title,url,timestamp,content,source,clean_date,clean_content,arti_score,pos_sent,neg_sent,rnn_arti_score,rnn_pos_sent,rnn_neg_sent,date_extracted
Binance founder is sentenced to 4 months in prison on money-laundering charges,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/30/business/binance-founder-sentenced-money-laundering/index.html,"
  Updated
        5:14 PM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024
    ","Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, was sentenced on Tuesday to four months in prison after pleading guilty to money-laundering charges last year.
    
            The sentence, handed down in a US federal court in Seattle, is far lighter than the three years prosecutors had argued for.
    
            Prior to the sentencing hearing Tuesday, Zhao, who goes by CZ, apologized for mistakes he made as CEO of Binance, the crypto exchange he founded in 2017.
    
            “Words cannot explain how deeply I regret my choices that result in me being before the Court,” he said in a letter to the judge. “Rest assured that it will never happen again.”
    
            Binance agreed to pay more than $4 billion in fines and other penalties as part of a coordinated settlement with the federal government last fall. The company admitted to engaging in anti-money laundering activities, unlicensed money transmitting and sanctions violations.
    
            Zhao, who is 47 and has a personal fortune of nearly $40 billion, according to Bloomberg, agreed to step down as CEO and pay $200 million in fines.
    
            Following a multiyear investigation, US authorities in November said Binance — the world’s largest crypto exchange — allowed bad actors on the platform, enabling transactions linked to child sex abuse, narcotics and terrorist financing.
    
            Further, Binance did not have protocols to flag or report transactions for money-laundering risks, and employees were well aware that such an oversight would invite criminals to the platform. According to court documents, one Binance compliance staffer wrote: “We need a banner ‘is washing drug money too hard these days - come to binance we got cake for you.’”
    
            Zhao’s sentencing comes just over a month after his former rival, Sam Bankman-Fried, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for his role in a yearslong, multibillion-dollar fraud through FTX, which was the second largest exchange crypto exchange before its sudden collapse in the fall of 2022.
    
            The back-to-back sentencings underscore a harder line the Department of Justice has taken against financial crimes broadly and crypto in particular.
    
            Crypto investors and businesses have been keen to shake the industry’s reputation as a financial system for criminals and pivot toward the mainstream.
    
            But crypto skeptics tend to view the entire $2 trillion industry with suspicion and say the DOJ hasn’t done nearly enough to combat it.
    
            ”‘Crime pays’ is the message sent today” by the Justice Department, Dennis Kelleher, CEO of the nonprofit Better Markets, said in statement Tuesday. “It didn’t even charge CZ with money laundering; he was only charged with not having an anti-money laundering program. That’s less than a slap on the wrist.”",CNN,30/04/2024,"['Changpeng Zhao, the founder of the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, was sentenced on Tuesday to four months in prison after pleading guilty to money-laundering charges last year.', 'The sentence, handed down in a US federal court in Seattle, is far lighter than the three years prosecutors had argued for.', 'Prior to the sentencing hearing Tuesday, Zhao, who goes by CZ, apologized for mistakes he made as CEO of Binance, the crypto exchange he founded in 2017.', '“Words cannot explain how deeply I regret my choices that result in me being before the Court,” he said in a letter to the judge. “', 'Rest assured that it will never happen again.”', 'Binance agreed to pay more than $4 billion in fines and other penalties as part of a coordinated settlement with the federal government last fall.', 'The company admitted to engaging in anti-money laundering activities, unlicensed money transmitting and sanctions violations.', 'Zhao, who is 47 and has a personal fortune of nearly $40 billion, according to Bloomberg, agreed to step down as CEO and pay $200 million in fines.', 'Following a multiyear investigation, US authorities in November said Binance — the world’s largest crypto exchange — allowed bad actors on the platform, enabling transactions linked to child sex abuse, narcotics and terrorist financing.', 'Further, Binance did not have protocols to flag or report transactions for money-laundering risks, and employees were well aware that such an oversight would invite criminals to the platform.', 'According to court documents, one Binance compliance staffer wrote:“We need a banner ‘is washing drug money too hard these days - come to binance we got cake for you.’”', 'Zhao’s sentencing comes just over a month after his former rival, Sam Bankman-Fried, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for his role in a yearslong, multibillion-dollar fraud through FTX, which was the second largest exchange crypto exchange before its sudden collapse in the fall of 2022.', 'The back-to-back sentencings underscore a harder line the Department of Justice has taken against financial crimes broadly and crypto in particular.', 'Crypto investors and businesses have been keen to shake the industry’s reputation as a financial system for criminals and pivot toward the mainstream.', 'But crypto skeptics tend to view the entire $2 trillion industry with suspicion and say the DOJ hasn’t done nearly enough to combat it.', '”‘Crime pays’ is the message sent today” by the Justice Department, Dennis Kelleher, CEO of the nonprofit Better Markets, said in statement Tuesday. “', 'It didn’t even charge CZ with money laundering; he was only charged with not having an anti-money laundering program.', 'That’s less than a slap on the wrist.”']",-0.2259126395174299,The back-to-back sentencings underscore a harder line the Department of Justice has taken against financial crimes broadly and crypto in particular.,"Following a multiyear investigation, US authorities in November said Binance — the world’s largest crypto exchange — allowed bad actors on the platform, enabling transactions linked to child sex abuse, narcotics and terrorist financing.",0.2055174350738525,"The sentence, handed down in a US federal court in Seattle, is far lighter than the three years prosecutors had argued for.",The back-to-back sentencings underscore a harder line the Department of Justice has taken against financial crimes broadly and crypto in particular.,2024-04-30
Sari shops and street food stalls: How e-payments have taken over India,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/29/tech/india-digital-payments-upi-growth-hnk-intl/index.html,"
  Published
        8:45 PM EDT, Mon April 29, 2024
    ","Indian weddings are notoriously elaborate affairs, requiring a multitude of outfit changes for multiple days of festivities.
    
            It used to be normal for a family visiting Brij Kishore Agarwal’s sari shop, near the narrow lanes of Chandni Chowk market in India’s Old Delhi, to depart with a big bundle of bright, embroidered garments and leave behind a substantial pile of cash.
    
            Worries that someone would break in and steal the money before he could make a bank deposit kept the store’s now-79-year-old owner awake at night.
    
            These days he sleeps easier, because almost all his customers use e-payments to complete their purchases.
    
            “I have seen this country change,” says Agarwal, who has worked in the shop for about 65 years. “We very rarely get cash payments.”
    
            Digital payments, made through systems like the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which allow users to transfer funds instantly by scanning a QR code, have become ubiquitous across the world’s most populous country, transforming daily life.
    
            In Delhi, tea sellers collect rupees via mobile apps, and tuk tuk drivers who pull over to buy parathas stuffed with steaming hot paneer pay with their phones.
    
            The e-payment revolution is also likely to play an important role in India’s attempts to become an economic superpower. It is the planet’s fifth biggest economy, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is currently running for his third consecutive term, has said he wants India to be considered “developed” by 2047.
    
            “Digital payments are likely to enhance India’s growth by eliminating frictions, increasing efficiency, and reducing costs,” Eswar Prasad, an economics professor at Cornell University, told CNN. “UPI and the broader digitization of the economy could also increase the inclusiveness of this growth,” he added.
    
            India’s push to digitize its society started about 15 years ago, but e-payments were slow to catch on. In 2016, 96% of transactions in India were still conducted with banknotes.
    
            Two events that year changed things. First, the non-profit National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), an initiative of the central bank and a banking association, launched the payment infrastructure UPI.
    
            UPI allows users to use their phone as a virtual debit card, transferring money from almost 600 member banks and fintech companies instantly without entering bank details or paying transaction fees.
    
            Later that year, the government suddenly scrapped two large banknotes that comprised 86% of all currency in circulation, with the stated goal of fighting corruption. That prompted a surge in the use of e-payments.
    
            “We had no choice,” says Ramesh Kumar, 52, a towel shop owner in Delhi’s Sarojini Nagar Market, who started accepting digital payments in 2016.
    
            Covid-19 further boosted the adoption of digital transactions, as people tried to protect themselves from the virus.
    
            Now, Indians use UPI to pay everyone from vegetable vendors to doctors. More digital transactions are completed in India than any other country, according to the government. In 2023, the number of UPI transactions topped 100 billion.
    
            There are some holdouts. Azeez, a 34-year-old rickshaw driver in Old Delhi, told CNN that he’s too scared of losing money to use e-payments.
    
            “I am [an] uneducated person, I am poor, I have never been to a school, I can’t read or write,” he says. “What if I make a mistake?”
    
            Still, the upward trend is expected to continue, further boosting the number and value of funds flowing into the formal economy. UPI is aiming for two billion transactions a day by 2030.
    
            “If I can, and my store, which is so old, can move forward and change like this, I am sure every buyer and customer will also do it,” says Agarwal, the sari seller.
    
            India is the world’s fastest-growing major economy and digitization “has played a fairly consequential role in the very successful economic trajectory that India is on,” says Prasad, who is the author of “The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance.”
    
            Although it’s difficult to quantify the impact that UPI adoption has had on India’s gross domestic product, on a micro level it’s easy to see how it’s making a difference. Agarwal says it has increased efficiency and transparency for his business, and made filing taxes simpler.
    
            Kapil Sharma, 42, who sells flowers for as little as $0.12 outside a temple in Old Delhi, told CNN he used to lose business because potential customers wouldn’t want to wait for change. He started using UPI about a year ago and has seen an uptick in sales.
    
            “It’s just simpler,” he says. “They buy, pay and go.”
    
            Convenience aside, India’s digital public infrastructure has helped it achieve an 80% financial inclusion rate. Although inequality remains a problem, Prasad says that digitization has “made Indian citizens, including the masses who are not very wealthy, feel that they have a stake in India’s economic growth and transformation.”
    
            Now NPCI is focused on expanding overseas to make it easier for citizens working abroad to send remittances home or allow Indian travellers to pay using UPI. This year, the Eiffel Tower’s website started accepting payment via UPI.
    
            “I think the government sees the UPI as a template for the rest of the world,” says Prasad. “I think it would certainly help India’s stature on the world stage.”
    
            No matter its future impact outside India, UPI appears to have strong grassroots support from those who have already benefitted from it, which means its dominance in the South Asian nation is likely to grow.
    
            “If anyone gives me an option to go back to cash payment, I will just say I am not interested,” says Agarwal. “Please find a phone, download these apps, and use them.”",CNN,29/04/2024,"['Indian weddings are notoriously elaborate affairs, requiring a multitude of outfit changes for multiple days of festivities.', 'It used to be normal for a family visiting Brij Kishore Agarwal’s sari shop, near the narrow lanes of Chandni Chowkmarketin India’s Old Delhi, to depart with a big bundle of bright, embroidered garments and leave behind a substantial pile of cash.', 'Worries that someone would break in and steal the money before he could make a bank deposit kept the store’s now-79-year-old owner awake at night.', 'These days he sleeps easier, because almost all his customers use e-payments to complete their purchases.', '“I have seen this country change,” says Agarwal, who has worked in the shop for about 65 years. “', 'We very rarely get cash payments.”', 'Digital payments, made through systems like the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which allow users to transfer funds instantly by scanning a QR code, have become ubiquitous across the world’s most populous country, transforming daily life.', 'In Delhi, tea sellers collect rupees via mobile apps, and tuk tuk drivers who pull over to buy parathas stuffed with steaming hot paneer pay with their phones.', 'The e-payment revolution is also likely to play an important role in India’s attempts to become an economic superpower.', 'It is the planet’s fifth biggest economy, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is currently running for his third consecutive term, has said he wants India to be considered “developed” by 2047.', '“Digital payments are likely to enhance India’s growth by eliminating frictions, increasing efficiency, and reducing costs,” Eswar Prasad, an economics professor at Cornell University, told CNN. “', 'UPI and the broader digitization of the economy could also increase the inclusiveness of this growth,” he added.', 'India’s push to digitize its society started about 15 years ago, but e-payments were slow to catch on.', 'In 2016, 96% of transactions in India were still conducted with banknotes.', 'Two events that year changed things.', 'First, the non-profit National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), an initiative of the central bank and a banking association, launched the payment infrastructure UPI.', 'UPI allows users to use their phone as a virtual debit card, transferring money from almost 600 member banks and fintech companies instantly without entering bank details or paying transaction fees.', 'Later that year, the government suddenly scrapped two large banknotes that comprised 86% of all currency in circulation, with the stated goal of fighting corruption.', 'That prompted a surge in the use of e-payments.', '“We had no choice,” says Ramesh Kumar, 52, a towel shop owner in Delhi’s Sarojini Nagar Market, who started accepting digital payments in 2016.', 'Covid-19 further boosted the adoption of digital transactions, as people tried to protect themselves from the virus.', 'Now, Indians use UPI to pay everyone from vegetable vendors to doctors.', 'More digital transactions are completed in India than any other country, according to the government.', 'In 2023, the number of UPI transactions topped 100 billion.', 'There are some holdouts.', 'Azeez, a 34-year-old rickshaw driver in Old Delhi, told CNN that he’s too scared of losing money to use e-payments.', '“I am [an] uneducated person, I am poor, I have never been to a school, I can’t read or write,” he says. “', 'What if I make a mistake?”', 'Still, the upward trend is expected to continue, further boosting the number and value of funds flowing into the formal economy.', 'UPI is aiming for two billion transactions a day by 2030.', '“If I can, and my store, which is so old, can move forward and change like this, I am sure every buyer and customer will also do it,” says Agarwal, the sari seller.', 'India is the world’s fastest-growing major economy and digitization “has played a fairly consequential role in the very successful economic trajectory that India is on,” says Prasad, who is the author of “The Future of Money: How the Digital Revolution Is Transforming Currencies and Finance.”', 'Although it’s difficult to quantify the impact that UPI adoption has had on India’s gross domestic product, on a micro level it’s easy to see how it’s making a difference.', 'Agarwal says it has increased efficiency and transparency for his business, and made filing taxes simpler.', 'Kapil Sharma, 42, who sells flowers for as little as $0.12 outside a temple in Old Delhi, told CNN he used to lose business because potential customers wouldn’t want to wait for change.', 'He started using UPI about a year ago and has seen an uptick in sales.', '“It’s just simpler,” he says. “', 'They buy, pay and go.”', 'Convenience aside, India’s digital public infrastructure has helped it achieve an 80% financial inclusion rate.', 'Although inequality remains a problem, Prasad says that digitization has “made Indian citizens, including the masses who are not very wealthy, feel that they have a stake in India’s economic growth and transformation.”', 'Now NPCI is focused on expandingoverseas to make it easier for citizens working abroad to send remittances home or allow Indian travellers to pay using UPI.', 'This year, the Eiffel Tower’s website started accepting payment via UPI.', '“I think the government sees the UPI as a template for the rest of the world,” says Prasad. “', 'I think it would certainly help India’s stature on the world stage.”', 'No matter its future impact outside India, UPI appears to have strong grassroots support from those who have already benefitted from it, which means its dominance in the South Asian nation is likely to grow.', '“If anyone gives me an option to go back to cash payment, I will just say I am not interested,” says Agarwal. “', 'Please find a phone, download these apps, and use them.”']",0.1295829529455216,"No matter its future impact outside India, UPI appears to have strong grassroots support from those who have already benefitted from it, which means its dominance in the South Asian nation is likely to grow.",Worries that someone would break in and steal the money before he could make a bank deposit kept the store’s now-79-year-old owner awake at night.,0.6973581075668335,"No matter its future impact outside India, UPI appears to have strong grassroots support from those who have already benefitted from it, which means its dominance in the South Asian nation is likely to grow.","Kapil Sharma, 42, who sells flowers for as little as $0.12 outside a temple in Old Delhi, told CNN he used to lose business because potential customers wouldn’t want to wait for change.",2024-04-30
"Dow closes 570 points lower, capping losing month for stocks ahead of Fed decision",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/30/investing/stocks-fed-inflation/index.html,"
  Published
        4:02 PM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024
    ","Stocks slipped Tuesday after fresh data raised concerns that inflation will remain sticky.
    
            The Dow fell 571 points, or 1.5%. The S&P 500 declined 1.6% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 2%. All three major indexes closed out April lower, snapping a five-month streak of gains. The blue-chip Dow notched its worst month since September 2022.
    
            The Employment Cost Index rose a seasonally adjusted 1.2% last quarter, faster than the 0.9% increase the prior quarter, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    
            Investors worry that accelerated compensation growth may serve as an inflation pressure. The latest ECI reading comes on the heels of a slew of hotter-than-expected inflation data and slowdown in US gross domestic product.
    
            Traders are concerned that economic growth is slowing while inflation stays sticky, which could put the Federal Reserve in a bind when it comes to beginning long-awaited interest rate cuts.
    
            The Fed began its two-day monetary policy meeting on Tuesday and is expected to announce Wednesday that it is keeping rates on hold. Investors will tune in to comments from Chair Jerome Powell for clues on when the Fed could begin easing rates. Right now, the timing is a mystery for Wall Street.
    
            As stocks settle after the trading day, levels might change slightly.",CNN,30/04/2024,"['Stocks slipped Tuesday after fresh data raised concerns that inflation will remain sticky.', 'The Dow fell 571 points, or 1.5%.', 'The S&P 500 declined 1.6% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 2%.', 'All three major indexes closed out April lower, snapping a five-month streak of gains.', 'The blue-chip Dow notched its worst month since September 2022.', 'The Employment Cost Index rose a seasonally adjusted 1.2% last quarter, faster than the0.9% increase the prior quarter, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.', 'Investors worry that accelerated compensation growth may serve as an inflation pressure.', 'The latest ECI reading comes on the heels of a slew of hotter-than-expected inflation data and slowdown in US gross domestic product.', 'Traders are concerned that economic growth is slowing while inflation stays sticky, which could put the Federal Reserve in a bind when it comes to beginning long-awaited interest rate cuts.', 'The Fed began its two-day monetary policy meeting on Tuesday and is expected to announce Wednesday that it is keeping rates on hold.', 'Investors will tune in to comments from Chair Jerome Powell for clues on when the Fed could begin easing rates.', 'Right now, the timing is a mystery for Wall Street.', 'As stocks settle after the trading day, levels might change slightly.']",-0.025563028926797,"Traders are concerned that economic growth is slowing while inflation stays sticky, which could put the Federal Reserve in a bind when it comes to beginning long-awaited interest rate cuts.",The blue-chip Dow notched its worst month since September 2022.,-0.7724699113104079,"The Employment Cost Index rose a seasonally adjusted 1.2% last quarter, faster than the0.9% increase the prior quarter, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.",Stocks slipped Tuesday after fresh data raised concerns that inflation will remain sticky.,2024-04-30
Tesla China rival BYD sees profits slump due to EV price war,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9rznkq3vqro,2024-04-30T03:49:18.446Z,"Chinese car giant BYD has seen profits fall as it is hit by slowing demand for electric vehicles (EV) and a price war in the world's largest car market. The firm said it made $630m (£502m) in the first three months of the year, more than 47% lower than the previous quarter. BYD has been competing with Elon Musk's Tesla to be the world's biggest seller of EVs. The US giant reclaimed the title earlier this month after losing out to its Chinese rival at the end of last year. BYD says it sold just over 300,000 battery-only cars in the first three months of the year, down from a record 526,000 in the final quarter of 2023. The Shenzhen-based firm's latest financial results suggest it may be performing better than Tesla, which posted its first quarterly revenue fall since the pandemic disrupted its production and sales in 2020. BYD and its rivals have been involved in a price war in China, as they compete for market share at a time of slower economic growth. The company, which is backed by veteran US investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, has cut prices on some of its latest models as it tries to attract buyers who have been more cautious when it comes to big ticket items such as cars. To cushion the blow of softer demand in China, BYD has also been looking to expand into new markets.  The EV maker exported 240,000 cars in 2023 and is looking to grow that number significantly this year. Its aggressive push into overseas markets has sparked a backlash in the US and Europe, where governments are looking to protect their domestic car makers. Along with its efforts to increase exports, BYD has also been diversifying its product range by offering higher-end models. At the Beijing auto show, which opened to the general public this week, BYD has been displaying its latest luxury vehicles. ",BBC,30/04/2024,"[""Chinese car giant BYD has seen profits fall as it is hit by slowing demand for electric vehicles (EV) and a price war in the world's largest car market."", 'The firm said it made $630m (£502m) in the first three months of the year, more than 47% lower than the previous quarter.', ""BYD has been competing with Elon Musk's Tesla to be the world's biggest seller of EVs."", 'The US giant reclaimed the title earlier this month after losing out to its Chinese rival at the end of last year.', 'BYD says it sold just over 300,000 battery-only cars in the first three months of the year, down from a record 526,000 in the final quarter of 2023.', ""The Shenzhen-based firm's latest financial results suggest it may be performing better than Tesla, which posted its first quarterly revenue fall since the pandemic disrupted its production and sales in 2020."", 'BYD and its rivals have been involved in a price war in China, as they compete for market share at a time of slower economic growth.', 'The company, which is backed by veteran US investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, has cut prices on some of its latest models as it tries to attract buyers who have been more cautious when it comes to big ticket items such as cars.', 'To cushion the blow of softer demand in China, BYD has also been looking to expand into new markets.', 'The EV maker exported 240,000 cars in 2023 and is looking to grow that number significantly this year.', 'Its aggressive push into overseas markets has sparked a backlash in the US and Europe, where governments are looking to protect their domestic car makers.', 'Along with its efforts to increase exports, BYD has also been diversifying its product range by offering higher-end models.', 'At the Beijing auto show, which opened to the general public this week, BYD has been displaying its latest luxury vehicles.']",0.0133572904410858,"The Shenzhen-based firm's latest financial results suggest it may be performing better than Tesla, which posted its first quarterly revenue fall since the pandemic disrupted its production and sales in 2020.",The US giant reclaimed the title earlier this month after losing out to its Chinese rival at the end of last year.,-0.304056855765256,"The EV maker exported 240,000 cars in 2023 and is looking to grow that number significantly this year.","BYD says it sold just over 300,000 battery-only cars in the first three months of the year, down from a record 526,000 in the final quarter of 2023.",2024-04-30
"NBC hires former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who has demonized the press and refused to acknowledge Biden was fairly elected",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/22/media/ronna-mcdaniel-nbc/index.html,"
  Published
        1:53 PM EDT, Fri March 22, 2024
    ","NBC News on Friday announced that it had hired Ronna McDaniel, the former Republican National Committee chair who has repeatedly attacked the network and its journalists, assailed the news media as “fake news” and promoted false claims around the 2020 vote, as an on-air commentator ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
    
            “It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team,” Carrie Budoff Brown, senior vice president of politics at NBC News, said in a memo to staff.
    
            McDaniel exited the RNC earlier this month after leading the organization since 2016.
    
            During her time as chair, McDaniel repeatedly attacked the press, which has become increasingly popular in Republican circles over the last several years as Donald Trump demonizes journalists and news institutions.
    
            McDaniel echoed many such attacks, labeling the press as “fake news” and calling the media “corrupt.” At times, she even targeted NBC News and MSNBC with dishonest attacks.
    
            In 2019, for instance, McDaniel accused Richard Engel, NBC News’ chief foreign correspondent, of “actively cheering for an economic downturn.”
    
            “How can NBC let him keep his job when he’s made his bias so clear?” McDaniel asked.
    
            McDaniel has a lengthier history attacking the progressive cable news channel MSNBC, which she will appear on in her new role. In recent years, she has repeatedly attacked the channel for “spreading lies” and blasted those she described as the network’s “primetime propagandists.”
    
            An NBC spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment about her attacks on the news media and NBC.
    
            In her role as RNC chief, McDaniel also fanned the flames of election denialism after the 2020 presidential contest.
    
            McDaniel was involved in a phone call in 2020 to pressure Michigan county officials not to certify the vote from the Detroit area, where Joe Biden had a commanding lead. McDaniel told the officials, regarding the certification: “Do not sign it. … We will get you attorneys.”
    
            The Michigan Department of State’s office condemned her claims of supposed voter fraud in the wake of the election, stating they had “no merit.” The state’s “elections were conducted fairly, effectively and transparently and are an accurate reflection of the will of Michigan voters,” it said in a detailed fact check posted online.
    
            In an interview with CNN’s Chris Wallace last year, McDaniel defended her claims of voting “irregularity” in the election.
    
            “I think saying that there were problems with 2020 is very real. I don’t think that’s election denying,” McDaniel told Wallace. “I’m from Wayne County. We had a woman send a note saying I’m being told to backdate ballots. We had to look into that. That’s deeply concerning. When you have friends who are poll-watching and being kicked out, that’s deeply concerning. We have every right to look at that.”
    
            In the interview, Wallace pressed McDaniel if she believed Biden legitimately won the election.
    
            “I think there were lots of problems with 2020. Ultimately, he won the election but there were lots of problems with the 2020 election,” she said. “But I don’t think he won it fair. I don’t. I’m not going to say that.”
    
            NBC’s hiring of McDaniel, however, plays into a recent trend at the network’s outlets, which has seemingly softened its stance on Trump as he inches toward the Republican nomination for president.
    
            Earlier this month, CNBC hosted Trump for a lengthy phone interview in which the network’s anchors allowed him to peddle lies and conspiracy theories on air without scrutiny.
    
            MSNBC has even started carrying Trump’s remarks live on television, a practice that the network boasted for years it would not do. Star host Rachel Maddow, who has said carrying Trump’s lies on the air is dangerous, even objected to the network broadcasting a recent speech from the presumptive Republican nominee, calling it “irresponsible.”",CNN,22/03/2024,"['NBC News on Friday announced that it had hired Ronna McDaniel, the former Republican National Committee chair who has repeatedlyattacked the network and its journalists,assailed thenewsmedia as “fake news” and promoted false claims around the 2020vote,as an on-air commentatorahead of the 2024 presidential election.', '“It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team,” Carrie Budoff Brown, senior vice president of politics at NBC News, said in a memoto staff.', 'McDaniel exited the RNC earlier this month after leading the organization since 2016.', 'During her time as chair, McDaniel repeatedly attacked the press, which has become increasingly popular in Republican circles over the last several years as Donald Trump demonizes journalists and news institutions.', 'McDaniel echoed many such attacks, labeling the press as “fake news” and calling the media “corrupt.”', 'At times, she even targeted NBC Newsand MSNBCwith dishonest attacks.', 'In 2019, for instance, McDaniel accused Richard Engel, NBC News’ chief foreign correspondent, of “actively cheering for an economic downturn.”', '“How can NBC let him keep his job when he’s made his bias so clear?”', 'McDaniel asked.', 'McDaniel has a lengthier history attacking the progressive cable news channel MSNBC, which she will appear on in her new role.', 'In recent years, she has repeatedly attacked the channel for “spreading lies” and blasted those she described as the network’s “primetime propagandists.”', 'An NBC spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment about her attacks on the news media and NBC.', 'In her role as RNC chief, McDaniel also fanned the flames of election denialism after the 2020 presidential contest.', 'McDaniel was involved in a phone call in 2020 to pressure Michigan county officials not to certify the vote from the Detroit area, where Joe Biden had a commanding lead.', 'McDanieltold the officials, regarding the certification: “Do not sign it. …', 'We will get you attorneys.”', 'The Michigan Department of State’s office condemned her claims of supposed voter fraud in the wake of the election, stating they had “no merit.', '”The state’s “elections were conducted fairly, effectively and transparently and are an accurate reflection of the will of Michigan voters,” it said in adetailed fact checkposted online.', 'In an interview with CNN’s Chris Wallace last year, McDaniel defended her claims of voting “irregularity” in the election.', '“I think saying that there were problems with 2020 is very real.', 'I don’t think that’s election denying,” McDaniel told Wallace. “', 'I’m from Wayne County.', 'We had a woman send a note saying I’m being told to backdate ballots.', 'We had to look into that.', 'That’s deeply concerning.', 'When you have friends who are poll-watching and being kicked out, that’s deeply concerning.', 'We have every right to look at that.”', 'In the interview,Wallace pressed McDaniel if she believed Biden legitimately won the election.', '“I think there were lots of problems with 2020.', 'Ultimately, he won the electionbut there were lots of problems with the 2020 election,” she said. “', 'But I don’t think he won it fair.', 'I don’t.', 'I’m not going to say that.”', 'NBC’s hiring of McDaniel, however, plays into a recent trend at thenetwork’s outlets, which has seemingly softened its stance on Trump as he inches toward the Republican nomination for president.', 'Earlier this month, CNBC hosted Trump for a lengthy phone interview in which the network’s anchors allowed him to peddle lies and conspiracy theories on airwithout scrutiny.', 'MSNBC has even started carrying Trump’s remarks live on television, a practice that the network boasted for years it would not do.', 'Star host Rachel Maddow, who has said carrying Trump’s lieson the airis dangerous, even objected to the network broadcasting a recent speech from the presumptive Republican nominee, calling it “irresponsible.”']",-0.069193576701305,But I don’t think he won it fair.,"At times, she even targeted NBC Newsand MSNBCwith dishonest attacks.",-0.2803101042906443,"NBC’s hiring of McDaniel, however, plays into a recent trend at thenetwork’s outlets, which has seemingly softened its stance on Trump as he inches toward the Republican nomination for president.",“I think there were lots of problems with 2020.,2024-04-30
Good news: The worst could be over for gas prices this spring,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/30/business/gas-prices-inflation-oil/index.html,"
  Updated
        9:30 AM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024
    ","Israel and Iran have been in open conflict. Ukrainian drones have repeatedly attacked Russian oil refineries. And OPEC continues to hold back oil supply.
    
            All of these alarming developments raised fears of $4 gas that would hurt the US economy and worsen inflation.
    
            Yet that has not happened, at least not yet. US gas prices have stopped rising and even briefly dipped in recent days.
    
            The national average stood at $3.66 a gallon on Monday, down from $3.68 a week ago, according to AAA.
    
            Now, there is growing hope that gas prices are at or near a peak for the spring – or perhaps even for the year.
    
            Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, is predicting drivers will get relief at the pump in the coming weeks.
    
            “I’m hoping the worst is behind us,” De Haan told CNN. “Unless there is something drastic that happens, there are increasing odds the national average has hit the projected spring peak.”
    
            Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service, also expects gas prices to dip in the coming weeks.
    
            “Most of the worries for the first half of the year are over. I think we’re in the clear until hurricane season,” said Kloza.
    
            Of course, none of this is to say gas prices are cheap. They were lower in April 2021 as well as in the spring of 2020 when Covid-19 kept many Americans off the roads.
    
            Still, a springtime peak below $3.70 a gallon would be a win for consumers given the real risk of significantly higher prices at the pump.
    
            “It could have been much worse,” said Andy Lipow, president of consulting firm Lipow Oil Associates.
    
            Drivers in just seven US states are paying $4 a gallon or more for gas, according to AAA. All of those states are in the Western half of the country, led by California, where the state average is $5.40 a gallon, up from $4.88 a year ago.
    
            The national average is nowhere near the unprecedented spike above $5 a gallon in June 2022.
    
            “It’s clear to me this is not going to be a record-setting year. It will feel much more normal to fill your tank this year,” said De Haan.  
    
            Officials in Washington would also likely be breathing a sigh of relief.
    
            Rising gas prices earlier this year have contributed to worse-than-expected inflation readings that have cast doubt on when the Federal Reserve will be able to lower interest rates.
    
            A spike in gas prices would be the last thing President Joe Biden needs as he struggles to convince voters of his economic message before November. Biden’s approval rating for the economy stands at just 34% and it’s even lower (29%) for inflation, according to a new CNN poll.
    
            Underscoring concerns in the White House about gas prices, earlier this month the Biden administration backed off concerns to buy crude oil for the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the emergency oil stockpile.
    
            Some analysts expect gas prices to still go a bit higher.
    
            Lipow said he thinks the national average will peak at $3.75 a gallon this year.
    
            Still, that would be below the peak of $3.88 a gallon last year – a peak that didn’t occur until September.
    
            “I’m not looking for a spike in gas prices,” Lipow said.
    
            There are multiple reasons why gas prices have stopped rising for the moment.
    
            First, oil prices have stopped spiking. US crude nearly hit $88 a barrel on April 12 as investors braced for Iran’s retaliation against Israel for a suspected strike on an Iranian diplomatic complex in Syria.
    
            But oil prices tumbled after that retaliation was largely blocked by Israel and its partners. Fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East have eased for now, although that could of course change with little notice. US crude dipped below $83 a barrel on Monday.
    
            There are also seasonal factors at play.
    
            The switch to more expensive summer-grade gasoline at US refineries is now over. Likewise, gasoline supply has been helped by the return of refineries that were sidelined for routine maintenance.
    
            The supply of oil continues to be boosted by record-shattering US crude production. All of that US oil, led by the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, is offsetting production cuts by OPEC+, the producer group led by Saudi Arabia and Russia.
    
            Meanwhile, demand for gasoline has been relatively subdued despite other signs that American consumers are spending aggressively.
    
            There is a risk of a double peak in gas prices. That’s what happened last year as gas prices hit a top in April, cooled off and then rebounded late in the summer as extreme heat sidelined US refineries.
    
            “Weather can wreak havoc,” said Kloza, the OPIS analyst.
    
            Perhaps the bigger risk is a severe hurricane that disrupts oil refineries in the US Gulf Coast.
    
            Forecasters are warning it could be a very busy hurricane season (which traditionally begins June 1), with the Colorado State University predicting more hurricanes and named storms than ever before.
    
            “Hurricane season is the next major hurdle,” said Kloza.",CNN,30/04/2024,"['Israel and Iran have been in open conflict.', 'Ukrainian drones have repeatedly attacked Russian oil refineries.', 'And OPEC continues to hold back oil supply.', 'All of these alarming developments raised fears of $4 gas that would hurt the US economy and worsen inflation.', 'Yet that has not happened, at least not yet.', 'US gas prices have stopped rising and even briefly dipped in recent days.', 'The national average stood at $3.66 a gallon on Monday, down from $3.68 a week ago, according to AAA.', 'Now, there is growing hope that gas prices are at or near a peak for the spring – or perhaps even for the year.', 'Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, is predicting drivers will get relief at the pump in the coming weeks.', '“I’m hoping the worst is behind us,” De Haan told CNN. “', 'Unless there is something drastic that happens, there are increasing odds the national average has hit the projected spring peak.”', 'Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at the Oil Price Information Service, also expects gas prices to dip in the coming weeks.', '“Most of the worries for the first half of the year are over.', 'I think we’re in the clear until hurricane season,” said Kloza.', 'Of course, none of this is to say gas prices are cheap.', 'They were lower in April 2021 as well as in the spring of 2020 when Covid-19 kept many Americans off the roads.', 'Still, a springtime peak below $3.70 a gallon would be a win for consumers given the real risk of significantly higher prices at the pump.', '“It could have been much worse,” said Andy Lipow, president of consulting firm Lipow Oil Associates.', 'Drivers in just seven US states are paying $4 a gallon or more for gas, according to AAA.', 'All of those states are in the Western half of the country, led by California, where the state average is $5.40 a gallon, up from $4.88 a year ago.', 'The national average is nowhere near the unprecedented spike above $5 a gallon in June 2022.', '“It’s clear to me this is not going to be a record-setting year.', 'It will feel much more normal to fill your tank this year,” said De Haan.', 'Officials in Washington would also likely be breathing a sigh of relief.', 'Rising gas prices earlier this year have contributed to worse-than-expected inflation readings that have cast doubt on when the Federal Reserve will be able to lower interest rates.', 'A spike in gas prices would be the last thing President Joe Biden needs as he struggles to convince voters of his economic message before November.', 'Biden’s approval rating for the economy stands at just 34% and it’s even lower (29%) for inflation, according to a new CNN poll.', 'Underscoring concerns in the White House about gas prices, earlier this month the Biden administration backed off concerns to buy crude oil for the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the emergency oil stockpile.', 'Some analysts expect gas prices to still go a bit higher.', 'Lipow said he thinks the national average will peak at $3.75 a gallon this year.', 'Still, that would be below the peak of $3.88 a gallon last year – a peak that didn’t occur until September.', '“I’m not looking for a spike in gas prices,” Lipow said.', 'There are multiple reasons why gas prices have stopped rising for the moment.', 'First, oil prices have stopped spiking.', 'US crude nearly hit $88 a barrel on April 12 as investors braced for Iran’s retaliation against Israel for a suspected strike on an Iranian diplomatic complex in Syria.', 'But oil prices tumbled after that retaliation was largely blocked by Israel and its partners.', 'Fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East have eased for now, although that could of course change with little notice.', 'US crude dipped below $83 a barrel on Monday.', 'There are also seasonal factors at play.', 'The switch to more expensive summer-grade gasoline at US refineries is now over.', 'Likewise, gasoline supply has been helped by the return of refineries that were sidelined for routine maintenance.', 'The supply of oil continues to be boosted by record-shattering US crude production.', 'All of that US oil, led by the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, is offsetting production cuts by OPEC+, the producer group led by Saudi Arabia and Russia.', 'Meanwhile, demand for gasoline has been relatively subdued despite other signs that American consumers are spending aggressively.', 'There is a risk of a double peak in gas prices.', 'That’s what happened last year as gas prices hit a top in April, cooled off and then rebounded late in the summer as extreme heat sidelined US refineries.', '“Weather can wreak havoc,” said Kloza, the OPIS analyst.', 'Perhaps the bigger risk is a severe hurricane that disrupts oil refineries in the US Gulf Coast.', 'Forecasters are warning it could be a very busy hurricane season (which traditionally begins June 1), with the Colorado State University predicting more hurricanes and named storms than ever before.', '“Hurricane season is the next major hurdle,” said Kloza.']",-0.1252957487406681,"Now, there is growing hope that gas prices are at or near a peak for the spring – or perhaps even for the year.",All of these alarming developments raised fears of $4 gas that would hurt the US economy and worsen inflation.,-0.0672716865172753,"All of those states are in the Western half of the country, led by California, where the state average is $5.40 a gallon, up from $4.88 a year ago.","The national average stood at $3.66 a gallon on Monday, down from $3.68 a week ago, according to AAA.",2024-04-30
Your ultimate guide to the American Express Membership Rewards program,https://edition.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/travel/american-express-membership-rewards-guide,"
  Updated
        1:03 PM EDT, Mon April 1, 2024
    ","American Express Membership Rewards® are among the most valuable travel rewards points out there. That’s primarily because they fall into the category of “transferable rewards,” meaning you’re not tied down to a single airline or hotel program with which you can redeem them.
    
            In other words, you’re not just earning points that can transfer to Delta SkyMiles, but they can also transfer to any of the other 16 airlines in the Membership Rewards portfolio.
    
            Having Membership Rewards points gives you options, and that’s always a good thing. If you’re ready to give your rewards portfolio a boost, here’s everything you need to know about earning and redeeming Amex Membership Rewards.
    
            You can earn Membership Rewards points in various ways. Some require little effort, while others involve a heavier lift. It’s a good idea to take advantage of all the options out there in order to maximize your earnings. Here’s a look at how to earn Membership Rewards most efficiently.
    
            The primary way to earn Amex points is through credit cards that earn Membership Rewards. Amex has an extensive lineup of personal and business cards offering generous welcome bonuses and recurring benefits to help you earn maximum points.
    
            These include well-known cards like The Platinum Card® from American Express and the American Express® Gold Card. With a single welcome bonus offer, you can give a pretty substantial boost to your Membership Rewards points balance. Here’s a look at the current welcome bonus offers on personal credit cards that earn Membership Rewards.
    
            Keep in mind, too, that many of these cards carry an annual fee:
    
            All information about the Amex EveryDay Credit Card, Amex EveryDay Preferred Credit Card and the American Express Green Card has been collected independently by CNN Underscored.
    
            Similarly, American Express offers a suite of business credit cards.
    
            All information about the Business Green Rewards Card from American Express has been collected independently by CNN Underscored.
    
            Keep in mind that several of these cards also carry an annual fee:
    
            Beyond the welcome bonus offers available, American Express makes it easy to earn Membership Rewards through category bonuses. If you spend a lot on groceries, it may be worth considering the Amex Gold card to earn 4 points per dollar spent at US supermarkets (on up to $25,000 in purchases per year).
    
            If you travel often, the Amex Platinum card is a great option for earning 5 points per dollar spent on eligible bookings made directly with an airline or with Amex Travel. Plus, you’ll have access to airport lounges, like American Express Centurion Lounges and Delta Sky Clubs, among others.
    
            When applying for American Express cards, be sure to take note of the application rules. For example, you can’t earn an Amex welcome bonus more than once (with a few exceptions), and you generally won’t be approved for more than two cards every 90 days. Before applying for a credit card, it’s important to do your research.
    
            As mentioned before, American Express makes it manageable to earn bonus points long after the welcome bonus offer. One of those ways is by adding an authorized user to your Amex card, which will occasionally earn you bonus points.
    
             Aside from the special promotions where Amex will offer you bonus points for adding an authorized user, doing so can also help you double up your point earnings. That’s because you’ll not only earn points per dollar spent on your purchases, but you’ll also earn rewards on the authorized user’s purchases.
    
            Of course, you’ll only want to consider adding a member of your household or someone you trust to pay you back as an authorized user on your account. Authorized users can make charges on the credit card they’ve been added to but have no liability when it comes to paying the bill — that onus falls on you, the primary card holder. Choose carefully who you add to your account, and you can earn extra Amex points without lifting a finger.
    
            If you’ve picked up an American Express credit card, earned the welcome bonus offer and think others would enjoy doing the same, you can get rewarded for spreading the word to family and friends.
    
            American Express offers bonuses to current card holders when you refer someone and they are approved for an eligible card. You can earn up to 20,000 points per successful approval, though the exact bonus varies by card.
    
            To find out your card’s current referral bonus, head over to the Amex referral site. You’ll see referral bonuses based on your card. Simply enter your friend’s name and email address for each card you want to refer and they’ll get an email, inviting them to apply for the card. You can also copy the referral link on the page and share that with your friends and family directly.
    
            Referrals are a lucrative way to earn Amex Membership Rewards points for recommending credit cards to your friends and family. Keep in mind there is a limit to how many friends you can refer in a year.
    
            Booking travel with American Express is rewarding, too — you can earn bonus points on your credit card, plus you can often get additional perks and rewards. For example, with the Amex Platinum, you’ll get 5 points per dollar spent on hotels booked through Amex Travel.
    
            As an added incentive, you’ll receive perks like free breakfast for two, room upgrades when available and hotel credits to use at the spa or onsite restaurant just by booking with Fine Hotels & Resorts or the Hotel Collection. In general, booking travel through American Express pays off in more ways than one.
    
            Card holders can also utilize one of the most underrated benefits of having an Amex card: Amex Offers. With Amex Offers, card holders can earn statement credits or bonus points at select retailers. In other words, it’s the perfect opportunity to save some cash or earn bonus points for purchases you were already planning on making.
    
            To find and take advantage of Amex Offers, you’ll need to log in to your account. From there, scroll to the bottom of the page to the Amex Offers & Benefits section of the page. Be sure to click “View All” to load all of your eligible offers, and also be sure to select “Add to Card” in order to activate your Amex Offer. From there, you’ll be eligible to earn the bonus points or cash savings that come as part of each Amex Offer — so long as you use the registered card to make your purchase. Amex Offers are a massive perk of Amex cards that can save you money or earn you bonus points on purchases you were already planning to make.
    
            Thanks to a partnership with American Express, you can turn your Rakuten cash back rewards into Membership Rewards. It’s a great way to earn Membership Rewards points on regular purchases, without much added effort.
    
            If you already have a Rakuten account, you can easily switch your earning preference to Membership Rewards. Simply log into your account and follow these steps:
    
            After this, rewards get transferred to your Membership Rewards account quarterly.
    
            Now, for the fun part! Once you’ve earned Membership Rewards points, it’s time to put them to good use. Amex gives you several options to redeem points, but the best option is travel. You can choose between statement credits for travel bookings or transferring them to airline or hotel partners.
    
            Here’s a closer look at your options and how they work.
    
            American Express has 20 airline and hotel transfer partners — in other words, the Amex points you’ve earned can be transferred to any of the 20 hotel and airline partners. The best way to redeem Membership Rewards for maximum value is through airline transfers. But keep in mind that not all airline loyalty programs are equal.
    
            Ultimately, you’ll want to research which program will offer you the most in return, depending on what your travel plans are. With each of the partners, you’ll need to link your accounts, and you’ll also need to search for award availability with the airline of your choice before transferring any points.
    
            If you’re looking to transfer your Amex Membership Rewards points, these are the 20 airline and hotel partner options, as well as the transfer rate.
    
            It’s worth noting that Amex occasionally runs transfer promotions for certain airlines or hotels. So, at times, you can get more points in return than the standard transfer rate listed above. Bonuses like these can increase the value of your points by enabling you to book sought-after award tickets for substantially less.
    
            By transferring Amex Membership Rewards points to partner airlines, you unlock the ability to travel for next to nothing — in most cases when redeeming points and miles, you’ll just have to pay the taxes and fees on a ticket. As a result, points and miles open up the door for flying experiences that would otherwise be out of reach.
    
            Keep in mind that the most obvious airline choice may not always be your best option. Airlines typically have extensive alliance networks, allowing you to redeem points for partner airlines through their respective programs. For example, British Airways and American Airlines are both members of the Oneworld alliance, meaning you can transfer your Amex Membership Rewards points to British Airways Executive Club and redeem for flights operated by American Airlines.
    
            Because of the vast number of airline transfer partners, your options are virtually endless for where your Membership Rewards points can take you. But, some redemptions are better than others — particularly when it comes to award sweet spots.
    
            Some examples of these sweet spot awards using your Amex Membership Rewards points include the following:
    
            Generally speaking, you’ll get the most value out of your Amex Membership Rewards points by transferring them to airline partners. But that may not always make sense for all card holders — and it’s not your only option.
    
            If figuring out transfer partner options and award charts sounds daunting, you can also use your Membership Rewards for fixed redemptions. This includes using points for statement credits, travel bookings via Amex Travel, charitable donations, online shopping and gift cards.
    
            Using points for statement credits toward qualifying purchases isn’t a great use of your points because you’ll only get 0.6 cents per point in value. If you’re looking to maximize the value of your Amex points, this isn’t the best route to take.
    
            You’ll get slightly more value by redeeming your Membership Rewards for travel bookings. By doing so, you’ll get 1 cent per point toward airfare and 0.7 cents per point toward car rentals, hotels, cruises and vacation bookings. Business Platinum card holders also get a 35% rebate when redeeming points for flight bookings through Amex Travel.
    
            If you choose to redeem your points for gift cards, you’ll get 1 cent per point in value. However, if you use Pay With Points (valid with Amazon, Best Buy, Boxed, Dell and GrubHub and others), you’ll get a value of just 0.5 cents to 1 cent each (depending on the Amex card) — one of the lowest-value options out there.
    
            Generally speaking, you should try to extract as much value as possible out of your Amex Membership Rewards points. However, that’s not always the case for everyone. You may want to save a few dollars here or there on a purchase you’re making online. Ultimately, we love Membership Rewards points so much because you have the option to use them however you like — whether for travel, Amazon purchases, gift cards and more.
    
            When it comes to the worth of your Membership Rewards points, it ultimately comes down to how you use them. The value you can get ranges from about 0.6 cents each to about 2 cents each. Frequent flyer website The Points Guy values Amex Membership Rewards points at 2 cents apiece.
    
            Amex offers 0.6 cents per point in value when you use points for statement credits. Meanwhile, travel bookings will get you a somewhat higher 1 cent per point. The highest value comes from transferring points to airline and hotel partners, as detailed above. Convert your points to airline miles and you can get 2 cents or more in value on premium award redemptions.
    
            American Express Membership Rewards points are some of the most versatile and valuable out there. By earning them, you give yourself the option to save money on travel, buying gift cards, Amazon purchases and so much more. Ultimately, it’s the flexibility that makes having an Amex credit card so rewarding.
    
            Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Platinum card.Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Gold card.Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Business Platinum card.Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Business Gold card.Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Blue Business Plus card.
    
            Looking for a travel credit card? Find out which cards CNN Underscored Money chose as the best travel credit cards currently available.",CNN,01/04/2024,"['American Express Membership Rewards® are among the most valuable travel rewards points out there.', 'That’s primarily because they fall into the category of “transferable rewards,” meaning you’re not tied down to a single airline or hotel program with which you can redeem them.', 'In other words, you’re not just earning points that can transfer to Delta SkyMiles, but they can also transfer to any of the other 16 airlines in the Membership Rewards portfolio.', 'Having Membership Rewards points gives you options, and that’s always a good thing.', 'If you’re ready to give your rewards portfolio a boost, here’s everything you need to know about earning and redeeming Amex Membership Rewards.', 'You can earn Membership Rewards points in various ways.', 'Some require little effort, while others involve a heavier lift.', 'It’s a good idea to take advantage of all the options out there in order to maximize your earnings.', 'Here’s a look at how to earn Membership Rewards most efficiently.', 'The primary way to earn Amex points is through credit cards that earn Membership Rewards.', 'Amex has an extensive lineup of personal and business cards offering generous welcome bonuses and recurring benefits to help you earn maximum points.', 'These include well-known cards like The Platinum Card® from American Express and the American Express® Gold Card.', 'With a single welcome bonus offer, you can give a pretty substantial boost to your Membership Rewards points balance.', 'Here’s a look at the current welcome bonus offers on personal credit cards that earn Membership Rewards.', 'Keep in mind, too, that many of these cards carry an annual fee:  All information about the Amex EveryDay Credit Card, Amex EveryDay Preferred Credit Card and the American Express Green Card has been collected independently by CNN Underscored.', 'Similarly, American Express offers a suite of business credit cards.', 'All information about the Business Green Rewards Card from American Express has been collected independently by CNN Underscored.', 'Keep in mind that several of these cards also carry an annual fee:  Beyond the welcome bonus offers available, American Express makes it easy to earn Membership Rewards through category bonuses.', 'If you spend a lot on groceries, it may be worth considering the Amex Gold card to earn 4 points per dollar spent at US supermarkets (on up to $25,000 in purchases per year).', 'If you travel often, the Amex Platinum card is a great option for earning 5 points per dollar spent on eligible bookings made directly with an airline or with Amex Travel.', 'Plus, you’ll have access to airport lounges, like American Express Centurion Lounges and Delta Sky Clubs, among others.', 'When applying for American Express cards, be sure to take note of the application rules.', 'For example, you can’t earn an Amex welcome bonus more than once (with a few exceptions), and you generally won’t be approved for more than two cards every 90 days.', 'Before applying for a credit card, it’s important to do your research.', 'As mentioned before, American Express makes it manageable to earn bonus points long after the welcome bonus offer.', 'One of those ways is by adding an authorized user to your Amex card, which will occasionally earn you bonus points.', 'Aside from the special promotions where Amex will offer you bonus points for adding an authorized user, doing so can also help you double up your point earnings.', 'That’s because you’ll not only earn points per dollar spent on your purchases, but you’ll also earn rewards on the authorized user’s purchases.', 'Of course, you’ll only want to consider adding a member of your household or someone you trust to pay you back as an authorized user on your account.', 'Authorized users can make charges on the credit card they’ve been added to but have no liability when it comes to paying the bill — that onus falls on you, the primary card holder.', 'Choose carefully who you add to your account, and you can earn extra Amex points without lifting a finger.', 'If you’ve picked up an American Express credit card, earned the welcome bonus offer and think others would enjoy doing the same, you can get rewarded for spreading the word to family and friends.', 'American Express offers bonuses to current card holders when you refer someone and they are approved for an eligible card.', 'You can earn up to 20,000 points per successful approval, though the exact bonus varies by card.', 'To find out your card’s current referral bonus, head over to the Amex referral site.', 'You’ll see referral bonuses based on your card.', 'Simply enter your friend’s name and email address for each card you want to refer and they’ll get an email, inviting them to apply for the card.', 'You can also copy the referral link on the page and share that with your friends and family directly.', 'Referrals are a lucrative way to earn Amex Membership Rewards points for recommending credit cards to your friends and family.', 'Keep in mind there is a limit to how many friends you can refer in a year.', 'Booking travel with American Express is rewarding, too — you can earn bonus points on your credit card, plus you can often get additional perks and rewards.', 'For example, with the Amex Platinum, you’ll get 5 points per dollar spent on hotels booked through Amex Travel.', 'As an added incentive, you’ll receive perks like free breakfast for two, room upgrades when available and hotel credits to use at the spa or onsite restaurant just by booking with Fine Hotels & Resorts or the Hotel Collection.', 'In general, booking travel through American Express pays off in more ways than one.', 'Card holders can also utilize one of the most underrated benefits of having an Amex card: Amex Offers.', 'With Amex Offers, card holders can earn statement credits or bonus points at select retailers.', 'In other words, it’s the perfect opportunity to save some cash or earn bonus points for purchases you were already planning on making.', 'To find and take advantage of Amex Offers, you’ll need to log in to your account.', 'From there, scroll to the bottom of the page to the Amex Offers & Benefits section of the page.', 'Be sure to click “View All” to load all of your eligible offers, and also be sure to select “Add to Card” in order to activate your Amex Offer.', 'From there, you’ll be eligible to earn the bonus points or cash savings that come as part of each Amex Offer — so long as you use the registered card to make your purchase.', 'Amex Offers are a massive perk of Amex cards that can save you money or earn you bonus points on purchases you were already planning to make.', 'Thanks to a partnership with American Express, you can turn your Rakuten cash back rewards into Membership Rewards.', 'It’s a great way to earn Membership Rewards points on regular purchases, without much added effort.', 'If you already have a Rakuten account, you can easily switch your earning preference to Membership Rewards.', 'Simply log into your account and follow these steps:  After this, rewards get transferred to your Membership Rewards account quarterly.', 'Now, for the fun part!', 'Once you’ve earned Membership Rewards points, it’s time to put them to good use.', 'Amex gives you several options to redeem points, but the best option is travel.', 'You can choose between statement credits for travel bookings or transferring them to airline or hotel partners.', 'Here’s a closer look at your options and how they work.', 'American Express has 20 airline and hotel transfer partners — in other words, the Amex points you’ve earned can be transferred to any of the 20 hotel and airline partners.', 'The best way to redeem Membership Rewards for maximum value is through airline transfers.', 'But keep in mind that not all airline loyalty programs are equal.', 'Ultimately, you’ll want to research which program will offer you the most in return, depending on what your travel plans are.', 'With each of the partners, you’ll need to link your accounts, and you’ll also need to search for award availability with the airline of your choice before transferring any points.', 'If you’re looking to transfer your Amex Membership Rewards points, these are the 20 airline and hotel partner options, as well as the transfer rate.', 'It’s worth noting that Amex occasionally runs transfer promotions for certain airlines or hotels.', 'So, at times, you can get more points in return than the standard transfer rate listed above.', 'Bonuses like these can increase the value of your points by enabling you to book sought-after award tickets for substantially less.', 'By transferring Amex Membership Rewards points to partner airlines, you unlock the ability to travel for next to nothing — in most cases when redeeming points and miles, you’ll just have to pay the taxes and fees on a ticket.', 'As a result, points and miles open up the door for flying experiences that would otherwise be out of reach.', 'Keep in mind that the most obvious airline choice may not always be your best option.', 'Airlines typically have extensive alliance networks, allowing you to redeem points for partner airlines through their respective programs.', 'For example, British Airways and American Airlines are both members of the Oneworld alliance, meaning you can transfer your Amex Membership Rewards points to British Airways Executive Club and redeem for flights operated by American Airlines.', 'Because of the vast number of airline transfer partners, your options are virtually endless for where your Membership Rewards points can take you.', 'But, some redemptions are better than others — particularly when it comes to award sweet spots.', 'Some examples of these sweet spot awards using your Amex Membership Rewards points include the following:  Generally speaking, you’ll get the most value out of your Amex Membership Rewards points by transferring them to airline partners.', 'But that may not always make sense for all card holders — and it’s not your only option.', 'If figuring out transfer partner options and award charts sounds daunting, you can also use your Membership Rewards for fixed redemptions.', 'This includes using points for statement credits, travel bookings via Amex Travel, charitable donations, online shopping and gift cards.', 'Using points for statement credits toward qualifying purchases isn’t a great use of your points because you’ll only get 0.6 cents per point in value.', 'If you’re looking to maximize the value of your Amex points, this isn’t the best route to take.', 'You’ll get slightly more value by redeeming your Membership Rewards for travel bookings.', 'By doing so, you’ll get 1 cent per point toward airfare and 0.7 cents per point toward car rentals, hotels, cruises and vacation bookings.', 'Business Platinum card holders also get a 35% rebate when redeeming points for flight bookings through Amex Travel.', 'If you choose to redeem your points for gift cards, you’ll get 1 cent per point in value.', 'However, if you use Pay With Points (valid with Amazon, Best Buy, Boxed, Dell and GrubHub and others), you’ll get a value of just 0.5 cents to 1 cent each (depending on the Amex card) — one of the lowest-value options out there.', 'Generally speaking, you should try to extract as much value as possible out of your Amex Membership Rewards points.', 'However, that’s not always the case for everyone.', 'You may want to save a few dollars here or there on a purchase you’re making online.', 'Ultimately, we love Membership Rewards points so much because you have the option to use them however you like — whether for travel, Amazon purchases, gift cards and more.', 'When it comes to the worth of your Membership Rewards points, it ultimately comes down to how you use them.', 'The value you can get ranges from about 0.6 cents each to about 2 cents each.', 'Frequent flyer website The Points Guy values Amex Membership Rewards points at 2 cents apiece.', 'Amex offers 0.6 cents per point in value when you use points for statement credits.', 'Meanwhile, travel bookings will get you a somewhat higher 1 cent per point.', 'The highest value comes from transferring points to airline and hotel partners, as detailed above.', 'Convert your points to airline miles and you can get 2 cents or more in value on premium award redemptions.', 'American Express Membership Rewards points are some of the most versatile and valuable out there.', 'By earning them, you give yourself the option to save money on travel, buying gift cards, Amazon purchases and so much more.', 'Ultimately, it’s the flexibility that makes having an Amex credit card so rewarding.', 'Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Platinum card.', 'Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Gold card.', 'Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Business Platinum card.', 'Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Business Gold card.', 'Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Blue Business Plus card.', 'Looking for a travel credit card?', 'Find out which cardsCNN Underscored Moneychose as thebest travel credit cardscurrently available.']",0.5246481979610982,"If you’ve picked up an American Express credit card, earned the welcome bonus offer and think others would enjoy doing the same, you can get rewarded for spreading the word to family and friends.",But keep in mind that not all airline loyalty programs are equal.,0.9622429311275482,"With a single welcome bonus offer, you can give a pretty substantial boost to your Membership Rewards points balance.",,2024-04-30
New post-Brexit border checks come into force,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c72pz0vjd57o,2024-04-29T23:02:55.455Z,"New checks brought in under the UK's Brexit trade agreement will cost one business up to £225,000 a year, its co-owner has said. Meat and dairy products, plants and seeds are among the goods now subject to physical checks when imported to Britain from the European Union from Tuesday. Businesses have warned the trade checks, which will see import costs increase immediately, are expected to hit smaller companies hardest and lead to price rises being passed on to customers for certain products. John Davidson, co-owner of flower company Tom Brown Wholesale, said he expected the checks to cost his business between £200,000 and £225,000 per year. ""Usually we try and absorb as much as we can, but those sorts of costs... [it's] just not possible to absorb everything,"" he said. The second phase of border controls kicked in from midnight and have been introduced as part of the UK's Brexit trade agreement. The government said its new border model would ""improve our biosecurity"", adding the costs for businesses would be ""negligible compared to the impact of a major outbreak of a plant or animal disease"", such as foot and mouth. The UK officially left the EU four years ago, but it has taken some time for the new trade rules to be implemented - legally required under the Brexit agreement - for goods travelling from the bloc to the British Isles. Health certificates were introduced in January on EU goods ranging from cut flowers, to fresh produce including meat, fruit and vegetables, but on Tuesday, physical checks for the goods have come into force.  British exporters trading in the other direction have already faced increased red tape for three years. The introduction of such UK border controls is reversing the free flow of such goods, which had been allowed under the EU single market since 1993.  The physical checks will be carried out based on the ""risk"" category that goods fall into. For example, the government said high-risk goods, such as live animals, will be subject to identity and physical checks for pests and diseases at the border.  Products that present a medium risk to biosecurity will also be checked, while low-risk goods, such as canned meat will not require any checks. The new checks are not yet being applied to goods from the Republic of Ireland, which is a major supplier of food to the UK. The UK government says the checks on Irish goods will not happen before November. But businesses, especially smaller companies, have raised concerns that the new checks could disrupt supply chains and increase costs, with importers having to pay £29 per shipment of particular products. If multiple types of product are being imported by one business, such as meat, fish and cheese, the company will have to pay £29 per category, up to a maximum of £145 per consignment. The government has forecast the charges will cost British firms about £330m per year. Mr Davidson told BBC Breakfast his ""bigger worry"" was how the physical checks would work in practice. ""These products are already checked in Holland. From an industry point of view the communication has really been lacking. ""At the moment Defra (the government department) is saying they are going to use [a] light-touch approach to checking. What does that actually mean? We just want some real clarity on it."" While the checks are coming into force on Tuesday, it is understood the number of them will be very low to start with as traders become accustomed to the new rules. The government has acknowledged that the extra red tape and checks will increase food prices, but not as much as seen in recent times. It has forecast the controls could push up inflation by 0.2 percentage points over three years. But Lucy Neville-Rolfe, minister at the Cabinet Office, said the new checks were essential to improve the UK’s biosecurity.  ""We cannot continue with temporary measures which leave the UK open to threats from diseases and could do considerable damage to our livelihoods, our economy and our farming industry,"" she said. On Tuesday, Trade Minister Greg Hands and Exports Minister Lord Garvel were asked about the checks by the Business Select Committee. ""I know there's been frustration expressed on all sides of the equation, but the objective has been to try and minimise the cost and minimise the disruption"", Lord Garvel told the committee. ""When you bring in anything new, of course people are concerned and there is uncertainty, and this is a dynamic situation,"" he added. Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers Union, said the group welcomed the checks ""as a way of safeguarding the nation's food safety"". “British farmers and growers need controls on all imports, not just those from the EU, to be effective, biosecure and efficient. That looks different for the individual sectors in agriculture, dependent on business need,"" he said. Britain imports 22% of its beef, 21% of its sheep meat and 49% of its pork, and relies on the EU for the bulk of those imports, due to consumer demand outstripping supply, according to the British Meat Processors Association. The industry body said with ""so little clear explanation"" of how the new import checks will be rolled out, it had been ""very difficult to gauge the impact on meat supplies, even after four years of preparation"". It said it suspected that larger importers would not be adversely affected, but warned that smaller importers would be. Jamie Collins, of family-run food retailer Hamish Johnston in London, told the BBC his business would probably have to put prices up a bit to maintain its profit margins. ""We import quite a lot of cheese every week from France. Every import we bring over on a weekly basis is looking to get an extra £220 added on to the cost,"" he said.  Food price increases have been a major driver of the overall cost of living increasing in the UK in recent years, with food price inflation - the rate at which goods are getting more expensive - at 4% in the year to March. The pace of food price rises has eased in recent months, but the cost of staples such as cheese, bread and milk are much higher than they were in 2020. Martin McTague, chair of the Federation of Small Businesses, said its members were ""still unsure"" about the trade checks. “They have already been delayed five times so there’s really no excuse not to have communicated what’s going on to small firms,"" he said. He said the ""ripple effect"" of increased costs would lead to businesses having to raise prices, reduce their offering or ""shut up shop entirely"". Additional reporting by Dharshini David, chief economics correspondent; Raphael Sheridan, economics producer, BBC News and Star McFarlane, reporter, BBC News. ",BBC,29/04/2024,"[""New checks brought in under the UK's Brexit trade agreement will cost one business up to £225,000 a year, its co-owner has said."", 'Meat and dairy products, plants and seeds are among the goods now subject to physical checks when imported to Britain from the European Union from Tuesday.', 'Businesses have warned the trade checks, which will see import costs increase immediately, are expected to hit smaller companies hardest and lead to price rises being passed on to customers for certain products.', 'John Davidson, co-owner of flower company Tom Brown Wholesale, said he expected the checks to cost his business between £200,000 and £225,000 per year. ""', 'Usually we try and absorb as much as we can, but those sorts of costs... [it\'s] just not possible to absorb everything,"" he said.', ""The second phase of border controls kicked in from midnight and have been introduced as part of the UK's Brexit trade agreement."", 'The government said its new border model would ""improve our biosecurity"", adding the costs for businesses would be ""negligible compared to the impact of a major outbreak of a plant or animal disease"", such as foot and mouth.', 'The UK officially left the EU four years ago, but it has taken some time for the new trade rules to be implemented - legally required under the Brexit agreement - for goods travelling from the bloc to the British Isles.', 'Health certificates were introduced in January on EU goods ranging from cut flowers, to fresh produce including meat, fruit and vegetables, but on Tuesday, physical checks for the goods have come into force.', 'British exporters trading in the other direction have already faced increased red tape for three years.', 'The introduction of such UK border controls is reversing the free flow of such goods, which had been allowed under the EU single market since 1993.', 'The physical checks will be carried out based on the ""risk"" category that goods fall into.', 'For example, the government said high-risk goods, such as live animals, will be subject to identity and physical checks for pests and diseases at the border.', 'Products that present a medium risk to biosecurity will also be checked, while low-risk goods, such as canned meat will not require any checks.', 'The new checks are not yet being applied to goods from the Republic of Ireland, which is a major supplier of food to the UK.', 'The UK government says the checks on Irish goods will not happen before November.', 'But businesses, especially smaller companies, have raised concerns that the new checks could disrupt supply chains and increase costs, with importers having to pay £29 per shipment of particular products.', 'If multiple types of product are being imported by one business, such as meat, fish and cheese, the company will have to pay £29 per category, up to a maximum of £145 per consignment.', 'The government has forecast the charges will cost British firms about £330m per year.', 'Mr Davidson told BBC Breakfast his ""bigger worry"" was how the physical checks would work in practice. ""', 'These products are already checked in Holland.', 'From an industry point of view the communication has really been lacking. ""', 'At the moment Defra (the government department) is saying they are going to use [a] light-touch approach to checking.', 'What does that actually mean?', 'We just want some real clarity on it.""', 'While the checks are coming into force on Tuesday, it is understood the number of them will be very low to start with as traders become accustomed to the new rules.', 'The government has acknowledged that the extra red tape and checks will increase food prices, but not as much as seen in recent times.', 'It has forecast the controls could push up inflation by 0.2 percentage points over three years.', 'But Lucy Neville-Rolfe, minister at the Cabinet Office, said the new checks were essential to improve the UK’s biosecurity. ""', 'We cannot continue with temporary measures which leave the UK open to threats from diseases and could do considerable damage to our livelihoods, our economy and our farming industry,"" she said.', 'On Tuesday, Trade Minister Greg Hands and Exports Minister Lord Garvel were asked about the checks by the Business Select Committee. ""', 'I know there\'s been frustration expressed on all sides of the equation, but the objective has been to try and minimise the cost and minimise the disruption"", Lord Garvel told the committee. ""', 'When you bring in anything new, of course people are concerned and there is uncertainty, and this is a dynamic situation,"" he added.', 'Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers Union, said the group welcomed the checks ""as a way of safeguarding the nation\'s food safety"". “', 'British farmers and growers need controls on all imports, not just those from the EU, to be effective, biosecure and efficient.', 'That looks different for the individual sectors in agriculture, dependent on business need,"" he said.', 'Britain imports 22% of its beef, 21% of its sheep meat and 49% of its pork, and relies on the EU for the bulk of those imports, due to consumer demand outstripping supply, according to the British Meat Processors Association.', 'The industry body said with ""so little clear explanation"" of how the new import checks will be rolled out, it had been ""very difficult to gauge the impact on meat supplies, even after four years of preparation"".', 'It said it suspected that larger importers would not be adversely affected, but warned that smaller importers would be.', 'Jamie Collins, of family-run food retailer Hamish Johnston in London, told the BBC his business would probably have to put prices up a bit to maintain its profit margins. ""', 'We import quite a lot of cheese every week from France.', 'Every import we bring over on a weekly basis is looking to get an extra £220 added on to the cost,"" he said.', 'Food price increases have been a major driver of the overall cost of living increasing in the UK in recent years, with food price inflation - the rate at which goods are getting more expensive - at 4% in the year to March.', 'The pace of food price rises has eased in recent months, but the cost of staples such as cheese, bread and milk are much higher than they were in 2020.', 'Martin McTague, chair of the Federation of Small Businesses, said its members were ""still unsure"" about the trade checks. “', 'They have already been delayed five times so there’s really no excuse not to have communicated what’s going on to small firms,"" he said.', 'He said the ""ripple effect"" of increased costs would lead to businesses having to raise prices, reduce their offering or ""shut up shop entirely"".', 'Additional reporting by Dharshini David, chief economics correspondent; Raphael Sheridan, economics producer, BBC News and Star McFarlane, reporter, BBC News.']",0.048690171641154,"Tom Bradshaw, president of the National Farmers Union, said the group welcomed the checks ""as a way of safeguarding the nation's food safety"". “","We cannot continue with temporary measures which leave the UK open to threats from diseases and could do considerable damage to our livelihoods, our economy and our farming industry,"" she said.",-0.1922250597373299,"The pace of food price rises has eased in recent months, but the cost of staples such as cheese, bread and milk are much higher than they were in 2020.",British exporters trading in the other direction have already faced increased red tape for three years.,2024-04-30
Net neutrality is back as FCC votes to regulate internet providers,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/25/tech/net-neutrality-is-back/index.html,"
  Updated
        5:35 PM EDT, Thu April 25, 2024
    ","The US government on Thursday banned internet service providers (ISPs) from meddling in the speeds their customers receive when browsing the web and downloading files, restoring tough rules rescinded during the Trump administration and setting the stage for a major legal battle with the broadband industry.
    
            The net neutrality regulations adopted Thursday by the Federal Communications Commission prohibit providers such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon from selectively speeding up, slowing down or blocking users’ internet traffic. They largely reflect rules passed by a prior FCC in 2015 and unwound in 2017.
    
            The latest rules show how, with a 3-2 Democratic majority, the FCC is moving to reassert its authority over an industry that powers the modern digital economy, touching everything from education to health care and enabling advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence.
    
            With Thursday’s party-line vote, the FCC redefined internet service as similar to legacy telephone lines, a sweeping move that comes with greater regulatory power over the broadband industry. And the FCC said it would step in to override state or local policies that conflict with the federal net neutrality rule.
    
            Leading FCC officials have said restoring net neutrality rules, and reclassifying ISPs under Title II of the agency’s congressional charter, would provide the FCC with clearer authority to adopt future rules governing everything from public safety to national security.
    
            Some of the issues the FCC will be further empowered to address after the change include spam robotexts, internet outages, digital privacy and expanding high-speed internet access, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said when she first announced the proposal in September.
    
            On Thursday, Rosenworcel added that the vote would also prevent internet providers from selling Americans’ personal data or sharing it with tech companies to train artificial intelligence models.
    
            “The action we take here is good for consumers, public safety, national security and network investment,” Rosenworcel said ahead of the vote.
    
            The vote marks the latest twist in a years-long battle between regulators on the one hand, who say consumer protections are needed to ensure all websites are treated equally, and ISPs on the other who describe the rules as heavy-handed government intervention.
    
            For years, consumer advocates have said that without net neutrality rules in place, ISPs would be free to charge websites and consumers extra fees — the equivalent of toll lanes for the internet — in order for some websites to be delivered faster than others. At a societal scale, that could give ISPs enormous power to shape what consumers can see and access on the internet, consumer groups say, and entrench their dominance in markets that lack competition.
    
            “Broadband is a telecommunications service and should be regulated as such,” said Justin Brookman, director for technology policy at Consumer Reports. “The Title II authority will ensure that broadband providers are properly overseen by the FCC like all telecommunications services should be. Whether it is throttling content, junk or hidden fees, arbitrary pricing, deceptive advertising or unreliable service, broadband providers have proven over the years that without proper oversight, they will not hesitate to use their power to increase profits at the expense of consumers.”
    
            The broadband industry argues there is no risk of that happening because consumers would revolt. ISPs add that during the Trump and Biden administrations when the net neutrality rules were not in effect, providers did not engage in that type of content-based network manipulation. They have also claimed that the regulations could discourage them from building high-speed networks, although some academic research has shown little support for that claim.
    
            “These 400-plus pages of relentless regulation are proof positive that old orthodoxies die hard,” said Jonathan Spalter, CEO of USTelecom, a trade association representing internet providers. “This is a nonissue for broadband consumers, who have enjoyed an open internet for decades. Rather than pushing this harmful regulatory land grab, policymakers should keep their eyes on the real-world prize of building opportunity for everyone in a hyperconnected world.”
    
            US policies for network providers have flip-flopped multiple times over the past decade with every change in administration in Washington.
    
            Republican commissioners at the FCC blasted Thursday’s vote, accusing its Democratic leadership of touching “the third rail of communications policy.”
    
            “The internet in America has thrived in the absence of 1930s command-and-control regulation by the government,” said FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, describing the new rules as a power grab. “The FCC has identified no gap in national security,” he added, that the agency’s move would help fill.
    
            Industry groups are widely expected to challenge the rules in court, in a significant new test of the federal government’s power.
    
            In past legal battles over net neutrality, courts have deferred to the FCC, ruling that it has wide latitude to regulate ISPs as it sees fit using the authority it derives from the agency’s congressional charter, the Communications Act of 1934.
    
            But courts’ longstanding deference to expert agencies appears increasingly in doubt as a conservative-leaning Supreme Court has sounded an increasingly skeptical tone on the reach of federal executive authority.
    
            As a result, the outcome of a legal challenge to the FCC’s net neutrality rules could have potentially broad ramifications for other US regulatory bodies, not just the FCC.
    
            This story has been updated to clarify the FCC has previously said it would intercede in state and local policies that conflict with its net neutrality rule.",CNN,25/04/2024,"['The US government on Thursday banned internet service providers (ISPs) from meddling in the speeds their customers receive when browsing the web and downloading files, restoring tough rules rescinded during the Trump administration and setting the stage for a major legal battle with the broadband industry.', 'The net neutrality regulations adopted Thursday by the Federal Communications Commission prohibit providers such as AT&T, Comcast and Verizon from selectively speeding up, slowing down or blocking users’ internet traffic.', 'They largely reflect rules passed by a prior FCC in 2015 and unwound in 2017.', 'The latest rulesshow how,with a 3-2 Democratic majority, the FCC is moving to reassert its authority over an industry that powers the modern digital economy, touching everything from education to health care and enabling advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence.', 'With Thursday’s party-line vote, the FCC redefined internet service as similar to legacy telephone lines, a sweeping move that comes with greater regulatory power over the broadband industry.', 'And the FCC said it would step in to override state or local policies that conflict with the federal net neutrality rule.', 'Leading FCC officials have said restoring net neutrality rules, and reclassifying ISPs under Title II of the agency’s congressional charter, would provide the FCC with clearer authority to adopt future rules governing everything from public safety to national security.', 'Some of the issues the FCC will be further empowered to address after the change include spam robotexts, internet outages, digital privacy and expanding high-speed internet access, FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said when she first announced the proposal in September.', 'On Thursday, Rosenworcel added that the vote would also prevent internet providers from selling Americans’ personal data or sharing it with tech companies to train artificial intelligence models.', '“The action we take here is good for consumers, public safety, national security and network investment,” Rosenworcel said ahead of the vote.', 'The vote marks the latest twist in a years-long battle between regulators on the one hand, who say consumer protections are needed to ensure all websites are treated equally, and ISPs on the other who describe the rules as heavy-handed government intervention.', 'For years, consumer advocates have said that without net neutrality rules in place, ISPs would be free to charge websites and consumers extra fees — the equivalent of toll lanes for the internet — in order for some websites to be delivered faster than others.', 'At a societal scale, that could give ISPs enormous power to shape what consumers can seeand access on the internet, consumer groups say, and entrench their dominance in markets that lack competition.', '“Broadband is a telecommunications service and should be regulated as such,” said Justin Brookman, director for technology policy at Consumer Reports. “', 'The Title II authority will ensure that broadband providers are properly overseen by the FCC like all telecommunications services should be.', 'Whether it is throttling content, junk or hidden fees, arbitrary pricing, deceptive advertising or unreliable service, broadband providers have proven over the years that without proper oversight, they will not hesitate to use their power to increase profits at the expense of consumers.”', 'The broadband industry argues there is no risk of that happening because consumers would revolt.', 'ISPs add that during the Trump and Biden administrations when the net neutrality rules were not in effect, providers did not engage in that type of content-based network manipulation.', 'They have also claimed that the regulations could discourage them from building high-speed networks, although some academic research has shown little support for that claim.', '“These 400-plus pages of relentless regulation are proof positive that old orthodoxies die hard,” said Jonathan Spalter, CEO of USTelecom, a trade association representing internet providers. “', 'This is a nonissue for broadband consumers, who have enjoyed an open internet for decades.', 'Rather than pushing this harmful regulatory land grab, policymakers should keep their eyes on the real-world prize of building opportunity for everyone in a hyperconnected world.”', 'US policies for network providers have flip-flopped multiple times over the past decade with every change in administration in Washington.', 'Republican commissioners at the FCC blasted Thursday’s vote, accusing its Democratic leadership of touching “the third rail of communications policy.”', '“The internet in America has thrived in the absence of 1930s command-and-control regulation by the government,” said FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, describing the new rules as a power grab. “', 'The FCC has identified no gap in national security,” he added, that the agency’s move would help fill.', 'Industry groups are widely expected to challenge the rules in court, in a significant new test of the federal government’s power.', 'In past legal battles over net neutrality, courts have deferred to the FCC, ruling that it has wide latitude to regulate ISPs as it sees fit using the authority it derives from the agency’s congressional charter, the Communications Act of 1934.', 'But courts’ longstanding deference to expert agencies appears increasingly in doubt as a conservative-leaning Supreme Court has sounded an increasingly skeptical tone on the reach of federal executive authority.', 'As a result, the outcome of a legal challenge to the FCC’s net neutrality rules could have potentially broad ramifications for other US regulatory bodies, not just the FCC.', 'This story has been updated to clarify the FCC has previously said it would intercede in state and local policies that conflict with its net neutrality rule.']",0.1590658281479894,"The latest rulesshow how,with a 3-2 Democratic majority, the FCC is moving to reassert its authority over an industry that powers the modern digital economy, touching everything from education to health care and enabling advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence.",The broadband industry argues there is no risk of that happening because consumers would revolt.,0.2345490501477168,"“The internet in America has thrived in the absence of 1930s command-and-control regulation by the government,” said FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, describing the new rules as a power grab. “",But courts’ longstanding deference to expert agencies appears increasingly in doubt as a conservative-leaning Supreme Court has sounded an increasingly skeptical tone on the reach of federal executive authority.,2024-04-30
Qantas: Airline investigates after customers report seeing strangers' data,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-68925710,2024-05-01T00:23:49.000Z,"Australian airline Qantas says it is investigating a privacy breach on its app that has left customers with access to others' personal details.  Passengers have reported having access to multiple incorrect boarding passes and flight details, local media said. Qantas said it was ""working to resolve the issue"" and that it ""may have been caused by recent system changes"".  The airline has apologised but not commented on the scale of the breach.   ""Please be aware of social media scams at this time,"" it said in a statement. Customer Josh Withers told the ABC that another passenger's name and details appeared when he opened the app on Wednesday.  ""It said: 'Hi Sam' and I instantly noticed [that] Sam had a lot more Qantas points than I did,"" he said. Mr Withers said that each time he re-opened the portal a new customer's details would appear including their frequent flyer points and scheduled flights.  Other passengers told local media they appeared to have the ability to cancel another passenger's upcoming flight to Europe.  Speaking to Nine News, technology journalist Trevor Long said that in the space of 15 minutes he could ""capture at least 8-12 different people's details - including valid boarding passes"".  The airline has recommended that users log out and then log back into the app to try and fix the issue.  Social media has been flooded with criticisms of the carrier and posts from people claiming to be affected.  Users on X, formerly Twitter, shared screenshots of the glitch and alleged phishing attempts. Some appeared to show accounts posing as Qantas customer care agents asking for people's personal information in order to assist them.  ",BBC,01/05/2024,"[""Australian airline Qantas says it is investigating a privacy breach on its app that has left customers with access to others' personal details."", 'Passengers have reported having access to multiple incorrect boarding passes and flight details, local media said.', 'Qantas said it was ""working to resolve the issue"" and that it ""may have been caused by recent system changes"".', 'The airline has apologised but not commented on the scale of the breach. ""', 'Please be aware of social media scams at this time,"" it said in a statement.', 'Customer Josh Withers told the ABC that another passenger\'s name and details appeared when he opened the app on Wednesday. ""', 'It said: \'Hi Sam\' and I instantly noticed [that] Sam had a lot more Qantas points than I did,"" he said.', ""Mr Withers said that each time he re-opened the portal a new customer's details would appear including their frequent flyer points and scheduled flights."", ""Other passengers told local media they appeared to have the ability to cancel another passenger's upcoming flight to Europe."", 'Speaking to Nine News, technology journalist Trevor Long said that in the space of 15 minutes he could ""capture at least 8-12 different people\'s details - including valid boarding passes"".', 'The airline has recommended that users log out and then log back into the app to try and fix the issue.', 'Social media has been flooded with criticisms of the carrier and posts from people claiming to be affected.', 'Users on X, formerly Twitter, shared screenshots of the glitch and alleged phishing attempts.', ""Some appeared to show accounts posing as Qantas customer care agents asking for people's personal information in order to assist them.""]",0.0588897691083571,Some appeared to show accounts posing as Qantas customer care agents asking for people's personal information in order to assist them.,Social media has been flooded with criticisms of the carrier and posts from people claiming to be affected.,-0.968258500099182,,Australian airline Qantas says it is investigating a privacy breach on its app that has left customers with access to others' personal details.,2024-04-30
Bonza: Passengers stranded as Australian airline enters administration,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-68925711,2024-04-30T03:24:14.000Z,"Australia's newest budget airline has gone into voluntary administration, after abruptly cancelling all of its flights on Tuesday.  Bonza's financial woes have left thousands of passengers stranded around the country. Operating since last year, the carrier had been the first to launch in Australia since 2007.  Aviation remains one of the nation's most concentrated industries, dominated by Qantas and Virgin Australia. ""We apologise to our customers who are impacted by this and we're working as quickly as possible to determine a way forward that ensures there is ongoing competition in the Australian aviation market,"" Bonza said in a statement.  The company has appointed Hall Chadwick as voluntary administrators for its operating and holding company, according to documents filed with Australia's corporate regulator.  Bonza's eight planes - a Boeing 737 Max fleet - were repossessed by creditors on Tuesday, according to local media. The airline has not confirmed the claim.  Passenger Mel Watkins, who was due to fly to Launceston for a family holiday, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that she was ""absolutely shattered"" by news her flight had been axed.  ""I thought it's an Australian airline, and we'd be better off supporting a small company, but it turns out no,"" she said.  The federal transport department set up an emergency help hotline for passengers on Tuesday, after planes were cancelled across Queensland and Victoria. Qantas Group and Virgin Australia - which account for 95% of the nation's domestic aviation market - each offered to assist anyone stranded mid-journey.  Based in Queensland's Sunshine Coast, Bonza launched in 2021, promising low-cost fares and a suite of new domestic destinations.  After delays with regulatory approval, it finally took to the skies in 2023 but aircraft shortages and low patronage saw it slash several routes in quick succession.  Those setbacks, combined with its inability to secure access to take-off and landing spots in the lucrative Sydney market, quickly sparked speculation over its future.  Australia's main transport union is now seeking an urgent meeting with the airlines leadership to discuss how the sudden closure will impact workers.  ""Bonza must ensure staff are prioritised and informed as this process plays out,"" the national secretary of the transport workers union, Michael Kaine said, according to the Guardian.  Mr Kaine also criticised the ""unchecked corporate greed"" in the aviation industry that's led to higher fares and warned that any carrier attempting to break into the market ""has little chance of survival"".  ",BBC,30/04/2024,"[""Australia's newest budget airline has gone into voluntary administration, after abruptly cancelling all of its flights on Tuesday."", ""Bonza's financial woes have left thousands of passengers stranded around the country."", 'Operating since last year, the carrier had been the first to launch in Australia since 2007.', 'Aviation remains one of the nation\'s most concentrated industries, dominated by Qantas and Virgin Australia. ""', 'We apologise to our customers who are impacted by this and we\'re working as quickly as possible to determine a way forward that ensures there is ongoing competition in the Australian aviation market,"" Bonza said in a statement.', ""The company has appointed Hall Chadwick as voluntary administrators for its operating and holding company, according to documents filed with Australia's corporate regulator."", ""Bonza's eight planes - a Boeing 737 Max fleet - were repossessed by creditors on Tuesday, according to local media."", 'The airline has not confirmed the claim.', 'Passenger Mel Watkins, who was due to fly to Launceston for a family holiday, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that she was ""absolutely shattered"" by news her flight had been axed. ""', 'I thought it\'s an Australian airline, and we\'d be better off supporting a small company, but it turns out no,"" she said.', 'The federal transport department set up an emergency help hotline for passengers on Tuesday, after planes were cancelled across Queensland and Victoria.', ""Qantas Group and Virgin Australia - which account for 95% of the nation's domestic aviation market - each offered to assist anyone stranded mid-journey."", ""Based in Queensland's Sunshine Coast, Bonza launched in 2021, promising low-cost fares and a suite of new domestic destinations."", 'After delays with regulatory approval, it finally took to the skies in 2023 but aircraft shortages and low patronage saw it slash several routes in quick succession.', 'Those setbacks, combined with its inability to secure access to take-off and landing spots in the lucrative Sydney market, quickly sparked speculation over its future.', 'Australia\'s main transport union is now seeking an urgent meeting with the airlines leadership to discuss how the sudden closure will impact workers. ""', 'Bonza must ensure staff are prioritised and informed as this process plays out,"" the national secretary of the transport workers union, Michael Kaine said, according to the Guardian.', 'Mr Kaine also criticised the ""unchecked corporate greed"" in the aviation industry that\'s led to higher fares and warned that any carrier attempting to break into the market ""has little chance of survival"".']",-0.0414803131337683,"Based in Queensland's Sunshine Coast, Bonza launched in 2021, promising low-cost fares and a suite of new domestic destinations.","Mr Kaine also criticised the ""unchecked corporate greed"" in the aviation industry that's led to higher fares and warned that any carrier attempting to break into the market ""has little chance of survival"".",-0.6636575162410736,"I thought it's an Australian airline, and we'd be better off supporting a small company, but it turns out no,"" she said.","Those setbacks, combined with its inability to secure access to take-off and landing spots in the lucrative Sydney market, quickly sparked speculation over its future.",2024-04-30
The Chevrolet Corvette is officially going electric,https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/25/business/electric-hybrid-corvette/index.html,"
  Updated
        12:22 PM EDT, Mon April 25, 2022
    ","General Motors will produce a fully electric Chevrolet Corvette, GM President Mark Reuss announced in a LinkedIn post Monday morning. 
    
            Reuss didn’t say when the electric Corvette would come, but he hinted that a hybrid model could come relatively soon. “We will offer an electrified Corvette as early as next year,” he wrote. An accompanying video the company posted to Twitter showed what appeared to be a hybrid Corvette, and in another first, showed the front wheels spinning and throwing snow as if being powered. All Corvettes produced by the company previously have been rear-wheel-drive only.
    
            While Reuss’s post implies a hybrid Corvette will be based on the current generation of the car, it’s not clear if the all-electric version will be a variation of this car or a completely different future model.
    
            “Electrified” is an auto industry term encompassing everything from hybrid to fully electric vehicles, and anything with an electric motor can count as “electrified.” It has long been rumored that the current generation of the Corvette, the first with its gasoline engine mounted behind the seats instead of in the front, could be built with a hybrid system. Reuss has also previously hinted there would be electrified variants of the car.
    
            Various companies are working on electric sports cars. Most all-electric vehicles in production so far have been four-door sedans and SUVs, as the need for batteries lends itself to larger and heavier vehicles. Tesla’s first car, the Lotus Elise-based Tesla Roadster, was an electric sports car, but the second-generation of Tesla Roadster, originally unveiled as a prototype in 2017, has yet to go into production.
    
            Some manufacturers, such as Lamborghini, have said that current battery technology doesn’t allow for a optimum sports car performance from a purely electric vehicle. Lamborghini has been working on plug-in hybrid sports cars, though.
    
            To date, the Corvette is only available in the base Stingray version with 6.2-liter V8 engine producing up to 495 horsepower. A 670 horsepower Corvette Z06 with a 5.5-liter V8 was unveiled last fall. The previous generation of the Corvette included included a 755-horsepower ZR1 version. Nothing like that has yet been announced for the current model but GM engineers have said a major reason for putting the engine in the back was to allow for better performance at extremely high horsepower levels.
    
            Besides saving gas, hybrid systems can also be used in high-performance cars to add additional power and to provide for quicker acceleration since electric motors can provide power to the wheels more quickly than gas engines. Ferrari’s most powerful sports cars are hybrids, for instance.  
    
            GM has said it plans to produce only zero-emission vehicles, meaning fully electric or powered by hydrogen fuel cells, by 2035.",CNN,25/04/2022,"['General Motors will produce a fully electric Chevrolet Corvette, GM President Mark Reuss announced in a LinkedIn post Monday morning.', 'Reuss didn’t say when the electric Corvette would come, but he hinted that a hybrid model could come relatively soon. “', 'We will offer an electrified Corvette as early as next year,” he wrote.', 'An accompanying video the company posted to Twitter showed what appeared to be a hybrid Corvette, and in another first, showed the front wheels spinning and throwing snow as if being powered.', 'All Corvettes produced by the company previously have been rear-wheel-drive only.', 'While Reuss’s post implies a hybrid Corvette will be based on the current generation of the car, it’s not clear if the all-electric version will be a variation of this car or a completely different future model.', '“Electrified” is an auto industry term encompassing everything from hybrid to fully electric vehicles, and anything with an electric motor can count as “electrified.”', 'It has long been rumored that the current generation of the Corvette, the first with its gasoline engine mounted behind the seats instead of in the front, could be built with a hybrid system.', 'Reuss has also previously hinted there would be electrified variants of the car.', 'Various companies are working on electric sports cars.', 'Most all-electric vehicles in production so far have been four-door sedans and SUVs, as the need for batteries lends itself to larger and heavier vehicles.', 'Tesla’s first car, the Lotus Elise-based Tesla Roadster, was an electric sports car, but the second-generation of Tesla Roadster, originally unveiled as a prototype in 2017, has yet to go into production.', 'Some manufacturers, such as Lamborghini, have said that current battery technology doesn’t allow for a optimum sports car performance from a purely electric vehicle.', 'Lamborghini has been working on plug-in hybrid sports cars, though.', 'To date, the Corvette is only available in the base Stingray version with 6.2-liter V8 engine producing up to 495 horsepower.', 'A 670 horsepower Corvette Z06 with a 5.5-liter V8 was unveiled last fall.', 'The previous generation of the Corvette included included a 755-horsepower ZR1 version.', 'Nothing like that has yet been announced for the current model but GM engineers have said a major reason for putting the engine in the back was to allow for better performance at extremely high horsepower levels.', 'Besides saving gas, hybrid systems can also be used in high-performance cars to add additional power and to provide for quicker acceleration since electric motors can provide power to the wheels more quickly than gas engines.', 'Ferrari’s most powerful sports cars are hybrids, for instance.', 'GM has said it plans to produce only zero-emission vehicles, meaning fully electric or powered by hydrogen fuel cells, by 2035.']",0.0521320736918344,Nothing like that has yet been announced for the current model but GM engineers have said a major reason for putting the engine in the back was to allow for better performance at extremely high horsepower levels.,"While Reuss’s post implies a hybrid Corvette will be based on the current generation of the car, it’s not clear if the all-electric version will be a variation of this car or a completely different future model.",0.3646016319592793,"Besides saving gas, hybrid systems can also be used in high-performance cars to add additional power and to provide for quicker acceleration since electric motors can provide power to the wheels more quickly than gas engines.","Some manufacturers, such as Lamborghini, have said that current battery technology doesn’t allow for a optimum sports car performance from a purely electric vehicle.",2024-04-30
It’s back: Targeted Amex card holders can get up to 30% off at Amazon,https://edition.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/deals/amazon-amex-discount-promotion,"
  
        11:21 AM EST, Wed February 14, 2024
    ","Most American Express card members typically think of their Amex points as opportunities for amazing travel opportunities. While that’s true, there’s another lesser-known use for them — redeeming them for purchases at Amazon. Right now, you may be eligible for an Amazon promotion where you can save big on Amazon purchases by redeeming as little as one Amex point.
    
            Targeted American Express card members can save as much as 30% on their next Amazon purchase, for up to $30 in savings when you use Amex points to pay for at least a portion of your purchase at checkout. However, your offer may be higher or lower.
    
            This offer is set to expire on June 30, 2024, so even if you aren’t in the market to shop at Amazon right now, you have some time to take advantage of the savings. That said, Amazon also states it will deactivate the offer after 24,167 customers have redeemed it.
    
            With many Amazon discounted offers, scoring the deal can be a little complicated. But we’re going to take you through it step by step to make sure you’re getting as much of a discount as possible when you’re shopping at Amazon.
    
            To start, you must have an American Express card that earns Membership Rewards points. Amex cards that earn other types of rewards, such as cash back or airline miles, won’t work. But there are plenty of Amex cards that earn Membership Rewards points — a small sampling of them is at the end of this story.
    
            Next, you’ll need to link your Amazon and American Express accounts. Add your American Express card as a payment method in your Amazon account, if you haven’t already. Then look for the option to enroll in “Shop with Points” under the “Your Account” tab, and click the “Enroll” button for the Amex card you just added.
    
            Once your accounts are connected, you’ll need to activate the offer by clicking on this link. Remember, this is a targeted promotion, so not everyone will be eligible for it — you could be targeted for any one of the offers or none of them. When you click on the link, if you see a message that you’re not eligible, then you’re unfortunately not targeted for this particular promotion.
    
            But even if you’re not targeted, don’t give up hope. If you just enrolled in “Shop with Points,” you may need to wait 24 hours for Amazon’s records to refresh before knowing if you’re targeted, so check back in a day or so.
    
            If you’re eligible, activate the offer by clicking on the “Activate now” button — the enrollment page will indicate your particular discount. You can then shop at Amazon as you normally would, though only products sold and shipped by Amazon are eligible for these discounts. Additionally, Amazon gift cards are excluded, though other third-party retailer gift cards sold by Amazon might be eligible.
    
            But wait! There’s one more step. When you’re ready to check out, you’ll want to make sure to select your linked American Express card as your payment method. Then you’ll need to use at least 1 point to pay for your purchase for the discount to apply.
    
            When paying with Amex Membership Rewards points at Amazon, 1 point equals 0.7 cents. That’s not the best value you can get for Amex points. Frequent flyer website The Points Guy values Membership Rewards points as high as 2 cents each when redeemed for travel.
    
            However, it’s important to note that you don’t have to pay for your entire Amazon purchase with points to get these discounts. In fact, you can use just 1 point and pay for the rest with your Amex card, and you’ll still see the discount applied to your order. However, some accounts might see that you need to redeem slightly more points — 714 to be exact — to receive the savings, so make sure to check the terms of your exact offer.
    
            To pay with the minimum number of points required, enter $0.01 in the points section at checkout, which will apply just 1 point to your payment, You can use any number of points you want, but if you don’t make this change, Amazon may automatically apply the maximum number of points to cover the entire purchase, so you’ll want to make sure to update the amount before you place the order.
    
            Once you’ve applied at least 1 point to your payment, you’ll see the discount added to your order. The discount will apply on every order you place through June 30 until you hit the total maximum in savings — which will depend on your particular offer.
    
            Let’s take a look at some examples of how you can apply this discount to your upcoming Amazon purchases, even if you don’t need anything from Amazon right at the moment.
    
            With airlines having regular delays and cancellations over the last year, placing an Apple AirTag on your luggage can be a great way to track the location of your belongings. An Apple AirTag 4 Pack is currently priced at $78.99 before taxes and shipping, but if you’re targeted for the 30% off American Express offer, that’ll bring the pack down to $55.30, or around $13.83 per AirTag before tax.
    
            Or, if you’re hoping to pick up a set of new Apple AirPods Pro 2, right now Amazon is selling them for $189.99. But you can knock that down even further to as low as $159.99 before taxes if you’re targeted for this offer.
    
            Even if you aren’t eligible for any of these particular Amex promotions, offers like this typically resurface many times throughout the year, so keep on checking back.
    
            Amazon often runs similar promotions for other credit cards, so check out our guides to discounts for Chase and Discover card holders to see what’s available. You might also find that even if you aren’t eligible now for one of these offers, you could magically become targeted in a few weeks, so keep on checking the link to see if you’ve been granted access.
    
            Amazon has been eagerly offers some lucrative promotions over the last few years, so keep your credit card accounts linked to your Amazon account, and if you’re targeted for any of these offers, make sure you use them before they expire at the end of the year.
    
            Also, make sure you read our guide to the best credit cards for Amazon to be sure you’re using the right card when you buy at Amazon.
    
            Looking for a travel credit card? Find out which cards CNN Underscored Money chose as the best travel credit cards currently available.",CNN,14/02/2024,"['Most American Express card members typically think of their Amex points as opportunities for amazing travel opportunities.', 'While that’s true, there’s another lesser-known use for them — redeeming them for purchases at Amazon.', 'Right now, you may be eligible for anAmazonpromotion where you can save big on Amazon purchases by redeeming as little as one Amex point.', 'Targeted American Express card members cansave as much as 30% on their next Amazon purchase, for up to $30 in savings when you use Amex points to pay for at least a portion of your purchase at checkout.', 'However, your offer may be higher or lower.', 'This offer is set to expire on June 30, 2024, so even if you aren’t in the market to shop at Amazon right now, you have some time to take advantage of the savings.', 'That said, Amazon also states it will deactivate the offer after 24,167 customers have redeemed it.', 'With many Amazon discounted offers, scoring the deal can be a little complicated.', 'But we’re going to take you through it step by step to make sure you’re getting as much of a discount as possible when you’re shopping atAmazon.', 'To start, you must have an American Express card that earns Membership Rewards points.', 'Amex cards that earn other types of rewards, such as cash back or airline miles, won’t work.', 'But there are plenty of Amex cards that earn Membership Rewards points — a small sampling of them is at the end of this story.', 'Next, you’ll need tolink your Amazon and American Express accounts.', 'Add your American Express card as a payment method in your Amazon account, if you haven’t already.', 'Then look for the option toenroll in “Shop with Points”under the “Your Account” tab, and click the “Enroll” button for the Amex card you just added.', 'Once your accounts are connected, you’ll need to activate the offer byclicking on this link.', 'Remember, this is a targeted promotion, so not everyone will be eligible for it — you could be targeted for any one of the offers or none of them.', 'When you click on the link, if you see a message that you’re not eligible, then you’re unfortunately not targeted for this particular promotion.', 'But even if you’re not targeted, don’t give up hope.', 'If you just enrolled in “Shop with Points,” you may need to wait 24 hours for Amazon’s records to refresh before knowing if you’re targeted, so check back in a day or so.', 'If you’re eligible, activate the offer byclicking on the “Activate now” button— the enrollment page will indicate your particular discount.', 'You can thenshop at Amazonas you normally would, though only products sold and shipped by Amazon are eligible for these discounts.', 'Additionally, Amazon gift cards are excluded, though otherthird-party retailer gift cardssold by Amazon might be eligible.', 'But wait!', 'There’s one more step.', 'When you’re ready to check out, you’ll want to make sure to select your linked American Express card as your payment method.', 'Then you’ll need to use at least 1 point to pay for your purchase for the discount to apply.', 'When paying with Amex Membership Rewards points at Amazon, 1 point equals 0.7 cents.', 'That’s not the best value you can get for Amex points.', 'Frequent flyer websiteThe Points Guyvalues Membership Rewards points as high as 2 cents each when redeemed for travel.', 'However, it’s important to note that you don’t have to pay for your entireAmazonpurchase with points to get these discounts.', 'In fact,you can use just 1 point and pay for the rest with your Amex card, and you’ll still see the discount applied to your order.', 'However, some accounts might see that you need to redeem slightly more points —714 to be exact —to receive the savings, so make sure to check the terms of your exact offer.', 'To pay with the minimum number of points required, enter $0.01 in the points section at checkout, which will apply just 1 point to your payment, You can use any number of points you want, but if you don’t make this change,Amazonmay automatically apply the maximum number of points to cover the entire purchase, so you’ll want to make sure to update the amount before you place the order.', 'Once you’ve applied at least 1 point to your payment, you’ll see the discount added to your order.', 'The discount will apply on every order you place through June 30 until you hit the total maximum in savings —which will depend on your particular offer.', 'Let’s take a look at some examples of how you can apply this discount to your upcomingAmazonpurchases, even if you don’t need anything from Amazon right at the moment.', 'With airlines having regular delays and cancellations over the last year, placing an Apple AirTag on your luggage can be a great way to track the location of your belongings.', 'An Apple AirTag 4 Pack is currently priced at $78.99 before taxes and shipping, but if you’re targeted for the 30% off American Express offer, that’ll bring the pack down to $55.30, or around $13.83 per AirTag before tax.', 'Or, if you’re hoping to pick up a set of new Apple AirPods Pro 2, right now Amazon is selling them for $189.99.', 'But you can knock that down even further to as low as $159.99 before taxes if you’re targeted for this offer.', 'Even if you aren’t eligible for any of these particular Amex promotions, offers like this typically resurface many times throughout the year, so keep on checking back.', 'Amazon often runs similar promotions for other credit cards, so check out our guides to discounts for Chase and Discover card holders to see what’s available.', 'You might also find that even if you aren’t eligible now for one of these offers, you could magically become targeted in a few weeks, so keep on checking the link to see if you’ve been granted access.', 'Amazon has been eagerly offers some lucrative promotions over the last few years, sokeep your credit card accounts linked to your Amazon account, and if you’re targeted for any of these offers, make sure you use them before they expire at the end of the year.', 'Also, make sure you read our guide to thebest credit cards for Amazonto be sure you’re using the right card when you buy at Amazon.', 'Looking for a travel credit card?', 'Find out which cardsCNN Underscored Moneychose as thebest travel credit cardscurrently available.']",0.2766683229921542,Most American Express card members typically think of their Amex points as opportunities for amazing travel opportunities.,That’s not the best value you can get for Amex points.,-0.0578339397907257,"Amazon has been eagerly offers some lucrative promotions over the last few years, sokeep your credit card accounts linked to your Amazon account, and if you’re targeted for any of these offers, make sure you use them before they expire at the end of the year.",But you can knock that down even further to as low as $159.99 before taxes if you’re targeted for this offer.,2024-04-30
Judge’s stern rebuke of Elon Musk’s X gives researchers fresh hope,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/tech/judges-stern-rebuke-of-elon-musks-x-gives-researchers-fresh-hope/index.html,"
  Published
        1:17 PM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
    ","A federal judge’s decision this week reprimanding Elon Musk’s X will have reverberating effects on efforts to hold influential online platforms accountable, legal experts and advocacy groups say.
    
            On Monday, District Judge Charles Breyer dismissed and excoriated a lawsuit by X against online watchdog group Center for Countering Digital Hate as an attempt to silence the non-profit group for sounding alarms about hate speech on the platform.
    
            Breyer wrote in Monday’s order that the lawsuit was “unabashedly” about “punishing” reports written by CCDH, which X had accused of campaigning to drive away its advertisers. Breyer held that the reports were “unquestionably” protected by the group’s free speech rights.
    
            Now, that decision could embolden other research groups and Musk critics who have faced legal threats from the billionaire.
    
            The CCDH case — in the US District Court for the Northern District of California — has been widely viewed as a bellwether for research and accountability on X, where Musk has restored the accounts of previously banned White supremacists and spreaders of misinformation and where Musk himself has amplified various conspiracy theories.
    
            And CCDH is not the only organization that has faced attacks by self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” Musk after criticizing or raising concerns about his platform.
    
            “This is an important decision that sees Elon Musk’s lawsuit for what it is — an effort to punish his critics for constitutionally protected speech and to deter researchers from studying his platform,” said Alex Abdo, litigation director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case arguing that private companies should not be allowed to use breach of contract claims to punish criticism.
    
            “Society needs reliable and ethical research into social media platforms, and often that research relies on being able to study publicly available posts,” Abdo said.
    
            X said it plans to appeal Breyer’s decision.
    
            In his first year as owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, Musk threatened legal action against the Anti-Defamation League for defamation, as well as against Microsoft and Meta for allegedly improper data and trade secret access, respectively. None of those threats ever amounted to real lawsuits.
    
            He did, however, sue the progressive media watchdog Media Matters over its analysis highlighting antisemitic and pro-Nazi content on X, alleging that the group’s testing methodology was not representative of how real users experience the site and that the report was designed to drive away advertisers. Legal experts have described that case as “weak” on the merits and as a “bogus” attempt to chill criticism of X.
    
            This week’s court decision may be only a temporary setback in Musk’s wider plan to stifle criticism, said Media Matters CEO Angelo Carusone. Musk’s new playbook, Carusone said, enlists the help of sympathetic Republican attorneys general to investigate independent reporting organizations and tie them up in legal proceedings.
    
            The states of Texas and Missouri each announced probes into Media Matters following X’s lawsuit against the group, to which Musk responded, “Great!”
    
            As recently as Monday, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a petition in state court seeking to compel Media Matters’ cooperation with his investigation. The filing came a week after he appeared with Musk in a live event on X — which Carusone said shows how Musk hopes to deputize the power of government to silence his critics.
    
            “They have every reason to do it,” Carusone said of the AGs’ investigations. “They get the political benefits, they get the attention. There doesn’t seem to be any cost to them yet. And if they are successful at developing this new playbook, this new terrain, legally, then it’s going to pave the way for them to just use this tool and tactic over and over and over again.”
    
            A representative for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Carusone’s claims.
    
            Researchers from non-profits and academic institutions have had a harder time studying X since Musk’s takeover in 2022. Academics need large samples of posts, shares, likes and other data to study social media trends in mis- and disinformation, public health, elections and other key topics. But one of Musk’s first changes at X was to put access to platform data behind a steep paywall.
    
            Researchers and civil society groups said the new subscription fees — costing up to $2.5 million a year — were “outrageously expensive” and made it impossible to do their work, reducing transparency of a critical platform.
    
            The change may have forced some researchers to rely more heavily on first-person observational data to draw conclusions about user behavior on X. Groups like CCDH have also used automated “scraping” of publicly viewable content from X rather than paying the company for data directly, a tactic that helped give rise to X’s initial lawsuit.
    
            Efforts by X and other social media companies to limit research transparency makes them less accountable to the public at best and, at worst, could mask malicious behavior, said David Karpf, an associate professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University.
    
            “We need independent research to have any real measure of what’s going on at X/Twitter. Musk is only ever going to release data that makes his company look good,” Karpf said. “These platforms are too big and too vital to the spread of information to be left unmonitored.”
    
            “This is an election year,” Karpf added, “and the platforms are taking steps to make it harder to monitor how their services are used for malignant ends.”
    
            Free Press, another media accountability organization that has been critical of Musk’s leadership of X and which called for advertisers to pause their spending on the platform shortly after his takeover, also celebrated Breyer’s ruling as potentially removing at least one hurdle that watchdog organizations face.
    
            “The guardrails for democracy are hanging by a thread and we have dwindling insights into platform practices as researchers face lawsuits, congressional subpoenas and other scare tactics,” said Nora Benavidez, senior counsel and director of digital rights at Free Press.
    
            Ultimately, Benavidez called the ruling “a reminder that platform accountability is essential and will inevitably prevail when up against bullies like Musk who try to silence us.”",CNN,26/03/2024,"['A federal judge’s decision this week reprimanding Elon Musk’s X will have reverberating effects on efforts to hold influential online platforms accountable, legal experts and advocacy groups say.', 'On Monday, District Judge Charles Breyer dismissed and excoriated a lawsuit by X against online watchdog group Center for Countering Digital Hate as an attempt to silence the non-profit group for sounding alarms about hate speech on the platform.', 'Breyer wrote in Monday’s order that the lawsuit was “unabashedly” about “punishing” reports written by CCDH, which X had accused of campaigning to drive away its advertisers.', 'Breyer held that the reports were “unquestionably” protected by the group’s free speech rights.', 'Now, that decision could embolden other research groups and Musk critics who have faced legal threats from the billionaire.', 'The CCDH case — in the US District Court for the Northern District of California —has been widely viewed as a bellwether for research and accountability on X, where Musk has restored the accounts of previously banned White supremacists and spreaders of misinformation and where Musk himself has amplified various conspiracy theories.', 'And CCDH is not the only organization that has faced attacks by self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” Musk after criticizing or raising concerns about his platform.', '“This is an important decision that sees Elon Musk’s lawsuit for what it is — an effort to punish his critics for constitutionally protected speech and to deter researchers from studying his platform,” said Alex Abdo, litigation director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case arguing that private companies should not be allowed to use breach of contract claims to punish criticism.', '“Society needs reliable and ethical research into social media platforms, and often that research relies on being able to study publicly available posts,” Abdo said.', 'X said it plans to appeal Breyer’s decision.', 'In his first year as owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, Musk threatened legal action against the Anti-Defamation League for defamation, as well as against Microsoft and Meta for allegedly improper data and trade secret access, respectively.', 'None of those threats ever amounted to real lawsuits.', 'He did, however, sue the progressive media watchdog Media Matters over itsanalysishighlighting antisemitic and pro-Nazi content on X, alleging that the group’s testing methodology was not representative of how real users experience the site and that the report was designed to drive away advertisers.', 'Legal experts have described that case as “weak” on the merits and as a “bogus” attempt to chill criticism of X.  This week’s court decision may be only a temporary setback in Musk’s wider plan to stifle criticism, said Media Matters CEO Angelo Carusone.', 'Musk’s new playbook, Carusone said, enlists the help of sympathetic Republican attorneys general to investigate independent reporting organizations and tie them up in legal proceedings.', 'The states of Texas and Missouri each announced probes into Media Matters following X’s lawsuit against the group, to which Musk responded, “Great!”', 'As recently as Monday, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a petition in state court seeking to compel Media Matters’ cooperation with his investigation.', 'The filing came a week after he appeared with Musk in a live event on X — which Carusone said shows how Musk hopes to deputize the power of government to silence his critics.', '“They have every reason to do it,” Carusone said of the AGs’ investigations. “', 'They get the political benefits, they get the attention.', 'There doesn’t seem to be any cost to them yet.', 'And if they are successful at developing this new playbook, this new terrain, legally, then it’s going to pave the way for them to just use this tool and tactic over and over and over again.”', 'A representative for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Carusone’s claims.', 'Researchers from non-profits and academic institutions have had a harder time studying X since Musk’s takeover in 2022.', 'Academics need large samples of posts, shares, likes and other data to study social media trends in mis- and disinformation, public health, elections and other key topics.', 'But one of Musk’s first changes at X was to put access to platform data behind a steep paywall.', 'Researchers and civil society groups said the new subscription fees — costing up to $2.5 million a year —were “outrageously expensive” and made it impossible to do their work, reducing transparency of a critical platform.', 'The change may have forced some researchers to rely more heavily on first-person observational data to draw conclusions about user behavior on X. Groups like CCDH have also used automated “scraping” of publicly viewable content from X rather than paying the company for data directly, a tactic that helped give rise to X’s initial lawsuit.', 'Efforts by X and other social media companies to limit research transparency makes them less accountable to the public at best and, at worst, could mask malicious behavior, said David Karpf, an associate professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University.', '“We need independent research to have any real measure of what’s going on at X/Twitter.', 'Musk is only ever going to release data that makes his company look good,” Karpf said. “', 'These platforms are too big and too vital to the spread of information to be left unmonitored.”', '“This is an election year,” Karpf added, “and the platforms are taking steps to make it harder to monitor how their services are used for malignant ends.”', 'Free Press, another media accountability organization that has been critical of Musk’s leadership of X and which called for advertisers to pause their spending on the platform shortly after his takeover, also celebrated Breyer’s ruling as potentially removing at least one hurdle that watchdog organizations face.', '“The guardrails for democracy are hanging by a thread and we have dwindling insights into platform practices as researchers face lawsuits, congressional subpoenas and other scare tactics,” said Nora Benavidez, senior counsel and director of digital rights at Free Press.', 'Ultimately, Benavidez called the ruling “a reminder that platform accountability is essential and will inevitably prevail when up against bullies like Musk who try to silence us.”']",0.0427064270235155,"Musk’s new playbook, Carusone said, enlists the help of sympathetic Republican attorneys general to investigate independent reporting organizations and tie them up in legal proceedings.","“This is an important decision that sees Elon Musk’s lawsuit for what it is — an effort to punish his critics for constitutionally protected speech and to deter researchers from studying his platform,” said Alex Abdo, litigation director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case arguing that private companies should not be allowed to use breach of contract claims to punish criticism.",-0.3806276832308088,"Free Press, another media accountability organization that has been critical of Musk’s leadership of X and which called for advertisers to pause their spending on the platform shortly after his takeover, also celebrated Breyer’s ruling as potentially removing at least one hurdle that watchdog organizations face.","Researchers and civil society groups said the new subscription fees — costing up to $2.5 million a year —were “outrageously expensive” and made it impossible to do their work, reducing transparency of a critical platform.",2024-04-30
Even in peaceful countries be ready for a siren blast,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68761255,2024-04-11T23:13:02.000Z,"I was halfway through my morning run when I heard it. The sound of the apocalypse. An air raid-style siren, slowly wailing up and down in pitch, was blaring over Belfast at 0830 GMT. I glanced at the sky. But nobody else nearby seemed to be taking any notice. My wife, who had her earphones in, hadn't heard the noise at all until I pointed it out. It was the same at the supermarket on the way home. The din of the siren was audible across East Belfast, and yet, life continued as normal.  The bizarre Belfast siren was, the BBC understands, associated with a fuel storage facility in Belfast Harbour. It is a fire alarm and has to be so loud partly because of the large size of the facility in question. This kind of siren, so strongly associated in Britain with World War Two, is actually more than a century old, and has been used for all kinds of emergencies - not just Luftwaffe bombing raids. Other sounds and tones are sometimes deployed for outdoor alerts, but that lazily wavering siren that is so strange and chilling is still in place at multiple sites around the country - from military bases to chemical factories. Just in case. ""That wail pattern does a great job,"" says Evan Kerr, VP of operations at Sentry Siren, a US firm that still makes mechanical sirens. ""You need to get people's attention."" He explains that the sound is produced by a fast rotating fan inside a flat cylindrical housing, the outer rim of which is perforated with slits. It's the forcing of air through these slits, at oscillating speeds, that creates the extremely loud wail in all directions.  These days, this sound can be replicated by a digital recording played through loudspeakers but Mr Kerr argues that mechanical wailing sirens, which have been manufactured since at least 1905, are proven, reliable and nearly maintenance-free. He says some sirens made by his firm, previously known as Sterling Siren Fire Alarm Company, have been in place for many decades. In the UK, there are air raid-style sirens in a number of locations. Notably, at the Royal Navy base in Portsmouth. This siren, which is tested regularly, would be used to warn members of the public about an accident with the nuclear-powered submarines that are stationed there.  A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence says that there are also outdoor warning alarms at naval bases on the River Clyde in Scotland and Devonport in Plymouth: ""The sirens are regularly maintained and monitored. There are no plans to change the emergency alarm system."" Some siren locations are, perhaps, less obvious. Take The State Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Carstairs, Scotland. Its siren system was sounded, for example, when two murderers escaped in the 1970s. Broadmoor used to have a siren but this was decommissioned in 2019 and, if a dangerous individual were to escape the hospital now, an alert would be sent to locals in the form of an email or text message. Industrial sites that handle significant quantities of hazardous materials are also legally required to have outdoor warning systems. Take Hampton Water Treatment Works in West London - even it has a siren.  In Bradford, there is a siren at a large chemical plant owned by Solenis. In information sent to locals, the company explains why an accident might be harmful. A toxic cloud could form or, for example: ""A release of a flammable vapour, with subsequent ignition, may result in an explosion with the potential for damage both within the Solenis site, and outside its boundaries."" Advice from the company explains that, if people hear the siren when it is not due to be tested, they should shelter in their homes, close all windows and curtains, block incoming draughts, switch on the radio and ""stay calm and rest"". More technology of business In Huddersfield, chemical company Syngenta makes insecticides and other agricultural products. It too has a siren system in place to warn people in the event of a chemical emergency . These are just some examples. There are dozens of outdoor warning sirens around the UK and many, though not all, use the familiar wailing pattern of a traditional air raid-style siren. One siren aficionado has even marked the locations of these systems on an online map.  The bizarre Belfast siren was, the BBC understands, associated with a fuel processing facility in Belfast Harbour. But online rumours had claimed the noise signalled the movement of cranes at Belfast's famous Harland & Wolff (H&W) shipyard. H&W confirms that this was not the case. The incident raises the question: Would people react appropriately during a real emergency? People must be informed about what sirens in their area might be used for says Andrea Davis, president and chief executive of The Resiliency Initiative, a US firm that advises communities on emergency management.  ""So [they] are familiar - 'Hey, I know this sound, it's not a scary sound, it's an action sound - I need to do something',"" she explains. Failing to activate a siren during an emergency could also be harmful. Mrs Davis criticises officials in Hawaii for not using outdoor sirens when a devastating wildfire hit Maui in August 2023. Erica Kuligowski, a social scientist at RMIT University in Australia, who has studied the efficacy of emergency warning systems agrees that sirens must be packaged with additional information that makes it clear what the warning is about, and what people should do in response.  ""We need a series of pieces of information or else it's difficult to prompt people to act,"" she says. The range of situations that might require a siren around the world are extremely varied. Sentry Siren, for instance, recently shipped five of its units to Iceland. They'll be used to alert people to volcanic activity, which has caused significant disruption in Iceland in recent months. And Monika Pavlik, international business manager at Telegrafia, a Slovakia-based siren manufacturer, says her firm's devices have been deployed in Ukraine where they are used as contemporary air raid warning systems. Countries neighbouring Ukraine, fearful of Russian aggression, are increasingly interested in such sirens, she adds: ""It is a constant threat."" Telegrafia specialises in sirens that use digital recordings rather than mechanical components for producing noise. But this means the devices can blast verbal information across an area or turn text into explanatory spoken word announcements. The company's sirens, which are installed in 93 countries around the world, can also be triggered automatically - for example by sensors detecting a flood. Or, a government could set off connected sirens across an entire country in the event of a nationwide emergency. These days, sirens tend to make the news as false alarms, or when tests of siren systems are reported locally. Most of the time, thankfully, there's no emergency. There's always a risk that people will ignore these audible warnings when something really has gone wrong, however, which is why taking multiple steps to inform the public about an unfolding disaster or accident is so important, say experts. Despite the rise of alternative technologies such as mobile phone alerts, there is still huge demand for traditional outdoor warning sirens, says Mr Kerr of Sentry Siren: ""Why wouldn't you use all the tools available to you?"" ",BBC,11/04/2024,"['I was halfway through my morning run when I heard it.', 'The sound of the apocalypse.', 'An air raid-style siren, slowly wailing up and down in pitch, was blaring over Belfast at 0830 GMT.', 'I glanced at the sky.', 'But nobody else nearby seemed to be taking any notice.', ""My wife, who had her earphones in, hadn't heard the noise at all until I pointed it out."", 'It was the same at the supermarket on the way home.', 'The din of the siren was audible across East Belfast, and yet, life continued as normal.', 'The bizarre Belfast siren was, the BBC understands, associated with a fuel storage facility in Belfast Harbour.', 'It is a fire alarm and has to be so loud partly because of the large size of the facility in question.', 'This kind of siren, so strongly associated in Britain with World War Two, is actually more than a century old, and has been used for all kinds of emergencies - not just Luftwaffe bombing raids.', 'Other sounds and tones are sometimes deployed for outdoor alerts, but that lazily wavering siren that is so strange and chilling is still in place at multiple sites around the country - from military bases to chemical factories.', 'Just in case. ""', 'That wail pattern does a great job,"" says Evan Kerr, VP of operations at Sentry Siren, a US firm that still makes mechanical sirens. ""', 'You need to get people\'s attention.""', 'He explains that the sound is produced by a fast rotating fan inside a flat cylindrical housing, the outer rim of which is perforated with slits.', ""It's the forcing of air through these slits, at oscillating speeds, that creates the extremely loud wail in all directions."", 'These days, this sound can be replicated by a digital recording played through loudspeakers but Mr Kerr argues that mechanical wailing sirens, which have been manufactured since at least 1905, are proven, reliable and nearly maintenance-free.', 'He says some sirens made by his firm, previously known as Sterling Siren Fire Alarm Company, have been in place for many decades.', 'In the UK, there are air raid-style sirens in a number of locations.', 'Notably, at the Royal Navy base in Portsmouth.', 'This siren, which is tested regularly, would be used to warn members of the public about an accident with the nuclear-powered submarines that are stationed there.', 'A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence says that there are also outdoor warning alarms at naval bases on the River Clyde in Scotland and Devonport in Plymouth: ""The sirens are regularly maintained and monitored.', 'There are no plans to change the emergency alarm system.""', 'Some siren locations are, perhaps, less obvious.', 'Take The State Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Carstairs, Scotland.', 'Its siren system was sounded, for example, when two murderers escaped in the 1970s.', 'Broadmoor used to have a siren but this was decommissioned in 2019 and, if a dangerous individual were to escape the hospital now, an alert would be sent to locals in the form of an email or text message.', 'Industrial sites that handle significant quantities of hazardous materials are also legally required to have outdoor warning systems.', 'Take Hampton Water Treatment Works in West London - even it has a siren.', 'In Bradford, there is a siren at a large chemical plant owned by Solenis.', 'In information sent to locals, the company explains why an accident might be harmful.', 'A toxic cloud could form or, for example: ""A release of a flammable vapour, with subsequent ignition, may result in an explosion with the potential for damage both within the Solenis site, and outside its boundaries.""', 'Advice from the company explains that, if people hear the siren when it is not due to be tested, they should shelter in their homes, close all windows and curtains, block incoming draughts, switch on the radio and ""stay calm and rest"".', 'More technology of business In Huddersfield, chemical company Syngenta makes insecticides and other agricultural products.', 'It too has a siren system in place to warn people in the event of a chemical emergency .', 'These are just some examples.', 'There are dozens of outdoor warning sirens around the UK and many, though not all, use the familiar wailing pattern of a traditional air raid-style siren.', 'One siren aficionado has even marked the locations of these systems on an online map.', 'The bizarre Belfast siren was, the BBC understands, associated with a fuel processing facility in Belfast Harbour.', ""But online rumours had claimed the noise signalled the movement of cranes at Belfast's famous Harland & Wolff (H&W) shipyard."", 'H&W confirms that this was not the case.', 'The incident raises the question: Would people react appropriately during a real emergency?', 'People must be informed about what sirens in their area might be used for says Andrea Davis, president and chief executive of The Resiliency Initiative, a US firm that advises communities on emergency management. ""', 'So [they] are familiar - \'Hey, I know this sound, it\'s not a scary sound, it\'s an action sound - I need to do something\',"" she explains.', 'Failing to activate a siren during an emergency could also be harmful.', 'Mrs Davis criticises officials in Hawaii for not using outdoor sirens when a devastating wildfire hit Maui in August 2023.', 'Erica Kuligowski, a social scientist at RMIT University in Australia, who has studied the efficacy of emergency warning systems agrees that sirens must be packaged with additional information that makes it clear what the warning is about, and what people should do in response. ""', 'We need a series of pieces of information or else it\'s difficult to prompt people to act,"" she says.', 'The range of situations that might require a siren around the world are extremely varied.', 'Sentry Siren, for instance, recently shipped five of its units to Iceland.', ""They'll be used to alert people to volcanic activity, which has caused significant disruption in Iceland in recent months."", ""And Monika Pavlik, international business manager at Telegrafia, a Slovakia-based siren manufacturer, says her firm's devices have been deployed in Ukraine where they are used as contemporary air raid warning systems."", 'Countries neighbouring Ukraine, fearful of Russian aggression, are increasingly interested in such sirens, she adds: ""It is a constant threat.""', 'Telegrafia specialises in sirens that use digital recordings rather than mechanical components for producing noise.', 'But this means the devices can blast verbal information across an area or turn text into explanatory spoken word announcements.', ""The company's sirens, which are installed in 93 countries around the world, can also be triggered automatically - for example by sensors detecting a flood."", 'Or, a government could set off connected sirens across an entire country in the event of a nationwide emergency.', 'These days, sirens tend to make the news as false alarms, or when tests of siren systems are reported locally.', ""Most of the time, thankfully, there's no emergency."", ""There's always a risk that people will ignore these audible warnings when something really has gone wrong, however, which is why taking multiple steps to inform the public about an unfolding disaster or accident is so important, say experts."", 'Despite the rise of alternative technologies such as mobile phone alerts, there is still huge demand for traditional outdoor warning sirens, says Mr Kerr of Sentry Siren: ""Why wouldn\'t you use all the tools available to you?""']",-0.1702984417179804,"That wail pattern does a great job,"" says Evan Kerr, VP of operations at Sentry Siren, a US firm that still makes mechanical sirens. ""","There's always a risk that people will ignore these audible warnings when something really has gone wrong, however, which is why taking multiple steps to inform the public about an unfolding disaster or accident is so important, say experts.",0.2383095145225525,"That wail pattern does a great job,"" says Evan Kerr, VP of operations at Sentry Siren, a US firm that still makes mechanical sirens. """,Failing to activate a siren during an emergency could also be harmful.,2024-04-30
What is Bitcoin? Key cryptocurrency terms and what they mean,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-63963079,2022-12-13T23:07:08.000Z,"After Bitcoin's price banked a new all time high in March, the sticky subject of cryptocurrencies is back in the spotlight.  And while crypto market-moving events such as Bitcoin ""halving"" or the launch of ""spot ETFs"" may be familiar to crypto fans, their meaning is less obvious to many. But worry not. If you're hearing these for the first time, or just need a refresher, here are a few key words and what they mean. While many may struggle with the finer points of crypto, pretty much everyone has heard of its most famous product: Bitcoin. But what actually is it? Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which is to say a type of digital currency. Unlike traditional currencies - the dollar or pound, for example - Bitcoin is not controlled by centralised financial institutions. This makes it popular for people who think decentralisation can bring financial freedom, but it also makes it extremely volatile - rising and falling in value at the whim of Bitcoin buyers and sellers.   Throughout February and March 2024, its price rose rapidly and it briefly reached a new record high. But its value can plummet just as quickly as it spikes - a pattern which has been repeated multiple times since the cryptocurrency was launched. The blockchain, the system that underpins Bitcoin, is sustained by rewarding so-called ""miners"" - whose job it is to validate transactions - by paying them with the cryptocurrency. However, unlike some other digital currencies, there is not an infinite supply of bitcoins. The amount that can be mined is capped at 21 million, and most are already in circulation.  So roughly every four years - or when the Bitcoin blockchain reaches a certain size - the number of bitcoins rewarded to those who successfully validate transactions is cut in half. The most recent Bitcoin ""halving"" (or ""halvening"") event took place on 20 April 2024, reducing the reward for miners from 6.25 bitcoins to 3.125. This ensures Bitcoin's supply is drawn out for longer while demand, in theory, goes up over time. But with fewer rewards for miners, it can also lead some to consider whether it is financially worthwhile for them to continue the costly operation of running their powerful computers. Blockchain is the technology underpinning all cryptocurrencies, and many related products like non fungible tokens (NFTs). In essence, it is a virtual spreadsheet on which all the buying and selling of crypto is recorded. They are arranged in blocks linked together in a giant chain - hence the name.  Every cryptocurrency transaction is individually recorded onto the blockchain by a huge network of volunteers verifying its authenticity by using computer programmes.  The incentive to do this for Bitcoin's network is that the first person to validate transactions is rewarded in Bitcoin. This potentially lucrative process, known as mining, is also controversial because of the incredible amount of energy used as people the world over race to be the first to successfully update the blockchain. A crypto exchange is the digital platform where investors can buy, sell and trade cryptocurrencies. Similar to traditional investing, a crypto exchange acts as a brokerage where people can transfer traditional money, like pounds or dollars, from their banks into cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum. Most transactions are accompanied by fees. A crypto wallet is a place where investors hold their cryptocurrency. It stores the virtual assets much like a traditional wallet holds cash. There are two types, a hot wallet and a cold wallet. Hot wallets are connected to the internet, and thus more accessible for quick transfers and easy access. Cold wallets are physical devices like specially designed USBs that store crypto offline typically for safer and longer term storage. Ethereum is used to describe both the second largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, represented by the Ether token, and the blockchain underpinning it. This supports an array of different applications and digital assets, such as non-fungible tokens.  It functions in a similar way to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but in 2022 switched to a greener operating system requiring less computers and energy. ETFs are portfolios that let investors bet on multiple assets without having to buy any themselves. Traded on stock exchanges like shares, their value depends on how the overall portfolio performs in real time. They can comprise a combination of gold and silver bullion, for example, or a mix of shares in both technology and insurance companies. A spot Bitcoin ETF buys the cryptocurrency directly, ""on the spot"", at its current price, throughout the day. While some ETFs already contained Bitcoin indirectly, the US approved several spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024. This allowed new investors, such as investment management firms like Blackrock and Fidelity, to enter the speculative world of Bitcoin without having to worry about digital wallets or navigating crypto exchanges. ",BBC,13/12/2022,"[""After Bitcoin's price banked a new all time high in March, the sticky subject of cryptocurrencies is back in the spotlight."", 'And while crypto market-moving events such as Bitcoin ""halving"" or the launch of ""spot ETFs"" may be familiar to crypto fans, their meaning is less obvious to many.', 'But worry not.', ""If you're hearing these for the first time, or just need a refresher, here are a few key words and what they mean."", 'While many may struggle with the finer points of crypto, pretty much everyone has heard of its most famous product: Bitcoin.', 'But what actually is it?', 'Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which is to say a type of digital currency.', 'Unlike traditional currencies - the dollar or pound, for example - Bitcoin is not controlled by centralised financial institutions.', 'This makes it popular for people who think decentralisation can bring financial freedom, but it also makes it extremely volatile - rising and falling in value at the whim of Bitcoin buyers and sellers.', 'Throughout February and March 2024, its price rose rapidly and it briefly reached a new record high.', 'But its value can plummet just as quickly as it spikes - a pattern which has been repeated multiple times since the cryptocurrency was launched.', 'The blockchain, the system that underpins Bitcoin, is sustained by rewarding so-called ""miners"" - whose job it is to validate transactions - by paying them with the cryptocurrency.', 'However, unlike some other digital currencies, there is not an infinite supply of bitcoins.', 'The amount that can be mined is capped at 21 million, and most are already in circulation.', 'So roughly every four years - or when the Bitcoin blockchain reaches a certain size - the number of bitcoins rewarded to those who successfully validate transactions is cut in half.', 'The most recent Bitcoin ""halving"" (or ""halvening"") event took place on 20 April 2024, reducing the reward for miners from 6.25 bitcoins to 3.125.', ""This ensures Bitcoin's supply is drawn out for longer while demand, in theory, goes up over time."", 'But with fewer rewards for miners, it can also lead some to consider whether it is financially worthwhile for them to continue the costly operation of running their powerful computers.', 'Blockchain is the technology underpinning all cryptocurrencies, and many related products like non fungible tokens (NFTs).', 'In essence, it is a virtual spreadsheet on which all the buying and selling of crypto is recorded.', 'They are arranged in blocks linked together in a giant chain - hence the name.', 'Every cryptocurrency transaction is individually recorded onto the blockchain by a huge network of volunteers verifying its authenticity by using computer programmes.', ""The incentive to do this for Bitcoin's network is that the first person to validate transactions is rewarded in Bitcoin."", 'This potentially lucrative process, known as mining, is also controversial because of the incredible amount of energy used as people the world over race to be the first to successfully update the blockchain.', 'A crypto exchange is the digital platform where investors can buy, sell and trade cryptocurrencies.', 'Similar to traditional investing, a crypto exchange acts as a brokerage where people can transfer traditional money, like pounds or dollars, from their banks into cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum.', 'Most transactions are accompanied by fees.', 'A crypto wallet is a place where investors hold their cryptocurrency.', 'It stores the virtual assets much like a traditional wallet holds cash.', 'There are two types, a hot wallet and a cold wallet.', 'Hot wallets are connected to the internet, and thus more accessible for quick transfers and easy access.', 'Cold wallets are physical devices like specially designed USBs that store crypto offline typically for safer and longer term storage.', 'Ethereum is used to describe both the second largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, represented by the Ether token, and the blockchain underpinning it.', 'This supports an array of different applications and digital assets, such as non-fungible tokens.', 'It functions in a similar way to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but in 2022 switched to a greener operating system requiring less computers and energy.', 'ETFs are portfolios that let investors bet on multiple assets without having to buy any themselves.', 'Traded on stock exchanges like shares, their value depends on how the overall portfolio performs in real time.', 'They can comprise a combination of gold and silver bullion, for example, or a mix of shares in both technology and insurance companies.', 'A spot Bitcoin ETF buys the cryptocurrency directly, ""on the spot"", at its current price, throughout the day.', 'While some ETFs already contained Bitcoin indirectly, the US approved several spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024.', 'This allowed new investors, such as investment management firms like Blackrock and Fidelity, to enter the speculative world of Bitcoin without having to worry about digital wallets or navigating crypto exchanges.']",0.2672071279961822,"But with fewer rewards for miners, it can also lead some to consider whether it is financially worthwhile for them to continue the costly operation of running their powerful computers.",But worry not.,-0.0973098344273037,"Throughout February and March 2024, its price rose rapidly and it briefly reached a new record high.",But its value can plummet just as quickly as it spikes - a pattern which has been repeated multiple times since the cryptocurrency was launched.,2024-04-30
Dating app Bumble will no longer require women to make the first move,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/30/tech/bumble-relaunch-men-make-first-move/index.html,"
  Updated
        10:51 AM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024
    ","Ten years after creating a new model for dating apps with its “women make the first move” feature, Bumble is opening the door to men starting conversations on its platform.
    
            Bumble is rolling out a new feature called “opening moves” that will let female users set a prompt to which male suitors can respond to initiate a conversation. The feature reverses a longstanding requirement by the app that women send the first message to their matches, which Bumble said gave women more power over their dating lives.
    
            The new feature is part of a larger relaunch of the app announced Tuesday by new CEO Lidiane Jones, who took over the top job from founder Whitney Wolfe Herd earlier this year. The move comes as dating apps broadly are working to maintain their relevance as some singles have become burnt out on online dating and are seeking more in-person connections.
    
            Jones sees the Bumble redesign as a way to help the platform meet that moment.
    
            “We’re seeing a greater need for authentic human connections,” Jones told CNN in an interview ahead of the launch. “I don’t anticipate that the number of people using online dating is going to go down, quite the opposite, but there is a higher bar … So we’re taking it as a great call to action to center ourselves on our mission.”
    
            The new “opening moves” feature is one way Jones says Bumble is evolving while staying true to its original mission of empowering women. Now, women users will have the option to continue initiating conversations with matches or to set an opening move — for example, a question about a potential match’s dream dinner guest — that would indicate they want their match to reach out first. (For non-binary users or those seeking same-gender matches, either person can set and respond to an opening move.)
    
            Bumble’s relaunch also includes updated “dating intentions” badges that allow users to indicate on their profiles whether they’re looking for, say, a “life partner” or simply “fun, casual dates.” Bumble is now also requiring users to include more photos on their bios. And the app will highlight common interests at the top of potential matches’ profiles in an effort to connect people with more compatible partners.
    
            The changes could be key to returning Bumble — which also owns dating apps Badoo and Fruitz — to profitability after it posted a $1.9 million net loss last year. The company’s share price has also plummeted 86% from its initial public offering in February 2021.
    
            Wall Street analysts expect Bumble to post a $12 million profit when it reports earnings for the first three months of this year on May 8, up from a $2.3 million loss during the year-ago quarter. The company’s number of paying users is also expected to tick up 14% to more than 3.9 million.
    
            “We’re very fortunate to have very healthy financials to be able to invest in growth for the company, and still deliver profitability for our shareholders,” Jones said. “We’re at a really great inflection point of, we have enough scale and we also have a lot of room to grow ahead, where we can balance both of those goals together.”",CNN,30/04/2024,"['Ten years after creating a new model for dating apps with its “women make the first move” feature, Bumble is opening the door to men starting conversations on its platform.', 'Bumble is rolling out a new feature called “opening moves” that will let female users set a prompt to which male suitors can respond to initiate a conversation.', 'The feature reverses a longstanding requirement by the app that women send the first message to their matches, which Bumble said gave women more power over their dating lives.', 'The new feature is part of a larger relaunch of the app announced Tuesday by new CEO Lidiane Jones, who took over the top job from founder Whitney Wolfe Herd earlier this year.', 'The move comes as dating apps broadly are working to maintain their relevance as some singles have become burnt out on online dating and are seeking more in-person connections.', 'Jones sees the Bumble redesign as a way to help the platform meet that moment.', '“We’re seeing a greater need for authentic human connections,” Jones told CNN in an interview ahead of the launch. “', 'I don’t anticipate that the number of people using online dating is going to go down, quite the opposite, but there is a higher bar … So we’re taking it as a great call to action to center ourselves on our mission.”', 'The new “opening moves” feature is one way Jones says Bumble is evolving while staying true to its original mission of empowering women.', 'Now, women users will have the option to continue initiating conversations with matches or to set an opening move — for example, a question about a potential match’s dream dinner guest — that would indicate they want their match to reach out first. (', 'For non-binary users or those seeking same-gender matches, either person can set and respond to an opening move.)', 'Bumble’s relaunch also includes updated “dating intentions” badges that allow users to indicate on their profiles whether they’re looking for, say, a “life partner” or simply “fun, casual dates.”', 'Bumble is now also requiring users to include more photos on their bios.', 'And the app will highlight common interests at the top of potential matches’ profiles in an effort to connect people with more compatible partners.', 'The changes could be key to returning Bumble — which also owns dating apps Badoo and Fruitz — to profitability after it posted a $1.9 million net loss last year.', 'The company’s share price has also plummeted 86% from its initial public offering in February 2021.', 'Wall Street analysts expect Bumble to post a $12 million profit when it reports earnings for the first three months of this year on May 8, up from a $2.3 million loss during the year-ago quarter.', 'The company’s number of paying users is also expected to tick up 14% to more than 3.9 million.', '“We’re very fortunate to have very healthy financials to be able to invest in growth for the company, and still deliver profitability for our shareholders,” Jones said. “', 'We’re at a really great inflection point of, we have enough scale and we also have a lot of room to grow ahead, where we can balance both of those goals together.”']",0.2983184961911648,"“We’re very fortunate to have very healthy financials to be able to invest in growth for the company, and still deliver profitability for our shareholders,” Jones said. “",,0.5317948857943217,The company’s number of paying users is also expected to tick up 14% to more than 3.9 million.,The company’s share price has also plummeted 86% from its initial public offering in February 2021.,2024-04-30
Why lab-grown diamond sales are surging,https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/27/business/diamonds-manmade-demand/index.html,"
  Published
        7:49 AM EDT, Wed April 27, 2022
    ","It’s proposal season, and engagements are on the rise. So are factory-made diamond sales.
    
            Not that you’d know the difference. Man-made diamonds look the same as naturally occurring ones. The only noticeable difference is the price tag.
    
            “The result is really stunning,” said Edahn Golan, an independent diamond industry analyst.
    
            He said March data showed the number of engagement rings sold that featured a manufactured diamond jumped 63% compared to last year, while the number of engagement rings sold with a natural diamond declined 25% in the same period.
    
            Going back by another month, to February, the data showed the number of rings sold with lab diamonds that month surged even more, to 80% compared to a year earlier while the number fell by 13% for natural diamond engagement rings. 
    
            “The big fear in the natural diamonds industry is that consumers will start accepting lab-grown diamonds in engagement rings,” he said. Too late. “It’s actually happening.” 
    
            Why are consumers flocking to man-made diamonds? Cost is the most obvious reason. The average retail price of the most popular one carat round man-made diamond for an engagement ring in March was $2,318, Golan said.
    
            “This is substantially less – as much as 73% cheaper – than a natural diamond of the same size, cut and clarity as the man-made diamond, which would cost $8,740,” he said. Plus, the lower cost allows couples to buy a bigger stone.
    
            “A lab diamond is a real diamond, but maybe it took a few weeks to make it,” said Golan. “Natural diamonds were formed over 800 million to three billion years and there isn’t an infinite supply of them.” 
    
            This makes natural diamonds quite a bit more expensive, and prices are likely to rise as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has tightened the supply chain for natural raw diamonds.
    
            The sanctions directly target Alrosa, partly owned by the Russian government, which the US government identified as the world’s largest diamond mining company, accounting for 28% of global diamond output.
    
            Man-made diamonds are also becoming popular as consumers are more aware and educated about them, said Dan Moran, a third-generation diamond expert and owner of LA-based fine jeweler Concierge Diamonds. Moran said the typical buyer of man-made diamonds is typically younger than 40 and very budget conscious.
    
            Mined diamonds have a controversial history that’s tied to the use of child labor in some African diamond mines as well as sales of illegally-traded “conflict diamonds” that fund conflict in war-torn areas.
    
            Among Millennials and Gen Z, their eco-conscious mindset and ethical concerns about natural diamond sourcing is another factor influencing their preference for non-traditional engagement rings, according to a report from wedding planning website The Knot.
    
            Although its slice is growing, the market share for man-made diamonds remains relatively small.
    
            Currently, about 7% of the specialty diamond jewelry market is represented by man-made diamonds, up from 3% in 2020, said Golan. 
    
            Some major jewelry retailers are driving the effort to take man-made diamonds mainstream. In 2021, the world’s largest jewelry company, Pandora
            
                (PANDY), made a major shift by announcing it would stop using mined diamonds and would swap to lab-created diamonds in its jewelry. 
    
            Pandora said it’s instituting the change as part of an effort to sell sustainable jewelry, and also because consumers increasingly are asking for it.
    
            Signet,
            
                (SIG) the largest jewelry company in the United States (which owns Zales, Kay Jewelers and Jared chains) called out the popularity of lab diamond jewelry in its March earnings call with analysts.
    
            Calling it a “fast-growing category” in its jewelry portfolio, Signet CEO Virginia Drosos told analysts that lab-created diamonds are among the big jewelry trends she expects this year. 
    
            The company said it has expanded its man-made bridal jewelry selection in both its Zales and Kay Jewelers stores in response to the increased demand. 
    
            Fine jewelry brand Charles and Colvard, which makes lab-created diamonds, said consumers don’t just want to look good with the jewelry they are wearing, they also want to feel good about it.
    
            “As the momentum for conscious consumerism grows, the surge towards lab grown diamonds isn’t surprising,” said Don O’Connell, president and CEO of Charles & Colvard. “[Consumers] want to know the origins of their stones and be reassured they’re conflict-free. They’re embracing the choice to purchase a piece of fine jewelry that aligns with their values.”
    
            Lab-grown diamond brand VRAI said the pandemic, too, has sparked attention and action toward social and environmental issues. It said consumers are being more thoughtful and reassessing their purchasing habits, as well as the companies and industries they are supporting.
    
            There is, however, one important consideration for anyone buying lab-created diamonds: Man-made diamonds have little resale value. 
    
            So while you may not be able to tell a natural diamond from a factory made variety, someone with a trained eye can, said Golan. Once a stone is identified as a factory diamond, even though you paid a lot less for it, you also won’t get much for it. 
    
            But the value of a ring isn’t just monetary.
    
            “As a professional in the industry, I am asked all the time by people about what I think about a ring they have,” said Moran, of Concierge Jewelers. “I always say, if you love it, be happy with it. An engagement ring is a symbol of commitment and enduring love.”",CNN,27/04/2022,"['It’s proposal season, and engagements are on the rise.', 'So are factory-made diamond sales.', 'Not that you’d know the difference.', 'Man-made diamonds look the same as naturally occurring ones.', 'The only noticeable difference is the price tag.', '“The result is really stunning,” said Edahn Golan, an independent diamond industry analyst.', 'He said March data showed the number of engagement rings sold that featured a manufactured diamond jumped 63% compared to last year, while the number of engagement rings sold with a natural diamond declined 25% in the same period.', 'Going back by another month, to February, the data showed the number of rings sold with lab diamonds that month surged even more, to 80% compared to a year earlier while the number fell by 13% for natural diamond engagement rings.', '“The big fear in the natural diamonds industry is that consumers will start accepting lab-grown diamonds in engagement rings,” he said.', 'Too late. “', 'It’s actually happening.”', 'Why are consumers flocking to man-made diamonds?', 'Cost is the most obvious reason.', 'The average retail price of the most popular one carat round man-made diamond for an engagement ring in March was $2,318, Golan said.', '“This is substantially less – as much as 73% cheaper – than a natural diamond of the same size, cut and clarity as the man-made diamond, which would cost $8,740,” he said.', 'Plus, the lower cost allows couples to buy a bigger stone.', '“A lab diamond is a real diamond, but maybe it took a few weeks to make it,” said Golan. “', 'Natural diamonds were formed over 800 million to three billion years and there isn’t an infinite supply of them.”', 'This makes natural diamonds quite a bit more expensive, and prices are likely to rise as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has tightened the supply chain for natural raw diamonds.', 'The sanctions directly target Alrosa, partly owned by the Russian government, which the US government identified as the world’s largest diamond mining company, accounting for 28% of global diamond output.', 'Man-made diamonds are also becoming popular as consumers are more aware and educated about them, said Dan Moran, a third-generation diamond expert and owner of LA-based fine jeweler Concierge Diamonds.', 'Moran said the typical buyer of man-made diamonds is typically younger than 40 and very budget conscious.', 'Mined diamonds have a controversial history that’s tied to the use of child labor in some African diamond mines as well as sales of illegally-traded “conflict diamonds” that fund conflict in war-torn areas.', 'Among Millennials and Gen Z, their eco-conscious mindset and ethical concerns about natural diamond sourcing is another factor influencing their preference for non-traditional engagement rings, according to a report from wedding planning website The Knot.', 'Although its slice is growing, the market share for man-made diamonds remains relatively small.', 'Currently, about 7% of the specialty diamond jewelry market is represented by man-made diamonds, up from 3% in 2020, said Golan.', 'Some major jewelry retailers are driving the effort to take man-made diamonds mainstream.', 'In 2021, the world’s largest jewelry company, Pandora  (PANDY), made a major shift by announcing it would stop using mined diamonds and would swap to lab-created diamonds in its jewelry.', 'Pandora said it’s instituting the change as part of an effort to sell sustainable jewelry, and also because consumers increasingly are asking for it.', 'Signet,  (SIG) the largest jewelry company in the United States (which owns Zales, Kay Jewelers and Jared chains) called out the popularity of lab diamond jewelry in its March earnings call with analysts.', 'Calling it a “fast-growing category” in its jewelry portfolio, Signet CEO Virginia Drosos told analysts that lab-created diamonds are among the big jewelry trends she expects this year.', 'The company said it has expanded its man-made bridal jewelry selection in both its Zales and Kay Jewelers stores in response to the increased demand.', 'Fine jewelry brand Charles and Colvard, which makes lab-created diamonds, said consumers don’t just want to look good with the jewelry they are wearing, they also want to feel good about it.', '“As the momentum for conscious consumerism grows, the surge towards lab grown diamonds isn’t surprising,” said Don O’Connell, president and CEO of Charles & Colvard. “[', 'Consumers] want to know the origins of their stones and be reassured they’re conflict-free.', 'They’re embracing the choice to purchase a piece of fine jewelry that aligns with their values.”', 'Lab-grown diamond brand VRAI said the pandemic, too, has sparked attention and action toward social and environmental issues.', 'It said consumers are being more thoughtful and reassessing their purchasing habits, as well as the companies and industries they are supporting.', 'There is, however, one important consideration for anyone buying lab-created diamonds: Man-made diamonds have little resale value.', 'So while you may not be able to tell a natural diamond from a factory made variety, someone with a trained eye can, said Golan.', 'Once a stone is identified as a factory diamond, even though you paid a lot less for it, you also won’t get much for it.', 'But the value of a ring isn’t just monetary.', '“As a professional in the industry, I am asked all the time by people about what I think about a ring they have,” said Moran, of Concierge Jewelers. “', 'I always say, if you love it, be happy with it.', 'An engagement ring is a symbol of commitment and enduring love.”']",0.3714494325159568,"He said March data showed the number of engagement rings sold that featured a manufactured diamond jumped 63% compared to last year, while the number of engagement rings sold with a natural diamond declined 25% in the same period.",Mined diamonds have a controversial history that’s tied to the use of child labor in some African diamond mines as well as sales of illegally-traded “conflict diamonds” that fund conflict in war-torn areas.,0.8542834222316742,"Currently, about 7% of the specialty diamond jewelry market is represented by man-made diamonds, up from 3% in 2020, said Golan.","This makes natural diamonds quite a bit more expensive, and prices are likely to rise as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has tightened the supply chain for natural raw diamonds.",2024-04-30
Chinese women are partnering with strangers to save money,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-68692375,2024-05-01T00:12:53.000Z,"During the pandemic, Kathy Zhuo and her husband were forced to take a 50% pay cut. It was a huge blow because she also had to take care of her mother, who was diagnosed with cancer five years ago. ""We barely had money left each year. I felt insecure but didn't know what to do,"" says the 36-year-old mother of two, who lives in Fujian, a city in southern China. The shock to her family's finances prompted Ms Zhuo to join the trend of young Chinese people seeking partners - or da zi - with similar interests online. But instead of travelling or exercising together, she has teamed up with people who want to save money. The hashtag ""saving da zi"" first emerged on Xiaohongshu, China's version of Instagram, in February 2023. It has attracted 1.7 million views so far, according to data analysis firm Newsrank. On Weibo, topics about so-called saving partners have been viewed millions of times. The trend shows a ""low confidence in the future economy"", says Lu Xi, a public policy professor at the National University of Singapore. Even though the Chinese economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter, it still faces a deepening property crisis, falling foreign investment and mounting local government debts. Ms Zhuo feels lucky that she is working in the clean energy sector, an expanding industry which is estimated to have contributed around 40% of the country's economic growth last year. However, she feels driven to ""prepare for danger"" as many of her friends and family are losing their jobs. In February this year, Ms Zhuo joined several online saving groups, with most members being women aged between 20 and 40. Every day, they log their budget and expenses. They also help to stop each other from making impulse purchases. Ms Zhuo says that one member was tempted to buy a luxury bag that cost 5,000 yuan ($690; £560) but after talking to other women in the group settled for a much cheaper, second-hand bag. She is surprised so many others are doing the same, and says she feels a sense of camaraderie with her saving partners. Just a month after teaming up with a partner, she says her spending was down by 40%. She now aims to save 100,000 yuan this year. Wen Zhong, a 30-year-old primary school teacher, says she has cut back her online shopping with the help of her saving partners.  Instead, she now spends more time reading and weaving. She has also started selling her handmade products at a local market, which brings in extra cash. More importantly, Ms Wen says, this has helped her shift towards a minimalist lifestyle, which she appreciates more. China already has one of the world's highest saving rates. Official figures show that in 2023 the country's households put about 138 trillion yuan in the bank, an almost 14% increase from a year earlier. But Dr Lu says this high level of savings may prove to be a major problem for the Chinese government. Normally the country's central bank can help boost the economy by cutting interest rates as it makes saving less attractive. However, if people continue to avoid spending and save their money instead it could blunt the bank's ability to influence the economy. Meanwhile, some women have opted for a more traditional saving method - keeping cash at home. It is unusual as China has gone largely cashless, with so many people using apps like Alipay and WeChat Pay.  Ms Chen, a 32-year-old who runs a beauty parlour in the central province of Henan, and did not wish to reveal her first name, says she withdraws most of her income from the bank every month and puts it in a box. Once it reaches 50,000 yuan, she plans to return it to the bank as a fixed deposit. ""In the past, I didn't have any saving plan but still had some money left. Now, it has become more challenging to save,"" she says.  For starters, China's economic slowdown has meant that her beauty parlour has lost a significant number of clients and many of her regulars have cut their spending. Plus, Ms Chen and her husband are only children, which means they have to take care of their elderly parents. The couple also have two sons and Ms Chen worries about saving up enough to buy houses for them eventually. In China, parents usually buy a home for their son when he marries. By her estimation, Ms Chen and her husband need at least five million yuan in savings. But she thinks even that will probably not be enough as she is now pregnant again. ""Having cash in hand makes me feel less anxious,"" she says. ""I feel safe and satisfied seeing stacks of banknotes getting thicker and thicker.""  ",BBC,01/05/2024,"['During the pandemic, Kathy Zhuo and her husband were forced to take a 50% pay cut.', 'It was a huge blow because she also had to take care of her mother, who was diagnosed with cancer five years ago. ""', 'We barely had money left each year.', 'I felt insecure but didn\'t know what to do,"" says the 36-year-old mother of two, who lives in Fujian, a city in southern China.', ""The shock to her family's finances prompted Ms Zhuo to join the trend of young Chinese people seeking partners - or da zi - with similar interests online."", 'But instead of travelling or exercising together, she has teamed up with people who want to save money.', 'The hashtag ""saving da zi"" first emerged on Xiaohongshu, China\'s version of Instagram, in February 2023.', 'It has attracted 1.7 million views so far, according to data analysis firm Newsrank.', 'On Weibo, topics about so-called saving partners have been viewed millions of times.', 'The trend shows a ""low confidence in the future economy"", says Lu Xi, a public policy professor at the National University of Singapore.', 'Even though the Chinese economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter, it still faces a deepening property crisis, falling foreign investment and mounting local government debts.', ""Ms Zhuo feels lucky that she is working in the clean energy sector, an expanding industry which is estimated to have contributed around 40% of the country's economic growth last year."", 'However, she feels driven to ""prepare for danger"" as many of her friends and family are losing their jobs.', 'In February this year, Ms Zhuo joined several online saving groups, with most members being women aged between 20 and 40.', 'Every day, they log their budget and expenses.', 'They also help to stop each other from making impulse purchases.', 'Ms Zhuo says that one member was tempted to buy a luxury bag that cost 5,000 yuan ($690; £560) but after talking to other women in the group settled for a much cheaper, second-hand bag.', 'She is surprised so many others are doing the same, and says she feels a sense of camaraderie with her saving partners.', 'Just a month after teaming up with a partner, she says her spending was down by 40%.', 'She now aims to save 100,000 yuan this year.', 'Wen Zhong, a 30-year-old primary school teacher, says she has cut back her online shopping with the help of her saving partners.', 'Instead, she now spends more time reading and weaving.', 'She has also started selling her handmade products at a local market, which brings in extra cash.', 'More importantly, Ms Wen says, this has helped her shift towards a minimalist lifestyle, which she appreciates more.', ""China already has one of the world's highest saving rates."", ""Official figures show that in 2023 the country's households put about 138 trillion yuan in the bank, an almost 14% increase from a year earlier."", 'But Dr Lu says this high level of savings may prove to be a major problem for the Chinese government.', ""Normally the country's central bank can help boost the economy by cutting interest rates as it makes saving less attractive."", ""However, if people continue to avoid spending and save their money instead it could blunt the bank's ability to influence the economy."", 'Meanwhile, some women have opted for a more traditional saving method - keeping cash at home.', 'It is unusual as China has gone largely cashless, with so many people using apps like Alipay and WeChat Pay.', 'Ms Chen, a 32-year-old who runs a beauty parlour in the central province of Henan, and did not wish to reveal her first name, says she withdraws most of her income from the bank every month and puts it in a box.', 'Once it reaches 50,000 yuan, she plans to return it to the bank as a fixed deposit. ""', ""In the past, I didn't have any saving plan but still had some money left."", 'Now, it has become more challenging to save,"" she says.', ""For starters, China's economic slowdown has meant that her beauty parlour has lost a significant number of clients and many of her regulars have cut their spending."", 'Plus, Ms Chen and her husband are only children, which means they have to take care of their elderly parents.', 'The couple also have two sons and Ms Chen worries about saving up enough to buy houses for them eventually.', 'In China, parents usually buy a home for their son when he marries.', 'By her estimation, Ms Chen and her husband need at least five million yuan in savings.', 'But she thinks even that will probably not be enough as she is now pregnant again. ""', 'Having cash in hand makes me feel less anxious,"" she says. ""', 'I feel safe and satisfied seeing stacks of banknotes getting thicker and thicker.""']",0.1533455663734597,Normally the country's central bank can help boost the economy by cutting interest rates as it makes saving less attractive.,"Even though the Chinese economy grew faster than expected in the first quarter, it still faces a deepening property crisis, falling foreign investment and mounting local government debts.",0.0567636049312094,"Official figures show that in 2023 the country's households put about 138 trillion yuan in the bank, an almost 14% increase from a year earlier.","Just a month after teaming up with a partner, she says her spending was down by 40%.",2024-04-30
Migrants hit by high fees to send money home,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68817110,2024-04-29T23:08:44.000Z,"Jerry Lukendo Mbokani has to make several calculations when he sends money to his elderly mother in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In Kampala, Uganda, where Mr Mbokani has lived for 16 years, he first has to buy US dollars. To convert approximately $100 (£80) worth of Ugandan shillings would cost almost $3, he reports. He also adds the withdrawal fee of $7, so that his mother doesn't incur a fee when receiving the money. He sends these remittances through mobile money, usually phone-based digital transfers, rather than through a physical location like a bank, post office, or Western Union-style money transfer company. In real terms 10% of the amount could be eaten up in fees. Mr Mbokani, the chief executive of the Refugee-Led Organization Network (Relon), knows he's far from alone. One target of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is that by 2030, remittance fees should be less than 3%, and total fees to send and receive money between a pair of countries should be no more than 5%. Some researchers believe that to be truly affordable, the first goal should be even less than 3%. The International Monetary Fund has estimated that reaching this target could generate $32bn (£26bn), even apart from the direct-cost savings. This is because remittances have such powerful knock-on effects for the economy, and people tend to send more in remittances when fees are lower. Yet the world is far off this target. According to the World Bank, the global average is 6.2%, over double the target. It's especially pricey to send money to sub-Saharan Africa, where the average transaction fee is 7.4%. For particular combinations of countries, fee percentages can climb well into the double digits. One reason for high fees is inconsistent regulation. Within Africa a payment company can't use a single licence across multiple countries, says Nika Naghavi. She is the group head of growth at Onafriq, a digital payment network that extends through more than 40 African countries.  A result is that even between neighbouring countries with a robust trade and frequent population movement, money can't always flow freely. For instance, Ms Naghavi says, transfers between Togo and Benin are frequent and straightforward, helped by having a common currency. Yet money can't easily be sent between Togo and another neighbour country, Ghana. ""That's why the costs become heavy: a lot of it is in compliance and regulation,"" says Ms Naghavi. More technology of business These requirements may not be so applicable to low-value transfers. Sending $50 to a relative in another country is not very risky, but may still fall under a complicated chain of regulations meant to safeguard against money laundering. In some countries, ""the regulations governing who can act as a remittance provider can be quite stifling,"" says Ravenna Sohst, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute Europe. ""For young companies to enter into this market requires a lot of technical, financial and legal knowhow, which I think is one of the reasons why the field has seen relatively few players for a long time."" Ms Sohst says that Mexico-US is an example of a major remittance corridor, where more competition has helped reduce prices. Without competition, rates can be set by the few companies (or informal, cash-based agents) able to facilitate transfers between a pair of countries. Limited competition also means that companies may not feel the need to disclose much information about fees. ""It's up to sometimes the service providers what they want to show to the customer,"" says Uloma Ogba, a gender and learning specialist for the Migration and Remittances Program of the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF).  This can include misleading claims about zero-fee transactions, which ""often means that the service provider and other agents involved along that transaction process are making money some other way"". ""Our North Star should be to ensure that these customer fees are as close as possible to zero,"" Ms Naghavi says. ""But today it's not possible because of the underlying cost of running your business."" Companies may temporarily lower or eliminate transaction fees during disasters, as occurred immediately after the 2023 earthquake in Morocco. But emergency expenses crop up at other times as well. Female migrants, especially, are sending money home to cover unseen expenses. In Ms Ogba's own monthly remittances from the US to Nigeria, she prioritises her parents' healthcare, her cousin's education, and communal obligations like funeral expenses. On top of this are contributions for home renovations. Flexible pricing structures would be particularly helpful for women. They typically earn lower incomes than men and often send smaller, more frequent remittances for things like healthcare and education, Ms Ogba says. Because digital remittances are more affordable than traditional banking (with average fees of 4.8% vs. 6.2% respectively), and because they can require less documentation, much of the innovation is occurring in the digital realm. For instance, a fintech company catering to Gambian migrants in the UK found that its customers wanted to be able to directly pay utility bills for their families in Gambia. It's impossible to talk about digital innovation in sending money without mentioning cryptocurrency. Some enthusiasts believe that Bitcoin and other types of crypto promise more seamless transfers of money anywhere in the world. However, volatility, patchy regulation and limited knowledge remain barriers to uptake of cryptocurrency for remittances. Even more basic technologies can be out of reach for people sending and receiving remittances. While it's cheaper to send mobile money, many of the poorest people in the world lack mobile phones and internet access. While at least half of remittances are now digital, cash remittances dominate in low-and middle-income countries.  It can also be especially difficult for people on the move, or those unable to obtain official forms of identification, to provide tax ID numbers and other documentation. In Uganda, Mr Mbokani says, refugee ID cards aren't part of the same centralised register as national IDs. And there can be obstacles to using refugee IDs at some money transfer agencies. Such issues mean that ""we're leaving a lot of people behind,"" Ms Naghavi comments.  ",BBC,29/04/2024,"['Jerry Lukendo Mbokani has to make several calculations when he sends money to his elderly mother in the Democratic Republic of Congo.', 'In Kampala, Uganda, where Mr Mbokani has lived for 16 years, he first has to buy US dollars.', 'To convert approximately $100 (£80) worth of Ugandan shillings would cost almost $3, he reports.', ""He also adds the withdrawal fee of $7, so that his mother doesn't incur a fee when receiving the money."", 'He sends these remittances through mobile money, usually phone-based digital transfers, rather than through a physical location like a bank, post office, or Western Union-style money transfer company.', 'In real terms 10% of the amount could be eaten up in fees.', ""Mr Mbokani, the chief executive of the Refugee-Led Organization Network (Relon), knows he's far from alone."", 'One target of the UN Sustainable Development Goals is that by 2030, remittance fees should be less than 3%, and total fees to send and receive money between a pair of countries should be no more than 5%.', 'Some researchers believe that to be truly affordable, the first goal should be even less than 3%.', 'The International Monetary Fund has estimated that reaching this target could generate $32bn (£26bn), even apart from the direct-cost savings.', 'This is because remittances have such powerful knock-on effects for the economy, and people tend to send more in remittances when fees are lower.', 'Yet the world is far off this target.', 'According to the World Bank, the global average is 6.2%, over double the target.', ""It's especially pricey to send money to sub-Saharan Africa, where the average transaction fee is 7.4%."", 'For particular combinations of countries, fee percentages can climb well into the double digits.', 'One reason for high fees is inconsistent regulation.', ""Within Africa a payment company can't use a single licence across multiple countries, says Nika Naghavi."", 'She is the group head of growth at Onafriq, a digital payment network that extends through more than 40 African countries.', ""A result is that even between neighbouring countries with a robust trade and frequent population movement, money can't always flow freely."", 'For instance, Ms Naghavi says, transfers between Togo and Benin are frequent and straightforward, helped by having a common currency.', 'Yet money can\'t easily be sent between Togo and another neighbour country, Ghana. ""', 'That\'s why the costs become heavy: a lot of it is in compliance and regulation,"" says Ms Naghavi.', 'More technology of business These requirements may not be so applicable to low-value transfers.', 'Sending $50 to a relative in another country is not very risky, but may still fall under a complicated chain of regulations meant to safeguard against money laundering.', 'In some countries, ""the regulations governing who can act as a remittance provider can be quite stifling,"" says Ravenna Sohst, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute Europe. ""', 'For young companies to enter into this market requires a lot of technical, financial and legal knowhow, which I think is one of the reasons why the field has seen relatively few players for a long time.""', 'Ms Sohst says that Mexico-US is an example of a major remittance corridor, where more competition has helped reduce prices.', 'Without competition, rates can be set by the few companies (or informal, cash-based agents) able to facilitate transfers between a pair of countries.', 'Limited competition also means that companies may not feel the need to disclose much information about fees. ""', 'It\'s up to sometimes the service providers what they want to show to the customer,"" says Uloma Ogba, a gender and learning specialist for the Migration and Remittances Program of the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF).', 'This can include misleading claims about zero-fee transactions, which ""often means that the service provider and other agents involved along that transaction process are making money some other way"". ""', 'Our North Star should be to ensure that these customer fees are as close as possible to zero,"" Ms Naghavi says. ""', 'But today it\'s not possible because of the underlying cost of running your business.""', 'Companies may temporarily lower or eliminate transaction fees during disasters, as occurred immediately after the 2023 earthquake in Morocco.', 'But emergency expenses crop up at other times as well.', 'Female migrants, especially, are sending money home to cover unseen expenses.', ""In Ms Ogba's own monthly remittances from the US to Nigeria, she prioritises her parents' healthcare, her cousin's education, and communal obligations like funeral expenses."", 'On top of this are contributions for home renovations.', 'Flexible pricing structures would be particularly helpful for women.', 'They typically earn lower incomes than men and often send smaller, more frequent remittances for things like healthcare and education, Ms Ogba says.', 'Because digital remittances are more affordable than traditional banking (with average fees of 4.8% vs. 6.2% respectively), and because they can require less documentation, much of the innovation is occurring in the digital realm.', 'For instance, a fintech company catering to Gambian migrants in the UK found that its customers wanted to be able to directly pay utility bills for their families in Gambia.', ""It's impossible to talk about digital innovation in sending money without mentioning cryptocurrency."", 'Some enthusiasts believe that Bitcoin and other types of crypto promise more seamless transfers of money anywhere in the world.', 'However, volatility, patchy regulation and limited knowledge remain barriers to uptake of cryptocurrency for remittances.', 'Even more basic technologies can be out of reach for people sending and receiving remittances.', ""While it's cheaper to send mobile money, many of the poorest people in the world lack mobile phones and internet access."", 'While at least half of remittances are now digital, cash remittances dominate in low-and middle-income countries.', 'It can also be especially difficult for people on the move, or those unable to obtain official forms of identification, to provide tax ID numbers and other documentation.', ""In Uganda, Mr Mbokani says, refugee ID cards aren't part of the same centralised register as national IDs."", 'And there can be obstacles to using refugee IDs at some money transfer agencies.', 'Such issues mean that ""we\'re leaving a lot of people behind,"" Ms Naghavi comments.']",0.0487587859240172,"A result is that even between neighbouring countries with a robust trade and frequent population movement, money can't always flow freely.","Companies may temporarily lower or eliminate transaction fees during disasters, as occurred immediately after the 2023 earthquake in Morocco.",0.0651686522695753,"The International Monetary Fund has estimated that reaching this target could generate $32bn (£26bn), even apart from the direct-cost savings.","However, volatility, patchy regulation and limited knowledge remain barriers to uptake of cryptocurrency for remittances.",2024-04-30
Volkswagen’s electric car orders double in Europe,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/30/business/volkswagen-evs-orders-surge-europe/index.html,"
  Published
        10:16 AM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024
    ","Volkswagen’s orders for electric vehicles shot up in Europe in the first quarter of 2024 compared with a year ago, countering suggestions that drivers may be losing interest in EVs. 
    
            New orders for electric cars more than doubled in Europe, Volkswagen said in an earnings statement Tuesday. The company does not release order numbers for other markets.
    
            The jump in orders at Europe’s biggest carmaker comes amid concerns about slowing EV sales in the region, and as EV makers grapple with slim profits margins, squeezed by increasing competition.
    
            “The future will be electric, this is our conviction,” chief financial officer Arno Antlitz told analysts and journalists on a call Tuesday. He acknowledged, however, that the pace of EV sales growth in Europe and the United States had been slower than the German carmaker had originally anticipated.
    
            EV penetration “will increase quarter-by-quarter, year-over-year, but not as fast as we have expected,” he said.
    
            As for Volkswagen’s EV deliveries, they declined 16% in Europe in the first quarter compared with the same period in 2023. “All-electric deliveries in Europe were impacted by supply bottlenecks,” a company spokesperson told CNN. “There is a time gap between incoming orders and the delivery to the customer. The supply bottlenecks mentioned impacted the delivery performance in Q1.”
    
            Meanwhile, in China, Volkswagen’s single largest market, EV deliveries almost doubled to 41,033 units from a “weak prior-year figure,” the company said in a statement.
    
            The champion of German manufacturing is struggling to defend its share of the Chinese car market — the biggest in the world — where it has fallen behind Tesla and local EV producers such as BYD.
    
            Volkswagen said its plans to significantly reduce battery and material costs would enable it to be cost-competitive with Chinese rivals by 2026. That should then allow it to reduce the price of its EVs in China, where fierce competition has led to intense price wars.
    
            On EVs, “you see… a very challenging pricing environment” in China, Antlitz said. He added that Volkswagen would make “sound compromises” between “pricing and volume” in the country.
    
            The carmaker plans to launch four new models in China over the next three years, two of which will be electric, while reducing time to market for new products and features by 30%.
    
            “With these actions and our highly profitable combustion engine car business, we are well-prepared to continue to play a leading role in China,” Antlitz said.
    
            Volkswagen is aiming to keep its market share in China roughly stable at 15% by the end of the decade, according to a presentation to investors.
    
            The company’s profit plunged 20% to €4.6 billion ($4.9 billion) in the the first quarter, hurt by lower sales and higher costs.
    
            “As expected, our first-quarter results show a slow start to the year,” Antlitz said in a statement. But he added: “We remain confident of achieving our financial targets for 2024.”
    
