Hutter, Ascent Industries director, sells $587k in stock
Hutter, Director of Ascent Industries, Sells $587k Worth of Stock
Islamophobic incidents in Australia have surged since Israel’s Gaza war: Report on Islamophobia in Australia
Anti-Muslim incidents in person have increased by 150 percent – and by 250 percent online — according to an independent report.
Published On 12 Sep 2025
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said his government will “carefully consider” the recommendations of an independent report which found that anti-Muslim incidents in the country have “skyrocketed” since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza.
During a media briefing at the Commonwealth Parliament Offices in Sydney on Friday, Albanese said targeting Australians based on their religious beliefs was an attack on the country’s core values.
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“Australians should be able to feel safe at home in any community … we must stamp out the hate, fear and prejudice that drives Islamophobia and division in our society,” he said.
Aftab Malik, who has been serving as the government’s special envoy to combat Islamophobia since last October, was appointed to the three-year role to recommend steps to prevent anti-Muslim hatred. The appointment came as Australia had been experiencing a surge in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel.
The independent report, released on Friday and Malik’s first since assuming the position, said the normalisation of Islamophobia has become so widespread in Australia that many incidents are not even getting reported.
“The reality is that Islamophobia in Australia has been persistent, at times ignored and other times denied, but never fully addressed,” said Malik, appearing alongside Albanese.
“We have seen public abuse, graffiti … we have seen Muslim women and children targeted, not for what they have done, but for who they are and what they wear.”
The 60-page report’s 54 recommendations to the government include a review of counterterrorism laws and procedures to investigate potential discrimination.
Malik also recommended a wide-ranging inquiry into Islamophobia to investigate its main drivers and potential discrimination in government policies.
Islamophobia had intensified since the al-Qaeda attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 and had become entrenched, said Malik.
Islamophobic incidents in person had skyrocketed by 150 percent — and by 250 percent online — since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, Malik said.
The Australian government has acknowledged steep rises in both Islamophobic and anti-Semitic incidents in Australia.
Jillian Segal was appointed envoy to combat anti-Semitism in July 2024.
Segal recommended, in her first report two months ago, that Australian universities lose government funding unless they address attacks on Jewish students, and that potential migrants be screened for political affiliations.
According to the 2021 Australian Census, 3.2 percent of the Australian population is Muslim.
Islamophobia has also risen across Europe, fuelled by political parties touting a populist anti-immigration stance.
Wall Street remains confident in Powell’s expected rate cut due to jobless and inflation data
If markets needed further evidence for a September rate cut, they got it: initial jobless claims for the first week of September came back as the highest in nearly four years.
The Labor Department revealed Thursday that initial claims rose by 27,000 to 263,000 in the week ending September 6—their highest levels since October 2021.
Many saw the data (compounded by significant revisions to recent jobs reporting from the Bureau of Labor Statistics which painted a far weaker employment picture than previously believed) as further pressure on the Federal Open Market Committee to cut the base rate.
That’s because part of the Fed’s mandate is to ensure stable and maximum employment, an aspect of their work which in recent months has been overshadowed by the fear of inflation—mainly due to President Trump’s tariff plans.
On this account, Powell has agreed with many analysts that he will have to “see through” tariff increases as a one-off blip to price stability as opposed to an ongoing trend which will need to be managed.
Which meant yesterday’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) didn’t come with the same level of gravity as it may have done otherwise. The BLS reported CPI for urban consumers increased 0.4% on a seasonally adjusted basis, up 0.2% from July.
The largest contributor to the increase was shelter, which rose 0.4%, while the food index increased 0.5%, with groceries increasing 0.6% for the month.
But markets shook off the warmer data: The S&P 500 is up 0.85% at the time of writing, the Dow Jones up 1.36% and the Russell 2000 was up 1.83%. Despite political volatility in France, Paris’s CAC was only down a marginal 0.45% while London’s FTSE 100 is up around 0.35%.
In Asia Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up approximately 0.9% while India’s Nifty 50 also increased by 0.46%.
