Aurelia Butler

Kelly Pieklo and Listen and follow DealBook SummitApple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon MusicDealBook Summit includes conversations with business and policy leaders at the heart of today’s major stories, recorded live at the annual DealBook Summit event in New York City.DealBook Summit 2024 took place on Wednesday in New York. Andrew Ross Sorkin sat down with some of the most important business and policy leaders of the year for an open discussion. Listen to a selection of the speakers.Bill ClintonBill Clinton Says ‘There Was No Plan’ After Biden Dropped OutThe 42nd president of the United States discusses the Democratic Party’s election loss, the chaotic moments after President Biden dropped out of the race, and Mr. Biden’s decision to pardon his son.Sam AltmanSam Altman on the Future of A.I. and SocietyWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

The economy, inflation, tariffs, the future of media, pardon politics and other big topics that made headlines this year.Jeff Bezos was cautiously optimistic that President-elect Donald Trump would be more measured in his second term.Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesFour takeaways from the DealBook Summit The U.S. election dominated the news agenda this year, and the two people at the center of Donald Trump’s win came up in nearly every conversation yesterday at the DealBook Summit. The president-elect and Elon Musk may not have been in the room, but questions about how they will shape business and politics were front and center.The general view of the day was cautious optimism, even among those who had publicly criticized Trump and Musk — or been targeted by them.But many questions remain. What will Trump and Musk mean for government, business and the economy? Will they succeed in cutting regulation and government spending? And will they go after their perceived enemies and rivals?Here are four big themes from this year’s event.What will happen with the economy?Most of the speakers were willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, or at least played down worries about his most disruptive policy ideas.Jay Powell, the Fed chair, addressed one of the biggest questions hanging over the next administration: Will the president-elect go after the central bank’s independence? No, Powell said emphatically. The Fed, he said, was created by Congress and its autonomy is “the law of the land.”“There is very, very broad support for that set of ideas in Congress in both political parties, on both sides of the Hill, and that’s what really matters,” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

The Israeli military said it was targeting senior Hamas militants in the area. Video from the scene showed the charred remains of tents.The Israeli military bombed a densely populated tent encampment on Wednesday night in an area of southern Gaza that it had designated as a humanitarian zone, saying the airstrike targeted senior Hamas militants who were operating in the area.Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s news agency, reported that at least 20 people were killed and several others wounded in the strike on a coastal area in southern Gaza known as Al-Mawasi, where thousands of displaced Palestinians are sheltering. The death toll could not be independently verified.The Israeli military said in a statement that there were secondary explosions after the strike, suggesting “the presence of weaponry in the area.” It added that it took steps to mitigate the risk of civilian harm. Israel is trying to eliminate Hamas, which led the attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war in Gaza, and it says Hamas militants hide among Gaza’s civilian population.The Palestinian civil defense in Gaza said in a statement on Wednesday evening that its rescue and emergency crews were trying to extinguish a fire that engulfed the tents of displaced people after the strike.The aftermath of the strike on Thursday.Haitham Imad/EPA, via ShutterstockVideo taken in the aftermath of the strike by the Reuters news agency showed people walking through the mangled and charred remains of their makeshift tents on Thursday morning, with smoke rising from piles of clothes, mattresses and other belongings.“The flames of the missile were the cause of almost all of this destruction,” Ahmed Abu Shahla, a displaced man sheltering in Al-Mawasi, told Reuters. “There were two children here in this place who were completely burned.”Abu Kamal al-Assar, another displaced Palestinian who survived the strike, told Reuters that “it was a big and scary explosion” that turned the area “into a fireball.”Al-Mawasi was designated as safer for civilians by Israel’s military. But Israel has also said that it will target Hamas or its infrastructure wherever it believes it to be and the area has frequently been hit by strikes.The military has repeatedly ordered Palestinians in other areas of Gaza to evacuate to the humanitarian zone, despite protests from aid groups that the area lacks adequate shelter, water, food, sanitation and health care. More

