DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Debt ceiling worries deepen as early June U.S. default reinforced
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-12 | by ( Richard Cowan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

The U.S. Congressional Budget Office report, issued Friday morning, confirms Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's earlier warnings that a default could come as early as June 1. Congress' budget scorekeeper also noted that the federal government's debt payments "will remain uncertain throughout May, even if the Treasury ultimately runs out of funds in early June." She also said she remained optimistic that the debt limit problem would be resolved. A senior Treasury official told Reuters she would do that with board members of the Bank Policy Institute lobby group. Democratic Representative Abigail Spanberger said members of the U.S. Congress ought to have their paychecks withheld until the debt limit problem is resolved.

☆ Biden warns of recession unless Republicans back his debt ceiling plan
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Nandita Bose | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

We're going to win this fight," Biden said at a flag-bedecked event at Westchester Community College in Valhalla, New York. Republicans are vowing to support raising the debt ceiling only if Biden agrees to retroactive reductions in government spending. Biden wants the debt ceiling lifted without spending cuts attached, but said he wants to negotiate the next budget. White House aides are meeting with congressional leaders' staff in Washington daily before Biden and the leaders meet again on Friday. Democrats view Republican House members who narrowly won election as possibly vulnerable to being pressured into breaking with their party's leadership and voting for a bill to raise the debt ceiling without conditions.

☆ Biden hits Republican debt ceiling plan in swing New York district
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Nandita Bose | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

We're going to win this fight," Biden said at a flag-bedecked event at Westchester Community College in Valhalla, New York. Republicans are vowing to support raising the debt ceiling only if Biden agrees to retroactive reductions in government spending. Biden wants the debt ceiling lifted without spending cuts attached, but said he wants to negotiate the next budget. Biden spoke a day after he met with top Republican and Democratic lawmakers for the first time in three months to try to move forward on the debt ceiling and avoid a historic default. Democrats view Republican House members who narrowly won election as possibly vulnerable to being pressured into breaking with their party's leadership and voting for a bill to raise the debt ceiling without conditions.

☆ Biden heads to New York to talk debt ceiling, raise funds for re-election
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Nandita Bose | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

In an appearance at Westchester Community College north of New York City, Biden plans to discuss the need to move quickly to head off default. Democrats view Republican House members who narrowly won election as possibly vulnerable to being pressured into breaking with their party's leadership and voting for a bill to raise the debt ceiling without conditions. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has said Republicans will not vote to raise the borrowing limit without an agreement to cut spending. While Biden has largely focused on his presidential duties since announcing his bid for re-election, his campaign operation is coming to life. The events being planned for Biden are expected to generate some $2.5 million for his reelection campaign, according to sources.

☆ Biden, McCarthy divided over debt ceiling but talks continue
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Steve Holland | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Biden, McCarthy and the three other top congressional leaders were set to meet again on Friday. And he did not rule out eventually invoking the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, an untested approach that would seek to declare the debt limit unconstitutional. U.S. President Joe Biden hosts debt limit talks with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, May 9, 2023. Biden would agree to a separate discussion on the budget but not tied to the debt ceiling, the White House said. Stalemate in Washington over raising the U.S. debt limit raises the risk of fresh turmoil for markets.

She will warn about "the global impact of this standoff and highlight the need to avoid default," a senior Treasury official said. It will lead to a freeze in global financial markets," said Muehleisen, now a fellow with the Atlantic Council. G7 counterparts will question Yellen "about the financial stability risks in the U.S., the regional banks' exposure to commercial real estate. Real risks that are not manufactured for political posturing," said Stephanie Segal, a former U.S. Treasury official who is a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. The far more complicated "Pillar 1" plan to allow countries to tax global technology giants and other highly profitable corporations on their local sales is still under negotiation.

