1. Talks between Salesforce (CRM) and data-management software firm Informatica (INFA) have fizzled after the companies couldn't agree on terms, according to people familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal's Lauren Thomas, Dana Cimilluca and Laura Cooper report. 2. Volkswagen (VWAGY) workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, have voted to join the United Automobile Workers, the union announced last night. The union received 2,2628 votes or 73% of the total. "Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga are the first Southern autoworkers outside of the Big Three to win their union." 3. The promise of AI has already driven a massive market rally. The irony is that Apple (AAPL), the company with more context about our lives than any other, has been left behind, Alex Eule writes in this week's edition of Barron's. Unlike Big Tech rivals Meta (META) and Alphabet (GOOGL), or the start-up OpenAI, it has yet to create its own large-language model. The switch to AI, to be sure, is more complex than making a larger-screen phone. But Apple's dominance hasn't changed. And that puts it at the center of any shift - real or artificial, the author says. 4. A24's "Civil War" stayed at number one in its second outing with $11M for a domestic cume of $45M. The dystopian action movie sports a B- CinemaScore, with the audience skewing heavily male - 73%. 5. Air Products and Chemicals (APD), General Motors (GM), Whirlpool (WHR), Mattel (MAT), Seagate Technologies (STX), Ameriprise Financial (AMP), Sherwin-Williams (SHW), Matador Resources (MTDR), and Steel Dynamics (STLD) saw positive mentions in this week's edition of Barron's.
