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NextSource Materials is an emerging leader in the global battery materials sector, backed by a world-class graphite resource and proven technology to produce high-performance anode material. With a focus on full vertical integration, the company is strategically positioned to supply critical materials essential to the global clean energy transition.

Overview

NextSource Materials (TSX:NEXT, OTCQB:NSRCF) is a Canadian-based battery materials development company focused on becoming a vertically integrated global supplier of critical minerals essential to the global clean energy transition. The company’s strategy spans the full value chain – from mining and upgrading high-quality flake graphite to producing advanced battery anode materials – positioning it as a key supplier to the rapidly growing electric vehicle (EV) and renewable energy storage markets.

NextSource’s core asset is the Molo graphite mine in Madagascar, one of the largest and highest-grade flake graphite deposits in the world. Commencing production in October 2024, the Molo mine has a resource base of more than 153 million tonnes and the exclusive source of NextSource’s trademarked SuperFlake® graphite.

Complementing the Molo graphite mine is the company’s downstream expansion through battery anode facilities (BAFs), which will convert its proprietary SuperFlake® graphite into spherical purified graphite (SPG) and coated SPG (CSPG), enabling direct supply to global battery and automotive manufacturers outside traditional Asian supply chains.

Global demand for flake graphite, valued at US$3.12 billion in 2024, is forecast to grow to US$5.48 billion by 2034, driven by a 6.1 percent CAGR. This growth is primarily fueled by the expansion of lithium-ion battery manufacturing for EVs and renewable energy systems, where graphite remains the dominant material used in battery anodes.

NextSource also owns the Green Giant vanadium project, an advanced-stage and strategically significant vanadium asset located near the Molo mine. With a large, sediment-hosted deposit suited for vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs), Green Giant provides additional exposure to the grid-scale energy storage market – a rapidly emerging segment of the clean energy landscape.

NextSource has assembled an impressive leadership team with a proven track record in mine operations and building shareholder value. With long-term offtake agreements in place, a scalable mine-to-anode business model, and strategic backing from Vision Blue Resources, led by former Xstrata CEO Sir Mick Davis, NextSource is positioned to deliver significant value as a secure and sustainable supplier of critical battery materials.

Company Highlights

  • Molo Graphite Project: The Molo graphite project in Madagascar is among the world’s largest and highest-quality graphite resources and is the exclusive source of SuperFlake® graphite.
  • First Commercial Shipments Completed: SuperFlake® shipments have been to multiple end-users and approved for high-demand applications for flake graphite, including battery anodes, refractory and graphite foils for fire retardants and consumer electronics.
  • Long-term Offtake Agreements: One of the few graphite producers globally to secure long-term sales agreements with tier one partners, including a 20,000 tpa agreement with a leading Japanese trader that supplies intermediate anode material to the Japanese market, and a 35,000 tpa agreement with thyssenkrupp Materials Trading GmbH for SuperFlake® graphite concentrate.
  • Mine Expansion Planned: With anticipated volume demands expected to quickly outgrow its Phase 1 volume capacity, NextSource updated its operational strategy to utilize Phase 1 for campaign production to focus on development of its Phase 2 mine expansion.
  • Downstream Value-add Expansion: The company is executing a phased rollout of battery anode facilities to produce spherical purified graphite and coated SPG at commercial scale. These facilities will supply high-performance anode material directly to battery and automotive manufacturers outside traditional Asian supply chains.
  • Strategic Shareholder Support: Vision Blue Resources, a battery materials investment fund led by former Xstrata CEO Sir Mick Davis, is NextSource’s corner-stone shareholder. Sir Mick Davis also serves as NextSource’s chairman, bringing decades of mine development and operational leadership to the company.
  • Vanadium Exposure: NextSource also holds the Green Giant vanadium project in Madagascar, an advanced-stage NI 43-101 resource and one of the world’s largest known sedimentary vanadium (V2O5) deposits.

Key Projects

Molo Graphite Mine and Project

NextSource’s flagship Molo graphite project ranks as one of the largest-known and highest-quality flake graphite deposits in the world. The property spans more than 62.5 hectares, sits in the Tulear region of Southwestern Madagascar, and is located 11.5 kilometers east of the town of Fotadrevo. Phase 1 of the mine is currently in operation.

