Alex Zhu founded the Baltimore Community Guaranteed Income Club in 2025. Alex Zhu Alex Zhu founded the Baltimore Community Guaranteed Income Club in April 2025. He said he created the club after his friends lost their jobs in the DOGE cuts. About 50 Baltimore neighbors now participate in the income-sharing club, and it continues to grow. By the time DOGE quietly disbanded in late November, Elon Musk had returned his attention to his companies. President Donald Trump was focused on his immigration crackdown. For Alex Zhu, though, the impact of those months of frenzied job cuts lingered. Zhu's friends and neighbors were among the more than 260,000 federal employees dispatched by the Department of Government Efficiency. "I had a bunch of friends who worked in public and global health in the federal government," Zhu, 29, told Business Insider. "They all got laid off and were facing uncertainty." That uncertainty took many forms: rising grocery costs, pricey healthcare, fluctuating childcare expenses. The list went on. So Zhu decided to start a local income-sharing program he called the Baltimore Community Guaranteed Income Club. The club launched in April 2025, mostly to support his friends and other community members who were unemployed or close to it. To participate in the club, residents pledge 7% of their monthly post-tax income. Zhu calculates the average income among them and, with a few dozen lines of code, determines which residents are above the monthly average and which are below. Those making above the average send money directly to those below it via Venmo or Zelle. In its first year, Zhu said the club redistributed some $20,000. Members find out how much to give and who to give it to through Airtable. The specific monetary amount is determined by the number of members and their monthly average income. There is no pooling of money, and Zhu said the process is decentralized. "The program that we run is functionally unemployment insurance," Zhu said. "It serves two purposes: Helping friends who need it and also warming people up to the idea that this is a thing we can do that will make us all better off." During its first year, Zhu said the club had 20 people who collectively earned an average monthly income of about $3,400. As of May, the club has 50 members and continues to grow. The basic income movement Basic incomes provide recurring cash payments, no strings attached. Burke/Triolo Productions/Getty, kertlis/Getty, Pablo631/Getty, JoyImage/Getty, Tyler Le/BI Like many Americans, Zhu became familiar with the idea of a basic income through Andrew Yang's 2020 presidential campaign. Yang, a tech entrepreneur, raised eyebrows when he proclaimed that, if elected, his administration would provide a universal basic income of $1,000 a month to every adult to spend however they want, a policy he called "The Freedom Dividend." Yang said it was necessary to support American workers threatened by automation and inequality. These days, the idea of a universal basic income, or some version of it, has gained momentum as AI threatens to remake the workforce. Musk, the man behind DOGE, supports what he calls a "universal high income." "Universal high income via checks issued by the federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI," the billionaire CEO wrote on X in April. While a universal basic income provides monthly payments to an entire population, a guaranteed basic income typically provides unconditional, recurring cash payments to those who meet income thresholds or who belong to vulnerable social groups. Many cities and counties, and even some states, have experimented with these kinds of programs. In Baltimore, for example, a basic income program gave 200 struggling young parents $1,000 a month, no strings attached, between 2022 and 2024. These programs have largely stayed small, however, as the political will to introduce statewide or even federal basic income programs remains low. So, without a government behind them, the members of Zhu's club just rely on each other. 'Giving is a muscle' Zhu said the program's first year was largely successful. For one, he said some people who were initially unemployed and then found jobs stayed in the club to help others. And, he said, there were club members who no longer had to worry about how they would buy groceries or medicine. "Because they knew that they had this community that was supporting them, they could go out and have more joy," Zhu said. "Giving is a muscle, right? The more that you do it, the better you get at it." Part of building that muscle comes from maintaining community, something Zhu said can take time. He's begun hosting monthly social meetups for residents and has made an effort to welcome anyone interested in joining. "The hardest part of this is the relational aspect," Zhu said. "The way that we get people to join is mostly from trusted relationships. Hopefully, we can get to that point where we're bringing people in from completely different circles, but the trust is a big part, and the community aspect is important." Neighbors helping neighbors There were also some obstacles Zhu faced during the first year, including miscommunication about where to send money, missed payments, and a hesitance among some participants to ask for money. "The other thing that I think like a lot of groups like this would face is that there will be an imbalance with the number of people who want to give and the number of people who need help," Zhu said. Still, Zhu said it's important for people to step up and help their neighbors, especially when there's no government support. "I would love for it to be a thing that exists in the state or federal government, but until then, we're going to do it this way," Zhu said. He's aiming to grow the Baltimore Community Guaranteed Income Club from 50 members to 150 members and expand its digital footprint with an official website. "For those who say that it isn't going to work, they're wrong because it is working," Zhu said. "It's just neighbors helping out neighbors." Read the original article on Business Insider

