Tech Life: The dangerous job of online moderating
Tech Life: The dangerous job of online moderating
We hear from a former moderator in Kenya who was left traumatised by his previous job.
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Joel Embiid’s return gives Sixers hope again — but they’ve heard this song before
Joel Embiid’s return gives Sixers hope again — but they’ve heard this song before
PHILADELPHIA — Not much changed in the ending.
The Philadelphia 76ers walked off their home floor again, with a bevy of New York fans again chanting “Let’s Go Knicks,” after another road win by Tom Thibodeau and company in the City of Brotherly Love. This time, Karl-Anthony Towns got the walk-off love as he left the court at Wells Fargo Center with his dad in tow, quickly followed by Josh Hart and Miles McBride.
Joel Embiid and his Sixers had long since left the floor.
Their season, already off to such a horrendous start, filled with injuries and doubts and an awful moment of confrontation, continued its spiral Tuesday in a 111-99 loss to the Knicks, dropping Philly to 2-8. But this is where Philadelphia hopes things bottom out.
Well, maybe that comes Wednesday, when the undefeated Cleveland Cavaliers play here.
For now, all the Sixers have to comfort themselves was Embiid’s return to action Tuesday after he missed the first six games of the season while continuing to rehab his left knee, followed by a three-game suspension levied by the NBA after Embiid shoved a Philadelphia Inquirer columnist during a postgame incident Nov. 2. The columnist had written several incendiary opinion pieces about Embiid’s conditioning but also referenced Embiid’s late brother Arthur and Embiid’s son, also named Arthur, in an Oct. 23 column. That set off the 30-year-old Embiid.
Tuesday, Embiid was far from his dominant self. He was rusty, finishing just 2-of-11 from the floor, scoring 13 points in 26 minutes. His old, and perhaps now former nemesis, Towns, had the upper hand all night, finishing with 21 points and 13 rebounds. Towns finished the game for New York, while Embiid sat the last few minutes to keep him from racking up more than the 25 to 30 minutes the Sixers had plotted for him pregame.
“You can do whatever you want in practice and scrimmage, but the game is a different story,” Embiid said afterward. “I’ll be fine.”
His words, a franchise’s worries.
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Embiid hasn’t been fine most springs, when championships are decided, after suffering injuries late in the regular season or in the playoffs. Last year, he missed two months with a meniscus injury in his left knee, then suffered a bout of Bell’s palsy during Philadelphia’s series loss to the Knicks. So the Sixers and their superstar agreed this season he’d be held out of a bunch of regular-season games to give him the best chance of getting to April and May healthy. The organization’s misrepresenting statements cost the Sixers $100,000, but one doubts they cared much. Embiid says playing is up to him, but of course, it isn’t, not really.
Yes, Embiid played for Team USA in the Olympics, including a huge game against Nikola Jokić and Serbia in the semifinals, showing up when the ******* States needed him most. But that stint was two-plus months before the start of training camp, and the time off showed.
Against New York on Tuesday, he missed his first five shots from the floor, not scoring a field goal until he hit a 3-pointer with nine minutes left in the third. Embiid, as ever, got to the line, making 8 of 8 free throws in the first half. But Embiid was noticeably lagging throughout the second half. He was pulling on his shorts after his first stint of the second half. And though he asked the crowd to rise up late in the third quarter, he couldn’t lift up Philly in the fourth, as New York pulled away.
“When he’s playing well, he’s kind of got command of the game at the offensive end,” Sixers coach Nick Nurse said afterward. “He’s either creating good shots for himself or creating a lot of defensive schemes against him, which is creating much easier shots for our guys. That’s part of rhythm, that’s part of conditioning, all that kind of stuff. He’s a great shooter. That’ll come back, too, I think.”
The Sixers now have to hot-wire their hopes of finding continuity with yet another new core group.
Paul George, the premier free-agent acquisition of the offseason, is just coming back himself from a preseason bone bruise that cost him the first five games of the season. He looked great Tuesday, though, looking exactly like the silky smooth scorer and facilitator the Sixers hope he can be, finishing with a game-high 29 points. But guard Tyrese Maxey, who took such a big step last season playing alongside Embiid, missed his third straight game with a pulled hamstring. It doesn’t leave Nurse a lot of time to evaluate who plays best with whom.
For example: Philly brought in Guerschon Yabusele, who starred on the French national team in the Olympics, helping lead Les Bleus to a silver medal. He was sensational. The Sixers hoped he could play for them in small-ball units at center. And with Embiid out, they got a good long look at him. Through the first nine games, he shot better than 43 percent on 3s on decent volume. Now, though, Nurse will have to play Yabusele and Embiid together, with Yabusele playing more power forward. The shots are different. The rhythm is different. Whom Yabusele now guards at the other end is different.
Nurse got exactly what he wanted to see late in the first quarter, when Embiid returned after a few minutes on the bench, drew two Knicks to him at the top of the key and fed an open Yabusele on the wing for a 3. But that was the only shot Yabusele hit all night in seven attempts.
Still, it’s crystal clear how formidable the Sixers can be when Embiid gets back to his old self, flanked by a healthy George and Maxey; solid role players such as Kelly Oubre Jr., Yabusele, Caleb Martin; rookie Jared McCain, who’s utterly fearless; and vet stashes such as Reggie Jackson, Kyle Lowry and Andre Drummond. Philadelphia’s offensive potential is staggering once everyone is healthy, so the Sixers are doubly fortunate their awful start hasn’t ******* their playoff chances in the less-than-fully-functional Eastern Conference; the Sixers entered play Tuesday just a game out of the Play-In round.
George knows the pressure Embiid is under. He was a franchise player for the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder, and then a co-franchisee with the LA Clippers alongside Kawhi Leonard. That weight of being the man feels like you’re wearing a burlap jersey and concrete Nikes.
“I think it’s no pressure for him,” George said. “He is the piece. He is The Process. I think he just finds his way, as he should. We’re here to kind of keep things going afloat until he gets back to himself. But I don’t think there’s pressure for him to do anything extra. He’ll find his rhythm as the games go on, as we learn how to play off of him and play around him. I’ve seen it in practice, so I know he’s not too far off.”
I asked Embiid if the urgency of the 2-8 start, and the ticking down of his prime years, is pushing him to come back sooner rather than working through the regular season more slowly, as had been the long-term plan. He recalled his rookie season, after he’d missed two years rehabbing following multiple foot surgeries. Embiid roared out of the gate, finishing third in Rookie of the Year voting — even though the Sixers held him out of all but one game of the second half of the season.
