His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

Open menu Close menu PC Gamer PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES. opens in new tab opens in new tab opens in new tab opens in new tab opens in new tab opens in new tab. US Edition. News Reviews Hardware Best Of Magazine The Top Forum More PCGaming Show Podcasts Coupons Newsletter SignUp Community Guidelines Affiliate Links Meet the team About PC Gamer.

Popular WoW: Dragonflight Darktide Midnight Suns Holiday gifts Warzone 2. Audio player loading…. Across demographic groups, about half or more approve of how Governor Newsom is handling his job. Approval of Congress among adults has been below 40 percent for all of after seeing a brief run above 40 percent for all of Democrats are far more likely than Republicans to approve of Congress. Fewer than half across regions and demographic groups approve of Congress. Approval in March was at 44 percent for adults and 39 percent for likely voters.

Across demographic groups, about half or more approve among women, younger adults, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos.

Views are similar across education and income groups, with just fewer than half approving. Approval in March was at 41 percent for adults and 36 percent for likely voters. Across regions, approval reaches a majority only in the San Francisco Bay Area. Across demographic groups, approval reaches a majority only among African Americans. This map highlights the five geographic regions for which we present results; these regions account for approximately 90 percent of the state population.

Residents of other geographic areas in gray are included in the results reported for all adults, registered voters, and likely voters, but sample sizes for these less-populous areas are not large enough to report separately. The PPIC Statewide Survey is directed by Mark Baldassare, president and CEO and survey director at the Public Policy Institute of California.

Coauthors of this report include survey analyst Deja Thomas, who was the project manager for this survey; associate survey director and research fellow Dean Bonner; and survey analyst Rachel Lawler. The Californians and Their Government survey is supported with funding from the Arjay and Frances F.

Findings in this report are based on a survey of 1, California adult residents, including 1, interviewed on cell phones and interviewed on landline telephones. The sample included respondents reached by calling back respondents who had previously completed an interview in PPIC Statewide Surveys in the last six months. Interviews took an average of 19 minutes to complete.

Interviewing took place on weekend days and weekday nights from October 14—23, Cell phone interviews were conducted using a computer-generated random sample of cell phone numbers. Additionally, we utilized a registration-based sample RBS of cell phone numbers for adults who are registered to vote in California. All cell phone numbers with California area codes were eligible for selection. After a cell phone user was reached, the interviewer verified that this person was age 18 or older, a resident of California, and in a safe place to continue the survey e.

Cell phone respondents were offered a small reimbursement to help defray the cost of the call. Cell phone interviews were conducted with adults who have cell phone service only and with those who have both cell phone and landline service in the household. Landline interviews were conducted using a computer-generated random sample of telephone numbers that ensured that both listed and unlisted numbers were called. Additionally, we utilized a registration-based sample RBS of landline phone numbers for adults who are registered to vote in California.

All landline telephone exchanges in California were eligible for selection. For both cell phones and landlines, telephone numbers were called as many as eight times. When no contact with an individual was made, calls to a number were limited to six. Also, to increase our ability to interview Asian American adults, we made up to three additional calls to phone numbers estimated by Survey Sampling International as likely to be associated with Asian American individuals. Accent on Languages, Inc.

The survey sample was closely comparable to the ACS figures. To estimate landline and cell phone service in California, Abt Associates used state-level estimates released by the National Center for Health Statistics—which used data from the National Health Interview Survey NHIS and the ACS.

The estimates for California were then compared against landline and cell phone service reported in this survey. We also used voter registration data from the California Secretary of State to compare the party registration of registered voters in our sample to party registration statewide.

The sampling error, taking design effects from weighting into consideration, is ±3. This means that 95 times out of , the results will be within 3.

The sampling error for unweighted subgroups is larger: for the 1, registered voters, the sampling error is ±4. For the sampling errors of additional subgroups, please see the table at the end of this section. Sampling error is only one type of error to which surveys are subject. Results may also be affected by factors such as question wording, question order, and survey timing. We present results for five geographic regions, accounting for approximately 90 percent of the state population. Residents of other geographic areas are included in the results reported for all adults, registered voters, and likely voters, but sample sizes for these less-populous areas are not large enough to report separately.

