Good morning. Happy National Lottery Day! In a lottery in which you pick 6 numbers from a pool of 49 numbers, your chances of winning the jackpot is only 1 in 13.9 million. If you need more convincing, you can buy a lottery ticket weekly and expect to win once in every 269,000 years!

P.S. Banks and investment funds exist too!

Stocks:

Apple Stocks are at an all-time high after Morgan Stanley calls it a top pick for its AI efforts. 📈 Read more here!

Local News

🖥 Taxing Times: BIR Takes a Byte Out of Online Sales

By Tobias Bautista

Starting two days ago (July 15, 2024), online marketplace operators will withhold taxes from sellers and merchants, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) announced on Tuesday. BIR Commissioner Romeo Lumagui Jr. emphasized that this move, delayed for 90 days already, won’t see further extensions.

Who must oblige? Revenue Regulation 16-2023 requires online sellers earning over PHP 500,000 annually to pay a 1% withholding tax. This tax applies to half of the gross remittances by marketplace operators and digital financial services providers for goods or services sold on their platforms.

Defining withholding tax. The BIR extended the deadline to help businesses comply with new requirements. Lumagui noted that withholding tax isn’t new; it’s a system where taxes are collected at the source and credited against the total income tax liability of sellers.

Why? The aim is to level the playing field between online and brick-and-mortar stores, ensuring everyone pays their fair share. "Whether online or physical, sellers must pay their taxes," Lumagui said.

World News

🌚 Moon BnB: Future Astronaut Hideout Found near Apollo 11 Site

By Tobias Bautista

Hold onto your space helmets! Scientists have discovered a moon cave, just a hop, skip, and a 250-mile jump from where Armstrong and Aldrin made history 55 years ago. This lunar Airbnb is tucked away in the Sea of Tranquility, accessible from the moon's deepest known pit, which, like over 200 others, was formed by collapsing lava tubes.

An Italian-led team, using NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter radar, found this spacious underground hideout, at least 130 feet wide and potentially longer. Their findings, published in Nature Astronomy, suggest lunar caves could be the perfect astronaut bunkers, shielding them from cosmic rays, solar radiation, and pesky micrometeorites.

Zooming Out. With hundreds of these pits likely scattered across the moon, and potential at the south pole (hello, frozen water for drinking and rocket fuel!), these natural shelters could make lunar living a lot easier than building from scratch. Moon real estate just got a whole lot more interesting!

Tech

🦘 AI-rrepsonsible? OpenAI’s GPT-4o Takes a Risky Leap

By Tobias Bautista

In a rush to meet the May deadline, OpenAI released GPT-4o without fully crossing their t's or dotting their i's. According to The Washington Post, three anonymous employees spilled the beans on how OpenAI skipped some safety tests, seemingly throwing caution to the wind to hit the launch date. Picture this: they even planned the launch after-party before knowing if it was safe to pop the champagne.

An insider quipped that OpenAI "basically failed at the process," highlighting a possible "full steam ahead" approach. OpenAI spokesperson Lindsey Held countered, insisting the company "didn't cut corners" and invested heavily in human evaluators. Yet, Held did acknowledge the stress employees faced during the crunch.

Safety concerns aren't new in the AI world. Last year, VP Kamala Harris emphasized the need for strict AI regulations, warning that unregulated AI could pose a threat to democracy. Former OpenAI employee William Saunders likened the situation to the Titanic, suggesting OpenAI's focus had shifted from safety to shiny new products.

Mo money, mo problems. OpenAI's recent operations and priorities have come under scrutiny, especially following the temporary removal of CEO Sam Altman, raising eyebrows about a potential shift towards a more profit-driven mindset.

Games

🎯 Fun Brain Teasers

• Wordle: guess the random five letter word

• Connections: match four words of the same category

• Strands: word search but it depends on the category

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