☆ Biden, McCarthy divided over debt ceiling but still talking
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Steve Holland | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Biden called the meeting “productive” and reported that McCarthy said during the meeting that the U.S. would not default on its debt. U.S. President Joe Biden hosts debt limit talks with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, May 9, 2023. Biden would agree to a separate discussion on the budget but not tied to the debt ceiling, the White House said. Prices for short-term Treasury bills fell on Tuesday as investors sold off debt that could come due around the time the U.S. debt limit could be hit. Stalemate in Washington over raising the U.S. debt limit raises the risk of fresh turmoil for markets.

Biden, McCarthy and the other participants were expected to offer their own version of the meeting later on Tuesday. Past debt ceiling fights have typically ended with a hastily arranged agreement in the final hours of negotiations, thus avoiding a default. U.S. President Joe Biden hosts debt limit talks with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, May 9, 2023. Biden would agree to a separate discussion on the budget but not tied to the debt ceiling, the White House said. Stalemate in Washington over raising the U.S. debt limit raises the risk of fresh turmoil for markets.

Stalemate in Washington over raising the U.S. debt limit raises the risk of fresh turmoil for markets. Past debt ceiling fights have typically ended with a hastily arranged agreement in the final hours of negotiations, thus avoiding a default. "No," McCarthy said when asked by reporters if he would agree to align the debt ceiling with the budget process should Biden propose such an idea. Biden would agree to a separate discussion on the budget but not tied to the debt ceiling, the White House said. White House staff and aides to the congressional leaders quietly met on Friday to begin talking about the debt limit.

☆ Biden, McCarthy start U.S. debt ceiling talks as clock ticks to default
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Steve Holland | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Stalemate in Washington over raising the U.S. debt limit raises the risk of fresh turmoil for markets. Past debt ceiling fights have typically ended with a hastily arranged agreement in the final hours of negotiations, thus avoiding a default. McCarthy, whose party holds the House by only a slim majority, wants to tie a vote on the debt ceiling to broad spending cuts the White House considers draconian. Biden would agree to a separate discussion on the budget but not tied to the debt ceiling, the White House said. Few countries in the world have debt ceiling laws and Washington's periodic lifting of the borrowing limit merely allows it to pay for spending Congress has already authorized.

☆ Biden, McCarthy start debt ceiling talks as clock ticks to default
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Steve Holland | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Stalemate in Washington over raising the U.S. debt limit raises the risk of fresh turmoil for markets. Past debt ceiling fights have typically ended with a hastily arranged agreement in the final hours of negotiations, thus avoiding a default. McCarthy, whose party holds the House by only a slim majority, wants to tie a vote on the debt ceiling to broad spending cuts that the White House considers draconian. Biden would agree to a separate discussion on the budget but not tied to the debt ceiling, the White House said. Few countries in the world have debt ceiling laws and Washington's periodic lifting of the borrowing limit merely allows it to pay for spending Congress has already authorized.

Reuters spoke to political tacticians and advisers inside and outside the White House and Congress about tell-tale signals that could come from the meeting. The meeting is set to include Biden, McCarthy, Senate Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries. As invitees to the White House, they're not expected to bring any other lawmakers. MCCARTHY, BIDEN'S TONE BEFORE AND AFTERHeading into Tuesday's meeting, Biden and McCarthy have cast one another as stubborn, misguided and, at times, dangerous. White House officials say they want this to be a productive meeting, not just Washington theater.

Leading AI developers, including Anthropic, Google, Hugging Face, NVIDIA Corp (NVDA.O), OpenAI, and Stability AI, will participate in a public evaluation of their AI systems. Shortly after Biden announced his reelection bid, the Republican National Committee produced a video featuring a dystopian future during a second Biden term, which was built entirely with AI imagery. Such political ads are expected to become more common as AI technology proliferates. In February, Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to eliminate bias in their AI use. The Biden administration has also released an AI Bill of Rights and a risk management framework.

