Exclusive – Until Dawn Remake Developer Ballistic Moon “Effectively Closed”
Exclusive – Until Dawn Remake Developer Ballistic Moon “Effectively Closed”
Until Dawn Remake developer Ballistic Moon is “effectively closed”. That’s according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation.
Insider Gaming has learned that after the layoffs that were publicly announced in September 2024 took place, roughly 40 employees or so were let go. The remaining staff was kept to offer post-launch support and development on Until Dawn after its October release. In December 2024, however, the company quietly laid off that staff as well, resulting in around 20 more developers losing their job.
Sources say that only the studio’s founders remain and “possibly” a handful of employees “at most”. There are no employees in public relations, marketing, or development left.
“People are sharing bugs they’ve found in the game to make the team aware but there is no one working on patch support for the game anymore,” one source said. “The studio has effectively closed now.”
As far as what happened, those who spoke on the condition of anonymity made it clear that the owners attempted to keep things at Ballistic Moon moving forward. Many said that the owners were actively looking for funding and pitching projects, but couldn’t secure funding or a new publisher.
When asked about Sony publishing another game or future updates to Until Dawn Remake for the studio, one source said it was discussed but never came to fruition.
“Sony said after the game they might greenlight more funding for updates, but looks like they didn’t,” the source said.
Regarding working at the studio, most who spoke said that it was a generally good place to work. Many spoke highly of their teams and the work being done. What they didn’t like, though, were instances of unpaid overtime. One former employee equated it to “weeks” of unpaid work and that the internal announcement of redundancies came after the team had worked overtime.
“Nice reward for our hard work,” they said.
Ballistic Moon’s leadership has yet to put out an official statement on the status of the studio and whether or not it has been or will be closed. In technical terms, it’s remains active in name. Should a publisher sign on or funding come from elsewhere, the studio could start the hiring process again to bring in developers and other staff. Right now, however, there is no work being done.
Insider Gaming has attempted multiple times to get in contact with Ballistic Moon’s co-founders and owners as well as Sony regarding the claims of additional funding for the studio, but no responses have been received. Should any come after the publishing of this story, it will be added in an update.
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‘No One Is Gonna Buy’ Trucks That Cost $20,000 More, Dealer Tells Fox Business
‘No One Is Gonna Buy’ Trucks That Cost $20,000 More, Dealer Tells Fox Business
New tariffs that threaten to cripple the U.S. auto industry went into effect, and while it’s understandable that regular people would be upset about everything getting more expensive, you’d think car dealers would be on board. Wealthy owners of blue-collar businesses tend to love Trump. So Fox Business did what any far-right network would do and spoke to David Kelleher, the owner of a Ram dealership, about the tariffs. As it turns out, even he’s not a fan of Trump’s policies threatening his bottom line. Huh.
When asked about the impact of the tariffs, Kelleher called them “traumatic,” and then told a story about a customer who recently ordered a truck from his dealership. “$80,000 truck. It’s $100,000 now. So he’s not gonna buy the truck. It’s going to sit on my lot, and you know the higher interest rates we’re paying right now for floorplan, and nobody’s gonna buy the truck because it just had a $20,000 price increase.” When asked about Kelly Blue Book’s estimate that the average price of a new car would go up by about $3,000, Kelleher said he didn’t believe it. “That affects our parts that come from these countries and a whole bunch of our cars.”
Kelleher also added, “We can’t build a $4 billion plant overnight in the United States. So I think building in the United States is great. I think enhancing the participation from the other countries on the other things, but this is pretty radical.” It isn’t entirely clear what he meant by “enhancing the participation from the other countries on the other things,” but there’s also only so much time for details when you’re doing a live interview.
Read more: Even SpaceX Would Apparently Rather Use A Ford F-150 Lightning Than Tesla Cybertruck
Not What Fox News Wanted To Hear
As you can imagine, that wasn’t exactly what Fox wanted to hear. Jeff Flock, the interviewer, just sounded exhausted, and when the feed cut back to Maria Bartiromo, she appeared to be flustered and stumbled over her words. After a little of her customary word salad, Bartiromo went on a rant that I’m going to guess made more sense in her head. “You know what? Let me ask you this, OK. How many Dodge Rams do you see driving around Europe, OK? How many Dodge Rams do you see driving around India? I mean, not many, I bet. Why? Because they don’t buy our cars, and that’s what President Trump is trying to change. Maybe Dodge should start building them here and selling them here.”
Now, if you want to be a stickler, the answer to her question is that Dodge hasn’t made the Ram in well over a decade, and no one is buying brand new Dodge Rams in the U.S., either. That said, the Ram 1500 is still spiritually the Dodge Ram, and it likely always will be, so we don’t need to be pedants here. The rest of what she said was already so stupid, there’s no point. Full-size pickup trucks are already a little annoying to drive in the decaying strip malls we call cities here in the U.S. Streets and parking spaces are smaller, gas costs more, and large-displacement engines get taxed at higher rates. Of course full-size pickup trucks are going to be far less popular there than in the U.S.
Plus, both Dodge and Ram are currently owned by Stellantis, a European corporation that already sells plenty of vehicles in Europe from other brands that it owns. Why would Stellantis go to the effort of pushing vehicles that are a poor fit for a certain market when it has vehicles in its lineup that are better fits? That’s just Intro To Beginner Business, Maria.
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Final Fantasy XVI Getting Crazy Expensive Limited Edition Watches That Will Make You Feel Poor
Final Fantasy XVI Getting Crazy Expensive Limited Edition Watches That Will Make You Feel Poor
Square Enix is collaborating with watchmaker Franck Muller for a set of Final Fantasy XVI watches that most fans won’t be able to afford.
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Trump Commerce chief Lutnick blames Biden for economy
Trump Commerce chief Lutnick blames Biden for economy
President Donald Trump acknowledges the crowd after his inauguration as the 47th president of the United States, in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., Jan. 20, 2025.
Shawn Thew | Via Reuters
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick argued Wednesday that former President Joe Biden — not his boss, President Donald Trump — is to blame for recent negative economic data and a plunge in stock prices.
“The president spoke about it last night,” Lutnick said in an interview on Bloomberg Television. “He said Biden left him a pile of poop.”
“He left him a lot of the economy that [Trump’s] trying to fix,” Lutnick said.
Trump in an address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night said Biden had left him an “economic catastrophe” and an “inflation nightmare” to deal with.
In fact, the U.S. economy grew by 2.8% in the past year, and the inflation rate in December was 2.9% — well below the 40-year high of 9.1% hit in June 2022.
Lutnick’s comments came as Bloomberg asked him about “data over the last few weeks that hasn’t been great,” as well as concerns that Trump’s massive new tariffs on Canada and Mexico will stall economic growth and stock prices.
“You’re looking at Biden data,” Lutnick retorted.
“Do not try to besmirch my President Trump with Biden’s nonsense,” Lutnick said.
“We are in the middle of March,” he said. “My president took over Jan. 20. You think economic data coming out in early March is Donald Trump-related data?”
“Come on. You got to be kidding me,” he said. “Stop it, stop it, stop it.”
Pressed on whether he was arguing that troubling economic data was misleading, Lutnick said, “I think that data is leading you to understand that if Joe Biden was still in charge, you’d be in trouble.”
“But you have a new president, you have a new sheriff in charge,” Lutnick said. “You see the investments, you see already there’s trillions of dollars of manufacturing moving to America.”
Earlier Wednesday, the payroll processing firm ADP reported that companies added just 77,000 new workers in February, well below the upwardly revised figure of 186,000 workers in January, and almost half of what was the Dow Jones consensus estimate for the month.
On Monday and Tuesday, the benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by more than 1,300 points combined.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick speaks as President Donald Trump, left, listens, during an investment announcement in the White House in Washington, D.C., March 3, 2025.
Samuel Corum | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Also on Monday, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta issued a forecast that calls for gross domestic product to fall by 2.8% in the first quarter of 2025, down from -1.5% last week. The Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow estimate in mid-February had projected a rise — not a drop — of 2.3%.
And last week, the Conference Board reported that U.S. “consumer confidence dropped sharply in February,” which was Trump’s first full month back in the White House. The 7-point drop was the largest decline in consumer confidence since August 2021.
Read more CNBC politics coverage
Wednesday was not the first time Lutnick tried to put distance between the Trump White House and economic data it does not like.
On Sunday, he suggested the administration might change how gross domestic product is tabulated.
“You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.”
The idea was quickly panned by economists. Breaking out government spending as a separate category from consumer spending in GDP calculations “could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the U.S. economy’s health,” the Associated Press noted.
The idea has at least one high-profile fan, however: Elon Musk.
Musk, whose so-called Department of Government Efficiency is waging a crusade to shrink the federal government’s workforce and its budget, on Friday tweeted: “A more accurate measure of GDP would exclude government spending.”
“Otherwise, you can scale GDP artificially high by spending money on things that don’t make people’s lives better,” Musk wrote.
Lutnick’s suggestion that economic data was open to political revision is part of a broader Trump administration campaign against government data collection and dissemination.
Last week, Lutnick disbanded two expert committees that worked with the government to produce economic statistics, Reuters reported Tuesday.
One of them, the Federal Economic Statistics Advisory Committee, helped generate data on inflation, on employment, and on gross domestic product.
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Townsfolk is a retro roguelike strategy where you conquer new lands for the Crown
Townsfolk is a retro roguelike strategy where you conquer new lands for the Crown
Townsfolk is the newest upcoming release from Short Circuit Studios
It sees you departing from their twee catalogue in favour of dark, grim roguelike strategy
Maintain your populace’s faith, challenge natural obstacles and provide your tithe to the Crown
The folks over at Short Circuit Studios have produced some truly intriguing releases over the years, be that toybox simulators Teeny Tiny Trains, Teeny Tiny Town or Tiny Connections. But now they’re taking a darker, more retro tack with the upcoming release of roguelike strategy city-builder Townsfolk, expected to arrive on April 3rd.
In Townsfolk you play the leader of an expedition sent to colonise new lands by the Crown. Your job? Simply to make sure your people survive, and thrive while expanding the resources of your colony and ensuring that your Food, Gold, Faith and Production are all well within the green.
Of course ,it’s not all sunshine and rainbows in this untamed and uncharted land, and god forbid you forget to pay your tithes to the Crown. You’ll need to deal with wild animals, unpredictable disasters and crucial moral dilemmas to try and keep your colony stable.
Hexcrawl
Townsfolk is quite the departure for Short Circuit Studios. Previously I’d have put their output firmly into the category of quaint and twee, but it seems that they’re attempting to branch out a bit. Townsfolk has a much darker aesthetic and a seemingly harsher difficulty curve to contend with, and given that it’s sitting in the roguelike sub-genre I’ve no doubt you’ll need to learn to contend with failure.
Townsfolk comes with multiple modes for you to enjoy too, be that the Roguelite Campaign itself, Skirmish Mode to test your mettle in a variety of challenges or Puzzle Challenges to present some truly mind-bending obstacles.
Need to expand your strategic mindset? Want to put your city-building, army-leading or number-crunching skills to the test? Be sure to check out our comprehensive lists of the top strategy games for iOS and Android to find new ways to bust your brain cells in the pursuit of perfect leadership.
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*** watchdog drops competition review of Microsoft’s OpenAI partnership | Microsoft
*** watchdog drops competition review of Microsoft’s OpenAI partnership | Microsoft
The ***’s competition watchdog will not hold a formal investigation into Microsoft’s partnership with the startup behind the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT, stating that while the $2.9tn (£2.3tn) tech company has “material influence” over OpenAI it does not control it.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said Microsoft, OpenAI’s biggest financial backer with a $13bn investment, acquired material influence over the San Francisco-based business in 2019 but did not exercise de facto control over it – and therefore did not meet the threshold for an official inquiry.
The decision follows expressions of disquiet over the appointment of the former boss of Amazon ***, Doug Gurr, as the CMA’s interim chair. The organisation’s chief executive, Sarah Cardell, has also said the CMA does not want to create a “chilling effect” on business confidence, amid pressure from the *** government on regulators to produce pro-growth proposals.
