Incyte Insight: Delaware Claws Back Some $$’s:
Months after local pharmaceutical giant Incyte abandoned plans to move its headquarters to Wilmington, state officials reallocated millions of grant dollars from the project to a new initiative to support small businesses.
The change in direction — from supporting one of the largest commercial projects in recent years to starting an expanded grant program for small businesses — is in line with Gov. Matt Meyer’s approach to economic development.
State leaders recently struck a deal to shrink Incyte’s taxpayer-funded relocation grant to $2.8 million, down from $14.7 million. Those funds will function as a job creation grant for the more than 200 employees moving into the building.
Delaware’s Small Business Director CJ Bell called the negotiations to amend the deal “smooth.”
As part of its restructuring of Incyte’s grant, the state reallocated $4.5 million to an economic development initiative to revive business districts around the state. The rest of the money will return to the state’s Strategic Fund, which supports business expansion in Delaware.
A question: Did ‘the state’ reallocate those funds, or did the FOIA-exempt ‘Public-Private Partnership’ reallocate those funds? I mostly like Meyer’s economic development philosophy, but I think it’s time to end Carney’s initiative that shrouded the state giveaway of taxpayers’ dollars to corporations in near-total secrecy.
Fifa has announced plans to sell the commercial rights to its tournaments, including the World Cup, to private investors in a controversial move that triggered an immediate backlash from Uefa, leading European clubs and politicians.
Uefa released a strongly worded statement accusing Fifa of “attempting to sell the soul of football” and is believed to be considering its legal position, while sources at numerous elite clubs were highly critical of the proposal in private. Andy Burnham, the UK’s new prime minister, condemned the move.
Fifa has confirmed it is working with the US bank JP Morgan on setting up a new entity – to be called Fifa Forward Enterprise (FFE) – that would raise hundreds of millions of dollars by selling a significant stake in the commercial rights of the men’s and women’s World Cups, and the Club World Cup to investors, with promises of an increase in distribution of “over $10bn” (£7.5bn) then being redistributed back to Fifa’s 211 member associations.
Thrive Capital, an investment company founded by Joshua Kushner – the brother of Donald Trump’s son‑in-law Jared Kushner – is leading the search for investors.. (You maybe were expecting something different?)
Gianni Infantino, the Fifa president, said the plan would see “the commercial side of the game [operating] as a focused, dedicated business, with its value shared more and better all around the world”. The plans are subject to approval by a “majority” of member associations, but Fifa declined to comment when asked when a vote will take place.
Infantino is expected to be re‑elected unopposed as president next year despite the huge controversy he attracts, but under Fifa statutes must stand down in 2031 after serving three full terms. The Times reported, however, that Infantino has aspirations to serve as chair of the new commercial company, which could earn him tens of millions of dollars.
The Saudis Have Joined The Endless War Effort:
United States and Saudi Arabian warplanes carried out strikes on Wednesday against Iran-backed militants in Iraq who launched more than two dozen drone attacks in recent days, the US military said.
The strikes targeted “Iran-aligned terrorists that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) directed to attack US forces and Saudi energy infrastructure,” US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.
It further warned that “the IRGC and its terrorist proxies must cease these attacks to avoid further US military response”.
Saudi Arabia confirmed its involvement in the strikes, with its defence ministry saying it hit “targets belonging to those militias present on Iraqi territory that are linked to attacks on the kingdom’s oil facilities”.
We All Knew That Microsoft’s System Was Infested With Bugs. They Can’t Kill ‘Em Fast Enough:
On an afternoon in mid-May, dozens of Microsoft engineers and their managers gathered online and in a conference room at the company’s Redmond, Washington, headquarters to discuss Project Glasswing.
The tech giant was racing to fix weaknesses in its code that a new AI model known as Mythos was uncovering at an unprecedented clip. The AI behemoth Anthropic, which developed Mythos, had given access to select organizations that make software used by regular people, companies and governments across the world. The goal was to find and fix the vulnerabilities before hackers and adversarial governments like China began using similar tools to find and exploit them for espionage and sabotage.
As the group settled in, one engineer asked the question that loomed over the meeting: Did Mythos “live up to the hype that Anthropic claimed it would have had?”
“Yes,” a manager responded, according to a recording of the meeting viewed by ProPublica.
The version being used by Microsoft, Claude Mythos Preview, was surfacing bugs faster than the tech giant could patch them, and engineers, the manager said, were now in “a mad dash” to close the gap.
One slide in that day’s presentation showed that in April alone, Mythos had uncovered 90 “critical” bugs and 141 “important” ones in SharePoint, Microsoft’s widely used collaboration software. In the first half of May it found even more.
“Please, please, please if your org has any April bugs, drive those down,” engineering manager Hans Andersen implored the group. They had roughly two weeks “to find as many things and do as much good as we can with this access.”
May 31, he explained, “is considered the day when the rest of the world will have caught up.”
The engineers on the call poked at that assertion, with one of them summing up the predicament: “So basically you’re saying if it’s released on June 1, then on June 2 the adversaries will have our bugs?”
Yep, one person responded. Yep, another echoed.
There have been outward signs of Microsoft’s internal struggle to deal with the growing list of bugs to be patched. Each month, the company publicly releases fixes for its software vulnerabilities in what’s known as “Patch Tuesday.” In June, it released patches for more than 200 bugs, which industry experts then said was an all-time high. But on July 14, the company blew through that record and released patches for more than 600 bugs. Only seven were categorized as low- or moderate-severity, one of which hackers were actively exploiting, according to Dustin Childs, leader of the Zero Day Initiative bug bounty program, which is part of cybersecurity company TrendAI. The rest were important or critical.
“Well folks. Here we are. The bug apocalypse has fully descended upon us,” Childs wrote in a blog post on July 14.
What Sports League Ranks Second In Value To The NFL On A Per-Game Basis? You’ll never guess. In fact, you’ll never come close to guessing. Give up?:
The Indian Premier League’s value has surged to an estimated $20.6bn (£15.5bn), boosted by ownership deals involving two of its biggest franchises, according to a report by the US-based investment bank Houlihan Lokey.
The T20 competition’s value rose 10.3% over the past year, underlining its position as one of the world’s most valuable sports brands, the bank’s report said. “On a per-match basis, only the NFL ranks ahead of the IPL globally.”
Royal Challengers Bengaluru, the IPL champions for the past two seasons and home to the former India captain Virat Kohli, retained their status as the league’s most valuable franchise with a brand value of $312m (£234.5m).
The side was recently acquired by a consortium including the US asset management giant Blackstone in a deal worth nearly $1.8bn, the most expensive franchise transaction in IPL history. Rajasthan Royals also changed hands in a deal valued at $1.65bn, with the Indian steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal and his family joining the SII vaccine billionaire Adar Poonawalla in taking control.
“Cricket’s evolution into a globally owned, institutionally backed asset class has accelerated further in 2026, with the IPL continuing to redefine the global sports landscape,” Houlihan Lokey’s Harsh Talikoti said. “These latest transactions further demonstrate the confidence investors continue to place in the long-term value creation opportunity.”
Cricket? Cricket? AYFKM?
What do you want to talk about?
“Pharmaceutical giant” sounds like a description of Mark McGwire.