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The $3 Billion Truth Social Deal That Could Bail Out Donald Trump 2024-03-21 20:36:58+00:00 - Link icon An image of a chain link. It symobilizes a website link url. Link icon An image of a chain link. It symobilizes a website link url. Copy Link Link icon An image of a chain link. It symobilizes a website link url. Copy Link Twitter LinkedIn icon LinkedIn Fliboard icon A stylized letter F. Flipboard Link icon An image of a chain link. It symobilizes a website link url. Copy Link Share icon An curved arrow pointing right. Share icon An curved arrow pointing right. Twitter LinkedIn icon LinkedIn Fliboard icon A stylized letter F. Flipboard Link icon An image of a chain link. It symobilizes a website link url. Copy Link Email icon An envelope. It indicates the ability to send an email.

Read the 4 emails from Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, and Apple execs cited in the DOJ's antitrust case 2024-03-21 20:08:48+00:00 - Apple is facing a federal antitrust lawsuit. In legal documents, the DOJ cites internal Apple emails as evidence of anti-competitive tactics. Read the four emails sent by Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, and other Apple execs that were referenced. NEW LOOK Sign up to get the inside scoop on today’s biggest stories in markets, tech, and business — delivered daily. Read preview Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . You can opt-out at any time. Advertisement The US Department of Justice is suing Apple, accusing it of using anti-competitive practices to dominate the smartphone market. In court documents, prosecutors cited some internal Apple emails to back some of their allegations. The DOJ and 16 attorney generals allege the iPhone maker — one of the biggest tech companies in the world — has illegally maintained a smartphone monopoly by "delaying, degrading, or outright blocking" other technology in the smartphone market," according to the lawsuit. An Apple spokesperson responded to the lawsuit, saying it was "wrong on the facts and the law, and we will vigorously defend against it." Advertisement The DOJ referenced everything from Apple's smartwatch compatibility to those annoying green text message bubbles as evidence of the tech giant's illegal moves. Internal messages were included in the legal filing as well. Here are passages from the four emails sent by Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, and other Apple execs.

Medicare will cover Wegovy to reduce heart disease risk 2024-03-21 20:06:00+00:00 - Medicare will provide coverage for Wegovy for patients with an increased risk of heart attack, stroke or other serious cardiovascular problems, an agency spokesperson said Thursday. The decision, experts say, could grant millions of patients access to the popular yet expensive weight loss medication. Medicare, which currently provides health insurance to more than 65 million people in the U.S., has long been barred from paying for weight loss drugs. Earlier this month, however, the Food and Drug Administration expanded the approval for Wegovy, saying that it can be prescribed to people who are overweight or have obesity to reduce their risk of heart disease. The change prompted the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to consider coverage because reducing heart disease risk is a medically accepted use under federal law, the spokesperson said. Medicare will still not cover Wegovy if it is only being used for weight management, the spokesperson said. Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for people with low incomes, will also be required to cover Wegovy to reduce heart disease risk. Lawrence Gostin, director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, said Medicare providing coverage for Wegovy is “transformational.” But doing so could undermine Medicare’s “financial stability,” Gostin said. The drug carries a list price of around $1,200 a month, and many patients will likely want a prescription. A survey from the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging in December found about 3 in 4 older adults believe Medicare should cover weight loss medications. A blog post from the Congressional Budget Office last October said that if Medicare did cover weight loss medications such as Wegovy, the net cost to the program “would be significant over the next 10 years.” “There could be a slippery slope where Medicare ends up paying for the drug to be used for weight loss purposes,” Gostin said. “That would bankrupt Medicare and cause a taxpayer revolt.” Juliette Cubanski, deputy director of the Medicare policy program at KFF, a nonpartisan group that studies health policy issues, said that while Medicare won't cover the drug solely for weight loss, many people with heart disease are overweight or have obesity. “We could see Medicare patients with both conditions get coverage of this drug for its heart health benefits,” Cubanski said. “That’s potentially a big deal given the large demand for this drug even in the absence of many insurers covering it.” The drug will be covered under Medicare Part D, which covers the cost of medications people take at home, the spokesperson said. It’s not clear how private insurance companies that offer supplemental Part D coverage will respond, Cubanski said, noting that plans do have the ability to add new drugs to the list of drugs they cover in the middle of the year, “but given the cost of this drug, plans might not want to be the first movers.”

Poverty is deepening in modern Britain – but will economic growth be the solution? 2024-03-21 19:45:00+00:00 - Modern Britain: the sixth-richest economy in the world, with 12 million people living in absolute poverty. The latest official figures showing the biggest increase in poverty in 40 years have been described by charity leaders and politicians as both “shocking” and “horrifying” in their confirmation of the devastating impact of the cost of living crisis. It is a snapshot that will trouble Rishi Sunak in an election year, as he attempts to paint Britain as a nation on the mend, having been through the worst of the inflation shock triggered by the Covid pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine. The consequences for UK households are clear. Absolute poverty, when households have less than 60% of the median income in 2010-11 after adjusting for inflation, grew for a second year in a row. With an increase of 600,000 in the year to March 2023, the figures suggest a population larger than that of Sheffield have been pushed below the breadline of the government’s preferred measure of poverty. Half are children, with the total in absolute poverty now 3.6 million – enough to fill almost 130,000 classrooms. Given the sharpest increase in inflation for 40 years, significantly outpacing pay growth for the average worker, the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank suggests it is hardly a big surprise that this parliament is on course to be among the worst in modern history in terms of growth in living standards. Government support worth more than £100bn over the past two years helped soften the blow, curbing the rise in poverty through £3,400 worth of help for the average household over that period. Ministers argue the measures prevented 1.3 million people from falling into poverty. However, charities have repeatedly said the help has been insufficiently targeted at the poorest in society, who bore the brunt of the inflation shock because they spend disproportionately more of their incomes on energy, food and basic essentials, the prices of which have increased most. Research from the New Economics Foundation shows the sharpest rise in poverty levels has come in the poorest areas of the country. Child poverty has risen six times faster in the most deprived areas compared with the richest, the thinktank found, while 19 out of the 20 local authorities with the highest increases in child poverty were in the north-west of England and Midlands. Even before the cost of living crisis, poverty levels were already high after deep cuts to benefits in the Conservatives’ post-2010 austerity drive. Studies have shown a clear link between Tory welfare changes and rising poverty, orchestrated in the name of cracking down on “shirkers” on the dole to encourage people to work. This is a position Sunak is hardly in a hurry to abandon. Meanwhile, a decade of flatlining wage growth has left 1.6 million more people in relative poverty in a working household than in 2010, amid a worrying breakdown in the traditional routes out of destitution through employment. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Business Today Free daily newsletter Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion Labour described the figures as “horrifying”, arguing that households were paying the price for the Tories crashing the economy. After Tony Blair promised in 1999 to eradicate child poverty within 20 years, it is clear that Labour – should it form the next government – will have a big job on its hands to make up for lost time. However, critics say Keir Starmer lacks seriousness when it comes to tackling the problem, having insisted that his party would keep the Tories’ controversial two-child benefits cap – a policy academics describe as “poverty producing”. Instead the leader of the opposition, and the prime minister, are focused on improving Britain’s growth potential as the most powerful way to help struggling households get back on their feet. However, most forecasters think economic growth will remain tepid at best for some time to come, and expect it will take several years for living standards to return even to pre-pandemic levels. For whoever wins the next election, tackling the alarming levels of poverty will be a serious challenge.

