Tucked away among the 940 pages of President Donald Trumps massive One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) are an array of new tax write-offs, exemptions that Trump promised to enact while running for a second term. Those include a provision of the No Tax on Tips Act.
This provision of the OBBBA, which narrowly passed the Senate, and Trump signed into law in July, gives taxpayers the ability to deduct income from tips and overtime pay. It expires at the end of 2028, right before Trump leaves office.
For workers, it creates new tax deductions of up to $25,000 on income made from cash tips, and tips workers report to employers withholding payroll taxes. Eligible employees (see list below) that make up to $160,000 in 2025 qualify. (Going forward, that limit will be adjusted each year for inflation.)
For employers, it also expands the business tax credit for the portion of payroll taxes that an employer pays on certain tips, to include payroll taxes paid on tips received in connection with certain beauty services.
Which jobs qualify for the no tax on tips and overtime deduction?
Up until now, the Trump administration hadn’t clarified which jobs were eligible. Over Labor Day, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Axios there are 68 occupations, calling the selection expansive but fair.
The official list will be published in the Federal Register, but here’s the preliminary Treasury list, which is likely to be substantially the same after a period of public comments:
Beverage & Food Service
Bartender
Wait staff
Food servers (non-restaurant)
Dining room and cafeteria attendants and bartender helpers
Chefs and cooks
Food preparation workers
Fast food and counter workers
Dishwashers
Host staff, restaurant, lounge, and coffee shop
Bakers
Entertainment & Events
Gambling dealers
Gambling change persons and booth cashiers
Gambling cage workers
Gambling and sports book writers and runners
Dancers
Musicians and singers
Disc jockeys (except radio)
Entertainers and performers
Digital content creators
Ushers, lobby attendants and ticket takers
Locker Room, coatroom and dressing room attendants
Hospitality & Guest Services
Baggage porters and bellhops
Concierges
Hotel, motel and resort desk clerks
Maids and housekeeping cleaners
Home Services
Home maintenance and repair workers
Home landscaping and groundskeeping workers
Home electricians
Home plumbers
Home heating and air conditioning mechanics and installers
Home appliance installers and repairers
Home cleaning service workers
Locksmiths
Roadside assistance workers
Personal Services
Personal care and service workers
Private event planners
Private event and portrait photographers
Private event videographers
Event officiants
Pet caretakers
Tutors
Nannies and babysitters
Personal Appearance & Wellness
Skincare specialists
Massage therapists
Barbers, hairdressers, hairstylists and cosmetologists
Shampooers
Manicurists and pedicurists
Eyebrow threading and waxing technicians
Makeup artists
Exercise trainers and group fitness instructors
Tattoo artists and piercers
Tailors
Shoe and leather workers and repairers
Recreation & Instruction
Golf caddies
Self-enrichment teachers
Recreational and tour pilots
Tour guides and escorts
Travel guides
Sports and recreation instructors
Transportation & Delivery
Parking and valet attendants
Taxi and rideshare drivers and chauffeurs
Shuttle drivers
Goods delivery people
Personal vehicle and equipment cleaners
Private and charter bus drivers
Water taxi operators and charter boat workers
Rickshaw, pedicab and carriage drivers
Home movers
A post circulating on Facebook shows a man named Henek, a violinist allegedly forced to play in the camps orchestra at Auschwitz. “His role: to play music as fellow prisoners were led to the gas chambers, reads the caption.
But there is no Holocaust victim by the name of Henek. The image is also AI-generated.
Publishing fake, AI-generated images of Auschwitz is not only a dangerous distortion. Such fabrication disrespects victims and harasses their memory.If you see such posts, please dont share them. Instead, follow the official @AuschwitzMuseum, where every name, every photo, and pic.twitter.com/8sMBxvPkOt— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) July 6, 2025
A new BBC investigation uncovered an international network of spammers posting fabricated Holocaust images on Facebook to profit from Metas content-monetization program.
In recent months, images of children abandoned on train tracks or lovers meeting across concentration camp fences have appeared on Facebook, attracting clicks and shares. None of the victims or stories are real.
