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    How US Economy Could Enter Stagflation After GDP, Inflation Data: Experts

    Peter Watson
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    How US Economy Could Enter Stagflation After GDP, Inflation Data: Experts

    Jonathan Kitchen/Getty Images

    • Slower growth and rising inflation has brought back distant cries that stagflation is coming.
    • This would force interest rates to stay higher for longer, putting pressure on US businesses and consumers.
    • One investor says anyone looking to hedge this risk should focus on fixed income.

    A pair of economic reports has brought back a word no central banker ever wants to hear: stagflation.

    The difficult scenario occurs when inflation rises and growth stalls, a dangerous combination just experienced by the US economy.

    Worries emerged when Thursday’s first-quarter GDP reading slumped against expectations, growing at an annualized 1.6% rate. That’s a considerable slowdown from previous quarters, and falls well under estimates of 2.5%.

    Just a day later, personal consumption expenditures did the opposite, outpacing forecasts on Friday. The inflation metric, favored by the Federal Reserve, rose 2.8% against a 2.7% consensus.

    “If you take [the] inflation report in conjunction with yesterday’s GDP report, I think what investors really have to start positioning themselves for is the resurgence of the stagflation debate,” LPL Financial’s chief economist Jeffrey Roach told Business Insider.

    If this was to actually take hold, it would not be a welcome sight for markets. 

    Lessons can be drawn from the 1970’s, a decade often cited as cautionary tale. Iin that era, a cycle of low growth and double-digit inflation only ended after the Fed sent interest rates sky-high, driving the US into a recession. When issues first emerged, volatility sent stock markets falling.

    To be sure, stagflation isn’t Roach’s base case, as he and other analysts will want to see more data points before making such a call. 

    “It really all depends on the inflation part of the equation, and if that forces the Fed’s hand to be higher for longer,” said Mike Reynolds, vice president of investment strategy at Glenmede, told BI. He also noted that he’s recently become more attentive to stagflation risks.

    “A couple of Fed officials are floating ideas of maybe additional rate hikes — that’s not the consensus — but the fact that it’s being talked about now is kind of indicative of the situation that we’re in,” Reynolds said.

    Among the most prominent Wall Street voices warning of stagflation right now is JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who has made frequent references to the 1970s as a reason for why markets shouldn’t get too comfortable with the current economy: 

    “I point out to a lot of people, things looked pretty rosy in 1972 — they were not rosy in 1973,” he recently told the Wall Street Journal, warning that a slowdown could come in the next two years, amid rising inflation.

    In the case that monetary policy is forced to stay higher this year, both Roach and Reynolds agreed that consequences could come about as soon as 2025. 

    In Reynold’s view, any fallout would be delayed by election-related fiscal boosts, though this would only add to inflation, worsening the Fed’s options. 

    Meanwhile, 2025 and 2026 will see both the government and businesses rolling over debt, Roach said, adding that if rates stay high, that only increases the risk of something breaking.

    To hedge against any rising risks, Reynolds suggested modestly going underweight on equities. He said this could be offset with additional exposure to fixed income, though investors shouldn’t overexpose themselves to duration, as future inflation risk could add upside to rates, weighing on long-dated assets.

    Alternative investments could counter any disappointment in bonds or equities, Roach said.

    But for now, stagflation is just a distant possibility, and the threat may diminish with future reports or a GDP revision, both experts noted. 

    On Friday, Bank of America pushed against the scenario, citing no signs of stagflation. Echoing points by Reynolds, its note focused on the fact that first-quarter GDP fell on inventories, while consumer spending remained resilient — potentially boosting PCE.

    “This created a narrative of ‘stagflation’ or a negative supply shock. We think that view is misguided, as it is based on an apples-to-oranges comparison,” the firm said.

    Bungie Wants To Hear The Giant ‘Destiny 2’ Changes You Want To See, Here Are Mine

    Peter Watson
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    Bungie Wants To Hear The Giant ‘Destiny 2’ Changes You Want To See, Here Are Mine

    In the midst of some rough times at Bungie and for Destiny 2 this past year, Bungie has now blown open the doors and is now checking off a list of things that players have been asking for, quite literally for years, if not a full decade, from the series.

