NoneChad Swiatecki is a 30-year journalist who relocated to Austin, TX from his home state of Michigan in 2008. He most enjoys covering the intersection of arts, business and local/state politics. He writes regularly for Austin Monitor, and has written for Rolling Stone, Spin, New York Daily News, Texas Monthly, Austin Business Journal, Austin American-Statesman and many other regional and national outlets.
Surveillance tech advances by Biden could aid in Trump’s promised crackdown on immigrationTHE cost of a family Christmas dinner has jumped by an inflation-busting 6.5 per cent, figures show. Rising prices of turkey and the trimmings have pushed up the average festive feast to £32.57 for a family of four. 4 The cost of a family Christmas dinner has jumped by 6.5 per cent Credit: Alamy 4 The average frozen turkey is 8.5 per cent more expensive than last year at £13.08 Credit: Getty Spuds saw the biggest annual rise on the Yuletide table — a stonking 16.2 per cent higher than last year, and now making up £1.65 of the total. Cauliflower is 14.6 per cent more expensive at £1.18. Parsnips are up 12.7 per cent at 71p, and carrots are up 11.4 per cent at 49p. The average frozen turkey is 8.5 per cent more expensive than last year at £13.08, according to market research analysts Kantar. READ MORE ON INFLATION RATE IT UK inflation rate rises to 2.3% in October - what it means for your money Some items rose in price less dramatically, with Christmas puddings up 4.4 per cent at £3.32, gravy granules up the same to £2.14 and Brussels sprouts up 1.1 per cent to 89p. And revellers can raise a glass to toast the fact that sparkling wine remained the same price at an average £6.40 of the total. Vegetable prices have been affected by wet weather earlier this year. And potato farmers in particular have been hard hit by rising energy costs as spuds are kept refrigerated once harvested. Most read in Money PIZZA THE ACTION US chain famed for legendary kids parties to launch first Scots branch ROYAL REIGN Exactly how much of Scotland is owned by Royals shown in new interactive map BYE BYE Cineworld to close SIX more locations - see the full list CASH IN Thousands of State Pensioners in Scotland can claim new benefit over £100 Shoppers hoping for bargains are expected to cash in on last-minute supermarket promotions — with big chains expected to rake in a record £13billion over the festive period. Fraser McKevitt, of Kantar, said: “Monday December 23 is likely to be the single busiest day for the supermarkets this year, although there are clear signs that shoppers are already stocking up their cupboards. “Sales of assorted sweet biscuits and biscuits for cheese both doubled in November compared with the month before, while eight per cent of us bought a Christmas pudding.” I'm a skincare pro, don't chuck your Christmas dinner leftovers, use them for skincare 4 Sparkling wine has remained the same price at an average £6.40 Credit: Alamy 4 How much Xmas dinner foods have gone up by
Thousands of people took to the streets in Georgia on Monday for the 12th consecutive day of protests against the government's decision to shelve European Union accession talks after disputed elections. Demanding a fresh vote and a return to European integration, protesters gathered outside parliament in the capital, Tbilisi, as the political crisis that roiled the Caucasian nation showed no signs of abating. The country's pro-Western opposition and the president rejected the ruling Georgian Dream party's claimed victory in October 26 parliamentary polls and tens of thousands had demonstrated against alleged electoral fraud. Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze's shock decision on November 28 that EU-candidate Tbilisi would suspend accession talks triggered a fresh wave of protests, which were met with a tough police response. Critics accuse Georgian Dream of creeping authoritarianism and of steering the country back towards Russia. Police have fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse previous demonstrations and arrested more than 400 people since the second wave of unrest began. The crackdown has triggered outrage at home and mounting international condemnation. On Monday, Britain denounced the violence by Georgian authorities and announced it was halting all aid to the Tbilisi government. The "shocking scenes of violence towards protestors and journalists by the Georgian authorities are unacceptable and must stop," Britain's top diplomat David Lammy said. The United States, France and Germany are among other Western countries to have voiced indignation at the handling of the protests. Many of those detained reported physical abuse, according to the Social Justice Center NGO, which provides legal counselling to those affected. The country's rights ombudsman has accused authorities of "torture". But the government has refused to back down. Luka, 24, an NGO worker who joined the protest with a group of friends, said it was "unacceptable" for a government that "grabbed power through fraudulent elections" to halt Georgia's path towards the EU. "They have no right to take away our freedoms they have no right to dictate Georgia's foreign policy, and they have no right to be in this building," he said pointing towards parliament. Some demonstrators on Monday loudly blew horns and whistles, while others held a banner reading "Less Russia is more freedom". During the day, the city finished setting up a giant Christmas tree on the pavement outside parliament, removing photos of individuals reportedly beaten by police and protest fliers hung on the tree's metallic framework the precious day. Many demonstrators resented the installation, now fully covered in twigs and silver decorations, seeing it as an attempt from