A fire that tore through a five-storey shopping centre in the Iraqi city of Kut has left at least 60 dead, officials said.
The blaze at the mall, which opened seven days ago, broke out on Wednesday night and has since been brought under control.
Social media videos showed firefighters rescuing people from the mall’s roof, but state media reported that many are still missing.
“A tragedy and a calamity has befallen us,” regional governor Mohammed al-Miyahi said, adding that legal action would be brought against the shopping centre’s owner.
The governor has also declared three days of mourning.
Videos on INA’s news channel show flames ripping through several floors of the Corniche Hypermarket in the city’s centre, as firefighters try to douse them.
Other clips circulating on social media appear to show a small number of people on the roof during the fire, as well as the burned out insides of the centre.
A number of people were rescued from the building by firefighters, al-Miyahi told local media.
Ambulances were still taking casualties to hospitals in the city, which is about 160 km (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad, at 04:00 local time.
“The tragic fire claimed the lives of 61 innocent citizens, most of whom suffocated in bathrooms, and among them 14 charred bodies yet to be identified,” the interior ministry said in a statement.
It added that 45 people were rescued from inside the building.
Nasir al-Quraishi, a doctor in his 50s, told AFP he lost five family members in the blaze.
“A disaster has befallen us,” he said. “We went to the mall to have some food, eat dinner and escape power cuts at home.
“An air conditioner exploded on the second floor and then the fire erupted and we couldn’t escape it.”
Ali Kadhim, 51, had been looking for his cousin, who is missing alongside his wife and three children, at the main hospital and the mall where rescuers were searching the wreckage.
“We don’t know what happened to them,” he said.
Moataz Karim, 45, identified the bodies of two of his relatives – one of whom began working at the mall three days ago – on Thursday morning.
“There is no fire extinguishing system,” he told AFP, as we waited for further news of a third missing relative outside the forensic department.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani expressed condolences to the families of victims in a statement.
He has also asked the interior ministry to launch an immediate investigation into the fire’s causes, as well as to identify shortcomings and “to take all necessary strict measures to prevent the recurrence of such incidents”.
The mall, which included a restaurant, opened a week ago, according to the interior ministry.
Safety standards are often poorly observed at Iraqi construction sites, which have face decades of mismanagement and corruption.
A required part of this site couldn’t load. This may be due to a browser
extension, network issues, or browser settings. Please check your
connection, disable any ad blockers, or try using a different browser.
Scientists have developed a hydrogel “rest stop” that shields cancer-fighting T cells, delaying their exhaustion and boosting their killing power. This game-changing strategy could supercharge immunotherapy by giving T cells time to regroup and hit harder.
Cancer immunotherapy supercharges the body’s own immune system to attack cancer cells, often relying on immune cells called T cells. However, for the treatment to be effective, those T cells need to be in peak fighting condition and not exhausted.
While previous studies have focused on revving up flagging T cells, new research led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has taken a new approach. Scientists have developed a protective barrier that physically separates T cells from cancer cells, allowing the immune cells to pause before they’re exhausted and enhancing their cancer-fighting abilities in the process.
“What if we could harness the concept of physical blocking to modulate the immune microenvironment?” asked Liang Xing-Jie, PhD, the study’s co-corresponding author and a professor at CAS’s National Center for Nanoscience and Technology. “What if a controllable barrier could regulate the T cell-tumor interaction and give T cells a break to delay their exhaustion?”
The researchers developed a biomimetic physical barrier, or BPB, using a special hydrogel that’s injected directly into the tumor. At body temperature, it transforms from a liquid into a semi-solid, effectively forming a temporary wall between T cells and cancer cells.
During this period of enforced rest, more progenitor exhausted T (Tpex) cells, a special subtype of T cells, accumulate. The term “progenitor” means the cells are early-stage or stem-like cells that haven’t fully matured yet. “Exhausted” refers to the fact that they’re part of the exhausted T cell lineage, which emerges when the immune system is constantly exposed to threats (such as tumor cells) and starts to wear out. So, Tpex cells are like army recruits that can grow into full soldiers, but haven’t fully burned out like their older counterparts.
The physical barrier allowed Tpex cells to build up safely inside the tumor without being pushed into full exhaustion by constant contact with cancer cells. When the barrier was removed, using near-infrared light to return the semi-solid gel to a liquid state, the researchers noticed that the Tpex cells were reactivated and had expanded into more potent, tumor-killing T cells. The result was a stronger, longer-lasting immune response against the cancer.
