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  • Trump Administration shuts down White House Spanish-language page, social media

    Trump Administration shuts down White House Spanish-language page, social media

    Within hours of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, the new administration took down the Spanish-language version of the official White House website.

    The site — currently https://www.whitehouse.gov/es/ — now gives users an “Error 404” message. It also included a “Go Home” button that directed viewers to a page featuring a video montage of Trump in his first term and on the campaign trail. The button was later updated to read “Go To Home Page”.

    Hispanic advocacy groups and others expressed confusion at the abrupt change and frustration at what some called the administration’s lack of efforts to maintain communication with the Latino community, which helped propel him to the presidency.

    The Spanish profile of the White House’ X, @LaCasaBlanca and the government page on reproductive freedom also were disbanded. Meanwhile, the Spanish versions of other government agencies such as the Department of Labor, Justice and Agriculture remained available for users on Tuesday.

    Asked about the changes, White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields responded Tuesday that the administration is “committed to bringing back online the Spanish translation section of the website.”

    “It’s day two. We are in the process of developing, editing and tweaking the White House website. As part of this ongoing work, some of the archived content on the website went dormant. We are committed to reloading that content in a short timeline,” he said without elaborating.

    Trump removed the Spanish version of the page in 2017. At that time, White House officials said they would reinstate it. President Joe Biden reinstated the page in 2021.

    The page’s removal coincided with Trump’s first-day wave of executive orders highlighted by the launch of an illegal immigration crackdown that was one of his key campaign pledges. Trump on Monday declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border and announced plans to send U.S. troops to help support immigration agents and restrict refugees and asylum.

    According to 2023 Census Bureau estimates, about 43.4 million Americans — 13.7% of the U.S. population age 5 and older — speak Spanish at home. The U.S. has no official language.

    Monica Rivera, a brand and communications strategist in New York City of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent, said the shutdown sends a clear signal.

    “There are 43 million Latinos who speak Spanish as their first language and removing access to information directly from the White House draws a distinct line as to who they are serving and more dangerously, signals to the administration’s MAGA base that we as Latinos are ‘other’ and a less significant part of this country,” Rivera said.

    Anthony Hernandez, a paralegal in the nation’s capital, wasn’t initially aware of the move and said it suggests what the coming years of a second Trump presidency would look like, with specific issues making headlines while “minor but equally malicious things like that go unnoticed.”

    “A move like shutting down the Spanish White House page and X profile serves no purpose other than to cut off resources for millions of Hispanic Americans and immigrants attempting to enter the United States legally,” Hernandez said. “And it’s a slap in the face to the millions of Hispanic voters that supported him in this recent election.”

    Trump’s secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is Cuban American and speaks Spanish. At his swearing-in Tuesday, he gave remarks in Spanish, thanking God, his family and Trump.

    Meanwhile, Hispanic leaders and communication strategy experts expressed surprise with the page’s removal, given Trump’s popularity with certain Latino voters.

    “If the White House is seriously interested in engaging with Latinos, the second largest group in this country, then they need to make sure that updates can also be distributed in Spanish, a preferred language for millions in our community,” said Frankie Miranda President and CEO of the Hispanic Federation.

    He called that a way to ensure “everyone is a part of the civic process.”

    Kris Klein Hernández, a U.S. historian specializing in race, gender, and sexuality at Connecticut College, said the content removal from official White House websites not only limits the access available to Spanish-speaking U.S. citizens and migrants but leads “some to question which constituencies the administration prioritizes.”

    Jeff Lee, former deputy cabinet secretary and deputy director of external and international affairs for former California Gov. Jerry Brown, said the move seems counterintuitive given the opportunity to “showcase” policy changes, especially ones related to economics and border security.

    “I didn’t see any other language mediums that got the kibosh. So I think that’s a really interesting thing to single out — if that’s the case,” Lee said.

    AP VoteCast, a nationwide survey of more than 120,000 voters, found Trump won a larger share of Black and Latino voters than he did in 2020, and most notably among men under age 45. Young Latinos, particularly young Latino men, also were more open to Trump than in 2020. Roughly half of young Latino men voted for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, compared with about 6 in 10 who went for Biden.

