target price of USD 200.
https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/ABBVIE-INC-12136589/
Friday, May 17, 2024
US labor board will suspend case against SpaceX pending company's legal challenge
The U.S. National Labor Relations Board told a Texas federal judge that it will suspend an administrative case accusing SpaceX of illegally firing engineers critical of CEO Elon Musk while the rocket maker pursues a lawsuit challenging the agency's structure.
The labor board in a filing in Brownsville, Texas federal court late Thursday said that halting the underlying case against SpaceX will expedite a final ruling on the company's claims that the agency's in-house enforcement proceedings violate the U.S. Constitution.
The board said it does not agree with SpaceX's claim that pausing the administrative case is appropriate, but it was agreeing to do so "in the interest of conserving scarce judicial resources (and) avoiding unnecessary expense and delay."
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-labor-board-suspend-case-132004659.html
Musk pushes plan for China data to power Tesla's AI ambitions
Tesla is pushing ahead with plans to power the global development of its self-driving system with data from China that could be processed within the country, part of a strategic shift by Elon Musk, according to people with knowledge of the work.
As part of that effort, Tesla has been developing plans for a data center in China to train the algorithm needed for more fully autonomous vehicles, according to two people, who asked not to be named because the work remains private.
Until recently, Tesla has focused on efforts to secure approval from Chinese regulators to transfer data generated by its EVs in China out of the country for its “Full Self Driving” (FSD) system, according to the two people and an additional person with knowledge of the matter.
It was not clear if Tesla would proceed with both options for handling self-driving data from China - data transfer and a local data center - or if it was developing parallel plans as a hedge.
Tesla's efforts underscore the speed of the electric vehicle maker’s pivot to bet on a breakthrough in AI at a time when EV demand has slowed and its competition has deepened.
Its push to make fuller use of data from vehicles in China to develop the automaker's artificial intelligence for driving comes as the U.S. government has tried to clamp down on the transfer of AI technology from U.S. firms to China.
Tesla has not been able to offer the full version of FSD, which costs the equivalent of almost $9,000, in China.
A wider market for FSD in China would give a boost to the automaker's revenue and profits at a time when both are getting squeezed by pressure from Chinese rivals such as BYD.
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.
Setting up a data center in China for FSD development would require Tesla to work with a Chinese partner, two of the sources said. There is also a potential hardware-sourcing challenge.
It has had talks with Nvidia about acquiring graphic processing units for a China data center, according to one of the people, who was briefed on the discussions. U.S. sanctions bar Nvidia and its partners from selling its most advanced chips in China.
Nvidia declined to comment on whether it had held talks with Tesla.
Tesla’s campaign to make more use of data from China was kicked into high gear in a whirlwind trip by Musk to Beijing last month when he met with officials including Premier Li Qiang.
In his meeting with Li, Musk sought to smooth permissions for Tesla's data transfer, two of the sources said. The potential of Tesla investing in a data center in China was also raised, they said.
Musk also discussed the possibility of Tesla licensing its FSD systems to Chinese EV makers, one person said. Musk had said in April Tesla was talking to another "major" automaker about licensing FSD without naming it.
China's State Council Information Office did not respond to a request for comment.
THE CHINA EFFECT
China, the world’s largest car market, has the biggest fleet of sensor-equipped cars capable of collecting data from congested cities with complicated traffic patterns, making data generated there valuable for automakers and AI providers.
Musk previously expressed opposition to a China-based data center, arguing that data transfer to the United States was the most efficient option, two people said.
Since 2021, Tesla has stored data collected by its Chinese EVs in Shanghai. Over that time, Tesla's China team has been seeking approvals from Chinese regulators to transfer data out of the country, two people said.
Under a one-year pilot project, companies in Shanghai's Lingang Area, where Tesla's factory is located, will be allowed to transfer certain data without needing further security assessments, Reuters reported on Friday.
Some analysts see Musk as trying to make China a launchpad for self-driving in the same way Tesla’s 2019 bet on its Shanghai Gigafactory allowed it to break through as a mass-market electric vehicle maker.
"It would definitely be a milestone for Tesla if it rolls out FSD in China and leverages the China data for algorithm training," said Yale Zhang, managing director at Shanghai-based consultancy Automotive Foresight.
