Latest News
See the latest news and get GPT analysis of articles
Inside Austin's bitcoin underground 2024-03-24 16:04:00+00:00 - watch now AUSTIN — There is a sort of clubhouse for Austin's bitcoin believers on the second floor of the Littlefield Building at the corner of Congress Avenue and Sixth Street. The hideaway is at the crossroads of two worlds — the majestic thoroughfare that leads to the Texas State Capitol and the iconic, albeit notorious, stretch of bars, restaurants, and live music that define the capital's party vibes. It's an apt metaphor for the space itself. The Bitcoin Commons is, at once, many things. By day, it functions as an open plan, fluorescent-lit co-working space for the more corporate-minded bitcoin operators, but at night, it moonlights as a safe space for underground meet-ups of the industry's rogue actors. Periodically, it plays host to conferences that draw in a mix of attendees ranging from venture capitalists to armed preppers living entirely off the grid. And on some afternoons, once happy hour hits, the kitchen at the back is retrofit with a stowaway bar. "We also fund developers, and we help them advance their projects," said Parker Lewis, one of the stewards of the Commons, as well as the author of a new book on bitcoin called "Gradually, Then Suddenly." "We help advance bitcoin through education and actually developing the monetary network, the code base, and the applications," said Lewis, who is widely considered to be one of Texas' de facto bitcoin ambassadors. Francisco Chavarria was born in Mexico City and spent time in Salt Lake City, but three years ago, he made the move to Austin to be a part of a community of like-minded thinkers. His company, Yopaki, which is a neobank for bitcoin focused on the Latin American market, just won first place in a hackathon put on at the Commons. "If you talk to other builders in the competition, a lot happens here," said Chavarria. "There definitely is a sense of, 'I don't need for others to lose for me to win.' There really is a relationship and a collaboration for bitcoin to succeed." "Right now it feels like we're all winning because of the price, but those of us who have been building in the bear market, we know," Chavarria added. Austin's "Bitcoin Commons" hosts regular meetups and conferences for the city's bitcoiners. CNBC Bear or bull market, bitcoiners have flocked to Austin because of a combination of pro-crypto policies, abundant, renewable energy, and an ever-growing network of some of the brightest developers and miners on the planet. And even in the price doldrums, they typically bring the same level of enthusiasm to the conversation — though bitcoin's recent stretch of record-breaking price moves has gone a long way toward boosting morale. In March, bitcoin hit multiple, fresh all-time highs, as trader enthusiasm for the digital asset sector soared. A lot of that price run-up has to do with the record flows into the newly-launched spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds in the U.S., led by the world's largest asset manager Blackrock and its $15.5 billion iShares Bitcoin Trust, which have helped to solidify bitcoin's place as an asset class that's here to stay. Collectively, these spot ETFs have brought in around $60 billion, and in some cases, they have been breaking records for ETF flows altogether. "The biggest driver is certainly the ETF flows, which have surpassed the expectations of all but the most bullish pundits," said Castle Island Venture's Nic Carter of bitcoin's record price moves this month. "And these blockbuster flows have materialized before the major wirehouses, asset managers, and RIAs have actually approved the ETF for their clients." Carter added that there is also new liquidity coming into bitcoin from Asian markets via two main pathways: bitcoin's version of non-fungible tokens known as ordinals, as well as bitcoin-issued coins called BRC20 tokens. watch now Underground vibes with an open bar In the last 20 years, Austin has matured into one of the country's leading tech centers, a trend accelerated by the Covid pandemic, which saw industry leaders migrate en masse from California. "Bitcoin was founded in 2009. A lot has happened post-financial crisis. Austin was already emerging as a tech center, and you know, enter bitcoin, and it just became the logical home," said Lewis, who runs business development at Zaprite, a bitcoin-native financial services firm. It helps that Texas is a libertarian-friendly state that actively supports free market policies. It has proven to be a big draw for a group of people who think of bitcoin as a way of life — that is, a monetary network that is decentralized, borderless, and doesn't answer to central banks or governments. Austin's "Bitcoin Commons" draws in an eclectic mix of people, including venture capitalists, bitcoin miners, and coders. CNBC Many hardcore bitcoiners ironically embrace the term maximalist or maxi as a way to self describe. In Texas, though maxis exist along a professional spectrum from venture capitalists, to miners, coders, company executives, and generalist techies, the eclectic tribe have a few things in common. Many are family-oriented, patriotic carnivores with an aversion to the overreach of government and a strong belief in the right to bear arms, among multiple other personal, individual liberties. Bitcoin's eponymous Austin lair, which is adorned with the Texas state flag and bitcoin memorabilia, has adopted Chatham House rules for many of its events to protect the identities of those conversing within its walls. One such meetup is the monthly BitDevs (short for bitcoin developers) gathering, where bitcoin builders, investors, and the bitcoin curious are all welcomed, so long as no pictures or videos are taken. At these meetings, topics run the gamut, from detailed discussions about code to concerns that the Microsoft-maintained GitHub may pose a greater existential threat to the bitcoin network since much of the development work and conversations among coders happen on that platform. At one such gathering, the moderator of the two-hour session asked the room who ran a bitcoin node. More than half of the people in attendance raised their hands. After attending multiple Austin BitDev meetups over the last three years, a few common conversation themes have emerged, including the focus on identifying threat vectors to the network and brainstorming workarounds. Beyond software, there are also concerns over hardware vulnerabilities, given that the ASIC chip used in bitcoin mining rigs are manufactured out of China, a country which has proven hostile to the crypto sector in recent years. The "Bitcoin Commons" functions as a sort of clubhouse for the city's bitcoin believers. It puts on a mix of programming, including conferences and hackathons, as well as hosts a co-working space by day. CNBC VCs flock back to bitcoin The Commons hosted a hackathon, BitDevs, and a one-day conference dubbed the Bitcoin Takeover on the sidelines of the annual South by Southwest tech festival, which put on virtually no crypto programming this year. Across those multiple gatherings, there was a newfound interest in talking about the burgeoning ecosystem of projects building on top of bitcoin's blockchain, which began to heat up with the introduction of ordinals in Jan. 2023 — bitcoin's version of non-fungible tokens. One underrated driver of bitcoin's recent rally is new programming innovations that may allow it to reach technological parity with ethereum. These advancements involve beefing up the bitcoin ecosystem with tools like smart contracts, which are programmable pieces of code that help to eliminate middlemen like banks and lawyers from transactions. That makes it easier for developers to create products and applications for consumers. BitVM, for example, has a promising plan to do just that. It is ultimately trying to bring smart contracts to the bitcoin network, which has helped spur this renaissance of interest in layer two technology — that is, the startups being built on top of bitcoin's base chain. "I've never seen deal pacing move this aggressively in the bitcoin space in my entire career," Carter tells CNBC. Indeed, the VC appetite for these layer two bitcoin projects has been picking up in the last few months. PitchBook says that the fourth quarter of 2023 was the first time in almost two years that deal value in the crypto sector had increased, reaching $1.9 billion — up 2.5% from the previous quarter. While still well off the 2021 high of $31 billion, funds are building back interest, and trust, in the space. watch now Grant Gilliam spent 15 years working in private equity in New York before pivoting to run a bitcoin VC fund called Ten31. This investment platform, which is focused exclusively on bitcoin, has invested $125 million of equity in aggregate since launching five years ago. More than $100 million was deployed in the last two years during the bear market. "We invest across the bitcoin ecosystem across every major theme," Gilliam told CNBC. "Anything that is relevant to bitcoin infrastructure, we like to say the picks and shovels of companies building products and services for holders of bitcoin." Gilliam, who spent a few years commuting from New York to Austin every month for the BitDevs meetup, said that some of the layer two bitcoin investments are more hype than substance, but he's still bullish overall on the deal space. "There's been a lot of L2 hype lately, mainly driven by the ordinals, and inscriptions, developments or innovations, if you want to call it that," Gilliam said. "There's a lot of activity in that right now, but we haven't been as focused on that. It's our firm view that the ordinals will prove to be a passing fad." Gilliam says that Ten31 is focused on basic building blocks of the ecosystem, such as companies that are providing financial services, which could be custody trading and lending, or projects that are working to scale the lightning network. Lightning, with is the layer two payment technology meant to realize bitcoin's original vision of being peer-to-peer cash continues to struggle with the issue of reaching scale. Developers tell CNBC that a lot of engineering work remains to close that gap. The Boys Club put on its own Austin summit on the sidelines of SXSW with programming on the new internet, crypto, and digital culture. CNBC Bitcoin-halving country "Number go up" is a big mantra among bitcoiners, but as the community evolves, so too does the thinking about the price of the coin. "Price is really an output of many inputs of human beings, building tools to make bitcoin both more secure and a greater utility," Lewis said. "Price is the best indicator of more