DOJ files suit against Apple, saying it's tried to monopolize the smartphone market 2024-03-21 19:44:52+00:00 - The Department of Justice filed a landmark lawsuit against Apple on Thursday, accusing the tech company of hindering its products' competition in violation of federal antitrust laws. The 88-page lawsuit, joined by attorneys general for 15 states and the District of Columbia, singles out Apple's signature product, the iPhone, and alleges that the company "repeatedly chooses to make its products worse for consumers to prevent competition from emerging." Apple, the lawsuit claims, imposes "a series of shapeshifting rules and restrictions" on apps that allow the company to "extract higher fees, thwart innovation, offer a less secure or degraded user experience, and throttle competitive alternatives." Such conduct has had ramifications on industries outside the smartphone market, including financial services, gaming, news media and social media, the lawsuit argues. "Unless Apple’s anticompetitive and exclusionary conduct is stopped, it will likely extend and entrench its iPhone monopoly to other markets and parts of the economy." Apple has denied wrongdoing, saying in a statement to NBC News that the company will “vigorously defend” itself against the allegations. The lawsuit was not unexpected. The New York Times reported in January that the department was nearing the end of its antitrust investigation into Apple. And the Biden administration's Big Tech antitrust crackdown has seen the Justice Department file lawsuits against Google and the Federal Trade Commission bring similar anti-monopoly cases against Meta and Amazon. "If successful, [the lawsuit] would hinder our ability to create the kind of technology people expect from Apple — where hardware, software, and services intersect," a company spokesperson said. "It would also set a dangerous precedent, empowering government to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology."

Gazans increasingly back a two-state solution, as support for Hamas drops 2024-03-21 19:43:00+00:00 - Support for Hamas as a political party has fallen to 34% among Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, a 12-point drop from December 2023, according to a poll released Wednesday by a leading Palestinian research institute. While the war is eroding Palestinians’ view of Hamas as the governing body in Gaza, relative support remains high for the militant group’s role in the war. Seventy percent of Palestinians said they were “satisfied” with Hamas’ war performance, as compared to that of other Palestinian entities, like its political rival Fatah, whose deeply unpopular leader, Mahmoud Abbas, governs the West Bank. Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack triggered the war with Israel, which has so far killed more than 31,000 people in Gaza, according to the enclave’s health ministry. The poll was conducted in-person, from March 5 to March 10, at the start of the fifth month of the war, with a sample size of 1580 — 830 of those polled lived in the West Bank and 750 in the Gaza Strip — by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), an independent survey organization based in Ramallah that has surveyors across Gaza. The center has measured public opinion in the Palestinian territories quarterly since the 1990s. In the period leading up to the poll, Israeli forces had advanced into central Gaza, fears were high of a military incursion into Rafah, the southern city where some 1.5 million people are sheltering, the humanitarian crisis had hit new lows as the most vulnerable began dying of starvation, and negotiations for a cease-fire before Ramadan were sputtering but still offered a fading glimmer of hope. Opinions in the West Bank and Gaza diverged significantly on the issue of support for Hamas as a political party. Hamas has governed Gaza since 2007, while Abbas of Fatah runs the West Bank. Unlike Gazans, Palestinians in the West Bank are not subject to the extreme hostilities of the war. Before the war, in September 2023, only 12% of Palestinians in the West Bank supported Hamas. By that December, as the war entered its third month, support for Hamas in the West Bank skyrocketed to 44%, before falling to 35% in March. Support has been less volatile in Gaza, where 38% supported Hamas in September 2023, 42% in December 2023, and 34% this month. Support for Fatah has also dropped, from 26% in September 2023, to 17% this March. The decline was largely driven by a loss of support among West Bank Palestinians, with the majority calling for Abbas to resign and Fatah to be dissolved. Unlike in previous flare-ups of violence between Palestinians and Israelis — when support for armed struggle often spiked before dropping again — the length and brutality of the current war has led to significant shifts in the way Palestinians, particularly Gazans, viewed warfare versus diplomatic solutions. Support for “armed struggle” dropped by 17 points, from 63% to 46%, driven largely by Palestinians in Gaza, and Gazan support for a diplomatic two-state solution has jumped by 27 points — to 62%. “Generally speaking, when there is greater exposure to violence by Palestinians the immediate reaction — that is temporary but is immediate — is the rise in support for violence. This is true in every single survey we have done,” Khalil Shikaki, who founded and runs PSR, told NBC News in a telephone interview from Ramallah. But this time that wasn’t the case. “In the November-December 2023 poll, support for Hamas and armed struggle was probably associated with Hamas’ success in releasing Palestinian women and children from Israeli jails demonstrating the efficacy of armed struggle,” he said, referring to the center’s previous poll, which was taken in part during the seven-day truce in which Palestinian detainees were exchanged for some Israeli hostages. “This current poll was conducted under very different conditions,” Shikaki said, including the “endless human suffering” Gazans are facing. Nearly 80% of Gazans reported that at least one family member had been killed or injured, and much of the population is at risk of imminent famine. A woman and children mourn relatives killed in an Israeli airstrike this week in Rafah, southern Gaza. Said Khatib / AFP - Getty Images The divergence between support for Hamas as a political party, which is dropping, and for its role in the war, which is steady at 70%, is indicative of its dual role as an administrative governing body and as a symbol for the decadeslong Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation. Hamas, which for decades has resorted to violent tactics like suicide bombings on Israeli civilian targets and is deemed a terrorist organization by the U.S., has long been divisive among Palestinians. In recent years, as progress on a two-state solution and peace talks dwindled, Hamas-affiliated attacks seemingly put the Palestinian plight on the global agenda, gaining Palestinian support and allowing it to fill a power vacuum. Satisfaction among Palestinians with the United States’ handling of the war is nearly nonexistent at 1%, backing up diplomatic warnings that anti-U.S. sentiment is festering in the Arab world. As a regional actor, Yemen had the highest approval ratings, due to the Houthis, the rebel group that has been attacking commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea in what they have framed as solidarity with the Palestinian cause. Face-to-face polling in a war zone comes with severe risks. Sampling took place in several dozen shelters in the cities of Rafah, Khan Younis and Deir El-Balah. The center did not assign pollsters to parts of southern and central Gaza where Israeli tanks are stationed. Despite having field researchers in Gaza City, it remains too dangerous for PSR to deploy a polling force there, Shikaki added. “There are limits to where we will go,” he said. “We are sampling the shelters, for those who have moved from north to south. That way, we are essentially covering everybody.”

