Washington — On Friday, “Star Wars” actor Mark Hamill visited the White House with President Joe Biden, leaving with a pair of the president’s aviator sunglasses and a newfound respect for the job.

“I love the merch,” he added, removing his glasses briefly at the White House daily press briefing following his meeting with Biden. Hamill, 72, famous for playing Luke Skywalker, joked with reporters that he’d answer a few questions as long as they weren’t about “Star Wars.”

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‘Star Wars’ Actor Mark Hamill Drops By White House For A Visit With ‘Joe-Bi-Wan Kenobi’

“I was honored to be asked to come to the White House to meet the president,” he told reporters. He’d been to the White House previously, during the Carter and Obama administrations, but he’d never seen the Oval Office, which he described as impressive. According to Hamill, Biden displayed photographs and other memorabilia from the Oval Office.

Hamill claimed Biden told him to call him “Joe,” to which Hamill responded with an alternative suggestion: “Can I call you Joe-bi-Wan Kenobi?”

“He liked that,” said Hamill, who also portrayed the Joker in “Batman: The Animated Series.”

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‘Star Wars’ Actor Mark Hamill Drops By White House For A Visit With ‘Joe-Bi-Wan Kenobi’

Both Mark and the White House were hazy about the cause for his visit. But Mark, a Democrat and Biden supporter with a sizable social media following, has been posting about the president’s reelection campaign this week.

“May 1 Not Quench Your Thirst For Biden’s Re-election!” he tweeted on May 1.

On Friday, he wrote, “May 3 be absurd that the guy who tried to steal a fair election is allowed to run again,” referring to Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

May 4 is unofficially known as “Star Wars” Day, partly due to the famous Jedi line “May the Force Be With You.” The pun is “May 4 be with you.”

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‘Star Wars’ Actor Mark Hamill Drops By White House For A Visit With ‘Joe-Bi-Wan Kenobi’

Mark also provided his voice for “Air Alert,” a downloadable program linked to Ukraine’s air defense system. His voice warns citizens to take cover if Russia launches another aerial strike on Ukraine.

SOURCE – (AP)

Israel and Iran have engaged in open conflict. Ukrainian drones have routinely targeted Russian oil refineries. And OPEC continues to restrict oil production.

These frightening occurrences sparked concerns about $4 gas, harming the US economy and exacerbating inflation.

However, this has not occurred, at least yet. Gas prices in the United States have stopped growing and dropped temporarily recently.

The national average was $3.66 per gallon on Monday, down from $3.68 a week ago, according to AAA.

There is growing anticipation that gas prices will peak in the spring, if not the entire year.

Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, predicts that drivers will find relief at the pump in the coming weeks.

“I’m hoping the worst is behind us,” De Haan told CNN. Unless something drastic happens, there are increasing odds the national average has hit the projected spring peak.”

Tom Kloza, worldwide head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service, believes gas prices will fall in the coming weeks.

“Most of the worries from the year’s first half have been resolved. “I think we’re safe until hurricane season,” Kloza remarked.

‘Could have been far worse.’

Of course, none of this implies that gas costs are cheap. They were lower in April 2021 and spring 2020, when Covid-19 kept many Americans off the roadways.

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The Worst Could Be Over For Gas Prices This Spring

Nonetheless, a springtime peak of less than $3.70 a gallon would be a win for consumers, considering the real risk of significantly higher gas costs.

“It could have been much worse,” said Andy Lipow, owner of the consultancy firm Lipow Oil Associates.

According to AAA, drivers in just seven US states pay $4 or more per gallon for gas. All those states are in the Western part of the country, followed by California, where the average is $5.40 per gallon, up from $4.88 last year.

The national average is nowhere near the record increase above $5 per gallon in June 2022.

“It seems evident that this will not be a record-setting year. “Filling your tank will feel much more normal this year,” said De Haan.

Economic and political ramifications.

Officials in Washington would most certainly breathe a sigh of relief.

Rising gasoline costs earlier this year led to lower-than-expected inflation readings, casting uncertainty on when the Federal Reserve will be able to decrease interest rates.

A rise in petrol prices is the last thing President Joe Biden wants as he works to persuade voters of his economic message before November. According to a new CNN poll, Biden’s support rating for the economy is 34%, and for inflation, it is even lower (29%).

The Biden administration backed off plans to buy crude oil for the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, an emergency oil stockpile, earlier this month, adding to White House concerns over petrol costs.

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Some economists expect gas prices to rise further.

Lipow believes the national average will reach $3.75 per gallon this year.

Still, that would be lower than last year’s top of $3.88 per gallon in September.

“I’m not expecting a spike in gasoline prices,” Lipow added.

There are several reasons why gas prices are now holding steady.

First, oil prices have stopped rising. On April 12, US crude oil nearly reached $88 per barrel as investors braced for Iran’s reprisal against Israel over a suspected attack on an Iranian diplomatic complex in Syria.

However, oil prices fell when Israel and its allies effectively averted the reprisal. For now, fears of a larger confrontation in the Middle East have subsided, albeit this might alter quickly. US crude fell below $83 a barrel on Monday.

There are other seasonal aspects to consider.

