Intel’s Arc GPUs won’t just be for PC gamers. The company is expanding the graphics line to also target professional users, such as 3D artists and architects.
The company is doing so through a new “Arc Pro A-series” range of GPUs, which Intel announced on Monday. They’re slated to arrive for both desktop and laptop workstations, which will put them head-to-head with rival GPUs from Nvidia and AMD.
To target laptops, Intel is preparing the Arc Pro A30M GPU. For desktops, the company is planning the A40, a single-slot graphics card, and the A50, a dual-slot card. Both will be meant for “small-form factor” PCs, suggesting they’ll operate as lower-end GPUs.
Intel’s announcement was mum on details, including specs, pricing, and an exact launch date. But the Pro series will feature “built-in ray tracing hardware, machine learning capabilities, and industry-first AV1 hardware encoding acceleration,” the company said.
Intel added that the first Arc Pro A-series GPUs will arrive sometime later this year through “leading mobile and desktop ecosystem partners.” So it sounds like the desktop Arc Pro graphics cards will only be available inside pre-built workstation PCs.
The current challenge facing Intel’s Arc series has been limited product availability. The company has been slow to launch the gaming-focused Arc GPUs outside Asia amid rumors of sagging support from third-party vendors. The other issue has been optimizing the Arc GPUs to play well with older PC games.
That said, Intel insists that the first Arc desktop GPUs will launch globally before the end of Q3. In the meantime, the company plans on demoing the first Arc Pro A-series GPUs later today during SIGGRAPH, the annual computers graphics conference, in Vancouver, Canada.
The company also noted that Intel Arc Pro GPUs are “targeting certifications with leading professional software applications within the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC), and design and manufacturing (D&M) industries.”
While Cartwright walked away from negotiations with a $600,000 package that included expenses – higher than any other trade commissioner – Brown said he had expected $800,000 when his appointment was transferred to her agency from NSW Treasury.
“There seemed to be unmatched expectations between the candidate and what I saw as within my delegation to be able to sign off on,” she told the inquiry during her third appearance.
“I had to deliver some hard messages to the candidate, [that] some of the conversations that had happened previously weren’t going to turn out to be the reality.”
Brown said she did not know where Cartwright’s expectations had come from, since she was not able to pay more than $487,000 under the government sector employment act.
“In my mind, it was a difference in interpretation. [But] rereading the correspondence, I can’t be certain of that,” she said.
Brown said she had conversations with then-premier Gladys Berejiklian and then-treasurer Dominic Perrottet’s offices because she thought a “salary that high for any public service role is ridiculous”.
She said Berejiklian’s office agreed that the figure – which Labor said would have made Cartwright the state’s second-highest paid public servant – was unrealistic.
However, Perrottet’s chief of staff Bran Black told her to consider paying a “private sector size salary”.
“He said, you know, we haven’t had anyone in the country for a long time and let’s make sure we choose someone of high caliber.”
“[It was a] strong opinion,” Brown said. “I got the impression that I should consider the candidate’s requests very seriously.”
In a statement after Brown’s evidence, Black said he made it clear that while the “trade commissioner roles were very important and represented an excellent opportunity for the state”, $800,000 was an excessive salary.
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Instead, he said he suggested a base salary of $400,000 and an incentive component of $200,000. “I did not tell Ms Brown to pay Mr Cartwright at private sector levels. I did not tell Ms Brown that she should take her remuneration requests seriously,” Black said. He also did not raise it with Perrottet, who was a treasurer at the time.
Brown said her negotiations with Cartwright felt “threatening” when they continued into October, after Perrottet had become premier.
“It was at that point he was saying that he would talk to [Department of Premier and Cabinet secretary] Michael Coutts-Trotter, or even the minister or the premier,” she said.
“It was actually the name of the premier that jumped out at me… I found it quite threatening.”
Brown told the inquiry that Cartwright sought the intervention of Ayres via WhatsApp in March this year, regarding his concerns about how his pay was structured.
