Donald Trump directed the Department of Justice to settle its antitrust case with Live Nation after meeting CEO Michael Rapino in the Oval Office in late February, The Wall Street Journal reported. The report said Rapino later attended a March 5 White House meeting with company lawyers and DOJ officials where the settlement was finalized. It also said the Feb. 27 meeting largely focused on Trump’s plans to overhaul the Kennedy Center and his interest in having Live Nation run the venue’s operations.

Cocoa futures in New York and London fell as signs of ample supply weighed on prices. Nigeria’s July cocoa bean exports rose 18% y/y to 16,052 MT, Bloomberg reported. Separate cumulative data showed Ivory Coast farmers shipped 2.11 MMT of cocoa to ports in the current marketing year, up 20% from the same period a year earlier. Ghana’s Cocoa Board estimated the 2026/27 crop at 650,000 MT, down 13% from 750,000 MT last year, while early assessments put the new-season Ivory Coast crop at an average of 1.8 MMT.

PDD Holdings reported adjusted earnings of 19.33 yuan per American depositary receipt, above the 18.51 yuan estimate. Quarterly revenue rose 8% year on year to 112.4bn yuan, missing forecasts. Shares rose about 3.5% in premarket trading in New York. Temu is facing at least three separate regulatory processes in Europe, including a €200mn fine from the European Commission in May over unsafe baby toys and faulty chargers.

Brazil’s coffee harvest has continued to lag, with overall completion by mid-August running below both last year and the five-year average; arabica harvest progress is at 86%, well behind 95% a year earlier. Rainfall in Minas Gerais, the main producing state, has been just 11% of the historical average, adding to supply concerns. Arabica and robusta coffee futures have climbed sharply on the tighter supply backdrop.

Paul Pelosi, husband of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, bought Bloom Energy shares and long-dated call options in late July, with a combined disclosed value of up to approximately $12 million. The disclosure shows purchases on July 24 and July 28, including call option contracts with a $100 strike price expiring in mid2027. Bloom Energy shares were last priced at $192, up 290% over the past year.

The FTSE 100 started the last week of August higher, up 46 points and trading near 10,862, led by Airtel Africa and Weir Group. US markets opened mixed, with the Dow up 0.2% while the S&P 500 fell 0.4% and the Nasdaq slid 1% as technology shares lagged. Oil prices eased ahead of expected details on US sanctions, with Brent and WTI down roughly 1.5% to 2%. Alibaba shares fell after pricing a US$10.2 billion equity placement to fund further investment in artificial intelligence.

Nvidia has published its first benchmark results for Groq 3-based LPX racks, pointing to a sizable performance edge. Each Groq 3 LPU carries just 500 MB of memory, yet a 31B-parameter dense model can be distributed to fit within a single rack—roughly in line with the active-parameter counts seen in much larger models such as DeepSeek V3. The figures are being framed as early validation of Nvidia’s $20 billion acquisition bet on Groq’s LPU technology.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is investing another $100 billion to expand its north Phoenix wafer-fab complex, a project that uses 4.75 million gallons of water per day. The company says its onsite system currently recycles 65% of that intake—about 3.5 million gallons daily—and it aims to lift reuse to 90% or more by 2028. The unrecycled portion has raised questions from residents and water policy experts about long-term supply in a desert region facing Colorado River cuts.