About 17% of adult Americans now get their news on TikTok, compared to only 3% of Americans in 2020.
That’s according to a new report from Pew Research Center, which surveyed 10,658 U.S adults between July 15 and August 4, 2024. These participants are all members of the center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), constructed by a random sampling of residential addresses that have agreed to regularly take surveys.
Within this group, there is a mixture of people from many different backgrounds including race, gender, ethnicity, education, partisan affiliation, and more.
The surveyed adults were asked questions such as how often they get news from television, radio, print publications, and a smartphone, computer, or tablet. (Their options were often, sometimes, rarely, never, and no response.) There were also questions regarding how people get their news online, social media being one of the options.
The survey further asked which apps respondents use, how they prefer getting news, and which social media apps they use for getting news headlines.
TikTok is a popular social media platform for teens and young adults: 63% of people who reported using TikTok in any capacity were young adults, according to Pew. About 39% of adults under 30 expressed that they turn to TikTok regularly for news.
Comparatively, only 19% of adults between 30-49 and 9% of adults 50-64 regularly use TikTok for news, with the lowest percentage being among adults 65 and over, at only 3%.
At the same time, there is an upward trend in general of TikTok users turning to the app for news. In 2020, only 22% of TikTok users regularly consumed news on the platform, according to Pew. This went up to 43% of users in 2023 and 52% of users this year.
TikTok users are now more likely than Facebook users to utilize the app for news, according to Pew, although it still doesn’t beat X in this regard.
Iranian hackers sought to interest President Joe Biden’s campaign in information stolen from rival Donald Trump’s campaign, sending unsolicited emails to people associated with the then-Democratic candidate in an effort to interfere in the 2024 election, the FBI and other federal agencies said Wednesday.
There’s no indication that any of the recipients responded, officials said, and several media organizations who have said they also were approached with stolen material did not publish it. Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign called the emails from Iran “unwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity” that were received by only a few people who regarded them as spam or phishing attempts.
The emails were received before the hack of the Trump campaign was publicly acknowledged, and there’s no evidence the recipients of the emails knew their origin.
The announcement is the latest U.S. government effort to call out what officials say is Iran’s brazen, ongoing work to interfere in the election, including a hack-and-leak campaign that the FBI and other federal agencies linked last month to Tehran.
U.S. officials in recent months have used criminal charges, sanctions and public advisories to detail actions taken by foreign adversaries to influence the election, including an indictment targeting a covert Russian effort to spread pro-Russia content to U.S. audiences.
It’s a stark turnabout from the government’s response in 2016, when Obama administration officials were criticized for not being forthcoming about the Russian interference they were seeing on Trump’s behalf as he ran against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
In this case, the hackers sent emails in late June and early July to people who were associated with Biden’s campaign before he dropped out. The emails “contained an excerpt taken from stolen, nonpublic material from former President Trump’s campaign as text in the emails,” according to a statement released by the FBI, the office of the director of national intelligence, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
The agencies have said the Trump campaign hack and an attempted breach of the Biden-Harris campaign are part of an effort to undermine voters’ faith in the election and to stoke discord.
The FBI informed Trump aides within the past 48 hours that information hacked by Iran had been sent to the Biden campaign, according to a senior campaign official granted anonymity to speak because of the sensitive nature of the investigation.
The Trump campaign disclosed on August 10 that it had been hacked and said Iranian actors had stolen and distributed sensitive internal documents. At least three news outlets—Politico, The New York Times, and The Washington Post—were leaked confidential material from inside the Trump campaign. So far, each has refused to reveal any details about what it received.
Politico reported that it began receiving emails on July 22 from an anonymous account. The source—an AOL email account identified only as “Robert”—passed along what appeared to be a research dossier that the campaign had apparently done on the Republican vice presidential nominee, Ohio Senator JD Vance. The document was dated February 23, almost five months before Trump selected Vance as his running mate.
In a statement, Harris campaign spokesperson Morgan Finkelstein said the campaign has cooperated with law enforcement since learning that people associated with Biden’s team were among the recipients of the emails.
“We’re not aware of any material being sent directly to the campaign; a few individuals were targeted on their personal emails with what looked like a spam or phishing attempt,” Finkelstein said. “We condemn in the strongest terms any effort by foreign actors to interfere in U.S. elections, including this unwelcome and unacceptable malicious activity.”
Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary, called the effort to dangle stolen information to the Biden campaign “further proof the Iranians are actively interfering in the election” to help Harris.
Intelligence officials have said Iran opposes Trump’s reelection, seeing him as more likely to increase tension between Washington and Tehran. Trump’s administration ended a nuclear deal with Iran, reimposed sanctions, and ordered the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, an act that prompted Iran’s leaders to vow revenge.
Iran’s intrusion on the Trump campaign was cited as just one of the cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns identified by tech companies and national security officials at a hearing Wednesday of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Executives from Meta, Google, and Microsoft briefed lawmakers on their plans for safeguarding the election, and the attacks they’d seen so far.
“The most perilous time I think will come 48 hours before the election,” Microsoft President Brad Smith told lawmakers during the hearing, which focused on American tech companies’ efforts to safeguard the election from foreign disinformation and cyberattacks.
—By Eric Tucker and David Klepper, Associated Press
Associated Press writer Jill Colvin in New York contributed to this report.
Here’s a look at some of the key moments in the journey of the brand that was once the mainstay of American kitchens:
1940s
The company is named after chemist Earl Tupper, who invented the plastic containers from waste polyethylene slag generated from the oil refining process at DuPont’s factory.
Mass-produced in myriad colors after the Great Depression to help war-weary families save money on food waste, the designs do not sell at department stores.
Brownie Wise, an advice columnist, collaborates with Tupper to shift to a “party plan” marketing strategy by holding Patio Parties where she recruited women to sell for her, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
Wise’s strategy boosts Tupperware’s popularity. One woman she recruited sells 56 bowls in one week, according to the magazine.
1950s
Wise, the creator of the Tupperware party, is made vice-president of marketing for Tupperware Parties Inc.
Tupper patents the “Tupper Seal”, which refers to the airtight and leak-proof nature of its container lids that kept food leftovers fresh.
However, in 1958 after gaining success, Tupper decides to sell the business to Rexall Drugs, now Dart Industries, for $16 million and fired Wise.
1960s
Tupperware’s new owner expands the business to Europe, Central and South America, which quickly accelerates its overseas, often through in-person sales techniques like Tupperware parties.
1970s
The company branches out to make different containers and also entered the toy market.
Tupperware came to be best-known for the Shape-O Toy, a bright plastic ball with cutouts that correspond to yellow plastic shapes. The colorful plaything is still sold, according to food blog Chowhound.
Sales exceeds half a billion in 1976, according to Encyclopedia website.
1980s
Founder Tupper dies in 1983 and several of Tupperware’s patents expire.
Several rivals from off-brand plastic food storage containers to major players like Rubbermade and Glad enter the market with cheaper alternatives to Tupperware.
Its sales and profit start to slip, also because of a labor problem stemming from women joining the workforce, limiting their time to attend parties.
In 1986, Dart Industries and Kraft Inc. split, reversing their 1980 merger, making Tupperware a part of a new company, Premark International. It refreshes products to include Sandwich Keeper and Lunch ‘N Bags sets.
1990s
Sales in the U.S. declined even though international business grew. Rick Goings, executive at direct sales leader Avon, took over as president in 1992.
The company moves into direct mail, sending out unsolicited catalogs in 1992 in a bid to cut costs and step up recruiting efforts for sales.
Profits improve through the mid-1990s, partly due to massive product innovation between 1994 and 1996, according to the Encyclopedia website.
In May 1996, Premark spun off Tupperware, which then listed on the New York Stock Exchange as an independent public company.
2000s
Business slows and the company forges a deal with Target Corp, allowing the retail chain to sell its plastic containers in its U.S. stores in 2002.
2020s
Tupperware enjoys a resurgence in sales and popularity during the pandemic as more Americans returned to cooking at home amid travel curbs.
But as the restrictions eased, the company’s margins take a blow from a spike in costs tied to raw materials as well as labor and freight.
The business take a further hit from a proliferation of free restaurant to-go boxes after a pandemic-era carryout orders and a rise in competition from Newell Brands, which makes Rubbermaid, FoodSaver and Ball glass jars and Clorox’s GladWare.