She said it was “highly inappropriate” for him to go above her head as an employer, but that Ayres did not exert any pressure.
“[Ayres] contacted me and said: Look, you can do what you like because Mr Cartwright is your employee, I just want to give you a heads up [that] I’ve got this message,” she said.
“I’m not telling you what to do and I really don’t care about the outcome, basically.”
Brown said she later made “a few passing comments” about the issue to her boss, Coutts-Trotter. “It was more of a whinge,” she said.
the herald sent questions to Cartwright through his employer, Investment NSW. A spokesperson said the agency was unable to comment.
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Republicans are not yet sweating the idea of abortion issues swaying the midterm elections in favor of Democrats. But with Kansas voters decisively rejecting an anti-abortion ballot initiative, the room is getting warmer.
National GOP groups are brushing off the idea that the Kansas vote last week is a warning sign for November, confident that concerns about economic issues prevail as the driving force in the election.
“The economic mess Democrats created by ignoring their own economists and saddling Americans with record-high prices is the number one issue in every competitive district,” National Republican Congressional Committee communications director Michael McAdams said in a statement when asked about implications of the Kansas measure .
The Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), which works to elect state and down-ballot Republicans, commissioned a poll in 15 states just after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization striking down national abortion rights and found that 56 percent of voters named the cost of living or the economy as their most important issue, while only 8 percent named abortion.
When asked about the Kansas vote in a Newsmax interview last week, RSLC President Dee Duncan said that the economy is what is going to drive Republican wins.
Below the surface, however, Republicans are keeping an eye on how the abortion issue is affecting voter behavior, and some see risks for their candidates.
“Republicans are right to be nervous about it. But I think we still need to see more of a breakdown on the vote on, you know, who the voters were that were turning out given the margin,” Doug Heye, a veteran Republican operative, said about the Kansas election.
“In the immediate aftermath, it’s hard to take absolute lessons from this that are takeaways to project towards November,” Heye said.
The Kansas vote was the first measure testing voter response on abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and the margin of the vote in a state that is reliably Republican in presidential elections surprised many observers: 59 percent voted against changing the state constitution to allow for potential future abortion restrictions, and 41 percent voted for it.
High turnout indicated a lot of voter enthusiasm on the issue. Unofficial results from the Kansas secretary of State’s office as of Friday showed 919,809 votes on the amendment, marking the highest number of primary votes since at least 2010 and a nearly 45 percent increase from the 2020 primary.
GOP Rep. Nancy Mace (SC) has been vocal in opposing a proposal in her state that would ban abortions without any exceptions for rape and incest. Mace, a sexual assault survivor herself, encourages other Republicans to support abortion exceptions and make that known as the Kansas measure indicates voter enthusiasm.
“Most people… they don’t want abortion up until birth for any reason. On the other side, exceptions and having some grace period is acceptable to most people. Seventy-five percent of the country wants some guardrails, but they don’t want the extremities of both sides. And Kansas is just a great example, being a red state,” Mace said.
She said that the abortion issue is “still light-years behind inflation” in terms of the top issues in her district, but that it could make a difference.
“This is definitely a top one and could be a factor in, I guess, driving momentum at the ballot,” Mace said.
A July Gallup poll found that abortion was the top issue in driving people to protest, surging 25 percent since the last time Gallup tested the question 2018.
Strategists note that voter behavior on a single-issue ballot measure is different than voters choosing between two candidates with a variety of views, and that general election voters may be less motivated by social issues.
Pro-abortion rights voters are more likely to be a factor for Republicans running in swing districts or competitive statewide races.
Even before the Kansas vote, however, some GOP candidates started to moderate their messaging on abortion restrictions.
Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Jenson, a physician, indicated in a May radio interview that he would support abortion exceptions only for the life of the mother, and not in cases of rape of incest. But last month, he showed support for more exceptions in a video with Republican lieutenant governor candidate Matt Birk outlining a plan that proposed increasing adoption tax credits and creating a paid family leave plan.
“If I’ve been unclear previously, I want to be clear now: Rape and incest along with endangering the mother’s mental or physical health are acceptable exceptions,” Jensen said in the video.
Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano, who in May told a reporter that a “baby deserves a right to life whether it is conceived in incest or rape,” in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade has called the issue of abortion a “distraction” and argued that he is not the decision-maker on the issue.
“In many ways, my personal views are irrelevant in the effect that I can’t do anything with abortion because it’s codified in law,” Mastriano said in a recent radio interview.
“I think people should be as specific on that issue as they’re able to be, because if they’re not the Democrats are just going to try and lump them into some, you know, supposed extreme category,” said a Republican campaign consultant who requested anonymity to speak candidly. “If you’re in a district or a state where perhaps you’re on the wrong side of that issue, being more specific can be helpful.”
Republicans with hard-line stances on abortion bans remain prominent in the party overall.
In Indiana last week, a majority of state House Republicans voted to support banning abortions in cases of rape and incest, and around half voted in favor of removing exceptions for abortion in cases of fetal abnormalities. The exceptions remained in a near-total abortion ban bill due to support from Democrats.
Those pursuing abortion bans without exceptions could pose a risk for other candidates in the November election.
“Republicans should want the conversation to always be about those things that have driven Biden’s approval rating down, and that starts with inflation. That’s rising crime. That’s the situation at the border,” Heye said. “So when you have, you know, state legislatures or you know, ballot initiatives that take Republicans’ eye off the ball, that’s politically going to be a mistake.”
EA explains why Skate went free-to-play…and the short answer is social interactions.
The main reason why most games go free-to-play is to maximize reach and microtransaction spending. This is certainly one of EA’s big motivations with Skate, which is indeed F2P and will also have microtransactions. EA makes billions every year from live services and Skate will feed into this stream.
Aside from the game’s business tactics, EA management gives more color, saying that Skate’s new F2P release will appeal and cater to a very specific age group: Gen Z and Gen Alpha, both of which are very much connected to live games.
“One of the most important growth potential that we have as a company is how we show up for Gen Z and Gen Alpha players, how they socially connect, how they consume content. There’s been a significant focus from the team on this,” EA Chief Operating Officer Laura Miele said during the Q1 earnings call.
“Back in the day, skate was a bit even ahead of its time. A lot of the core motivation around our skate experience was around creative self-expression and in social connection and competition. And we are bringing that to life in the biggest way we possibly can.”
EA CEO Andrew Wilson also had prepared remarks about these age demographics
“We continue to see Gen Alpha and Gen Z turning to games as their primary form of entertainment, consuming more content than any generation of the past. They love playing with friends. They stay connected with family. And they’re creating content at every turn, both in and around their entire gaming experience.
When we look at Skate, I think what happened is our ambitions have continued to grow. As you’ve seen what the team has been able to do around that experience, I think we continue to see opportunity.
Skateboarding is kind of a cultural language for many generations. It transcends so many things, certainly geography and as we think about the ability to bring a global community of youth together through the language of skateboarding, we think this represents one of the biggest and strongest opportunities we have to build a global online community deeply engaged. in a world that involves creativity both from us and from them experiencing what starts out as skateboarding and almost certainly reaches more deeply into the cultural sensibilities of a generation.
Covid-19 became the equal leading cause of death in New Zealand for the first time in July, overtaking stroke and drawing even with ischemic heart disease as the country’s No 1 killer.
Michael Baker, an epidemiologist and public health professor, said that for a period in July-August Covid appeared to be causing at least as many deaths as heart disease.
Baker said that in mid-July, Covid deaths made up almost 15% of overall deaths, referring to data analysis by the New Zealand Herald that compared confirmed Covid deaths against overall deaths in July. Baker said those deaths were likely to be slightly undercounted, as some people would have died of Covid-19 without being tested.
Baker said that toll would place Covid as “at least six times higher, it might be 10 times higher than the road toll”. If the pandemic’s current trajectory continued, annual Covid deaths would be about five times influenza deaths – the disease once used as “benchmark” for Covid 19. Heart disease typically accounts for about 15% of New Zealand deaths, and stroke about 8%.
