Tooth fairy paying less for lost teeth due to high inflation: survey

Published

1 year ago

February 23, 2024

admin

Even the tooth fairy is feeling the pain of high inflation.

The average amount of cash left under the pillow by the tooth fairy (spoiler alert: parents) dropped to $5.84 in 2023, 6% lower than the $6.23 the previous year — the first time decline since 2018, according to a survey conducted by insurer Delta Dental.

Even the loss of a first tooth, which usually elicits a more lucrative award, wasn’t as profitable as it once was, the survey found.

Last year, losing a first tooth resulted in an average gift of $7.09 — down from $7.29 in 2022, according to the survey, which polled 1,000 parents of children between the ages of 6 and 12.

Kids living in the western part of the United States scored the biggest bonanza.

The average value of a lost tooth in the West was $8.54 — a 37% increase compared to 2022, when the value was $6.23.

In the Northeastern US, the average value rose 12% from $6.14 to $6.87.

The tooth fairy was more miserly in the South and Midwest.

In the Midwest, the worth of a lost tooth fell 36%, dropping from $5.63 to $3.63. In the South, the value dropped to $5.51 per tooth from its 2022 mark of $6.59 — a 16% decrease.

The poll noted that the tooth fairy’s gift has traditionally tracked with the S&P 500, but that trend has been bucked the last two years.

In 2022, the tooth fairy’s dropped off a record high of $6.23 — up 16% from the year before. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 underwhelmed that same year — dropping 18% in value.

Last year, the tooth fairy was a bit more stingy, but the S&P 500 roared back with 24% gains — a sign of the resilience of an economy that has been hampered by high interest rates and soaring levels of inflation.

World

Israel considering military action against Iran in days without US support – reports

Published

3 hours ago

June 12, 2025

admin

Israel considering military action against Iran in days without US support - reports

Israel is considering taking military action against Iran in the coming days – without American support, sources have told US media.

The reports come as US President Donald Trump is said to be in advanced discussions with Iran about a diplomatic deal to curtail the Middle Eastern country’s nuclear programme.

Israel is said to have become more serious about a unilateral strike on Iran as the negotiations between Washington and Tehran appear closer to a preliminary or framework agreement that includes provisions about uranium enrichment.

Israel views those provisions as unacceptable.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is therefore considering a strike on Iran, a Capitol Hill aide and other sources familiar with the matter have told Sky News’ US partner network NBC News.

An Israeli strike on Iran would be a dramatic break with the Trump administration which has argued against such a move.

The prospect of a new front in the conflict in the Middle East has prompted the Trump administration to order all embassies within striking distance of Iranian missiles, aircraft and other assets, to send cables with assessments about the potential threat to Americans and US infrastructure, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

The White House has not yet briefed senior politicians on the situation, according to a US official.

The reports have emerged after the US State Department said it had ordered the evacuation of all non-essential personnel from its embassy in Baghdad, Iraq, due to the potential for regional unrest.

It did not mention any possible attack by Israel on Iran when it announced the move.

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said: “The State Department regularly reviews American personnel abroad, and this decision was made as a result of a recent review.”

It comes as the US is also authorising the departure of non-essential personnel and family members from Bahrain and Kuwait – giving the staff a choice as to whether to leave those countries.

An Iraqi government source told the country’s state news agency that Baghdad has not recorded any security indication that calls for the evacuation.

There was already limited staffing in the US embassy in Baghdad and the order will not affect a large number of personnel.

Meanwhile, the military dependents in Bahrain and Kuwait will have the option of leaving those countries at government expense and with government assistance.

Asked why the US personnel are being moved out of the Middle East, Mr Trump said on Wednesday evening: “They are being moved out because it could be a dangerous place and we’ll see what happens.”

When asked if there is anything that can be done to reduce tensions in the region, the US president said: “They can’t have a nuclear weapon, very simple, they can’t have a nuclear weapon, we’re not going to allow that.”

