Exam Code: A8 Practice test 2023 by Killexams.com team
Preparing and Managing Contracts
CIPS Preparing action
Killexams : CIPS Preparing action - BingNews https://killexams.com/pass4sure/exam-detail/A8 Search results Killexams : CIPS Preparing action - BingNews https://killexams.com/pass4sure/exam-detail/A8 https://killexams.com/exam_list/CIPS Killexams : How should LOs prepare for the market ahead?

The latest numbers have many in the industry starting the year on a hopeful note, with the possibility that we’ll see mortgage rates returning to the 5% range in 2023.

“The 5% market’s a healthy market,” said Anna Ruotolo, branch manager and senior loan officer at Synergy One Lending. “A 5% market will be good. I think that brings enough people back into the market, [though] I do think there’s still a lot more demand than supply.”

These hopes for a declining rate have many loan officers feeling optimistic about 2023’s business prospects after experiencing lower volumes last year. But as we enter the first quarter of the year, LOs need to balance their hopes with on-the-ground action to prepare for whatever does lie ahead.

“I think these next couple of months are crucial for anybody in the mortgage and real estate industry to position themselves strongly,” said Susan Byerley, senior loan officer at Neighborhood Loans. “They’re projecting the interest rates are going to have a bit of a downtick in early spring, and that’s going to get some buyers off the bench.”

So what should LOs do in Q1 to set themselves up for success in the year ahead? 

Make a plan

For Jason Stallworth, retail sales manager at Planet Home Lending, preparation for Q1 began last month by meeting with new prospects, real estate agents and brokers. He sat down with potential buyers and his referral partners to set goals and expectations for 2023 and make a plan to help them meet their goals.

“Most importantly, the biggest part of it is implementing the plan that you put into place,” Stallworth said. “It means nothing if you don’t implement it. Consistency is key to getting there. You do the work, the money and the results will follow.” 

Ruotolo reviews business plans with her loan officers and makes sure that in addition to setting a goal, they set up the steps they need to take to achieve it.

“I’m not so much focused on the number, I know what my number is,” she said. “I’m focused on the steps and the activities I have to do to get to that number.”

Stay in touch with your sphere of influence

A critical part of achieving those goals is staying in touch with your sphere of influence and referral partners. Networking with your book of business and creating new relationships helps you maintain your business and continue to grow.

For example, Ruotolo is keeping in touch with her database and the real estate agents that refer and support her. But she’s also creating a target list of clients she’d like to be working with and reaching out to them.

“We have to operate with extreme intention of creating as many relationships as possible, making as many contacts as possible during Q1,” Ruotolo said. “This is the time that we could gain market share by really creating some strong relationships during this time.” 

Continue to educate

Part of maintaining those critical relationships is education, whether that’s for your real estate agent partners or prospective buyers.

A record number of real estate agents have joined the industry in the past few years, and the newer ones won’t have experienced a changing market. They’ll need to learn about programs like the 3-2-1 or 2-1 buydown and how they work, and may need help promoting their listings. 

Both Byerley and Ruotolo said they do webinars and videos to help educate borrowers. Byerley noted the importance of being “pleasantly persistent” with borrower education in light of misconceptions and negative mindsets.

“I bring in a financial adviser, anybody that can speak to where our market is right now in educating people that now is really the perfect time to buy, because we don’t know what things are going to look like down the road,” Byerley said. “We’re in uncharted waters right now, so we have to get as creative as we possibly can.”

Homebuyers are making the largest financial transaction of their lives. It’s important not only to position yourself as a knowledgeable professional they can rely on, but to make sure you’re giving them the most accurate information possible to level-set the right way.

“A lot of buyers think that the market’s going to go back to COVID numbers; they think the rate’s going to go back down to 2-3%. And it’s unfortunate that it’s not, so we have to really set realistic expectations for the buyers,” Stallworth said. “It’s our job as professionals to do that, and if we can do that, it makes our jobs easier by just managing that buyer’s expectations.”