            Volkswagen expects to pay out €900 million ($965 million) in severance costs to employees this year, as it slashes the size of its workforce as part of a €10 billion ($10.8 billion) cost-cutting program to boost efficiency.",CNN,30/04/2024,"['Volkswagen’s orders for electric vehicles shot up in Europe in the first quarter of 2024 compared with a year ago, countering suggestions that drivers may be losing interest in EVs.', 'New orders for electric cars more than doubled in Europe, Volkswagen said in an earnings statement Tuesday.', 'The company does not release order numbers for other markets.', 'The jump in orders at Europe’s biggest carmaker comes amid concerns about slowing EV sales in the region, and as EV makers grapple with slim profits margins, squeezed by increasing competition.', '“The future will be electric, this is our conviction,” chief financial officer Arno Antlitz told analysts and journalists on a call Tuesday.', 'He acknowledged, however, that the pace of EV sales growth in Europe and the United States had been slower than the German carmaker had originally anticipated.', 'EV penetration “will increase quarter-by-quarter, year-over-year, but not as fast as we have expected,” he said.', 'As for Volkswagen’s EV deliveries, they declined 16% in Europe in the first quarter compared with the same period in 2023. “', 'All-electric deliveries in Europe were impacted by supply bottlenecks,” a company spokesperson told CNN. “', 'There is a time gap between incoming orders and the delivery to the customer.', 'The supply bottlenecks mentioned impacted the delivery performance in Q1.”', 'Meanwhile, in China, Volkswagen’s single largest market, EV deliveries almost doubled to 41,033 units from a “weak prior-year figure,” the company said in a statement.', 'The champion of German manufacturing is struggling to defend its share of the Chinese car market — the biggest in the world — where it has fallen behind Tesla and local EV producers such as BYD.', 'Volkswagen said its plans to significantly reduce battery and material costs would enable it to be cost-competitive with Chinese rivals by 2026.', 'That should then allow it to reduce the price of its EVs in China, where fierce competition has led to intense price wars.', 'On EVs, “you see… a very challenging pricing environment” in China, Antlitz said.', 'He added that Volkswagen would make “sound compromises” between “pricing and volume” in the country.', 'The carmaker plans to launch four new models in China over the next three years, two of which will be electric, while reducing time to market for new products and features by 30%.', '“With these actions and our highly profitable combustion engine car business, we are well-prepared to continue to play a leading role in China,” Antlitz said.', 'Volkswagen is aiming to keep its market share in China roughly stable at 15% by the end of the decade, according to a presentation to investors.', 'The company’s profit plunged 20% to €4.6 billion ($4.9 billion) in the the first quarter, hurt by lower sales and higher costs.', '“As expected, our first-quarter results show a slow start to the year,” Antlitz said in a statement.', 'But he added: “We remain confident of achieving our financial targets for 2024.”', 'Volkswagen expects to pay out €900 million ($965 million) in severance costs to employees this year, as it slashes the size of its workforce as part of a €10 billion ($10.8 billion) cost-cutting program to boost efficiency.']",0.1312295891398664,"“With these actions and our highly profitable combustion engine car business, we are well-prepared to continue to play a leading role in China,” Antlitz said.","Meanwhile, in China, Volkswagen’s single largest market, EV deliveries almost doubled to 41,033 units from a “weak prior-year figure,” the company said in a statement.",0.1017324268817901,"New orders for electric cars more than doubled in Europe, Volkswagen said in an earnings statement Tuesday.","As for Volkswagen’s EV deliveries, they declined 16% in Europe in the first quarter compared with the same period in 2023. “",2024-04-30
Google surges after buying back billions of dollars of its own stock,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/25/tech/google-tech-earnings-dividend/index.html,"
  Updated
        11:36 PM EDT, Thu April 25, 2024
    ","Alphabet, the parent company of Google, bounced back from an absolutely dreadful day for tech shares, as its stock surged Thursday after the closing bell. All it had to do was to hand out billions of dollars to investors.
    
            The tech giant announced its first quarterly cash dividend, saying it will pay $0.20 per share on June 17 to shareholders of record as of June 10, as well as a $70 billion share buyback. Buybacks and dividends help to boost stock prices by rewarding investors with cash just for holding the stock — but they’re widely criticized for artificially inflating the stock price without spending on employees or improvements to the underlying business.
    
            Google’s stock jumped as much as 13% in after-hours trading following the report.
    
            The announcement came as part of Google’s earnings report for the first three months of the year, in which it also reported that it exceeded Wall Street analysts’ expectations for both sales and profits.
    
            Revenue from the quarter reached more than $80.5 billion, up 15% from the same period in the prior year and ahead of the $78.75 billion analysts had projected, according to FactSet estimates. The company also reported 57% year-over-year growth in profits to nearly $23.7 billion.
    
            Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai attributed the success to the company’s investments in artificial intelligence, including the large language model and suite of AI products it calls Gemini.
    
            “We are well under way with our Gemini era and there’s great momentum across the company. Our leadership in AI research and infrastructure, and our global product footprint, position us well for the next wave of AI innovation,” Pichai said.
    
            Google’s results were a sign of how investors may reward some tech companies for their investments in artificial intelligence, which many see as the future of the sector.
    
            “We have clear paths to AI monetization through ads and cloud, as well as subscriptions,” Pichai said on a call with analysts following Thursday’s report.
    
            But not every company has successfully convinced investors that they’re investing in AI responsibly. Meta shares sank on Thursday after the company raised its annual expense forecast to fund its AI ambitions, despite better-than-expected earnings results Wednesday.
    
            But in addition to Google, multiple positive tech earnings reports on Thursday helped reverse what had been a sluggish day for tech stocks.
    
            Social media company Snap, the parent company of social media platform Snapchat, also saw its stock climb after-hours on the heels of a rosy first-quarter earnings report that beat Wall Street’s estimates.
    
            Snap reported revenue of some $1.19 billion for the first three months of the year, up 21% from the year-ago quarter. And it said daily active users increased 10% year-over-year. The company also offered a better-than-expected outlook for the current quarter.
    
            Snap has been working to improve its advertising technology and offerings, while undergoing a restructuring aimed at cutting costs. While it nonetheless reported a net loss of $305 million for the March quarter, it was an improvement from its loss a year ago and better than analysts expected.
    
            Snap shares soared roughly 25% in after-hours trading immediately following the report.
    
            Meanwhile, Microsoft reported quarterly profits of $21.9 billion, up from $18.3 billion a year ago, signaling that the company’s efforts to double down on AI are also paying off. Revenue grew 17% year-over-year to $61.9 billion.
    
            “Microsoft Copilot and Copilot stack are orchestrating a new era of AI transformation, driving better business outcomes across every role and industry,” chief executive officer Satya Nadella said in a statement, referring to Microsoft’s AI services.
    
            Microsoft shares climbed more than 4% in after-hours trading Thursday.
    
            While rivals play catch up, Jeremy Goldman, a senior director at market research company eMarketer, wrote in an analyst note that it’s clear that Microsoft’s early bets on OpenAI’s ChatGPT are paying off through products like its Copilot for Microsoft365, an AI chat assistant built into its existing suite of business products.
    
            “Investors should keep an eye on potential AI overspending, but for now, Satya Nadella’s forward-looking strategy is building value by infusing productive intelligence across Microsoft’s entire portfolio, from the cloud to the desktop.”
    
            Microsoft’s Azure cloud business also experienced strong growth – revenue grew 31% – boosted by AI tailwinds.",CNN,25/04/2024,"['Alphabet, the parent company of Google, bounced back from an absolutely dreadful day for tech shares, as its stock surged Thursday after the closing bell.', 'All it had to do was to hand out billions of dollars to investors.', 'The tech giant announced its first quarterly cash dividend, saying it will pay $0.20 per share on June 17 to shareholders of record as of June 10, as well as a $70 billion share buyback.', 'Buybacks and dividends help to boost stock prices by rewarding investors with cash just for holding the stock — but they’re widely criticized for artificially inflating the stock price without spending on employees or improvements to the underlying business.', 'Google’s stock jumped as much as 13% in after-hours trading following the report.', 'The announcement came as part of Google’s earnings report for the first three months of the year, in which it also reported that it exceeded Wall Street analysts’ expectations for both sales and profits.', 'Revenue from the quarter reached more than $80.5 billion, up 15% from the same period in the prior year and ahead of the $78.75 billion analysts had projected, according to FactSet estimates.', 'The company also reported 57% year-over-year growth in profits to nearly $23.7 billion.', 'Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai attributed the success to the company’s investments in artificial intelligence, including the large language model and suite of AI products it calls Gemini.', '“We are well under way with our Gemini era and there’s great momentum across the company.', 'Our leadership in AI research and infrastructure, and our global product footprint, position us well for the next wave of AI innovation,” Pichai said.', 'Google’s results were a sign of how investors may reward some tech companies for their investments in artificial intelligence, which many see as the future of the sector.', '“We have clear paths to AI monetization through ads and cloud, as well as subscriptions,” Pichai said on a call with analysts following Thursday’s report.', 'But not every company has successfully convinced investors that they’re investing in AI responsibly.', 'Meta shares sank on Thursday after the company raised its annual expense forecast to fund its AI ambitions, despite better-than-expected earnings results Wednesday.', 'But in addition to Google, multiple positive tech earnings reports on Thursday helped reverse what had been a sluggish day for tech stocks.', 'Social media company Snap, the parent company of social media platform Snapchat, also saw its stock climb after-hours on the heels of a rosy first-quarter earnings report that beat Wall Street’s estimates.', 'Snap reported revenue of some $1.19 billion for the first three months of the year, up 21% from the year-ago quarter.', 'And it said daily active users increased 10% year-over-year.', 'The company also offered a better-than-expected outlook for the current quarter.', 'Snap has been working to improve its advertising technology and offerings, while undergoing a restructuring aimed at cutting costs.', 'While it nonetheless reported a net loss of $305 million for the March quarter, it was an improvement from its loss a year ago and better than analysts expected.', 'Snap shares soared roughly 25% in after-hours trading immediately following the report.', 'Meanwhile, Microsoft reported quarterly profits of $21.9 billion, up from $18.3 billion a year ago, signaling that the company’s efforts to double down on AI are also paying off.', 'Revenue grew 17% year-over-year to $61.9 billion.', '“Microsoft Copilot and Copilot stack are orchestrating a new era of AI transformation, driving better business outcomes across every role and industry,” chief executive officer Satya Nadella said in a statement, referring to Microsoft’s AI services.', 'Microsoft shares climbed more than 4% in after-hours trading Thursday.', 'While rivals play catch up, Jeremy Goldman, a senior director at market research company eMarketer, wrote in an analyst note that it’s clear that Microsoft’s early bets on OpenAI’s ChatGPT are paying off through products like its Copilot for Microsoft365, an AI chat assistant built into its existing suite of business products.', '“Investors should keep an eye on potential AI overspending, but for now, Satya Nadella’s forward-looking strategy is building value by infusing productive intelligence across Microsoft’s entire portfolio, from the cloud to the desktop.”', 'Microsoft’s Azure cloud business also experienced strong growth – revenue grew 31% – boosted by AI tailwinds.']",0.4239755682621723,But not every company has successfully convinced investors that they’re investing in AI responsibly.,"Alphabet, the parent company of Google, bounced back from an absolutely dreadful day for tech shares, as its stock surged Thursday after the closing bell.",0.9254777254881682,Revenue grew 17% year-over-year to $61.9 billion.,"Meta shares sank on Thursday after the company raised its annual expense forecast to fund its AI ambitions, despite better-than-expected earnings results Wednesday.",2024-04-30
Boeing: Dead whistleblower warned of safety breaches,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/68907597,2024-04-26T21:01:13.000Z,"A former Boeing employee, who was found dead in March, accused the company of ""countless"" violations of US law in testimony given just before his death. John Barnett claimed the firm tried to ""eliminate"" quality inspections at a plant that makes 787 planes. The former quality control manager had been giving a formal legal deposition against the plane manufacturer. The 62-year-old's death after two days of testimony was from a ""self-inflicted gunshot wound"", officials said. Boeing says it was ""saddened"" by Mr Barnett's death, but said the issues he raised had been reviewed and addressed. The aerospace giant's safety standards are currently under the spotlight, in part due to an incident in January when a disused door fell off a brand new 737 Max shortly after take-off. The transcript of Mr Barnett's deposition has now been released by his lawyers. The lengthy document runs to more than 140 pages. Mr Barnett had worked for Boeing for more than 30 years before his retirement on health grounds in 2017. He subsequently filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming he had suffered retaliation from managers after raising a number of serious safety concerns, a charge the company denies. The bulk of Mr Barnett's deposition focuses on the period from 2010 onwards, after he had moved from Boeing's facility in Everett, Washington to what was then a brand-new factory in North Charleston. The plant had been set up to help assemble the 787 Dreamliner, a state-of-the-art airliner used mainly on long-haul routes. Mr Barnett had previously told the BBC and others that managers there had routinely ignored formal procedures in order to build planes as quickly as possible. In his deposition, he provided more detail on these allegations, in support of his legal complaint that he had been ""denigrated, humiliated and treated with scorn"" by senior managers, who had subjected him to a gaslighting campaign, and created a ""hostile work environment"" as a result of his actions. A key part of his testimony focused on the alleged falsification of records relating to problems within the production process and in particular the logging of defective or substandard parts. He claimed employees had been under pressure to circumvent established procedures, set out in Boeing's own Quality Management System, to save time. A common theme within the factory, he said, was: ""We don't have time to follow processes, we're building airplanes"". This, he said, had allowed ""an awful lot"" of faulty parts onto the production line, while others had simply been lost. These included two large sections of aircraft fuselage, which ""weren't anywhere to be found"". In one specific instance, he claimed a contaminated and faulty tube designed to work in an oxygen system had been removed from a scrap bin and might have been installed on an aircraft that was now in service. Such parts normally had to be carefully sterilised to reduce the risk of unwanted chemical reactions. Without that, he said, there was a risk that if the system was activated, it could cause an explosion that would ""bring the whole plane down"". He suggested that there had been ""countless"" occasions on which paperwork had been falsified, and agreed with his lawyer's suggestion that each violation of procedure amounted to a ""criminal offense and felony"". Mr Barnett was also deeply critical of what he saw as a drive at the South Carolina plant to reduce quality control inspections, again to speed up the manufacturing process. ""So the push for probably the last 15 to 20 years at Boeing is to eliminate quality [inspections]"", he said. ""But when here in Charleston they put that push on steroids"". Boeing's own lawyers focused more on Mr Barnett's claims that he had been retaliated against, and appeared to question his assertion that his safety concerns had not been taken seriously at the time. In a statement given to the BBC, Boeing said: ""We are saddened by Mr Barnett's passing and our thoughts continue to be with his family and friends. ""Boeing reviewed and addressed quality issues that Mr Barnett raised before he retired in 2017, as well as other quality issues referred to in the complaint. Engineering analysis determined the issues he raised did not affect airplane safety"". It also drew attention to a decision made earlier in Mr Barnett's case, in 2020, in which the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration concluded the company had not breached whistleblower protection law. It added: ""We appreciate employees who raise their voice, and we have systems in place to encourage them to speak up confidentially or anonymously. ""To ensure the safety, quality and conformance of our products, we investigate all allegations of improper behaviour. We then work diligently to address them and make improvements."" Mr Barnett's lawsuit is expected to continue. It will be taken forward by his mother Vicky Stokes and his brother Rodney Barnett as representatives of his estate. The case is now expected to go to trial in September. ",BBC,26/04/2024,"['A former Boeing employee, who was found dead in March, accused the company of ""countless"" violations of US law in testimony given just before his death.', 'John Barnett claimed the firm tried to ""eliminate"" quality inspections at a plant that makes 787 planes.', 'The former quality control manager had been giving a formal legal deposition against the plane manufacturer.', 'The 62-year-old\'s death after two days of testimony was from a ""self-inflicted gunshot wound"", officials said.', 'Boeing says it was ""saddened"" by Mr Barnett\'s death, but said the issues he raised had been reviewed and addressed.', ""The aerospace giant's safety standards are currently under the spotlight, in part due to an incident in January when a disused door fell off a brand new 737 Max shortly after take-off."", ""The transcript of Mr Barnett's deposition has now been released by his lawyers."", 'The lengthy document runs to more than 140 pages.', 'Mr Barnett had worked for Boeing for more than 30 years before his retirement on health grounds in 2017.', 'He subsequently filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming he had suffered retaliation from managers after raising a number of serious safety concerns, a charge the company denies.', ""The bulk of Mr Barnett's deposition focuses on the period from 2010 onwards, after he had moved from Boeing's facility in Everett, Washington to what was then a brand-new factory in North Charleston."", 'The plant had been set up to help assemble the 787 Dreamliner, a state-of-the-art airliner used mainly on long-haul routes.', 'Mr Barnett had previously told the BBC and others that managers there had routinely ignored formal procedures in order to build planes as quickly as possible.', 'In his deposition, he provided more detail on these allegations, in support of his legal complaint that he had been ""denigrated, humiliated and treated with scorn"" by senior managers, who had subjected him to a gaslighting campaign, and created a ""hostile work environment"" as a result of his actions.', 'A key part of his testimony focused on the alleged falsification of records relating to problems within the production process and in particular the logging of defective or substandard parts.', ""He claimed employees had been under pressure to circumvent established procedures, set out in Boeing's own Quality Management System, to save time."", 'A common theme within the factory, he said, was: ""We don\'t have time to follow processes, we\'re building airplanes"".', 'This, he said, had allowed ""an awful lot"" of faulty parts onto the production line, while others had simply been lost.', 'These included two large sections of aircraft fuselage, which ""weren\'t anywhere to be found"".', 'In one specific instance, he claimed a contaminated and faulty tube designed to work in an oxygen system had been removed from a scrap bin and might have been installed on an aircraft that was now in service.', 'Such parts normally had to be carefully sterilised to reduce the risk of unwanted chemical reactions.', 'Without that, he said, there was a risk that if the system was activated, it could cause an explosion that would ""bring the whole plane down"".', 'He suggested that there had been ""countless"" occasions on which paperwork had been falsified, and agreed with his lawyer\'s suggestion that each violation of procedure amounted to a ""criminal offense and felony"".', 'Mr Barnett was also deeply critical of what he saw as a drive at the South Carolina plant to reduce quality control inspections, again to speed up the manufacturing process. ""', 'So the push for probably the last 15 to 20 years at Boeing is to eliminate quality [inspections]"", he said. ""', 'But when here in Charleston they put that push on steroids"".', ""Boeing's own lawyers focused more on Mr Barnett's claims that he had been retaliated against, and appeared to question his assertion that his safety concerns had not been taken seriously at the time."", 'In a statement given to the BBC, Boeing said: ""We are saddened by Mr Barnett\'s passing and our thoughts continue to be with his family and friends. ""', 'Boeing reviewed and addressed quality issues that Mr Barnett raised before he retired in 2017, as well as other quality issues referred to in the complaint.', 'Engineering analysis determined the issues he raised did not affect airplane safety"".', ""It also drew attention to a decision made earlier in Mr Barnett's case, in 2020, in which the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration concluded the company had not breached whistleblower protection law."", 'It added: ""We appreciate employees who raise their voice, and we have systems in place to encourage them to speak up confidentially or anonymously. ""', 'To ensure the safety, quality and conformance of our products, we investigate all allegations of improper behaviour.', 'We then work diligently to address them and make improvements.""', ""Mr Barnett's lawsuit is expected to continue."", 'It will be taken forward by his mother Vicky Stokes and his brother Rodney Barnett as representatives of his estate.', 'The case is now expected to go to trial in September.']",-0.0823417804701127,"It added: ""We appreciate employees who raise their voice, and we have systems in place to encourage them to speak up confidentially or anonymously. ""","A former Boeing employee, who was found dead in March, accused the company of ""countless"" violations of US law in testimony given just before his death.",-0.8674986958503723,,"He subsequently filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming he had suffered retaliation from managers after raising a number of serious safety concerns, a charge the company denies.",2024-04-30
Philips pays $1.1bn to settle respirator case,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn3dv3273dlo,2024-04-29T13:26:39.107Z,"Dutch medical products maker Philips says it has reached a $1.1bn (£877m) deal to settle lawsuits in the US relating to potentially faulty breathing devices. The settlement is expected to go some way towards drawing a line under a controversial and deeply damaging episode for the company, which has hurt its finances and its reputation. In 2021, it emerged that foam fitted in breathing machines used to treat sleep apnoea and other disorders could degrade, releasing potentially toxic particles into masks worn by patients. Philips said it did not “admit any fault or liability, or that any injuries were caused"" by the devices. The settlement was much lower than many analysts had expected, and the company’s share price rose more than 40% after the announcement. The machines were made by the company's US subsidiary Philips Respironics. Users reportedly complained of black particles and dust appearing inside their masks. More than five million machines were ultimately recalled worldwide. In January this year, the US Food and Drug Administration said it had received 116,000 reports of problems, while 561 deaths had been linked to the devices. The affair led the departure of Philips’ chief executive Frans van Houten in 2022. Earlier this month, Philips Respironics reached an agreement with the Department of Justice in a US court, a ""consent decree"" under which it will face regular inspections of its US facilities for the next five years. It will also have to pay part of its revenues to the US Treasury, and be prevented from selling a range of respiratory devices on the US market until it meets a range of conditions related to the repair or replacement of older models. The latest settlement covers a class action lawsuit as well as individual personal injury claims in the US. It has come sooner than had been expected, and the total cost is considerably lower than many analysts had forecast, with some having previously predicted it could be worth as much as $4.5bn (£3.5bn). The company's chief executive, Roy Jakobs, described the agreements as “significant milestones” that would “provide further clarity on the way forward for Philips”. Lawyers who brought the case on behalf of victims told the BBC that they were ""pleased"" to have reached a resolution. ""The agreements with Philips will provide compensation to those users of the now-recalled CPAP and other respiratory devices who suffer from significant physical injuries and important research for the treatment of those injuries,"" a statement said. ""Ultimately, these combined agreements accomplish what we sought to achieve when this litigation began - holding Philips accountable by obtaining care for those with physical injuries and compensation for those needing new respiratory devices."" ",BBC,29/04/2024,"['Dutch medical products maker Philips says it has reached a $1.1bn (£877m) deal to settle lawsuits in the US relating to potentially faulty breathing devices.', 'The settlement is expected to go some way towards drawing a line under a controversial and deeply damaging episode for the company, which has hurt its finances and its reputation.', 'In 2021, it emerged that foam fitted in breathing machines used to treat sleep apnoea and other disorders could degrade, releasing potentially toxic particles into masks worn by patients.', 'Philips said it did not “admit any fault or liability, or that any injuries were caused"" by the devices.', 'The settlement was much lower than many analysts had expected, and the company’s share price rose more than 40% after the announcement.', ""The machines were made by the company's US subsidiary Philips Respironics."", 'Users reportedly complained of black particles and dust appearing inside their masks.', 'More than five million machines were ultimately recalled worldwide.', 'In January this year, the US Food and Drug Administration said it had received 116,000 reports of problems, while 561 deaths had been linked to the devices.', 'The affair led the departure of Philips’ chief executive Frans van Houten in 2022.', 'Earlier this month, Philips Respironics reached an agreement with the Department of Justice in a US court, a ""consent decree"" under which it will face regular inspections of its US facilities for the next five years.', 'It will also have to pay part of its revenues to the US Treasury, and be prevented from selling a range of respiratory devices on the US market until it meets a range of conditions related to the repair or replacement of older models.', 'The latest settlement covers a class action lawsuit as well as individual personal injury claims in the US.', 'It has come sooner than had been expected, and the total cost is considerably lower than many analysts had forecast, with some having previously predicted it could be worth as much as $4.5bn (£3.5bn).', ""The company's chief executive, Roy Jakobs, described the agreements as “significant milestones” that would “provide further clarity on the way forward for Philips”."", 'Lawyers who brought the case on behalf of victims told the BBC that they were ""pleased"" to have reached a resolution. ""', 'The agreements with Philips will provide compensation to those users of the now-recalled CPAP and other respiratory devices who suffer from significant physical injuries and important research for the treatment of those injuries,"" a statement said. ""', 'Ultimately, these combined agreements accomplish what we sought to achieve when this litigation began - holding Philips accountable by obtaining care for those with physical injuries and compensation for those needing new respiratory devices.""']",-0.0446616421140576,"Earlier this month, Philips Respironics reached an agreement with the Department of Justice in a US court, a ""consent decree"" under which it will face regular inspections of its US facilities for the next five years.","The settlement is expected to go some way towards drawing a line under a controversial and deeply damaging episode for the company, which has hurt its finances and its reputation.",0.4602984840219671,"The settlement was much lower than many analysts had expected, and the company’s share price rose more than 40% after the announcement.","In 2021, it emerged that foam fitted in breathing machines used to treat sleep apnoea and other disorders could degrade, releasing potentially toxic particles into masks worn by patients.",2024-04-30
Walmart will close all of its health care clinics,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/30/business/walmart-closes-health-clinics/index.html,"
  Updated
        9:42 AM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024
    ","Walmart, the largest retailer in the United States, will close all 51 of its health care centers in six states and end virtual health care services, the company said Tuesday.
    
            Walmart had made a big push into health care in recent years, opening clinics next to its superstores that offered primary and urgent care, labs, X-rays, behavioral health and dental work — Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri and Texas. Walmart believed it could use its massive financial scale and store base to offer convenient, low-cost services to patients in rural and underserved areas that lacked primary care options.
    
            But the announcement is an abrupt reversal in Walmart’s strategy and may leave a gap in health care access, particularly for lower-income patients without insurance who relied on the centers. Walmart also said it will end virtual health care services.
    
            “One of unique things was they were focused on stores located in underserved communities. It’s disappointing that Walmart wasn’t able to make it work because these patients need care and don’t have as many options,” said Ateev Mehrotra, a professor of health care policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School who researches retail health clinics.
    
            Walmart said it was a “difficult decision,” but its health care push was not profitable for the company because of the “challenging reimbursement environment and escalating operating costs.”
    
            “We determined there is not a sustainable business model for us to continue,” the company said.
    
            Mehrotra said Walmart’s closures reflect the challenges for primary care providers in the United States. A shortage of up to 55,000 primary care physicians is expected in the next decade, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
    
            “This experience highlights the financial struggles that primary care has in general. It really speaks to what primary clinics are facing,” he said.
    
            Walmart said it will continue operating its 4,600 pharmacies and more than 3,000 optical centers around the country.
    
            Walmart opened clinics to try to fill a gap for its customers without health insurance, as well as people who have insurance plans with high deductibles and out-of-pocket costs.
    
            “Health care looks like a big opportunity,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillion said in 2020, shortly after the first clinics opened.
    
            Soaring costs and access to primary care options remain persistent challenges, especially in rural areas. Walmart chose some of its locations because the areas had higher rates of chronic disease and fewer primary care physicians than average US communities.
    
            Marcus Osborne, Walmart’s former vice president of health and wellness transformation, told CNN in 2020 that people who came into the clinics often had not seen a primary care physician in two or three years, or a dentist in five years.
    
            Walmart faced several challenges with its health clinics, including a shortage of medical workers, said Robert Field, a professor of health management and policy at Drexel University.
    
            Walmart’s closures show that strength in retail does not always translate into health care, he said.
    
            “It is different from selling products, like toothpaste and breakfast cereal, and requires different kinds of expertise and management,” Field said.",CNN,30/04/2024,"['Walmart, the largest retailer in the United States, will close all 51 of its health care centers in six states and end virtual health care services, the company said Tuesday.', 'Walmart had made a big push into health care in recent years, opening clinics next to its superstores that offered primary and urgent care, labs, X-rays, behavioral health and dental work — Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri and Texas.', 'Walmart believed it could use its massive financial scale and store base to offer convenient, low-cost services to patients in rural and underserved areas that lacked primary care options.', 'But the announcement is an abrupt reversal in Walmart’s strategy and may leave a gap in health care access, particularly for lower-income patients without insurance who relied on the centers.', 'Walmart also said it will end virtual health care services.', '“One of unique things was they were focused on stores located in underserved communities.', 'It’s disappointing that Walmart wasn’t able to make it work because these patients need care and don’t have as many options,” said Ateev Mehrotra, a professor of health care policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School who researches retail health clinics.', 'Walmart said it was a “difficult decision,” but its health care push was not profitable for the company because of the “challenging reimbursement environment and escalating operating costs.”', '“We determined there is not a sustainable business model for us to continue,” the company said.', 'Mehrotra said Walmart’s closures reflect the challenges for primary care providers in the United States.', 'A shortage of up to 55,000 primary care physicians isexpectedin the next decade, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.', '“This experience highlights the financial struggles that primary care has in general.', 'It really speaks to what primary clinics are facing,” he said.', 'Walmart said it will continue operating its 4,600 pharmacies and more than 3,000 optical centers around the country.', 'Walmart opened clinics to try to fill a gap for its customers without health insurance, as well as people who have insurance plans with high deductibles and out-of-pocket costs.', '“Health care looks like a big opportunity,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillion said in 2020, shortly after the first clinics opened.', 'Soaring costs and access to primary care options remain persistent challenges, especially in rural areas.', 'Walmart chose some of its locations because the areas had higher rates of chronic disease and fewer primary care physicians than average US communities.', 'Marcus Osborne, Walmart’s former vice president of health and wellness transformation, told CNN in 2020 that people who came into the clinics often had not seen a primary care physician in two or three years, or a dentist in five years.', 'Walmart faced several challenges with its health clinics, including a shortage of medical workers, said Robert Field, a professor of health management and policy at Drexel University.', 'Walmart’s closures show that strength in retail does not always translate into health care, he said.', '“It is different from selling products, like toothpaste and breakfast cereal, and requires different kinds of expertise and management,” Field said.']",0.4164980044815662,"Walmart, the largest retailer in the United States, will close all 51 of its health care centers in six states and end virtual health care services, the company said Tuesday.","Walmart faced several challenges with its health clinics, including a shortage of medical workers, said Robert Field, a professor of health management and policy at Drexel University.",-0.3733119643651522,"Walmart had made a big push into health care in recent years, opening clinics next to its superstores that offered primary and urgent care, labs, X-rays, behavioral health and dental work — Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri and Texas.","Walmart said it was a “difficult decision,” but its health care push was not profitable for the company because of the “challenging reimbursement environment and escalating operating costs.”",2024-04-30
Top soccer clubs are using an AI-powered app to scout future stars,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/01/tech/aiscout-app-soccer-scouting-spc-intl/index.html,"
  Published
        7:14 AM EST, Fri March 1, 2024
    ","A London-based technology company is looking to “democratize” talent-identification and scouting in soccer using a mobile app.
    
            Free to download and available globally, the aiScout app allows aspiring soccer stars to enter virtual trials for professional clubs by uploading self-recorded footage of themselves completing a series of drills. It offers 75 exercises, designed to test a range of skills, with videos showing users how to complete them.
    
            Performances are automatically scored by artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The data can then be accessed by clubs, allowing their scouts to peruse scores for viable talent, honing their search with a variety of filters; from age and gender to position on the pitch.
    
            The app currently has two English Premier League (EPL) partners, Chelsea and Burnley, and clubs can tailor their in-app trials to meet specific needs and set their own benchmarks by having their academy players complete the same drills.
    
            “We’re putting that data up front to make better use of [the scouts’] time,” said Richard Felton-Thomas, chief operating officer of ai.io, the company behind the app.
    
            “To say [to scouts], ‘Go over to this place today because there’s three players in that game that are all actually beating your Chelsea standard’ — that’s going to be the best use of your time.’”
    
            It already appears to be working for some. Ben Greenwood had never had a trial with a professional club until he downloaded the app in 2019. After uploading footage of himself, the 17-year-old landed a trial with Chelsea, becoming the first user of the app to get a trial with a pro club. He signed a contract with EPL team Bournemouth in 2021.
    
            Having beta-tested in with players spanning 125 countries, Greenwood among them, 135 players have been trialed or signed by pro clubs or national teams through the app — which fully launched in September 2023 — according to Felton-Thomas.
    
            Just over 100,000 players make up the current database, but with over 100 clubs lined up to join Chelsea and Burnley, as well as a multi-year partnership with Major League Soccer in the US announced last May, Felton-Thomas projects user numbers to surge into the millions as the operation ramps up this year.
    
            Felton-Thomas said the “lion’s share” of its income comes from charging clubs a license fee to run the platform. Annual fees vary depending on the size of the club and the tools they require, ranging from six figures for “tier one” sides like Chelsea, to thousands of pounds for clubs lower down the footballing pyramid.
    
            The use of smart technology in sport continues to expand, including AI commentary tools and wearable tech for elite athletes. The global market for sports analytics, valued at $2.7 billion in 2023, is projected to grow 22% by the end of the decade, according to market research firm Grand View Research.
    
            Should soccer talent scouts be concerned about being edged out by the arrival of AI in their industry? For Felton-Thomas, new technologies can co-exist with traditional methods.
    
            “It’s more about evolution than revolution,” Felton-Thomas explained.
    
            “We can’t tell you when that player’s actually in that match, how does he deal with adversity? What happens when he’s 2-0 down? What happens when someone’s shouting at him? What happens when he’s just made a massive mistake?”
    
            “We’ve got the ability to just augment real people to do their jobs better and faster, which then gives an opportunity to the player through the AI, but you’re still actually just connecting them to the human on the other side, which is the club and the scout.”
    
            While football remains ai.io’s primary focus, the company is looking into opportunities in other sports to launch in the coming years. Further ahead, it may branch out beyond sports.
    
            “You think about the notion that you can be at home and analyze your movements, and how this could spin into health care, physical assessments for military disciplines and emergency services,” Felton-Thomas told CNN.",CNN,01/03/2024,"['A London-based technology company is looking to “democratize” talent-identification and scouting in soccer using a mobile app.', 'Free to download and available globally, the aiScout app allows aspiring soccer stars to enter virtual trials for professional clubs by uploading self-recorded footage of themselves completing a series of drills.', 'It offers 75 exercises, designed to test a range of skills, with videos showing users how to complete them.', 'Performances are automatically scored by artificial intelligence (AI) technology.', 'The data can then be accessed by clubs, allowing their scouts to peruse scores for viable talent, honing their search with a variety of filters; from age and gender to position on the pitch.', 'The app currently has two English Premier League (EPL) partners, Chelsea and Burnley, and clubs can tailor their in-app trials to meet specific needs and set their own benchmarks by having their academy players complete the same drills.', '“We’re putting that data up front to make better use of [the scouts’] time,” said Richard Felton-Thomas, chief operating officer of ai.io, the company behind the app.', '“To say [to scouts], ‘Go over to this place today because there’s three players in that game that are all actually beating your Chelsea standard’ — that’s going to be the best use of your time.’”', 'It already appears to be working for some.', 'Ben Greenwood had never had a trial with a professional club until he downloaded the app in 2019.', 'After uploading footage of himself, the 17-year-old landed a trial with Chelsea, becoming the first user of the app to get a trial with a pro club.', 'He signed a contractwith EPL team Bournemouthin 2021.', 'Having beta-tested in with players spanning 125 countries, Greenwood among them, 135 players have been trialed or signed by pro clubs or national teams through the app — which fully launched in September 2023 — according to Felton-Thomas.', 'Just over 100,000 players make up the current database, but with over 100 clubs lined up to join Chelsea and Burnley, as well as a multi-year partnership with Major League Soccer in the US announced last May, Felton-Thomas projects user numbers to surge into the millions as the operation ramps up this year.', 'Felton-Thomas said the “lion’s share” of its income comes from charging clubs a license fee to run the platform.', 'Annual fees vary depending on the size of the club and the tools they require, ranging from six figures for “tier one” sides like Chelsea, to thousands of pounds for clubs lower down the footballing pyramid.', 'The use of smart technology in sport continues to expand, includingAI commentary tools and wearable tech for elite athletes.', 'The global market for sports analytics, valued at$2.7 billionin 2023, is projected to grow 22% by the end of the decade, according to market research firm Grand View Research.', 'Should soccer talent scouts be concerned about being edged out by the arrival of AI in their industry?', 'For Felton-Thomas, new technologies can co-exist with traditional methods.', '“It’s more about evolution than revolution,” Felton-Thomas explained.', '“We can’t tell you when that player’s actually in that match, how does he deal with adversity?', 'What happens when he’s 2-0 down?', 'What happens when someone’s shouting at him?', 'What happens when he’s just made a massive mistake?”', '“We’ve got the ability to just augment real people to do their jobs better and faster, which then gives an opportunity to the player through the AI, but you’re still actually just connecting them to the human on the other side, which is the club and the scout.”', 'While football remains ai.io’s primary focus, the company is looking into opportunities in other sports to launch in the coming years.', 'Further ahead, it may branch out beyond sports.', '“You think about the notion that you can be at home and analyze your movements, and how this could spin into health care, physical assessments for military disciplines and emergency services,” Felton-Thomas told CNN.']",0.2022322827681825,"The global market for sports analytics, valued at$2.7 billionin 2023, is projected to grow 22% by the end of the decade, according to market research firm Grand View Research.","“We can’t tell you when that player’s actually in that match, how does he deal with adversity?",0.6922526359558105,"The global market for sports analytics, valued at$2.7 billionin 2023, is projected to grow 22% by the end of the decade, according to market research firm Grand View Research.",Should soccer talent scouts be concerned about being edged out by the arrival of AI in their industry?,2024-04-30
Columbia president Minouche Shafik faces criticism in all directions,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/25/business/minouche-shafik-columbia-president/index.html,"
  Updated
        9:54 PM EDT, Thu April 25, 2024
    ","When Minouche Shafik was announced as Columbia University’s president last year, she was called the “perfect candidate” by the chair of Columbia’s Board of Trustees.
    
            Now, some of her own students and professors, as well as the speaker of the House of Representatives, are calling on her to resign.
    
            Just over nine months into her tenure, Shafik — an Egyptian-born economist and former high-ranking official at the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Bank of England, and former president of the London School of Economics — is under pressure for her handling of Columbia campus protests over the war between Israel and Hamas.
    
            College administrators have been under intense scrutiny in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill and Harvard University president Claudine Gay both stepped down in the wake of pressure over their response to antisemitism on campus.
    
            At Columbia, some students, faculty and left-leaning lawmakers are enraged that Shafik authorized the New York Police Department to shut down student protests on campus that have been urging the university to cut off its economic and academic ties to Israel. They say the crackdown on student protests, which resulted in more than 100 arrests, violated academic freedom. At the same time, students, religious groups and right-leaning lawmakers say the administration has failed to stop antisemitism inside Columbia’s campus and at protests outside its gates.
    
            “Calling in police enforcement on nonviolent demonstrations of young students on campus is an escalatory, reckless, and dangerous act,” Democratic Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez posted on X Tuesday. “It represents a heinous failure of leadership that puts people’s lives at risk. I condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”
    
            The Republican House speaker, Rep. Mike Johnson, called on Shafik to resign during a tense press conference Wednesday at Columbia. “I am here today, joining my colleagues and calling on President Shafik to resign if she cannot immediately bring order to this chaos,” Johnson said.
    
            “These are incredibly difficult situations for a university president, especially someone who is not tested over time,” said James Finkelstein, a professor emeritus of public policy at George Mason University who studies the selection and employment of university presidents.
    
            “She’s at serious risk of being able to survive this,” Finkelstein added. “The likelihood of her keeping her job is at best 50-50.”
    
            Columbia’s Board of Trustees is standing by Shafik, saying it “strongly supports” Shafik as she “steers the university through this extraordinarily challenging time.”
    
            “During the search process for this role, President Shafik told us that she would always take a thoughtful approach to resolving conflict, balancing the disparate voices that make up a vibrant campus like Columbia’s, while taking a firm stance against hatred, harassment, and discrimination,” the board said in a statement Wednesday. “That’s exactly what she’s doing now.”
    
            Shafik has now drawn comparisons to former Columbia president Grayson Kirk, who in 1968 called in 1,000 police officers in riot gear to quell students protesting the Vietnam War, Columbia’s role in military research and its relationship to the Harlem community.
    
            Kirk resigned later that year.
    
            Last week, Shafik authorized the New York Police Department to sweep the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on Columbia’s campus. Police arrested more than 100 people on suspicion of criminal trespassing, and Columbia suspended students participating in the protest encampment.
    
            “Columbia itself has its own traditions and memories of bringing police on campus,” Finkelstein said. “You have a historically activist faculty and student body.”
    
            Shafik’s decision to authorize the NYPD to arrest protestors “suggests to me being very insensitive to the history of the institution,” he said.
    
            Some Columbia faculty members have denounced Shafik’s decision to authorize the NYPD to remove protesters from campus and demanded all legal and disciplinary charges be dismissed and expunged from students’ records. The faculty voted to submit a symbolic measure censuring Shafik for her decision to authorize the NYPD, which they said was an “unprecedented assault on student rights.”
    
            Shafik has denounced antisemitism, urged students to report incidents of discrimination and said hateful speech and acts against Jews would be investigated by the university since Hamas’ attack on civilians in Israel on October 7.
    
            On November 1, she announced the formation of a university task force on antisemitism.
    
            During congressional testimony last week, Shafik said students and faculty have been disciplined for antisemitism and that more work was needed to combat antisemitism.
    
            Still, Shafik and the university administration are under fire for their response to antisemitism and to Islamophobia, as well.
    
            Last fall, a Columbia student who was hanging posters on campus in support of Israel was assaulted. The university has also faced criticism for hiring a professor who allegedly expressed support for Hamas on social media following the October 7 terror attack on Israel. That professor has been fired, Shafik said last Wednesday.
    
            The Department of Education is investigating Columbia, UPenn, Harvard and four other schools after complaints about alleged incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia. At the conclusion of the investigations, the Department of Education will make recommendations to the schools. The schools risk losing federal funding if they don’t comply.
    
            Some Jewish students have described being verbally and physically harassed on campus, and there have been incidents outside of Columbia’s campus of antisemitism.
    
            Columbia’s Hillel group has called on the university to do more to protect students and ensure that students can walk around campus without fear of harassment.
    
            Some major donors, Republican lawmakers and a handful of Democratic lawmakers have said these incidents show Shafik’s response to antisemitism is lacking and called on her to resign.
    
            “I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff, and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken,” New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who graduated from Columbia and has donated millions of dollars to the university, said Monday. “It is my hope that Columbia and its leadership will stand up to this hate by ending these protests immediately.”",CNN,25/04/2024,"['When Minouche Shafik was announced as Columbia University’s president last year, she was called the “perfect candidate” by the chair of Columbia’s Board of Trustees.', 'Now, some of her own students and professors, as well as the speaker of the House of Representatives, are calling on her to resign.', 'Just over nine months into her tenure, Shafik — an Egyptian-born economist and former high-ranking official at the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Bank of England, and former president of the London School of Economics — is under pressure for her handling of Columbia campus protests over the war between Israel and Hamas.', 'College administrators have been under intense scrutiny in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war.', 'University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magill and Harvard University president Claudine Gay both stepped down in the wake of pressure over their response to antisemitism on campus.', 'At Columbia, some students, faculty and left-leaning lawmakers are enraged that Shafik authorized the New York Police Department to shut down student protests on campus that have been urging the university to cut off its economic and academic ties to Israel.', 'They say the crackdown on student protests, which resulted in more than 100 arrests, violated academic freedom.', 'At the same time, students, religious groups and right-leaning lawmakers say the administration has failed to stop antisemitism inside Columbia’s campus and at protests outside its gates.', '“Calling in police enforcement on nonviolent demonstrations of young students on campus is an escalatory, reckless, and dangerous act,” Democratic Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez posted on X Tuesday. “', 'It represents a heinous failure of leadership that puts people’s lives at risk.', 'I condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”', 'The Republican House speaker, Rep. Mike Johnson, called on Shafik to resign during a tense press conference Wednesday at Columbia. “', 'I am here today, joining my colleagues and calling on President Shafik to resign if she cannot immediately bring order to this chaos,” Johnson said.', '“These are incredibly difficult situations for a university president, especially someone who is not tested over time,” said James Finkelstein, a professor emeritus of public policy at George Mason University who studies the selection and employment of university presidents.', '“She’s at serious risk of being able to survive this,” Finkelstein added. “', 'The likelihood of her keeping her job is at best 50-50.”', 'Columbia’s Board of Trustees is standing by Shafik, saying it “strongly supports” Shafik as she “steers the university through this extraordinarily challenging time.”', '“During the search process for this role, President Shafik told us that she would always take a thoughtful approach to resolving conflict, balancing the disparate voices that make up a vibrant campus like Columbia’s, while taking a firm stance against hatred, harassment, and discrimination,” the board said in a statement Wednesday. “', 'That’s exactly what she’s doing now.”', 'Shafik has now drawn comparisons to former Columbia president Grayson Kirk, who in 1968 called in 1,000 police officers in riot gear to quell students protesting the Vietnam War, Columbia’s role in military research and its relationship to the Harlem community.', 'Kirk resigned later that year.', 'Last week, Shafik authorized the New York Police Department to sweep the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” on Columbia’s campus.', 'Police arrested more than 100 people on suspicion of criminal trespassing, and Columbia suspended students participating in the protest encampment.', '“Columbia itself has its own traditions and memories of bringing police on campus,” Finkelstein said. “', 'You have a historically activist faculty and student body.”', 'Shafik’s decision to authorize the NYPD to arrest protestors “suggests to me being very insensitive to the history of the institution,” he said.', 'Some Columbia faculty members have denouncedShafik’s decision to authorize the NYPD to remove protesters from campus and demanded all legal and disciplinary charges be dismissed and expunged from students’ records.', 'The faculty voted to submit a symbolic measure censuring Shafik for her decision to authorize the NYPD, which they said was an “unprecedented assault on student rights.”', 'Shafik has denounced antisemitism, urged students to report incidents of discrimination and said hateful speech and acts against Jews would be investigated by the university since Hamas’ attack on civilians in Israel on October 7.', 'On November 1, she announced the formation of a university task force on antisemitism.', 'During congressional testimony last week, Shafik said students and faculty have been disciplined for antisemitism and that more work was needed to combat antisemitism.', 'Still, Shafik and the university administration are under fire for their response to antisemitism and to Islamophobia, as well.', 'Last fall, a Columbia student who was hanging posters on campus in support of Israel wasassaulted.', 'The university has also faced criticism for hiring a professor who allegedly expressed support for Hamas on social media following the October 7 terror attack on Israel.', 'That professorhas been fired, Shafik said last Wednesday.', 'The Department of Education is investigating Columbia, UPenn, Harvard and four other schools after complaints about alleged incidents of antisemitism and Islamophobia.', 'At the conclusion of the investigations, the Department of Education will make recommendations to the schools.', 'The schools risk losing federal funding if they don’t comply.', 'Some Jewish students have described being verbally and physically harassed on campus, and there have been incidents outside of Columbia’s campus of antisemitism.', 'Columbia’s Hillel group has called on the university to do more to protect students and ensure that students can walk around campus without fear of harassment.', 'Some major donors, Republican lawmakers and a handful of Democratic lawmakers have said these incidents show Shafik’s response to antisemitism is lacking and called on her to resign.', '“I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff, and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken,” New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who graduated from Columbia and has donated millions of dollars to the university, said Monday. “', 'It is my hope that Columbia and its leadership will stand up to this hate by ending these protests immediately.”']",-0.2815594025415867,Columbia’s Hillel group has called on the university to do more to protect students and ensure that students can walk around campus without fear of harassment.,"Police arrested more than 100 people on suspicion of criminal trespassing, and Columbia suspended students participating in the protest encampment.",-0.7069205108441805,"When Minouche Shafik was announced as Columbia University’s president last year, she was called the “perfect candidate” by the chair of Columbia’s Board of Trustees.","“I am no longer confident that Columbia can protect its students and staff, and I am not comfortable supporting the university until corrective action is taken,” New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who graduated from Columbia and has donated millions of dollars to the university, said Monday. “",2024-04-30
Donald Trump just got another $1.8 billion worth of Trump Media stock,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/30/business/donald-trump-gets-another-usd1-billion-truth-social-windfall/index.html,"
  Updated
        6:42 PM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024
    ","Former President Donald Trump just landed another $1.8 billion worth of stock in the corporate owner of Truth Social.
    
            Trump Media & Technology Group disclosed the windfall for Trump in a filing Tuesday, saying the former president has received another 36 million shares in the company.
    
            That bonus, known as “earnout” shares, was triggered by the company’s share price staying above certain levels.
    
            Trump Media said in the filing that on April 26 it officially determined the performance criteria “had been satisfied” and Trump was “subsequently issued the Earnout Shares.”
    
            At current prices, those new shares are valued at approximately $1.8 billion on paper – though the share price has been extremely volatile.
    
            Trump now holds an even more dominant stake in Trump Media, amounting to 114.75 million shares, or 64.9% of the total outstanding.
    
            According to SEC filings, the full earnout of 40 million shares to pre-merger shareholders would be paid if the company’s dollar volume-weighted average price equaled or exceeded $17.50 for any 20 trading days within any 30-day trading period beginning on March 25.
    
            Tuesday, April 23 marked the 20th trading day for Trump Media, and the stock has not traded below that $17.50 level at any point during that timeframe.
    
            The value of Trump’s stake in the company – and his net worth overall – has swung wildly in recent weeks in tandem with the volatile share price.
    
            The earnout shares Trump just received are subject to lock-up restrictions that prevent insiders from selling or even borrowing against their stock for months, according to filings.
    
            Even if Trump is able to get around the lock-up agreement, experts say it would be challenging for him to quickly sell his stake without crashing the stock price. Trump is not just the chairman and most popular user on Truth Social, he is by far the largest shareholder.
    
            Trump Media’s share price has been subject to extreme turbulence.
    
            It peaked at $66 on March 27, its second day as a public company. The stock crashed to a post-merger low of $22.84 on April 16 and has since more than doubled to nearly $50.
    
            Even though Trump Media plunged since late March, it never came close to breaching levels that would have threatened this bonus.",CNN,30/04/2024,"['Former President Donald Trump just landed another$1.8 billion worth of stock in the corporate owner of Truth Social.', 'Trump Media & Technology Group disclosed the windfall for Trump in a filingTuesday, saying the former presidenthas receivedanother 36 million shares in the company.', 'That bonus, known as “earnout” shares, was triggered by the company’s share price staying above certain levels.', 'Trump Media said in the filing that on April 26 it officially determined the performance criteria “had been satisfied” and Trump was “subsequently issued the Earnout Shares.”', 'At current prices, those new shares are valued at approximately $1.8 billion on paper – though the share price has been extremely volatile.', 'Trump now holds an even more dominant stake in Trump Media, amounting to 114.75 million shares, or 64.9% of the total outstanding.', 'According to SEC filings, the full earnout of 40 million shares to pre-merger shareholders would be paid if the company’s dollar volume-weighted average price equaled or exceeded $17.50 for any 20 trading days within any 30-day trading period beginning on March 25.', 'Tuesday, April 23 marked the 20thtrading day for Trump Media, and the stock has not traded below that $17.50 level at any point during that timeframe.', 'The value of Trump’s stake in the company – and his net worth overall – has swung wildly in recent weeks in tandem with the volatile share price.', 'The earnout shares Trump just received are subject to lock-up restrictions that prevent insiders from selling or even borrowing against their stock for months, according tofilings.', 'Even if Trump is able to get around the lock-up agreement, experts say it would be challenging for him to quickly sell his stake without crashing the stock price.', 'Trump is not just the chairman and most popular user on Truth Social, he is by far the largest shareholder.', 'Trump Media’s share price has been subject to extreme turbulence.', 'It peaked at $66 on March 27, its second day as a public company.', 'The stock crashed to a post-merger low of $22.84 on April 16 and has since more than doubled to nearly $50.', 'Even though Trump Media plunged since late March, it never came close to breaching levels that would have threatened this bonus.']",0.410088409409542,"That bonus, known as “earnout” shares, was triggered by the company’s share price staying above certain levels.",The stock crashed to a post-merger low of $22.84 on April 16 and has since more than doubled to nearly $50.,-0.2177378386259079,The value of Trump’s stake in the company – and his net worth overall – has swung wildly in recent weeks in tandem with the volatile share price.,"Even though Trump Media plunged since late March, it never came close to breaching levels that would have threatened this bonus.",2024-04-30
"NBC Sports could buy back rights to iconic theme song 'Roundball Rock' if it airs NBA games again, composer John Tesh says",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/30/nbc-could-buy-back-roundball-rock-rights-if-it-gets-nba-games-john-tesh-says.html,2024-04-30T20:10:33+0000,"In the pantheon of theme songs for TV sports, ""Roundball Rock,"" John Tesh's anthem that accompanied National Basketball Association games on NBC until 2002, is arguably the greatest.If NBCUniversal wins the rights to air the NBA again, it would have a chance to bring back the iconic tune, the composer told CNBC in an email.Comcast's NBCUniversal has made an offer that averages $2.5 billion per year to once again acquire NBA rights after losing them 22 years ago to Disney, according to people familiar with the matter. The Wall Street Journal first reported the details of NBC's bid.The NBA wants three media partners this time around, and is close to deals with both Disney and Amazon for two of the packages. The third one will likely go to Warner Bros. Discovery or NBCUniversal, but not both, said the people, who asked not to be named because the talks are private.Warner Bros. Discovery continues to be in talks with the league to keep the rights. Still, NBCUniversal's offer more than doubles the $1.2 billion that Warner Bros. Discovery currently pays. That may be too pricey for Warner Bros. Discovery, whose market capitalization of $18 billion is dwarfed by Comcast's $150 billion.Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Executive Officer David Zaslav has preached a message of financial discipline since taking over the company, including by slashing jobs and cutting spending on content, to reduce debt and boost free cash flow. He's said he's not interested in being in the ""rental business,"" as is the nature of licensing sports rights, though he has also expressed optimism about retaining NBA rights.Spokespeople for Warner Bros. Discovery, NBC and the NBA declined to comment.Nostalgic NBA fans associate ""Roundball Rock"" with ""The NBA on NBC"" and an era defined by Michael Jordan, the Chicago Bulls' dominance and the voices of Bob Costas and Marv Albert. USA Today voted it No. 1 in a 2017 ranking of ""The 25 greatest sports TV themes."" The Ringer published an oral history article about its origin, and NBC's ""Saturday Night Live"" did an entire sketch about it.The song has not heralded the start of an NBA game since 2002, when NBC broadcast its last league contest. Fox Sports acquired the rights to the theme to use for college basketball for the 2018-19 season, but a generation of fans still associate the tune with NBC.If NBC Sports wins the rights, it's free to once again license ""Roundball Rock"" from Tesh, who owns the song, the composer said in an e-mail.Fox's deal for ""Roundball Rock"" doesn't preclude any media company from using the song for NBA games, Tesh said.Media companies typically buy the rights to the song in three-year increments, Tesh said. He declined to say how much he is paid because the contracts include non-disclosure agreements, but Tesh noted he's also compensated with royalties based on the number of times it gets played. The Ringer reported in 2020 that Tesh's jingle aired an estimated 12,000 times during the 1990-2002 era on ""NBA on NBC.""""It's funny how people fight for the song,"" Tesh said. ""In 1990, it was just another theme. Now the internet is filled with people playing the song on Ukulele, Casios and teaching it on guitar. We still play the song at every concert and show the YouTube videos of these people.""If the NBA airs on NBC again, it would start in the 2025-26 season. And rest assured, fans: ""Roundball Rock"" is available.— CNBC's Lillian Rizzo contributed to this report.Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.WATCH: Fight for the NBA: NBC vs. Warner Bros. Discovery",CNBC,30/04/2024,"['In the pantheon of theme songs for TV sports, ""Roundball Rock,"" John Tesh\'s anthem that accompanied National Basketball Association games on NBC until 2002, is arguably the greatest.', 'If NBCUniversal wins the rights to air the NBA again, it would have a chance to bring back the iconic tune, the composer told CNBC in an email.', ""Comcast's NBCUniversal has made an offer that averages $2.5 billion per year to once again acquire NBA rights after losing them 22 years ago to Disney, according to people familiar with the matter."", ""The Wall Street Journal first reported the details of NBC's bid."", 'The NBA wants three media partners this time around, and is close to deals with both Disney and Amazon for two of the packages.', 'The third one will likely go to Warner Bros. Discovery or NBCUniversal, but not both, said the people, who asked not to be named because the talks are private.', 'Warner Bros. Discovery continues to be in talks with the league to keep the rights.', ""Still, NBCUniversal's offer more than doubles the $1.2 billion that Warner Bros. Discovery currently pays."", ""That may be too pricey for Warner Bros. Discovery, whose market capitalization of $18 billion is dwarfed by Comcast's $150 billion."", 'Warner Bros. Discovery Chief Executive Officer David Zaslav has preached a message of financial discipline since taking over the company, including by slashing jobs and cutting spending on content, to reduce debt and boost free cash flow.', 'He\'s said he\'s not interested in being in the ""rental business,"" as is the nature of licensing sports rights, though he has also expressed optimism about retaining NBA rights.', 'Spokespeople for Warner Bros. Discovery, NBC and the NBA declined to comment.', 'Nostalgic NBA fans associate ""Roundball Rock"" with ""The NBA on NBC"" and an era defined by Michael Jordan, the Chicago Bulls\' dominance and the voices of Bob Costas and Marv Albert.', 'USA Today voted it No.', '1 in a 2017 ranking of ""The 25 greatest sports TV themes.""', 'The Ringer published an oral history article about its origin, and NBC\'s ""Saturday Night Live"" did an entire sketch about it.', 'The song has not heralded the start of an NBA game since 2002, when NBC broadcast its last league contest.', 'Fox Sports acquired the rights to the theme to use for college basketball for the 2018-19 season, but a generation of fans still associate the tune with NBC.If NBC Sports wins the rights, it\'s free to once again license ""Roundball Rock"" from Tesh, who owns the song, the composer said in an e-mail.', 'Fox\'s deal for ""Roundball Rock"" doesn\'t preclude any media company from using the song for NBA games, Tesh said.', 'Media companies typically buy the rights to the song in three-year increments, Tesh said.', ""He declined to say how much he is paid because the contracts include non-disclosure agreements, but Tesh noted he's also compensated with royalties based on the number of times it gets played."", 'The Ringer reported in 2020 that Tesh\'s jingle aired an estimated 12,000 times during the 1990-2002 era on ""NBA on NBC.""""It\'s funny how people fight for the song,"" Tesh said. ""', 'In 1990, it was just another theme.', 'Now the internet is filled with people playing the song on Ukulele, Casios and teaching it on guitar.', 'We still play the song at every concert and show the YouTube videos of these people.', '""If the NBA airs on NBC again, it would start in the 2025-26 season.', 'And rest assured, fans: ""Roundball Rock"" is available.—', ""CNBC's Lillian Rizzo contributed to this report."", 'Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.WATCH: Fight for the NBA: NBC vs. Warner Bros. Discovery']",0.1444346725648176,"Fox Sports acquired the rights to the theme to use for college basketball for the 2018-19 season, but a generation of fans still associate the tune with NBC.If NBC Sports wins the rights, it's free to once again license ""Roundball Rock"" from Tesh, who owns the song, the composer said in an e-mail.",Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.WATCH: Fight for the NBA: NBC vs. Warner Bros. Discovery,0.6800061961015066,"Still, NBCUniversal's offer more than doubles the $1.2 billion that Warner Bros. Discovery currently pays.","That may be too pricey for Warner Bros. Discovery, whose market capitalization of $18 billion is dwarfed by Comcast's $150 billion.",2024-04-30
"The spring homebuying season isn’t what it used to be, thanks to the Fed",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/30/economy/homebuyers-waiting-for-rate-cuts/index.html,"
  Published
        5:13 PM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024
    ","Spring has undeniably been the best time to put your home on the market. The ideal weather displays homes in the best light and the timing makes it a more favorable season for people to move, especially with the end of the school year.
    
            But the Federal Reserve is throwing a wrench into the plans of many would-be homebuyers.
    
            A few months ago, rate cuts, which would help lower mortgage rates, seemed like a sure shot by now as inflation continued to get closer to the Fed’s 2% target month after month.
    
            That progress has dissipated with multiple different inflation measures heating up again. That’s left central bankers with few options other than keeping interest rates at their current multi-decade highs for even longer, or potentially even raising rates.
    
            All that has caused the spring homebuying season to take a timeout — and could spell trouble for the remainder of the year.
    
            “Higher rates are curtailing inventory,” Zillow senior economist Nicole Bachaud told CNN. “Some owners who locked in low rates during the pandemic have been reluctant to sell and give up that low monthly payment, especially in the most expensive markets where mortgage costs are more sensitive to changing rates.”
    
            But it’s a bit of a chicken or egg situation, she said. “Buyers faced with a sharp increase in mortgage rates at the start of the year have been slower to return to the housing market this spring. However, it’s unclear if they’re waiting for lower interest rates or if they’re looking at the overall affordability picture.”
    
            Housing affordability, by and large, is a product of the number of homes on the market. And homeowners who secured low-rate mortgages when the Fed kept rates at ultra-low levels during the pandemic have little incentive to move and risk paying much higher rates.
    
            At the same time, if home prices came down but mortgage rates remained high, Bachaud said she suspects more people would purchase homes. Right now, however, the average 30-year fixed-rate is at the highest level so far this year and home prices are rising at their fastest pace in over a year.
    
            The homebuyers who are more likely to sit this spring on the sidelines already own a home, said Sam Khater, chief economist at Freddie Mac. But first-time homebuyers who are “tired of elevated rents or have growing families have continued to purchase in a rising rate environment,” he added.
    
            Also, in certain parts of the country like Texas and Florida, new home construction is providing sizeable price relief, Bachaud said. That’s attracting more homebuyers to those markets. In some cases, homebuilders have even offered buyers perks like mortgage buy-downs to incentivize people to move into neighborhoods that may be in less developed areas compared to where existing homes are located.
    
            The spring homebuying season “largely determines how the year will turn out for the housing market,” Khater and his team of economists at Freddie Mac said in a recent report. Since 1999, more than a third of home sales for the entire year occur between March and June on average, according to Freddie Mac data.
    
            Given the Fed is in no rush to cut interest rates, Khater expects mortgage rates to remain elevated for longer. That’s likely going to constrain housing inventory because homeowners don’t want to give up the lower rates they have.
    
            Still, demand this spring has been even stronger than last year in terms of how many people are applying for mortgages from Freddie Mac. Taken together, all these factors will likely put upward pressure on home prices, Khater and his team said in the report.
    
            Zillow’s Bachaud is also predicting home prices to grow higher this year, but not by more than 2%.
    
            “Our outlook does depend on mortgage rates, which are creating their own seasonality,” she added. “If rates fall later in the year, we might see a secondary boost to home sales late this summer or even this fall.” 
    
            That’s unlikely to happen though. As of Tuesday, investors think the first rate cut of the year will come in November, according to fed funds futures.",CNN,30/04/2024,"['Spring has undeniably been the best time to put your home on the market.', 'The ideal weather displays homes in the best light and the timing makes it a more favorable season for people to move, especially with the end of the school year.', 'But the Federal Reserve is throwing a wrench into the plans of many would-be homebuyers.', 'A few months ago, rate cuts, which would help lower mortgage rates, seemed like a sure shot by now as inflation continued to get closer to the Fed’s 2% target month after month.', 'That progress has dissipated with multiple different inflation measures heating up again.', 'That’s left central bankers with few options other than keeping interest rates at their current multi-decade highs for even longer, or potentially even raising rates.', 'All that has caused the spring homebuying season to take a timeout — and could spell trouble for the remainder of the year.', '“Higher rates are curtailing inventory,” Zillow senior economist Nicole Bachaud told CNN. “', 'Some owners who locked in low rates during the pandemic have been reluctant to sell and give up that low monthly payment, especially in the most expensive markets where mortgage costs are more sensitive to changing rates.”', 'But it’s a bit of a chicken or egg situation, she said. “', 'Buyers faced with a sharp increase in mortgage rates at the start of the year have been slower to return to the housing market this spring.', 'However, it’s unclear if they’re waiting for lower interest rates or if they’re looking at the overall affordability picture.”', 'Housing affordability, by and large, is a product of the number of homes on the market.', 'And homeowners who secured low-rate mortgages when the Fed kept rates at ultra-low levels during the pandemic have little incentive to move and risk paying much higher rates.', 'At the same time, if home prices came down but mortgage rates remained high, Bachaud said she suspects more people would purchase homes.', 'Right now, however, the average 30-year fixed-rate is at the highest level so far this year and home prices are rising at their fastest pace in over a year.', 'The homebuyers who are more likely to sit this spring on the sidelines already own a home, said Sam Khater, chief economist at Freddie Mac.', 'But first-time homebuyers who are “tired of elevated rents or have growing families have continued to purchase in a rising rate environment,” he added.', 'Also, in certain parts of the country like Texas and Florida, new home construction is providing sizeable price relief, Bachaud said.', 'That’s attracting more homebuyers to those markets.', 'In some cases, homebuilders have even offered buyers perks like mortgage buy-downs to incentivize people to move into neighborhoods that may be in less developed areas compared to where existing homes are located.', 'The spring homebuying season “largely determines how the year will turn out for the housing market,” Khater and his team of economists at Freddie Mac said in a recent report.', 'Since 1999, more than a third of home sales for the entire year occur between March and June on average, according to Freddie Mac data.', 'Given the Fed is in no rush to cut interest rates, Khater expects mortgage rates to remain elevated for longer.', 'That’s likely going to constrain housing inventory because homeowners don’t want to give up the lower rates they have.', 'Still, demand this spring has been even stronger than last year in terms of how many people are applying for mortgages from Freddie Mac.', 'Taken together, all these factors will likely put upward pressure on home prices, Khater and his team said in the report.', 'Zillow’s Bachaud is also predicting home prices to grow higher this year, but not by more than 2%.', '“Our outlook does depend on mortgage rates, which are creating their own seasonality,” she added. “', 'If rates fall later in the year, we might see a secondary boost to home sales late this summer or even this fall.”', 'That’s unlikely to happen though.', 'As of Tuesday, investors think the first rate cut of the year will come in November, according to fed funds futures.']",0.0908638341736405,"The ideal weather displays homes in the best light and the timing makes it a more favorable season for people to move, especially with the end of the school year.","Some owners who locked in low rates during the pandemic have been reluctant to sell and give up that low monthly payment, especially in the most expensive markets where mortgage costs are more sensitive to changing rates.”",0.1917020136659795,"Still, demand this spring has been even stronger than last year in terms of how many people are applying for mortgages from Freddie Mac.",All that has caused the spring homebuying season to take a timeout — and could spell trouble for the remainder of the year.,2024-04-30
Dave & Buster's to allow customers to bet on arcade games,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/30/dave-busters-to-allow-customers-to-bet-on-arcade-games.html,2024-04-30T17:35:20+0000,"In this articleArcade giant Dave & Buster's is taking its games to a new level by offering social wagering on its app.Customers can soon make a friendly $5 wager on a Hot Shots basketball game, a bet on a Skee-Ball competition or on another arcade game. The betting function, expected to launch in the next few months, will work through the company's app.Dave & Buster's, started in 1982, now has more than 222 venues in North America, offering everything from bowling to laser tag, plus virtual reality. The company says it has five million loyalty members and 30 million unique visitors to its locations each year. The company's stock is up more than 50% over the past year.As a boom in betting increases engagement among sports fans, digital gamification could have a similar effect within Dave & Buster's customer base by allowing loyalty members to compete with one another and earn rewards. Ultimately, it could mean people spend more time and money at the venues.Dave and Buster's is using technology by gamification software company Lucra.""We're thrilled to work with Lucra to bring this exciting new gaming platform to our customers,"" said Simon Murray, senior vice president of entertainment and attractions at Dave & Buster's. ""This new partnership gives our loyalty members real-time, unrivaled gaming experiences, and reinforces our commitment to continuing to elevate our customer experience through innovative, cutting-edge technology.""Lucra and Dave & Buster's said there will be a limit placed on the size of bets it will allow, but that they're not publicly disclosing that threshold just yet. Lucra said across its history the average bet size has been $10.Lucra, created in 2019 by then-Stanford Graduate School of Business classmates Dylan Robbins and Michael Madding, is a software platform that allows users to compete for real money on friendly competitions. Robbins and Madding previously worked together at Goldman Sachs.""Lucra helps our partners drive user adoption, increase retention and engagement and add new monetization streams to their business,"" said Robbins, Lucra's CEO.Robbins and Madding saw the incredible growth of legal sports betting, but sought to capitalize on the recreational wagers taking place between peers. The company has raised about $14 million with investors that include billionaire investor Marc Lasry, former and current professional athletes John Isner and Julie and Zach Ertz, along with the Raptor Group and SeventySix Capital.""We're creating a new form of kind of a digital experience for folks inside of these ecosystems,"" said Madding, Lucra's chief operating officer. ""We're getting them to engage in a new way and spend more time and money,"" he added.Lucra says its skills-based games are not subject to the same licenses and regulations gambling operators face with games of chance. Lucra is careful not to use the term ""bet"" or ""wager"" to describe its games.""We use real-money contests or challenges,"" Madding said.Lucra's contests are only available to players age 18 and older. The contests are available in 44 states.The social betting category is a $6 billion industry, according to gaming research firm Eilers & Krejcik. Several companies such as Fliff and ReBet have emerged, hoping to mimic the success of the gambling industry and capture a younger market.Lucra recently signed a deal with Dupr, the pickleball ratings system, and TennisOne, a tennis app, to allow players to compete against one another for real money. Lucra's app has been downloaded 150,000 times, facilitated more than one million unique contests on the platform and collected more than $20 million of handle, according to the company.""Whether you're playing pickleball with your friends or playing golf on the weekend, we help to amplify that and digitize that experience with our partners,"" said Robbins.",CNBC,30/04/2024,"[""In this articleArcade giant Dave & Buster's is taking its games to a new level by offering social wagering on its app."", 'Customers can soon make a friendly $5 wager on a Hot Shots basketball game, a bet on a Skee-Ball competition or on another arcade game.', ""The betting function, expected to launch in the next few months, will work through the company's app."", ""Dave & Buster's, started in 1982, now has more than 222 venues in North America, offering everything from bowling to laser tag, plus virtual reality."", 'The company says it has five million loyalty members and 30 million unique visitors to its locations each year.', ""The company's stock is up more than 50% over the past year."", ""As a boom in betting increases engagement among sports fans, digital gamification could have a similar effect within Dave & Buster's customer base by allowing loyalty members to compete with one another and earn rewards."", 'Ultimately, it could mean people spend more time and money at the venues.', ""Dave and Buster's is using technology by gamification software company Lucra."", '""We\'re thrilled to work with Lucra to bring this exciting new gaming platform to our customers,"" said Simon Murray, senior vice president of entertainment and attractions at Dave & Buster\'s. ""', 'This new partnership gives our loyalty members real-time, unrivaled gaming experiences, and reinforces our commitment to continuing to elevate our customer experience through innovative, cutting-edge technology.', '""Lucra and Dave & Buster\'s said there will be a limit placed on the size of bets it will allow, but that they\'re not publicly disclosing that threshold just yet.', 'Lucra said across its history the average bet size has been $10.Lucra, created in 2019 by then-Stanford Graduate School of Business classmates Dylan Robbins and Michael Madding, is a software platform that allows users to compete for real money on friendly competitions.', 'Robbins and Madding previously worked together at Goldman Sachs.', '""Lucra helps our partners drive user adoption, increase retention and engagement and add new monetization streams to their business,"" said Robbins, Lucra\'s CEO.Robbins and Madding saw the incredible growth of legal sports betting, but sought to capitalize on the recreational wagers taking place between peers.', 'The company has raised about $14 million with investors that include billionaire investor Marc Lasry, former and current professional athletes John Isner and Julie and Zach Ertz, along with the Raptor Group and SeventySix Capital.', '""We\'re creating a new form of kind of a digital experience for folks inside of these ecosystems,"" said Madding, Lucra\'s chief operating officer. ""', 'We\'re getting them to engage in a new way and spend more time and money,"" he added.', 'Lucra says its skills-based games are not subject to the same licenses and regulations gambling operators face with games of chance.', 'Lucra is careful not to use the term ""bet"" or ""wager"" to describe its games.', '""We use real-money contests or challenges,"" Madding said.', ""Lucra's contests are only available to players age 18 and older."", 'The contests are available in 44 states.', 'The social betting category is a $6 billion industry, according to gaming research firm Eilers & Krejcik.', 'Several companies such as Fliff and ReBet have emerged, hoping to mimic the success of the gambling industry and capture a younger market.', 'Lucra recently signed a deal with Dupr, the pickleball ratings system, and TennisOne, a tennis app, to allow players to compete against one another for real money.', ""Lucra's app has been downloaded 150,000 times, facilitated more than one million unique contests on the platform and collected more than $20 million of handle, according to the company."", '""Whether you\'re playing pickleball with your friends or playing golf on the weekend, we help to amplify that and digitize that experience with our partners,"" said Robbins.']",0.2985123243149313,"""We're thrilled to work with Lucra to bring this exciting new gaming platform to our customers,"" said Simon Murray, senior vice president of entertainment and attractions at Dave & Buster's. """,,0.9975498848491244,The company's stock is up more than 50% over the past year.,,2024-04-30
The ex-flight attendant who became the first female boss of Japan Airlines,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68823400,2024-04-25T23:25:29.000Z,"When Mitsuko Tottori was named as the new boss of Japan Airlines (JAL) in January, it sent a shockwave across the country's corporate sector. Not only was Ms Tottori the carrier's first female boss, she had also started her career as a member of cabin crew. The headlines ranged from ""first woman"" and ""first former flight attendant"" to ""unusual"" and ""no way!"" One website even described her as ""an alien molecule"" or ""a mutant"", a reference to her having worked at Japan Air System (JAS), a much smaller airline that JAL bought two decades ago. ""I didn't know about an alien mutant,"" Ms Tottori  laughs as she spoke to me from Tokyo. In short, she was not from the elite group of businessmen that the carrier had customarily appointed to its top job. Out of the last 10 men who held the post, seven were educated at the country's top university. Ms Tottori is a graduate of a far less prestigious women-only junior college. With Ms Tottori's appointment, JAL has joined the less than 1% of Japan's top companies led by women. ""I don't think of myself as the first woman or the first former flight attendant. I want to act as an individual so I didn't expect to get this much attention."" ""But I realise the public or our employees don't necessarily see me like that,"" she adds. Her appointment also came just two weeks after JAL's flight attendants were lauded for the successful evacuation of passengers from a plane that collided with a coast guard aircraft during landing. Japan Airlines Flight 516 burst into flames after the collision on the runway at Tokyo's Haneda airport. Five of the six crew on the coastguard plane died and captain was injured. However, within minutes of the collision, all 379 people on board the Airbus A350-900 had safely escaped. The rigorous training of the carrier's flight attendants was suddenly in the spotlight. As a former flight attendant herself, Ms Tottori learned the importance of aviation safety first hand. Four months after she became a flight attendant in 1985, Japan Airlines was involved in the deadliest single aircraft accident in aviation history, which killed 520 people on Mount Osutaka. ""Every member of staff at JAL is given an opportunity to climb Mount Osutaka and speak to those who remember the accident,"" Ms Tottori says.  ""We also exhibit aircraft debris at our safety promotion centre so instead of just reading about it in a book, we look with our own eyes and feel with our own skin to learn about the accident."" While her appointment in the top job came as a surprise, JAL has changed rapidly since it went bankrupt in 2010, in what was the country's biggest ever corporate failure outside the financial sector. The airline managed to continue flying thanks to major state-backed financial support and the business underwent a sweeping restructuring with a new board and management. Its saviour was then-77-year-old retiree and ordained Buddhist monk, Kazuo Inamori. Without his transformational influence it is unlikely that someone like Ms Tottori could have become JAL's leader. I spoke to him in an interview in 2012. He did not mince his words, saying JAL was an arrogant firm that did not care about its customers. Under Mr Inamori's leadership the company promoted people from frontline operations, like pilots and engineers, rather than from bureaucratic posts. ""I felt very uncomfortable because the company didn't feel like a private firm at all,"" Mr Inamori, who died in 2022, told me. ""Many former government officials used to get golden parachutes into the firm."" JAL has come a long way since then, and the attention its first female president is receiving is not surprising. The Japanese government has been trying for almost a decade to increase the number of female bosses in the country. It now wants a third of leadership positions at major businesses to go to women by 2030, after failing to achieve the goal by 2020. ""It is not just about the corporate leaders' mindset, but it is also important for women to have the confidence to become a manager,"" says Ms Tottori. ""I hope my appointment would encourage other women to try things that they were afraid of trying before."" ",BBC,25/04/2024,"[""When Mitsuko Tottori was named as the new boss of Japan Airlines (JAL) in January, it sent a shockwave across the country's corporate sector."", ""Not only was Ms Tottori the carrier's first female boss, she had also started her career as a member of cabin crew."", 'The headlines ranged from ""first woman"" and ""first former flight attendant"" to ""unusual"" and ""no way!""', 'One website even described her as ""an alien molecule"" or ""a mutant"", a reference to her having worked at Japan Air System (JAS), a much smaller airline that JAL bought two decades ago. ""', 'I didn\'t know about an alien mutant,"" Ms Tottori laughs as she spoke to me from Tokyo.', 'In short, she was not from the elite group of businessmen that the carrier had customarily appointed to its top job.', ""Out of the last 10 men who held the post, seven were educated at the country's top university."", 'Ms Tottori is a graduate of a far less prestigious women-only junior college.', 'With Ms Tottori\'s appointment, JAL has joined the less than 1% of Japan\'s top companies led by women. ""', ""I don't think of myself as the first woman or the first former flight attendant."", 'I want to act as an individual so I didn\'t expect to get this much attention."" ""', 'But I realise the public or our employees don\'t necessarily see me like that,"" she adds.', ""Her appointment also came just two weeks after JAL's flight attendants were lauded for the successful evacuation of passengers from a plane that collided with a coast guard aircraft during landing."", ""Japan Airlines Flight 516 burst into flames after the collision on the runway at Tokyo's Haneda airport."", 'Five of the six crew on the coastguard plane died and captain was injured.', 'However, within minutes of the collision, all 379 people on board the Airbus A350-900 had safely escaped.', ""The rigorous training of the carrier's flight attendants was suddenly in the spotlight."", 'As a former flight attendant herself, Ms Tottori learned the importance of aviation safety first hand.', 'Four months after she became a flight attendant in 1985, Japan Airlines was involved in the deadliest single aircraft accident in aviation history, which killed 520 people on Mount Osutaka. ""', 'Every member of staff at JAL is given an opportunity to climb Mount Osutaka and speak to those who remember the accident,"" Ms Tottori says. ""', 'We also exhibit aircraft debris at our safety promotion centre so instead of just reading about it in a book, we look with our own eyes and feel with our own skin to learn about the accident.""', ""While her appointment in the top job came as a surprise, JAL has changed rapidly since it went bankrupt in 2010, in what was the country's biggest ever corporate failure outside the financial sector."", 'The airline managed to continue flying thanks to major state-backed financial support and the business underwent a sweeping restructuring with a new board and management.', 'Its saviour was then-77-year-old retiree and ordained Buddhist monk, Kazuo Inamori.', ""Without his transformational influence it is unlikely that someone like Ms Tottori could have become JAL's leader."", 'I spoke to him in an interview in 2012.', 'He did not mince his words, saying JAL was an arrogant firm that did not care about its customers.', 'Under Mr Inamori\'s leadership the company promoted people from frontline operations, like pilots and engineers, rather than from bureaucratic posts. ""', 'I felt very uncomfortable because the company didn\'t feel like a private firm at all,"" Mr Inamori, who died in 2022, told me. ""', 'Many former government officials used to get golden parachutes into the firm.""', 'JAL has come a long way since then, and the attention its first female president is receiving is not surprising.', 'The Japanese government has been trying for almost a decade to increase the number of female bosses in the country.', 'It now wants a third of leadership positions at major businesses to go to women by 2030, after failing to achieve the goal by 2020. ""', 'It is not just about the corporate leaders\' mindset, but it is also important for women to have the confidence to become a manager,"" says Ms Tottori. ""', 'I hope my appointment would encourage other women to try things that they were afraid of trying before.""']",0.0432886213684849,"As a former flight attendant herself, Ms Tottori learned the importance of aviation safety first hand.","Four months after she became a flight attendant in 1985, Japan Airlines was involved in the deadliest single aircraft accident in aviation history, which killed 520 people on Mount Osutaka. """,0.5970875263214112,Her appointment also came just two weeks after JAL's flight attendants were lauded for the successful evacuation of passengers from a plane that collided with a coast guard aircraft during landing.,"When Mitsuko Tottori was named as the new boss of Japan Airlines (JAL) in January, it sent a shockwave across the country's corporate sector.",2024-04-30
Telegraph up for sale after takeover collapses,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68926764,2024-04-30T08:52:24.000Z,"The Daily and Sunday Telegraph newspapers are back up for sale after an Abu Dhabi-backed bid to take them over collapsed. The ownership of the papers was set to be transferred to the Gulf-backed RedBird IMI consortium before the government intervened in January. Legislation has since been put forward to ban foreign states from owning UK newspapers and news magazines. RedBird said it would halt the takeover and put the media firm up for sale. The investment firm said its plans were ""no longer feasible"", adding it would now look to secure the ""best value"" for the titles, which include the Spectator magazine. ""We have held constructive conversations with the government about ensuring a smooth and orderly sale for both titles,"" it said in a statement. The Abu-Dhabi-backed deal for the Telegraph was largely funded by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, the owner of Manchester City Football Club and vice-president and deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). But concerns were raised by MPs and some of the newspaper's current and former journalists, as well as readers, that the title might fall under control of an authoritarian foreign state. In January, the government intervened to scrutinise the deal and announced last month that foreign governments would be banned from owning UK newspapers and news magazines.  The government said the legislation would ""deliver additional protections for a free press"". On Tuesday, RedBird said the consortium's ownership would have seen the ""the strongest editorial protections ever put forward for a UK newspaper, along with much-needed investment."" But it added: ""Under the legislation's definition of foreign power, it will not be possible for RedBird IMI to proceed with its proposed takeover of the Telegraph and Spectator."" The group said its independent directors appointed to run the Telegraph and the Spectator last summer would remain in place until the sale process is completed. Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said she had ""raised concerns about the potential impact of this deal on free expression and accurate presentation of news"". Ms Frazer added she would ""allow the parties to conduct an orderly transition"". Chairman of The Spectator Andrew Neil told the BBC the sales process has put him and the magazine ""in limboland"". ""We've been in limboland for almost a year,"" he said during an interview on the BBC's World At One programme. Asked who might buy the Telegraph and Spectator now RedBird has pulled out, he said: ""Who knows? It's back to the future."" The Telegraph and the Spectator magazine were put up for sale last year when they were seized by Lloyds Banking Group from long-time owners the Barclay family, which had failed to pay back a loan of more than £1bn. Lloyds commenced an auction process, but at the last minute, the Barclay family paid off their debt with money lent by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, and in return, the Barclay family agreed to transfer ownership to the Gulf-backed consortium. RedBird said on Tuesday that it held £600m of debt in the titles.  Gulf states have been very significant investors in the UK in recent years. UAE-based investors have poured billions into ports, housing projects, windfarms and science parks and are being courted for an investment in a new nuclear power plant at Sizewell in Suffolk.  Previous bidders for the Telegraph included hedge fund tycoon Sir Paul Marshall who owns GB News, Daily Mail owners DMGT and Rupert Murdoch's News UK. ",BBC,30/04/2024,"['The Daily and Sunday Telegraph newspapers are back up for sale after an Abu Dhabi-backed bid to take them over collapsed.', 'The ownership of the papers was set to be transferred to the Gulf-backed RedBird IMI consortium before the government intervened in January.', 'Legislation has since been put forward to ban foreign states from owning UK newspapers and news magazines.', 'RedBird said it would halt the takeover and put the media firm up for sale.', 'The investment firm said its plans were ""no longer feasible"", adding it would now look to secure the ""best value"" for the titles, which include the Spectator magazine. ""', 'We have held constructive conversations with the government about ensuring a smooth and orderly sale for both titles,"" it said in a statement.', 'The Abu-Dhabi-backed deal for the Telegraph was largely funded by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahyan, the owner of Manchester City Football Club and vice-president and deputy prime minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).', ""But concerns were raised by MPs and some of the newspaper's current and former journalists, as well as readers, that the title might fall under control of an authoritarian foreign state."", 'In January, the government intervened to scrutinise the deal and announced last month that foreign governments would be banned from owning UK newspapers and news magazines.', 'The government said the legislation would ""deliver additional protections for a free press"".', 'On Tuesday, RedBird said the consortium\'s ownership would have seen the ""the strongest editorial protections ever put forward for a UK newspaper, along with much-needed investment.""', 'But it added: ""Under the legislation\'s definition of foreign power, it will not be possible for RedBird IMI to proceed with its proposed takeover of the Telegraph and Spectator.""', 'The group said its independent directors appointed to run the Telegraph and the Spectator last summer would remain in place until the sale process is completed.', 'Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said she had ""raised concerns about the potential impact of this deal on free expression and accurate presentation of news"".', 'Ms Frazer added she would ""allow the parties to conduct an orderly transition"".', 'Chairman of The Spectator Andrew Neil told the BBC the sales process has put him and the magazine ""in limboland"". ""', 'We\'ve been in limboland for almost a year,"" he said during an interview on the BBC\'s World At One programme.', 'Asked who might buy the Telegraph and Spectator now RedBird has pulled out, he said: ""Who knows?', 'It\'s back to the future.""', 'The Telegraph and the Spectator magazine were put up for sale last year when they were seized by Lloyds Banking Group from long-time owners the Barclay family, which had failed to pay back a loan of more than £1bn.', 'Lloyds commenced an auction process, but at the last minute, the Barclay family paid off their debt with money lent by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, and in return, the Barclay family agreed to transfer ownership to the Gulf-backed consortium.', 'RedBird said on Tuesday that it held £600m of debt in the titles.', 'Gulf states have been very significant investors in the UK in recent years.', 'UAE-based investors have poured billions into ports, housing projects, windfarms and science parks and are being courted for an investment in a new nuclear power plant at Sizewell in Suffolk.', ""Previous bidders for the Telegraph included hedge fund tycoon Sir Paul Marshall who owns GB News, Daily Mail owners DMGT and Rupert Murdoch's News UK.""]",0.0754246476431567,"The investment firm said its plans were ""no longer feasible"", adding it would now look to secure the ""best value"" for the titles, which include the Spectator magazine. ""","The Telegraph and the Spectator magazine were put up for sale last year when they were seized by Lloyds Banking Group from long-time owners the Barclay family, which had failed to pay back a loan of more than £1bn.",0.387322982152303,"On Tuesday, RedBird said the consortium's ownership would have seen the ""the strongest editorial protections ever put forward for a UK newspaper, along with much-needed investment.""","Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer said she had ""raised concerns about the potential impact of this deal on free expression and accurate presentation of news"".",2024-04-30
Bubble tea: China chain Chabaidao plunges in Hong Kong debut,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cv208e2d141o,2024-04-23T05:47:25.747Z,"Shares in Chinese bubble tea chain Sichuan Baicha Baidao, which is also known as Chabaidao, have fallen by more than 26% in their first day of trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Chabaidao's market debut was the Asian financial hub's largest initial public offering (IPO) so far this year. The poor performance underscores the difficulties the city is facing in attracting investment. Chabaidao, which means 100 varieties of tea, is China’s third-biggest fresh tea drinks chain by retail sales. The Chengdu-based company raised about $330m (£267m) in the IPO even as the offering was met with tepid interest from investors. The firm said it plans to use about half the money to upgrade its operations and strengthen its supply chain. Rival bubble tea firms Mixue, Guming and Auntea Jenny have also said they are planning to sell shares in Hong Kong. However, Chabaidao's weak debut highlights the challenges faced by authorities as they attempt to revive confidence in the city's stock market. Investors are concerned about Hong Kong's recovery from the pandemic and its national security legislation as well as slowing economic growth in China. Last year, the amount of money raised by IPOs in Hong Kong slumped to the lowest level in two decades. The city's benchmark Hang Seng share index has lost over 16% of its value in the last year. Last week, China’s securities regulator said it will support share offerings in Hong Kong. The watchdog also plans to relax regulations rules on stock trading links between the city and the mainland as it tries to boost Hong Kong's position as an international financial hub. ",BBC,23/04/2024,"['Shares in Chinese bubble tea chain Sichuan Baicha Baidao, which is also known as Chabaidao, have fallen by more than 26% in their first day of trading on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.', ""Chabaidao's market debut was the Asian financial hub's largest initial public offering (IPO) so far this year."", 'The poor performance underscores the difficulties the city is facing in attracting investment.', 'Chabaidao, which means 100 varieties of tea, is China’s third-biggest fresh tea drinks chain by retail sales.', 'The Chengdu-based company raised about $330m (£267m) in the IPO even as the offering was met with tepid interest from investors.', 'The firm said it plans to use about half the money to upgrade its operations and strengthen its supply chain.', 'Rival bubble tea firms Mixue, Guming and Auntea Jenny have also said they are planning to sell shares in Hong Kong.', ""However, Chabaidao's weak debut highlights the challenges faced by authorities as they attempt to revive confidence in the city's stock market."", ""Investors are concerned about Hong Kong's recovery from the pandemic and its national security legislation as well as slowing economic growth in China."", 'Last year, the amount of money raised by IPOs in Hong Kong slumped to the lowest level in two decades.', ""The city's benchmark Hang Seng share index has lost over 16% of its value in the last year."", 'Last week, China’s securities regulator said it will support share offerings in Hong Kong.', ""The watchdog also plans to relax regulations rules on stock trading links between the city and the mainland as it tries to boost Hong Kong's position as an international financial hub.""]",0.2742914355646294,Investors are concerned about Hong Kong's recovery from the pandemic and its national security legislation as well as slowing economic growth in China.,"Last year, the amount of money raised by IPOs in Hong Kong slumped to the lowest level in two decades.",-0.5467110541131761,The watchdog also plans to relax regulations rules on stock trading links between the city and the mainland as it tries to boost Hong Kong's position as an international financial hub.,"Last year, the amount of money raised by IPOs in Hong Kong slumped to the lowest level in two decades.",2024-04-30
Post Office: Ex-Camelot boss Nigel Railton to be named as chair,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68928326,2024-04-30T20:24:50.000Z,"The former boss of Camelot will be named as the new chairman of the Post Office after its last leader was sacked, the BBC understands. As first reported by Sky, Nigel Railton has been invited by the Business Secretary to take on the role after Henry Staunton was asked to leave in January. It is expected Mr Railton, who stepped down from Camelot last year, will be confirmed in the position on Wednesday.  The government made no comment. Mr Railton, who spent 24 years at Camelot UK, has also worked for car manufacturer Daewoo and the former British Rail. He is reported to be expecting to take up the post immediately, to ensure the delivery of millions of pounds in compensation to sub-postmasters over the Horizon IT scandal. Sky News reports suggested that it was unclear, however, whether this would be on an interim or a long-term basis. Mr Railton currently chairs Argentex Group, a London-listed provider of currency management services. He is also a trustee of the Social Mobility Foundation, according to his profile on the social platform LinkedIn. He did not immediately respond to the BBC's requests for comment. Mr Railton left the former National Lottery operator during a shake-up around the time Allwyn Entertainment acquired Camelot UK. Camelot had run the lottery since the game's launch in 1994, but it faced tough competition and its licence ended in February, with a new one for 10 years being given to Allwyn instead. The Department for Business and Trade will be hoping Mr Railton's tenure will signal a new beginning in its relationship with the troubled organisation.  Former chairman Henry Staunton was sacked by Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch in January after little more than a year in the role - leading to a bitter public row between the two. The Post Office is owned by the government and is the subject of a long-running inquiry into the Horizon scandal, where hundreds of sub-postmasters were prosecuted after faulty software made it appear money was missing from their accounts. After his exit, Mr Staunton claimed in an interview with the Sunday Times that he had been advised by a civil servant to stall compensation payments to allow the government to ""limp into the election"" without the impact of a large pay-out. The government strongly denied the allegation and Ms Badenoch claimed Mr Staunton was under a ""formal investigation"" for ""serious matters such as bullying"". Mr Staunton refuted this. He then disclosed in February that it was actually current chief executive Nick Read who was under investigation after a Speak Up complaint was made against him. The Post Office confirmed at the time there were complaints against Mr Read and other staff, however he has since been cleared of all misconduct allegations following an investigation carried out by an external barrister. The row has been criticised by former sub-postmasters, including campaigner Alan Bates, who described it as a ""sideshow"" to the inquiry. The BBC approached the Department for Business and Trade but it did not offer any comment. ",BBC,30/04/2024,"['The former boss of Camelot will be named as the new chairman of the Post Office after its last leader was sacked, the BBC understands.', 'As first reported by Sky, Nigel Railton has been invited by the Business Secretary to take on the role after Henry Staunton was asked to leave in January.', 'It is expected Mr Railton, who stepped down from Camelot last year, will be confirmed in the position on Wednesday.', 'The government made no comment.', 'Mr Railton, who spent 24 years at Camelot UK, has also worked for car manufacturer Daewoo and the former British Rail.', 'He is reported to be expecting to take up the post immediately, to ensure the delivery of millions of pounds in compensation to sub-postmasters over the Horizon IT scandal.', 'Sky News reports suggested that it was unclear, however, whether this would be on an interim or a long-term basis.', 'Mr Railton currently chairs Argentex Group, a London-listed provider of currency management services.', 'He is also a trustee of the Social Mobility Foundation, according to his profile on the social platform LinkedIn.', ""He did not immediately respond to the BBC's requests for comment."", 'Mr Railton left the former National Lottery operator during a shake-up around the time Allwyn Entertainment acquired Camelot UK.', ""Camelot had run the lottery since the game's launch in 1994, but it faced tough competition and its licence ended in February, with a new one for 10 years being given to Allwyn instead."", ""The Department for Business and Trade will be hoping Mr Railton's tenure will signal a new beginning in its relationship with the troubled organisation."", 'Former chairman Henry Staunton was sacked by Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch in January after little more than a year in the role - leading to a bitter public row between the two.', 'The Post Office is owned by the government and is the subject of a long-running inquiry into the Horizon scandal, where hundreds of sub-postmasters were prosecuted after faulty software made it appear money was missing from their accounts.', 'After his exit, Mr Staunton claimed in an interview with the Sunday Times that he had been advised by a civil servant to stall compensation payments to allow the government to ""limp into the election"" without the impact of a large pay-out.', 'The government strongly denied the allegation and Ms Badenoch claimed Mr Staunton was under a ""formal investigation"" for ""serious matters such as bullying"".', 'Mr Staunton refuted this.', 'He then disclosed in February that it was actually current chief executive Nick Read who was under investigation after a Speak Up complaint was made against him.', 'The Post Office confirmed at the time there were complaints against Mr Read and other staff, however he has since been cleared of all misconduct allegations following an investigation carried out by an external barrister.', 'The row has been criticised by former sub-postmasters, including campaigner Alan Bates, who described it as a ""sideshow"" to the inquiry.', 'The BBC approached the Department for Business and Trade but it did not offer any comment.']",-0.1580584541973411,Mr Railton left the former National Lottery operator during a shake-up around the time Allwyn Entertainment acquired Camelot UK.,"The Post Office is owned by the government and is the subject of a long-running inquiry into the Horizon scandal, where hundreds of sub-postmasters were prosecuted after faulty software made it appear money was missing from their accounts.",-0.5184502601623535,The Department for Business and Trade will be hoping Mr Railton's tenure will signal a new beginning in its relationship with the troubled organisation.,Former chairman Henry Staunton was sacked by Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch in January after little more than a year in the role - leading to a bitter public row between the two.,2024-04-30
How robots are taking over warehouse work,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68639533,2024-04-23T01:17:00.000Z,"Shoppers probably don't think much about what happens next when they place an online grocery order. But it sets-off an intricate dance of software, artificial intelligence, robots, vans and workers. At an Ocado warehouse just outside Luton, I'm in the middle of such a dance. As far as I can see, hundreds of robots whizz around a grid, fetching items for online orders. They move with dizzying speed and precision. In the early days of online shopping, when you placed an order, humans would dash around a warehouse or a store collecting your items. But for years now, Ocado has been using robots to collect and distribute products, bringing them to staff, who pack them into boxes for delivery. And Ocado is not the only firm investing in such automation. In its warehouses, Asda uses a system from Swiss automation firm Swisslog and Norway's AutoStore. In the US, Walmart has been automating parts of its supply chain using robotics from an American company called Symbotic. Back in Luton, Ocado has taken its automation process to a higher level. The robots which zoom around the grid, now bring items to robotic arms, which reach out and grab what they need for the customer's shop. Bags of rice, boxes of tea, packets of crumpets are all grabbed by the arms using a suction cup on the end. It might seem like a trivial addition, but training a robot to recognise an item, grab it successfully and move it, is surprisingly difficult.  At Ocado around 100 engineers have spent years training the artificial intelligence (AI) to take on that task.  James Matthews, chief executive of Ocado Technology explains the AI has to interpret the information coming from its cameras.  ""What is an object? Where are the edges of that object? How would one grasp it?"" In addition the AI has to work out how to move the arm. ""How do I pick that up and accelerate in a way without flinging it across the room? How do I place it in a bag?"" he says. The Luton warehouse has 44 robotic arms, which at the moment account for 15% of the products that flow through the facility, that's about 400,000 items a week. The rest are handled by staff at picking stations.  The staff handle items that robots are not ready for yet, like wine bottles which are heavy and have curved surfaces, making them difficult to grasp. But the system is ramping up. The company is developing different attachments for the robot arms that will allow them to handle a wider variety of items. ""We're just playing it carefully and ramping slowly over time,"" says Mr Matthews. ""It's a deliberate constraint on our behalf, so we continue providing good service to people, and not crushed custard creams in every order, or worse, putting stuff on the track that goes under the wheels of one of the bots and creates an incident."" In two or three years Ocado expects the robots will account for 70% of the products.  This inevitably means fewer human staff, but the Luton warehouse still has 1,400 staff, and many of those will still be needed in the future. ""There will be some sort of curve that tends towards fewer people per building. But it's not as clear cut as, 'hey, look, we're on the verge of just not needing people'. We're a very long way from that,"" Mr Matthews says. Ocado is hoping to sell its automation technology to companies outside the grocery sector. Late last year it announced a deal with Canada's McKesson, a large pharmaceuticals distributor. ""Think about which industries have the need to move things around efficiently inside of warehouse... it's endless,"" says Mr Matthews.  More technology of business So where will the automation of warehouses end? Are we heading to human-free warehouses that can run 24 hours a day? Not so fast, says Sarah Bolton, who specialises in commercial real estate at law firm Taylor Wessing. ""It's almost prohibitively expensive, we're talking hundreds of millions of pounds to fully automate a warehouse,"" she points out.  ""So you're really only talking about the big tenants in the really big warehouses looking at full automation, just because you have to have that size to make it anywhere near financially viable."" She also points that automation needs modern buildings, including floors that can stand heavy weights, large spaces without support columns, so there's less for the robots to crash into. Reliable electricity connections are also vital. ""You're reliant on new build, and there's a massive undersupply of new build warehouse stock in the UK at the minute,"" says Ms Bolton.  AutoStore is tackling some of those challenges. It has a company called Pio which is developing automation for smaller businesses. It uses much of the same technology that AutoStore supplies to big firms - robots buzzing around on a storage grid where goods are stacked vertically. However the upfront costs of Pio's system are lower, with the cost related to the volume of goods the system handles. The software is simpler and designed to integrate easily with common e-commerce systems like Shopify. ""It's a complete offering... where the upfront cost is very reduced. So it's quite affordable for these companies to get access to automation and start to get the benefits out of it. And since the technology is very flexible and scalable, you can continue to basically increase volume by adding more robots rather than more storage capacity,"" says Carlos Fernández, chief product officer at AutoStore. At the moment 10 clients are running Pio's automation system with another five customers signed up. Mr Fernández sees huge growth potential.  ""Over the coming years, there's going to be a journey of making the technology simpler and more affordable. It won't require you to be a large corporation to run complex automation projects, and you won't need to invest big amounts of capital also to start getting the benefits."" ",BBC,23/04/2024,"[""Shoppers probably don't think much about what happens next when they place an online grocery order."", 'But it sets-off an intricate dance of software, artificial intelligence, robots, vans and workers.', ""At an Ocado warehouse just outside Luton, I'm in the middle of such a dance."", 'As far as I can see, hundreds of robots whizz around a grid, fetching items for online orders.', 'They move with dizzying speed and precision.', 'In the early days of online shopping, when you placed an order, humans would dash around a warehouse or a store collecting your items.', 'But for years now, Ocado has been using robots to collect and distribute products, bringing them to staff, who pack them into boxes for delivery.', 'And Ocado is not the only firm investing in such automation.', ""In its warehouses, Asda uses a system from Swiss automation firm Swisslog and Norway's AutoStore."", 'In the US, Walmart has been automating parts of its supply chain using robotics from an American company called Symbotic.', 'Back in Luton, Ocado has taken its automation process to a higher level.', ""The robots which zoom around the grid, now bring items to robotic arms, which reach out and grab what they need for the customer's shop."", 'Bags of rice, boxes of tea, packets of crumpets are all grabbed by the arms using a suction cup on the end.', 'It might seem like a trivial addition, but training a robot to recognise an item, grab it successfully and move it, is surprisingly difficult.', 'At Ocado around 100 engineers have spent years training the artificial intelligence (AI) to take on that task.', 'James Matthews, chief executive of Ocado Technology explains the AI has to interpret the information coming from its cameras. ""', 'What is an object?', 'Where are the edges of that object?', 'How would one grasp it?""', 'In addition the AI has to work out how to move the arm. ""', 'How do I pick that up and accelerate in a way without flinging it across the room?', 'How do I place it in a bag?""', 'he says.', ""The Luton warehouse has 44 robotic arms, which at the moment account for 15% of the products that flow through the facility, that's about 400,000 items a week."", 'The rest are handled by staff at picking stations.', 'The staff handle items that robots are not ready for yet, like wine bottles which are heavy and have curved surfaces, making them difficult to grasp.', 'But the system is ramping up.', 'The company is developing different attachments for the robot arms that will allow them to handle a wider variety of items. ""', 'We\'re just playing it carefully and ramping slowly over time,"" says Mr Matthews. ""', 'It\'s a deliberate constraint on our behalf, so we continue providing good service to people, and not crushed custard creams in every order, or worse, putting stuff on the track that goes under the wheels of one of the bots and creates an incident.""', 'In two or three years Ocado expects the robots will account for 70% of the products.', 'This inevitably means fewer human staff, but the Luton warehouse still has 1,400 staff, and many of those will still be needed in the future. ""', 'There will be some sort of curve that tends towards fewer people per building.', ""But it's not as clear cut as, 'hey, look, we're on the verge of just not needing people'."", 'We\'re a very long way from that,"" Mr Matthews says.', 'Ocado is hoping to sell its automation technology to companies outside the grocery sector.', 'Late last year it announced a deal with Canada\'s McKesson, a large pharmaceuticals distributor. ""', 'Think about which industries have the need to move things around efficiently inside of warehouse... it\'s endless,"" says Mr Matthews.', 'More technology of business So where will the automation of warehouses end?', 'Are we heading to human-free warehouses that can run 24 hours a day?', 'Not so fast, says Sarah Bolton, who specialises in commercial real estate at law firm Taylor Wessing. ""', 'It\'s almost prohibitively expensive, we\'re talking hundreds of millions of pounds to fully automate a warehouse,"" she points out. ""', 'So you\'re really only talking about the big tenants in the really big warehouses looking at full automation, just because you have to have that size to make it anywhere near financially viable.""', ""She also points that automation needs modern buildings, including floors that can stand heavy weights, large spaces without support columns, so there's less for the robots to crash into."", 'Reliable electricity connections are also vital. ""', 'You\'re reliant on new build, and there\'s a massive undersupply of new build warehouse stock in the UK at the minute,"" says Ms Bolton.', 'AutoStore is tackling some of those challenges.', 'It has a company called Pio which is developing automation for smaller businesses.', 'It uses much of the same technology that AutoStore supplies to big firms - robots buzzing around on a storage grid where goods are stacked vertically.', ""However the upfront costs of Pio's system are lower, with the cost related to the volume of goods the system handles."", 'The software is simpler and designed to integrate easily with common e-commerce systems like Shopify. ""', ""It's a complete offering... where the upfront cost is very reduced."", ""So it's quite affordable for these companies to get access to automation and start to get the benefits out of it."", 'And since the technology is very flexible and scalable, you can continue to basically increase volume by adding more robots rather than more storage capacity,"" says Carlos Fernández, chief product officer at AutoStore.', ""At the moment 10 clients are running Pio's automation system with another five customers signed up."", 'Mr Fernández sees huge growth potential. ""', ""Over the coming years, there's going to be a journey of making the technology simpler and more affordable."", 'It won\'t require you to be a large corporation to run complex automation projects, and you won\'t need to invest big amounts of capital also to start getting the benefits.""']",0.1068244655536913,"But it sets-off an intricate dance of software, artificial intelligence, robots, vans and workers.","She also points that automation needs modern buildings, including floors that can stand heavy weights, large spaces without support columns, so there's less for the robots to crash into.",0.649489245631478,So it's quite affordable for these companies to get access to automation and start to get the benefits out of it.,There will be some sort of curve that tends towards fewer people per building.,2024-04-30
Starbucks shares sink 12% as coffee chain slashes 2024 forecast amid same-store sales drag,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/30/starbucks-sbux-earnings-q2-2024.html,2024-05-01T00:17:26+0000,"In this articleStarbucks on Tuesday reported weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings and revenue, fueled by a surprise decline in same-store sales.The coffee chain also slashed its forecast for its fiscal 2024 earnings and revenue, predicting that its cafes would keep underperforming for several quarters.Shares of the company fell 12% in extended trading.""In a highly challenged environment, this quarter's results do not reflect the power of our brand, our capabilities or the opportunities ahead,"" CEO Laxman Narasimhan said in a statement. ""It did not meet our expectations, but we understand the specific challenges and opportunities immediately in front of us.""The company's same-store sales fell 4% as traffic to its cafes declined 6% in the quarter. Wall Street was anticipating same-store sales growth of 1%, according to StreetAccount estimates.Across all regions, Starbucks reported shrinking same-store sales and falling traffic.In the U.S., same-store sales decreased 3% as traffic sank 7%. This marks the second quarter that the company's home market has struggled. Last quarter, executives blamed sluggish sales on boycotts targeting the company due to ""misperceptions"" of its stance on Israel.Starbucks' international segment reported same-store sales declines of 6% as both average ticket and transactions dropped. In China, Starbucks' second-largest market, same-store sales plunged 11%, fueled by an 8% decline in average ticket.""In this environment, many customers have been more exacting about where and how they choose to spend their money,"" Narasimhan told analysts on the company's conference call.Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:The coffee giant reported fiscal second-quarter net income attributable to the company of $772.4 million, or 68 cents per share, down from $908.3 million, or 79 cents per share, a year earlier.Net sales dropped nearly 2% to $8.56 billion.For fiscal 2024, Starbucks now expects revenue growth in the low single digits, down from its prior forecast of 7% to 10%. The company also revised its projections for global and U.S. same-store sales growth to a range of low single digits to flat from its previous forecast of 4% to 6%. Same-store sales in China are expected to decline by single digits, down from the prior outlook of a single-digit increase.Starbucks now also expects earnings per share growth in a range of flat to low single digits. It previously forecast its earnings would climb 15% to 20% in fiscal 2024.The company forecasts that sales will start improving in the fiscal fourth quarter.Starbucks' most dedicated customers have stayed loyal and been using discounts offered via the company's mobile app, executives said. But coffee drinkers who visit only occasionally have been buying Starbucks' macchiatos and cold brew less often, executives said; Narasimhan said those customers want more variety from their coffee.Starbucks is planning to offer a version of its app that allows customers to order without being a loyalty member in order to attract these occasional customers to visit more frequently.Narasimhan said Starbucks is also exploring how to meet overnight demand, from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. The company conducted a pilot test, which Narasimhan said doubled business.He also said the chain's lavender drinks were one of its most successful launches.""Building off that success, we are aggressively pursuing options to build a $2 billion business over the next five years,"" he said.McDonald's, PepsiCo and other companies have said this quarter that low-income consumers have pulled back their spending and are looking for deals.""While it was a difficult quarter, we learned from our own underperformance and sharpened our focus with a comprehensive roadmap of well thought out actions making the path forward clear,"" CFO Rachel Ruggeri said in a statement.Narasimhan also said that the company now expects supply-chain cost savings of $4 billion over the next four years, revising its prior forecast of $3 billion over three years.",CNBC,01/05/2024,"['In this articleStarbucks on Tuesday reported weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings and revenue, fueled by a surprise decline in same-store sales.', 'The coffee chain also slashed its forecast for its fiscal 2024 earnings and revenue, predicting that its cafes would keep underperforming for several quarters.', 'Shares of the company fell 12% in extended trading.', '""In a highly challenged environment, this quarter\'s results do not reflect the power of our brand, our capabilities or the opportunities ahead,"" CEO Laxman Narasimhan said in a statement. ""', 'It did not meet our expectations, but we understand the specific challenges and opportunities immediately in front of us.', '""The company\'s same-store sales fell 4% as traffic to its cafes declined 6% in the quarter.', 'Wall Street was anticipating same-store sales growth of 1%, according to StreetAccount estimates.', 'Across all regions, Starbucks reported shrinking same-store sales and falling traffic.', 'In the U.S., same-store sales decreased 3% as traffic sank 7%.', ""This marks the second quarter that the company's home market has struggled."", 'Last quarter, executives blamed sluggish sales on boycotts targeting the company due to ""misperceptions"" of its stance on Israel.', ""Starbucks' international segment reported same-store sales declines of 6% as both average ticket and transactions dropped."", ""In China, Starbucks' second-largest market, same-store sales plunged 11%, fueled by an 8% decline in average ticket."", '""In this environment, many customers have been more exacting about where and how they choose to spend their money,"" Narasimhan told analysts on the company\'s conference call.', ""Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:The coffee giant reported fiscal second-quarter net income attributable to the company of $772.4 million, or 68 cents per share, down from $908.3 million, or 79 cents per share, a year earlier."", 'Net sales dropped nearly 2% to $8.56 billion.', 'For fiscal 2024, Starbucks now expects revenue growth in the low single digits, down from its prior forecast of 7% to 10%.', 'The company also revised its projections for global and U.S. same-store sales growth to a range of low single digits to flat from its previous forecast of 4% to 6%.', 'Same-store sales in China are expected to decline by single digits, down from the prior outlook of a single-digit increase.', 'Starbucks now also expects earnings per share growth in a range of flat to low single digits.', 'It previously forecast its earnings would climb 15% to 20% in fiscal 2024.The company forecasts that sales will start improving in the fiscal fourth quarter.', ""Starbucks' most dedicated customers have stayed loyal and been using discounts offered via the company's mobile app, executives said."", ""But coffee drinkers who visit only occasionally have been buying Starbucks' macchiatos and cold brew less often, executives said; Narasimhan said those customers want more variety from their coffee."", 'Starbucks is planning to offer a version of its app that allows customers to order without being a loyalty member in order to attract these occasional customers to visit more frequently.', 'Narasimhan said Starbucks is also exploring how to meet overnight demand, from 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. The company conducted a pilot test, which Narasimhan said doubled business.', ""He also said the chain's lavender drinks were one of its most successful launches."", '""Building off that success, we are aggressively pursuing options to build a $2 billion business over the next five years,"" he said.', ""McDonald's, PepsiCo and other companies have said this quarter that low-income consumers have pulled back their spending and are looking for deals."", '""While it was a difficult quarter, we learned from our own underperformance and sharpened our focus with a comprehensive roadmap of well thought out actions making the path forward clear,""CFO Rachel Ruggeri said in a statement.', 'Narasimhan also said that the company now expects supply-chain cost savings of $4 billion over the next four years, revising its prior forecast of $3 billion over three years.']",0.1063522256185172,"Starbucks' most dedicated customers have stayed loyal and been using discounts offered via the company's mobile app, executives said.","Last quarter, executives blamed sluggish sales on boycotts targeting the company due to ""misperceptions"" of its stance on Israel.",-0.3648833426145407,It previously forecast its earnings would climb 15% to 20% in fiscal 2024.The company forecasts that sales will start improving in the fiscal fourth quarter.,"In this articleStarbucks on Tuesday reported weaker-than-expected quarterly earnings and revenue, fueled by a surprise decline in same-store sales.",2024-04-30
Binance crypto boss Changpeng Zhao sentenced to 4 months in prison,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-68930465,2024-04-30T19:18:02.000Z,"The founder of the world's largest crypto exchange has been sentenced to four months in prison for allowing criminals to launder money on his platform. Changpeng Zhao resigned from Binance in November and pleaded guilty to violating US money laundering laws. Binance was ordered to pay a $4.3bn (£3.4bn) after a US investigation found it helped users bypass sanctions. Prosecutors had sought a three-year sentence for the former Binance boss. At a sentencing hearing on Tuesday in Seattle, Judge Richard Jones said Zhao put ""Binance's growth and profits over compliance with US laws and regulations"", according to the Verge. US officials said in November that Binance and Zhao's ""wilful violations"" of its laws had threatened the US financial system and national security. ""Binance turned a blind eye to its legal obligations in the pursuit of profit,"" said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. ""Its wilful failures allowed money to flow to terrorists, cybercriminals, and child abusers through its platform."" Commonly called ""CZ"", Zhao has a $33 billion fortune, according to Forbes magazine. Nigerian authorities are currently investigating the company, registered in the Cayman Islands, as well. Tigran Gambarayan, who is in charge of financial crime compliance at Binance, denied money laundering charges in a Nigerian court in early April. Fellow executive Nadeem Anjarwalla, detained in Nigeria alongside Mr Gambarayan in February, escaped custody in March. Zhao's sentencing comes shortly after Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud committed at his rival crypto platform, FTX.  Widely known as the ""crypto king"", Bankman-Fried was found to have stolen billions from customers ahead of the firm's failure. The Justice Department said its investigation into Binance also found the exchange made it easy for criminals to move money. ",BBC,30/04/2024,"[""The founder of the world's largest crypto exchange has been sentenced to four months in prison for allowing criminals to launder money on his platform."", 'Changpeng Zhao resigned from Binance in November and pleaded guilty to violating US money laundering laws.', 'Binance was ordered to pay a $4.3bn (£3.4bn) after a US investigation found it helped users bypass sanctions.', 'Prosecutors had sought a three-year sentence for the former Binance boss.', 'At a sentencing hearing on Tuesday in Seattle, Judge Richard Jones said Zhao put ""Binance\'s growth and profits over compliance with US laws and regulations"", according to the Verge.', 'US officials said in November that Binance and Zhao\'s ""wilful violations"" of its laws had threatened the US financial system and national security. ""', 'Binance turned a blind eye to its legal obligations in the pursuit of profit,"" said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. ""', 'Its wilful failures allowed money to flow to terrorists, cybercriminals, and child abusers through its platform.""', 'Commonly called ""CZ"", Zhao has a $33 billion fortune, according to Forbes magazine.', 'Nigerian authorities are currently investigating the company, registered in the Cayman Islands, as well.', 'Tigran Gambarayan, who is in charge of financial crime compliance at Binance, denied money laundering charges in a Nigerian court in early April.', 'Fellow executive Nadeem Anjarwalla, detained in Nigeria alongside Mr Gambarayan in February, escaped custody in March.', ""Zhao's sentencing comes shortly after Sam Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison for fraud committed at his rival crypto platform, FTX."", 'Widely known as the ""crypto king"", Bankman-Fried was found to have stolen billions from customers ahead of the firm\'s failure.', 'The Justice Department said its investigation into Binance also found the exchange made it easy for criminals to move money.']",-0.2845787183942065,"At a sentencing hearing on Tuesday in Seattle, Judge Richard Jones said Zhao put ""Binance's growth and profits over compliance with US laws and regulations"", according to the Verge.","Its wilful failures allowed money to flow to terrorists, cybercriminals, and child abusers through its platform.""",-0.2640947500864665,The Justice Department said its investigation into Binance also found the exchange made it easy for criminals to move money.,"US officials said in November that Binance and Zhao's ""wilful violations"" of its laws had threatened the US financial system and national security. """,2024-04-30
"Eli Lilly beats on quarterly profit, hikes full-year guidance on strong sales of Zepbound, Mounjaro",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/30/eli-lilly-lly-earnings-q1-2024.html,2024-04-30T15:04:23+0000,"In this articleEli Lilly on Tuesday reported first-quarter adjusted profit that topped Wall Street's expectations and hiked its full-year guidance on strong sales of its blockbuster diabetes drug Mounjaro and newly launched weight loss treatment Zepbound.The drugmaker now expects full-year adjusted earnings of $13.50 to $14.00 per share, up from previous guidance of $12.20 to $12.70 per share. Eli Lilly also expects revenue for the year to come in between $42.4 billion and $43.6 billion, an increase of $2 billion at either end of the range.Analysts surveyed by LSEG expected full-year adjusted earnings of $12.50 per share and sales of $41.44 billion. The company said the boosted guidance is in part due to optimism around increased production of Zepbound, Mounjaro and similar drugs for the rest of the year.""Now that we're four months into the year, we have greater visibility into that, into these nodes of capacity and feel more confident,"" Eli Lilly CFO Anat Ashkenazi told investors during an earnings call Tuesday.She noted that Eli Lilly has several manufacturing sites either ""ramping up or under construction,"" including two locations in North Carolina, two in Indiana, one in Ireland and one in Germany, along with a seventh site the company recently acquired from Nexus Pharmaceuticals.Eli Lilly said demand for Mounjaro and Zepbound — treatments known as incretin drugs, which mimic hormones produced in the gut to suppress a person's appetite and regulate their blood sugar — outpaced increases in supply during the quarter. And the company expects supply to remain ""quite tight"" in the near- to mid-term amid continued demand for those drugs, Ashkenazi said.But Eli Lilly expects the most significant production increases expected in the second half of the year, she noted.""Our top priority is making more product, and we're doing everything we can to do that,"" Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks said in an interview Tuesday on CNBC's ""Squawk Box."" ""We're ramping that aggressively. But it's capital intensive, it's technically complex and highly regulated.""The results and guidance raise reflect Zepbound's first full quarter on the U.S. market after winning approval from regulators in early November. The drug reported $517.4 million in sales for the first quarter, even as most doses of the drug slipped into shortages in the U.S. that are expected to last through June.Analysts say the weekly injection could post more than a billion dollars in sales in its first year on the market and potentially become the biggest drug of all time.Here's what Eli Lilly reported for the first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG: Eli Lilly posted net income of $2.24 billion, or $2.48 a share, for the first quarter. That compares with a profit of $1.34 billion, or $1.49 a share, a year earlier. Excluding one-time items associated with the value of intangible assets, among other adjustments, the company posted a per-share profit of $2.58 for the first quarter of 2024.The pharmaceutical giant booked first-quarter revenue of $8.77 billion, up 26% year over year.Shares of Eli Lilly jumped more than 5% on Tuesday. The stock is up 26% this year after surging almost 60% in 2023 due to the insatiable demand for the company's weight loss and diabetes drugs. That's despite their hefty price tags, spotty insurance coverage and intermittent supply shortages. With a market cap of about $700 billion, Eli Lilly is the largest pharmaceutical company based in the U.S. Both of the company's top-selling diabetes drugs missed Wall Street's expectations for the first quarter.Mounjaro brought in $1.81 billion in revenue in the first quarter, more than triple the $568.5 million it booked during the year-earlier period. However, analysts were expecting sales of $2.11 billion, according to StreetAccount. Eli Lilly said higher prices for Mounjaro helped drive up revenue, specifically citing decreased use of savings card programs for the drug in the U.S.But the company said those savings card dynamics should ""cease to have a notable effect on realized price comparisons"" because the $25 monthly coupon for patients who don't have insurance coverage for Mounjaro expired in June. ""From the second half of each year, we should expect to see typical pricing for Mounjaro,"" Patrik Jonsson, Eli Lilly's executive vice president of diabetes and obesity, said during the call on Tuesday.Meanwhile, sales of Eli Lilly's older diabetes drug Trulicity plummeted 26% during the first quarter to $1.46 billion. That's lower than the $1.59 billion that analysts were expecting, according to StreetAccount. In the U.S., declining sales were primarily due to supply constraints and competition with other diabetes treatments, according to Eli Lilly. Revenue outside the U.S. also decreased, driven by lower demand and realized prices, as well as tight supply.Revenue growth was also driven by sales of Eli Lilly's breast cancer pill Verzenio, which rose 40% to $1.05 billion for the quarter due to increased demand. Those results came in under analysts' expectations, however, which called for $1.11 billion in sales for the period. Sales of Jardiance, a tablet that lowers blood sugar in Type 2 diabetes patients, climbed 19% to $686.5 million for the first quarter. Analysts had expected $718.3 million in sales from Jardiance. Jardiance, which Eli Lilly shares with Boehringer Ingelheim, is among the first 10 drugs selected to face price negotiations with the federal Medicare program.",CNBC,30/04/2024,"[""In this articleEli Lilly on Tuesday reported first-quarter adjusted profit that topped Wall Street's expectations and hiked its full-year guidance on strong sales of its blockbuster diabetes drug Mounjaro and newly launched weight loss treatment Zepbound."", 'The drugmaker now expects full-year adjusted earnings of $13.50 to $14.00 per share, up from previous guidance of $12.20 to $12.70 per share.', 'Eli Lilly also expects revenue for the year to come in between $42.4 billion and $43.6 billion, an increase of $2 billion at either end of the range.', 'Analysts surveyed by LSEG expected full-year adjusted earnings of $12.50 per share and sales of $41.44 billion.', 'The company said the boosted guidance is in part due to optimism around increased production of Zepbound, Mounjaro and similar drugs for the rest of the year.', '""Now that we\'re four months into the year, we have greater visibility into that, into these nodes of capacity and feel more confident,"" Eli Lilly CFO Anat Ashkenazi told investors during an earnings call Tuesday.', 'She noted that Eli Lilly has several manufacturing sites either ""ramping up or under construction,"" including two locations in North Carolina, two in Indiana, one in Ireland and one in Germany, along with a seventh site the company recently acquired from Nexus Pharmaceuticals.', ""Eli Lilly said demand for Mounjaro and Zepbound — treatments known as incretin drugs, which mimic hormones produced in the gut to suppress a person's appetite and regulate their blood sugar — outpaced increases in supply during the quarter."", 'And the company expects supply to remain ""quite tight"" in the near- to mid-term amid continued demand for those drugs, Ashkenazi said.', 'But Eli Lilly expects the most significant production increases expected in the second half of the year, she noted.', '""Our top priority is making more product, and we\'re doing everything we can to do that,"" Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks said in an interview Tuesday on CNBC\'s ""Squawk Box."" ""', ""We're ramping that aggressively."", ""But it's capital intensive, it's technically complex and highly regulated."", '""The results and guidance raise reflect Zepbound\'s first full quarter on the U.S. market after winning approval from regulators in early November.', 'The drug reported $517.4 million in sales for the first quarter, even as most doses of the drug slipped into shortages in the U.S. that are expected to last through June.', 'Analysts say the weekly injection could post more than a billion dollars in sales in its first year on the market and potentially become the biggest drug of all time.', ""Here's what Eli Lilly reported for the first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:Eli Lilly posted net income of $2.24 billion, or $2.48 a share, for the first quarter."", 'That compares with a profit of $1.34 billion, or $1.49 a share, a year earlier.', 'Excluding one-time items associated with the value of intangible assets, among other adjustments, the company posted a per-share profit of $2.58 for the first quarter of 2024.The pharmaceutical giant booked first-quarter revenue of $8.77 billion, up 26% year over year.', 'Shares of Eli Lilly jumped more than 5% on Tuesday.', ""The stock is up 26% this year after surging almost 60% in 2023 due to the insatiable demand for the company's weight loss and diabetes drugs."", ""That's despite their hefty price tags, spotty insurance coverage and intermittent supply shortages."", ""With a market cap of about $700 billion, Eli Lilly is the largest pharmaceutical company based in the U.S.Both of the company's top-selling diabetes drugs missed Wall Street's expectations for the first quarter."", 'Mounjaro brought in $1.81 billion in revenue in the first quarter, more than triple the $568.5 million it booked during the year-earlier period.', 'However, analysts were expecting sales of $2.11 billion, according to StreetAccount.', 'Eli Lilly said higher prices for Mounjaro helped drive up revenue, specifically citing decreased use of savings card programs for the drug in the U.S.But the company said those savings card dynamics should ""cease to have a notable effect on realized price comparisons"" because the $25 monthly coupon for patients who don\'t have insurance coverage for Mounjaro expired in June.', '""From the second half of each year, we should expect to see typical pricing for Mounjaro,"" Patrik Jonsson, Eli Lilly\'s executive vice president of diabetes and obesity, said during the call on Tuesday.', ""Meanwhile, sales of Eli Lilly's older diabetes drug Trulicity plummeted 26% during the first quarter to $1.46 billion."", ""That's lower than the $1.59 billion that analysts were expecting, according to StreetAccount."", 'In the U.S., declining sales were primarily due to supply constraints and competition with other diabetes treatments, according to Eli Lilly.', 'Revenue outside the U.S. also decreased, driven by lower demand and realized prices, as well as tight supply.', ""Revenue growth was also driven by sales of Eli Lilly's breast cancer pill Verzenio, which rose 40% to $1.05 billion for the quarter due to increased demand."", ""Those results came in under analysts' expectations, however, which called for $1.11 billion in sales for the period."", 'Sales of Jardiance, a tablet that lowers blood sugar in Type 2 diabetes patients, climbed 19% to $686.5 million for the first quarter.', 'Analysts had expected $718.3 million in sales from Jardiance.', 'Jardiance, which Eli Lilly shares with Boehringer Ingelheim, is among the first 10 drugs selected to face price negotiations with the federal Medicare program.']",0.1435367539930851,In this articleEli Lilly on Tuesday reported first-quarter adjusted profit that topped Wall Street's expectations and hiked its full-year guidance on strong sales of its blockbuster diabetes drug Mounjaro and newly launched weight loss treatment Zepbound.,The stock is up 26% this year after surging almost 60% in 2023 due to the insatiable demand for the company's weight loss and diabetes drugs.,0.4067590457421762,The stock is up 26% this year after surging almost 60% in 2023 due to the insatiable demand for the company's weight loss and diabetes drugs.,"Meanwhile, sales of Eli Lilly's older diabetes drug Trulicity plummeted 26% during the first quarter to $1.46 billion.",2024-04-30
HSBC CEO announces surprise retirement,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/30/business/hsbc-ceo-announces-surprise-retirement/index.html,"
  Published
        4:42 AM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024
    ","Hong Kong — HSBC has announced its chief executive Noel Quinn will retire — a surprise departure by its hard-nosed leader of five years who has overseen a sweeping series of asset sales across the globe.
    
            The Asia-focused bank said in a statement Tuesday that it had launched a formal process to find a successor.
    
            Chief financial officer Georges Elhedery, appointed to the No. 2 role in January 2023, is likely the leading internal candidate for the job.
    
            Quinn, 62, has restored momentum to the bank’s profits and share price by getting rid of or slashing in size underperforming businesses, including the lender’s retail banking businesses in the United States and France, its entire Canadian subsidiary and units in smaller markets such as Argentina.
    
            HSBC’s (HSBC) shares, which have gained roughly 30% during his tenure, rose about 1.3% and touched a nine-month high in the afternoon session in Hong Kong.
    
            “I think shrinking businesses in Western markets such as the US, Canada and Europe has been a good move for HSBC at the same time as boosting the group’s Asian business,” said Simon Yuen, founder of Hong Kong-based Surich Asset Management, which is an HSBC shareholder.
    
            “We do hope that the next CEO would lay out more plans, execution-wise, to further increase the bank’s businesses in Asian countries,” he added.
    
            Quinn will remain CEO until his successor starts in the role.
    
            “I’ve held intensive leadership roles since I took on a commercial bank role in October 2008, so I’m personally ready for a change,” Quinn told reporters on a call.
    
            “It’s also a natural inflection point for the bank, as it comes to the end of the current transformation phase. It’s an ideal time to bring in leadership to move the bank forward over the next five years.”
    
            HSBC Chairman Mark Tucker said the bank was aiming to complete Quinn’s succession process by second half of this year.
    
            “He (Quinn) first informed me of this earlier this month,” Tucker said of the timing of Quinn’s decision to step down, adding that the decision was Quinn’s own and that the board supported it.
    
            Quinn, who joined HSBC in 1987, was named the chief executive of the bank, which makes most of its revenues and profits in Asia, in March 2020, after serving as an interim CEO following the surprise ouster of his predecessor.
    
            He played a crucial role in navigating challenges during and after the coronavirus pandemic, as well as heightened geopolitical tensions that weighed on the bank’s key market, China.
    
            He also won a major showdown with the bank’s No. 1 Asian investor, China’s Ping An Insurance, which ran a multi-year campaign to try and get HSBC to spin off its Asia business, which ended in defeat at the bank’s shareholder meeting last year.
    
            HSBC also faced criticism in recent years from Western lawmakers over its dealings with China amid growing geopolitical tensions. Hong Kong is HSBC’s single largest market globally.
    
            HSBC reported pretax profit of $12.7 billion, slightly ahead of forecasts, for the quarter ended March versus $12.9 billion a year earlier, as it struggles to cope with rising costs from expansion in Asia.
    
            The London-headquartered bank also announced $3 billion worth of share buybacks on top of $2 billion in share purchases announced in February.",CNN,30/04/2024,"['Hong Kong —HSBC has announced its chief executive Noel Quinn will retire — a surprise departure by its hard-nosed leader of five years who has overseen a sweeping series of asset sales across the globe.', 'The Asia-focused bank said in a statement Tuesday that it had launched a formal process to find a successor.', 'Chief financial officer Georges Elhedery, appointed to the No.', '2 role in January 2023, is likely the leading internal candidate for the job.', 'Quinn, 62, has restored momentum to the bank’s profits and share price by getting rid of or slashing in size underperforming businesses, including the lender’s retail banking businesses in the United States and France, its entire Canadian subsidiary and units in smaller markets such as Argentina.', 'HSBC’s (HSBC) shares, which have gained roughly 30% during his tenure, rose about 1.3% and touched a nine-month high in the afternoon session in Hong Kong.', '“I think shrinking businesses in Western markets such as the US, Canada and Europe has been a good move forHSBCat the same time as boosting the group’s Asian business,” said Simon Yuen, founder of Hong Kong-based Surich Asset Management, which is anHSBCshareholder.', '“We do hope that the next CEO would lay out more plans, execution-wise, to further increase the bank’s businesses in Asian countries,” he added.', 'Quinn will remain CEO until his successor starts in the role.', '“I’ve held intensive leadership roles since I took on a commercial bank role in October 2008, so I’m personally ready for a change,” Quinn told reporters on a call.', '“It’s also a natural inflection point for the bank, as it comes to the end of the current transformation phase.', 'It’s an ideal time to bring in leadership to move the bank forward over the next five years.”', 'HSBCChairman Mark Tucker said the bank was aiming to complete Quinn’s succession process by second half of this year.', '“He (Quinn) first informed me of this earlier this month,” Tucker said of the timing of Quinn’s decision to step down, adding that the decision was Quinn’s own and that the board supported it.', 'Quinn, who joinedHSBCin 1987, was named the chief executive of the bank, which makes most of its revenues and profits in Asia, in March 2020, after serving as an interim CEO following the surprise ouster of his predecessor.', 'He played a crucial role in navigating challenges during and after the coronavirus pandemic, as well as heightened geopolitical tensions that weighed on the bank’s key market, China.', 'He also won a major showdown with the bank’s No.', '1 Asian investor, China’s Ping An Insurance, which ran a multi-year campaign to try and getHSBCto spin off its Asia business, whichended in defeat at the bank’s shareholder meeting last year.', 'HSBCalso faced criticism in recent years from Western lawmakers over its dealings with China amid growing geopolitical tensions.', 'Hong Kong isHSBC’s single largest market globally.', 'HSBCreported pretax profit of $12.7 billion, slightly ahead of forecasts, for the quarter ended March versus $12.9 billion a year earlier, as it struggles to cope with rising costs from expansion in Asia.', 'The London-headquartered bank also announced $3 billion worth of share buybacks on top of $2 billion in share purchases announced in February.']",0.3089990404336657,"“We do hope that the next CEO would lay out more plans, execution-wise, to further increase the bank’s businesses in Asian countries,” he added.",HSBCalso faced criticism in recent years from Western lawmakers over its dealings with China amid growing geopolitical tensions.,0.3494872997204463,"HSBC’s (HSBC) shares, which have gained roughly 30% during his tenure, rose about 1.3% and touched a nine-month high in the afternoon session in Hong Kong.","1 Asian investor, China’s Ping An Insurance, which ran a multi-year campaign to try and getHSBCto spin off its Asia business, whichended in defeat at the bank’s shareholder meeting last year.",2024-04-30
"Walmart to shutter health centers, virtual care service in latest failed push into health care",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/30/walmart-to-shutter-health-centers-virtual-care-service.html,2024-04-30T13:50:31+0000,"In this articleWalmart on Tuesday said it will close all of its health-care clinics across the country, a stunning reversal of its plans to bring its low-priced reputation to the dentist and doctor's office along with the grocery aisle. The big-box retailer said it would also shutter its telehealth provider, which it acquired for an undisclosed amount in 2021.Walmart will close 51 clinic locations across Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois and Texas, plans that won't affect the company's 4,600 pharmacies and more than 3,000 vision centers, the company said in a release. The clinics will close over the next 45 to 90 days, two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named told CNBC. Walmart blamed its plans to shutter clinics on a broken business model. In the release, it described the move as ""a difficult decision,"" but said it couldn't operate a profitable business because of ""the challenging reimbursement environment and escalating operating costs.""The shortage of health-care workers in the U.S. has also increased the company's labor costs, according to the sources familiar with the matter. The announcement comes just a month after Walmart said it planned to double the size of its clinic footprint by opening up 22 new locations this year and more in 2025. Walmart's announcement is also another sign of how challenging it is to disrupt and radically improve American health care – an expensive, complicated and entrenched system of doctors, insurers, drug manufacturers and other players that costs the nation more than $4 trillion a year. Walmart opened its first Walmart Health clinic in Georgia in 2019, and then gradually opened more clinics next door to its big-box stores. Customers, who typically shopped Walmart's aisles for groceries or household items, could also stop by for a doctor or dentist appointment or therapy session. The clinics offered other services, too, such as flu tests, X-rays and stiches.Those health-care services came with a low price tag, such as $30 for an annual check-up for adults, $45 for a 45-minute counseling session or as little as $25 for an adult teeth cleaning.At a conference in fall 2019, then-Walmart CFO Brett Biggs touted the company's ambitions to investors. He referred to how Walmart had used its large size to bring down the price of many common generic drugs to as low as $4 at its pharmacies and planned to do that for other parts of health care.""It's more than test and learn because we know that this is a place we can have a massive difference on how people live,"" he told investors at the time. ""When we think about 'Save money, live better,' we can do both with what we can do in healthcare. And so, we plan to be a big player going forward in what happens in healthcare.""Yet in the following years, Walmart opened new clinics at a slow pace and faced new challenges and competitive dynamics — including keeping its store shelves stocked and locations staffed during the Covid-19 pandemic. Walmart struggled with high executive turnover and cycled through numerous leaders of Walmart Health. And CVS Health, Walgreens Boots Alliance and Amazon all announced their own ambitions to open or acquire doctor offices. Amazon last year closed a $3.9 billion deal to buy primary-care provider One Medical.Meanwhile, on earnings calls and at investor meetings, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon and other company leaders instead highlighted other emerging and higher-margin businesses, such as its growing advertising business and its third-party marketplace.Going forward, Walmart will return to the health services it offered before the Walmart Health push: It will continue to operate its thousands of pharmacies and vision centers.Walmart said its clinics will continue to see patients with scheduled appointments until their doors close, the people familiar with the matter told CNBC. The company will also help patients find high-quality providers in their insurance networks to ensure they continue to get care, the people said.Walmart Health marks the latest failed push into health care by a high-profile company, following the disbandment of a joint venture between JPMorgan Chase, Berkshire Hathaway and Amazon in 2021. Before it announced the closures, Walmart was among a slate of retail giants racing to build up their primary-care presence as demand grows for convenient and affordable medical care. Walmart grew its clinic business at a slower pace than its competitors, but some companies have struggled to balance their expansion plans with their swelling networks of patients. Walgreens said in March it had closed 140 of its VillageMD primary-care clinics and plans to shutter 20 more to boost the profitability of its broader health-care division. Walgreens also recorded a nearly $6 billion charge in the first quarter related to the decline in value of VillageMD, which has generated disappointing returns since the company became a majority owner of the business in 2021. Meanwhile, Amazon's health clinic operator One Medical now has more than 125 locations nationwide.Walmart has made several other plays in the health-care space, including partnering with an insurer and health system on care coordination in Florida. But Walmart will no longer see patients under that partnership moving forward, according to the two sources familiar with the matter.Walmart bought a chronic condition management platform called CareZone in 2020 for an undisclosed amount.",CNBC,30/04/2024,"[""In this articleWalmart on Tuesday said it will close all of its health-care clinics across the country, a stunning reversal of its plans to bring its low-priced reputation to the dentist and doctor's office along with the grocery aisle."", ""The big-box retailer said it would also shutter its telehealth provider, which it acquired for an undisclosed amount in 2021.Walmart will close 51 clinic locations across Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois and Texas, plans that won't affect the company's 4,600 pharmacies and more than 3,000 vision centers, the company said in a release."", 'The clinics will close over the next 45 to 90 days, two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named told CNBC.Walmart blamed its plans to shutter clinics on a broken business model.', 'In the release, it described the move as ""a difficult decision,"" but said it couldn\'t operate a profitable business because of ""the challenging reimbursement environment and escalating operating costs.', '""The shortage of health-care workers in the U.S. has also increased the company\'s labor costs, according to the sources familiar with the matter.', ""The announcement comes just a month after Walmart said it planned to double the size of its clinic footprint by opening up 22 new locations this year and more in 2025.Walmart's announcement is also another sign of how challenging it is to disrupt and radically improve American health care – an expensive, complicated and entrenched system of doctors, insurers, drug manufacturers and other players that costs the nation more than $4 trillion a year."", 'Walmart opened its first Walmart Health clinic in Georgia in 2019, and then gradually opened more clinics next door to its big-box stores.', ""Customers, who typically shopped Walmart's aisles for groceries or household items, could also stop by for a doctor or dentist appointment or therapy session."", 'The clinics offered other services,too, such as flu tests, X-rays and stiches.', 'Those health-care services came with a low price tag, such as $30 for an annual check-up for adults, $45 for a 45-minute counseling session or as little as $25 for an adult teeth cleaning.', ""At a conference in fall 2019, then-Walmart CFO Brett Biggs touted the company's ambitions to investors."", 'He referred to how Walmart had used its large size to bring down the price ofmany common generic drugs to as low as $4at its pharmacies and planned to do that for other parts of health care.', '""It\'s more than test and learn because we know that this is a place we can have a massive difference on how people live,"" he told investors at the time. ""', ""When we think about 'Save money, live better,' we can do both with what we can do in healthcare."", 'And so, we plan to be a big player going forward in what happens in healthcare.', '""Yet in the following years, Walmart opened new clinics at a slow pace and faced new challenges and competitive dynamics — including keeping its store shelves stocked and locations staffed during the Covid-19 pandemic.', 'Walmart struggled with high executive turnover and cycled through numerous leaders of Walmart Health.', 'And CVS Health, Walgreens Boots Alliance and Amazon all announced their own ambitions to open or acquire doctor offices.', 'Amazon last year closed a $3.9 billion deal to buy primary-care provider One Medical.', 'Meanwhile, on earnings calls and at investor meetings, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon and other company leaders instead highlighted other emerging and higher-margin businesses, such as its growing advertising business and its third-party marketplace.', 'Going forward, Walmart will return to the health services it offered before the Walmart Health push: It will continue to operate its thousands of pharmacies and vision centers.', 'Walmart said its clinics will continue to see patients with scheduled appointments until their doors close, the people familiar with the matter told CNBC.', 'The company will also help patients find high-quality providers in their insurance networks to ensure they continue to get care, the people said.', 'Walmart Health marks the latest failed push into health care by a high-profile company, following the disbandment of a joint venture between JPMorgan Chase, Berkshire Hathaway and Amazon in 2021.Before it announced the closures, Walmart was among a slate of retail giants racing to build up their primary-care presence as demand grows for convenient and affordable medical care.', 'Walmart grew its clinic business at a slower pace than its competitors, but some companies have struggled to balance their expansion plans with their swelling networks of patients.', 'Walgreens said in March it had closed 140 of its VillageMD primary-care clinics and plans to shutter 20 more to boost the profitability of its broader health-care division.', ""Walgreens also recorded a nearly $6 billion charge in the first quarter related to the decline in value of VillageMD, which has generated disappointing returns since the company became a majority owner of the business in 2021.Meanwhile, Amazon's health clinic operator One Medical now has more than 125 locations nationwide."", 'Walmart has made several other plays in the health-care space, including partnering with an insurer and health system on care coordination in Florida.', 'But Walmart will no longer see patients under that partnership moving forward, according to the two sources familiar with the matter.', 'Walmart bought a chronic condition management platform called CareZone in 2020 for an undisclosed amount.']",0.2236077325618463,Walgreens said in March it had closed 140 of its VillageMD primary-care clinics and plans to shutter 20 more to boost the profitability of its broader health-care division.,"The clinics will close over the next 45 to 90 days, two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named told CNBC.Walmart blamed its plans to shutter clinics on a broken business model.",-0.2076191624005635,Walgreens said in March it had closed 140 of its VillageMD primary-care clinics and plans to shutter 20 more to boost the profitability of its broader health-care division.,"Walgreens also recorded a nearly $6 billion charge in the first quarter related to the decline in value of VillageMD, which has generated disappointing returns since the company became a majority owner of the business in 2021.Meanwhile, Amazon's health clinic operator One Medical now has more than 125 locations nationwide.",2024-04-30
"Home prices soar even higher in February, despite higher mortgage rates, says S&P Case-Shiller",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/30/sp-corelogic-case-shiller-home-prices-index-february.html,2024-04-30T13:44:17+0000,"Strong demand and tight supply continue to push home values higher, even though mortgage rates are now moving higher again.Home prices in February jumped 6.4% year over year, another increase after the prior month's annual gain of 6%, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index released Tuesday. It was the fastest rate of price growth since November 2022.The 10-city composite rose 8%, up from a 7.4% increase in the previous month. The 20-city composite saw an annual gain of 7.3%, up from a 6.6% advance in January.""Following last year's decline, U.S. home prices are at or near all-time highs,"" said Brian Luke, head of commodities, real and digital assets at S&P Dow Jones Indices. ""For the third consecutive month, all cities reported increases in annual prices, with four currently at all-time highs: San Diego, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and New York.""Prices in San Diego saw the biggest gain among the 20 cities in the index, up 11.4% from February of 2023. Both Chicago and Detroit reported 8.9% annual increases. Portland, Oregon, saw the smallest gain in the index of just 2.2%.""The Northeast region, which includes Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C., ranks as the best performing market for over the last half year. As remote work benefitted smaller (and sunnier markets) in the first part of the decade, return to office may be contributing to outperformance in larger metropolitan markets in the Northeast,"" according to Luke.""Since the previous peak in prices in 2022, this marks the second time home prices have pushed higher in the face of economic uncertainty. The first decline followed the start of the Federal Reserve's hiking cycle. The second decline followed the peak in average mortgage rates last October,"" he added.This index records prices on a three-month moving average, so they go back as far as December, when mortgage rates hit their recent lows. There was also a strong expectation then that the Federal Reserve would lower interest rates. That may have driven buyers to jump in.Since that time, however, mortgage rates have jumped nearly a full percentage point. In addition, stubborn and persistent inflation has lowered expectations that the Fed will cut rates significantly this year.",CNBC,30/04/2024,"['Strong demand and tight supply continue to push home values higher, even though mortgage rates are now moving higher again.', ""Home prices in February jumped 6.4% year over year, another increase after the prior month's annual gain of 6%, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index released Tuesday."", 'It was the fastest rate of price growth since November 2022.The 10-city composite rose 8%, up from a 7.4% increase in the previous month.', 'The 20-city composite saw an annual gain of 7.3%, up from a 6.6% advance in January.', '""Following last year\'s decline, U.S. home prices are at or near all-time highs,"" said Brian Luke, head of commodities, real and digital assets at S&P Dow Jones Indices. ""', 'For the third consecutive month, all cities reported increases in annual prices, with four currently at all-time highs: San Diego, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and New York.', '""Prices in San Diego saw the biggest gain among the 20 cities in the index, up 11.4% from February of 2023.', 'Both Chicago and Detroit reported 8.9% annual increases.', 'Portland, Oregon, saw the smallest gain in the index of just 2.2%.""The Northeast region, which includes Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C., ranks as the best performing market for over the last half year.', 'As remote work benefitted smaller (and sunnier markets) in the first part of the decade, return to office may be contributing to outperformance in larger metropolitan markets in the Northeast,"" according to Luke.', '""Since the previous peak in prices in 2022, this marks the second time home prices have pushed higher in the face of economic uncertainty.', ""The first decline followed the start of the Federal Reserve's hiking cycle."", 'The second decline followed the peak in average mortgage rates last October,"" he added.', 'This index records prices on a three-month moving average, so they go back as far as December, when mortgage rates hit their recent lows.', 'There was also a strong expectation then that the Federal Reserve would lower interest rates.', 'That may have driven buyers to jump in.', 'Since that time, however, mortgage rates have jumped nearly a full percentage point.', 'In addition, stubborn and persistent inflation has lowered expectations that the Fed will cut rates significantly this year.']",0.2314971651616648,"Portland, Oregon, saw the smallest gain in the index of just 2.2%.""The Northeast region, which includes Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C., ranks as the best performing market for over the last half year.","In addition, stubborn and persistent inflation has lowered expectations that the Fed will cut rates significantly this year.",0.4965376608511981,"As remote work benefitted smaller (and sunnier markets) in the first part of the decade, return to office may be contributing to outperformance in larger metropolitan markets in the Northeast,"" according to Luke.","The second decline followed the peak in average mortgage rates last October,"" he added.",2024-04-30
Why green steam is a hot issue for business,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68687140,2024-04-25T23:36:47.000Z,"Colorado-based New Belgium Brewing can trace its roots to 1988 and a cycle trip through Belgium.  The experience inspired co-founders Kim Jordan and Jeff Lebesch to bring Belgian brewing techniques back to their home town. Three years later and the duo were selling Fat Tire, one of their first beers at a local festival, and they now have over a dozen beers in production. But while they have spent 30 years creating flavours unique to the US market, they have at least one thing in common with all brewers - the use of steam. Steam is used to sanitise their brewing equipment, as well as being a key part of the brewing process. Large cone-shaped kettles are used to boil wort - liquid extracted from the initial brewing stage of mashing barley - generating steam. This boiling process helps to remove flavours the brewer does not want in the beer, before the wort is transferred to vessels to ferment with yeast, resulting in beer. Some of the steam generated by the kettles is captured by a heat exchanger, which allows the brewer to use this waste heat in the next batch of brewing. The driving force behind the industrial revolution, steam remains crucial to production processes across multiple industries. As well as its frequent use in the food and beverage industry, steam is also used for sterilisation by pharmaceutical companies, and for heating a wide range of buildings such as hospitals. But steam is still primarily generated using boilers run on fossil fuels, giving it a big carbon footprint. Fossil fuels made up 73% of industrial energy use in the US in 2018, with 40% of these fossil fuels used to heat boilers producing steam. To cut that, one option would be to switch to electric. Assuming the electricity is generated from sustainable sources, then the carbon footprint is slashed. But using electricity does have downsides. ""The biggest challenge is cost, which is likely to limit the pace of customer adoption,"" says Maurizio Preziosa, from UK-based engineering firm Spirax Group. While cost might be an issue, the switch is relatively straightforward.  Mr Preziosa says that his firm's technology can usually slot into the existing system. ""Customers can continue to use the rest of their existing steam infrastructure,"" Mr Preziosa explains. This has the additional benefit of reducing downtime, a potential obstacle to adoption for companies reliant on tightly calibrated production processes.  US-based AtmosZero has a different approach to creating steam. Their boiler is a heat pump, which extracts heat from the air and turns it into high temperature steam.  It works by circulating liquid refrigerants with low boiling points through a closed loop, capturing warmth from the air. The slightly warmed refrigerant is compressed, raising it to a temperature high enough to boil water.  A heat exchanger then transfers that heat from the refrigerant, to water to make steam.  The big advantage of this approach is that it cuts operating costs. The company's chief executive, Addison Stark estimates that their heat pump technology could save companies hundreds of thousands of dollars compared to the options currently available. ""Being a heat pump-based system, we are significantly more efficient than current boilers - we create about two units of heat output for one unit of energy input, dramatically reducing the operating costs,"" Mr Stark explains. More technology of business AtmosZero is still in the early stages, with more development work needed. The goal is to build a manufacturing plant and start delivering boiler systems in early 2026. Mr Stark is confident the system will work at the scale needed by industry. ""We are mass-manufactured and simple to deploy."" Makers of green steam equipment see demand rising in the coming years.  ""The expectations of end consumers are shifting,"" Maurizio Preziosa from Spirax Group explains. ""They want to buy from companies who operate sustainably by reducing their impact on people and planet, and this, along with regulatory pressure, is driving demand from our customers who serve those consumers,"" he says. Back in Colorado, preparations are under way at New Belgium Brewing where AtmosZero will be swapping out one of the brewery's combustion boilers for their heat pump system. This is the next step on a journey of sustainability the company has been on since those early days selling their beer at local festivals.  As well as installing solar panels and creating electricity from wastewater, Fat Tire, one of their first beers, became the first certified carbon neutral beer in America in August 2020. This is part of a wider company ambition to become completely carbon neutral by 2030. Changing the way they use steam may just be the key step towards this goal. ",BBC,25/04/2024,"['Colorado-based New Belgium Brewing can trace its roots to 1988 and a cycle trip through Belgium.', 'The experience inspired co-founders Kim Jordan and Jeff Lebesch to bring Belgian brewing techniques back to their home town.', 'Three years later and the duo were selling Fat Tire, one of their first beers at a local festival, and they now have over a dozen beers in production.', 'But while they have spent 30 years creating flavours unique to the US market, they have at least one thing in common with all brewers - the use of steam.', 'Steam is used to sanitise their brewing equipment, as well as being a key part of the brewing process.', 'Large cone-shaped kettles are used to boil wort - liquid extracted from the initial brewing stage of mashing barley - generating steam.', 'This boiling process helps to remove flavours the brewer does not want in the beer, before the wort is transferred to vessels to ferment with yeast, resulting in beer.', 'Some of the steam generated by the kettles is captured by a heat exchanger, which allows the brewer to use this waste heat in the next batch of brewing.', 'The driving force behind the industrial revolution, steam remains crucial to production processes across multiple industries.', 'As well as its frequent use in the food and beverage industry, steam is also used for sterilisation by pharmaceutical companies, and for heating a wide range of buildings such as hospitals.', 'But steam is still primarily generated using boilers run on fossil fuels, giving it a big carbon footprint.', 'Fossil fuels made up 73% of industrial energy use in the US in 2018, with 40% of these fossil fuels used to heat boilers producing steam.', 'To cut that, one option would be to switch to electric.', 'Assuming the electricity is generated from sustainable sources, then the carbon footprint is slashed.', 'But using electricity does have downsides. ""', 'The biggest challenge is cost, which is likely to limit the pace of customer adoption,"" says Maurizio Preziosa, from UK-based engineering firm Spirax Group.', 'While cost might be an issue, the switch is relatively straightforward.', 'Mr Preziosa says that his firm\'s technology can usually slot into the existing system. ""', 'Customers can continue to use the rest of their existing steam infrastructure,"" Mr Preziosa explains.', 'This has the additional benefit of reducing downtime, a potential obstacle to adoption for companies reliant on tightly calibrated production processes.', 'US-based AtmosZero has a different approach to creating steam.', 'Their boiler is a heat pump, which extracts heat from the air and turns it into high temperature steam.', 'It works by circulating liquid refrigerants with low boiling points through a closed loop, capturing warmth from the air.', 'The slightly warmed refrigerant is compressed, raising it to a temperature high enough to boil water.', 'A heat exchanger then transfers that heat from the refrigerant, to water to make steam.', 'The big advantage of this approach is that it cuts operating costs.', 'The company\'s chief executive, Addison Stark estimates that their heat pump technology could save companies hundreds of thousands of dollars compared to the options currently available. ""', 'Being a heat pump-based system, we are significantly more efficient than current boilers - we create about two units of heat output for one unit of energy input, dramatically reducing the operating costs,"" Mr Stark explains.', 'More technology of business AtmosZero is still in the early stages, with more development work needed.', 'The goal is to build a manufacturing plant and start delivering boiler systems in early 2026.', 'Mr Stark is confident the system will work at the scale needed by industry. ""', 'We are mass-manufactured and simple to deploy.""', 'Makers of green steam equipment see demand rising in the coming years. ""', 'The expectations of end consumers are shifting,"" Maurizio Preziosa from Spirax Group explains. ""', 'They want to buy from companies who operate sustainably by reducing their impact on people and planet, and this, along with regulatory pressure, is driving demand from our customers who serve those consumers,"" he says.', ""Back in Colorado, preparations are under way at New Belgium Brewing where AtmosZero will be swapping out one of the brewery's combustion boilers for their heat pump system."", 'This is the next step on a journey of sustainability the company has been on since those early days selling their beer at local festivals.', 'As well as installing solar panels and creating electricity from wastewater, Fat Tire, one of their first beers, became the first certified carbon neutral beer in America in August 2020.', 'This is part of a wider company ambition to become completely carbon neutral by 2030.', 'Changing the way they use steam may just be the key step towards this goal.']",0.1313956987949602,"Being a heat pump-based system, we are significantly more efficient than current boilers - we create about two units of heat output for one unit of energy input, dramatically reducing the operating costs,"" Mr Stark explains.","Some of the steam generated by the kettles is captured by a heat exchanger, which allows the brewer to use this waste heat in the next batch of brewing.",0.6398535641756925,"Makers of green steam equipment see demand rising in the coming years. ""","The biggest challenge is cost, which is likely to limit the pace of customer adoption,"" says Maurizio Preziosa, from UK-based engineering firm Spirax Group.",2024-04-30
"Judge rejects J&J, Bristol Myers Squibb challenges to Medicare drug-price negotiations",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/29/jj-bristol-myers-squibb-lose-medicare-drug-price-talks-challenges.html,2024-04-30T01:31:06+0000,"In this articleA federal judge in New Jersey on Monday rejected Johnson & Johnson's and Bristol Myers Squibb's legal challenges to the Biden administration's Medicare drug-price negotiations, ruling that the program is constitutional. The decision is another win for the White House in a bitter legal fight with several drugmakers over the price talks. The ruling also weakens the pharmaceutical industry's strategy of seeking split decisions in lower courts scattered across the U.S., which could escalate the issue to the Supreme Court. Medicare drug-price negotiations are a key policy under President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act that aims to make costly medications more affordable for seniors. In doing so, it could take a bite out of drugmakers' profits. Final negotiated prices for the first round of drugs subject to the talks, which includes one each from J&J and Bristol Myers, will go into effect in 2026. J&J plans to appeal the decision, a spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC. ""This is a disappointing ruling for patients and America's leadership role in medical innovation,"" they added. Bristol Myers Squibb did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling. In separate lawsuits, the drugmakers argued that the negotiations are an unconstitutional confiscation of their drugs by the government and a violation of their right to freedom of speech. They also argued that the talks are an unconstitutional condition to participate in the Medicaid and Medicare programs.But Judge Zahid Quraishi of the District of New Jersey wrote in a 26-page opinion that participation in the price talks and Medicare and Medicaid markets is voluntary.The negotiations don't require drugmakers to ""set aside, keep or otherwise reserve any of their drugs"" for the use of the government or Medicare beneficiaries, he wrote. Quraishi added the talks don't force manufacturers to physically transmit or transport drugs at a new negotiated price.""Selling to Medicare may be less profitable than it was before the institution of the Program, but that does not make [J&J and Bristol Myers Squibb's] decision to participate any less voluntary,"" Quraishi wrote. ""For the reasons provided, the Court concludes that the Program does not result in a physical taking nor direct appropriation"" of medications from the two drugmakers. J&J, Bristol Myers Squibb, Novo Nordisk and Novartis presented their oral arguments before Quraishi during the same hearing in March.That same month, a federal judge in Delaware rejected AstraZeneca's separate lawsuit challenging the negotiations. In Texas, a third federal judge tossed a separate lawsuit in February.A federal judge in Ohio also issued a ruling in September denying a preliminary injunction sought by the Chamber of Commerce, one of the largest lobbying groups in the country, which aimed to block the price talks before Oct. 1.",CNBC,30/04/2024,"[""In this articleA federal judge in New Jersey on Monday rejected Johnson & Johnson's and Bristol Myers Squibb's legal challenges to the Biden administration's Medicare drug-price negotiations, ruling that the program is constitutional."", 'The decision is another win for the White House in a bitter legal fight with several drugmakers over the price talks.', ""The ruling also weakens the pharmaceutical industry's strategy of seeking split decisions in lower courts scattered across the U.S., which could escalate the issue to the Supreme Court."", ""Medicare drug-price negotiations are a key policy under President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act that aims to make costly medications more affordable for seniors."", ""In doing so, it could take a bite out of drugmakers' profits."", 'Final negotiated prices for the first round of drugs subject to the talks, which includes one each from J&J and Bristol Myers, will go into effect in 2026.J&J plans to appeal the decision, a spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC. ""', 'This is a disappointing ruling for patients and America\'s leadership role in medical innovation,"" they added.', 'Bristol Myers Squibb did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling.', 'In separate lawsuits, the drugmakers argued that the negotiations are an unconstitutional confiscation of their drugs by the government and a violation of their right to freedom of speech.', 'They also argued that the talks are an unconstitutional condition to participate in the Medicaid and Medicare programs.', 'But Judge Zahid Quraishi of the District of New Jersey wrote in a 26-page opinion that participation in the price talks and Medicare and Medicaid markets is voluntary.', 'The negotiations don\'t require drugmakers to ""set aside, keep or otherwise reserve any of their drugs"" for the use of the government or Medicare beneficiaries, he wrote.', ""Quraishi added the talks don't force manufacturers to physically transmit or transport drugs at a new negotiated price."", '""Selling to Medicare may be less profitable than it was before the institution of the Program, but that does not make [J&J and Bristol Myers Squibb\'s] decision to participate any less voluntary,"" Quraishi wrote. ""', 'For the reasons provided, the Court concludes that the Program does not result in a physical taking nor direct appropriation"" of medications from the two drugmakers.', 'J&J, Bristol Myers Squibb, Novo Nordisk and Novartis presented their oral arguments before Quraishi during the same hearing in March.', ""That same month, a federal judge in Delaware rejected AstraZeneca's separate lawsuit challenging the negotiations."", 'In Texas, a third federal judge tosseda separate lawsuit in February.', 'A federal judge in Ohio also issued a ruling in September denying apreliminary injunctionsought by the Chamber of Commerce, one of the largest lobbying groups in the country, which aimed to block the price talks before Oct. 1.']",-0.1080412879151634,"In doing so, it could take a bite out of drugmakers' profits.","A federal judge in Ohio also issued a ruling in September denying apreliminary injunctionsought by the Chamber of Commerce, one of the largest lobbying groups in the country, which aimed to block the price talks before Oct. 1.",-0.120294259654151,The decision is another win for the White House in a bitter legal fight with several drugmakers over the price talks.,"In doing so, it could take a bite out of drugmakers' profits.",2024-04-30
NBC News boss Cesar Conde faces backlash from his network’s anchors over ‘inexplicable’ decision to hire ex-RNC chair Ronna McDaniel,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/media/nbc-news-cesar-conde-ronna-mcdaniel-backlash/index.html,"
  Published
        8:05 AM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
    ","Cesar Conde has a decision to make — and it’s not an especially difficult one.
    
            The NBCUniversal News Group chair is facing a torrent of backlash from his own staff after greenlighting the hire of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel as a paid network contributor.
    
            Over the last 24 hours, the most prominent and recognizable NBC News and MSNBC personalities have voiced strong displeasure with the company’s decision to welcome McDaniel to “the team.” And they’re not doing it via anonymous comments to the press. They’re doing it on the record on NBCU’s own air. Chuck Todd broke the dam on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” with a set of candid comments about the hiring, and Rachel Maddow capped the flood of backlash Monday night with a blistering 30-minute monologue eviscerating the network’s leadership for the “inexplicable” move.
    
            Suffice to say, NBCU News Group is in unprecedented territory. Never has a network’s C-suite ever been so thoroughly flogged by its most high-profile stars in such no holds barred fashion. Saying that Conde simply has a crisis on his hands would be a contender for understatement of the year. It’s a five-alarm fire at NBCU News Group, and one of Conde’s own making.
    
            While NBC News president Rebecca Blumenstein and senior vice president of politics Carrie Budoff Brown were most directly responsible for McDaniel’s hiring, a decision that MSNBC boss Rashida Jones did not object to it at the time, the buck ultimately stops with Conde, who hold the real power at the Peacock Network. McDaniel’s hiring could not have happened without Conde’s blessing.
    
            It does not take a brilliant political mind with prescient foresight to understand that hiring McDaniel would ignite a firestorm of outrage — from both within 30 Rock and outside it. Conde, someone who ostensibly supports American democracy, should have rejected McDaniel’s hiring on the grounds that NBCU News Group could not put someone on its payroll who tried to subvert the 2020 vote.
    
            As so many of NBCU’s staffers have underscored, the objection to McDaniel is not that she is a Republican. It’s not even that she is a Donald Trump-supporting Republican. It’s that she was an active participant in the plot to overthrow the last presidential election. That is not to even mention McDaniel’s years of demonizing the press, smearing the journalists who work at NBC News and MSNBC as she sought to destroy the credibility of the organization that she ran to after being chased out of the RNC.
    
            The notion put forward by NBC that it needed to hire McDaniel to bring its viewers “an insider’s perspective on national politics and the future of the Republican Party” is absurd. If that’s the case, the network should move to hire free agents like Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens. They too have their hands on the pulse of the Republican Party. In fact, they represent much more of where the GOP stands today than McDaniel. So, using NBC’s logic, why not hire them? (Spoiler: News organizations rightfully have established basic standards for paid contributors. Asking that your employees have a commitment to democracy, to the truth, and to basic decency is not a big ask.)
    
            But even if Conde has no allegiance to basic democratic principles, which this hire calls into question, given that he is known to be a political player who cares deeply about his own image in the press, he should have been wise enough to foresee that hiring McDaniel would be an ill-conceived move. How this did not occur to Conde is unfathomable and shows a tremendous lack of judgment.
    
            Even more bizarre is Conde’s management, or lack thereof, since the controversy erupted. It was clear early on that his employees at NBC News and MSNBC did not support McDaniel’s hiring. If that was not evident on Friday, it was clear as day on Sunday after “Meet the Press.” The network’s employees were not only flabbergasted and demoralized by the move, but absolutely enraged by it.
    
            At that point, the writing should have been on the wall for Conde — as it was for every other media executive that I have spoken with over the last 24 hours. It is evident that McDaniel has no real future as an NBC analyst and the decision to bring her on as a contributor will have to be reversed. After all, which NBC or MSNBC program is going to invite her on after all of this?
    
            The only real question for Conde after the Sunday morning scolding should have been how he chose to back out of the deal in the least painful way possible. To be fully honest, I very much expected a Sunday evening announcement from NBC, one that would have earned praise from the company’s staff and quickly been swept away by the rush of Trump news Monday morning.
    
            But no such announcement came.
    
            Instead, Conde has allowed the mess to spiral absolutely out of control. MSNBC’s top stars hammered the network’s leadership throughout the day Monday over the hire. NBC News’ Guild blasted Conde, saying in a statement that under him the company had quietly laid off employees over the last month and instead chosen to “prioritize an election denier over its reporters.” The already severe crisis was allowed to blossom into one of the worst corporate public relations catastrophes in recent memory.
    
            All the while, Conde has remained silent. I asked his spokesperson, Stephen Labaton, on Monday whether the NBCU News Group boss had any comment on the situation. Does he have any regret? I didn’t get an on-the-record response. Suffice to say, however, that what Conde does moving forward will say a lot about his character and commitment to democratic values. It will also say a lot about the NBCU News Group and what type of organization it is.
    
            In her biting monologue on Monday night, however, Maddow did offer Conde a way out of this mess.
    
            “Mistakes will be made,” Maddow said.”But our resilience as a democracy is going to be recognizing when decisions are bad ones and reversing those bad decisions. Hearing legitimate criticism, responding to it, and correcting course. Not digging in. Not blaming others. Take a minute. Acknowledge that maybe it wasn’t the right call.”
    
            “It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to acknowledge when you are wrong,” Maddow added. “It is a sign of strength. And our country needs us to be strong now.”",CNN,26/03/2024,"['Cesar Conde has a decision to make — and it’s not an especially difficult one.', 'The NBCUniversal News Group chair is facing a torrent of backlash from his own staff after greenlighting the hire of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel as a paid network contributor.', 'Over the last 24 hours, the most prominent and recognizable NBC News and MSNBC personalities have voiced strong displeasure with the company’s decision to welcome McDaniel to “the team.”', 'And they’re not doing it via anonymous comments to the press.', 'They’re doing it on the record on NBCU’s own air.', 'Chuck Todd broke the dam on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” with a set of candid comments about the hiring, and Rachel Maddow capped the flood of backlash Monday night with a blistering 30-minute monologue eviscerating the network’s leadership for the “inexplicable” move.', 'Suffice to say, NBCU News Group is in unprecedented territory.', 'Never has a network’s C-suite ever been so thoroughly flogged by its most high-profile stars in such no holds barred fashion.', 'Saying that Conde simply has a crisis on his hands would be a contender for understatement of the year.', 'It’s a five-alarm fire at NBCU News Group, and one of Conde’s own making.', 'While NBC News president Rebecca Blumenstein and senior vice president of politics Carrie Budoff Brown were most directly responsible for McDaniel’s hiring, a decision that MSNBC boss Rashida Jones did not object to it at the time, the buck ultimately stops with Conde, who hold the real power at the Peacock Network.', 'McDaniel’s hiring could not have happened without Conde’s blessing.', 'It does not take a brilliant political mind with prescient foresight to understand that hiring McDaniel would ignite a firestorm of outrage — from both within 30 Rock and outside it.', 'Conde, someone who ostensibly supports American democracy, should have rejected McDaniel’s hiring on the grounds that NBCU News Group could not put someone on its payroll who tried to subvert the 2020 vote.', 'As so many of NBCU’s staffers have underscored, the objection to McDaniel is not that she is a Republican.', 'It’s not even that she is a Donald Trump-supporting Republican.', 'It’s that she was an active participant in the plot to overthrow the last presidential election.', 'That is not to even mention McDaniel’s years of demonizing the press, smearing the journalists who work at NBC News and MSNBC as she sought to destroy the credibility of the organization that she ran to after being chased out of the RNC.', 'The notion put forward by NBC that it needed to hire McDaniel to bring its viewers “an insider’s perspective on national politics and the future of the Republican Party” is absurd.', 'If that’s the case, the network should move to hire free agents like Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens.', 'They too have their hands on the pulse of the Republican Party.', 'In fact, they represent much more of where the GOP stands today than McDaniel.', 'So, using NBC’s logic, why not hire them? (', 'Spoiler: News organizations rightfully have established basic standards for paid contributors.', 'Asking that your employees have a commitment to democracy, to the truth, and to basic decency is not a big ask.)', 'But even if Conde has no allegiance to basic democratic principles, which this hire calls into question, given that he is known to be a political player who cares deeply about his own image in the press, he should have been wise enough to foresee that hiring McDaniel would be an ill-conceived move.', 'How this did not occur to Conde is unfathomable and shows a tremendous lack of judgment.', 'Even more bizarre is Conde’s management, or lack thereof, since the controversy erupted.', 'It was clear early on that his employees at NBC News and MSNBC did not support McDaniel’s hiring.', 'If that was not evident on Friday, it was clear as day on Sunday after “Meet the Press.”', 'The network’s employees were not only flabbergasted and demoralized by the move, but absolutely enraged by it.', 'At that point, the writing should have been on the wall for Conde — as it was for every other media executive that I have spoken with over the last 24 hours.', 'It is evident that McDaniel has no real future as an NBC analyst and the decision to bring her on as a contributor will have to be reversed.', 'After all, which NBC or MSNBC program is going to invite her on after all of this?', 'The only real question for Conde after the Sunday morning scolding should have been how he chose to back out of the deal in the least painful way possible.', 'To be fully honest, I very much expected a Sunday evening announcement from NBC, one that would have earned praise from the company’s staff and quickly been swept away by the rush of Trump news Monday morning.', 'But no such announcement came.', 'Instead, Conde has allowed the mess to spiral absolutely out of control.', 'MSNBC’s top stars hammered the network’s leadership throughout the day Monday over the hire.', 'NBC News’ Guild blasted Conde, saying in a statement that under him the company had quietly laid off employees over the last month and instead chosen to “prioritize an election denier over its reporters.”', 'The already severe crisis was allowed to blossom into one of the worst corporate public relations catastrophes in recent memory.', 'All the while, Conde has remained silent.', 'I asked his spokesperson, Stephen Labaton, on Monday whether the NBCU News Group boss had any comment on the situation.', 'Does he have any regret?', 'I didn’t get an on-the-record response.', 'Suffice to say, however, that what Conde does moving forward will say a lot about his character and commitment to democratic values.', 'It will also say a lot about the NBCU News Group and what type of organization it is.', 'In her biting monologue on Monday night, however, Maddow did offer Conde a way out of this mess.', '“Mistakes will be made,” Maddow said.', '”But our resilience as a democracy is going to be recognizing when decisions are bad ones and reversing those bad decisions.', 'Hearing legitimate criticism, responding to it, and correcting course.', 'Not digging in.', 'Not blaming others.', 'Take a minute.', 'Acknowledge that maybe it wasn’t the right call.”', '“It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to acknowledge when you are wrong,” Maddow added. “', 'It is a sign of strength.', 'And our country needs us to be strong now.”']",-0.032955005531589,"Over the last 24 hours, the most prominent and recognizable NBC News and MSNBC personalities have voiced strong displeasure with the company’s decision to welcome McDaniel to “the team.”",The already severe crisis was allowed to blossom into one of the worst corporate public relations catastrophes in recent memory.,-0.5018035081716684,"To be fully honest, I very much expected a Sunday evening announcement from NBC, one that would have earned praise from the company’s staff and quickly been swept away by the rush of Trump news Monday morning.","The network’s employees were not only flabbergasted and demoralized by the move, but absolutely enraged by it.",2024-04-30
"Bilt’s May Rent Day promotion: Redeem points toward rent, get free home decor",https://edition.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/travel/bilt-rent-day-promotion,"
  Updated
        4:22 PM EDT, Thu April 25, 2024
    ","The Bilt Mastercard® (see rates and fees) has been incredibly popular since its inception in 2021. With a top-notch travel rewards program and the opportunity to earn points on rent with no transaction fees (up to 100,000 points per calendar year), it’s no surprise to see the card flourish over the past few years.
    
            In addition, Bilt Rewards — the loyalty program behind the Bilt Mastercard — offers lucrative promotions throughout the year, with the most popular known as Rent Day.
    
            With Bilt’s Rent Day promotion — which runs the first of every month — card members earn double points on all purchases (excluding rent) and can take advantage of a unique promotion that changes every month. Bilt typically announces these promotions just a few days before Rent Day.
    
            Bilt Rewards just announced the May edition of its monthly Rent Day promotion, and for better or for worse, it’s different from offers we’ve seen in the past.
    
