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JBL is the first to make Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant coexist on the same speaker, and it works quite well. But the price you pay for that convenience feels a little uneven.

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• A US diplomat accused Russia of using North Korean ballistic missiles at least 9 times in Ukraine.
• Robert Wood said Russia and North Korea "must be held accountable for their actions."
• South Korea has accused the North of using Ukraine as a "test

Paramount’s most recent Sonic movie really reinforced how its titular hedgehog is nothing without his friends, but the studio’s new Knuckles spinoff series starring Idris Elba looks like it’ll be a lesson in how echidnas handle business (mostly) by themselves.

Set between the events of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and the upcoming third movie, Knuckles zooms in on Knuckles’ (Idris Elba)

• I'm a public-speaking expert, and I've trained many executives and senior teams.
• I tell all of them to stop starting work presentations with a salutation or a "hello."
• Instead, you should engage your audience by telling a story or asking a question.

I'm sure you've sat through plenty of presentations where the presenter starts with a

• The US Marine Corps says five Marines are dead following a helicopter crash on Tuesday.
• Their CH-53E Super Stallion crashed in California during a training flight.
• An investigation into the cause of the incident is underway, the

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• The US economy will grow by an extra $7 trillion over the next decade, according to estimates from the CBO.
• The CBO said the additional growth will be driven by an influx of immigrants.
• "More workers mean more output and that in turn leads to additional tax revenue," CBO director Phillip Swagel said.

The US economy will grow an additional $7 trillion over the next decade as a surge in immigration creates a larger labor force and increases demand for goods and services, according to a new estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.

The findings from the CBO reinforce commentary from economists that suggests immigration trends in the US have aided the economy in avoiding a recession, as more workers help boost productivity without causing a spike in wage inflation.

"The labor force in 2033 is larger by 5.2 million people, mostly because of higher net immigration. More workers mean more output and that in turn leads to additional tax revenue," CBO director Phillip Swagel said on Wednesday.

"As a result of those changes in the labor force, we estimate that from 2023 to 2034, GDP will be greater by about $7 trillion and revenues will be greater by about $1 trillion than they would have been otherwise," Swagel added.

The CBO also found that net immigration has risen since 2022, and it expects it to remain elevated through 2026. 

America's surge in immigration, while a hot-button political issue, does highlight one of its biggest strengths: its ability to avoid the ticking demographic time bombs of other developed countries, such as Japan, which is facing economic challenges due to its massive aging population.

The CBO said that a large portion of immigrants coming to America are in the prime-working ages of 25 through 54, which tends to benefit the economy significantly as they continue to work for years after their arrival.  

Another knock-on effect of America's net immigration trends is its impact on the housing market, since it should result in continued demand for new homes.

"Because immigrants tend to live with family or friends initially and form their own house holds gradually, high rates of immigration from 2022 to 2026 will continue to stimulate construction of new homes during the second half of the 2020s," the CBO said in its outlook report.

Immigration trends are also on the mind of Fed chairman Jerome Powell, who told "60 Minutes" last week that in the long-term, "the US economy has benefited from immigration."

"Immigrants come in and they tend to work at a rate that is at or above that for non-immigrants. Immigrants who come to the country tend to be in the workforce at a slightly higher level than Americans do," Powell said. 

Palette will be a thriller about... colors? Some good stills from Quiet Place: Day One and a new poster for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. It really is spoilerin’ time this time!

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Just as Microsoft renamed Bing Chat to Copilot to unify its generative AI branding, Google is doing the same thing with Bard and Duet AI. The services now bear the name Gemini, after Google's multimodal AI model. The name change leaked earlier this month. Google has also debuted a dedicated Gemini Android app alongside a paid version of the chatbot that has more enhanced capabilities.

"Bard has

Sony just raised the price of anime and left American otakus with few other options. The company’s anime streamer, Funimation, is officially shutting down on April 2, according to a press release on Wednesday. Crunchyroll, Sony’s other anime service it acquired in 2021, sent an email to subscribers that prices will…

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Hello! If you've made it this far without getting on the TikTok bandwagon, don't sweat it. The emphasis on its shop and ads means the app has gotten kind of

The Federal Trade Commission isn’t happy with the outcome of Microsoft’s $68.7 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, telling a court on Wednesday that Microsoft’s recent layoffs contradict promises it made to get the merger approved.

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