Table of ContentsTable of ContentsTesting the testIn the labApple made waves when it announced that its AirPods Pro 2, when combined with iOS 18.1, could fulfill the role of OTC hearing aids. Given that OTC hearing aids can often run as much as $1,500, it seemed too good to be true that the same hearing benefits could be had for just $249 or less. Better yet, given the popularity of Apples wireless earbuds, theres an excellent chance that those who could benefit already own them (if you live in a country where Apples hearing aid feature has been approved).So how good are the AirPods Pro 2 as OTC hearing aids?Recommended VideosTo find out, I looked at two key performance criteria: the accuracy of Apples software-driven hearing test, and their ability to provide speech enhancement.RelatedTypically, prescription hearing aids are provided by a licensed audiologist. Before you get them, the audiologist will test your hearing using professionally calibrated instruments in a sound-proof booth. The results, known as an audiogram, are used to customize the hearing aids for you. At-home OTC hearing aids perform a similar test via software, and rely on the user to find a suitably quiet location.Related:How to take the AirPods Pro 2 hearing testMy maternal grandfather struggled with hearing after he turned 60, and my father has moderate hearing loss in one ear. With that kind of family history, I get my hearing professionally checked annually to monitor my own health.Heres how Apples audiogram of my hearing (December 2024) compares to my most recent audiologist exam (October 2024).While the Apple audiogram slightly overestimated my high-frequency loss (possibly because my test environment wasnt quiet enough), it accurately measured my sensitivity across other frequencies, including the slight differences between my left and right ears.I shared the Apple result with my audiologist, and she agreed that it looked fairly accurate, exceeding her expectations for an at-home test.HearAdvisorIn an ideal world, wed evaluate the AirPods Pro 2s speech enhancement using both qualitative results (gathered from peoples real-world assessments) and quantitative results (lab-based testing).Unfortunately, I wasnt able to gather qualitative data, but I did get in touch with HearAdvisor, an independent hearing aid testing company. HearAdvisor has lab-tested a variety of OTC and prescription hearing aid models, including the AirPods Pro 2, and maintains a published list of the best products.For OTC products, the testing methodology evaluates devices based on five major criteria using the initial settings created by the software-based hearing test. When possible, those settings are professionally tuned and the tests are repeated to see if theres a difference in the results.The AirPods Pro 2 received a B grade, placing them in the second tier of HearAdvisors rankings. While that doesnt seem especially noteworthy, the tests revealed a substantial difference between the initial and tuned results. Speech in quiet and speech in noise arguably the most important criteria for any hearing aids both increased by more than double (111% and 225%, respectively) after being tuned.This suggests that while Apples audiogram generation may be accurate, the companys tuning undercuts the potential of the AirPods Pro 2 to deliver the best hearing enhancement.Why would Apple do this, when presumably it has access to the same (or better) assessment technology as HearAdvisor? They may do this because new hearing aid users often prefer less-than-prescribed gain (probably to preserve naturalness, at the cost of intelligibility), HearAdvisor scientific adviser Andrew Sabin told me.Curiously, the current king of the OTC hearing aid hill according to HearAdvisors tests is Sonys CRE-E10, with an A grade, and a perfect 5/5 overall score for both their initial and tuned results. Still, the CRE-E10 sell for between $898 and $1,199 (260%-480% more than the AirPods Pro 2) and yet they dont deliver similarly large increases in performance.The CRE-E10 proved 18.4% better than the AirPods Pro 2 in speech in quiet, and 73% better in speech in noise. Arguably, this makes the AirPods Pro 2 an excellent value, and a great way to experiment with hearing enhancement if youre on the fence. Even if you end up turning the feature off, youre still getting a very good set of wireless noise-canceling earbuds for music and phone calls.Editors Recommendations

