RBA deputy denies rate cut contradicted own forecasts
RBA deputy denies rate cut contradicted own forecasts
The Reserve Bank of Australia’s deputy governor has defended the board’s decision to cut interest rates despite its own staff warning inflation would stay higher in the long term.
In its February Statement on Monetary Policy, RBA economists forecast underlying inflation to remain above the bank’s 2.5 per cent inflation target if it cut the cash rate in line with market expectations.
Andrew Hauser denied claims that the board’s long-awaited decision in February to reduce the cash rate from 4.35 per cent to 4.10 per cent was a rejection of those forecasts.
“Why then did the board cut rates?” he said in an address to the *********** Financial Review Business Summit on Wednesday.
“Did we reject the staff forecasts, as some have claimed? Or did we suddenly and confusingly relax our previously stated intolerance for persistent inflation deviations from target?
“Nothing of the sort – for me at least, the rationale is relatively simple.”
John Simon, a former head of research at the RBA and now a fellow at Macquarie University, was one voice questioning the board’s decision.
“Between November and today the RBA’s expectations are for stronger inflation pressures. And they cut?” he was quoted as saying in the AFR.
“Perhaps there is a disagreement between the RBA staff, who prepare the forecasts, and the RBA board, who make the decision.”
Mr Hauser said the forecast was based on the RBA delivering an additional three cuts over the next 12 months, as the market had been predicting, but the board had no intention to do this.
Markets have since pulled back their rate cut expectations, scared off by a deluge of hawkish commentary since the meeting, and now price in just 60 basis points of additional easing.
That might still be a little too ambitious.
“The rate cut in February reduces the risks of inflation undershooting that midpoint, but the board does not currently share the market’s confidence that a sequence of further cuts will be required,” Mr Hauser said.
As he has done in recent public engagements, Mr Hauser reiterated that the bank had no set path for cutting interest rates.
Instead, the board would make a decision at each meeting based on the data that is available to them.
“Interest rates will go where they need to go to maximise the chances of keeping inflation sustainably in the target band while helping to sustain full employment,” he said.
“Progress towards that target has been good – but it is too soon to declare victory.”
Uncertainty surrounding global trade tensions and the flow-on impacts to economic growth would affect the board’s decision-making, as would its assessment of how tight the labour market is.
Mr Hauser acknowledged its assumptions of how inflationary current unemployment levels were had been challenged by “serious commentators” as being too pessimistic.
But overall, its central projection remained that the labour market would remain relatively tight over the forecast ******* and a potential driver of inflation.
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Supreme Court gravitates toward gun industry in bid to end Mexico lawsuit
Supreme Court gravitates toward gun industry in bid to end Mexico lawsuit
The Supreme Court gravitated toward the American firearm industry Tuesday in its fight to end a $10 billion lawsuit brought by the ******** government over claims the gunmakers are fueling cartel violence. The case has become a major battle over the scope of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA), which has provided broad immunity to gunmakers for two decades despite gun control activists’ attempt to repeal it. At oral arguments Tuesday, the justices posed piercing questions to Mexico’s attorney about claims the country’s lawsuit falls under an exception to the 2005 law, raising concerns that accepting that position would cause a flood of litigation against the gun industry.
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Shire of Bridgetown-Greenbushes warns residents to properly dispose of batteries to avoid safety hazards
Shire of Bridgetown-Greenbushes warns residents to properly dispose of batteries to avoid safety hazards
The Shire of Bridgetown-Greenbushes is warning residents to properly dispose of batteries and avoid putting them in normal bins due to safety hazards.
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St. Johns County Airport Authority board member wants policy review after claims of statute breaches
St. Johns County Airport Authority board member wants policy review after claims of statute breaches
Board member Dennis Clarke is calling for a special meeting of the St. Johns County Airport Authority board of directors after new allegations sent in a recent email from Matt Liotta, the husband of fellow board member Jennifer Liotta.
The email to Clarke claims the authority has violated Florida public meetings laws and even its policies, which require at least five days’ notice with relevant details before authority meetings. Liotta also mentioned other allegations of policy violations.
“Somebody should have that set up on a tickler system and just get those notices out and you know, so I can’t disagree with that,” Clarke told Action News Jax on Tuesday. “But I don’t have any firsthand knowledge as to when it was actually, when the notices were actually published and versus when the meeting was held.”
Action News Jax was also the first to tell you about the allegations of Florida public record law violations by board chair Reba Ludlow and board member Len Tucker. Those claims were raised by the authority’s former legal team, which withdrew its representation of the authority after raising the ethical and legal concerns.
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Now, in light of those recent and new allegations, Clarke is calling for the board to have a third-party review of what he said have been long-outdated policies related to operational procedures and transparency.
“We have policies and procedures that are published on our website that are, by and large, still valid, but they’re dated from 1997,” Clarke said. “There have been many changes in everything since that time.”
Clarke is also calling for greater transparency after the allegations against his two fellow board members by the board’s former attorney Joshua Blocker.
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“I’ve saw Mr. Blocker’s letter … if he has a concern, then that worries me,” Clarke said. “But on the other hand, let’s put it on the table, and let’s deal with it.”
Action News Jax reached out to Blocker for a response and in a statement he said:
“As per Florida bar rules and Florida statute, all information that is pertinent to this matter has been disclosed to the appropriate law enforcement agency for review.”
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Trump’s Latest Tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China Could Be His Biggest Gamble
Trump’s Latest Tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China Could Be His Biggest Gamble
President Trump made one of the biggest gambles of his presidency Tuesday by initiating sweeping tariffs with no clear rationale on imports from Canada, Mexico and China, triggering a trade war that risks undermining the United States economy.
His actions have upended diplomatic relations with America’s largest trading partners, sent markets tumbling, and provoked retaliation on U.S. products — leaving businesses, investors and economists puzzled as to why Mr. Trump would create such upheaval without extended negotiations or clear reasoning.
Mr. Trump has offered up a variety of explanations for the tariffs, saying they are punishment for other countries’ failure to stop drugs and migrants from flowing into the United States, a way to force manufacturing back to America and retribution for countries that take advantage of the United States. On Tuesday, he cited Canada’s hostility toward American banks as another reason.
********* Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it was difficult to understand Mr. Trump’s rationale for the tariffs but posited that his intent was to cripple Canada. “What he wants is to see is a total collapse of the ********* economy, because that’ll make it easier to annex us,” Mr. Trudeau said during a news conference on Tuesday. “That’s never going to happen. We will never be the 51st state.”
Canada announced a series of retaliatory tariffs on $30 billion worth of American imports, and Mr. Trudeau said that other “non-tariff” measures were forthcoming.
“Yeah, he can do damage to the ********* economy but he is going to rapidly find out, as American families are going to rapidly find out, it’s going to hurt people on both sides of the border,” Mr. Trudeau said.
Stock markets around the world slumped. In the United States, the financial sector was one of the worst hit, alongside a host of companies from cruise lines to big tech companies. The S&P 500 fell as much as 2 percent before moderating losses in the afternoon. The dip added to Monday’s 1.8 percent loss, which was its sharpest decline this year.
The bet that Mr. Trump appears to be making is that America is so economically strong and critical to international commerce that he can deploy tariffs as a cudgel to solve nearly every problem. But Mr. Trump’s blend of mercantilism and ****** tactics risk destabilizing a U.S. economy that has been battered by three years of inflation and now faces slowing growth.
The president is imposing steep import taxes on America’s largest trading partners at a moment when inflation has yet to come fully under control, a decision that many economists say will further raise costs for American households and slow economic growth.