We also present results for congressional districts currently held by Democrats or Republicans, based on residential zip code and party of the local US House member. We compare the opinions of those who report they are registered Democrats, registered Republicans, and no party preference or decline-to-state or independent voters; the results for those who say they are registered to vote in other parties are not large enough for separate analysis.

We also analyze the responses of likely voters—so designated per their responses to survey questions about voter registration, previous election participation, intentions to vote this year, attention to election news, and current interest in politics.

The percentages presented in the report tables and in the questionnaire may not add to due to rounding. Additional details about our methodology can be found at www. pdf and are available upon request through surveys ppic. October 14—23, 1, California adult residents; 1, California likely voters English, Spanish.

Margin of error ±3. Percentages may not add up to due to rounding. Overall, do you approve or disapprove of the way that Gavin Newsom is handling his job as governor of California? Overall, do you approve or disapprove of the way that the California Legislature is handling its job?

Do you think things in California are generally going in the right direction or the wrong direction? Thinking about your own personal finances—would you say that you and your family are financially better off, worse off, or just about the same as a year ago?

Next, some people are registered to vote and others are not. Are you absolutely certain that you are registered to vote in California? Are you registered as a Democrat, a Republican, another party, or are you registered as a decline-to-state or independent voter? Would you call yourself a strong Republican or not a very strong Republican?

Do you think of yourself as closer to the Republican Party or Democratic Party? Which one of the seven state propositions on the November 8 ballot are you most interested in?

Initiative Constitutional Amendment and Statute. It allows in-person sports betting at racetracks and tribal casinos, and requires that racetracks and casinos that offer sports betting to make certain payments to the state—such as to support state regulatory costs.

The fiscal impact is increased state revenues, possibly reaching tens of millions of dollars annually. Some of these revenues would support increased state regulatory and enforcement costs that could reach the low tens of millions of dollars annually. If the election were held today, would you vote yes or no on Proposition 26?

Initiative Constitutional Amendment. It allows Indian tribes and affiliated businesses to operate online and mobile sports wagering outside tribal lands.

It directs revenues to regulatory costs, homelessness programs, and nonparticipating tribes. Some revenues would support state regulatory costs, possibly reaching the mid-tens of millions of dollars annually. If the election were held today, would you vote yes or no on Proposition 27? Initiative Statute. It allocates tax revenues to zero-emission vehicle purchase incentives, vehicle charging stations, and wildfire prevention. If the election were held today, would you vote yes or no on Proposition 30?

Do you agree or disagree with these statements? consumer-finance watchdog. As set up under the Dodd-Frank Act, the CFPB is funded by the Federal Reserve rather than congressional appropriations. But Republicans have chafed at what they view as anti-business practices and a lack of oversight. The structure has been the target of legal challenges before.

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who oversaw the CFPB's creation , responded to the ruling on Twitter, writing that "extreme right-wing judges are throwing into question every rule the CFPB enforces to protect consumers and businesses alike.

Republican Sen. Cynthia Lummis, meanwhile, said the CFPB "needs the same Congressional oversight as every other government agency. The CFPB is expected to challenge the ruling, though it has yet to confirm that. To that point, the CFPB issued new guidance to credit-reporting agencies Thursday about omitting what it called "junk data" from credit reports. The CFPB has faced several challenges to its existence over its 11 years in business. In , the Supreme Court ruled that restrictions on when its leader can be removed were unconstitutional, but rejected a plea to strike down the agency as a whole.

The most significant fear from progressive lawmakers and consumer groups is that the CFPB could see its resources chopped if left to the whims of Congress. Public Interest Research Group. The new court decision comes as the CFPB, under Biden-appointed director Rohit Chopra , has taken a more aggressive stance toward the financial industry than his Trump administration predecessors.

Chopra has also promised scrutiny over the way large technology companies are expanding into financial services. But the agency is also taking up initiatives with fintech industry support, including finally setting up open-banking rules to guide data-sharing between financial institutions and tech companies.

What the ruling means for the fintech industry remains to be seen. While regulators and companies can occasionally come into conflict, the agencies also serve an important role in providing rules of the road and certainty for business models. His decisions on major cryptocurrency cases have quoted "The Big Lebowski," "SNL," and "Dr. The ways Zia Faruqui right has weighed on cases that have come before him can give lawyers clues as to what legal frameworks will pass muster.

