💎 Lynas expands rare earths clout with first batch of samarium

Lynas Rare Earths Ltd. has started producing samarium at its plant in Malaysia, ahead of an April target. The company's production of samarium, terbium, and dysprosium provides an expanded suite of light and heavy rare earths for customers to produce high-performance permanent magnets. The materials have become highly prized since Beijing restricted their exports last year.

Samarium’s main use is in powerful samarium-cobalt magnets found in everything from high-precision weaponry to advanced medical equipment and electric vehicles. Lynas, one of only two major rare earth miners outside China’s orbit, has revamped a long-term supply deal with its Japanese buyers and signed a four-year, $96 million agreement with the Pentagon for sales of rare earth oxides. 🤝

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⚡️European allies and Japan signal readiness to help secure Strait of Hormuz shipping

Leading European nations, along with Japan, issued a joint statement on Thursday declaring their "readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts" to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.

The statement from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Japan added that they "condemn in the strongest terms recent attacks by Iran on unarmed commercial vessels in the Gulf, attacks on civilian infrastructure, including oil and gas installations, and the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iranian forces."

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⚡️🇺🇸🇨🇳Trump says China meeting ‘reset’ after delay

President Donald Trump said his postponed trip to China for a summit with counterpart Xi Jinping had been “reset” and suggested it would take place in mid-May. The US president did not provide a specific date for the visit.

“I think we’re going to have a great trip,” Trump told. “The trip has been postponed for about a month and a half. It’s been reset, and look forward to it.”

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🆕 The SEC’s interpretation on crypto assets is just the beginning

"The SEC’s interpretation on crypto assets is just the beginning and serves as a bridge while Congress works to advance market structure legislation. Our rules must be clear enough to guide markets, flexible enough to accommodate innovation, and firm enough to protect investors," – Paul Atkins said.

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🇬🇧 British Airways launches Starlink Wi-Fi on first connected aircraft

British Airways’ first aircraft equipped with Starlink Wi-Fi took to the skies today, the first flight operated by a UK airline featuring the innovative technology. The 787-8 aircraft bound for Houston is the first in the airline’s fleet to be connected, giving customers free access to fast, reliable internet for streaming, working and staying connected.

The airline is currently in the process of fitting Starlink onto its 787-8 fleet, and has already started equipping its next 787-8 aircraft. Within the next two years the entire British Airways fleet of more than 300 aircraft will have this powerful new technology, available for all customers, in every cabin, free of charge.

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🤖 Opera GX finally arrives on Linux by popular demand

Opera has announced its gaming-focused web browser is now natively available on Linux. The company noted that there has been a huge demand for a Linux version of Opera GX across gaming communities on Reddit, Discord, and Linux forums. Opera GX browser officially supports Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, and openSUSE-based Linux distributions and is available in Debian (.deb) and RPM (.rpm) package formats. The company is additionally working on Flatpak support.

“Bringing GX to Linux users – who are renowned for the control they like to exert over their tools – means gamers and developers can manage browser resources, customize their setup, and keep their system performing exactly the way they want,” – said Maciej Kocemba, Product Director at Opera GX.

As for privacy, Opera GX offers ad and tracker blockers as well as an optional built-in VPN, which has been independently audited and offers a zero-log policy. The browser follows European privacy regulations (GDPR) and does not collect location data, browsing history, page content, search queries, or any information that a user has typed into forms.

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💊 HHS watchdog slams nursing homes’ antipsychotic drug use

A pair of federal watchdog reports urge Medicare and Medicaid Services to do more to crack down on nursing homes’ use of antipsychotic drugs and inappropriate schizophrenia diagnoses for residents with dementia.

One of the issue briefs from the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General offers a stark depiction of how nursing homes are using antipsychotic drugs: as chemical restraints to make staff members’ jobs easier, without taking required steps to protect those patients. The other describes how nursing homes are artificially inflating their quality ratings by inappropriately diagnosing residents with schizophrenia to mask their antipsychotic use. 🤯

This isn’t the first time these problems have come to light. They’ve been the subject of much research and a 2020 Congressional investigation, and the HHS OIG itself has highlighted them before.

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🛰 K2 to launch its first high-powered satellite for space compute

K2 Space, founded by brothers and former SpaceX engineers Karan and Neel Kunjur in 2022, has packed its satellite Gravitas into a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket expected to launch as soon as the end of this month. Gravitas has a mass of two metric tons, with a 40 meter wingspan when its solar panels are unfolded.

“The future is higher power,” – CEO Karan Kunjur explains.

The point of the big satellite is big power: Gravitas is capable of producing 20 kW of electricity for use by payloads like powerful sensors, transceivers, and computers. For comparison, the even larger and more expensive ViaSat-3 spacecraft can generate more than 25 kW of power, while Elon Musk has said Starlink V3 satellites will generate 20 kW.

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💊 Biotech turns to Apple Watch for Parkinson's study

Annovis Bio will begin using Apple Watches to monitor patients in a study of its investigational drug buntanetap in Parkinson’s disease. The open-label extension study aims to evaluate the long-term effects of the drug on people who enrolled in its phase III study, as well as on people receiving deep brain stimulation.

