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U.S. stocks are rising toward more records on Wednesday as Wall Street waits to hear from the Federal Reserve in the afternoon about what it will do with interest rates. The S&P 500 added 0.3% in morning trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 231 points, or 0.5%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.6% higher. All three indexes are coming off their latest all-time high. The bond market was also relatively steady as the countdown ticked to the announcement from the Fed. The widespread expectation is that it will announce the second cut of the year to its main interest rate in hopes of helping the slowing job market. More important will be whether the Fed gives hints about another cut to rates in December and beyond. Wall Street is banking on it. In the meantime, the deluge continues of big U.S. companies reporting how much profit they made during the summer. The pressure is on to deliver growth because thats one way they can quiet criticism that their stock prices have shot too high in recent months. Caterpillar rallied 12% after reporting stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Joe Creed said Caterpillar saw resilient demand, as customers bought more equipment, even with a dynamic environment. Teradyne soared 14.6% after the company, which makes automated test equipment and advanced robotics systems, likewise reported a stronger profit than analysts expected. CEO Greg Smith credited strength related to artificial-intelligence applications and said AI-related test demand remains robust. Nvidia, meanwhile, was the strongest force lifting the S&P 500 after rallying 4.4%. It became the first company valued at $5 trillion on Wall Street, just three months after the AI darling was the first to break through the $4 trillion barrier. They helped offset a 42.6% plunge for Fiserv. The payments and financial technology company reported weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected, slashed its profit forecast for the year and revamped its board of directors and leadership team. The stock is heading toward its worst day since it began trading in 1986. Mondelez International fell 2.8%, even though it reported stronger results than analysts expected. The company, whose brands include Oreo cookies and Toblerone chocolate, has been dealing with record-high inflation for the cost of cocoa. It expects challenging conditions to continue in some markets, though it hopes that price increases are moderating for cocoa. In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe following a stronger finish in Asia. Tokyos Nikkei 225 jumped 2.2% to another record. Seouls Kospi rose 1.8% to its own all-time high after President Donald Trump met with South Koreas leader following his visit in Japan. Stocks rose 0.7% in Shanghai ahead of a meeting between Trump and Chinas leader, Xi Jinping. The worlds two largest economies have been locked in an escalating trade war, with Washington imposing high tariffs and tightened technology controls and China retaliating with curbs on rare earth shipments, one of its key sources of leverage. In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury was holding at 3.99%, where it was late Tuesday. It’s been coming down from nearly 4.80% early this year, a notable move for the bond market, as expectations have climbed for several cuts to rates by the Federal Reserve. But the Fed has also warned that it may have to halt the cuts if inflation accelerates beyond its still-high level, because lower rates can worsen inflation. Making an already tough course for Fed officials more difficult is the U.S. governments shutdown. That has delayed important updates on the economy that would normally help guide the Feds decision-making process. Stan Choe, AP business writer AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
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E-Commerce
Stewart McLaurin knew it was coming.An entire wing of the White House, a building he calls “the most special, important building on the planet,” was going to be replaced to make way for a ballroom that President Donald Trump wants to add to the building.But when McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association, saw the first images of backhoes tearing into the East Wing, it still came as a bit of a shock.“When the reality of things happen, they strike us a little bit differently than the theory of things happening, so it was a bit of a jarring moment,” McLaurin told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday.McLaurin, who has led the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization for more than a decade, did not take a position on the changes. It’s not his job. “Ours is not to make happen, or to keep from happening but to document what does happen, what happens in this great home that we call the White House,” he said.But he said he sees a silver lining from the “jarring” images: they have piqued public interest in White House history.“What has happened since then is so amazing in that in the past two weeks, more people have been talking about White House history, focused on White House history, learning what is an East Wing, what is the West Wing what are these spaces in this building that we simply call the White House,” McLaurin said. Trump demolishes the East Wing The general public became aware of the demolition work on Oct. 20 after photos of construction equipment ripping into the building began to circulate online, prompting an outcry from Democrats, preservationists and others.In a matter of days, the entire two-story East Wing the traditional base of operations for first ladies and their staffs was gone. The demolition included a covered walkway between the White House, the family movie theater and a garden dedicated to first lady Jacqueline Kennedy.Trump had talked about building a ballroom for years, and pushed ahead with his vision when he returned to office in January. His proposal calls for a 90,000-square-foot structure, almost twice the size of the 55,000-square-foot White House itself and able to accommodate 1,000 people. The plan also includes building a more modern East Wing, officials have said.The Republican president ordered the demolition despite not yet having sign-off for the ballroom construction from the National Capital Planning Commission, one of several entities with a role in approving additions to federal buildings and property. The White House has yet to submit the ballroom plans for the commission’s review because it is closed during the government shutdown.Trump appointed loyalists to the planning commission in July. On Tuesday, he also fired the six members of the Commission of Fine Arts, a group of architectural experts that advises the federal government on historic preservation and public buildings. A new slate of members who are more aligned with Trump’s policies will be named, a White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on personnel decisions. The Washington Post was first to report the firings. East Wing art and furnishings preserved It was the job of the White House curator and their staff to carefully remove, catalog and store the art, the official portraits of former first ladies, and furnishings from the East Wing, McLaurin said.The White House Historical Association does not have a decision-making role in the construction. But it has been working with the White House to prepare for the changes.