people coming to the conclusion that bitcoin is money, and it's a better store of value, so it is very relevant." Every four years, bitcoin undergoes a market making event known as the halving. It cuts the production of new bitcoin in half, and it has typically come before a major run-up in the price of bitcoin. Miners from around the world flocked to Texas when China banned the practice in 2021, attracted by the abundant renewable energy and a grid that's friendly to flexible buyers of power — both ideal conditions for miners. In April, however, the profits for these bitcoin miners will be cut in half. For some, it may prove an Armageddon-level event. Others have braced for impact by swapping out their fleet of machines for more efficient rigs. The price run-up in bitcoin has also helped to give some of these companies a buffer in their profit margins. West Texas miner Jamie McAvity has 60 megawatts at his mining site. It runs on a part of the grid that is 90% powered by a mix of solar and wind power. "If you've been in for more than one cycle, you have situated yourself in a place where you can resist the halving to the best of your ability," McAvity told CNBC at Austin's Bitcoin Commons. McAvity, who previously worked for ten years as a trader on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange, added that ETF flows have helped to change the pricing dynamics for the world's largest coin. "The spot ETF inflows are so massive that reducing the available supply of newly mined bitcoins from 900 to 450, is probably going to be immaterial relative to that," he said. "But who knows, the ETFs could cool off for a while, and it's hard for someone to credibly say that a reduction in supply is not going to change the market price equilibrium, because that's a fundamental principle of market economics," he added. watch now Altcoin mania A ten minute walk west from the Bitcoin Commons is the Austin Proper Hotel, a five-star establishment where the lighting is intentionally dim to strike a certain mood. Here, the Boys Club, a popular and buzzy, female-led organization which self-describes as a "social collective bringing new voices to the new internet" put on its own crypto conference on the sidelines of South by Southwest. The Boys Club caters to a more blockchain agnostic crowd, where the focus is less on exclusivity to one coin or chain -- and more about borrowing the best features from across the ecosystem to solve problems in the real world. CNBC caught up with Micha Benoliel at the one-day summit. Benoliel built Nodle, a decentralized wireless network that's now getting into the business of using the blockchain to battle AI-powered deepfakes. "Blockchain is the only way to make a record that is immutable, and is going to prove the time at which this photo has been taken, or video, and also to help you prove the location and other elements that are going to reinforce that proof, so it creates a real immutable proof of authenticity," he said. The Boys Club put on its own Austin summit on the sidelines of SXSW with programming on the new internet, crypto, and digital culture. CNBC The one-day popup event gathered together more of a web3 crowd to talk about everything from the latest trends in tokenization to the resurgence of on-chain meme culture. Similar to other bull runs in the price of bitcoin, some altcoins have seen a meteoric rise alongside blue chip names in crypto, because they're seen as a comparatively cheaper buy. Dogecoin, a meme-coin that was started as a joke, now has a market cap of nearly $25 billion, placing it in the top ten most valuable cryptocurrencies on the planet. Boden, a coin named after President Joe Biden, saw a run-up of more than 800% in a six-hour window after Super Tuesday, and the newly popular DogWifHat is collectively worth more than $2 billion. Typically, this is the bellwether of a peak bubble moment, but analysts say that despite frothy conditions, this bull run is different to past cycles. The price of bitcoin is cyclical, and it sees price run-ups roughly every four years. Each time, the price floor is higher. What's also a departure this time around is the fact that institutional money is here in a way that it hasn't been during past bull runs. watch now Fundamentals in the crypto market are playing a big role, as well. In a note from JPMorgan on Mar. 15, analysts credit ether , the world's second-biggest crypto token by market cap, for being a significant driver of crypto's recent gains, including Coinbase 's stock price rise. Ether has rallied nearly 50% so far this year, recently breaching the $4,000 price level and outpacing bitcoin's returns, before paring back some gains. "While the focus of the cryptocurrency marketplace has been the net new money going into U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs and the positive impact on Bitcoin token prices (here, the spot Bitcoin ETF and its ultimate launch in January has driven the cryptoecosystem over the past several months), we see impact of ETH appreciation also as particularly meaningful," JPMorgan wrote. Regulators in the U.S. remain a universal concern for the crypto sector, especially amid reports of the Securities and Exchange Commission probing crypto companies building on the ethereum network. Still, many in the space, including coders and investors remain optimistic. Ethereum, the blockchain that underpins ether, underwent a major upgrade on Mar. 13 dubbed Dencun. Developers told CNBC it was expected to slash transaction fees by up to 90%. That is game-changing not just for the end-users, but also for the coders building apps on top of ethereum. Base, crypto exchange Coinbase's self-built layer two network, is ethereum-based and allows developers to more easily build decentralized apps. Coinbase's Base lead, Jesse Pollak, anticipates this will open the door to applications in both the gaming and decentralized social media arena now that it is no longer nearly as cost prohibitive to build these types of programs. "The thing that is happening with Dencun is we're going to create a whole new kind of storage on ethereum that's purpose built for Layer 2s like Base," Pollak told CNBC. "That means that right now we pay a ton to ethereum, and we're going to pay a lot less, which is going to lower the fees for everyone. Because ethereum is basically going to build a product purpose built for us," continued Pollak. Chris Dixon, crypto chief at venture firm a16z, echoed that sentiment, noting that part of their portfolio is focused on these startups. "The core idea is that if you build a social network, or a game or a financial service, on top of the blockchain, it has all sorts of benefits where the money and control flow out to the users and the creators that access the network, as opposed to the companies that control it," said Dixon. "In the same way that steel was a better way to build bridges and buildings than wood was in the Industrial Revolution, blockchains are a building material."
Tories accused of ditching manifesto pledge to remove ground rents 2024-03-24 16:03:00+00:00 - The Conservatives have been accused of ditching their manifesto pledge to reduce ground rents to zero, after reports that Michael Gove is losing his battle to reform current leaseholds. Gove, the levelling-up secretary, has been overseeing plans to overhaul the system in a reform bill, but key provisions to overhaul leaseholds were missing when the legislation was published in November. After a consultation on caps to ground rents that closed in January, Gove had suggested that reducing ground rents to a token “peppercorn” rate could be added to the bill during its passage through parliament. He told the Sun in February: “Before a general election I think what we can do is show that we will have passed into legislation, a lever, a rapid move to peppercorn or a stage-by-stage process whereby we get there.” But the Sunday Times reported on Sunday that Gove was losing the argument on peppercorn rent after lobbying by investors and pension funds, which own freeholds that give them a predictable income. One possibility is that a compromise £250 annual cap on ground rents could be reduced instead. Gove had pledged to end the leasehold system altogether, calling it “outdated” and “feudal”. Millions of property owners own their homes through leases in England and Wales, which are almost the only places in the world where the system exists. In its current form, the bill makes a series of reforms, including extending the default length of a lease and making it cheaper to convert leaseholds into freeholds. Nevertheless, the manifesto pledge to “restrict ground rents to a peppercorn” has not been forthcoming after resistance from Downing Street, both in No 10 and the Treasury. Angela Rayner, the shadow levelling-up secretary, said: “This latest dithering from the government on leasehold reform in the face of Tory infighting is yet another sign that Rishi Sunak is too weak to deliver for working people. “At the last general election, the Conservatives pledged to restrict ground rents. If the Tories are abandoning another manifesto pledge, leaseholders need to know why. “Labour is committed to comprehensive leasehold reform, enacting the Law Commission’s recommendations on enfranchisement, commonhold and right to manage in full.” skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Headlines UK Free newsletter Get the day’s headlines and highlights emailed direct to you every morning Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion The Guardian revealed in February that the bill’s provisions to stop developers selling new houses as leasehold properties contains loopholes that will allow them to continue doing so in certain circumstances. The new clauses contain exemptions that allow developers to continue to sell new leasehold houses if they are part of a retirement village or where an existing lease has already been granted on the land, even if no property has yet to be built. On the current leasehold policy for existing ground rents, a Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities spokesperson said: “We are committed to strengthening protection for leaseholders and are bringing forward reforms through the leasehold and freehold reform bill. “It is not fair that many leaseholders face unregulated ground rents for no guaranteed service in return – that is why we consulted on a range of options to cap ground rents for existing leases. We are pleased to note that the Competition and Markets Authority recently found that ground rents are ‘neither legally nor commercially necessary’. “The government is currently considering the responses to the consultation and will set out its policy in due course.”