NextSource has superior flake size distribution and well above the global average. The Molo asset is relatively unique for having almost 50 percent premium-priced large and jumbo flake graphite and can achieve up to 97 percent carbon purity with simple flotation alone. Molo SuperFlake® has been verified by end-users and meets or exceeds all criteria for the top demand markets for flake graphite; anode material for lithium-ion batteries, refractories, graphite foils and graphene inks.

Project Highlights

Geological and Resource Overview:

  • Measured and indicated resources: 100.37 million tonnes (Mt) at 6.3 percent total graphitic carbon (C), based on a 2 percent C cut-off.
  • Proven and probable reserves: 53.75 Mt at 6.2 percent C, based on a 3 percent C cut-off, including 21.33 Mt proven and 32.41 Mt probable.
  • Over 300 km of continuous surface graphite mineralization has been delineated, enabling flexible, demand-driven production scale-up.
  • The resource base supports more than 100 years of mine life at 17,000 tpa and 25+ years at 150,000 tpa production levels.

Operational Status:

  • Phase 1 operations commenced production in October 2024, with the first commercial shipments of SuperFlake® graphite concentrate delivered to customers in Germany and the US in early 2025.
  • In May 2025, NextSource transitioned Phase 1 to campaign production in order to preserve capital and prioritize the larger Phase 2 expansion, which is now the operational focus.
  • Nameplate capacity for Phase 1 is 17,000 tpa, with modular Phase 2 plans targeting up to 150,000 tpa production capacity.

Strategic Sales Agreements:

  • A 20,000 tpa agreement with a leading Japanese trader that supplies anode material to major OEM supply chains (Tesla, Toyota).

Battery Anode Facilities

NextSource’s BAFs are value-added processing plants designed to convert smaller flake graphite into high-performance anode material, an essential component of lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles.

Project Highlights

Technology and Product Focus:

  • Using a proprietary and proven processing technology, licensed exclusively by NextSource and currently supplying major OEMs, the BAFs will produce spherical purified graphite (SPG) and coated SPG (CSPG) through a process verified within, and currently being used by, the Tesla and Toyota supply chains.
  • The CSPG production process involves micronizing flake graphite, shaping it into spheres (spheroidization), purifying it and applying a hard carbon coating to enhance durability and performance in battery applications.

Pilot to Commercial Progression:

  • A pilot BAF in Mauritius successfully validated NextSource’s processing technology and facilitated advanced product qualification with Tier 1 EV and battery manufacturers.
  • In 2025, the company redirected its BAF expansion focus from Mauritius to the Middle East, identifying Saudi Arabia and the UAE as ideal first locations due to favorable permitting, infrastructure, and access to global EV markets.

Strategic Plans and Economic Advantages:

  • NextSource’s established technical process gives it a competitive advantage by significantly reducing the time and cost required for R&D and qualification phases.
  • The modular BAF rollout strategy supports flexible scaling, with additional facilities planned for North America, Europe, and Asia to meet growing OEM demand.
  • Feedstock will be sourced primarily from the Molo Mine, with provisions for qualified third-party graphite as needed.

Green Giant Vanadium Project

The Green Giant vanadium project is a 100-percent-owned, advanced-stage exploration asset located in south-central Madagascar, approximately 15 kilometers from the Molo Graphite Mine. It is one of the world’s largest known vanadium deposits and a potential future growth driver for NextSource.

Project Highlights

Resource Profile:

  • NI 43-101 compliant resource of approximately 60 million tonnes, grading an average of 0.7 percent vanadium pentoxide at a 0.5 percent cut-off.
  • The deposit is sediment-hosted, a rare geological profile seen in only about 5% of vanadium occurrences, and favorable for producing high-purity vanadium compounds.

Strategic Importance:

  • Vanadium is a key material in vanadium redox flow batteries (VRFBs), which are emerging as a critical solution for long-duration grid-scale energy storage—a necessary component of the transition to renewable power.
  • With increasing global focus on decarbonizing power systems, Green Giant provides long-term optionality in a growing adjacent market.

Development Status:

  • Over US$20 million has been invested in exploration and development since acquisition in 2007.
  • While currently on hold to maintain focus on graphite and anode material commercialization, the project remains a strategic asset for future energy storage market expansion.

Management Team

Hanré Rossouw – President and Chief Executive Officer, Director

Hanré Rossouw joins NextSource from his role as executive director and chief financial officer of Sasol Limited with extensive experience in the global natural resources industry over the last 25 years. A British and South African national, Rossouw has held senior positions in leading global mining and investment companies where his roles involved business development, M&A, capital markets, asset management and growth optimization.