Markets are “buoyant” wrote Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid to clients this morning: “The combined data prompted a rally in U.S. Treasuries, with 10yr yields falling -6bps lower after the print before closing -2.5bp on the day to 4.02% … However, the front-end rally ran out of steam as the day went on and 2yr yields closed a mere -0.1bps lower as markets remained hesitant to price in much risk of a 50bps cut, with September Fed pricing unchanged at 27bps.”
Action for investors
With CME’s FedWatch barometer still pricing in a 0.0% chance of a rate hold at the FOMC’s meeting this month, JPMorgan Wealth Management’s Elyse Ausenbaugh, head of investment strategy, said the team had been “encouraging investors to dust off their ‘rate-cutting playbook.’”
Ausenbaugh wrote in a note seen by Fortune: “The path for the Fed to deliver what the market is expecting looks clear from our perspective. With inflation printing in-line with expectations and the labor market not giving us signs of improvement, a cut is in order.”
She added: “We expect these cuts to happen without a recession. There’s potential in the evolving environment for continued equity outperformance in the U.S. and abroad. It’s also important for investors to consider the reinvestment risk associated with holding cash and ultra-short-term fixed income positions.”
Over at UBS Mark Haefele, Global Wealth Management chief investment officer, is similarly reminding clients of their to-do list during a base rate cut. He wrote this morning: “With cash returns set to fall further as the Fed resumes rate cuts, we see a growing need to deploy excess cash into higher-yielding assets.
“Phasing into diversified portfolios over time could also help manage the risk of poor timing, reduce the influence of emotion, and provide more opportunities to benefit from market dips and rebounds.”
Here’s a snapshot of the markets globally this morning:
- S&P 500 futures were down 0.22% this morning.
- STOXX Europe 600 was down 0.18% in early trading.
- The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 0.35% in early trading.
- Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.89%.
- China’s CSI 300 was down 0.57%.
- South Korea’s KOSPI was up 1.54%.
- India’s Nifty 50 was up 0.46%.
- Bitcoin has nudged above $115K.
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Two killed in Sumy as Ukraine launches massive drone attack on Russia
Russia says it downed 221 Ukrainian drones launched on its territory overnight, in one of the largest aerial assaults since May.
More than half of the drones were intercepted over the Bryansk and Smolensk regions, south-west of Moscow, where Lukoil facilities were reportedly targeted, the defence ministry said.
Authorities in the Leningrad region said 28 drones were brought down and that a fire had broken out on a vessel in the Baltic port of Primorsk, Russia’s largest oil terminal. They added that the blaze was extinguished without casualties or leaks.
Meanwhile, officials said two civilians were killed in Ukraine’s Sumy region when a Russian glide bomb struck a village near the border.
Interceptions were reported across at least nine other regions of Russia, including Kaluga, Novgorod and the Moscow area, where nine drones were said to have been destroyed. Debris was recorded across several areas, though Russian officials insisted there had been no casualties.
Seven people, including five civilians and two military personnel, were injured when a drone struck a bus in Bryansk, the region’s Governor Alexander Bogomaz said.
Moscow’s figures, which the BBC has been unable to independently verify, suggest Thursday night’s attack constituted one of the largest Ukrainian aerial bombardments in over four months.
Russia said it destroyed a record 524 drones on 7 May. By comparison, Ukrainian officials said Russia had deployed 818 drones against their territory in recent weeks.
The aerial assault is being described as one of the most significant for the Leningrad region since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine three-and-a-half years ago. The attack saw operations at St Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport temporarily suspended.
Cross-border drone raids have become an increasingly prominent feature of the war. In July, a sustained Ukrainian drone attack forced the temporary closure of all of Moscow’s airports.
In recent months Ukrainian strikes have reached deeper into Russian territory, hitting refineries, fuel depots and logistics hubs hundreds of miles from the frontlines.
Moscow has intensified its missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and energy facilities over the summer as US-led efforts to reach a peace agreement stalled.
The attacks came ahead of the start of a major joint military exercise between Russia and ally Belarus on Friday, which is staged every four years.
But this time it is taking place just days after a number of Russian drones were shot down or fell on Poland, in what Warsaw called an unprecedented incursion into its airspace.
