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Special counsel asks judge to dismiss subversion case against Trump
( MENAFN - Jordan Times) BERKELEY – The New York Times famously prepares obituaries for notable individuals well in advance of their death. Now that President Joe Biden's administration is about to expire, an elegy is in order for its economic achievements, failures, and missed opportunities. The administration's achievements are self-evident, at least to the clear-eyed analyst, if not, as it appears, to the average voter. In Biden's four years, the US outperformed virtually every other advanced Economy in terms of output, employment, and productivity growth. Despite inheriting an unemployment rate of 6.3 per cent in January 2021 and an elevated level of pandemic-related uncertainty, the administration drove unemployment down to just 4 per cent in its first 12 months, where it essentially remained throughout Biden's term. Job growth among Black workers was especially impressive. Unemployment among African-Americans fell below 6 per cent, down sharply from an average of 10 per cent in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. Admittedly, Biden's inheritance also included a pandemic-stricken economy, creating ample scope for output and employment to bounce back. But the aftermath of the global financial crisis and recession of 2007-10 showed that the mere presence of economic slack is no guarantee of a macroeconomic bounce-back and sustained recovery. Biden administration officials took this lesson to heart. By boosting demand, the massive macroeconomic stimulus applied through the American Rescue Plan, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and the CHIPS and Science Act made all the difference. With the benefit of hindsight, it will now be popular to argue that these measures made too much of a difference. They delivered a burst of inflation, which was a major factor in the electoral defeat of Biden's anointed successor, Vice President Kamala Harris. Although the Fed succeeded in bringing this post-pandemic inflation under control relatively quickly, the rise in prices at the pump and the supermarket created angst among consumers and provided an effective talking point for Donald Trump. If pandemic-era deficit spending had been curtailed more quickly, inflation would have been lower, but the recovery of output and employment would have been slower. It is not clear on balance that sentiment among consumers and workers would have improved or that the Democrats' electoral prospects would have been any better. Another cost of the Biden stimulus was the increase in federal government debt. But it is important not to exaggerate the severity of the problem. Debt in the hands of the public as a share of GDP rose from 94 per cent in 2021 to 100 per cent of GDP in 2024. Some will view this increase as modest, others will be alarmed. Either way, it does not signal an imminent debt crisis. Conventional economic models suggest that a debt increase of this magnitude will raise the real (inflation-adjusted) interest rate by at most a quarter of a percentage point, hardly Armageddon for debt-servicing costs. It is, of course, regrettable that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have an appetite for meeting the problem of chronic deficits head-on. And Trump's promise of massive tax cuts implies even larger deficits and higher debt. But the United States still has some years to run before this problem becomes acute. US Treasury securities are still regarded as safe assets. There may come a point in the not-too-distant future when securities currently regarded as safe are re-rated as unsafe. But financial markets are not going to force the issue in 2025. Then there are Biden's industrial policies. The US Department of Commerce is on track to allocate $53 billion by the end of 2024 to proposed CHIPS private-sector investments spanning 23 projects. Taking advantage of other incentives, companies have committed to nearly $400 billion in new US semiconductor investments. The outgoing administration anticipates 115,000 new construction and manufacturing jobs as a result of these investments. Yet whether troubled companies like Intel can compete with powerhouses like the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Samsung, even with help of these subsidies, is unclear. Foreign semiconductor firms seeking to set up in the US complain about high construction costs and inadequately trained and poorly disciplined workers. Moreover, the federal bureaucracy has a very mixed record of picking winners. Can you say“Solyndra,” the failed solar-panel company supported by Barack Obama's administration? (In fairness, the Obama administration also backed Elon Musk's Tesla early on, though Tesla's market share in the US declining.) In fact, boosting productivity and creating good jobs were not the fundamental motives for the CHIPS Act. The central motive was geopolitical: to reduce US dependence on China, and on Taiwan, over which China looms, for high-tech inputs, and more generally to ensure that the US is self-sufficient in the development and manufacture of essential high-tech products. If the CHIPS Act's subsidies do not produce the desired result, then more subsidies will follow. The ultimate objective is not higher productivity and employment, but rather national security, even if achieving it comes at a significant economic cost. On the environment, Biden's record is mixed. He has used executive orders and regulations to protect parkland, strengthen the enforcement of environmental laws, and assist communities suffering from pollution and related harms. Unable to get Congress to agree on the Green New Deal, his administration turned to consumer tax credits for electric vehicles (EVs) and energy-efficient appliances. The IRA also provides funding for investments in clean-energy technologies. But this spending is spread over ten years, and its magnitude pales in comparison with both the clean-energy investments by European governments and the scale of the global problem. Moreover, the consumer subsidies of the IRA are discriminatory. They are not extended to imported EVs and heat pumps. This brings us to the administration's record on trade and protection. Biden did not retain the worst of Trump's tariffs, but he maintained the tariffs on imports from China, and in 2024 his administration announced tariff hikes on an additional $18 billion of Chinese goods, including EVs, solar cells, batteries, steel, aluminum, and face masks. More than promoting national self-sufficiency, these measures sought to advance the specific objective of decoupling from China, reflecting the administration's view of the People's Republic as an economic and geopolitical rival. Meanwhile, Biden did nothing to advance reform of the World Trade Organisation. He continued to obstruct the appointment of judges to the WTO's Appellate Body, no doubt because those judges would have had the IRA's discriminatory subsidies squarely in their sights. For those who believe that globalisation needs all the help it can get, this record was disappointing. It was not the worst record on trade of any recent administration, but neither was it the best. A final economic policy issue is immigration, where Biden swung from liberal to restrictive, in line with the prevailing political mood. His policies ended up pleasing neither advocates nor opponents of immigration. Biden clamped down on illegal border crossings while opening legal pathways for immigrants from distressed countries like Haiti and Ukraine. But the legal status of many immigrants remains uncertain, limiting their incentive to invest in education and take other steps to contribute to the economy. One can dispute who is responsible for this failure to reform the immigration system: an administration that swung from one position to the other, or a Republican Congress that saw chaos at the border as working to its political advantage. (Personally, I opt for the latter.) But there is no disputing that the result was a signal failure. Such is Biden's economic legacy. His political legacy can be summarised more briefly: he leaves behind a hot mess. Had he withdrawn from the presidential race earlier, there might have been a good chance that his successor would maintain many of his economic-policy initiatives. Now we will see how many of those policies, if any at all, survive four years of Trump and J.D. Vance. Barry Eichengreen, Professor of Economics and Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, is a former senior policy adviser at the International Monetary Fund. He is the author of many books, including In Defence of Public Debt (Oxford University Press, 2021). Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2024. MENAFN16122024000028011005ID1109000193 Legal Disclaimer: MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.3 up, 3 down for the Bills coming off their bye week