Major AI models from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google routinely fail EU GDPR and AI Act compliance, a new study reveals. Discover the enterprise risks. The post Major AI Models Consistently Break EU Regulations, Study Shows appeared first on TechRepublic.

One day last October, sitting in the courtyard of his house in China’s Henan province, Dong Hui decided to see if he could hold a pen to write.  Dong, 39, had sustained spinal cord injuries in a car accident six years earlier that left him paralyzed from the neck down. Slowly but determinedly, he wrote…

An Argentina fan holds a replica of the World Cup trophy in the stands during the 2022 final. ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP via Getty Images Fans heading to the 2026 FIFA World Cup face the highest costs in the tournament's history. Business Insider crunched the numbers to figure out how much it would cost to actually attend the event. Following one of the tournament's favorites, Argentina, all the way to the final would cost over $30,000. You've probably heard by now that this year's World Cup is set to be the most expensive yet. But what does that actually mean for fans? Business Insider crunched the numbers to game out how much it would cost a fan to follow their home team through the biggest sporting event in the world. Using booking websites and publicly available information from host cities, we calculated how much a fan would spend to attend the event based on four data points: the cost of each game ticket, flights to each host city, hotels, and local transit. There are 48 teams competing in this year's World Cup. The event runs for roughly five weeks, from June 11 to July 19. To narrow down the scope of the experiment, we decided to follow the finalists of the last tournament and two big favorites for the 2026 tournament: Argentina and France. The results? Get ready to spend. We found that a dedicated Argentina fan could have to shell out over $30,000 to follow their team the whole way through the tournament. Our methodology Before we get into the details, a couple of key points on our methodology: All flight, game ticket, and hotel data was gathered in early May; a fan's true spend could fluctuate if they book earlier or later. We assume the fan is traveling from the country they are supporting and would need to find hotel accommodation for the full five weeks of the tournament. For international flights, we looked at the cheapest option with a maximum of one stop. For domestic flights, we looked at the cheapest direct flights. For hotels, we looked at the cheapest 3-star option in the host city's downtown. Attending the group stage will run close to $10,000 Every team competing in the World Cup is guaranteed to play its first three games, no matter if they win or lose. This is called the group stage. Tickets to see Argentina are more expensive because it's one of the favorites to win the World Cup. Many also expect this tournament to be the last in which fans can see arguably soccer's greatest player of all time, Lionel Messi, before retiring. Argentina plays its opening match in Kansas City, followed by two games in Dallas. Based on our calculations and including game tickets, hotel rooms, flight tickets, and local transit, it would cost a fan from Argentina about $9,800 to see all three games. Here's the breakdown: First, there is the cost of a flight from the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires. The cheapest available flight to Kansas City with a maximum of one layover was over $1,300 with United Airlines. Five nights in a three-star hotel in Kansas City would cost about $1,800. Eight nights in Dallas would cost over $3,000. And then there's the game itself. We looked at the cheapest seats available in early May, and found it would cost $747 for the game in Kansas City against Algeria, $835 for the first game in Dallas against Austria, and $862 for the final game against Jordan. Add on the $166 Southwest Airlines flight between the two cities, $33 in local transit costs, and some $900 for a flight back to Buenos Aires, and the total is approaching five figures. This story is part of our Cost of the World Cup series, looking at the sky-high prices associated with attending