According to the BBC, the images originate from spam networks in Pakistan, India, Vietnam, and Nigeria, where AI slop creators trade tips in private groups about exploiting Metas monetization scheme. Holocaust imagery, in particular, has proven to be a reliable traffic driver. One account claimed to generate more than 1.2 billion views and 16,000 in four months from mass-produced content.
The BBC also interviewed a Pakistani man enrolled in these monetization schemes. While he does not post Holocaust content, he said the work has become his sole source of income, noting that posts targeting U.K., U.S., and European audiences earn up to eight times more than those aimed at Asia.
Many history-themed pages and groups impersonate businesses to build audiences and qualify for monetization before pivoting to churn out Holocaust AI slop.
Meta told the BBC the images themselves do not violate its policies but confirmed it had removed certain spam accounts flagged in the investigation. (Fast Company has reached out to Meta for comment.)
In an X post earlier this year, the Auschwitz Museum addressed the disturbing trend and the impact it has on real victims and their families: What makes this particularly troubling is that their posts copy real contentincluding names, dates, and biographical facts taken directly from our posts,” the museum wrote. “Yet they pair this information with fabricated, AI-generated images that mislead viewers.
The use of artificial intelligence to generate fictional images of Auschwitz victimsas done by the Facebook page 90s History (https://t.co/oNPzY9Ykq0)is not a tribute. It is a profound act of disrespect to the memory of those who suffered and were murdered in Auschwitz. It pic.twitter.com/wCdtySoBWK— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) May 22, 2025
The post continued: The history of Auschwitz is a well-documented story. Altering its visual record with AI imagery introduces distortion, no matter the intent. Using made-up images, no matter how poignant they seem, is a dangerous distortion of facts.
European Union regulators on Friday hit Google with a 2.95 billion euro ($3.5 billion) fine for breaching the blocs competition rules by favoring its own digital advertising services, marking the fourth such antitrust penalty for the company.
The European Commission, the 27-nation blocs executive branch and top antitrust enforcer, also ordered the U.S. tech giant to end its self-preferencing practices and take steps to stop conflicts of interest along the advertising technology supply chain.
EU regulators had previously threatened a breakup of the company but held off on that threat for the time being.
Google said the decision was wrong and that it would appeal.
It imposes an unjustified fine and requires changes that will hurt thousands of European businesses by making it harder for them to make money, Lee-Anne Mulholland, the companys global head of regulatory affairs, said in a statement.
The decision was long overdue, coming more than two years after the European Commission announced antitrust charges against Google.
The commission had said at the time that the only way to satisfy antitrust concerns about Googles lucrative digital ad business was to sell off parts of its business. However, this decision made only a brief mention of possible divestment and comes amid renewed tensions between Brussels and the Trump administration over trade, tariffs and technology regulation.
Top EU officials had said earlier that the commission was seeking a forced sale because past cases that ended with fines and requirements for Google to stop anti-competitive practices have not worked, allowing the company to continue its behavior in a different form.
It’s the second time in a week that Google has avoided a breakup.
Google is also under fire on a separate front in the U.S., where prosecutors want the company to sell off its Chrome browser after a judge found the company had an illegal monopoly in online search.
On Tuesday, a U.S. federal judge found that Google had illegal monopoly in online search and ordered a shake-up of its search engine but rebuffed the government’s attempt to break up the company by forcing a sale of its Chrome browser.
But the EU indicated that breakup option is not totally off the table. Google has 60 days to tell the Commission its proposals to end its conflicts of interest, and if the regulators aren’t satisfied they will propose an appropriate remedy.
The Commission has already signaled its preliminary view that only the divestment by Google of part of its services would address the situation of inherent conflicts of interest, but it first wishes to hear and assess Googles proposal, it said in a press release.
The commissions penalty follows a formal investigation that it opened in June 2021, looking into whether Google violated the blocs competition rules by favoring its own online display advertising technology services at the expense of rival publishers, advertisers and advertising technology services.
Its investigation found that Google abused its dominant positions in the ad-technology ecosystem, the commission said.
Online display ads are banners and text that appear on websites and are personalized based on an internet users browsing history.
Mulholland said, “Theres nothing anticompetitive in providing services for ad buyers and sellers, and there are more alternatives to our services than ever before.
Google is facing pressure on other fronts.
