Back on top: The U.S. is back in the driver’s seat of the global economy after 15 years of watching China and emerging markets take the lead. As Bloomberg reports, the world’s biggest economy will expand by 3.2% or more this year, its best performance since at least 2005, as an improving job market leads to stepped-up consumer spending, according to economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co., Deutsche Bank AG and BNP Paribas SA. That outcome would be about what each foresees for the world economy as a whole and would be the first time since 1999 that America hasn’t lagged behind global growth, based on data from the International Monetary Fund. Read the full story.
Compromised: The Twitter feed for the U.S. military command that oversees operations in the Middle East was hacked today by people claiming sympathy to the Islamic State militant group targeted in American bombing raids. As Reuters reports, U.S. officials say the U.S. Central Command Twitter account and its YouTube account were suspended after they were compromised. Two U.S. defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say the hacking was an embarrassment but did not appear to be a security threat. The White House says it was monitoring the extent of the hacking incident. Read the full story.
Headlines of the future: CNN announced today it’s working with federal regulators to advance its efforts to launch unmanned drones as a reporting tool, an experimental program that could be deployed widely by media organizations if they can work out operational and technological hurdles. Since last year, the cable news network has been studying the use of drones for news-gathering by teaming up with researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology. But USA Today reports that CNN’s partnership research deal with the Federal Aviation Administration—formally called Cooperative Research and Development Agreement—signifies that its earlier efforts have made progress and that the FAA will seek to speed the work needed to commercialize the technology. Read the full story.