NEW YORK (AP) — Technology stocks pulled Wall Street to another record amid mixed trading. The S&P 500 rose 0.2% Monday after closing November at an all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite gained 1%. Super Micro Computer, a stock that’s been on an AI-driven roller coaster, soared after saying an investigation found no evidence of misconduct by its management or the company’s board. Retailers were mixed coming off Black Friday and heading into what’s expected to be the best Cyber Monday on record. Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below. NEW YORK (AP) — Technology stocks are pulling Wall Street toward another record amid mixed trading on Monday. The S&P 500 rose 0.2% in afternoon trading after . The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 86 points, or 0.2%, with a little more than an hour remaining in trading, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.9% higher. Super Micro Computer, a stock that’s been on an AI-driven roller coaster, soared 31.1% to lead the market. Following accusations of misconduct and the , the maker of servers used in artificial-intelligence technology said an investigation found no evidence of misconduct by its management or by the company's board. It also said it doesn’t expect to restate its past financials and that it will find a new chief financial officer, appoint a general counsel and make other moves to strengthen its governance. Big Tech stocks also helped prop up the market. Gains of 1.8% for Microsoft and 2.9% for Meta Platforms were the two strongest forces pushing upward on the S&P 500. Intel was another propellant during the morning, but it lost an early gain to fall 1.1% after the chip company said and stepped down from the board. Intel is looking for Gelsinger’s replacement, and its chair said it’s “committed to restoring investor confidence.” Intel recently to Nvidia, which has skyrocketed in Wall Street's frenzy around AI. Stellantis, meanwhile, skidded following the . Carlos Tavares steps down after nearly four years in the top spot of the automaker, which owns car brands like Jeep, Citroën and Ram, amid an ongoing and an inventory backlog at dealerships. The world’s fourth-largest automaker’s stock fell 6.3% in Milan. The majority of stocks in the S&P 500 likewise fell, including California utility PG&E. It dropped 3.7% after saying it would sell $2.4 billion of stock and preferred shares to raise cash. Retailers were mixed amid what’s expected to be the best on record and coming off . Target, which recently gave a , fell 1.6%. , which gave a more optimistic forecast, rose 0.3%. Amazon, which looks to benefit from online sales from Cyber Monday, climbed 1.3%. The stock market largely took latest threat on tariffs in stride. The president-elect on Saturday threatened against a group of developing economies if they act to undermine the U.S. dollar. Trump said he wants the group, headlined by Brazil, Russia, India and China, to promise it won’t create a new currency or otherwise try to undercut the U.S. dollar. The dollar has long been the currency of choice for global trade. Speculation has also been around a long time that other currencies could knock it off its mantle, but no contender has come close. The U.S. dollar’s value rose Monday against several other currencies, but one of its strongest moves likely had less to do with the tariff threats. The euro fell amid a political battle in Paris . The euro sank 0.7% against the U.S. dollar and broke below $1.05. In the bond market, Treasury yields gave up early gains to hold relatively steady. The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed above 4.23% during the morning before falling back to 4.19%. That was just above its level of 4.18% late Friday. A report in the morning showed the U.S. manufacturing sector contracted again last month, but not by as much as economists expected. This upcoming week will bring several big updates on the job market, including the October job openings report, weekly unemployment benefits data and the all-important November jobs report. They could steer the next moves for which recently began to give support to the economy. Economists expect Friday's headliner report to show U.S. employers accelerated their hiring in November, coming off that was hampered by damaging hurricanes and strikes. “We now find ourselves in the middle of this Goldilocks zone, where economic health supports earnings growth while remaining weak enough to justify potential Fed rate cuts,” according to Mark Hackett, chief of investment research at Nationwide. In financial markets abroad, Chinese stocks led gains worldwide as monthly surveys showed improving conditions for manufacturing, partly driven by a surge in orders ahead of Trump’s inauguration next month. Both official and private sector surveys of factory managers showed strong new orders and export orders, possibly partly linked to efforts by importers in the U.S. to beat potential tariff hikes by once he takes office. Indexes rose 0.7% in Hong Kong and 1.1% in Shanghai. AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.Russian energy giant Gazprom said on Saturday it would suspend gas exports to Moldova from 0500 GMT on January 1 due to unpaid debt by Moldova, which is bracing for severe power cuts. It said the company reserved the right to take any action, including terminating the supply contract with Moldova. Russia supplies Moldova with about 2bn cubic metres of gas per year, which is piped via Ukraine to the breakaway region of Transdniestria where it is used to generate cheap power that is sold to government-controlled parts of Moldova. Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean condemned the Russian decision, which is a precursor to a total shutdown of Russian gas exports via Ukraine and to Europe, where it flows further to Slovakia, Austria, Hungary and Italy, once a current transit deal with Ukraine expires on December 31. Moldova will be hit the hardest by the shutdown. “This decision confirms once again the intention of the Kremlin to leave the inhabitants of the Transdniestrian region without light and heat in the middle of the winter,” Recean wrote on Facebook, accusing Russia of using energy as a political weapon. Moscow has repeatedly dismissed those allegations. Russia, which is critical of Moldova’s West-leaning central government, has said Moldova should pay a debt on past supplies. According to Russian calculations, the debt stands at $709mn. Moldova has put the debt at $8.6mn. Gazprom has said previously it wants Moldova to pay the debt before it starts to pump gas to the country via alternative routes. Transdniestria and the government in Chisinau agreed in 2022 that all Russian gas received by Moldova would flow to the breakaway region, which traditionally does not pay for fuel. Without gas supplies, the power-generating plant could stop working and Moldova and Transdniestria would face hours-long blackouts similar to those experienced by Ukraine due to Russia’s attacks on its energy infrastructure in their war. The government of Transdniestria told businesses that from on Saturday, gas supplies would start to be switched off to commercial entities that were not considered critical. But it said supplies of gas, heating and hot water to households would continue as usual until January 1. Recean said Moldova had diversified sources of gas supply “in order to reduce dependence on a single supplier”. “Our country is prepared to handle any situation that arises following the Kremlin’s decision,” he added. Moldova’s population of 2.5mn has been preparing for long power cuts since Ukraine’s government said it will not extend its transit contract with Gazprom. Moldova and Transdniestria have both declared states of emergency over the threat of disrupted gas supplies, and Moldova said on Friday it will curb power exports and introduce measures to reduce consumption by at least a third from January 1. Moldovan President Maia Sandu has accused Gazprom of provoking an energy crisis, saying it was refusing to supply gas through an alternative route. 