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244 and counting Rocket Report: ULA has a wild idea; Starliner crew will stay in orbit even longer ULA's Vulcan rocket is at least several months away from flying again, and Stoke names its engine. Stephen Clark Dec 20, 2024 2:40 pm | 0 Stoke Space's Zenith booster engine fires on a test stand at Moses Lake, Washington. Credit: Stoke Space Stoke Space's Zenith booster engine fires on a test stand at Moses Lake, Washington. Credit: Stoke Space Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreWelcome to Edition 7.24 of the Rocket Report! This is the last Rocket Report of the year, and what a year it's been. So far, there have been 244 rocket launches to successfully reach orbit this year, a record for annual launch activity. And there are still a couple of weeks to go before the calendar turns to 2025. Time is running out for Blue Origin to launch its first heavy-lift New Glenn rocket this year, but if it flies before January 1, it will certainly be one of the top space stories of 2024.As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don't want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.Corkscrew in the sky. A Japanese space startup said its second attempt to launch a rocket carrying small satellites into orbit had been terminated minutes after liftoff Wednesday and destroyed itself again, nine months after the companys first launch attempt in an explosion, the Associated Press reports. The startup that developed the rocket, named Space One, launched the Kairos rocket from a privately owned coastal spaceport in Japan's Kansai region. Company executive and space engineer Mamoru Endo said an abnormality in the first stage engine nozzle or its control system is likely to have caused an unstable flight of the rocket, which started spiraling in mid-flight and eventually destroyed itself about three minutes after liftoff, using its autonomous safety mechanism.0-for-2 ... The launch failure this week followed the first attempt to launch the Kairos rocket in March, when the launcher exploded just five seconds after liftoff. An investigation into the failed launch in March concluded the rocket's autonomous destruct system activated after detecting its solid-fueled first stage wasn't generating as much thrust as expected. The Kairos rocket is Japan's first privately funded orbital-class rocket, capable of placing payloads up to 550 pounds (250 kilograms) into l0w-Earth orbit. (submitted by Jay500001, Ken the Bin, and EllPeaTea)A fit check for Themis. ArianeGroup has brought the main elements of the Themis reusable booster demonstrator together for the first time in France during a "full-fit check," European Spaceflight reports. This milestone paves the way for the demonstrators inaugural test, which is expected to take place in 2025. Themis, which is funded by the European Space Agency, is designed to test vertical launch and landing capabilities with a new methane-fueled rocket engine.According to ESA, the full-fit check is one of the final steps in the development phase of Themis.Slow progress ... ESA signed the contract with ArianeGroup for the Themis program in 2020, and at that time, the program's schedule called for initial low-altitude hop tests in 2022. It's now taken more than double the time officials originally projected to get the Themis rocket airborne. The first up-and-down hops will be based at the Esrange Space Center in Sweden, and will use the vehicle ArianeGroup is assembling now in France. A second Themis rocket will be built for medium-altitude tests from Esrange, and finally, a three-engine version of Themis will fly on high-altitude tests from the Guiana Space Center in South America. At the rate this program is proceeding, it's fair to ask if Themis will complete a full-envelope launch and landing demonstration before the end of the decade, if it ever does. (submitted by Ken the Bin) The Ars Technica Rocket Report The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger's and Stephen Clark's reporting on all things space is to sign up for our newsletter. We'll collect their stories and deliver them straight to your inbox.Sign Me Up!Baguette One is going critical.French launch startup HyPrSpace has announced that it has completed preliminary design reviews for its Baguette One and Orbital Baguette One (OB-1) rockets, European Spaceflight reports. Baguette One will be a suborbital demonstrator for the OB-1 rocket, designed to use a hybrid propulsion system that combines liquid and solid propellants and doesn't require a turbopump. With the preliminary design complete, HyPrSpace said it is moving on to the critical design phase for both rockets, a stage of development where detailed engineering plans are finalized and components are prepared for manufacturing.Heating the oven ... HyPrSpace has previously stated the Orbital Baguette One rocket will be capable of delivering a payload of up to 550 pounds (250 kilograms) to low-Earth orbit. Last year, the startup announced it raised 35 million euros in funding, primarily from the French government, to complete the critical design phase of the OB-1 rocket and launch the Baguette One on a suborbital test flight. HyPrSpace has not provided