    Horde mode? Done. Returning classic exotic missions? Here. Cross-account power gains? Yup. Friends auto-powering up to play together? Coming. Unsunsetting every old weapon in the game? Check. Hell, favorting shaders? They got it.

    Now, Community lead Cozmo is asking players what else they want, as Bungie has now shifted into genie-granting wish mode with executives now seeming open to listening to both players and the developers relaying those concerns, previously seeing many ignored.

    So, what should be next on the list? I mean they’ve done an absolute ton lately but:

    Unlimited Transmog – Time to get rid of the goofiest transmog system in the industry, a cap on earned transmog each season and an offer to pay $10 per armor set to transmog the rest. Just no. Stop. This reminds me of when they were selling consumable shaders, and forget it. Just make it so when you find armor, you can transmog it. Stop with this absurd system just to try to squeeze more cash from a stone.

    World Drop Armor – I’m tired of getting world drop armor at this point, which may not be as prevalent or annoying as blues were, but they might as well be blues given that they are 100% not useful for so many players. I get that still-leveling players might need it but again, once you hit the cap to make blues stop dropping, you should make world armor stop dropping too. Don’t reduce drops, but replace them with weapons.

    Armor/Weapon Encounter Chests – This could be something in dungeons or raids pulled from how The Coil has handled this. Allow players to pick a reward between getting armor from an encounter or getting weapons, which would make farming much less annoying for those activities given that they are two entirely separate grinds.

    Ping System – Another very common request and one that would be roughly 50 times more useful than just vaguely emoting when you want other players to do thing without a mic. Emotes should be in a wheel anyway and not taking up the entire D-pad.

    Return The Missing Planets – Bungie is doing some good work taking a number of things out of the vault like those exotic missions, but it’s time to start getting the old zones back in the game that were previously deleted, preferably with their strikes in tow. If we’re undoing old mistakes, that’s one of them. I don’t know if asking for every single campaign mission and raid is viable, but the zones themselves? Yes. Specifically, lore-wise, after The Witness is defeated, that would make sense.

    Tribute Hall – Perhaps not the exact one (but sure why not) but we do need a place for weapon testing that isn’t pinging those little floaties in the crafting chamber. We lost a lot of things on Leviathan but that was a really important one.

    More Face Cosmetic Options – If you’re going to bother letting players re-do their faces and genders now, for the love of god, add more options there. Many of these are unchanged from a full decade ago, as almost all of it was ported from Destiny 1. Time for an update if facial re-arranging is now a thing (and yes, also time for beards).

    New Gambit Maps – I will die on this hill. Gambit is still fun. It’s the best state it’s been in. It is also a dead skeleton at the bottom of the pool. It needs any amount of resources devoted to it and should be allowed to exist as a viable ritual activity instead of one that has been hamstrung with actively removed maps over time. Returning one deleted map is not enough (is that even still happening?).

    New Onslaught Maps/Modes/Loot – I’ve spoken about this before, but it’s clear Onslaught is a hit, and it’s definitely going to be worth a lot more investment over time. Bungie should not ignore it long-term like they did with Dares just because it’s free. You need good free activities!

    Trying to avoid monster things like “unvault every piece of content” or “build a bunch of sparrow racing courses,” but this is what I got. Tell Cozmo you own.

    Follow me on Twitter, Threads, YouTube, and Instagram.

    Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.

    GAIN Pets of the Week | Lifestyle

    Peter Watson
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    GAIN Pets of the Week | Lifestyle

    The Pacific Daily News is partnering with Guam Animals in Need to help get cats and dogs into loving homes.

    Every week, we feature some of the cutest at the shelter. If you’d like to meet any of these adorable fur babies, you can swing by the Yigo shelter, Monday to Saturday, but call for the hours to make sure they’re open before you go. The number is (671) 653-4246.

    You can also adopt by going online at guamanimals.org. They can process adoptions completely over email.

    If you are interested in fostering rather than adopting, email GAIN’s acting foster coordinator Kelsey Graupner at kelsey@guamanimals.org for more information.

