Author: openjargon

• A man in Texas purchased a new house only to find a squatter and her goat still living there.
• He bought the San Antonio property for $175,000 from a woman who was about to foreclose.
• Squatting is a concern from some lawmakers, though there are no official nationwide statistics on it.

When Daniel Cabrera purchased a five-bedroom property in San Antonio, he didn't expect to find the previous inhabitant still living there along with her aggressive pet goat.

Cabrera, a professional homebuyer, purchased the property for $175,000 from a woman who was about to foreclose, Fox News reported.

He gave her the cash for the property and secured her an extra 10 days to move out and find a new place, but after those days were up, he couldn't get in touch with her.

When Cabrera showed up to take over the property, he found that it was still being lived in, and an angry goat was protecting the front door.

"I tried approaching the door, and it was a pretty big goat," he told Fox News. "It wasn't friendly either. I couldn't get past the damn goat."

Cabrera had to file for an eviction to get the woman out of the house.

Five months later, he returned to the property with the police, a locksmith, and a removal company but found that the goat was running around inside, Realtor.com reported.

"The goat ran right into the police officer, got him pretty good in the leg, then he nailed my dad, too, " Cabrera told Fox News. "We had animal control come out because the police just didn't know what to do with the goat."

He managed to take control of the property, and the goat was eventually picked up by the previous owner's son, per Realtor.com.

The next day, Cabrera found the previous inhabitant on a mattress in the driveway, he told the outlet.

Cabrera is not the only person dealing with unwanted house guests, with instances of squatting appearing in the news numerous times in recent months.

A couple in New York became embroiled in a legal battle after a squatter moved into their $2 million home before they had a chance to move in themselves.

Another group of squatters lived in a vacant Beverly Hills mansion for five months. The group made money from the home by hosting parties with entry fees of between $500 and $1,500, before the house was transferred back to the previous owner.

Such incidents have prompted backlash from some lawmakers, though there are no official nationwide statistics to show whether squatting is on the rise.

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill in March that he said aimed to provide homeowners with "remedies against squatting," as well as increasing penalties on squatters.

"We are putting an end to the squatters scam in Florida," DeSantis, who previously ran to be the Republican candidate for the 2024 Presidential election, said.

The problem, however, is not unique to the US.

According to The Guardian, the Advisory Service for Squatters, a squatter's rights group in the UK, has seen a rise in the number of inquiries from people considering squatting since the COVID pandemic.

In April, British chef Gordon Ramsay found one of his restaurants occupied by squatters. The group of squatters told Business Insider they wanted to turn the restaurant into a "community space" in one of London's wealthiest areas.

• Chicago's basic income program helped Jennette Fisher, 46,  secure an apartment.
• Participants received $500 a month for a year, no-strings-attached.  
• Chicago is set to restart the program, joining 100+ similar pilots across the US.

Jennette Fisher and her 11-year-old daughter Sophia moved into a new apartment in January. Fisher is still setting up the furniture, but her Chicago suburb is starting to feel like home.

"It was every single thing that I prayed for," she told Business Insider.

Fisher, 46, was a participant in the City of Chicago's Resilient Communities Pilot. The guaranteed basic-income program provided 5,000 families with $500 a month no-strings-attached for a full year, beginning in summer 2022. Selected participants experienced economic hardship from the pandemic and had household incomes at or below 250% of the federal poverty line. That means participants like Fisher would've had to make less than $45,775 to qualify as a family of two.

For Fisher and her daughter, the cash was "a Godsend," and the help they needed to secure housing. Although she's no longer receiving payments, Fisher said the support allowed her to move out of temporary domestic violence shelters and sign a lease.

"It took such a weight off," Fisher said. "If I wouldn't have had that money, I don't know what would have happened."

Participants across the country have told BI they spent basic income money to pay rent, afford groceries, pay off debt, and support their children.

In April, Chicago announced that it will restart it's basic income program. The city has allocated $32 million to project, but has not yet specified when the next cash payments will begin, or how many participants are set to benefit. The renewed Chicago program will join a wave of over 100 basic-income pilots that have been launched since 2019.

