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David Gergen, a veteran of Washington politics and an adviser to four presidents in a career spanning decades in government, academia and media, has died. He was 83.

Gergen worked in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Over the years, he served as a speechwriter, communications director and counselor to the president, among other roles.

Dean Jeremy Weinstein of the Harvard Kennedy School, with which Gergen had a long relationship, said Gergen died of a long illness. Gergen “devoted decades of his life to serving those who sought to serve,” said Hannah Riley Bowles, a former co-director of the school’s Center for Public Leadership, where Gergen was the founding director.

“David was a principled leader of unmatched character, integrity and kindness, who chose to see goodness in every person he met,” Riley Bowles said.

Al Gore, who served as Clinton’s vice president, posted on X, “Of the countless ways that David Gergen contributed to our great country, what I will remember him for most was his kindness to everyone he worked with, his sound judgment, and his devotion to doing good in the world.”

David Richmond Gergen was born in North Carolina and graduated from Yale University and the Harvard Law School, according to a biography on the Harvard Kennedy School website. He would go on to receive 27 honorary degrees over the course of his career.

Gergen founded the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and remained there as professor of public service emeritus until his death, according to the school’s website.

After serving in the U.S. Navy in the 1960s, Gergen took his first White House job in 1971, serving as a speechwriting assistant for Nixon. Bipartisanship and collaboration were hallmarks of his long career, said colleagues who paid testimonials on social media Friday.

He was also a media personality who worked as a senior political analyst for CNN. In his 2022 book “Hearts Touched with Fire: How Great Leaders are Made,” he wrote: “Our greatest leaders have emerged from both good times and, more often, challenging ones. … The very finest among them make the difficult calls, that can ultimately alter the course of history.”

A private burial is scheduled for Mount Auburn Cemetery on Monday, said Mark Douglass, director of Douglass Funeral Home in Lexington, Massachusetts. A larger memorial service at Harvard will be held in the coming weeks, Douglass said.

Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino is considering leaving his job after a heated confrontation with Attorney General Pam Bondi over his frustration with how the Justice Department has handled the Jeffrey Epstein files, according to a person who has spoken with Bongino and a source familiar with the interactions that Bongino and FBI Director Kash Patel have had with Bondi.

“Bongino is out of control furious,” the person who has spoken with the deputy FBI director said. “This destroyed his career. He’s threatening to quit and torch Pam unless she’s fired.”

Bongino did not report to work Friday amid speculation about his whereabouts, a source familiar with the perspectives of DOJ leaders, who also believes that Bongino is considering leaving, said.

This came after a confrontation Wednesday at a meeting with Bondi and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles during which Bongino and Patel were asked about a news story suggesting they were dissatisfied with the decision not to release any additional Epstein files, according to the source familiar with the perspectives of DOJ leaders and an additional source familiar with the meeting.

The meeting “got pretty heated,” another source who was briefed on the meeting said.

“Bondi, [Deputy Attorney General] Todd Blanche, Patel and Bongino were on the same page on this all along, until the criticism started to come in,” the source familiar with DOJ leaders’ perspectives said. “Bongino couldn’t take it.”

An FBI spokesman did not respond to requests for comment, and the Justice Department declined to comment. In a statement responding to earlier news reports about Bongino’s dissatisfaction, White House spokesman Harrison Fields said, “President Trump has assembled a highly qualified and experienced law and order team dedicated to protecting Americans, holding criminals accountable, and delivering justice to victims. This work is being carried out seamlessly and with unity. Any attempt to sow division within this team is baseless and distracts from the real progress being made in restoring public safety and pursuing justice for all.”

After Fields’ statement was provided to NBC News, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt provided another statement in which she said, “President Trump is proud of Attorney General Bondi’s efforts to execute his Make America Safe Again agenda, restore the integrity of the Department of Justice, and bring justice to victims of crime. The continued fixation on sowing division in President Trump’s Cabinet is baseless and unfounded in reality.”

Two sources familiar with President Donald Trump’s thinking said he has not lost confidence in anyone involved.

The source familiar with DOJ leaders’ perspective said the White House is backing Bondi’s decision not to release any more files, which accompanied a Justice Department statement on Monday asserting that there is no secret Epstein client list and that no further charges against others are warranted.

The source familiar with the perspectives of Patel and Bongino say they have been increasingly frustrated with Bondi over a variety of issues, not just the Epstein files. The two men, who have daily interactions with Bondi, have made clear their displeasure, the source said.

Bongino has regularly posted about the bureau and criticism it has received on X during his time in the job.