Don’t slow down

While purchase volumes are down, it may be tempting to slow down and wait for rates and business to Improve after Q1. But now is the time to work harder than ever. 

“I’m not seeing the effects of the market slowing down,” Stallworth said. “Why? Because I’m not letting the market slowing down affect my work. I’m still putting in the work — if anything, it’s making me work harder.”

Whatever your plan is, stick to it and stay focused. The work will pay off, Byerley said. 

“I look at this as seed-planting time. provide it about four or six months, we’re going to be harvesting the fruits of our labor,” she said. “Work as if you’re completely swamped, don’t have the mentality of, ‘Oh, I’m super slow.’ When people ask me how I’m doing, I’m swamped. I may not be swamped closing loans, but I’m busy. That’s a mindset.”

Stay positive

Regardless of how the market moves, it’s important to stay positive during this time and avoid bringing a negative tone into conversations, Ruotolo said. 

“Stay truth-based but optimistic,” she said. “Because it is a good opportunity to buy a home, if you can afford a home. You can negotiate now better than you could in the past, and if rates go down, then we refinance you.”

If you’re not feeling positive on a particular day, she suggested stepping away until you can be positive and avoid doom-and-gloom conversations. Focus on your belief in real estate and what it can do for the buyers you work with.

“Stay positive,” she said. “Stay focused on knowing that it is a great service that we provide and it’s a wonderful goal to help people achieve.”

Tue, 17 Jan 2023 20:35:00 -0600 Jessica Davis en-US text/html https://www.housingwire.com/articles/how-should-los-prepare-for-the-market-ahead/
Killexams : Enter the hunter satellites preparing for space war
Overhead shot of a satellite
Enlarge / True Anomaly's satellites (not pictured) will spy on each other, using thrusters, radar, and multi-spectral cameras to approach within a few hundred meters.
Getty Images

Former US Air Force major Even “Jolly” Rogers is thinking about a space war. “Conflict exists on a continuum that begins with competition and ultimately leads into full-scale conflict like what you’re seeing in Ukraine,” he says. The US, he adds, is already “in active competition with Russia and China for freedom of action and dominance of the space domain. And it’s evolving very quickly.”

So on January 26 last year, the former US Air Force major incorporated True Anomaly, Inc to “solve the most challenging orbital warfare problems for the US Space Force,” he later tweeted.

According to a recent filing with the US Federal Communication Commission (FCC), True Anomaly is now gearing up for its first orbital mission. In October, True Anomaly hopes to launch two Jackal “orbital pursuit” spacecraft aboard a SpaceX rocket to low earth orbit. The Jackals will not house guns, warheads, or laser blasters, but they will be capable of rendezvous proximity operations (RPO)—the ability to maneuver close to other satellites and train a battery of sensors upon them. This could reveal their rivals’ surveillance and weapons systems or help intercept communications.

In their first mission, dubbed Demo-1, the Jackals will merely spy on each other, using thrusters, radar, and multi-spectral cameras to approach within a few hundred meters. If that goes well, Rogers envisages deploying thousands of autonomous spacecraft in service of the US military, controlled by a team of human operators and AI “to pursue adversaries wherever they fly, and to provide the tools of accountability.”

Those tools start with understanding what technologies America’s adversaries are deploying in space. “But an active defense is going to be required,” says Rogers, now True Anomaly’s CEO. “If you take the job of defense and protection of the domain seriously, you have to have the ability to do the joint functions of maneuver and fires.” Although the military often uses “fires” to mean kinetic weapons like guns and shells, in the space context, it usually refers to jamming, electronic warfare, and cyberattacks.

Nothing on True Anomaly’s website suggests that it is developing its own offensive weapons. However, in a series of posts last summer, Rogers tweeted: “Tactically disabling enemy spacecraft can be the difference between the loss of an entire Carrier Strike Group or its survival... And there are many ways to destroy spacecraft that don’t ruin the environment. After all, they are just floating computers.”