Veronica Irwin vronirwin is a San Francisco-based reporter at Protocol covering fintech. Previously she was at the San Francisco Examiner, covering tech from a hyper-local angle.

Before that, her byline was featured in SF Weekly, The Nation, Techworker, Ms. Magazine and The Frisc. One hundred percent electronic. The author is Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui. His rulings have made smart references to "The Big Lebowski," "Dr. Strangelove," and "SNL" parodies of the McLaughlin Group. Rather, before taking the judge position Faruqui was one of a group of prosecutors in the U. There, Faruqui prosecuted cases that involved terrorism, child pornography, and weapons proliferation.

But the ways Faruqui has weighed on cases that have come before him can give lawyers clues as to what legal frameworks will pass muster. Crypto lawyers have drawn on his prior decisions in the context of the Tornado Cash sanctions, for example.

Faruqui spoke with Protocol about the power of his position, and what people in crypto should understand about the law. There was another prosecutor, Christopher Brown — you know, the other Chris Brown — and he had taken an interest in this when we were both working on financial crime in the Washington, D. Our U. attorney at the time, Jessie Liu, had this idea of using financial investigations in a way that was not limited to just white collar crime, or even narcotics cases, but also for cyber investigations, to national security investigations, and in civil cases.

A lot of what we were investigating was related to following the money and so she wanted us to be this multidisciplinary unit. But I have to say, we started with the goal of wanting to make T-shirts, and we never did that while I was there. Your decisions have also gotten a lot of attention. We're public servants!

And in order for the public to have faith and trust us, they need to understand what it is that we're doing and what we're saying. Humor is one way, not using a lot of legalese is another way. But I think there are many judges who are trying to make the judiciary more accessible, and so people can see the work that we're doing and understand what we're doing and then make their own opinions about if it's right or wrong.

But at least, if it's understandable, then there's still some trust in the framework even if you don't agree with how our decisions are stated. We are ambassadors for the judiciary to the people in our courtroom — it's a very frightening proposition being in court if you've been federally charged, and people have perceptions of what they think can happen there in terms of fairness or unfairness.

But then it goes far beyond that. I do a lot of work with the Administrative Office of the Courts, our central body doing civic education and outreach to high schools, because I want college and high school students and law students to have an experience where they get a chance to talk to a judge.

So my goal is certainly not just getting to one segment of the population, but it's making decisions accessible to whoever's interested in reading them. What has it felt like for you switching from that prosecutor role to magistrate judge? Lawyers are trying to take different frameworks from one topic and apply them to another, and then convince you that that is or is not appropriate. Being a judge is very different because you're evaluating what the parties present to you as the applicable legal frameworks, and deciding how new, groundbreaking technology fits into legal frameworks that were written 10 or 15 years ago.

But that's not really a place where judges get involved in saying how it ought to be regulated. There was, famously, a judge in Florida that said cryptocurrency was not money because you couldn't put it underneath your bed, and that's what money is: something that is tangible.

So different people are going to have different decisions. And that's not just true for crypto, but also other areas of the law. Your best-known crypto decisions strongly assert that crypto is traceable. One way people try to make it less traceable is with mixers, and Tornado Cash was sanctioned by OFAC not too long ago. Do you think the legal reasoning was sound enough for similar sanctions to be applied to other mixers, or decentralized exchanges?

I don't know. I think there's been some discussion that people may litigate some of these things, so I can't comment, because those frequently do come to our courthouse.

And I think there are certainly people opining on that, yes and no. So much of what judges do is that we rely on the parties that are before us to tell us what's right and what's wrong. And then, you know, obviously, they'll have different views, and we make a decision based on what people say in front of us. Are you aware that some legal analysis of the Tornado Cash sanctions references your recent decision in a cryptocurrency sanctions case?

That's what good lawyers will always do. Even legislators might look at that as they try to think about where the gaps are.

As a prosecutor I had a case where we sued three Chinese banks to give us their bank records, and it had never been done before. Afterwards, Congress passed a new law, using the decisions from judges in this court and the D. circuit court, the court above us. So I'm sure people look at prior decisions and try to apply them in the ways that they want to.

Are there any misconceptions about how the law applies to crypto, or how your decisions should be interpreted, that you wish you could get across? One misconception is that the judges can't understand this technology — we can. People have these views in two extremes.