Will Putin try to use the Moscow massacre for his war in Ukraine? 2024-03-24 15:57:00+00:00 - As emergency workers waded through the rubble of Moscow’s Crocus City Hall on Sunday, also being picked over was the extent to which the attack might damage Russian President Vladimir Putin — or be used as a pretext to bolster his war in Ukraine. The terror group ISIS has claimed responsibility after camouflaged men stormed the concert hall Friday night and killed at least 137 people with guns, knives and bombs. For Putin, who has sold his seemingly lifelong leadership on maintaining order, the massacre will be at least deeply embarrassing. It could even weaken his ironclad rule, particularly after he dismissed American warnings that such an attack might be imminent, some experts say. “It certainly doesn’t strengthen him,” said John Lough, an associate fellow of the Russia and Eurasia program at Chatham House, a London think tank. “Within the elite itself, there are going to be questions about where the focus has been: Why has there been all this rhetoric about the war in Ukraine, when in actual fact there are other dangers much closer to home?” Russian National Guard servicemen secure an area at the Crocus City Hall after Friday's attack. Alexander Avilov / Moscow News Agency via AP Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the Russian former oil tycoon turned arch Putin critic, called security lapses that allowed the attack to proceed “a complete failure of a police state” in a post on X. It has also not gone unnoticed that Putin waited some 20 hours after the attack to address his country. When he did give a five-minute speech Saturday, Putin did not mention ISIS, whose Afghan affiliate, ISIS-K, claimed responsibility for the assault, or refer to the likely failure of intelligence services to prevent the assault or the security services to thwart it. Instead he suggested that Ukraine had aided the attackers by helping plan their failed escape. “They tried to hide and moved toward Ukraine, where, according to preliminary data, a window was prepared for them on the Ukrainian side to cross the state border,” he said. Though not acknowledged by the Russian president, ISIS has long targeted Russia, partly because of Moscow’s role in Syria’s civil war where it supported President Bashar al-Assad, whose forces were fighting rebels that included ISIS, according to Mark Galeotti, head of the consultancy Mayak Intelligence and an honorary professor at University College London. “ISIS-K has long actually regarded Russia as being one of the main enemies,” Galeotti said in a snap edition of his podcast, “In Moscow’s Shadows,” on Sunday. “From their point of view, Russia is a lesser Satan, if America is the great Satan.” On a surprise visit to Syria in 2017, Putin declared “total victory” over ISIS. Keir Giles, a consulting fellow also at Chatham House, dismissed Putin’s attempt to link the attack to Ukraine and his references to a “window” on the front line, saying that it would require Russian forces to let them through on their side of a heavily fortified and mined war zone. “It’s a fairy story,” said Giles, who is the author of 2022’s “Russia’s War on Everybody: And What It Means for You.” Washington agrees. National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said that “ISIS bears sole responsibility for this attack. There was no Ukrainian involvement whatsoever.” Russian news reports identified the four alleged gunmen detained as citizens of Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic in Central Asia that is predominantly Muslim and borders Afghanistan. Up to 1.5 million Tajiks have worked in Russia and many have Russian citizenship. It was not yet clear whether Putin’s oblique comments were merely an attempt to bolster domestic support for his war in Ukraine, or if he seeks to use the terror attack as a pretext for some other action related to the conflict. Giles believes it could be used to support another round of mobilization. Putin announced a “partial mobilization” of reservists in September 2022, which resulted in 300,000 more soldiers being drafted, but military analysts believe another round may be necessary because of the war’s unknown but certainly colossal death toll on both sides. “This gives an excuse for stepping up conscription mobilization, rounding up the manpower that they need,” Giles said, adding that it allows the Kremlin to enact policies “that would not otherwise be popular.” Hours after the Moscow attack, Russia launched a wave of strikes on Ukraine, with one long-range missile briefly entering Polish airspace, the country’s military said. But most experts — including Lough, who is currently in Kyiv — said this was likely not a direct retaliation. “I arrived here on Thursday morning and there was a pretty heavy barrage that night,” he said. “It’s the ongoing effort to try and weaken the will of Ukrainians,” he added. “There’s a lot of psychological warfare here.”
Nvidia's AI ambitions in medicine and health care are becoming clear 2024-03-24 15:14:00+00:00 - Last week, Nvidia announced deals with Johnson & Johnson for use of generative AI in surgery, and with GE Healthcare to improve medical imaging. The health care developments at its 2024 GTC AI conference, — which also included the launch of roughly two dozen new AI-powered, healthcare-focused tools — demonstrate just how important medicine is to Nvidia's non-tech sector revenue opportunities in the future. "The reason why Nvidia is so popular today is because it basically provided the plumbing and the technology for something that you could not do simply before or if you had to do something like this you would need probably several times more time, money and cost," said Raj Joshi, a technology analyst and senior vice president at Moody's Ratings. "Health care, whether it's biotechnology, chemicals, or drug discovery is a very powerful area." Nvidia shares are up close to 100% year-to-date, and the biotech industry is an example of the untapped potential that investors are continue to bet on. AI can speed up the process of drug discovery and even find uses for drugs that may have failed to produce results for the initial disease they were developed to target. "Over the last 18 months or so, we tend to believe it is more hope than hype because of the tangible outcomes and then the very compelling use cases how AI helped with the pharmaceutical industry, medtech industry or biotech industry," said Arda Ural, EY Americas health and life sciences industry market leader. Drug development is a risky process that can take at least a decade from concept to clinical studies, Ural said. It's also a process that can cost billions, with a high chance of failure. About 41 percent of biotech CEOs surveyed by EY in late 2023 said they were looking at "concrete" ways generative AI could be used for their companies. "This is very high for my experience, having been 30 years in this industry," Ural said. "This is a really unique feature we are seeing with AI that's being picked up much faster than other technologies." The health care focus from Nvidia at its conference was a doubling down on an ambition it's had for a long time. During an earnings call with investors in February, Nvidia mentioned several ways its technology was being adapted for the medical field. Companies like Recursion Pharmaceuticals and Generate: Biomedicines have been expanding their biomedical research with the help of hyperscale or GPU specialized cloud providers, and they need Nvidia AI infrastructure to facilitate the process. "In healthcare, digital biology and generative AI are helping to reinvent drug discovery, surgery, medical imaging and wearable devices," said Colette Kress, Nvidia chief financial officer. "We have built deep domain expertise in healthcare over the past decade, creating the NVIDIA Clara healthcare platform and NVIDIA BioNeMo, a generative AI service to develop, customize and deploy AI foundation models for computer-aided drug discovery." Last year, NVIDIA invested $50 million in Recursion for its drug discovery projects. Recursion is inputting its biological and chemical data to train NVIDIA's AI models on its cloud platform. The company has also worked with Roche's Genentech to develop new medications and better treatment protocols. It also partnered in 2021 with Schrödinger for drug discovery.