the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Are you attending the World Cup and have a story to share about how you're covering the cost? Contact rshahidi@businessinsider.com or psyme@businessinsider.com. The cost of going to the World Cup final What if you were a particularly loyal supporter of Argentina's soccer team, determined to see every game in the hopes of witnessing Messi lift the World Cup trophy yet again? The teams that make it all the way to the finals will play five more games: the round of 32, the round of 16, the quarterfinals, the semifinals, and the final. Presuming Argentina wins the group stage, they would play the round of 32 in Miami on July 3. Spending three more nights in Dallas before following the team to Miami would bring a fan's total hotel spend so far to $5,630. From here, the cost of a game ticket starts to balloon. The cheapest available ticket to the July 3 game was just over $2,000. Miami is one of the most expensive cities for local transit during the World Cup. Brightline, the high-speed train operator, is charging $141 for a round-trip between downtown Miami and Aventura, the closest station to Hard Rock Stadium. That's over five times as expensive as on a normal day. Argentina's route would then continue to Atlanta for the round of 16, Kansas City for the quarterfinals, and back to Atlanta for the semis, before the final at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. The cheapest domestic flights between each of the host cities ranged from $136 to $198. A fan following the Argentine team would spend roughly $700 to fly between host cities throughout the rest of the tournament. The cheapest ticket for the semi-finals was about $2,500, while the final cost nearly $6,000. Getting to the stadium will cost $98 for a round-trip train ticket from Manhattan's Penn Station. NJ Transit originally announced this price at $150 before lowering it thanks to advertising deals. In all, following Argentina to the final would cost around $31,000. That's particularly striking when considering that Argentina's GDP per capita is roughly $14,300. Lionel Messi lifted the 2022 World Cup trophy in Qatar. Julian Finney/Getty Images The cost of following France It would be cheaper to follow France all the way to the big game — but not by much. The main benefit is that most of France's games are scheduled in a smaller area. France's group stage games are in New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Boston. It's the same three cities for the first three knockout rounds. The final is at New Jersey's MetLife Stadium. This means our hypothetical fan could base themselves in New York, spending $6,700 on a hotel for almost a monthlong stay. Amtrak rail tickets between the cities ranged from $25 to $103 when looking in early May. It would then be a $218 flight to Dallas for the semi-final, plus a $1,000 hotel, then back to New York, and another $1,700 in hotel costs. Adding the local transit costs — including an $80 rail ticket in Boston — and game tickets, which are similar to Argentina's, the figure reaches $25,000. If the France fan were lucky enough to lock down free accommodation in New York City for the duration of the tournament, their spend would decrease dramatically, coming out closer to $16,721. How the World Cup dynamic pricing works FIFA is using dynamic pricing for this year's World Cup, which means ticket prices have varied widely. In a statement to Business Insider, FIFA said it is "focused on ensuring fair access to our game for existing and prospective fans." "FIFA's variable pricing ticketing approach aligns with industry trends across various sports and entertainment sectors," the organization added. It said it offered 1,000 tickets at $60 each for each match, distributed by each participating country's governing body for the sport and allocated to loyal fans. Under the dynamic pricing model, it is much cheaper to buy tickets to watch some of the tournament's lower-ranked teams, which have little hope of getting past the group stage, let alone reaching the final. For example, the cheapest resale ticket available on Friday for Saudi Arabia vs Cape Verde, which are ranked 61st and 69th, respectively, was $126.07. Read the original article on Business Insider