The decision and DOJ statement on Epstein have sparked an uproar among many Trump supporters who believe there long has been a cover-up involving the Epstein files. Patel and Bongino have been among those who advanced that theory in recent years, with Bongino doing so on his popular podcast.

Investigators involved in the case have said for years that there is no Epstein client list and there are no secrets buried in unreleased files.

Bondi herself has made statements that fed the conspiracy theories. She said on Fox that she had an Epstein client list on her desk, although the White House and Bondi herself later said she meant the Epstein files in general.

A DOJ statement from Monday said its review “revealed no incriminating ‘client list.’ There was also no credible evidence found that Epstein blackmailed prominent individuals as part of his actions. We did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”

In the end, the source close to DOJ leaders said, Bondi and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche accepted those findings, knowing that releasing them would result in criticism from Trump supporters. They believed Patel and Bongino were with them, but that may no longer be true.

In a post on X Friday morning, Blanche wrote, “I worked closely with @FBIDirectorKash and @FBIDDBongino on the joint FBI and DOJ memo regarding the Epstein Files. All of us signed off on the contents of the memo and the conclusions stated in the memo. The suggestion by anyone that there was any daylight between the FBI and DOJ leadership on this memo’s composition and release is patently false.”

Two of the most famed soccer teams in the world will square off for the Club World Cup on Sunday, and it’s happening in an unlikely location: New Jersey.

The tournament final at MetLife Stadium between London-based Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain sets the stage for the biggest sporting event in the world next summer. It’s a high-stakes dress rehearsal that could mark the beginning of a watershed year for the sport in the United States.

North America will host the FIFA World Cup next June and July for the first time since 1994 with the economic and logistical implications hard to overstate.

A report from Pitch Marketing Group projects it to be the most lucrative sports tournament ever staged, with revenues for FIFA alone expected to top $10 billion. That’s a bottom line boosted by an increased number of teams for the first time in the tournament’s history from 32 to 48.

For a big-ticket appetizer, enter this summer’s Club World Cup — also hosted in major metro areas like New York, Miami and Los Angeles — which features top club teams like Manchester City and Real Madrid rather than national squads.

The Club World Cup has quietly been around since 2000, but this year it expanded from seven to 32 teams in a major revamping that came with a jaw-dropping $1 billion in total prize money. Sunday’s winner will take home up to $125 million.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino says the 2025 Club World Cup is launching “a new era of club [soccer],” one he hopes will supercharge a sport that, according to the latest Gallup poll, ranks fourth among Americans behind football, basketball and baseball.

“It was important to organize this new FIFA Club World Cup here in the U.S.” Infantino said Monday at Trump Tower in New York, where FIFA opened a new office. “Our objective is to make soccer the No. 1 sport in America. And we’ll put in whatever it takes to make that happen.”

Fans at Tuesday’s semifinal between Chelsea and Brazilian club Fluminense at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey expressed optimism in that vision.

“This is the first competitive club tournament in North America, and it brings atmosphere,” said Ben Doran, who grew up in England but now lives in New Jersey. His son Quinn sported a Chelsea jersey, while Dad wore the colors of his hometown team, Derby County.

Others remarked on the energy the tournament has brought to the area.

“Today we were at Times Square seeing people cheering. It’s amazing,” said Andre, a Fluminense fan who traveled with his family from Rio de Janeiro.

But how much this tournament will reveal about the United States’ readiness to host next year’s main event, watched by billions, is the most important backstory of the competition.

“If you ask FIFA … it’s epic, it’s incredible, and it’s unprecedented,” said Adam Crafton, a soccer writer for The Athletic. “I think the reality is probably more nuanced.”

Crafton cited question marks over the attendance at Club World Cup group stage matches, the sustainability of broadcast contracts and a volatile weather pattern that parched players and spectators alike.

He added, however, that “most people would say it’s been above expectations.” The average attendance of 35,000 for the group stage games, especially with many lower-profile clubs competing early in the tournament, was a strong sign.

FIFA agreed, telling NBC News it has already totaled more than 2.3 million fans from 180 countries ahead of Sunday’s final.

“It’s definitely been a pleasant surprise to be at that number,” said Manolo Zubiria, chief tournament officer of the 2026 World Club. “Those are the numbers we’re projecting. So to have reached the 2 million mark I think only 10 days after we hit the 1 million mark … it’s been a really, really positive note for this tournament.”

Attendance predictably rose as the tournament narrowed to the iconic global brands like PSG and Real Madrid. The two semifinals this week boasted 70,000 and 77,000 fans, respectively, nearly filling an NFL stadium to capacity.