Whatever Jeremy Hunt thinks, £100k is by any measure a high income 2024-03-24 15:09:00+00:00 - Notwithstanding the struggles of Jeremy Hunt’s constituent, £100,000 a year in the UK is, by any possible objective measure, a high income. The median for working-age households across the country is estimated to be just above £35,000, and anything higher than £81,357 puts you in the top 5%. Even in the relatively affluent Godalming and Ash constituency Hunt is contesting, where a chat with an unhappy voter prompted him to muse about the challenges of six-figure salaries, estimates by the consultancy Electoral Calculus put the median at little more than half that: £56,606. The elections expert Prof Paula Surridge, the deputy director of the thinktank UK in a Changing Europe, called Hunt’s decision to double down on his claim on Sunday morning “bizarre”. “It will really reinforce the idea that the Conservatives are out of touch,” she said, adding that Hunt – whose hold on the newly created constituency looks tight – is presumably “not thinking of what this looks like as a chancellor, he’s thinking as a local MP”. Moreover, the chancellor’s comments came in a week when shocking data revealed the sharp deterioration in living standards at the other end of the income spectrum. Official figures showed 300,000 more children were plunged into poverty in 2022-23. Almost 4 million people across the country experienced outright destitution – the inability to afford the basic essentials of life, such as food, clothing and energy. But even against this grim backdrop, there are two reasons Hunt’s analysis has just a grain of truth – though neither of them are good news for him or his beleaguered party. The first is that the group of people whose living standards have been dented by the current crisis extends beyond the lowest paid, and well into the top half of the earnings distribution. Analysis by the Resolution Foundation last year suggested that three-quarters of the burden of the forecast rise in mortgage repayments as interest rate rises cascaded through the economy would fall on the top 40% of earners. The percentage hit has been greater for lower earners; but many of those on six figures are still likely to have had their living standards dented – albeit from a comfortable starting point. This issue was highlighted by the former Conservative minister George Freeman, who said in January he had resigned his ministerial post – salary £120,000 – in part because he had been hit by a £1,200-a-month increase in mortgage repayments, which he perhaps hoped to tackle by taking on a better-paid second job. Interest rates look to be on the way down later this year, but remain well above the level at which most expiring fixed rate deals are set – something for which many voters may well blame the Tories, at least in part. The second grain of truth in Hunt’s remarks relates to the specific quirks of the tax and benefit system for high earners – which his offer of expanded free childcare will amplify. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to First Edition Free daily newsletter Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion The marginal tax rate on every extra £1 earned above £100,000 is already 62%, as HMRC gradually withdraws the tax-free personal allowance for these higher earners. But £100,000 is also the absolute cutoff point for Hunt’s new free taxpayer-funded childcare offer, being phased in over the next 18 months. If either parent earns £100,000 or more, the family will receive no additional help – as is already the case with the government’s tax-free childcare scheme. Below £100,000, they will be entitled to 30 hours a week free, from when their child is nine months old. The tax campaigner Dan Neidle has pointed out that given this benefit could be worth perhaps £20,000 a year to a two-child family, every extra pound earned between £100,000 and £154,000 will be more than swallowed up by the downside of missing out on the free nursery hours. “If a political party went into an election promising a tax system with these marginal rates, there would be uproar. But instead, we’ve drifted into this disaster over many years,” he said in a post-budget blogpost. Given this perverse incentive, some higher-earning parents are likely to decide to cut their working hours – or if they are lucky enough to be able to afford to, increase their pension contributions – to bring their qualifying income down below the magic £100,000. All this will seem an unimaginable luxury to families struggling to make ends meet on much lower incomes. But it underlines not just the oddity of the way the £100,000 cutoff works, but also the sheer scale of the costs facing many households. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has put the UK’s childcare costs among the highest in the rich world, relative to average incomes. Surridge says even those on the soaraway salaries to whom Hunt is hoping to appeal may not feel very grateful for his sympathy. “It just highlights the fact that if people are struggling, they’re struggling because of the actions of the government anyway.”
These 3 phrases make you sound smarter and more emotionally intelligent, experts say 2024-03-24 14:41:00+00:00 - Sounding smart and emotionally intelligent isn't just about the idea you're trying to convey. How you say it matters, too. People often resort to using complex words and phrases to sound more insightful. This can actually have an adverse effect, leaving the other person to feel self-conscious and judged, according to Stanford lecturer and communication expert Matt Abrahams. Instead, aim to be easily understood. "The origin of the word communication comes from 'to make common.' And if you're trying to make things common, you really have to put them in a way that people can understand," Abrahams told CNBC Make It in January. "There are a lot of things that people can do to put on false pretenses to try to make themselves look better, sound better, etc. that get in the way." Next time you talk with someone, try using these three simple expert-endorsed phrases:
Sadiq Khan rules out bolstering London Ulez scheme if he wins mayoral election 2024-03-24 13:35:00+00:00 - Sadiq Khan has pledged not to extend the scope of London’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) scheme if he returns to the role after May’s election. In a letter to the Transport for London commissioner, Andy Lord, the capital’s mayor wrote that he had “categorically” ruled out the introduction of a pay-per-mile scheme as well as any tightening of Ulez emissions standards. He wrote: “There is clearly still more to do to tackle air pollution, and I’m determined to continue leading from the front in London. “But my commitment to Londoners is this will not include a new pay-per-mile road user charging scheme or amending the standards for the Ulez scheme. “The introduction and expansion of the Ulez has been necessary and effective. But now it’s in place and working, I will ensure the goalposts are not moved for drivers.” Khan adds in the letter that he would focus on other measures to tackle air pollution, including improving walking and cycling routes, making buildings more energy efficient and expanding the network of electric vehicle charging stations. Susan Hall, the Conservative mayoral candidate, said: “Promises are worthless from the man who has been dishonest with Londoners about his plans to tax drivers. “Sadiq Khan said he wouldn’t expand Ulez at the last election, then went ahead and did the opposite. He has spent £150m building the technology for pay per mile, and now wants us to believe he won’t use it. “Sadiq Khan is taking Londoners for fools and he just won’t listen. That’s why we need to vote for change on 2 May.” A spokesperson for the mayor said: “Sadiq has been clear that he has ruled out the introduction of a pay-per-mile road user charging scheme but the Tories are clearly trying to mislead Londoners by repeatedly saying this is not the case. “The mayor has now put in writing to the TfL commissioner his clear pledge to London: no pay-per-mile scheme will be introduced while he is mayor.” skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Business Today Free daily newsletter Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion The Liberal Democrat candidate, Rob Blackie, said: “The Ulez could have been so much more successful if the mayor hadn’t rushed the 2023 extension, giving people in outer London just a few months to adapt. “If we’re going to crack climate change we need to bring people with us. It’s crucial that the mayor focuses on fixing the problems that still persist, especially for tradespeople who need vans for work.” The Green party has been approached for comment.
