Olympic rugby: U.S. women take bronze in spectacular finish over Australia

• July 30, 2024

SAINT-DENIS, France (AP) — Alex Sedrick ran most of the length of the field to give the U.S. women a first Olympic rugby sevens medal with a stunning stoppage-time comeback win over Australia in the bronze-medal match on Tuesday.

The 2016 champion Australians were leading 12-7 with seconds remaining and deep in U.S. territory. The ball went to Sedrick and she bumped off two tacklers before racing all the way to the other end to score and spark jubilation for the Americans.

The U.S. women reached the Olympic semifinals for the first time and lost to defending champion New Zealand. That made the playoff for a third a case of winning a medal or going home without.

The Americans rushed onto the field to celebrate the 14-12 victory. Sammy Sullivan was in tears. Ilona Maher raised both arms up in triumph.

Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” blared over the stadium speakers.

The U.S. women had to wait until after the final between New Zealand and Canada to take their place on the podium.

A FINISH YOU HAVE TO SEE TO BELIEVE!

ALEX SEDRICK LEADS TEAM USA TO THE FIRST-EVER OLYMPIC RUGBY SEVENS MEDAL FOR THE UNITED STATES ON THE FINAL PLAY OF THE GAME! #ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/1FMu9SWxDo

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) July 30, 2024

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​ Orange County Register 

Olympic soccer: U.S. men reach quarterfinals for the 1st time since Sydney 2000

• July 30, 2024

By JAMES ROBSON

SAINT-ETIENNE, France (AP) — Kevin Paredes scored two goals as the United States advanced to the quarterfinals of the Olympic men’s soccer tournament for the first time since Sydney 2000 by beating Guinea 3-0 on Tuesday.

Victory in Saint-Etienne ended a 24-year wait for the U.S. to reach the knockout phase and it will play Morocco in the quarterfinals in Paris on Friday.

First-half goals from Djordje Mihailovic and Paredes put the Americans on course for the next round. Paredes sealed the win with his second after the break.

The U.S. advanced in second place behind Group A winner France, which beat New Zealand 3-0.

France plays Argentina in the quarterfinals in a repeat of the World Cup final in 2022. The game is in Bordeaux on Friday.

France stays undefeated

France remained undefeated at the Olympics with a 3-0 victory over New Zealand in Marseille, to advance atop its group

France captain Jean-Philippe Mateta came down the left side and clipped the ball into the far corner in the 19th minute. He celebrated by high-fiving Rayan Cherki and the French fans in the crowd.

France made it 2-0 on Desire Doue’s goal in the 71st minute. Arnaud Kalimuendo added a third some three minutes later.

Goalkeeper Obed Nkambadio made a leaping save in stoppage time to preserve the clean sheet.

New Zealand was eliminated with the loss. The OlyWhites, as they are known, had advanced to the quarterfinals of the Tokyo Games but fell to Japan on penalties.

France won its lone Olympic gold medal in 1984.

Argentina advances

Thiago Almada scored a brilliant solo in Argentina’s 2-0 win over Ukraine.

Almada’s strike — two minutes into the second half in Lyon — set Argentina on course for the knockout phase with back-to-back wins following its shock opening defeat to Morocco. Claudio Echeverri sealed the win in the 91st minute.

But it was Almada’s goal that lit up the match. Collecting the ball just past the halfway line, he charged upfield before curling a shot past Ukraine goalkeeper Kiril Fesiun from around 25 yards.

Echeverri pounced to convert on the rebound to make it 2-0 after Fesiun had made a late save.

Morocco advanced as Group B winner after beating Iraq 3-0 in Nice.

Morocco and Argentina were level on points and had identical goal difference and goals scored. It meant Morocco took first place by virtue of its 2-1 win over Argentina at the start of the tournament, which included a delay of around two hours after Moroccan fans rushed the field.

Morocco raced to a 3-0 lead before halftime against Iraq.

Amir Richardson opened the scoring in the 19th and Soufiane Rahimi scored his fourth goal of the Games in the 28th

Abde Ezzalzouli made it 3-0 in the 36th.

Play was briefly suspended during the second half after a man holding a Palestinian flag invaded the pitch. He was swiftly removed by police. Several dozen riot police were then deployed along the field to prevent further incidents.