Higher temperatures mean higher food and other prices. A new study links climate shocks to inflation 2024-03-21 19:41:10+00:00 - Food prices and overall inflation will rise as temperatures climb with climate change, a new study by an environmental scientist and the European Central Bank found. Looking at monthly price tags of food and other goods, temperatures and other climate factors in 121 nations since 1996, researchers calculate that “weather and climate shocks” will cause the cost of food to rise 1.5 to 1.8 percentage points annually within a decade or so, even higher in already hot places like the Middle East, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Communications, Earth and the Environment. And that translates to an increase in overall inflation of 0.8 to 0.9 percentage points by 2035, just caused by climate change extreme weather, the study said. Those numbers may look small, but to banks like the U.S. Federal Reserve that fight inflation, they are significant, said study lead author Max Kotz, a climate scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany “The physical impacts of climate change are going to have a persistent effect on inflation,” Kotz said. “This is really from my perspective another example of one of the ways in which climate change can undermine human welfare, economic welfare.” And by 2060, the climate-triggered part of inflation should grow, with global food prices predicted to increase 2.2 to 4.3 percentage points annually, the study said. That translates to a 1.1 to 2.2 percentage point increase in overall inflation. Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia University’s business school who wasn’t part of the research, said what he calls “climateflation” is “all too real and the numbers are rather striking.” Kotz and European Bank economists looked at 20,000 data points to find a real world causal link between extreme weather, especially heat, and rising prices. They then looked at what’s projected in the future for climate change and saw sticker shock. Usually when economists talk inflation and climate change, it’s about rising energy prices in response to efforts to curb warming, but that’s only part of the problem, Kotz said. “There are these productivity shocks that we know about from climate change, from the weather phenomena caused by climate change, from heat waves and so forth to reduce agricultural productivity,” Kotz said. “Those also then have a knock-on effect on food inflation, on headline inflation.” The study points to 2022’s European heat wave as a good example. The high heat cut food supplies, causing food prices to rise two-thirds of a percentage point and overall inflation to jump about one-third of a percentage point, Kotz said. Prices rose even higher in Romania, Hungary and parts of southern Europe. “I find the main result on the historic relationship between regional temperature anomalies and national inflation to be credible,” said Frances Moore, an environmental economist at the University of California, Davis who wasn’t part of the study. “The findings are important. Price variability in essential goods like food is very painful to consumers.” Kotz said the analysis found the inflationary pressure on food and other prices is worse in areas and seasons that are hotter. So Europe and North America may not be hit as hard as the Global South, which could afford it less, he said. ___ Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment ___ Follow Seth Borenstein on X at @borenbears ______ The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Medicare can now cover certain weight loss drugs in a big step for patients 2024-03-21 19:39:00+00:00 - Boxes of Wegovy made by Novo Nordisk are seen at a pharmacy in London, Britain March 8, 2024. Medicare can start covering certain weight loss drugs for the first time — as long as they are approved for an added health benefit, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Thursday. That opens the door for broader coverage of some highly popular weight loss medications such as Novo Nordisk 's Wegovy, which is now approved in the U.S. for heart health. Those treatments have skyrocketed in demand over the past year despite their hefty price tags and spotty insurance coverage. Under the new CMS guidance, Medicare Part D plans can cover obesity treatments that receive Food and Drug Administration approval for an additional health benefit. Medicare prescription drug plans administered by private insurers, known as Part D, currently cannot cover those drugs for weight loss alone. The agency's guidance means Medicare patients could soon get coverage for Wegovy, as long as they have obesity and a history of heart disease and are prescribed the treatment to reduce their risk of heart attacks and strokes. Earlier this month, the Food and Drug Administration approved Wegovy for that purpose. The guidance also will open the door to future coverage of other weight loss medications, many of which are being tested for additional health conditions. Drugmakers such as Novo Nordisk, which also makes the diabetes drug Ozempic, and Eli Lilly are studying their weight loss medicines as treatments for fatty liver disease, chronic kidney disease, sleep apnea and more. To be covered, those drugs would need to return late-stage trial results and then be submitted for FDA approval for those uses. Wegovy is part of a class of drugs called GLP-1s which mimic a hormone produced in the gut to suppress a person's appetite and help regulate blood sugar. Coverage for those treatments when used for weight loss is a mixed bag. Roughly 110 million American adults are living with obesity and approximately 50 million of them have insurance coverage for weight loss drugs, a spokesperson for Novo Nordisk said in a statement last week. Some of the nation's largest insurers, such as CVS Health's Aetna, also cover the treatments. But many employers don't. An October survey of more than 200 companies by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, or IFEBP, found only 27% provided coverage for GLP-1s for weight loss, compared with the 76% that covered those drugs for diabetes. Notably, 13% of employers indicated they were considering coverage for weight loss. A provision of a 2003 law established that Medicare Part D plans can't cover drugs used for weight loss, but the program does cover obesity screening, behavioral counseling and bariatric surgery. A group of bipartisan lawmakers have introduced legislation that would eliminate the provision, but its fate in Congress is far from certain. A CMS spokesperson told CNBC last week that Medicaid programs would be required to cover Wegovy specifically for its new cardiovascular use. By law, Medicaid must cover nearly all FDA-approved medications, but weight loss treatments are among a small group of drugs that can be excluded from coverage. Around 1 in 5 state Medicaid programs currently cover GLP-1 drugs for weight loss.

Aileen Cannon reportedly had clerks quit in latest twist for Trump judge 2024-03-21 19:32:16+00:00 - U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon made waves earlier this week with a strange order about jury instructions. Now a new report says that two of her clerks quit toward the end of last year. The report, by longtime legal writer and commentator David Lat for his “Original Jurisdiction” Substack, hasn’t been confirmed by MSNBC or NBC News. And Lat himself notes that it’s unclear when — possibly October and December 2023 — or why exactly these clerks left. But it’s an unusual situation for an already-inexperienced judge, not to say one who is presiding over the prosecution of a former president in a matter that implicates national security. Lat reports that her chambers are currently fully staffed. The natural question this news raises is whether the departures were due to Cannon’s handling of the case. In any event, Lat writes that the turnover “was surely very disruptive and delay-inducing.” Whatever the reason (or reasons) behind the turnover, that’s no small thing, given the delays that have permeated all the Trump cases. Even if the clerks’ departure is not the main reason for how the classified documents case has progressed — or not progressed — it’s an issue worth considering as we hopefully get more information. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for weekly updates on the top legal stories, including news from the Supreme Court, the Donald Trump cases and more.

Trump’s abortion ban idea is a proven loser for Republicans. Just ask Glenn Youngkin. 2024-03-21 19:20:51+00:00 - Donald Trump’s openness to supporting a 15-week abortion ban seems destined to cause a political headache for Republicans this fall, if not derail the GOP’s electoral hopes entirely. And we can look to the very recent past for such an example. On Tuesday, the former president told right-wing radio host Sid Rosenberg that conservatives are coalescing around a national ban at 15 weeks, which could have disastrous — even fatal — consequences for pregnant people. Trump said he’d make an official announcement “at the appropriate time,” but it was very clear from his remarks on New York’s WABC talk radio that he was signaling support for a 15-week ban, with exceptions in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is endangered: The number of weeks now, people are agreeing on 15, and I’m thinking in terms of that, and it’ll come out to something that’s very reasonable. But people are really — even hard-liners are agreeing — seems to be 15 weeks, seems to be a number that people are agreeing at. What could possibly go wrong? Politically, quite a bit. Trump seems to be adopting a strategy that Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin deployed unsuccessfully last year during his state’s legislative elections. Youngkin got several GOP candidates to support a 15-week abortion ban, thinking such a ban would serve as a consensus option that Virginia voters would find reasonable. But he was wrong. Very wrong. When all was said and done, Virginia Democrats held the state Senate and flipped the House of Delegates in their favor, dashing Youngkin’s hopes of imposing a decidedly conservative agenda. And with their anti-abortion extremism, Republicans may be headed toward a similar scenario at the national level. After Youngkin’s endorsees took a bath, The 19th’s Mel Leonor Barclay and Shefali Luthra warned about this possibility: Republicans’ stunning flop in Virginia suggests that even a 15-week ban — compared with the total bans many GOP-run states have adopted — may turn off a broad coalition of voters who are wary of government restrictions on the procedure. Heading into 2024, coalescing around abortion restrictions at that point in pregnancy may not insulate the party from an issue that has become its Achilles heel. Trump has wedded himself to ultraconservative white evangelicals who staunchly oppose abortion access — and have for decades. And this is one (extremely cruel and draconian) way of satisfying those MAGA loyalists. That said, his seeming embrace of a 15-week abortion ban has all the markings of a hubristic man who believes himself to be a consummate deal-maker. Ever since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago, efforts to restrict abortion access have cost Republicans in crucial elections across the country. Trump is now increasing the odds that we’ll be able to add his presidential bid to the list. Just ask Glenn Youngkin.