RPO itself is nothing new. In a report last September, the Secure World Foundation, a private foundation promoting cooperative solutions in space, detailed dozens of military RPO operations in geostationary and low earth orbits since the Cold War. Most of these involve American, Russian, or Chinese spacecraft sidling up to each other’s satellites, presumably to see what they look like or to eavesdrop on their communications.

There are also emerging peaceful uses of RPO, such as space tugs that can repair or relocate failed satellites or remove dangerous space junk. The Secure World Foundation helps run an organization called Confers that is setting voluntary technical standards for commercial RPO. True Anomaly is one of around 60 Confers members. “If we ever want to do things like cleaning up space debris, we have to develop these technologies,” says Brian Weeden, the foundation’s director of planning. However, True Anomaly is the first RPO startup explicitly focusing on the military market, he says.

Rogers’ last job for the government was leading teams within US Space Command that planned how and when to deploy defensive and offensive military space systems. He and his cofounders, Dan Brunski, Tom Nichols, and Kyle Zakrzewski, also former Air Force and Space Force officers, “knew the problem better than anybody else, dealt with the limitations of technology on a day-to-day basis, and were frustrated with those limitations,” Rogers says. Rather than wait for a large industrial defense contractor to get around to it, they decided to solve the problem themselves. The deployment of space weapons by America's rivals, he says, “is much closer than most people would think.”

According to US Security Exchange Commission filings, True Anomaly has already raised over $23 million from investors. This includes a December investment from Narya, a venture capital firm cofounded by US Senator JD Vance, a MAGA-leaning Ohio Republican. (Rogers says that True Anomaly itself has no political affiliation.)

The company recently signed a lease on a 35,000-square-foot factory in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado. As well as manufacturing the Jackal satellites, True Anomaly engineers are designing a cloud-based control system to integrate autonomous agents and human operators, using commercial game engines like Unity to build interactive real-time applications and developing high-fidelity physics software to help the Jackals maneuver in space. True Anomaly has already applied for a trademark covering, among other things, hardware and software for “orbital space-to-space imagery, rendezvous proximity, and target acquisition systems.”

“What is different about True Anomaly is the way it seems to be presenting its satellite as more of a pursuit system than an imaging or an intelligence-gathering system,” says Kaitlyn Johnson, deputy director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic & International Studies. “This does concern me because it could cause unintentional escalation. Especially with the founder’s Air Force background, it might be read by our adversaries as a military-directed company that was starting to pursue this capability.”

The company’s first challenge could be keeping its own floating computers intact. “Cooperative RPO is already hard,” says Johnson. “You can see that from the demonstrations by Astroscale and Northrop with their servicing satellites, which were years in the planning.” A cooperative RPO mission by NASA in 2005 called DART failed when the spacecraft malfunctioned, crashed into its target satellite, and was destroyed.

Pursuit missions of adversarial satellites are likely to be much riskier still, says Johnson: “You don’t have the same data coming from the other satellite. You maybe don’t have the diagrams and diagnostics of what the satellite looks like so that you know what you’re about to encounter.”

Any collision in orbit can generate many thousands of pieces of space junk, each of which could damage other satellites, creating yet more debris. Researchers worry about increasing orbital debris ultimately triggering a catastrophic cascade known as the Kessler Syndrome. Rogers says that collision avoidance is a possibility “that we track very closely and aggressively. We’re committed to acting responsibly and sustainably in the space domain.”

Rogers himself is no stranger to risk. Before starting True Anomaly, he founded and led a crypto hedge fund called Phobos Capital. And prior to that, he incorporated a company called 3720 to 1, Inc—a reference to the odds of Han Solo successfully navigating an asteroid field in The Empire Strikes Back, according to C-3PO.

Whether Rogers’ pursuit of a satellite venture is more likely to succeed, or just another piece of gung-ho science fiction, should be a lot clearer after SpaceX’s rocket launches in October.

This story originally appeared on wired.com.