Craig Scherba – Chief Development Officer, Director

Craig Scherba brings extensive operational and geologic experience, having discovered both the Molo and Green Giant deposits. He currently heads up development of NextSource’s downstream OEM offtake strategy and plans.

Jaco Crouse – Chief Financial Officer

Jaco Crouse brings over 20 years of experience in the global natural resources sector, with expertise in M&A, capital markets and financial strategy. He held senior positions at Glencore and Xstrata.

Brent Nykoliation – EVP, Strategy and Corporate Affairs

Brent Nykoliation joined the senior management team at NextSource Materials as vice-president in 2007 and leads strategy and corporate affairs for the company. In addition, he oversees all communications with graphite customers, institutional investors and analysts for the company.

He brings over 20 years of senior management experience, having held marketing and strategic development positions with several Fortune 500 corporations in Canada.

Dr. Tilo Hauke – EVP, Downstream Operations

Dr. Tilo Hauke leads the development of the company’s BAFs, focused on producing commercial-scale graphite anode material for lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles. He previously spent two decades at SGL Carbon SE, a global leader in carbon and graphite products, holding senior roles including SVP of Fuel Cell Components and Group VP of Technology and Innovation.

Danniel Stokes – VP, Special Projects

Daniel Stokes spearheads the project management aspects of the company, with significant experience across a diverse portfolio of projects in mining, infrastructure and nuclear industries.

Markus Reichardt – VP, Sustainability

Markus Reichardt is responsible for driving the company’s safety, health, environment, social, climate change and quality performance and initiatives. He has a 25-year track record in operational, senior corporate and advisory roles in the resources, agricultural and renewables sectors across the developing world.

Jean Luc Marquetoux – Country Manager

Jean Luc Marquetoux brings nearly three decades of experience in mining and project development in Madagascar and brings deep regional and governmental expertise in Madagascar.

Board of Directors

Sir Mick Davis – Chairman

Sir Mick Davis is the CEO of Vision Blue Resources and a highly successful mining executive accredited with building Xstrata plc into one of the largest mining companies in the world before its acquisition by Glencore plc.

Ian Pearce – Director

Ian Pearce is the former CEO of Xstrata Nickel, and was the former COO of Falconbridge Limited, which was acquired by Xstrata Plc in 2006. Xstrata Plc’s acquisition of Falconbridge was one of the largest mining takeovers globally and one of the largest takeover bids in Canadian history.

Brett Whalen — Director

Brett Whalen has over 20 years of investment banking and M&A expertise, spending over 16 of those years at Dundee Corporation. During his tenure at Dundee, Whalen was directly involved in completing approximately $2 billion in M&A deals and helped raise over $10 billion in capital for resource sector companies.

Christopher Kruba – Director

Christopher Kruba is vice-president and legal counsel to Nostrum Capital Corporation and several related corporations that are part of the Toldo Group.

Martina Buchhauser – Director

Martina Buchhauser is a globally recognized leader in the automotive industry, with deep expertise in sustainable mobility and the transition to low-carbon, responsible business practices. Her executive career includes senior roles in global procurement and supply chain management at General Motors, MAN, BMW, and most recently Volvo Cars.

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President Donald Trump arrived in Scotland late Friday for a working trip where he is expected to meet with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer amid ongoing trade negotiations between the U.S. and the U.K., as well as visit several of his properties there. 

‘We’re meeting with the prime minister tonight,’ Trump told reporters Friday before departing for Scotland. ‘We’re going to be talking about the trade deal that we made, and maybe even improve it.’

‘We want to talk about certain aspects, which is going to be good for both countries,’ Trump said. ‘More fine-tuning. Also, we’re going to do a little celebrating together, because, you know, we got along very well. U.K.’s been trying to make a deal with us for like, 12 years, and haven’t been able to do it. We got it done, and he’s doing a very good job, this prime minister. Good guy.’

In May, the U.S. and the U.K. announced the two countries had agreed to a major trade deal, which marked the first historic trade negotiation signed following Liberation Day, when Trump announced widespread tariffs for multiple countries April 2 at a range of rates.

Trump, who is slated to remain in Scotland until Tuesday, is also scheduled to visit his golf courses in Turnberry and Aberdeen while abroad. 