New bipartisan bill would require online identification, labeling of AI-generated videos and audio 2024-03-21 19:14:07+00:00 - WASHINGTON (AP) — Bipartisan legislation introduced in the House Thursday would require the identification and labeling of online images, videos and audio generated using artificial intelligence, the latest effort to rein in rapidly developing technologies that, if misused, could easily deceive and mislead. So-called deepfakes created by artificial intelligence can be hard or even impossible to tell from the real thing. AI has already been used to mimic President Joe Biden’s voice, exploit the likenesses of celebrities and impersonate world leaders, prompting fears it could lead to greater misinformation, sexual exploitation, consumer scams and a widespread loss of trust. Key provisions in the legislation would require AI developers to identify content created using their products with digital watermarks or metadata, similar to how photo metadata records the location, time and settings of a picture. Online platforms like TikTok, YouTube or Facebook would then be required to label the content in a way that would notify users. Final details of the proposed rules would be crafted by the Federal Trade Commission based on input from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a small agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce. Violators of the proposed rule would be subject to civil lawsuits. “We’ve seen so many examples already, whether it’s voice manipulation or a video deepfake. I think the American people deserve to know whether something is a deepfake or not,” said Rep. Anna Eshoo, a Democrat who represents part of California’s Silicon Valley. Eshoo co-sponsored the bill with Republican Rep. Neal Dunn of Florida. “To me, the whole issue of deepfakes stands out like a sore thumb. It needs to be addressed, and in my view the sooner we do it the better.” If passed, the bill would complement voluntary commitments by tech companies as well as an executive order on AI signed by Biden last fall that directed NIST and other federal agencies to set guidelines for AI products. That order also required AI developers to submit information about their product’s risks. Eshoo’s bill is one of a few proposals put forward to address concerns about the risks posed by AI, worries shared by members of both parties. Many say they support regulation that would protect citizens while also ensuring that a rapidly growing field can continue to develop in ways that benefit a long list of industries like health care and education. The bill will now be considered by lawmakers, who likely won’t be able to pass any meaningful rules for AI in time for them to take effect before the 2024 election. “The rise of innovation in the world of artificial intelligence is exciting; however, it has potential to do some major harm if left in the wrong hands,” Dunn said in a statement announcing the legislation. Requiring the identification of deepfakes, he said, is a “simple safeguard” that would benefit consumers, children and national security. Several organizations that have advocated for greater safeguards on AI said the bill introduced Thursday represented progress. So did some AI developers, like Margaret Mitchell, chief AI ethics scientist at Hugging Face, which has created a ChatGPT rival called Bloom. Mitchell said the bill’s focus on embedding identifiers in AI content — known as watermarking — will “help the public gain control over the role of generated content in our society.” “We are entering a world where it is becoming unclear which content is created by AI systems, and impossible to know where different AI-generated content came from,” she said.

Nationwide members deserve a vote on Virgin deal – but won’t get one | Nils Pratley 2024-03-21 19:06:00+00:00 - Should the members of Nationwide be allowed to vote on their building society’s £2.9bn acquisition of Virgin Money? Well, of course they should. The concept of mutual ownership can be fuzzy around the edges, but a deal that will expand the society’s assets by about a third is precisely the sort of transaction where the members should have the final say. Indeed, you’d hope the Nationwide’s board would see the sense of checking that the owners are up for the adventure. The Virgin deal is more than an add-on (even before one adds to the headline price the £250m that Sir Richard Branson will get as an exit fee for the brand licence). It is not an everyday piece of business. The cries of outrage about the lack of a vote by members are understandable. Here’s the practical problem, though: even if Nationwide’s directors were sticklers for democratic governance, it’s hard to see how they could make a vote happen under current rules. The main problem is the 1986 Building Societies Act, which doesn’t require a society to hold a vote if it is buying a business that looks roughly like its own. Virgin fits the description. It has a sideline in business banking, which is one of the attractions for the acquirer’s board, but 90% of its assets are residential mortgages, which is what Nationwide does. Special votes under the law are reserved for life-or-death matters such as demutualisation, which Nationwide obviously isn’t proposing. Could Nationwide hold a vote on the deal regardless? That’s where another obstacle arises in the form of the Takeover Panel, which oversees bids for listed companies and sensibly looks to protect a target’s shareholders from time-wasters, chancers and all manner of uncertainties. If a bidder makes a firm offer, it’s meant to be on the hook. Rule 13 of the Takeover Code seems critical: a bidder cannot insert conditions into an offer that “depend solely on subjective judgments”. Since Nationwide is not required by law to hold a binding poll of its members, doing so would probably be deemed “subjective” – the bidder’s board would be doing something it doesn’t have to do. It would be different if the 1986 act required a vote, but it doesn’t. Nationwide, it should be said, hasn’t done itself any favours in the way it’s handled the democracy question. If your 140-year-old pitch is that mutuality means a bigger say for members – meaning the account-holders, savers and borrowers – it should have been obvious that the absence of a vote would cause a fuss. Kevin Parry, its chair, said Thursday’s binding offer was made “after taking comments from members into account”, but a limited sample of opinion is not a substitute for a binding vote. The bottom line, though, is still the same: the board’s hands look to have been tied, genuinely, by that 1986 act. There is no way around it this time. An advisory vote, as some have suggested, would be meaningless. The only real answer is to change the law for future cases. Back in 1986, building societies weren’t in the business of buying listed banks, and so the possibility probably wasn’t considered. That Nationwide has reached the point of being able to do £3bn takeovers is a tribute to its success. It has done an admirable job as champion-in-chief of mutuality, which is why one hopes it hasn’t underestimated the technical challenge of integrating Virgin. The banking jungle needs the biodiversity that building societies provide. skip past newsletter promotion Sign up to Business Today Free daily newsletter Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy . We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. after newsletter promotion Last year’s benefits at Nationwide included £100 straight into the accounts of 3.4 million eligible members under its “fairer share” policy. It is a different beast from banks. But the rules need to keep up to protect that difference. By rights, the members should be voting on the Virgin deal.