Thu, 02 Feb 2023 05:41:00 -0600 Mark Harris, wired.com en-us text/html https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/enter-the-hunter-satellites-preparing-for-space-war/
Killexams : How Mission-Driven Companies Are Preparing for a Recession No result found, try new keyword!If your business isn't trimming budgets in preparation for one of the most-anticipated recessions in exact memory, you're likely taking other precautions to position yourself for a rough 2023. Mon, 06 Feb 2023 19:30:00 -0600 text/html https://www.inc.com/ali-donaldson/how-mission-driven-companies-are-preparing-for-a-recession.html Killexams : NOACA preparing climate action plan for Cuyahoga and neighboring counties with public meeting set for Tuesday

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Cleveland has had one since 2013. Cuyahoga County since 2018. Now the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency is working on one.

They are climate action plans.

They set guidelines for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which collectively around the globe have been blamed for raising the average temperature of the atmosphere and creating health and infrastructure hazards expected to worsen unless something is done sooner than later.

NOACA, the region’s primary planning organization for transportation and environmental issues and a conduit for state and federal grants to a five-county region, has completed an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions attributed to local sources. Now it’s time to devise strategies for how to respond.

The plan will suggest ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors of the economy and to determine where the region is at risk from the hazards of climate change and to suggest ways to make people, places and things more resilient in the face of likely impacts

“It’s important because action has to be taken in order to ensure that we in Northeast Ohio are both actively participating in solving the global problem as well as protecting our individual assets within the region,” said NOACA Executive Director Grace Gallucci,

The community can learn more about NOACA’s plan and ask questions and offer suggestions, by participating in a webinar that will be live streamed Tuesday from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m..

NOACA will also provide the live feed at several locations where people can gather to watch it in-person and to submit questions to staff.

The in-person viewing locations include the Jerry Sue Thornton Center at Cuyahoga Community College, Lakeland Community College, the Spitzer Conference Center at Lorain Community College, Medina District Library and Geauga Middlefield Library.

The first step in the proces has been the creation of a greenhouse gas inventory. NOACA worked with California-based organization ICLEI Local Government for Sustainability to use an “internationally recognized approach” with proven methodology to calculate the emission levels, Gallucci said.

The most prominent greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide, which is created by the burning of fossil fuels, but another is methane, which is emitted from landfills and oil and gas operations. Methane is more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon monoxide, but it does last as long in the atmosphere.

Greenhouse gases are not pollutants in the same category as particulate matter, sulfur dioxide and other “criteria pollutants” that are regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and can lead to immediate health problems if inhaled. The danger from greenhouse gases is that they act as insulators in the atmosphere that trap heat that would otherwise radiate into space. That heat then raises temperatures around the globe.

Gallucci points out, however, that by reducing greenhouse gases, there will be plenty of co-benefits that include reducing harmful criteria pollutants being released into the air.

The greenhouse gas inventory, which has not been published in its final form, shows residential energy, such as natural gas, electricity fuel oil and propane, consumed by homes, including multi-family living areas, as the largest sector contributing to regional greenhouse gas emissions across NOACA’s 5-county area. The sector’s 25.7% share is only slightly larger than the transportation sector at 25.5%.

The Industrial energy sector is next at 19.5%, followed by commercial energy; process and fugitive emissions from such things as natural gas distribution systems and oil and gas wells; solid waste and then water and wastewater.

The plan also calculates how much carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere by trees in the region that absorb carbon dioxide.

Gallucci said NOACA’s climate plan will be assessing risks to such things as roads, bridges, water lines, sewers and people and will recommend ways to mitigate the hazards while also preparing for likely impacts to occur.

Gallucci said the public will ultimately decide what “acceptable behavior changes” to embrace.

While Gallucci hestitated to predict the eventual contents of the plan, she said that NOACA’s long-range planning already calls for “a shift away from single car occupancy to shared (rides), to public transit, to walking, to bicycling, “

Boosting a transition to electric vehicles is also part of that plan, she said, although auto manufacturers will determine the types of fuels systems that will power their products. NOACA, however, is already engaged in expanding the number of electric vehicle charging stations in the area.

