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One thing has become reliable over the past year of worldwide uncertainty: the price of gold and silver has continued to rise. The precious metals reached record highs again in the early hours of Wednesday. Silver hit over $91 per ounce, more than a 26% increase year-to-date and a 201% increase over the last 12 months. Silver had reached more than $90 for the first time on Tuesday. Meanwhile, gold rose this morning to more than $4,637 an ounceup more than 7% in 2026 and over 73% for the past year. Why do gold and silver continue to rise? Gold hit a record $4,600 an ounce on Monday after news broke that federal prosecutors are investigating Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. Officially, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia is looking into $2.5 billion spent to renovate the Federal Reserve headquarters. However, President Trump has made his disdain for Powell well known, with the latter refusing Trumps demands to slash interest rates. In a video statement, Powell pointed to the current administrations pattern of going after anyone who dares to disagree with it. No onecertainly not the chair of the Federal Reserveis above the law, said Powell. But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administrations threats and ongoing pressure. This development occurred as tumultuous news around the worldnotably, Irans mass executions of protestershas pushed investors toward safe havens like gold and silver. As for silver, the increase could also be attributed to Chinas recent restrictions on exporting the metal, limiting access to it in the U.S. A January 2025 report from the U.S. Geological Survey stated that China is one of the largest silver producers in the world.
Category:
E-Commerce
For as long as people have been using AI to churn out text, other people have been coming up with tells that something was written by AI. Sometimes its punctuation that comes under suspicion. (The em dash is generally considered the shadiest.) Other times its words that robot writers seem to love and overuse. But what if the biggest giveaway that a text was written by AI isnt a word, phrase, or punctuation mark, but a particular sentence structure instead? Why is it so hard to make AI writing sound human? The idea that certain rhythms of sentences might be a sign of AI writing first came to my attention through my work as a professional word nerd. Recently, I a potential new client contacted me about helping to polish up some of their writing. As an editor, thats not unusual. But like several recent inquiries, this assignment came with an AI-age twist. The client had conducted a good amount of research for a work project and then asked a popular LLM to synthesize the findings. Afterward, they checked it for factual errors and removed anything that seemed an obvious red flag for AI writing. But the text still just didnt sound human. Could I fix it? I agreed that despite the clients considerable efforts, something still sounded off about the text. I also concurred it wasnt immediately easy to spot what it was. All the commonly cited tells of AI writing had been removed. There wasnt an em dash or a delves in sight. Still, it felt like it came from a bot, not a human. The problem was clearly deeper than word choice. I faced this dilemma from the perspective of a communications pro. But there are plenty of others scratching their heads over the same issue. These are the entrepreneurs, marketers, and others who want to use AI to speed up their workflows but dont want to annoy others with robotic off-note emails and reports. The group also includes writer Sam Kriss. AI tells are more than weird words and punctuation In a fascinating article in The New York TImes Magazine, Kriss delves into the stylistic tics that are certain, frequently infuriating, tells of AI writing. Unlike more quantitatively focused recent studies, he doesnt focus on easy-to-measure features like the frequency of certain words or punctuation marks. Instead, he investigates the larger patterns in AI writing that contribute to its uncanny and often deeply annoying feel. AI, for instance, lacks any direct experience of the physical world. As a result, AI writing tends to be full of imprecise abstractions. There are a lot of mixed metaphors. Bots also overuse the rule of three. (Lists of descriptors or examples are generally more satisfying for the reader in groups of three.) Phrases that are common in one country or context are reproduced in others where they sound foreign. If youre either a language lover despairing about the current flood of AI slop or a practically minded professional looking to use AI without irritating human readers, the article is definitely worth a read. But one of Krisss observations in particular set alarm bells ringing in my mind. ‘Its not X. Its Y’ Im driven to the point of fury by any sentence following the pattern Its not X, its Y, even though this totally normal construction appears in such generally well-received bodies of literature as the Bible and Shakespeare, he writes. Kriss goes on to cite instances of this Its not X, its Y sentence construction in everything from politicians tweets to pizza ads. Appearances in great literature notwithstanding, the recent flood of examples has transformed this phrasing into a sure-fire way to know youre reading something written by a machine. Hmm, I thought, reopening my clients document. Sure enough, when I reread my new clients oddly mechanical writing, I saw that particular sentence construction in nearly every paragraph. One AI tell thats easy to scrub Getting rid of all the giveaways that a particular text is written by AI is difficult. It might just take you longer to do a thorough scrub job than to just actually put in the intitial effort to write the thing yourself. (Which is, as a side note, what I often tell clients looking for this sort of editorial work.) Plus, writing is good for your brain. In other instances of more mechanistic writing, keeping AI style might not matter. Who cares about the literary merits of the executive summary of a data analysis if the numbers and the takeaways are correct? If thats the case, dont sweat the odd, Its not X. Its Y. But if youre producing ad copy, a presentation, or persuasive content and you want the reader to feel like a human actually wrote it, Krisss article is a helpful reminder. Sure, certain words or language ticks might be more common in AI writing. But the overall problem is usually deeper. If you really want to try to make AI language passably human, you need to worry not just about word choice and eliminating hallucinations. You need to look more deeply at the way the sentences are constructed. And you definitely want to avoid Its not x. Its y. As a bot might put it, this sentence structure isnt just a cliché. Its now a dead giveaway that AI wrote the text.
