Latest News from Business Insider
Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business
- Business Insider
21 African currencies projected to fall against U.S. Dollar in 2025
Nearly half of African currencies are anticipated to weaken against the U.S. dollar by 2025 due to geopolitical tensions and internal economic challenges. The African Development Bank (AfDB) forecasts currency depreciation in 21 out of 54 African countries. Countries such as Egypt, Ethiopia, and Nigeria may see significant currency depreciation.
Business Insider
2 hours ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Federal court blocks Trump's tariffs
A federal court on Wednesday found President Donald Trump does not have the authority to impose his sweeping tariff strategy. The US Court of International Trade's three-judge panel was unanimous in its ruling. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Business Insider
4 hours ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Trump wants Congress to approve $9 billion in DOGE cuts — including more than $1 billion in cuts to public broadcasting
President Donald Trump wants to make some DOGE cuts official. The president will send a $9.4 billion rescissions package to Congress next week, giving Republicans an opportunity to enact cuts suggested by Elon Musk's White House DOGE office. An Office of Management and Budget spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider that the package will include $1.1 billion in cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and $8.3 billion in spending reductions to foreign aid at the US Agency for International Development. Trump is aiming stop the CPB from funding PBS and NPR, which was the subject of an executive order that he issued earlier this month. The president has long targeted funding for public broadcasting. The $9.4 billion in spending reductions is far below where many conservatives would like it to be, but codifying cuts from DOGE is a goal that's been firmly embraced by House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana. ".@ElonMusk and the entire @DOGE team have done INCREDIBLE work exposing waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal government," Johnson said in an X post on Wednesday. "The House is eager and ready to act on DOGE's findings so we can deliver even more cuts to big government that President Trump wants and the American people demand," he added. The White House sought to have Congress enact the spending cuts weeks ago, but GOP lawmakers had been focused on drafting and passing Trump's "one big beautiful bill," the tax and immigration package that narrowly made it out of the lower chamber and faces an uncertain future in the Senate. The rescissions request comes as Musk — who will take a step back from his work with DOGE in the coming weeks — criticized the Republican-led bill in an interview with CBS. "I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing," Musk said during the interview. "I think a vote can be big, or it could be beautiful. I don't know if it could be both." In a recent interview with The Washington Post, Musk also said it's an "uphill battle trying to improve things" in Washington — as he spoke about the backlash that DOGE has so far faced this year. "DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything," he told the newspaper. "So, like, something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it."
Business Insider
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Business Insider
Diddy broke his promise to monetize RockaByeBaby, Cassie's mixtape with Lil Wayne, Meek Mill: witness
Sean Combs' sex-trafficking jury heard testimony about him controlling, belittling Cassie Ventura. Prosecutors say Combs kept Ventura financially dependent, including by restricting her music career. Combs broke his promise to release her 2014 mixtape to for-pay streaming services, a witness said. Sean "Diddy" Combs kept girlfriend-turned accuser Cassie Ventura humiliated, frightened, and financially dependent, including when she recorded a popular mixtape with A-list artists, the couple's former stylist testified at Combs' sex-trafficking trial. Ventura's critically-praised 2013 mix tape, "RockaByeBaby," featured rap stars Lil Wayne, Meek Mill, Fabolous, Pusha T, and Wiz Khalifa, stylist Deonte Nash told Combs' Manhattan jury on Wednesday. Combs, who executive produced the mixtape through his label, Bad Boy Records, released the tape online — where it could be downloaded for free — in April, 2013, Nash testified. Combs promised Ventura that if the tape did well, he would release it to streaming platforms, which pay royalties to artists, the stylist said, adding that Combs never did despite its success. "It was the top mixtape of that year," said Nash, who styled the R&B singer and acted as a producer for her project. Instead of collecting royalties, "No one got paid for the mixtape," Nash said. Federal prosecutors say Combs paid for Ventura's house, car, and expenses, and repeatedly threatened to take it all away if she left him or refused to submit to "freak offs." These were dayslong sexual performances involving drugs and hired male escorts that Combs would film and masturbate to, and which the rap millionaire has maintained were consensual. Nash was the latest government witness to describe the financial hold Combs allegedly had over Ventura during their on-and-off relationship between 2007, when she was 21 years old, and 2018. Ventura taped "hundreds of songs," Nash told the jury. When lead prosecutor Maurene Comey asked how many were actually released, Nash answered, "Hmm, I would say — I'm being generous by saying 10%." Combs signed Ventura to a 10-album deal in 2006, but only released one album. She testified two weeks ago that she was only paid for that first album, the eponymous "Cassie," released in the summer of 2006. Nash also described instances when Ventura was called "whore" and "slut" by Combs. "That was his fave," Nash said of the term "bitch." Combs frequently told Ventura, "Bitch, stop playing with me," or "Bitch, you better bring your ass to this house," Nash told the jury. He described a 2013 incident when Combs, during an argument, choked him and threw him against a car. He described Combs beating Ventura for oversleeping at another point that year — and jumping on Combs' back in a failed attempt to stop him. "Look what y'all made me do," Nash said Combs told him, after Ventura struck her head on the bedpost and began bleeding profusely. Nash said he learned of freak offs in 2013 or 2014, after Combs threatened to send sex tapes to Ventura's parents in Connecticut. Nash suggested calling Combs' bluff, assuming that Combs, too, would be on the tapes and would be embarrassed if they went public. "She said that he was not on the videos," and that they instead show her "Having sex with other guys," Nash testified. Asked what Ventura said about these sex performances, Nash answered, "that she didn't want to." He also said he has kept in touch with Ventura. He said he advised her on her witness wardrobe during her four days of testimony, and had called to congratulate her on Tuesday on the birth of her third child. The stylist showed some wit — including when Comey showed him his photograph, in evidence as Government Exhibit 2A-504. Comey asked if it was an accurate photograph, and Nash answered, "No." When Comey smiled and asked if the photo was a "glamour shot," Nash answered, "Yes. I look amazing." Nash said he spoke to prosecutors and took the stand against Combs because he had been subpoenaed — and he conceded on the stand that during one of his pretrial interviews, he told Comey that he had smoked marijuana. Comey cut that interview short, he said. At another point in his testimony, Nash referred to the prosecutor — Comey is lead prosecutor on the Combs prosecution, and the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey — as "girl." "Girl, I was not about to tell him that he should not give that girl a party," he responded when Comey asked about a conversation in which Combs asked his advice on throwing Ventura a 29th birthday party. Nash is due to return to the stand on Thursday to complete his cross examination by Combs' attorney Xavier Donaldson. The second sexual abuse accuser in the trial — a former Combs employee who'll testify under the pseudonym of "Mia" — is expected to be called after Nash completes his turn on the stand. She is due to testify most of the day Thursday and well into Friday, prosecutors said. Mia will speak about "her worst secrets, the worst things that ever happened to her," her attorney, Michael Ferrara, has said in court.