            Instead of a travel-related offer (which has been the norm), Bilt is incentivizing members to redeem points toward their monthly rent payment in exchange for a credit toward home decor products in the Bilt Home Collection.
    
            Additionally, Bilt recently announced a new partnership with Blade, a swanky helicopter transfer service that runs scheduled flights between New York City airports and Manhattan’s heliports.
    
            Let’s take a closer look at this upcoming Rent Day promotion and Bilt’s partnership with Blade.
    
            Between April 25 and May 1, Bilt members who redeem points toward their rent payment will get 100% of those points back to redeem toward items in the Bilt Home Collection. You can use a minimum of 1,000 points and a maximum of 50,000 points for this offer, and the Home Collection credit is good for six months.
    
            However, your points are only worth 0.55 cents apiece when you redeem them toward your rent payment. For example, if you redeem 10,000 points toward rent, you’ll get a $55 discount.
    
            Travel website The Points Guy values Bilt Rewards points at 2.05 cents apiece when redeemed toward travel, so this isn’t a great redemption in comparison. However, it might be worth considering this month if you’re looking for new home decor anyway.
    
            The Bilt Home Collection usually has things like artwork from partner artists, interesting vases and different types of cups.
    
            This month, Bilt will also offer curated Rent Day dining experiences at restaurants around the country. This includes unique tasting menus, wine pairings and omakase experiences.
    
            These dining experiences will cost $150, or you can redeem 15,000 Bilt points for you and a guest. Availability will be limited, but you can try to grab a seat on April 26.
    
            Those with Bilt elite status will receive priority access to reservations. Platinum status members will have first access at 12 p.m. EST, Gold status members at 12:10 p.m. EST and Silver status members at 12:20 p.m. EST. All other Bilt Rewards members can book at 12:30 p.m. EST.
    
            Dining experiences will be available at select restaurants in New York, Miami, Seattle, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Boston and Washington, D.C.
    
            Every month on Rent Day, Bilt also gives members with the Bilt Mastercard a chance to earn double points on all purchases (excluding rent).
    
            So, if you have a new restaurant you want to check out, flights to book or any other purchases to make, it could be worth waiting until May 1 to earn more points on your purchase. And if you’re dining at a restaurant that participates in Bilt Dining, you can increase your earnings up to a whopping 11 points per dollar.
    
            But remember, to earn Bilt points with your Bilt Mastercard, you must use the card five times each statement period (see Rewards & Benefits).
    
            Earlier this month, Bilt announced a new partnership with Blade, where Bilt Reward members will earn bonus points on every Blade booking. Members will earn 2 bonus points for every dollar spent on Blade flights as long as they pay with a credit or debit card linked to their Bilt Rewards account.
    
            Again, you’ll get more Blade benefits if you have Bilt elite status.
    
            These are nice benefits to have if you live in New York. Blade has lounges at its heliports on West 30th Street and East 34th Street, both of which are outfitted with a complimentary bar, coffee and free snacks.
    
            If getting a discount on rent is your preferred way to redeem Bilt Rewards points, this month’s Rent Day promotion is a great way to earn bonus points to put toward furnishing your home. If you’d rather redeem toward travel, focus on earning double points on all purchases on May 1.
    
            Learn more and apply now for the Bilt Mastercard.
    
            Looking for a travel credit card? Find out which cards CNN Underscored Money chose as the best travel credit cards currently available.",CNN,25/04/2024,"['The Bilt Mastercard® (seerates and fees) has been incredibly popular since its inception in 2021.', 'With a top-notch travel rewards program and the opportunity to earn points on rent with no transaction fees (up to 100,000 points per calendar year), it’s no surprise to see the card flourish over the past few years.', 'In addition, Bilt Rewards —the loyalty program behind the Bilt Mastercard — offers lucrative promotions throughout the year, with the most popular known as Rent Day.', 'With Bilt’s Rent Day promotion —which runs the first of every month — card members earn double points on all purchases (excluding rent) and can take advantage of a unique promotion that changes every month.', 'Bilt typically announces these promotions just a few days before Rent Day.', 'Bilt Rewards just announced the May edition of its monthly Rent Day promotion, and for better or for worse, it’s different from offers we’ve seen in the past.', 'Instead of a travel-related offer (which has been the norm), Bilt is incentivizing members to redeem points toward their monthly rent payment in exchange for a credit toward home decor products in the Bilt Home Collection.', 'Additionally, Bilt recently announced a new partnership with Blade,a swanky helicopter transfer service that runs scheduled flights between New York City airports and Manhattan’s heliports.', 'Let’s take a closer look at this upcoming Rent Day promotion and Bilt’s partnership with Blade.', 'Between April 25 and May 1, Bilt members who redeem points toward their rent payment will get 100% of those points back to redeem toward items in the Bilt Home Collection.', 'You can use a minimum of 1,000 points and a maximum of 50,000 points for this offer, and the Home Collection credit is good for six months.', 'However, your points are only worth 0.55 cents apiece when you redeem them toward your rent payment.', 'For example, if you redeem 10,000 points toward rent, you’ll get a $55 discount.', 'Travel website The Points Guy values Bilt Rewards points at 2.05 cents apiece when redeemed toward travel, so this isn’t a great redemption in comparison.', 'However, it might be worth considering this month if you’re looking for new home decor anyway.', 'The Bilt Home Collection usually has things like artwork from partner artists, interesting vases and different types of cups.', 'This month, Bilt will also offer curated Rent Day dining experiences at restaurants around the country.', 'This includes unique tasting menus, wine pairings and omakase experiences.', 'These dining experiences will cost $150, or you can redeem 15,000 Bilt points for you and a guest.', 'Availability will be limited, but you can try to grab a seat on April 26.', 'Those with Bilt elite status will receive priority access to reservations.', 'Platinum status members will have first access at 12 p.m. EST, Gold status members at 12:10 p.m. EST and Silver status members at 12:20 p.m. EST.', 'All other Bilt Rewards members can book at 12:30 p.m. EST.', 'Dining experiences will be available at select restaurants in New York, Miami, Seattle, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Boston and Washington, D.C.  Every month on Rent Day, Bilt also gives members with the Bilt Mastercard a chance to earn double points on all purchases (excluding rent).', 'So, if you have a new restaurant you want to check out, flights to book or any other purchases to make, it could be worth waiting until May 1 to earn more points on your purchase.', 'And if you’re dining at a restaurant that participates in Bilt Dining, you can increase your earnings up to a whopping 11 points per dollar.', 'But remember, to earn Bilt points with your Bilt Mastercard, you must use the card five times each statement period (see Rewards & Benefits).', 'Earlier this month, Bilt announced a new partnership with Blade, where Bilt Reward members will earn bonus points on every Blade booking.', 'Members will earn 2 bonus points for every dollar spent on Blade flights as long as they pay with a credit or debit card linked to their Bilt Rewards account.', 'Again, you’ll get more Blade benefits if you have Bilt elite status.', 'These are nice benefits to have if you live in New York.', 'Blade has lounges at its heliports on West 30th Street and East 34th Street, both of which are outfitted with a complimentary bar, coffee and free snacks.', 'If getting a discount on rent is your preferred way to redeem Bilt Rewards points, this month’s Rent Day promotion is a great way to earn bonus points to put toward furnishing your home.', 'If you’d rather redeem toward travel, focus on earning double points on all purchases on May 1.', 'Learn more and apply now for the Bilt Mastercard.', 'Looking for a travel credit card?', 'Find out which cardsCNN Underscored Moneychose as thebest travel credit cardscurrently available.']",0.3487739443917381,"Travel website The Points Guy values Bilt Rewards points at 2.05 cents apiece when redeemed toward travel, so this isn’t a great redemption in comparison.",,0.978265517950058,"And if you’re dining at a restaurant that participates in Bilt Dining, you can increase your earnings up to a whopping 11 points per dollar.",,2024-04-30
US economic growth slows but inflation grows,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68898432,2024-04-25T14:09:40.000Z,"The US economy grew by less than forecast in the first three months of this year but inflation gathered pace, which could delay an interest rate cut.  Official figures revealed the economy expanded at an annualised rate of 1.6%, far below expectations and the growth seen in the final months of 2023. Meanwhile, inflation, which measures the pace of price rises, has increased. At the start of the year, experts had been forecasting a series of interest rate cuts in the US. However, inflation is yet to fall back to the Federal Reserve's 2% target, and on Thursday, figures from the US Department of Commerce showed that inflation increased by 3.4% in the first three months of 2024. This is compared to an increase of 1.8% in the final three months of 2023. Raising interest rates makes borrowing - for things such as loans and mortgages - more expensive and theoretically is meant to encourage people to spend less. The idea is that this helps to bring inflation down by dampening demand. However, US inflation has not fallen back as quickly as expected. At the same time, economic growth - measured as gross domestic product (GDP) - has slowed from 3.4% growth in the final three months of last year to 1.6%. Economists had been expected it to decelerate but only to 2.4%. Olu Sonola, head of US economic research at Fitch, the credit rating agency, said: ""The hot inflation print is the real story in this report. ""If growth continues to slowly decelerate, but inflation strongly takes off again in the wrong direction, the expectation of a Fed interest rate cut in 2024 is starting to look increasingly more out of reach."" The key US interest rate is between 5.25% to 5.5% - the highest level in more than 20 years. Stuart Cole, chief macro economist at Equiti Capital in London, said the US Federal Reserve, which sets interest rates, was ""now finding itself caught between a rock and a hard place"". ""The growth numbers suggest monetary policy has worked its magic and the Fed's foot on the monetary brake can be eased somewhat,"" he said. ""But the inflation figures suggest otherwise, and potentially even point to the need for a further tightening."" The 1.6% growth figure is the first estimate of GDP. A second reading, ""based on more complete source data"", will be released on 30 May. Nevertheless, the economy is a key issue as the US heads towards an election later this year. ",BBC,25/04/2024,"['The US economy grew by less than forecast in the first three months of this year but inflation gathered pace, which could delay an interest rate cut.', 'Official figures revealed the economy expanded at an annualised rate of 1.6%, far below expectations and the growth seen in the final months of 2023.', 'Meanwhile, inflation, which measures the pace of price rises, has increased.', 'At the start of the year, experts had been forecasting a series of interest rate cuts in the US.', ""However, inflation is yet to fall back to the Federal Reserve's 2% target, and on Thursday, figures from the US Department of Commerce showed that inflation increased by 3.4% in the first three months of 2024."", 'This is compared to an increase of 1.8% in the final three months of 2023.', 'Raising interest rates makes borrowing - for things such as loans and mortgages - more expensive and theoretically is meant to encourage people to spend less.', 'The idea is that this helps to bring inflation down by dampening demand.', 'However, US inflation has not fallen back as quickly as expected.', 'At the same time, economic growth - measured as gross domestic product (GDP) - has slowed from 3.4% growth in the final three months of last year to 1.6%.', 'Economists had been expected it to decelerate but only to 2.4%.', 'Olu Sonola, head of US economic research at Fitch, the credit rating agency, said: ""The hot inflation print is the real story in this report. ""', 'If growth continues to slowly decelerate, but inflation strongly takes off again in the wrong direction, the expectation of a Fed interest rate cut in 2024 is starting to look increasingly more out of reach.""', 'The key US interest rate is between 5.25% to 5.5% - the highest level in more than 20 years.', 'Stuart Cole, chief macro economist at Equiti Capital in London, said the US Federal Reserve, which sets interest rates, was ""now finding itself caught between a rock and a hard place"". ""', 'The growth numbers suggest monetary policy has worked its magic and the Fed\'s foot on the monetary brake can be eased somewhat,"" he said. ""', 'But the inflation figures suggest otherwise, and potentially even point to the need for a further tightening.""', 'The 1.6% growth figure is the first estimate of GDP.', 'A second reading, ""based on more complete source data"", will be released on 30 May.', 'Nevertheless, the economy is a key issue as the US heads towards an election later this year.']",0.2672875493103288,Raising interest rates makes borrowing - for things such as loans and mortgages - more expensive and theoretically is meant to encourage people to spend less.,"The US economy grew by less than forecast in the first three months of this year but inflation gathered pace, which could delay an interest rate cut.",0.1737287600835164,"Official figures revealed the economy expanded at an annualised rate of 1.6%, far below expectations and the growth seen in the final months of 2023.","At the same time, economic growth - measured as gross domestic product (GDP) - has slowed from 3.4% growth in the final three months of last year to 1.6%.",2024-04-30
The challenge of upgrading iconic steel windows,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68777865,2024-04-15T23:11:05.000Z,"Every winter, architect Kevin Adams would perform his early morning ritual of devotion. Cloth in hand, he'd head to the stylish Crittall windows in the East London flat where he once lived - because these windows, though stylish, were also sopping wet. ""You'd know to expect it - you wipe it down, you open the window as soon as you can, you don't let it puddle or rot the sills,"" he says of the moisture that used to form on the single-glazing and thin steel frames of his windows when the weather was cold. ""I put up with it because I loved them. We do all kinds of things for love, don't we?"" Not everyone who has lived with vintage steel-framed windows feels so affectionate towards them, however. Crittall Windows became synonymous both with modernism - and condensation, which can lead to serious problems such as mould, says Mr Adams, a teaching fellow at the Edinburgh College of Art.  While many consider such windows iconic and a key part of British architectural heritage, given today's high energy prices and rising awareness around the dangers of mould, efficient windows have become essential. Crittall, like all other companies in the glazing industry, has had to stay relevant to survive. The firm, now based in Witham, Essex, has been manufacturing steel-framed windows since the 1880s. The frames Crittall developed could be mass produced, then simply cut and welded to fit an array of standard window sizes. The style was popular in both commercial and residential buildings during the 1920s and 1930s but also after World War Two, says Adams. ""Perfect for a post-war economy that was mass building without much money and with a shortage of materials,"" he explains. Factories and warehouses often benefitted from metal-framed windows - lightweight but strong steel meant the frames could be extra thin, allowing more room for glass, which let natural light flood through. Workers appreciated this - but so did the wealthy, who wanted light, airy homes. A large, art deco country house built by Walter Crittall in the 1930s was listed for sale last year at £1.65m.  On the Crittall factory floor today, there is a machine that dates to the 1920s. It is still used occasionally for gently bending steel frame sections into curved pieces, says managing director Russell Ager: ""It's an incredible piece of kit."" But the company has moved on in many other ways, he stresses, and nearby machines in the building are now state-of-the-art. ""We've done so much work to improve the thermal performance of the products,"" adds Mr Ager. Today you can get double and even triple-glazed Crittall windows. And crucially, the steel frames are now made with a thermal break, a glass fibre section of insulation within the frame that prevents heat escaping through its structure. The lack of a thermal break is what made the older frames so prone to becoming cold when the weather outside was chilly. Cold glass and steel encourage moisture in the indoor air to condense. The latest Crittall windows can achieve a U-value - a measure of their insulating performance - as low as 0.8, which is better than standard double-glazed windows. They are heftier than the vintage versions but Crittall has retained the classic look of relatively skinny metal frames and rectangular or square panes of glass. TikTok and Instagram accounts focusing on home décor often feature windows such as this, though Crittall has many competitors now that make similar-looking products, admits Mr Ager. According to Mr Adams, in the post-war era, there weren't many other firms operating in the same market as Crittall in the UK. But that has changed. Many companies, including KJM Group and Velfac offer aluminium alternatives. And there are other steel window makers out there, too, such as Fabco. ""Most consumers… buy our product because they love the look of it,"" says Mr Ager. Business, at the moment, is good. During the early stage of the Covid-19 pandemic, Crittall's sales to residential customers seeking to improve their properties spiked by 30%. And while this was then followed by a decrease, currently the firm's orders in 2024 are up 20% on last year already, says Mr Ager. More technology of business Dated heritage installations reaching the end of their life present another opportunity. Crittall recently replaced 100-year-old windows that the firm had made for a building in Central London with new, energy efficient versions of the same products. This kind of upgrade is not accessible to all, however, because of the relatively high cost of contemporary glazing, notes Claire Bennie, director of Municipal, a housing design and development consultancy. ""Every year we have a chat about it at our AGM and everyone is afraid of taking the plunge,"" she says, referring to residents' meetings at the block of 1930s flats in London where she lives. The old Crittall windows in the property give the building ""elegance"", says Ms Bennie but also makes them ""freezing"". Her own flat's windows are not prone to condensation - but only because they are so draughty that they stay well-ventilated, she explains.  It will be increasingly difficult to justify the installation of new metal-framed windows in the future because of the embodied carbon in materials such as steel, says Ms Bennie. To reduce emissions and tackle climate change, sustainable timber building products ought to become more and more prominent, she argues. Mr Ager says Crittall windows are made with 100% recycled steel and the company is working to make its products and operations as sustainable as possible. Other challenges facing the company in the coming years, include the possibility that building regulations in England will change, so as to demand extremely energy efficient windows in new build properties. Stricter standards could mean a need to make the frames thicker still and even better insulated, says Mr Ager: ""The frames would almost become unrecognisable. It would be a big issue for anybody that makes a metal frame."" Sustainability is paramount, stresses Ms Bennie, but she does say the ergonomic design of Crittall windows is hard to beat. The windows are often easy to open into a position where you can reach outside and clean them yourself, for instance. And the classic balcony doors made by the firm fold back neatly so as not to take up precious space outside. ""I wish modern window manufacturers would take a lesson from Crittall,"" she says, ""In how to make windows liveable and a pleasure to use.""  ",BBC,15/04/2024,"['Every winter, architect Kevin Adams would perform his early morning ritual of devotion.', 'Cloth in hand, he\'d head to the stylish Crittall windows in the East London flat where he once lived - because these windows, though stylish, were also sopping wet. ""', 'You\'d know to expect it - you wipe it down, you open the window as soon as you can, you don\'t let it puddle or rot the sills,"" he says of the moisture that used to form on the single-glazing and thin steel frames of his windows when the weather was cold. ""', 'I put up with it because I loved them.', 'We do all kinds of things for love, don\'t we?""', 'Not everyone who has lived with vintage steel-framed windows feels so affectionate towards them, however.', 'Crittall Windows became synonymous both with modernism - and condensation, which can lead to serious problems such as mould, says Mr Adams, a teaching fellow at the Edinburgh College of Art.', ""While many consider such windows iconic and a key part of British architectural heritage, given today's high energy prices and rising awareness around the dangers of mould, efficient windows have become essential."", 'Crittall, like all other companies in the glazing industry, has had to stay relevant to survive.', 'The firm, now based in Witham, Essex, has been manufacturing steel-framed windows since the 1880s.', 'The frames Crittall developed could be mass produced, then simply cut and welded to fit an array of standard window sizes.', 'The style was popular in both commercial and residential buildings during the 1920s and 1930s but also after World War Two, says Adams. ""', 'Perfect for a post-war economy that was mass building without much money and with a shortage of materials,"" he explains.', 'Factories and warehouses often benefitted from metal-framed windows - lightweight but strong steel meant the frames could be extra thin, allowing more room for glass, which let natural light flood through.', 'Workers appreciated this - but so did the wealthy, who wanted light, airy homes.', 'A large, art deco country house built by Walter Crittall in the 1930s was listed for sale last year at £1.65m. On the Crittall factory floor today, there is a machine that dates to the 1920s.', 'It is still used occasionally for gently bending steel frame sections into curved pieces, says managing director Russell Ager: ""It\'s an incredible piece of kit.""', 'But the company has moved on in many other ways, he stresses, and nearby machines in the building are now state-of-the-art. ""', 'We\'ve done so much work to improve the thermal performance of the products,"" adds Mr Ager.', 'Today you can get double and even triple-glazed Crittall windows.', 'And crucially, the steel frames are now made with a thermal break, a glass fibre section of insulation within the frame that prevents heat escaping through its structure.', 'The lack of a thermal break is what made the older frames so prone to becoming cold when the weather outside was chilly.', 'Cold glass and steel encourage moisture in the indoor air to condense.', 'The latest Crittall windows can achieve a U-value - a measure of their insulating performance - as low as 0.8, which is better than standard double-glazed windows.', 'They are heftier than the vintage versions but Crittall has retained the classic look of relatively skinny metal frames and rectangular or square panes of glass.', 'TikTok and Instagram accounts focusing on home décor often feature windows such as this, though Crittall has many competitors now that make similar-looking products, admits Mr Ager.', ""According to Mr Adams, in the post-war era, there weren't many other firms operating in the same market as Crittall in the UK."", 'But that has changed.', 'Many companies, including KJM Group and Velfac offer aluminium alternatives.', 'And there are other steel window makers out there, too, such as Fabco. ""', 'Most consumers… buy our product because they love the look of it,"" says Mr Ager.', 'Business, at the moment, is good.', ""During the early stage of the Covid-19 pandemic, Crittall's sales to residential customers seeking to improve their properties spiked by 30%."", ""And while this was then followed by a decrease, currently the firm's orders in 2024 are up 20% on last year already, says Mr Ager."", 'More technology of business Dated heritage installations reaching the end of their life present another opportunity.', 'Crittall recently replaced 100-year-old windows that the firm had made for a building in Central London with new, energy efficient versions of the same products.', 'This kind of upgrade is not accessible to all, however, because of the relatively high cost of contemporary glazing, notes Claire Bennie, director of Municipal, a housing design and development consultancy. ""', 'Every year we have a chat about it at our AGM and everyone is afraid of taking the plunge,"" she says, referring to residents\' meetings at the block of 1930s flats in London where she lives.', 'The old Crittall windows in the property give the building ""elegance"", says Ms Bennie but also makes them ""freezing"".', ""Her own flat's windows are not prone to condensation - but only because they are so draughty that they stay well-ventilated, she explains."", 'It will be increasingly difficult to justify the installation of new metal-framed windows in the future because of the embodied carbon in materials such as steel, says Ms Bennie.', 'To reduce emissions and tackle climate change, sustainable timber building products ought to become more and more prominent, she argues.', 'Mr Ager says Crittall windows are made with 100% recycled steel and the company is working to make its products and operations as sustainable as possible.', 'Other challenges facing the company in the coming years, include the possibility that building regulations in England will change, so as to demand extremely energy efficient windows in new build properties.', 'Stricter standards could mean a need to make the frames thicker still and even better insulated, says Mr Ager: ""The frames would almost become unrecognisable.', 'It would be a big issue for anybody that makes a metal frame.""', 'Sustainability is paramount, stresses Ms Bennie, but she does say the ergonomic design of Crittall windows is hard to beat.', 'The windows are often easy to open into a position where you can reach outside and clean them yourself, for instance.', 'And the classic balcony doors made by the firm fold back neatly so as not to take up precious space outside. ""', 'I wish modern window manufacturers would take a lesson from Crittall,"" she says, ""In how to make windows liveable and a pleasure to use.""']",0.2012343859627007,"Factories and warehouses often benefitted from metal-framed windows - lightweight but strong steel meant the frames could be extra thin, allowing more room for glass, which let natural light flood through.","The style was popular in both commercial and residential buildings during the 1920s and 1930s but also after World War Two, says Adams. """,0.3039323623691286,"And while this was then followed by a decrease, currently the firm's orders in 2024 are up 20% on last year already, says Mr Ager.","Perfect for a post-war economy that was mass building without much money and with a shortage of materials,"" he explains.",2024-04-30
Microsoft stock hits all-time high after hiring former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman,https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/20/investing/microsoft-stock-record-high-altman-openai/index.html,"
  Updated
        4:19 PM EST, Mon November 20, 2023
    ","Microsoft stock reached a record high on Monday after the company said that Sam Altman, former chief executive of OpenAI, will join the company to head its artificial intelligence innovation leg.
    
            Shares of the tech behemoth rose 2.1% to an all-time high close of $377.44 on Monday, beating the previous record of $376.17.
    
            That comes after shares of Microsoft fell 1.7% on Friday, when Sam Altman was ousted from his position at OpenAI in a boardroom coup. Microsoft is the artificial intelligence firm’s biggest stakeholder, with a $13 billion investment in the company.
    
            Greg Brockman, who co-founded OpenAI and quit after Altman’s firing, is also joining Microsoft.
    
            Altman’s hiring ended days of speculation that the former chief executive could return to the firm after his dramatic firing. Emmett Shear, former CEO of Amazon-owned streaming service Twitch, will replace OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati as interim chief executive.
    
            Microsoft shares are up about 56% for the year. The stock is one of the “Magnificent Seven” that have powered the lion’s share of the market’s returns this year, boosted by Wall Street’s bet that artificial intelligence is the next big thing in tech.
    
            Dan Ives, tech analyst at Wedbush Securities, reiterated his $425 price target for Microsoft’s stock following Altman’s and Brockman’s hires.
    
            “We view Microsoft now even in a stronger position from an AI perspective with Altman and Brockman” at the company, Ives wrote in a note on Monday.
    
            Other members of the “Magnificent Seven” saw a boost on Monday. Nvidia shares gained 2.3% to end the trading session at $504.20 ahead of its earnings due on Tuesday, notching a record-high close for the chipmaker.",CNN,20/11/2023,"['Microsoft stock reached a record high on Monday after the company said that Sam Altman, former chief executive of OpenAI, will join the company to head its artificial intelligence innovation leg.', 'Shares of the tech behemoth rose 2.1% to an all-time high close of $377.44 on Monday, beating the previous record of $376.17.', 'That comes after shares of Microsoft fell 1.7% on Friday, when Sam Altman was ousted from his position at OpenAI in a boardroom coup.', 'Microsoft is the artificial intelligence firm’s biggest stakeholder, with a $13 billion investment in the company.', 'Greg Brockman, who co-founded OpenAI and quit after Altman’s firing, is also joining Microsoft.', 'Altman’s hiring ended days of speculation that the former chief executive could return to the firm after his dramatic firing.', 'Emmett Shear, former CEO of Amazon-owned streaming service Twitch, will replace OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati as interim chief executive.', 'Microsoft shares are up about 56% for the year.', 'The stock is one of the “Magnificent Seven” that have powered the lion’s share of the market’s returns this year, boosted by Wall Street’s bet that artificial intelligence is the next big thing in tech.', 'Dan Ives, tech analyst at Wedbush Securities, reiterated his $425 price target for Microsoft’s stock following Altman’s and Brockman’s hires.', '“We view Microsoft now even in a stronger position from an AI perspective with Altman and Brockman” at the company, Ives wrote in a note on Monday.', 'Other members of the “Magnificent Seven” saw a boost on Monday.', 'Nvidia shares gained 2.3% to end the trading session at $504.20 ahead of its earnings due on Tuesday, notching a record-high close for the chipmaker.']",0.3148943375907157,"The stock is one of the “Magnificent Seven” that have powered the lion’s share of the market’s returns this year, boosted by Wall Street’s bet that artificial intelligence is the next big thing in tech.","Greg Brockman, who co-founded OpenAI and quit after Altman’s firing, is also joining Microsoft.",0.7688216765721639,Microsoft shares are up about 56% for the year.,"That comes after shares of Microsoft fell 1.7% on Friday, when Sam Altman was ousted from his position at OpenAI in a boardroom coup.",2024-04-30
When will the Fed begin to cut interest rates? It’s a mystery,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/30/investing/premarket-stocks-trading-fed-first-interest-rates-cut/index.html,"
  Published
        7:45 AM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024
    ","A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.
    
            Nowadays, it’s anyone’s guess when the Federal Reserve will begin to cut interest rates this year — if at all.
    
            Fed officials are meeting this week, starting Tuesday, to discuss rates and set policy. They’re widely expected to hold rates steady for the sixth straight meeting. But analysts are hoping for some much needed clarity on what to the expect from the central bank in the coming months.
    
            That guidance will be key for market observers who clearly have divergent views on interest rates. Forecasts from major Wall Street banks on the first rate cut are all over the place: JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs expect the first cut in July, while Wells Fargo is betting on September. Bank of America doesn’t expect the first cut until December. Some Fed policymakers, meanwhile, have even floated the possibility of a rate hike, instead of a cut.
    
            According to the futures market, Wall Street’s best bet on the first cut is September — and not by a lot. There is currently a roughly 44% chance of the Fed cutting rates in September versus a 42% chance of another pause, the CME FedWatch Tool shows. The odds of an initial cut in November are a bit lower.
    
            “Right now, everybody seems to be just throwing a dart and saying when they think they’re going to start cutting rates,” Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, told CNN in an interview last week. “There needs to be this analysis on what conditions will occur between now and whenever they start cutting.”
    
            Economic forecasts sometimes miss the mark (at times, by a lot), and Fed economists frequently mention that their projections come with a “high degree of uncertainty,” according to minutes from the Fed meeting in March.
    
            That uncertainty seems to have worsened recently. After inflation rates tumbled throughout 2023, progress stalled in the first quarter of the year, which forced giddy investors who once priced in several rate cuts starting in the spring to re-calibrate their forecasts. That reflects the proverbial “bumpiness” of inflation’s journey back down to the central bank’s 2% target, a point that Fed Chair Jerome Powell often makes.
    
            The string of hotter-than-expected inflation readings was a rude awakening itself, but the latest data on US gross domestic product released last week also raised fears of stagflation, which is an economic phenomenon in which inflation is high but growth deteriorates. It is still way too early to determine whether the US economy is indeed in a period of stagflation since first-quarter GDP will be revised two times in the coming months.
    
            However, it further muddled views of the broader US economy’s health and trajectory. The Fed remains squarely focused on fighting inflation, though, since the job market is currently one of the strongest in history with unemployment still under 4%. The central bank is tasked by Congress to stabilize prices and maximize employment.
    
            “We believe that if inflation continues to remain persistent through May, it is unlikely we will see a rate cut until July or September,” Kathleen Grace, managing member and chief executive of Fiduciary Family Office, said in a note Monday.
    
            The Labor Department releases April data gauging the state of the US labor market on Friday, including monthly payroll growth, wage gains and the unemployment rate.
    
            As US supply chains decouple from China, Mexico’s manufacturing sector is emerging as a winner.
    
            Manufacturing in Mexico is attractive for companies that experienced pandemic-era supply chain snarls or want to decrease reliance on trade between the United States and China amid geopolitical uncertainty, reports my colleague John Towfighi.
    
            That’s called “nearshoring,” which is when companies bring production facilities closer to home markets.
    
            As nearshoring continues and global supply chains are reorganized, Mexico’s manufacturing sector has an opportunity for long-term success, according to Alberto Ramos, head of Latin American economics research at Goldman Sachs, who spoke with CNN.
    
            Ramos said Mexico and China have been competing for the US manufacturing market for years, but amid a shifting US-China relationship, Mexico looks poised to pull ahead.Mexico surpassed China as the top exporter to the United States in 2023. Those exports were driven by manufacturing, which comprises 40% of Mexico’s economy, according to Morgan Stanley.
    
            US imports from Mexico continued to increase in February, according to April 4 trade data released by the Commerce Department. Meanwhile, Chinese exports to the United States were down 20% in 2023 compared to 2022.
    
            Read more here.
    
            For Cindy Westman, the internet is a literal lifeline. She depends on internet access to care for her 12-year-old daughter — who has cerebral palsy and autism — by messaging doctors, accessing test results and scheduling critical medical appointments virtually, report my colleagues Brian Fung and Jason Carroll.
    
            But it’s not easy to stay connected in Westman’s small, rural town of Eureka, Illinois. With a population of 5,100, many of Eureka’s residents struggle to afford food and oil changes, let alone home internet.
    
            “When we’re on the go and she’s hungry, I feed her and then I’ll come home and eat,” said Westman, who is 43. “She doesn’t know any better, because with her developmental disability, all she knows is, ‘(I’m) hungry, and Mom feeds me.’”
    
            Since 2021, struggling Americans like Westman — who gave up a career in information security to care for her child — have made ends meet with the help of a popular federal benefit known as the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which covers home internet service.
    
            For Westman, who gets by on Social Security disability payments, the monthly credits of up to $30 from the government make all the difference, covering her entire internet bill.
    
            Read more here.",CNN,30/04/2024,"['A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter.', 'Not a subscriber?', 'You can sign upright here.', 'You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.', 'Nowadays, it’s anyone’s guess when the Federal Reserve will begin to cut interest rates this year — if at all.', 'Fed officials are meeting this week, starting Tuesday, to discuss rates and set policy.', 'They’re widely expected to hold rates steady for the sixth straight meeting.', 'But analysts are hoping for some much needed clarity on what to the expect from the central bank in the coming months.', 'That guidance will be key for market observers who clearly have divergent views on interest rates.', 'Forecasts from major Wall Street banks on the first rate cut are all over the place: JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs expect the first cut in July, while Wells Fargo is betting on September.', 'Bank of America doesn’t expect the first cut until December.', 'Some Fed policymakers, meanwhile, have even floated the possibility of a rate hike, instead of a cut.', 'According to the futures market, Wall Street’s best bet on the first cut is September — and not by a lot.', 'There is currently a roughly 44% chance of the Fed cutting rates in September versus a 42% chance of another pause, the CME FedWatch Tool shows.', 'The odds of an initial cut in November are a bit lower.', '“Right now, everybody seems to be just throwing a dart and saying when they think they’re going to start cutting rates,” Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, told CNN in an interview last week. “', 'There needs to be this analysis on what conditions will occur between now and whenever they start cutting.”', 'Economic forecasts sometimes miss the mark (at times, by a lot), and Fed economists frequently mention that their projections come with a “high degree of uncertainty,” according to minutes from the Fed meeting in March.', 'That uncertainty seems to have worsened recently.', 'After inflation rates tumbled throughout 2023, progress stalled in the first quarter of the year, which forced giddy investors who once priced in several rate cuts starting in the spring to re-calibrate their forecasts.', 'That reflects the proverbial “bumpiness” of inflation’s journey back down to the central bank’s 2% target, a point that Fed Chair Jerome Powell often makes.', 'The string of hotter-than-expected inflation readings was a rude awakening itself, but the latest data on US gross domestic product released last week also raised fears of stagflation, which is an economic phenomenon in which inflation is high but growth deteriorates.', 'It is still way too early to determine whether the US economy is indeed in a period of stagflation since first-quarter GDP will be revised two times in the coming months.', 'However, it further muddled views of the broader US economy’s health and trajectory.', 'The Fed remains squarely focused on fighting inflation, though, since the job market is currently one of the strongest in history with unemployment still under 4%.', 'The central bank is tasked by Congress to stabilize prices and maximize employment.', '“We believe that if inflation continues to remain persistent through May, it is unlikely we will see a rate cut until July or September,”Kathleen Grace, managing member and chief executive ofFiduciary Family Office, said in a note Monday.', 'The Labor Department releases April data gauging the state of the US labor market on Friday, including monthly payroll growth, wage gains and the unemployment rate.', 'As US supply chains decouple from China, Mexico’s manufacturing sector is emerging as a winner.', 'Manufacturing in Mexico is attractive for companies that experienced pandemic-era supply chain snarls or want to decrease reliance on trade between the United States and China amid geopolitical uncertainty, reports my colleague John Towfighi.', 'That’s called “nearshoring,” which is when companiesbring production facilities closer to home markets.', 'As nearshoring continues and global supply chains are reorganized, Mexico’s manufacturing sector has an opportunity for long-term success, according to Alberto Ramos, head of Latin American economics research at Goldman Sachs, who spoke with CNN.', 'Ramos said Mexico and China have been competing for the US manufacturing market for years, but amid a shifting US-China relationship, Mexico looks poised to pull ahead.', 'Mexico surpassed China as the top exporter to the United States in 2023.', 'Those exports were driven by manufacturing, which comprises 40% of Mexico’s economy, according to Morgan Stanley.', 'US imports from Mexico continued to increase in February, according to April 4 trade data released by the Commerce Department.', 'Meanwhile, Chinese exports to the United States were down 20%in 2023 compared to 2022.', 'Read more here.', 'For Cindy Westman, the internet is a literal lifeline.', 'She depends on internet access to care for her 12-year-old daughter — who has cerebral palsy and autism — by messaging doctors, accessing test results and scheduling critical medical appointments virtually, report my colleaguesBrian FungandJason Carroll.', 'But it’s not easy to stay connected in Westman’s small, rural town of Eureka, Illinois.', 'With a population of 5,100, many of Eureka’s residents struggle to afford food and oil changes, let alone home internet.', '“When we’re on the go and she’s hungry, I feed her and then I’ll come home and eat,” said Westman, who is 43. “', 'She doesn’t know any better, because with her developmental disability, all she knows is, ‘(I’m) hungry, and Mom feeds me.’”', 'Since 2021, struggling Americans like Westman — who gave up a career in information security to care for her child — have made ends meet with the help of a popular federal benefit known as the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which covers home internet service.', 'For Westman, who gets by on Social Security disability payments,the monthly credits of up to $30 from the government make all the difference, covering her entire internet bill.', 'Read more here.']",0.0860482291629728,"Since 2021, struggling Americans like Westman — who gave up a career in information security to care for her child — have made ends meet with the help of a popular federal benefit known as the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which covers home internet service.","The string of hotter-than-expected inflation readings was a rude awakening itself, but the latest data on US gross domestic product released last week also raised fears of stagflation, which is an economic phenomenon in which inflation is high but growth deteriorates.",0.0026192143559455,"As nearshoring continues and global supply chains are reorganized, Mexico’s manufacturing sector has an opportunity for long-term success, according to Alberto Ramos, head of Latin American economics research at Goldman Sachs, who spoke with CNN.","After inflation rates tumbled throughout 2023, progress stalled in the first quarter of the year, which forced giddy investors who once priced in several rate cuts starting in the spring to re-calibrate their forecasts.",2024-04-30
"Professional pickleball signs first international deal, looks to grow the sport in India",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/us-pro-pickleball-group-signs-first-international-deal-in-india.html,2024-04-25T19:41:55+0000,"America's fastest-growing sport, pickleball, is going after a new frontier: India.The United Pickleball Association and Global Sports announced a deal on Thursday to bring the PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball to the world's most populous country.It's the first international deal and major announcement for the United Pickleball Association, which was created after a merger between Major League Pickleball and the Professional Pickleball Association last February.The PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball retained their own distinct brands after the merger. The PPA Tour features an individual bracket-style tour, while MLP is a team-based format.Terms of the deal were not available.""The PPA Tour India and MLP India will create a pathway for players to compete on pickleball's biggest stage and reach the top of the sport. With the partnership of Global Sports, we will elevate the game and introduce it to millions of new fans,"" said Connor Pardoe, founder and CEO of the PPA Tour.As part of the partnership, the PPA Tour will make an official tour stop in India next February. The Indian Open event will be the debut PPA Tour event in Asia and is expected to bring players from all over the world to participate.The deal will also launch PPA Tour India, offering ranking points to players at events around the country.Major League Pickleball, the team-based league, will hold a competition in India featuring a mix of players from India, as well as MLP and PPA Tour professionals.United Pickleball Association said the group also plans to hold an open process to sell MLP franchises, with the goal of launching a full 12-team season in 2025-26.Franchises are expected to cost in the seven-figure range, according to sources.In September, Major League Pickleball announced its expansion into Australia.The APP Tour, which represents both amateurs and seniors, has also been active in bringing the sport overseas to India, the United Kingdom, Spain and Sweden.Global Sports, which was at the forefront of bringing pickleball to India, operates courts and organizes tournaments in India.""Pickleball in India has grown by leaps in the last couple of years, and this will give existing players a platform to compete at the highest level,"" said Shashank Khaitan, partner at Global Sports.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"[""America's fastest-growing sport, pickleball, is going after a new frontier: India."", ""The United Pickleball Association and Global Sports announced a deal on Thursday to bring the PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball to the world's most populous country."", ""It's the first international deal and major announcement for the United Pickleball Association, which was created after a merger between Major League Pickleball and the Professional Pickleball Association last February."", 'The PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball retained their own distinct brands after the merger.', 'The PPA Tour features an individual bracket-style tour, while MLP is a team-based format.', 'Terms of the deal were not available.', '""The PPA Tour India and MLP India will create a pathway for players to compete on pickleball\'s biggest stage and reach the top of the sport.', 'With the partnership of Global Sports, we will elevate the game and introduce it to millions of new fans,"" said Connor Pardoe, founder and CEO of the PPA Tour.', 'As part of the partnership, the PPA Tour will make an official tour stop in India next February.', 'The Indian Open event will be the debut PPA Tour event in Asia and is expected to bring players from all over the world to participate.', 'The deal will also launch PPA Tour India, offering ranking points to players at events around the country.', 'Major League Pickleball, the team-based league, will hold a competition in India featuring a mix of players from India, as well as MLP and PPA Tour professionals.', 'United Pickleball Association said the group also plans to hold an open process to sell MLP franchises, with the goal of launching a full 12-team season in 2025-26.Franchises are expected to cost in the seven-figure range, according to sources.', 'In September, Major League Pickleball announced its expansion into Australia.', 'The APP Tour, which represents both amateurs and seniors, has also been active in bringing the sport overseas to India, the United Kingdom, Spain and Sweden.', 'Global Sports, which was at the forefront of bringing pickleball to India, operates courts and organizes tournaments in India.', '""Pickleball in India has grown by leaps in the last couple of years, and this will give existing players a platform to compete at the highest level,"" said Shashank Khaitan, partner at Global Sports.']",0.1651015723437605,"The APP Tour, which represents both amateurs and seniors, has also been active in bringing the sport overseas to India, the United Kingdom, Spain and Sweden.","As part of the partnership, the PPA Tour will make an official tour stop in India next February.",0.9883124828338624,"""Pickleball in India has grown by leaps in the last couple of years, and this will give existing players a platform to compete at the highest level,"" said Shashank Khaitan, partner at Global Sports.",,2024-04-30
How to make high interest rates work for your hard-earned savings,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/20/success/interest-rates-savings-cash/index.html,"
  Published
        3:00 PM EDT, Wed March 20, 2024
    ","The Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate remains at a 23-year high. That’s thanks to the central bank’s decision Wednesday to once again hold it steady, as it has done at the policy-making committee’s past five meetings.
    
            That decision may be disappointing to some investors, homebuyers and those with a lot of credit card debt, since movement in the Fed’s overnight lending rate influences rates — directly or indirectly — on consumer financial products (e.g., credit cards, bank loans and mortgages).
    
            But with the Fed signaling that no rate cuts are likely until summer, it also means anyone with savings still has at least a few more months to make hay of their stash.
    
            That’s because you can still get inflation-beating interest rates that will grow any money you have set aside for emergencies, vacations, down payments or any other goal in your sights over the next several years.
    
            However, that won’t happen if you just let it sit in a traditional checking or savings account that yields next to nothing. There are more lucrative, low-risk options out there, with rates that are still at or near their peaks. “But perhaps not for much longer,” said Ted Rossman, senior analyst at Bankrate. “If one of those fits into your financial plans, it’s best to act soon.”
    
            So, consider the following options when deciding where to park your hard-earned savings.
    
            The average annual percentage yield on bank savings accounts was just 0.52% as of March 13, according to Bankrate. That average is kept low by the biggest brick-and-mortar banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, which still are offering a paltry 0.01%.
    
            By contrast, there are still FDIC-insured online banks offering inflation-beating rates of between 4.35% and 5.35% on their high-yield savings accounts. Generally speaking, these are the best vehicles in which to keep your emergency funds for quick, easy access.
    
            Choosing between an account that pays 0.52% and one that pays 5.35% can mean forfeiting hundreds of dollars in interest. “If you put $10,000 in a savings account, that’s a difference of $496 in interest earnings over the course of the year, assuming monthly compounding,” Rossman said.
    
            While the rates on high-yield savings accounts have gone down a bit in recent months, “widespread cuts in online savings account rates are unlikely until the first Fed rate cut is near,” said Ken Tumin, founder of DepositAccounts.com.
    
            As with any bank savings rate, high-yield savings account rates can change overnight, and the bank may not alert you when it lowers it. So make sure to check your monthly statement.
    
            Another high-return, low-risk investment that is great for money you likely won’t need to tap for a few months or even a couple of years is a certificate of deposit.
    
            You can get the best returns on CDs through a brokerage such as Schwab, E*Trade or Fidelity. That’s because you can comparison shop for CDs from any number of FDIC-insured banks and will not have to set up individual accounts with each institution.
    
            As of March 13, the average rate on a one-year CD was 1.95%, but some banks are offering as much are 5.4%.
    
            If you can get a one-year CD at, say, 5.4%, you will make $540 on a $10,000 investment.
    
            To get the greatest benefit from a CD, you have to leave the money invested for a fixed period. You can always access your principal sooner if you need to, but there may be early withdrawal penalties.
    
            As of March 20, CDs listed on Schwab.com with durations from three months up to three years were all yielding between 5.2% and 5.51%. CD rates on durations between four and 10 years ranged from 4.40% to 5.15%.
    
            Say you invest $10,000 in a one-year CD with a 5.36% APY. At the end of that period, you’d get your principal back plus $536 in interest when the CD matures, according to Bankrate’s CD calculator. If you chose a two-year CD at 5.25%, you’d bank an extra $1,078, assuming compounding interest. The same investment in a five-year CD at 5.15% would earn $2,854.
    
            “It makes sense to go long with CDs. To hedge your bets, include terms from one to five years. Starting a CD ladder will provide this mix,” Tumin said.
    
            If you don’t go through a brokerage you may get a reasonable deal from your primary bank, Tumin said.
    
            For example, he noted, Wells Fargo is still offering up to 5.01% on both 4-month and 7-month CDs. Or, at Bank of America, you can get up to 4.75% on a 7-month CD.
    
            But Tumin cautions that with any big bank CD you should take your money out at the end of the term, otherwise your bank may automatically renew it and lock you in to a much lower-yielding CD.
    
            If you don’t want to set up an online savings account at another bank, your own bank may offer you a money market deposit account that pays a higher yield than your regular checking or savings accounts.
    
            Money market accounts may have higher minimum deposit requirements than a regular savings account, but they are more liquid than a fixed-term certificate of deposit or Treasury bill, meaning they give you access to your money more quickly while still potentially giving you some of the highest yields available, said Doug Ornstein, senior manager for integrated solutions at TIAA Wealth Management.
    
            But don’t confuse money market accounts with money market mutual funds, which invest in short-term, low-risk debt instruments. As of March 19, they had an average 7-day yield of 5.14%, according to the Crane Money Fund Index, which tracks the top 100 taxable money market funds.
    
            Unlike money market deposit accounts, money market mutual funds are not insured by the FDIC. But if you invest in a money market fund through a brokerage, your overall account is likely to be insured through the Securities Investor Protection Corp, which offers protection in the event your brokerage ever goes under.
    
            Another option for money you can leave untouched anywhere from several months to a few years is to buy short-term Treasury bills and medium-term notes, which are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.
    
            Three- and six-month bills had yields of 5.39% and 5.33% respectively on March 20 before the Fed’s meeting ended, while nine-month and one-year bills were offering 5.19% and 5.08% respectively, according to rates posted on Schwab.com for a $25,000 investment. Rates on Treasury notes with durations from two years to 10 years ranged between 4.29% and 4.72%.
    
            If you’re someone who manages your portfolio like a hawk, you may feel comfortable buying T-bills on your own from TreasuryDirect.gov. But if you don’t, it might be easier just to buy new issues through your brokerage account or invest in a short-term bond index fund or ETF, said Andy Smith, executive director of financial planning at Edelman Financial Engines.
    
            And if you’re looking at money that will be needed in three to five years, you might consider a diversified fund of highly rated government and corporate bonds, Ornstein said. An 18-month AAA-rated corporate bond, for instance, was yielding 4.82% this week, while the three-year was at 4.49%. Meanwhile, three-year AAA-rated municipal bonds (which are issued by local governments) had a rate of 3.98%, according to Schwab.com.
    
            When deciding on the best accounts and investments for your specific goals and peace of mind, it may pay to consult a fee-only fiduciary adviser — meaning, someone who doesn’t get paid a commission to sell you a particular investment.
    
            What you’ll always want to do is build in flexibility for yourself so you can easily access cash, regardless of your timeline for key goals. “What happens if something changes and you need that down payment a lot sooner — or your parents need medical care fast?” Smith said.
    
            That means balancing your desire for great yield with a need and desire for ease of access without penalty. Translation: Don’t chase yield for yield’s sake.
    
            Think of it this way, Ornstein said: Unless you have huge sums to invest or are an institutional investor, the difference between getting a 5.1% yield versus 5% is negligible, and in fact it could even cost you more if there are penalties for taking your money out early. “Most of the time convenience is really important. Give up the 0.1%,” he advised.",CNN,20/03/2024,"['The Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate remains at a 23-year high.', 'That’s thanks to the central bank’s decision Wednesday to once again hold it steady, as it has done at the policy-making committee’s past five meetings.', 'That decision may be disappointing to some investors, homebuyers and those with a lot of credit card debt, since movement in the Fed’s overnight lending rate influences rates — directly or indirectly — on consumer financial products (e.g., credit cards, bank loans and mortgages).', 'Butwith the Fed signaling that no rate cuts are likely until summer, it also means anyone with savings still has at least a few more months to make hay of their stash.', 'That’s because you can still get inflation-beating interest rates that will grow any money you have set aside for emergencies, vacations, down payments or any other goal in your sights over the next several years.', 'However, that won’t happen if you just let it sit in a traditional checking or savings account that yields next to nothing.', 'There are more lucrative, low-risk options out there, with rates that are still at or near their peaks. “', 'But perhaps not for much longer,” said Ted Rossman, senior analyst at Bankrate. “', 'If one of those fits into your financial plans, it’s best to act soon.”', 'So, consider the following options when deciding where to park your hard-earned savings.', 'The average annual percentage yield on bank savings accounts was just 0.52% as of March 13, according to Bankrate.', 'That average is kept low by the biggest brick-and-mortar banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, which still are offering a paltry 0.01%.', 'By contrast, there are still FDIC-insured online banks offering inflation-beating rates of between 4.35% and 5.35% on their high-yield savings accounts.', 'Generally speaking, these are the best vehicles in which to keep your emergency funds for quick, easy access.', 'Choosing between an account that pays 0.52% and one that pays 5.35% can mean forfeiting hundreds of dollars in interest. “', 'If you put $10,000 in a savings account, that’s a difference of $496 in interest earnings over the course of the year, assuming monthly compounding,” Rossman said.', 'While the rates on high-yield savings accounts have gone down a bit in recent months, “widespread cuts in online savings account rates are unlikely until the first Fed rate cut is near,” said Ken Tumin, founder of DepositAccounts.com.', 'As with any bank savings rate, high-yield savings accountratescan change overnight, and the bank may not alert you when it lowers it.', 'So make sure to check your monthly statement.', 'Another high-return, low-risk investment that is great for money you likely won’t need to tap for a few months or even a couple of years is a certificate of deposit.', 'You can get the best returns on CDs through a brokerage such as Schwab, E*Trade or Fidelity.', 'That’s because you can comparison shop for CDs from any number of FDIC-insured banks and will not have to set up individual accounts with each institution.', 'As of March 13, the average rate on a one-year CD was 1.95%, but some banks are offering as much are 5.4%.', 'If you can get a one-year CD at, say, 5.4%, you will make $540 on a $10,000 investment.', 'To get the greatest benefit from a CD, you have to leave the money invested for a fixed period.', 'You can always access your principal sooner if you need to, but there may be early withdrawal penalties.', 'As of March 20, CDs listed on Schwab.com with durations from three months up to three years were all yielding between 5.2% and 5.51%.', 'CD rates on durations between four and 10 years ranged from 4.40% to 5.15%.', 'Say you invest $10,000 in a one-year CD with a 5.36%APY.', 'At the end of that period, you’d get your principal back plus $536 in interest when the CD matures, according to Bankrate’s CD calculator.', 'If you chose a two-year CD at 5.25%, you’d bank an extra $1,078, assuming compounding interest.', 'The same investment in a five-year CD at 5.15% would earn $2,854.', '“It makes sense to go long with CDs.', 'To hedge your bets, include terms from one to five years.', 'Starting a CD ladder will provide this mix,” Tumin said.', 'If you don’t go through a brokerage you may get a reasonable deal from your primary bank, Tumin said.', 'For example, he noted, Wells Fargo is still offering up to 5.01% on both 4-month and 7-month CDs.', 'Or, at Bank of America, you can get up to 4.75% on a 7-month CD.', 'But Tumin cautions that with any big bank CD you should take your money out at the end of the term, otherwise your bank may automatically renew it and lock you in to a much lower-yielding CD.', 'If you don’t want to set up an online savings account at another bank, your own bank may offer you a money market deposit account that pays a higher yield than your regular checking or savings accounts.', 'Money market accounts may have higher minimum deposit requirements than a regular savings account, but they are more liquid than a fixed-term certificate of deposit or Treasury bill, meaning they give you access to your money more quickly while still potentially giving you some of the highest yields available, said Doug Ornstein, senior manager for integrated solutions at TIAA Wealth Management.', 'But don’t confuse money market accounts with money market mutual funds, which invest in short-term, low-risk debt instruments.', 'As of March 19, they had an average 7-day yield of 5.14%, according to the Crane Money Fund Index, which tracks the top 100 taxable money market funds.', 'Unlike money market deposit accounts, money market mutual funds are not insured by the FDIC.', 'But if you invest in a money market fund through a brokerage, your overall account is likely to be insured through the Securities Investor Protection Corp, which offers protection in the event your brokerage ever goes under.', 'Another option for money you can leave untouched anywhere from several months to a few years is to buy short-term Treasury bills and medium-term notes, which are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.', 'Three- and six-month bills had yields of 5.39% and 5.33%respectively on March 20 before the Fed’s meeting ended, while nine-month and one-year bills were offering 5.19% and 5.08%respectively, according to rates posted on Schwab.com for a $25,000 investment.', 'Rates on Treasury notes with durations from two years to 10 years ranged between 4.29% and 4.72%.', 'If you’re someone who manages your portfolio like a hawk, you may feel comfortable buying T-bills on your own from TreasuryDirect.gov.', 'But if you don’t, it might be easier just to buy new issues through your brokerage account or invest in a short-term bond index fund or ETF, said Andy Smith, executive director of financial planning at Edelman Financial Engines.', 'And if you’re looking at money that will be needed in three to five years, you might consider a diversified fund of highly rated government and corporate bonds, Ornstein said.', 'An 18-month AAA-rated corporate bond, for instance, was yielding 4.82% this week, while the three-year was at 4.49%.', 'Meanwhile, three-year AAA-rated municipal bonds (which are issued by local governments) had a rate of 3.98%, according to Schwab.com.', 'When deciding on the best accounts and investments for your specific goals and peace of mind, it may pay to consult a fee-only fiduciary adviser — meaning, someone who doesn’t get paid a commission to sell you a particular investment.', 'What you’ll always want to do is build in flexibility for yourself so you can easily access cash, regardless of your timeline for key goals. “', 'What happens if something changes and you need that down payment a lot sooner — or your parents need medical care fast?”', 'Smith said.', 'That means balancing your desire for great yield with a need and desire for ease of access without penalty.', 'Translation: Don’t chase yield for yield’s sake.', 'Think of it this way, Ornstein said: Unless you have huge sums to invest or are an institutional investor, the difference between getting a 5.1% yield versus 5% is negligible, and in fact it could even cost you more if there are penalties for taking your money out early. “', 'Most of the time convenience is really important.', 'Give up the 0.1%,” he advised.']",0.1607169988950149,That means balancing your desire for great yield with a need and desire for ease of access without penalty.,"But don’t confuse money market accounts with money market mutual funds, which invest in short-term, low-risk debt instruments.",0.3840319812297821,"For example, he noted, Wells Fargo is still offering up to 5.01% on both 4-month and 7-month CDs.","That decision may be disappointing to some investors, homebuyers and those with a lot of credit card debt, since movement in the Fed’s overnight lending rate influences rates — directly or indirectly — on consumer financial products (e.g., credit cards, bank loans and mortgages).",2024-04-30
"Bristol Myers Squibb beats on revenue, launches $1.5 billion cost cuts as it posts quarterly loss",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/bristol-myers-squibb-bmy-earnings-q1-2024.html,2024-04-25T16:26:45+0000,"In this articleBristol Myers Squibb on Thursday reported first-quarter revenue that topped expectations as sales of its popular blood cancer treatment Revlimid and blockbuster blood thinner Eliquis came in higher than expected. But the pharmaceutical company swung to a quarterly loss due to one-time charges related to its recently closed deals. It also said it plans to cut $1.5 billion in costs by 2025, and reinvest the money in drug development.Bristol Myers will lay off 2,200 employees this year, discontinue some drug programs, eliminate open roles, consolidate its sites and reduce management layers, among other cost savings. The company said it will prioritize investment in its key drug brands, optimize operations across the company and focus its resources on research and development programs that could deliver the highest returns for the company and the greatest health benefits for patients.Two-thirds of savings are associated with drug research and development, Bristol Myers executives said during an earnings call Thursday. The company has discontinued about 12 drug programs so far and will evaluate others to drop throughout year, said Bristol Myers Chief Medical Officer Dr. Samit Hirawat.Bristol Myers CEO Chris Boerner added that the majority of savings are coming from existing in-house operations, not from newly acquired companies.""We are taking important actions to effectively manage the decade,"" Boerner said during the call. ""Our management team has focused on ensuring the discipline execution required to deliver both this year and set us up for the longer term.""For the first quarter, Bristol Myers said the charges that weighed it down primarily reflect its $14 billion acquisition of neuroscience drugmaker Karuna Therapeutics and the collaboration agreement with SystImmune, a subsidiary of a Chinese biotech startup, to co-develop and market its experimental cancer treatment. Those deals come as Bristol Myers faces pressure to launch new drugs and offset the potential loss of revenue from top-selling treatments. The company's popular blood cancer treatment Revlimid — and eventually, Eliquis and cancer immunotherapy Opdivo — faces competition from cheaper copycats. Shares of Bristol Myers fell more than 7% on Tuesday.Here is what Bristol Myers reported for the first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG: Bristol Myers, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, swung to a net loss of $11.9 billion, or $5.89 per share, during the first quarter. That compares to net income of $2.3 billion, or $1.07 per share, for the same period a year ago. Excluding certain items, its adjusted loss per share was $4.40 for the period. The loss reflects a one-time $6.30 per share charge related to the recently closed deals, Bristol Myers said in a release.Bristol Myers reported first-quarter revenue of $11.87 billion, up 5% from the year-earlier period. The company reiterated its full-year revenue forecast of a low single-digit increase. But Bristol Myers lowered its 2024 adjusted earnings guidance to 40 cents to 70 cents per share to reflect the effect of the recent deals. That compares with a previous forecast of $7.10 to $7.40 per share, which did not include charges related to its buyouts of Karuna Therapeutics and radiopharmaceutical company RayzeBio, along with divestitures and other items. Bristol Myers said revenue growth for the first quarter was primarily driven by higher sales of Eliquis and some of its newer drugs. Eliquis booked $3.72 billion in sales for the quarter, up 9% from the year-ago period. Analysts had expected Eliquis to draw $3.59 billion in revenue, according to estimates compiled by FactSet.Eliquis, which Bristol Myers shares with Pfizer, is among the first 10 drugs facing ongoing price negotiations with the federal Medicare program. The blood thinner is expected to lose market exclusivity by 2028.The effect of those negotiations on Eliquis is still unclear, Bristol Myers executives said during the call. The final negotiated price for the drug will be published later this year and go into effect in 2026, which is when the company expects a hit to revenue and profit.Meanwhile, Revlimid raked in $1.67 billion in sales, down 5% from the same period a year ago. Still, that surpassed analysts' revenue expectations of $1.22 billion for the drug, according to FactSet estimates.  Anemia drug Reblozyl and advanced melanoma treatment Opdualag also posted revenue growth during the first quarter. Reblozyl booked $354 million in sales, up 72% from the year-earlier period. Analysts had expected revenue of $330.8 million, according to FactSet.Opdualag generated $206 million in sales for the first quarter, which is up 76% from the same period a year ago. Analysts had expected revenue of $206.5 million, FactSet estimates said. The performance of other new drugs fell short of Wall Street's expectations. Abecma, a cell therapy for a rare blood cancer called multiple myeloma, drew $82 million in sales for the quarter. Analysts had expected $112.6 million in revenue, according to FactSet. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this month expanded its approval of that drug, allowing multiple myeloma patients to use it as an earlier line of treatment.An older drug, Opdivo, generated $2.07 billion in sales for the quarter, down 6% from the first quarter of 2023. Analysts had expected the drug to book $2.3 billion in revenue for the period, FactSet estimates said.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"['In this articleBristol Myers Squibb on Thursday reported first-quarter revenue that topped expectations as sales of its popular blood cancer treatment Revlimid and blockbuster blood thinner Eliquis came in higher than expected.', 'But the pharmaceutical company swung to a quarterly loss due to one-time charges related to its recently closed deals.', 'It also said it plans to cut $1.5 billion in costs by 2025, and reinvest the money in drug development.', 'Bristol Myers will lay off 2,200 employees this year, discontinue some drug programs, eliminate open roles, consolidate its sites and reduce management layers, among other cost savings.', 'The company said it will prioritize investment in its key drug brands, optimize operations across the company and focus its resources on research and development programs that could deliver the highest returns for the company and the greatest health benefits for patients.', 'Two-thirds of savings are associated with drug research and development, Bristol Myers executives said during an earnings call Thursday.', 'The company has discontinued about 12 drug programs so far and will evaluate others to drop throughout year, said Bristol Myers Chief Medical Officer Dr. Samit Hirawat.', 'Bristol Myers CEO Chris Boerner added that the majority of savings are coming from existing in-house operations, not from newly acquired companies.', '""We are taking important actions to effectively manage the decade,"" Boerner said during the call. ""', 'Our management team has focused on ensuring the discipline execution required to deliver both this year and set us up for the longer term.', '""For the first quarter, Bristol Myers said the charges that weighed it down primarily reflect its $14 billion acquisition of neuroscience drugmaker Karuna Therapeutics and the collaboration agreement with SystImmune, a subsidiary of a Chinese biotech startup, to co-develop and market its experimental cancer treatment.', 'Those deals come as Bristol Myers faces pressure to launch new drugs and offset the potential loss of revenue from top-selling treatments.', ""The company's popular blood cancer treatment Revlimid — and eventually, Eliquis and cancer immunotherapy Opdivo — faces competition from cheaper copycats."", 'Shares of Bristol Myers fell more than 7% on Tuesday.', ""Here is what Bristol Myers reported for the first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:Bristol Myers, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, swung to a net loss of $11.9 billion, or $5.89 per share, during the first quarter."", 'That compares to net income of $2.3 billion, or $1.07 per share, for the same period a year ago.', 'Excluding certain items, its adjusted loss per share was $4.40 for the period.', 'The loss reflects a one-time $6.30 per share charge related to the recently closed deals, Bristol Myers said in a release.', 'Bristol Myers reported first-quarter revenue of $11.87 billion, up 5% from the year-earlier period.', 'The company reiterated its full-year revenue forecast of a low single-digit increase.', 'But Bristol Myers lowered its 2024 adjusted earnings guidance to 40 cents to 70 cents per share to reflect the effect of the recent deals.', 'That compares with a previous forecast of $7.10 to $7.40 per share, which did not include charges related to its buyouts of Karuna Therapeutics and radiopharmaceutical company RayzeBio, along with divestitures and other items.', 'Bristol Myers said revenue growth for the first quarter was primarily driven by higher sales of Eliquis and some of its newer drugs.', 'Eliquis booked $3.72 billion in sales for the quarter, up 9% from the year-ago period.', 'Analysts had expected Eliquis to draw $3.59 billion in revenue, according to estimates compiled by FactSet.', 'Eliquis, which Bristol Myers shares with Pfizer, is among the first 10 drugs facing ongoing price negotiations with the federal Medicare program.', 'The blood thinner is expected to lose market exclusivity by 2028.The effect of those negotiations on Eliquis is still unclear, Bristol Myers executives said during the call.', 'The final negotiated price for the drug will be published later this year and go into effect in 2026, which is when the company expects a hit to revenue and profit.', 'Meanwhile, Revlimid raked in $1.67 billion in sales, down 5% from the same period a year ago.', ""Still, that surpassed analysts' revenue expectations of $1.22 billion for the drug, according to FactSet estimates."", 'Anemia drug Reblozyl and advanced melanoma treatment Opdualag also posted revenue growth during the first quarter.', 'Reblozyl booked $354 million in sales, up 72% from the year-earlier period.', 'Analysts had expected revenue of $330.8 million, according to FactSet.', 'Opdualag generated $206 million in sales for the first quarter, which is up 76% from the same period a year ago.', 'Analysts had expected revenue of $206.5 million, FactSet estimates said.', ""The performance of other new drugs fell short of Wall Street's expectations."", 'Abecma, a cell therapy for a rare blood cancer called multiple myeloma, drew $82 million in sales for the quarter.', 'Analysts had expected $112.6 million in revenue, according to FactSet.', 'The U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this month expanded its approval of that drug, allowing multiple myeloma patients to use it as an earlier line of treatment.', 'An older drug, Opdivo, generated $2.07 billion in sales for the quarter, down 6% from the first quarter of 2023.', 'Analysts had expected the drug to book $2.3 billion in revenue for the period, FactSet estimates said.']",0.0461499500993691,"The company said it will prioritize investment in its key drug brands, optimize operations across the company and focus its resources on research and development programs that could deliver the highest returns for the company and the greatest health benefits for patients.","The company's popular blood cancer treatment Revlimid — and eventually, Eliquis and cancer immunotherapy Opdivo — faces competition from cheaper copycats.",0.3070554855991812,"Reblozyl booked $354 million in sales, up 72% from the year-earlier period.","Meanwhile, Revlimid raked in $1.67 billion in sales, down 5% from the same period a year ago.",2024-04-30
Skydance extends final offer to Paramount as merger talks stick on a possible shareholder vote,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/29/shari-redstone-paramount-ceo-bob-bakish-removal.html,2024-04-29T20:42:04+0000,"In this articleIn what could easily be a plotline from HBO's hit show ""Succession,"" Paramount Global is replacing Chief Executive Officer Bob Bakish with a cohort of existing division heads, the company announced Monday. It's a chessboard-altering move designed to accelerate the company's future — one way or another, according to people familiar with the matter. Paramount announced Bakish's departure before reporting first-quarter earnings. He'll be replaced by a trio of executives in what the company is calling the ""Office of the CEO."" The decision to remove Bakish as CEO comes as Paramount Global closes in on a merger agreement with Skydance Media. His departure throws into question Paramount's near-term future as a standalone company, which could help force through a merger agreement.The Skydance consortium, which includes private equity firms KKR and RedBird Capital, has proposed a deal with new terms to the Paramount special committee as a ""best and final"" offer, according to people familiar with the matter. Skydance is waiting to hear back from the special committee on whether it will accept the offer, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.As part of the new deal on the table, controlling shareholder Shari Redstone may take less than $2 billion for her controlling stake in Paramount — lower than what Skydance had initially offered her. The Skydance consortium is contributing additional capital to pay common, Class B shareholders at a nearly 30% premium to the undisturbed trading price of about $11 per share, according to people familiar with the new deal. In total, Redstone and Skydance would contribute $3 billion, with the vast majority going to Class B shareholders, the people said.Skydance's valuation as part of the deal remains around $5 billion, the people said.A number of large common shareholders, including Gamco Investors, Ariel Investments, Matrix and Aspen Sky Trust have publicly criticized the deal, arguing it destroys value for common shareholders.A potential dealbreaker is whether to hold a so-called ""majority of the minority"" vote on the deal, which would allow common shareholders the chance to potentially sway the outcome. The special committee tasked with evaluating the offer would also be the party to put the deal up for such a vote.Skydance believes it has met all of the conditions from the special committee and is prepared to walk from the deal if such a vote is mandated given the improvements it has made as of Monday, sources tell CNBC. Adding a vote post-negotiation is a non-starter, one of the people said.Forcing such a vote now would change the structure of the deal for Skydance, which is already paying a significant premium to Redstone for her controlling stake and paying Class B shareholders, said two of the people familiar with the Skydance consortium's thinking.Spokespeople for Skydance and Paramount Global's special committee declined to comment. A spokesperson for National Amusements, which houses Redstone's stake, said the decision on whether to take the deal lies with the Paramount Global special committee.""National Amusements specifically requested that the Paramount board form a special committee to exercise their dependent judgment in considering a potential transaction with Skydance,"" a National Amusements spokesperson said in a statement provided to CNBC. ""National Amusements has no role on the committee, and we respect the committee's process and ultimate decision on whether the Skydance deal presents an attractive transaction for Paramount and whether they want to continue to move forward.""Paramount Global shares jumped about 3% during regular trading Monday.By removing Bakish, Redstone and the Paramount Global board are now throwing the status quo into chaos. The company will no longer have a singular leader or a clear go-forward strategy. Redstone may be trying to force common holders to choose a sale by effectively destabilizing the company without one.Exclusivity talks with Skydance are set to end May 3. CNBC reported Thursday that Skydance was inching toward valuation terms but wanted a two-week extension on exclusivity, which now may be moot with its latest best and final offer.A joint bid by private equity firm Apollo Global and Sony could serve as a white knight if the special committee votes down the Skydance deal. The New York Times reported earlier in April that the two parties have had preliminary talks on a deal. Still, it's unclear if Redstone would consider selling to a large private equity firm, which would likely break up the company over time. Redstone chose to ignore Apollo's earlier offer in favor of negotiating with Skydance.Meanwhile, Paramount has an important carriage renewal deal with U.S. cable company Charter Communications in the coming days, though the deadline could be extended. Bakish has been deep in negotiations with Charter. It's unclear how his removal will affect those negotiations, which will play a large role in valuing the company moving forward.",CNBC,29/04/2024,"['In this articleIn what could easily be a plotline from HBO\'s hit show ""Succession,"" Paramount Global is replacing Chief Executive Officer Bob Bakish with a cohort of existing division heads, the company announced Monday.', ""It's a chessboard-altering move designed to accelerate the company's future — one way or another, according to people familiar with the matter."", ""Paramount announced Bakish's departure before reporting first-quarter earnings."", 'He\'ll be replaced by a trio of executives in what the company is calling the ""Office of the CEO.""', 'The decision to remove Bakish as CEO comes as Paramount Global closes in on a merger agreement with Skydance Media.', ""His departure throws into question Paramount's near-term future as a standalone company, which could help force through a merger agreement."", 'The Skydance consortium, which includes private equity firms KKR and RedBird Capital, has proposed a deal with new terms to the Paramount special committee as a ""best and final"" offer, according to people familiar with the matter.', 'Skydance is waiting to hear back from the special committee on whether it will accept the offer, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.', 'As part of the new deal on the table, controlling shareholder Shari Redstone may take less than $2 billion for her controlling stake in Paramount — lower than what Skydance had initially offered her.', 'The Skydance consortium is contributing additional capital to pay common, Class B shareholders at a nearly 30% premium to the undisturbed trading price of about $11 per share, according to people familiar with the new deal.', 'In total, Redstone and Skydance would contribute $3 billion, with the vast majority going to Class B shareholders, the people said.', ""Skydance's valuation as part of the deal remains around $5 billion, the people said."", 'A number of large common shareholders, including Gamco Investors, ArielInvestments, Matrix and Aspen Sky Trusthave publicly criticized the deal, arguing it destroys value for common shareholders.', 'A potential dealbreaker is whether to hold a so-called ""majority of the minority"" vote on the deal, which would allow common shareholders the chance to potentially sway the outcome.', 'The special committee tasked with evaluating the offer would also be the party to put the deal up for such a vote.', 'Skydance believes it has met all of the conditions from the special committee and is prepared to walk from the deal if such a vote is mandated given the improvements it has made as of Monday, sources tell CNBC.', 'Adding a vote post-negotiation is a non-starter, one of the people said.', ""Forcing such a vote now would change the structure of the deal for Skydance, which is already paying a significant premium to Redstone for her controlling stake and paying Class B shareholders, said two of the people familiar with the Skydance consortium's thinking."", ""Spokespeople for Skydance and Paramount Global's special committee declined to comment."", ""A spokesperson for National Amusements, which houses Redstone's stake, said the decision on whether to take the deal lies with the Paramount Global special committee."", '""National Amusements specifically requested that the Paramount board form a special committee to exercise their dependent judgment in considering a potential transaction with Skydance,"" a National Amusements spokesperson said in a statement provided to CNBC. ""', ""National Amusements has no role on the committee, and we respect the committee's process and ultimate decision on whether the Skydance deal presents an attractive transaction for Paramount and whether they want to continue to move forward."", '""Paramount Global shares jumped about 3% during regular trading Monday.', 'By removing Bakish, Redstone and the Paramount Global board are now throwing the status quo into chaos.', 'The company will no longer have a singular leader or a clear go-forward strategy.', 'Redstone may be trying to force common holders to choose a sale by effectively destabilizing the company without one.', 'Exclusivity talks with Skydance are set to end May 3.', 'CNBC reported Thursday that Skydance was inching toward valuation terms but wanted a two-week extension on exclusivity, which now may be moot with its latest best and final offer.', 'A joint bid by private equity firm Apollo Global and Sony could serve as a white knight if the special committee votes down the Skydance deal.', 'The New York Times reported earlier in April that the two parties have had preliminary talks on a deal.', ""Still, it's unclear if Redstone would consider selling to a large private equity firm, which would likely break up the company over time."", ""Redstone chose to ignore Apollo's earlier offer in favor of negotiating with Skydance."", 'Meanwhile, Paramount has an important carriage renewal deal with U.S. cable company Charter Communications in the coming days, though the deadline could be extended.', 'Bakish has been deep in negotiations with Charter.', ""It's unclear how his removal will affect those negotiations, which will play a large role in valuing the company moving forward.""]",0.2538080338969255,"The Skydance consortium, which includes private equity firms KKR and RedBird Capital, has proposed a deal with new terms to the Paramount special committee as a ""best and final"" offer, according to people familiar with the matter.","A number of large common shareholders, including Gamco Investors, ArielInvestments, Matrix and Aspen Sky Trusthave publicly criticized the deal, arguing it destroys value for common shareholders.",0.3346280401403254,"""Paramount Global shares jumped about 3% during regular trading Monday.","A number of large common shareholders, including Gamco Investors, ArielInvestments, Matrix and Aspen Sky Trusthave publicly criticized the deal, arguing it destroys value for common shareholders.",2024-04-30
A CVS Health pharmacy in Vegas becomes first to join new national pharmacy union,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/26/cvs-omnicare-pharmacy-in-vegas-is-first-to-join-new-pharmacy-union.html,2024-04-26T19:44:59+0000,"In this articleA CVS Omnicare pharmacy in Las Vegas has become the first location to join a new national pharmacy union, a milestone for organizers trying to help thousands of U.S. pharmacy workers address what they call unsafe working conditions. Nearly 30 pharmacy staff at the Las Vegas branch of CVS's Omnicare won their union election on Thursday by a landslide margin of 87% to 13%, according to a press release from the guild. The pharmacists and pharmacy technicians there fill prescriptions for the elderly and other vulnerable patients at long-term care facilities across Nevada. Those workers now join the Pharmacy Guild, which will represent them in labor negotiations with CVS. ""We're going to try to get a best-in-the-industry contract for these people that have trusted our union to represent them. It's a historic win and a very decisive one,"" Shane Jerominski, a community pharmacist and co-founder of the Pharmacy Guild, told CNBC.  Jerominski and other organizers of a recent nationwide walkout of pharmacy staff partnered with IAM Healthcare – a union representing thousands of health-care professionals – to launch the Pharmacy Guild in November. That work stoppage in late October, which organizers dubbed ""Pharmageddon,"" spanned major drugstore chains like CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid, drawing widespread media attention to the scope of workers' concerns.Like the walkout effort, the Pharmacy Guild aims to help pharmacy staff address what many employees call unsafe staffing levels and increasing workloads throughout the industry that put both employees and patients at risk. The guild also calls for legislative and regulatory changes to establish higher standards of practice in pharmacies to protect patients. The unionization effort is the culmination of years of growing discontent among retail pharmacy staff, who often grapple with understaffed teams and increasing work expectations imposed by corporate management. The Covid pandemic only exacerbated those issues, as new duties like testing and vaccination stretched pharmacists and technicians even thinner. In a statement, a CVS Health spokesperson said the company respects its employees' right to unionize or refrain from doing so, including the decision of Omnicare Las Vegas workers to choose union representation. The company added that it will work ""closely and collaboratively"" with its employees to address their current and future concerns and is ""committed to providing a positive and rewarding work environment."" Omnicare, acquired by CVS in 2015, is not a public-facing pharmacy like most of the chain's nearly 10,000 locations. There are Omnicare pharmacies in 49 states, according to CVS's website. But Omnicare and other pharmacies share the same issues that range from staffing levels to low starting pay for technicians, Jerominski said. ""It's not specific to Omnicare, the problems they were expressing were the same problems I'm hearing across the country. It's ubiquitous across all major chains,"" Jerominski said. ""You can only ask a company to support you for so long. … This is the reason why the walkouts happened. They finally said 'No, we are going to get the help that we demand.'"" The Pharmacy Guild will now work to strike a union contract with CVS to address the concerns of Omnicare workers in Las Vegas. Jerominski said those employees want consistent work schedules that guarantee pharmacy technicians 40 hours a week year-round.""You can't retain individuals with a skill set and a family, especially with the stress level that this job has, if you don't even just guarantee them their 40 hours,"" Jerominski told CNBC. The Pharmacy Guild is seeing momentum build in other parts of the country. Pharmacy staff at two retail stores in Rhode Island have officially confirmed that they filed to unionize with the guild, according to Jerominski.CVS's headquarters is based in the state.",CNBC,26/04/2024,"['In this articleA CVS Omnicare pharmacy in Las Vegas has become the first location to join a new national pharmacy union, a milestone for organizers trying to help thousands of U.S. pharmacy workers address what they call unsafe working conditions.', ""Nearly 30 pharmacy staff at the Las Vegas branch of CVS's Omnicare won their union election on Thursday by a landslide margin of 87% to 13%, according to a press release from the guild."", 'The pharmacists and pharmacy technicians there fill prescriptions for the elderly and other vulnerable patients at long-term care facilities across Nevada.', 'Those workers now join the Pharmacy Guild, which will represent them in labor negotiations with CVS.""We\'re going to try to get a best-in-the-industry contract for these people that have trusted our union to represent them.', 'It\'s a historic win and a very decisive one,"" Shane Jerominski, a community pharmacist and co-founder of the Pharmacy Guild, told CNBC.Jerominski and other organizers of a recent nationwide walkout of pharmacy staff partnered with IAM Healthcare – a union representing thousands of health-care professionals – to launch the Pharmacy Guild in November.', 'That work stoppage in late October, which organizers dubbed ""Pharmageddon,"" spanned major drugstore chains like CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid, drawing widespread media attention to the scope of workers\' concerns.', 'Like the walkout effort, the Pharmacy Guild aims to help pharmacy staff address what many employees call unsafe staffing levels and increasing workloads throughout the industry that put both employees and patients at risk.', 'The guild also calls for legislative and regulatory changes to establish higher standards of practice in pharmacies to protect patients.', 'The unionization effort is the culmination of years of growing discontent among retail pharmacy staff, who often grapple with understaffed teams and increasing work expectations imposed by corporate management.', 'The Covid pandemic only exacerbated those issues, as new duties like testing and vaccination stretched pharmacists and technicians even thinner.', ""In a statement, a CVS Health spokesperson said the company respects its employees' right to unionize or refrain from doing so, including the decision of Omnicare Las Vegas workers to choose union representation."", 'The company added that it will work ""closely and collaboratively"" with its employees to address their current and future concerns and is ""committed to providing a positive and rewarding work environment.', '""Omnicare, acquired by CVS in 2015, is not a public-facing pharmacy like most of the chain\'s nearly 10,000 locations.', ""There are Omnicare pharmacies in 49 states, according to CVS's website."", 'But Omnicare and other pharmacies share the same issues that range from staffing levels to low starting pay for technicians, Jerominski said.', '""It\'s not specific to Omnicare, the problems they were expressing were the same problems I\'m hearing across the country.', 'It\'s ubiquitous across all major chains,"" Jerominski said. ""', 'You can only ask a company to support you for so long. …', 'This is the reason why the walkouts happened.', ""They finally said 'No, we are going to get the help that we demand."", '\'""The Pharmacy Guild will now work to strike a union contract with CVS to address the concerns of Omnicare workers in Las Vegas.', 'Jerominski said those employees want consistent work schedules that guarantee pharmacy technicians 40 hours a week year-round.', '""You can\'t retain individuals with a skill set and a family, especially with the stress level that this job has, if you don\'t even just guarantee them their 40 hours,"" Jerominski told CNBC.The Pharmacy Guild is seeing momentum build in other parts of the country.', 'Pharmacy staff at two retail stores in Rhode Island have officially confirmed that they filed to unionize with the guild, according to Jerominski.', ""CVS's headquarters is based in the state.""]",0.2197163049413804,"Those workers now join the Pharmacy Guild, which will represent them in labor negotiations with CVS.""We're going to try to get a best-in-the-industry contract for these people that have trusted our union to represent them.","""It's not specific to Omnicare, the problems they were expressing were the same problems I'm hearing across the country.",0.1158540580007765,"It's a historic win and a very decisive one,"" Shane Jerominski, a community pharmacist and co-founder of the Pharmacy Guild, told CNBC.Jerominski and other organizers of a recent nationwide walkout of pharmacy staff partnered with IAM Healthcare – a union representing thousands of health-care professionals – to launch the Pharmacy Guild in November.","The Covid pandemic only exacerbated those issues, as new duties like testing and vaccination stretched pharmacists and technicians even thinner.",2024-04-30
Samsung reports enormous jump in profit on AI boom,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/29/tech/south-korea-samsung-profits-ai-boom-hnk-intl/index.html,"
  Published
        12:47 AM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024
    ","Samsung Electronics forecast demand for artificial intelligence would hold strong and tighten supply of some high-end chips, joining rivals in benefiting from a solid rebound in the battered global memory chip market.
    
            The upbeat outlook from the world’s largest memory chip maker sent its shares 1.8% higher on Tuesday after it reported a more than 10-fold rise in first-quarter operating profit.
    
            But so far this year Samsung shares are down 0.8%, lagging SK Hynix’s 24% gain, as it seeks to catch up with its smaller rival in the supply of top-end chips such as high bandwidth memory (HBM) to AI leader Nvidia (NVDA).
    
            “We plan to increase supply of HBM-related chips in 2024 by more than three-fold versus last year,” Jaejune Kim, a Samsung vice president in charge of the memory division, said on an earnings call.
    
            Samsung said it began mass production this month of the latest HBM chips for use in generative AI chipsets, called 8-layer HBM3E. It is seeking to capitalize on the AI boom that has benefited SK Hynix, which had been the sole supplier of HBM3 chips to Nvidia.
    
            Samsung said it planned to start making the 12-layer version during the second quarter, and expected the latest HBM3E products to account for two-thirds of its HBM output by year-end.
    
            Analysts said the targets were aggressive.
    
            Samsung’s 8-layer HBM3E appears to be supplying Nvidia, while the 12-layer may go to AMD (AMD) and Nvidia, said Jeff Kim, head of research at KB Securities.
    
            “As Samsung’s technology is advantageous for high-stacking, while SK Hynix has its advantages in the 8-layer, there may be a segmentation where Nvidia gets 12-layer products from Samsung and most 8-layer products from SK Hynix,” Kim said.
    
            “Samsung is working hard to improve the yield of its 12-layer product,” he added.
    
            Samsung did not respond immediately to a request for comment on its HBM customers.
    
            Samsung also said it will step up offerings of high-end solid-state drive (SSD) products to meet AI server demand, and expected high-end memory chip supply to become tighter toward year-end due to capacity being focused on HBM, echoing comments from SK Hynix last week.
    
            The South Korean company’s first-quarter revenue rose 13% to 71.9 trillion won ($52.14 billion), including a 96% increase in memory chip revenue to 17.49 trillion won as prices rose steeply from a severe downturn, partly thanks to the boom in AI.
    
            Operating profit rose to 6.6 trillion won in January to March, up from 640 billion won a year earlier. It was the company’s highest operating profit since the third quarter of 2022.
    
            The chip division, historically Samsung’s cash cow business that used to account for two-thirds of its operating profit, swung to a profit of 1.91 trillion won in the March quarter from a 4.58 trillion won loss a year earlier. It was the first profit since the third quarter of 2022.
    
            Prices of NAND flash chips used to store data increased by 23% to 28% during the first quarter versus the previous quarter, while prices of DRAM chips used in tech devices rose by about 20%, according to data provider TrendForce.
    
            Samsung’s mobile devices business booked a 3.51 trillion won operating profit in the first quarter, down from 3.94 trillion won a year earlier.
    
            It shipped about 60 million smartphones during the quarter, in line with a year earlier but retaking its title as the world’s top smartphone vendor from Apple (AAPL), which is suffering a sales decline in China.
    
            Rising costs, including increased memory chip prices, dented margins from its flagship Galaxy S24 smartphones launched during the quarter.
    
            Samsung said AI functions were driving sales of S24 phones, allowing the division to maintain double-digit profitability in the first quarter. About 50% of customers said they bought S24 phones for the AI functions, and 60% were regularly using the AI functions, the company said.",CNN,30/04/2024,"['SamsungElectronicsforecast demand for artificial intelligence would hold strong and tighten supply of some high-end chips, joining rivals in benefiting from a solid rebound in the battered global memory chip market.', 'The upbeat outlook from the world’s largest memory chip maker sent its shares 1.8% higher on Tuesday after it reported a more than 10-fold rise in first-quarter operating profit.', 'But so far this yearSamsungshares are down 0.8%, lagging SK Hynix’s 24% gain, as it seeks tocatch upwith its smaller rival in the supply of top-end chips such as high bandwidth memory (HBM) to AI leader Nvidia (NVDA).', '“We plan to increase supply of HBM-related chips in 2024 by more than three-fold versus last year,” Jaejune Kim, aSamsungvice president in charge of the memory division, said on an earnings call.', 'Samsungsaid it began mass production this month of the latest HBM chips for use in generative AI chipsets, called 8-layer HBM3E. It is seeking to capitalize on the AI boom that has benefited SK Hynix, which had been the sole supplier of HBM3 chips to Nvidia.', 'Samsungsaid it planned to start making the 12-layer version during the second quarter, and expected the latest HBM3E products to account for two-thirds of its HBM output by year-end.', 'Analysts said the targets were aggressive.', 'Samsung’s 8-layer HBM3E appears to be supplying Nvidia, while the 12-layer may go to AMD (AMD)and Nvidia, said Jeff Kim, head of research at KB Securities.', '“AsSamsung’s technology is advantageous for high-stacking, while SK Hynix has its advantages in the 8-layer, there may be a segmentation where Nvidia gets 12-layer products fromSamsungand most 8-layer products from SK Hynix,” Kim said.', '“Samsungis working hard to improve the yield of its 12-layer product,” he added.', 'Samsungdid not respond immediately to a request for comment on its HBM customers.', 'Samsungalso said it will step up offerings of high-end solid-state drive (SSD) products to meet AI server demand, and expected high-end memory chip supply to become tighter toward year-end due to capacity being focused on HBM, echoing comments from SK Hynixlast week.', 'The South Korean company’s first-quarter revenue rose 13% to 71.9 trillion won ($52.14 billion), including a 96% increase in memory chip revenue to 17.49 trillion won as prices rose steeply from a severe downturn, partly thanks to the boom in AI.', 'Operating profit rose to 6.6 trillion won in January to March, up from 640 billion won a year earlier.', 'It was the company’s highest operating profit since the third quarter of 2022.', 'The chip division, historicallySamsung’s cash cow business that used to account for two-thirds of its operating profit, swung to a profit of 1.91 trillion won in the March quarter from a 4.58 trillion won loss a year earlier.', 'It was the first profit since the third quarter of 2022.', 'Prices of NAND flash chips used to store data increased by 23% to 28% during the first quarter versus the previous quarter, while prices of DRAM chips used in tech devices rose by about 20%, according to data provider TrendForce.', 'Samsung’s mobile devices business booked a 3.51 trillion won operating profit in the first quarter, down from 3.94 trillion won a year earlier.', 'It shipped about 60 million smartphones during the quarter, in line with a year earlier but retaking its title as the world’s top smartphone vendor from Apple (AAPL), which is suffering asales declinein China.', 'Rising costs, including increased memory chip prices, dented margins from its flagship Galaxy S24 smartphones launched during the quarter.', 'SamsungsaidAI functionswere driving sales of S24 phones, allowing the division to maintain double-digit profitability in the first quarter.', 'About 50% of customers said they bought S24 phones for the AI functions, and 60% were regularly using the AI functions, the company said.']",0.3833649358206299,"The chip division, historicallySamsung’s cash cow business that used to account for two-thirds of its operating profit, swung to a profit of 1.91 trillion won in the March quarter from a 4.58 trillion won loss a year earlier.","It shipped about 60 million smartphones during the quarter, in line with a year earlier but retaking its title as the world’s top smartphone vendor from Apple (AAPL), which is suffering asales declinein China.",0.5554163323508369,"The South Korean company’s first-quarter revenue rose 13% to 71.9 trillion won ($52.14 billion), including a 96% increase in memory chip revenue to 17.49 trillion won as prices rose steeply from a severe downturn, partly thanks to the boom in AI.","Samsung’s mobile devices business booked a 3.51 trillion won operating profit in the first quarter, down from 3.94 trillion won a year earlier.",2024-04-30
"American Airlines swings to a loss, but tops estimates for Q2 forecast",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/american-airlines-aal-1q-2024-earnings.html,2024-04-25T14:31:32+0000,"In this articleAmerican Airlines swung to a loss in the first quarter, but its forecast for the current period surpassed analysts' estimates.American expects to earn between $1.15 and $1.45 per share in the second quarter, on an adjusted basis, largely above the $1.18 that analysts compiled by LSEG estimated on average. American reiterated its forecast to earn between $2.25 and $3.25 per share for the full year.""While we aren't satisfied with our first-quarter financial results, we have a strong foundation in place, and we remain on track to deliver on our full-year financial targets,"" CEO Robert Isom said in an earnings release.American said it expects second-quarter capacity to be up 7% to 9%, and unit revenues to fall 1% to 3% from last year.Similar to Southwest, United and Alaska, American is affected by Boeing's latest quality control and safety crises. American will receive seven fewer aircraft from Boeing than it previously projected, Isom said, adding that he did not expect a material impact from the delays.""My message is Boeing hasn't changed since the last time we talked,"" Isom told CNBC in an interview. ""Get your act together. Deliver.""Here is how American performed in the first quarter compared with Wall Street estimates compiled by LSEG:American posted a loss of $312 million, or 48 cents per share, in the first quarter, compared with a profit of $10 million, or 2 cents per share, during the same period a year earlier. Adjusting for one-time items, including costs associated with new labor contracts, American lost $226 million, or 34 cents per share.Operating expenses rose nearly 7%, including an 18% rise in salaries and related costs.Revenue rose 3.1% to $12.57 billion.— CNBC's Phil LeBeau contributed to this report.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"[""In this articleAmerican Airlines swung to a loss in the first quarter, but its forecast for the current period surpassed analysts' estimates."", 'American expects to earn between $1.15 and $1.45 per share in the second quarter, on an adjusted basis, largely above the $1.18 that analysts compiled by LSEG estimated on average.', 'American reiterated its forecast to earn between $2.25 and $3.25 per share for the full year.', '""While we aren\'t satisfied with our first-quarter financial results, we have a strong foundation in place, and we remain on track to deliver on our full-year financial targets,"" CEO Robert Isom said in an earnings release.', 'American said it expects second-quarter capacity to be up 7% to 9%, and unit revenues to fall 1% to 3% from last year.', ""Similar to Southwest, United and Alaska, American is affected by Boeing's latest quality control and safety crises."", 'American will receive seven fewer aircraft from Boeing than it previously projected, Isom said, adding that he did not expect a material impact from the delays.', '""My message is Boeing hasn\'t changed since the last time we talked,"" Isom told CNBC in an interview. ""', 'Get your act together.', 'Deliver.', '""Here is how American performedin the first quartercompared with Wall Street estimates compiled by LSEG:American posted a loss of $312 million, or 48 cents per share, in the first quarter, compared with a profit of $10 million, or 2 cents per share, during the same period a year earlier.', 'Adjusting for one-time items, including costs associated with new labor contracts, American lost $226 million, or 34 cents per share.', 'Operating expenses rose nearly 7%, including an 18% rise in salaries and related costs.', 'Revenue rose 3.1% to $12.57 billion.—', ""CNBC's Phil LeBeau contributed to this report.""]",0.1568187498239613,"""While we aren't satisfied with our first-quarter financial results, we have a strong foundation in place, and we remain on track to deliver on our full-year financial targets,"" CEO Robert Isom said in an earnings release.","In this articleAmerican Airlines swung to a loss in the first quarter, but its forecast for the current period surpassed analysts' estimates.",0.3057788718830455,Revenue rose 3.1% to $12.57 billion.—,"Adjusting for one-time items, including costs associated with new labor contracts, American lost $226 million, or 34 cents per share.",2024-04-30
OpenAI’s wild week. How the Sam Altman story unfolded,https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/22/tech/openai-sam-altman-chaos-explained-intl-hnk/index.html,"
  Updated
        3:32 PM EST, Wed November 22, 2023
    ","In a year of wild tech stories that has seen Elon Musk transform Twitter, cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapse and Silicon Valley Bank implode, this week’s whiplash-inducing turmoil at OpenAI is among the most captivating.
    
            Sam Altman — the leader of one of the world’s most influential AI companies, OpenAI, and perhaps the most visible figure in the fledgling industry — was fired Friday night by the startup’s directors in a surprise move. Less than five days later, he’s back as the company’s CEO, now with a board that is, in theory, more supportive of his vision.
    
            The series of extraordinary events unfolded just days after OpenAI held its first-ever developer conference, where it laid out new, commercialized versions of its technology, including the option to customize its ChatGPT AI chatbot.
    
            If you’re just catching up, here’s what you missed from a week so incredible you’d be forgiven for thinking the script could have been written by an early version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
    
            Around 3 p.m. ET, Altman joined a Google Meet call with most of OpenAI’s board that had been convened by fellow co-founder and OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, during which Altman was fired and told that the news would soon be made public.
    
            Within the next half hour, the board also informed Greg Brockman, another co-founder and OpenAI president, that he would be removed from the board.
    
            Around 3:30 p.m. ET, OpenAI publicly announced that it had fired Altman over concerns that he was not always truthful with the board. The board said Mira Murati, the company’s chief technology officer, would become interim CEO.
    
            OpenAI’s strategic partners, including its biggest financial backer Microsoft, were also reportedly informed of Altman’s ouster just minutes before the board’s announcement.
    
            Hours after being fired, Altman posted on X that he “loved working with such talented people” and that he would have “more to say about what’s next later.”
    
            Brockman promptly quit. “Please don’t spend any time being concerned. We will be fine,” Brockman said in a Friday post on X. “Greater things coming soon.”
    
            A key factor in the CEO’s firing was tension between Altman, who favored developing AI more aggressively, and members of the OpenAI board, who wanted to move more cautiously, according to CNN contributor Kara Swisher, who spoke to sources knowledgeable about the unfolding events.
    
            Within 24 hours of Altman being fired, reports emerged that he and other ex-OpenAI loyalists were mulling plans for their own venture.
    
            OpenAI’s board was also reportedly having second thoughts and considering asking the ousted CEO to return.
    
            By Sunday afternoon, Altman was back at OpenAI’s headquarters — this time with a guest badge — to negotiate his potential return. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reportedly mediated the discussion. A 5 p.m. PT deadline was reportedly set for the board to agree to Altman’s demands, including adding a seat for Microsoft, and reinstating him as CEO.
    
            But those talks broke down.
    
            As Sunday turned into Monday, Nadella tweeted that Altman, along with Brockman, would join Microsoft to run a new AI research group. At OpenAI, the group found a new interim CEO: Emmett Shear, the former CEO of Amazon’s streaming service, Twitch. Murati would return to her role as OpenAI’s chief technology officer.
    
            In a post on X early Monday, Shear, who left his role at Twitch in March, described the chance to join OpenAI as “a once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity. He added that the company would hire an independent investigator to report on what happened in the lead-up to Altman’s firing.
    
            But OpenAI employees were not convinced. More than 500 staffers signed an open letter calling on the company’s board to resign and reinstate Altman and Brockman. They also threatened to follow the co-founders to Microsoft if their demands were not met.
    
            Altman posted on X, saying, “we have more unity and commitment and focus than ever before. we are all going to work together some way or other, and i’m so excited. one team, one mission.”
    
            The drama was far from over. The Verge reported Monday afternoon that Altman and Brockman could still return to OpenAI if the board members who fired him resign.
    
            And Nadella, speaking to CNBC, said he was “open to both options” when asked whether Altman would actually join Microsoft.
    
            “Look, that is for the OpenAI board and management and the employees to choose,” Nadella said. “We chose to explicitly partner with OpenAI and we want to continue to do so, and obviously, that depends on the people of OpenAI staying there or coming to Microsoft.”
    
            Altman was reinstated late Tuesday as OpenAI’s CEO, the company said on X.
    
            “We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board,” the company said, adding that the board will be chaired by Bret Taylor, a former co-CEO of Salesforce. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers will also join the board, alongside existing director, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo.
    
            “We are collaborating to figure out the details,” it said.
    
            In his own post on X, formerly Twitter, Altman wrote that he is “looking forward” to returning to OpenAI and building on the firm’s “strong partnership” with Microsoft.
    
            It’s unclear how Shear will be affected by Altman’s return. Posting on X, Shear wrote: “I am deeply pleased by this result, after (some) 72 very intense hours of work … I’m glad to have been a part of the solution.”
    
            Brockman is also returning to OpenAI, according to his post on X.
    
            Ultimately, Microsoft and Altman appear to be the big winners from the dust-up: Altman will continue leading the firm he helped to found. And Microsoft has wrested more control over the company it has backed with billions to bolster its ambitions in developing AI.
    
            “We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board,” Nadella said on X. “We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.”",CNN,22/11/2023,"['In a year of wild tech stories that has seen Elon Musk transform Twitter, cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapse and Silicon Valley Bank implode, this week’s whiplash-inducing turmoil at OpenAI is among the most captivating.', 'Sam Altman — the leader of one of the world’s most influential AI companies, OpenAI, and perhaps themost visible figure in the fledgling industry — was fired Friday night by the startup’s directors in a surprise move.', 'Less than five days later, he’s back as the company’s CEO, now with a board that is, in theory, more supportive of his vision.', 'The series of extraordinary events unfolded just days after OpenAI held itsfirst-ever developer conference, where it laid out new, commercialized versions of its technology, including the option to customize its ChatGPT AI chatbot.', 'If you’re just catching up, here’s what you missed from a week so incredible you’d be forgiven for thinking the script could have been written by an early version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.', 'Around 3 p.m. ET, Altman joined a Google Meet call with most of OpenAI’s board that had been convened by fellow co-founder and OpenAI chief scientistIlya Sutskever, during which Altman was fired and told that the news would soon be made public.', 'Within the next half hour, the board also informed Greg Brockman, another co-founder and OpenAI president, that he would be removed from the board.', 'Around 3:30 p.m. ET, OpenAI publicly announced that it had fired Altman over concerns that he was not always truthful with the board.', 'The board said Mira Murati, the company’s chief technology officer, would become interim CEO.', 'OpenAI’s strategic partners, including its biggest financial backer Microsoft, were also reportedly informed of Altman’s ouster just minutes before the board’s announcement.', 'Hours after being fired, Altman posted on X that he “loved working with such talented people” and that he would have “more to say about what’s next later.”', 'Brockman promptly quit. “', 'Please don’t spend any time being concerned.', 'We will be fine,” Brockmansaid in a Friday poston X. “Greater things coming soon.”', 'A key factor in the CEO’s firing wastension between Altman, who favored developing AImore aggressively, and members of the OpenAI board, who wanted to move more cautiously,according to CNN contributor Kara Swisher,who spoke to sources knowledgeable about the unfolding events.', 'Within 24 hours of Altman being fired, reports emerged that he and other ex-OpenAI loyalists were mulling plans for their own venture.', 'OpenAI’s board was also reportedly having second thoughts and considering asking the ousted CEO to return.', 'By Sunday afternoon, Altman wasback at OpenAI’s headquarters— this time with a guest badge — to negotiate his potential return.', 'Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reportedly mediated the discussion.', 'A 5 p.m. PT deadline was reportedly set for the board to agree to Altman’s demands, including adding a seat for Microsoft, and reinstating him as CEO.', 'But those talks broke down.', 'As Sunday turned into Monday, Nadella tweeted that Altman, along with Brockman, would join Microsoft to run a new AI research group.', 'At OpenAI, the group found a new interim CEO: Emmett Shear, the former CEO of Amazon’s streaming service, Twitch.', 'Murati would return to her role as OpenAI’s chief technology officer.', 'In a post on X early Monday, Shear, who left his role at Twitch in March, described the chance to join OpenAI as “a once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity.', 'He added that the company would hire an independent investigator to report on what happened in the lead-up to Altman’s firing.', 'But OpenAI employees were not convinced.', 'More than 500 staffers signed an open letter calling on the company’s board to resign and reinstate Altman and Brockman.', 'They also threatened to follow the co-founders to Microsoft if their demands were not met.', 'Altman posted on X, saying, “we have more unity and commitment and focus than ever before.', 'we are all going to work together some way or other, and i’m so excited.', 'one team, one mission.”', 'The drama was far from over.', 'The Verge reported Monday afternoonthat Altman and Brockman could still return to OpenAI if the board members who fired him resign.', 'And Nadella, speaking to CNBC, said he was “open to both options” when asked whether Altman would actually join Microsoft.', '“Look, that is for the OpenAI board and management and the employees to choose,” Nadella said. “', 'We chose to explicitly partner with OpenAI and we want to continue to do so, and obviously, that depends on the people of OpenAI staying there or coming to Microsoft.”', 'Altmanwas reinstated late Tuesday as OpenAI’s CEO, the company said on X.  “We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board,” the company said, adding that the board will be chaired by Bret Taylor, a former co-CEO of Salesforce.', 'Former Treasury SecretaryLarry Summers will also join the board, alongside existing director, Quora CEOAdam D’Angelo.', '“We are collaborating to figure out the details,” it said.', 'In his own post on X, formerly Twitter, Altmanwrotethat he is “looking forward” to returning to OpenAI and building on the firm’s “strong partnership” with Microsoft.', 'It’s unclear how Shear will be affected by Altman’s return.', 'Posting on X, Shear wrote:“I am deeply pleased by this result, after (some) 72 very intense hours of work … I’m glad to have been a part of the solution.”', 'Brockman is also returning to OpenAI, according to hispost on X.  Ultimately, Microsoft and Altman appear to be the big winners from the dust-up: Altman will continue leading the firm he helped to found.', 'And Microsoft has wrested more control over the company it has backed with billions to bolster its ambitions in developing AI.', '“We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board,” Nadellasaidon X. “We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.”']",0.062777217389235,"“We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board,” Nadellasaidon X. “We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.”","Around 3:30 p.m. ET, OpenAI publicly announced that it had fired Altman over concerns that he was not always truthful with the board.",0.549453833273479,And Microsoft has wrested more control over the company it has backed with billions to bolster its ambitions in developing AI.,"Sam Altman — the leader of one of the world’s most influential AI companies, OpenAI, and perhaps themost visible figure in the fledgling industry — was fired Friday night by the startup’s directors in a surprise move.",2024-04-30
"Starbucks, Workers United made 'significant progress' in this week's contract talks",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/26/starbucks-workers-united-union-make-progress-in-negotiations.html,2024-04-26T17:46:12+0000,"In this articleStarbucks and Workers United, representing roughly 400 of its cafes, said Friday in a joint release that they made ""significant progress"" in their contract talks this week.The two parties discussed a process to resolve grievances, details related to the union's representation of Starbucks baristas, and other topics on Wednesday and Thursday in Atlanta, according to the press release.The two-day session marked the first time in nearly a year that Starbucks and Workers United came to the bargaining table. It followed a February announcement that the two sides were ending their bitter stalemate.The coffee giant spent more than two years battling the union, which is an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU. Workers United has broadly pushed for higher wages and more consistent scheduling, among a range of other priorities.This week's talks are the closest that any of the unionized locations, which make up a small fraction of Starbucks' total U.S. footprint, have come to a collective bargaining agreement.Yet, there's still a long road ahead.""There's more to do, but we are committed to working together,"" both sides said in a joint statement.Starbucks and the union plan to meet again in late May to keep working on the framework that will inform every single-store contract, according to the release. Individual stores will still have to negotiate and ratify their contracts once that foundation has been built.Labor laws do not require that the employer and union reach a collective bargaining agreement, only that both bargain in good faith. After a year, workers who lose faith in the union can petition to decertify, putting a ticking clock on negotiations. Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Starbucks and Workers United represent about 400 cafes. An earlier version misstated the number.",CNBC,26/04/2024,"['In this articleStarbucks and Workers United, representing roughly 400 of its cafes, said Friday in a joint release that they made ""significant progress"" in their contract talks this week.', ""The two parties discussed a process to resolve grievances, details related to the union's representation of Starbucks baristas, and other topics on Wednesday and Thursday in Atlanta, according to the press release."", 'The two-day session marked the first time in nearly a year that Starbucks and Workers United came to the bargaining table.', 'It followed a February announcement that the two sides were ending their bitter stalemate.', 'The coffee giant spent more than two years battling the union, which is an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU.', 'Workers United has broadly pushed for higher wages and more consistent scheduling, among a range of other priorities.', ""This week's talks are the closest that any of the unionized locations, which make up a small fraction of Starbucks' total U.S. footprint, have come to a collective bargaining agreement."", ""Yet, there's still a long road ahead."", '""There\'s more to do, but we are committed to working together,"" both sides said in a joint statement.', 'Starbucks and the union plan to meet again in late May to keep working on the framework that will inform every single-store contract, according to the release.', 'Individual stores will still have to negotiate and ratify their contracts once that foundation has been built.', 'Labor laws do not require that the employer and union reach a collective bargaining agreement, only that both bargain in good faith.', 'After a year, workers who lose faith in the union can petition to decertify, putting a ticking clock on negotiations.', 'Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Starbucks and Workers United represent about 400 cafes.', 'An earlier version misstated the number.']",0.239976481095241,"Labor laws do not require that the employer and union reach a collective bargaining agreement, only that both bargain in good faith.",It followed a February announcement that the two sides were ending their bitter stalemate.,0.999555766582489,"In this articleStarbucks and Workers United, representing roughly 400 of its cafes, said Friday in a joint release that they made ""significant progress"" in their contract talks this week.",,2024-04-30
Vinted turns first profit as second-hand fashion remains on trend,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxwvp2z7djyo,2024-04-29T17:28:11.402Z,"Vinted has made a profit for the first time as the fashion for second-hand clothes remains on trend. It was a firm ""at the forefront of a market with huge potential"", its chief executive said. Digital platforms allowing customers to sell their ""pre-loved"" items direct to other people have taken off in recent years. But Vinted, which has expanded rapidly across Europe, is the first out of the red, turning a €20.4m (£17.4m) loss in 2022 into a €17.8m profit. Thomas Plantenga, Vinted's chief executive, said second-hand fashion remained a ""tiny"" proportion of the market but that the firm was in a strong position. As well as expanding into new markets, including Denmark, Finland and Romania, Vinted had also accelerated the development of its delivery service Vinted Go, he said. “We see many opportunities ahead, so we’ll continue to balance profitability against investment opportunities to accelerate towards our mission,” Mr Plantenga said. He added that enabling customers to sell to each other would help ""mitigate the harm of the fashion industry"". Vinted said revenues had jumped 61% to €596.3m (£509m) in 2023 compared with the previous year. The marketplace acquired a second-hand designer clothes specialist platform, Rebelle in 2022 and has launched a service which verifies the authenticity of valuable items. Vinted and a similar UK-based platform Depop have both caught on with British shoppers in recent years, eating into eBay's original dominance of the second-hand clothing market, and appealing particularly to younger shoppers.  The cost-of-living crisis, combined with increased awareness of fashion's environmental impact, have helped bolster the trend. Social media influencers and celebrities have also helped to overhaul associations with musty, out-of-fashion, charity shop stock. A recent report from US-based second-hand retailer ThredUp suggests that the market for used fashion is now worth tens of billions of dollars a year in Asia, North America and Europe. However the size of the new clothes market, and the trend towards lower quality ""fast fashion"" products, mean it is hard for second-hand platforms to make a profit. ""In recent years, the likes of Vinted and Depop have ploughed millions into growing their headcount and expanding their audience, as they looked to capitalise on the second-hand trend,"" said retail analyst Natalie Berg. ""It’s a gamble that seems to have paid off for Vinted. With low prices and no seller fees, its model needs scale which, in turn, will open up alternative revenue streams like advertising."" Vinted, a privately owned firm, said it had expanded its staff by a third. It now has 2,000 employees, most of them in Lithuania. ",BBC,29/04/2024,"['Vinted has made a profit for the first time as the fashion for second-hand clothes remains on trend.', 'It was a firm ""at the forefront of a market with huge potential"", its chief executive said.', 'Digital platforms allowing customers to sell their ""pre-loved"" items direct to other people have taken off in recent years.', 'But Vinted, which has expanded rapidly across Europe, is the first out of the red, turning a €20.4m (£17.4m) loss in 2022 into a €17.8m profit.', 'Thomas Plantenga, Vinted\'s chief executive, said second-hand fashion remained a ""tiny"" proportion of the market but that the firm was in a strong position.', 'As well as expanding into new markets, including Denmark, Finland and Romania, Vinted had also accelerated the development of its delivery service Vinted Go, he said. “', 'We see many opportunities ahead, so we’ll continue to balance profitability against investment opportunities to accelerate towards our mission,” Mr Plantenga said.', 'He added that enabling customers to sell to each other would help ""mitigate the harm of the fashion industry"".', 'Vinted said revenues had jumped 61% to €596.3m (£509m) in 2023 compared with the previous year.', 'The marketplace acquired a second-hand designer clothes specialist platform, Rebelle in 2022 and has launched a service which verifies the authenticity of valuable items.', ""Vinted and a similar UK-based platform Depop have both caught on with British shoppers in recent years, eating into eBay's original dominance of the second-hand clothing market, and appealing particularly to younger shoppers."", ""The cost-of-living crisis, combined with increased awareness of fashion's environmental impact, have helped bolster the trend."", 'Social media influencers and celebrities have also helped to overhaul associations with musty, out-of-fashion, charity shop stock.', 'A recent report from US-based second-hand retailer ThredUp suggests that the market for used fashion is now worth tens of billions of dollars a year in Asia, North America and Europe.', 'However the size of the new clothes market, and the trend towards lower quality ""fast fashion"" products, mean it is hard for second-hand platforms to make a profit. ""', 'In recent years, the likes of Vinted and Depop have ploughed millions into growing their headcount and expanding their audience, as they looked to capitalise on the second-hand trend,"" said retail analyst Natalie Berg. ""', 'It’s a gamble that seems to have paid off for Vinted.', 'With low prices and no seller fees, its model needs scale which, in turn, will open up alternative revenue streams likeadvertising.""', 'Vinted, a privately owned firm, said it had expanded its staff by a third.', 'It now has 2,000 employees, most of them in Lithuania.']",0.3179299485824444,"The marketplace acquired a second-hand designer clothes specialist platform, Rebelle in 2022 and has launched a service which verifies the authenticity of valuable items.","With low prices and no seller fees, its model needs scale which, in turn, will open up alternative revenue streams likeadvertising.""",0.8781564270748812,Vinted said revenues had jumped 61% to €596.3m (£509m) in 2023 compared with the previous year.,"However the size of the new clothes market, and the trend towards lower quality ""fast fashion"" products, mean it is hard for second-hand platforms to make a profit. """,2024-04-30
Your complete guide to earning and redeeming points in the Citi ThankYou Rewards program,https://edition.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/travel/citi-thankyou-points-rewards,"
  Updated
        12:10 PM EST, Wed January 10, 2024
    ","The Citi ThankYou Rewards program has evolved over the past decade and is now a formidable competitor with established programs like American Express Membership Rewards® and Chase Ultimate Rewards®. Citi’s got a relatively small portfolio of quality credit cards and a rewarding program to boot. In fact, its credit cards offer some of the most generous category bonuses in exchange for reasonable annual fees.
    
            When it comes to redeeming your hard-earned points, Citi has an impressive transfer partner list that makes it possible to maximize your rewards for travel bookings. And if you don’t want to learn the ins and outs of various loyalty programs, Citi also gives you the option to use points for statement credits and direct travel bookings.
    
            If you’re curious about how the Citi ThankYou program works, here’s everything you need to know about how to get the most out of the program for travel.
    
            You can earn Citi ThankYou points in numerous ways. The easiest is through credit card sign-up bonuses, which range depending on the card. But that’s not the only way to earn points in this program. Between checking account bonuses and authorized user incentives, there are many ways to earn ThankYou points beyond credit cards.
    
            Citi has a small but mighty credit card lineup, offering generous welcome bonuses and ongoing rewards. The issuer’s credit cards are generally split into two categories: traditional ThankYou points-earning cards and cash back cards. However, recently, Citi made a change to its program that now sees its cash back credit cards earning ThankYou Rewards points, which can also be redeemed for traditional cash back.
    
            Citi has two cards that earn ThankYou points directly. These cards are ideal for maximizing rewards on everyday purchases, with the Citi Premier® Card and Citi Rewards+® Card specifically offering significant bonuses in those everyday categories.
    
            As mentioned, there are also a number of other traditional cash back credit cards in the Citi portfolio that allow you to boost your earnings. They can be incredibly valuable, considering the Citi® Double Cash Card earns 2% on everything — 1% when you buy, 1% when you pay. By adding this card to your wallet, you’ll earn a minimum of 2 ThankYou points per dollar spent on all purchases that aren’t eligible for the bonus categories on the Citi Premier or Rewards+ cards.
    
            Considering Citi’s cash back cards have no annual fees, adding one to your wallet could make a lot of sense. You’ll enhance your point earning across the board without additional annual fees.
    
            By combining the Citi cards you have in your wallet, you can maximize your earnings and ensure you continue to work your way toward your next redemption.
    
            Adding an authorized user can help you earn more Citi points in two ways: bonus points for adding someone and for all of their purchases. First, you’ll sometimes get bonus points just for adding someone to your account. Citi frequently sends out authorized user bonuses to targeted card holders. These bonuses are typically around 2,500 bonus points but can vary.
    
            Secondly, you’ll earn Citi ThankYou points based on all the spending your authorized user puts on their card. Of course, you’ll only want to consider adding a member of your household or someone you trust to pay you back as an authorized user on your account. Authorized users can make charges on the credit card they’ve been added to but have no liability when it comes to paying the bill — that onus falls on you, the primary card holder.
    
            If you’d like to earn even more ThankYou points, you can do so with a checking account. That’s because Citi offers several checking accounts that earn ThankYou points as a benefit: The Citigold, Citi Priority, Citi Private Bank and Citibank Account. With these accounts, you can earn up to 1,600 points per month on everyday banking activities. The exact number of ThankYou points you’ll earn depends on your account type and qualifying activities. Generally, Citigold, Citi Priority and Citi Private Bank accounts earn the most points.
    
            Sharing points is a great way to consolidate existing points with a significant other or family member. Citi ThankYou is one of the few programs that allows members to share points free of charge. The only stipulation is that you can only share points with someone who has a Citi ThankYou card, and Citi Custom Cash card holders are not eligible.
    
            It’s worth noting that shared points expire 90 days after receipt. So you shouldn’t transfer points unless you or the person you’re sending them to has an immediate use for them. Also, note that you can’t send or receive more than 100,000 points per calendar year.
    
            Once you’ve earned a slew of Citi ThankYou points comes the fun part of redeeming them. And thankfully, Citi offers many different ways for you to redeem your ThankYou points. You’ll get the most bang for your buck by redeeming points for travel, though that’s certainly not the only option.
    
            Here’s a look at your Citi ThankYou travel redemption options and how they work.
    
            Transferring points will get you the most value from your Citi ThankYou points. Citi has 18 airline and hotel partners, most of which you can transfer points to at a 1-to-1 ratio — however, that ratio can vary. You can redeem them for stays at all-inclusive resorts, international business-class tickets, domestic award flights and more. But keep in mind that not all airline and hotel loyalty programs are equal.
    
            Ultimately, you’ll want to research which program will offer you the most in return, depending on what your travel plans are. Like with the Chase Ultimate Rewards program, Capital One miles and American Express Membership Rewards program, you’ll need to link your accounts with each of the transfer partners, and you’ll also need to search for award availability with the airline of your choice before transferring any points.
    
            If you’re interested in transferring your Citi ThankYou points to a travel partner, these are your 18 options as well as the transfer rate.
    
            By transferring Citi ThankYou points to partner airlines, you unlock the ability to travel for next to nothing — in most cases when redeeming travel rewards, you’ll just have to pay the taxes and fees on a ticket. As a result, points and miles open up the door for flying experiences that would otherwise be out of reach.
    
            Keep in mind that the most obvious airline choice may not always be your best option. Airlines typically have extensive alliance networks, allowing you to redeem points for partner airlines through their respective programs. For example, Delta Air Lines and Air France/KLM are both members of the SkyTeam alliance, meaning you can transfer your Citi ThankYou points to Flying Blue and redeem for flights operated by Delta Air Lines.
    
            Citi’s airline partners will get you the most value for your points, especially if you redeem them for business- and first-class travel. That being said, Citi’s airline partners offer several sweet spot awards. These heavily discounted awards will save you points on travel and make earning ThankYou points worthwhile. Some of these sweet spots awards that will get you maximum value for your ThankYou points include the following:
    
            Generally speaking, you’ll get the most value out of your Citi ThankYou points by transferring them to airline or hotel partners. But that may not always make sense for all card holders — and it’s not your only option.
    
            Citi ThankYou points are worth 1 cent each when you use them to book travel through the Citi ThankYou portal. That’s significantly less than the value you’ll get from transfer partner redemptions. While transferring points is the best way to maximize your ThankYou points, doing so isn’t always possible. If that’s the case — or if you’re not interested in researching award availability — redeeming at a fixed value for travel via the ThankYou portal is a decent option.
    
            Citi offers several fixed redemption options where you’ll redeem your points at 1 cent per point. This is ideal for folks who would rather leverage points for daily expenses than travel bookings. While redeeming points this way isn’t advisable, as you won’t get as much value out of each point, you should use them however they suit you best.
    
            For example, if you have no travel plans in the foreseeable future but mounting expenses at home, then redeeming your ThankYou points for mortgage or student loan payments might make sense. Here are some additional ways you can redeem your ThankYou points:
    
            Generally speaking, if you’re looking to get the most value out of your Citi ThankYou points, your worst option is when redeeming for a fixed value. However, if you’re willing to sacrifice the value of your points and instead want to save some cash, it could be a solid option. Ultimately, every card holder’s goals for their points will be different, but it’s good that you have options with ThankYou points.
    
            Citi ThankYou points are worth about 1.7 cents each when you redeem them for travel through transfer partners, according to frequent flyer website The Points Guy. The exact amount varies depending on the cabin and destination you’re flying to. Generally speaking, you’ll get the most value by redeeming points for international business- and first-class flights. While 1.7 cents per point isn’t guaranteed for all redemptions, it’s a number you should aim for if you want to redeem ThankYou points for maximum value.
    
            Aside from travel redemptions, you can use ThankYou points for mortgage payments, student loans, statement credits or charitable contributions, and they’re worth 1 cent apiece.
    
            Citi ThankYou points are an incredibly valuable currency and can help you meet your most aspirational travel goals. Whether you’re using points for domestic or international travel, Citi’s wide selection of transfer partners offers terrific redemption value. Between a good credit card selection, top-notch travel partners and flexibility in use, Citi ThankYou points are definitely worth adding to your points portfolio.
    
            Looking for a new travel credit card? Check out CNN Underscored’s list of the best credit cards currently available.
    
            Editorial Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
    
            Note: While the offers mentioned above are accurate at the time of publication, they’re subject to change at any time and may have changed, or may no longer be available.",CNN,10/01/2024,"['The Citi ThankYou Rewards program has evolved over the past decade and is now a formidable competitor with established programs like American Express Membership Rewards® and Chase Ultimate Rewards®.', 'Citi’s got a relatively small portfolio of quality credit cards and a rewarding program to boot.', 'In fact, its credit cards offer some of the most generous category bonuses in exchange for reasonable annual fees.', 'When it comes to redeeming your hard-earned points, Citi has an impressive transfer partner list that makes it possible to maximize your rewards for travel bookings.', 'And if you don’t want to learn the ins and outs of various loyalty programs, Citi also gives you the option to use points for statement credits and direct travel bookings.', 'If you’re curious about how the Citi ThankYou program works, here’s everything you need to know about how to get the most out of the program for travel.', 'You can earn Citi ThankYou points in numerous ways.', 'The easiest is through credit card sign-up bonuses, which range depending on the card.', 'But that’s not the only way to earn points in this program.', 'Between checking account bonuses and authorized user incentives, there are many ways to earn ThankYou points beyond credit cards.', 'Citi has a small but mighty credit card lineup, offering generous welcome bonuses and ongoing rewards.', 'The issuer’s credit cards are generally split into two categories: traditional ThankYou points-earning cards andcash back cards.', 'However, recently, Citi made a change to its program that now sees its cash back credit cards earning ThankYou Rewards points, which can also be redeemed for traditional cash back.', 'Citi has two cards that earn ThankYou points directly.', 'These cards are ideal for maximizing rewards on everyday purchases, with the Citi Premier® Card and Citi Rewards+® Card specifically offering significant bonuses in those everyday categories.', 'As mentioned, there are also a number of other traditionalcash back credit cardsin the Citi portfolio that allow you to boost your earnings.', 'They can be incredibly valuable, considering the Citi® Double Cash Card earns 2% on everything —1% when you buy, 1% when you pay.', 'By adding this card to your wallet, you’ll earn a minimum of 2 ThankYou points per dollar spent on all purchases that aren’t eligible for the bonus categories on the Citi Premier or Rewards+ cards.', 'Considering Citi’s cash back cards have no annual fees, adding one to your wallet could make a lot of sense.', 'You’ll enhance your point earning across the board without additional annual fees.', 'By combining the Citi cards you have in your wallet, you can maximize your earnings and ensure you continue to work your way toward your next redemption.', 'Adding an authorized user can help you earn more Citi points in two ways: bonus points for adding someone and for all of their purchases.', 'First, you’ll sometimes get bonus points just for adding someone to your account.', 'Citi frequently sends out authorized user bonuses to targeted card holders.', 'These bonuses are typically around 2,500 bonus points but can vary.', 'Secondly, you’ll earn Citi ThankYou points based on all the spending your authorized user puts on their card.', 'Of course, you’ll only want to consider adding a member of your household or someone you trust to pay you back as anauthorized useron your account.', 'Authorized users can make charges on the credit card they’ve been added to but have no liability when it comes to paying the bill — that onus falls on you, the primary card holder.', 'If you’d like to earn even more ThankYou points, you can do so with a checking account.', 'That’s because Citi offers several checking accounts that earn ThankYou points as a benefit: The Citigold, Citi Priority, Citi Private Bank and Citibank Account.', 'With these accounts, you can earn up to 1,600 points per month on everyday banking activities.', 'The exact number of ThankYou points you’ll earn depends on your account type and qualifying activities.', 'Generally, Citigold, Citi Priority and Citi Private Bank accounts earn the most points.', 'Sharing points is a great way to consolidate existing points with a significant other or family member.', 'Citi ThankYou is one of the few programs that allows members to share points free of charge.', 'The only stipulation is that you can only share points with someone who has a Citi ThankYou card, and Citi Custom Cash card holders are not eligible.', 'It’s worth noting that shared points expire 90 days after receipt.', 'So you shouldn’t transfer points unless you or the person you’re sending them to has an immediate use for them.', 'Also, note that you can’t send or receive more than 100,000 points per calendar year.', 'Once you’ve earned a slew of Citi ThankYou points comes the fun part of redeeming them.', 'And thankfully, Citi offers many different ways for you to redeem your ThankYou points.', 'You’ll get the most bang for your buck by redeeming points for travel, though that’s certainly not the only option.', 'Here’s a look at your Citi ThankYou travel redemption options and how they work.', 'Transferring points will get you the most value from your Citi ThankYou points.', 'Citi has 18 airline and hotel partners, most of which you can transfer points to at a 1-to-1 ratio — however, that ratio can vary.', 'You can redeem them for stays atall-inclusive resorts,international business-class tickets, domestic award flights and more.', 'But keep in mind that not all airline and hotel loyalty programs are equal.', 'Ultimately, you’ll want to research which program will offer you the most in return, depending on what your travel plans are.', 'Like with the Chase Ultimate Rewards program, Capital One miles andAmerican Express Membership Rewards program, you’ll need to link your accounts with each of the transfer partners, and you’ll also need to search for award availability with the airline of your choice before transferring any points.', 'If you’re interested in transferring your Citi ThankYou points to a travel partner, these are your 18 options as well as the transfer rate.', 'By transferring Citi ThankYou points to partner airlines, you unlock the ability to travel for next to nothing — in most cases when redeeming travel rewards, you’ll just have to pay the taxes and fees on a ticket.', 'As a result, points and miles open up the door for flying experiences that would otherwise be out of reach.', 'Keep in mind that the most obvious airline choice may not always be your best option.', 'Airlines typically have extensive alliance networks, allowing you to redeem points for partner airlines through their respective programs.', 'For example, Delta Air Lines and Air France/KLM are both members of the SkyTeam alliance, meaning you can transfer your Citi ThankYou points to Flying Blue and redeem for flights operated by Delta Air Lines.', 'Citi’s airline partners will get you the most value for your points, especially if you redeem them for business- and first-class travel.', 'That being said, Citi’s airline partners offer several sweet spot awards.', 'These heavily discounted awards will save you points on travel and make earning ThankYou points worthwhile.', 'Some of these sweet spots awards that will get you maximum value for your ThankYou points include the following:  Generally speaking, you’ll get the most value out of your Citi ThankYou points by transferring them to airline or hotel partners.', 'But that may not always make sense for all card holders — and it’s not your only option.', 'Citi ThankYou points are worth 1 cent each when you use them to book travel through the Citi ThankYou portal.', 'That’s significantly less than the value you’ll get from transfer partner redemptions.', 'While transferring points is the best way to maximize your ThankYou points, doing so isn’t always possible.', 'If that’s the case — or if you’re not interested in researching award availability — redeeming at a fixed value for travel via the ThankYou portal is a decent option.', 'Citi offers several fixed redemption options where you’ll redeem your points at 1 cent per point.', 'This is ideal for folks who would rather leverage points for daily expenses than travel bookings.', 'While redeeming points this way isn’t advisable, as you won’t get as much value out of each point, you should use them however they suit you best.', 'For example, if you have no travel plans in the foreseeable future but mounting expenses at home, then redeeming your ThankYou points for mortgage or student loan payments might make sense.', 'Here are some additional ways you can redeem your ThankYou points:  Generally speaking, if you’re looking to get the most value out of your Citi ThankYou points, your worst option is when redeeming for a fixed value.', 'However, if you’re willing to sacrifice the value of your points and instead want to save some cash, it could be a solid option.', 'Ultimately, every card holder’s goals for their points will be different, but it’s good that you have options with ThankYou points.', 'Citi ThankYou points are worth about 1.7 cents each when you redeem them for travel through transfer partners, according to frequent flyer website The Points Guy.', 'The exact amount varies depending on the cabin and destination you’re flying to.', 'Generally speaking, you’ll get the most value by redeeming points for international business- and first-class flights.', 'While 1.7 cents per point isn’t guaranteed for all redemptions, it’s a number you should aim for if you want to redeem ThankYou points for maximum value.', 'Aside from travel redemptions, you can use ThankYou points for mortgage payments, student loans, statement credits or charitable contributions, and they’re worth 1 cent apiece.', 'Citi ThankYou points are an incredibly valuable currency and can help you meet your most aspirational travel goals.', 'Whether you’re using points for domestic or international travel, Citi’s wide selection of transfer partners offers terrific redemption value.', 'Between a good credit card selection, top-notch travel partners and flexibility in use, Citi ThankYou points are definitely worth adding to your points portfolio.', 'Looking for a new travel credit card?', 'Check out CNN Underscored’s list of thebest credit cardscurrently available.', 'Editorial Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.', 'Note: While the offers mentioned above are accurate at the time of publication, they’re subject to change at any time and may have changed, or may no longer be available.']",0.4187524857201869,"Citi has a small but mighty credit card lineup, offering generous welcome bonuses and ongoing rewards.","Authorized users can make charges on the credit card they’ve been added to but have no liability when it comes to paying the bill — that onus falls on you, the primary card holder.",0.8707016060749689,"As mentioned, there are also a number of other traditionalcash back credit cardsin the Citi portfolio that allow you to boost your earnings.",That’s significantly less than the value you’ll get from transfer partner redemptions.,2024-04-30
Americans’ pay gains rose faster than expected so far this year,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/30/economy/employment-cost-index-eci-wages-q1/index.html,"
  Updated
        10:46 AM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024
    ","It wasn’t just inflation starting off 2024 hot, paychecks did as well.
    
            A closely watched measure of labor costs showed that compensation growth accelerated much faster than expected during the first three months of the year, providing an unwelcome data point for Federal Reserve officials looking for inflation pressures to ease.
    
            The Employment Cost Index (ECI) rose a seasonally adjusted 1.2% last quarter, faster growth than the 0.9% increase the prior quarter, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Tuesday.
    
            “This isn’t going to calm any nerves at the Fed,” Scott Anderson, chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, told CNN in an interview.
    
            Fed officials are closely monitoring the trajectory of wage gains, as there’s a concern that accelerated compensation growth may serve as an inflation pressure.
    
            Higher benefits costs helped drive the index to its biggest quarterly increase in a year: Those shot up to 1.1% from a 0.7% gain the prior quarter, while wage and salary growth was unchanged at 1.1%.
    
            On an annual basis, the index that measures changes in wages and benefits held pat at 4.2% for the year ending in March. The heftiest pay gains are occurring in the public sector, where workers are seeing compensation grow 4.8% for the 12 months ended in March.
    
            Adjusting for inflation, wages and benefits were up a mere 0.8% annually, ticking down slightly from a 0.9% gain.
    
            Economists had expected quarterly growth to come in at 0.9% and for annual gains to slow to 4%, according to FactSet consensus estimates. US stocks fell on the news, with Dow futures down by around 185 points, or 0.5%, in premarket trading Tuesday. Futures were lower by 0.43% on the S&P 500 and 0.46% on the Nasdaq Composite.
    
            The Fed favors the ECI over other wage trackers, because it provides a more comprehensive measurement of compensation and includes not just wages but also the costs of benefits provided to workers. The index also includes controls for changes in the composition of employment, essentially measuring wage costs for the same jobs over time.
    
            Worker compensation spiked during the nation’s economic recovery from the pandemic as consumer demand outstripped the supply of available workers.
    
            Annual labor cost gains topped out at 5.1% in the second quarter of 2022, a time when inflation rocketed to 40-year highs. Wage gains have since slowed but still remain above historical averages (running in the range of 2% to 3% pre-pandemic) and also above what the Fed wants to see: Central bank officials have indicated that a pace of 3.5% is more consistent with their target of 2% inflation.
    
            The Fed is holding its latest policymaking meeting this week and expected to announce Wednesday that interest rates will remain unchanged. Given the batch of hotter-than-expected inflation data to start the year — and, now, higher-than-anticipated wage gains — economists aren’t expecting a Fed rate cut in the near future.
    
            “The Fed would now need to see a spectacular rollover in payrolls in May and June and equally spectacular inflation numbers in order to cut rates in June,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist for Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in a note issued Tuesday. “That’s possible but the ECI has raised the bar for easing to the point where we now have to look for the first move in September instead.”
    
            While inflation, and now wages, are moving in the opposite direction of what the Fed wants to see; Tuesday’s ECI report is yet another reminder of the pure stamina of the US labor market.
    
            “This is really good news for the economy overall and for the resilience and strength of economic growth,” Anderson said. “This will keep real wage growth in the plus column for many workers and will put a floor under consumer spending and keep consumer spending resilient over the next several quarters at least.”
    
            A fresh batch of US labor market data will land this week, including the all-important monthly jobs report on Friday. Economists are expecting that the US economy added 230,000 positions, according to FactSet.
    
            While some of the biggest monthly gains have been in large industries such as health care, leisure and hospitality, and government, the job growth has remained broad-based and layoffs have remained low.
    
            The strength in the labor market and still-high (albeit slowing) wage growth have helped workers see real pay gains and continue their economy-powering spending.
    
            But while inflation hasn’t stopped consumers from spending, Americans aren’t fans of having to put up with three-plus years of higher-than-typical price hikes.
    
            A separate report released Tuesday by the Conference Board showed that consumer confidence retreated in April as it was dampened by elevated food and gas prices as well as concerns about the labor market taking a turn for the worse.
    
            The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index fell to a reading of 97.0 in April from a downwardly revised 103.1 the month before and landed at its lowest level since July 2022.",CNN,30/04/2024,"['It wasn’t just inflation starting off 2024 hot, paychecks did as well.', 'A closely watched measure of labor costs showed that compensation growth accelerated much faster than expected during the first three months of the year, providing an unwelcome data point for Federal Reserve officials looking for inflation pressures to ease.', 'The Employment Cost Index (ECI) rose a seasonally adjusted 1.2% last quarter, faster growth than the 0.9% increase the prior quarter, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data released Tuesday.', '“This isn’t going to calm any nerves at the Fed,” Scott Anderson, chief economist at BMO Capital Markets, told CNN in an interview.', 'Fed officials are closely monitoring the trajectory of wage gains, as there’s a concern that accelerated compensation growth may serve as an inflation pressure.', 'Higher benefits costs helped drive the index to its biggest quarterly increase in a year: Those shot up to 1.1% from a 0.7% gain the prior quarter, while wage and salary growth was unchanged at 1.1%.', 'On an annual basis, the index that measures changes in wages and benefits held pat at 4.2% for the year ending in March.', 'The heftiest pay gains are occurring in the public sector, where workers are seeing compensation grow 4.8% for the 12 months ended in March.', 'Adjusting for inflation, wages and benefits were up a mere 0.8% annually, ticking down slightly from a 0.9% gain.', 'Economists had expected quarterly growth to come in at 0.9% and for annual gains to slow to 4%, according to FactSet consensus estimates.', 'US stocks fell on the news, with Dow futures down by around 185 points, or 0.5%, in premarket trading Tuesday.', 'Futures were lower by 0.43% on the S&P 500 and 0.46% on the Nasdaq Composite.', 'The Fed favors the ECI over other wage trackers, because it provides a more comprehensive measurement of compensation and includes not just wages but also the costs of benefits provided to workers.', 'The index also includes controls for changes in the composition of employment, essentially measuring wage costs for the same jobs over time.', 'Worker compensation spiked during the nation’s economic recovery from the pandemic as consumer demand outstripped the supply of available workers.', 'Annual labor cost gains topped out at 5.1% in the second quarter of 2022, a time when inflation rocketed to 40-year highs.', 'Wage gains have since slowed but still remain above historical averages (running in the range of 2% to 3% pre-pandemic) and also above what the Fed wants to see: Central bank officials have indicated that a pace of 3.5% is more consistent with their target of 2% inflation.', 'The Fed is holding its latest policymaking meeting this week and expected to announce Wednesday that interest rates will remain unchanged.', 'Given the batch of hotter-than-expected inflation data to start the year — and, now, higher-than-anticipated wage gains — economists aren’t expecting a Fed rate cut in the near future.', '“The Fed would now need to see a spectacular rollover in payrolls in May and June and equally spectacular inflation numbers in order to cut rates in June,” Ian Shepherdson, chief economist for Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in a note issued Tuesday. “', 'That’spossible but the ECI has raised the bar for easing to the point where we now have to look for the first move in September instead.”', 'While inflation, and now wages, are moving in the opposite direction of what the Fed wants to see; Tuesday’s ECI report is yet another reminder of the pure stamina of the US labor market.', '“This is really good news for the economy overall and for the resilience and strength of economic growth,” Anderson said. “', 'This will keep real wage growth in the plus column for many workers and will put a floor under consumer spending and keep consumer spending resilient over the next several quarters at least.”', 'A fresh batch of US labor market data will land this week, including the all-important monthly jobs report on Friday.', 'Economists are expecting that the US economy added 230,000 positions, according to FactSet.', 'While some of the biggest monthly gains have been in large industries such as health care, leisure and hospitality, and government, the job growth has remained broad-based and layoffs have remained low.', 'The strength in the labor market and still-high (albeit slowing) wage growth have helped workers see real pay gains and continue their economy-powering spending.', 'But while inflation hasn’t stopped consumers from spending, Americans aren’t fans of having to put up with three-plus years of higher-than-typical price hikes.', 'A separate report released Tuesday by the Conference Board showed that consumer confidence retreated in April as it was dampened by elevated food and gas prices as well as concerns about the labor market taking a turn for the worse.', 'The Conference Board’s consumer confidence index fell to a reading of 97.0 in April from a downwardly revised 103.1 the month before and landed at its lowest level since July 2022.']",0.3045301448346394,"Higher benefits costs helped drive the index to its biggest quarterly increase in a year: Those shot up to 1.1% from a 0.7% gain the prior quarter, while wage and salary growth was unchanged at 1.1%.","But while inflation hasn’t stopped consumers from spending, Americans aren’t fans of having to put up with three-plus years of higher-than-typical price hikes.",0.4054174377368046,"The heftiest pay gains are occurring in the public sector, where workers are seeing compensation grow 4.8% for the 12 months ended in March.",A separate report released Tuesday by the Conference Board showed that consumer confidence retreated in April as it was dampened by elevated food and gas prices as well as concerns about the labor market taking a turn for the worse.,2024-04-30
"American Airlines cuts some international flights into 2025, citing Boeing delivery delays",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/26/american-airlines-cuts-some-international-flights-citing-boeing-delays.html,2024-04-26T19:57:37+0000,"In this articleAmerican Airlines on Friday said Boeing's 787 Dreamliner delivery delays are forcing it to cut some long-haul flights in the second half of the year and into early 2025, the latest carrier to change its schedule tied to the plane-maker's production problems.American expects to receive three Dreamliners this year, down from six, it said in a filing Thursday. Boeing said earlier this week that parts shortages will prevent it from ramping up production of the wide-body planes.""We're making these adjustments now to ensure we're able to re-accommodate customers on affected flights,"" American said in a statement. ""We'll be proactively reaching out to impacted customers to offer alternate travel arrangements. We remain committed to our customers and team members and mitigating the impact of these delays while continuing to offer a comprehensive global network.""American will suspend some routes to Europe at the end of the summer. Here's what's changing:American will also offer just a single daily flight between New York and Rome, instead of twice daily, starting Aug. 5, and service between Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Kona, Hawaii, won't operate this winter.American said it will continue to offer 55 long-haul international routes this winter and that it will add nonstop service between Philadelphia and Barcelona on a daily basis starting in January, as well as seasonal service between Miami and Montevideo, Uruguay. It will also add three-times-a-day flights between Miami and Sao Paulo.The airline is further evaluating its schedule because of Boeing's 737 Max delays, it said.Boeing didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.Correction: American Airlines will add three-times-a-day flights between Miami and Sao Paulo. A previous version of this story mischaracterized the schedule.",CNBC,26/04/2024,"[""In this articleAmerican Airlines on Friday said Boeing's 787 Dreamliner delivery delays are forcing it to cut some long-haul flights in the second half of the year and into early 2025, the latest carrier to change its schedule tied to the plane-maker's production problems."", 'American expects to receive three Dreamliners this year, down from six, it said in a filing Thursday.', 'Boeing said earlier this week that parts shortages will prevent it from ramping up production of the wide-body planes.', '""We\'re making these adjustments now to ensure we\'re able to re-accommodate customers on affected flights,"" American said in a statement. ""', ""We'll be proactively reaching out to impacted customers to offer alternate travel arrangements."", 'We remain committed to our customers and team members and mitigating the impact of these delays while continuing to offer a comprehensive global network.', '""American will suspend some routes to Europe at the end of the summer.', ""Here's what's changing:American will also offer just a single daily flight between New York and Rome, instead of twice daily, starting Aug. 5, and service between Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Kona, Hawaii, won't operate this winter."", 'American said it will continue to offer 55 long-haul international routes this winter and that it will add nonstop service between Philadelphia and Barcelona on a daily basis starting in January, as well as seasonal service between Miami and Montevideo, Uruguay.', 'It will also add three-times-a-day flights between Miami and Sao Paulo.', ""The airline is further evaluating its schedule because of Boeing's 737 Max delays, it said."", ""Boeing didn't immediately respond to a request for comment."", 'Correction: American Airlines will add three-times-a-day flights between Miami and Sao Paulo.', 'A previous version of this story mischaracterized the schedule.']",0.0283126784543538,We remain committed to our customers and team members and mitigating the impact of these delays while continuing to offer a comprehensive global network.,"In this articleAmerican Airlines on Friday said Boeing's 787 Dreamliner delivery delays are forcing it to cut some long-haul flights in the second half of the year and into early 2025, the latest carrier to change its schedule tied to the plane-maker's production problems.",-0.2854051291942596,We remain committed to our customers and team members and mitigating the impact of these delays while continuing to offer a comprehensive global network.,"American expects to receive three Dreamliners this year, down from six, it said in a filing Thursday.",2024-04-30
"NBC cut ties with Ronna McDaniel after extraordinary pressure, but its problems aren’t over",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/27/media/nbc-ronna-mcdaniel-problems-are-not-over/index.html,"
  Updated
        8:16 AM EDT, Wed March 27, 2024
    ","Only 80 hours elapsed between NBC News announcing Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor and the network ousting her from that very role. But for the leadership at NBC Universal News Group, those were 80 painful hours.
    
            On Tuesday evening, following another full day in which the media rumor mill churned at warp speed, NBCU News Group boss Cesar Conde sent staff a memo, notifying his troops that he had reversed his decision to welcome the former Republican National Committee chair to “the team.”
    
            “After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor,” Conde said, adding that he wanted to “personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down.”
    
            Conde had no real choice. The embattled NBCU boss, who I’m told dealt with the crisis from an unknown location outside of 30 Rock, was facing an unprecedented rebellion from his most high-profile stars, who one by one went on the air and excoriated leadership’s decision to hire McDaniel. The only aspect of Conde’s note that was surprising was the fact that it came 48 hours late, allowing what started off as a crisis to fester and balloon into one of the worst corporate public relations calamities in recent memory.
    
            “What a sh*t show!” a media executive exclaimed to me Tuesday shortly after Conde relieved McDaniel of her NBC News credentials.
    
            In his note, Conde said he took “full responsibility” for McDaniel’s hire. But, he also did point the finger, telling staffers that hiring her was “a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team.” Indeed, multiple people familiar with the matter have told me that the infighting among NBC executives over who was at fault for the disaster has reached a fever pitch, with various factions of the NBCU News Group assigning blame to others.
    
            Regardless of who is to blame, the entire affair made clear who is actually in control of the company — and it’s not Conde & Co. Despite the NBCU C-suite digging their heels in the sand as they resisted dumping McDaniel for days, they were ultimately forced to succumb to pressure from their talent. As a second media executive commented to me, it is now “very clear who is in charge” after the “weak leadership was put on full display.”
    
            “Has Cesar lost the room?” wondered a third media executive.
    
            While the Peacock family argues over who was really at fault, the company is facing a fresh public relations mess. Led by Donald Trump, right-wing personalities are already assailing the network as being overrun with intolerant woke leftists.
    
            “These Radical Left Lunatics are CRAZY and the top people at NBC ARE WEAK,” Trump raged on his Truth Social platform.
    
            Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary under President George W. Bush, wrote on X: “What NBC is saying is if you’re for Trump, you don’t belong. Good. Let NBC be for Democrats only.”
    
            Of course, that narrative is intellectually dishonest. The objection to McDaniel from both within and outside of NBCU was not that she is a Republican. It wasn’t even that she was a Trump-supporting Republican. No, the objection stemmed from the fact that McDaniel was an active participant in the plot to subvert the 2020 vote. And, in addition to that disgraceful history, she had a lengthy track record smearing NBC News and MSNBC.
    
            Nevertheless, NBCU will now have to contend with such dishonest attacks being leveled by the right, which will follow them in the days, months, and even years to come. As unfair as it may be, they will certainly damage the network’s brand in Republican circles — a place it had gone through great pains to appeal to.
    
            NBCU will also have to grapple with McDaniel, who spent the last 24 hours or so interviewing lawyers as she gears up for a possible legal fight with the network, according to a person familiar with the matter. The rift between McDaniel and NBCU had grown to such an extent by Tuesday that she was not informed by network brass that she had been dismissed, I’m told. Instead, McDaniel learned of her ouster in press reports.
    
            While NBCU is being beaten up on the right, the company’s leadership was quickly praised by its journalists and top stars. Shortly after Conde sent out his memo, Rachel Maddow appeared on Joy Reid’s show, where the two lauded Conde for reversing course.
    
