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Amtrak’s NextGen Acela has arrived. Here’s what it’s like to ride the new high-speed train.

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If you’ve ever come back from a vacation in Italy or Japan, you’ve probably been left wondering why on earth the U.S. has not developed better and faster trains. Well, it’s been a long time coming, but we’re finally onboard, no pun intended, with the launch of Amtrak’s NextGen Acela

With a speed of up to 160 mph, the NextGen Acela is the first of its kind when it comes to high-speed trains in the U.S. I got to experience it firsthand as one of the first to ride the NextGen Acela on its launch route along the Northeast Corridor, ahead of its public launch on August 28 (specifically, I was whisked from New York City to New Haven).

My immediate impression was that it is very similar in style to Italy’s sleek and modern Frecciarossa trains, and the speed certainly added to that effect. That said, we never hit top speed on my journey, and NextGen Acela won’t be hitting top speed until there are infrastructure improvements to the tracks—but it’s still noticeably faster than a standard Amtrak ride when you look out the window and watch everything flash by. There were moments we slowed down quite drastically, but as someone who frequently takes Amtrak trains between upstate New York and New York City, I can confirm the NextGen Acela is a massive step above all of my Amtrak experiences in both speed and comfort.

Photograph: Kaitlyn Rosati for Time Out

How big is the train and where does it go?

There are eight cars on the NextGen Acela, including a first-class car and designated quiet cars, offering 27% more capacity in terms of seats per train. For now, NextGen Acela is offered in major cities such as New York, Boston and Washington, D.C., with plenty of connections along the way in destinations like Philadelphia, New Haven and Providence. There are a total of 28 new trains, five of which have launched so far. Amtrak has a goal to put all 28 into service by 2027.

Amtrak NextGen Acela booking screenshot
Screenshot: Amtrak

How much does the NextGen Acela cost?

Like any form of transport, the cost greatly depends on factors like routes and timing. For example, a one-way ticket from New York to Washington, D.C. can run anywhere from $100 to $500. A quick search on my Amtrak app gave me prices of $153 for a one-way Business Class seat to New Haven from New York, and $256 for First Class when I searched for a departure less than seven days out. When I search the same route three months in advance, the same ticket runs $78 for a Business Class seat and $161 for a First Class seat.

Amtrak NextGen Acela
Photograph: Kaitlyn Rosati for Time Out

Amenities onboard the NextGen Acela

Working from an office will be dull in comparison to working from the NextGen Acela. Each seat is equipped with an outlet, a reading light and USB ports. There’s free high-speed Wi-Fi available for all passengers, and not to mention, your views are bound to be stellar as you watch the world quite literally pass you by.

The ergonomic seats offer plenty of legroom and a winged headrest, and after taking the NextGen Acela from Moynihan Train Hall to New Haven on its first-ever public ride, I can confirm they are a step above a standard Amtrak when it comes to comfortably cushioned seats. In first class, the seats recline for even more maximized relaxation. There are tray tables at each seat along with a placement for cups. If I had to knock something, it’s that my laptop didn’t fit on the designated tray in first class.

Amtrak NextGen Acela
Photograph: Kaitlyn Rosati for Time Out

As for the ride itself, it’s as smooth as ever thanks to the train’s tilt system. The train was also built with accessibility in mind; for example, the quarter-circle-shaped restroom allows a 60-inch turning radius for people in mobility devices. Yet another fun feature of the restroom: Once you close the automatic door, you will hear a voice reminding you to “lock the door,” which can be done with the push of a button inside.

Cheese plate, antipasto and San Pellegrino on Amtrak NextGen Acela
Photograph: Kaitlyn Rosati for Time OutCheese plate, antipasto and San Pellegrino on Amtrak NextGen Acela

Food and drink on the NextGen Acela

Cafe Acela in car six is the go-to spot for all things food and drink onboard. Here, you can enjoy prepared meals and snacks, like a Mediterranean salad with falafel, a cheese plate with fresh fruit and pita bread, an antipasto plate with cured meats and crackers, and various other salads and sandwiches. I went for the cheese plate and antipasto, living out my Frecciarossa dreams right in the U.S.. There is also a decent selection of soft drinks, like canned sodas and San Pellegrino, and if you’re looking for a glass of vino to take those Italian high-speed train vibes even further, the Business Class wine cart offers a selection of pinot noir, sauvignon blanc, and cabernet sauvignon.

First-class passengers will have access to the Metropolitan Lounge prior to departure. Once onboard, first-class ticket holders can enjoy at-seat meal service, featuring the dishes of James Beard award-winning restaurateur Stephen Starr.

