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Whether you're hosting a party or just cleaning the house, sometimes it's nice to have audio in multiple rooms. You could do that by running wires through your house, or by purchasing a multi-room audio system, but if you have a Mac you don't have to do any of that. There's a feature that makes it possible to send your Mac's audio to multiple speakers, including Bluetooth ones. The feature is a little obscure, though—you won't find it in System Settings, or anywhere obvious. No, to send audio to multiple devices on your Mac you need to open an application called Audio MIDI Setup, which you can find using Spotlight or by browsing to Applications > Utilities in Finder. Credit: Justin Pot Open the application and click the + button in the bottom-left corner, then click Create Multi-Output Device. You will see a list of all audio devices, including the built-in speakers, any wired audio outputs that are connected, any Airplay-compatible devices on your network, and any Bluetooth devices that support audio. Credit: Justin Pot Check as many of these as you like. You can give a name to your combined audio device, if you like, by clicking and holding the current name in the left-hand sidebar. Then you can switch to your new combined audio device by clicking the audio icon in your menu bar and selecting it. I recommend putting on some music and testing things out, adding or removing devices. I had the best results by checking one device connected to my Mac using a wired and another that is connected by Bluetooth. Multiple Bluetooth devices tended to get out of sync quickly, though you can alleviate the syncing issues by checking the Drift Correction box for your wireless devices. This isn't a perfect replacement for a proper multi-room audio system, but it works surprisingly well without the need to buy anything, run wires in your walls, or even purchase any software. Try it out the next time you feel like walking around your house listening to music. View the full article

Denny’s said Monday that it’s being acquired by a group of investors in a deal that will take the breakfast chain private. Denny’s board unanimously approved the deal, which values Denny’s at $620 million including debt. Denny’s will be purchased by private equity investment company TriArtisan Capital Advisors, investment firm Treville Capital and Yadav Enterprises, which is one of Denny’s largest franchisees. Under the agreement, Denny’s shareholders will receive $6.25 per share in cash for each share of Denny’s common stock they own, or a total of $322 million. That represents a 52% premium to Denny’s closing stock price Monday. Denny’s shares jumped 47% in after-hours trading Monday. Denny’s was founded in 1953 in Lakewood, California, as Danny’s Donuts. The name was changed to Denny’s Coffee Shops in 1959 to avoid confusion with another chain. Denny’s began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 1969. Like many casual chains, Denny’s saw its sales plummet during the COVID pandemic. Once the pandemic eased, it found itself dealing with changing customer dining patterns, including a heavier reliance on delivery. Denny’s has also struggled as newer chains like First Watch promoted healthier breakfast options. Last fall, Denny’s said it planned to close 150 of its lowest-performing locations. At the end of the second quarter, Denny’s had 1,558 restaurants worldwide, including 1,422 Denny’s restaurants and 74 Keke’s restaurants. Denny’s acquired the Keke’s brand in 2022. Denny’s CEO Kelli Valade said the company reached out to more than 40 potential buyers and received multiple offers. Valade said Denny’s board believed the deal announced Monday was in the best interest of shareholders and the best path forward for the company. TriArtisan Co-Founder and Managing Director Rhohit Manocha called Denny’s “an iconic piece of the American dream” with a strong franchise base and loyal customers. “We look forward to working with Kelli and the rest of the Denny’s team and franchisees to provide resources and support the Company’s long-term strategic growth plans,” Manocha said in a statement. If it’s accepted by Denny’s shareholders, the deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2026. —Dee-Ann Durbin, AP Business Writer View the full article

Improved pitches from both large pharma groups expected to be revealed later on TuesdayView the full article