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ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Six Alaska House seats currently held by men are set to be held by women next year, bringing the overall number of women in the chamber to 21. This will be the first time in the state’s history that one of the legislative chambers is majority women. The women elected to the Alaska House bring a variety of experiences and perspectives to the chamber. Ten of them are Republicans, including four newly elected this year. Nine are Democrats — including three who are newly elected. Two are independents who caucus with Democrats. There are also five women in the state Senate, a number that remained unchanged in this year’s election, bringing the total number of women in the Alaska Legislature to 26 out of 60, a new record for the state. The previous record of 23 was set in 2019. Nationally, around a third of legislative seats were held by women this year, according to researchers at Rutgers University. Nearly two-thirds of women legislators are Democrats. In Alaska, women serving in the Legislature are largely evenly split between the major political parties. Before this year’s election, only seven states had ever seen gender parity in one of their legislative chambers. They include Arizona, Nevada, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Colorado, New Mexico and Oregon. California is set to join the list after this year’s election. Three of the women slated to serve in the Alaska House next year are Alaska Native — also a record. Two of them were elected for the first time: Robyn Burke of Utqiagvik , who is of Iñupiaq descent, and Nellie Jimmie of Toksook Bay, who is of Yup’ik descent. They join Rep. Maxine Dibert of Fairbanks, of Koyukon Athabascan descent, who was elected in 2022. The historic increase in representation of women came in Alaska even as voters did not reelect U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, the first woman and first Alaska Native person to represent the state in the U.S. House. Peltola was voted out in favor of Republican Nick Begich III. Women come to the Alaska Legislature from diverse professional backgrounds, but a disproportionate number of them will arrive with some experience in public education. Three of the newly elected lawmakers — Burke, Jubilee Underwood of Wasilla and Rebecca Schwanke of Glennallen — have served on their local school boards, helping oversee the North Slope Borough, Matanuska-Susitna Borough and Copper River school districts, respectively. The three bring different perspectives on public education. Burke said she is looking forward to working with a bipartisan caucus that is set to have a majority in the Alaska House this year, with a focus on increasing education funding and improving the retirement options for Alaska’s public employees, including teachers. Schwanke and Underwood, on the other hand, have indicated they will join the Republican minority caucus, which has shown an interest in conservative social causes such as barring the participation of transgender girls in girls’ school sports teams. The increase in the number of women serving in the Alaska Legislature comes as public education funding is set to be a key issue when lawmakers convene in January. Burke said she and the other newly elected women bring different policy perspectives to the topic of education, but their shared experience in serving on school boards reflects a commitment to their children’s education. “With so many parents and so many moms, I hope that there will be really good legislation that supports working families and children and education,” Burke said. ©2024 Anchorage Daily News. Visit at adn.com . Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
Trump world is celebrating after special counsel Jack Smith moved to dismiss two federal cases brought against President-elect Donald Trump. Smith’s team asked a federal judge Monday to dismiss the 2020 election interference case brought against Trump, who was charged with four felonies last year. Later on Monday, Smith also asked to dismiss the classified documents case brought against Trump. Trump and his allies—who have decried the legal cases as politically motivated—are celebrating Smith’s latest moves as Trump prepares to head to the White House next year. “The American People re-elected President Trump with an overwhelming mandate to Make America Great Again. Today’s decision by the DOJ ends the unconstitutional federal cases against President Trump, and is a major victory for the rule of law,” Steven Cheung, Trump Communications Director, said in a statement. “The American People and President Trump want an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and we look forward to uniting our country,” he added. Trump’s allies also flocked to social media to boast about the latest development, arguing that the charges should have never been brought in the first place. “MAJOR VICTORY for President Trump and JUSTICE! These fake (and illegal) charges were used to persecute President Trump for being the biggest threat to the Democrat regime. Political prosecution should never happen in America!!” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) wrote on social media platform X . MAJOR VICTORY for President Trump and JUSTICE! These fake (and illegal) charges were used to persecute President Trump for being the biggest threat to the Democrat regime. Political prosecution should never happen in America!! https://t.co/42w7BxCX6c Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) quoted tech billionaire Elon Musk by writing: “[T]he Hammer of Justice is coming. May it be swift.” Vice President-elect JD Vance also weighed in, saying that Trump may have been sent to prison if he did not win the election. “If Donald J. Trump had lost an election, he may very well have spent the rest of his life in prison. These prosecutions were always political. Now it’s time to ensure what happened to President Trump never happens in this country again,” Vance wrote on X. And conservative activist Charlie Kirk wrote on X: “The lawfare lost. America won.” Despite Trump and his allies labeling his multiple legal woes as politically motivated, Trump has vowed retribution against his political opponents. Politico reported earlier this month that some involved in Trump’s legal cases could be among Trump’s targets, including Smith, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, as well as many others. The move announced in court papers marks the end of the Justice Department’s landmark effort to hold Trump accountable for what prosecutors called a criminal conspiracy to cling to power in the run-up to his supporters' attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Justice Department prosecutors, citing longstanding department guidance that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted, said the department’s position is that “the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated.” “That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Government stands fully behind,” the prosecutors wrote in Monday’s court filing. The decision was expected after Smith’s team began assessing how to wind down both the 2020 election interference case and the separate classified documents case in the wake of Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. The Justice Department believes Trump can no longer be tried in accordance with longstanding policy that says sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Stories by Lauren Sforza After failed AG bid, Matt Gaetz has a new side hustle — to get your money NEW POLL: What Americans are saying about Trump cabinet picks Democrat torches N.Y. governor, Biden in latest rant against his party Our journalism needs your support. Please subscribe today to NJ.com .
