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Trade Wars
Google Dodges Worst Penalties in U.S. Antitrust Case
Google avoided harsh antitrust penalties for its conduct in the U.S. search market, with a judge barring the company from entering into exclusive deals but rejecting a forced spinoff of its Chrome browser and other sweeping remedies sought by the Justice Department. U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta in a Tuesday ruling said Google can’t pay to be the exclusive search engine on devices and browsers, but he allowed the company to continue making payments for distribution of its products, saying a prohibition on those agreements would harm recipients such as Apple AAPL -1.04%decrease; red down pointing triangle.
Mehta’s order follows his ruling last year that Google illegally monopolized the search market for more than a decade. That opinion said Google used illegal distribution agreements with companies such as Apple to build and maintain a 90% market share and prevent rivals from developing competitive alternatives. While Mehta’s earlier ruling was a blow to Google, Tuesday’s decision adopted much of the company’s position on what should happen now. Mehta said a judge’s job was to approach remedies with humility, and he said the competitive dynamics of the marketplace were changing already, largely because of AI technology.
Read more at The WSJ
A Guide to China’s New Weapons on Parade in Beijing
Chinese leader Xi Jinping brandished a sophisticated new arsenal in a grand military parade on Wednesday, showcasing weapons and aircraft that Beijing can use to challenge U.S. power in the Asia-Pacific region. The goal, Chinese Maj. Gen. Wu Zeke said, is to “demonstrate our military’s formidable strategic deterrent capability” and “win future wars.”
The military hardware on display was all made in China and in operational service, Wu said, much of it shown in public for the first time. Here is a guide to some of Wednesday’s highlights.
Read more at The WSJ
DuPont To Divest Kevlar, Nomex Business For $1.8B
DuPont de Nemours is selling its aramid fibers business to chemical manufacturer Arclin for approximately $1.8 billion, the company announced last week. The agreement includes brands Kevlar and Nomex. Aramids are synthetic fibers used to make protective gear in high-risk situations such as firefighting, industrial settings and combat. The deal includes 1,900 employees and five manufacturing sites, according to the press release. The divestiture is expected to close in the first quarter of 2026.
The manufacturing plants DuPont is selling off are located in Richmond, Virginia; Monroe, North Carolina; LaPlace, Louisiana; Maydown, Northern Ireland; and Asturia, Spain. “The Kevlar and Nomex brands have long been known for their innovation and protective qualities,” Arclin President and CEO Bradley Bolduc said in a statement. “With this planned acquisition, Arclin will unlock the potential for these brands, ushering in a new era of advanced materials that can make homes, workplaces and communities stronger, safer and more resilient.”
Read more at Manufacturing Dive
EV Charger Reliability Improves, But High Costs Still Dent Satisfaction
Customer experiences with electric vehicle charging are steadily improving, according to a new report from J.D. Power, even as questions and challenges loom regarding the recently relaunched federal EV charging infrastructure program. J.D. Power’s 2025 U.S. Electric Vehicle Experience Public Charging Study, released Aug. 14, found that just 14% of EV owners visited a charging station without being able to successfully charge their vehicles, down from 19% last year.
Still, overall satisfaction with public charging has actually fallen since 2024. DC fast charging satisfaction dropped 10 points to 654 points on a 1,000-point scale, and public Level 2 charging satisfaction fell 7 points to 607. Tesla Supercharger received the highest customer satisfaction ranking among DC fast chargers for the fifth consecutive year.
Read more at Automotive Dive
Macquarie AirFinance Leasing Group Increases 737 MAX Order
Boeing has another high-volume order from the aircraft leasing sector, with Dublin-based Macquarie AirFinance booking for 30 737 MAX-8 jets. Neither the OEM nor the buyer indicated the value of the order, which could be worth up to $1.65 billion based on the available data for listed prices. The new order raises Macquarie’s total bookings for 737 MAX jets to 70 aircraft. Deliveries are scheduled through 2032. The group has a portfolio of more than 300 aircraft on lease to 84 airlines in 48 countries.
