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A startling message came over the radio from an air traffic control tower near Los Angeles less than a week into the federal government shutdown: “The tower is closed due to staffing.”Without enough air traffic controllers to guide planes into and out of Hollywood Burbank Airport, the tower went dark for almost six hours on Oct. 6, leaving pilots to coordinate their movements among themselves. Flight delays averaged two-and-a-half hours in one of the first visible signs that the shutdown was already taking a toll on the nation’s aviation system.Since the shutdown began Oct. 1, the Federal Aviation Administration has reported controller shortages in cities across the U.S., from airports in Boston and Philadelphia, to control centers in Atlanta and Houston. Flight delays have spread to airports in Nashville, Dallas, Newark and more.And already there has been an increase in unscheduled absences among security screeners at some airports. The union representing Transportation Security Administration employees says the absences haven’t yet caused major disruptions, but it warned longer lines at security checkpoints could soon become a reality after workers received their final paychecks over the weekend.Experts and union leaders say the disruptions are a stark reminder that the aviation system is already stretched too thin by chronic understaffing and outdated technology. They warn the cracks in the system could rapidly deepen the longer the shutdown drags on and critical aviation workers are without their regular paychecks.“It’s like having a drought the year after you had a drought,” Greg Raiff, CEO of Elevate Aviation Group, told The Associated Press. Problems have persisted for years These concerns aren’t new. In 2019, the aviation system buckled under the weight of a 35-day government shutdown the longest in U.S. history during President Donald Trump’s first term.Around the three-week mark, air traffic controllers, many of them working up to 60 hours a week, sued the government over their missed paychecks. One terminal at the Miami International Airport was forced to close because security screeners were calling out sick in large numbers. Some even quit altogether.“Here we are so many years later, and the problems have not been addressed,” said aviation attorney Ricardo Martinez-Cid, a Florida Bar-certified expert on aviation law who regularly represents crash victims. “Now we’re in a worse position when we had been put on notice. We had the opportunity to address it.”Since then, the country has faced repeated warnings. In January, a mid-air crash over the Potomac River involving a commercial jet and a military helicopter killed 67 people. A series of equipment failures and radar outages this year also highlighted the need for upgrades. Controller shortage at a ‘critical’ point Before the latest shutdown, both the FAA and TSA were already dealing with staffing shortages. That includes a shortage of about 3,000 air traffic controllers.Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, has said staffing levels have reached a “critical” point, the lowest in decades. The shortage is so severe that even a few air traffic controllers missing work can disrupt operations at already understaffed facilities.“And on top of that,” he said, “they’re working with unreliable equipment.”The shutdown began just as the FAA was starting to make some progress on addressing the shortage of controllers and modernizing the outdated equipment they rely on that keeps disrupting flights when it malfunctions.The agency says it topped its goal of hiring 2,000 controllers this year after streamlining the application process at its academy in Oklahoma City, but it will take years still to eliminate the shortage. And it had just begun looking for companies to help oversee a $12.5 billion effort to overhaul its aging and complex technology systems.Now, the shutdown is delaying those long-needed efforts. And union leaders say the staffing shortages may be worse by the time the government reopens. Shutdown could increase gaps in staffing Johnny Jones, secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of Government Employees chapter representing TSA workers, expressed concern that the shutdown could drive even more security screeners to leave the agency, especially given the uncertainty that the workers already have faced this year. That includes the Trump administration’s attempts to revoke their collective bargaining rights.Daniels, meanwhile, warned it could stoke fear among newer controllers and trainees who might reconsider the career entirely to avoid working in future shutdowns.It’s a long-standing concern. In 2019, after the 35-day shutdown ended, a congressional committee hearing dug into the impacts on air travel.“All of these air traffic controllers and aviation safety professionals were used as pawns in a political fight that had nothing to do with aviation. This is wrong and must not be allowed to happen again,” warned the union leader representing air traffic controllers at the time.At the hearing, there were also bipartisan calls for reform to keep the FAA funded “without interruption, even when the rest of the government shuts down,” as one lawmaker put it. Stories were shared of controllers and TSA agents taking on extra jobs to pay rent, mortgage and other bills despite working longer shifts to fill the gaps in staffing.Lawmakers and industry officials who testified agreed: The shutdown made the aviation system less safe.“We implore all involved, please heed not only our warnings but the entire stakeholder community’s warnings. This vicious budgetary cycle of stops and starts with little to no stability or predictably has simply got to stop,” said Nick Calio, then-president and CEO of Airlines for America, an industry trade group representing airlines including Delta, United and Southwest.And yet the system remains vulnerable to shutdowns seven years later, Martinez-Cid said.“We’re long overdue for a wake-up call.” Associated Press transportation reporter Josh Funk contributed to this report. Rio Yamat, AP Airlines and Travel Reporter