Rays will play 13 of first 16 games at home and 47 of 59, then have 69 of last 103 on roadRays will play 13 of first 16 games at home and 47 of 59, then have 69 of last 103 on road
Former IRA member among nursing home early voters for general election
Donald Hand Jr. racked up a career-high 29 points and 10 rebounds to help Boston College stave off visiting Fairleigh Dickinson 78-70 on Saturday in Chestnut Hill, Mass. Chad Venning added 18 points on 8-for-10 shooting and Dion Brown contributed eight points, eight rebounds and four assists as the Eagles (8-5) wrapped up their nonconference slate with just their second win in six games. Ahmed Barba-Bey, a grad transfer from Division II, exploded for a season-high 31 points to power FDU (4-11). Barba-Bey buried 8 of 9 attempts from the 3-point arc. Terrence Brown added 15 of his 20 points in the second half, as the Knights made it close before falling to 0-10 on the road this season. Bismark Nsiah scored 10 points. Boston College led 70-59 with 3:39 to play when Barba-Bey was fouled attempting a corner 3. He made all three of his foul shots, and after a stop Brown got to the bucket to cut FDU's deficit to six. It was 72-67 when Venning made a clutch turnaround jumper from the high post with 51 seconds left. Boston College let Barba-Bey get loose for his eighth 3-pointer, pulling FDU within four, its closest margin of the half. But Hand drove to the basket and scored with 29 seconds on the clock, and FDU was out of time. The Knights trailed by as many as 12 in the first half, but Barba-Bey kept them in the game. He made a fastbreak layup off Brown's steal and added a 3-pointer on the next possession, turning what was a 10-point deficit to a manageable 29-24 game. Boston College led 38-28 at halftime, with Hand scoring 15 for the hosts and Barba-Bey pouring in 16 for the Knights, including 4-of-5 shooting from deep. FDU pulled within nine points three times in the early stages of the second half, the third coming when Nsiah knocked down back-to-back 3-pointers to make it 56-47 with about 10 minutes to go. --Field Level MediaResidents at the facility in Chapelizod, Dublin, got to vote early, among about 15,300 “special voters” in nursing homes and hospitals. The polling station was the family room. An assistant returning officer and a garda were the only people present as each resident went into the room to receive their ballot paper and vote. There are 547 nursing homes in the State and 33 of the 69 Maryfield residents were on the register to cast their vote on Monday. In the end 28 voted, an 84.8 per cent turnout. Margaret Fitzpatrick (72) said “it’s very convenient” for voting. Formerly an Inchicore voter in Dublin South-Central constituency and now in Dublin West, she said she did not feel properly informed about the candidates. Aontú 's Ellen Troy was the only candidate of 16 who canvassed the nursing home. Ms Fitzpatrick said: “I have strong views about nursing homes and the fair deal but it hasn’t featured in this election.” She also said she felt there was a sense of “warehousing old people”, that society thinks “once you’re in a nursing home they think the problem is sorted”. She used to vote along traditional family lines. More recently she voted on individuals and issues. “I think for stability I would like either Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil to be part of the new government simply because they have experience in government. So I would probably go back down on traditional lines and vote Fianna Fáil.” Richard Behal (86), a former IRA member and Limerick Prison escapee, was a Sinn Féin Munster candidate in the 1984 European elections when Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act was still in place and his voice could not be broadcast. He now thinks Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín is very impressive. Asked when he fell out of love with Sinn Féin, he said “I wouldn’t call it love”, but it had been “on and off” for years. Irish unity and neutrality are very important to him and he is anti-abortion. “The moral fibre of Ireland was sapped the way that abortion was brought in and that Tóibín had to resign” from Sinn Féin to vote how he wanted to, Mr Behal said. Sr Regina Meade has just turned 89. “I didn’t think I’d live ‘til now but I’m still here and still interested in politics,” she said. Concerned about services for older people, she is originally from Cork. A Micheál Martin fan, she said she would “very much” be voting Fianna Fáil. “At the moment they’re the only group that are steady. The others are up and down in government.” Asked her view of Taoiseach Simon Harris she said: “I thought in the beginning he was marvellous. He was going ahead but he hasn’t the experience of the others either. He’s going too quick. He bounces into different actions. But I like him at the same time.” She added: “He’s the next best.” Joan Maguire (93) from Chapelizod said she would decide when she saw the ballot paper. “I’ve admiration for anyone who puts their head above the parapet to be criticised. I’ve admiration for them all.” Tadhg Daly of Nursing Homes Ireland , which represents 437 of the homes, said: “We are very concerned at the absence of a focus on our ageing population in election and party manifestos. The fact that people are living longer must be celebrated and planned for.” Marie O'Halloran is Parliamentary Correspondent of The Irish TimesAbstract Security Joins Forces with Analytica42 to Supercharge Integration Delivery including integration to Google SecOps Platform
'Let's not panic': Canada picks up the pieces after ugly Latvia loss at world juniors
Rays will play 13 of first 16 games at home and 47 of 59, then have 69 of last 103 on road
NBC may be forced to swallow triple the yearly fees it has been paying to hold onto the broadcast rights for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, according to a report. The Comcast-owned network – which has had the broadcast rights to the holiday TV staple since 1953 – is currently trying to nail a new deal to keep the festive event for the next decade, according to The Wall Street Journal . To continue airing the parade in all its Christmas glory, NBC may have to fork out an average annual fee of more than $60 million — up from around $20 million under the current contract, sources familiar with the terms told the Journal. The deal would also include other Macy’s events, like the Fourth of July fireworks over the Hudson River. The nearly century-old parade — with its floats and giant balloons, school marching bands, famous stars, the Rockettes and Santa Claus himself — is one of the few television events able to get Americans to click away from streaming services. Nearly 30 million viewers tuned in last year. The parade has held onto fan-favorite balloons, like Snoopy and SpongeBob SquarePants, while continuing to keep up with the fads each year , adding a “Wednesday”-themed balloon this year inspired by the Netflix show. As the parade, and other events like football games and award shows, become more rare