The CMA’s executive director for mergers, Joel Bamford, said: “We have found that there has not been a change of control by Microsoft from material influence to de facto control over OpenAI. Because this change of control has not happened, the partnership in its current form does not qualify for review under the ***’s merger control regime.”
However, Bamford added that the decision should “not be read as the partnership being given a clean bill of health on competition concerns”.
The CMA started investigating the OpenAI relationship after the dramatic sacking and reinstatement of Sam Altman as OpenAI’s chief executive – over a hectic few days in November 2023, Microsoft announced it had hired Altman, only for him to rejoin the startup.
The CMA highlighted a recent reduction in OpenAI’s reliance on Microsoft for computer power – a key factor in operating an AI business – as an influence over its decision.
A Microsoft spokesperson said the partnership with OpenAI and its continued evolution “promote competition, innovation, and responsible AI development … We welcome the CMA’s conclusion, after careful and prudent consideration of the commercial realities, to close its investigation.”
Last year, the CMA decided not to investigate Amazon’s investment in the AI firm Anthropic and further Microsoft partnerships with the AI firms Mistral and Inflection.
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Microsoft recently contributed to a funding round that raised $6.6bn for OpenAI and valued the business at $157bn. OpenAI is run by a non-profit board but has a for-profit subsidiary, in which Microsoft is the biggest backer, with returns to investors and employees capped.
Despite concerns over Gurr’s appointment and the CMA’s efforts to avoid a “chilling effect” on the economy, the CMA did target big tech with investigations in January, the month that Gurr was appointed. Google is being investigated over its dominance in internet search and search advertising, while it is also conducting a separate inquiry on the impact of Apple and Google’s mobile platforms on consumers and businesses.
In January, Microsoft said the CMA was making a “fundamental mistake” in its investigation into the cloud market, after the watchdog said the tech firm was making it harder for Google and Amazon to compete effectively for customers in cloud computing, the term for providing IT services such as data storage and computing power over the internet with a pay-as-you-go pricing structure.
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England bench Marcus Smith for Italy Six Nations clash
England bench Marcus Smith for Italy Six Nations clash
England have dropped Marcus Smith for the Six Nations clash against Italy at Twickenham with Elliot Daly replacing him as coach Steve Borthwick makes three changes to the line-up that began the narrow victory over Scotland.
In a dramatic shake-up of the backline for Sunday’s match, Smith is demoted to the bench while Henry Slade is jettisoned from the 23 altogether, with Fraser Dingwall making his first Test appearance since last year’s Championship.
The reshaped midfield sees Dingwall slot in at inside centre, with Ollie Lawrence remaining in the No.13 jersey.
Daly, who scored the winning try in the 26-25 win against France after coming off the bench, is preferred at fullback with Fin Smith retaining his place at fly-half.
Former skipper Jamie George returns at hooker to earn his 100th cap, becoming the seventh England player to reach the century milestone.
“Reaching 100 caps is a wonderful achievement that reflects Jamie’s talent, dedication and hard work,” Borthwick said.
Marcus Smith had been Borthwick’s first-choice 10 but was shifted to fullback for England’s last two games in the tournament, thrilling one-point wins against France and Scotland.
But, against Scotland, he looked uncomfortable and barely ran with the ball while his defending was targeted.
On the decision to drop him, Borthwick said: “It’s brilliant for England to have such high-quality players. You’ll have seen Elliot’s impact off the bench and I’m looking forward to seeing Marcus Smith off the bench against tiring defenders, in space.”
Dingwall, who won his last England cap more than a year ago, will be in familiar company in England’s back line. His inclusion means five of the seven backs to start on Sunday will be from Premiership champions Northampton.
Alex Mitchell will continue his half back partnership with Smith, with Ollie Sleightholme on the left wing and Tommy Freeman on the right.
England were criticised for kicking away possession against Scotland and will be looking to build a positive points difference against an Italy side thrashed by France last time out.
Borthwick’s side are third and have minus three difference although they retain an outside chance of winning the title.
England team: 15-Elliot Daly, 14-Tommy Freeman, 13-Ollie Lawrence, 12-Fraser Dingwall, 11-Ollie Sleightholme, 10-Fin Smith, 9-Alex Mitchell, 8-Tom Willis, 7-Ben Earl, 6-Tom Curry, 5-Ollie Chessum, 4-Maro Itoje (capt), 3-Will Stuart, 2-Jamie George, 1-Ellis Genge.
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Assassin’s Creed Shadows preload guide: release date, file size, and more
Assassin’s Creed Shadows preload guide: release date, file size, and more
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Assassin’s Creed Shadows release date
Assassin’s Creed Shadows file size
Assassin’s Creed Shadows preload options
Assassin’s Creed Shadows preorder details
Plenty of upcoming video games have been delayed, but few as much and as far as Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Finally, the game is coming out one way or another very soon, giving us fans the ancient Japanese setting they’ve been asking for since the series began in 2007. Whether or not this will be one of the best Assassin’s Creed games is yet to be determined, but we’re not far from getting that answer. If you’ve been waiting for months to get your hands on this new open-world game, these are all the preload details you need to know to be ready to enter the world of assassins as soon as possible.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows release date
Ubisoft
There’s no more room for delays, so Assassin’s Creed Shadows will come out on March 20 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC no matter what.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows file size
Ubisoft
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is clocking in at 109 GB on Xbox, 100 GB on PC, and 123 GB on Mac. While PS5 sizes haven’t been confirmed yet, it should be nearly identical to the Xbox Series X version.
No matter what platform you’re on, over 100 GB is a huge file size even by today’s standards. If you’ve got a slow connection, preloading will be essential to play the game in a reasonable amount of time after launch.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows preload options
Ubisoft
Preloading is available right now for Xbox Series X gamers, with PS5 preloads reportedly starting on March 17. In either case, that will hopefully be plenty of time for players to get most of that massive file size downloaded.
There is no word on when PC preloads will start, or if they even will be an option, though we suspect preloads will begin on March 17 alongside PS5 preloads.
As long as you have preordered any version of Assassin’s Creed Shadows, you are eligible to preload the game if/when the option is available on your platform.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows preorder details
Ubisoft
If you haven’t preordered Assassin’s Creed Shadows yet, it isn’t too late. There are three editions to pick from, but note that preordering any version will allow you to preload the game. Here’s a breakdown of your preorder options.
Standard Edition – $70
Assassin’s Creed Shadows
Thrown to the Dogs day 1 quest
Claws of Awaji expansion (expected 2025)
Digital Deluxe Edition – $90
Everything from the Standard Edition
Deluxe Pack which includes:
Sekireyu Dual Pack (Sekiryu Gear Set for both Naoe and Yasuke, Eye of the Dragon Katana, Claw of the Dragon Long Katana, Sekiryu Beast Mount, and Dragon Tooth Trinket.)
Hideout Pack (Sekiryu Wagasa, Sekiryu Tapestry, Sekiryu Mask, and Sekiryu Mizubachi.)
5 Mastery points
Collector’s Edition (GameStop exclusive) – $230
Everything from all prior editions
Naoe and Yasuke dual character statue (15.7 inches tall).
Unique SteelBook case.
Collector’s art book (76 pages).
Naoe’s katana tsuba (life-sized).
World map.
Creed wall scroll (27.6×11.8 inches).
Two sumi-e lithographs (5.3×7.5 inches each).
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Intel defeats shareholder lawsuit over foundry losses, $32 billion plunge
Intel defeats shareholder lawsuit over foundry losses, $32 billion plunge
By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) – Intel (INTC) won the dismissal of a shareholder lawsuit accusing the chipmaker of fraudulently concealing problems in its foundry business, leading to job cuts and a dividend suspension that wiped out more than $32 billion of market value in one day.
In a decision made public on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Trina Thompson in San Francisco rejected claims that Intel took too long to reveal a $7 billion fiscal 2023 operating loss linked to its business of making chips for outside customers.
Intel did not disclose the loss until last April, when it made changes to how it reported financial results.
NasdaqGS – Nasdaq Real Time Price • USD
As of 12:28:27 PM EST. Market Open.
But the judge said shareholders incorrectly attributed the $7 billion loss to the Intel Foundry Services business unit, and were not misled into believing the unit’s reported results “included results for the entire Internal Foundry Model.”
Thompson also said statements last March by former Chief Executive Patrick Gelsinger that Intel was enjoying “significant traction” and “growing demand for our foundry offering” were not misleading because they concerned specific customers rather than overall revenue, which was falling.
Lawyers for the shareholders did not immediately respond on Wednesday to a request for comment. Intel declined to comment. Thompson said the plaintiffs may file an amended complaint.
The lawsuit accused Intel of inflating its stock price from January 25 to August 1, 2024, when Intel posted a $1.61 billion quarterly loss and said it would lay off more than 15,000 people and suspend its dividend to help save $10 billion in 2025.
Intel’s share price fell 26% the next day, resulting in the $32 billion loss of market value.
The Santa Clara, California-based company has struggled to fend off competition from rival chipmakers and benefit from growth in artificial intelligence.
Its rivals include Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, Samsung Electronics and Taiwan’s TSMC. Intel ousted Gelsinger in December.
The case is In re Intel Corp Securities Litigation, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 24-02683.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
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Fragpunk Gets Last-Minute Delay On Console, PC Version Launching As Planned
Fragpunk Gets Last-Minute Delay On Console, PC Version Launching As Planned
Developer Bad Guitar Studio has announced that it has delayed the PS5 and Xbox releases of Fragpunk due to technical difficulties, though the PC version will still launch tomorrow, March 6. A new release date for the console versions has not been revealed.
“During the console compliance testing process, we encountered unexpected technical challenges in optimization and adaption,” the team said in a statement. “Rather than rushing the console release and providing a potentially poor user experience, we have made the difficult decision to delay the launch of the console versions to ensure that players receive a comparable experience to those on PC.”
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Now Playing: Fragpunk World Premiere | Xbox Games Showcase 2024
As consolation, players will receive all rewards gained through engagement from the start of Season 1 until the console versions go live. These include in-game currency, cosmetics, and experience.
As a result of the delay, the studio has to cancel and refund all preorders on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S due to their platform policies. Those who’ve already preorder will also receive $10 worth of in-game currency when the console versions launch.
There are also no longer any preorder bonuses for the console versions either, but the bundle will be available in a limited-time capacity when they’re released.
Fragpunk is a free-to-play new hero shooter that utilizes a card system with various abilities. The card selection changes every round and can be mixed and matched to create some wild combinations. For example, there are cards that can increase your jump height, engulf your bullets in flame, and resurrect your allies.
Bad Guitar Studio is also a subsidiary of NetEase, which has been mired in controversy lately. NetEase is reportedly trying to sell off its non-******** studio but the company claims it’s still committed to its overseas studios.
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Biggest risk from tariffs is ‘corporate paralysis,’ says Bank of America
Biggest risk from tariffs is ‘corporate paralysis,’ says Bank of America
The uncertainty caused by tariffs could put downward pressure on all manner of corporate activities, from investment to mergers and acquisitions to debt issuance. That is the view of Bank of America’s equity and quantitative strategy team, led by Savita Subramanian. “Perhaps the biggest risk about tariffs is a self-fulfilling slowdown due to corporate paralysis,” the strategist wrote in a note Tuesday. Such a pause was seen in 2018, during President Donald Trump’s first term in office, Subramanian noted. Growing numbers of investors think there is an increased chance the U.S. will soon suffer from stagflation, which is when high inflation is accompanied by only sluggish economic growth, BofA added. Tariffs and deportations are inflationary, while uncertainty and less demand are recessionary. But BofA is unfazed by such concerns. “Investors [are] assigning a 59% probability to stagflation risk despite the fact that stagflation has occurred ~5% of the time historically,” Subramanian said. Bank of America forecasts Trump policies will add no more than 0.1% to core PCE inflation, while the hit to gross domestic product will be even smaller. As a result of the tariff headwinds, Subramanian remains underweight in her recommendation on tech stocks, which she says are highly exposed to China as well as globally exposed supply chains. A short- to medium-term beneficiary of the Trump tariffs may be U.S. steel companies, Subramanian noted. “Our U.S. steel industry coverage should benefit from higher prices as steel sold to U.S. based clients is mostly produced in the U.S.,” she added. Nonetheless, higher domestic steel prices could also lead to downward pressure on demand, which would eventually hurt prices, she added. — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed to this report.