AI search isn’t killing SEO. It’s forcing it to evolve into a new, multi-platform discipline called search everywhere optimization, where social and user-generated content (UGC) are the new trust engines driving discoverability. When I presented this concept at brightonSEO San Diego, what stood out wasn’t just the excitement around AI. What stood out was the unexpected convergence of ideas across sessions. You might expect every talk to center on AI, yet a broader shift was quietly taking shape. Five standout voices – Wil Reynolds, Josh Blyskal, Samanyou Garg, Ross Hudgens, and Ashley Liddell – all surfaced similar insights about where search is headed. Across these discussions, one message echoed clearly: social and UGC now shape which brands audiences trust and engage with. Below are four recurring themes from those talks, along with post-event insights from each speaker on how marketers can apply a search everywhere mindset. 1. Search is not a platform, it’s a behavior Search no longer lives in one box – and users aren’t just Googling anymore. They’re discovering through: Conversations. Communities. Creators. While AI platforms are becoming part of that journey, much of it still happens where authentic discussions thrive: Reddit, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram, to name a few. Search has never been more multi-platform, multi-touch, or multi-intent. Marketers must now adapt to fragmented journeys that may start socially, evolve through AI, and end in branded discovery. Garg, founder and CEO of Writesonic, said it well when he recently shared with me: “Your website is no longer your main asset – your presence across the entire web is. Brands optimizing only for Google are missing 40% of their audience who’ve already moved to ‘search everywhere.’” My presentation defined this concept as search everywhere optimization, emphasizing that success depends on SEO, social, PR, and brand teams working together to drive unified discoverability. Other speakers echoed these points, even if they used different language. Liddell defines this similarly as “search everywhere” – where social, brand, and search operate together to drive discoverability. Hudgens said, “Social is evolving to become the new open web,” citing data showing traffic and engagement growth from social ecosystems. Blyskal quantified the behavior: AI platforms cite Reddit and YouTube way more than any traditional websites. More proof that discovery has evolved beyond Google’s SERP. In speaking with Blyskal, head of AI strategy and research at Profound, he noted: “Search everywhere isn’t a trend anymore, it’s reality. Our data shows that consumers are asking ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity the same questions they used to ask Google, but the answers are being built from fundamentally different sources. UGC platforms like Reddit now drive more influence in AI recommendations than most corporate websites because they represent unfiltered human experience at scale.” 2. UGC and social content drive modern discovery User-generated content and social discourse have become the connective tissue of search. From product reviews to LinkedIn posts to Reddit threads, these conversations shape what AI and many humans believe to be authoritative. Social platforms are now the front door to search intent, sparking curiosity and building interest that eventually leads users to branded and organic experiences. Blyskal’s analysis of 40 million AI search results found Reddit to be the single most-cited domain across ChatGPT, Copilot, and Perplexity. While some shifts have occurred recently, he confirmed on Oct. 21 that “Reddit is still the most cited website overall in AI and is still second in ChatGPT.” Garg echoed this finding, noting that Reddit and other community-driven content dominate citations across industries – a clear signal for marketers to engage where real conversations happen. Liddell’s award-winning BullyBillows case study demonstrated how social-first content can drive measurable SEO impact, including: A 65% rise in brand searches. A 195% increase in “brand + keyword” searches. A 139% lift in revenue. Reynolds likewise emphasized the value of social resonance, recommending that marketers invest in content that performs well on social platforms, even if it underperforms in organic search. Seer Interactive’s own data backs this up: while social generates 89% less traffic than search, it produces 20% more leads. Together, this data proves that social and UGC are not just amplification channels. They’re search inputs themselves, and a core component of search everywhere optimization. In a follow-up conversation, Hudgens – founder and CEO of Siege Media – remarked: “Search traffic to LinkedIn pages is up significantly, and I expect it to continue to grow, eventually coming close to Reddit and Quora in impact on B2B. Brands need to be considering how they show up and contribute on LinkedIn in order to best impact all search surfaces.” Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. See terms. 3. Preference outranks ranking Visibility alone no longer wins. Many are seeing this firsthand in their analytics – clicks are declining even when rankings remain steady. The real goal now is preference: being chosen, not just seen. Both humans and AI systems increasingly value authenticity and consensus over keyword precision and link quantity. Today, search visibility depends as much on how others describe your brand as on the content you create yourself. Liddell frames this shift through the lens of preference = authority + trust + relevance. Reynolds highlights the rise of community platforms – LinkedIn, Reddit, Slack, and WhatsApp – urging SEOs to focus on spaces where people share content with personal endorsement, offering more genuine reach than traditional formats that dominate the SERP. Hudgens describes the 2021–2026 content marketing evolution from “high DR (domain rating) links” to “high influence mentions,” signaling that social proof and reputation now act as the modern PageRank. Garg quantifies it: AI now weighs third-party mentions three times higher than a brand’s own website. In short, as search engines are learning to mirror people, they trust signals, not tactics. This is the preference component of search everywhere optimization. Liddell, co-founder and Search Everywhere director at Deviation, summarized it nicely to me, sharing: “Brands can’t win on rankings alone anymore; they win on trust. Modern discovery happens where people talk, not where algorithms dictate – and that means investing in authentic UGC and social visibility is as critical to search as backlinks once were.” 4. Search everywhere success starts with breaking down silos In 2025, silos remain one of the biggest obstacles to growth. Many of our clients experience this firsthand – and other industry experts agree that maximizing discoverability now depends on cross-functional collaboration. Search teams can no longer operate in isolation. PR, brand, and social teams all feed the trust loop that AI, search engines, and users rely on. Future success will depend on these groups meeting regularly, sharing ideas, and aligning on shared goals. My presentation emphasized building cross-channel roadmaps with social, content, PR, and paid to ensure each team’s efforts reinforce each other. Hudgens showed that the future of content marketing lies in blending PR, organic social, thought leadership, and SEO – creating compounding impact instead of treating them as separate channels. Reynolds underscored the need for shared metrics, measuring impact not in rankings but in trust, reach, and conversion. The new search equation runs on trust While the speakers offered diverse perspectives, they all agreed on one central truth: search success is shifting from gaming algorithms to authentically earning audience trust. Reddit posts, offsite reviews, social media, and third-party references now serve as critical trust signals – not because they link, but because they validate and build confidence in a brand. This shift – evident across all four takeaways, from breaking down silos to valuing preference over ranking – underscores a broader reality: search isn’t something people do anymore. It’s something they experience, everywhere. The brands that will thrive in this new era won’t be those with the most backlinks or the sharpest keyword strategy, but those whose audiences genuinely connect with and vouch for them. View the full article