Business Insider
4 hours ago
- Business
- Business Insider
Anthropic CEO says AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs
After spending the day promoting his company's AI technology at a developer conference, Anthropic's CEO issued a warning: AI may eliminate 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs within the next five years. "We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming," Dario Amodei told Axios in an interview published Wednesday. "I don't think this is on people's radar." The 42-year-old CEO added that unemployment could spike between 10% and 20% in the next five years. He told Axios he wanted to share his concerns to get the government and other AI companies to prepare the country for what's to come. "Most of them are unaware that this is about to happen," Amodei said. "It sounds crazy, and people just don't believe it." Amodei said the development of large language models is advancing rapidly, and they're becoming capable of matching and exceeding human performance. He said the US government has remained quiet about the issue, fearing workers would panic or the country could fall behind China in the AI race. Meanwhile, business leaders are seeing savings from AI while most workers remain unaware of the changes that are evolving, Amodei said. He added that AI companies and the government need to stop "sugarcoating" the risks of mass job elimination in fields including technology, finance, law, and consulting. He said entry-level jobs are especially at risk. Amodei's comments come as Big Tech firms' hiring of new grads dropped about 50% from pre-pandemic levels, according to a new report by the venture capital firm SignalFire. The report said that's due in part to AI adoption. A round of brutal layoffs swept the tech industry in 2023, with hundreds of thousands of jobs eliminated as companies looked to slash costs. While SignalFire's report said hiring for mid and senior-level roles saw an uptick in 2024, entry-level positions never quite bounced back. In 2024, early-career candidates accounted for 7% of total hires at Big Tech firms, down by 25% from 2023, the report said. At startups, that number is just 6%, down by 11% from the year prior. SignalFire's findings suggest that tech companies are prioritizing hiring more seasoned professionals and often filling posted junior roles with senior candidates. Heather Doshay, a partner who leads people and recruiting programs at SignalFire, told Business Insider that "AI is doing what interns and new grads used to do." "Now, you can hire one experienced worker, equip them with AI tooling, and they can produce the output of the junior worker on top of their own — without the overhead," Doshay said. AI can't entirely account for the sudden shrinkage in early-career prospects. The report also said that negative perceptions of Gen Z employees and tighter budgets across the industry are contributing to tech's apparent reluctance to hire new grads. "AI isn't stealing job categories outright — it's absorbing the lowest-skill tasks," Doshay said. "That shifts the burden to universities, boot camps, and candidates to level up faster." To adapt to the rapidly changing times, she suggests new grads think of AI as a collaborator, rather than a competitor. "Level up your capabilities to operate like someone more experienced by embracing a resourceful ownership mindset and delegating to AI," Doshay said. "There's so much available on the internet to be self-taught, and you should be sponging it up." Amodei's chilling message comes after the company recently revealed that its chatbot Claude Opus 4 exhibited "extreme blackmail behavior" after gaining access to fictional emails that said it would be shut down. While the company was transparent with the public about the results, it still released the next version of the chatbot. It's not the first time Amodei has warned the public about the risks of AI. On an episode of The New York Times' "Hard Fork" podcast in February, the CEO said the possibility of "misuse" by bad actors could threaten millions of lives. He said the risk could come as early as "2025 or 2026," though he didn't know exactly when it would present "real risk." Anthropic has emphasized the importance of third-party safety assessments and regularly shares the risks uncovered by its red-teaming efforts. Other companies have taken similar steps, relying on third-party evaluations to test their AI systems. OpenAI, for example, says on its website that its API and ChatGPT business products undergo routine third-party testing to "identify security weaknesses before they can be exploited by malicious actors." Amodei acknowledged to Axios the irony of the situation — as he shares the risks of AI, he's simultaneously building and selling the products he's warning about. But he said the people who are most involved in building AI have an obligation to be up front about its direction. "It's a very strange set of dynamics, where we're saying: 'You should be worried about where the technology we're building is going,'" he said.
