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How to Use Options Collars to Hedge Your Stock Gains 2024-03-06 19:18:00+00:00 - The stock bull market seems to make new highs every week. You'll probably want to protect some of those profits if you rode the market recovery since the pandemic selloff. Selling your winners would result in a capital gains tax bill, not to mention potentially missing out on future gains. Instead, if you're most concerned about protecting your downside, then consider using an options collar strategy. This works on any optionable stock in any stock sector in the stock market. What is an Options Collar? Of course, it does require a basic understanding of options trading. It also requires being familiar with writing a covered call. You could write a covered call to collect rent, but what happens if the market collapses and the premiums you collected don't cover the selloff? You could buy puts to hedge your gain, but that's like paying for an insurance policy every few months, which can add up. However, combining the two strategies make up the two legs of an options collar. Get Intel alerts: Sign Up Mark Cuban’s Option Collar Strategy Saves His Yahoo Shares. During the infamous 2001 dot-com Bubble, many dot-com millionaires went broke holding onto their stock as most internet stocks crashed and never recovered. In April 1999, Yahoo! acquired Broadcast.com, Mark Cuban’s internet streaming local sports broadcasting startup, for $5.7 billion in a stock transaction. Cuban received 14.6 million restricted shares of Yahoo! stock. One year later, the dot-com bubble began to burst as Yahoo! stock fell from $250 in January 2000 to under $30 by the end of the year. Since Cuban had a background in day trading, he anticipated the bubble bursting and implemented an options collar to protect his Yahoo stock during the collapse since he was restricted from selling it outright. Cuban was able to cash out his Yahoo! stake relatively unscathed, cashing out over $1 billion in proceeds afterward, while numerous internet billionaires lost their fortunes in the crash. Cuban placed an options collar selling covered call at a $205 strike price and buying puts at $85 when Yahoo! shares were trading around $95 at the time he put on the trades. The Mechanics of an Options Collar The options collar has two legs. If you are familiar with writing covered calls, the collar is just an extra step after buying a protective put. Therefore, you will first write the covered call on the stock you own and then buy a put on the same stock. The strike prices will be based on support and resistance levels. Identify the trading range. Let’s use Intel Co. NASDAQ: INTC on the daily candlestick chart. The first step is to identify a trading range. Ever since INTC's earnings gap went down, INTC has constantly peaked and fallen below the $45 area resistance. Its support levels have been held at the $42.40 level. Assuming we want to protect our profits in INTC stock, we can execute an options collar to protect us from a hard selloff for the next 31 days. It's possible to execute the options collar further out, but for example sake, we'll do 31 days of protection expiring on April 5, 2024. Putting on the Trade On March 5, 2024, INTC was trading around $43.18. To execute the options collar, we must first write a covered call with an expiration date of April 5, 2024, for leg #1. We can write the INTC $44 strike covered call for $1.50. This gives us protection down to $41.60, which is calculated as $43.10 INTC minus the $1.50 call premium. The call option also provides an additional 82 cents in potential upside if INTC closes above the $44 strike on April 5, 2024. This means if INTC rises to above $44 on expiration, we will receive an extra 88 cents per share as our positions are called away. For leg #2, we want to add protection from a much deeper selloff within the next 31 days under our $41.40 buffer price. We can buy a $42 put contract at $1.21. This means if INTC falls under $42, we are protected no matter have far it's since below $42 since the contract will rise in value. Since we use proceeds of the covered call premium of $1.50 to pay the cost of the put contract at $1.21, it leaves us 29 cents of premium leftover to keep. Possible outcomes Upon expiration, if INTC closes between $42 and $44, then we keep our INTC shares. The call option expires worthless, which means we keep the $1.50 call premium. The put option expires worthless, which means we lost the $1.21 paid for the contract. That leaves us with the original INTC shares long and a 29-cent premium profit. If INTC closes above $44, our INTC shares are called away at $44 for an 88-cent profit. We still keep the $1.50 premium minus the $1.21 paid for the put option, which expires worthless. That leaves us with a total of $1.17 in additional profits. If INTC closes below $42, we are protected on the downside as our puts rise in value. The calls expire worthless, so we keep the $1.50 premium minus the $1.21 paid for the put option. This leaves us with the original INTC shares and a 29-cent premium profit. When to Collar Stocks While we used a situation when you can protect your profits with a collar strategy, you can also use this strategy for income. When you select the right combinations of strike prices, the premium is left over as a profit, as seen in the INTC example. We will have more set-up cases in future articles so that you can apply them to your portfolio as you become more familiar with options trading.
The battle is on for Nikki Haley's supporters 2024-03-06 19:17:00+00:00 - CHARLESTON, S.C. — Nikki Haley’s campaign is over, but the fight to win over her supporters has just begun. With former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden essentially set in stone as their parties’ respective presidential nominees, the Haley voting bloc — those who previously cast ballots for Trump and those who previously cast ballots for Biden — will now have to come to terms with a choice many wished they wouldn’t have to make. And Trump and Biden’s initial pitches to these voters couldn’t sound more different. On his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote Wednesday that Haley, his former ambassador to the United Nations, “got TROUNCED” on Super Tuesday “in record setting fashion,” adding, “Much of her money came from Radical Left Democrats, as did many of her voters, almost 50%, according to the polls.” Later, he said he “would further like to invite all of the Haley supporters to join the greatest movement in the history of our Nation.” Biden, meanwhile, praised Haley in a statement for having the “courage” to run against Trump and for “speaking the truth” about her rival, expressing hope that the two “can find common ground” on a range of key issues. What’s more, a Biden campaign official told NBC News the finance teams for Biden and the Democratic National Committee have recently done outreach to Haley donors, including efforts led by Hollywood mogul and Biden national co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg. “Donald Trump made it clear he doesn’t want Nikki Haley’s supporters,” Biden said in the statement. “I want to be clear: There is a place for them in my campaign.” Nikki Haley with supporters at a campaign event at Union Station in Raleigh, N.C., on March 2. Allison Joyce / AFP - Getty Images Haley won just two contests — Vermont and Washington, D.C. — in her longshot bid to unseat Trump atop the GOP. Her coalition was bolstered by crossover voters jumping into open primaries looking to stick it to Trump. And though they made up the minority in the GOP primary, strategists on both sides acknowledged that a segment of her supporters could prove key in close battlegrounds like Pennsylvania and Michigan. “That’s the $64,000 question, right?” said David Urban, a Republican strategist who served as the architect of Trump’s winning 2016 effort in Pennsylvania, mulling over how Haley voters will break in the fall. “A third will come home for sure, a third will have to be persuaded, and a third is just never, ever, ever going to vote for Trump.” “If you get enough of the third of those [persuadable] people back in an election like Pennsylvania and Michigan and the states that are so close,” Urban added, “I think it’s important.” But Trump and his allies have hammered home the idea that Haley’s voter pool is so chock-full of Biden supporters that it’s not worth paying much time to her coalition. And polling does show a significant number of her supporters are either likely to support Biden this fall or have done so previously. NBC News exit polling on Super Tuesday showed stark divides between Trump and Haley backers on key questions. In Virginia and North Carolina, roughly half of Haley’s supporters said they approved of Biden’s job performance as president — higher than the public as a whole. On the other hand, virtually none of Trump’s backers approved of Biden’s performance. A New York Times/Siena College poll released Saturday, which showed Trump winning a national general election match-up with Biden by 5 points, also showed nearly half of Haley’s supporters — 48% — voted for Biden in 2020, versus 31% who said they backed Trump then. And as NBC News’ Steve Kornacki wrote, Trump’s poor performance with independent voters in early GOP primaries may be more the result of “resistance”-leaning independents being motivated to participate in them than a reflection of the opinions of independent voters overall. Still, there may be a group of Haley voters now looking for a home who could prove pivotal to either candidate’s coalition — particularly voters who dislike both men or have concerns about their advanced age. A Haley-affiliated strategist said that while many of her Republican- or Democratic-leaning voters will come home to Trump or Biden, they do believe a solid number are persuadable voters both Trump and Biden can win over. This person also praised top Trump campaign aides Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles for building “a much stronger Trump operation” than he had in 2016 and 2020. “I think Biden world would be foolish to think that they can run 2020 all over again,” this person