"China had played a key role in scaling up EV production for Tesla with the Shanghai factory. It would again serve a significant part in scaling up mass adoption of autonomous driving technologies," he said.
Many industry experts expect it will take years before fully autonomous cars are commonplace, but predictions vary widely.
Driver-assistance features now offered in China are "level two" systems, meaning they require a driver ready to take over. Tesla's FSD and its less-advanced options of Autopilot, are also level-two systems requiring attentive drivers.
More fully automated vehicle fleets operated by Baidu, China's biggest search engine operator, and Pony.ai, an autonomous driving startup, run in limited test zones.
But China's EV makers, including BYD, have made self-driving and advanced driver assist systems a priority. Mercedes and BMW have been granted licenses to test level-three systems that allow drivers to take their hands off the wheel and look away on a wider range of roads in China.
At least five automakers - Hyundai, Mazda, Toyota, Volkswagen and Nissan - have approval to transfer some of their data out of China, but none of those approvals are for data to be used to train AI systems, according to lawyers, state media reports and analysts.
Penalties for violating data privacy laws that came into effect in China in 2021 are a major risk factor for data operations, groups representing foreign businesses in China say.
When asked about competition from Chinese EV makers during a call with investors after Tesla’s quarterly earnings last month, Musk said Tesla should be viewed more as an AI company.
He said he was confident Tesla’s FSD system would work “pretty well without modification in almost any market”. It would work better with “country-specific” training, Musk said.
https://sg.news.yahoo.com/finance/news/exclusive-musk-pushes-plan-china-072212866.html
Ukraine Formally Asks NATO To Send Troops For First Time, Pentagon Mulling
The continued inevitable and disastrous slide into a WW3 nuclear-armed confrontation between Russian and the West continues as The New York Times reports NATO appears to actually be seriously mulling sending troops to Ukraine to serve in the role as 'trainers' at a moment Kiev is desperate to tap and train up new manpower. And this would be closer to front line positions as well.
"NATO allies are inching closer to sending troops into Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces, a move that would be another blurring of a previous red line and could draw the United States and Europe more directly into the war," NY Times wrote Thursday. What has changed? The Zelensky government is now directly requesting it, apparently on a formal level for the first time of the conflict, according to officials.
The Times confirms "Ukrainian officials have asked their American and NATO counterparts to help train 150,000 new recruits closer to the front line for faster deployment."
The report assures that at this moment anyway, the US is still saying 'no'; however chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr has said an eventual deployment of trainers inside Ukraine looks inevitable. "We’ll get there eventually, over time," he said.
The Joint Chiefs chairman said this while admitting in the next breath that US and NATO trainers positioned in Ukraine would essentially be sitting ducks under the bombs of superior Russian airpower:
For now, he said, an effort inside Ukraine would put “a bunch of NATO trainers at risk” and would most likely mean deciding whether to use precious air defenses to protect the trainers instead of critical Ukrainian infrastructure near the battlefield. General Brown briefed reporters on his plane en route to a NATO meeting in Brussels.
The report was published the same day that Ukraine's President Zelensky in his nightly address issued a desperate appeal to Western allies saying that "Russia is trying to expand the war" and that "we must force Russia to a real, just peace by all means."
Earlier in the week Zelensky abruptly announced that he has canceled all scheduled trips abroad as the crisis in Kharkiv is worsening due to Moscow's expanded cross-border offensive which seeks to push front lines significantly deeper into Ukrainian territory, where the Kremlin wants to see a buffer zone in order to protect its Belgorod region from shelling.
While there have long been indicators (including a leaked Pentagon file) that up to dozens of special forces troops from various Western countries are likely already on the ground in Ukraine, sending NATO trainers would certainly mark a colossal escalation. Already Russian forces have been actively targeting storehouses with Western weapons, and Putin himself has vowed to make West-supplied tanks and equipment "burn".
NATO is already overseeing a significant Ukrainian troop training program in places like Germany, the UK, Poland, and even in the United States (where pilots are being trained on F-16s in Texas and Phoenix). There had been a training program on Ukrainian soil prior to the Russian invasion of February 2022, however, this was folded up in the days and weeks prior to the war's start.