an updated schedule for the first flight of either rocket. (submitted by Ken the Bin)A new player on the scene. RTX weapons arm Raytheon and defense startup Ursa Major Technologies have completed two successful test flights of a missile propelled by a new solid rocket motor, Breaking Defense reports. The two test flights, held at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake in California, involved a Raytheon-made missile propelled by an Ursa Major solid rocket motor measuring less than 10 inches in diameter, according to Dan Jablonsky, Ursa Major's CEO. Details about the missile are shrouded in mystery, and Raytheon officials referred questions on the matter to the Army.Joining the club ... The US military is interested in fostering the development of a third supplier of solid rocket propulsion for weapons systems. Right now, only Northrop Grumman and L3Harris's Aerojet Rocketdyne are available as solid rocket vendors, and they have struggled to keep up with the demand for weapons systems, especially to support the war in Ukraine. Ursa Major is one of several US-based startups entering the solid rocket propulsion market. "There is a new player on the scene in the solid rocket motor industry," Jablonsky said. "This is an Army program that weve been working on with Raytheon. In this particular program, we went from concept and design to firing and flight on the range in just under four months, which is lightning fast." (submitted by Ken the Bin)SpaceX's rapid response. In a mission veiled in secrecy, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off Monday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida, sending a military Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite to a medium orbit about 12,000 miles above Earth, Space News reports.Named Rapid Response Trailblazer-1 (RRT-1), this mission was a US national security space launch and was also intended to demonstrate military capabilities to condense a typical two-year mission planning cycle to less than six months.The payload, GPS III SV-07, is the seventh satellite of the GPS III constellation, built by Lockheed Martin. The spacecraft was in storage awaiting a launch on United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket.Tightening the timeline ... "We decided to pull SV-07 out of storage and try to get it to the launch pad as quickly as possible," Col. James Horne, senior material leader for launch execution at the US Space Forces Space Systems Command, told Space News. "Its our way of demonstrating that we can be responsive to operator needs." Rather than the typical mission cycle of two years, SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, and the Space Force worked together to prep this GPS satellite for launch in a handful of months. Military officials decided to launch SV-07 with SpaceX as ULA's Vulcan rocket faced delays in becoming certified to launch national security payloads. According to Space News, Horne emphasized that this move was less about Vulcan delays and more about testing the boundaries of the NSSL programs flexibility. This is a way for us to demonstrate to adversaries that we can be responsive, he said. Because SV-07 was switched to SpaceX, ULA will get to launch GPS III SV-10, originally assigned to SpaceX. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)An update on Butch and Suni. NASA has announced that it is delaying the SpaceX Crew-10 launch, a move that will keep astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williamswho already had their stay aboard the International Space Station unexpectedly extendedin orbit even longer, CNN reports. Williams and Wilmore launched to space in June, piloting the first crewed test flight of Boeings Starliner spacecraft. Their trip, expected to last about a week, ballooned into a months-long assignment after their vehicle experienced technical issues en route to the space station and NASA determined it would be too risky to bring them home aboard the Starliner.Nearly 10 months in orbit ... The astronauts stayed aboard the space station as the Starliner spacecraft safely returned to Earth in September, and NASA shuffled the station's schedule of visiting vehicles to allow Wilmore and Williams to come home on a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft with two crewmates to end the Crew-9 mission in February, soon after the arrival of Crew-10.Now, Crew-10 will get off the ground at least a month later than expected because NASA and SpaceX teams need "time to complete processing on a new Dragon spacecraft for the mission," the space agency said. (submitted by Ken the Bin)Stoke Space names its engine. Stoke Space, the only other company besides SpaceX developing a fully reusable orbital rocket, has revealed the name of the methane-fueled engine that will power the vehicle's booster