    Linebacker Tyrice Knight, UTEP, Round 4, Pick No. 118

    Peter Watson
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    Linebacker Tyrice Knight, UTEP, Round 4, Pick No. 118

    The Seahawks have made their latest pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, selecting Tyrice Knight, a linebacker out of UTEP with pick No. 118 overall in the fourth round.

    Knight’s draft analysis per Bleacher Report:

    “The first thing that stands out about Tyrice Knight is his high football IQ. Pre-snap, he takes command of the defense by making calls and getting the rest of the defense set. Post-snap, he’s quick to key and diagnose run plays, trusts what he sees and is consistently around the ball.

    Against zone runs, Knight knows when to trigger downhill to help get unblocked tackles near the line of scrimmage. While his open-field tackling needs some work, he’s effective in the box with good pad level and wraps up to make sure tackles.”

    This is a developing story. Check back soon for additional news and analysis.

    Most Promising Indication Of Life On Another Planet Found, Courtesy James Webb

    Peter Watson
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    Most Promising Indication Of Life On Another Planet Found, Courtesy James Webb

    Scientists are focusing on detecting dimethyl sulphide (DMS) in its atmosphere.

    The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the most powerful telescope ever launched, is set to begin a crucial observation mission in the hunt for extraterrestrial life.

    As reported by The Times, the telescope will focus on a distant planet orbiting a red dwarf star, K2-18b, located 124 light-years away.

    K2-18b has captured the attention of scientists due to its potential to harbour life. It’s believed to be an ocean-covered world with a size exceeding Earth’s by about 2.6 times.

    The key element scientists are looking for is dimethyl sulphide (DMS), a gas with a fascinating characteristic. According to NASA, on Earth, DMS is “only produced by life,” primarily by marine phytoplankton.

    The presence of DMS in K2-18b’s atmosphere would be a significant discovery, although Dr Nikku Madhusudhan, the study’s lead astrophysicist from Cambridge, cautions against jumping to conclusions. While preliminary data from JWST suggests a high probability (over 50%) of DMS presence, further analysis is needed. The telescope will dedicate eight hours of observation this Friday, followed by months of data processing before a definitive answer can be reached.

    The lack of a known natural, geological, or chemical process for generating DMS in the absence of life adds weight to the excitement. However, even if confirmed, the sheer distance of K2-18b presents a technological hurdle. Travelling at the speed of the Voyager spacecraft (38,000 mph), it would take a probe a staggering 2.2 million years to reach the planet.

    Despite the immense distance, the JWST’s ability to analyse the chemical composition of a planet’s atmosphere through spectral analysis of starlight filtering through its clouds offers a new window into the potential for life beyond Earth. This mission holds the potential to answer the age-old question of whether we are truly alone in the universe.

    The upcoming observations also aim to clarify the existence of methane and carbon dioxide in K2-18b’s atmosphere, potentially resolving the “missing methane problem” that has puzzled scientists for over a decade. While theoretical work on non-biological sources for gas continues, definitive conclusions are expected within the next four to six months.

    I’m a young woman in my 20s. Why did I get breast cancer?

    Peter Watson
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    I’m a young woman in my 20s. Why did I get breast cancer?

    I was diagnosed with breast cancer in October. I was 23.

    My first question was: Why? I thought people my age didn’t get breast cancer. I don’t have a family history of the disease. My tests for the BRCA gene mutations, which increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancer, came back negative.

    Did I eat too much sugar? Was I exposed to too much plastic? People are quick to tell me their own theories, like being on birth control or storing my phone in my bra. Everyone around me is trying to understand how this could happen to someone my age. Because if it can happen to me, it can happen to them, too.

    When my family and I asked the doctor, she said it was simply bad luck. Life is random. It’s possible there’s nothing I did or could have done. But that doesn’t make it any less unsettling to me or the other young adults who increasingly find themselves in this situation.

    In 2022, only 4 percent of invasive breast cancer diagnoses were among U.S. women under the age of 40. But recent studies show more young people are getting cancer, including breast cancer.

    For young patients like me, it’s hard to wrap our minds around the randomness of it all.

