NoneTrump names David Sacks as White House AI and crypto czar

Vikings will be without cornerback Stephon Gilmore against FalconsThe owner of Toby Carvery has issued a warning about impending price hikes following the Budget. Mitchells and Butlers (M&B), which also runs All Bar One, revealed its costs are expected to surge by approximately £100 million next year. The firm - which has Toby Carvery at Festival Park venues at Festival Park, Talke, Trentham and Endon - highlighted increased wage bills as "by far the most significant increase" in its cost base due to last month's Budget measures. Phil Urban, M&B's chief executive, informed the PA news agency that the company is bracing for an additional annual expense of around £23 million solely from the hike in national insurance contributions, with the rise in the minimum wage also contributing to a soaring wage bill. He indicated that overall costs for the group would climb by about 5%, or £100 million, in the financial year 2024-25, and suggested that this would likely lead to higher prices as the company seeks to offset these added costs. Mr Urban told PA that while price increases are anticipated across the industry come next spring, M&B "will probably have to go harder to cover the latest cost increases". He said that the group, which employs roughly 45,000 staff, will consider adjustments to pricing on a "site by site basis", but emphasised that there are no intentions to scale back on hiring or to reduce the workforce. "Having good service is critical," he remarked. These comments were made as M&B reported a swing to a pre-tax profit of £199 million for the year ending September 28, compared to a loss of £13 million the previous year, with like-for-like sales rising by 5.3%. The company's underlying earnings saw a significant surge of 41.2% to £312 million on a pro-rata 52-week basis. However, like-for-like sales growth has slowed down to 4% in the first seven weeks of the new financial year, with the group anticipating a return to "more normalised levels of sales growth as the inflationary environment eases". M&B sounded a cautious note, stating: "In the year ahead, the main uncertainties facing the group are considered to be the maintenance of sales growth in the face of pressure on consumer spending power, and the rate of cost inflation." The company highlighted the uncertain outlook, which will be influenced by various factors, including consumer confidence, global political developments, supply chain disruptions, global political developments, and government policies. Get daily headlines and breaking news emailed to you - it’s FREE

11. Tom Cleverley - Once touted as a promising talent, Cleverley's career trajectory took a different path after leaving United in 2015. He now represents Watford in the English Championship.

The demise of NASA's NEOWISE telescope has unveiled a treasure trove of previously unseen cosmic imagery. The space telescope concluded its celestial journey on November 1, re-entering and disintegrating in Earth's atmosphere. NASA reguarly uses its telescopes to track anything flying in the sky or space, like UFOs or new star systems, capturing their beauty in detail only possible by their technology. Space scientists capture startling new image of Sombrero galaxy NASA discovers hidden military base deep within Greenland ice sheet The team at IPAC, a science center affiliated with Caltech Research University in Pasadena, has released six new images from the mission's archival data as an homage to this groundbreaking project. Termed as "one further gift from the prolific mission," the final data release from NEOWISE was made available to the astronomy community on November 14, featuring over 26 million images and nearly 200 billion sources detected by the telescope. Among these are a region named the "Gecko Nebula" due to its likeness to a downturned head with a pointed snout, a tadpole-shaped nebula known as CG12, and the expansive California Nebula, stretching 100 light-years across space. Originally launched as the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) in 2009, the telescope was reactivated in 2013 as NEOWISE, marking the asteroid-hunting phase of the mission. The infrared space telescope surveyed the entire night sky, conducting 21 complete sky surveys during its decade-long operation. While the mission primarily aimed to identify and study small objects in our solar system, like asteroids and comets, also referred to as near-Earth objects (NEOs), the infrared data gathered by the telescope has proven invaluable across various areas of astronomy. NASA panic over 'toxic smell' coming from Russian spaceship Moment 5 galaxies collide at 2,000,000mph in 'intergalactic sonic boom' NASA shares 'eerie' snaps of clouds 'linked to UFOs' - locals left puzzled The mission wrapped up its operations in July 2024, and over its 15-year tenure in space, scientists had the opportunity to repeatedly observe the same sky regions, with most areas being surveyed by NEOWISE at least 220 times. This consistent observation aids astronomers in identifying and studying celestial bodies that fluctuate in brightness or position. "Being able to watch the changing sky for nearly 15 years has opened a new avenue for time-domain science, for everything from the closest asteroids to the most distant quasars," expressed Joe Masiero, Research Scientist at IPAC and the Deputy Principal Investigator of the mission.Grad assistant coach suits up to fill QB void, sets Southern Illinois record with 7 TD passes