“The American people are counting on President Trump to bring down costs and grow the U.S. economy,” said Michael Hanson, senior executive vice president of public affairs at the Retail Industry Leaders Association. “Tariffs on Canada and Mexico put those goals in serious jeopardy and risk destabilizing the North American economy.”
Anxious business groups were holding emergency meetings on Tuesday to determine their responses to the trade moves, which impose a 25 percent tariff on products from both Canada and Mexico, and add another 10 percent tariff to previous levies on China. Some groups were considering taking legal action to challenge the national security authority that the Trump administration is invoking to enact the tariffs.
Others were trying to grapple with what they would mean for their bottom lines. The retailer Target warned on Tuesday that tariffs could hurt its effort to recover from a tough 2024, saying that consumers could pull back on spending amid wider uncertainty about the economy and that the company could raise prices for some products as early as this week. The chief executive of Best Buy, Corie Barry, said on a conference call that price increases were “highly likely,” but that it was difficult to say how big they would be.
Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide, estimated that if the tariffs were maintained and retaliation continued, economic growth would be a full percentage point lower than it would otherwise have been. That would suggest the U.S. economy would grow only 1 percent in 2025. In 2024, it grew 2.5 percent.
Ms. Bostjancic also estimated that price hikes would cause households’ spending on everyday items to increase by around $1,000 annually, on average, because of the tariffs.
Some businesses and unions that would benefit from the tariffs praised them. The United Autoworkers Union said that they were “glad to see an American president take aggressive action on ending the free trade disaster that has dropped like a bomb on the working class.”
And Mr. Trump showed no signs of backing down on Tuesday, saying companies could simply avoid the tariffs if they built their factories in the United States.
“IF COMPANIES MOVE TO THE UNITED STATES, THERE ARE NOT TARIFFS!!!,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social on Tuesday.
Hours later, Mr. Trump warned that if Canada retaliated with higher tariffs, the United States would increase its “reciprocal” tariff by the same amount.
Mr. Trump’s top economic aides tried to explain the decision on Tuesday. Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, said on CNBC that the tariffs were “not a trade war,” calling the conflict a “drug war” instead.
If Canada and Mexico can prove to the president that they can stop the flow of fentanyl, “then of course the president can remove these tariffs,” Mr. Lutnick said. But he said the United States had not seen a “statistically relevant reduction of deaths in America.”
Official statistics show that U.S. overdose deaths have declined significantly over the 12 months ending in September, and crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border have plummeted.
Mr. Lutnick said the president would be taking other trade-related actions against Canada and Mexico in April. “Canada and Mexico had an invitation to trade with an amazing economy, the United States of America, and they have abused that invitation,” Mr. Lutnick said.
Everett Eissenstat, a partner at Squire Patton Boggs and a former economic adviser to Mr. Trump, said the president appeared dissatisfied with other countries’ progress on combating drug trafficking, but said he might have other aims.
“I think it is about the fentanyl, but it’s about a broader picture too,” he said.
Mr. Trudeau, along with President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico, implied the administration was creating a false pretext for tariffs.
After ticking off a list of Mexico’s recent successes in cracking down on drug trafficking, Ms. Sheinbaum rejected what she called the “fentanyl argument” invoked by Mr. Trump to justify the imposition of the tariffs.
“For humanitarian reasons, we cooperate to prevent the ******** trafficking of drugs into the United States,” she said in a statement. “However, as we have stated on many occasions, the government of that country must also take responsibility for the opioid crisis that has caused so many deaths in the United States.”
Mr. Trudeau called Mr. Trump’s rationale “completely bogus, completely unjustified, completely false.”
One of Mr. Trump’s primary goals for tariffs is to force more domestic manufacturing. He also views trade deficits as American “subsidies” to other countries and believes that tariffs can help offset the cost of tax cuts and help pay down the $36 trillion national debt.
Tariffs are likely to encourage some companies to open factories in the United States, to serve American customers. But Canada, Mexico and China have also announced plans to retaliate against U.S. exports, hitting a broad swath of American sectors, including agriculture, retail and automobiles.
The economic impact of tariffs depends largely on how global trade shifts to account for the increased costs and how consumers adapt. Citing the diversion of trade to Vietnam and Mexico during Mr. Trump’s trade war in his first administration, economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics predict these tariffs will lead to a decline in the share of U.S. imports from Mexico to 13 percent, a drop of 2 percentage points. They also expect U.S. imports from Canada to fall to 10 percent.
John C. Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, warned on Tuesday that tariffs would likely lead to higher U.S. prices but that the magnitude of the impact was highly uncertain.
Speaking at an event hosted by Bloomberg, he said he was starting to factor in the impact of tariffs on inflation “because I think we will see some of those effects later this year.”
Mr. Williams stressed that the Fed was also paying close attention to how tariffs would affect economic activity, including if businesses continue to invest or if consumers continue to spend. “That’s where I think another big uncertainty is.”
Mr. Trump is likely correct in his calculation that tariffs will hurt America’s trading partners more than the United States. Because the United States is such a big country with diverse resources, it is far less dependent on trade than many other advanced economies. The tariffs could also strengthen the U.S. dollar, which is the world’s reserve currency, making imports seem cheaper and blunting some of the impact of the levies.
Trade in goods and services accounts for about a quarter of U.S. economic activity, compared to roughly 70 percent for Mexico and Canada, and 37 percent for China. Canada and Mexico both send about 80 percent of their exports to the United States, making them extremely dependent on the United States.
Foreign governments have already reacted to the threat of Mr. Trump’s tariffs by quietly working to diversify their trade relationships, seeking out partners other than the United States. Mexico has updated its trade agreement with the European Union and pushed forward in trade talks with Brazil. Europe reached a separate agreement with South American countries, and with Switzerland.
Still, the negative impacts of tariffs are likely unavoidable, particularly for Canada and Mexico. An analysis by the Peterson Institute for International Economics in February found that a 25 percent tariff on all U.S. imports from Canada and Mexico, matched by similar tariffs from those countries, would cause the U.S. economy to shrink in the coming years, though the ********* and ******** economies would shrink more.
The tariffs drew a quick condemnation from Democrats in Congress while Republicans strained to defend them.
Senate majority leader John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, said Mr. Trump’s tariffs were “oriented around specific objectives, in this case, to reduce the amount of fentanyl coming in this country, across our borders. And so these tariffs, I think, are hopefully temporary.”
“Hopefully, when it’s all said and done, it won’t be something that will create a lot of disruption,” he said.
Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, also said he hoped that the tariffs wouldn’t persist for an extended ******* of time.
“Texas does an enormous amount of trade with both Mexico and Canada,” Mr. Cruz said. “So my hope is these tariffs act as the incentive that President Trump said they were designed to be.”
Colby Smith, Joe Rennison and Catie Edmondson contributed reporting.
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Education Secretary Linda McMahon announces plans for department's 'final' mission – ABC News
Education Secretary Linda McMahon announces plans for department's 'final' mission – ABC News
Education Secretary Linda McMahon announces plans for department’s ‘final’ mission ABC NewsHow Each Senator Voted to Confirm Linda McMahon as Education Secretary The New York TimesWWE legend to lead Education Department after clinching final match in the Senate Fox NewsU.S. Senate C-SPAN
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Jamie George on pain of losing captaincy before Six Nations
Jamie George on pain of losing captaincy before Six Nations
Jamie George considered ending his England career because of the shock and pain of losing the captaincy before the start of the Six Nations.
Hooker George, 34, succeeded Owen Farrell as England skipper before last year’s championship, but was replaced by Saracens team-mate Maro Itoje in January.