    Finding a lump, then a diagnosis

    It was June of 2023 when I first noticed a large lump in my breast while I showered. I dismissed it at first, but when it didn’t go away, I told my primary care doctor I was worried. She wrote me a prescription for an ultrasound, but I had to wait three months to get an appointment in D.C.

    I had heard benign cysts were common in young women, but immediately after the ultrasound, I was scheduled for a biopsy. The imaging had shown an abnormal mass that needed further testing. Worried, I asked my mom to fly out from Phoenix to be with me.

    When I walked into the exam room on a Tuesday, I caught a glimpse of my paperwork. “Pre-diagnosis: cancer,” it said.

    A few days later, my doctor called with the initial diagnosis: high-grade invasive ductal carcinoma, a fast-growing cancer that is more likely to spread. The mass was about five centimeters. It was Stage 2.

    The long delay from finding a mass to getting the ultrasound and a diagnosis is just one way young cancer patients often aren’t taken seriously. I’ve heard of women whose doctors wouldn’t order a mammogram because they were considered too young. Colon cancer patients are sometimes diagnosed with hemorrhoids rather than cancer.

    Making decisions about fertility

    I decided to move to Arizona to be with my family for treatment. At my new hospital, I found out more about my diagnosis, like that I had triple-positive breast cancer, which responds well to chemotherapy and targeted treatments. I also learned that I would be able to use a technology called cold-capping to potentially save my hair.

    I’ve felt the most pressure on my decision not to retrieve my eggs, since my treatment impacts my fertility. I immediately knew it wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want to subject myself to more intrusive medical procedures, and having biological children has never been important to me. My doctors and my family wanted me to fully understand the weight of my decision, giving me multiple chances to change my mind, but I didn’t.

    I also decided to try to save my hair. The treatment requires a special frozen cap worn tightly on the head — like a swim cap — before, during and after a chemotherapy session. A lot of people warned me that the cold cap would be painful, but once I got past the first 10 minutes, I didn’t find it that bad. It was like going without a beanie in the snow. It was inconvenient during chemotherapy sessions, but worth it to keep some sense of normalcy. I lost the most hair after my last treatment, but my doctors still compliment me on how much I managed to keep.

    Finding comfort in the ‘still alive’ club

    I’m grateful to attend a hospital that has a young adult program for patients like me. When I had a procedure to implant a port into my chest to make chemotherapy infusions easier, a specialized nurse for young adults saw that I was upset. She guided me through the empty chemo ward so I would know what to expect before my first treatment.

    After I received my full treatment plan, she also introduced me to a support group. We meet once a month to catch up. Some people are recently diagnosed, like me, or re-diagnosed, and others have met their five-year remission milestone. When I joined, the group made me feel less alone. I knew they had all been where I was.

    At the group meetings, we share frustrating stories — like collapsing veins and central line placements — or encouraging ones of nice doctors and early hospital releases. We talk about playing Pokémon and the Sims to distract ourselves. We follow each other on Instagram.

    We try to keep it lighthearted, laughing as we color Thanksgiving turkeys on the table, decorate gingerbread houses or make vision boards. Group members joke about being part of the “still alive” club and how it’s never “cancer-free,” but “cancer-quiet” — a way of saying our lives will never be totally free of cancer, as we deal with continued checkups and lingering symptoms. But we can live our lives relatively quiet from cancer.

    We’re all going through unique battles, which reminds us of how unfair our situations are. We were the “unlucky” ones. But instead of asking “Why me?” we commiserate that it is us. There’s a shared understanding that none of us wants to be there, or should be there, but there we are.

    My journey isn’t over, even though I’ve completed six rounds of chemotherapy and undergone surgery. I worry about a recurrence. I wonder where I’ll end up at the end of all this, on leave from my job and pulled from my life in D.C. I worry about my friends with cancer as they fight their own battles, and the other young people trying to understand why this happened to them.

    I remember when I went in for my first MRI. The test would determine whether the cancer had spread elsewhere. The woman at the front desk asked me for my birth date to print out my wristband.

    “We have the same birthday,” she said. Month, date, year, everything.