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E-Commerce
OpenAI unleashed Sora 2 last month, the final boss of slop machines (at least for now). The social app draws entirely from artificial intelligence: Instead of sharing photos and videos of themselves, users can opt in for cameos and create fake clips that depict themselves or their friends in any scenario imaginable. It’s mostly being used to make viral meme content and the type of short-form videos you’d scroll past on TikTok, albeit with deepfakes. Sora doesn’t allow you to make videos of other living people (dead celebrities and SpongeBob SquarePants characters are fair game) unless given express permission. As one user put it: Digital Taxidermy is the craziest yet most accurate description of the AI slop videos of people who’ve passed away. OpenAI in 2021: ‘we want to cure brain cancer,’ another X post read, responding to the announcement. OpenAI in 2025: ‘were becoming brain cancer.’ Upon the apps release, one of the first breakout stars was none other than CEO Sam Altman. You either die a hero or build Sora 2 and become meme material, an X post read with an AI generated Altman posing as a K-pop star, wearing a crop top and dark nail varnish. Another X user used Sora to make an AI video of Altman wearing baggy clothes and outfit and thick gold chains, rapping about his company’s success. Sam Altman dressed like a 2000s rapper is rapping about how Sora is bankrupting all other AI video companies, ending every line with what happened to that boy, brrr, they posted. Responding to the influx of memes, Altman wrote on X, it is way less strange to watch a feed full of memes of yourself than I thought it would be. Not sure what to make of this. In another popular Sora 2 deepfake, Altman is busted stealing GPUs from Target. Luiza Jarovsky wrote: It is AS IF they are encouraging people to create fake videos of people committing crimes, being humiliated, or in all sorts of embarrassing situations. She added. The AI-powered ‘deepfakezation’ of the internet is here and it will not be beautiful. Just days after launch, journalist Taylor Lorenz also announced that a psychotic stalker was already using Sora 2 to make deepfake videos of her. It is scary to think what AI is doing to feed my stalkers delusions, Lorenz wrote. Others however, are embracing the slop life. Bob Ross vibe coding was the AI slop I never knew I needed in my life, one post read. Another big meme on Sora is making it appear as if Jake Paul is coming out the closet or give makeup tutorials. Paul himself appears to be in on the joke. Ive had it with the AI stuff, he said in a Wednesday video. Its affecting my relationships, businesses. Its really affecting things, and people really need to get a life, he added, all the while dabbing foundation on his face.
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E-Commerce
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. A recent Zillow analysis suggests it would take a drop of more than one percentage pointto 4.43%for the median-income U.S. homebuyer to comfortably afford the median-priced U.S. home. And that assumes a 20% down payment, which many first-time buyers are unable to make. Even more striking, in several high-cost coastal metros, not even a 0% mortgage rate would make the median-priced local home affordable for a household earning the local median income. This includes New York, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, San Diego, and San Jose, where taxes, insurance, and maintenance on a median-priced home alone can often consume more than 10% of a median households income. On the flip side, Zillow finds that mortgage rates are already low enough for median-income buyers in many Midwestern markets to afford the median-priced home in those areas. Keep in mind, this is back-of-the-envelope math. The mortgage rate scenarios above assume all else is equaland that lower rates dont impact home prices. Are we likely to see an average 30-year fixed mortgage rate of 4.43% anytime soon? Zillow economists say that scenario is unrealisticat least in the short term. Holding incomes, [U.S.] home prices and all other housing-related costs equal, mortgage rates would need to drop to 4.43% in order for a typical home to be affordable to a buyer making the median income, assuming they put 20% down. That kind of a rate decline is currently unrealistic, wrote Zillow economic analyst Anushna Prakash. Prakash added that: If buyers are waiting for big drops in mortgage rates or [U.S. home] prices to help affordability, theyre in for a rude awakening. Just like falling rates, that kind of correction in house prices wont happen without a serious slowdown in economic growth and income growth, and a rise in the unemployment rate.