As a result of these factors, many countries have seen a significant decrease in the cost of fuel. In some regions, gasoline prices have reached levels not seen in years, providing relief to consumers who have been burdened by high fuel costs. This drop in oil prices has also had a positive impact on industries that rely heavily on oil, such as transportation and manufacturing, reducing their operating costs and increasing profitability.Labor strategist Steve Rosenthal says Kamala Harris fared better with union voters than headlines suggest — and outlines the labor movement’s path forward. By Kalena Thomhave , for Capital & Main Before the election, several headlines suggested that union voters had abandoned the Democratic Party for Donald Trump. And though Trump did indeed win the presidential election on Nov. 5 with many rank-and-file union members’ support, he didn’t win union voters overall. What’s more, Steve Rosenthal, who has worked as an electoral strategist in the labor movement for more than 40 years, thinks the political coin could flip again as soon as 2026. A former political director of the AFL-CIO, where he helped revitalize labor’s political influence, Rosenthal focuses on engaging union members and working-class voters. He is currently president of the Organizing Group, a political consulting firm that works with labor unions to help them get out the vote and win campaigns. The firm runs In Union , a voter mobilization program that reached 1.5 million mostly white working-class voters this year in the battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as Ohio. After Kamala Harris’ loss, Rosenthal believes the labor movement needs to start preparing now for the anti-worker changes that may come from a second Trump administration — and also for the next election. This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. Capital & Main: I might as well ask the question that everyone is asking about the election: What happened? Steve Rosenthal: For me, the most telling numbers came out of the AP VoteCast poll. Voters who rated the economy excellent or good — 36% of the electorate — voted for Harris 82 to 17. Those who said the economy was not so good or poor — 63% of the electorate — voted for Trump 69 to 29. If you go back to 2020, [the poll results were] almost the exact opposite of that — 43% said the economy was excellent or good, [and they] voted for Trump 81 to 18. The 57% of the electorate who said the economy was not so good or poor voted for Biden 77 to 21. As a lot of people have pointed out, the economy was the No. 1 issue by far for voters. If they thought that things were going OK, they voted for the incumbent [party in] Kamala Harris, and if they thought that things were not going well with the economy, they voted for the change candidate, which was Trump. For a lot of voters, economic issues — forgive the expression — trump fascism, democracy and choice — the cornerstone of the Harris campaign. I think to some voters, [arguments on] those issues were less credible because they lived through four years of Trump. To me, that is the top line summary. I don’t believe there was any huge realignment [or evidence of] a long-term conservative shift. When I was the political director at the AFL-CIO from 1996 to 2002, part of my rap was that the only white working-class voters who were voting for Democrats were in unions. It was true then, and it’s largely true today. And the union vote has actually gotten a little worse. There has not been enough attention over the years to the decline in the number of union members and, therefore, union voters, and what that has meant for Democrats. I’m happy to see people talking about the Democrats needing to become the party of working people again. On the union vote, there was a lot of media discussion about how union members are migrating to Trump despite the Biden administration doing so much for unions. First off, union members voted for Harris in pretty strong numbers. Across the three blue wall states, [there was a] significant performance by union members. In Pennsylvania, union members made up 18% of the electorate. So, almost one out of five votes cast came from union households, and they voted 52 to 47 for Harris, which is better than the Biden vote was in 2020, [when] Biden lost union households to Trump 49 to 50 in Pennsylvania. So, she actually did better. In Wisconsin, Kamala Harris won union voters 53 to 46 — better than Clinton did in 2016 and not quite as good as Biden did in 2020, but still a nine-point margin among union voters in the state. In Michigan, Harris won [union voters] 55 to 44 — not quite as good as Biden did in 2020, but much better than Clinton in 2016. Trump has eroded the union vote a little bit, but not in substantial numbers. The media rush to judgment before the election based on some polls suggesting that union members had abandoned the Democrats, it’s just wrong. What are your thoughts on unions like the Teamsters not endorsing Harris? The Teamsters, as was well reported, stayed neutral. So did the firefighters. But there were 