The company’s stock slumps in 2023 as it raises going-concern doubts, delays annual report and breaches credit obligations.
The stock gets caught in “meme stock” frenzy, where retail investors coordinate on social media and focus their bets on struggling companies with high short interest.
In September, Bloomberg News reports that the company is preparing to file for bankruptcy. A day later, it files for bankruptcy protection, but said it would continue to sell products during the proceedings.
Few people have the cultural clout of Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson. Despite recent controversies involving accusations of bullying and safety risks on his latest show, the 26-year-old YouTuber remains arguably the biggest name on the platform and has managed to ride a wave of popularity to turn producing videos online into a $700 million business.
How he does that has remained relatively impenetrable—until the publication of a leaked document given to new hires in his production company. The 36-page document contains details about Donaldson’s business ethos, and could go some way to explaining his success. Though it’s not yet known when and how the memo was initially leaked, the document was shared on X last week by Starter Story founder Pat Walls and quickly made the rounds across the internet.
Here are seven key takeaways from the document.
1. Keep a simple goal
Donaldson has made his name thanks to his YouTube presence, and so he’s abundantly clear about what should be all his employees’ north star throughout their roles. “Your goal here is to make the best YOUTUBE videos possible,” he writes. “That’s the number one goal of this production company.”
2. Be willing to break rules
The company values creativity over traditional media approaches, even if that’s not the classic way of doing things. “Idc [I don’t care] how traditional media does things,” he titles one section. “This is not Hollywood and I do not want to be Hollywood.”
3. Presenteeism isn’t important
Many business leaders worry about the rise of “presenteeism,” where workers turn up to work but don’t actually produce anything. Donaldson would rather they spent less time on his projects, if it meant they were more productive. “The Amount of hours you work is irrelevant,” he writes. “At the end of the day you will be judged on results, not hours. We are a results based company.”
4. Always be iterating
The company encourages constant innovation and improvement. “We must always be improving and innovating,” he writes. “The camera angles need to always get better, the pacing, the story, the jokes, the color, the lighting, the music, the props, the people, our framing, our ideas, literally everything must always be improving and innovating.”
5. Don’t exist in a vacuum
As you’d expect for a popular culture titan, those who work for Donaldson have to be clued into current trends. But it’s a mantra other businesses could follow. “UNDERSTAND CULTURE,” one section is titled. “You. Can’t. Get. Inspired. By. Things. You. Don’t. Know. Exist.”
6. Shatter hierarchy
One of the key messages Donaldson has for his staff is that the opportunities for growth and progression are high in his firm, an attempt to keep morale high and maintain staffing levels. “There is infinite room for you to grow here. This isn’t a stepping stone, this is your final destination. We will win and we are going to build something amazing,” he writes.
7. Creativity matters more than cash
Businesses need to be focused on the bottom line, but for a YouTube-based organization, the money can’t flow without creativity. “Creativity Saves Money,” Donaldson writes. “People always assume money is the answer and if we just spend more money we can give Jimmy what he wants. Which is wrong, creativity is the answer.”
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On Wednesday, Fed Chair Jerome Powell announced that the central bank would begin cutting Fed interest rates, starting with a .50 percentage point (50 bps) cut this month. The Fed also signaled that additional cuts were likely in their final two meetings this year in November and December, and more next year.
This announcement was expected, given that inflation has decelerated over the past two years, while the job market has cooled, with the unemployment rate rising from the cycle low of 3.4% in April 2023 to 4.2% in August 2024.
Now that the Fed rate cutting is officially here, what does it mean for the U.S. housing market?
While the Fed doesn’t directly set long-term rates and yields, including the 30-year fixed mortgage rate, its policy and the market’s assessment of future rates and the economy do have an impact. We’ve already seen the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate, as tracked by Freddie Mac, decrease from a cycle high of 7.79% in October 2023 to 6.20% as of last week, as financial markets have responded to labor market softening and anticipated Fed rate cuts.
Groups like the Mortgage Bankers Association, Wells Fargo, Fannie Mae, and Moody’s all expect mortgage rates to come down a bit further as the Fed rate cuts remove volatility in the market and as “the spread” narrows.
“I expect the 30-year fixed mortgage rate will be closing in on 6.0% by the end of the year and settle in near 5.5% by the end of 2025,” Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi tells ResiClub. “The [expected] decline in mortgage rates is due to a narrowing in the spread with the 10-year Treasury yield as the Fed eases policy, the yield curve becomes normally sloped and bond volatility declines, and pre-payment risk normalizes.”
What will happen with existing home sales?
As mortgage rates decline—as we’ve seen in recent months—housing affordability improves. If affordability increases enough and the job market remains stable, it could help ease the “lock-in effect” (homeowners wanting to stay put in homes that are already locked into lower rate mortgage rates) and could lead to more turnover in the resale market.
So far, we’ve only seen a marginal improvement. Mortgage purchase applications, a leading indicator of future home sales, remain low.
However, if mortgage rates stay close to or below 6.0% through spring 2025, it could unlock more new listings. Some homeowners who would otherwise like to sell and buy another home (i.e., those who have been sidelined over the past two years) may find that mortgage rates have finally fallen enough and their life circumstances have shifted sufficiently, making them ready to move on from their 2%, 3%, or 4% mortgage rate.
But even if new listings and existing home sales rise a bit, it doesn’t mean we’ll quickly get back to pre-pandemic existing home sales right away. The recovery could be a grind.
“Although mortgage rates have fallen considerably in recent weeks, we’ve not seen evidence of a corresponding increase in loan application activity, nor has there been an improvement in consumer homebuying sentiment,” wrote Doug Duncan, Fannie Mae’s chief economist, on Wednesday. “We think it’s likely that many would-be borrowers are waiting for affordability to improve even further, and that some may be anticipating additional declines in mortgage rates given expectations that the Fed will lower the federal funds target rate. Others may be waiting for household incomes to improve further to offset some of the recent home price growth, or they may be thinking that future supply growth will ease affordability. Regardless of the lever, we expect affordability to remain the primary constraint on housing activity for the foreseeable future, and we now think full-year 2024 will produce the fewest existing home sales since 1995.”
Fannie Mae’s revised forecast published on Wednesday expects U.S. existing home sales to rise 10.9% in 2025 to 4.51 million.
What about home prices?
On Wednesday, a reporter posed this housing question to Fed Chair Jerome Powell: “Some of your colleagues have expressed concerns that with starting to cut rates you could reignite demand in housing and see [U.S. home] prices go up even more. What’s the likelihood of that and how would you react to that?”
Powell responded, saying: “The housing market, it’s hard to game that out. The housing market is, in part, frozen because of lock-in, lower rates, people don’t want to sell their home because they have a very low mortgage and it would be quite expensive to refinance. As rates come down, people will start to move more and that is probably beginning to happen already. But remember, when that happens you’ve got a seller but you also got a new buyer in many cases. So it is not obvious how much additional demand that would make. The real issue with housing is that we have had, and are on track to continue to have, not enough housing. And so it’s going to be challenging, it’s hard to zone lots in places people want to live. All of the aspects of housing are far more difficult, and where are we going to get the supply? And this is not something the Fed can really fix. But as we normalize rates, I think you’ll see the housing market normalize. Ultimately by getting inflation broadly down and rates normalized and getting the housing cycle normalized, that is the best thing we can do for householders. And the supply question will have to be dealt with by the market, and also by the government.”
Powell didn’t exactly say whether lower rates, and more turnover in the resale housing market, could put upward (or downward) pressure on home prices. He also didn’t rule it out.
The biggest takeaway from Powell’s housing comments on Wednesday was this part: “The housing market, it’s hard to game that out.” In other words, Powell isn’t 100% sure how housing will react.
In ResiClub‘s view, underlying local dynamics in regional housing markets will be the primary driver of home prices. Bifurcation could persist, with prices rising in some housing markets and falling in others. Moving forward, keep a close eye on active listings and months of supply. A significant increase in active inventory suggests cooling on the pricing front, while a sharp decline in active inventory, beyond typical seasonality, indicates tightening and upward pressure on local home prices.
Refinancing is already coming back
The biggest beneficiary so far from the recent drop in mortgage rates is refinancing, as some borrowers who secured 7.0% to 8.0% rates over the past 24 months take advantage of the recent rate dip for some relief.