said. “This is a different Trump, this is a different Trump campaign. And they deserve all the credit in the world for the race. They ran and they beat us. Conversely, it would also be silly to ignore what is a minority but still a sizable chunk of the Republican electorate who is dissatisfied with the choice.” Over months of reporting in more than a dozen states where the former governor of South Carolina held campaign events, NBC News spoke with many Haley supporters dejected about a possible Trump-Biden rematch — yet already sure of how they would vote in that scenario. The night before Super Tuesday, Steve Mirren, a Haley supporter in Texas, talked of his disdain for Trump’s comments from the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in 2016 in which he suggested he could “grab” a woman “by the p----” because "when you're a star, they let you do it." But Mirren was more upset over Biden’s handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. David Grewe, a voter from Parker, Colorado, had the opposite take. He backed Trump in 2016 but not in 2020. “If that’s the choice I’m left with — Biden,” he said. No one seemed particularly enthusiastic. “I will not vote for Joe Biden, period,” Kay Anderson, a self-described lifelong Republican and Haley supporter from Michigan who voted for Trump in the last two presidential elections, said. “But I will be forced to, probably, vote for Donald Trump.” In Franklin, New Hampshire, Ron Brooks was initially for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis but switched to Haley. Brooks said he was disturbed by Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021, as he tried to overturn his loss to Biden. But Brooks is ready to vote for Trump this fall “if that’s what it comes down to.” “I was just hoping he wouldn’t be the nominee,” Brooks said. Where Biden and Trump go from here The Biden campaign sees Haley’s primary vote as evidence that Trump has failed to make new inroads with moderate voters since his 2020 election loss. Biden advisers point to Trump’s performance in key suburban counties in battleground Michigan, including Oakland, Washtenaw and Kent, where he fared worse in the GOP primary than he did statewide. “Donald Trump’s primary performances present a major warning sign for the GOP,” Biden campaign spokesman James Singer said in a statement. “He is weak with the voters who are going to decide this election, while these elections show an opportunity for President Biden to expand his coalition.” Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokesperson, did not offer new insights when asked how the campaign might reach out to Haley voters, instead saying ahead of Haley’s exit that GOP voters “have delivered resounding wins for President Trump in every single primary contest and this race is over.” “Our focus is now on Joe Biden and the general election,” Leavitt said. For weeks, Haley’s team has seized on Trump casting out her supporters, including when he said any donors who made contributions to Haley following his victory in New Hampshire earlier this year would be “permanently barred from the MAGA camp” — a sentiment Haley turned into campaign merchandise. At a rally in Virginia over the weekend, Trump said MAGA represents “96% and maybe 100%” of the GOP, adding, “we’re getting rid of the Romneys of the world.” “He’s pushing people out,” Olivia Perez-Cubas, a Haley spokesperson, said earlier this week. “And they’re the very people he needs to win in November.” During a Tuesday interview with Fox News, Trump declined to say whether any peace deal with Haley could be made, saying his focus “is really at this point, it’s on Biden.” “The answer is I want everybody to come together,” he said. “We’re going to have a unified party because our real opponent happens to be named Biden. … I wish Nikki the best. But she stood up and many, many times said ‘I’d never run against our president.’” In the closing days of her campaign, Haley went as far as to say she believes Trump’s legal challenges should be “dealt with” before November, that he shouldn’t be able to claim presidential immunity and that she didn’t know if he would follow the Constitution as president. And as she left the race on Wednesday, Haley did not offer him an endorsement, though she congratulated him on his wide-ranging victory. “I have always been a conservative Republican and always supported the Republican nominee,” she said before quoting former U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. “‘Never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind.’” “It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him, and I hope he does that,” Haley continued. “At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people. This is now his time for choosing.” Former Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., told NBC News though that the Haley campaign has essentially given its supporters the “permission structure” to not vote for Trump this fall — something the self-described “never Trump” former congresswoman said could spell doom for the former president this fall. “This has given a big permission structure across [her base], a lot of which won’t get back [to Trump] is the bottom line,” Comstock, who campaigned with Haley in Virginia, said. “It gives those of us who want to work on [Trump’s defeat] a much bigger canvas to work on.”
‘It won’t shift the polls’: Tory MPs rue budget that lacked pre-election pizzazz 2024-03-06 19:08:00+00:00 - Jeremy Hunt has spent weeks managing expectations over potential tax cuts in his spring budget, with Tory MPs desperately searching for ways to avoid election defeat as household finances buckle under a record tax bill and the cost of living crisis. As the chancellor’s fiscal headroom shrank in the run-up to the budget, so did his plans for spending in areas such as housing and defence, as he promised he would not “take any risks” with the British economy despite all the political pressure. Yet despite the difficult economic backdrop, he found enough money on Wednesday to offer a further 2p off national insurance, which, he said, would save the average family £900 a year when combined with the previous 2p cut announced last autumn. As possibly the Tories’ last budget before the general election, this could have been a moment for Hunt to talk directly to the country, giving voters a big electoral offer and framing the choice they face at the ballot box. But despite expectations, it felt like more of a staging-post than a jumping-off point for an election campaign – an attempt to convince the public that the Tories wouldn’t take any more risks with the economy, with just enough in it to keep a backbench rebellion at bay. “It’s not as sexy as I would’ve wanted but it gives us leeway to go further before the next election,” said one Tory MP afterwards. Another suggested that Hunt was sticking his head in the sand, saying: “This budget will not shift the polls.” “It was probably the best we could responsibly do on the day,” a third added. “He successfully hammered home the message that Labour have no plan.” Hunt’s initial 2p national insurance cut, introduced in January, didn’t move the polls and Tory MPs were sceptical the latest cut would land any differently. “It didn’t work last time round, what makes them think it will be any different this time?” one said. Many backbenchers would have preferred Hunt to announce an income tax cut, which, though more expensive, would have benefited older people and landlords as well as workers, and potentially had greater political cut-through. 00:01:17 2024 budget: Jeremy Hunt confirms 2p cut in national insurance – video As chancellor in 2022, Sunak announced that income tax would be cut from 20p to 19p this April. Others cite his pledge during the Tory leadership contest to cut the basic rate to 16p. Instead, what they got was a flash of ankle from Hunt on an ambition to abolish national insurance entirely, at some unspecified point in future, in the light of his remark that he wanted to “end the unfairness” of “double taxation”, even though this would cost about £50bn a year. After the budget, government insiders claimed that it was not intended to be a gamechanger. Few Tory MPs, already anxious about trailing so far behind in the polls, expect that it will be enough to save them at the election. The figures from the Office for Budget Responsibility did not help the fatalistic mood, showing that Hunt’s cuts had failed to prevent taxes rising to the highest level since 1948 while living standards were on course to be lower in five years than was feared last autumn. The forecasts also rely on fuel taxes rising, which has not happened since 2011, and there is no real growth in public spending per head over the next five years, with departments predicted to see real-terms budget cuts of 2.3% a year from 2024-25. Tory aides focused on one slim glimmer of light – that figures for real household disposable income were better than they were expected to be in last November’s forecast. They are hoping that the public actually start to feel better off as the year goes on. And Hunt repeatedly punched a Labour bruise in his statement: that the public still doesn’t know what a Keir Starmer government would do. “They don’t have a plan for public services,” he told jeering Labour MPs. “So why not listen to ours?” He also pinched Labour’s plan to end non-dom tax status for foreign earners – despite the Tories’ longstanding criticism of the plan, which they had previously argued would cost £350m – potentially leaving Rachel Reeves a £2bn-plus hole to be plugged in her plans. The government confirmed there would be no spending review to allocate cash to government departments until after the next election, putting off that tough decision to another day, and probably leaving it up to a future Labour government. In a round of broadcast interviews later on Wednesday afternoon, Hunt insisted that the budget was “absolutely not” the party’s last throw of a dice before an election. “We have produced a budget that shows that we are turning a corner,” he added. Yet few of his colleagues believe they can reverse what feels like an inevitable fate – and the public appear to agree.
