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Joe Biden And Yoon To Sign An Agreement To Dock Nuclear Subs In S.Korea For 1st time In 40 years

Joe Biden

(CTN News) – According to senior Biden administration officials, Presidents Joe Biden and Yoon Suk Yeol will sign an agreement on Wednesday that includes plans to have U.S. nuclear-armed submarines dock in South Korea for the first time in more than 40 years.

This will be a prominent demonstration of support for Seoul amid growing concerns about North Korea’s nuclear threats.

The upcoming dock visits are a crucial component of the “Washington Declaration,” which aims to dissuade North Korea from attacking its neighbour.

It is being introduced as Biden hosts Yoon on a state visit at a time when both leaders are feeling particularly anxious due to North Korea’s recent increase in the frequency of ballistic missile testing.

Prior to the official announcement, three senior Biden administration officials who briefed reporters on the plan said they had been working on the specifics for months and had come to the consensus that “occasional”.

And “very clear demonstrations of the strength” of American extended deterrence capabilities needed to be a crucial component of the agreement.

The deal aims to soothe South Korea’s concerns over the North’s aggressive nuclear weapons programme and prevent it from resuming its own nuclear program.

Which it abandoned when it ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty nearly 50 years ago.

Yoon previously stated that his nation was debating whether to develop its own nuclear weapons or request that the United States relocate them to the Korean Peninsula.

However, operational control of such weapons would stay in U.S. control, and no nuclear weapons are being transported onto South Korean coastlines.

The U.S. and South Korea would also closely coordinate on a nuclear response strategy in the event that the North attacked the South.

Before their private talks on Wednesday morning, Biden and Yoon delivered statements during a pomp-filled arrival ceremony in front of close to 7,000 visitors on the White House lawn.

Joe Biden emphasized the determination of both countries to collaborate in order to maintain Indo-Pacific security

“We’re taking on the challenges of the world, and we’re taking them on together,” added Biden.

The state visit coincides with the 70th anniversary of the alliance between the United States and South Korea, which was established at the end of the Korean War and committed the United States to aid South Korea in self-defense, notably against North Korea.

Currently, there are 28,500 American soldiers stationed in South Korea.

Why did they risk their lives for this distant nation and for others you have never met? Yoon spoke about the American soldiers who fought in the conflict. “That was done for the defence of freedom, a noble cause.”

The agreement also mandates improved South Korean military asset integration into the combined strategic deterrence operation and strengthened collaborative training between the U.S. and South Korean forces.

According to the officials, as part of the proclamation, South Korea would reaffirm its adherence to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which was signed by a number of significant nuclear and non-nuclear powers and committed them to working together to prevent the spread of nuclear technology.

Yoon pledged as a presidential candidate last year that he would push for a larger deployment of American bombers, aircraft carriers.

And nuclear submarines to South Korea in an effort to respond to the North’s threats more forcefully than Moon Jae-in had.

According to the Federation of American Scientists, South Korean ports were frequently visited by American nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines during the height of the Cold War in the late 1970s, sometimes twice or three times per month.

It was a time when South Korea was home to a large number of American nuclear bombs.

But when the US withdrew all of its nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula in 1991, Pyongyang and Seoul agreed to a joint declaration promising not to “test, manufacture, produce, receive, possess, store, deploy or use nuclear weapons.”

However, as a result of the North’s persistent violations of the agreement over time, there is growing support in South Korea for the United States to hand over its nuclear arsenal.

One official in the Biden administration issued a warning, stating that it is “crystal clear” that the administration has no intentions of “returning tactical or any other kind of nuclear weapon to the Korean Peninsula.”

Instead, administration officials stated that they hope that the deployment of bombers or aircraft carriers by the U.S. military to South Korea will be more frequent after the visit of ballistic missile submarines.

The Biden administration has been compelled to broaden its Asian alliance as a result of North Korea’s rising nuclear threats and worries about China’s military and economic aggression in the area.

To that purpose, Biden has given Yoon and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida a lot of attention. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines will meet with Biden in the Oval Office the following week.

North Korea has been rapidly increasing the size of its nuclear arsenal over the past year.

While China and Russia have consistently thwarted American efforts to impose more severe sanctions on the North due to its constant conduct of prohibited missile launches.

The first flight test of an intercontinental ballistic missile using solid fuel took place earlier this month as part of North Korea’s increased testing.

The most recent test is viewed as a potential advancement in the North’s pursuit of a more potent, more difficult-to-detect weapon aimed at the continental United States.

Along with nuclear deterrence, Biden, Yoon, and their assistants are anticipated to speak about Russia’s ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

Although South Korea has received accolades from the Biden administration for contributing around $230 million in humanitarian aid to Kyiv.

Biden would welcome Seoul playing an even larger role in aiding the Ukrainians in their fight against Russia

Yoon’s visit takes place only a few weeks after the release of a large number of highly secret papers, which affected relations with allies like South Korea.

According to the documents seen by The Associated Press, the National Security Council of South Korea “grappled” with the American government in early March over the latter’s demand that Ukraine get artillery ammo.

According to the documents, which cited a signals intelligence report, the former NSC Director Kim Sung-han argued that since sending the 155 millimetre ammunition to Ukraine as soon as possible was the United States’ ultimate goal, it could be possible to sell the 330,000 rounds of ammunition to Poland.

According to a member of the Biden administration, Biden intended to speak with Yoon and inquire about “what it means for all like-minded allies to continue to support Ukraine” and “what the future of their support might look like.”

In addition to their discussions on Wednesday, Yoon and Biden will hold a joint news conference.

Yoon and his wife, Kim Keon Hee, will be honoured at a state dinner at the White House in the evening by Vice President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

google

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

trump

Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

trump

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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