    I laughed it off at first, but the moment stuck with me. We were on opposite sides of the counter.

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    UAW President Shawn Fain is a rising star for the Democratic Party

    Peter Watson
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    UAW President Shawn Fain is a rising star for the Democratic Party

    Fresh off some historic wins for the labor movement, United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain could be the man who makes the biggest difference for President Biden in key Midwestern swing states in the fall.

    The union leader has soared to prominence over the past year by leading the UAW to some of its most significant gains in decades. He’s a captivating speaker who commands the attention and trust of many workers at a time when Biden is struggling to connect with voters because of higher prices and Israel’s destructive war in Gaza.

    “We need to know who is going to stand up with us! And this choice is clear. Joe Biden bet on the American worker, while Donald Trump blamed the American worker!” Fain said in a rousing speech endorsing Biden in January.

    Fain’s star power, along with the endorsement and the union’s long-standing voter turnout efforts for Democrats, will be crucial in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and other industrial states that could hinge on a few thousand votes, labor and political experts say.

    “Shawn Fain has done an extraordinary job of restoring the union to where it belongs — not just to the front of the labor movement but to the front of progressive fights,” said Steve Rosenthal, the former political director of the AFL-CIO union federation. “He will have enormous credibility.”

    The key in swing states will be turning out working-class voters who might otherwise stay home, a task for which Fain can have an impact “maybe beyond any other person,” said Larry Cohen, former president of the Communications Workers of America union and a Democratic operative working on voter turnout.

    Asked about politics in an interview, Fain said he is focused on his UAW work, including unionizing a string of Southern auto factories and bargaining a new contract for Daimler Truck workers, who won hefty raises in a deal announced late Friday. But he pledged to help Biden, saying that the labor movement’s goals depend on electing supportive politicians.

    “I’m running a union right now, and our number one objective is organizing and winning good contracts,” he said. “But obviously, you know, politics is a part of all this. And where I can support the president, I’m going to support him.”

    Biden, he added, is aligned with the union on the biggest issues facing the working class, including wages, health care and retirement security. “And that’s why we endorsed him versus Donald Trump, who represents the billionaire class and corporate class, and couldn’t care less about workers,” said Fain, who got his start as an electrician for Chrysler.

    That message resonates with many autoworkers. Bill Bagwell, a longtime UAW member at a General Motors facility in Michigan, said GM, Ford and Stellantis workers are happy with the large raises they received after last year’s strikes, which may make them more fired up for election season.

    “You have members who may have been on the fence last time and maybe voted Donald Trump who now have a much better relationship with their union and may be more willing to do what the union is asking them to do,” Bagwell said.

    Backing Biden while attempting to organize big factories in red states is forcing Fain and the UAW into a difficult balancing act. The union’s endorsement of Biden rankled some Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tenn., in the weeks before the factory voted to join the UAW, workers said. In the run-up to the vote, UAW organizers took pains to tell the workforce that they were free to support whichever politician they like. Supporting Biden in a full-throated manner could be tougher as the UAW expands its push into more factories in the South, including Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina.

    Biden campaign aides say they plan to work regularly with Fain over the coming months, though they did not provide specifics. Fain was a guest of Biden’s at the State of the Union last month and received a shout-out during the speech, but he has not appeared at campaign events.

    “We’re proud to have earned UAW’s support, and we join them in their mission to hold corporations accountable, strengthen our unions and grow our middle class,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement.

    Campaign officials have celebrated and amplified Fain’s commentary in recent months, hoping the increasingly popular figure will help the president burnish his bona fides with blue-collar voters. While labor leaders overwhelmingly support Biden, some rank-and-file members have backed Donald Trump in past elections.

    Biden regularly casts his presidency as the most pro-union in American history, and aides say he plans to lean on organized labor to spread his message about the growing economy. He has made multiple visits to union meetings in recent months, including an International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers conference and a United Steelworkers event.

    “Unions are more popular today than they’ve ever been in a long, long time, not because of Joe Biden supporting them — because of you,” Biden said Thursday after receiving the endorsement from the North America’s Building Trades Unions. “You always step up. You step into the breach. You get things done.”

