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The Louvre in Paris reopened on Wednesday, three days after thieves made off with historic jewellery worth an estimated 88 million euros ($102 million) in a spectacular heist that has raised urgent questions over security lapses at the museum. Visitors queued to enter through the Louvre’s glass pyramid for the first time since Sunday’s brazen robbery, in which hooded assailants broke through a second-floor window using a stolen movers’ lift before making off with jewels from the royal collection. Later on Wednesday the museum’s director will appear before the French Senate to answer lawmakers’ questions. The Galerie d’Apollon, the ornate gilded hall that was robbed, remains closed. Amid rising frustration in France that no senior official has taken responsibility, French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said there had clearly been security failures and Culture Minister Rachida Dati had launched an administrative inquiry. “There was a burglary at the Louvre, some of the most precious jewels in France were stolen. So obviously it’s a failure, there is nothing else I can say,” Nunez told Europe 1 radio. But he added that “the alarm system worked perfectly, as soon as the window was attacked, it was activated. Police were notified, and within three minutes they were on the scene. The whole system worked, it didn’t fail, but what happened has happened.” He declined to comment on the police manhunt, but said he was confident the perpetrators would be found. Dati came under fire after saying in parliament on Tuesday there had not been any security lapses. MUSEUM DIRECTOR TO BE HEARD IN SENATE Louvre director Laurence des Cars will be questioned by senators later on Wednesday. Des Cars warned in January that the centuries-old building was in a dire state. President Emmanuel Macron has announced a six-year renovation of the Louvre, which will include money for security upgrades. Asked on RTL radio whether state budget cuts had led to security lapses in French museums, the head of France’s national audit office Pierre Moscovici said that was not the case for the Louvre. “It is richly endowed, there are sponsorships, really, the Louvre is not without resources.” Built in the late 12th century, the Louvre Palace used to be the official residence of the kings of France, until Louis XIV abandoned it for Versailles. It was turned into a museum for the royal art collection in 1793, four years after the French Revolution. It is now the world’s most-visited museum, with 8.7 million visitors last year. It hosts the Mona Lisa, the world’s most famous painting, and the Venus de Milo statue, as well as countless old masters. ($1 = 0.8575 euros) Geert De Clercq and Manuel Ausloos, Reuters
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Stocks are drifting near their record heights on Wall Street Wednesday, while the price of gold falls again to trim more off its tremendous gain for the year.The S&P 500 slipped 0.1% in early trading and is sitting just underneath its all-time high, which was set earlier this month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 65 points, or 0.1%, coming off its own record. The Nasdaq composite was 0.3% lower, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time.Bank stocks were holding relatively steady after Capital One Financial, Western Alliance Bancorp and others reported stronger profits for the summer than analysts expected. The report from Western Alliance was particularly welcome after it helped shake confidence in the industry last week. It’s one of several banks that have warned of potentially bad loans on its books, possibly because of fraud.Intuitive Surgical, which sells robotic-assisted surgical systems, soared 16.5%, and GE Vernova added 0.5% after they likewise reported better profits for the latest quarter than analysts expected.It’s usually the case that the majority of companies deliver better profits each quarter than analysts had forecast. But the pressure is higher on companies to do so this time around because of criticism that their stock prices shot too high following a 35% romp for the S&P 500 from a low in April.Netflix’s stock, for example, came into the day with a jump of 39.3% for the year so far, more than double the S&P 500’s gain. But its stock tumbled 8.3% on Wednesday after it delivered weaker results for the latest quarter than expected.AT&T fell 4.5% after delivering a profit that only matched analysts’ expectations, while Texas Instruments sank 7.7% after its profit fell just short of forecasts.Beyond Meat, meanwhile, continued its meme-stock run and soared another 48.9% to bring its stunning gain for the week to nearly 735%. Part of Beyond’s rise could be due to a recent announcement that Walmart will increase availability of some of its products at over 2,000 U.S. stores.The maker of plant-based meat alternatives was also the biggest holding in the Roundhill Meme Stock exchange-traded fund, as of Tuesday. The ETF holds companies where investors have piled in almost regardless of their financial prospects in hopes of catching a wave.Momentum was continuing to head the other way for gold, which slipped 0.8% to $4,075 per ounce. That’s after Tuesday’s 5.3% slide knocked it off its record high.Many of the same factors that drew buyers to gold this year are still there. Expectations are still for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates through next year, concerns are growing about inflation remaining high and the worrisome mountains of debt that the U.S. and other governments worldwide have amassed are only rising further.But no investment’s price goes up forever, and criticism had been growing that gold’s price had gone too far, too fast after it shot up even more than the overall U.S. stock market. Gold’s price is still up more than 50% for the year so far.In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia.London’s FTSE 100 rose 1% after a report on U.K. inflation raised hopes for another cut to interest rates next month. South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.6% for another one of the worlds bigger gains. But indexes fell 0.9% in Hong Kong and 0.2% in Paris.In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 3.96% from 3.98% late Tuesday. AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed. Stan Choe, AP Business Writer