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  • Trump’s inauguration will usher in a crypto-friendly administration, and with it, new state policies

    Trump’s inauguration will usher in a crypto-friendly administration, and with it, new state policies

    HARRISBURG, Pa. — The bitcoin-friendly administration of President-elect Donald Trump and an expanding lobbying effort in statehouses could push states to become more open to crypto and lead public pension funds and treasuries to buy into it.

    Proponents of the uniquely volatile commodity argue it is a valuable hedge against inflation, similar to gold.

    Many bitcoin enthusiasts and investors are quick to say government-backed currencies are prone to devaluation and increased government buy-ins will stabilize future price swings, giving them more legitimacy and boosting already rising prices.

    But the risks are significant. Critics say crypto investments are highly speculative, with so much unknown about projecting future returns. They warn that investors should be prepared to lose money.

    Only a couple of public pension funds have invested in cryptocurrency. A U.S. Government Accountability Office study on 401(k) plan investments in crypto, issued late last year, warned it has “uniquely high volatility.” It found no standard approach for projecting the future returns of crypto.

    2024 was a landmark year for crypto, with bitcoin surpassing $100,000. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the first exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin. Now, crypto enthusiasts are banking on Trump’s promise to make the United States the “bitcoin superpower” of the world.

    Lawmakers in more states can expect to see bills this year to make them crypto-friendly. Analysts say crypto is becoming a powerful lobby. Bitcoin miners are building new installations and venture capitalists are underwriting a growing tech sector that caters to cryptocurrencies.

    Meanwhile, a new crypto-friendly federal government under Trump and Congress could consider legislation from Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyoming, to create a federal bitcoin reserve on which states can piggyback.

    A bill introduced in November in Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives sought to authorize the state’s treasurer and public pension funds to invest in bitcoin. It went nowhere before the legislative session ended, but it caused a stir.

    “I had a friend who is a rep down the road text me, ‘Oh my god, I’m getting so many emails and phone calls to my office,’ more than he ever did about any other bill,” said the measure’s sponsor, Republican Mike Cabell.

    A bitcoin enthusiast who lost his reelection bid, Cabell expects a colleague to reintroduce his bill. Leaders of bitcoin advocacy group Satoshi Action say they expect legislation based on their model bill to be introduced in at least 10 other states this year.

    Keith Brainard, research director for the National Association of State Retirement Administrators, said he doesn’t expect many public pension fund investment professionals, who oversee nearly $6 trillion in assets, to invest in crypto.

    Pension fund professionals take risks they deem to be appropriate, but bitcoin investing has a short track record, might only fit into a niche asset class and may not fit the risk-to-reward profile they seek.

    “There might be a bit of dabbling in bitcoin,” Brainard said. “But it’s difficult to envision a scenario in which pension funds right now are willing to make a commitment.”

    Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming helped make the state the first to introduce a system allowing people to pay a government agency in cryptocurrencies.

    Fleming said he’s not trying to promote cryptocurrency, but rather views it as a recognition that the government must innovate and be flexible about helping people do business with the state. He said he would never invest his money, or the state’s, in crypto.

    “My concern is that at some point it’ll stop growing and then people will want to cash in,” Fleming said. “And when they do, it could tank the value of a bitcoin.”

    In Pennsylvania, Treasury Department officials said they have the authority to decide for themselves if cryptocurrencies meet the agency’s investment standards under state law and don’t need new legislation.

    Still, a highly volatile asset is ill-suited to the agency’s need for predictability, considering it writes millions of checks a year. The overwhelming majority of the roughly $60 billion it invests at any given time is in short-term, conservative investments designed for an investment period of months, officials there said.

    Pension boards, which invest on a 30-year time horizon, may already hold small investments in companies involved in mining, trading and storing cryptocurrencies. But they have been slow to embrace bitcoin.

    That could change, said Mark Palmer, managing director and a senior research analyst at The Benchmark Company in New York.

    Pension boards got investment tools they like last year when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the first exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin. In October, it approved listings of options on those funds, Palmer said.