            “I think it is a show of strength and a show of respect for the people who work at this company and make us who we are,” Maddow said. “That leadership was willing to change on this, I’m grateful to them.”",CNN,27/03/2024,"['Only 80 hours elapsed between NBC News announcing Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor and the network ousting her from that very role.', 'But for the leadership at NBC Universal News Group, those were 80painful hours.', 'On Tuesday evening, following another full day in which the media rumor mill churned at warp speed, NBCU News Group boss Cesar Conde sent staff a memo, notifying his troops that he had reversed his decision to welcome the former Republican National Committee chair to “the team.”', '“After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor,” Conde said, adding that he wanted to “personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down.”', 'Conde had no real choice.', 'The embattled NBCU boss, who I’m told dealt with the crisis from an unknown location outside of 30 Rock, was facing an unprecedented rebellion from his most high-profile stars, who one by one went on the air and excoriated leadership’s decision to hire McDaniel.', 'The only aspect of Conde’s note that was surprising was the fact that it came 48 hours late, allowing what started off as a crisis to fester and balloon into one of the worst corporate public relations calamities in recent memory.', '“What a sh*t show!”', 'a media executive exclaimed to me Tuesday shortly after Conde relieved McDaniel of her NBC News credentials.', 'In his note, Conde said he took “full responsibility” for McDaniel’s hire.', 'But, he also did point the finger, telling staffers that hiring her was “a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team.”', 'Indeed, multiple people familiar with the matter have told me that the infighting among NBC executives over who was at fault for the disaster has reached a fever pitch, with various factions of the NBCU News Group assigning blame to others.', 'Regardless of who is to blame, the entire affair made clear who is actually in control of the company — and it’s not Conde & Co. Despite the NBCU C-suite digging their heels in the sand as they resisted dumping McDaniel for days, they were ultimately forced to succumb to pressure from their talent.', 'As a second media executive commented to me, it is now “very clear who is in charge” after the “weak leadership was put on full display.”', '“Has Cesar lost the room?”', 'wondered a third media executive.', 'While the Peacock family argues over who was really at fault, the company is facing a fresh public relations mess.', 'Led by Donald Trump, right-wing personalities are already assailing the network as being overrun with intolerant woke leftists.', '“These Radical Left Lunatics are CRAZY and the top people at NBC ARE WEAK,” Trump raged on his Truth Social platform.', 'Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary under President George W. Bush, wrote on X: “What NBC is saying is if you’re for Trump, you don’t belong.', 'Good.', 'Let NBC be for Democrats only.”', 'Of course, that narrative is intellectually dishonest.', 'The objection to McDaniel from both within and outside of NBCU was not that she is a Republican.', 'It wasn’t even that she was a Trump-supporting Republican.', 'No, the objection stemmed from the fact that McDaniel was an active participant in the plot to subvert the 2020 vote.', 'And, in addition to that disgraceful history, she had a lengthy track record smearing NBC News and MSNBC.', 'Nevertheless, NBCU will now have to contend with such dishonest attacks being leveled by the right, which will follow them in the days, months, and even years to come.', 'As unfair as it may be, they will certainly damage the network’s brand in Republican circles — a place it had gone through great pains to appeal to.', 'NBCU will also have to grapple with McDaniel, who spent the last 24 hours or so interviewing lawyers as she gears up for a possible legal fight with the network, according to a person familiar with the matter.', 'The rift between McDaniel and NBCU had grown to such an extent by Tuesday that she was not informed by network brass that she had been dismissed, I’m told.', 'Instead, McDaniel learned of her ouster in press reports.', 'While NBCU is being beaten up on the right, the company’s leadership was quickly praised by its journalists and top stars.', 'Shortly after Conde sent out his memo, Rachel Maddow appeared on Joy Reid’s show, where the two lauded Conde for reversing course.', '“I think it is a show of strength and a show of respect for the people who work at this company and make us who we are,” Maddow said. “', 'That leadership was willing to change on this, I’m grateful to them.”']",-0.0743400881523301,"“I think it is a show of strength and a show of respect for the people who work at this company and make us who we are,” Maddow said. “","“These Radical Left Lunatics are CRAZY and the top people at NBC ARE WEAK,” Trump raged on his Truth Social platform.",-0.3914040706374428,"While NBCU is being beaten up on the right, the company’s leadership was quickly praised by its journalists and top stars.","As unfair as it may be, they will certainly damage the network’s brand in Republican circles — a place it had gone through great pains to appeal to.",2024-04-30
"India's economy: The good, bad and ugly in six charts",https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-68823827,2024-04-30T23:40:15.000Z,"In January, thousands braved the freezing cold at Delhi's Red Fort to hear Prime Minister Narendra Modi speak.  His message was ""Viksit Bharat 2047"", a promise to make India a developed nation by 2047.  It's the latest catchphrase from a man known for his penchant for catchy taglines.  ""Developed India"" is an imprecise pledge, but in the 10 years since Mr Modi first stormed to power, he has been trying to lay the foundations for a period of economic boom.  The prime minister and his government inherited an economy that was teetering on the precipice. Growth was slowing and investor confidence was low. A dozen Indian billionaires had gone bankrupt, saddling the country's banks with enormous unpaid loans that had crippled their capacity to lend.  Now, 10 years on, India's growth is outpacing other major economies, its banks are strong, and the government's finances are stable despite a painful pandemic. India surpassed the UK as the fifth largest economy last year and according to analysts at Morgan Stanley, it's on track to overtake Japan and Germany and hit the third spot by 2027. There is undoubtedly an air of optimism in the country. It successfully hosted the G20, became the first to send a rocket near the Moon's south pole, and has birthed a few dozen unicorns. The soaring stock markets have also had a trickle-down effect on the wealth of its middle class.  On the face of it ""Modinomics"" - the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s economic vision for India - appears to be working. But dig deeper, and the picture is more complex. For a vast swathe of the country's 1.4 billion people who live on the margins of sustenance, it's not boomtime just as yet.  So who are the winners and losers of Modinomics?  Mr Modi's push for digital governance has begun to transform the lives of some of the country's poorest people.  Today, Indians in the remotest corners of the country can buy many daily goods without cash, paying as little as 20p for a packet of bread using a QR code on their phone. Underpinning this digital revolution is a three-layer system of governance, which includes universal identity cards, a payments infrastructure that enables click-of-a-button money transfer, and a data pillar that gives people access to crucial personal documents like tax returns.   Linking hundreds of millions of bank accounts to this ""digital stack"" has cut red tape and corruption.  Estimates suggest that up to March 2021, an equivalent of about 1.1% of GDP was saved due to digital governance, allowing the government to dole out a volley of social subsidies, cash handouts and also spend on infrastructure building, without running high deficits.  Everywhere you go in India there are cranes and JCB machines at work giving its creaky public infrastructure a shiny makeover.  Take a look at this slick first underwater metro in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata.  There's no doubt this country is getting a facelift. Building new roads, airports, ports and metros has been the centrepiece of Mr Modi's economic policy. He spent over $100bn annually in infrastructure spending (capital expenditure) in the past three years.  Nearly 54,000 km (33,554 miles) of national highways were built between 2014 and 2024 - which is twice the length of the preceding 10 years.  The government has also considerably eased up the bureaucracy, which has been a major bugbear of India's economy for decades.  But Mr Modi's policies haven't delivered for all.  The brutal lockdowns imposed during the pandemic, the lingering after-effects of a cash ban in 2016, and faulty implementation of a new goods and services tax - a long pending reform meant to streamline the country's welter of indirect taxes - have had far-reaching structural consequences on India's economy.   The country's vast unorganised sector - small enterprises that form the backbone of this country - are still reeling under the impact of some of these decisions.  And the private sector is not committing big investments. As a proportion of GDP, private investments slumped to barely 19.6% in 2020-21 from a peak of 27.5% in 2007-08.  In January, thousands gathered outside government recruitment centres in the northern city of Lucknow to go to Israel for jobs in the construction industry. My colleague Archana Shukla was on location.  The desperation of these workers showed India's jobs crisis is real. And it is crushing aspirations everywhere.  ""I'm the first master's degree holder in my family,"" says Rukaiya Bepari, a 23-year-old graduate in the town of Miraj in western India.  ""But there's no industry where I live. So I'm now taking tuitions. It doesn't pay much.""  Neither Rukaiya nor her brother have had full-time work for the last two years. They're not alone. Unemployment among educated youth has doubled from 35.2% to 65.7% between 2000 and 2022, according to latest figures by the Indian Labour Organization, a human rights group. There's also been no significant growth of real wages in India since 2014, according to numbers computed by noted developmental economist Jean Dreze.  India ""risks squandering its demographic dividend"" - the economic growth potential from a big working-age population - the World Bank's regional economist said in an interview to the Financial Times recently.   Job creation is a problem Mr Modi has been unable to solve.  Right off the back of his victory in 2014, the prime minister launched an ambitious Make In India campaign to turn India into the world's factory. In 2020, his government doled out $25bn in incentives to companies across sectors from semi-conductors to mobile electronics in order to enhance India's manufacturing capabilities.  But success has been elusive.  Yes, the likes of Foxconn - which makes iPhones for Apple - are moving their supply chains to India as part of the global ""China plus one"" diversification strategy. Other major global giants like Micron and Samsung have also been enthused to invest. But the numbers are not significant yet.   Manufacturing's share as a percentage of GDP has remained stagnant in the last decade despite these efforts.  Growth in exports was also faster under Mr Modi's predecessors. ""Even if India's manufacturing grows 8% per year till 2050 and China's stagnates at the 2022 level, India's manufacturing size in 2050 will still not match that of China's in 2022,"" says Prof Vidya Mahambare of the Great Lakes Institute of Management. Lack of a large scale industry means half of India's population still depends on agriculture for their livelihoods - which is increasingly becoming unprofitable. A direct impact of this? Squeezed household budgets. At 3%, the growth in overall private consumption expenditure - the money people spend on buying things -  is the slowest in 20 years.  And household debt has touched an all-time high, even as financial savings plunged to their lowest levels, according to new research.  Many economists argue that the nature of India's economic growth post pandemic has been uneven, or ""K-shaped"" - where the rich have thrived, while the poor continue to struggle. India may be the fifth largest global economy at an aggregate level, but on a per person basis, it still languishes at the 140th rank.  And inequality has widened to a hundred-year high according to research from the World Inequality Database. No surprises then that election campaign discourse recently has been rife with chatter around wealth redistribution and inheritance taxes.  A three day pre-wedding ceremony of Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani's son recently offered a glimpse into the country's new gilded age. Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Ivanka Trump were in attendance. Rihanna shook a leg with Bollywood's biggest celebrities, while the Ambani women flashed diamonds and jewellery once part of the Mughal empire's collection.  Luxury brands making cars, watches and liquor have been growing faster than India's more mass-market companies, according to Arnab Mitra, who researches Indian consumer brands at Goldman Sachs. Viral Acharya, a professor at NYU Stern, says a handful of the biggest conglomerates have grown ""at the expense of the smallest firms"".  The super-rich, he says, have benefited from sharp tax cuts and a conscious policy of creating ""national champions"" in which prized public assets like ports and airports have been preferentially given to a few companies to build or run. Latest court revelations show many of them have also been India's top political donors to the ruling BJP.  All combined, this presents an inconsistent picture of India's economy. But for all its problems, the country is on the runway for take-off, say experts.   ""India's next decade could resemble China's path (of hyper growth) from 2007 through 2012,"" analysts from Morgan Stanley wrote in a widely discussed paper.  They add that the country has many advantages - a young demographic, the geopolitics of global de-risking from China and a clean-up of sectors like real estate. Other megatrends like digitalisation, a transition to clean energy and growth in global offshoring will propel future growth, say experts.  The infra push is also something that will have long-term payoffs. By making improvements in roads, power supply and turnaround time at ports - India is finally ""creating an environment in which manufacturing can flourish"", says DK Joshi, CRISIL's India economist. But along with the focus on ""physical capital"", Mr Modi needs to pay heed to creating ""human capital"", says Dr Raghuram Rajan, the former governor of India's central bank.  Indian children aren't learning as well as they should to face up to the world of artificial intelligence. A quarter of those aged 14 to 18 can't read simple text fluently, according to a report published by the non-profit Pratham Foundation.  Covid-19 dealt a major blow to students, who couldn't attend school for nearly two years. But the government has continued to underfund education, and healthcare.  In its first decade, Modinomics appears to have delivered for a select few. But for many the jar, as it appears, is still half empty.  ""We will grow old before we grow rich"" if  growth isn't faster  and more equitable,  says Dr Rajan. ",BBC,30/04/2024,"[""In January, thousands braved the freezing cold at Delhi's Red Fort to hear Prime Minister Narendra Modi speak."", 'His message was ""Viksit Bharat 2047"", a promise to make India a developed nation by 2047.', 'It\'s the latest catchphrase from a man known for his penchant for catchy taglines. ""', 'Developed India"" is an imprecise pledge, but in the 10 years since Mr Modi first stormed to power, he has been trying to lay the foundations for a period of economic boom.', 'The prime minister and his government inherited an economy that was teetering on the precipice.', 'Growth was slowing and investor confidence was low.', ""A dozen Indian billionaires had gone bankrupt, saddling the country's banks with enormous unpaid loans that had crippled their capacity to lend."", ""Now, 10 years on, India's growth is outpacing other major economies, its banks are strong, and the government's finances are stable despite a painful pandemic."", ""India surpassed the UK as the fifth largest economy last year and according to analysts at Morgan Stanley, it's on track to overtake Japan and Germany and hit the third spot by 2027."", 'There is undoubtedly an air of optimism in the country.', ""It successfully hosted the G20, became the first to send a rocket near the Moon's south pole, and has birthed a few dozen unicorns."", 'The soaring stock markets have also had a trickle-down effect on the wealth of its middle class.', 'On the face of it ""Modinomics"" - the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)\'s economic vision for India - appears to be working.', 'But dig deeper, and the picture is more complex.', ""For a vast swathe of the country's 1.4 billion people who live on the margins of sustenance, it's not boomtime just as yet."", 'So who are the winners and losers of Modinomics?', ""Mr Modi's push for digital governance has begun to transform the lives of some of the country's poorest people."", 'Today, Indians in the remotest corners of the country can buy many daily goods without cash, paying as little as 20p for a packet of bread using a QR code on their phone.', 'Underpinning this digital revolution is a three-layer system of governance, which includes universal identity cards, a payments infrastructure that enables click-of-a-button money transfer, and a data pillar that gives people access to crucial personal documents like tax returns.', 'Linking hundreds of millions of bank accounts to this ""digital stack"" has cut red tape and corruption.', 'Estimates suggest that up to March 2021, an equivalent of about 1.1% of GDP was saved due to digital governance, allowing the government to dole out a volley of social subsidies, cash handouts and also spend on infrastructure building, without running high deficits.', 'Everywhere you go in India there are cranes and JCB machines at work giving its creaky public infrastructure a shiny makeover.', 'Take a look at this slick first underwater metro in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata.', ""There's no doubt this country is getting a facelift."", ""Building new roads, airports, ports and metros has been the centrepiece of Mr Modi's economic policy."", 'He spent over $100bn annually in infrastructure spending (capital expenditure) in the past three years.', 'Nearly 54,000 km (33,554 miles) of national highways were built between 2014 and 2024 - which is twice the length of the preceding 10 years.', ""The government has also considerably eased up the bureaucracy, which has been a major bugbear of India's economy for decades."", ""But Mr Modi's policies haven't delivered for all."", ""The brutal lockdowns imposed during the pandemic, the lingering after-effects of a cash ban in 2016, and faulty implementation of a new goods and services tax - a long pending reform meant to streamline the country's welter of indirect taxes - have had far-reaching structural consequences on India's economy."", ""The country's vast unorganised sector - small enterprises that form the backbone of this country - are still reeling under the impact of some of these decisions."", 'And the private sector is not committing big investments.', 'As a proportion of GDP, private investments slumped to barely 19.6% in 2020-21 from a peak of 27.5% in 2007-08.', 'In January, thousands gathered outside government recruitment centres in the northern city of Lucknow to go to Israel for jobs in the construction industry.', 'My colleague Archana Shukla was on location.', ""The desperation of these workers showed India's jobs crisis is real."", 'And it is crushing aspirations everywhere. ""', 'I\'m the first master\'s degree holder in my family,"" says Rukaiya Bepari, a 23-year-old graduate in the town of Miraj in western India. ""', ""But there's no industry where I live."", ""So I'm now taking tuitions."", 'It doesn\'t pay much.""', 'Neither Rukaiya nor her brother have had full-time work for the last two years.', ""They're not alone."", 'Unemployment among educated youth has doubled from 35.2% to 65.7% between 2000 and 2022, according to latest figures by the Indian Labour Organization, a human rights group.', ""There's also been no significant growth of real wages in India since 2014, according to numbers computed by noted developmental economist Jean Dreze."", 'India ""risks squandering its demographic dividend"" - the economic growth potential from a big working-age population - the World Bank\'s regional economist said in an interview to the Financial Times recently.', 'Job creation is a problem Mr Modi has been unable to solve.', ""Right off the back of his victory in 2014, the prime minister launched an ambitious Make In India campaign to turn India into the world's factory."", ""In 2020, his government doled out $25bn in incentives to companies across sectors from semi-conductors to mobile electronics in order to enhance India's manufacturing capabilities."", 'But success has been elusive.', 'Yes, the likes of Foxconn - which makes iPhones for Apple - are moving their supply chains to India as part of the global ""China plus one"" diversification strategy.', 'Other major global giants like Micron and Samsung have also been enthused to invest.', 'But the numbers are not significant yet.', ""Manufacturing's share as a percentage of GDP has remained stagnant in the last decade despite these efforts."", 'Growth in exports was also faster under Mr Modi\'s predecessors. ""', 'Even if India\'s manufacturing grows 8% per year till 2050 and China\'s stagnates at the 2022 level, India\'s manufacturing size in 2050 will still not match that of China\'s in 2022,"" says Prof Vidya Mahambare of the Great Lakes Institute of Management.', ""Lack of a large scale industry means half of India's population still depends on agriculture for their livelihoods - which is increasingly becoming unprofitable."", 'A direct impact of this?', 'Squeezed household budgets.', 'At 3%, the growth in overall private consumption expenditure - the money people spend on buying things - is the slowest in 20 years.', 'And household debt has touched an all-time high, even as financial savings plunged to their lowest levels, according to new research.', 'Many economists argue that the nature of India\'s economic growth post pandemic has been uneven, or ""K-shaped"" - where the rich have thrived, while the poor continue to struggle.', 'India may be the fifth largest global economy at an aggregate level, but on a per person basis, it still languishes at the 140th rank.', 'And inequality has widened to a hundred-year high according to research from the World Inequality Database.', 'No surprises then that election campaign discourse recently has been rife with chatter around wealth redistribution and inheritance taxes.', ""A three day pre-wedding ceremony of Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani's son recently offered a glimpse into the country's new gilded age."", 'Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Ivanka Trump were in attendance.', ""Rihanna shook a leg with Bollywood's biggest celebrities, while the Ambani women flashed diamonds and jewellery once part of the Mughal empire's collection."", ""Luxury brands making cars, watches and liquor have been growing faster than India's more mass-market companies, according to Arnab Mitra, who researches Indian consumer brands at Goldman Sachs."", 'Viral Acharya, a professor at NYU Stern, says a handful of the biggest conglomerates have grown ""at the expense of the smallest firms"".', 'The super-rich, he says, have benefited from sharp tax cuts and a conscious policy of creating ""national champions"" in which prized public assets like ports and airports have been preferentially given to a few companies to build or run.', ""Latest court revelations show many of them have also been India's top political donors to the ruling BJP."", ""All combined, this presents an inconsistent picture of India's economy."", 'But for all its problems, the country is on the runway for take-off, say experts. ""', 'India\'s next decade could resemble China\'s path (of hyper growth) from 2007 through 2012,"" analysts from Morgan Stanley wrote in a widely discussed paper.', 'They add that the country has many advantages - a young demographic, the geopolitics of global de-risking from China and a clean-up of sectors like real estate.', 'Other megatrends like digitalisation, a transition to clean energy and growth in global offshoring will propel future growth, say experts.', 'The infra push is also something that will have long-term payoffs.', 'By making improvements in roads, power supply and turnaround time at ports - India is finally ""creating an environment in which manufacturing can flourish"", says DK Joshi, CRISIL\'s India economist.', 'But along with the focus on ""physical capital"", Mr Modi needs to pay heed to creating ""human capital"", says Dr Raghuram Rajan, the former governor of India\'s central bank.', ""Indian children aren't learning as well as they should to face up to the world of artificial intelligence."", ""A quarter of those aged 14 to 18 can't read simple text fluently, according to a report published by the non-profit Pratham Foundation."", ""Covid-19 dealt a major blow to students, who couldn't attend school for nearly two years."", 'But the government has continued to underfund education, and healthcare.', 'In its first decade, Modinomics appears to have delivered for a select few.', 'But for many the jar, as it appears, is still half empty. ""', 'We will grow old before we grow rich"" if growth isn\'t faster and more equitable, says Dr Rajan.']",0.1179956524576967,"The super-rich, he says, have benefited from sharp tax cuts and a conscious policy of creating ""national champions"" in which prized public assets like ports and airports have been preferentially given to a few companies to build or run.","The brutal lockdowns imposed during the pandemic, the lingering after-effects of a cash ban in 2016, and faulty implementation of a new goods and services tax - a long pending reform meant to streamline the country's welter of indirect taxes - have had far-reaching structural consequences on India's economy.",-0.0637970693567965,"Growth in exports was also faster under Mr Modi's predecessors. """,Growth was slowing and investor confidence was low.,2024-04-30
"Paramount and Skydance inch closer to a merger as key hurdle looms, sources say",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/paramount-skydance-inch-closer-to-a-merger-agreement.html,2024-04-25T21:14:50+0000,"In this articleParamount Global and Skydance Media are making progress on a deal that would merge the media companies and buy out controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, according to people familiar with the matter.Paramount Global's special committee, in charge of accepting or rejecting transactions, and David Ellison's Skydance Media, backed by private equity firms KKR and RedBird Capital Partners, are narrowing in on how to value Skydance's assets as part of a merger, as well as how much equity to add to the company as part of a recapitalization, the people told CNBC.The sides are close to agreeing on a value for Skydance, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. The entertainment company would be valued at around $5 billion and merged with Paramount Global, they said. Skydance CEO Ellison and the private equity firms plan to raise roughly $4.5 billion to $5 billion in new equity, the people said; some of that — about $2 billion — would be used to pay Redstone, and another substantial portion would be used to pay down debt.The buyers would ideally like to get a deal done in May, said the people. Three of the people said that Paramount Global was slow to provide data during due diligence to the Skydance consortium, which has slightly pushed back the timeline on a deal. The exclusivity window on merger talks ends May 3, but the Skydance consortium wants to extend it by two weeks, said the people.Skydance plans to name Ellison as CEO of Paramount Global and former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell as president, said two of the people. Current Paramount CEO Bob Bakish would depart the company, the people said.Separately, private equity firm Apollo Global Management and Sony have held preliminary discussions about teaming up for a deal that would buy out all Paramount Global shareholders at a premium, according to people familiar with the matter. The special committee hasn't received concrete details on that offer and isn't viewing it as a competitive bid to Skydance's interest, two of the people said.Still, the committee had more details on an initial offer made by Apollo, which it chose to ignore in favor of exclusive talks with Skydance, one of the people said. The special committee favored Skydance's offer over Apollo's in part because it offered shareholders future upside by keeping the company public with a cleaner balance sheet, the person said.Spokespeople for Apollo, the Paramount Global special committee, Paramount Global, and Skydance's consortium declined to comment.One significant hurdle that remains is Paramount Global's renewal agreement with Charter Communications for CBS and its cable networks. That deal is relevant to the value of Paramount Global, which could take a hit if Charter drops the networks or agrees to a lower carriage rate, the people said.The deadline for that agreement is April 30. Paramount Global reports first-quarter earnings one day earlier, on April 29.Paramount Global is still dependent on its traditional TV business, which accounts for about two-thirds of the company's total revenue.There are signs Charter could prove to be a tough negotiator with Paramount Global: Last year the cable provider, the second-largest in the U.S., briefly stopped carrying Disney's networks when renewal negotiations between those two companies faltered. The parties reached a deal 10 days later.Paramount's cable networks are far less popular than Disney's ESPN, which may put Bakish in a position of weakness.The timing of the renewal and the deal talks set up an awkward dynamic, where Bakish, who would ultimately leave the company under a Skydance merger, will control Paramount Global's fate with Charter.Thus far, Bakish has always reached renewal deals with the major pay-TV distributors since taking over as CEO, dating back to his time running Viacom, beginning in 2016.Bakish has privately argued against the Skydance deal because it dilutes common shareholders, according to people familiar with the matter. Several Paramount Global investors have also publicly written letters to the company's board urging directors not to move forward with a Skydance deal, arguing it gives Redstone a massive premium for her controlling shares while leaving common shareholders out in the cold.Under the terms of the deal, nearly 50% of the company would be owned by Skydance and its private equity partners, CNBC reported April 5. The rest of the company would be owned by common shareholders, and the company would continue to trade publicly.""At Paramount, we're always looking for ways to create shareholder value. And to be clear, that's for all shareholders,"" Bakish said during his company's most recent earnings call, in February.Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"['In this articleParamount Global and Skydance Media are making progress on a deal that would merge the media companies and buy out controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, according to people familiar with the matter.', ""Paramount Global's special committee, in charge of accepting or rejecting transactions, and David Ellison's Skydance Media, backed by private equity firms KKR and RedBird Capital Partners, are narrowing in on how to value Skydance's assets as part of a merger, as well as how much equity to add to the company as part of a recapitalization, the people told CNBC.The sides are close to agreeing on a value for Skydance, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private."", 'The entertainment company would be valued at around $5 billion and merged with Paramount Global, they said.', 'Skydance CEO Ellison and the private equity firms plan to raise roughly $4.5 billion to $5 billion in new equity, the people said; some of that — about $2 billion — would be used to pay Redstone, and another substantial portion would be used to pay down debt.', 'The buyers would ideally like to get a deal done in May, said the people.', 'Three of the people said that Paramount Global was slow to provide data during due diligence to the Skydance consortium, which has slightly pushed back the timeline on a deal.', 'The exclusivity window on merger talks ends May 3, but the Skydance consortium wants to extend it by two weeks, said the people.', 'Skydance plans to name Ellison as CEO of Paramount Global and former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell as president, said two of the people.', 'Current Paramount CEO Bob Bakish would depart the company, the people said.', 'Separately, private equity firm Apollo Global Management and Sony have held preliminary discussions about teaming up for a deal that would buy out all Paramount Global shareholders at a premium, according to people familiar with the matter.', ""The special committee hasn't received concrete details on that offer and isn't viewing it as a competitive bid to Skydance's interest, two of the people said."", 'Still, the committee had more details on an initial offer made by Apollo, which it chose to ignore in favor of exclusive talks with Skydance, one of the people said.', ""The special committee favored Skydance's offer over Apollo's in part because it offered shareholders future upside by keeping the company public with a cleaner balance sheet, the person said."", ""Spokespeople for Apollo, the Paramount Global special committee, Paramount Global, and Skydance's consortium declined to comment."", ""One significant hurdle that remains is Paramount Global's renewal agreement with Charter Communications for CBS and its cable networks."", 'That deal is relevant to the value of Paramount Global, which could take a hit if Charter drops the networks or agrees to a lower carriage rate, the people said.', 'The deadline for that agreement is April 30.', ""Paramount Global reports first-quarter earnings one day earlier, on April 29.Paramount Global is still dependent on its traditional TV business, which accounts for about two-thirds of the company's total revenue."", ""There are signs Charter could prove to be a tough negotiator with Paramount Global: Last year the cable provider, the second-largest in the U.S., briefly stopped carrying Disney's networks when renewal negotiations between those two companies faltered."", 'The parties reached a deal 10 days later.', ""Paramount's cable networks are far less popular than Disney's ESPN, which may put Bakish in a position of weakness."", ""The timing of the renewal and the deal talks set up an awkward dynamic, where Bakish, who would ultimately leave the company under a Skydance merger, will control Paramount Global's fate with Charter."", 'Thus far, Bakish has always reached renewal deals with the major pay-TV distributors since taking over as CEO, dating back to his time running Viacom, beginning in 2016.Bakish has privately argued against the Skydance deal because it dilutes common shareholders, according to people familiar with the matter.', ""Several Paramount Global investors have also publicly written letters to the company's board urging directors not to move forward with a Skydance deal, arguing it gives Redstone a massive premium for her controlling shares while leaving common shareholders out in the cold."", 'Under the terms of the deal, nearly 50% of the company would be owned by Skydance and its private equity partners, CNBC reported April 5.', 'The rest of the company would be owned by common shareholders, and the company would continue to trade publicly.', '""At Paramount, we\'re always looking for ways to create shareholder value.', 'And to be clear, that\'s for all shareholders,"" Bakish said during his company\'s most recent earnings call, in February.', 'Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.']",0.2275447691168776,"Paramount Global's special committee, in charge of accepting or rejecting transactions, and David Ellison's Skydance Media, backed by private equity firms KKR and RedBird Capital Partners, are narrowing in on how to value Skydance's assets as part of a merger, as well as how much equity to add to the company as part of a recapitalization, the people told CNBC.The sides are close to agreeing on a value for Skydance, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.","Thus far, Bakish has always reached renewal deals with the major pay-TV distributors since taking over as CEO, dating back to his time running Viacom, beginning in 2016.Bakish has privately argued against the Skydance deal because it dilutes common shareholders, according to people familiar with the matter.",-0.4220497012138366,"The special committee favored Skydance's offer over Apollo's in part because it offered shareholders future upside by keeping the company public with a cleaner balance sheet, the person said.","Paramount's cable networks are far less popular than Disney's ESPN, which may put Bakish in a position of weakness.",2024-04-30
US investigates Ford BlueCruise after crashes,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crgy3g7g9y1o,2024-04-29T16:11:29.352Z,"A US road safety agency is investigating Ford's BlueCruise driver assistance system following two fatal collisions. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) wrote in both cases Ford Mustang Mach-E cars collided with stationary vehicles at night, while the system was engaged. BlueCruise is a driver assistance technology that allows hands-free driving on certain roads, typically motorways. Ford told the BBC that it was working with NHTSA ""to support its investigation"". In February, a Ford Mustang Mach-E using BlueCruise hit the rear of a stationary Honda, killing the 56-year-old driver of the stopped car, Reuters reported. The other crash involving a Ford Mach-E occurred in March in Philadelphia. BlueCruise checks whether drivers are paying attention using eye-tracking cameras, and prompts them to take control back over the vehicle if it identifies any drift in focus. The NHTSA says its preliminary probe will focus on the driver monitoring aspect of the system, as well as how well it generally performs driving tasks. The two crashes that prompted the new probe are being investigated separately by another safety body, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The driver assistance technology has also been approved for use on some UK motorways, though there are differences in the way it is implemented and the regulations governing its use, experts say. Currently it is the only permitted driver assistance technology to allow hands to be taken off the wheel in the UK, the system will only operate on specified sections of road and up to a maximum of 81mph (130kmh). The ""hands off, eyes on"" feature launched in the UK last April after receiving government approval. Its launch was welcomed by transport minister Jesse Norman who said that driver assistance systems ""make driving smoother and easier, but they can also help make roads safer by reducing scope for driver error”. The Department for Transport declined to comment on the new US investigation, but said the approval for Ford’s BlueCruise system for use in the UK was issued following a rigorous examination and assessment process. The NHTSA's latest look at driver assistance systems and their performance, following crashes, comes after it announced an investigation into the effectiveness of Tesla's fix for safety issues identified in its driver assistance system, Autopilot. Like BlueCruise, Autopilot is an example of Level 2 autonomous driving software - involving partial automation where two or more aspects of driving are controlled by technology, such as speed regulation and parking. Autopilot requires drivers to be alert and have their hands on the wheel. Tesla issued a recall in the form of an ""over the air"" software update to more than two million of its electric vehicles in December. Zoe Kleinman, the BBC's technology editor, tried out the hands-free technology in January on one of the UK’s busiest motorways, the M25 which she found ""simultaneously relaxing and stressful not being in control of a vehicle travelling at 70 mph in the morning traffic but also knowing you didn’t have to be"". She found the minute she stopped watching the road BlueCruise deactivated, leaving her back in sole charge. While the BlueCruise-activated car stayed in lane and kept pace with traffic, Zoe said it also took some actions she said she would not have - undertaking in the left hand lane and appearing to speed up on slip-roads when exiting the motorway, resulting in her deciding to touch the brakes. ""Overall, it felt like the start of a new tech with a long way to go before it’s truly useful,"" she said, ""that’s if drivers ever feel safe enough to hand over control"". ",BBC,29/04/2024,"[""A US road safety agency is investigating Ford's BlueCruise driver assistance system following two fatal collisions."", 'The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) wrote in both cases Ford Mustang Mach-E cars collided with stationary vehicles at night, while the system was engaged.', 'BlueCruise is a driver assistance technology that allows hands-free driving on certain roads, typically motorways.', 'Ford told the BBC that it was working with NHTSA ""to support its investigation"".', 'In February, a Ford Mustang Mach-E using BlueCruise hit the rear of a stationary Honda, killing the 56-year-old driver of the stopped car, Reuters reported.', 'The other crash involving a Ford Mach-E occurred in March in Philadelphia.', 'BlueCruise checks whether drivers are paying attention using eye-tracking cameras, and prompts them to take control back over the vehicle if it identifies any drift in focus.', 'The NHTSA says its preliminary probe will focus on the driver monitoring aspect of the system, as well as how well it generally performs driving tasks.', 'The two crashes that prompted the new probe are being investigated separately by another safety body, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).', 'The driver assistance technology has also been approved for use on some UK motorways, though there are differences in the way it is implemented and the regulations governing its use, experts say.', 'Currently it is the only permitted driver assistance technology to allow hands to be taken off the wheel in the UK, the system will only operate on specified sections of road and up to a maximum of 81mph (130kmh).', 'The ""hands off, eyes on"" feature launched in the UK last April after receiving government approval.', 'Its launch was welcomed by transport minister Jesse Norman who said that driver assistance systems ""make driving smoother and easier, but they can also help make roads safer by reducing scope for driver error”.', 'The Department for Transport declined to comment on the new US investigation, but said the approval for Ford’s BlueCruise system for use in the UK was issued following a rigorous examination and assessment process.', ""The NHTSA's latest look at driver assistance systems and their performance, following crashes, comes after it announced an investigation into the effectiveness of Tesla's fix for safety issues identified in its driver assistance system, Autopilot."", 'Like BlueCruise, Autopilot is an example of Level 2 autonomous driving software - involving partial automation where two or more aspects of driving are controlled by technology, such as speed regulation and parking.', 'Autopilot requires drivers to be alert and have their hands on the wheel.', 'Tesla issued a recall in the form of an ""over the air"" software update to more than two million of its electric vehicles in December.', 'Zoe Kleinman, the BBC\'s technology editor, tried out the hands-free technology in January on one of the UK’s busiest motorways, the M25 which she found ""simultaneously relaxing and stressful not being in control of a vehicle travelling at 70 mph in the morning traffic but also knowing you didn’t have to be"".', 'She found the minute she stopped watching the road BlueCruise deactivated, leaving her back in sole charge.', 'While the BlueCruise-activated car stayed in lane and kept pace with traffic, Zoe said it also took some actions she said she would not have - undertaking in the left hand lane and appearing to speed up on slip-roads when exiting the motorway, resulting in her deciding to touch the brakes. ""', 'Overall, it felt like the start of a new tech with a long way to go before it’s truly useful,"" she said, ""that’s if drivers ever feel safe enough to hand over control"".']",0.2815351528711411,"Overall, it felt like the start of a new tech with a long way to go before it’s truly useful,"" she said, ""that’s if drivers ever feel safe enough to hand over control"".","In February, a Ford Mustang Mach-E using BlueCruise hit the rear of a stationary Honda, killing the 56-year-old driver of the stopped car, Reuters reported.",0.1036531925201416,"Its launch was welcomed by transport minister Jesse Norman who said that driver assistance systems ""make driving smoother and easier, but they can also help make roads safer by reducing scope for driver error”.","In February, a Ford Mustang Mach-E using BlueCruise hit the rear of a stationary Honda, killing the 56-year-old driver of the stopped car, Reuters reported.",2024-04-30
JPMorgan Chase is caught in U.S-Russia sanctions war after overseas court orders $440 million seized from bank,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/24/jpmorgan-chase-is-caught-in-us-russia-sanctions-war-after-overseas-court-orders-440-million-seized-from-bank.html,2024-04-24T22:24:46+0000,"In this articleA Russian court sided with state-run lender VTB Bank in its efforts to recoup $439.5 million from JPMorgan Chase that the American lender froze in U.S. accounts after the Ukraine invasion.The court ordered the seizure of funds in JPMorgan's Russian accounts and ""movable and immovable property,"" including the bank's stake in a Russian subsidiary, according to a court order published Wednesday.The order came after VTB filed a suit last week in a St. Petersburg arbitration court, seeking to be made whole for funds frozen in the U.S., and asking for relief because JPMorgan has said it plans to exit Russia.The next hearing in the Russian case is July 17.JPMorgan declined to comment. VTB did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.The order was the latest example of American banks getting caught between the demands of Western sanctions regimes and overseas interests. JPMorgan is the biggest U.S. bank by assets and run by veteran CEO Jamie Dimon.  Two years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Biden administration has mounted an unprecedented set of sanctions, oil price caps and trade restrictions designed to weaken Moscow's military machine.On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed into law a sweeping foreign aid bill that includes new powers for U.S. officials to locate and seize Russian assets in the U.S. It also boosted an ongoing American effort to convince European allies to release Russian state assets to assist Ukraine.In its own lawsuit against VTB last week in the Southern District of New York, JPMorgan sought to block VTB's effort, noting that U.S. law prohibits the bank from releasing VTB's $439.5 million.This leaves JPMorgan exposed to a nearly half-billion-dollar loss, for abiding by U.S. sanctions.The American bank, seeking to block VTB's effort, said the Russian company broke its contractual promise to seek relief in American courts, instead finding a friendlier venue in Russia.JPMorgan said Russian courts have enabled similar efforts by Russian lenders against American or European banks at least a half dozen other times.JPMorgan said it faced ""certain and irreparable harm"" from VTB's efforts.",CNBC,24/04/2024,"['In this articleA Russian court sided with state-run lender VTB Bank in its efforts to recoup $439.5 million from JPMorgan Chase that the American lender froze in U.S. accounts after the Ukraine invasion.', 'The court ordered the seizure of funds in JPMorgan\'s Russian accounts and ""movable and immovable property,"" including the bank\'s stake in a Russian subsidiary, according to a court order published Wednesday.', 'The order came after VTB filed a suit last week in a St. Petersburg arbitration court, seeking to be made whole for funds frozen in the U.S., and asking for relief because JPMorgan has said it plans to exit Russia.', 'The next hearing in the Russian case is July 17.JPMorgan declined to comment.', ""VTB did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment."", 'The order was the latest example of American banks getting caught between the demands of Western sanctions regimes and overseas interests.', 'JPMorgan is the biggest U.S. bank by assets and run by veteran CEO Jamie Dimon.', ""Two years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Biden administration has mounted an unprecedented set of sanctions, oil price caps and trade restrictions designed to weaken Moscow's military machine."", 'On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed into law a sweeping foreign aid bill that includes new powers for U.S. officials to locate and seize Russian assets in the U.S. It also boosted an ongoing American effort to convince European allies to release Russian state assets to assist Ukraine.', ""In its own lawsuit against VTB last week in the Southern District of New York, JPMorgan sought to block VTB's effort, noting that U.S. law prohibits the bank from releasing VTB's $439.5 million."", 'This leaves JPMorgan exposed to a nearly half-billion-dollar loss, for abiding by U.S. sanctions.', ""The American bank, seeking to block VTB's effort, said the Russian company broke its contractual promise to seek relief in American courts, instead finding a friendlier venue in Russia."", 'JPMorgan said Russian courts have enabled similar efforts by Russian lenders against American or European banks at least a half dozen other times.', 'JPMorgan said it faced ""certain and irreparable harm"" from VTB\'s efforts.']",0.0204917561348164,"On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed into law a sweeping foreign aid bill that includes new powers for U.S. officials to locate and seize Russian assets in the U.S. It also boosted an ongoing American effort to convince European allies to release Russian state assets to assist Ukraine.","In its own lawsuit against VTB last week in the Southern District of New York, JPMorgan sought to block VTB's effort, noting that U.S. law prohibits the bank from releasing VTB's $439.5 million.",-0.0723157450556755,"On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed into law a sweeping foreign aid bill that includes new powers for U.S. officials to locate and seize Russian assets in the U.S. It also boosted an ongoing American effort to convince European allies to release Russian state assets to assist Ukraine.","This leaves JPMorgan exposed to a nearly half-billion-dollar loss, for abiding by U.S. sanctions.",2024-04-30
Why a deluge of Chinese-made drugs is hard to curb,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68669244,2024-04-18T22:57:01.000Z,"When Sammy left her village in Sichuan province to attend university in northern China more than a decade ago, she was following a well-trodden rite of passage.  The English language graduate was the first person in her family to go to university. She had a passion for foreign languages and dreamed of becoming a teacher. She had never heard of synthetic opioids before.  After graduating, Sammy found work at a chemicals company in the Chinese city of Shijiazhuang, selling what she thought were chemicals to clients around the world. She would practice English every day speaking to her customers online, and earn a commission for each sale she made. Her dreams of becoming a teacher quickly faded. ""Maybe others are just like me… At the start we don't know what we are selling, but when we find out we have fallen in love with the work,"" she said. ""This work can make money,"" she adds. Sammy [not her real name] is an unlikely drug trafficker. She is one of what international law enforcement agencies estimate could be thousands of online sales representatives, working for illicit Chinese pharmaceutical and chemical companies producing and smuggling illegal laboratory made drugs.  The US government has long accused China of flooding the country with deadly drugs like fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to 50 times stronger than heroin, claims the Chinese government denies. The US says Chinese-made opioids are fuelling the worst drug crisis in the country's history. In 2022 more than 70,000 Americans died from fentanyl overdoses. According to a report published by the US select committee on the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government provides subsidies to companies openly trafficking illicit synthetic drugs. The report found tens of thousands of posts online advertising illegal drugs and pre-cursors. The study claims that ""wholly state owned"" companies are involved in the trafficking of drugs. The Chinese government has consistently denied knowledge of the illegal drug trade. Many like Sammy fall into the drug trade seemingly by accident, initially unaware of the products they are peddling online and their deadly consequences. But others are more aware of what they are selling.  Each morning Sara [not her real name] posts photos and videos across her social media platforms advertising drugs; synthetic cannabinoids, precursors for MDMA, and nitazenes, a synthetic opioid considered up to 50 times more potent than even fentanyl. ""We have many customers in Britain and have cooperated with them many times,"" boasts Sara, an international trade graduate, now working for an online platform.  When challenged, she is not drawn into a moral discussion about selling drugs. She claims she never asks customers how they use what she sells.   The UK National Crime and Agency (NCA) believes drug dealers are mixing the synthetic opioid with street drugs such as heroin. According to the NCA, there have been more than 100 deaths linked to nitazenes over the past nine months, leading health professionals to warn the UK may be facing a drug-related crisis.  The BBC has found hundreds of adverts for nitazenes online. Suppliers contacted claim to send shipments through courier services, mislabelling deliveries and hiding drugs in fake packaging. The BBC has also seen courier tracking numbers provided by online sales representative in China claiming to have made successful deliveries across the UK. Sara entered the business after university. She thought she was selling chemicals.  She has worked in the industry for two and a half years. ""I know most of the products,"" she says. ""My boss has been running this company for more than seven years, and he knows lots of customers and freight forwarders. If the product is detained, he will lose the most. So he will try his best to make the product reach you smoothly,"" she adds. In March, the UK government classified 15 synthetic opioids as Class A drugs. Under the Misuse of Drugs act anyone caught supplying or producing the drugs could face up to life in prison. Those caught in possession face seven years.   According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), China has between 40,000 and 100,000 pharmaceutical companies. ""China has long had one of the most significant pharmaceutical industries in Asia, as well as one of the largest chemical industries. And we've seen industry growth in other countries of the region,"" said Jeremy Douglas in late 2023, the then regional representative of the UNODC . ""While both industries are regulated, the challenge is significant given the sheer scale, and at the same time there are a number of ways to move products. Parcel post, air freight and shipping containers are all moving globally in high volumes,"" he said. Mr Douglas says that synthetic drugs are disrupting the traditional drug trade. Outside of China, synthetic drugs offer opportunities for both traditional crime organisations and upstarts able to buy directly from producers half a world away.  ""Synthetics like fentanyl have several advantages over traditional drugs - compact, easily shippable, pre-existing demand, replaceable. They're attractive to traffickers."" That was confirmed in my conversations with sales people working for Chinese pharmaceutical firms. ""First of all, our packaging is completely secret, no one knows what it is until you open it, and second, we will change the name of the package and will not reveal any name about the product,"" says Sara. ""We will get the logistics order number when we send the package, we will track the situation of the package at any time, and any anomalies can be known and solved in time,"" she adds. According to Europol, the European police agency, China is the world's biggest manufacturer and distributor of synthetic, lab-made drugs. Some mimic the effects of traditional drugs like cannabis or cocaine. Chemists synthesise new drugs in order to stay one step ahead of the law. ""It is criminal entrepreneurship, but in a legitimate framework which is really unique,"" says Dr Louise Shelley the director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at George Mason University, and author of Dark Commerce.  ""I have not seen such a professionalism and a corporate element in this anywhere else in the world. Criminal activity was a type of social mobility."" In 2020, researchers from TraCCC studied over 350 English language websites advertising the synthetic opioid fentanyl. ""From all the adverts that we found, nearly 40% of them were from corporate registries, and the largest hub of that was in Wuhan,"" says Dr Shelly. The sales people contacted by the BBC see the drug trade as simply another aspect of e-commerce. When challenged over selling drugs that damage lives, one described herself as a ""middleman."" ""Somebody needs it, somebody makes it, and I am just a middleman who lets customers know that I have it and what they do with it, I don't care,"" she says. ""Then I figured out I just need to make money. I don't know and don't care. Everyone has their own needs."" The woman boasts of clients from Canada to Croatia. She provided photos of recent drugs shipments complete with labels showing a UK address. ""I didn't know at first until I went online and translated the product into Chinese,"" she says via a message punctuated with a teary emoji.  Another seller says: ""This industry is easy, and you can get higher wages, which attracts a large number of young people"". Natalie [not her real name], focuses on fentanyl. ""We buy from over 10 different labs and have a large selection. I have a professional shipping agent who packaged goods so has a very high delivery success rate to the UK."" Meanwhile, another supplier claimed to be able to smuggle drugs into the UK hidden in dog food packaging.  ""You don't need to worry about the packaging. We guarantee you safe delivery.""  ""We ship in large quantities all over the world every day. Please trust our professional team. We guarantee 100% safe transportation.""  In 2019, the Chinese government banned all forms of fentanyl and its analogues. In January 2024, China and the US launched a joint operation to curb the production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. ""As long as market demand remains high in some parts of the world then that demand will be met in one way or another,"" said Mr Douglas from the UNODC.  ",BBC,18/04/2024,"['When Sammy left her village in Sichuan province to attend university in northern China more than a decade ago, she was following a well-trodden rite of passage.', 'The English language graduate was the first person in her family to go to university.', 'She had a passion for foreign languages and dreamed of becoming a teacher.', 'She had never heard of synthetic opioids before.', 'After graduating, Sammy found work at a chemicals company in the Chinese city of Shijiazhuang, selling what she thought were chemicals to clients around the world.', 'She would practice English every day speaking to her customers online, and earn a commission for each sale she made.', 'Her dreams of becoming a teacher quickly faded. ""', 'Maybe others are just like me… At the start we don\'t know what we are selling, but when we find out we have fallen in love with the work,"" she said. ""', 'This work can make money,"" she adds.', 'Sammy [not her real name] is an unlikely drug trafficker.', 'She is one of what international law enforcement agencies estimate could be thousands of online sales representatives, working for illicit Chinese pharmaceutical and chemical companies producing and smuggling illegal laboratory made drugs.', 'The US government has long accused China of flooding the country with deadly drugs like fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to 50 times stronger than heroin, claims the Chinese government denies.', ""The US says Chinese-made opioids are fuelling the worst drug crisis in the country's history."", 'In 2022 more than 70,000 Americans died from fentanyl overdoses.', 'According to a report published by the US select committee on the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government provides subsidies to companies openly trafficking illicit synthetic drugs.', 'The report found tens of thousands of posts online advertising illegal drugs and pre-cursors.', 'The study claims that ""wholly state owned"" companies are involved in the trafficking of drugs.', 'The Chinese government has consistently denied knowledge of the illegal drug trade.', 'Many like Sammy fall into the drug trade seemingly by accident, initially unaware of the products they are peddling online and their deadly consequences.', 'But others are more aware of what they are selling.', 'Each morning Sara [not her real name] posts photos and videos across her social media platforms advertising drugs; synthetic cannabinoids, precursors for MDMA, and nitazenes, a synthetic opioid considered up to 50 times more potent than even fentanyl. ""', 'We have many customers in Britain and have cooperated with them many times,"" boasts Sara, an international trade graduate, now working for an online platform.', 'When challenged, she is not drawn into a moral discussion about selling drugs.', 'She claims she never asks customers how they use what she sells.', 'The UK National Crime and Agency (NCA) believes drug dealers are mixing the synthetic opioid with street drugs such as heroin.', 'According to the NCA, there have been more than 100 deaths linked to nitazenes over the past nine months, leading health professionals to warn the UK may be facing a drug-related crisis.', 'The BBC has found hundreds of adverts for nitazenes online.', 'Suppliers contacted claim to send shipments through courier services, mislabelling deliveries and hiding drugs in fake packaging.', 'The BBC has also seen courier tracking numbers provided by online sales representative in China claiming to have made successful deliveries across the UK.', 'Sara entered the business after university.', 'She thought she was selling chemicals.', 'She has worked in the industry for two and a half years. ""', 'I know most of the products,"" she says. ""', 'My boss has been running this company for more than seven years, and he knows lots of customers and freight forwarders.', 'If the product is detained, he will lose the most.', 'So he will try his best to make the product reach you smoothly,"" she adds.', 'In March, the UK government classified 15 synthetic opioids as Class A drugs.', 'Under the Misuse of Drugs act anyone caught supplying or producing the drugs could face up to life in prison.', 'Those caught in possession face seven years.', 'According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), China has between 40,000 and 100,000 pharmaceutical companies. ""', 'China has long had one of the most significant pharmaceutical industries in Asia, as well as one of the largest chemical industries.', 'And we\'ve seen industry growth in other countries of the region,"" said Jeremy Douglas in late 2023, the then regional representative of the UNODC . ""', 'While both industries are regulated, the challenge is significant given the sheer scale, and at the same time there are a number of ways to move products.', 'Parcel post, air freight and shipping containers are all moving globally in high volumes,"" he said.', 'Mr Douglas says that synthetic drugs are disrupting the traditional drug trade.', 'Outside of China, synthetic drugs offer opportunities for both traditional crime organisations and upstarts able to buy directly from producers half a world away. ""', 'Synthetics like fentanyl have several advantages over traditional drugs - compact, easily shippable, pre-existing demand, replaceable.', 'They\'re attractive to traffickers.""', 'That was confirmed in my conversations with sales people working for Chinese pharmaceutical firms. ""', 'First of all, our packaging is completely secret, no one knows what it is until you open it, and second, we will change the name of the package and will not reveal any name about the product,"" says Sara. ""', 'We will get the logistics order number when we send the package, we will track the situation of the package at any time, and any anomalies can be known and solved in time,"" she adds.', ""According to Europol, the European police agency, China is the world's biggest manufacturer and distributor of synthetic, lab-made drugs."", 'Some mimic the effects of traditional drugs like cannabis or cocaine.', 'Chemists synthesise new drugs in order to stay one step ahead of the law. ""', 'It is criminal entrepreneurship, but in a legitimate framework which is really unique,"" says Dr Louise Shelley the director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at George Mason University, and author of Dark Commerce. ""', 'I have not seen such a professionalism and a corporate element in this anywhere else in the world.', 'Criminal activity was a type of social mobility.""', 'In 2020, researchers from TraCCC studied over 350 English language websites advertising the synthetic opioid fentanyl. ""', 'From all the adverts that we found, nearly 40% of them were from corporate registries, and the largest hub of that was in Wuhan,"" says Dr Shelly.', 'The sales people contacted by the BBC see the drug trade as simply another aspect of e-commerce.', 'When challenged over selling drugs that damage lives, one described herself as a ""middleman."" ""', 'Somebody needs it, somebody makes it, and I am just a middleman who lets customers know that I have it and what they do with it, I don\'t care,"" she says. ""', 'Then I figured out I just need to make money.', ""I don't know and don't care."", 'Everyone has their own needs.""', 'The woman boasts of clients from Canada to Croatia.', 'She provided photos of recent drugs shipments complete with labels showing a UK address. ""', 'I didn\'t know at first until I went online and translated the product into Chinese,"" she says via a message punctuated with a teary emoji.', 'Another seller says: ""This industry is easy, and you can get higher wages, which attracts a large number of young people"".', 'Natalie [not her real name], focuses on fentanyl. ""', 'We buy from over 10 different labs and have a large selection.', 'I have a professional shipping agent who packaged goods so has a very high delivery success rate to the UK.""', 'Meanwhile, another supplier claimed to be able to smuggle drugs into the UK hidden in dog food packaging. ""', ""You don't need to worry about the packaging."", 'We guarantee you safe delivery."" ""', 'We ship in large quantities all over the world every day.', 'Please trust our professional team.', 'We guarantee 100% safe transportation.""', 'In 2019, the Chinese government banned all forms of fentanyl and its analogues.', 'In January 2024, China and the US launched a joint operation to curb the production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. ""', 'As long as market demand remains high in some parts of the world then that demand will be met in one way or another,"" said Mr Douglas from the UNODC.']",-0.0146332805685231,"Synthetics like fentanyl have several advantages over traditional drugs - compact, easily shippable, pre-existing demand, replaceable.","It is criminal entrepreneurship, but in a legitimate framework which is really unique,"" says Dr Louise Shelley the director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at George Mason University, and author of Dark Commerce. """,0.3921927426542554,"And we've seen industry growth in other countries of the region,"" said Jeremy Douglas in late 2023, the then regional representative of the UNODC . ""","According to the NCA, there have been more than 100 deaths linked to nitazenes over the past nine months, leading health professionals to warn the UK may be facing a drug-related crisis.",2024-04-30
Digital humans: the relatable face of artificial intelligence?,https://edition.cnn.com/business/digital-humans-ai-dj-dex-spc/index.html,"
  Published
        5:33 AM EDT, Tue March 19, 2024
    ","Scrolling through the Instagram account of DJ and aspiring model Dex you’ll see her wearing new outfits, performing at shows around the world and chatting to her thousands of followers about her hobbies.
    
            However, it’s clear that there is something different about Dex; she’s an entirely virtual “digital human,” designed by a startup in the UK.
    
            For her performances, Dex is displayed on a video screen or as a holographic projection, with her mixes created by humans. She is animated using Unreal Engine — a 3D modeling software widely used in video games — combined with motion-capture. Generative artificial intelligence allows her to remember information and respond to questions, using a voice also generated by AI.
    
            “She’s probably one of the only digital humans in the performance space that you can have a conversation and interact with,” says Denise Harris, CCO of startup Sum Vivas. “You can ask her anything. She is a genius about music.”
    
            Last month, Dex performed at Digital Fashion Weeks in New York, Paris and Milan, and she has modeled outfits by Prada and Louis Vuitton at digital fashion events.
    
            For Liverpool-based Sum Vivas she’s a “showpiece” for more practical applications. The company is now developing digital humans that can “listen” to people’s questions and converse in real time. “Shellie” can provide product information as an avatar on company websites, while “Arif” is set to direct passengers and answer questions as a multilingual concierge on screens at airports.
    
            According to CEO and founder Rob Sims, digital humans can help bridge the gap between AI technology and people. “What we’ve found is when people start working with and conversing with a digital human, they very quickly suspend disbelief,” Sims tells CNN. “It becomes natural.”
    
            Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT was launched in November 2022, considerable hype has surrounded the potential of generative AI — artificial intelligence powered by huge datasets of information, capable of generating text outputs in a conversational way.
    
            Record levels of investment into generative AI have followed, with over $21 billion poured into the industry during the first nine months of last year, according to data insights company Pitchbook. In March 2023, Google launched Bard (recently renamed Gemini) and around the same time Anthropic released its AI assistant Claude. As generative AI chatbots become increasingly ubiquitous, Sum Vivas is one of several companies looking to make them more human.
    
            US and New Zealand-based UneeQ has developed animated conversational “digital humans” that can be used as virtual sales reps and customer service agents on company websites, and this month it debuted Sama 2.0, an animated cabin crew member that answers questions on Qatar Airways’ website and app.
    
            Microsoft recently announced that users of its Azure software would be able to create lifelike avatars capable of turning text prompts into animated speech. However, there are widespread concerns about the impact AI could have on the job market. 
    
            “When we rely on automated tools, what skills are we losing in the process?” asks Jennifer Ding, senior researcher at the Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. “In some ways, we think of AI as something that’s helping us or augmenting our work,” she says. “However, alongside, this fear of replacement is bubbling up more and more.”
    
            Harris, however, points to new opportunities within digital human design and development. “Every scenario that we found, we’re creating jobs and working in harmony with people rather than taking away jobs,” she says.
    
            “Digital humans, first and foremost, should work with other human colleagues,” adds Sims. “We’ll move into a stage where digital humans will start to become just another member of the team, with added benefits for that team, and obviously the customers they serve.”",CNN,19/03/2024,"['Scrolling through the Instagram account of DJ and aspiring model Dex you’ll see her wearing new outfits, performing at shows around the world and chatting to her thousands of followers about her hobbies.', 'However, it’s clear that there is something different about Dex; she’s an entirely virtual “digital human,” designed by a startup in the UK.', 'For her performances, Dex is displayed on a video screen or as a holographic projection, with her mixes created by humans.', 'She is animated using Unreal Engine — a 3D modeling software widely used in video games — combined with motion-capture.', 'Generative artificial intelligence allows her to remember information and respond to questions, using a voice also generated by AI.', '“She’s probably one of the only digital humans in the performance space that you can have a conversation and interact with,” says Denise Harris, CCO of startup Sum Vivas. “', 'You can ask her anything.', 'She is a genius about music.”', 'Last month, Dex performed at Digital Fashion Weeks in New York, Paris and Milan, and she has modeled outfits by Prada and Louis Vuitton at digital fashion events.', 'For Liverpool-based Sum Vivas she’s a “showpiece” for more practical applications.', 'The company is now developing digital humans that can “listen” to people’s questions and converse in real time. “', 'Shellie” can provide product information as an avatar on company websites, while “Arif” is set to direct passengers and answer questions as a multilingual concierge on screens at airports.', 'According to CEO and founder Rob Sims, digital humans can help bridge the gap between AI technology and people. “', 'What we’ve found is when people start working with and conversing with a digital human, they very quickly suspend disbelief,” Sims tells CNN. “', 'It becomes natural.”', 'Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT was launched in November 2022, considerable hype has surrounded the potential of generative AI — artificial intelligence powered by huge datasets of information, capable of generating text outputs in a conversational way.', 'Record levels of investment into generative AI have followed, with over $21 billion poured into the industry during the first nine months of last year, according to data insights company Pitchbook.', 'In March 2023, Google launched Bard (recently renamed Gemini) and around the same time Anthropic released its AI assistant Claude.', 'As generative AI chatbots become increasingly ubiquitous, Sum Vivas is one of several companies looking to make them more human.', 'US and New Zealand-based UneeQ has developed animated conversational “digital humans” that can be used as virtual sales reps and customer service agents on company websites, and this month it debuted Sama 2.0, an animated cabin crew member that answers questions on Qatar Airways’ website and app.', 'Microsoft recently announced that users of its Azure software would be able to create lifelike avatars capable of turning text prompts into animated speech.', 'However, there are widespread concerns about the impact AI could have on the job market.', '“When we rely on automated tools, what skills are we losing in the process?”', 'asks Jennifer Ding, senior researcher at the Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. “', 'In some ways, we think of AI as something that’s helping us or augmenting our work,” she says. “', 'However, alongside, this fear of replacement is bubbling up more and more.”', 'Harris, however, points to new opportunities within digital human design and development. “', 'Every scenario that we found, we’re creating jobs and working in harmony with people rather than taking away jobs,” she says.', '“Digital humans, first and foremost, should work with other human colleagues,” adds Sims. “', 'We’ll move into a stage where digital humans will start to become just another member of the team, with added benefits for that team, and obviously the customers they serve.”']",0.1214444180579973,"Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT was launched in November 2022, considerable hype has surrounded the potential of generative AI — artificial intelligence powered by huge datasets of information, capable of generating text outputs in a conversational way.","However, alongside, this fear of replacement is bubbling up more and more.”",0.2107271328568458,"Harris, however, points to new opportunities within digital human design and development. “","However, there are widespread concerns about the impact AI could have on the job market.",2024-04-30
Hong Kong stocks are back from the dead. Here’s why,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/30/investing/hong-kong-stocks-rebound-factors-intl-hnk/index.html,"
  Published
        4:54 AM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024
    ","Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index surged more than 7% in April as the best-performing major index in the world. It’s now heading into a bull market, rebounding nearly 20% from its January low.
    
            The rebound marks a sharp turnaround after a weak start to 2024 and years of heavy losses, which saw more than $3 trillion wiped off the value of the city’s stock market as global investors grew increasingly skeptical about China’s economic future and worried about geopolitical tensions with the United States.
    
            But an improving economic landscape in China, cheaper valuations and a flurry of mainland investors putting money into Hong Kong to protect their portfolios from a weakening Chinese currency have combined to resuscitate the market.
    
            “Foreign inflows have started to come back with the bottoming of the [Chinese] economy,” said Kelly Chung, chief investment officer for multi assets at Value Partners, a Hong Kong-based asset management firm.
    
            The valuation of Hong Kong stocks has also become more “compelling” relative to the rest of the Asian region after the pullback last year, said Zhikai Chen, head of Asian equities at BNP Paribas Asset Management. He added that there is a shift in investors’ sentiments as Chinese economic data turned more positive.
    
            In recent days, investors have been getting increasingly upbeat because of reports that Beijing would roll out a “real solution” for the crisis-ridden property sector.
    
            “Attention is squarely on China’s property market, seen as the linchpin of the country’s economic stability,” said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management.
    
            “Recent policy measures, ranging from lifting restrictions on homebuyers to providing support for developers’ funding needs, underscore the government’s commitment to bolstering this critical sector in 2024,” he said.
    
            There are signs that China’s economy might be bottoming out.
    
            Manufacturing activity grew at the fastest pace in 14 months in April, according to a private survey released on Tuesday.
    
            The Caixin/S&P Global manufacturing PMI rose to 51.4 in April from 51.1 in March, marking the sixth consecutive month of expansion, as new export orders recorded a solid increase because of improving global demand.
    
            In the first quarter, China’s gross domestic product grew 5.3% from a year ago, thanks to robust growth in high-tech manufacturing.
    
            “The PMIs, which are a leading economic indicator, suggest improving momentum since the start of the year,” said David Chao, global market strategist at Invesco.
    
            “Heading into the middle of the year, the recent PMIs are in much better territory when compared to a year ago, and I think this is due to fiscal and monetary stimulus working their way into the economy,” he said.
    
            Earlier this month, news outlet Caixin reported that Beijing is learning from Japan’s experience of decades of stagnation and is considering launching a national platform to acquire unfinished housing projects across the country. These projects would then be turned into affordable housing and the units would be sold or rented out.
    
            “[This] is largely consistent with what we have long believed would be the most effective way to rescue the property sector,” said Nomura analysts on Monday.
    
            “The Caixin report suggests Beijing is edging closer to a real solution for the property sector,” they added.
    
            Chinese equities listed in Hong Kong are also appearing to be more attractive, particularly in comparison to Indian markets, which have been booming on the back of robust economic growth.
    
            “We are observing investors starting to view India’s valuation as ‘expensive,’ and outflows have been seen from India to China [equities],” Angelina Lai, chief investment officer at St James’s Place, wrote in her quarterly market update earlier this month.
    
            “Although the macro picture in China is unpromising, the steep fall in Chinese equities has pushed the local equity risk premium above the trend,” she said.
    
            Innes said global investors are currently “underweight” in Chinese markets, including Hong Kong, because of geopolitical tensions and concerns surrounding potential fallout from the upcoming US elections.
    
            However, such market surges typically trigger “the fear of missing out (FOMO)”, especially given the attractive valuation of Chinese stocks compared to their US counterparts.
    
            “As a result, we may see a global rotation of funds into Chinese equities, indicating that the current rally could have further momentum to sustain its upward trajectory,” he added.
    
            Hong Kong has also seen strong inflows of money from mainland China, where investors are concerned about further depreciation of the Chinese currency and mainland assets, according to BNP Paribas’ analysts.
    
            The yuan has lost 4% of its value against the US dollar in the past year.
    
            While other major central banks have kept their monetary policies tight to control inflation, the People’s Bank of China has cut rates multiple times and pledged to maintain ample liquidity this year to fight deflation.
    
            Stock exchange data showed that southbound investors (meaning investment from mainland China into Hong Kong) have bought nearly $20 billion of Hong Kong-listed stocks in March and the first three weeks of April on a net basis.
    
            “We believe southbound investors could be using HK-listed equities to diversify their currency exposure in light of rising RMB depreciation pressure due to US-China interest rate differentials,” analysts from BNP Paribus said last week.
    
            “In our view, mainland Chinese investors often prefer to diversify their holdings to non-RMB denominated assets (eg HK-listed shares and commodities) during periods of RMB depreciation,” they said, adding that depreciation pressure on the yuan could continue for the rest of the year.",CNN,30/04/2024,"['Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index surged more than 7% in April as the best-performing major index in the world.', 'It’s now heading into a bull market, rebounding nearly 20% from its January low.', 'The rebound marks a sharp turnaround after a weak start to 2024 and years of heavy losses, which saw more than $3 trillion wiped off the value of the city’s stock market as global investors grew increasingly skeptical about China’s economic future and worried about geopolitical tensions with the United States.', 'But an improving economic landscape in China, cheaper valuations and a flurry of mainland investors putting money into Hong Kong to protect their portfolios from a weakening Chinese currency have combined to resuscitate the market.', '“Foreign inflows have started to come back with the bottoming of the [Chinese] economy,” said Kelly Chung, chief investment officer for multi assets at Value Partners, a Hong Kong-based asset management firm.', 'The valuation of Hong Kong stocks has also become more “compelling” relative to the rest of the Asian region after the pullback last year, said Zhikai Chen, head of Asian equities at BNP Paribas Asset Management.', 'He added that there is a shift in investors’ sentiments as Chinese economic data turned more positive.', 'In recent days, investors have been getting increasingly upbeat because of reports that Beijing would roll out a “real solution” for the crisis-ridden property sector.', '“Attention is squarely on China’s property market, seen as the linchpin of the country’s economic stability,” said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management.', '“Recent policy measures, ranging from lifting restrictions on homebuyers to providing support for developers’ funding needs, underscore the government’s commitment to bolstering this critical sector in 2024,” he said.', 'There are signs that China’s economy might be bottoming out.', 'Manufacturing activity grew at the fastest pace in 14 months in April, according to a private survey released on Tuesday.', 'The Caixin/S&P Global manufacturing PMI rose to 51.4 in April from 51.1 in March, marking the sixth consecutive month of expansion, as new export orders recorded a solid increase because of improving global demand.', 'In the first quarter, China’s gross domestic product grew 5.3% from a year ago, thanks to robust growth in high-tech manufacturing.', '“The PMIs, which are a leading economic indicator, suggest improving momentum since the start of the year,” said David Chao, global market strategist at Invesco.', '“Heading into the middle of the year, the recent PMIs are in much better territory when compared to a year ago, and I think this is due to fiscal and monetary stimulus working their way into the economy,” he said.', 'Earlier this month, news outlet Caixin reported that Beijing is learning from Japan’s experience of decades of stagnation and is considering launching a national platform to acquire unfinished housing projects across the country.', 'These projects would then be turned into affordable housing and the units would be sold or rented out.', '“[This] is largely consistent with what we have long believed would be the most effective way to rescue the property sector,” said Nomura analysts on Monday.', '“The Caixin report suggests Beijing is edging closer to a real solution for the property sector,” they added.', 'Chinese equities listed in Hong Kong are also appearing to be more attractive, particularly in comparison to Indian markets, which have been booming on the back of robust economic growth.', '“We are observing investors starting to view India’s valuation as ‘expensive,’ and outflows have been seen from India to China [equities],” Angelina Lai, chief investment officer at St James’s Place, wrote in her quarterly market update earlier this month.', '“Although the macro picture in China is unpromising, the steep fall in Chinese equities has pushed the local equity risk premium above the trend,” she said.', 'Innes said global investors are currently “underweight” in Chinese markets, including Hong Kong, because of geopolitical tensions and concerns surrounding potential fallout from the upcoming US elections.', 'However, such market surges typically trigger “the fear of missing out (FOMO)”, especially given the attractive valuation of Chinese stocks compared to their US counterparts.', '“As a result, we may see a global rotation of funds into Chinese equities, indicating that the current rally could have further momentum to sustain its upward trajectory,” he added.', 'Hong Kong has also seen strong inflows of money from mainland China, where investors are concerned about further depreciation of the Chinese currency and mainland assets, according to BNP Paribas’ analysts.', 'The yuan has lost 4% of its value against the US dollar in the past year.', 'While other major central banks have kept their monetary policies tight to control inflation, the People’s Bank of China has cut rates multiple times and pledged to maintain ample liquidity this year to fight deflation.', 'Stock exchange data showed that southbound investors (meaning investment from mainland China into Hong Kong) have bought nearly $20 billion of Hong Kong-listed stocks in March and the first three weeks of April on a net basis.', '“We believe southbound investors could be using HK-listed equities to diversify their currency exposure in light of rising RMB depreciation pressure due to US-China interest rate differentials,” analysts from BNP Paribus said last week.', '“In our view, mainland Chinese investors often prefer to diversify their holdings to non-RMB denominated assets (eg HK-listed shares and commodities) during periods of RMB depreciation,” they said, adding that depreciation pressure on the yuan could continue for the rest of the year.']",0.1849800856769969,"Chinese equities listed in Hong Kong are also appearing to be more attractive, particularly in comparison to Indian markets, which have been booming on the back of robust economic growth.","The rebound marks a sharp turnaround after a weak start to 2024 and years of heavy losses, which saw more than $3 trillion wiped off the value of the city’s stock market as global investors grew increasingly skeptical about China’s economic future and worried about geopolitical tensions with the United States.",0.557260772277569,Hong Kong’s benchmark Hang Seng Index surged more than 7% in April as the best-performing major index in the world.,The yuan has lost 4% of its value against the US dollar in the past year.,2024-04-30
"McDonald’s earnings miss estimates as diners pull back, Middle East boycotts hit sales",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/30/mcdonalds-mcd-q1-2024-earnings.html,2024-04-30T18:44:28+0000,"In this articleMcDonald's reported mixed quarterly results Tuesday as its reorganization weighed on its profit and boycotts hurt its Middle Eastern sales.The company also continues to see consumers worldwide pull back on their restaurant spending.""Consumers continue to be even more discriminating with every dollar that they spend as they faced elevated prices in their day-to-day spending, which is putting pressure on the [quick-service restaurant] industry,"" CEO Chris Kempczinski said on the company's conference call.He added that McDonald's has to be ""laser focused"" on affordability to attract diners.Shares of McDonald's fell more than 2% in morning trading.Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:McDonald's reported first-quarter net income of $1.93 billion, or $2.66 per share, up from $1.8 billion, or $2.45 per share, a year earlier. The company recorded a pretax charge of $35 million tied to its reorganization, which was announced more than a year ago.Excluding restructuring charges, the fast-food giant earned $2.70 per share.Net sales rose 5% to $6.17 billion. The company's global same-store sales increased 1.9% in the quarter, falling short of StreetAccount estimates of 2.1%.McDonald's reported U.S. same-store sales growth of 2.5%, missing expectations of 2.6%. The chain said that the average check grew thanks to higher menu prices. But by raising prices, McDonald's has also scared away some of its low-income customers.Kempczinski said the company is working on a national value deal in the U.S. While the strategy could attract more customers, franchisees may push back because those promotions can cut into their profits.""Our U.S. leadership team is working really closely with our owner-operators,"" CFO Ian Borden said.Additionally, the chain has rolled out an improved version of its burgers nationwide, with advertising featuring its Hamburglar mascot, as it tries to convince customers that its prices are worth it. The company's chefs have also been working on a larger burger, which it plans to test in several markets later this year before a global launch.A month into the second quarter, McDonald's U.S. same-store sales are roughly flat, executives said.""Clearly, everybody's fighting for fewer consumers or consumers that are certainly visiting less frequently, and we've got to make sure that we've got that street-fighting mentality to win, irregardless of the context around us,"" Borden said.Demand in the company's international developmental licensed markets was even weaker. McDonald's said the segment's same-store sales fell 0.2%, marking the first time since the pandemic that one of the chain's divisions reported a same-store sales decline.The segment includes restaurants in the Middle East, which have been roiled by the Israel-Hamas war and related boycotts, which started after McDonald's Israeli licensee offered discounts to soldiers. Earlier this month, McDonald's bought the 225 restaurants operated by its Israeli franchisee.Kempczinski said some of the markets dealing with boycotts slightly improved during the quarter. He also noted that those markets have continued to see strong demand for delivery orders.Still, he reiterated the company's belief that sales in the region won't significantly improve until the war ends.The company said that same-stores sales in other licensed markets, like Japan and Latin America, grew for the quarter. McDonald's international operated markets segment, which includes Germany and the United Kingdom, reported same-store sales growth of 2.7%. France's same-store sales declined in the quarter.Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify that Refinitiv is now known as LSEG.",CNBC,30/04/2024,"[""In this articleMcDonald's reported mixed quarterly resultsTuesdayas its reorganization weighed on its profit and boycotts hurt its Middle Eastern sales."", 'The company also continues to see consumers worldwide pull back on their restaurant spending.', '""Consumers continue to be even more discriminating with every dollar that they spend as they faced elevated prices in their day-to-day spending, which is putting pressure on the [quick-service restaurant] industry,"" CEO Chris Kempczinski said on the company\'s conference call.', 'He added that McDonald\'s has to be ""laser focused"" on affordability to attract diners.', ""Shares of McDonald's fell more than 2% in morning trading."", ""Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:McDonald's reported first-quarter net income of $1.93 billion, or $2.66 per share, up from $1.8 billion, or $2.45 per share, a year earlier."", 'The company recorded a pretax charge of $35 million tied to its reorganization, which was announced more than a year ago.', 'Excluding restructuring charges, the fast-food giant earned $2.70 per share.', 'Net sales rose 5% to $6.17 billion.', ""The company's global same-store sales increased 1.9% in the quarter, falling short of StreetAccount estimates of 2.1%.McDonald's reported U.S. same-store sales growth of 2.5%, missing expectations of 2.6%."", 'The chain said that the average check grew thanks to higher menu prices.', ""Butbyraising prices,McDonald's has alsoscared away some of its low-income customers."", 'Kempczinski said the company is working on a national value deal in the U.S. While the strategy could attract more customers, franchisees may push back because those promotions can cut into their profits.', '""Our U.S. leadership team is working really closely with our owner-operators,"" CFO Ian Borden said.', 'Additionally, the chain has rolled out animprovedversion of its burgers nationwide, with advertising featuring its Hamburglar mascot, as it tries to convince customers that its prices are worth it.', ""The company's chefs have also been working on a larger burger, which it plans to test in several markets later this year before a global launch."", ""A month into the second quarter, McDonald's U.S. same-store sales are roughly flat, executives said."", '""Clearly, everybody\'s fighting for fewer consumers or consumers that are certainly visiting less frequently, and we\'ve got to make sure that we\'ve got that street-fighting mentality to win, irregardless of the context around us,"" Borden said.', ""Demand in the company's international developmental licensed markets was even weaker."", ""McDonald's said the segment's same-store sales fell 0.2%, marking the first time since the pandemicthatone of the chain's divisions reportedasame-store salesdecline."", ""The segment includes restaurants in the Middle East, which have been roiled by the Israel-Hamas war and related boycotts,which startedafterMcDonald'sIsraeli licensee offered discounts to soldiers."", ""Earlier this month, McDonald's bought the 225 restaurants operated by its Israeli franchisee."", 'Kempczinski said some of the markets dealing with boycotts slightly improved during the quarter.', 'He also noted that those markets have continued to see strong demand for delivery orders.', ""Still, he reiterated the company's belief that sales in the region won't significantly improve until the war ends."", 'The company said thatsame-storessales in other licensed markets, like Japan and Latin America,grewfor the quarter.', ""McDonald's international operated markets segment, which includes Germany and the United Kingdom, reported same-store sales growth of 2.7%."", ""France's same-store sales declined in the quarter."", 'Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify that Refinitiv is now known as LSEG.']",0.1042764781153992,"""Clearly, everybody's fighting for fewer consumers or consumers that are certainly visiting less frequently, and we've got to make sure that we've got that street-fighting mentality to win, irregardless of the context around us,"" Borden said.","The segment includes restaurants in the Middle East, which have been roiled by the Israel-Hamas war and related boycotts,which startedafterMcDonald'sIsraeli licensee offered discounts to soldiers.",-0.0478889095155816,Net sales rose 5% to $6.17 billion.,Demand in the company's international developmental licensed markets was even weaker.,2024-04-30
Open seating no more? Southwest CEO says airline is weighing cabin changes,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/southwest-weighing-cabin-changes-to-drive-revenue.html,2024-04-25T19:59:11+0000,"In this articleSouthwest Airlines is considering changes to its single-class, open-seating cabins to drive up revenue, CEO Bob Jordan told CNBC on Thursday, a shift that would be among the largest in the airline's history.""We're looking into new initiatives, things like the way we seat and board our aircraft,"" Jordan said in an interview after the carrier's disappointing first-quarter report.Southwest's all-Boeing 737 fleet has a single economy class cabin and no seating assignments, though it does offer earlier boarding for a fee so customers can snag their preferred seats. The airline has focused on keeping its product simple and user-friendly for years, aiming to keep its own costs and complexity to a minimum.Meanwhile, rivals including Delta and United have touted high revenue growth for premium seating such as business class and strong upsell rates.Analysts have repeatedly asked Southwest about opportunities for premium seating or additional fees. (The airline doesn't charge travelers for their first two checked bags.)Most U.S. airlines charge travelers to choose many of its seats in advance, even those that don't come with extra legroom. Eight U.S. carriers — Alaska, Allegiant, American, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, Spirit and United — together brought in $4.2 billion from seating fees in their domestic networks in 2022, according to Jay Sorensen, an airline ancillary revenue expert at IdeaWorksCompany.Jordan said no decisions have been made on what kind of changes Southwest will ultimately make, but he said studies have yielded ""interesting"" results.""Customer preferences do change over time,"" Jordan said.While details were scarce during Southwest's earnings call, when asked whether Southwest would consider a separated cabin on its planes, Ryan Green, the carrier's chief commercial officer said: ""Curtains and things like that are a bit far afield from what Southwest Airlines is.""Green added that the carrier is not considering charging for checked bags because ""people choose Southwest Airlines because we don't have bag fees.""— CNBC's Phil LeBeau contributed to this report.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"[""In this articleSouthwest Airlines is considering changes to its single-class, open-seating cabins to drive up revenue, CEO Bob Jordan told CNBC on Thursday, a shift that would be among the largest in the airline's history."", '""We\'re looking into new initiatives, things like the way we seat and board our aircraft,"" Jordan said in an interview after the carrier\'s disappointing first-quarter report.', ""Southwest's all-Boeing 737 fleet has a single economy class cabin and no seating assignments, though it does offer earlier boarding for a fee so customers can snag their preferred seats."", 'The airline has focused on keeping its product simple and user-friendly for years, aiming to keep its own costs and complexity to a minimum.', 'Meanwhile, rivals including Delta and United have touted high revenue growth for premium seating such as business class and strong upsell rates.', 'Analysts have repeatedly asked Southwest about opportunities for premium seating or additional fees. (', ""The airline doesn't charge travelers for their first two checked bags.)Most U.S. airlines charge travelers to choose many of its seats in advance, even those that don't come with extra legroom."", 'Eight U.S. carriers — Alaska, Allegiant, American, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, Spirit and United — together brought in $4.2 billion from seating fees in their domestic networks in 2022, according to Jay Sorensen, an airline ancillary revenue expert at IdeaWorksCompany.', 'Jordan said no decisions have been made on what kind of changes Southwest will ultimately make, but he said studies have yielded ""interesting"" results.', '""Customer preferences do change over time,"" Jordan said.', 'While details were scarce during Southwest\'s earnings call, when asked whether Southwest would consider a separated cabin on its planes, Ryan Green, the carrier\'s chief commercial officer said: ""Curtains and things like that are a bit far afield from what Southwest Airlines is.', '""Green added that the carrier is not considering charging for checked bags because ""people choose Southwest Airlines because we don\'t have bag fees.""—', ""CNBC's Phil LeBeau contributed to this report.""]",0.2277260589164618,"Meanwhile, rivals including Delta and United have touted high revenue growth for premium seating such as business class and strong upsell rates.","Southwest's all-Boeing 737 fleet has a single economy class cabin and no seating assignments, though it does offer earlier boarding for a fee so customers can snag their preferred seats.",0.9218981464703878,"Meanwhile, rivals including Delta and United have touted high revenue growth for premium seating such as business class and strong upsell rates.",,2024-04-30
Tensions grow as China ramps up global mining for green tech,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-68896707,2024-04-29T23:17:17.000Z,"Earlier this year, Ai Qing was woken up in the middle of the night by angry chants outside her dormitory in northern Argentina.  She peered out of the window to see Argentine workers surrounding the compound and blockading the entrance with flaming tyres.  ""It was getting scary because I could see the sky being lit up by the fire. It had become a riot,"" says Ms Ai, who works for a Chinese company extracting lithium from salt flats in the Andes mountains, for use in batteries.  The protest, sparked by the firing of a number of Argentine staff, is just one of a growing number of cases of friction between Chinese businesses and host communities, as China - which already dominates the processing of minerals vital to the green economy - expands its involvement in mining them.   It was just 10 years ago that a Chinese company bought the country's first stake in an extraction project within the ""lithium triangle"" of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, which holds most of the world's lithium reserves.  Many further Chinese investments in local mining operations have followed, according to mining publications, and corporate, government and media reports. The BBC calculates that based on their shareholdings, Chinese companies now control an estimated 33% of the lithium at projects currently producing the mineral or those under construction.  But as Chinese businesses have expanded, they have faced allegations of abuses similar to those often levelled at other international mining giants.  For Ai Qing, the tyre-burning protest was a rude awakening. She had expected a quiet life in Argentina, but found herself involved in conflict mediation because of her knowledge of Spanish.  ""It wasn't easy,"" she says.  ""Beyond the language, we have to tone down many things, like how management thinks the employees are simply lazy and too reliant on the union, and how locals think Chinese people are only here to exploit them.""  The BBC Global China Unit has identified at least 62 mining projects across the world, in which Chinese companies have a stake, that are designed to extract either lithium or one of three other minerals key to green technologies - cobalt, nickel and manganese.  All are used to make lithium-ion batteries - used in electric vehicles - which, along with solar panels, are now high industrial priorities for China. Some projects are among the largest producers of these minerals in the world.   China has long been a leader in refining lithium and cobalt, with a share of global supply reaching 72% and 68% respectively in 2022, according to the Chatham House think tank.  Its capacity to refine these and other critical minerals has helped the country reach a point where it made more than half of the electric vehicles sold worldwide in 2023, has 60% of the global manufacturing capacity for wind turbines, and controls at least 80% of each stage in the solar panel supply chain.    China's role in the sector has made these items cheaper and more accessible globally.  But it's not only China that will need to mine and process minerals needed for the green economy. The UN says that if the world is to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, their use must increase six-fold by 2040.  The US, the UK and the European Union have all developed strategies, meanwhile, to reduce their dependence on Chinese supplies.   As Chinese companies have increased their overseas mining operations, allegations of problems caused by these projects have steadily risen.  The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, an NGO, says such troubles are ""not unique to Chinese mining"" but last year it published a report listing 102 allegations made against Chinese companies involved in extracting critical minerals, ranging from violations of the rights of local communities to damage to ecosystems and unsafe working conditions.   These allegations dated from 2021 and 2022. The BBC has counted more than 40 further allegations that were made in 2023, and reported by NGOs or in the media.   People in two countries, on opposite sides of the world, also told us their stories.   On the outskirts of Lubumbashi in the far south of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Christophe Kabwita has been leading opposition to the Ruashi cobalt mine, owned by the Jinchuan Group since 2011.  He says the open-pit mine, situated 500m from his doorstep, blights people's lives by using explosives to blast away at the rock two or three times per week. Sirens wail when the blasting is about to start, as a signal for everyone to stop what they are doing and take cover.   ""Whatever the temperature, whether it's raining or a gale is blowing, we have to leave our homes and go to a shelter near the mine,"" he says.  This applies to everyone, including the sick and women who have just given birth, he adds, as nowhere else is safe.  In 2017 a teenage girl, Katty Kabazo, was reportedly killed by a flying rock on her way home from school, while other rocks are said to have punched holes into the walls and roofs of local houses.  A spokesperson from the Ruashi mine, Elisa Kalasa, acknowledged that ""one young kid was in that area - she was not supposed to be there and was affected by the flying rocks"".     She said that since then ""we have improved the technology, and now we have the sort of blasting where there are no flying rocks any more"".   However, the BBC spoke to a processing manager at the company, Patrick Tshisand, who appeared to give a different picture. He said: ""If we mine, we use explosives. Explosives can cause flying rocks, which can end up in the community because the community is too close to the mine... so we had several accidents like that.""     Ms Kalasa also said that between 2006 and 2012 the company compensated more than 300 families to relocate further away from the mine.  On Indonesia's remote Obi Island, a mine jointly owned by a Chinese company, Lygend Resources and Technology, and Indonesian mining giant Harita Group has rapidly swallowed up the forests around the village of Kawasi.    Jatam, a local mining watchdog, says that villagers have been under pressure to move and accept government compensation. Dozens of families have refused to relocate, saying what is on offer is below market value. As a result, some say they have been threatened with legal action for allegedly disrupting a project of national strategic importance.    Jatam says old-growth forests have been logged to make way for the mine and they've documented how the rivers and ocean have been filled with sediment, polluting what was once a pristine marine environment.     ""The water from the river is undrinkable now, it's so contaminated, and the sea, that is usually clear blue, turns red when it rains,"" Nur Hayati, a teacher who lives in Kawasi village, says.      Indonesian soldiers have been deployed to the island to protect the mine and when the BBC visited recently, there was a noticeable, increased military presence. Jatam claims soldiers are being used to intimidate, and even assault, people who speak out against the mine. Ms Nur says her community feels the army is there to ""protect the interests of the mine, not the welfare of their own people"".  The military's spokesperson in Jakarta said allegations of intimidation ""cannot be proven"" and that while the soldiers were there to ""protect the mine"" they were not there to ""directly interact with locals"".   In a statement, he claimed the relocation of villagers to make way for the mine had been overseen by the police in a ""peaceful and smooth manner"".   Ms Nur was among a group of villagers who travelled to the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, in June 2018, to protest against the impact of the mine. But a local government representative, Samsu Abubakar, told the BBC no complaints had been received from the public about environmental damage.     He also shared an official report that concluded Harita Group had been ""compliant with environmental management and monitoring obligations"".     Harita itself told us that it ""adheres strictly to ethical business practices and local laws"" and it is ""continuously working to address and mitigate any negative impacts"".  It claimed it had not caused widespread deforestation, it monitored the local source of drinking water, and independent tests have confirmed the water met government quality standards. It added that it had not carried out forced evictions or unfair land transactions and had not intimidated anyone.     A year ago, the Chinese mining trade body, known as CCCMC, started setting up a grievance mechanism, intended to resolve complaints made against Chinese-owned mining projects. The companies themselves ""lack the ability - both cultural and linguistic"" to interact with local communities or civil society organisations, says a spokesperson, Lelia Li.   However, the mechanism still isn't fully operating.  Meanwhile, China's involvement in foreign mining operations seems certain to increase. It's not just a ""geopolitical play"" to control a key market, says Aditya Lolla, the Asia programme director at Ember, a UK-based environmental think tank, it also makes sense from a business perspective.   ""Acquisitions are being made by Chinese companies because, for them, it's all about profits,"" he says.  As a result, Chinese workers will continue to be sent to mining projects around the world and for them, these projects mostly present a chance to earn good money.  People such as Wang Gang, who has worked for 10 years in Chinese-owned cobalt mines in DR Congo. The 48-year-old lives in company accommodation and eats in the staff canteen, working 10-hour days, seven days a week, with four days' leave per month.   He accepts the separation from his family in Hubei province, because he earns more than he could at home. He also enjoys the clear skies and tall forests of DR Congo.   He communicates with local mine workers in a mixture of French, Swahili, and English, but says: ""We rarely chat, except for work-related matters.""   Even Ai Qing, who speaks the language of her host country fluently, has little interaction with Argentines outside work. She's started seeing a fellow Chinese worker, and they mostly hang out with other people like themselves - being thousands of miles from home pulls everyone closer.   A highlight for her is visiting the salt flats high up in the Andes where the lithium is mined and life is ""chill"".    ""The altitude sickness always gets me - I can't fall asleep and I can't eat,"" she says. ""But I really do enjoy going up there because things are much simpler, and there are no office politics.""   Ai Qing and Wang Gang are pseudonyms  Additional reporting by Emery Makumeno, Byobe Malenga, Lucien Kahozy ",BBC,29/04/2024,"['Earlier this year, Ai Qing was woken up in the middle of the night by angry chants outside her dormitory in northern Argentina.', 'She peered out of the window to see Argentine workers surrounding the compound and blockading the entrance with flaming tyres. ""', 'It was getting scary because I could see the sky being lit up by the fire.', 'It had become a riot,"" says Ms Ai, who works for a Chinese company extracting lithium from salt flats in the Andes mountains, for use in batteries.', 'The protest, sparked by the firing of a number of Argentine staff, is just one of a growing number of cases of friction between Chinese businesses and host communities, as China - which already dominates the processing of minerals vital to the green economy - expands its involvement in mining them.', 'It was just 10 years ago that a Chinese company bought the country\'s first stake in an extraction project within the ""lithium triangle"" of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, which holds most of the world\'s lithium reserves.', 'Many further Chinese investments in local mining operations have followed, according to mining publications, and corporate, government and media reports.', 'The BBC calculates that based on their shareholdings, Chinese companies now control an estimated 33% of the lithium at projects currently producing the mineral or those under construction.', 'But as Chinese businesses have expanded, they have faced allegations of abuses similar to those often levelled at other international mining giants.', 'For Ai Qing, the tyre-burning protest was a rude awakening.', 'She had expected a quiet life in Argentina, but found herself involved in conflict mediation because of her knowledge of Spanish. ""', 'It wasn\'t easy,"" she says. ""', 'Beyond the language, we have to tone down many things, like how management thinks the employees are simply lazy and too reliant on the union, and how locals think Chinese people are only here to exploit them.""', 'The BBC Global China Unit has identified at least 62 mining projects across the world, in which Chinese companies have a stake, that are designed to extract either lithium or one of three other minerals key to green technologies - cobalt, nickel and manganese.', 'All are used to make lithium-ion batteries - used in electric vehicles - which, along with solar panels, are now high industrial priorities for China.', 'Some projects are among the largest producers of these minerals in the world.', 'China has long been a leader in refining lithium and cobalt, with a share of global supply reaching 72% and 68% respectively in 2022, according to the Chatham House think tank.', 'Its capacity to refine these and other critical minerals has helped the country reach a point where it made more than half of the electric vehicles sold worldwide in 2023, has 60% of the global manufacturing capacity for wind turbines, and controls at least 80% of each stage in the solar panel supply chain.', ""China's role in the sector has made these items cheaper and more accessible globally."", ""But it's not only China that will need to mine and process minerals needed for the green economy."", 'The UN says that if the world is to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, their use must increase six-fold by 2040.', 'The US, the UK and the European Union have all developed strategies, meanwhile, to reduce their dependence on Chinese supplies.', 'As Chinese companies have increased their overseas mining operations, allegations of problems caused by these projects have steadily risen.', 'The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, an NGO, says such troubles are ""not unique to Chinese mining"" but last year it published a report listing 102 allegations made against Chinese companies involved in extracting critical minerals, ranging from violations of the rights of local communities to damage to ecosystems and unsafe working conditions.', 'These allegations dated from 2021 and 2022.', 'The BBC has counted more than 40 further allegations that were made in 2023, and reported by NGOs or in the media.', 'People in two countries, on opposite sides of the world, also told us their stories.', 'On the outskirts of Lubumbashi in the far south of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Christophe Kabwita has been leading opposition to the Ruashi cobalt mine, owned by the Jinchuan Group since 2011.', ""He says the open-pit mine, situated 500m from his doorstep, blights people's lives by using explosives to blast away at the rock two or three times per week."", 'Sirens wail when the blasting is about to start, as a signal for everyone to stop what they are doing and take cover. ""', 'Whatever the temperature, whether it\'s raining or a gale is blowing, we have to leave our homes and go to a shelter near the mine,"" he says.', 'This applies to everyone, including the sick and women who have just given birth, he adds, as nowhere else is safe.', 'In 2017 a teenage girl, Katty Kabazo, was reportedly killed by a flying rock on her way home from school, while other rocks are said to have punched holes into the walls and roofs of local houses.', 'A spokesperson from the Ruashi mine, Elisa Kalasa, acknowledged that ""one young kid was in that area - she was not supposed to be there and was affected by the flying rocks"".', 'She said that since then ""we have improved the technology, and now we have the sort of blasting where there are no flying rocks any more"".', 'However, the BBC spoke to a processing manager at the company, Patrick Tshisand, who appeared to give a different picture.', 'He said: ""If we mine, we use explosives.', 'Explosives can cause flying rocks, which can end up in the community because the community is too close to the mine... so we had several accidents like that.""', 'Ms Kalasa also said that between 2006 and 2012 the company compensated more than 300 families to relocate further away from the mine.', ""On Indonesia's remote Obi Island, a mine jointly owned by a Chinese company, Lygend Resources and Technology, and Indonesian mining giant Harita Group has rapidly swallowed up the forests around the village of Kawasi."", 'Jatam, a local mining watchdog, says that villagers have been under pressure to move and accept government compensation.', 'Dozens of families have refused to relocate, saying what is on offer is below market value.', 'As a result, some say they have been threatened with legal action for allegedly disrupting a project of national strategic importance.', 'Jatam says old-growth forests have been logged to make way for the mine and they\'ve documented how the rivers and ocean have been filled with sediment, polluting what was once a pristine marine environment. ""', 'The water from the river is undrinkable now, it\'s so contaminated, and the sea, that is usually clear blue, turns red when it rains,"" Nur Hayati, a teacher who lives in Kawasi village, says.', 'Indonesian soldiers have been deployed to the island to protect the mine and when the BBC visited recently, there was a noticeable, increased military presence.', 'Jatam claims soldiers are being used to intimidate, and even assault, people who speak out against the mine.', 'Ms Nur says her community feels the army is there to ""protect the interests of the mine, not the welfare of their own people"".', 'The military\'s spokesperson in Jakarta said allegations of intimidation ""cannot be proven"" and that while the soldiers were there to ""protect the mine"" they were not there to ""directly interact with locals"".', 'In a statement, he claimed the relocation of villagers to make way for the mine had been overseen by the police in a ""peaceful and smooth manner"".', 'Ms Nur was among a group of villagers who travelled to the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, in June 2018, to protest against the impact of the mine.', 'But a local government representative, Samsu Abubakar, told the BBC no complaints had been received from the public about environmental damage.', 'He also shared an official report that concluded Harita Group had been ""compliant with environmental management and monitoring obligations"".', 'Harita itself told us that it ""adheres strictly to ethical business practices and local laws"" and it is ""continuously working to address and mitigate any negative impacts"".', 'It claimed it had not caused widespread deforestation, it monitored the local source of drinking water, and independent tests have confirmed the water met government quality standards.', 'It added that it had not carried out forced evictions or unfair land transactions and had not intimidated anyone.', 'A year ago, the Chinese mining trade body, known as CCCMC, started setting up a grievance mechanism, intended to resolve complaints made against Chinese-owned mining projects.', 'The companies themselves ""lack the ability - both cultural and linguistic"" to interact with local communities or civil society organisations, says a spokesperson, Lelia Li.', ""However, the mechanism still isn't fully operating."", ""Meanwhile, China's involvement in foreign mining operations seems certain to increase."", 'It\'s not just a ""geopolitical play"" to control a key market, says Aditya Lolla, the Asia programme director at Ember, a UK-based environmental think tank, it also makes sense from a business perspective. ""', 'Acquisitions are being made by Chinese companies because, for them, it\'s all about profits,"" he says.', 'As a result, Chinese workers will continue to be sent to mining projects around the world and for them, these projects mostly present a chance to earn good money.', 'People such as Wang Gang, who has worked for 10 years in Chinese-owned cobalt mines in DR Congo.', ""The 48-year-old lives in company accommodation and eats in the staff canteen, working 10-hour days, seven days a week, with four days' leave per month."", 'He accepts the separation from his family in Hubei province, because he earns more than he could at home.', 'He also enjoys the clear skies and tall forests of DR Congo.', 'He communicates with local mine workers in a mixture of French, Swahili, and English, but says: ""We rarely chat, except for work-related matters.""', 'Even Ai Qing, who speaks the language of her host country fluently, has little interaction with Argentines outside work.', ""She's started seeing a fellow Chinese worker, and they mostly hang out with other people like themselves - being thousands of miles from home pulls everyone closer."", 'A highlight for her is visiting the salt flats high up in the Andes where the lithium is mined and life is ""chill"". ""', 'The altitude sickness always gets me - I can\'t fall asleep and I can\'t eat,"" she says. ""', 'But I really do enjoy going up there because things are much simpler, and there are no office politics.""', 'Ai Qing and Wang Gang are pseudonyms Additional reporting by Emery Makumeno, Byobe Malenga, Lucien Kahozy']",-0.00224261349281,He also enjoys the clear skies and tall forests of DR Congo.,"The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, an NGO, says such troubles are ""not unique to Chinese mining"" but last year it published a report listing 102 allegations made against Chinese companies involved in extracting critical minerals, ranging from violations of the rights of local communities to damage to ecosystems and unsafe working conditions.",0.3130765046392168,"Its capacity to refine these and other critical minerals has helped the country reach a point where it made more than half of the electric vehicles sold worldwide in 2023, has 60% of the global manufacturing capacity for wind turbines, and controls at least 80% of each stage in the solar panel supply chain.","On Indonesia's remote Obi Island, a mine jointly owned by a Chinese company, Lygend Resources and Technology, and Indonesian mining giant Harita Group has rapidly swallowed up the forests around the village of Kawasi.",2024-04-30
Labor Day isn’t the holiday it once was for China’s workers,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/30/economy/china-labor-day-economic-slump-reactions-intl-hnk/index.html,"
  Published
        9:10 PM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024
    ","Like hundreds of millions of workers in China, Hao Zeyu, an algorithm engineer at an electric vehicle maker, is getting five days off this week for the Labor Day holiday. But he’s in no mood to party.
    
            In order to take the vacation, Hao is required to work an extra day on each weekend immediately before and after the break.
    
            To add insult to injury, two of the official vacation days fall on Saturday and Sunday. That means just one of those five days counts as a genuine holiday.
    
            The practice of moving workdays to weekends to create a longer vacation during major Chinese holidays is known as “tiaoxiu” or adjusted rest. Introduced in 1999 to stimulate consumer spending following the Asian financial crisis, it has been the subject of much online anger in the weeks leading up to this year’s May 1 holiday.
    
            “I really don’t like it,” Hao told CNN. “I think this policy was meant to promote consumption at a certain stage of the country’s development, but I very much do not support it anymore,” he added.
    
            So, why has a decades-old policy caused so much upset in a country whose Communist Party leadership pays annual homage to International Workers’ Day?
    
            Workers say a post-Covid slump in the world’s second largest economy means they are increasingly afraid of losing their jobs if they dare to ask for extra leave on top of the officially sanctioned holidays — which they had previously felt comfortable doing.
    
            And they say they’re being asked to work harder than ever because their employers are trying to do more with fewer resources as economic misery — a property crisis, declining foreign investment and tepid consumption — piles up.
    
            In recent weeks, complaints about this year’s Labor Day leave arrangements have exploded on Chinese social media. Many have slammed the government for prioritizing business over something they desperately need, which is an actual break.
    
            People have been venting their frustration under the hashtags “you should not pretend not to hear voices opposing the tiaoxiu policy” and “tiaoxiu policy for May Day,” which have collectively drawn more than 560 million views combined.
    
            One user wrote the online discussion was not merely a policy debate, it’s an embodiment of “physical and mental exhaustion caused by crazy overtime work.”
    
            “What we are longing for is an effective rest that is urgently needed from overworking,” the person added.
    
            Another person wrote on social media platform Weibo that they “want more holidays not shifting things around in order to get those long holidays.”
    
            “Who will have the mood to spend money if they don’t have (real) holidays?” the person wrote.
    
            To make things worse, the “orchestrated” vacations often result in a scramble for hard-to-get train tickets, inflated hotel deals and chaos at popular tourist spots, Hao told CNN.
    
            Labor Day isn’t the only holiday to get the adjusted rest policy.
    
            The authorities also shuffle workdays around the Spring Festival, celebrated in January or February, and National Day, which takes place on October 1, to create seven-day breaks known as “Golden Weeks.”
    
            Christian Yao, a senior lecturer at the University of Wellington, said China’s economy is “in the middle of very bumpy years” as it strives to transform itself from a manufacturing powerhouse into a knowledge-based economy.
    
            He said workers are beginning to question where the country is heading. The slowing economy has, in turn, put pressure on companies to improve their productivity while cutting costs.
    
            “Workers are forced to work harder, afraid of losing jobs and at the same time afraid of whether finding another job is going to offer them better pay,” he said.
    
            Even though some workers are used to working long hours under China’s “996” work culture — the practice of working from 9 am to 9 pm six days a week that is common among the country’s tech companies, startups and other private businesses — others are now refusing to put up with the adjusted work policy, Yao said.
    
            With the policy, China is able to designate more than 25 days as official holidays. Without the maneuvering though, workers get 11 days, which is still in line with many other countries. The United States, for instance, offers 11 federal holidays while the United Kingdom has eight days.
    
            But the problem for Chinese workers is that their statutory paid time off (PTO), or annual leave, is just five days a year, which is much less than many other countries.
    
            When times were good, Chinese companies were more generous in granting those PTO days. But it’s a different story during an economic slowdown.
    
            Max Teng, a business analyst in the internet industry, told CNN that he used to work for a foreign company. But the truth is it was no better, he said.
    
            “If you take a long leave, everyone will have some negative feedback for you. So many people do not dare to take leave even if it’s offered,” he said.
    
            A minority of companies are doing things their own way. Yaer Tuerdi, 26, works in the marketing division of Kentucky Fried Chicken, which is run by fast food giant Yum China (YUMC).
    
            Yum China doesn’t require workers to come in during the two designated “special working days.”
    
            “I like it,” said Tuerdi. “You can arrange your break freely … If you want to travel, you can take annual leave to make up for the gap. If you don’t want to travel, you can still have two days of rest on the weekend.”
    
            A movement among independent businesses is pushing back on the obsession of excessively long work hours. Among the more prominent proponents is Pang Dong Lai, a supermarket chain known for its customer service based in the central province of Henan.
    
            In March, its founder and chairman Yu Donglai announced he was offering 10 days a year of “sadness leave” for employees who did not feel up to working, state media People’s Daily reported.
    
            “Everyone feels down inevitably every now and then and if they can have this sadness leave, they may feel good again,” it quoted him as saying. Managers, Yu added, cannot reject such leave applications.
    
            He has been one of the rare advocates of work-life balance in a culture that prizes “eating bitterness,” or enduring hardship to succeed, and often speaks at business forums to preach his beliefs.
    
            CNN has contacted the supermarket chain to ask about its Labor Day plans.
    
            As for Teng, he will have to work on May 11, a Saturday, as part of the standard holiday arrangement.
    
            “I feel very depressed because I have to work at least six days in a row,” he said.",CNN,30/04/2024,"['Like hundreds of millions of workers in China, Hao Zeyu, an algorithm engineer at an electric vehicle maker, is getting five days off this week for the Labor Day holiday.', 'But he’s in no mood to party.', 'In order to take the vacation, Hao is required to work an extra day on each weekend immediately before and after the break.', 'To add insult to injury, two of the official vacation days fall on Saturday and Sunday.', 'That means just one of those five days counts as a genuine holiday.', 'The practice of moving workdays to weekends to create a longer vacation during major Chinese holidays is known as “tiaoxiu” or adjusted rest.', 'Introduced in 1999 to stimulateconsumer spending following the Asian financial crisis, it has been the subject of much online anger in the weeks leading up to this year’s May 1 holiday.', '“I really don’t like it,” Hao told CNN. “', 'I think this policy was meant to promote consumption at a certain stage of the country’s development, but I very much do not support it anymore,” he added.', 'So, why has a decades-old policy caused so much upset in a country whose Communist Party leadership pays annual homage to International Workers’ Day?', 'Workers say a post-Covid slump in the world’s second largest economy means they are increasingly afraid of losing their jobs if they dare to ask for extra leave on top of the officially sanctioned holidays — which they had previously felt comfortable doing.', 'And they say they’re being asked to work harder than ever because their employers are trying to do more with fewer resources as economic misery — a property crisis, declining foreign investment and tepid consumption — piles up.', 'In recent weeks, complaints about this year’s Labor Day leave arrangements have exploded on Chinese social media.', 'Many have slammed the governmentfor prioritizing business over something they desperately need, which is an actual break.', 'People have been venting their frustration under the hashtags “you should not pretend not to hear voicesopposing the tiaoxiu policy” and “tiaoxiu policy for May Day,” which have collectively drawn more than 560 million views combined.', 'One user wrote the online discussion was not merely a policy debate, it’s an embodiment of “physical and mental exhaustion caused by crazy overtime work.”', '“What we are longing for is an effective rest that is urgently needed from overworking,” the person added.', 'Another person wrote on social media platform Weibo that they “want more holidays not shifting things around in order to get those long holidays.”', '“Who will have the mood to spend money if they don’t have (real) holidays?”', 'the person wrote.', 'To make things worse, the “orchestrated” vacations often result in a scramble for hard-to-get train tickets, inflated hotel deals and chaos at popular tourist spots, Hao told CNN.', 'Labor Day isn’t the only holiday to get the adjusted rest policy.', 'The authorities also shuffle workdays around the Spring Festival, celebrated in January or February, and National Day, which takes place on October 1, to create seven-day breaks known as “Golden Weeks.”', 'Christian Yao, a senior lecturer at the University of Wellington, said China’s economy is “in the middle of very bumpy years” as it strives to transform itself from a manufacturing powerhouse into a knowledge-based economy.', 'He said workers are beginning to question where the country is heading.', 'The slowing economy has, in turn, put pressure on companies to improve their productivitywhile cutting costs.', '“Workers are forced to work harder, afraid of losing jobs and atthe same time afraid of whether finding another job is going to offer them better pay,” he said.', 'Even though some workers are used to working long hours under China’s “996” work culture —the practice of working from 9 am to 9 pm six days a week that is common among the country’s tech companies, startups and other private businesses — othersare now refusing to put up with the adjusted work policy, Yao said.', 'With the policy, China is able to designate more than 25 days as official holidays.', 'Without the maneuvering though, workers get 11 days, which is still in line with many other countries.', 'The United States, for instance, offers 11 federal holidays while the United Kingdom has eight days.', 'But the problem for Chinese workers is that their statutory paid time off (PTO), or annual leave, is just five days a year, which is much less than many other countries.', 'When times were good, Chinese companies were more generous in granting those PTO days.', 'But it’s a different story during an economic slowdown.', 'Max Teng, a business analyst in the internet industry, told CNN that he used to work for a foreign company.', 'But the truth is it was no better, he said.', '“If you take a long leave, everyone will have some negative feedback for you.', 'So many people do not dare to take leave even if it’s offered,” he said.', 'A minority of companies are doing things their own way.', 'Yaer Tuerdi, 26, works in the marketing division of Kentucky Fried Chicken, which is run by fast food giant Yum China (YUMC).', 'Yum Chinadoesn’t require workers to come in during the two designated “special working days.”', '“I like it,” said Tuerdi. “', 'You can arrange your break freely … If you want to travel, you can take annual leave to make up for the gap.', 'If you don’t want to travel, you can still have two days of rest on the weekend.”', 'A movement among independent businesses is pushing back on the obsession of excessively long work hours.', 'Among the more prominent proponents is Pang Dong Lai, a supermarket chain known for its customer service based in the central province of Henan.', 'In March, its founder and chairman Yu Donglai announced he was offering 10 days a year of “sadness leave” for employees who did not feel up to working, state media People’s Daily reported.', '“Everyone feels down inevitably every now and then and if they can have this sadness leave, they may feel good again,” it quoted him as saying.', 'Managers, Yu added, cannot reject such leave applications.', 'He has been one of the rare advocates of work-life balance in a culture that prizes “eating bitterness,” or enduring hardship to succeed, and often speaks at business forums to preach his beliefs.', 'CNN has contacted the supermarket chain to ask about its Labor Day plans.', 'As for Teng, he will have to work on May 11, a Saturday, as part of the standard holiday arrangement.', '“I feel very depressed because I have to work at least six days in a row,” he said.']",0.0476328990168913,"When times were good, Chinese companies were more generous in granting those PTO days.","And they say they’re being asked to work harder than ever because their employers are trying to do more with fewer resources as economic misery — a property crisis, declining foreign investment and tepid consumption — piles up.",-0.6851580353344188,"When times were good, Chinese companies were more generous in granting those PTO days.",Workers say a post-Covid slump in the world’s second largest economy means they are increasingly afraid of losing their jobs if they dare to ask for extra leave on top of the officially sanctioned holidays — which they had previously felt comfortable doing.,2024-04-30
"Coca-Cola tops earnings estimates, hikes revenue outlook on higher prices",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/30/coca-cola-ko-q1-2024-earnings.html,2024-04-30T13:30:36+0000,"In this articleCoca-Cola on Tuesday reported quarterly earnings and revenue that beat analysts' expectations as consumers drank more of its Fanta and Fairlife beverages.The beverage giant also raised its full-year outlook for organic revenue.Shares of the company rose less than 1% in premarket trading.Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:Coke reported first-quarter net income attributable to the company of $3.18 billion, or 74 cents per share, up from $3.11 billion, or 72 cents a share, a year earlier.The company also recorded a $760 million non-cash impairment charge for Bodyarmor. The company fully acquired the sports drink brand in 2021 for $5.6 billion. CFO John Murphy said the charge reflects revised projections and a higher discount rate since the acquisition. The sports drink category has grown more competitive as upstarts like Prime Energy steal market share.Excluding that charge and other items, the beverage giant earned 72 cents per share.Net sales rose 3% to $11.30 billion. Organic sales, which strip out the impact of acquisitions, divestitures and foreign exchange, climbed 11% in the quarter.Coke reported its global unit case volume increased 1%, but its North American volume was flat for the quarter. The metric excludes pricing and foreign currency.North American volume started the quarter slow, but picked up sequentially in February and March, CEO James Quincey told analysts on the company's conference call. He said the U.S. consumer ""remains in good shape,"" although low-income customers have lost some of their purchasing power. Some of Coke's fast-food partners, like McDonald's, have seen their U.S. sales slow as diners pull back their spending.Coke's sparkling soft drinks division, which includes its namesake soda, reported volume growth of 2%. Coke has been tweaking the formulas for some of its drinks, like Fanta and Sprite.The company's juice, dairy and plant-based drinks segment saw volume grow 2% in the quarter, fueled by demand in North America.Only Coke's water, sports, coffee and tea division reported declining volume. The segment's volume fell 2% in the quarter as bottled water, sports drinks and coffee all saw demand weaken.Coke's overall prices were up 13% compared with the year-ago period, but about half of that came from hyperinflation in certain markets, like Argentina.For the full year, Coke is now expecting organic revenue growth of 8% to 9%, up from its prior range of 6% to 7%. The company said it anticipates price hikes in certain markets experiencing ""intense inflation,"" leading in part to its new outlook.Coke reiterated its outlook for full-year comparable earnings growth of 4% to 5%.In the second quarter, the company expects that its comparable revenue will include a 6% currency headwind and a 5% to 6% hit from acquisitions, divestitures and structural changes. Currency fluctuations are also expected to pose a 8% to 9% headwind to its comparable earnings per share.",CNBC,30/04/2024,"[""In this articleCoca-Cola on Tuesday reported quarterly earnings and revenue that beat analysts' expectations as consumers drank more of its Fanta and Fairlife beverages."", 'The beverage giant also raised its full-year outlook for organic revenue.', 'Shares of the company rose less than 1% in premarket trading.', ""Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:Coke reported first-quarter net income attributable to the company of $3.18 billion, or 74 cents per share, up from $3.11 billion, or 72 cents a share, a year earlier."", 'The company also recorded a $760 million non-cash impairment charge for Bodyarmor.', 'The company fully acquired the sports drink brand in 2021 for $5.6 billion.', 'CFO John Murphy said the charge reflects revised projections and a higher discount rate since the acquisition.', 'The sports drink category has grown more competitive as upstarts like Prime Energy steal market share.', 'Excluding that charge and other items, the beverage giant earned 72 cents per share.', 'Net sales rose 3% to $11.30 billion.', 'Organic sales, which strip out the impact of acquisitions, divestitures and foreign exchange, climbed 11% in the quarter.', 'Coke reported its global unit case volume increased 1%, but its North American volume was flat for the quarter.', 'The metric excludes pricing and foreign currency.', ""North American volume started the quarter slow, but picked up sequentially in February and March, CEO James Quincey told analysts on the company's conference call."", 'He said the U.S. consumer ""remains in good shape,"" although low-income customers have lost some of their purchasing power.', ""Some of Coke's fast-food partners, like McDonald's, have seen their U.S. sales slow as diners pull back their spending."", ""Coke's sparkling soft drinks division, which includes its namesake soda, reported volume growth of 2%."", 'Coke has been tweaking the formulas for some of its drinks, like Fanta and Sprite.', ""The company's juice, dairy and plant-based drinks segment saw volume grow 2% in the quarter, fueled by demand in North America."", ""Only Coke's water, sports, coffee and tea division reported declining volume."", ""The segment's volume fell 2% in the quarter as bottled water, sports drinks and coffee all saw demand weaken."", ""Coke's overall prices were up 13% compared with the year-ago period, but about half of that came from hyperinflation in certain markets, like Argentina."", 'For the full year, Coke is now expecting organic revenue growth of 8% to 9%, up from its prior range of 6% to 7%.', 'The company said it anticipates price hikes in certain markets experiencing ""intense inflation,"" leading in part to its new outlook.', 'Coke reiterated its outlook for full-year comparable earnings growth of 4% to 5%.In the second quarter, the company expects that its comparable revenue will include a 6% currency headwind and a 5% to 6% hit from acquisitions, divestitures and structural changes.', 'Currency fluctuations are also expected to pose a 8% to 9% headwind to its comparable earnings per share.']",0.1717774671346802,"Coke's overall prices were up 13% compared with the year-ago period, but about half of that came from hyperinflation in certain markets, like Argentina.","The segment's volume fell 2% in the quarter as bottled water, sports drinks and coffee all saw demand weaken.",0.4466193860227411,"Coke's overall prices were up 13% compared with the year-ago period, but about half of that came from hyperinflation in certain markets, like Argentina.","The segment's volume fell 2% in the quarter as bottled water, sports drinks and coffee all saw demand weaken.",2024-04-30
Facebook and Instagram face EU probe over Russian disinformation,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c72p1dr0mk8o,2024-04-30T13:31:21.045Z,"The European Commission has opened formal investigation proceedings into Meta over its handling of political content, including a suspected Russian influence campaign. With elections looming in the EU and elsewhere, officials said they would assess whether the company's approach to moderating disinformation on Facebook and Instagram breached EU law. Among the Commission's concerns is Meta's oversight of its advertising tools, and whether they had been exploited by ""malicious actors."" The probe will also examine whether Meta is being transparent enough over its moderation of political content and accounts. “We have a well-established process for identifying and mitigating risks on our platforms,"" Meta said in a statement. ""We look forward to continuing our cooperation with the European Commission and providing them with further details of this work.” The company is one of several tech firms designated ""very large online platforms"" (VLOPs) under the bloc's Digital Services Act (DSA). VLOPs face fines of up to 6% of their annual turnover if they do not meet tougher content moderation requirements. This includes taking action to prevent manipulation of elections and disinformation. The Commission says it suspects Meta's current methods for moderating disinformation and political adverts do not comply with DSA obligations. It is concerned about the impact this may have on the upcoming electoral cycle, with the European Parliament elections taking place in June. ""This Commission has created means to protect European citizens from targeted disinformation and manipulation by third countries,"" said Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. ""If we suspect a violation of the rules, we act. This is true at all times, but especially in times of democratic elections."" The four concerns at the heart of the EU Commission's investigation are: A European Commission official said it believed Meta's current approach to moderating advertisements did not meet DSA requirements. It cited findings by non-profit research organisation, AI Forensics, that a Russian influence campaign had been running adverts across the firm's platforms. AI Forensics said it uncovered a network of 3,826 pages spreading ""pro-Russian propaganda"" and the campaign had reached 38 million users between August 2023 and March 2024. It said less than 20% of the ads had been moderated by Meta as political. Meta says it has been taking action against the ""Doppelganger"" campaign since first exposing it in 2022 and it now sees less user engagement as a result. The Commission has given the firm five days to respond to a request for information about tools for journalists and researchers to monitor content on Facebook and Instagram during upcoming elections. It said it was concerned by Meta's approach to CrowdTangle - a public tool providing data and insights into Facebook and Instagram content engagement. The firm announced in March that it will no longer be available from 14 August, but says it is building new tools to provide wider access to platform data. The EU Commission's investigation follows its launch of a similar probe into disinformation on X (formerly Twitter) in March. ",BBC,30/04/2024,"['The European Commission has opened formal investigation proceedings into Meta over its handling of political content, including a suspected Russian influence campaign.', ""With elections looming in the EU and elsewhere, officials said they would assess whether the company's approach to moderating disinformation on Facebook and Instagram breached EU law."", 'Among the Commission\'s concerns is Meta\'s oversight of its advertising tools, and whether they had been exploited by ""malicious actors.""', 'The probe will also examine whether Meta is being transparent enough over its moderation of political content and accounts. “', 'We have a well-established process for identifying and mitigating risks on our platforms,"" Meta said in a statement. ""', 'We look forward to continuing our cooperation with the European Commission and providing them with further details of this work.”', 'The company is one of several tech firms designated ""very large online platforms"" (VLOPs) under the bloc\'s Digital Services Act (DSA).', 'VLOPs face fines of up to 6% of their annual turnover if they do not meet tougher content moderation requirements.', 'This includes taking action to prevent manipulation of elections and disinformation.', ""The Commission says it suspects Meta's current methods for moderating disinformation and political adverts do not comply with DSA obligations."", 'It is concerned about the impact this may have on the upcoming electoral cycle, with the European Parliament elections taking place in June. ""', 'This Commission has created means to protect European citizens from targeted disinformation and manipulation by third countries,"" said Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. ""', 'If we suspect a violation of the rules, we act.', 'This is true at all times, but especially in times of democratic elections.""', ""The four concerns at the heart of the EU Commission's investigation are: A European Commission official said it believed Meta's current approach to moderating advertisements did not meet DSA requirements."", ""It cited findings by non-profit research organisation, AI Forensics, that a Russian influence campaign had been running adverts across the firm's platforms."", 'AI Forensics said it uncovered a network of 3,826 pages spreading ""pro-Russian propaganda"" and the campaign had reached 38 million users between August 2023 and March 2024.', 'It said less than 20% of the ads had been moderated by Meta as political.', 'Meta says it has been taking action against the ""Doppelganger"" campaign since first exposing it in 2022 and it now sees less user engagement as a result.', 'The Commission has given the firm five days to respond to a request for information about tools for journalists and researchers to monitor content on Facebook and Instagram during upcoming elections.', ""It said it was concerned by Meta's approach to CrowdTangle - a public tool providing data and insights into Facebook and Instagram content engagement."", 'The firm announced in March that it will no longer be available from 14 August, but says it is building new tools to provide wider access to platform data.', ""The EU Commission's investigation follows its launch of a similar probe into disinformation on X (formerly Twitter) in March.""]",-0.0391659180411422,It said it was concerned by Meta's approach to CrowdTangle - a public tool providing data and insights into Facebook and Instagram content engagement.,"If we suspect a violation of the rules, we act.",-0.9493219405412674,,"Meta says it has been taking action against the ""Doppelganger"" campaign since first exposing it in 2022 and it now sees less user engagement as a result.",2024-04-30
"Paramount says CEO Bob Bakish is stepping down, will be replaced by a trio of executives",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/29/paramount-ceo-bob-bakish-stepping-down.html,2024-04-29T21:08:57+0000,"In this articleParamount Global CEO Bob Bakish is stepping down, the company announced Monday, as merger negotiations with Skydance Media continue.Bakish climbed the corporate ladder after joining Viacom in 1997, until he became CEO of the company in 2016. Following the merger of Viacom and CBS, he became CEO of the combined company in 2019, which was later renamed Paramount Global. He is also leaving the company's board of directors, Paramount said Monday.Bakish will be replaced by what the company called an ""Office of the CEO."" Paramount will now be led by CBS president and CEO George Cheeks; Chris McCarthy, president and CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks; and Brian Robbins, the head of Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon. The company said the three executives will work closely with Paramount CFO Naveen Chopra and the board.In the release Monday, Paramount said the new leadership is ""working with the board to develop a comprehensive, long-range plan to accelerate growth and develop popular content, materially streamline operations, strengthen the balance sheet, and continue to optimize the streaming strategy.""Paramount also reported its first-quarter earnings after the bell Monday and held an earnings call during which the newly appointed company heads gave a brief statement and said they would be back ""in short order"" to share details on future plans.Chopra led the call, which lasted under 10 minutes and didn't include questions from analysts.The company posted mixed results for the first quarter, beating on earnings but missing on revenue. Paramount reported 62 cents per share for the period, excluding items, versus estimates of 36 cents a share, according to analysts polled by LSEG. For revenue the company posted $7.69 billion versus analyst estimates of $7.73 billion, according to LSEG.Overall revenue was up 6% compared with the same period last year, propelled by streaming and the Super Bowl.The company's direct-to-consumer streaming segment, which includes flagship service Paramount+, Pluto TV and BET+ saw revenue rise 24% to about $1.88 billion.Paramount said it added 3.7 million Paramount+ subscribers during the quarter, bringing the total to 71 million. Losses related to streaming narrowed to $286 million compared with losses of $511 million during the same period last year.Advertising revenue in the streaming segment was up, largely due to the Super Bowl, which aired in February on CBS, cable TV channel Nickelodeon and Paramount+.Similarly, advertising revenue in Paramount's TV media unit, which includes broadcaster CBS and cable TV channels such as MTV and Nickelodeon, grew 14% due to the Super Bowl.The top NFL event provided a boost during what has been a sluggish advertising environment for traditional TV networks. Still, streaming platforms and digital companies have reported advertising revenue growth, indicating the market is rebounding, at least for those areas.Overall, TV Media revenue was up 1% to $5.23 billion. Affiliate and subscription revenue fell 3% as cord-cutting continued, and licensing and other revenue dropped 25%, including the impact of the Hollywood writers' and actors' strikes on content available for licensing.Revenue for Paramount's filmed entertainment unit increased 3% to $605 million due to the releases of ""Mean Girls"" and ""Bob Marley: One Love.""Bakish's ouster comes as Paramount and Skydance Media inch closer to a possible merger, CNBC previously reported. The companies are in exclusive talks to pursue the deal until May 3, and a special committee is already in place.Bakish has privately dissented against the merger, claiming it will dilute common shareholders, CNBC reported. As part of the proposed deal, nearly 50% of the merged company would be owned by Skydance and its private equity backers, while common shareholders would own the remainder of Paramount, which would remain publicly traded.On Saturday CNBC reported Bakish could be out as CEO as soon as Monday, and ahead of the earnings call, after losing the trust of Paramount Global controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, who could see his removal as a means to accelerate a Skydance deal, CNBC reported Monday.The departure also comes as Paramount has been in negotiations with cable company Charter Communications for the carriage of its TV networks including CBS and MTV. The deadline for those negotiations is Tuesday.The special committee — which is in charge of accepting or rejecting transactions — and Skydance, which is backed by private equity firms KKR and RedBird Capital Partners, have been narrowing in on how to value Skydance's assets as part of a merger, as well as how much equity to add to the company, CNBC previously reported.Skydance intends to name its CEO, David Ellison, as head of Paramount if the deal happens, CNBC previously reported.— CNBC's Alex Sherman contributed to this report.",CNBC,29/04/2024,"['In this articleParamount Global CEO Bob Bakish is stepping down, the company announced Monday, as merger negotiations with Skydance Media continue.', 'Bakish climbed the corporate ladder after joining Viacom in 1997, until he became CEO of the company in 2016.', 'Following the merger of Viacom and CBS, he became CEO of the combined company in 2019, which was later renamed Paramount Global.', ""He is also leaving the company's board of directors, Paramount said Monday."", 'Bakish will be replaced by what the company called an ""Office of the CEO.""', 'Paramount will now be led by CBS president and CEO George Cheeks; Chris McCarthy, president and CEO of Showtime/MTV Entertainment Studios and Paramount Media Networks; and Brian Robbins, the head of Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon.', 'The company said the three executives will work closely with Paramount CFO Naveen Chopra and the board.', 'In the release Monday, Paramount said the new leadership is ""working with the board to develop a comprehensive, long-range plan to accelerate growth and develop popular content, materially streamline operations, strengthen the balance sheet, and continue to optimize the streaming strategy.', '""Paramount also reported its first-quarter earnings after the bell Monday and held an earnings call during which the newly appointed company heads gave a brief statement and said they would be back ""in short order"" to share details on future plans.', ""Chopra led the call, which lasted under 10 minutes and didn't include questions from analysts."", 'The company posted mixed results for the first quarter, beating on earnings but missing on revenue.', 'Paramount reported 62 cents per share for the period, excluding items, versus estimates of 36 cents a share, according to analysts polled by LSEG.', 'For revenue the company posted $7.69 billion versus analyst estimates of $7.73 billion, according to LSEG.Overall revenue was up 6% compared with the same period last year, propelled by streaming and the Super Bowl.', ""The company's direct-to-consumer streaming segment, which includes flagship service Paramount+, Pluto TV and BET+ saw revenue rise 24% to about $1.88 billion."", 'Paramount said it added 3.7 million Paramount+ subscribers during the quarter, bringing the total to 71 million.', 'Losses related to streaming narrowed to $286 million compared with losses of $511 million during the same period last year.', ""Advertising revenue in the streaming segment was up, largely due to the Super Bowl, which aired in February on CBS, cable TV channel Nickelodeon and Paramount+.Similarly, advertising revenue in Paramount's TV media unit, which includes broadcaster CBS and cable TV channels such as MTV and Nickelodeon, grew 14% due to the Super Bowl."", 'The top NFL event provided a boost during what has been a sluggish advertising environment for traditional TV networks.', 'Still, streaming platforms and digital companies have reported advertising revenue growth, indicating the market is rebounding, at least for those areas.', 'Overall, TV Media revenue was up 1% to $5.23 billion.', ""Affiliate and subscription revenue fell 3% as cord-cutting continued, and licensing and other revenue dropped 25%, including the impact of the Hollywood writers' and actors' strikes on content available for licensing."", 'Revenue for Paramount\'s filmed entertainment unit increased 3% to $605 million due to the releases of ""Mean Girls"" and ""Bob Marley: One Love.', '""Bakish\'s ouster comes as Paramount and Skydance Media inch closer to a possible merger, CNBC previously reported.', 'The companies are in exclusive talks to pursue the deal until May 3, and a special committee is already in place.', 'Bakish has privately dissented against the merger, claiming it will dilute common shareholders, CNBC reported.', 'As part of the proposed deal, nearly 50% of the merged company would be owned by Skydance and its private equity backers, while common shareholders would own the remainder of Paramount, which would remain publicly traded.', 'On Saturday CNBC reported Bakish could be out as CEO as soon as Monday, and ahead of the earnings call, after losing the trust of Paramount Global controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, who could see his removal as a means to accelerate a Skydance deal, CNBC reported Monday.', 'The departure also comes as Paramount has been in negotiations with cable company Charter Communications for the carriage of its TV networks including CBS and MTV.', 'The deadline for those negotiations is Tuesday.', ""The special committee — which is in charge of accepting or rejecting transactions — and Skydance, which is backed by private equity firms KKR and RedBird Capital Partners, have been narrowing in on how to value Skydance's assets as part of a merger, as well as how much equity to add to the company, CNBC previously reported."", 'Skydance intends to name its CEO, David Ellison, as head of Paramount if the deal happens, CNBC previously reported.—', ""CNBC's Alex Sherman contributed to this report.""]",0.1511382853130785,"In the release Monday, Paramount said the new leadership is ""working with the board to develop a comprehensive, long-range plan to accelerate growth and develop popular content, materially streamline operations, strengthen the balance sheet, and continue to optimize the streaming strategy.",Losses related to streaming narrowed to $286 million compared with losses of $511 million during the same period last year.,0.458106198481151,"The company's direct-to-consumer streaming segment, which includes flagship service Paramount+, Pluto TV and BET+ saw revenue rise 24% to about $1.88 billion.","Affiliate and subscription revenue fell 3% as cord-cutting continued, and licensing and other revenue dropped 25%, including the impact of the Hollywood writers' and actors' strikes on content available for licensing.",2024-04-30
Postmasters were trying 'to get away with' blaming Horizon – expert,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnd69r7rz11o,2024-04-30T11:58:47.080Z,"Postmasters were “trying to get away with” saying “Horizon has taken my money”, according to a key expert witness in the latest day of evidence into the Post Office scandal. The internal email was sent by Gareth Jenkins, and seen by the Horizon Inquiry on Tuesday. The Fujitsu ""distinguished engineer"" was a leading expert on the ill-fated system, and provided testimony in a number of prosecutions. In 2013, the Post Office was warned that he had failed to disclose information “in plain breach of his duty as an expert witness"". Mr Jenkins played a key role defending the integrity of the Horizon system, including during the prosecution of the West Byfleet postmistress Seema Misra, who was jailed whilst pregnant. More than 900 sub-postmasters and postmistresses were wrongly prosecuted after the faulty software made it look like money was missing from their Post Office branch accounts. On Tuesday, the Horizon Inquiry heard from Hugh Flemington, former head of legal at the Post Office. He was shown an email sent by Mr Jenkins on 25 February 2010. Referring to a trial where he had been asked to give expert evidence, Mr Jenkins wrote: “This is another example of postmasters trying to get away with ‘Horizon has taken my money'."" Mr Flemington told the Inquiry: ""I was surprised when I saw this."" He said he couldn't recall any request from the Post Office for expert evidence. Mr Jenkins was later to give evidence in a number of cases, where he testified to the robustness of the Horizon system – evidence which was seen as crucial in winning those cases. However, by 2013 concerns had been raised about his evidence. Barrister Simon Clarke wrote a memo circulated within the Post Office which warned that Mr Jenkins was aware of flaws in the Horizon system. Knowledge of those bugs would have helped the defence in those cases, and Mr Clarke said the IT expert did not disclose them when he should have. ""[He] failed to disclose material known to him but which undermines his expert opinion… in plain breach of his duty as an expert witness,” Mr Clarke’s advice said. It said his credibility was “fatally undermined”, and recommended that he did not testify in current or future trials. Mr Jenkins is being investigated by the Metropolitan Police for alleged perjury. A lawyer for Mr Jenkins told the BBC in March it would be ""inappropriate"" for him to comment ahead of him giving evidence to the Inquiry in June. Meanwhile, another barrister who acted for the Post Office also appeared on Tuesday.  Harry Bowyer was an employee for Cartwright King solicitors, the firm which acted for the Post Office in private prosecutions. Mr Bowyer did not act on behalf of the Post Office in court but will return to give more evidence on Wednesday   ",BBC,30/04/2024,"['Postmasters were “trying to get away with” saying “Horizon has taken my money”, according to a key expert witness in the latest day of evidence into the Post Office scandal.', 'The internal email was sent by Gareth Jenkins, and seen by the Horizon Inquiry on Tuesday.', 'The Fujitsu ""distinguished engineer"" was a leading expert on the ill-fated system, and provided testimony in a number of prosecutions.', 'In 2013, the Post Office was warned that he had failed to disclose information “in plain breach of his duty as an expert witness"".', 'Mr Jenkins played a key role defending the integrity of the Horizon system, including during the prosecution of the West Byfleet postmistress Seema Misra, who was jailed whilst pregnant.', 'More than 900 sub-postmasters and postmistresses were wrongly prosecuted after the faulty software made it look like money was missing from their Post Office branch accounts.', 'On Tuesday, the Horizon Inquiry heard from Hugh Flemington, former head of legal at the Post Office.', 'He was shown an email sent by Mr Jenkins on 25 February 2010.', 'Referring to a trial where he had been asked to give expert evidence, Mr Jenkins wrote: “This is another example of postmasters trying to get away with ‘Horizon has taken my money\'.""', 'Mr Flemington told the Inquiry: ""I was surprised when I saw this.""', ""He said he couldn't recall any request from the Post Office for expert evidence."", 'Mr Jenkins was later to give evidence in a number of cases, where he testified to the robustness of the Horizon system – evidence which was seen as crucial in winning those cases.', 'However, by 2013 concerns had been raised about his evidence.', 'Barrister Simon Clarke wrote a memo circulated within the Post Office which warned that Mr Jenkins was aware of flaws in the Horizon system.', 'Knowledge of those bugs would have helped the defence in those cases, and Mr Clarke said the IT expert did not disclose them when he should have. ""[', 'He] failed to disclose material known to him but which undermines his expert opinion… in plain breach of his duty as an expert witness,” Mr Clarke’s advice said.', 'It said his credibility was “fatally undermined”, and recommended that he did not testify in current or future trials.', 'Mr Jenkins is being investigated by the Metropolitan Police for alleged perjury.', 'A lawyer for Mr Jenkins told the BBC in March it would be ""inappropriate"" for him to comment ahead of him giving evidence to the Inquiry in June.', 'Meanwhile, another barrister who acted for the Post Office also appeared on Tuesday.', 'Harry Bowyer was an employee for Cartwright King solicitors, the firm which acted for the Post Office in private prosecutions.', 'Mr Bowyer did not act on behalf of the Post Office in court but will return to give more evidence on Wednesday']",-0.1388955360419332,"Mr Jenkins was later to give evidence in a number of cases, where he testified to the robustness of the Horizon system – evidence which was seen as crucial in winning those cases.","It said his credibility was “fatally undermined”, and recommended that he did not testify in current or future trials.",-0.8319119314352671,,"It said his credibility was “fatally undermined”, and recommended that he did not testify in current or future trials.",2024-04-30
US regulators investigate fatal crashes involving Ford’s Blue Cruise hands-free driving technology,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/29/cars/ford-blue-cruise-crash-investigation/index.html,"
  Updated
        10:20 PM EDT, Mon April 29, 2024
    ","The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is formally investigating Ford’s Blue Cruise hands-free driving system following two fatal crashes.
    
            Blue Cruise was first introduced in the 2021 model year and is now available in several models from Ford and Lincoln, the carmaker’s luxury vehicle brand. The investigation specifically involves Blue Cruise in 130,000 Ford Mustang Mach-E electric SUVs.
    
            Blue Cruise allows users to take their hands off the steering wheel and feet away from the pedals while driving on selected highways. It uses cameras, sensors and detailed map data to keep the vehicle in its lane and adjusts its speed to keep a distance from vehicles around it. The system uses an internal camera to monitor the driver and ensure the driver is paying attention to the road.
    
            In both crashes, the Blue Cruise system was in use immediately before the crash. Both accidents occurred at night. At least one person was killed in each of the incidents. One crash happened in San Antonio and the other in Philadelphia, according to Reuters.
    
            The investigation will look into both the system’s performance in driving the vehicle and its driver monitoring, according to NHTSA.
    
            Ford was not immediately available to respond to CNN’s request for comment on the investigation, but the company has said it’s cooperating with regulators, according to a Reuters report.",CNN,29/04/2024,"['The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is formally investigating Ford’s Blue Cruise hands-free driving system following two fatal crashes.', 'Blue Cruise was first introduced in the 2021 model year and is now available in several models from Ford and Lincoln, the carmaker’s luxury vehicle brand.', 'The investigation specifically involves Blue Cruise in 130,000 Ford Mustang Mach-E electric SUVs.', 'Blue Cruise allows users to take their hands off the steering wheel and feet away from the pedals while driving on selected highways.', 'It uses cameras, sensors and detailed map data to keep the vehicle in its lane and adjusts its speed to keep a distance from vehicles around it.', 'The system uses an internal camera to monitor the driver and ensure the driver is paying attention to the road.', 'In both crashes, the Blue Cruise system was in use immediately before the crash.', 'Both accidents occurred at night.', 'At least one person was killed in each of the incidents.', 'One crash happened in San Antonio and the other in Philadelphia, according to Reuters.', 'The investigation will look into both the system’s performance in driving the vehicle and its driver monitoring, according to NHTSA.', 'Ford was not immediately available to respond to CNN’s request for comment on the investigation, but the company has said it’s cooperating with regulators, according to a Reuters report.']",-0.0857415592599546,The system uses an internal camera to monitor the driver and ensure the driver is paying attention to the road.,At least one person was killed in each of the incidents.,,,,2024-04-30
Opinion: The drama around Sam Altman is an urgent warning,https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/21/opinions/sam-altman-openai-ouster-danger-filipovic/index.html,"
  Published
        9:50 AM EST, Tue November 21, 2023
    ","The biggest tech news this week is the ouster of Sam Altman from his role as CEO of OpenAI, a move that has shaken the company and the industry. Hundreds of OpenAI employees have threatened to resign. Altman has already moved on to a role at Microsoft. And OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is on its third CEO in as many days.
    
            It’s all very juicy. But this drama should also be raising larger questions, far beyond one company’s internal hirings and firings, including: Who are the people making the decisions that will determine so much of our technological future? What guiding principles are they using to make those decisions? And how should other institutions – governments, non-tech industries, global alliances, regulatory bodies – reign in the worst excesses of potentially dangerous AI innovators?
    
            OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit, with an explicit mission to harness what may soon be superhuman intelligence “to benefit humanity as a whole.” But that sensibility hasn’t lasted. The company now has a multi-billion-dollar for-profit arm. They have been developing new technologies at lightning speed, and sometimes sending them out to the public before some employees believed they were ready. The company has already reportedly invented an AI technology so dangerous they will never release it – but they also won’t tell reporters or the public exactly what it is.
    
            This dynamic – a potentially dangerous technology developed at extreme speed, largely behind closed doors – is partly to blame for Altman’s firing. The OpenAI board, according to CNN’s David Goldman, worried that “the company was making the technological equivalent of a nuclear bomb, and its caretaker, Sam Altman, was moving so fast that he risked a global catastrophe.” At particular issue seemed to be Altman’s efforts to make the tools behind ChatGPT available to anyone who wanted to make their own version of the chatbot. This could be widely disastrous, some board members worried.
    
            But then they fired him without warning, and apparently without involving Microsoft, the company’s largest shareholder. Now, Altman is at the new AI group at Microsoft, and one has to wonder if the oversight and caution there will be on par with that at OpenAI, or if he’ll be handed carte blanche to push as fast and hard as he wants. And for all the justified reticence of the OpenAI board, the company has carried out much of its work in secrecy – without the public really understanding what a handful of unaccountable technologists are building, and how it is nearly guaranteed to indelibly change their lives.
    
            AI is broadly understood to have the potential to reshape vast swaths of human existence. At the very least, it seems nearly guaranteed to change how we process information, how we communicate, how we learn and how we work (and if we work). And the ramifications could be much more extreme. AI technologies have already demonstrated the ability to lie and to cover their tracks. They have already been able to suggest the design to make a virus spread more quickly. Many researchers acutely understand just how quickly these machines could develop the capacity to annihilate us, including Altman: He has a prepper’s paradise prepared in Big Sur, complete with guns and “gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force” in case AI goes off the rails and the robots go to war against humans, according to reporting in the New Yorker.
    
            But don’t worry, he told an Atlantic reporter: If AI is determined to wipe us out, “no gas mask is helping anyone.” (If you want an excellent and terrifying rundown of AI’s risks – at least those we understand right now, which are almost certainly a mere sliver of the looming perils – the Atlantic profile of Altman and his technology is worth a read).
    
            AI is very exciting technology. But it is also a potentially very dangerous one, and not in the social media sense of “it may give us bad self-esteem and make us lonelier” but in the sense of “it could break down human societies and kill us all.”
    
            Given the life-altering potential of AI – that even if it doesn’t kill us all, it will almost certainly change human existence in unprecedented ways at unprecedented speed – we all have a stake in how it’s being developed. And yet the development is being left to a handful of people (who seem to be largely men) in Silicon Valley, and other tech pockets around the globe. And we all have a stake in whose interests AI will serve – and right now, its development is being funded with billions of dollars by people expecting to make a huge profit.
    
            Do the interests of the public align with the interests of the shareholders to whom profit-driven, potentially tremendously lucrative-for-a-few companies are beholden? Or with the interests of tech entrepreneurs who are primarily excited about being at the forefront of the AI revolution, regardless of the potential human costs?
    
            One thing is clear: AI is coming. And how it is built and unleashed on the public matters more than perhaps any technology of the past century. It is, indeed, up there with the atom bomb in its destructive potential – except likely more difficult to regulate and control.
    
            “Regulation” does not begin to scratch the surface of what’s needed to make sure that the AI future is not a catastrophic one, especially since the development of AI is now a massive international arms race, with particularly horrific implications if bad actors develop this technology first. But regulation is, at minimum, a necessary step.
    
            So is transparency: In the US, companies have wide leverage to work behind a veil of secrecy, and much of what AI companies do is kept secret to stymy competition. But the public certainly has a right to understand what life-altering technologies are set to be inflicted upon us, and what the creators are doing to protect humanity – our jobs, our communities, our families, our connections, our educations and our abilities to build a life of purpose, but also our lives and our safety.
    
            The Altman story is fascinating because Altman is the most powerful figure in AI technology, which in effect makes him one of the most powerful men in the world. But that should give us pause: Who is he, what power does he hold, what is he doing with it, who does he answer to, and are we comfortable with this much life-altering potential being held by a few unaccountable people?",CNN,21/11/2023,"['The biggest tech news this week is theousterof Sam Altman from his role as CEO of OpenAI, a move that has shaken the company and the industry.', 'Hundreds of OpenAI employees have threatened toresign.', 'Altman has alreadymoved onto a role at Microsoft.', 'And OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is on itsthird CEOin as many days.', 'It’s all very juicy.', 'But this drama should also be raising larger questions, far beyond one company’s internal hirings and firings, including: Who are the people making the decisionsthat will determine so much of our technological future?', 'What guiding principles are they using to make those decisions?', 'And how should other institutions – governments, non-tech industries, global alliances, regulatory bodies – reign in the worst excesses of potentially dangerous AI innovators?', 'OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit, with an explicit mission to harness what may soon be superhuman intelligence “to benefit humanity as a whole.”', 'But that sensibility hasn’t lasted.', 'The company now has a multi-billion-dollar for-profit arm.', 'They have been developing new technologies at lightning speed, and sometimes sending them out to the publicbefore some employees believed they were ready.', 'The company has already reportedly invented an AI technology so dangerous they will never release it – but they alsowon’t tellreporters or the public exactly what it is.', 'This dynamic – a potentially dangerous technology developed at extreme speed, largely behind closed doors – is partly to blame for Altman’s firing.', 'The OpenAI board, according toCNN’s David Goldman, worried that “the company was making the technological equivalent of a nuclear bomb, and its caretaker, Sam Altman, was moving so fast that he risked a global catastrophe.”', 'At particular issue seemed to be Altman’s efforts to make the tools behind ChatGPT available to anyone who wanted to make their own version of the chatbot.', 'This could be widely disastrous, some board members worried.', 'But then they fired him without warning, and apparently without involving Microsoft, the company’s largest shareholder.', 'Now, Altman is at the new AI group at Microsoft, and one has to wonder if the oversight and caution there will be on par with that at OpenAI, or if he’ll be handed carte blanche to push as fast and hard as he wants.', 'And for all the justified reticence of the OpenAI board, the company has carried out much of its work in secrecy – without the public really understanding what a handful of unaccountable technologists are building, and how it is nearly guaranteed to indelibly change their lives.', 'AI is broadly understood to have the potential to reshape vast swaths of human existence.', 'At the very least, it seems nearly guaranteed to change how we process information, how we communicate, how we learn and how we work (and if we work).', 'And the ramifications could be much more extreme.', 'AI technologies have already demonstrated the abilityto lie and to cover their tracks.', 'They have already been able tosuggest the designto make a virus spread more quickly.', 'Many researchersacutely understandjust how quickly these machines could develop the capacity to annihilate us, including Altman: He has a prepper’s paradise prepared in Big Sur, complete with guns and “gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force” in case AI goes off the rails and the robots go to war against humans,according to reporting in the New Yorker.', 'But don’t worry, he told an Atlantic reporter: If AI is determined to wipe us out, “no gas mask is helping anyone.” (', 'If you want an excellent and terrifying rundown of AI’s risks – at least those we understand right now, which are almost certainly a mere sliver of the looming perils –the Atlantic profile of Altman and his technologyis worth a read).', 'AI is very exciting technology.', 'But it is also a potentially very dangerous one, and not in the social media sense of “it may give us bad self-esteem and make us lonelier” but in the sense of “it could break down human societies and kill us all.”', 'Given the life-altering potential of AI – that even if it doesn’t kill us all, it will almost certainly change human existence in unprecedented ways at unprecedented speed – we all have a stake in how it’s being developed.', 'And yet the development is being left to a handful of people (who seem to belargelymen) in Silicon Valley, and other tech pockets around the globe.', 'And we all have a stake in whose interests AI will serve – and right now, its development is being funded with billions of dollars by people expecting to make a huge profit.', 'Do the interests of the public align with the interests of the shareholders to whom profit-driven, potentially tremendously lucrative-for-a-few companies are beholden?', 'Or with the interests of tech entrepreneurs who are primarily excited about being at the forefront of the AI revolution, regardless of the potential human costs?', 'One thing is clear: AI is coming.', 'And how it is built and unleashed on the public matters more than perhaps any technology of the past century.', 'It is, indeed, up there with the atom bomb in its destructive potential – except likely more difficult to regulate and control.', '“Regulation” does not begin to scratch the surface of what’s needed to make sure that the AI future is not a catastrophic one, especially since the development of AI is now a massive international arms race, with particularly horrific implications if bad actors develop this technology first.', 'But regulation is, at minimum, a necessary step.', 'So is transparency: In the US, companies have wide leverage to work behind a veil of secrecy, and much of what AI companies do is kept secret to stymy competition.', 'But the public certainly has a right to understand what life-altering technologies are set to be inflicted upon us, and what the creators are doing to protect humanity – our jobs, our communities, our families, our connections, our educations and our abilities to build a life of purpose, but also our lives and our safety.', 'The Altman story is fascinating because Altman is the most powerful figure in AI technology, which in effect makes him one of the most powerful men in the world.', 'But that should give us pause: Who is he, what power does he hold, what is he doing with it, who does he answer to, and are we comfortable with this much life-altering potential being held by a few unaccountable people?']",0.0034737194649936,"But the public certainly has a right to understand what life-altering technologies are set to be inflicted upon us, and what the creators are doing to protect humanity – our jobs, our communities, our families, our connections, our educations and our abilities to build a life of purpose, but also our lives and our safety.","But it is also a potentially very dangerous one, and not in the social media sense of “it may give us bad self-esteem and make us lonelier” but in the sense of “it could break down human societies and kill us all.”",-0.2999433577060699,AI technologies have already demonstrated the abilityto lie and to cover their tracks.,"But it is also a potentially very dangerous one, and not in the social media sense of “it may give us bad self-esteem and make us lonelier” but in the sense of “it could break down human societies and kill us all.”",2024-04-30
Peacock streaming subscription prices to increase by $2 ahead of the Summer Olympics,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/29/peacock-streaming-subscription-prices-to-increase-before-summer-olympics.html,2024-04-29T20:34:49+0000,"In this articleThe price of Peacock is flying higher.Subscription prices for Peacock, Comcast's answer to the streaming wars, will increase by $2 this summer. The price adjustment is a way for Comcast's NBCUniversal to capitalize on the Summer Olympics in Paris, which will air on NBC's TV networks and streaming platform.Peacock's ad-supported option will increase by $2 to $7.99 a month, and its ad-free offering will rise by the same amount to $13.99 a month. The annual price for Peacock with ads will be $79.99, while the ad-free version will cost $139.99 a year.The price will rise for new subscribers beginning July 18, while existing customers will get hit with the new pricing on or after Aug. 17. The Summer Olympics begin in late July.Media companies have looked for ways to make streaming profitable, as most still lose money on the venture. Advertising has been a key part of this strategy, as well as price increases.This price increase is Peacock's second in the last year. Effective last August, ad-supported Peacock's price rose $1 to $5.99, and ad-free went up $2 to $11.99 per month.While parent company Comcast touted Peacock as a bright spot during its recent earnings call, losses stemming from the streamer have weighed on earnings. Losses were said to have peaked in 2023, and executives expect they'll narrow in upcoming quarters. Peacock now has 34 million subscribers.Peacock features a range of live sports content, from the NFL to the Premier League, and often sees an uptick in subscribers during marquee events.The streaming service launched in 2020 in time for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo — which was pushed to 2021 due to the pandemic.Executives said Thursday that Peacock's exclusive NFL Wild Card game during the first quarter helped to add, then retain, more customers than expected.The streamer has also benefited recently from being the first exclusive home to Universal Pictures' Academy Award darling and box-office hit ""Oppenheimer.""Peacock's revenue rose 54% to $1.1 billion during the first quarter compared with the same period last year. This was due in part to increased advertising revenue, which has lagged for traditional TV networks recently.Executives last week said the Summer Olympics is expected to bring in record advertising revenue since more events will be featured on broadcast network NBC, in addition to many being streamed solely on Peacock.Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.",CNBC,29/04/2024,"['In this articleThe price of Peacock is flying higher.', ""Subscription prices for Peacock, Comcast's answer to the streaming wars, will increase by $2 this summer."", ""The price adjustment is a way for Comcast's NBCUniversal to capitalize on the Summer Olympics in Paris, which will air on NBC's TV networks and streaming platform."", ""Peacock's ad-supported option will increase by $2 to $7.99 a month, and its ad-free offering will rise by the same amount to $13.99 a month."", 'The annual price for Peacock with ads will be $79.99, while the ad-free version will cost $139.99 a year.', 'The price will rise for new subscribers beginning July 18, while existing customers will get hit with the new pricing on or after Aug. 17.', 'The Summer Olympics begin in late July.', 'Media companies have looked for ways to make streaming profitable, as most still lose money on the venture.', 'Advertising has been a key part of this strategy, as well as price increases.', ""This price increase is Peacock's second in the last year."", ""Effective last August, ad-supported Peacock's price rose $1 to $5.99, and ad-free went up $2 to $11.99 per month."", 'While parent company Comcast touted Peacock as a bright spot during its recent earnings call, losses stemming from the streamer have weighed on earnings.', ""Losses were said to have peaked in 2023, and executives expect they'll narrow in upcoming quarters."", 'Peacock now has 34 million subscribers.', 'Peacock features a range of live sports content, from the NFL to the Premier League, and often sees an uptick in subscribers during marquee events.', 'The streaming service launched in 2020 in time for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo — which was pushed to 2021 due to the pandemic.', ""Executives said Thursday that Peacock's exclusive NFL Wild Card game during the first quarter helped to add, then retain, more customers than expected."", 'The streamer has also benefited recently from being the first exclusive home to Universal Pictures\' Academy Award darling and box-office hit ""Oppenheimer.', '""Peacock\'s revenue rose 54% to $1.1 billion during the first quarter compared with the same period last year.', 'This was due in part to increased advertising revenue, which has lagged for traditional TV networks recently.', 'Executives last week said the Summer Olympics is expected to bring in record advertising revenue since more events will be featured on broadcast network NBC, in addition to many being streamed solely on Peacock.', 'Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.']",0.1379646480038814,"The streamer has also benefited recently from being the first exclusive home to Universal Pictures' Academy Award darling and box-office hit ""Oppenheimer.","Losses were said to have peaked in 2023, and executives expect they'll narrow in upcoming quarters.",0.7532065545811373,"""Peacock's revenue rose 54% to $1.1 billion during the first quarter compared with the same period last year.","Losses were said to have peaked in 2023, and executives expect they'll narrow in upcoming quarters.",2024-04-30
NBC News ousts Ronna McDaniel after network’s anchors launch unprecedented on-air rebellion,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/media/nbc-news-ousts-ronna-mcdaniel/index.html,"
  Updated
        7:44 PM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
    ","NBC News on Tuesday ousted former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, just days after her hiring as a paid political analyst sparked intense backlash from the network’s top television anchors over McDaniel’s role in subverting the 2020 election and attacks on the press.
    
            “There is no doubt that the last several days have been difficult for the News Group,” NBCUniversal News Group President Cesar Conde said in a memo to staff. “After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor.”
    
            “I want to personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down,” Conde continued. “While this was a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team, I approved it and take full responsibility for it.”
    
            Ahead of the network’s decision, McDaniel spent the day Tuesday interviewing attorneys in preparation for a potential legal battle with NBC, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. Creative Artists Agency, the talent agency that brokered McDaniel’s deal with NBC, also parted ways with her, the person said.
    
            The reversal comes after journalists and anchors at both NBC and its cable news sibling MSNBC publicly denounced the decision to hire McDaniel as a paid analyst in a stunning and unprecedented on-air rebuke of network brass that has embarrassed the Peacock Network.
    
            McDaniel, who recently stepped down from the RNC under pressure from former President Donald Trump, was involved in attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
    
            As head of the RNC, she was involved in a phone call in 2020 to pressure Michigan county officials not to certify the vote from the Detroit area, where Joe Biden had a commanding lead. McDaniel told the officials, regarding the certification: “Do not sign it. … We will get you attorneys.”
    
            In the years since, McDaniel continued to claim that the election had “problems” and that Biden did not legitimately win the election, fanning the flames of election denialism.
    
            NBC’s announcement Friday that it had hired McDaniel was quickly met with alarm by the network’s journalists. The revolt spilled into public view on Sunday when McDaniel appeared on “Meet the Press” with moderator Kristen Welker in her first interview since she was hired by the network. Welker disclosed that the interview had been scheduled to take place prior to NBC announcing McDaniel would become a paid contributor for the network, stating that she had no involvement in her hiring.
    
            Following the interview, Chuck Todd, NBC News’ chief political analyst, delivered a stinging on-air criticism of NBC executives for their decision to hire McDaniel, telling Welker, “I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation.”
    
            “There’s a reason a lot of journalists at NBC News are uncomfortable with this,” Todd said, explaining that under McDaniel, the RNC engaged in “gaslighting” and “character assassination” when dealing with the news media.
    
            The following day, MSNBC hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough joined Todd in protesting the decision on their program “Morning Joe.”
    
            “To be clear, we believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage, but it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier,” Brzezinski said. “We hope NBC will reconsider its decision. It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on ‘Morning Joe’ in her capacity as a paid contributor.”
    
            Nicolle Wallace, host of MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” later joined in the rebuke, saying on her program that the network’s decision to hire McDaniel was nothing short of a potential threat to democracy.
    
            “NBC News is, either wittingly or unwittingly, teaching election deniers that what they can do stretches well beyond appearing on our air and interviews to peddle lies about the sanctity and integrity of our elections,” Wallace told viewers.
    
            Rachel Maddow — the network’s biggest star — later devoted the first half-hour of her prime-time program to the controversy, saying the decision to hire McDaniel was “inexplicable.” Maddow took issue with McDaniel’s long track record of demonizing the news media, labeling the press as “fake news,” and launching ugly attacks on NBC News journalists and MSNBC hosts.
    
            “We do not take it personally when we get attacked, when they say they want to put us on trial and execute us for treason,” she said.
    
            “And so I want to associate myself with all my colleagues at MSNBC and NBC News who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company for putting on the payroll someone who hasn’t just attacked us as journalists, but someone who is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government,” she said of McDaniel. “Someone who is still trying to convince Americans that this election stuff doesn’t really work. That this last election wasn’t a real result. That American elections are fraudulent.“
    
            The on-air revolt ensnared NBC’s top leaders, including NBCUniversal News Group chair Cesar Conde, NBC News president Rebecca Blumenstein and senior vice president of politics Carrie Budoff Brown, who were responsible for McDaniel’s hiring. MSNBC president Rashida Jones also did not object to the decision, people familiar with the matter said.
    
            In the wake of Conde’s announcement to sever ties with McDaniel, MSNBC host Joy Reid and Maddow addressed the reversal on the network’s air, praising the move as “bold” and “strong.”
    
            “I think it is a show of strength and a show of respect for the people who work at this company and make us who we are,” Maddow said. “That leadership was willing to change on this, I’m grateful to them.”",CNN,26/03/2024,"['NBC News on Tuesday ousted former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, just days after her hiring as a paid political analyst sparked intense backlash from the network’s top television anchors over McDaniel’s role in subverting the 2020 election and attacks on the press.', '“There is no doubt that the last several days have been difficult for the News Group,” NBCUniversal News Group President Cesar Conde said in a memo to staff. “', 'After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor.”', '“I want to personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down,” Conde continued. “', 'While this was a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team, I approved it and take full responsibility for it.”', 'Ahead of the network’s decision, McDaniel spent the day Tuesday interviewing attorneys in preparation for a potential legal battle with NBC, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.', 'Creative Artists Agency, the talent agency that brokered McDaniel’s deal with NBC, also parted ways with her, the person said.', 'The reversal comes after journalists and anchors at both NBC and its cable news sibling MSNBC publicly denounced the decision to hire McDaniel as a paid analyst in a stunning and unprecedented on-air rebuke of network brass that has embarrassed the Peacock Network.', 'McDaniel, who recently stepped down from the RNC under pressure from former President Donald Trump, was involved in attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.', 'As head of the RNC, she was involved in a phone call in 2020 to pressure Michigan county officials not to certify the vote from the Detroit area, where Joe Biden had a commanding lead.', 'McDanieltold the officials, regarding the certification: “Do not sign it. …', 'We will get you attorneys.”', 'In the years since, McDaniel continued to claim that the election had “problems” and that Biden did not legitimately win the election, fanning the flames of election denialism.', 'NBC’s announcement Friday that it had hired McDaniel was quickly met with alarm by the network’s journalists.', 'The revolt spilled into public view on Sunday when McDaniel appeared on “Meet the Press” with moderator Kristen Welker in her first interview since she was hired by the network.', 'Welker disclosed that the interview had been scheduled to take place prior to NBC announcing McDaniel would become a paid contributor for the network, stating that she had no involvement in her hiring.', 'Following the interview, Chuck Todd, NBC News’ chief political analyst, delivered a stinging on-air criticism of NBC executives for their decision to hire McDaniel, telling Welker, “I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation.”', '“There’s a reason a lot of journalists at NBC News are uncomfortable with this,” Todd said, explaining that under McDaniel, the RNC engaged in “gaslighting” and “character assassination” when dealing with the news media.', 'The following day, MSNBC hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough joined Todd in protesting the decision on their program “Morning Joe.”', '“To be clear, we believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage, but it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier,”Brzezinski said. “', 'We hope NBC will reconsider its decision.', 'It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on ‘Morning Joe’ in her capacity as a paid contributor.”', 'Nicolle Wallace, host of MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” later joined in the rebuke, saying on her program that the network’s decision to hire McDaniel was nothing short of a potential threat to democracy.', '“NBC News is, either wittingly or unwittingly, teaching election deniers that what they can do stretches well beyond appearing on our air and interviews to peddle lies about the sanctity and integrity of our elections,” Wallace told viewers.', 'Rachel Maddow — the network’s biggest star — later devoted the first half-hour of her prime-time program to the controversy, saying the decision to hire McDaniel was “inexplicable.”', 'Maddow took issue with McDaniel’s long track record of demonizing the news media, labeling the press as “fake news,” and launching ugly attacks on NBC News journalists and MSNBC hosts.', '“We do not take it personally when we get attacked, when they say they want to put us on trial and execute us for treason,” she said.', '“And so I want to associate myself with all my colleagues at MSNBC and NBC News who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company for putting on the payroll someone who hasn’t just attacked us as journalists, but someone who is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government,” she said of McDaniel. “', 'Someone who is still trying to convince Americans that this election stuff doesn’t really work.', 'That this last election wasn’t a real result.', 'That American elections are fraudulent.“', 'The on-air revolt ensnared NBC’s top leaders, including NBCUniversal News Group chair Cesar Conde, NBC News president Rebecca Blumenstein and senior vice president of politics Carrie Budoff Brown, who were responsible for McDaniel’s hiring.', 'MSNBC president Rashida Jones also did not object to the decision, people familiar with the matter said.', 'In the wake of Conde’s announcement to sever ties with McDaniel, MSNBC host Joy Reid and Maddow addressed the reversal on the network’s air, praising the move as “bold” and “strong.”', '“I think it is a show of strength and a show of respect for the people who work at this company and make us who we are,” Maddow said. “', 'That leadership was willing to change on this, I’m grateful to them.”']",-0.0710578434549836,"In the wake of Conde’s announcement to sever ties with McDaniel, MSNBC host Joy Reid and Maddow addressed the reversal on the network’s air, praising the move as “bold” and “strong.”","Maddow took issue with McDaniel’s long track record of demonizing the news media, labeling the press as “fake news,” and launching ugly attacks on NBC News journalists and MSNBC hosts.",-0.4204912036657333,"In the wake of Conde’s announcement to sever ties with McDaniel, MSNBC host Joy Reid and Maddow addressed the reversal on the network’s air, praising the move as “bold” and “strong.”",The reversal comes after journalists and anchors at both NBC and its cable news sibling MSNBC publicly denounced the decision to hire McDaniel as a paid analyst in a stunning and unprecedented on-air rebuke of network brass that has embarrassed the Peacock Network.,2024-04-30
Oregon man battling cancer revealed as winner of $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/30/business/powerball-jackpot-winner-oregon-man/index.html,"
  Published
        1:26 PM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024
    ","An Oregon man who says he’s been battling cancer for eight years and received chemotherapy just last week is among three winners of this month’s $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot.
    
            Cheng “Charlie” Saephan said he is sharing the prize with his wife, Duanpen Saephan, and friend Laiza Chao. The trio chose the cash option of over $422 million after taxes. Chao will receive 50% of the earnings and the Saephans will each take 25%.
    
            “I’m happy for my family. They will have a good life,” Cheng Saephan, 46, said Monday at an Oregon Lottery news conference. “But to myself, I’m in the middle of battling cancer, so I’m thinking, ‘How am I going to have time to spend all this money?’”
    
            Saephan said he plans to live a “normal” life moving forward and buy his family a “dream home.”
    
            This was the fourth-largest jackpot in history, according to Powerball. The historic April 6 drawing was delayed for more than three hours to give additional time needed to complete pre-draw procedures. This win was also the largest Powerball prize won in Oregon.
    
            The winning ticket was sold at a Plaid Pantry convenience store in Portland, according to the Oregon Lottery. The store receives a $100,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket.
    
            Saephan, a native of Laos who has lived in Portland for 30 years, said the winning numbers were computer-generated using the Quick Pick option.
    
            “God picked for me,” he said.
    
            When Saephan discovered he won, he called his friend Chao, of Milwaukie, Oregon, who had given him $100 toward buying the lottery tickets.
    
            “She’s driving on the way to work,” Saephan said. “And I told her, ‘You don’t have to go work now. We won the lottery. We won the jackpot.’”",CNN,30/04/2024,"['An Oregon man who says he’s been battling cancer for eight years and received chemotherapy just last week is among three winners of this month’s $1.3 billion Powerball jackpot.', 'Cheng “Charlie” Saephan said he is sharing the prize withhis wife, DuanpenSaephan, and friend Laiza Chao.', 'The trio chose the cash option of over $422 million after taxes.', 'Chao will receive 50% of the earnings and theSaephanswill each take 25%.', '“I’m happy for my family.', 'They will have a good life,” Cheng Saephan, 46, said Monday at an Oregon Lottery news conference. “', 'But to myself, I’m in the middle of battling cancer, so I’m thinking, ‘How am I going to have time to spend all this money?’”', 'Saephan said he plans to live a “normal” life moving forward and buy his family a “dream home.”', 'This was the fourth-largest jackpot in history, according to Powerball.', 'The historicApril 6 drawing was delayed for more than three hoursto give additional time needed to complete pre-draw procedures.', 'This win was also the largest Powerball prize won in Oregon.', 'The winning ticket was sold at a Plaid Pantry convenience store in Portland, according to the Oregon Lottery.', 'The store receives a $100,000 bonus for selling the winning ticket.', 'Saephan, a native of Laos who has lived in Portland for 30 years, said the winning numbers were computer-generated using the Quick Pick option.', '“God picked for me,” he said.', 'When Saephan discovered he won, he called his friend Chao, of Milwaukie, Oregon, who had given him $100 toward buying the lottery tickets.', '“She’s driving on the way to work,” Saephan said. “', 'And I told her, ‘You don’t have to go work now.', 'We won the lottery.', 'We won the jackpot.’”']",0.2714472805461157,This win was also the largest Powerball prize won in Oregon.,"But to myself, I’m in the middle of battling cancer, so I’m thinking, ‘How am I going to have time to spend all this money?’”",0.9106454451878866,“I’m happy for my family.,,2024-04-30
Notorious far-right blog The Gateway Pundit declares bankruptcy over 2020 election-related lawsuits,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/24/media/gateway-pundit-declares-bankruptcy/index.html,"
  Updated
        11:57 AM EDT, Thu April 25, 2024
    ","The Gateway Pundit, the notorious far-right blog and prolific publisher of conspiracy theories, said Wednesday that it had filed for bankruptcy protection as it grapples with litigation related to its coverage of the 2020 election.
    
            The move comes as the staunchly pro-Donald Trump website, which promoted the false notion that the 2020 election was stolen by President Joe Biden and his allies, faces multiple lawsuits over its bogus claims.
    
            One of the lawsuits, filed by two former Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, accuses The Gateway Pundit of publishing stories that falsely accused them of election fraud, which the pair said prompted a wave of harassment and threats of violence. The judge has rejected several attempts to throw out the case, which is currently in the discovery phase ahead of a potential trial.
    
            Another lawsuit, filed by former Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer, accuses the outlet of defamation. A Colorado appeals court ruled earlier this month that Coomer’s sweeping case can proceed toward trial against Gateway Pundit and several other prominent defendants.
    
            Over the years, The Gateway Pundit has become infamous for its publishing of hyper-partisan blog posts, many of which advance dangerous lies and conspiracy theories. Founder Jim Hoft, a supporter of Trump and MAGA loyalist, has used the website to promote the Republican frontrunner, while disparaging his opponents.
    
            In a Wednesday statement, Hoft said the outlet had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection “as a result of the progressive liberal lawfare attacks” and was “not an admission of fault or culpability.” He described the move as a “common tool for reorganization and to consolidate litigation when attacks are coming from all sides.”
    
            “It allows [The Gateway Pundit] to consolidate this lawfare in one court for ultimate resolution,” Hoft said.
    
            Hoft indicated that the website would continue publishing as the litigation plays out in court, proclaiming the outlet “will not be deterred.”
    
            In a filing in federal bankruptcy court, the outlet’s parent company said it currently has between $500,000 and $1 million in assets — putting it on perilous footing if it were to face a large damages award in a defamation trial, including the Coomer case.
    
            “The Gateway Pundit is falling in the footsteps of Rudy Giuliani in seeking protection from the bankruptcy court… Rather than ‘liberal lawfare attacks,’ as Jim Hoft claims, this is what accountability looks like,” Coomer attorney Charlie Cain told CNN in a statement.
    
            The Gateway Pundit is one of several right-wing media outlets grappling with the fallout stemming from its promotion of 2020 election lies. Fox News paid a record $787 million to settle a monster defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, an election technology company. And the right-wing network still faces a similar lawsuit from Smartmatic, another election company.
    
            Meanwhile, the far-right channel One America News recently settled a lawsuit with Smartmatic. And the right-wing cable outlet Newsmax faces lawsuits from both Smartmatic and Dominion.",CNN,25/04/2024,"['The Gateway Pundit,the notoriousfar-right blog and prolific publisher of conspiracy theories, said Wednesday that it had filed for bankruptcy protection as it grapples with litigation related to its coverage of the 2020 election.', 'The move comes as thestaunchlypro-Donald Trump website, which promoted the false notion that the 2020 election was stolen by President Joe Biden and his allies, faces multiple lawsuits over itsbogus claims.', 'One ofthelawsuits, filed by two former Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, accuses The Gateway Pundit of publishing storiesthatfalsely accusedthem of election fraud, whichthe pairsaid prompted a wave of harassment and threats of violence.', 'The judge has rejected several attempts to throw out the case, which is currently in the discovery phase ahead of a potential trial.', 'Another lawsuit, filedby formerDominion Voting Systems executiveEric Coomer, accuses the outlet of defamation.', 'A Colorado appeals court ruled earlier this month that Coomer’s sweeping case can proceed toward trial against Gateway Pundit and several other prominent defendants.', 'Over the years, The Gateway Pundit has becomeinfamousfor its publishing of hyper-partisan blog posts, many of which advance dangerous lies and conspiracy theories.', 'Founder Jim Hoft, a supporter of Trump and MAGA loyalist, has used the website to promote the Republican frontrunner, while disparaging his opponents.', 'In a Wednesday statement, Hoft said the outlet had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection “as a result of the progressive liberal lawfare attacks” and was “not an admission of fault or culpability.”', 'He described the move as a “common tool for reorganization and to consolidate litigation when attacks are coming from all sides.”', '“It allows[The Gateway Pundit]to consolidate this lawfare in one court for ultimate resolution,” Hoft said.', 'Hoft indicated that the website would continue publishing as the litigation plays out in court,proclaimingthe outlet “will not be deterred.”', 'In a filing in federal bankruptcy court, the outlet’s parent company said it currently has between $500,000 and $1 million in assets — putting it on perilous footing if it were to face a large damages award in a defamation trial,including the Coomer case.', '“The Gateway Pundit is falling in the footsteps of Rudy Giuliani in seeking protection from the bankruptcy court… Rather than ‘liberal lawfare attacks,’ as Jim Hoft claims, thisiswhat accountability looks like,” Coomer attorney Charlie Cain told CNN in a statement.', 'The Gateway Pundit is one of several right-wing media outlets grappling with the fallout stemming from its promotion of 2020 election lies.', 'Fox News paid a record $787 million to settle a monster defamation lawsuitbrought byDominion Voting Systems, an election technology company.', 'And the right-wing network still faces a similar lawsuit from Smartmatic, another election company.', 'Meanwhile, the far-right channel One America News recently settled a lawsuit with Smartmatic.', 'And the right-wingcableoutlet Newsmax faces lawsuits from both Smartmatic and Dominion.']",-0.2670772734804134,"Founder Jim Hoft, a supporter of Trump and MAGA loyalist, has used the website to promote the Republican frontrunner, while disparaging his opponents.","One ofthelawsuits, filed by two former Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, accuses The Gateway Pundit of publishing storiesthatfalsely accusedthem of election fraud, whichthe pairsaid prompted a wave of harassment and threats of violence.",-0.2213381273405892,"Fox News paid a record $787 million to settle a monster defamation lawsuitbrought byDominion Voting Systems, an election technology company.","In a filing in federal bankruptcy court, the outlet’s parent company said it currently has between $500,000 and $1 million in assets — putting it on perilous footing if it were to face a large damages award in a defamation trial,including the Coomer case.",2024-04-30
"Premier Inn owner Whitbread to cut 1,500 jobs",https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnke1lpq79yo,2024-04-30T07:10:20.576Z,"Premier Inn owner Whitbread is to cut 1,500 jobs as it closes restaurants and expands its hotel business. It plans to cut its number of branded restaurants by more than 200 in favour of building more hotel rooms. The job cuts, which are subject to consultation, will come from a total UK workforce of 37,000 employees. The group's restaurant brands including Brewers Fayre and Beefeater. It plans to sell 126 of its less profitable restaurants, with 21 sales already having been agreed. It will also close 112 restaurants and convert the space into new hotel rooms. A spokesperson said that teams were being told about the cuts on Tuesday, and  Whitbread would not say at this stage which restaurants were closing. Its catering brands also include Bar+Block, Thyme, Cookhouse+Pub, Table Table and Whitbread Inns. The food chains will be affected across the board, and closures will depend on where the restaurant is sited, rather than its brand. Whitbread said the changes would add more than 3,500 hotel rooms across its estate, and that the new hotel rooms would be served by unbranded restaurants. Dominic Paul, Whitbread's chief executive, said of the job cuts: ""Sometimes businesses do need to make difficult decisions like this."" However, he added: ""I think we're doing it for absolutely the right reasons. It's going to support a material investment in this business and this country over the next few years."" Referring to the job cuts, he said the decision was ""really challenging for us. It's really important that we therefore handle that in the right way for our people."" The moves are part of a three-year £150m cost-cutting programme. Whitbread said it would try to find alternative opportunities for affected staff wherever possible, through new jobs created by its plans and through existing recruitment. The cuts come after Whitbread's pre-tax profit rose 21% to £452m for the year to  29 February. It said the 112 branded restaurants it plans to turn into hotel rooms made a loss of £19m in the year,  while the 126 restaurants it is selling made a loss of £9m. They were hit by fewer visits from non-hotel guests, Whitbread said. The cuts will leave it with 196 branded restaurants, and 387 restaurants that are unbranded and part of the hotel. Derren Nathan, head of equity research at Hargreaves Lansdown, said that strong hotel occupancy meant that Whitbread's in-house restaurants were doing well, but the pub and eating out market was seeing a drop in demand. He said the company's plans were not due to a weak performance - although its food and drink business was down 2% this year, this was against a 10% rise the year before - but rather were a ""shrewd move"" that would allow Whitbread to ""pursue hotel expansion with lower investment"". ""Conversions are cheaper than new hotels,"" he said, adding that the work would be part-funded by some of the restaurants the group is selling. ",BBC,30/04/2024,"['Premier Inn owner Whitbread is to cut 1,500 jobs as it closes restaurants and expands its hotel business.', 'It plans to cut its number of branded restaurants by more than 200 in favour of building more hotel rooms.', 'The job cuts, which are subject to consultation, will come from a total UK workforce of 37,000 employees.', ""The group's restaurant brands including Brewers Fayre and Beefeater."", 'It plans to sell 126 of its less profitable restaurants, with 21 sales already having been agreed.', 'It will also close 112 restaurants and convert the space into new hotel rooms.', 'A spokesperson said that teams were being told about the cuts on Tuesday, and Whitbread would not say at this stage which restaurants were closing.', 'Its catering brands also include Bar+Block, Thyme, Cookhouse+Pub, Table Table and Whitbread Inns.', 'The food chains will be affected across the board, and closures will depend on where the restaurant is sited, rather than its brand.', 'Whitbread said the changes would add more than 3,500 hotel rooms across its estate, and that the new hotel rooms would be served by unbranded restaurants.', 'Dominic Paul, Whitbread\'s chief executive, said of the job cuts: ""Sometimes businesses do need to make difficult decisions like this.""', 'However, he added: ""I think we\'re doing it for absolutely the right reasons.', 'It\'s going to support a material investment in this business and this country over the next few years.""', 'Referring to the job cuts, he said the decision was ""really challenging for us.', 'It\'s really important that we therefore handle that in the right way for our people.""', 'The moves are part of a three-year £150m cost-cutting programme.', 'Whitbread said it would try to find alternative opportunities for affected staff wherever possible, through new jobs created by its plans and through existing recruitment.', ""The cuts come after Whitbread's pre-tax profit rose 21% to £452m for the year to 29 February."", 'It said the 112 branded restaurants it plans to turn into hotel rooms made a loss of £19m in the year, while the 126 restaurants it is selling made a loss of £9m. They were hit by fewer visits from non-hotel guests, Whitbread said.', 'The cuts will leave it with 196 branded restaurants, and 387 restaurants that are unbranded and part of the hotel.', ""Derren Nathan, head of equity research at Hargreaves Lansdown, said that strong hotel occupancy meant that Whitbread's in-house restaurants were doing well, but the pub and eating out market was seeing a drop in demand."", 'He said the company\'s plans were not due to a weak performance - although its food and drink business was down 2% this year, this was against a 10% rise the year before - but rather were a ""shrewd move"" that would allow Whitbread to ""pursue hotel expansion with lower investment"". ""', 'Conversions are cheaper than new hotels,"" he said, adding that the work would be part-funded by some of the restaurants the group is selling.']",-0.0297695297717905,"It plans to sell 126 of its less profitable restaurants, with 21 sales already having been agreed.","It said the 112 branded restaurants it plans to turn into hotel rooms made a loss of £19m in the year, while the 126 restaurants it is selling made a loss of £9m. They were hit by fewer visits from non-hotel guests, Whitbread said.",-0.3054142713546753,The cuts come after Whitbread's pre-tax profit rose 21% to £452m for the year to 29 February.,"It said the 112 branded restaurants it plans to turn into hotel rooms made a loss of £19m in the year, while the 126 restaurants it is selling made a loss of £9m. They were hit by fewer visits from non-hotel guests, Whitbread said.",2024-04-30
HSBC chief executive Noel Quinn unexpectedly steps down,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czkvnd4g44ro,2024-04-30T04:24:03.078Z,"HSBC's group chief executive Noel Quinn is unexpectedly retiring after nearly five years in the role. Europe's largest bank says it is in the process of finding a successor for 62-year-old Mr Quinn, who will stay in the role until a new chief executive is named. HSBC is considering candidates from both inside and outside the firm. It comes as the UK-based lender reported a 1.8% drop in profit for the first three months of 2024, compared to the same time last year.  The company said that its pre-tax profit for the period came in at $12.7bn (£10bn), which was a little better than expected by market analysts. ""After an intense five years, it is now the right time for me to get a better balance between my personal and business life,” Mr Quinn said. Mr Quinn, who has worked at HSBC for 37 years, was first appointed as its chief executive on an interim basis in 2019, after his predecessor John Flint was ousted from the role. In March 2020, he took the reins of HSBC on a permanent basis. ""[Mr Quinn] has driven both our transformation strategy and created a simpler, more focused business that delivers higher returns,"" HSBC's chairman Mark Tucker said. Along with its quarterly results, the bank announced an interim payout to investors of $0.10 per share and said it would buy back up to $3bn of its shares. HSBC recently completed the sale of its operations in Canada and announced plans to do the same with its business in Argentina. The sales are part of efforts by the London-based bank to focus more on faster-growing markets in Asia. Shanti Kelemen, chief investment office at M&G Wealth, told the BBC's Today programme that it ""has probably been a very intense five years"" and that Mr Quinn ""has had a very long career"". She said that Mr Quinn had changed the shape of the bank during his time at the top, by such actions as selling HSBC's Argentina business, leaving Canada, and stepping up Asia operations. ""What he's done will probably reverberate and determine the path of their success for certainly several years to come,"" she added. ",BBC,30/04/2024,"[""HSBC's group chief executive Noel Quinn is unexpectedly retiring after nearly five years in the role."", ""Europe's largest bank says it is in the process of finding a successor for 62-year-old Mr Quinn, who will stay in the role until a new chief executive is named."", 'HSBC is considering candidates from both inside and outside the firm.', 'It comes as the UK-based lender reported a 1.8% drop in profit for the first three months of 2024, compared to the same time last year.', 'The company said that its pre-tax profit for the period came in at $12.7bn (£10bn), which was a little better than expected by market analysts. ""', 'After an intense five years, it is now the right time for me to get a better balance between my personal and business life,” Mr Quinn said.', 'Mr Quinn, who has worked at HSBC for 37 years, was first appointed as its chief executive on an interim basis in 2019, after his predecessor John Flint was ousted from the role.', 'In March 2020, he took the reins of HSBC on a permanent basis. ""[', 'Mr Quinn] has driven both our transformation strategy and created a simpler, more focused business that delivers higher returns,"" HSBC\'s chairman Mark Tucker said.', 'Along with its quarterly results, the bank announced an interim payout to investors of $0.10 per share and said it would buy back up to $3bn of its shares.', 'HSBC recently completed the sale of its operations in Canada and announced plans to do the same with its business in Argentina.', 'The sales are part of efforts by the London-based bank to focus more on faster-growing markets in Asia.', 'Shanti Kelemen, chief investment office at M&G Wealth, told the BBC\'s Today programme that it ""has probably been a very intense five years"" and that Mr Quinn ""has had a very long career"".', 'She said that Mr Quinn had changed the shape of the bank during his time at the top, by such actions as selling HSBC\'s Argentina business, leaving Canada, and stepping up Asia operations. ""', 'What he\'s done will probably reverberate and determine the path of their success for certainly several years to come,"" she added.']",0.2940642589057928,"What he's done will probably reverberate and determine the path of their success for certainly several years to come,"" she added.",,0.4998595267534256,"Mr Quinn] has driven both our transformation strategy and created a simpler, more focused business that delivers higher returns,"" HSBC's chairman Mark Tucker said.","It comes as the UK-based lender reported a 1.8% drop in profit for the first three months of 2024, compared to the same time last year.",2024-04-30
"Insurance group calls for Amazon, FedEx and others to use more safety tech in delivery vans",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/30/cars/safety-group-amazon-delivery-vans-crashes/index.html,"
  Updated
        3:36 PM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024
    ","Researchers are pointing to a dangerous element of the booming e-commerce home delivery business in America: vans. 
    
            About half a million light vans are sold in the United States every year, with many of those going to companies like Amazon and FedEx. Used to deliver packages to people’s front doors all over America, they are also involved in their share of crashes, many of which could be avoided with readily available technologies.
    
            Vans like these are involved in an average of about 935,000 police-reported crashes each year, including 98,000 resulting in injuries and 3,600 resulting in deaths, according to research by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a group funded by auto insurers.
    
            But there are ways to make these vans safer using technologies that are already widely available on everyday cars and SUVs.
    
            Light vans are those with a gross vehicle weight rating of less than 10,000 pounds. That means the van itself plus its occupants – including the driver – and all its cargo cannot weigh more than 10,000 pounds. Models include the Ford Transit, Ram ProMaster and Mercedes Sprinter. Since they are small and easily maneuverable with lots of cargo space they are commonly used for package delivery.
    
            The research suggests a lot of those crashes could be prevented if these vans were equipped with various types of crash prevention technology, some of which is commonly available on passenger cars.
    
            Front crash prevention technologies, like automatic emergency braking, could have helped prevent or, at least, mitigated, about a fifth of fatal crashes involving light vans, according to the IIHS. Lane departure prevention technology could have helped prevent or, at least, reduce the seriousness of, about 11% of those fatal crashes.
    
            Automatic emergency braking, which applies a vehicle’s brakes automatically if a vehicle in front stops and the driver fails to respond, could stop 77,000 light van crashes each year, the Institute said. Most new passenger vehicles today are already sold with automatic emergency braking thanks to industry-wide agreements but the technology is relatively rare on light vans, according to IIHS.
    
            Forward collision warning with brake assist and pedestrian detection is standard on all Ram ProMaster vans, said a spokesman for Stellantis, the company that owns Ram. Many of the features recommended by IIHS, including forward collision warning, automatic braking, blind spot warning, and speed limiting controls, are available on Ford and Mercedes vans, as well, spokespeople for those automakers said.
    
            The automakers did not say what percentage of vans sold to customers had optional safety features, though.
    
            “Amazon branded delivery vans are equipped with third-party technology that measures and monitors unsafe driving behaviors such as speeding, distraction, and failure to wear a seat belt or obey a road sign,” Amazon said in a statement shared with CNN. “Since we’ve incorporated this technology into our branded vehicles, [delivery] drivers’ collision rates have declined nearly 40%, and from 2022 to 2023, it reduced unsafe driving behaviors by 62% in the U.S.”
    
            And there’s technology that can crack down on things like speeding, too, which is especially dangerous in a heavily-loaded van. That tech could help prevent 37% of fatal crashes involving delivery vans, the Institute said.
    
            Pedestrians, in particular, would benefit. Automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, which uses cameras and sensors to detect a person in front of the vehicle and brakes automatically, could prevent 1,200 light van crashes with pedestrians each year, the Institute said.
    
            Van drivers as well as others would benefit from other sorts of technology, according to IIHS. In more than 60% of crashes and more than half of fatal crashes, the occupant of another vehicle or a pedestrian or cyclist was killed or injured. In the remainder, it was the van driver that suffered.",CNN,30/04/2024,"['Researchers are pointing to a dangerous element of the booming e-commerce home delivery business in America: vans.', 'About half a million light vans are sold in the United States every year, with many of those going to companies like Amazon and FedEx.', 'Used to deliver packages to people’s front doors all over America, they are also involved in their share of crashes, many of which could be avoided with readily available technologies.', 'Vans like these are involved in an average of about 935,000 police-reported crashes each year, including 98,000 resulting in injuries and 3,600 resulting in deaths, according to research by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a group funded by auto insurers.', 'But there are ways to make these vans safer using technologies that are already widely available on everyday cars and SUVs.', 'Light vans are those with a gross vehicle weight rating of less than 10,000 pounds.', 'That means the van itself plus its occupants – including the driver – and all its cargo cannot weigh more than 10,000 pounds.', 'Models include the Ford Transit, Ram ProMaster and Mercedes Sprinter.', 'Since they are small and easily maneuverable with lots of cargo space they are commonly used for package delivery.', 'The research suggests a lot of those crashes could be prevented if these vans were equipped with various types of crash prevention technology, some of which is commonly available on passenger cars.', 'Front crash prevention technologies, like automatic emergency braking, could have helped prevent or, at least, mitigated, about a fifth of fatal crashes involving light vans, according to the IIHS.', 'Lane departure prevention technology could have helped prevent or, at least, reduce the seriousness of, about 11% of those fatal crashes.', 'Automatic emergency braking, which applies a vehicle’s brakes automatically if a vehicle in front stops and the driver fails to respond, could stop 77,000 light van crashes each year, the Institute said.', 'Most new passenger vehicles today are already sold with automatic emergency braking thanks to industry-wide agreements but the technology is relatively rare on light vans, according to IIHS.', 'Forward collision warning with brake assist and pedestrian detection is standard on all Ram ProMaster vans, said a spokesman for Stellantis, the company that owns Ram.', 'Many of the features recommended by IIHS, including forward collision warning, automatic braking, blind spot warning, and speed limiting controls, are available on Ford and Mercedes vans, as well, spokespeople for those automakers said.', 'The automakers did not say what percentage of vans sold to customers had optional safety features, though.', '“Amazon branded delivery vans are equipped with third-party technology that measures and monitors unsafe driving behaviors such as speeding, distraction, and failure to wear a seat belt or obey a road sign,” Amazon said in a statement shared with CNN. “', 'Since we’ve incorporated this technology into our branded vehicles, [delivery] drivers’ collision rates have declined nearly 40%, and from 2022 to 2023, it reduced unsafe driving behaviors by 62% in the U.S.”  And there’s technology that can crack down on things like speeding, too, which is especially dangerous in a heavily-loaded van.', 'That tech could help prevent 37% of fatal crashes involving delivery vans, the Institute said.', 'Pedestrians, in particular, would benefit.', 'Automatic emergency braking with pedestrian detection, which uses cameras and sensors to detect a person in front of the vehicle and brakes automatically, could prevent 1,200 light van crashes with pedestrians each year, the Institute said.', 'Van drivers as well as others would benefit from other sorts of technology, according to IIHS.', 'In more than 60% of crashes and more than half of fatal crashes, the occupant of another vehicle or a pedestrian or cyclist was killed or injured.', 'In the remainder, it was the van driver that suffered.']",-0.1257801310849753,"About half a million light vans are sold in the United States every year, with many of those going to companies like Amazon and FedEx.","In more than 60% of crashes and more than half of fatal crashes, the occupant of another vehicle or a pedestrian or cyclist was killed or injured.",0.7005012631416321,"Front crash prevention technologies, like automatic emergency braking, could have helped prevent or, at least, mitigated, about a fifth of fatal crashes involving light vans, according to the IIHS.",Researchers are pointing to a dangerous element of the booming e-commerce home delivery business in America: vans.,2024-04-30
"Pittsburgh Pirates, Penguins launch streaming service for local games",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/29/pittsburgh-pirates-penguins-launch-streaming-service-for-local-games.html,2024-04-29T14:57:59+0000,"The regional sports network that airs Pittsburgh's MLB and NHL teams is launching a direct-to-consumer streaming service, the latest to take the step as more fans cut the cord.SportsNet Pittsburgh on Monday unveiled SNP 360, which will cost fans in its local market $17.99 a month to watch Pirates and Penguins games outside of the pay-TV bundle. Viewers with pay-TV subscriptions will also have access to the app.The streaming offering for the Pirates and Penguins — the highest-rated NHL team in the 2023-24 regular season — comes as the regional sports network business, a key piece of the professional leagues' media rights model, takes a hit from the shift to streaming. It also follows a shakeup at SportsNet Pittsburgh last year.The network came under new ownership last year when Warner Bros. Discovery exited the regional sports network business, which it inherited in the 2022 merger between Warner Media and Discovery.The network is now owned by the Pirates and Penguins. Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Boston Red Sox, agreed to acquire a controlling stake in the Penguins in 2021. Fenway Sports Group and Delaware North, also the parent company of the Boston Bruins, own the regional sports network NESN, which manages SportsNet Pittsburgh.""Our desire has been to reach fans wherever they are and give them options to access our clubs' telecasts,"" said NESN and SportsNet Pittsburgh CEO Sean McGrail. ""There are many people now who don't subscribe a linear TV bundle, and we wanted to make sure they had the opportunity to engage with our teams and be part of the fan base.""SNP 360 came together quickly over the last six months when NESN took over operations of the Sportsnet Pittsburgh, McGrail said. He said the network is offering the service at ""an aggressive price point,"" lower than the cost of most other regional sports streaming plans, while it builds up its content beyond the Pirates and Penguins.NESN, which broadcasts Red Sox and Bruins local games, was the first regional sports network to offer a streaming alternative for its market in 2022. NESN 360 is available for $29.99 a month, or $180 for the first year on the annual plan through a current promotional offer. It otherwise costs $329.99 per year.Last year, the YES Network, home of the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty, launched its streaming service for $24.99 a month. MSG Network, which airs New York Knicks, New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils games, launched a new streaming service in 2023 and charges $29.99 a month.Regional sports networks, once a lucrative business, have been particularly squeezed as consumers opt out of the traditional pay-TV bundle in favor of streaming.Many now offer streaming options to recapture those customers. The networks remain careful about pricing in order to avoid further disrupting the pay-TV model and breach contracts with distributors.The contracts with pay-TV distributors help support the billions of dollars in fees that the networks pay professional sports teams to air their games.Diamond Sports, the owner of the largest portfolio of regional sports networks, also launched streaming services for some of its teams before filing for bankruptcy protection in 2023. During the bankruptcy proceedings, Diamond has exited contracts with some teams to avoid paying high rights fees.""It has certainly been challenging times,"" said McGrail. ""But those are the times that bring opportunity, and you have to actively think about your distribution strategy and how you're going to handle distribution in the future. This addresses the needs of a certain group of people who don't live in the linear world anymore. We're trying to be flexible and make sure we're supporting these fans.""",CNBC,29/04/2024,"[""The regional sports network that airs Pittsburgh's MLB and NHL teams is launching a direct-to-consumer streaming service, the latest to take the step as more fans cut the cord."", 'SportsNet Pittsburgh on Monday unveiled SNP 360, which will cost fans in its local market $17.99 a month to watch Pirates and Penguins games outside of the pay-TV bundle.', 'Viewers with pay-TV subscriptions will also have access to the app.', ""The streaming offering for the Pirates and Penguins — the highest-rated NHL team in the 2023-24 regular season — comes as the regional sports network business, a key piece of the professional leagues' media rights model, takes a hit from the shift to streaming."", 'It also follows a shakeup at SportsNet Pittsburgh last year.', 'The network came under new ownership last year when Warner Bros. Discovery exited the regional sports network business, which it inherited in the 2022 merger between Warner Media and Discovery.', 'The network is now owned by the Pirates and Penguins.', 'Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Boston Red Sox, agreed to acquire a controlling stake in the Penguins in 2021.', 'Fenway Sports Group and Delaware North, also the parent company of the Boston Bruins, own the regional sports network NESN, which manages SportsNet Pittsburgh.', '""Our desire has been to reach fans wherever they are and give them options to access our clubs\' telecasts,"" said NESN and SportsNet Pittsburgh CEO Sean McGrail. ""', ""There are many people now who don't subscribe a linear TV bundle, and we wanted to make sure they had the opportunity to engage with our teams and be part of the fan base."", '""SNP 360 came together quickly over the last six months when NESN took over operations of the Sportsnet Pittsburgh, McGrail said.', 'He said the network is offering the service at ""an aggressive price point,"" lower than the cost of most other regional sports streaming plans, while it builds up its content beyond the Pirates and Penguins.', 'NESN, which broadcasts Red Sox and Bruins local games, was the first regional sports network to offer a streaming alternative for its market in 2022.', 'NESN 360 is available for $29.99 a month, or $180 for the first yearon the annual plan through a current promotional offer.', 'It otherwise costs $329.99 per year.', 'Last year, the YES Network, home of the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty, launched its streaming service for $24.99 a month.', 'MSG Network, which airs New York Knicks, New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils games, launched a new streaming service in 2023 and charges $29.99 a month.', 'Regional sports networks, once a lucrative business, have been particularly squeezed as consumers opt out of the traditional pay-TV bundle in favor of streaming.', 'Many now offer streaming options to recapture those customers.', 'The networks remain careful about pricing in order to avoid further disrupting the pay-TV model and breach contracts with distributors.', 'The contracts with pay-TV distributors help support the billions of dollars in fees that the networks pay professional sports teams to air their games.', 'Diamond Sports, the owner of the largest portfolio of regional sports networks, also launched streaming services for some of its teams before filing for bankruptcy protection in 2023.', 'During the bankruptcy proceedings, Diamond has exited contracts with some teams to avoid paying high rights fees.', '""It has certainly been challenging times,"" said McGrail. ""', ""But those are the times that bring opportunity, and you have to actively think about your distribution strategy and how you're going to handle distribution in the future."", ""This addresses the needs of a certain group of people who don't live in the linear world anymore."", 'We\'re trying to be flexible and make sure we\'re supporting these fans.""']",0.1398764115928744,"There are many people now who don't subscribe a linear TV bundle, and we wanted to make sure they had the opportunity to engage with our teams and be part of the fan base.","MSG Network, which airs New York Knicks, New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils games, launched a new streaming service in 2023 and charges $29.99 a month.",-0.3734017511208852,"He said the network is offering the service at ""an aggressive price point,"" lower than the cost of most other regional sports streaming plans, while it builds up its content beyond the Pirates and Penguins.","Regional sports networks, once a lucrative business, have been particularly squeezed as consumers opt out of the traditional pay-TV bundle in favor of streaming.",2024-04-30
TikTok suspends TikTok Lite rewards program in the EU amid regulatory scrutiny,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/25/tech/tiktok-suspends-tiktok-lite-program-eu/index.html,"
  Updated
        11:35 PM EDT, Thu April 25, 2024
    ","TikTok said Wednesday it would suspend a controversial program in the European Union that has prompted growing alarm among EU regulators.
    
            The program at issue appears within TikTok Lite, a less data-intensive version of TikTok’s main app, and which contains a feature that rewards users with cash for engaging with TikTok content and app features.
    
            TikTok said it was “voluntarily” suspending the rewards program after the European Commission announced Monday it could impose fines and a mandatory suspension over concerns that the feature may drive addiction by encouraging users to interact with the platform more.
    
            “TikTok always seeks to engage constructively with the EU Commission and other regulators,” TikTok said in a post on X. “We are therefore voluntarily suspending the rewards functions in TikTok Lite while we address the concerns that they have raised.”
    
            The EU warnings to TikTok reflected an exercise of new oversight powers granted by the Digital Services Act, the trading bloc’s recently enacted law governing online platforms. In opening a probe into TikTok Lite earlier this week, the European Commission said that TikTok could be fined for failing to provide information it owes to the Commission about the app, including a risk assessment report and a separate report outlining steps the company has taken to minimize those risks.
    