A new open AI platform from the nonprofit created by the late Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen aims to make satellite imagery and other data about the earth more available and useful. The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (Ai2) on Tuesday unveiled the OlmoEarth Platform, backed by a family of AI foundation models trained on roughly 10 terabytes of data derived from millions of observations of the planet, including satellite images, radar readings, and existing maps of features like forest cover. The OlmoEarth models can then be fine-tuned for specific purposes, like detecting changes in vegetation, with the help of a companion software tool called OlmoEarth Studio. Details on model performance are included in a new scientific paper. Ai2 has already been working with a variety of organizations harnessing the AI, including groups looking to better assess and respond to wildfire risk. The International Food Policy Research Institute is using the technology to more frequently update maps of crops grown in one region of Kenya. Amazon Conservation is using the AI system to quickly spot deforestation. And a project called Global Mangrove Watch is harnessing the technology to more comprehensively track mangrove populations and quickly detect threats to those critical coastline trees. Patrick Beukema, lead researcher on Ai2’s OlmoEarth team, says the project grew out of a realization that while AI can help put earth imagery and data to use by quickly analyzing both new and historic images, actually deploying the technology could be a challenge for many organizations, including government agencies and nonprofits doing important work. “I think there’s a recognition that this kind of technology can be very valuable, but it’s so difficult to use, so we haven’t seen widespread adoption of these kinds of models, as we’ve seen, for example, within natural language processing or with [large-language models],” he says. “And we haven’t really seen the transformative power of artificial intelligence within this domain.” State-of-the-artTo fill that gap, Ai2 created not only what Beukema calls state-of-the-art models, built using vision transformer technology similar to the large-language models that power tools like ChatGPT and Claude, but a set of companion tools making them practical to use. Those include OlmoEarth Studio, which simplifies the process of training the models for specific tasks by uploading human-labelled sample data showing relevant features like lands growing specific crops, areas of mangroves, or bits of forest vulnerable to wildfire. Once OlmoEarth models are fine-tuned, they can be used to analyze areas of the earth at a particular moment in time, selected as easily as finding a neighborhood on Google Maps and scheduling an event on a calendar app. “They can just tell the system, ‘I want mangroves, I want them in Indonesia over the last six months,’ or ‘I want a global inference over the last four years,’” Beukema says. “The idea is to build in that flexibility so that users can choose whatever they need.” Then, users can publish or privately share maps illustrating their findings, which can be viewed in an OlmoEarth Viewer app that can support interactive maps with options to select places and time ranges. The Studio and Viewer tools can be used without the need to write any code, though Ai2 also released a suite of automation tools and APIs for easy programming of its technology. Providing the toolsThe organization also released documentation and examples on its GitHub page for the project, along with existing fine-tuned models that can immediately be put to use or even run offline on an organization’s own computers. And OlmoEarth follows other recent software releases from Ai2, including a package of science-focused AI tools called Asta released in August, and a set of language models known as OLMo, for open language models. Overall, Beukema says, the goal with OlmoEarth is to give organizations free technology that compares favorably to existing commercial and academic AI projects, letting them efficiently analyze and visualize planetary data they often already deeply understand, even when they don’t have the resources to build their own AI models from scratch. “These people are often experts, so they know exactly what they’re looking for,” he says. “They just don’t necessarily have, or want to build, these complicated foundation models that are expensive to train, expensive to inference, expensive to really work with.” Global Mangrove Watch—which tracks those coastal trees that are environmentally important as fish habitats, carbon stores, and as barriers to erosion, storm surge, and even tsunamis—is already working to improve its mapping and analysis processes with OlmoEarth. An existing machine learning and mapping system could already track mangroves with relatively high accuracy, but organizing training data and verifying the output still requires a lot of manual labor, says Lammert Hilarides, senior technical officer at Wetlands International, one of the organizations behind Global Mangrove Watch. A plan to scale upHilarides says OlmoEarth should allow the organizations to spend more time on other tasks, including working with governments and organizations around the world that are working to preserve mangroves and protect them from often-illegal deforestation. Critically, it will allow the project to update mangrove loss maps more quickly and let them cover a greater extent of the planet, catching disturbances to mangroves faster and more comprehensively. “We really hope that as of next year, we can scale up our work from covering not just half the world’s mangroves but all of the world’s mangroves,” he says. Ai2 plans to make OlmoEarth accessible to a wide range of organizations, with most features free for anyone to use, though a few features like fine-tuning elements will generally require groups to coordinate with Ai2 to make sure the product isn’t used for harmful purposes. Beukema says the nonprofit institute encourages organizations that think the technology could be useful to be in contact. “If you think this tech is going to help you accelerate your mission, please reach out,” he says. “We really want to help you.” View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Bose Ultra Open Earbuds take a sharp turn from the brand’s usual noise-canceling dominance. Instead of sealing you off from the world, they sit outside your ears, letting in ambient sound while still delivering rich, detailed audio. Priced at $199 (down from its original $299), this is their lowest price yet (according to price trackers), and they cater to people who prefer awareness over isolation. Think cyclists, runners, or anyone who doesn’t want to miss the honk of a car while listening to music. Bose Ultra Open Earbuds $199.00 at Amazon $299.00 Save $100.00 Get Deal Get Deal $199.00 at Amazon $299.00 Save $100.00 The fit takes a minute to figure out. The silicone band adds just enough tension to keep them in place, but how you clip them changes the sound more than you’d expect. Too high and it gets tinny; too low and you lose stereo balance. Once you find the alignment, though, they stay put through walks or light workouts and handle sweat or drizzle without a fuss, thanks to their IPX4 rating. Sound-wise, Bose mostly nails what’s hard to get right in open audio: clarity. The Ultra Opens avoid the hollow sound that plagues similar models, keeping vocals crisp and highs bright. The low mids have a pleasing warmth, though the deep bass doesn’t hit with much punch. You’ll notice that most in EDM or hip-hop, where the kick feels restrained. Still, for casual listening, podcasts, and calls, the balanced tuning works. Also, they use Bluetooth 5.3 and support AAC, AptX Adaptive, and SBC codecs, which means Android users get slightly better audio quality than iPhone users. Volume holds steady even outdoors, and there’s minimal distortion at full blast—per this PCMag review, the earbuds sound their best around 70 percent volume, delivering a full, detailed mix while still keeping you aware of what’s happening around you. If you prefer a more low-end presence, the adjustable EQ in the Bose app lets you tweak the sound. Battery life holds up nicely, too, around 7.5 hours on a charge and about 27 hours with the case. That said, wireless charging isn’t built in, though there’s a separate case for that if you prefer it over the USB-C setup. Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now Apple AirPods Pro 2 Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds — $169.99 (List Price $249.00) Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $299.00 (List Price $349.00) Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K Plus — $29.99 (List Price $49.99) Ring Pan-Tilt Indoor Cam, White with Ring Indoor Cam (2nd Gen), White — $59.99 (List Price $99.99) Blink Video Doorbell Wireless (Newest Model) + Sync Module Core — $69.99 (List Price $69.99) Blink Mini 2 1080p Indoor Security Camera (2-Pack, White) — $27.99 (List Price $69.99) Ring Video Doorbell Pro 2 with Ring Chime Pro — $149.99 (List Price $259.99) Introducing Amazon Fire TV 55" Omni Mini-LED Series, QLED 4K UHD smart TV, Dolby Vision IQ, 144hz gaming mode, Ambient Experience, hands-free with Alexa, 2024 release — $699.99 (List Price $819.99) Blink Outdoor 4 1080p 2-Camera Kit With Sync Module Core — $129.99 (List Price $129.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

The U.S. IPO market in 2025 has been relatively busy, with plenty of household names going public, including Klarna, eToro, and Chime. But as you can tell from that brief list, many of the most closely watched IPOs this year have been companies operating in the fintech space. In a change of pace, one company operating in the aerospace sector is expected to make its market debut today. Here’s what you need to know about Beta Technologies and its initial public offering: What is Beta Technologies? Beta Technologies is an aerospace company that specializes in electric aircraft, electric charging systems, and electric propulsion systems. The company was founded in 2017 by pilot and engineer Kyle Clark, who is Beta’s current CEO. It is based in South Burlington, Vermont. As far as aircraft go, the company has developed two electric vehicles. The first is a conventional fixed-wing take-off and landing (CTOL) electric aircraft. This aircraft uses a conventional runway to take off and land. The second is a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) electric vehicle. This one uses rotating propellers to take off vertically. Both the CTOL and VTOL versions of the electric aircraft are known as the Alia. Beta says its Alia aircraft have now flown more than 83,000 nautical miles on trips across the United States. Last year, Beta Technologies was named as one of Fast Company’s most innovative companies operating in the transportation space. At the time, Fast Company highlighted Beta’s flight milestones as well as its deliveries of its aircraft to the U.S. Department of Defense, with which the company has contracts. In its Form S-1 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Beta Technologies highlighted the energy efficiency of its Alia CTOL vehicle. A flight into John F. Kennedy International Airport required just $7 in fuel costs. That represented an approximate 95% savings over combustion aircraft, the company says. As of the end of June, the company reported having 828 full-time employees. For the fiscal year that ended on December 31, 2024, Beta said it generated just over $15 million in revenue. For the six-month period ending on June 30, 2025, the company generated $15.5 million in revenue. When is Beta’s IPO? Beta Technologies announced the pricing of its shares on Monday. It plans to list its shares today (Tuesday, November 4) on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). What is Beta’s stock ticker? Shares will trade under the stock ticker “BETA.” What is the IPO share price of Beta? The initial public offering price for Beta shares is $34 per share. That was above its marketed target range of $27 and $33 apiece. How many Beta shares are available in its IPO? Upon its IPO listing, Beta Technologies made roughly 30 million shares of its Class A common stock available, according to the company’s press release. How much will Beta Technologies raise in its IPO? Beta Technologies raised just over $1 billion in its IPO. How much is Beta Technologies worth? After its IPO, Beta Technologies has a potential valuation of $7.44 billion, according to Reuters. Beta is the latest aerospace startup to go public While the electric aerospace market is a relatively small one compared to other industries like technology or finance, a number of aerospace startups have gone public in the past few years, in some cases merging with special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs. Electric aircraft companies that have gone public in recent years include Joby Aviation and Vertical Aerospace in 2021, Surf Air Mobility in 2023, and Firefly Aerospace in 2025. View the full article