“Mortality in this wave has reached a new peak in New Zealand,” Baker said. “[But] at the point where we’re seeing peak mortality, we’ve seen, seemingly, public interest and concern dropping to quite a low level – and I find that paradoxical. Of course we all want the pandemic finished, but we can’t wish it away.”
On Monday, the ministry of health reported 1,638 deaths had been attributable to Covid-19 since the outbreak began. Those are deaths where Covid was either the underlying cause of death or a contributing factor to death.
The ministry reported4,006 active cases of Covid-19 and 654 hospitalizations. Overall, Covid cases in New Zealand are trending down: the seven-day rolling average of case numbers was 5,288, compared with 6,990 last Monday. A child under the age of 10 was among the 13 daily deaths linked to Covid in the latest update.
Baker said that with Covid cases decreasing from a peak of infections in July, he would not expect it to remain the leading cause of death across the year, but it would probably be in the top two or three.
“At the moment excess mortality in New Zealand is running at about 10% above normal, so that’s consistent with something in the order of 3,000 deaths a year from Covid-19,” he said. “It’s not quite at that level [of heart disease] but it’s above strokes and all the leading cancers.”
If it continued, he said, it would “have a measurable impact on life expectancy in New Zealand”.
BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — The white man who fatally shot Ahmaud Arbery after chasing the 25-year-old Black man in a Georgia neighborhood was sentenced Monday to life in prison for committing a federal hate crime.
Travis McMichael was sentenced by US District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood in the port city of Brunswick. His punishment of him is largely symbolic, as McMichael was sentenced earlier this year to life without parole in a Georgia state court for Arbery’s murder.
Wood said McMichael had received a fair trial.
“And it’s not lost on the court that it was the kind of trial that Ahmaud Arbery did not receive before he was shot and killed,” the judge said.
Before the sentencing, she heard from members of Arbery’s family. Her mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, said she feels every shot that was fired at her son from her everyday.
“It’s so unfair, so unfair, so unfair that he was killed while he was not even committing a crime,” she said.
McMichael declined to address the court, but his attorney, Amy Lee Copeland, said her client had no convictions before Arbery’s slaying and had served in the US Coast Guard. She said a lighter sentence would be more consistent with what similarly charged defendants have received in other cases, noting that the officer who killed George Floyd in Minneapolis, Derek Chauvin, got 21 years in prison for violating Floyd’s civil rights, though he was not charged with targeting Floyd because of his race.
McMichael was one of three defendants convicted in February of federal hate crime charges. His father, Greg McMichael, and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan had sentencing hearings scheduled later Monday.
The McMichaels armed themselves with guns and used a pickup truck to chase Arbery after he ran past their home on Feb. 23, 2020. Bryan joined the pursuit in his own truck and recorded cellphone video of McMichael shooting Arbery with a shotgun as Arbery threw punches and grabbed at the weapon.
The McMichaels told police they suspected Arbery was a burglar. Investigators determined he was unarmed and had committed no crimes.
Arbery’s killing became part of a larger national reckoning over racial injustice and killings of unarmed Black people including Floyd and Breonna Taylor in Kentucky. Those two cases also resulted in the Justice Department bringing federal charges.
“The evidence we presented at trial proved … what so many people felt in their hearts when they watched the video of Ahmaud’s tragic and unnecessary death: This would have never happened if he had been white,” prosecutor Christopher Perras said before Travis McMichael was sentenced.
Greg McMichael and Bryan also face possible life sentences after a jury convicted them in February of federal hate crimes, concluding that they violated Arbery’s civil rights and targeted him because of his race. All three men were also found guilty of attempted kidnapping, and the McMichaels face additional penalties for using firearms to commit a violent crime.
A state Superior Court judge imposed life sentences for all three men in January for Arbery’s murder, with both McMichaels denied any chance of parole.
All three defendants have remained jailed in coastal Glynn County, in the custody of US marshals, while awaiting sentencing after their federal convictions in January.