“It was hard, it was difficult, it was frustrating and obviously then that makes you question if you can do it,” he told BBC Sport’s Rugby Union Weekly podcast.
“I won’t lie and say it didn’t go through my head [finishing his England career] because I didn’t really know how logistically it would work and if it would be too awkward to be coming back in. I didn’t want to tread on any toes.”
George says he consulted his father, uncle and wife on his decision, and not all of them thought he should continue his international career.
“But ultimately it was ‘what is your gut feel?” George added. “Initially I didn’t know if I could go back, but I watched the Ireland game [this year’s Six Nations opener which he missed through injury] and all I wanted to do was be back on that field because I missed it.”
Under George, England finished third in the 2024 Six Nations, but then suffered a run of five successive defeats in matches against New Zealand, Australia and South Africa across the summer and autumn.
England won five of 12 Tests under his stewardship.
George, who has picked up three Six Nations titles and played in the 2019 World Cup final, said head coach Steve Borthwick broke the news to him over coffee in a “pretty to-the-point” conversation in St Albans.
“I think he was surprised by me questioning myself,” added George. “I think it would hit anyone hard. It was a job that I loved, I was incredibly proud to be able to do it and I felt I was at the start of something. It was a surprise.”
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Shire to launch first repair cafe where community can bring broken items to be fixed and reduce waste
Shire to launch first repair cafe where community can bring broken items to be fixed and reduce waste
The Shire of Bridgetown-Greenbushes will launch its first ever repair cafe this weekend to reduce waste, expend the lifespan of household items and foster connections in the community.
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Magic: The Gathering’s Final Fantasy Set Is An Expansion Four Years In The Making
Magic: The Gathering’s Final Fantasy Set Is An Expansion Four Years In The Making
Two years ago, Wizards of the Coast and Square Enix announced a collaboration that would bring the worlds and characters of Final Fantasy to Magic: The Gathering, the tabletop card game juggernaut. Recently, WotC gave us our first look at some of the cards included in the set, which ranged from expected faces like Cloud, Tidus, and Terra to wackier inclusions like Jumbo Cactuar and its 10,000-damage ability.
The set is still three months away, but based on reactions to the first handful of cards revealed, both WotC and Square Enix are leaning on this set to be a massive success. Recently, at MagicCon Chicago, GameSpot sat down with the Final Fantasy set’s lead game designer, Gavin Verhey, and Wizards franchise VP Rebecca Shepard to learn firsthand how this set came to be.
The conversation includes both the creative side of developing a set like Final Fantasy–refining 16 games into one set, design philosophies behind some of the cards, and more–and the fostering of the partnership between Wizards of the Coast and Square Enix. To hear Wizards tell it, this may be the first time the two sides have collaborated, but it won’t necessarily be the last.
Sephiroth, Planet’s Heir and Cloud, Planet’s Champion
Partnering with Square Enix
The story of Final Fantasy joining Magic: The Gathering begins, according to Shepard, back in 2021, when the world was still in the quarantine times of the COVID-19 pandemic. The foundation of the relationship between Wizards and Square Enix, she says, was built over Zoom–with calls sometimes happening weekly, and other times happening multiple times a week.
The relationship may be four years in, but there’s still plenty to discuss even this close to launch. “It takes so much time and conversation, from the first reveal like we did recently, to the set’s launch, and then to any post-launch plans like reprints and everything else,” Shepard says. “Universes Beyond partnerships can be five-, six-, sometimes seven-year relationships depending on the pipeline.”
One key element in getting the deal done, as Verhey tells it, was Square Enix Japan’s love for Magic. “I hopped onto a weekly call for the first time, and one guy from Square Enix hops on and says, ‘I played four prereleases last weekend and I have new questions about my Modern deck,'” Verhey says. “[Final Fantasy producer Shoichi] Ichikawa-san is so into it. One of the team members over there owns a ****** Lotus. These are serious Magic players.”
Shepard says this is a common occurrence. “Almost every relationship we’ve had has been that way; Bethesda, for example, has weekly games,” Shepard explained. “We didn’t even know about it until we were in negotiation and one of them said, ‘You know I’m a big player, right?’ Well no, you didn’t tell me, but that’s awesome!”
Working so closely with Square Enix meant speaking with some of the games’ original creators, which led to some memorable moments for the team at Wizards. “I got to speak to one of the original designers of Final Fantasy 9–my favorite Final Fantasy–who still works there,” Verhey recounts. “This designer mentioned that while he loved the cards and that FF9 was represented, there was one specific character he wished would be included. Right then, I flipped through one of the decks and showed him a card with art of this character, and he immediately lit up. Seeing them geek out as much as we were geeking out to be there was incredible.”
Verhey says Square Enix’s excitement for Magic echoes WotC’s excitement for Final Fantasy, with many members of the team wanting to come and help work on some of the cards. “People will come out of the woodwork asking, ‘Hey, are we working on this?’ and we suddenly have someone who can help,” Verhey says. “Even if they’re not in the game design space, they can tag in.”
16 games, one set
The Final Fantasy expansion encompasses the 16 mainline Final Fantasy games–no spin-offs like Final Fantasy X-2, no remakes like FF7 Remake or Rebirth, and no offshoots like Final Fantasy Tactics are included. One key challenge for the team was making sure each of the 16 games were represented fairly throughout the set. Verhey notes they were trying to avoid a situation where “Final Fantasy 7 gets 200 cards, while Final Fantasy 2 only gets two,” but he does note that while the more popular games have more cards, all 16 have “plenty of cards.”
Square Enix, as Shepard says, was very interested in that kind of balanced approach. “In [Square Enix’s] eyes, no one installment is more important than the other,” she says. Working with a video game company on a set like this, as opposed to a broader entertainment firm, brings with it more nuanced comments as well. “It’s a different level of feedback because they’re gamers, right? They build games too,” Shepard says. “They’ll dig into mechanics and understand at a deeper level than someone whose background is just entertainment.”
Even within those specific parameters and pinpoint feedback, however, distilling 16 full-length RPGs into one card game expansion takes a lot of work; as Verhey explains, “a ‘short’ Final Fantasy game is like 12 hours long, and then you have Final Fantasy XIV which can be played for hundreds of hours. There’s a ton of content to consider.”
One game posed a unique challenge: Final Fantasy XVI, which launched in 2023, was going through active development at the same time as the Magic set. While the team at Wizards was able to see some concepts and art in advance to help with planning, they didn’t actually get their hands on the game until launch. “When [FFXVI] finally launched,” Verhey says, “there was a week when the four main designers agreed we wouldn’t spoil anything for each other, but we’d post what was happening in our chat as we’re going saying, ‘This should be a card!'”
Tonberry
Balancing act
The team found a unique way to keep track of each game’s representation through the specific game designations on the bottom of every card. Some are obvious–the Cloud cards seen so far all say “FFVII” on the bottom–but the Tonberry, for example, is specifically the creature’s Final Fantasy V iteration.
Verhey says the idea came from playtesting, when one tester mentioned that they knew a few of the characters shown on cards, but not all of them. “We then realized that this is another fun storytelling moment–where a player can say, ‘I know this, let me tell you where it’s from’–and a little indicator on the card that tells you what game it’s from can inspire someone to go and look up what was happening there,” Verhey explained. “We thought it was a great little touch; here’s the game the card is from, go find out more or ask a friend about it.”
One of the team’s focuses was to find recurring elements of the Final Fantasy world, so that anyone who’s ever played a FF game can recognize them. The first batch of revealed cards included a few of those–Tonberry, the summon Shiva, and a Chocobo among them.