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Ghost of Yotei Release *******—When is Ghost of Tsushima 2 Coming Out? Confirmed Platforms
Ghost of Yotei Release *******—When is Ghost of Tsushima 2 Coming Out? Confirmed Platforms
Sucker Punch has been tight-lipped about Ghost of Yotei so far, but we’re keeping an eye on the Ghost of Tsushima 2 sequel. The stealthy standalone follow-up has a few details out in the public already, and it’s looking promising.
Ghost of Yotei was a fun surprise announcement during the Sept. 24, 2024, Sony State of Play. Ghost of Tsushima cemented Sucker Punch as a stalwart of a studio following years of success with Sly Cooper and inFamous. Now, it’s back with Ghost of Yotei, and a certain Ubisoft Assassin’s Creed Shadows is making Ghost of Yotei more intriguing by the day.
Let’s take a look at the latest Ghost of Yotei reveals and announcements.
Do we Know When Ghost of Yotei is Coming Out?
Expect Ghost of Yotei to be just as impactful. Credit to Sucker Punch
Ghost of Yotei doesn’t have a release date yet, but its initial reveal trailer claimed a 2025 release is on the cards for the open-world game.
The first trailer was stunning, it was captivating, and it shockingly had a release *******. After nearly three minutes of eye-opening action and drama, Ghost of Yotei’s Announce Trailer had a simple message: “2025.”
As of writing, we’ve not heard too much about Ghost of Yotei since. The calendar year is stacked with new games, but Sony’s catalog of hardware-selling goliaths is probably a bit more barren than most would have thought. A delay or a development hiccup could scupper Ghost of Yotei’s 2025 release date, and we’ll update this guide if this is the case.
Also, I’d wager Sucker Punch wants breathing space between Ghost of Yotei and Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows. There are a lot of similarities between both titles, so waiting until Shadows releases is the prudent play.
You can check out the full announcement trailer below—thanks to the PlayStation YouTube account.
All Ghost of Yotei Platforms
Ghost of Yotei is currently only scheduled to release on PlayStation 5.
There isn’t a PlayStation 4 port scheduled—which makes sense given the supposed scale of the title—but an eyebrow or two might be raised at a lack of a PC launch. Ghost of Tsushima eventually released on PC a few years after its initial debut.
With Sony’s continued philosophy to bring its exclusives to PC after a while, it’s likely Ghost of Yotei will follow in the footsteps of its predecessor and release on PC later on.
More Ghost of Yotei information is sure to drop as 2025 progresses. Could the Ghost of Tsushima successor end up being PlayStation’s star attraction this year? Or does Sony need to deliver more exclusive news?
If you are a Ghost of Tsushima fan, check out the latest on Ghost of Tsushima Legends—a fully fledged anime. Plus, look at the biggest PlayStation games expected to come out in 2025.
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Read Trump’s speech transcript for the 2025 joint address to Congress
Read Trump’s speech transcript for the 2025 joint address to Congress
President Trump, in his 2025 address to the joint session of Congress, on March 4, 2025, sought to highlight the accomplishments of the opening weeks of his second administration. Over an hour and 40 minutes, the longest address of its kind, Mr. Trump spoke of his efforts to contain ******** immigration, the executive orders he has signed and his vision for how Congress should enact his sweeping legislative agenda. He also praised the work of Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency task force, or DOGE, for the drastic cuts they have enacted across the executive branch.
Read the full text of his prepared remarks:
Speaker Johnson, Vice President Vance, the first lady of the United States, members of the United States Congress, thank you very much and to my fellow citizens: America is back. Six weeks ago, I stood beneath the dome of this Capitol and proclaimed the dawn of the Golden Age of America. From that moment on, it has been nothing but swift and unrelenting action to usher in the greatest and most successful era in the history of our country. We have accomplished more in 43 days than most administrations accomplished in 4 years, 8 years — and we are just getting started. I return to this chamber tonight to report that America’s momentum is back. Our spirit is back. Our pride is back. Our confidence is back. And the American Dream is surging ******* and better than ever before.
The American Dream is unstoppable, and our country is on the verge of a comeback the likes of which the world has never witnessed, and perhaps will never witness again. Never been anything like it. The presidential election of November 5th was a mandate like has not been seen in many decades. We won all seven swing states, giving us an Electoral College victory of 312 votes. We won the popular vote by big numbers and won counties in our country 2,700 to 525 on a map that reads almost completely red for Republican.
Now, for the first time in modern history, more Americans believe that our country is headed in the right direction than the wrong direction — in fact it’s an astonishing record, 27-point swing — the most ever. Likewise, small business optimism saw its single largest one-month gain ever recorded, a 41-point jump. Over the past six weeks, I have signed nearly 100 Executive Orders and taken more than 400 Executive Actions, a record to restore common sense, safety, optimism and wealth all across our wonderful land. The people elected me to do the job, and I am doing it. In fact, it has been stated by many that the first month of our presidency, it’s our presidency, is the most successful in the history of our nation. By many.
And what makes it even more impressive, is that you know who number two is? George Washington. How about that? I don’t know about that list but we’ll take it. Within hours of taking the oath of office, I declared a national emergency on our southern border, and I deployed the U.S. military and Border Patrol to repel the invasion of our country, and what a job they’ve done. As a result, ******** border crossings last month were by far the lowest ever recorded, ever. They heard my words and they chose not to come. Much easier that way.
In comparison, under Joe Biden, the worst president in American history, there were hundreds of thousands of ******** crossings a month, and virtually all of them, including murderers, drug dealers, gang members and people from mental institutions and insane asylums, were released into our country. Who would want to do that?
This is my fifth such speech to Congress, and once again, I look at the Democrats in front of me, and I realize there is absolutely nothing I can say to make them happy or to make them stand or smile or applaud, nothing I can do. I could find a cure to the most devastating disease, a disease that would wipe out entire nations, or announce the answers to the greatest economy in history or the stoppage of crime to the lowest levels ever recorded, and these people sitting right here will not clap, will not stand and certainly will not cheer for these astronomical achievements. They won’t do it no matter what, five, five times I’ve been up here. It’s very sad, and it just shouldn’t be this way.
So, Democrats sitting before me, for just this one night, why not join us in celebrating so many incredible wins for America, for the good of our nation? Let’s work together and let’s truly make America great again. Every day my administration is fighting to deliver the change America needs to bring a future America deserves and we’re doing it. This is a time for big dreams and bold action.
Upon taking office, I imposed an immediate freeze on all federal hiring, a freeze on all new federal regulations, and a freeze on all foreign aid. I terminated the ridiculous green new scam. I withdrew from the unfair Paris Climate Accord, which was costing us trillions of dollars that other countries were not paying. I withdrew from the corrupt World Health Organization, and I also withdrew from the anti-American U.N. Human Rights Council. We ended all of Biden’s environmental restrictions that were making our country far less safe and totally unaffordable. And importantly, we ended the last administration’s insane electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto workers and companies from economic destruction. To unshackle our economy, I have directed that for every one new regulation, 10 old regulations must be eliminated, just like I did in my very successful first term. And in that first term, we set records on ending unnecessary rules and regulations like no other president had done before.
We ordered all federal workers to return to the office. They will either show up for work in person or be removed from their job. We have ended weaponized government, where, as an example, a sitting president is allowed to viciously prosecute his political opponent like me. How did that work out? Not too good, not too good. And I have stopped all government censorship and brought back free speech in America, it’s back. And two days ago I signed an order making English the official language of the United States of America.
I renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. And likewise, I renamed for a great president, William McKinley, Mount McKinley, again. Beautiful Alaska. We love Alaska. We’ve ended the tyranny of so-called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies all across the entire federal government and indeed the private sector and our military. And our country will be woke no longer.
We believe that whether you are a doctor, an accountant, a lawyer or an air traffic controller, you should be hired and promoted based on skill and competence, not race or gender. You should be hired based on merit, and the Supreme Court in a brave and very powerful decision has allowed us to do so. Thank you, thank you very much. We have removed the poison of critical race theory from our public schools and I signed an order making the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female.
I also signed an executive order to ban men from playing in women’s sports. Three years ago, Payton McNabb was an all-star high school athlete, one of the best, preparing for a future in college sports. But when her girls volleyball match was invaded by a male, he smashed the ball so hard in Payton’s face, causing traumatic brain injury, partially paralyzing her right side and ending her athletic career. It was a shot like she’s never seen before. She’s never seen anything like it. Payton is here tonight in the gallery, and Payton, from now on, schools will kick the men off the girls team or they will lose all federal funding.
And if you really want to see numbers, just take a look at what happened in the women’s boxing, weightlifting, track and field, swimming or cycling, where a male recently finished a long-distance race five hours and 14 minutes ahead of a woman for a new record by five hours. Broke the record by five hours. It’s demeaning for women, and it’s very bad for our country. We’re not going to put up with it any longer.
What I have just described is only a small fraction of the common sense revolution that is now because of us sweeping the entire world, common sense has become a common theme, and we will never go back. Never, never going to let that happen. Among my very highest priorities is to rescue our economy and get dramatic and immediate relief to working families. As you know, we inherited from the last administration an economic catastrophe and an inflation nightmare. Their policies drove up energy prices, pushed up grocery costs, and drove the necessities of life out of reach for millions and millions of Americans, they’ve never had anything like it. We suffered the worst inflation in 48 years, but perhaps even in the history of our country, they’re not sure. As president, I’m fighting every day to reverse this damage and make America affordable again.
Joe Biden especially let the price of eggs get out of control. The egg prices out of control. And we are working hard to get it back down. Secretary, do a good job on that, you inherited a total mess from that administration. Do a good job. A major focus of our fight to defeat inflation is rapidly reducing the cost of energy. The previous administration cut the number of new oil and gas leases by 95%, slowed pipeline construction to a halt, and closed more than 100 power plants. We are opening up many of those power plants right now. And frankly, we have never seen anything like it.
That’s why, on my first day in office, I declared a national energy emergency. As you’ve heard me say many times, we have more liquid gold under our feet than any nation on Earth. And by far, and now, I fully authorize the most talented team ever assembled to go and get it. It’s called drill, baby, drill.
My administration is also working on a gigantic natural gas pipeline in Alaska, among the largest in the world, where Japan, South Korea and other nations want to be our partner with investments of trillions of dollars each. It’s never been anything like that one. It will be truly spectacular. It’s all set to go. The permitting has gotten and later this week, I will also take historic action to dramatically expand production of critical minerals and rare earths here in the USA.
To further combat inflation, we will not only be reducing the cost of energy, but will be ending the flagrant waste of taxpayer dollars.
And to that end I have created the brand new Department of Government Efficiency. DOGE! Perhaps you’ve heard of it, perhaps. Which is headed by Elon Musk, who is in the gallery tonight. Thank you, Elon, you’re working very hard. He didn’t need this, he didn’t need this. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Everybody here, even this side, appreciates it I believe. They just don’t want to admit that.
Just listen to some of the appalling waste we have already identified: $22 billion from HHS to provide free housing and cars for ******** aliens, $45 million for diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships in Burma, $40 million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants. Nobody knows what that is. $8 million to promote LGBTQ+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of, $60 million for indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombian empowerment in Central America. $60 million. $8 million for making mice transgender.
This is real. $32 million for a left-wing propaganda operation in Moldova. $10 million for male circumcision in Mozambique. $20 million for the Arab “Sesame Street” in the Middle East, it’s a program, $20 million for program. $1.9 billion to recently created decarbonization of homes committee — headed up and we know she’s involved just at the last moment, the money was passed over by a woman named Stacey Abrams. Have you ever heard of her? A $3.5 million consulting contract for lavish fish monitoring. $1.5 million for voter confidence in Liberia, $14 million for social cohesion in Mali, $59 million for ******** alien hotel rooms in New York City, real estate developers done very well. $250,000 to increase vegan local climate action innovation in Zambia, $42 million for social and behavior change in Uganda, $14 million for improving public procurement in Serbia, $47 million for improving learning outcomes in Asia. Asia is doing very well with learning. You know what we’re doing? Should use it ourselves. A $101 million for DEI contracts at the Department of Education. The most ever paid, nothing even like it. Under the Trump administration, all of these scams and there are far worse, but I didn’t think it was appropriate to talk about them, they’re so bad. Many more have been found out and exposed and swiftly terminated by a group of very intelligent, mostly young people headed up by Elon, and we appreciate it. We found hundreds of billions of dollars of fraud.