How much money did Shohei Ohtani's interpreter earn before being fired? 2024-03-21 18:58:00+00:00 - These are the 10 biggest sports contracts of all time Attorneys for Major League Baseball star Shohei Ohtani are alleging that his longtime interpreter stole millions from the Los Angeles Dodgers player, despite earning a hefty salary himself. Ippei Mizuhara, 39, who has been standing alongside Ohtani for the entirety of 29-year-old phenom's six years in MLB, was paid up to half a million dollars a year to serve as an English translator for the native Japanese speaker, before being fired Wednesday, according to ESPN. Mizuhara told ESPN he has been paid between $300,000 and $500,000 annually, according to the sports outlet's report. Born in Japan, Mizuhara was raised in Southern California and graduated from the University of California, Riverside in 2007. Mizuhara did not immediately respond to CBS MoneyWatch's request for comment on his salary. While a new job listing has not been posted, prospective replacements for Mizuhara have already inundated the Dodgers with applications to fill the empty interpreter role, according to The Washington Post. Neither the MLB nor the Dodgers could be reached for comment. Ippei Mizuhara had worked as Shohei Ohtani's interpreter for the entirety of the superstar's MLB career before being fired. Getty Images Interpreters have become increasingly necessary in MLB as teams recruit more players from Japan, who often don't have teammates or coaches they can communicate with in their native tongue. Interpreters can also double as personal assistants, carrying out duties that are unrelated to baseball or action on the field. "I'm with him all offseason, too. I'm with him 365 days of the year, which I think is different than the other interpreters," Mizuhara once told The Athletic. When he was employed, Mizuhara was more generously compensated than the average interpreter, including those who work in the hospitality and medical fields. The average pay for interpreters and translators in 2022 was $53,640 per year or $25.79 per hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Dollar Tree is closing 1,000 stores, including 600 Family Dollar locations in 2024. Here's where. 2024-03-21 18:52:00+00:00 - What happened to Dollar Tree? Retailer closing 1,000 stores What happened to Dollar Tree? Retailer closing 1,000 stores 03:43 Dollar Tree announced that it is closing nearly 1,000 stores amid flagging sales, including 600 of its Family Dollar store locations in 2024. The discount retailer also plans to close an additional 370 Family Dollars, plus 30 Dollar Tree stores over the next few years, at the end of their leases. In total, the planned closures represent about 15% of its Family Dollar locations. The retailer's family of brands has struggled as inflation impacts its low-income shoppers' wallets. More customers are shopping around and comparing prices at competing retailers to ensure they are getting the best deal, while more incidences of shoplifting are also hurting its bottom line, the retailer has said. The closures could hit some communities hard, according to Dominick Miserandino of RetailWire. "They might be the only store that serves the entire community in this area," Miserandino told CBS News. "They might have been one of the few jobs in the community." He added, "These communities are dependent on these stores." Dollar Tree, which acquired Family Dollar for more than $8 billion nearly a decade ago, has not released a comprehensive list of the locations it is closing. The company didn't return requests for comment. Here is a list of Family Dollar stores that are known to be closing so far. Peoria, Illinois: Two Family Dollar stores in Peoria, Illinois are preparing to close their doors for good, according to the Peoria Journal Star. Banners on their exteriors indicate that they're going out of business and that "everything must be sold." Two Family Dollar stores in Peoria, Illinois are preparing to close their doors for good, according to the Peoria Journal Star. Banners on their exteriors indicate that they're going out of business and that "everything must be sold." Humansville, Missouri: The Family Dollar store in Humansville, Missouri, will shutter its doors, according to a KY3 report. A sign on the store's door indicates the company is closing the location and urged customers to visit stores in Stockton and El Dorado instead. The store is reportedly slashing prices further to clear out inventory. The Family Dollar store in Humansville, Missouri, will shutter its doors, according to a KY3 report. A sign on the store's door indicates the company is closing the location and urged customers to visit stores in Stockton and El Dorado instead. The store is reportedly slashing prices further to clear out inventory. Willow Springs, Missouri: A Family Dollar store in Willow Springs, also in Missouri, will close, according to a local news report. Cashiers at the store confirmed the closure to Howell County News. Merchandise is being discounted by up to 90%, according to the report. A Family Dollar store in Willow Springs, also in Missouri, will close, according to a local news report. Cashiers at the store confirmed the closure to Howell County News. Merchandise is being discounted by up to 90%, according to the report. Middletown, New Jersey: A broad banner on the front of a Family Dollar store at the Eastpointe shopping center in Middletown, New Jersey hangs to let customers now it's their last chance to shop there, according to the Asbury Park Press. A broad banner on the front of a Family Dollar store at the Eastpointe shopping center in Middletown, New Jersey hangs to let customers now it's their last chance to shop there, according to the Asbury Park Press. Wilmington, North Carolina: Two Family Dollar locations in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Greenfield Street and Carolina Beach Road, are closing, according to WECT6. Employees at the stores said they haven't been told when the closing date yet, however. Two Family Dollar locations in Wilmington, North Carolina, on Greenfield Street and Carolina Beach Road, are closing, according to WECT6. Employees at the stores said they haven't been told when the closing date yet, however. Lynchburg, Virginia: Two Family Dollar stores in Lynchburg, Virginia are closing, according to WSET. The stores are located on Campbell Avenue and Federal Street.

WeightWatchers CEO apologizes to body positivity influencer after Oprah Winfrey special on weight loss drugs 2024-03-21 18:50:00+00:00 - The CEO of WW, the weight loss company also known as WeightWatchers, apologized to a body positivity advocate for the company's role in contributing to "toxic" diet culture in the past. On Wednesday, WW CEO Sima Sistani posted an Instagram story video directly addressing influencer Katie Sturino, author of “Body Talk: How to Embrace Your Body and Start Living Your Best Life” and founder of Megababe Beauty. Sturino, who has built a following of more than 802,000 on Instagram, had posted her "unfiltered thoughts" about “An Oprah Special: Shame, Blame and the Weight Loss Revolution," which aired on ABC on Monday. Oprah Winfrey, who served as a member of the WW board for almost a decade, used the program to discuss the impact of anti-obesity medications after confirming in December that she takes one herself. Sistani, who has served as WW's CEO since 2022, was among those present for the special's taping. The company announced last year that it would offer prescription weight-loss drugs and launched a new membership plan for members taking GLP-1 prescriptions drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy. “Speaking of WeightWatchers, they had the CEO of WeightWatchers on the program for like 30 seconds last night and she got so close to apologizing on behalf of WeightWatchers,” Sturino said in her video. “She got so close to saying, 'We really got this wrong and we’re sorry for saying it was just willpower, or that like one body is worse than the other, and we’re sorry for all the toxic things we put into diet culture.'” Sistani said that she saw Sturino’s message and "couldn't stop thinking about what she posted," which she described as "a really brave discussion about Oprah’s special on ABC." “And she noted that I participated and that I came this close to apologizing," Sistani said. "Katie, I want you to know I am sorry.” "Part of that is acknowledging the past where we played any part in the shame that people carry with them, and, so, Katie, thank you for engaging in this discussion so productively," she added. She also addressed "every Katie whose out there who hasn’t heard this message," saying "it is important for me that you hear it because we can only start to hope for advocacy and health equity when we address our internalized bias.” During Winfrey's special, Sistani was asked to discuss WW's past. She said the company previously focused on behaviors, but didn't take into account the role biology plays for some people when it comes to weight loss. “For all those people who took on the behavior change, some of them walked away without the success,” Sistani said during the special. “And to those people, I want to say it’s not your fault.” In a Zoom interview with NBC News on Thursday, Sturino said that she was "completely shocked" by the apology, but called it "a really powerful thing." Nothing about this conversation is perfect, but at least we’re trying to have it in a civil way, because it’s a really complicated conversation — the topics of weight loss, drugs, and diet culture. -katie sturino, in a zoom interview with nbc news "I just feel so grateful that I am in this position, especially because there’s been so much conversation about how body positivity is over and how this is just the Ozempic age and it’s all about being thin," she said. "I feel so good to be able to engage with someone like WeightWatchers and then bring relief, a slight relief, to so many people together." In regard to conversations surrounding weight loss that are happening across platforms right now, Sturino said "there’s a lot of power in being vulnerable right now on the internet." "Nothing about this conversation is perfect, but at least we’re trying to have it in a civil way, because it’s a really complicated conversation — the topics of weight loss, drugs, and diet culture," she said. Sturino also shared her emotional reaction to Sistani’s apology in an Instagram video Thursday. “Does this make up for all of the damage done? No. But to me, it felt like a real win for our community,” Sturino wrote in the caption. “Acknowledgment I don’t think I ever thought would come.” A spokesperson for Winfrey and a spokesperson for WW did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Winfrey, who has been open about her weight loss journey for decades, announced in February that she would leave the board of directors of WW. During her one-hour program, Winfrey got emotional when sharing that she “starved” herself on a "liquid diet" for five months before she showcased a wagon of fat on her talk show in 1988. The mogul elaborated on why she wanted to tackle a special on weight loss drugs while chatting with Gayle King and Charles Barkley on CNN’s “King Charles." “If you feel like being in a bigger body is great, and you don’t want to do anything about that, and you feel fine, that is beautiful. I really admire people who really believe that,” Winfrey said. “Whatever works for you. One of the reasons I wanted to do [the special] is [to] let people make their own choices for their health and well-being.”