    Some Democratic strategists say Fain could even help Biden with discontent throughout the party over the administration’s handling of the Israel-Gaza war, a special cause for concern for Democrats in Michigan, which has a large Arab American population. Both Fain and the UAW called for a cease-fire early in the conflict, after it boiled up as an issue among some members of the union, which represents not just autoworkers but graduate students employed by universities. Fain said the union is still pressing Biden on Gaza, but he stressed that Trump would be worse for the conflict and for the labor movement.

    “One of two people is going to be president of the United States in this upcoming election. And obviously the other candidate would be a complete disaster, not just for labor, but for the situation in Gaza,” Fain said. “We talk to the president quite often and his staff about our concerns in Gaza and that there needs to be more action. And we’re going to continue to do that.”

    Fain and Biden have been engaged in a complicated dance since the UAW president’s election a year ago. Officials in the White House, who did not know Fain well at the time, were forced to pay attention to him as the new UAW leader publicly slammed the Biden administration over policy disagreements and pointedly withheld the union’s endorsement of the Democratic president early on.

    “Our endorsements are going to be earned. They’re not going to be freely given, as they have been in the past,” Fain told The Washington Post last year. Among his complaints was the administration’s use of billions of taxpayer dollars to subsidize battery and electric-vehicle factories without requiring strong worker pay.

    Biden launched a charm offensive, inviting Fain to the Oval Office to discuss the EV transition, repeatedly speaking with him by phone and, in a first for a sitting president, joining a UAW picket line as workers were striking against Detroit’s Big Three automakers last year. Biden also pushed Jeep-maker Stellantis to reopen a shuttered factory in Illinois, a deal that helped resolve the strikes.

    “If our endorsements must be earned, Joe Biden has earned it,” Fain declared at an autoworker conference in January.

    The UAW has long played a role in turning out voters, reminding its members to vote and making sure they know how to check their registration status and access absentee ballots. Union members also knock on doors handing out information on candidates.

    “I see president Fain playing that role of encouraging members to vote for President Biden, but his style is to let the membership decide,” said Scott Houldieson, a friend of Fain and a UAW worker at a Ford factory in Chicago. “He’ll lay the facts out there for the members.”

    Jeff Timmer, former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party and now senior adviser to the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, said he thinks Fain will try to maintain an “independent broker status.”

    “I don’t think it would be fair to characterize him as a Democratic surrogate,” he said. “Certainly the Democratic Party is the closest ally, but it’s UAW first, Democratic Party second.”

    Fain said one of his main messages is convincing workers that voting matters.

    “It’s why we’re in the predicament we’re in now — where three American families have as much wealth as half of Americans — is because half of America doesn’t even vote, because they’re fed up,” he said in the interview. “They feel like it doesn’t matter. And we’ve got to make people understand that it does matter. And the only way you change that is by voting. Because no matter how much money the wealthy have and how much money they inject into politics, working-class people have the votes.”

    While Fain has been a strong validator for Biden, he may play a more critical role by undercutting Trump’s appeal with rank-and-file members, said Harley Shaiken, a labor professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

    Trump has lashed out at Fain, calling him a “weapon of mass destruction” on autoworkers. Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said by email that the former president “delivered” for union workers when he was in the White House and will “put them first again when he is reelected.”

    During his speech endorsing Biden, Fain launched into a broadside against the former president, saying Trump did not speak out during a 2019 autoworkers strike and “doesn’t care about workers.” Trump, he said, was a “scab.”

    Solana sees 1.3 million users leave – Here’s the why and what can stop it?

    Peter Watson
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    Solana sees 1.3 million users leave – Here’s the why and what can stop it?
    • Stripe launches crypto payments through Solana USDC.
    • Interest in Solana’s DeFi verticals continued to decline.

    Solana [SOL] managed to see massive growth over the past few months. Stripe’s recent move may add further momentum to Solana’s growth.

    Can Solana rise to the top?

    Stripe, a prominent financial service provider, has ambitious initiatives slated for the upcoming summer, which involve facilitating cryptocurrency payments using the USDC stablecoin on the Solana blockchain.