authorities to show it was business as usual in the city. "It's really disrespectful, because people are here to protest, and there's no Christmas for us," said Keso, an 18-year-old student wrapped in a EU flag. "We will win because we are here for freedom, and slaves never win," she added. Kobakhidze has labelled the protesters as "violent groups" controlled by a "liberal fascist" opposition, a term often used by the Kremlin in Russia to target its political opponents. On Monday, he praised the police, repeating claims authorities have averted an attempted revolution, and shrugged off the continuing demonstrations as unsubstantial. "Four political parties and more than ten of the wealthiest NGOs... collectively they cannot attract even 5,000 participants," he told a televised cabinet briefing. The interior ministry said five more people were held in the Black Sea city of Batumi Monday, in connection with a protest there on December 3. They included a university dean who was part of a group that attempted to hang a banner at the educational institution -- but was confronted by another lecturer, leading to a confrontation. The arrested face up to two years behind bars on charges of gang violence. Police have previously raided opposition party offices, and on Saturday dozens of unidentified masked men brutally assaulted opposition figures and journalists near the protest venue. Critics of Georgian Dream are enraged by what they call its betrayal of the country's bid for EU membership, enshrined in the constitution and supported by around 80 percent of the population. The party, in power for more than a decade, has advanced controversial legislation in recent years, targeting civil society and independent media and curbing LGBTQ rights. Brussels has warned that such policies are incompatible with EU membership, while domestic detractors accuse the government of copying Russia's playbook.
By SARAH PARVINI, GARANCE BURKE and JESSE BEDAYN, Associated Press President-elect Donald Trump will return to power next year with a raft of technological tools at his disposal that would help deliver his campaign promise of cracking down on immigration — among them, surveillance and artificial intelligence technology that the Biden administration already uses to help make crucial decisions in tracking, detaining and ultimately deporting immigrants lacking permanent legal status. While immigration officials have used the tech for years, an October letter from the Department of Homeland Security obtained exclusively by The Associated Press details how those tools — some of them powered by AI — help make life-altering decisions for immigrants, including whether they should be detained or surveilled. One algorithm, for example, ranks immigrants with a “Hurricane Score,” ranging from 1-5, to assess whether someone will “abscond” from the agency’s supervision. The letter, sent by DHS Chief Artificial Intelligence Officer Eric Hysen to the immigrant rights group Just Futures Law, revealed that the score calculates the potential risk that an immigrant — with a pending case — will fail to check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers. The algorithm relies on several factors, he said, including an immigrant’s number of violations and length of time in the program, and whether the person has a travel document. Hysen wrote that ICE officers consider the score, among other information, when making decisions about an immigrant’s case. “The Hurricane Score does not make decisions on detention, deportation, or surveillance; instead, it is used to inform human decision-making,” Hysen wrote. Also included in the government’s tool kit is a mobile app called SmartLINK that uses facial matching and can track an immigrant’s specific location. Nearly 200,000 people without legal status who are in removal proceedings are enrolled in the Alternatives to Detention program, under which certain immigrants can live in the U.S. while their immigration cases are pending. In exchange, SmartLINK and GPS trackers used by ICE rigorously surveil them and their movements. The phone application draws on facial matching technology and geolocation data, which has been used before to find and arrest those using the app. Just Futures Law wrote to Hysen earlier this year, questioning the fairness of using an algorithm to assess whether someone is a flight risk and raising concerns over how much data SmartLINK collects. Such AI systems, which score or screen people, are used widely but remain largely unregulated even though some have been found to discriminate on race, gender or other protected traits. DHS said in an email that it is committed to ensuring that its use of AI is transparent and safeguards privacy and civil rights while avoiding biases. The agency said it is working to implement the Biden administration’s requirements on using AI , but Hysen said in his letter that security officials may waive those requirements for certain uses. Trump has publicly vowed to repeal Biden’s AI policy when he returns to the White House in January. “DHS uses AI to assist our personnel in their work, but DHS does not use the outputs of AI systems as the sole basis for any law enforcement action or denial of benefits,” a spokesperson for DHS told the AP. Trump has not revealed how he plans to carry out his promised deportation of an estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally. Although he has proposed invoking wartime powers, as well as military involvement, the plan would face major logistical challenges — such as where to keep those who have been detained and how to find people spread across the country — that AI-powered surveillance tools could potentially address. Karoline Leavitt, a spokesperson for Trump, did not answer