Dick Cheney, the hard-charging conservative who became one of the most powerful and polarizing vice presidents in U.S. history and a leading advocate for the invasion of Iraq, has died at age 84. Cheney died Monday night due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, his family said in a statement. “For decades, Dick Cheney served our nation, including as White House Chief of Staff, Wyoming’s Congressman, Secretary of Defense, and Vice President of the United States,” the statement said. “Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing. We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.” The quietly forceful Cheney served father and son presidents, leading the armed forces as defense chief during the Persian Gulf War under President George H.W. Bush before returning to public life as vice president under Bush’s son George W. Bush. Cheney was, in effect, the chief operating officer of the younger Bush’s presidency. He had a hand, often a commanding one, in implementing decisions most important to the president and some of surpassing interest to himself — all while living with decades of heart disease and, post-administration, a heart transplant. Cheney consistently defended the extraordinary tools of surveillance, detention and inquisition employed in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Years after leaving office, he became a target of President Donald The President, especially after his daughter Liz Cheney became the leading Republican critic and examiner of The President’s desperate attempts to stay in power after his election defeat and his actions in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. “In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald The President,” Cheney said in a television ad for his daughter. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward.” In a twist the Democrats of his era could never have imagined, Dick Cheney said last year he was voting for their candidate, Kamala Harris, for president against The President. A survivor of five heart attacks, Cheney long thought he was living on borrowed time and declared in 2013 he now awoke each morning “with a smile on my face, thankful for the gift of another day,” an odd image for a figure who always seemed to be manning the ramparts. His vice presidency defined by the age of terrorism, Cheney disclosed that he had had the wireless function of his defibrillator turned off years earlier out of fear terrorists would remotely send his heart a fatal shock. In his time in office, no longer was the vice presidency merely a ceremonial afterthought. Instead, Cheney made it a network of back channels from which to influence policy on Iraq, terrorism, presidential powers, energy and other cornerstones of a conservative agenda. Fixed with a seemingly permanent half-smile — detractors called it a smirk — Cheney joked about his outsize reputation as a stealthy manipulator. “Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole?” he asked. “It’s a nice way to operate, actually.” The Iraq War A hard-liner on Iraq who was increasingly isolated as other hawks left government, Cheney was proved wrong on point after point in the Iraq War, without ever losing the conviction that he was essentially right. He alleged links between the 2001 attacks against the United States and prewar Iraq that didn’t exist. He said U.S. troops would be welcomed as liberators; they weren’t. He declared the Iraqi insurgency in its last throes in May 2005, back when 1,661 U.S. service members had been killed, not even half the toll by war’s end. For admirers, he kept the faith in a shaky time, resolute even as the nation turned against the war and the leaders waging it. But well into Bush’s second term, Cheney’s clout waned, checked by courts or shifting political realities. Courts ruled against efforts he championed to broaden presidential authority and accord special harsh treatment to suspected terrorists. His hawkish positions on Iran and North Korea were not fully embraced by Bush. Cheney operated much of the time from undisclosed locations in the months after the 2001 attacks, kept apart from Bush to ensure one or the other would survive any follow-up assault on the country’s leadership. With Bush out of town on that fateful day, Cheney was a steady presence in the White House, at least until Secret Service agents lifted him off his feet and carried him away, in a scene the vice president later described to comical effect. Cheney’s relationship with Bush From the beginning, Cheney and Bush struck an odd bargain, unspoken but well understood. Shelving any ambitions he might have had to succeed Bush, Cheney was accorded power comparable in some ways to the presidency itself. That bargain largely held up. “He is constituted in a way to be the ultimate No. 2 guy,” Dave Gribbin, a friend who grew up with Cheney in Casper, Wyoming, and worked with him in Washington, once said. “He is congenitally discreet. He is remarkably loyal.” As Cheney put it: “I made the decision when I signed on with the president that the only agenda I would have would be his agenda, that I was not going to be like most vice presidents — and that was angling, trying to figure out how I was going to be elected president when his term was over with.” His penchant for secrecy and backstage maneuvering had a price. He came to be seen as a thin-skinned Machiavelli orchestrating a bungled response to criticism of the Iraq War. And when he shot a hunting companion in the torso, neck and face with an errant shotgun blast in 2006, he and his coterie were slow to disclose that extraordinary turn of events. The vice president called it “one of the worst days of my life.” The victim, his friend Harry Whittington, recovered and quickly forgave him. Comedians were relentless about it for months. Whittington died in 2023. When Bush began his presidential quest, he sought help from Cheney, a Washington insider who had retreated to the oil business. Cheney led the team to find a vice presidential candidate. Bush decided the best choice was the man picked to help with the choosing. Together, the pair faced a protracted 2000 postelection battle before they could claim victory. A series of recounts and court challenges — a tempest that brewed from Florida to the nation’s highest court — left the nation in limbo for weeks. Cheney took charge of the presidential transition before victory was clear and helped give the administration a smooth launch despite the lost time. In office, disputes among departments vying for a bigger piece of Bush’s constrained budget came to his desk and often were settled there. On Capitol Hill, Cheney lobbied for the president’s programs in halls he had walked as a deeply conservative member of Congress and the No. 2 Republican House leader. Jokes abounded about how Cheney was the real No. 1 in town; Bush didn’t seem to mind and cracked a few himself. But such comments became less apt later in Bush’s presidency as he clearly came into his own. Cheney’s political rise Politics first lured Dick Cheney to Washington in 1968, when he was a congressional fellow. He became a protégé of Rep. Donald Rumsfeld, R-Ill., serving under him in two agencies and in Gerald Ford’s White House before he was elevated to chief of staff, the youngest ever, at age 34. Cheney held the post for 14 months, then returned to Casper, where he had been raised, and ran for the state’s lone congressional seat. In that first race for the House, Cheney suffered a mild heart attack, prompting him to crack he was forming a group called “Cardiacs for Cheney.” He still managed a decisive victory and went on to win five more terms. In 1989, Cheney became defense secretary under the first President Bush and led the Pentagon during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War that drove Iraq’s troops from Kuwait. Between the two Bush administrations, Cheney led Dallas-based Halliburton Corp., a large engineering and construction company for the oil industry. Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, son of a longtime Agriculture Department worker. Senior class president and football co-captain in Casper, he went to Yale on a full scholarship for a year but left with failing grades. He moved back to Wyoming, eventually enrolled at the University of Wyoming and renewed a relationship with high school sweetheart Lynne Anne Vincent, marrying her in 1964. He is survived by his wife, by Liz and by a second daughter, Mary. Associated Press writer Mead Gruver in Cheyenne, Wyoming, contributed to this report. —Calvin Woodward, Associated Press View the full article