The ultimate goal of the climate action plan is to have the region become carbon neutral by 2050. That means the region would not produce any more greenhouse gas emissions than it is able to remove from the atmosphere.

It’s a goal embraced by the United States and many other countries in a the drive to prevent the average global temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared to pre-industrial times. If it does rise by that much, scientists warn, all kinds of bad things will happen, including rising ocean levels that could devastate coastlines.

The NOACA climate action plan is slated to be approved by the group’s board of directors in June.

©2023 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit cleveland.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Fri, 06 Jan 2023 05:16:00 -0600 en-US text/html https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/noaca-preparing-climate-action-plan-for-cuyahoga-and-neighboring-counties-with-public-meeting-set-for-tuesday/ar-AA1630XH
Killexams : How To Prepare Your Rental for New Tenants Giving tenants an amazing rental experience is a great way to get them to renew their leases. Start right by prepping your rental and perfecting move-in day. How a rental looks upon a tenant moving in tells them a lot about how the rest of their rental experience will be and how well you tend [...] © Provided by 2UrbanGirls.com Giving tenants an amazing rental experience is a great way to get them to renew their leases. Start right by prepping your rental and perfecting move-in day. How a rental looks upon a tenant moving in tells them a lot about how the rest of their rental experience will be and how well you tend [...]

Giving tenants an amazing rental experience is a great way to get them to renew their leases. Start right by prepping your rental and perfecting move-in day.

How a rental looks upon a tenant moving in tells them a lot about how the rest of their rental experience will be and how well you tend to the property. Prepping your rental shows tenants that you care about their experience and are attentive and responsible. To provide your soon-to-be tenants the best rental experience possible, read on to learn how to prepare your rental for new tenants.

Check Appliances and Make Repairs

Your first task is to go through the entire property and make a note of all the appliances and amenities to ensure everything is in working condition. This includes the plumbing and HVAC systems, alarms, sensors, lawn sprinklers, and the kitchen, bathroom, and laundry appliances. Not only are you ensuring a great first impression, but fixing any issues beforehand means you won’t have to deal with maintenance requests later.

Deep Clean the Property

A clean home is one of the best ways to welcome a tenant to your rental property and gives a fantastic first impression. Getting rid of stains, foul odors, clutter, and garbage is a non-negotiable step in prepping your rental. No one wants to deal with a dirty home on move-in day; it’s added stress, unnecessary, and tells tenants that you don’t care about the property. You may also consider giving things a fresh coat of paint after cleaning so everything looks more vibrant and seamless.

Change the Locks

While you may have gotten the keys back from the previous tenant, it’s best practice to change the locks. You never know if the previous tenant made a copy without your consent, and it helps tenants feel safer overall. This also includes changing the garage code or any alarm codes.

Spruce Up the Exterior

When preparing your rental for a new tenant, don’t forget that the outside can be just as important as the inside. While you don’t have to have an overflowing garden and lavish topiaries, trimming the lawn, trees, and shrubs makes the home look more kempt and shows tenants you care about the details. Additionally, consider cleaning mold and algae buildup that stains the outside walls, and paint over any remnants.

Conduct a Tenant Walk-Through

While you should conduct a walkthrough before move-in day, set up an allotted time to complete an additional walkthrough with your tenant. You can both go through the property and determine whether everything is up to standard and in working order. You can also provide a form for them to sign that shows you’re all on the same page about the property’s condition, overall forming a stronger and more trustworthy tenant-landlord relationship.

The post How To Prepare Your Rental for New Tenants appeared first on 2UrbanGirls.

Wed, 18 Jan 2023 13:55:00 -0600 en-US text/html https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/home-and-garden/how-to-prepare-your-rental-for-new-tenants/ar-AA16uYdp
Killexams : Trump preparing to ditch Truth Social so he can return to Twitter, Facebook: report

Former President Donald Trump is preparing to leave the exclusive relationship with his own social media platform Truth Social as part of an eventual return to mainstream sites like Twitter and Facebook, according to a report.