    Many “are likely in the process of getting up to speed on what it means to invest in bitcoin and kicking the tires, so to speak, and that’s a process that typically takes a while at the institutional level,” Palmer said.

    Several major asset managers like BlackRock, Invesco and Fidelity have bitcoin ETFs.

    In May, the State of Wisconsin Investment Board became the first state to invest when it bought $160 million worth of shares in two ETFs, or about 0.1% of its assets. It later scaled back that investment to $104 million in one ETF, as of Sept. 30. A spokesperson declined to discuss it.

    Michigan’s state investment board reported about $18 million in bitcoin ETF purchases, while a candidate for New Jersey governor, Steven Fulop, said that if elected he would push the state’s pension fund to invest in crypto.

    Fulop, the Democratic mayor of Jersey City, just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, has been preparing for months to buy bitcoin ETF shares for up to 2% of the city’s $250 million employee pension fund.

    “We were ahead of the curve,” Fulop said. “And I think that’s what you’re eventually going to see is this is widely accepted, with regard to exposure in all pension funds, some sort of exposure.”

    ___

    Follow Marc Levy on X at: https://x.com/timelywriter.

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  • From outsider to the Oval Office, bitcoin surges as a new administration embraces crypto

    From outsider to the Oval Office, bitcoin surges as a new administration embraces crypto

    NEW YORK — Born from the ashes of the 2008 global financial crisis, bitcoin arrived after trust had withered in the financial system and in Washington’s ability to protect those who must participate in it. Now, it’s Washington’s very embrace of bitcoin that’s helping to send its price to records and lining the pockets of its believers.

    Bitcoin briefly surged above $103,000 after President-elect Donald Trump said he intends to nominate Paul Atkins, a former regulator who’s seen as friendly to crypto, as the next chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission. He would replace Gary Gensler, who critics say has been overly aggressive in his oversight of crypto.

    It’s the latest leg in an astonishing run for bitcoin, whose swings in price are already notoriously extreme.

    Bitcoin has more than doubled this year, with a particularly big jump coming after Election Day, when its price was sitting below $70,000. During his campaign, Trump called for making the United States “the crypto capital of the planet.”

    The crypto industry, meanwhile, did its part to bring politicians friendly to digital currencies into Washington. Crypto corporations poured over $119 million into influencing federal elections in 2024, primarily into a political action committee dedicated to electing pro-crypto candidates and defeating crypto skeptics, according to a recent review by Public Citizen.

    It’s a large amount. Crypto companies accounted for 44% of all the corporate money contributed during this year’s elections, according to the consumer advocacy organization.

    Such a tight embrace marks an interesting twist from bitcoin’s early days, when someone or a group of someones under the name of Satoshi Nakamoto created a kind of electronic cash that wouldn’t be beholden to any government or financial institution.

    In the white paper announcing bitcoin, Namakoto said the traditional way of doing business on the internet “works well enough for most transactions.” But, Nakamoto said, it “still suffers from the inherent weaknesses of the trust based model,” where a third party like a bank needs to process payments.

    Instead, Nakamoto suggested harnessing computing power around the world as a way to create a digital currency that can’t be double-spent. “What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party.” That is what became the bitcoin network.

    Since then, bitcoin has moved from the financial fringes toward the mainstream, in jagged fits and starts. While it hasn’t taken off as a way to pay for groceries, it found popularity as a kind of “digital gold,” or a way to store value in something that’s not subject to the direct influence of a federal government or a central bank.

    In its early days, it had a reputation for use by drug dealers, scammers, crypto enthusiasts, libertarians and others who were looking to move money without oversight by the government. Now, it’s also found its way into more investor portfolios. Earlier this year, the SEC approved exchange-traded funds that track the spot price of bitcoin. Such ETFs give investors a relatively easy way to buy bitcoin directly in their existing trading accounts.

    Through its life, bitcoin has soared through a series of manic bull runs as well as “crypto winters” that brought extreme declines. It went from just over $5,000 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to nearly $69,000 by late 2021, before crashing below $17,000 following hikes to interest rates by the Federal Reserve and the 2022 collapse of crypto exchange FTX.

