls-Royce—and It’s Stuffed With Gadgets
At an imposing 18 feet long, the Maextro S800 sedan gives off Rolls-Royce vibes with its two-tone color scheme and abundant soft leather. But the Maextro isn’t the product of craftsmen in the English countryside. The battery-powered car is manufactured with the help of more than 1,000 robots in Hefei, China, and runs on technology from the country’s Huawei, best known as a maker of mass-market phones. It is the pre-eminent symbol of Chinese automakers’ push to dominate the top end of the car market, after they seized the global lead in affordable electric vehicles.
Chinese companies know they don’t have the heritage of a Mercedes or a Rolls-Royce. Their strategy is to stuff their vehicles with so much gadgetry that owners forget their dreams of European luxury. The Maextro parks by itself and features a 40-inch screen with around 40 speakers for the entertainment of the VIPs stretching their legs in the back seat. With all those extras, the car costs the equivalent of about $173,000, and a version without the big screen can be had for as little as $104,000, half the price of a starter Mercedes-Maybach sedan and a quarter of what a basic Rolls-Royce costs in the U.S.
Read more at the WSJ
Stellantis Unveils $70 Billion Turnaround Plan, Targets Positive Cash Flow By 2027
Stellantis said Thursday it plans to invest 60 billion euros ($69.7 billion) under a new five-year strategic plan by CEO Antonio Filosa that also targets positive free cash flow by 2027. The plan includes putting 36 billion euros toward the company’s massive portfolio of automotive brands, with 60% of the investment expected for North America. The company expects to introduce more than 60 new vehicles and conduct major refreshes of 50 models, including all-electric vehicles, hybrids and traditional internal combustion engines. The other 24 billion euros will be put toward global vehicle platforms and new technologies for the automaker and its products, according to the company.
The industrial free cash flow is expected to increase from a loss of 4.5 billion euros last year to reach a positive 3 billion euros by 2028 and 6 billion euros by 2030, Stellantis said. The automaker lost 22.3 billion euros last year with a 22 billion euro restructuring pulling back from all-electric vehicles. Stellantis is targeting roughly 23% revenue growth, from 154 billion euros last year to 190 billion euros by 2030, with a 7% adjusted operating margin by then. Most notably, it’s aiming for North American revenue growth of 25%, with adjusted operating income, or AOI, of between 8% and 10% in that period.
Read More at CNBC
Another Summer, Another Decline In The Reliability Of NY’s Electric Grid
The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO) today released its annual Summer Reliability Assessment, finding that the reliability margin under baseline summer conditions is 417 MW – the lowest margin in recent history. The assessment notes that 34,615 megawatts (MW) of power resources are available to meet forecasted peak demand of 31,578 MW. As established by the New York State Reliability Council, under normal system conditions, the NYISO is required to maintain 2,620 MW from the available resources in reserves.
The report forecasts reliability challenges under extreme temperature scenarios despite the addition of new capacity in the past year. Aging generation, transmission constraints, and rising demand pose major challenges as reliability margins continue to decline. Under extreme weather scenarios, reliability margins are forecasted to be deficient. For example, if the state experiences a heatwave with an average daily temperature of 95 degrees lasting 3 or more days, the capacity margin is forecasted to be -1,679 MW. That number declines further to -3,370 MW under an extreme heatwave with an average daily temperature of 98 degrees. Under those conditions, NYISO operators would initiate emergency operating procedures to secure up to 3,166 MW to maintain system reliability.
Read more at Yonkers Times
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