Reddit pops 48% in NYSE debut after selling shares at top of range 2024-03-21 18:49:00+00:00 - Reddit shares jumped 48% in their debut on Thursday in the first initial public offering for a major social media company since Pinterest hit the market in 2019. The 19-year-old website that hosts millions of online forums priced its IPO on Wednesday at $34 a share, the top of the expected range. Reddit and selling shareholders raised about $750 million from the offering, with the company collecting about $519 million. The stock opened at $47 and reached a high of $57.80, marking a 70% increase at its peak for the day. It closed at $50.44, giving the company a market cap of about $9.5 billion. Trading under the ticker symbol “RDDT,” Reddit is testing investor appetite for new tech stocks after an extended dry spell for IPOs. Since the peak of the technology boom in late 2021, hardly any venture-backed tech companies have gone public and those that have — like Instacart and Klaviyo last year — have underwhelmed. On Wednesday, data center hardware company Astera Labs made its public market debut on Nasdaq and saw its shares soar 72%, underscoring investor excitement over businesses tied to the surge in artificial intelligence. At its IPO price, Reddit was valued at about $6.5 billion, a haircut from the company’s private market valuation of $10 billion in 2021, which was a boom year for the tech industry. The mood changed in 2022, as rising interest rates and soaring inflation pushed investors out of high-risk assets. Startups responded by conducting layoffs, trimming their valuations and shifting their focus to profit over growth. Reddit’s annual sales for 2023 rose 20% to $804 million from $666.7 million a year earlier, the company detailed in its prospectus. The company recorded a net loss of $90.8 million last year, narrower than its loss of $158.6 million in 2022. Based on its revenue over the past four quarters, Reddit’s market cap at IPO gave it a price-to-sales ratio of about 8. Alphabet trades for 6.1 times revenue, Meta has a multiple of 9.7, Pinterest’s sits at 7.5 and Snap trades for 3.9 times sales, according to FactSet. In addition to those companies, Reddit also counts X, Discord, Wikipedia and Amazon’s Twitch streaming service as competitors in its prospectus. Reddit is betting that data licensing could become a major source of revenue, and said in its filing that it’s entered “certain data licensing arrangements with an aggregate contract value of $203.0 million and terms ranging from two to three years.” This year, Reddit said it plans to recognize roughly $66.4 million in revenue as part of its data licensing deals. Google has also entered into an expanded partnership with Reddit, allowing the search giant to obtain more access to Reddit data to train AI models and improve its products. Reddit revealed on March 15 that the Federal Trade Commission is conducting a nonpublic inquiry “focused on our sale, licensing, or sharing of user-generated content with third parties to train AI models.” Reddit said it was “not surprised that the FTC has expressed interest” in the company’s data licensing practices related to AI, and that it doesn’t believe that it has “engaged in any unfair or deceptive trade practice.” Reddit was founded in 2005 by technology entrepreneurs Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman, the company’s CEO. Existing stakeholders, including Huffman, sold a combined 6.7 million shares in the IPO. As part of the IPO, Reddit gave some of its top moderators and users, known as Redditors, a chance to buy stock through a directed-share program. Companies like Airbnb, Doximity and Rivian have used similar programs to reward their power users and customers. “I hope they believe in Reddit and support Reddit,” Huffman told CNBC in an interview on Thursday. “But the goal is just to get them in the deal. Just like any professional investor.” Redditors have expressed skepticism about the IPO, both because of the company’s financials and its often troubled relationship with moderators. Huffman said he recognizes that reality and acknowledged the controversial subreddit Wallstreetbets, which helped spawn the surge in meme stocks like GameStop. “That’s the beautiful thing about Reddit, is that they tell it like it is,” Huffman said. “But you have to remember they’re doing that on Reddit. It’s a platform they love, it’s their home on the internet.” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is one of Reddit’s major shareholders along with Tencent and Advance Magazine Publishers, the parent company of publishing giant Condé Nast. Altman’s stake in the company was worth over $400 million before the stock began trading. Altman led a $50 million funding round into Reddit in 2014 and was a member of its board from 2015 through 2022.

