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U.S. strikes suspected Venezuelan cartel boat

admin - Latest News - October 17, 2025
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The U.S. military carried out a strike against an alleged Venezuelan drug cartel boat in the Caribbean Sea and there were survivors, according to a U.S. official. 



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Oct. 17, 2025, 5:00 AM EDTBy Rob WileThe torrent of billion-dollar investment announcements related to artificial intelligence has raised fears that the economy is sitting on a bubble that, if popped, could send it into a tailspin. Some on Wall Street aren’t buying it. In a note to clients published Thursday titled “AI Spending Is Not Too Big,” Goldman Sachs economist Joseph Briggs made the case that the billions being spent on building out data centers — known as capital expenditures, or “capex” — remains sustainable.In short: Briggs believes AI applications are leading to real productivity gains that will help boost companies’ bottom lines. Meanwhile, the cost of the computing processing needed to power those applications justifies the billions in spending, assuming the sophistication of the applications continues to improve. In total, Briggs expects U.S. companies to generate as much as $8 trillion in new revenue thanks to AI. “The key takeaway from our analysis is that the enormous economic value promised by generative AI justifies the current investment in AI infrastructure and that overall levels of AI investment appear sustainable as long as companies expect that investment today will generate outsized returns over the long run,” Briggs wrote. Other key Wall Street players have echoed his assessment. This week, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon compared AI to the internet, which led to its own “dot com” bubble but ultimately created real economic and societal impact. “You can’t look at AI as a bubble, though some of these things may be in the bubble. In total, it’ll probably pay off,” Dimon said at a conference hosted by Fortune. Predictions about the economic impact of AI continue to run the gamut, from only a modest bump in productivity to the end of all jobs as we know them. Evidence of current effects so far is mixed, though the roster of companies citing AI or automation as a reason for job cuts — whether they actually intend to meaningfully increase its use — continues to grow.Amid all those variables, AI’s biggest impact has arguably been on stock returns. Despite some recent drawdowns, major U.S. stock indexes continue to sit near all-time highs, thanks largely to gains from tech companies participating in the AI boom. Peloton turns to AI in hope of boosting slumping sales03:41On Thursday, tech stocks got another lift when chip manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) reported record profits and soaring revenues. TSMC is the main supplier of semiconductors for Nvidia — the most valuable publicly traded company in the world — and it also counts Apple, Qualcomm and AMD as clients. “Our conviction in the megatrend is strengthening, and we believe the demand for semiconductors will continue to be very fundamental as a key enabler of AI applications,” TSMC Chief Executive C.C. Wei told analysts on an earnings call. Briggs of Goldman didn’t offer a direct comment about whether his analysis means AI-related stocks themselves have room to run. And there are growing signs that many investors now believe that whatever AI’s broader economic payoff is, stock valuations have become stretched. In its latest weekly investor sentiment survey, the American Association of Individual Investors found bullish sentiment had dipped below its historical average of 37.5% for the first time in five weeks, with 55% of respondents agreeing “stocks in general are overvalued.” Briggs did warn that some of the companies whose shares have had the greatest run-ups so far won’t necessarily be the ones who end up reaping the greatest overall returns from the AI revolution.“The ultimate winners from infrastructure builds are determined by a complex set of factors including timing, regulation, and market competition,” he wrote. Eventually, Briggs said, computing costs will decrease, meaning some proportion of the current AI spending boom will look overdone in hindsight. But given a 15% boost to productivity, a slower adoption timeline and other factors, current spending levels on AI investment are sound, he added. “While investment should eventually moderate as the AI investment cycle moves beyond the build phase and declining hardware costs dominate, the technological backdrop still looks supportive for continued AI investment,” he wrote.Jim Cramer, host of CNBC’s “Mad Money,” had a similar assessment this week, comparing the current AI moment to the dawn of the railroad age. “I am telling you, this is just the beginning,” he said. While not every company riding the wave will survive, the build-out itself changed the economy forever, he said, and “once the losers got wiped out, the winners won big.” Rob WileRob Wile is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist covering breaking business stories for NBCNews.com.