In a separate U.S. case, the Justice Department asked a federal judge in May to force the company to sell off its AdX business and DFP ad platform tools that are also at the heart of the EU case. They connect advertisers with publishers who have ad space to sell on their sites. The case is scheduled to move to the penalty phase, known as remedy hearings, in late September.
Authorities in Canada and Britain are also targeting the company over its digital ad business.
Twice recently, the people who run Fox News were reminded of their biggest nightmare.
The conservative network Newsmax’s $67 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over false claims after the 2020 election recalled Fox’s own $787.5 million deal with the same company more than two years ago. New legal papers filed last month by a second company suing Fox, Smartmatic, also put an episode they would like to forget back in the news.
Between the staggering payment to bypass a defamation trial and revelations about the lengths to which Fox went to avoid telling its audience what it didn’t want to hear about Donald Trump’s defeat, many wondered if its actions in November 2020 would damage Fox News or compel it to change directions.
Not so much, it turns out.
Fox News Channel has defied gravity with its ratings, and is more popular with viewers this summer than ABC, CBS or NBC. Its top personalities resolutely support Trump, who has filled his second administration with former Fox stars like Pete Hegseth and Jeanine Pirro. Time after time, the White House turns to Fox to make news; shortly after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump was sitting with Sean Hannity.
Reached by The Associated Press, Fox declined to make anyone available to speak for this story.
No regrets, no surrender
An ethos many at Fox share with the president no expressed regrets, no apologies has also shown signs of spreading, given Newsmax’s swagger following the Aug. 11 settlement announcement.
Fox News averaged 2.63 million viewers in weekday prime-time for the second quarter of 2025, up 56% from the same period in 2023, the Nielsen company said. While the increase is somewhat inflated since Fox took a hit in the ratings two years ago following the firing of Tucker Carlson, the advance of cord-cutting means that any network gaining viewers now is unusual.
MSNBC’s prime-time audience of 1 million this spring was down 21% in two years, and CNN’s viewership of 538,000 was down 6%, Nielsen said. Forty-five percent of people watching one of the top three cable news networks at any given time two years ago were tuned to Fox. This year, that audience share jumped to 62%.
Clearly, Fox’s audience is more interested in following a Trump administration than it was for a Joe Biden administration. Just as clearly, the Dominion case had little appreciable impact on viewership.
Fox’s audience didn’t really look at that verdict and say, Oh, I cant watch them anymore,’ said Tim Graham, director of media analysis at the conservative Media Research Center. I think Fox’s audience looked at that and said, oh, the left is coming after them.
Absorbing some hits and moving on
Financially, the Dominion settlement was stiff enough that Newsmax is spreading its payments out over three years. The much larger Fox had a greater ability to absorb its hit. Fox confirmed at the time that it could deduct the settlement from its income taxes, and insurance could make the payment lower. Meanwhile, Fox News is a profit engine and becoming even more so; Axios reported earlier this year that the company expected to make half a billion dollars on non-TV products like books, podcasts and streaming.
Carlson was the face of the network before he was fired shortly after the settlement was announced, but Fox has always been able to generate new stars. Carlson took over from Bill O’Reilly when he was fired in 2017. Fox started The Five, arguably its centerpiece show, when Glenn Beck was shown the door in 2011. Jesse Watters now owns Carlson and O’Reilly’s old time slot.
Yet, it’s hard to understate the worry many at Fox had about losing audience immediately following the 2020 election. Trump, and many of his fans, were angry that the network declared Biden the winner in Arizona before most news outlets, a pivotal moment in the vote-counting.
Internal messages and deposition interviews revealed in court papers tied to Smartmatic’s lawsuit reveal much of that drama. Management criticized anchor Neil Cavuto for ordering his show to cut away from Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany when she began talking about election fraud. News reporters were disciplined for fact-checking some of Trump’s claims. Many in Fox’s audience expressed anger at hearing Trump corrected and wanted to hear conspiracy theories.
Cavuto left Fox after 28 years last December. McEnany is now a co-host of Fox’s midday show, Outnumbered. Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, hosts a weekend show at Fox.