Because they were first charged and convicted of murder in a state court, protocol would have turned them over to the Georgia Department of Corrections to serve their life terms in a state prison.
In a court filings last week, both Travis and Greg McMichael asked the judge to instead divert them to a federal prisonsaying they won’t be safe in a Georgia prison system that’s the subject of a US Justice Department investigation focused on violence between inmates.
Copeland said during Monday’s hearing for Travis McMichael that her client has received hundreds of threats that he will be killed as soon as he arrives at state prison and that his photo has been circulated there on illegal phones.
“I am concerned your honor that my client effectively faces a back door death penalty,” she said, adding that “retribution and revenge” were not sentencing factors, even for a defendant who is “publicly reviled.”
Arbery’s family insisted that Travis McMichael serve his sentence in a state prison. His father, Marcus Arbery Sr., said Travis McMichael had shown his son no mercy and served to “rot” in state prison.
“You killed him because he was a Black man and you hate Black people,” he said. “You deserve no mercy.”
Wood said she didn’t have the authority to order the state to relinquish custody of Travis McMichael to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, but also wasn’t inclined to do so in his case.
During the February hate crimes trial, prosecutors fortified their case that Arbery’s killing was motivated by racism by showing the jury roughly two dozen text messages and social media posts in which Travis McMichael and Bryan used racist slurs and made disparaging comments about Black people.
Defense attorneys for the three men argued the McMichaels and Bryan didn’t pursue Arbery because of his race but acted on an earnest — though erroneous — suspicion that Arbery had committed crimes in their neighborhood.
This is the Google Pixel 6a, but it’s also NOT what I think many of us have come to expect.
See, we’ve known this Pixel “a” series as the company’s most successful lineup ever, but it’s also more of a nod to the past. Just like the early days of the Pixel, the Nexus also started as a premium offering, only for things to not pan out, and for the company to shift strategies with the Nexus 4 in creating the world’s first flagship killer.
In sort-of the same approach, the Pixel 3a was a genius move. Instead of only focusing on one phone, you could choose between flagship and mid-ranger, with the benefit that great photography became a Pixel trait across the board. It was pretty irresistible at just $399, but then Google kept experimenting. Over the next two years we saw all Pixels tip completely to become mid-rangers, but then this year, it seems the formula is now to go hard on defying the establishment.
POCKETNOW VIDEO OF THE DAY
So sure, even if the Pixel 6a is a successor to every “a” variant we’ve seen before, it’s different because it’s not really a mid-ranger, and sure, I wouldn’t call it a flagship either. At a time when most heroes have lived long enough to become the villain, this phone is something else.
Let’s try to remember the flagship killer formula one more time. These all had flagship processors, powerful specs, and probably skimped out on things like the camera, certifications and a few other things, but then they were priced so aggressively you wouldn’t argue. Ok, that’s the Pixel 6 but with a great camera. I still think that is probably the best value for a phone right now, but then the Pixel 6a takes that approach even further.
It follows on the look and feel of his more-expensive brother in almost every way. It’s slightly smaller, but not necessarily a one-handed phone either. It shares the same flat aluminum rails but instead of a glass back, this is actually a thermoformed plastic composite that could’ve fooled me easily. Yet, the choice of materials and the footprint help it feel so good in the hand. After spending months complaining about the behemoth the Pixel 6 Pro was, this is like the answer to anyone left missing the Pixel 5.
Source: Pocketnow
Specs
Once you look into internals though, you’ll debate calling this a flagship killer, but mostly because of certain choices to keep the price down. Flagship processor, check. Decent amount of RAM, storage and battery, check. Latest 5G, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, check. It’s not until you get to the IP rating that you won’t get the same as others, but it’s here, but where things fall apart is in its lack of wireless charging, though if we’re fair, it has never been an A series Pixel trait. That said, if you came here looking for the headphone jack the A series was famous for, tough luck. It’s gone.