questions about how they plan to use DHS’ tech, but said in a statement that “President Trump will marshal every federal and state power necessary to institute the largest deportation operation” in American history. Over 100 civil society groups sent a letter on Friday urging the Office of Management and Budget to require DHS to comply with the Biden administration’s guidelines. OMB did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Just Futures Law’s executive director, Paromita Shah, said if immigrants are scored as flight risks, they are more likely to remain in detention, “limiting their ability to prepare a defense in their case in immigration court, which is already difficult enough as it is.” SmartLINK, part of the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, is run by BI Inc., a subsidiary of the private prison company The GEO Group. The GEO Group also contracts with ICE to run detention centers. ICE is tight-lipped about how it uses SmartLINK’s location feature to find and arrest immigrants. Still, public records show that during Trump’s first term in 2018, Manassas, Virginia-based employees of BI Inc. relayed immigrants’ GPS locations to federal authorities, who then arrested over 40 people. In a report last year to address privacy issues and concerns, DHS said that the mobile app includes security features that “prohibit access to information on the participant’s mobile device, with the exception of location data points when the app is open.” But the report notes that there remains a risk that data collected from people “may be misused for unauthorized persistent monitoring.” Such information could also be stored in other ICE and DHS databases and used for other DHS mission purposes, the report said. On investor calls earlier this month, private prison companies were clear-eyed about the opportunities ahead. The GEO Group’s executive chairman George Christopher Zoley said that he expects the incoming Trump administration to “take a much more aggressive approach regarding border security as well as interior enforcement and to request additional funding from Congress to achieve these goals.” “In GEO’s ISAP program, we can scale up from the present 182,500 participants to several hundreds of thousands, or even millions of participants,” Zoley said. That same day, the head of another private prison company told investors he would be watching closely to see how the new administration may change immigrant monitoring programs. “It’s an opportunity for multiple vendors to engage ICE about the program going forward and think about creative and innovative solutions to not only get better outcomes, but also scale up the program as necessary,” Damon Hininger, CEO of the private prison company CoreCivic Inc. said on an earnings call. GEO did not respond to requests for comment. In a statement, CoreCivic said that it has played “a valued but limited role in America’s immigration system” for both Democrats and Republicans for over 40 years.(The Center Square) – The majority of Americans generally support the idea of cutting back on the federal government, polling finds. The Pew Research poll from this summer found that 56% of Americans say the government is “almost always wasteful and inefficient.” Gallup’s recent polling data shows that 55% of Americans say the government is doing “too much” while only 41% say it should do more. Americans are more evenly split how big the government should be, but increasing government efficiency has more broad support. “Gallup polling earlier this year showed that 58% of Americans are dissatisfied with the size and power of the federal government,” Gallup said. “A slight majority of Americans say the government has too much power. Seven in 10 Americans in 2019 agreed that businesses can do things more efficiently than the federal government.” The survey comes after President-elect Donald Trump won the White House and issued broad, sweeping plans to decrease the scope of the federal government. To accomplish this task, Trump appointed businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and billionaire Elon Musk to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency. “Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies – Essential to the ‘Save America’ Movement,’” Trump said in his announcement. Both Ramaswamy and Musk have publicly issued scathing remarks about the waste of federal resources currently occurring in Washington, D.C. Ramaswamy, for instance, has laid out a specific plan on how thousands of federal workers could be fired. The pair of businessmen have said publicly DOGE could cut $2 trillion in federal spending. Ramaswamy and Musk visited Capitol Hill on Thursday to meet with lawmakers to discuss the potential cuts, which could even include ideas as drastic as eliminating the Department of Education and returning that responsibility to the states. Trump's allies have also discussed cutting spending on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which are seen by Trump's camp as taxpayer-funded investment in woke ideology. Whether such stark actions would be supported by Americans remains unclear, but for now the latest polling shows Americans want something to be done. On top of that, Americans’ desire for smaller government seems to be more than a momentary political phase. “Gallup has asked this question annually over the past 24 years. On average, 52% of Americans have said the government is doing too much, compared with 42% saying the government should do more...” Gallup said. “Only twice have more Americans chosen the ‘government should do more’ alternative over the ‘government doing too much’ alternative -- in 2001 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and in 2020 after the outbreak of COVID-19.”