            Failure to hand over the risk assessment and risk mitigation report could result in fines of up to 1% of TikTok’s global annual revenue and “periodic penalties” of up to 5% of TikTok’s average daily revenue, the Commission said previously. TikTok also faces further, additional fines of up to 6% of its global annual revenue if the TikTok Lite feature is determined to be in violation of the DSA.
    
            TikTok’s move to suspend TikTok Lite’s reward features in Europe, meanwhile, comes as it faces its biggest threat yet to its United States operations. President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed a bill that could lead to a nationwide TikTok ban, after Congress passed the bill earlier this week as part of a wide-ranging foreign aid package meant to support Israel and Ukraine. Under what is now US law, TikTok is forced to find a new owner within months or be banned from the United States entirely.",CNN,25/04/2024,"['TikTok said Wednesday it would suspend a controversial program in the European Union that has prompted growing alarm among EU regulators.', 'The program at issue appears within TikTok Lite, a less data-intensive version of TikTok’s main app, and which contains a feature that rewards users with cash for engaging with TikTok content and app features.', 'TikTok said it was “voluntarily” suspending the rewards program after the European Commissionannounced Mondayit could impose fines and a mandatory suspension over concerns that the feature may drive addiction by encouraging users to interact with the platform more.', '“TikTok always seeks to engage constructively with the EU Commission and other regulators,” TikTok said in apost on X. “We are therefore voluntarily suspending the rewards functions in TikTok Lite while we address the concerns that they have raised.”', 'The EU warnings to TikTok reflected an exercise of new oversight powers granted by the Digital Services Act, the trading bloc’s recently enacted law governing online platforms.', 'In opening a probe into TikTok Lite earlier this week, the European Commission said that TikTok could be fined for failing to provide information it owes to the Commission about the app, including a risk assessment report and a separate report outlining steps the company has taken to minimize those risks.', 'Failure to hand over the risk assessment and risk mitigation report could result in fines of up to 1% of TikTok’s global annual revenue and “periodic penalties” of up to 5% of TikTok’s average daily revenue, the Commission said previously.', 'TikTok also faces further, additional fines of up to 6% of its global annual revenue if the TikTok Lite feature is determined to be in violation of the DSA.', 'TikTok’s move to suspend TikTok Lite’s reward features in Europe, meanwhile, comes as it faces its biggest threat yet to its United States operations.', 'President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed a bill that could lead to a nationwide TikTok ban, after Congress passed the bill earlier this week as part of a wide-ranging foreign aid package meant to support Israel and Ukraine.', 'Under what is now US law, TikTok is forced to find a new owner within months or be banned from the United States entirely.']",-0.0549527111153452,TikTok said it was “voluntarily” suspending the rewards program after the European Commissionannounced Mondayit could impose fines and a mandatory suspension over concerns that the feature may drive addiction by encouraging users to interact with the platform more.,"In opening a probe into TikTok Lite earlier this week, the European Commission said that TikTok could be fined for failing to provide information it owes to the Commission about the app, including a risk assessment report and a separate report outlining steps the company has taken to minimize those risks.",-0.9905916094779968,,TikTok said Wednesday it would suspend a controversial program in the European Union that has prompted growing alarm among EU regulators.,2024-04-30
Burger King invests another $300 million to remodel restaurants,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/30/burger-king-invests-another-300-million-to-remodel-restaurants-.html,2024-04-30T11:34:42+0000,"In this articleBurger King will invest another $300 million to remodel about 1,100 of its U.S. restaurants as part of a broader turnaround effort, the chain's parent company said Tuesday.Owner Restaurant Brands International kicked off Burger King's comeback strategy a year and half ago with $250 million to renovate restaurants and upgrade its technology and equipment, plus an additional $150 million to invest in its mobile app and advertising.In January, the parent company bought Burger King's largest U.S. franchisee, Carrols Restaurant Group, for $1 billion to speed up the remodeling process. The company estimates it will spend an additional $500 million updating 600 Carrols' locations.Including the investment announced Tuesday, Restaurant Brands is planning to spend around $2.2 billion to revitalize the chain's U.S. business. The company expects 85% to 90% of its roughly 7,000 U.S. restaurants will have the same modern design by 2028.""It was the first time in a long time that RBI had invested a significant amount of capital back into the business to co-invest with franchisees,"" Burger King U.S. President Tom Curtis told CNBC. ""I think the process was, 'Let's see how this works'... and we're seeing early results on remodels.""About 100 Burger King locations have been remodeled and updated so far. Those locations have seen sales climb following their facelifts, according to Curtis.The latest round of remodels will follow Burger King's new ""Sizzle"" design, which includes drive-thru pickup for mobile orders and self-order kiosks. Those new features are expected to encourage customers to order even more Whoppers and fries.Still, Burger King has had to chip in its own money to incentivize franchisees to remodel. Renovations can be costly — especially with high interest rates — and often require the locations to temporarily shutter.As with the initial round of investment from Restaurant Brands, Burger King franchisees who opt in to remodel their locations will receive cash once construction is completed. Burger King will let operators choose how much of a discount they get on the royalties they pay to the company.Starting Tuesday, Curtis will be on a roadshow across the U.S. pitching the remodeling strategy to franchisees and starting the sign-up process for the $300 million investment.Shares of Restaurant Brands were flat in premarket trading on Tuesday after the company reported weaker-than-expected earnings, but its quarterly revenue topped Wall Street estimates. Burger King's same-store sales grew 3.8% in the the first quarter, falling shy of StreetAccount estimates of 4.1%.",CNBC,30/04/2024,"[""In this articleBurger King will invest another $300 million to remodel about 1,100 of its U.S. restaurants as part of a broader turnaround effort, the chain's parent company said Tuesday."", ""Owner Restaurant Brands International kicked off Burger King's comeback strategy a year and half ago with $250 million to renovate restaurants and upgrade its technology and equipment, plus an additional $150 million to invest in its mobile app and advertising."", ""In January, the parent company bought Burger King's largest U.S. franchisee, Carrols Restaurant Group, for $1 billion to speed up the remodeling process."", ""The company estimates it will spend an additional $500 million updating 600 Carrols' locations."", ""Including the investment announced Tuesday, Restaurant Brands is planning to spend around $2.2 billion to revitalize the chain's U.S. business."", 'The company expects 85% to 90% of its roughly 7,000 U.S. restaurants will have the same modern design by 2028.""It was the first time in a long time that RBI had invested a significant amount of capital back into the business to co-invest with franchisees,"" Burger King U.S. President Tom Curtis told CNBC. ""', ""I think the process was, 'Let's see how this works'... and we're seeing early results on remodels."", '""About 100 Burger King locations have been remodeled and updated so far.', 'Those locations have seen sales climb following their facelifts, according to Curtis.', 'The latest round of remodels will follow Burger King\'s new ""Sizzle"" design, which includes drive-thru pickup for mobile orders and self-order kiosks.', 'Those new features are expected to encourage customers to order even more Whoppers and fries.', 'Still, Burger King has had to chip in its own money to incentivize franchisees to remodel.', 'Renovations can be costly — especially with high interest rates — and often require the locations to temporarily shutter.', 'As with the initial round of investment from Restaurant Brands, Burger King franchisees who opt in to remodel their locations will receive cash once construction is completed.', 'Burger King will let operators choose how much of a discount they get on the royalties they pay to the company.', 'Starting Tuesday, Curtis will be on a roadshow across the U.S. pitching the remodeling strategy to franchisees and starting the sign-up process for the $300 million investment.', 'Shares of Restaurant Brands were flat in premarket trading on Tuesday after the company reported weaker-than-expected earnings, but its quarterly revenue topped Wall Street estimates.', ""Burger King's same-store sales grew 3.8% in the the first quarter, falling shy of StreetAccount estimates of 4.1%.""]",0.0317752329248676,Those new features are expected to encourage customers to order even more Whoppers and fries.,"Burger King's same-store sales grew 3.8% in the the first quarter, falling shy of StreetAccount estimates of 4.1%.",0.6986989634377616,"Those locations have seen sales climb following their facelifts, according to Curtis.","Shares of Restaurant Brands were flat in premarket trading on Tuesday after the company reported weaker-than-expected earnings, but its quarterly revenue topped Wall Street estimates.",2024-04-30
"US pending home sales jumped in March, beating expectations by a mile",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/25/economy/us-pending-home-sales-march/index.html,"
  Updated
        12:02 PM EDT, Thu April 25, 2024
    ","Home sales based on contract signings unexpectedly jumped in March despite elevated mortgage rates that month. And the latest data from Freddie Mac showed that mortgage rates edged higher this week, reaching a fresh five-month high.
    
            Pending home sales — a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings rather than closings — climbed 3.4% in March, the National Association of Realtors reported Thursday, which was “the best performance in a year,” according to a release. That was well above the 0.3% decline forecast by economists, according to a FactSet poll. Contract signings rose across the country in March from the prior month, except in the Midwest.
    
            Despite the March gain, pending home sales are still “in a fairly narrow range over the last 12 months without a measurable breakout,” NAR’s chief economist, Lawrence Yun, said in a release. “Meaningful gains will only occur with declining mortgage rates and rising inventory.”
    
            The broader US housing market began the year with some momentum, as home sales climbed, homebuilder sentiment improved and traders priced in several interest rate cuts this year. Now, the narrative has shifted.
    
            Existing home sales, which make up the vast majority of the housing market, plunged in March. Hotter-than-expected inflation readings in recent months are now keeping the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates anytime soon.
    
            That has sent bond yields soaring. The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, which tracks the 10-year US Treasury yield, surged past 7% last week, and economists aren’t expecting rates to fall meaningfully this year.
    
            “Pending home sales probably will drop back significantly over the next couple of months. Sales cannot defy weaker mortgage demand indefinitely, and applications have continued to soften in April,” Oliver Allen, senior US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in a note Thursday.
    
            In addition to elevated mortgage rates, housing affordability is also being hampered by rising home prices and a persistent lack of homes on the market.
    
            The median US home price was $393,500 last month, up 4.8% from a year earlier and the highest level since August 2023. It was also the highest March price on record. S&P Global releases a comprehensive index of home prices across the country next week and that one reached a record high in January.
    
            Housing inventory has improved recently, but it’s still not keeping up with demand. Not only does that mean homebuyers have fewer choices, but it also puts some upward pressure on prices in markets where there is an undersupply of housing.
    
            Inventory of unsold homes rose 4.7% in March from the prior month to 1.11 million units, and was up 14.4% from a year earlier, according to NAR data. There isn’t enough housing supply for various reasons, but a key one has been that homeowners are choosing not to sell because they want to hold on to their low mortgage rate.
    
            Those are the so-called “golden handcuffs” of low mortgage rates. They began to climb in early 2022 when the Federal Reserve started to hike interest rates in a bid to tamp down high inflation. Homeowners have opted to stay put, but life events such as marriage, divorce and new children could force some of them to give up on waiting for mortgages rate to decline and sell their home, Yun has said.
    
            The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 7.17% in the week ended April 25, up slightly from the 7.10% registered last week. That was the highest level since late November. The average 15-year mortgage also rose this week.
    
            “Despite rates increasing more than half a percent since the first week of the year, purchase demand remains steady,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, in a release. “With rates staying higher for longer, many homebuyers are adjusting, as evidenced by this week’s report that sales of newly built homes saw the biggest increase since December 2022.”
    
            Demand for housing could weaken or stall if both mortgage rates and home prices remain elevated. It remains to be seen if housing inventory will continue to catch up. Residential construction of single-family homes also fell sharply in March, down 12.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.022 million units, according to Commerce Department data.
    
            The 10-year Treasury yield climbed Thursday above 4.70%, the highest level in more than five months, after the latest data on gross domestic product showed that growth slowed more than expected as inflation remained stubbornly high that quarter, too.",CNN,25/04/2024,"['Home sales based on contract signings unexpectedly jumped in March despite elevated mortgage rates that month.', 'And the latest data from Freddie Mac showed that mortgage rates edged higher this week, reaching a fresh five-month high.', 'Pending home sales — a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings rather than closings — climbed 3.4% in March, the National Association of Realtors reported Thursday, which was “the best performance in a year,” according to a release.', 'That was well above the 0.3% decline forecast by economists, according to a FactSet poll.', 'Contract signings rose across the country in March from the prior month, except in the Midwest.', 'Despite the March gain, pending home sales are still “in a fairly narrow range over the last 12 months without a measurable breakout,” NAR’s chief economist, Lawrence Yun, said in a release. “', 'Meaningful gains will only occur with declining mortgage rates and rising inventory.”', 'The broader US housing market began the year with some momentum, as home sales climbed, homebuilder sentiment improved and traders priced in several interest rate cuts this year.', 'Now, the narrative has shifted.', 'Existing home sales, which make up the vast majority of the housing market, plunged in March.', 'Hotter-than-expected inflation readings in recent months are now keeping the Federal Reserve from cutting interest rates anytime soon.', 'That has sent bond yields soaring.', 'The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, which tracks the 10-year US Treasury yield, surged past 7% last week, and economists aren’t expecting rates to fall meaningfully this year.', '“Pending home sales probably will drop back significantly over the next couple of months.', 'Sales cannot defy weaker mortgage demand indefinitely, and applications have continued to soften in April,” Oliver Allen, senior US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in a note Thursday.', 'In addition to elevated mortgage rates, housing affordability is also being hampered by rising home prices and a persistent lack of homes on the market.', 'The median US home price was $393,500 last month, up 4.8% from a year earlier and the highest level since August 2023.', 'It was also the highest March price on record.', 'S&P Global releases a comprehensive index of home prices across the country next week and that one reached a record high in January.', 'Housing inventory has improved recently, but it’s still not keeping up with demand.', 'Not only does that mean homebuyers have fewer choices, but it also puts some upward pressure on prices in markets where there is an undersupply of housing.', 'Inventory of unsold homes rose 4.7% in March from the prior month to 1.11 million units, and was up 14.4% from a year earlier, according to NAR data.', 'There isn’t enough housing supply for various reasons, but a key one has been that homeowners are choosing not to sell because they want to hold on to their low mortgage rate.', 'Those are the so-called “golden handcuffs” of low mortgage rates.', 'They began to climb in early 2022 when the Federal Reserve started to hike interest rates in a bid to tamp down high inflation.', 'Homeowners have opted to stay put, but life events such as marriage, divorce and new children could force some of them to give up on waiting for mortgages rate to decline and sell their home, Yun has said.', 'The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 7.17% in the week ended April 25, up slightly from the 7.10% registered last week.', 'That was the highest level since late November.', 'The average 15-year mortgage also rose this week.', '“Despite rates increasing more than half a percent since the first week of the year, purchase demand remains steady,” said Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, in a release. “', 'With rates staying higher for longer, many homebuyers are adjusting, as evidenced by this week’s report that sales of newly built homes saw the biggest increase since December 2022.”', 'Demand for housing could weaken or stall if both mortgage rates and home prices remain elevated.', 'It remains to be seen if housing inventory will continue to catch up.', 'Residential construction of single-family homes also fell sharply in March, down 12.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.022 million units, according to Commerce Department data.', 'The 10-year Treasury yield climbed Thursday above 4.70%, the highest level in more than five months, after the latest data on gross domestic product showed that growth slowed more than expected as inflation remained stubbornly high that quarter, too.']",0.043385630773137,"Pending home sales — a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings rather than closings — climbed 3.4% in March, the National Association of Realtors reported Thursday, which was “the best performance in a year,” according to a release.",Demand for housing could weaken or stall if both mortgage rates and home prices remain elevated.,0.368747565895319,"With rates staying higher for longer, many homebuyers are adjusting, as evidenced by this week’s report that sales of newly built homes saw the biggest increase since December 2022.”","Residential construction of single-family homes also fell sharply in March, down 12.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.022 million units, according to Commerce Department data.",2024-04-30
"Merck beats earnings expectations, raises outlook on strong Keytruda and vaccine sales",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/merck-mrk-earnings-q1-2024.html,2024-04-25T15:12:55+0000,"In this articleMerck on Thursday reported first-quarter revenue and adjusted earnings that topped expectations as it posted strong sales of its blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda and vaccine products.The pharmaceutical giant also raised and narrowed its full-year revenue and adjusted earnings forecasts. Merck now expects 2024 sales to come in between $63.1 billion and $64.3 billion, up from previous guidance of $62.7 to $64.2 billion. The company expects full-year adjusted earnings of $8.53 to $8.65 per share, up from its prior forecast of $8.44 to $8.59 per share. That outlook includes a one-time charge of roughly 26 cents per share related to Merck's acquisition of Harpoon Therapeutics in January. The company develops immune-based cancer drugs. The guidance also includes a negative impact of 30 cents per share from foreign exchange changes. Shares of Merck rose 4% on Thursday following the results.Here is what Merck reported for the first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG: The company posted a net income of $4.76 billion, or $1.87 per share, for the first quarter. That compares with a net income of $2.82 billion, or $1.11 per share, during the year-earlier period. Excluding acquisition and restructuring costs, Merck earned $2.07 per share for the first quarter. Both adjusted and nonadjusted profit for the period include the charge related to the Harpoon deal.Merck raked in $15.78 billion in revenue for the quarter, up 9% from the same period a year ago. Those results come as Merck shows substantial progress in preparing for Keytruda's patent expiration in 2028. The loss of exclusive rights to the drug will likely cause sales to fall, forcing the company to draw revenue from elsewhere.But Merck has a handful of new deals under its belt and key drug launches that will help it offset those losses. That includes Winrevair, a medication approved in the U.S. last month to treat a progressive and life-threatening lung condition. Some analysts expect that worldwide sales of Winrevair could reach $5 billion by 2030. Merck is seeing ""high interest"" in Winrevair from patient groups and a range of prescribers, and is making ""good progress"" in enabling access to the drug, Chief Financial Officer Caroline Litchfield said during an earnings call Thursday. Several payers have already established coverage policies for the drug, she noted.""We have confidence in a successful launch of Winrevair consistent with our prior expectations and look forward to providing updates on our progress,"" Litchfield said.Merck is also cutting costs under a new restructuring program it announced in February. Those efforts aim to improve the manufacturing network of both its pharmaceutical division and animal health business. The company recorded charges of $246 million related to restructuring in the first quarter, which are excluded from its adjusted results. Merck's pharmaceutical unit booked $14.01 billion in revenue during the first quarter, up 10% from the same period a year ago. That division develops a wide range of drugs for several disease areas, including oncology and infectious diseases. Merck's immunotherapy Keytruda, which is used to treat several types of cancer, largely drove the growth. Keytruda generated $6.95 billion in revenue during the quarter, up 20% from the year-earlier period. Analysts had been expecting $6.71 billion in Keytruda sales, according to estimates from FactSet. Litchfield said the growth reflects increased uptake in patients at the earliest stages of cancer, and continued demand to treat metastatic cancers, which refers to when the disease spreads to a different part of the body than where it started.Merck also reported a jump in sales of Gardasil, a vaccine that prevents cancer from HPV, the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S.Gardasil brought in $2.25 billion in sales, up 14% from the first quarter of 2023. That is in line with the $2.24 billion that analysts expected, FactSet estimates said. Litchfield said the increase reflects strong demand, particularly in China.Another vaccine called Vaxneuvance, which prevents patients from getting sick with pneumococcal disease, also posted strong growth during the quarter. The shot recorded $219 million in sales, up 106% from the year-earlier period. Meanwhile, Merck's Type 2 diabetes treatment Januvia drew $670 million in sales, down 24% from the same period a year ago. The company said the decline was primarily due to lower prices of the drug, falling demand in the U.S. and generic competition in several international markets.Analysts had expected Januvia sales of $687.3 million, according to FactSet estimates.Januvia is one of 10 drugs targeted in ongoing Medicare drug price negotiations, a policy under the Inflation Reduction Act that aims to make costly medications more affordable for seniors.Sales of Merck's Covid antiviral pill Lagevrio also fell 11% to $350 million during the quarter. Still, that total blew past analysts' expectations of $106.4 million in sales, according to FactSet. Demand for Lagevrio and other Covid products from companies such as Pfizer and Moderna has plunged over the past year, as cases and public concern about the virus dwindled from their pandemic peaks.Merck's animal health division, which develops vaccines and medicines for dogs, cats and cattle, posted $1.51 billion in sales for the first quarter. That is up only 1% from the same period a year ago. In February, Merck said it would buy Elanco Animal Health's aquatic business for $1.3 billion in cash. The deal includes Elanco's entire portfolio of medicines, vaccines and supplements for aquatic species, along with two manufacturing plants and a research facility.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"['In this articleMerck on Thursday reported first-quarter revenue and adjusted earnings that topped expectations as it posted strong sales of its blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda and vaccine products.', 'The pharmaceutical giant also raised and narrowed its full-year revenue and adjusted earnings forecasts.', 'Merck now expects 2024 sales to come in between $63.1 billion and $64.3 billion, up from previous guidance of $62.7 to $64.2 billion.', 'The company expects full-year adjusted earnings of $8.53 to $8.65 per share, up from its prior forecast of $8.44 to $8.59 per share.', ""That outlook includes a one-time charge of roughly 26 cents per share related to Merck's acquisition of Harpoon Therapeutics in January."", 'The company develops immune-based cancer drugs.', 'The guidance also includes a negative impact of 30 cents per share from foreign exchange changes.', 'Shares of Merck rose 4% on Thursday following the results.', 'Here is what Merck reported for the first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:The company posted a net income of $4.76 billion, or $1.87 per share, for the first quarter.', 'That compares with a net income of $2.82 billion, or $1.11 per share, during the year-earlier period.', 'Excluding acquisition and restructuring costs, Merck earned $2.07 per share for the first quarter.', 'Both adjusted and nonadjusted profit for the period include the charge related to the Harpoon deal.', 'Merck raked in $15.78 billion in revenue for the quarter, up 9% from the same period a year ago.', ""Those results come as Merck shows substantial progress in preparing for Keytruda's patent expiration in 2028."", 'The loss of exclusive rights to the drug will likely cause sales to fall, forcing the company to draw revenue from elsewhere.', 'But Merck has a handful of new deals under its belt and key drug launches that will help it offset those losses.', 'That includes Winrevair, a medication approved in the U.S. last month to treat a progressive and life-threatening lung condition.', 'Some analysts expect that worldwide sales of Winrevair could reach $5 billion by 2030.Merck is seeing ""high interest"" in Winrevair from patient groups and a range of prescribers, and is making ""good progress"" in enabling access to the drug, Chief Financial Officer Caroline Litchfield said during an earnings call Thursday.', 'Several payers have already established coverage policies for the drug, she noted.', '""We have confidence in a successful launch of Winrevair consistent with our prior expectations and look forward to providing updates on our progress,"" Litchfield said.', 'Merck is also cutting costs under a new restructuring program it announced in February.', 'Those efforts aim to improve the manufacturing network of both its pharmaceutical division and animal health business.', 'The company recorded charges of $246 million related to restructuring in the first quarter, which are excluded from its adjusted results.', ""Merck's pharmaceutical unit booked $14.01 billion in revenue during the first quarter, up 10% from the same period a year ago."", 'That division develops a wide range of drugs for several disease areas, including oncology and infectious diseases.', ""Merck's immunotherapy Keytruda, which is used to treat several types of cancer, largely drove the growth."", 'Keytruda generated $6.95 billion in revenue during the quarter, up 20% from the year-earlier period.', 'Analysts had been expecting $6.71 billion in Keytruda sales, according to estimates from FactSet.', 'Litchfield said the growth reflects increased uptake in patients at the earliest stages of cancer, and continued demand to treat metastatic cancers, which refers to when the disease spreads to a different part of the body than where it started.', 'Merck also reported a jump in sales of Gardasil, a vaccine that prevents cancer from HPV, the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S.Gardasil brought in $2.25 billion in sales, up 14% from the first quarter of 2023.', 'That is in line with the $2.24 billion that analysts expected, FactSet estimates said.', 'Litchfield said the increase reflects strong demand, particularly in China.', 'Another vaccine called Vaxneuvance, which prevents patients from getting sick with pneumococcal disease, also posted strong growth during the quarter.', 'The shot recorded $219 million in sales, up 106% from the year-earlier period.', ""Meanwhile, Merck's Type 2 diabetes treatment Januvia drew $670 million in sales, down 24% from the same period a year ago."", 'The company said the decline was primarily due to lower prices of the drug, falling demand in the U.S. and generic competition in several international markets.', 'Analysts had expected Januvia sales of $687.3 million, according to FactSet estimates.', 'Januvia is one of 10 drugs targeted in ongoing Medicare drug price negotiations, a policy under the Inflation Reduction Act that aims to make costly medications more affordable for seniors.', ""Sales of Merck's Covid antiviral pill Lagevrio also fell 11% to $350 million during the quarter."", ""Still, that total blew past analysts' expectations of $106.4 million in sales, according to FactSet."", 'Demand for Lagevrio and other Covid products from companies such as Pfizer and Moderna has plunged over the past year, as cases and public concern about the virus dwindled from their pandemic peaks.', ""Merck's animal health division, which develops vaccines and medicines for dogs, cats and cattle, posted $1.51 billion in sales for the first quarter."", 'That is up only 1% from the same period a year ago.', ""In February, Merck said it would buy Elanco Animal Health's aquatic business for $1.3 billion in cash."", ""The deal includes Elanco's entire portfolio of medicines, vaccines and supplements for aquatic species, along with two manufacturing plants and a research facility.""]",0.0870368521989354,"""We have confidence in a successful launch of Winrevair consistent with our prior expectations and look forward to providing updates on our progress,"" Litchfield said.","Merck also reported a jump in sales of Gardasil, a vaccine that prevents cancer from HPV, the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S.Gardasil brought in $2.25 billion in sales, up 14% from the first quarter of 2023.",0.6245327122283705,"Merck now expects 2024 sales to come in between $63.1 billion and $64.3 billion, up from previous guidance of $62.7 to $64.2 billion.",Sales of Merck's Covid antiviral pill Lagevrio also fell 11% to $350 million during the quarter.,2024-04-30
Comcast beats earnings estimates even as it sheds more broadband subscribers,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/comcast-cmcsa-earnings-1q24.html,2024-04-25T15:24:55+0000,"In this articleComcast beat first-quarter earnings expectations on Thursday as broadband drove revenue even as the company and its peers have seen customer growth slow.Here is how Comcast performed, compared with estimates from analysts surveyed by LSEG:For the quarter that ended March 31, net income rose 0.6% to $3.86 billion, or 97 cents a share, compared with $3.83 billion, or 91 cents a share, a year earlier. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, slid 0.6% to roughly $9.4 billion.The company's revenue grew 1.2% to $30.06 billion compared to the same period last year. Revenue from the domestic broadband customers segment boosted that growth as rates increased, even as Comcast lost 65,000 customers during the quarter.Comcast's stock was trading down about 6% on Thursday.Cable broadband companies' customer additions have slumped in recent quarters and weighed on stock prices.The slowdown in the buying and selling of houses due to high interest rates has led to a decline in new home internet connections. Cable providers have also been hit with heightened competition for home broadband from wireless companies such as T-Mobile and Verizon.Mike Cavanagh, president of Comcast, said on Thursday's earnings call that the market is ""extremely competitive,"" especially for ""cost-conscious customers.""Earlier this month, Comcast said it would launch NOW, a prepaid and month-to-month low-cost internet and phone plan program. The plan is designed to provide fixed wireless options at a low cost.The plan supplements Comcast's long-standing internet option for low-income customers, called Internet Essentials.Company executives do not expect an improvement in the near term, particularly with the expected end of the federal government's Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP, which offers a $30 discount on broadband services to qualifying low-income households, in April.Comcast's wireless business saw a 21% increase in customers during the quarter to 6.9 million total lines. The company lost 487,000 cable TV customers during the quarter as consumers continued to cut the cord in favor of streaming.The company's theme parks adjusted EBITDA fell 3.9% to $632 million during the quarter, due to an increase in operating expenses such as higher marketing and promotion costs, as well as the negative effect of foreign currency.On Thursday, Cavanagh noted attendance at the Orlando theme park ""felt some pressure"" in the most recent quarter, as the company is in between introducing new attractions. He added the company is confident about long-term growth and future opportunities for its parks.Increased competition, particularly from cruises, also weighed on theme parks, Comcast Chief Financial Officer Jason Armstrong said on Thursday's call.Similarly, earnings for its media business, which includes NBCUniversal, and studios also declined. The three businesses now report under the same segment, which collectively saw revenue rise 1.1% to $10.37 billion.Still, Comcast executives touted the strength of Universal Pictures' film slate, from recent Academy Award winners ""Oppenheimer"" and ""The Holdovers,"" to upcoming highly anticipated movies such as the adaptation of the Broadway hit ""Wicked.""Peacock, which executives also highlighted as a bright spot and a boost to NBCUniversal, is also reaping the benefits of the film slate.Being the exclusive home of ""Oppenheimer"" when it was first released to streaming earlier this year proved to be a win for the platform. Comcast said it was the most-watched movie in Peacock history.The service added three million paid subscribers during the quarter, bringing its total number of customers to 34 million. The exclusive National Football League Wild Card game on Peacock helped to add, and then retain, more customers than expected, executives said on Thursday's call.""We're 3.5 years in, we're at a place where we're really seeing traction in our approach,"" Cavanagh said Thursday, pointing to the strength in the combination of sports and entertainment.While Peacock is known for its large offering of live sports, including the NFL and the Premier League, Cavanagh said subscribers spend 90% of their time on nonsports programming on shows such as Peacock original ""Ted,"" and its Universal film collection. He added that the company expects Peacock to have ""real pricing power"" over time.Revenue for the streamer rose 54% to $1.1 billion compared to the same period last year. While domestic advertising was flat during the quarter, the company saw its domestic distribution revenue increase, driven by the growth at Peacock. Media companies have been facing a longer-than-expected soft advertising market.Losses stemming from Peacock weighed on the segment and offset higher revenue. The company saw an adjusted EBITDA loss of $639 million related to Peacock during the quarter. That improved, however, from an adjusted EBITDA loss of $704 million in the same period last year.Peacock losses were said to peak in 2023, and executives expect them to narrow in upcoming quarters. The Olympics in Paris this summer should also drive growth for the streaming service.With more hours of the Olympics on its broadcast network NBC, in addition to Peacock, the company is on track to generate its most advertising revenue in its history for the Olympics.Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"['In this articleComcast beat first-quarter earnings expectations on Thursday as broadband drove revenue even as the company and its peers have seen customer growth slow.', 'Here is how Comcast performed, compared with estimates from analysts surveyed by LSEG:For the quarter that ended March 31, net income rose 0.6% to $3.86 billion, or 97 cents a share, compared with $3.83 billion, or 91 cents a share, a year earlier.', 'Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, slid 0.6% to roughly $9.4 billion.', ""The company's revenue grew 1.2% to $30.06 billion compared to the same period last year."", 'Revenue from the domestic broadband customers segment boosted that growth as rates increased, even as Comcast lost 65,000 customers during the quarter.', ""Comcast's stock was trading down about 6% on Thursday."", ""Cable broadband companies' customer additions have slumped in recent quarters and weighed on stock prices."", 'The slowdown in the buying and selling of houses due to high interest rates has led to a decline in new home internet connections.', 'Cable providers have also been hit with heightened competition for home broadband from wireless companies such as T-Mobile and Verizon.', 'Mike Cavanagh, president of Comcast, said on Thursday\'s earnings call that the market is ""extremely competitive,"" especially for ""cost-conscious customers.', '""Earlier this month, Comcast said it would launch NOW, a prepaid and month-to-month low-cost internet and phone plan program.', 'The plan is designed to provide fixed wireless options at a low cost.', ""The plan supplements Comcast's long-standing internet option for low-income customers, called Internet Essentials."", ""Company executives do not expect an improvement in the near term, particularly with the expected end of the federal government's Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP, which offers a $30 discount on broadband services to qualifying low-income households, in April."", ""Comcast's wireless business saw a 21% increase in customers during the quarter to 6.9 million total lines."", 'The company lost 487,000 cable TV customers during the quarter as consumers continued to cut the cord in favor of streaming.', ""The company's theme parks adjusted EBITDA fell 3.9% to $632 million during the quarter,due to an increase in operating expenses such as higher marketing and promotion costs, as well as the negative effect of foreign currency."", 'On Thursday, Cavanagh noted attendance at the Orlando theme park ""felt some pressure"" in the most recent quarter, as the company is in between introducing new attractions.', 'He added the company is confident about long-term growth and future opportunities for its parks.', ""Increased competition, particularly from cruises, also weighed on theme parks, Comcast Chief Financial Officer Jason Armstrong said on Thursday's call."", 'Similarly, earnings for its media business, which includes NBCUniversal, and studios also declined.', 'The three businesses now report under the same segment, which collectively saw revenue rise 1.1% to $10.37 billion.', 'Still, Comcast executives touted the strength of Universal Pictures\' film slate, from recent Academy Award winners ""Oppenheimer"" and ""The Holdovers,"" to upcoming highly anticipated movies such as the adaptation of the Broadway hit ""Wicked.', '""Peacock, which executives also highlighted as a bright spot and a boost to NBCUniversal, is also reaping the benefits of the film slate.', 'Being the exclusive home of ""Oppenheimer"" when it was first released to streaming earlier this year proved to be a win for the platform.', 'Comcast said it was the most-watched movie in Peacock history.', 'The service added three million paid subscribers during the quarter, bringing its total number of customers to 34 million.', ""The exclusive National Football League Wild Card game on Peacock helped to add, and then retain, more customers than expected, executives said on Thursday's call."", '""We\'re 3.5 years in, we\'re at a place where we\'re really seeing traction in our approach,"" Cavanagh said Thursday, pointing to the strength in the combination of sports and entertainment.', 'While Peacock is known for its large offering of live sports, including the NFL and the Premier League, Cavanagh said subscribers spend 90% of their time on nonsports programming on shows such as Peacock original ""Ted,"" and its Universal film collection.', 'He added that the company expects Peacock to have ""real pricing power"" over time.', 'Revenue for the streamer rose 54% to $1.1 billion compared to the same period last year.', 'While domestic advertising was flat during the quarter, the company saw its domestic distribution revenue increase, driven by the growth at Peacock.', 'Media companies have been facing a longer-than-expected soft advertising market.', 'Losses stemming from Peacock weighed on the segment and offset higher revenue.', 'The company saw an adjusted EBITDA loss of $639 million related to Peacock during the quarter.', 'That improved, however, from an adjusted EBITDA loss of $704 million in the same period last year.', 'Peacock losses were said to peak in 2023, and executives expect them to narrow in upcoming quarters.', 'The Olympics in Paris this summer should also drive growth for the streaming service.', 'With more hours of the Olympics on its broadcast network NBC, in addition to Peacock, the company is on track to generate its most advertising revenue in its history for the Olympics.', 'Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.']",0.1527713570776127,He added the company is confident about long-term growth and future opportunities for its parks.,"Company executives do not expect an improvement in the near term, particularly with the expected end of the federal government's Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP, which offers a $30 discount on broadband services to qualifying low-income households, in April.",0.1793343950720394,"The three businesses now report under the same segment, which collectively saw revenue rise 1.1% to $10.37 billion.","The company's theme parks adjusted EBITDA fell 3.9% to $632 million during the quarter,due to an increase in operating expenses such as higher marketing and promotion costs, as well as the negative effect of foreign currency.",2024-04-30
"Walmart launches new grocery brand, as it tries to hang on to inflation-fueled growth",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/30/walmart-launches-new-grocery-brand-bettergoods.html,2024-04-30T15:56:05+0000,"In this articleWalmart is debuting a new grocery brand, as the discounter tries to retain the shoppers it has attracted during a period of high inflation.On Tuesday, the big-box retailer said it will roll out a private label called Bettergoods, a line of more trend-and chef-driven foods. Most items will be priced at less than $5.The company decided to develop the new line after shoppers indicated they wanted ""elevated culinary, inspirational types of items"" and healthier foods like plant-based products, said Scott Morris, senior vice president of private brands, food and consumables for Walmart U.S., in an interview with CNBC. He said the retailer designed Bettergoods for all customers, but expects it to especially appeal to younger and more affluent shoppers that it's attracted to its stores over the past few years.Walmart is already the country's largest grocer by revenue. Nearly 60% of the company's sales in the U.S. came from its grocery business in the most recent fiscal year. It declined to say how much of its grocery revenue comes from private label. But at its warehouse club Sam's Club, private label drives about 30% of sales.Walmart's large food business has helped it drive store and online traffic, especially as customers have watched their discretionary spending during a time of high inflation. And its low-priced reputation has helped the company attract higher-income grocery shoppers as inflation pinches budgets.In the most recent fiscal year that ended in late January, Walmart's net sales for groceries in the U.S. rose nearly 7% year over year to $264.2 billion.But Walmart, like other grocers, has seen room to grow its private-label business as shoppers seek new flavors and lower prices. During the Covid-19 pandemic, some national brands' products ran low at stores and caused customers to start buying the retailers' own brands.Later, inflation pushed prices of food and housing higher and inspired more shoppers to try store brands, which are often cheaper. Plus, the growth of low-priced grocery chains like Aldi, Lidl and Trader Joe's — which prominently feature their own private labels rather than national ones — and the popularity of Costco's Kirkland has changed customers' perception of store brands.Grocers have also overhauled their private-label approach. Instead of relying on basic items like canned peas or copycat items like a lower-priced box of cereal that resembles Cheerios to make up their store brand, retailers began debuting more unique food items.For example, Target launched a new grocery brand called Good & Gather in 2019 with a wide range of items including bagged salad kits, peanut butter spreads and frozen veggies. Another grocery brand it debuted, Favorite Day, is made up of creative takes on ice cream bars and trail mixes.Other retailers have introduced new private brands in their grocery aisles focused on affordability and fending off discounters like Aldi or Dollar General. Kroger, for example, launched Smart Way two years ago. The brand offers low-priced basics like mayonnaise and sliced bread.Walmart's new grocery brand, Bettergoods, will be made up of items across many categories including frozen foods, dairy and snacks ranging from under $2 to under $15. The products will fit within one of three major areas, the company said: items with more of a culinary flair, such as a jarred creamy corn jalapeño chowder; items that are plant-based, such as a pint of oat milk nondairy ice cream; or items that exclude certain ingredients, such as gluten- and antibiotic-free chicken nuggets.Bettergoods will join Walmart's existing collection of private brands in the grocery department, which includes Great Value — the country's most popular private grocery brand based on the percentage of households that have made a purchase in recent months, according to Numerator, a market research firm.",CNBC,30/04/2024,"['In this articleWalmart is debuting a new grocery brand, as the discounter tries to retain the shoppers it has attracted during a period of high inflation.', 'On Tuesday, the big-box retailer said it will roll out a private label called Bettergoods, a line of more trend-and chef-driven foods.', 'Most items will be priced at less than $5.The company decided to develop the new line after shoppers indicated they wanted ""elevated culinary, inspirational types of items"" and healthier foods like plant-based products, said Scott Morris, senior vice president of private brands, food and consumables for Walmart U.S., in an interview with CNBC.', ""He said the retailer designed Bettergoods for all customers, but expects it to especially appeal to younger and more affluent shoppers that it's attracted to its stores over the past few years."", ""Walmart is already the country's largest grocer by revenue."", ""Nearly 60% of the company's sales in the U.S. came from its grocery business in the most recent fiscal year."", 'It declined to say how much of its grocery revenue comes from private label.', ""But at its warehouse club Sam's Club, private label drives about 30% of sales."", ""Walmart's large food business has helped it drive store and online traffic, especially as customers have watched their discretionary spending during a time of high inflation."", 'And its low-priced reputation has helped the company attract higher-income grocery shoppers as inflation pinches budgets.', ""In the most recent fiscal year that ended in late January, Walmart's net sales for groceries in the U.S. rose nearly 7% year over year to $264.2 billion."", 'But Walmart, like other grocers, has seen room to grow its private-label business as shoppers seek new flavors and lower prices.', ""During the Covid-19 pandemic, some national brands' products ran low at stores and caused customers to start buying the retailers' own brands."", 'Later, inflation pushed prices of food and housing higher and inspired more shoppers to try store brands, which are often cheaper.', ""Plus, the growth of low-priced grocery chains like Aldi, Lidl and Trader Joe's — which prominently feature theirown private labelsrather than national ones — and the popularity ofCostco's Kirklandhas changed customers' perception of store brands."", 'Grocers have also overhauled their private-label approach.', 'Instead of relying on basic items like canned peas or copycat items like a lower-priced box of cereal that resembles Cheerios to make up their store brand, retailers began debuting more unique food items.', 'For example, Target launched a new grocery brand called Good & Gather in 2019 with a wide range of items including bagged salad kits, peanut butter spreads and frozen veggies.', 'Another grocery brand it debuted, Favorite Day, is made up of creative takes on ice cream bars and trail mixes.', 'Other retailers have introduced new private brands in their grocery aisles focused on affordability and fending off discounters like Aldi or Dollar General.', 'Kroger, for example, launched Smart Way two years ago.', 'The brand offers low-priced basics like mayonnaise and sliced bread.', ""Walmart's new grocery brand, Bettergoods, will be made up of items across many categories including frozen foods, dairy and snacks ranging from under $2 to under $15."", 'The products will fit within one of three major areas, the company said: items with more of a culinary flair, such as a jarred creamy corn jalapeño chowder; items that are plant-based, such as a pint of oat milk nondairy ice cream; or items that exclude certain ingredients, such as gluten- and antibiotic-free chicken nuggets.', ""Bettergoods will join Walmart's existing collection of private brands in the grocery department, which includes Great Value — the country's most popular private grocery brand based on the percentage of households that have made a purchase in recent months, according to Numerator, a market research firm.""]",0.2941089866567541,"Bettergoods will join Walmart's existing collection of private brands in the grocery department, which includes Great Value — the country's most popular private grocery brand based on the percentage of households that have made a purchase in recent months, according to Numerator, a market research firm.","During the Covid-19 pandemic, some national brands' products ran low at stores and caused customers to start buying the retailers' own brands.",0.7719000399112701,"In the most recent fiscal year that ended in late January, Walmart's net sales for groceries in the U.S. rose nearly 7% year over year to $264.2 billion.","During the Covid-19 pandemic, some national brands' products ran low at stores and caused customers to start buying the retailers' own brands.",2024-04-30
'We need a miracle' - Israeli and Palestinian economies battered by war,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68884729,2024-04-24T00:35:26.000Z,"More than six months into the devastating Gaza war, its impact on the Israeli and Palestinian economies has been huge.  Nearly all economic activity in Gaza has been wiped out and the World Bank says the war has also hit Palestinian businesses in the occupied West Bank hard.  As Israelis mark the Jewish festival of Passover, the much-vaunted ""start-up nation"" is also trying to remain an attractive proposition for investors. The cobbled streets of Jerusalem's Old City are eerily quiet. There are none of the long queues to visit the holy sites - at least those that remain open.  Just after Easter and Ramadan and right in the middle of Passover, all four quarters of the Old City should be teeming with visitors. Just 68,000 tourists arrived in Israel in February, according to the country's Central Bureau of Statistics. That's down massively from 319,100 visitors in the same month last year.  While it may be surprising that any visitors pass through Jerusalem at a time of such tension, many of those who do are religious pilgrims from across the globe who will have paid for their journeys well in advance. Zak's Jerusalem Gifts was one of only a handful of stores on Christian Quarter Street in the Old City, which is situated in occupied East Jerusalem, to have bothered opening up on the day I passed by. ""We're only really doing online sales,"" says Zak, whose business specialises in antiques and biblical coins.  ""There are no actual people. The last week, after the Iran-Israel escalation, business dropped down again. So we are just hoping that after the holidays some big major miracle will happen."" It's not just in Jerusalem's Old City that they need a miracle. Some 250km (150 miles) further north, on Israel's volatile border with Lebanon, almost daily exchanges of fire with Hezbollah since the war in Gaza began have forced the Israeli army to close much of the area and 80,000 residents have been evacuated further south. A similar number of Lebanese have been forced to leave their homes on the other side of the border. Agriculture in this part of Israel is another economic sector that has been hit hard. Ofer ""Poshko"" Moskovitz isn't really permitted to enter his avocado orchard in the kibbutz of Misgav Am because of its proximity to the border. But he occasionally ventures in anyway, walking wistfully among the trees, to gaze at all of his ""money falling on the ground"".  ""I must go to pick in the orchard because it's very important for the next season,"" Poshko says. ""If I don't pick this fruit, the next season will be a very poor one."" He says he is losing a lot of money because he can't pick the avocados - around 2m shekels ($530,000; £430,000) this season, he says. Although they provide a living for thousands of people, agriculture and tourism account for relatively small parts of both the Israeli or Palestinian economies. So what does the wider picture show? Last week ratings agency S&P Global cut Israel's long-term ratings (to A-plus from AA-minus) reflecting a loss of market confidence after increased tensions between Israel and Iran and concerns the war in Gaza could spread across the wider Middle East. That loss of confidence was also reflected in falling Israeli GDP - the total value of goods and services produced in the economy - which decreased by 5.7% in the last quarter of 2023. Many Israelis though say the country's renowned high-tech and start-up sector is proving to be more ""war-proof"" than expected. The coastal city of Tel Aviv is only 54km from Jerusalem. More pertinently, perhaps, it's less than 70km from Gaza.  At times, you'd be forgiven for forgetting - however momentarily - that Israel is embroiled in its longest war since independence in 1948. Families make the most of the early summer sun to play in the surf, couples eat lunch in the many open-air beach restaurants and young people strum away on guitars on the green spaces between the coastal road and the Mediterranean. The backdrop is a city that is economically active and physically growing fast. ""They joke that Israel's national bird should be the crane - the mechanical kind!"" says Jon Medved, founder and CEO of the online global venture investment platform Our Crowd. An engaging character with an overwhelmingly upbeat view of his world, Medved tells me that, ""in the first quarter of this year, almost $2bn was invested in Israeli start-ups…  We're having one of the best years we've ever had. People who are engaged with Israel are not disengaging."" Medved insists that, despite everything, Israel is still the ""start-up nation"" and a good option for would-be investors. ""There are 400 multinational corporations that have operations here. Not a single multinational, has closed its operation in Israel since the war."" To an extent, Elise Brezis agrees with Mr Medved's assessment. The economics professor at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv acknowledges that despite the last quarter's GDP figures, Israel's economy remains ""remarkably resilient"". ""When it comes to tourism, yes, we have a reduction in exports. But we had also reduction in imports,"" says Brezis. ""So in fact, the balance of payments is still okay. That's what is so problematic is that from the data, you don't really feel that there is such a terrible situation in Israel."" But Prof Brezis detects a wider malaise in Israeli society that isn't reflected in economic data. ""Israel's economy might be robust, but Israeli society is not robust right now. It's like looking at a person and saying, 'Wow, his salary is high,' [...] but in fact he's depressed. And he's thinking, 'What will I do with my life?' - That's exactly Israel today."" If the outlook in Israel is mixed, then across the separation barrier that divides Jerusalem and Bethlehem the view from the Palestinian side is overwhelmingly bleak. Tourism is especially important to the economies of towns like Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.  While some people are still heading to Jerusalem's sites, in the place where Christians believe Jesus was born tourism ""stopped immediately"" after 7 October last year, says Dr Samir Hazboun, chairman of Bethlehem's Chamber of Commerce and Industry. That's when Hamas attacked Israeli communities near Gaza, killing about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, taking about 250 hostages and sparking the current war. There's huge dependence and reliance on Israel's economy here - but Israel virtually closed off the landlocked West Bank after 7 October and this has had a disastrous impact on the life and work of many Palestinians, Dr Hazboun says. ""The Bethlehem governorate right now is closed,"" he says. ""There are around 43 gates [in the Israeli security barrier] but only three are open. So with between 16,000 and 20,000 Palestinian workers from our area working in Israel, immediately, they lost their income."" The chamber of commerce says that the revenues from local Palestinians working in Israel amounted to 22bn shekels ($5.8bn) annually. ""You can imagine the impact on the economy,"" says Dr Hazboun, who is particularly concerned for the prospects for younger Palestinians the longer the war continues and more the Israeli and West Bank economies decouple. ""The younger generation now are jobless, they are not working. Many of them are talented people,"" he laments. ""In June I'm expecting around 30,000 new graduates from the Palestinian universities. What they will do?  In Gaza itself the economy has been completely destroyed by six months of war. Israel's relentless aerial bombardment and ground operations have killed 34,183 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Unlike in some parts of Israel, where there is optimism around being able to ride out the storm and continue attracting investors, in the West Bank and Gaza there is little hope things will return to any kind of normal. ",BBC,24/04/2024,"['More than six months into the devastating Gaza war, its impact on the Israeli and Palestinian economies has been huge.', 'Nearly all economic activity in Gaza has been wiped out and the World Bank says the war has also hit Palestinian businesses in the occupied West Bank hard.', 'As Israelis mark the Jewish festival of Passover, the much-vaunted ""start-up nation"" is also trying to remain an attractive proposition for investors.', ""The cobbled streets of Jerusalem's Old City are eerily quiet."", 'There are none of the long queues to visit the holy sites - at least those that remain open.', 'Just after Easter and Ramadan and right in the middle of Passover, all four quarters of the Old City should be teeming with visitors.', ""Just 68,000 tourists arrived in Israel in February, according to the country's Central Bureau of Statistics."", ""That's down massively from 319,100 visitors in the same month last year."", 'While it may be surprising that any visitors pass through Jerusalem at a time of such tension, many of those who do are religious pilgrims from across the globe who will have paid for their journeys well in advance.', 'Zak\'s Jerusalem Gifts was one of only a handful of stores on Christian Quarter Street in the Old City, which is situated in occupied East Jerusalem, to have bothered opening up on the day I passed by. ""', 'We\'re only really doing online sales,"" says Zak, whose business specialises in antiques and biblical coins. ""', 'There are no actual people.', 'The last week, after the Iran-Israel escalation, business dropped down again.', 'So we are just hoping that after the holidays some big major miracle will happen.""', ""It's not just in Jerusalem's Old City that they need a miracle."", ""Some 250km (150 miles) further north, on Israel's volatile border with Lebanon, almost daily exchanges of fire with Hezbollah since the war in Gaza began have forced the Israeli army to close much of the area and 80,000 residents have been evacuated further south."", 'A similar number of Lebanese have been forced to leave their homes on the other side of the border.', 'Agriculture in this part of Israel is another economic sector that has been hit hard.', 'Ofer ""Poshko"" Moskovitz isn\'t really permitted to enter his avocado orchard in the kibbutz of Misgav Am because of its proximity to the border.', 'But he occasionally ventures in anyway, walking wistfully among the trees, to gaze at all of his ""money falling on the ground"". ""', 'I must go to pick in the orchard because it\'s very important for the next season,"" Poshko says. ""', 'If I don\'t pick this fruit, the next season will be a very poor one.""', ""He says he is losing a lot of money because he can't pick the avocados - around 2m shekels ($530,000; £430,000) this season, he says."", 'Although they provide a living for thousands of people, agriculture and tourism account for relatively small parts of both the Israeli or Palestinian economies.', 'So what does the wider picture show?', ""Last week ratings agency S&P Global cut Israel's long-term ratings (to A-plus from AA-minus) reflecting a loss of market confidence after increased tensions between Israel and Iran and concerns the war in Gaza could spread across the wider Middle East."", 'That loss of confidence was also reflected in falling Israeli GDP - the total value of goods and services produced in the economy - which decreased by 5.7% in the last quarter of 2023.', 'Many Israelis though say the country\'s renowned high-tech and start-up sector is proving to be more ""war-proof"" than expected.', 'The coastal city of Tel Aviv is only 54km from Jerusalem.', ""More pertinently, perhaps, it's less than 70km from Gaza."", ""At times, you'd be forgiven for forgetting - however momentarily - that Israel is embroiled in its longest war since independence in 1948."", 'Families make the most of the early summer sun to play in the surf, couples eat lunch in the many open-air beach restaurants and young people strum away on guitars on the green spaces between the coastal road and the Mediterranean.', 'The backdrop is a city that is economically active and physically growing fast. ""', 'They joke that Israel\'s national bird should be the crane - the mechanical kind!""', 'says Jon Medved, founder and CEO of the online global venture investment platform Our Crowd.', 'An engaging character with an overwhelmingly upbeat view of his world, Medved tells me that, ""in the first quarter of this year, almost $2bn was invested in Israeli start-ups… We\'re having one of the best years we\'ve ever had.', 'People who are engaged with Israel are not disengaging.""', 'Medved insists that, despite everything, Israel is still the ""start-up nation"" and a good option for would-be investors. ""', 'There are 400 multinational corporations that have operations here.', 'Not a single multinational, has closed its operation in Israel since the war.""', ""To an extent, Elise Brezis agrees with Mr Medved's assessment."", 'The economics professor at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv acknowledges that despite the last quarter\'s GDP figures, Israel\'s economy remains ""remarkably resilient"". ""', 'When it comes to tourism, yes, we have a reduction in exports.', 'But we had also reduction in imports,"" says Brezis. ""', 'So in fact, the balance of payments is still okay.', 'That\'s what is so problematic is that from the data, you don\'t really feel that there is such a terrible situation in Israel.""', 'But Prof Brezis detects a wider malaise in Israeli society that isn\'t reflected in economic data. ""', ""Israel's economy might be robust, but Israeli society is not robust right now."", ""It's like looking at a person and saying, 'Wow, his salary is high,' [...] but in fact he's depressed."", ""And he's thinking, 'What will I do with my life?' -"", 'That\'s exactly Israel today.""', 'If the outlook in Israel is mixed, then across the separation barrier that divides Jerusalem and Bethlehem the view from the Palestinian side is overwhelmingly bleak.', 'Tourism is especially important to the economies of towns like Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.', 'While some people are still heading to Jerusalem\'s sites, in the place where Christians believe Jesus was born tourism ""stopped immediately"" after 7 October last year, says Dr Samir Hazboun, chairman of Bethlehem\'s Chamber of Commerce and Industry.', ""That's when Hamas attacked Israeli communities near Gaza, killing about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, taking about 250 hostages and sparking the current war."", 'There\'s huge dependence and reliance on Israel\'s economy here - but Israel virtually closed off the landlocked West Bank after 7 October and this has had a disastrous impact on the life and work of many Palestinians, Dr Hazboun says. ""', 'The Bethlehem governorate right now is closed,"" he says. ""', 'There are around 43 gates [in the Israeli security barrier] but only three are open.', 'So with between 16,000 and 20,000 Palestinian workers from our area working in Israel, immediately, they lost their income.""', 'The chamber of commerce says that the revenues from local Palestinians working in Israel amounted to 22bn shekels ($5.8bn) annually. ""', 'You can imagine the impact on the economy,"" says Dr Hazboun, who is particularly concerned for the prospects for younger Palestinians the longer the war continues and more the Israeli and West Bank economies decouple. ""', 'The younger generation now are jobless, they are not working.', 'Many of them are talented people,"" he laments. ""', ""In June I'm expecting around 30,000 new graduates from the Palestinian universities."", 'What they will do?', 'In Gaza itself the economy has been completely destroyed by six months of war.', ""Israel's relentless aerial bombardment and ground operations have killed 34,183 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry."", 'Unlike in some parts of Israel, where there is optimism around being able to ride out the storm and continue attracting investors, in the West Bank and Gaza there is little hope things will return to any kind of normal.']",-0.0504824617095796,"Unlike in some parts of Israel, where there is optimism around being able to ride out the storm and continue attracting investors, in the West Bank and Gaza there is little hope things will return to any kind of normal.","That's when Hamas attacked Israeli communities near Gaza, killing about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, taking about 250 hostages and sparking the current war.",-0.2119207361648822,"An engaging character with an overwhelmingly upbeat view of his world, Medved tells me that, ""in the first quarter of this year, almost $2bn was invested in Israeli start-ups… We're having one of the best years we've ever had.",That loss of confidence was also reflected in falling Israeli GDP - the total value of goods and services produced in the economy - which decreased by 5.7% in the last quarter of 2023.,2024-04-30
3 ways Apple’s monopoly lawsuit could change the iPhone experience for fans,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/tech/apples-iphone-changes-lawsuit/index.html,"
  Published
        6:30 AM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
    ","When Apple launched its first Mac computer in 1984, with its iconic Mac smiley-face “hello” greeting, it wanted to differentiate itself in the fledgling PC market. The Mac was approachable with its friendly, innovative design – Apple’s way of setting the Mac apart in the confusing PC landscape.
    
            That consumer-friendly mantra still exists today, with Apple carefully curating an easy-breezy yet controlled user experience across its products, including the billions of iPhones used around the world.
    
            But the Biden administration believes Apple took that too far. On Thursday, the Department of Justice sued Apple for illegally monopolizing the smartphone market. In a press conference, the government provided a long list of how Apple has allegedly squashed competition with restrictive app store terms, high fees and its “walled-garden” approach, restricting how third-party companies interact with its brands and services.
    
            The company denied the lawsuit’s allegations and said it plans to fight them. Apple added that the lawsuit could empower the government “to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology.”
    
            But if successful, the lawsuit could ripple across Apple’s products and services. Although the suit could take years to play out, here’s a closer look what it may eventually mean for iPhone users:
    
            If found liable, the company could be forced to change a number of things.
    
            One such change is how iPhone users could get greater access to “super apps” that have been largely restricted before. The term refers to one-stop-shop apps that allow for messaging, ordering food, payment processing and other capabilities all within one platform.
    
             According to Dipanjan Chatterjee, a principal analyst at market research firm Forrester, super apps most threaten Apple’s preeminence in the lives of its customers.
    
            “An offering like WeChat, dubbed China’s everything app, can provide an alternative to the Apple ecosystem for people to communicate, bank, share memories, talk to businesses and more,” he said. “What Apple fears most is becoming irrelevant to its customers.”
    
            At the same time, super apps like WeChat are created by larger companies and could, therefore, put some smaller companies at a disadvantage. And the concept hasn’t been welcomed much in the US anyway.
    
            The US government, however, could argue that lack of interest may be due to Apple’s high share of the smartphone market and its resistance to offer super apps in its store, Chatterjee said.
    
            Apple may also be required to offer more support for cross-platform messaging, an issue the company previously said it’s already working on.
    
            The company lets iPhone users send high-quality photos and videos to one another, but similar texts to Android phones are slower and grainy. It also maintains those messages in green bubbles, creating a kind of class divide, critics argue.
    
            In November, the company said it will add new features, such as read receipts, typing indicators, better support for group chats and higher quality media sharing of images and videos, across platforms to help close the gap. Apple’s move to add support for the standard called RCS (rich communication services) is intended to roll out later this year. RCS is considered the replacement to alternatives such as SMS, or short messaging service, and can work over both Wi-Fi and mobile data.
    
            The change followed pressure from both regulators and competitors to more seamlessly work across operating systems. The European Union’s Digital Markets Act, for example, requires companies to make their key services interoperable between platforms. The US government could require the same.
    
            Another likely change is how hardware from other companies, such as smartwatches, will interact with the Apple range of devices and software, including the iPhone and Apple’s services like Fitness+. The company has also required Apple Watch users to own iOS devices as a way to keep them locked into its existing ecosystem.
    
            Chatterjee said making this change would have both positives and negatives.
    
            “The net result would reside somewhere along the spectrum of access to more and cheaper options but also the devaluation of the customer experience that is so highly prized by Apple’s customers,” he said.
    
            The Biden administration has also taken issue with Apple’s lack of support for mobile cloud services. Loosening this could allow users to access games and other cloud-based apps without having to pay for pricey hardware.
    
            The DOJ lawsuit claims Apple’s behavior has illegally hindered competition, kept its customers locked into its products and prevented other companies from innovating. Although the Biden administration will have to prove these harms, some critics say any potential changes Apple could make will negatively impact the user experience.
    
            David McQueen, a research director at ABI Research, said he recognizes that the content and applications market should be open, and Apple needs to avoid monopolistic advantages that can restrict competition, push up prices or block innovation. But Apple’s success stems in part to its tight grip on its products and services, keeping things intuitive and seamless.
    
            “If Apple is forced to comply, it could potentially spell the end to the provision of this consistent and unified user experience, although by the same token, consumers will be open to a greater choice of apps and services, helping more developers and providers,” McQueen said.
    
            Chatterjee noted some people are drawn to the Apple family of products precisely because of the carefully managed ecosystem’s ease of use. Apple may have to work that much harder to preserve the integrity of its experience, but any changes probably won’t be enough to make customers to leave and go elsewhere.
    
            “The vast majority of Apple customers would probably be happier with some more choice and lower prices as long as it did not hamper their levels of customer experience, which is threatened by the less control Apple has over the experience,” Chatterjee said.
    
            But he added those currently outside of the Apple ecosystem will likely benefit by “plugging in opportunistically without having to go all in with Apple.”",CNN,26/03/2024,"['When Apple launched its first Mac computer in 1984, with its iconic Mac smiley-face “hello” greeting, it wanted to differentiate itself in the fledgling PC market.', 'The Mac was approachable with its friendly, innovative design – Apple’s way of setting the Mac apart in the confusing PC landscape.', 'That consumer-friendly mantra still exists today, with Apple carefully curating an easy-breezy yet controlled user experience across its products, including the billions of iPhones used around the world.', 'But the Biden administration believes Apple took that too far.', 'On Thursday, the Department of Justice sued Apple for illegally monopolizing the smartphone market.', 'In a press conference, the government provided a long list of how Apple has allegedly squashed competition with restrictive app store terms, high fees and its “walled-garden” approach, restricting how third-party companies interact with its brands and services.', 'The company denied the lawsuit’s allegations and said it plans to fight them.', 'Apple added that the lawsuit could empower the government “to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology.”', 'But if successful, the lawsuit could ripple across Apple’s products and services.', 'Although the suit could take years to play out, here’s a closer look what it may eventually mean for iPhone users:  If found liable, the company could be forced to change a number of things.', 'One such change is how iPhone users could get greater access to “super apps” that have been largely restricted before.', 'The term refers to one-stop-shop apps that allow for messaging, ordering food, payment processing and other capabilities all within one platform.', 'According to Dipanjan Chatterjee, a principal analyst at market research firm Forrester, super apps most threaten Apple’s preeminence in the lives of its customers.', '“An offering like WeChat, dubbed China’s everything app, can provide an alternative to the Apple ecosystem for people to communicate, bank, share memories, talk to businesses and more,” he said.', '“What Apple fears most is becoming irrelevant to its customers.”', 'At the same time, super apps like WeChat are created by larger companies and could, therefore, put some smaller companies at a disadvantage.', 'And the concept hasn’t been welcomed much in the US anyway.', 'The US government, however, could argue that lack of interest may be due to Apple’s high share of the smartphone market and its resistance to offer super apps in its store, Chatterjee said.', 'Apple may also be required to offer more support for cross-platform messaging, an issue the company previously said it’s already working on.', 'The company lets iPhone users send high-quality photos and videos to one another, but similar texts to Android phones are slower and grainy.', 'It also maintains those messages in green bubbles, creating a kind of class divide, critics argue.', 'In November, the company said it will add new features, such as read receipts, typing indicators, better support for group chats and higher quality media sharing of images and videos, across platforms to help close the gap.', 'Apple’s move to add support for the standard called RCS (rich communication services) is intended to roll out later this year.', 'RCS is considered the replacement to alternatives such as SMS, or short messaging service, and can work over both Wi-Fi and mobile data.', 'The change followed pressure from both regulators and competitors to more seamlessly work across operating systems.', 'The European Union’s Digital Markets Act, for example, requires companies to make their key services interoperable between platforms.', 'The US government could require the same.', 'Another likely change is how hardware from other companies, such as smartwatches, will interact with the Apple range of devices and software, including the iPhone and Apple’s services like Fitness+.', 'The company has also required Apple Watch users to own iOS devices as a way to keep them locked into its existing ecosystem.', 'Chatterjee said making this change would have both positives and negatives.', '“The net result would reside somewhere along the spectrum of access to more and cheaper options but also the devaluation of the customer experience that is so highly prized by Apple’s customers,” he said.', 'The Biden administration has also taken issue with Apple’s lack of support for mobile cloud services.', 'Loosening this could allow users to access games and other cloud-based apps without having to pay for pricey hardware.', 'The DOJ lawsuit claims Apple’s behavior has illegally hindered competition, kept its customers locked into its products and prevented other companies from innovating.', 'Although the Biden administration will have to prove these harms, some critics say any potential changes Apple could make will negatively impact the user experience.', 'David McQueen, a research director at ABI Research, said he recognizes that the content and applications market should be open, and Apple needs to avoid monopolistic advantages that can restrict competition, push up prices or block innovation.', 'But Apple’s success stems in part to its tight grip on its products and services, keeping things intuitive and seamless.', '“If Apple is forced to comply, it could potentially spell the end to the provision of this consistent and unified user experience, although by the same token, consumers will be open to a greater choice of apps and services, helping more developers and providers,” McQueen said.', 'Chatterjee noted some people are drawn to the Apple family of products precisely because of the carefully managed ecosystem’s ease of use.', 'Apple may have to work that much harder to preserve the integrity of its experience, but any changes probably won’t be enough to make customers to leave and go elsewhere.', '“The vast majority of Apple customers would probably be happier with some more choice and lower prices as long as it did not hamper their levels of customer experience, which is threatened by the less control Apple has over the experience,” Chatterjee said.', 'But he added those currently outside of the Apple ecosystem will likely benefit by “plugging in opportunistically without having to go all in with Apple.”']",0.2470050112228104,"In November, the company said it will add new features, such as read receipts, typing indicators, better support for group chats and higher quality media sharing of images and videos, across platforms to help close the gap.",The company denied the lawsuit’s allegations and said it plans to fight them.,-0.151834687590599,"“The vast majority of Apple customers would probably be happier with some more choice and lower prices as long as it did not hamper their levels of customer experience, which is threatened by the less control Apple has over the experience,” Chatterjee said.","The DOJ lawsuit claims Apple’s behavior has illegally hindered competition, kept its customers locked into its products and prevented other companies from innovating.",2024-04-30
"FTC challenges 'junk' patents held by 10 drugmakers, including for Novo Nordisk's Ozempic",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/30/ftc-challenges-patents-held-by-drugmakers-including-for-ozempic.html,2024-04-30T19:41:21+0000,"In this articleThe Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday said it is challenging hundreds of alleged ""junk"" patents held by pharmaceutical companies for 20 brand-name drugs, including Novo Nordisk's blockbuster drugs Ozempic, Saxenda and Victoza.The FTC issued letters to 10 companies, warning them that certain drug patents were improperly listed. These companies include Novo Nordisk, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Covis Pharma, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Teva Pharmaceuticals and Amphastar Pharmaceuticals, as well as some of their subsidiaries. Many of the drug patents are for Type 2 diabetes, along with asthma and inhalers for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD. Most top-selling medications are protected by dozens of patents covering various ingredients, manufacturing processes, and intellectual property. Generic drugmakers can only launch cheaper versions of a branded drug if the patents have expired or are successfully challenged in court.""By filing bogus patent listings, pharma companies block competition and inflate the cost of prescription drugs, forcing Americans to pay sky-high prices for medicines they rely on,"" FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a release. ""By challenging junk patent filings, the FTC is fighting these illegal tactics and making sure that Americans can get timely access to innovative and affordable versions of the medicines they need.""The FTC also notified the Food and Drug Administration about the challenges. The FDA manages patent listings for approved drugs on a document called the Orange Book.The FTC first challenged dozens of branded drug patents last fall, leading three drugmakers to comply and delist their patents with the FDA. Five other companies did not. The Tuesday announcement expands the Biden administration's effort to crack down on alleged patent abuses by the pharmaceutical industry. The FTC has argued that drugmakers are needlessly listing dozens of extra patents for branded medications to keep their drug prices high and stall generic competitors from entering the U.S. market. The patent disputes add to a broader effort by the Biden administration to make health care more affordable for Americans – a key pillar of President Joe Biden's 2024 reelection campaign. ""We applaud the FTC's work with FDA to crack down on Big Pharma's patent games and lower costs for prescription drugs—including weight loss and diabetes drugs,"" Jon Donenberg, National Economic Council deputy director, said in a statement to CNBC.",CNBC,30/04/2024,"['In this articleThe Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday said it is challenging hundreds of alleged ""junk"" patents held by pharmaceutical companies for 20 brand-name drugs, including Novo Nordisk\'s blockbuster drugs Ozempic, Saxenda and Victoza.', 'The FTC issued letters to 10 companies, warning them that certain drug patents were improperly listed.', 'These companies include Novo Nordisk, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Covis Pharma, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Teva Pharmaceuticals and Amphastar Pharmaceuticals, as well as some of their subsidiaries.', 'Many of the drug patents are for Type 2 diabetes, along with asthma and inhalers for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD.Most top-selling medications are protected by dozens of patents covering various ingredients, manufacturing processes, and intellectual property.', 'Generic drugmakers can only launch cheaper versions of a branded drug if the patents have expired or are successfully challenged in court.', '""By filing bogus patent listings, pharma companies block competition and inflate the cost of prescription drugs, forcing Americans to pay sky-high prices for medicines they rely on,"" FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a release. ""', 'By challenging junk patent filings, the FTC is fighting these illegal tactics and making sure that Americans can get timely access to innovative and affordable versions of the medicines they need.', '""The FTC also notified the Food and Drug Administration about the challenges.', 'The FDA manages patent listings for approved drugs on a document called the Orange Book.', 'The FTC first challenged dozens of branded drug patents last fall, leading three drugmakers to comply and delist their patents with the FDA.', 'Five other companies did not.', ""The Tuesday announcement expands the Biden administration's effort to crack down on alleged patent abuses by the pharmaceutical industry."", 'The FTC has argued that drugmakers are needlessly listing dozens of extra patents for branded medications to keep their drug prices high and stall generic competitors from entering the U.S. market.', ""The patent disputes add to a broader effort by the Biden administration to make health care more affordable for Americans – a key pillar of President Joe Biden's 2024 reelection campaign."", '""We applaud the FTC\'s work with FDA to crack down on Big Pharma\'s patent games and lower costs for prescription drugs—including weight loss and diabetes drugs,"" Jon Donenberg, National Economic Council deputy director, said in a statement to CNBC.']",0.0684849209407414,"Many of the drug patents are for Type 2 diabetes, along with asthma and inhalers for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD.Most top-selling medications are protected by dozens of patents covering various ingredients, manufacturing processes, and intellectual property.","""By filing bogus patent listings, pharma companies block competition and inflate the cost of prescription drugs, forcing Americans to pay sky-high prices for medicines they rely on,"" FTC Chair Lina Khan said in a release. """,0.185065746307373,"""We applaud the FTC's work with FDA to crack down on Big Pharma's patent games and lower costs for prescription drugs—including weight loss and diabetes drugs,"" Jon Donenberg, National Economic Council deputy director, said in a statement to CNBC.",The FTC has argued that drugmakers are needlessly listing dozens of extra patents for branded medications to keep their drug prices high and stall generic competitors from entering the U.S. market.,2024-04-30
"Southwest cuts growth plans, warning effect of Boeing airplane delays will last into 2025",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/southwest-airlines-luv-earnings-q1-2024.html,2024-04-25T20:08:03+0000,"In this articleSouthwest Airlines on Thursday posted a wider loss for the first quarter than the same period last year and warned that Boeing's airplane delays will hamper its growth into 2025.The airline expects to grow capacity 4% this year, down from a plan to expand 6%. For the second quarter, it forecast growth of 8% to 9% and said revenue would be down as much as 3.5%.Shares of Southwest slid almost 7% on Thursday. The airline said in a quarterly filing that it now expects to receive only 20 Boeing 737 Max 8 planes, down from its previous forecast of 46 of them. The carrier will now delay retiring some of its older Boeing planes and is cutting costs, including by offering staff voluntary time off. Southwest said it expects to end the year with 2,000 fewer employees than it had at the end of 2023.It will shut down operations at some airports, including in Syracuse, New York; Bellingham International Airport in Washington; Cozumel International Airport; and Houston's George Bush Intercontinental. The carrier is also scaling back service in Atlanta and at Chicago O'Hare International Airport.""Achieving our financial goals is an immediate imperative,"" CEO Bob Jordan said in an earnings release. ""The recent news from Boeing regarding further aircraft delivery delays presents significant challenges for both 2024 and 2025. We are reacting and replanning quickly to mitigate the operational and financial impacts while maintaining dependable and reliable flight schedules for our Customers.""The Dallas-based carrier operates an all-Boeing 737 fleet and is acutely affected by Boeing's aircraft delays stemming from its safety and quality crises.The carrier had previously warned that slower Boeing deliveries were hampering its growth.Southwest is not only rethinking its network but also its business model. Jordan told CNBC that the airline might ditch its single-class cabin and open seating. While he said no decisions have been made, it would be a massive shift, just as big rivals like United and Delta post strong revenue growth for premium seats.Here is how Southwest performed in the first quarter compared with Wall Street expectations, according to consensus estimates from LSEG:Southwest lost $231 million, or 39 cents a share, in the first three months of the year, compared with a loss of $159 million, or 27 cents a share, a year earlier when it was dealing with the aftermath of its holiday meltdown.Adjusting for one-time items, including costs related to labor contracts and fuel, Southwest lost $218 million, or 36 cents a share.Revenue rose almost 11% to $6.33 billion, slightly below analysts' estimates as compiled by LSEG.Correction: Southwest Airlines revenue of $6.33 billion came in slightly below analysts' estimates as compiled by LSEG.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"[""In this articleSouthwest Airlines on Thursday posted a wider loss for the first quarter than the same period last year and warned that Boeing's airplane delays will hamper its growth into 2025.The airline expects to grow capacity 4% this year, down from a plan to expand 6%."", 'For the second quarter, it forecast growth of 8% to 9% and said revenue would be down as much as 3.5%.Shares of Southwest slid almost 7% on Thursday.', 'The airline said in a quarterly filing that it now expects to receive only 20 Boeing 737 Max 8 planes, down from its previous forecast of 46 of them.', 'The carrier will now delay retiring some of its older Boeing planes and is cutting costs, including by offering staff voluntary time off.', ""Southwest said it expects to end the year with 2,000 fewer employees than it had at the end of 2023.It will shut down operations at some airports, including in Syracuse, New York; Bellingham International Airport in Washington; Cozumel International Airport; andHouston's George Bush Intercontinental."", ""The carrier is also scaling back service in Atlanta and at Chicago O'Hare International Airport."", '""Achieving our financial goals is an immediate imperative,"" CEO Bob Jordan said in an earnings release. ""', 'The recent news from Boeing regarding further aircraft delivery delays presents significant challenges for both 2024and 2025.', 'We are reacting and replanning quickly to mitigate the operational and financial impacts while maintaining dependable and reliable flight schedules for our Customers.', '""The Dallas-based carrier operates an all-Boeing 737 fleet and is acutely affected by Boeing\'s aircraft delays stemming from its safety and quality crises.', 'The carrier had previously warned that slower Boeing deliveries were hampering its growth.', 'Southwest is not only rethinking its network but also its business model.', 'Jordan told CNBC that the airline might ditch its single-class cabin and open seating.', 'While he said no decisions have been made, it would be a massive shift, just as big rivals like United and Delta post strong revenue growth for premium seats.', 'Here is how Southwest performed in the first quarter compared with Wall Street expectations, according to consensus estimates from LSEG:Southwest lost $231 million, or 39 cents a share, in the first three months of the year, compared with a loss of $159 million, or 27 cents a share, a year earlier when it was dealing with the aftermath of its holiday meltdown.', 'Adjusting for one-time items, including costs related to labor contracts and fuel, Southwest lost $218 million, or 36 cents a share.', ""Revenue rose almost 11% to $6.33 billion, slightly below analysts' estimates as compiled by LSEG.Correction: Southwest Airlines revenue of $6.33 billion came in slightly below analysts' estimates as compiled by LSEG.""]",0.1153596879470297,"While he said no decisions have been made, it would be a massive shift, just as big rivals like United and Delta post strong revenue growth for premium seats.","The carrier will now delay retiring some of its older Boeing planes and is cutting costs, including by offering staff voluntary time off.",-0.3292938907941182,"While he said no decisions have been made, it would be a massive shift, just as big rivals like United and Delta post strong revenue growth for premium seats.","The airline said in a quarterly filing that it now expects to receive only 20 Boeing 737 Max 8 planes, down from its previous forecast of 46 of them.",2024-04-30
The new class war: A wealth gap between millennials,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/26/wealth-gap-between-millennials-new-class-war.html,2024-04-26T20:47:22+0000,"A version of this article first appeared in CNBC's Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.The wealth gap between rich millennials and the rest of their age group is the largest of any generation, creating a new wave of class tension and resentment, according to a recent study.Even as the vast majority of millennials struggle with student debt, low-wage service-jobs, unaffordable housing and low savings, the millennial elite are surpassing previous generations. According to the study, the average millennial has 30% less wealth at the age of 35 than baby boomers did at the same age. Yet the top 10% of millennials have 20% more wealth than the top baby boomers at the same age.""Millennials are so different from one another that it is not particularly meaningful to talk about the 'average' Millennial experience,"" wrote the study's authors, Rob Gruijters, Zachary Van Winkle and Anette Eva Fasang. ""There are some Millennials who are doing extremely well—think Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman—while others are struggling.""The study finds that millennials — typically defined as those between the age of 28 and 43 today — have faced repeated financial headwinds. Coming of age during the financial crisis, they have lower levels of homeownership, larger debts outweighing assets, low-wage and unstable jobs, and lower rates of dual-income family formation.At the same time, the authors say the top 10% of millennials have benefited from greater rewards for skilled jobs. As they put it, ""The returns to high-status work trajectories have increased, while the returns to low-status trajectories have stagnated or declined.""The millennials who ""went to college, found graduate level jobs, and started families relatively late,"" ended up with ""higher levels of wealth than Baby Boomers with similar life trajectories,"" according to the report.There may be another factor creating so much wealth among millennials: inheritances. In what's known as ""the great wealth transfer,"" baby boomers are expected to pass down between $70 trillion and $90 trillion in wealth over the next 20 years. Much of that is expected to go to their millennial children. High-net-worth individuals worth $5 million or more will account for nearly half of that total, according to Cerulli Associates.Wealth management firms say some of that wealth has already starting trickling down to the next generation.""The great wealth transfer, which we've all been talking about for the last 10 years, is underway,"" said John Mathews, head of UBS' Private Wealth Management division. ""The average age of the world's billionaires is almost 69 right now. So this whole transition or wealth handover will start to accelerate.""Tensions between millennial classes are likely to escalate as more wealth is transferred in the coming years. Wealth displays on social media by millennial ""nepo babies"" could add to the intra-generational class war and drive nonwealthy millennials to overspend or create the appearance of lavish lifestyles to keep up.A survey by Wells Fargo found that 29% of affluent millennials (defined as having assets of $250,000 to over $1 million of investible assets) admit they ""sometimes buy items they cannot afford to impress others."" According to the survey, 41% of affluent millennials admit to funding their lifestyles with credit cards or loans, versus 28% of Gen Xers and 6% of baby boomers.The battle between rich millennials and the rest could also shape their attitudes toward wealth. For over four decades, the vast majority of millionaires and billionaires created in America have been self-made, mostly entrepreneurs. A study by Fidelity Investments found that 88% of American millionaires are self-made.Yet inherited wealth could become more common. A study by UBS found that among newly minted billionaires last year, heirs who inherited their fortunes racked up more wealth than self-made billionaires for the first time in at least nine years. And, all the billionaires under the age of 30 on the latest Forbes billionaires list inherited their wealth, for the first time in 15 years.The surge in wealth among millennial heirs is also creating a lucrative new market for wealth-management firms, luxury companies, travel firms and real estate brokers.Clayton Orrigo, one of the top luxury real estate brokers in Manhattan, has built a thriving business on moneyed millennials. The founder of the Hudson Advisory Team at Compass has sold over $4 billion in real estate and regularly brokers deals over $10 million. He says the ""vast majority"" of his business lately is from buyers in their 20s and 30s with inherited wealth.""I just sold a $16 million apartment to someone in their mid-20s, and the buyer accessed the family trust,"" he said. ""The wealth that is behind these kids is extreme.""Inherited wealth has become Orrigo's specialty. He says he works on forging close relationships with family offices, trusts and young money elite mingling at New York membership clubs like Casa Cipriani.The pattern is familiar: A wealthy family calls wanting a rental for their son or daughter; a few years later, they want a $5 million or $10 million two-bedroom condo to buy in a new, high-security building downtown.""My gig is working very quietly and very discreetly with the wealthiest families in the world,"" Orrigo said.Sign up to receive future editions of CNBC's Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank.",CNBC,26/04/2024,"[""A version of this article first appeared in CNBC's Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer."", 'Sign upto receive future editions, straight to your inbox.', 'The wealth gap between rich millennials and the rest of their age group is the largest of any generation, creating a new wave of class tension and resentment, according to a recent study.', 'Even as the vast majority of millennials struggle with student debt, low-wage service-jobs, unaffordable housing and low savings, the millennial elite are surpassing previous generations.', 'According to the study, the average millennial has 30% less wealth at the age of 35 than baby boomers did at the same age.', 'Yet the top 10% of millennials have 20% more wealth than the top baby boomers at the same age.', '""Millennials are so different from one another that it is not particularly meaningful to talk about the \'average\' Millennial experience,"" wrote the study\'s authors, Rob Gruijters, Zachary Van Winkle and Anette Eva Fasang. ""', 'There are some Millennials who are doing extremely well—think Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman—while others are struggling.', '""The study finds that millennials — typically defined as those between the age of 28 and 43 today — have faced repeated financial headwinds.', 'Coming of age during the financial crisis, they have lower levels of homeownership, larger debts outweighing assets, low-wage and unstable jobs, and lower rates of dual-income family formation.', 'At the same time, the authors say the top 10% of millennials have benefited from greater rewards for skilled jobs.', 'As they put it, ""The returns to high-status work trajectories have increased, while the returns to low-status trajectories have stagnated or declined.', '""The millennials who ""went to college, found graduate level jobs, and started families relatively late,"" ended up with ""higher levels of wealth than Baby Boomers with similar life trajectories,"" according to the report.', 'There may be another factor creating so much wealth among millennials: inheritances.', 'In what\'s known as ""the great wealth transfer,"" baby boomers are expected to pass down between $70 trillion and $90 trillion in wealth over the next 20 years.', 'Much of that is expected to go to their millennial children.', 'High-net-worth individuals worth $5 million or more will account for nearly half of that total, according to Cerulli Associates.', 'Wealth management firms say some of that wealth has already starting trickling down to the next generation.', '""The great wealth transfer, which we\'ve all been talking about for the last 10 years, is underway,"" said John Mathews, head of UBS\'Private Wealth Management division. ""', ""The average age of the world's billionaires is almost 69 right now."", 'So this whole transition or wealth handover will start to accelerate.', '""Tensions between millennial classes are likely to escalate as more wealth is transferred in the coming years.', 'Wealth displays on social media by millennial ""nepo babies"" could add to the intra-generational class war and drive nonwealthy millennials to overspend or create the appearance of lavish lifestyles to keep up.', 'A survey by Wells Fargo found that 29% of affluent millennials (defined as having assets of $250,000 to over $1 million of investible assets) admit they ""sometimes buy items they cannot afford to impress others.""', 'According to the survey, 41% of affluent millennials admit to funding their lifestyles with credit cards or loans, versus 28% of Gen Xers and 6% of baby boomers.', 'The battle between rich millennials and the rest could also shape their attitudes toward wealth.', 'For over four decades, the vast majority of millionaires and billionaires created in America have been self-made, mostly entrepreneurs.', 'A study by Fidelity Investments found that 88% of American millionaires are self-made.', 'Yet inherited wealth could become more common.', 'A study by UBS found that among newly minted billionaires last year, heirs who inherited their fortunes racked up more wealth than self-made billionaires for the first time in at least nine years.', 'And, all the billionaires under the age of 30 on the latest Forbes billionaires list inherited their wealth, for the first time in 15 years.', 'The surge in wealth among millennial heirs is also creating a lucrative new market for wealth-management firms, luxury companies, travel firms and real estate brokers.', 'Clayton Orrigo, one of the top luxury real estate brokers in Manhattan, has built a thriving business on moneyed millennials.', 'The founder of the Hudson Advisory Team at Compass has sold over $4 billion in real estate and regularly brokers deals over $10 million.', 'He says the ""vast majority"" of his business lately is from buyers in their 20s and 30s with inherited wealth.', '""I just sold a $16 million apartment to someone in their mid-20s, and the buyer accessed the family trust,"" he said. ""', 'The wealth that is behind these kids is extreme.', '""Inherited wealth has become Orrigo\'s specialty.', 'He says he works on forging close relationships with family offices, trusts and young money elite mingling at New York membership clubs like Casa Cipriani.', 'The pattern is familiar: A wealthy family calls wanting a rental for their son or daughter; a few years later, they want a $5 million or $10 million two-bedroom condo to buy in a new, high-security building downtown.', '""My gig is working very quietly and very discreetly with the wealthiest families in the world,"" Orrigo said.', ""Sign up to receive future editions of CNBC'sInside Wealthnewsletter with Robert Frank.""]",0.3328991275805766,"In what's known as ""the great wealth transfer,"" baby boomers are expected to pass down between $70 trillion and $90 trillion in wealth over the next 20 years.","Coming of age during the financial crisis, they have lower levels of homeownership, larger debts outweighing assets, low-wage and unstable jobs, and lower rates of dual-income family formation.",0.0389725693634578,"At the same time, the authors say the top 10% of millennials have benefited from greater rewards for skilled jobs.","""The study finds that millennials — typically defined as those between the age of 28 and 43 today — have faced repeated financial headwinds.",2024-04-30
Southwest to stop service to 4 airports in wake of rising losses and more Boeing delivery problems,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/25/business/boeing-problems-southwest-ends-service-4-airports/index.html,"
  Updated
        12:00 PM EDT, Thu April 25, 2024
    ","Southwest Airlines announced Thursday it will stop serving four airports after reporting increased losses in the first quarter and more delays in the delivery of promised jets from Boeing.
    
            The four airports are Bellingham International Airport in Washington state, Cozumel International Airport in Mexico, Syracuse Hancock International Airport in New York and Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport. Southwest will continue to serve Houston’s other airport.
    
            “The recent news from Boeing regarding further aircraft delivery delays presents significant challenges for both 2024 and 2025,” said Southwest CEO Bob Jordan in the company’s first-quarter financial results statement. “We are reacting and replanning quickly to mitigate the operational and financial impacts. Consequently, we have made the difficult decision to close our operations [at the four airports].”
    
            However, in an interview later Thursday on CNBC, Jordan said that the decision to cut service to those four airports would have been made in attempt to improve financial results and would been done with or without the delivery issues with Boeing.
    
            “The network actions have really nothing to do with the Boeing delays. We’re taking network actions regardless,” he said, although he added, “Now the Boeing delays are very painful. …They hurt us on the revenue front. They cause us to be inefficient.”
    
            In its quarterly financial report on Thursday, Southwest (LUV) announced it lost $218 million excluding special items, or 36 cents a share, in the first quarter. That was up from the $163 million it lost on that basis a year ago. The loss came despite record first-quarter revenue of $6.3 billion, up 11% from a year earlier. The jump in revenue came from an increase in passenger traffic, as fare data showed passengers paying about the same amount to fly every mile.
    
            It also disclosed it now only expects 20 planes to be delivered by Boeing this year. It started the year expecting to have 79 planes delivered. Then last month it announced it was expecting 46 planes to be delivered during the year. It had already put in place a hiring freeze for pilots and flight attendants due to the reduced deliveries.
    
            The delays in deliveries are being caused by the Alaska Airlines incident on January 5 when a door plug blew off of a 737 Max 9 jet. That prompted a three-week grounding of the Max 9, and will delay the certification of two new models of the plane, the 737 Max 7 and 737 Max 10, until at least next year. Boeing had promised to start deliveries of both those models later this year.
    
            The financial problems at Southwest are the latest sign of the widening impact of the ongoing problems at Boeing throughout the air travel system. In its first-quarter financial report Wednesday, Boeing said it will have to keep production at a lower level likely into next year as it works to improve the quality and safety of its jets.
    
            United has also stopped hiring additional pilots due to Boeing delivery issues, and it has requested that some pilots take a voluntary leaves without pay.
    
            Southwest doesn’t have any Max 9 jets in its fleet, but the airline that flies only current and earlier versions of the 737 had orders for 307 of the 737 Max 7 as of January of this year. It announced Thursday that it has trimmed its order book by 19 of those jets, shifting to 737 Max 8 jets instead.
    
            The airline expects its capacity to grow by 4% this year, down from its earlier estimate of 6% growth. That will raise its costs when adjusted for capacity by about 2 percentage points, according to its new guidance.
    
            American Airlines also reported a first quarter loss, losing $226 million, or 34 cents a share, excluding special items. The company posted a narrow $33 million profit on that basis in the year ago quarter.
    
            American revenue was up 3% to $12.6 billion, despite a nearly 7% drop in the amount that passengers paid to fly every mile they traveled on the airline. But that was balanced out by an 11% rise in the number of miles they flew.
    
            “While we aren’t satisfied with our first-quarter financial results, we have a strong foundation in place, and we remain on track to deliver on our full-year financial targets,” said American CEO Robert Isom. He said unlike many competitors American already has the aircraft in house to meet its schedule for the rest of this year.
    
            Unlike all-Boeing Southwest, American’s fleet of mainline aircraft is split fairly evenly between those from Boeing and those from its rival Airbus.
    
            Asked if Boeing had a comment on Southwest’s announcement about cancelling service to the four airports, Boeing pointed to comments from its CFO Brian West at a recent investors’ conference.
    
            “We put the customers in tight spot, the most important thing we do is communicate with them. And they have been supportive of everything we’re trying to do to enhance safety and quality for the industry,” West said in March. “In the near term, the slowdown has impacted us, and it’s impacted them and we’re communicating it to them so that we can work our way through it, and we will stand behind our customer.”
    
            In response to a question on American’s conference call Thursday Isom said that he has been talking to a number of Boeing executives about the problems the aircraft maker has been having.
    
            “My message has always been the same. ‘Get your act together,’” said Isom. He said the airline supports Boeing’s efforts to fix its production issues.
    
            In March American placed a large order for 85 of the 737 Max 10, which, like the Max 7, has had its certification to carry passengers pushed back to next year by the incident at Alaska Air. Those planes are not due to be delivered until 2028.
    
            “I can’t tell you if they’re making progress or not,” said Isom. “Hopefully Boeing has its act together [by 2028].”
    
            The losses at Southwest and American capped a difficult quarter for the US airline industry, with most carriers reporting losses whether or not they fly all Boeing, all Airbus or some mixture of planes from the two manufacturers. Rising fuel and labor costs plus fares that were little changed from a year earlier resulted in only Delta Air Lines reporting a profit among the major US carriers.
    
            The rising losses at Southwest are a stark contrast to what had traditionally been the most profitable US airline and one of the few not to file for bankruptcy at some point in its history. It went 11 years, from the Great Recession in 2009 to the plunge in air travel that accompanied the start of the pandemic in 2020, without reporting losses in any quarter.
    
            Shares of Southwest (LUV) lost 8% on the report in midday trading Thursday, while shares of American (AAL) were little changed.
    
            Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed the reason for Southwest’s decision to stop service to four airports. It was to improve financial results and efficiency.",CNN,25/04/2024,"['Southwest Airlines announced Thursday it will stop serving four airports after reporting increased losses in the first quarter and more delays in the delivery of promised jets from Boeing.', 'The four airports are Bellingham International Airport in Washington state, Cozumel International Airport in Mexico,Syracuse Hancock International Airport in New York and Houston’sGeorge Bush Intercontinental Airport.', 'Southwest will continue to serve Houston’s other airport.', '“The recent news from Boeing regarding further aircraft delivery delays presents significant challenges for both 2024 and 2025,” said Southwest CEO Bob Jordan in the company’s first-quarter financial results statement. “', 'We are reacting and replanning quickly to mitigate the operational and financial impacts.', 'Consequently, we have made the difficult decision to close our operations [at the four airports].”', 'However, in an interview later Thursday on CNBC, Jordan said that the decision to cut service to those four airports would have been made in attempt to improve financial results and would been done with or without the delivery issues with Boeing.', '“The network actions have really nothing to do with the Boeing delays.', 'We’re taking network actions regardless,” he said, although he added, “Now the Boeing delays are very painful. …', 'They hurt us on the revenue front.', 'They cause us to be inefficient.”', 'In its quarterly financial report on Thursday, Southwest (LUV) announced it lost $218 million excluding special items, or36cents a share, in the first quarter.', 'That was up from the $163 million it lost on that basis a year ago.', 'The loss came despite record first-quarter revenue of $6.3 billion, up 11% from a year earlier.', 'The jump in revenue came from an increase in passenger traffic, as fare data showed passengers paying about the same amount to fly every mile.', 'It also disclosed it now only expects 20 planes to be delivered by Boeing this year.', 'It started the year expecting to have 79 planes delivered.', 'Then last month it announced it was expecting 46 planes to be delivered during the year.', 'It had already put in place a hiring freeze for pilots and flight attendants due to the reduced deliveries.', 'The delays in deliveries are being caused by the Alaska Airlines incident on January 5 when a door plug blew off of a 737 Max 9 jet.', 'That prompted a three-week grounding of the Max 9, and will delay the certification of two new models of the plane, the 737 Max 7 and 737 Max 10, until at least next year.', 'Boeing had promised to start deliveries of both those models later this year.', 'The financial problems at Southwest are the latest sign of the widening impact of the ongoing problems at Boeing throughout the air travel system.', 'In its first-quarter financial report Wednesday, Boeing said it will have to keep production at a lower level likely into next year as it works to improve the quality and safety of its jets.', 'United has also stopped hiring additional pilots due to Boeing delivery issues, and it has requested that some pilots take a voluntary leaves without pay.', 'Southwest doesn’t have any Max 9 jets in its fleet, but the airline that flies only current and earlier versions of the 737 had orders for 307 of the 737 Max 7 as of January of this year.', 'It announced Thursday that it has trimmed its order book by 19 of those jets, shifting to 737 Max 8 jets instead.', 'The airline expects its capacity to grow by 4% this year, down from its earlier estimate of 6% growth.', 'That will raise its costs when adjusted for capacity by about 2 percentage points, according to its new guidance.', 'American Airlines also reported a first quarter loss, losing $226 million, or 34 cents a share, excluding special items.', 'The company posted a narrow $33 million profit on that basis in the year ago quarter.', 'American revenue was up 3% to $12.6 billion, despite a nearly 7% drop in the amount that passengers paid to fly every mile they traveled on the airline.', 'But that was balanced out by an 11% rise in the number of miles they flew.', '“While we aren’t satisfied with our first-quarter financial results, we have a strong foundation in place, and we remain on track to deliver on our full-year financial targets,” said American CEO Robert Isom.', 'He said unlike many competitors American already has the aircraft in house to meet its schedule for the rest of this year.', 'Unlike all-Boeing Southwest, American’s fleet of mainline aircraft is split fairly evenly between those from Boeing and those from its rival Airbus.', 'Asked if Boeing had a comment on Southwest’s announcement about cancelling service to the four airports, Boeing pointed to comments from its CFO Brian West at a recent investors’ conference.', '“We put the customers in tight spot, the most important thing we do is communicate with them.', 'And they have been supportive of everything we’re trying to do to enhance safety and quality for the industry,” West said in March. “', 'In the near term, the slowdown has impacted us, and it’s impacted them and we’re communicating it to them so that we can work our way through it, and we will stand behind our customer.”', 'In response to a question on American’s conference call Thursday Isom said that he has been talking to a number of Boeing executives about the problems the aircraft maker has been having.', '“My message has always been the same. ‘', 'Get your act together,’” said Isom.', 'He said the airline supports Boeing’s efforts to fix its production issues.', 'In March American placed a large order for 85 of the 737 Max 10, which, like the Max 7, has had its certification to carry passengers pushed back to next year by the incident at Alaska Air.', 'Those planes are not due to be delivered until 2028.', '“I can’t tell you if they’re making progress or not,” said Isom. “', 'Hopefully Boeing has its act together [by 2028].”', 'The losses at Southwest and American capped a difficult quarter for the US airline industry, with most carriers reporting losses whether or not they fly all Boeing, all Airbus or some mixture of planes from the two manufacturers.', 'Rising fuel and labor costs plus fares that were little changed from a year earlier resulted in only Delta Air Lines reporting a profit among the major US carriers.', 'The rising losses at Southwest are a stark contrast to what had traditionally been the most profitable US airline and one of the few not to file for bankruptcy at some point in its history.', 'It went 11 years, from the Great Recession in 2009 to the plunge in air travel that accompanied the start of the pandemic in 2020, without reporting losses in any quarter.', 'Shares of Southwest (LUV) lost 8% on the report in midday trading Thursday, while shares of American (AAL) were little changed.', 'Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly attributed the reason for Southwest’s decision to stop service to four airports.', 'It was to improve financial results and efficiency.']",0.0652198266562575,"“While we aren’t satisfied with our first-quarter financial results, we have a strong foundation in place, and we remain on track to deliver on our full-year financial targets,” said American CEO Robert Isom.","The losses at Southwest and American capped a difficult quarter for the US airline industry, with most carriers reporting losses whether or not they fly all Boeing, all Airbus or some mixture of planes from the two manufacturers.",-0.4038680739262524,"American revenue was up 3% to $12.6 billion, despite a nearly 7% drop in the amount that passengers paid to fly every mile they traveled on the airline.",The company posted a narrow $33 million profit on that basis in the year ago quarter.,2024-04-30
Apple announces its annual developers conference is set for June 10,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/tech/apple-annual-developers-conference-june-10/index.html,"
  Updated
        2:20 PM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
    ","Apple announced its annual Worldwide Developer Conference will kick off on June 10, when the company is expected to show off its latest AI advancements.
    
            The conference, which is widely anticipated each year as a major showcase for Apple software news, will run Monday, June 10 through Friday, June 14.
    
            Although last year’s WWDC focused on the unveiling of the Vision Pro mixed reality headset, which launched in stores in February, this year is expected to turn to Apple’s AI efforts. The company is reportedly interested in licensing and building Google’s Gemini AI engine, which includes chatbots and other AI tools, into upcoming iPhones and its iOS 18 features.
    
            As more tech companies pour billions of dollars into the development and rollout of artificial intelligence, Apple has largely been left out of the conversation, with many other tech companies making big strides in the space. A partnership with Google would catapult Apple into the growing AI arms race.
    
            Apple researchers also recently said they’ve developed a family of multimodal models — which refers to an AI system that can interpret and generate different types of data, such as text and images at the same time — called MM1. A report from those researchers said those new methods boast “superior abilities” and can offer advanced reasoning and in-context learning to respond to text and images.
    
            In a press release on Tuesday, the company said WWDC 2024 will also share software updates coming to the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV and Vision Pro headset.",CNN,26/03/2024,"['Apple announced its annual Worldwide Developer Conference will kick off on June 10, when the company is expected to show off its latest AI advancements.', 'The conference, which is widely anticipated each year as a major showcase for Apple software news, will run Monday, June 10 through Friday, June 14.', 'Although last year’s WWDC focused on the unveiling of the Vision Pro mixed reality headset, which launched in stores in February, this year is expected to turn to Apple’s AI efforts.', 'The company is reportedly interested in licensing and building Google’s Gemini AI engine, which includes chatbots and other AI tools, into upcoming iPhones and its iOS 18 features.', 'As more tech companies pour billions of dollars into the development and rollout of artificial intelligence, Apple has largely been left out of the conversation, with many other tech companies making big strides in the space.', 'A partnership with Google would catapult Apple into the growing AI arms race.', 'Apple researchers also recently said they’ve developed a family of multimodal models — which refers to an AI system that can interpret and generate different types of data, such as text and images at the same time — called MM1.', 'A report from those researchers said those new methods boast “superior abilities” and can offer advanced reasoning and in-context learning to respond to text and images.', 'In a press release on Tuesday, the company said WWDC 2024 will also share software updates coming to the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV and Vision Pro headset.']",0.3259092919755588,A report from those researchers said those new methods boast “superior abilities” and can offer advanced reasoning and in-context learning to respond to text and images.,,0.9975101351737976,A report from those researchers said those new methods boast “superior abilities” and can offer advanced reasoning and in-context learning to respond to text and images.,,2024-04-30
FTC investigating TikTok over privacy and security,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/tech/ftc-tiktok-probe-privacy-and-security/index.html,"
  Updated
        8:11 PM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
    ","The Federal Trade Commission is investigating TikTok for its data and security practices, two sources told CNN on the condition of anonymity.
    
            The probe is yet another complication for the social media platform, which is already facing the threat of a potential US ban or a forced divestment from its Chinese parent company.
    
            The sources said that the FTC is probing TikTok over an alleged violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection rule, which requires companies to notify parents and obtain consent before collecting data from children under 13.
    
            The agency is also investigating whether TikTok violated a portion of the FTC Act that prohibits “unfair or deceptive” business practices, the sources said, in denying that TikTok user data could be accessed by individuals in China.
    
            The FTC could bring a suit against TikTok or settle with the company in the coming weeks, according to one of the sources. Politico reported news of the probe earlier.
    
            When asked about the investigation, FTC Director of Public Affairs Douglas Farrar replied: “No comment.”
    
            TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
    
            The FTC probe comes as TikTok faces an existential threat in the US. Earlier this month, a bipartisan group in the US House of Representatives voted to pass a law forcing TikTok to be sold by ByteDance or face a ban from US app stores. The bill is now before the Senate, and President Joe Biden has said he would sign it if it gets to his desk. Senate leaders, however, have indicated they are taking a deliberate approach — which could lead to delays or even potentially doom the House bill.
    
            The short-form video company, owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, has denied assertions that its app poses a national security threat to US citizens. TikTok, which does not operate in China, has said that the Chinese government has never accessed US user data.
    
            Cybersecurity experts say Chinese laws require ByteDance to cooperate with that country’s intelligence demands — a fact that, given ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok, could hypothetically put US user data at risk. To address that issue, TikTok has taken steps to store its US user data on cloud servers controlled by US tech giant Oracle and established internal protocols limiting access by non-US employees.
    
            TikTok acknowledged to Congress in 2022 that employees based in China could access US user data, following a report that year by BuzzFeed News that ByteDance employees had accessed that information on multiple occasions. TikTok CEO Shou Chew, in his first appearance before Congress last year, also acknowledged that several ByteDance employees were fired for spying on certain US journalists as part of a “misguided attempt” to hunt down leakers within the company.",CNN,26/03/2024,"['The Federal Trade Commission is investigating TikTok for its data and security practices, two sources told CNN on the condition of anonymity.', 'The probe is yet another complication for the social media platform, which is already facing the threat of a potential US ban or a forced divestment from its Chinese parent company.', 'The sources said that the FTC is probing TikTok over an alleged violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection rule, which requires companies to notify parents and obtain consent before collecting data from children under 13.', 'The agency is also investigating whether TikTok violated a portion of the FTC Act that prohibits “unfair or deceptive” business practices, the sources said, in denying that TikTok user data could be accessed by individuals in China.', 'The FTC could bring a suit against TikTok or settle with the company in the coming weeks, according to one of the sources.', 'Politico reported news of the probe earlier.', 'When asked about the investigation, FTC Director of Public Affairs Douglas Farrar replied: “No comment.”', 'TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.', 'The FTC probe comes as TikTok faces an existential threat in the US.', 'Earlier this month, a bipartisan group in the US House of Representatives voted to pass a law forcing TikTok to be sold by ByteDance or face a ban from US app stores.', 'The bill is now before the Senate, and President Joe Biden has said he would sign it if it gets to his desk.', 'Senate leaders, however, have indicated they are taking a deliberate approach —which could lead to delays or even potentially doom the House bill.', 'The short-form video company, owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, has denied assertions that its app poses a national security threat to US citizens.', 'TikTok, which does not operate in China, has said that the Chinese government has never accessed US user data.', 'Cybersecurity experts say Chinese laws require ByteDance to cooperate with that country’s intelligence demands—a fact that, given ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok, could hypothetically put US user data at risk.', 'To address that issue, TikTok has taken steps to store its US user data on cloud servers controlled by US tech giant Oracle and established internal protocols limiting access by non-US employees.', 'TikTok acknowledged to Congress in 2022 that employees based in China could access US user data, following a report that year by BuzzFeed News that ByteDance employees had accessed that information on multiple occasions.', 'TikTok CEO Shou Chew, in his first appearance before Congress last year, also acknowledged that several ByteDance employees were fired for spying on certain US journalists as part of a “misguided attempt” to hunt down leakers within the company.']",-0.232320081688102,"The Federal Trade Commission is investigating TikTok for its data and security practices, two sources told CNN on the condition of anonymity.","The probe is yet another complication for the social media platform, which is already facing the threat of a potential US ban or a forced divestment from its Chinese parent company.",-0.8880722284317016,,"Senate leaders, however, have indicated they are taking a deliberate approach —which could lead to delays or even potentially doom the House bill.",2024-04-30
Honda to build $11 billion electric vehicle hub in Canada,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/honda-to-build-11-billion-electric-vehicle-hub-in-canada.html,2024-04-25T15:57:06+0000,"In this articleDEROIT — Honda Motor and yet-to-be-named joint venture partners plan to invest $11 billion in Ontario, Canada, to create a ""comprehensive EV value chain,"" the Japanese automaker announced Thursday.The company said the new North American electric vehicle epicenter will include new assembly and battery plants as well as other facilities to support production of all-electric and fuel cell-powered vehicles.Honda said vehicle production will begin in 2028, with annual vehicle capacity of 240,000 units once it is fully operational. The investment in Alliston, Ontario, is expected to greatly assist in Honda's goal of exclusively offering all-electric and fuel cell-powered vehicles by 2040.The timing of the investment may seem odd to industry onlookers and investors, as many automakers have announced pullbacks in their all-electric vehicle plans amid slower-than-expected adoption of EVs.Honda said the investment is ""for a future increase in EV demand in North America,"" with the battery plant capable of producing 36 gigawatt hours, or GWh, per year.The project is expected to create as least 1,000 new jobs, adding to the 4,200 employees the company currently has at its two existing manufacturing facilities in Ontario.Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau said during a livestreamed press conference on Thursday that Honda's investment, 15 billion Canadian dollars, is the largest ever for the country's automotive industry. The company is expected to receive upward of CA$2.5 billion in assistance in tax credits and other incentives from the Canadian government, officials said.The investment is a major win for Canada and comes after Honda last year confirmed a $4.4 billion investment for a new U.S. battery plant in Ohio.""In North America, following the initiative to establish our EV production system capability in the U.S., we will now begin formal discussions toward the establishment of a comprehensive EV value chain here in Canada, with the support of the governments of Canada and Ontario,"" Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said in a release. ""We will strengthen our EV supply system and capability with an eye toward a future increase in EV demand in North America.""Honda said it has ""begun the process of evaluating the scope of its investment and completing negotiations with its joint venture partners."" Its partner in the U.S. facility is LG Energy Solution.The company said it expects to finalize the plans over the next six months.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"['In this articleDEROIT — Honda Motor and yet-to-be-named joint venture partners plan to invest $11 billion in Ontario, Canada, to create a ""comprehensive EV value chain,"" the Japanese automaker announced Thursday.', 'The company said the new North American electric vehicle epicenter will include new assembly and battery plants as well as other facilities to support production of all-electric and fuel cell-powered vehicles.', 'Honda said vehicle production will begin in 2028, with annual vehicle capacity of 240,000 units once it is fully operational.', ""The investment in Alliston, Ontario, is expected to greatly assist in Honda's goal of exclusively offering all-electric and fuel cell-powered vehicles by 2040.The timing of the investment may seem odd to industry onlookers and investors, as many automakers have announced pullbacks in their all-electric vehicle plans amid slower-than-expected adoption of EVs."", 'Honda said the investment is ""for a future increase in EV demand in North America,"" with the battery plant capable of producing 36 gigawatt hours, or GWh, per year.', 'The project is expected to create as least 1,000 new jobs, adding to the 4,200 employees the company currently has at its two existing manufacturing facilities in Ontario.', ""Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau said during a livestreamed press conference on Thursday that Honda's investment, 15 billion Canadian dollars, is the largest ever for the country's automotive industry."", 'The company is expected to receive upward of CA$2.5 billion in assistance in tax credits and other incentives from the Canadian government, officials said.', 'The investment is a major win for Canada and comes after Honda last year confirmed a $4.4 billion investment for a new U.S. battery plant in Ohio.', '""In North America, following the initiative to establish our EV production system capability in the U.S., we will now begin formal discussions toward the establishment of a comprehensive EV value chain here in Canada, with the support of the governments of Canada and Ontario,"" Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said in a release. ""', 'We will strengthen our EV supply system and capability with an eye toward a future increase in EV demand in North America.', '""Honda said it has ""begun the process of evaluating the scope of its investment and completing negotiations with its joint venture partners.""', 'Its partner in the U.S. facility is LG Energy Solution.', 'The company said it expects to finalize the plans over the next six months.']",0.3341687447145106,"""In North America, following the initiative to establish our EV production system capability in the U.S., we will now begin formal discussions toward the establishment of a comprehensive EV value chain here in Canada, with the support of the governments of Canada and Ontario,"" Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said in a release. ""","The investment in Alliston, Ontario, is expected to greatly assist in Honda's goal of exclusively offering all-electric and fuel cell-powered vehicles by 2040.The timing of the investment may seem odd to industry onlookers and investors, as many automakers have announced pullbacks in their all-electric vehicle plans amid slower-than-expected adoption of EVs.",0.9815447671072824,We will strengthen our EV supply system and capability with an eye toward a future increase in EV demand in North America.,,2024-04-30
Campus protesters are calling for divestment. Here’s what that means,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/30/business/what-is-divestment-college-protests-israel/index.html,"
  Published
        5:00 AM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024
    ","College campuses across the country have been thrown into disarray by pro-Palestinian demonstrations this month.
    
            While the demands among protesters vary at each university, nearly all the demonstrations have called for universities to divest from Israel in some form.
    
            But divesting may not be so simple for many academic institutions. While there is some historical precedent for divestment, so far, universities have refused to budge.
    
            Here’s what to know:
    
            “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest,” protesters at Columbia and universities across the country have chanted.
    
            Put most simply, divestment is the opposite of investment.
    
            Many universities have an endowment, which is donated funds generally invested in stocks, bonds and other financial instruments to help the university earn money.
    
            Student protesters who oppose Israel’s military action in Gaza are demanding that their universities sell investments in companies with ties to Israel.
    
            However, the scope of those demands varies by school.
    
            For example, at Columbia, seen by some as the epicenter of the latest student protest movement, the student coalition called Columbia University Apartheid Divest wants the university to divest its $13.6 billion endowment from any company linked to Israel. That includes tech behemoths like Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet with business ties to Israel.
    
            Protesters at other schools, such as Cornell and Yale, are asking their schools to stop investing in weapons manufacturers.
    
            Some schools have been hesitant to take a political stance and divest for a number of reasons. For one, untangling a school’s financial interests to all companies with ties to Israel would be complicated, experts say. Another reason is that many defenders of Israel believe calls to divest in the only Jewish-majority country can be antisemitic.
    
            Pro-Palestinian protesters say divestment would send an important message of disapproval of Israel’s conduct in Gaza.
    
            But while demonstrators have spread their messages across the country, many schools haven’t acquiesced to protesters’ calls for divestment.
    
            Some schools, like the University of Michigan, have pointed out to students that the institution is not directly invested in Israeli companies.
    
            However, protesting students across the country say their schools are not being transparent about financial ties to the country.
    
            On Monday, Columbia’s administration reiterated that it would not divest from Israel.
    
            The University of California also said divestment wouldn’t happen.
    
            “The University of California has consistently opposed calls for boycott against and divestment from Israel. While the University affirms the right of our community members to express diverse viewpoints, a boycott of this sort impinges on the academic freedom of our students and faculty and the unfettered exchange of ideas on our campuses,” the state school system said in a statement.
    
            However, a few schools’ administrations seem willing to hear the protesters out.
    
            A statement from the University of Texas, Dallas, said the university “welcomes the opportunity for open, respectful dialogue.”
    
            At Brown, university president Christina Paxson sent a letter to demonstrators saying she would agree to hear a divestment proposal if the school’s encampment is disbanded, according to the student-run newspaper, the Brown Daily Herald.
    
            At least one academic institution has taken action: on Monday, Portland State University said it would pause gifts and grants from Boeing after students and faculty called for the university to sever ties to businesses that support Israel.
    
            There are historical precedents for university divestment. In the 1980s, a group of Columbia students protested the school’s financial ties with companies doing business in South Africa amid its apartheid racial segregation policy.
    
            Columbia eventually voted to sell the majority of Columbia’s stock in South Africa-connected companies, including major companies like Ford and Coca-Cola. Other colleges followed suit. South Africa’s apartheid policies ended in the early 1990s.
    
            However, university investments are much more complicated these days.
    
            “The economy is so global now that even if a university decided that they were going to instruct their dominant management groups to divest from Israel, it would be almost impossible to disentangle,” Nicholas Dirks, former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, told CNN.
    
            “It’s not clear to me that it’s really possible to fully divest from companies that touch in some way a country with such close political and trade ties to the US,” Dirks added.
    
            Fully divesting from major American companies like Alphabet (Google’s parent company) and Microsoft may come with its own set of challenges. Most Americans’ retirement accounts are invested in big tech companies, and any funds that track the broader stock market will likely hold a stake in these companies, due to their size and relative importance to the market.",CNN,30/04/2024,"['College campuses across the country have been thrown into disarray by pro-Palestinian demonstrations this month.', 'While the demands among protesters vary at each university, nearly all the demonstrations have called for universities to divest from Israel in some form.', 'But divesting may not be so simple for many academic institutions.', 'While there is some historical precedent for divestment, so far, universities have refused to budge.', 'Here’s what to know:  “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest,” protesters at Columbia and universities across the country have chanted.', 'Put most simply, divestment is the opposite of investment.', 'Many universities have an endowment, which is donated funds generally invested in stocks, bonds and other financial instruments to help the university earn money.', 'Student protesters who oppose Israel’s military action in Gaza are demanding that their universities sell investments in companies with ties to Israel.', 'However, the scope of those demands varies by school.', 'For example, at Columbia, seen by some as the epicenter of the latest student protest movement, the student coalition called Columbia University Apartheid Divest wants the university to divest its $13.6 billion endowment from any company linked to Israel.', 'That includes tech behemoths like Microsoft, Amazon and Alphabet with business ties to Israel.', 'Protesters at other schools, such as Cornell and Yale, are asking their schools to stop investing in weapons manufacturers.', 'Some schools have been hesitant to take a political stance and divest for a number of reasons.', 'For one, untangling a school’s financial interests to all companies with ties to Israel would be complicated, experts say.', 'Another reason is that many defenders of Israel believe calls to divest in the only Jewish-majority country can be antisemitic.', 'Pro-Palestinian protesters say divestment would send an important message of disapproval of Israel’s conduct in Gaza.', 'But while demonstrators have spread their messages across the country, many schools haven’t acquiesced to protesters’ calls for divestment.', 'Some schools, like the University of Michigan, have pointed out to students that the institution is not directly invested in Israeli companies.', 'However, protesting students across the country say their schools are not being transparent about financial ties to the country.', 'On Monday, Columbia’s administration reiterated that it would not divest from Israel.', 'The University of California also said divestment wouldn’t happen.', '“The University of California has consistently opposed calls for boycott against and divestment from Israel.', 'While the University affirms the right of our community members to express diverse viewpoints, a boycott of this sort impinges on the academic freedom of our students and faculty and the unfettered exchange of ideas on our campuses,” the state school system said in a statement.', 'However, a few schools’ administrations seem willing to hear the protesters out.', 'A statement from the University of Texas, Dallas, said the university “welcomes the opportunity for open, respectful dialogue.”', 'At Brown, university president Christina Paxson sent a letter to demonstrators saying she would agree to hear a divestment proposal if the school’s encampment is disbanded, according to the student-run newspaper, the Brown Daily Herald.', 'At least one academic institution has taken action: on Monday, Portland State University said it would pause gifts and grants from Boeing after students and faculty called for the university to sever ties to businesses that support Israel.', 'There are historical precedents for university divestment.', 'In the 1980s, a group of Columbia students protested the school’s financial ties with companies doing business in South Africa amid its apartheid racial segregation policy.', 'Columbia eventually voted to sell the majority of Columbia’s stock in South Africa-connected companies, including major companies like Ford and Coca-Cola.', 'Other colleges followed suit.', 'South Africa’s apartheid policies ended in the early 1990s.', 'However, university investments are much more complicated these days.', '“The economy is so global now that even if a university decided that they were going to instruct their dominant management groups to divest from Israel, it would be almost impossible to disentangle,” Nicholas Dirks, former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley, told CNN.', '“It’s not clear to me that it’s really possible to fully divest from companies that touch in some way a country with such close political and trade ties to the US,” Dirks added.', 'Fully divesting from major American companies like Alphabet (Google’s parent company) and Microsoft may come with its own set of challenges.', 'Most Americans’ retirement accounts are invested in big tech companies, and any funds that track the broader stock market will likely hold a stake in these companies, due to their size and relative importance to the market.']",0.0317563818721352,"A statement from the University of Texas, Dallas, said the university “welcomes the opportunity for open, respectful dialogue.”","Protesters at other schools, such as Cornell and Yale, are asking their schools to stop investing in weapons manufacturers.",-0.5990027089913686,"A statement from the University of Texas, Dallas, said the university “welcomes the opportunity for open, respectful dialogue.”","While the University affirms the right of our community members to express diverse viewpoints, a boycott of this sort impinges on the academic freedom of our students and faculty and the unfettered exchange of ideas on our campuses,” the state school system said in a statement.",2024-04-30
Elon Musk in China to discuss enabling Full Self Driving,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68914929,2024-04-28T06:31:58.000Z,"Elon Musk is visiting Beijing with media reports saying he aims to discuss enabling autonomous driving mode on Tesla cars in China. Mr Musk wants to enable Full Self Driving (FSD) in China and transfer data collected in the country abroad to train its algorithms. FSD is available in countries including the US but not in China. The news came after a US report tied Tesla's autonomous driving modes to at least 13 crashes, involving one death. During a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Mr Musk was quoted by state media as saying Tesla was willing deep cooperation with China to ""achieve more win-win results"". In response, Mr Li told Mr Musk the Chinese market would ""always be open to foreign-funded firms,"" according to the reports. China is Tesla's second-biggest market. Other carmakers such as Xpeng - headquartered in Guangzhou - have been attempting to compete with Tesla by rolling out similar self-driving functions in their cars.  On Sunday, Mr Musk described Chinese car manufacturers as ""the most competitive car companies in the world"". Tesla has previously taken steps to reassure Chinese authorities about the rollout of FSD in the country, including establishing a data centre in Shanghai to process data about Chinese consumers in accordance with local laws.  The trip comes days after the US's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it was investigating whether a recall successfully addressed safety concerns relating to Tesla's driver assistance system.  The NHTSA said that despite requirements that drivers maintain focus on the road and be prepared to take control at a moment's notice when autonomous driving was enabled, drivers involved in the crashes ""were not sufficiently engaged"". The regulator's analysis was conducted before a recall Tesla said would fix the issue. Tesla's software is supposed to make sure that drivers are paying attention and that the feature is only in use in appropriate conditions, such as driving on highways. Mr Musk has promised that Teslas will be able to act as autonomous ""robotaxis"" for years. In 2015, he said Teslas would achieve ""full autonomy"" by 2018. And in 2019, he said the company would have robotaxis operating by the following year.  This month, the Tesla chief executive said he would reveal the company's robotaxi in August.  Critics accuse Mr Musk of consistently hyping up the prospects of full autonomous driving to prop up the company's share price, which has fallen on the back of challenges including falling demand for electric vehicles worldwide and competition from cheaper Chinese manufacturers. Mr Musk denies the accusations. Tesla has been cutting the prices of its cars in China and other markets to drum up demand. ""Tesla prices must change frequently in order to match production with demand,"" Mr Musk recently said on X, the microblogging platform previously known as Twitter which the billionaire owns.  Tesla recently reported a 13% fall in automotive sales to $17.3bn (£13.7bn) for the first three months of this year. Overall sales across Tesla dropped by 9% while its profits fell sharply to $1.13bn compared to $2.51bn for the same period last year. So far in 2024, its share price has collapsed by 32%. ",BBC,28/04/2024,"['Elon Musk is visiting Beijing with media reports saying he aims to discuss enabling autonomous driving mode on Tesla cars in China.', 'Mr Musk wants to enable Full Self Driving (FSD) in China and transfer data collected in the country abroad to train its algorithms.', 'FSD is available in countries including the US but not in China.', ""The news came after a US report tied Tesla's autonomous driving modes to at least 13 crashes, involving one death."", 'During a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Mr Musk was quoted by state media as saying Tesla was willing deep cooperation with China to ""achieve more win-win results"".', 'In response, Mr Li told Mr Musk the Chinese market would ""always be open to foreign-funded firms,"" according to the reports.', ""China is Tesla's second-biggest market."", 'Other carmakers such as Xpeng - headquartered in Guangzhou - have been attempting to compete with Tesla by rolling out similar self-driving functions in their cars.', 'On Sunday, Mr Musk described Chinese car manufacturers as ""the most competitive car companies in the world"".', 'Tesla has previously taken steps to reassure Chinese authorities about the rollout of FSD in the country, including establishing a data centre in Shanghai to process data about Chinese consumers in accordance with local laws.', ""The trip comes days after the US's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it was investigating whether a recall successfully addressed safety concerns relating to Tesla's driver assistance system."", 'The NHTSA said that despite requirements that drivers maintain focus on the road and be prepared to take control at a moment\'s notice when autonomous driving was enabled, drivers involved in the crashes ""were not sufficiently engaged"".', ""The regulator's analysis was conducted before a recall Tesla said would fix the issue."", ""Tesla's software is supposed to make sure that drivers are paying attention and that the feature is only in use in appropriate conditions, such as driving on highways."", 'Mr Musk has promised that Teslas will be able to act as autonomous ""robotaxis"" for years.', 'In 2015, he said Teslas would achieve ""full autonomy"" by 2018.', 'And in 2019, he said the company would have robotaxis operating by the following year.', ""This month, the Tesla chief executive said he would reveal the company's robotaxi in August."", ""Critics accuse Mr Musk of consistently hyping up the prospects of full autonomous driving to prop up the company's share price, which has fallen on the back of challenges including falling demand for electric vehicles worldwide and competition from cheaper Chinese manufacturers."", 'Mr Musk denies the accusations.', 'Tesla has been cutting the prices of its cars in China and other markets to drum up demand. ""', 'Tesla prices must change frequently in order to match production with demand,"" Mr Musk recently said on X, the microblogging platform previously known as Twitter which the billionaire owns.', 'Tesla recently reported a 13% fall in automotive sales to $17.3bn (£13.7bn) for the first three months of this year.', 'Overall sales across Tesla dropped by 9% while its profits fell sharply to $1.13bn compared to $2.51bn for the same period last year.', 'So far in 2024, its share price has collapsed by 32%.']",0.0510888454679214,"During a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Mr Musk was quoted by state media as saying Tesla was willing deep cooperation with China to ""achieve more win-win results"".",Mr Musk denies the accusations.,-0.0672348201274871,"During a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Mr Musk was quoted by state media as saying Tesla was willing deep cooperation with China to ""achieve more win-win results"".",Tesla recently reported a 13% fall in automotive sales to $17.3bn (£13.7bn) for the first three months of this year.,2024-04-30
US home prices rose in February at the fastest pace in more than a year,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/30/business/us-home-prices-rose-in-february/index.html,"
  Updated
        11:12 AM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024
    ","US home-price growth accelerated in February at the fastest annual pace since November 2022, a sign that America’s housing market remains tough amid elevated mortgage rates.
    
            The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index, a measure of home prices across the country, rose 6.4% in February from a year earlier, a bigger increase than the 6% registered in January. On a monthly basis, the index advanced a seasonally adjusted 0.4% in February.
    
            The Case-Shiller 20-city index also jumped in February, to an annual gain of 7.3%, up from January’s 6.6% rise. Of the 20 cities, San Diego saw the biggest increase in home prices in February, a steep 11.4% rise, followed by Chicago and Detroit. Meanwhile, home prices in Portland, Oregon, are “still holding the lowest rank after reporting two consecutive months of the smallest year-over-year growth,” according to a release.
    
            “US home prices continued their drive higher,” Brian Luke, head of commodities, real and digital assets, at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a release. “On a monthly basis, home prices continue to struggle in the face of elevated borrowing costs. Seventeen markets dropped over the last month, while Minneapolis has posted a 2.4% decline over the prior three months.”
    
            He added that “only Southern California and Washington, DC, have stood up the rising wave of interest rates and deliver positive returns to start the year.”
    
            America’s housing market began to recover in the beginning the year as home sales surged from decades-lows in the fall and homebuilders began to feel to more upbeat about the economy. There were also high hopes that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates several times starting in the spring. That momentum seems to have fizzled out.
    
            Existing home sales, which make up the vast majority of the housing market, fell sharply in March as home prices continued to rise that month, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. Residential construction of single-family homes also dropped sharply in March, according to government figures, declining 12.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.022 million units.
    
            Inflation also proved to be much more stubborn than Wall Street and the Fed previously expected, which was sent bond yields surging since it means the Fed won’t be in a rush to cut interest rates.
    
            The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield closed above 4.7% last week, the highest level since November. Mortgage rates have followed suit, since they track the 10-year yield. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 7.17% last week, a peak for the year and the highest level since November, according to Freddie Mac data. Economists don’t expect mortgage rates to drop meaningfully this year, and they could continue to climb if inflation remains stuck.
    
            Mortgage rates play an important role in determining affordability, in addition to home prices and family incomes. That’s proving to be a key sticking point for potential homebuyers.
    
            A separate gauge of home prices by Moody’s Analytics released Monday showed there was a slowdown in prices last month. The Moody’s Analytics House Price Index rose 0.12% in March, which was “the slowest pace of monthly gains in more than a year,” according to a release.
    
            Still, despite the shred of good news provided by that measure, the US housing market remains woefully difficult for buyers because of high mortgage rates, Matthew Walsh, a Moody’s Analytics housing economist, said in a release.
    
            “Many potential buyers have been priced out of the market,” Walsh said.
    
            One unmistakble improvement in the housing market has been the increase in housing investory over the past few months, according to NAR data.
    
            Inventory of unsold homes rose 4.7% in March from the prior month to 1.11 million units, and was up 14.4% from a year earlier, NAR reported earlier this month. More homes came to market in February, too.
    
            It’s a step in the right direction, but supply still isn’t keeping up with demand. The persistent undersupply of housing can be attributed to various reasons, but a big one has been that some homeowners are choosing not to sell because they want to hold on to their low mortgage rate. That is still limiting affordability.
    
            “Home sales are stuck because interest rates have not made any major moves,” NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said earlier this month. “We need more inventory, definitely.”",CNN,30/04/2024,"['US home-price growth accelerated in February at the fastest annual pace since November 2022, a sign that America’s housing market remains tough amid elevated mortgage rates.', 'The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index, a measure of home prices across the country, rose 6.4% in February from a year earlier, a bigger increase than the 6% registered in January.', 'On a monthly basis, the index advanced a seasonally adjusted 0.4% in February.', 'The Case-Shiller 20-city index also jumped in February, to an annual gain of 7.3%, up from January’s 6.6% rise.', 'Of the 20 cities, San Diego saw the biggest increase in home prices in February, a steep 11.4% rise, followed by Chicago and Detroit.', 'Meanwhile, home prices in Portland, Oregon, are “still holding the lowest rank after reporting two consecutive months of the smallest year-over-year growth,” according to a release.', '“US home prices continued their drive higher,” Brian Luke, head of commodities, real and digital assets, at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a release. “', 'On a monthly basis, home prices continue to struggle in the face of elevated borrowing costs.', 'Seventeen markets dropped over the last month, while Minneapolis has posted a 2.4% decline over the prior three months.”', 'He added that “only Southern California and Washington, DC, have stood up the rising wave of interest rates and deliver positive returns to start the year.”', 'America’s housing market began to recover in the beginning the year as home sales surged from decades-lows in the fall and homebuilders began to feel to more upbeat about the economy.', 'There were also high hopes that the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates several times starting in the spring.', 'That momentum seems to have fizzled out.', 'Existing home sales, which make up the vast majority of the housing market, fell sharply in March as home prices continued to rise that month, according to data from the National Association of Realtors.', 'Residential construction of single-family homes also dropped sharply in March, according to government figures, declining 12.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.022 million units.', 'Inflation also proved to be much more stubborn than Wall Street and the Fed previously expected, which was sent bond yields surging since it means the Fed won’t be in a rush to cut interest rates.', 'The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield closed above 4.7% last week, the highest level since November.', 'Mortgage rates have followed suit, since they track the 10-year yield.', 'The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 7.17% last week, a peak for the year and the highest level since November, according to Freddie Mac data.', 'Economists don’t expect mortgage rates to drop meaningfully this year, and they could continue to climb if inflation remains stuck.', 'Mortgage rates play an important role in determining affordability, in addition to home prices and family incomes.', 'That’s proving to be a key sticking point for potential homebuyers.', 'A separate gauge of home prices by Moody’s Analytics released Monday showed there was a slowdown in prices last month.', 'The Moody’s Analytics House Price Index rose 0.12% in March, which was “the slowest pace of monthly gains in more than a year,” according to a release.', 'Still, despite the shred of good news provided by that measure, the US housing market remains woefully difficult for buyers because of high mortgage rates, Matthew Walsh, a Moody’s Analytics housing economist, said in a release.', '“Many potential buyers have been priced out of the market,” Walsh said.', 'One unmistakble improvement in the housing market has been the increase in housing investory over the past few months, according to NAR data.', 'Inventory of unsold homes rose 4.7% in March from the prior month to 1.11 million units, and was up 14.4% from a year earlier, NAR reported earlier this month.', 'More homes came to market in February, too.', 'It’s a step in the right direction, but supply still isn’t keeping up with demand.', 'The persistent undersupply of housing can be attributed to various reasons, but a big one has been that some homeowners are choosing not to sell because they want to hold on to their low mortgage rate.', 'That is still limiting affordability.', '“Home sales are stuck because interest rates have not made any major moves,” NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said earlier this month. “', 'We need more inventory, definitely.”']",0.0741288383467281,"He added that “only Southern California and Washington, DC, have stood up the rising wave of interest rates and deliver positive returns to start the year.”","Still, despite the shred of good news provided by that measure, the US housing market remains woefully difficult for buyers because of high mortgage rates, Matthew Walsh, a Moody’s Analytics housing economist, said in a release.",0.0607611845279562,"Inventory of unsold homes rose 4.7% in March from the prior month to 1.11 million units, and was up 14.4% from a year earlier, NAR reported earlier this month.","Residential construction of single-family homes also dropped sharply in March, according to government figures, declining 12.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.022 million units.",2024-04-30
FDA approves Pfizer’s first gene therapy for rare inherited bleeding disorder,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/26/fda-approves-pfizer-gene-therapy-beqvez-for-treatment-of-hemophilia-b.html,2024-04-26T13:22:54+0000,"In this articleThe Food and Drug Administration on Friday announced that the agency approved Pfizer's treatment for a rare genetic bleeding disorder, making it the company's first gene therapy to win clearance in the U.S. The agency greenlighted the drug, which will be marketed as Beqvez, for adults with moderate to severe hemophilia B who meet certain requirements.The treatment will be available by prescription to eligible patients this quarter, a Pfizer spokesperson told CNBC. It has a hefty $3.5 million price tag before insurance and other rebates, the spokesperson added, making it by far one of the most expensive drugs in the U.S.More than 7,000 people in the U.S. are living with the debilitating condition, which predominantly affects men, according to an advocacy group. The condition is caused by insufficient levels of a certain protein that helps blood clot to stop bleeding and seal wounds. Without that protein, called factor IX, patients with hemophilia B bruise easily and bleed more frequently and for longer periods of time. Beqvez is a one-time treatment designed to enable patients to produce factor IX themselves and prevent and control bleeding. In a late-stage trial, the drug was superior to the often-cumbersome standard treatment for hemophilia B, which involves administering the protein multiple times a week or a month through the veins. ""Many people with hemophilia B struggle with the commitment and lifestyle disruption of regular [factor IX] infusions, as well as spontaneous bleeding episodes, which can lead to painful joint damage and mobility issues,"" said Adam Cuker, director of Penn Medicine's Comprehensive and Hemophilia Thrombosis Program, in a Pfizer release on Friday.Pfizer's drug ""has the potential to be transformative for appropriate patients by reducing both the medical and treatment burden over the long term,"" Cuker added. The approval is a big step for Pfizer, which is trying to regain its footing following the rapid decline of its Covid business last year. The company is betting big on cancer drugs and treatments for other disease areas to help turn its business around. Pfizer is one of several companies to invest in the rapidly growing field of gene and cell therapies — one-time, high-cost treatments that target a patient's genetic source or cell to cure or significantly alter the course of a disease. Some health experts expect these therapies to replace traditional lifelong treatments that people take to manage chronic diseases. Pfizer gained the rights to produce and market Beqvez from Spark Therapeutics in 2014. The company is offering payers a warranty program to cover patients who receive Beqvez, a spokesperson told CNBC. Pfizer expects that program to offer ""financial protection by insuring against the risk of efficacy failure,"" the release said.The gene therapy will compete with Australia-based CSL Behring's Hemgenix, a similar treatment that won FDA approval for hemophilia B in 2022. That drug has a similar list price of $3.5 million in the U.S. before insurance and other rebates. Notably, some health experts have said that high costs and logistical issues, among other factors, have limited the uptake of Hemgenix and another approved gene therapy for the more common hemophilia A. Pfizer also seeks FDA approval for its experimental antibody, marstacimab, to treat hemophilia A and B. The company is also developing a gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic disorder that causes muscles to weaken gradually.",CNBC,26/04/2024,"[""In this articleThe Food and Drug Administration on Friday announced that the agency approved Pfizer's treatment for a rare genetic bleeding disorder, making it the company's first gene therapy to win clearance in the U.S.The agency greenlighted the drug, which will be marketed as Beqvez, for adults with moderate to severe hemophilia B who meet certain requirements."", 'The treatment will be available by prescription to eligible patients this quarter, a Pfizer spokesperson told CNBC.', 'It has a hefty $3.5 million price tag before insurance and other rebates, the spokesperson added, making it by far one of the most expensive drugs in the U.S.More than 7,000 people in the U.S. are living with the debilitating condition, which predominantly affects men, according to an advocacy group.', 'The condition is caused by insufficient levels of a certain protein that helps blood clot to stop bleeding and seal wounds.', 'Without that protein, called factor IX, patients with hemophilia B bruise easily and bleed more frequently and for longer periods of time.', 'Beqvez is a one-time treatment designed to enable patients to produce factor IX themselves and prevent and control bleeding.', 'In a late-stage trial, the drug was superior to the often-cumbersome standard treatment for hemophilia B, which involves administering the protein multiple times a week or a month through the veins.', '""Many people with hemophilia B struggle with the commitment and lifestyle disruption of regular [factor IX] infusions, as well as spontaneous bleeding episodes, which can lead to painful joint damage and mobility issues,"" said Adam Cuker, director of Penn Medicine\'s Comprehensive and Hemophilia Thrombosis Program, in a Pfizer release on Friday.', 'Pfizer\'s drug ""has the potential to be transformative for appropriate patients by reducing both the medical and treatment burden over the long term,"" Cuker added.', 'The approval is a big step for Pfizer, which is trying to regain its footing following the rapid decline of its Covid business last year.', 'The company is betting big on cancer drugs and treatments for other disease areas to help turn its business around.', ""Pfizer is one of several companies to invest in the rapidly growing field of gene and cell therapies — one-time, high-cost treatments that target a patient's genetic source or cell to cure or significantly alter the course of a disease."", 'Some health experts expect these therapies to replace traditional lifelong treatments that people take to manage chronic diseases.', 'Pfizer gained the rights to produce and market Beqvez from Spark Therapeutics in 2014.The company is offering payers a warranty program to cover patients who receive Beqvez, a spokesperson told CNBC.', 'Pfizer expects that program to offer ""financial protection by insuring against the risk of efficacy failure,"" the release said.', ""The gene therapy will compete with Australia-based CSL Behring's Hemgenix, a similar treatment that won FDA approval for hemophilia B in 2022."", 'That drug has a similar list price of $3.5 million in the U.S. before insurance and other rebates.', 'Notably, some health experts have said that high costs and logistical issues, among other factors, have limited the uptake of Hemgenix and another approved gene therapy for the more common hemophilia A.Pfizer also seeks FDA approval for its experimental antibody, marstacimab, to treat hemophilia A and B. The company is also developing a gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic disorder that causes muscles to weaken gradually.']",0.1071113389428697,"The gene therapy will compete with Australia-based CSL Behring's Hemgenix, a similar treatment that won FDA approval for hemophilia B in 2022.","Pfizer expects that program to offer ""financial protection by insuring against the risk of efficacy failure,"" the release said.",0.1729708313941955,"In this articleThe Food and Drug Administration on Friday announced that the agency approved Pfizer's treatment for a rare genetic bleeding disorder, making it the company's first gene therapy to win clearance in the U.S.The agency greenlighted the drug, which will be marketed as Beqvez, for adults with moderate to severe hemophilia B who meet certain requirements.","Notably, some health experts have said that high costs and logistical issues, among other factors, have limited the uptake of Hemgenix and another approved gene therapy for the more common hemophilia A.Pfizer also seeks FDA approval for its experimental antibody, marstacimab, to treat hemophilia A and B. The company is also developing a gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic disorder that causes muscles to weaken gradually.",2024-04-30
Peacock streaming subscription prices to increase by $2 ahead of the Summer Olympics,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/29/peacock-streaming-subscription-prices-to-increase-before-summer-olympics.html,2024-04-29T18:06:32+0000,"In this articleThe price of Peacock is flying higher.Subscription prices for Peacock, Comcast's answer to the streaming wars, will increase by $2 this summer. The price adjustment is a way for Comcast's NBCUniversal to capitalize on the Summer Olympics in Paris, which will air on NBC's TV networks and streaming platform.Peacock's ad-supported option will increase by $2 to $7.99 a month, and its ad-free offering will rise by the same amount to $13.99 a month. The annual price for Peacock with ads will be $79.99, while the ad-free version will cost $139.99 a year.The price will rise for new subscribers beginning July 18, while existing customers will get hit with the new pricing on or after Aug. 17. The Summer Olympics begin in late July.Media companies have looked for ways to make streaming profitable, as most still lose money on the venture. Advertising has been a key part of this strategy, as well as price increases.This price increase is Peacock's second in the last year. Effective last August, ad-supported Peacock's price rose $1 to $5.99, and ad-free went up $2 to $11.99 per month.While parent company Comcast touted Peacock as a bright spot during its recent earnings call, losses stemming from the streamer have weighed on earnings. Losses were said to have peaked in 2023, and executives expect they'll narrow in upcoming quarters. Peacock now has 34 million subscribers.Peacock features a range of live sports content, from the NFL to the Premier League, and often sees an uptick in subscribers during marquee events.The streaming service launched in 2020 in time for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo — which was pushed to 2021 due to the pandemic. Executives said Thursday that Peacock's exclusive NFL Wild Card game during the first quarter helped to add, then retain, more customers than expected.The streamer has also benefited recently from being the first exclusive home to Universal Pictures' Academy Award darling and box-office hit ""Oppenheimer.""Peacock's revenue rose 54% to $1.1 billion during the first quarter compared with the same period last year. This was due in part to increased advertising revenue, which has lagged for traditional TV networks recently.Executives last week said the Summer Olympics is expected to bring in record advertising revenue since more events will be featured on broadcast network NBC, in addition to many being streamed solely on Peacock.Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.",CNBC,29/04/2024,"['In this articleThe price of Peacock is flying higher.', ""Subscription prices for Peacock, Comcast's answer to the streaming wars, will increase by $2 this summer."", ""The price adjustment is a way for Comcast's NBCUniversal to capitalize on the Summer Olympics in Paris, which will air on NBC's TV networks and streaming platform."", ""Peacock's ad-supported option will increase by $2 to $7.99 a month, and its ad-free offering will rise by the same amount to $13.99 a month."", 'The annual price for Peacock with ads will be $79.99, while the ad-free version will cost $139.99 a year.', 'The price will rise for new subscribers beginning July 18, while existing customers will get hit with the new pricing on or after Aug. 17.', 'The Summer Olympics begin in late July.', 'Media companies have looked for ways to make streaming profitable, as most still lose money on the venture.', 'Advertising has been a key part of this strategy, as well as price increases.', ""This price increase is Peacock's second in the last year."", ""Effective last August, ad-supported Peacock's price rose $1 to $5.99, and ad-free went up $2 to $11.99 per month."", 'While parent company Comcast touted Peacock as a bright spot during its recent earnings call, losses stemming from the streamer have weighed on earnings.', ""Losses were said to have peaked in 2023, and executives expect they'll narrow in upcoming quarters."", 'Peacock now has 34 million subscribers.', 'Peacock features a range of live sports content, from the NFL to the Premier League, and often sees an uptick in subscribers during marquee events.', 'The streaming service launched in 2020 in time for the Summer Olympics in Tokyo — which was pushed to 2021 due to the pandemic.', ""Executives said Thursday that Peacock's exclusive NFL Wild Card game during the first quarter helped to add, then retain, more customers than expected."", 'The streamer has also benefited recently from being the first exclusive home to Universal Pictures\' Academy Award darling and box-office hit ""Oppenheimer.', '""Peacock\'s revenue rose 54% to $1.1 billion during the first quarter compared with the same period last year.', 'This was due in part to increased advertising revenue, which has lagged for traditional TV networks recently.', 'Executives last week said the Summer Olympics is expected to bring in record advertising revenue since more events will be featured on broadcast network NBC, in addition to many being streamed solely on Peacock.', 'Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.']",0.1379646480038814,"The streamer has also benefited recently from being the first exclusive home to Universal Pictures' Academy Award darling and box-office hit ""Oppenheimer.","Losses were said to have peaked in 2023, and executives expect they'll narrow in upcoming quarters.",0.7532065545811373,"""Peacock's revenue rose 54% to $1.1 billion during the first quarter compared with the same period last year.","Losses were said to have peaked in 2023, and executives expect they'll narrow in upcoming quarters.",2024-04-29
Even in peaceful countries be ready for a siren blast,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68761255,2024-04-11T23:13:02.000Z,"I was halfway through my morning run when I heard it. The sound of the apocalypse. An air raid-style siren, slowly wailing up and down in pitch, was blaring over Belfast at 0830 GMT. I glanced at the sky. But nobody else nearby seemed to be taking any notice. My wife, who had her earphones in, hadn't heard the noise at all until I pointed it out. It was the same at the supermarket on the way home. The din of the siren was audible across East Belfast, and yet, life continued as normal.  The bizarre Belfast siren was, the BBC understands, associated with a fuel storage facility in Belfast Harbour. It is a fire alarm and has to be so loud partly because of the large size of the facility in question. This kind of siren, so strongly associated in Britain with World War Two, is actually more than a century old, and has been used for all kinds of emergencies - not just Luftwaffe bombing raids. Other sounds and tones are sometimes deployed for outdoor alerts, but that lazily wavering siren that is so strange and chilling is still in place at multiple sites around the country - from military bases to chemical factories. Just in case. ""That wail pattern does a great job,"" says Evan Kerr, VP of operations at Sentry Siren, a US firm that still makes mechanical sirens. ""You need to get people's attention."" He explains that the sound is produced by a fast rotating fan inside a flat cylindrical housing, the outer rim of which is perforated with slits. It's the forcing of air through these slits, at oscillating speeds, that creates the extremely loud wail in all directions.  These days, this sound can be replicated by a digital recording played through loudspeakers but Mr Kerr argues that mechanical wailing sirens, which have been manufactured since at least 1905, are proven, reliable and nearly maintenance-free. He says some sirens made by his firm, previously known as Sterling Siren Fire Alarm Company, have been in place for many decades. In the UK, there are air raid-style sirens in a number of locations. Notably, at the Royal Navy base in Portsmouth. This siren, which is tested regularly, would be used to warn members of the public about an accident with the nuclear-powered submarines that are stationed there.  A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence says that there are also outdoor warning alarms at naval bases on the River Clyde in Scotland and Devonport in Plymouth: ""The sirens are regularly maintained and monitored. There are no plans to change the emergency alarm system."" Some siren locations are, perhaps, less obvious. Take The State Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Carstairs, Scotland. Its siren system was sounded, for example, when two murderers escaped in the 1970s. Broadmoor used to have a siren but this was decommissioned in 2019 and, if a dangerous individual were to escape the hospital now, an alert would be sent to locals in the form of an email or text message. Industrial sites that handle significant quantities of hazardous materials are also legally required to have outdoor warning systems. Take Hampton Water Treatment Works in West London - even it has a siren.  In Bradford, there is a siren at a large chemical plant owned by Solenis. In information sent to locals, the company explains why an accident might be harmful. A toxic cloud could form or, for example: ""A release of a flammable vapour, with subsequent ignition, may result in an explosion with the potential for damage both within the Solenis site, and outside its boundaries."" Advice from the company explains that, if people hear the siren when it is not due to be tested, they should shelter in their homes, close all windows and curtains, block incoming draughts, switch on the radio and ""stay calm and rest"". More technology of business In Huddersfield, chemical company Syngenta makes insecticides and other agricultural products. It too has a siren system in place to warn people in the event of a chemical emergency . These are just some examples. There are dozens of outdoor warning sirens around the UK and many, though not all, use the familiar wailing pattern of a traditional air raid-style siren. One siren aficionado has even marked the locations of these systems on an online map.  The bizarre Belfast siren was, the BBC understands, associated with a fuel processing facility in Belfast Harbour. But online rumours had claimed the noise signalled the movement of cranes at Belfast's famous Harland & Wolff (H&W) shipyard. H&W confirms that this was not the case. The incident raises the question: Would people react appropriately during a real emergency? People must be informed about what sirens in their area might be used for says Andrea Davis, president and chief executive of The Resiliency Initiative, a US firm that advises communities on emergency management.  ""So [they] are familiar - 'Hey, I know this sound, it's not a scary sound, it's an action sound - I need to do something',"" she explains. Failing to activate a siren during an emergency could also be harmful. Mrs Davis criticises officials in Hawaii for not using outdoor sirens when a devastating wildfire hit Maui in August 2023. Erica Kuligowski, a social scientist at RMIT University in Australia, who has studied the efficacy of emergency warning systems agrees that sirens must be packaged with additional information that makes it clear what the warning is about, and what people should do in response.  ""We need a series of pieces of information or else it's difficult to prompt people to act,"" she says. The range of situations that might require a siren around the world are extremely varied. Sentry Siren, for instance, recently shipped five of its units to Iceland. They'll be used to alert people to volcanic activity, which has caused significant disruption in Iceland in recent months. And Monika Pavlik, international business manager at Telegrafia, a Slovakia-based siren manufacturer, says her firm's devices have been deployed in Ukraine where they are used as contemporary air raid warning systems. Countries neighbouring Ukraine, fearful of Russian aggression, are increasingly interested in such sirens, she adds: ""It is a constant threat."" Telegrafia specialises in sirens that use digital recordings rather than mechanical components for producing noise. But this means the devices can blast verbal information across an area or turn text into explanatory spoken word announcements. The company's sirens, which are installed in 93 countries around the world, can also be triggered automatically - for example by sensors detecting a flood. Or, a government could set off connected sirens across an entire country in the event of a nationwide emergency. These days, sirens tend to make the news as false alarms, or when tests of siren systems are reported locally. Most of the time, thankfully, there's no emergency. There's always a risk that people will ignore these audible warnings when something really has gone wrong, however, which is why taking multiple steps to inform the public about an unfolding disaster or accident is so important, say experts. Despite the rise of alternative technologies such as mobile phone alerts, there is still huge demand for traditional outdoor warning sirens, says Mr Kerr of Sentry Siren: ""Why wouldn't you use all the tools available to you?"" ",BBC,11/04/2024,"['I was halfway through my morning run when I heard it.', 'The sound of the apocalypse.', 'An air raid-style siren, slowly wailing up and down in pitch, was blaring over Belfast at 0830 GMT.', 'I glanced at the sky.', 'But nobody else nearby seemed to be taking any notice.', ""My wife, who had her earphones in, hadn't heard the noise at all until I pointed it out."", 'It was the same at the supermarket on the way home.', 'The din of the siren was audible across East Belfast, and yet, life continued as normal.', 'The bizarre Belfast siren was, the BBC understands, associated with a fuel storage facility in Belfast Harbour.', 'It is a fire alarm and has to be so loud partly because of the large size of the facility in question.', 'This kind of siren, so strongly associated in Britain with World War Two, is actually more than a century old, and has been used for all kinds of emergencies - not just Luftwaffe bombing raids.', 'Other sounds and tones are sometimes deployed for outdoor alerts, but that lazily wavering siren that is so strange and chilling is still in place at multiple sites around the country - from military bases to chemical factories.', 'Just in case. ""', 'That wail pattern does a great job,"" says Evan Kerr, VP of operations at Sentry Siren, a US firm that still makes mechanical sirens. ""', 'You need to get people\'s attention.""', 'He explains that the sound is produced by a fast rotating fan inside a flat cylindrical housing, the outer rim of which is perforated with slits.', ""It's the forcing of air through these slits, at oscillating speeds, that creates the extremely loud wail in all directions."", 'These days, this sound can be replicated by a digital recording played through loudspeakers but Mr Kerr argues that mechanical wailing sirens, which have been manufactured since at least 1905, are proven, reliable and nearly maintenance-free.', 'He says some sirens made by his firm, previously known as Sterling Siren Fire Alarm Company, have been in place for many decades.', 'In the UK, there are air raid-style sirens in a number of locations.', 'Notably, at the Royal Navy base in Portsmouth.', 'This siren, which is tested regularly, would be used to warn members of the public about an accident with the nuclear-powered submarines that are stationed there.', 'A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence says that there are also outdoor warning alarms at naval bases on the River Clyde in Scotland and Devonport in Plymouth: ""The sirens are regularly maintained and monitored.', 'There are no plans to change the emergency alarm system.""', 'Some siren locations are, perhaps, less obvious.', 'Take The State Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Carstairs, Scotland.', 'Its siren system was sounded, for example, when two murderers escaped in the 1970s.', 'Broadmoor used to have a siren but this was decommissioned in 2019 and, if a dangerous individual were to escape the hospital now, an alert would be sent to locals in the form of an email or text message.', 'Industrial sites that handle significant quantities of hazardous materials are also legally required to have outdoor warning systems.', 'Take Hampton Water Treatment Works in West London - even it has a siren.', 'In Bradford, there is a siren at a large chemical plant owned by Solenis.', 'In information sent to locals, the company explains why an accident might be harmful.', 'A toxic cloud could form or, for example: ""A release of a flammable vapour, with subsequent ignition, may result in an explosion with the potential for damage both within the Solenis site, and outside its boundaries.""', 'Advice from the company explains that, if people hear the siren when it is not due to be tested, they should shelter in their homes, close all windows and curtains, block incoming draughts, switch on the radio and ""stay calm and rest"".', 'More technology of business In Huddersfield, chemical company Syngenta makes insecticides and other agricultural products.', 'It too has a siren system in place to warn people in the event of a chemical emergency .', 'These are just some examples.', 'There are dozens of outdoor warning sirens around the UK and many, though not all, use the familiar wailing pattern of a traditional air raid-style siren.', 'One siren aficionado has even marked the locations of these systems on an online map.', 'The bizarre Belfast siren was, the BBC understands, associated with a fuel processing facility in Belfast Harbour.', ""But online rumours had claimed the noise signalled the movement of cranes at Belfast's famous Harland & Wolff (H&W) shipyard."", 'H&W confirms that this was not the case.', 'The incident raises the question: Would people react appropriately during a real emergency?', 'People must be informed about what sirens in their area might be used for says Andrea Davis, president and chief executive of The Resiliency Initiative, a US firm that advises communities on emergency management. ""', 'So [they] are familiar - \'Hey, I know this sound, it\'s not a scary sound, it\'s an action sound - I need to do something\',"" she explains.', 'Failing to activate a siren during an emergency could also be harmful.', 'Mrs Davis criticises officials in Hawaii for not using outdoor sirens when a devastating wildfire hit Maui in August 2023.', 'Erica Kuligowski, a social scientist at RMIT University in Australia, who has studied the efficacy of emergency warning systems agrees that sirens must be packaged with additional information that makes it clear what the warning is about, and what people should do in response. ""', 'We need a series of pieces of information or else it\'s difficult to prompt people to act,"" she says.', 'The range of situations that might require a siren around the world are extremely varied.', 'Sentry Siren, for instance, recently shipped five of its units to Iceland.', ""They'll be used to alert people to volcanic activity, which has caused significant disruption in Iceland in recent months."", ""And Monika Pavlik, international business manager at Telegrafia, a Slovakia-based siren manufacturer, says her firm's devices have been deployed in Ukraine where they are used as contemporary air raid warning systems."", 'Countries neighbouring Ukraine, fearful of Russian aggression, are increasingly interested in such sirens, she adds: ""It is a constant threat.""', 'Telegrafia specialises in sirens that use digital recordings rather than mechanical components for producing noise.', 'But this means the devices can blast verbal information across an area or turn text into explanatory spoken word announcements.', ""The company's sirens, which are installed in 93 countries around the world, can also be triggered automatically - for example by sensors detecting a flood."", 'Or, a government could set off connected sirens across an entire country in the event of a nationwide emergency.', 'These days, sirens tend to make the news as false alarms, or when tests of siren systems are reported locally.', ""Most of the time, thankfully, there's no emergency."", ""There's always a risk that people will ignore these audible warnings when something really has gone wrong, however, which is why taking multiple steps to inform the public about an unfolding disaster or accident is so important, say experts."", 'Despite the rise of alternative technologies such as mobile phone alerts, there is still huge demand for traditional outdoor warning sirens, says Mr Kerr of Sentry Siren: ""Why wouldn\'t you use all the tools available to you?""']",-0.1702984417179804,"That wail pattern does a great job,"" says Evan Kerr, VP of operations at Sentry Siren, a US firm that still makes mechanical sirens. ""","There's always a risk that people will ignore these audible warnings when something really has gone wrong, however, which is why taking multiple steps to inform the public about an unfolding disaster or accident is so important, say experts.",0.2383095145225525,"That wail pattern does a great job,"" says Evan Kerr, VP of operations at Sentry Siren, a US firm that still makes mechanical sirens. """,Failing to activate a siren during an emergency could also be harmful.,2024-04-29
"Pittsburgh Pirates, Penguins launch streaming service for local games",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/29/pittsburgh-pirates-penguins-launch-streaming-service-for-local-games.html,2024-04-29T14:57:59+0000,"The regional sports network that airs Pittsburgh's MLB and NHL teams is launching a direct-to-consumer streaming service, the latest to take the step as more fans cut the cord.SportsNet Pittsburgh on Monday unveiled SNP 360, which will cost fans in its local market $17.99 a month to watch Pirates and Penguins games outside of the pay-TV bundle. Viewers with pay-TV subscriptions will also have access to the app.The streaming offering for the Pirates and Penguins — the highest-rated NHL team in the 2023-24 regular season — comes as the regional sports network business, a key piece of the professional leagues' media rights model, takes a hit from the shift to streaming. It also follows a shakeup at SportsNet Pittsburgh last year.The network came under new ownership last year when Warner Bros. Discovery exited the regional sports network business, which it inherited in the 2022 merger between Warner Media and Discovery.The network is now owned by the Pirates and Penguins. Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Boston Red Sox, agreed to acquire a controlling stake in the Penguins in 2021. Fenway Sports Group and Delaware North, also the parent company of the Boston Bruins, own the regional sports network NESN, which manages SportsNet Pittsburgh.""Our desire has been to reach fans wherever they are and give them options to access our clubs' telecasts,"" said NESN and SportsNet Pittsburgh CEO Sean McGrail. ""There are many people now who don't subscribe a linear TV bundle, and we wanted to make sure they had the opportunity to engage with our teams and be part of the fan base.""SNP 360 came together quickly over the last six months when NESN took over operations of the Sportsnet Pittsburgh, McGrail said. He said the network is offering the service at ""an aggressive price point,"" lower than the cost of most other regional sports streaming plans, while it builds up its content beyond the Pirates and Penguins.NESN, which broadcasts Red Sox and Bruins local games, was the first regional sports network to offer a streaming alternative for its market in 2022. NESN 360 is available for $29.99 a month, or $180 for the first year on the annual plan through a current promotional offer. It otherwise costs $329.99 per year.Last year, the YES Network, home of the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty, launched its streaming service for $24.99 a month. MSG Network, which airs New York Knicks, New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils games, launched a new streaming service in 2023 and charges $29.99 a month.Regional sports networks, once a lucrative business, have been particularly squeezed as consumers opt out of the traditional pay-TV bundle in favor of streaming.Many now offer streaming options to recapture those customers. The networks remain careful about pricing in order to avoid further disrupting the pay-TV model and breach contracts with distributors.The contracts with pay-TV distributors help support the billions of dollars in fees that the networks pay professional sports teams to air their games.Diamond Sports, the owner of the largest portfolio of regional sports networks, also launched streaming services for some of its teams before filing for bankruptcy protection in 2023. During the bankruptcy proceedings, Diamond has exited contracts with some teams to avoid paying high rights fees.""It has certainly been challenging times,"" said McGrail. ""But those are the times that bring opportunity, and you have to actively think about your distribution strategy and how you're going to handle distribution in the future. This addresses the needs of a certain group of people who don't live in the linear world anymore. We're trying to be flexible and make sure we're supporting these fans.""",CNBC,29/04/2024,"[""The regional sports network that airs Pittsburgh's MLB and NHL teams is launching a direct-to-consumer streaming service, the latest to take the step as more fans cut the cord."", 'SportsNet Pittsburgh on Monday unveiled SNP 360, which will cost fans in its local market $17.99 a month to watch Pirates and Penguins games outside of the pay-TV bundle.', 'Viewers with pay-TV subscriptions will also have access to the app.', ""The streaming offering for the Pirates and Penguins — the highest-rated NHL team in the 2023-24 regular season — comes as the regional sports network business, a key piece of the professional leagues' media rights model, takes a hit from the shift to streaming."", 'It also follows a shakeup at SportsNet Pittsburgh last year.', 'The network came under new ownership last year when Warner Bros. Discovery exited the regional sports network business, which it inherited in the 2022 merger between Warner Media and Discovery.', 'The network is now owned by the Pirates and Penguins.', 'Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Boston Red Sox, agreed to acquire a controlling stake in the Penguins in 2021.', 'Fenway Sports Group and Delaware North, also the parent company of the Boston Bruins, own the regional sports network NESN, which manages SportsNet Pittsburgh.', '""Our desire has been to reach fans wherever they are and give them options to access our clubs\' telecasts,"" said NESN and SportsNet Pittsburgh CEO Sean McGrail. ""', ""There are many people now who don't subscribe a linear TV bundle, and we wanted to make sure they had the opportunity to engage with our teams and be part of the fan base."", '""SNP 360 came together quickly over the last six months when NESN took over operations of the Sportsnet Pittsburgh, McGrail said.', 'He said the network is offering the service at ""an aggressive price point,"" lower than the cost of most other regional sports streaming plans, while it builds up its content beyond the Pirates and Penguins.', 'NESN, which broadcasts Red Sox and Bruins local games, was the first regional sports network to offer a streaming alternative for its market in 2022.', 'NESN 360 is available for $29.99 a month, or $180 for the first yearon the annual plan through a current promotional offer.', 'It otherwise costs $329.99 per year.', 'Last year, the YES Network, home of the New York Yankees, Brooklyn Nets and New York Liberty, launched its streaming service for $24.99 a month.', 'MSG Network, which airs New York Knicks, New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils games, launched a new streaming service in 2023 and charges $29.99 a month.', 'Regional sports networks, once a lucrative business, have been particularly squeezed as consumers opt out of the traditional pay-TV bundle in favor of streaming.', 'Many now offer streaming options to recapture those customers.', 'The networks remain careful about pricing in order to avoid further disrupting the pay-TV model and breach contracts with distributors.', 'The contracts with pay-TV distributors help support the billions of dollars in fees that the networks pay professional sports teams to air their games.', 'Diamond Sports, the owner of the largest portfolio of regional sports networks, also launched streaming services for some of its teams before filing for bankruptcy protection in 2023.', 'During the bankruptcy proceedings, Diamond has exited contracts with some teams to avoid paying high rights fees.', '""It has certainly been challenging times,"" said McGrail. ""', ""But those are the times that bring opportunity, and you have to actively think about your distribution strategy and how you're going to handle distribution in the future."", ""This addresses the needs of a certain group of people who don't live in the linear world anymore."", 'We\'re trying to be flexible and make sure we\'re supporting these fans.""']",0.1398764115928744,"There are many people now who don't subscribe a linear TV bundle, and we wanted to make sure they had the opportunity to engage with our teams and be part of the fan base.","MSG Network, which airs New York Knicks, New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils games, launched a new streaming service in 2023 and charges $29.99 a month.",-0.3734017511208852,"He said the network is offering the service at ""an aggressive price point,"" lower than the cost of most other regional sports streaming plans, while it builds up its content beyond the Pirates and Penguins.","Regional sports networks, once a lucrative business, have been particularly squeezed as consumers opt out of the traditional pay-TV bundle in favor of streaming.",2024-04-29
"Post Office paid widow in instalments for silence, inquiry hears",https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c88z431n2v5o,2024-04-26T15:52:26.920Z,"The widow of a sub-postmaster who took his own life had to sign a non-disclosure agreement with the Post Office in exchange for staggered compensation payments, an inquiry has heard. The family of sub-postmaster Martin Griffiths also had to agree not to pursue legal action to try to clear his name and get more money. The details emerged as part of a long-running inquiry into the prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters by the Post Office.  During a second day of questioning, former Post Office executive Angela van den Bogerd was shown emails where she and her colleagues discussed hiring a media lawyer after learning that Mr Griffiths was seriously ill in hospital. It also emerged that the then chief executive, Paula Vennells, questioned whether Mr Griffiths had ""previous mental health issues and potential family issues"" to feed back to the board. Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office prosecuted hundreds of sub-postmasters for offences such as theft and false accounting on the strength of faulty Horizon accounting software. Mr Griffiths had been pursued for a supposed shortfall amounting to £100,000 at his post office in Cheshire. He had written to the Post Office that July about a £39,000 shortfall at his branch between February 2012 and May 2013. He was also being held culpable for losses from an armed robbery at his branch in May of that year. An email from campaigner Alan Bates to Post Office executives quoted Mr Griffiths' mother saying that ""the Post Office had driven him to suicide"". The email was eventually forwarded to Ms van den Bogerd with a suggestion from the communications head Mark Davies to hire a specialist media lawyer. Counsel for the inquiry Jason Beer KC asked Ms van den Bogerd: ""The immediate reaction was not 'what can we, the Post Office, do to help this man's family', was it?"" She replied: ""Not at this point."" Mr Beer asked if that was what it was like working in the Post Office at this time. ""That the first thought was, we need a media lawyer?"" She replied: ""In all my time with Post Office from very, very early on, I was very conscious that PR was very important."" Following his death, the family was offered £140,000, with the condition that they do not pursue the Post Office for any more money, and keep quiet about the deal. The payments were staggered, which the Post Office ""asked for as an incentive to Mrs Griffiths maintaining confidentiality"", according to a 2015 email from Post Office litigation lawyer Rodric Williams to Ms van den Bogerd. She said the deal had been offered as a way of getting money to Mrs Griffiths more quickly than through the mediation scheme the Post Office had set up. In further questioning, Ms van den Bogerd was hit with accusation after accusation  from lawyer Ed Henry, each of which she denied or disagreed with. Mr Henry accused her of ""deliberately supressing the truth"" to which she replied: ""No I would never do that."" Mr Henry said she was ""letting wrongful convictions stand"", to which she said: ""No."" The hearing was attended by a number of former sub-postmasters, including Parmod Kalia. He used to work at the Orpington branch, and was given a six month jail sentence after being falsely accused of stealing £22,000 from the Post Office. Mr Kalia sat in the inquiry room with tears in his eyes as lawyer Ed Henry questioned Ms van den Bogerd about a letter she sent to him in 2015 insisting that the Horizon system was robust. As the inquiry broke for lunch, Mr Kalia told the BBC that the exchange was ""very tough"" to watch. “He [Mr Henry] brought back memories of my mum. I had to beg and borrow from her, and I could never pay her back."" “It was very important for the barrister to bring it up."" He said he wanted ""some kind of acceptance"" from Ms van den Bogerd. “I haven't got what I’m looking for, which is a public apology to me personally. I know she apologised to everyone yesterday, but that was off a bit of paper.” “She’s broken me” he added. ",BBC,26/04/2024,"['The widow of a sub-postmaster who took his own life had to sign a non-disclosure agreement with the Post Office in exchange for staggered compensation payments, an inquiry has heard.', 'The family of sub-postmaster Martin Griffiths also had to agree not to pursue legal action to try to clear his name and get more money.', 'The details emerged as part of a long-running inquiry into the prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters by the Post Office.', 'During a second day of questioning, former Post Office executive Angela van den Bogerd was shown emails where she and her colleagues discussed hiring a media lawyer after learning that Mr Griffiths was seriously ill in hospital.', 'It also emerged that the then chief executive, Paula Vennells, questioned whether Mr Griffiths had ""previous mental health issues and potential family issues"" to feed back to the board.', 'Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office prosecuted hundreds of sub-postmasters for offences such as theft and false accounting on the strength of faulty Horizon accounting software.', 'Mr Griffiths had been pursued for a supposed shortfall amounting to £100,000 at his post office in Cheshire.', 'He had written to the Post Office that July about a £39,000 shortfall at his branch between February 2012 and May 2013.', 'He was also being held culpable for losses from an armed robbery at his branch in May of that year.', 'An email from campaigner Alan Bates to Post Office executives quoted Mr Griffiths\' mother saying that ""the Post Office had driven him to suicide"".', 'The email was eventually forwarded to Ms van den Bogerd with a suggestion from the communications head Mark Davies to hire a specialist media lawyer.', 'Counsel for the inquiry Jason Beer KC asked Ms van den Bogerd: ""The immediate reaction was not \'what can we, the Post Office, do to help this man\'s family\', was it?""', 'She replied: ""Not at this point.""', 'Mr Beer asked if that was what it was like working in the Post Office at this time. ""', 'That the first thought was, we need a media lawyer?""', 'She replied: ""In all my time with Post Office from very, very early on, I was very conscious that PR was very important.""', 'Following his death, the family was offered £140,000, with the condition that they do not pursue the Post Office for any more money, and keep quiet about the deal.', 'The payments were staggered, which the Post Office ""asked for as an incentive to Mrs Griffiths maintaining confidentiality"", according to a 2015 email from Post Office litigation lawyer Rodric Williams to Ms van den Bogerd.', 'She said the deal had been offered as a way of getting money to Mrs Griffiths more quickly than through the mediation scheme the Post Office had set up.', 'In further questioning, Ms van den Bogerd was hit with accusation after accusation from lawyer Ed Henry, each of which she denied or disagreed with.', 'Mr Henry accused her of ""deliberately supressing the truth"" to which she replied: ""No I would never do that.""', 'Mr Henry said she was ""letting wrongful convictions stand"", to which she said: ""No.""', 'The hearing was attended by a number of former sub-postmasters, including Parmod Kalia.', 'He used to work at the Orpington branch, and was given a six month jail sentence after being falsely accused of stealing £22,000 from the Post Office.', 'Mr Kalia sat in the inquiry room with tears in his eyes as lawyer Ed Henry questioned Ms van den Bogerd about a letter she sent to him in 2015 insisting that the Horizon system was robust.', 'As the inquiry broke for lunch, Mr Kalia told the BBC that the exchange was ""very tough"" to watch. “', 'He [Mr Henry] brought back memories of my mum.', 'I had to beg and borrow from her, and I could never pay her back."" “', 'It was very important for the barrister to bring it up.""', 'He said he wanted ""some kind of acceptance"" from Ms van den Bogerd. “', ""I haven't got what I’m looking for, which is a public apology to me personally."", 'I know she apologised to everyone yesterday, but that was off a bit of paper.” “', 'She’s broken me” he added.']",-0.0867481427947272,"He said he wanted ""some kind of acceptance"" from Ms van den Bogerd. “","In further questioning, Ms van den Bogerd was hit with accusation after accusation from lawyer Ed Henry, each of which she denied or disagreed with.",-0.4651322662830353,She said the deal had been offered as a way of getting money to Mrs Griffiths more quickly than through the mediation scheme the Post Office had set up.,"He had written to the Post Office that July about a £39,000 shortfall at his branch between February 2012 and May 2013.",2024-04-29
JPMorgan Chase is caught in U.S-Russia sanctions war after overseas court orders $440 million seized from bank,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/24/jpmorgan-chase-is-caught-in-us-russia-sanctions-war-after-overseas-court-orders-440-million-seized-from-bank.html,2024-04-24T22:24:46+0000,"In this articleA Russian court sided with state-run lender VTB Bank in its efforts to recoup $439.5 million from JPMorgan Chase that the American lender froze in U.S. accounts after the Ukraine invasion.The court ordered the seizure of funds in JPMorgan's Russian accounts and ""movable and immovable property,"" including the bank's stake in a Russian subsidiary, according to a court order published Wednesday.The order came after VTB filed a suit last week in a St. Petersburg arbitration court, seeking to be made whole for funds frozen in the U.S., and asking for relief because JPMorgan has said it plans to exit Russia.The next hearing in the Russian case is July 17.JPMorgan declined to comment. VTB did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.The order was the latest example of American banks getting caught between the demands of Western sanctions regimes and overseas interests. JPMorgan is the biggest U.S. bank by assets and run by veteran CEO Jamie Dimon.  Two years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Biden administration has mounted an unprecedented set of sanctions, oil price caps and trade restrictions designed to weaken Moscow's military machine.On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed into law a sweeping foreign aid bill that includes new powers for U.S. officials to locate and seize Russian assets in the U.S. It also boosted an ongoing American effort to convince European allies to release Russian state assets to assist Ukraine.In its own lawsuit against VTB last week in the Southern District of New York, JPMorgan sought to block VTB's effort, noting that U.S. law prohibits the bank from releasing VTB's $439.5 million.This leaves JPMorgan exposed to a nearly half-billion-dollar loss, for abiding by U.S. sanctions.The American bank, seeking to block VTB's effort, said the Russian company broke its contractual promise to seek relief in American courts, instead finding a friendlier venue in Russia.JPMorgan said Russian courts have enabled similar efforts by Russian lenders against American or European banks at least a half dozen other times.JPMorgan said it faced ""certain and irreparable harm"" from VTB's efforts.",CNBC,24/04/2024,"['In this articleA Russian court sided with state-run lender VTB Bank in its efforts to recoup $439.5 million from JPMorgan Chase that the American lender froze in U.S. accounts after the Ukraine invasion.', 'The court ordered the seizure of funds in JPMorgan\'s Russian accounts and ""movable and immovable property,"" including the bank\'s stake in a Russian subsidiary, according to a court order published Wednesday.', 'The order came after VTB filed a suit last week in a St. Petersburg arbitration court, seeking to be made whole for funds frozen in the U.S., and asking for relief because JPMorgan has said it plans to exit Russia.', 'The next hearing in the Russian case is July 17.JPMorgan declined to comment.', ""VTB did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment."", 'The order was the latest example of American banks getting caught between the demands of Western sanctions regimes and overseas interests.', 'JPMorgan is the biggest U.S. bank by assets and run by veteran CEO Jamie Dimon.', ""Two years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Biden administration has mounted an unprecedented set of sanctions, oil price caps and trade restrictions designed to weaken Moscow's military machine."", 'On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed into law a sweeping foreign aid bill that includes new powers for U.S. officials to locate and seize Russian assets in the U.S. It also boosted an ongoing American effort to convince European allies to release Russian state assets to assist Ukraine.', ""In its own lawsuit against VTB last week in the Southern District of New York, JPMorgan sought to block VTB's effort, noting that U.S. law prohibits the bank from releasing VTB's $439.5 million."", 'This leaves JPMorgan exposed to a nearly half-billion-dollar loss, for abiding by U.S. sanctions.', ""The American bank, seeking to block VTB's effort, said the Russian company broke its contractual promise to seek relief in American courts, instead finding a friendlier venue in Russia."", 'JPMorgan said Russian courts have enabled similar efforts by Russian lenders against American or European banks at least a half dozen other times.', 'JPMorgan said it faced ""certain and irreparable harm"" from VTB\'s efforts.']",0.0204917561348164,"On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed into law a sweeping foreign aid bill that includes new powers for U.S. officials to locate and seize Russian assets in the U.S. It also boosted an ongoing American effort to convince European allies to release Russian state assets to assist Ukraine.","In its own lawsuit against VTB last week in the Southern District of New York, JPMorgan sought to block VTB's effort, noting that U.S. law prohibits the bank from releasing VTB's $439.5 million.",-0.0723157450556755,"On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed into law a sweeping foreign aid bill that includes new powers for U.S. officials to locate and seize Russian assets in the U.S. It also boosted an ongoing American effort to convince European allies to release Russian state assets to assist Ukraine.","This leaves JPMorgan exposed to a nearly half-billion-dollar loss, for abiding by U.S. sanctions.",2024-04-29
"Bristol Myers Squibb beats on revenue, launches $1.5 billion cost cuts as it posts quarterly loss",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/bristol-myers-squibb-bmy-earnings-q1-2024.html,2024-04-25T16:26:45+0000,"In this articleBristol Myers Squibb on Thursday reported first-quarter revenue that topped expectations as sales of its popular blood cancer treatment Revlimid and blockbuster blood thinner Eliquis came in higher than expected. But the pharmaceutical company swung to a quarterly loss due to one-time charges related to its recently closed deals. It also said it plans to cut $1.5 billion in costs by 2025, and reinvest the money in drug development.Bristol Myers will lay off 2,200 employees this year, discontinue some drug programs, eliminate open roles, consolidate its sites and reduce management layers, among other cost savings. The company said it will prioritize investment in its key drug brands, optimize operations across the company and focus its resources on research and development programs that could deliver the highest returns for the company and the greatest health benefits for patients.Two-thirds of savings are associated with drug research and development, Bristol Myers executives said during an earnings call Thursday. The company has discontinued about 12 drug programs so far and will evaluate others to drop throughout year, said Bristol Myers Chief Medical Officer Dr. Samit Hirawat.Bristol Myers CEO Chris Boerner added that the majority of savings are coming from existing in-house operations, not from newly acquired companies.""We are taking important actions to effectively manage the decade,"" Boerner said during the call. ""Our management team has focused on ensuring the discipline execution required to deliver both this year and set us up for the longer term.""For the first quarter, Bristol Myers said the charges that weighed it down primarily reflect its $14 billion acquisition of neuroscience drugmaker Karuna Therapeutics and the collaboration agreement with SystImmune, a subsidiary of a Chinese biotech startup, to co-develop and market its experimental cancer treatment. Those deals come as Bristol Myers faces pressure to launch new drugs and offset the potential loss of revenue from top-selling treatments. The company's popular blood cancer treatment Revlimid — and eventually, Eliquis and cancer immunotherapy Opdivo — faces competition from cheaper copycats. Shares of Bristol Myers fell more than 7% on Tuesday.Here is what Bristol Myers reported for the first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG: Bristol Myers, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, swung to a net loss of $11.9 billion, or $5.89 per share, during the first quarter. That compares to net income of $2.3 billion, or $1.07 per share, for the same period a year ago. Excluding certain items, its adjusted loss per share was $4.40 for the period. The loss reflects a one-time $6.30 per share charge related to the recently closed deals, Bristol Myers said in a release.Bristol Myers reported first-quarter revenue of $11.87 billion, up 5% from the year-earlier period. The company reiterated its full-year revenue forecast of a low single-digit increase. But Bristol Myers lowered its 2024 adjusted earnings guidance to 40 cents to 70 cents per share to reflect the effect of the recent deals. That compares with a previous forecast of $7.10 to $7.40 per share, which did not include charges related to its buyouts of Karuna Therapeutics and radiopharmaceutical company RayzeBio, along with divestitures and other items. Bristol Myers said revenue growth for the first quarter was primarily driven by higher sales of Eliquis and some of its newer drugs. Eliquis booked $3.72 billion in sales for the quarter, up 9% from the year-ago period. Analysts had expected Eliquis to draw $3.59 billion in revenue, according to estimates compiled by FactSet.Eliquis, which Bristol Myers shares with Pfizer, is among the first 10 drugs facing ongoing price negotiations with the federal Medicare program. The blood thinner is expected to lose market exclusivity by 2028.The effect of those negotiations on Eliquis is still unclear, Bristol Myers executives said during the call. The final negotiated price for the drug will be published later this year and go into effect in 2026, which is when the company expects a hit to revenue and profit.Meanwhile, Revlimid raked in $1.67 billion in sales, down 5% from the same period a year ago. Still, that surpassed analysts' revenue expectations of $1.22 billion for the drug, according to FactSet estimates.  Anemia drug Reblozyl and advanced melanoma treatment Opdualag also posted revenue growth during the first quarter. Reblozyl booked $354 million in sales, up 72% from the year-earlier period. Analysts had expected revenue of $330.8 million, according to FactSet.Opdualag generated $206 million in sales for the first quarter, which is up 76% from the same period a year ago. Analysts had expected revenue of $206.5 million, FactSet estimates said. The performance of other new drugs fell short of Wall Street's expectations. Abecma, a cell therapy for a rare blood cancer called multiple myeloma, drew $82 million in sales for the quarter. Analysts had expected $112.6 million in revenue, according to FactSet. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this month expanded its approval of that drug, allowing multiple myeloma patients to use it as an earlier line of treatment.An older drug, Opdivo, generated $2.07 billion in sales for the quarter, down 6% from the first quarter of 2023. Analysts had expected the drug to book $2.3 billion in revenue for the period, FactSet estimates said.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"['In this articleBristol Myers Squibb on Thursday reported first-quarter revenue that topped expectations as sales of its popular blood cancer treatment Revlimid and blockbuster blood thinner Eliquis came in higher than expected.', 'But the pharmaceutical company swung to a quarterly loss due to one-time charges related to its recently closed deals.', 'It also said it plans to cut $1.5 billion in costs by 2025, and reinvest the money in drug development.', 'Bristol Myers will lay off 2,200 employees this year, discontinue some drug programs, eliminate open roles, consolidate its sites and reduce management layers, among other cost savings.', 'The company said it will prioritize investment in its key drug brands, optimize operations across the company and focus its resources on research and development programs that could deliver the highest returns for the company and the greatest health benefits for patients.', 'Two-thirds of savings are associated with drug research and development, Bristol Myers executives said during an earnings call Thursday.', 'The company has discontinued about 12 drug programs so far and will evaluate others to drop throughout year, said Bristol Myers Chief Medical Officer Dr. Samit Hirawat.', 'Bristol Myers CEO Chris Boerner added that the majority of savings are coming from existing in-house operations, not from newly acquired companies.', '""We are taking important actions to effectively manage the decade,"" Boerner said during the call. ""', 'Our management team has focused on ensuring the discipline execution required to deliver both this year and set us up for the longer term.', '""For the first quarter, Bristol Myers said the charges that weighed it down primarily reflect its $14 billion acquisition of neuroscience drugmaker Karuna Therapeutics and the collaboration agreement with SystImmune, a subsidiary of a Chinese biotech startup, to co-develop and market its experimental cancer treatment.', 'Those deals come as Bristol Myers faces pressure to launch new drugs and offset the potential loss of revenue from top-selling treatments.', ""The company's popular blood cancer treatment Revlimid — and eventually, Eliquis and cancer immunotherapy Opdivo — faces competition from cheaper copycats."", 'Shares of Bristol Myers fell more than 7% on Tuesday.', ""Here is what Bristol Myers reported for the first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:Bristol Myers, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, swung to a net loss of $11.9 billion, or $5.89 per share, during the first quarter."", 'That compares to net income of $2.3 billion, or $1.07 per share, for the same period a year ago.', 'Excluding certain items, its adjusted loss per share was $4.40 for the period.', 'The loss reflects a one-time $6.30 per share charge related to the recently closed deals, Bristol Myers said in a release.', 'Bristol Myers reported first-quarter revenue of $11.87 billion, up 5% from the year-earlier period.', 'The company reiterated its full-year revenue forecast of a low single-digit increase.', 'But Bristol Myers lowered its 2024 adjusted earnings guidance to 40 cents to 70 cents per share to reflect the effect of the recent deals.', 'That compares with a previous forecast of $7.10 to $7.40 per share, which did not include charges related to its buyouts of Karuna Therapeutics and radiopharmaceutical company RayzeBio, along with divestitures and other items.', 'Bristol Myers said revenue growth for the first quarter was primarily driven by higher sales of Eliquis and some of its newer drugs.', 'Eliquis booked $3.72 billion in sales for the quarter, up 9% from the year-ago period.', 'Analysts had expected Eliquis to draw $3.59 billion in revenue, according to estimates compiled by FactSet.', 'Eliquis, which Bristol Myers shares with Pfizer, is among the first 10 drugs facing ongoing price negotiations with the federal Medicare program.', 'The blood thinner is expected to lose market exclusivity by 2028.The effect of those negotiations on Eliquis is still unclear, Bristol Myers executives said during the call.', 'The final negotiated price for the drug will be published later this year and go into effect in 2026, which is when the company expects a hit to revenue and profit.', 'Meanwhile, Revlimid raked in $1.67 billion in sales, down 5% from the same period a year ago.', ""Still, that surpassed analysts' revenue expectations of $1.22 billion for the drug, according to FactSet estimates."", 'Anemia drug Reblozyl and advanced melanoma treatment Opdualag also posted revenue growth during the first quarter.', 'Reblozyl booked $354 million in sales, up 72% from the year-earlier period.', 'Analysts had expected revenue of $330.8 million, according to FactSet.', 'Opdualag generated $206 million in sales for the first quarter, which is up 76% from the same period a year ago.', 'Analysts had expected revenue of $206.5 million, FactSet estimates said.', ""The performance of other new drugs fell short of Wall Street's expectations."", 'Abecma, a cell therapy for a rare blood cancer called multiple myeloma, drew $82 million in sales for the quarter.', 'Analysts had expected $112.6 million in revenue, according to FactSet.', 'The U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this month expanded its approval of that drug, allowing multiple myeloma patients to use it as an earlier line of treatment.', 'An older drug, Opdivo, generated $2.07 billion in sales for the quarter, down 6% from the first quarter of 2023.', 'Analysts had expected the drug to book $2.3 billion in revenue for the period, FactSet estimates said.']",0.0461499500993691,"The company said it will prioritize investment in its key drug brands, optimize operations across the company and focus its resources on research and development programs that could deliver the highest returns for the company and the greatest health benefits for patients.","The company's popular blood cancer treatment Revlimid — and eventually, Eliquis and cancer immunotherapy Opdivo — faces competition from cheaper copycats.",0.3070554855991812,"Reblozyl booked $354 million in sales, up 72% from the year-earlier period.","Meanwhile, Revlimid raked in $1.67 billion in sales, down 5% from the same period a year ago.",2024-04-29
Columbia student protesters are demanding divestment. Here’s what the university has divested from in the past,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/27/business/columbia-history-divestment-student-protests/index.html,"
  Updated
        4:42 PM EDT, Sat April 27, 2024
    ","One of the core demands over the past week by the pro-Palestinian student groups at Columbia University has been for the school to withdraw investment funds from what they describe as companies profiting from Israel’s military action in Gaza.
    
