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The United States and South Korea advanced trade talks on Wednesday, addressing details of $350 billion that would be invested in the American economy, after negotiations and ceremonies that included the presentation of a gold medal and crown to President Donald Trump.Both were gifts from the country’s president, Lee Jae Myung, who dialed up the flattery while Washington and Seoul worked to nail down financial promises during the last stop of Trump’s Asia trip.Although both sides said progress has been made Trump said things were “pretty much finalized” no agreement has been signed yet. The framework includes gradual investments, cooperation on shipbuilding and the lowering of Trump’s tariffs on South Korea’s automobile exports, according to Kim Yong-beom, Lee’s chief of staff for policy. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The announcement came after a day of adulation for the visiting American president from his hosts. There was a special lunch menu featuring U.S.-raised beef and a gold-adorned brownie. A band played Trump’s campaign anthem of “Y.M.C.A.” when he stepped off Air Force One. Lee told him that “you are indeed making America great again.”Trump can be mercurial and demanding, but he has a soft spot for pomp and circumstance. He was particularly impressed by a choreographed display of colorful flags as he walked along the red carpet.“That was some spectacle, and some beautiful scene,” Trump told Lee during their meeting. “It was so perfect, so flawlessly done.”Earlier in the day, Trump even softened his rhetoric on international trade, which he normally describes in predatory terms where someone is always trying to rip off the United States.“The best deals are deals that work for everybody,” he said during a business forum. Washington and Seoul have been working on a trade deal Trump was visiting while South Korea is hosting the annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in the historical city of Gyeongju. He previously stopped in Japan, where he bonded with the new prime minister, and Malaysia, where he attended a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.The Republican president has been trying to tie up trade deals along the way, eager to show that his confrontational approach of tariffs is paying dividends for Americans who are uneasy about the job market and watching a federal government shutdown extend into its fifth week.However, South Korea has been particularly tough to crack, with the sticking point being Trump’s demand for $350 billion of direct investment in the U.S.Korean officials say putting up cash could destabilize their own economy, and they’d rather offer loans and loan guarantees instead. The country would also need a swap line to manage the flow of its currency into the U.S.Trump, after meeting with Lee, said “we made our deal pretty much finalized.” He did not provide any details.Oh Hyunjoo, a deputy national security director for South Korea, told reporters earlier in the week that the negotiations have been proceeding “a little bit more slowly” than expected.“We haven’t yet been able to reach an agreement on matters such as the structure of investments, their formats and how the profits will be distributed,” she said Monday.It’s a contrast from Trump’s experience in Japan, where the government has worked to deliver the $550 billion in investments it promised as part of an earlier trade agreement. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced up to $490 billion in specific commitments during a dinner with business leaders in Tokyo.For now, South Korea is stuck with a 25% tariff on automobiles, putting automakers such as Hyundai and Kia at a disadvantage against Japanese and European competitors, which face 15%.Lee, speaking at the business forum before Trump arrived, warned against trade barriers.“At a time when protectionism and nationalism are on the rise and nations focus on their immediate survival, words like ‘cooperation,’ ‘coexistence’ and ‘inclusive growth’ may sound hollow,” he said. “Yet, paradoxically, it is in times of crisis like this that APEC’s role as a platform for solidarity shines brighter.” Trump and Lee swap praise despite disagreements Lee took office in June and had a warm meeting with Trump at the White House in August, when he praised Oval Office renovations and suggested building a Trump Tower in North Korea.He took a similar approach when Trump visited on Wednesday. The gold medal presented to Trump represents the Grand Order of Mugunghwa, the country’s highest honor, and Trump is the first U.S. president to receive it.Trump said “it’s as beautiful as it can possibly be” and “I’d like to wear it right now.”Next was a replica of a royal crown from the Silla Kingdom, which existed from 57 B.C. to 935 A.D. The original crown was found in a tomb in Gyeongju, the kingdom’s capital.Besides trade disagreements, there have been other points of tension between Washington and Seoul this year. More than 300 South Koreans were detained during a U.S. immigration raid on a Hyundai plant in Georgia in September, sparking a sense of outrage and betrayal.Lee said at the time companies would likely hesitate to make future investments unless the visa system was improved.“If that’s not possible, then establishing a local factory in the United States will either come with severe disadvantages or become very difficult for our companies,” he said.Asked Monday about the immigration raid, Trump said, “I was opposed to getting them out,” and he said an improved visa system would make it easier for companies to bring in skilled workers. Trump-Xi meeting is expected Thursday While in South Korea, Trump is also expected to hold a closely watched meeting on Thursday with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Washington and Beijing have clashed over trade, but both sides have indicated that they’re willing to dial down tensions.Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One on Wednesday that he expects to lower tariffs targeting China over the flow of fentanyl ingredients.“They’ll be doing what they can do,” he said. Trump added that “China is going to be working with me.”Trump sounded resigned to the idea that he wouldn’t get to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on this trip. The president previously floated the possibility of extending his stay in South Korea, but on Wednesday said “the schedule was very tight.”North Korea has so far dismissed overtures from Washington and Seoul, saying it won’t resume diplomacy with the United States unless Washington drops its demand for the North’s denuclearization. North Korea said Wednesday it fired sea-to-surface cruise missiles into its western waters, in the latest display of its growing military capabilities as Trump visits South Korea.Trump brushed off the weapons test, saying “he’s been launching missiles for decades, riht?”The two leaders met during Trump’s first term, although their conversations did not produce any agreements about North Korea’s nuclear program. Associated Press writers Kim Tong-hyung and Hyung-jin Kim contributed from Seoul, South Korea, and Josh Boak contributed from Tokyo. Chris Megerian, Associated Press