Former Fox politics editor Chris Stirewalt, who was fired by Fox shortly after the network’s correct call in Arizona, identified in a Smartmatic deposition a programming strategy that Fox excels at. The best way to capture an audience is to make them afraid, make them fearful of something to make them hate or resent other people to try to keep them with your telecast and that they’re afraid to change the channel, he said.
Fox has also maintained its dominance by playing a form of hardball that Newsmax alleged, in a lawsuit filed this week, violates antitrust laws. Newsmax said Fox has tried to block television distributors from carrying its rival, hired private detectives to investigate Newsmax executives and pressured guests not to appear on the network.
In response, Fox said, Newsmax cannot sue their way out of their own competitive failures in the marketplace to chase headlines simply because they can’t attract viewers.
Newsmax once expressed regret about coverage. Not anymore
Smartmatic said Fox has never retracted, or apologized for, programs that falsely suggested the company was involved in changing votes in 2020. Fox, which would not make an executive available for this story, said fraud charges made by a president or his representatives were newsworthy, and the ntwork is defending itself on free speech grounds.
Newsmax has twice publicly expressed some regrets about its post-election coverage. The network settled a lawsuit with Smartmatic in 2024.
In a statement aired on Newsmax in December 2020, the network said that no evidence has been offered that Dominion or Smartmatic used software or reprogrammed software that manipulated votes in the 2020 election. The following April, Newsmax apologized for airing false allegations that a Dominion employee, Eric Coomer, manipulated voting machines or tallies to the detriment of Trump in 2020. Coomer, in turn, dropped Newsmax from a defamation lawsuit.
According to court papers in the case, Newsmax executive Gary Kanofsky wrote about conspiracy theorists to a colleague shortly after the election: Simply giving them a microphone to spew more anti-election rhetoric and advance their claims without being properly equipped to question the legitimacy or factual accuracy of their assertions may be fun, but its terrible journalism.
But Newsmax offered no apology in making the Dominion settlement, announced Aug. 11. The network’s CEO, Chris Ruddy, attacked the judge, saying he effectively entered a confiscation of our property because our reporting was not always sympathetic to Joe Biden.
The network said on the air: Newsmax believed it was critically important for the American people to hear both sides of the election disputes that arose in 2020. We stand by our coverage as fair, balanced and conducted within professional standards of journalism.
What has changed? Newsmax has grown, and two months after Trump took office again, it went public. It invites members of its audience dominated by Trump fans to invest in the network.
If you’re paying attention to your audience at Newsmax, Graham said, you don’t want to give the impression that you’re knuckling under.
David Bauder, AP media writer
The worlds richest man, Elon Musk, stands to get a lot richer in the decade aheadperhaps. Thats because his largest and only publicly traded company has put together a proposal that, if approved by shareholders, would see Musk granted nearly $1 trillion worth of shares. This would not only make Elon Musk the worlds richest individual by a long shot, but the worlds first trillionaire, too.
However, for Musk to get this massive payout, there are plenty of conditions attached. Heres what you need to know about Teslas $1 trillion offer to Musk.
Whats happened?
Today, Tesla, Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA) announced its proposal that would see its CEO, Elon Musk, awarded nearly $1 trillion worth of TSLA shares if the company hit significant milestones over the next decade. The massive compensation package would be the largest for any single individual in history and make Elon Musk the worlds first trillionaire.
In an interview with CNBC, Tesla chairwoman Robyn Denholm said the motive behind the compensation plan for its billionaire CEO was to keep him motivated and focused on delivering for the company.
Musk has been criticized by Tesla investors this year for diverting his time and attention away from Tesla to his political activities, which have included supporting far-right parties in Europe and serving as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) under the Trump Administration.
This political involvement has turned off a number of Tesla customers and, in part, contributed to a decline in Tesla sales across various countries in 2025. Teslas compensation package for Musk, worth around $975 billion, aims to get the CEO focused on the car company again.
If he performs, if he hits the super ambitious milestones that are in the plan, then he gets equityits 1% for each half a trillion dollars of market cap, plus operational milestones he has to hit in order to do that, Denholm said. Musk currently owns about 13% of Tesla.
But for Musk to get the whole of this massive compensation package, which includes a total of more than 423 million additional shares, several milestones need to be reachedincluding ones no company in history has ever achieved.