The Times quoted Evelyn Farkas, a former top Pentagon official for Ukraine during the Obama administration, to point out: "Remember, when Russia first invaded Crimea in 2014, we sent increased troop numbers into Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces in western Ukraine, and we kept rotating them in all the way to 2022, when we got spooked and withdrew them."
One location being considered as a 'safer' option to establish large troop training operations is the city of Lviv, in Ukraine's far west near Poland; however, even though it is far from the front lines Russia has still at various time of the war unleashed major ballistic missile strikes on Lviv.
The ball got rolling on this discussion (on a public level at least) with French President Emmanuel Macron raising the idea of Western boots on the ground in Ukraine starting months ago. Since then Lithuania says it stands ready to act and Estonia has just this week also said the small Baltic country is "seriously" considering sending its troops. According to fresh statements:
Estonia has been "seriously" discussing sending troops to Ukraine in roles positioned away from the front lines, per a national security official.
Madis Roll, national security advisor to Estonia's president, told military news outlet Breaking Defense that his country's leaders were assessing the viability of sending Estonian soldiers to "rear" roles that wouldn't see direct combat in Ukraine.
Such a move would help relieve Ukraine's manpower crunch and allow it to send more soldiers to the front lines.
The Kremlin has repeatedly warned all of this would trigger direct war with NATO if it deploys forces to Ukraine...
Last month, Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur gave a very revealing interview in European media which raised eyebrows and the alarm in Moscow. The defense chief said in the interview with the Austrian newspaper Die Presse that all NATO countries already have NATO personnel stationed in Ukraine, but that they aren't directly engaged in hostilities as they are there in advisory roles. He was responding to recent provocative statements by France's Macron. If so this is probably a small number, and he indicated they tend to be attached to embassies.
"The reality is that every NATO member country already has military personnel in Ukraine, such as military attaches or people who travel to Ukraine from time to time," the Estonian defense chief said. "What [French] President [Emmanuel] Macron said mainly related to personnel training," he added, according to a translation in Russian media. So clearly, the proverbial camel's nose is already sneaking in under the tent.
As Russia advances in Kharkiv oblast, Zelensky's appeals will grow more desperate, and pressure within NATO will grow to 'respond':
One source has pointed out how Washington tends to operate and what it all means... In asserting that NATO sending troops is “inevitable,” the Times means the decision has already been made, and all that is being awaited is the determination on how best to announce the escalation to the public.
Watch: Chief Economic Adviser Refuses To Admit Biden Is Lying About Inflation
by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,
Joe Biden’s chief economic advisor refused to admit Thursday that the president keeps telling a huge lie by claiming that inflation was at 9 percent when he took office when it was really at 1.4 percent and shot up to 9 percent under Biden himself.
During an interview on Fox Business, host Neil Cavuto grilled Jared Bernstein, and told him directly “you’re lying,” and “just as bad” as Biden when he tried to dodge the matter.
After Biden took office inflation surged to rates unseen since the early 1980s, peaking at an annual rate of 9.1 percent in June 2022, a full 17 months after he became president.
Yet, he keeps claiming it was ALREADY at 9 percent and that he inherited a weakened economy from Trump.
“Jared, why does he keep saying that?” Cavuto asked, following up “You’re the head of the Council of Economic Advisers. Do you ever whisper in his ear, ‘Mr. President, just to be technical about it, it wasn’t at 9% when you assumed office, it was 1.4%. It got as high as 9% in 2022, you brought it down from that, but it was never ever ever 9% when you came into office.’ So why does he keep saying it?”
Bernstein responded “Well, first of all, let me point out that in that very quote you played, the president talked about how concerned he was, uh, for households struggling with prices that he consistently—”
“That’s not what I asked you. That’s not what I asked you,” Cavuto interjected, again asking “Why does he keep misrepresenting this?”
“He’s making the point, uh, that that factors that caused inflation to climb to 9% were in place when he took office,” Bernstein claimed.
Credit to Cavuto, he was having none of it.
“No, that’s not what he said! He said it was at 9%… So if I can’t trust him with quoting data in real-time, why should I believe what he’s talking about now?”