The process also led to the formation of an immune memory, which helps the body fight off the tumor if it tries to come back. When the researchers used their BPB with another immunotherapy, half of the tumors were completely cured in experimental models. The strategy also helped prevent the return of tumors and was effective against multiple tumors.
The present study has introduced a new way of thinking about immunotherapy: instead of just stimulating T cells non-stop, it gives them a scheduled break, improving their performance and longevity.
“We call this strategy ‘immunological rhythm control’,” said the study’s other corresponding author, Gong Ningqiang, PhD, a principal investigator at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). “By modulating the interaction between T cells and tumor cells, we intervene in the process of T cell exhaustion and preserve T cell functional activity to achieve a more effective immune response.”
Tpex cells are now seen as a key target for improving immunotherapy because they’ve been shown to respond well to treatment, and they can help by “rebooting” the immune system against cancer, even after it has started to fail. The research has also opened the door to combining the BPB technique with other cancer therapies to improve outcomes, especially in cases where traditional immunotherapies fall short.
On July 8, Indian Chief of Defence Staff Anil Chauhan delivered a pointed message at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, raising alarms over a budding alignment of strategic interests between China, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The general cautioned that such a trilateral convergence, if it gains traction, could have serious implications for India’s security and disrupt the regional balance of power.
His remarks came in the wake of a widely circulated photograph from Kunming, China, showing diplomats from the three nations meeting during the inaugural trilateral talks held alongside regional economic forums. While the meeting was officially billed as a diplomatic engagement, the image has sent ripples through India’s strategic community.
Bangladesh, clearly aware of the sensitivities involved, has moved swiftly to contain the narrative. Touhid Hossain, foreign affairs adviser to Dhaka’s interim government, publicly disavowed any intention of joining bloc-based or adversarial alliances. Dhaka reiterated that its foreign policy remains firmly nonaligned and anchored in sovereign autonomy.
Despite these assurances, New Delhi’s strategic calculus appears to be shifting. There is now a growing perception in New Delhi that, under the interim leadership of Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh may be recalibrating its foreign policy, moving away from the overt closeness seen under former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Under Hasina, India and Bangladesh enjoyed unusually warm ties characterised by deep security cooperation, cross-border connectivity projects and shared regional objectives. Dhaka took strong action against anti-India insurgents, gave India access to transit routes through Bangladeshi territory and generally aligned itself with New Delhi’s strategic priorities.
Whether real or perceived, this shift is influencing how India reads the regional landscape.
Chauhan also drew attention to a broader, troubling pattern: External powers – chiefly China – are leveraging economic fragilities across the Indian Ocean region to deepen their influence. With countries such as Sri Lanka and Pakistan increasingly beholden to Chinese investment and aid, concerns are mounting that Beijing is systematically encircling India through soft-power entrenchment.
Bangladesh’s case, however, remains somewhat unique. Its economy, though under pressure, is relatively resilient, and Dhaka continues to emphasise pragmatic, interest-driven diplomacy over ideological alignment. The Kunming meeting, while symbolically charged, does not yet represent a formal strategic realignment.
Still, the formation of a trilateral framework marks a significant development. Unlike previous bilateral engagements, this format introduces a new dimension of coordination that could evolve in unpredictable ways.
The echoes of history are hard to ignore. In the 1960s, China and Pakistan maintained a tight strategic axis that tacitly encompassed East Pakistan – what is now Bangladesh. That configuration unravelled in 1971 with Bangladesh’s independence.
Today, however, subtle signs suggest elements of that strategic triad may be resurfacing – this time in a more complex geopolitical theatre.
For Beijing, deepening ties with both Pakistan and Bangladesh serves its broader objective of consolidating influence in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region. For Islamabad, it provides a layer of diplomatic insulation and strategic leverage. For Dhaka, the relationship is more tactical – an attempt to hedge against regional volatility at a time when its once-stable ties with New Delhi appear increasingly uncertain.
Bangladesh’s cautious posture is also shaped by volatile domestic politics. Since the July protests and the installation of an interim administration, internal cohesion has frayed. Polarisation is resurging, and with national elections looming in early 2026, the government’s priority is stability, not strategy. Foreign policy in this climate is reactive – not transformative.