Funding for the program will primarily come from The 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, a federal pandemic recovery budget that has been used to finance GBI pilots across the US. The federal government requires that all APRA funds must be spent by December 2026.

Policy advocates and economic security experts have told BI that basic income's widespread success gives insight into future poverty solutions. Basic income differs from traditional social services like SNAP and rental assistance because it allows participants, like Fisher, to choose how to spend their money.

"The lessons from those pilots are infusing the whole ecosystem of support," Teri Olle, director for Economic Security California, said. "People are really seeing the power of those pilots, and the power of giving people money and trusting them."

Fisher is still worried about costs, but Chicago basic income gave her 'a brand new start'

When Fisher began receiving basic income, she felt immediate relief. She said she "never gave up" trying to build a better and safer life for herself and her daughter.

She used some of her first payment to take Sophia to dinner and Chuck E. Cheese. They hadn't been since one of Sophia's childhood birthday parties, and it meant a lot to Fisher that they could celebrate together.

Because Fisher was living between various Chicago domestic violence shelters before she signed for her apartment, she said it has been difficult to hold a job. She's also not sure she can work again due to mental health reasons and is currently in the application process for disability benefits.

With basic income payments, Fisher was able to afford daily expenses and buy the clothes and shoes she and her daughter needed. The money also put her in a position to start renting her new apartment. Having her own place with Sophia is "everything she ever wanted."

Fisher is still doing her best to get by. She has to pay rent and only receives a few hundred dollars a month total from SNAP for food. She has health insurance through Medicaid, and the benefits help pay for an addiction recovery program she's enrolled in.

Right now, she estimates she lives on less than $700 a month, an amount that comes through Sophia's father's Social Security check. However, Fisher said she doesn't receive any form of child support.

She is still stressed about expenses but said Chicago's GBI program offered her "a brand new start."

Going forward, Fisher is excited to keep getting settled in their new home. Sophia starts sixth-grade next fall, and the pair are hoping to see Fisher's family, whom they haven't been able to visit in years.

"Stability is the number one thing I want," Fisher said.
"Stability, peace, happiness, and no drama."

Have you benefited from a guaranteed basic-income program? Are you open to sharing your story? If so, reach out to this reporter at allisonkelly@businessinsider.com.

• An online meme about a fake Mossad agent called "Eli Copter" the lampoons the helicopter crash of Iran's president.
• But it's been cited repeatedly by several media sources, including Russia's state TV.
• Missing the joke, Russian TV host Vladimir Solvoyov cited the name to back up his criticism of Israel.

An online joke about Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi being killed in a helicopter crash by a Mossad agent named "Eli Copter" has fooled several media outlets — including Russian state TV host Vladimir Solovyov.

In a Monday episode of Solovyov's show, the host cited the meritless claim in an attempt to imply that the Israeli government was to blame for the death of Raisi.

Raisi, 63, died on Sunday in a helicopter crash alongside several senior officials in northwest Iran, with state media saying the vehicle struck a mountainside.

The Iranian leader died amid heavy fog and bad weather at the scene of the crash, making it difficult for rescue teams to find his downed helicopter and determine his condition at the time.

While there is no evidence that foul play was involved, some online have tried to pin the incident as an assassination carried out by Israel or the US.

An Israeli official said Tel Aviv was not involved in the crash, which Solovyov challenged.

"When Israel says: 'No, no, it was not us.' Hold on, if it was you, would you admit it?" he said, per a translation by Russia Media Monitor.

He aired a clip of a political analyst, Daniel Haik, speaking on the French broadcast of Israeli TV channel i24 News of a rumor that the Mossad agent "Eli Copter" was involved in Raisi's death.

That makes Solovyov a major piece of a misinformation chain that originated from a meme on Twitter parodying the word "helicopter."

Several people reporting about Raisi's death seemed to have missed the joke. A Hamas-affiliated Telegram channel named Correspondent of the al-Qassam Brigades cited the faux moniker in an initial report, though it deleted the message afterward, per France24News.

Haik later quoted the Hamas message on i24, saying that the involvement of "Eli Copter" was a rumor that couldn't yet be confirmed.