Anthropic's Claude Code has become one of the most popular AI coding tools. Bloomberg/Getty Images Amazon closed an AI use leaderboard, and Uber's COO has questioned the ROI on token spending. GitHub is moving to usage-based pricing as AI bills come due for token-hungry companies. Some see it as a sign of an AI bubble. Others see it as a healthy recalibration. First came tokenmaxxing. Now comes efficiency-maxxing. Silicon Valley has been encouraging workers to use AI, including through gamified internal leaderboards that measure how many tokens — the units of data processed by AI — they use. For some, playtime is over. The tech world is having a big debate about whether tokenmaxxing, the idea of using lots of AI tokens to boost productivity, has gotten out of control. It has also got executives wondering when the return on investment will start to show. Last week, Amazon closed an internal dashboard that tracked AI use after some staff performed tasks just to climb the leaderboard, the Financial Times reported. "Please don't use AI just for the sake of using AI," Dave Treadwell, an Amazon senior vice president, told staff. "Use AI to help you solve customer problems, to help you solve business problems, to innovate." An Amazon spokesperson told Business Insider that employees set up the unofficial dashboard a few weeks ago to "drive awareness" of how AI can accelerate work and that it "was never intended to promote the use of AI for usage's sake." Amazon isn't alone in recalibrating on AI use. Uber's COO, Andrew Macdonald, said in an interview released in late May that he has yet to see improvements directly linked to increased AI spending. Some AI skeptics see these as signs of a bubble as OpenAI and Anthropic look to go public this year. "If enough other companies report the same, the bubble pops," Gary Marcus, an AI researcher and professor emeritus at New York University, wrote on X last week about Uber's experience. Tech giants want to reduce their AI bills For execs worried about AI costs, the tech industry has mixed signs about how it might play out. This week, Microsoft's GitHub Copilot, an AI-powered coding assistant, is moving from a fixed monthly payment to usage-based billing. In an April blog post, GitHub said it had so far absorbed much of the rising cost of its technology, and the fixed pricing model is "no longer sustainable." It joins others, including Anthropic and OpenAI, in moving away from flat-rate seats to usage-based billing for business customers. While price changes have irked some developers, investors say it's a necessary move and a sign of the market maturing. "For the past year, a lot of AI products were effectively subsidizing usage in the race for growth. Now the bill is showing up," Barry Downes, the managing partner at investment firm Sure Valley Ventures, told Business Insider. "That's a healthy transition, not a warning sign," he added. Uber COO Andrew Macdonald's comments sparked a debate over tokenmaxxing. Bloomberg/Getty Images On the other side of the coin, costs could come down over time as AI companies develop more efficient models and use them to gain a competitive edge. Google, for example, says its latest Gemini 3.5 Flash model rivals frontier offerings at a lower price, as does Anthropic's latest Opus 4.8 model. As Business Insider's Hugh Langley reports, Google has a strong position to reduce costs because it owns the full stack — chips, data centers, cloud, models, and many big applications. After years of AI labs competing on intelligence, they're now competing on intelligence per dollar, with OpenAI, Anthropic, and others offering smaller, more efficient models. Tokenmaxxing faces a 'necessary reality check' Oded Tahori, the founder and CEO of Jeen.ai, has been following the shift away from tokenmaxxing, as his own startup helps organizations deploy AI and manage token spend. He told Business Insider that the tokenmaxxing craze stemmed from "FOMO" and companies not understanding the full challenge of building with AI. Now, he said, the focus is shifting to connecting spend to outcomes. "I think that they should have goals about budgets," he said. "And a reason why to spend the money: if you want to spend a million on tokens, you should do something good with that in your business." He suggested rewarding employees who use AI to build things that benefit the company with a larger token budget and cutting the budget for those who might be "harming" it. Some companies already implement incentive schemes that prioritize results over output. For example, Visa rewards teams that use AI to supercharge their work with internal "points" that can be used to buy things like a coffee maker, Business Insider previously reported. Tim Mills, managing partner at ACF Investors, told Business Insider that the tokenmaxxing debate feels like a "sensible check on the validity of utility" rather than a sign of an impending bubble. "Tokenmaxxing artificially distorts usage statistics for non-productive reasons, so a clampdown is a constructive step forward," he said. "It serves as a necessary reality check, reminding organizations that deploying these AI tools carries a very real infrastructure cost." Read the original article on Business Insider