☆ Yellen is calling CEOs personally to warn on US debt ceiling, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( Andrea Shalal | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The Treasury secretary is having one-on-one conversations with individual CEOs to warn them about the "dangerous consequences of the current brinkmanship," one of the sources said. While the sources did not spell out her purpose, Biden administration officials have been speaking to business owners about pressuring Republicans to raise the debt ceiling without conditions. Yellen is now slated to leave for Japan this week and will hold a news conference in Niigata, Japan, on Thursday before the G7 meeting. President Joe Biden insists that Congress has a constitutional duty to raise the debt ceiling, which reflects previously spent federal money, without conditions. Because the government spends more than it takes in, lawmakers must periodically raise the debt ceiling.

☆ White House to meet Microsoft, Google CEOs on AI dangers
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Nandita Bose | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/IllustrationWASHINGTON, May 4 (Reuters) - The White House will host CEOs of top artificial intelligence companies, including Alphabet Inc's Google (GOOGL.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O), on Thursday to discuss risks and safeguards as the technology catches the attention of governments and lawmakers globally. Leading AI developers, including Anthropic, Google, Hugging Face, NVIDIA, OpenAI, and Stability AI, will participate in a public evaluation of their AI systems at the AI Village at DEFCON 31 - one of the largest hacker conventions in the world - and run on a platform created by Scale AI and Microsoft. Such political ads are expected to become more common as AI technology proliferates. In February, Biden signed an executive order directing federal agencies to eliminate bias in their use of AI. The Biden administration has also released an AI Bill of Rights and a risk management framework.

WASHINGTON, May 2 (Reuters) - For months, the U.S. crisis over the debt limit has been a political abstraction. That's the length of time in which the House, Senate and the president are all physically in Washington, D.C. in May. There, Biden plans to "stress that Congress must take action to avoid default without conditions," a White House official said. After that ends on May 21, he will attend the May 24 meeting of the Quad Leaders’ Summit in Sydney, Australia, the White House said. Late on Monday, Schumer worked to fast-track a "clean" two-year debt limit suspension, so that it can come more quickly to the Senate floor for a vote.

☆ Reactions: US Treasury's new June 1 debt ceiling X-date
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

We must change course, cleanly raise the debt ceiling, and avert widespread economic pain and instability while we still can." The clock is ticking - and much faster than many suspected - so House Republicans need to drop their dangerous opposition to paying our nation’s bills." The President must negotiate on raising the debt ceiling." Let's get the debt ceiling taken care of, but let's talk about how we can reduce the deficit and common-sense ways. If we don't get the debt ceiling, then we go into it a depression."

☆ Tucker Carlson re-emerges, targets US media and political system
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Dan Whitcomb | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Carlson in the videotaped statement did not directly address his departure from Fox, where he hosted the highest-rated cable news program in the key age demographic on the most-watched U.S. cable news network. Instead, he took aim at American media and the U.S. political system. "Both political parties and their donors have reached consensus on what benefits them and they actively collude to shut down any conversation about it," Carlson said. Carlson and Fox parted ways less than a week after parent company Fox Corp (FOXA.O) settled for $787.5 million a defamation lawsuit in which Carlson played a starring role. Fox fired Grossberg, saying her legal claims were "riddled with false allegations against Fox and our employees."

☆ South Korea's Yoon sings 'American Pie' at White House state dinner
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Jeff Mason | Thomson Reuters | Jeff Mason Is A White House Correspondent For Reuters. He Has Covered The Presidencies Of Barack Obama | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/5] U.S. President Joe Biden gifts a guitar signed by artist Don McLean to South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol at an official State Dinner, during Yoon Suk Yeol's visit, at the White House in Washington, U.S. April 26, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn HocksteinWASHINGTON, April 26 (Reuters) - It turns out South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol can sing. When the singers finished, President Biden and President Yoon took the stage and Biden invited Yoon, because of his love of the song, to give it a whirl himself. "Something touched me deep inside, the day the music died," he finished, sparking a standing ovation and loud applause from the audience and the Broadway singers, who were still on stage. Biden told Yoon he had "no damn idea" he could sing, and then presented him with a guitar signed by Don McLean, who wrote the song.