US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff is set to meet Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in the Oman capital Muscat on Sunday to discuss the Iranian response to a recent US proposal, according to American news site Axios, which cited a US official.

The US and Iran have been engaged in talks aimed at limiting Tehran’s nuclear programme in exchange for the lifting of some of the crushing economic sanctions America has imposed on the country.

Iran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful.

Tehran and Washington tensions

Mr Trump, who has previously said Israel or America could carry out airstrikes targeting Iranian nuclear facilities if negotiations failed, has given a less-than-optimistic view about reaching a deal with Iran.

He told the New York Post’s “Pod Force One” podcast that he was “getting more and more less confident about” a deal.

“They seem to be delaying, and I think that’s a shame. I’m less confident now than I would have been a couple of months ago. Something happened to them,” he said in the interview released on Wednesday.

Iran’s mission to the UN posted on the X social media platform that “threats of ‘overwhelming force’ won’t change facts”.

“Iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon, and US militarism only fuels instability,” the Iranian mission wrote on Wednesday.

Technology

China’s racing to build its AI chip ecosystem as U.S. curbs bite. Here’s how its supply chain stacks up

Published

5 hours ago

June 12, 2025

admin

China's racing to build its AI chip ecosystem as U.S. curbs bite. Here's how its supply chain stacks up

Chip engineer handling a wafer.

Sinology | Moment | Getty Images

With the U.S. restricting China from buying advanced semiconductors used in artificial intelligence development, Beijing is placing hopes on domestic alternatives such as Huawei.

The task has been made more challenging by the fact that U.S. curbs not only inhibit China’s access to the world’s most advanced chips, but also restrict availing technology vital for creating an AI chip ecosystem.

Those constraints span the entire semiconductor value chain, ranging from design and manufacturing equipment used to produce AI chips to supporting elements such as memory chips.

Beijing has mobilized tens of billions of dollars to try to fill those gaps, but while it has been able to “brute force” its way into some breakthroughs, it still has a long way to go, according to experts.

“U.S. export controls on advanced Nvidia AI chips have incentivized China’s industry to develop alternatives, while also making it more difficult for domestic firms to do so,” said Paul Triolo, partner and senior vice president for China at advisory firm DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group.

Here’s how China stacks up against the rest of the world in four key segments needed to build AI chips.

AI chip design

Nvidia is regarded as the world’s leading AI chip company, but it’s important to understand that it doesn’t actually manufacture the physical chips that are used for AI training and computing.

Rather, the company designs AI chips, or more precisely, graphics processing units. Orders of the company’s patented GPU designs are then sent to chip foundries — manufacturers that specialize in the mass production of other companies’ semiconductor products.

While American competitors such as AMD and Broadcom offer varying alternatives, GPU designs from Nvidia are widely recognized as the industry standard. The demand for Nvidia chips is so strong that Chinese customers have continued to buy any of the company’s chips they can get their hands on.

But Nvidia is grappling with Washington’s tightening restrictions. The company revealed in April that additional curbs had prevented it from selling its H20 processor to Chinese clients.

Nvidia’s H20 was a less sophisticated version of its H100 processor, designed specifically to skirt previous export controls. Nevertheless, experts say, it was still more advanced than anything available domestically. But China hopes to change that.

In response to restrictions, more Chinese semiconductor players have been entering the AI processor arena. They’ve included a wide array of upstarts, such as Enflame Technology and Biren Technology, seeking to soak up billions of dollars in GPU demand left by Nvidia.

But no Chinese firm appears closer to providing a true alternative to Nvidia than Huawei’s chip design arm, HiSilicon.

Huawei’s most advanced GPU in mass production is its Ascend 910B. The next-generation Ascend 910C was reportedly expected to begin mass shipments as early as May, though no updates have emerged.

Dylan Patel, founder, CEO and chief analyst at SemiAnalysis, told CNBC that while the Ascend chips remain behind Nvidia, they show that Huawei has been making significant progress.