President-elect Trump announced on Wednesday night that he had chosen Frank Bisignano, the chairman of the payment processing behemoth Fiserv, to be the commissioner of the Social Security Administration, a sizable federal agency with more than 1,200 field offices and almost 60,000 employees.“Frank is a business leader, with a tremendous track record of transforming large corporations,” the president-elect said in a post on social media. “He will be responsible to deliver on the Agency’s commitment to the American People.”Mr. Bisignano vaulted into one of the most coveted positions in the New York finance world in his late 20s as a senior vice president of what was then known as Shearson Lehman Brothers, the investment bank whose collapse in 2008 helped set off a global recession. After nearly five years at the bank in the late 1980s, he moved to other major Wall Street banks, first to Morgan Stanley, then to Citigroup and then JPMorgan Chase & Company.Mr. Bisignano was listed as the second-highest-paid chief executive in the country in 2017, one of the few to have been compensated more than $100 million that year and to have received more than 2,000 times the average employee’s salary at his firm, First Data Corporation, which later merged with Fiserv.Mr. Bisignano has a long history of political giving, mainly to Republicans. Federal campaign finance reports show that his wife, Tracy Bisignano, donated nearly $1 million to Mr. Trump’s campaign in October. But in November 2023, he had thrown $15,000 behind the presidential campaign of Chris Christie, a Republican former governor of New Jersey who ran on an anti-Trump bid but later dropped out of the race.Earlier on Wednesday, Mr. Trump uploaded an elaborate biography of Mr. Bisignano to social media and congratulated him and his family without mentioning the post to which Mr. Bisignano was being named. The president-elect made a clarification an hour later, ending the speculation on what Mr. Bisignano’s next job would be. More

South Korea’s president, Yoon Suk Yeol, announced on Thursday that he had accepted the resignation of his defense minister, the first member of Mr. Yoon’s cabinet to lose his job since the president’s short-lived declaration of martial law on Tuesday night stunned the country.The defense minister, Kim Yong-hyun, had tendered his resignation on Wednesday, saying that he considered himself responsible for the crisis that the martial law decree had created for Mr. Yoon’s government. He did not directly address allegations among opposition lawmakers and local media that he had suggested the idea to Mr. Yoon.A statement from the presidential office said that Mr. Kim would be replaced by Choi Byung Hyuk, a retired army general who has been serving as South Korea’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia.Mr. Yoon withdrew the martial law declaration early Wednesday morning, after the National Assembly voted unanimously against it and protesters gathered to denounce the move. Opposition lawmakers later introduced a motion to impeach Mr. Yoon, which could be voted on as soon as Friday.If two-thirds of the 300 lawmakers in the National Assembly vote for the motion, Mr. Yoon will be impeached and suspended from office until the country’s Constitutional Court makes a final ruling on whether to reinstate or remove him. All 192 opposition lawmakers support impeachment, but they need at least eight votes from members of Mr. Yoon’s People Power Party to impeach him.The head of that party, Han Dong-hoon, said on Thursday that he would try to persuade its lawmakers to vote against impeachment, to prevent what he called national “confusion.”But at the same time, Mr. Han tried to distance the party from Mr. Yoon, calling his martial law decree “unconstitutional” and demanding that he give up his party membership. Mr. Han also said that military leaders who were involved in imposing martial law must be removed from their posts. He did not identify any commanders by name.“We must show to the military that if they get involved in an unconstitutional and illegal martial law, they will be punished immediately,” Mr. Han said.Gen. Park An-su, the army chief of staff, led the martial law command during the several hours before the decree was rescinded. Hundreds of troops were sent into the National Assembly in what opposition lawmakers called an “illegal” and “unconstitutional” attempt to stop them from voting against the decree. Staff members barricaded hallways with furniture and used fire extinguishers against troops to keep them from entering the voting chamber.Mr. Kim, the outgoing defense minister, said the troops had been following his orders when they entered the National Assembly. Mr. Yoon has insisted that martial law was needed to protect the country from disruptive political opposition that had paralyzed his administration.This is a developing story. More

