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Donald Trump surprised many in August when he made the government the owner of 9.9% of the troubled U.S. chip maker Intel. The administration paid for the Intel equity using $8.9 billion of the Biden administration’s CHIPs and Science Act grant money that had already been earmarked for Intel. The new grant money comes on top of the $2.2 billion in CHIPS Act grants Intel already received, bringing the governments total investment to $11.1 billion. Intel’s finance chief David Zinsner said the governments investment is meant to incentivize Intel to keep majority control over its contract chip-fabrication business. As part of the deal, the government gets a five-year warrant to buy 5% more Intel shares if the companys ownership of its chip foundry operation falls below 51%. What would a newly elected Democratic administration do with the governments stake? Chances are good that it would keep it. Heres why. Interestingly, it was a pair of high-profile progressivesBernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warrenwho originally suggested the government take an ownership stake in chip companies that took CHIPS Act grants. They proposed an amendment to the CHIPs Act that would have required grant recipients to issue warrants or equity stakes to the Federal Government, as Sanders put it in floor remarks in July of 2022. The amendment, which never made it into the bill, would also have prevented CHIPS Act recipients from using the funds to buy back stock, offshore U.S. jobs, or to discourage unionization. Its opponents, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, warned that the amendment would turn innovative manufacturers into state-owned enterprises and harm U.S. competitiveness. Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, came out in favor of the Trump administrations ownership share in Intel, saying that the U.S. taxpayers ought to get a reasonable return when tax dollars are sent to the aid of a private company. But the Trump administrations approval of the disbursement of CHIPs and Science Act grants was not conditioned on anything else that would guarantee that Intel put the money toward achieving goals that are in the countrys interest. U.S. lawmakers, especially small-government conservatives, have, historically, been hesitant to back private companies, out of fear of appearing as if the government is picking winners in the marketplace. But Intel, which represents Americas best chance to anchor advanced AI chip making on U.S. soil as the competition with China to lead AI heats up, was seen as a special case. When it comes to manufacturing the chips, Intel has fallen far behind Taiwan-based TSMC. TSMC, which makes almost all of the GPUs used for AI now, is based in Taiwan, just 80 miles from mainland China. For years, U.S. military analysts have feared the day when China invades the island. Letting the free market be free? Or not? Still, the governments investment has been met with criticism. The Cato Institutes Scott Lincicome writes in a Washington Post op-ed that the deal represents a dangerous turn in American industrial policy, adding that it abandons decades of market-oriented principles and risks politicizing Intels decision-making. With the U.S. government as its largest shareholder, Intel will face constant pressure to align corporate decisions with the goals of whatever political party is in power, he cautions. The next political party in power could be the Democratic Party, if it can articulate a populist platform that doesnt sound like establishment politics. Using that logic, the next Democratic administration could be led by someone from the progressive wing of the party. Actually, a left-leaning Democratic administration might decide to leave the governments Intel stake in place, but for very different reasons than the ones motivating Trump. The left has been somewhat more comfortable with interventionist market policies in the past (see: anti-trust interventions, single payer healthcare). A new Democratic administration in 2028 might not sell off the governments stake in Intel. But it might add some conditions to any new government investment in the company. It might also take a hard look at Intels progress toward fabricating TSMC-level chips in America, and adjust the terms of the investment accordingly.