Amtrak NextGen Acela
Photograph: Kaitlyn Rosati for Time Out

Bottom Line

It’s about time the U.S. joins the club of high-speed railways, and the NextGen Acela is only the beginning. With comfortable plush seats, outlets at every seat, fresh food and fun snacks like a cheese plate (what can I say, the NextGen Acela really had me at that cheese plate), free high-speed Wi-Fi and a train that gets us to where we’re going with more pep in its step, I’d say we’re off to a good start.



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Texas vs. Ohio State live updates: Arch Manning headlines as Longhorns, Buckeyes clash in top-three showdown

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The biggest season opener in college football history has arrived. No. 1 Texas. Vs. No. 3 Ohio State. Arch Madness against the reigning national champions.

Rarely do we see the preseason No. 1 team open the year as an underdog, and yet here is Texas, sprinting into Week 1 against the Buckeyes, the slight favorites who aim to defend their national title by taking down the hyped-up Longhorns, who carry the No. 1 ranking next to their name in the preseason for the first time in their long history as a blue blood.

The two biggest names in the sport — Texas quarterback Arch Manning and Ohio State receiver Jeremiah Smith — lead their teams into Ohio Stadium with SEC and Big Ten pride on the line. Manning is not your ordinary quarterback, though this will be his first career start on the road. He has a lineage of superiority to defend. Smith, who electrified the country as a freshman last year, already has a national championship ring.

Who wins? We won’t have to ask that question much longer. Kickoff is set for 12 p.m. ET.

Keep it locked here as CBS Sports provides you with live updates, highlights and analysis as Texas battles Ohio State to open the 2025 season in Week 1. 





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Firefighter arrested by US border agents was on track for legal status, lawyers say | Oregon

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Lawyers are demanding the release of a longtime Oregon resident arrested by US border patrol while fighting a Washington state wildfire, saying Friday that the firefighter was already on track for legal status after helping federal investigators solve a crime against his family.

His arrest was illegal, the lawyers said, and violated Department of Homeland Security polices that say immigration enforcement must not be conducted at locations where emergency responses are happening.

He is one of two firefighters arrested this week while working the Bear Gulch fire in the Olympic national forest, which as of Friday had burned about 14 sq miles (36 sq km) and was only 13% contained, forcing evacuations.

US Customs and Border Protection said in a statement on Thursday that it had been helping the Bureau of Land Management with a criminal investigation into two contractors working at the fire when it discovered two firefighters who they said were in the country without permanent legal status.

The firefighter, whose name has not been made public, has lived in the US for 19 years after arriving with his family at the age of four. He received a U-visa certification from the US attorney’s office in Oregon in 2017 and submitted his U-visa application with US Citizenship and Immigration Services the following year.

The U-visa program was established by Congress to protect victims of serious crimes who assist federal investigators, and the man has been waiting since 2018 for the immigration agency to decide on his application, according to Stephen Manning, a lawyer with Innovation Law Lab, a Portland-based non-profit representing the firefighter.

Another homeland security policy says agents cannot detain people who are receiving or have applied for victim-based immigration benefits, his lawyer said. Charging the man with an immigration violation was “an illegal after-the-fact justification” given his U-visa status.

His lawyers said Friday that they located him in the immigration detention system and were able to make contact. They were still processing information and are demanding his immediate release, they told the AP in an email.

A senior DHS official said in a statement to the AP on Friday that the two men apprehended were not firefighters and were not actively fighting the fire. Officials said they were providing a supporting role by cutting logs into firewood.

“The firefighting response remained uninterrupted the entire time,” the statement said. “No active firefighters were even questioned, and US Border Patrol’s actions did not prevent or interfere with any personnel actively engaged in firefighting efforts.”

When the Bureau of Land Management was asked to provide information about why its contracts with two companies were terminated and 42 firefighters were escorted away from the state’s largest wildfire, it declined. It would only say it cooperates with other federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security.

“These law enforcement professionals contribute to broader federal enforcement efforts by maintaining public safety, protecting natural resources, and collaborating with the agencies, such as the Border Patrol,” interior department spokesperson Alyse Sharpe told the Associated Press in an email.

Manning said in a letter to Oregon senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat, that the arrest violated homeland security policy.

Wyden was critical of the border patrol’s operation, saying the Trump administration was more concerned about conducting raids on fire crews than protecting communities from catastrophic fires. Firefighters put their lives on the line, Wyden emphasized, including the Oregon firefighter who died on Sunday while battling a wildfire in south-western Montana.

“The last thing that wildland firefighter crews need is to be worried about masked individuals trampling their due process rights,” Wyden said in an email to the AP.