Here’s the Mortgage Refinance Index reading for the second week of September:
Sept. 2018: 917
Sept. 2019: 2,274
Sept. 2020: 3,289
Sept. 2021: 3,186
Sept. 2022: 533
Sept. 2023: 415
Sept. 2024: 941
“About 4 million homes have a refinance opportunity with rates falling closer to 6% and there are more in the pipeline as the Fed starts the easing cycle” wrote Selma Hepp, chief economist of CoreLogic, on Wednesday.
Given that the stickiest moments from last week’s presidential debate seem to be Donald Trump’s false claim that Haitian immigrants are eating cats in Ohio, and Taylor Swift’s post-debate endorsement of Kamala Harris, it may come as a surprise that what voters are most concerned about in choosing their next president is still, as usual, the economy.
According to a new survey from Morning Consult, 77% of voters cite economic issues as “very important” to their decision. Perhaps more illuminating, however, the report also finds Harris and Trump tied at 46% among registered voters on the subject of which candidate they trust more to handle the economy—with undecided voters preferring Harris’s economic policies.
This report, which surveyed 2,202 registered voters, marks a dramatic shift in sentiment over a short period of time. Morning Consult’s political intelligence team has been asking respondents who they trust more on various issues every week since last fall, and when it came to the economy, Trump ran consistently ahead of Biden.
Once Harris supplanted Biden at the top of the ticket in July, however, the polling began to shift in her favor. Biden had been trailing six points in economic trustworthiness—41% to Trump’s 47%—back in June, before the candidate switch raised that figure to 44% in July. In the weeks since, Harris has closed the gap entirely.
“I was really surprised with how much more voters support Harris than Biden on the economy and trust her more,” says Sofia Baig, an economist at Morning Consult and author of this report. “I had the sense that she was able to distance herself from inflation and from the concerns voters have with the economy, but I didn’t expect that it would be by this much.”
According to the report, Harris has somewhat evaded the stench of animosity that persistently followed Biden’s handling of the economy. Voters are still frustrated by current conditions, with 39% of Democrats giving the economy a C-grade, and 40% of Republicans giving it an F.
But 76% of them find Biden “somewhat” to “very responsible” for their grade, compared with the 68% who point to Harris. That may not sound like much of a difference, but the report shows voters blaming other factors like corporations, the pandemic, and the Federal Reserve over Harris, providing more daylight between her and Biden on the issue.
What’s responsible for the change since moving on from Biden?
“A lot of it may have to do with the vice president versus president role,” says Baig. “A lot of people might not think the VP has much power or say on what goes on. I also think it has to do with just the general energy and vibe of Harris’s campaign, and the shift that it’s brought. The base is more excited, and Harris is throwing out a lot more economic proposals tackling the issues that matter most to voters than Biden was when he was running, which might also be injecting some confidence.”
According to the report, the economic issues voters find most important are “cost of living,” followed by “inflation,” and “taxes.” Although the popularity of proposed solutions to these issues is polarized by political party, unsurprisingly, the policies most popular with undecided voters are those related to cost of living. Undecided voters rated price gouging regulations and caps on prescription drug prices as their top proposed economic policies.
Both of those policies were put forward by the Harris campaign—something the many voters polled for this study were already aware of.
“We asked which policies voters had heard of, and then which policies they associated with which candidates,” says Baig. “And I was impressed with how much they had heard about the policies, and how they were generally able to identify which policies were associated with which candidates. For example, more than half of voters know that Kamala Harris is more associated with capping prices for prescription drugs, and many were able to identify increasing tariffs or reducing the corporate tax rate with Trump.”
Considering that most of the data featured in the report comes from surveys conducted in late August, before the candidates sparred over economic policy at the widely viewed debate, voter sentiment on the topic may have shifted even further since.
If you find it hard to plan for retirement, here is a little secret: It is hard for everyone – even the world’s foremost experts on the topic.
Take Christine Benz, for example. As the longtime director of personal finance and retirement planning for investment research firm Morningstar, Benz knows pretty much everything there is to know on the subject.
But when her own father started experiencing cognitive decline, she assumed financial responsibilities for her parents – and was swarmed with hundreds of retirement-related challenges one cannot fully understand until experienced.
“It was a best-case scenario for them: Someone aligned with their interests, helping them sort things out,” Benz says. “But not everyone has that. A lot of investors out there are really worried about embarking on this process without any help at all.”
These lessons shaped a new book, “How to Retire: 20 Lessons for a Happy, Successful, and Wealthy Retirement”.
The books draws on in-depth interviews with 20 personal finance experts, including chapters with bestselling authors like Ramit Sethi (“Give Yourself Permission To Spend on What Matters To You”) and Jean Chatzky (“What Women Need To Do Differently”).
Benz also distills her career in the personal-finance field into these five main pointers:
Be willing to entertain different perspectives
Unfortunately, there is no one “right” answer on retirement questions – even when Benz talks to the most distinguished experts around.
“Annuities are a great example,” she says. “Some say they should be under consideration, and others recoil at their very mention.”
Age is another sticking point. While some people might want to retire at 60, others might want to work until 75 or 80. Neither of those goals is “correct,” per se. Everyone’s situation is unique and so are retirement plans.
Do not be afraid to be a weirdo
Retirement can be a very long period, of 20 or even 30 years. So approaching a gigantic life phase purely based on what others expect, or how others have done it in the past, is generally a bad idea.
If something that makes you happy strikes others as pretty odd, well – so be it.
“Don’t do it the way your parents did it, or how your neighbors are doing it,” says Benz. “Try a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Don’t conform to whatever your peers are doing.”
Forget optimization
Contrary to what you have been led to believe, retirement is not strictly a math equation. You are not going to find happiness by tweaking some asset allocation here and reducing a transaction cost there.
Those things are all well and good, but retirement is about emotional needs as well as financial – maybe more than 50%, Benz says. One example: Perhaps stock market gyrations make you extremely nervous.
“From an optimization standpoint, having some cash in your portfolio means that your total returns won’t be as high,” she says. “But if that helps you sleep at night, then that’s still a sound financial plan.”
Experiment
No one can predict their ideal retirement ahead of time. Living in Portugal or Costa Rica sounds like a great idea – although you could end up hating it. How can you possibly know? By trying it out.
“I love the idea of dabbling in lots of things,” says Benz, who booked a month-long rental in Florida with her husband last winter, to see if that arrangement might work for them in future. She ended up missing her friends and family back home in Chicago.
“Delve into different hobbies. Try different volunteer activities. Go to different geographic locales. Ideally, you try things out before you commit,” Benz says.
Find your “micro-joys”
Most people have a bucket list of things they have always wanted to achieve in life, such as visiting Peru’s Machu Picchu or taking a cruise to see the glaciers in Alaska.
Retirement does not have to be about things that are so grandiose (and expensive). After all, most of your retirement is not going to be spent on a big trip.
“When I think about activities that are the most memorable in life, often they have no cost at all,” Benz notes. “Retirement can also be about day-to-day pleasures, like friends sitting around a table and sharing a meal together.”
The average rate on a 30-year mortgage in the U.S. edged closer to 6% this week to its lowest level since early February 2023.
The rate fell to 6.09% from 6.20% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 7.19%.
The last time the average rate was this low was on February 2, 2023.
Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners seeking to refinance their home loan to a lower rate, also eased this week. The average rate fell to 5.15% from 5.27% last week. A year ago, it averaged 6.54%, Freddie Mac said.
Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, including how the bond market reacts to the Fed’s interest rate policy decisions. That can move the trajectory of the 10-year Treasury yield, which lenders use as a guide to pricing home loans.
That rate cut arrived Wednesday, as the Federal Reserve lowered its main interest rate for the first time in more than four years. Fed officials also signaled they expect further cuts this year and in 2025 and 2026. The rate cuts should, over time, lead to lower borrowing costs on mortgages.
The latest pullback in rates should help spur demand for refinancing and home purchase loans, said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist.
“While mortgage rates do not directly follow moves by the Federal Reserve, this first cut in over four years will have an impact on the housing market,” Khater said. “Declining mortgage rates over the last several weeks indicate this cut was mostly baked in, but we expect rates to fall further, sparking more housing activity.”
