partnership

A month away from its closure, onetime gambling oasis Primm, Nev., located along the state border with Southern California, has a new lease on life.

The Primm family, owners of the land that includes three casino resorts and other businesses along the 15 Freeway, announced Tuesday a partnership intended to save the struggling state-line strip and hundreds of jobs.

The deal allows Las Vegas-based Terrible’s, owned by the Herbst family and perhaps most famous for a string of gas stations and convenience stores, to operate the properties.

“What we saw with them is the same energy that we had in rebuilding Primm,” said Cory Clemetson, describing the new deal with Terrible’s in an interview with The Times. Clemetson is president of Primm South Real Estate Co. and a grandson of Primm founder Ernie Primm, who made a name for himself in Southern California in the 1930s and ’40s with his Gardena card rooms.

In the summer of 2025, signage blocks an entrance at Primm Mall, a once-popular site along with the trio of casinos at the California-Nevada state line.

(Bridget Bennett / For The Times)

“Primm has long been one of Nevada’s most recognizable destinations,” said Tim Herbst, president of Terrible’s, in a statement. “This partnership reflects our commitment to preserving that legacy while creating new opportunities for growth, investment, and tourism for decades to come.”

Terrible’s takes over for Affinity Gaming, owned by private equity company Z Capital Partners, in the full-circle world of southern Nevada gaming. In 2010, Herbst Gaming declared bankruptcy and saw Primm taken over by Z Capital Partners.

An email to representatives for Affinity Gaming was not immediately returned.

The process for the return of Terrible’s to Primm kick-started May 5, when Affinity confirmed the closure of Primm Valley Casino Resorts.

Affinity’s subsidiary, Primadonna Co. LLC, sent termination notices to more than 300 employees effective July 4.

The closure was devastating, Clemetson said.

“It felt like a gut punch,” he said. “I mean, you’ve got to be kidding me that they would announce something like that for the Fourth of July. Laying off in excess of 300 Nevadans who are mostly paycheck to paycheck with nowhere to go didn’t sit well with my family.”

Primm Valley was the last of three resorts built between 1977 and 1994 at the site that remained in full operation.

Buffalo Bill’s, the largest of the three resorts, closed 24-7 operations in July 2025, after Whiskey Pete’s, the original casino, shuttered in December 2024.

Affinity Gaming declined multiple requests from The Times to speak about Primm’s struggles.

In a letter presented at a Clark County Board of Commissioners meeting, Erin Barnett, Affinity’s vice president and general counsel, wrote in October 2024 that “traffic at the state line has proved to be heavily weighted towards weekend activity and is insufficient to support three full-time casino properties.”

Scott Butera, Affinity’s chief executive and president, offered a few comments about the closure at the May 21 Nevada Gaming Commission meeting.

“As a tenant with a difficult lease and an expensive property and increased competition every day in California … it just became a very difficult thing,” he said, “and we’ve been losing money for years there.”

Clemetson said that Affinity asked for help over the years, such as potential rent reductions, but that the Primm family was unaware of Affinity’s finances.

As for the future, Clemetson said Terrible’s was in the process of reacquiring a gaming license for Primm, which he hoped would happen in the next three weeks.

He also said it was the goal of the Herbst and Primm families to try to keep all workers who received a termination notice employed.

Clemetson said he was excited about Primm’s future under Terrible’s and chalked up its bankruptcy in 2010 to the Great Recession.

“They suffered a similar fate of many big brands like MGM and Caesar’s,” Clemetson said.

“They’re very well thought of in Nevada and they’re a very successful family who’s done well,” he added.

Speaking of Primm’s chances of regaining its former glory, Clemetson reached back into his own past as a young sports agent for players on the L.A. Galaxy soccer team.

“I can’t tell you how many people told me I was dumb to get involved representing soccer players because soccer would never make it here,” he said. “Now, Major League Soccer has a few franchises over a billion dollars.”

As for Tim Herbst and his family, “we believe Primm’s best days are still ahead.”

PM Nikol Pashinyan, who deepened ties with US, faces challenge from pro-Russia parties in upcoming parliamentary polls.

Armenia has signed a strategic partnership agreement bolstering ties with the United States, as Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan faces a challenge from pro-Russia parties in the country’s upcoming election in June.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan also signed a framework on critical minerals and cooperation on a transit corridor in the Armenian capital of Yerevan on Tuesday.