AI platform Stability introduces latest AI model for brands to develop personalized audio experiences
UK-based Stability AI has unveiled a new audio generation model called Stable Audio 2.5, which the artificial intelligence company says is tailored for enterprise-grade sound production.
The new model addresses challenges in corporate marketing. Stability noted, citing Ipsos research, that while custom audio can make brands eight times more memorable, only 6% of creative campaigns incorporate a sound identity.
The company’s research suggests that 86% of brand engagement is influenced by audio, but only few brands use custom audio.
Stability AI says Stable Audio 2.5 provides “faster generation, smarter composition, enhanced workflows,” capable of generating three-minute compositions in under two seconds on H100 GPUs.
The model was post-trained using what Stability AI calls Adversarial Relativistic-Contrastive training, a method developed by the company’s Stable Audio research team.
According to Stability AI, the new version has improved musical structure, producing compositions with “richer multi-part compositions,” and is able to respond more effectively to prompts like “uplifting” or specify musical elements such as “lush synthesizers,” suggesting that the system responds to both emotional and technical directions.
A new feature called audio “inpainting” allows users to upload existing audio files and specify where they want additional content generated. The model analyzes the context and extends the track accordingly.
Stability AI, maker of the popular Stable Diffusion image generator, emphasized that its terms of service prohibit copyrighted material uploads, with content recognition systems monitoring compliance.
Its statement comes as Stability AI faces multiple copyright infringement lawsuits. In one case, Seattle-based Getty Images sued Stability AI in both the UK and the US, alleging that the company illegally used 12 million images without permission or compensation.
“Like all Stable Audio models, Stable Audio 2.5 is commercially safe and trained on a fully licensed dataset.”
Stability AI
Separately, illustrators Sarah Andersen, Kelly McKernan, and Karla Ortiz filed a class action lawsuit in January 2023 against Stability AI and two other companies, challenging the use of their works for AI model training.
Most recently, Stability AI said: “Like all Stable Audio models, Stable Audio 2.5 is commercially safe and trained on a fully licensed dataset.”
Coinciding with the launch of Stable Audio 2.5, Stability AI announced that it is partnering with Amp, a WPP-owned sound branding agency, to develop enterprise solutions for brands. The collaboration will make Stable Audio 2.5 available to WPP’s global client portfolio through the advertising giant’s technology platform, WPP Open.
Back in July, Stability AI CEO Prem Akkaraju told the Financial Times in an interview that the company is looking at developing a marketplace where artists can license their work for AI training.
The proposed marketplace would allow creators to voluntarily submit artwork and receive compensation when AI companies use their content for model training.
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Israel’s deadly assault in Gaza sparks condemnation from UNSC following Doha attack | Latest developments in Israel-Palestine conflict
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Israeli onslaught on Gaza intensifies as United Nations Security Council issues statement condemning attack on Qatari capital.
Published On 12 Sep 2025
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Fresh leads discovered in search for Charlie Kirk’s murderer
The FBI has released new footage showing the suspect in the killing of US activist Charlie Kirk running across a roof – from where the fatal shot was fired – before dropping to the ground and crossing a road.
As the authorities continue their search, BBC Verify’s Nick Beake has been looking at the footage and what we know about his escape.
Produced by Aisha Sembhi. Filmed by Andrew Blum. Graphics by Leo Scutt-Richter and Mesut Ersoz.
BOJ to maintain current rates, cautiously optimistic about future prospects
BOJ set to keep rates steady, offer cautious optimism on outlook
Ben Proud Believes It Would Require 13 Years of World Titles to Equal Enhanced Games’ Financial Success
By James Sutherland on SwimSwam
Following his controversial announcement that he’s joining the Enhanced Games on Wednesday, British Olympic medalist Ben Proud opened up on his reasoning behind the decision on Thursday.
Proud, 30, spoke candidly with BBC Radio 5 Live, admitting that the financial incentives offered by the Games were a huge factor in his move, that he’s not too bothered about his public perception, and how the realities of where he’s at in his career led him to the decision.