After climbing to a 23-year high of 7.79% in October, the average rate on a 30-year mortgage has hovered around 7% for most of this year — more than double what it was just three years ago.
The elevated mortgage rates, which can add hundreds of dollars a month in costs for borrowers, have put off many would-be homebuyers, extending the nation’s housing slump into its third year. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell in August even as mortgage rates began easing.
Still, as rates have eases, more homeowners have applied for loans to refinance their mortgage. Refinance loan applications surged 24% last week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.
Economists generally expect mortgage rates to remain near their current levels, at least this year. Fannie Mae said this week it projects the rate on a 30-year mortgage will average 6.2% in the October-December quarter and decline to an average of 5.7% in the same quarter next year. It averaged 7.3% in the same period in 2023.
Promotion for Neom, the upwards of $500 billion, 10,000-square-mile region under construction in Saudi Arabia, has always been a little off. There are the videos touting Neom’s 105-mile-long city, The Line; and the reality-defying renderings showing off a litany of luxury spaces including the golf resort Gidori. Now, though, it seems like Neom’s marketing team might be using a tried-and-true tactic to sell the special economic zone as the world’s next great city: MomTok.
A group of influencers (primarily women and mothers) have cropped up on social media to share their lives at compounds within Neom, posting day-in-the-life vlogs that often include dropping their kids off at school, showing luxury shopping hauls, and running errands around the compound. While the videos seemed to be framing life in Neom as aspirational, the strategy has backfired given that the locations shown don’t look anything close to the utopian future that Neom has promised.
Influencer marketing gone awry?
Currently, none of Neom’s many luxury development projects are actually complete, so most of the Neom influencers are posting from Neom Community 1 (NC1) and Neom Community 2 (NC2)—living compounds that appear to be housing for families associated with the massive construction project. The outdoor environment in most of the videos looks comparable to a suburban office development, with rows of near-identical white buildings and small patches of turf in between. One X user compared it to a “low-security prison.” It’s a sterile, desolate-looking settlement that’s a far cry from Neom’s glittering project renderings.
A TikTok from creator Jessica Herman first caught the internet’s attention. Herman is shown walking through the NC1 compound and grabbing dinner with her family at the compound’s dining hall. Many X users were surprised by the lackluster surroundings, likening them to a “Mars colony” and “military base.”
Influencers have started posting about their daily lives in the new Saudi city of Neom. The Saudis seem to be marketing Neom as some kind of planned suburb/encampment for wealthy Westerners: pic.twitter.com/cjncZfckxZ
“Is this supposed to convince people to go work out in the desert for a penal colony?” one user asked.
Herman’s account has since been deactivated.
TikToker Aida McPherson, whose husband’s job with Neom is the reason her family lives in NC1, clarifies that the compound is an employee-only “construction camp.” As she wrote in the comments under one video, “One-bedroom cabins/apartments are free, and if you have kids you are eligible for two-bedroom, but you have to pay for two-bedroom accommodation.”
During the writing of this article, McPherson’s account was made private. Other Neom influencer accounts, like @sarasarasid and @ggneom appeared to also go private within the same period. Fast Company reached out to a Neom spokesperson to learn more about the purpose of the compounds, their industrial appearance, and whether the aforementioned Neom TikTok influencer content is sponsored in any way. As of this writing, we have not received a response.
TikToks from @Anna_bel_Saudia, an influencer account that’s still public, include several vlogs of her weekend activities in a Neom camp and day-in-the-life videos documenting her schedule as an office worker. One caption reads, “Not too shabby for a construction site 😍. This is just my personal example. The type of camp and camp facilities depend on your project, employer, and other factors.”
Neom construction progress, ca. February 2023 [Photo: Gallo Images/Contributor/Getty Images]
The truth behind the TikToks
Despite the backlash from X users, these videos generally paint life as a Neom employee (or employee’s spouse) as full of amenities and even luxuries. For influencers Herman and McPherson, that includes hauls of designer bags, trips to the local mall, and ultramodern living accommodations.
These carefully curated images are in stark contrast to the reports of myriad wrongdoings committed by Neom’s oversight. In 2022, the human rights organization ALQST published a statement claiming that Saudi Arabia’s Specialized Criminal Court had issued death sentences to three members of the local Howeitat tribe for refusing to comply with forcible eviction mandated by the Neom project. This May, the BBC reported an ex-intelligence officer’s testimony that Saudi authorities were permitted to use lethal force to clear land for Neom construction. According to said officer, one local protester was shot and killed by authorities for refusing to be evicted. And as recently as September 11, the Wall Street Journal published an extensive report documenting instances of corruption, racism, and misogyny among Neom’s top executives, as well as shedding light on the harsh working conditions for Neom construction workers.
Meanwhile, construction on Neom’s most hyped project, The Line, is facing new delays as the massive financial toll of the undertaking begins to set in.
It remains unclear whether Neom’s MomTok influencers were directly commissioned by Neom to produce sponsored content. But either way, the videos serve as a case of influencer marketing gone awry. Pitching what is clearly a hastily constructed pop-up village as a content creator’s paradise was never going to work—nor is it anywhere near enough to drown out discussion and reports of the project’s many alarming issues. Maybe those renderings weren’t so bad after all.
LinkedIn users might not realize they’re giving permission for the site to use their personal data and any content they create on the platform to train the company’s generative AI models, but if they’re in the U.S., Canada, or one of several other countries, odds are they soon will be.
Updates to the company’s user agreement that go into effect November 20 will automatically opt users into sharing their data. (A social media posting from Rachel Tobac, CEO of Social Proof Security, first brought the issue to light Wednesday afternoon.)
“Some of the changes being made are to account for updates to new products and features in the generative AI space as well as license terms that allow our creators to expand their brands even beyond LinkedIn,” said Kalinda Raina, LinkedIn’s chief privacy officer, in a video update on the site.
The update will affect a wide swath of users, including everyone in the U.S. Raina noted the company is pausing the collection and use of data from the European Union and Switzerland from its generative AI modeling, however. Both regions have much more strict laws governing privacy.
A quick look at the company’s settings confirmed the changes. If you’d prefer that your information and posts not be part of LinkedIn’s AI efforts, getting out of the auto opt-in isn’t difficult, but it will require a little work on your part. Here’s how to do it.
Opting out of LinkedIn’s AI training on desktop
Once you are logged into LinkedIn’s website in your browser, click on “Settings and Privacy” under the “Me” tab. Then select “Data Privacy.”
From there, look under the “How LinkedIn uses your data” header. At the bottom, you’ll find “Data for Generative AI Improvement.” Click on that and toggle the switch to “Off” to opt out.
While you’re in those settings, you might also want to look at the Data Research tab, which gives LinkedIn permission to use data about you for social, economic, and workplace research.
Opting out of LinkedIn’s AI training on the mobile app
First, tap your profile picture in the upper left corner of the app, then “Settings” at the bottom of the screen.
Click on “Data privacy,” then “Data for Generative AI Improvement.” Toggle the switch to “Off” to opt out.
While the new user agreement doesn’t go into effect until November, a help page on LinkedIn seems to indicate data collection may already be taking place.
“Where LinkedIn trains generative AI models, we seek to minimize personal data in the datasets used to train the models, including by using privacy-enhancing technologies to redact or remove personal data from the training dataset,” the page reads.
A LinkedIn spokesperson did not say how long the AI system has been harvesting user information without the option for users to opt out.
“We believe that our members should have choices over how their data is used, which is why we are making available an opt-out setting for training AI models used for content generation in the countries where we do this,” said Greg Snapper, a separate LinkedIn spokesperson. “We’ve started letting our members know about these updates across multiple channels.”
LinkedIn initially introduced its AI tool last October, but rolled out an expansion earlier this year. LinkedIn Learning is still in beta but is offering AI summaries and answers to questions on the site already.
That could be worrisome to content creators, many of whom use LinkedIn as a platform to get broader exposure for their thoughts. Reporters and news outlets (including Fast Company) use it to promote their stories, and many business executives use it as a forum to position themselves as thought leaders in their area of specialty.
AI summaries of those posts could potentially make it harder for creators to capitalize on their work—and the summaries often do not give any credit to the original author.
Tobac found that out firsthand, as sentences from her post on LinkedIn, warning of the practice were seemingly lifted in an AI answer below her post.