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WASHINGTON/REGINA, Saskatchewan, Nov 26 (Reuters) - U.S. prices may rise next year for avocados, strawberries and other fresh produce, and consumers could face shortages, if President-elect Donald Trump follows through on plans to slap tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, agricultural economists and industry executives said. Mexico and Canada are by far the top two suppliers of farm products to the United States, with imports of agricultural goods valued at nearly $86 billion last year, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Customs data. Duties on their food shipments could cause jarring financial and operational ripple effects on U.S. supplies and highlight how reliant the nation has become on its neighbors for feeding its population, economists said. Trump said Monday he would sign an executive order on his first day in office in January that would impose a 25% tariff on all products coming into the United States from Canada and Mexico to curb the flow of illegal drugs and migrants into the U.S. U.S. consumers would feel impacts at grocery stores and restaurants, with items being out of stock, Lance Jungmeyer, president of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas, said on Tuesday. "We would see fewer items in general in the produce section," Jungmeyer said. "Restaurants would have to reconfigure their menus, maybe putting in less fruits and vegetables or decreasing portions." About two-thirds of all U.S. vegetable imports and half of fruit and nut imports come from Mexico, according to the USDA: nearly 90% of its avocados, as much as 35% of its orange juice, and 20% of its strawberries. Avocado exports to the United States have soared 48% since 2019, according to U.S. trade data, as consumers have increasingly put them in salads and on sandwiches. The U.S. market accounts for about 80% of Mexico's total avocado exports, data by the USDA shows, a trade worth $3 billion last year. "It would generate an inflationary spiral," said Alfredo Ramírez, governor of Michoacan, Mexico's main avocado producing state. "Demand would not fall," he said. "What would increase are costs and prices. This would bring us an increase in inflation and direct repercussions for consumers." Margarita supplies could be hit, too. Imports of beer and tequila together make up nearly a quarter of Mexican imports of agricultural goods into the U.S. last year. U.S. imports of Mexican tequila and mezcal - both used for making cocktails, such as margaritas - totaled $4.66 billion in 2023, up 160% since 2019. The tariffs could also push prices higher for fertilizer imported from Canada at a time when farmers are paying nearly 50% more for fertilizer than in 2020, said Sam Kieffer, vice president of public policy for the American Farm Bureau Federation, a farmer trade group. "Now is not the time to send shock waves through the agricultural economy," Kieffer said. Trump's plan could also slow the migration of more than 1 million cows exported by Mexico across the border each year, to become part of the U.S. beef supply. U.S. producers have slashed their cattle herds in recent years, pushing up beef prices. They could benefit if tariffs lead to fewer cattle and beef imports, said Bill Bullard, chief executive officer of the Ranchers Cattlemen Action Legal Fund United Stockgrowers of America. Tariffs could also further increase meat prices for U.S. consumers, though Bullard said importers and meat processors may be able to absorb some extra costs. "We look forward to tariffs," he said. "It will help to level the playing field for our domestic producers." To the north, tariffs also could disrupt shipments of beef and dairy cattle and hogs between the U.S. and Canada, and potentially affect producers in both countries. Manitoba alone sends about 3 million piglets each year to producers in Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota and Nebraska, where feed corn can be sourced more cheaply, according to the Canada Pork Council and Manitoba Pork Council Midwestern farmers then raise and fatten up the animals in their feeder barns, before sending them to slaughter - and the pork flows both to buyers in the U.S. and Canada after processing. The latest USDA projections show that the U.S. in 2025 will likely run a deficit in agricultural trade of more than $42 billion, driven in part by consumer interest in off-season produce and imported alcohol from Mexico. The threat of tariffs could be a way of attaining leverage over Mexico and Canada in the lead-up to renegotiation of the USMCA trade deal, set to be reviewed in 2026, said Peter Tabor, an attorney and senior policy advisor at Holland & Knight and a former USDA trade official. But implementation of steep tariffs over time could mean the U.S. may be seen as an unreliable trading partner and that importers of U.S. goods would look elsewhere to fill the void, Tabor said. Sign up here. Reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington, Ed White in Regina, Saskatchewan, Tom Polansek and Karl Plume in Chicago, Emma Rumney in London, and Cassandra Garrison and Adriana Barrera in Mexico City; Writing By P.J. Huffstutter in Chicago; Editing by Jonathan Oatis Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. , opens new tab Thomson Reuters Washington-based award-winning journalist covering agriculture and energy including competition, regulation, federal agencies, corporate consolidation, environment and climate, racial discrimination and labour, previously at the Food and Environment Reporting Network.