Scott Bessent is Trump’s pick for Treasury Secretary
US President Donald Trump’s nominee for Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy, has said he would reduce the red tape that slows critical infrastructure projects, ensuring funds are spent efficiently. Duffy also pledged to bring “tough love” to Boeing as regulators work to restore confidence in the struggling airplane maker. His first trip as Transportation Secretary would be to the Appalachian region, Duffy added.
Biden issued an executive order in the eleventh hour trying to bolster the U.S. cybersecurity
US President Joe Biden has signed a 40-page executive order seeking to improve the country’s cybersecurity, privacy and identity protection. The order aims to boost the US government’s use of artificial intelligence to detect and respond to attacks, among other things. It aims to make it easier for the federal government to slap sanctions on ransomware groups who target critical infrastructure.
John Deere is facing a lawsuit over farmers’ ability to repair their machines
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has said that it is not going to settle till John Deere makes its repair-averse policy available. “The FTC is not going to settle unless John Deere makes the software available,” FTC said. This comes after the agency filed a lawsuit against Deere over its repair policy, which prevents farmers from repairing their own equipment.
High winds threaten to cause a new fire in Southern California
The Los Angeles Fire broke out on Monday night in a massive fire that had been reported to have burned 56 acres, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. It is the fourth big fire in Los Angeles County over the past week. Over 20 people have died due to the fires in the past week, according to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s office.
It won’t stop drones from flying over the White House
DJI will no longer enforce ‘No-Fly Zones’, instead offering a dismissible warning that means common sense, empathy and the fear of getting caught by authorities will keep people from flying where they shouldn’t. It also said it is “placing control back in the hands of the drone operators”. The decision comes after one of its drones damaged an aircraft fighting the Los Angeles wildfires.
A translator that works in dozens of languages is created by Meta Artificial Intelligence
Meta, in its paper on speech-to-speech translation2, said that a model for universal translation based on crowdsourced data can be used to translate text and video in languages up to 200. Meta collected over 4.5 million hours of multilingual spoken audio and aligned approximately 30,000 hours of speech pairs using the same technique to further train their model.
Israel and Hamas are working toward a cease-fire
Israel and Hamas are set to complete the first phase of a ceasefire deal that would end the war between the two countries last year, Reuters reported. In the first phase, 33 hostages will be freed in exchange for a larger number of Palestinian prisoners. The total number of Palestinians released from Israeli custody is expected to be around 1,000.
MarcoRubio, Trump’s secretary of state pick, will have a confirmation hearing
US President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as Defence Secretary, former Fox News anchor Pete Hegseth, had told Megyn Kelly on her podcast in December that he’d forgo all alcohol if he’s confirmed to the post. However, Hegseth’s hearing on Tuesday is expected to be “tough but respectful, candid but fair”, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
A new definition of obese helps focus on the health of the person
The American College of Physicians has revised the definition of excess body fat, a measure that affects the body rather than relying only on the body mass index (BMI). It recommends measuring a person’s waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio, or waist-to-height ratio to confirm excess body fat. This is done by using X-rays which can directly measure fat mass.
Pam Bondi is Trump’s pick to be attorney general
US President-elect Donald Trump has said that he expects unwavering devotion from his appointees. “The question, then, is whether Ms Bondi can do that as the Attorney General, despite her prior work with and around Mr. Trump, or whether she will enable his worst instincts,” he added. “The President-elect has made it clear…hevalues one thing above all else in an attorney general: loyalty,” Durbin said.