HUD Plans to Move Operations From Washington to Virginia
The US Housing and Urban Development Department, whose headquarters in Washington is up for sale, plans to move at least some of its operations into another federal building just outside the city amid a broader Trump administration campaign to consolidate government costs.
The housing agency is to announce the relocation to what's now the National Science Foundation headquarters across the Potomac River in Alexandria, Virginia, on Wednesday, according to a statement by the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3403. Housing Secretary Scott Turner and Virginia's Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, are expected to make the announcement on Wednesday, the union said.
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Washington Post
11 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Federal court says copyrighted books are fair use for AI training
A federal judge this week ruled that artificial intelligence company Anthropic did not break the law when it used copyrighted books to train its chatbot, Claude, without the consent of the texts' authors or publishers — but he ordered the company to go to trial for allegedly using pirated versions of the books. The decision, made Monday by Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, represents a win for AI companies, which have battled copyright lawsuits from writers and news organizations for using their work to train AI systems. Alsup said Anthropic's use of the books to train its large language models, was like an aspiring writer who reads copyrighted texts 'not to race ahead and replicate or supplant' those works, 'but to turn a hard corner and create something different.' His ruling was on a lawsuit filed against Anthropic last year by three authors — Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson — who alleged that the company used their work without their consent to train AI systems in what amounted to 'largescale theft.' But Alsup ordered Anthropic to face trial for the accusation that it knowingly obtained copies of more than 7 million books from piracy websites, although the company later paid to purchase copies of some books. Alsup said he doubted that 'any accused infringer could ever meet its burden of explaining why downloading source copies from pirate sites that it could have purchased or otherwise accessed lawfully was itself reasonably necessary to any subsequent fair use.' 'That Anthropic later bought a copy of a book it earlier stole off the internet will not absolve it of liability for the theft but it may affect the extent of statutory damages,' he added. In a statement, Anthropic said it was pleased that the court recognized that using published works to train LLMs was consistent with copyright laws 'in enabling creativity and fostering scientific progress.' But the company said it disagrees with the decision to hold a trial for its 'acquisition of a subset of books and how they were used,' in apparent reference to the piracy allegations. 'We remain confident in our overall case, and are evaluating all options,' it said. In their lawsuit, the authors said the actions of Anthropic have made 'a mockery of its lofty goals.' The company was founded in 2021 by a group that included OpenAI's former vice president of research Dario Amodei with goals that included 'research into increasing the safety of AI systems.' Bartz and Johnson did not reply to requests for comment. Graeber declined to comment. After concerns arose within the company about using pirated books, Anthropic hired former Google Books executive Tom Turvey to obtain 'all the books in the world' while also avoiding as many legal issues as possible, according to court documents. Turvey and his team could have sought to reach commercial agreements with publishers to license the books to train its AI systems, Alsup noted, but they instead purchased millions of print books from retailers, many of them in used condition, then scanned them into digital form. The company could have also hired staff writers and engineers to create good original writing to train AI models. But that would have 'required spending more,' Alsup noted.
Yahoo
12 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Is J. M. Smucker Stock Underperforming the S&P 500?
With a market cap of $10.4 billion, The J. M. Smucker Company (SJM) produces a wide range of branded food and beverage products for global markets. Based in Orrville, Ohio, the company operates through several segments, including U.S. Retail Coffee, U.S. Retail Frozen Handheld and Spreads, U.S. Retail Pet Foods, and Sweet Baked Snacks. Companies with a market value of $10 billion or more are classified as 'large-cap stocks,' and SJM is a prominent member of this category. Its portfolio of well-established, trusted brands across multiple food and beverage categories, including coffee, pet food, spreads, and snacks, fuels its market leadership. Additionally, the company's strategic acquisitions and supply chain efficiencies support long-term growth and operational stability. Super Micro Computer Just Struck a Deal with Ericsson. Should You Buy SMCI Stock Here? CEO Jensen Huang Just Sold Nvidia Stock. Should You? Cathie Wood Is Dumping Circle Stock. Should You? Markets move fast. Keep up by reading our FREE midday Barchart Brief newsletter for exclusive charts, analysis, and headlines. However, SJM has been trading 22.5% below its 52-week high of $125.42, met on Nov. 26, last year. However, the stock has dipped 13% over the three months, underperforming the S&P 500 Index's ($SPX) 6.5% uptick during the same time frame. On a YTD basis, SJM has declined 11.7%, underperforming $SPX's 3.6% decline. Over the past year, SJM has declined 13.1%, underperforming $SPX's 11.8% rise over the same period. The stock has been trading below its 50-day and 200-day moving averages since early May, reinforcing a downtrend. J.M. Smucker shares dropped 13% in the second week of June, as of June 12, following weak fiscal Q4 results that saw sales and adjusted EPS decline by 3% and 13% to $2.1 billion and $2.31, respectively. Investor sentiment was further dampened by a $980 million impairment charge tied to its $5.6 billion Hostess Brands acquisition, bringing total write-downs on the deal to $2 billion, an indication that the company may have substantially overpaid for the purchase. Its peer, Hormel Foods Corporation (HRL), has dropped 3.1% in 2025 and 1.8% over the past 52 weeks, notably outperforming SJM. SJM has a consensus rating of 'Moderate Buy' from 16 analysts covering it. Its mean price target of $111.67 indicates a modest 14.9% upside potential from the current market price. On the date of publication, Kritika Sarmah did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on
Wall Street Journal
22 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