Another focus was laying out each game’s main story, heroes, villains, and key side characters, and from there decisions had to be made. Verhey says that while not every character in Final Fantasy’s history will receive a card–he expects a few omissions will leave some fans disappointed–most people will be pleased. “I’m not going to say who is or isn’t there, but it’s pretty safe to guess that if you’re a major hero or antagonist from a game, there’s a good chance you have a spot in the set,” Verhey confirms. “As for party members, I’m not going to say we covered every single party member ever, but we tried to get them all.”
“I’ve gotten questions all the time since we announced the set two years ago, ‘Is this going to be in there?’ about a bunch of different things,” Verhey continues. “My answer, generally, is that if it’s super obvious, it’s going to be in there. We know Triple Triad is a thing, people love the side card games, but you’ll have to wait and see if it makes the set.”
Summon: Shiva
Designing Final Fantasy
Incorporating something like Final Fantasy into Magic: The Gathering sometimes requires the creation of an entirely new mechanic or subset of cards. One major example shown so far is the unique representation of summons–which, for the first time in Magic’s history, combines the creature card type with the “Saga” enchantment card type to create a unique Saga Creature hybrid. Verhey says this wasn’t the first idea for summons during development, but it was the best one.
“At first we gave them Vanishing, which is an old mechanic where a creature comes in with a certain number of vanishing counters, every turn a counter goes away, and when all the counters go away, it goes into the graveyard,” Verhey says. “Another designer asked, ‘What if we took the concept of the summon going away and turned it from a downside into something awesome?’ That’s all it took; everyone on the design team thought it was perfect, no debate or anything.”
Double-sided cards–which appear once in a while in Magic expansions, but not every set–also feature throughout the Final Fantasy set. Verhey says including them allowed the team to explore key elements of the FF experience. Five “Sidequest” cards represent some of the offshoot activities in a Final Fantasy adventure, while some heroes and villains needed double-sided cards to tell their full story.
“Final Fantasy really pioneered the ‘you haven’t seen my final form’ or ‘hero transformation’ idea in video games for me,” he says. “Incorporating that into double-faced cards was a great fit; we can show both hero transformations and multiple boss forms.”
Dragon of Mount Gulg
Through The Ages
While the Final Fantasy expansion includes products many players expect–booster packs, pre-constructed decks, limited Secret Lair drops, and more–the 60-card “set within a set” called Final Fantasy Through The Ages took many by surprise. Through The Ages cards are reprinted card designs from throughout Magic’s history, and all of them portray concept art and scenes from throughout Final Fantasy’s history provided to the team by Square Enix itself.
“Square Enix said, ‘We have this. If you want to use it, you’re able to.’ And once they said that, we had to,” Verhey recalls. “That stuff is so iconic; all of the work done by the prolific Final Fantasy artists is incredible. [Product architect] Zakeel [Gordon] called a meeting one day and said, ‘We have to use it for something,’ and eventually we landed on the bonus sheet.”
The Through The Ages bonus sheet also confirms a question Verhey had received for a long time: Would Yoshitaka Amano and/or Tetsuya Nomura–two names synonymous with Final Fantasy for decades–be involved with the Final Fantasy set? “I’m happy to say that the answer is yes,” Verhey says. “I’m so glad we were able to do something, and they’ve got some cool surprises in the set.”
Each artist had one piece of artwork featured in the initial reveal, and both were part of the Through The Ages bonus sheet. Amano’s work was shown on Dragon of Mount Gulg, a reprint of Ancient Copper Dragon, while Nomura’s art came through on the Yuffie Kisaragi reprint of Yuriko, Tiger’s Shadow.
This isn’t the first time Magic has worked with Amano; for 2019’s War Of The Spark set, Amano provided artwork of fan-favorite Liliana Vess for a Japan-exclusive version of Liliana, Dreadhorde General. That card, according to Shepard, was used in the pitch to Square Enix for the full Final Fantasy set.
Nomura, meanwhile, is working with Wizards on Magic for the first time, and his feedback has been a major boon for the team. “Getting Nomura’s stamp of approval has meant a lot for us in this partnership,” Shepard said. “When we think about the future of the relationship, we really feel like we earned his respect.”
Jumbo Cactuar
Beyond vs. within
Final Fantasy marks a new era for Magic: The Gathering, as it’s the first Universes Beyond set that will be legal in the game’s Standard competitive format. It also won’t be the last for 2025, as sets themed around Marvel’s Spider-Man and Avatar: The Last Airbender have already been confirmed for September and November, respectively.
With the rise of Universes Beyond has come a subset of fans who “wish Magic were still Magic,” where outside IP don’t have such a foothold in the game. The team has heard these complaints, and those desires are not lost on them.
“I hear it, and I respect those opinions, but I still think it’s right for us to continue growing this community for another 35 years, and to do that, we have to keep bringing people in,” Shepard says. “If someone’s like, ‘I love the Magic IP,’ we do too. It’s very important to me in all the work my team does in addition to Universes Beyond.”The in-universe worlds of Magic are about to be explored heavily outside of the card game, with a Netflix animated series, live-action projects for both TV and theaters coming from Legendary Pictures, and books from Dark Horse Publishing. Ultimately, as Shepard says, “We’re trying to give everyone everything that they want.”
“It’s okay if you don’t love Final Fantasy; making Magic for everyone also means not everyone is going to love every decision we make,” Shepard says. “But if we choose a partner that your kids also love, or your brother or sister or roommate knows about but doesn’t play Magic, and it encourages them to join you for a game, we’ve done our job. We’ve grown the gathering by one more.”
2025 isn’t just for Universes Beyond either; the first set Aetherdrift was set entirely in-universe, and there are two more–Tarkir: Dragonstorm is due in April, and the “Magic meets space opera” set Edge Of Eternities is scheduled for early August. Verhey says this all falls within normal Magic release parameters. “If you looked at our release calendar five or six years ago,” he says, “we were doing three or four worlds a year, so it tracks.”
Sidequest: Catch a Fish // Cooking Campsite
Ahead On Our Way
If there’s one thing Gavin Verhey, Rebecca Shepard, and the rest of the team at Wizards want people to know about the Final Fantasy set, it’s that for them, this has been a labor of love. “It was four Final Fantasy superfans developing this thing, then an entire company of Final Fantasy superfans creating this thing, and we now get to show it to the world,” Verhey says.
Even though release is fast approaching, Shepard doesn’t think this is the end of Wizards of the Coast’s story with Square Enix. “I don’t think there’s ever an end to any partnership. Even if the product is done and we don’t reprint it anymore because the term of the contract expired, we still stay in contact,” she says. “So much like any other partnership, we can revisit it like we revisit our own worlds. I’m not confirming something is in the works here, but it’s likely a matter of ‘when,’ not ‘if.'”
As Verhey looks back on the work he’s done, he keeps coming back to how collaborative this set in particular had become. “I’ve played a lot of Final Fantasy myself, but I can’t say I’ve played them a hundred times and know them all by heart, right?” he says. “By talking to people who have a favorite Final Fantasy and running cards from that game by them, we end up with the coolest stuff imaginable. It’s a special set, and working on it has been an honor.”
Magic: The Gathering | Final Fantasy launches June 13 in local game stores and big box retailers. Prerelease events are scheduled to begin June 6 at local game stores and run right up to launch.
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BlackRock Will Buy Panama Canal Ports from CK Hutchison
BlackRock Will Buy Panama Canal Ports from CK Hutchison
President Trump had been hammering Panama for weeks over its most valuable asset, the Panama Canal, saying, without evidence, that China operated the waterway. There seemed to be no way Panama could get Washington off its back.
On Tuesday, Wall Street intervened.