British Isas are a gimmick that won’t move the dial 2024-03-06 19:05:00+00:00 - It was a good week to announce a British Isa, one could argue. Another two mid-sized UK companies, the haulier Wincanton and the telecoms equipment group Spirent Communications, are falling to foreign buyers, causing fresh agonising over how the unloved UK stock market has become a bargain bin for overseas predators. A British Isa, goes the theory, will incentivise UK investors to prefer UK companies over the excitements of US tech stocks or S&P 500 tracker funds. Here’s the problem. The chancellor’s design for a British Isa could hardly be more modest. He has created a £5,000 allowance, with the same Isa tax advantages, to be invested in purely UK assets (precise definition to follow after a consultation). That’s on top of the existing £20,000 maximum, where investors are free to roam the globe. Crunch the numbers on the likely takeup of the extra £5,000, however, and the sums amount to “a rounding error,” as investment platform AJ Bell put it. Only about 800,000 people are now wealthy enough to use their £20,000 allowance in full in any year. On the generous assumption that all of those people have another £5,000 to invest, the extra cashflows into UK assets would equate to £4bn a year. That is equivalent to only 0.2% of the current £2tn-plus value of the UK stock market. 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 Even £4bn, however, will be an overestimate in practice because about a third of investments in stocks and shares Isas already go into UK assets. So, for £20,000-a-year Isa savers who allocate £5,000 to the UK without a prod, no fresh incentive to prefer UK assets has been created. They can carry on as before, just with a bigger tax perk. The radical alternative, pitched by some lobbyists, would have been to turn stocks and shares Isas into entirely UK-only affairs. That would have shifted serious money since overall Isa equity investment is worth about £35bn a year. That idea, presumably, was a non-starter for two reasons: first, it would look too much like the UK government telling people how to invest their money; and second, there would be uproar because the UK stock market has been an international laggard in performance terms. Thus the most intriguing halfway-house design for a British Isa came from the thinktank New Financial: increase the allowance to £25,000 and make 50% of it UK-only. The predecessors to Isas, personal equity plans, had a 50% UK threshold when Nigel Lawson introduced them in his 1986 budget, so Jeremy Hunt could have claimed a philosophical linkage with the Thatcherite vision of “a shareholding democracy”. He could also have argued that tax breaks for the wealthiest UK savers should have a more direct benefit for the UK economy. New Financial reckoned an extra £10bn a year could be channelled into UK equities. Instead, the chancellor opted for the formula that will have the least impact and, argue some investment platforms, will create the most administrative hassle. Since FTSE 100 companies, the most likely target for any extra investment, are in any case very international – about 75% of their collective earnings come from overseas – the flag-waving exercise looks like a gimmick. Ditching the 0.5% stamp duty on UK share purchases would have been a more obvious way to make a splash.
Dean Phillips (finally) drops out, endorses Biden 2024-03-06 18:59:09+00:00 - After months of poor performances at the polls that culminated in a string of humiliating defeats on Super Tuesday, Rep. Dean Phillips dropped out of the Democratic primary race Wednesday. In a post on X, Phillips finally acknowledged that his pitch to his party as a viable alternative to President Joe Biden's candidacy was a dud. "I ran for Congress in 2018 to resist Donald Trump, I was trapped in the Capitol in 2021 because of Donald Trump, and I ran for President in 2024 to resist Donald Trump again — because Americans were demanding an alternative, and democracy demands options," the Minnesota Democrat wrote. "But it is clear that alternative is not me," Phillips added before swiftly endorsing Biden, who he has argued for months would lose the general election against Trump. Phillips' long-shot campaign hardly registered in an election in which a Biden-Trump matchup seemed almost inevitable. Although Phillips made it clear that he believed Democrats need an alternative candidate if they want to avoid a second Trump term, his candidacy — and his seemingly haphazard campaign platform — was overwhelmingly unconvincing to voters. He won only one county in all of the state primaries, nabbing 11 votes in Cimarron County, Oklahoma, on Tuesday to Biden’s 6. He was also soundly defeated in his home state of Minnesota that night, coming in third behind Biden and “uncommitted.” Throughout it all, Phillips continued to post with whimsy. He congratulated Biden for "whooping" him in South Carolina, then congratulated the other candidates — including the "uncommitted" vote — for "demonstrating more appeal" than he had on Super Tuesday. He joked about not being a sufficiently viable contender to poll in a matchup against Trump, and he quipped that his losses at least made Biden look good. Phillips showed that he was stubborn enough to stay in the race this long and comfortable enough to post self-deprecatingly about his weak performances — to an extent that it seemed like he might not be taking his presidential bid seriously. Ultimately, nobody else did either.
DeSantis-backed 'Stop WOKE Act' smacked down by Trump appointees 2024-03-06 18:39:48+00:00 - Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ war on “woke” went too far for two judges appointed by Donald Trump, who called out the Republican's “Stop WOKE Act” for committing a grave First Amendment “sin.” Among other things, the GOP-backed law bars businesses from holding mandatory workplace trainings if they endorse viewpoints the state deems offensive, including on race and diversity. But a federal appeals court panel noted that, under the law, meetings on those same topics are allowed if they endorse state-approved views. The First Amendment doesn’t take kindly to the distinction, which Florida tried to get around by claiming that the law controls the conduct of holding such meetings — which would give the government broader authority to regulate them — rather than the speech that takes place at these meetings. But the appeals court rejected the state's semantic maneuver. “By limiting its restrictions to a list of ideas designated as offensive, the Act targets speech based on its content,” Judge Britt Grant of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote Monday. “And by barring only speech that endorses any of those ideas, it penalizes certain viewpoints—the greatest First Amendment sin.” She was joined in the unanimous ruling by another Trump appointee and a Bill Clinton appointee. “The only way to discern which mandatory trainings are prohibited is to find out whether the speaker disagrees with Florida,” Grant went on. “That is a classic—and disallowed—regulation of speech,” she wrote, calling the provision “a textbook regulation of core speech protected by the First Amendment.” To illustrate the absurdity of Florida’s position, the judge observed that, under it, the state could ban riding on a parade float if the authorities disagreed with the message on the banner, and the state could ban pulling chairs into a circle for book clubs discussing disfavored books. The First Amendment is not so easily neutered. “The First Amendment is not so easily neutered,” Grant wrote. So instead of getting to impose its views on Floridians, the state got a basic constitutional lesson — and not from some left-wing panel, either. Nonetheless, the state is reportedly contemplating appealing, which it’s free to do. In the spirit of freedom, however, I wouldn’t mandate that Florida officials instead re-read the Constitution and relevant precedents, but if this Trump-majority panel ruling is any guide, they may want to consider doing so. 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.