Category:
E-Commerce
The first major retail bankruptcy of 2026 has arrived. Today, Saks Global Enterprises, owner of Saks Fifth Avenue and other luxury retail brands, has filed to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The news shows that not even companies aimed at high-end consumers are immune to economic downturns. Heres what you need to know. What’s happened? On Wednesday, January 14, Saks Global announced that it is seeking Chapter 11 protection in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas. At the same time, the luxury retail brand announced that it has also secured $1.75 billion in financing commitments. Much of this money will be used by Saks Global to finance its turnaround efforts through the bankruptcy process. In addition to announcing Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Saks Global also announced the appointment of a new chief executive, Geoffroy van Raemdonck, who will take over the role immediately from the companys outgoing CEO, Richard Baker. Why is Saks Global filing for bankruptcy? The companys brands are dealing with the same problems that many other retailers are facinghigher tariffs, inflation, online competition, and consumers who are cutting back on discretionary spending. A key problem for Saks Global over the past year has been an inability to pay its debts. As noted by Reuters, Saks Globals bankruptcy filings show the company has assets and liabilities of between $1 billion and $10 billion. Its debt burden increased after Saks’s previous parent company, Hudson’s Bay, acquired competitor Neiman Marcus for around $2.7 billion in 2024. That acquisition led to the formation of a new holding company, Saks Global, which is now filing for bankruptcy. Bankruptcy filings show that Saks Global owes significant sums of money to some of fashions largest brands, including around $136 million to Chanel, $60 million to Gucci owner Kering, and $26 million to luxury goods giant LVMH. Saks Globals most well-known brand is the iconic luxury department store chain Saks Fifth Avenue, which was originally founded in 1867. However, the company also owns a number of other retailers, including Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Off 5TH, Last Call, Horchow, and, as of 2024, Neiman Marcus. What has Saks said about the bankruptcy filing? In a statement, CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck said that the bankruptcy process is a defining moment for Saks Global, and the path ahead presents a meaningful opportunity to strengthen the foundation of our business and position it for the future. Are Saks and Neiman Marcus stores still open? Right now, Saks says that all of the companys storesincluding Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks off 5TH, Last Call, and Horchowwill remain open. Stores and e-commerce experiences across Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Saks OFF 5TH, Last Call, and Horchow are open and serving customers, the company noted. Could Saks close stores? Thats entirely possible. Saks Global noted that it was evaluating its operational footprint to invest resources where it has the greatest long-term potential. Operational footprint is a term retailers use to refer to their physical stores. It isnt uncommon for companies that are reorganizing themselves through Chapter 11 bankruptcy to close underperforming stores, so they have more financial resources to allocate to the more profitable ones. Will Saks go out of business? Right now, there is nothing to suggest that Saks Global or Saks Fifth Avenue will go out of business. The Chapter 11 bankruptcy process is being conducted so the company can get its financial house in order and continue running. However, what Saks Global may look like after it emerges from Chapter 11 remains unclear. As noted by CNBC, its possible the company could choose to close numerous stores, or even sell off entire planssay, choosing to get rid of Neiman Marcus, whose acquisition left it with so much debt. Another possibility would be for the retailer to close all its physical locations and continue sales online only. But nothing will be known for sure until Saks Global completes the Chapter 11 process. The process is expected to conclude later this year.
Category:
E-Commerce
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