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Elon Musk has launched Grokipedia, a crowdsourced online encyclopedia that the billionaire seeks to position as a rival to Wikipedia.Writing on social media, Musk said that Grokipedia.com is “now live” and its goal is the “truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”Musk has previously criticized Wikipedia for being filled with “propaganda” and called for people to stop donating to the site, which is run by a nonprofit. In September he announced that his artificial intelligence company xAI was working on Grokipedia.The Grokipedia site has a minimalist appearance with little beyond a search bar where users can type in queries. It states that it has 885,279 articles. Wikipedia, meanwhile, says it has more than 7 million articles in English.Like Wikipedia, users can search for articles on various topics such as Taylor Swift, the baseball World Series, or Buckingham Palace.While Wikipedia is written and edited by volunteers, it’s unclear how exactly Grokipedia articles are put together. Reports suggest the site is powered by the same xAI model that underpins Musk’s Grok chatbot, but some articles are seemingly adapted from Wikipedia.The San Francisco-based Wikimedia Foundation said in a statement Tuesday that it is “still in the process of understanding how Grokipedia works.”As a huge trove of well-constructed sentences with little restriction on how it’s used, Wikipedia has been a key source used to train AI chatbots, including Grok’s rivals ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.“This human-created knowledge is what AI companies rely on to generate content; even Grokipedia needs Wikipedia to exist,” said the Wikimedia Foundation.Wikipedia for months has been a target of the political right. Republican lawmakers in the U.S. Congress launched an investigation in August of alleged “manipulation efforts” in Wikipedia’s editing process that they said could inject bias and undermine neutral points of view on its platform and the AI systems that rely on it.Wikipedia encourages its volunteer editors to cite nearly every sentence or paragraph with a primary source, and sentences not verified can be challenged and removed. Some of Grokipedia’s entries are thinly sourced, such as an entry on the Chola Dynasty of southern India that has three linked sources, compared to Wikipedia’s that has 113 linked sources plus dozens of referenced books.Grokipedia’s entry on Wikipedia accuses the site of having “systemic ideological biases particularly a left-leaning slant in coverage of political figures and topics.”The Wikimedia Foundation said in its statement Tuesday: “Unlike newer projects, Wikipedia’s strengths are clear: it has transparent policies, rigorous volunteer oversight, and a strong culture of continuous improvement. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, written to inform billions of readers without promoting a particular point of view.” Associated Press
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Starbucks’s reign as the world’s leading coffee company is faltering. And the new CEO, Brian Niccol, wants to fix it. Mark Wilson explains.
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Rumor has it that Palantir Technologies is poised for a stock split. An analyst for RBC Capital Markets recently polled investors, who reportedly indicated a desire for the software company to make such a move. Retail investors are also largely focused on the potential for a stock split, and although this topic decreased quarter over quarter, it remains the most relevant topic, analyst Rishi Jaluria stated, according to Investors Business Daily. He continued: With Palantir’s $6 billion cash balance, we think retail investors may be starting to become frustrated by the company’s lack of willingness to return capital to shareholders given no apparent interest in pursuing M&A opportunities. Splitting the stock would give current shareholders more shares, while allowing new investors in at a lower entry price. While stock splits do not intrinsically change the company’s value, they sometimes generate excitement around a stock among investors who see the new price as being more accessible. Last year saw stock splits from a number of high-profile companies, including Walmart, Chipotle, and Nvidia. Is Palantir planning to split its stock? Palantir has made no indication that it will pursue a stock split. If it did, the decision would be a first for the company, whose valuation and stock price have skyrocketed this year. In 2025 alone, its grown over 150%, while the past 12 months have seen it rise more than 321%. Fast Company has reached out to Palantir for comment and will update this post if we hear back. Many people believe that Palantirs stock is significantly overvalued. Investment firms and analysts have stated that, despite the companys high earnings, its still inflated. Take Augusts second-quarter earnings report, which saw a 48% growth in revenue year-over-year to $1 billion. Immediately following it, Palantirs stock was trading at 100 times its revenue, Morningstar reported at the time. Palantirs current price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio is around 630. By contrast, tech giants like Meta, Apple, and Amazon all have price-to-earnings ratios of under 40, according to Google Finance data. Palantir will report its third-quarter earnings next Monday, November 3. Disclosure: Joe Mansueto, Morningstars founder, owns Fast Company.