Egypt stuns Spain

Ibrahim Adel scored a pair of goals and Egypt advanced to the men’s soccer quarterfinals of the Paris Olympics atop its group by beating Spain 2-1 on Tuesday.

Spain had already reached the knockout round and was vying for a first-place finish in Group C but was instead leapfrogged by determined Egypt in Bordeaux.

In the other match of the group, the Dominican Republic played to a 1-1 tie with Uzbekistan, which had already been eliminated. The draw in Paris was not enough to get the Dominican Republic into the next round.

The quarterfinal matchups won’t be determined until Wednesday’s games are complete. The top two teams in each of the four groups advance.

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Adel’s first goal came off a cross from Zizo late in the first half. His second came in the 62nd minute, when he worked around Spanish goalkeeper Alejandro Iturbe, who had come forward to stop him.

Samu Omorodion scored for Spain in the final moments of regulation but the comeback fell short.

In the group’s other match, Rafael Nunez converted on a penalty early in the second half to put the Dominican Republic in front, but Alisher Odilov tied it in the 58th.

AP Sports writers Anne M. Peterson in Marseille and Barbara Surk in Nice contributed to this report.

​ Orange County Register 

Stellantis offers US employees buyouts in new round of job cuts

• July 30, 2024

By Albertina Torsoli and Gabrielle Coppola | Bloomberg

Stellantis NV will offer voluntary buyouts to US employees as the carmaker looks to cut costs amid slumping profits.

Non-unionized US workers from vice president level and below in certain functions can opt for the package, which is intended to “assist those interested in pursuing other career options or retirement,” Stellantis said in a message sent on Tuesday to employees that was seen by Bloomberg. There will be no minimum service requirement to be eligible for the offer, unlike previous programs, the letter said.

A Stellantis media representative declined to comment on the total number of job cuts targeted.

Automakers including the maker of Jeep SUVs and Ram pickups are under pressure from waning demand from consumers squeezed by rising expenses and huge investments needed to electrify their vehicles. First-half earnings fell sharply at the Amsterdam-based automaker as soft demand fueled lower vehicle sales in the US and Europe.

Chief Executive Officer Carlos Tavares has pledged a further €500 million ($540 million) in savings in the second half compared with the first six months of 2024.

The company has also already cut about 400 salaried engineering jobs in the US earlier this year. Stellantis, increasingly criticized by analysts for its lack of innovative new car models, on Tuesday announced it has started shipments of China-made Leapmotor vehicles to European ports.

The Stellantis letter was reported earlier by Automotive News.

​ Orange County Register 

You can’t escape climate change, but in some areas, risk is lower

• July 30, 2024

By Anna Helhoski | NerdWallet

Climate change is frightening, inconvenient, expensive and, increasingly, deadly. And there’s really no escape.

In this year alone, the U.S. has had a myriad of natural hazards worsened by climate change: the earliest recorded Category 5 hurricane to make landfall; floods throughout the country; record-breaking heat everywhere; tornadoes in the Midwest; and wildfires in the West. The La Nina weather pattern is expected to arrive soon, which is likely to fuel storms in the Atlantic during this year’s hurricane season.

Climate change amplifies the frequency, duration and intensity of extreme weather events. It can cause all kinds of disruptions and health hazards while driving up expenses like heating, cooling and homeowners insurance.

Get hammered enough by amplified weather events and you might wonder if there’s somewhere a little less hazard-prone to live. While there is no place on Earth that is immune to the impact of climate change, some places are less exposed to risk than others.

Last year, NerdWallet examined federal data and found that most of the fastest-growing places in the U.S. are also at high risk for natural hazards that are exacerbated by climate change. This year, we explored which places — in this case, counties — are least likely to feel the impact of natural hazards.

Isolation doesn’t guarantee fewer risks — just fewer people

If you rank places only by Federal Emergency Management Agency rating, the counties in the U.S. with the lowest risks are the places with the fewest people.

At the top of that list is Loving County in North Texas, where just 64 people reside — the least populous county in the country. No. 2 is Kalawao, Hawaii, which was originally established as an area of forced isolation for people with Hansen’s disease, or what was once more colloquially known as a leper colony. And No. 3 is Keweenaw, Michigan, a peninsula containing a national park where, as the county’s website says, you can “find solitude in the pristine, remote wilderness while sharing trails with the island’s moose and wolves.”

