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The American passport isn’t as powerful as it used to be.
The U.S. slid to No. 9 on the Henley Passport Index, a ranking of the world’s passports according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa. A U.S. passport holder has access to 186 destinations visa-free, the same as the Estonian passport. Meanwhile, citizens of Singapore, the No. 1 passport in the ranking, have access to 195.
Only Venezuela has fallen more in the ranking in the last decade than the U.S., and some experts blame a growing “America First” mentality. “Even before the advent of a second Trump presidency, American political trends had become notably inward-looking and isolationist,” said one senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
FIRST UP
Residents try to escape the Pacific Palisades as wildfires destroy homes and businesses.
Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images
More than 130,000 people have been forced to evacuate as a series of wildfires continues to spread across Southern California, destroying more than 2,000 homes, businesses and other buildings. The death toll from the blazes grew to five Wednesday, and another fire, called the Sunset Fire, broke out in the evening in the Hollywood Hills. Evacuations for the Sunset Fire were mostly lifted early Thursday morning, but hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across Los Angeles County and neighboring Ventura County remained without power, according to PowerOutage.us.
MORE: The fires also impacted several Hollywood events, including delaying the Critics Choice Awards. Several film premieres were canceled, some scripted TV shows halted production, and daily programs like The Price Is Right paused taping.
BUSINESS + FINANCE
In their final meeting of 2024, Federal Reserve officials discussed concerns about how President-elect Donald Trump’s policies on issues like trade and immigration will impact the central bank’s efforts to bring down inflation. Restoring 2% inflation “could take longer than previously anticipated,” according to the minutes from the December 18 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, and the central bank is already anticipating it will cut rates just one more time this year.
Dockworkers along the East Coast and Gulf Coast reached a tentative agreement Tuesday with the United States Maritime Alliance, according to multiple reports, possibly avoiding another strike ahead of the January 15 deadline to reach a new contract largely focused on automation. Recent negotiations had partly been held up over concerns about the use of semi-automated cranes that stack containers and the threat they pose to human jobs, Reuters reported.
TECH + INNOVATION
Sam Altman, co-founder and CEO of OpenAI
Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s sister filed a federal lawsuit accusing him of sexually abusing her for several years, starting when they were children, an allegation the billionaire tech CEO and his family said was “utterly untrue.” Ann Altman alleged the abuse “occurred several times per week,” and in a statement Sam Altman and his family claimed she “faces mental health challenges.”
Generative AI company Anthropic is set to raise $2 billion in a new funding round, bringing its valuation to $60 billion and minting seven new billionaires among its founding team, Forbes has determined. Forbes estimates that the cofounders of the OpenAI rival will each continue to hold more than 2% of Anthropic’s equity, meaning their net worths are at least $1.2 billion.
MONEY + POLITICS
Attorney General Merrick Garland intends to release only half of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s final report detailing his investigations into President-elect Donald Trump, and it will be the portion covering Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The release of Smith’s report was already on hold pending an appeals court ruling, and yesterday’s developments mean the investigation into whether Trump unlawfully handled classified documents will likely never be made public.
President Joe Biden acknowledged in an interview published Wednesday that he might be too old to have served another four years in the White House, after repeatedly dismissing the concerns during his ill-fated reelection campaign last year. The president insisted that he could have beat Trump, citing polling he reviewed, though most major national surveys consistently showed Trump leading in the wake of Biden’s disastrous June debate performance.
SPORTS + ENTERTAINMENT
The 20 most profitable professional sports teams include nine NFL franchises, five from the NBA, three from the NHL and three from England’s Premier League, generating an estimated $3.9 billion in profit combined during the most recent season. The Dallas Cowboys lead Forbes’ latest ranking, hauling in an estimated $564 million in operating income in 2023.
TRENDS + EXPLAINERS
The flag-draped casket of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter lies in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday in Washington, DC.
Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
President Joe Biden declared today a national day of mourning to honor former President Jimmy Carter, who died at age 100 late last year, coinciding with Carter’s state funeral in Washington, D.C. Biden declared all executive departments and agencies be closed unless they must remain open “for reasons of national security, defense, or other public need,” and the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange will also be closed.
DAILY COVER STORY
Eric Schmidt’s New Secret Project Is An AI Video Platform Called ‘Hooglee’
ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY SCHERER; PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHE MORIN/IP3/GETTY IMAGES
TOPLINE Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has spent the last few months working on an artificial intelligence project that aims to capitalize on the booming landscape of AI video generation. The startup, which has not been previously reported, was founded last year under the name “Hooglee,” according to sources with knowledge of its development and business materials viewed by Forbes. Schmidt’s family office, Hillspire, is currently financing and housing it.
The billionaire “AI whisperer” has become a sometimes polarizing voice in Silicon Valley and Washington on the promise and perils of artificial intelligence, alternately claiming that it will “double everyone’s productivity,” characterizing these systems as “nuclear weapons of a different kind,” or predicting as he did last December that it may become so sophisticated that “we seriously need to think about unplugging it.”
Several months earlier, however, Schmidt and a small cohort quietly incorporated Hooglee LLC, a company that broadly describes its mission as “democratizing video creation with AI.” Its website, which consists of a single landing page and does not name Schmidt nor any of its staff, claims that it’s “creating innovative solutions that bring people closer, simplify communication, and enhance engagement.” Schmidt declined to comment.
Hooglee appears to be the first artificial intelligence project that Schmidt has personally incubated after investing in a number of AI companies, such as Anthropic and quantum computing startup SandboxAQ. The billionaire, who Forbes estimates is worth more than $26 billion, has also funded an OpenAI grantmaking program and the AI science nonprofit FutureHouse.
WHY IT MATTERS “Tech executive Eric Schmidt has grown increasingly vocal about artificial intelligence, and has finally entered the AI race with his own stealth startup, Hooglee,” says Forbes senior writer Sarah Emerson. “It appears to target the booming AI video generation market, which companies like OpenAI, TikTok and Google have already entered with their own products—a possible challenge for the billionaire-backed startup. However, Schmidt may also use his background as Google’s former CEO to incorporate a social platform element, as trademark filings suggest. Either way, he’s likely to remain an influential voice on the responsible development and regulation of AI technology.”
MORE Eric Schmidt Is Secretly Testing AI Military Drones In A Wealthy Silicon Valley Suburb
FACTS + COMMENTS
Millions of jobs will be disrupted as the global employment market is poised for significant transformation by 2030, according to a report from the World Economic Forum. The changes will be driven by factors like rapid technological advancements and evolving demographic patterns:
78 million: The net gain of new jobs this reshaping of the global employment landscape could create
40%: The share of skill competencies needed in the workplace that is predicted to change
50%: The percentage of employers planning to pivot their operations with the rise of AI
STRATEGY + SUCCESS
People are living longer—many reaching 90 or even 100 years old—but the second half of life shouldn’t be about slowing down. Instead, it’s an opportunity to reimagine what’s possible, from pursuing new careers or ventures to building businesses and mentoring younger generations. Companies also have a large role to play in supporting older employees through reskilling and opportunities for reinvention, and it is vital that they recognize the value of workers over 55.
VIDEO
QUIZ
Following Moo Deng’s popularity, the Metro Richmond Zoo in Virginia held a naming poll for its new celebrity baby pygmy hippo. Which of the following names won the contest?
A. Juniper
B. Poppy
C. Hammie Mae
D. Omi
Check your answer.
Thanks for reading! This edition of Forbes Daily was edited by Sarah Whitmire and Chris Dobstaff.