The terms of Elon Musks trillion-dollar Tesla compensation package
There are several caveats attached to the potential historic compensation package Tesla is suggesting.
First, the compensation consists of 12 tranches of shares that will be paid out if certain milestones are hit. This means Msuk would receive some compensation, but not the total proposed amount if not all the milestones are reached.
CNBC reports that the operational milestones of Musks compensation package include:
20 million Tesla vehicles delivered
10 million active FSD subscriptions
1 million robots delivered
1 million Robotaxis in commercial operation
A series of adjusted EBITDA benchmarks
They also include an ever-increasing Tesla stock price, with the company needing to achieve a market capitalization of $8.5 trillion for Musk to receive the complete pay package.
Tesla would need to become the worlds most valuable companyby a long shot
To achieve the first milestone in the compensation package, Tesla would need to reach a market cap of $2 trillion. Currently, the company is about $1.1 trillion, which means its stock price would need to nearly double from todays price of $350 per share.
That in itself is a big ask, considering Tesla sales have suffered declines in markets around the world in 2025.
But for Musk to receive the full nearly $1 trillion compensation package, Teslas value would need to reach a market cap of $8.5 trillion. This would by far make it the most valuable company in history.
Currently, the most valuable company ever is Nvidia, with a current market cap of around $4 trillion. The company had a market cap of $4.4 trillion in Augustmaking it the most valuable company in history.
Tesla would need to more than double Nvidias current market cap to hit the $8.5 trillion valuation demanded by the compensation package. Or, to put that in another way, Tesla would need to become more valuable than the two most valuable companies todayNvidia (worth $4 trillion) and Microsoft (worth $3.7 trillion)combined.
Musks historic pay package isnt a certainty
Before Musk even has a shot at becoming the first person to be awarded nearly $1 trillion in compensation, however, Tesla shareholders need to approve the proposed pay package.
Its far from certain whether they will do that. The new package will be put to a shareholder vote on November 6.
As for Teslas current stock price, as of the time of this writing, TSLA shares are currently up around 3.9% to almost $352 per share after the compensation package proposal was made public.
However, year to date, the companys share price is still down. TSLA shares have fallen more than 12% since the beginning of the year, and they remain well below their peak of $488 in December 2024.
Despite the upsides of progress and innovation, the future can also be a never-ending source of anxiety. For many, early excitement and enthusiasm for experimentation eventually gives way to massive fears about disruption. For creatives especially, recent opinions about the future typically oscillate between absolute doom and relative boon. Still, Ive found that thinking about the future is always worthwhile. In fact, its when creatives are at our best.
Thats because since the birth of the internet, the rise of digital display, search, interactive video, and mobile, weve seen the value of being the first to try. To fail. To learn. And to keep going. When social media (and later creators) forced us to think and execute at the speed of culture, we embraced that too. And now, in the AI era, were learning to navigate a landscape where the rules change on a daily basis.
As the battles are fought to determine the future of business, culture, and innovation, creatives will always be on the front line. Because when everything is changing all the time, its creativessteeped in popular culture and driving innovation through our ideaswho have the skills and responsibility to lead. Thats why our community needs to be pioneering when navigating the future of creativity. We need to nurture the companies, culture, and talent that push beyond the fear to see an exciting future worth embracing.
Shifting perceptions, rising expectations
In the creative industry, change is constant. But in my work with the creative organization and educational charity D&AD, reviewing thousands of entries for our awards each year, Ive seen more than just trends coming and going. Ive seen that while technology has become more deeply embedded in the work, the most celebrated ideas are still those that put people at the center: solving real problems, creating connections, and shaping culture.
Access to powerful tools has democratized the field, but it has also led to raised expectations. Brands want ideas that move faster, work harder, and live seamlessly across disciplines. Categories that once felt separate, from product design to experiential to impact, are increasingly blurred. This shift is clear in a lot of the work that won this year.
Sightwalks from UNACEM is a brilliant idea for tactile sidewalk patterns to help visually impaired people. Apples AirPods Pro 2, with integrated hearing health and hearing aid features, reframed accessibility as an expectation in consumer tech. Spotify Spreadbeats, Thanks for Coke-Creating, and The Everyday Tactician from Xbox each demonstrate how technology can amplify craft while keeping creativity anchored in human needs and cultural context.