President Donald Trump's student-loan repayment overhaul will take effect in July. Win McNamee/Getty Images Trump's student-loan repayment overhaul will take effect July 1. It includes new repayment plans and borrowing caps on advanced degrees. Borrowers could face higher monthly bills and federal funding gaps. Student-loan borrowers, get ready: big changes are coming. For nearly a year, President Donald Trump's Department of Education has been preparing to implement the sweeping student-loan changes signed into law in the administration's " big beautiful" spending legislation. After negotiation, public comment, and ongoing litigation, those changes will take effect on July 1. They include a new repayment plan, borrowing caps for advanced degrees, and the elimination of programs that allow students and parents to borrow the full cost of attendance for school. The Department of Education said the changes are intended to simplify a complex student-loan repayment system and curb excessive borrowing. However, borrower advocates and Democratic lawmakers have raised concerns that the changes could increase borrowers' monthly bills by hundreds of dollars and lead some toward riskier, private student-loan products. Undersecretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in an April statement that the repayment overhaul "addresses longstanding challenges in higher education and federal student lending, including exorbitant tuition costs, unchecked borrowing, and a confusing maze of repayment options that too often leave borrowers with higher balances despite making payments." Here are the key changes coming for student-loan borrowers next month. Loading… New repayment plans Two new student-loan repayment plans will be rolled out on July 1: the Repayment Assistance Plan and a tiered standard repayment plan. RAP is intended to replace existing income-driven repayment plans, but its terms are less generous. A borrower's monthly payment under RAP would scale with their adjusted gross income, ranging from 1% to 10% of AGI. That's different from income-based repayment plans, which set aside a portion of a borrower's income for basic monthly expenses and calculate the monthly payment based on the lower amount. The forgiveness terms for RAP differ from those of existing plans. While current income-based plans allow forgiveness after 20 or 25 years of payments, RAP would discharge loans after 30 years. The department is also rolling out a tiered standard plan on July 1. Under this plan, borrowers would repay their loans in full over a repayment period based on the amount of their principal balance, with a minimum payment of $50 a month. For example, borrowers with a balance of less than $25,000 would have a 10-year repayment period, while those with a balance of $100,000 or more would have a 25-year repayment period. Borrowers who take out their first student loans on or after July 1 will have access to only RAP and the tiered plan. Transitioning off the SAVE plan The SAVE plan was created by former President Joe Biden to give borrowers cheaper monthly payments and a shorter timeline to loan forgiveness. Now that it's been eliminated, 7 million enrolled borrowers will have to transition off the plan and begin repayment on a new plan. The Department of Education said that, beginning on July 1, servicers will start sending notices to SAVE borrowers informing them of their deadline to transition to a new plan. Borrowers will have 90 days to make that transition, and if they do not take any action, their servicers will automatically place them on the standard or tiered repayment plan. The most recent notice was sent to SAVE borrowers in late May. The notice, which Business Insider reviewed, said that borrowers do not need to wait until July to switch plans. "By choosing a new repayment plan and making payments now, you'll pay off your debt more quickly than if you stay on the SAVE Plan in a forbearance that's adding to your loan balance," the notice said. Student-loan borrowers are still hoping to reverse the ruling in court. In March, four borrowers — represented by the law firm Public Goods Practice — filed a lawsuit seeking relief for SAVE borrowers, and the litigation is ongoing. New borrowing caps A key debate in Trump's repayment overhaul was over new borrowing caps on advanced degrees. The Department of Education will implement a $100,000 lifetime borrowing cap for graduate students and a $200,000 lifetime cap for professional students. The department is also limiting the professional cap to 11 programs, including medicine, dentistry, and law. The Parent PLUS program will also face new caps. While it previously allowed parents to borrow the full cost of attendance for their kids' programs, parent borrowers will face a $65,000 borrowing cap for each child beginning in July. Advocates, borrowers, and lawmakers across the aisle are pushing the Department of Education to change its definition of a professional degree to include advanced nursing programs. While the department has said that the majority of nursing programs would fall into the lower borrowing cap, 25 Democratic-led states said in a recent lawsuit that the limits would exacerbate the ongoing healthcare worker shortage. "Higher education is expensive, and our health care system is already under immense strain," Letitia James, New York's attorney general, said in a statement alongside the lawsuit. "This rule will shut talented people out of critical professions and leave communities with fewer health care providers they desperately need." Have a story to share about student loans? Contact this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com. Read the original article on Business Insider