“No it wasn’t — it was not at that! You’re almost as bad as he is,” Cavuto further charged when Bernstein attempted to claim that the annual inflation in 2021 was “about 9 percent.”
“Why can’t you just say, ‘It was high, it got as high as 9%’ — you’d be accurate in saying that — And we have now brought it down, or were struggling around the 3% area, but it’s better than it was,’” Cavuto continued.
“But instead to hang it on his predecessor that you inherited something that was through the roof when we were in the middle of Covid, it just seems to the American people whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat — you’re lying!” The host concluded.
Biden really seems to believe that he has rescued the economy, when in reality he’s overseen an unmitigated disaster.
* * *
Turley: Will The Trump Jury Realize They Are Being Played By The Prosecution
Below is my column in Fox.com on the approaching end of the Trump trial in Manhattan. With the dramatic implosion of Michael Cohen on the stand on Thursday with the exposure of another alleged lie told under oath, even hosts and commentators on CNN are now criticizing the prosecution and doubting the basis for any conviction. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper admitted that he would “absolutely” have doubts after Cohen’s testimony.
CNN’s legal analyst Elie Honig declared “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a star cooperating witness get his knees chopped out quite as clearly and dramatically.”
He previously stated that this case would never have been brought outside of a deep blue, anti-Trump district. Other legal experts, including on CNN and MSNBC, admitted that they did not get the legal theory of the prosecution or understand the still mysterious crime that was being concealed by the alleged book-keeping errors. The question is whether the jury itself is realizing that they are being played by the prosecution.
Here is the column:
In the movie “Quiz Show,” about the rigging of a 1950s television game show, the character Mark Van Doren warns his corrupted son that “if you look around the table and you can’t tell who the sucker is, it’s you.”
As the trial of former President Donald Trump careens toward its conclusion, one has to wonder if the jurors are wondering the same question.
For any discerning juror, the trial has been conspicuously lacking any clear statement from the prosecutors of what crime Trump was attempting to commit by allegedly mischaracterizing payments as “legal expenses.” Even liberal legal experts have continued to express doubt over what crime is being alleged as the government rests its case.
There is also the failure of the prosecutors to establish that Trump even knew of how payments were denoted or that these denotations were actually fraudulent in denoting payments to a lawyer as legal expenses.
The judge has allowed this dangerously undefined case to proceed without demanding greater clarity from the prosecution.
Jurors may also suspect that there is more to meet the eye about the players themselves. While the jurors are likely unaware of these facts, everyone “around the table” has controversial connections. Indeed, for many, the judge, prosecutors, and witnesses seem as random or coincidental as the cast from “Ocean’s Eleven.” Let’s look at three key things.
1. The Prosecutors
First, there are the prosecutors. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg originally (as did his predecessor) rejected this ridiculous legal theory and further stated that he could not imagine ever bringing a case where he would call former Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen, let alone make him the entirety of a prosecution.
Bragg’s suspension of the case led prosecutor Mark F. Pomerantz to resign. Pomerantz then wrote a book on the prosecution despite his colleagues objecting that he was undermining their work. Many of us viewed the book as unethical and unprofessional, but it worked. The pressure campaign forced Bragg to green-light the prosecution.
Pomerantz also met with Cohen in pushing the case.
Bragg then selected Matthew Colangelo to lead the case. Colangelo was third in command of the Justice Department and gave up that plum position to lead the case against Trump. Colangelo was also paid by the Democratic National Committee for “political consulting.” So a former high-ranking official in the Biden Justice Department and a past consultant to the DNC is leading the prosecution.
2. The Judge
Judge Juan Merchan has been criticized not only because he is a political donor to President Biden but his daughter is a high-ranking Democratic political operative who has raised millions in campaigns against Trump and the GOP.
Merchan, however, was not randomly selected. He was specifically selected for the case due to his handling of an earlier Trump-related case.
3. The Star Witness
Michael Cohen’s checkered history as a convicted, disbarred serial perjurer is well known. Now, Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., is under fire after disclosing that “I have met with [Cohen] a number of times to prepare him.”
Goldman in turn paid Merchan’s daughter, Loren Merchan, more than $157,000 dollars for political consulting.