There are myriad ways to prioritize your to-do list, but even if you find one that works for you, you might find they can be a little weedy and overcomplicated. That means when it comes to tasks that don't quite require that level of involvement, your productivity method can actually manage to stress you out. If you're tired of your to-do list feeling like such a heavy lift, you can make simplifying things, well, simpler by prioritizing your tasks with the "must, should, want" technique. What is the “must, should, want” technique This technique was developed by Jay Shirley about a decade ago. The blogger set out to enhance not only people’s productivity, but their daily enjoyability, too, This is important, as if you're miserable and unmotivated, you're not going to be especially productive. With this system, instead of prioritizing tasks only based on productivity or results, you also incorporate some of what you want to do, which helps round out your day without grinding you down. Similar to systems like Agile Results, “must, should, want” requires you to spend a little time every morning planning out your day. Setting aside a few dedicated minutes to figuring out the day’s plan is a good way to get in the zone and stay on track, but you have to remember to write down your goals to stay motivated and organized. In your planner (or in an app like Notion, if you want), create three columns: must, should, and want. Under “Must,” write down what you must do on a given day, whether it’s a smaller piece of a larger, long-term project or an item that is due in a few hours. (If you need help figuring out those pieces and when they need to be done on time to best serve your larger goals, try incorporating the kanban method.) “Should” tasks are those you ought to do for the future, but aren’t down to the wire on yet—or those that won’t be earth-shattering if you don’t get them done right away. Finally, “want” tasks are those that you’d simply like to do, whether they have to do with your immediate responsibilities or not. "Want" is where this method differs from all others—plenty of methods out there ask you to prioritize your to-dos by level of "must" or "should" level urgency, but only this one leaves room for enjoyment. You complete each list in order. Getting through the things you must and should do leaves room for the things you want to do, and that pending reward can motivate you through the more rigid stuff. When and how to use the “must, should, want” methodThis works well for an overall day plan, incorporating work and responsibilities with after-hours hobbies. But it’s also helpful for specific projects, as it changes every morning. Today’s “should” tasks might be tomorrow’s “must” tasks, so there’s room for variability and a more fluid approach, as long as you stick with the habit of redoing your lists every morning. Getting a "should" done early can be motivating, but even identifying what is a "must" and what is a "should" can alleviate some of your stress and keep you engaged. It’s also helpful for budgeting. Before you get paid or go shopping, make a list of what you must buy, what you should buy, and what you want to buy. Even seeing it written out like that will help you make better purchasing decisions. To keep it all doable and manageable, challenge yourself to only put three to four things in every list on a given day. You’ll never get to the “want” column if you have nine “must” activities and seven “should” tasks, which defeats the point of the technique. Be discerning and if something isn’t a “must,” don’t pressure yourself; just make it a “should.” This approach is designed to inject some fun and reduce the stress from your typical to-do list, but it won’t work if you treat every task like an end-of-the-world necessity. View the full article

In an era where data privacy is paramount, small business owners are constantly seeking ways to secure their communications and sensitive information. WhatsApp’s latest announcement promises to bolster data security by introducing passkey-enabled encryption for chat backups—a move that could transform how small enterprises manage their digital communications. WhatsApp has long been a go-to messaging app, acclaimed for its emphasis on user privacy. Now, with this new feature, the platform takes a significant step forward, making secure communication simpler and more user-friendly. Business owners can leverage this enhanced security to safeguard not only their conversations but also invaluable customer interactions, project discussions, and sensitive business information. The introduction of passkeys means users can protect their WhatsApp chat backups simply by using biometric authentication such as a fingerprint or facial recognition. No longer will small business owners need to remember complex passwords or a cumbersome 64-digit encryption key for backup security. Instead, accessing chat backups becomes as simple as a tap or glance, ensuring quick retrieval when needed. As small businesses often juggle various tasks and tight schedules, ease of use is crucial. The new feature streamlines the backup process, making it easier than ever to maintain data security without sacrificing productivity. Business owners can enable end-to-end encrypted backups by navigating to WhatsApp settings, tapping on Chats, selecting Chat backup, and opting for the new end-to-end encrypted backup feature. This straightforward setup allows for immediate implementation without requiring extensive technical knowledge. However, challenges may arise as businesses begin to utilize this feature. While passkeys enhance security, they also depend on the reliability of biometric technology. If a user’s fingerprint or facial recognition fails to recognize them, accessing backups could prove cumbersome. Additionally, as small businesses grow and possibly transition to team communications, ensuring that all members understand and utilize these encryption methods will be essential. Given that various employees may have different levels of technical proficiency, business owners might need to invest time in training or troubleshooting. It’s also worth noting that small businesses often handle sensitive customer information, making the need for secure communication even more critical. The ability to encrypt backups will help mitigate the risk of data breaches or unauthorized access, reinforcing trust with customers. As data protection regulations tighten worldwide, compliance could also be enhanced by adopting these better security practices. While WhatsApp’s new feature is gradually rolling out over the upcoming weeks and months, small business owners who wish to stay ahead of the curve should consider adopting it promptly. Engaging in conversations about privacy and data handling with employees can help develop a culture of security within the organization. Additionally, as customer interactions increasingly move to digital platforms, prioritizing data security is not just a precaution—it’s a competitive advantage. As WhatsApp continues to innovate and respond to user needs, small businesses stand to gain significantly. By integrating such advanced security features into everyday communication practices, owners can not only protect their proprietary information but also enhance customer relationships built on trust and transparency. For more details, visit the original announcement here. This article, "WhatsApp Boosts Privacy with Passkey Encryption for Chat Backups" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