Consumer advocates, realtors hail NAR settlement: What it means for buyers and sellers 2024-03-24 12:00:00+00:00 - The process of buying a home has seemingly never been simpler: Find a property on a listings website like Zillow, Redfin or Trulia; reach out to the listing agent; tour the property; and make an offer. But for years behind the scenes, experts say, consumers have not been fully aware of the ultimate cost — and potential conflicts of interest — when searching for a home. Now, a landmark settlement with the National Association of Realtors is poised to upend this model. According to consumer advocates, and even some realtors, it’s a win for homebuyers and sellers. “Price transparency is a good thing, increased competition is a good thing, and this will increase both,” said Mariya Letdin, an associate professor at Florida State University’s College of Business. “I really welcome this change.” When someone goes looking for a home today, they are in most cases intercepted by a broker who has access to certain listings and who will work with the buyer at no cost upfront to help them get into a home. But therein lies a common misconception, experts interviewed by NBC News said. Although a homeowner who puts their property up for sale must hire professionals to market their home, they usually fold that cost into the final price paid by the buyer. “The buyer brings the entire purchase price to the table,” Letdin said. “And the seller gets to keep a little bit more of that after this ruling.” As part of the new settlement, the buyer should now be fully apprised upfront about any potential fees or commissions they’ll ultimately have to pay. That’s because the agreement requires that a buyer sign a formal contract with a broker laying out what services they’ll be receiving, and for how much. Alternatively, a homebuyer could decide not to hire a broker and instead put their search costs toward a real estate lawyer, appraiser or someone else with knowledge of the housing market, experts say. And a seller could even offer to cover the cost of the buyer’s team as an incentive to attract more buyers. Of course, for a property that’s garnering a lot of attention, such buyer incentives are unlikely to be on the table. And in the months following Covid-19 pandemic reopenings, the hottest U.S. real estate markets were tipped squarely in favor of sellers. But now, with home price growth leveling off, the playing field is leveling out too, putting more buyers in the driver’s seat, experts say. “Now you can hire an attorney for $1,500, instead of paying a $50,000 commission,” said Doug Miller, a real estate lawyer based in Minnesota who helped launch the actions that led to the NAR settlement. Whomever a prospective buyer chooses as their representative in the homebuying process, the NAR settlement now formally bans the seller’s ability to advertise a commission for the buyer’s reps on the multiple listing service. For its part, the NAR has maintained that the free market has always set commission levels, and that they were always negotiable — and even useful. “Offers of compensation help make professional representation more accessible, decrease costs for home buyers to secure these services, increase fair housing opportunities, and increase the potential buyer pool for sellers,” the NAR said in its March 15 statement announcing the agreement. But in most cases, there was little difference in the amount being offered for those commissions in a given market — usually about 3%. That’s because any attempt to offer a lower commission to a buyer’s agent would likely motivate the agent to direct their client away from that property. Miller characterized that behavior as improper and said buyers, in many cases, would have had no awareness of it. “The future here is that buyers will now be in the driver’s seat,” Miller said. “Instead of that [commission] money going to their agent ... it can now go directly to the buyer. It’s the same amount of money, but now the buyer gets money instead of a buyer agent, and they can decide what to do with it.” What’s more, greater competition for clients is likely to result in lower costs across the board, said Ryan Tomasello, a real estate industry analyst with the Keefe, Bruyette & Woods financial firm. “When you introduce a ton of transparency to a marketplace that has historically lacked it, any economist will tell you that reduces friction costs — i.e., commissions — and those are some of the highest in the world,” Tomasello said. “So the all-in cost of buying and selling a home, in theory, is going to decline.” Many experts, including other real estate professionals, agree that the settlement will effectively thin the ranks of fly-by-night agents who served as an intermediary — a phenomenon that surged during the pandemic-era housing boom. “A lot of folks parachuted in during 2020-2021 to try to make easy extra money by putting themselves out there as a buyer agent and taking 3%,” said Phil Crescenzo Jr., vice president of the Southeast division at Nation One Mortgage Corp. “But they weren’t bringing 3% of value — not even close.” Crescenzo compared it to moonlighting mortgage brokers who helped fuel the housing bubble of the mid-to-late 2000s. “Once they changed the compensation rules, the dominant professionals rose to the top, the bottom disappeared, and the industry got better,” Crescenzo said.
Infrastructure money is helping airports add toilets, gates and boarding bridges 2024-03-24 12:00:00+00:00 - If construction cranes are looming over your local airport or “Please Pardon Our Appearance” signs are decking out the terminal, it may be partly thanks to Congress and the White House. U.S. airports say money from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is a drop in the bucket when it comes to their funding sources and infrastructure needs. But the legislation is already helping some rip up worn carpets, upgrade restrooms and replace clunky baggage systems. While federal dollars have long backed “airside” projects like runways and taxiways, the new infusion for terminal upgrades “is a game changer,” said Greg Cota, senior vice president of government and political affairs at the Airports Council International — North America, an industry advocacy group. As President Joe Biden hits the campaign trail to tout his infrastructure investments, airports are some of the most visible places to see them at work, whether or not voters reward him for it in November. Appleton International Airport in Wisconsin is planning a new terminal with sustainability and accessibility upgrades. Appleton International Airport Appleton International Airport, in the battleground state of Wisconsin, received $3.43 million from the package. The funds will augment a much larger $66 million concourse expansion, which was planned before the pandemic and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2025. Appleton, about 40 minutes southwest of Green Bay, is one of many airports that broke passenger records last year, and it expects to serve 1 million travelers this year. Financing is coming “from about eight different sources,” said airport Director Abe Weber, including local, state and federal money, bonds and the airport’s own cash. The grant awarded by the Biden administration will help pay for boarding bridges, a sustainability program that includes a microgrid and accessibility improvements such as “hearing loops” — assistive technology for people with hearing loss. Without those funds, Weber said, “we probably wouldn’t have been able to proceed with those pieces of the project.” There’s a lot of money out there, and Congress has been generous, but it’s not enough to be able to solve the long-term problem. Kevin Burke, CEO of the Airports Council International — North America Last month, the White House announced infrastructure law grants totaling $970 million for upgrades at 114 airports intended to “improve passenger experience, accessibility, and sustainability.” The discretionary awards are on top of nearly $2 billion in similar awards made over the past two years under the law’s Airport Terminal Program, a $5 billion fund for competitive grants to support terminal upgrades. Recent grants include $35 million to help Washington Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia construct a 14-gate terminal and transit connections to the Aerotrain and Metrorail. Another grant supplies $26 million to replace Denver International Airport’s baggage handling system. The terminal funding is just one slice of the measure’s five-year, $25 billion pot for modernizing airports nationwide. Within that pool, a separate $5 billion is set aside for improvements to facilities and equipment owned by the Federal Aviation Administration, and $15 billion more is being distributed to airports through a formula based on passenger numbers. Airports say they need much more. “There’s a lot of money out there, and Congress has been generous,” said Kevin Burke, president and CEO of the North American airports council, who added that the government’s prioritizing the passenger experience is novel. “But it’s not enough to be able to solve the long-term problem,” he said, “which is enough infrastructure money to be able to modernize all of our airports.” South Carolina’s Myrtle Beach International Airport is using $10 million in federal grants to help build six new gates starting this summer. Gresham Smith In a report last year, the group called for $151 billion to fund “critical” infrastructure improvements over the next five years. Airports typically pay for upgrades with a mélange of rent from airlines and terminal vendors, landing charges tacked on to fliers’ tickets, parking fees and money from various levels of government, as well loans and debt, often in the form of municipal bonds issued by airport authorities. The new federal infrastructure funds could have an impact broader than the individual projects it’s supporting, some experts said. Because airports operate in tandem with one another, improvements at small and midsize ones can help large hubs, too, said Bill Wyatt, executive director of Salt Lake City International Airport. The Utah airport received $20 million in infrastructure law funds toward its $618.7 million building and airfield work tied to the further expansion of a just-built terminal. We may get an extra flight that couldn’t have happened except for the investment of this money. Bill Wyatt, executive director of Salt Lake City International Airport While “it’s great whenever you can find some additional resources,” Wyatt said, a boost to one airport’s operations can be felt across the network, “because suddenly one location now has added capacity, meaning we may get an extra flight that couldn’t have happened except for the investment of this money.” The funding influx may have its biggest impact at smaller airports, where “these grants do play an important role in moving capital programs further and faster,” said Earl Heffintrayer, vice president and senior credit officer at Moody’s Investors Service. South Carolina’s Myrtle Beach International Airport, which serves more than 3 million passengers a year, received $10 million in Airport Terminal Program funds for an $80 million to $90 million expansion that was put on hold during the pandemic but is moving forward now. The 18-month project, which begins in June, will add six gates to the current 12 and revamp restrooms, flooring and signage in the existing terminal. As at other airports, the Myrtle Beach construction is being financed by various sources, including “cost recovery through billing back portions of the project to airlines operating at MYR over the life of the expanded facility,” spokesman Ryan Betcher said. The $10 million grant will allow the airport to reduce the costs it passes on to airlines, help it retain existing flight routes and attract new ones, he said. Restroom renovations at Philadelphia International Airport are supported by federal infrastructure dollars. Philadelphia International Airport Bipartisan Infrastructure Law dollars are also helping some airports keep their projects on track despite higher costs from inflation. Philadelphia International Airport is in the midst of a $1.8 billion capital program that includes upgrades to roadways, terminals and the airfield. It secured $74.4 million from the infrastructure package for initiatives that fit the “shovel ready” requirements for funding, Chief Development Officer Api Appulingam said. “It’s not that we wouldn’t have somehow found the funds to do the project,” she said, “but the grants help with the uncertainty in the bidding environment.” Now, if bids come in higher than anticipated, “we’re able to cover the cost, versus trying to find that funding elsewhere” and risk falling behind schedule, Appulingam said.