Dhaka understands the risks of leaning too far in any direction. Lingering historical resentments with Pakistan remain politically sensitive while an overreliance on China would strain crucial trade and diplomatic ties with the West, especially the United States, where concerns over democratic backsliding and human rights have sharpened.
In this context, any overt strategic alignment could invite unnecessary scrutiny and backlash.
The Kunming meeting, despite its symbolism, was primarily economic in focus – touching on trade, connectivity, infrastructure and cultural cooperation. However, when China and Pakistan floated the proposal to institutionalise trilateral cooperation through a joint working group, Bangladesh demurred. This was not indecision. It was a deliberate, calculated refusal.
Dhaka’s foreign policy has long been defined by “engagement without entanglement”. It maintains open channels with all major powers while avoiding the traps of bloc politics. This nonaligned posture is a core principle guiding its diplomacy. Bangladesh welcomes dialogue and economic cooperation, but it draws a firm line at military or strategic alignment.
For India, interpreting Bangladesh’s moves requires nuance. While Dhaka continues to broaden its international partnerships, it has not abandoned its critical role in India’s security calculus, particularly in the northeastern region. The challenge for New Delhi is not just to monitor emerging partnerships but to reinforce the value of its own.
Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, security cooperation between New Delhi and Dhaka under Hasina’s Awami League was pivotal in stabilising the border region. Bangladesh’s decisive crackdown on militant groups, coupled with close coordination with Indian intelligence and security agencies, played a crucial role in suppressing insurgent threats.
Today, with India’s ties to both China and Pakistan under severe strain, any perceived shift in Dhaka’s stance is scrutinised intensely in New Delhi. The fear that Beijing and Islamabad might exploit Bangladesh as a strategic lever to apply asymmetric pressure remains deeply ingrained in India’s security mindset.
Yet, Bangladesh’s explicit rejection of the proposed trilateral working group reveals a clear-eyed understanding of these sensitivities. It underscores Dhaka’s intent to steer clear of actions that could escalate regional tensions.
This evolving dynamic poses a dual challenge for India: It demands a recalibrated response that moves beyond reactive defensiveness. New Delhi must embrace a more sophisticated, forward-looking strategy – one that transcends old political loyalties and adapts to the shifting diplomatic contours of South Asia.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Israel’s military struck the Syrian defence ministry in Damascus and government forces in southern Syria for a third day on Wednesday, as deadly sectarian fighting in the mostly Druze province of Suweida continued.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was “working to save our Druze brothers”. Interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa accused Israel of causing a “large-scale escalation”.
More than 350 people are reported to have been killed since Sunday, when clashes between Druze militias and Bedouin tribes erupted in Suweida.
The Syrian military reportedly began to withdraw its forces from Suweida late on Wednesday, as the US said it had agreed “steps” to end the violence.
“We have agreed on specific steps that will bring this troubling and horrifying situation to an end tonight,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote on X.
Syria’s state news agency, Sana, reported that troops were leaving Suweida as part of an agreement between the government and the Suweida’s religious leaders, following the “completion of the army’s pursuit of outlaw groups”.
The Syrian foreign ministry said the country “welcomes the efforts made by the US and Arabian sides” to “resolve the current crisis” peacefully.
Israel has not yet commented on the ceasefire efforts.
The Israeli military began striking Syrian security forces and their weapons on Monday, after they were deployed to the city of Suweida for the first time since Sunni Islamist-led rebels overthrew President Bashar al-Assad in December.
Minority groups including the Druze – whose religion is an offshoot of Shia Islam with its own unique identity and beliefs – are suspicious of Sharaa and his government, despite his pledges to protect them.
Their fears have been heightened by several outbreaks of sectarian violence over the past eight months, including one in May in which dozens of people were reportedly killed in clashes between Druze, security forces, and allied Islamist fighters in Damascus and Suweida.
In the wake of that fighting, the government reached an agreement with Druze militias to hire local security forces in Suweida province from their ranks. The continued control of Suweida by the militias sparked tensions with Bedouin tribes backed by the government.
Netanyahu has said he is committed to preventing harm to the Druze in Syria because of their deep ties to those living in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Hundreds of Druze crossed the heavily fortified frontier with Syria on Wednesday, prompting Israeli troops to fire tear-gas in an attempt to stop them. Netanyahu urged those with Israeli citizenship to “return to your homes and let the [Israeli military] take action”.