French daily Libération reported that i24 apologized for the live TV error and promised to work to prevent further such mistakes.

A spokesperson for i24 did not immediately respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.

But that didn't stop Solovyov's show from using the clip of Haik to back up his criticism of the US and Israel, as he implied they might be responsible for Raisi's death.

Solovyov is seen as one of Russia's most prominent propagandists for the Kremlin, and habitually pushes aggressive, pro-war rhetoric against the West.

Russia, an ally of Iran, offered condolences to Tehran after Raisi's death, calling the now-deceased president a "true friend" and an "outstanding politician."

Both nations have been deepening their economic ties since Moscow invaded Ukraine, which has increasingly alienated Russia from the global economy. Sanctioned by Washington, they agreed last year to start trading in local currencies instead of the US dollar.

According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, run by the MIT Media Lab, trade between the two countries was worth about $2 billion in 2021.

An analysis by the Center for European Policy Analysis in January estimated that trade between them may have risen to $4.9 billion.

• Nvidia announced it is shipping its new Blackwell AI chip next quarter amid high demand.
• CEO Jensen Huang highlighted the strong interest in both Blackwell and current Hopper chips.
• Nvidia's shares surged, driven by a 262% revenue increase and a 10-for-1 stock split announcement.

Nvidia just announced it's shipping its hot new AI chip, Blackwell, this quarter — and they're already getting snapped up.

"People want to deploy these data centers right now," CEO Jensen Huang told Yahoo Finance on Wednesday.

"They want to put our GPUs to work right now, and start making money and start saving money. And so that demand is just so strong," Huang added, referring to graphics processing units.

Customers buying Blackwell chips span the gamut of Big Tech, including Amazon Web Services, Google, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Tesla, among others, Nvidia said in March.

Huang said Blackwell chips will start shipping in the second quarter, with production ramping up in the third quarter. Data centers should be up and running on the chips by the fourth quarter.

The demand isn't just for Nvidia's hotly anticipated Blackwell AI chip — first unveiled in March — but also for the company's current Hopper chip.

With such high demand, Nvidia is going to produce new chip generations yearly, instead of every other year.

"I can announce that after Blackwell, there's another chip. We're on a one-year rhythm," Huang said on the earnings call.

Revenue surge and a stock split

Huang's comments came on the back of another blockbuster quarter for Nvidia. The Santa Clara, California-based company reported a 262% surge in first-quarter revenues from a year ago, to $26.04 billion — well over analyst estimates of $24.65 billion.

The results are not just a flash in the pan.

Nvidia's chips have been in such demand that Huang had to assure stakeholders back in February that the company is allocating them "fairly."

Nvidia's share price has ballooned thanks to this demand, surging 150% in the past 12 months and 92% this year to date. On Wednesday, the stock breached $1,000 per share for the first time on the back of its gangbuster quarterly report.

On Wednesday, Nvidia announced a 10-for-1 stock split, effective next month, and upped its quarterly dividend by 150% from $0.04 to $0.10 per share.

"We are poised for our next wave of growth. The Blackwell platform is in full production and forms the foundation for trillion-parameter-scale generative AI," said Huang on the earnings call.

• Jack Dorsey used to think that Twitter was "the closest form of global consciousness."
• But not anymore. The platform's co-founder and ex-CEO thinks AI has taken its place. 
• "They have far more access to public and private thoughts and questions," he said.

X, formerly Twitter, isn't the "closest form of global consciousness" anymore, says the platform's co-founder and ex-CEO Jack Dorsey.

"I once thought Twitter was the closest form of global consciousness," Dorsey, 47, said in an X post on Wednesday.

"Now it seems the corporate AI models have become that," he added. "They have far more access to public and private thoughts and questions."

Dorsey co-founded the text-based social media platform back in March 2006. He also served as the company's CEO on two separate occasions — his first stint ran from 2007 to 2008, and he also had the top job from 2015 to 2021.

Twitter was eventually sold to billionaire Elon Musk in October 2022, a move that was fervently supported by Dorsey himself.

"I love Twitter. Twitter is the closest thing we have to a global consciousness," Dorsey said of the company's sale in April 2022. "Elon is the singular solution I trust. I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness."

