Author: Elon Mark

The Rhine barge market experienced a notable shift in tone during the week of 15–19 December, transitioning from a relatively calm start into a firmer environment toward the end of the period. While overall activity fluctuated, the defining theme was declining water levels, which progressively restricted barge intakes on Upper Rhine routes and reintroduced logistical pressure into an otherwise seasonally soft market. As charterers and barge operators moved to finalize positions ahead of the Christmas period, freight rates on Upper Rhine destinations moved upward, contrasting with the more stable conditions seen on the Lower Rhine. 1. Freight Rates: Upper Rhine…

Multi-asset allocation funds (MAAFs) have become a favourite among investors. They have gradually shifted from the sidelines to the centre of many investment portfolios, and the numbers reflect this change. According to data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), total hybrid mutual fund AUM reached ₹10.88 lakh crore as on -November 2025. MAAFs alone contributed close to ₹40,000 crore in inflows during Jan to Nov 2025, accounting for 27.17% of total hybrid net inflows. In comparison, MAAFs accounted for over 12% of pure equity funds net inflows, which stood at ₹3.22 lakh crore. By combining equity, debt,…

The US Food and Drug Administration today approved a pill version of the blockbuster anti-obesity drug Wegovy. Made by Novo Nordisk, the pill is taken once a day. The company’s original version of Wegovy is a weekly injection. Both drugs contain the same active ingredient, semaglutide.“This allows patients with obesity who want to lose weight to have a choice between a once weekly injection or a daily tablet,” says Martin Holst Lange, chief scientific officer at Novo Nordisk.With the soaring popularity of injectable GLP-1 drugs for weight loss, Novo Nordisk and other pharmaceutical companies have been racing to make effective…

The ARA barge freight market in the week of 15–19 December shifted noticeably compared with earlier December. While overall December sentiment has been soft, this particular week was defined by pre-holiday urgency, strong spot volumes, and rapidly changing barge availability. Freight rates moved in both directions during the week: early softness gave way to midweek tightening, particularly for middle distillates, before easing again on Friday as pricing resistance emerged. 1. Freight Rates: Volatile Week With Midweek Support for Distillates 15 December: The week started calmly. Middle distillate rates remained stable, while light ends increased, supported by higher-priced deals and limited…

The friction-pole mechanism for headband adjustment is no less agricultural, for all its familiarity where Grado headphone designs are concerned. And while the detachable cable is a fair bit more flexible than some older Grado models, that’s not the same as saying it’s meaningfully flexible. If there’s a more willfully unhelpful length of cable in all of headphone-land, I’ve yet to encounter it.On the subject of the cable: Grado provides 180-ish centimeters of it with a 6.3-mm termination at the end. When you’re charging this sort of money for headphones, it’s not outlandish to imagine your customer might have a…

Your retirement planning just got a serious upgrade. The National Pension System (NPS) is no longer a rigid, lock-in-heavy retirement scheme with limited liquidity. In a major overhaul, the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) has recently made the NPS more flexible, especially for private sector NPS subscribers. As one of India’s most cost-efficient, market-linked retirement options, these updates couldn’t have come at a better time. In this article, we’ll break down exactly what’s changed in the NPS, how the new NPS withdrawal and annuity rules work, and the important tax implications. NPS: 80% withdrawal allowed, only 20% for…

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine.In 1939, upon arriving late to his statistics course at UC Berkeley, George Dantzig—a first-year graduate student—copied two problems off the blackboard, thinking they were a homework assignment. He found the homework “harder to do than usual,” he would later recount, and apologized to the professor for taking some extra days to complete it. A few weeks later, his professor told him that he had solved two famous open problems in statistics. Dantzig’s work would provide the basis for his doctoral dissertation and, decades later, inspiration for the film Good Will…

To understand how Mr. Trump has achieved this omnipresence, The New York Times reviewed the first 329 days of his second term, finding at least one instance each day when he attracted the public’s attention to himself and his actions.The review encompassed more than 250 media appearances, more than 320 official appearances, and more than 5,000 Truth Social posts or reposts. The analysis shows that while Mr. Trump has lagged his predecessors in his number of official appearances, he has pursued a raft of innovative methods to force himself into the public consciousness on a daily, and sometimes even hourly,…

Just about any monitor can work with a Mac Mini. It doesn’t need to be made by Apple or have any official certification. There’s a case to be made for using a cheap 1080p monitor with the Mac Mini, but most Mac users will want something a bit more premium. As you can see by options like the Dell 27 Plus 4K, that doesn’t have to mean overly expensive. Either way, here are the four elements to consider when shopping for a good monitor to go with your Mac Mini.Size and resolution: 27-inch and 32-inch monitors are the most common…

When someone passes away without leaving a will (intestate), their family is often left with a difficult emotional and legal journey. One of the first practical hurdles they face is accessing the deceased person’s money, bank accounts, fixed deposits, post office savings, and investments like shares or mutual funds. Most of the time banks, post offices, and companies won’t release these funds to family members based only on identity or relationship. Instead, they ask for a legal document called a succession certificate from a civil court. In this article, we explain what a succession certificate is, when it is required,…