    Co-founder John Collison emphasized that the platform is expanding its support to encompass global stablecoin payments. Furthermore, he stated that cryptocurrency transactions will now undergo “immediate” settlement into fiat currency.

    Initially, the utilization of Circle-issued USDC will kickstart the crypto payment integration across Solana, Ethereum, and Polygon blockchains.

    Collison highlighted during his keynote address that Stripe is aiming to enhance user experience significantly with the reintroduction of crypto settlements.

    This can have a positive impact on the Solana ecosystem. Stripe’s vast user base will be exposed to SOL, potentially leading to a surge in adoption and usage of the blockchain for transactions.

    At press time, the number of daily active addresses on the network had dwindled. After reaching its peak of 2.4 million users on the 16th of March, the number of daily active addresses fell by 1.3 million.

    Stripe’s recent move could help SOL with an uptick in activity in the future.

    Source: Artemis

    However, there were other areas that Solana continued to struggle with. In the DeFi sector, the blockchain continued to see a decline in its TVL (Total Value Locked).

    Moreover, the DEX (Decentralized Exchange) volumes on the network had also fallen. All of these factors indicated that users were losing interest in Solana’s DeFi offerings.

    If Solana wants to maintain its upward momentum in terms of adoption and activity, it would need to attract new users to it’s DeFi ventures.

    Source: Artemis

    Read Solana’s [SOL] Price Prediction 2024-25

    How is SOL doing?

    At press time, SOL was trading at $142.75 and its price had fallen by 1.63% in the last 24 hours. The social volume around SOL had also declined in the last few days, indicating that the popularity of network was declining.

    Additionally, the weighted sentiment around the SOL token had also fallen, suggesting that negative comments were on the rise.

    Source: Santiment

    Cyberattack forces Georgia county to sever connection to state voter registration system

    Peter Watson
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    Cyberattack forces Georgia county to sever connection to state voter registration system

    The Washington Post/The Washington Post/The Washington Post via Getty Im

    The Coffee County Elections and Registration office is seen on October 9, 2022, in Douglas, GA.



    CNN
     — 

    Georgia’s Coffee County suffered a cyberattack this month that forced the county to sever its connection to the state’s voter registration system as a precautionary measure, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN.

    Investigators believe the incident was a ransomware attack, in which cybercriminals typically lock computer systems and demand a ransom, the sources said.

    The federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) informed the county of the incident on April 15, and federal and county officials are trying to determine who carried out the hack, according to the sources.

    A spokesperson for the office of Georgia’s secretary of state confirmed the cyberattack and the county’s response.

    The voter registration system, known as GARViS, is a relatively new technology that state officials have touted as a way of ensuring millions of Georgian voters are registered accurately. There was no indication that GARViS was infiltrated by the hackers, and Coffee County’s network connection to GARViS was severed as a precautionary move, the sources said.

    Coffee County was cut off from GARViS for multiple days, but county officials are now reconnected to the voter registration system via backup laptops and cellular networks that are isolated from the county network that was hacked, a Georgia official familiar with the matter told CNN.

    Coffee County, home to about 43,000 people in southeastern Georgia, was a flashpoint in efforts by supporters of former President Donald Trump to overturn the 2020 election. A team of pro-Trump operatives breached Coffee County’s election office in January 2021 in an effort to find data to support their false claims that the election was stolen.

    A CISA spokesperson referred questions Friday evening to Coffee County. A county spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    CyberScoop first reported on the incident.

    Ransomware attacks have roiled state and local governments across the US in recent years, and Georgia is no exception. Fulton County, home to Atlanta, suffered a crippling ransomware attack in January that disrupted county computers for weeks, downing phone lines and delaying water bill payments. That hack did not affect the county’s election process.

    But federal officials have long been concerned about the potential for ransomware attacks on state and local governments to disrupt voting. US Cyber Command, the military’s hacking unit, has previously conducted cyber operations against ransomware criminals that could threaten election infrastructure.