Iran’s currency hits a record low 2024-03-24 11:46:54+00:00 - TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s currency fell to a record low on Sunday, plunging to 613,500 to the dollar, as its people celebrated the Persian New Year. On Sunday, people were trying to exchange rials for foreign currency at Tehran’s main hub of exchange shops in Ferdowsi Street, but most were closed due to the Nowruz holidays, which are run from March 20 to April 2. Mohsen, a 32-year-old employee at one of the exchange shops, said the holiday was contributing to the low prices, “The price is not real, the demand for purchasing dollars is very high, but there are just a few exchange shops open.” He and other Iranians spoke on condition their last names not be used, because of potential repercussions for speaking to foreign media about the country’s economic struggles. The two-week holiday is an opportunity to travel abroad, driving demand for U.S. dollars and Euros. Mojtaba, a 49-year-old father, was shocked: “The rial fell 5% compared to the last six days, while the whole country is on vacation!” Niloufar, 28-year-old wife and her husband Behzad, 30, said that they’d booked a weeklong tour of Turkey at a discount rate, but were now looking at spending as much as full-price tour. The exchange rate strongly affects other markets, including housing and rentals. The price was 590,000 to the dollar on March 18, the last workday before the holiday. Many Iranians have seen their life savings evaporate as the local currency has depreciated. Today, it’s worth about one-twentieth as much as it was in 2015, when Iran signed a nuclear accord with world powers. Since then, it’s fallen from 32,000 rials to the dollar to the hundreds of thousands. In February 2023, it briefly reached a nadir of 600,000 reals to the dollar, and since then has not risen above 439,000. The government’s Statistics Center put the country’s inflation rate for Feb. 2024 at 42.5%, while Central Bank said it was more than 46%. There is no explanation for the discrepancy. Iran’s relations with the west have been at exceptional lows since then-U.S. President Donald Trump abandoned a deal that called for the country to end its nuclear program in return for access to frozen funds and other benefits. President Joe Biden said he was willing to re-enter a nuclear deal with Iran, but formal talks to try to find a roadmap to restart the deal collapsed in August 2022. In the meantime, tensions in the Middle East have increased significantly, making nuclear diplomacy with Iran more complicated. Iran has further angered Western countries by supplying armed drones to Russia that have been used in its invasion of Ukraine. Dire economic conditions have contributed to widespread anger at the government in the past, but have also forced many Iranians to focus on putting food on the table rather than engaging in high-risk political activism amid a fierce crackdown on dissent. The rial’s record low came less than a month after a parliamentary election that saw the lowest turnout since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, whose results were dominated by hard-line politicians. Hard-liners have controlled the parliament for the past two decades — with chants of “Death to America” often heard during its sessions.
Furry Slippers and Sweatpants: Young Chinese Embrace ‘Gross Outfits’ at Work 2024-03-24 09:01:47.597000+00:00 - When the weather turned cold in December, Cindy Luo started to wear her fluffy pajamas over a hooded sweatshirt at the office. Wearing cozy sleepwear to work became a habit and soon she didn’t even bother to wear matching tops and bottoms, selecting whatever was most comfortable. A few months later, she posted photos of herself to a “gross outfits at work” thread that had spread on Xiaohongshu, a Chinese app similar to Instagram. She was one of tens of thousands of young workers in China to proudly post pictures of themselves showing up at the office in onesies, sweatpants and sandals with socks. The just-rolled-out-of-bed look was shockingly casual for most Chinese workplaces. “I just want to wear whatever I want,” said Ms. Luo, 30, an interior designer in Wuhan, a city in Hubei Province. “I just don’t think it’s worth spending money to dress up for work, since I’m just sitting there.”
Famously Obstinate, Bill Ackman Is Now Real-Life Famous. What Next? 2024-03-24 09:00:21+00:00 - In June 2017 — as he was reeling from the end of his marriage of more than two decades and some of the most disastrous investments of his career — Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge-fund financier, joined Twitter. In his few posts that year and the next, Mr. Ackman, now 57, shared a picture of himself posing in line at the fast-food chain Chipotle, one of his largest investments; links to position papers on another investment, ADP; and a news release announcing the winners of his foundation’s awards. He offered his early Twitter followers little of the drama that was part of his investing style and would later become a hallmark of his round-the-clock social media posts. Just a few months later, Mr. Ackman went on his first date with a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor, Neri Oxman. He was instantly smitten, and asked her on that date if she was open to having children, he told the crowd last year at an awards dinner. By 2018, at his annual investor meeting for his hedge fund Pershing Square, he told investors he was certain his firm’s performance, which had been suffering, would turn around because he was in love with Dr. Oxman. They married the following year.
China’s Plan to Spur Growth: A New Slogan for Building Factories 2024-03-24 05:12:31+00:00 - From the top of the government, China is heavily promoting a plan to fix the country’s stagnant economy and offset the harm from a decades-long housing bubble. The program has a fresh slogan, presented foremost by Xi Jinping, the country’s top leader, as “new, quality productive forces.” But it has features that are familiar from China’s economic playbook: The idea is to spur innovation and growth through massive investments in manufacturing, particularly in high-tech and clean energy, as well as robust spending on research and development. And there have been few concrete provisions for how the government hopes to persuade Chinese households to reverse a prolonged slowdown in spending. Premier Li Qiang, the country’s No. 2 official, laid out the plan on Sunday in a speech to chief executives from around the globe, who had gathered in Beijing for the country’s annual China Development Forum. “We will accelerate the development of new, quality productive forces,” he said at the forum’s opening ceremony.