Here’s also what happened this week:

Federal Reserve visit 

Trump visited the Federal Reserve headquarters Thursday, as he has ramped up digs at Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. 

Trump accompanied other administration officials for a tour of the headquarters, following $2.5 billion in renovations to the building. The massive project has attracted scrutiny from lawmakers and members of the Trump administration, including the president, who suggested the huge renovation could amount to a fireable offense. 

‘I think he’s terrible … I didn’t see him as a guy that needed a palace to live in,’ Trump said July 16. ‘But the one thing I would have never guessed is that he would be spending two and a half billion dollars to build a little extension onto the Fed.’

On Thursday, the two briefly sparred over the cost of the renovation, but Trump told reporters afterward that the two had a ‘good meeting’ and that there was ‘no tension.’ Trump also shut down speculation he might oust Powell, claiming such a move would be unnecessary. 

The Federal Reserve, the United States central bank, oversees the nation’s monetary policy and regulates financial institutions. 

Trump historically has railed against Powell, calling him names like ‘numskull’ and ‘too late.’ Likewise, Trump has expressed ire toward Powell for ignoring requests to lower interest rates. 

‘Well, I’d love him to lower interest rates, but other than that, what can I tell you?’ Trump said Thursday. 

Trump signed into law Thursday his roughly $9 billion rescissions package to claw back already approved federal funds for foreign aid and public broadcasting. 

The rescissions measure revoked nearly $8 billion in funding Congress already approved for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a formerly independent agency that provided impoverished countries aid and offered development assistance.

The rescissions package also rescinds more than $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides federal funding for NPR and PBS.

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Donald Trump did better with American young people last fall than any Republican candidate in decades. He won men under 30, won men of college age, and even won the youth vote in the swing state of Michigan. American young people were widely assumed to be uniformly liberal, and expected to remain so forever and ever. But the reality was anything but. I saw this trend playing out in real time as I toured the country speaking on college campuses to crowds of three, four, and even five thousand strong.  Young Americans were not happy with Joe Biden’s America or Kamala Harris’ vows to continue it, and they were ready to return to the president they associated with a more prosperous pre-COVID time.

It was a big win. But it was also impermanent. It could be a one-off. It could easily be explained by the aftermath of COVID or the incredible political charisma of Donald Trump himself. The youth vote of 2024 wasn’t so much a win as it was an opportunity: A clear demonstration that conservatives actually can compete to win the votes of American young people, rather than writing them off. 

The challenge for Republicans now is seizing this Gen Z opportunity. Because Gen Z won’t become lifelong conservatives thanks to a good campaign or slick online memes. They’ll only become lifelong supporters if we’re able to deliver for them on the big issues that matter.

Experts expend a lot of effort and ink explaining what Gen Z ‘wants.’ But between my campus visits and my work running Turning Point USA, I talk to as many Gen Z’ers as anyone in the country. They want basic economic success and security like the generations before them. They want a home, they want a family, they want to feel like they are building something and that they are a part of something. 

And right now, on that front, Gen Z has a lot of problems. Economically, things are dire. In 1984, the median American home cost about three and a half times the median income in America. Today, the median house costs almost six times the median income. Rent isn’t much better, and has risen more than 50% in real terms since the 1970s. 

In 1980, tuition at the average public college was about $2,800 in today’s dollars. Today it’s around $10,000, and, unsurprisingly, that means the average college student leaves school with a debt burden that previously could have bought them a car, provided the down payment on a house, or helped them start a family. 

Financially, young people aren’t just facing more expensive necessities, but also a more predatory economic reality. Millions of Gen Zers are buying everything from concert tickets to groceries to Chipotle burritos through buy now, pay later (BNPL) setups from companies like Klarna and Affirm. Some polls indicate Gen Z prefers BNPL to traditional credit cards. Taking on debt for purchases may make sense when buying a house or a car, but once a person is paying for their groceries with 4 monthly payments at 10% interest, something has gone awry. 

Of course, America hasn’t become a poor nation. In fact, we’re as spectacularly wealthy as ever. Yet this wealth doesn’t reach young Americans (unless it’s by way of inheritance). Instead, over and over, policy decisions have ensured that elderly Americans grow wealthier and wealthier. Never in American history has so much wealth been concentrated in those who are already retired from the labor force. This reality became even more pronounced during COVID and the rampant inflation that followed. Older Americans with equities and assets in their portfolio saw their net worth skyrocket, while younger Americans just saw those assets become even more unaffordable.

