From AI adoption to building stronger teams, hear how today's leaders are putting strategy into motion,

stay informed and inspired with the Executive Insights podcast, brought you by AWS, available on all major podcast platforms.

Here's your midday brief for Thursday, September 18th.

I'm Zoe Colkin for the Wall Street Journal.

Intel shares jumped 25% this morning after Navidia said it would invest $5 billion

to jointly develop data center and personal computer products.

The investment pairs the world's most valuable company and a darling of the

AI boom with a chipmaker that has fallen behind rivals. The deal further shores up Intel a month

after the U.S. government said it was taking a 10% stake in an extraordinary private sector

intervention. The U.S. faces a slowing economy amid growing concerns about the labor market, headwinds from tariffs,

and a weak manufacturing sector, according to a basket of economic indicators. According to Research Group,

the Conference Board, its leading economic index posted last month its largest decline since April,

falling by 0.5 percent to 98.4. Meanwhile, the number of Americans who

newly filed for unemployment fell sharply last week, dropping to 231,000 from 264,000 a week earlier.

The Labor Department said also that continuing claims, which are an indicator of the size of

the total unemployed population,

dropped slightly. Unemployment remains modest, but ticked up to 4.3% in August.

And the Bank of England has kept its key interest rate unchanged at 4%, but scaled backup program

designed to shrink its holdings in government bonds that has resulted

in increased scrutiny as yields have risen. Heads up, an artificial intelligence tool helped us make

this episode by creating summaries that were based on WSJ reporting and then reviewed and adapted

by an editor. Before we go, we have a correction. The Leading Economic Index is published by the Conference Board.

...