Boeing has recorded 334 orders for the 737 MAX series during 2025, despite the numerous production complications for the narrow-body jets. Jet leasing agencies value the 737 MAX-8’s versatility (configurable for up to 210 passengers) and range (up to 3,500 nautical miles); those businesses represent nearly 25% of Boeing’s roughly 6,800 outstanding orders for the 737 MAX series.
Read more at American Machinist
Behind This Season’s Bumper Earnings: Job Cuts, Price Hikes, Glum Workers
American companies are once again beating profit expectations, but this time around they aren’t banking on blockbuster consumer spending to make it happen. Instead, the latest batch of quarterly earnings is getting a lift from managers who are squeezing out costs, boosting productivity and turning to new technologies. Companies from Monster Beverage to Estée Lauder said they are holding down hiring, often while finding new ways to get employees to work more efficiently. And they are raising prices when they can.
The gains enjoyed by companies and their investors aren’t softening the unease consumers and employees feel—and might be obscuring signals that ordinary Americans are putting their anxiety into action. So far, corporate efforts to trim their way to profit growth haven’t led to the deep business or consumer-spending cuts that often precede recessions, said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon. Still, he added, “My fear is that the longer this lasts, the more likely we are to enter something akin to a downturn.”
Read more at The WSJ
Novo Nordisk’s Head Of Research And Development Previews The First-Ever Obesity Pill
We’re inching closer to having the first-ever needle-free weight loss drug. That’s thanks to Novo Nordisk, which expects a U.S. approval for its daily pill for chronic weight management by the end of this year. The company expects to launch it in early 2026. The drug is the 25-milligram oral version of semaglutide, the active ingredient in the Danish drugmaker’s popular weight loss injection Wegovy and diabetes counterpart Ozempic. Several drugmakers, including Novo Nordisk’s chief rival Eli Lilly, have been racing to develop obesity pills, which may help alleviate the supply shortfalls and issues accessing the injections on the market. Pills are likely easier to manufacture than injections, and some health experts hope they could be cheaper.
The pill helped patients lose up to 16.6% of their weight on average at 64 weeks, according to results from a late-stage trial presented at a medical conference in 2024. That weight loss was 13.6% when the company analyzed all patients regardless of whether they stopped the drug. The weight loss appears to be in line with the injectable version of semaglutide (Wegovy), and slightly higher than that caused by an experimental pill from Eli Lilly in a separate phase three trial.
Read more at CNBC
DARPA Makes Awards For First Phase Of Quantum Sensing Program
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) last week awarded contracts to six vendors in Phase 1 of a program aimed at moving quantum sensors from the lab to military platforms for more precise navigation, threat detection, and situational awareness in degraded environments. The awardees are Q-CTRL, Twinleaf, Safran Group’s Safran Federal Systems, Boeing [BA], L3Harris Technologies [LHX], and RTX’s [RTX] Collins Aerospace.
Navigational technology that is resilient to denial, jamming, spoofing, and other denials in the environment has become increasingly critical to defense applications from battlefield operations to intelligence and surveillance. With conflict zones expanding, the risks to crewed and uncrewed defense missions are growing daily. Quantum sensing offers a complementary solution to GPS that is resilient against external interference while filling coverage gaps.
Read more at SatNews
Apple's iPhone 17 Is Set To Land Next Week. Here's What To Expect.
Apple will host its annual fall event next week. Set for Sept. 9, the showcase is expected to include the launch of the company’s much-anticipated iPhone 17 Air. A slimmed-down version of the iPhone, the Air will bring some of the biggest changes to Apple’s most important product in years, according to Apple soothsayer Mark Gurman. It could also help boost iPhone sales in the near term.
Apple’s iPhone Air is expected to be about 2 millimeters thinner than current iPhones, according to Gurman. That seems rather insignificant, but it should provide a noticeable difference for longtime iPhone owners. The phone is expected to come with just one camera rather than the two found on the standard iPhone and three on the Pro models, A skinnier frame could also mean the iPhone Air will have a smaller battery, another strike against the smartphone, unless Apple can get more juice out of a charge via software tricks. Apple is also widely expected to raise the prices of its devices, with projections ranging from a $50 to a $100 price hike on iPhone 17 Air, and a $50 jump on iPhone Pro and Pro Max models.
Read more at Yahoo Finance
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