The ex-Democrat catching Trump's and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s eyes 2024-03-21 18:47:00+00:00 - Tulsi Gabbard wanted to be president. Now she wants to be vice president. And while that’s hardly unusual, the paths — plural — she’s considering to get there are. Neither involve the Democratic Party, which Gabbard used to represent until she left it in 2022. The four-term former member of Congress from Hawaii is now getting consideration for both former President Donald Trump’s and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s tickets, two sources familiar with the candidates’ deliberations told NBC News. It’s a remarkable turnaround for the onetime progressive rising star, who within the span of eight years has gone from supporting Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign to running for the Democratic presidential nomination herself in 2020, eventually endorsing President Joe Biden, before then gravitating to the right and becoming a regular conservative media personality and conference speaker. More so, it’s exceedingly rare for a politician to attract interest from more than one presidential ticket or party. (Ahead of the 1952 election, Democrats and Republicans led dueling efforts to draft another politically ambiguous veteran, Dwight Eisenhower, the former supreme Allied commander in Europe during World War II, for the presidential race.) But Gabbard’s 2024 possibilities are not fully in her control, nor are they both equally likely. As one source said, Gabbard would be more likely to seriously consider running as Kennedy’s vice presidential nominee had she not been swept up by the possibility of serving with Trump. This person said Gabbard “was enticed” by the chance of serving on Kennedy’s ticket but is now focused on the possibility that Trump will select her. “My understanding is that Tulsi is convinced that Trump is going to pick her,” this person said. “Had that not been the case, she probably would have gone with Kennedy.” Trump allies and insiders say that while she may be getting a look from the former president, she’s an unlikely choice at best, though she could still land another role in the campaign or in a potential future administration. Some on the right have floated her for defense secretary or another national security post. She was one of the only Democrats who met with Trump during his transition in 2016, as he was interviewing people for posts in his administration. “I think most people on team Trump view her as someone who ultimately won’t be picked as VP, but could end up with a different role when all is said and done,” a Trump-world adviser said. While Gabbard does have some positives that would appeal to Trump on a prospective ticket — including having taken positions on both sides of the abortion rights battle and generated a viral debate moment against then-Sen. Kamala Harris — a person familiar with Trump’s private discussions said a major strike against her is that she’s previously sought the presidency herself. That person said “there’s a very specific calculus that’s going into” the vice presidential selection process, noting Trump doesn’t want to anoint someone with their own presidential ambitions who might be seen as his successor. On the possibility Gabbard is picked, this person said: “Everyone is trying to get their PR right now.” ‘Quite a leap’ Both Trump and Kennedy have made public their interest in Gabbard, 42, within the past month. And it comes as Gabbard raises her own profile. She has a brand-new book — subtitle: “Leave the Democrat Party Behind” — with Kennedy’s book publisher, who is also the chairman of the main super PAC supporting him. And she created a new leadership PAC, registered using a GOP treasurer and bank. A person familiar with the event told NBC News that Kennedy met with Gabbard while campaigning in Hawaii in mid-January, and she has been on the public list of names the campaign has put forward of possible running mates. Meanwhile, during a Fox News town hall in South Carolina in late February, host Laura Ingraham rattled off a list of possible VP picks that included Gabbard. “All of those people are good — they’re all solid,” Trump said. Mark Longabaugh, a former top Sanders strategist who worked with Gabbard when she was a leading surrogate for his 2016 presidential campaign — Sanders gave her the honor of being the one to formally nominate him at the Democratic National Convention — said Gabbard’s political evolution is “quite a leap.” He believes she’d be a better fit ideologically for Kennedy than for Trump, though he noted both Gabbard and Trump have taken contradictory positions on multiple issues over their careers. “Maybe she is a perfect match for Trump,” he said. “Trump has no convictions. So it’d be the ‘no convictions ticket.’” The former congresswoman has expressed in multiple interviews that she would be interested in serving as Trump’s vice president, including on Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast. “I would be open to that,” she told Fox News host Jesse Watters when asked this month about serving as Trump’s running mate. Gabbard has fielded the question in recent interviews with conservative media personalities, but responding to a request for comment from NBC News, a Gabbard spokesperson described questions about her interest in serving as a running mate for either Trump or Kennedy as “based on speculation, gossip and hypotheticals.” “Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard believes these questions to be premature,” said Erika Tsuji, who was also the communications director for Gabbard’s 2020 campaign. “She’d be happy to take a rain check if things move from speculation into reality.” Trump’s campaign declined to comment. Kennedy’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment. Gabbard has also kept a toe in Libertarian politics, appearing at New Hampshire Liberty Forum over the weekend. The party’s national chairwoman, Angela McArdle, said there have been no talks about her running for president or vice president via that party. “We hope to maintain a good relationship with her, though,” McArdle added. Gabbard’s evolution Gabbard fit in well with the Democratic Party’s anti-war left flank and was enough of a team player with its mainstream to be called a “role model” by party elders and earn a position as a vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. She resigned that position in 2016 to endorse Sanders and his claims that the DNC had rigged the primary against him. But since her 2020 Democratic presidential run, Gabbard has veered. She now calls herself a political independent but otherwise “sounds more and more like a Trump supporter,” as Boston conservative radio host Jeff Kuhner put it — approvingly — in an interview with Gabbard last week. Now, Gabbard gives speeches at Mar-a-Lago and the Conservative Political Action Conference and has guest hosted for Tucker Carlson. She’s a regular on conservative and anti-establishment media, from the Fox News prime-time lineup to Joe Rogan’s podcast, and she has hosted her own podcast, with episode titles like “‘Woke’ Gender Lies, Child Abuse, and Mutilation” and “2nd Amendment: Why our right ‘shall not be infringed.’” And Gabbard has spoken with Trump and top advisers on foreign and military affairs, The Washington Post reported in February. She’s long been known as an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy, military intervention overseas and aid to Ukraine. Years ago, her opposition to U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war that saw her meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Trump has even publicly defended her from critics in her former party: “She’s not a Russian agent,” he said in 2019. Still, Gabbard — who has been criticized for ties to Hindu nationalists and using allegedly Islamophobic rhetoric — supports Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip and opposes a cease-fire, saying last month, “You cannot achieve peace without the defeat of Hamas.” Gabbard is so recently removed from the Democratic Party that she was still on Harris’ Christmas card mailing list last year, she said in a recent interview. But she now says her old party is “under the control of this elite cabal of woke warmongers” and “is unrecognizable” from the one she knew. “We cannot allow Joe Biden to be re-elected. Period,” she told Kuhner. “Otherwise, I am sincerely and deeply concerned, if the Biden-Harris administration or any of the other Democrats are allowed to remain in power, we will not be able to get these freedoms back.” She has downplayed the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, telling Carlson it had been “politicized” and “sensationalized” by the media and Democrats to “achieve their own political interests.” Matt Kibbe, a libertarian activist and president of Free the People, said Gabbard’s political evolution is authentic and shows she’s a political disrupter. “Some of the most interesting people in politics today are people who come from the left who have been sort of shocked” by fights over disinformation and censorship online as well as Covid lockdowns, he added. While she won’t say if she plans to vote for Trump, she clearly thinks he would be preferable to Biden. Often pressed on her wholesale political conversion, Gabbard’s explanation is almost always the same: The Democrats lost their way and overreached, which led her to realize she was on the wrong team. Her father, Mike Gabbard, is a longtime state senator in Hawaii who switched parties himself, moving from the GOP to the Democratic side of the aisle, and rose to prominence for his opposition to same-sex marriage. She has made big shifts before: The younger Gabbard supported his efforts closely before apologizing for her anti-gay advocacy in 2012 and again amid her presidential campaign. Her shift has concerned some new ideological allies, and her critics on the right have been resurfacing old comments, including when she said it would be a “disaster” for Trump and Republicans to control Washington; called Trump, who was president at the time, “Saudi Arabia’s b----”; and touted her 100% rating on abortion rights from Planned Parenthood Action Fund. But there’s a reason Gabbard is seen as a star by various people across the political spectrum, Longabaugh said. “She’s articulate, she’s a good public speaker, she showed at that moment in that [Democratic presidential] debate that she could do a takedown — whether she made a good case for herself is another matter,” Longabaugh said. “Takedowns are kind of Trump’s brand. So if he was just looking for an aggressive negative campaigner, I suppose she could fill that bill.”