in their ability to bring in an audience, they have also grown more valuable. Disney, for example, reportedly paid a 20% premium to steal the Grammy Awards out from CBS last month, according to the Journal. NBC raked in $52 million in advertising last year for the flashy holiday event. The average commercial cost $865,000, according to advertising research firm Guideline. This year, the average ad will cost companies a whopping $900,000. Production costs have soared from under $4 million a few years ago to nearly $7 million this year as celebrities hike their fees for parade appearances. “The National Dog Show” immediately follows the parade on NBC, and the puppy bowl has surged in popularity – totaling 11 million viewers last year. The dog show – which costs less than the parade and is particularly lucrative for NBC – earned $14 million in advertising revenue last year, with a commercial slot selling for $372,000, according to Guideline. Macy’s hired talent agency WME to handle negotiations with NBC instead of bargaining for itself, according to the Journal. NBCUniversal Media Group Chairman Mark Lazarus is involved in the negotiations. The parade would be a big loss for NBC, since it kickstarts the channel’s holiday programming. The network recently bought the rights to Christmas classics like “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and “Frosty the Snowman,” which previously belonged to CBS.ChatGPT opened the floodgates. But many people don’t realize there’s a whole world of generative AI tools and applications out there, just waiting to be explored. Whether you’re struggling to overcome a case of writer’s block, lack the artistic aptitude to do your imagination justice, or just need a hand crafting efficient computer code, generative AI can help augment and streamline both your professional and creative endeavors. Yet, amid the seemingly endless variety of AI assistants currently on offer, finding the right one for your needs can prove a daunting task. So, let’s delve into some of the most impressive AI tools that are pushing the boundaries of innovation, including the best AI chatbots , the best AI image generators , and much more. The best AI tools for image generation One of the first AI image generators to be released back in 2022, Midjourney has proven immensely popular with users and art critics alike . It can output high-definition, photorealistic images in countless artistic styles based on natural language text prompts. Originally only available through the company’s Discord server, Midjourney can now be accessed through a streamlined web portal . While the website’s gallery of generated art is free to browse, you will need to subscribe to a monthly service plan (which range from $10 to $120) in order to generate images of your own. While not as creatively robust as Midjourney — only able to generate images in one of five preset artistic styles — Ideogram does offer a generous free tier that allows users to generate up to 40 images per day. Paid tiers range from $7 to $48 per month and offer a host of benefits, from additional compute resources and priority access to full-quality image downloads. The company also boasts an iOS app and an API that it claims will “offer superior image quality at a lower cost compared to other models.” This is OpenAI’s in-house text-to-image generator and runs atop the company’s GPT-4 model. Originally released in September 2023, it was initially only available to paid tier subscribers. OpenAI expanded its availability to free tier users this past August, though you’ll only be able to generate two images per day at that subscription level. Dall-E 3 is also available through Microsoft’s Copilot chatbot. If you’re looking to create high-quality images without the strict production limits that ChatGPT enforces, Google’s Imagen 3 is a solid option. It’s available through the Gemini chatbot , including the free tier, and offers higher-quality outputs with fewer artifacts than its previous versions. Note, however, that the system will not generate images of people, famous or not, unless you subscribe to Gemini Advanced (which costs $20 per month). Grok 2 is the text-to-image generator for people uninterested in adhering to copyright law. Developed for Elon Musk’s xAI company, and available on X, Grok 2 isn’t restricted by minor inconveniences like safety and legal guardrails, as other image generators are. Want to see Mickey Mouse fighting Darth Vader atop a 747 as it flies into the World Trade Center? Grok will generate it, no questions asked. You will, however, need to pony up $8 for a premium subscription to X in order to access it. Runway’s Gen 3 Alpha is a relatively new model, having been released in June of 2024, and is capable of creating both still images and video clips with nearly photorealistic quality based on the user’s natural language prompts. The company recently announced that it will begin integrating a new foundational model, dubbed Frames , into the Gen 3 platform that will offer unprecedented control over the image creation process, enabling users to generate multiple image variants while maintaining a specific aesthetic style, whether that’s mimicking 35mm disposable camera shots or retro anime motifs. Subscription prices run from $12 to $76 per month, though the company does offer a limited free tier as well. The best AI tools for image editing Skylum’s Luminar Neo is a photo editing suite designed with professional photographers in mind. It offers many of the same powerful tools as Adobe Photoshop, but outsources much of their functionality to AI. This enables users to accomplish numerous common tasks, from adjusting color balance and lighting levels to tweaking the look of the sky, water, and skin tones, with a single click. Luminar Neo might be a bit pricey for casual users, costing $421 for a yearly subscription or as a lifetime subscription for $577. It’s available on both Windows and Mac, as well as a plugin for Photoshop, Photos, and Lightroom. Canva is a multifunction creative platform that offers everything from digital whiteboarding, data visualization, and marketing material templates to photo, video, and YouTube editing features. While you can easily make minor adjustments like cropping, adding filters and adjusting aspect ratios using the site’s free editor, Canva Pro offers a number of additional AI-empowered tools. Select, move, resize, and even erase individual objects within an image; extract and modify text on flattened images; and even generatively expand the image’s background, all with a few simple clicks. Canva Pro costs $120 per year for a single user license. This online photo editing suite has served as a free and user-friendly alternative to Photoshop since it was released in 2008. Last November, the company debuted a number of AI features including image generation, a generative fill tool, AI background removal, AI face swap, and image expansion to help round out the tool set’s functionality. While the interface is geared more for casual users and may not be as precise and