Trump, who is gearing up to campaign for the Republican nomination for president in 2024, has been telling confidantes he is eagerly anticipating the expiration of a “social media exclusivity term” with Truth Social, the app founded by his company Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG).

The exclusivity term requires Trump to “first channel any and all social media communications” to his Truth Social account six hours before posting the same content to other platforms, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Nonetheless, the exclusivity deal exempts posts the content of which “specifically relates to political messaging, political fundraising or get-out-the-vote efforts.”

Former President Donald Trump is reportedly eager to ditch his exclusivity agreement with his own social media app Truth Social.
Former President Donald Trump is reportedly eager to ditch his exclusivity agreement with his own social media app Truth Social.
The Washington Post via Getty Im
Truth Social is the social media app founded by Trump's media and technology company.
Truth Social is the social media app founded by Trump’s media and technology company.
NurPhoto via Getty Images

But Trump has been telling those close to him for months that he has no appetite to renew the exclusivity clause once it expires in June, according to Rolling Stone.

“There’s not going to be a need for that,” Trump reportedly told an associate when asked about his contractual obligation to Truth Social.

Another associate told Rolling Stone: “He said there’s an expiration date and that he didn’t want to make commitments.” 

Donald Trump's Twitter account
Trump has reportedly been lobbying Facebook’s parent company, Meta, to reinstate his account.
Bloomberg via Getty Images

As per the terms of the exclusivity contract, Trump must provide notice in order to avoid an automatic renewal of the clause for a period of six months.

Even if the exclusivity contract sunsets, Trump will still be “required to post contemporaneously to Truth Social,” according to the filing.

Publicly, Trump has said he is sticking with Truth Social — despite the fact that Twitter’s new boss, Elon Musk, lifted the ban on the former president that was put into effect following the events of Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol.

Donald J. Trump suspended Twitter account
The former president has reportedly been plotting his return to Twitter.
NurPhoto via Getty Images

Devin Nunes, the former Republican lawmaker who became CEO of TMGT, recently told Newsmax that Trump “has no interest in going back to Twitter.”

But one person who spoke to Trump told Rolling Stone: “There is no way [Nunes’ statement] is true.”

Last week, NBC News reported that Trump was plotting his return to both Twitter and Facebook.

Lawyers for Trump’s campaign sent a letter to executives at Facebook’s parent company, Meta, urging them to reinstate Trump’s account.

Donald Trump
Trump founded Truth Social after he was kicked off mainstream social media apps in the wake of the events of Jan. 6, 2021.
Getty Images

Facebook, like other mainstream platforms, banned Trump from its site following the US Capitol riot, though it did say it would re-evaluate the decision after two years.

A Meta spokesperson told The Post that a decision on Trump’s possible reinstatement will be made before the end of the month.

Mon, 23 Jan 2023 03:34:00 -0600 en-US text/html https://nypost.com/2023/01/23/trump-is-preparing-a-return-to-twitter-facebook-report/
Killexams : Drop in business activity flags UK recession risk - flash PMI
  • Flash composite PMI 47.8 vs Reuters poll 49.1
  • Fall in UK survey contrasts with rise in euro zone
  • UK economy set for recession in 2023
  • Rise in borrowing limits government's options

LONDON, Jan 24 (Reuters) - British private-sector economic activity fell at its fastest rate in two years in January, a survey showed on Tuesday, as businesses blamed higher Bank of England interest rates, strikes and weak consumer demand for the slowdown.

The S&P Global/CIPS flash composite Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) dropped to 47.8 from 49.0 in December, at the bottom end of economists' forecasts in a Reuters poll and the lowest since January 2021. Readings below 50 indicate falling output.

The fall contrasted with a slight rise in business activity in the euro zone.

"Weaker-than-expected PMI numbers in January underscore the risk of the UK slipping into recession," S&P Global's Chief Business Economist, Chris Williamson, said.

"Industrial disputes, staff shortages, export losses, the rising cost of living and higher interest rates all meant the rate of economic decline gathered pace again at the start of the year," he added.