And we’ve taken back the money and reduced our debt to fight inflation and other things. Taking back a lot of that money, we got it just in time. This is just the beginning. The Government Accountability Office, federal government office, has estimated annual fraud of over $500 billion in our nation, and we are working very hard to stop it. We’re going to. We’re also identifying shocking levels of incompetence and probable fraud in the Social Security program for our seniors and that our seniors and people that we love rely on.
Believe it or not, government databases list 4.7 million Social Security members from people aged 100 to 109 years old. It lists 3.6 million people from ages 110 to 119. I don’t know any of them. I know some people that are rather elderly, but not quite that elderly. 3.47 million people from ages 120 to 129, 3.9 million people from ages 130 to 139, 3.5 million people from ages 140 to 149, and money is being paid to many of them, and we’re searching right now. In fact, Pam, good luck, good luck. You’re going to find it. But a lot of money is paid out to people, because it just keeps getting paid and paid, and nobody does, and it really hurts Social Security and hurts our country, 1.3 million people from ages 150 to 159 and over 130,000 people, according to the Social Security databases, are age over 160 years old. We have a healthier country than I thought, Bobby.
Including, to finish, 1,039 people between the ages of 220 and 229, one person between the age of 240 and 249 and one person is listed at 360 years of age — more than 100 years, more than 100 years older than our country. But we’re going to find out where that money is going, and it’s not going to be pretty, by slashing all of the fraud, waste and theft. And theft we can find. We will defeat inflation, bring down mortgage rates, lower car payments and grocery prices, protect our seniors and put more money in the pockets of American families.
And today, interest rates took a beautiful drop. Big beautiful drop. It’s about time. And in the near future I want to do what has not been done in 24 years — balance the federal budget, we’re gonna balance it.
With that goal in mind, we have developed in great detail what we are calling the Gold Card, which goes on ***** very, very soon. For $5 million we will allow the most successful job-creating people from all over the world to buy a path to U.S. citizenship. It’s like the green card, but better and more sophisticated. And these people will have to pay tax in our country. They won’t have to pay tax from where they came, the money that they’ve made, you wouldn’t want to do that. But they have to pay tax, create jobs. They’ll also be taking people out of colleges and paying for them so that we can keep them in our country, instead of having them being forced out. Number one at the top school as an example, being forced out and not being allowed to stay and create tremendous numbers of jobs and great success for a company out there.
So while we take out the criminals, killers, traffickers and child predators who are allowed to enter our country under the open border policy of these people, the Democrats, the Biden administration, the open border, insane policies that you’ve allowed to destroy our country, we will now bring in brilliant, hardworking job-creating people. They’re going to pay a lot of money, and we’re going to reduce our debt with that money.
Americans have given us a mandate for bold and profound change. For nearly 100 years the federal bureaucracy has grown until it has crushed our freedoms, ballooned our deficits, and held back America’s potential in every possible way. The nation founded by pioneers and risk takers, now drowns under millions and millions of pages of regulations and debt. Approvals that should take 10 days to get instead, take 10 years, 15 years, and even 20 years before you reject it. Meanwhile, we have hundreds of thousands of federal workers who have not been showing up to work. My administration will reclaim power from this unaccountable bureaucracy, and we will restore true democracy to America again. Any federal bureaucrat who resists this change will be removed from office immediately.
Because we are draining the swamp, it’s very simple, and the days of rule by unelected bureaucrats are over. And the next phase of our plan to deliver the greatest economy in history is for this Congress to pass tax cuts for everybody. They’re in there, they’re waiting for you to vote. And I’m sure that the people on my right — I don’t mean the Republican right, but my right, right here — I’m sure you’re going to vote for those tax cuts, because otherwise I don’t believe the people will ever vote you into office. So I’m doing you a big favor by telling you that. But I know this group is going to be voting for the tax cut. A very, very big part of our plan, we had tremendous success in our first term with it, a very big part of our plan. We’re seeking permanent income tax cuts all across the board and to get urgently needed relief to Americans hit especially hard by inflation. I’m calling for no tax on tips, no tax overtime and no tax on Social Security benefits for our great seniors.
And I also want to make interest payments on car loans tax deductible, but only if the car is made in America. Oh, and by the way, we’re going to have growth in the auto industry like nobody’s ever seen. Plants are opening up all over the place. Deals are being made like never seen. That’s a combination of the election win and tariffs. It’s a beautiful word, isn’t it? That that along with our other policies will allow our auto industry to absolutely *****. It’s going to *****. Spoke to the majors today. All three, the top people and they’re so excited. In fact, already numerous car companies have announced that they will be building massive automobile plants in America, with Honda just announcing a new plant in Indiana, one of the largest anywhere in the world. And this has taken place since a great victory on November 5th, a date which will hopefully go down as one of the most important in the history of our country. In addition, as part of our tax cuts, we want to cut taxes on domestic production and all manufacturing. And just as we did before, we will provide 100% expensing. It will be retroactive to January 20th, 2025.
And it was one of the main reasons why our tax cuts were so successful in our first term, giving us the most successful economy in the history of our country. First term, we had a great first term. And if you don’t make your product in America, however, under the Trump administration, you will pay a tariff and in some cases a rather large one. Other countries have used tariffs against us for decades, and now it’s our turn to start using them against those other countries. On average, the European Union, China, Brazil, India, Mexico and Canada. Have you heard of them? And countless other nations charge us tremendously higher tariffs than we charge them. It’s very unfair. India charges us auto tariffs higher than 100%. China’s average tariff on our products is twice what we charge them. And South Korea’s average tariff is four times higher. Think of that, four times higher. And we give so much help militarily and in so many other ways to South Korea.
But that’s what happens. This is happening by friend and foe. This system is not fair to the United States and never was. And so on April 2nd, I wanted to make an April 1st, but I didn’t want to be accused of April Fool’s Day. That’s what one day would cost us, a lot of money, but we’re going to do it in April. I’m a very superstitious person. April 2nd reciprocal tariffs kick in and whatever they tariff us, other countries, we will tariff them. That’s reciprocal back and forth. Whatever they tax us, we will tax them.
If they do non-monetary tariffs to keep us out of their market, then we will do non-monetary barriers to keep them out of our market. It’s a lot of that too. They don’t even allow us in that market. We will take in trillions and trillions of dollars and create jobs like we have never seen before. I did it with China and I did it with others and the Biden administration couldn’t do anything about it because there was so much money. They couldn’t do anything about it. We’ve been ripped off for decades by nearly every country on Earth, and we will not let that happen any longer. Much has been said over the last three months about Mexico and Canada, but we have very large deficits with both of them. But even more importantly, they’ve allowed fentanyl to come into our country at levels never seen before, killing hundreds of thousands of our citizens and many very young, beautiful people destroying families. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it.
They are, in effect, receiving subsidies of hundreds of billions of dollars. We pay subsidies to Canada and to Mexico, have hundreds of billions of dollars in the United States, will not be doing that any longer. We’re not going to do it any longer.
Thanks to our America First policies we’re putting into place, we have had $1.7 trillion of new investment in America in just the past few weeks. The combination of the election and our economic policies that people love. SoftBank, one of the most brilliant anywhere in the world, announced a $200 billion investment. OpenAI and Oracle, Larry Ellison, announced $500 billion investment, which they wouldn’t have done if Kamala had won. Apple announced $500 billion investment. Tim Cook called me, said, I cannot spend it fast enough, it’s got to be much higher than that. I believe they’ll be building their plants here instead of in China. And just yesterday, Taiwan Semiconductor, the biggest in the world’s most powerful in the world, has a tremendous amount — 97% of the market — announced a $165 billion investment to build the most powerful chips on Earth right here in the U.S.A. And we’re not giving them any money.
Your CHIPS Act is a horrible, horrible thing. We give hundreds of billions of dollars and it doesn’t mean a thing. They take our money and they don’t spend it. All that meant to them. We’re giving them no money. All that was important to them was they didn’t want to pay the tariffs. So they came and they’re building. And many other companies are coming. We don’t have to give them money, we just want to protect our businesses and our people, and they will come because they won’t have to pay tariffs if they build in America. So it’s very amazing. You should get rid of the CHIPS Act and whatever’s left over, Mr. Speaker, you should use it to reduce debt or any other reason you want to.
A new trade policy will also be great for the American farmer. I love the farmer. We’ll now be selling it to our home market in the U.S.A., because nobody is going to be able to compete with you. Because those goods that come in from other countries and companies, they’re really, really in a bad position in so many different ways. They’re uninspected. They may be very dirty and disgusting and they come in and they pour in and they hurt our American farmers.
The tariffs will go on agricultural product coming into America and our farmers starting on April 2nd, it may be a little bit of an adjustment *******, we had that before when I made the deal with China, $50 billion of purchases and I said, just bear with me. And they did, they did. You really have to bear with me again and this will be even better. That was great. The problem with it was that Biden didn’t enforce it. He didn’t enforce it. $50 billion of purchases. And we were doing great. But Biden did not enforce it, and it hurt our farmers. But our farmers are going to have a field day right now. So to our farmers, have a lot of fun. I love you, too. I love you too.
And I have also imposed a 25% tariff on foreign aluminum, copper, lumber and steel because if we don’t have, as an example, steel and lots of other things, we don’t have a military and frankly we just won’t have a country very long. Here today is a proud American steelworker, fantastic person from Decatur, Alabama. Jeff Denard has been working at the same steel plant for 27 years in a job that has allowed him to serve as the captain of his local volunteer fire department, raise seven children with his beautiful wife, Nicole, and over the years provide a loving home for more than 40 foster children. So great, Jeff. Thank you, Jeff. Stories like Jeff’s remind us that tariffs are not just about protecting American jobs.
They’re about protecting the soul of our country. Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again. And it’s happening. And it will happen rather quickly. There’ll be a little disturbance, but we’re okay with that. It won’t be much. No you’re not, oh. And look, look where Biden took us, it’s very low, the lowest we’ve ever been.
Jeff, I want to thank you very much. And I also want to recognize another person who has devoted herself to foster care community. She worked so hard on it, her very loving person, our magnificent first lady of the United States. Melania’s work has yielded incredible results, helping prepare our nation’s future leaders as they enter the workforce.
Our first lady is joined by two impressive young women. Very impressive. Haley Ferguson, who benefited from the First Ladies Fostering the Future initiative and is poised to complete her education, become a teacher. And Allison Berry, who became a victim of an illicit, deepfake image produced by a peer. With Allison’s help, the Senate just passed the Take It Down Act, and this is so important. Thank you very much, John Thune. Thank you, Senator. Thank you, John. Thank you all very much. Thank you.
And thank you to John Thune and the Senate. Great job to criminalize the publication of such images online. Just terrible, terrible thing. And once it passes the House, I look forward to signing that bill into law. Thank you. And I’m going to use that bill for myself, too, if you don’t mind. There’s nobody gets treated worse than I do online. Nobody. That’s great. Thank you very much to the Senate. Thank you.
But if we truly care about protecting America’s children, no step is more crucial than securing America’s borders. Over the past four years, 21 million people poured into the United States, many of them were murderers, human traffickers, gang members, and other criminals from the streets of dangerous cities all throughout the world because of Joe Biden’s insane and very dangerous open border policies. They are now strongly embedded in our country. But we are getting them out and getting them out fast. And I want to thank Tom Homan and Kristi, I want to thank you, and Paul and Border Patrol. I want to thank you. What a job they’ve all done. Everybody. Border Patrol, ICE, law enforcement in general is incredible. We have to take care of our law enforcement.