Nevada’s first big-game moose hunt will be tiny as unusual southern expansion defies climate change 2024-03-24 04:01:39+00:00 - RENO, Nev. (AP) — In what will be a tiny big-game hunt for some of the largest animals in North America, Nevada is planning its first-ever moose hunting season this fall. Wildlife managers say explosive growth in Nevada moose numbers over the past five years, increasing to a population of more than 100, justifies the handful of harvests planned. Scientists say the experiment of sorts should also provide a real-time peek at how the complexities of climate change affect wildlife, and why these majestic — some say goofy-looking — mammals the size of a horse have unexpectedly expanded their range into warmer territory. “Moose are newcomers to North America,” said Cody McKee, a Nevada Department of Wildlife specialist. The last deer species to cross the Bering Sea land bridge into Alaska and Canada, McKee said the movement of moose into the Lower 48 has occurred almost exclusively in the past 150 years. “Their post-glacial range expansion isn’t really complete,” McKee said. “And that’s what we’re currently seeing in Nevada right now, is those moose are moving into the state and finding suitable habitat.” Only a few Nevada moose, perhaps just one, will be killed across an area larger than Massachusetts and New Jersey combined. But state officials expect thousands of applications for the handful of hunting tags, and it’s already controversial. In this photo provided by the Nevada Department of Wildlife, biologists take a picture with a moose they collared in Elko County, Nev., during NDOW’s first-ever moose collaring project, in 2020. (Nevada Department of Wildlife via AP) “Why a moose hunt at all?” Stephanie Myers of Las Vegas asked at a recent wildlife commission meeting. “We want to see moose, view moose. Not kill moose.” The first moose was spotted in Nevada in the 1950s, not long before the dim-witted cartoon character “Bullwinkle” made his television debut. Only a handful of sightings followed for decades, but started increasing about 10 years ago. By 2018, officials estimated there were 30 to 50, all in Nevada’s northeast corner. But the population has more than doubled and experts believe there’s enough habitat to sustain about 200, a level that could be reached in three years. Bryan Bird, Defenders of Wildlife’s Southwest program director, is among the skeptics who suspect it’s a short-lived phenomenon. In this photo provided by the Nevada Department of Wildlife, a collared cow moose and her calf are spotted in Elko County, Nev., in 2021. (Nevada Department of Wildlife via AP) “I believe the moose story is one of `ghost’ habitat or `ghost’ range expansion. By that I mean, these animals are expanding into habitat that may not be suitable in 50 years due to climate change,” Bird said. Government biologists admit they don’t fully understand why the moose have moved so far south, where seasonal conditions are warmer and drier than they traditionally prefer. “It seems to be opposite of where we would expect to see moose expansion given their ecology,” said Marcus Blum, a Texas A&M University researcher hired to help assess future movement. He analyzed aerial surveys, individual sightings and habitat to project growth trends. Six feet (1.8 meters) tall at the shoulder and up to 1,000 pounds (453.5 kilograms), moose live in riparian areas where they munch on berry bushes and aspen leaves along the edges of mountain forests native to the northern half of Nevada. They usually avoid places where temperatures regularly exceed 68 degrees Fahrenheit (20 Celsius). In this photo provided by the Nevada Department of Wildlife, a sedated moose lies on the ground in Elko County, Nev., after being collared and its health and vitals examined, in 2022 (Nevada Department of Wildlife via AP) The Nevada study documented moose spending nearly half their time in areas where that “thermal threshold” was exceeded about 150 days a year, while climate change models suggest the threshold will be surpassed by another 14 days annually by 2050, Blum said. To be clear, the valleys beneath the snow-capped winter mountain ranges with moose are 500 miles (805 kilometers) from the Las Vegas Strip in the desert many people picture as Nevada. Researchers have more questions than answers about why moose continue to expand their range into Nevada where extended drought has taken a toll on other wildlife, McKee said. “There’s a lot of speculation and questions about why they are here, given concerns about the changing environment and how it’s probably getting warmer and dryer,” McKee said. “Why is it that our extensive drought cycles haven’t seemed to be affecting the moose population?” Populations along the U.S.-Canada border have oscillated for more than a century. Several states, from Idaho to Minnesota and Maine, have dramatically reduced hunting quotas at times to allow populations to recover. Alaska is home to the vast majority of U.S. moose, upwards of 200,000, with about 7,000 harvests annually. Maine has nearly 70,000, which is five times more than any other Lower 48 state, and issued 4,100 permits last year. Neighboring New Hampshire offered only 35 for 3,000-plus moose and Idaho issued about 500 for its 10,000 to 12,000. No moose were observed in Washington state before the 1960s but its growing population now exceeds 5,000. The state issued three hunting permits in 1977 and now tops 100 annually. Nevada’s research suggests its population could sustain more harvests than planned, McKee said, but “conservative is the name of the game here.” Aerial surveys are now backed by radio-tracking collars biologists have fitted on four bull moose and nine cows since 2020. In some spots, males significantly outnumber females. Removing a bull or two might improve herd dynamics, he said. The exact number of permits will be determined in the coming weeks, but McKee anticipates no more than three. Only Nevadans can apply for the inaugural hunt, which will help guide decisions about future endeavors. Successful hunters must present the skull and antlers for state inspection within five days. That will give scientists more insight into herd health, body conditions, disease and parasites. Bill Nolan of Sparks, who first hunted ducks at age 12, says he intends to apply for a chance he describes as “slim and none” to draw a moose tag. “For hunters, it would be like hitting the lottery,” he said.
Dynamic pricing was once the realm of Uber and airlines. Now, it's coming to restaurants. 2024-03-23 20:48:00+00:00 - Your burger and fries could soon cost $12 in the morning and $20 just a few hours later — at the same restaurant. That's because more eateries are experimenting with so-called dynamic pricing by lowering and raising menu prices based on demand. People who use ride sharing services like Uber or Lyft are accustomed to the companies boosting prices when roads are congested or demand is high. On the flip side, ride share prices can drop during quieter periods to convince customers to book rides, helping keep drivers busy. The same goes for airlines and hotels. Booking flights or accommodations around the holidays costs a lot more than afterwards, when demand tapers off. Now, with the rise of online ordering and digitization of menus, dynamic pricing is starting to pervade restaurants, and it may irk some consumers. Businesses, on the other hand, say it helps them balance supply and demand while giving customers the opportunity to take advantage of bargains at off-peak dining times. Wendy's made headlines — and faced a backlash — when the fast food chain announced it would experiment with dynamic pricing in its restaurants starting in 2025 using digital menu boards. Customers took the announcement to mean they'd be charged more at peak times. Wendy's, on the other hand, insisted the move was intended to allow it to more easily change menus and offer customers discounts during slow periods. Markups and discounts The rise of delivery apps and digital menus, accessible through QR codes, have made it easier for restaurants to implement dynamic pricing. Colin Webb, co-founder and CEO of Sauce, a dynamic pricing engine that helps restaurants leverage data to improve online sales, said in a recent podcast that "you're starting to see restaurants take that same step" that retail and taxi businesses took when they moved online. Puesto in La Jolla, California —a restaurant chain that relied on Sauce's services to fluctuate menu prices — said the strategy boosted sales by 12%, according to a case study on Sauce's website. It raised prices by as much as 8% during busy periods and reduced them by as much as 20% during slower times. "[W]e're happy to see both the markups, and we're also happy to see some discounted orders," Puesto co-owner Moy Lombrozo told Sauce. "When the kitchen is dead, we're willing to take one to two dollars off an item in order to just keep the kitchen going, keep the staff working." Restaurant chains Dave & Busters and Tony Roma's are also planning on rolling out dynamic pricing, according to news reports. "Punch in the gut" Even so, dining establishments are lagging behind other industries in turning to dynamic pricing. "Restaurants are late in the game in making this happen," said Stephen Zagor, a restaurant management professor at Columbia Business School. "We're starting to see it take effect, but there's a lack of transparency." Restaurants have been reluctant to change prices based on demand to avoid alienating customers. That's in part because people have a more emotional connection with the food they consume compared with other goods, Zagor explained. "When suddenly we don't know where the price is coming from — one day it's this, another day it's this — it feels like a little bit of a punch in the gut," he said. "We don't know how much we're going to pay when we go to eat out, and that doesn't feel good." Guests can be choosier In a way, dynamic pricing has long existed in the restaurant industry, with dinner menu items typically priced higher than similar plates served at breakfast or lunch. "It's not out of the realm of possibility to see the same burger with a different price on lunch and dinner menus," Lilly Jan, a food and beverage management lecturer at Cornell University, said. Consumers may not like dynamic pricing, but they don't have much choice when it comes to airline and hotel reservations, Jan added. That might not hold true with restaurants, she added. "There is a certain cost for getting to one side of the country to the other this time of year. If you need to make it from New York to LA, you only have so many options," she said. "You don't have the same thing going out to dinner with friends. Because you have so many options and experiences available, you can be choosier." How to take advantage of dynamic pricing Dynamic pricing can boost revenue for businesses, but also present opportunities for consumers to save. "It helps companies' profitability, but at the end of the day it also gives customers control over their willingness to pay," said Apostolos Ampountolas, assistant professor of hospitality finance at Boston University. "It doesn't only mean prices will go up. In theory, restaurants give diners discounts to eat in between meal times when they're less busy." Look for discounts on food items at off peak times, like between 10 a.m.-12 p.m., or 3-5 p.m., or during slower times, like when there is inclement weather. You can also choose not to patronize a given establishment if you don't like the prices. "With a restaurant, if you don't like the prices at a restaurant that day, you can eat at home or do something different. There is a lot more agency to step away from prices that are not amenable to guests," Jan said.
