Amazon shares whipsawed on Tuesday, as the stock attempted to make a comeback from a historic slide. Should the stock close in the red, it would mark a 10th consecutive negative session, tying the company's longest streak of daily losses on record, which it notched in 1997. Amazon shares have lost roughly 18% of their value since Feb. 2, axing about $450 billion in market valuation as investors question the merits of its artificial intelligence spending plans. The selling frenzy around Amazon is tied to the company's fourth-quarter earnings report released earlier this month. Amazon said it expects to spend $200 billion in capital expenditures this year, a nearly 60% increase from last year and more than $50 billion above Wall Street's forecast. Most of the spending is expected to go to AI-related initiatives, which require more infrastructure such as data centers, chips and networking equipment. Investors have grown increasingly concerned about tech companies' hefty AI investments and their potential to shrink or erase free cash flows. Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta and Amazon's capital expenditures could hit $700 billion this year as the companies race to build out more infrastructure. Alphabet stock slid more than 1% on Tuesday, while Microsoft and Meta shares were down less than a percent. Shares of Microsoft and Alphabet are both headed for their fifth straight negative session. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy defended the massive outlay, telling analysts in a conference call that he's confident it will "yield strong returns on invested capital." Wedbush analysts wrote in a research note following Amazon's fourth-quarter report that the company is now in "prove it mode" to show investors it can deliver a return on capex spending. "The increase in spending will remain an overhang as investors digest the guide and will likely need to see more tangible returns before regaining comfort," the analysts wrote. The firm has an outperform rating on Amazon shares. — CNBC's Nick Wells contributed to this report. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox
This Q&A is part of America: 250 Years Bold, a CNBC multiplatform series highlighting the leaders, institutions, and ideas that have shaped the United States over the past 250 years. Founded in 1913, the organization has invested more than $26 billion worldwide to advance public health, expand access to opportunity and tackle global challenges at scale. In this conversation, Shah reflects on the foundation's legacy — from pioneering breakthroughs in science and medicine to shaping modern philanthropy — and discusses how its mission continues to evolve to address inequality, strengthen resilience and expand economic opportunity in the United States and around the world. Dr. Rajiv J. Shah: John D. Rockefeller Sr. was a titan. He built America during the Industrial Revolution, and helped, together with others, create the modern country we have. He was one of the pioneers who shaped that economic transformation that gave us railways and automobiles and gasoline and the power to go about improving our quality of life. In doing so he, of course, went from being someone who came from modest resources to the world's wealthiest individual, and decided he would use that wealth to give back to society and help shape a future that was hopeful and optimistic, not just for the winners of that age, but for everybody. Shah: The Rockefeller Foundation was created in 1913, although long before that, John D. Rockefeller, when he was 16 years old and got his first job, started tithing to his church. He was a devout Baptist who believed in charitable giving. When he created the foundation, he did it with a partner, Frederick Gates, who was his advisor and an early trustee, and they decided the foundation would be used specifically to invest in those areas where science and innovation could transform life on this planet. Shah: The Rockefeller Foundation was established more than 100 years ago to take on major global projects that would transform life and the nature of opportunity for the world's most vulnerable people. We were founded to do scientific philanthropy because John D. Rockefeller believed that science applied to health, agriculture, energy and even social sciences applied to governance could really help transform society and make it an environment where everyone flourishes, not just the select few. Went on to tackle malaria, and that process created both huge successes in modern public health, but also seeded the American public health system county by county across this country, and presented the antecedents of the Centers for Disease Control based in