Last year, a brilliant 22 year-old nursing student named Laken Riley, the best in her class, admired by everybody, went out for a jog on the campus of the University of Georgia. That morning Laken was viciously attacked, assaulted, beaten, brutalized, and horrifically murdered. Lincoln was stolen from us by a savage ******** alien gang member who was arrested while trespassing across Biden’s open southern border and then sent loose into the United States under the heartless policies of that failed administration. It was indeed a failed administration. He had then been arrested and released in a Democrat-run sanctuary city, a disaster, before ending the life of this beautiful young angel. With us this evening, our Laken’s beloved mother Allyson and her sister Lauren.
Last year, I told Laken’s grieving parents that we would ensure their daughter would not have died in vain. That’s why the very first bill I signed into law as your 47th president mandates the detention of all dangerous criminal aliens who threaten public safety. Very strong, powerful act. It’s called the Laken Riley Act. So, Allyson and Lauren, America will never, ever forget our beautiful Laken Hope Riley. Thank you very much.
Since taking office, my administration has launched the most sweeping border and immigration crackdown in American history. And we quickly achieved the lowest numbers of ******** border crossers ever recorded. Thank you. The media and our friends in the Democrat Party kept saying we needed new legislation, we must have legislation to secure the border. But it turned out that all we really needed was a new president. Joe Biden didn’t just open our borders. He flew ******** aliens over them to overwhelm our schools, hospitals and communities throughout the country. Entire towns like Aurora, Colorado and Springfield, Ohio, buckled under the weight of the migrant occupation and corruption like nobody’s ever seen before. Beautiful towns destroyed. Now, just as I promised in my inaugural address, we are achieving the great liberation of America. But there still is much work to be done.
Here tonight is a woman I have gotten to know, Alexis Nungaray from Houston. Wonderful woman. Last June, Alexis’ 12-year-old daughter, her precious Jocelyn, walked to a nearby convenience store. She was kidnapped, tied up, assaulted for two hours under a bridge, and horrifically murdered. Arrested and charged with this heinous crime are two ******** alien monsters from Venezuela released into America by the last administration through their ridiculous open border.
The death of this beautiful 12-year-old girl and the agony of her mother and family touched our entire nation greatly. Alexis, I promised that we would always remember your daughter, your magnificent daughter. And earlier tonight, I signed an order keeping my word to you. One thing I have learned about Jocelyn is that she loved animals so much. She loved nature. Across Galveston Bay, from where Jocelyn lived in Houston you will find a magnificent national wildlife refuge, a pristine, peaceful, 34,000-acre sanctuary for all of God’s creatures on the edge of the Gulf of America.
Alexis. Moments ago, I formally renamed that refuge in loving memory of your beautiful daughter, Jocelyn. Mr. Vice President, if you would, may I have the order? Thank you very much. All three savages charged with Jocelyn and Laken’s murders were members of the Venezuelan prison gang. The toughest gang, they say, in the world known as Tren de Aragua. Two weeks ago, I officially designated this gang, along with MS-13 and the bloodthirsty ******** drug cartels, as foreign terrorist organizations. They are now officially in the same category as ISIS, and that’s not good for them. Countless thousands of these terrorists were welcomed into the U.S. by the Biden administration. But now every last one will be rounded up and forcibly removed from our country. Or, if they are too dangerous, put in jails, standing trial in this country because we don’t want them to come back ever.
With us this evening is a warrior on the frontline of that battle. Border Patrol agent Roberto Ortiz, great guy. In January, Roberto and another agent were patrolling by the Rio Grande near an area known as Cartel Island. Doesn’t sound too nice to me. When heavily armed gunmen started shooting at them, Roberto saw that his partner was totally exposed to great danger, and he leapt into action, returning fire and providing crucial seconds for his fellow agent to seek safety, and just barely. I have some of the prints of that event and it was not good. Agent Ortiz, we salute you for your great courage and your line of fire that you took and for the bravery that you showed. We honor you, and we will always honor you. Thank you, Roberto, very much. And I actually got to know him on my many calls to the border. He’s a great, great gentleman. The territory to the immediate south of our border is now dominated entirely by criminal cartels that *******, *****, torture and exercise total control. They have total control over a whole nation. posing a grave threat to our national security.
The cartels are waging war in America, and it’s time for America to wage war on the cartels. Five nights ago, ******** authorities, because of our tariff policies being imposed on them, think of this, handed over to us 29 of the biggest cartel leaders in their country. That has never happened before. They want to make us happy. First time ever. But we need Mexico and Canada to do much more than they’ve done, and they have to stop the fentanyl and drugs pouring into the U.S.A. They’re going to stop it.
I have sent Congress a detailed funding request, laying out exactly how we will eliminate these threats to protect our homeland and complete the largest deportation operation in American history. Larger even than current record holder President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a moderate man but someone who believed very strongly in borders. Americans expect Congress to send me this funding without delay so I can sign it into law. So, Mr. Speaker, John Thune, both of you, I hope you’re going to be able to do that. Mr. Speaker, thank you, Mr. Leader, thank you. Thank you very much. And let’s get it to me. I’ll sign it so fast you won’t even believe it.
And as we reclaim our sovereignty, we must also bring back law and order to our cities and towns. In recent years, our justice system has been turned upside down by radical left lunatics.
Many jurisdictions virtually ceased enforcing the law against dangerous repeat offenders while weaponizing law enforcement against political opponents like me. My administration has acted swiftly and decisively to restore fair, equal and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law. Starting at the FBI and the DOJ, Pam. Good luck. Kash, wherever you may be. Good luck, good luck. Pam Bondi. Good luck. So important. Gonna to do a great job. Kash. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Kash.
They have already started very strong. They’re going to do a fantastic job. You’re going to be very proud of them. We’re also once again giving our police officers the support, protection and respect they show dearly deserve. They have to get it. They have such a hard, dangerous job. But we’re going to make it less dangerous. The problem is the bad guys don’t respect the law, but they’re starting to respect it, and they soon will respect it.
This also includes our great fire departments throughout the country. Our firemen and women are unbelievable people, and I will never forget them. And besides that, they voted for me in record numbers. So I have no choice.
One year ago this month, 31-year-old New York police officer Jonathan Diller, unbelievably wonderful person and a great officer, was gunned down at a traffic stop on Long Island. I went to his ********. A vicious criminal charged with his ******* had 21 prior arrests — and they were rough arrests, too. He was a real bad one. The thug in the seat next to him had 14 prior arrests, and went by the name of Killer. He was Killer. He killed other people, they say, a lot of them. I attended Officer Tiller’s service, and when I met his wife and one-year-old son, Ryan, it was very inspirational, actually. His widow’s name is Stephanie and she is here tonight. Thank you very much Stephanie. Thank you very much.
Stephanie, we’re going to make sure that Ryan knows his dad was a true hero. New York’s finest. And we’re going to get these cold-blooded killers and repeat offenders off our streets. And we’re going to do it fast. Gotta stop it. They get out with 28 arrests. They push people into subway trains. They hit people over the head, back of the head with baseball bats. We got to get him out of here.
I’ve already signed an executive order requiring a mandatory death penalty for anyone who murders a police officer. And tonight, I’m asking Congress to pass that policy into permanent law.
I’m also asking for a new crime bill getting tougher on repeat offenders while enhancing protections for America’s police officers so they can do their jobs without fear of their lives being totally destroyed. They don’t want to be killed. We’re not going to let them be killed.
Joining us to the gallery tonight is a young man who truly loves our police. His name is D.J. Daniel. He is 13 years old, and he has always dreamed of becoming a police officer. But in 2018, D.J. was diagnosed with brain *******. The doctors gave him five months, at most, to live. That was more than six years ago. Since that time, D.J. and his dad have been on a quest to make his dream come true. And D.J. has been sworn in as an honorary law enforcement officer. Actually, a number of times. The police love him. The police departments love him. And tonight, D.J., we’re going to do you the biggest honor of them all. I am asking our new Secret Service director, Sean Curran, to officially make you an agent of the United States secret Service. Thank you, D.J.
D.J.’s doctors believe his ******* likely came from a chemical he was exposed to when he was younger. Since 1975, rates of child ******* have increased by more than 40%. Reversing this trend is one of the top priorities for our new presidential commission to Make America Healthy Again, chaired by our new Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. With a name Kennedy, you would have thought everybody over here would have been cheering. How quickly they forget.
Our goal is to get toxins out of our environment, poisons out of our food supply, and keep our children healthy and strong. As an example, not long ago — and you can’t even believe these numbers — one in 10,000 children had autism. One in 10,000, and now it’s one in 36. There’s something wrong. One in 36. Think of that. So, we’re going to find out what it is, and there’s nobody better than Bobby and all of the people that are working with you. You have the best to figure out what is going on. Okay, Bobby. Good luck. It’s a very important job. Thank you.
My administration is also working to protect children from toxic ideologies in our schools. A few years ago, January Littlejohn and her husband discovered that their daughter’s school had secretly socially transitioned their 13-year-old little girl. Teachers and administrators conspired to deceive January and her husband while encouraging their daughter to use a new name and pronouns–they/them pronouns, actually — or without telling January, who is here tonight and is now a courageous advocate against this form of child abuse. January, thank you. Thank you.
Stories like this are why, shortly after taking office, I signed an executive order banning public schools from indoctrinating our children with transgender ideology. I also signed an order to cut off all taxpayer funding to any institution that engages in the ******* mutilation of our youth. And now, I want Congress to pass a bill permanently banning and criminalizing sex changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body. This is a big lie. And our message to every child in America is that you are perfect exactly the way God made you.
Because we’re getting wokeness out of our schools and out of our military, and it’s already out, and it’s out of our society. We don’t want it. Wokeness is trouble. Wokeness is bad. It’s gone. It’s gone. And we feel so much better for it. Don’t we? Don’t we feel better? Our service members won’t be activists and ideologues. They will be fighters and warriors. They will fight for our country and Pete, congratulations, secretary of defense. And he’s not big into the woke movement, I can tell you. I know him well.
I am pleased to report that in January, the U.S. Army had its single best recruiting month in 15 years and that all armed services are having among the best recruiting results ever in the history of our services. What a difference. And, you know, it was just a few months ago where the results were exactly the opposite. We couldn’t recruit anywhere. We couldn’t recruit. Now we’re having the best results.
And, you know, it was just a few months ago where the results were exactly the opposite. We couldn’t recruit anywhere. We couldn’t recruit. Now we’re having the best results just about that we’ve ever had. What a tremendous turnaround. It’s really a beautiful thing to see. People love our country again. It’s very simple. They love our country and they love being in our military again. So it’s a great thing. And thank you very much. Great job.
We’re joined tonight by a young man, Jason Hartley, who knows the weight of that call of duty. Jason’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather all wore the uniform. Jason tragically lost his dad, who was also a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, when he was just a boy and now he wants to carry on the family legacy of service. Jason is a senior in high school, a six-letter varsity athlete — a really good athlete, they say. A brilliant student with a 4.46 — that’s good — GPA and his greatest dream is to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
And Jason, that’s a very big deal getting in. That’s a hard one to get into. But I’m pleased to inform you that your application has been accepted. You’ll soon be joining the Corps of Cadets.
Thank you. Jason, you’re going to be on the Long Gray Line, Jason. As commander in chief, my focus is on building the most powerful military of the future. As a first step, I’m asking Congress to fund a state of the art “golden dome” missile defense shield to protect our homeland. All made in the U.S.A.
Ronald Reagan wanted to do it long ago, but the technology just wasn’t there. Not even close. But now we have the technology. It’s incredible, actually.
And other place — they have it. Israel has it. Other places have it. And the United States should have it too, right? Kim. Right. They should have it too. So I want to thank you, but it’s a very, very important. This is a very dangerous world. We should have it. We want to be protected and we’re going to protect our citizens like never before.
To boost our defense industrial base, we are also going to resurrect the American shipbuilding industry, including commercial shipbuilding and military shipbuilding. And for that purpose, I am announcing tonight that we will create a new office of shipbuilding in the White House and offer special tax incentives to bring this industry home to America, where it belongs.
We used to make so many ships. We don’t make them anymore very much, but we’re going to make them very fast, very soon. It will have a huge impact.