Israel said the significant escalation of its bombing campaign was aimed at making the Syrian government immediately withdraw its forces from Suweida province.
Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on X on Wednesday afternoon that “the warnings in Damascus” had ended and that the Israeli military would “continue to operate vigorously in Suweida to destroy the forces that attacked the Druze until they withdraw completely”.
He later posted that “the painful blows have begun”, above a video clip showing a TV presenter diving under a desk live on camera as an Israeli air strike hit the nearby entrance to the Syrian defence ministry in Umayyad Square, in central Damascus – where huge crowds celebrated Assad’s downfall last year.
A separate strike on what the Israeli military called a “military target in the area” of the presidential palace underscored the severity of Israel’s warning to Sharaa.
Fadi Al Halabi, a London-based Syrian filmmaker who is visiting Damascus, said he was nearby when he heard the Israeli fighter jets approach.
“People’s faces were so afraid. Everyone started running [in] the street. No-one knew where to go. Suddenly the air strike[s] began, targeting some of the most crowded areas, including the ministry of defence,” he told the BBC.
The Israeli military said it also struck armoured vehicles loaded with heavy machine guns and weapons on their way to Suweida, and firing posts and weapons storage facilities in southern Syria.
Syria’s foreign ministry said the strikes targeted government institutions and civilian facilities in Damascus and Suweida and killed “several innocent civilians”.
“This flagrant assault, which forms part of a deliberate policy pursued by the Israeli entity to inflame tensions, spread chaos, and undermine security and stability in Syria, constitutes a blatant violation of the United Nations Charter and international humanitarian law,” it added.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, meanwhile reported that the humanitarian situation in Suweida city had rapidly deteriorated.
It cited sources as saying there were clashes in several area of the city and that tanks had attacked the national hospital, causing panic among the scores of casualties from the fighting being treated there. They also said there were acute shortages of water and medical supplies.
Later, the Syrian health ministry said government forces had entered the hospital and found “dozens of bodies” after “outlaw groups withdrew”, according to the official Sana news agency.
A man named Hosam told the BBC he was in the centre of Suweida city and had witnessed civilians coming under fire from artillery and snipers.
“I lost my neighbour today on the street. One of the snipers shot him. We tried to [get an] ambulance [to take] him to hospital, but we couldn’t,” he said.
Other witnesses and local activists have described scenes of looting and extrajudicial killings.
The SOHR says more than 350 people have been killed since Sunday in Suweida province.
They include 79 Druze fighters and 55 civilians, 27 of whom were summarily killed by interior ministry and defence ministry forces, according to the group.
At least 189 members of the government forces and 18 Bedouin tribal fighters have also been killed in the clashes, it says.
It was not immediately possible to verify the SOHR’s casualty figures, but Syrian security sources also told the BBC on Wednesday that the death toll was close to 300.
Reuters
The Syrian interior ministry said a ceasefire had been agreed on Wednesday night to end the fighting in Suweida city
The fighting between Bedouin tribes and Druze militias in Suweida is said to have been sparked by the abduction of a Druze merchant on the highway to Damascus last Friday.
On Sunday, armed Druze fighters reportedly encircled and later seized a neighbourhood of Suweida city that is inhabited by Bedouin. The clashes soon spread into other parts of Suweida province, with tribesmen reportedly launching attacks on nearby Druze towns and villages.
Syria’s interior ministry later announced that its forces and those of the defence ministry would intervene and impose order, saying the “dangerous escalation comes in light of the absence of relevant official institutions”.
However, they were soon accused by Druze residents of looting, setting homes on fire, and humiliating community leaders.
Earlier this year, Israel’s prime minister demanded the complete demilitarisation of Suweida and two other southern provinces. He said Israel saw President Sharaa’s Sunni Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), as a threat. HTS is a former al-Qaeda affiliate that is still designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN and UK, but no longer by the US.
The Israeli military has already carried out hundreds of strikes across Syria to destroy the country’s military assets since the fall of the Assad regime.
And it has sent troops into the UN-monitored demilitarised buffer zone between the occupied Golan Heights and Syria, as well as several adjoining areas and the summit of Mount Hermon.
NTT DC REIT’s IPO was supposed to be a shot in the arm for Singapore’s flagging equity market, decried by analysts as “lackluster” due to its lack of growth stocks and tiny number of listings. NTT’s IPO had everything: It was oversubscribed, boasted sovereign wealth fund GIC as a cornerstone investor, and was tied to the buzzy data center sector.