            Columbia’s endowment is worth $13.6 billion and is managed by a university-owned investment firm.
    
            The request from Columbia University Apartheid Divest — a coalition of student groups behind the movement — includes, among other steps, divesting endowment funds from several weapons manufacturers and tech companies that do business with Israel’s government. The group has described those companies as profiting “from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and military occupation of Palestine.” Israel denies accusations of genocide.
    
            This is not the first time such demands have been made. Columbia has a history of student activism, from the now-famous 1968 student occupation of multiple campus buildings to raise awareness of the Vietnam War, to hunger strikes over issues such as the university’s expansion in Upper Manhattan.
    
            And protesting students also have a history of pushing for Columbia to divest in different movements.
    
            In 2000, the university established an advisory committee on socially responsible investing, made up of students, faculty and alumni, to provide feedback to the managers of Columbia’s endowment investments. The group has a formal process for submitting divestment proposals.
    
            Columbia University Apartheid Divest submitted a formal proposal to the committee for withdrawing investments related to Israel in December, which has yet to yield success. Students at Columbia College, the university’s undergraduate school, voted to support the divestment proposal last week.
    
            And students are continuing to push for the university to adopt the proposal.
    
            “We are building on the legacy of decades of students who are called for freedom, for liberation, for equality and for an end to apartheid systems across the world … for all oppressed peoples,” Columbia student organizer Catherine Elias told CNN earlier this week.
    
            Currently, Columbia lists five areas where it refrains from investing: tobacco, private prison operations, thermal coal, Sudan and fossil fuels — all decisions that were made in the past decade. But the school’s divestment history goes back even farther.
    
            In the 1980s, a group of Columbia students began to call on the school to cut financial ties with companies doing business in South Africa over its apartheid racial segregation policy.
    
            Daniel Armstrong, who founded the Coalition for a Free South Africa as a Columbia student in early 1980s and now owns a mentoring business in Los Angeles, said the effort began with fliers and guest speakers but grew in the subsequent years.
    
            Students “began seeing that this isn’t a crazy position to have,” Armstrong told CNN. “Then our student newspaper began supporting it, which I thought was a huge step as far as legitimizing the demand for divestment.”
    
            In 1983, Columbia’s student Senate approved the move to divest with nearly unanimous support, but the university’s trustees said no.
    
            In April 1985, students led a three-week student demonstration against Columbia’s investments in South Africa, the New York Times reported at the time. The demonstration involved around 150 students blocking access to the entrance of a campus building.
    
            Months after that protest, trustees voted to sell the majority of Columbia’s stock in American companies doing business in South Africa. That included a laundry list of investments in notable companies including American Express, Chevron, Ford and Coca-Cola, among others, which together totaled $39 million in stock and about 4% of Columbia’s total portfolio, the New York Times reported.
    
            Columbia was the first Ivy League university to divest from South Africa, and various other colleges followed suit, including the University of California, Berkeley, as well as Johns Hopkins University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. South Africa’s apartheid ended in the early 1990s.
    
            Since that time, student activists have successfully pushed Columbia to divest from several other areas.
    
            In 2015, Columbia became the first US university to divest from private prison companies after a year-plus-long student activist campaign raising concerns about human rights abuses. The university sold its shares in G4S, the world’s largest private security firm, and Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison company in the United States.
    
            In 2019, a group of Columbia students affiliated with the climate activism organization Extinction Rebellion staged a weeklong hunger strike in the library to encourage the university to go beyond an earlier commitment to divest from thermal coal and withdraw funds from all fossil fuels.
    
            Despite some pushback from university leaders in the ensuing months, the group presented a formal divestment proposal to the socially responsible investing committee.
    
            “People have criticized (these movements) for using the goal of divestment because it’s a symbolic goal and if the university divests then someone else will just buy those same shares,” said Savannah Pearson, who participated in the 2019 hunger strike as an undergraduate student at Columbia. But, she said, “symbols have a lot of power … and it can inspire other schools to do the same thing.”
    
            The fossil fuel divestment proposal was approved by Columbia’s Board of Trustees in early 2021. The policy includes, among other things, a commitment not to invest in “companies whose primary business is the exploration and production of fossil fuels.” Columbia’s announcement was followed by student advocacy, and eventually similar commitments, at other Ivy League universities.
    
            “A small group of students can transform an institution like Columbia University, but they can’t do it without support and buy-in from the wider community,” said Michael Cusack, who as a graduate student at Columbia’s Teachers College in 2019 helped to author the group’s proposal.",CNN,27/04/2024,"['One of the core demands over the past week by thepro-Palestinian student groups at Columbia University has been for the school to withdraw investment funds from what they describe as companies profiting from Israel’s military action in Gaza.', 'Columbia’s endowment is worth $13.6 billion and is managed by a university-owned investment firm.', 'The request from Columbia University Apartheid Divest — a coalition of student groups behind the movement — includes, among other steps, divesting endowment funds from several weapons manufacturers and tech companies that do business with Israel’s government.', 'The group has described those companies as profiting “from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and military occupation of Palestine.”', 'Israel denies accusations of genocide.', 'This is not the first time such demands have been made.', 'Columbia has a history of student activism, from the now-famous 1968 student occupation of multiple campus buildings to raise awareness of the Vietnam War, to hunger strikes over issues such as the university’s expansion in Upper Manhattan.', 'And protesting students also have a history of pushing for Columbia to divest in different movements.', 'In 2000, the university established an advisory committee on socially responsible investing, made up of students, faculty and alumni, to provide feedback to the managers of Columbia’s endowment investments.', 'The group has a formal process for submitting divestment proposals.', 'Columbia University Apartheid Divest submitted a formal proposal to the committee for withdrawing investments related to Israel in December, which has yet to yield success.', 'Students at Columbia College, the university’s undergraduate school, voted to support the divestment proposal last week.', 'And students are continuing to push for the university to adopt the proposal.', '“We are building on the legacy of decades of students who are called for freedom, for liberation, for equality and for an end to apartheid systems across the world … for all oppressed peoples,” Columbia student organizer Catherine Elias told CNN earlier this week.', 'Currently, Columbia lists five areas where it refrains from investing: tobacco, private prison operations, thermal coal, Sudan and fossil fuels — all decisions that were made in the past decade.', 'But the school’s divestment history goes back even farther.', 'In the 1980s, a group of Columbia students began to call on the school to cut financial ties with companies doing business in South Africa over its apartheid racial segregation policy.', 'Daniel Armstrong, who founded the Coalition for a Free South Africa as a Columbia student in early 1980s and now owns a mentoring business in Los Angeles, said the effort began with fliers and guest speakers but grew in the subsequent years.', 'Students “began seeing that this isn’t a crazy position to have,” Armstrong told CNN. “', 'Then our student newspaper began supporting it, which I thought was a huge step as far as legitimizing the demand for divestment.”', 'In 1983, Columbia’s student Senate approved the move to divest with nearly unanimous support, but the university’s trustees said no.', 'In April 1985, students led a three-week student demonstration against Columbia’s investments in South Africa, the New York Times reported at the time.', 'The demonstration involved around 150 students blocking access to the entrance of a campus building.', 'Months after that protest, trustees voted to sell the majority of Columbia’s stock in American companies doing business in South Africa.', 'That included a laundry list of investments in notable companies including American Express, Chevron, Ford and Coca-Cola, among others, which together totaled $39 million in stock and about 4% of Columbia’s total portfolio, the New York Times reported.', 'Columbia was the first Ivy League university to divest from South Africa, and various other colleges followed suit, including the University of California, Berkeley, as well as Johns Hopkins University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.', 'South Africa’s apartheid ended in the early 1990s.', 'Since that time, student activists have successfully pushed Columbia to divest from several other areas.', 'In 2015, Columbia became the first US university to divest from private prison companies after a year-plus-long student activist campaign raising concerns about human rights abuses.', 'The university sold its shares in G4S, the world’s largest private security firm, and Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison company in the United States.', 'In 2019, a group of Columbia students affiliated with the climate activism organization Extinction Rebellion staged a weeklong hunger strike in the library to encourage the university to go beyond an earlier commitment to divest from thermal coal and withdraw funds from all fossil fuels.', 'Despite some pushback from university leaders in the ensuing months, the group presented a formal divestment proposal to the socially responsible investing committee.', '“People have criticized (these movements) for using the goal of divestment because it’s a symbolic goal and if the university divests then someone else will just buy those same shares,” said Savannah Pearson, who participated in the 2019 hunger strike as an undergraduate student at Columbia.', 'But, she said, “symbols have a lot of power … and it can inspire other schools to do the same thing.”', 'The fossil fuel divestment proposal was approved by Columbia’s Board of Trustees in early 2021.', 'The policy includes, among other things, a commitment not to invest in “companies whose primary business is the exploration and production of fossil fuels.”', 'Columbia’s announcement was followed by student advocacy, and eventually similar commitments, at other Ivy League universities.', '“A small group of students can transform an institution like Columbia University, but they can’t do it without support and buy-in from the wider community,” said Michael Cusack, who as a graduate student at Columbia’s Teachers College in 2019 helped to author the group’s proposal.']",0.0600682143151576,"But, she said, “symbols have a lot of power … and it can inspire other schools to do the same thing.”","Columbia has a history of student activism, from the now-famous 1968 student occupation of multiple campus buildings to raise awareness of the Vietnam War, to hunger strikes over issues such as the university’s expansion in Upper Manhattan.",0.9971441626548768,"Then our student newspaper began supporting it, which I thought was a huge step as far as legitimizing the demand for divestment.”",,2024-04-29
Elon Musk in China to discuss enabling Full Self Driving,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68914929,2024-04-28T06:31:58.000Z,"Elon Musk is visiting Beijing with media reports saying he aims to discuss enabling autonomous driving mode on Tesla cars in China. Mr Musk wants to enable Full Self Driving (FSD) in China and transfer data collected in the country abroad to train its algorithms. FSD is available in countries including the US but not in China. The news came after a US report tied Tesla's autonomous driving modes to at least 13 crashes, involving one death. During a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Mr Musk was quoted by state media as saying Tesla was willing deep cooperation with China to ""achieve more win-win results"". In response, Mr Li told Mr Musk the Chinese market would ""always be open to foreign-funded firms,"" according to the reports. China is Tesla's second-biggest market. Other carmakers such as Xpeng - headquartered in Guangzhou - have been attempting to compete with Tesla by rolling out similar self-driving functions in their cars.  On Sunday, Mr Musk described Chinese car manufacturers as ""the most competitive car companies in the world"". Tesla has previously taken steps to reassure Chinese authorities about the rollout of FSD in the country, including establishing a data centre in Shanghai to process data about Chinese consumers in accordance with local laws.  The trip comes days after the US's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it was investigating whether a recall successfully addressed safety concerns relating to Tesla's driver assistance system.  The NHTSA said that despite requirements that drivers maintain focus on the road and be prepared to take control at a moment's notice when autonomous driving was enabled, drivers involved in the crashes ""were not sufficiently engaged"". The regulator's analysis was conducted before a recall Tesla said would fix the issue. Tesla's software is supposed to make sure that drivers are paying attention and that the feature is only in use in appropriate conditions, such as driving on highways. Mr Musk has promised that Teslas will be able to act as autonomous ""robotaxis"" for years. In 2015, he said Teslas would achieve ""full autonomy"" by 2018. And in 2019, he said the company would have robotaxis operating by the following year.  This month, the Tesla chief executive said he would reveal the company's robotaxi in August.  Critics accuse Mr Musk of consistently hyping up the prospects of full autonomous driving to prop up the company's share price, which has fallen on the back of challenges including falling demand for electric vehicles worldwide and competition from cheaper Chinese manufacturers. Mr Musk denies the accusations. Tesla has been cutting the prices of its cars in China and other markets to drum up demand. ""Tesla prices must change frequently in order to match production with demand,"" Mr Musk recently said on X, the microblogging platform previously known as Twitter which the billionaire owns.  Tesla recently reported a 13% fall in automotive sales to $17.3bn (£13.7bn) for the first three months of this year. Overall sales across Tesla dropped by 9% while its profits fell sharply to $1.13bn compared to $2.51bn for the same period last year. So far in 2024, its share price has collapsed by 32%. ",BBC,28/04/2024,"['Elon Musk is visiting Beijing with media reports saying he aims to discuss enabling autonomous driving mode on Tesla cars in China.', 'Mr Musk wants to enable Full Self Driving (FSD) in China and transfer data collected in the country abroad to train its algorithms.', 'FSD is available in countries including the US but not in China.', ""The news came after a US report tied Tesla's autonomous driving modes to at least 13 crashes, involving one death."", 'During a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Mr Musk was quoted by state media as saying Tesla was willing deep cooperation with China to ""achieve more win-win results"".', 'In response, Mr Li told Mr Musk the Chinese market would ""always be open to foreign-funded firms,"" according to the reports.', ""China is Tesla's second-biggest market."", 'Other carmakers such as Xpeng - headquartered in Guangzhou - have been attempting to compete with Tesla by rolling out similar self-driving functions in their cars.', 'On Sunday, Mr Musk described Chinese car manufacturers as ""the most competitive car companies in the world"".', 'Tesla has previously taken steps to reassure Chinese authorities about the rollout of FSD in the country, including establishing a data centre in Shanghai to process data about Chinese consumers in accordance with local laws.', ""The trip comes days after the US's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it was investigating whether a recall successfully addressed safety concerns relating to Tesla's driver assistance system."", 'The NHTSA said that despite requirements that drivers maintain focus on the road and be prepared to take control at a moment\'s notice when autonomous driving was enabled, drivers involved in the crashes ""were not sufficiently engaged"".', ""The regulator's analysis was conducted before a recall Tesla said would fix the issue."", ""Tesla's software is supposed to make sure that drivers are paying attention and that the feature is only in use in appropriate conditions, such as driving on highways."", 'Mr Musk has promised that Teslas will be able to act as autonomous ""robotaxis"" for years.', 'In 2015, he said Teslas would achieve ""full autonomy"" by 2018.', 'And in 2019, he said the company would have robotaxis operating by the following year.', ""This month, the Tesla chief executive said he would reveal the company's robotaxi in August."", ""Critics accuse Mr Musk of consistently hyping up the prospects of full autonomous driving to prop up the company's share price, which has fallen on the back of challenges including falling demand for electric vehicles worldwide and competition from cheaper Chinese manufacturers."", 'Mr Musk denies the accusations.', 'Tesla has been cutting the prices of its cars in China and other markets to drum up demand. ""', 'Tesla prices must change frequently in order to match production with demand,"" Mr Musk recently said on X, the microblogging platform previously known as Twitter which the billionaire owns.', 'Tesla recently reported a 13% fall in automotive sales to $17.3bn (£13.7bn) for the first three months of this year.', 'Overall sales across Tesla dropped by 9% while its profits fell sharply to $1.13bn compared to $2.51bn for the same period last year.', 'So far in 2024, its share price has collapsed by 32%.']",0.0510888454679214,"During a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Mr Musk was quoted by state media as saying Tesla was willing deep cooperation with China to ""achieve more win-win results"".",Mr Musk denies the accusations.,-0.0672348201274871,"During a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Mr Musk was quoted by state media as saying Tesla was willing deep cooperation with China to ""achieve more win-win results"".",Tesla recently reported a 13% fall in automotive sales to $17.3bn (£13.7bn) for the first three months of this year.,2024-04-29
"American Airlines swings to a loss, but tops estimates for Q2 forecast",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/american-airlines-aal-1q-2024-earnings.html,2024-04-25T14:31:32+0000,"In this articleAmerican Airlines swung to a loss in the first quarter, but its forecast for the current period surpassed analysts' estimates.American expects to earn between $1.15 and $1.45 per share in the second quarter, on an adjusted basis, largely above the $1.18 that analysts compiled by LSEG estimated on average. American reiterated its forecast to earn between $2.25 and $3.25 per share for the full year.""While we aren't satisfied with our first-quarter financial results, we have a strong foundation in place, and we remain on track to deliver on our full-year financial targets,"" CEO Robert Isom said in an earnings release.American said it expects second-quarter capacity to be up 7% to 9%, and unit revenues to fall 1% to 3% from last year.Similar to Southwest, United and Alaska, American is affected by Boeing's latest quality control and safety crises. American will receive seven fewer aircraft from Boeing than it previously projected, Isom said, adding that he did not expect a material impact from the delays.""My message is Boeing hasn't changed since the last time we talked,"" Isom told CNBC in an interview. ""Get your act together. Deliver.""Here is how American performed in the first quarter compared with Wall Street estimates compiled by LSEG:American posted a loss of $312 million, or 48 cents per share, in the first quarter, compared with a profit of $10 million, or 2 cents per share, during the same period a year earlier. Adjusting for one-time items, including costs associated with new labor contracts, American lost $226 million, or 34 cents per share.Operating expenses rose nearly 7%, including an 18% rise in salaries and related costs.Revenue rose 3.1% to $12.57 billion.— CNBC's Phil LeBeau contributed to this report.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"[""In this articleAmerican Airlines swung to a loss in the first quarter, but its forecast for the current period surpassed analysts' estimates."", 'American expects to earn between $1.15 and $1.45 per share in the second quarter, on an adjusted basis, largely above the $1.18 that analysts compiled by LSEG estimated on average.', 'American reiterated its forecast to earn between $2.25 and $3.25 per share for the full year.', '""While we aren\'t satisfied with our first-quarter financial results, we have a strong foundation in place, and we remain on track to deliver on our full-year financial targets,"" CEO Robert Isom said in an earnings release.', 'American said it expects second-quarter capacity to be up 7% to 9%, and unit revenues to fall 1% to 3% from last year.', ""Similar to Southwest, United and Alaska, American is affected by Boeing's latest quality control and safety crises."", 'American will receive seven fewer aircraft from Boeing than it previously projected, Isom said, adding that he did not expect a material impact from the delays.', '""My message is Boeing hasn\'t changed since the last time we talked,"" Isom told CNBC in an interview. ""', 'Get your act together.', 'Deliver.', '""Here is how American performedin the first quartercompared with Wall Street estimates compiled by LSEG:American posted a loss of $312 million, or 48 cents per share, in the first quarter, compared with a profit of $10 million, or 2 cents per share, during the same period a year earlier.', 'Adjusting for one-time items, including costs associated with new labor contracts, American lost $226 million, or 34 cents per share.', 'Operating expenses rose nearly 7%, including an 18% rise in salaries and related costs.', 'Revenue rose 3.1% to $12.57 billion.—', ""CNBC's Phil LeBeau contributed to this report.""]",0.1568187498239613,"""While we aren't satisfied with our first-quarter financial results, we have a strong foundation in place, and we remain on track to deliver on our full-year financial targets,"" CEO Robert Isom said in an earnings release.","In this articleAmerican Airlines swung to a loss in the first quarter, but its forecast for the current period surpassed analysts' estimates.",0.3057788718830455,Revenue rose 3.1% to $12.57 billion.—,"Adjusting for one-time items, including costs associated with new labor contracts, American lost $226 million, or 34 cents per share.",2024-04-29
Hull funeral home inquiry: About 200 people affected by 'fake funeral plans' - MP,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-68919829,2024-04-29T19:00:13.000Z,"About 200 people may have bought funeral plans that were non existent from a Hull funeral home at the centre of a police inquiry, an MP has claimed. Emma Hardy, MP for Hull West and Hessle, has appealed for banks to refund those who took out policies from Legacy Independent Funeral Directors. She is arranging a meeting with the government to discuss the issue. The funeral firm is being investigated by police following a report of ""concern for care of the deceased"". Under the chargeback scheme, a voluntary arrangement to which Visa, Mastercard and Amex are members, consumers who have paid by card can ask the provider to refund them within 120 days of making a payment for failed services, faulty goods or fraud by a merchant. Ms Hardy said she was only aware of one person - a 92-year-old woman- who had been refunded via the scheme. Rachel Marshall's 76-year-old mother, Rita Goldspink, spent £2,700 in April 2018 for a pre-paid funeral plan from Legacy. Ms Marshall said: ""We were told last week by the bank that they couldn't process a refund because [the policy was taken out] some time ago. ""I've tried every angle to get my mum's money back but it's just not going to happen."" Ms Marshall added her mother would not be able to afford to buy another funeral policy. Ms Hardy said she believed ""about 200 individuals"" in her constituency had bought policies from Legacy. Ms Hardy appealed to banks to be ""flexible"" in offering refunds, at their discretion, regardless of how long ago the policies were bought. She also asked for the 120-day limit to take effect from the moment individuals were informed their policies did not exist. ""I just really want the banks to be as sympathetic as they possibly can be and recognise this is a unique situation,"" said Ms Hardy. Ms Hardy said she received a letter from the Treasury confirming the government is willing to discuss the matter further after raising the issue in the House of Commons on 17 April. She said she hoped the meeting would result in ""some pressure on the banks to offer some discretion"". HM Treasury has been contacted for a comment. Human ashes and 35 bodies were recovered from the company's Hessle Road premises and taken to a mortuary. The families involved have all been contacted, Humberside Police have said. A 46-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman were arrested on suspicion of prevention of a lawful and decent burial, fraud by false representation and fraud by abuse of position. They have since been released on bail. The force said its dedicated helpline numbers remained open. Follow BBC East Yorkshire on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram. Send your story ideas to eastyorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk Are you affected by the issues raised in this story? Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways: If you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk Please include your name, age and location with any submission. ",BBC,29/04/2024,"['About 200 people may have bought funeral plans that were non existent from a Hull funeral home at the centre of a police inquiry, an MP has claimed.', 'Emma Hardy, MP for Hull West and Hessle, has appealed for banks to refund those who took out policies from Legacy Independent Funeral Directors.', 'She is arranging a meeting with the government to discuss the issue.', 'The funeral firm is being investigated by police following a report of ""concern for care of the deceased"".', 'Under the chargeback scheme, a voluntary arrangement to which Visa, Mastercard and Amex are members, consumers who have paid by card can ask the provider to refund them within 120 days of making a payment for failed services, faulty goods or fraud by a merchant.', 'Ms Hardy said she was only aware of one person - a 92-year-old woman- who had been refunded via the scheme.', ""Rachel Marshall's 76-year-old mother, Rita Goldspink, spent £2,700 in April 2018 for a pre-paid funeral plan from Legacy."", 'Ms Marshall said: ""We were told last week by the bank that they couldn\'t process a refund because [the policy was taken out] some time ago. ""', 'I\'ve tried every angle to get my mum\'s money back but it\'s just not going to happen.""', 'Ms Marshall added her mother would not be able to afford to buy another funeral policy.', 'Ms Hardy said she believed ""about 200 individuals"" in her constituency had bought policies from Legacy.', 'Ms Hardy appealed to banks to be ""flexible"" in offering refunds, at their discretion, regardless of how long ago the policies were bought.', 'She also asked for the 120-day limit to take effect from the moment individuals were informed their policies did not exist. ""', 'I just really want the banks to be as sympathetic as they possibly can be and recognise this is a unique situation,"" said Ms Hardy.', 'Ms Hardy said she received a letter from the Treasury confirming the government is willing to discuss the matter further after raising the issue in the House of Commons on 17 April.', 'She said she hoped the meeting would result in ""some pressure on the banks to offer some discretion"".', 'HM Treasury has been contacted for a comment.', ""Human ashes and 35 bodies were recovered from the company's Hessle Road premises and taken to a mortuary."", 'The families involved have all been contacted, Humberside Police have said.', 'A 46-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman were arrested on suspicion of prevention of a lawful and decent burial, fraud by false representation and fraud by abuse of position.', 'They have since been released on bail.', 'The force said its dedicated helpline numbers remained open.', 'Follow BBC East Yorkshire on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram.', 'Send your story ideas to eastyorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk Are you affected by the issues raised in this story?', 'Share your experiences by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist.', ""You can also get in touch in the following ways: If you are reading this page and can't see the form you will need to visit the mobile version of the BBC website to submit your question or comment or you can email us at HaveYourSay@bbc.co.uk Please include your name, age and location with any submission.""]",0.0493048094570733,"I just really want the banks to be as sympathetic as they possibly can be and recognise this is a unique situation,"" said Ms Hardy.","A 46-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman were arrested on suspicion of prevention of a lawful and decent burial, fraud by false representation and fraud by abuse of position.",-0.4286943674087524,"Ms Hardy appealed to banks to be ""flexible"" in offering refunds, at their discretion, regardless of how long ago the policies were bought.",Ms Marshall added her mother would not be able to afford to buy another funeral policy.,2024-04-29
"Nationwide, Santander and NatWest to raise mortgage rates",https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3g5jrl9yg4o,2024-04-29T14:08:55.342Z,"Three major lenders have announced they will raise rates on new fixed deal mortgages on Tuesday. Nationwide, Santander and NatWest will push up the cost of new deals as uncertainty remains over lending costs. They follow various rivals who lifted their rates last week. Expectations of the extent and speed of interest rate cuts by the Bank of England have been scaled back, prompting the changes. The interest rate on a fixed mortgage does not change until the deal expires, usually after two or five years, and a new one is chosen to replace it. Doing nothing would leave people on a variable rate, which is very expensive. About 1.6 million existing borrowers have relatively cheap fixed-rate deals expiring this year, so need to make their minds up. Many may have expected rates on new deals to fall consistently this year, following previous upheaval. Although the year started with some sharp drops, this subsequently stabilised and recently rates have been inching back up again. For example, Nationwide - the UK's biggest building society - will increase rates on deals by up to 0.25 percentage points on Tuesday. The average rate on a two-year fixed deal is now 5.87%, according to the financial information service Moneyfacts. That is still about a percentage point lower than last year's peak.  Mortgage brokers say the moves of recent days are not another cycle of rapidly rising mortgage rates, the likes of which were seen in the last two years. However, some borrowers had banked on rates going down, so this could influence the decisions about whether and when to move home. ""This is not one-way traffic and could change again soon,"" said David Hollingworth of L&C Mortgages. Aaron Strutt from Trinity Financial said: ""Many people expected the cost of fixed rates to drop rather than increase and these higher rates do put people off buying. ""It would not be a surprise to see more banks and building societies raising rates this week."" The Bank of England makes its next decision on benchmark interest rates on 9 May. It is now not expected to cut the rate as early or as often as previously thought. Read more here ",BBC,29/04/2024,"['Three major lenders have announced they will raise rates on new fixed deal mortgages on Tuesday.', 'Nationwide, Santander and NatWest will push up the cost of new deals as uncertainty remains over lending costs.', 'They follow various rivals who lifted their rates last week.', 'Expectations of the extent and speed of interest rate cuts by the Bank of England have been scaled back, prompting the changes.', 'The interest rate on a fixed mortgage does not change until the deal expires, usually after two or five years, and a new one is chosen to replace it.', 'Doing nothing would leave people on a variable rate, which is very expensive.', 'About 1.6 million existing borrowers have relatively cheap fixed-rate deals expiring this year, so need to make their minds up.', 'Many may have expected rates on new deals to fall consistently this year, following previous upheaval.', 'Although the year started with some sharp drops, this subsequently stabilised and recently rates have been inching back up again.', ""For example, Nationwide - the UK's biggest building society - will increase rates on deals by up to 0.25 percentage points on Tuesday."", 'The average rate on a two-year fixed deal is now 5.87%, according to the financial information service Moneyfacts.', ""That is still about a percentage point lower than last year's peak."", 'Mortgage brokers say the moves of recent days are not another cycle of rapidly rising mortgage rates, the likes of which were seen in the last two years.', 'However, some borrowers had banked on rates going down, so this could influence the decisions about whether and when to move home. ""', 'This is not one-way traffic and could change again soon,"" said David Hollingworth of L&C Mortgages.', 'Aaron Strutt from Trinity Financial said: ""Many people expected the cost of fixed rates to drop rather than increase and these higher rates do put people off buying. ""', 'It would not be a surprise to see more banks and building societies raising rates this week.""', 'The Bank of England makes its next decision on benchmark interest rates on 9 May.', 'It is now not expected to cut the rate as early or as often as previously thought.', 'Read more here']",0.0656737322010981,"The interest rate on a fixed mortgage does not change until the deal expires, usually after two or five years, and a new one is chosen to replace it.","Nationwide, Santander and NatWest will push up the cost of new deals as uncertainty remains over lending costs.",0.1373141755660375,"Although the year started with some sharp drops, this subsequently stabilised and recently rates have been inching back up again.","Many may have expected rates on new deals to fall consistently this year, following previous upheaval.",2024-04-29
Your ultimate guide to the American Express Membership Rewards program,https://edition.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/travel/american-express-membership-rewards-guide,"
  Updated
        1:03 PM EDT, Mon April 1, 2024
    ","American Express Membership Rewards® are among the most valuable travel rewards points out there. That’s primarily because they fall into the category of “transferable rewards,” meaning you’re not tied down to a single airline or hotel program with which you can redeem them.
    
            In other words, you’re not just earning points that can transfer to Delta SkyMiles, but they can also transfer to any of the other 16 airlines in the Membership Rewards portfolio.
    
            Having Membership Rewards points gives you options, and that’s always a good thing. If you’re ready to give your rewards portfolio a boost, here’s everything you need to know about earning and redeeming Amex Membership Rewards.
    
            You can earn Membership Rewards points in various ways. Some require little effort, while others involve a heavier lift. It’s a good idea to take advantage of all the options out there in order to maximize your earnings. Here’s a look at how to earn Membership Rewards most efficiently.
    
            The primary way to earn Amex points is through credit cards that earn Membership Rewards. Amex has an extensive lineup of personal and business cards offering generous welcome bonuses and recurring benefits to help you earn maximum points.
    
            These include well-known cards like The Platinum Card® from American Express and the American Express® Gold Card. With a single welcome bonus offer, you can give a pretty substantial boost to your Membership Rewards points balance. Here’s a look at the current welcome bonus offers on personal credit cards that earn Membership Rewards.
    
            Keep in mind, too, that many of these cards carry an annual fee:
    
            All information about the Amex EveryDay Credit Card, Amex EveryDay Preferred Credit Card and the American Express Green Card has been collected independently by CNN Underscored.
    
            Similarly, American Express offers a suite of business credit cards.
    
            All information about the Business Green Rewards Card from American Express has been collected independently by CNN Underscored.
    
            Keep in mind that several of these cards also carry an annual fee:
    
            Beyond the welcome bonus offers available, American Express makes it easy to earn Membership Rewards through category bonuses. If you spend a lot on groceries, it may be worth considering the Amex Gold card to earn 4 points per dollar spent at US supermarkets (on up to $25,000 in purchases per year).
    
            If you travel often, the Amex Platinum card is a great option for earning 5 points per dollar spent on eligible bookings made directly with an airline or with Amex Travel. Plus, you’ll have access to airport lounges, like American Express Centurion Lounges and Delta Sky Clubs, among others.
    
            When applying for American Express cards, be sure to take note of the application rules. For example, you can’t earn an Amex welcome bonus more than once (with a few exceptions), and you generally won’t be approved for more than two cards every 90 days. Before applying for a credit card, it’s important to do your research.
    
            As mentioned before, American Express makes it manageable to earn bonus points long after the welcome bonus offer. One of those ways is by adding an authorized user to your Amex card, which will occasionally earn you bonus points.
    
             Aside from the special promotions where Amex will offer you bonus points for adding an authorized user, doing so can also help you double up your point earnings. That’s because you’ll not only earn points per dollar spent on your purchases, but you’ll also earn rewards on the authorized user’s purchases.
    
            Of course, you’ll only want to consider adding a member of your household or someone you trust to pay you back as an authorized user on your account. Authorized users can make charges on the credit card they’ve been added to but have no liability when it comes to paying the bill — that onus falls on you, the primary card holder. Choose carefully who you add to your account, and you can earn extra Amex points without lifting a finger.
    
            If you’ve picked up an American Express credit card, earned the welcome bonus offer and think others would enjoy doing the same, you can get rewarded for spreading the word to family and friends.
    
            American Express offers bonuses to current card holders when you refer someone and they are approved for an eligible card. You can earn up to 20,000 points per successful approval, though the exact bonus varies by card.
    
            To find out your card’s current referral bonus, head over to the Amex referral site. You’ll see referral bonuses based on your card. Simply enter your friend’s name and email address for each card you want to refer and they’ll get an email, inviting them to apply for the card. You can also copy the referral link on the page and share that with your friends and family directly.
    
            Referrals are a lucrative way to earn Amex Membership Rewards points for recommending credit cards to your friends and family. Keep in mind there is a limit to how many friends you can refer in a year.
    
            Booking travel with American Express is rewarding, too — you can earn bonus points on your credit card, plus you can often get additional perks and rewards. For example, with the Amex Platinum, you’ll get 5 points per dollar spent on hotels booked through Amex Travel.
    
            As an added incentive, you’ll receive perks like free breakfast for two, room upgrades when available and hotel credits to use at the spa or onsite restaurant just by booking with Fine Hotels & Resorts or the Hotel Collection. In general, booking travel through American Express pays off in more ways than one.
    
            Card holders can also utilize one of the most underrated benefits of having an Amex card: Amex Offers. With Amex Offers, card holders can earn statement credits or bonus points at select retailers. In other words, it’s the perfect opportunity to save some cash or earn bonus points for purchases you were already planning on making.
    
            To find and take advantage of Amex Offers, you’ll need to log in to your account. From there, scroll to the bottom of the page to the Amex Offers & Benefits section of the page. Be sure to click “View All” to load all of your eligible offers, and also be sure to select “Add to Card” in order to activate your Amex Offer. From there, you’ll be eligible to earn the bonus points or cash savings that come as part of each Amex Offer — so long as you use the registered card to make your purchase. Amex Offers are a massive perk of Amex cards that can save you money or earn you bonus points on purchases you were already planning to make.
    
            Thanks to a partnership with American Express, you can turn your Rakuten cash back rewards into Membership Rewards. It’s a great way to earn Membership Rewards points on regular purchases, without much added effort.
    
            If you already have a Rakuten account, you can easily switch your earning preference to Membership Rewards. Simply log into your account and follow these steps:
    
            After this, rewards get transferred to your Membership Rewards account quarterly.
    
            Now, for the fun part! Once you’ve earned Membership Rewards points, it’s time to put them to good use. Amex gives you several options to redeem points, but the best option is travel. You can choose between statement credits for travel bookings or transferring them to airline or hotel partners.
    
            Here’s a closer look at your options and how they work.
    
            American Express has 20 airline and hotel transfer partners — in other words, the Amex points you’ve earned can be transferred to any of the 20 hotel and airline partners. The best way to redeem Membership Rewards for maximum value is through airline transfers. But keep in mind that not all airline loyalty programs are equal.
    
            Ultimately, you’ll want to research which program will offer you the most in return, depending on what your travel plans are. With each of the partners, you’ll need to link your accounts, and you’ll also need to search for award availability with the airline of your choice before transferring any points.
    
            If you’re looking to transfer your Amex Membership Rewards points, these are the 20 airline and hotel partner options, as well as the transfer rate.
    
            It’s worth noting that Amex occasionally runs transfer promotions for certain airlines or hotels. So, at times, you can get more points in return than the standard transfer rate listed above. Bonuses like these can increase the value of your points by enabling you to book sought-after award tickets for substantially less.
    
            By transferring Amex Membership Rewards points to partner airlines, you unlock the ability to travel for next to nothing — in most cases when redeeming points and miles, you’ll just have to pay the taxes and fees on a ticket. As a result, points and miles open up the door for flying experiences that would otherwise be out of reach.
    
            Keep in mind that the most obvious airline choice may not always be your best option. Airlines typically have extensive alliance networks, allowing you to redeem points for partner airlines through their respective programs. For example, British Airways and American Airlines are both members of the Oneworld alliance, meaning you can transfer your Amex Membership Rewards points to British Airways Executive Club and redeem for flights operated by American Airlines.
    
            Because of the vast number of airline transfer partners, your options are virtually endless for where your Membership Rewards points can take you. But, some redemptions are better than others — particularly when it comes to award sweet spots.
    
            Some examples of these sweet spot awards using your Amex Membership Rewards points include the following:
    
            Generally speaking, you’ll get the most value out of your Amex Membership Rewards points by transferring them to airline partners. But that may not always make sense for all card holders — and it’s not your only option.
    
            If figuring out transfer partner options and award charts sounds daunting, you can also use your Membership Rewards for fixed redemptions. This includes using points for statement credits, travel bookings via Amex Travel, charitable donations, online shopping and gift cards.
    
            Using points for statement credits toward qualifying purchases isn’t a great use of your points because you’ll only get 0.6 cents per point in value. If you’re looking to maximize the value of your Amex points, this isn’t the best route to take.
    
            You’ll get slightly more value by redeeming your Membership Rewards for travel bookings. By doing so, you’ll get 1 cent per point toward airfare and 0.7 cents per point toward car rentals, hotels, cruises and vacation bookings. Business Platinum card holders also get a 35% rebate when redeeming points for flight bookings through Amex Travel.
    
            If you choose to redeem your points for gift cards, you’ll get 1 cent per point in value. However, if you use Pay With Points (valid with Amazon, Best Buy, Boxed, Dell and GrubHub and others), you’ll get a value of just 0.5 cents to 1 cent each (depending on the Amex card) — one of the lowest-value options out there.
    
            Generally speaking, you should try to extract as much value as possible out of your Amex Membership Rewards points. However, that’s not always the case for everyone. You may want to save a few dollars here or there on a purchase you’re making online. Ultimately, we love Membership Rewards points so much because you have the option to use them however you like — whether for travel, Amazon purchases, gift cards and more.
    
            When it comes to the worth of your Membership Rewards points, it ultimately comes down to how you use them. The value you can get ranges from about 0.6 cents each to about 2 cents each. Frequent flyer website The Points Guy values Amex Membership Rewards points at 2 cents apiece.
    
            Amex offers 0.6 cents per point in value when you use points for statement credits. Meanwhile, travel bookings will get you a somewhat higher 1 cent per point. The highest value comes from transferring points to airline and hotel partners, as detailed above. Convert your points to airline miles and you can get 2 cents or more in value on premium award redemptions.
    
            American Express Membership Rewards points are some of the most versatile and valuable out there. By earning them, you give yourself the option to save money on travel, buying gift cards, Amazon purchases and so much more. Ultimately, it’s the flexibility that makes having an Amex credit card so rewarding.
    
            Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Platinum card.Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Gold card.Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Business Platinum card.Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Business Gold card.Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Blue Business Plus card.
    
            Looking for a travel credit card? Find out which cards CNN Underscored Money chose as the best travel credit cards currently available.",CNN,01/04/2024,"['American Express Membership Rewards® are among the most valuable travel rewards points out there.', 'That’s primarily because they fall into the category of “transferable rewards,” meaning you’re not tied down to a single airline or hotel program with which you can redeem them.', 'In other words, you’re not just earning points that can transfer to Delta SkyMiles, but they can also transfer to any of the other 16 airlines in the Membership Rewards portfolio.', 'Having Membership Rewards points gives you options, and that’s always a good thing.', 'If you’re ready to give your rewards portfolio a boost, here’s everything you need to know about earning and redeeming Amex Membership Rewards.', 'You can earn Membership Rewards points in various ways.', 'Some require little effort, while others involve a heavier lift.', 'It’s a good idea to take advantage of all the options out there in order to maximize your earnings.', 'Here’s a look at how to earn Membership Rewards most efficiently.', 'The primary way to earn Amex points is through credit cards that earn Membership Rewards.', 'Amex has an extensive lineup of personal and business cards offering generous welcome bonuses and recurring benefits to help you earn maximum points.', 'These include well-known cards like The Platinum Card® from American Express and the American Express® Gold Card.', 'With a single welcome bonus offer, you can give a pretty substantial boost to your Membership Rewards points balance.', 'Here’s a look at the current welcome bonus offers on personal credit cards that earn Membership Rewards.', 'Keep in mind, too, that many of these cards carry an annual fee:  All information about the Amex EveryDay Credit Card, Amex EveryDay Preferred Credit Card and the American Express Green Card has been collected independently by CNN Underscored.', 'Similarly, American Express offers a suite of business credit cards.', 'All information about the Business Green Rewards Card from American Express has been collected independently by CNN Underscored.', 'Keep in mind that several of these cards also carry an annual fee:  Beyond the welcome bonus offers available, American Express makes it easy to earn Membership Rewards through category bonuses.', 'If you spend a lot on groceries, it may be worth considering the Amex Gold card to earn 4 points per dollar spent at US supermarkets (on up to $25,000 in purchases per year).', 'If you travel often, the Amex Platinum card is a great option for earning 5 points per dollar spent on eligible bookings made directly with an airline or with Amex Travel.', 'Plus, you’ll have access to airport lounges, like American Express Centurion Lounges and Delta Sky Clubs, among others.', 'When applying for American Express cards, be sure to take note of the application rules.', 'For example, you can’t earn an Amex welcome bonus more than once (with a few exceptions), and you generally won’t be approved for more than two cards every 90 days.', 'Before applying for a credit card, it’s important to do your research.', 'As mentioned before, American Express makes it manageable to earn bonus points long after the welcome bonus offer.', 'One of those ways is by adding an authorized user to your Amex card, which will occasionally earn you bonus points.', 'Aside from the special promotions where Amex will offer you bonus points for adding an authorized user, doing so can also help you double up your point earnings.', 'That’s because you’ll not only earn points per dollar spent on your purchases, but you’ll also earn rewards on the authorized user’s purchases.', 'Of course, you’ll only want to consider adding a member of your household or someone you trust to pay you back as an authorized user on your account.', 'Authorized users can make charges on the credit card they’ve been added to but have no liability when it comes to paying the bill — that onus falls on you, the primary card holder.', 'Choose carefully who you add to your account, and you can earn extra Amex points without lifting a finger.', 'If you’ve picked up an American Express credit card, earned the welcome bonus offer and think others would enjoy doing the same, you can get rewarded for spreading the word to family and friends.', 'American Express offers bonuses to current card holders when you refer someone and they are approved for an eligible card.', 'You can earn up to 20,000 points per successful approval, though the exact bonus varies by card.', 'To find out your card’s current referral bonus, head over to the Amex referral site.', 'You’ll see referral bonuses based on your card.', 'Simply enter your friend’s name and email address for each card you want to refer and they’ll get an email, inviting them to apply for the card.', 'You can also copy the referral link on the page and share that with your friends and family directly.', 'Referrals are a lucrative way to earn Amex Membership Rewards points for recommending credit cards to your friends and family.', 'Keep in mind there is a limit to how many friends you can refer in a year.', 'Booking travel with American Express is rewarding, too — you can earn bonus points on your credit card, plus you can often get additional perks and rewards.', 'For example, with the Amex Platinum, you’ll get 5 points per dollar spent on hotels booked through Amex Travel.', 'As an added incentive, you’ll receive perks like free breakfast for two, room upgrades when available and hotel credits to use at the spa or onsite restaurant just by booking with Fine Hotels & Resorts or the Hotel Collection.', 'In general, booking travel through American Express pays off in more ways than one.', 'Card holders can also utilize one of the most underrated benefits of having an Amex card: Amex Offers.', 'With Amex Offers, card holders can earn statement credits or bonus points at select retailers.', 'In other words, it’s the perfect opportunity to save some cash or earn bonus points for purchases you were already planning on making.', 'To find and take advantage of Amex Offers, you’ll need to log in to your account.', 'From there, scroll to the bottom of the page to the Amex Offers & Benefits section of the page.', 'Be sure to click “View All” to load all of your eligible offers, and also be sure to select “Add to Card” in order to activate your Amex Offer.', 'From there, you’ll be eligible to earn the bonus points or cash savings that come as part of each Amex Offer — so long as you use the registered card to make your purchase.', 'Amex Offers are a massive perk of Amex cards that can save you money or earn you bonus points on purchases you were already planning to make.', 'Thanks to a partnership with American Express, you can turn your Rakuten cash back rewards into Membership Rewards.', 'It’s a great way to earn Membership Rewards points on regular purchases, without much added effort.', 'If you already have a Rakuten account, you can easily switch your earning preference to Membership Rewards.', 'Simply log into your account and follow these steps:  After this, rewards get transferred to your Membership Rewards account quarterly.', 'Now, for the fun part!', 'Once you’ve earned Membership Rewards points, it’s time to put them to good use.', 'Amex gives you several options to redeem points, but the best option is travel.', 'You can choose between statement credits for travel bookings or transferring them to airline or hotel partners.', 'Here’s a closer look at your options and how they work.', 'American Express has 20 airline and hotel transfer partners — in other words, the Amex points you’ve earned can be transferred to any of the 20 hotel and airline partners.', 'The best way to redeem Membership Rewards for maximum value is through airline transfers.', 'But keep in mind that not all airline loyalty programs are equal.', 'Ultimately, you’ll want to research which program will offer you the most in return, depending on what your travel plans are.', 'With each of the partners, you’ll need to link your accounts, and you’ll also need to search for award availability with the airline of your choice before transferring any points.', 'If you’re looking to transfer your Amex Membership Rewards points, these are the 20 airline and hotel partner options, as well as the transfer rate.', 'It’s worth noting that Amex occasionally runs transfer promotions for certain airlines or hotels.', 'So, at times, you can get more points in return than the standard transfer rate listed above.', 'Bonuses like these can increase the value of your points by enabling you to book sought-after award tickets for substantially less.', 'By transferring Amex Membership Rewards points to partner airlines, you unlock the ability to travel for next to nothing — in most cases when redeeming points and miles, you’ll just have to pay the taxes and fees on a ticket.', 'As a result, points and miles open up the door for flying experiences that would otherwise be out of reach.', 'Keep in mind that the most obvious airline choice may not always be your best option.', 'Airlines typically have extensive alliance networks, allowing you to redeem points for partner airlines through their respective programs.', 'For example, British Airways and American Airlines are both members of the Oneworld alliance, meaning you can transfer your Amex Membership Rewards points to British Airways Executive Club and redeem for flights operated by American Airlines.', 'Because of the vast number of airline transfer partners, your options are virtually endless for where your Membership Rewards points can take you.', 'But, some redemptions are better than others — particularly when it comes to award sweet spots.', 'Some examples of these sweet spot awards using your Amex Membership Rewards points include the following:  Generally speaking, you’ll get the most value out of your Amex Membership Rewards points by transferring them to airline partners.', 'But that may not always make sense for all card holders — and it’s not your only option.', 'If figuring out transfer partner options and award charts sounds daunting, you can also use your Membership Rewards for fixed redemptions.', 'This includes using points for statement credits, travel bookings via Amex Travel, charitable donations, online shopping and gift cards.', 'Using points for statement credits toward qualifying purchases isn’t a great use of your points because you’ll only get 0.6 cents per point in value.', 'If you’re looking to maximize the value of your Amex points, this isn’t the best route to take.', 'You’ll get slightly more value by redeeming your Membership Rewards for travel bookings.', 'By doing so, you’ll get 1 cent per point toward airfare and 0.7 cents per point toward car rentals, hotels, cruises and vacation bookings.', 'Business Platinum card holders also get a 35% rebate when redeeming points for flight bookings through Amex Travel.', 'If you choose to redeem your points for gift cards, you’ll get 1 cent per point in value.', 'However, if you use Pay With Points (valid with Amazon, Best Buy, Boxed, Dell and GrubHub and others), you’ll get a value of just 0.5 cents to 1 cent each (depending on the Amex card) — one of the lowest-value options out there.', 'Generally speaking, you should try to extract as much value as possible out of your Amex Membership Rewards points.', 'However, that’s not always the case for everyone.', 'You may want to save a few dollars here or there on a purchase you’re making online.', 'Ultimately, we love Membership Rewards points so much because you have the option to use them however you like — whether for travel, Amazon purchases, gift cards and more.', 'When it comes to the worth of your Membership Rewards points, it ultimately comes down to how you use them.', 'The value you can get ranges from about 0.6 cents each to about 2 cents each.', 'Frequent flyer website The Points Guy values Amex Membership Rewards points at 2 cents apiece.', 'Amex offers 0.6 cents per point in value when you use points for statement credits.', 'Meanwhile, travel bookings will get you a somewhat higher 1 cent per point.', 'The highest value comes from transferring points to airline and hotel partners, as detailed above.', 'Convert your points to airline miles and you can get 2 cents or more in value on premium award redemptions.', 'American Express Membership Rewards points are some of the most versatile and valuable out there.', 'By earning them, you give yourself the option to save money on travel, buying gift cards, Amazon purchases and so much more.', 'Ultimately, it’s the flexibility that makes having an Amex credit card so rewarding.', 'Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Platinum card.', 'Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Gold card.', 'Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Business Platinum card.', 'Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Business Gold card.', 'Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Blue Business Plus card.', 'Looking for a travel credit card?', 'Find out which cardsCNN Underscored Moneychose as thebest travel credit cardscurrently available.']",0.5246481979610982,"If you’ve picked up an American Express credit card, earned the welcome bonus offer and think others would enjoy doing the same, you can get rewarded for spreading the word to family and friends.",But keep in mind that not all airline loyalty programs are equal.,0.9622429311275482,"With a single welcome bonus offer, you can give a pretty substantial boost to your Membership Rewards points balance.",,2024-04-29
"American Airlines cuts some international flights into 2025, citing Boeing delivery delays",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/26/american-airlines-cuts-some-international-flights-citing-boeing-delays.html,2024-04-26T19:57:37+0000,"In this articleAmerican Airlines on Friday said Boeing's 787 Dreamliner delivery delays are forcing it to cut some long-haul flights in the second half of the year and into early 2025, the latest carrier to change its schedule tied to the plane-maker's production problems.American expects to receive three Dreamliners this year, down from six, it said in a filing Thursday. Boeing said earlier this week that parts shortages will prevent it from ramping up production of the wide-body planes.""We're making these adjustments now to ensure we're able to re-accommodate customers on affected flights,"" American said in a statement. ""We'll be proactively reaching out to impacted customers to offer alternate travel arrangements. We remain committed to our customers and team members and mitigating the impact of these delays while continuing to offer a comprehensive global network.""American will suspend some routes to Europe at the end of the summer. Here's what's changing:American will also offer just a single daily flight between New York and Rome, instead of twice daily, starting Aug. 5, and service between Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Kona, Hawaii, won't operate this winter.American said it will continue to offer 55 long-haul international routes this winter and that it will add nonstop service between Philadelphia and Barcelona on a daily basis starting in January, as well as seasonal service between Miami and Montevideo, Uruguay. It will also add three-times-a-day flights between Miami and Sao Paulo.The airline is further evaluating its schedule because of Boeing's 737 Max delays, it said.Boeing didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.Correction: American Airlines will add three-times-a-day flights between Miami and Sao Paulo. A previous version of this story mischaracterized the schedule.",CNBC,26/04/2024,"[""In this articleAmerican Airlines on Friday said Boeing's 787 Dreamliner delivery delays are forcing it to cut some long-haul flights in the second half of the year and into early 2025, the latest carrier to change its schedule tied to the plane-maker's production problems."", 'American expects to receive three Dreamliners this year, down from six, it said in a filing Thursday.', 'Boeing said earlier this week that parts shortages will prevent it from ramping up production of the wide-body planes.', '""We\'re making these adjustments now to ensure we\'re able to re-accommodate customers on affected flights,"" American said in a statement. ""', ""We'll be proactively reaching out to impacted customers to offer alternate travel arrangements."", 'We remain committed to our customers and team members and mitigating the impact of these delays while continuing to offer a comprehensive global network.', '""American will suspend some routes to Europe at the end of the summer.', ""Here's what's changing:American will also offer just a single daily flight between New York and Rome, instead of twice daily, starting Aug. 5, and service between Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Kona, Hawaii, won't operate this winter."", 'American said it will continue to offer 55 long-haul international routes this winter and that it will add nonstop service between Philadelphia and Barcelona on a daily basis starting in January, as well as seasonal service between Miami and Montevideo, Uruguay.', 'It will also add three-times-a-day flights between Miami and Sao Paulo.', ""The airline is further evaluating its schedule because of Boeing's 737 Max delays, it said."", ""Boeing didn't immediately respond to a request for comment."", 'Correction: American Airlines will add three-times-a-day flights between Miami and Sao Paulo.', 'A previous version of this story mischaracterized the schedule.']",0.0283126784543538,We remain committed to our customers and team members and mitigating the impact of these delays while continuing to offer a comprehensive global network.,"In this articleAmerican Airlines on Friday said Boeing's 787 Dreamliner delivery delays are forcing it to cut some long-haul flights in the second half of the year and into early 2025, the latest carrier to change its schedule tied to the plane-maker's production problems.",-0.2854051291942596,We remain committed to our customers and team members and mitigating the impact of these delays while continuing to offer a comprehensive global network.,"American expects to receive three Dreamliners this year, down from six, it said in a filing Thursday.",2024-04-29
"Paramount and Skydance inch closer to a merger as key hurdle looms, sources say",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/paramount-skydance-inch-closer-to-a-merger-agreement.html,2024-04-25T21:14:50+0000,"In this articleParamount Global and Skydance Media are making progress on a deal that would merge the media companies and buy out controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, according to people familiar with the matter.Paramount Global's special committee, in charge of accepting or rejecting transactions, and David Ellison's Skydance Media, backed by private equity firms KKR and RedBird Capital Partners, are narrowing in on how to value Skydance's assets as part of a merger, as well as how much equity to add to the company as part of a recapitalization, the people told CNBC.The sides are close to agreeing on a value for Skydance, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. The entertainment company would be valued at around $5 billion and merged with Paramount Global, they said. Skydance CEO Ellison and the private equity firms plan to raise roughly $4.5 billion to $5 billion in new equity, the people said; some of that — about $2 billion — would be used to pay Redstone, and another substantial portion would be used to pay down debt.The buyers would ideally like to get a deal done in May, said the people. Three of the people said that Paramount Global was slow to provide data during due diligence to the Skydance consortium, which has slightly pushed back the timeline on a deal. The exclusivity window on merger talks ends May 3, but the Skydance consortium wants to extend it by two weeks, said the people.Skydance plans to name Ellison as CEO of Paramount Global and former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell as president, said two of the people. Current Paramount CEO Bob Bakish would depart the company, the people said.Separately, private equity firm Apollo Global Management and Sony have held preliminary discussions about teaming up for a deal that would buy out all Paramount Global shareholders at a premium, according to people familiar with the matter. The special committee hasn't received concrete details on that offer and isn't viewing it as a competitive bid to Skydance's interest, two of the people said.Still, the committee had more details on an initial offer made by Apollo, which it chose to ignore in favor of exclusive talks with Skydance, one of the people said. The special committee favored Skydance's offer over Apollo's in part because it offered shareholders future upside by keeping the company public with a cleaner balance sheet, the person said.Spokespeople for Apollo, the Paramount Global special committee, Paramount Global, and Skydance's consortium declined to comment.One significant hurdle that remains is Paramount Global's renewal agreement with Charter Communications for CBS and its cable networks. That deal is relevant to the value of Paramount Global, which could take a hit if Charter drops the networks or agrees to a lower carriage rate, the people said.The deadline for that agreement is April 30. Paramount Global reports first-quarter earnings one day earlier, on April 29.Paramount Global is still dependent on its traditional TV business, which accounts for about two-thirds of the company's total revenue.There are signs Charter could prove to be a tough negotiator with Paramount Global: Last year the cable provider, the second-largest in the U.S., briefly stopped carrying Disney's networks when renewal negotiations between those two companies faltered. The parties reached a deal 10 days later.Paramount's cable networks are far less popular than Disney's ESPN, which may put Bakish in a position of weakness.The timing of the renewal and the deal talks set up an awkward dynamic, where Bakish, who would ultimately leave the company under a Skydance merger, will control Paramount Global's fate with Charter.Thus far, Bakish has always reached renewal deals with the major pay-TV distributors since taking over as CEO, dating back to his time running Viacom, beginning in 2016.Bakish has privately argued against the Skydance deal because it dilutes common shareholders, according to people familiar with the matter. Several Paramount Global investors have also publicly written letters to the company's board urging directors not to move forward with a Skydance deal, arguing it gives Redstone a massive premium for her controlling shares while leaving common shareholders out in the cold.Under the terms of the deal, nearly 50% of the company would be owned by Skydance and its private equity partners, CNBC reported April 5. The rest of the company would be owned by common shareholders, and the company would continue to trade publicly.""At Paramount, we're always looking for ways to create shareholder value. And to be clear, that's for all shareholders,"" Bakish said during his company's most recent earnings call, in February.Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"['In this articleParamount Global and Skydance Media are making progress on a deal that would merge the media companies and buy out controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, according to people familiar with the matter.', ""Paramount Global's special committee, in charge of accepting or rejecting transactions, and David Ellison's Skydance Media, backed by private equity firms KKR and RedBird Capital Partners, are narrowing in on how to value Skydance's assets as part of a merger, as well as how much equity to add to the company as part of a recapitalization, the people told CNBC.The sides are close to agreeing on a value for Skydance, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private."", 'The entertainment company would be valued at around $5 billion and merged with Paramount Global, they said.', 'Skydance CEO Ellison and the private equity firms plan to raise roughly $4.5 billion to $5 billion in new equity, the people said; some of that — about $2 billion — would be used to pay Redstone, and another substantial portion would be used to pay down debt.', 'The buyers would ideally like to get a deal done in May, said the people.', 'Three of the people said that Paramount Global was slow to provide data during due diligence to the Skydance consortium, which has slightly pushed back the timeline on a deal.', 'The exclusivity window on merger talks ends May 3, but the Skydance consortium wants to extend it by two weeks, said the people.', 'Skydance plans to name Ellison as CEO of Paramount Global and former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell as president, said two of the people.', 'Current Paramount CEO Bob Bakish would depart the company, the people said.', 'Separately, private equity firm Apollo Global Management and Sony have held preliminary discussions about teaming up for a deal that would buy out all Paramount Global shareholders at a premium, according to people familiar with the matter.', ""The special committee hasn't received concrete details on that offer and isn't viewing it as a competitive bid to Skydance's interest, two of the people said."", 'Still, the committee had more details on an initial offer made by Apollo, which it chose to ignore in favor of exclusive talks with Skydance, one of the people said.', ""The special committee favored Skydance's offer over Apollo's in part because it offered shareholders future upside by keeping the company public with a cleaner balance sheet, the person said."", ""Spokespeople for Apollo, the Paramount Global special committee, Paramount Global, and Skydance's consortium declined to comment."", ""One significant hurdle that remains is Paramount Global's renewal agreement with Charter Communications for CBS and its cable networks."", 'That deal is relevant to the value of Paramount Global, which could take a hit if Charter drops the networks or agrees to a lower carriage rate, the people said.', 'The deadline for that agreement is April 30.', ""Paramount Global reports first-quarter earnings one day earlier, on April 29.Paramount Global is still dependent on its traditional TV business, which accounts for about two-thirds of the company's total revenue."", ""There are signs Charter could prove to be a tough negotiator with Paramount Global: Last year the cable provider, the second-largest in the U.S., briefly stopped carrying Disney's networks when renewal negotiations between those two companies faltered."", 'The parties reached a deal 10 days later.', ""Paramount's cable networks are far less popular than Disney's ESPN, which may put Bakish in a position of weakness."", ""The timing of the renewal and the deal talks set up an awkward dynamic, where Bakish, who would ultimately leave the company under a Skydance merger, will control Paramount Global's fate with Charter."", 'Thus far, Bakish has always reached renewal deals with the major pay-TV distributors since taking over as CEO, dating back to his time running Viacom, beginning in 2016.Bakish has privately argued against the Skydance deal because it dilutes common shareholders, according to people familiar with the matter.', ""Several Paramount Global investors have also publicly written letters to the company's board urging directors not to move forward with a Skydance deal, arguing it gives Redstone a massive premium for her controlling shares while leaving common shareholders out in the cold."", 'Under the terms of the deal, nearly 50% of the company would be owned by Skydance and its private equity partners, CNBC reported April 5.', 'The rest of the company would be owned by common shareholders, and the company would continue to trade publicly.', '""At Paramount, we\'re always looking for ways to create shareholder value.', 'And to be clear, that\'s for all shareholders,"" Bakish said during his company\'s most recent earnings call, in February.', 'Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.']",0.2275447691168776,"Paramount Global's special committee, in charge of accepting or rejecting transactions, and David Ellison's Skydance Media, backed by private equity firms KKR and RedBird Capital Partners, are narrowing in on how to value Skydance's assets as part of a merger, as well as how much equity to add to the company as part of a recapitalization, the people told CNBC.The sides are close to agreeing on a value for Skydance, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.","Thus far, Bakish has always reached renewal deals with the major pay-TV distributors since taking over as CEO, dating back to his time running Viacom, beginning in 2016.Bakish has privately argued against the Skydance deal because it dilutes common shareholders, according to people familiar with the matter.",-0.4220497012138366,"The special committee favored Skydance's offer over Apollo's in part because it offered shareholders future upside by keeping the company public with a cleaner balance sheet, the person said.","Paramount's cable networks are far less popular than Disney's ESPN, which may put Bakish in a position of weakness.",2024-04-29
"Walmart-backed fintech One introduces buy now, pay later as it prepares bigger push into lending",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/23/walmart-backed-fintech-one-introduces-buy-now-pay-later.html,2024-04-23T15:51:01+0000,"In this articleWalmart's majority-owned fintech startup One has begun offering buy now, pay later loans for big-ticket items at some of the retailer's more than 4,600 U.S. stores, CNBC has learned.The move puts One in direct competition with Affirm, the BNPL leader and exclusive provider of installment loans for Walmart customers since 2019. It's a relationship that the Bentonville, Arkansas, retailer expanded recently, introducing Affirm as a payment option at Walmart self-checkout kiosks.It also likely signals that a battle is brewing in the store aisles and ecommerce portals of America's largest retailer. At stake is the role of a wide spectrum of players, from fintech firms to card companies and established banks.One's push into lending is the clearest sign yet of its ambition to become a financial superapp, a mobile one-stop shop for saving, spending and borrowing money.Since it burst onto the scene in 2021, luring Goldman Sachs veteran Omer Ismail as CEO, the fintech startup has intrigued and threatened a financial landscape dominated by banks — and poached talent from more established lenders and payments firms.But the company, based out of a cramped Manhattan WeWork space, has operated mostly in stealth mode while developing its early products, including a debit account released in 2022.Now, One is going head-to-head with some of Walmart's existing partners like Affirm who helped the retail giant generate $648 billion in revenue last year.On a recent visit by CNBC to a New Jersey Walmart location, ads for both One and Affirm vied for attention among the Apple products and Android smartphones in the store's electronics section.Offerings from both One and Affirm were available at checkout, and loans from either provider were available for purchases starting at around $100 and costing as much as several thousand dollars at an annual interest rate of between 10% to 36%, according to their respective websites.Electronics, jewelry, power tools and automotive accessories are eligible for the loans, while groceries, alcohol and weapons are not.Buy now, pay later has gained popularity with consumers for everyday items as well as larger purchases. From January through March of this year, BNPL drove $19.2 billion in online spending, according to Adobe Analytics. That's a 12% year-over-year increase.Walmart and One declined to comment for this article.One's expanding role at Walmart raises the possibility that the company could force Affirm, Capital One and other third parties out of some of the most coveted partnerships in American retail, according to industry experts.""I have to imagine the goal is to have all this stuff, whether it's a credit card, buy now, pay later loans or remittances, to have it all unified in an app under a single brand, delivered online and through Walmart's physical footprint,"" said Jason Mikula, a consultant formerly employed at Goldman's consumer division.Affirm declined to comment about its Walmart partnership. Shares of Affirm climbed 2% Tuesday, rebounding after falling more than 8% in premarket activity.For Walmart, One is part of its broader effort to develop new revenue sources beyond its retail stores in areas including finance and health care, following rival Amazon's playbook with cloud computing and streaming, among other segments. Walmart's newer businesses have higher margins than retail and are a part of its plan to grow profits faster than sales.In February, Walmart said it was buying TV maker Vizio for $2.3 billion to boost its advertising business, another growth area for the retailer.When it comes to finance, One is just Walmart's latest attempt to break into the banking business. Starting in the 1990s, Walmart made repeated efforts to enter the industry through direct ownership of a banking arm, each time getting blocked by lawmakers and industry groups concerned that a ""Bank of Walmart"" would crush small lenders and squeeze big ones.To sidestep those concerns, Walmart adopted a more arms-length approach this time around. For One, the retailer created a joint venture with investment firm firm Ribbit Capital — known for backing fintech firms including Robinhood, Credit Karma and Affirm — and staffed the business with executives from across finance.Walmart has not disclosed the size of its investment in One.The startup has said that it makes decisions independent of Walmart, though its board includes Walmart U.S. CEO, John Furner, and its finance chief, John David Rainey.One doesn't have a banking license, but partners with Coastal Community Bank for the debit card and installment loans.After its failed early attempts in banking, Walmart pursued a partnership strategy, teaming up with a constellation of providers, including Capital One, Synchrony, MoneyGram, Green Dot, and more recently, Affirm. Leaning on partners, the retailer opened thousands of physical MoneyCenter locations within its stores to offer check cashing, sending and receiving payments, and tax services.But Walmart and One executives have made no secret of their ambition to become a major player in financial services by leapfrogging existing players with a clean-slate effort.One's no-fee approach is especially relevant to low- and middle-income Americans who are ""underserved financially,"" Rainey, a former PayPal executive, noted during a December conference.""We see a lot of that customer demographic, so I think it gives us the ability to participate in this space in maybe a way that others don't,"" Rainey said. ""We can digitize a lot of the services that we do physically today. One is the platform for that.""One could generate roughly $1.6 billion in annual revenue from debit cards and lending in the near term, and more than $4 billion if it expands into investing and other areas, according to Morgan Stanley.Walmart can use its scale to grow One in other ways. It is the largest private employer in the U.S. with about 1.6 million employees, and it already offers its workers early access to wages if they sign up for a corporate version of One.There are signs that One is making a deeper push into lending beyond installment loans.Walmart recently prevailed in a legal dispute with Capital One, allowing the retailer to end its credit-card partnership years ahead of schedule. Walmart sued Capital One last year, alleging that its exclusive partnership with the card issuer was void after it failed to live up to contractual obligations around customer service, assertions that Capital One denied.The lawsuit led to speculation that Walmart intends to have One take over management of the retailer's co-branded and store cards. In fact, in legal filings Capital One itself alleged that Walmart's rationale was less about servicing complaints and more about moving transactions to a company it owns.""Upon information and belief, Walmart intends to offer its branded credit cards through One in the future,"" Capital One said last year in response to Walmart's suit. ""With One, Walmart is positioning itself to compete directly with Capital One to provide credit and payment products to Walmart customers.""Capital One said last month that it could appeal the decision. The company declined to comment further.Meanwhile, Walmart said last year when its lawsuit became public that it would soon announce a new credit card option with ""meaningful benefits and rewards.""One has obtained lending licenses that allow it to operate in nearly every U.S. state, according to filings and its website. The company's app tells users that credit building and credit score monitoring services are coming soon.And while One's expansion threatens to supersede Walmart's existing financial partners, Walmart's efforts could also be seen as defensive.Fintech players including Block's Cash App, PayPal and Chime dominate account growth among people who switch bank accounts and have made inroads with Walmart's core demographic. The three services made up 60% of digital player signups last year, according to data and consultancy firm Curinos.But One has the advantage of being majority owned by a company whose customers make more than 200 million visits a week.It can offer them enticements including 3% cashback on Walmart purchases and a savings account that pays 5% interest annually, far higher than most banks, according to customer emails from One.Those terms keep customers spending and saving within the Walmart ecosystem and helps the retailer better understand them, Morgan Stanley analysts said in a 2022 research note.""One has access to Walmart's sizable and sticky customer base, the largest in retail,"" the analysts wrote. ""This captive and underserved customer base gives One a leg up vs. other fintechs.""",CNBC,23/04/2024,"[""In this articleWalmart's majority-owned fintech startup One has begun offering buy now, pay later loans for big-ticket items at some of the retailer's more than 4,600 U.S. stores, CNBC has learned."", 'The move puts One in direct competition with Affirm, the BNPL leader and exclusive provider ofinstallment loans for Walmart customers since 2019.', ""It's a relationship that the Bentonville, Arkansas, retailer expanded recently, introducing Affirm as a payment option at Walmart self-checkout kiosks."", ""It also likely signals that a battle is brewing in the store aisles and ecommerce portals of America's largest retailer."", 'At stake is the role of a wide spectrum of players, from fintech firms to card companies and established banks.', ""One's push into lending is the clearest sign yet of its ambition to become a financial superapp, a mobile one-stop shop for saving, spending and borrowing money."", 'Since it burst onto the scene in 2021, luring Goldman Sachs veteran Omer Ismail as CEO, the fintech startup has intrigued and threatened a financial landscape dominated by banks — and poached talent from more established lenders and payments firms.', ""But the company, based out of a cramped Manhattan WeWork space, has operated mostly in stealth mode while developing its early products, including a debit account released in 2022.Now, One is going head-to-head with some of Walmart's existing partners like Affirm who helped the retail giant generate $648 billion in revenue last year."", ""On a recent visit by CNBC to a New Jersey Walmart location, ads for both One and Affirm vied for attention among the Apple products and Android smartphones in the store's electronics section."", 'Offerings from both One and Affirm were available at checkout, and loans from either provider were available for purchases starting at around $100 and costing as much as several thousand dollars at an annual interest rate of between 10% to 36%, according to their respective websites.', 'Electronics, jewelry, power tools and automotive accessories are eligible for the loans, while groceries, alcohol and weapons are not.', 'Buy now, pay later has gained popularity with consumers for everyday items as well as larger purchases.', 'From January through March of this year, BNPL drove $19.2 billion in online spending, according to Adobe Analytics.', ""That's a 12% year-over-year increase."", 'Walmart and One declined to comment for this article.', ""One's expanding role at Walmart raises the possibility that the company could force Affirm, Capital One and other third parties out of some of the most coveted partnerships in American retail, according to industry experts."", '""I have to imagine the goal is to have all this stuff, whether it\'s a credit card, buy now, pay later loans or remittances, to have it all unified in an app under a single brand, delivered online and through Walmart\'s physical footprint,"" said Jason Mikula, a consultant formerly employed at Goldman\'s consumer division.', 'Affirm declined to comment about its Walmart partnership.', 'Shares of Affirm climbed 2% Tuesday, rebounding after falling more than 8% in premarket activity.', ""For Walmart, One is part of its broader effort to develop new revenue sources beyond its retail stores in areas including finance and health care, following rival Amazon's playbook with cloud computing and streaming, among other segments."", ""Walmart's newer businesses have higher margins than retail and are a part of its plan to grow profits faster than sales."", 'In February, Walmart said it was buying TV maker Vizio for $2.3 billion to boost its advertising business, another growth area for the retailer.', ""When it comes to finance, One is just Walmart's latest attempt to break into the banking business."", 'Starting in the 1990s, Walmart made repeated efforts to enter the industry through direct ownership of a banking arm, each time getting blocked by lawmakers and industry groups concerned that a ""Bank of Walmart"" would crush small lenders and squeeze big ones.', 'To sidestep those concerns, Walmart adopted a more arms-length approach this time around.', 'For One, the retailer created a joint venture with investment firm firm Ribbit Capital — known for backing fintech firms including Robinhood, Credit Karma and Affirm — and staffed the business with executives from across finance.', 'Walmart has not disclosed the size of its investment in One.', 'The startup has said that it makes decisions independent of Walmart, though its board includes Walmart U.S. CEO, John Furner, and its finance chief, John David Rainey.', ""One doesn't have a banking license, but partners with Coastal Community Bank for the debit card and installment loans."", 'After its failed early attempts in banking, Walmart pursued a partnership strategy, teaming up with a constellation of providers, including Capital One, Synchrony, MoneyGram, Green Dot, and more recently, Affirm.', 'Leaning on partners, the retailer opened thousands of physical MoneyCenter locations within its stores to offer check cashing, sending and receiving payments, and tax services.', 'But Walmart and One executives have made no secret of their ambition to become a major player in financial services by leapfrogging existing players with a clean-slate effort.', 'One\'s no-fee approach is especially relevant to low- and middle-income Americans who are ""underserved financially,"" Rainey, a former PayPal executive, noted during a December conference.', '""We see a lot of that customer demographic, so I think it gives us the ability to participate in this space in maybe a way that others don\'t,"" Rainey said. ""', 'We can digitize a lot of the services that we do physically today.', 'One is the platform for that.', '""One could generate roughly $1.6 billion in annual revenue from debit cards and lending in the near term, and more than $4 billion if it expands into investing and other areas, according to Morgan Stanley.', 'Walmart can use its scale to grow One in other ways.', 'It is the largest private employer in the U.S. with about 1.6 million employees, and it already offers its workers early access to wages if they sign up for a corporate version of One.', 'There are signs that One is making a deeper push into lending beyond installment loans.', 'Walmart recently prevailed in a legal dispute with Capital One, allowing the retailer to end its credit-card partnership years ahead of schedule.', 'Walmart sued Capital One last year, alleging that its exclusive partnership with the card issuer was void after it failed to live up to contractual obligations around customer service, assertions that Capital One denied.', ""The lawsuit led to speculation that Walmart intends to have One take over management of the retailer's co-branded and store cards."", ""In fact, in legal filings Capital One itself alleged that Walmart's rationale was less about servicing complaints and more about moving transactions to a company it owns."", '""Upon information and belief, Walmart intends to offer its branded credit cards through One in the future,"" Capital One said last year in response to Walmart\'s suit. ""', 'With One, Walmart is positioning itself to compete directly with Capital One to provide credit and payment products to Walmart customers.', '""Capital One said last month that it could appeal the decision.', 'The company declined to comment further.', 'Meanwhile, Walmart said last year when its lawsuit became public that it would soon announce a new credit card option with ""meaningful benefits and rewards.', '""One has obtained lending licenses that allow it to operate in nearly every U.S. state, according to filings and its website.', ""The company's app tells users that credit building and credit score monitoring services are coming soon."", ""And while One's expansion threatens to supersede Walmart's existing financial partners, Walmart's efforts could also be seen as defensive."", ""Fintech players including Block's Cash App, PayPal and Chime dominate account growth among people who switch bank accounts and have made inroads with Walmart's core demographic."", 'The three services made up 60% of digital player signups last year, according to data and consultancy firm Curinos.', 'But One has the advantage of being majority owned by a company whose customers make more than 200 million visits a week.', 'It can offer them enticements including 3% cashback on Walmart purchases and a savings account that pays 5% interest annually, far higher than most banks, according to customer emails from One.', 'Those terms keep customers spending and saving within the Walmart ecosystem and helps the retailer better understand them, Morgan Stanley analysts said in a 2022 research note.', '""One has access to Walmart\'s sizable and sticky customer base, the largest in retail,"" the analysts wrote. ""', 'This captive and underserved customer base gives One a leg up vs. other fintechs.""']",0.1047730639049195,"Meanwhile, Walmart said last year when its lawsuit became public that it would soon announce a new credit card option with ""meaningful benefits and rewards.","Walmart sued Capital One last year, alleging that its exclusive partnership with the card issuer was void after it failed to live up to contractual obligations around customer service, assertions that Capital One denied.",0.5972028147606623,"In February, Walmart said it was buying TV maker Vizio for $2.3 billion to boost its advertising business, another growth area for the retailer.","And while One's expansion threatens to supersede Walmart's existing financial partners, Walmart's efforts could also be seen as defensive.",2024-04-29
"Southwest cuts growth plans, warning effect of Boeing airplane delays will last into 2025",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/southwest-airlines-luv-earnings-q1-2024.html,2024-04-25T20:08:03+0000,"In this articleSouthwest Airlines on Thursday posted a wider loss for the first quarter than the same period last year and warned that Boeing's airplane delays will hamper its growth into 2025.The airline expects to grow capacity 4% this year, down from a plan to expand 6%. For the second quarter, it forecast growth of 8% to 9% and said revenue would be down as much as 3.5%.Shares of Southwest slid almost 7% on Thursday. The airline said in a quarterly filing that it now expects to receive only 20 Boeing 737 Max 8 planes, down from its previous forecast of 46 of them. The carrier will now delay retiring some of its older Boeing planes and is cutting costs, including by offering staff voluntary time off. Southwest said it expects to end the year with 2,000 fewer employees than it had at the end of 2023.It will shut down operations at some airports, including in Syracuse, New York; Bellingham International Airport in Washington; Cozumel International Airport; and Houston's George Bush Intercontinental. The carrier is also scaling back service in Atlanta and at Chicago O'Hare International Airport.""Achieving our financial goals is an immediate imperative,"" CEO Bob Jordan said in an earnings release. ""The recent news from Boeing regarding further aircraft delivery delays presents significant challenges for both 2024 and 2025. We are reacting and replanning quickly to mitigate the operational and financial impacts while maintaining dependable and reliable flight schedules for our Customers.""The Dallas-based carrier operates an all-Boeing 737 fleet and is acutely affected by Boeing's aircraft delays stemming from its safety and quality crises.The carrier had previously warned that slower Boeing deliveries were hampering its growth.Southwest is not only rethinking its network but also its business model. Jordan told CNBC that the airline might ditch its single-class cabin and open seating. While he said no decisions have been made, it would be a massive shift, just as big rivals like United and Delta post strong revenue growth for premium seats.Here is how Southwest performed in the first quarter compared with Wall Street expectations, according to consensus estimates from LSEG:Southwest lost $231 million, or 39 cents a share, in the first three months of the year, compared with a loss of $159 million, or 27 cents a share, a year earlier when it was dealing with the aftermath of its holiday meltdown.Adjusting for one-time items, including costs related to labor contracts and fuel, Southwest lost $218 million, or 36 cents a share.Revenue rose almost 11% to $6.33 billion, slightly below analysts' estimates as compiled by LSEG.Correction: Southwest Airlines revenue of $6.33 billion came in slightly below analysts' estimates as compiled by LSEG.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"[""In this articleSouthwest Airlines on Thursday posted a wider loss for the first quarter than the same period last year and warned that Boeing's airplane delays will hamper its growth into 2025.The airline expects to grow capacity 4% this year, down from a plan to expand 6%."", 'For the second quarter, it forecast growth of 8% to 9% and said revenue would be down as much as 3.5%.Shares of Southwest slid almost 7% on Thursday.', 'The airline said in a quarterly filing that it now expects to receive only 20 Boeing 737 Max 8 planes, down from its previous forecast of 46 of them.', 'The carrier will now delay retiring some of its older Boeing planes and is cutting costs, including by offering staff voluntary time off.', ""Southwest said it expects to end the year with 2,000 fewer employees than it had at the end of 2023.It will shut down operations at some airports, including in Syracuse, New York; Bellingham International Airport in Washington; Cozumel International Airport; andHouston's George Bush Intercontinental."", ""The carrier is also scaling back service in Atlanta and at Chicago O'Hare International Airport."", '""Achieving our financial goals is an immediate imperative,"" CEO Bob Jordan said in an earnings release. ""', 'The recent news from Boeing regarding further aircraft delivery delays presents significant challenges for both 2024and 2025.', 'We are reacting and replanning quickly to mitigate the operational and financial impacts while maintaining dependable and reliable flight schedules for our Customers.', '""The Dallas-based carrier operates an all-Boeing 737 fleet and is acutely affected by Boeing\'s aircraft delays stemming from its safety and quality crises.', 'The carrier had previously warned that slower Boeing deliveries were hampering its growth.', 'Southwest is not only rethinking its network but also its business model.', 'Jordan told CNBC that the airline might ditch its single-class cabin and open seating.', 'While he said no decisions have been made, it would be a massive shift, just as big rivals like United and Delta post strong revenue growth for premium seats.', 'Here is how Southwest performed in the first quarter compared with Wall Street expectations, according to consensus estimates from LSEG:Southwest lost $231 million, or 39 cents a share, in the first three months of the year, compared with a loss of $159 million, or 27 cents a share, a year earlier when it was dealing with the aftermath of its holiday meltdown.', 'Adjusting for one-time items, including costs related to labor contracts and fuel, Southwest lost $218 million, or 36 cents a share.', ""Revenue rose almost 11% to $6.33 billion, slightly below analysts' estimates as compiled by LSEG.Correction: Southwest Airlines revenue of $6.33 billion came in slightly below analysts' estimates as compiled by LSEG.""]",0.1153596879470297,"While he said no decisions have been made, it would be a massive shift, just as big rivals like United and Delta post strong revenue growth for premium seats.","The carrier will now delay retiring some of its older Boeing planes and is cutting costs, including by offering staff voluntary time off.",-0.3292938907941182,"While he said no decisions have been made, it would be a massive shift, just as big rivals like United and Delta post strong revenue growth for premium seats.","The airline said in a quarterly filing that it now expects to receive only 20 Boeing 737 Max 8 planes, down from its previous forecast of 46 of them.",2024-04-29
Hungary opens up to Chinese tech despite protests,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68848770,2024-04-26T23:23:41.000Z,"""We do not intend to become the world leader,"" said Hungary's foreign minister in Beijing last October, about his country's ambitious plans for manufacturing Electric Vehicle batteries, ""because the world leader is China"".  China has an astonishing 79% share of the lithium-ion global battery manufacturing capacity, ahead of the US on 6%. Hungary is now third with 4% and aims soon to overtake the Americans, explained Peter Szijjarto, during his visit to China. With 36 factories already built, under construction or planned, his words were no idle boast.  Viktor Orban's Fidesz government has trumpeted its ""opening to the East"". When it comes to maintaining strong economic ties with Russia, Budapest draws considerable criticism. More important in economic terms are the growing ties with China and South Korea. Electric vehicles are the cornerstone of that push, and for once Hungary is attracting the envy of fellow EU members, rather than their approbation.  By this summer, there will be 17 flights a week between Budapest and Chinese cities. In 2023, China became the single biggest investor in Hungary with €10.7bn.   Looking south from the tower of the Reformed Great Church in Debrecen, the solid grey building blocks of China's CATL factory stretch into the distance. The world's biggest battery maker has a big foothold in eastern Hungary. Until last year sunflowers and oilseed rape painted the landscape green and yellow. Now the Chinese SemCorp separator foil factory and the Chinese EcoPro cathode plant have sprung up too.  Go past the construction site of Debrecen's new, all-electric BMW factory and you will find another Chinese battery maker, Eve Energy.  Meanwhile, bulldozers in southern Hungary are stripping the soil over a 300 hectare-site to prepare it for a Chinese ""gigafactory"" for BYD electric cars. South Korean and Japanese factories have already started manufacturing batteries or battery components here. ""Hungary is in the centre of Europe and in close proximity to the biggest industrial players in the automotive industry,"" says Noemi Sidlo from CATL's Hungarian division. It was an obvious destination and the local and national governments were keen to help, she explained.  Mr Orban's Fidesz government has bent over backwards to attract Chinese investment, promising CATL €800m in tax incentives and infrastructural support to clinch the deal - more than 10% of the €7.3bn investment. Add to that Chinese investment in a high-speed railway intended to connect Central Europe to the ports of Thessaloniki and Piraeus and Budapest's enthusiasm for Chinese investment is even clearer. The feeling appears to be mutual. When Chinese President Xi Jinping comes to Europe in May, he will visit just three countries - France, Serbia, and Hungary. What could still go wrong for Viktor Orban's plans?  Rather a lot, say his critics. Environmental protests against the swathe of factories are growing, despite near-silence in the Fidesz-controlled media about potential problems. The mayor of Debrecen, Laszlo Papp, has refused to talk to the BBC. Repeated emails to the foreign ministry and the Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency have gone unanswered.  Opponents complain that there is no way to challenge the projects locally because they have been granted ""enhanced national interest"" status. South of Debrecen lies the pretty village of Mikepercs which has become increasingly dwarfed by construction sites. ""None of us mothers are against green cars,"" says local campaigner Eva Kozma, ""but it is incredibly unfair they built such an enormous factory here, without asking the local people."" She points to environmental issues caused by battery factories elsewhere in Hungary: ""That's not a green future if everyone here gets cancer, just because in other towns people who are luckier than us can flit around in their nice green cars.""  Noemi Sidlo from CATL insists her fears are ungrounded. Water supply is also a major headache in Debrecen. Situated on the Great Hungarian plain, rainfall is in decline, underground water supplies are depleted, and government plans have so far come to little to retain more of the waters that flow through the Danube and Tisza rivers. Hungary risks trading its status as a water superpower, to become an electromobility superpower. Maps from the 19th Century show much of the current surface of the country covered in water. Another problem is labour, in a country where unemployment is below 5%.  CATL alone will need 9,000 workers, but the Hungarian government rides to power in election after election on a slogan of ""keep migrants out"". The right-wing Our Homeland Movement recently highlighted the growing number of Turkish workers in Debrecen, building the BMW plant.  Another concern among critics is that cheap labour, cheap land, and generous government incentives will turn Hungary into a ""servant-state"" of Chinese and South-East Asian companies.  The government acknowledges there is a risk that wages will be kept low and domestic research and development will be affected. ""We have to convince the investors, not only to bring production here, but also research,"" Balazs Orban, political director of the Prime Minister's Office told the BBC.  ""How we merge their research with the Hungarian companies. This is the biggest challenge for the upcoming 10 years."" ",BBC,26/04/2024,"['""We do not intend to become the world leader,"" said Hungary\'s foreign minister in Beijing last October, about his country\'s ambitious plans for manufacturing Electric Vehicle batteries, ""because the world leader is China"".', 'China has an astonishing 79% share of the lithium-ion global battery manufacturing capacity, ahead of the US on 6%.', 'Hungary is now third with 4% and aims soon to overtake the Americans, explained Peter Szijjarto, during his visit to China.', 'With 36 factories already built, under construction or planned, his words were no idle boast.', 'Viktor Orban\'s Fidesz government has trumpeted its ""opening to the East"".', 'When it comes to maintaining strong economic ties with Russia, Budapest draws considerable criticism.', 'More important in economic terms are the growing ties with China and South Korea.', 'Electric vehicles are the cornerstone of that push, and for once Hungary is attracting the envy of fellow EU members, rather than their approbation.', 'By this summer, there will be 17 flights a week between Budapest and Chinese cities.', 'In 2023, China became the single biggest investor in Hungary with €10.7bn.', ""Looking south from the tower of the Reformed Great Church in Debrecen, the solid grey building blocks of China's CATL factory stretch into the distance."", ""The world's biggest battery maker has a big foothold in eastern Hungary."", 'Until last year sunflowers and oilseed rape painted the landscape green and yellow.', 'Now the Chinese SemCorp separator foil factory and the Chinese EcoPro cathode plant have sprung up too.', ""Go past the construction site of Debrecen's new, all-electric BMW factory and you will find another Chinese battery maker, Eve Energy."", 'Meanwhile, bulldozers in southern Hungary are stripping the soil over a 300 hectare-site to prepare it for a Chinese ""gigafactory"" for BYD electric cars.', 'South Korean and Japanese factories have already started manufacturing batteries or battery components here. ""', 'Hungary is in the centre of Europe and in close proximity to the biggest industrial players in the automotive industry,"" says Noemi Sidlo from CATL\'s Hungarian division.', 'It was an obvious destination and the local and national governments were keen to help, she explained.', ""Mr Orban's Fidesz government has bent over backwards to attract Chinese investment, promising CATL €800m in tax incentives and infrastructural support to clinch the deal - more than 10% of the €7.3bn investment."", ""Add to that Chinese investment in a high-speed railway intended to connect Central Europe to the ports of Thessaloniki and Piraeus and Budapest's enthusiasm for Chinese investment is even clearer."", 'The feeling appears to be mutual.', 'When Chinese President Xi Jinping comes to Europe in May, he will visit just three countries - France, Serbia, and Hungary.', ""What could still go wrong for Viktor Orban's plans?"", 'Rather a lot, say his critics.', 'Environmental protests against the swathe of factories are growing, despite near-silence in the Fidesz-controlled media about potential problems.', 'The mayor of Debrecen, Laszlo Papp, has refused to talk to the BBC.', 'Repeated emails to the foreign ministry and the Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency have gone unanswered.', 'Opponents complain that there is no way to challenge the projects locally because they have been granted ""enhanced national interest"" status.', 'South of Debrecen lies the pretty village of Mikepercs which has become increasingly dwarfed by construction sites. ""', 'None of us mothers are against green cars,"" says local campaigner Eva Kozma, ""but it is incredibly unfair they built such an enormous factory here, without asking the local people.""', 'She points to environmental issues caused by battery factories elsewhere in Hungary: ""That\'s not a green future if everyone here gets cancer, just because in other towns people who are luckier than us can flit around in their nice green cars.""', 'Noemi Sidlo from CATL insists her fears are ungrounded.', 'Water supply is also a major headache in Debrecen.', 'Situated on the Great Hungarian plain, rainfall is in decline, underground water supplies are depleted, and government plans have so far come to little to retain more of the waters that flow through the Danube and Tisza rivers.', 'Hungary risks trading its status as a water superpower, to become an electromobility superpower.', 'Maps from the 19th Century show much of the current surface of the country covered in water.', 'Another problem is labour, in a country where unemployment is below 5%.', 'CATL alone will need 9,000 workers, but the Hungarian government rides to power in election after election on a slogan of ""keep migrants out"".', 'The right-wing Our Homeland Movement recently highlighted the growing number of Turkish workers in Debrecen, building the BMW plant.', 'Another concern among critics is that cheap labour, cheap land, and generous government incentives will turn Hungary into a ""servant-state"" of Chinese and South-East Asian companies.', 'The government acknowledges there is a risk that wages will be kept low and domestic research and development will be affected. ""', 'We have to convince the investors, not only to bring production here, but also research,"" Balazs Orban, political director of the Prime Minister\'s Office told the BBC. ""', 'How we merge their research with the Hungarian companies.', 'This is the biggest challenge for the upcoming 10 years.""']",0.0227902111288965,"Mr Orban's Fidesz government has bent over backwards to attract Chinese investment, promising CATL €800m in tax incentives and infrastructural support to clinch the deal - more than 10% of the €7.3bn investment.",Until last year sunflowers and oilseed rape painted the landscape green and yellow.,0.1730355262756347,Add to that Chinese investment in a high-speed railway intended to connect Central Europe to the ports of Thessaloniki and Piraeus and Budapest's enthusiasm for Chinese investment is even clearer.,"Situated on the Great Hungarian plain, rainfall is in decline, underground water supplies are depleted, and government plans have so far come to little to retain more of the waters that flow through the Danube and Tisza rivers.",2024-04-29
Tesla Autopilot recall to be probed by US regulator,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4n17zl39v8o,2024-04-26T13:50:43.146Z,"The US auto regulator is investigating whether Tesla's biggest ever recall successfully addressed safety concerns relating to its driver assistance system. In December, Tesla issued a software update to two million of its vehicles in the US to fix problems with its Autopilot feature. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says it will now probe the ""adequacy"" of that fix. Tesla has been approached for comment. The NHTSA has just concluded a nearly three-year-long investigation into crashes involving cars fitted with Autopilot. The agency said there had been at least 13 Tesla crashes, involving at least one death, and many more involving serious injuries, in which ""foreseeable driver misuse of the system played an apparent role."" A document outlining the NHTSA's new probe says it has identified concerns in Tesla's recall remedy after initial testing of remedied cars and analysing crashes which took place following its implementation. It also says that ""Tesla has stated that a portion of the remedy both requires the owner to opt in and allows a driver to readily reverse it."" The new investigation comes shortly after Tesla recalled thousands of its new Cybertrucks over an accelerator crash risk. 2024 has also seen sales and profits fall at the car-maker, and an on-going row about boss Elon Musk's enormous pay package. This was shortly after the firm announced layoffs to 10% of its global workforce after delivering less vehicles than investors expected. Mr Musk told investors in its latest earnings call that new electric vehicle model launches would be brought forward, but also that Tesla should be viewed as more than just a car company. He added its humanoid robot Optimus ""will be more valuable than everything else combined"". Autopilot is designed to assist drivers with steering, acceleration and braking and, despite what its name might suggest, still requires driver input and attention. Launched in 2015, the software forms part of the firm's wider vision for an autonomous driving future where human input is no longer needed at the wheel. Elon Musk, Tesla's largest shareholder, has previously suggested it can drive more safely than humans in some situations. It requires drivers to have their hands on the wheel and to be ""fully attentive"". But following its Autopilot investigation into Tesla crashes, the NHTSA said it found ""the prominence and scope of the feature's controls may not be sufficient to prevent driver misuse"". In early April, Tesla agreed to settle a lawsuit over a crash in 2018 which killed Apple engineer Walter Huang after his Model X, operating on Autopilot, collided with a highway barrier. The BBC has previously heard from former Tesla employees who had raised concerns over the safety of its vehicles and software. Whistleblower Lukasz Krupski told the BBC in December he did not believe the technology powering the firm's vehicles was safe. ",BBC,26/04/2024,"[""The US auto regulator is investigating whether Tesla's biggest ever recall successfully addressed safety concerns relating to its driver assistance system."", 'In December, Tesla issued a software update to two million of its vehicles in the US to fix problems with its Autopilot feature.', 'The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says it will now probe the ""adequacy"" of that fix.', 'Tesla has been approached for comment.', 'The NHTSA has just concluded a nearly three-year-long investigation into crashes involving cars fitted with Autopilot.', 'The agency said there had been at least 13 Tesla crashes, involving at least one death, and many more involving serious injuries, in which ""foreseeable driver misuse of the system played an apparent role.""', ""A document outlining the NHTSA's new probe says it has identified concerns in Tesla's recall remedy after initial testing of remedied cars and analysing crashes which took place following its implementation."", 'It also says that ""Tesla has stated that a portion of the remedy both requires the owner to opt in and allows a driver to readily reverse it.""', 'The new investigation comes shortly after Tesla recalled thousands of its new Cybertrucks over an accelerator crash risk.', ""2024 has also seen sales and profits fall at the car-maker, and an on-going row about boss Elon Musk's enormous pay package."", 'This was shortly after the firm announced layoffs to 10% of its global workforce after delivering less vehicles than investors expected.', 'Mr Musk told investors in its latest earnings call that new electric vehicle model launches would be brought forward, but also that Tesla should be viewed as more than just a car company.', 'He added its humanoid robot Optimus ""will be more valuable than everything else combined"".', 'Autopilot is designed to assist drivers with steering, acceleration and braking and, despite what its name might suggest, still requires driver input and attention.', ""Launched in 2015, the software forms part of the firm's wider vision for an autonomous driving future where human input is no longer needed at the wheel."", ""Elon Musk, Tesla's largest shareholder, has previously suggested it can drive more safely than humans in some situations."", 'It requires drivers to have their hands on the wheel and to be ""fully attentive"".', 'But following its Autopilot investigation into Tesla crashes, the NHTSA said it found ""the prominence and scope of the feature\'s controls may not be sufficient to prevent driver misuse"".', 'In early April, Tesla agreed to settle a lawsuit over a crash in 2018 which killed Apple engineer Walter Huang after his Model X, operating on Autopilot, collided with a highway barrier.', 'The BBC has previously heard from former Tesla employees who had raised concerns over the safety of its vehicles and software.', ""Whistleblower Lukasz Krupski told the BBC in December he did not believe the technology powering the firm's vehicles was safe.""]",0.0573262183127233,The US auto regulator is investigating whether Tesla's biggest ever recall successfully addressed safety concerns relating to its driver assistance system.,"In early April, Tesla agreed to settle a lawsuit over a crash in 2018 which killed Apple engineer Walter Huang after his Model X, operating on Autopilot, collided with a highway barrier.",0.0206234976649284,"In early April, Tesla agreed to settle a lawsuit over a crash in 2018 which killed Apple engineer Walter Huang after his Model X, operating on Autopilot, collided with a highway barrier.","2024 has also seen sales and profits fall at the car-maker, and an on-going row about boss Elon Musk's enormous pay package.",2024-04-29
"Boeing reports better-than-feared quarter, says supply chain is stabilizing amid 737 Max crisis",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/24/boeing-ba-earnings-q1-2024.html,2024-04-24T19:00:54+0000,"In this articleBoeing on Wednesday reported a better-than-expected quarter but continued to burn cash as it tries to stabilize production following a near-catastrophic door blowout on a 737 Max earlier this year.Boeing burned through $3.9 billion in the first quarter, beating a previous company forecast and Wall Street analysts' expectations for a cash burn of as much as $4.5 billion for the three-month period.""Near term, yes, we are in a tough moment,"" CEO Dave Calhoun, who announced in March that he would step down by year-end, said in a note to employees Wednesday. ""Lower deliveries can be difficult for our customers and for our financials. But safety and quality must and will come above all else. We are absolutely committed to doing everything we can to make certain our regulators, customers, employees, and the flying public are 100 percent confident in Boeing.""Boeing has been hamstrung in ramping up production, especially of its bestselling 737 Max planes, and instead has lowered output. After the door plug blew out on the Alaska Airlines Max 9 on Jan. 5, the Federal Aviation Administration has barred Boeing from increasing production. The FAA also said it found numerous issues of noncompliance along Boeing's supply chain and on Feb. 28, gave Boeing 90 days to come up with a quality control improvement plan.Calhoun reiterated Wednesday that the company's 737 Max production has dropped below 38 Max jets per month and the company said the rate would stay there for at least through the first half of the year. Deliveries have slowed sharply this quarter. Boeing earlier this week told staff that it expects slower production increases and deliveries of its 787 Dreamliners because of parts shortages.Boeing's all-important commercial airplane unit revenue dropped 31% to $4.65 billion in the quarter compared with last year, with negative margins widening to 24.6% from 9.2%, including the impact of $443 million in compensation to Boeing customers because of the Jan. 5 accident and temporary grounding of the planes.The company will have a ""sizable use of cash"" in the second quarter too, said CFO Brian West on an earnings call Wednesday.Ratings agency Moody's on Wednesday downgraded Boeing, citing its cash shortfall and said Boeing will have to issue more debt to pay more than $4 billion due in 2025.""We are using this period, as difficult as it is, to deliberately slow the system, stabilize the supply chain, fortify our factory operations and position Boeing to deliver with the predictability and quality our customers demand for the long term,"" Calhoun said. ""As these efforts begin to take hold, we're seeing early signs of more predictable, stable and efficient cycle times in our 737 factory, and expect this will continue to slowly improve.""Boeing lost $355 million in the first quarter, or 56 cents a share, down from a $425 million, or 69 cent per-share, loss a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, including pension costs, The company lost $388 million, or $1.13 a share.Revenue fell 8% to $16.57 million, slightly ahead of analysts' estimates.Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street analysts surveyed by LSEG were expecting:Calhoun on Wednesday stood by the company's goal of $10 billion in annual free cash flow in the 2025-2026 period, but said hitting that target would likely be delayed by about six months.""I believe it, I just do,"" Calhoun said of the $10 billion goal.Boeing has been scrambling to reduce what is known as ""traveled work,"" when manufacturing steps occur out of order because of defects. Calhoun told CNBC in an interview Wednesday that the company's fuselage maker Spirit AeroSystems will ""only ship a conforming fuselage.""Boeing has been in talks to buy back Spirit, which it spun off almost 20 years ago. The Wichita, Kansas-based company also supplies Airbus, and conversations around how to address non-Boeing customers are key to an acquisition deal.Calhoun said it is ""more than likely"" that the companies reach a deal during the second quarter.""Spirit, in working with its other customers, is taking actions to ensure that all of those relationships are what they need to be,"" he told CNBC. ""We're going to be patient and let them get their job done with their respective customers and we'll get a deal done.""— CNBC's Phil Lebeau contributed to this report.",CNBC,24/04/2024,"['In this articleBoeing on Wednesday reported a better-than-expected quarter but continued to burn cash as it tries to stabilize production following a near-catastrophic door blowout on a 737 Max earlier this year.', ""Boeing burned through $3.9 billion in the first quarter, beating a previous company forecast and Wall Street analysts' expectations for a cash burn of as much as $4.5 billion for the three-month period."", '""Near term, yes, we are in a tough moment,"" CEO Dave Calhoun, who announced in March that he would step down by year-end, said in a note to employees Wednesday. ""', 'Lower deliveries can be difficult for our customers and for our financials.', 'But safety and quality must and will come above all else.', 'We are absolutely committed to doing everything we can to make certain our regulators, customers, employees, and the flying public are 100 percent confident in Boeing.', '""Boeing has been hamstrung in ramping up production, especially of its bestselling 737 Max planes, and instead has lowered output.', 'After the door plug blew out on the Alaska Airlines Max 9 on Jan. 5, the Federal Aviation Administration has barred Boeing from increasing production.', ""The FAA also said it found numerous issues of noncompliance along Boeing's supply chain and on Feb. 28, gave Boeing 90 days to come up with a quality control improvement plan."", ""Calhoun reiterated Wednesday that the company's 737 Max production has dropped below 38 Max jets per month and the companysaid the rate would stay there for at least through the first half of the year."", 'Deliveries have slowed sharply this quarter.', 'Boeing earlier this week told staff that it expects slower production increases and deliveries of its 787 Dreamliners because of parts shortages.', ""Boeing's all-important commercial airplane unit revenue dropped 31% to $4.65 billion in the quarter compared with last year, with negative margins widening to 24.6% from 9.2%, including the impact of $443 million in compensation to Boeing customers because of the Jan. 5 accident and temporary grounding of the planes."", 'The company will have a ""sizable use of cash"" in the second quarter too, said CFO Brian West on an earnings call Wednesday.', 'Ratings agency Moody\'s on Wednesday downgraded Boeing, citing its cash shortfall and said Boeing will have to issue more debt to pay more than $4 billion due in 2025.""We are using this period, as difficult as it is, to deliberately slow the system, stabilize the supply chain, fortify our factory operations and position Boeing to deliver with the predictability and quality our customers demand for the long term,"" Calhoun said. ""', ""As these efforts begin to take hold, we're seeing early signs of more predictable, stable and efficient cycle times in our 737 factory, and expect this will continue to slowly improve."", '""Boeing lost $355 million in the first quarter, or 56 cents a share, down from a $425 million, or 69 cent per-share, loss a year earlier.', 'Excluding one-time items, including pension costs, The company lost $388 million, or $1.13 a share.', ""Revenue fell 8% to $16.57 million, slightly ahead of analysts' estimates."", ""Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street analysts surveyed by LSEG were expecting:Calhoun on Wednesday stood by the company's goal of $10 billion in annual free cash flow in the 2025-2026 period, but said hitting that target would likely be delayed by about six months."", '""I believe it, I just do,"" Calhoun said of the $10 billion goal.', 'Boeing has been scrambling to reduce what is known as ""traveled work,"" when manufacturing steps occur out of order because of defects.', 'Calhoun told CNBC in an interview Wednesday that the company\'s fuselage maker Spirit AeroSystems will ""only ship a conforming fuselage.', '""Boeing has been in talks to buy back Spirit, which it spun off almost 20 years ago.', 'The Wichita, Kansas-based company also supplies Airbus, and conversations around how to address non-Boeing customers are key to an acquisition deal.', 'Calhoun said it is ""more than likely"" that the companies reach a deal during the second quarter.', '""Spirit, in working with its other customers, is taking actions to ensure that all of those relationships are what they need to be,"" he told CNBC. ""', 'We\'re going to be patient and let them get their job done with their respective customers and we\'ll get a deal done.""—', ""CNBC's Phil Lebeau contributed to this report.""]",0.0101127055458851,"As these efforts begin to take hold, we're seeing early signs of more predictable, stable and efficient cycle times in our 737 factory, and expect this will continue to slowly improve.","Ratings agency Moody's on Wednesday downgraded Boeing, citing its cash shortfall and said Boeing will have to issue more debt to pay more than $4 billion due in 2025.""We are using this period, as difficult as it is, to deliberately slow the system, stabilize the supply chain, fortify our factory operations and position Boeing to deliver with the predictability and quality our customers demand for the long term,"" Calhoun said. """,-0.3083933472633361,"As these efforts begin to take hold, we're seeing early signs of more predictable, stable and efficient cycle times in our 737 factory, and expect this will continue to slowly improve.","Boeing's all-important commercial airplane unit revenue dropped 31% to $4.65 billion in the quarter compared with last year, with negative margins widening to 24.6% from 9.2%, including the impact of $443 million in compensation to Boeing customers because of the Jan. 5 accident and temporary grounding of the planes.",2024-04-29
Honda to build $11 billion electric vehicle hub in Canada,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/honda-to-build-11-billion-electric-vehicle-hub-in-canada.html,2024-04-25T15:57:06+0000,"In this articleDEROIT — Honda Motor and yet-to-be-named joint venture partners plan to invest $11 billion in Ontario, Canada, to create a ""comprehensive EV value chain,"" the Japanese automaker announced Thursday.The company said the new North American electric vehicle epicenter will include new assembly and battery plants as well as other facilities to support production of all-electric and fuel cell-powered vehicles.Honda said vehicle production will begin in 2028, with annual vehicle capacity of 240,000 units once it is fully operational. The investment in Alliston, Ontario, is expected to greatly assist in Honda's goal of exclusively offering all-electric and fuel cell-powered vehicles by 2040.The timing of the investment may seem odd to industry onlookers and investors, as many automakers have announced pullbacks in their all-electric vehicle plans amid slower-than-expected adoption of EVs.Honda said the investment is ""for a future increase in EV demand in North America,"" with the battery plant capable of producing 36 gigawatt hours, or GWh, per year.The project is expected to create as least 1,000 new jobs, adding to the 4,200 employees the company currently has at its two existing manufacturing facilities in Ontario.Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau said during a livestreamed press conference on Thursday that Honda's investment, 15 billion Canadian dollars, is the largest ever for the country's automotive industry. The company is expected to receive upward of CA$2.5 billion in assistance in tax credits and other incentives from the Canadian government, officials said.The investment is a major win for Canada and comes after Honda last year confirmed a $4.4 billion investment for a new U.S. battery plant in Ohio.""In North America, following the initiative to establish our EV production system capability in the U.S., we will now begin formal discussions toward the establishment of a comprehensive EV value chain here in Canada, with the support of the governments of Canada and Ontario,"" Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said in a release. ""We will strengthen our EV supply system and capability with an eye toward a future increase in EV demand in North America.""Honda said it has ""begun the process of evaluating the scope of its investment and completing negotiations with its joint venture partners."" Its partner in the U.S. facility is LG Energy Solution.The company said it expects to finalize the plans over the next six months.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"['In this articleDEROIT — Honda Motor and yet-to-be-named joint venture partners plan to invest $11 billion in Ontario, Canada, to create a ""comprehensive EV value chain,"" the Japanese automaker announced Thursday.', 'The company said the new North American electric vehicle epicenter will include new assembly and battery plants as well as other facilities to support production of all-electric and fuel cell-powered vehicles.', 'Honda said vehicle production will begin in 2028, with annual vehicle capacity of 240,000 units once it is fully operational.', ""The investment in Alliston, Ontario, is expected to greatly assist in Honda's goal of exclusively offering all-electric and fuel cell-powered vehicles by 2040.The timing of the investment may seem odd to industry onlookers and investors, as many automakers have announced pullbacks in their all-electric vehicle plans amid slower-than-expected adoption of EVs."", 'Honda said the investment is ""for a future increase in EV demand in North America,"" with the battery plant capable of producing 36 gigawatt hours, or GWh, per year.', 'The project is expected to create as least 1,000 new jobs, adding to the 4,200 employees the company currently has at its two existing manufacturing facilities in Ontario.', ""Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau said during a livestreamed press conference on Thursday that Honda's investment, 15 billion Canadian dollars, is the largest ever for the country's automotive industry."", 'The company is expected to receive upward of CA$2.5 billion in assistance in tax credits and other incentives from the Canadian government, officials said.', 'The investment is a major win for Canada and comes after Honda last year confirmed a $4.4 billion investment for a new U.S. battery plant in Ohio.', '""In North America, following the initiative to establish our EV production system capability in the U.S., we will now begin formal discussions toward the establishment of a comprehensive EV value chain here in Canada, with the support of the governments of Canada and Ontario,"" Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said in a release. ""', 'We will strengthen our EV supply system and capability with an eye toward a future increase in EV demand in North America.', '""Honda said it has ""begun the process of evaluating the scope of its investment and completing negotiations with its joint venture partners.""', 'Its partner in the U.S. facility is LG Energy Solution.', 'The company said it expects to finalize the plans over the next six months.']",0.3341687447145106,"""In North America, following the initiative to establish our EV production system capability in the U.S., we will now begin formal discussions toward the establishment of a comprehensive EV value chain here in Canada, with the support of the governments of Canada and Ontario,"" Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said in a release. ""","The investment in Alliston, Ontario, is expected to greatly assist in Honda's goal of exclusively offering all-electric and fuel cell-powered vehicles by 2040.The timing of the investment may seem odd to industry onlookers and investors, as many automakers have announced pullbacks in their all-electric vehicle plans amid slower-than-expected adoption of EVs.",0.9815447671072824,We will strengthen our EV supply system and capability with an eye toward a future increase in EV demand in North America.,,2024-04-29
"NBC hires former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who has demonized the press and refused to acknowledge Biden was fairly elected",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/22/media/ronna-mcdaniel-nbc/index.html,"
  Published
        1:53 PM EDT, Fri March 22, 2024
    ","NBC News on Friday announced that it had hired Ronna McDaniel, the former Republican National Committee chair who has repeatedly attacked the network and its journalists, assailed the news media as “fake news” and promoted false claims around the 2020 vote, as an on-air commentator ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
    
            “It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team,” Carrie Budoff Brown, senior vice president of politics at NBC News, said in a memo to staff.
    
            McDaniel exited the RNC earlier this month after leading the organization since 2016.
    
            During her time as chair, McDaniel repeatedly attacked the press, which has become increasingly popular in Republican circles over the last several years as Donald Trump demonizes journalists and news institutions.
    
            McDaniel echoed many such attacks, labeling the press as “fake news” and calling the media “corrupt.” At times, she even targeted NBC News and MSNBC with dishonest attacks.
    
            In 2019, for instance, McDaniel accused Richard Engel, NBC News’ chief foreign correspondent, of “actively cheering for an economic downturn.”
    
            “How can NBC let him keep his job when he’s made his bias so clear?” McDaniel asked.
    
            McDaniel has a lengthier history attacking the progressive cable news channel MSNBC, which she will appear on in her new role. In recent years, she has repeatedly attacked the channel for “spreading lies” and blasted those she described as the network’s “primetime propagandists.”
    
            An NBC spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment about her attacks on the news media and NBC.
    
            In her role as RNC chief, McDaniel also fanned the flames of election denialism after the 2020 presidential contest.
    
            McDaniel was involved in a phone call in 2020 to pressure Michigan county officials not to certify the vote from the Detroit area, where Joe Biden had a commanding lead. McDaniel told the officials, regarding the certification: “Do not sign it. … We will get you attorneys.”
    
            The Michigan Department of State’s office condemned her claims of supposed voter fraud in the wake of the election, stating they had “no merit.” The state’s “elections were conducted fairly, effectively and transparently and are an accurate reflection of the will of Michigan voters,” it said in a detailed fact check posted online.
    
            In an interview with CNN’s Chris Wallace last year, McDaniel defended her claims of voting “irregularity” in the election.
    
            “I think saying that there were problems with 2020 is very real. I don’t think that’s election denying,” McDaniel told Wallace. “I’m from Wayne County. We had a woman send a note saying I’m being told to backdate ballots. We had to look into that. That’s deeply concerning. When you have friends who are poll-watching and being kicked out, that’s deeply concerning. We have every right to look at that.”
    
            In the interview, Wallace pressed McDaniel if she believed Biden legitimately won the election.
    
            “I think there were lots of problems with 2020. Ultimately, he won the election but there were lots of problems with the 2020 election,” she said. “But I don’t think he won it fair. I don’t. I’m not going to say that.”
    
            NBC’s hiring of McDaniel, however, plays into a recent trend at the network’s outlets, which has seemingly softened its stance on Trump as he inches toward the Republican nomination for president.
    
            Earlier this month, CNBC hosted Trump for a lengthy phone interview in which the network’s anchors allowed him to peddle lies and conspiracy theories on air without scrutiny.
    
            MSNBC has even started carrying Trump’s remarks live on television, a practice that the network boasted for years it would not do. Star host Rachel Maddow, who has said carrying Trump’s lies on the air is dangerous, even objected to the network broadcasting a recent speech from the presumptive Republican nominee, calling it “irresponsible.”",CNN,22/03/2024,"['NBC News on Friday announced that it had hired Ronna McDaniel, the former Republican National Committee chair who has repeatedlyattacked the network and its journalists,assailed thenewsmedia as “fake news” and promoted false claims around the 2020vote,as an on-air commentatorahead of the 2024 presidential election.', '“It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team,” Carrie Budoff Brown, senior vice president of politics at NBC News, said in a memoto staff.', 'McDaniel exited the RNC earlier this month after leading the organization since 2016.', 'During her time as chair, McDaniel repeatedly attacked the press, which has become increasingly popular in Republican circles over the last several years as Donald Trump demonizes journalists and news institutions.', 'McDaniel echoed many such attacks, labeling the press as “fake news” and calling the media “corrupt.”', 'At times, she even targeted NBC Newsand MSNBCwith dishonest attacks.', 'In 2019, for instance, McDaniel accused Richard Engel, NBC News’ chief foreign correspondent, of “actively cheering for an economic downturn.”', '“How can NBC let him keep his job when he’s made his bias so clear?”', 'McDaniel asked.', 'McDaniel has a lengthier history attacking the progressive cable news channel MSNBC, which she will appear on in her new role.', 'In recent years, she has repeatedly attacked the channel for “spreading lies” and blasted those she described as the network’s “primetime propagandists.”', 'An NBC spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment about her attacks on the news media and NBC.', 'In her role as RNC chief, McDaniel also fanned the flames of election denialism after the 2020 presidential contest.', 'McDaniel was involved in a phone call in 2020 to pressure Michigan county officials not to certify the vote from the Detroit area, where Joe Biden had a commanding lead.', 'McDanieltold the officials, regarding the certification: “Do not sign it. …', 'We will get you attorneys.”', 'The Michigan Department of State’s office condemned her claims of supposed voter fraud in the wake of the election, stating they had “no merit.', '”The state’s “elections were conducted fairly, effectively and transparently and are an accurate reflection of the will of Michigan voters,” it said in adetailed fact checkposted online.', 'In an interview with CNN’s Chris Wallace last year, McDaniel defended her claims of voting “irregularity” in the election.', '“I think saying that there were problems with 2020 is very real.', 'I don’t think that’s election denying,” McDaniel told Wallace. “', 'I’m from Wayne County.', 'We had a woman send a note saying I’m being told to backdate ballots.', 'We had to look into that.', 'That’s deeply concerning.', 'When you have friends who are poll-watching and being kicked out, that’s deeply concerning.', 'We have every right to look at that.”', 'In the interview,Wallace pressed McDaniel if she believed Biden legitimately won the election.', '“I think there were lots of problems with 2020.', 'Ultimately, he won the electionbut there were lots of problems with the 2020 election,” she said. “', 'But I don’t think he won it fair.', 'I don’t.', 'I’m not going to say that.”', 'NBC’s hiring of McDaniel, however, plays into a recent trend at thenetwork’s outlets, which has seemingly softened its stance on Trump as he inches toward the Republican nomination for president.', 'Earlier this month, CNBC hosted Trump for a lengthy phone interview in which the network’s anchors allowed him to peddle lies and conspiracy theories on airwithout scrutiny.', 'MSNBC has even started carrying Trump’s remarks live on television, a practice that the network boasted for years it would not do.', 'Star host Rachel Maddow, who has said carrying Trump’s lieson the airis dangerous, even objected to the network broadcasting a recent speech from the presumptive Republican nominee, calling it “irresponsible.”']",-0.069193576701305,But I don’t think he won it fair.,"At times, she even targeted NBC Newsand MSNBCwith dishonest attacks.",-0.2803101042906443,"NBC’s hiring of McDaniel, however, plays into a recent trend at thenetwork’s outlets, which has seemingly softened its stance on Trump as he inches toward the Republican nomination for president.",“I think there were lots of problems with 2020.,2024-04-29
Apple announces its annual developers conference is set for June 10,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/tech/apple-annual-developers-conference-june-10/index.html,"
  Updated
        2:20 PM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
    ","Apple announced its annual Worldwide Developer Conference will kick off on June 10, when the company is expected to show off its latest AI advancements.
    
            The conference, which is widely anticipated each year as a major showcase for Apple software news, will run Monday, June 10 through Friday, June 14.
    
            Although last year’s WWDC focused on the unveiling of the Vision Pro mixed reality headset, which launched in stores in February, this year is expected to turn to Apple’s AI efforts. The company is reportedly interested in licensing and building Google’s Gemini AI engine, which includes chatbots and other AI tools, into upcoming iPhones and its iOS 18 features.
    
            As more tech companies pour billions of dollars into the development and rollout of artificial intelligence, Apple has largely been left out of the conversation, with many other tech companies making big strides in the space. A partnership with Google would catapult Apple into the growing AI arms race.
    
            Apple researchers also recently said they’ve developed a family of multimodal models — which refers to an AI system that can interpret and generate different types of data, such as text and images at the same time — called MM1. A report from those researchers said those new methods boast “superior abilities” and can offer advanced reasoning and in-context learning to respond to text and images.
    
            In a press release on Tuesday, the company said WWDC 2024 will also share software updates coming to the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV and Vision Pro headset.",CNN,26/03/2024,"['Apple announced its annual Worldwide Developer Conference will kick off on June 10, when the company is expected to show off its latest AI advancements.', 'The conference, which is widely anticipated each year as a major showcase for Apple software news, will run Monday, June 10 through Friday, June 14.', 'Although last year’s WWDC focused on the unveiling of the Vision Pro mixed reality headset, which launched in stores in February, this year is expected to turn to Apple’s AI efforts.', 'The company is reportedly interested in licensing and building Google’s Gemini AI engine, which includes chatbots and other AI tools, into upcoming iPhones and its iOS 18 features.', 'As more tech companies pour billions of dollars into the development and rollout of artificial intelligence, Apple has largely been left out of the conversation, with many other tech companies making big strides in the space.', 'A partnership with Google would catapult Apple into the growing AI arms race.', 'Apple researchers also recently said they’ve developed a family of multimodal models — which refers to an AI system that can interpret and generate different types of data, such as text and images at the same time — called MM1.', 'A report from those researchers said those new methods boast “superior abilities” and can offer advanced reasoning and in-context learning to respond to text and images.', 'In a press release on Tuesday, the company said WWDC 2024 will also share software updates coming to the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV and Vision Pro headset.']",0.3259092919755588,A report from those researchers said those new methods boast “superior abilities” and can offer advanced reasoning and in-context learning to respond to text and images.,,0.9975101351737976,A report from those researchers said those new methods boast “superior abilities” and can offer advanced reasoning and in-context learning to respond to text and images.,,2024-04-29
Why a deluge of Chinese-made drugs is hard to curb,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68669244,2024-04-18T22:57:01.000Z,"When Sammy left her village in Sichuan province to attend university in northern China more than a decade ago, she was following a well-trodden rite of passage.  The English language graduate was the first person in her family to go to university. She had a passion for foreign languages and dreamed of becoming a teacher. She had never heard of synthetic opioids before.  After graduating, Sammy found work at a chemicals company in the Chinese city of Shijiazhuang, selling what she thought were chemicals to clients around the world. She would practice English every day speaking to her customers online, and earn a commission for each sale she made. Her dreams of becoming a teacher quickly faded. ""Maybe others are just like me… At the start we don't know what we are selling, but when we find out we have fallen in love with the work,"" she said. ""This work can make money,"" she adds. Sammy [not her real name] is an unlikely drug trafficker. She is one of what international law enforcement agencies estimate could be thousands of online sales representatives, working for illicit Chinese pharmaceutical and chemical companies producing and smuggling illegal laboratory made drugs.  The US government has long accused China of flooding the country with deadly drugs like fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to 50 times stronger than heroin, claims the Chinese government denies. The US says Chinese-made opioids are fuelling the worst drug crisis in the country's history. In 2022 more than 70,000 Americans died from fentanyl overdoses. According to a report published by the US select committee on the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government provides subsidies to companies openly trafficking illicit synthetic drugs. The report found tens of thousands of posts online advertising illegal drugs and pre-cursors. The study claims that ""wholly state owned"" companies are involved in the trafficking of drugs. The Chinese government has consistently denied knowledge of the illegal drug trade. Many like Sammy fall into the drug trade seemingly by accident, initially unaware of the products they are peddling online and their deadly consequences. But others are more aware of what they are selling.  Each morning Sara [not her real name] posts photos and videos across her social media platforms advertising drugs; synthetic cannabinoids, precursors for MDMA, and nitazenes, a synthetic opioid considered up to 50 times more potent than even fentanyl. ""We have many customers in Britain and have cooperated with them many times,"" boasts Sara, an international trade graduate, now working for an online platform.  When challenged, she is not drawn into a moral discussion about selling drugs. She claims she never asks customers how they use what she sells.   The UK National Crime and Agency (NCA) believes drug dealers are mixing the synthetic opioid with street drugs such as heroin. According to the NCA, there have been more than 100 deaths linked to nitazenes over the past nine months, leading health professionals to warn the UK may be facing a drug-related crisis.  The BBC has found hundreds of adverts for nitazenes online. Suppliers contacted claim to send shipments through courier services, mislabelling deliveries and hiding drugs in fake packaging. The BBC has also seen courier tracking numbers provided by online sales representative in China claiming to have made successful deliveries across the UK. Sara entered the business after university. She thought she was selling chemicals.  She has worked in the industry for two and a half years. ""I know most of the products,"" she says. ""My boss has been running this company for more than seven years, and he knows lots of customers and freight forwarders. If the product is detained, he will lose the most. So he will try his best to make the product reach you smoothly,"" she adds. In March, the UK government classified 15 synthetic opioids as Class A drugs. Under the Misuse of Drugs act anyone caught supplying or producing the drugs could face up to life in prison. Those caught in possession face seven years.   According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), China has between 40,000 and 100,000 pharmaceutical companies. ""China has long had one of the most significant pharmaceutical industries in Asia, as well as one of the largest chemical industries. And we've seen industry growth in other countries of the region,"" said Jeremy Douglas in late 2023, the then regional representative of the UNODC . ""While both industries are regulated, the challenge is significant given the sheer scale, and at the same time there are a number of ways to move products. Parcel post, air freight and shipping containers are all moving globally in high volumes,"" he said. Mr Douglas says that synthetic drugs are disrupting the traditional drug trade. Outside of China, synthetic drugs offer opportunities for both traditional crime organisations and upstarts able to buy directly from producers half a world away.  ""Synthetics like fentanyl have several advantages over traditional drugs - compact, easily shippable, pre-existing demand, replaceable. They're attractive to traffickers."" That was confirmed in my conversations with sales people working for Chinese pharmaceutical firms. ""First of all, our packaging is completely secret, no one knows what it is until you open it, and second, we will change the name of the package and will not reveal any name about the product,"" says Sara. ""We will get the logistics order number when we send the package, we will track the situation of the package at any time, and any anomalies can be known and solved in time,"" she adds. According to Europol, the European police agency, China is the world's biggest manufacturer and distributor of synthetic, lab-made drugs. Some mimic the effects of traditional drugs like cannabis or cocaine. Chemists synthesise new drugs in order to stay one step ahead of the law. ""It is criminal entrepreneurship, but in a legitimate framework which is really unique,"" says Dr Louise Shelley the director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at George Mason University, and author of Dark Commerce.  ""I have not seen such a professionalism and a corporate element in this anywhere else in the world. Criminal activity was a type of social mobility."" In 2020, researchers from TraCCC studied over 350 English language websites advertising the synthetic opioid fentanyl. ""From all the adverts that we found, nearly 40% of them were from corporate registries, and the largest hub of that was in Wuhan,"" says Dr Shelly. The sales people contacted by the BBC see the drug trade as simply another aspect of e-commerce. When challenged over selling drugs that damage lives, one described herself as a ""middleman."" ""Somebody needs it, somebody makes it, and I am just a middleman who lets customers know that I have it and what they do with it, I don't care,"" she says. ""Then I figured out I just need to make money. I don't know and don't care. Everyone has their own needs."" The woman boasts of clients from Canada to Croatia. She provided photos of recent drugs shipments complete with labels showing a UK address. ""I didn't know at first until I went online and translated the product into Chinese,"" she says via a message punctuated with a teary emoji.  Another seller says: ""This industry is easy, and you can get higher wages, which attracts a large number of young people"". Natalie [not her real name], focuses on fentanyl. ""We buy from over 10 different labs and have a large selection. I have a professional shipping agent who packaged goods so has a very high delivery success rate to the UK."" Meanwhile, another supplier claimed to be able to smuggle drugs into the UK hidden in dog food packaging.  ""You don't need to worry about the packaging. We guarantee you safe delivery.""  ""We ship in large quantities all over the world every day. Please trust our professional team. We guarantee 100% safe transportation.""  In 2019, the Chinese government banned all forms of fentanyl and its analogues. In January 2024, China and the US launched a joint operation to curb the production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. ""As long as market demand remains high in some parts of the world then that demand will be met in one way or another,"" said Mr Douglas from the UNODC.  ",BBC,18/04/2024,"['When Sammy left her village in Sichuan province to attend university in northern China more than a decade ago, she was following a well-trodden rite of passage.', 'The English language graduate was the first person in her family to go to university.', 'She had a passion for foreign languages and dreamed of becoming a teacher.', 'She had never heard of synthetic opioids before.', 'After graduating, Sammy found work at a chemicals company in the Chinese city of Shijiazhuang, selling what she thought were chemicals to clients around the world.', 'She would practice English every day speaking to her customers online, and earn a commission for each sale she made.', 'Her dreams of becoming a teacher quickly faded. ""', 'Maybe others are just like me… At the start we don\'t know what we are selling, but when we find out we have fallen in love with the work,"" she said. ""', 'This work can make money,"" she adds.', 'Sammy [not her real name] is an unlikely drug trafficker.', 'She is one of what international law enforcement agencies estimate could be thousands of online sales representatives, working for illicit Chinese pharmaceutical and chemical companies producing and smuggling illegal laboratory made drugs.', 'The US government has long accused China of flooding the country with deadly drugs like fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to 50 times stronger than heroin, claims the Chinese government denies.', ""The US says Chinese-made opioids are fuelling the worst drug crisis in the country's history."", 'In 2022 more than 70,000 Americans died from fentanyl overdoses.', 'According to a report published by the US select committee on the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government provides subsidies to companies openly trafficking illicit synthetic drugs.', 'The report found tens of thousands of posts online advertising illegal drugs and pre-cursors.', 'The study claims that ""wholly state owned"" companies are involved in the trafficking of drugs.', 'The Chinese government has consistently denied knowledge of the illegal drug trade.', 'Many like Sammy fall into the drug trade seemingly by accident, initially unaware of the products they are peddling online and their deadly consequences.', 'But others are more aware of what they are selling.', 'Each morning Sara [not her real name] posts photos and videos across her social media platforms advertising drugs; synthetic cannabinoids, precursors for MDMA, and nitazenes, a synthetic opioid considered up to 50 times more potent than even fentanyl. ""', 'We have many customers in Britain and have cooperated with them many times,"" boasts Sara, an international trade graduate, now working for an online platform.', 'When challenged, she is not drawn into a moral discussion about selling drugs.', 'She claims she never asks customers how they use what she sells.', 'The UK National Crime and Agency (NCA) believes drug dealers are mixing the synthetic opioid with street drugs such as heroin.', 'According to the NCA, there have been more than 100 deaths linked to nitazenes over the past nine months, leading health professionals to warn the UK may be facing a drug-related crisis.', 'The BBC has found hundreds of adverts for nitazenes online.', 'Suppliers contacted claim to send shipments through courier services, mislabelling deliveries and hiding drugs in fake packaging.', 'The BBC has also seen courier tracking numbers provided by online sales representative in China claiming to have made successful deliveries across the UK.', 'Sara entered the business after university.', 'She thought she was selling chemicals.', 'She has worked in the industry for two and a half years. ""', 'I know most of the products,"" she says. ""', 'My boss has been running this company for more than seven years, and he knows lots of customers and freight forwarders.', 'If the product is detained, he will lose the most.', 'So he will try his best to make the product reach you smoothly,"" she adds.', 'In March, the UK government classified 15 synthetic opioids as Class A drugs.', 'Under the Misuse of Drugs act anyone caught supplying or producing the drugs could face up to life in prison.', 'Those caught in possession face seven years.', 'According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), China has between 40,000 and 100,000 pharmaceutical companies. ""', 'China has long had one of the most significant pharmaceutical industries in Asia, as well as one of the largest chemical industries.', 'And we\'ve seen industry growth in other countries of the region,"" said Jeremy Douglas in late 2023, the then regional representative of the UNODC . ""', 'While both industries are regulated, the challenge is significant given the sheer scale, and at the same time there are a number of ways to move products.', 'Parcel post, air freight and shipping containers are all moving globally in high volumes,"" he said.', 'Mr Douglas says that synthetic drugs are disrupting the traditional drug trade.', 'Outside of China, synthetic drugs offer opportunities for both traditional crime organisations and upstarts able to buy directly from producers half a world away. ""', 'Synthetics like fentanyl have several advantages over traditional drugs - compact, easily shippable, pre-existing demand, replaceable.', 'They\'re attractive to traffickers.""', 'That was confirmed in my conversations with sales people working for Chinese pharmaceutical firms. ""', 'First of all, our packaging is completely secret, no one knows what it is until you open it, and second, we will change the name of the package and will not reveal any name about the product,"" says Sara. ""', 'We will get the logistics order number when we send the package, we will track the situation of the package at any time, and any anomalies can be known and solved in time,"" she adds.', ""According to Europol, the European police agency, China is the world's biggest manufacturer and distributor of synthetic, lab-made drugs."", 'Some mimic the effects of traditional drugs like cannabis or cocaine.', 'Chemists synthesise new drugs in order to stay one step ahead of the law. ""', 'It is criminal entrepreneurship, but in a legitimate framework which is really unique,"" says Dr Louise Shelley the director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at George Mason University, and author of Dark Commerce. ""', 'I have not seen such a professionalism and a corporate element in this anywhere else in the world.', 'Criminal activity was a type of social mobility.""', 'In 2020, researchers from TraCCC studied over 350 English language websites advertising the synthetic opioid fentanyl. ""', 'From all the adverts that we found, nearly 40% of them were from corporate registries, and the largest hub of that was in Wuhan,"" says Dr Shelly.', 'The sales people contacted by the BBC see the drug trade as simply another aspect of e-commerce.', 'When challenged over selling drugs that damage lives, one described herself as a ""middleman."" ""', 'Somebody needs it, somebody makes it, and I am just a middleman who lets customers know that I have it and what they do with it, I don\'t care,"" she says. ""', 'Then I figured out I just need to make money.', ""I don't know and don't care."", 'Everyone has their own needs.""', 'The woman boasts of clients from Canada to Croatia.', 'She provided photos of recent drugs shipments complete with labels showing a UK address. ""', 'I didn\'t know at first until I went online and translated the product into Chinese,"" she says via a message punctuated with a teary emoji.', 'Another seller says: ""This industry is easy, and you can get higher wages, which attracts a large number of young people"".', 'Natalie [not her real name], focuses on fentanyl. ""', 'We buy from over 10 different labs and have a large selection.', 'I have a professional shipping agent who packaged goods so has a very high delivery success rate to the UK.""', 'Meanwhile, another supplier claimed to be able to smuggle drugs into the UK hidden in dog food packaging. ""', ""You don't need to worry about the packaging."", 'We guarantee you safe delivery."" ""', 'We ship in large quantities all over the world every day.', 'Please trust our professional team.', 'We guarantee 100% safe transportation.""', 'In 2019, the Chinese government banned all forms of fentanyl and its analogues.', 'In January 2024, China and the US launched a joint operation to curb the production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. ""', 'As long as market demand remains high in some parts of the world then that demand will be met in one way or another,"" said Mr Douglas from the UNODC.']",-0.0146332805685231,"Synthetics like fentanyl have several advantages over traditional drugs - compact, easily shippable, pre-existing demand, replaceable.","It is criminal entrepreneurship, but in a legitimate framework which is really unique,"" says Dr Louise Shelley the director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at George Mason University, and author of Dark Commerce. """,0.3921927426542554,"And we've seen industry growth in other countries of the region,"" said Jeremy Douglas in late 2023, the then regional representative of the UNODC . ""","According to the NCA, there have been more than 100 deaths linked to nitazenes over the past nine months, leading health professionals to warn the UK may be facing a drug-related crisis.",2024-04-29
OpenAI’s wild week. How the Sam Altman story unfolded,https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/22/tech/openai-sam-altman-chaos-explained-intl-hnk/index.html,"
  Updated
        3:32 PM EST, Wed November 22, 2023
    ","In a year of wild tech stories that has seen Elon Musk transform Twitter, cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapse and Silicon Valley Bank implode, this week’s whiplash-inducing turmoil at OpenAI is among the most captivating.
    
            Sam Altman — the leader of one of the world’s most influential AI companies, OpenAI, and perhaps the most visible figure in the fledgling industry — was fired Friday night by the startup’s directors in a surprise move. Less than five days later, he’s back as the company’s CEO, now with a board that is, in theory, more supportive of his vision.
    
            The series of extraordinary events unfolded just days after OpenAI held its first-ever developer conference, where it laid out new, commercialized versions of its technology, including the option to customize its ChatGPT AI chatbot.
    
            If you’re just catching up, here’s what you missed from a week so incredible you’d be forgiven for thinking the script could have been written by an early version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
    
            Around 3 p.m. ET, Altman joined a Google Meet call with most of OpenAI’s board that had been convened by fellow co-founder and OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, during which Altman was fired and told that the news would soon be made public.
    
            Within the next half hour, the board also informed Greg Brockman, another co-founder and OpenAI president, that he would be removed from the board.
    
            Around 3:30 p.m. ET, OpenAI publicly announced that it had fired Altman over concerns that he was not always truthful with the board. The board said Mira Murati, the company’s chief technology officer, would become interim CEO.
    
            OpenAI’s strategic partners, including its biggest financial backer Microsoft, were also reportedly informed of Altman’s ouster just minutes before the board’s announcement.
    
            Hours after being fired, Altman posted on X that he “loved working with such talented people” and that he would have “more to say about what’s next later.”
    
            Brockman promptly quit. “Please don’t spend any time being concerned. We will be fine,” Brockman said in a Friday post on X. “Greater things coming soon.”
    
            A key factor in the CEO’s firing was tension between Altman, who favored developing AI more aggressively, and members of the OpenAI board, who wanted to move more cautiously, according to CNN contributor Kara Swisher, who spoke to sources knowledgeable about the unfolding events.
    
            Within 24 hours of Altman being fired, reports emerged that he and other ex-OpenAI loyalists were mulling plans for their own venture.
    
            OpenAI’s board was also reportedly having second thoughts and considering asking the ousted CEO to return.
    
            By Sunday afternoon, Altman was back at OpenAI’s headquarters — this time with a guest badge — to negotiate his potential return. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reportedly mediated the discussion. A 5 p.m. PT deadline was reportedly set for the board to agree to Altman’s demands, including adding a seat for Microsoft, and reinstating him as CEO.
    
            But those talks broke down.
    
            As Sunday turned into Monday, Nadella tweeted that Altman, along with Brockman, would join Microsoft to run a new AI research group. At OpenAI, the group found a new interim CEO: Emmett Shear, the former CEO of Amazon’s streaming service, Twitch. Murati would return to her role as OpenAI’s chief technology officer.
    
            In a post on X early Monday, Shear, who left his role at Twitch in March, described the chance to join OpenAI as “a once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity. He added that the company would hire an independent investigator to report on what happened in the lead-up to Altman’s firing.
    
            But OpenAI employees were not convinced. More than 500 staffers signed an open letter calling on the company’s board to resign and reinstate Altman and Brockman. They also threatened to follow the co-founders to Microsoft if their demands were not met.
    
            Altman posted on X, saying, “we have more unity and commitment and focus than ever before. we are all going to work together some way or other, and i’m so excited. one team, one mission.”
    
            The drama was far from over. The Verge reported Monday afternoon that Altman and Brockman could still return to OpenAI if the board members who fired him resign.
    
            And Nadella, speaking to CNBC, said he was “open to both options” when asked whether Altman would actually join Microsoft.
    
            “Look, that is for the OpenAI board and management and the employees to choose,” Nadella said. “We chose to explicitly partner with OpenAI and we want to continue to do so, and obviously, that depends on the people of OpenAI staying there or coming to Microsoft.”
    
            Altman was reinstated late Tuesday as OpenAI’s CEO, the company said on X.
    
            “We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board,” the company said, adding that the board will be chaired by Bret Taylor, a former co-CEO of Salesforce. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers will also join the board, alongside existing director, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo.
    
            “We are collaborating to figure out the details,” it said.
    
            In his own post on X, formerly Twitter, Altman wrote that he is “looking forward” to returning to OpenAI and building on the firm’s “strong partnership” with Microsoft.
    
            It’s unclear how Shear will be affected by Altman’s return. Posting on X, Shear wrote: “I am deeply pleased by this result, after (some) 72 very intense hours of work … I’m glad to have been a part of the solution.”
    
            Brockman is also returning to OpenAI, according to his post on X.
    
            Ultimately, Microsoft and Altman appear to be the big winners from the dust-up: Altman will continue leading the firm he helped to found. And Microsoft has wrested more control over the company it has backed with billions to bolster its ambitions in developing AI.
    
            “We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board,” Nadella said on X. “We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.”",CNN,22/11/2023,"['In a year of wild tech stories that has seen Elon Musk transform Twitter, cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapse and Silicon Valley Bank implode, this week’s whiplash-inducing turmoil at OpenAI is among the most captivating.', 'Sam Altman — the leader of one of the world’s most influential AI companies, OpenAI, and perhaps themost visible figure in the fledgling industry — was fired Friday night by the startup’s directors in a surprise move.', 'Less than five days later, he’s back as the company’s CEO, now with a board that is, in theory, more supportive of his vision.', 'The series of extraordinary events unfolded just days after OpenAI held itsfirst-ever developer conference, where it laid out new, commercialized versions of its technology, including the option to customize its ChatGPT AI chatbot.', 'If you’re just catching up, here’s what you missed from a week so incredible you’d be forgiven for thinking the script could have been written by an early version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.', 'Around 3 p.m. ET, Altman joined a Google Meet call with most of OpenAI’s board that had been convened by fellow co-founder and OpenAI chief scientistIlya Sutskever, during which Altman was fired and told that the news would soon be made public.', 'Within the next half hour, the board also informed Greg Brockman, another co-founder and OpenAI president, that he would be removed from the board.', 'Around 3:30 p.m. ET, OpenAI publicly announced that it had fired Altman over concerns that he was not always truthful with the board.', 'The board said Mira Murati, the company’s chief technology officer, would become interim CEO.', 'OpenAI’s strategic partners, including its biggest financial backer Microsoft, were also reportedly informed of Altman’s ouster just minutes before the board’s announcement.', 'Hours after being fired, Altman posted on X that he “loved working with such talented people” and that he would have “more to say about what’s next later.”', 'Brockman promptly quit. “', 'Please don’t spend any time being concerned.', 'We will be fine,” Brockmansaid in a Friday poston X. “Greater things coming soon.”', 'A key factor in the CEO’s firing wastension between Altman, who favored developing AImore aggressively, and members of the OpenAI board, who wanted to move more cautiously,according to CNN contributor Kara Swisher,who spoke to sources knowledgeable about the unfolding events.', 'Within 24 hours of Altman being fired, reports emerged that he and other ex-OpenAI loyalists were mulling plans for their own venture.', 'OpenAI’s board was also reportedly having second thoughts and considering asking the ousted CEO to return.', 'By Sunday afternoon, Altman wasback at OpenAI’s headquarters— this time with a guest badge — to negotiate his potential return.', 'Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reportedly mediated the discussion.', 'A 5 p.m. PT deadline was reportedly set for the board to agree to Altman’s demands, including adding a seat for Microsoft, and reinstating him as CEO.', 'But those talks broke down.', 'As Sunday turned into Monday, Nadella tweeted that Altman, along with Brockman, would join Microsoft to run a new AI research group.', 'At OpenAI, the group found a new interim CEO: Emmett Shear, the former CEO of Amazon’s streaming service, Twitch.', 'Murati would return to her role as OpenAI’s chief technology officer.', 'In a post on X early Monday, Shear, who left his role at Twitch in March, described the chance to join OpenAI as “a once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity.', 'He added that the company would hire an independent investigator to report on what happened in the lead-up to Altman’s firing.', 'But OpenAI employees were not convinced.', 'More than 500 staffers signed an open letter calling on the company’s board to resign and reinstate Altman and Brockman.', 'They also threatened to follow the co-founders to Microsoft if their demands were not met.', 'Altman posted on X, saying, “we have more unity and commitment and focus than ever before.', 'we are all going to work together some way or other, and i’m so excited.', 'one team, one mission.”', 'The drama was far from over.', 'The Verge reported Monday afternoonthat Altman and Brockman could still return to OpenAI if the board members who fired him resign.', 'And Nadella, speaking to CNBC, said he was “open to both options” when asked whether Altman would actually join Microsoft.', '“Look, that is for the OpenAI board and management and the employees to choose,” Nadella said. “', 'We chose to explicitly partner with OpenAI and we want to continue to do so, and obviously, that depends on the people of OpenAI staying there or coming to Microsoft.”', 'Altmanwas reinstated late Tuesday as OpenAI’s CEO, the company said on X.  “We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board,” the company said, adding that the board will be chaired by Bret Taylor, a former co-CEO of Salesforce.', 'Former Treasury SecretaryLarry Summers will also join the board, alongside existing director, Quora CEOAdam D’Angelo.', '“We are collaborating to figure out the details,” it said.', 'In his own post on X, formerly Twitter, Altmanwrotethat he is “looking forward” to returning to OpenAI and building on the firm’s “strong partnership” with Microsoft.', 'It’s unclear how Shear will be affected by Altman’s return.', 'Posting on X, Shear wrote:“I am deeply pleased by this result, after (some) 72 very intense hours of work … I’m glad to have been a part of the solution.”', 'Brockman is also returning to OpenAI, according to hispost on X.  Ultimately, Microsoft and Altman appear to be the big winners from the dust-up: Altman will continue leading the firm he helped to found.', 'And Microsoft has wrested more control over the company it has backed with billions to bolster its ambitions in developing AI.', '“We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board,” Nadellasaidon X. “We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.”']",0.062777217389235,"“We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board,” Nadellasaidon X. “We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.”","Around 3:30 p.m. ET, OpenAI publicly announced that it had fired Altman over concerns that he was not always truthful with the board.",0.549453833273479,And Microsoft has wrested more control over the company it has backed with billions to bolster its ambitions in developing AI.,"Sam Altman — the leader of one of the world’s most influential AI companies, OpenAI, and perhaps themost visible figure in the fledgling industry — was fired Friday night by the startup’s directors in a surprise move.",2024-04-29
"Biogen tops profit estimates as cost cuts take hold, Alzheimer's drug Leqembi launch picks up",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/24/biogen-biib-earnings-q1-2024-.html,2024-04-24T14:26:32+0000,"In this articleBiogen on Wednesday reported first-quarter profit that topped estimates as the company's cost-cutting efforts took hold and sales of its closely watched Alzheimer's drug, Leqembi, came in higher than expected.Biogen and Eisai's Leqembi became the first drug found to slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease to win approval in the U.S. in July. The treatment's launch has been sluggish, but uptake appeared to accelerate towards the end of the first quarter.Leqembi brought in about $19 million in sales for the quarter, up from the $10 million the drug generated last year. That blows past the $11 million analysts had expected, according to estimates compiled by FactSet. The number of patients on the therapy increased nearly 2.5 times since the end of 2023, according to Biogen. The company added that the number of new patients who started Leqembi jumped in March, making up more than 20% of the cumulative patients now on the treatment. Biogen did not provide a specific number of patients using Leqembi. But in February, Biogen CEO Chris Viehbacher told reporters that there were around 2,000 patients currently on Leqembi. Biogen and Eisai had previously aimed to treat 10,000 patients by March, but indicated in February that it would not meet the target.Biogen is seeing an ""awful lot of momentum"" in the Leqembi rollout and expects quarter-over-quarter growth in the number of patients, but that increase may not be linear, Viehbacher said during an earnings call Wednesday. He noted that Biogen plans to expand its U.S. marketing force by 30% to support Leqembi's launch.Bottlenecks related to Leqembi's requirements, such as twice-monthly infusions and regular brain scans, have slowed the uptake of the drug, he added.The company hopes the drug and other newly launched products will drive growth as it cuts costs and sees sales plummet for its multiple sclerosis therapies, some of which face generic competition.Shares of Biogen rose 6% on Wednesday following the results.Here's what Biogen reported for the first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG: The biotech company booked sales of $2.29 billion for the quarter, down 7% from the same period a year ago. It reported net income of $393.4 million, or $2.70 per share, for the first quarter, up from net income of $387.9 million, or $2.67 per share, for the same period a year ago. Adjusting for one-time items, the company reported earnings of $3.67 per share.Biogen reiterated its full-year 2024 adjusted earnings forecast of $15 to $16 per share. Analysts surveyed by LSEG had expected full-year earnings guidance of $15.49 per share. The company also reiterated its 2024 sales guidance of a low- to mid-single-digit percentage decline compared with last year.Apart from Leqembi, investors also have their eyes on other newly launched drugs. That includes Skyclarys, brought in by Biogen's acquisition of Reata Pharmaceuticals in July. That drug notched $78 million in first-quarter revenue.Analysts had expected sales of $68.8 million, according to FactSet estimates. The Food and Drug Administration cleared Skyclarys last year, making it the first approved treatment for Friedreich's ataxia, a rare inherited degenerative disease that can impair walking and coordination in children as young as 5. In February, European Union regulators approved Skyclarys for the treatment of Friedreich's ataxia in patients ages 16 and up. More than 1,100 patients in the U.S. and 300 in the EU are now taking Skyclarys, Biogen executives said during the earnings call on Wednesday.Biogen has also partnered with Sage Therapeutics on the first pill for postpartum depression, which won FDA approval in August. But the agency declined to clear the drug for major depressive disorder, which is a far larger market. Biogen said that pill, called Zurzuvae, generated first-quarter sales of $12 million. Analysts had expected just $5 million in sales of that drug, FactSet said.Meanwhile, Biogen's first-quarter revenue from multiple sclerosis products fell 4% to $1.08 billion as some of its therapies face competition from cheaper generics. The company's once-blockbuster drug Tecfidera, which is facing competition from a generic rival, posted revenue of $254.3 million in the first quarter, down from $274.5 million from the same period a year ago. Still, that came in higher than analysts' estimate of $227.7 million, according to FactSet. Vumerity, an oral medication for relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis, generated $127.5 million in sales. That came in below analysts' estimates of $137.9 million, FactSet estimates said. Biogen's rare disease drugs recorded $423.9 million in sales, down from the $443.3 million in the same period a year ago. Spinraza, a medication used to treat a rare neuromuscular disorder called spinal muscular atrophy, recorded $341.3 million in sales. That came under analysts' estimate of $415.1 million in revenue, according to FactSet. Biogen said the timing of Spinraza shipments and increased competition affected first-quarter revenue comparisons outside of the U.S.The company's biosimilar drugs booked $196.9 million in sales, up slightly from the $192.4 million reported during the year-earlier period. Analysts had expected sales of $192.5 million from those medicines.Correction: Skyclarys had $78 million in first-quarter revenue. An earlier version misstated the quarter.",CNBC,24/04/2024,"[""In this articleBiogen on Wednesday reported first-quarter profit that topped estimates as the company's cost-cutting efforts took hold and sales of its closely watched Alzheimer's drug, Leqembi, came in higher than expected."", ""Biogen and Eisai's Leqembi became the first drug found to slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease to win approval in the U.S. in July."", ""The treatment's launch has been sluggish, but uptake appeared to accelerate towards the end of the first quarter."", 'Leqembi brought in about $19 million in sales for the quarter, up from the $10 million the drug generated last year.', 'That blows past the $11 million analysts had expected, according to estimates compiled by FactSet.', 'The number of patients on the therapy increased nearly 2.5 times since the end of 2023, according to Biogen.', 'The company added that the number of new patients who started Leqembi jumped in March, making up more than 20% of the cumulative patients now on the treatment.', 'Biogen did not provide a specific number of patients using Leqembi.', 'But in February, Biogen CEO Chris Viehbacher told reporters that there were around 2,000 patients currently on Leqembi.', 'Biogen and Eisai had previously aimed to treat 10,000 patients by March, but indicated in February that it would not meet the target.', 'Biogen is seeing an ""awful lot of momentum"" in the Leqembi rollout and expects quarter-over-quarter growth in the number of patients, but that increase may not be linear, Viehbacher said during an earnings call Wednesday.', ""He noted that Biogen plans to expand its U.S. marketing force by 30% to support Leqembi's launch."", ""Bottlenecks related to Leqembi's requirements, such as twice-monthly infusions and regular brain scans, have slowed the uptake of the drug, he added."", 'The company hopes the drug and other newly launched products will drive growth as it cuts costs and sees sales plummet for its multiple sclerosis therapies, some of which face generic competition.', 'Shares of Biogen rose 6% on Wednesday following the results.', ""Here's what Biogen reported for the first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:The biotech company booked sales of $2.29 billion for the quarter, down 7% from the same period a year ago."", 'It reported net income of $393.4 million, or $2.70 per share, for the first quarter, up from net income of $387.9 million, or $2.67 per share, for the same period a year ago.', 'Adjusting for one-time items, the company reported earnings of $3.67 per share.', 'Biogen reiterated its full-year 2024 adjusted earnings forecast of $15 to $16 per share.', 'Analysts surveyed by LSEG had expected full-year earnings guidance of $15.49 per share.', 'The company also reiterated its 2024 sales guidance of a low- to mid-single-digit percentage decline compared with last year.', 'Apart from Leqembi, investors also have their eyes on other newly launched drugs.', ""That includes Skyclarys, brought in by Biogen's acquisition of Reata Pharmaceuticals in July."", 'That drug notched $78 million in first-quarter revenue.', 'Analysts had expected sales of $68.8 million, according to FactSet estimates.', ""The Food and Drug Administration cleared Skyclarys last year, making it the first approved treatment for Friedreich's ataxia, a rare inherited degenerative disease that can impair walking and coordination in children as young as 5."", ""In February, European Union regulators approved Skyclarys for the treatment of Friedreich's ataxia in patients ages 16 and up."", 'More than 1,100 patients in the U.S. and 300 in the EU are now taking Skyclarys, Biogen executives said during the earnings call on Wednesday.', 'Biogen has also partnered with Sage Therapeutics on the first pill for postpartum depression, which won FDA approval in August.', 'But the agency declined to clear the drug for major depressive disorder, which is a far larger market.', 'Biogen said that pill, called Zurzuvae, generated first-quarter sales of $12 million.', 'Analysts had expected just $5 million in sales of that drug, FactSet said.', ""Meanwhile, Biogen's first-quarter revenue from multiple sclerosis products fell 4% to $1.08 billion as some of its therapies face competition from cheaper generics."", ""The company's once-blockbuster drug Tecfidera, which is facing competition from a generic rival, posted revenue of $254.3 million in the first quarter, down from $274.5 million from the same period a year ago."", ""Still, that came in higher than analysts' estimate of $227.7 million, according to FactSet."", 'Vumerity, an oral medication for relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis, generated $127.5 million in sales.', ""That came in below analysts' estimates of $137.9 million, FactSet estimates said."", ""Biogen's rare disease drugs recorded $423.9 million in sales, down from the $443.3 million in the same period a year ago."", 'Spinraza, a medication used to treat a rare neuromuscular disorder called spinal muscular atrophy, recorded $341.3 million in sales.', ""That came under analysts' estimate of $415.1 million in revenue, according to FactSet."", ""Biogen said the timing of Spinraza shipments and increased competition affected first-quarter revenue comparisons outside of the U.S.The company's biosimilar drugs booked $196.9 million in sales, up slightly from the $192.4 million reported during the year-earlier period."", 'Analysts had expected sales of $192.5 million from those medicines.', 'Correction: Skyclarys had $78 million in first-quarter revenue.', 'An earlier version misstated the quarter.']",0.1486621680354227,Biogen and Eisai's Leqembi became the first drug found to slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease to win approval in the U.S. in July.,"But the agency declined to clear the drug for major depressive disorder, which is a far larger market.",0.3975433243645562,"Leqembi brought in about $19 million in sales for the quarter, up from the $10 million the drug generated last year.","Biogen's rare disease drugs recorded $423.9 million in sales, down from the $443.3 million in the same period a year ago.",2024-04-29
What is divestment? And does it work?,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/28/investing/stocks-lookahead-divestment-college-protests/index.html,"
  Published
        7:30 AM EDT, Sun April 28, 2024
    ","As Pro-Palestinian protests continue to sweep across major US universities, a unifying message has emerged.
    
            From Princeton University in New Jersey to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the same chant can be heard: “Disclose! Divest! We will not stop, we will not rest!”
    
            Signs marking the perimeter of the student encampment on Columbia University’s West Lawn display a similar message — from the Columbia University Apartheid Divest group — reading, “Divest all finances, including the endowment, from corporations that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and occupation in Palestine.”
    
            Israel denies accusations of genocide.
    
            The specifics of student protesters’ divestment demands vary in scope from school to school.
    
            That coalition at Columbia wants the school to divest its $13.6 billion endowment from any company linked to Israel or businesses that are profiting from the Israel-Hamas war. Protest leaders have mentioned selling shares of major companies in speeches.
    
            Other students, like those at Cornell University and Yale, are asking their schools to stop investing in weapons manufacturers.
    
            Other common threads include demanding universities disclose their investments, sever academic ties with Israeli universities and support a ceasefire in Gaza.
    
            So far, universities have mostly refused to budge on any of it, and some experts doubt the effectiveness of such a campaign. But students remain steadfast in their demands.
    
            So what is it, exactly, that they’re demanding?
    
            What it means: The concept of divestment appears fairly simple at face value — an investor or institution sells off its shares of a company to avoid complicity in activities they deem unethical or harmful.
    
            That action is intended not only to reallocate funds to more ethical investments but also to make a public statement that can pressure a company or government to change policies.
    
            There’s a history of student activists targeting endowments during demonstrations. In the 1980s, students successfully persuaded Columbia to divest from apartheid South Africa.
    
            More recently, Columbia and other universities have divested from fossil fuels and private prisons.
    
            But a quick look under the hood shows that things aren’t so straightforward. Critics argue that while divestment can be an effective expression of disapproval and a call for change, its actual impact on corporate behavior and market trends is more tenuous.
    
            Stock prices remain steady: Research finds that there’s very little correlation between divestment campaigns and stock value or company behavior, Witold Henisz, vice dean and faculty director of the environmental, social and governance initiative at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, told CNN.
    
            Economists from the University of California system studied the impact that widespread divestment movements had on South Africa in the 1980s and found that there was almost no effect on share price.
    
            The researchers posited that it was likely because “the boycott primarily reallocated shares and operations from ‘socially responsible’ [investors] to more indifferent investors and countries.”
    
            When you sell shares, said Henisz, you essentially give someone who cares less about the issue voice and you give up your own voice.
    
            Divesting may feel good, he said, “but it may have perverse outcomes.”
    
            It’s really rare that there are enough sellers and few enough buyers to actually change the cost of capital, he added.
    
            Proponents for divestment counter that its value lies in raising awareness and stigmatizing partnerships with targeted regimes or industries.
    
            Detangling interests: University investments are much more complicated now than they were in the 1980s. Many endowments are managed by asset managers and are invested in opaque private equity funds.
    
            “The economy is so global now that even if a university decided that they were going to instruct their dominant management groups to divest from Israel, it would be almost impossible to disentangle,” said Nicholas Dirks, former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley.
    
            In regard to the calls to divest from any company with Israeli links, “it’s not clear to me that it’s really possible to fully divest from companies that touch in some way a country with such close political and trade ties to the US,” Dirks said.
    
            How it might end: Still, college students at schools across the United States say they won’t end their protests until university administrators meet their demands.
    
            Negotiations between the Columbia administration and student protesters have been progressing but remain contentious.
    
            But most schools are unlikely to agree to divest or to make any politically charged statements, said Dirks, who is also the former vice president of Columbia’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “There are shared objectives that people have, which are to make sure students can be students and that faculty can exercise some governance roles,” he said.
    
            Conversations about reinstating suspended students and expunging their records will likely be negotiation points, he said. “They’ll try to find a way to get to the end of the year and have students finish their classes and graduate.”
    
            Inflation may have tumbled from multi-decade highs on both sides of the Atlantic, but progress has stalled in the United States, with the Federal Reserve now expected to start cutting interest rates well after its European counterpart, reports my colleague Anna Cooban.
    
            Annual US inflation, as measured by the Fed’s preferred gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, came in at 2.7% in March, accelerating from 2.5% in February. The Fed aims to keep inflation at 2% over the longer run.
    
            Another measure of US inflation, the Consumer Price Index, has shown the same upward trend: In March, the CPI rose 3.5% compared with the same month in 2023, up from 3.2% in February.
    
            Meanwhile, among the 20 countries that use the euro, annual consumer price inflation has slowed steadily since the start of the year. It stood at 2.4% in March.
    
            The European Central Bank (ECB) looks set to start cutting interest rates in June, three months before the Fed is forecast to do the same, based on market expectations.
    
            There are even indications that the Fed may do something that, until quite recently, seemed inconceivable — raise the cost of borrowing. Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said earlier this month that she would favor a rate hike “should progress on inflation stall or even reverse.”
    
            So why does the United States appear to have a bigger inflation problem than Europe?
    
            Read more here to find out. 
    
            Monday: Earnings from Domino’s Pizza. The Dallas Fed releases April manufacturing activity.
    
            Tuesday:  Earnings from Amazon, Eli Lilly, Samsung, Coca-Cola, AMD, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Mondelez, Mercedes-Benz Group, Volkswagen, PayPal, adidas, Diamondback Energy, Restaurant Brands, Pinterest and Caesars Entertainment.  Chicago PMI for April and the Conference Board releases consumer confidence for April.
    
            Wednesday: Earnings from Mastercard, Qualcomm, Pfizer, Marriott, Estee Lauder, DoorDash, eBay, Etsy. The US Commerce Department releases March figures on new orders for durable goods. The Federal Reserve announces its latest interest rate decision, followed by a news conference featuring Chair Jerome Powell.
    
            Thursday: Earnings from Apple, Novo Nordisk, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Cigna, Universal Music Group, Live Nation, DraftKings.
    
