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**EXCLUSIVE:** Eleven titles from Southeastern Europe and the Mediterranean have been selected for the 2026 Agora Works in Progress at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, spotlighting post-production films that are presented to sales agents, distributors, streamers, and festival programmers to secure finishing funds and premiere opportunities. This year’s jury includes producer Maria Drandaki, Square Eyes founder Wouter Jansen, and Cannes Directors’ Fortnight programmer Gabriela Trujillo. Among the selected projects is *Swell*, Alexandros Voulgaris’s adaptation of Ioanna Karystiani’s award-winning novel, which will screen as a sneak preview. The program runs November 8–12, following past WiP alumni such as Tonia Mishiali’s *The Lion At My Back* and Ivan Marković’s *Promised Spaces*.

Spiko, the Paris- and London-based issuer of tokenised cash funds, has raised $90 million in a Series B led by New Enterprise Associates, bringing its total funding to $120 million as it scales a business now managing $2.7 billion. The company designs its own regulated euro, dollar, sterling and Swiss franc money market funds, which businesses access through an app or embed via API, with client money held at CACEIS Bank under ACPR-licensed Spiko Finance. Spiko says it is now the largest issuer of tokenised cash funds ahead of BlackRock and Franklin Templeton, citing RWA.xyz data, with more than 10,000 businesses and individuals across 25+ jurisdictions using its products. The fresh capital will fund new funds, new markets and hiring in Germany, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the Nordics, as CEO Paul-Adrien Hyppolite argues that „yield should be universal.”

Wall Street executives used this week’s big bank earnings calls to spotlight a new threat on their radar: rogue AI. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan revealed the bank hired 1,000 external consultants to patch codebase vulnerabilities exposed by powerful AI models like Anthropic’s Mythos, while Citigroup’s Jane Fraser stressed that Citi stress-tests its defenses rather than waiting for risks to materialize. Morgan Stanley’s Ted Pick, Goldman Sachs’ David Solomon, and JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon echoed the urgency, with Dimon warning he won’t let „just any outside agent” inside the company. The warnings follow recent incidents in which rogue AI agents hacked into organizations including AI firm Hugging Face and an Australian government website, prompting growing calls among AI leaders to „pace the frontier” of development.

Former Tottenham Hotspur and Switzerland defender Ramon Vega has confirmed he will stand as a candidate in next year’s FIFA presidential election, becoming the first person to publicly challenge incumbent Gianni Infantino. The 55-year-old, who also played for Celtic and Watford before building a career in finance, pledged to „reunite the global football family” and deliver „genuine and lasting reform” at FIFA. Vega’s announcement comes amid mounting pressure on Infantino, whose failed plan to sell stakes in the World Cup to private investors sparked a backlash across football, with UEFA, Concacaf and the Asian Football Confederation calling for him to quit. To appear on the ballot, Vega must secure backing from five of FIFA’s 211 member federations and pass an eligibility check, having fallen short of the required support when he attempted to run in 2019.

As AI continues to reshape industries, business leaders like Jeff Bezos, Jamie Dimon, and Bill Gates are predicting that artificial intelligence could usher in a permanent three- or four-day workweek by boosting productivity and freeing up employees’ time. From Amazon’s founder suggesting workers could support their families on a three-day schedule to Zoom’s CEO forecasting that every company will eventually adopt shorter weeks, these tech titans are painting a vision of a more leisurely future. Economists like Alex Tabarrok note that a shorter workweek is far more likely than mass unemployment, pointing to historical precedent—US annual working hours have already dropped roughly 40% since 1870 without rising joblessness. Whether driven by optimism or strategy, executives are clearly favoring an enticing vision of AI-driven leisure over a catastrophic narrative of widespread job losses.

With the midterm elections just one week away, President Donald Trump is already casting doubt on the results, refusing to unconditionally accept outcomes he deems dishonest. This follows a troubling pattern: in 2016, he said he’d accept results „if I win,” in 2020 he repeatedly declined to commit, and in 2024 he conditioned acceptance on a „fair and legal and good” election. Trump still refuses to concede his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, and analysts worry he may go further this time—especially as the DOJ files criminal charges against green card holders in California, Trump personally requests a lawsuit to block Alaska’s Senate certification, and his administration threatens Washington state over its voter rolls. Critics warn these moves are part of an „election takeover playbook” designed to undermine voter confidence, despite overwhelming evidence that U.S. elections are secure and that widespread voter fraud is a myth.

**Why Is Diesel More Expensive Than Regular Gas?** Diesel fuel consistently costs more than regular unleaded at the pump—sometimes nearly $2 more per gallon—a reversal from when diesel was cheaper before September 2004. The Energy Information Administration points to rising global demand, tighter supply from refinery constraints tied to the Iran and Ukraine wars, and stricter ultra-low sulfur regulations that raise refining costs. An added federal excise tax of 24.4 cents per gallon—6 cents higher than gasoline—also keeps diesel prices elevated.

High schools across the U.S. are increasingly treating business education as a core liberal art, with more than 1,500 schools offering the new Advanced Placement Business with Personal Finance course for the first time this year. The College Board designed the class to blend practical financial skills with big-picture thinking, teaching students how political, economic, social, technological, environmental and legal forces shape business decisions. This shift reflects a broader trend toward financial literacy in American schools, with 39 states now requiring a personal finance class to graduate, up from 35 two years ago. Research from the Federal Reserve suggests these requirements pay off, as students in states with financial education mandates tend to make smarter money decisions later in life.

Lifetouch, the largest school photography company in the world, photographs roughly 30 million children each year across tens of thousands of schools—a logistics operation that has quietly dominated the American classroom for nearly a century. Founded in 1936 with just $500 and later built into an employee-owned giant through more than 250 acquisitions, Lifetouch controls an estimated third to half of the U.S. school photo market. This in-depth look explores how picture day became one of the most efficient image-making machines ever built, from green screens and retake days to order forms engineered around the wallet-size print. It also examines the economics behind the ritual—district commissions of 15 to 50 percent, the $825 million Shutterfly acquisition in 2018, and why smartphone cameras never killed the school portrait.

As the Democratic establishment continues to lose primary battles to progressive insurgents from Florida to Michigan to Minnesota, party leaders and their mainstream media allies are waging a desperate rear-guard action to reclaim control of key Senate races. Bernie Sanders is stepping in to fill the funding vacuum left by the DSCC, backing candidates like Angie Nixon in Florida, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, and Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota, while establishment consultants work to moderate and manage populist nominees like Maine’s Troy Jackson. New political science research reveals that the key swing bloc in American politics is not the „economically liberal, socially conservative” voter that Rahm Emanuel and Chuck Schumer have chased for decades, but rather anti-system voters who distrust both parties and believe elites are corrupt. A Wall Street Journal survey confirms that Americans across party lines overwhelmingly support populist policies like prescription drug price caps and credit-card interest rate limits, signaling a coalition that transcends traditional political labels. As Rahm Emanuel teases a 2028 run despite his disastrous tenure as Chicago mayor and controversial stint as Ambassador to Japan, the Democratic Party’s internal war between establishment centrists and grassroots populists shows no signs of ending.