Jeremy Hunt gave us a hit-and-run budget. But unlike cornered chancellors past, he showed no shame | Martin Kettle 2024-03-06 18:30:00+00:00 - There is nothing, says the former chancellor Ken Clarke in his memoir, “so dead and forgotten as old budgets”. A chancellor’s budget is the product of months of Treasury work. It provides a spectacular pantomime on the day it is delivered. It appears to matter hugely at the time. But, as Clarke himself admits, most budgets are effectively forgotten within months. Jeremy Hunt’s 2024 budget, delivered on Wednesday, is unlikely to be an exception. Many of its figures can be taken with a pinch of salt. They will need to be adjusted, sometimes radically, in the months ahead. Hunt’s budget will be rapidly absorbed into the existing party battle, too. It has not changed the conversation much. Nevertheless, in one very particular and politically significant way it was genuinely memorable. What Hunt produced on Wednesday was both a distinctively Conservative budget, and a recognisably pre-election budget. But it was absolutely not a credible account of the economic and fiscal problems facing Britain or of the conditions that will shape the next financial year. Instead it felt more like the work of a party that, having once believed that it was born to rule, is now reduced to being born to wreck. Hunt’s repeated attacks on Labour – I counted at least a dozen – showed where this budget was really focused. The speech was shot through with the recognition that a Labour chancellor, Rachel Reeves, will probably be taking Hunt’s place within a few months. Hunt knows this, and so do the MPs alongside and behind him on the green benches. If and when that happens, much of what Hunt said on Wednesday will then be consigned to history. This made it the first budget speech of my lifetime whose central idea was simply to rough up the pitch as much as possible for the likely next administration. The central example of this was the tax cut in employees’ national insurance contributions. This did not go far enough for the Liz Truss wing of the Conservative party, which wants income tax cuts as well. But it was designed to wrongfoot Labour, who clearly saw it coming and quickly accepted the new cuts. Even so, although Hunt unveiled some new taxes too, on vaping for example, it still takes net income out of the Treasury’s coffers that will not now be spent on public services. Hunt went to great pains to claim he was not cutting the planned increase for next year in departmental spending. But this is a deceit. The overall tax burden, unmentioned by the chancellor at any point, will continue to rise, but the planned increase in spending for government departments is still below inflation and thus a real-terms cut. It does nothing to compensate for long years of even larger real-terms cuts. It will mean further cuts for the many departments – such as environment (climate did not rate a single mention), justice and work and pensions – whose budgets are not protected, as health and defence will be. Some of the new taxes will not come on stream next year either, let alone this year. All this is in reality being deliberately dumped on Reeves’s desk. There have been pre-election budgets in British history before in which everyone knows that the chancellor’s speech was crafted with the election in mind. Several of these have been classic election giveaways and some have been rewarded with victory at the polls. But there have also been a smaller number of budgets in which neither the chancellor, nor anyone else, has any great expectation that the political tide will be turned in the election to come. Hunt’s budget fell into this category. Yet there was one standout difference in it from the similarly fatalistic budgets of Reginald Maudling in 1964, of Denis Healey in 1979 and of Clarke in 1996, all of which were also delivered amid the expectation of an imminent change of government. Maudling and Clarke actually had decent economic stories to tell, though each could see the writing on the wall for other reasons. Healey, amid more straitened economic times and with the Callaghan government having already been defeated in a confidence vote, saw the writing too. As a result Healey explicitly avoided any tinkering or headline-grabbing measures, delivering instead what he called a “caretaker budget”. Hunt’s budget was therefore unique among cornered chancellors. Although he claimed that the economy had turned a corner, he still had a low growth, recessionary, high-tax story to tell, not a more optimistic one. He too could see the writing on the wall (support for the Conservatives was down to 20% last month in one leading poll). But, unlike the chastened Healey who, 45 years ago, apologised to the “next chancellor” for handing over a “poisoned chalice”, Hunt showed no shame. There was no avoidance of radical changes, as there had been with Healey. Instead, Hunt delivered a hit-and-run budget. This was embodied by the decision to replace non-dom tax status. When Labour proposed this very same measure two years ago, the Conservatives scoffed that it was an anti-competitive gimmick. Now the Tories have stolen their rivals’ clothes while they were bathing, as Disraeli said of his 1867 electoral reform bill. Hunt’s purpose was to make life difficult for Labour, without actually proposing a new system for non-domiciled taxpayers to put in its place. Although it is sometimes easy to take a lofty approach to budgets and to dismiss them as so much sound and fury, they do matter. They certainly matter for the Treasury, the dominant department in Whitehall and in any government, for whom budget day is not merely the supreme annual moment of its existence but also its day of maximum exposure. That makes it, as Hugo Young once pointed out, into a moment for which the Treasury does not have an alibi. Wednesday’s speech should be viewed in that light, both for the Tory party and for the Treasury itself. It felt like a moment in which neither of them showed they had learned much, repeating too many of yesterday’s failed solutions to address the problems of today. The great question hanging over Britain is whether Labour has the strategic answers that the Treasury has lacked under the Tories. Although Hunt is a different kind of Conservative from Liz Truss, his tax cuts are ultimately an attempt to apply the same non-solution to today’s macroeconomic problems. They will go down well with some MPs, some Tory activists and the Tory party’s rightwing media echo chamber. But they will not necessarily cut it with the public. And they will not re-equip Britain’s broken state institutions – or make them more productive, as Hunt put it – to carry out the tasks of which only the state is capable. To carry on this way is like relying on a cavalry charge in the nuclear age.
Alabama Bill to Protect I.V.F. Will Reopen Clinics but Curb Patient Rights 2024-03-06 18:29:17+00:00 - The Alabama legislature on Wednesday is expected to approve legislation intended to make it possible for fertility clinics in the state to reopen without the specter of crippling lawsuits. But the measure, hastily written and expected to pass by a huge bipartisan margin, does not address the legal question that led to clinic closings and set off a stormy, politically fraught national debate: Whether embryos that have been frozen and stored for possible future implantation have the legal status of human beings. The Alabama Supreme Court made such a finding last month, in the context of a claim against a Mobile clinic brought by three couples whose frozen embryos were inadvertently destroyed. The court ruled that, under Alabama law, those embryos should be regarded as people, and that the couples were entitled to punitive damages for the wrongful death of a child. Legal experts said the bill, which Governor Kay Ivey has signaled she will sign, would be the first in the country to create a legal moat around embryos, blocking lawsuits or prosecutions if they are damaged or destroyed.
