‘Low-hire, low-fire’ labor market shows sluggish growth but few layoffs, with an interest rate hike expected in December
The US added 165,000 jobs to the economy in October, a sign of resilience in the labor market amid ongoing war in the Middle East and inflation, according to new data released on Friday.
Economists had said the labor market has been stuck in a “low-hire, low-fire” state, in which job growth is sluggish but layoffs also remain low, but October’s data surpassed economist expectations. The unemployment rate went down slightly to 4.1%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported.
Continue reading...A decade of political misery does terrible things to the mind. Tuesday’s wins came with a sense of unreality
Late on Tuesday night, the comedian Alex Edelman asked a poignant question on social media: “I know we’ve never had to ask this before tonight, but what’s the opposite of doomscrolling?”
I don’t have a definitive answer to that, though I did offer the term “boomscrolling”, accompanied by a gif of the social media sensation and Costco enthusiast Big Boom AJ.
Continue reading...The successful Democratic contender for a Michigan Senate seat parried the many insinuations lobbed by Republicans
Abdul El-Sayed said he did not expect to be “a main character of this midterms”, but the first Muslim elected to the US Senate in history will take his seat in January after a vitriolic campaign that cast him as the central villain of the president and his party.
By October he told the Associated Press he was “not shying away” from those rightwing fixations. “What are you implying?” El-Sayed, the son of Egyptian immigrants, replied when a town hall attender asked if he would disavow the Muslim Brotherhood, in a now-viral exchange.
Continue reading...Tight races in Mississippi and Alaska could further tip scale for Democrats; blue wave has already given the party more than 40 new House seats
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is set to release the latest US jobs report at 8.30am ET today. Analysts have predicted a slight increase in October job numbers, while predicting that unemployment will stay around 4.2%.
A reminder that the last report before the midterm elections saw US employers add only 29,000 jobs in September, a sharp drop from August’s gains, and unemployment rose slightly.
Continue reading...When our writer found himself among the hundreds on Oxford Street hoping to get their hands on early copies and collectibles, it was a heartwarming reminder of the shared experience of fandom
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time review – a dream come true
It is Thursday night and I am sat blurry-eyed and runny nosed outside the Argos on Oxford Street. Incredibly, I am far from alone. This is not some strange protest against the popular retailer. When the clock strikes midnight, the lavish 4K Switch 2 remake of beloved N64 classic The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time will be released, and I have joined a lengthy queue of about 500 fans desperate to snag early copies. There are similar events taking place across the world, from Melbourne to Mexico City; at key locations, Nintendo has senior executives waiting at the tills.
These days, of course, most video games are bought as digital copies that download straight to your PC or console on the day of release. You don’t even have to get out of bed to start playing. But in a bygone era, when we used to go to shops to buy games, midnight launches offered a space for likeminded enthusiasts to gather and celebrate their fandom. Every Call of Duty, Halo or Grand Theft Auto release would have fans queueing outside branches of Game or Electronics Boutique, many dressed as favourite characters.
Continue reading...Decision made in order for factory in Texas to be used for Cybercab, the carmaker’s self-driving taxi
Elon Musk has announced that Tesla will wind down production of its Cybertruck, marking the end of a failed effort to take a chunk of the lucrative market for pickups in the US.
The billionaire chief executive said production of the car would stop in about the middle of next year at the company’s factory in Texas in order to use the plant for the Cybercab, its self-driving taxi.
Continue reading...Anticipation that Democrats’ ‘blue wave’ will lead to tighter rules on AI and datacenters sends tech stock plunging. Plus a big eight-legged surprise for customs officials in Peru
Good morning. Stock markets around the world have fallen sharply as a rout in US tech stocks spread across the Atlantic after the Democrats’ midterms victory led to fears of a slowdown in the AI industry. A sell-off on Wall Street on Thursday was followed by sharp falls in Asian stock markets on Friday morning. The dip in investor sentiment has also reached London.
Susannah Streeter, the chief investment strategist at Wealth Club, said: “The tech sell-off has intensified. Big worries are colliding – the build-out of datacenters looks set to slow, which risks shredding the spending spree underpinning the boom, right at the time that investors have become super nervous about returns on this massive investment.”