FIFA has also acknowledged the weather has proven a considerable obstacle at times in running the tournament.

“We knew the heat would be a factor for teams and for fans,” said Zubiria, who said FIFA was prepared with “mitigation strategies.” He said players have cooling breaks during matches. Fans have had access to cooling stations and shaded areas.

A father-and-son duo from Rio de Janeiro — who saw their beloved Fluminense play in Orlando, Florida; Charlotte, North Carolina; and New Jersey this summer — said the increased temperatures have been tough despite the added measures.

Luis Lassance said his elderly father was hospitalized after he suffered heatstroke.

“It was too hot,” he said. “I mean, it’s hot the whole month, but Charlotte was especially hot for him.”

Another issue that prompted conversation is the Trump administration’s immigration policies and what impact, if any, they might have on a global tournament.

Comments from the Department of Homeland Security before the Club World Cup raised concerns about how Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would treat fans at games.

Customs and Border Protection posted on social media that the organization “will be suited and booted ready to provide security for the first round of games.”

Thomas Kennedy of the Florida Immigrant Coalition told NBC South Florida that “the messaging that CBP is using is a bit cryptic. It’s sort of alluding that people should have their paperwork in order to attend the games. It creates an environment where people are less likely to come watch the games because of just sheer intimidation.”

But this week a source at FIFA told NBC News that it has not been aware of any ICE activity at any of the matches.

FIFA’s new dynamic ticket pricing has been another divisive issue. Tickets for the semifinal between Chelsea and Fluminense were cut from $473.90 to $13.40 in the past week.

“Some people benefit,” Crafton said. “Other people will probably feel very, very ripped off.”

FIFA and the World Trade Organization collectively are forecasting a whopping $47 billion in impact on the U.S. economy from the two tournaments combined.

The stage is also amplified by a surge in interest for the sport — an SBRnet survey last year shows American viewership of the top soccer leagues in the world has grown by 60% since 2018. Until now, those elite teams would come to America only to play noncompetitive exhibition matches.

The privilege of seeing that level of competition was not lost on fifth grader Mohamed Berkouk, who moved to the United States from Algeria in 2019 and was excited to watch Tuesday’s semifinal in New Jersey.

“In my country, you don’t have big opportunities like this,” he said. “It’s just small teams that you just go and watch. But this is much bigger.”

In midtown Manhattan, the managing partner of the Football Factory at Legends bar, Jack Keane, thought back on years of running soccer-focused bars and the outsized growth he has witnessed.

He said American interest in soccer today is unrecognizable compared with the 1990s.

“In those days — and I don’t exaggerate — 95 to 99% of people who watched would have been expats. … Now it’s such a mixture,” said Keane, who is from Ireland. “I mean, every young American kid in his early 20s [today] has got a team.”

Maybe some of that vibe will rub off on the youngest fans, too.

“In Rio de Janeiro, it’s kind of in everybody’s blood, because from a very small age you see all your parents and your uncles watching the games,” Catarina, 9, said outside MetLife.

Asked how old she was when she went to her first game, she grinned. “Ah, months!”

President Donald Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ delivers a temporary higher limit on the federal deduction for state and local taxes, known as SALT. But the phaseout, or income-based benefit reduction, could trigger a tax surprise for some higher earners, experts say.

If you itemize tax breaks, you can claim the SALT deduction, which includes state and local income taxes and property taxes. Trump’s legislation raises the SALT deduction limit to $40,000 starting in 2025, with a 1% yearly increase through 2029, before reverting to $10,000 in 2030.

However, the $40,000 SALT cap starts to phase out once modified adjusted gross income, or MAGI, exceeds $500,000. The SALT limit drops to $10,000 once MAGI reaches $600,000. MAGI is adjusted gross income with some tax breaks added back in.

This phaseout can create a “SALT torpedo” — an artificially high tax rate — when MAGI falls between $500,000 and $600,000, certified public accountant Jeff Levine said in a LinkedIn post this week.

In some cases, you could pay a 45.5% federal tax rate on earnings between those thresholds, experts say.

Here’s how the “SALT torpedo” works and who could be impacted, according to tax experts.

How the SALT deduction phaseout works

Under Trump’s legislation, the SALT deduction limit for 2025 is now $30,000 higher. But a 30% phaseout kicks in once MAGI exceeds $500,000 for 2025.