Annovis will offer 100 participants NeuroRPM’s FDA-cleared platform that uses the Apple Watch to monitor bradykinesia, dyskinesia, and tremor symptoms. NeuroRPM is one of several companies that has built Apple Watch-based solutions for tracking Parkinson’s for patient support, clinical care, and clinical trials.

Parkinson’s disease symptoms are highly variable. A continuous flow of data from digital sources can help paint a more robust picture of the real-world effects of drugs and maybe even one day help secure a drug approval.

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🌍 World-first commercial quantum orbital cloud for unhackable comms planned by Swiss firm

Semiconductor maker SEAL SQ plans to build the world’s first commercial quantum spatial orbital cloud (QSOC) to deliver unhackable communications and quantum security as a service to banks, federal governments, defense agencies, and enterprises. It has teamed up with WISeSat, a sister company, to launch a 100-satellite constellation that will be fully operational by 2033 with a contractually guaranteed uptime of 99.9%.

“Together, we are not building a satellite program – we are building the quantum internet’s infrastructure,” – said Carlos Moreira, CEO of SEALSQ.

SEAL SQ will deploy its proprietary quantum technology stack across the constellation, control quantum payloads, software, and security architecture, and handle the customer end. WISeSat will leverage its technical expertise across engineering teams, regulatory compliance, manufacturing, and launch infrastructure to deliver the capacity SEAL SQ needs to offer its services.

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🇺🇸🇯🇵 President Donald J. Trump strengthens U.S.-Japan alliance for the benefit of all Americans

Sanae Takaichi had warned her first summit with Donald Trump in Washington could be "extremely difficult." Instead, she showcased Japan’s deep ties with the US — and her own agility on the world stage.

“I firmly believe it is only you, Donald, who can achieve peace across the world,” - Ms. Takaichi said.

Mr. Trump reciprocated, calling Ms. Takaichi, a “very popular, powerful woman.” He praised Japan, saying, “They are really stepping up to the plate. We’ve had tremendous support and relationship with Japan on everything.” 🤝

There are some takeaways from the meeting:

❗️Under a new Memorandum of Cooperation, the two nations will accelerate joint research and development and industry cooperation on commercially-viable development of deep-sea critical minerals resources, including rare-earth muds near Japan’s Minamitorishima Island that could meet centuries’ worth of industrial demand.
❗️The U.S. and Japan reached a Critical Minerals Action Plan to increase the production and diversity of critical minerals, developing a plurilateral trade initiative supported by price floors or other measures.
❗️The U.S. Department of Energy and Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology signed a Statement of Intent to drive cooperation on AI-enabled scientific discovery and innovation, high-performance computing, and quantum technologies.
❗️Under a new Memorandum of Understanding, the U.S. Argonne National Laboratory, Japan’s RIKEN and Fujitsu, and NVIDIA will leverage public research institutions and private sector partners to accelerate computing architectures and solutions.
❗️The two countries will expand cooperation in low-Earth orbit and the NASA-led Moon base, and will launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) later this year.
❗️The U.S. and Japan are cooperating in biotech and pharmaceutical supply chain resilience under the October 2025 Technology Prosperity Deal.

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⚡️🇺🇸🇪🇺 President Trump calls the NATO allies who refused to help open the Strait of Hormuz "COWARDS"!

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🏭 SoftBank plans giant Ohio AI data center powered by gas plants

SoftBank Group Corp. is working to build a massive AI data center on federally owned land in Ohio that it’s planning to power with roughly $33 billion worth of natural gas-fired electricity to be installed by the end of the decade. The SoftBank project is the latest from the $550 billion fund that the US and Japan agreed to as part of a pact that saw Trump lower auto tariffs and other levies.

“By bringing new power online and upgrading our existing infrastructure, this investment supports the AI boom and cutting-edge technologies while strengthening our energy system and helping keep costs down for the American people,”— Energy Secretary Chris Wright said.

Customers for the Ohio data center have yet to be announced, but the company said they’re coming and that they’ll be involved in sourcing the chips and equipment housed within the facility. At 10 gigawatts, the center would be by far among the largest — if not the largest — in the world. The natural gas project would similarly become the biggest in the US if built, supplying the equivalent of nine nuclear reactors.

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🔥 Ripple data reveals stablecoins are becoming the go-to tool for corporate treasury

Digital assets are no longer a fringe experiment in finance, they’re fast becoming a core part of how banks, asset managers, fintechs and corporates plan to move money, store value and manage risk. That's the key takeaway from fintech firm Ripple's survey of more than 1,000 global finance leaders, which reveals how the industry sees digital assets as urgent, and no longer optional.

▪️7 in 10 respondents said finance leaders must offer some kind of digital asset solution to stay competitive, underscoring a broad sense that the “digital asset revolution” is already underway.
▪️74% of leaders said stablecoins can improve cash‑flow efficiency and unlock working capital, highlighting their growing appeal as treasury tools and not just payment rails.
▪️31% use stablecoins to collect payments for customers, and 29% accept stablecoins directly.
▪️More banks and asset managers want to tokenize assets and they need partners to do it. Of those looking, 89% focus on safe storage and custody first.
▪️97% flagged security and certifications like ISO and SOC 2 as critical, with operational support and industry‑specific experience also weighing heavily.

The bottom line: digital assets are becoming a strategic necessity, and the infrastructure decisions made today are expected to shape competitive edge tomorrow.

#Stellar

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