Atlanta. Shah: We focus today on bringing science, innovation and partnership to lift up vulnerable populations across the planet. We invest all the time in core science around food, nutrition, energy, energy storage, battery technology, things that we think can make a difference, especially for those people who are vulnerable across this planet. One example of a risk we took is we issued a social impact bond, raised $500 million and put that entire amount of capital into one project to help make sure we could get more people out of energy poverty using renewable energy technologies. Today, we've mobilized more than $50 billion to reach more than 300 million people with energy access in Africa through an initiative we call "Mission 300." Shah: America has always been a frontier nation, and when John D. Rockefeller created the Rockefeller Foundation, it was during a time of economic transformation. My parents came here in the late 1960s as immigrants from India. I was raised to understand almost every day at the dinner table that America is a country where, if you worked hard and played by the rules, you and your kids would get a chance to thrive. What has changed is that today fewer than half of America's kids are predicted to do better than their parents, and so we need to recreate a pathway to the American Dream for kids across this country that we are otherwise leaving behind. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox
Every time Lara publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Veteran broadcaster Anderson Cooper said Monday that he is leaving his role as a correspondent on CBS News' "60 Minutes" after nearly 20 years. His exit comes at an already turbulent time for CBS News under its new editor in chief, Bari Weiss. Sports broadcaster Keith Olbermann shared the news about Cooper's departure on his Bluesky account, posting: "Anderson Cooper has left the sinking ship that is Idiot Bari Weiss's New Stormfront CBS." Olbermann later added, "Now, people will only be able to NOT watch AC on cnn." Jones said that Cooper's exit "certainly adds more uncertainty in a news division that is very much in flux under relatively new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss." He added: "It also raises questions about '60 Minutes,' the previous gold standard of TV news shows." Lydia Polgreen, a New York Times opinion writer and the former editor in chief of HuffPost, posted to X on Tuesday: "I don't watch much TV news, but @andersoncooper is in a league of his own as a television journalist. CNN's chief media analyst, Brian Stelter, wrote in his "Reliable Sources" newsletter Tuesday that there are open questions about which other correspondents might leave, "and on what terms."
Sign up today for the CNBC Sport Newsletter Six-time NBA Champion Los Angeles Lakers owner Jeanie Buss said new majority owner Mark Walter's access to capital will help the team best compete with the NBA's top franchises — and that her late father, Jerry Buss, would have supported the sale. "You need to have everybody pulling together. While the NBA has a salary cap that can limit team spend, franchises do have some flexibility if owners are willing to pay a luxury tax. Walter has consistently been one of the top spending owners in Major League Baseball since acquiring the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012. Buss and her family agreed to sell their majority stake in the team to Walter last year at a $10 billion valuation. ESPN recently documented significant conflict between the Buss siblings that led to the sale, which Buss called "bittersweet." Jerry Buss willed ownership of the team to his six children in a trust when he died in 2013. "My siblings were involved in the decision that was made," Jeanie Buss said. I think it's fair to say that my family — we all have our different opinions and [are] living our lives, choosing what we want to do with our time, and this was the best decision for all six of us." The Buss family kept about 15% of the team, and Jeanie Buss agreed to stay on as governor for at least five years. Still, when asked if she plans to stay for the full term, Buss seemingly hedged her answer. "That's what I agreed to," Buss said. And you know, I'm not going anywhere." Buss said the team's focus is now on building around Dončić, rather than 41-year-old LeBron James, who has been the face of the team since he joined in 2018. "The partnership will give us the stability to continue to move forward as we build towards a team around Dončić," Buss said. "We couldn't be more proud that he is a Laker. He is a young all-star that the fans love to see." Still, she sounded doubtful that he would return to the team next