However advanced the tools become, the most powerful ideas still come from the skill to turn cultural understanding and creative ambition into something new. That truth connects the best of this years winning work, and it will be just as vital as the creative industries continue to evolve.
Prepare for the future
Ultimately, the best way for creatives to prepare themselves is to continue to nurture the essential human qualities that transcend technology, categories, or mediums. That includes a mindset that thrives on imagination and experimentation, taking advantage of creatives natural flexibility and talent for adaptation so that they can collaborate to develop the most forward-thinking creative ideas.
Nurturing that flexibility and adaptation look different depending on where you sit. Within a business, it means building systems that can respond to change without breaking. It also requires structures that allow for input, ambiguity, and iteration as well as a dedication to seeking out talent with different backgrounds, lived experiences, training, and skillsets. Meanwhile, for the creatives themselves, its about learning to stay curious in uncertain moments. And learning to contribute before the path is fully clear while collaborating across their differences in discipline, background, culture, and point of view.
The future will always be uncertain. But uncertainty is more than a challenge. It’s an opportunity to develop or strengthen the skills that will make creatives and their unique points of view invaluable in turbulent times. With the right mindset and a supportive environment, creatives can trade their fear of the future for a curiosity that will always keep them on the bleeding edge.
Kwame Taylor-Hayford is the cofounder of Kin and president of D&AD.
In 2025, 1 in 4 new automotive vehicle sales globally are expected to be an electric vehicleeither fully electric or a plug-in hybrid.
That is a significant rise from just five years ago, when EV sales amounted to fewer than 1 in 20 new car sales, according to the International Energy Agency, an intergovernmental organization examining energy use around the world.
In the U.S., however, EV sales have lagged, only reaching 1 in 10 in 2024. By contrast, in China, the worlds largest car market, more than half of all new vehicle sales are electric.
The International Energy Agency has reported that two-thirds of fully electric cars in China are now cheaper to buy than their gasoline equivalents. With operating and maintenance costs already cheaper than gasoline models, EVs are attractive purchases.
Most EVs purchased in China are made there as well, by a range of different companies. NIO, Xpeng, Xiaomi, Zeekr, Geely, Chery, Great Wall Motor, Leapmotor and especially BYD are household names in China. As someone who has followed and published on the topic of EVs for over 15 years, I expect they will soon become as widely known in the rest of the world.
What kinds of EVs is China producing?
Chinas automakers are producing a full range of electric vehicles, from the subcompact, like the BYD Seagull, to full-size SUVs, like the Xpeng G9, and luxury cars, like the Zeekr 009.
Recent European crash-test evaluations have given top safety ratings to Chinese EVs, and many of them cost less than similar models made by other companies in other countries.
A Wall Street Journal video explores a Chinese dark factoryone so automated that it doesnt need lights inside.
Whats behind Chinese EV success?
There are several factors behind Chinese companies success in producing and selling EVs. To be sure, relatively low labor costs are part of the explanation. So are generous government subsidies, as EVs were one of several advanced technologies selected by the Chinese government to propel the nations global technological profile.
But Chinese EV makers are also making other advances. They make significant use of industrial robotics, even to the point of building so-called dark factories that can operate with minimal human intervention. For passengers, they have reimagined vehicles interiors, with large touchscreens for information and entertainment, and even added a refrigerator, bed or karaoke system.
Competition among Chinese EV makers is fierce, which drives additional innovation. BYD is the largest seller of EVs, both domestically and globally. Yet the company says it employs over 100,000 scientists and engineers seeking continual improvement.
From initial concept models to actual rollout of factory-made cars, BYD takes 18 monthshalf as long as U.S. and other global automakers take for their product development processes, Reuters reported.
BYD is also the worlds second-largest EV battery seller and has developed a new battery that can recharge in just five minutes, roughly the same time it takes to fill a gas-powered cars tank.
Exports
The real test of how well Chinese vehicles appeal to consumers will come from export sales. Chinese EV manufacturers are eager to sell abroad because their factories can produce far more than the 25 million vehicles they can sell within China each yearperhaps twice as much.