Liberty University fined $14 million for Clery Act violations 2024-03-06 18:28:05+00:00 - Liberty University, the evangelical Christian institution founded by the televangelist Jerry Falwell in 1971, has been hit with an unprecedented $14 million fine after the Department of Education found that the school repeatedly violated federal campus safety laws, including in its handling of sexual assault cases. The 108-page report, released Tuesday, details Liberty's numerous violations of the Clery Act, which requires that universities participating in federal student aid programs report campus crime statistics and safety policies. The Liberty administration repeatedly punished sexual assault survivors for speaking up and for violating the student honor code — which bars premarital sex — while their assailants went unpunished, creating a "culture of silence" on campus that dissuaded victims from reporting assaults, the report said. The university also failed to notify the campus about situations that could have endangered students' safety, to collect accurate or complete crime records, and to protect whistleblowers from retaliation. Here's a sampling of the extent of Liberty's knowing violation of its safety policies, according to the report: The University did issue an Emergency Notification on March 30, 2016, in response to a credible on-campus bomb threat. At that time, the most senior officials were concerned about the attention that the notice generated and took steps to ensure that the issuance of Emergency Notifications did not become a common occurrence. At least one LUPD officer was subjected to disciplinary action for issuing the notice even though it was issued in conformity with Federal law and the institution’s published policy at the time. Following the disciplinary action, the University stopped issuing Emergency Notifications in response to crime-related threats. Liberty had marketed itself as having among the safest campuses in the nation. In a response to the Education Department's findings, the school acknowledged "numerous deficiencies that existed in the past" and said it is taking steps to address them. At the same time, the university accused the department of subjecting it to "selective and unfair treatment" and an "unprecedented and arduous process" in its review. House Republicans also pushed back against the investigation and suggested that the Education Department was singling out religious institutions. In January, Reps. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., and James Comer, R-Ky., wrote a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona saying that the department "seems to be targeting religious institutions through program reviews and fines that greatly exceed established and documented precedent." The $14 million fine is the largest settlement over violations of the Clery Act to date.
Dean Phillips ends presidential campaign and endorses Biden 2024-03-06 18:15:00+00:00 - Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota has suspended his campaign for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination, ending his long-shot bid for the White House. "I'm going to suspend my campaign and I will be, right now, endorsing President Biden because the choices are so clear," he said in a Minnesota radio interview on WCCO’s “The Chad Hartman Show.” "The alternative, Donald Trump, is a very dangerous, dangerous man," he continued. "I would simply ask and invite and encourage Haley supporters, Trump supporters, uncommitted supporters to unify behind decency and integrity." He said, "That means supporting Joe Biden, and I’m going to do that beginning right now," adding that he's going to "do everything humanly possible to ensure Joe Biden’s re-election this November because it’s that existential." Phillips, 55, launched his campaign challenging Biden in October. The three-term congressman said he had to run against the leader of his party because he argued Biden would lose to former President Donald Trump in the general election in November. “I will not sit still, I will not be quiet in the face of numbers that are so clearly saying we’re going to be facing an emergency next November,” Phillips said in his announcement during an interview with CBS News last fall. Speaking to NBC’s “Meet the Press” soon after, Phillips said, “Right now, if this election was held today, President Biden would lose, and it is an existential threat to the future of the United States of America. That will not happen under my watch.” Phillips said that he wouldn’t “demean” or “undermine” Biden, though he criticized the president’s handling of the influx of migrants at the southern border. According to his campaign website, however, Phillips’ position on the issue seemed to align with Biden’s. It said he supports “enhanced border security, a pathway to citizenship for those here now, and a streamlined process for those seeking to enter the country legally.” His views on other issues such as abortion and the economy also mirrored those of Biden’s. His decision to drop out comes after he announced in November that he wouldn’t run for re-election to his House seat representing Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District. Before Phillips entered the presidential race, a Democratic National Committee member, Ron Harris, said that he would run for Phillips’ House seat in 2024. Phillips also made clear that while he was in the race he wouldn’t run for president as an independent. The Minnesota Democrat did attract some support at the beginning of the primary season. A day before the New Hampshire primary, the state’s largest newspaper, the New Hampshire Union Leader, endorsed him for the Democratic ticket. He and GOP presidential contender Nikki Haley were competing to gain the support of the same independent or undeclared voters in the state. In the days leading up to the primary, Phillips spent time campaigning in New Hampshire, including in Nashua on Saturday, where he said Biden shouldn’t be running again — especially because he’s 81 years old. “We all know Joe Biden is a good man. I respect him,” Phillips said. “But he should have passed the torch. He should not be running again. His age, yes, his stage of life. He’s in decline. We have very serious problems, costs, chaos, challenges facing this country in this world that I think are awfully difficult for either of these two men to address.” In Rochester, New Hampshire, on Sunday, Phillips presented himself as the better candidate because he’s much younger. “Joe Biden has no relationships with this generation of new newly elected members of Congress,” he said. “He hasn’t been in the Senate for many, many years.” Phillips has served in the House since 2019 and is a member of the Bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus.
The Super Tuesday races that remain uncalled around the country 2024-03-06 17:52:00+00:00 - Most of the big Super Tuesday primaries have a clear winner at this point — but a handful of close races are still in limbo as of Wednesday morning. That includes a pair of key swing seats in the race for the House, a major proxy battle between different wings of the Republican Party, the fight over who will replace former Speaker Kevin McCarthy in the House and a number of other important races. Here’s a look at the key races around the country where the NBC News Decision Desk hasn’t yet projected a winner. This collection of notable House primaries is concentrated in California, where wide adoption of mail voting and a long post-election processing period often lead to slow counting of votes. The battleground seat California 22nd District primary Republican Rep. David Valadao’s re-election race in the Central Valley could be one of the most competitive battles in the entire House in 2024 — unless Republicans are able to shut out Democrats from making the general ballot. That’s the intrigue in this seat, where there’s no projection with half the vote in. California’s nonpartisan primary puts every candidate on the same ballot, with the top two moving on to a general election regardless of party. In this district, Valadao is leading the pack with 34% support, followed by former Democratic Assemblyman Rudy Salas at 28%, former Fresno City Councilman Chris Mathys, a Republican, at 22% and Democratic state Sen. Melissa Hurtado at 15%. Democrats knocked off Valadao in 2018, only to see him come back in 2020 and win again in 2022. But if he and Mathys are the ones who advance, Democrats won’t even get the chance to flip the seat this cycle. The safe blue and red seats North Carolina 8th District GOP primary Republican Mark Harris is running for Congress again, six years after the election following a previous congressional campaign was tossed out, with one of Harris’ consultants accused of widespread ballot fraud. At the time, Harris ultimately agreed with the decision to order a new election, but he’s now running by painting himself as the victim. In North Carolina, a first-place candidate can win a primary outright as long as they eclipse 30% of the vote — but if no candidate hits that threshold, the top two finishers move on to a runoff. Harris is currently dancing right on that line, at 30.4% support, with 97% of the expected vote in. Outside groups funded by establishment-aligned Republican megadonors have spent about $2 million against Harris, who has been backed by the political arm of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus. The winner of the GOP primary will be heavily favored to join Congress next year, given the Republican lean of the district. California 20th District primary A crowded group of predominantly Republican candidates are looking to replace former Speaker Kevin McCarthy in the House, after he resigned late last year following his ouster from the speakership. NBC News’ Decision Desk projects that Republican state Assemblyman Vince Fong — who is backed by McCarthy and former President Donald Trump, among others — will move on to the general election. But there’s no projection on his opponent yet with about half the vote. Republican Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux and Democratic teacher Marisa Wood are far and away the next highest vote-getters, meaning two very different types of general election contests are possible. Texas 32nd District Democratic primary The race to replace Democratic Rep. Colin Allred in the House, as he leaves his blue district to run for Senate, is also one that hinges on a state runoff rule. In Texas, the top two primary candidates compete in a runoff unless the first-place finisher exceeds 50% support. And state Rep. Julie Johnson sits at 50.4% of the Democratic primary vote, with 99% in. Johnson, who is backed by a handful of key progressive groups and state lawmakers, will move onto the general election and be the prohibitive favorite to win a House seat if she stays above 50%. But if not, she’ll likely slip into a runoff against Brian Williams, a trauma surgeon who has been a vocal proponent of new gun laws and has been backed by prominent gun-safety groups. California 12th District primary Democratic Rep. Barbara Lee is leaving her Bay Area seat open after making an unsuccessful Senate bid. While NBC News projects that Democrat Lateefah Simon, who sits on the Bay Area Rapid Transit board, will move on to that general election, it’s unclear who her opponent will be. Jennifer Tran, a professor at Cal State East Bay, and Alameda Council member Tony Daysog are in second and third respectively as of Wednesday morning, with just 21% of the vote in. Both of them are Democrats, meaning the deep-blue seat could see a Democrat-versus-Democrat general election. California 31st District primary This is another deep-blue district being vacated by a Democratic incumbent (this time, Rep. Grace Napolitano) — and it sparked another crowded race to replace her. With 66% of the vote in, former Democratic Rep. Gil Cisneros has a narrow lead over the field. But he’s followed closely by two Republicans, Daniel Martinez and Pedro Antonio Casas, who both sit within 2% of Cisneros as of Wednesday morning. If one of those Republicans advance, Cisneros would become an even heavier favorite in this blue-tinted Southern California district.
