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☆ There's no clear sign of a US credit crunch yet, a top Fed official says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Zahra Tayeb | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

There's no clear signs of a US credit crunch yet, according to Fed official John Williams. We haven't seen any clear signs yet of credit conditions tightening and we don't know how big those effects will be," he said. The collapse of SVB and Signature Bank has stoked fears that lending standards to obtain a loan will become harder. We haven't seen any clear signs yet of credit conditions tightening and we don't know how big those effects will be," he added at a New York University event Monday. Other commentators have blamed the Fed's aggressive interest rate hikes as a key factor in the collapse of SVB and Signature Bank.

☆ Sam Altman compared the scale of OpenAI with the Manhattan Project and quoted Oppenheimer in 2019, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-03 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Sam Altman compared OpenAI's ambitions with the scale of the Manhattan Project in 2019, per the NYT. According to Metz, Altman also paraphrased the Manhattan Project's leader, Robert Oppenheimer, in a 1945 speech in which he justified creating the bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a necessary expansion of human knowledge. "Technology happens because it is possible," Altman reportedly said, adding that he and Oppenheimer shared the same April 22 birthday, per The Times. Altman cautioned that AGI would come with a "serious risk of misuse, drastic accidents, and societal disruption" in the February blog post. Last Friday, Italy's national data protection agency announced that it was blocking access to ChatGPT and investigating OpenAI.

Democratic leaders in New Hampshire and Iowa quickly responded that they plan to ignore the DNC, follow state law and hold their nominations as planned. A New Hampshire law explicitly sets the state's primary date ahead of any DNC calendar. The changes could ease Biden's path to re-election by reshuffling the calendar to favor states that supported his nomination, in particular South Carolina. Biden's 2020 presidential campaign was struggling until he won South Carolina and went on to gain the party's nomination. "Joe Biden's political career was defined when South Carolina Democrats essentially handed him the Democratic Party nomination and the presidency," said Scala.

The cases were weeks apart and eerily similar: Two young men at popular New York City gay bars. Both of their bank accounts were drained. The New York City Police Department said that the city’s medical examiner is still determining the official causes of Ramirez’s and Umberger’s deaths. John Umberger was found dead in New York City in May and his bank accounts were drained. “It’s horrifying and infuriating that people are being preyed upon and victimized in New York City in this way,” Bottcher said.

☆ Jan. 6 committee staffers told preliminary plan for final report would focus largely on Trump, not on law enforcement failures, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-12 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Dilanianmug.Jpg | Ken Dilanian | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

The final report — much like the committee’s hearings — seems to be shaping up to be “all-Trump,” one source said. The “blue team” examined the preparedness and response of law enforcement agencies. Some staffers remain hopeful that members of the Jan. 6 committee might push back on the current plan and incorporate their research into the final report. The committee needs to release its final report before a new Congress is seated in January. Congress has oversight over and controls the funding of federal law enforcement agencies.

In the aftermath of the 2020 election, local election officials became frequent targets of supporters of former President Donald Trump who supported his false claims of election fraud. Election officials also said that the courts could inject chaos into the process if results are contested for weeks following the vote. Droves of election workers throughout Georgia quit their positions following the 2020 election. And in Pennsylvania, nearly 50 top election officials have left their post within the past two years. “Election workers and election officials leave or stop coming in, more errors can occur as a result, which in turn can fuel disinformation,” he said.

☆ Elon Musk idea to charge for Twitter verification draws critics
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-01 | by ( Eli M. Rosenberg | Eli Rosenberg Is An Investigative Tech Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

Critics of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover say any plan to charge users for identity verification could make information on the site less trustworthy and more vulnerable to manipulation — devaluing the company. The idea of a monthly fee for the blue verification checkmark by users' names was reported Sunday by Casey Newton’s tech-focused newsletter Platformer. Musk hasn't confirmed a charge will be added but on Sunday tweeted, “The whole verification process is being revamped right now,” on his own verified account. Jeff Jarvis, a prolific Twitter user and journalism professor who studies how information travels in the digital age, worries such a plan could backfire. “Twitter has had many, many people working on issues like user interface design and innovation, testing it with user groups, and people who specialize in working with VITs — very important Twitter users,” she said.

☆ A timeline of threats against Nancy Pelosi — from the January 6 death threats to a claim about beheading her 'jihadist style' — that preceded the attack on her husband
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-30 | by ( Hannah Getahun | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

A man who violently attacked Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul Pelosi, may have been looking for her. Nancy Pelosi has faced several threats, including some that resulted in charges or conviction. "Nancy Pelosi is apart [sic] of a satanic cult and so are the people who work closely with her. A relative had informed her of a text Meredith sent in which he threatened Pelosi, prosecutors said. "The attacker who injured Paul Pelosi was looking for Nancy Pelosi, likely wanting to finish the job."

If election deniers in those races win, their ability to affect future elections could be made more robust by having cooperative election deniers in their state houses to help push legislation remaking certain election laws in those states. The group’s analysis found that election deniers were most prevalent in Arizona state legislative races, where they made up 87% of all Republican nominees in those races. In both Pennsylvania and Michigan, 62% of all Republican state legislative nominees in each state were election deniers, the group found. In Minnesota, 42% of all Republican nominees in state legislative races were election deniers, while in Nevada, 31% were. That included several incumbents and candidates in Minnesota who'd who had questioned or challenged the results of the 2020 election.

The companies said Kroger agreed to buy Albertsons for $34.10 a share in a deal valued at $24.6 billion. The tie-up comes during a challenging time in the grocery industry. The grocery industry is highly fragmented. Albertsons’ share was about 5%. Consolidation in the grocery industry has not historically paid off in the form of higher profits, he said.

☆ Explainer: What is an 'everything app' and why does Elon Musk want to make one?
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-05 | by ( Sheila Dang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Oct 28 (Reuters) - Why is Elon Musk suddenly thinking about creating an "everything app," and what does that even mean? WHAT IS A SUPER APP? Chinese super app WeChat has more than 1 billion monthly users, according to one estimate, and is a ubiquitous part of daily life in China. Grab, a leading super app across Southeast Asia, offers food delivery, ride-hailing, on-demand package delivery and financial services and investing. REUTERS/Mike BlakeWHY DOES MUSK WANT TO MAKE A SUPER APP?

☆ How political candidates are targeting you on social media based on your music tastes, shopping habits and favorite TV shows
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-23 | by ( Casey Tolan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

(CNN) Marco Rubio hopes to sway voters interested in Chick-fil-A, Ram trucks, and Duck Dynasty. "Political campaigns are using that to their advantage." Rogan, a controversial figure who's popular on the right, attracted more attention from campaigns targeting Facebook ads than any other interest topic in the period analyzed by CNN. The targeting data shows a wide variety of approaches. But most people likely have no idea that they're seeing certain political ads because of their interests in a band or TV show, Woolley noted.

☆ U.S. rents surge, leaving behind generation of younger workers
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Rose Horowitch | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

REUTERS/Amr AlfikySept 21 (Reuters) - The cost of renting a home in the United States is surging and young workers have felt the sharpest pain, many of them taking on additional jobs or roommates to afford housing costs. Household rents in 2021 jumped 10% from pre-pandemic levels, according to Census Bureau estimates released last week. The 23-year-old spent a year in an apartment in New York City's Queens borough with a door that wouldn’t lock. Recent college graduate Caleb Seamon, 22, started delivering for Uber Eats alongside his full-time job at a think-tank to afford housing. Even so, Seamon says he only found a New York apartment because one of his roommate's parents acted as guarantors.

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