On the financial aspect, Proud said it would take him “13 years of winning a World Championship title” in order to earn the same amount of money that’s up for grabs at the Enhanced Games, which is offering $500,000 for an event win and $1 million for breaking the world record in either the 50-meter freestyle or 100-meter dash.
“There’s a huge financial incentive with this, and I would be lying if I said it didn’t matter,” Proud told BBC Radio 5 Live.
“It’s just such a different ballpark financially – it gives me the opportunity to earn that sort of money and setting myself up, my family, and supporting my mum. These are opportunities as a 30-year-old I just can’t pass by.”
At the 2025 World Aquatics Championships, event winners earned $20,000, while a $30,000 bonus was on the line for breaking a world record. Proud earned $20,000 after winning silver in the men’s 50 free and placing 5th in the 50 fly (not including any sponsorship or funding money he may have earned).
“In reality, us athletes in the Olympic program don’t earn enough money to retire off the back of this and I am always seeking something that can see me through a bit longer.”
The three-time world champion has faced plenty of backlash since the news broke at 9:00 am ET on Wednesday, but Proud said he’s not too bothered about how he’s viewed by the general public. His greater concern was if it would tarnish what he’s accomplished in the pool—an Olympic silver medal, eight World Championship medals (including three titles), six European titles and five Commonwealth Games gold medals.
“It definitely carries that risk,” he said when asked if he was worried this decision would cast a shadow over his previous accomplishments. “This is one of the matters I really had to get my head around. The public perception of me isn’t really that important – I don’t see myself in the public eye too much, so it’s not the biggest issue.
“It came down to whether I could get the support of the 15 or 20 people that mean most to me in my life. If they could understand why I’m making this decision and be supportive, then I’m a happy man.”
Despite his long list of accolades, Proud admitted he didn’t quite reach a few of his ultimate goals in swimming, such as an Olympic gold medal or a world record, but had to come to terms with the fact that those are probably out of reach at this point in his career.
He sees the Enhanced Games as a chance to cash in on the work he’s put in since he was a teenager.
“I’ve been to three Olympics and had some amazing opportunities and this is my chance to capitalize on a skill I’ve spent the best part of 15 years developing,” he said.
“There are world records and Olympic golds I haven’t quite got but that’s asking a little too much of me now. I feel I’m at the right point of my life where I can look back at my career and go on to something new.”
In a brief statement sent to SwimSwam on Wednesday, Proud said he had “no obligation” to take any performance-enhancing substances upon joining the Games, and reiterated that sentiment while speaking BBC Radio 5 Live, also touching on the risks associated with taking PEDs.
“There are many different doctors and healthcare specialists who will guide and inform me on decisions,” he said. “If that was to become the case later on (that he would take PEDs), I would be in good hands to make the best informed decision.”
Only substances approved by the United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) can be taken by Enhanced Games participants.
“It’s my choice and the doctors will be giving me the best support in order for me to make the most informed decision,” Proud said, according to The Guardian. “Everything is currently available to the public through prescription – there’s nothing illegal and nothing that I would feel bad touching.
“The Enhanced Games is trying to reduce the stigma around some of these substances. Some of these things, they have fantastic effects on the body and really limited side effects. Those are the ones to me that are curious – what could you take that makes you feel better, better energy, more recovery, without health risks.”
Aquatics GB said it was “immensely disappointed” in Proud’s decision, while European Aquatics echoed that sentiment and The Guardian reports that UK Sport will cease his funding.
“I respect what UK Sport and Aquatics GB have said because if I were in their shoes, I would agree fully,” Proud told BBC Radio 5 Live. “They need to protect themselves and the sport from this competition so I fully understand the reactions I have received from making this change.”
Proud has effectively retired from competing internationally from Great Britain with this decision, joining fellow accomplished swimmers such as three-time Olympic medalist James Magnussen, world record holder Andrii Govorov and European champion Kristian Gkolomeev.
“I want to hold as much respect to swimming by removing myself as much as I can,” Proud said.
“I don’t expect to come back. Being one of the first people to make this move comes with a lot of controversy.”
Read the full story on SwimSwam: Ben Proud Says It Would Take 13 Years of World Titles To Match Enhanced Games Financial Gain