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Oct. 7, 2025, 2:00 PM EDTBy Berkeley Lovelace Jr.If you’re among the roughly 165 million Americans who get your health coverage through work, not the government, you might be wondering: Is my plan next, now that health insurance premiums for Affordable Care Act plans are set to rise next year?Experts say there’s no single, across-the-board increase, but increases are likely for many people on employer-sponsored plans. And even if your monthly premium stays the same, you could still end up paying more through higher deductibles or copays.“Last year, health insurance premiums went up. This year, they went up. And next year, they’ll go up,” said Dr. Kevin Schulman, a professor of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine who researches employer-based health insurance.Have you gotten a notice about health insurance premium hikes for next year? Whether you receive benefits from the Affordable Care Act or private insurance from your employer, we’d like to hear from you. Please contact us at tips@nbcuni.com or reach out to us here.So, how much could your plan go up? Unlike ACA plans, in which insurers publicly file proposed rate increases with states and federal regulators, employers often negotiate plans with insurers privately, said Gary Claxton, director of the Program on the Health Care Marketplace at KFF, a health policy research group. That means your premium increase might not be apparent until open enrollment.Even so, recent employer surveys shed some light on what companies expect to pay next year — though they may not pass the entire increase onto the employee.A September report from the benefits consulting firm Mercer found employers say health care plan costs could rise by nearly 9% on average in 2026 if they don’t take action to control costs. The survey was based on more than 1,700 U.S. employers. Another report from the consulting firm Aon projects employer health care costs will climb 9.5% next year, based on data from more than 1,000 U.S. companies. HR consulting firm Segal estimates a roughly 9% increase for health plans and 11% for prescription drugs. Claxton said some employers will decide to pass some of the additional costs onto employees through premiums. The Mercer report, for example, said the average cost of coverage per employee is expected to be 6% to 7% — the biggest increase in more than a decade — a jump that will likely show up in workers’ premiums.“If we’re seeing a big increase of 6.5%, it’s likely that the employee contribution, the employee share of the premium, is going to go up by the same amount,” said Beth Umland, director of research for health and benefits at Mercer. Other companies, however, may keep premiums steady, but raise deductibles or copays, Claxton said.Others, in a competitive labor market, might absorb the entire cost increase themselves. “Sometimes it’s better to eat that cost as opposed to upsetting your employees, particularly if it’ll mean that some of them will leave,” Claxton said. “It’s often more expensive to recruit new workers.”It also depends on how big the company is and whether its employees are healthy enough for it to take on the financial risk.“If you have a really young workforce, your premiums are going to be lower,” Claxton said. “If you have an older workforce, they’re going to be higher. If you’re an employer with only a few hundred employees, if you get a couple really sick people, you can see a big increase from year to year, particularly if that sickness is going to persist.”Schulman said some companies may try to control costs instead by limiting which doctors and hospitals employees can use, also called “narrow network.”Still, he said, the premium increases have been a growing trend: Health insurance costs as a percentage of median family household income have increased from 13% to 25% from 2000 to 2021.“These are enormous increases in health insurance premiums, Schulman said. Why is insurance getting more expensive?In the reports from Mercer and Aon, employers cited many of the same cost pressures that are driving up ACA premiums, including rising hospital costs and pricey prescription drugs, like GLP-1s, and a growing number of people seeking care — thanks in part to convenient options like telehealth that are making it easier for people to get help. JoAnn Volk, a research professor and co-director of Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms, said the increases are largely due to rising health care costs. Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy sent a memo last month to Democratic senators who requested information about the proposed rate increases under ACA plans. Volk said many forces cited hitting ACA plans — including higher prices, more use of services and inflation — are hitting employer plans, too. What’s more, people are spending more. Health care spending jumped about 8.2% in 2024 and is projected to grow another 7.1% this year, outpacing spending across the broader economy, according to a June study published in Health Affairs. Health spending may slow slightly in 2026 as fewer people are expected to have health insurance, but costs will likely keep rising faster than the overall economy.Some employers could raise premiums next year, while others may have already locked in rates and won’t adjust them, Volk said.In the coming year, they may also factor in new employees who previously had coverage through the ACA marketplace or another individual plan.“Some employers start on a fiscal year, which might be summer of next year, and they would be more likely to say, ‘We have some sense now of who’s coming back into the employer plan, then the prices may adjust to reflect that,” she said. Berkeley Lovelace Jr.Berkeley Lovelace Jr. is a health and medical reporter for NBC News. He covers the Food and Drug Administration, with a special focus on Covid vaccines, prescription drug pricing and health care. He previously covered the biotech and pharmaceutical industry with CNBC.
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