“We were still really competitive,” he said of what became a 28-54 season. “And even that year, if they would have let me finish the year, I thought we actually had a chance of making the playoffs. So, urgency, sure. But you’ve also got to understand, we haven’t been healthy. Everybody’s getting back. Like I said, based on how it’s gone the last couple of years, with us on the floor (together), I think we’ve got a pretty good chance.”
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,” William Butler Yeats wrote a century ago, about something else entirely. But it’s up to Embiid to make sure people here don’t start seeing a connection.
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(Photo: David Dow / NBAE via Getty Images)
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Honkai: Star Rail's Leaked Astral Express NPC Shush Explained
Honkai: Star Rail's Leaked Astral Express NPC Shush Explained
Honkai: Star Rail has referenced installments in the Honkai franchise before, but Shush could cause big implications for the games lore.
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********* eArchiving project aims at eternal archive with smart metadata
********* eArchiving project aims at eternal archive with smart metadata
To make data archives that last is an urgent task. That’s the message of the ********* Commission’s eArchiving initiative, which has just announced version 2.0 of its architecture and that its funding has been renewed for another two years.
Under the tutelage of the commission, the initiative will define processes – using open formats and metadata – that mean organisations won’t have to keep old IT equipment hanging around just in case they need it to read old data.
“There are a number of problems when you want to restore very old data,” said Gregor Završnik, a researcher at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia, who is a consultant in geospatial data archiving and a member of the eArchiving initiative. “For sure, you have to be able read the storage media and read the file format – but there is worse. When you have finally extracted data from an Excel table, you don’t have the context.
“So, you don’t know what the numbers you have restored correspond to. How were they collected? With what level of precision? Are they authentic?” he added, when talking to French sister site LeMagIT during a recent IT Press Tour event.
The eArchiving initiative builds on the E-Ark project, which is a community of developers that has worked since 2014 to create universal and perennial tools to validate, reformat and archive data. The key challenge is to make archives interoperable via common encoding but also to conforming to regulatory needs.
From researcher project to ********* initiative
“At the start of E-Ark, we imagined we’d create a universal format for archiving,” said Završnik. “But as we progressed, we realised these archives are mostly kept by those who created the data originally, and that everyone thinks that this data will be commercially valuable even way in the future. So, what we need is to create a standard that allows an enterprise to restore its own archives after several years.”
A key challenge, however, has been that the E-Ark project has struggled to bring together the big players in storage and backup. It is made up of a dozen teams, but these are overwhelmingly from the world of research.
The challenge at the level of the ********* Commission is that to transform E-Ark into eArchiving, the technical content of the project needs to become an accepted standard in the market. A key early stage is that the universal archive format imagined by E-Ark is standardised and will correspond to the new revision of ISO 14721, the reference model for an open archival information system.
“If the commission demands that the public sector in the EU adopts our archive format, it can’t oblige enterprises to do the same,” said Završnik. “But it can say to them that if they use an open format, they won’t be locked in for eternity to a technology that necessitates use of commercial tools. And what’s more, it will allow free exchange of data between each other.”
CSIP format allows for specialised metadata
The file format proposed by the initiative is Common Specification for Information Packages (CSIP), which has its own dedicated portal for those wanting to convert data to a perennial archive format or for software houses that want to implement it in products.
“The format is free of any commercial licencing and is documented and structured to be able to be re-read, freely useable in whatever software, allowing for a unique numeric ID for each archive and definition of dependencies to other data,” said Završnik.
LeMagIT understood this to be data dependencies related to Linux packages, or software that triggers third-party libraries needed to function, such as when a land registry archive needs to work with mapping from another archive.
CSIP is implemented via a management platform known as OAIS (Open Archival Information Package). That comprises tools to convert source data using SIP (Submission Information Package), to preserve it after reformatting via AIP (Archival Information package), and to redistribute it with only the data required for a particular profession or application using DIP (Dissemination Information Package).
Each sub-format has its own particular metadata. For example, DIP has metadata that allows for archive contents to be used in medical (file), commercial (SQL), architectural (3D modelling) or cartographic (vectorised imagery) contexts.
The new version, v 2.0, brings improvements in the detail of the format. Notably, this sees the categorisation of metadata into six groups: strategy, business, application, technology, implementation and migration. For each of these there are the settings: passive structure, behaviour, active structure and motivation.
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Inflation progress stalls in US in October
Inflation progress stalls in US in October
Price increases in the US picked up last month, as progress toward stabilising prices appeared to stall.
Consumer prices rose 2.6% over the 12 months to October, the Labor Department said.
That marked a slight uptick from 2.4% the month before, as housing and food costs marched higher.
The latest figures added to speculation that the US central bank might not lower rates as much as had been expected in the months ahead.
The Federal Reserve wants to see inflation, the rate at which prices rise, fall back to about 2%.
It started cutting interest rates in September, noting the significant improvement since June 2022, when prices were surging at a rate of more than 9%.
But analysts are warning of new risks, as President-elect Donald Trump promises a mix of tax cuts, tariffs and migrant deportations that some say are likely to keep pressure mounting on businesses and consumers.
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Amazon’s ***** TV Stick 4K Max drops to a record low of $33 for ****** Friday
Amazon’s ***** TV Stick 4K Max drops to a record low of $33 for ****** Friday
Amazon is marking down a slew of its products for ****** Friday and that includes its streaming devices. Currently, the ***** TV Stick 4K Max is down to $33 from $60 — a 45 percent discount that brings it to a new all-time low price. This device is Amazon’s most powerful streaming stick, supporting a 4K Ultra HD display, with an enhanced Alexa Voice Remote and Wi-Fi 6E support. You can, of course, use it to access Amazon Prime Video, along with Netflix, Disney+ and all your favorite streamers.
While the Amazon ***** TV Stick 4K Max is a good option for streaming, we also use it for something a bit different: playing retro games. Our senior reporter Jeff Dunn bought one to play games from the PS1, Game Boy, Genesis, old arcade games and more. He finds it works much better than having to lug around any ******* devices. However, using your ***** TV Stick 4K Max to play old games requires a bit of setup so, if you’re interested in trying it, may I direct you to Dunn’s helpful guide here.