    Self-driving fix for 2 million cars investigated by NHTSA

    Peter Watson
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    Self-driving fix for 2 million cars investigated by NHTSA

    Tesla said in December 2023 it would issue safety software updates to its autopilot features after crashes. But more crashes have federal regulators investigating whether the automaker did enough.

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    The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating the adequacy of Tesla’s December 2023 recall of more than 2 million vehicles to update its autopilot features after numerous crashes.

    NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation is opening the investigation after it identified 20 crashes involving Tesla vehicles with updated software, the agency said in documents filed Friday.

    After the software updates were deployed, “ODI identified concerns due to post-remedy crash events and results from preliminary NHTSA tests of remedied vehicles,” the agency said in the filing.

    The agency also closed a nearly three-year investigation analyzing 956 crashes involving Tesla vehicles up to Aug. 30, 2023. Nearly half of the accidents (467) could have been avoidable, ODI said, but happened because “Tesla’s weak driver engagement system was not appropriate for Autopilot’s permissive operating capabilities.”

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    In that investigation, the agency found at least 13 crashes “involving one or more fatalities and many more involving serious injuries in which foreseeable driver misuse of the system played an apparent role,” it said.

    Last week, a Tesla driven by someone with Tesla’s Full Self-Driving beta feature reportedly engaged hit and killed a motorcyclist in Washington state. That feature isn’t a total self-driving mode, but does more than autopilot – navigating turns and stopping at lights and signs – and still requires drivers to pay attention. 

    NHTSA: Tesla autopilot system has ‘critical safety gap’

    While often referred to as self-driving cars, Teslas actually have driver support features that make driving easier, but not totally automatic. Autopilot involves using Tesla’s Traffic-Aware Cruise Control, which matches the speed of other traffic, and Autosteer, which helps keep the vehicle within a lane but drivers are supposed to have their hands on the wheel.

    But drivers may be expecting their Tesla to do too much, federal regulators say.

    A “critical safety gap between drivers’ expectations of (Tesla’s drivers’ assistance system’s) operating capabilities and the system’s true capabilities … led to foreseeable misuse and avoidable crashes,” the agency said in its closed investigation report.

    In those 467 accidents, ODI said attentive drivers should have been able “to respond or mitigate the crash” in many cases. Other times, cars went off the road when Autosteer – Tesla’s hands-on steering assist feature – “was inadvertently disengaged by the driver’s inputs,” or the features were being used in “low traction conditions such as wet roadways,” the agency said.

    The new investigation will “evaluate the adequacy of (the December 2023 recall), including the prominence and scope of Autopilot controls to address misuse, mode confusion, or usage in environments the system is not designed for,” the agency said.

    What Tesla vehicles were recalled?

    When announced in December, the recall involved 2,031,220 vehicles: the 2012-2023 Model S, 2016-2023 Model X, 2017-2023 Model 3 and 2020-2023 Model Y vehicles, all equipped with Tesla’s Autosteer driver-assistance feature.

    In its issuance of the December 2023 recall, Tesla noted that, “In certain circumstances when the Autosteer feature is engaged, and the driver does not maintain personal responsibility for vehicle operation and is unprepared to intervene as necessary or fails to recognize when Autosteer is canceled or not engaged, there may be an increased risk of a crash.”

    The ODI investigation includes newer models and the Tesla Cybertruck, too.

    Models included in NHTSA investigation:

    • 2024 Tesla Cybertruck
    • 2017-2024 Tesla Model 3
    • 2021-2024 Tesla Model S
    • 2016-2024 Tesla Model X
    • 2020-2024 Tesla Model Y

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    The new investigation lands as Tesla recently announced a decline in first quarter revenue and layoffs in Austin and the Bay Area. CEO Elon Musk, however, remained bullish on the company’s self-driving technology and electric cars. And the company is expected to unveil its robotaxi on Aug. 8.

    Reuters reported in October 2022 that Tesla was under criminal investigation over its self-driving claims. Tesla said in October 2023 that the Justice Department had issued subpoenas related to its self-driving and autopilot technology. 

    Contributing: Emily DeLetter, James Powel, USA TODAY, and Reuters.

    Follow Mike Snider on X and Threads: @mikesnider & mikegsnider.

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