However, solitude doesn’t make for the best measure of risk from natural hazards. FEMA’s risk index takes population into account as part of social and community risk when it makes its risk designations — it stands to reason that the fewer the people, the lower the risk. But, of course, the natural hazards are still there: North Texas isn’t immune from extreme heat, tornadoes or extreme thunderstorms, for example. A Hawaiian island won’t be immune from a hurricane, earthquake, flash flood, wildfire or tsunami. And any area that is designated a peninsula, like Keweenaw, Michigan, is highly likely to be flood-prone.

While FEMA’s National Risk Index measures current risk, it must be noted that extreme weather effects are projected to worsen as the planet continues to warm on our current trajectory, and in coming decades, coastal flooding will increase as sea levels rise.

Note also that FEMA’s ratings consider not only the kinds of events that can be worsened by climate change (floods, droughts, wildfires, storms), but also natural hazards that aren’t affected by climate change, like earthquakes and volcanoes.

What midsize counties have the lowest climate change risks?

To get a better picture of what might make an area least vulnerable to natural hazards and still boast the creature comforts of basic infrastructure, NerdWallet set a population control of at least 100,000 people. It includes the annual cost of living in 2023 dollars, according to the Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator for households comprising two adults and two children.

What most populated counties have the lowest climate change risks?

People migrate to some of the most populated areas in the country for obvious reasons, like the availability of housing, jobs, entertainment and a desire for proximity to lots of other people.

Among the counties with populations above 1 million residents, here are the counties where the risk of natural hazards is lowest. The analysis also includes the annual cost of living in 2023 dollars, according to the Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator for households with two adults and two children.

No matter where you live, climate change will cost you

The terrible truth about climate change is that even if you uproot your life and move to a place with low risks of natural hazards, intense weather events are still likely to find you. For example, most of the relatively high risks in midsize counties have to do with winter weather. In some places, winters are becoming less severe, but in others, they are worsening. And one big event could be devastating.

In the U.S., extreme weather events cost nearly $150 billion per year, according to The Fifth National Climate Assessment, a report released in November 2023 by the federal government. That sum doesn’t account for additional costs including loss of life, health care costs, or damages to what are known as ecosystem services — for example, food, water, timber and oil. There’s a billion-dollar weather or climate disaster in the U.S. every three weeks, on average, the report found. That is compared with one every four months in the 1980s.

Despite all this, nearly half of all Americans (45%) don’t believe that climate change will affect them personally, according to a December 2023 survey by Yale University. So how about what a single person pays: Issues related to climate change will cost a child born in the U.S. in 2024 at least $500,000 — and as much as $1 million — over their lifetime due to indirect and direct costs (such as missed cost-of-living increases and lower earnings), according to an April analysis conducted by ICF, a global consulting firm, and released by Consumer Reports.

Some current and future costs are likely to include:

Homeowners insurance. If you’re a homeowner, you know all too well how heightened weather-related disaster risks play into your homeowners insurance premiums. In certain places where risk is highest, private insurers won’t provide coverage for floods and wildfires.
Home maintenance, upgrades and safeguards against climate risks. These could include installing a sump pump or resealing basement walls; upgrading insulation and windows; adding or enhancing heating or ventilation systems; roofing upgrades and more.
Energy bills. With increased heating and cooling needs come higher energy bills.
Food. Weather changes present challenges to food production, which could lower supply and increase prices.
Higher taxes due to more government spending and lower government revenues. The Consumer Reports report cites reduced personal and corporation earnings that lead to less tax revenue combined with higher expenses that the government must take on for health care and infrastructure damages.
Lower income. The Consumer Reports analysis cites a possible decrease in labor hours due to extreme weather, which may lead to lower earnings.

Climate migration within the U.S. is already happening. A 2021 survey by the real estate website Redfin found that among those who plan to move, half say climate change-fueled conditions like natural disasters and extreme temperatures are factors in their decision. There are expenses associated with uprooting your life and moving elsewhere — and those aren’t costs that everyone can afford.

Anna Helhoski writes for NerdWallet. Email: [email protected]. Twitter: @AnnaHelhoski.

The article You Can’t Escape Climate Change, but in Some Areas, Risk Is Lower originally appeared on NerdWallet.

​ Orange County Register 

Buena Park sales tax increase will be before voters in the fall

• July 30, 2024

Buena Park residents will decide in November whether to hike the city’s sales tax by 1% to boost funding for the local infrastructure and the Buena Park Police Department.

