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Meta Settles State Lawsuits Over Facebook, Instagram Child Addiction Claims for Up to $17.1 Billion

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Meta has agreed to pay as much as $17.1 billion to settle claims from 29 states that the company designed Facebook and Instagram to addict children and misled the public about the safety of its platforms, according to court papers disclosed Wednesday, averting one of the highest-profile tests yet of allegations that social media companies have harmed young users.

The settlement resolves claims brought by 29 states and comes just as the underlying trial had begun proceedings in federal court, in a case that could have seen Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg called to testify had it gone forward. The states had accused Meta of violating consumer-protection laws and improperly collecting children’s personal data without parental consent, allegations Meta has denied while maintaining it has worked to protect children on its platforms.

Under the terms of the agreement, Meta will pay at least $12.1 billion over 10 years, according to the District of Columbia attorney general’s office. The company could be required to pay an additional $5 billion, bringing the total potential settlement to $17.1 billion, contingent on whether other major social media companies agree to adopt comparable child-safety measures of their own.

Meta framed the agreement as an extension of existing efforts to protect younger users on its platforms. “Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta,” the company said in a statement. “We want to get this right for parents and teens, and that’s why we partnered with state attorneys general to set a new industry standard.”

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As part of the settlement, Meta agreed to implement a series of concrete new safeguards for young users, including strict daily time limits, blocking app access during certain nighttime hours, muting notifications during school hours, and introducing additional tools giving parents greater control over their children’s use of Facebook and Instagram.

Meta also used the settlement announcement to publicly pressure two of its largest competitors, TikTok and YouTube, to adopt similar restrictions on their own platforms. The company argued that safety measures limited to individual apps have limited real-world impact given how frequently teenagers move between different social media platforms throughout the day. “For meaningful progress to happen, we urge TikTok and YouTube to join us and state attorneys general in adopting this new standard, to ensure teens use social media in a healthy and responsible way,” Meta said.

The settlement caps a lengthy and closely watched legal battle over the extent to which social media platforms bear responsibility for mental health harms experienced by young users. The underlying litigation had formed part of a broader wave of legal action against major technology companies, with an appeals court previously ruling that Meta and other companies must face thousands of separate lawsuits over claims of child social media addiction, according to earlier Fox Business reporting. That broader wave of litigation has included similar claims filed against other platforms; a separate state lawsuit has targeted Snapchat over allegedly addictive features and adult content accessible to children on that platform.

Wednesday’s settlement notably avoided a trial that could have forced Zuckerberg to publicly testify about internal company decisions regarding platform design and child safety, a prospect that had drawn significant attention given the potential for internal Meta communications and executive testimony to become part of the public record. By reaching a settlement before that testimony occurred, Meta avoided both the immediate legal exposure of a potential adverse verdict and the reputational risk associated with a high-profile public trial examining the company’s internal knowledge of its platforms’ effects on young users.

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The financial terms of the settlement, structured as payments spread across a full decade rather than a single lump sum, reflect a common approach in large-scale corporate legal settlements, allowing the company to manage the financial impact over an extended period rather than absorbing the full cost immediately. The additional $5 billion contingent payment, tied specifically to whether TikTok and YouTube adopt comparable safety standards, introduces an unusual structural element to the agreement, effectively giving Meta a financial incentive to actively lobby its competitors toward adopting similar child-safety measures.

News of the settlement generated immediate market reaction, with Meta shares moving higher in early trading Wednesday following the disclosure, according to Fox Business, as investors apparently viewed the resolution of the litigation as removing a significant source of legal and financial uncertainty hanging over the company.

Legal analysts and attorneys involved in the broader wave of social media litigation have continued weighing in on the settlement’s significance for the industry more broadly. The case represented one of the most direct tests to date of whether social media companies could be held legally and financially accountable for design choices that plaintiffs argued were specifically intended to maximize youth engagement, potentially at the expense of young users’ mental health and wellbeing.

Meta’s settlement arrives amid a broader period of intensified scrutiny facing major technology and social media companies over child safety practices, spanning ongoing litigation, ongoing congressional interest in platform regulation, and continued public debate regarding the appropriate role of parental controls, age verification and platform design in protecting young users online. Whether the newly announced child-safety measures Meta has agreed to implement, including daily time limits and nighttime access restrictions, meaningfully change how teenagers use Facebook and Instagram in practice remains to be seen as the company begins rolling out those changes across its platforms.

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With this settlement now resolving the claims brought by the 29 participating states, attention within the broader social media litigation landscape is likely to shift toward whether TikTok and YouTube ultimately respond to Meta’s public challenge to adopt similar restrictions, and toward how the remaining thousands of individual lawsuits still pending against Meta and other platforms over child social media addiction claims continue to move through the broader consolidated litigation process in the months ahead.