Yet NTT DC REIT’s shares have done poorly since their trading debut on Monday, falling below the offer price of $1.
Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index is up by almost 25% so far this year, while Singapore’s Straits Times Index is up by just 9%.
“Singapore’s lack of growth oriented, tech representation in the STI has led it to trail the Hang Seng. This has led to descriptions of the market as lackluster,” Thilan Wickramasinghe, Singapore head of research at Maybank Investment Banking Group, says.
Singapore has had just three IPOs so far this year, including a July 14 listing from NTT DC REIT, whose shares started trading on Monday. Hong Kong, by comparison, has had more than 40 IPOs.
NTT DC REIT, backed by Japanese telecoms giant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, raised $773 million in its IPO, making it Singapore’s largest listing in eight years. By comparison, Hong Kong’s largest IPO this year was battery giant CATL’s secondary listing in late May, which raised at least $4 billion.
The NTT DC REIT IPO was meant to give investors a way to tap into AI-fueled demand for data centers, and give Singapore’s equity market a much needed boost. Instead, it may end up showing just how much work still needs to be done.
NTT DC Reit’s listing
NTT DC REIT consists of six data centers. Four are based in the U.S., with one in Northern Virginia—the world’s largest data center market—and three in Northern California. One data center is in Vienna, a fast-growing data center market. The last is in Singapore, the second-largest data center market in Asia-Pacific after China.
Data centers are key to running AI applications. These specialized data centers provide the computational power and digital data storage capacity that’s needed to train the ever increasingly complex AI applications. AI applications, like large language models, rely on massive amounts of data for training and operation.
Singapore has long been a regional data center hub due to its infrastructure, lack of natural disasters, and its position as a key node for subsea cables.
Generative AI requires massive amounts of computing power, both for training and inference, which in turn has sparked a boom in data center investment. NTT hopes to capture that need for data center capacity, using the proceeds from its listing to continue growing its data center business. The company plans to develop over 850MW of capacity across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
NTT estimates that total annual cloud and AI revenues are projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of about 23% between 2024 and 2027, driven by AI-led demand.
Asia-Pacific attracted $15.5 billion in data center investments last year, more than any other region in the world according to the real estate consultancy Knight Frank.
The consultancy forecasts global capital expenditure to exceed $286 billion by 2027 as operators respond to mounting demand for AI-optimized infrastructure, cloud services, and enterprise digital initiatives.
Singapore’s equity market
Doug Adams, CEO for NTT Global Data Centers, explained that the company picked Singapore due to its appreciation for data centers.
“The Singapore market is a great market for data centers in general, and we believe the best market in the world for data center Reits,” Adams said in an interview on CNBC International on Monday. “In Singapore, they appreciate a global set of assets and they look for a drip feed of assets over time, which is what we’re looking to achieve for our portfolio.”
GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, is one of the IPO’s cornerstone investors. GIC has a 9.8% stake in NTT DC REIT, making it the second largest investor after NTT.
Singapore is trying to lift the fortunes of its stock exchange, including a 20% tax rebate for primary listings.
The country’s stock market is often criticized as boring or illiquid, with the sectors like property, conglomerates and the three big local banks dominating the SGX. Poor liquidity weakens investor sentiment, which then leads to lower valuations or even fewer listings.
While Singapore’s exchange struggles, Hong Kong’s is surging, which Wickramasinghe credits to the “DeepSeek moment” and Beijing’s pro-growth stance.
Lorraine Tan, director of equity research for Asia at Morningstar, notes that Hong Kong’s market is also rebounding from years of poor performance, making the market “relatively cheap in valuation terms.” She adds that the surge in Hong Kong IPOs could also be due to Chinese regulators giving their approval for mainland companies to list in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is now set to be the world’s top IPO destination this year, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence Data.
Still, Wickramasinghe is optimistic that Singapore’s policy reforms should help the market “shed its lackluster image going forward.”
“The recent listing of NTT DC Reit is an early signal of returning listings. We expect this momentum to accelerate going into H2,” Wickramasinghe says.
Beverage giant declines to either confirm or deny change to ingredients in its signature soft drink.
