July 18, 2026

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It’s time! If you thought human UFC fighters were tough, you should see the robots coming for their jobs. This week, during a humanoid robot fight night in China, one competitor nearly lost its head, but kept on swinging. Though it ultimately lost the bout (once its decapitation was complete), it was still able to hang its head high. Higher, actually.

—Molly Liebergall, Dave Lozo, Sam Klebanov, Matty Merritt, Holly Van Leuven, Abby Rubenstein

In today’s newsletter, we’ll look at:

China’s AI catching up to America’s
A lettuce recall
The UK’s soon-to-be prime minister

Markets

Nasdaq

25,520.24

-1.40%

S&P

7,457.69

-1.01%

Dow

52,146.42

-0.77%

10-Year

4.541%

-3.0 bps

Bitcoin

$64,047.18

+0.20%

Apple

$333.74

+0.14%

Data is provided by

*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 6:30pm ET. Here's what these numbers mean.

Markets: Stocks fell yesterday as China’s latest AI model spurred fears (more on that below), closing out a losing week due mostly to a big dip from chips—as semiconductors looked not-so-tasty to investors. The faltering chip sector meant Apple took the crown from Nvidia as the world’s most valuable company yesterday for the first time since April of last year, with its market value sitting at $4.88 trillion, while Nvidia’s dropped to $4.86 trillion.

IT’S RIGHT BEHIND YOU

China’s latest AI closes gap with US models (again)

Samuel Boivin/Getty Images

Kimmy from Full House