Amazon
Amazon’s ***** TV Cube is also discounted as part of a larger ***** on ***** TV devices for ****** Friday. Right now, you can pick up the streaming device for 29 percent off, dropping to $100 from $140. The Cube is your pick if you want access to ethernet and hands-free use with Alexa. It’s more powerful than the 4K Max, but, for the price difference, it’s a tough call if it’s worth it.
Check out all of the latest ****** Friday and Cyber Monday deals here.
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Flexible statistical method powers research on health, climate, financial data
Flexible statistical method powers research on health, climate, financial data
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
Machine learning and artificial intelligence wouldn’t be possible without the statistical models that underpin their analytic capabilities. A Cornell statistician and his colleague have developed a revolutionary new method to analyze complex datasets that’s more flexible, accurate and easy to use.
Dan Kowal, associate professor of statistics and data science, a shared department in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, is lead author of “Monte Carlo Inference for Semiparametric Bayesian Regression,” which was published Oct. 1 in the Journal of the ********* Statistical Association. The co-author is Bohan Wu, now a Ph.D. student at Columbia University.
“This method gives people more power when they’re working with messy data and trying to untangle the complexities of various effects,” Kowal said. “I want people to be using reliable models so that they can really tease out the signal from the noise. We’ve found empirically that this method can do that across a broad array of different data types, distributions and settings. It’s exactly the kind of contribution that excites me as a statistician.”
Bayesian regression analysis enables researchers to predict a range of outcomes instead of a single estimate. Kowal’s model is specifically designed to analyze “messier data” that doesn’t fit nicely into a bell curve, he said. It can analyze and make predictions on a huge variety of topics, including health care utilization, family incomes, financial markets and climate events.
For example, doctors sometimes ask their patients to self-report on their mental health with questions like, “How many days in the last 30 days was your mental health not good?” A large number of people answer “0,” and another large number answer “30,” and the rest generally estimate by answering in increments of 5 or 7, Kowal said.
“With data like this, you get these spikes in the response that are more about the self-reporting than they are about the data itself,” he said.
“If I’m trying to plan for health care capacity, I shouldn’t make decisions based on whether people are answering 14 vs. 15 vs. 16. But having models that can appropriately stretch out or compress these clumped data points enables your analysis to make more sense and ultimately be more useful.”
Kowal’s new method is also easier for researchers to use. Bayesian regression analyses typically require use of a complex algorithm (called Markov chain Monte Carlo) that requires a huge amount of computing power and multiple diagnostics to ensure the algorithm itself doesn’t break. Kowal’s method avoids that algorithm.
“When people use Markov chain Monte Carlo, they have to do all types of diagnostics to make sure things are working well. The algorithm requires its own effort, independent of the model and the data you really care about,” he said. “In this paper, we actually completely circumvent that but still retain model flexibility and accuracy in predicting outcomes.”
Kowal has built a website with documentation and examples of how to use his new method, and he’s published free, downloadable software on CRAN, the premier website for open-source programming for statistical computing.
More information:
Daniel R. Kowal et al, Monte Carlo Inference for Semiparametric Bayesian Regression, Journal of the ********* Statistical Association (2024). DOI: 10.1080/01621459.2024.2395586
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Politician on Trial For Sharing ****** Verse, ********** Views Reveals Why She Refuses to Back Down as Supreme Court Case Looms
Politician on Trial For Sharing ****** Verse, ********** Views Reveals Why She Refuses to Back Down as Supreme Court Case Looms
A member of Finland’s parliament who has faced a years-long legal battle after sharing a ****** verse on social media refuses to back down from her freedom ******.
Päivi Räsänen told “Higher Ground With Billy Hallowell” her legal battle began more than five years ago, when she challenged Finland’s main religious body, the Evangelical Lutheran *******, questioning why it had “decided to support, financially and publicly” a local Pride parade.
“It was a disappointment and even shock to me and many others,” she said. “Many of my friends decided to resign the *******, and I was also praying … ‘What should I do now?’ I was very worried about this very public statement of the leadership of the *******, because I was worried that it will undermine people’s trust on [the] ****** and its authority.”
Räsänen decided to take to X — then Twitter — to share text from Romans 1, where the Apostle Paul addresses ******* ethics. She added a question to ******* leadership about their position supporting Pride.
“After that, some citizen made a ********* complaint and the police started to investigate the case,” Räsänen continued. “At the beginning, I didn’t believe it. I just read it from the newspaper that police [had] started to investigate the case and I phoned to the policeman and he said, ‘Yes, we are investigating it.’”
Then, more ********* complaints emerged, with an old pamphlet she wrote about marriage also catching negative attention. Plus, a radio program she appeared on came into the crosshairs.
“I was interrogated in the police station all together 13 hours about very theological issues — biblical issues,” Räsänen said. “Police [were] asking me … ‘What is the main message of the Book of Romans? And so on.”
Listen to her share her shocking story:
She said it was “absurd and [a] very unreal situation” and felt like a “dream,” especially considering the religious freedom available in Finland.
Those interrogations ended up landing Räsänen in court with charges filed against her.
“They [were] accusing me of breaking … the law about agitation against minorities,” Räsänen said, noting she was essentially accused of hate *******. “We have that kind of law in Finland, as in almost all ********* countries.”
But she said she has always affirmed “people are equal and all people are valuable, created by **** in His image.” Ultimately, though, she found herself facing two separate legal battles, both of which she won.
Yet, even after Räsänen was acquitted, prosecutors decided to appeal and take her case to Finland’s Supreme Court — something she said was “unbelievable.”
Regardless of the international nature of Räsänen’s story and the chaos surrounding it, she’s not willing to back down because the stakes are high.
“I think that it would have very, very dangerous consequences because I would even say that it would start the time of persecution of Christians in Finland and in ********* countries,” Räsänen said of a potential loss at the high court. “Because then it would mean that you are not anymore allowed to agree publicly with the ******.”
She continued, “I think that the most dangerous consequence and punishment would be the ban to my writings in order to take away … my Twitter postings and my book, and it would not be only a punishment against me, it would be also against thousands and thousands of Christians who have published similar opinions and statements.”
Räsänen said the case hasn’t been easy to ******, but she’s committed to continuing to take a stand for her ******. Regardless of what unfolds, she said the entire ordeal is in “****’s hands.”
“This has been my calling,” she said. “This process has given so many chances to me in public to testify about Gospel, about ****** — who is the solution to the problem of sin.”