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Britain's economy grew in November, according to official data published earlier this month, reducing the chances of two consecutive quarters of falling output - the widely used definition of recession in Europe - in the second half of 2022.

However, a widely expected fall in output this year will weigh on the BoE's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) as it considers how much further to raise interest rates on Feb. 2.

Financial markets expect the central bank to raise British rates to 4% from 3.5% next week to tackle double-digit inflation, and to a peak of around 4.5% later this year.

Finance minister Jeremy Hunt is under pressure to announce pro-growth measures in a March 15 budget statement but data published earlier on Tuesday showed an unexpectedly large jump in borrowing in December, limiting his options.

Reuters Graphics Reuters Graphics

Economists said Britain's economy was losing momentum while its peers in the European Union seemed to be gathering pace.

Sterling fell and was down about 0.5% on the day against the euro and the dollar at 1025 GMT.

"The silver lining to S&P's survey, however, is that it strengthens the case for the MPC to stop hiking the Bank Rate soon," said Gabriella Dickens, an economist with consultancy Pantheon Macreconomics.

Britain is also in the midst of a wave of industrial action as rail workers, nurses, ambulance drivers and teachers seek pay rises that keep up with inflation.

Tuesday's PMI data showed that prices charged by businesses rose at the slowest rate since August 2021, although the increase was still steep by historic standards.

Costs rose at the slowest pace since April 2021, as energy prices fell, though wage increases remained significant, while optimism about the year ahead reached an eight-month high.

Businesses cut a small number of jobs, in contrast to the rapid hiring through much of 2021 and 2022.

Additional reporting by William Schomberg; Editing by Susan Fenton and Kevin Liffey

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Mon, 23 Jan 2023 20:55:00 -0600 David Milliken en text/html https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/uk-business-activity-falls-fastest-rate-two-years-flash-pmi-2023-01-24/
Killexams : How Keke Palmer Is Preparing for Motherhood—and the Metaverse

Palmer has been getting more tired than usual, adding, "So now I'm feeling myself be a little bit more like, 'Oh, I could take a nap dead-set in the middle of the afternoon, why not?' Where before, it might not be something that I would usually do."

While the actress has opened the floor to social media commentary on a few occasions, such as when she gleefully revealed last month that she was newly blemish-free, she's also found a wellspring of support among the celebrity mom set.

"Tamera Mowry and Lauren London both have been just like, 'My door is open,'" Palmer shared. "That's the thing that I've seen from most other people who work in the industry and have families, just how happy they are for me and coming to me with open arms. They've all been very encouraging."

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 03:53:00 -0600 text/html https://www.eonline.com/news/1362820/how-keke-palmer-is-preparing-for-motherhood-and-the-metaverse
Killexams : ChatGPT Is Preparing to Introduce a Premium Version For $42 a Month
OpenAI ChatGPT
OpenAI said it’s exploring ways to monetize ChatGPT. Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images

OpenAI is rolling out a premium version of ChatGPT, its viral artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, that will charge users $42 a month, according to a screenshot of the OpenAI website posted online by multiple ChatGPT users.

ChatGPT is currently free but often experiences high user volume that renders the service unavailable. The premium version, called “Professional Plan,” promises undisturbed service even when demand is high, faster response speed and priority access to new features, according to the screenshot.

OpenAI didn’t immediately respond to an inquiry confirming the launch of the new service.
Earlier this month, OpenAI sent a survey to ChatGPT users asking how much they would pay monthly for a potential premium version of the software. “We’re starting to think about how to monetize ChatGPT (early thinking, nothing official to share yet),” the company wrote in a message on the company’s Discord server, spotted by TechCrunch. “Our goal is to continue improving and maintaining the service, and monetization is one way we’re considering to ensure its long-term viability.”

Elsewhere, ChatGPT continues to make waves as it shows it can be used for increasing complex tasks. A new study revealed an older version of the AI was able to pass a final test offered at Wharton’s business school, earning a grade between a B- and B.

ChatGPT Is Preparing to Introduce a Premium Version For $42 a Month