The City Council, in a unanimous vote last week, agreed that a new, long-term funding source is necessary for the city to afford repairing streets, improving community programs for senior citizens and hiring more police officers, among a myriad of other local services.

More on other local ballot measures

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San Clemente council to consider new proposal for adding a local sales tax on the November ballot
La Palma ballot measure could expand councilmembers’ term limits to 12 consecutive years
Huntington Beach voters to decide on housing charter amendment this November
Cypress is changing how it runs elections. Here’s what it means for November’s Election Day

The measure, called the “Buena Park Public Safety/Essential Services Measure,” will be placed on the Nov. 5 ballot. If passed, the city’s sales tax would increase from the current 7.75% — the minimum possible tax rate in Orange County — to 8.85%. Sales tax does not apply to groceries, medicine, medical, dental, real estate, rent, education and utilities.

According to an assessment of the Buena Park Police Department by an outside consulting firm, the city’s sworn officer count has remained the same for more than three decades, despite the number of residents increasing. That assessment recommended 25 new positions — 15 sworn and 10 non-sworn — to be added to the police force. Sworn law enforcement are armed and have arrest authority, while non-sworn personnel are unarmed and cannot take people into custody.

Assistant city manager Eddie Fenton said it would cost the city up to $6 million annually to sustain those new roles, not taking into account any necessary vehicle or equipment purchases, nor pension and benefits for new officers.

When asked by Councilmember Connor Traut whether the city could afford to hire more police with its current revenue, city manager Aaron France said “no.” He added that better parks and roads are also impossible with the current revenue.

The tax hike is expected to generate approximately $20 million annually for the city’s general revenue, Fenton said.

Traut stressed that a good chunk of the sales tax would be paid by non-residents. According to a July staff report, out-of-town visitors and other non-residents who visit local attractions such as Knott’s Berry Farm foot an estimated 42% of Buena Park sales tax.

“But every penny in new revenues would be spent on services that benefit residents, like road repair, well-maintained parks and better public safety,” the report said.

“It’s 1% more on some goods and services, to receive 20% more from their city every single year,” Traut said of the tax hike.

Councilmember Art Brown, a longtime resident of Buena Park, said the tax increase will benefit him when he’s off the dais.

“I will no longer be on the council when this takes effect, but this will benefit me as a resident,” said Brown, who’s in his last year on the Council. “The city desperately needs this funding, and I hope the citizens give it to us.”

The deadline for a city council to request placing a measure on the November ballot is Friday, Aug. 9.

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​ Orange County Register 

Spirit Airlines is going upscale, offering fares with extra perks

• July 30, 2024

By David Koenig | The Associated Press

Spirit Airlines is moving farther away from its history as a fee-happy budget airline and will start selling tickets that include some of its most popular extras in bundles.

The Florida-based airline said Tuesday the top ticket will be a “Go Big” package that includes priority check-in, a roomier seat, snacks and drinks, a checked bag, a carry-on bag and free WiFi.

Also see: Southwest Airlines to start assigning seats, breaking 50-year tradition

CEO Ted Christie said the changes are “taking low-fare travel to new heights.” They also indicate the deep trouble with Spirit’s longtime business model.

The airline with bright yellow planes hasn’t made a full-year profit since 2019 — it has lost nearly $2.4 billion since — leading industry analysts to mull whether a bankruptcy filing could be in Spirit’s future.

Full-service carriers Delta and United account for an outsized share of the U.S. airline industry’s profit, and they are doing it by focusing on premium flyers while also selling bare-bones “basic economy” fares that compete with Spirit, Frontier and Allegiant for travelers on tight budgets.

The budget carriers have suffered more than the giants from a glut of flights within the United States, which has led to price-cutting. Delta, United and American have a booming business right now in long-haul international flights that can offset weak pricing power at home. Spirit does not.

The budget carriers are trying to adapt. Frontier Airlines — which, like Spirit, has been losing money for more than four years — matched a pandemic-era move by the bigger airlines and dropped flight-change and cancellation fees for many customers this spring. Spirit quickly copied the move.

Spirit has other problems, including a looming debt payment of more than $1 billion and a shortage of planes because some of its jets are grounded for inspections and repairs of Pratt & Whitney engines. Spirit expects compensation of up to $200 million from the engine maker, but its condition is dire enough that Spirit announced in April it would furlough some pilots and delay delivery of new jets.