United States President Donald Trump has announced that Coca-Cola will start using cane sugar instead of high-fructose corn syrup in its US-made soft drink at his urging.
“I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday.
“I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola.”
Trump said the switch would be a “very good move”, adding: “You’ll see. It’s just better!”
Coca-Cola neither confirmed nor denied Trump’s announcement, but said it appreciated the president’s “enthusiasm for our iconic Coca-Cola brand”.
“More details on new innovative offerings within our Coca-Cola product range will be shared soon,” the Atlanta, Georgia-based company said in a brief statement.
“I have been speaking to @CocaCola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so. I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see. It’s just better!” –President Donald J. Trump pic.twitter.com/9L27oxlYUj
Trump, who is known for his love of Diet Coke, did not explain his push to change the original version of the soft drink’s ingredients, but his health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has harshly criticised the prevalence of high-fructose corn syrup in the American diet.
Kennedy, who has pledged to wage war on ultra-processed foods containing ingredients rarely found in kitchen cabinets, has called the sweetener “just a formula for making you obese and diabetic”.
High-fructose corn syrup, which is derived from corn starch, is favoured by many US manufacturers because it is cheaper than sugar, in part due to government subsidies for corn and tariffs on sugar imports.
Coca-Cola began using high-fructose corn syrup in its US production in the 1980s, but still uses cane sugar in many versions of its signature beverage made overseas, including Mexico, whose version of the drink has developed a cult-like following for its supposedly superior taste.
While Americans’ high sugar intake is a major contributor to nearly three-quarters of the population being overweight or obese, there is currently no scientific consensus to suggest high-fructose corn syrup is less healthy than cane sugar or other sweeteners.
In a 2018 fact sheet, the US Food and Drug Administration said it was “not aware of any evidence” of a “difference in safety” between foods containing high-fructose corn syrup and those with other sweeteners, such as sugar and honey.
MBW Reacts is a series of analytical commentaries from Music Business Worldwide written in response to major recent entertainment events or news stories. Only MBW+ subscribers have unlimited access to these articles.
The latest music consumption stats are out from industry-standard market monitor, Luminate.
They tell a story of a rapidly changing industry – and how the United States, while still comfortably the world’s largest market, is becoming increasingly less dominant global player.
In fact, now MBW has cast our eye over the full Luminate Midyear Report (download it here), we’d suggest one thing in particular sings out:
Any music company that remains fixated on making ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ hits for the US chart… may want to question the long-term benefit of this strategy.
Here are the conclusions from the Luminate report that led us to this summation.
Conclusion 1: The US market will soon make up less than a quarter of global streams
We already knew that the US market was starting to lose its status as the runaway king of streaming.
The IFPI‘s latest Global Music Report, issued earlier this year, told us so: it revealed that the US, combined with Canada, saw its annual share of global trade revenues fall to 40.3% in 2024 – down from 41.6% just two years prior.
This, however, didn’t tell us what’s happening to music consumption.
With the USA’s per-stream royalties significantly higher than those in other parts of the world, the trade revenues metric arguably downplays how dramatic the shift in actual worldwide fan behavior has become.
“We are observing the continued expansion of global streaming, significantly driven by ex-U.S. markets.”
Rob Jonas, Luminate
According to Luminate’s new report, total on-demand audio streams in the first half of 2025 in the USA stood at 696.6 million.
That was up 4.6% YoY.
Yet, audio streams outside the US jumped by a much bigger margin — up by 12.6% YoY to 1.8 trillion.
Luminate CEO, Rob Jonas, said: “We are observing the continued expansion of global streaming, significantly driven by ex-U.S. markets.”
He ain’t kidding.
Below, based on MBW’s review of historical data, you can see how the USA’s global market share of total audio streams has substantially fallen – down from 43.4% in 2019 to just 27.9% in H1 2025.
The USA’s market share of global audio streaming volume is on course to fall beneath a quarter (25%) in the next year or two.
Conclusion 2: The continuing death of the megahit (!)
The above explains how the USA is losing global market share.
But what about the market share of the most popular music within the USA?
Based on mid-year data, it showed how the USA’s Top 10 biggest tracks of the period were claiming a much smaller overall market share than they once did.
The reason: listener behavior was becoming spread across many more tracks, from many more artists, than was once the case.
The latest Luminate data shows this trend hasn’t reversed.
The biggest track in the USA in the first half of the year was Luther by Kendrick Lamar and SZA.