House passes $460 billion package of spending bills. Senate expected to act before shutdown deadline 2024-03-06 17:50:54+00:00 - WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed a $460 billion package of spending bills Wednesday that would keep money flowing to key federal agencies through the remainder of the budget year. The Senate is expected to take up the legislation before a midnight Friday shutdown deadline. Lawmakers are negotiating a second package of six bills, including defense, in an effort to have all federal agencies fully funded before a March 22 deadline. In the end, total discretionary spending set by Congress is expected to come in at about $1.66 trillion for the full entire year. A significant number of House Republicans have lined up in opposition to the spending packages, forcing House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to use an expedited process to bring the bill up for a vote. That process requires two-thirds of the House to vote for the measure for it to pass. The House passed the measure by a vote of 339-85. The nondefense spending in this year’s bills is relatively flat compared to the previous year. Supporters say that keeping that spending below the rate of inflation is tantamount to a cut, forcing agencies to be more frugal and focus manpower on top priorities. Johnson cited a 10% cut to the Environmental Protection Agency, a 7% cut to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and a 6% cut to the FBI. But many Republican lawmakers were seeking much steeper cuts and more policy victories. The House Freedom Caucus, which contains dozens of the GOP’s most conservative members, urged Republicans to vote against the first spending package and oppose the second one being negotiated. “Despite giving Democrats higher spending levels, the omnibus text released so far punts on nearly every single Republican policy priority,” the group said. Johnson countered that House Republicans have just a two-vote majority in the House while Democrats control the Senate and White House. “We have to be realistic about what we’re able to achieve,” Johnson said. Democrats staved off most of the policy riders that House Republicans sought to include in the package. For example, they beat back an effort to block new rules that expand access to the abortion pill mifepristone. Democrats also said the bill would fully fund a nutrition program for low-income women, infants and children, providing about $7 billion for what is known as the WIC program. That’s a $1 billion increase from the previous year. As part of those negotiations, House Republicans pushed to give a few states the ability to disallow the purchase of non-nutritious food, such as sugary drinks and snacks, in the food stamp program known as SNAP. The GOP’s effort was unsuccessful for now, but supporters say they’ll try again in next year’s spending bills. “The bill certainly doesn’t have everything that we may have wanted, but I am very proud to say we successfully defeated the vast majority of the extreme cuts and hundreds of harmful policy riders proposed by the House Republicans,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. House Republicans were able to achieve some policy wins, however. One provision, for example, will prevent the sale of oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to China. Another policy mandate prohibits the Justice Department from investigating parents who exercise free speech at local school board meetings. Another provision strengthens gun rights for certain veterans. Under current law, the Department of Veterans Affairs must send a beneficiary’s name to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System whenever a fiduciary is appointed to help manage someone’s benefits because they lack the mental capacity to manage their own affairs. This year’s spending package prohibits the department from transmitting that information unless a relevant judicial authority rules that the beneficiary is a danger to himself or herself, or others. Rep. Mark Takano, the top Democrat on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said a finding of mental incompetency by the VA is typically based on “very serious mental health conditions like schizophrenia and dementia.” “They wanted so badly to make sure that vulnerable veterans could access more firearms,” Takano said. “This is wrong. Lives are on the line. Veterans’ lives are on the line, and I will not agree to legislation that will cause more people’s lives to be lost to gun violence.” Republicans have argued that current VA policy deters some veterans from seeking the care and benefits they have earned. In a closed-door meeting with the House GOP, Johnson, looking to show that Republicans did get some policy wins in the negotiations, read from a news report about how Democrats were having “heartburn” about the gun provision, according to a Republican familiar with the discussion who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. The bills to fund federal agencies are more than five months past due with the budget year beginning Oct. 1. House Republicans are describing an improved process nevertheless, saying they have broken the cycle of passing all the spending bills in one massive package that lawmakers have little time to study before being asked to vote on it or risk a government shutdown. But critics of the bill, such as Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., were dismissive about how much the process really changed. The first package covers the departments of Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Interior and Transportation, among others. ____ AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report.
Boeing not providing records linked to panel blowout, says top US safety official 2024-03-06 17:43:00+00:00 - Boeing has refused to tell investigators who worked on the door plug that later blew off a jetliner during flight in January, the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Wednesday. The company also has not provided documentation about a repair job that included removing and reinstalling the panel on the Boeing 737 Max 9 – or even say whether Boeing kept records – Jennifer Homendy told a Senate committee. “It’s absurd that two months later we don’t have that,” Homendy said. “Without that information, that raises concerns about quality assurance, quality management, safety management systems” at Boeing. Lawmakers seemed stunned. “That is utterly unacceptable,” said Senator Ted Cruz. Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Boeing has been under increasing scrutiny since the 5 January incident in which a panel that plugged a space left for an extra emergency door blew off an Alaska Airlines Max 9. Pilots were able to land safely, and there were no injuries. In a preliminary report last month, the NTSB said four bolts that help keep the door plug in place were missing after the panel was removed so workers could repair nearby damaged rivets last September. The rivet repairs were done by contractors working for the Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems, but the NTSB still does not know who removed and replaced the door panel, Homendy said on Wednesday. Homendy said Boeing had a 25-member team led by a manager, but the aircraft company had declined repeated requests for their names so they can be interviewed by investigators. Security-camera footage that might have shown who removed the panel was erased and recorded more than 30 days later, she said. The Federal Aviation Administration recently gave Boeing 90 days to say how it will respond to quality-control issues raised by the agency and a panel of industry and government experts. The panel found problems in Boeing’s safety culture despite improvements made after two Max 8 jets crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people.