    With bitcoin in its latest bull run, the man who’s about to roll into the White House seemed to take at least some credit.

    “CONGRATULATIONS BITCOINERS!!!” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social network. “$100,000!!! YOU’RE WELCOME!!!”

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  • Biden administration will loan $6.6 billion to Rivian to build Georgia factory that automaker paused

    Biden administration will loan $6.6 billion to Rivian to build Georgia factory that automaker paused

    ATLANTA — President Joe Biden’s administration announced Tuesday that the U.S. Department of Energy will make a $6.6 billion loan to Rivian Automotive to build a factory in Georgia that had stalled as the startup automaker struggled to become profitable.

    It’s unclear whether the administration can complete the loan before Donald Trump becomes president again in less than two months, or whether the Trump administration might try to claw the money back.

    Trump previously vowed to end federal electric vehicle tax credits, which are worth up to $7,500 for new zero-emission vehicles and $4,000 for used ones. Trump later softened his stance as Tesla CEO Elon Musk became a supporter and adviser.

    Rivian made a splash when it went public and began producing large electric R1 SUVs, pickup trucks and delivery vans at a former Mitsubishi factory in Normal, Illinois, in 2021. Months later, the California-based company announced it would build a second, larger, $5 billion plant about 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of Atlanta, near the town of Social Circle.

    The R1 vehicles cost $70,000 or more. The original plan was to produce R2 vehicles, a smaller SUV, in Georgia with lower price tags aimed at a mass market. The first phase of Rivian’s Georgia factory was projected to make 200,000 vehicles a year, with a second phase capable of another 200,000 a year. Eventually, the plant was projected to employ 7,500 workers.

    But Rivian was unable to meet production and sales targets and rapidly burned through cash. In March, the company said it would pause construction of the Georgia plant. The company said it would begin assembling its R2 SUV in Illinois instead.

    CEO RJ Scaringe said the move would allow Rivian to get the R2 to market more quickly, sometime in 2026, and save $2.25 billion in capital spending. Since then, German automaker Volkswagen AG said in June it would invest $5 billion in Rivian in a joint venture in which Rivian would share software and electrical technology with Volkswagen. The money eased Rivian’s cash crunch.

    Tuesday’s announcement throws a lifeline to Rivian’s grander plans. The company says its plans to make the R2 and the smaller R3 in Georgia are back on.

    The money would come from the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program, which has $17.7 billion to provide low-cost loans to make fuel-efficient vehicles and components. The program has focused mostly on loans to new battery factories for electric vehicles in recent years but also helped finance the initial production of the Tesla Model S and Nissan Leaf, two electric vehicle pioneers in the U.S.

    The program, created in 2007, requires a “reasonable prospect of repayment” of the loan.

    Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, who has been a vocal supporter of electric vehicle and solar manufacturing in Georgia, hailed Tuesday’s announcement as “yet another historic federal investment in Georgia electric vehicle manufacturing.” Ossoff had asked Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm to support the loan in July.

    “Our federal manufacturing incentives are driving economic development across the state of Georgia,” Ossoff said in a statement.

    Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp says his goal is to make Georgia a center of the electric vehicle industry. But the Republican has had a strained relationship with the Biden administration over its industrial policy, even as some studies have found Georgia has netted more electric vehicle investment than any other state.

    Kemp has long claimed that manufacturers were picking Georgia before Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, was passed. Garrison Douglas, a spokesperson for Kemp, said earlier this month that the governor wants Trump to prioritize “a market-based approach to economic growth.”

    “As the e-mobility space was already growing in Georgia before the federal government’s intervention, the governor remains vocally opposed to the Biden administration’s decision to not only pick winners and losers but impose counterproductive mandates that disadvantage Georgia-based auto manufacturers and disincentivizes organic consumer adoption of electric vehicles,” Douglas said.

    The loan to Rivian could rescue one of the Kemp administration’s signature economic development projects even as Biden leaves office. That could put Rivian and Kemp in the position of defending the loan if Trump tries to quash it.

    State and local governments offered Rivian an incentive package worth an estimated $1.5 billion in 2022. The deadline for the company to complete its investment and hiring under that deal was extended to 2030. Neighbors opposed to development of the Georgia site mounted legal challenges.