Outside the courtroom, there is little effort to avoid or hide such conflicts. While Democrats would be outraged if the situation were flipped in a prosecution of Biden, the cross-pollination between the DOJ, DNC, and Democratic operatives is dismissed as irrelevant by many in the media.
Moreover, there is little outrage in New York that, in a presidential campaign where the weaponization of the legal system is a major issue, Trump is not allowed to discuss Cohen, Colangelo, or these conflicts. A New York Supreme Court judge is literally controlling what Trump can say in a presidential campaign about the alleged lawfare being waged against him.
The most striking aspect of these controversial associations is how little was done to avoid even the appearance of conflicts of interests. There were many judges available who were not donors or have children with such prominent political interests in the case. Bragg could have selected someone who was not imported by the Biden administration or someone who had not been paid by the DNC.
There was no concern over the obvious appearance of a politically motivated and stacked criminal case. Whether or not these figures are conflicted or compromised, no effort was taken to assure citizens that any such controversies are avoided in the selection of the key players in this case.
What will be interesting is how the jury will react when, after casting its verdict, the members learn of these undisclosed associations. This entire production was constructed for their benefit to get them to convict Trump despite the absence of a clear crime or direct evidence.
They were the marks and, like any good grift, the prosecutors were counting that their desire for a Trump conviction would blind them to the con.
Bragg, Colangelo and others may be wrong. Putting aside the chance that Judge Merchan could summon up the courage to end this case before it goes to the jury, the grift may have been a bit too obvious.
New Yorkers are a curious breed. Yes, they overwhelmingly hate Trump, but they also universally hate being treated like chumps. When they get this case, they just might look around the courtroom and decide that they are the suckers in a crooked game.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/turley-will-trump-jury-realize-they-are-being-played-prosecution
Cartels infiltrating native reservations with fentanyl: Tribal leader
Tribal leaders in Montana issued an urgent plea to Congress, saying they are overwhelmed and outmatched as Mexican drug cartels exploit jurisdictional loopholes to embed themselves on Native American reservations with devastating effects.
Jeffrey Stiffarm, president of the Fort Belknap Indian Community, testified that the Sinaloa Cartel operates with near impunity in his region, capitalizing on chronic underfunding of law enforcement on the 652,000-acre reservation patrolled by just nine officers.
“We are fighting a losing battle. The cartels are winning, the drug dealers are winning,” Stiffarm told Congress. “We are left alone to fight this battle against them.”
Stiffarm told “NewsNation Prime” that up to hundreds of thousands of cartel operatives have infiltrated reservations across the American West, using the isolated lands as havens to traffic fentanyl pills and other drugs into the United States without scrutiny from federal authorities.
“They know we’re short-staffed, underfunded, under-trained and outnumbered,” said Stiffarm, a former law enforcement officer for two decades. “They’re preying on our people, our children, our women. They get a foothold in and they’re here.”
The Fort Belknap leader described cartel tactics like staging fake emergencies to divert the limited police presence, then quickly shuttling narcotics across other parts of the reservation undercover.
But the devastation transcends drug running, as cartel operatives deeply embed themselves in tribal communities grappling with 70% unemployment rates and that are hours from urban centers. Stiffarm said rapes and murders committed by cartels have become tragically commonplace.
Montana’s health department data shows Native American overdose death rates over twice that of other state residents. The Blackfeet Nation declared an emergency last year after 17 overdoses in just one week.
Stiffarm said federal agencies including the FBI, Border Patrol and Bureau of Indian Affairs have failed to intervene, paralyzed by jurisdictional gaps that cartel operatives expertly exploit. The Belknap law enforcement budget has only grown from $1.2 million to $1.3 million since 1997, according to Stiffarm.
“We’re the first people of this country, and we’re always overlooked, pushed aside,” Stiffarm said referring to the foreign aid bill Congress passed Saturday. “They send $95 billion to kill people overseas but can’t spare pennies to save their own on reservations being ravaged by cartels.”
Stiffarm, who said he feared retaliation from cartels, made the appeal in hopes of finally receiving backup to combat forces he warned are overtaking tribal lands across the northern plains.
“If it’s at the risk of my own life, then so be it,” he said. “That’s my job – to protect our people.”
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