season, either because he would retire or because he would choose to play elsewhere. The CNBC Sport newsletter with Alex Sherman brings you the biggest news and exclusive interviews from the worlds of sports business and media, delivered weekly to your inbox. "He's earned the right to decide how his career will go, and you know, he continues to impress." Buss also discussed her tequila brand, Cincoro, created in 2016 when five friendly competitors met for dinner around an NBA board of governors meetings, bonding over their shared passion for tequila. That group included Buss; then-Charlotte Hornets owner Michael Jordan; Milwaukee Bucks co-owner Wes Edens; and former Boston Celtics co-owner Wyc Grousbeck and his wife, Emilia Fazzalari. "We all had a mutual appreciation for tequila," Buss said. "And us being a very competitive group, we thought, 'You know what? And so, that night, Cincoro was born." Jordan, known for being a fierce competitor on the court, isn't any different behind the scenes and is deeply involved in the business, Buss said. "I knew he was a tough competitor because his first championship, he beat the Los Angeles Lakers," she said. "He's just like that in the boardroom. Jordan brought in his design team, resulting in a distinctive bottle that Buss called "a work of art." "When you work with Michael Jordan, the bar is set high," she said. And we've seen he's been pretty darn successful." Cincoro is now a sponsor of the Los Angeles Lakers, and Buss unveiled Tuesday a limited-edition añejo bottle in Lakers purple and gold. Buss said it's a nod to both the franchise's championship pedigree and the brand's premium positioning. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox
Venture capitalists are doubling down on Render, a startup offering easy-to-use cloud infrastructure. The lucrative cloud computing world, dominated by Amazon, Microsoft and Alphabet, has become more competitive since the arrival of OpenAI's ChatGPT assistant in 2022. Companies such as CoreWeave that rent out Nvidia graphics cards for training artificial intelligence models have grown into mature businesses. Meanwhile, people are asking AI models to write software for them, and seeking advice on where to run the new programs. Render is among the beneficiaries of this emerging dynamic. With the new capital, Render will hire additional technical staff members to build features. Render runs its software on Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform. Recently, Render has also been testing the use of its own servers. Expanding the initiative might reduce Render's costs and yield lower prices. But greater reliance on in-house computing power brings new risks, because the company must ensure that it always has enough servers on hand. If the strategy works out, it could boost efficiency for customers, such as Alibaba, CBS, Hodinkee, Paradigm, Shopify and AI-fueled app builder Base44. The founder of Base44, Maor Shlomo, had used AWS at his previous startup, Explorium, and this time he wanted something different. "I was all by myself, and so I was searching for services that can automate most of the stuff so that I don't need to deal with infrastructure, even if it will cost slightly more that," Shlomo said. After website builder Wix bought Base44 last June, Shlomo asked to invest in Render, given his experience. "It's such a great product that we don't need someone that's focused only on Render," he said. Before Render, there was Heroku, a pioneer of the platform as a service category that runs on top of AWS. Earlier this month, Salesforce said it was backing away from developing new features for Heroku. "People now know that they're not going to add new features to it, so they're looking around for the most mature alternative," Goel said. OpenAI — which has committed to spending more than $600 billion with the Amazon, Cerebras, CoreWeave, Microsoft and Oracle clouds in recent months — uses Render. The AI lab's Codex coding app allows people to deploy web apps they create on Render. Codex users can also choose to deploy their apps on Cloudflare, Netlify and Vercel. In September, Vercel said it raised capital at a $9.3 billion valuation. Goel said companies such as AI spreadsheet specialist Shortcut have moved to Render from Vercel. "Chatbots have effectively, almost singlehandedly, grown our business," he said. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox
Even as experts anticipate more supply in the used car market this year, consumers probably won't see much relief on pricing. While dealer inventories continue to slowly improve, the higher-cost mix of vehicles hitting the used car market — and wholesale prices that ticked higher in January — could limit how much that added supply translates into cheaper cars. Although the consumer price index shows that prices for used cars were down 1.8% in January from December and 2% from a year earlier, they're easing off record highs. The average price of a used car up to 8 years old was $30,202 in 2025, up 27.6% from $23,668 in 2020, according to J.D. "The affordable under-$20,000 vehicles are harder to find," said Jonathan Banks, a vice president with J.D. That's likely to remain the case even as inventory improves. "You'll see a richer mix of vehicles," Banks said. "That's just the reality of it." Because consumers have been hanging on to their cars for longer, today's higher prices may be a bit of a shock for them, Banks said. "A lot of people will be coming into the market when they haven't been there in a long time," he said. Although used car prices have eased, they remain elevated against a backdrop of a broader household affordability crunch. Many consumers are already struggling to keep up with high costs for everyday things like housing, groceries and insurance premiums. Compared with the average price paid for a new car — $49,191, according to Kelley Blue Book — the used car market may be the more desirable option. Interest rates generally are higher compared with those that apply to new car loans, which can be especially costly for consumers with poor credit. For credit scores ranging from 501 to 600, the average interest rate for used car loans was 19% in the third quarter of 2025, according to Experian. The average amount financed for a used vehicle in January was $29,364 and the average interest rate was 10.5%, according to Edmunds. Separately, a small but growing share of consumers are taking out used car loans with a monthly payment of $1,000 or more, according to Edmunds. The variety of available used vehicles reflects what's been purchased in the new car market over time. Consumers have preferred SUVs and trucks over sedans for years. Last year, sedans accounted for just 17% of the new car market, according to Edmunds. A greater number of vehicles are coming off of three-year leases this year compared with last year due to higher lease volume in 2023 than in 2022, said Ivan Drury, director of insights for Edmunds. Additionally, a growing number of fleet vehicles — for example, rental cars — should hit the used car market this year as that supply also continues recovering from pandemic-era disruptions. As carmakers boost the number of deals they're offering on new autos, used car shoppers may benefit as well, Drury said. "When we start to see discounts on the new cars, it trickles down to used cars," he said. "Do your due diligence," Banks said. We want to hear from you. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox
Every time Dan publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Judging by what some AI experts are saying, and the state of the stock market, you'd think software companies were on their last legs. Basware CEO Jason Kurtz, whose company sells software for financial processes, sees it slightly differently. "I have not had a single customer tell us, 'Oh, we're just going to go figure this out on our own and do AP with OpenAI or whoever.' That's not the way these companies work," he added. Kurtz reached out to me last week after I asked for some reader feedback on the topic. Basware, which counts Mercedes and Heineken among its roughly 6,500 customers and uses AI within its own products, hasn't felt threatened thus far. He acknowledged that there had been some customer chatter about experimenting with AI on their own. After spending roughly a million euros on internal AI-related projects in finance over the past year, the executive told Kurtz they "can't point to a single penny that we have saved, earned, or helped our business in any way." I want people who know how to use AI in our processes in our workflows," Kurtz said the executive told him. Basware primarily works with AWS to help build its AI tools for customers. Figuring out ways to implement AI into your own products that'll drive more value for customers is one way to stay ahead. Kurtz said maintaining tight integrations with fellow vendors to become a part of the workflow creates stickiness. "If we weren't doing that, I'd be even more paranoid," Kurtz said. Basware has processed 2.5 billion invoices and 10 trillion euros of spend in the company's 40-year history. Having such a large swath of info can help train models and identify new efficiencies to pitch to customers. "If you don't have a data strategy around AI and how you're going to use that to differentiate your AI and your capabilities, I think that's going to be a challenge," he said.