Why More Workers Are Putting in Extra Hours After the Workday - Your Money Briefing
Thanks to a growing number of meetings, messages, and actual work, more employees are finding it difficult to log off after regular work hours . Wall Street Journal reporter Ray A. Smith joins host Ariana Aspuru to discuss how to get your time back. Full Transcript This transcript was prepared by a transcription service. This version may not be in its final form and may be updated. Ariana Aspuru: Here's Your Money Briefing for Wednesday, June 25th. I'm Arianna Aspuru for The Wall Street Journal. A recent study from Microsoft showed that the average worker gets 117 emails and 153 chats per day. The ping after ping, combined with back-to-back meetings and a cooling job market, means that more of your workday is bleeding into the evening. Ray A. Smith: They're almost doing three jobs instead of one. They're doing a lot of jobs beyond what's in their job description. And it's a lot because of layoffs, but also it's driven by this idea that companies are really trying to be more efficient. Ariana Aspuru: We'll hear from Wall Street Journal reporter Ray A. Smith about why some workers are burning that midnight oil and how you can reclaim some of your personal time. That's after the break. The classic nine-to-five is now looking like the nine-to-long-after-five or even later for some workers. Wall Street Journal reporter Ray A. Smith joins me to talk about it. Ray, what's causing this now? Ray A. Smith: There are a couple of reasons. One is just because companies have been slowing their hiring of new employees. And so that leaves a lot more work for current or existing employees to do. That just gives them an increased workload. And so they're having to catch up off hours, whether it's evenings or weekends. Another reason is their days are typically stacked with back-to-back meetings. So they barely have time to do the actual work that they're supposed to be doing. And so they almost have no choice but to get that work done at night or early in the morning or on weekends. And then a third reason is we're all expected, in this global world, where companies are international and workers are in different time zones, we're all expected to be on all the time. Ariana Aspuru: And we've seen a shrinking white-collar job market for the past few years. And we've seen lots of companies conducting layoffs, and that has to add on to that pressure to perform. How has that impacted what's on workers' actual plates during their workday? Ray A. Smith: What it's meant for employees and their workday and their workloads is just that they have more on their plates. They're almost doing three jobs instead of one. They're doing a lot of jobs beyond what's in their job descriptions, and they're not getting a promotion or an increase in pay for that. They're just being tasked with more and more. It's just an increasing workday and increasing workload. And it's a lot because of layoffs, but also it's driven by this idea that companies are really trying to be more efficient. They're saying, "We don't need as many employees to get this work done, and we're not going to hire any more employees." So the employees that are left there are just tasked with doing a lot more work. And companies really feel, at this point in time, when the white-collar job market, as you alluded to, is softer, that they have the power to ask more of their employees. Because what are the employees going to do? They're not going to be able to just up and quit. Ariana Aspuru: How does this leave employees feeling at the end of the day, whether it's at 5:00, 8:00, or sometimes 10:00 PM? Ray A. Smith: Employees have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, a lot of us thought we'd be able to, after COVID, have more work-life balance. And we heard a lot of employers talk about more work-life balance. And now employees are feeling a little betrayed, like that wasn't true. And so, there's this feeling that "What happened to all this talk about work-life balance? Now I'm back to feeling burned out." We saw mentions of burnout rise 32% year-over-year during the first quarter. That's to their highest levels in almost a decade. And that's from a Glassdoor report. So, it's just employees feeling really burned out and resentful and also feeling like this is unsustainable. Ariana Aspuru: How does the level that you're at in the company impact the amount of time that you're working outside of that nine-to-five, like an entry-level versus a senior-level employee? Ray A. Smith: The manager sets the tone. And so, if a manager is on all the time, whether it's through osmosis or just a feeling that if your boss is on, you should be on too, there's this expectation that you're going to follow your boss's lead or your manager's lead. Ariana Aspuru: And I want to turn to what actions workers feel like they can do. I'm wondering, in your reporting, did you hear from people who were telling their managers about their off-hours work, and what are the possible risks or implications in doing that? Ray A. Smith: In some cases, some workers that I talked to told me that they have tried to talk to their bosses or their managers about what is unreasonable or to set expectations or even to set boundaries. But they acknowledged that they were concerned that when they brought that up, it sounded like they couldn't handle the workload and they were afraid of them being perceived as not being up to the task. Other employees told me they've tried, in some cases, on their digital calendars to make it clear when they are busy. So they'll block time on their calendars so that they can't be invited to meetings or interrupted for meetings. That's one strategy that some people are using to try to at least limit the amount of meetings they get called into so they can focus on work. Ariana Aspuru: There's a line in your story that really struck out to me, Ray. A senior vice president who works remotely in the Seattle area said, it just needs to be the exception and not the rule for me when talking about working outside of hours. What other tips or techniques did you hear from people about how to streamline your work so that working outside of hours is the exception? Ray A. Smith: You make a choice to say, "Okay, I'm going to spend an hour or two just going over emails. I may not even respond to them, but I'm just going to look at them just to see what I missed. And I can either schedule send a response or just deal with it in the morning." That's another hack, giving yourself a limit, saying, "I'm only going to do this for a half an hour," or, "I'm only going to do this for 45 minutes and that's it." Ariana Aspuru: That's WSJ reporter Ray A. Smith. And that's it for Your Money Briefing. I'm Ariana Aspuru for The Wall Street Journal. We had production help from Coleman Standifer. This episode was produced by me, with supervising producer Melony Roy. Thanks for listening.