granular as what Photoshop offers, you can’t beat free. If you only need to do some light retouching work on your images, the Topaz Photo AI suite offers eight enhancement tools: Denoise, Sharpen, Upscale, Recover Faces, Remove Objects, Preserve Text, Adjust Lighting, and Balance Color. It’s not a true replacement for full-function photo editors like Photoshop, but it is available without an annual subscription, for a flat rate of just $199 with version upgrades costing $99. Adobe’s Firefly AI doesn’t just generate images and video from text prompts, it also empowers a number of AI features throughout the Adobe product ecosystem. That includes the Generative Fill tool in Photoshop, text effects in Adobe Express, vector and pattern generation in Illustrator, and Generative Extend in Premiere Pro. You will need to subscribe to Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite in order to access these features, though they can either be purchased individually (the image generator, for example, costs $5/month while Photoshop costs $23) or you can pick up all 20-plus Adobe apps for $60 per month. Best AI for video generation While Luma Dream Machine may be designed with fashion, marketing and filmmaking professionals in mind, it’s built as a subscription-based service with both casual and professional users in mind. Unlike conventional AI tools, Dream Machine does not require precise and exhaustive prompting to generate the desired effect, but rather, interprets the user’s natural language request intuitively. It also accepts multi-image prompting and single-image character references so users can show the AI what they have in mind. Luma does not offer a free tier, though a “hobbyist” subscription costs just $10 per month. Kling AI video-generation system from China’s Kuaishou Technology offers photorealistic outputs on par with what we’ve seen from OpenAI’s Sora and is already available to users around the world. It can generate high-definition videos up to two minutes in length (double what Sora can) at up to 30 frames per second and 720p resolutions (slightly less than Sora’s 1080p output). Each clip starts out at just five seconds in length but can be extended in 4.5-second increments by purchasing additional credits. Just be warned that the system is blocked from generating politically-sensitive subjects. Synthesia is a bit more niche than the other video generators we’ve discussed so far. It’s designed specifically to generate video avatars from the user’s text prompts making it ideal for business applications like onboarding and training videos, sales presentations, and internal communications. Users can choose from one of more than 130 avatar models speaking 140 different languages and over 60 video templates. The free tier allows you to generate a single three-minute video per month and your choice of nine avatars, while the $30/month Starter tier and $90/month creator tier offer significantly more benefits. Vyond offers similar functionality to Synthesia in that it generates AI avatars for training videos based on the user’s text prompts, however, this service relies on animated characters rather than live actors. You also have the option to record yourself performing specific actions or movements and Vyond will motion match its animation to them. Plans start at $49 per month, which also includes access to an added video editor, though anything you produce at that tier will be watermarked with Vyond’s logo. The best AI for text generation ChatGPT , the chatbot that launched the AI boom in 2022, remains at the forefront of the industry with an estimated 200 million active weekly users. Trained on huge quantities of written content including websites, books, social media posts, and news articles, ChatGPT is equally adept at answering general knowledge queries and compiling computer code as it is at generating creative prose . It was also the first chatbot to offer a conversational feature in Advanced Voice Mode that allows users to interact with the chatbot as if it were a person, doing away with the need for text-based prompts. ChatGPT is available on the web as well as on iOS and Android. It’s free to use, though subscribing to the $20/month ChatGPT-Plus plan will give you increased access to the company’s latest AI models and features. Copilot answers the question “what if ChatGPT worked natively within Microsoft’s 365 app ecosystem?” Which is exactly what it does. Microsoft has invested billions in OpenAI’s business and, as such, its Copilot AI runs atop the startup’s GPT-4o LLM. However, Copilot is more than just a reskinned ChatGPT. For one, Copilot does not restrict users from generating images without paying for a subscription to its premium plan as ChatGPT does. For another, its functionality can be integrated across Microsoft’s products, helping users generate text in Word , create graphs and tables in Excel , and draft emails in Outlook . Google’s Gemini chatbot may have gotten off to a bit of a rocky start upon its official debut in February but the AI assistant has quickly grown into a potent rival to ChatGPT, offering much of the same functions and features. Those include the ability to generate text, images, video, audio, and code, converse with users verbally with Gemini Live, and integrate with Google’s Workspace app suite. It can gin up email responses in Gmail, search for files in Drive, create content for Slides, and draft text in Docs, all through the user’s natural language prompts. Gemini is free to use and is available on the web as well as through its iOS and Android apps, but if you want to access the AI’s more advanced features (and Workspace integrations), you’ll need to subscribe to the company’s $20/month Google One AI Premium service. Perplexity’s AI assistant offers a unique alternative to traditional search engines. Rather than simply return a list of websites in response to a user’s query as Google search does, this chatbot scours the internet for relevant information, then synthesizes an answer to the user’s question directly in the chat window. It essentially eliminates the need to click through to individual websites to find the information you’re looking for. Built atop the GPT-4 model and available on Android, iOS, as well as on the web, Perplexity is free to use. The company also offers a Pro subscription plan for $20/month (or $200/year) that grants you access to additional AI models including GPT-4 Omni and Claude 3 Sonnet and Haiku , as well as a host of additional benefits. Unlike generalized chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini, Jasper AI is all business. It is designed to generate text for emails, blogs, social media posts, and marketing materials, all while maintaining your company’s distinctive tone, voice, and brand style. The platform includes Jasper Chat, which assists with research tasks and offers writing advice, as well as can help maximize the SEO score of your marketing content. Jasper is only available on a subscription basis, with plans starting at $40 per month per user, though the