China already exports more cars than any other nation, though primarily gas-powered ones at the moment. Export markets for Chinese EVs are developing in Western Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Australia and elsewhere.
The largest market where Chinese vehicles, whether gasoline or electric, are not being sold is North America. Both the U.S. and Canadian governments have created what some have called a tariff fortress protecting their domestic automakers, by imposing tariffs of 100% on the import of Chinese EVsliterally doubling their cost to consumers.
Customers budgets matter too. Te average price of a new electric vehicle in the U.S. is approximately $55,000. Less expensive vehicles make up part of this average, but without tax credits, which the Trump administration is eliminating after September 2025, nothing gets close to $25,000. By contrast, Chinese companies produce several sub-$25,000 EVs, including the Xpeng M03, the BYD Dolphin and the MG4 without tax credits. If sold in America, however, the 100% tariffs would remove the price advantage.
Tesla, Ford and General Motors all claim they are working on inexpensive EVs. More expensive vehicles, however, generate higher profits, and with the protection of the tariff fortress, their incentive to develop cheaper EVs is not as high as it might be.
In the 1970s and 1980s, there was considerable U.S. opposition to importing Japanese vehicles. But ultimately, a combination of consumer sentiment and the willingness of Japanese companies to open factories in the U.S. overcame that opposition, and Japanese brands like Toyota, Honda and Nissan are common on North American roads. The same process may play out for Chinese automakers, though its not clear how long that might take.
Jack Barkenbus is a visiting scholar at Vanderbilt University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
What do a yoga instructor, a parking garage attendant, and an influencer have in common? They are all now exempt from paying income tax on their tips under President Donald Trumps Big Beautiful Bill.
As part of Trumps no tax on tips policy, streamers, online video creators, social media influencers, and podcasters are among the workers no longer required to hand over a portion of their tip income, according to a Treasury Department list released this week.
The policyone of Trumps key 2024 campaign promiseswas written into the tax code when Congress passed the bill in July. At first, the conversation focused on restaurant servers. But the Treasury has since clarified that digital content creators also qualify, defined as people who produce and publish on digital platforms original entertainment or personality-driven content, such as live streams, short-form videos, or podcasts.
In total, 68 occupations are eligible, including bartenders, electricians, tutors, makeup artists, taxi drivers, and golf caddies.
For most influencers, tips are a relatively small slice of income compared to brand deals. Still, tipping is common on Twitch, where viewers buy bits, or on OnlyFans, where creators use tip menus for custom content. Under the no tax on tips policyset to run from 2025 until 2028creators can claim a deduction covering up to $25,000 of qualifying tip income.
The deduction phases out for those earning more than $150,000, meaning top Twitch or TikTok stars who make millions annually wont see much benefit. But the large middle class of creators likely will.
The president had promised to reward creators after they helped boost his campaign and pave the way for his return to the Oval Office. Now, hes making good on that pledge.
South Korea on Friday expressed “concern and regret” over a major U.S. immigration raid at a sprawling Georgia site where South Korean auto company Hyundai manufactures electric vehicles.South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lee Jaewoong described the number of detained South Koreans as “large” though he did not provide an exact figure.His ministry would not confirm or deny South Korean media reports saying that about 300 South Koreans were detained in Georgia on Thursday. The Atlanta office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which assisted immigration authorities at the site, posed on the social media site X that about 450 people total were apprehended.Hyundai’s South Korean office didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.Thursday’s raid targeted one of Georgia’s largest and most high-profile manufacturing sites, touted by the governor and other officials as the largest economic development project in the state’s history. Hyundai Motor Group, South Korea’s biggest automaker, began manufacturing EVs a year ago at the $7.6 billion plant, which employs about 1,200 people, and has partnered with LG Energy Solution to build an adjacent battery plant, slated to open next year.ICE spokesman Lindsay Williams confirmed that federal authorities conducted an enforcement operation at the 3,000-acre (1,214-hectare) site west of Savannah, Georgia. He said agents were focused on the construction site for the battery plant.In a televised statement, Lee said the ministry is taking active measures to address the case, dispatching diplomats from its embassy in Washington and consulate in Atlanta to the site, and planning to form an on-site response team centered on the local mission.“The business activities of our investors and the rights of our nationals must not be unjustly infringed in the process of U.S. law enforcement,” Lee said.The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that agents executed a search warrant “as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into allegations of unlawful employment practices and other serious federal crimes.”It did not say whether anyone was detained or arrested.President Donald Trump’s administration has undertaken sweeping ICE operations as part of a mass deportation agenda. Immigration officers have raided farms, construction sites, restaurants and auto repair shops.The Pew Research Center, citing preliminary Census Bureau data, says the U.S. labor force lost more than 1.2 million immigrants from January through July. That includes people who are in the country illegally as well as legal residents.Hyundai and LG’s battery joint venture, HL-GA Battery Company, said in a statement that it’s “cooperating fully with the appropriate authorities” and paused construction of the battery site to assist their work.Operations at Hyundai’s EV manufacturing plant weren’t interrupted, said plant spokesperson Bianca Johnson.