It wasn’t always like this. When the baby boomers of today were growing up, government policy routinely favored young people. Jobs were easier to get, with far fewer credentialing hurdles. Houses were built far faster. Wages were higher instead of being suppressed through sky-high legal and illegal immigration. Today, though, America is a country built for those who are already owners, and those too young to buy are finding themselves stuck becoming borrowers and renters. The median age of first-time home buyers is now pushing 40, about a decade higher than the 1980s when the average age was just 29!

This isn’t because Gen Z is lazy — a common retort I hear — it’s because they are contending with structural disadvantages older Americans didn’t experience. If this continues, something will break, and young people will lead the way in breaking it. 

Zohran Mamdani has become a celebrity for Gen Z with his slick promises of a New York City rent freeze, state-owned grocery stores, and free daycare as stepping stones to eventually seizing the means of production. Mamdani’s political surge is not a passing fad or pure TV news fodder. 

It should be a giant flashing red alarm. There are millions of Americans who feel cut off from any meaningful economic progress or stability. Eventually, if they can’t obtain prosperity the old-fashioned way, they will simply try to vote themselves prosperity, and there will be plenty of demagogues promising this can be done easily by simply expropriating those with more than them.

Most of Gen Z is ideologically fluid. They’re happy to give Republicans a shot, then turn around and elect a Marxist two years later.

America will have a reordering of its economy. The only question is what that reordering will look like. There are two paths before us. We will either have stabilizing reforms like those of Theodore Roosevelt a century ago and those espoused by nationalist, populist conservatives, or we will have revolutionary, destructive ‘reforms’ like those that have already ruined once-prosperous countries like Cuba or Venezuela. If we succeed in the next three years, or if we fail, will determine which.

 

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European diplomats met with Iranians on Friday face-to-face for the first time since Israel and the U.S. bombed the country last month. 

The ‘serious, frank and detailed’ meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, lasted for around four hours and the officials all agreed to meet again for continued negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program. 

Sanctions that were lifted on Iran in 2015 after it agreed to restrictions and monitoring of its nuclear program could be reimposed if Iran doesn’t comply with requirements. 

One of Europe’s E3 nations – Britain, France and Germany, who held the talks with Iran – could bring back sanctions under the ‘snapback’ mechanism, which allows one of the European countries to bring back U.N. sanctions if Iran violates the conditions. 

European leaders have also said that sanctions will start being reinstated by the end of August if there is no progress on reining in Iran’s nuclear program. 

‘A possible delay in triggering snapback has been floated to the Iranians on the condition that there is credible diplomatic engagement by Iran, that they resume full cooperation with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), and that they address concerns about their highly-enriched uranium stockpile,’ a European diplomat said on condition of anonymity before the talks on Friday. 

The diplomat added that the snapback mechanism ‘remains on the table.’ 

Iran said that the U.S. needs to rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal – after President Trump pulled America out of it in 2018 – saying Iran has ‘absolutely no trust in the United States.’

The U.S. bombed Iran’s nuclear sites on June 22, a little over a week after Israel had bombed the country over national security concerns about its nuclear program. 

Iran responded by attacking Israel and a U.S. Army base in Qatar. 

Isreal and Iran agreed to a ceasefire on June 24. 

The IAEA issued a concerning report in May that said that Iran’s stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium had grown by nearly 50% in three months. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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A federal appeals judge on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship for the children of people in the country illegally or temporarily. 

U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin ruled that a nationwide injunction on the Trump administration’s effort to end birthright citizenship that he issued earlier this year and that was granted to more than a dozen states can stand. 

Sorokin said the ruling was an exception to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limited lower courts’ ability to issue nationwide injunctions. The issue is expected to return to the Supreme Court.  

Trump and the administration ‘are entitled to pursue their interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, and no doubt the Supreme Court will ultimately settle the question,’ Sorokin wrote in his ruling. ‘But in the meantime, for purposes of this lawsuit at this juncture, the Executive Order is unconstitutional.’

The Trump administration has argued that children born in the U.S. to parents in the country illegally and temporarily are not ‘subject to the jurisdiction’ of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship. 

Trump signed the birthright citizenship executive order, along with a slew of other orders, on his first day in office in January. 