Meanwhile, wildfire officials were still trying to get control of the Bear Gulch fire. The number of personnel working on the blaze was listed at 303 on Friday, down from 349 on Thursday.



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Why Wall Street has developed an unhealthy obsession with Nvidia

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A version of this story appeared in CNN Business’ Nightcap newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.


New York
 — 

For markets, the most important story of the week was, somehow, not the president’s attempted firing of a top Federal Reserve official. Instead, it was Nvidia’s earnings report, a quarterly event that, in the financial world, has taken on Super Bowl-level enthusiasm. (Seriously, the company has fans who throw watch parties for the occasion, complete with Mardi Gras beads.)

It’s not hard to see why folks are all fired up. If you’d invested $1,000 in Nvidia (NVDA) shares just two years ago, you’d be sitting on a $3,000 profit right now. The stock is up 30% this year, versus the S&P 500’s 10% gain. And quarter after quarter, Nvidia tends to blow past the consensus forecast on Wall Street. What’s not to love?

Well, for some investors, at least, the market around Nvidia is starting to look awfully bubbly. And not just because Sam Altman, the CEO of one of Nvidia’s customers, has publicly speculated that AI was a bubble.

Here are some of the reasons people are beginning to worry about the Nvidia story.

Reason No. 1: Nvidia is huge. But not just, like, “Oh, it’s a big company!” It is bigger, in terms of market value, than any public company ever. We often toss around its market capitalization — $4 trillion — as if that number makes any sense.

Consider that the world had never seen a $1 trillion public company until Apple crossed the threshold in 2018. Now we have nearly a dozen, almost all of them in the American tech sector.

Reason No. 1(a): That size makes Nvidia (pronounced in-vid-ee-uh) on its own account for 8% of the S&P 500. So, even if you don’t hold Nvidia shares, you gotta watch its results because they could swing the entire market. Zoom out even further: Nvidia’s market cap accounts for 3.6% of global GDP, according to Deutsche Bank. Yes. One single company, which gets half its revenue from just three customers, is that huge.

Reason No. 2: When we talk about the AI industry, we’re mostly talking about Nvidia. If you use ChatGPT, that’s powered by Nvidia chips. The same goes for Anthropic’s Claude, Google’s Gemini, Amazon’s…whatever Amazon’s chatbot is called — all of those products are powered by the processors made by this company that up until a few years ago was just a tech workhorse churning out processors that make video games look cooler.

(You may be thinking, Hey, Nvidia sounds kinda like a monopoly, to which I say, Please do not use the m-word around here, or else I’ll have to call the lawyers. Let’s just say Nvidia almost exclusively controls the supply of vital resources to an entire industry and enjoys monopoly-esque profit margins.)

So, if you follow the Gospel of AI and believe that the technology has the power to dismantle the entire global economy, Nvidia is your clear picks-and-shovels play.

But — and here’s why the focus on Nvidia is getting even more intense — what if the technology Nvidia is powering turns out to be, I dunno, not quite the revolution that your Sams Altman or Darios Amodei have promised? What happens to the picks and shovels when the gold rush goes bust?

Last week, I wrote that the AI vibe shift was underway, nearly three years after ChatGPT’s public debut set off a frenzy of investment and a nauseating amount of corporate pablum about how AI is going to change everything. A rash of bad AI headlines, combined with signs of a weakening economy, has rattled investors, sparking a tech sell-off last week and a lot of nail-biting ahead of Nvidia’s earnings.

To be fair, AI chatbots like ChatGPT have changed a lot — like how much we talk about AI, and it has seriously increased the use of the word “trillion” in the financial media. Chatbots have also been accused of pushing multiple people to suicide and fueling delusional spirals that ruin lives.

What AI hasn’t done is demonstrate a single use case that would even come close to justifying the hundreds of billions of dollars companies are pouring into it.

The frenzy isn’t limited to speculative delusions on Wall Street. There is actually so much real money behind the AI race that capital expenditures from American tech giants have contributed more to GDP growth this year than consumer spending has, according to Neil Dutta, head of economic research at Renaissance Macro Research.

I’m going to repeat that, because it’s one of the craziest things I’ve ever read: AI-related capex has contributed more to US economic growth this year than consumer spending.

Consumer spending! That’s the engine of the economy — some 70% of our GDP. That’s just an insane concentration of capital to build infrastructure for what could end up being just another vial of Silicon Valley snake oil.

“Ultimately, investment only makes sense insofar as it raises productivity and real wages and consumer spending,” Dutta said in a podcast. “That’s not yet happening.”





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