The lawyer's fundamental job is to take super complex and technical things and boil them down to very easily digestible arguments for a judge, for a jury, or whoever it might be. The financial technology transformation is driving competition, creating consumer choice, and shaping the future of finance.

Hear from seven fintech leaders who are reshaping the future of finance, and join the inaugural Financial Technology Association Fintech Summit to learn more. Financial technology is breaking down barriers to financial services and delivering value to consumers, small businesses, and the economy.

Fintech puts American consumers at the center of their finances and helps them manage their money responsibly. From payment apps to budgeting and investing tools and alternative credit options, fintech makes it easier for consumers to pay for their purchases and build better financial habits. Fintech also arms small businesses with the financial tools for success, including low-cost banking services, digital accounting services, and expanded access to capital.

We advocate for modernized financial policies and regulations that allow fintech innovation to drive competition in the economy and expand consumer choice. Spots are still available for this hybrid event, and you can RSVP here to save your seat. Join us as we discuss how to shape the future of finance. In its broadest sense, Open Banking has created a secure and connected ecosystem that has led to an explosion of new and innovative solutions that benefit the customer, rapidly revolutionizing not just the banking industry but the way all companies do business.

Target benefits are delivered through speed, transparency, and security, and their impact can be seen across a diverse range of use cases. Sharing financial data across providers can enable a customer individual or business to have real-time access to multiple bank accounts across multiple institutions all in one platform, saving time and helping consumers get a more accurate picture of their own finances before taking on debt, providing a more reliable indication than most lending guidelines currently do.

Companies can also create carefully refined marketing profiles and therefore, finely tune their services to the specific need. Open Banking platforms like Klarna Kosma also provide a unique opportunity for businesses to overlay additional tools that add real value for users and deepen their customer relationships. The increased transparency brought about by Open Banking brings a vast array of additional benefits, such as helping fraud detection companies better monitor customer accounts and identify problems much earlier.

The list of new value-add solutions continues to grow. The speed of business has never been faster than it is today. For small business owners, time is at a premium as they are wearing multiple hats every day. Macroeconomic challenges like inflation and supply chain issues are making successful money and cash flow management even more challenging.

This presents a tremendous opportunity that innovation in fintech can solve by speeding up money movement, increasing access to capital, and making it easier to manage business operations in a central place. Fintech offers innovative products and services where outdated practices and processes offer limited options. For example, fintech is enabling increased access to capital for business owners from diverse and varying backgrounds by leveraging alternative data to evaluate creditworthiness and risk models.

This can positively impact all types of business owners, but especially those underserved by traditional financial service models. When we look across the Intuit QuickBooks platform and the overall fintech ecosystem, we see a variety of innovations fueled by AI and data science that are helping small businesses succeed.

By efficiently embedding and connecting financial services like banking, payments, and lending to help small businesses, we can reinvent how SMBs get paid and enable greater access to the vital funds they need at critical points in their journey. Overall, we see fintech as empowering people who have been left behind by antiquated financial systems, giving them real-time insights, tips, and tools they need to turn their financial dreams into a reality.

Innovations in payments and financial technologies have helped transform daily life for millions of people. People who are unbanked often rely on more expensive alternative financial products AFPs such as payday loans, money orders, and other expensive credit facilities that typically charge higher fees and interest rates, making it more likely that people have to dip into their savings to stay afloat. A few examples include:. Mobile wallets - The unbanked may not have traditional bank accounts but can have verified mobile wallet accounts for shopping and bill payments.

Their mobile wallet identity can be used to open a virtual bank account for secure and convenient online banking. Minimal to no-fee banking services - Fintech companies typically have much lower acquisition and operating costs than traditional financial institutions. They are then able to pass on these savings in the form of no-fee or no-minimum-balance products to their customers. This enables immigrants and other populations that may be underbanked to move up the credit lifecycle to get additional forms of credit such as auto, home and education loans, etc.

Entrepreneurs from every background, in every part of the world, should be empowered to start and scale global businesses. Most businesses still face daunting challenges with very basic matters.

These are still very manually intensive processes, and they are barriers to entrepreneurship in the form of paperwork, PDFs, faxes, and forms. Stripe is working to solve these rather mundane and boring challenges, almost always with an application programming interface that simplifies complex processes into a few clicks.