In an era where data privacy is paramount, small business owners are constantly seeking ways to secure their communications and sensitive information. WhatsApp’s latest announcement promises to bolster data security by introducing passkey-enabled encryption for chat backups—a move that could transform how small enterprises manage their digital communications. WhatsApp has long been a go-to messaging app, acclaimed for its emphasis on user privacy. Now, with this new feature, the platform takes a significant step forward, making secure communication simpler and more user-friendly. Business owners can leverage this enhanced security to safeguard not only their conversations but also invaluable customer interactions, project discussions, and sensitive business information. The introduction of passkeys means users can protect their WhatsApp chat backups simply by using biometric authentication such as a fingerprint or facial recognition. No longer will small business owners need to remember complex passwords or a cumbersome 64-digit encryption key for backup security. Instead, accessing chat backups becomes as simple as a tap or glance, ensuring quick retrieval when needed. As small businesses often juggle various tasks and tight schedules, ease of use is crucial. The new feature streamlines the backup process, making it easier than ever to maintain data security without sacrificing productivity. Business owners can enable end-to-end encrypted backups by navigating to WhatsApp settings, tapping on Chats, selecting Chat backup, and opting for the new end-to-end encrypted backup feature. This straightforward setup allows for immediate implementation without requiring extensive technical knowledge. However, challenges may arise as businesses begin to utilize this feature. While passkeys enhance security, they also depend on the reliability of biometric technology. If a user’s fingerprint or facial recognition fails to recognize them, accessing backups could prove cumbersome. Additionally, as small businesses grow and possibly transition to team communications, ensuring that all members understand and utilize these encryption methods will be essential. Given that various employees may have different levels of technical proficiency, business owners might need to invest time in training or troubleshooting. It’s also worth noting that small businesses often handle sensitive customer information, making the need for secure communication even more critical. The ability to encrypt backups will help mitigate the risk of data breaches or unauthorized access, reinforcing trust with customers. As data protection regulations tighten worldwide, compliance could also be enhanced by adopting these better security practices. While WhatsApp’s new feature is gradually rolling out over the upcoming weeks and months, small business owners who wish to stay ahead of the curve should consider adopting it promptly. Engaging in conversations about privacy and data handling with employees can help develop a culture of security within the organization. Additionally, as customer interactions increasingly move to digital platforms, prioritizing data security is not just a precaution—it’s a competitive advantage. As WhatsApp continues to innovate and respond to user needs, small businesses stand to gain significantly. By integrating such advanced security features into everyday communication practices, owners can not only protect their proprietary information but also enhance customer relationships built on trust and transparency. For more details, visit the original announcement here. This article, "WhatsApp Boosts Privacy with Passkey Encryption for Chat Backups" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Over the past year, Google Ads has increasingly embraced automation, shifting the account manager’s role in both practice and strategy. The granular control and transparency we once took for granted are rapidly disappearing. As 2026 approaches, it’s time to face reality – five PPC tactics are falling out of favor in the new era of automation. 1. Relying on phrase match keywords Once the go-to option for advertisers who weren’t ready for a broad match strategy but wanted to expand search volume, phrase match has recently fallen out of favor. Google continues to redefine how match types work. Because Smart Bidding and broad match rely on multiple intent signals, these signals now match user intent more accurately than phrase match did under the same strategy. When targeting a specific query, exact match tends to provide stronger control, while phrase match often returns ads for irrelevant searches. As a result, phrase match has become both too limited to scale an account and not precise enough to maintain the level of control advertisers need in a keyword match type. 2. Skipping standard shopping campaigns Although Performance Max has been Google’s main focus for some time, advertisers continue to see strong results from testing standard shopping campaigns. This became even more apparent after the ad rank update at the end of 2024, which removed Performance Max’s built-in priority over standard shopping. Since then, standard shopping campaigns have outperformed Performance Max in many cases. Standard shopping also provides greater channel control and a clearer attribution path, as conversions typically come from direct clicks within the Google Shopping network. While Performance Max now offers campaign-level search terms, standard shopping has long provided both that data and impression share insights at the product-group level – valuable for benchmarking and understanding competitive performance. If you’re concerned about brand safety, standard shopping is the safer choice. It helps keep your ads off irrelevant or inappropriate placements across the Display Network or YouTube. 3. Making GA4 your primary conversion action Remember the days of Universal Analytics, when Google would always advise advertisers to use UA conversion tracking as the primary metric? It seems the guidance has gone back and forth ever since. Ideally, your main conversion metric in Google Ads should align with account conversions to deliver real-time data signals for Smart Bidding. GA4’s tracking pixel doesn’t provide that freshness – imported GA4 events are delayed in processing. Additionally, GA4 attributes conversions to the date the conversion occurred, whereas the native Google Ads tag attributes them to the date of the ad click. Third-party tools such as Elevar or Analyzify often provide the most reliable setup for accurate conversion tracking. If a third-party solution isn’t feasible, Google increasingly recommends the Google and YouTube app as an alternative. It’s relatively easy to configure, but avoid syncing products or shipping settings during setup to prevent duplicate products or overwritten shipping details in Merchant Center. GA4 should still be linked for audience building and secondary reporting, but it’s best not to use it as the primary conversion metric. It simply doesn’t deliver the real-time data accuracy needed for optimal Smart Bidding performance. Get the newsletter search marketers rely on. See terms. 4. Letting Performance Max capture branded terms Performance Max campaigns tend to favor branded queries, so it’s important to segment branded terms rather than allowing them to run within broader campaigns. This matters most when aiming for incremental traffic growth, not just conversions you would have earned from branded searches anyway. Performance Max prioritizes easy wins, bidding heavily on branded terms and often inflating campaign-level ROAS, making results appear stronger than they actually are. Separating branded traffic into a dedicated brand search campaign provides more control over both budget allocation and bid strategy for those terms. However, there are factors to consider before excluding branded terms from existing Performance Max campaigns. Doing so can affect performance, and the right approach isn’t one-size-fits-all. Review: The campaign’s age. History. Contribution to overall performance. The share of brand traffic it drives. In large accounts, for instance, if a single PMax campaign is responsible for most conversions and spend, it may be unwise to exclude branded terms immediately. Likewise, in accounts with limited budgets, keeping branded terms within the same campaign may still make sense. 5. Over-pinning responsive search ads The pinning debate has been around for a while, but more advertisers are now leaning toward fewer responsive search ad (RSA) assets instead of over-pinning existing ones. This helps maintain control over messaging while still giving Google enough flexibility to test which headline and description combinations perform best – without overwhelming the system with endless variations. And yes, the question always comes up, “What about my ad strength?” Realistically, ad strength should be treated as a guide for creative quality, not a direct measure of performance. While it can highlight issues such as limited variety or missing keywords, it does not directly impact ad rank or quality score. Ad strength is a diagnostic tool, not a KPI. Chasing an “excellent” score by stuffing headlines and descriptions can easily result in weaker performance for the sake of a vanity metric. Don’t fight the machine – feed it As 2026 approaches, the most successful account managers will be those who adapt to the new landscape. The goal isn’t to fight automation but to feed it the right data. Focus on high-value inputs and let automation do the heavy lifting – the most profitable PPC practices are the ones that save time, not consume it. View the full article