After an incredible three weeks traveling around Brazil, I was on the first leg of my flight home to Chicago when I received a message from my director at work — a 15-minute "check-in" with an HR representative. There, I was informed that my role had been eliminated. Faced with the reality of returning home to the frigid Chicago temperatures with no job, I quickly changed my connecting flight and decided to hostel-hop around Brazil for another month. Exploring beautiful destinations while practicing a new language every day was incredibly fulfilling for me. Every time Isaiah publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! Stay connected to Isaiah and get more of their work as it publishes. By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. So, a few months after my original trip, I relocated from Chicago to São Paulo and was greeted by lots of surprises along the way. Growing up in the Midwest, I've endured my fair share of snowstorms and wind chills so cold that I felt as though my eyelids would freeze together. So, I felt well-equipped for any kind of cold weather Mother Nature could ever throw my way. Even so, I wasn't prepared for just how chilly Brazil could feel — especially during a springtime cold front while living in an area without access to central heating. For lunch and dinner, many locals seem to rely on a tried-and-true formula: arroz (rice), feijão (beans), some meat, and salad. Classic dishes like stroganoff (a creamy chicken or beef dish topped with crispy shoestring potatoes) or feijoada (pork and black bean stew) may enter the rotation. Still, the aforementioned combo is a popular default dish that I've grown to love. Although tavern-style Chicago pizza still holds a special place in my heart, my new Brazilian favorites include acarajé (stuffed black-eyed pea fritters fried in dendé oil), acerola (a sweet cherry fruit), and doce de leite (sweet caramelized milk used as a topping or filling). Plus, there's a pretty great international food scene here, too. While wandering around the city, I've come across a wide range of cuisines, from Lebanese and West African restaurants to Colombian and Venezuelan spots. This openness to connect has softened a lot of the original culture shock during my move. Although very different from my life in Chicago, I'm excited to continue building a life for myself in São Paulo.
Every time Peter publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Larry and David Ellison are getting another shot to buy Warner Bros. WBD's announcement reopens a deal that was theoretically closed last December, when it agreed to sell most of itself to Netflix in an $83 billion transaction. Since then, the Ellisons, who bought Paramount last year and want to merge it with WBD, have argued that their offer of $30 per share — for the entire company — was better than Netflix's offer. Their most recent pitch came a week ago, when they offered to pay billions more in fees — including a $2.8 billion penalty WBD would owe Netflix if it walks away from its existing deal — and dangled the prospect of raising the per-share price they'd pay if the deal didn't close by the end of 2026. Now, WBD says, they have one more opportunity to bid. In a press release, WBD officials say that last week, a "senior representative" for Paramount told them that if they had the chance to bid, they would offer $31 per share, but could go above that. None of this means the existing deal Netflix has with WBD goes away. For starters, WBD continues to formally endorse its Netflix deal. Netflix got a preview of some of the issues regulators might bring up earlier this month during a congressional hearing, when Republicans argued that the company is too woke, and Democrats worried that a combined Netflix/WBD could doom the movie industry. A Paramount/WBD combination would also get regulatory scrutiny, though the Ellisons are counting on their ties to the Trump White House to give them a leg up.
The move is expected to ease cross-border movement, boost trade, and strengthen regional integration. The approval was handed over on Tuesday in Dar es Salaam during a ceremony attended by Somalia's ambassador to Tanzania and the EAC, Ilyas Ali Hassan, Internal Security Minister Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail, and Immigration Director General Mustafa Dhuhulow. Issuance of the East African e-Passport began in 2017 as member states moved to modernise regional travel documents. Kenya led the rollout on September 1, 2017, followed by Tanzania (January 31, 2018), Burundi (May 31, 2018), Uganda (December 18, 2018) and Rwanda (July 1, 2019). “This is a key moment for Somalia and its engagement with regional institutions,” Ilyas said. “The handover reflects ongoing efforts to align Somalia's travel systems with EAC standards. This marks another milestone in facilitating the movement of EAC citizens.” The development comes a day after Somalia and Tanzania signed a memorandum of understanding on immigration cooperation, introducing visa-on-arrival for holders of diplomatic and service passports and simplifying entry for ordinary travellers under agreed conditions. Officials said the framework will reduce administrative barriers while promoting trade, education, and professional exchanges. The MoU also establishes coordination channels between immigration authorities, including information-sharing, implementation reviews, and mechanisms to resolve operational challenges, ensuring smoother cross-border mobility.