Between $500,000 and $600,000, “you’re losing 30% for every dollar” of benefit between those thresholds, said certified financial planner Jim Guarino, managing director at Baker Newman Noyes in Woburn, Massachusetts. He is also a CPA.

At $600,000, if you multiply the extra $100,000 of income by 30%, that’s a $30,000 benefit reduction, which drops the $40,000 SALT cap back to $10,000.

A ‘quirky’ phaseout boosts tax rate

With the 30% SALT deduction phaseout between $500,000 and $600,000 of MAGI, some individuals could pay a higher-than-expected tax on earnings between those thresholds, according to Robert Keebler, a CPA with tax advisory firm Keebler & Associates in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Between $500,000 and $600,000, you’re increasing taxable income while losing part of the SALT deduction, which raises your effective tax rate — the percent of taxable income you pay.

If taxable income rises while the SALT deduction falls, your effective tax rate on income between $500,000 and $600,000 could far exceed your regular income tax rate, Keebler said in a LinkedIn post last week.

“It’s definitely a quirky little phaseout provision,” Andy Whitehair, a CPA and a director with Baker Tilly’s Washington tax council practice, told CNBC. “When people start actually crunching numbers, they might be in for some surprises.”

Whitehair also shared a basic example of the phaseout on LinkedIn this week.

If your income is $500,000 and you subtract $75,000 of itemized deductions (including $40,000 for SALT), your taxable income is $425,000.

By contrast, $600,000 of income would drop the SALT deduction to $10,000, which reduces itemized deductions to $45,000, and raises taxable income to $555,000.

When comparing taxable income for each example, the true difference is $130,000 with the $30,000 lost SALT deduction. If you multiply that by the 35% tax bracket, you get $45,500.

In this simplified example, there is $45,500 more federal tax owed by earning $100,000 more, which is 45.5%, Whitehair said.

If your 2025 earnings could be near $500,000, you should run projections with a tax advisor and weigh strategies to reduce MAGI, experts say.

With the steep tax penalty between $500,000 and $600,000, you may reconsider Roth individual retirement conversions, incurring large capital gains or other moves that could boost your income, according to Keebler.

The U.S. government posted a surplus in June as tariff receipts gave an extra bump to a sharp increase in receipts, the Treasury Department said Friday.

With government red ink swelling throughout the year, last month saw a surplus of just over $27 billion, following a $316 billion deficit in May.

That brought the fiscal year-to-date deficit down to $1.34 trillion, a 1% decline from the same period a year ago. In June 2024, the deficit totaled $71 billion. There are three months left in the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

A 13% increase in receipts from the same month a year ago helped bridge the gap, with outlays down 7%. For the year, receipts are up 7% while spending has risen 6%.

The government last posted a June surplus in 2017, during President Donald Trump’s first term.

Increasing tariff collections are helping shore up the government finances.

Customs duties totaled about $27 billion for the month, up from $23 billion in May and 301% higher than June 2024. On an annual basis, tariff collections have totaled $113 billion, or 86% more than a year ago.

Trump levied across-the-board 10% tariffs on imports in April on top of other select duties. He also announced a menu of so-called reciprocal tariffs on various U.S. trading partners and has been in negotiations since.

Persistently high Treasury yields again posed a challenge for federal finances.

Net interest on the $36 trillion national debt totaled $84 billion in June, down slightly from May but still higher than any other category with the exception of Social Security. For the year, net interest — what Treasury pays on the debt it issues minus what it earns on investments — is at $749 billion. Total interest payments are projected at $1.2 trillion for the full fiscal year.

Trump has been pushing the Federal Reserve to cut short-term rates to help with the financing burden of servicing federal debt. But markets don’t expect the central bank to ease again until September, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell has said he remains leery of the potential impact that tariffs might have on inflation.

Trump’s own “big beautiful” spending bill that made its way through Congress earlier this month is expected to add about $3.4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s projections.

A growing wildfire ignited by lightning is prompting evacuations near the Grand Canyon after burning through over 1,000 acres in Arizona.

The White Sage Fire prompted evacuations in parts of Grand Canyon National Park and all of Gunnison National Park near Jacob Lake, the National Park Service said on Thursday.

Lightning strikes on Thursday ignited wildfires on both the North Rim and South Rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, officials said. The Gunnison National Park, which is about 250 miles southwest of Denver, Colorado, was evacuated and remains closed.

The rapidly moving wildfire prompted officials to also evacuate the North Rim of the Grand Canyon National Park, the National Park Service said in a separate statement on Thursday. However, the fire has not yet moved into the Grand Canyon.