TD Cowen analysts downgraded Spirit shares to “Sell” this month and said if Spirit can’t renegotiate its debt or return leased planes to lessors, a pre-packaged bankruptcy filing is possible.

Spirit’s announcement Tuesday targets travelers who might not consider a budget airline.

It said customers will be able to book any of the four new ticket bundles starting Aug. 16. That means they won’t be available during the height of summer-vacation travel but will be in use over the busy Labor Day holiday.

“We listened to our guests and are excited to deliver what they want: choices for an elevated experience that are affordable and provide unparalleled value,” Christie said in a statement issued by Spirit.

Spirit shares gained 5% in afternoon trading but are down more than 80% this year.

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​ Orange County Register 

Stop offering subsidies for special groups

• July 30, 2024

California faces a serious housing shortage, which imposes financial burdens on residents from all walks of life. The Legislature and governor have – in a useful but limited manner – worked to address the root cause – building regulations that constrict housing construction. But officials have also doubled down on the costly approach of throwing subsidies at the problem.

Most “affordable” housing projects utilize government funding, even though it imposes unnecessary costs on projects (and on taxpayers) by requiring union-only Project Labor Agreements and other mandates. The Wall Street Journal reported that a developer who rejected subsidies built a Los Angeles low-income project for half the per-unit costs of projects relying on bond funding. That reminds us that these subsidies are inflationary.

Yet California officials haven’t learned the requisite lesson. In 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation (Assembly Bill 3308) that “permits school districts and developers in receipt of local or state funds or tax credits designated for affordable rental housing to restrict occupancy to teachers and school district employees.” A 2016 law first started this concept.

Districts sometimes have problems attracting teachers, but that speaks to the need for a proper salary system (merit pay, etc.). Given the administrative costs in building these projects, it would be better to just, you know, offer direct rent subsidies for employees who might need them.

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“There is also a bill currently wending its way through the Legislature that would expand the type of people who can live in school district housing to include employees of non-profit groups that work with the district,” notes Thomas Buckley in the California Globe. “So why is discount teacher housing a ‘thing’ if they – on average – make more than other people?” That’s the key question.

Government agencies are picking winners and losers – and not just poor people, but specified groups of government and perhaps non-profit employees. And what happens when recipients decide to leave the district’s employ? Instead of embracing complex and expensive solutions, officials need to reduce barriers to building so that everyone has a chance to find an affordable home or apartment.

​ Orange County Register 

How Harris and Trump differ on artificial intelligence policy

• July 30, 2024

By MATT O’BRIEN and SARAH PARVINI AP Technology Writers

Two days after President Joe Biden signed a sweeping executive order on artificial intelligence last year, Vice President Kamala Harris brought the wonky document to a global AI summit, telling an international audience what set the U.S. apart in its approach to AI safety.

In an event meant to address the potential catastrophes posed by futuristic forms of AI, Harris made waves by pivoting to present-day concerns — and the need to codify protections quickly without stifling innovation.

“When a senior is kicked off his healthcare plan because of a faulty AI algorithm, is that not existential for him?” Harris told a crowd in London last November. “When a woman is threatened by an abusive partner with explicit deepfake photographs, is that not existential for her?”

Now, she’s running for president and her chief opponent, former President Donald Trump, has said he wants to “cancel” the Biden order. Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, also brings his own views on AI, which are influenced by his ties to some Silicon Valley figures pushing to limit AI regulation.

AI’s growing visibility in everyday life has made it a popular discussion topic but hasn’t yet elevated it to a top concern for American voters. But this could be the first presidential election where the candidates are crafting competing visions on how to guide American leadership over the fast-developing technology.

Here are the candidates’ records on AI:

Trump’s approach

Biden signed his AI executive order last Oct. 30, and soon after Trump was signaling on the campaign trail that, if re-elected, he’d do away with it. His pledge was memorialized in the platform of this month’s Republican National Convention.

“We will repeal Joe Biden’s dangerous Executive Order that hinders AI Innovation, and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology,” says Trump’s platform. “In its place, Republicans support AI Development rooted in Free Speech and Human Flourishing.”

The Trump campaign didn’t respond to a requests for more details.