***As the number of voices facing big-tech censorship continues to grow, please sign up for Faithwire’s daily newsletter and download the CBN News app to stay up-to-date with the latest news from a distinctly ********** perspective.***
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The Last Of Us Season 2 Tees Off In Spring 2025
The Last Of Us Season 2 Tees Off In Spring 2025
While not a specific premiere date, HBO has announced a release window for The Last of Us Season 2. Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) are set to be seen together on the small screen again in Spring 2025.
IGN reports that HBO and Max content CEO Casey Bloys revealed the spring window for the video game adaptation during a presentation to journalists yesterday, November 12. Earlier this week, a Max trailer for 2025 unveiled new footage for The Last of Us Season 2. The clips hint at distance growing between Joel and Ellie, as well as an infected swarm charging what is likely the town of Jackson.
Previously, The Last of Us Season 2 was planned to launch in 2025–even before the historic Hollywood strikes last year. In September, Bloys hinted that the show would return in the first half of next year. The first season premiered in January 2023 on HBO (as well as streamed on Max).
The sophomore season of the series will see a time jump, but Ellie won’t be recast. Additionally, The Last of Us Season 2 won’t cover all of the events from the video-game sequel, so be prepared for a third season, and possibly more. That said, the show’s writer, Craig Mazin, has stated before that The Last of Us won’t overstay its welcome.
Along with Pascal and Ramsey, The Last of Us Season 2 will star Kaitlyn Dever in the prominent role as Abby. Other new cast members include Isabela Merced as Dina, Young Mazino as Jesse, Danny Ramirez as Manny, and Catherine O’Hara in an unspecified role.
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What next for ******* of England after Justin Welby’s resignation?
What next for ******* of England after Justin Welby’s resignation?
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After a turbulent week and the dramatic resignation of the man that leads it, the ******* of England is trying to take stock at what is a precarious moment.
There are many within the ****** who have experienced this as a deeply painful time and for whom the direction the institution takes now is profoundly important.
For some, including ****** victims, that pain has come from the stark reminders that the ******* is still not a place people can trust to do all the right things when it comes to keeping people safe.
Among them, there will be relief that Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has stepped aside as someone who had lost credibility on the issue which would make it difficult to sanction other clergy for not doing enough.
But some Anglicans have been upset because they feel that Justin Welby had done much good and, however slowly, was trying to steer the ******* in a better direction.
As a dispassionate observer of lots of ****** institutions, I have felt there are few that match the ******* of England for its wide range of views within the same fold.
While there are women bishops, there are also male bishops who are allowed to refuse to ordain women.
While the ******* has voted to move to introduce prayers for same-**** couples, clergy will also be allowed not to lead such blessings if they feel they do not want to.
Attending the *******’s national assembly, its General Synod, is eye-opening in the ferocity of debate over issues across the board, often reflecting the polarisation in modern Britain on many issues.
But at the end of each day, people who have been at each other’s throats during debates, come together in worship.
Mr Welby has undoubtedly seen it as a big part of his job to hold together very different factions within the ******* of England and, even more difficult, in the wider global *******, the Anglican Communion of 85 million people.
For him this has been about the survival of a ******* that, at home, is already experiencing falling numbers, with the number of people in England and Wales describing themselves as “**********” falling below 50% for the first time, with a huge rise in those who do not align themselves with any religion
He has expended a huge amount of energy in this endeavour of finding common ground through 12 years during which there has been other momentous social change, and at times has shown himself to be an astute political operator.
Early in his tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury, he was credited with helping usher through the vote that allowed women to become bishops, being supportive of the move through often tempestuous division.
On the question of sexuality and same-**** unions, Mr Welby has had a complicated journey – shifting from a very ************* position to one where he was supportive of the measure that was eventually voted through to allow the blessing of same **** unions.
But observers saw it as a bit of a fudge by the ******* and by Mr Welby.
Debate did not start with the premise that gay people were equals in the ******* and deserved marriage equality (something that was not even put to a vote), and the result did not represent a significant change in ******* teaching.
But neither did ******* leaders condemn gay unions as some traditionalists had wanted. There was even later clarification to ******** Churches that the blessing prayers that were voted through were to bless the individuals in the same-**** union and not bless the union itself.
It has been a theme that in being so focused on holding things together, and sometimes appearing to try to be all things to all people, Mr Welby has been viewed by many on both right and left as not taking a principled stand.
He has behaved like a politician and in some ways has faced the downfall of a politician or executive, rather than that of spiritual leader.
What some Anglicans are calling for now is more of a theologian to lead the ******* rather than someone seen more of an executive, but in a modern world with modern responsibilities, others worry that there needs to be an element of the executive leader that is needed.
The tribalism and polarisation that is often evident in the ******* makes some anxious that a skilled politician at the top is the only way the institution does not start to fracture.
Whatever skill set Archbishop Welby may have had, in not doing enough on the important issue of safeguarding through rigorously pursuing ****** cases when they were brought to his attention and ensuring others did the same, much trust in the ******* was lost.
Dealing decisively with that one crucial issue might well have helped in his mission to build unity and in helping stem a decline in the numbers of faithful.
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How many people play Farming Simulator 25? Player count
How many people play Farming Simulator 25? Player count
Farming Simulator 25 allows players to create and develop their very own farms, with a plethora of animals, products, and crops to choose from. Raising animals and harvesting crops is a rewarding experience, and many love the realism and progression Farming Simulator offers.
You’ll need to put in the hours though, as farm work isn’t easy. Speaking of which, if you’re wondering how many are online dedicating their time to their virtual farm, here’s the Farming Simulator 25 player count.
Farming Simulator 25 player count
Farming Simulator 25 has 44,265 live players on Steam at the time of writing (November 13, 2024), and an all-time peak player count of 126,761 on Valve’s platform, according to SteamDB. The all-time peak was reached on its release date of November 12, 2024, which saw players flocking to start their farming journey.
These numbers are only for players enjoying the game via Steam on PC, and as the game is available through other platforms on PC and also consoles, the player count is likely much higher than what’s found on SteamDB.
Credits to Giants Software
Is there a player count for Farming Simulator 25 on consoles?
Farming Simulator 25 is also available on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles, but unfortunately, we do not have access to the player count numbers on these platforms. However, it’s safe to assume that the player count would be much higher if the player count was accumulated for all the platforms the game is available on.