On Wednesday, the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals also affirmed the lower court’s nationwide injunction, and, earlier this month, a New Hampshire federal judge issued a ruling prohibiting Trump’s executive order from taking effect nationwide in a new class-action lawsuit.

Sorokin disagreed with the Trump administration’s argument that the Supreme Court’s ruling warranted a narrower ruling. 

The plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit argued that Trump’s executive order is unconstitutional because the 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship, and it also threatens millions of dollars in state funding for ‘essential’ health insurance services contingent on citizenship status. 

Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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Artist Amy Sherald canceled her upcoming exhibit featuring a portrait of a transgender Statue of Liberty at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery after Vice President JD Vance raised concerns the show included woke and divisive content, Fox News Digital has learned. 

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March that placed Vance in charge of overseeing the removal of programs or exhibits at Smithsonian museums that ‘degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with Federal law and policy.’ 

Vance said Sherald’s ‘American Sublime’ exhibit violated Trump’s executive order and was an example of woke and divisive content during a meeting June 9 with the Board of Regents, a source familiar with the meeting told Fox News Digital. 

‘Vice President Vance has been leading the effort to eliminate woke indoctrination from our beloved Smithsonian museums,’ an administration official said in an email to Fox News Digital. ‘On top of shepherding the One Big Beautiful Bill through the Senate and helping President Trump navigate international crises, the vice president has demonstrated his ability to get President Trump’s priorities across the finish line.’

Sherald, best known for painting former first lady Michelle Obama’s official portrait in 2018, announced Thursday she was pulling her show, ‘American Sublime,’ from the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery slated for September, The New York Times first reported. 

Sherald said she was rescinding her work from the exhibition after being told that the National Portrait Gallery had some concerns about featuring the portrait of the transgender Statue of Liberty during the show. The painting, ‘Trans Forming Liberty,’ depicts a trans woman with pink hair wearing a blue gown. 

‘These concerns led to discussions about removing the work from the exhibition,’ Sherald said in a statement, The New York Times first reported Thursday. ‘While no single person is to blame, it’s clear that institutional fear shaped by a broader climate of political hostility toward trans lives played a role. 

‘This painting exists to hold space for someone whose humanity has been politicized and disregarded. I cannot in good conscience comply with a culture of censorship, especially when it targets vulnerable communities.

‘At a time when transgender people are being legislated against, silenced and endangered across our nation, silence is not an option,’ Sherald added. ‘I stand by my work. I stand by my sitters. I stand by the truth that all people deserve to be seen — not only in life, but in art.’

The Smithsonian did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Vance’s involvement in the matter. 

The White House said the removal of Sherald’s exhibit is a ‘principled and necessary step’ toward cultivating unity at institutions like the Smithsonian. 

‘The ‘Trans Forming Liberty’ painting, which sought to reinterpret one of our nation’s most sacred symbols through a divisive and ideological lens, fundamentally strayed from the mission and spirit of our national museums,’ Trump special assistant Lindsey Halligan said in a statement to Fox News Digital. 

‘The Statue of Liberty is not an abstract canvas for political expression. It is a revered and solemn symbol of freedom, inspiration and national unity that defines the American spirit.’

Other members of the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents include the Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts, along with senators John Boozman, R-Ark.; Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev.; and Gary Peters, D-Mich., along with several other House members. 

Fox News’ Gabriel Hays contributed to this report. 

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Trump administration regulators have approved Skydance Media’s $8 billion bid to acquire CBS News parent company Paramount, paving the way for a tectonic shift in ownership of one of America’s three major networks.

The Federal Communications Commission said Thursday that it had approved the acquisition, with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr adding in a news release that the move would bring change to the company’s news coverage. Paramount owns CBS, which includes CBS News.

‘Americans no longer trust the legacy national news media to report fully, accurately, and fairly. It is time for a change,’ Carr said. ‘That is why I welcome Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network. In particular, Skydance has made written commitments to ensure that the new company’s programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum.’

‘Today’s decision also marks another step forward in the FCC’s efforts to eliminate invidious forms of DEI discrimination,’ Carr added.

David Ellison; Shari Redstone.AP; Getty Images

In recent days, Paramount’s new owner made a number of concessions to the FCC, including agreeing to not implement any diversity, equity or inclusion programs. Skydance also said it would ‘undertake a comprehensive review’ of CBS and ‘will commit, for a period of at least two years, to have in place an ombudsman.’ That role would report to the president of the new company.