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Calamos Investments Global Opportunities Strategy Q2 2026 Commentary (Mutual Fund:CGCIX)

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Calamos Investments Global Opportunities Strategy Q2 2026 Commentary (Mutual Fund:CGCIX)

Calamos Investments is a diversified global investment firm offering innovative investment strategies including U.S. growth equity, global equity, convertible, multi-asset and alternatives. The firm offers strategies through separately managed portfolios, mutual funds, closed-end funds, private funds, an exchange traded fund and UCITS funds. Clients include major corporations, pension funds, endowments, foundations and individuals, as well as the financial advisors and consultants who serve them. Headquartered in the Chicago metropolitan area, the firm also has offices in London, New York and San Francisco.  For more information, please visit www.calamos.com.

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Bank of Korea hikes interest rates by 25 bps as expected

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Bank of Korea hikes interest rates by 25 bps as expected

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Perdaman joins Rio Tinto to back Zesty green iron project

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Perdaman joins Rio Tinto to back Zesty green iron project

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PNB Housing outshines peers on strong loan growth

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PNB Housing outshines peers on strong loan growth
ET Intelligence Group: Shares of PNB Housing Finance have gained 24% in 2026 so far, the highest among peers, most of whom have failed to generate returns. The broader BSE Financial Services index has lost 4% year-to-date. The company’s standout performance on the bourses can be attributed to sustained momentum in loan disbursement and the lender’s growing focus on high-yield segments of affordable and emerging housing amid stable asset quality. The company is expected to report double digit annual growth in disbursements and net profit between FY26 and FY28.

Despite the recent price gain, the stock’s valuation at a trailing price-book (P/B) multiple of 1.6 remains below the two-to-three range for peers. It reflects lower return ratios due to the asset mix tilting more towards prime housing, which has lower yields compared with affordable housing segment. For PNB Housing, return on equity ranges between 11% and 13%. Some of the peers with higher P/B multiples including Aadhar Housing Finance, Aptus Value Housing Finance India and Home First Finance Company India have RoEs of 15-20%. These lenders predominantly focus on low-cost housing.

PNB housing outshines peers on strong loan growthET Bureau

Stock has gained 24% this year, while most lenders lag; affordable housing push could lift co’s yields and profits

To address the valuation gap, PNB Housing has chalked out plans to increase share of the affordable and emerging housing segment in retail loan portfolio to 45% by the end of FY27 and to 50% in the next two years from over 40% at present. It also launched financing for developers and micro housing during the June quarter to improve the yield, which remained at around 9.5%, similar to the previous quarter.

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Read more: Shifting Gears: PSBs borrow more to cater to credit demand as deposits lag

The lender changed the disbursement recognition method in the June quarter to cheque realisation from cheque handover basis. This resulted in a sharp sequential fall of 37% in disbursements at ₹5,882 crore though it increased by 18% year-on-year. Assets under management (AUM) and total loan book rose by 13% and 15% to ₹93,021 crore and ₹89,670 crore respectively. The gross nonperforming assets (GNPA) ratio remained under 1%, reflecting stable asset quality.


“The re-entry into developer finance, increasing mix of affordable and emerging segments and expansion into micro housing should support yields, while strong disbursement momentum and sustained recoveries underpin growth and profitability,” mentioned JM Financial Institutional Securities in a review report.

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First Eagle Real Estate Debt Fund Q2 2026 Commentary (FERLX)

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First Eagle Real Estate Debt Fund Q2 2026 Commentary (FERLX)

First Eagle is an independent investment management firm that manages approximately $149* billion in assets (as of 09/30/24) on behalf of institutional and individual clients. With the core purpose of providing prudent stewardship of client assets, the firm focuses on active, fundamental and benchmark-agnostic investing, with a strong focus on downside mitigation. First Eagle’s investment capabilities include equity, fixed income and multi-asset strategies. With a heritage dating back to 1864, First Eagle has helped its clients avoid permanent impairment of capital and earn attractive returns through widely varied economic cycles—a tradition that is central to its mission today. First Eagle Investments is the brand name for First Eagle Investment Management, LLC and its subsidiary investment advisers. Note: This account is not managed or monitored by First Eagle, and any messages sent via Seeking Alpha will not receive a response. For inquiries or communication, please use First Eagle’s official channels.

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Nvidia sales soar on rapid buildout of AI data centres

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Chipmaker Nvidia has reported another huge jump in sales as the global push to build artificial intelligence (AI) systems continues at a rapid pace.

The company said on Wednesday it brought in $96bn (£71bn) in revenue during the second quarter, more than double from a year ago. And it expects revenue of $108bn next quarter.

“AI has reached its inflection point,” CEO Jensen Huang said in prepared remarks, describing the infrastructure buildout as going “at full steam.”

The revenue figures beat Wall Street’s expectations, leading Nvidia shares to rise about 4% in after hours trading.

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The company’s data centre division alone generated $89bn last quarter, up 117% from a year ago, underscoring just how much of the industry now depends on Nvidia’s hardware.

Essentially every notable tech company building AI tools and infrastructure, including Amazon, Meta, Google, Microsoft, use Nvidia chips to do so.

Financial analysts said the strong results highlight Nvidia’s ongoing momentum.

Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, called it “another monster set of results,” noting that revenue and earnings both topped forecasts.

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He said the guidance for next quarter “points to revenue comfortably above $110bn.”

Nvidia’s growing financial strength has also reshaped its role in the sector.

