Breaking News Today – Wednesday 19 November 2025

Business News Today

Google Launches Gemini 3

Yesterday (18 Nov), saw Google release Gemini 3, its latest and most advanced foundation model, which is now immediately available through the Gemini app and AI search interface. According to Google, Gemini 3 is better at figuring out the context and intent behind your request, so you get what you need with less prompting. In perspective Gemini was only launched just two years ago, where AI has evolved from simply reading text and images to evolved interfaces reading vibe and context. This launch comes just seven months after the Gemini 2.5 release, the new model is Google’s most capable LLM yet, and an immediate contender for the most capable AI tool on the market.

The release also comes less than a week after OpenAI released GPT 5.1, and a mere two months after Anthropic released Sonnet 4.5. A stark reminder of the blistering pace of frontier model development. A more research-intensive version of the model, called Gemini 3 Deepthink, will also be made available to Google AI Ultra subscribers in the coming weeks, once it passes further rounds of safety testing.

US Majors Share Dip Sees US Indexes Down

US stock futures steadied on Wednesday as investors braced for Nvidia’s earnings report that could offer insights on the strength of the AI trade, with markets flagging bubble concerns and high valuations. Markets also looked to results from major retailers TJX Companies, Lowe’s and Target for signals on consumer spending, particularly with recent economic data limited by the US government shutdown. Quarterly updates from industrial giant Deere & Company and cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks will be closely watched as well. In regular trading on Tuesday, the Dow and S&P 500 dropped 1.07% and 0.83%, respectively, for their fourth straight down day. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite also tumbled 1.21%, weighed down by losses in AI stocks such as Nvidia (-2.8%), Microsoft (-2.7%), AMD (-4.3%), Palantir (-2.3%) and Micron Technology (-5.6%).

Tech Giant’s Anthropic Deal Confirmed

According to reports today, Microsoft and Nvidia are planning to make a major investment deal with AI tech group Anthropic that includes a $30 billion commitment by the Claude maker to use Microsoft’s cloud services, the latest high-profile deal linking major players in the AI industry. Nvidia will commit up to $10 billion to Anthropic and Microsoft up to $5 billion, the companies said on yesterday, without sharing more details. A person familiar with the matter said both companies have committed to investing in Anthropic’s next funding round. It also ties major OpenAI-backer Microsoft as well as key AI chip supplier Nvidia closer to one of the ChatGPT’s biggest rivals.”We’re increasingly going to be customers of each other. We will use Anthropic models, they will use our infrastructure and we’ll go to market together,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a video. He added that OpenAI “remains a critical partner.”

Breaking News Shorts: 

• Clem Delangue CEO of Hugging Face, says the AI industry is not in an AI bubble, but an “LLM bubble”, and it may be poised to pop. At an Axios event on Tuesday, theca-founder of the popular AI platform and community site agreed that bubble talk is today’s “trillion-dollar question,” but said he doesn’t believe AI’s future is at risk if the bubble bursts.
• Cloudflare has said that it has resolved an issue that led to outages impacting users of many online services including ChatGPT and League of Legends, Shopify, Coinbase and even Moody’s credit ratings agency. Cloudflare said its engineers no longer saw some of the issues plaguing its customers, but that they were continuing to monitor for any further problems.
• A US district judge has ruled that Facebook-parent Meta Platforms did not violate antitrust laws with its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp in 2014.The decision hands ends the Federal Trade Commission’s (the US antitrust watchdog) lawsuit, in which they sued Meta in 2020 claiming the company secured a monopoly in social media by purchasing its rivals.
• Zambia is to host a Chinese premier this Wednesday, for the first time in 28 years as the sub-Saharan state emerges from a financial crisis, with Beijing eager to access the country’s commodities and develop a bigger market for its exporters. China is Zambia’s largest official creditor with $5.7 billion in loans.

Markets by Numbers 

Currency markets indicate the US dollar flat today, as markets await fresh data, with the Euro trading against the US dollar at 1.15885 while the Pound is trading at 1.31447 to the US dollar. The Yen is currently trading at 155.30 to the dollar. The rand (ZAR) is currently at R17.17 to the US dollar.

Commodities:  

• Gold futures have gained over 0.6% today, and are currently trading around $4092.97 per ounce.  
• Copper prices are trending higher today, with prices currently around $4.9689
• Silver futures prices are 1.2% higher this morning, and currently trading around $51.314
• Platinum futures have gained almost 1% this morning, and currently trading at $1549.70, While Palladium prices are 1.57% higher this morning and are currently trading around $1425.50 per ounce.
• Brent crude oil prices have dropped today, and currently at $64.78 with WTI trading lower at $60.67
• Cocoa futures continue its lower trajectory, and currently trading around $52362.10 per ton. 
• Coffee futures have gained marginally this morning, and are currently trading at around $4.0285 per pound

Crypto Currencies: 

• Bitcoin prices have seen steep losses of over -2.8% this morning, and trading at around $90209 per coin currently 
• Ether prices are trending over -3% lower today, and are currently trading around $3010.00
• $Trumpcoin are trending lower today, and currently trading around $6.932

(All prices quoted at approximately 07H55 Central African Time) 

Africa News Briefs:

• The Southern African Kingdom of Eswatini, has confirmed for the first time that it received $5.1 million from the United States in exchange for accepting third-country deportees. The kingdom, led by absolute monarch King Mswati III, has come in for heavy criticism from rights groups for striking the deal with President Donald Trump’s administration. Eswatini is one of several African nations that have agreed to receive deportees as part of Trump’s aggressive crackdown on illegal immigration. Its finance minister on Tuesday said the money had been funnelled into the account of the country’s National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA).
• French energy company Total, is facing war crimes allegations, which it has denied, over a massacre near its multi-billon dollar international gas project in northern Mozambique in 2021.In a complaint filed with French prosecutors, a human rights group accused TotalEnergies of complicity in war crimes, including the torture and execution of dozens of civilians held by local security forces in a cluster of shipping containers at its facility.