The AI answer did not credit her for the thoughts.
The Biden administration on Thursday published a key environmental report for ioneer’s Rhyolite Ridge lithium mine in Nevada, the last step needed before approving what would become one of the largest U.S. sources of the electric vehicle battery metal.
The move comes after a review process of more than six years and as part of Washington’s ongoing efforts to boost domestic critical minerals production and offset China’s market dominance. If approved, the mine would be the first lithium project permitted by Biden officials.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) published a final environmental impact statement that sets in motion a review period of at least 30 days before a record of decision – essentially a mine’s permit – can be issued. The BLM also published an opinion on how a rare flower at the mine site can best be protected.
Shares of ioneer jumped more than 12% in New York trading.
The proposed mine, roughly 225 miles (362 km) north of Las Vegas, contains enough lithium to power roughly 370,000 EVs each year. Ford Motor and a joint venture between Toyota and Panasonic have agreed to buy lithium from the mine.
The U.S. Geological Survey has labeled lithium a critical mineral vital for the U.S. economy and national security. As part of a push to boost domestic production, the U.S. Department of Energy last year said it would lend ioneer up to $700 million to develop the mine, although the company would need to first obtain its permit.
Endangered flower
The site is also home to the Tiehm’s buckwheat flower, which is found nowhere else on the planet and was declared an endangered species in 2022. The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and some other conservation groups thus oppose ioneer’s project, making it a lightning rod in the debate over whether biodiversity matters more than the fight against climate change.
The BLM said on Thursday that it worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the company to craft “significant protections for the plant,” including changing mine design plans and propagation efforts that included construction of a greenhouse and hiring of botanists.
“We’re steadfast in our commitment to be responsible stewards of our public lands as we deliver the promise of a clean energy economy,” said BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning.
The CBD said it was disappointed that Washington “continues to subvert public engagement on this mine by … failing to back up any of its assertions.” Final details of the environmental analysis will be released in the Federal Register on Friday.
“We’ve been fighting to save this endangered little wildflower for over five years and we’re not backing down,” said the CBD’s Patrick Donnelly.
The 30-day review process for the environmental report is a routine part of the federal permitting process.
Bernard Rowe, ioneer’s CEO, said the report reflects the company’s willingness to work with the government to protect the flower and develop a domestic source of lithium.
“It’s a testament to the approach that we took, and that was one of engagement, addressing the sensitive issues, seeing if we can come up with solutions. And we’ve done that,” Rowe told Reuters.
The death of more than 17,000 flowers near the mine site in 2020 sparked allegations of a “premeditated” attack. Australia-based ioneer denied harming the flowers. The government later blamed thirsty squirrels.
South Africa’s Sibanye Stillwater agreed in 2021 to buy half of the project for $490 million, but only when permits are obtained.
Amazon.com announced on Thursday a new artificial intelligence application that it says will help its independent sellers with sales metrics, inventory maintenance and product advertising, among other things.
The move is part of a broader Big Tech effort to employ the technology for greater automation.
The software, dubbed Amelia, can provide instantaneous answers to broad questions such as how to prepare for the holidays and how a seller’s business is performing, including units sold and website traffic.
Later, the company says, the software will be able to help resolve problems of sellers such as delayed shipments without additional human intervention.
In a demonstration of the software for Reuters, Amazon showed how Amelia can quickly call up metrics for a seller, such as sales data. It also made suggestions for preparing for major sales holidays, including promotions and buying advertising on Amazon.com.
Amelia is meant to give sellers “their own personalized expert in selling on Amazon,” said Dharmesh Mehta, vice president of worldwide selling partner services at Amazon. “It needs to be a deep expert in all these kind of core parts of running your selling business.”
Amazon, which relies on third-parties to supply more than three out of every five units it sells, has had an at-times testy relationship with sellers, particularly over fees.
By automating some of the seller customer service, Amazon may be able to more inexpensively handle complaints and other difficulties that would otherwise require human intervention.
The Seattle retailer announced Amelia during its annual conference in its hometown where many of its roughly 450,000 U.S. independent sellers converge for tips and tricks, and to learn about new products and services.
Amelia follows the announcement earlier this year of Rufus, a generative AI search engine Amazon added to its website to help customers find more products. Amazon has since started selling advertising within Rufus, suggesting it may let marketers pay in exchange for the software’s recommendation.
It has also rolled out a corporate chatbot and is working to improve its Alexa voice assistant by updating it with a more conversational AI.
Amazon boosted capital expenditure in this year’s second quarter to about $16.5 billion from $14 billion in the first quarter, driven in large part by AI investments.
Since the release in late 2022 of ChatGPT, Silicon Valley has seen an investing frenzy over generative AI which can create full-sentence responses to prompts or create lifelike images or sounds.
But generative AI software can invent answers, known as hallucinations, when it lacks sufficient training data. Mehta said Amelia could hallucinate and such occasions would be addressed depending on the severity of the mistake.
He said Amazon had no plans to offer ads within Amelia. The service will not be made available in its current form to large brands such as Unilever, who also sell on Amazon, he said.
Amazon said Amelia will initially be available only to a small subset of sellers and only in English before nearly all U.S. sellers gain access over the next month.
Shares of Nike (NYSE: NKE) jumped in after-hours trading on Thursday after news broke that CEO John Donahoe is leaving the company and will be replaced by Elliott Hill, a Nike veteran who had held a number of senior positions before retiring in 2020.
Upon Hill’s return, he will become chief executive and president of Nike, the company said, as well as a director of the board.
Nike shares were up more than 8% after hours as of late Thursday afternoon. The stock has generally underperformed this year and is down around 24% year to date.
According to a press release, Donahoe and the board “have decided” that Donahoe will retire from both his chief executive role and from the company’s board, although he will stay on in an advisory role during the transition through January 2025. The leadership change will be effective on October 14.
A rocky tenure
The news follows a challenging year for the sportswear giant, and comes after a rocky tenure for Donahoe, who succeeded longtime CEO Mark Parker in January 2020.
Parker is now executive chairman of the company. In a statement, he enthusiastically welcomed Hill back. “Given our needs for the future, the past performance of the business, and after conducting a thoughtful succession process, the Board concluded it was clear Elliott’s global expertise, leadership style, and deep understanding of our industry and partners, paired with his passion for sport, our brands, products, consumers, athletes, and employees, make him the right person to lead Nike’s next stage of growth,” Parker said.
As Fast Company’s Mark Wilson wrote in an in-depth profile of the company earlier this year, “While Parker was a shoe designer by training and known for working directly with the design teams, Donahoe served as CEO of eBay and management consulting firm Bain & Company, where he spent 23 years. In his four years at Nike, he’s proven to be more of a calculator than a creator.”
When Donahoe began at Nike, he almost immediately found himself battling the fallout of COVID-19 pandemic. He executed layoffs, restructured the company’s design and development teams, and developed Nike’s direct-to-consumer channels, while moving away from wholesale retailers.
“The move diminished Nike’s ‘futures orders’ program, which allows retailers to preorder products months in advance, giving the company a cash infusion even before products go on sale,” Wilson explained in his story. “The loss of these small-store relationships had an unfortunate side effect: Nike severed a crucial feedback loop from the businesses closest to its customers.”
In the void, running-shoe upstarts like Hoka and On began taking off with customers and specialty retailers. Brooks, meanwhile, overtook Nike as the market leader for adult performance running shoes in the U.S. in 2022—and held that position through 2023, according to data from Circana.
Nike also faced criticism that it was losing its innovation edge under Donahoe, who was decidedly more removed from the company’s design teams than Parker. Under Donahoe, the company leaned heavily on rereleases of older shoes—Air Force 1s, Dunks, and Jordans—to goose revenue.
Donahoe’s strategy of doubling down on retro rereleases and pursuing DTC sales was effective in the short term: Nike’s annual revenue grew from $37 billion in 2020 to $51 billion in 2023. But revenue for FY 2024, which ended on May 31, was up by only 1%.
In June, Nike said that it expects sales for Q1 2025 will drop 10%. It reports results on October 1.
“Innovation was challenging for the entire industry during COVID,” Donahoe told Wilson. “We don’t apologize for exploiting sneaker culture and the success of three of the largest franchises.”