The game also features cross-platform play and a multiplayer feature for up to 16 players on a dedicated server and up to 6 on console servers. The multiplayer feature is very popular for Farming Simulator and it’s likely one of the main reasons for its high player count, as people are hopping on to create a farm on the massive maps with friends.
If the devs, Giants Software, ever decide to release details on the Farming Simulator 25 player count or sales numbers across all of the platforms the game is available on, we’ll be sure to update this piece with all the relevant information.
If you’re one of the many playing Farming Simulator 25, how are you finding the game? Let us know in the Insider Gaming forum.
Interested in more Farming Simulator 25 guides? Check out everything you need to know about the Collectors Edition and all the new additions in Farming Simulator 25.
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Red Magic 10 Pro+, Red Magic 10 Pro With Snapdragon 8 Elite ‘Extreme Edition’ Chip Launched: Price, Specifications
Red Magic 10 Pro+, Red Magic 10 Pro With Snapdragon 8 Elite ‘Extreme Edition’ Chip Launched: Price, Specifications
Red Magic 10 Pro+ and Red Magic 10 Pro were launched in China as the latest gaming-focused smartphones from ZTE sub-brand Nubia. Both models have similar internals, aside from the battery and charging speeds. They run on a Snapdragon 8 Elite “Extreme Edition” version paired with up to 24GB of RAM and 1TB of internal storage. Both handsets sport a 1.5K resolution display and feature a triple rear camera setup. The Red Magic 10 Pro+ has a 7,050mAh battery with support for 120W fast charging, while the Red Magic 10 Pro has a smaller 6,500mAh battery that can be charged at 80W.
Red Magic 10 Pro+, Red Magic 10 Pro Price and Availability
RedMagic 10 Pro+ pricing starts at CNY 5,999 (roughly Rs. 72,000) for the 16GB + 512GB version, and it is available in a Dark Knight colourway. The Deuterium Front Transparent Dark Night and Silver Wing colour variants (translated from ********) are priced at CNY 6,299 (roughly Rs. 74,000) for the same RAM and storage configuration. The 24GB + 1TB variant is priced at CNY 7,499 (roughly Rs. 88,000).
The special edition Red Magic 10 Pro Golden Saga model with 24GB and 1TB of storage and a golden finish is priced at CNY 9,499 (roughly Rs. 1,11,000).
Meanwhile, the Red Magic 10 Pro price starts at CNY 4,999 (roughly Rs. 58,000) for the 12GB + 256GB model. It is priced at CNY 5,499 (roughly Rs. 64,000) for the 12GB + 512GB version. It also comes in Dark Knight, Deuterium Front Transparent Dark Night and Transparent Silver Wing colours.
Both models are currently up for pre-orders in China and deliveries are slated to begin on November 18.
Red Magic 10 Pro+, Red Magic 10 Pro Specifications
The dual-SIM (Nano) Red Magic 10 Pro+ and Red Magic 10 Pro runs on Android 15-based Redmagic AI OS 10.0 and sports a 6.8-inch 1.5K(1,216×2,688 pixels) BOE Q9+ AMOLED display with up to 144Hz refresh rate, a 960Hz touch sampling rate, up to 2,000nits peak brightness, and 2,592Hz PWM dimming. The new handsets run on the Snapdragon 8 Elite ‘Extreme Edition’, paired with up to 24GB of RAM and 1TB of storage.
RedMagic 10 Pro Photo Credit: Nubia
For optics, the Red Magic 10 Pro+ and Red Magic 10 Pro feature a triple rear camera setup, comprising a 50-megapixel OmniVision OV50E40 sensor, a 50-megapixel ultrawide sensor and a 2-megapixel macro sensor. Selfies and video calls are handled by a 16-megapixel under-display front-facing camera.
The Red Magic 10 Pro series is equipped with the company’s ICE X cooling technology that comprises a 5,200 sq mm superconducting copper foil and has a 12,000 sq mm 3D vapour chamber for thermal management. Both handsets have a dual X-axis linear motor for haptics. Connectivity options on the smartphones include 5G, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, NFC, USB Type-C port, and a 3.5mm audio jack. They have 520Hz gaming shoulder keys, three microphones and stereo speakers.
Nubia has equipped the Red Magic 10 Pro+ with a 7,050mAh battery that supports 80W fast charging, while the Red Magic 10 Pro has a 6,500mAh battery with 120W charging support.
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Elon Musk, Trump will meet with House *********** conference
Elon Musk, Trump will meet with House *********** conference
Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., left, and former US President Donald Trump, prior to a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, US, on Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024.
Justin Merriman | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Elon Musk on Wednesday will join President-elect Donald Trump for his first post-election meeting with the House *********** conference in Washington, D.C., an adviser to Trump told NBC News. Trump and Musk flew to the nation’s capital together from Florida aboard Trump’s plane.
The development is the latest example of how Musk, the world’s richest man and one of the top backers of Trump’s winning campaign, has grown his presence and influence in the future president’s orbit.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has spent the last week in Palm Beach, Florida, where Trump, from his resort home Mar-a-Lago, has been assembling his second administration. Musk has been alongside Trump in nearly every meeting, The New York Times reported.
Read more CNBC politics coverage
On Tuesday evening, Trump announced that “the Great Elon Musk” and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy would lead an outside commission called the “Department of Government Efficiency,” which aims to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy” and cut regulations.
The announcement included a quote from Musk: “This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!”
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
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******* leader Scholz to seek December confidence vote
******* leader Scholz to seek December confidence vote
******* Chancellor Olaf Scholz says he will ask for a vote of confidence on December 16, paving the way forward for an early parliamentary election in February.
Scholz declared his plans for a vote of confidence during a speech in parliament on Wednesday, one week after his three-party coalition government collapsed.
He had initially wanted to have an early election only by late March – before the vote that is regularly scheduled for September 2025.
However, the centre-right opposition pushed for a quicker vote in the parliament to speed up the next election.
In the end, party leaders across the political spectrum agreed on Wednesday on the two dates for the vote of confidence and the new election.
Scholz on Wednesday also appealed to parties in parliament to pass measures in the time left before the election, stressing that Germans did not need to make a choice between security and prosperity.
He said there should be agreement on increasing child benefit and tackling fiscal drag.
Scholz also said Europe had a responsibility towards Ukraine but that aid money should not lead to cuts in pensions or care at home.
