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Businesses are making good money. And that’s the strong currency behind their rising valuation. I know that experts always talk about various political or economic factors, like the China trade, or what the Fed’s gonna do, peace in the Middle East, or why might New York City elect a communist mayor. I’m not sayin’ these things don’t matter. And in most cases, President Trump is carving out success after success. So it’s a good backdrop for stocks. Fundamentally, the stock is only worth what someone will pay for it, and the overall market with millions of investors using their wisdom…

Zoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan believes that AI assistants will finally allow us to shorten our workweek. Speaking on stage at the TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 conference on Monday, Yuan discussed his videoconferencing product’s embrace of AI, which includes a “digital twin” feature where an AI avatar can speak for you. Yuan began using his AI avatar in an earnings call with investors this year, demonstrating the technology’s potential and ability to push the “boundaries of communication,” he said. At Disrupt, the exec emphasized spending a lot of time talking about AI and the right products to bring to market.…

Tonight’s featured Halloween decorations are at Zachary‘s house on Alki – and they’re not the only one on the block: “Multiple displays along 64th; there’s also dueling pirate-themed displays between ours and the neighbors across the street.” And for trick-or-treating, he adds, “We’re also registered on the Teal Pumpkin Project Map.” (If you’re participating in the Teal Pumpkin Project too, please let us know – we’ll have a list in our calendar for Halloween.) Meantime, still room for a few more decoration photos before Friday night – westseattleblog@gmail.com if you haven’t sent yours yet – thank you! (Scroll through the…

Check out what’s clicking on FoxBusiness.com. Amazon is planning to cut nearly 10% of its corporate workforce beginning Tuesday as part of an internal restructuring, Reuters reported, citing three sources. The reported layoffs, affecting roughly 30,000 employees, would mark the largest reduction in Amazon’s corporate workforce in the company’s history, surpassing the roughly 27,000 positions eliminated in late 2022 and early 2023, according to layoff tracking site Layoffs.fyi.Sources told Reuters that Amazon has been working to reduce expenses and correct overhiring that took place during the pandemic’s surge in demand.  The cuts may impact several divisions, including Human Resources, known…

The Alan Turing Institute Chair has told the BBC there is “no substance” to a number of serious accusations which rocked the organisation in the summer.In August, whistleblowers accused the charity’s leadership of misusing public funds, overseeing a “toxic internal culture”, and failing to deliver on its mission.They said the Turing Institute, the UK’s national body for artificial intelligence (AI), was on the brink of collapse after Peter Kyle, the then technology secretary, threatened to withdraw its £100m funding.But speaking exclusively to the BBC, Chair Dr Doug Gurr said the whistleblower claims were “independently investigated” by a third party which…

For those who appreciate numbers … updated results from two of the events we covered while they were in progress over the weekend: (Sunday photo by Oliver Hamlin for WSB) CHILI COOKOFF: The West Seattle Junction Harvest Festival‘s tastiest event brought in $5,700 for the West Seattle Food Bank, WSFB’s Robbin Peterson tells WSB. (If you missed the winner announcement in our as-it-happened festival coverage on Sunday – The Westy got the most votes, followed by Husky Deli and Easy Street>.) (Saturday photo by WSB’s Anne Higuera) DRUG TAKEBACK DAY: Southwest Precinct fill-in crime-prevention coordinator Matthew Brown reports that on…

Niles Investment Management founder and portfolio manager Dan Niles discusses Tesla’s potential $1 trillion compensation plan for Elon Musk on ‘The Claman Countdown.’ Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, launched its early version of Grokipedia Monday, which is said to be an AI-generated encyclopedia to compete with Wikipedia. The billionaire Tesla founder, who has long criticized Wikipedia for what he calls “editorial bias,” previously described Grokipedia as a more “truthful and independent alternative.” FOX NEWS AI NEWSLETTER: TRUMP ORDER HARNESSES AI TO FIGHT CHILDHOOD CANCER A 3D-printed miniature model of Elon Musk and the xAI logo is seen in this illustration…

Astro Teller, CEO of X, Alphabet’s “moonshot factory,” where the company incubates the nearly impossible, shared a look into what makes a moonshot and detailed the company’s “fail fast” mantra at the TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 conference on Monday. Notable companies that started out as moonshots from X’s moonshot factory include Waymo and Wing. Teller noted that X has a “2% hit rate,” which means that most of the things the company tries don’t work out, and that’s okay. He said X defines a moonshot as having three specific components. The first is that it needs to attempt to solve a…

The blustery winds and widespread power outage that left some bars darkened and some bars miraculously still lit somewhat dampened the Hilloweekend spirit. The calendar may have also had something to do with it. The weekend before Halloween on Capitol Hill often brings some of the most intense revelry of the holiday — especially when October 31st falls on, say, a Wednesday or a Thursday. But in 2025 when Halloween aligns with a Friday night, the sexy ghosts, sexy bats, sexy Spidermen, sexy witches, sexy warlocks, sexy Bugonias, and sexy Zohran Mamdanis seem to have been mostly keeping their powder…

Democrats grappled Monday with the first major fraying of their coalition amid the government shutdown, with a federal employee union calling for them to stand down four weeks into the standoff. There was no immediate surrender from party leaders, but the union’s plea forced many Democratic lawmakers into a defensive crouch. Their No. 2 Senate leader said it would be a subject of internal conversations this week with bipartisan talks all but ground to a halt. “It has a lot of impact. They’ve been our friends,” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told reporters Monday, adding that Democrats “take them seriously.” The…