The Paris Olympics were a big test for the company—the start of what Donahoe promised would be a years-long “super cycle” of product releases around Nike Air that would reset the bar for innovation. The company’s mantra around the Games was “Winning is everything.”
CEO John Donahoe is departing Nikeafter a tumultuous four years at the company. He is being replaced by Elliott Hill, who will step in as president and chief executive on October 14.
A relatively unknown name to the public, it’s difficult to find a photo of Hill online. (As of Donahoe’s firing, Hill didn’t even appear on the popular media database Getty Images.) But to some Nike employees, he’s not only recognized; he’s venerated. In conversations with three former Nike employees, each with over a decade of experience at the company, the praise of Hill was unanimous.
Respected as both capable and courteous, with an unparalleled understanding of global markets, he’s known as the guy who was supposed to get the job when Donahoe was hired in 2020.
“Elliot is very respected,” says a former senior-level employee. “Whenever anyone questions, who could fill Donahoe’s space? His is [still] always the first name.”
With the announcement of Hill’s appointment, I hear Nike employees are “jubilant.” Many left work early on Thursday to celebrate and decompress.
The origins of Elliott Hill
A graduate of Texas Christian University and a former athletic trainer for the Dallas Cowboys, Hill arrived at Nike out of the NFL as an intern in apparel sales in 1988. Over the next three decades, he climbed to become president of consumer and marketplace, where he oversaw Nike’s $39 billion budget. Around 2020, sources tell me that Hill seemed like the obvious choice to succeed Mark Parker as the company’s CEO.
But when Donahoe—a finances-first executive hailing from eBay after experience at Bain—was appointed instead, it was seen by some not just an insult to Hill but also an insult to Nike’s tradition of promoting from within and relying on the experience of senior team members to steer the ship through tough times. Insiders saw this oversight, and the choice of the outsider Donahoe, as a personal slight to a coworker, and a key reason they should leave Nike. Following Donahoe’s appointment, the company let go 700 people in a reorganization, and many C-suite members who weren’t let go left on their own—including Hill.
“[Hill] was the right guy. He was seasoned all the way for it. It was a huge letdown,” says a former employee who spent 20-plus years at Nike. “His C-suite cohorts leaving in July 2020 made it okay for the rest of us to go, too.”
As I reported in our May cover story, Donahoe reorganized almost every aspect of Nike’s retail and innovation strategy, cutting down its retail partners, and organizing product innovation under buckets of gender rather than sport. Donahoe’s most successful move was releasing new colorways of retro silhouettes, which came at a cost of the company’s reputation with sneakerheads.
Nike also lost the hard-core athlete consumer: namely, the running market that launched the brand in the first place, as Brooks overtook it as the top-selling running shoe brand in 2022. Those commercial failures—combined with multiple waves of layoffs—saw Donahoe’s tenure decimate Nike’s deep bench of experienced employees. That tenure ended with a failed Hail Mary comeback at the 2024 Olympics—for which Nike reportedly spent an unprecedented marketing sum, according to Bloomberg.
“Elliott Hill is one of the most outstanding C-suite executives I have ever worked with,” says Scott Touidjine-Williams, the former senior global creative director of the Olympics at Nike who left in 2022, says in an email. Touidjine-Williams says that Hill was a knowledgeable leader who listened to a team that respected him, with an inspiring approach to both DEI and innovation (despite being grounded in sales). “When it came to the Olympics work I was driving, he was always curious and engaged about what was coming down the pipeline. I do not know anyone who does not speak highly of Elliott.”
Bringing Hill back from Texas
Hill compensation package includes a salary of $1.5 million a year, with a target annual bonus of 200% of that, along with stock and a pair of cash grants totaling $7 million.
Sources tell me that Hill, after leaving Portland to return to his home town of Austin, Texas, seemed to have interest in returning to Oregon or to Nike. A charter member of the Austin Moontowers—a recreational, adult baseball team, he was living “the ultimate sabbatical,” according to a source. But both current and former Nike employees, who still meet and gossip about the company regularly, have been floating his name anew as a likely replacement for Donahoe—as farfetched as that possibility seemed at this point.
Then as recently as three weeks ago, another source heard that Hill “butt dialed” an old colleague, and when the two got to talking, Hill denied he had any interest in going back.
“I was like, that put a nail in that rumor now,” they laugh.
The challenge for Hill now is that he takes over Nike just months after its single worst trading day in history, without so much of the experienced support structure to help turn things around that had been in place when he left in 2020.
“It’s going to be a brutal, uphill battle for a couple years,” the source says. “And knowing that Elliott comes from the old school world (he was there 30 years!) and not having some of those people that he relied on, his levers are kind of gone.”
The Biden administration is awarding over $3 billion to U.S. companies to boost domestic production of advanced batteries and other materials used for electric vehicles, part of a continuing push to reduce China’s global dominance in battery production for EVs and other electronics.
The grants will fund a total of 25 projects in 14 states, including battleground states such as Michigan and North Carolina, as well as Ohio, Texas, South Carolina and Louisiana.
The grants announced Friday mark the second round of EV battery funding under the bipartisan infrastructure law approved in 2021. An earlier round allocated $1.8 billion for 14 projects that are ongoing. The totals are down from amounts officials announced in October 2022 and reflect a number of projects that were withdrawn or rejected by U.S. officials during sometimes lengthy negotiations.
The money is part of a larger effort by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to boost production and sales of electric vehicles as a key element of their strategy to slow climate change and build up U.S. manufacturing. Companies receiving awards process lithium, graphite or other battery materials, or manufacture components used in EV batteries.
“Today’s awards move us closer to achieving the administration’s goal of building an end-to-end supply chain for batteries and critical minerals here in America, from mining to processing to manufacturing and recycling, which is vital to reduce China’s dominance of this critical sector,” White House economic adviser Lael Brainard said.
The Biden-Harris administration is “committed to making batteries in the United States that are going to be vital for powering our grid, our homes and businesses and America’s iconic auto industry,” Brainard told reporters Thursday during a White House call.
The awards announced Friday bring to nearly $35 billion total U.S. investments to bolster domestic critical minerals and battery supply chains, Brainard said, citing projects from major lithium mines in Nevada and North Carolina to battery factories in Michigan and Ohio to production of rare earth elements and magnets in California and Texas.
“We’re using every tool at our disposal, from grants and loans to allocated tax credits,” she said, adding that the administration’s approach has leveraged more $100 billion in private sector investment since Biden took office.
In recent years, China has cornered the market for processing and refining key minerals such as lithium, rare earth elements and gallium, and also has dominated battery production, leaving the U.S. and its allies and partners “vulnerable,” Brainard said.
The U.S. has responded by taking what she called “tough, targeted measures to enforce against unfair actions by China.” Just last week, officials finalized higher tariffs on Chinese imports of critical minerals such as graphite used in EV and grid-storage batteries. The administration also has acted under the 2022 climate law to incentivize domestic sourcing for EVs sold in the U.S. and placed restrictions on products from China and other adversaries labeled by the U.S. as foreign entities of concern.
“We’re committed to making batteries in the United States of America,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said.
If finalized, awards announced Friday will support 25 projects with 8,000 construction jobs and over 4,000 permanent jobs, officials said. Companies will be required to match grants on a 50-50 basis, with a minimum $50 million investment, the Energy Department said.
While federal funding may not be make-or-break for some projects, the infusion of cash from the infrastructure and climate laws has dramatically transformed the U.S. battery manufacturing sector in the past few years, said Matthew McDowell, associate professor of engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology.
McDowell said he is excited about the next generation of batteries for clean energy storage, including solid state batteries, which could potentially hold more energy than lithium ion.
The Gulf-based company said in a statement the two firms would work together develop AI solutions aimed at boosting weather forecasting accuracy globally and will set up an operational base and climate tech lab in Abu Dhabi.
The UAE, led by government-backed G42, is investing heavily in AI to help diversify its economy away from oil and UAE-based companies have forged several deals with U.S. firms recently.
Microsoft announced in April it was investing $1.5 billion in G42, while this week the two firms said they would open two centres in Abu Dhabi.
Abu Dhabi-backed investment company MGX is also joining as a general partner in a $30 billion fund with BlackRock and Microsoft to invest in AI infrastructure.