“This agreement marks the biggest step to date on making this historic route a reality, on advancing peace, and on increasing prosperity in Armenia and frankly in the region,” Rubio said at a signing ceremony at the Yerevan airport.

The 43-km (27-mile) corridor, dubbed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP), would traverse southern Armenia and provide Azerbaijan with a direct route to the exclave of Nakhchivan and into Turkiye, a close ally of Baku.

Pashinyan has sought closer ties with the US and Europe, drawing the ire of longtime ally Russia. Moscow has said that it could raise the price of gas Armenia receives from Russia if it continues to pursue greater integration with Western countries.

Armenia had historically been a close security and economic partner of Russia, but Yerevan started to turn towards the West for alliances after the 2023 conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan.

Russia, which is fighting its own war in Ukraine, did not intervene militarily when Azerbaijan launched a major military offensive Nagorno-Karabakh, which had a large Armenian population and had been de facto independent since the 1990s.

Last year, the US and Armenia held joint military drills for the first time.

“I wish to reaffirm that the comprehensive strategic relations between our two nations are stronger than ever,” Mirzoyan said of relations with the US on Tuesday.

The administration of US President Donald Trump, for its part, has cast its relationship with Yerevan in largely economic terms and sought concessions in areas such as critical minerals.

“We are laying the groundwork for the sort of economic engagement that allows Armenians to make money and find prosperity and Americans to do the same and to do it together, which is one of the strongest ways to bind nations with one another,” Rubio said on Tuesday.

A US State Department framework for the transportation corridor, part of a peace agreement signed by Armenia and Azerbaijan last August, also grants the US a 74 percent share in the “TRIPP Development Company”, with an explicit pledge to benefit US companies.

Airbnb unveiled a new set of services for guests on Wednesday, adding car rentals, airport pickup and grocery delivery to its online marketplace that connects travelers with local hosts.

Customers can now get groceries delivered to their Airbnb through a partnership with Instacart and have a driver meet them at the airport with Airbnb’s Welcome Pickups. The app is also offering luggage storage in partnership with Bounce and will add in-app car rentals later this summer.

At the same time, Airbnb is ramping up its use of AI by adding AI-powered review summaries and lodging comparisons, the company said.

The company has been expanding beyond lodging since last year, when it introduced Airbnb Experiences & Services, giving guests the option to book private tours and chef-cooked meals through the app.

In an earnings call earlier this month, the company’s chief executive, Brian Chesky, said the company is at “the very, very beginning of how AI is going to change how we all do our jobs.”

The changes are coming in time for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will take place in 16 cities across the U.S., Mexico and Canada. The company said it is offering exclusive World Cup experiences, such as watch parties and access to stadiums.

“In terms of what we’ve seen in cumulative bookings heading into the event, the World Cup is slated to be the largest event in Airbnb’s history,” the company’s chief financial officer, Ellie Mertz, said on the earnings call.

Airbnb gained popularity for offering travelers unique and homey stays on other people’s property, but it added boutique hotel bookings to its platform late last year. The move had some customers questioning if the app was straying too far from its original purpose.

In its announcement this week, the company said it is partnering with more independent hotels in 20 top destinations, including New York, London and Singapore. On the earnings call, Chesky said hotels on Airbnb could become a multibillion-dollar revenue business.

The San Francisco-based company was founded in 2007 and gave homeowners the opportunity to earn money by renting out their space to travelers seeking something different from a hotel. Airbnb bookings can range from private bedrooms in a shared home to luxury mansions and yachts.

The company’s revenue grew 18% year over year to $2.7 billion in the first quarter, while net income increased slightly to $160 million. Airbnb’s new services and offerings could transform it from a home-sharing platform to a holistic travel marketplace, analysts said.

Shares of the company have increased by 14% over the last six months and fell by less than 1% on Thursday.

Panini will no longer provide its World Cup sticker albums after the 2030 tournament, ending a partnership of 60 years with Fifa.

The publisher has produced the books and stickers since the 1970 World Cup in Mexico.

Football’s world governing body has signed a new deal with Fanatics, owner of collectibles brand Topps, which will produce the stickers and trading cards for Fifa tournaments and events from 2031 onwards.

The same company already produces collectables for Uefa, having replaced Panini in 2024.

Fifa president Gianni Infantino described the deal as “a new, meaningful way for fans to engage with their favourite teams and with their favourite players”.