In a country where millions search daily for how to sell bitcoin in Nigeria or check the bitcoin to naira rate today, speed and trust have become the real currency. Monica Cash has now surpassed ₦500 billion in total transactions, marking three years of sustained growth and reinforcing its position as the best crypto app in Nigeria for users who demand instant conversions, secure payments, and complete financial control within one seamless platform. Over the past three years, Monica Cash has evolved from a focused crypto conversion tool into a comprehensive everyday finance application serving more than 500,000 registered users nationwide. This growth has been powered by consistency rather than hype. What sustained user retention, however, was dependable payout speed, transparent exchange rates, and a clean interface that removed unnecessary complexity from crypto transactions. That organic trust became one of the strongest forces behind Monica Cash's steady expansion. Today, Monica Cash operates as more than a crypto gateway. Users can top up airtime, purchase data, pay electricity and cable bills, access digital gift cards, and transfer funds instantly to over 30 Nigerian banks. This strategic diversification strengthens its identity as an integrated financial ecosystem rather than just a trading utility. In volatile markets, even short delays can translate into missed value. Monica Cash processes withdrawals rapidly, often within minutes, reducing uncertainty and reinforcing confidence. in crypto conversions alone, the platform demonstrates both operational depth and strong liquidity management. Beyond speed and scale, compliance discipline has quietly shaped Monica Cash's internal structure. In an environment where informal operators sometimes weaken public trust, structured transaction monitoring, transparent rate calculations, and consistent reporting standards provide measurable reassurance. This operational maturity strengthens confidence for anyone looking to sell bitcoin in Nigeria or convert bitcoin to naira within a regulated and secure framework. Biometric login functionality, encrypted transaction processing, and high system uptime directly address one of the most important concerns Nigerians face when choosing the best crypto app in Nigeria. In a competitive digital finance market filled with short-term entrants, sustained performance and reliability continue to differentiate Monica Cash as a stable financial partner. When over half a million Nigerians repeatedly choose the same platform to sell bitcoin in Nigeria, complete USDT to naira transactions, and check the bitcoin to naira rate today, it suggests confidence built through repeated positive experience. Crossing ₦500 billion represents three years of disciplined execution, technological refinement, and user-centered design. Download Monica Cash today and discover why more users consistently choose it as the best crypto app in Nigeria for crypto conversion and everyday financial management in one trusted platform.
Every time Lakshmi publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Over the past year, consulting firms have begun deploying armies of AI agents as they work to transform their own operations and advise clients to do the same — automating research, building task-specific tools, and building proprietary AI models. "I think we are now in the age of confusion," Mina Alaghband, a former McKinsey partner, now the chief customer officer at Writer, a full-stack enterprise AI platform built for agentic AI, told Business Insider. Every time Lakshmi publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! Stay connected to Lakshmi and get more of their work as it publishes. By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. PwC's chief AI officer, Dan Priest, recently told Business Insider that PwC is now less concerned with how many agents it deploys, and more with how many human users each agent has. Priest said his firm starts by targeting an "impact zone," such as improving the customer experience. Within these impact zones, the firm looks to deploy "specialized AI agents" that have earned that designation because they're good at what they do, Priest said. "When we deploy agents, we want to see a high rate of human adoption, which means more humans are using them," he said. The firm tracks the value created by its AI agents through key performance indicators for productivity, quality, and cost efficiency on a month-to-month basis. Boston Consulting Group tracks its agents by that metric — and whether that time is then reinvested in higher-value work, Scott Wilder, a partner and managing director based in Dallas, told Business Insider. Wilder said humans at the firm now spend about 15% less time on low-value activities, like making slideshows, and that those people are reinvesting about 70% of their saved time into higher-value activities, such as deeper analysis. Wilder said BCG has found that employees keep about 30% of the time AI saves. Nearly a century ago, economist John Keynes predicted that as productivity rose, the balance between work and leisure would inevitably change. "I would predict that the standard of life in progressive countries one hundred years hence will be between four and eight times as high as it is," he wrote in his 1930 essay "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren." It's almost 2030, but in small ways, that vision may already be surfacing. "It's benefiting them — and this is a tough job, so every hour of free time matters," Wilder said. Something to share about how consultants are using AI?