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Google adjusted Gemini usage limits after complaints, adding Pro quota caps, free Flash-Lite prompts, and clearer usage reporting. The post Google Eases Gemini Usage Limits After Complaints appeared first on TechRepublic.

Automation is becoming a bigger part of how financial markets are approached, and forex trading is one area where this is becoming easier to notice. As the tech world improves, more traders are looking for ways to stay involved in the market without the need to sit in front of charts for hours at a […] The post The future of automated trading with the best forex robot reviews appeared first on AI News.

A Google Cloud survey found that 90% of developers are already integrating AI into their daily work, and on Steam, 7,818 titles disclosed AI use in 2025 alone, a 681% increase over the previous year. AI in video game development is not a side experiment. It is restructuring the pipeline from concept through launch, and […] The post AI in video game development: How artificial intelligence is reshaping the industry appeared first on AI News.

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Every year, healthcare organizations pay an average of $10.1 million to recover from a data breach, … The Data Governance Principles Healthcare Organizations Cannot Afford to SkipRead more The post The Data Governance Principles Healthcare Organizations Cannot Afford to Skip appeared first on .

Mike Wheatley / SiliconANGLE: Nvidia says its Vera Rubin computing platform is ramping into “full production”, with first systems expected to ship in the fall, after a March announcement  —  Nvidia Corp. said early Monday at the Computex conference in Taipei that it's gearing up the production …

Ina Fried / Axios: Nvidia unveils Cosmos 3, an open physical AI foundation model, to help robots and autonomous cars better understand the real world with limited training data  —  Nvidia unveiled Cosmos 3, an open AI world model designed to help robots, autonomous vehicles and other physical systems better understand and predict real-world environments.

Stephen Nellis / Reuters: Nvidia unveils Isaac GR00T, an open humanoid reference design powered by its Jetson Thor chip, combining a Unitree H2 Plus robot and Sharpa five-fingered hands  —  Nvidia (NVDA.O) plans to work with humanoid robot makers in the U.S., Europe and South Korea in addition to China's Unitree …

Sangmi Cha / Bloomberg: LG shares jumped 300%+ this year, after largely sitting out South Korea's chip-rally in 2025, as LG seeks to expand into physical AI businesses such as robots  —  LG Electronics Inc. shares have quadrupled this year as investors applaud the venerable Korean appliance maker's shift into robotics.

Invisix, a semiconductor metrology company developingnext-generation measurement tools for advanced chip manufacturing, has raisedan oversubscribed €20 million seed round. The financing includes parti...

Kai Nicol-Schwarz / CNBC: Runway, the AI startup most recently valued at $5.3B, plans to make London its European headquarters and invest $200M+ into the UK's AI ecosystem by 2028 end  —  American AI company Runway is planning a major expansion in London, CNBC has learned, following in the wake of Anthropic and OpenAI …

Katie Tarasov / CNBC: Jensen Huang says Microsoft and Nvidia will “reinvent the PC”, starting with 30+ laptops and 10 desktops coming in the fall from Dell, HP, Lenovo, and others  —  Nvidia has emerged as the world's most valuable company by dominating the market for AI chips in the data center.

Jeffrey Kampman / Tom's Hardware: Nvidia says RTX Spark offers up to 20 CPU cores and a Blackwell GPU with 6,144 CUDA cores, capable of “100 FPS 1440p gaming” or running 120B-parameter models  —  Over 30 laptops and 10 desktops coming this fall with “the most efficent platform ever built”