The price of a single Bitcoin rose to six figures for the first time, an extraordinary level for a 16-year-old cryptocurrency once dismissed as a sideshow.In May 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz, an early cryptocurrency enthusiast, used Bitcoin to buy two pizzas from Papa John’s. He spent 10,000 Bitcoins, or roughly $40 at the time, in one of the first purchases ever made with the digital currency.It has turned out to be the most expensive dinner in history.On Wednesday, the price of a single Bitcoin rose to more than $100,000, a remarkable milestone for an experimental financial asset that had once been mocked as a sideshow and a fad. The total cost of those pizzas today: $1 billion.Bitcoin now stands as arguably the most successful investment product of the last 20 years. The value of all the coins in circulation is $2 trillion, more than the combined worth of Mastercard, Walmart and JPMorgan Chase. The motley assortment of hackers and political radicals who embraced Bitcoin when it was created by an anonymous coder in 2008 have become millionaires many times over. And the invention has spawned an entire industry anchored by publicly traded companies like Coinbase, a cryptocurrency exchange, and promoted by celebrities, athletes and Elon Musk.Even the president-elect says he is a believer. During the campaign, Donald J. Trump marketed himself as a Bitcoin enthusiast, vowing to create a federal stockpile that could push its price even higher.

Note: As of 10 p.m. Eastern on Dec. 4Source: Investing.comBy The New York TimesBitcoin began as “essentially an experimental hobbyist project,” said Finn Brunton, the author of a 2019 book about the history of cryptocurrency. “To see where it is now is to see a really impressive feat.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Garrett Chalfin turns us every which way and teaches us an important lesson.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTHURSDAY PUZZLE — People turn to crossword puzzles for all sorts of reasons, including the soothing effect they can have on us when life feels out of control. I understand that some themes may drive solvers up a wall, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the comforting feeling of methodically filling in blank squares, being distracted from your problems and the joy of conquering a puzzle that you thought might conquer you. When you’ve completed it, a sense of control is restored, even if it’s just for awhile.Constructors can feel that happiness and sense of satisfaction, too. After filling their grids in a way that is pleasing to them and submitting their crosswords, receiving an acceptance from the puzzle editors can bring a joy that is hard to describe. I vividly remember my first acceptance, and that was 20 years ago. No matter where or how many times I was published, it never got old. Maybe some of the Wordplayers who are published constructors can explain the feeling in the comments.Allowing yourself to feel joy and to recall them when life is hard can be healing. Garrett Chalfin’s constructor notes provide an excellent lesson on coping with trauma. He tells a story about how, after a harrowing experience, the habit of substituting a happy memory for intrusive thoughts under the guidance of a therapist helped him begin his healing process.I think his story will resonate with a lot of people. No matter where you are in life, everyone can use more coping tools.Today’s ThemeMr. Chalfin’s puzzle uses the Pixar film “INSIDE OUT” (62A) to give us a hint at how to read the five theme entries, all of which contain gray squares.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

President-elect Donald J. Trump chose Kelly Loeffler, a top donor to Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign and a former Georgia senator, to head the Small Business Administration.“Kelly will bring her experience in business and Washington to reduce red tape, and unleash opportunity for our Small Businesses to grow, innovate, and thrive,” Mr. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Wednesday. “She will focus on ensuring that SBA is accountable to Taxpayers by cracking down on waste, fraud, and regulatory overreach.”Ms. Loeffler has little experience in public service. She was appointed to fill a vacated Senate seat in Georgia by Gov. Brian Kemp, serving from early 2020 until she was defeated in a special election by the Rev. Raphael Warnock in January 2021. In the final days of her Senate career, Ms. Loeffler played a prominent role in Mr. Trump’s effort to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election.Ms. Loeffler underwent a significant political transformation during the first Trump administration. She had been seen as a moderate, business-oriented Republican when she was appointed to the Senate — a move viewed by many as an effort to make the Georgia Republican Party more widely appealing.But Ms. Loeffler made a hard-right turn in office, portraying herself as a fervent supporter of and rubber stamp for Mr. Trump as she prepared to defend her seat in the 2020 race. Mr. Warnock ultimately won by two percentage points in a runoff election.If confirmed by the Senate, Ms. Loeffler would lead an agency that is responsible for delivering billions in loans and disaster assistance to small businesses across the country. The S.B.A. played a major role during the Covid-19 pandemic, when it distributed hundreds of billions of dollars to help businesses stay open and continue paying their employees.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More