Every time Matthew publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Cosmos floated his quadcopter over the ruined warehouse, guiding it through a corner of the roof where shattered metal sheets had collapsed to form a hole. These hidden locations often held ordnance or fuel stockpiles, and Cosmos' fiber-optic drone was armed with explosives to destroy them. Yet inside, the drone rotated its camera to reveal what looked more like a farmer's garage: Four civilian cars, a pair of motorcycles, and two bridled horses. It was unusual," Cosmos told Business Insider, speaking on condition that he be identified only by his call sign. "We were expecting to find some armored vehicles," he added. Every time Matthew publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! Stay connected to Matthew and get more of their work as it publishes. By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Video of the discovery went viral last week in Ukraine, as the war has increasingly seen Russian soldiers using unconventional transport tools, such as pack animals and bicycles, to conduct assaults or logistics missions. Cosmos said his drone mission was conducted in early February. The smaller profile of a horse or civilian car might be harder for a drone to spot, though Russia's repeated use of them has also raised questions about the viability of its tactics and whether it's been producing enough military equipment to sustain its invasion. Cosmos' squad mates and officers at the Wild Division, a first-person-view drone company in the 82nd Air Assault Brigade, had seen clips of Russian soldiers riding on horses to attack Ukrainian positions before. One famous example they remember was in Zaporizhzhia, when a Ukrainian drone crew attacked Russian infantry crossing the front lines on horseback last month. He flew his explosive-laden drone straight into the back of one of the cars, and said his crew later struck several other vehicles inside. A Hummer, which the Armed Forces of Ukraine uses in many places, costs $20,000, maybe more." "Since they lose their equipment in assaults, from that point of view, why pay $20,000 for one vehicle if you can buy 10 Nivas for $20,000?" The Kremlin is known to pressure the front line with repeated ground assaults, sending small groups of infantry to approach Ukrainian positions on foot or in cheap vehicles. The strategy has been costly, with NATO now saying that up to 25,000 Russian troops are dying each month. Sustaining that style of war has pushed Moscow to informal means of recruitment and weapons procurement, including hiring troops from overseas and receiving ammunition from North Korea.
Italian energy giant Eni has announced a major natural gas and condensate discovery offshore Côte d'Ivoire, marking the second-largest hydrocarbon find in the country's history. The discovery, named Calao South, was made after drilling the Murene South‑1X exploration well in Block CI‑501, where Eni holds a 90% stake in partnership with state-owned Petroci Holding. The well was drilled by the Saipem Santorini drillship to a depth of over 5,000 metres in water around 2,200 metres deep. The Calao South find strengthens Ivory Coast's energy base, supporting potential domestic power generation, industrial growth, and regional exports. “This discovery confirms the significant resource potential offshore Ivory Coast and reinforces the region's appeal to global energy investors,” said an Eni spokesperson. Reuters reports that output from Baleine, Ivory Coast's largest hydrocarbon development, is expected to rise to 150,000 barrels of oil and 200 million cubic feet of gas per day with the launch of Phase 3, noting this would make the field a key asset for the country's domestic energy needs. With rising demand for energy across West Africa, this discovery could also help Ivory Coast meet domestic consumption while exporting to neighboring markets. Italian energy giant Eni has in recent years deepened its oil production collaboration across Africa. In a previous report, Business Insider Africa noted that Eni, alongside the United Kingdom's BP, confirmed a fresh 500 million-barrel oil discovery offshore Angola, reinforcing the Southern African nation's efforts to bolster crude production amid sustained output pressures and shifting global energy flows. The Calao South discovery highlights the continuing potential of West Africa's offshore hydrocarbon basins, attracting multinational energy companies eager to tap new gas and condensate reserves to meet both regional and global demand.