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What?! That single word is the most frequent reaction AasiyahAbdulsalam gets when she tells people about her company, Renatural, which makes wigs with no lace. The surprise stems from the fact that most commercial wigs today are built with a lace basea lightweight mesh cap that mimics the scalp but is really scratchy and only comes in a limited palette of colors. Instead of lace, Abdulsalam has designed a proprietary silicone band to anchor the wig without visible mesh. After launching the Wig Fix three years ago and selling 80,000 units in her first year, she decided to expand from simply supplying an accessory to reinventing the wig itself. Launching today, with a waitlist of 40,000 customers and counting, Renaturals hyper-realistic wigs are made by a custom-built robot that can make 350 wigs a week. While some wigs can take 8-12 weeks to make, Renatural’s robot can sew a wig in 45 minutes. The brand’s most exciting feature will depend on who you ask. For investorswho have poured just over $6 million into the companythe robot signals scalability. For consumers, its the absence of lace. Either way, Renatural may well upend the wig industry. The wig culture boom Wigs have a long history that dates back to Ancient Egypt, where they symbolized status and rank (and helped prevent lice infestations). Later, they were embraced by royalty and aristocracy, and popularized by figures like Queen Elizabeth I and Kings and Louis XIV. Throughout the 20th century, wigs have been used as a medical accessory and a fashion statement, but for Abdulsalam, wigs are having a moment in the sun today thanks to celebrity culture and social media trends like WigTok. “It’s like the ultimate lazy girl hack,” she says. “You don’t have to do anything, and your hair looks good.” Renatural is far from the first company to have noticed the rise in popularity. By some recent estimates, the global hair wigs and extension market is worth just under $9 billion in 2025, and is projected to reach $20 billion by 2035. In the U.S., DTC brands like Parfait have started to leverage AI to make more personalized wigs. But the large majority of wigs are still made in one Chinese city called Xuchang, in Henan province. With more than 4,000 companies making 60% of the global supply of wigs, Xuchang remains the worlds wig capital. Its like an oligopoly, says Abdulsalam. These companies have hundreds of thousands of subsidiaries that supply the whole world with wigs. Cutting through the noise Abdulsalam, a 30-year-old Black woman from the U.K. who now lives in New York City, began wearing wigs at age 16 to manage scalp psoriasis. She went on to study at the London School of Economics, where she wrote her undergraduate dissertation on wigs, and became “kind of obsessed. At age 20, she moved to South Koreathen home to the worlds largest wig-manufacturing complexand worked in a wig factory for six months. I got to see why things are the way they are, she says. That gave me a good foundation on wig-making and all the techniques. Most recently, she founded an early version of Renatural that focused on accessories like the iconic Wig Fix. She then sold that business in 2019, reinvested the proceeds into Renatural 2.0, and built an early prototype of the robotic system by jerry-rigging a 3D printer and an embroidery machine in her apartmentall without an engineering degree. Funny story, she says. I watched 34 out of the 38 seasons of How Its Made and I feel like that gives me a bootleg degree. To leapfrog other competitors without relying on cheap labor abroad, Abdulsalam knew she had to build a vertically-integrated business that controls everythingfrom sourcing to manufacturing. At her HQ in Dumbo, Brooklyn, every step of wig-making unfolds on-site in a space the size of four parking garages. The star of that vertical structure is, of course, the robotic system. The robot sorts and aligns human hair by root and tip, then stitches each strand into a soft, scalp-like base, following digital maps that mimic how hair naturally grows. As it works, it adjusts the angle and tension of every strand to recreate natural details like partings and cowlicks. The result is a hyper-realistic wig that looks, moves, and shines like real hair. (Wigs come in three signature collectionsall made with human hairand an assortment of lengths. They cost anywhere between $950 and $1,950.) The robot will be key to the brands success, but Abdulsalam maintains that humans remain integral to the process. There is deep craftsmanship involved to make the wig actually wearable, she says. For her, Renatural is more than a wig businessits a beauty-brand that is built around wigs. Products arrive in shiny silver boxes reminiscent of luxury-beauty packaging. There are even cutesy merch items like hair cuffs and pocket mirrors with integrated combs. Other companies have developed their marketing strategies around specific demographics (Black women, people who wear wigs for religious beliefs, those who suffer from hair loss, fashion-first clients). But Renatural embraces all categories, and more. “We’re just Renatural,” says Abdulsalam, “for people who want to look and feel their best.”
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