An investment group led by BlackRock, a giant American asset manager, said it had agreed to buy two ports in Panama owned by a Hong Kong company that had become the focus of the tensions between Panama and Mr. Trump.
BlackRock will buy the ports, which sit at either end of the canal, and over 40 others from the Hong Kong conglomerate, CK Hutchison, for about $19 billion. Though Mr. Trump has other complaints about the canal — it charges too much, he contends — the deal greatly relieves pressure on Panama, political analysts said.
“It is an elegant off-ramp for what looked to be an unsolvable crisis,” said Benjamin Gedan, director of the Latin American program at the Wilson Center.
The deal is also an indication of the spoils available to American companies as the Trump administration pursues its America First foreign policy. And for some historians, it brings up memories of the outsize power that Wall Street banks have had in Latin America.
“Where are the Panamanian voices here?” said Peter James Hudson, an associate professor at the University of British Columbia and the author of “Bankers and Empire: How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean.” “They are completely lost in this larger story of Trump’s efforts.”
For BlackRock, it’s the latest sign of its desire to expand beyond what it is historically been known for — managing trillions of dollars for everyday investors in stock and bond funds. BlackRock is buying the ports through Global Infrastructure Partners, an investment firm it bought last year for almost $13 billion that owns and operates many ports, airports and data centers.
The conversations between the BlackRock-led consortium and executives at CK Hutchinson, which is owned by the Li family, one of Asia’s wealthiest, began a few weeks ago, according to a person familiar with the discussions.
The Li family believed it was under political pressure to exit the ports business, particularly its holdings in the Panama Canal, the person said.
The Panama Canal provides a crucial shortcut, connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Vessels do not need to stop at Panama’s ports to go through the canal.
Mr. Trump has frequently said he wants the United States to retake control of the waterway, which it ceded to Panama in 2000.
CK Hutchison has operated the Balboa and Cristóbal ports since 1997, when Panama granted the company 25 year concessions for the facilities. The concessions were renewed for another 25 years in 2021. The BlackRock investment group will be buying the companies that own the port concessions.
In the past several days, executives at BlackRock, including Laurence D. Fink, its chief executive, and a board member, Adebayo Ogunlesi, briefed Mr. Trump; the Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent; the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; and others on the deal, according to two people involved in the deal. The administration was supportive, they added.
The Li family specifically sought an American buyer, one of the people briefed on the discussions said. There were three other bids for the deal, another person familiar with the deal said.
Frank Sixt, a co-managing director at CK Hutchison, said in a statement that the deal was “purely commercial in nature and wholly unrelated to recent political news reports concerning the Panama ports.”
This is BlackRock’s largest infrastructure deal ever. It is doing the deal with a partner known as Terminal Investment Limited, which operates ports served by the world’s largest container shipping company, Mediterranean Shipping.
The deal adds to Terminal Investment’s portfolio of ports in Europe and Latin America, and in addition to operating ports in the Panama Canal, the buyers were particularly interested in CK Hutchison’s ports in Asia.
“These world-class ports facilitate global growth,” Mr. Fink said in a statement.
This deal also shows just how central Mr. Ogunlesi has become to BlackRock. After BlackRock acquired Global Industrial Partners, or GIP, Mr. Ogunlesi became the firm’s largest individual shareholder. He separately sits on the board of Terminal Investment Limited.
“BlackRock couldn’t have done it without GIP, and GIP without BlackRock,” said Ralph Schlosstein, chairman emeritus of the investment bank Evercore and a co-founder of BlackRock. “The connectivity that Larry has with public sector leaders around the globe and the capabilities that Bayo brings to the table are a compelling combination.”
The Trump administration’s support of the BlackRock-led deal to buy these ports comes after Mr. Fink and the firm has been the target of many conservative lawmakers and politicians for his past comments urging corporations to consider environmental, social and governance, or E.S.G., goals. More recently and particularly in recent weeks, BlackRock has stepped back from E.S.G. and diversity initiatives.
CK Hutchison is part of the conglomerate founded by Li Ka-shing, who was Hong Kong’s richest man at one point. Mr. Li retired in 2018 and handed over control to his son Victor Li. The conglomerate includes retail chains, telecommunications networks and energy companies.
Mr. Trump has also taken aim at the fees that the Panama Canal charges shipping companies to use the waterway. The fees have gone up in recent years, but the Panamanian agency that runs the canal has said droughts, investments in upgrades and sheer demand were responsible for the increases.
The ports concessions awarded to CK Hutchinson in 2021 were recently challenged in a Panamanian court by two lawyers who contended that the concessions were unconstitutional. The lawsuit prompted speculation that the Panamanian lawyers behind the challenge were acting as a front for other entities who stood to profit from ousting CK Hutchison. But Norman Castro, one of the lawyers, said in an email that he and the other lawyer were acting strictly in a personal capacity and out of respect for the country’s constitution.
Panamanian authorities promised to conduct an audit to verify that Hutchison “is properly reporting its revenues, payments and contributions to the state.” On Jan. 21, nearly a dozen auditors entered the company’s offices to begin their work.
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Trump administration revises directive to federal agencies on mass firings
Trump administration revises directive to federal agencies on mass firings
Washington — The Office of Personnel Management issued revised guidance to federal agencies Tuesday regarding the firing of probationary workers amid President Trump’s efforts to shrink the size of the government, informing department leaders that they do not have to take any “specific performance-based actions” regarding those employees.
The revised memo from Charles Ezell, the acting director of OPM, comes after a federal judge ruled last week that the Trump administration’s mass firings of probationary workers, who generally have been in their jobs for less than one year, were likely ********.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup found that “OPM did not have the authority to direct the firing of employees, probationary or otherwise, in any other federal agency.”
The latest guidance from OPM revises a Jan. 20 memo from Ezell that required agencies to identify all employees still in their probationary periods and send a report to the agency listing all those workers. The memo instructed department heads to “promptly determine whether those employees should be retained at the agency.”
But the revised memo includes a new paragraph that states that “by this memorandum, OPM is not directing agencies to take any specific performance-based actions regarding probationary employees. Agencies have ultimate decision-making authority over, and responsibility for, such personnel actions.”
OPM said it “wanted to clarify in light of a recent court order and some public misinformation. It has always been up to agencies whether to take performance-based actions against probationary employees.”
Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, or AFGE, said OPM’s latest guidance “is a clear admission that it unlawfully directed federal agencies to carry out mass terminations of probational employees.”
“Every agency should immediately rescind these unlawful terminations and reinstate everyone who was illegally fired,” Kelley said in a statement regarding the memo.
The AFGE is one of the labor unions that sued the Trump administration over its firings of tens of thousands of federal workers. The unions estimated there were roughly 200,000 probationary workers employed throughout the federal government. The federal workforce consists of more than 2.4 million people, excluding military personnel and postal workers.
After Ezell directed agency heads to identify probationary employees, Mr. Trump issued an executive order that instructed agency heads to “promptly undertake preparations to initiate large-scale reductions in force.”
The mass firings were a drastic move by Mr. Trump in his effort to cut the size of the federal government. The president established the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to lead the efforts to shrink the government, and workers for the task force has fanned out across federal agencies. OPM also gave federal workers the option to participate in a deferred resignation program, which gave them the option to resign their positions but retain full pay and benefits until Sept. 30.
The White House said roughly 75,000 employees accepted the offer to leave their government jobs, far fewer than the 200,000 it expected to take the so-called buyout.
The Trump administration has also targeted specific agencies, namely the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the U.S. Agency for International Development, in its cost-cutting efforts. Mr. Trump’s overhaul of the agencies, though, is being challenged in federal court.