company does offer a seven-day trial. The best AI for audio and voice generation ElevenLabs knows how to make a machine talk. The company is a leader in generative speech technology, offering a variety of audio-centric services from automatic voice dubbing and cloning to text-to-speech and text-to-SFX. Users can select from thousands of unique voices (including those of famous celebrities ), all trained on public domain and licensed data, in any of 32 languages. Ideal for podcasting, audio book narration, and conversational AI applications, the company’s products are available at a variety of pricing tiers ranging from free up to $99 per month. Why read a document when you can have Speechify read it to you four and a half times faster? The company’s voiceover technology can recite nearly any document you present to it in one of 200 voices (including your own through its voice cloning feature) in more than 60 languages. Speechify is available as a Chrome extension, a Mac app, a web app, iOS or Android app. The mobile apps can also read physical documents using your phone’s camera to scan the page. Speechify’s free tier limits you to simple text-to-speech in just 10 voices, while the $12/month premium tier unlocks the service’s full functionality. Respeecher specializes in voice cloning for celebrities, content creators, voice actors, game designers, and other professional applications. The company’s AI model essentially enables one person to speak in the voice of another. “We take recordings of the ‘target voice’ (the voice that is being replicated), train our system, and apply it to a ‘source speaker’ (the actor reading the lines),” the Respeecher’s FAQ explains. “It features all the emotions, intonations, and nuances of a real human voice.” The company offers a wide range of celebrity voices including Chris Farley and Richard Nixon, the latter of which earned Speechify an Emmy in 2019. Subscription plans start at $18 per month for basic text-to-speech (up to 100,000 characters per month and range up to $500 per month for the Power tier, which offers 900 minutes of speech-to-speech and 3 million characters of text-to-speech generation in more than 100 voices and 13 accents. If you fancy yourself a musician but can’t carry a tune, Controlla Voice can help. Its generative model can train an “AI Singing Voice” that sounds like you, based on 15-30 minutes of sample audio, then apply it to songs from the company’s extensive catalog, or blend your voice with others from their licensed stable of voice actors to generate unique vocals. You can even convert the vocals in existing songs from other artists into your voice for low-effort covers. Subscription prices run from $12 to $30 per month. The best AI for coding Anthropic’s Claude chatbot may not be able to generate images or speak to you conversationally, but it utterly excels at coding applications. Its latest iteration, Claude 3.5 Sonnet , drastically outperforms the likes of Gemini 1.5 Pro and ChatGPT-4o across a broad swath of leading industry benchmarks. Claude was also the first chatbot to offer a collaborative window (dubbed Artifacts ) that previews what the AI is generating outside of the chat stream. The chatbot is available free to all users on the web, iOS, and Android, though subscribing to the $20/month Pro or $30/month Teams tiers will grant you priority access to the latest and greatest models that Anthropic has to offer. Developed through a partnership between Github and OpenAI, GitHub Copilot acts as an AI autocomplete, to help users in the Visual Studio Code, Visual Studio, Neovim, and JetBrains IDEs generate code faster than they can on their own. Users can present Copilot with a coding problem, phrased in natural language, and the assistant will automatically generate a solution code. Conversely, it can also explain what a given snippet of code does as well as convert snippets between various coding languages. You can use Github Copilot for free, though upgrading to either the $4/month Pro or $21/month Enterprise tiers will, of course, give you additional resources and features. Similar to Copilot, Amazon’s CodeWhisperer is a general use coding assistant that will automatically generate suggestions and code recommendations based on your existing inputs, in real time. It’s available for the JetBrains and Visual Studio IDEs and also supports natural language-to-bash translation in the Mac command line. The free tier only offers limited access to the system’s more advanced features, so you’ll have to pony up $20/month if you want to unlock its full capabilities. Cursor AI is a coding assistant in the same vein as Codewhisperer but can offer autocomplete suggestions across multiple lines of code, based on your previous inputs. It also offers a smart rewrite function that automatically corrects your typos and syntax errors so you spend less time tracking down errant quotation marks and parentheses while debugging, as well as cursor prediction that guesses where your cursor needs to be next, enabling you to navigate through your project faster and more efficiently. It even offers a chatbot assistant (leveraging GPT-4, GPT-4o, and Claude 3.5 Sonnet) that can answer questions about either the entire active file or specific selected code blocks. The chatbot can even edit that highlighted code based on your natural language instructions. Cursor AI is available for the Mac, Windows, and Linux operating systems. You can try it out free for two weeks before a $20/month Pro or $40/user/month Business subscription is required. The best AI to integrate with the rest of your app ecosystem Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has been investing heavily in AI over the past few years and has recently begun incorporating the smart features found in rivals like Gemini and Copilot to its own product portfolio. “More than 400 million people are using Meta AI monthly, with 185 million people using it across our products each week,” the company boasted in a September blog post . The company now offers a conversational AI similar to Advanced Voice Mode in Messenger, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram DM. It can answer questions about photos shared in your group chats, generate custom backgrounds for images you reshare from your feed to Instagram Stories, and automatically translate the audio of your Instagram Reels. It can also generate images to share on your feed, Stories, and set as your Facebook profile picture. So when you find yourself wondering why there’s so much AI slop clogging up Facebook and Insta, understand that it is a feature Meta has spent billions developing, not a bug. Microsoft has dumped north of $10 billion into its partnership with OpenAI, so of course it’s going to shoehorn ChatGPT’s generative capabilities into every single product it possibly can. In addition to the Copilot chatbot itself, Microsoft has developed and released Copilot Pages, which function much like Claude’s Artifacts or ChatGPT’s Canvas. The company has also integrated it into Outlook to help you manage your inbox by prioritizing which messages to respond to first and quickly draft email replies. 