A number of companies that have billion-dollar transactions pending before Carr’s FCC have also backed off of DEI programs, including Verizon and T-Mobile.

The concessions also came after Paramount Global settled a lawsuit with President Donald Trump for $16 million. Trump brought that suit, saying the way CBS edited a ’60 Minutes’ interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris was ‘election and voter interference.’

The lone Democrat in FCC leadership, Commissioner Anna Gomez, did not mince words about the push to secure promises from the companies.

“After months of cowardly capitulation to this Administration, Paramount finally got what it wanted,’ she said in an emailed statement.

‘In an unprecedented move, this once-independent FCC used its vast power to pressure Paramount to broker a private legal settlement and further erode press freedom,’ she added. ‘Once again, this agency is undermining legitimate efforts to combat discrimination and expand opportunity by overstepping its authority and intervening in employment matters reserved for other government entities with proper jurisdiction on these issues.’

‘Even more alarming, it is now imposing never-before-seen controls over newsroom decisions and editorial judgment, in direct violation of the First Amendment and the law.’

Skydance is run by David Ellison, son of Oracle founder and Trump ally Larry Ellison. While the younger Ellison made a donation to President Joe Biden’s re-election fund in February 2024 shortly before the former president bowed out of the race, Trump recently signaled his comfort with his takeover of Paramount and its assets, which in addition to CBS News include Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, The CW, MTV, BET and film franchises like “Smurfs” and “Sonic the Hedgehog.”

“Ellison is great. He’ll do a great job with it,” Trump said in June.

There is likely to be a sea change in the editorial direction of CBS News under its new ownership. In a recent filing, Ellison and Skydance said they’d told Carr that they were committed to pursuing a focus on “American storytelling” while touting a new, “unbiased” editorial direction for CBS News. Their meeting came shortly after Paramount agreed to settle Trump’s lawsuit.

It also came just days after CBS announced it was canceling “The Late Show,” currently hosted by Stephen Colbert — an announcement Trump praised on social media. Colbert had recently criticized the parent company’s multimillion-dollar settlement with Trump, while CBS said the cancellation was “purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night.”

There had been signs of an editorial shift ahead of the merger. Most notably, longtime “60 Minutes” editor Bill Owens announced he was stepping down this spring, citing CBS News’ fading editorial independence. Shortly after, CBS News President and CEO Wendy McMahon was pushed out. Last week, The New York Times reported Skydance was in early talks to acquire the conservative-leaning The Free Press media outlet. Meanwhile, “Daily Show” host Jon Stewart has said he did not know whether his program would survive the merger.

Skydance has spent years pursuing Paramount and eventually realized it could successfully execute the transaction by purchasing Paramount’s parent, National Amusements, the company once helmed by Sumner Redstone, the father of the company’s current chairwoman, president and CEO, Shari Redstone. Yet the proposed deal continued to face hurdles, first under the Biden administration then at the outset of Trump’s term. Its approval came in what was its third deadline extension period.

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Microsoft has laid off over 15,000 people so far in 2025. The stress of the belt-tightening has gotten to CEO Satya Nadella.

“Before anything else, I want to speak to what’s been weighing heavily on me, and what I know many of you are thinking about: the recent job eliminations,” Nadella wrote in a memo to employees Thursday.

After Microsoft’s latest labor reductions, investors pushed the stock’s closing price above $500 for the first time on July 9. The company announced the layoffs of about 9,000 people a week earlier. Microsoft employed 228,000 people as of June 2024. It hasn’t provided a new figure that takes into account its layoffs this year, but Nadella wrote that headcount is basically flat.

“This is the enigma of success in an industry that has no franchise value,” he wrote. “Progress isn’t linear. It’s dynamic, sometimes dissonant, and always demanding. But it’s also a new opportunity for us to shape, lead through, and have greater impact than ever before.”

The cuts at Microsoft are reflective of an overall trend across the tech industry, with over 80,000 positions eliminated to date in 2025, according to one count. Recruit Holdings announced earlier this month that it would lay off 1,300 people from its human resources technology segment that includes the Indeed and Glassdoor websites. The company’s CEO pointed to artificial intelligence in a memo, Bloomberg reported.

On social media in recent months, some Microsoft employees have become disheartened about the company’s cutbacks, given its stature.

