RETAIL
Primark CEO resigns after ‘error of judgment’
Paul Marchant, chief executive of Primark, has resigned “with immediate effect” from his role leading the discount clothing retailer after an allegation about his behavior, the company announced Monday. Marchant, who joined Primark in 2009, left after the company hired lawyers to investigate “an allegation made by an individual about his behavior towards her in a social environment,” Associated British Foods, Primark’s parent company, said in a statement. It said that he cooperated with the inquiry, “acknowledged his error of judgment and accepts that his actions fell below the standards expected by the company.” Marchant apologized to the individual, the board and others at Primark, according to the statement. “I am immensely disappointed,” George Weston, chief executive of Associated British Foods, said in the statement. “We believe that high standards of integrity are essential,” he added. Primark is a low-cost clothing giant that has become synonymous with a certain type of cheap and expendable fashion. Arthur Ryan, its founder, fought to keep prices down. Ryan appointed Marchant, who had long worked in fashion retail, to be his successor as chief executive. Under Marchant, Primark flourished. — NEW YORK TIMES
FUNDING
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Isomorphic Labs, Google’s AI drug business, raises $600 million
Over the past 12 months, Google’s efforts to use artificial intelligence to accelerate drug design have achieved breakthroughs in mimicking human biology and won its top scientists the Nobel Prize in chemistry. Now Isomorphic Labs, the division within the software giant meant to develop and commercialize the technology, is taking another big step: raising money from an outside investor. Isomorphic announced Monday that it had raised $600 million, led by Thrive Capital, the venture capital firm that has bet big on AI companies, including OpenAI. GV, Google’s venture capital arm, and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, also invested. The announcement underscores Google’s ambitions for Isomorphic, which was spun out of the company’s DeepMind lab to focus on drug discovery. It is built on software that DeepMind, a central intelligence lab in London, has developed. That includes AlphaFold, which can predict the structure of millions of proteins and more. — NEW YORK TIMES
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
AI and satellites help aid workers respond to Myanmar earthquake damage
Just after sunrise on Saturday, a satellite set its long-range camera on the city of Mandalay in Myanmar, not far from the epicenter of Friday’s 7.7 magnitude earthquake that devastated the Southeast Asian country’s second-largest city. The mission was to capture images that, combined with artificial intelligence technology, could help relief organizations quickly assess how many buildings had collapsed or were heavily damaged and where helpers most needed to go. At first, the high-tech computer vision approach wasn’t working. “The biggest challenge in this particular case was the clouds,” said Microsoft’s chief data scientist, Juan Lavista Ferres. “There’s no way to see through clouds with this technology.” The clouds eventually moved and it took a few more hours for another satellite from San Francisco-based Planet Labs to capture the aerial pictures and send them to Microsoft’s philanthropic AI for Good Lab. Once the AI analysis was complete, it showed 515 buildings in Mandalay with 80 percent to 100 percent damage and another 1,524 with between 20 percent and 80 percent damage. That showed the widespread gravity of the disaster, but, just as important, it helps pinpoint specific locations of damage. “This is critical information for teams on the ground,” Lavista Ferres said. Microsoft cautioned that it “should serve as a preliminary guide and will require on-the-ground verification for a complete understanding.” But in the meantime, the tech company has shared the analysis with aid groups such as the Red Cross. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
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CONSUMERS
Americans are spending less as they brace for new tariffs
Americans are tapping the brakes on spending — pulling back on dining out, hotel stays, and other expenses, as they boost their savings ahead of new tariffs and continued economic uncertainty. Consumers are increasingly anxious about the economy, and they’re curbing spending habits accordingly, data released Friday shows. Consumer spending inched up by 0.1 percent in February, after adjusting for inflation, following a 0.6 percent drop the month before, according to government figures. Meanwhile, the personal savings rate — or how much of their incomes people set aside — rose to 4.6 percent. A separate survey released by the University of Michigan, meanwhile, showed that Americans’ views on the economy fell for a third straight month, to the lowest level since 2022, as households and businesses prepare for a wave of higher prices once new tariffs go into effect this week. “Consumers are increasingly apprehensive about spending,” said Lydia Boussour, a senior economist at EY-Parthenon. “We are seeing clear signs that people are being more careful — they’re reluctant to spend on nonessential expenses. They’re worried about inflation and have preemptive anxiety around tariffs.” Strikingly, economists say Americans of all income levels, including the wealthiest, are rethinking their spending — in what could be a pivotal warning. The drop-off in consumer spending is expected to drag down economic growth in the first three months of the year, with many economists now forecasting a contraction after years of consistent growth. — WASHINGTON POST
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TRAVEL
Air Canada says US bookings down 10 percent as trade war rages on
Air Canada says demand for flights between Canadian and US cities is weak for the spring and summer months, as Canadians respond to the trade war by avoiding trips south. Bookings for transborder flights were down 10 percent for the April-to-September period compared with the same period last year, as of mid-March, according to a presentation at the company’s annual meeting. Air Canada is the largest Canadian airline and flies to more US destinations than any other. “Am I concerned?” chairman Vagn Sørensen said in a response to a question from a shareholder during Monday’s meeting. “Yes, definitely, I’m concerned.” Shares of Air Canada are down 35 percent since the beginning of the year. Air Canada and WestJet said in separate statements last week that geopolitical tensions are causing some consumers to choose not to take vacations in the United States. The shift is part of a larger boycott of American products in response to President Trump’s tariffs and his repeated statements that he believes Canada should be part of the United States. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
AEROSPACE
NASA’s newly returned astronauts say they would fly on Boeing’s Starliner capsule again
NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams said Monday that they hold themselves partly responsible for what went wrong on their space sprint-turned-marathon and would fly on Boeing’s Starliner again. SpaceX recently ferried the duo home after more than nine months at the International Space Station, filling in for Boeing that returned to Earth without them last year. In their first news conference since coming home, the pair said they were taken aback by all the interest and insisted they were only doing their job and putting the mission ahead of themselves and even their families. Wilmore didn’t shy from accepting some of the blame for Boeing’s bungled test flight. “I’ll start and point the finger and I’ll blame me. I could have asked some questions and the answers to those questions could have turned the tide,” he told reporters. “All the way up and down the chain. We all are responsible. We all own this.” Both astronauts said they would strap into Starliner again. “Because we’re going to rectify all the issues that we encountered. We’re going to fix them. We’re going to make it work,” Wilmore said, adding he’d go back up “in a heartbeat.” — ASSOCIATED PRESS
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