Still, Washington has been increasingly concerned about the UAE and other Middle Eastern countries becoming a conduit for advanced U.S. AI technology reaching China. Last year it imposed new curbs on AI chip exports, imposing a licensing requirement on their shipment to these countries.
UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan is scheduled to visit Washington on Monday.
He will meet U.S. President Joe Biden and discuss Middle East regional security issues as well as advanced technology and AI development, the White House said.
He is also set to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris as well as business executives, Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE’s president told journalists in a briefing on Thursday, adding that the main focus of the visit would be economy and cooperation in fields such as AI.
“Sometimes people like to talk about some tensions in the relationship, but the big story is that this is our most important strategic relationship,” Gargash said.
Stolen customer data including medical reports from India’s biggest health insurer, Star Health, is publicly accessible via chatbots on Telegram, just weeks after Telegram’s founder was accused of allowing the messenger app to facilitate crime.
The purported creator of the chatbots told a security researcher, who alerted Reuters to the issue, that private details of millions of people were for sale and that samples could be viewed by asking the chatbots to divulge.
Star Health and Allied Insurance, whose market capitalization exceeds $4 billion, in a statement to Reuters said it has reported alleged unauthorized data access to local authorities. It said an initial assessment showed “no widespread compromise” and that “sensitive customer data remains secure”.
Using the chatbots, Reuters was able to download policy and claims documents featuring names, phone numbers, addresses, tax details, copies of ID cards, test results and medical diagnoses.
The ability for users to create chatbots is widely credited with helping Dubai-based Telegram become one of the world’s biggest messenger apps with 900 million active monthly users.
However, the arrest of Russian-born founder Pavel Durov in France last month has increased scrutiny of Telegram’s content moderation and features open to abuse for criminal ends. Durov and Telegram denied wrongdoing and are addressing the criticism.
The use of Telegram chatbots to sell stolen data demonstrates the difficulty the app has in preventing nefarious agents taking advantage of its technology and highlights the challenges Indian companies face in keeping their data safe.
The Star Health chatbots feature a welcome message stating they are “by xenZen” and have been operational since at least Aug. 6, said UK-based security researcher Jason Parker.
Parker said he posed as a potential buyer on a online hacker forum where a user under the alias xenZen said they made the chatbots and possessed 7.24 terabytes of data related to over 31 million Star Health customers. The data is free via the chatbot on a random, piecemeal basis, but for sale in bulk form.
Reuters could neither independently verify xenZen’s claims nor ascertain how the chatbot creator obtained the data. In an email to Reuters, xenZen said they were in discussions with buyers without disclosing who or why they were interested.
TAKEN DOWN
In testing the bots, Reuters downloaded more than 1,500 files with some documents dated as recently as July 2024.
“If this bot gets taken down watch out and another one will be made available in few hours,” the welcome message read.
The chatbots were later marked “SCAM” with a stock warning that users had reported them as suspect. Reuters shared details of the chatbots with Telegram on Sept. 16 and within 24 hours spokesperson Remi Vaughn said they had been “taken down” and asked to be informed should more appear.
“The sharing of private information on Telegram is expressly forbidden and is removed whenever it is found. Moderators use a combination of proactive monitoring, AI tools and user reports to remove millions of pieces of harmful content each day.”
New chatbots have since appeared offering Star Health data.
Star Health said an unidentified person contacted it on Aug. 13 claiming to have access to some of its data. The insurer reported the matter to the cybercrime department of its home state of Tamil Nadu and federal cyber security agency CERT-In.
“The unauthorized acquisition and dissemination of customer data is illegal, and we are actively working with law enforcement to address this criminal activity. Star Health assures its customers and partners that their privacy is of paramount importance to us,” it said in its statement.
In an Aug. 14 stock exchange filing, Star Health, India’s biggest player among standalone health insurance providers, said it was investigating an alleged breach of “a few claims data”.
Representatives for CERT-In and the Tamil Nadu cybercrime department did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
UNAWARE
Telegram allows individuals or organizations to store and share large amounts of data behind anonymous accounts. It also lets them create customizable chatbots which automatically provide content and features based on user requests.
Two chatbots distribute Star Health data. One offers claim documents in PDF format. The other allows users to request up to 20 samples from 31.2 million datasets with a single click giving details including policy number, name and even body mass index.
Among documents disclosed to Reuters were records related to the treatment of the one-year-old daughter of policyholder Sandeep TS at a hospital in the southern state of Kerala. The records included diagnosis, blood test results, medical history and a bill of nearly 15,000 rupees ($179).
“It sounds concerning. Do you know how this can affect me?” said Sandeep, confirming the documents’ authenticity. He said Star Health had not notified him of any data leak.
The chatbot also leaked a claim last year by policyholder Pankaj Subhash Malhotra which included ultrasound imaging test results, details of illness and copies of federal tax account and national ID cards. He also confirmed the documents were genuine and said he was not made aware of any security breach.
The Star Health chatbots are part of a broader trend of hackers using such methods to sell stolen data. Of five million people whose data was sold via chatbots, India represented the largest number of victims at 12%, showed the latest survey on the epidemic conducted by NordVPN at the end of 2022.
“The fact that sensitive data is available via Telegram is natural, because Telegram is an easy-to-use storefront,” said NordVPN cybersecurity expert Adrianus Warmenhoven. “Telegram has become an easier to use method for criminals to interact.”
Olive Garden, a longtime holdout against third-party delivery apps, reversed course on Thursday by announcing a partnership between its parent company, Darden Restaurants, and the ride-hailing company Uber Technologies.
This exclusive, multiyear partnership enables the family restaurant chain to outsource food delivery to Uber’s national delivery network, Uber Direct. Olive Garden currently offers delivery through its website and app for catering orders with $100 minimum, delivered by the restaurant’s employees. While guests will continue to be able to order only on Olive Garden’s website and app, the delivery will now be outsourced to Uber Eats drivers.
“Guests have been asking us for home delivery options and they continue to show they are willing to pay for the convenience,” said Rick Cardenas, Darden president and CEO. “As we continued to evaluate delivery, it was important for us to find a way to address this guest need state without disrupting the team member or guest experience and without compromising our competitive advantages and simple operating model.”
Let’s make a deal
Darden has prioritized maintaining control over guest data and preserving its operational scale, key concerns addressed by Uber Direct. Olive Garden will continue to maintain sole access to its customer data through its own platforms. Rich Jeffers, Darden’s media relations director, said the goal is to “leverage the scale of Uber’s driver network to enhance our scale.”
The pilot program will launch later this year at fewer than 10 locations, with national expansion to its 900-plus locations expected by May 2025.
Darden announced disappointing quarterly earnings alongside this new partnership on Thursday, as CNBC reported, posting earnings below Wall Street expectations. Same-restaurant sales at Olive Garden had fallen 2.9% during the past three months ending on August 25.
Despite the soft July sales, Darden reiterated its full-year outlook for its fiscal 2025 earnings and sales. This partnership was Darden’s bet to increase sales, and investors clearly approved. Shares of the company rose as much as 9% on Thursday, its highest price in months.
The small plastic box that beeped and flashed numbers was a lifeline to Laurie Dove in 1993. Pregnant with her first baby in a house beyond any town in rural Kansas, Dove used the little black device to keep in touch with her husband as he delivered medical supplies. He carried one, too. They had a code.
“If I really needed something I would text ‘9-1-1.’ That meant anything from, ‘I’m going to labor right now’ to ‘I really need to get ahold of you,'” she recalls. “It was our version of texting. I was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rockers. It was important.”
Beepers and all they symbolized — connection to each other or, in the 1980s, to drugs — went the way of answering machines decades ago when smartphones wiped them from popular culture. They resurfaced in tragic form Tuesday when thousands of pagers exploded simultaneously in Lebanon, killing at least a dozen people and injuring thousands in a mysterious, multiday attack as Israel declared a new phase of its war on Hezbollah.
In many photos, blood marks the spot where pagers tend to be clipped — to a belt, in a pocket, near a hand — in graphic reminders of just how intimately people still hold those devices and the links — or vulnerability — they enable.
Then as now — albeit in far smaller numbers — pagers are used precisely because they are old school. They run on batteries and radio waves, making them impervious to dead zones without WiFi, basements without cell service, hackings and catastrophic network collapses such as those during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Some medical professionals and emergency workers prefer pagers to cell phones or use the devices in combination. They’re handy for workers in remote locations, such as oil rigs and mines. Crowded restaurants use them, too, handing patrons blinking, hockey puck-like contraptions that vibrate when your table is ready.