stage. "Say hello to Zenith, our full-flow staged-combustion booster engine, built to power Nova to orbit," Stoke Space wrote in a post on X. The naming announcement came a few days after Stoke Space said it hot-fired the "Block 2" or "flight layout" version of the main engine on a test stand in Moses Lake, Washington.Stoked by the progress ... "As we build towards the future of space mobility, were building on top of the pinnaclethe zenithof rocket engine cycles: full-flow staged combustion," Stoke Space said. Only a handful of rocket engines have been designed to use the full-flow staged combustion cycle, and only one has actually flown on a rocket: SpaceX's Raptor. Seven Zenith engines will power the first stage of the Nova rocket when it takes off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. A hydrogen-fueled propulsion system will power the second stage of Nova, which is designed to launch up to 5 metric tons (11,000 pounds) of payload to low-Earth orbit.Upgrades coming for Vega. The European Space Agency (ESA) has signed 350 million euros in contracts with Avio to further evolve the Vega launcher family," Aviation Week & Space Technology reports. The contracts cover the development of the Vega-E and upgrades to the current Vega-Cs ground infrastructure to increase the launch cadence. Vega-E, scheduled to debut in 2027, will replace the Vega-C rocket's third and fourth stages with a single methane-fueled upper stage under development by Avio. It will also offer a 30 percent increase in Vega's payload lift capability, and will launch from a new complex to be built on the formed Ariane 5 launch pad at the European-run Guiana Space Center in South America.Adaptations ... The fresh tranche of funding from ESA will also pay for Avio's work to "adapt" the former Ariane 5 integration building at the spaceport in French Guiana, according to ESA. "This will allow technicians to work on two rockets being assembled simultaneouslyone on the launch pad and one in the new assembly buildingand run two launch campaigns in parallel," ESA said.(submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)New Glenn coming alive. In a widely anticipated test, Blue Origin will soon ignite the seven main engines on its New Glenn rocket at Launch Complex-36 in Florida, Ars reports. Sources indicated this hot-fire test might occur as soon as Thursday, but it didn't happen. Instead, Blue Origin's launch team loaded cryogenic propellants into the New Glenn rocket on the launch pad, but stopped short of igniting the main engines.Racing the clock The hot-fire is the final test the company must complete before verifying the massive rocket is ready for its debut flight, and it is the most dynamic. This will be the first time Blue Origin has ever test-fired the BE-7 engines altogether. Theoretically, at least, it remains possible that Blue Origin could launch New Glenn this yearand the company's urgency certainly speaks to this. On social media this week, some Blue Origin employees noted that they were being asked to work on Christmas Day this year in Florida.China begins building a new megaconstellation. The first batch of Internet satellites for China's Guowang megaconstellation launched Monday on the country's heavy-lift Long March 5B rocket, Ars reports.The satellites are the first of up to 13,000 spacecraft a consortium of Chinese companies plans to build and launch over the next decade. The Guowang fleet will beam low-latency high-speed Internet signals in an architecture similar to SpaceX's Starlink network, although Chinese officials haven't laid out any specifics, such as target markets, service specifications, or user terminals.No falling debris, this time China used its most powerful operational rocket, the Long March 5B, for the job of launching the first 10 Guowang satellites this week. The Long March 5B's large core stage, which entered orbit on the rocket's previous missions andtriggered concerns about falling space debris, fell into a predetermined location in the sea downrange from the launch site. The difference for this mission was the addition of the Yuanzheng 2 upper stage, which gave the rocket's payloads the extra oomph they needed to reach their targeted low-Earth orbit.(submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)Elon Musk's security clearance under review. A new investigationfrom The New York Times suggests that SpaceX founder Elon Musk has not been reporting his travel activities and other information to the Department of Defense as required by his top-secret clearance, Ars reports. According to the newspaper, concerns about Musk's reporting practices have led to reviews by three different bodies within the military: the Air Force, the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, and the Defense Department Office of Inspector General. However, none of the federal agencies cited in the Times article has accused Musk of disclosing classified material.It won't matter Since 2021, Musk has failed to self-report details of his life, including travel activities, people he has met, and drug use, according to the Times. The government is also concerned that SpaceX did not ensure Musk's compliance with the reporting rules. Musk's national security profile has risen following his deep-pocketed and full-throated support of Donald Trump, who won the US presidential campaign in November and will be sworn into office next month. After this inauguration, Trump will have the power to grant security clearance to whomever he wishes.ULA's CEO has a pretty wild idea. Ars published a feature story last week examining the US Space Force's new embrace of offensive weapons in space. In the story, Ars discusses concepts for different types of space weapons, including placing roving "defender" satellites into orbit, with the sole purpose of guarding high-value US satellites against an attack. Tory Bruno, CEO of United Launch Alliance, wrote about the defender concept in aMedium post earlier this month. He added more detail in a recent conversation with reporters, describing the defender concept as "a lightning-fast, long-range, lethal, if necessary, vehicle to defend our assets on orbit." And guess what? The Centaur upper stage for ULA's own Vulcan rocket could do the job just fine, according to Bruno.Death throes or a smart pivot? A space tug or upper stage like the Centaur could be left in orbit after a launch to respond to threats against US or allied satellites, Bruno said. These wouldn't be able to effectively defend a spacecraft against a ground-based anti-satellite missile, which can launch without warning. But a space-based attack might involve an enemy satellite taking days or weeks to move close to a US satellite due to limitations in maneuverability and the tyranny of orbital mechanics. Several launch companies have recently pitched their rockets as solutions for weapons testing, including Rocket Lab and ABL. But the concept proposed by Bruno would take ULA far from its core business, where its efforts to compete with SpaceX have often fallen short. However, the competition is still alive, as shown by a comment from SpaceX's vice president of Falcon launch vehicles, Jon Edwards. In response to Ars's story, Edwards wrote on X: "The pivot to 'interceptor' or 'target vehicle' is a common final act of a launch vehicle in its death throes." (submitted by Ken the Bin)Vulcan is months away from flying again. Speaking of ULA, here's an update on the next flight of the company's Vulcan rocket. The first national security mission on Vulcan might not launch until April 2025 at the earliest, Spaceflight Now reports. This will be the third flight of a Vulcan rocket, following two test flights this year to gather data for the US Space Force to certify the rocket for national security missions. On the second flight, the nozzle fell off one of Vulcan's solid rocket boosters shortly after liftoff, but the rocket successfully continued its climb into orbit. The anomaly prompted an investigation, and ULA says it is close to determining the root cause.Stretching the timeline The Space Force's certification review of Vulcan is taking longer than anticipated. "The government team has not completed its technical evaluation of the certification criteria and is working closely with ULA on additional data required to complete this evaluation," a Space Force spokesperson told Spaceflight Now. "The government anticipates completion of its evaluation and certification in the first quarter of calendar year 2025." The spokesperson said this means the launch of a US military navigation test satellite on the third Vulcan rocket is now slated for the second quarter of next year. (submitted by Ken the Bin and EllPeaTea)Next three launchesDec. 21: Falcon 9 | "Astranis: From One to Many" | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 03:39 UTCDec. 21: Falcon 9 | Bandwagon 2 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 11:34 UTCDec. 21: Electron | "Owl The Way Up" | Mhia Peninsula, New Zealand | 13:00 UTCStephen ClarkSpace ReporterStephen ClarkSpace Reporter Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the worlds space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet. 0 Comments