“Let us work together for the good of the country until the new election,” he said.
with Reuters
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Secret Level creator says he hopes the Concord episode will show the potential the story had
Secret Level creator says he hopes the Concord episode will show the potential the story had
The creator of Prime Video’s upcoming video game anthology series Secret Level says he hopes the Concord episode will show the potential the game had.
Secret Level, which was announced during Gamescom‘s Opening Night Live presentation this year, is a new “******-animated anthology series” featuring original stories set within the worlds of various video game series.
There are 15 episodes in total, including stories set in the worlds of such video games as Pac-Man, Armored Core, Mega Man, Spelunky, The Outer Worlds 2, Sifu, Unreal Tournament and Exodus.
Now, in an interview with Rolling Stone, series creator Tim Miller said there were never any plans to remove the Concord episode, following the game’s disastrous launch and Sony’s decision to remove it from ***** after just 11 days.
Miller – who directed Deadpool, Terminator: Dark Fate and Love, ****** & Robots – said that during the course of the three years he spent working on the series, he enjoyed a healthy relationship with the team at Concord developer Firewalk and feels bad that their efforts ended badly.
“There was no nicer, more invested group of developers than the team on Concord,” he recalled. “I honestly don’t understand why it didn’t work. I know that they were trying to do the best they could, and they were a talented group of artists, so I feel terrible for that.”
He also notes that while Concord will never return as a game, and while Firewalk has since been closed down, he hopes its presence as part of Secret Level will show what could have been, and highlight the story that could have won players over.
“I don’t feel bad that it’s a part of the show,” he explained, “because I think it’s an episode that turned out really well, and you can kind of see the potential of this world and the characters.
“If it’s the remaining vestige of that product, I hope the developers feel that it’s in some way worthy, just a little bit, of the blood, sweat, and tears they put into it.”
Secret Level will arrive on Amazon Prime Video on December 10
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Deadly ****** Involving Bulldozer Becomes More Sinister
Deadly ****** Involving Bulldozer Becomes More Sinister
Read the full story on The Auto Wire
Deadly ****** Involving Bulldozer Becomes More Sinister
We covered before how a father and high-profile CEO along with his teenage daughter were ******* in a freak bulldozer accident in a Utah canyon during the summer. Now, new information in that case indicates the driver who was towing that bulldozer lied to police and is now facing felony charges as a result.
Someone crashed their Rolls-Royce allegedly in a street race.
It was July 6 when Richard Hendrickson, CEO of Lifetime Products, along with his 16-year-old daughter Sally were hit by a bulldozer which toppled off a flatbed trailer and onto their GMC Sierra in Ogden Canyon. Both were pronounced ***** at the scene.
Two ****** passengers in the Sierra survived with non-life-threatening injuries.
Recently, local station KSL obtained charging documents which indicate police concluded the bulldozer was too heavy for the truck that was towing it and that it wasn’t secured properly. But the driver allegedly lied about both points at the scene of the ****** to investigators. Now he’s in big trouble.
Back in October, the man was arrested and hit with several felony charges. Obviously, this is an ongoing legal case so the man who was towing the bulldozer is considered innocent until proven guilty in court. But police seem confident enough that he lied and was at fault.
In general, we have to say if you’re ever involved in a ******, fatal or not, just tell police the truth as far as you know and understand it. We’ve seen many other crashes where drivers have lied and later been caught in that lie with indisputable evidence.
Considering how many people are rolling around these days with dashcams and other recording technologies, it’s easier than ever to prove someone has lied about what led up to a ******.
Image via Utah Highway Patrol
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Botany Manor, one of the best games of 2024, is finally coming to PlayStation
Botany Manor, one of the best games of 2024, is finally coming to PlayStation
VGChartz’s Lee Mehr: “The lynchpin to Botany Manor’s success is it being like an orderly garden: a well-attended array of various flowers with nary a dastardly weed in sight. It may not capture the next mind-blowing concept within the genre, nor overwhelm you with a wild barrage of challenges, but there’s an understated value in being among the most succinct within its field. To briefly trade flower comparisons for vegetables, it’s like an onion where every layer adds to the greater whole. Something would feel off if more were added just for its own sake. By hyper-focusing on the brightest brainteasers, quality level design that effectively uses every square inch, and an incredibly clean (if simple) visual design for players to immediately understand, Balloon Studios finds fertile ground between tranquility and challenge.”
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Personal luxury goods market to shrink for first time since GFC
Personal luxury goods market to shrink for first time since GFC
The storefronts of Dolce & Gabbana, Tiffany & Co. and Patek Philippe are seen as people enter Icon Siam, a luxury shopping mall located on the Chao Phraya River, on June 12, 2024 in Bangkok, Thailand.
Lauren Decicca | Getty Images News | Getty Images
The personal luxury goods market looks set to face its first slowdown since the Global Financial Crisis this year, as macroeconomic uncertainty and a pronounced slowdown in China weigh on consumer spending, according to the Bain & Company’s annual luxury report .
This is the first slowdown in demand for personal luxury goods — which include clothing, bags, jewelry and cosmetics — in 15 years, excluding the Covid-19 lockdown *******, according to the Wednesday findings.
Higher costs and falling customer loyalty saw shoppers shun high-end brands in 2024, denting company profits and likely to cause the sector to contract by a projected 2% over the full-year *******, the report showed.
It noted that overall luxury spending is forecast to remain flat year-on-year in 2024 at around 1.5 trillion euros ($1.59 billion), even as segments including autos, travel and fine wine record modest growth.
China weakness weighs heavy
Global economic uncertainty and inflationary pressures have emerged as common threads in the earnings reports of luxury labels this year, with LVMH, Burberry and Gucci-owner Kering all posting repeated revenue misses.
But it’s dwindling demand from the key ******** market that has proven especially concerning for the sector, as the economy has struggled to rebound from a Covid-19-era slowdown.
Even Cartier-owner Richemont, which had been an outlier in the wider sectoral downturn, last week reported a 1% fall in sales in the first half of its fiscal year, due in part to weakened demand from China.
“Mainland China has experienced a sharp slowdown, worsening throughout the year as domestic spending decreased due to lackluster consumer confidence,” Bain & Company noted.
Sustained weakness in the China market could weigh further on the luxury sector in 2025, according to the report, which nevertheless cited this as a lower probability outcome and instead pointed to a gradual recovery in the second half of next year as its more “realistic scenario.”