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E-Commerce
Early on the morning of September 23, a 12-foot-tall bronze statue appeared on the lawn of the National Mall. It depicted President Trump and convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein holding hands and frolicking together, and the plaque at its base read: We celebrate the long-lasting bond between President Donald J. Trump and his closest friend, Jeffrey Epstein. By the next morning, the statue had been hauled away by U.S. Park Police. The installationtitled Best Friends Foreverwas intended to spotlight Trumps 15-year friendship with Epstein, a chapter thats faced intense scrutiny over the past several months. Trump has continuously attempted to discredit stories linking himself to Epstein, even as new evidence of their association continues to come to light. It’s just the latest in a series of similar satirical statues that have cropped up on the National Mall and around Washington, D.C. In a statement to NPR on September 24, a group called The Secret Handshake claimed responsibility for Best Friends Forever, as well as most of the other statues that have materialized in recent months. [Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images] Despite receiving a National Park Service permit to remain on the mall until Sunday evening, the statue was removed just 24 hours after it appeared. A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior told NPR that it was removed because it was not compliant with the permit, though they did not specify how. An anonymous member of The Secret Handshake told the media outlet that “some people within the parks department, aka most likely the Trump administration, were trying to find ways to say we were not in compliance. “They showed up in the middle of the night without notice and physically toppled the statue, broke it, and took it away,” the source added. According to Ken Lum, a sculpture artist and chair of the Department of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania, The Secret Handshake’s brand of irreverent critique is part of a long tradition that dates back five centuries. He says the removal of Best Friends Forever signals that we’re living in a “humorless” time. [Photo: Volkan Furuncu/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images] A medieval tradition Sculpture as a form of social protest is nothing new. One of the examples that might be most familiar to an American audience, Lum says, is Fearless Girla statue of a small girl of maybe 6 or 7 that was erected in opposition to the famous Wall Street sculpture Charging Bull in 2017. The sculpture, meant to call attention to gender inequality in the Wall Street community, made national headlines and drew crowds for months. But Lum says he believes Best Friends Forever and The Secret Handshakes other recent statues critiquing Trump belong to a different genre of artone that has its roots in a centuries-old practice first pioneered in medieval Europe. I wouldn’t say it’s really protest art necessarily, Lum says. There’s a range of art in betweensocial criticism, satire, cheeky expression. The first thought I have goes back to medieval carnivals. Starting in the early 1500s, Lum says, communities in England and France held carnival celebrations that were sometimes also known as the Feast of Fools. During this period, the ruling class allowed a brief role reversal, in which working people were permitted and even encouraged to play the role of the king as a buffoon and openly satirize the prevailing social order. Satirical art emerged as a key tool to expose societal inequities and allow open discussion of citizens grievances. [Image: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group/Getty Images] I think there’s something to be said about [medieval carnivals], even though its not practiced anymore, Lum says. The situation right now is humorless. Hundreds of years later, Lum believes that this genre of artistic parody still serves a critical purposenot just to allow for open dialogue, but also to bring some measure of levity to the discourse between the people and their government. Best Friends Forever pulls on that satirical lever through its sarcastic tone and absurdist take on Trump and Epsteins friendship. [Photo: Tom Brenner for The Washington Post/Getty Images] Further, Lum notes, the sculpture uses a strategy called anti-monumentalism, or the adoption of traditionally powerful sculptural aesthetics, to question the powers that be. In this case, Trump and Epstein are rendered in an imitation of bronze, a material thats been invested with a kind of authority, Lum says. Thats to imitate a long tradition, going back thousands and thousands of years, where bronze, marble, and other types of stone are seen as the most important, or even sacred, materials for depicting topics of national importance, Lum explains. Specifically, he adds, bronze is commonly associated with universality and univocality. Theyre playing on that, being very irreverent and even impudent. The Secret Handshakes message may even be amplified by the sculptures immediate removal. While Lum wouldnt necessarily characterize Best Friends Forevers removal as censorship, given that it was initially permitted to go up, he says its swift removal demonstrates a lot of practicing sanctimony. That it was removed is no surprise, Lum says. The surprise is that it was allowed to be put up, however temporarily. But the cheeky humor of the work met up against an absolutist self-righteousness.