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Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday as a devastating Category 5 storm, tied for the strongest landfalling Atlantic hurricane in history.While the extent of the destruction is not yet known, relief organizations are already mobilizing to help across the northern Caribbean. As is typical in disasters, nonprofit groups told The Associated Press that cash is the best way to help, since unsolicited goods donations can overwhelm already strained systems. Experts recommend using sites like Charity Navigator or the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance to check out unfamiliar charities before donating.Here is some of the work being done and ways to support people impacted by Hurricane Melissa in Jamaica and beyond. Locals supporting locals: United Way of Jamaica The 40-year-old nonprofit has a history of supporting Jamaicans after disasters, especially the country’s farmers.Last year, United Way of Jamaica mobilized help for female farmers hit hard by Hurricane Beryl, helping them replace farm equipment, repair roofs, and pay tuition fees for their kids right as the school year began.The Kingston-based group accepts cash donations. Doubling your dollars: American Friends of Jamaica The AFJ has donated to Jamaican charitable organizations since 1982, supporting education, economic development and health care. Its disaster relief fund helped repair nearly 800 roofs after Hurricane Beryl, according to the group.The New York-based organization’s board of directors is currently matching donations to its Disaster Relief Fund, up to $1 million. Immediate relief and rebuilding: CORE CORE ‘s local staff is already responding in Haiti and will arrive in Jamaica when airports reopen to deliver relief items like hygiene kits and tarps, conduct medical assessments an distribute immediate cash assistance.The group, which was active in Jamaica after Hurricane Beryl in 2024, will also help households remove debris and rebuild homes.The Los Angeles-based nonprofit is accepting cash donations to its Emergency Response Fund. Installing backup power systems: Footprint Project The solar-energy nonprofit supplies communities and first responders with temporary power equipment to aid their response and restore communications.Footprint Project is shipping 150 portable solar and battery power stations from Florida to Jamaica, and deploying mobile microgrid equipment from Puerto Rico and Barbados, working with local partners like Jamaica Renewable Energy Association to ensure the systems are deployed where they are most needed.The New Orleans-based group is accepting cash donations to support staffing and logistics, as well as in-kind donations of “turn-key” renewable power technologies that can be rapidly shipped. Equipment donations can be coordinated through give@footprintproject.org. Transporting cargo for relief groups: Airlink Airlink works with major airlines like United and American, using their underbelly cargo space to move critical aid to disaster zones.It is moving cargo to Jamaica on behalf of 16 NGOs including World Food Programme and Mercy Corps. It will also charter at least two planes to move more goods for its partners, free of charge.The Washington, D.C.-based group accepts cash donations and donations of United frequent flyer miles. Medical aid: Direct Relief The humanitarian organization supports the Caribbean year round with medicines and other supplies, and has delivered more than $3 million in medical aid in the last month to areas now under threat.Direct Relief will support health facilities, many of which it says are in coastal and low-lying areas vulnerable to flooding and power outages. The group also sent 100 field-medic packs for Jamaica’s National Health Fund, and is working with the Pan American Health Organization to preposition supplies for Cuba.The Santa Barbara, California-based group is accepting cash donations and said that all contributions specifically designated for “Hurricane Melissa” will go directly to those efforts. High-quality supply donations: Good360 Good360 connects corporate donors who have surplus, high-quality supplies with nonprofits that need those items.The group has prepositioned supplies at a Florida warehouse and will partner with local groups to deliver what’s needed. It is anticipating demand for generators, tarps and hygiene kits.Good360 is accepting cash donations to support delivery of these supplies. Long-term recovery: Center for Disaster Philanthropy While the immediate needs will be vast, CDP focuses on long-term recovery, an often underfunded aspect of disaster response.The group will give grants to local organizations that are most in tune with the needs, focusing on the most at-risk residents and emphasizing solutions that leave communities better prepared for future climate events.The Washington, D.C.-based organization is accepting cash donations to its Atlantic Hurricane Season Recovery Fund.Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy. Gabriela Aoun Angueira, Associated Press
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