365 Copilot can also help you rapidly establish a cohesive narrative in your PowerPoint presentations by generating pitch decks whole cloth from your natural language prompt that maintain a consistent tone and brand voice. In Excel, Copilot does the heavy lifting of generating formulas, graphs, and charts based, again, on the user’s prompt. And in Teams, Copilot can monitor your video meetings and provide summaries of what happened as well as generate actionable item lists based on what was discussed. Gemini does for Google’s Workspace app suite what Copilot does for Microsoft’s. The AI assistant can help draft emails in Gmail , write documents in Docs, generate graphs and charts in Sheets, create and modify slides in Slides, find files in Drive, and provide live-translated captions and take notes in Meet. If you don’t already have a personal Google One AI Premium subscription, you’ll have to ask your Workspace admin to grant you access. Apple Intelligence may be the new kid on the AI block, but it is promising to be more deeply integrated within its product ecosystem than any other currently on the market. Designed to serve as an overarching agent acting on the user’s behalf, it promises to streamline monotonous everyday tasks, make Siri a better conversationalist, automate proofreading and text summarization across the company’s myriad apps, and offer lightning-fast image generation. It is currently available to all devices running iOS 18 , iPadOS 18 , and MacOS Sequoia — basically, the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max (and newer), as well as iPads and Macs with M1 or newer chips.
Navigating the Future: When Robots Become Our Partners Robots today are more than just mechanical helpers; they are becoming an integral part of our daily lives, reaching from simple tasks to aiding in sophisticated scientific studies. As AI and robotics mesh into our social fabric, they challenge traditional legal and ethical frameworks, raising urgent concerns about privacy, safety, and regulation. A groundbreaking publication titled The Cambridge Handbook of the Law, Policy, and Regulation for Human-Robot Interaction serves as a guide in this evolving domain. Edited by Woodrow Barfield, Yueh-Hsuan Weng, and Ugo Pagallo, this is the first comprehensive book that dives into the intricate legal and regulatory matters surrounding human-robot interaction. Understanding Human-Robot Dynamics The handbook draws on insights across various fields like social sciences and engineering to build a cohesive understanding of human-robot interaction. It is divided into four crucial parts: tackling legal and ethical challenges, addressing societal impacts, examining ethical and cultural values, and exploring the legal evolution necessary to accommodate smart systems. Professor Yueh-Hsuan Weng emphasizes the importance of integrating humanities into AI development, suggesting that incorporating diverse perspectives can lead to AI systems that coexist more harmoniously with human societies. Global Insights and Ethical Future The book includes contributions from international experts, promoting a worldwide dialogue on the ethical challenges of integrating AI in everyday life. By encouraging stakeholders to engage with the book’s insights, the editors aim to foster responsible innovation and development in AI and robotics. This resource is a call to action for those involved in AI and robotics to ensure ethical standards are maintained, shaping a balanced and thoughtful future for human-robot interaction. Robots and AI: Navigating the Complexities of Human-Robot Interaction Embracing Technological Advancements with Caution As robots and AI technologies continue to advance, they are not only transforming industries but also becoming key partners in our everyday lives. This integration prompts new considerations in terms of the legal, ethical, and societal frameworks that must evolve alongside technology. One key resource addressing these emerging complexities is The Cambridge Handbook of the Law, Policy, and Regulation for Human-Robot Interaction , which offers a comprehensive guide to understanding these dynamics. Key Innovations and Insights The handbook represents cutting-edge thinking about how to manage and regulate the burgeoning relationship between humans and robots. A pivotal element in the discussion is the balance between leveraging technology for societal good while mitigating potential risks. Innovations discussed in the handbook include: – Legal Reform: The need for updated legal systems that can accommodate new forms of technology-driven interaction. This includes revising regulatory frameworks to ensure safety and privacy without stifling innovation. – Ethical Standards: Establishing ethical guidelines that define how AI systems should behave in society, safeguarding human values and dignity. This encompasses creating systems that are transparent and accountable. – Cultural Integration: Understanding the differing cultural contexts into which AI is introduced, acknowledging that cultural values play a critical role in shaping how these technologies are perceived and utilized. Future Trends and Market Insights The human-robot interaction market is predicted to grow exponentially over the next decade, driven by technological advancements and the increasing demand for automation. Some emerging trends include: – Augmented Collaboration: The development of robots designed to work alongside humans, enhancing productivity and creativity in workplaces. – Personalized Robotics: As AI capabilities advance, robots will offer more personalized experiences and interactions, tailoring their functionality to individual needs. Security and Privacy Concerns As robots collect more data to function effectively, privacy and security become paramount concerns. Ensuring that these systems adhere to strict privacy standards will be essential in gaining public trust and ensuring safe interactions. Sustainability in Robotics The handbook also touches on sustainability, highlighting the importance of designing robots with eco-friendly materials and energy-efficient operations to minimize environmental impact. Educational and Practical Applications Educational programs and workshops based on insights from this handbook can equip future professionals with the skills needed to navigate the regulatory and ethical aspects of AI. Tutorials on ethical design and safe implementation of robots in various fields are essential for responsible development. Conclusion The journey towards integrating robots into society necessitates a harmonious blend of innovation, regulation, and ethical consideration. By forecasting trends and addressing legal and ethical complexities, resources such as The Cambridge Handbook guide us toward a future where robots and humans coexist productively and peacefully. For more in-depth exploration, visit the Cambridge University Press website.
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