Stripe powers nearly half a million businesses in rural America. The internet economy is just beginning to make a real difference for businesses of all sizes in all kinds of places. We are excited about this future. The way we make decisions on credit should be fair and inclusive and done in a way that takes into account a greater picture of a person. Lenders can better serve their borrowers with more data and better math.

Zest AI has successfully built a compliant, consistent, and equitable AI-automated underwriting technology that lenders can utilize to help make their credit decisions. While artificial intelligence AI systems have been a tool historically used by sophisticated investors to maximize their returns, newer and more advanced AI systems will be the key innovation to democratize access to financial systems in the future.

D espite privacy, ethics, and bias issues that remain to be resolved with AI systems, the good news is that as large r datasets become progressively easier to interconnect, AI and related natural language processing NLP technology innovations are increasingly able to equalize access.

T he even better news is that this democratization is taking multiple forms. AI can be used to provide risk assessments necessary to bank those under-served or denied access.

A footnote in Microsoft's submission opens in new tab to the UK's Competition and Markets Authority CMA has let slip the reason behind Call of Duty's absence from the Xbox Game Pass library: Sony and Activision Blizzard have a deal that restricts the games' presence on the service.

The footnote appears in a section detailing the potential benefits to consumers from Microsoft's point of view of the Activision Blizzard catalogue coming to Game Pass.

What existing contractual obligations are those? Why, ones like the "agreement between Activision Blizzard and Sony," that places "restrictions on the ability of Activision Blizzard to place COD titles on Game Pass for a number of years". It was apparently these kinds of agreements that Xbox's Phil Spencer had in mind opens in new tab when he spoke to Sony bosses in January and confirmed Microsoft's "intent to honor all existing agreements upon acquisition of Activision Blizzard".

Unfortunately, the footnote ends there, so there's not much in the way of detail about what these restrictions are or how long they'd remain in effect in a potential post-acquisition world.

Given COD's continued non-appearance on Game Pass, you've got to imagine the restrictions are fairly significant if they're not an outright block on COD coming to the service. Either way, the simple fact that Microsoft is apparently willing to maintain any restrictions on its own ability to put first-party games on Game Pass is rather remarkable, given that making Game Pass more appealing is one of the reasons for its acquisition spree.

The irony of Sony making deals like this one while fretting about COD's future on PlayStation probably isn't lost on Microsoft's lawyers, which is no doubt part of why they brought it up to the CMA. While it's absolutely reasonable to worry about a world in which more and more properties are concentrated in the hands of singular, giant megacorps, it does look a bit odd if you're complaining about losing access to games while stopping them from joining competing services.

We'll find out if the CMA agrees when it completes its in-depth, "Phase 2" investigation opens in new tab into the Activision Blizzard acquisition, which is some way off yet. For now, we'll have to content ourselves with poring over these kinds of corporate submissions for more interesting tidbits like this one. So far, we've already learned that Microsoft privately has a gloomy forecast for the future of cloud gaming opens in new tab , and that the company thinks Sony shouldn't worry so much since, hey, future COD games might be as underwhelming as Vanguard opens in new tab.

Who knows what we'll learn next? Sign up to get the best content of the week, and great gaming deals, as picked by the editors.

One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed.

His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War. Open menu Close menu PC Gamer PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES.

opens in new tab opens in new tab opens in new tab opens in new tab opens in new tab opens in new tab. US Edition. News Reviews Hardware Best Of Magazine The Top Forum More PCGaming Show Podcasts Coupons Newsletter SignUp Community Guidelines Affiliate Links Meet the team About PC Gamer.

Popular WoW: Dragonflight Darktide Midnight Suns Holiday gifts Warzone 2. Audio player loading…. PC Gamer Newsletter Sign up to get the best content of the week, and great gaming deals, as picked by the editors.

Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors. Joshua Wolens. See comments.

How satisfied are you with the way democracy is working in the United States? Ryan Deffenbaugh is a reporter at Protocol focused on fintech. Penny Lee, Chief Executive Officer, Financial Technology Association. Allows Online and Mobile Sports Wagering Outside Tribal Lands. Would you call yourself a strong Democrat or not a very strong Democrat? One misconception is that the judges can't understand this technology — we can.

Categories:

• Binary Options online
• Forex Brokers
• Forex
• Forex Bitcoin
• Binary Options