deep thoughts OpenAI announces o3 and o3-mini, its next simulated reasoning models o3 matches human levels on ARC-AGI benchmark, and o3-mini exceeds o1 at some tasks. Benj Edwards Dec 20, 2024 2:31 pm | 10 Credit: Benj Edwards / Andriy Onufriyenko via Getty Images Credit: Benj Edwards / Andriy Onufriyenko via Getty Images Story textSizeSmallStandardLargeWidth *StandardWideLinksStandardOrange* Subscribers only Learn moreOn Friday, during Day 12 of its "12 days of OpenAI," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced its latest AI "reasoning" models, o3 and o3-mini, which build upon the o1 models launched earlier this year. The company is not releasing them yet but will make these models available for public safety testing and research access today.The models use what OpenAI calls "private chain of thought," where the model pauses to examine its internal dialog and plan ahead before responding, which you might call "simulated reasoning" (SR)a form of AI that goes beyond basic large language models (LLMs).The company named the model family "o3" instead of "o2" to avoid potential trademark conflicts with British telecom provider O2, according to The Information. During Friday's livestream, Altman acknowledged his company's naming foibles, saying, "In the grand tradition of OpenAI being really, truly bad at names, it'll be called o3."According to OpenAI, the o3 model earned a record-breaking score on the ARC-AGI benchmark, a visual reasoning benchmark that has gone unbeaten since its creation in 2019. In low-compute scenarios, o3 scored 75.7 percent, while in high-compute testing, it reached 87.5 percentcomparable to human performance at an 85 percent threshold.OpenAI also reported that o3 scored 96.7 percent on the 2024 American Invitational Mathematics Exam, missing just one question. The model also reached 87.7 percent on GPQA Diamond, which contains graduate-level biology, physics, and chemistry questions. On the Frontier Math benchmark by EpochAI, o3 solved 25.2 percent of problems, while no other model has exceeded 2 percent.During the livestream, the president of the ARC Prize Foundation said, "When I see these results, I need to switch my worldview about what AI can do and what it is capable of."The o3-mini variant, also announced Friday, includes an adaptive thinking time feature, offering low, medium, and high processing speeds. The company states that higher compute settings produce better results. OpenAI reports that o3-mini outperforms its predecessor, o1, on the Codeforces benchmark.Simulated reasoning on the riseOpenAI's announcement comes as other companies develop their own SR models, including Google, which announced Gemini 2.0 Flash Thinking Experimental on Thursday. In November, DeepSeek launched DeepSeek-R1, while Alibaba's Qwen team released QwQ, what they called the first "open" alternative to o1.These new AI models are based on traditional LLMs, but with a twist: They are fine-tuned to produce a type of iterative chain of thought process that can consider its own results, simulating reasoning in an almost brute-force way that can be scaled at inference (running) time, instead of focusing on improvements during AI model training, which has seen diminishing returns recently.OpenAI will make the new SR models available first to safety researchers for testing. Altman said the company plans to launch o3-mini in late January, with o3 following shortly after.Benj EdwardsSenior AI ReporterBenj EdwardsSenior AI Reporter Benj Edwards is Ars Technica's Senior AI Reporter and founder of the site's dedicated AI beat in 2022. He's also a tech historian with almost two decades of experience. In his free time, he writes and records music, collects vintage computers, and enjoys nature. He lives in Raleigh, NC. 10 Comments

The orange fur on the underside of Nepenthes pongoides leaves is why the pitcher plant was named after orangutansAlviana DamitA newly described species of pitcher plant, one of the largest and furriest ever found, has been identified on a wild mountain in Borneo, Malaysia.The underside of the leaves of Nepenthes pongoides are covered in thick, rust-coloured fur, inspiring the team who found the plant in May 2023 to name it after the local Borneo orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) who share the Meliau range in central Sabah. AdvertisementAdmittedly its not quite as hairy as an orangutan, its more like a really hairy-chested man, says Alastair Robinson at the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. But the colour is almost the same as orangutan fur.He is proposing that the plants have the common name of orangutan pitcher plants. Robinson and his colleagues found just 39 plants over two expeditions, making it extremely vulnerable to extinction if it isnt protected from poaching by collectors.Robinson says even before they reached the site, there was evidence that poachers had been into the area and stolen specimens because plants had been posted online for sale. Unmissable news about our planet delivered straight to your inbox every month.Sign up to newsletterNepenthes is a genus of carnivorous pitcher plants, found throughout the tropics of South-East Asia and in parts of the Pacific, comprising over 160 species. They are highly sought after by the black-market