I also know it’s already become a common thing to get at least some boost in refresh rate on the screen at this price, but blame the iPhone SE for setting the bar pretty low. The Pixel 6A does beat the pants off of that with a more futuristic approach to the bezels, and a much better OLED panel. It might not bring anything over 60Hz, but at least its color reproduction is far better than most of the phones that go beyond at this price. If anything I wish the dual firing speakers depended less on just the bottom firing module, but you and I know even the Pixel 6 Pro has that problem.
Source: Pocketnow
And listen, I also heard there were some complaints about choppy performance from this phone, but it’s one of the reasons I like to take my time. It was kind of a thing for the first 3 days or so, but it’s as if the Tensor chip got to know me quick. Even putting it next to the 120Hz of the Nothing Phone (1) I see this Pixel 6A launching folders faster. Obviously, that is to be expected if Android belongs to Google, but I will tell you I prefer the implementation of Material You more here than in the more expensive Pro. The smaller screen allows for a denser feel and easier one-handed use, which is only augmented by its cohesive design aesthetic. Pixel perks like the at-a-glance widget, voice recorder transcriptions, that in-your-face always-on display, timely Android updates, and almost every other thing you get with the regular and Pro siblings are all here.
Source: Pocketnow
Performance
That said, this also means you also can’t spare yourself from the things that come with the territory, like not being able to remove some of these UI elements. It’s the same case with battery life where this phone is not bad, but it’s also not great. I do consider it sips on power better than even its larger brothers with their extra juice given its lack of high refresh rate, but all you need to do is leave this phone untouched for a couple of hours to notice how inefficient Tensor can be on idle . The good thing is that since Google already ironed out all the connectivity bugs we had last year, the experience with phone calls and data connectivity was pretty good while I tested it on AT&T’s 5G network, or as I traveled with Google Fi.
Source: Pocketnow
Camera
Maybe the most controversial move is with the cameras because I kid you not, these sensors are at least four years old. Yes, if you’re still rocking a Pixel 3, I won’t blame you for thinking this isn’t an upgrade, but it’s not that simple. Surely those specs must be dated, but Tensor brings a new ISP to power those cameras, and we all know that when it comes to computational photography, a Pixel is a Pixel.
I spent a good deal of time saying wow to some of the results, mainly given the amount of detail this phone can pull in tough scenarios, and that’s even some of these not being fully optical. It’s got some of the contrast of the Pixel 6 Pro, but not all of it, and yet it’s there when I want it, like when I take photos of landscapes, and that’s regardless of the focal length I pick. This phone can do a pretty amazing job in closeups, and since it does a great job at locking focus, this is also while the wind is giving flowers a hard time. Colors have this added sense of character that you’d need to pay for a Pro iPhone to get. And sure, there is no Telephoto on board, but even the crop is handled so well you might struggle to notice physics didn’t take part in it.
Source: Pocketnow
Same with night photography, where this phone pulls in a crazy amount of detail and handles colors and light pretty well. The Ultra-wide struggled a bit in some cases but not always, and where I seriously have no complaints about the primary. Sadly we don’t get a lot of the long exposure tricks the Pixel 6 Pro brings, but Astrophotography is here, and you’ll be shocked to know that at almost half the price, this Pixel 6a takes the same amount of time at taking the shot than the Pro.
Selfies are good, though not my favorite because I feel skin tones are overdone, and even if portraits were mostly the same, I do feel separation was mostly hit or miss, and this even applies from the primary cameras.
Source: Pocketnow
Where you will find differences with the Pro Pixel is in video capture. Even if voice enhancement features are here, I feel this phone pulls in a lot more grain than the Pro model, and where the codec struggles a lot, particularly with all the moiré you’ll see in certain scenarios. It’s not terrible but not close to being my favorite. Switch to selfie video and you’ll see how that gets even worse, and not just because you’re stuck at 1080p. Grain is pretty strong, dynamic range is almost not there at all, and stabilization can be kind of weird, even if the primary handled that mostly well. Overall, you’ll love the photos, but this is not the phone for TikToks, Instagram Reels or meaningful family videos.