“Compared to Nvidia’s export-restricted chips, the performance gap between Huawei and the H20 is less than a full generation. Huawei is not far behind the products Nvidia is permitted to sell into China,” Patel said.

He added that the 910B was two years behind Nvidia as of last year, while the Ascend 910C is only a year behind.

But while that suggests China’s GPU design capabilities have made great strides, design is just one aspect that stands in the way of creating a competitive AI chip ecosystem.

AI chip fabrication

To manufacture its GPUs, Nvidia relies on TSMC, the world’s largest contract chip foundry, which produces most of the world’s advanced chips.

TSMC complies with U.S. chip controls and is also barred from taking any chip orders from companies on the U.S. trade blacklist. Huawei was placed on the list in 2019.

That has led to Chinese chip designers like Huawei to enlist local chip foundries, the largest of which is SMIC.

SMIC is far behind TSMC — it’s officially known to be able to produce 7-nanometer chips, requiring less advance tech than TSMC’s 3-nanometer production. Smaller nanometer sizes lead to greater chip processing power and efficiency.

There are signs that SMIC has made progress. The company is suspected to have been behind a 5-nanometer 5G chip for Huawei’s Mate 60 Pro, which had rocked confidence in U.S. chip controls in 2023. The company, however, has a long way to go before it can mass-produce advanced GPUs in a cost-efficient manner.

According to independent chip and technology analyst Ray Wang, SMIC’s known operation capacity is dwarfed by TSMC’s.

“Huawei is a very good chip design company, but they are still without good domestic chipmakers,” Wang said, noting that Huawei is reportedly working on its own fabrication capabilities.

But the lack of key manufacturing equipment stands in the way of both companies.

Advanced Chip equipment

SMIC’s ability to fulfill Huawei’s GPU requirements is limited by the familiar problem of export controls, but in this case, from the Netherlands.

While Netherlands may not have any prominent semiconductor designers or manufacturers, it’s home to ASML, the world’s leading supplier of advanced chipmaking equipment — machines that use light or electron beams to transfer complex patterns onto silicon wafers, forming the basis of microchips.

In accordance with U.S. export controls, the country has agreed to block the sale of ASML’s most advanced ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines. The tools are critical to making advanced GPUs at scale and cost-effectively.

EUV is the most significant barrier for Chinese advanced chip production, according to Jeff Koch, an analyst at SemiAnalysis. “They have most of the other tooling available, but lithography is limiting their ability to scale towards 3nm and below process nodes,” he told CNBC.

SMIC has found methods to work around lithography restrictions using ASML’s less advanced deep ultraviolet lithography systems, which have seen comparatively fewer restrictions.

Through this “brute forcing,” producing chips at 7 nm is doable, but the yields are not good, and the strategy is likely reaching its limit, Koch said, adding that “at current yields it appears SMIC cannot produce enough domestic accelerators to meet demand.”

SiCarrier Technologies, a Chinese company working on lithography technology, has reportedly been linked to Huawei.

But imitating existing lithography tools could take years, if not decades, to achieve, Koch said. Instead, China is likely to pursue other technologies and different lithography techniques to push innovation rather than imitation, he added.

AI memory components

While GPUs are often identified as the most critical components in AI computing, they’re far from the only ones. In order to operate AI training and computing, GPUs must work alongside memory chips, which are able to store data within a broader “chipset.”

In AI applications, a specific type of memory known as HBM has become the industry standard. South Korea’s SK Hynix has taken the industry lead in HBM. Other companies in the field include Samsung and U.S.-based Micron.

“High bandwidth memory at this stage of AI progression has become essential for training and running AI models,” said analyst Wang.

As with the Netherlands, South Korea is cooperating with U.S.-led chip restrictions and began complying with fresh curbs on the sale of certain HBM memory chips to China in December.