Palantir Stock Spikes 6% on U.S. Army TITAN Contract 2024-03-06 17:33:00+00:00 - Key Points Palantir stock opened trading on March 6, 2024, at just over $26 a share. It's the highest the stock has traded since October 2021. The company was awarded a $178 million contract from the U.S. Army for its TITAN program. Investors will get more information from Palantir's AIPCon on March 7, when the company plans to unveil over 20 new customers and partners. 5 stocks we like better than Palantir Technologies The share price of Palantir Technologies Inc. NYSE: PLTR was sharply higher in pre-market trading on March 6, 2024. The company announced it has been awarded a two-year $178 million contract from the U.S. Army for its Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN) program. These are mobile ground stations that are powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technology. The TITAN system's mission is to provide real-time actionable intelligence using AI and ML modeling that can be implemented at the tactical edge. Palantir's AIP platform will provide a best-in-class solution that will lay the foundation for a scalable, adaptable solution designed for a rapidly evolving threat environment. Get Palantir Technologies alerts: Sign Up Why Did the Army Choose Palantir? According to Akash Jain, president, Palantir USG, "This award demonstrates the Army's leadership in acquiring and fielding the emerging technologies needed to bolster U.S. defense in this era of software-defined warfare... Soldiers deserve best-in-class technology that gives them the tactical advantage on the battlefield, allowing for real-time decisions at critical speeds. Palantir is honored to support this program, to continue its partnership with the Army, and to lead a team of innovative partners to build the next generation of capabilities." Putting the Deal in Perspective In 2023, Palantir generated just over $2.25 billion in revenue. When fully paid out, this contract represents about 14% of that total. It's a nice start to the year, considering that the company reported 18% sales growth for all of last year. The contract is also a key next step in Palantir's objective to be a dominant military contractor. However, it's important to note that even with the $89 million from this contract, Palantir's projected full-year 2024 revenue of between $2.65 billion and $2.67 billion would still be short of analysts' projections of $2.8 billion. That will give the naysayers (of which there are many) something to argue against. One criticism of Palantir from its origins has been that it is overvalued among defense stocks and will need growth from the commercial side of its business to justify its current premium. However, Palantir doesn't fit neatly into the category of defense stocks or artificial intelligence stocks. It's not one of many; it's the only company that does precisely what it does. To illustrate that, you should consider that the TITAN contract wasn't the only piece of news Palantir recently reported. Palantir Plans to Demonstrate Why Seeing is Believing On Thursday, March 7, Palantir will host AIPCon, where more than 60 customers will showcase the work they've been able to accomplish with Palantir's Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP). At the event, which will also be live-streamed on YouTube, Palantir plans to announce over 20 new customers and partners that cut across many different sectors. Palantir Remains a Stock That Requires Conviction All of this news takes place two months before Palantir reports earnings in May. That will give analysts ample time to consider their outlook for PLTR stock. As Thomas Hughes recently wrote for MarketBeat, analysts' ratings must be taken with a grain of salt as they raise their price targets while maintaining an overall "Reduce" rating on the stock. Plus, institutional investors continue to buy the stock. Before you consider Palantir Technologies, you'll want to hear this. MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and Palantir Technologies wasn't on the list. While Palantir Technologies currently has a "Reduce" rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys. View The Five Stocks Here
N.T.S.B. Says Boeing Has Not Provided Key Information in 737 Max Inquiry 2024-03-06 17:21:46+00:00 - Boeing has not provided crucial information sought by the National Transportation Safety Board as it investigates what caused a door panel to come off a 737 Max 9 plane during an Alaska Airlines flight in January, the safety board’s chairwoman told a Senate panel on Wednesday. The official, Jennifer Homendy, told the Senate Commerce Committee that her agency had requested any documentation that exists regarding the opening and closing of the panel, known as a door plug, at Boeing’s factory in Renton, Wash. Ms. Homendy said the safety board had also requested the names of certain workers at the factory. Boeing has a team of 25 employees and a manager who handle doors at the Renton plant, Ms. Homendy told the Senate committee. The manager has been on medical leave and the agency had been unable to interview that person, Ms. Homendy said. She added that Boeing had not provided the safety board with the names of the other 25 employees. “It’s absurd that two months later, we don’t have that,” she said. In a statement after the hearing, Boeing said it had previously provided the safety board with “names of Boeing employees, including door specialists, who we believed would have relevant information.” The company added, “We have now provided the full list of individuals on the 737 door team, in response to a recent request.”
Off the Board Game, Onto the Digital Canvas 2024-03-06 17:14:14.681000+00:00 - The capricious churn of internet-charged culture is producing more main characters, apocrypha and relics than we can handle. Remember when the Canadian musician known as Grimes — former partner of one of the world’s most powerful men, the tech entrepreneur Elon Musk — brought a sword to the 2021 Met Gala? The image of a futurist pop star lugging a medieval blade (made from a smelted AR-15, no less) down the red carpet summed up the mystifying way contemporary culture seems to run in all directions, chasing myths both new and old. Simon Denny, an artist working in Berlin, creates sculptures, installations, videos and prints inspired by the aesthetics of tech companies. In two concurrent shows in Manhattan he has seized on omens like the blade to explore the sociopolitical fallout of the technology industry’s taste for medieval lore. In Denny’s telling, dreams of wizards and blacksmiths, dark forests and dank castles shape the newest digital realms. “Dungeon,” Denny’s fifth show with Petzel Gallery in New York, features a kind of heaving shrine to Grimes: Puffs from an automatic steamer inflate a black “Game of Thrones” T-shirt once owned by the star, installed in a Plexiglas case like a suit of armor. The sculpture is plugged into a power strip that Denny sourced from a liquidation sale at Twitter during its Musk-mandated transition to X.
New Jersey man charged with trafficking 675 SpaceX Starlink terminals 2024-03-06 16:23:00+00:00 - The Lawrence Township Police Department recovered 223 of 675 SpaceX Starlink Terminals allegedly purchased using stolen credit card numbers, the department said Tuesday. A New Jersey man was arrested on charges for allegedly trafficking 675 SpaceX Starlink terminals purchased with stolen credit card accounts or hacked Starlink billing accounts, police said Wednesday. The man, 35-year-old Kelvin Rodriguez-Moya, was stopped by police Dec. 4 while driving 223 Starlink terminals in a pickup truck and trailer after leaving a residence in Lawrence Township, New Jersey, a criminal complaint said. The terminals had shipping labels addressed to multiple different names at the same address. Lawrence Township police had been tipped off about a suspiciously large number of Starlink terminals being shipped to that home, the complaint said. Detectives then witnessed Rodriguez-Moya loading a FedEx shipment of terminals onto the truck and trailer. Rodriguez-Moya told police that he was paid $300 to drive the terminals to Newark, where he lives, for resale, according to the complaint. The total value of the 675 fraudulently purchased Starlink terminals that police subsequently learned had been shipped to the Lawrence Township address is about $400,000, police said.
