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Sergey Brin’s mystery gift this week of Alphabet Inc. shares valued at almost $700 million went to a trio of philanthropic organizations, according to a spokesperson for his family office.

The largest portion of Brin’s gift went to Catalyst4, a nonprofit which Brin started in 2021 with a dual purpose of supporting research into central nervous system diseases and climate-change solutions, the spokesperson said Saturday. Those 3.2 million shares were split evenly between Alphabet Class A and Class C stock.

The shares would have been worth more than $500 million on Wednesday when the Google co-founder reported in a regulatory filing that he gifted roughly 4.1 million Alphabet shares, without disclosing the recipients.

More than 580,000 Alphabet shares went to Brin’s family foundation, while an additional 282,000 were gifted to the Michael J. Fox Foundation, which supports research into Parkinson’s disease, according to the spokesperson for Bayshore Global, his family office.

Brin, 51, is the world’s 10th richest person with a net worth of $143 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The defence ministry said on Tuesday that Rajnath Singh has approved the “Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) Programme Execution Model.”

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has approved the “execution model” to implement a mega project to indigenously develop a fifth generation deep penetration advanced medium combat aircraft for the Indian Air force India has been working on the ambitious AMCA project to develop the medium weight deep penetration fighter jet with advanced stealth features to bolster its air power capability.

The defence ministry said on Tuesday that Mr Singh has approved the “Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) Programme Execution Model.” “In a significant push towards enhancing India’s indigenous defence capabilities and fostering a robust domestic aerospace industrial ecosystem, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has approved the Advanced Medium Combat Aircraft (AMCA) Programme Execution Model,” it said.

The Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) is set to execute the programme through Industry partnership.

The defence ministry said the “Execution Model” approach provides equal opportunities to both private and public sectors on competitive basis.

“They can bid either independently or as joint venture or as consortia. The entity/bidder should be an Indian company compliant with the laws and regulations of the country,” it said in a statement.

“This is an important step towards harnessing the indigenous expertise, capability and capacity to develop the AMCA prototype, which will be a major milestone towards Aatmanirbharta (self-reliance) in the aerospace sector,” it said.

The cabinet committee on security led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given in-principle approval to the fighter jet programme last year.

The initial development cost of the project has been estimated at around Rs 15,000 crore.

The IAF has been pushing for the AMCA project in view of its long-term requirement.

India’s confidence in the development of the AMCA saw a significant jump after the development of the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas.

Several cases of the new COVID-19 variant– which has been linked to a large surge of viral infection in China– have been detected at US airports, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Cases linked to the NB.1.8.1 variant of COVID-19 were detected through the CDC’s airport screening program in foreign travellers arriving at airports in Washington state, California, the New York City area and Virginia, according to CBS News.

According to data available on the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID), most of the cases are stemming from travellers from countries, including Japan, South Korea, France, China, and others. The testing was done between April 22 and May 12.

Moreover, cases of the NB.1.8.1 variant have also been reported in other US states, including Ohio, Rhode Island and Hawaii, the CBS report said. These cases are reportedly separate from the airport cases.

Health authorities in the US are now closely monitoring the variant, which is now dominant in China and is on the rise in parts of Asia, including Hong Kong, where Covid-19 cases have climbed to the worst levels seen in at least a year. 

A minor step towards allowing alcoholic drinks to be consumed in the kingdom was the opening of the first alcohol store in the capital, Riyadh, last year, serving exclusively non-Muslim diplomats.

A Saudi official denied on Monday media reports saying the kingdom, the birthplace of Islam, would lift its 73-year-old ban on alcohol, which is prohibited for observant Muslims.

The report, which was picked up by some international media after it appeared on a wine blog last week, said Saudi authorities planned to allow the controlled sale of alcohol as the country prepares to host the 2034 soccer World Cup. It did not give a source for the information.

The report sparked a vigorous online debate in the conservative kingdom, whose king also holds the title of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques – Islam’s most revered places in Mecca and Medina.

Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, is pushing a series of reforms to open up the country for tourism and business, as part of an effort to strengthen non-oil sectors of the economy.

US President Donald Trump vowed Monday to prevail in his clash with Harvard and again threatened to take away billions in funding from one of the world’s top universities.

“I am considering taking Three Billion Dollars of Grant Money away from a very antisemitic Harvard, and giving it to TRADE SCHOOLS all across our land,” Trump said, without giving details, in one of a flurry of texts on Monday, the Memorial Day holiday in the US.

He also brought up the issue of removing foreign students from Harvard — a key source of enrollment and tuition money for the oldest university in the US — saying he is waiting for Harvard to provide a list of these students.

Trump said he wants this list “so that we can determine, after a ridiculous expenditure of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country.”

He added: “But have no fear, the Government will, in the end, WIN!”

The Trump administration moved last week to block Harvard from enrolling foreign students, but on Friday a judge suspended the order pending a hearing this week.

U.S. President Donald Trump on May 20 said he had picked a design for the Golden Dome missile defense system and named a leader of the ambitious $175 billion program.

North Korea’s foreign ministry has criticised the U.S. Golden Dome missile defense shield project as a “very dangerous threatening initiative”, state media said on Tuesday.

U.S. President Donald Trump on May 20 said he had picked a design for the Golden Dome missile defense system and named a leader of the ambitious $175 billion program.

The Golden Dome plan “is a typical product of ‘America first’, the height of self-righteousness, arrogance, high-handed and arbitrary practice, and is an outer space nuclear war scenario,” said the Institute for American Studies of North Korea’s foreign ministry, according to state KCNA news agency.

The aim is for Golden Dome to leverage a network of hundreds of satellites circling the globe with sophisticated sensors and interceptors to knock out incoming enemy missiles after they lift off from countries like China, Iran, North Korea or Russia.

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