The transition to more expensive summer-grade gasoline at US refineries is now complete. Similarly, the reopening of refineries that had been closed for normal maintenance has aided gasoline supplies.

Record-breaking US crude output continues to increase the oil supply. All of that US oil, headed by the Permian Basin in West Texas and New Mexico, is countering OPEC+’s production cuts, which Saudi Arabia and Russia lead.

Meanwhile, gasoline demand has remained relatively low despite other indications that American consumers are spending rapidly.

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The Worst Could Be Over For Gas Prices This Spring

The hurricane season looms.

Gas prices are at risk of reaching a double peak. That’s what happened last year, when gas prices peaked in April, fell, and then returned late in the summer as excessive heat hampered US refineries.

“Weather can wreak havoc,” said Kloza, an OPIS analyst.

A major hurricane that destroys oil facilities along the US Gulf Coast is the greater risk.

Forecasters warn that the hurricane season (which normally begins on June 1) will be extremely active. Colorado State University predicts more hurricanes and named storms than ever before.

“Hurricane season is the next major hurdle,” Kloza stated.

SOURCE – (CNN)

Edwards Air Force Base, California:

With the midday sun shining, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet took off with the thunderous roar that is a trademark of US airpower. However, the aerial fight that followed was unlike any other: this F-16 was commanded by artificial intelligence rather than a human pilot. Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall was riding in the front seat.

AI is one of the most significant improvements in military aviation since the advent of stealth in the early 1990s, and the Air Force has avidly pursued it. Even though the technology has yet to completely mature, the service intends to deploy an AI-enabled fleet of over 1,000 unmanned warplanes, the first of which will be operational by 2028.

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An AI-Controlled Fighter Jet Took The Air Force Leader For A Historic Ride. What That Means For War

It was fitting that the dogfight took place at Edwards Air Force Base, a massive desert complex where Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, and the military has developed its most secret aeronautical technologies. Inside classified simulators and buildings with layers of surveillance protection, a new breed of test pilots is teaching AI bots to fly in combat. Kendall came here to witness AI fly in real time and express public confidence in its future role in air warfare.

“Not having it presents a security concern. “At this point, we have to have it,” Kendall told The Associated Press after landing. The Associated Press and NBC were allowed permission to see the secret flight on the condition that it be disclosed when it was completed due to operational security concerns.

Kendall was flown in lightning-fast maneuvers at almost 550 miles per hour by the AI-controlled F-16 Vista, which exerted five times the force of gravity on his body. It nearly collided with a second human-piloted F-16 as the two aircraft raced within 1,000 feet of one other, turning and looping to drive their opponent into vulnerable positions.

Kendall grinned as he climbed out of the cockpit at the end of the hour-long flight. He stated that he had seen enough throughout his flight to trust this still-learning AI with the decision to unleash weapons.

That proposition is met with strong hostility. Arms control specialists and humanitarian groups are profoundly afraid that AI will one day be able to drop bombs that kill people without human intervention, and they are calling for tighter controls on its usage.

“There are widespread and serious concerns about ceding life-and-death decisions to sensors and software,” the International Committee of the Red Cross has cautioned. Self-propelled weapons “are an immediate cause of concern and demand an urgent, international political response.”

The military’s transition to AI-powered aircraft is motivated by security, cost, and strategic capability. If the United States and China engage in battle, today’s Air Force fleet of pricey, manned fighters will be vulnerable due to advances in electronic warfare, space, and air defense systems. China’s air force is on track to outnumber the United States and is also developing a fleet of flying unmanned weapons.

Future war scenarios involve swarms of American unmanned aircraft offering an advance attack on enemy defenses, allowing the US to infiltrate airspace without putting pilot lives at risk. However, money plays a role in the transition. The Air Force is still dealing with production delays and cost overruns on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, expected to cost $1.7 trillion.

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An AI-Controlled Fighter Jet Took The Air Force Leader For A Historic Ride. What That Means For War

Kendall believes that smaller, cheaper AI-controlled unmanned jets are the way forward.Vista’s military operators claim that no other country in the world has an AI jet like it, in which the software first learns from millions of data points in a simulator before testing its conclusions during actual flights. The real-world performance data is then fed into the simulator, where the AI processes it to learn further.

China possesses AI, but there is no evidence that it has developed a mechanism to conduct experiments outside a simulator. According to Vista’s test pilots, some lessons can only be taught in the air, similar to a junior officer learning tactics for the first time.“It’s all guesswork,” chief test pilot Bill Gray remarked until you fly. “And the longer it takes you to figure that out, the longer it takes before you have useful systems.”

Vista conducted its first AI-controlled battle in September 2023, with only roughly two dozen similar flights after that. However, the computers learn so swiftly with each battle that certain AI versions tested on Vista outperform human pilots in air-to-air combat.

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An AI-Controlled Fighter Jet Took The Air Force Leader For A Historic Ride. What That Means For War

The pilots at this base know that they may be educating their successors or defining a future structure in which fewer of them are required.

However, they also state that they would only want to be in the air against an adversary with AI-controlled aircraft if the United States had its own fleet.

“We need to keep running. Kendall remarked, “And we have to run fast.”

SOURCE – (AP)