50 unions that supported Kamala Harris. The Teamsters released a poll that said that [nearly] 60% of their members were supporting Trump, and [indicated] that’s why they decided to stay neutral. I’ve seen a lot of union member polls over the more than 40 years I’ve been doing this work. Unions might start off with their members behind 10, 15, or 20 points. But then you put your program into gear and communicate with your members — in this case, for example, point out that Trump supports right-to-work and that Trump ran one of the most vehemently anti-union administrations in the history of the country. And then contrast that with Harris’ record and the fact that Harris cast the deciding vote on the legislation that saved the pensions for hundreds of thousands of union members, including Teamsters. It was inexcusable that the union didn’t take the opportunity to communicate to their members and explain to them what was at stake in this election. Because if they had done that, they would have moved those numbers. No union leader could look at these two candidates and with any degree of honesty suggest that one of them wouldn’t be better for working people. Do you have thoughts on how to reconcile how the economy is doing versus how people feel the economy is doing? It seems that people’s personal experiences don’t necessarily match up with what the headlines say about the economy. I think that’s part of why the Harris campaign tread lightly on promoting some of the data on how inflation was down, because people were not feeling that. There’s an element there about the message and the messenger. It’s not that the party doesn’t stand for workers anymore; it’s that the party leadership is not getting in the trenches with workers anymore. Their accomplishments are partially paid short shrift because there’s a huge degree of cynicism overall about both parties and politics in general. Running a billion dollars in TV ads aimed at working people to try to say to them “We’re with you” — on the heels of 30 years of NAFTA and other trade deals and standing [with] corporations, and not getting in the trenches with workers? There’s a distinction between what the party is doing and fighting for and what people feel and see and understand. Biden was, by all accounts, the most pro-union president in our lifetimes. It must be incredibly insulting to President Biden, Vice President Harris [and others in the administration], who have done so much over the last few years for unions and workers, to be hearing that the party has abandoned them. You said that Democrats need to be doing the work in the trenches with workers. What does that look like? I think it is walking picket lines. I think it’s showing up at union halls. I think it’s gathering groups of working people together and sitting with them and listening to them — doing town hall meetings around your district or state and hearing what people have to say. It means standing united with working people and letting them see who’s really on their side. Over the next couple of years, it’s going to be standing strong against what’s going to be a vicious assault on a range of worker’s rights. There are going to be attacks on [the Occupational Safety and Health Administration], overtime pay, the National Labor Relations Board, funding the Fair Labor Standards Act, and federal workers’ unions. What has been your approach to mobilizing union and working-class voters? With our voter engagement program, In Union, we provide voters with a year of information — we don’t just start talking to them around the election. We give them tips on their families saving money, we provide them with information about unions on the front lines, we give them ways to hold politicians accountable and to fight back. And then we gradually get into communicating about the election itself. We never make endorsements, but we provide people with good, sound information and well-documented citations. How do you see that work evolving over the next few years? As crazy as it sounds, it’s not too soon to start [work for] 2026 in the Blue Wall states, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. In two of the states there will be open governors’ races, and [Gov. Josh] Shapiro will be up for reelection in Pennsylvania. And then — it sounds silly for me to talk about 2028, but every four years the labor movement has the potential to play an outsized role in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. So what we need to do is not wait until October 2026 or September 2028 and start communicating with union members [about] protecting workers’ rights. People want to be engaged. Union members will willingly make phone calls. They’ll talk to their elected officials. They will go to town hall meetings. They are more small-d democratic than most voters because they experience [democracy] in their unions [when] they elect local union officers and vote on contracts. We need to start now. There’s too much at stake for working people with this incoming administration to not start engaging people in January. Copyright Capital & Main