To those who distrust data collection, pagers are appealing because they have no way to track users.
“A mobile phone at the end of the day is like a computer that you’re carrying around, and a pager has got a fraction of that complexity,” said Bharat Mistry, the UK’s technical director for Trend Micro, a cybersecurity software company. “Nowadays it’s used by people who want to maintain their privacy … You don’t want to be tracked but you do want to be contactable.”
Pagers were the first iteration of ‘always on’
From the start, people have been ambivalent about pagers and the irksome feeling of being summoned when it’s convenient for someone else.
Inventor Al Gross, regarded by some as the “founding father” of wireless communication, patented the pager in 1949 intending to make it available to doctors. But they balked, he said, at the prospect of being on-call 24/7.
“The doctors wanted to have nothing to do with it because it would disturb their golf game or it would disturb the patient,” Gross said in a video made when he received the Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award in 2000. “So it wasn’t a success, as I thought it would be when it was first introduced. But that changed later.”
By the 1980s, millions of Americans used pagers, according to reports at the time. The devices were status symbols — belt-clipped signals that a wearer was important enough to be, in effect, on call at a moment’s notice. Doctors, lawyers, movie stars and journalists wore them through the 1990s. In 1989, Sir Mix-a-Lot wrote a song about them, rapping: “Beep diddy beep, will I call you maybe.”
By then, pagers also had become associated with drug dealers and schools were cracking down. More than 50 school districts, from San Diego to Syracuse, New York, banned their use in schools, saying they hampered the fight to control drug abuse among teenagers, The New York Times reported in 1988. Michigan prohibited the devices’ use in schools statewide.
“How can we expect students to ‘just say no to drugs’ when we allow them to wear the most dominant symbol of the drug trade on their belts,” James Fleming, associate superintendent for the Dade County Public Schools in Florida, was quoted as saying.
By the mid-90s, there were more than 60 million beepers in use, according to Spok, a communications company.
Dove, who went on to serve as the mayor of Valley Center, Kansas, and become an author, says she and her family use cell phones now. But that means accepting the risk of identity theft. In some ways, she fondly recalls the simplicity of pagers.
“I do worry about that,” she says. “But that risk just feels like a part of life now.”
The pager market today is small but persistent
The number of pagers globally is hard to come by. But more than 80% of Spok’s paging business deals with healthcare, with about 750,000 subscribers across large hospital systems, according to Vincent Kelly, CEO of the company.
“When there’s an emergency, their phones don’t always work,” Kelly said, adding that pager signals are often stronger than cell phone signals in hospitals with thick walls or concrete basements. Cell networks are “not engineered to handle every single subscriber trying to call at the same time or send a message at the same time.”
Members of Iran-backed Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border have used pagers to communicate for years. In February, the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, directed Hezbollah members to ditch their cell phones in an effort to dodge what’s believed to be Israel’s sophisticated surveillance on Lebanon’s mobile phone networks.
Tuesday’s attack appeared to be a complex Israeli operation targeting Hezbollah. But the widespread use of pagers in Lebanon meant the detonations cost an enormous number of civilian casualties. They exploded in a moment across the landscape of everyday life — including homes, cars, grocery stores and cafes.
Kelly says first responders and large manufacturers also use pagers. The manufacturers have employees use the devices on factory floors to prevent them from taking photos.
Most medical personnel use combinations of pagers, chat rooms, messaging and other services to communicate with patients without revealing home numbers — an effort to be truly off-duty when they’re not working.
Dr. Christopher Peabody, an emergency physician at San Francisco General Hospital, uses pagers every day — albeit grudgingly. “We’re on a crusade to get rid of pagers, but we’re failing miserably,” said Peabody, who is also director of the UCSF Acute Care Innovation Center.
Peabody said he and others at the hospital tested a new system and “the pager won”: The doctors stopped answering the two-way text messages and would only respond to pagers.
In some ways, Peabody understands the resistance. Pagers provide a certain autonomy. In contrast, two-way communication carries the expectation to immediately answer and could provide an avenue for follow-up questions.
The problem, Peabody said, is that paging is one-way communication and providers can’t communicate back and forth through the paging system. The technology, he said, is inefficient. And paging systems are not necessarily secure, a critical issue in an industry that must keep patient information private.
“This has been a culture of medicine for many, many years,” he said, “and the pager is here to stay, most likely.”
—Laurie Kellman and Sarah Parvini, Associated Press
Silvio Almeida’s coffee plantation sits at an ideal altitude on a Brazilian hillside, whose clay-rich soil does well at retaining moisture from rainfall and a nearby reservoir.
Lately, though, water is scarce on Almeida’s modest farm in Caconde, a town in one of Sao Paulo state’s key growing regions. He can’t get his coffee to grow the way it should.
In Brazil, the world’s largest coffee producer, Almeida and other farmers have started grappling with the nation’s worst drought in more than seven decades and above-average temperatures. Almeida expected to harvest 120 sacks of coffee beans this harvest season, but instead managed just 100.
Coffee producer Joao Rodrigues Martins holds a handful of damaged coffee beans during an inspection of his plantation consumed by wildfires in a rural area of Caconde, Sao Paulo state, Brazil, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. [Photo: Andre Penner/AP Photo]
“Given the conditions here, the 2025 crop is already affected,” he told The Associated Press, pointing to a part of his plantation where flower buds died before blooming. “I won’t say it’s doomed, because with God anything is possible. But based on the situation, it’s already compromised.”
Brazil’s harvest season that ends this month was virtually flat from last year, and exports surged, but the ongoing drought is already complicating the start of the 2025/2026 season, according to a report Monday by the Center for Advanced Studies on Applied Economics at the University of Sao Paulo’s agribusiness school.
At the same time, Vietnam, the world’s second-biggest coffee producer, is experiencing heat and drought, affecting its crops. Potential supply shortages in both countries have started driving up global coffee prices, according to the report.
The market is closely monitoring how Brazilian coffee plants endure these adverse climate conditions, which can cause flowers to stop blooming, fail to turn into cherries or produce lower-quality beans, said Felippe Serigati, who coordinates the master’s program in agribusiness at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university in Sao Paulo.
“It could result in a smaller coffee harvest,” Serigati said. “Since the market tends to anticipate these movements, we’ve already seen the price of arabica coffee in New York and robusta (coffee) in Europe trading at higher levels.”
Coffee prices haven’t reached the record highs the world saw in the late 1970s, after a severe frost wiped out 70% of Brazil’s coffee plants. But they have been soaring in recent years.
In August, the International Coffee Organization’s Composite Indicator Price — which combines the price of several types of green coffee beans — averaged $2.38 per pound, up nearly 55% from the same month a year ago.
In part, prices are rising because of higher demand, particularly in Asia. But weather is also driving increases. Drought, frost and fire have damaged as much as one-fifth of arabica coffee producers’ growing areas in Brazil, said Billy Roberts, a senior economist for food and beverage at Colorado-based CoBank. “It’s not looking like it will get that much better in the near term. They will need consistent rainfall to recover,” he said.
An aerial view of a coffee plantation consumed by wildfires in a rural area of Caconde, Sao Paulo state, Brazil, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. [Photo: Andre Penner/AP Photo]
Uncontrolled, manmade wildfires across Brazil have lately been ravaging protected areas and farms. One of them ripped through Caconde last week. Almeida, who is also a math teacher at a local public school, helped calculate the damage for a regional association. So far, he estimates the blazes affected 519 hectares (1,282 acres). Half was native Atlantic Forest, 30% pasture and 15% coffee plantations.
On Almeida’s own land, 2,000 of his 15,000 plants were torched. His neighbor, João Rodrigues Martins, lost everything.
Martins, 71, had 2,500 coffee plants on a small plot, now completely blackened by soot. The coffee he sells to a local cooperative is his livelihood and also pays for his son’s medical treatment.
For smallholders, seeing years of cultivation reduced to ash is tough to reckon with. Last week, Martins ran through fire to save his bee boxes. Today, he is finding the strength to continue forward.
“Faith is a boat that helps us navigate life,” he said.
—Gabriela Sá Pessoa and Dee-Ann Durbin, Associated Press
