Author: Press Room

After hitting an alarming 40-year high in June, the Federal Reserve’s preferred benchmark for consumer inflation is once again flashing a warning sign about the persistence of high prices. The Bureau of Economic Analysis said Friday the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index for August rose by 6.2% from a year ago, following a revised July reading of 6.4%. That was viewed as a driver behind the central bank’s decision to raise its benchmark rate by three-quarters of a percentage point for the third time in a row earlier this month. Looking at month-to-month data, the PCE price index rose by…

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A company that uses artificial intelligence to detect firearms in active shooting settings has been awarded a US$1.25 million grant by the U.S. Air Force to integrate the technology into existing unmanned aerial vehicles. This is the third R&D grant the Air Force has awarded ZeroEyes, whose main line of business is protecting schools with its gun detection video analytics platform. With the ZeroEyes technology, the camera in a flying drone can be used to detect a firearm the moment it’s visible, report the sighting to a weapons expert at an operations center to assess the threat and instruct the…

If you’ve ever wanted to use artificial intelligence to quickly design a hybrid between a duck and a corgi, now is your time to shine. On Wednesday, OpenAI announced that anyone can now use the most recent version of its AI-powered DALL-E tool to generate a seemingly limitless range of images just by typing in a few words, months after the startup began gradually rolling it out to users. The move will likely expand the reach of a new crop of AI-powered tools that have already attracted a wide audience and challenged our fundamental ideas of art and creativity. But…

A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link. Warnings of global recession are widespread, inflation is persistent and Russia is escalating the crisis in Europe. The macro picture for the economy is bleak, and markets are suffering. But in the midst of all of this turmoil, luxury automaker Porsche managed to make one of the biggest market debuts in European history on Thursday. Dealmakers have hinged their hopes on the highly-anticipated…

Russian President Vladimir Putin will claim to annex four regions of Ukraine on Friday, the biggest territorial takeover in postwar Europe following referendums widely considered to be rigged.A “grand ascension” ceremony at the Georgievsky Hall of the Great Kremlin Palace will see Russia claim political control over 15% of Ukraine, the continent’s largest country.Moscow will then celebrate the acquisition of the four regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — with a pop concert on the city’s iconic Red Square.The United States, Ukraine and others have condemned this as an illegal land-grab, promising to retaliate with sanctions.”All options remain on…

There was good news and bad in Friday’s revised data about the UK economy. It grew — marginally — in the second quarter of the year, rather than shrinking as previously estimated. But the latest update from the Office for National Statistics also showed that the United Kingdom is the only G7 economy that has not recovered fully from the pandemic, with GDP still 0.2% smaller than at the start of 2020. And, according to the Bank of England, the economy is most likely already shrinking again, with inflation heading to 11%. “The important thing [in Friday’s data] was that…

Florida homeowners were already facing an expensive and difficult market for home insurance before Hurricane Ian. The devastating storm is about to make things worse — even for those fortunate enough to escape any damage. For the better part of two decades, the nation’s major insurers have wanted as little to do with Florida as possible, as least when it comes to insuring homes. That has left the market in the hands of small, in-state insurers with limited resources. Six of those companies were declared insolvent this year, even before Ian. And homeowners in the state were already paying nearly…

CNN  —  Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has joined an institution of isolated chambers and archaic procedures. It is also a place that has lost the public’s trust. So, as she navigates the cloistered corridors, she’ll also have to watch her footing in the ongoing debate over the institution’s legitimacy. In some respects, Jackson begins the new session Monday with advantages her recent predecessors lacked. She moved into her expansive, freshly painted chambers weeks ago. She had the summer to bone up on cases. And she has hired, among her clerks, a lawyer who previously served the late Justice…