The fire, which is roughly 1,000 acres large and 0% contained as of Friday morning local time, according to the government.

Officials said the “high temperatures, very low humidity, gusty winds, and very dry vegetation across the region” created a risk for wildfires to occur.

On Friday, the National Park Service said in a post on X that “hiking into Grand Canyon is not advised today, with extreme heat and wildfire smoke inside the canyon.”

Wafa Shafiq, a 26-year-old Canadian marketing professional and lifestyle influencer, has been job hunting off and on since winter 2024.

She applied for a Marketing Specialist II position with a retirement plan company around midnight and was emailed by someone named Alex almost immediately. Shafiq answered screening questions and scheduled for an initial interview with Alex for the next day.

But there was a catch — Alex wasn’t human.

Alex was an AI talent recruiting agent that would also be interviewing her for the position, Shafiq discovered after an internet deep dive into Apriora, the company behind Alex.

Shafiq had stumbled into the world of AI recruiting agents that can interact with candidates via text, phone and even video calls. These AI talent acquisition agents have been used and tested by major brands including the Boston Red Sox, Zillow, Chipotle, Ace Hardware, Sears Home Services, Club Pilates, McDonald’s and more, according to AI recruiting companies.

The use of the technology has quickly scaled to some of the world’s biggest companies, despite viral videos showing glitches with the technology and a security vulnerability that potentially exposed applicants’ data to hackers.

Shafiq recorded her AI interview and posted it to TikTok, where it got more than 56,000 views. “I wore a hoodie because I didn’t think it was going to be a video interview if it’s with AI. And then it ended up being one.”

“It felt really dystopian. I feel like anytime I’m interacting with AI, I’m still always shocked,” Shafiq told NBC News.

Despite not expecting an AI video interview, she enjoyed the AI’s features, including the live transcript and the positive feedback after every answer.

But there were some drawbacks. Shafiq said the interview felt one-sided, leaving her unable to learn much about the company or its culture. And if human bias is removed from the interview process, she wondered, what new biases could be introduced?

“I didn’t end up hearing back at all,” Shafiq said. “I was ghosted. So that added to the limited empathy there.”

The company never disclosed to Shafiq prior to her interview that she’d be interacting with AI and gave her no option to opt out, she said.

Department of Justice guidance on complying with the Americans With Disabilities Act says companies using AI hiring technologies should tell applicants about the type of technologies used, how they’ll be evaluated, and provide clear instructions for candidates to request reasonable accommodations.

In Canada, companies won’t be required to disclose the use of AI in hiring until Jan. 1, 2026.

Despite the lack of disclosure and an apparent ghosting, Shafiq’s AI-interview went as smoothly as intended. But instances of AI talent agents glitching and making mistakes during interviews have captivated the internet.

Kendiana Colin, a 20-year-old Ohio State student, applied for an entry-level position at Stretch Lab, a fitness company that focuses on flexibility and mobility exercises. Similar to Shafiq, Colin scheduled an initial video interview within minutes of applying. When Stretch Lab informed Colin that her video interview would be with an AI recruiting agent, she thought: “It’s 2025. So why not?”

Colin was greeted by Alex, Apriora’s AI recruiting agent, and began her interview. She was two questions in before things went awry.

“Vertical bar Pilates. Vertical bar Pilates. Vertical bar Pilates,” the AI recruiter began repeating.

Despite Colin’s attempts to get the interview back on track, the AI agent briefly fixed itself before repeating “vertical bar Pilates” again and ending her interview.

“At some point it sounded like she was laughing. She acted like it was a tongue twister. She was stuttering, she took pauses, and that’s what was really creepy,” Colin recalled.

Colin recorded some of the interaction and posted it on TikTok. The video went viral, gaining 3.2 million views.

Colin says she never heard from Stretch Lab or Apriora even after her viral video and never reported the incident to either company directly.

NBC News found that Stretch Lab, Club Pilates, Rumble, Lindora, BFT, Pure Barre and YogaSix use Apriora for initial video interviews. These are seven of the eight franchises under Xponential Fitness, which gave the following statement: “At Xponential Fitness, we empower franchisees with the flexibility to choose the tools they feel will best serve their business objectives within an agreed-upon framework of standard operating procedures. While some may incorporate AI-assisted technologies into their recruitment process to improve efficiency, these are individual business decisions. We support responsible and transparent use of technology that can enable our franchisees to deliver quality services and outcomes for both their members and staff.”

Aaron Wang, co-founder and CEO of Apriora, told Bloomberg, “We can’t get it right every time,” claiming errors of that nature are exceedingly rare.