REUTERS/Leah MillisWASHINGTON, April 26 (Reuters) - Incumbent President Joe Biden entered the 2024 election race on Tuesday with something he didn't have two-and-a-half years ago: a record in the White House. Critics also say that increased federal spending under Biden, including $750 million on climate change and tax breaks, also drove inflation higher. Biden may have worse cards in 2024, with unemployment likely to rise as growth slows, interest rates remaining high and inflation holding above pre-pandemic levels. Biden also dismissed the sentences of thousands of people with federal offenses for simple marijuana possession, a disproportionately non-white group. The Biden administration also has faced scrutiny over its handling of record numbers of unaccompanied children crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.

☆ 'L Word' TV show cast visit White House to mark Lesbian Visibility Week
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Andrea Shalal | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/5] White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre hugs co-creator of the Showtime's TV show The L Word Ilene Chaiken as cast member Leisha Hailey speaks about LGBTQIA rights to draw attention to Lesbian Visibility Week during a press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S., April 25, 2023. REUTERS/Leah MillisWASHINGTON, April 25 (Reuters) - The cast of American TV show "The L Word: Generation Q" visited the White House Tuesday to mark Lesbian Visibility Week, touting the role the long-running show has played for gay women and girls across the country. Shows like "The L Word" that tell LGBTQ stories help "save precious lives," she said, adding the show made her feel less alone as she grew up. Ilene Chaiken, who created "The L Word" in 2004, said she was delighted the show had lived on and was now speaking to a new generation. We're here today at the White House, and we won't be erased," she said.

Closely watched for clues as to what shape Biden's 2024 presidential re-election campaign will take, the video released on Tuesday suggests he will warn Republicans are threatening "bedrock freedoms." "Freedom - personal freedom - is fundamental to who we are as Americans," Biden says in the three-minute video. Previewing their own likely campaign messaging, Republicans responded with a video that offered a dystopian vision of what a second Biden term would entail, and asks "What if the weakest president we ever had was reelected?" The Republican National Committee's "Beat Biden" video is presented as a fantasy newscast, one in which San Francisco is closed because of "escalating crime and fentanyl crisis." "The question we are facing is whether in the years ahead we have more freedom or less freedom, more rights or fewer,” Biden says.

If he wins, he will face off against Biden again in the November 2024 election. The poll showed that a majority of registered voters don't want either Biden or Trump to run again. U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks at North America's Building Trades Unions Legislative Conference at the Washington Hilton, in Washington, April 25, 2023. Biden ran a mostly virtual campaign to defeat Trump in the 2020 election as COVID raged. After losing to Biden in 2020, Trump refused to concede defeat, falsely claiming that there had been widespread electoral fraud.

☆ Biden lags recent Democratic presidents in declaring re-election campaign
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( Trevor Hunnicutt | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Biden trails recent Democratic incumbent presidents on the issue: Barack Obama announced he would run for a second term in 2012 on April 4, 2011, and Bill Clinton's 1996 re-election announcement was April 14, 1995. Jimmy Carter, however, waited until Dec. 4, 1979, to announce his 1980 re-election run. He would be 86 at the end of a prospective second term. But the trip here just reinforced my sense of optimism about what can be done," Biden told reporters at the tail-end of an emotional trip to Ireland last week. This week, Biden plans remarks on childcare and environmental justice, along with a visit to a labor union training facility in Maryland to talk about the economy.

☆ Factbox: Jack Teixeira: Who is the man arrested over leaked Pentagon documents?
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

WASHINGTON, April 14 (Reuters) - Jack Douglas Teixeira was arrested on Thursday for allegedly leaking a trove of highly classified documents online. Teixeira served with the Air National Guard in Massachusetts, as did his stepfather. His unit, the 102nd intelligence wing of the Massachusetts National Guard, is responsible for providing intelligence support to many units of the military. Teixeira joined the Air National Guard in 2019, part of the National Guard that reports to the governor of their respective state or territory. The National Guard is made up of reserve troops that often hold civilian jobs or attend schools, and often respond to domestic emergencies.

Search resuls for: "Heather Timmons"

25 mentions found