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Facebook has taken down a large group page that was being used to dox and target [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents in Chicago, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi posted on X Tuesday. Facebook parent Meta confirmed the move in a brief statement shared with Fast Company Tuesday. This Group was removed for violating our policies against coordinated harm, a Meta spokesperson said. Those policies include prohibitions against outing undercover law enforcement and supporting vandalism, among other restrictions. Meta did not immediately respond to an inquiry about which of those rules were allegedly violated. Neither Meta nor Bondis statement identified the Facebook group in question. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that it was a group called ICE Sighting Chicagoland” with roughly 76,000 members. Numerous Chicago Facebook groups and pages have featured reports and discussions of ICE activity in recent weeks, as state and local officials and many residents have condemned and protested the agencys aggressive operations in the area. Another Chicago Facebook page, condemned in conservative media in recent days for allegedly encouraging resistance against ICE, appeared to still be live Tuesday afternoon. Conservatives have previously criticized Facebook parent Meta and other social media companies for bowing to what they saw as censorship demands from the left, including pressure from the Biden administration to take down certain pandemic-related posts. I believe the government pressure was wrong and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) last year. Jordan praised Zuckerberg earlier this year as the company ended a fact-checking program and other content restrictions conservatives saw as limiting free speech. Meta also agreed to pay $25 million to settle claims related to Facebook and Instagram suspending President Trumps accounts after the January 6, 2020, attack on the U.S. Capitol, which the president called a First Amendment violation, citing alleged government pressure on the company. Other online platforms including Apples App Store and the Google Play Store have also reportedly recently taken down tools used for tracking ICE operations, with Apple telling Fox Business at least one ICE-tracking app was removed after a law enforcement request. Courts have historically held that its legal under the First Amendment to film and otherwise document law enforcement activity. The wave of violence against ICE has been driven by online apps and social media campaigns designed to put ICE officers at risk just for doing their jobs, Bondi said in her post. The Department of Justice will continue engaging tech companies to eliminate platforms where radicals can incite imminent violence against federal law enforcement.
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E-Commerce
The ongoing government shutdown is delaying the announcement of the annual Social Security cost-of-living adjustment for tens of millions of beneficiaries.Originally scheduled for Wednesday, the 2024 Social Security COLA announcement will now be Oct. 24. It is timed to the September Consumer Price Index, which also has not yet been released.The agency adjusts its benefits every year based on inflation. The postponement of the announcement is the most recent example of how the government shutdown, entering its third week and with little progress made toward a resolution, has made it more difficult for people to plan out their finances.Projections by Senior Citizens League and the AARP anticipate a COLA increase of roughly 2.7%. About 70.6 million people, including retirees, disabled people and children, get Social Security benefits.Social Security Administration beneficiaries have voiced concerns that next year’s increase will not be enough to counter rising costs.Sue Conard, a 75-year-old retired nurse from La Crosse, Wisconsin, and SSA recipient, recently traveled to the U.S. Capitol with other retiree members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union to lobby for meaningful progress towards gaining health care protections to end the shutdown, as well as changes to Social Security benefits.She said she wants lawmakers to change the calculation on how the COLA is determined since the standard CPI gauge, which includes a market basket of consumer goods and services, doesn’t take into account many costs typical for older Americans.“The issue of how the COLA is determined is flat-out wrong because health care is not factored into the CPI,” said Conard, speaking on the front steps of the Longworth House Office Building.Some lawmakers have proposed legislation that would make SSA use a different index, called the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E), to calculate the cost-of-living increase that measures price changes based on the spending patterns of older people on things such as health care, food and medicine.A collection of Democratic lawmakers has proposed legislation to change the CPI calculation for COLA benefits to the CPI-E. Last session, Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., proposed a law that would change the COLA calculation, but that never got a hearing in the Senate Finance committee.AARP CEO Myechia Minter-Jordan said the COLA “isn’t just a source of income it’s a lifeline of independence and dignity, for tens of millions of older Americans.” But even with an adjusted COLA, a majority of Americans still face challenges covering basic expenses, she said.Vanessa Fields, a 70-year-old former social worker and AFSCME member from Philadelphia, said she pays roughly $1,000 per month for groceries, more than in previous years. The COLA doesn’t keep up with rising costs, she said, “and we’re going to be in bad shape if lawmakers don’t act.”The agency is expected to begin notifying recipients about their new benefit amount starting in early December. A spokesperson for Social Security who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preview the COLA said retirement and Supplemental Security Income benefits would be adjusted beginning Jan. 1, 2026, without any delay despite the current government lapse in appropriations.The delayed COLA announcement comes as the national social insurance plan faces a severe financial shortfall in the coming years and as the agency has seen substantial workforce cuts.The annual Social Security and Medicare trustees report released in June said the program’s trust fund will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2034, instead of last year’s estimate of 2035. If the trust fund is depleted, the government will be able to pay only 81% of scheduled benefits, the report said.In addition, the agency laid off at least 7,000 people from its workforce of 60,000 earlier this year, putting pressure on the remaining workers to handle claims and answer inquiries from a rising number of recipients. Fatima Hussein, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
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