Colin is not alone, with new videos of glitchy AI job interviews seeming to pop up every week. Even chat-based AI bots aren’t free of issues, with job seekers on Reddit and other forums describing confusing interactions with AI agents.

One person posted screenshots of text messages seemingly from Paradox, a hiring company that uses text-based conversational AI agents. A bot appeared to rescind the poster’s job offer after they applied through Sage, Whole Foods Market’s AI career assistant, which appeared to mistakenly hire them within an hour of their submitting an application. NBC News was unable to independently verify the claims. Paradox declined to comment.

Despite the apparent glitches, LinkedIn research found that 74% of global HR professionals said AI makes finding qualified candidates easier.

In 2024, a poll conducted by the company Resume Builder found that 69% of responding companies said they would use AI in conducting candidate assessments in 2025. “People have a lot of emotions. Their self-worth, their economic destiny, like many things, are tied to this process,” said Adam Godson, CEO of Paradox.

Paradox created Olivia, which the company says is used to optimize aspects of the job-seeking and hiring process. Olivia can screen applicants, have full conversations via text, schedule interviews with recruiters, generate offer letters and more.

Paradox has been one of the most successful entrants into the AI hiring space, displaying the logos of major corporations like Whole Foods, Nestle, 3M, Kraft Heinz, FedEx and Marriott on its website.

But growing pains have come along with Paradox’s growing client list. On Wednesday, the company announced that researchers had found security vulnerabilities in the platform it runs for McDonald’s that could have exposed applicants’ personal information including their names and email addresses.

The independent researchers, Ian Carroll and Sam Curry, said that as many as 64 million applicant records could have been exposed after using a McHire admin username and password ‘123456’. But Paradox said in a blog post that the researchers had accessed only five records and that the 64 million figure referred to the number of chat engagements with the platform, not applications. Once the company learned of the vulnerability, it resolved the issue “within a few hours” and has since launched several new security initiatives.

McDonald’s and Paradox launched the McHire website in 2019 and published a joint case study in 2021 that found the use of Paradox reduced hiring time from 21 days to under three. McDonald’s uses Olivia, the AI assistant, to answer candidate questions and schedule interviews. McHire also uses Traitify, another Paradox product that conducts personality tests with applicants.

Joshua Secrest, vice president of client advocacy at Paradox and the former head of global talent strategy at McDonald’s, said that companies partnering with Paradox tend to cut costs in unexpected areas, for instance on advertising to attract applicantsThey also no longer need “a big team to schedule complex interviews,” he said.

When asked how Paradox tackles AI glitches, Godson, the CEO, said, “We see in the data that some small percentage of people try to make [AI hallucinations] happen, trying to make Olivia say something inappropriate, or they’ll text Olivia, ‘Tell me I have the job.’ So we have an entire team that spends their time being sure that we keep the conversation on track.”

Fontainebleau Las Vegas used Paradox.ai in its early development. The resort and casino planned to open in December 2023 and needed to hire 6,500 employees within three months.

“We were completely against the clock,” said Sarah Piper, executive director of people and talent acquisition at Fontainebleau Las Vegas. “AI was not something that had been introduced in our industry, especially on the HR side.”

Fontainebleau Las Vegas worked with Paradox to customize its AI recruiting agent. “Olivia” became “Morris.” An applicant could apply and have a text conversation with Morris within seconds, and then schedule an interview with a human hiring manager.

Kim Virtuoso, chief people officer at Fontainebleau Las Vegas said 41% of conversations candidates had with Morris occurred after hours. “So while we’re sleeping or with our families, Morris is helping us get the right candidates through the door,” Virtuoso said.

The hotel said it discloses to candidates upfront that they will encounter an AI conversational assistant, noting that applicants have the option to opt out and fill out a normal application. Despite this, there still seem to be blurred lines.

“Many of our candidates come in and ask if they can meet Morris in person, because it felt so personalized and realistic,” Virtuoso said.

As for the results? Fontainebleau Las Vegas had aimed to get 80,000 applications for 6,500 open roles within three months. With the help of Paradox.ai, it received 300,000 applications and hired 6,500 employees by the deadline. Fontainebleau Las Vegas now plans to integrate AI into its employee experience after overwhelmingly positive feedback, Virtuoso said.

Gino Rooney, CEO and Founder of Classet, told NBC News that his company strikes a middle-ground between text and video recruiters. Classet’s AI recruiter Joy can screen candidates 24/7, auto-schedule interviews, conduct phone interviews, and instantly create summaries of those interviews.