Kim Tong-Hyung and Russ Bynum, Associated Press
Exactly 20 years ago, America met Michael Scott and a certain Dwight Schrute. When The Office launched in 2005, it quickly became a cultural touchstone, and its main titlecomplete with that dreadfully catchy tunewas so popular it was soon parodied by The Simpsons.
Now, the pseudo-film crew that introduced us to our favorite Dunder Mifflin characters is back for another mockumentary. But instead of the dying paper supply industry, they have set their sights on a struggling daily newspaper in Toledo, Ohio.
The Paper, which premiered on Peacock yesterday and has already been renewed for Season 2, follows the ambitious publisher Ned Sampsons as he tries to revive the fictional Toledo Truth Teller along with a team of largely incompetent reporters who have never written a real article in their lives. (Not unless you count You wont believe how much Ben Affleck tipped his limo driver, which Truth Teller reporter like Esmeralda Grand is most proud of.)
So will Ned succeed in reviving the Truth Teller? The shows main title might have some clues.
[Photo: Aaron Epstein/Peacock]
Misusing newspapers
Showrunners Greg Daniels and Michael Koman created The Papers main title in collaboration with co-executive producer and editor David Rogers. In just 30 seconds, it shows a flurry of people usingor as Rogers put it to me in an email, misusingnewspapers.
The shows shooting schedule was tight, so instead of including actual show footage, like in The Office main title, the team scoured stock libraries for shots of people using newspapers in unique and entertaining ways. A worker is plastering newspapers on a window, a group of men play cards on a table lined with newspapers, a puppy Fox Terrier gets potty-trained on a newspaper. We also see a man wearing a hat made of a newspaper, and hands wrapping bread in it, too.
Greg and Michael had a concept of showing people using newspapers in various ways, except of course, for actually reading them, Rogers says. The underlying message, then, seems to be that newspapersonce beacons of informationhave become so superfluous that their only value now lies in prosaic household uses.
Like with The Office, which includes footage of Scranton, Pennsylvania, The Papers main title also gives us glimpse of Toledo, including its famous Love Wall mural. We wanted to highlight this new city that the show resides in, and it gave the sequence energy and a nice contrast with some of the vintage still frames, says Rogers, who also edited the original title sequence for The Office.
[Photo: Aaron Epstein/Peacock]
Bad omen or red herring?
The Paper is a spinoff of The Office, so naturally, the team wanted to echo The Offices main title without duplicating it. This extended to the theme song, for which the team hired Canadian musician and composer Nick Thorburn (most famously known for composing the soundtrack for the hit podcast Serial).
Chances are, when you think of The Office, you are already humming its catchy tune. Here, too, Thornburn has composed a song that’s already etched itself into my brain. But its definitely its own song, Rogers notes. Still, discerning listeners who stay on until the very end will notice that the last few piano notes are the exact same as those in The Office theme song.
Another reason not to hit that skip button? The very last image of the title sequence portrays one of the reporters scraping a poop-soiled newspaper from the bottom of a bird cage and into a recycling bin that reads Paper. Then, just like with The Office, where the team found a real sign that said Office and popped a preposition before it, the paper recycling bin gets its own preposition in front of it, leading to the shows title.
Is the recycling bin scene a harbinger for what will happen to the Toledo Truth Teller? Or is it just the beginning of an upward journey? Seems like this title sequence just might be burying the lede.