Source: Pocketnow
Conclusion
To conclude, I think you now understand why it was so important for me to introduce this video with how this lineup came to be, and how this phone is not necessarily that. Yes, this is the Pixel 6a, but we saw Google switch the formula with the 4a by giving us a 5G variant. We then saw the company switch the cheap feel for metal and a more aggressive price with the 5a.
Point is, yes, this is Google’s most affordable Pixel, but it’s also another switch in strategy. Yes, it’s like an iPhone SE because it includes a flagship chip, but if we’re honest, it’s nothing like it because Apple sticks to a six-year-old design, and doesn’t take full advantage of the chip in photography. By contrast, the Pixel 6a is almost as good as the Pixel 6, which in our opinion is the flagship killer, all while giving you an option to pay less for most of those features
So, it’s not really a flagship. It’s not really a mid ranger. The Google Pixel 6a is something else which I feel you should really consider. If you don’t care about high refresh rate, wireless charging, a glass back and a few other tidbits, this should be your phone. It’s a Pixel, but less expensive. Another bold move from the same company that already made all other phones look bad with the rest of the 6 series launched earlier.
Google Pixel 6a
Not a flagship, not a mid-ranger
If you don’t care about high refresh rate, wireless charging, a glass back and a few other tidbits, this should be your phone. It’s a Pixel, but less expensive.
Charles P. Rettig, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, testifies during the Senate Finance Committee hearing titled The IRS Fiscal Year 2022 Budget, in Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC, June 8, 2021.
Tom-Williams | Pool | Reuters
Senate Democrats on Sunday passed their climate, health and tax package, including nearly $80 billion in funding for the IRS.
Part of President Joe Biden’s agenda, the Inflation Reduction Act allocates $79.6 billion to the agency over the next 10 years. More than half of the money is meant for enforcement, with the IRS aiming to collect more from corporate and high-net-worth tax dodgers.
The remainder of the funding is earmarked for operations, taxpayer services, technology, development of a direct free e-file system and more. Collectively, those improvements areprojected to bring in $203.7 billion in revenue from 2022 to 2031, according to recent estimates from the Congressional Budget Office.
More from Personal Finance: Does the Inflation Reduction Act violate Biden’s $400,000 tax pledge? 5 things borrowers can do while they wait for student loan forgiveness Is the economy in a recession? Top economists weigh in
IRS audits have plunged over the past decade, with the biggest declines among the wealthy, according to a May 2022 report from the Government Accountability Office.
The audit rate for Americans making $5 million or more dropped to about 2% in 2019, compared to 16% in 2010, the report found. The agency said it is working to improve these numbers.
However, if the Inflation Reduction Act is approved by the House and signed into law, it will take time to phase in the added IRS funding, explained Garrett Watson, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation. The Congressional Budget Office only estimates about $3 billion of the $203.7 billion in revenue for 2023.
“We didn’t get to this state with the agency overnight, and it will take longer than overnight to go in the right direction,” he said.
IRS: We won’t boost ‘audit scrutiny’ on the middle class
While advocates applaud the enhanced IRS budget, opponents argue the beefed-up enforcement may affect more than wealthy Americans, violating Biden’s $400,000 pledge.
“My colleagues claim this massive funding boost will allow the IRS to go after millionaires, billionaires and so-called rich ‘tax cheats,’ but the reality is a significant portion raised from their IRS funding bloat would come from taxpayers with income below $400,000, ” Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee said in a statement.
IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said the $80 billion in funding would not increase audits of households making less than $400,000 per year.
“The resources in the reconciliation package will get us back to historical norms in areas of challenge for the agency — large corporate and global high-net-worth taxpayers,” he wrote in a letter to the Senate.
“These resources are absolutely not about increasing audit scrutiny on small businesses or middle-income Americans,” he added.
More than two-thirds of registered voters support increasing the IRS budget to strengthen tax enforcement on high-income taxpayers, according to a 2021 poll from the University of Maryland.
Panasonic will release a mirrorless camera that it will jointly develop with Leica “in about a year” that is the result of the expanded partnership the two brands signed in May.