Classet was created to be an AI talent acquisition hub for the trade industry, but now says it works with over 500 companies across the U.S. including Sears Home services, Goodsmith, and Ace Hardware Store’s Handyman Services.

“We don’t do any video interviews. Candidates and consumers in general are already pretty used to talking to automated systems on a phone, whereas being filmed and talking to a robot maybe feels a bit less organic,” Rooney told NBC News.

Godson, the Paradox CEO, said the resentment some applicants feel around AI integration in the hiring process is of a piece with the disdain job seekers have always had for a broken job market: “There are some new frustrations, but maybe not overall less frustration. [Job hunting] has been suboptimal in many ways: candidate ghosting and no-shows for interviews and lots of not knowing what’s happening in the process.”

“The best experience is getting the candidate to the decision maker as quickly as possible,” Godson said, “and to be treated with dignity when that happens.”

The Trump administration on Thursday opened a civil rights investigation into the hiring practices at George Mason University, expanding a national campaign against diversity policies to Virginia’s largest public university.

The Education Department said it is responding to a complaint from multiple professors at George Mason who accuse the university of favoring those from underrepresented groups. The complaint takes aim at the university’s president, Gregory Washington, saying he issued guidance that favors faculty candidates based on diversity considerations rather than their credentials, according to the department.

It marks an expansion of the Trump administrations campaign to reshape higher education, which until recently focused on elite private institutions like Harvard and Columbia universities. George Mason is the second big public university to face scrutiny in recent weeks, following a Justice Department investigation at the University of Virginia that prompted the school’s president, James Ryan, to resign.

A statement from George Mason denied any allegations of discrimination and said the university “affirms its commitment to comply with all federal and state mandates.”

The Trump administration has used civil rights law to fight DEI, saying diversity preferences amount to illegal discrimination against white and Asian American people. On his second day in office, Trump signed an action demanding an end to DEI at all universities that receive federal money.

George Mason responded to federal orders by renaming its DEI office in March, but it concluded that its policies were already in line with federal law.

The complaint to the Education Department said the school did nothing to change campus hiring and promotion policies that favored those from minority groups, the department said. The complaint said George Mason had a policy to include an “equity adviser” in every academic department to help recruit faculty. The university also created an “anti-racism” task force whose work included “diversity cluster hire initiatives,” according to the agency.

It also accuses Washington of issuing guidance allowing faculty and staff to be hired based partially on their diversity “even if that candidate may not have better credentials than the other candidate.”

Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, said “it appears” that George Mason’s hiring and promotion policies “not only allow but champion illegal racial preferencing.”

George Mason has built a reputation as a conservative powerhouse, especially in law and economics. But it has also been the subject of conservative criticism over its DEI initiatives. A 2023 report by the Heritage Foundation found that George Mason was “bloated” with high numbers of DEI officials and had “radical content” on its websites. Washington disputed the report and its methodology.

The University of Virginia was also called out in the report, and its president more recently faced criticism from conservative groups that said he was too slow to end DEI initiatives on the Charlottesville campus. Among those leveling complaints were America First Legal, a conservative group founded by Trump aide Stephen Miller.

DENVER — A Denver museum known for its dinosaur displays has made a fossil bone discovery closer to home than anyone ever expected, under its own parking lot.

It came from a hole drilled more than 750 feet (230 meters) deep to study geothermal heating potential for the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

The museum is popular with dinosaur enthusiasts of all ages. Full-size dinosaur skeletons amaze kiddos barely knee-high to a parent, much less to a Tyrannosaurus.

This latest find is not so visually impressive. Even so, the odds of finding the hockey-puck-shaped fossil sample were impressively small.

With a bore only a couple of inches (5 centimeters) wide, museum officials struggled to describe just how unlikely it was to hit a dinosaur, even in a region with a fair number of such fossils.

“Finding a dinosaur bone in a core is like hitting a hole in one from the moon. It’s like winning the Willy Wonka factory. It’s incredible, it’s super rare,” said James Hagadorn, the museum’s curator of geology.

Only two similar finds have been noted in bore hole samples anywhere in the world, not to mention on the grounds of a dinosaur museum, according to museum officials.

A vertebra of a smallish, plant-eating dinosaur is believed to be the source. It lived in the late Cretaceous period around 67.5 million years ago. An asteroid impact brought the long era of dinosaurs to an end around 66 million years ago, according to scientists.

Fossilized vegetation also was found in the bore hole near the bone.