What happened to the Nasdaq? The Nasdaq share index had its worst day in 19 months after slumping 5.5% on Thursday amid growing signs that the AI industry will face tougher regulation.
Continue reading...Yes, the Republicans suffered humiliating defeat. But the fact that a Trump presidency was even possible means something like it could happen again
He’s down, but not quite out. Barring divine or other intervention, Donald Trump will remain in the Oval Office for a further two years and 10 weeks. Or, as the White House put it in a plaintive social media post brimming with neediness: “PSA [Public Service Announcement]: Trump is still your president.” But that’s not the only reason why the global celebrations that greeted the Democratic tidal wave that swept Republicans out of even their deepest heartlands should be tempered, if only a tad.
Don’t get me wrong, the results of Tuesday’s midterm elections are cause for genuine international jubilation. The defeats of Trump allies in Serbia and Brazil were delicious appetisers, but this was the feast. No mere electoral setback in line with midterm tradition, this was a thorough repudiation of the second Trump presidency and of Trumpism. The 16% swing to Democrats in the popular vote for the House of Representatives was greater even than the 11.2% swing recorded in the Watergate midterms of November 1974, following the resignation in disgrace of Richard Nixon. Trump had worked hard for many months to undermine these elections, either by gerrymandering districts in his favour or preparing the ground for a later claim the vote was rigged, but to no avail: the democratic system proved too resilient, and the American public too determined to have their say. And have it they did, in a voice loud and clear.
Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist
Continue reading...Democrats won over rural voters from Maga in the midterms by focusing more on working people and less on culture wars
Long before Jamie Ager entered politics, he was making a name for himself in a very different place: the meat counter of a grocery store in Boone, North Carolina.
It was the early 2000s, and Ager owned and operated Hickory Nut Gap, a regenerative farm near Asheville. Over the next 20 years, he helped build a regional food system that delivered healthier food to thousands of people, improved land stewardship and made farming a bit more profitable.
Continue reading...Anticipation that Democrats’ ‘blue wave’ will lead to tighter rules on AI and datacenters sends tech stock plunging. Plus a big eight-legged surprise for customs officials in Peru
Good morning. Stock markets around the world have fallen sharply as a rout in US tech stocks spread across the Atlantic after the Democrats’ midterms victory led to fears of a slowdown in the AI industry. A sell-off on Wall Street on Thursday was followed by sharp falls in Asian stock markets on Friday morning. The dip in investor sentiment has also reached London.
Susannah Streeter, the chief investment strategist at Wealth Club, said: “The tech sell-off has intensified. Big worries are colliding – the build-out of datacenters looks set to slow, which risks shredding the spending spree underpinning the boom, right at the time that investors have become super nervous about returns on this massive investment.”
What happened to the Nasdaq? The Nasdaq share index had its worst day in 19 months after slumping 5.5% on Thursday amid growing signs that the AI industry will face tougher regulation.
Continue reading...Wildlife advocates incensed as documents show state paid out $2,000 per kill in effort to shrink state’s wolf population
Idaho officials paid hunters thousands of dollars for killing a dozen newborn wolf pups this spring, including what appears to be at least one full litter killed in or near its den, according to state records shared with the Guardian and Public Domain.
The wolf pup killings have incensed wildlife advocates in Idaho, where state wildlife officials have been ordered to take extraordinary measures to shrink the state’s re-introduced wolf population amid complaints from the livestock industry and big game hunting outfitters.
Continue reading...Tight races in Mississippi and Alaska could further tip scale for Democrats; blue wave has already given the party more than 40 new House seats
Meanwhile, Donald Trump has issued a statement on his Truth Social app calling on Americans to embrace artificial intelligence (AI), or “superintelligence” as he prefers to call it, arguing that those which attract AI companies, data centres and investment stand to become enormously wealthy.
He wrote:
As President, I am 100% in favor of Super Intelligence (SI), and will work with the many States in the U.S. that want to become RICH by having them. They are GOLD, and only foolish leadership will say “NO” to the riches they bring!”
I JUST WASN’T ON THE BALLOT. IF I WERE, WE WOULD HAVE WON IN A LANDSLIDE!”
Continue reading...