Business & Politics News and Discussions

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Trump administration allows rent history to factor into home purchases: ‘This is huge’

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte, who is also the chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – the largest mortgage backer in the United States – announced that homebuyers will now be able to qualify for mortgages based on their rent history.

The move comes as FICO credit scoring has had an essential monopoly in the market. VantageScore 4.0 can now be considered when Americans seek to buy homes, and that scoring system can incorporate rent and utility payments.

Pulte thanked President Trump following the order.

https://flvoicenews.com/trump-administr ... s-is-huge/

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[firestar464]

Trump administration allows rent history to factor into home purchases: ‘This is huge’

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte, who is also the chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – the largest mortgage backer in the United States – announced that homebuyers will now be able to qualify for mortgages based on their rent history.

The move comes as FICO credit scoring has had an essential monopoly in the market. VantageScore 4.0 can now be considered when Americans seek to buy homes, and that scoring system can incorporate rent and utility payments.

Pulte thanked President Trump following the order.

https://flvoicenews.com/trump-administr ... s-is-huge/

better source pls

[wjfox]

Intel CEO says it's "too late" for them to catch up with AI competition — reportedly claims Intel has fallen out of the "top 10 semiconductor companies" as the firm lays off thousands across the world

By Hassam Nasir
published 23 hours ago

Intel has been in a dire state these past few years, with seemingly nothing going right. Its attempt to modernize x86 with a hybrid big.LITTLE architecture, à la ARM, failed to make a meaningful impact in terms of market share gains, only made worse by last-gen's Arrow Lake chips barely registering a response against AMD’s lineup. On the GPU front, the Blue Team served an undercooked product far too late that, while not entirely hopeless, was nowhere near enough to challenge the industry’s dominant players. All of this compounds into a grim reality, seemingly confirmed by new CEO Lip-Bu Tan in a leaked internal conversation today.

According to OregonTech, it's borderline a fight for survival for the once-great American innovation powerhouse as it struggles to even acknowledge being among the top contenders anymore. Despite Tan's insistence, Intel would still rank fairly well given its extensive legacy. While companies like AMD, Nvidia, Apple, TSMC, and even Samsung might be more successful today, smaller chipmakers like Broadcom, MediaTek, Micron, and SK Hynix are not above the Blue Team in terms of sheer impact. Regardless, talking to employees around the world in a Q&A session, Intel's CEO allegedly shared these bleak words: "Twenty, 30 years ago, we were really the leader. Now I think the world has changed. We are not in the top 10 semiconductor companies."

As evident from the quote, this is a far cry from a few decades ago when Intel essentially held a monopoly over the CPU market, making barely perceptible upgrades each generation in order to sustain its dominance. At one time, Intel was so powerful that it considered acquiring Nvidia for $20 billion. The GPU maker is now worth $4 trillion.

It never saw AMD as an honorable competitor until it was too late, and Ryzen pulled the carpet from underneath the Blue Team's feet. Now, more people choose to build an AMD system than ever before. Not only that, but AMD also powers your favorite handhelds like the Steam Deck and Rog Ally X, alongside the biggest consoles: Xbox Series and PlayStation 5. AMD works closely with TSMC, another one of Intel's competitors, as the company makes its own chips in-house.

This vertical alignment was once a core strength for the firm, but it has turned into more of a liability these days. Faltering nodes that can't quite match the prowess of Taiwan have arguably held back Intel's processors from reaching their full potential. In fact, starting in 2023, the company tasked TSMC with manufacturing the GPU tile on its Meteor Lake chips. This partnership extended to TSMC, essentially making the entire compute tile for Lunar Lake—and now, in 2025, roughly 30% of fabrication has been outsourced to TSMC. A long-overdue admission of failure that could've been prevented had Intel been allowed to make its leading-edge CPUs with external manufacturing in mind from the start. Ultimately its own foundry was the limiting factor.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-indus ... -the-world



Image credit: Intel Business / YouTube

[weatheriscool]

Trump administration allows rent history to factor into home purchases: ‘This is huge’

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump’s Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte, who is also the chairman of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – the largest mortgage backer in the United States – announced that homebuyers will now be able to qualify for mortgages based on their rent history.