I'm always harping about how everyone should familiarize themselves with and start using time boxing and time blocking, the techniques that call on you to pre-plan your entire day down to the minute, filling up every space on your calendar with defined tasks. I stand by my enthusiasm for the methods, but even when you’re time boxing your whole day, you’ll notice you end up with a few random pockets of time sprinkled throughout your schedule. If you don’t have a plan for what to do with these, they’ll become unproductive—so start thinking of how you can maximize your productivity with “time pockets.” What are time pockets?Time pockets are small amounts of time throughout your regular day that aren’t really occupied with anything, but can give you a major leg up when it comes to getting big projects done. They're generally unreliable and don't come around at the same time each day, if they come around each day at all. Say you set aside the first 45 minutes of every workday to tackle your email inbox. If you finish in 30 minutes one day, you have 15 bonus minutes available. That’s a time pocket. Because taking breaks and having downtime are essential to staying productive, you might think that's a great time to relax, scroll social media, or otherwise loaf, but I am not a big proponent of using time pockets for chilling out. First of all, in the example above, The time pocket appears just 30 minutes into the work day. You probably don't need to take a break at that point. Second, you should actually be scheduling your downtime. You should know when it's coming in advance because it's also a major part of being and staying productive. Leaving it up to the unpredictable time pockets is a bad idea. Two better ways to use time pocketsThe first way you can use little spare moments to get things done is by committing to the two-minute rule. This works well for time pockets you aren’t expecting, like the example above, when you finish another task before the time you allotted for it expires. Keep a list of simple tasks that you could reasonably accomplish in two minutes, regardless of how important the tasks are—such as gathering the dishes from your workspace or filling out a form. Whenever you have an unexpected time pocket, refer to your list right away, pick the first item, and bang it out. Whenever another simple, two-minute task pops up throughout the day, add it to the list so you always have a supply of little things to do during unplanned downtime. The other way you can use time pockets is by noting in your schedule when you have a small break and capitalizing on it. Sometimes, you’ll have 15 or 20 minutes between meetings or activities. Instead of looking around for something to do with them in the moment, you should tackle a smaller chunk of a larger project. The best way to do this is to create a Kanban board or something similar, breaking down big tasks into smaller, more manageable ones. Slip the smaller tasks from bigger projects into those obvious time pockets in your schedule, which will help you stay more productive and focused during the day and will also lessen how overwhelmed you feel when you’re working on long-term activities. Instead of doing it all at once, portion out the work, doing it in those pockets where you have nothing else to do. In these instances, you should still rely on timeboxing to make a clear record and schedule, noting firmly in your calendar that during those 15 or 20 minutes, you’ll be working on a small task. View the full article

Success is no accident. With Chelsea Summers Inside Public Accounting Go PRO for members-only access to more CPA Trendlines Research. View the full article

Success is no accident. With Chelsea Summers Inside Public Accounting Go PRO for members-only access to more CPA Trendlines Research. View the full article

Google is supposedly testing an endless, infinite scroll for Google Discover. When I scroll through Google Discover, it eventually just stops and doesn't keep going. But Gagan Ghotra said he is seeing it go on and on forever. View the full article

Did you know that Google Merchant Center will automatically crop your product images in Google Shopping if it thinks it will look better in Google Search? Did you know that you can also opt out of what they call "Smart Cropping"? View the full article

The anti-Jewish threat in America today comes largely from the rightView the full article

Head of Stellantis and car industry body warn Brussels would be making ‘a catastrophic mistake’ by limiting sales to EVsView the full article

We had a few unconfirmed but big Google search ranking updates but we are still waiting on an official core update...View the full article

Holiday PPC success depends on preparing early, pacing budgets smartly, and guiding automation with profit-based signals. The post Holiday PPC Guide 2025: Advanced Strategies For Smarter Bidding, Budgets & Audiences appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Google Search Console has a bug with its API when filtering on the searchAppearance dimension. This bug occurs when using the notEquals or notContains operators, it will only return rows with the excluded value, instead of excluding those rows.View the full article

Google added a new user agent to the Googlebot's user-triggered fetchers documentation. The new user agent is for the Chrome Web Store named Google-CWS.View the full article

Influential politician was an apostle of unilateralism and among the strongest voices urging the US invasion of IraqView the full article