It racked up 530.4 million audio streams in the Jan-June period, says Luminate.
A hefty volume of plays, for sure – but a smaller total amount than the biggest hits of H1 2023 (Morgan Wallen), H1 2020 (Roddy Ricch), H1 2019 (Lil Nas X), and H1 2018 (Drake).
Meanwhile, according to Luminate, the USA’s Top 10 biggest audio streaming tracks combined in H1 2025 racked up 3.62 billion plays.
According to MBW’s calculations, that was actually down, in volume terms, on the equivalent figures from H1 2024 (3.76 billion) and H1 2023 (3.89 billion) – see below.
Luminate’s H1 2025 list of the Top 10 biggest audio streaming tracks in the USA. (Source: Luminate)
Here’s the critical stat in this section: the USA’s Top 10 tracks in H1 2025 claimed a half-a-percent share of the market’s total audio streams (0.52%).
Go back just a few years, and the equivalent stat was as high as 1.6% (see below).
Conclusion 3: In with the Old, out with the New….
So we’ve demonstrated (see: Conclusion 1) that the USA is losing market share of global streams, and that (see: Conclusion 2), the biggest chart tracks within the USA are losing market share of national streams.
But what about that warning over ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ tracks on the US chart?
This requires nuance.
When a record company or artist has a track like Luther by Kendrick Lamar (or indeed Not Like Us or TV Off, which both also made H1 2025’s Top 10), they can be confident, what with the quality and cultural cachet of the artist, that they are creating ‘evergreen catalog tracks’ which will be streamed long into the future.
But if a label or artist is creating novelty tracks that will get listened to in 2025, but not in, say, 2029, 2039, or 2049?
That’s becoming a much harder game.
According to Luminate’s new report, tracks younger than 18 months old (‘current’ releases) were streamed 168.5 billion times in the first half of 2025.
That was down in volume terms by 3.3% YoY vs. the same period of 2024, when ‘current’ tracks racked up 174.3 billion streams.
To reiterate: ‘current’ music in the USA is seeing its total plays decline, even as the market’s overall streams grow.
Whipping out MBW’s calculator for a second, the above stats seem to indicate:
(a) ‘Current’ tracks claimed a mere 24.2% market share of total US audio streams in H1 2025; and
(b) ‘Catalog’ tracks (those older than 18 months) claimed a whopping 75.8% market share.
Or, in simpler terms: Less than a quarter of every stream in the US these days is of a ‘current’ release.
The most notable decline in ‘current’ release popularity is occurring in the ‘Hip-hop/R&B’ genre.
According to Luminate’s report, total on-demand audio streams of ‘current’ Hip-hop/R&B releases were down by 9.2% YoY in H1 2025 – a real-terms drop of 3.7 billion plays vs. H1 2024.
Despite this, ‘Hip-hop/R&B’ remains the USA’s No.1 genre overall, with 24.6% of total audio streams in the market in the first half of this year.
That was down on 25.8% in the prior-year period.
Meanwhile, the ‘Rock’ genre continues to gain ground.
The USA’s second-biggest genre on audio streaming in H1 2025, it grew market share to 17.7% vs. 17.3% in the prior-year period.Music Business Worldwide
The US Department of Justice has fired a veteran federal prosecutor who worked on the cases against sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, his accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, and hip hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.
It is not clear why Maurene Comey was removed from her job at the Southern District of New York, but her exit was confirmed by sources to the BBC’s US partner CBS.
She is the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, whom President Donald Trump fired in 2017.
The justice department has been firing lawyers who worked on cases that angered the president, including the 2021 US Capitol riot and a special prosecutor investigation of Trump.
Ms Comey – who had been a trial lawyer at the high-profile justice department office in Manhattan since 2015 – was given no explanation for her firing, a person familiar with the matter told Politico.
Her exit comes as Trump and the justice department’s leader, Attorney General Pam Bondi, face backlash over the administration’s handling of files relating to Epstein.
The well-connected convicted paedophile died by suicide while awaiting trial in 2019.
Earlier this month it was reported that the justice department had launched an investigation into the former FBI director.
Prosecutors were said to be examining Comey’s statements to Congress over an inquiry into alleged Russian attempts to influence the 2016 White House election. That probe failed to find Trump had criminally conspired with the Kremlin.
The BBC has contacted the justice department for comment.