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E-Commerce
No matter how flashy a smartphone might be, how many features it touts, it has a single piece of technology packed inside that is more important than any other: the battery. When it runs dry, your smartphone can no longer be the worlds best camera or the ultimate communication device. It is nothing more than a useless slab of glass and metal. Which is exactly why manufacturers do everything they can to prolong battery life. Over the past several years, Apple has been cramming higher-capacity batteries into its smartphones so that they last longer on a single charge. The company has also been optimizing its software to prolong the iPhones juice. In iOS 26, Apple has added four new features to the iPhone that can help users eek out as much battery life as possible. Heres how to use them. Enable Adaptive Power Adaptive Power is one of the best features of iOS 26, because it can help keep your iPhone going longer on a single charge. The feature utilizes machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence, to track your recent iPhone usage patterns. It then uses this data to predict whether you may need extra battery life for the day. If Adaptive Power determines that you are, in fact, going to need more battery life for the day, it will help conserve your iPhones power by lowering the screen brightness by 3%, limiting background activities, turning on Low Power Mode when your battery reaches 20%, and making other performance adjustments. It does all this automaticallyprovided that you have Adaptive Power enabled. Heres how to do that: Open the Settings app. Tap Battery. Tap Power Mode. Toggle the switch next to Adaptive Power to ON (green). Additionally, if you toggle the Adaptive Power Notifications switch to ON (green), your iPhone will also show you a notification whenever Adaptive Power mode kicks in. If this toggle is disabled, Adaptive Power mode will still engage; you just wont be notified of it. It should be noted that, while Adaptive Power is an iOS 26 feature, not all iPhones that can run iOS 26 can take advantage of this. Since Adaptive Power relies on artificial intelligence, it only works on the iPhone 15 Pro and later. Quickly enable Low Power Mode when the iPhone needs it most Low Power Mode is another feature that you can use to conserve your iPhones battery life. Low Power Mode has been available on iPhones for some time, but with iOS 26, Apple has introduced a new way to turn the mode on easily. If your iPhone has the Dynamic Island, a notification will now appear there, alerting you that your iPhone’s battery life is down to 20%. The notification will also show you a toggle that you can tap to turn on Low Power Mode quickly. Previously, you needed to turn on Low Power Mode by going into the Settings app or via the iPhones Control Center. Putting the toggle in the notification itself means that Low Power Mode is just a tap away when you need it most. What sets Low Power Mode apart from Adaptive Power is that it works on iPhones older than the iPhone 15 Pro. But to use the new Low Power Mode notification toggle, youll need an iPhone with a Dynamic Island, which is the iPhone 14 Pro and later. If youve got one of those supported phones: When the Low Battery notification appears in the Dynamic Island, tap the red toggle to turn on Low Power Mode. The red toggle will change to yellow when Low Power Mode is engaged. When Low Power Mode is on, your iPhone will reduce its brightness and some visual effects, turn off background app refresh and email fetching, pause iCloud Photos syncing, and implement other power-saving features. See how long your iPhone battery will take to charge Another welcome new feature in iOS 26 that can help you manage your battery life is a new charging time indicator on the iPhones Lock Screen. This indicator will tell you how long your iPhone will take to charge to 100% (or a lower percentage if youve set a battery charging limit). Its a convenient feature that takes the guesswork out of determining how long your iPhone needs to remain plugged in. Heres how to use it: Plug your iPhone into a charger. Once the screen turns off, tap it with your finger. Above the clock, youll see a notification that tells you what percentage of your battery is currently charged and how many minutes or hours it will take to charge your iPhone to its desired charging level (usually 80% or 100%, depending on your preferences). How to better understand your iPhones battery health Using the three tips above can help you conserve and manage your iPhones battery for longer. But these arent the only features Apple has built into iOS to help you understand your iPhones battery life. For years now, Apple has included a Battery Dashboard inside the Settings app. This dashboard gives you an overview of not just your batterys charge, but also which apps are using the most power. In iOS 26, the Battery Dashboard has received a visual makeover. To access it, open the Settings app and tap on Battery. On the next screen, youll see key battery metrics that can help give you a better understanding of how your iPhones battery is being used, including which apps and system activities are taking up the most power, how long ago your last charge was, and what remaining capacity your battery has left. Understanding this information, and taking advantage of the new iOS 26 battery features listed above, can help you keep your iPhone running longer.
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E-Commerce
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