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Doorbell Camera Catches Delivery Driver Hitting Customer’s Car, Fleeing Scene
Doorbell Camera Catches Delivery Driver Hitting Customer’s Car, Fleeing Scene
A customer’s doorbell camera captured the moment their delivery driver backed into their parked car and fled the scene in Amelia, Ohio – a suburb of Cincinnati – on Sunday, March 2.
Donte Lanier’s home security camera recorded a DoorDash driver backing out of his driveway and into his parked car after delivering the food.
The female driver smashed a window and dented the rear passenger door of Lanier’s car and drove away, video shows.
Talking to Fox19, Lanier said DoorDash was uncooperative in attempts to resolve the incident, but after posting the video to social media the driver was identified and a police report was filed. Credit: Donte Lanier via Storyful
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Trump lawyer Alina Habba questions fired veterans’ fitness
Trump lawyer Alina Habba questions fired veterans’ fitness
(L-R) Attorney Alina Habba speaks as Donald Trump looks on during a press conference at Trump Tower in New York City on Sept. 6, 2024.
Charly Triballeau | AFP | Getty Images
President Donald Trump’s top lawyer Alina Habba on Tuesday questioned whether some military veterans fired from federal government jobs as part of an ongoing workforce reduction are capable of working or willing to do so.
“You know, we care about veterans tremendously,” Habba told reporters at the White House.
“But at the same time, we have taxpayer dollars, we have a fiscal responsibility to use taxpayer dollars to pay people that actually work,” said Habba, who holds the title of Trump’s counselor.
“We’re going to care for them in the right way, but perhaps they’re not fit to have a job at this moment, or not willing to come to work,” she said.
“And we can’t, you know, I wouldn’t take money from you and pay somebody and say sorry, you know … they’re not going to come to work,” Habba said. “It’s just not acceptable.”
The Trump administration is engaged in a wide-ranging effort to cut the number of federal workers. How that is being done, as well as the personal stories of individuals such as veterans and others affected by the cuts, has led to blowback among the public.
Habba spoke hours before Trump was set to address a joint session of Congress.
Senate Democrats, in a press release Tuesday, said their guests for that speech would “include veterans indiscriminately fired as part of the Trump Administration’s mass terminations of federal government employees.”
********* Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., for example, has invited as his guest “Alissa Ellman, a disabled, toxic-exposed Army veteran who was illegally and indiscriminately fired from her job at the Buffalo VA during VA Secretary [Doug] Collins’ mass terminations of VA employees and veterans,” the release said.
Veterans make up about 30% of the total federal workforce, according to a report by the Office of Personnel Management.
As of September 2021, nearly 640,000 veterans were employed in that workforce. Of that tally, 53% were disabled.
The chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee has advised GOP lawmakers to stop holding in-person town halls on the heels of several events that featured attendees strongly criticizing members of Congress.
Read more CNBC politics coverage
At an event Saturday in his home state of Kansas, Republican Sen. Roger Marshall left early after being grilled by some attendees about federal job cuts and other issues.
One attendee, Chuck Nunn, identified himself as a conservative Democrat, who told Marshall he supported the Trump administration’s efforts to reduce fraud and waste in government spending.
“But I think the way we are going about it is so wrong because there are unintended consequences,” Nunn said, according to High Plains Public Radio.
“I support the veterans. But what you’re doing right now, what the government is doing right now, as far as cutting out those jobs, a huge percent of those people, and I know that you care about the veterans, are veterans,” Nunn said.
“And that is a damn shame,” Nunn said. “That is a damn shame.”
Marshall left the town hall after Nunn’s statement.
Don’t miss these insights from CNBC PRO
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Education Secretary Linda McMahon announces plans for department's 'final' mission – ABC News
Education Secretary Linda McMahon announces plans for department's 'final' mission – ABC News
Education Secretary Linda McMahon announces plans for department’s ‘final’ mission ABC NewsWWE legend to lead Education Department after clinching final match in the Senate Fox NewsHow Each Senator Voted to Confirm Linda McMahon as Education Secretary The New York TimesTrump’s new education secretary has 3 goals to overhaul the American school system Business Insider
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Trump threatens to jail or deport students for ‘******** protests’
Trump threatens to jail or deport students for ‘******** protests’
US President Donald Trump said he would cut funding for universities that allow what he called “********” protests and prosecute and deport foreign students who participate.
On his Truth Social social media platform, Trump said that “all federal funding will STOP” for schools that permit students to protest illegally.
Trump’s announcement comes less than a year after massive student protests against Israel’s war in Gaza swept across US college campuses, including Columbia University in New York and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
American students will be expelled, Trump said.
Trump did not specify what would constitute an “********” protest. Broadly speaking, the right to protest is protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, also known as Fire, swiftly condemned Trump’s announcement.
“Colleges can and should respond to unlawful conduct, but the president does not have unilateral authority to revoke federal funds, even for colleges that allow ‘********’ protests,” the statement said.
The group added that the move will “cast an impermissible chill on student protests about the Israeli-************ conflict”.
In a separate announcement, the US Department of Education, General Services Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services said they would conduct a “comprehensive review” of Columbia’s federal contracts amid an ongoing investigation into compliance with Title VI, a federal law that bans discrimination based on ethnicity or ancestry.
In a statement, the education department said that it is considering stop work orders for $51.4m (£40.19m) in contracts with the New York City-based university, and will review more than $5bn in grant commitments to the school.
“Americans have watched in horror for more than a year now, as Jewish students have been assaulted and harassed on elite university campuses – repeatedly overrun by antisemitic students and agitators,” Trump’s new Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, said in a statement.
McMahon added that “unlawful encampments and demonstrations have completely paralysed day-to-day campus operations, depriving Jewish students of learning opportunities to which they are entitled”.
In January, Trump signed an executive order that called for the removal of foreign students who participated in protests.
The order also directed government departments to make recommendations that could allow educational institutions to “monitor for and report activities by alien students and staff” and, if warranted, remove them.
A White House fact sheet on the order specified that it seeks to “protect law and order, quell pro-****** vandalism and intimidation, and investigate and punish anti-Jewish racism in leftist, anti-American colleges and universities”.
In April 2024, student protests against the war in Gaza drew national attention after students at Columbia were arrested at a student encampment set up on campus.
Thousands of arrests were ultimately made at dozens of universities across the country.
At Columbia, the university authorised New York Police Department officers to swarm the campus, a controversial decision that led to the arrests of about 100 students who were occupying a university building.
Four months after protests rocked the campus, Columbia president Minouche Shafik resigned.
Earlier this week, a federal task force announced it would visit 10 prominent US universities that have been the scene of anti-semitic incidents.
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Renown stand-up comedian Austen Tayshus is heading to Nannup for ‘wild show’
Renown stand-up comedian Austen Tayshus is heading to Nannup for ‘wild show’
Renowned stand-up comedian Austen Tayshus, who is touring Australia for the 40th anniversary of his hit comedy single Australiana, is heading to Nannup.
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The Big Government Contracts DOGE Hasn’t Touched
The Big Government Contracts DOGE Hasn’t Touched
Elon Musk and his team of budget cutters have claimed credit for billions of dollars in canceled government contracts. But their initiative, the Department of Government Efficiency, has so far barely touched the biggest sources of contract spending in the federal budget.
Here’s where the government spends money on contracts, by agency.
Here’s where the government spends money on contracts, by agency.
The DOGE cuts have primarily targeted agencies that spend less.
The DOGE cuts have primarily targeted agencies that spend less.
And those cuts represent a sliver of all federal contract spending.