Benzene, a known carcinogen, found in some popular acne products, lab says. Here's what to know. 2024-03-06 16:00:00+00:00 - A testing company says benzene, a chemical that is a known carcinogen, has been found in another commonly used product: topical acne treatments. Valisure, a Connecticut-based company that operates an analytical laboratory, issued a citizen petition to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, publicly released on Wednesday, saying it has found "high levels of benzene" in acne products containing benzoyl peroxide, including popular brands like Proactiv, Clearasil, PanOxyl and products from Estée Lauder's Clinique, Target, Walgreens and Walmart. As part of the petition, the company requests that the FDA "recall and suspend sales of benzoyl peroxide from the US market." Valisure says the high levels are a result of the benzoyl peroxide decomposing into benzene over time when combined with other substances in acne medication — not due to contamination during manufacturing. Valisure said this was particularly seen at higher temperatures in its testing. The highest levels were generated by heating samples to 37° Celsius (98.6° Fahrenheit), 50° C (122° F), and 70° C (158° F). Valisure president David Light told CBS News the company tested benzene levels at higher temperatures because the medication can be exposed to prolonged heat when in settings like a car on a hot day or a bathroom where there's steam from a shower. Valisure ran tests at various temperatures over 18 days and found some products "can form over 800 times the conditionally restricted FDA concentration limit of 2 parts per million (ppm) for benzene" in two weeks at 50° C (122° F). Benzene levels at room temperature were more modest, ranging from about 1 to 24 parts per million. CBS News has reached out to the FDA and the manufacturers of the products named in the petition for comment. Reckitt, which owns Clearasil, said in a statement that it is "confident that all Clearasil products, when used and stored as directed on their labels, are safe. The safety and quality of our products is our top priority and we work closely with regulators around the world to ensure our products are safe and effective for their intended use." "Sandoz stands behind the safety and efficacy of our products," another manufacturer said. After previous testing by Valisure found benzene in other health and beauty products, the FDA and companies including Unilever and GlaxoSmithKline challenged its findings and test methods. What does this mean for consumers? Even if Valisure's results are valid, the clinical significance is still unknown. Two of the three labs that Valisure said it used to verify its results confirmed their work to CBS News; a third has not yet replied. While health officials have confirmed that long-term exposure to high levels of benzene in the air can cause leukemia, there is no evidence so far that conventional use of these acne products increases the risk of blood disorders like that. Benzoyl peroxide has been approved for acne treatment for more than 60 years. There are also other types of acne products on the market. Yale School of Medicine dermatologist Dr. Christopher Bunick told CBS News that acne treatments with active ingredients that don't include benzoyl peroxide are available, such as those with salicylic acid. Patients should talk to their health care providers about whether to avoid products with benzoyl peroxide, he adds. Bunick collaborated with Valisure but does not collect compensation from the company. He also explained that the percentage of benzoyl peroxide in a product does not indicate the potential level of benzene that could result — it all depends on the other ingredients used. "Benzoyl peroxide could be as low as 1%, 2.5% [or] as high as 10% in different products. ... It may not matter that if you're at the low end of the benzoyl peroxide concentration, some of those products may have higher benzene formation than the 10%," Bunick told CBS News. "It's about the formulation. It's about some of the other molecules that are combined with the benzoyl peroxide that destabilizes it. So the percentages won't tell you." Cancer-linked chemicals found in other products tested by the lab This isn't the first time Valisure has sounded the alarm on potentially cancer-causing chemicals in products. In 2019, Valisure found levels of NDMA, a probable carcinogen, in ranitidine, the active ingredient in the popular heartburn pill Zantac. In April 2020, FDA requested that manufacturers remove all ranitidine-containing products from the market. In 2021, Valisure found benzene contamination in some brands of hand sanitizer. The FDA later issued guidance to consumers about avoiding certain products. Valsure has also previously found benzene in sunscreen, body spray products and dry shampoo. Some of those products were recalled, but manufacturers including Johnson & Johnson, Unilever and Coppertone parent company Beiersdorf stood by their safety. –Dr. Jon LaPook, Leigh Ann Winick and Angelica Fusco contributed reporting.
MH370 Disappeared a Decade Ago. Here’s What We Know Today. 2024-03-06 15:44:58+00:00 - On March 8, 2014, Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was heading from Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, to Beijing, when it deviated from its scheduled path, turning west across the Malay Peninsula. The plane, a Boeing 777 carrying 239 people from 15 countries, is believed to have veered off course and flown south for several hours after radar contact was lost. Some officials believe it may have crashed somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean after running out of fuel, but expansive search efforts over years have returned no answers, no victims, and no plane. The reason the plane went off course and its exact location today remains one of the greatest aviation mysteries of all time. This week, officials suggested a renewed search operation might be undertaken.
AeroVironment Stock Rockets To New High: Price Could Double Again 2024-03-06 15:22:00+00:00 - Key Points AeroVironment had a solid quarter with record sales in critical segments. Despite the ramp in sales, the funded backlog improved by 9.1%, suggesting another strong year ahead. Improving growth, margin, and shareholder equity suggests this stock could rise 100% or more by the end of next year. 5 stocks we like better than AeroVironment AeroVironment NASDAQ: AVAV is not a new company or even a cutting-edge technology, but it has matured into a highly demanded provider of drones and unmanned defense systems. The combination of improving technologies and global demand for war products has driven results to record highs, and the share price is following suit. Because the company is experiencing a significant improvement in profitability, has a solid outlook for continued success, and is driving significant improvements in shareholder value, the stock could double in price again over the next few years. “With the increased global demand for our solutions, strong backlog and growing pipeline, AeroVironment remains well positioned for continued growth,” said Wahid Nawabi, AeroVironment CEO. Get AeroVironment alerts: Sign Up AeroVironment Has Record-Setting Quarter: Raises Guidance AeroVironment was expected to post a solid quarter, but the actual results put even the whisper figures to shame. The company reported $186.6 million in net revenue for a gain of 38.8% over last year, beating the Marketbeat.com consensus by 850 basis points. The gains were driven by record sales in the Loitering Munitions Systems segment, up 140% YOY and a 23% increase in Unmanned Systems. Loitering Munition Systems consist of drone-like missiles that can remain on station until needed., flying in circles or used to gather intel. When targets of opportunity arise, the LMS can go active and crash into the target kamikaze style. Sales of LMS are expected to remain strong in 2024. Regarding product and service sales, product sales grew to record levels and were offset by a slowdown in services. Margin news is also impressive. The company widened its gross and operating margins despite increased costs and spending due to improved leverage. The gross margin widened by 200 bps to drive a near-100% increase in adjusted earnings. The GAAP earnings reverse a loss in the prior year’s quarter, while adjusted EPS of $0.63 is up from last year’s $0.33 and outpaced consensus by $0.29, leading the company to increase guidance for the year. Guidance is also favorable and includes increasing and narrowing the range for revenue and earnings. Full-year revenue is expected to range from $700 to $710 with adjusted EPS of $2.69 to $2.83, which are above the pre-release consensus figures, leading the analysts to raise their estimates for results; upward revisions to the stock price target are also expected. Analysts Sentiment Lags the Market For AeroVironment Stock The analysts support AeroVironment and have lifted the price target by about 25% in the last year, but they lag the market. The consensus implied a small downside for the market ahead of the Q3 release, and that has widened to 15% following the release but should change in the coming days. The question is, how big will the upward revisions be? The guidance puts the adjusted P/E near 56X this year’s results (including the post-release pop in price action), with an expectation for another 20% growth next year. At this level, AeroVironment is among the most highly valued defense stocks on the market, but it delivers value. The Q3 and YTD results have produced significant cash flows that allowed for debt reduction and an impressive improvement in shareholder equity. Equity is up 47% compared to last year and may continue to rise at a double-digit pace in 2024. The Technical Outlook: AeroVironment Flies To New Highs AeroVironment shares prices caught a bid in early trading that took the stock to an all-time high. The early action has the market up 15% and trading well above the highest analyst target. The best projections for future share prices are technical and based on the magnitude of the existing peaks and troughs. The action is volatile but trending higher ahead of the release, with the latest upswing worth more than 100%. Assuming that profit-taking or opportunistic corporate share sales don’t cap gains, a move to the $260 level is possible and may be completed by the end of 2025. Before you consider AeroVironment, you'll want to hear this. MarketBeat keeps track of Wall Street's top-rated and best performing research analysts and the stocks they recommend to their clients on a daily basis. MarketBeat has identified the five stocks that top analysts are quietly whispering to their clients to buy now before the broader market catches on... and AeroVironment wasn't on the list. While AeroVironment currently has a "Moderate Buy" rating among analysts, top-rated analysts believe these five stocks are better buys. View The Five Stocks Here