“This animal was living in what was probably a swampy environment that would have been heavily vegetated at the time,” said Patrick O’Connor, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

Dinosaur discoveries in the area over the years include portions of Tyrannosaurus rex and triceratops-type fossils. This one is Denver’s deepest and oldest yet, O’Connor said.

Other experts in the field vouched for the find’s legitimacy but with mixed reactions.

“It’s a surprise, I guess. Scientifically it’s not that exciting,” said Thomas Williamson, curator of paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History & Science in Albuquerque.

There was no way to tell exactly what species of dinosaur it was, Williamson noted.

The find is “absolutely legit and VERY COOL!” Erin LaCount, director of education programs at the Dinosaur Ridge track site just west of Denver, said by email.

The fossil’s shape suggests it was a duck-billed dinosaur or thescelosaurus, a smaller but somewhat similar species, LaCount noted.

The bore-hole fossil is now on display in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, of course, but there are no plans to look for more under the parking lot.

“I would love to dig a 763-foot (233-meter) hole in the parking lot to excavate that dinosaur, the rest of it. But I don’t think that’s going to fly because we really need parking,” Hagadorn said.

When Brad Squires and the then-Anita Moran wrote a tender account of their picnic date, stuffed it into the bottle of wine they’d just emptied and tossed it into the waves below, they never dreamed someone would actually read it, let alone 13 years later and almost 2,000 miles away.

Thrown into the water on Newfoundland’s Bell Island, the bottle and its paper cargo traveled on wild Atlantic seas for more than 4,600 days, adrift during 11 iterations of iPhone, two Donald Trump elections and a global pandemic that came and went.

That epic journey took it to the west coast of Ireland, where it was discovered this week.

“It’s a moment of pure joy,” said Martha Farrell, chair of the Maharees Conservation Association, whose members found the bottle Monday. “For us, it’s the impossibility and resilience of that glass bottle finding our beach all those years later — but also the resilience of the couple.”

Using the power of social media, its Irish finders tracked down couple who are now married with three kids.

The note was “only two or three lines but it captures their moment,” Farrell told NBC News. “It was like a little secret between themselves — but now it has brought so much joy to so many people.”

When Brad Squires, now 40, hurled the bottle off the high cliffs of Bell Island, the couple “thought it wasn’t even going to make it to the water, let alone bypass all the rocks and make it across the ocean and and be found,” Anita Squires, now 35, told NBC News. “For all the stars to align, for all those things to happen, it seems like an impossible feat for that little bottle, but it was pretty resilient.”

Back then, the couple had been dating for a year and were in a long-distance relationship: he a police officer in British Columbia and she a trainee nurse in Newfoundland.

“Today we enjoyed dinner, this bottle of wine and each other on the edge of the island,” she wrote in the message. “If you find this, please call us,” she added, providing a number but never imagining somebody actually would.

They had shared a precious picnic together on the tiny Bell Island, a 20-minute ferry ride from St. John’s. “I gave it everything I had,” Brad Squires said of his attempt to launch the bottled missive into the waves below.

They soon forgot about it. They got married in 2016, settling down in Newfoundland. They have three children, Allie, 19, Gabe, 16, and Harrison, 5.

In Scraggane Bay on Ireland’s picturesque Dingle Peninsula, the bottle was found Monday by another couple, Kate and Jon Gay, members of the local charity Maharees Conservation Association, who were doing a beach cleanup.

They kept it until the association’s meeting later that night, smashing it open, toasting the unknown writers but failing to get an answer from the number provided. So Farrell posted an appeal on Facebook thinking it might yield an answer in weeks or months. One hour later, Anita Squires had got in touch to say she was the note’s author.

“It was phenomenal,” Farrell said.

There is a doubly serendipitous side to this story, too.

The Maharees, where the bottle was found, is a 3-mile isthmus of sand that has been battered and eroded by extreme weather and sea-level rises fueled by climate change. So too have parts of Newfoundland.

The grassroots Maharees Conservation Association wants to use this story to link up with people in Newfoundland experiencing the same issues. And the author of the letter in the bottle is going to connect them.

“They have a soft coastline, they have a sand dune system, and they are also vulnerable to sea level rises,” Farrell said. “It’s a somber enough affair when you’re thinking: How can we actually prepare ourselves for what’s to come? So to have this little moment of pure joy in the middle of that, it was very welcome.”

Anita Squires says that her “love story is cute, but the work they are doing is so important,” referring to the conservation group’s attempts to protect and adapt their coastlines to the climate crisis. So, linking these campaigners is “the beautiful thing at the end of the story.”