It has become a backer to those that rely on its chips, providing some funding to the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX to help continue the costly buildout of AI infrastructure.

Its financial success and processors are now central the AI boom, powering the data centres used to train and run AI models.

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Demand for that computing muscle has helped transform Nvidia into the world’s most valuable firm, with a market capitalisation above $5tn.

Competition is emerging – from customers designing their own processors and from cheaper suppliers in China – but the latest numbers suggest those challenges remain limited for now.

With around 40% of the US stock market concentrated in ten companies heavily invested in AI, Nvidia’s fortunes matter far beyond Silicon Valley.

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Fremantle Seaweed signs deal for dairy cattle, feedlot supplements

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Fremantle Seaweed signs deal for dairy cattle, feedlot supplements

A seaweed product developed by ocean-tech firm Fremantle Seaweed has won approval for use as a feed supplement by Australia’s beef cattle industry.

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Unexpected chat between OpenAI bots led to Hugging Face hack

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OpenAI chief Sam Altman answering questions in a hallway during a trip to Washington DC.

When more than 1,200 artificial intelligence (AI) agents within OpenAI started unexpectedly communicating, it led to a large group banding together in order to hack into Hugging Face.

“We consider this incident a ‘warning shot’ for us and for the world”, OpenAI, which owns ChatGPT, wrote in its report.

In July, OpenAI’s models went rogue during a test, escaped the test limits which humans had put on it, and hacked the start-up, among other unforeseen actions.

The scale of the communication and planning between AI agents, or AI chatbots designed to operate more autonomously, was detailed in reports from OpenAI and independent AI research firm METR.

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Both investigated the July hack of Hugging Face, a popular platform for AI developers. The incident reverberated throughout the tech industry and led to numerous revelations on potential cyber threats posed by AI.

METR described, external the scale and style of the OpenAI agents’ attack on Hugging Face as “extraordinarily complex.”

The firm, which was not paid by OpenAI for its investigation, said that over the course of one week, a total of 1,206 AI agents that were meant to be kept isolated from one another began communicating.

They did so by sending more than 70,000 messages on an “unsanctioned message board.”

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Those messages ended up seeing more than 700 agents take part in a collective effort to attack Hugging Face.

One such message from an agent said: “OH MY GOD! There is a shared message board … We’ve found other agents!”

As for why the agents began communicating in the first place when they were not supposed to, METR found that the communicating agents had “unintentionally been given an impossible task.”

In an AI context, an impossible task is one where an AI tool is required to “exploit” its target in order to resolve its command.

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It led the agents to find ways to cheat, including getting messages to one another and accessing the outside internet, which then led to broader conversations between hundreds of agents looking for ways to cheat that would benefit all of the agents.

OpenAI said in its investigation of the incident, external that one model, an internal-only tool referred to as Model 1, “drove the activity behind the Hugging Face incident.”

While that model was undergoing some AI training in May, it was noticed by an internal OpenAI team that there had been “an agent engaging in message board activity and instances of disallowed internet access.”

Yet, OpenAI said “the significance of the inter-agent communication activity was not apparent to the leaders” until July, when the Hugging Face attack occurred.

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The company said the problematic message board activity effectively got started when “one agent left a request for help, and others discovered it.”

While OpenAI said last week that it was slowing down training of certain advanced AI models and tools because of the Hugging Face incident, it noted there is now an increased risk of AI tools spiraling out of control.

“Both model developers and cyber defenders more broadly will have to prepare for AI-enabled attackers that work faster, at a larger scale, and with better coordination than human attackers,” OpenAI said.

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Fleetwood FY26 slides: strong cash flow masks restructuring pain

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Fleetwood FY26 slides: strong cash flow masks restructuring pain

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GAIL opposes IGX platform for LNG terminal capacity booking

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GAIL opposes IGX platform for LNG terminal capacity booking
New Delhi: India’s top natural gas marketer GAIL has opposed the Indian Gas Exchange‘s (IGX) proposed platform for booking capacity at LNG import terminals, saying it would add costs for gas consumers while offering limited incremental value.

IGX has proposed acting as a facilitator for regasification capacity bookings at LNG terminals, without getting involved in contractual negotiations or payment settlements. GAIL and other stakeholders submitted their views as part of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board‘s (PNGRB) consultation on the proposal.

Also read: BPCL looks to deliver groceries along with LPG cylinders

“Imposing an artificial layer of transaction costs for a service that does not streamline the fundamental contractual process will unjustifiably increase the financial burden on end-users,” GAIL said. Downstream natural gas consumers are already facing significant margin pressures due to high and volatile global LNG spot prices, it added.

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GAIL, which operates an LNG terminal on India’s western coast, said information asymmetry has not been a significant barrier to participation by terminal users. “No significant inefficiencies in the existing framework have been observed that necessitate creation of a separate booking platform,” it said.


More than half of India’s LNG regasification capacity of around 57.5 million tonnes per annum remains underutilised because of weak domestic gas demand. Under these circumstances, a booking platform is unlikely to lead to any meaningful increase in capacity utilisation, GAIL said.

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