“We had known since late summer that the staff of the East Wing had moved out. I actually made my last visit on the last day of tours on August the 28th,” McLaurin said.Working with the curator and chief usher, the association used 3D scanning technology “so that every room, space, nook and cranny of the East Wing, whether it was molding or hinges or door knobs or whatever it was, was captured to the -nth degree” to be digitally recreated as an exhibit or to teach the history of that space, McLaurin said.A photographer also documented the building as it was being taken apart.It will be a while before any images are available, but McLaurin said items were found when flooring was pulled up and when wall coverings were pulled back that “no living person remembered were there. So those will be lessons in history.” White House has grown over the years Trump’s aides have responded to criticism of the demolition by arguing that other presidents have made changes to the White House, too. Trump has said the White House needs a bigger entertaining space.McLaurin said the building continues to evolve from what it looked like when it was built in 1792.“There is a need to modernize and to grow,” he said, noting that White House social secretaries for generations have chafed at the space limitations for entertaining. “But how it’s done and how it’s accomplished and what results is really the vision of the president who undertakes that project.” What the White House Historical Association does Jacqueline Kennedy created the historical association in 1961 to help preserve the museum quality of the interior of the White House and educate the public. It receives no government funding and raises money mostly through private donations and sales of retail merchandise.It is not the mission of the association to take a position on construction, McLaurin said. Its primary mandate is preserving the State Floor and some of the historic bedrooms upstairs in the private living quarters, and teaching the history of the White House, which is an accredited museum. The State Floor is made up of the Green, Blue and Red Rooms, the East Room and State Dining Room, the Cross Hall and Grand Foyer.“Ours is not to support or to not support,” McLaurin said. “Ours is to understand, to get the details.”Since the demolition, McLaurin said he has seen attendance spike at a free-of-charge educational center the association opened in September 2024 a block from the White House. “The People’s House: A White House Experience” is open seven days a week including during the current government shutdown.The educational center saw its busiest days the weekend of Oct. 17-19, with about 1,500 daily visitors, up from a previous average of 900, he said. Darlene Superville, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
As Hurricane Melissa battered the Caribbean this week, social media became awash with AI-generated content that blurs the line between reality and fiction. Described by CBS News as one of the strongest hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic, Melissa reached Category 5 intensity as it made landfall in Jamaica on Tuesday. CNN reports that it has already caused seven deaths in the northern Caribbean, and is the most powerful storm to hit the basin since 2019s Hurricane Dorian. Amid a crisis, social media is flooded Over the last few days, major social media platforms have been saturated with AI-generated videosdepicting a wide range of content supposedly related to the hurricane, from towering waves battering coastal towns to sharks gliding through floodwaters, destroyed airports, and an aerial view of the storms eye that reached over 17,000 views. Much of this content was made possible by Sora 2OpenAIs new text-to-video appreleased less than a month ago, which allows users to generate lifelike videos simply by typing a description. The app, free on iPhones, has proven to be as mesmerizing as it is disturbingquickly taking over social media feeds in the weeks since its release. But it’s also caused alarm among people who worry about its potential to spread misinformation. Its as if deepfakes got a publicist and a distribution deal, Daisy Soderberg-Rivkin, a former trust and safety manager at TikTok, told NPR earlier this month. “It’s an amplification of something that has been scary for a while, but now it has a whole new platform. As it turns out, its now becoming increasingly harder to trust what you see on screen. Turning a catastrophe into clickbait The proliferation of misleading content regarding natural disasters poses a real threat, well beyond the trivial AI-generated slop that typically clogs social feeds. This storm is a huge storm that will likely cause catastrophic damage, and fake content undermines the seriousness of the message from the government to be prepared, Amy McGovern, a University of Oklahoma meteorology professor, told the news agency Agence France-Presse (AFP). In a report on Monday, AFP said it identified numerous AI-generated clipsmany, but not all, marked with OpenAIs Sora watermarkspreading across social media feeds. The videos ranged from dramatic newscasts and scenes of severe flooding to fabricated human suffering. Other videos seemed to show localsoften speaking with exaggerated Jamaican accents that reinforced stereotypespartying, boating, jet skiing, swimming, or otherwise downplaying the severity of what forecasters have warned could be the islands most violent storm on record. After AFP flagged the clips, TikTok reportedly removed over two dozen videos and multiple accounts sharing them. Reached for comment, TikTok told Fast Company that its community guidelines require AI-generated or heavily edited content depicting realistic people or events to be labeled. It said unlabeled content may be removed, restricted, or relabeled. The platform prohibits material that “misleads on matters of public importance or harms individuals,” even if labeled. In Jamaica, users seeking updates on Hurricane Melissa are encouraged to consult official sources, including the Jamaica Information Service and TikToks event guides. Similar content appeared on Facebook and Instagram, despite Metas policies requiring labels for AI-generated videos. OpenAI and Meta did not respond to requests for comment. Experts worry that AI-generated content can overshadow critical safety warnings. Jamaicas information minister, Senator Dana Morris Dixon, urged the public to rely on official sources, according to AFP. The risks extend far beyond natural disasters In the Sora era, anyone can generate nearly any scene imaginable with a single prompt, but experts have long raised concerns about generative AI and misinformation. For instance, studies indicate that warning labels alone may not suffice to combat AI-generated falsehoods and can sometimes have unintended effects on users perception of credibility. Aaron Rodericks, head of trust and safety at Bluesky, noted in an interview with NPR that the public is unprepared for such a collapse between reality and fabrication. In a polarized world, it is easy to create fabricated evidence targeting identity groups or individuals, or to conduct large-scale scams. What once existed as a rumorlike a fabricated story about an immigrant or politiciancan now be turned into seemingly credible video proof, Rodericks said. And this is only the beginning OpenAI’s Sora 2 app, where many of these recent clips surfaced, is just the newest player in the expanding world of increasingly powerful video creation tools. This year alone has brought a wave of AI-driven innovations across platforms. As of May, users could chat with AI personas on Instagram, and TikToks AI Alive tool enabled still images to be turned into videos with a single command. By September, Meta introduced its new Vibes app, featuring a TikTok-style AI-generated feed. Together, they signal a new race to shape the future of the internet.
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E-Commerce
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