“This provides another important commercial revenue stream that we channel back, as always, into the game, into football,” Infantino added.

Panini sticker books will still be available for this summer’s tournament, next year’s Women’s World Cup and the 2030 World Cup.

Published on
04/05/2026 – 13:15 GMT+2

The major AI company Anthropic is exploring a potential partnership with the British semiconductor firm Fractile to secure a steady supply of chips for custom inference and reduce the significant overheads associated with current semiconductor solutions.

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According to reports, these talks represent a strategic effort by the San Francisco-based firm to decrease its dependency on Nvidia whilst enhancing the speed and efficiency of its current and next-generation models.

As the global demand for generative AI capacity continues to climb, the financial burden of the hardware required to run these systems has become a primary hurdle for developers.

Anthropic, which has received multi-billion-dollar investments from both Amazon and Google, currently relies heavily on Nvidia’s H100 units alongside custom processors provided by its cloud partners.

However, the high market price and limited availability of these industry-standard chips have squeezed profit margins, prompting firms to look elsewhere.

According to industry analysts, a deal with a specialised firm like Fractile could allow Anthropic to exert greater control over its technical infrastructure.

This strategy reflects a broader trend among tech giants, including Microsoft and Meta, who are increasingly moving away from general-purpose chips in favour of internal or boutique designs.

A shift in memory architecture and a boost for British technology

Founded in 2022 by Oxford PhD Walter Goodwin, Fractile has gained significant attention for its unconventional approach to processor design.

Unlike standard chips that must constantly shuttle data between the processor and separate memory modules, Fractile’s “memory-compute fusion” architecture keeps data directly on the chip using static random-access memory, or SRAM, which does not need to be refreshed.

According to the British start-up, this method can run large language models up to a hundred times faster than existing hardware while lowering operational costs by 90%.

While these performance claims are impressive, the technology is still in the development phase.

Fractile has not yet launched a commercial product, and its specialised chips are not expected to be ready for full-scale data centre deployment until 2027.

Despite the long timeline, the start-up is reportedly in negotiations to raise $200 million (€170.5m) in funding at a valuation exceeding $1 billion (€853m).

The potential partnership highlights the growing significance of the UK’s semiconductor sector on the world stage. If a formal agreement is reached, Fractile could become Anthropic’s fourth major chip supplier, joining the ranks of Nvidia, Google and Amazon.

According to market reports, the discussions remain at an early stage and no binding contract has been signed.

However, the interest from a major player such as Anthropic suggests that in the AI race, the ability to deliver faster and cheaper compute power is the defining factor.

April 22 (Asia Today) — The Czech Republic said its nuclear power project with South Korea is progressing on schedule, signaling potential expansion of cooperation that could extend to additional reactor construction and broader entry into the European market.

Petr Závodský, head of the Czech project company EDU II, said the Dukovany nuclear project has entered a key design phase just 10 months after the contract was signed with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power.

“We received the first large-scale engineering package, including the conceptual design, last week,” Závodský said at a conference in Busan. “This marks a major contractual milestone, and site investigations have already been completed.”

He added that the next step is to submit licensing documents to Czech nuclear regulators within a year.

Tomas Ehler said the Czech government selected Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power based on its proven ability to complete projects on time and within budget.

“In nuclear projects, the most important factor is execution capability,” Ehler said. “The Korean proposal was evaluated as the best across all criteria.”

He emphasized that nuclear construction involves complex risks and requires close coordination between partners to identify and manage challenges early.

Officials also addressed concerns over a dispute involving France, saying the issue has effectively been resolved after being dismissed by Czech courts. They added that approval procedures with the European Commission for expanded reactor plans are ongoing and expected to be finalized by early 2027.

The Czech government reaffirmed its strategy to increase nuclear power’s share in its energy mix from about 30% currently to 50%-60% in the coming years.

A final decision on constructing additional reactors at the Temelin Nuclear Power Plant is expected next year, with progress on the Dukovany project serving as a key benchmark.

Ehler said that if both projects move forward with Korean participation, significant synergies could be achieved.

Závodský stressed that the partnership goes beyond a typical supplier relationship.

“The Czech Republic cannot build nuclear plants without Korean companies, and Korean firms cannot carry out the project without Czech partners,” he said. “This is a joint project, not just a client-supplier arrangement.”

Officials added that the cooperation could expand beyond the Czech Republic to other European countries, including Slovakia and Poland.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

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Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260422010007168