Luxury demand in Europe and the U.S. has shown signs of gradual improvement quarter-on-quarter this year, with Japan leading the way due to favorable currency exchange rates. As such, the report forecast the sector will grow slightly next year, barring any major economic headwinds.
Pockets of growth
The report also pointed to glimmers of light for the sector, with luxury cars and hospitality, fine wines and gourmet dining all recording gains this year.
Luxury travel particularly emerged as an area of growth, with consumers increasingly switching their spending toward experiences, social events and wellness.
Small personal items, such as eyewear and beauty, also saw an uptick, as shoppers opted for “small indulgences” rather than ******* buys, the report said.
Nevertheless, it noted that luxury brands would need to do more to attract and retain their increasingly fickle consumer base, especially within the younger Gen-Z segment covering people born between 1997 and 2012.
“50 million luxury consumers have either opted out of the luxury goods market or been forced out of it in the last two years. This is a signal for brands that it’s time to readjust their value propositions,” said Claudia D’Arpizio, partner at Bain & Company and lead author of the study.
“To win back customers, particularly the younger ones, brands will need to lead with creativity and expand conversation topics. Simultaneously, they must keep their top customers front and center, surprising and delighting them while rediscovering one-to-one human interactions,” she added.
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Apple and A24 are developing a Sam Bankman-Fried movie written by Lena Dunham
Apple and A24 are developing a Sam Bankman-Fried movie written by Lena Dunham
Apple and art house film company A24 are in early development on a film about convicted crypto scammer Sam Bankman-Fried with a script written by Lena Dunham, Variety reported. The project will be based on the Michael Lewis book Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon that many critics found overly deferential to Bankman-Fried.
The book describes the dizzying rise and equally vertiginous fall of Bankman-Fried and his FTX crypto exchange and Alameda hedge fund. However, it paints the FTX founder as a benevolent prodigy and glosses over the fact that he embezzled billions of dollars from customers and spent it on things like celebrity endorsements, political donations and high-end real-estate purchases.
FTX was worth billions at its peak, but the exchange eventually collapsed and Bankman-Fried was convicted of ****** and sentenced to 25 years in prison. Most FTX customers will get their original investments back, plus interest, but that’s based on a bitcoin price of around $17,000 — and the current price is nearly five times that.
Basing the film on Lewis’s fawning hagiography isn’t a promising start. Hopefully, Dunham or other writers will also draw on far better books (like Numbers Go Up by Zeke Faux) that show the dark, scammy side of crypto promoters like Bankman-Fried and the entire industry in general.
Apple Original Films and A24 have announced other collaborations recently, including the Spike Lee and Denzel Washington film High and Low. Other scripted FTX projects are also in the works, including a limited Amazon Prime series from the Russo brothers based on the 2022 FTX collapse.
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Tetris Forever is the real story of Tetris – and it’s fascinating | Tetris
Tetris Forever is the real story of Tetris – and it’s fascinating | Tetris
Believe me when I say: I truly thought I knew the story of Tetris. The puzzle game’s journey from behind the iron curtain in 1980s Moscow to multi-million-selling video game has been the subject of countless articles, a greatly entertaining book and a recent film. I have played Tetris in various forms for more than 30 years, from the Game Boy to the Nintendo Switch, even in VR. So when I loaded up Tetris Forever, an interactive documentary on Tetris’s 40-year history from the developers-slash-archivists at Digital Eclipse, I wasn’t expecting to learn anything new. I was proven very wrong.
Did you know about Hatris, the 1990 Tetris follow-up that involved stacking colourful hats on top of heads? I did, vaguely, but I did not know about the semi-authorised twist on that game put out by Spectrum Holobyte the same year, a mildly horrifying swap-and-drop puzzler that had players stacking up mouths, noses and eyes to try to make human faces. They called it Faces…tris III, which suggests that whoever named it gave up halfway through. No wonder it wasn’t a hit. I didn’t know that Henk Rogers, the charismatic Dutch-********* who played a huge part in turning Tetris into a global phenomenon, spent his student years surfing and diving in Hawaii before (his words) chasing a girl to Japan and coding the country’s first bestselling RPG in 1984.
Tetris Forever is comprised of five chapters, presented as timelines with an absolute treasure trove of images and video from Tetris’s 40-year history, and faithful, playable recreations of the game that show how it has evolved since Alexey Pajitnov coded the game as something to entertain himself while working in Moscow’s computer research centre. It’s a good four hours’ worth of stuff, at least. There’s camcorder footage from Henk’s famous visit to Moscow, where he turned up completely unauthorised at a Russian government building to ****** for the rights to publish Tetris on the Game Boy. There’s fascinating footage from Nintendo of America in the 1980s, and photos of Henk and Pajitnov with the infamously hard-to-impress former Nintendo president Hiroshi Yamauchi, with whom Rogers struck up a fruitful business friendship over games of Go.
Alongside the 15 playable versions of Tetris from throughout its history, game boxes and adverts and marketing material are digitally recreated in perfect detail for you to examine and pan around. And of course, there’s plentiful on-camera interview footage – not just from Rogers and Pajitnov, but from the other people who played a part in Tetris’s history, too.
What emerges here is a much fuller picture of Tetris’s history than the Apple TV film, which glossed over quite a lot of detail, especially about the four-way scrap over the rights to Tetris in the 1980s. Here, no detail is spared. Admittedly this does turn the second and third chapters into a bit of a shaggy dog story, as we hear about every last detail, but when it comes to gaming history this detail is important even when it threatens to be boring. This all paints such an interesting portrait of the games industry in the 1980s, which in the US and Europe was truly a wild west of have-a-go coders and entrepreneurs – often coders themselves – shopping games around the place and occasionally getting very rich off them. This contrasts strongly with the situation in Japan, whose gaming scene was dominated by a few stiffly traditional companies with enormous respect for process, and of course with Russia and the ******* Union, where it was straightforwardly forbidden to do any kind of business deal with a foreign company.
Tetris as it first appeared, on the Electronika 60 in 1985 Photograph: Digital Eclipse/The Tetris Company
This might all sound terrifically nerdy and, well, it is – Digital Eclipse makes super comprehensive reissues that truly respect the history of the games involved. Tetris Forever is not a general-audience documentary, but one for people with a keen interest in gaming history. The playable versions of Tetris and other connected games, meanwhile, are impressively faithful, but obviously the versions that everyone really wants to play – the Game Boy and NES versions – remain within Nintendo’s vicelike grip. For what it’s worth, Tetris Effect is still the best version of Tetris in my opinion – it was made by Tetsuya Mizuguchi, famed ********* developer of synaesthesic music games, who also appears a lot in this documentary footage.