Trump didn’t spend much time talking about AI during his four years as president, though in 2019 he became the first to sign an executive order about AI. It directed federal agencies to prioritize research and development in the field.

Before that, tech experts were pushing the Trump-era White House for a stronger AI strategy to match what other countries were pursuing. In 2017, not long before Google quietly introduced a research breakthrough helping to set the foundation of the technology now known as generative AI, then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin brushed aside concerns about AI displacing jobs, saying that prospect was so far in the future that “it’s not even on my radar screen.”

That perspective later shifted, with Trump’s top tech adviser telling corporate leaders in 2018 that AI-fueled job displacement is “inevitable” and that “we can’t sit idle, hoping eventually the market will sort it out.” The 2019 order called on federal agencies to “protect civil liberties, privacy and American values” in applying AI technologies, and to help workers gain relevant skills.

Trump also in the waning weeks of his administration signed an executive order promoting the use of “trustworthy” AI in the federal government. Those policies carried over into the Biden administration.

Harris’ approach

The debut of ChatGPT nearly halfway through Biden’s presidential term made it impossible for politicians to ignore AI. Within months, Harris was convening the heads of Google, Microsoft and other tech companies at the White House, a first step down a path that brought leading developers to agree to voluntary commitments to ensure their technology won’t put people’s rights and safety at risk.

Then came Biden’s AI order, which used Korean War-era national security powers to scrutinize high-risk commercial AI systems but was mostly directed at safeguarding the government’s use of the technology and setting standards that could foster commercial adoption. Unlike the European Union, however, the U.S. still has no broad rules on AI — something that would require Congress to pass.

Harris already brought to the White House a deep understanding of Silicon Valley, having grown up and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area and later served as California’s attorney general, where she forged relationships with some tech leaders, said Alondra Nelson, former director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Even before ChatGPT, Nelson led the White House efforts to draft a blueprint for an AI “bill of rights” to guard against the technology’s potential harms. But it was the speech at the Global Summit on AI Safety in London where Harris brought all those threads together and “articulated to the world what American AI strategy was,” Nelson said.

Harris said she and Biden “reject the false choice that suggests we can either protect the public or advance innovation.” And while acknowledging a need to consider existential threats to humanity, Harris emphasized “the full spectrum of AI risk.”

“She kind of opened the aperture of the conversation about potential AI risks and harms,” Nelson said.

Vance and the VCs

Trump’s pick of the former venture capitalist Vance as running mate added a new element to the differences between the campaigns. So did Trump’s newfound endorsements from a group of AI-focused tech leaders including Elon Musk and the venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.

Vance has acknowledged some harmful AI applications, but said at a July Senate hearing that he worries that concern is justifying “some preemptive overregulation attempts that would frankly entrench the tech incumbents that we already have.”

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Andreessen, who sits on the board of Meta Platforms, has criticized a provision of Biden’s order that requires government scrutiny of the most powerful and ostensibly risky AI systems if they can perform a certain number of mathematical calculations per second.

On a podcast with business partner Horowitz explaining their support of Trump, Andreessen said he was concerned with “the idea that we’re going to deliberately hamstring ourselves through onerous regulations while the rest of the world lights up on this, and while China lights up on this.”

Horowitz read aloud the RNC call to repeal Biden’s order, saying “that sounds like a good plan to me” and noting that he and Andreessen had discussed the proposals with Trump at a dinner.

Trump met with another group of VCs in a video podcast in June, sharing their view that AI leadership will require huge amounts of electricity — a perspective he shared again on the RNC stage where he said it will require “twice the electricity that’s available now in our country.” It was his sole mention of AI in the 92-minute speech.

Are they that different on AI?

Much is still unknown, including to what extent either Harris or the Trump-Vance ticket will heed the opinions of their competing wings of Silicon Valley support.

While the rhetorical differences are sharpening, “there’s a lot of similarity” between how the Trump and Biden administrations approached AI policy, said Aaron Cooper, senior vice president of global policy for BSA The Software Alliance, which advocates for software companies including Microsoft.

Voters haven’t yet heard much detail about how a Harris or second Trump administration would change that.

“What we’ll continue to see as the technology develops and as new issues arise, regardless of who’s in the White House, they’ll be looking at how we can unleash the most good from AI while reducing the most harm,” Cooper said. “That sounds obvious, but it’s not an easy calculation.”

​ Orange County Register