Trump names David Sacks as White House AI and crypto czar

We always begin the calendar year with a degree of optimism. To live with hope is in the very nature of human existence. No matter how tough the challenges in the year ahead, the optimists outnumber the pessimists. No amount of gloom or doom prospects purveyed by dismal economists can deter the optimists. Their confidence in the future is undiminished. In that spirit here is a prognosis for the year 2025, full of tough challenges for the optimists to tackle and overcome. The year ahead is full of uncertainty. Making an accurate prediction is foolish and is sure to fail. The sources of global uncertainty are economic and geo-political. In the latter category are many factors. These include the outcome of the endless war in Ukraine, the escalation of the Israel-Hamas conflict and its spillover into the wider region of West Asia, and the ascendance of far-right parties in many countries, most prominently in Germany. One of the largest economies in the world, the German government lost the vote of confidence in Parliament this month, leading to mid-term elections which will be held early next year. The German economy will contract for a second year in a row, even as it grapples with a rising deficit, need for greater funding of the overseas wars, a shortage of skills and underfunded education. Then there is a rising anti-immigrant sentiment fueled by the far-right parties. Will Germany tilt closer to Russia or to NATO? How will it deal with Iran and its competitor China? Will its economy bounce back? Beyond geo-politics is the economic uncertainty that will be heightened by America’s new leader, Donald Trump who takes oath on January 20. He has promised higher import tariffs, slashing government funding, stronger anti-immigrant policies and a withdrawal from most global climate treaties. His government will be more protectionist. He is likely to engage in international diplomacy purely from an American transactional perspective. At the same time his government will have to fight inflation along with recessionary winds. Meanwhile the American government debt has reached a new peak of 35 trillion dollars. Feeding this debt mountain are higher deficits and an insatiable appetite by the government for borrowing. The interest on the debt alone is about 1 trillion dollars. The borrowing appetite keeps the American dollar currency strong, causing other currencies like the Indian rupee to fall. Weaker currencies cause inflation to worsen. Despite its economic woes, the American stock market clocked new highs during 2024 leading to the creation of more than 150 new billionaires. The twelve richest men in America are together worth 2 trillion dollars now. We thus have a cocktail mix of high inflation, high unemployment, a wild asset markets growth (stocks and real estate) and widening wealth and income inequality. The stock markets have a habit of an abrupt and sharp correction, when collective paranoia takes hold. That bubble burst could happen but is unpredictable. Not many saw the Lehman crash coming in 2008. China is also fighting a slowdown and a large debt with stress in its banking and real estate. It is also trying to transition into the new economy powered by renewable energy, artificial intelligence, and space technology. The other parts of East Asia and Japan are in relatively better shape and have better macroeconomic features. Rising inequality is a global concern and its removal or reduction is one of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) of the United Nations. The rise of populist leaders, higher welfare spending is a response to rising inequality. How to manage the fiscal burden of welfare spending is a new challenge. In India too, welfare spending has expanded hugely, both by the Union governments and the States. A recent report by the Reserve Bank of India has cautioned against expanding subsidies and freebies indiscriminately. During 2024 sixty countries had national elections including India, and in most places rising inflation and inequality were big issues for voters. In many places incumbents were thrown out (such as in America) mainly due to inflation and economic hardships. In India too, the State assembly elections to Jharkhand and Maharashtra were swayed by promises of generous subsidies especially targeted at women. We will have two other States, Delhi and Bihar, electing new legislatures, and there is already talk of income subsidies to the poor, women and other sections of society. Who will pay for all of these is not a matter of debate, at least for now. On India’s domestic front there are many things to watch out. Two State assembly elections have been mentioned. The much-delayed national census is likely to be kicked off. A revamp of the consumer price index and the index of industrial production is on the cards. Discussion will begin on the delimitation exercise of readjustment of Parliamentary seats. The deadline is 2026. The sixteenth Finance Commission will finalise its recommendation later this year. Will it assign assured funding to the third tier of government? In many States election to local bodies like municipalities and panchayats have been long delayed, affecting local governance. The Indian rupee is expected to depreciate due to strong dollar policies of the Trump administration compounded by a wider trade deficit in India. The worry about how to increase foreign direct investment will remain. It has been falling for several years. The outflow of capital as well flight of rich people to other countries is also a matter of concern. Indians are expected to spend 70 billion dollars on the “import” of education, i.e. on students studying abroad. This is a major drain on the economy and reflects dissatisfaction with the quality of education in India, or of affordability and availability. On the technology front we will see the proliferation of electric vehicles, greater ethanol blending with petrol, and perhaps the initiation of pilot projects of small and modular nuclear reactors. One big economic development to watch for is the increase in private capital spending and the improvement in rural wages. The slowdown in urban consumption might call for a budgetary stimulus in the Union budget due to be presented in February. In summary a year filled with uncertainty about investment and growth, widening inequalities, the growing influence of geopolitics and conflicts, and ever surging asset markets guided by a loose monetary policy. (Dr. Ajit Ranade is a noted Pune-based economist ) ( Syndicate: The Billion Press )Newly Released Loans Exceed Trillion Yuan to Support Financing of Small and Micro Enterprises, Coordination Mechanism Accelerating Implementation and EffectivenessArsenal's lackluster performances on the field in recent matches have raised concerns among fans and pundits alike. One of the key issues highlighted by former Arsenal star, Freddie Ljungberg, is the team's struggle to score goals without relying on set pieces. In a recent interview, Ljungberg expressed his worry that Arsenal's inability to create scoring opportunities from open play could hinder their chances of success in the competitive Premier League.Soccer players, families at NCFC Youth Showcase cope with cold weekend in Raleigh

In conclusion, Arsenal's struggles in front of goal are a cause for concern, as they indicate a broader problem with the team's attacking play and creativity. With the Premier League becoming increasingly competitive and demanding, Arsenal must address these issues if they are to compete at the highest level. By improving their attacking efficiency and versatility, Arsenal can unlock their full potential and achieve success on the field. Only time will tell whether Mikel Arteta and his team can rise to the challenge and overcome their offensive woes.