The move comes as FICO credit scoring has had an essential monopoly in the market. VantageScore 4.0 can now be considered when Americans seek to buy homes, and that scoring system can incorporate rent and utility payments.

Pulte thanked President Trump following the order.

https://flvoicenews.com/trump-administr ... s-is-huge/

better source pls

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-admin-an ... rs-2096925

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[weatheriscool]

FDA approves natural blue food dye amid push to phase out synthetic additives

Source: Scripps News

Posted 11:06 AM, Jul 14, 2025 and last updated 11 minutes ago

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of a natural blue color additive derived from gardenia fruit in a range of food and drink products, the agency announced Monday.

The newly approved additive, called gardenia (genipin) blue, can be used in sports drinks, flavored water, fruit drinks, ready-to-drink teas and candy. The FDA granted the petition submitted by the Gardenia Blue Interest Group to use the additive at levels consistent with "good manufacturing practices."

It’s the fourth natural-source color additive the FDA has approved in the past two months, part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to reduce synthetic, petroleum-based dyes in the U.S. food supply.

The FDA’s action aligns with a policy push by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who announced a sweeping initiative to “Make America Healthy Again.” That plan includes working with the food industry to voluntarily phase out synthetic dyes from foods.

Read more: https://www.scrippsnews.com/life/food-a ... -additives

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Trump says Coca-Cola to switch to cane sugar in U.S. -- just like Mexican Coke
https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/202 ... orn-syrup/

Mexican Coca-Cola, which is made with cane sugar, unlike the U.S. version sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup, has many fans — and American soda drinkers might soon have more options for getting their sweet cola fix.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday wrote on Truth Social that he had been in touch with Coca-Cola executives, who he wrote had agreed to produce the nation’s top-selling soft drink domestically using cane sugar, as it is done south of the border. “I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so,” Trump wrote. “I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola.”

He put in a personal plug for the product, even though the president famously drinks Diet Coke, which is made with the sugar substitute aspartame. “This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see,” he wrote. “It’s just better!”

Coca-Cola did not confirm any details, but the company suggested in a statement Wednesday that any changes were still in the pipeline. “We appreciate President Trump’s enthusiasm for our iconic Coca-Cola brand,” the company said. “More details on new innovative offerings within our Coca-Cola product range will be shared soon.”

The move bore classic Trump earmarks: leaning on a private company to bend to his will, and announcing changes with more hype than details. It follows the tack taken by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has championed a “Make America Healthy Again” agenda that includes pushing food companies to remove artificial dyes and other additives from their products. A report by the “MAHA Commission” in May pointed out high-fructose corn syrup as a factor in obesity and related diseases. Scientists have said there is minimal nutritional difference between sugar and high-fructose corn syrup.

Honestly, taking dyes and low quality made up shit out of our food is probably a good thing. Real sugar is better! I think Wjfox would agree that these are good moves for America.

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[firestar464]

More on that by CNBC:

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/18/visa-in ... e-us-.html

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Lawmakers vote to name Kennedy Center opera house after Melania Trump

WASHINGTON – House Republicans were singing from the same sheet music as the Trump administration July 22 when a key panel voted to name the Kennedy Center opera house after first lady Melania Trump.

"This designation is an excellent way to recognize her support and commitment to promoting the arts," said Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, who shepherded the Appropriations Committee's spending bill that funds John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine, opposed the change and claimed it's part of giving Trump power to run the Kennedy Center "with very little oversight" from Congress.

"The Republicans snuck in, I think, something that is slightly divisive, which is renaming one section of the Kennedy Center after a family member of this administration,” Pingree said.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/law ... 28181.html

[weatheriscool]

Well, the safetynet will be gone within 5 years. Republicans will probably keep the fucking house in 2026.

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