To further enhance our national security, my administration will be reclaiming the Panama Canal, and we’ve already started doing it.
Just today, a large American company announced they are buying both ports around the Panama Canal and lots of other things having to do with the Panama Canal and a couple of other canals. The Panama Canal was built by Americans for Americans, not for others. But others could use it.
But it was built at tremendous cost of American blood and treasure. 38,000 workers died building the Panama Canal. They died of malaria. They died of snakebites and mosquitoes. Not a nice place to work.
They paid them very highly to go there, knowing there was a 25% chance that they would die. The most expensive project also that was ever built in our country’s history if you bring it up to modern-day costs. It was given away by the Carter administration for $1. But that agreement has been violated very severely.
We didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.
Now we have Marco Rubio in charge. Good luck, Marco. Now we know who to blame if anything goes wrong. Marco has been amazing, and he’s going to do a great job. Think of it. He got 100 votes. You know, he was approved with actually 99, but the 100th was this gentleman. And I feel very certain, so let’s assume we got 100 votes. And I’m either very, very happy about that or I’m very concerned about it.
But he’s already proven — I mean, he’s a great gentleman. He’s respected by everybody. And we appreciate you voting for Marco. He’s going to do a fantastic job. Thank you, thank you. He’s doing a great job. Great job.
And I also have a message tonight for the incredible people of Greenland. We strongly support your right to determine your own future, and if you choose, we welcome you into the United States of America.
We need Greenland for national security and even international security. And we’re working with everybody involved to try and get it. But we need it really for international world security. And I think we’re going to get it. One way or the other, we’re going to get it.
We will keep you safe. We will make you rich. And together we will take Greenland to heights like you have never thought possible before.
It’s a very small population, but very, very large piece of land and very, very important for military security.
America is once again standing strong against the forces of radical Islamic terrorism.
Three and a half years ago, ISIS terrorists killed 13 American service members and countless others in the Abbey Gate bombing during the disastrous and incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan. Not that they were withdrawing. It was the way they withdrew. Perhaps the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country.
Tonight, I am pleased to announce that we have just apprehended the top terrorist responsible for that atrocity. And he is right now on his way here to face the swift sword of American justice.
And I want to thank, especially, the government of Pakistan for helping arrest this monster. This was a very momentous day for those 13 families who I actually got to know very well, most of them, whose children were murdered, and the many people that were so badly, over 42 people so badly injured on that fateful day in Afghanistan.
What a horrible day. Such incompetence was shown that when Putin saw what happened, I guess he said, wow, maybe this is my chance. That’s how bad it was. Should have never happened. Grossly incompetent people.
I spoke to many of the parents and loved ones and they’re all in our hearts tonight. I spoke to them on the phone. We had a big call. Every one of them called and everybody was on the line and they did nothing but cry with happiness. They were very happy. It’s happy as you can be under those circumstances. Their child, brother, sister, son, daughter was killed for no reason whatsoever.
In the Middle East, we’re bringing back our hostages from Gaza. In my first term, we achieved one of the most groundbreaking peace agreements in generations: the Abraham Accords. And now we’re going to build on that foundation, to create a more peaceful and prosperous future for the entire region.
A lot of things are happening in the Middle East. People haven’t been talking about that so much lately, with everything going on with Ukraine and Russia, a lot of things are happening in the Middle East. A rough neighborhood actually.
I’m also working tirelessly to end the savage conflict in Ukraine. Millions of Ukrainians and Russians have been needlessly killed or wounded in this horrific and brutal conflict, with no end in sight.
The United States has sent hundreds of billions of dollars to support Ukraine’s defense, with no security, with no way. Do you want to keep it going for another five years? Yeah, yeah, you would say, “Pocahontas says yes.”
2000 people are being killed every single week. More than that. They are Russian young people. They’re Ukrainian young people. They’re not Americans. But I want it to stop.
Meanwhile, Europe has sadly spent more money buying Russian oil and gas than they have spent on defending Ukraine by far. Think of that. They’ve spent more buying Russian oil and gas than they have defending.
And we’ve spent perhaps $350 billion. Like taking candy from a baby. That’s what happened. And they’ve spent $100 billion. What a difference that is. And we have an ocean separating us. And they don’t. But we’re getting along very well with them. And lots of good things are happening.
Biden has authorized more money in this fight than Europe has spent by billions and billions of dollars. It’s hard to believe that they wouldn’t have stopped it and said at some point, come on, let’s equalize. You got to be equal to us. That didn’t happen.
Earlier today, I received an important letter from President Zelenskyy of Ukraine. The letter reads: ‘Ukraine is ready to come to the negotiating table as soon as possible to bring lasting peace closer. Nobody wants peace more than the Ukrainians,” he said. “My team and I stand ready to work under President Trump’s strong leadership to get a peace that lasts. We do really value how much America has done to help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty and independence. Regarding the agreement on minerals and security, Ukraine is ready to sign it at any time that is convenient for you.”
I appreciate that he sent this letter, just got it a little while ago. Simultaneously, we’ve had serious discussion with Russia and have received strong signals that they are ready for peace.
Wouldn’t that be beautiful? Wouldn’t that be beautiful? Wouldn’t that be beautiful?
It’s time to stop this madness. It’s time to halt the killing. It’s time to end this senseless war.
If you want to end wars, you have to talk to both sides.
Nearly four years ago, amid rising tensions, a history teacher named Mark Fogel was detained in Russia and sentenced to 14 years at a penal colony. Rough stuff. The previous administration barely lifted a finger to help him. They knew he was innocent, but they had no idea where to begin.
But last summer, I promised his 95-year-old mother, Malphine, that we would bring her boy safely back home. After 22 days in office, I did just that. And they are here tonight.
To Mark and his great mom: We are delighted to have you safe and sound and with us.
As fate would have it, Mark Fogel was born in a small, rural town in Butler, Pennsylvania. Have you heard of it? Where his mother has lived for the past 78 years. I just happened to go there last July 13th for a rally.
That was not pleasant. And that is where I met his beautiful mom right before I walked onto that stage. And I told her I would not forget what she said about her son. And I never did that, did I? Never forgot.
Less than 10 minutes later, at that same rally, gunfire rang out and a sick and deranged assassin unloaded eight bullets from his sniper’s perch into a crowd of many thousands of people.
My life was saved by a fraction of an inch, but some were not so lucky. Corey Comperatore was a firefighter, a veteran, a Christian, a husband, a devoted father, and above all, a protector. When the sound of gunshots pierced the air, it was a horrible sound. Corey knew instantly what it was and what to do. He threw himself on top of his wife and daughters and shielded them from the bullets with his own body. Corey was hit really hard. You know the story from there. He sacrificed his life to save theirs. Two others, very fine people, were also seriously hit, but thankfully, with the help of two great country doctors- — we thought they were gone and they were saved — so those doctors had great talent. We’re joined by Corey’s wife, Helen, who was his high school sweetheart, and their two beloved daughters, Allison and Kaylee. Thank you.
To Helen, Allison and Kaylee: Corey is looking down on his three beautiful ladies right now, and he is cheering you on. He loves you. He is cheering you on. Corey was taken from us much too soon, but his destiny was to leave us all with a shining example of the selfless devotion of a true American patriot. It was love like Corey’s that built our country and it’s love like Corey’s that is going to make our country more majestic than ever before.
I believe that my life was saved that day in Butler for a very good reason. I was saved by God to make America great again. I believe that. Thank you very much.
From the patriots of Lexington and Concord, to the heroes of Gettysburg and Normandy, from the warriors who crossed the Delaware, to the trailblazers who climbed the Rockies, and from the legends who soared at Kitty Hawk, to the astronauts who touched the moon, Americans have always been the people who defied all odds, transcended all dangers, made the most extraordinary sacrifices, and did whatever it took to defend our children, our country, and our freedom.
As we have seen in this chamber tonight, that same strength, faith, love and spirit is still alive and thriving in the hearts of the American people. Despite the best efforts of those who would try to censor us, silence us, break us, destroy us, Americans are today a proud, free, sovereign and independent nation that will always be free, and we will fight for it ’til death. We will never let anything happen to our beloved country because we are a country of doers, dreamers, fighters and survivors.
Our ancestors crossed a vast ocean, strode into the unknown wilderness, and carved their fortunes from the rock and soil of a perilous and very dangerous frontier. They chased our destiny across a boundless continent. They built the railroads, laid the highways, and graced the world with American marvels like the Empire State Building, the mighty Hoover Dam, and the towering Golden Gate Bridge. They lit the world with electricity, broke free of the force of gravity, fired up the engines of American industry, vanquished the communists, fascists and Marxists all over the world, and gave us countless modern wonders sculpted out of iron, glass and steel. We stand on the shoulders of these pioneers who won and built the modern age, these workers who poured their sweat into the skylines of our cities, these warriors who shed their blood on fields of battle and gave everything they had for our rights and for our freedom.
Now it is our time to take up the righteous cause of American liberty, and it is our turn to take America’s destiny into our own hands and begin the most thrilling days in the history of our country. This will be our greatest era. With God’s help, over the next four years, we are going to lead this nation even higher, and we are going to forge the freest, most advanced, most dynamic and most dominant civilization ever to exist on the face of this Earth.
We are going to create the highest quality of life, build the safest and wealthiest and healthiest and most vital communities anywhere in the world. We are going to conquer the vast frontiers of science, and we are going to lead humanity into space and plant the American flag on the planet Mars, and even far beyond.
And through it all, we are going to rediscover the unstoppable power of the American spirit. And we are going to renew unlimited promise of the American dream. Every single day we will stand up and we will fight, fight, fight for the country our citizens believe in and for the country our people deserve. My fellow Americans, get ready for an incredible future, because the golden Age of America has only just begun. It will be like nothing that has ever been seen before. Thank you. God bless you and God bless America.
___
This transcript has been corrected to show the speech was March 4, not May 4.
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These are the most competitive rental markets in the U.S. – CNBC
These are the most competitive rental markets in the U.S. – CNBC
These are the most competitive rental markets in the U.S. CNBC
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Biggest impact of tariffs ‘could be growth,’ not inflation
Biggest impact of tariffs ‘could be growth,’ not inflation
Stocks (^GSPC, ^IXIC, ^DJI) moved higher after a stronger-than-expected ISM services report and some relief from comments made by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick regarding tariffs. However, volatility remains a concern as the S&P 500 sees declines.
MetLife Investment Management chief market strategist Drew Matus and Ned Davis Research chief global investment strategist Tim Hayes join Catalysts hosts Madison Mills and Seana Smith to discuss the latest developments in the economy.
“If we look at the ISM that just came out, what we’re seeing is that growth is OK and inflation is a little sticky, which is kind of what we had all known was going to be the case,” Matus says.
“The wild card is the tariff situation and what impact that has,” he adds. “And I think the biggest impact from tariffs is actually not inflation; it could be growth.”
Regarding market movements and pessimistic consumer sentiment, Hayes notes, “Most stocks are still above their 200-day moving averages globally, and some markets like Europe are very close to new highs, so I think the sentiment is really out of line with the reality of what our indicators are telling us.”
He adds, “This kind of pessimism is much greater than we usually see in a correction … I think the sentiment will come back to what the fundamentals are telling us.”
To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Catalysts here.
This post was written by Josh ******
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Get Over Here And Check Out These New Mortal Kombat 11 Funko Pops
Get Over Here And Check Out These New Mortal Kombat 11 Funko Pops
Funko has a new set of Mortal Kombat collectibles on the way, and if you consider Mortal Kombat 11 to be the best game in the series, then you’ll want to get over here and check these out. Three Funko Pop figures will be released on May 16, and the line includes Princess Kitana, Scorpion, and Sub-Zero, all decked out in their Mortal Kombat 11 threads. Each figure will be priced at $13.
We also know that Kung Lao will be part of this line, but images for this figure haven’t been revealed yet. We’ll update the post as soon as we more assets to share of Funko’s take on the hat-wielding Shaolin monk.
$13
Like other Funko Pops, each collectible here mixes game-accurate designs with the signature bobblehead of this line. Princess Kitana is dressed in her best combat activewear and she’s equipped with her two fans, which appear to have seen some combat judging by the amount of blood on them.
