Earlier this month, nearly 1,500 Americans found themselves the recipients of very good news: President Joe Biden had granted them executive clemency. Thirty-nine were given full pardons. 'America was built on the promise of possibility and second chances,' the White House's press release read. 'As President, I have the great privilege of extending mercy to people who have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation.' Biden's office was at pains to clarify that while the president had shown mercy, he hadn't shown too much mercy. Those receiving clemency in the form of commutations were all under home confinement only, and those receiving pardons had all been convicted of nonviolent criminal offenses. Almost two weeks prior, Biden had also pardoned his son Hunter, who had been convicted of gun-related felonies and was facing tax charges. Hunter received the full measure of presidential mercy. Blowback came swiftly in both instances. Biden was denounced for pardoning his son, because he reneged on prior commitments not to interfere in Hunter's cases and also because Democrats worried that the move would provide Donald Trump with ammunition for his claims of Democratic corruption as well as justification for his own planned pardons. The president and his team likely expected as much....

Menlo says these first 18 were selected from thousands of applicants. They include startups working on recruiting software; autonomous coding; interpretability research (understanding how models make decisions); fintech compliance and tax apps; radiology image analysis and chart reviewing apps; non-human identity cybersecurity; customer engagement software; and a consumer nutrition app. Plus there are eight more accepted into the program that are still in stealth, Menlo says. This program is something of a cross between a typical corporate startup program (like Nvidia's Inception or Microsoft for Startups), where startups get usage credits and educational resources, and an incubator where they get company-building attention and investment. The fund will write checks of $100,000 or more into startups ' from pre-seed to Series B ' and provide them with $25,000 worth of credits for Anthropic's models.Menlo is a major backer of Anthropic, and this fund helps both get in the middle of the next big thing for AI coming in 2025: a focus beyond the foundational models and AI infrastructure and into the new apps that run on top of them....

Hyundai has a lot riding on a patch of rural Georgia. In October, the South Korean auto giant opened a new electric-vehicle factory west of Savannah at the eye-watering cost of $7.6 billion. It's the largest economic-development project in the state's history (one that prompted the Georgia statehouse to pass a resolution recognizing 'Hyundai Day'). For now, workers at the so-called Metaplant are building the company's popular electric SUV, the Hyundai Ioniq 5, and soon more EVs will be built there, too. And to power those vehicles, Hyundai is set to open a battery plant at the site, and is spending billions to open another one elsewhere in Georgia. Hyundai's plan will allow the Ioniq 5'and other future electric cars already in the works'to qualify for tax credits implemented by the Inflation Reduction Act. American-made EVs are eligible for rebates that can knock thousands of dollars off their price, making them far more appealing to consumers. But Hyundai's nearly $13 billion investment may soon hit a snag. In his second term, President-elect Donald Trump has said he will make those tax credits history. If he follows through on that promise, EV sales will surely slow, and Americans will buy more gas guzzlers that will produce emissions for the decade-plus they'll be on the road. The problem is worse than it might look: The auto industry is investing more than $300 billion to meet the Biden administration's EV goals. Most automakers are hemorrhaging money on EVs, and revoking these incentives may give them an excuse to roll back their plans to introduce electric cars, which would give consumers more clean-driving options....

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a set of tax cuts Donald Trump signed into law during his first term as president, will expire on Dec. 31, 2024. As Trump and Republicans prepare to negotiate new tax cuts in 2025, it's worth gleaning lessons from the president-elect's first set of cuts. The 2017 cuts were the most extensive revision to the Internal Revenue Code since the Ronald Reagan administration. The changes it imposed range from the tax that corporations pay on their foreign income to limits on the deductions individuals can take for their state and local tax payments. Trump promised middle-class benefits at the time, but in practice more than 80% of the cuts went to corporations, tax partnerships and high-net-worth individuals. The cost to the U.S. deficit was huge ' a total increase of US$1.9 trillion from 2018 to 2028, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. The tax advantage to the middle class was small. Advantages for Black Americans were smaller still. As a scholar of race and U.S. income taxation, I have analyzed the impact of Trump's tax cuts. I found that the law has disadvantaged middle-income, low-income and Black taxpayers in several ways....