After a double-digit loss in the Democratic primary for New York City mayor, Andrew Cuomo launched his independent bid for the office in June with a video mimicking the style of his primary adversary, Zohran Mamdani. Since then, his campaign seems to have taken most of its cues from the pair’s supposed common adversary, President Donald The President. Throughout his run, Cuomo has used AI slop in attack ads every bit as disgraceful as the worst of The President’s Truth Social feed, while flirting with the kind of fearmongering and bigotry that have colored The President’s entire political career. It’s a questionable choice in a campaign filled with questionable choices. The former governor’s closing argument seems destined to be clarifying for any voters still on the fence—just not in the way he hopes. While Mamdani made a splash throughout the primary by campaigning heavily, cutting social-ready videos, and hammering a message of affordability, Cuomo appeared to sleepwalk through the race. He held relatively few events, didn’t speak to many reporters, and clung to an outdated message of public safety. In April, he released a 29-page, typo-ridden housing plan with a footnote referencing ChatGPT. (In response, the campaign claimed they only used ChatGPT for research, leaving them open to charges of outsourcing important policy to AI.) It was as if Cuomo hoped name recognition and a foggy collective memory around why he left the governor’s office would propel him to victory. He certainly seemed surprised when it turned out New Yorkers might indeed harbor some reservations about a candidate tainted by more than a dozen credible sexual harassment allegations and a peak COVID-era nursing home scandal. Clearly, he needed to try something new. The general-election playbook was somehow worse, with Cuomo mostly making waves for the videos his campaign posted that were generated by AI and designed to stoke fear and bigotry. One thing nobody can accuse him of in the general race is lacking sustained, sweaty effort, which translated into some of the dirtiest, most AI-heavy campaigning the country has seen so far—at least, from someone who isn’t Donald The President. A festival of fearmongering and bigotry Cuomo started out in the general election with a campaign of cringe, loaded with clumsy stabs at humor, including Office memes. The end stretch has seen Cuomo pivot from his usual attacks on Mamdani’s policies and lack of experience to more fear-driven, identity-based tactics against the frontrunner, who would be the first Muslim mayor of New York City. Cuomo also did not denounce blatantly Islamophobic attacks against Mamdani, including an October 23 ad from the Cuomo-supporting For Our City PAC, which placed the words “Jihad on NYC” over Mamdani’s smiling face. But the nadir of the campaign had actually come a day earlier. On October 22, Cuomo tweeted and quickly deleted an AI-generated mock ad from a group called “Criminals for Zohran Mamdani.” (The ad lives on in Instagram clips and elsewhere.) It starts with an uncanny-valley Mamdani eating rice with his hands—a common custom in Uganda, where Mamdani was born, which his more xenophobic critics have deployed to fearmonger based on his perceived foreignness. The ad then features a procession of criminals, including a man who bears a striking resemblance to actor Idris Elba donning a keffiyeh to do some shoplifting. After predictable backlash, Cuomo’s campaign quickly blamed the ad on a “junior staffer,” claiming it was released by accident. The same day For Our City released the “Jihad” ad, Cuomo turned a guest spot on radio host Sal Rosenberg’s show into a lightning rod for toxic publicity when he raised the question of how Mamdani might handle “another 9/11.” The host suggested Mamdani would be “cheering” in this hypothetical scenario, a wildly insulting attack many critics alleged crosses a line. Cuomo didn’t merely let the claim go unchallenged; instead he added, “That’s another problem,” before circling back to the more general bedlam that might result from Mamdani presiding over the city during such a crisis. Cuomo has since acknowledged that Rosenberg’s comment was “offensive,” but still insists that “nobody is attacking [Mamdani] for being Muslim.” Meanwhile, even the Republican candidate in the race, Curtis Sliwa, has weighed in against Cuomo’s characterization of the interview. (“Andy, get your big boy pants on,” he said of Cuomo. “When you go on a talk radio program and you say something, own it. Own it.”) Ultimately, what Cuomo’s much-criticized radio interview accomplished is handing Mamdani an opportunity to open up, finally, about the Islamophobia he has encountered during this race, and throughout his life. His video on the topic was viewed 25 million times on X alone. Ramping up the AI As offensive as it was, the “Criminals for Zohran” ad was just one of several missteps in Cuomo’s full-blown embrace of The Presidentian AI in attack ads in the final stretch of the campaign. While the AI slop in the president’s Truth Social feed has long since infected the rest of his administration’s weirdly meme-filled social output, it’s a new development for the mayoral race in New York City. The AI usage began inoffensively enough, with an October 1 ad depicting Cuomo performing various jobs throughout the city. He stars as a window washer, a subway conductor, and a theater grip; all to demonstrate the NYC jobs he knows he’s not suited for as a way to underscore his preparedness to run the city. Although his AI smile in the ad is as strained as the real one, the clip is more clever than much of the campaign’s previous output. He didn’t stay in this lane for very long. On October 21, Cuomo released a trollish ad using AI to render Mamdani as a Mini-Me to former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Dr. Evil—a youth-courting reference to Austin Powers, the last installment of which came out 23 years ago. Although it may have been jarring to see a candidate other than lame-duck Eric Adams depict Mamdani using AI, the Mini-Me ad came across as more pathetic than offensive. It ended up being a warmup for the “Criminals for Mamdani” ad the next day. The wide criticism Cuomo’s AI ads have generated has not deterred the candidate from releasing more of them. Last week, he released a Schoolhouse Rock-style clip—finger on the pulse as ever—which attracted attention for featuring a legislative bill that appeared to be pregnant. The ad also stood out for attributing claims about Mamdani’s voting to ChatGPT. Finally, Cuomo released a trick-or-treating themed ad on Halloween, featuring an AI likeness of Mamdani going door-to-door wearing the scariest costume of all—“socialist.” If Cuomo has any qualms about a political future in which candidates use AI to literally put words in each other’s mouths, they are not evident at this time. The desperation of imminent defeat Cuomo isn’t the only NYC mayoral candidate who posted a video on Halloween—Mamdani did, too. Instead of AI-based fearmongering, though, his video featured the candidate out in the streets interviewing trick-or-treaters. (The caption? “It’s scary how cute Park Slope was tonight.”) This post is reflective of a campaign that has remained focused on positivity and affordability more than mudslinging, although the candidate has landed some tremendous dunks along the way. There’s a reason Cuomo has apparently opted for the dark side at the end of his campaign. It’s because his tortured-smile, Man of the People act at the beginning did not resonate. Neither did much else, for that matter. The biggest bump in his polls throughout the election cycle came after Adams dropped out in September, and it still left him underwater by double digits. Cuomo is leaning on The Presidentian AI, fear, and bigotry because he’s desperate. And anyone that desperate to win shouldn’t be trusted to lead—least of all under a The President presidency. Cuomo keeps insisting he’s “the last person Donald The President wants to see as mayor,” even though that is objectively untrue. Cuomo reportedly courted The President’s endorsement and as of this past weekend, he apparently got it. If Cuomo truly were the last person The President wanted to see as mayor, though, it would be only because The President might hate to see someone win an election by so blatantly stealing his shtick. View the full article