    State and local governments were projected to spend more than $125 million to buy the nearly 2,000-acre (810-hectare) site, clear trees and grade land. That work has been finished. The state also has completed most of $50 million in roadwork that it pledged.

    The pause at Rivian contrasts with rapid construction at Hyundai Motor Group’s $7.6 billion electric vehicle and battery complex near Savannah. The plant in Ellabell, announced in 2022, could grow to 8,500 employees. The Korean automaker said in October that it has begun production there.

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  • Biden administration to host international AI safety meeting in San Francisco after election

    Biden administration to host international AI safety meeting in San Francisco after election

    Government scientists and artificial intelligence experts from at least nine countries and the European Union will meet in San Francisco after the U.S. elections to coordinate on safely developing AI technology and averting its dangers.

    President Joe Biden’s administration on Wednesday announced a two-day international AI safety gathering planned for November 20 and 21. It will happen just over a year after delegates at an AI Safety Summit in the United Kingdom pledged to work together to contain the potentially catastrophic risks posed by AI advances.

    U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo told The Associated Press it will be the “first get-down-to-work meeting” after the UK summit and a May follow-up in South Korea that sparked a network of publicly backed safety institutes to advance research and testing of the technology.

    Among the urgent topics likely to confront experts is a steady rise of AI-generated fakery but also the tricky problem of how to know when an AI system is so widely capable or dangerous that it needs guardrails.

    “We’re going to think about how do we work with countries to set standards as it relates to the risks of synthetic content, the risks of AI being used maliciously by malicious actors,” Raimondo said in an interview. “Because if we keep a lid on the risks, it’s incredible to think about what we could achieve.”

    Situated in a city that’s become a hub of the current wave of generative AI technology, the San Francisco meetings are designed as a technical collaboration on safety measures ahead of a broader AI summit set for February in Paris. It will occur about two weeks after a presidential election between Vice President Kamala Harris — who helped craft the U.S. stance on AI risks — and former President Donald Trump, who has vowed to undo Biden’s signature AI policy.

    Raimondo and Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that their agencies will co-host the convening, which taps into a network of newly formed national AI safety institutes in the U.S. and UK, as well as Australia, Canada, France, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, Singapore and the 27-nation European Union.

    The biggest AI powerhouse missing from the list of participants is China, which isn’t part of the network, though Raimondo said “we’re still trying to figure out exactly who else might come in terms of scientists.”

    “I think that there are certain risks that we are aligned in wanting to avoid, like AIs applied to nuclear weapons, AIs applied to bioterrorism,” she said. “Every country in the world ought to be able to agree that those are bad things and we ought to be able to work together to prevent them.”

    Many governments have pledged to safeguard AI technology but they’ve taken different approaches, with the EU the first to enact a sweeping AI law that sets the strongest restrictions on the riskiest applications.

    Biden last October signed an executive order on AI that requires developers of the most powerful AI systems to share safety test results and other information with the government. It also delegated the Commerce Department to create standards to ensure AI tools are safe and secure before public release.

    San Francisco-based OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT, said last week that before releasing its latest model, called o1, it granted early access to the U.S. and UK national AI safety institutes. The new product goes beyond the company’s famous chatbot in being able to “perform complex reasoning” and produce a “long internal chain of thought” when answering a query, and poses a “medium risk” in the category of weapons of mass destruction, the company has said.

    Since generative AI tools began captivating the world in late 2022, the Biden administration has been pushing AI companies to commit to testing their most sophisticated models before they’re let out into the world.

    “That is the right model,” Raimondo said. “That being said, right now, it’s all voluntary. I think we probably need to move beyond a voluntary system. And we need Congress to take action.”

    Tech companies have mostly agreed, in principle, on the need for AI regulation, but some have chafed at proposals they argue could stifle innovation. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday signed three landmark bills to crack down on political deepfakes ahead of the 2024 election, but has yet to sign, or veto, a more controversial measure that would regulate extremely powerful AI models that don’t yet exist but could pose grave risks if they’re built.

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