The report comes courtesy of Nikkei, which has found evidence that shows that the manufacture of all small digital cameras has basically ceased across the board. As part of that report, the publication spoke with Panasonic which confirmed that not only has it ceased production of Lumix-branded compact cameras, but that it would also be focusing on the high-end of the market which includes leveraging its partnership with Leica to produces a co-developed mirrorless camera next year.
“Production of existing products will continue for the time being, but in the future, the company plans to concentrate on developing high-end mirrorless machines aimed mainly at enthusiasts and professional filmmakers,” Panasonic tells Nikkei.
“We are planning to release a mirrorless machine jointly developed with Leica Camera, which we formed a comprehensive partnership with at the end of May, in about a year.”
In May, Panasonic and Leica announced a new agreement that was categorized as a “business alliance” that further tightened the relationship between the two companies. The two brands had already been working closely together for several years, but this agreement, known as Ltwowould join both business and marketing together in the development of cameras.
What the two brands would do under this new relationship was vague at the time, but this somewhat offhanded remark from Panasonic to Nikkei is the first confirmation that the two brands are working on a future camera product together under the new Ltwo partnership. Given Panasonic’s statement about a focus on high-end products and the history of Leica’s brand, it is probably safe to assume the final product will exist in that space.
It is not clear how this new camera will fit in with Panasonic or Leica’s current full-frame offerings. The two companies both produce mirrorless L-mount cameras that exist in that high-end space, and whether or not the co-developed camera will replace both lines or be in addition to them was not revealed.
An Arkansas judge drowned in a lake during a weekend getaway with family and friends, authorities said.
The body of Arkansas County Northern District Judge Jeremiah T. Bueker was recovered early Sunday from the bottom of Mud Lake in Jefferson County, sheriff officials said in a statement. He was 48.
The judge was spending time with several relatives and friends during a “recreational” outing over the weekend when he ventured off alone, authorities said.
“After time had passed and no one had seen or heard from Bueker, worry to set in,” sheriff officials said Sunday.
Bueker was last seen near Mud Lake, which dumps into the Arkansas River just north of Reydell. The judge’s family then called 911 after they couldn’t find him on Saturday.
Jefferson County deputies launched extensive ground and water searches for Bueker that were later suspended due to low visibility. Mud Lake was then scoured just after sunrise Sunday and a sonar detected the judge’s body at the bottom, authorities said.
Bueker’s death is being probed as an accidental drowning, but his body is being sent to a state medical examiner for an autopsy, authorities said.Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office
“Deputies utilized subsurface body recovery drag/rescue hooks to recover Bueker’s body,” authorities said. “Upon recovery of the body, deputies and investigators with the assistance of family positively identified the body as that of Bueker.”
Bueker’s death is being probed as an accidental drowning, but his body is being sent to a state medical examiner for an autopsy, authorities said.
Sheriff Lafayette Woods said he hoped the recovery of Bueker’s body provides “some sense of closure” to his family and loved ones.
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“The scour of emotions they must feel right now is devastating,” Woods said.
Stuttgart Mayor Norma Strabala, meanwhile, said she was “shocked and heartbroken” by Bueker’s sudden death.
“Jeremy was an important and special person in this community, serving as a good friend, fierce attorney, and as Arkansas County Northern District Court Judge for nearly a decade,” Strabala wrote on Facebook. “I am praying for Sunny, her family and this community as we mourn this tragic loss.”
Bueker, who was elected as a district judge in 2012, was an “avid outdoorsman” and a “very proud father,” a Stuttgart city official told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
He was last seen alive late Saturday, authorities told the outlet.
“His family had a weekend at a cabin on the family’s property,” said Maj. Gary McClain of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office. “They were riding [utility vehicles] and returned back to the cabin. It appears he decided to go swimming after maybe being dusty and he went missing. No one was with him; he was alone.”
Relatives said Bueker loved to swim, so taking a spontaneous dip would not have been unusual for him, McClain added.