horticultural industry because their leaves form spectacular containers of water. In the wild, animals fall into these pitchers and drown before being consumed by digestive enzymes produced by the plants.Robinson says the mountain is essentially a pile of boulders so there is no running water above 300 metres, which means the pitcher plants are often the only source of water for local wildlife.Their pitchers can reach lengths of 45 centimetres and hold well over 2 litres of water. They are like a little ecosystem of their own, says Robinson.The new species had first been photographed in 2004, but was misidentified as a known variety. I have been studying Nepenthes in Borneo for years and this particular species is the hairiest I have ever encountered, says team member Alviana Damit at the Forest Research Centre in Sandakan, Malaysia. Naming it after the orangutan is a perfect tribute.Journal referenceAustralian Journal of Botany DOI: 10.1071/BT24050Topics:plants/endangered species

President-elect Donald Trump has called on Congress to raise or eliminate the debt ceiling.He said doing so before he takes office would put the onus on outgoing President Joe Biden and avoid a fight early in his term.Going over the debt ceiling could lead to a default and deep recession.The debt ceiling is the unexpected debate in Washington this week after President-elect Donald Trump threw the annual holiday-season government funding talks into disarray.Trump wants to raise or eliminate the limit on how much the federal government can borrow. Doing so now would mean the much-debated move would happen on President Joe Biden's watch and be resolved before Trump takes office when he'll want to implement his agenda without a fight over borrowing limits."Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Friday. "Without this, we should never make a deal. Remember, the pressure is on whoever is President.'"This all comes amid a chaotic scramble to reach a funding deal for the US government and avoid a shutdown at midnight on Friday. The debt ceiling was one of the sticking points Trump used to scrap a bipartisan deal to keep the government funded through March. Now he's revisiting a much-used political tool."Trump is right to identify that he doesn't want his fingerprints on increasing the debt ceiling, and he doesn't want to have to deal with it in six months while he's trying to pass what he considers a must-pass tax extension bill," Elizabeth Pancotti, the director of special initiatives at the left-leaning Roosevelt Institute think tank told BI.A debt ceiling breach has become a political tool one that Trump is trying to wield for the last timeThe debt ceiling limits the amount of money the federal government is allowed to borrow to pay for its programs and operations. If it's not regularly raised or suspended, the US government risks defaulting on its debt and failing to pay its bills.This could compromise everyday Americans' access to crucial government programs like Social Security, Medicaid, and housing vouchers. Len Burman, a fellow at the think tank Urban Institute, told BI that a default could also cause interest rates to rise drastically if investors no longer view the US government as a creditworthy borrower. That means Americans could face higher rates on mortgages and credit cards, potentially leading to a broader financial crisis and deep recession.Due to these widespread consequences, the debt ceiling has evolved into a political bargaining chip, and the US has repeatedly come close to breaching it due to partisan disagreements, most recently in 2023. That's why some Democrats have long advocated abolishing the ceiling, arguing that Republicans weaponize it to push spending cuts. Sen. Elizabeth Warren capitalized on Trump's recent comments, writing on X on Thursday morning that she agrees with him on terminating the debt limit.During recent debt ceiling standoffs, various plans to sidestep the limit were floated. Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin told BIOther ideas to eliminate the debt ceiling have included minting a $1 trillion platinum coin, which some economists have said would allow the treasury secretary to deposit the coin to pay off debts.In an interview with Fox News Digital on Thursday, Trump warned that Republicans who don't support repealing the debt limit could face primary challenges; many Republicans have historically opposed getting rid of it, arguing that it's a check on borrowing. Trump told NBC News that Democrats have signaled they want to get rid of the debt limit and that he would "lead the charge" to do so.The country will technically hit the debt ceiling at the start of next year, but the Treasury Department can hold off default and keep paying the bills through various accounting tricks, likely until late spring or early summer.

