brian cheung joins us now to explain.ening. >> hallie, it was a down day, but stocks are roaring in 2025 off the one-two punch of solid years with the s&p rising 24% last year and this year gaining another 23%, something we haven't seen in over 25 years, but the stock market is, of course, not the economy. high prices and high interest rates have continued to weigh on americans. we'll see what 2025 brings with inflation expected to ease, likely more interest rate cuts and a new administration in the white house. hallie? >> brian cheung, thank you. >> to port uerto rico now and a outage wiping out power to the entire island. here's george solis. >> reporter: puerto rico after being hit on new year's eve. >> sad on this day, the last day of the year that impact our traditions. >> reporter: the blackout began early this morning affecting more than a million people. 90% of the island. >> he says, how are we going to celebrate the new year without power? luma, the private company that distributes power in puerto rico says a fa

nbc's brian cheung made the trip to check out the latest gadgets and gizmos. ssignment because i have been geeking out all week. good morning from the consumer electronics show here in las vegas. we're getting an inside glimpse into what the future looks like. from our vantage point, artificial intelligence is making everything smarter from pizza ovens, yes, pizza ovens to this right here, a robotaxi. this year's consumer electronics show in vegas leaning heavily into artificial intelligence, giving otherwise normal products a big brain boost. >> this is a mock pizza oven. >> reporter: yep. from a pizza oven that calculates time and temp to robots of all shapes and sizes. >> i'm having a blast. at the ces. >> reporter: artificial intelligence is also changing the game for the way we hail rides. amazon owned company zooks, ai helped these self-driving test vehicles adapt to the roads in las vegas. >> that lets us train and validate our software. when it's ready to drive all by itself, we put it on the robotaxi. this is it. >> reporter: this is the robo taxi? it

brian cheung has a look back at the fight against inflation and a preview what was we could see in ther. >> reporter: in a year where a lot happened, the u.s. economy kept its stride thanks to a u.s. consumer that got chooseier with their dollars. big-time names in corporate america got pushed back from consumers who balked at rising reporter: i just spoke moments ago to a spokesperson with the governor, he has been briefed. he is still getting information in realtime from the nopd and from the state police but as brandy just said, we are just about 14 hours away from kickoff for the sugar bowl, the eyes of the college football world with tens of thousands of fans from georgia and notre dame are on the city of new orleans. then we host the biggest sporting event on planet earth in early february, the super bowl. we have been talk being security preps and plans, a big question hopefully nopd and state lis will answer, was this a drunk driver? was this an accident? or was this an act of essentially domestic terrorism? was it intentional that somebody drove a car down bourbon street in th

news business correspondent brian cheung joins us now. , the job market is much better than expected. let's rehash those numbers. 256,000 jobs added in the month of december. that was well above what economists were expecting. they were expecting only 155,000 jobs. when you consider the unemployment rate came in at 4.1%, it was a jobs report that shows hiring in this country firing on all cylinders. it's an uptick from the rates we were seeing about a year ago. better than the higher unemployment we saw during the pandemic. most of these job gains, health care adding 45,000 jobs, leisure and hospitality adding 40,000 jobs. even white collar jobs, that added almost 30,000 jobs. i want to point out manufacturing did contract by about 13,000 jobs. another thing about this economy is inflation, inflation, inflation. price tags rising by 2.7%. wages are increasing on a yearly basis by 3.9%. on an average basis wages are outpacing inflation. that is certainly good news. brian, briefly, talking about these wildfires. they decimated homes and busi

brian cheung is here. brian, what do we know about this app? >> lester, it's an ai chatbot called deepseek. it's the number one free app on apple's app store. those in the ai space have been impressed by how well it stands up to its american competitors. but it's wall street shaken by how cheap its developers say they were able to train it. just $5.6 million. now, if true, that would be more efficient compared to how much it cost to train chatgpt and google's gemini ai, which were made here in the u.s. >> big question for a lot of users. will this have the same national security concerns we saw with tiktok? >> well, it could. deepseek's terms of use are governed by china and it raises serious questions over censorship and guided answers. now, deepseek says it collects users' key strokes and stores information in chinese servers. some lawmakers on capitol hill have already expressed concern, and it's a good reminder, by the way, lester, to never give your personal sensitive information to any ai software. >> all right, brian, thank you very much