In response, Chinese memory chip maker ChangXin Memory Technologies, or CXMT, in partnership with chip-packaging and testing company Tongfu Microelectronics, is in the early stages of producing HBM, according to a report by Reuters.

According to Wang, CXMT is expected to be three to four years behind global leaders in HBM development, though it faces major roadblocks, including export controls on chipmaking equipment.

SemiAnalysis estimated in April that CXMT remained a year away from ramping any reasonable volume.

Chinese foundry Wuhan Xinxin Semiconductor Manufacturing is reportedly building a factory to produce HBM wafers. A report from SCMP said that Huawei Technologies had partnered with the firm in producing HBM chips, although the companies did not confirm the partnership.

Huawei has leaned on HBM stockpiles from suppliers like Samsung for use in their Ascend 910C AI processor, SemiAnalysis said in an April report, noting that while the chip was designed domestically, it still relies on foreign products obtained prior to or despite restrictions.

“Whether it be HBM from Samsung, wafers from TSMC, or equipment from America, Netherlands, and Japan, there is a big reliance on foreign industry,” SemiAnalysis said.

World

Controversial aid distributer claims Hamas has carried out deadly attack on bus carrying Palestinians

Published

6 hours ago

June 12, 2025

admin

Controversial aid distributer claims Hamas has carried out deadly attack on bus carrying Palestinians

The controversial US and Israeli-backed aid distributor in Gaza has accused Hamas of a deadly attack on a bus carrying Palestinians working with the organisation.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) has said at least five aid workers were killed and it fears some team members “may have been taken hostage”.

The aid organisation also said multiple people were injured in the alleged attack.

In a statement, the GHF has said the bus was carrying more than two dozen people working with the organisation when it was targeted at 10pm Gaza time (8pm UK time) on Wednesday.

The GHF said those in the bus were “local Palestinians” working with the organisation to “deliver critical aid”.

“At the time of the attack, our team was en route to one of our distribution centres in the area west of Khan Younis”, the GHF added.

It continued in its statement: “We are still gathering facts, but what we know is devastating: there are at least five fatalities, multiple injuries, and fear that some of our team members may have been taken hostage.

“We condemn this heinous and deliberate attack in the strongest possible terms. These were aid workers.”

The GHF also said in its statement that Hamas has in recent days been threatening members of the organisation, including aid workers, and civilians who have been receiving the aid.

The organisation said it holds Hamas fully responsible for “taking the lives of our dedicated workers who have been distributing humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people at the foundation’s sites in central and southern Gaza”.

“Tonight, the world must see this for what it is: an attack on humanity. We call on the international community to immediately condemn Hamas for this unprovoked attack and continued threat against our people simply trying to feed the Palestinian people,” the GHF said.

“We will release additional information once it becomes available. Despite this heinous attack, we will continue our mission to provide critical aid to the people of Gaza.”

The alleged attack came hours after health officials in Gaza said at least 25 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire at a GHF site close to the former settlement of Netzarim, near Gaza City.

Medical officials at Shifa and al Quds hospitals say the people were killed as they approached the site.

Gaza’s health ministry said earlier this week that around 160 people have been killed in shootings near aid sites run by the GHF since they began distributing aid on 26 May.

However, the GHF has said there has been no violence in or around the distribution centres themselves.

Why is the aid system controversial?

Israel and the US have said the GHF system is aimed at preventing Hamas from siphoning off assistance.

Israel has not provided any evidence of systematic diversion, and the UN denies it has occurred.

The foundation’s distribution of aid has been marred by chaos, and multiple witnesses have said Israeli troops fired on crowds near the delivery sites.

UN agencies and major aid groups have refused to work with the new system, saying it violates humanitarian principles because it allows Israel to control who receives aid and forces people to relocate to distribution sites, risking yet more mass displacement in the territory.

Jake Wood, a former US marine, resigned as head of the GHF in May before it began distributing aid in Gaza over concerns about is independence.

Mr Wood said the foundation cannot adhere to the “humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon”.