Though Dorsey would go on to criticize Musk's management, he appears to have come round to Musk's changes. Earlier this month, Dorsey praised X, calling it a form of "freedom technology."

Representatives for Dorsey and X didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from BI sent outside regular business hours.

Dorsey isn't the only social media titan who has recognised the immense potential and importance of AI.

On May 15, Amazon-backed AI startup Anthropic announced that Instagram co-founder and former CTO Mike Krieger was coming on board as the company's chief product officer.

"The potential for AI to positively impact the world is immense, and I believe Anthropic has the talent, principles, and technology to help realize that potential," Krieger said of his new role.

The same can be said of Instagram's owner Meta. The social media giant's founder Mark Zuckerberg has frequently telegraphed his ambitions to turn the company into an AI leader.

"In terms of investment priorities, AI will be our biggest investment area in 2024 for both engineering and compute resources," Zuckerberg said in an earnings call last year.

In January, Zuckerberg told The Verge that Meta would own more than 340,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs by the end of this year. The chips are highly coveted by tech companies, who can use them to train and deploy their AI models.

"We have built up the capacity to do this at a scale that may be larger than any other individual company. I think a lot of people may not appreciate that," Zuckerberg said.

• Chip makers ASML and TSMC can disable advanced chipmaking machines remotely, Bloomberg reports.
• The move addresses growing fears of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a key semiconductor producer.
• A China-Taiwan conflict could severely impact the global economy.

Two of the world's most important chip companies can push a "kill switch" remotely on their most advanced chipmaking machines should China invade Taiwan, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Netherlands's ASML — Europe's top tech company by market value — supplies advanced machines to chip-making companies. They include Taiwan's TSMC, which produces, by some estimates, 90% of the world's most advanced processor chips.

The news of a forced shutdown, or a "kill switch," on ASML's chip-making gear comes amid intensifying rivalry between Washington and Beijing and mounting concerns over a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own territory.

Taiwan is the world's epicenter for semiconductor chips, the ubiquitous parts that are used in products from data centers to smartphones. A war in the region would have major consequences for the global economy.

The US, citing national security concerns, imposed restrictions on China under the Advanced Computing Chips Rule in November 2023. The restrictions make it harder for the East Asian giant to import advanced AI chips from American manufacturers.

The US has also pressured the Netherlands to block some ASML exports to China to limit the country's ability to manufacture advanced chips. The Dutch company has also said it will stop servicing some equipment previously exported to China.

But US concerns over a Chinese invasion of Taiwan remain, and Washington has expressed them to Dutch and Taiwanese officials, Bloomberg reported. ASML assured Dutch officials about the option to push the "kill switch" when they met with the company, per the media outlet.

The option applies to ASML's line of advanced extreme ultraviolet machines, according to Bloomberg.

Taiwan's TSMC is the largest buyer of these 200 million euro, or $217 million, machines. They print the tiny microchip transistors used to make chips for artificial intelligence and military applications.

Rising concerns over Taiwan Strait developments

There are concerns about China's intensifying drills around Taiwan after Taiwan inaugurated its new President, William Lai — whom Beijing has branded as a separatist — on Monday.

Beijing stepped up military activity around Taiwan ahead of Lai's inauguration and on Thursday announced drills as a "strong punishment for the separatist acts of 'Taiwan independence' forces," said Li Xi, a spokesperson for China's People's Liberation Army.

Chipmaking supply chains are changing amid heightened geopolitical tensions.

TSMC is diversifying production with a second facility in Arizona and upcoming new plants in Japan and Germany. But new facilities will take time to come online.

The US is also taking steps to boost chip manufacturing through the CHIPS Act, which provides billions of dollars in subsidies for domestic production, research, and workforce development.

But Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Bloomberg TV on Tuesday that that the world's tech sector is likely to continue depending on Taiwanese manufacturing for "some time." He said it would be "very difficult" for Nvidia to serve its customers without the island.

ASML declined to comment to Business Insider.

TSMC and the Dutch foreign affairs ministry did not immediately respond to Business Insider's requests for comment. They declined comment to Bloomberg.