When I was on TLC's "Say Yes to the Dress," I was surprised by a few things.The show isn't scripted, and I still receive fan mail years later.I thought Randy Fenoli was nice and caring and I liked that we share a Louisiana connection.Back in 2016, I was on a special episode of TLC's "Say Yes to the Dress" (season 15, episode six).I planned to get married earlier that year, but when my Louisiana home flooded and my gown was destroyed, it looked like my dream wedding was ruined. As my fianc and I considered pushing the date back, "Say Yes to the Dress" posted an online request for brides-to-be who were affected by the flood.A friend nominated me and I was selected to be on the show. Here are five surprising things I learned from my "Say Yes to the Dress" episode.I'm one of few people if not the only bride who received a free dress on 'Say Yes to the Dress' I chose a Mark Zunino gown and jewelry from Kleinfield's collection. TLC Normally, the "Say Yes to the Dress" team starts by breaking down your budget, but because my original wedding gown was destroyed, I received a free dress.My episode highlighted the tragedy of the flood that took most of my belongings and I was offered the best care by bridal designer Randy Fenoli and his team. "Say Yes" flew my husband and me to New York, where we stayed in a lavish hotel right by Times Square.My family lost everything in the flood, so it was a huge contrast to go from watching all of our stuff wash away to wearing a Mark Zunino gown, Jimmy Choo shoes, and Kleinfield's own collection of jewelry.Fenoli was so kind, and we even shared a personal connection Randy Fenoli was attentive and caring as I prepared for my weddding. TLC As we filmed, I could feel Fenoli had a strong bond with the people who he worked with to tell my story. I'm still so grateful to have been chosen to share my experience about planning a wedding that felt as if it would never happen, and I cannot thank that team enough for helping me feel the most beautiful and cared for.During the process, I learned that Fenoli actually grew up in Louisiana, and he's also dealt with natural disasters. He was trapped in a two-story apartment in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.I think my experience touched him because it was a story that was so close to home.I still talk to Fenoli to this day, and he featured my story in a special season-17 episode where he discussed his most memorable brides.The show isn't scriptedThe crew captured my genuine reactions.And if I said something funny, cute, or cool, I quickly learned to expect to see that footage over and over again.Unfortunately, I didn't get any of the footage of my own wedding I was surprised that I wouldn't get any footage of my wedding. TLC I was so excited to have such an enormous film crew and producers record my wedding because I thought I would receive some of the footage. I also didn't hire my own videographer to capture the details of my entire wedding, so sadly, I don't have the day's events on film.Still, the "Say Yes" production team gave me five minutes of absolute fabulousness.Hindsight is 20/20, but I still wish I would've known the footage wouldn't be available to me because I definitely would've hired a videographer.I still receive fan mail about our episode every so oftenPeople may not know that my husband and I have split up since our episode aired.Still, every time fans contact me, I don't really know what to say other than, "Thank you."This story was originally published on July 14, 2022, and most recently updated on December 20, 2024.

Party City's CEO told employees the specialty retailer is "winding down" operations, CNN reports.The company was impacted severely by the COVID-19 pandemic and never fully recovered.The company spent much of the past two years in bankruptcy proceedings and has closed 80 locations.Party City's balloon is out of air.CEO Barry Litwin, who took the job in August, told Party City's corporate employees on Friday that operations were "winding down" immediately, CNN reported.The news follows reports last week that the company was contemplating a second bankruptcy in two years as debt continued to weigh on profitability.A spokesperson for Party City did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.Litwin told employees the company had done what it could to avoid shutting down but that, "unfortunately, it's necessary to commence a wind-down process immediately," CNN reported.Party City navigated a pre-pandemic shortage of helium for balloons, securing a new supply source.It was impacted severely by the COVID-19 pandemic, when lockdowns and social distancing ended many celebratory gatherings, and other mass retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Target stepped up their party supply offerings.The company spent much of 2023 in bankruptcy proceedings and reportedly closed 80 locations, or roughly a tenth of its store fleet.It exited bankruptcy in September 2023, after a judge canceled $1 billion of its debt. Litwin was appointed CEO a year later.