And those cuts represent a sliver of all federal contract spending.
If you look at just the cuts, a majority have affected foreign aid. There are barely any to defense.
If you look at just the cuts, a majority have affected foreign aid. There are barely any to defense.
Source: USA Spending, DOGE
Based on obligated spending in the 2024 fiscal year.
This narrow focus has meant DOGE’s impact on the federal budget has been narrow, too. In a New York Times analysis of public federal spending data, the total of the group’s claimed cuts represents a tiny slice of more than $750 billion in contracts across the government in 2024.
Those cuts fall disproportionately on smaller businesses owned by women and by people in ********* groups. These smaller firms may lack the muscle to negotiate with the government or to compete for new work in the onerous federal contracting world.
By contrast, the 10 largest government contractors together collect more than a quarter of all federal contract spending, or over $200 billion in the 2024 fiscal year, according to the Times analysis of nearly six million contracts.
The cuts DOGE has published include few contracts with these firms, and none at all with Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing and Northrop Grumman — four of the biggest defense contractors.
Spending on the largest government contractors
Among all contracts
Those listed by DOGE
Lockheed Martin
7%
0%
RTX
4%
0%
General Dynamics
3%
<1%
Boeing
3%
0%
UnitedHealth
3%
0%
Northrop Grumman
2%
0%
Leidos
2%
7%
Huntington Ingalls
1%
0%
L3Harris
1%
0%
Booz Allen Hamilton
1%
2%
Total
28%
9%
Source: USA Spending, DOGE
Based on obligated spending in the 2024 fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024). Highlights show the larger share.
The group’s cuts have had big effects for small companies and nonprofits that work with the government.
“They have gone to really the equivalent of the mom-and-pop shops,” said Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a group that investigates corruption and waste in government. “They are so on the margin of savings when it comes to the federal budget but have extraordinary impacts on the companies because they are small companies.”
These cuts, in turn, are also trickling down to the small businesses that subcontract with companies working with the government.
“I thought at first when things were happening that they would do something to protect small businesses,” said Anne Hayes, whose small business, Inclusive Development Partners, got about 90 percent of its income subcontracting on projects for the U.S. Agency for International Development. “It never happened.”
Her company worked to ensure that U.S.A.I.D. educational programs in impoverished parts of the world were accessible to children with disabilities. Now she has not paid her staff of 22, many of whom have disabilities themselves, since Jan. 24.
“I’m grieving,” Ms. Hayes said. “I loved the business, I loved the people I worked with — it’s unfathomable that it’s disappearing.”
Share of spending among …
All contracts
23%
Contracts on DOGE site
29%
*********-owned businesses
All contracts
10%
Contracts on DOGE site
19%
Businesses owned by women
All contracts
5%
Contracts on DOGE site
11%
All contracts
5%
Contracts on DOGE site
11%
Source: USA Spending, DOGE
Based on obligated spending in the 2024 fiscal year for all federal contracts and those on DOGE’s list.
Mr. Musk’s team has undertaken other efforts to trim and transform federal spending, including by firing federal workers and canceling leases and grants. According to its own error-filled accounting, the group has claimed it has reduced government spending by $105 billion, a number that couldn’t be verified with the information DOGE has publicly posted. Of that sum, the website says that contract “savings” total only around $8 billion. But contracting is one of the few areas where the office has shown its work and where detailed analyses are possible.
The focus on smaller agencies largely reflects White House policy priorities, including a disdain for foreign aid, the Education Department and programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion. A recent executive order signed by President Trump suggests that far larger sources of spending are unlikely to face similar scrutiny, for now.
In the order, which promised “a transformation in federal spending,” the White House outlined steps for agencies to work with DOGE on future contract cancellations. Excluded from such cuts: all expenditures related to the military, immigration enforcement, law enforcement, public safety and the intelligence community.
The three cabinet-level agencies that primarily oversee those roles, the Departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, were responsible for two-thirds of all of the government’s contract spending in the 2024 fiscal year. U.S.A.I.D., by contrast, was responsible for 1 percent.
These agencies have the largest share of federal spending on contracts …
Among all contracts
Those listed by DOGE
Defense
60%
<1%
Veterans Affairs
9%
1%
Energy
6%
<1%
Health and Human Services
5%
22%
Homeland Security
3%
<1%
Source: USA Spending, DOGE
… and these agencies have the largest share of spending on contracts cut by DOGE
Among all contracts
Those listed by DOGE
U.S.A.I.D.
1%
56%
Health and Human Services
5%
22%
Social Security
<1%
7%
Education
<1%
4%
Treasury
1%
1%
Source: USA Spending, DOGE
To assess DOGE’s choices, The Times compared all federal contract spending in the 2024 fiscal year with spending that year on contracts that the group lists as canceled on its website. Many contracts cited by the group actually ended long ago, were misidentified or claimed unrealistic savings. For that reason, we used the actual money spent in 2024 to estimate the effects of the group’s claimed cancellations.
Two-thirds of all the spending in 2024 on these contracts was for providing professional support services in some form. By contrast, the largest sources of spending for the full federal government include prescription drugs, government-funded health insurance, and military planes and ships.
Just 2 percent of the spending on contracts listed by DOGE went to businesses that produce goods, our analysis found. Across the government, that share was 28 percent.
The Defense Department, in particular, has a handful of extremely large contracts with companies that build the biggest and most complex equipment used in wars, like jets and aircraft carriers. The estimated cost of a single B-21 bomber, part of a contract with Northrop Grumman, is more than $500 million. The government has ordered around 100 of them.
Defense contractors may not be spared from the contract-cutting spree forever. The executive order discourages Mr. Musk’s operation from cutting their contracts immediately. But Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, has asked the military branches to identify areas for spending cuts, part of a plan to reallocate resources to favored projects, such as border enforcement. (The White House did not respond to questions about how it intends to approach larger sources of federal contract spending in the future, or about the composition of cuts DOGE has pursued so far.)
“I don’t think the large defense contractors will be immune from cuts and contract terminations for long,” said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who noted that the sensitive nature of some defense contract details may require a different approach to cuts. “The defense industry is bracing for budget cuts.”
Large consulting firms are also preparing for scrutiny. The General Services Administration has asked the 10 largest such companies to come in to defend their contracts, as The Wall Street Journal first reported.
Those companies will be able to discuss and defend their spending before any cuts are made, a senior G.S.A. official confirmed. “We welcome them working with us to decrease our excessive government spending while continuing to provide the essential services the government needs,” Will Powell, the G.S.A.’s acting press secretary, said in a statement. No such opportunity was offered to smaller vendors.
In other ways, DOGE has pushed cuts that cause broad disruption with only small savings payoffs. The executive order last week also froze for 30 days credit cards used by federal offices to make “micro purchases” for things like lab supplies and plumbing services. Those expenditures average about $440 per transaction. About a third of this small-scale government spending goes to small businesses around the country — a local hardware store, or a self-employed landscaper.
Such targets, and the absence so far of ******* ones like defense contractors, add to the sense among critics that the group isn’t molding a leaner, more efficient government so much as it is pursuing ideological foes and social media ovation.
“Elon Musk has actually undermined the cause of deficit reduction by convincing people that simply cutting waste, fraud and abuse; D.E.I. contracts; foreign aid; and federal bureaucrats is all it takes to balance the budget,” said Jessica Riedl, a senior fellow with the Manhattan Institute who has worked for two decades on efforts to rein in the federal budget. “This is making it even harder for those of us trying to convince the public that real sacrifice is necessary to fix the budget.”