$13
The Scorpion figure mixes the ninja influences of the character with his trademark yellow color scheme, and you’re getting his kunai linked to a burning chain for when you want to replicate several iconic catchphrases.
$13
Lastly, the Sub-Zero Funko Pop takes a different approach as you’re getting an icy version of the famed Lin Kuei grandmaster. This is essentially a figure with a glacier-blue finish, and for an extra, he’s armed with an ice-spear. All the other Sub-Zero signature design elements are also present, from his ninja mask down to the scar over his eye that he has had since Mortal Kombat 3.
If you don’t feel like waiting until May, you can grab a few Funko Pops based on Mortal Kombat 1 and the 2021 movie. Sub-Zero, Scorpion, and Liu Kang‘s video game counterparts have gotten the Funko makeover, while Cole Young and Sonya Blade represent the cinematic side of the franchise. There’s a very cute–but expensive–version of Raiden, that imagines him as a blocky brawler who would look right at home on an NES version of Mortal Kombat, if it existed.
More Mortal Kombat Funko Pops
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Hope for Canada deal, China ‘ready to fight’
Hope for Canada deal, China ‘ready to fight’
China appeals to WTO over Trump’s additional tariffs
China has filed a revised request for consultations at the World Trade Organization over the additional 10% tariffs Trump has imposed, according to the international body.
Beijing originally appealed to the WTO on Feb. 4 after Trump imposed his first round of 10% levies. Trump has imposed tariffs totaling 20% against China with the additional duties he enacted on Tuesday.
Consultations are the first step in the WTO process to resolve trade disputes between nations.
— Spencer Kimball
Bernstein cuts earnings estimates, lowers price target on Constellation Brands
Bottles of Corona beer, the flagship brand of Grupo Modelo are displayed in this illustration taken in Monterrey, Mexico, February 18, 2025.
Daniel Becerril | Reuters
Bernstein cut its earnings estimates and lowered its price target on Constellation Brands, the maker of big alcoholic beverage brands like Modelo, Corona and Pacifico.
“It’s official — 25% tariffs on ******** imports are here … We cut our EPS estimates by ~25%, and continue STZ outperform with a new (lower) target price of $230,” Bernstein analyst Nadine Sarwat said in a note Wednesday. “We have long guided to the impact tariffs would have to our numbers, and today we take the knife to our model.”
Constellation is the most exposed name in Bernstein’s European and American beverages coverage universe, with about 84% of fiscal 2025 earnings net sales being super premium ******** beer imports, she noted.
“Any resolution to these tariffs offers meaningful upside not included in our numbers,” she added. “But the uncertainty is not over for Constellation, namely very weak scanner data.”
— Tanaya Macheel
‘Zombie tariffs’ will likely remain until new North American free trade agreement is renegotiated, says Bank of America
US President Donald Trump speaks about the United States – Mexico – Canada agreement, known as USMCA, during a visit to Dana Incorporated, an auto supplier manufacturer, in Warren, Michigan, January 30, 2020.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images
Bank of America has some good news for investors: the Trump Administration’s tariffs are unlikely to stay a permanent fixture.
“Zombie tariffs walk among us,” economist Carlos Capistran wrote in a Wednesday note. “These latest events are in line with our view that tariffs are both ‘alive and dead’ at the same time. On the one hand, tariffs were enacted, but on the other, comments made by Secretary Lutnick signal that there may be some relief down the road for Canada and Mexico, and as soon as March 5.”
The economist added: “We believe that today’s developments are consistent with our call that tariffs are likely temporary, and that threats of tariffs on Canada and Mexico will last until a new USMCA 2.0 is renegotiated.”
The USMCA — between the US, Mexico and Canada — is a free trade agreement that Trump signed into place during his first term, replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA. While a revision to the USMCA is scheduled for mid-2026, Capistran said that Canada and Mexico would benefit by opening a full revision before that date.
— Lisa Kailai Han
Peter Navarro swipes at Trudeau, downplays market volatility: ‘Everybody’s hair is on fire’
Peter Navarro, trade adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, speaks to reporters at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 11, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
Top Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro pushed back after ********* Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the U.S. of imposing stiff tariffs based on false claims about the flow of fentanyl from Canada.
“It would be really useful if he just toned stuff down,” Navarro said in a CNN interview.
“He’s campaigning right now,” Navarro said of Trudeau, who announced in January that he would step down as prime minister.
After the 25% tariffs on ********* imports — and Ottowa’s countermeasures against the U.S. — kicked in Tuesday, Trudeau slammed Trump’s move as a “very dumb thing to do.”
Trudeau also pushed back on the Trump administration’s claims about Canada’s efforts to combat fentanyl trafficking, calling them “totally false.”
Navarro on CNN also declined to offer any new details about possible compromises that the U.S. could strike with Canada and Mexico, after Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested those deals would likely come Wednesday.
And Navarro brushed off the festering uncertainty in the stock market that Trump’s tariff policies have helped cause.
“We’ve had two days of volatility in markets and everybody’s hair is on fire,” he said.
— Kevin Breuninger
U.S. seized almost no fentanyl at northern border in January, despite Trump’s claims
Fentanyl precursors are displayed at Reuters’ office, in Mexico City, Mexico, October 4, 2023.
Claudia Daut | Cp
The Trump administration is adamant that its 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico are not about stoking a trade war, but are instead about waging a “drug war” against the flow of the deadly opioid fentanyl into the U.S.
But U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized a miniscule 0.03 pounds of fentanyl at the northern border in January, according to the agency’s own data.
And the amount of fentanyl seized there has consistently been a small fraction of what is intercepted by CBP agents at the U.S. border with Mexico.
For instance, 43 pounds of the drug were seized at the northern border in fiscal year 2024, versus 21,148 pounds taken at the U.S. southwest border in the same *******, CBP data show.
Additionally, those 43 pounds may not all have been seized at the border itself: CBP’s website suggests the data also covers illicit drugs interdicted “between ports of entry.”
A recent Globe and Mail investigation, meanwhile, found that much of the fentanyl discovered in northern states had come from Mexico.
Trump, in his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, nevertheless said, “we need Mexico and Canada to do much more than they’ve done, and they have to stop the fentanyl and drugs pouring into the U.S.A.”
— Kevin Breuninger
Trudeau and Trump expected to talk today
Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference about the U.S. tariffs against Canada, on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, as Foreign Minister Melanie Joly, left, and Minister of Finance and Intergovernmental Affairs Dominic Leblanc listen, March 4, 2025.
Dave Chan | Afp | Getty Images
Trump and Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are expected to talk Wednesday, people familiar with the matter told Reuters and CNN.
The talks come a day after Trump imposed sweeping tariffs against Canada and Trudeau retaliated with levies on U.S. goods.
Trudeau directly appealed to Trump in an address Tuesday, calling the tariffs “dumb.” The prime minister accused Trump of seeking to collapse the ********* economy in order to make it easier to annex the country. Trump has repeatedly suggested that Canada should become the U.S.’ 51st state.
“The United States launched a trade war against Canada — their closest partner and ally, the closest friend,” Trudeau said Tuesday. “At the same time, they’re talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense.”
— Spencer Kimball
Mexico and U.S. to talk Thursday, Sheinbaum says
Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum holds a press conference to announce a response to U.S. tariffs, at the National Palace in Mexico City, March 4, 2025.
Raquel Cunha | Reuters
Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters that she expects to speak with Trump on Thursday, probably in the morning, according to NBC News.
Mexico has not yet declared retaliatory tariffs on the U.S., though Sheinbaum said Tuesday that those would be announced this weekend.
— Jesse Pound
Trump may exclude auto industry from tariffs on Canada and Mexico, Lutnick says
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick speaks as President Donald Trump, left, listens, during an investment announcement in the White House in Washington, D.C., March 3, 2025.
Samuel Corum | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Trump could exclude some sectors from the 25% tariffs imposed on Canada and Mexico, Lutnick told Bloomberg Television in an interview.
“The president gets to make the decision,” Lutnick said. “There will be some categories left out. It could well be autos, could be others as well.”
Lutnick said Trump is considering excluding sectors that are compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement’s content provisions.
“My understanding is the Big Three say they produce cars that are compliant under USMCA, which means they have sufficient U.S. content in them to be part of the USMCA agreement,” Lutnick said of Ford, General Motors and Stellantis. “That’s part of our discussion, and the president’s really thinking about that.”
Lutnick said he expects the White House will make an announcement Wednesday and that the changes could be “somewhere in the middle” rather than a complete rollback.
— Spencer Kimball
Trump says tariffs will cause ‘a little disturbance’
President Donald Trump, left, addresses a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., as Vice President JD Vance, center, and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., applaud, March 4, 2025.
Win Mcnamee | Via Reuters
Trump acknowledged during a joint session of Congress that his tariffs on major U.S. trading partners will create “a little disturbance.”
“Tariffs are about making America rich again and making America great again. And it’s happening, and it will happen rather quickly,” Trump said during the address Tuesday night.
“There will be a little disturbance, but we’re okay with that,” Trump said. “It won’t be much.”
— Hakyung Kim
Tariffs rock U.S. stock market
The implementation of Trump’s tariffs has roiled the U.S. stock market this week as investors worry the levies will hamper the economy.
The Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite have all slid about 3% over Monday’s and Tuesday’s sessions. With that, the blue-chip Dow is on track for its worst week since the regional banking crisis in March 2023. It would also mark the biggest weekly slide for the broad S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq going back to September.
Stock futures popped Wednesday morning, however, amid mounting hopes of a compromise on Trump’s policy for import taxes. Follow live markets updates throughout the day here.
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The three major indexes this week
Trump could scale back Canada, Mexico tariffs, Lutnick says
Trump could announce tariff compromise deals with Canada and Mexico as soon as Wednesday, likely involving the scaling back of at least part of the new 25% levies on goods from both countries, Lutnick said Tuesday.
“Both the Mexicans and the Canadians are on the phone with me all day today, trying to show that they’ll do better,” Lutnick said Tuesday. “And the President is listening because, you know, he’s very, very fair and very reasonable. So I think he’s going to work something out with them,” he said on “Fox Business.”
Trump, who has held up tariffs as an all-powerful negotiating tool, based the policy on allegations that the neighboring countries were failing to stem the flow of drugs and crime into the U.S.
— Kevin Breuninger, Sarah Min
Canada appeals to WTO over U.S. tariffs
The World Trade Organization headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, March 4, 2021.
Denis Balibouse | Reuters
Canada has appealed to the World Trade Organization over Trump’s imposition of tariffs.
Canada’s ambassador to the WTO, Nadia Theodore, said Ottawa has “requested WTO consultations” with the U.S. “in regard to its unjustified tariffs on Canada.”
“The U.S. decision leaves us with no choice but to respond to protect ********* interests,” Theodore said in a LinkedIn post Tuesday. “This was not the outcome we hoped for. And we urge the U.S. administration to reconsider their tariffs.”
A WTO official confirmed to CNBC that Canada has requested consultations, the first step in the organization’s process to resolve trade disputes.
— Spencer Kimball
China officials say they are ready to ‘fight till the end’
******** President Xi Jinping stands to leave after the opening session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, March 5, 2025.
Tingshu Wang | Reuters
******** officials are taking an aggressive stance toward the U.S. tariff escalation, including a post on X by the ******** Embassy in the U.S.
“If war is what the U.S. wants, be it a tariff war, a trade war or any other type of war, we’re ready to fight till the end,” the post said.
Lin echoed those remarks while also calling the U.S.’ fentanyl-related explanation for the tariffs a “flimsy excuse.”
“If the U.S. has other agenda in mind and if harming China’s interests is what the U.S. wants, we’re ready to fight till the end. We urge the U.S. to stop being domineering and return to the right track of dialogue and cooperation at an early date,” the spokesperson said.
— Jesse Pound
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CS2 Analyst SPUNJ Suggests Lowering the CT’s Defuse Kit Price
CS2 Analyst SPUNJ Suggests Lowering the CT’s Defuse Kit Price
A long-time pro player, analyst, and color commentator for Counter-Strike 2 thinks that Valve should cut the price of the defuse kit in half. The CT economy has always been harder to manage in CS2 because of the more expensive rifles and added cost of said defuse kits.