            Friday: Earnings from Hershey. The US Labor Department releases April data gauging the job market, including monthly payroll growth, wage gains and the unemployment rate.",CNN,28/04/2024,"['As Pro-Palestinian protests continue to sweep across major US universities, a unifying message has emerged.', 'From Princeton University in New Jersey to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the same chant can be heard: “Disclose!', 'Divest!', 'We will not stop, we will not rest!”', 'Signs marking the perimeter of the student encampment on Columbia University’s West Lawn display a similar message — from the Columbia University Apartheid Divest group — reading, “Divest all finances, including the endowment, from corporations that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and occupation in Palestine.”', 'Israeldeniesaccusations ofgenocide.', 'The specifics of student protesters’ divestment demands vary in scope from school to school.', 'That coalition at Columbia wants the school to divest its $13.6 billion endowment from any company linked to Israel or businesses that are profiting from the Israel-Hamas war.', 'Protest leaders have mentioned selling shares of major companies in speeches.', 'Other students, like those at Cornell University and Yale, are asking their schools to stop investing in weapons manufacturers.', 'Other common threads include demanding universities disclose their investments, sever academic ties with Israeli universities and support a ceasefire in Gaza.', 'So far, universities have mostly refused to budge on any of it, and some experts doubt the effectiveness of such a campaign.', 'But students remain steadfast in their demands.', 'So what is it, exactly, that they’re demanding?', 'What it means: The concept of divestment appears fairly simple at face value — an investor or institution sells off its shares of a company to avoid complicity in activities they deem unethical or harmful.', 'That action is intended not only to reallocate funds to more ethical investments but also to make a public statement that can pressure a company or government to change policies.', 'There’s a history of student activists targeting endowments during demonstrations.', 'In the 1980s, students successfully persuaded Columbia to divest from apartheid South Africa.', 'More recently, Columbia and other universities have divested from fossil fuels and private prisons.', 'But a quick look under the hood shows that things aren’t so straightforward.', 'Critics argue that while divestment can be an effective expression of disapproval and a call for change, its actual impact on corporate behavior and market trends is more tenuous.', 'Stock prices remain steady: Research finds that there’s very little correlation between divestment campaigns and stock value or company behavior, Witold Henisz, vice dean and faculty director of the environmental, social and governance initiative at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, told CNN.', 'Economists from the University of California system studied the impact that widespread divestment movements had on South Africa in the 1980s and found that there was almost no effect on share price.', 'The researchers posited that it was likely because “the boycott primarily reallocated shares and operations from ‘socially responsible’ [investors] to more indifferent investors and countries.”', 'When you sell shares, said Henisz, you essentially give someone who cares less about the issue voice and you give up your own voice.', 'Divesting may feel good, he said, “but it may have perverse outcomes.”', 'It’s really rare that there are enough sellers and few enough buyers to actually change the cost of capital, he added.', 'Proponents for divestment counter that its value lies in raising awareness and stigmatizing partnerships with targeted regimes or industries.', 'Detangling interests: University investments are much more complicated now than they were in the 1980s.', 'Many endowments are managed by asset managers and are invested in opaque private equity funds.', '“The economy is so global now that even if a university decided that they were going to instruct their dominant management groups to divest from Israel, it would be almost impossible to disentangle,” said Nicholas Dirks, former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley.', 'In regard to the calls to divest from any company with Israeli links, “it’s not clear to me that it’s really possible to fully divest from companies that touch in some way a country with such close political and trade ties to the US,” Dirks said.', 'How it might end: Still, college students at schools across the United States say they won’t end their protests until university administrators meet their demands.', 'Negotiations between the Columbia administration and student protesters have been progressing but remain contentious.', 'But most schools are unlikely to agree to divest or to make any politically charged statements, said Dirks, who is also the former vice president of Columbia’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “', 'There are shared objectives that people have, which are to make sure students can be students and that faculty can exercise some governance roles,” he said.', 'Conversations about reinstating suspended students and expunging their records will likely be negotiation points, he said. “', 'They’ll try to find a way to get to the end of the year and have students finish their classes and graduate.”', 'Inflation may have tumbled from multi-decade highs on both sides of the Atlantic, but progress has stalled in the United States, with the Federal Reserve now expected to start cutting interest rates well after its European counterpart, reports my colleague Anna Cooban.', 'Annual US inflation, as measured by the Fed’spreferred gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures index,came in at 2.7%in March, accelerating from 2.5% in February.', 'The Fed aims to keep inflation at 2% over the longer run.', 'Another measure of US inflation, the Consumer Price Index, has shown the same upward trend: In March, the CPI rose 3.5% compared with the same month in 2023, up from 3.2% in February.', 'Meanwhile, among the 20 countries that use the euro, annual consumer price inflation has slowed steadily since the start of the year.', 'It stood at 2.4% in March.', 'The European Central Bank (ECB) looks set to start cutting interest rates in June, three months before the Fed is forecast to do the same, based on market expectations.', 'There are even indications that the Fed may do something that, until quite recently, seemed inconceivable — raise the cost of borrowing.', 'Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said earlier this month that she would favor a rate hike “should progress on inflation stall or even reverse.”', 'So why does the United States appear to have a bigger inflation problem than Europe?', 'Read more here to find out.', 'Monday:Earnings from Domino’s Pizza.', 'The Dallas Fed releases April manufacturing activity.', 'Tuesday: Earnings from Amazon, Eli Lilly, Samsung, Coca-Cola, AMD, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Mondelez, Mercedes-Benz Group, Volkswagen, PayPal, adidas, Diamondback Energy, Restaurant Brands, Pinterest and Caesars Entertainment.', 'Chicago PMI for April and the Conference Board releases consumer confidence for April.', 'Wednesday:Earnings from Mastercard, Qualcomm, Pfizer, Marriott, Estee Lauder, DoorDash, eBay, Etsy.', 'The US Commerce Department releases March figures on new orders for durable goods.', 'The Federal Reserve announces its latest interest rate decision, followed by a news conference featuring Chair JeromePowell.', 'Thursday:Earnings from Apple, Novo Nordisk, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Cigna, Universal Music Group, Live Nation, DraftKings.', 'Friday:Earnings from Hershey.', 'The US Labor Department releases April data gauging the job market, including monthlypayrollgrowth, wage gains and the unemployment rate.']",0.0636436096503633,"Inflation may have tumbled from multi-decade highs on both sides of the Atlantic, but progress has stalled in the United States, with the Federal Reserve now expected to start cutting interest rates well after its European counterpart, reports my colleague Anna Cooban.","So far, universities have mostly refused to budge on any of it, and some experts doubt the effectiveness of such a campaign.",0.0024541974067687,"Another measure of US inflation, the Consumer Price Index, has shown the same upward trend: In March, the CPI rose 3.5% compared with the same month in 2023, up from 3.2% in February.","Inflation may have tumbled from multi-decade highs on both sides of the Atlantic, but progress has stalled in the United States, with the Federal Reserve now expected to start cutting interest rates well after its European counterpart, reports my colleague Anna Cooban.",2024-04-29
Skydance extends final offer to Paramount as merger talks stick on a possible shareholder vote,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/29/shari-redstone-paramount-ceo-bob-bakish-removal.html,2024-04-29T18:50:14+0000,"In this articleIn what could easily be a plotline from HBO's hit show ""Succession,"" Paramount Global plans to replace Chief Executive Officer Bob Bakish with a cohort of existing division heads on Monday, according to people familiar with the matter, in a chessboard-altering move designed to accelerate the company's future — one way or another.Paramount is expected to announce Bakish's departure Monday before reporting its earnings conference call, which comes after the markets close.The decision to remove Bakish as CEO comes as Paramount Global closes in on a merger agreement with Skydance Media. His departure throws into question Paramount's near-term future as a standalone company, which could help force through a merger agreement.The Skydance consortium, which includes private equity firms KKR and RedBird Capital, has proposed a deal with new terms to the Paramount special committee as a ""best and final"" offer, according to people familiar with the matter. Skydance is waiting to hear back from the special committee on whether it will accept the offer, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.As part of the new deal on the table, controlling shareholder Shari Redstone may take less than $2 billion for her controlling stake in Paramount — lower than what Skydance had initially offered her. The Skydance consortium is contributing additional capital to pay common, Class B shareholders at a nearly 30% premium to the undisturbed trading price of about $11 per share, according to people familiar with the new deal. In total, Redstone and Skydance would contribute $3 billion, with the vast majority going to Class B shareholders, the people said.Skydance's valuation as part of the deal remains around $5 billion, the people said.A remaining sticking point — and a potential dealbreaker — is whether to hold a so-called ""majority of the minority"" vote on the deal, which would allow common shareholders the chance to potentially sway the outcome. The special committee tasked with evaluating the offer would also be the party to put the deal up for such a vote.A number of large common shareholders, including Gamco Investors, Ariel Investments, Matrix and Aspen Sky Trust have publicly criticized the deal, arguing it destroys value for common shareholders.Redstone is open to the vote, but Skydance believes it has met all of the conditions from the special committee and is prepared to walk from the deal if such a vote is mandated given the improvements it has made as of Monday, sources tell CNBC.Forcing such a vote now would change the structure of the deal for Skydance, which is already paying a significant premium to Redstone for her controlling stake and paying Class B shareholders, said two of the people familiar with the Skydance consortium's thinking.Spokespeople for Skydance and Paramount Global's special committee declined to comment. A spokesperson for National Amusements, which houses Redstone's stake, said the decision on whether to take the deal lies with the Paramount Global special committee.""National Amusements specifically requested that the Paramount board form a special committee to exercise their dependent judgment in considering a potential transaction with Skydance,"" a National Amusements spokesperson said in a statement provided to CNBC. ""National Amusements has no role on the committee, and we respect the committee's process and ultimate decision on whether the Skydance deal presents an attractive transaction for Paramount and whether they want to continue to move forward.""Paramount Global shares jumped about 4% at 2 p.m. ET on Monday.By removing Bakish, Redstone and the Paramount Global board are now throwing the status quo into chaos. The company will no longer have a leader or a clear go-forward strategy. Redstone may be trying to force common holders to choose a sale by effectively destabilizing the company without one.Exclusivity talks with Skydance are set to end May 3. CNBC reported Thursday that Skydance was inching toward valuation terms but wanted a two-week extension on exclusivity, which now may be moot with its latest best and final offer.A joint bid by private equity firm Apollo Global and Sony could serve as a white knight if the special committee votes down the Skydance deal. The New York Times reported earlier in April that the two parties have had preliminary talks on a deal. Still, it's unclear if Redstone would consider selling to a large private equity firm, which would likely break up the company over time. Redstone chose to ignore Apollo's earlier offer in favor of negotiating with Skydance.Meanwhile, Paramount has an important carriage renewal deal with U.S. cable company Charter Communications in the coming days, though the deadline could be extended. Bakish has been deep in negotiations with Charter. It's unclear how his removal will affect those negotiations, which will play a large role in valuing the company moving forward.",CNBC,29/04/2024,"['In this articleIn what could easily be a plotline from HBO\'s hit show ""Succession,"" Paramount Global plans to replace Chief Executive Officer Bob Bakish with a cohort of existing division heads on Monday, according to people familiar with the matter, in a chessboard-altering move designed to accelerate the company\'s future — one way or another.', ""Paramount is expected to announce Bakish's departure Monday before reporting its earnings conference call, which comes after the markets close."", 'The decision to remove Bakish as CEO comes as Paramount Global closes in on a merger agreement with Skydance Media.', ""His departure throws into question Paramount's near-term future as a standalone company, which could help force through a merger agreement."", 'The Skydance consortium, which includes private equity firms KKR and RedBird Capital, has proposed a deal with new terms to the Paramount special committee as a ""best and final"" offer, according to people familiar with the matter.', 'Skydance is waiting to hear back from the special committee on whether it will accept the offer, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.', 'As part of the new deal on the table, controlling shareholder Shari Redstone may take less than $2 billion for her controlling stake in Paramount — lower than what Skydance had initially offered her.', 'The Skydance consortium is contributing additional capital to pay common, Class B shareholders at a nearly 30% premium to the undisturbed trading price of about $11 per share, according to people familiar with the new deal.', 'In total, Redstone and Skydance would contribute $3 billion, with the vast majority going to Class B shareholders, the people said.', ""Skydance's valuation as part of the deal remains around $5 billion, the people said."", 'A remaining sticking point — and a potential dealbreaker — is whether to hold a so-called ""majority of the minority"" vote on the deal, which would allow common shareholders the chance to potentially sway the outcome.', 'The special committee tasked with evaluating the offer would also be the party to put the deal up for such a vote.', 'A number of large common shareholders, including Gamco Investors, ArielInvestments, Matrix and Aspen Sky Trusthave publicly criticized the deal, arguing it destroys value for common shareholders.', ""Redstone is open to the vote, but Skydance believes it has met all of the conditions from the special committee and is prepared to walk from the deal if such a vote is mandated given the improvements it has made as of Monday, sources tell CNBC.Forcing such a vote now would change the structure of the deal for Skydance, which is already paying a significant premium to Redstone for her controlling stake and paying Class B shareholders, said two of the people familiar with the Skydance consortium's thinking."", ""Spokespeople for Skydance and Paramount Global's special committee declined to comment."", ""A spokesperson for National Amusements, which houses Redstone's stake, said the decision on whether to take the deal lies with the Paramount Global special committee."", '""National Amusements specifically requested that the Paramount board form a special committee to exercise their dependent judgment in considering a potential transaction with Skydance,"" a National Amusements spokesperson said in a statement provided to CNBC. ""', ""National Amusements has no role on the committee, and we respect the committee's process and ultimate decision on whether the Skydance deal presents an attractive transaction for Paramount and whether they want to continue to move forward."", '""Paramount Global shares jumped about 4% at 2 p.m. ET on Monday.', 'By removing Bakish, Redstone and the Paramount Global board are now throwing the status quo into chaos.', 'The company will no longer have a leader or a clear go-forward strategy.', 'Redstone may be trying to force common holders to choose a sale by effectively destabilizing the company without one.', 'Exclusivity talks with Skydance are set to end May 3.', 'CNBC reported Thursday that Skydance was inching toward valuation terms but wanted a two-week extension on exclusivity, which now may be moot with its latest best and final offer.', 'A joint bid by private equity firm Apollo Global and Sony could serve as a white knight if the special committee votes down the Skydance deal.', 'The New York Times reported earlier in April that the two parties have had preliminary talks on a deal.', ""Still, it's unclear if Redstone would consider selling to a large private equity firm, which would likely break up the company over time."", ""Redstone chose to ignore Apollo's earlier offer in favor of negotiating with Skydance."", 'Meanwhile, Paramount has an important carriage renewal deal with U.S. cable company Charter Communications in the coming days, though the deadline could be extended.', 'Bakish has been deep in negotiations with Charter.', ""It's unclear how his removal will affect those negotiations, which will play a large role in valuing the company moving forward.""]",0.2851214965730176,"Redstone is open to the vote, but Skydance believes it has met all of the conditions from the special committee and is prepared to walk from the deal if such a vote is mandated given the improvements it has made as of Monday, sources tell CNBC.Forcing such a vote now would change the structure of the deal for Skydance, which is already paying a significant premium to Redstone for her controlling stake and paying Class B shareholders, said two of the people familiar with the Skydance consortium's thinking.","A number of large common shareholders, including Gamco Investors, ArielInvestments, Matrix and Aspen Sky Trusthave publicly criticized the deal, arguing it destroys value for common shareholders.",0.1435079707039727,"""Paramount Global shares jumped about 4% at 2 p.m. ET on Monday.","A number of large common shareholders, including Gamco Investors, ArielInvestments, Matrix and Aspen Sky Trusthave publicly criticized the deal, arguing it destroys value for common shareholders.",2024-04-29
General Motors raises 2024 guidance after big first-quarter earnings beat,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/23/general-motors-gm-earnings-q1-2024.html,2024-04-23T20:07:30+0000,"In this articleDETROIT — General Motors on Tuesday raised its 2024 guidance after beating Wall Street's top- and bottom-line expectations for the first quarter.The automaker said it was boosting its forecast after strong North American operations offset losses elsewhere during the first quarter. The company now expects adjusted earnings of $12.5 billion to $14.5 billion, or $9 to $10 a share, up from a previous range of $12 billion to $14 billion, or $8.50 to $9.50 a share.GM also raised expectations for adjusted automotive free cash flow to a range of $8.5 billion to $10.5 billion, up from an earlier forecast of $8 billion to $10 billion.GM shares jumped more than 4% Tuesday following the report. Here's how the company performed in the first quarter, compared with average estimates compiled by LSEG:GM said revenue during the first three months of this year was up 7.6% from roughly $40 billion a year earlier. Its net income during the first quarter rose about 26% to $2.95 billion.The automaker's net income attributable to stockholders, which excludes some dividend payouts, was up 24.4% to $2.98 billion, or $2.56 per share, from the first quarter of 2023 when the company reported net income attributable to stockholders of about $2.4 billion, or $1.69 a share. The automaker's adjusted earnings before interest and taxes were $3.87 billion, or $2.62 per share, during the first quarter. GM's North American operations, driven by truck sales, were largely responsible for the company's first-quarter beat and guidance raise, the automaker said.  The division increased adjusted earnings during the quarter to $3.84 billion, up 7.4% from a year earlier.Steady vehicle pricing and increased retail sales in North America also helped GM achieve a 10.6% adjusted profit margin in the region for the period – above its previously announced 8% to 10% range for the year.GM CFO Paul Jacobson said prices for the automaker's vehicles were roughly flat to slightly lower due to vehicle mix during the quarter, but not down as much as the 2% to 2.5% decline the company anticipated for the year.""Our consumer has been remarkably resilient in this period of higher interest rates,"" Jacobson told reporters during a briefing. ""We think in this environment that we can continue to perform.""GM's financing arm reported adjusted earnings of $737 million during the first quarter, down 4.4% from a year earlier.The company's North America results helped to offset losses of $106 million in China and $10 million in other international markets during the first three months of the year.When asked Tuesday about potentially exiting the Chinese market, GM CEO Mary Barra said during the company's earnings call the automaker ""remains committed"" to the region.The question, which would have been unfathomable just a few years ago, comes after GM China's earnings fell from billions of dollars annually during the mid-2010s to the quarterly loss amid increased competition and shifting consumer demand.Jacobson, however, noted GM's loss in China was ""slightly better"" than the company had previously forecast.GM specifically noted that sales of its highly profitable pickups remain strong, while production of its all-electric vehicles continues to ramp up following bottlenecks in production, particularly with battery modules.""As we continue to strengthen our [internal combustion engine] portfolio, scale EVs and reinvest in the business, we are very focused on capital efficiency, enhancing profitability and free cash flow, and we will continue to take steps to create shareholder value,"" Barra said in a letter to shareholders.Jacobson said the company still plans to produce between 200,000 and 300,000 EVs during 2024.While North America continues to be strong for the automaker, vehicle inventory levels in the U.S. are rising. The company ended the first quarter with a 63 days' supply of vehicles – above the automaker's previous guidance of 50 days to 60 days.Jacobson said the company is watching those levels but is not too concerned about the number of vehicles ahead of a spring and summer selling season that includes some factory shutdowns for retooling.""We actually feel pretty good about where we are,"" he said. ""It's something that obviously we're watching. But right now, no signs of any softness that we can see.""Regarding GM's embattled Cruise autonomous vehicle unit, Jacobson said Tuesday the company expects to spend $1.7 billion on the operations this year as it relaunches operations following an October accident involving a pedestrian.Barra said the automaker is evaluating how to the fund Cruise, of which GM owns more than 80%, moving forward, including potentially accepting additional outside investments.Correction: This story has to been updated to correct that General Motors plans to produce between 200,000 and 300,000 EVs during 2024.",CNBC,23/04/2024,"[""In this articleDETROIT — General Motors on Tuesday raised its 2024 guidance after beating Wall Street's top- and bottom-line expectations for the first quarter."", 'The automaker said it was boosting its forecast after strong North American operations offset losses elsewhere during the first quarter.', 'The company now expects adjusted earnings of $12.5 billion to $14.5 billion, or $9 to $10 a share, up from a previous range of $12 billion to $14 billion, or $8.50 to $9.50 a share.', 'GM also raised expectations for adjusted automotive free cash flow to a range of $8.5 billion to $10.5 billion, up from an earlier forecast of $8 billion to $10 billion.', 'GM shares jumped more than 4% Tuesday following the report.', ""Here's how the company performed in the first quarter, compared with average estimates compiled by LSEG:GM said revenue during the first three months of this year was up 7.6% from roughly $40 billion a year earlier."", 'Its net income during the first quarter rose about 26% to $2.95 billion.', ""The automaker's net income attributable to stockholders, which excludes some dividend payouts, was up 24.4% to $2.98 billion, or $2.56 per share, from the first quarter of 2023 when the company reported net income attributable to stockholders of about $2.4 billion, or $1.69 a share."", ""The automaker's adjusted earnings before interest and taxes were $3.87 billion, or $2.62 per share, during the first quarter."", ""GM's North American operations, driven by truck sales, were largely responsible for the company's first-quarter beat and guidance raise, the automaker said."", 'The division increased adjusted earnings during the quarter to $3.84 billion, up 7.4% from a year earlier.', 'Steady vehicle pricing and increased retail sales in North America also helped GM achieve a 10.6% adjusted profit margin in the region for the period – above its previously announced 8% to 10% range for the year.', ""GM CFO Paul Jacobson said prices for the automaker's vehicles were roughly flat to slightly lower due to vehicle mix during the quarter, but not down as much as the 2% to 2.5% decline the company anticipated for the year."", '""Our consumer has been remarkably resilient in this period of higher interest rates,"" Jacobson told reporters during a briefing. ""', 'We think in this environment that we can continue to perform.', '""GM\'s financing arm reported adjusted earnings of $737 million during the first quarter, down 4.4% from a year earlier.', ""The company's North America results helped to offset losses of $106 million in China and $10 million in other international markets during the first three months of the year."", 'When asked Tuesday about potentially exiting the Chinese market, GM CEO Mary Barra said during the company\'s earnings call the automaker ""remains committed"" to the region.', ""The question, which would have been unfathomable just a few years ago, comes after GM China's earnings fell from billions of dollars annually during the mid-2010s to the quarterly loss amid increased competition and shifting consumer demand."", 'Jacobson, however, noted GM\'s loss in China was ""slightly better"" than the company had previously forecast.', 'GM specifically noted that sales of its highly profitable pickups remain strong, while production of its all-electric vehicles continues to ramp up following bottlenecks in production, particularly with battery modules.', '""As we continue to strengthen our [internal combustion engine] portfolio, scale EVs and reinvest in the business, we are very focused on capital efficiency, enhancing profitability and free cash flow, and we will continue to take steps to create shareholder value,"" Barra said in a letter to shareholders.', 'Jacobson said the company still plans to produce between 200,000 and 300,000 EVs during 2024.While North America continues to be strong for the automaker, vehicle inventory levels in the U.S. are rising.', ""The company ended the first quarter with a 63 days' supply of vehicles – above the automaker's previous guidance of 50 days to 60 days."", 'Jacobson said the company is watching those levels but is not too concerned about the number of vehicles ahead of a spring and summer selling season that includes some factory shutdowns for retooling.', '""We actually feel pretty good about where we are,"" he said. ""', ""It's something that obviously we're watching."", 'But right now, no signs of any softness that we can see.', '""Regarding GM\'s embattled Cruise autonomous vehicle unit, Jacobson said Tuesday the company expects to spend $1.7 billion on the operations this year as it relaunches operations following an October accident involving a pedestrian.', 'Barra said the automaker is evaluating how to the fund Cruise, of which GM owns more than 80%, moving forward, including potentially accepting additional outside investments.', 'Correction: This story has to been updated to correct that General Motors plans to produce between 200,000 and 300,000 EVs during 2024.']",0.204808735023361,"""As we continue to strengthen our [internal combustion engine] portfolio, scale EVs and reinvest in the business, we are very focused on capital efficiency, enhancing profitability and free cash flow, and we will continue to take steps to create shareholder value,"" Barra said in a letter to shareholders.","""Regarding GM's embattled Cruise autonomous vehicle unit, Jacobson said Tuesday the company expects to spend $1.7 billion on the operations this year as it relaunches operations following an October accident involving a pedestrian.",0.8176416863094677,Its net income during the first quarter rose about 26% to $2.95 billion.,"The question, which would have been unfathomable just a few years ago, comes after GM China's earnings fell from billions of dollars annually during the mid-2010s to the quarterly loss amid increased competition and shifting consumer demand.",2024-04-29
"Merck beats earnings expectations, raises outlook on strong Keytruda and vaccine sales",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/merck-mrk-earnings-q1-2024.html,2024-04-25T15:12:55+0000,"In this articleMerck on Thursday reported first-quarter revenue and adjusted earnings that topped expectations as it posted strong sales of its blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda and vaccine products.The pharmaceutical giant also raised and narrowed its full-year revenue and adjusted earnings forecasts. Merck now expects 2024 sales to come in between $63.1 billion and $64.3 billion, up from previous guidance of $62.7 to $64.2 billion. The company expects full-year adjusted earnings of $8.53 to $8.65 per share, up from its prior forecast of $8.44 to $8.59 per share. That outlook includes a one-time charge of roughly 26 cents per share related to Merck's acquisition of Harpoon Therapeutics in January. The company develops immune-based cancer drugs. The guidance also includes a negative impact of 30 cents per share from foreign exchange changes. Shares of Merck rose 4% on Thursday following the results.Here is what Merck reported for the first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG: The company posted a net income of $4.76 billion, or $1.87 per share, for the first quarter. That compares with a net income of $2.82 billion, or $1.11 per share, during the year-earlier period. Excluding acquisition and restructuring costs, Merck earned $2.07 per share for the first quarter. Both adjusted and nonadjusted profit for the period include the charge related to the Harpoon deal.Merck raked in $15.78 billion in revenue for the quarter, up 9% from the same period a year ago. Those results come as Merck shows substantial progress in preparing for Keytruda's patent expiration in 2028. The loss of exclusive rights to the drug will likely cause sales to fall, forcing the company to draw revenue from elsewhere.But Merck has a handful of new deals under its belt and key drug launches that will help it offset those losses. That includes Winrevair, a medication approved in the U.S. last month to treat a progressive and life-threatening lung condition. Some analysts expect that worldwide sales of Winrevair could reach $5 billion by 2030. Merck is seeing ""high interest"" in Winrevair from patient groups and a range of prescribers, and is making ""good progress"" in enabling access to the drug, Chief Financial Officer Caroline Litchfield said during an earnings call Thursday. Several payers have already established coverage policies for the drug, she noted.""We have confidence in a successful launch of Winrevair consistent with our prior expectations and look forward to providing updates on our progress,"" Litchfield said.Merck is also cutting costs under a new restructuring program it announced in February. Those efforts aim to improve the manufacturing network of both its pharmaceutical division and animal health business. The company recorded charges of $246 million related to restructuring in the first quarter, which are excluded from its adjusted results. Merck's pharmaceutical unit booked $14.01 billion in revenue during the first quarter, up 10% from the same period a year ago. That division develops a wide range of drugs for several disease areas, including oncology and infectious diseases. Merck's immunotherapy Keytruda, which is used to treat several types of cancer, largely drove the growth. Keytruda generated $6.95 billion in revenue during the quarter, up 20% from the year-earlier period. Analysts had been expecting $6.71 billion in Keytruda sales, according to estimates from FactSet. Litchfield said the growth reflects increased uptake in patients at the earliest stages of cancer, and continued demand to treat metastatic cancers, which refers to when the disease spreads to a different part of the body than where it started.Merck also reported a jump in sales of Gardasil, a vaccine that prevents cancer from HPV, the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S.Gardasil brought in $2.25 billion in sales, up 14% from the first quarter of 2023. That is in line with the $2.24 billion that analysts expected, FactSet estimates said. Litchfield said the increase reflects strong demand, particularly in China.Another vaccine called Vaxneuvance, which prevents patients from getting sick with pneumococcal disease, also posted strong growth during the quarter. The shot recorded $219 million in sales, up 106% from the year-earlier period. Meanwhile, Merck's Type 2 diabetes treatment Januvia drew $670 million in sales, down 24% from the same period a year ago. The company said the decline was primarily due to lower prices of the drug, falling demand in the U.S. and generic competition in several international markets.Analysts had expected Januvia sales of $687.3 million, according to FactSet estimates.Januvia is one of 10 drugs targeted in ongoing Medicare drug price negotiations, a policy under the Inflation Reduction Act that aims to make costly medications more affordable for seniors.Sales of Merck's Covid antiviral pill Lagevrio also fell 11% to $350 million during the quarter. Still, that total blew past analysts' expectations of $106.4 million in sales, according to FactSet. Demand for Lagevrio and other Covid products from companies such as Pfizer and Moderna has plunged over the past year, as cases and public concern about the virus dwindled from their pandemic peaks.Merck's animal health division, which develops vaccines and medicines for dogs, cats and cattle, posted $1.51 billion in sales for the first quarter. That is up only 1% from the same period a year ago. In February, Merck said it would buy Elanco Animal Health's aquatic business for $1.3 billion in cash. The deal includes Elanco's entire portfolio of medicines, vaccines and supplements for aquatic species, along with two manufacturing plants and a research facility.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"['In this articleMerck on Thursday reported first-quarter revenue and adjusted earnings that topped expectations as it posted strong sales of its blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda and vaccine products.', 'The pharmaceutical giant also raised and narrowed its full-year revenue and adjusted earnings forecasts.', 'Merck now expects 2024 sales to come in between $63.1 billion and $64.3 billion, up from previous guidance of $62.7 to $64.2 billion.', 'The company expects full-year adjusted earnings of $8.53 to $8.65 per share, up from its prior forecast of $8.44 to $8.59 per share.', ""That outlook includes a one-time charge of roughly 26 cents per share related to Merck's acquisition of Harpoon Therapeutics in January."", 'The company develops immune-based cancer drugs.', 'The guidance also includes a negative impact of 30 cents per share from foreign exchange changes.', 'Shares of Merck rose 4% on Thursday following the results.', 'Here is what Merck reported for the first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:The company posted a net income of $4.76 billion, or $1.87 per share, for the first quarter.', 'That compares with a net income of $2.82 billion, or $1.11 per share, during the year-earlier period.', 'Excluding acquisition and restructuring costs, Merck earned $2.07 per share for the first quarter.', 'Both adjusted and nonadjusted profit for the period include the charge related to the Harpoon deal.', 'Merck raked in $15.78 billion in revenue for the quarter, up 9% from the same period a year ago.', ""Those results come as Merck shows substantial progress in preparing for Keytruda's patent expiration in 2028."", 'The loss of exclusive rights to the drug will likely cause sales to fall, forcing the company to draw revenue from elsewhere.', 'But Merck has a handful of new deals under its belt and key drug launches that will help it offset those losses.', 'That includes Winrevair, a medication approved in the U.S. last month to treat a progressive and life-threatening lung condition.', 'Some analysts expect that worldwide sales of Winrevair could reach $5 billion by 2030.Merck is seeing ""high interest"" in Winrevair from patient groups and a range of prescribers, and is making ""good progress"" in enabling access to the drug, Chief Financial Officer Caroline Litchfield said during an earnings call Thursday.', 'Several payers have already established coverage policies for the drug, she noted.', '""We have confidence in a successful launch of Winrevair consistent with our prior expectations and look forward to providing updates on our progress,"" Litchfield said.', 'Merck is also cutting costs under a new restructuring program it announced in February.', 'Those efforts aim to improve the manufacturing network of both its pharmaceutical division and animal health business.', 'The company recorded charges of $246 million related to restructuring in the first quarter, which are excluded from its adjusted results.', ""Merck's pharmaceutical unit booked $14.01 billion in revenue during the first quarter, up 10% from the same period a year ago."", 'That division develops a wide range of drugs for several disease areas, including oncology and infectious diseases.', ""Merck's immunotherapy Keytruda, which is used to treat several types of cancer, largely drove the growth."", 'Keytruda generated $6.95 billion in revenue during the quarter, up 20% from the year-earlier period.', 'Analysts had been expecting $6.71 billion in Keytruda sales, according to estimates from FactSet.', 'Litchfield said the growth reflects increased uptake in patients at the earliest stages of cancer, and continued demand to treat metastatic cancers, which refers to when the disease spreads to a different part of the body than where it started.', 'Merck also reported a jump in sales of Gardasil, a vaccine that prevents cancer from HPV, the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S.Gardasil brought in $2.25 billion in sales, up 14% from the first quarter of 2023.', 'That is in line with the $2.24 billion that analysts expected, FactSet estimates said.', 'Litchfield said the increase reflects strong demand, particularly in China.', 'Another vaccine called Vaxneuvance, which prevents patients from getting sick with pneumococcal disease, also posted strong growth during the quarter.', 'The shot recorded $219 million in sales, up 106% from the year-earlier period.', ""Meanwhile, Merck's Type 2 diabetes treatment Januvia drew $670 million in sales, down 24% from the same period a year ago."", 'The company said the decline was primarily due to lower prices of the drug, falling demand in the U.S. and generic competition in several international markets.', 'Analysts had expected Januvia sales of $687.3 million, according to FactSet estimates.', 'Januvia is one of 10 drugs targeted in ongoing Medicare drug price negotiations, a policy under the Inflation Reduction Act that aims to make costly medications more affordable for seniors.', ""Sales of Merck's Covid antiviral pill Lagevrio also fell 11% to $350 million during the quarter."", ""Still, that total blew past analysts' expectations of $106.4 million in sales, according to FactSet."", 'Demand for Lagevrio and other Covid products from companies such as Pfizer and Moderna has plunged over the past year, as cases and public concern about the virus dwindled from their pandemic peaks.', ""Merck's animal health division, which develops vaccines and medicines for dogs, cats and cattle, posted $1.51 billion in sales for the first quarter."", 'That is up only 1% from the same period a year ago.', ""In February, Merck said it would buy Elanco Animal Health's aquatic business for $1.3 billion in cash."", ""The deal includes Elanco's entire portfolio of medicines, vaccines and supplements for aquatic species, along with two manufacturing plants and a research facility.""]",0.0870368521989354,"""We have confidence in a successful launch of Winrevair consistent with our prior expectations and look forward to providing updates on our progress,"" Litchfield said.","Merck also reported a jump in sales of Gardasil, a vaccine that prevents cancer from HPV, the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S.Gardasil brought in $2.25 billion in sales, up 14% from the first quarter of 2023.",0.6245327122283705,"Merck now expects 2024 sales to come in between $63.1 billion and $64.3 billion, up from previous guidance of $62.7 to $64.2 billion.",Sales of Merck's Covid antiviral pill Lagevrio also fell 11% to $350 million during the quarter.,2024-04-29
FDA approves Pfizer’s first gene therapy for rare inherited bleeding disorder,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/26/fda-approves-pfizer-gene-therapy-beqvez-for-treatment-of-hemophilia-b.html,2024-04-26T13:22:54+0000,"In this articleThe Food and Drug Administration on Friday announced that the agency approved Pfizer's treatment for a rare genetic bleeding disorder, making it the company's first gene therapy to win clearance in the U.S. The agency greenlighted the drug, which will be marketed as Beqvez, for adults with moderate to severe hemophilia B who meet certain requirements.The treatment will be available by prescription to eligible patients this quarter, a Pfizer spokesperson told CNBC. It has a hefty $3.5 million price tag before insurance and other rebates, the spokesperson added, making it by far one of the most expensive drugs in the U.S.More than 7,000 people in the U.S. are living with the debilitating condition, which predominantly affects men, according to an advocacy group. The condition is caused by insufficient levels of a certain protein that helps blood clot to stop bleeding and seal wounds. Without that protein, called factor IX, patients with hemophilia B bruise easily and bleed more frequently and for longer periods of time. Beqvez is a one-time treatment designed to enable patients to produce factor IX themselves and prevent and control bleeding. In a late-stage trial, the drug was superior to the often-cumbersome standard treatment for hemophilia B, which involves administering the protein multiple times a week or a month through the veins. ""Many people with hemophilia B struggle with the commitment and lifestyle disruption of regular [factor IX] infusions, as well as spontaneous bleeding episodes, which can lead to painful joint damage and mobility issues,"" said Adam Cuker, director of Penn Medicine's Comprehensive and Hemophilia Thrombosis Program, in a Pfizer release on Friday.Pfizer's drug ""has the potential to be transformative for appropriate patients by reducing both the medical and treatment burden over the long term,"" Cuker added. The approval is a big step for Pfizer, which is trying to regain its footing following the rapid decline of its Covid business last year. The company is betting big on cancer drugs and treatments for other disease areas to help turn its business around. Pfizer is one of several companies to invest in the rapidly growing field of gene and cell therapies — one-time, high-cost treatments that target a patient's genetic source or cell to cure or significantly alter the course of a disease. Some health experts expect these therapies to replace traditional lifelong treatments that people take to manage chronic diseases. Pfizer gained the rights to produce and market Beqvez from Spark Therapeutics in 2014. The company is offering payers a warranty program to cover patients who receive Beqvez, a spokesperson told CNBC. Pfizer expects that program to offer ""financial protection by insuring against the risk of efficacy failure,"" the release said.The gene therapy will compete with Australia-based CSL Behring's Hemgenix, a similar treatment that won FDA approval for hemophilia B in 2022. That drug has a similar list price of $3.5 million in the U.S. before insurance and other rebates. Notably, some health experts have said that high costs and logistical issues, among other factors, have limited the uptake of Hemgenix and another approved gene therapy for the more common hemophilia A. Pfizer also seeks FDA approval for its experimental antibody, marstacimab, to treat hemophilia A and B. The company is also developing a gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic disorder that causes muscles to weaken gradually.",CNBC,26/04/2024,"[""In this articleThe Food and Drug Administration on Friday announced that the agency approved Pfizer's treatment for a rare genetic bleeding disorder, making it the company's first gene therapy to win clearance in the U.S.The agency greenlighted the drug, which will be marketed as Beqvez, for adults with moderate to severe hemophilia B who meet certain requirements."", 'The treatment will be available by prescription to eligible patients this quarter, a Pfizer spokesperson told CNBC.', 'It has a hefty $3.5 million price tag before insurance and other rebates, the spokesperson added, making it by far one of the most expensive drugs in the U.S.More than 7,000 people in the U.S. are living with the debilitating condition, which predominantly affects men, according to an advocacy group.', 'The condition is caused by insufficient levels of a certain protein that helps blood clot to stop bleeding and seal wounds.', 'Without that protein, called factor IX, patients with hemophilia B bruise easily and bleed more frequently and for longer periods of time.', 'Beqvez is a one-time treatment designed to enable patients to produce factor IX themselves and prevent and control bleeding.', 'In a late-stage trial, the drug was superior to the often-cumbersome standard treatment for hemophilia B, which involves administering the protein multiple times a week or a month through the veins.', '""Many people with hemophilia B struggle with the commitment and lifestyle disruption of regular [factor IX] infusions, as well as spontaneous bleeding episodes, which can lead to painful joint damage and mobility issues,"" said Adam Cuker, director of Penn Medicine\'s Comprehensive and Hemophilia Thrombosis Program, in a Pfizer release on Friday.', 'Pfizer\'s drug ""has the potential to be transformative for appropriate patients by reducing both the medical and treatment burden over the long term,"" Cuker added.', 'The approval is a big step for Pfizer, which is trying to regain its footing following the rapid decline of its Covid business last year.', 'The company is betting big on cancer drugs and treatments for other disease areas to help turn its business around.', ""Pfizer is one of several companies to invest in the rapidly growing field of gene and cell therapies — one-time, high-cost treatments that target a patient's genetic source or cell to cure or significantly alter the course of a disease."", 'Some health experts expect these therapies to replace traditional lifelong treatments that people take to manage chronic diseases.', 'Pfizer gained the rights to produce and market Beqvez from Spark Therapeutics in 2014.The company is offering payers a warranty program to cover patients who receive Beqvez, a spokesperson told CNBC.', 'Pfizer expects that program to offer ""financial protection by insuring against the risk of efficacy failure,"" the release said.', ""The gene therapy will compete with Australia-based CSL Behring's Hemgenix, a similar treatment that won FDA approval for hemophilia B in 2022."", 'That drug has a similar list price of $3.5 million in the U.S. before insurance and other rebates.', 'Notably, some health experts have said that high costs and logistical issues, among other factors, have limited the uptake of Hemgenix and another approved gene therapy for the more common hemophilia A.Pfizer also seeks FDA approval for its experimental antibody, marstacimab, to treat hemophilia A and B. The company is also developing a gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic disorder that causes muscles to weaken gradually.']",0.1071113389428697,"The gene therapy will compete with Australia-based CSL Behring's Hemgenix, a similar treatment that won FDA approval for hemophilia B in 2022.","Pfizer expects that program to offer ""financial protection by insuring against the risk of efficacy failure,"" the release said.",0.1729708313941955,"In this articleThe Food and Drug Administration on Friday announced that the agency approved Pfizer's treatment for a rare genetic bleeding disorder, making it the company's first gene therapy to win clearance in the U.S.The agency greenlighted the drug, which will be marketed as Beqvez, for adults with moderate to severe hemophilia B who meet certain requirements.","Notably, some health experts have said that high costs and logistical issues, among other factors, have limited the uptake of Hemgenix and another approved gene therapy for the more common hemophilia A.Pfizer also seeks FDA approval for its experimental antibody, marstacimab, to treat hemophilia A and B. The company is also developing a gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic disorder that causes muscles to weaken gradually.",2024-04-29
The home insurance market is crumbling. These owners are paying the price,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/29/economy/home-insurance-prices-climate-change/index.html,"
  Updated
        2:34 PM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","The home insurance market is crumbling in New Orleans, leaving Alfredo Herrera with few options for coverage — and skyrocketing insurance premiums.
    
            Herrera, 35, works in finance for a local bank. He bought his 900-square-foot home in New Orleans’ Mid-City neighborhood in 2020 for $270,000, and lives there with his partner.
    
            In 2022, he paid $1,600 a year for home insurance. But last July, his insurer canceled his coverage, saying it was leaving Louisiana.
    
            In the past, acquiring or keeping homeowners’ insurance didn’t present much of a problem.
    
            But as climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather, insurers — especially those in areas most impacted by floods and fires — are raising their premiums, or pulling out altogether, impacting the affordability and availability of home and fire insurance.
    
            Herrera shopped around for a new plan, but he struggled to find a policy. Louisiana Citizens, the insurer of last resort for property owners in the state, was out of the question. It would have cost more than $7,000 annually.
    
            Herrera eventually found a policy with a small company in the state that charged him $4,930 annually — a 208% increase from what he paid in 2022.
    
            “It’s a very difficult situation,” he said. He never imagined that when he bought his home, private insurance options would be this limited and the last resort insurer would be so expensive.
    
            “We’re against the wall,” Herrera said. “There’s no competition.”
    
            Herrera’s insurance story is common in Louisiana and other places across the country at increasingly higher risk for extreme weather.
    
            There were a record 28 weather and climate disasters with losses totaling over $1 billion last year in America, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. By comparison, between 1980 and 2023, the typical annual average for these events was 8.5.
    
            A Louisiana State University survey last year found that 17% of Louisiana homeowners reported their provider canceled their policy. Sixty-three percent of policyholders said the cost of their insurance coverage increased from the prior year, the survey found.
    
            There was roughly a 10% to 12% increase in homeowners’ insurance costs last year in the United States, said Mark Friedlander, spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute, a nonprofit industry association.
    
            The main drivers are the higher costs insurers face, including from more severe storms; higher replacement costs; and re-insurance, the type of insurance used by insurers to limit their risks. These are passed on to consumers. So even if a homeowner doesn’t live in a high-risk area, that owner is likely paying a higher premium to cover people in the riskiest places.
    
            In 2023, Neil Fernandes paid $1,700 a year for Farmers Insurance coverage for his home in Santa Clarita, California, where the 42-year-old software engineer lives with his wife and child.
    
            But last year, Farmers said it was raising his premium to $3,200. When he asked why, Farmers cited rising costs and increased fire hazards in the state. Fernandes said the fire hazards around his home haven’t changed and he lives a quarter mile from a fire station.
    
            He started shopping around for other policies, but he found limited options.
    
            Frustrated by the lack of choices, he switched to AAA home insurance for $2,880 a year.
    
            He and his family have had to change their lifestyle to cover the increase. He’s driving less to save on car insurance. They aren’t eating out as much, or traveling, and are putting off home improvement upgrades.
    
            Fernandes is challenging AAA’s assessment of his home insurance value, which he said is over-estimated.
    
            AAA did not comment to CNN.
    
            And he worries about more home insurance price shocks in the future, something he did not anticipate when he bought his home.
    
            “As a home owner, I always worry about things like paying taxes for good schools and community upkeep,” he said. “Now I have to worry about insurance coverage.”
    
            In some places most exposed to climate change, insurers have stopped issuing policies.
    
            In May, State Farm, the largest home insurer in California, announced it would pause issuing policies in that state, citing wildfire risks. Farmers Insurance deemed it too risky to continue insuring homes in Florida and pulled out of the market there entirely.
    
            On March 20, State Farm said it would not renew 72,000 home insurance policies in California, representing just over 2% of the company’s policies in the state. The company cited “inflation, catastrophe exposure [and] reinsurance costs” among the reasons.
    
            More people are being driven to the state-supported “insurer of last resort,” where they typically have to pay more money for a narrower policy. 
    
            More states are looking to start state-backed insurance providers as companies pull out.
    
            In Florida, Citizens Property Insurance has seen the number of policies it has issued rise about 50% in the last year alone to 1.3 million — equal to 16% of the market and far more than any national insurer writes in the state.
    
            The US Senate Budget Committee is launching an investigation into whether Florida’s state-backed home and property insurance company has enough money in the bank to withstand future disasters.
    
            But climate change isn’t the only factor driving up costs. Insurance companies also point to the rising cost of replacing homes, as inflation for building supplies and labor has soared.
    
            The insurance industry says that rebuilding and replacement costs surged 55% between 2019 and 2022. Costs have since fallen, however. And reinsurance has gone up between 30% and 40% after years of losses in the industry, according to Matthew Carletti, an insurance industry analyst for JMP Securities.
    
            Homeowners who have a mortgage are not able to go without homeowners insurance as their mortgage servicer will require an escrow account for insurance. But for those who have paid off their home or bought it with cash, the high additional costs of homeowners insurance and the challenge of getting it can lead some to take their chances without it.
    
            Some 6 million homeowners chose to forgo homeowners insurance, according to a report from the Consumer Federation of America. That’s about 7.4% of all homeowners in the country, and amounts to about $1.6 trillion of unprotected value.
    
            CFA warned that the problem of uninsured homes is likely to get worse in coming years unless major investments in climate change adaptation and stronger oversight of the insurance industry are made.
    
            Diana Troxell and her husband are not sure how they will pay for their 250% annual premium increase for their manufactured home in rural Cottonwood, California. Right now, they are getting help from family to pay for groceries and gas.
    
            Troxell, 76, works seasonally as a face painter at the county fair. She and her husband rely primarily on Social Security to scrape by.
    
            They have lived in their home for 19 years and had a policy with Foremost Insurance, paying about $1,910 a year.
    
            But Foremost last year told them their policy would not be renewed due to wildfire exposure.
    
            “We went into a shock mode,” she said. “We couldn’t figure out what to do.”
    
            They looked to sell their home and rent in California, but they couldn’t afford it.
    
            With no other insurance options available, they turned to California FAIR Plan, a state program for residents and businesses who can’t obtain insurance through a regular insurance company. In 2021, the FAIR Plan accounted for 3% of the state’s policies in 2021, nearly double the share from 2018.
    
            Now they are paying about $6,660 a year through the FAIR plan.
    
            “We’re in ‘how are we going to do this’ mode?” she said. “We’re living month to month.”
    
            CNN’s Ella Nilsen contributed to this article.",CNN,26/04/2024,"['The home insurance market is crumbling in New Orleans, leaving Alfredo Herrera with few options for coverage — and skyrocketing insurance premiums.', 'Herrera, 35, works in finance for a local bank.', 'He bought his 900-square-foot home in New Orleans’ Mid-City neighborhood in 2020 for $270,000, and lives there with his partner.', 'In 2022, he paid $1,600 a year for home insurance.', 'But last July, his insurer canceled his coverage, saying it was leaving Louisiana.', 'In the past, acquiring or keeping homeowners’ insurance didn’t present much of a problem.', 'But as climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather, insurers —especially those in areas most impacted byfloodsand fires —are raising their premiums, or pulling out altogether,impacting the affordability and availability ofhome and fire insurance.', 'Herrera shopped around for a new plan, but he struggled to find a policy.', 'Louisiana Citizens, the insurer of last resort for property owners in the state, was out of the question.', 'It would have cost more than $7,000 annually.', 'Herrera eventually found a policy with a small company in the state that charged him $4,930 annually — a 208% increase from what he paid in 2022.', '“It’s a very difficult situation,” he said.', 'He never imagined that when he bought his home, private insurance options would be this limited and the last resort insurer would be so expensive.', '“We’re against the wall,” Herrera said. “', 'There’s no competition.”', 'Herrera’s insurance story is common in Louisiana and other places across the country at increasingly higher risk for extreme weather.', 'There were a record 28 weather and climate disasters with losses totaling over $1 billion last year in America,according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.', 'By comparison, between 1980 and 2023, the typical annual average for these events was 8.5.', 'A Louisiana State University survey last year found that 17% of Louisiana homeowners reported their provider canceled their policy.', 'Sixty-three percent of policyholders said the cost of their insurance coverage increased from the prior year, the survey found.', 'There was roughly a 10% to 12% increase in homeowners’ insurance costs last year in the United States, said Mark Friedlander, spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute, a nonprofit industry association.', 'The main drivers are the higher costs insurers face, including from more severe storms; higher replacement costs; and re-insurance, the type of insurance used by insurers to limit their risks.', 'These are passed on to consumers.', 'So even if a homeowner doesn’t live in a high-risk area, that owner is likely paying a higher premium to cover people in the riskiest places.', 'In 2023, Neil Fernandes paid $1,700 a year for Farmers Insurance coverage for his home in Santa Clarita, California, where the 42-year-old software engineer lives with his wife and child.', 'But last year, Farmers said it was raising his premium to $3,200.', 'When he asked why, Farmers cited rising costs and increased fire hazards in the state.', 'Fernandes said the fire hazards around his home haven’t changed and he lives a quarter mile from a fire station.', 'He started shopping around for other policies, but he found limited options.', 'Frustrated by the lack of choices, he switched to AAA home insurance for $2,880 a year.', 'He and his family have had to change their lifestyle to cover the increase.', 'He’s driving less to save on car insurance.', 'They aren’t eating out as much, or traveling, and are putting off home improvement upgrades.', 'Fernandes is challenging AAA’s assessment of his home insurance value, which he said is over-estimated.', 'AAA did not comment to CNN.', 'And he worries about more home insurance price shocks in the future, something he did not anticipate when he bought his home.', '“As a home owner, I always worry about things like paying taxes for good schools and community upkeep,” he said. “', 'Now I have to worry about insurance coverage.”', 'In some places most exposed to climate change, insurers have stopped issuing policies.', 'In May, State Farm, the largest home insurer in California, announced it would pause issuing policies in that state, citing wildfire risks.', 'Farmers Insurance deemed it too risky to continue insuring homes in Florida and pulled out of the market there entirely.', 'On March 20, State Farm said it would not renew 72,000 home insurance policies in California, representing just over 2% of the company’s policies in the state.', 'The company cited “inflation, catastrophe exposure [and] reinsurance costs” among the reasons.', 'More people are being driven to the state-supported “insurer of last resort,” where they typically have to pay more money for a narrower policy.', 'More states are looking to start state-backed insurance providers as companies pull out.', 'In Florida, Citizens Property Insurance has seen the number of policies it has issued rise about 50% in the last year alone to 1.3 million — equal to 16% of the market and far more than any national insurer writes in the state.', 'The US Senate Budget Committee is launching an investigation intowhetherFlorida’s state-backed home and property insurance company has enough money in the bank to withstand future disasters.', 'But climate change isn’t the only factor driving up costs.', 'Insurance companies also point to the rising cost of replacing homes, as inflation for building supplies and labor has soared.', 'The insurance industry says that rebuilding and replacement costs surged 55% between 2019 and 2022.', 'Costs have since fallen, however.', 'And reinsurance has gone up between 30% and 40% after years of losses in the industry, according to Matthew Carletti, an insurance industry analyst for JMP Securities.', 'Homeowners who have a mortgage are not able to go without homeowners insurance as their mortgage servicer will require an escrow account for insurance.', 'But for those who have paid off their home or bought it with cash, the high additional costs of homeowners insurance and the challenge of getting it can lead some to take their chances without it.', 'Some 6 million homeowners chose to forgo homeowners insurance, according to a report from the Consumer Federation of America.', 'That’s about 7.4% of all homeowners in the country, and amounts to about $1.6 trillion of unprotected value.', 'CFA warned that the problem of uninsured homes is likely to get worse in coming years unless major investments in climate change adaptation and stronger oversight of the insurance industry are made.', 'Diana Troxell and her husband are not sure how they will pay for their 250% annual premium increase for their manufactured home in rural Cottonwood, California.', 'Right now, they are getting help from family to pay for groceries and gas.', 'Troxell, 76, works seasonally as a face painter at the county fair.', 'She and her husband rely primarily on Social Security to scrape by.', 'They have lived in their home for 19 years and had a policy with Foremost Insurance, paying about $1,910 a year.', 'But Foremost last year told them their policy would not be renewed due to wildfire exposure.', '“We went into a shock mode,” she said. “', 'We couldn’t figure out what to do.”', 'They looked to sell their home and rent in California, but they couldn’t afford it.', 'With no other insurance options available, they turned to California FAIR Plan, a state program for residents and businesses who can’t obtain insurance through a regular insurance company.', 'In 2021, the FAIR Plan accounted for 3% of the state’s policies in 2021, nearly double the share from 2018.', 'Now they are paying about $6,660 a year through the FAIR plan.', '“We’re in ‘how are we going to do this’ mode?”', 'she said. “', 'We’re living month to month.”', 'CNN’s Ella Nilsen contributed to this article.']",-0.0690198957186037,"In 2021, the FAIR Plan accounted for 3% of the state’s policies in 2021, nearly double the share from 2018.","There were a record 28 weather and climate disasters with losses totaling over $1 billion last year in America,according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.",-0.3159444723278284,"And reinsurance has gone up between 30% and 40% after years of losses in the industry, according to Matthew Carletti, an insurance industry analyst for JMP Securities.",CFA warned that the problem of uninsured homes is likely to get worse in coming years unless major investments in climate change adaptation and stronger oversight of the insurance industry are made.,2024-04-29
"As pro-Palestinian protests sweep campus, student journalists are rushing to the big story and exams",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/26/business/as-pro-palestinian-protests-sweepcollegecampuses-student-journalistsarerushing-to-the-bigstoryandexams/index.html,"
  Published
        11:32 AM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","Arianna Smith is juggling a lot right now.
    
            Smith is editor-in-chief of The Lantern, Ohio State University’s student-run newspaper, which has scrambled in recent days to cover pro-Palestinian protests roiling the campus.
    
            It’s also finals week, and in the coming days the newspaper’s staff will transition to the next year’s staff. But the news doesn’t account for exams.
    
            “We have had reporters and editors drop everything they are doing [to cover the story], even though they have finals that they should be studying for,” Smith told CNN.
    
            As universities across the country crack down on demonstrations over Israel’s military actions in Gaza and police arrest hundreds of protesters, student-run newspapers have quickly become an essential source of news coverage for both the campus communities and nation at large, providing crucial transparency and scrutiny of authorities.
    
            And, for many of these student journalists, it’s becoming a seminal moment in their nascent careers.
    
            “It’s so important to have journalists that care about being objective, and to have journalists that really know the power that their writing has,” Smith said of her newspaper’s reporters.
    
            When demonstrations broke out on the Columbus campus this week, resulting in multiple arrests, the Lantern’s staff reported from the protest scenes, detailed actions of the police, and investigated Ohio State University policies barring encampments.
    
            “We’re not only covering the protests, but we’re covering and getting the opinions from these people that are involved in this protest,” Smith said. “And we’re also making sure that we’re analyzing the legalities behind all of these policies that the university is enforcing.”
    
            At the University of Southern California, nearly 100 people were arrested this week as protests swelled on campus and university leaders imposed restrictions on demonstrations.
    
            Anjali Patel, editor-in-chief of the university’s newspaper, The Daily Trojan, immediately recognized the student-led publication had an advantage over the national press as they raced to cover the story.
    
            “Given that we’re student journalists, we know the campus and the students here. That gives us a different angle than professional news outlets,” Patel said. “We’re also completely student-led, so the way that we approach work and reporting is different, but I think that’s to our advantage.”
    
            The tension at USC has been boiling since administrators canceled its Muslim valedictorian’s commencement speech — and, on Thursday, the main graduation ceremony — citing safety concerns. As pressure mounted on campus, the newspaper mobilized a handful of writers who worked together to cover the protests. But, as police were deployed on campus, The Daily Trojan increased the number of assigned reporters to cover events.
    
            When officers moved to make dozens of arrests Wednesday at a protest encampment, it was “all hands on deck,” Patel said, adding that The Daily Trojan deployed at least five photographers and eight other staff members to cover the demonstrations.
    
            These young journalists, while juggling classes and the stress of exams, are also intimately involved with the student community, translating the student body’s mood on their campus for the rest of the nation.
    
            At the University of Texas at Austin, dozens of protesters were arrested Wednesday after pro-Palestinian demonstrators were met by state troopers “in full riot gear with batons,” Amelia Kimball, associate managing editor of The Daily Texan told CNN.
    
            Kimball reported that there was a “physical clash” between students and police on campus with numerous students taken into custody and “put in squad cars.”
    
            The arrests came as Texas Governor Greg Abbott warned that “antisemitism will not be tolerated in Texas” and called for students participating in the protests to be expelled.
    
            “I think there’s a real feeling of betrayal on campus and I think there’s a lot of anger [after students were arrested],” Kimball told CNN’s John Berman.
    
            “State troopers were on campus before students even began to gather,” Kimball added. “And so things just escalated far beyond what students had expected at all, and so yeah, I think students feel betrayed by the university and by our state government.”",CNN,26/04/2024,"['Arianna Smith is juggling a lot right now.', 'Smith iseditor-in-chiefof The Lantern, Ohio State University’s student-run newspaper,whichhas scrambled in recent days to coverpro-Palestinian protestsroiling thecampus.', 'It’s also finals week, and in the coming days the newspaper’s staff will transition to the next year’s staff.', 'But the news doesn’t account for exams.', '“We have had reporters and editors drop everything they are doing [to cover the story], even though they have finals that they should be studying for,” Smith told CNN.', 'As universities across the country crack down on demonstrations over Israel’s military actions in Gaza and police arrest hundreds of protesters,student-runnewspapers havequickly becomean essential source ofnews coverage for both the campus communities and nation at large, providing crucial transparency and scrutiny of authorities.', 'And,for many of these student journalists,it’s becoming a seminal moment in their nascent careers.', '“It’s so important to have journalists that care about being objective, and to have journalists that really know the power that their writing has,”Smith said of her newspaper’s reporters.', 'When demonstrations broke out on the Columbus campus this week, resulting in multiple arrests, the Lantern’sstaffreportedfrom the protest scenes, detailed actions of the police, andinvestigatedOhio State University policiesbarring encampments.', '“We’re not only covering the protests, but we’re covering and getting the opinions from these people that are involved in this protest,” Smith said. “', 'And we’re also making sure that we’re analyzing the legalities behind all of these policies that the university is enforcing.”', 'At the University of Southern California,nearly 100 peoplewerearrestedthisweek as protests swelled on campusanduniversityleadersimposed restrictionson demonstrations.', 'Anjali Patel, editor-in-chief of the university’s newspaper, The Daily Trojan, immediately recognized the student-led publication had an advantage over the national press as they raced to cover the story.', '“Given that we’re studentjournalists, we know the campus and the students here.', 'That gives us a different angle than professional news outlets,”Patel said.', '“We’re also completely student-led, so the way that we approach work and reporting is different, but I think that’s to our advantage.”', 'The tension at USC has been boiling sinceadministrators canceleditsMuslim valedictorian’scommencementspeech — and,on Thursday,themaingraduation ceremony — citing safety concerns.', 'As pressure mounted on campus, the newspaper mobilized a handful of writers who workedtogether to cover the protests.', 'But, aspolicewere deployed on campus, The Daily Trojan increasedthe number of assignedreportersto cover events.', 'When officers moved to make dozens of arrests Wednesday at a protest encampment,it was“all hands on deck,” Patel said, adding that The Daily Trojan deployed at least fivephotographersandeight other staff memberstocover the demonstrations.', 'Theseyoungjournalists,while juggling classes and the stress of exams,are also intimatelyinvolvedwith the student community,translatingthe student body’s moodon their campusforthe rest of the nation.', 'At the University of Texas at Austin, dozens of protesters were arrested Wednesday after pro-Palestinian demonstrators were met by state troopers“in full riot gear with batons,” Amelia Kimball, associate managing editor ofThe Daily Texan told CNN.', 'Kimball reported that there was a “physical clash” between students and police on campuswith numerous students taken into custody and “put in squad cars.”', 'The arrests came as Texas Governor Greg Abbott warned that “antisemitism will not be tolerated in Texas” and called for students participating in the protests to be expelled.', '“I think there’s a real feeling of betrayal on campus and I think there’s a lot of anger [after students were arrested],” Kimballtold CNN’s John Berman.', '“State troopers were on campus before students even began to gather,”Kimballadded. “', 'And so things just escalated far beyond what students had expected at all, and so yeah, I think students feel betrayed by the university and by our state government.”']",-0.1761489202507428,"“It’s so important to have journalists that care about being objective, and to have journalists that really know the power that their writing has,”Smith said of her newspaper’s reporters.","“I think there’s a real feeling of betrayal on campus and I think there’s a lot of anger [after students were arrested],” Kimballtold CNN’s John Berman.",-0.0097335378328959,"Anjali Patel, editor-in-chief of the university’s newspaper, The Daily Trojan, immediately recognized the student-led publication had an advantage over the national press as they raced to cover the story.","And so things just escalated far beyond what students had expected at all, and so yeah, I think students feel betrayed by the university and by our state government.”",2024-04-29
Starbucks resumes bargaining with union after two sides thaw relationship,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/24/starbucks-resumes-bargaining-with-workers-united-union.html,2024-04-26T17:34:52+0000,"In this articleStarbucks and the union that represents its baristas will resume contract negotiations on Wednesday, ending an extended stalemate.The two sides' return to the bargaining table follows their February announcement that they found a ""constructive path forward"" during mediation discussions related to litigation over the union's use of Starbucks' branding. It marked a major pivot for Starbucks, which had spent the previous two years battling Workers United and the broader movement to unionize its cafes.Roughly 400 company-owned Starbucks in the U.S. have voted to unionize under Workers United since the first elections in December 2021, according to a tally from the National Labor Relations Board, as of Monday. But none of those locations, which make up a small fraction of total U.S. footprint, have come close to a collective bargaining agreement.Starbucks and the union, which is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union, have previously met to bargain, but those talks quickly ended in stalemate. Both sides have accused the other of sabotaging the talks.Starbucks had previously insisted on face-to-face negotiations, with no representatives appearing via Zoom. The union has accused Starbucks of using that excuse as a stalling tactic. This time around, about 150 union representatives will appear in person to bargain, while several hundred more will weigh in remotely outside of the face-to-face meetings.Store agreements will be negotiated and ratified separately, but the union might make proposals that could affect all of the Starbucks workers it represents. Workers United has broadly pushed for higher wages and more consistent scheduling, among a range of other priorities.Labor laws do not require that the employer and union reach a collective bargaining agreement, only that both bargain in good faith. After a year, workers who lose faith in the union can petition to decertify, putting a ticking clock on negotiations. The NLRB has 19 pending petitions to decertify. Citing unfair labor practices by Starbucks, the labor board has denied 18 other petitions to decertify.The company said it has also been negotiating with other unions that represent its cafes, such as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which is bargaining for a store outside of Pittsburgh.The resumption of contract negotiations comes a day after another significant moment for both Starbucks and unions. On Tuesday, the company appeared before the Supreme Court to appeal a lower court's approval of an injunction sought by the NLRB to reinstate seven fired workers at a Memphis cafe.Starbucks argued that other agencies seeking injunctions have a higher threshold to receive one than the labor board does. Experts have said that the Supreme Court's eventual ruling could weaken the NLRB — and organized labor. The court is expected to release its decision this summer.Starbucks could share more about the union negotiations during its quarterly earnings call. The coffee giant is expected to report its results on Tuesday.",CNBC,26/04/2024,"['In this articleStarbucks and the union that represents its baristas will resume contract negotiations on Wednesday, ending an extended stalemate.', 'The two sides\' return to the bargaining table follows their February announcement that they founda ""constructive path forward"" during mediation discussions related to litigation over the union\'s use of Starbucks\' branding.', 'It marked a major pivot for Starbucks, which had spent the previous two years battling Workers United and the broader movement to unionize its cafes.', 'Roughly 400 company-owned Starbucks in the U.S. have voted to unionize under Workers United since the first elections in December 2021, according to a tally from the National Labor Relations Board, as of Monday.', 'But none of those locations, which make up a small fraction of total U.S. footprint, have come close to a collective bargaining agreement.', 'Starbucks and the union, which is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union, have previously met to bargain, but those talks quickly ended in stalemate.', 'Both sides have accused the other of sabotaging the talks.', 'Starbucks had previously insisted on face-to-face negotiations, with no representatives appearing via Zoom.', 'The union has accused Starbucks of using that excuse as a stalling tactic.', 'This time around, about 150 union representatives will appear in person to bargain, while several hundred more will weigh in remotely outside of the face-to-face meetings.', 'Store agreements will be negotiated and ratified separately, but the union might make proposals that could affect all of the Starbucks workers it represents.', 'Workers United has broadly pushed for higher wages and more consistent scheduling, among a range of other priorities.', 'Labor laws do not require that the employer and union reach a collective bargaining agreement, only that both bargain in good faith.', 'After a year, workers who lose faith in the union can petition to decertify, putting a ticking clock on negotiations.', 'The NLRB has 19 pending petitions to decertify.', 'Citing unfair labor practices by Starbucks, the labor board has denied 18 other petitions to decertify.', 'The company said it has also been negotiating with other unions that represent its cafes, such as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which is bargaining for a store outside of Pittsburgh.', 'The resumption of contract negotiations comes a day after another significant moment for both Starbucks and unions.', ""On Tuesday, the company appeared before the Supreme Court to appeal a lower court's approval of an injunction sought by the NLRB to reinstate seven fired workers at a Memphis cafe."", 'Starbucks argued that other agencies seeking injunctions have a higher threshold to receive one than the labor board does.', ""Experts have said that the Supreme Court's eventual ruling could weaken the NLRB — and organized labor."", 'The court is expected to release its decision this summer.', 'Starbucks could share more about the union negotiations during its quarterly earnings call.', 'The coffee giant is expected to report its results on Tuesday.']",0.0722775234451613,"Labor laws do not require that the employer and union reach a collective bargaining agreement, only that both bargain in good faith.","Citing unfair labor practices by Starbucks, the labor board has denied 18 other petitions to decertify.",-0.1644300669431686,"Workers United has broadly pushed for higher wages and more consistent scheduling, among a range of other priorities.",Experts have said that the Supreme Court's eventual ruling could weaken the NLRB — and organized labor.,2024-04-29
US economic growth slows but inflation grows,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68898432,2024-04-25T14:09:40.000Z,"The US economy grew by less than forecast in the first three months of this year but inflation gathered pace, which could delay an interest rate cut.  Official figures revealed the economy expanded at an annualised rate of 1.6%, far below expectations and the growth seen in the final months of 2023. Meanwhile, inflation, which measures the pace of price rises, has increased. At the start of the year, experts had been forecasting a series of interest rate cuts in the US. However, inflation is yet to fall back to the Federal Reserve's 2% target, and on Thursday, figures from the US Department of Commerce showed that inflation increased by 3.4% in the first three months of 2024. This is compared to an increase of 1.8% in the final three months of 2023. Raising interest rates makes borrowing - for things such as loans and mortgages - more expensive and theoretically is meant to encourage people to spend less. The idea is that this helps to bring inflation down by dampening demand. However, US inflation has not fallen back as quickly as expected. At the same time, economic growth - measured as gross domestic product (GDP) - has slowed from 3.4% growth in the final three months of last year to 1.6%. Economists had been expected it to decelerate but only to 2.4%. Olu Sonola, head of US economic research at Fitch, the credit rating agency, said: ""The hot inflation print is the real story in this report. ""If growth continues to slowly decelerate, but inflation strongly takes off again in the wrong direction, the expectation of a Fed interest rate cut in 2024 is starting to look increasingly more out of reach."" The key US interest rate is between 5.25% to 5.5% - the highest level in more than 20 years. Stuart Cole, chief macro economist at Equiti Capital in London, said the US Federal Reserve, which sets interest rates, was ""now finding itself caught between a rock and a hard place"". ""The growth numbers suggest monetary policy has worked its magic and the Fed's foot on the monetary brake can be eased somewhat,"" he said. ""But the inflation figures suggest otherwise, and potentially even point to the need for a further tightening."" The 1.6% growth figure is the first estimate of GDP. A second reading, ""based on more complete source data"", will be released on 30 May. Nevertheless, the economy is a key issue as the US heads towards an election later this year. ",BBC,25/04/2024,"['The US economy grew by less than forecast in the first three months of this year but inflation gathered pace, which could delay an interest rate cut.', 'Official figures revealed the economy expanded at an annualised rate of 1.6%, far below expectations and the growth seen in the final months of 2023.', 'Meanwhile, inflation, which measures the pace of price rises, has increased.', 'At the start of the year, experts had been forecasting a series of interest rate cuts in the US.', ""However, inflation is yet to fall back to the Federal Reserve's 2% target, and on Thursday, figures from the US Department of Commerce showed that inflation increased by 3.4% in the first three months of 2024."", 'This is compared to an increase of 1.8% in the final three months of 2023.', 'Raising interest rates makes borrowing - for things such as loans and mortgages - more expensive and theoretically is meant to encourage people to spend less.', 'The idea is that this helps to bring inflation down by dampening demand.', 'However, US inflation has not fallen back as quickly as expected.', 'At the same time, economic growth - measured as gross domestic product (GDP) - has slowed from 3.4% growth in the final three months of last year to 1.6%.', 'Economists had been expected it to decelerate but only to 2.4%.', 'Olu Sonola, head of US economic research at Fitch, the credit rating agency, said: ""The hot inflation print is the real story in this report. ""', 'If growth continues to slowly decelerate, but inflation strongly takes off again in the wrong direction, the expectation of a Fed interest rate cut in 2024 is starting to look increasingly more out of reach.""', 'The key US interest rate is between 5.25% to 5.5% - the highest level in more than 20 years.', 'Stuart Cole, chief macro economist at Equiti Capital in London, said the US Federal Reserve, which sets interest rates, was ""now finding itself caught between a rock and a hard place"". ""', 'The growth numbers suggest monetary policy has worked its magic and the Fed\'s foot on the monetary brake can be eased somewhat,"" he said. ""', 'But the inflation figures suggest otherwise, and potentially even point to the need for a further tightening.""', 'The 1.6% growth figure is the first estimate of GDP.', 'A second reading, ""based on more complete source data"", will be released on 30 May.', 'Nevertheless, the economy is a key issue as the US heads towards an election later this year.']",0.2672875493103288,Raising interest rates makes borrowing - for things such as loans and mortgages - more expensive and theoretically is meant to encourage people to spend less.,"The US economy grew by less than forecast in the first three months of this year but inflation gathered pace, which could delay an interest rate cut.",0.1737287600835164,"Official figures revealed the economy expanded at an annualised rate of 1.6%, far below expectations and the growth seen in the final months of 2023.","At the same time, economic growth - measured as gross domestic product (GDP) - has slowed from 3.4% growth in the final three months of last year to 1.6%.",2024-04-29
Philips pays $1.1bn to settle respirator case,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn3dv3273dlo,2024-04-29T13:26:39.107Z,"Dutch medical products maker Philips says it has reached a $1.1bn (£877m) deal to settle lawsuits in the US relating to potentially faulty breathing devices. The settlement is expected to go some way towards drawing a line under a controversial and deeply damaging episode for the company, which has hurt its finances and its reputation. In 2021, it emerged that foam fitted in breathing machines used to treat sleep apnoea and other disorders could degrade, releasing potentially toxic particles into masks worn by patients. Philips said it did not “admit any fault or liability, or that any injuries were caused"" by the devices. The settlement was much lower than many analysts had expected, and the company’s share price rose more than 40% after the announcement. The machines were made by the company's US subsidiary Philips Respironics. Users reportedly complained of black particles and dust appearing inside their masks. More than five million machines were ultimately recalled worldwide. In January this year, the US Food and Drug Administration said it had received 116,000 reports of problems, while 561 deaths had been linked to the devices. The affair led the departure of Philips’ chief executive Frans van Houten in 2022. Earlier this month, Philips Respironics reached an agreement with the Department of Justice in a US court, a ""consent decree"" under which it will face regular inspections of its US facilities for the next five years. It will also have to pay part of its revenues to the US Treasury, and be prevented from selling a range of respiratory devices on the US market until it meets a range of conditions related to the repair or replacement of older models. The latest settlement covers a class action lawsuit as well as individual personal injury claims in the US. It has come sooner than had been expected, and the total cost is considerably lower than many analysts had forecast, with some having previously predicted it could be worth as much as $4.5bn (£3.5bn). The company's chief executive, Roy Jakobs, described the agreements as “significant milestones” that would “provide further clarity on the way forward for Philips”. Lawyers who brought the case on behalf of victims told the BBC that they were ""pleased"" to have reached a resolution. ""The agreements with Philips will provide compensation to those users of the now-recalled CPAP and other respiratory devices who suffer from significant physical injuries and important research for the treatment of those injuries,"" a statement said. ""Ultimately, these combined agreements accomplish what we sought to achieve when this litigation began - holding Philips accountable by obtaining care for those with physical injuries and compensation for those needing new respiratory devices."" ",BBC,29/04/2024,"['Dutch medical products maker Philips says it has reached a $1.1bn (£877m) deal to settle lawsuits in the US relating to potentially faulty breathing devices.', 'The settlement is expected to go some way towards drawing a line under a controversial and deeply damaging episode for the company, which has hurt its finances and its reputation.', 'In 2021, it emerged that foam fitted in breathing machines used to treat sleep apnoea and other disorders could degrade, releasing potentially toxic particles into masks worn by patients.', 'Philips said it did not “admit any fault or liability, or that any injuries were caused"" by the devices.', 'The settlement was much lower than many analysts had expected, and the company’s share price rose more than 40% after the announcement.', ""The machines were made by the company's US subsidiary Philips Respironics."", 'Users reportedly complained of black particles and dust appearing inside their masks.', 'More than five million machines were ultimately recalled worldwide.', 'In January this year, the US Food and Drug Administration said it had received 116,000 reports of problems, while 561 deaths had been linked to the devices.', 'The affair led the departure of Philips’ chief executive Frans van Houten in 2022.', 'Earlier this month, Philips Respironics reached an agreement with the Department of Justice in a US court, a ""consent decree"" under which it will face regular inspections of its US facilities for the next five years.', 'It will also have to pay part of its revenues to the US Treasury, and be prevented from selling a range of respiratory devices on the US market until it meets a range of conditions related to the repair or replacement of older models.', 'The latest settlement covers a class action lawsuit as well as individual personal injury claims in the US.', 'It has come sooner than had been expected, and the total cost is considerably lower than many analysts had forecast, with some having previously predicted it could be worth as much as $4.5bn (£3.5bn).', ""The company's chief executive, Roy Jakobs, described the agreements as “significant milestones” that would “provide further clarity on the way forward for Philips”."", 'Lawyers who brought the case on behalf of victims told the BBC that they were ""pleased"" to have reached a resolution. ""', 'The agreements with Philips will provide compensation to those users of the now-recalled CPAP and other respiratory devices who suffer from significant physical injuries and important research for the treatment of those injuries,"" a statement said. ""', 'Ultimately, these combined agreements accomplish what we sought to achieve when this litigation began - holding Philips accountable by obtaining care for those with physical injuries and compensation for those needing new respiratory devices.""']",-0.0446616421140576,"Earlier this month, Philips Respironics reached an agreement with the Department of Justice in a US court, a ""consent decree"" under which it will face regular inspections of its US facilities for the next five years.","The settlement is expected to go some way towards drawing a line under a controversial and deeply damaging episode for the company, which has hurt its finances and its reputation.",0.4602984840219671,"The settlement was much lower than many analysts had expected, and the company’s share price rose more than 40% after the announcement.","In 2021, it emerged that foam fitted in breathing machines used to treat sleep apnoea and other disorders could degrade, releasing potentially toxic particles into masks worn by patients.",2024-04-29
Newcastle Building Society to help failed trust fund families,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98zy5r80d5o,2024-04-26T16:16:20.121Z,"A building society has said it will offer “voluntary” financial support to some of its customers who lost their savings when a trust fund firm went bust. Philips Trust Corporation (PTC) went into administration in 2022 leaving more than 2,000 people out of pocket. Some of those have argued Newcastle Building Society (NBS) bears some responsibility for them eventually ending up at PTC. However, at NBS’s annual general meeting this week, its head said it was not responsible for PTC’s actions but would offer “meaningful” support to some customers. Chief executive Andrew Haigh said the firm could not share details about payments as it was working out ""where exactly this financial support will apply"". In the meeting, he said the building society considered the actions of PTC “worthy of consideration by the police”. NBS said it had been in touch with the police and stressed it never had a relationship with PTC and did not refer customers. Gordon Crosthwaite said his mother-in-law Kathleen Birtley, from Northumberland, put about £105,000 into a PTC trust after initially being referred to the Will Writing Company by NBS.  She hoped the money would be used to take care of her disabled son when she died, he said.  But Mr Crosthwaite said he feared she would not get the money back. It was unclear what Mr Haigh meant by ""meaningful"" support and who would actually receive any money, he added.  ""We'll wait and see,"" he said. The BBC understands an entity connected with PTC took over the assets of the Will Writing Company, which went into administration in 2018 and whose services had originally been referred to customers by NBS. NBS maintains it wrote to customers to make clear it had no relationship to parties connected to PTC, after PTC acquired the assets of the Will Writing Company. Some customers said they had not received the first letter and argued they received a second letter too late to act on it. Newcastle solicitor Claire Springle said she believed some of her clients only ended up with PTC because they had accounts with the building society. NBS referred some customers the Will Writing Company to help them write wills and plan their estates, said Mr Springle. This firm then recommended some to its sister company, Family Trust Corporation (FTC), to help them put their homes and savings into trusts. Ms Springle said many of her clients, most of whom were older, did this because they thought they could avoid future care costs. When PTC took over parts of the Will Writing Company in 2018 several FTC customers switched the ownership of their trusts to PTC, according to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). After PTC went bust in 2022, it emerged it had moved its customers’ money to higher risk investments, the FCA said. NBS maintains PTC independently contacted customers inviting them to transfer to itself some less risky regulated trusts that had been set up by FTC. “This meant that, unfortunately, a lot of its customers face potential investment losses,” the regulatory body said. PTC's administrators, Kroll, said it held approximately 2,345 trusts. Follow BBC North East on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk. ",BBC,26/04/2024,"['A building society has said it will offer “voluntary” financial support to some of its customers who lost their savings when a trust fund firm went bust.', 'Philips Trust Corporation (PTC) went into administration in 2022 leaving more than 2,000 people out of pocket.', 'Some of those have argued Newcastle Building Society (NBS) bears some responsibility for them eventually ending up at PTC.', 'However, at NBS’s annual general meeting this week, its head said it was not responsible for PTC’s actions but would offer “meaningful” support to some customers.', 'Chief executive Andrew Haigh said the firm could not share details about payments as it was working out ""where exactly this financial support will apply"".', 'In the meeting, he said the building society considered the actions of PTC “worthy of consideration by the police”.', 'NBS said it had been in touch with the police and stressed it never had a relationship with PTC and did not refer customers.', 'Gordon Crosthwaite said his mother-in-law Kathleen Birtley, from Northumberland, put about £105,000 into a PTC trust after initially being referred to the Will Writing Company by NBS.', 'She hoped the money would be used to take care of her disabled son when she died, he said.', 'But Mr Crosthwaite said he feared she would not get the money back.', 'It was unclear what Mr Haigh meant by ""meaningful"" support and who would actually receive any money, he added. ""', 'We\'ll wait and see,"" he said.', 'The BBC understands an entity connected with PTC took over the assets of the Will Writing Company, which went into administration in 2018 and whose services had originally been referred to customers by NBS.', 'NBS maintains it wrote to customers to make clear it had no relationship to parties connected to PTC, after PTC acquired the assets of the Will Writing Company.', 'Some customers said they had not received the first letter and argued they received a second letter too late to act on it.', 'Newcastle solicitor Claire Springle said she believed some of her clients only ended up with PTC because they had accounts with the building society.', 'NBS referred some customers the Will Writing Company to help them write wills and plan their estates, said Mr Springle.', 'This firm then recommended some to its sister company, Family Trust Corporation (FTC), to help them put their homes and savings into trusts.', 'Ms Springle said many of her clients, most of whom were older, did this because they thought they could avoid future care costs.', 'When PTC took over parts of the Will Writing Company in 2018 several FTC customers switched the ownership of their trusts to PTC, according to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).', 'After PTC went bust in 2022, it emerged it had moved its customers’ money to higher risk investments, the FCA said.', 'NBS maintains PTC independently contacted customers inviting them to transfer to itself some less risky regulated trusts that had been set up by FTC. “', 'This meant that, unfortunately, a lot of its customers face potential investment losses,” the regulatory body said.', ""PTC's administrators, Kroll, said it held approximately 2,345 trusts."", 'Follow BBC North East on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram.', 'Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk.']",0.1906699339867517,"This firm then recommended some to its sister company, Family Trust Corporation (FTC), to help them put their homes and savings into trusts.",But Mr Crosthwaite said he feared she would not get the money back.,-0.5707357823848724,"However, at NBS’s annual general meeting this week, its head said it was not responsible for PTC’s actions but would offer “meaningful” support to some customers.","This meant that, unfortunately, a lot of its customers face potential investment losses,” the regulatory body said.",2024-04-29
JetBlue shares tumble nearly 19% after airline lowers 2024 revenue outlook,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/23/jetblue-jblu-lowers-2024-revenue-outlook.html,2024-04-23T20:07:59+0000,"In this articleJetBlue Airways shares tumbled more than 18% Tuesday after the airline lowered its 2024 revenue forecast, a setback as it tries to return to profitability.The carrier said second-quarter revenue would likely drop as much as 10.5% on the year, more than double the decline analysts polled by LSEG expected. New York-JetBlue forecast full-year sales would drop in the low single digits, also below Wall Street expectations, after estimating flat sales for the year in its January report.JetBlue has been on a cost-cutting spree, culling unprofitable routes, and focusing on those with steady demand and high sales for premium seats. The carrier last month called off its merger agreement with budget carrier Spirit Airlines after a judge blocked that $3.8 billion deal on antitrust grounds.The outlook update Tuesday shows a growing divide between JetBlue and its larger rivals that have big international networks like Delta and United, which have forecast profits, strong revenue and record demand this summer.""As we look to the full year, significant elevated capacity in our Latin [America] region, which represents a large portion of JetBlue's network, will likely continue to pressure revenue and we expect a setback in our expectations for the full year,"" Joanna Geraghty, who became CEO in February, said in an earnings release. ""We have full confidence that continuing to take action on our refocused standalone strategy is the right path forward to ultimately return to profitability again.""JetBlue is affected by a Pratt & Whitney engine recall that has grounded some of its planes.""It's definitely a big hinderance,"" Geraghty told CNBC of the engine issue. ""Pratt's a good partner. We're focused on trying to make progress on compensation with them. We're not where we need to be. ... But that is ultimately what is depressing our growth.""Geraghty said the airline expects lower capacity next year.In an investor presentation Tuesday, the airline said it was ""actively exploring"" more cost cuts. JetBlue earlier this year said it would defer $2.5 billion in aircraft spending until the end of the year.In the first three months of the year, JetBlue lost $716 million, or $2.11 per share, compared with a loss of $192 million, or 58 cents a share, in the same period of 2023.Adjusting for one-time items, including break-up charges related to the failed Spirit merger, JetBlue lost $145 million, or 43 cents per share, narrower than the 52-cent adjusted loss analysts polled by LSEG expected.Revenue dropped 5.1% from last year to $2.21 billion, matching LSEG revenue expectations.Bright spots included strong demand in the peak travel period, domestic and Europe flights ""as well as continued outsized demand for our premium seating options,"" said JetBlue's President, Marty St. George, who returned to the airline earlier this year.— CNBC's Phil LeBeau contributed to this report.",CNBC,23/04/2024,"['In this articleJetBlue Airways shares tumbled more than 18% Tuesday after the airline lowered its 2024 revenue forecast, a setback as it tries to return to profitability.', 'The carrier said second-quarter revenue would likely drop as much as 10.5% on the year, more than double the decline analysts polled by LSEG expected.', 'New York-JetBlue forecast full-year sales would drop in the low single digits, also below Wall Street expectations, after estimating flat sales for the year in its January report.', 'JetBlue has been on a cost-cutting spree, culling unprofitable routes, and focusing on those with steady demand and high sales for premium seats.', 'The carrier last month called off its merger agreement with budget carrier Spirit Airlines after a judge blocked that $3.8 billion deal on antitrust grounds.', 'The outlook update Tuesday shows a growing divide between JetBlue and its larger rivals that have big international networks like Delta and United, which have forecast profits, strong revenue and record demand this summer.', '""As we look to the full year, significant elevated capacity in our Latin [America] region, which represents a large portion of JetBlue\'s network, will likely continue to pressure revenue and we expect a setback in our expectations for the full year,"" Joanna Geraghty, who became CEO in February, said in an earnings release. ""', 'We have full confidence that continuing to take action on our refocused standalone strategy is the right path forward to ultimately return to profitability again.', '""JetBlue is affected by a Pratt & Whitney engine recall that has grounded some of its planes.', '""It\'s definitely a big hinderance,"" Geraghty told CNBC of the engine issue. ""', ""Pratt's a good partner."", ""We're focused on trying to make progress on compensation with them."", ""We're not where we need to be. ..."", 'But that is ultimately what is depressing our growth.', '""Geraghty said the airline expects lower capacity next year.', 'In an investor presentation Tuesday, the airline said it was ""actively exploring"" more cost cuts.', 'JetBlue earlier this year said it woulddefer $2.5 billion in aircraft spendinguntil the end of the year.', 'In the first three months of the year, JetBlue lost $716 million, or $2.11 per share, compared with a loss of $192 million, or 58 cents a share, in the same period of 2023.Adjusting for one-time items, including break-up charges related to the failed Spirit merger, JetBlue lost $145 million, or 43 cents per share, narrower than the 52-cent adjusted loss analysts polled by LSEG expected.', 'Revenue dropped 5.1% from last year to $2.21 billion, matching LSEG revenue expectations.', 'Bright spots included strong demand in the peak travel period, domestic and Europe flights ""as well as continued outsized demand for our premium seating options,"" said JetBlue\'s President, Marty St. George, who returned to the airline earlier this year.—', ""CNBC's Phil LeBeau contributed to this report.""]",0.1087231275982441,"The outlook update Tuesday shows a growing divide between JetBlue and its larger rivals that have big international networks like Delta and United, which have forecast profits, strong revenue and record demand this summer.","In the first three months of the year, JetBlue lost $716 million, or $2.11 per share, compared with a loss of $192 million, or 58 cents a share, in the same period of 2023.Adjusting for one-time items, including break-up charges related to the failed Spirit merger, JetBlue lost $145 million, or 43 cents per share, narrower than the 52-cent adjusted loss analysts polled by LSEG expected.",-0.245643176138401,"Bright spots included strong demand in the peak travel period, domestic and Europe flights ""as well as continued outsized demand for our premium seating options,"" said JetBlue's President, Marty St. George, who returned to the airline earlier this year.—","Revenue dropped 5.1% from last year to $2.21 billion, matching LSEG revenue expectations.",2024-04-29
Ford tops first-quarter earnings estimates as commercial unit offsets EV losses,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/24/ford-f-earnings-q1-2024.html,2024-04-24T21:50:43+0000,"In this articleDETROIT — Sales of Ford Motor trucks and other commercial vehicles led the automaker to beat Wall Street's earnings estimates for the first quarter, offsetting losses of its electric vehicles.The company maintained its 2024 earnings guidance of adjusted earnings before interest and taxes, or EBIT, of between $10 billion and $12 billion. It slightly lowered capital expenditure expectations and raised its adjusted free cash flow outlook for the year.The automaker now expects to generate adjusted free cash flow of $6.5 billion to $7.5 billion, up from a previous outlook of $6 billion to $7 billion. Its forecast for capital expenditures is now $8 billion to $9 billion, narrower than the $8 billion to $9.5 billion range it originally estimated.Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler on Wednesday described the quarter as ""solid,"" with the company tracking to the higher end of its previously announced guidance.While the automaker beat earnings estimates, it slightly missed on automotive revenue. Here are the results for Ford's first quarter, compared with Wall Street expectations, according to LSEG:Ford's overall revenue for the first quarter, including its credit business, increased about 3% year over year to $42.78 billion.Net income for the period was $1.33 billion, or 33 cents per share, compared with $1.76 billion, or 44 cents, a year earlier. Adjusted EBIT declined 18% year over year to $2.76 billion, or 49 cents per share.Ford's traditional business, known as Ford Blue, reported adjusted earnings that were down 66% compared to a year earlier to $905 million. Its Ford Pro commercial business earned $3.01 billion, up 120% from the first quarter of last year. Ford's Model e electric vehicle unit posted a $1.32 billion loss from January through March.The notable decline in Ford Blue was related to the launch of the company's refreshed F-150 pickup, which it held shipments of during most of the quarter to address undisclosed quality issues.Ford CEO Jim Farley said the company avoided ""about 12 recalls"" thanks to the additional quality checks during the stop-shipment, helping to lower warranty costs for the company.""What we're going to see long-term is less recalls and lower warranty costs because of this new process,"" Farley said Wednesday during the company's first-quarter earnings call. ""I'm really proud of the team's progress and quality and we have so much more to do.""Ford has faced years of inflated warranty costs, including $1.9 billion in 2023, which have affected its earnings. The company last year said it has a $7 billion to $8 billion annual disadvantage compared to traditional rivals due to production costs, quality issues and other operational inefficiencies.Ford previously said it assembled 144,000 of the F-150 full-size and Ranger midsize pickups during the first quarter of the year. Those vehicles began shipping to dealers and customers earlier this month. Roughly 92% of the pickups built were F-150s.As part of its 2024 guidance, first released in February, Ford said it expected its EV business to lose between $5 billion and $5.5 billion this year. Ford Blue earnings were expected to be roughly flat at $7 billion to $7.5 billion for 2024, while Ford Pro was expected to come in around $8 billion to $9 billion for the full year.Lawler said Ford remains on track this year to take $2 billion in costs out of the business through reductions in things such as materials, freight and manufacturing. He said much of those savings will occur during the second half of the year.Ford's first-quarter earnings come a day after its crosstown rival General Motors reported strong first-quarter results and raised its full-year guidance.— CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this report.",CNBC,24/04/2024,"[""In this articleDETROIT — Sales of Ford Motor trucks and other commercial vehicles led the automaker to beat Wall Street's earnings estimates for the first quarter, offsetting losses of its electric vehicles."", 'The company maintained its 2024 earnings guidance of adjusted earnings before interest and taxes, or EBIT, of between $10 billion and $12 billion.', 'It slightly lowered capital expenditure expectations and raised its adjusted free cash flow outlook for the year.', 'The automaker now expects to generate adjusted free cash flow of $6.5 billion to $7.5 billion, up from a previous outlook of $6 billion to $7 billion.', 'Its forecast for capital expenditures is now $8 billion to $9 billion, narrower than the $8 billion to $9.5 billion range it originally estimated.', 'Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler on Wednesday described the quarter as ""solid,"" with the company tracking to the higher end of its previously announced guidance.', 'While the automaker beat earnings estimates, it slightly missed on automotive revenue.', ""Here are the results for Ford's first quarter, compared with Wall Street expectations, according to LSEG:Ford's overall revenue for the first quarter, including its credit business, increased about 3% year over year to $42.78 billion."", 'Net income for the period was $1.33 billion, or 33 cents per share, compared with $1.76 billion, or 44 cents, a year earlier.', 'Adjusted EBIT declined 18% year over year to $2.76 billion, or 49 cents per share.', ""Ford's traditional business, known as Ford Blue, reported adjusted earnings that were down 66% compared to a year earlier to $905 million."", 'Its Ford Pro commercial business earned $3.01 billion, up 120% from the first quarter of last year.', ""Ford's Model e electric vehicle unit posted a $1.32 billion loss from January through March."", ""The notable decline in Ford Blue was related to the launch of the company's refreshed F-150 pickup, which it held shipments of during most of the quarter to address undisclosed quality issues."", 'Ford CEO Jim Farley said the company avoided ""about 12 recalls"" thanks to the additional quality checks during the stop-shipment, helping to lower warranty costs for the company.', '""What we\'re going to see long-term is less recalls and lower warranty costs because of this new process,"" Farley said Wednesday during the company\'s first-quarter earnings call. ""', ""I'm really proud of the team's progress and quality and we have so much more to do."", '""Ford has faced years of inflated warranty costs, including $1.9 billion in 2023, which have affected its earnings.', 'The company last year said it has a $7 billion to $8 billion annual disadvantage compared to traditional rivals due to production costs, quality issues and other operational inefficiencies.', 'Ford previously said it assembled 144,000 of the F-150 full-size and Ranger midsize pickups during the first quarter of the year.', 'Those vehicles began shipping to dealers and customers earlier this month.', 'Roughly 92% ofthe pickups builtwere F-150s.', 'As part of its 2024 guidance, first released in February, Ford said it expected its EV business to lose between $5 billion and $5.5 billion this year.', 'Ford Blue earnings were expected to be roughly flat at $7 billion to $7.5 billion for 2024, while Ford Pro was expected to come in around $8 billion to $9 billion for the full year.', 'Lawler said Ford remains on track this year to take $2 billion in costs out of the business through reductions in things such as materials, freight and manufacturing.', 'He said much of those savings will occur during the second half of the year.', ""Ford's first-quarter earnings come a day after its crosstown rival General Motors reported strong first-quarter results and raised its full-year guidance.—"", ""CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this report.""]",0.0596242489508853,I'm really proud of the team's progress and quality and we have so much more to do.,"The company last year said it has a $7 billion to $8 billion annual disadvantage compared to traditional rivals due to production costs, quality issues and other operational inefficiencies.",0.0452342525772426,"The automaker now expects to generate adjusted free cash flow of $6.5 billion to $7.5 billion, up from a previous outlook of $6 billion to $7 billion.","Adjusted EBIT declined 18% year over year to $2.76 billion, or 49 cents per share.",2024-04-29
"Starbucks, Workers United made 'significant progress' in this week's contract talks",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/26/starbucks-workers-united-union-make-progress-in-negotiations.html,2024-04-26T17:46:12+0000,"In this articleStarbucks and Workers United, representing roughly 400 of its cafes, said Friday in a joint release that they made ""significant progress"" in their contract talks this week.The two parties discussed a process to resolve grievances, details related to the union's representation of Starbucks baristas, and other topics on Wednesday and Thursday in Atlanta, according to the press release.The two-day session marked the first time in nearly a year that Starbucks and Workers United came to the bargaining table. It followed a February announcement that the two sides were ending their bitter stalemate.The coffee giant spent more than two years battling the union, which is an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU. Workers United has broadly pushed for higher wages and more consistent scheduling, among a range of other priorities.This week's talks are the closest that any of the unionized locations, which make up a small fraction of Starbucks' total U.S. footprint, have come to a collective bargaining agreement.Yet, there's still a long road ahead.""There's more to do, but we are committed to working together,"" both sides said in a joint statement.Starbucks and the union plan to meet again in late May to keep working on the framework that will inform every single-store contract, according to the release. Individual stores will still have to negotiate and ratify their contracts once that foundation has been built.Labor laws do not require that the employer and union reach a collective bargaining agreement, only that both bargain in good faith. After a year, workers who lose faith in the union can petition to decertify, putting a ticking clock on negotiations. Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Starbucks and Workers United represent about 400 cafes. An earlier version misstated the number.",CNBC,26/04/2024,"['In this articleStarbucks and Workers United, representing roughly 400 of its cafes, said Friday in a joint release that they made ""significant progress"" in their contract talks this week.', ""The two parties discussed a process to resolve grievances, details related to the union's representation of Starbucks baristas, and other topics on Wednesday and Thursday in Atlanta, according to the press release."", 'The two-day session marked the first time in nearly a year that Starbucks and Workers United came to the bargaining table.', 'It followed a February announcement that the two sides were ending their bitter stalemate.', 'The coffee giant spent more than two years battling the union, which is an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU.', 'Workers United has broadly pushed for higher wages and more consistent scheduling, among a range of other priorities.', ""This week's talks are the closest that any of the unionized locations, which make up a small fraction of Starbucks' total U.S. footprint, have come to a collective bargaining agreement."", ""Yet, there's still a long road ahead."", '""There\'s more to do, but we are committed to working together,"" both sides said in a joint statement.', 'Starbucks and the union plan to meet again in late May to keep working on the framework that will inform every single-store contract, according to the release.', 'Individual stores will still have to negotiate and ratify their contracts once that foundation has been built.', 'Labor laws do not require that the employer and union reach a collective bargaining agreement, only that both bargain in good faith.', 'After a year, workers who lose faith in the union can petition to decertify, putting a ticking clock on negotiations.', 'Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Starbucks and Workers United represent about 400 cafes.', 'An earlier version misstated the number.']",0.239976481095241,"Labor laws do not require that the employer and union reach a collective bargaining agreement, only that both bargain in good faith.",It followed a February announcement that the two sides were ending their bitter stalemate.,0.999555766582489,"In this articleStarbucks and Workers United, representing roughly 400 of its cafes, said Friday in a joint release that they made ""significant progress"" in their contract talks this week.",,2024-04-29
Vinted turns first profit as second-hand fashion remains on trend,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cxwvp2z7djyo,2024-04-29T17:28:11.402Z,"Vinted has made a profit for the first time as the fashion for second-hand clothes remains on trend. It was a firm ""at the forefront of a market with huge potential"", its chief executive said. Digital platforms allowing customers to sell their ""pre-loved"" items direct to other people have taken off in recent years. But Vinted, which has expanded rapidly across Europe, is the first out of the red, turning a €20.4m (£17.4m) loss in 2022 into a €17.8m profit. Thomas Plantenga, Vinted's chief executive, said second-hand fashion remained a ""tiny"" proportion of the market but that the firm was in a strong position. As well as expanding into new markets, including Denmark, Finland and Romania, Vinted had also accelerated the development of its delivery service Vinted Go, he said. “We see many opportunities ahead, so we’ll continue to balance profitability against investment opportunities to accelerate towards our mission,” Mr Plantenga said. He added that enabling customers to sell to each other would help ""mitigate the harm of the fashion industry"". Vinted said revenues had jumped 61% to €596.3m (£509m) in 2023 compared with the previous year. The marketplace acquired a second-hand designer clothes specialist platform, Rebelle in 2022 and has launched a service which verifies the authenticity of valuable items. Vinted and a similar UK-based platform Depop have both caught on with British shoppers in recent years, eating into eBay's original dominance of the second-hand clothing market, and appealing particularly to younger shoppers.  The cost-of-living crisis, combined with increased awareness of fashion's environmental impact, have helped bolster the trend. Social media influencers and celebrities have also helped to overhaul associations with musty, out-of-fashion, charity shop stock. A recent report from US-based second-hand retailer ThredUp suggests that the market for used fashion is now worth tens of billions of dollars a year in Asia, North America and Europe. However the size of the new clothes market, and the trend towards lower quality ""fast fashion"" products, mean it is hard for second-hand platforms to make a profit. Vinted, a privately owned firm, said it had also expanded its staff by a third. It now has 2,000 employees, most of them in Lithuania. ",BBC,29/04/2024,"['Vinted has made a profit for the first time as the fashion for second-hand clothes remains on trend.', 'It was a firm ""at the forefront of a market with huge potential"", its chief executive said.', 'Digital platforms allowing customers to sell their ""pre-loved"" items direct to other people have taken off in recent years.', 'But Vinted, which has expanded rapidly across Europe, is the first out of the red, turning a €20.4m (£17.4m) loss in 2022 into a €17.8m profit.', 'Thomas Plantenga, Vinted\'s chief executive, said second-hand fashion remained a ""tiny"" proportion of the market but that the firm was in a strong position.', 'As well as expanding into new markets, including Denmark, Finland and Romania, Vinted had also accelerated the development of its delivery service Vinted Go, he said. “', 'We see many opportunities ahead, so we’ll continue to balance profitability against investment opportunities to accelerate towards our mission,” Mr Plantenga said.', 'He added that enabling customers to sell to each other would help ""mitigate the harm of the fashion industry"".', 'Vinted said revenues had jumped 61% to €596.3m (£509m) in 2023 compared with the previous year.', 'The marketplace acquired a second-hand designer clothes specialist platform, Rebelle in 2022 and has launched a service which verifies the authenticity of valuable items.', ""Vinted and a similar UK-based platform Depop have both caught on with British shoppers in recent years, eating into eBay's original dominance of the second-hand clothing market, and appealing particularly to younger shoppers."", ""The cost-of-living crisis, combined with increased awareness of fashion's environmental impact, have helped bolster the trend."", 'Social media influencers and celebrities have also helped to overhaul associations with musty, out-of-fashion, charity shop stock.', 'A recent report from US-based second-hand retailer ThredUp suggests that the market for used fashion is now worth tens of billions of dollars a year in Asia, North America and Europe.', 'However the size of the new clothes market, and the trend towards lower quality ""fast fashion"" products, mean it is hard for second-hand platforms to make a profit.', 'Vinted, a privately owned firm, said it had also expanded its staff by a third.', 'It now has 2,000 employees, most of them in Lithuania.']",0.3586746363050627,"The marketplace acquired a second-hand designer clothes specialist platform, Rebelle in 2022 and has launched a service which verifies the authenticity of valuable items.","The cost-of-living crisis, combined with increased awareness of fashion's environmental impact, have helped bolster the trend.",0.8521748398031507,Vinted said revenues had jumped 61% to €596.3m (£509m) in 2023 compared with the previous year.,"However the size of the new clothes market, and the trend towards lower quality ""fast fashion"" products, mean it is hard for second-hand platforms to make a profit.",2024-04-29
The new class war: A wealth gap between millennials,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/26/wealth-gap-between-millennials-new-class-war.html,2024-04-26T20:47:22+0000,"A version of this article first appeared in CNBC's Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.The wealth gap between rich millennials and the rest of their age group is the largest of any generation, creating a new wave of class tension and resentment, according to a recent study.Even as the vast majority of millennials struggle with student debt, low-wage service-jobs, unaffordable housing and low savings, the millennial elite are surpassing previous generations. According to the study, the average millennial has 30% less wealth at the age of 35 than baby boomers did at the same age. Yet the top 10% of millennials have 20% more wealth than the top baby boomers at the same age.""Millennials are so different from one another that it is not particularly meaningful to talk about the 'average' Millennial experience,"" wrote the study's authors, Rob Gruijters, Zachary Van Winkle and Anette Eva Fasang. ""There are some Millennials who are doing extremely well—think Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman—while others are struggling.""The study finds that millennials — typically defined as those between the age of 28 and 43 today — have faced repeated financial headwinds. Coming of age during the financial crisis, they have lower levels of homeownership, larger debts outweighing assets, low-wage and unstable jobs, and lower rates of dual-income family formation.At the same time, the authors say the top 10% of millennials have benefited from greater rewards for skilled jobs. As they put it, ""The returns to high-status work trajectories have increased, while the returns to low-status trajectories have stagnated or declined.""The millennials who ""went to college, found graduate level jobs, and started families relatively late,"" ended up with ""higher levels of wealth than Baby Boomers with similar life trajectories,"" according to the report.There may be another factor creating so much wealth among millennials: inheritances. In what's known as ""the great wealth transfer,"" baby boomers are expected to pass down between $70 trillion and $90 trillion in wealth over the next 20 years. Much of that is expected to go to their millennial children. High-net-worth individuals worth $5 million or more will account for nearly half of that total, according to Cerulli Associates.Wealth management firms say some of that wealth has already starting trickling down to the next generation.""The great wealth transfer, which we've all been talking about for the last 10 years, is underway,"" said John Mathews, head of UBS' Private Wealth Management division. ""The average age of the world's billionaires is almost 69 right now. So this whole transition or wealth handover will start to accelerate.""Tensions between millennial classes are likely to escalate as more wealth is transferred in the coming years. Wealth displays on social media by millennial ""nepo babies"" could add to the intra-generational class war and drive nonwealthy millennials to overspend or create the appearance of lavish lifestyles to keep up.A survey by Wells Fargo found that 29% of affluent millennials (defined as having assets of $250,000 to over $1 million of investible assets) admit they ""sometimes buy items they cannot afford to impress others."" According to the survey, 41% of affluent millennials admit to funding their lifestyles with credit cards or loans, versus 28% of Gen Xers and 6% of baby boomers.The battle between rich millennials and the rest could also shape their attitudes toward wealth. For over four decades, the vast majority of millionaires and billionaires created in America have been self-made, mostly entrepreneurs. A study by Fidelity Investments found that 88% of American millionaires are self-made.Yet inherited wealth could become more common. A study by UBS found that among newly minted billionaires last year, heirs who inherited their fortunes racked up more wealth than self-made billionaires for the first time in at least nine years. And, all the billionaires under the age of 30 on the latest Forbes billionaires list inherited their wealth, for the first time in 15 years.The surge in wealth among millennial heirs is also creating a lucrative new market for wealth-management firms, luxury companies, travel firms and real estate brokers.Clayton Orrigo, one of the top luxury real estate brokers in Manhattan, has built a thriving business on moneyed millennials. The founder of the Hudson Advisory Team at Compass has sold over $4 billion in real estate and regularly brokers deals over $10 million. He says the ""vast majority"" of his business lately is from buyers in their 20s and 30s with inherited wealth.""I just sold a $16 million apartment to someone in their mid-20s, and the buyer accessed the family trust,"" he said. ""The wealth that is behind these kids is extreme.""Inherited wealth has become Orrigo's specialty. He says he works on forging close relationships with family offices, trusts and young money elite mingling at New York membership clubs like Casa Cipriani.The pattern is familiar: A wealthy family calls wanting a rental for their son or daughter; a few years later, they want a $5 million or $10 million two-bedroom condo to buy in a new, high-security building downtown.""My gig is working very quietly and very discreetly with the wealthiest families in the world,"" Orrigo said.Sign up to receive future editions of CNBC's Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank.",CNBC,26/04/2024,"[""A version of this article first appeared in CNBC's Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer."", 'Sign upto receive future editions, straight to your inbox.', 'The wealth gap between rich millennials and the rest of their age group is the largest of any generation, creating a new wave of class tension and resentment, according to a recent study.', 'Even as the vast majority of millennials struggle with student debt, low-wage service-jobs, unaffordable housing and low savings, the millennial elite are surpassing previous generations.', 'According to the study, the average millennial has 30% less wealth at the age of 35 than baby boomers did at the same age.', 'Yet the top 10% of millennials have 20% more wealth than the top baby boomers at the same age.', '""Millennials are so different from one another that it is not particularly meaningful to talk about the \'average\' Millennial experience,"" wrote the study\'s authors, Rob Gruijters, Zachary Van Winkle and Anette Eva Fasang. ""', 'There are some Millennials who are doing extremely well—think Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman—while others are struggling.', '""The study finds that millennials — typically defined as those between the age of 28 and 43 today — have faced repeated financial headwinds.', 'Coming of age during the financial crisis, they have lower levels of homeownership, larger debts outweighing assets, low-wage and unstable jobs, and lower rates of dual-income family formation.', 'At the same time, the authors say the top 10% of millennials have benefited from greater rewards for skilled jobs.', 'As they put it, ""The returns to high-status work trajectories have increased, while the returns to low-status trajectories have stagnated or declined.', '""The millennials who ""went to college, found graduate level jobs, and started families relatively late,"" ended up with ""higher levels of wealth than Baby Boomers with similar life trajectories,"" according to the report.', 'There may be another factor creating so much wealth among millennials: inheritances.', 'In what\'s known as ""the great wealth transfer,"" baby boomers are expected to pass down between $70 trillion and $90 trillion in wealth over the next 20 years.', 'Much of that is expected to go to their millennial children.', 'High-net-worth individuals worth $5 million or more will account for nearly half of that total, according to Cerulli Associates.', 'Wealth management firms say some of that wealth has already starting trickling down to the next generation.', '""The great wealth transfer, which we\'ve all been talking about for the last 10 years, is underway,"" said John Mathews, head of UBS\'Private Wealth Management division. ""', ""The average age of the world's billionaires is almost 69 right now."", 'So this whole transition or wealth handover will start to accelerate.', '""Tensions between millennial classes are likely to escalate as more wealth is transferred in the coming years.', 'Wealth displays on social media by millennial ""nepo babies"" could add to the intra-generational class war and drive nonwealthy millennials to overspend or create the appearance of lavish lifestyles to keep up.', 'A survey by Wells Fargo found that 29% of affluent millennials (defined as having assets of $250,000 to over $1 million of investible assets) admit they ""sometimes buy items they cannot afford to impress others.""', 'According to the survey, 41% of affluent millennials admit to funding their lifestyles with credit cards or loans, versus 28% of Gen Xers and 6% of baby boomers.', 'The battle between rich millennials and the rest could also shape their attitudes toward wealth.', 'For over four decades, the vast majority of millionaires and billionaires created in America have been self-made, mostly entrepreneurs.', 'A study by Fidelity Investments found that 88% of American millionaires are self-made.', 'Yet inherited wealth could become more common.', 'A study by UBS found that among newly minted billionaires last year, heirs who inherited their fortunes racked up more wealth than self-made billionaires for the first time in at least nine years.', 'And, all the billionaires under the age of 30 on the latest Forbes billionaires list inherited their wealth, for the first time in 15 years.', 'The surge in wealth among millennial heirs is also creating a lucrative new market for wealth-management firms, luxury companies, travel firms and real estate brokers.', 'Clayton Orrigo, one of the top luxury real estate brokers in Manhattan, has built a thriving business on moneyed millennials.', 'The founder of the Hudson Advisory Team at Compass has sold over $4 billion in real estate and regularly brokers deals over $10 million.', 'He says the ""vast majority"" of his business lately is from buyers in their 20s and 30s with inherited wealth.', '""I just sold a $16 million apartment to someone in their mid-20s, and the buyer accessed the family trust,"" he said. ""', 'The wealth that is behind these kids is extreme.', '""Inherited wealth has become Orrigo\'s specialty.', 'He says he works on forging close relationships with family offices, trusts and young money elite mingling at New York membership clubs like Casa Cipriani.', 'The pattern is familiar: A wealthy family calls wanting a rental for their son or daughter; a few years later, they want a $5 million or $10 million two-bedroom condo to buy in a new, high-security building downtown.', '""My gig is working very quietly and very discreetly with the wealthiest families in the world,"" Orrigo said.', ""Sign up to receive future editions of CNBC'sInside Wealthnewsletter with Robert Frank.""]",0.3328991275805766,"In what's known as ""the great wealth transfer,"" baby boomers are expected to pass down between $70 trillion and $90 trillion in wealth over the next 20 years.","Coming of age during the financial crisis, they have lower levels of homeownership, larger debts outweighing assets, low-wage and unstable jobs, and lower rates of dual-income family formation.",0.0389725693634578,"At the same time, the authors say the top 10% of millennials have benefited from greater rewards for skilled jobs.","""The study finds that millennials — typically defined as those between the age of 28 and 43 today — have faced repeated financial headwinds.",2024-04-29
Boeing: Dead whistleblower warned of safety breaches,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/68907597,2024-04-26T21:01:13.000Z,"A former Boeing employee, who was found dead in March, accused the company of ""countless"" violations of US law in testimony given just before his death. John Barnett claimed the firm tried to ""eliminate"" quality inspections at a plant that makes 787 planes. The former quality control manager had been giving a formal legal deposition against the plane manufacturer. The 62-year-old's death after two days of testimony was from a ""self-inflicted gunshot wound"", officials said. Boeing says it was ""saddened"" by Mr Barnett's death, but said the issues he raised had been reviewed and addressed. The aerospace giant's safety standards are currently under the spotlight, in part due to an incident in January when a disused door fell off a brand new 737 Max shortly after take-off. The transcript of Mr Barnett's deposition has now been released by his lawyers. The lengthy document runs to more than 140 pages. Mr Barnett had worked for Boeing for more than 30 years before his retirement on health grounds in 2017. He subsequently filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming he had suffered retaliation from managers after raising a number of serious safety concerns, a charge the company denies. The bulk of Mr Barnett's deposition focuses on the period from 2010 onwards, after he had moved from Boeing's facility in Everett, Washington to what was then a brand-new factory in North Charleston. The plant had been set up to help assemble the 787 Dreamliner, a state-of-the-art airliner used mainly on long-haul routes. Mr Barnett had previously told the BBC and others that managers there had routinely ignored formal procedures in order to build planes as quickly as possible. In his deposition, he provided more detail on these allegations, in support of his legal complaint that he had been ""denigrated, humiliated and treated with scorn"" by senior managers, who had subjected him to a gaslighting campaign, and created a ""hostile work environment"" as a result of his actions. A key part of his testimony focused on the alleged falsification of records relating to problems within the production process and in particular the logging of defective or substandard parts. He claimed employees had been under pressure to circumvent established procedures, set out in Boeing's own Quality Management System, to save time. A common theme within the factory, he said, was: ""We don't have time to follow processes, we're building airplanes"". This, he said, had allowed ""an awful lot"" of faulty parts onto the production line, while others had simply been lost. These included two large sections of aircraft fuselage, which ""weren't anywhere to be found"". In one specific instance, he claimed a contaminated and faulty tube designed to work in an oxygen system had been removed from a scrap bin and might have been installed on an aircraft that was now in service. Such parts normally had to be carefully sterilised to reduce the risk of unwanted chemical reactions. Without that, he said, there was a risk that if the system was activated, it could cause an explosion that would ""bring the whole plane down"". He suggested that there had been ""countless"" occasions on which paperwork had been falsified, and agreed with his lawyer's suggestion that each violation of procedure amounted to a ""criminal offense and felony"". Mr Barnett was also deeply critical of what he saw as a drive at the South Carolina plant to reduce quality control inspections, again to speed up the manufacturing process. ""So the push for probably the last 15 to 20 years at Boeing is to eliminate quality [inspections]"", he said. ""But when here in Charleston they put that push on steroids"". Boeing's own lawyers focused more on Mr Barnett's claims that he had been retaliated against, and appeared to question his assertion that his safety concerns had not been taken seriously at the time. In a statement given to the BBC, Boeing said: ""We are saddened by Mr Barnett's passing and our thoughts continue to be with his family and friends. ""Boeing reviewed and addressed quality issues that Mr Barnett raised before he retired in 2017, as well as other quality issues referred to in the complaint. Engineering analysis determined the issues he raised did not affect airplane safety"". It also drew attention to a decision made earlier in Mr Barnett's case, in 2020, in which the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration concluded the company had not breached whistleblower protection law. It added: ""We appreciate employees who raise their voice, and we have systems in place to encourage them to speak up confidentially or anonymously. ""To ensure the safety, quality and conformance of our products, we investigate all allegations of improper behaviour. We then work diligently to address them and make improvements."" Mr Barnett's lawsuit is expected to continue. It will be taken forward by his mother Vicky Stokes and his brother Rodney Barnett as representatives of his estate. The case is now expected to go to trial in September. ",BBC,26/04/2024,"['A former Boeing employee, who was found dead in March, accused the company of ""countless"" violations of US law in testimony given just before his death.', 'John Barnett claimed the firm tried to ""eliminate"" quality inspections at a plant that makes 787 planes.', 'The former quality control manager had been giving a formal legal deposition against the plane manufacturer.', 'The 62-year-old\'s death after two days of testimony was from a ""self-inflicted gunshot wound"", officials said.', 'Boeing says it was ""saddened"" by Mr Barnett\'s death, but said the issues he raised had been reviewed and addressed.', ""The aerospace giant's safety standards are currently under the spotlight, in part due to an incident in January when a disused door fell off a brand new 737 Max shortly after take-off."", ""The transcript of Mr Barnett's deposition has now been released by his lawyers."", 'The lengthy document runs to more than 140 pages.', 'Mr Barnett had worked for Boeing for more than 30 years before his retirement on health grounds in 2017.', 'He subsequently filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming he had suffered retaliation from managers after raising a number of serious safety concerns, a charge the company denies.', ""The bulk of Mr Barnett's deposition focuses on the period from 2010 onwards, after he had moved from Boeing's facility in Everett, Washington to what was then a brand-new factory in North Charleston."", 'The plant had been set up to help assemble the 787 Dreamliner, a state-of-the-art airliner used mainly on long-haul routes.', 'Mr Barnett had previously told the BBC and others that managers there had routinely ignored formal procedures in order to build planes as quickly as possible.', 'In his deposition, he provided more detail on these allegations, in support of his legal complaint that he had been ""denigrated, humiliated and treated with scorn"" by senior managers, who had subjected him to a gaslighting campaign, and created a ""hostile work environment"" as a result of his actions.', 'A key part of his testimony focused on the alleged falsification of records relating to problems within the production process and in particular the logging of defective or substandard parts.', ""He claimed employees had been under pressure to circumvent established procedures, set out in Boeing's own Quality Management System, to save time."", 'A common theme within the factory, he said, was: ""We don\'t have time to follow processes, we\'re building airplanes"".', 'This, he said, had allowed ""an awful lot"" of faulty parts onto the production line, while others had simply been lost.', 'These included two large sections of aircraft fuselage, which ""weren\'t anywhere to be found"".', 'In one specific instance, he claimed a contaminated and faulty tube designed to work in an oxygen system had been removed from a scrap bin and might have been installed on an aircraft that was now in service.', 'Such parts normally had to be carefully sterilised to reduce the risk of unwanted chemical reactions.', 'Without that, he said, there was a risk that if the system was activated, it could cause an explosion that would ""bring the whole plane down"".', 'He suggested that there had been ""countless"" occasions on which paperwork had been falsified, and agreed with his lawyer\'s suggestion that each violation of procedure amounted to a ""criminal offense and felony"".', 'Mr Barnett was also deeply critical of what he saw as a drive at the South Carolina plant to reduce quality control inspections, again to speed up the manufacturing process. ""', 'So the push for probably the last 15 to 20 years at Boeing is to eliminate quality [inspections]"", he said. ""', 'But when here in Charleston they put that push on steroids"".', ""Boeing's own lawyers focused more on Mr Barnett's claims that he had been retaliated against, and appeared to question his assertion that his safety concerns had not been taken seriously at the time."", 'In a statement given to the BBC, Boeing said: ""We are saddened by Mr Barnett\'s passing and our thoughts continue to be with his family and friends. ""', 'Boeing reviewed and addressed quality issues that Mr Barnett raised before he retired in 2017, as well as other quality issues referred to in the complaint.', 'Engineering analysis determined the issues he raised did not affect airplane safety"".', ""It also drew attention to a decision made earlier in Mr Barnett's case, in 2020, in which the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration concluded the company had not breached whistleblower protection law."", 'It added: ""We appreciate employees who raise their voice, and we have systems in place to encourage them to speak up confidentially or anonymously. ""', 'To ensure the safety, quality and conformance of our products, we investigate all allegations of improper behaviour.', 'We then work diligently to address them and make improvements.""', ""Mr Barnett's lawsuit is expected to continue."", 'It will be taken forward by his mother Vicky Stokes and his brother Rodney Barnett as representatives of his estate.', 'The case is now expected to go to trial in September.']",-0.0823417804701127,"It added: ""We appreciate employees who raise their voice, and we have systems in place to encourage them to speak up confidentially or anonymously. ""","A former Boeing employee, who was found dead in March, accused the company of ""countless"" violations of US law in testimony given just before his death.",-0.8674986958503723,,"He subsequently filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming he had suffered retaliation from managers after raising a number of serious safety concerns, a charge the company denies.",2024-04-29
Rolls-Royce is growing its factory so it can build its ‘bespoke’ cars more slowly,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/28/cars/rolls-royce-doubling-factory-luxury-cars/index.html,"
  Updated
        3:45 PM EDT, Mon April 29, 2024
    ","Rolls-Royce is vastly expanding its factory in Chichester, England. The BMW subsidiary is adding five new buildings with construction planned to start next year.
    
            Usually, when a carmaker expands a factory it’s for one simple reason: building more cars. But this is Rolls-Royce. Making and selling more Rolls-Royces would undermine the brand’s vaunted exclusivity.
    
            So this factory expansion isn’t about making more cars, but making more expensive cars, which takes more time and requires more space for workshops and storage of exotic materials.
    
            The expansion  signals something about Rolls-Royce’s ultra-wealthy clientele. While they can only buy so many cars, they can certainly spend more on each one.
    
            Since 2020, Rolls-Royce sales have increased 17%, reaching a record of 6,032 cars and SUVs worldwide last year. Over that same time, though, the average amount of money customers paid for their cars increased 43%, going from $350,000 in 2020 to $500,000 each, on average, last year.
    
            That increased revenue per vehicle comes largely from more complex and time-consuming customization — “bespoke,” as Rolls-Royce terms it — requests. It even calls its luxury customization programs “Bespoke” and, for fully customized models, “Coachbuild.”
    
            “We’re not necessarily growing that much in volume,” said Martin Fritsches, president of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Americas. “That’s obviously not our focus point. But clearly, our bespoke area is gaining and relevant. And has been expanding dramatically, particularly in the last couple of years.”
    
            This will be the first major expansion of the factory since it was built in 2003 following BMW’s purchase of the brand in 1998. Before that, Rolls-Royce cars were built alongside Bentleys — Rolls-Royce had acquired Bentley in 1931 — at a factory in Crewe, UK.
    
            Bentley, now owned by Volkswagen, still builds cars in Crewe and has its own customization program, as well. Last year, nearly three quarters of Bentley customers requested custom options beyond the brand’s already lengthy options list, an increase of 43% from the year before.
    
            Italian supercar manufacturers Lamborghini and Ferrari have also both reported increased levels of interest in customization programs.
    
            “We are limited in terms of (market) size and in terms of [market] segments,” Lamborghini chief executive Stephan Winkelmann said in a recent interview with CNN. “So we have to get the most out of every single car.”
    
            The increase in extreme vehicle customization results, in large part, from increasing levels of extraordinary wealth around the world. There are simply more ultra-rich people in the world and they have more money to spend on things like cars with diamond dust in the paint and picnic gear built into the cargo area.
    
            “The customer is rich, but he’s not stupid. You have to earn your price increase,” said Javier Gonzalez Lastra, investment partner with Tema ETFs, which operates a luxury goods investment fund.
    
            Bespoke doesn’t just mean choosing paint colors, although customers can certainly do that. Rolls-Royce buyers even provide nail polishes or neckties and ask that their car match the color. But customers also want special wood inlay designs, custom fabric patterns and built-in cabinetry in their cars. These are the sorts of requests that have been increasing in number and complexity, Fritsches said.
    
            These sorts of requests take time — and space — to fulfill. One car, a Rolls-Royce sedan called the Phantom Syntopia, sported iridescent paint made with differing amounts of glass particles to create flowing designs on the outside of the car. The same effect was used on lacquered tray tables inside the car. Besides that, a curving fabric design in the interior sparkled with light from thousands of thin fiberoptic cables. The car even had a custom scent inside, a first for Rolls-Royce.
    
             The Phantom Syntopia likely would have cost more than $3 million according to sources, although Rolls-Royce would not confirm an exact price. It took 18 months to build after a four year design and development process, according to Rolls-Royce.
    
            “This is a clear example where you have to dedicate a lot more time to craftsmanship,” said Fritsches, “and this is where you need the additional space to store additional materials.”
    
            While the Phantom Syntopia was an extreme example, other projects involve requests for options such as detailed wood and mother-of-pearl inlays.
    
            A larger number of highly customized cars means that, in order to get customers their finished cars without making them wait years, more space is needed for assembly and for various specialized workshops, Fritsches explained.
    
            Rolls-Royce has even created a small number of entirely custom-built cars that are not just standard models, such as the Phantom or Cullinan, with unique features or colors. These cars, like the Rolls-Royce Boat Tail, of which three were built, are entirely unique and can cost tens of millions of dollars.",CNN,29/04/2024,"['Rolls-Royce is vastly expanding its factory in Chichester, England.', 'The BMW subsidiary is adding five new buildings with construction planned to start next year.', 'Usually, when a carmaker expands a factory it’s for one simple reason: building more cars.', 'But this is Rolls-Royce.', 'Making and selling more Rolls-Royces would undermine the brand’s vaunted exclusivity.', 'So this factory expansion isn’t about making more cars, but making more expensive cars, which takes more time and requires more space for workshops and storage of exotic materials.', 'The expansion signals something about Rolls-Royce’s ultra-wealthy clientele.', 'While they can only buy so many cars, they can certainly spend more on each one.', 'Since 2020, Rolls-Royce sales have increased 17%, reaching a record of 6,032 cars and SUVs worldwide last year.', 'Over that same time, though, the average amount of money customers paid for their cars increased 43%, going from $350,000 in 2020 to $500,000 each, on average, last year.', 'That increased revenue per vehicle comes largely from more complex and time-consuming customization — “bespoke,” as Rolls-Royce terms it — requests.', 'It even calls its luxury customization programs “Bespoke” and, for fully customized models, “Coachbuild.”', '“We’re not necessarily growing that much in volume,” said Martin Fritsches, president of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Americas. “', 'That’s obviously not our focus point.', 'But clearly, our bespoke area is gaining and relevant.', 'And has been expanding dramatically, particularly in the last couple of years.”', 'This will be the first major expansion of the factory since it was built in 2003 following BMW’s purchase of the brand in 1998.', 'Before that, Rolls-Royce cars were built alongside Bentleys — Rolls-Royce had acquired Bentley in 1931 — at a factory in Crewe, UK.', 'Bentley, now owned by Volkswagen, still builds cars in Crewe and has its own customization program, as well.', 'Last year, nearly three quarters of Bentley customers requested custom options beyond the brand’s already lengthy options list, an increase of 43% from the year before.', 'Italian supercar manufacturers Lamborghini and Ferrari have also both reported increased levels of interest in customization programs.', '“We are limited in terms of (market) size and in terms of [market] segments,” Lamborghini chief executive Stephan Winkelmann said in a recent interview with CNN. “', 'So we have to get the most out of every single car.”', 'The increase in extreme vehicle customization results, in large part, from increasing levels of extraordinary wealth around the world.', 'There are simply more ultra-rich people in the world and they have more money to spend on things like cars with diamond dust in the paint and picnic gear built into the cargo area.', '“The customer is rich, but he’s not stupid.', 'You have to earn your price increase,” said JavierGonzalez Lastra,investment partner with Tema ETFs, which operates a luxury goods investment fund.', 'Bespoke doesn’t just mean choosing paint colors, although customers can certainly do that.', 'Rolls-Royce buyers even provide nail polishes or neckties and ask that their car match the color.', 'But customers also want special wood inlay designs, custom fabric patterns and built-in cabinetry in their cars.', 'These are the sorts of requests that have been increasing in number and complexity, Fritsches said.', 'These sorts of requests take time — and space — to fulfill.', 'One car, a Rolls-Royce sedan called the Phantom Syntopia, sported iridescent paint made with differing amounts of glass particles to create flowing designs on the outside of the car.', 'The same effect was used on lacquered tray tables inside the car.', 'Besides that, a curving fabric design in the interior sparkled with light from thousands of thin fiberoptic cables.', 'The car even had a custom scent inside, a first for Rolls-Royce.', 'The Phantom Syntopia likely would have cost more than $3 million according to sources, although Rolls-Royce would not confirm an exact price.', 'It took 18 months to build after a four year design and development process, according to Rolls-Royce.', '“This is a clear example where you have to dedicate a lot more time to craftsmanship,” said Fritsches, “and this is where you need the additional space to store additional materials.”', 'While the Phantom Syntopia was an extreme example, other projects involve requests for options such as detailed wood and mother-of-pearl inlays.', 'A larger number of highly customized cars means that, in order to get customers their finished cars without making them wait years, more space is needed for assembly and for various specialized workshops, Fritsches explained.', 'Rolls-Royce has even created a small number of entirely custom-built cars that are not just standard models, such as the Phantom or Cullinan, with unique features or colors.', 'These cars, like the Rolls-Royce Boat Tail, of which three were built, are entirely unique and can cost tens of millions of dollars.']",0.1993594453598202,There are simply more ultra-rich people in the world and they have more money to spend on things like cars with diamond dust in the paint and picnic gear built into the cargo area.,Making and selling more Rolls-Royces would undermine the brand’s vaunted exclusivity.,0.8411184112230937,"Since 2020, Rolls-Royce sales have increased 17%, reaching a record of 6,032 cars and SUVs worldwide last year.",Making and selling more Rolls-Royces would undermine the brand’s vaunted exclusivity.,2024-04-29
A CVS Health pharmacy in Vegas becomes first to join new national pharmacy union,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/26/cvs-omnicare-pharmacy-in-vegas-is-first-to-join-new-pharmacy-union.html,2024-04-26T19:44:59+0000,"In this articleA CVS Omnicare pharmacy in Las Vegas has become the first location to join a new national pharmacy union, a milestone for organizers trying to help thousands of U.S. pharmacy workers address what they call unsafe working conditions. Nearly 30 pharmacy staff at the Las Vegas branch of CVS's Omnicare won their union election on Thursday by a landslide margin of 87% to 13%, according to a press release from the guild. The pharmacists and pharmacy technicians there fill prescriptions for the elderly and other vulnerable patients at long-term care facilities across Nevada. Those workers now join the Pharmacy Guild, which will represent them in labor negotiations with CVS. ""We're going to try to get a best-in-the-industry contract for these people that have trusted our union to represent them. It's a historic win and a very decisive one,"" Shane Jerominski, a community pharmacist and co-founder of the Pharmacy Guild, told CNBC.  Jerominski and other organizers of a recent nationwide walkout of pharmacy staff partnered with IAM Healthcare – a union representing thousands of health-care professionals – to launch the Pharmacy Guild in November. That work stoppage in late October, which organizers dubbed ""Pharmageddon,"" spanned major drugstore chains like CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid, drawing widespread media attention to the scope of workers' concerns.Like the walkout effort, the Pharmacy Guild aims to help pharmacy staff address what many employees call unsafe staffing levels and increasing workloads throughout the industry that put both employees and patients at risk. The guild also calls for legislative and regulatory changes to establish higher standards of practice in pharmacies to protect patients. The unionization effort is the culmination of years of growing discontent among retail pharmacy staff, who often grapple with understaffed teams and increasing work expectations imposed by corporate management. The Covid pandemic only exacerbated those issues, as new duties like testing and vaccination stretched pharmacists and technicians even thinner. In a statement, a CVS Health spokesperson said the company respects its employees' right to unionize or refrain from doing so, including the decision of Omnicare Las Vegas workers to choose union representation. The company added that it will work ""closely and collaboratively"" with its employees to address their current and future concerns and is ""committed to providing a positive and rewarding work environment."" Omnicare, acquired by CVS in 2015, is not a public-facing pharmacy like most of the chain's nearly 10,000 locations. There are Omnicare pharmacies in 49 states, according to CVS's website. But Omnicare and other pharmacies share the same issues that range from staffing levels to low starting pay for technicians, Jerominski said. ""It's not specific to Omnicare, the problems they were expressing were the same problems I'm hearing across the country. It's ubiquitous across all major chains,"" Jerominski said. ""You can only ask a company to support you for so long. … This is the reason why the walkouts happened. They finally said 'No, we are going to get the help that we demand.'"" The Pharmacy Guild will now work to strike a union contract with CVS to address the concerns of Omnicare workers in Las Vegas. Jerominski said those employees want consistent work schedules that guarantee pharmacy technicians 40 hours a week year-round.""You can't retain individuals with a skill set and a family, especially with the stress level that this job has, if you don't even just guarantee them their 40 hours,"" Jerominski told CNBC. The Pharmacy Guild is seeing momentum build in other parts of the country. Pharmacy staff at two retail stores in Rhode Island have officially confirmed that they filed to unionize with the guild, according to Jerominski.CVS's headquarters is based in the state.",CNBC,26/04/2024,"['In this articleA CVS Omnicare pharmacy in Las Vegas has become the first location to join a new national pharmacy union, a milestone for organizers trying to help thousands of U.S. pharmacy workers address what they call unsafe working conditions.', ""Nearly 30 pharmacy staff at the Las Vegas branch of CVS's Omnicare won their union election on Thursday by a landslide margin of 87% to 13%, according to a press release from the guild."", 'The pharmacists and pharmacy technicians there fill prescriptions for the elderly and other vulnerable patients at long-term care facilities across Nevada.', 'Those workers now join the Pharmacy Guild, which will represent them in labor negotiations with CVS.""We\'re going to try to get a best-in-the-industry contract for these people that have trusted our union to represent them.', 'It\'s a historic win and a very decisive one,"" Shane Jerominski, a community pharmacist and co-founder of the Pharmacy Guild, told CNBC.Jerominski and other organizers of a recent nationwide walkout of pharmacy staff partnered with IAM Healthcare – a union representing thousands of health-care professionals – to launch the Pharmacy Guild in November.', 'That work stoppage in late October, which organizers dubbed ""Pharmageddon,"" spanned major drugstore chains like CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid, drawing widespread media attention to the scope of workers\' concerns.', 'Like the walkout effort, the Pharmacy Guild aims to help pharmacy staff address what many employees call unsafe staffing levels and increasing workloads throughout the industry that put both employees and patients at risk.', 'The guild also calls for legislative and regulatory changes to establish higher standards of practice in pharmacies to protect patients.', 'The unionization effort is the culmination of years of growing discontent among retail pharmacy staff, who often grapple with understaffed teams and increasing work expectations imposed by corporate management.', 'The Covid pandemic only exacerbated those issues, as new duties like testing and vaccination stretched pharmacists and technicians even thinner.', ""In a statement, a CVS Health spokesperson said the company respects its employees' right to unionize or refrain from doing so, including the decision of Omnicare Las Vegas workers to choose union representation."", 'The company added that it will work ""closely and collaboratively"" with its employees to address their current and future concerns and is ""committed to providing a positive and rewarding work environment.', '""Omnicare, acquired by CVS in 2015, is not a public-facing pharmacy like most of the chain\'s nearly 10,000 locations.', ""There are Omnicare pharmacies in 49 states, according to CVS's website."", 'But Omnicare and other pharmacies share the same issues that range from staffing levels to low starting pay for technicians, Jerominski said.', '""It\'s not specific to Omnicare, the problems they were expressing were the same problems I\'m hearing across the country.', 'It\'s ubiquitous across all major chains,"" Jerominski said. ""', 'You can only ask a company to support you for so long. …', 'This is the reason why the walkouts happened.', ""They finally said 'No, we are going to get the help that we demand."", '\'""The Pharmacy Guild will now work to strike a union contract with CVS to address the concerns of Omnicare workers in Las Vegas.', 'Jerominski said those employees want consistent work schedules that guarantee pharmacy technicians 40 hours a week year-round.', '""You can\'t retain individuals with a skill set and a family, especially with the stress level that this job has, if you don\'t even just guarantee them their 40 hours,"" Jerominski told CNBC.The Pharmacy Guild is seeing momentum build in other parts of the country.', 'Pharmacy staff at two retail stores in Rhode Island have officially confirmed that they filed to unionize with the guild, according to Jerominski.', ""CVS's headquarters is based in the state.""]",0.2197163049413804,"Those workers now join the Pharmacy Guild, which will represent them in labor negotiations with CVS.""We're going to try to get a best-in-the-industry contract for these people that have trusted our union to represent them.","""It's not specific to Omnicare, the problems they were expressing were the same problems I'm hearing across the country.",0.1158540580007765,"It's a historic win and a very decisive one,"" Shane Jerominski, a community pharmacist and co-founder of the Pharmacy Guild, told CNBC.Jerominski and other organizers of a recent nationwide walkout of pharmacy staff partnered with IAM Healthcare – a union representing thousands of health-care professionals – to launch the Pharmacy Guild in November.","The Covid pandemic only exacerbated those issues, as new duties like testing and vaccination stretched pharmacists and technicians even thinner.",2024-04-29
"PepsiCo earnings beat estimates but product recalls, weaker lower-income consumer hurt U.S. sales",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/23/pepsico-pep-q1-2024-earnings.html,2024-04-23T15:48:06+0000,"In this articlePepsiCo on Tuesday reported quarterly earnings and revenue that beat analysts' expectations, despite weaker U.S. demand caused by Quaker Oats recalls and backlash to higher prices for its drinks and snacks.Shares of the company fell more than 2% in morning trading.Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:Pepsi reported first-quarter net income attributable to the company of $2.04 billion, or $1.48 per share, up from $1.93 billion, or $1.40 per share, a year earlier.Excluding items, Pepsi earned $1.61 per share.Net sales rose 2.3% to $18.25 billion. The company's organic revenue, which excludes acquisitions, divestitures and foreign exchange, increased 2.7% in the quarter.But the company's volume is still under pressure. Pepsi, along with many of its rivals, has seen its volume fall in response to higher prices for its Gatorade, Fritos and other products in its portfolio.The company's food division saw its volume decrease 0.5%, while its beverage segment reported flat volume. The metric strips out pricing and currency changes to reflect demand.A recall of many Quaker Foods cereals and bars only worsened Pepsi's volume problem. The company issued the first recall for potential salmonella contamination in December, then widened it in January. The North American Quaker Food division reported that its volume cratered 22% in the quarter. The Quaker Foods recall dented Pepsi's organic volume by roughly 1%.Pepsi will officially close a Quaker Oats plant tied to the recalls in June, although production there has already ceased. Pepsi said the company has resumed limited production of certain products affected by the recalls.Pepsi's other North American divisions also reported weaker volume. Volume in its beverage unit fell 5% in the quarter, while Frito-Lay North America reported a 2% decline in its volume.Frito-Lay North America's effective net pricing was up 3% in the quarter, while Pepsi's domestic beverages unit's prices rose 6%.In the U.S., lower-income consumers are still trying to stretch their paychecks, Pepsi CEO Ramon Laguarta told analysts on the company's conference call. Pepsi is trying to target the demographic and keep them as customers, particularly for its snacks like Cheetos.Outside of the U.S., demand was stronger. Its Asia-Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and China region reported 12% volume growth for snacks. Chinese consumers are cautious and saving more money, but they're still buying more Pepsi products, according to Laguarta. Even in Europe, which has also struggled with higher grocery prices, beverage volume increased 7% and snack volume rose 2%.Pepsi also reiterated its 2024 outlook. For the full year, the company is expecting organic revenue will rise at least 4% and core constant currency earnings per share will climb at least 8%.""As we look ahead, we continue to expect a normalization and moderation in category growth rates versus the last few years,"" Pepsi executives said in prepared remarks. ""We also continue to expect that consumers will remain watchful with their budgets and choiceful with their purchases.""",CNBC,23/04/2024,"[""In this articlePepsiCo on Tuesday reported quarterlyearningsand revenue that beat analysts' expectations, despite weaker U.S. demand caused by Quaker Oats recalls and backlash to higher prices for its drinks and snacks."", 'Shares of the company fell more than 2% in morning trading.', ""Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:Pepsi reported first-quarter net income attributable to the company of $2.04 billion, or $1.48 per share, up from $1.93 billion, or $1.40 per share, a year earlier."", 'Excluding items, Pepsi earned $1.61 per share.', 'Net salesrose2.3% to $18.25 billion.', ""The company's organic revenue, which excludes acquisitions, divestitures and foreign exchange, increased 2.7% in the quarter."", ""But the company's volume is still under pressure."", 'Pepsi, along with many of its rivals, has seen its volume fall in response to higher prices for its Gatorade, Fritos and other products in its portfolio.', ""The company's food division saw its volume decrease 0.5%, while its beverage segment reported flat volume."", 'The metric strips out pricing and currency changes to reflect demand.', ""A recall of many Quaker Foods cereals and bars only worsened Pepsi's volume problem."", 'The company issued the first recall for potential salmonella contamination in December, then widened it in January.', 'The North American Quaker Food division reported that its volume cratered 22% in the quarter.', ""The Quaker Foods recall dented Pepsi's organic volume by roughly 1%.Pepsi will officially close a Quaker Oats plant tied to the recalls in June, although production there has already ceased."", 'Pepsi said the company has resumed limited production of certain products affected by the recalls.', ""Pepsi's other North American divisions also reported weaker volume."", 'Volume in its beverage unit fell 5% in the quarter, while Frito-Lay North America reported a 2% decline in its volume.', ""Frito-Lay North America's effective net pricing was up 3% in the quarter, while Pepsi's domestic beverages unit's prices rose 6%.In the U.S., lower-income consumers are still trying to stretch their paychecks, Pepsi CEO Ramon Laguarta told analysts on the company's conference call."", 'Pepsi is trying to target the demographic and keep them as customers, particularly for its snacks like Cheetos.', 'Outside of the U.S., demand was stronger.', 'Its Asia-Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and China region reported 12% volume growth for snacks.', ""Chinese consumers are cautious and saving more money, but they're still buying more Pepsi products, according to Laguarta."", 'Even in Europe, which has also struggled with higher grocery prices, beverage volume increased 7% and snack volume rose 2%.Pepsi also reiterated its 2024 outlook.', 'For the full year, the company is expecting organic revenuewill riseat least 4% and core constant currency earnings per sharewill climb at least8%.""As we look ahead, we continue to expect a normalization and moderation in category growth rates versus the last few years,"" Pepsi executives said in prepared remarks. ""', 'We also continue to expect that consumers will remain watchful with their budgets and choiceful with their purchases.""']",0.0676508517705506,"For the full year, the company is expecting organic revenuewill riseat least 4% and core constant currency earnings per sharewill climb at least8%.""As we look ahead, we continue to expect a normalization and moderation in category growth rates versus the last few years,"" Pepsi executives said in prepared remarks. """,A recall of many Quaker Foods cereals and bars only worsened Pepsi's volume problem.,0.0850448608398437,"The company's organic revenue, which excludes acquisitions, divestitures and foreign exchange, increased 2.7% in the quarter.","Volume in its beverage unit fell 5% in the quarter, while Frito-Lay North America reported a 2% decline in its volume.",2024-04-29
"Getir to exit UK, Europe and US",https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1rvlv01255o,2024-04-29T12:28:02.510Z,"Grocery delivery firm Getir has said it will be leaving the UK, Europe and the US to focus on its core market in Turkey where it generates the bulk of its revenue. It comes after a long period of speculation that its UK operations were in financial trouble. The firm said only 7% of its revenue was generated in those markets which it is now leaving. It brings to an end the company's rapid expansion across Europe, which saw almost 23,000 jobs created in the region over three years. Getir added that it sees the biggest potential for long-term growth in its home market of Turkey. Since its entry into the UK in 2021, Getir had grown to become a multi-billion pound food delivery firm in just a few years. With its distinctive purple and yellow logo, the company, like many delivery services, grew after Covid lockdowns changed shopping habits and many people avoided in-person shopping. Its unique selling point was that it was ""ultra fast"", delivering food and drink on scooters in under 20 minutes. Getir confirmed that FreshDirect, its US subsidiary, will continue its operations. It added that it had raised investment from Mubadala - an Abu Dhabi investment fund - and US company G Squared to fund its exit from the Western market. ""Getir expresses its sincere appreciation for the dedication and hard work of all its employees in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and the US,"" the firm said in a short statement. In 2022, as Getir celebrated its first anniversary in the UK, it hailed its first year as a ""blockbuster"", calling itself a ""market leader"" that had created 4,000 permanent jobs in cities including London, Manchester, Portsmouth and Birmingham. At the time, it also pledged to create 10,000 jobs by the end of 2022. But by 2023, the firm had to climb down from its rapid European expansion, announcing that it was cutting more than a tenth of its workforce, which then stood at 23,000 staff across Europe.  Those cutbacks came after the company had already quit Italy, Spain, France and Portugal, had auctioned off much of its equipment in the UK, and was hit by shoppers returning to bricks-and-mortar stores. Part of its problems came from regulatory changes. In France, inner-city depots holding stock were ordered to be closed down, while Amsterdam and Rotterdam banned the opening of any new ones. Known as ""dark stores"", the buildings were accused by local residents of having constant noise with couriers coming in and out at all hours. Meanwhile in New York, the city council's Gale Brewer said ultra-fast delivery apps, such as Getir, Flink and Gorillas, were ""misusing"" empty city-centre retail units.   ",BBC,29/04/2024,"['Grocery delivery firm Getir has said it will be leaving the UK, Europe and the US to focus on its core market in Turkey where it generates the bulk of its revenue.', 'It comes after a long period of speculation that its UK operations were in financial trouble.', 'The firm said only 7% of its revenue was generated in those markets which it is now leaving.', ""It brings to an end the company's rapid expansion across Europe, which saw almost 23,000 jobs created in the region over three years."", 'Getir added that it sees the biggest potential for long-term growth in its home market of Turkey.', 'Since its entry into the UK in 2021, Getir had grown to become a multi-billion pound food delivery firm in just a few years.', 'With its distinctive purple and yellow logo, the company, like many delivery services, grew after Covid lockdowns changed shopping habits and many people avoided in-person shopping.', 'Its unique selling point was that it was ""ultra fast"", delivering food and drink on scooters in under 20 minutes.', 'Getir confirmed that FreshDirect, its US subsidiary, will continue its operations.', 'It added that it had raised investment from Mubadala - an Abu Dhabi investment fund - and US company G Squared to fund its exit from the Western market. ""', 'Getir expresses its sincere appreciation for the dedication and hard work of all its employees in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and the US,"" the firm said in a short statement.', 'In 2022, as Getir celebrated its first anniversary in the UK, it hailed its first year as a ""blockbuster"", calling itself a ""market leader"" that had created 4,000 permanent jobs in cities including London, Manchester, Portsmouth and Birmingham.', 'At the time, it also pledged to create 10,000 jobs by the end of 2022.', 'But by 2023, the firm had to climb down from its rapid European expansion, announcing that it was cutting more than a tenth of its workforce, which then stood at 23,000 staff across Europe.', 'Those cutbacks came after the company had already quit Italy, Spain, France and Portugal, had auctioned off much of its equipment in the UK, and was hit by shoppers returning to bricks-and-mortar stores.', 'Part of its problems came from regulatory changes.', 'In France, inner-city depots holding stock were ordered to be closed down, while Amsterdam and Rotterdam banned the opening of any new ones.', 'Known as ""dark stores"", the buildings were accused by local residents of having constant noise with couriers coming in and out at all hours.', 'Meanwhile in New York, the city council\'s Gale Brewer said ultra-fast delivery apps, such as Getir, Flink and Gorillas, were ""misusing"" empty city-centre retail units.']",0.0255743479977412,"In 2022, as Getir celebrated its first anniversary in the UK, it hailed its first year as a ""blockbuster"", calling itself a ""market leader"" that had created 4,000 permanent jobs in cities including London, Manchester, Portsmouth and Birmingham.","In France, inner-city depots holding stock were ordered to be closed down, while Amsterdam and Rotterdam banned the opening of any new ones.",0.3222426374753316,"It brings to an end the company's rapid expansion across Europe, which saw almost 23,000 jobs created in the region over three years.","Those cutbacks came after the company had already quit Italy, Spain, France and Portugal, had auctioned off much of its equipment in the UK, and was hit by shoppers returning to bricks-and-mortar stores.",2024-04-29
Comcast beats earnings estimates even as it sheds more broadband subscribers,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/comcast-cmcsa-earnings-1q24.html,2024-04-25T15:24:55+0000,"In this articleComcast beat first-quarter earnings expectations on Thursday as broadband drove revenue even as the company and its peers have seen customer growth slow.Here is how Comcast performed, compared with estimates from analysts surveyed by LSEG:For the quarter that ended March 31, net income rose 0.6% to $3.86 billion, or 97 cents a share, compared with $3.83 billion, or 91 cents a share, a year earlier. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, slid 0.6% to roughly $9.4 billion.The company's revenue grew 1.2% to $30.06 billion compared to the same period last year. Revenue from the domestic broadband customers segment boosted that growth as rates increased, even as Comcast lost 65,000 customers during the quarter.Comcast's stock was trading down about 6% on Thursday.Cable broadband companies' customer additions have slumped in recent quarters and weighed on stock prices.The slowdown in the buying and selling of houses due to high interest rates has led to a decline in new home internet connections. Cable providers have also been hit with heightened competition for home broadband from wireless companies such as T-Mobile and Verizon.Mike Cavanagh, president of Comcast, said on Thursday's earnings call that the market is ""extremely competitive,"" especially for ""cost-conscious customers.""Earlier this month, Comcast said it would launch NOW, a prepaid and month-to-month low-cost internet and phone plan program. The plan is designed to provide fixed wireless options at a low cost.The plan supplements Comcast's long-standing internet option for low-income customers, called Internet Essentials.Company executives do not expect an improvement in the near term, particularly with the expected end of the federal government's Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP, which offers a $30 discount on broadband services to qualifying low-income households, in April.Comcast's wireless business saw a 21% increase in customers during the quarter to 6.9 million total lines. The company lost 487,000 cable TV customers during the quarter as consumers continued to cut the cord in favor of streaming.The company's theme parks adjusted EBITDA fell 3.9% to $632 million during the quarter, due to an increase in operating expenses such as higher marketing and promotion costs, as well as the negative effect of foreign currency.On Thursday, Cavanagh noted attendance at the Orlando theme park ""felt some pressure"" in the most recent quarter, as the company is in between introducing new attractions. He added the company is confident about long-term growth and future opportunities for its parks.Increased competition, particularly from cruises, also weighed on theme parks, Comcast Chief Financial Officer Jason Armstrong said on Thursday's call.Similarly, earnings for its media business, which includes NBCUniversal, and studios also declined. The three businesses now report under the same segment, which collectively saw revenue rise 1.1% to $10.37 billion.Still, Comcast executives touted the strength of Universal Pictures' film slate, from recent Academy Award winners ""Oppenheimer"" and ""The Holdovers,"" to upcoming highly anticipated movies such as the adaptation of the Broadway hit ""Wicked.""Peacock, which executives also highlighted as a bright spot and a boost to NBCUniversal, is also reaping the benefits of the film slate.Being the exclusive home of ""Oppenheimer"" when it was first released to streaming earlier this year proved to be a win for the platform. Comcast said it was the most-watched movie in Peacock history.The service added three million paid subscribers during the quarter, bringing its total number of customers to 34 million. The exclusive National Football League Wild Card game on Peacock helped to add, and then retain, more customers than expected, executives said on Thursday's call.""We're 3.5 years in, we're at a place where we're really seeing traction in our approach,"" Cavanagh said Thursday, pointing to the strength in the combination of sports and entertainment.While Peacock is known for its large offering of live sports, including the NFL and the Premier League, Cavanagh said subscribers spend 90% of their time on nonsports programming on shows such as Peacock original ""Ted,"" and its Universal film collection. He added that the company expects Peacock to have ""real pricing power"" over time.Revenue for the streamer rose 54% to $1.1 billion compared to the same period last year. While domestic advertising was flat during the quarter, the company saw its domestic distribution revenue increase, driven by the growth at Peacock. Media companies have been facing a longer-than-expected soft advertising market.Losses stemming from Peacock weighed on the segment and offset higher revenue. The company saw an adjusted EBITDA loss of $639 million related to Peacock during the quarter. That improved, however, from an adjusted EBITDA loss of $704 million in the same period last year.Peacock losses were said to peak in 2023, and executives expect them to narrow in upcoming quarters. The Olympics in Paris this summer should also drive growth for the streaming service.With more hours of the Olympics on its broadcast network NBC, in addition to Peacock, the company is on track to generate its most advertising revenue in its history for the Olympics.Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"['In this articleComcast beat first-quarter earnings expectations on Thursday as broadband drove revenue even as the company and its peers have seen customer growth slow.', 'Here is how Comcast performed, compared with estimates from analysts surveyed by LSEG:For the quarter that ended March 31, net income rose 0.6% to $3.86 billion, or 97 cents a share, compared with $3.83 billion, or 91 cents a share, a year earlier.', 'Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, slid 0.6% to roughly $9.4 billion.', ""The company's revenue grew 1.2% to $30.06 billion compared to the same period last year."", 'Revenue from the domestic broadband customers segment boosted that growth as rates increased, even as Comcast lost 65,000 customers during the quarter.', ""Comcast's stock was trading down about 6% on Thursday."", ""Cable broadband companies' customer additions have slumped in recent quarters and weighed on stock prices."", 'The slowdown in the buying and selling of houses due to high interest rates has led to a decline in new home internet connections.', 'Cable providers have also been hit with heightened competition for home broadband from wireless companies such as T-Mobile and Verizon.', 'Mike Cavanagh, president of Comcast, said on Thursday\'s earnings call that the market is ""extremely competitive,"" especially for ""cost-conscious customers.', '""Earlier this month, Comcast said it would launch NOW, a prepaid and month-to-month low-cost internet and phone plan program.', 'The plan is designed to provide fixed wireless options at a low cost.', ""The plan supplements Comcast's long-standing internet option for low-income customers, called Internet Essentials."", ""Company executives do not expect an improvement in the near term, particularly with the expected end of the federal government's Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP, which offers a $30 discount on broadband services to qualifying low-income households, in April."", ""Comcast's wireless business saw a 21% increase in customers during the quarter to 6.9 million total lines."", 'The company lost 487,000 cable TV customers during the quarter as consumers continued to cut the cord in favor of streaming.', ""The company's theme parks adjusted EBITDA fell 3.9% to $632 million during the quarter,due to an increase in operating expenses such as higher marketing and promotion costs, as well as the negative effect of foreign currency."", 'On Thursday, Cavanagh noted attendance at the Orlando theme park ""felt some pressure"" in the most recent quarter, as the company is in between introducing new attractions.', 'He added the company is confident about long-term growth and future opportunities for its parks.', ""Increased competition, particularly from cruises, also weighed on theme parks, Comcast Chief Financial Officer Jason Armstrong said on Thursday's call."", 'Similarly, earnings for its media business, which includes NBCUniversal, and studios also declined.', 'The three businesses now report under the same segment, which collectively saw revenue rise 1.1% to $10.37 billion.', 'Still, Comcast executives touted the strength of Universal Pictures\' film slate, from recent Academy Award winners ""Oppenheimer"" and ""The Holdovers,"" to upcoming highly anticipated movies such as the adaptation of the Broadway hit ""Wicked.', '""Peacock, which executives also highlighted as a bright spot and a boost to NBCUniversal, is also reaping the benefits of the film slate.', 'Being the exclusive home of ""Oppenheimer"" when it was first released to streaming earlier this year proved to be a win for the platform.', 'Comcast said it was the most-watched movie in Peacock history.', 'The service added three million paid subscribers during the quarter, bringing its total number of customers to 34 million.', ""The exclusive National Football League Wild Card game on Peacock helped to add, and then retain, more customers than expected, executives said on Thursday's call."", '""We\'re 3.5 years in, we\'re at a place where we\'re really seeing traction in our approach,"" Cavanagh said Thursday, pointing to the strength in the combination of sports and entertainment.', 'While Peacock is known for its large offering of live sports, including the NFL and the Premier League, Cavanagh said subscribers spend 90% of their time on nonsports programming on shows such as Peacock original ""Ted,"" and its Universal film collection.', 'He added that the company expects Peacock to have ""real pricing power"" over time.', 'Revenue for the streamer rose 54% to $1.1 billion compared to the same period last year.', 'While domestic advertising was flat during the quarter, the company saw its domestic distribution revenue increase, driven by the growth at Peacock.', 'Media companies have been facing a longer-than-expected soft advertising market.', 'Losses stemming from Peacock weighed on the segment and offset higher revenue.', 'The company saw an adjusted EBITDA loss of $639 million related to Peacock during the quarter.', 'That improved, however, from an adjusted EBITDA loss of $704 million in the same period last year.', 'Peacock losses were said to peak in 2023, and executives expect them to narrow in upcoming quarters.', 'The Olympics in Paris this summer should also drive growth for the streaming service.', 'With more hours of the Olympics on its broadcast network NBC, in addition to Peacock, the company is on track to generate its most advertising revenue in its history for the Olympics.', 'Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.']",0.1527713570776127,He added the company is confident about long-term growth and future opportunities for its parks.,"Company executives do not expect an improvement in the near term, particularly with the expected end of the federal government's Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP, which offers a $30 discount on broadband services to qualifying low-income households, in April.",0.1793343950720394,"The three businesses now report under the same segment, which collectively saw revenue rise 1.1% to $10.37 billion.","The company's theme parks adjusted EBITDA fell 3.9% to $632 million during the quarter,due to an increase in operating expenses such as higher marketing and promotion costs, as well as the negative effect of foreign currency.",2024-04-29
E.W. Scripps exploring sale of Black-culture broadcast network Bounce TV,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/23/ew-scripps-exploring-sale-of-black-culture-broadcast-network-bounce-tv.html,2024-04-23T20:06:23+0000,"In this articleE.W. Scripps, one of the largest local TV broadcasters in the U.S., has hired a financial advisor to evaluate inbound interest in acquiring Bounce TV, its over-the-air network geared toward African Americans, according to Scripps CEO Adam Symson.The sale process comes after Paramount Global shopped around Black entertainment company BET Media Group last year, but ultimately decided not to sell. Interested parties from that potential deal, many of them with Black leadership, have since approached Scripps with interest in owning Bounce TV, Symson said in an exclusive CNBC interview. If Scripps pursues a deal, it hopes to attract a price tag in the hundreds of millions, according to people familiar with the matter.E.W. Scripps trades for about $3.70 per share at a market valuation of roughly $315 million. The stock is down more than 50% this year amid concerns over pay-TV cancellations that diminish the audience for broadcast networks.Symson declined to comment on the names of the bidders or the potential price for Bounce TV. People familiar with the process said a deal could happen around mid-year or the third quarter.""The number of inbounds and conversations that we have had with interested and qualified potential suitors has picked up significantly over the last year,"" Symson said. ""The earlier BET process, which was never consummated, may have opened up people's eyes to the power of Bounce.""Some advertising agencies and big brands earmark some spending specifically for minority-controlled businesses, Symson said, which can increase the value of media assets if they're sold from conglomerates to Black owners. He added a platform such as Bounce TV could also serve as a landing spot for a catalog of Black creators.Scripps officials began telling Bounce TV employees about the inbound interest on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the communications.Bounce TV, which debuted in 2011, is a free over-the-air network that broadcasts a combination of syndicated shows, movies and original content. All content is geared to African American audiences. Bounce TV's ""Johnson,"" a dramedy created by Deji LaRay, is entering its fourth season. The network is also launching a new comedy series, ""Mind Your Business,"" that premieres June 1.Ratings for Bounce TV have improved in recent years, even as legacy media has struggled. In the first quarter, Bounce TV viewership was up 14% on linear and 9% on connected TVs, Symson said. About 70% of Bounce TV's audience is over the air. The other 30% is derived through pay TV and streaming, he said.While Symson declined to give specifics about Bounce TV's finances, he said the company has doubled the network's revenue since acquiring it as part of the takeover of Katz Networks for $302 million in 2017.  Scripps operates a portfolio of more than 60 stations in more than 40 U.S. markets.",CNBC,23/04/2024,"['In this articleE.W. Scripps, one of the largest local TV broadcasters in the U.S., has hired a financial advisor to evaluate inbound interest in acquiring Bounce TV, its over-the-air network geared toward African Americans, according to Scripps CEO Adam Symson.', 'The sale process comes after Paramount Global shopped around Black entertainment company BET Media Group last year, but ultimately decided not to sell.', 'Interested parties from that potential deal, many of them with Black leadership, have since approached Scripps with interest in owning Bounce TV, Symson said in an exclusive CNBC interview.', 'If Scripps pursues a deal, it hopes to attract a price tag in the hundreds of millions, according to people familiar with the matter.', 'E.W. Scripps trades for about $3.70 per share at a market valuation of roughly $315 million.', 'The stock is down more than 50% this year amid concerns over pay-TV cancellations that diminish the audience for broadcast networks.', 'Symson declined to comment on the names of the bidders or the potential price for Bounce TV.', 'People familiar with the process said a deal could happen around mid-year or the third quarter.', '""The number of inbounds and conversations that we have had with interested and qualified potential suitors has picked up significantly over the last year,"" Symson said. ""', ""The earlier BET process, which was never consummated, may have opened up people's eyes to the power of Bounce."", '""Some advertising agencies and big brands earmark some spending specifically for minority-controlled businesses, Symson said, which can increase the value of media assets if they\'re sold from conglomerates to Black owners.', 'He added a platform such as Bounce TV could also serve as a landing spot for a catalog of Black creators.', 'Scripps officials began telling Bounce TV employees about the inbound interest on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the communications.', 'Bounce TV, which debuted in 2011, is a free over-the-air network that broadcasts a combination of syndicated shows, movies and original content.', 'All content is geared to African American audiences.', 'Bounce TV\'s ""Johnson,"" a dramedy created by Deji LaRay, is entering its fourth season.', 'The network is also launching a new comedy series, ""Mind Your Business,"" that premieres June 1.Ratings for Bounce TV have improved in recent years, even as legacy media has struggled.', 'In the first quarter, Bounce TV viewership was up 14% on linear and 9% on connected TVs, Symson said.', ""About 70% of Bounce TV's audience is over the air."", 'The other 30% is derived through pay TV and streaming, he said.', ""While Symson declined to give specifics about Bounce TV's finances, he said the company has doubled the network's revenue since acquiring it as part of the takeover of Katz Networks for $302 million in 2017."", 'Scripps operates a portfolio of more than 60 stations in more than 40 U.S. markets.']",0.2397046910172554,"Interested parties from that potential deal, many of them with Black leadership, have since approached Scripps with interest in owning Bounce TV, Symson said in an exclusive CNBC interview.",,0.6905460804700851,"In the first quarter, Bounce TV viewership was up 14% on linear and 9% on connected TVs, Symson said.",The stock is down more than 50% this year amid concerns over pay-TV cancellations that diminish the audience for broadcast networks.,2024-04-29
Why green steam is a hot issue for business,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68687140,2024-04-25T23:36:47.000Z,"Colorado-based New Belgium Brewing can trace its roots to 1988 and a cycle trip through Belgium.  The experience inspired co-founders Kim Jordan and Jeff Lebesch to bring Belgian brewing techniques back to their home town. Three years later and the duo were selling Fat Tire, one of their first beers at a local festival, and they now have over a dozen beers in production. But while they have spent 30 years creating flavours unique to the US market, they have at least one thing in common with all brewers - the use of steam. Steam is used to sanitise their brewing equipment, as well as being a key part of the brewing process. Large cone-shaped kettles are used to boil wort - liquid extracted from the initial brewing stage of mashing barley - generating steam. This boiling process helps to remove flavours the brewer does not want in the beer, before the wort is transferred to vessels to ferment with yeast, resulting in beer. Some of the steam generated by the kettles is captured by a heat exchanger, which allows the brewer to use this waste heat in the next batch of brewing. The driving force behind the industrial revolution, steam remains crucial to production processes across multiple industries. As well as its frequent use in the food and beverage industry, steam is also used for sterilisation by pharmaceutical companies, and for heating a wide range of buildings such as hospitals. But steam is still primarily generated using boilers run on fossil fuels, giving it a big carbon footprint. Fossil fuels made up 73% of industrial energy use in the US in 2018, with 40% of these fossil fuels used to heat boilers producing steam. To cut that, one option would be to switch to electric. Assuming the electricity is generated from sustainable sources, then the carbon footprint is slashed. But using electricity does have downsides. ""The biggest challenge is cost, which is likely to limit the pace of customer adoption,"" says Maurizio Preziosa, from UK-based engineering firm Spirax Group. While cost might be an issue, the switch is relatively straightforward.  Mr Preziosa says that his firm's technology can usually slot into the existing system. ""Customers can continue to use the rest of their existing steam infrastructure,"" Mr Preziosa explains. This has the additional benefit of reducing downtime, a potential obstacle to adoption for companies reliant on tightly calibrated production processes.  US-based AtmosZero has a different approach to creating steam. Their boiler is a heat pump, which extracts heat from the air and turns it into high temperature steam.  It works by circulating liquid refrigerants with low boiling points through a closed loop, capturing warmth from the air. The slightly warmed refrigerant is compressed, raising it to a temperature high enough to boil water.  A heat exchanger then transfers that heat from the refrigerant, to water to make steam.  The big advantage of this approach is that it cuts operating costs. The company's chief executive, Addison Stark estimates that their heat pump technology could save companies hundreds of thousands of dollars compared to the options currently available. ""Being a heat pump-based system, we are significantly more efficient than current boilers - we create about two units of heat output for one unit of energy input, dramatically reducing the operating costs,"" Mr Stark explains. More technology of business AtmosZero is still in the early stages, with more development work needed. The goal is to build a manufacturing plant and start delivering boiler systems in early 2026. Mr Stark is confident the system will work at the scale needed by industry. ""We are mass-manufactured and simple to deploy."" Makers of green steam equipment see demand rising in the coming years.  ""The expectations of end consumers are shifting,"" Maurizio Preziosa from Spirax Group explains. ""They want to buy from companies who operate sustainably by reducing their impact on people and planet, and this, along with regulatory pressure, is driving demand from our customers who serve those consumers,"" he says. Back in Colorado, preparations are under way at New Belgium Brewing where AtmosZero will be swapping out one of the brewery's combustion boilers for their heat pump system. This is the next step on a journey of sustainability the company has been on since those early days selling their beer at local festivals.  As well as installing solar panels and creating electricity from wastewater, Fat Tire, one of their first beers, became the first certified carbon neutral beer in America in August 2020. This is part of a wider company ambition to become completely carbon neutral by 2030. Changing the way they use steam may just be the key step towards this goal. ",BBC,25/04/2024,"['Colorado-based New Belgium Brewing can trace its roots to 1988 and a cycle trip through Belgium.', 'The experience inspired co-founders Kim Jordan and Jeff Lebesch to bring Belgian brewing techniques back to their home town.', 'Three years later and the duo were selling Fat Tire, one of their first beers at a local festival, and they now have over a dozen beers in production.', 'But while they have spent 30 years creating flavours unique to the US market, they have at least one thing in common with all brewers - the use of steam.', 'Steam is used to sanitise their brewing equipment, as well as being a key part of the brewing process.', 'Large cone-shaped kettles are used to boil wort - liquid extracted from the initial brewing stage of mashing barley - generating steam.', 'This boiling process helps to remove flavours the brewer does not want in the beer, before the wort is transferred to vessels to ferment with yeast, resulting in beer.', 'Some of the steam generated by the kettles is captured by a heat exchanger, which allows the brewer to use this waste heat in the next batch of brewing.', 'The driving force behind the industrial revolution, steam remains crucial to production processes across multiple industries.', 'As well as its frequent use in the food and beverage industry, steam is also used for sterilisation by pharmaceutical companies, and for heating a wide range of buildings such as hospitals.', 'But steam is still primarily generated using boilers run on fossil fuels, giving it a big carbon footprint.', 'Fossil fuels made up 73% of industrial energy use in the US in 2018, with 40% of these fossil fuels used to heat boilers producing steam.', 'To cut that, one option would be to switch to electric.', 'Assuming the electricity is generated from sustainable sources, then the carbon footprint is slashed.', 'But using electricity does have downsides. ""', 'The biggest challenge is cost, which is likely to limit the pace of customer adoption,"" says Maurizio Preziosa, from UK-based engineering firm Spirax Group.', 'While cost might be an issue, the switch is relatively straightforward.', 'Mr Preziosa says that his firm\'s technology can usually slot into the existing system. ""', 'Customers can continue to use the rest of their existing steam infrastructure,"" Mr Preziosa explains.', 'This has the additional benefit of reducing downtime, a potential obstacle to adoption for companies reliant on tightly calibrated production processes.', 'US-based AtmosZero has a different approach to creating steam.', 'Their boiler is a heat pump, which extracts heat from the air and turns it into high temperature steam.', 'It works by circulating liquid refrigerants with low boiling points through a closed loop, capturing warmth from the air.', 'The slightly warmed refrigerant is compressed, raising it to a temperature high enough to boil water.', 'A heat exchanger then transfers that heat from the refrigerant, to water to make steam.', 'The big advantage of this approach is that it cuts operating costs.', 'The company\'s chief executive, Addison Stark estimates that their heat pump technology could save companies hundreds of thousands of dollars compared to the options currently available. ""', 'Being a heat pump-based system, we are significantly more efficient than current boilers - we create about two units of heat output for one unit of energy input, dramatically reducing the operating costs,"" Mr Stark explains.', 'More technology of business AtmosZero is still in the early stages, with more development work needed.', 'The goal is to build a manufacturing plant and start delivering boiler systems in early 2026.', 'Mr Stark is confident the system will work at the scale needed by industry. ""', 'We are mass-manufactured and simple to deploy.""', 'Makers of green steam equipment see demand rising in the coming years. ""', 'The expectations of end consumers are shifting,"" Maurizio Preziosa from Spirax Group explains. ""', 'They want to buy from companies who operate sustainably by reducing their impact on people and planet, and this, along with regulatory pressure, is driving demand from our customers who serve those consumers,"" he says.', ""Back in Colorado, preparations are under way at New Belgium Brewing where AtmosZero will be swapping out one of the brewery's combustion boilers for their heat pump system."", 'This is the next step on a journey of sustainability the company has been on since those early days selling their beer at local festivals.', 'As well as installing solar panels and creating electricity from wastewater, Fat Tire, one of their first beers, became the first certified carbon neutral beer in America in August 2020.', 'This is part of a wider company ambition to become completely carbon neutral by 2030.', 'Changing the way they use steam may just be the key step towards this goal.']",0.1313956987949602,"Being a heat pump-based system, we are significantly more efficient than current boilers - we create about two units of heat output for one unit of energy input, dramatically reducing the operating costs,"" Mr Stark explains.","Some of the steam generated by the kettles is captured by a heat exchanger, which allows the brewer to use this waste heat in the next batch of brewing.",0.6398535641756925,"Makers of green steam equipment see demand rising in the coming years. ""","The biggest challenge is cost, which is likely to limit the pace of customer adoption,"" says Maurizio Preziosa, from UK-based engineering firm Spirax Group.",2024-04-29
Chipotle posts big earnings beat as diners shake off higher prices,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/24/chipotle-mexican-grill-cmg-q1-2024-earnings.html,2024-04-24T22:10:02+0000,"In this articleChipotle Mexican Grill on Wednesday reported quarterly earnings and revenue that beat analysts' expectations, fueled by higher traffic to its restaurants.The stock rose 4% in extended trading.Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:Chipotle reported first-quarter net income of $359.3 million, or $13.01 per share, up from $291.6 million, or $10.50 per share, a year earlier.Excluding a 36-cent hit from increases to its legal reserves, the burrito chain earned $13.37 per share.Net sales climbed 14.1% to $2.7 billion.The company's same-store sales rose 7%, topping StreetAccount estimates of 5.2%. Chipotle said traffic increased 5.4% from the year-ago period, while the average check was up just 1.6%.In February, Chief Financial Officer Jack Hartung told analysts that ""unusually cold weather"" hurt January sales. But demand rebounded in the rest of the quarter to offset the sluggish first month.Chipotle has become the rare restaurant chain to report rising transactions despite higher menu prices. The company once again raised its prices in October, citing inflation. Others in the restaurant industry have turned to limited-time offers and deals to appeal to customers, particularly those with lower incomes.CEO Brian Niccol said the company saw traffic growth across income groups during the quarter. He credited the chain's value perception among diners. Previously, executives have also emphasized that most of its customers come from higher-income brackets.Earlier this month, Chipotle raised prices in California roughly 7% to offset the state's higher minimum wage for fast-food workers, but the company does not have plans for any more hikes, Niccol said on CNBC's ""Closing Bell"" on Wednesday.Chipotle has also been focusing on making its burritos and bowls more quickly, improving the industry metric known as throughput. Niccol said throughput reached its highest level in four years during the first quarter.The chain added 47 new locations to its footprint during the first quarter, inching closer to its long-term goal of doubling its total number of restaurants to reach 7,000 stores.For the full year, Chipotle now anticipates same-store sales will grow by a mid-to-high single-digit percentage, up from its prior range of a mid-single-digit increase. The company reiterated its forecast of 285 to 315 new locations in 2024.In March, Chipotle's board approved a 50-for-1 stock split, one of the largest in the New York Stock Exchange's history. The company is seeking shareholder approval at its annual meeting on June 6. If investors vote ""yes,"" the stock will start trading on a post-split basis on June 26.",CNBC,24/04/2024,"[""In this articleChipotle Mexican Grill on Wednesday reported quarterlyearningsand revenue that beat analysts' expectations, fueled by higher traffic to its restaurants."", 'The stock rose 4% in extended trading.', ""Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:Chipotle reported first-quarter net income of $359.3 million, or $13.01 per share, up from $291.6 million, or $10.50 per share, a year earlier."", 'Excluding a 36-cent hit from increases to its legal reserves, the burrito chain earned $13.37 per share.', 'Net salesclimbed14.1% to $2.7 billion.', ""The company's same-store sales rose 7%, topping StreetAccount estimates of 5.2%."", 'Chipotle said traffic increased 5.4% from the year-ago period, while the average check was up just 1.6%.In February, Chief Financial Officer Jack Hartung told analysts that ""unusually cold weather"" hurt January sales.', 'But demand rebounded in the rest of the quarter to offset the sluggish first month.', 'Chipotle has become the rare restaurant chain to report rising transactions despite higher menu prices.', 'The company once again raised its prices in October, citing inflation.', 'Others in the restaurant industry have turned to limited-time offers and deals to appeal to customers, particularly those with lower incomes.', 'CEO Brian Niccol said the company saw traffic growth across income groups during the quarter.', ""He credited the chain's value perception among diners."", 'Previously, executives have also emphasized that most of its customers come from higher-income brackets.', 'Earlier this month, Chipotle raised prices in California roughly 7% to offset the state\'s higher minimum wage for fast-food workers, but the company does not have plans for any more hikes, Niccol said on CNBC\'s ""Closing Bell"" on Wednesday.', 'Chipotle has also been focusing on making its burritos and bowls more quickly, improving the industry metric known as throughput.', 'Niccol said throughput reached its highest level in four years during the first quarter.', 'The chain added 47 new locations to its footprint during the first quarter, inching closer to its long-term goal of doubling its total number of restaurants to reach 7,000 stores.', 'For the full year, Chipotle now anticipates same-store sales will grow by a mid-to-high single-digit percentage, up from its prior range of a mid-single-digit increase.', ""The company reiterated its forecast of 285 to 315 new locations in 2024.In March, Chipotle's board approved a 50-for-1 stock split, one of the largest in the New York Stock Exchange's history."", 'The company is seeking shareholder approval at its annual meeting on June 6.', 'If investors vote ""yes,"" the stock will start trading on a post-split basis on June 26.']",0.1267962532755779,He credited the chain's value perception among diners.,But demand rebounded in the rest of the quarter to offset the sluggish first month.,0.852291489348692,"The company's same-store sales rose 7%, topping StreetAccount estimates of 5.2%.",Chipotle has become the rare restaurant chain to report rising transactions despite higher menu prices.,2024-04-29
Football betting: Regulator to meet over 'inaccurate' stats concern,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68646059,2024-04-27T10:53:44.000Z,"The gambling watchdog will meet figures in the football betting industry over claims that wrong results are being recorded, the BBC has learned. Bookmakers use data providers to settle bets placed on statistics like the number of tackles or shots in a match.  But the BBC has spoken to customers who claim they have lost bets because of inaccurate data they cannot appeal. Andrew Rhodes, CEO of the Gambling Commission, says it is important such decisions are accurate and fair.  Sean Murphy stood to win £370 if Mo Salah had two shots on target in a Premier League game against Manchester City last season. Salah scored in the 76th minute and replays appeared to show a second shot on target earlier in the half.  But, the referee mistakenly awarded a goal-kick and Opta, the data partner of Sean's bookmaker, recorded the shot as off target. ""You feel robbed,"" says Sean. He argues that despite the referee's error the effort still met Opta's published definition of a shot on target.  ""If the keeper didn't get a hand on it, it's a goal, therefore it's a shot on target, therefore my bet should've won,"" he claims. Stats-based football bets are some of the most widely promoted by bookmakers.  Many offer 'Bet Builders' that combine several data predictions into a larger wager.  Connor, another bettor, needed Sunderland to make 14 or more tackles in their FA Cup tie against Newcastle to win his 'Bet Builder'. Opta recorded 13 and the bet was a narrow loser.  However, replays appeared to show a tackle by Jobe Bellingham that had been mis-recorded as a blocked pass.  ""It was a blatant tackle... I was in disbelief,"" Connor says.  ""There's nothing that we can do about it, because there's no appeals process."" We showed these two incidents and five others to a football analytics expert.   Dr Alireza Monajati, from the University of East London, assessed that in most cases the customers' concerns were valid. ""No data company asserts absolute accuracy,"" he added. ""Even with a high accuracy rate, say 95%, it implies a 5% margin of inaccuracy."" Nearly 300 people tried to appeal their football data bets to the Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS) last year.  It made up around 15% of their workload. The UK's biggest betting resolution body admits it is frustrated by the subjective nature of these markets, but it does not overturn the vast majority of cases.  ""Our position is, if a bookmaker says we will settle bets based on what a third party declares, we think that is fair enough,"" says IBAS Managing Director, Richard Hayler. ""Our concern is that if the person who placed the bet thinks the data agency has made a mistake, there is not currently a mechanism for them to get the agency to have a second look."" Opta is the third party data agency used by most bookmakers. Paddy Power, Bet365, William Hill, and many more bookmakers have terms that state Opta's statistics will be used to settle their data bets. Others also use data from organisations like the Press Association or governing bodies like FIFA and UEFA. Different data providers often return different results. For example, in the 2022 FIFA World Cup Final, Opta recorded 30 'shots', whereas FIFA counted 31 'attempts on goal'. Opta's parent company, Stats Perform, said: ""We take the quality, consistency, and accuracy of our sports data incredibly seriously. ""We work tirelessly and are proud of our data collection people, processes and event definitions that underpin the trust in the B2B services we provide to the club, league, media and betting sectors. "" They told us that their clients, including bookmakers, can contact a ""premium round-the-clock support team"" if they believe there is a data error. End users, such as betting customers, with a data query ""should raise it directly with the company producing the product they are using"". They added: ""If a bettor is not satisfied with the response from their bookmaker,"" they will also review queries from the Gambling Commission and IBAS.  The Betting and Gaming Council, which represents most of the UK's betting companies, declined to comment saying that the mechanics of settling bets is one for individual operators.  ",BBC,27/04/2024,"['The gambling watchdog will meet figures in the football betting industry over claims that wrong results are being recorded, the BBC has learned.', 'Bookmakers use data providers to settle bets placed on statistics like the number of tackles or shots in a match.', 'But the BBC has spoken to customers who claim they have lost bets because of inaccurate data they cannot appeal.', 'Andrew Rhodes, CEO of the Gambling Commission, says it is important such decisions are accurate and fair.', 'Sean Murphy stood to win £370 if Mo Salah had two shots on target in a Premier League game against Manchester City last season.', 'Salah scored in the 76th minute and replays appeared to show a second shot on target earlier in the half.', 'But, the referee mistakenly awarded a goal-kick and Opta, the data partner of Sean\'s bookmaker, recorded the shot as off target. ""', 'You feel robbed,"" says Sean.', 'He argues that despite the referee\'s error the effort still met Opta\'s published definition of a shot on target. ""', 'If the keeper didn\'t get a hand on it, it\'s a goal, therefore it\'s a shot on target, therefore my bet should\'ve won,"" he claims.', 'Stats-based football bets are some of the most widely promoted by bookmakers.', ""Many offer 'Bet Builders' that combine several data predictions into a larger wager."", ""Connor, another bettor, needed Sunderland to make 14 or more tackles in their FA Cup tie against Newcastle to win his 'Bet Builder'."", 'Opta recorded 13 and the bet was a narrow loser.', 'However, replays appeared to show a tackle by Jobe Bellingham that had been mis-recorded as a blocked pass. ""', 'It was a blatant tackle... I was in disbelief,"" Connor says. ""', 'There\'s nothing that we can do about it, because there\'s no appeals process.""', 'We showed these two incidents and five others to a football analytics expert.', 'Dr Alireza Monajati, from the University of East London, assessed that in most cases the customers\' concerns were valid. ""', 'No data company asserts absolute accuracy,"" he added. ""', 'Even with a high accuracy rate, say 95%, it implies a 5% margin of inaccuracy.""', 'Nearly 300 people tried to appeal their football data bets to the Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS) last year.', 'It made up around 15% of their workload.', 'The UK\'s biggest betting resolution body admits it is frustrated by the subjective nature of these markets, but it does not overturn the vast majority of cases. ""', 'Our position is, if a bookmaker says we will settle bets based on what a third party declares, we think that is fair enough,"" says IBAS Managing Director, Richard Hayler. ""', 'Our concern is that if the person who placed the bet thinks the data agency has made a mistake, there is not currently a mechanism for them to get the agency to have a second look.""', 'Opta is the third party data agency used by most bookmakers.', ""Paddy Power, Bet365, William Hill, and many more bookmakers have terms that state Opta's statistics will be used to settle their data bets."", 'Others also use data from organisations like the Press Association or governing bodies like FIFA and UEFA.', 'Different data providers often return different results.', ""For example, in the 2022 FIFA World Cup Final, Opta recorded 30 'shots', whereas FIFA counted 31 'attempts on goal'."", 'Opta\'s parent company, Stats Perform, said: ""We take the quality, consistency, and accuracy of our sports data incredibly seriously. ""', 'We work tirelessly and are proud of our data collection people, processes and event definitions that underpin the trust in the B2B services we provide to the club, league, media and betting sectors. ""', 'They told us that their clients, including bookmakers, can contact a ""premium round-the-clock support team"" if they believe there is a data error.', 'End users, such as betting customers, with a data query ""should raise it directly with the company producing the product they are using"".', 'They added: ""If a bettor is not satisfied with the response from their bookmaker,"" they will also review queries from the Gambling Commission and IBAS.', ""The Betting and Gaming Council, which represents most of the UK's betting companies, declined to comment saying that the mechanics of settling bets is one for individual operators.""]",0.0503043296268803,"If the keeper didn't get a hand on it, it's a goal, therefore it's a shot on target, therefore my bet should've won,"" he claims.","He argues that despite the referee's error the effort still met Opta's published definition of a shot on target. """,-0.1026665994099208,Sean Murphy stood to win £370 if Mo Salah had two shots on target in a Premier League game against Manchester City last season.,But the BBC has spoken to customers who claim they have lost bets because of inaccurate data they cannot appeal.,2024-04-29
"Professional pickleball signs first international deal, looks to grow the sport in India",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/us-pro-pickleball-group-signs-first-international-deal-in-india.html,2024-04-25T19:41:55+0000,"America's fastest-growing sport, pickleball, is going after a new frontier: India.The United Pickleball Association and Global Sports announced a deal on Thursday to bring the PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball to the world's most populous country.It's the first international deal and major announcement for the United Pickleball Association, which was created after a merger between Major League Pickleball and the Professional Pickleball Association last February.The PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball retained their own distinct brands after the merger. The PPA Tour features an individual bracket-style tour, while MLP is a team-based format.Terms of the deal were not available.""The PPA Tour India and MLP India will create a pathway for players to compete on pickleball's biggest stage and reach the top of the sport. With the partnership of Global Sports, we will elevate the game and introduce it to millions of new fans,"" said Connor Pardoe, founder and CEO of the PPA Tour.As part of the partnership, the PPA Tour will make an official tour stop in India next February. The Indian Open event will be the debut PPA Tour event in Asia and is expected to bring players from all over the world to participate.The deal will also launch PPA Tour India, offering ranking points to players at events around the country.Major League Pickleball, the team-based league, will hold a competition in India featuring a mix of players from India, as well as MLP and PPA Tour professionals.United Pickleball Association said the group also plans to hold an open process to sell MLP franchises, with the goal of launching a full 12-team season in 2025-26.Franchises are expected to cost in the seven-figure range, according to sources.In September, Major League Pickleball announced its expansion into Australia.The APP Tour, which represents both amateurs and seniors, has also been active in bringing the sport overseas to India, the United Kingdom, Spain and Sweden.Global Sports, which was at the forefront of bringing pickleball to India, operates courts and organizes tournaments in India.""Pickleball in India has grown by leaps in the last couple of years, and this will give existing players a platform to compete at the highest level,"" said Shashank Khaitan, partner at Global Sports.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"[""America's fastest-growing sport, pickleball, is going after a new frontier: India."", ""The United Pickleball Association and Global Sports announced a deal on Thursday to bring the PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball to the world's most populous country."", ""It's the first international deal and major announcement for the United Pickleball Association, which was created after a merger between Major League Pickleball and the Professional Pickleball Association last February."", 'The PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball retained their own distinct brands after the merger.', 'The PPA Tour features an individual bracket-style tour, while MLP is a team-based format.', 'Terms of the deal were not available.', '""The PPA Tour India and MLP India will create a pathway for players to compete on pickleball\'s biggest stage and reach the top of the sport.', 'With the partnership of Global Sports, we will elevate the game and introduce it to millions of new fans,"" said Connor Pardoe, founder and CEO of the PPA Tour.', 'As part of the partnership, the PPA Tour will make an official tour stop in India next February.', 'The Indian Open event will be the debut PPA Tour event in Asia and is expected to bring players from all over the world to participate.', 'The deal will also launch PPA Tour India, offering ranking points to players at events around the country.', 'Major League Pickleball, the team-based league, will hold a competition in India featuring a mix of players from India, as well as MLP and PPA Tour professionals.', 'United Pickleball Association said the group also plans to hold an open process to sell MLP franchises, with the goal of launching a full 12-team season in 2025-26.Franchises are expected to cost in the seven-figure range, according to sources.', 'In September, Major League Pickleball announced its expansion into Australia.', 'The APP Tour, which represents both amateurs and seniors, has also been active in bringing the sport overseas to India, the United Kingdom, Spain and Sweden.', 'Global Sports, which was at the forefront of bringing pickleball to India, operates courts and organizes tournaments in India.', '""Pickleball in India has grown by leaps in the last couple of years, and this will give existing players a platform to compete at the highest level,"" said Shashank Khaitan, partner at Global Sports.']",0.1651015723437605,"The APP Tour, which represents both amateurs and seniors, has also been active in bringing the sport overseas to India, the United Kingdom, Spain and Sweden.","As part of the partnership, the PPA Tour will make an official tour stop in India next February.",0.9883124828338624,"""Pickleball in India has grown by leaps in the last couple of years, and this will give existing players a platform to compete at the highest level,"" said Shashank Khaitan, partner at Global Sports.",,2024-04-29
Open seating no more? Southwest CEO says airline is weighing cabin changes,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/southwest-weighing-cabin-changes-to-drive-revenue.html,2024-04-25T19:59:11+0000,"In this articleSouthwest Airlines is considering changes to its single-class, open-seating cabins to drive up revenue, CEO Bob Jordan told CNBC on Thursday, a shift that would be among the largest in the airline's history.""We're looking into new initiatives, things like the way we seat and board our aircraft,"" Jordan said in an interview after the carrier's disappointing first-quarter report.Southwest's all-Boeing 737 fleet has a single economy class cabin and no seating assignments, though it does offer earlier boarding for a fee so customers can snag their preferred seats. The airline has focused on keeping its product simple and user-friendly for years, aiming to keep its own costs and complexity to a minimum.Meanwhile, rivals including Delta and United have touted high revenue growth for premium seating such as business class and strong upsell rates.Analysts have repeatedly asked Southwest about opportunities for premium seating or additional fees. (The airline doesn't charge travelers for their first two checked bags.)Most U.S. airlines charge travelers to choose many of its seats in advance, even those that don't come with extra legroom. Eight U.S. carriers — Alaska, Allegiant, American, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, Spirit and United — together brought in $4.2 billion from seating fees in their domestic networks in 2022, according to Jay Sorensen, an airline ancillary revenue expert at IdeaWorksCompany.Jordan said no decisions have been made on what kind of changes Southwest will ultimately make, but he said studies have yielded ""interesting"" results.""Customer preferences do change over time,"" Jordan said.While details were scarce during Southwest's earnings call, when asked whether Southwest would consider a separated cabin on its planes, Ryan Green, the carrier's chief commercial officer said: ""Curtains and things like that are a bit far afield from what Southwest Airlines is.""Green added that the carrier is not considering charging for checked bags because ""people choose Southwest Airlines because we don't have bag fees.""— CNBC's Phil LeBeau contributed to this report.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"[""In this articleSouthwest Airlines is considering changes to its single-class, open-seating cabins to drive up revenue, CEO Bob Jordan told CNBC on Thursday, a shift that would be among the largest in the airline's history."", '""We\'re looking into new initiatives, things like the way we seat and board our aircraft,"" Jordan said in an interview after the carrier\'s disappointing first-quarter report.', ""Southwest's all-Boeing 737 fleet has a single economy class cabin and no seating assignments, though it does offer earlier boarding for a fee so customers can snag their preferred seats."", 'The airline has focused on keeping its product simple and user-friendly for years, aiming to keep its own costs and complexity to a minimum.', 'Meanwhile, rivals including Delta and United have touted high revenue growth for premium seating such as business class and strong upsell rates.', 'Analysts have repeatedly asked Southwest about opportunities for premium seating or additional fees. (', ""The airline doesn't charge travelers for their first two checked bags.)Most U.S. airlines charge travelers to choose many of its seats in advance, even those that don't come with extra legroom."", 'Eight U.S. carriers — Alaska, Allegiant, American, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, Spirit and United — together brought in $4.2 billion from seating fees in their domestic networks in 2022, according to Jay Sorensen, an airline ancillary revenue expert at IdeaWorksCompany.', 'Jordan said no decisions have been made on what kind of changes Southwest will ultimately make, but he said studies have yielded ""interesting"" results.', '""Customer preferences do change over time,"" Jordan said.', 'While details were scarce during Southwest\'s earnings call, when asked whether Southwest would consider a separated cabin on its planes, Ryan Green, the carrier\'s chief commercial officer said: ""Curtains and things like that are a bit far afield from what Southwest Airlines is.', '""Green added that the carrier is not considering charging for checked bags because ""people choose Southwest Airlines because we don\'t have bag fees.""—', ""CNBC's Phil LeBeau contributed to this report.""]",0.2277260589164618,"Meanwhile, rivals including Delta and United have touted high revenue growth for premium seating such as business class and strong upsell rates.","Southwest's all-Boeing 737 fleet has a single economy class cabin and no seating assignments, though it does offer earlier boarding for a fee so customers can snag their preferred seats.",0.9218981464703878,"Meanwhile, rivals including Delta and United have touted high revenue growth for premium seating such as business class and strong upsell rates.",,2024-04-29
Tesla shares jump after reports of Musk's China self-drive deal,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgxwlqej0jjo,2024-04-29T15:08:53.307Z,"Tesla’s shares have jumped after reports the firm has cleared an important regulatory hurdle in China by partnering with search giant Baidu. The reports come after chief executive Elon Musk made a surprise visit to meet the country’s number two leader, Premier Li Qiang. The deal with Baidu brings Mr Musk a step closer to rolling out Tesla's self-driving technology in China. Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives said it was “a watershed moment”. Tesla has been contacted for comment. Baidu declined to comment. Mr Ives said the company faces “massive domestic electric vehicle competition in China along with softer demand”, but that its “long-term valuation story” depends on it also getting approval for fully autonomous driving. The agreement with Baidu that is being reported would allow Tesla to go ahead with some autonomous driving technology in China. Baidu's mapping and navigation services would aid Tesla's self-driving technology, including assisted parking, but full autonomous technology would still require further approval. Tesla is one of the world’s largest electric car manufacturers, and China is its second biggest market, but it has yet to launch autonomous driving there as it has in other countries, such as the US. Mr Musk strongly believes that autonomous driving is the future. ""If somebody doesn't believe Tesla is going to solve autonomy, I think they should not be an investor,"" he has previously said. However, even in the US, autonomous cars face challenges and further regulatory hurdles. Tesla's autopilot allows drivers to hand control to the vehicle's AI, but it still needs constant human oversight. Despite this precaution, misuse of the technology has been fatal. Last Friday, the US auto regulator opened a probe into the ""adequacy"" of a software update Tesla made to try to fix problems with its autopilot feature. The agency said ""foreseeable driver misuse of the system played an apparent role"" in at least 13 Tesla crashes, including at least one death, and many more involving serious injuries. In December, a former Tesla employee told the BBC he did not believe the technology powering the firm's self-driving vehicles was safe enough to be used on public roads. Tesla’s share price jumped almost 12% as markets opened in the US on Monday and means the stock has recovered some of the value it has lost since the start of the year, with the price down over a quarter since January. The Chinese approval — which hasn't been officially confirmed by Tesla or Baidu but was reported by AP, Reuters, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, and others —  comes after Mr Musk flew to China on the weekend to meet with senior officials. State media quoted Mr Musk as saying Tesla wanted co-operation with the country to ""achieve more win-win results"". Part of the reason analysts believe the firm needs approval in China is because its financial performance has weakened. In its results last Tuesday, it recorded $21.3bn (£17bn) in sales for the first three months of this year. This was a drop from the $23.3bn recorded in the first three months of 2023 and lower than analysts' predictions of just over $22bn. It pinned its falling sales on ""additional competitors"" and ""changes in government and economic incentives"" for electric vehicles. US revenue decreased from $11.2bn to $9.76bn, while Chinese sales fared better, falling from $4.89bn to $4.59bn. ",BBC,29/04/2024,"['Tesla’s shares have jumped after reports the firm has cleared an important regulatory hurdle in China by partnering with search giant Baidu.', 'The reports come after chief executive Elon Musk made a surprise visit to meet the country’s number two leader, Premier Li Qiang.', ""The deal with Baidu brings Mr Musk a step closer to rolling out Tesla's self-driving technology in China."", 'Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives said it was “a watershed moment”.', 'Tesla has been contacted for comment.', 'Baidu declined to comment.', 'Mr Ives said the company faces “massive domestic electric vehicle competition in China along with softer demand”, but that its “long-term valuation story” depends on it also getting approval for fully autonomous driving.', 'The agreement with Baidu that is being reported would allow Tesla to go ahead with some autonomous driving technology in China.', ""Baidu's mapping and navigation services would aid Tesla's self-driving technology, including assisted parking, but full autonomous technology would still require further approval."", 'Tesla is one of the world’s largest electric car manufacturers, and China is its second biggest market, but it has yet to launch autonomous driving there as it has in other countries, such as the US.', 'Mr Musk strongly believes that autonomous driving is the future. ""', 'If somebody doesn\'t believe Tesla is going to solve autonomy, I think they should not be an investor,"" he has previously said.', 'However, even in the US, autonomous cars face challenges and further regulatory hurdles.', ""Tesla's autopilot allows drivers to hand control to the vehicle's AI, but it still needs constant human oversight."", 'Despite this precaution, misuse of the technology has been fatal.', 'Last Friday, the US auto regulator opened a probe into the ""adequacy"" of a software update Tesla made to try to fix problems with its autopilot feature.', 'The agency said ""foreseeable driver misuse of the system played an apparent role"" in at least 13 Tesla crashes, including at least one death, and many more involving serious injuries.', ""In December, a former Tesla employee told the BBC he did not believe the technology powering the firm's self-driving vehicles was safe enough to be used on public roads."", 'Tesla’s share price jumped almost 12% as markets opened in the US on Monday and means the stock has recovered some of the value it has lost since the start of the year, with the price down over a quarter since January.', ""The Chinese approval — which hasn't been officially confirmed by Tesla or Baidu but was reported by AP, Reuters, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, and others — comes after Mr Musk flew to China on the weekend to meet with senior officials."", 'State media quoted Mr Musk as saying Tesla wanted co-operation with the country to ""achieve more win-win results"".', 'Part of the reason analysts believe the firm needs approval in China is because its financial performance has weakened.', 'In its results last Tuesday, it recorded $21.3bn (£17bn) in sales for the first three months of this year.', ""This was a drop from the $23.3bn recorded in the first three months of 2023 and lower than analysts' predictions of just over $22bn."", 'It pinned its falling sales on ""additional competitors"" and ""changes in government and economic incentives"" for electric vehicles.', 'US revenue decreased from $11.2bn to $9.76bn, while Chinese sales fared better, falling from $4.89bn to $4.59bn.']",0.1609726187898293,"State media quoted Mr Musk as saying Tesla wanted co-operation with the country to ""achieve more win-win results"".","Despite this precaution, misuse of the technology has been fatal.",-0.0129609107971191,"State media quoted Mr Musk as saying Tesla wanted co-operation with the country to ""achieve more win-win results"".",This was a drop from the $23.3bn recorded in the first three months of 2023 and lower than analysts' predictions of just over $22bn.,2024-04-29
FDIC says Republic First Bank is closed by Pennsylvania regulators,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/26/business/regulators-seize-republic-first-bancorp/index.html,"
  Updated
        7:38 PM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on Friday said that Republic First Bank has been closed by Pennsylvania state regulators, in what the FDIC said was the first US bank failure this year.
    