About the data
To assess the scale and scope of the contracts listed as canceled by DOGE, The Times downloaded an archive of federal contract transactions for the 2024 fiscal year from USA Spending. The data included prime awards, in which the federal government pays contractors, and did not include subawards, in which contractors pay other vendors.
The data set included detailed information on nearly seven million transactions that were part of nearly six million contracts, together amounting to about $754 billion in obligated spending in the fiscal year. We matched these contracts to the ones listed on DOGE’s website, and compared the spending among both groups — all federal contracts and the ones on DOGE’s list.
In the charts that measured shares of contractors or businesses, we excluded contracts that matched a set of identifiers that indicated that they lacked detailed information about the contractor.
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Amazon’s AWS forms new group focused on agentic AI
Amazon’s AWS forms new group focused on agentic AI
By Greg Bensinger
(Reuters) -Amazon.com has formed a new group focused on agentic artificial intelligence to help users and customers automate more of their lives, according to an internal email viewed by Reuters on Tuesday.
The new group will be led by AWS executive Swami Sivasubramanian, the email, from AWS CEO Matt Garman, said. “Agentic AI has the potential to be the next multi-billion business for AWS,” Garman wrote. Sivasubramanian, previously vice president of AI and data, will report directly to Garman, according to the email.
Agentic AI is meant to automate tasks for users so that they do not have to prompt the systems to take actions for them. Amazon touted some of those capabilities last week in announcing an updated version of voice service Alexa set to be released later this month to some customers.
“We have the opportunity to help our customers innovate even faster and unlock more possibilities, and I firmly believe that AI agents are core to this next wave of innovation,” Garman wrote.
A spokesperson for Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Also on Tuesday, AWS senior vice president Peter DeSantis announced in an internal email a series of additional reorganizations within AWS, which has for years been Amazon’s profit center. Those include moving AI groups Bedrock and SageMaker as well as hardware engineering under the compute organization and a new group combining customer experience and commerce.
DeSantis said the changes will help “accelerate innovation.”
Shares of Seattle-based Amazon were down less than 1% to $204.81.
(Reporting by Greg Bensinger; Editing by Leslie Adler and Chizu Nomiyama)
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Trudeau and Sheinbaum React to U.S. Tariffs on Canada and Mexico
Trudeau and Sheinbaum React to U.S. Tariffs on Canada and Mexico
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Trudeau and Sheinbaum React to U.S. Tariffs on Canada and MexicoPrime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada and President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico slammed the tariffs being imposed against both of their countries and vowed to retaliate.
So today, the United States launched a trade war against Canada. Their closest partner and ally. Their closest friend. At the same time, they’re talking about working positively with Russia, appeasing Vladimir Putin, a lying, murderous dictator. Make that make sense. Now, it’s not in my habit to agree with The Wall Street Journal. But Donald, they point out that even though you’re a very smart guy, this is a very dumb thing to do. Canada will be implementing 25 percent tariffs against $155 billion worth of American goods. We will relentlessly fight to protect our economy. And we will stand up for Canadians every single second of every single day because this country is worth fighting for.
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#Trudeau #Sheinbaum #React #U.S #Tariffs #Canada #Mexico
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Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 Remake Release Date—Platforms, Editions & Price
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 Remake Release Date—Platforms, Editions & Price
Activision has finally given a Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 Remake the green light and a release date. It looks to follow in the footsteps of the previous remake and deliver an old-school kickflipping good time for fans old and new.
Many hearts (and skateboards) broke when a Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 Remake was canceled. It seemed a bizarre call given the lauded nature of the 1 + 2 Remake. But the legendary Tony Hawk himself created buzz back in September 2024. February 2025 came and went, and a new Tony Hawk’s Remake was suddenly a real possibility.
Rumors became reality, and we no longer had to ruminate as a new remake is confirmed.
When is Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 Remake Coming Out?
Birdman is the GOAT. Credit to Activision
The Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 Remake has been given a July 11 release date by Activision.
We knew of the Tony Hawk’s 3 and 4 remake confirmation hours before the official announcement. The news we were all waiting for finally became official on March 4 with a worldwide announcement and exciting reveal trailer for Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4.
It blasts Motorhead’s Ace of Spades while showing off modern revamps of Airport, Tokyo, and many more. You can check it out below—I dare you to not get goosebumps watching it!
All Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 Remake Platforms
PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC are all getting a THPS 3 + 4 release.
Activision is making sure everyone gets a ticket to halfpipe heaven. Every platform gets a port on day one, and you’ve got no excuse not to strap on your helmet and elbow pads and pull off a multi-million point manual by spamming buttons.
Every Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 Remake Edition & Price
A Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 Standard Edition ($49.99/£39.99), Digital Deluxe Edition ($69.99/£59.99), and Collector’s Edition ($129.99/£119.99) will keep you up all night with a headache.
Here’s an easy way of checking out each edition and its cost.
Edition
Price
Standard Edition
$49.99/£39.99
Digital Deluxe Edition
$69.99/£59.99
Collector’s Edition
$129.99/£119.99
As someone in his 30s and love the Tony Hawk’s series, I’m in dreamland. Are you also a nostalgia merchant desperate to relieve your youth? What are your favorite memories from the third or fourth iteration?
While you wait for the newest sequel, here are more release dates to check out: Elden Ring Nightreign, Split Fiction, WWE 2K25, Atomfall, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Tales of the Shire A Lord of the Rings Game, and The First Berserker Khazan.
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NBA All-Star Kyrie Irving out for season with torn ACL
NBA All-Star Kyrie Irving out for season with torn ACL
Three weeks after flagging his desire to switch allegiance and play for Australia, NBA star Kyrie Irving has been ruled of for the rest of the NBA season.
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New Destiny 2 PvP Mode Heavy Metal Lets You Finally Pilot A Brig
New Destiny 2 PvP Mode Heavy Metal Lets You Finally Pilot A Brig
During its developer livestream on March 4, Bungie announced a brand-new, limited-time PvP mode called Heavy Metal coming to Destiny 2 in Heresy Act 3.
While details were limited, we did get to see some gameplay that shows teams of players sorted into Drake Tank drivers or Brig pilots. Guardians haven’t been able to control Brigs before, despite them being in the game for more than half a decade. While we’ve had access to Drake Tanks before, they now have new functionality including rocket-boosted backflips.
Heavy Metal is a 6v6 vehicle combat mode
The 6v6 vehicle combat activity is only going to be in the game for a limited time. Bungie hinted that, if the reception is positive, Heavy Metal could be added to the Crucible rotation, much like the chaotic Mayhem mode, which features near-zero ability cooldowns.
Bungie wants players to find the mode “goofy and fun” and challenged Guardians to jump in a Drake Tank to perform a 360 no-scope.
There’s no official release date for the Heavy Metal PvP mode, but it has been confirmed to be releasing at some point within Heresy Act 3, which releases on April 1.
Other announcements during the livestream include the arrival of a limited-time dungeon-focused event, Rite of the Nine, as well as the return of Io.
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#Destiny #PvP #Mode #Heavy #Metal #Lets #Finally #Pilot #Brig
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Winter Storm Lola Moving East. Blizzard Conditions Possible
Winter Storm Lola Moving East. Blizzard Conditions Possible
Winter Storm Lola will bring winds strong enough for blizzard conditions to parts of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas & Nebraska. Travel is not recommended as whiteout conditions are likely along Interstate 80. By tomorrow, rain will turn to snow in parts of the Midwest and Great Lakes, before exiting through northern New England. Wind will still be blowing through the Northeast including New York City, New York and Boston, Massachusetts. Here are the details.
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#Winter #Storm #Lola #Moving #East #Blizzard #Conditions
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