Would reducing the price of the defuse kits finally get my teammates in Premier to buy one?
The CT Economy is in Shambles
Economy management is a critical part of winning in CS2, and the higher cost that the CT side must pay for a full buy makes that economy hard to manage. Compared to the $2,700 that T-side players spend on an AK-47, CTs have to pay $2,900 for their equivalent in the M4. And then on top of that, CTs also spend $400 on a defuse kit that reduces bomb defusal time from 10 seconds to five.
Recently, Chad “SPUNJ” Burchill posted on X (formerly known as Twitter) that Valve should make the defuse kit $200. SPUNJ claims this would “help out the CT economy,” and believes that “more available kits raises the chance for retakes to be attempted.”
From the prospective of a fan of Counter-Strike esports, making defuse kits more available would be a positive. So often the CT side chooses to save and not attempt a retake because no one bought a kit. And while saving is the smarter option in that situation, it’s less exciting than watching a retake. By making defuse kits cheaper, more retakes are attempted, which means more exciting Counter-Strike is taking place.
The ******* question though is whether or not CS2 players in general will buy more defuse kits during Competitive or Premier games. Players are also already discussing alternative ways to alleviate the CT economy, like increasing the loss bonus amount.
Is a price reduction of the defuse kit enough to save the CT economy in CS2? Let us know on the Insider Gaming forum.
For more Insider Gaming esports, check out the news that Cache is coming back to CS2.
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Rep. Sylvester Turner, a Texas Democrat, dies at 70
Rep. Sylvester Turner, a Texas Democrat, dies at 70
Rep.-elect Sylvester Turner (D-TX) poses for a photograph after joining other congressional freshmen of the 119th Congress for a group photograph on the steps of the House of Representatives at the U.S. Capitol Building on November 15, 2024 in Washington, DC.
Andrew Harnik | Getty Images
First-term Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Texas, died Tuesday night after suffering a medical emergency following President Donald Trump’s address to Congress, according to two House Democratic lawmakers who were informed of his death.
He was 70 years old and had just taken the oath of office in January. Turner had previously battled bone *******.
At a closed-door Democratic meeting Wednesday morning, House ********* Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., announced that Turner had died and that his family has been notified, according to one lawmaker who attended the meeting.
Another Democrat who saw Turner in the underground tunnel that connects the Capitol with the Cannon Building said that it appeared Turner was having a medical emergency early Tuesday afternoon. Capitol Police were notified and went to assist him, the lawmaker said.
Several Democratic lawmakers said Wednesday they either saw Turner or spoke to him on the House floor before Trump’s joint address to Congress. Photographs and video from the speech also show Turner seated toward the back of the chamber.
Sylvester Turner, mayor of Houston, during the 2023 CERAWeek by S&P Global conference in Houston, Texas, US, on Friday, March 10, 2023.
F. Carter Smith | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Turner was elected to Congress in November and served as mayor of Houston from 2016 to 2024. Before that he served more than a quarter century as a state lawmaker.
When longtime Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, died of pancreatic ******* in July of last year, Turner, an ally of the congresswoman, announced he would run for her seat and was selected by local Democratic leaders to appear on the November ballot since Jackson Lee had already won her primary that March.
He easily won the seat and was sworn in on Jan. 3.
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***** takes Capcom’s crown as Metacritic’s highest-rated publisher of 2024
***** takes Capcom’s crown as Metacritic’s highest-rated publisher of 2024
Review aggregation website Metacritic has revealed the results of its 15th annual Game Publisher Rankings.
***** topped the list, which was determined based on the quality of publishers’ releases in 2024.
The Japanese company released a number of critically acclaimed games last year including Metaphor: ReFantazio, Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth.
***** topped the latest annual rankings ahead of Capcom, which was Metacritic’s highest-rated publisher of 2023, and Aksys Games.
2022’s winner, Sony, was ranked at No.4, five places ahead of 2021’s top-rated publisher, Microsoft. Meanwhile Nintendo, which last took the top spot in 2014, ranked at No.22.
Publishers were ranked using a points system, calculated (as in previous years) according to four factors, according to Metacritic.
The most weight was given to the average Metascore for their games, but also taken into account were the percentage of scored titles with good reviews (score of at least 75), the percentage of scored products with bad reviews (49 or lower), and the number of “great” games released (90 or higher).
Only publishers with five or more distinct titles released in 2024 were eligible to be included in the rankings, which don’t take into account mobile games.
The top 10 publishers are listed below, along with their points score, average Metascore and previous year’s ranking.
1) ***** (325.5 points) – 82.9 (last year: 9th) 2) Capcom (323.1 points) – 82.1 (last year: 1st)
3) Aksys Games (318.1 points) – 78.8 (last year: 7th) 4) Sony (314 points) – 80.9 (last year: 13th) 5) Focus Entertainment (309.6 points) – 79.1 (last year: 18th) 6) Gamera Games (303.5 points) – 80.2 (last year: n/a) 6) Square Enix (303.5 points) – 78.5 (last year: 19th) 8) Raw Fury (301.1 points) – 78.5 (last year: 2nd) 9) Microsoft (301 points) – 79.4 (last year: 15th) 10) Annapurna Interactive (298.7 points) – 79.2 (last year: 5th)
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Trump Administration Live Updates: Supreme Court Denies Bid to Freeze Nearly $2 Billion in Foreign Aid – The New York Times
Trump Administration Live Updates: Supreme Court Denies Bid to Freeze Nearly $2 Billion in Foreign Aid – The New York Times
Trump Administration Live Updates: Supreme Court Denies Bid to Freeze Nearly $2 Billion in Foreign Aid The New York TimesTrump’s foreign aid freeze overturned as US Supreme Court sides with Congress The Indian ExpressSCOTUS rules on nearly $2 billion in frozen USAID payments Fox NewsSupreme Court rejects Trump’s request to keep billions in foreign aid frozen CNN
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Can PSVR 2 Mount a Comeback in 2025?
Can PSVR 2 Mount a Comeback in 2025?
It’s been two years since PlayStation VR 2 arrived. But can PSVR 2 mount a comeback in 2025 and prove the critics wrong?
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#PSVR #Mount #Comeback
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IR35: Government outlines two-pronged approach to umbrella company regulation
IR35: Government outlines two-pronged approach to umbrella company regulation
The government has concluded its long-running consultation into stamping out tax and employment rights non-compliance by umbrella companies, meaning the sector is now one step closer to becoming regulated.
In its response to the consultation, the government said it would use a two-pronged approach to ensuring IT contractors (and those working in other sectors) receive the employment rights they are entitled to when working through umbrella companies and are taxed correctly for their work.
The first prong will see the government legislating to define what umbrella companies are, through an amendment to the Employment Rights Bill, which will bring their activities under the watchful eye of the Employment Agency Standards Inspectorate (EASI).
This is a move that contracting market stakeholders have called on the government to make for several years, as the EASI’s remit includes protecting the rights of employment agency workers.
In a typical contractor-to-end-client supply chain, employment agencies often rely on umbrella companies to manage the payroll for the workers on their books, which is why involving EASI appears to be logical move.
On a similar note, the second prong to this umbrella company clampdown will see employment agencies assume responsibility for ensuring the correct amount of Pay As You Earn (PAYE) contributions are paid by their workers when an umbrella company is involved in the labour supply chain.
This change was announced in the Autumn Budget 2024, with the government stating that it expects the move to generate £895m in additional tax during the 2026/2027 financial year by making it harder for umbrella companies to engage in tax avoidance-related activities.
“Where an umbrella company is used in a labour supply chain to engage a worker, the government will bring forward legislation to move the responsibility to account for PAYE from the umbrella company that employs the worker, to the recruitment agency that supplies the worker to the end client,” said the government, in its consultation response.
“Where there is no agency in a labour supply chain, this responsibility will sit with the end client. This will take effect from April 2026.”
The government’s consultation document does, however, acknowledge that some of the steps involved with defining what umbrella companies are, and working out how to regulate them, may not be straightforward.
To this point, it confirmed that no consensus was reached by the stakeholders who contributed a total of 75 responses to the consultation about how best to define umbrella companies.
A topic where some agreement was reached was on what the “substance of umbrella regulations” should be.
“Responses indicated a consensus that the government should concentrate on addressing financial detriments, worker understanding of the umbrella arrangement and ensuring genuine businesses operate in the umbrella market,” the consultation document stated.
As stated in the document, tax avoidance is “widespread” within the umbrella company market, with HMRC claiming that £500m was lost to disguised remuneration tax avoidance schemes during the 2022 to 2023 tax year, which it said “almost all of which was facilitated by umbrella companies”.
The document added: “This tax non-compliance can leave workers facing substantial tax bills and enables non-compliant umbrella companies to undercut their competitors, threatening the viability of those businesses that do the right thing, as well as the functioning of the market itself.”
It continued: “HMRC takes robust action against non-compliant umbrella companies using its compliance powers. However, there is a clear case for strategic action to prevent these forms of non-compliance from occurring at all.”
Crawford Temple, CEO of independent payment intermediary compliance assessor Professional Passport, said the government’s response confirmed much of what was already known about its plans for the umbrella market, as much of it has been foreshadowed.
However, it remains to be seen what the “true impact” of these changes will be, he continued, and more detail on that will come when the draft legislation emerges, which will provide employment agencies with a steer on how much work they will need to do to comply by the April 2026 deadline.
The government needs to tread carefully in the implementation of its plans as any loopholes could simply lead to further exploitation of the rules and another ***** in non-compliance
Crawford Temple Professional Passport
One area he said the government will need to tread carefully is in how it defines umbrella companies. “Any definition needs careful consideration as any definition can be re-engineered and could open the doors to further non-compliance,” he said. “Government needs to tread carefully in the implementation of its plans as any loopholes could simply lead to further exploitation of the rules and another ***** in non-compliance.”
The government first committed to regulating the umbrella sector way back in 2018, so the fact there is tangible progress being made towards this goal is significant, but – according to Temple – regulation and making agencies accountable for ensuring contractors pay the right tax will only go so far.
“HMRC needs to step up, and we know that legislation is not the sole answer and must be supported with visible compliance and enforcement, which has been lacking from HMRC in recent years,” he added.
Meanwhile, Dave Chaplin, CEO of contracting authority ContractorCalculator, said regulation of the sector is long overdue, but the measures being put forward by the government mark a “major step forward” in the fight to protect workers and tackle tax non-compliance.
“Shifting PAYE responsibility to agencies and end clients is a game-changer, ensuring taxes are properly collected before rogue umbrella companies can rip-off workers and the exchequer with non-compliant practices,” he said.
“Regulating umbrella companies will finally bring accountability to an industry that has operated unchecked for too long. The fight against tax fraud and unfair deductions isn’t over, but these reforms lay the foundation for a fairer labour market.”
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Club World Cup: Fifa give $1bn as Europe nears deal
Club World Cup: Fifa give $1bn as Europe nears deal
The ECA is expected to gain a higher revenue share than clubs from other continents because of the importance of their clubs to the competition, and because those members will be unable to play lucrative overseas pre-season tours.
Chelsea, Manchester City, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Paris St-Germain, Inter Milan, Juventus, Atletico Madrid, Benfica, Porto and FC Salzburg are all represented by the ECA.
Real Madrid are not part of the ECA because of their ongoing support for a breakaway European Super League.
The ECA has committed to supporting the Club World Cup until at least 2030 through a memorandum of understanding signed in 2023.
Multiple sources from outside Europe have expressed their support both publicly and privately for the competition, although they remain in the dark about how much they will receive for participation.
Fifa president Gianni Infantino said in December: “Whatever Fifa does, [it] has to be global.
“[Fifa] has to involve the globe. [Fifa] has to give opportunities and chances to [everyone] all over the world, and the Club World Cup is doing exactly that.”
Fifa, meanwhile, will not make a single dollar of profit from the tournament and says it will reinvest the entire $1bn into global club football.
There will be a Fifa Council meeting to update members on the progress of the tournament, which will be hosted in 12 stadiums across 11 US cities during the month-long summer event.
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