UAE-backed bid for Telegraph group dealt fatal blow by new legislation 2024-03-21 18:42:00+00:00 - The UAE-backed bid for the Telegraph group appears to be dead in the water after the UK published proposed laws that ban foreign states or government officials from holding any direct stakes in newspaper assets. Foreign states and government officials will be banned from holding any direct stakes in newspaper assets – effectively dealing a death blow to the £600m bid for the Telegraph group from RedBird IMI, a consortium backed by the United Arab Emirates. Rishi Sunak’s government unveiled the legislation, which could be on the statute book within weeks, in the form of an amendment to the Enterprise Act 2002 that will effectively block foreign powers from owning UK newspaper assets. The proposed legislation expands on the current definition of “foreign powers” used in the National Security Act 2023 to ensure it covers officers of other governments acting in a private capacity and investing their private wealth. It means that foreign states cannot have any stake in a newspaper group and the definition of foreign power extends to: The head of a foreign state. A foreign government. Authorities responsible for administering the affairs of an area within a foreign country. Governing political parties. Officers of governing political parties. However, the proposed law has a narrow and specific exemption for sovereign wealth funds with a passive investment below a certain threshold. It deals a fatal blow to the proposed Telegraph deal by RedBird IMI, a partnership backed by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the vice-president of the UAE, and the US investment firm RedBird Capital Partners. The fund has about 75% of its backing from the UAE. The planned takeover of the Telegraph, widely seen as the house journal of the Conservative party, has been fiercely opposed by many Tory MPs and peers given the UAE’s poor record on press freedom. RedBird IMI is assessing its options but is thought to have been leaning towards a full sale of its Telegraph stake in recent days. It has not commented publicly other than to say last week it was “extremely disappointed” by the latest developments and would “evaluate our next steps, with commercial interests continuing to be the sole priority”. An auction process for the Telegraph group led by the US investment bank Goldman Sachs began last October after the failure of the owners, the Barclay family, to repay debts of £1.15bn to Lloyds Banking Group. However the auction was paused in November after RedBird IMI pledged to repay the Barclays’ debts. Since then the RedBird transaction has been held up by regulatory scrutiny. The culture, media and sport secretary, Lucy Frazer, said this week she was minded to refer the RedBird IMI deal for a detailed phase 2 investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority after she received reports from the CMA and the media regulator Ofcom this month. If an auction were to be restarted, there is likely to be no shortage of bidders. Last November, Lord Rothermere, the executive chair of the Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT), expressed interest during an interview with the Times. News UK has been among the parties that had shown interest in the Telegraph group’s Spectator magazine. Other to have expressed interest in the Telegraph last year include Sir Paul Marshall, the co-founder of the hedge fund Marshall Wace andearly backer of GB News; and National World, the group headed by David Montgomery, a former Trinity Mirror executive. The UK government, which has close economic ties to the UAE, has been keen to stress that the proposed law applies narrowly to newspaper assets. Frazer said on Tuesday there was no “double standard” in allowing Manchester City football club to be owned by an Emirati royal but opposing the Telegraph takeover, saying the two investments were “totally different”. She told ITV’s Good Morning Britain programme: “We believe in this country in the free press. The media’s job is to hold power to account and it’s, therefore, inappropriate for the UK government to own a newspaper and it’s, therefore, also inappropriate for a foreign state to own a newspaper. “But we are very much open for business in terms of foreign investment in other spheres, like football.” The proposed legislation means that in future, media merger cases would be referred to the CMA through a new foreign state intervention notice where there are reasonable grounds to believe the merger has given, or would give, a foreign state or a body connected to a foreign state, ownership, influence or control of a UK newspaper or news magazine. The CMA would then be obliged to investigate the possible merger and, if it concludes the merger would result in foreign state ownership, then ministers would be required by statute to make an order blocking or unwinding the merger.

A Little-Known Way That Trump Could Raise Money to Pay His Legal Bills 2024-03-21 18:41:00+00:00 - Shares of former President Donald J. Trump’s social media company could start trading on the stock market as early as Monday, immediately raising his net worth by around $3 billion — wealth that Mr. Trump may be able to tap to pay his mounting legal bills as he seeks a second presidential term. Mr. Trump urgently needs to come up with cash by Monday to cover a $454 million penalty imposed by a New York judge, who found that he had fraudulently inflated the value of his real estate properties in dealings with banks. This week, he asked an appeals court to pause the judgment or accept a much smaller bond. Last year, one of his political action committees spent $50 million on legal bills. The imminent public debut of Trump Media & Technology Group — the parent company of the Truth Social digital platform — could provide Mr. Trump a way to raise cash, but it won’t be straightforward. Trump Media is going public by merging with a publicly traded shell company called Digital World Acquisition Corporation. Shareholders of Digital World are expected to approve the merger on Friday after years of delay caused by regulatory and criminal investigations that came close to derailing it.

John Eastman is strapped for cash and begging right-wing Christians for money 2024-03-21 18:39:56+00:00 - Donald Trump’s coup-plotting associates are going through some things, as he might say. Several of the people who were tapped to carry out Trump’s plan to overturn the 2020 election and stay in power have run into financial and/or legal trouble ever since. That includes Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who’s facing criminal charges and civil litigation for his role in the scheme; Trump campaign lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, who pleaded guilty to a felony in Georgia's 2020 election interference case and may have withheld information from other investigators; and Peter Navarro, who went to prison this week over contempt charges relating to the federal Jan. 6 probe. And then there's former Trump campaign lawyer John Eastman, who’s defending himself against criminal charges in Georgia and potential disbarment in California for his alleged role in devising and executing the coup plot. He’s also an unindicted co-conspirator in the federal Jan. 6 case against Trump, and special counsel Jack Smith’s office was reportedly still focused on Eastman as of late last year. Oh, and he already abruptly retired from his job as a law professor at a California university amid the controversy. (In an August statement, Eastman's legal team called Smith's indictment a "misleading presentation of the record" that was intended "to cast ominous aspersions" on Trump's "close advisors.") Given all that, Eastman appears to be in dire financial straits, and according to Right Wing Watch, has been portraying himself as a Christian nationalist hero to grift off of the MAGA movement’s most religious supporters. The outlet reports that Eastman appeared virtually Monday at an event held by the Salt and Light Council, a Christian nationalist organization that promotes “biblical citizenship.” At the event, Eastman made several self-aggrandizing remarks portraying himself as a Christian holy warrior who’d been “cast in the forefront of this battle” against “tyranny.” And then, of course, there was his pitch: During his Salt and Light presentation, Eastman promoted his page on the Christian crowdfunding site GiveSendGo, where people have contributed more than $630,000 to his legal defense fund so far. He said he’s “about a million in the hole beyond that right now,” adding that he thinks his total legal costs will run between $3 million and $3.5 million. For the unaware, GiveSendGo is a crowdfunding site popular among neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists. And Eastman, one of the most recognizable figures on the platform, is basically using it to pass around the collection plate hoping to shake loose some donations … in Jesus’ name. The fact that he has to ask for the money in the first place underscores the precarious financial situations Trump and many of his allies — particularly, lawyers such as Giuliani and Eastman — have created for themselves by backing dubious election schemes. Eastman clearly isn’t breaking the mold in his response, either. In fact, he seems to have perfected a Trumpian routine: get into trouble, drape yourself in the Bible, and hope your followers are too blinded by the “light” to see the obvious grift.