“I have loved working for this company, still do, but this has done so much damage to that loyalty because it has shown that Microsoft’s espoused values do not apply to business decisions at the macro level,” a person who lists themselves as a Microsoft directed on LinkedIn posted last week.

Microsoft is the world’s most valuable public company after Nvidia, whose chips have become a critical piece of the AI arms race. Microsoft’s Windows and Office franchises remain dominant, and its Azure cloud services have seen faster growth in recent years as OpenAI and other companies rent out Nvidia graphics cards to run AI models.

In the memo, Nadella touched on Microsoft’s mission for the past 10 years, which has been to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more, and how the rise of AI is changing it.

“We must reimagine our mission for a new era,” he wrote. “What does empowerment look like in the era of AI? It’s not just about building tools for specific roles or tasks. It’s about building tools that empower everyone to create their own tools. That’s the shift we are driving — from a software factory to an intelligence engine empowering every person and organization to build whatever they need to achieve.”

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The S&P 500 ($SPX) just logged its fifth straight trading box breakout, which means that, of the five trading ranges the index has experienced since the April lows, all have been resolved to the upside.

How much longer can this last? That’s been the biggest question since the massive April 9 rally. Instead of assuming the market is due to roll over, it’s been more productive to track price action and watch for potential changes along the way. So far, drawdowns have been minimal, and breakouts keep occurring. Nothing in the price action hints at a lasting change — yet.

While some are calling this rally “historic,” we have a recent precedent. Recall that from late 2023 through early 2024, the index had a strong start and gave way to a consistent, steady trend.

From late October 2023 through March 2024, the S&P 500 logged seven consecutive trading box breakouts. That streak finally paused with a pullback from late March to early April, which, as we now know, was only a temporary hiccup. Once the bid returned, the S&P 500 went right back to carving new boxes and climbing higher.

New 52-Week Highs Finally Picking Up

If there’s been one gripe about this rally, it’s that the number of new highs within the index has lagged. As we’ve discussed before, among all the internal breadth indicators available, new highs almost always lag — that’s normal. What we really want to see is whether the number of new highs begins to exceed prior peaks as the market continues to rise, which it has, as shown by the blue line in the chart below.

As of Wednesday’s close, 100 S&P 500 stocks were either at new 52-week highs or within 3% of them. That’s a strong base. We expect this number to continue rising as the market climbs, especially if positive earnings reactions persist across sectors.

Even when we get that first day with 100+ S&P 500 stocks making new 52-week highs, though, it might not be the best time to initiate new longs.

The above chart shows that much needs to align for that many stocks to peak in unison, which has historically led to at least a short-term consolidation, if not deeper pullbacks — as highlighted in yellow. Every time is different, of course, but this is something to keep an eye on in the coming weeks.

Trend Check: GoNoGo Still “Go”

The GoNoGo Trend remains in bullish mode, with the recent countertrend signals having yet to trigger a greater pullback.

Active Bullish Patterns

We still have two live bullish upside targets of 6,555 and 6,745, which could be with us for a while going forward. For the S&P 500 to get there, it will need to form new, smaller versions of the trading boxes.

Failed Bearish Patterns

In the chart below, you can view a rising wedge pattern on the recent price action, the third since April. The prior two wedges broke down briefly and did not lead to a major downturn. The largest pullbacks in each case occurred after the S&P 500 dipped below the lower trendline of the pattern.

The deepest drawdown so far is 3.5%, which is not exactly a game-changer. Without downside follow-through, a classic bearish pattern simply can’t be formed, let alone be broken down from.

We’ll continue to monitor these formations as they develop because, at some point, that will change.

Is the market’s next surge already underway? Find out with Tom Bowley’s breakdown of where the money is flowing now and how you can get in front of it.

In this video, Tom covers key moves in the major indexes, revealing strength in transports, small caps, and home construction. He identifies industry rotation signals, which are pointing to aluminum, recreational products, and furnishings. Tom then demonstrates how to use StockCharts’ tools to scan for momentum stocks in emerging leadership groups — see why SGI tops Tom’s list. He ends with a discussion of post-earnings reactions from major names like GOOGL, TSLA, IBM, and LVS. 

And, of course, Tom wraps every idea with clear chart setups you can act on today. 

This video premiered on July 24, 2025. Click this link to watch on Tom’s dedicated page.

Missed a session? Archived videos from Tom are available at this link.