David E. Harris, Trailblazing Airline Pilot, Is Dead at 89 2024-03-23 17:38:09+00:00 - David E. Harris, a former Air Force bomber pilot who at the height of the civil rights movement in the 1960s became the first Black pilot hired by a major commercial airline in the United States, died on March 8 in Marietta, Ga., about 20 miles northwest of Atlanta. He was 89. His death, at a hospice center, was confirmed by his daughter Leslie Germaine. American Airlines hired Mr. Harris in 1964, and he flew for the carrier for 30 years, rising to captain in 1967. In 1984, he made history for the second time with American when he flew with the first all-Black cockpit crew on a commercial airliner. Before Mr. Harris was hired, airline executives had discriminated for years against Black pilots out of fear that white passengers wouldn’t want to board the planes they flew, and that it would be too difficult to find them hotel accommodations. “He knew that he was extremely qualified, so on paper he would seem like an ideal candidate to many commercial airlines,” Michael H. Cottman wrote in his book “Segregated Skies: David Harris’s Trailblazing Journey to Rise Above Racial Barriers” (2021). “But once he was brought in for an interview, and a prospective employer saw the color of his skin, he was concerned that he would face disappointment again and again.”
About 360,000 households without power as storms batter Northeast 2024-03-23 16:00:00+00:00 - A powerful weather system battered the tri-state area with heavy rain and strong winds over the weekend, as a fast-moving storm blanketed northern New England with snow and plunged some 360,000 households in the Northeast into blackouts. At 6 a.m. ET Sunday, more than 197,000 households in Maine, 81,000 in New York state, and 73,000 in New Hampshire were without power, according to PowerOutage.us, which aggregates live outage data. “Keep you and your family safe if you lose power,” Robert Buxton, director of the New Hampshire Department of Safety’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said Saturday night. “Crews are out and working hard to restore outages as they happen. If you come across downed wires, stay away and call 911.” He recommended staying updated with phone alerts or by radio broadcast, using flashlights rather than candles for emergency lighting, and refraining from using gas stoves or ovens for alternative heat. By Sunday morning, footage showed the Northeast blanketed in snow, down trees in New York City, and flooded roads and highways across the region. The New York City metro area through central and southern New Jersey received between 2 and 3 inches of rain on Saturday. Though the storm had cleared by Sunday morning, the National Weather Service warned of continued wind chills in the teens and 20s. A swath of the Northeast received heavy snowfall. As of Saturday, 8:30 p.m. ET, 24.5 inches of snow had fallen on Landgrove, Vermont, 20.5 in both Corinth, New York, and Claremont, New Hampshire, and 13.5 in Sweden, Maine, according to the National Weather Service. By 2 p.m. ET on Saturday, Philadelphia had recorded 3.06 inches of rainfall, making this the wettest March since the state began keeping records in 1872. Weather conditions caused major delays across New York City airports. Arrivals at John F. Kennedy International Airport were delayed an average of three hours as of 5 p.m. EDT, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. La Guardia Airport also experienced delays in arrival and departure flights. Elsewhere, a fast-moving storm dumped snow across parts of northern New England. More than 30 million people from the northern Rockies and Upper Midwest through the central Great Lakes into New England were under winter alerts. Light to moderate snow was expected for the Upper Midwest to the Great Lakes, where 2 to 7 inches was forecast. The Maine Emergency Management Agency said the storm could bring the largest snowfall of the season and urged motorists to use caution. “Mixed precipitation in some areas will make for especially hazardous travel conditions,” the agency said in a post on X. “Check your local forecast for conditions.” In the Twin Cities area, the storm was predicted to bring more than 12 inches. Combined with a 2.9-inch accumulation from a “teaser” snowstorm Thursday night and Friday morning, snow totals were forecast to exceed the 14.3 inches that had fallen in the previous season. Meanwhile, a storm behind it swept down the California coast as it moved east, bringing 0.5-1 inches of rain to the Bay Area. More than 6 inches of snow was also recorded in the Sierra Nevada range, with the Heavenly Lake Tahoe resort reporting 10 inches of fresh powder Saturday morning. In Oxnard, a city along the coast northwest of Los Angeles, a reading of 0.59 inches of rain set a modern record for this date. Same for Lancaster, a high desert city in Los Angeles County, which measured 0.53 inches of rain. Orange and San Diego counties posted mostly smaller fractions of an inch of rain by the time the bulk of the storm passed Saturday evening. The same front was moving east and forecast to bring “heavy snow and strong winds, and possible blizzard conditions to the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest through Tuesday morning,” the National Weather Service said in a forecast discussion. From Kansas to Texas, the storm could churn up scattered severe thunderstorms on Sunday, the weather service said.
Mega Millions jackpot rises to $1.1 billion after another drawing without a winner 2024-03-23 14:20:00+00:00 - The Mega Millions jackpot climbed to an estimated $1.1 billion after no one matched the game's six numbers Friday night, continuing a stretch of more than three months without a big winner. The numbers drawn were: 3, 8, 31, 35, 44, 16. The jackpot increased after a drawing for an estimated $977 million failed to produce a jackpot winner. No one has won the game's jackpot since Dec. 8, a string of 30 consecutive drawings without anyone taking home the top prize. That has enabled the jackpot to slowly grow, week after week. The $1.1 billion prize is for a sole winner who chooses to be paid through an annuity over 30 years. Winners almost always opt for a cash payment, which for the next drawing Tuesday night is an estimated $525.8 million. A lucky player winning the $1.1 billion jackpot would take home the eighth-largest prize in U.S. lottery history. The other U.S. lottery game, Powerball, has grown to an annuity jackpot of $750 million and a cash payout of $357.3 million. The next Powerball drawing is scheduled to take place Saturday night.
The Second Coming of the Microsoft Antitrust Battle? 2024-03-23 12:00:05+00:00 - Impeding innovation. Reducing consumer choice. Extending dominance to other markets. These are accusations that the Justice Department leveled against a technology giant it accused of running an illegal monopoly. But they aren’t from this week’s antitrust lawsuit against Apple — they’re from the case the department brought against Microsoft in 1998. The move against Apple is, along with the Justice Department’s 2020 lawsuit against Google over search, perhaps the most ambitious tech antitrust battle since the Clinton administration’s effort to open up Microsoft’s Windows operating system. And federal prosecutors are explicitly connecting the Apple lawsuit to that earlier fight. “They’re really presenting this case as a successor to that: Microsoft 2.0,” said Gus Hurwitz, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. But the comparison isn’t perfect. And it isn’t clear whether the Justice Department will be able to achieve here what it claims to have done by suing Microsoft.
Domino and other U.S. sugar companies accused of conspiring to fix prices in antitrust lawsuits 2024-03-22 22:53:00+00:00 - Three antitrust lawsuits filed by food businesses in federal court in Minnesota this week accuse some of the largest U.S. sugar-producing companies of conspiring to fix prices. The lawsuits name United Sugars, which includes American Crystal Sugar and the Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative; Domino Sugar; Cargill; other producers, and a commodity data company. The plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuits include Great Harvest Bread in Duluth, Morelos Bakery in St. Paul and the Connecticut restaurant group WNT, the Star Tribune reported. "Since at least 2019, the Producing Defendants have had an ongoing agreement to artificially raise, fix, stabilize or maintain Granulated Sugar prices in the United States," one of the lawsuits alleges. "To effectuate this agreement, the Producing Defendants engaged in price signaling and exchanges of detailed, accurate, non-public, competitively sensitive information." The lawsuits, which make broadly similar claims, seek injunctions barring the sugar companies from engaging in illegal conduct and unspecified damages. The sugar industry, which is dominated by a handful of large companies, has faced antitrust scrutiny for decades. A 1978 consent decree banned sugar companies from communicating about future prices or coordinating on sugar sales. Minnesota grows more sugar beets than any other state. United Sugars, which is based in Edina, called the claims baseless. "While it is our longstanding practice to not comment extensively on litigation, we believe this case has no merit, and we will vigorously defend ourselves from its baseless accusations," the company said in a statement. Minnetonka-based agribusiness giant Cargill also denied the allegations. "We take pride in conducting our business with integrity," Cargill said in a statement. "We compete vigorously but do so fairly, ethically and in compliance with the law."