brian cheung takes us into what might be the future of football.ything i love in this home. so, we've now implemented drone technology. how is that safe for me? it enhances the inspection, so it allows us to see things faster. your safety is the most important, and if you're feeling unsafe, that's not okay. it doesn't feel like that in our hearts. i mean, it's worrisome. [dog barks] [dog barks] >>> we're back with our series "inside the game." nfl playoffs in full swing right now. close calls being made by the referees. >> yeah. so in a game where inches are critical, how does the game ensure that those calls are correct? >> brian cheung is here with some high tech upgrades that could soon be a game changer. some of these not without controversy. >> you have seen the orange sticks on the side. those are used to gauge if the team advanced the ten yards needed for a fresh set of downs. it is a tool that may soon get retired. we have a look at the new system that uses artificial intelligence that could be taking its place. in nfl, it is all about movi

brian cheung joins me. skwraolgsz the company announcing today that would be scaling back its three-year dei policy. it sought to increase the amount of products in stores from be black businesses. now, in a memo to employ sees, the company cited the evolving external landscape as the reason. but this is a major turn for a company headquartered in minneapolis, the same city, where george floyd was murdered. now, target joins the likes of lowe's, walmart and mcdonald in scaling back policies. microsoft, apple and costco, where 98 percent of shareholders voted against scaling back dei. >>> turning now to the ceasefire. holding five days after it went into effect. under the deal, more hostages are set to be released tomorrow. raf sanchez joins me now from israel. we learned today, which hostages will be freed. >> reporter: lester, hamas says it will release four female soldiers, the first time it has freed military personnel. and a warning, some of this footage is disturbing. >> they're known as the watch towe

our brian cheung looks at the new app at the center of the selloff. >> reporter: it's the breakout star world. >> what we can call the deepseek selloff is still really pressuring tech. >> reporter: that just put wall street on notice. >> today these fears from china's deepseek a.i. sparking the selloff in the market. >> reporter: chinese artificial intelligence company deepseek sending american tech stocks into a nosedive as the new open source a.i. tool has become one of the most widely used and highest rated in the world. side by side, the competitors look and feel very similar. both can help you plan a five-day get away vacation or even provide an easy-to-make dinner recipe. deepseek's innovative feature gives user as glimpse into the thought process. we asked both to tell us a joke safe for work, ten words long and not cheesy. chatgpt replied, why did the scarecrow succeed? he stood out in a field. deepseek, time flies like an arrow. fruit like a banana. it shared jokes it thought about, but didn't meet our criteria. deepseek would not provide answer to some topics deemed sensitive

nbc's brian cheung takes us to the showroom floor. >> reporter: yeah, hello from las vegas.t over here, a humanoid robot able to carry these totes, up to 25 points, pick them up, as you can see, with, i should add, fantastic form and bring it over to another part of, can you imagine a warehouse or other types of industrial or business applications here. so super cool stuff. it's very humanoid like. basically the same dimensions, height, everything else that a regular human can do. this is the future that we're seeing here at the consumer electronics show where a.i. is making everything smarter. and right here is one exact applications on a business level of how different types of companies are scaling and using this technology to perhaps take out redundant work in their warehouse. we've seen a.i. incorporated into pizza ovens, self-robo taxis. >> so cool, those legs kind of creepy. >>> groundbreaking research for parents. vicky nguyen dives into a study on the impact screen time has on kids and their brains, plus useful tips for parents on how to manage screen time effective

nbc news business correspondent brian cheung shows us how it works. >> reporter: the football faithfulof downs. it's a simple tool that may get retired. we got an inside look at the new system using artificial intelligence that could be taking its place. in the nfl it's all about moving the chains. referring to those orange links used in the game for more than 100 years. they've been the subject of many close calls. at times changing the course of the game and riling up fans. here's how it works. let's say you made a sweet play. to see if the ball made it ten yards necessary for a fifirst down, these orange chains come out to measure exactly ten yards. wiwith new technology these cou become obsolete. at allegiant stadium home of the las vegas raiders, we got a look inside the replay booth where no visitors are allowed. we witnessed a new technology the nfl tested this season from sony called hawkeye. it's a software system that pieces together moments from up to 60 cameras in real time and uses artificial intelligence to precisely locate where the ball ended. sony hawkeye director dani