Tetris has come to feel eternal, and there’s something almost spiritual about playing a recreation of its first version, made for the Electronika 60 computer out of square brackets and exclamation marks lined up on a flickering ******-and-green screen. Playing it, I feel a small echo of what I feel when I look at the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum. It is an amazing thing, a rare example of a perfect game that despite all the drama outlined in this documentary and all the various version over the years, is still pretty much unchanged after 40 years.
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Home Depot Stock: Targeting 12% in 2024 and 25% More in 2025
Home Depot Stock: Targeting 12% in 2024 and 25% More in 2025
Home Depot struggled in Q3 but sustained growth via acquisitions and raised its guidance.
Analyst trends point to a 12% rise in share prices this year, and technical indications suggest another 25% will come in 2025.
Capital returns are strong and will continue in 2025, aiding the updraft in share prices.
Home Depot (NYSE:) is moving higher on the combined forces of outperformance and an expectation for tailwinds to develop in 2025. Better-than-expected consumer trends, acquisitions, and the pro-business drive outperformance in 2024, leading the company to improve guidance against a backdrop of negative sentiment. Tailwinds will form in 2025 as policy headwinds ease and Trump’s business and consumer-friendly policies spur activity, specifically in the housing market.
The forecast for interest rate cuts has eased from its peaks set a few months ago but ******** favorable, with the base rate expected to fall another 50 basis points or more by the end of the year. The takeaway for investors is that Home Depot outperforms and builds leverage through acquisitions ahead of an expected shift in economic fundamentals. It raised guidance for 2024, and the forecasts for 2025 are likely cautious because of tailwinds expected to develop. That means the stock is positioned for the analysts’ upgrade cycle to continue, and with the stock already near record highs, a new high is likely. The technical indications suggest an additional 12% advance once the critical resistance is broken, and a larger 35% gain is possible over the next four quarters.
Home Depot Grows With Acquisition of SRS
Home Depot struggled in Q3, with comp sales declining, but the weakness was far less than anticipated. All the analysts tracked by MarketBeat had lowered their estimates during the quarter, setting the bar very low. The company’s $40.2 billion net revenue is up 6.6% primarily because of the acquisition of SRS, which is expected to add about $10 billion in annualized revenue, worth about 6% of the 2025 consensus estimate. Comps are down 1.3% across the network and 1.2% in the core U.S. market.
Margin news is also favorable, with margin contraction being less than expected. Acquisition and growth-related impairments impacted the company’s cash flow and margin, but the 70 basis point decline allowed for leveraged performance on the bottom line. The company’s $3.78 in adjusted EPS fell $0.07 compared to last year or 180 basis points, outpacing the consensus by 350 bps and the top-line strength by 100. The salient point is that an adjusted operating margin of 13.8% allowed for income growth despite the contraction, helping to sustain the company’s robust financial outlook.
Guidance was raised, helping to lift market sentiment. The company raised its full-year revenue guidance to up 4%, including the addition of SRS and the extra 53rd week, nearly 100 basis points above the consensus estimate. Earnings guidance is also favorable, with operating margin expected to hold steady sequentially and adjusted earnings expected to fall only 1% for the year.
Home Depot Builds Value With SRS Acquisition
The worst that can be said about the SRS acquisition is that it increased the company’s debt and leverage, but the impact will be short-lived. The company is a solid cash-flow producing machine and can tackle the debt, running at 10X equity in late 2024. The offsetting factor is the positive impacts of the acquisition on the balance sheet, which include increased current and total assets, with total assets up nearly 28% and lagged by a 23% increase in liability.
Shareholder equity is up 300% and will likely grow as debt is reduced. Regardless, the cash flow outlook and balance sheet are sufficient to sustain the capital return program, including the dividends and buybacks. The dividend is worth $9.00 and yields more than 2.10%, with shares near record highs and the distribution is expected to grow in 2025. Buybacks reduced the share count by 0.5% at the end of the quarter and are also expected to continue in 2025.
Home Depot Tracking for New Highs
The trend in analysts’ sentiment ahead of the release is unlikely to end now that guidance for Q4 is in. The trend includes improving sentiment and price expectations with fresh coverage entering the picture, sentiment firming, and the price target increasing. The consensus target is near $466 and is up 25% over the last year, 500 basis points in the month leading into the release. The consensus implies fair value near the all-time high, but the revision trends suggest a move to the high-end range near $466 is likely. A move to $466 could happen quickly once the all-time high is surpassed.
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CPI inflation October 2024:
CPI inflation October 2024:
Inflation perked up in October though pretty much in line with Wall Street expectations, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.
The consumer price index, which measures costs across a spectrum of goods and services, increased 0.2% for the month. That took the 12-month inflation rate to 2.6%, up 0.2 percentage point from September.
The readings were both in line with the Dow Jones estimates.
Excluding food and energy, the move was even more pronounced. Core CPI accelerated 0.3% for the month and was at 3.3% annually, also meeting forecasts.
Stock market futures nudged higher following the release while Treasury yields fell.
Energy costs, which had been declining in recent months, were flat in October while the food index increased 0.2%. On a year-over-year basis, energy was off 4.9% while food was up 2.1%.
Despite signs of moderating elsewhere, shelter prices continued to be a major contributor to the CPI move. The shelter index, which carries about a one-third weighting in the broader index, climbed another 0.4% in October, double its September move and up 4.9% on an annual basis. The category was responsible for more than half the gain in the all-items CPI measure, according to the BLS.
The readings took inflation further away from the Federal Reserve’s 2% goal and could complicate the central bank’s monetary policy strategy going forward, particularly with a new administration taking over the White House in January.
President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to implement more tariffs and government spending have the potential both to boost growth and aggravate inflation, which ******** a substantial problem for U.S. households despite easing off its meteoric peak in mid-2022.
Consequently, traders in recent days have scaled back their anticipation for Fed rate cuts ahead. The central bank already has lopped off 0.75 percentage point from its key borrowing rate and had been expected to move aggressively ahead.
However, traders now expect just another three-quarters of a point in cuts through the end of 2025, about half a point less than priced in prior to the presidential election.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
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