            “Philadelphia-based Republic First Bank (doing business as Republic Bank) was closed today by the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect depositors, the FDIC entered into an agreement with Fulton Bank, National Association of Lancaster, Pennsylvania to assume substantially all of the deposits and purchase substantially all of the assets of Republic Bank,” the FDIC said in a statement.
    
            The bank had about $6 billion in total assets and $4 billion in total deposits at the end of January, the FDIC said in its release.
    
            That makes Republic Bank (FRBK) far smaller than the regional bank failures that rocked the financial world last year. Silicon Valley Bank, for example, had about $209 billion at the end of 2022; it collapsed in March 2023.
    
            The FDIC said the former bank’s “32 branches in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York will reopen as branches of Fulton Bank on Saturday (for branches with normal Saturday hours) or on Monday during normal business hours.”
    
            Those who have deposits at Republic Bank will become depositors at Fulton Bank, the FDIC said. The agency’s deposit insurance covers up to $250,000 per depositor.
    
            Bloomberg News reported earlier in the week that the FDIC had approached buyers for the regional lender.
    
            The FDIC said that Republic Bank was the first bank to fail in the United States since Citizens Bank in Sac City, Iowa, in November 2023.
    
            Republic First Bank is a separate entity from First Republic Bank, a San Francisco-based commercial bank that was closed in May 2023. The majority of the bank’s assets were sold to JPMorgan Chase.
    
            The Philadelphia-based bank’s failure comes at a tumultuous time for regional banks, as elevated interest rates have hurt the credit-dependent industry.
    
            Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse sparked a broader crisis last year. Signature Bank’s failure followed days later, and First Republic Bank failed a few weeks after that. In total, there were five bank failures in 2023, according to the FDIC.
    
            Recently, New York Community Bank saw wild swings in its stock price as customers began pulling their cash from the regional lender after it said it had identified “material weakness” in the company’s controls. The bank got a $1 billion equity investment lifeline from investors, including former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s firm, Liberty Strategic Capital, in March.
    
            This story has been updated.",CNN,26/04/2024,"['The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on Friday said that Republic First Bank has been closed by Pennsylvania state regulators, in what the FDIC said was the first US bank failure this year.', '“Philadelphia-based Republic First Bank (doing business as Republic Bank) was closed today by the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver.', 'To protect depositors, the FDIC entered into an agreement with Fulton Bank, National Association of Lancaster, Pennsylvania to assume substantially all of the deposits and purchase substantially all of the assets of Republic Bank,” the FDIC said in a statement.', 'The bank had about $6 billion in total assets and $4 billion in total deposits at the end of January, the FDIC said in its release.', 'That makes Republic Bank (FRBK) far smaller than the regional bank failures that rocked the financial world last year.', 'Silicon Valley Bank, for example, had about $209 billion at the end of 2022; it collapsed in March 2023.', 'The FDIC said the former bank’s “32 branches in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York will reopen as branches of Fulton Bank on Saturday (for branches with normal Saturday hours) or on Monday during normal business hours.”', 'Those who have deposits at Republic Bank will become depositors at Fulton Bank, the FDIC said.', 'The agency’s deposit insurance covers up to $250,000 per depositor.', 'Bloomberg News reported earlier in the week that the FDIC had approached buyers for the regional lender.', 'The FDIC said that Republic Bank was the first bank to fail in the United States since Citizens Bank in Sac City, Iowa, in November 2023.', 'Republic First Bank is a separate entity from First Republic Bank, a San Francisco-based commercial bank that was closed in May 2023.', 'The majority of the bank’s assets were sold to JPMorgan Chase.', 'The Philadelphia-based bank’s failure comes at a tumultuous time for regional banks, as elevated interest rates have hurt the credit-dependent industry.', 'Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse sparked a broader crisis last year.', 'Signature Bank’s failure followed days later, and First Republic Bank failed a few weeks after that.', 'In total, there were five bank failures in 2023, according to the FDIC.', 'Recently, New York Community Bank saw wild swings in its stock price as customers began pulling their cash from the regional lender after it said it had identified “material weakness” in the company’s controls.', 'The bank got a $1 billion equity investment lifeline from investors, including former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s firm, Liberty Strategic Capital, in March.', 'This story has been updated.']",-0.101466138295481,"To protect depositors, the FDIC entered into an agreement with Fulton Bank, National Association of Lancaster, Pennsylvania to assume substantially all of the deposits and purchase substantially all of the assets of Republic Bank,” the FDIC said in a statement.",Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse sparked a broader crisis last year.,-0.5649114847183228,That makes Republic Bank (FRBK) far smaller than the regional bank failures that rocked the financial world last year.,"Recently, New York Community Bank saw wild swings in its stock price as customers began pulling their cash from the regional lender after it said it had identified “material weakness” in the company’s controls.",2024-04-29
The ex-flight attendant who became the first female boss of Japan Airlines,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68823400,2024-04-25T23:25:29.000Z,"When Mitsuko Tottori was named as the new boss of Japan Airlines (JAL) in January, it sent a shockwave across the country's corporate sector. Not only was Ms Tottori the carrier's first female boss, she had also started her career as a member of cabin crew. The headlines ranged from ""first woman"" and ""first former flight attendant"" to ""unusual"" and ""no way!"" One website even described her as ""an alien molecule"" or ""a mutant"", a reference to her having worked at Japan Air System (JAS), a much smaller airline that JAL bought two decades ago. ""I didn't know about an alien mutant,"" Ms Tottori  laughs as she spoke to me from Tokyo. In short, she was not from the elite group of businessmen that the carrier had customarily appointed to its top job. Out of the last 10 men who held the post, seven were educated at the country's top university. Ms Tottori is a graduate of a far less prestigious women-only junior college. With Ms Tottori's appointment, JAL has joined the less than 1% of Japan's top companies led by women. ""I don't think of myself as the first woman or the first former flight attendant. I want to act as an individual so I didn't expect to get this much attention."" ""But I realise the public or our employees don't necessarily see me like that,"" she adds. Her appointment also came just two weeks after JAL's flight attendants were lauded for the successful evacuation of passengers from a plane that collided with a coast guard aircraft during landing. Japan Airlines Flight 516 burst into flames after the collision on the runway at Tokyo's Haneda airport. Five of the six crew on the coastguard plane died and captain was injured. However, within minutes of the collision, all 379 people on board the Airbus A350-900 had safely escaped. The rigorous training of the carrier's flight attendants was suddenly in the spotlight. As a former flight attendant herself, Ms Tottori learned the importance of aviation safety first hand. Four months after she became a flight attendant in 1985, Japan Airlines was involved in the deadliest single aircraft accident in aviation history, which killed 520 people on Mount Osutaka. ""Every member of staff at JAL is given an opportunity to climb Mount Osutaka and speak to those who remember the accident,"" Ms Tottori says.  ""We also exhibit aircraft debris at our safety promotion centre so instead of just reading about it in a book, we look with our own eyes and feel with our own skin to learn about the accident."" While her appointment in the top job came as a surprise, JAL has changed rapidly since it went bankrupt in 2010, in what was the country's biggest ever corporate failure outside the financial sector. The airline managed to continue flying thanks to major state-backed financial support and the business underwent a sweeping restructuring with a new board and management. Its saviour was then-77-year-old retiree and ordained Buddhist monk, Kazuo Inamori. Without his transformational influence it is unlikely that someone like Ms Tottori could have become JAL's leader. I spoke to him in an interview in 2012. He did not mince his words, saying JAL was an arrogant firm that did not care about its customers. Under Mr Inamori's leadership the company promoted people from frontline operations, like pilots and engineers, rather than from bureaucratic posts. ""I felt very uncomfortable because the company didn't feel like a private firm at all,"" Mr Inamori, who died in 2022, told me. ""Many former government officials used to get golden parachutes into the firm."" JAL has come a long way since then, and the attention its first female president is receiving is not surprising. The Japanese government has been trying for almost a decade to increase the number of female bosses in the country. It now wants a third of leadership positions at major businesses to go to women by 2030, after failing to achieve the goal by 2020. ""It is not just about the corporate leaders' mindset, but it is also important for women to have the confidence to become a manager,"" says Ms Tottori. ""I hope my appointment would encourage other women to try things that they were afraid of trying before."" ",BBC,25/04/2024,"[""When Mitsuko Tottori was named as the new boss of Japan Airlines (JAL) in January, it sent a shockwave across the country's corporate sector."", ""Not only was Ms Tottori the carrier's first female boss, she had also started her career as a member of cabin crew."", 'The headlines ranged from ""first woman"" and ""first former flight attendant"" to ""unusual"" and ""no way!""', 'One website even described her as ""an alien molecule"" or ""a mutant"", a reference to her having worked at Japan Air System (JAS), a much smaller airline that JAL bought two decades ago. ""', 'I didn\'t know about an alien mutant,"" Ms Tottori laughs as she spoke to me from Tokyo.', 'In short, she was not from the elite group of businessmen that the carrier had customarily appointed to its top job.', ""Out of the last 10 men who held the post, seven were educated at the country's top university."", 'Ms Tottori is a graduate of a far less prestigious women-only junior college.', 'With Ms Tottori\'s appointment, JAL has joined the less than 1% of Japan\'s top companies led by women. ""', ""I don't think of myself as the first woman or the first former flight attendant."", 'I want to act as an individual so I didn\'t expect to get this much attention."" ""', 'But I realise the public or our employees don\'t necessarily see me like that,"" she adds.', ""Her appointment also came just two weeks after JAL's flight attendants were lauded for the successful evacuation of passengers from a plane that collided with a coast guard aircraft during landing."", ""Japan Airlines Flight 516 burst into flames after the collision on the runway at Tokyo's Haneda airport."", 'Five of the six crew on the coastguard plane died and captain was injured.', 'However, within minutes of the collision, all 379 people on board the Airbus A350-900 had safely escaped.', ""The rigorous training of the carrier's flight attendants was suddenly in the spotlight."", 'As a former flight attendant herself, Ms Tottori learned the importance of aviation safety first hand.', 'Four months after she became a flight attendant in 1985, Japan Airlines was involved in the deadliest single aircraft accident in aviation history, which killed 520 people on Mount Osutaka. ""', 'Every member of staff at JAL is given an opportunity to climb Mount Osutaka and speak to those who remember the accident,"" Ms Tottori says. ""', 'We also exhibit aircraft debris at our safety promotion centre so instead of just reading about it in a book, we look with our own eyes and feel with our own skin to learn about the accident.""', ""While her appointment in the top job came as a surprise, JAL has changed rapidly since it went bankrupt in 2010, in what was the country's biggest ever corporate failure outside the financial sector."", 'The airline managed to continue flying thanks to major state-backed financial support and the business underwent a sweeping restructuring with a new board and management.', 'Its saviour was then-77-year-old retiree and ordained Buddhist monk, Kazuo Inamori.', ""Without his transformational influence it is unlikely that someone like Ms Tottori could have become JAL's leader."", 'I spoke to him in an interview in 2012.', 'He did not mince his words, saying JAL was an arrogant firm that did not care about its customers.', 'Under Mr Inamori\'s leadership the company promoted people from frontline operations, like pilots and engineers, rather than from bureaucratic posts. ""', 'I felt very uncomfortable because the company didn\'t feel like a private firm at all,"" Mr Inamori, who died in 2022, told me. ""', 'Many former government officials used to get golden parachutes into the firm.""', 'JAL has come a long way since then, and the attention its first female president is receiving is not surprising.', 'The Japanese government has been trying for almost a decade to increase the number of female bosses in the country.', 'It now wants a third of leadership positions at major businesses to go to women by 2030, after failing to achieve the goal by 2020. ""', 'It is not just about the corporate leaders\' mindset, but it is also important for women to have the confidence to become a manager,"" says Ms Tottori. ""', 'I hope my appointment would encourage other women to try things that they were afraid of trying before.""']",0.0432886213684849,"As a former flight attendant herself, Ms Tottori learned the importance of aviation safety first hand.","Four months after she became a flight attendant in 1985, Japan Airlines was involved in the deadliest single aircraft accident in aviation history, which killed 520 people on Mount Osutaka. """,0.5970875263214112,Her appointment also came just two weeks after JAL's flight attendants were lauded for the successful evacuation of passengers from a plane that collided with a coast guard aircraft during landing.,"When Mitsuko Tottori was named as the new boss of Japan Airlines (JAL) in January, it sent a shockwave across the country's corporate sector.",2024-04-29
How robots are taking over warehouse work,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68639533,2024-04-23T01:17:00.000Z,"Shoppers probably don't think much about what happens next when they place an online grocery order. But it sets-off an intricate dance of software, artificial intelligence, robots, vans and workers. At an Ocado warehouse just outside Luton, I'm in the middle of such a dance. As far as I can see, hundreds of robots whizz around a grid, fetching items for online orders. They move with dizzying speed and precision. In the early days of online shopping, when you placed an order, humans would dash around a warehouse or a store collecting your items. But for years now, Ocado has been using robots to collect and distribute products, bringing them to staff, who pack them into boxes for delivery. And Ocado is not the only firm investing in such automation. In its warehouses, Asda uses a system from Swiss automation firm Swisslog and Norway's AutoStore. In the US, Walmart has been automating parts of its supply chain using robotics from an American company called Symbotic. Back in Luton, Ocado has taken its automation process to a higher level. The robots which zoom around the grid, now bring items to robotic arms, which reach out and grab what they need for the customer's shop. Bags of rice, boxes of tea, packets of crumpets are all grabbed by the arms using a suction cup on the end. It might seem like a trivial addition, but training a robot to recognise an item, grab it successfully and move it, is surprisingly difficult.  At Ocado around 100 engineers have spent years training the artificial intelligence (AI) to take on that task.  James Matthews, chief executive of Ocado Technology explains the AI has to interpret the information coming from its cameras.  ""What is an object? Where are the edges of that object? How would one grasp it?"" In addition the AI has to work out how to move the arm. ""How do I pick that up and accelerate in a way without flinging it across the room? How do I place it in a bag?"" he says. The Luton warehouse has 44 robotic arms, which at the moment account for 15% of the products that flow through the facility, that's about 400,000 items a week. The rest are handled by staff at picking stations.  The staff handle items that robots are not ready for yet, like wine bottles which are heavy and have curved surfaces, making them difficult to grasp. But the system is ramping up. The company is developing different attachments for the robot arms that will allow them to handle a wider variety of items. ""We're just playing it carefully and ramping slowly over time,"" says Mr Matthews. ""It's a deliberate constraint on our behalf, so we continue providing good service to people, and not crushed custard creams in every order, or worse, putting stuff on the track that goes under the wheels of one of the bots and creates an incident."" In two or three years Ocado expects the robots will account for 70% of the products.  This inevitably means fewer human staff, but the Luton warehouse still has 1,400 staff, and many of those will still be needed in the future. ""There will be some sort of curve that tends towards fewer people per building. But it's not as clear cut as, 'hey, look, we're on the verge of just not needing people'. We're a very long way from that,"" Mr Matthews says. Ocado is hoping to sell its automation technology to companies outside the grocery sector. Late last year it announced a deal with Canada's McKesson, a large pharmaceuticals distributor. ""Think about which industries have the need to move things around efficiently inside of warehouse... it's endless,"" says Mr Matthews.  More technology of business So where will the automation of warehouses end? Are we heading to human-free warehouses that can run 24 hours a day? Not so fast, says Sarah Bolton, who specialises in commercial real estate at law firm Taylor Wessing. ""It's almost prohibitively expensive, we're talking hundreds of millions of pounds to fully automate a warehouse,"" she points out.  ""So you're really only talking about the big tenants in the really big warehouses looking at full automation, just because you have to have that size to make it anywhere near financially viable."" She also points that automation needs modern buildings, including floors that can stand heavy weights, large spaces without support columns, so there's less for the robots to crash into. Reliable electricity connections are also vital. ""You're reliant on new build, and there's a massive undersupply of new build warehouse stock in the UK at the minute,"" says Ms Bolton.  AutoStore is tackling some of those challenges. It has a company called Pio which is developing automation for smaller businesses. It uses much of the same technology that AutoStore supplies to big firms - robots buzzing around on a storage grid where goods are stacked vertically. However the upfront costs of Pio's system are lower, with the cost related to the volume of goods the system handles. The software is simpler and designed to integrate easily with common e-commerce systems like Shopify. ""It's a complete offering... where the upfront cost is very reduced. So it's quite affordable for these companies to get access to automation and start to get the benefits out of it. And since the technology is very flexible and scalable, you can continue to basically increase volume by adding more robots rather than more storage capacity,"" says Carlos Fernández, chief product officer at AutoStore. At the moment 10 clients are running Pio's automation system with another five customers signed up. Mr Fernández sees huge growth potential.  ""Over the coming years, there's going to be a journey of making the technology simpler and more affordable. It won't require you to be a large corporation to run complex automation projects, and you won't need to invest big amounts of capital also to start getting the benefits."" ",BBC,23/04/2024,"[""Shoppers probably don't think much about what happens next when they place an online grocery order."", 'But it sets-off an intricate dance of software, artificial intelligence, robots, vans and workers.', ""At an Ocado warehouse just outside Luton, I'm in the middle of such a dance."", 'As far as I can see, hundreds of robots whizz around a grid, fetching items for online orders.', 'They move with dizzying speed and precision.', 'In the early days of online shopping, when you placed an order, humans would dash around a warehouse or a store collecting your items.', 'But for years now, Ocado has been using robots to collect and distribute products, bringing them to staff, who pack them into boxes for delivery.', 'And Ocado is not the only firm investing in such automation.', ""In its warehouses, Asda uses a system from Swiss automation firm Swisslog and Norway's AutoStore."", 'In the US, Walmart has been automating parts of its supply chain using robotics from an American company called Symbotic.', 'Back in Luton, Ocado has taken its automation process to a higher level.', ""The robots which zoom around the grid, now bring items to robotic arms, which reach out and grab what they need for the customer's shop."", 'Bags of rice, boxes of tea, packets of crumpets are all grabbed by the arms using a suction cup on the end.', 'It might seem like a trivial addition, but training a robot to recognise an item, grab it successfully and move it, is surprisingly difficult.', 'At Ocado around 100 engineers have spent years training the artificial intelligence (AI) to take on that task.', 'James Matthews, chief executive of Ocado Technology explains the AI has to interpret the information coming from its cameras. ""', 'What is an object?', 'Where are the edges of that object?', 'How would one grasp it?""', 'In addition the AI has to work out how to move the arm. ""', 'How do I pick that up and accelerate in a way without flinging it across the room?', 'How do I place it in a bag?""', 'he says.', ""The Luton warehouse has 44 robotic arms, which at the moment account for 15% of the products that flow through the facility, that's about 400,000 items a week."", 'The rest are handled by staff at picking stations.', 'The staff handle items that robots are not ready for yet, like wine bottles which are heavy and have curved surfaces, making them difficult to grasp.', 'But the system is ramping up.', 'The company is developing different attachments for the robot arms that will allow them to handle a wider variety of items. ""', 'We\'re just playing it carefully and ramping slowly over time,"" says Mr Matthews. ""', 'It\'s a deliberate constraint on our behalf, so we continue providing good service to people, and not crushed custard creams in every order, or worse, putting stuff on the track that goes under the wheels of one of the bots and creates an incident.""', 'In two or three years Ocado expects the robots will account for 70% of the products.', 'This inevitably means fewer human staff, but the Luton warehouse still has 1,400 staff, and many of those will still be needed in the future. ""', 'There will be some sort of curve that tends towards fewer people per building.', ""But it's not as clear cut as, 'hey, look, we're on the verge of just not needing people'."", 'We\'re a very long way from that,"" Mr Matthews says.', 'Ocado is hoping to sell its automation technology to companies outside the grocery sector.', 'Late last year it announced a deal with Canada\'s McKesson, a large pharmaceuticals distributor. ""', 'Think about which industries have the need to move things around efficiently inside of warehouse... it\'s endless,"" says Mr Matthews.', 'More technology of business So where will the automation of warehouses end?', 'Are we heading to human-free warehouses that can run 24 hours a day?', 'Not so fast, says Sarah Bolton, who specialises in commercial real estate at law firm Taylor Wessing. ""', 'It\'s almost prohibitively expensive, we\'re talking hundreds of millions of pounds to fully automate a warehouse,"" she points out. ""', 'So you\'re really only talking about the big tenants in the really big warehouses looking at full automation, just because you have to have that size to make it anywhere near financially viable.""', ""She also points that automation needs modern buildings, including floors that can stand heavy weights, large spaces without support columns, so there's less for the robots to crash into."", 'Reliable electricity connections are also vital. ""', 'You\'re reliant on new build, and there\'s a massive undersupply of new build warehouse stock in the UK at the minute,"" says Ms Bolton.', 'AutoStore is tackling some of those challenges.', 'It has a company called Pio which is developing automation for smaller businesses.', 'It uses much of the same technology that AutoStore supplies to big firms - robots buzzing around on a storage grid where goods are stacked vertically.', ""However the upfront costs of Pio's system are lower, with the cost related to the volume of goods the system handles."", 'The software is simpler and designed to integrate easily with common e-commerce systems like Shopify. ""', ""It's a complete offering... where the upfront cost is very reduced."", ""So it's quite affordable for these companies to get access to automation and start to get the benefits out of it."", 'And since the technology is very flexible and scalable, you can continue to basically increase volume by adding more robots rather than more storage capacity,"" says Carlos Fernández, chief product officer at AutoStore.', ""At the moment 10 clients are running Pio's automation system with another five customers signed up."", 'Mr Fernández sees huge growth potential. ""', ""Over the coming years, there's going to be a journey of making the technology simpler and more affordable."", 'It won\'t require you to be a large corporation to run complex automation projects, and you won\'t need to invest big amounts of capital also to start getting the benefits.""']",0.1068244655536913,"But it sets-off an intricate dance of software, artificial intelligence, robots, vans and workers.","She also points that automation needs modern buildings, including floors that can stand heavy weights, large spaces without support columns, so there's less for the robots to crash into.",0.649489245631478,So it's quite affordable for these companies to get access to automation and start to get the benefits out of it.,There will be some sort of curve that tends towards fewer people per building.,2024-04-29
How to make high interest rates work for your hard-earned savings,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/20/success/interest-rates-savings-cash/index.html,"
  Published
        3:00 PM EDT, Wed March 20, 2024
    ","The Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate remains at a 23-year high. That’s thanks to the central bank’s decision Wednesday to once again hold it steady, as it has done at the policy-making committee’s past five meetings.
    
            That decision may be disappointing to some investors, homebuyers and those with a lot of credit card debt, since movement in the Fed’s overnight lending rate influences rates — directly or indirectly — on consumer financial products (e.g., credit cards, bank loans and mortgages).
    
            But with the Fed signaling that no rate cuts are likely until summer, it also means anyone with savings still has at least a few more months to make hay of their stash.
    
            That’s because you can still get inflation-beating interest rates that will grow any money you have set aside for emergencies, vacations, down payments or any other goal in your sights over the next several years.
    
            However, that won’t happen if you just let it sit in a traditional checking or savings account that yields next to nothing. There are more lucrative, low-risk options out there, with rates that are still at or near their peaks. “But perhaps not for much longer,” said Ted Rossman, senior analyst at Bankrate. “If one of those fits into your financial plans, it’s best to act soon.”
    
            So, consider the following options when deciding where to park your hard-earned savings.
    
            The average annual percentage yield on bank savings accounts was just 0.52% as of March 13, according to Bankrate. That average is kept low by the biggest brick-and-mortar banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, which still are offering a paltry 0.01%.
    
            By contrast, there are still FDIC-insured online banks offering inflation-beating rates of between 4.35% and 5.35% on their high-yield savings accounts. Generally speaking, these are the best vehicles in which to keep your emergency funds for quick, easy access.
    
            Choosing between an account that pays 0.52% and one that pays 5.35% can mean forfeiting hundreds of dollars in interest. “If you put $10,000 in a savings account, that’s a difference of $496 in interest earnings over the course of the year, assuming monthly compounding,” Rossman said.
    
            While the rates on high-yield savings accounts have gone down a bit in recent months, “widespread cuts in online savings account rates are unlikely until the first Fed rate cut is near,” said Ken Tumin, founder of DepositAccounts.com.
    
            As with any bank savings rate, high-yield savings account rates can change overnight, and the bank may not alert you when it lowers it. So make sure to check your monthly statement.
    
            Another high-return, low-risk investment that is great for money you likely won’t need to tap for a few months or even a couple of years is a certificate of deposit.
    
            You can get the best returns on CDs through a brokerage such as Schwab, E*Trade or Fidelity. That’s because you can comparison shop for CDs from any number of FDIC-insured banks and will not have to set up individual accounts with each institution.
    
            As of March 13, the average rate on a one-year CD was 1.95%, but some banks are offering as much are 5.4%.
    
            If you can get a one-year CD at, say, 5.4%, you will make $540 on a $10,000 investment.
    
            To get the greatest benefit from a CD, you have to leave the money invested for a fixed period. You can always access your principal sooner if you need to, but there may be early withdrawal penalties.
    
            As of March 20, CDs listed on Schwab.com with durations from three months up to three years were all yielding between 5.2% and 5.51%. CD rates on durations between four and 10 years ranged from 4.40% to 5.15%.
    
            Say you invest $10,000 in a one-year CD with a 5.36% APY. At the end of that period, you’d get your principal back plus $536 in interest when the CD matures, according to Bankrate’s CD calculator. If you chose a two-year CD at 5.25%, you’d bank an extra $1,078, assuming compounding interest. The same investment in a five-year CD at 5.15% would earn $2,854.
    
            “It makes sense to go long with CDs. To hedge your bets, include terms from one to five years. Starting a CD ladder will provide this mix,” Tumin said.
    
            If you don’t go through a brokerage you may get a reasonable deal from your primary bank, Tumin said.
    
            For example, he noted, Wells Fargo is still offering up to 5.01% on both 4-month and 7-month CDs. Or, at Bank of America, you can get up to 4.75% on a 7-month CD.
    
            But Tumin cautions that with any big bank CD you should take your money out at the end of the term, otherwise your bank may automatically renew it and lock you in to a much lower-yielding CD.
    
            If you don’t want to set up an online savings account at another bank, your own bank may offer you a money market deposit account that pays a higher yield than your regular checking or savings accounts.
    
            Money market accounts may have higher minimum deposit requirements than a regular savings account, but they are more liquid than a fixed-term certificate of deposit or Treasury bill, meaning they give you access to your money more quickly while still potentially giving you some of the highest yields available, said Doug Ornstein, senior manager for integrated solutions at TIAA Wealth Management.
    
            But don’t confuse money market accounts with money market mutual funds, which invest in short-term, low-risk debt instruments. As of March 19, they had an average 7-day yield of 5.14%, according to the Crane Money Fund Index, which tracks the top 100 taxable money market funds.
    
            Unlike money market deposit accounts, money market mutual funds are not insured by the FDIC. But if you invest in a money market fund through a brokerage, your overall account is likely to be insured through the Securities Investor Protection Corp, which offers protection in the event your brokerage ever goes under.
    
            Another option for money you can leave untouched anywhere from several months to a few years is to buy short-term Treasury bills and medium-term notes, which are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.
    
            Three- and six-month bills had yields of 5.39% and 5.33% respectively on March 20 before the Fed’s meeting ended, while nine-month and one-year bills were offering 5.19% and 5.08% respectively, according to rates posted on Schwab.com for a $25,000 investment. Rates on Treasury notes with durations from two years to 10 years ranged between 4.29% and 4.72%.
    
            If you’re someone who manages your portfolio like a hawk, you may feel comfortable buying T-bills on your own from TreasuryDirect.gov. But if you don’t, it might be easier just to buy new issues through your brokerage account or invest in a short-term bond index fund or ETF, said Andy Smith, executive director of financial planning at Edelman Financial Engines.
    
            And if you’re looking at money that will be needed in three to five years, you might consider a diversified fund of highly rated government and corporate bonds, Ornstein said. An 18-month AAA-rated corporate bond, for instance, was yielding 4.82% this week, while the three-year was at 4.49%. Meanwhile, three-year AAA-rated municipal bonds (which are issued by local governments) had a rate of 3.98%, according to Schwab.com.
    
            When deciding on the best accounts and investments for your specific goals and peace of mind, it may pay to consult a fee-only fiduciary adviser — meaning, someone who doesn’t get paid a commission to sell you a particular investment.
    
            What you’ll always want to do is build in flexibility for yourself so you can easily access cash, regardless of your timeline for key goals. “What happens if something changes and you need that down payment a lot sooner — or your parents need medical care fast?” Smith said.
    
            That means balancing your desire for great yield with a need and desire for ease of access without penalty. Translation: Don’t chase yield for yield’s sake.
    
            Think of it this way, Ornstein said: Unless you have huge sums to invest or are an institutional investor, the difference between getting a 5.1% yield versus 5% is negligible, and in fact it could even cost you more if there are penalties for taking your money out early. “Most of the time convenience is really important. Give up the 0.1%,” he advised.",CNN,20/03/2024,"['The Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate remains at a 23-year high.', 'That’s thanks to the central bank’s decision Wednesday to once again hold it steady, as it has done at the policy-making committee’s past five meetings.', 'That decision may be disappointing to some investors, homebuyers and those with a lot of credit card debt, since movement in the Fed’s overnight lending rate influences rates — directly or indirectly — on consumer financial products (e.g., credit cards, bank loans and mortgages).', 'Butwith the Fed signaling that no rate cuts are likely until summer, it also means anyone with savings still has at least a few more months to make hay of their stash.', 'That’s because you can still get inflation-beating interest rates that will grow any money you have set aside for emergencies, vacations, down payments or any other goal in your sights over the next several years.', 'However, that won’t happen if you just let it sit in a traditional checking or savings account that yields next to nothing.', 'There are more lucrative, low-risk options out there, with rates that are still at or near their peaks. “', 'But perhaps not for much longer,” said Ted Rossman, senior analyst at Bankrate. “', 'If one of those fits into your financial plans, it’s best to act soon.”', 'So, consider the following options when deciding where to park your hard-earned savings.', 'The average annual percentage yield on bank savings accounts was just 0.52% as of March 13, according to Bankrate.', 'That average is kept low by the biggest brick-and-mortar banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, which still are offering a paltry 0.01%.', 'By contrast, there are still FDIC-insured online banks offering inflation-beating rates of between 4.35% and 5.35% on their high-yield savings accounts.', 'Generally speaking, these are the best vehicles in which to keep your emergency funds for quick, easy access.', 'Choosing between an account that pays 0.52% and one that pays 5.35% can mean forfeiting hundreds of dollars in interest. “', 'If you put $10,000 in a savings account, that’s a difference of $496 in interest earnings over the course of the year, assuming monthly compounding,” Rossman said.', 'While the rates on high-yield savings accounts have gone down a bit in recent months, “widespread cuts in online savings account rates are unlikely until the first Fed rate cut is near,” said Ken Tumin, founder of DepositAccounts.com.', 'As with any bank savings rate, high-yield savings accountratescan change overnight, and the bank may not alert you when it lowers it.', 'So make sure to check your monthly statement.', 'Another high-return, low-risk investment that is great for money you likely won’t need to tap for a few months or even a couple of years is a certificate of deposit.', 'You can get the best returns on CDs through a brokerage such as Schwab, E*Trade or Fidelity.', 'That’s because you can comparison shop for CDs from any number of FDIC-insured banks and will not have to set up individual accounts with each institution.', 'As of March 13, the average rate on a one-year CD was 1.95%, but some banks are offering as much are 5.4%.', 'If you can get a one-year CD at, say, 5.4%, you will make $540 on a $10,000 investment.', 'To get the greatest benefit from a CD, you have to leave the money invested for a fixed period.', 'You can always access your principal sooner if you need to, but there may be early withdrawal penalties.', 'As of March 20, CDs listed on Schwab.com with durations from three months up to three years were all yielding between 5.2% and 5.51%.', 'CD rates on durations between four and 10 years ranged from 4.40% to 5.15%.', 'Say you invest $10,000 in a one-year CD with a 5.36%APY.', 'At the end of that period, you’d get your principal back plus $536 in interest when the CD matures, according to Bankrate’s CD calculator.', 'If you chose a two-year CD at 5.25%, you’d bank an extra $1,078, assuming compounding interest.', 'The same investment in a five-year CD at 5.15% would earn $2,854.', '“It makes sense to go long with CDs.', 'To hedge your bets, include terms from one to five years.', 'Starting a CD ladder will provide this mix,” Tumin said.', 'If you don’t go through a brokerage you may get a reasonable deal from your primary bank, Tumin said.', 'For example, he noted, Wells Fargo is still offering up to 5.01% on both 4-month and 7-month CDs.', 'Or, at Bank of America, you can get up to 4.75% on a 7-month CD.', 'But Tumin cautions that with any big bank CD you should take your money out at the end of the term, otherwise your bank may automatically renew it and lock you in to a much lower-yielding CD.', 'If you don’t want to set up an online savings account at another bank, your own bank may offer you a money market deposit account that pays a higher yield than your regular checking or savings accounts.', 'Money market accounts may have higher minimum deposit requirements than a regular savings account, but they are more liquid than a fixed-term certificate of deposit or Treasury bill, meaning they give you access to your money more quickly while still potentially giving you some of the highest yields available, said Doug Ornstein, senior manager for integrated solutions at TIAA Wealth Management.', 'But don’t confuse money market accounts with money market mutual funds, which invest in short-term, low-risk debt instruments.', 'As of March 19, they had an average 7-day yield of 5.14%, according to the Crane Money Fund Index, which tracks the top 100 taxable money market funds.', 'Unlike money market deposit accounts, money market mutual funds are not insured by the FDIC.', 'But if you invest in a money market fund through a brokerage, your overall account is likely to be insured through the Securities Investor Protection Corp, which offers protection in the event your brokerage ever goes under.', 'Another option for money you can leave untouched anywhere from several months to a few years is to buy short-term Treasury bills and medium-term notes, which are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.', 'Three- and six-month bills had yields of 5.39% and 5.33%respectively on March 20 before the Fed’s meeting ended, while nine-month and one-year bills were offering 5.19% and 5.08%respectively, according to rates posted on Schwab.com for a $25,000 investment.', 'Rates on Treasury notes with durations from two years to 10 years ranged between 4.29% and 4.72%.', 'If you’re someone who manages your portfolio like a hawk, you may feel comfortable buying T-bills on your own from TreasuryDirect.gov.', 'But if you don’t, it might be easier just to buy new issues through your brokerage account or invest in a short-term bond index fund or ETF, said Andy Smith, executive director of financial planning at Edelman Financial Engines.', 'And if you’re looking at money that will be needed in three to five years, you might consider a diversified fund of highly rated government and corporate bonds, Ornstein said.', 'An 18-month AAA-rated corporate bond, for instance, was yielding 4.82% this week, while the three-year was at 4.49%.', 'Meanwhile, three-year AAA-rated municipal bonds (which are issued by local governments) had a rate of 3.98%, according to Schwab.com.', 'When deciding on the best accounts and investments for your specific goals and peace of mind, it may pay to consult a fee-only fiduciary adviser — meaning, someone who doesn’t get paid a commission to sell you a particular investment.', 'What you’ll always want to do is build in flexibility for yourself so you can easily access cash, regardless of your timeline for key goals. “', 'What happens if something changes and you need that down payment a lot sooner — or your parents need medical care fast?”', 'Smith said.', 'That means balancing your desire for great yield with a need and desire for ease of access without penalty.', 'Translation: Don’t chase yield for yield’s sake.', 'Think of it this way, Ornstein said: Unless you have huge sums to invest or are an institutional investor, the difference between getting a 5.1% yield versus 5% is negligible, and in fact it could even cost you more if there are penalties for taking your money out early. “', 'Most of the time convenience is really important.', 'Give up the 0.1%,” he advised.']",0.1607169988950149,That means balancing your desire for great yield with a need and desire for ease of access without penalty.,"But don’t confuse money market accounts with money market mutual funds, which invest in short-term, low-risk debt instruments.",0.3840319812297821,"For example, he noted, Wells Fargo is still offering up to 5.01% on both 4-month and 7-month CDs.","That decision may be disappointing to some investors, homebuyers and those with a lot of credit card debt, since movement in the Fed’s overnight lending rate influences rates — directly or indirectly — on consumer financial products (e.g., credit cards, bank loans and mortgages).",2024-04-29
"Bread, biscuit and beer prices could rise due to wet weather",https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0x0d0zxpnqo,2024-04-29T11:07:49.861Z,"The price of bread, biscuits and beer could be at risk of rising as a result of months of wet weather in the UK, a report has suggested.  Harvests of crops including wheat, barley and oats may fall by more than 17% this year compared to 2023. The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), which produced the analysis, said that if there is a shortfall in UK crops, food producers may have to import more from overseas, potentially increasing costs.    The UK has had one of the wettest winters on record and there has been a soggy start to spring in many parts of the country.  The wet weather has left many fields too wet to be planted with new crops. The ECIU said that UK production of wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape may drop by four million tonnes in 2024. It based its analysis on data from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) and yield figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Inflation - which measures the pace of price rises - has been easing, most recently due to slower price increases in bread, crumpets and chocolate biscuits, according to the Office for National Statistics. Prices for bread and cereals rose by 0.2% between February and March, compared to a 2.2% increase in the same period last year.  Last week, the boss of Associated British Foods, which owns bread brands including Allinson's and Kingsmill, warned that prices may rise due to forecasts of a small UK wheat harvest this year. While the company had not lifted food prices over the past six months, chief executive George Weston said: ""One to watch out for is UK cereal. ""The harvest in July and August may be very small and we may be importing quite a lot of grain to the UK and that will come at a cost.""  Tom Lancaster, land analyst at ECIU, said: “This washout winter is playing havoc with farmers’ fields leading to soils so waterlogged they cannot be planted or too wet for tractors to apply fertilisers. “This is likely to mean not only a financial hit for farmers, but higher imports as we look to plug the gap left by a shortfall in UK supply."" He added: ""There’s also a real risk that the price of bread, beer and biscuits could increase as the poor harvest may lead to higher costs."" The UK Flour Millers trade association said it expected this summer's wheat crop to be 40% lower than last year.  ""The weather has just been awful right the way through from the autumn until now,"" said Ollie Johnson, head of farming systems and agronomy at the AHDB. He said that farmers normally plant wheat in both autumn and spring, but added: ""This year both of those have been really, really challenging.""  ",BBC,29/04/2024,"['The price of bread, biscuits and beer could be at risk of rising as a result of months of wet weather in the UK, a report has suggested.', 'Harvests of crops including wheat, barley and oats may fall by more than 17% this year compared to 2023.', 'The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), which produced the analysis, said that if there is a shortfall in UK crops, food producers may have to import more from overseas, potentially increasing costs.', 'The UK has had one of the wettest winters on record and there has been a soggy start to spring in many parts of the country.', 'The wet weather has left many fields too wet to be planted with new crops.', 'The ECIU said that UK production of wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape may drop by four million tonnes in 2024.', 'It based its analysis on data from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) and yield figures from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.', 'Inflation - which measures the pace of price rises - has been easing, most recently due to slower price increases in bread, crumpets and chocolate biscuits, according to the Office for National Statistics.', 'Prices for bread and cereals rose by 0.2% between February and March, compared to a 2.2% increase in the same period last year.', ""Last week, the boss of Associated British Foods, which owns bread brands including Allinson's and Kingsmill, warned that prices may rise due to forecasts of a small UK wheat harvest this year."", 'While the company had not lifted food prices over the past six months, chief executive George Weston said: ""One to watch out for is UK cereal. ""', 'The harvest in July and August may be very small and we may be importing quite a lot of grain to the UK and that will come at a cost.""', 'Tom Lancaster, land analyst at ECIU, said: “This washout winter is playing havoc with farmers’ fields leading to soils so waterlogged they cannot be planted or too wet for tractors to apply fertilisers. “', 'This is likely to mean not only a financial hit for farmers, but higher imports as we look to plug the gap left by a shortfall in UK supply.""', 'He added: ""There’s also a real risk that the price of bread, beer and biscuits could increase as the poor harvest may lead to higher costs.""', 'The UK Flour Millers trade association said it expected this summer\'s wheat crop to be 40% lower than last year. ""', 'The weather has just been awful right the way through from the autumn until now,"" said Ollie Johnson, head of farming systems and agronomy at the AHDB.', 'He said that farmers normally plant wheat in both autumn and spring, but added: ""This year both of those have been really, really challenging.""']",-0.0768089910481604,"The Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), which produced the analysis, said that if there is a shortfall in UK crops, food producers may have to import more from overseas, potentially increasing costs.","The ECIU said that UK production of wheat, barley, oats and oilseed rape may drop by four million tonnes in 2024.",-0.7274668455123902,"Prices for bread and cereals rose by 0.2% between February and March, compared to a 2.2% increase in the same period last year.","The UK Flour Millers trade association said it expected this summer's wheat crop to be 40% lower than last year. """,2024-04-29
The challenge of upgrading iconic steel windows,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68777865,2024-04-15T23:11:05.000Z,"Every winter, architect Kevin Adams would perform his early morning ritual of devotion. Cloth in hand, he'd head to the stylish Crittall windows in the East London flat where he once lived - because these windows, though stylish, were also sopping wet. ""You'd know to expect it - you wipe it down, you open the window as soon as you can, you don't let it puddle or rot the sills,"" he says of the moisture that used to form on the single-glazing and thin steel frames of his windows when the weather was cold. ""I put up with it because I loved them. We do all kinds of things for love, don't we?"" Not everyone who has lived with vintage steel-framed windows feels so affectionate towards them, however. Crittall Windows became synonymous both with modernism - and condensation, which can lead to serious problems such as mould, says Mr Adams, a teaching fellow at the Edinburgh College of Art.  While many consider such windows iconic and a key part of British architectural heritage, given today's high energy prices and rising awareness around the dangers of mould, efficient windows have become essential. Crittall, like all other companies in the glazing industry, has had to stay relevant to survive. The firm, now based in Witham, Essex, has been manufacturing steel-framed windows since the 1880s. The frames Crittall developed could be mass produced, then simply cut and welded to fit an array of standard window sizes. The style was popular in both commercial and residential buildings during the 1920s and 1930s but also after World War Two, says Adams. ""Perfect for a post-war economy that was mass building without much money and with a shortage of materials,"" he explains. Factories and warehouses often benefitted from metal-framed windows - lightweight but strong steel meant the frames could be extra thin, allowing more room for glass, which let natural light flood through. Workers appreciated this - but so did the wealthy, who wanted light, airy homes. A large, art deco country house built by Walter Crittall in the 1930s was listed for sale last year at £1.65m.  On the Crittall factory floor today, there is a machine that dates to the 1920s. It is still used occasionally for gently bending steel frame sections into curved pieces, says managing director Russell Ager: ""It's an incredible piece of kit."" But the company has moved on in many other ways, he stresses, and nearby machines in the building are now state-of-the-art. ""We've done so much work to improve the thermal performance of the products,"" adds Mr Ager. Today you can get double and even triple-glazed Crittall windows. And crucially, the steel frames are now made with a thermal break, a glass fibre section of insulation within the frame that prevents heat escaping through its structure. The lack of a thermal break is what made the older frames so prone to becoming cold when the weather outside was chilly. Cold glass and steel encourage moisture in the indoor air to condense. The latest Crittall windows can achieve a U-value - a measure of their insulating performance - as low as 0.8, which is better than standard double-glazed windows. They are heftier than the vintage versions but Crittall has retained the classic look of relatively skinny metal frames and rectangular or square panes of glass. TikTok and Instagram accounts focusing on home décor often feature windows such as this, though Crittall has many competitors now that make similar-looking products, admits Mr Ager. According to Mr Adams, in the post-war era, there weren't many other firms operating in the same market as Crittall in the UK. But that has changed. Many companies, including KJM Group and Velfac offer aluminium alternatives. And there are other steel window makers out there, too, such as Fabco. ""Most consumers… buy our product because they love the look of it,"" says Mr Ager. Business, at the moment, is good. During the early stage of the Covid-19 pandemic, Crittall's sales to residential customers seeking to improve their properties spiked by 30%. And while this was then followed by a decrease, currently the firm's orders in 2024 are up 20% on last year already, says Mr Ager. More technology of business Dated heritage installations reaching the end of their life present another opportunity. Crittall recently replaced 100-year-old windows that the firm had made for a building in Central London with new, energy efficient versions of the same products. This kind of upgrade is not accessible to all, however, because of the relatively high cost of contemporary glazing, notes Claire Bennie, director of Municipal, a housing design and development consultancy. ""Every year we have a chat about it at our AGM and everyone is afraid of taking the plunge,"" she says, referring to residents' meetings at the block of 1930s flats in London where she lives. The old Crittall windows in the property give the building ""elegance"", says Ms Bennie but also makes them ""freezing"". Her own flat's windows are not prone to condensation - but only because they are so draughty that they stay well-ventilated, she explains.  It will be increasingly difficult to justify the installation of new metal-framed windows in the future because of the embodied carbon in materials such as steel, says Ms Bennie. To reduce emissions and tackle climate change, sustainable timber building products ought to become more and more prominent, she argues. Mr Ager says Crittall windows are made with 100% recycled steel and the company is working to make its products and operations as sustainable as possible. Other challenges facing the company in the coming years, include the possibility that building regulations in England will change, so as to demand extremely energy efficient windows in new build properties. Stricter standards could mean a need to make the frames thicker still and even better insulated, says Mr Ager: ""The frames would almost become unrecognisable. It would be a big issue for anybody that makes a metal frame."" Sustainability is paramount, stresses Ms Bennie, but she does say the ergonomic design of Crittall windows is hard to beat. The windows are often easy to open into a position where you can reach outside and clean them yourself, for instance. And the classic balcony doors made by the firm fold back neatly so as not to take up precious space outside. ""I wish modern window manufacturers would take a lesson from Crittall,"" she says, ""In how to make windows liveable and a pleasure to use.""  ",BBC,15/04/2024,"['Every winter, architect Kevin Adams would perform his early morning ritual of devotion.', 'Cloth in hand, he\'d head to the stylish Crittall windows in the East London flat where he once lived - because these windows, though stylish, were also sopping wet. ""', 'You\'d know to expect it - you wipe it down, you open the window as soon as you can, you don\'t let it puddle or rot the sills,"" he says of the moisture that used to form on the single-glazing and thin steel frames of his windows when the weather was cold. ""', 'I put up with it because I loved them.', 'We do all kinds of things for love, don\'t we?""', 'Not everyone who has lived with vintage steel-framed windows feels so affectionate towards them, however.', 'Crittall Windows became synonymous both with modernism - and condensation, which can lead to serious problems such as mould, says Mr Adams, a teaching fellow at the Edinburgh College of Art.', ""While many consider such windows iconic and a key part of British architectural heritage, given today's high energy prices and rising awareness around the dangers of mould, efficient windows have become essential."", 'Crittall, like all other companies in the glazing industry, has had to stay relevant to survive.', 'The firm, now based in Witham, Essex, has been manufacturing steel-framed windows since the 1880s.', 'The frames Crittall developed could be mass produced, then simply cut and welded to fit an array of standard window sizes.', 'The style was popular in both commercial and residential buildings during the 1920s and 1930s but also after World War Two, says Adams. ""', 'Perfect for a post-war economy that was mass building without much money and with a shortage of materials,"" he explains.', 'Factories and warehouses often benefitted from metal-framed windows - lightweight but strong steel meant the frames could be extra thin, allowing more room for glass, which let natural light flood through.', 'Workers appreciated this - but so did the wealthy, who wanted light, airy homes.', 'A large, art deco country house built by Walter Crittall in the 1930s was listed for sale last year at £1.65m. On the Crittall factory floor today, there is a machine that dates to the 1920s.', 'It is still used occasionally for gently bending steel frame sections into curved pieces, says managing director Russell Ager: ""It\'s an incredible piece of kit.""', 'But the company has moved on in many other ways, he stresses, and nearby machines in the building are now state-of-the-art. ""', 'We\'ve done so much work to improve the thermal performance of the products,"" adds Mr Ager.', 'Today you can get double and even triple-glazed Crittall windows.', 'And crucially, the steel frames are now made with a thermal break, a glass fibre section of insulation within the frame that prevents heat escaping through its structure.', 'The lack of a thermal break is what made the older frames so prone to becoming cold when the weather outside was chilly.', 'Cold glass and steel encourage moisture in the indoor air to condense.', 'The latest Crittall windows can achieve a U-value - a measure of their insulating performance - as low as 0.8, which is better than standard double-glazed windows.', 'They are heftier than the vintage versions but Crittall has retained the classic look of relatively skinny metal frames and rectangular or square panes of glass.', 'TikTok and Instagram accounts focusing on home décor often feature windows such as this, though Crittall has many competitors now that make similar-looking products, admits Mr Ager.', ""According to Mr Adams, in the post-war era, there weren't many other firms operating in the same market as Crittall in the UK."", 'But that has changed.', 'Many companies, including KJM Group and Velfac offer aluminium alternatives.', 'And there are other steel window makers out there, too, such as Fabco. ""', 'Most consumers… buy our product because they love the look of it,"" says Mr Ager.', 'Business, at the moment, is good.', ""During the early stage of the Covid-19 pandemic, Crittall's sales to residential customers seeking to improve their properties spiked by 30%."", ""And while this was then followed by a decrease, currently the firm's orders in 2024 are up 20% on last year already, says Mr Ager."", 'More technology of business Dated heritage installations reaching the end of their life present another opportunity.', 'Crittall recently replaced 100-year-old windows that the firm had made for a building in Central London with new, energy efficient versions of the same products.', 'This kind of upgrade is not accessible to all, however, because of the relatively high cost of contemporary glazing, notes Claire Bennie, director of Municipal, a housing design and development consultancy. ""', 'Every year we have a chat about it at our AGM and everyone is afraid of taking the plunge,"" she says, referring to residents\' meetings at the block of 1930s flats in London where she lives.', 'The old Crittall windows in the property give the building ""elegance"", says Ms Bennie but also makes them ""freezing"".', ""Her own flat's windows are not prone to condensation - but only because they are so draughty that they stay well-ventilated, she explains."", 'It will be increasingly difficult to justify the installation of new metal-framed windows in the future because of the embodied carbon in materials such as steel, says Ms Bennie.', 'To reduce emissions and tackle climate change, sustainable timber building products ought to become more and more prominent, she argues.', 'Mr Ager says Crittall windows are made with 100% recycled steel and the company is working to make its products and operations as sustainable as possible.', 'Other challenges facing the company in the coming years, include the possibility that building regulations in England will change, so as to demand extremely energy efficient windows in new build properties.', 'Stricter standards could mean a need to make the frames thicker still and even better insulated, says Mr Ager: ""The frames would almost become unrecognisable.', 'It would be a big issue for anybody that makes a metal frame.""', 'Sustainability is paramount, stresses Ms Bennie, but she does say the ergonomic design of Crittall windows is hard to beat.', 'The windows are often easy to open into a position where you can reach outside and clean them yourself, for instance.', 'And the classic balcony doors made by the firm fold back neatly so as not to take up precious space outside. ""', 'I wish modern window manufacturers would take a lesson from Crittall,"" she says, ""In how to make windows liveable and a pleasure to use.""']",0.2012343859627007,"Factories and warehouses often benefitted from metal-framed windows - lightweight but strong steel meant the frames could be extra thin, allowing more room for glass, which let natural light flood through.","The style was popular in both commercial and residential buildings during the 1920s and 1930s but also after World War Two, says Adams. """,0.3039323623691286,"And while this was then followed by a decrease, currently the firm's orders in 2024 are up 20% on last year already, says Mr Ager.","Perfect for a post-war economy that was mass building without much money and with a shortage of materials,"" he explains.",2024-04-29
Biden just signed a potential TikTok ban into law. Here’s what happens next,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/23/tech/congress-tiktok-ban-what-next/index.html,"
  Updated
        11:23 AM EDT, Wed April 24, 2024
    ","President Joe Biden signed a bill Wednesday that could lead to a nationwide TikTok ban, escalating a massive threat to the company’s US operations.
    
            Congress had passed the bill this week as part of a wide-ranging foreign aid package meant to support Israel and Ukraine. It was approved by the House on Saturday, and by the Senate on Tuesday. The legislation poses the most serious risk to TikTok since US officials began raising concerns about the app in 2020. Under what is now US law, TikTok is forced to find a new owner within months or be banned from the United States entirely.
    
            Here’s what we know and how it could affect you.
    
            The bill that Biden signed gives TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, 270 days to sell TikTok. Failure to do so would lead to significant consequences: TikTok would be prohibited from US app stores and from “internet hosting services” that support it.
    
            That would effectively restrict new downloads of the app and interaction with its content. Biden’s decision to sign the bill on Wednesday puts the deadline for a sale at January 19, 2025. Under the legislation, however, Biden could extend the deadline another 90 days if he determines the company’s made progress toward a sale, giving TikTok potentially up to a year before facing a ban.
    
            TikTok is threatening legal action to oppose the law. In a video posted to TikTok, company CEO Shou Chew told users, “Rest assured: we aren’t going anywhere.”
    
            “We are confident and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts,” he added. “The facts and the Constitution are on our side and we expect to prevail.”
    
            In a statement, a TikTok spokesperson called the law “unconstitutional” and said it “would devastate” the platform’s 170 million US users and 7 million businesses that operate on the app.
    
            A similar TikTok bill had been passed by the House in March, but it stalled in the Senate. In a procedural move, House Republicans this month attached a revised TikTok bill to the foreign aid package in hopes of forcing the Senate to vote on the TikTok legislation. Bundling the bill with the foreign aid — a top US priority — fast-tracked the TikTok bill and made it more likely to pass.
    
            If TikTok can’t separate from ByteDance by the deadline, then US TikTok users could hypothetically be cut off by mid-January. But that is still a big “if.” So for now, TikTok fans can continue using the app as before, though they might begin to see more creators — or the company itself — speaking out in the app to oppose the legislation.
    
            TikTok promised to take the US government to court if Biden signed the bill. In a memo on Saturday, a top TikTok executive wrote to employees that this would be the “beginning, not the end” of a long process to challenge what the company calls unconstitutional legislation that censors Americans’ speech rights and that would harm small businesses that depend on the app. In March, Chew vowed to continue fighting, “including (by) exercising our legal rights.”
    
            First Amendment experts say a bill that has the ultimate effect of censoring TikTok users could be shot down by the courts.
    
            “Longstanding Supreme Court precedent protects Americans’ First Amendment right to access information, ideas, and media from abroad,” said Nadine Farid Johnson, policy director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “By banning TikTok, the bill would infringe on this right, and with no real pay-off. China and other foreign adversaries could still purchase Americans’ sensitive data from data brokers on the open market.”
    
            A court challenge could lead to the measure being temporarily blocked while the litigation plays out, likely over multiple years. But if a court declines to grant a temporary injunction, TikTok could have to scramble to comply with the law.
    
            The trouble is that TikTok’s parent is subject to Chinese law, and the Chinese government is on record opposing a sale.
    
            In recent years, China has implemented export controls governing algorithms, a policy that would seem to cover the incredibly successful algorithm that powers TikTok’s recommendation engine.
    
            If the Chinese government doesn’t want to let ByteDance relinquish TikTok’s algorithm, the thinking goes, it could block the sale outright. Alternatively, it may allow TikTok to be sold but without the lucrative algorithm that forms the basis for its popularity.
    
            Can TikTok still succeed without its algorithm? That would be the difficult question facing the company in the event of a forced sale. Without the secret sauce that has propelled the app to 170 million US users, the app could be as good as dead.",CNN,24/04/2024,"['President Joe Biden signed a bill Wednesday that could lead to a nationwide TikTok ban, escalating a massive threat to the company’s US operations.', 'Congress had passed the bill this week as part of a wide-ranging foreign aid package meant to support Israel and Ukraine.', 'It was approved by the House on Saturday, and by the Senate on Tuesday.', 'The legislation poses the most serious risk to TikTok since US officials began raising concerns about the app in 2020.', 'Under what is now US law, TikTok is forced to find a new owner within months or be banned from the United States entirely.', 'Here’s what we know and how it could affect you.', 'The bill that Biden signed gives TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, 270 days to sell TikTok.', 'Failure to do so would lead to significant consequences: TikTok would be prohibited from US app stores and from “internet hosting services” that support it.', 'That would effectively restrict new downloads of the app and interaction with its content.', 'Biden’s decision to sign the bill on Wednesday puts the deadline for a sale at January 19, 2025.', 'Under the legislation, however, Biden could extend the deadline another 90 days if he determines the company’s made progress toward a sale, giving TikTok potentially up to a year before facing a ban.', 'TikTok is threatening legal action to oppose the law.', 'In a video posted to TikTok, company CEO Shou Chew told users, “Rest assured: we aren’t going anywhere.”', '“We are confident and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts,” he added. “', 'The facts and the Constitution are on our side and we expect to prevail.”', 'In a statement, a TikTok spokesperson called the law “unconstitutional” and said it “would devastate” the platform’s 170 million US users and 7 million businesses that operate on the app.', 'A similar TikTok bill had been passed by the House in March, but it stalled in the Senate.', 'In a procedural move, House Republicans this month attached a revised TikTok bill to the foreign aid package in hopes of forcing the Senate to vote on the TikTok legislation.', 'Bundling the bill with the foreign aid — a top US priority — fast-tracked the TikTok bill and made it more likely to pass.', 'If TikTok can’t separate from ByteDance by the deadline, then US TikTok users could hypothetically be cut off by mid-January.', 'But that is still a big “if.”', 'So for now, TikTok fans can continue using the app as before, though they might begin to see more creators — or the company itself —speaking outin the app to oppose the legislation.', 'TikTok promised to take the US government to court if Biden signed the bill.', 'In a memo on Saturday, a top TikTok executive wrote to employees that this would be the “beginning, not the end” of a long process to challenge what the company calls unconstitutional legislation that censors Americans’ speech rights and that would harm small businesses that depend on the app.', 'In March, Chewvowedto continue fighting, “including (by) exercising our legal rights.”', 'First Amendment experts say a bill that has the ultimate effect of censoring TikTok userscould be shot downby the courts.', '“Longstanding Supreme Court precedent protects Americans’ First Amendment right to access information, ideas, and media from abroad,” said Nadine Farid Johnson, policy director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “', 'By banning TikTok, the bill would infringe on this right, and with no real pay-off.', 'China and other foreign adversaries could still purchase Americans’ sensitive data from data brokers on the open market.”', 'A court challenge could lead to the measure being temporarily blocked while the litigation plays out, likely over multiple years.', 'But if a court declines to grant a temporary injunction, TikTok could have to scramble to comply with the law.', 'The trouble is that TikTok’s parent is subject to Chinese law, and the Chinese government is on record opposing a sale.', 'In recent years, China has implementedexport controls governing algorithms, a policy that would seem to cover the incredibly successful algorithm that powers TikTok’s recommendation engine.', 'If the Chinese government doesn’t want to let ByteDance relinquish TikTok’s algorithm, the thinking goes, it could block the sale outright.', 'Alternatively, it may allow TikTok to be sold but without the lucrative algorithm that forms the basis for its popularity.', 'Can TikTok still succeed without its algorithm?', 'That would be the difficult question facing the company in the event of a forced sale.', 'Without the secret sauce that has propelled the app to 170 million US users, the app could be as good as dead.']",-0.0251071517489989,"“Longstanding Supreme Court precedent protects Americans’ First Amendment right to access information, ideas, and media from abroad,” said Nadine Farid Johnson, policy director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “","President Joe Biden signed a bill Wednesday that could lead to a nationwide TikTok ban, escalating a massive threat to the company’s US operations.",-0.5897641529639562,Bundling the bill with the foreign aid — a top US priority — fast-tracked the TikTok bill and made it more likely to pass.,"In a statement, a TikTok spokesperson called the law “unconstitutional” and said it “would devastate” the platform’s 170 million US users and 7 million businesses that operate on the app.",2024-04-29
NBC News boss Cesar Conde faces backlash from his network’s anchors over ‘inexplicable’ decision to hire ex-RNC chair Ronna McDaniel,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/media/nbc-news-cesar-conde-ronna-mcdaniel-backlash/index.html,"
  Published
        8:05 AM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
    ","Cesar Conde has a decision to make — and it’s not an especially difficult one.
    
            The NBCUniversal News Group chair is facing a torrent of backlash from his own staff after greenlighting the hire of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel as a paid network contributor.
    
            Over the last 24 hours, the most prominent and recognizable NBC News and MSNBC personalities have voiced strong displeasure with the company’s decision to welcome McDaniel to “the team.” And they’re not doing it via anonymous comments to the press. They’re doing it on the record on NBCU’s own air. Chuck Todd broke the dam on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” with a set of candid comments about the hiring, and Rachel Maddow capped the flood of backlash Monday night with a blistering 30-minute monologue eviscerating the network’s leadership for the “inexplicable” move.
    
            Suffice to say, NBCU News Group is in unprecedented territory. Never has a network’s C-suite ever been so thoroughly flogged by its most high-profile stars in such no holds barred fashion. Saying that Conde simply has a crisis on his hands would be a contender for understatement of the year. It’s a five-alarm fire at NBCU News Group, and one of Conde’s own making.
    
            While NBC News president Rebecca Blumenstein and senior vice president of politics Carrie Budoff Brown were most directly responsible for McDaniel’s hiring, a decision that MSNBC boss Rashida Jones did not object to it at the time, the buck ultimately stops with Conde, who hold the real power at the Peacock Network. McDaniel’s hiring could not have happened without Conde’s blessing.
    
            It does not take a brilliant political mind with prescient foresight to understand that hiring McDaniel would ignite a firestorm of outrage — from both within 30 Rock and outside it. Conde, someone who ostensibly supports American democracy, should have rejected McDaniel’s hiring on the grounds that NBCU News Group could not put someone on its payroll who tried to subvert the 2020 vote.
    
            As so many of NBCU’s staffers have underscored, the objection to McDaniel is not that she is a Republican. It’s not even that she is a Donald Trump-supporting Republican. It’s that she was an active participant in the plot to overthrow the last presidential election. That is not to even mention McDaniel’s years of demonizing the press, smearing the journalists who work at NBC News and MSNBC as she sought to destroy the credibility of the organization that she ran to after being chased out of the RNC.
    
            The notion put forward by NBC that it needed to hire McDaniel to bring its viewers “an insider’s perspective on national politics and the future of the Republican Party” is absurd. If that’s the case, the network should move to hire free agents like Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens. They too have their hands on the pulse of the Republican Party. In fact, they represent much more of where the GOP stands today than McDaniel. So, using NBC’s logic, why not hire them? (Spoiler: News organizations rightfully have established basic standards for paid contributors. Asking that your employees have a commitment to democracy, to the truth, and to basic decency is not a big ask.)
    
            But even if Conde has no allegiance to basic democratic principles, which this hire calls into question, given that he is known to be a political player who cares deeply about his own image in the press, he should have been wise enough to foresee that hiring McDaniel would be an ill-conceived move. How this did not occur to Conde is unfathomable and shows a tremendous lack of judgment.
    
            Even more bizarre is Conde’s management, or lack thereof, since the controversy erupted. It was clear early on that his employees at NBC News and MSNBC did not support McDaniel’s hiring. If that was not evident on Friday, it was clear as day on Sunday after “Meet the Press.” The network’s employees were not only flabbergasted and demoralized by the move, but absolutely enraged by it.
    
            At that point, the writing should have been on the wall for Conde — as it was for every other media executive that I have spoken with over the last 24 hours. It is evident that McDaniel has no real future as an NBC analyst and the decision to bring her on as a contributor will have to be reversed. After all, which NBC or MSNBC program is going to invite her on after all of this?
    
            The only real question for Conde after the Sunday morning scolding should have been how he chose to back out of the deal in the least painful way possible. To be fully honest, I very much expected a Sunday evening announcement from NBC, one that would have earned praise from the company’s staff and quickly been swept away by the rush of Trump news Monday morning.
    
            But no such announcement came.
    
            Instead, Conde has allowed the mess to spiral absolutely out of control. MSNBC’s top stars hammered the network’s leadership throughout the day Monday over the hire. NBC News’ Guild blasted Conde, saying in a statement that under him the company had quietly laid off employees over the last month and instead chosen to “prioritize an election denier over its reporters.” The already severe crisis was allowed to blossom into one of the worst corporate public relations catastrophes in recent memory.
    
            All the while, Conde has remained silent. I asked his spokesperson, Stephen Labaton, on Monday whether the NBCU News Group boss had any comment on the situation. Does he have any regret? I didn’t get an on-the-record response. Suffice to say, however, that what Conde does moving forward will say a lot about his character and commitment to democratic values. It will also say a lot about the NBCU News Group and what type of organization it is.
    
            In her biting monologue on Monday night, however, Maddow did offer Conde a way out of this mess.
    
            “Mistakes will be made,” Maddow said.”But our resilience as a democracy is going to be recognizing when decisions are bad ones and reversing those bad decisions. Hearing legitimate criticism, responding to it, and correcting course. Not digging in. Not blaming others. Take a minute. Acknowledge that maybe it wasn’t the right call.”
    
            “It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to acknowledge when you are wrong,” Maddow added. “It is a sign of strength. And our country needs us to be strong now.”",CNN,26/03/2024,"['Cesar Conde has a decision to make — and it’s not an especially difficult one.', 'The NBCUniversal News Group chair is facing a torrent of backlash from his own staff after greenlighting the hire of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel as a paid network contributor.', 'Over the last 24 hours, the most prominent and recognizable NBC News and MSNBC personalities have voiced strong displeasure with the company’s decision to welcome McDaniel to “the team.”', 'And they’re not doing it via anonymous comments to the press.', 'They’re doing it on the record on NBCU’s own air.', 'Chuck Todd broke the dam on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” with a set of candid comments about the hiring, and Rachel Maddow capped the flood of backlash Monday night with a blistering 30-minute monologue eviscerating the network’s leadership for the “inexplicable” move.', 'Suffice to say, NBCU News Group is in unprecedented territory.', 'Never has a network’s C-suite ever been so thoroughly flogged by its most high-profile stars in such no holds barred fashion.', 'Saying that Conde simply has a crisis on his hands would be a contender for understatement of the year.', 'It’s a five-alarm fire at NBCU News Group, and one of Conde’s own making.', 'While NBC News president Rebecca Blumenstein and senior vice president of politics Carrie Budoff Brown were most directly responsible for McDaniel’s hiring, a decision that MSNBC boss Rashida Jones did not object to it at the time, the buck ultimately stops with Conde, who hold the real power at the Peacock Network.', 'McDaniel’s hiring could not have happened without Conde’s blessing.', 'It does not take a brilliant political mind with prescient foresight to understand that hiring McDaniel would ignite a firestorm of outrage — from both within 30 Rock and outside it.', 'Conde, someone who ostensibly supports American democracy, should have rejected McDaniel’s hiring on the grounds that NBCU News Group could not put someone on its payroll who tried to subvert the 2020 vote.', 'As so many of NBCU’s staffers have underscored, the objection to McDaniel is not that she is a Republican.', 'It’s not even that she is a Donald Trump-supporting Republican.', 'It’s that she was an active participant in the plot to overthrow the last presidential election.', 'That is not to even mention McDaniel’s years of demonizing the press, smearing the journalists who work at NBC News and MSNBC as she sought to destroy the credibility of the organization that she ran to after being chased out of the RNC.', 'The notion put forward by NBC that it needed to hire McDaniel to bring its viewers “an insider’s perspective on national politics and the future of the Republican Party” is absurd.', 'If that’s the case, the network should move to hire free agents like Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens.', 'They too have their hands on the pulse of the Republican Party.', 'In fact, they represent much more of where the GOP stands today than McDaniel.', 'So, using NBC’s logic, why not hire them? (', 'Spoiler: News organizations rightfully have established basic standards for paid contributors.', 'Asking that your employees have a commitment to democracy, to the truth, and to basic decency is not a big ask.)', 'But even if Conde has no allegiance to basic democratic principles, which this hire calls into question, given that he is known to be a political player who cares deeply about his own image in the press, he should have been wise enough to foresee that hiring McDaniel would be an ill-conceived move.', 'How this did not occur to Conde is unfathomable and shows a tremendous lack of judgment.', 'Even more bizarre is Conde’s management, or lack thereof, since the controversy erupted.', 'It was clear early on that his employees at NBC News and MSNBC did not support McDaniel’s hiring.', 'If that was not evident on Friday, it was clear as day on Sunday after “Meet the Press.”', 'The network’s employees were not only flabbergasted and demoralized by the move, but absolutely enraged by it.', 'At that point, the writing should have been on the wall for Conde — as it was for every other media executive that I have spoken with over the last 24 hours.', 'It is evident that McDaniel has no real future as an NBC analyst and the decision to bring her on as a contributor will have to be reversed.', 'After all, which NBC or MSNBC program is going to invite her on after all of this?', 'The only real question for Conde after the Sunday morning scolding should have been how he chose to back out of the deal in the least painful way possible.', 'To be fully honest, I very much expected a Sunday evening announcement from NBC, one that would have earned praise from the company’s staff and quickly been swept away by the rush of Trump news Monday morning.', 'But no such announcement came.', 'Instead, Conde has allowed the mess to spiral absolutely out of control.', 'MSNBC’s top stars hammered the network’s leadership throughout the day Monday over the hire.', 'NBC News’ Guild blasted Conde, saying in a statement that under him the company had quietly laid off employees over the last month and instead chosen to “prioritize an election denier over its reporters.”', 'The already severe crisis was allowed to blossom into one of the worst corporate public relations catastrophes in recent memory.', 'All the while, Conde has remained silent.', 'I asked his spokesperson, Stephen Labaton, on Monday whether the NBCU News Group boss had any comment on the situation.', 'Does he have any regret?', 'I didn’t get an on-the-record response.', 'Suffice to say, however, that what Conde does moving forward will say a lot about his character and commitment to democratic values.', 'It will also say a lot about the NBCU News Group and what type of organization it is.', 'In her biting monologue on Monday night, however, Maddow did offer Conde a way out of this mess.', '“Mistakes will be made,” Maddow said.', '”But our resilience as a democracy is going to be recognizing when decisions are bad ones and reversing those bad decisions.', 'Hearing legitimate criticism, responding to it, and correcting course.', 'Not digging in.', 'Not blaming others.', 'Take a minute.', 'Acknowledge that maybe it wasn’t the right call.”', '“It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to acknowledge when you are wrong,” Maddow added. “', 'It is a sign of strength.', 'And our country needs us to be strong now.”']",-0.032955005531589,"Over the last 24 hours, the most prominent and recognizable NBC News and MSNBC personalities have voiced strong displeasure with the company’s decision to welcome McDaniel to “the team.”",The already severe crisis was allowed to blossom into one of the worst corporate public relations catastrophes in recent memory.,-0.5018035081716684,"To be fully honest, I very much expected a Sunday evening announcement from NBC, one that would have earned praise from the company’s staff and quickly been swept away by the rush of Trump news Monday morning.","The network’s employees were not only flabbergasted and demoralized by the move, but absolutely enraged by it.",2024-04-29
Sainsbury's says almost everyone now shops in store,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68895280,2024-04-25T07:00:09.000Z,"Sainsbury's says shoppers are returning to its stores as the surge in online shopping seen during the Covid pandemic continues to unwind. The UK's second largest supermarket said online sales had been above 20% at the height of the pandemic, but are now back to about 13%.  Its comments came as it reported strong food sales after spending heavily on keeping prices low to attract shoppers. However, other areas were weaker, with sales of clothing and fuel falling. Sainsbury's said pre-tax profits for the past year had fallen 15% to £277m, reflecting costs related to its decision to wind down its banking division. However, underlying profits rose 1.6% to £701m, which was slightly higher than expected, and Sainsbury's said it was ""confident of delivering strong profit growth in the year ahead"". The UK's second largest supermarket said its food business was ""firing on all cylinders"", with grocery sales growing by 9.4% over the past year. Chief executive Simon Roberts said that more than 87% of all food sold was done so ""in a physical store"".   Supermarkets have been fighting hard for customers, with shoppers still feeling the effects of steep price rises over the past two years, which have ratcheted up the cost of living. Sainsbury's response has been to focus heavily on its food, which accounts for about three-quarters of its business,  and it said it has spent £780m over the past three years on keeping prices low, including promotions such as Nectar prices and price-matching budget chain Aldi. Mr Roberts said he expected inflation - which measures the pace of price rises - to ""continue to stabilise"". Official figures released last week showed that overall inflation fell to 3.2% in March, partly due to declines in some food prices. Mr Roberts said he expected inflation to remain in ""low single digits"" in the year ahead. He also said there were signs that shoppers were beginning to ""trade up"" by buying more premium products when it came to food. However, he said it would probably take a cut in interest rates later this year to lift sales of more expensive non-food items for cautious shoppers. ""It is going to take a change in interest rates later in the year - let's hope - for the environment on discretionary spend begin to change,"" said Mr Roberts. While Sainsbury's food business performed well, its general merchandise sales - which include its Argos business - slipped 0.5% and clothing sales fell 6.4%. The company also owns the Habitat brand. The retailer said trading at Argos had been hit by last summer's wet weather, which affected sales of seasonal goods such as barbecues and paddling pools.  The weather also impacted clothes sales, as competitors launched sales to clear stock, and Sainsbury's said there had been some disruption to clothing supplies in recent months because of Houthi rebels attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. As Sainsbury's announced its results, a ""technical issue"" hit some of its online deliveries on Thursday. However, the retailer said the problem had been fixed, and had only affected a ""small number"" of customers. Read more tips here ",BBC,25/04/2024,"[""Sainsbury's says shoppers are returning to its stores as the surge in online shopping seen during the Covid pandemic continues to unwind."", ""The UK's second largest supermarket said online sales had been above 20% at the height of the pandemic, but are now back to about 13%."", 'Its comments came as it reported strong food sales after spending heavily on keeping prices low to attract shoppers.', 'However, other areas were weaker, with sales of clothing and fuel falling.', ""Sainsbury's said pre-tax profits for the past year had fallen 15% to £277m, reflecting costs related to its decision to wind down its banking division."", 'However, underlying profits rose 1.6% to £701m, which was slightly higher than expected, and Sainsbury\'s said it was ""confident of delivering strong profit growth in the year ahead"".', 'The UK\'s second largest supermarket said its food business was ""firing on all cylinders"", with grocery sales growing by 9.4% over the past year.', 'Chief executive Simon Roberts said that more than 87% of all food sold was done so ""in a physical store"".', 'Supermarkets have been fighting hard for customers, with shoppers still feeling the effects of steep price rises over the past two years, which have ratcheted up the cost of living.', ""Sainsbury's response has been to focus heavily on its food, which accounts for about three-quarters of its business, and it said it has spent £780m over the past three years on keeping prices low, including promotions such as Nectar prices and price-matching budget chain Aldi."", 'Mr Roberts said he expected inflation - which measures the pace of price rises - to ""continue to stabilise"".', 'Official figures released last week showed that overall inflation fell to 3.2% in March, partly due to declines in some food prices.', 'Mr Roberts said he expected inflation to remain in ""low single digits"" in the year ahead.', 'He also said there were signs that shoppers were beginning to ""trade up"" by buying more premium products when it came to food.', 'However, he said it would probably take a cut in interest rates later this year to lift sales of more expensive non-food items for cautious shoppers. ""', 'It is going to take a change in interest rates later in the year - let\'s hope - for the environment on discretionary spend begin to change,"" said Mr Roberts.', ""While Sainsbury's food business performed well, its general merchandise sales - which include its Argos business - slipped 0.5% and clothing sales fell 6.4%."", 'The company also owns the Habitat brand.', ""The retailer said trading at Argos had been hit by last summer's wet weather, which affected sales of seasonal goods such as barbecues and paddling pools."", ""The weather also impacted clothes sales, as competitors launched sales to clear stock, and Sainsbury's said there had been some disruption to clothing supplies in recent months because of Houthi rebels attacks on shipping in the Red Sea."", 'As Sainsbury\'s announced its results, a ""technical issue"" hit some of its online deliveries on Thursday.', 'However, the retailer said the problem had been fixed, and had only affected a ""small number"" of customers.', 'Read more tips here']",0.0009373406900937,"However, underlying profits rose 1.6% to £701m, which was slightly higher than expected, and Sainsbury's said it was ""confident of delivering strong profit growth in the year ahead"".","However, other areas were weaker, with sales of clothing and fuel falling.",-0.0594508963472702,"The UK's second largest supermarket said its food business was ""firing on all cylinders"", with grocery sales growing by 9.4% over the past year.","Sainsbury's said pre-tax profits for the past year had fallen 15% to £277m, reflecting costs related to its decision to wind down its banking division.",2024-04-29
Anglo American rejects £31bn mega-deal with rival BHP,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c89zyxy4p4yo,2024-04-26T12:10:38.245Z,"Anglo American has rejected a £31.1bn takeover proposed by rival miner BHP, branding it ""highly unattractive"" and  ""opportunistic"". BHP confirmed on Thursday that it had approached Anglo American about a deal which would create the world's largest copper producer. But Anglo American has rebuffed the approach, in particular the plan to significantly restructure its business. BHP wants to buy Anglo American for its copper operations. Copper is used to conduct electricity and demand is growing as some economies shift to renewable energy and electric vehicles. Anglo American owns two copper mines, in Chile and Peru where BHP also has some operations. A deal would bring together two of the industry's biggest mining companies and could face significant competition hurdles if it went ahead. Copper prices rose above $10,000 per tonne for the first time in two years after news of the proposal emerged. Fawad Razaqzada, analyst at City Index, said: ""While there is an increasing demand propelled by the green transition and infrastructure development, concerns have risen regarding supply disruptions stemming from factors such as labour strikes, regulatory alterations, and operational hurdles at mining sites. ""There are some fears that BHP's bid to acquire Anglo American would further limit copper production growth, just as demand is likely to rise given that the metal is vital for the green transition."" BHP has proposed spinning off Anglo's platinum and South African iron ore divisions. But Anglo said that under BHP's plan its business would bear the brunt of any major changes that may needed to get regulatory approval. “The BHP proposal is opportunistic and fails to value Anglo American’s prospects,"" said Anglo American's chair Stuart Chambers. He added: ""The proposed structure is also highly unattractive, creating substantial uncertainty and execution risk borne almost entirely by Anglo American, its shareholders and its other stakeholders."" Anglo American's share price edged down on Friday to £25.47, just above the price per share BHP is offering for its smaller rival. ",BBC,26/04/2024,"['Anglo American has rejected a £31.1bn takeover proposed by rival miner BHP, branding it ""highly unattractive"" and ""opportunistic"".', ""BHP confirmed on Thursday that it had approached Anglo American about a deal which would create the world's largest copper producer."", 'But Anglo American has rebuffed the approach, in particular the plan to significantly restructure its business.', 'BHP wants to buy Anglo American for its copper operations.', 'Copper is used to conduct electricity and demand is growing as some economies shift to renewable energy and electric vehicles.', 'Anglo American owns two copper mines, in Chile and Peru where BHP also has some operations.', ""A deal would bring together two of the industry's biggest mining companies and could face significant competition hurdles if it went ahead."", 'Copper prices rose above $10,000 per tonne for the first time in two years after news of the proposal emerged.', 'Fawad Razaqzada, analyst at City Index, said: ""While there is an increasing demand propelled by the green transition and infrastructure development, concerns have risen regarding supply disruptions stemming from factors such as labour strikes, regulatory alterations, and operational hurdles at mining sites. ""', 'There are some fears that BHP\'s bid to acquire Anglo American would further limit copper production growth, just as demand is likely to rise given that the metal is vital for the green transition.""', ""BHP has proposed spinning off Anglo's platinum and South African iron ore divisions."", ""But Anglo said that under BHP's plan its business would bear the brunt of any major changes that may needed to get regulatory approval. “"", 'The BHP proposal is opportunistic and fails to value Anglo American’s prospects,"" said Anglo American\'s chair Stuart Chambers.', 'He added: ""The proposed structure is also highly unattractive, creating substantial uncertainty and execution risk borne almost entirely by Anglo American, its shareholders and its other stakeholders.""', ""Anglo American's share price edged down on Friday to £25.47, just above the price per share BHP is offering for its smaller rival.""]",0.0201166611117185,But Anglo said that under BHP's plan its business would bear the brunt of any major changes that may needed to get regulatory approval. “,"Anglo American has rejected a £31.1bn takeover proposed by rival miner BHP, branding it ""highly unattractive"" and ""opportunistic"".",-0.4094068884849548,"Copper prices rose above $10,000 per tonne for the first time in two years after news of the proposal emerged.","Anglo American's share price edged down on Friday to £25.47, just above the price per share BHP is offering for its smaller rival.",2024-04-29
What the pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses actually want,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/26/investing/what-pro-palestinian-protesters-want/index.html,"
  Updated
        11:24 AM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","College campuses across America have been shaken by unrest that has resulted in clashes with police, shut down some classrooms and captured the attention of the nation.
    
            Although much of the initial focus has been on antisemitic incidents and how university officials and police are responding to the demonstrations, all of this raises a fundamental question: What do the pro-Palestinian protesters actually want?
    
            The specific demands of the protesters vary somewhat from school to school yet the central demand is that universities divest from companies linked to Israel or businesses that are profiting off its war with Hamas. Universities have largely refused to budge on this demand, and experts say divestment may not have a significant impact on the companies themselves.
    
            Other common threads include demanding universities disclose their investments, sever academic ties with Israeli universities and support a ceasefire in Gaza.
    
            “We asked that Columbia University pull all investments away from companies that profit off of the genocide of Palestinians or Israeli companies that profit off of the oppression of Palestinians,” Althea, a student protester at Columbia, told CNN. Althea asked for her last name not to be used for privacy reasons.
    
            Protest movements at some universities are also calling for school officials to protect free speech and spare students from being punished for participating in the protests.
    
            At the University of Southern California, where dozens were arrested on Wednesday, protesters are demanding “full amnesty” for those brought into custody and that there be “no policing on campus.”
    
            At Princeton University, protesters are demanding, among other things, that the Ivy League school end research on weapons of war “used to enable genocide,” according to a flyer at a campus demonstration on Thursday.
    
            Some demands are local.
    
            At Columbia University, where the pro-Palestinian protest movement started last week, protesters are demanding support for low-income Harlem residents, including housing and reparations, according to Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the student group responsible for organizing the encampment.
    
            The Columbia protesters are also calling for the university to “disclose and sever all ties” with the New York Police Department.
    
            Students are also calling for an academic boycott from Israeli universities. For example, Columbia protesters want the university to sever ties with the school’s center in Tel Aviv and a dual degree program with Tel Aviv University. New York University protesters use the school’s Tel Aviv center as a rallying cry as well.
    
            Still, divestment is at the top of the list of demands from protesters and the one they mention most often.
    
            As Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson addressed students at Columbia on Wednesday, students chanted: “Disclose, divest, we will not stop we will not rest.”
    
            Like many major universities, Columbia has a massive endowment. It was valued at $13.6 billion, as of mid-2023.
    
            And there is a history of student activists targeting endowments during demonstrations. In the 1980s, students successfully persuaded Columbia to divest from apartheid South Africa.
    
            More recently, Columbia and other universities have divested from fossil fuels and private prisons.
    
            Charlie Eaton, assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Merced and author of “Bankers in the Ivory Tower,” said Columbia can “absolutely” make the choice to divest from Israel-linked investments.
    
            “It’s not unreasonable practice for schools to make decisions about how they invest based not just on maximizing investment returns, but also around principles of equity and justice in what they invest in,” he said.
    
            But Mark Yudof, chairman of the Academic Engagement Network, which opposes campus antisemitism, said it’s not a simple solution to implement.
    
            “The truth is it’s sometimes murky to figure out who is doing business in Israel and what the relationship is to the war,” Yudof said.
    
            Yudof, the former president of the University of California, said he’s not aware of a single university that has divested from Israel despite years of pressure to do so.
    
            “I don’t think it will happen,” he said.
    
            However, none of the universities have announced plans to divest from Israel-linked investments and some experts say they will be very reluctant to accept this demand.
    
            “A significant obstacle to divestment is that any university supporting divestment would be sending a clear signal that they either: (a) acquiesce in; or (b) support the destruction of the State of Israel and its citizens,” said Jonathan Macey, a professor at Yale Law School.
    
            Macey said that while such a move may be supported by protesters, it would be “viewed as hostile and threatening to many students, faculty and staff.”
    
            Lauren Post, an analyst at the Anti-Defamation League, said the push for divestment is related to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
    
            Although Post acknowledged that some individuals may be pushing for divestment as a way to hold Israel accountable, she said the ADL views the goals of BDS as antisemitic.
    
            “The goal – ultimately dismantling the state of Israel, is antisemitic,” said Post.
    
            Yudof, the former University of California president, said he also feels it is antisemitic.
    
            “It smacks of a double standard. Why is it only Israel?” He criticized protesting college students for focusing on Israel instead of undemocratic regimes around the world, including Iran and Russia.
    
            It’s worth noting, however, that the student protests don’t directly say they are affiliated with BDS.
    
            “We are not going anywhere until our demands are met,” Khymani James, a student at Columbia University, said during a news briefing Wednesday.
    
            James, a student activist associated with the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) coalition, has since apologized for saying on video that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.”
    
            James acknowledged the statement in a post on X, saying it was from an Instagram Live video in January. “I misspoke in the heat of the moment, for which I apologize.”
    
            The apology came early Friday morning, hours after an interview with CNN at Columbia where James repeatedly declined to apologize for the video, saying that the focus should be on Palestinian liberation.
    
            There is also a debate over how effective divestment campaigns are.
    
            One issue is that selling stock in a company means the university would give up its influence over the company.
    
            “Be careful what you ask for. If you sell your stock, someone else will buy it and they may be less concerned about the issue you care about,” said Cary Krosinsky, a lecturer at Yale who has advised university endowments.
    
            Another issue is that while university endowments are large, public companies are much bigger. If a university divests, many companies would not even notice it.
    
            University endowments own approximately 0.1% of public companies, according to research by Krosinsky.
    
            “0.1% is not going to move the needle very much. Someone else will buy the stock and life will go on,” he said.
    
            Most university funds are invested with private equity funds and hedge funds, rather than broad-ranging mutual or index funds.
    
            Of course, the divestment push is about more than directly punishing companies. It’s about a desire to send a message and raise awareness.
    
            More than wanting to take down defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, protesters would view divestment as a symbolic victory for justice and equality.
    
            Students are “complicit in what this institution does,” graduate student Basil Rodriguez said to CNN Wednesday, noting that students pay tuition.
    
            Rodriguez is Palestinian herself, and said her family members have been “murdered and executed” and displaced.
    
            Student protesters say the demands to disclose and to divest are interconnected.
    
            Protesters argue that many of the financial interests of universities are opaque and the links to Israel may be even greater than officials realize.
    
            “At the same time, this is only the tip of the iceberg,” Rodriguez said. “We demand full financial transparency.”
    
            CNN’s John Towfighi contributed to this report.",CNN,26/04/2024,"['College campuses across America have been shaken by unrest that has resulted in clashes with police, shut down some classrooms and captured the attention of the nation.', 'Although much of the initial focus has been on antisemitic incidents and how university officials and police are responding to the demonstrations, all of this raises a fundamental question: What do the pro-Palestinian protesters actually want?', 'The specific demands of the protesters vary somewhat from school to school yet the central demand is that universities divest from companies linked to Israel or businesses that are profiting off its war with Hamas.', 'Universities have largely refused to budge on this demand, and experts say divestment may not have a significant impact on the companies themselves.', 'Other common threads include demanding universities disclose their investments, sever academic ties with Israeli universities and support a ceasefire in Gaza.', '“We asked that Columbia University pull all investments away from companies that profit off of the genocide of Palestinians or Israeli companies that profit off of the oppression of Palestinians,” Althea, a student protester at Columbia, told CNN.', 'Althea asked for her last name not to be used for privacy reasons.', 'Protest movements at some universities are also calling for school officials to protect free speech and spare students from being punished for participating in the protests.', 'At the University of Southern California, where dozens were arrested on Wednesday, protesters are demanding “full amnesty” for those brought into custody and that there be “no policing on campus.”', 'At Princeton University, protesters are demanding, among other things, that the Ivy League school end research on weapons of war “used to enable genocide,” according to a flyer at a campus demonstration on Thursday.', 'Some demands are local.', 'At Columbia University, where the pro-Palestinian protest movement started last week, protesters are demanding support for low-income Harlem residents, including housing and reparations, according to Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the student group responsible for organizing the encampment.', 'The Columbia protesters are also calling for the university to “disclose and sever all ties” with the New York Police Department.', 'Students are also calling for an academic boycott from Israeli universities.', 'For example, Columbia protesters want the university to sever ties with the school’s center in Tel Aviv and a dual degree program with Tel Aviv University.', 'New York University protesters use the school’s Tel Aviv center as a rallying cry as well.', 'Still, divestment is at the top of the list of demands from protesters and the one they mention most often.', 'As Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson addressed students at Columbia on Wednesday, students chanted: “Disclose, divest, we will not stop we will not rest.”', 'Like many major universities, Columbia has a massive endowment.', 'It was valued at $13.6 billion, as of mid-2023.', 'And there is a history of student activists targeting endowments during demonstrations.', 'In the 1980s, students successfully persuaded Columbia to divest from apartheid South Africa.', 'More recently, Columbia and other universities have divested from fossil fuels and private prisons.', 'Charlie Eaton, assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Merced and author of “Bankers in the Ivory Tower,” said Columbia can “absolutely” make the choice to divest from Israel-linked investments.', '“It’s not unreasonable practice for schools to make decisions about how they invest based not just on maximizing investment returns, but also around principles of equity and justice in what they invest in,” he said.', 'But Mark Yudof, chairman of the Academic Engagement Network, which opposes campus antisemitism, said it’s not a simple solution to implement.', '“The truth is it’s sometimes murky to figure out who is doing business in Israel and what the relationship is to the war,” Yudof said.', 'Yudof, the former president of the University of California, said he’s not aware of a single university that has divested from Israel despite years of pressure to do so.', '“I don’t think it will happen,” he said.', 'However, none of the universities have announced plans to divest from Israel-linked investments and some experts say they will be very reluctant to accept this demand.', '“A significant obstacle to divestment is that any university supporting divestment would be sending a clear signal that they either: (a) acquiesce in; or (b) support the destruction of the State of Israel and its citizens,” said Jonathan Macey, a professor at Yale Law School.', 'Macey said that while such a move may be supported by protesters, it would be “viewed as hostile and threatening to many students, faculty and staff.”', 'Lauren Post, an analyst at the Anti-Defamation League, said the push for divestment is related to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.', 'Although Post acknowledged that some individuals may be pushing for divestment as a way to hold Israel accountable, she said the ADL views the goals of BDS as antisemitic.', '“The goal – ultimately dismantling the state of Israel, is antisemitic,” said Post.', 'Yudof, the former University of California president, said he also feels it is antisemitic.', '“It smacks of a double standard.', 'Why is it only Israel?”', 'He criticized protesting college students for focusing on Israel instead of undemocratic regimes around the world, including Iran and Russia.', 'It’s worth noting, however, that the student protests don’t directly say they are affiliated with BDS.', '“We are not going anywhere until our demands are met,” Khymani James, a student at Columbia University, said during a news briefing Wednesday.', 'James, a student activist associated with the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) coalition, has since apologized for saying on video that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.”', 'James acknowledged the statement ina post on X, saying it was from an Instagram Live video in January. “', 'I misspoke in the heat of the moment, for which I apologize.”', 'The apology came early Friday morning, hours after an interview with CNN at Columbia where James repeatedly declined to apologize for the video, saying that the focus should be on Palestinian liberation.', 'There is also a debate over how effective divestment campaigns are.', 'One issue is that selling stock in a company means the university would give up its influence over the company.', '“Be careful what you ask for.', 'If you sell your stock, someone else will buy it and they may be less concerned about the issue you care about,” said Cary Krosinsky, a lecturer at Yale who has advised university endowments.', 'Another issue is that while university endowments are large, public companies are much bigger.', 'If a university divests, many companies would not even notice it.', 'University endowments own approximately 0.1% of public companies, according to research by Krosinsky.', '“0.1% is not going to move the needle very much.', 'Someone else will buy the stock and life will go on,” he said.', 'Most university funds are invested with private equity funds and hedge funds, rather than broad-ranging mutual or index funds.', 'Of course, the divestment push is about more than directly punishing companies.', 'It’s about a desire to send a message and raise awareness.', 'More than wanting to take down defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, protesters would view divestment as a symbolic victory for justice and equality.', 'Students are“complicit in what this institution does,” graduate student Basil Rodriguez said to CNN Wednesday, noting that students pay tuition.', 'Rodriguez is Palestinian herself, and said her family members have been “murdered and executed” and displaced.', 'Student protesters say the demands to disclose and to divest are interconnected.', 'Protesters argue that many of the financial interests of universities are opaque and the links to Israel may be even greater than officials realize.', '“At the same time, this is only the tip of the iceberg,” Rodriguez said. “', 'We demand full financial transparency.”', 'CNN’s John Towfighi contributed to this report.']",-0.0210135387028766,"“We asked that Columbia University pull all investments away from companies that profit off of the genocide of Palestinians or Israeli companies that profit off of the oppression of Palestinians,” Althea, a student protester at Columbia, told CNN.","At Princeton University, protesters are demanding, among other things, that the Ivy League school end research on weapons of war “used to enable genocide,” according to a flyer at a campus demonstration on Thursday.",-0.5928670540452003,"More than wanting to take down defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, protesters would view divestment as a symbolic victory for justice and equality.","Universities have largely refused to budge on this demand, and experts say divestment may not have a significant impact on the companies themselves.",2024-04-29
Digital humans: the relatable face of artificial intelligence?,https://edition.cnn.com/business/digital-humans-ai-dj-dex-spc/index.html,"
  Published
        5:33 AM EDT, Tue March 19, 2024
    ","Scrolling through the Instagram account of DJ and aspiring model Dex you’ll see her wearing new outfits, performing at shows around the world and chatting to her thousands of followers about her hobbies.
    
            However, it’s clear that there is something different about Dex; she’s an entirely virtual “digital human,” designed by a startup in the UK.
    
            For her performances, Dex is displayed on a video screen or as a holographic projection, with her mixes created by humans. She is animated using Unreal Engine — a 3D modeling software widely used in video games — combined with motion-capture. Generative artificial intelligence allows her to remember information and respond to questions, using a voice also generated by AI.
    
            “She’s probably one of the only digital humans in the performance space that you can have a conversation and interact with,” says Denise Harris, CCO of startup Sum Vivas. “You can ask her anything. She is a genius about music.”
    
            Last month, Dex performed at Digital Fashion Weeks in New York, Paris and Milan, and she has modeled outfits by Prada and Louis Vuitton at digital fashion events.
    
            For Liverpool-based Sum Vivas she’s a “showpiece” for more practical applications. The company is now developing digital humans that can “listen” to people’s questions and converse in real time. “Shellie” can provide product information as an avatar on company websites, while “Arif” is set to direct passengers and answer questions as a multilingual concierge on screens at airports.
    
            According to CEO and founder Rob Sims, digital humans can help bridge the gap between AI technology and people. “What we’ve found is when people start working with and conversing with a digital human, they very quickly suspend disbelief,” Sims tells CNN. “It becomes natural.”
    
            Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT was launched in November 2022, considerable hype has surrounded the potential of generative AI — artificial intelligence powered by huge datasets of information, capable of generating text outputs in a conversational way.
    
            Record levels of investment into generative AI have followed, with over $21 billion poured into the industry during the first nine months of last year, according to data insights company Pitchbook. In March 2023, Google launched Bard (recently renamed Gemini) and around the same time Anthropic released its AI assistant Claude. As generative AI chatbots become increasingly ubiquitous, Sum Vivas is one of several companies looking to make them more human.
    
            US and New Zealand-based UneeQ has developed animated conversational “digital humans” that can be used as virtual sales reps and customer service agents on company websites, and this month it debuted Sama 2.0, an animated cabin crew member that answers questions on Qatar Airways’ website and app.
    
            Microsoft recently announced that users of its Azure software would be able to create lifelike avatars capable of turning text prompts into animated speech. However, there are widespread concerns about the impact AI could have on the job market. 
    
            “When we rely on automated tools, what skills are we losing in the process?” asks Jennifer Ding, senior researcher at the Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. “In some ways, we think of AI as something that’s helping us or augmenting our work,” she says. “However, alongside, this fear of replacement is bubbling up more and more.”
    
            Harris, however, points to new opportunities within digital human design and development. “Every scenario that we found, we’re creating jobs and working in harmony with people rather than taking away jobs,” she says.
    
            “Digital humans, first and foremost, should work with other human colleagues,” adds Sims. “We’ll move into a stage where digital humans will start to become just another member of the team, with added benefits for that team, and obviously the customers they serve.”",CNN,19/03/2024,"['Scrolling through the Instagram account of DJ and aspiring model Dex you’ll see her wearing new outfits, performing at shows around the world and chatting to her thousands of followers about her hobbies.', 'However, it’s clear that there is something different about Dex; she’s an entirely virtual “digital human,” designed by a startup in the UK.', 'For her performances, Dex is displayed on a video screen or as a holographic projection, with her mixes created by humans.', 'She is animated using Unreal Engine — a 3D modeling software widely used in video games — combined with motion-capture.', 'Generative artificial intelligence allows her to remember information and respond to questions, using a voice also generated by AI.', '“She’s probably one of the only digital humans in the performance space that you can have a conversation and interact with,” says Denise Harris, CCO of startup Sum Vivas. “', 'You can ask her anything.', 'She is a genius about music.”', 'Last month, Dex performed at Digital Fashion Weeks in New York, Paris and Milan, and she has modeled outfits by Prada and Louis Vuitton at digital fashion events.', 'For Liverpool-based Sum Vivas she’s a “showpiece” for more practical applications.', 'The company is now developing digital humans that can “listen” to people’s questions and converse in real time. “', 'Shellie” can provide product information as an avatar on company websites, while “Arif” is set to direct passengers and answer questions as a multilingual concierge on screens at airports.', 'According to CEO and founder Rob Sims, digital humans can help bridge the gap between AI technology and people. “', 'What we’ve found is when people start working with and conversing with a digital human, they very quickly suspend disbelief,” Sims tells CNN. “', 'It becomes natural.”', 'Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT was launched in November 2022, considerable hype has surrounded the potential of generative AI — artificial intelligence powered by huge datasets of information, capable of generating text outputs in a conversational way.', 'Record levels of investment into generative AI have followed, with over $21 billion poured into the industry during the first nine months of last year, according to data insights company Pitchbook.', 'In March 2023, Google launched Bard (recently renamed Gemini) and around the same time Anthropic released its AI assistant Claude.', 'As generative AI chatbots become increasingly ubiquitous, Sum Vivas is one of several companies looking to make them more human.', 'US and New Zealand-based UneeQ has developed animated conversational “digital humans” that can be used as virtual sales reps and customer service agents on company websites, and this month it debuted Sama 2.0, an animated cabin crew member that answers questions on Qatar Airways’ website and app.', 'Microsoft recently announced that users of its Azure software would be able to create lifelike avatars capable of turning text prompts into animated speech.', 'However, there are widespread concerns about the impact AI could have on the job market.', '“When we rely on automated tools, what skills are we losing in the process?”', 'asks Jennifer Ding, senior researcher at the Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. “', 'In some ways, we think of AI as something that’s helping us or augmenting our work,” she says. “', 'However, alongside, this fear of replacement is bubbling up more and more.”', 'Harris, however, points to new opportunities within digital human design and development. “', 'Every scenario that we found, we’re creating jobs and working in harmony with people rather than taking away jobs,” she says.', '“Digital humans, first and foremost, should work with other human colleagues,” adds Sims. “', 'We’ll move into a stage where digital humans will start to become just another member of the team, with added benefits for that team, and obviously the customers they serve.”']",0.1214444180579973,"Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT was launched in November 2022, considerable hype has surrounded the potential of generative AI — artificial intelligence powered by huge datasets of information, capable of generating text outputs in a conversational way.","However, alongside, this fear of replacement is bubbling up more and more.”",0.2107271328568458,"Harris, however, points to new opportunities within digital human design and development. “","However, there are widespread concerns about the impact AI could have on the job market.",2024-04-29
"Real Bedford: McMullen Park lease extended, owner says",https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-68906565,2024-04-26T19:56:54.000Z,"The Bitcoin podcast co-owner of non-league football club Real Bedford has announced the team's lease on their ground has been extended for 15 years.  Formerly known as Bedford FC, the team play at McMullen Park in Bedford. Podcaster Peter McCormack announced the news on X, describing it as ""great news for the town and everybody involved in football in Bedford."" The club received a $4.5m (£33.6m) cryptocurrency investment earlier this month. Following the investment from Winklevoss Capital, an investment firm owned by Gemini founders and twin brother Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the pair became co-owners of the club. The lease on McMullen Park, just off the A421 near Cardington and right next to Bedford Town's ground, was due to run out in two years before the successful renegotiation. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Mr McCormack said: ""I am pleased to announce that the council has just confirmed that they will be giving @realbedforda 15-year lease extension at McMullen Park. ""This is great news for the town and everybody involved in football in Bedford. Thank you to those who worked hard to get this over the line, especially Alan Young at @BedsFA."" He has previously spoken of his aspirations to make the non-league club into a Premier League side and moving to a bigger ground in the town long-term. He took over Bedford FC in 2021 and on Tuesday secured a second successive promotion and will compete in the Southern League Division One Central next season, which is the eighth tier of the English football league. Mr McCormack previously said the club was ""relentless about success"" and ""we're trying to build a club for the football league"". He said he was trying to do ""something different"" and create an international brand. Got a story? Email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp 0800 169 1830 . ",BBC,26/04/2024,"[""The Bitcoin podcast co-owner of non-league football club Real Bedford has announced the team's lease on their ground has been extended for 15 years."", 'Formerly known as Bedford FC, the team play at McMullen Park in Bedford.', 'Podcaster Peter McCormack announced the news on X, describing it as ""great news for the town and everybody involved in football in Bedford.""', 'The club received a $4.5m (£33.6m) cryptocurrency investment earlier this month.', 'Following the investment from Winklevoss Capital, an investment firm owned by Gemini founders and twin brother Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the pair became co-owners of the club.', ""The lease on McMullen Park, just off the A421 near Cardington and right next to Bedford Town's ground, was due to run out in two years before the successful renegotiation."", 'In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Mr McCormack said: ""I am pleased to announce that the council has just confirmed that they will be giving @realbedforda 15-year lease extension at McMullen Park. ""', 'This is great news for the town and everybody involved in football in Bedford.', 'Thank you to those who worked hard to get this over the line, especially Alan Young at @BedsFA.""', 'He has previously spoken of his aspirations to make the non-league club into a Premier League side and moving to a bigger ground in the town long-term.', 'He took over Bedford FC in 2021 and on Tuesday secured a second successive promotion and will compete in the Southern League Division One Central next season, which is the eighth tier of the English football league.', 'Mr McCormack previously said the club was ""relentless about success"" and ""we\'re trying to build a club for the football league"".', 'He said he was trying to do ""something different"" and create an international brand.', 'Got a story?', 'Email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp 0800 169 1830 .']",0.3037237209161095,"In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Mr McCormack said: ""I am pleased to announce that the council has just confirmed that they will be giving @realbedforda 15-year lease extension at McMullen Park. """,,0.9791503846645356,"In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Mr McCormack said: ""I am pleased to announce that the council has just confirmed that they will be giving @realbedforda 15-year lease extension at McMullen Park. """,,2024-04-29
"TikTok will not be sold, Chinese parent ByteDance tells US",https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c289n8m4j19o,2024-04-26T02:49:22.588Z,"TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance says it has no intention of selling the business after the US passed a law to force it to sell the hugely popular video app or be banned in America. ""ByteDance doesn't have any plans to sell TikTok,"" the company posted on its official account on Toutiao, a social media platform it owns. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the BBC. Earlier this week, TikTok said it would challenge in court the ""unconstitutional"" law. The statement from ByteDance came in response to an article by the technology industry website The Information that said it was exploring the potential sale of TikTok’s operation in the US without the algorithm that powers it. ""Foreign media reports of ByteDance selling TikTok are not true,"" the company said in the post, which included a screen shot of the article with the Chinese characters meaning ""false rumour"" stamped on it.  The sell-or-ban measure was signed into law by US President Joe Biden on Wednesday. Beijing's tightening grip on private companies has raised concerns in the US, and other Western countries, about how much control the Chinese Communist Party has over ByteDance, and the data it holds. TikTok has repeatedly denied claims the Chinese government has control over ByteDance. ""We are confident and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts,"" said TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew in a video posted on the platform this week. ""The facts, and the Constitution, are on our side... rest assured, we aren't going anywhere."" According to TikTok, ByteDance's Chinese founder owns 20% of shares, through a controlling stake in the company. About 60% is owned by institutional investors, including major US investment firms Carlyle Group, General Atlantic, and Susquehanna International Group. The remaining 20% is owned by its employees around the world and three of ByteDance's five board members are American. The Chinese government has also dismissed such concerns as paranoia and has warned that a TikTok ban would ""inevitably come back to bite the US"". However, TikTok is not facing an immediate ban in the US. The new law gives ByteDance nine months to sell the business, and an additional three-month grace period, before a potential ban can be enforced. That means the sale deadline would most likely come some time in 2025, after the winner of the 2024 presidential election takes office. ",BBC,26/04/2024,"['TikTok\'s Chinese parent company ByteDance says it has no intention of selling the business after the US passed a law to force it to sell the hugely popular video app or be banned in America. ""', 'ByteDance doesn\'t have any plans to sell TikTok,"" the company posted on its official account on Toutiao, a social media platform it owns.', 'TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the BBC.', 'Earlier this week, TikTok said it would challenge in court the ""unconstitutional"" law.', 'The statement from ByteDance came in response to an article by the technology industry website The Information that said it was exploring the potential sale of TikTok’s operation in the US without the algorithm that powers it. ""', 'Foreign media reports of ByteDance selling TikTok are not true,"" the company said in the post, which included a screen shot of the article with the Chinese characters meaning ""false rumour"" stamped on it.', 'The sell-or-ban measure was signed into law by US President Joe Biden on Wednesday.', ""Beijing's tightening grip on private companies has raised concerns in the US, and other Western countries, about how much control the Chinese Communist Party has over ByteDance, and the data it holds."", 'TikTok has repeatedly denied claims the Chinese government has control over ByteDance. ""', 'We are confident and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts,"" said TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew in a video posted on the platform this week. ""', 'The facts, and the Constitution, are on our side... rest assured, we aren\'t going anywhere.""', ""According to TikTok, ByteDance's Chinese founder owns 20% of shares, through a controlling stake in the company."", 'About 60% is owned by institutional investors, including major US investment firms Carlyle Group, General Atlantic, and Susquehanna International Group.', ""The remaining 20% is owned by its employees around the world and three of ByteDance's five board members are American."", 'The Chinese government has also dismissed such concerns as paranoia and has warned that a TikTok ban would ""inevitably come back to bite the US"".', 'However, TikTok is not facing an immediate ban in the US.', 'The new law gives ByteDance nine months to sell the business, and an additional three-month grace period, before a potential ban can be enforced.', 'That means the sale deadline would most likely come some time in 2025, after the winner of the 2024 presidential election takes office.']",-0.0682909980731593,"That means the sale deadline would most likely come some time in 2025, after the winner of the 2024 presidential election takes office.","The Chinese government has also dismissed such concerns as paranoia and has warned that a TikTok ban would ""inevitably come back to bite the US"".",-0.3191591103871663,"We are confident and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts,"" said TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew in a video posted on the platform this week. ""","The Chinese government has also dismissed such concerns as paranoia and has warned that a TikTok ban would ""inevitably come back to bite the US"".",2024-04-29
US investigates Ford BlueCruise after crashes,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crgy3g7g9y1o,2024-04-29T16:11:29.352Z,"A US road safety agency is investigating Ford's BlueCruise driver assistance system following two fatal collisions. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) wrote in both cases Ford Mustang Mach-E cars collided with stationary vehicles at night, while the system was engaged. BlueCruise is a driver assistance technology that allows hands-free driving on certain roads, typically motorways. Ford told the BBC that it was working with NHTSA ""to support its investigation"". In February, a Ford Mustang Mach-E using BlueCruise hit the rear of a stationary Honda, killing the 56-year-old driver of the stopped car, Reuters reported. The other crash involving a Ford Mach-E occurred in March in Philadelphia. BlueCruise checks whether drivers are paying attention using eye-tracking cameras, and prompts them to take control back over the vehicle if it identifies any drift in focus. The NHTSA says its preliminary probe will focus on the driver monitoring aspect of the system, as well as how well it generally performs driving tasks. The two crashes that prompted the new probe are being investigated separately by another safety body, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The driver assistance technology has also been approved for use on some UK motorways, though there are differences in the way it is implemented and the regulations governing its use, experts say. Currently it is the only permitted driver assistance technology to allow hands to be taken off the wheel in the UK, the system will only operate on specified sections of road and up to a maximum of 81mph (130kmh). The ""hands off, eyes on"" feature launched in the UK last April after receiving government approval. Its launch was welcomed by transport minister Jesse Norman who said that driver assistance systems ""make driving smoother and easier, but they can also help make roads safer by reducing scope for driver error”. The Department for Transport declined to comment on the new US investigation, but said the approval for Ford’s BlueCruise system for use in the UK was issued following a rigorous examination and assessment process. The NHTSA's latest look at driver assistance systems and their performance, following crashes, comes after it announced an investigation into the effectiveness of Tesla's fix for safety issues identified in its driver assistance system, Autopilot. Like BlueCruise, Autopilot is an example of Level 2 autonomous driving software - involving partial automation where two or more aspects of driving are controlled by technology, such as speed regulation and parking. Autopilot requires drivers to be alert and have their hands on the wheel. Tesla issued a recall in the form of an ""over the air"" software update to more than two million of its electric vehicles in December. ",BBC,29/04/2024,"[""A US road safety agency is investigating Ford's BlueCruise driver assistance system following two fatal collisions."", 'The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) wrote in both cases Ford Mustang Mach-E cars collided with stationary vehicles at night, while the system was engaged.', 'BlueCruise is a driver assistance technology that allows hands-free driving on certain roads, typically motorways.', 'Ford told the BBC that it was working with NHTSA ""to support its investigation"".', 'In February, a Ford Mustang Mach-E using BlueCruise hit the rear of a stationary Honda, killing the 56-year-old driver of the stopped car, Reuters reported.', 'The other crash involving a Ford Mach-E occurred in March in Philadelphia.', 'BlueCruise checks whether drivers are paying attention using eye-tracking cameras, and prompts them to take control back over the vehicle if it identifies any drift in focus.', 'The NHTSA says its preliminary probe will focus on the driver monitoring aspect of the system, as well as how well it generally performs driving tasks.', 'The two crashes that prompted the new probe are being investigated separately by another safety body, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).', 'The driver assistance technology has also been approved for use on some UK motorways, though there are differences in the way it is implemented and the regulations governing its use, experts say.', 'Currently it is the only permitted driver assistance technology to allow hands to be taken off the wheel in the UK, the system will only operate on specified sections of road and up to a maximum of 81mph (130kmh).', 'The ""hands off, eyes on"" feature launched in the UK last April after receiving government approval.', 'Its launch was welcomed by transport minister Jesse Norman who said that driver assistance systems ""make driving smoother and easier, but they can also help make roads safer by reducing scope for driver error”.', 'The Department for Transport declined to comment on the new US investigation, but said the approval for Ford’s BlueCruise system for use in the UK was issued following a rigorous examination and assessment process.', ""The NHTSA's latest look at driver assistance systems and their performance, following crashes, comes after it announced an investigation into the effectiveness of Tesla's fix for safety issues identified in its driver assistance system, Autopilot."", 'Like BlueCruise, Autopilot is an example of Level 2 autonomous driving software - involving partial automation where two or more aspects of driving are controlled by technology, such as speed regulation and parking.', 'Autopilot requires drivers to be alert and have their hands on the wheel.', 'Tesla issued a recall in the form of an ""over the air"" software update to more than two million of its electric vehicles in December.']",0.2626888176897828,"Its launch was welcomed by transport minister Jesse Norman who said that driver assistance systems ""make driving smoother and easier, but they can also help make roads safer by reducing scope for driver error”.","In February, a Ford Mustang Mach-E using BlueCruise hit the rear of a stationary Honda, killing the 56-year-old driver of the stopped car, Reuters reported.",0.1036531925201416,"Its launch was welcomed by transport minister Jesse Norman who said that driver assistance systems ""make driving smoother and easier, but they can also help make roads safer by reducing scope for driver error”.","In February, a Ford Mustang Mach-E using BlueCruise hit the rear of a stationary Honda, killing the 56-year-old driver of the stopped car, Reuters reported.",2024-04-29
'We need a miracle' - Israeli and Palestinian economies battered by war,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68884729,2024-04-24T00:35:26.000Z,"More than six months into the devastating Gaza war, its impact on the Israeli and Palestinian economies has been huge.  Nearly all economic activity in Gaza has been wiped out and the World Bank says the war has also hit Palestinian businesses in the occupied West Bank hard.  As Israelis mark the Jewish festival of Passover, the much-vaunted ""start-up nation"" is also trying to remain an attractive proposition for investors. The cobbled streets of Jerusalem's Old City are eerily quiet. There are none of the long queues to visit the holy sites - at least those that remain open.  Just after Easter and Ramadan and right in the middle of Passover, all four quarters of the Old City should be teeming with visitors. Just 68,000 tourists arrived in Israel in February, according to the country's Central Bureau of Statistics. That's down massively from 319,100 visitors in the same month last year.  While it may be surprising that any visitors pass through Jerusalem at a time of such tension, many of those who do are religious pilgrims from across the globe who will have paid for their journeys well in advance. Zak's Jerusalem Gifts was one of only a handful of stores on Christian Quarter Street in the Old City, which is situated in occupied East Jerusalem, to have bothered opening up on the day I passed by. ""We're only really doing online sales,"" says Zak, whose business specialises in antiques and biblical coins.  ""There are no actual people. The last week, after the Iran-Israel escalation, business dropped down again. So we are just hoping that after the holidays some big major miracle will happen."" It's not just in Jerusalem's Old City that they need a miracle. Some 250km (150 miles) further north, on Israel's volatile border with Lebanon, almost daily exchanges of fire with Hezbollah since the war in Gaza began have forced the Israeli army to close much of the area and 80,000 residents have been evacuated further south. A similar number of Lebanese have been forced to leave their homes on the other side of the border. Agriculture in this part of Israel is another economic sector that has been hit hard. Ofer ""Poshko"" Moskovitz isn't really permitted to enter his avocado orchard in the kibbutz of Misgav Am because of its proximity to the border. But he occasionally ventures in anyway, walking wistfully among the trees, to gaze at all of his ""money falling on the ground"".  ""I must go to pick in the orchard because it's very important for the next season,"" Poshko says. ""If I don't pick this fruit, the next season will be a very poor one."" He says he is losing a lot of money because he can't pick the avocados - around 2m shekels ($530,000; £430,000) this season, he says. Although they provide a living for thousands of people, agriculture and tourism account for relatively small parts of both the Israeli or Palestinian economies. So what does the wider picture show? Last week ratings agency S&P Global cut Israel's long-term ratings (to A-plus from AA-minus) reflecting a loss of market confidence after increased tensions between Israel and Iran and concerns the war in Gaza could spread across the wider Middle East. That loss of confidence was also reflected in falling Israeli GDP - the total value of goods and services produced in the economy - which decreased by 5.7% in the last quarter of 2023. Many Israelis though say the country's renowned high-tech and start-up sector is proving to be more ""war-proof"" than expected. The coastal city of Tel Aviv is only 54km from Jerusalem. More pertinently, perhaps, it's less than 70km from Gaza.  At times, you'd be forgiven for forgetting - however momentarily - that Israel is embroiled in its longest war since independence in 1948. Families make the most of the early summer sun to play in the surf, couples eat lunch in the many open-air beach restaurants and young people strum away on guitars on the green spaces between the coastal road and the Mediterranean. The backdrop is a city that is economically active and physically growing fast. ""They joke that Israel's national bird should be the crane - the mechanical kind!"" says Jon Medved, founder and CEO of the online global venture investment platform Our Crowd. An engaging character with an overwhelmingly upbeat view of his world, Medved tells me that, ""in the first quarter of this year, almost $2bn was invested in Israeli start-ups…  We're having one of the best years we've ever had. People who are engaged with Israel are not disengaging."" Medved insists that, despite everything, Israel is still the ""start-up nation"" and a good option for would-be investors. ""There are 400 multinational corporations that have operations here. Not a single multinational, has closed its operation in Israel since the war."" To an extent, Elise Brezis agrees with Mr Medved's assessment. The economics professor at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv acknowledges that despite the last quarter's GDP figures, Israel's economy remains ""remarkably resilient"". ""When it comes to tourism, yes, we have a reduction in exports. But we had also reduction in imports,"" says Brezis. ""So in fact, the balance of payments is still okay. That's what is so problematic is that from the data, you don't really feel that there is such a terrible situation in Israel."" But Prof Brezis detects a wider malaise in Israeli society that isn't reflected in economic data. ""Israel's economy might be robust, but Israeli society is not robust right now. It's like looking at a person and saying, 'Wow, his salary is high,' [...] but in fact he's depressed. And he's thinking, 'What will I do with my life?' - That's exactly Israel today."" If the outlook in Israel is mixed, then across the separation barrier that divides Jerusalem and Bethlehem the view from the Palestinian side is overwhelmingly bleak. Tourism is especially important to the economies of towns like Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.  While some people are still heading to Jerusalem's sites, in the place where Christians believe Jesus was born tourism ""stopped immediately"" after 7 October last year, says Dr Samir Hazboun, chairman of Bethlehem's Chamber of Commerce and Industry. That's when Hamas attacked Israeli communities near Gaza, killing about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, taking about 250 hostages and sparking the current war. There's huge dependence and reliance on Israel's economy here - but Israel virtually closed off the landlocked West Bank after 7 October and this has had a disastrous impact on the life and work of many Palestinians, Dr Hazboun says. ""The Bethlehem governorate right now is closed,"" he says. ""There are around 43 gates [in the Israeli security barrier] but only three are open. So with between 16,000 and 20,000 Palestinian workers from our area working in Israel, immediately, they lost their income."" The chamber of commerce says that the revenues from local Palestinians working in Israel amounted to 22bn shekels ($5.8bn) annually. ""You can imagine the impact on the economy,"" says Dr Hazboun, who is particularly concerned for the prospects for younger Palestinians the longer the war continues and more the Israeli and West Bank economies decouple. ""The younger generation now are jobless, they are not working. Many of them are talented people,"" he laments. ""In June I'm expecting around 30,000 new graduates from the Palestinian universities. What they will do?  In Gaza itself the economy has been completely destroyed by six months of war. Israel's relentless aerial bombardment and ground operations have killed 34,183 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Unlike in some parts of Israel, where there is optimism around being able to ride out the storm and continue attracting investors, in the West Bank and Gaza there is little hope things will return to any kind of normal. ",BBC,24/04/2024,"['More than six months into the devastating Gaza war, its impact on the Israeli and Palestinian economies has been huge.', 'Nearly all economic activity in Gaza has been wiped out and the World Bank says the war has also hit Palestinian businesses in the occupied West Bank hard.', 'As Israelis mark the Jewish festival of Passover, the much-vaunted ""start-up nation"" is also trying to remain an attractive proposition for investors.', ""The cobbled streets of Jerusalem's Old City are eerily quiet."", 'There are none of the long queues to visit the holy sites - at least those that remain open.', 'Just after Easter and Ramadan and right in the middle of Passover, all four quarters of the Old City should be teeming with visitors.', ""Just 68,000 tourists arrived in Israel in February, according to the country's Central Bureau of Statistics."", ""That's down massively from 319,100 visitors in the same month last year."", 'While it may be surprising that any visitors pass through Jerusalem at a time of such tension, many of those who do are religious pilgrims from across the globe who will have paid for their journeys well in advance.', 'Zak\'s Jerusalem Gifts was one of only a handful of stores on Christian Quarter Street in the Old City, which is situated in occupied East Jerusalem, to have bothered opening up on the day I passed by. ""', 'We\'re only really doing online sales,"" says Zak, whose business specialises in antiques and biblical coins. ""', 'There are no actual people.', 'The last week, after the Iran-Israel escalation, business dropped down again.', 'So we are just hoping that after the holidays some big major miracle will happen.""', ""It's not just in Jerusalem's Old City that they need a miracle."", ""Some 250km (150 miles) further north, on Israel's volatile border with Lebanon, almost daily exchanges of fire with Hezbollah since the war in Gaza began have forced the Israeli army to close much of the area and 80,000 residents have been evacuated further south."", 'A similar number of Lebanese have been forced to leave their homes on the other side of the border.', 'Agriculture in this part of Israel is another economic sector that has been hit hard.', 'Ofer ""Poshko"" Moskovitz isn\'t really permitted to enter his avocado orchard in the kibbutz of Misgav Am because of its proximity to the border.', 'But he occasionally ventures in anyway, walking wistfully among the trees, to gaze at all of his ""money falling on the ground"". ""', 'I must go to pick in the orchard because it\'s very important for the next season,"" Poshko says. ""', 'If I don\'t pick this fruit, the next season will be a very poor one.""', ""He says he is losing a lot of money because he can't pick the avocados - around 2m shekels ($530,000; £430,000) this season, he says."", 'Although they provide a living for thousands of people, agriculture and tourism account for relatively small parts of both the Israeli or Palestinian economies.', 'So what does the wider picture show?', ""Last week ratings agency S&P Global cut Israel's long-term ratings (to A-plus from AA-minus) reflecting a loss of market confidence after increased tensions between Israel and Iran and concerns the war in Gaza could spread across the wider Middle East."", 'That loss of confidence was also reflected in falling Israeli GDP - the total value of goods and services produced in the economy - which decreased by 5.7% in the last quarter of 2023.', 'Many Israelis though say the country\'s renowned high-tech and start-up sector is proving to be more ""war-proof"" than expected.', 'The coastal city of Tel Aviv is only 54km from Jerusalem.', ""More pertinently, perhaps, it's less than 70km from Gaza."", ""At times, you'd be forgiven for forgetting - however momentarily - that Israel is embroiled in its longest war since independence in 1948."", 'Families make the most of the early summer sun to play in the surf, couples eat lunch in the many open-air beach restaurants and young people strum away on guitars on the green spaces between the coastal road and the Mediterranean.', 'The backdrop is a city that is economically active and physically growing fast. ""', 'They joke that Israel\'s national bird should be the crane - the mechanical kind!""', 'says Jon Medved, founder and CEO of the online global venture investment platform Our Crowd.', 'An engaging character with an overwhelmingly upbeat view of his world, Medved tells me that, ""in the first quarter of this year, almost $2bn was invested in Israeli start-ups… We\'re having one of the best years we\'ve ever had.', 'People who are engaged with Israel are not disengaging.""', 'Medved insists that, despite everything, Israel is still the ""start-up nation"" and a good option for would-be investors. ""', 'There are 400 multinational corporations that have operations here.', 'Not a single multinational, has closed its operation in Israel since the war.""', ""To an extent, Elise Brezis agrees with Mr Medved's assessment."", 'The economics professor at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv acknowledges that despite the last quarter\'s GDP figures, Israel\'s economy remains ""remarkably resilient"". ""', 'When it comes to tourism, yes, we have a reduction in exports.', 'But we had also reduction in imports,"" says Brezis. ""', 'So in fact, the balance of payments is still okay.', 'That\'s what is so problematic is that from the data, you don\'t really feel that there is such a terrible situation in Israel.""', 'But Prof Brezis detects a wider malaise in Israeli society that isn\'t reflected in economic data. ""', ""Israel's economy might be robust, but Israeli society is not robust right now."", ""It's like looking at a person and saying, 'Wow, his salary is high,' [...] but in fact he's depressed."", ""And he's thinking, 'What will I do with my life?' -"", 'That\'s exactly Israel today.""', 'If the outlook in Israel is mixed, then across the separation barrier that divides Jerusalem and Bethlehem the view from the Palestinian side is overwhelmingly bleak.', 'Tourism is especially important to the economies of towns like Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.', 'While some people are still heading to Jerusalem\'s sites, in the place where Christians believe Jesus was born tourism ""stopped immediately"" after 7 October last year, says Dr Samir Hazboun, chairman of Bethlehem\'s Chamber of Commerce and Industry.', ""That's when Hamas attacked Israeli communities near Gaza, killing about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, taking about 250 hostages and sparking the current war."", 'There\'s huge dependence and reliance on Israel\'s economy here - but Israel virtually closed off the landlocked West Bank after 7 October and this has had a disastrous impact on the life and work of many Palestinians, Dr Hazboun says. ""', 'The Bethlehem governorate right now is closed,"" he says. ""', 'There are around 43 gates [in the Israeli security barrier] but only three are open.', 'So with between 16,000 and 20,000 Palestinian workers from our area working in Israel, immediately, they lost their income.""', 'The chamber of commerce says that the revenues from local Palestinians working in Israel amounted to 22bn shekels ($5.8bn) annually. ""', 'You can imagine the impact on the economy,"" says Dr Hazboun, who is particularly concerned for the prospects for younger Palestinians the longer the war continues and more the Israeli and West Bank economies decouple. ""', 'The younger generation now are jobless, they are not working.', 'Many of them are talented people,"" he laments. ""', ""In June I'm expecting around 30,000 new graduates from the Palestinian universities."", 'What they will do?', 'In Gaza itself the economy has been completely destroyed by six months of war.', ""Israel's relentless aerial bombardment and ground operations have killed 34,183 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry."", 'Unlike in some parts of Israel, where there is optimism around being able to ride out the storm and continue attracting investors, in the West Bank and Gaza there is little hope things will return to any kind of normal.']",-0.0504824617095796,"Unlike in some parts of Israel, where there is optimism around being able to ride out the storm and continue attracting investors, in the West Bank and Gaza there is little hope things will return to any kind of normal.","That's when Hamas attacked Israeli communities near Gaza, killing about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, taking about 250 hostages and sparking the current war.",-0.2119207361648822,"An engaging character with an overwhelmingly upbeat view of his world, Medved tells me that, ""in the first quarter of this year, almost $2bn was invested in Israeli start-ups… We're having one of the best years we've ever had.",That loss of confidence was also reflected in falling Israeli GDP - the total value of goods and services produced in the economy - which decreased by 5.7% in the last quarter of 2023.,2024-04-29
"Tesla’s earnings plunge, but the company promises cheaper car model",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/23/business/tesla-report-earnings-result/index.html,"
  Updated
        7:35 PM EDT, Tue April 23, 2024
    ","Tesla reported its first quarter adjusted earnings plunged 48%, falling short of lowered Wall Street forecasts, but it assured investors that it plans to move ahead with a cheaper model due out next year.
    
            The company reported a 9% drop in total revenue, which also missed analyst estimates. And its profit margin declined by 2 percentage points.
    
            But Tesla heartened some investors by announcing it plans to move ahead with a lower priced model, which it said will go into production in the second half of 2025.
    
            Tesla did not give much in the way of details about this new, lower-priced model it is promising, such as a target price or its production volumes. And CEO Elon Musk and Tesla have a history of not living up to timelines on vehicle launches. But the promise that it is still moving ahead with a lower-priced model was assuring news in the wake of reports that it would drop plans for the vehicle altogether.
    
            Musk seemed unexcited even talking about the new lower priced model, seeming to compare it to a horse-drawn carriage, and spending far more of the call with investors hyping Tesla’s promises far beyond its current or future electric vehicles. He once again cited the company’s artificial intelligence capabilities and its self-driving technology, which he predicted could be licensed to one or more rival automakers later this year. And he spoke of its plans for sentient humanoid robots, and his vision of a fleet of millions driverless “robotaxis” owned by a combination of Tesla and Tesla owners, moving passengers who will be as comfortable riding in a driverless car as they are walking onto an elevator today.
    
            “We really should be thought of as an AI-robotics company,” he said. “If you value Tesla as just an auto company, it’s just the wrong framework. If somebody doesn’t believe that Tesla will solve autonomy, I think they should not be an investor in the company.”
    
            It was a classic Musk call straight out of the earlier days of Tesla when the company was still struggling financiallly, promising paradigm shifting technological changes to get investors excited about the future.
    
            And to a degree, it worked, with the recently battered Tesla (TSLA) shares, which had lost 42% of their value so far this year through Tuesday’s close, rising 11% in after-market trading, despite the ugly financial performance reported for the first quarter.
    
            Tesla and Musk were eager to change the story around Tesla, not just away from disappointing first quarter financial results, but also from a sustained run of bad news. Earlier this month, it reported its first year-over-year decline in global sales since the pandemic and unveiled plans to cut more than 10% of its staff. It also continued its year-long series of price cuts, with the most recent coming last weekend.
    
            The drop in stock value has even some Tesla bulls worried about the future for the world’s most valuable automaker. But it is facing increasing competition from both established Western automakers — which are rolling out their own EV offerings — and Chinese automakers, which are offering low-priced EVs.
    
            In the final three months of last year, Tesla lost its title as the world’s largest EV maker to Chinese automaker BYD.
    
            After Reuters reported earlier this month that Tesla was dropping plans for a cheaper model, popularly referred to as the Tesla Model 2, because of competition from China, CEO Elon Musk tweeted “Reuters is lying (again),” without giving any details of the company’s plans. But in January, he did warn that Chinese automakers could ‘demolish’ rivals with low priced EVs.
    
            Tesla adjusted net income came in at $1.5 billion, or 45 cents a share. Analysts had been forecasting earnings per share of 49 cents. It was the smallest adjusted quarterly profit that Tesla had reported since the first quarter of 2021, when the pandemic and supply chain disruptions were still affecting results.
    
            The company also said it had negative cash flow of $2.5 billion, the first time it had burned through cash in a quarter since the first quarter of 2020 at the start of the pandemic.
    
            The company said it experienced numerous challenges in the first quarter, from the conflict in the Red Sea, which caused ships heading from Asia to Europe to take a longer path around Africa, to an arson attack at its plant in Germany and a gradual ramp up of the updated Model 3 at its plant in Fremont, California.",CNN,23/04/2024,"['Tesla reported its first quarter adjusted earnings plunged 48%, falling short of lowered Wall Street forecasts, but it assured investors that it plans to move ahead with a cheaper model due out next year.', 'The company reported a 9% drop in total revenue, which also missed analyst estimates.', 'And its profit margin declined by 2 percentage points.', 'But Tesla heartened some investors by announcing it plans to move ahead with a lower priced model, which it said will go into production in the second half of 2025.', 'Tesla did not give much in the way of details about this new, lower-priced model it is promising, such as a target price or its production volumes.', 'And CEO Elon Musk and Tesla have a history of not living up to timelines on vehicle launches.', 'But the promise that it is still moving ahead with a lower-priced model was assuring news in the wake of reports that it would drop plans for the vehicle altogether.', 'Musk seemed unexcited even talking about the new lower priced model, seeming to compare it to a horse-drawn carriage, and spending far more of the call with investors hyping Tesla’s promises far beyond its current or future electric vehicles.', 'He once again cited the company’s artificial intelligence capabilities and its self-driving technology, which he predicted could be licensed to one or more rival automakers later this year.', 'And he spoke of its plans for sentient humanoid robots, and his vision of a fleet of millions driverless “robotaxis” owned by a combination of Tesla and Tesla owners, moving passengers who will be as comfortable riding in a driverless car as they are walking onto an elevator today.', '“We really should be thought of as an AI-robotics company,” he said. “', 'If you value Tesla as just an auto company, it’s just the wrong framework.', 'If somebody doesn’t believe that Tesla will solve autonomy, I think they should not be an investor in the company.”', 'It was a classic Musk call straight out of the earlier days of Tesla when the company was still struggling financiallly, promising paradigm shifting technological changes to get investors excited about the future.', 'And to a degree, it worked, with the recently battered Tesla (TSLA) shares, which had lost 42% of their value so far this year through Tuesday’s close,rising 11% in after-market trading, despite the ugly financial performance reported for the first quarter.', 'Tesla and Musk were eager to change the story around Tesla, not just away from disappointing first quarter financial results, but also from a sustained run of bad news.', 'Earlier this month, it reported its first year-over-year decline in global sales since the pandemic and unveiled plans to cut more than 10% of its staff.', 'It also continued its year-long series of price cuts, with the most recent coming last weekend.', 'The drop in stock value has even some Tesla bulls worried about the future for the world’s most valuable automaker.', 'But it is facing increasing competition from both established Western automakers — which are rolling out their own EV offerings — and Chinese automakers, which are offering low-priced EVs.', 'In the final three months of last year, Tesla lost its title as the world’s largest EV maker to Chinese automaker BYD.', 'After Reuters reported earlier this month that Tesla was dropping plans for a cheaper model, popularly referred to as the Tesla Model 2, because of competition from China, CEO Elon Musk tweeted “Reuters is lying (again),” without giving any details of the company’s plans.', 'But in January, he did warn that Chinese automakers could ‘demolish’ rivals with low priced EVs.', 'Tesla adjusted net income came in at $1.5 billion, or 45 cents a share.', 'Analysts had been forecasting earnings per share of 49 cents.', 'It was the smallest adjusted quarterly profit that Tesla had reported since the first quarter of 2021, when the pandemic and supply chain disruptions were still affecting results.', 'The company also said it had negative cash flow of $2.5 billion, the first time it had burned through cash in a quarter since the first quarter of 2020 at the start of the pandemic.', 'The company said it experienced numerous challenges in the first quarter, from the conflict in the Red Sea, which caused ships heading from Asia to Europe to take a longer path around Africa, to an arson attack at its plant in Germany and a gradual ramp up of the updated Model 3 at its plant in Fremont, California.']",-0.0139737277097273,"And he spoke of its plans for sentient humanoid robots, and his vision of a fleet of millions driverless “robotaxis” owned by a combination of Tesla and Tesla owners, moving passengers who will be as comfortable riding in a driverless car as they are walking onto an elevator today.","Tesla and Musk were eager to change the story around Tesla, not just away from disappointing first quarter financial results, but also from a sustained run of bad news.",-0.5583304398589664,"But Tesla heartened some investors by announcing it plans to move ahead with a lower priced model, which it said will go into production in the second half of 2025.","Tesla reported its first quarter adjusted earnings plunged 48%, falling short of lowered Wall Street forecasts, but it assured investors that it plans to move ahead with a cheaper model due out next year.",2024-04-29
Microsoft stock hits all-time high after hiring former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman,https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/20/investing/microsoft-stock-record-high-altman-openai/index.html,"
  Updated
        4:19 PM EST, Mon November 20, 2023
    ","Microsoft stock reached a record high on Monday after the company said that Sam Altman, former chief executive of OpenAI, will join the company to head its artificial intelligence innovation leg.
    
            Shares of the tech behemoth rose 2.1% to an all-time high close of $377.44 on Monday, beating the previous record of $376.17.
    
            That comes after shares of Microsoft fell 1.7% on Friday, when Sam Altman was ousted from his position at OpenAI in a boardroom coup. Microsoft is the artificial intelligence firm’s biggest stakeholder, with a $13 billion investment in the company.
    
            Greg Brockman, who co-founded OpenAI and quit after Altman’s firing, is also joining Microsoft.
    
            Altman’s hiring ended days of speculation that the former chief executive could return to the firm after his dramatic firing. Emmett Shear, former CEO of Amazon-owned streaming service Twitch, will replace OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati as interim chief executive.
    
            Microsoft shares are up about 56% for the year. The stock is one of the “Magnificent Seven” that have powered the lion’s share of the market’s returns this year, boosted by Wall Street’s bet that artificial intelligence is the next big thing in tech.
    
            Dan Ives, tech analyst at Wedbush Securities, reiterated his $425 price target for Microsoft’s stock following Altman’s and Brockman’s hires.
    
            “We view Microsoft now even in a stronger position from an AI perspective with Altman and Brockman” at the company, Ives wrote in a note on Monday.
    
            Other members of the “Magnificent Seven” saw a boost on Monday. Nvidia shares gained 2.3% to end the trading session at $504.20 ahead of its earnings due on Tuesday, notching a record-high close for the chipmaker.",CNN,20/11/2023,"['Microsoft stock reached a record high on Monday after the company said that Sam Altman, former chief executive of OpenAI, will join the company to head its artificial intelligence innovation leg.', 'Shares of the tech behemoth rose 2.1% to an all-time high close of $377.44 on Monday, beating the previous record of $376.17.', 'That comes after shares of Microsoft fell 1.7% on Friday, when Sam Altman was ousted from his position at OpenAI in a boardroom coup.', 'Microsoft is the artificial intelligence firm’s biggest stakeholder, with a $13 billion investment in the company.', 'Greg Brockman, who co-founded OpenAI and quit after Altman’s firing, is also joining Microsoft.', 'Altman’s hiring ended days of speculation that the former chief executive could return to the firm after his dramatic firing.', 'Emmett Shear, former CEO of Amazon-owned streaming service Twitch, will replace OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati as interim chief executive.', 'Microsoft shares are up about 56% for the year.', 'The stock is one of the “Magnificent Seven” that have powered the lion’s share of the market’s returns this year, boosted by Wall Street’s bet that artificial intelligence is the next big thing in tech.', 'Dan Ives, tech analyst at Wedbush Securities, reiterated his $425 price target for Microsoft’s stock following Altman’s and Brockman’s hires.', '“We view Microsoft now even in a stronger position from an AI perspective with Altman and Brockman” at the company, Ives wrote in a note on Monday.', 'Other members of the “Magnificent Seven” saw a boost on Monday.', 'Nvidia shares gained 2.3% to end the trading session at $504.20 ahead of its earnings due on Tuesday, notching a record-high close for the chipmaker.']",0.3148943375907157,"The stock is one of the “Magnificent Seven” that have powered the lion’s share of the market’s returns this year, boosted by Wall Street’s bet that artificial intelligence is the next big thing in tech.","Greg Brockman, who co-founded OpenAI and quit after Altman’s firing, is also joining Microsoft.",0.7688216765721639,Microsoft shares are up about 56% for the year.,"That comes after shares of Microsoft fell 1.7% on Friday, when Sam Altman was ousted from his position at OpenAI in a boardroom coup.",2024-04-29
Biden praises UAW-Daimler Truck agreement as a ‘testament to the power of collective bargaining’,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/28/business/uaw-daimler-strike-deal-biden/index.html,"
  Published
        4:00 PM EDT, Sun April 28, 2024
    ","President Joe Biden praised the United Auto Workers and Daimler Truck for reaching a tentative in the eleventh hour Friday night, preventing a potential strike affecting 7,300 workers.
    
            “This agreement is a testament to the power of collective bargaining and shows that we can build a clean energy economy with strong, middle-class union jobs,” Biden said in a statement Sunday.
    
            The “record contract” includes raises of more than 25% over the next four years, inflation protections like cost-of-living considerations, and the first profit-sharing deal in Daimler history, UAW President Shawn Fain said Friday night on Facebook Live.
    
            Daimler is a major manufacturer of trucks and buses, responsible for producing Thomas Built buses, one of the most popular brands of school buses in the United States.
    
            CNN has reached out to Daimler Truck for comment.
    
            The tentative agreement comes on the heels of increased momentum for the UAW. Earlier this month, hourly workers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, overwhelming voted to join the union, a major breakthrough in the union’s effort to organize workers at plants nationwide.
    
            The union has also announced an effort to represent workers at nine other foreign automakers with American plants — BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Mazda, Mercedes, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota and Volvo. It has already filed to have a representation election at the Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama, just outside Tuscaloosa. That vote is set to take place next month and conclude May 17.
    
            The recent organizing efforts are capitalizing on a successful six-week strike last fall at the nation’s three unionized automakers — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. The subsequent contract negotiations won record pay increases for UAW members at the three companies.",CNN,28/04/2024,"['President Joe Biden praised the United Auto Workers and Daimler Truck for reaching a tentative in the eleventh hour Friday night, preventing a potential strike affecting 7,300 workers.', '“This agreement is a testament to the power of collective bargaining and shows that we can build a clean energy economy with strong, middle-class union jobs,” Biden said in a statement Sunday.', 'The “record contract” includes raises of more than 25% over the next four years, inflation protections like cost-of-living considerations, and the first profit-sharing deal in Daimler history, UAW President Shawn Fain said Friday night on Facebook Live.', 'Daimler is a major manufacturer of trucks and buses, responsible for producing Thomas Built buses, one of the most popular brands of school buses in the United States.', 'CNN has reached out to Daimler Truck for comment.', 'The tentative agreement comes on the heels of increased momentum for the UAW.', 'Earlier this month, hourly workers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, overwhelming voted to join the union, a major breakthrough in the union’s effort to organize workers at plants nationwide.', 'The union has also announced an effort to represent workers atnine other foreign automakerswith American plants — BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Mazda, Mercedes, Nissan, Subaru, Toyota and Volvo.', 'It has already filed to have a representation election at theMercedes plant in Vance, Alabama, just outside Tuscaloosa.', 'That vote is set to take place next month and conclude May 17.', 'The recent organizing efforts are capitalizing on a successful six-week strike last fall at the nation’s three unionized automakers — General Motors, Ford and Stellantis.', 'The subsequent contract negotiations wonrecord pay increasesfor UAW members at the three companies.']",0.3897706500631736,"“This agreement is a testament to the power of collective bargaining and shows that we can build a clean energy economy with strong, middle-class union jobs,” Biden said in a statement Sunday.",,0.9992158923830304,The subsequent contract negotiations wonrecord pay increasesfor UAW members at the three companies.,,2024-04-29
Your complete guide to earning and redeeming points in the Citi ThankYou Rewards program,https://edition.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/travel/citi-thankyou-points-rewards,"
  Updated
        12:10 PM EST, Wed January 10, 2024
    ","The Citi ThankYou Rewards program has evolved over the past decade and is now a formidable competitor with established programs like American Express Membership Rewards® and Chase Ultimate Rewards®. Citi’s got a relatively small portfolio of quality credit cards and a rewarding program to boot. In fact, its credit cards offer some of the most generous category bonuses in exchange for reasonable annual fees.
    
            When it comes to redeeming your hard-earned points, Citi has an impressive transfer partner list that makes it possible to maximize your rewards for travel bookings. And if you don’t want to learn the ins and outs of various loyalty programs, Citi also gives you the option to use points for statement credits and direct travel bookings.
    
            If you’re curious about how the Citi ThankYou program works, here’s everything you need to know about how to get the most out of the program for travel.
    
            You can earn Citi ThankYou points in numerous ways. The easiest is through credit card sign-up bonuses, which range depending on the card. But that’s not the only way to earn points in this program. Between checking account bonuses and authorized user incentives, there are many ways to earn ThankYou points beyond credit cards.
    
            Citi has a small but mighty credit card lineup, offering generous welcome bonuses and ongoing rewards. The issuer’s credit cards are generally split into two categories: traditional ThankYou points-earning cards and cash back cards. However, recently, Citi made a change to its program that now sees its cash back credit cards earning ThankYou Rewards points, which can also be redeemed for traditional cash back.
    
            Citi has two cards that earn ThankYou points directly. These cards are ideal for maximizing rewards on everyday purchases, with the Citi Premier® Card and Citi Rewards+® Card specifically offering significant bonuses in those everyday categories.
    
            As mentioned, there are also a number of other traditional cash back credit cards in the Citi portfolio that allow you to boost your earnings. They can be incredibly valuable, considering the Citi® Double Cash Card earns 2% on everything — 1% when you buy, 1% when you pay. By adding this card to your wallet, you’ll earn a minimum of 2 ThankYou points per dollar spent on all purchases that aren’t eligible for the bonus categories on the Citi Premier or Rewards+ cards.
    
            Considering Citi’s cash back cards have no annual fees, adding one to your wallet could make a lot of sense. You’ll enhance your point earning across the board without additional annual fees.
    
            By combining the Citi cards you have in your wallet, you can maximize your earnings and ensure you continue to work your way toward your next redemption.
    
            Adding an authorized user can help you earn more Citi points in two ways: bonus points for adding someone and for all of their purchases. First, you’ll sometimes get bonus points just for adding someone to your account. Citi frequently sends out authorized user bonuses to targeted card holders. These bonuses are typically around 2,500 bonus points but can vary.
    
            Secondly, you’ll earn Citi ThankYou points based on all the spending your authorized user puts on their card. Of course, you’ll only want to consider adding a member of your household or someone you trust to pay you back as an authorized user on your account. Authorized users can make charges on the credit card they’ve been added to but have no liability when it comes to paying the bill — that onus falls on you, the primary card holder.
    
            If you’d like to earn even more ThankYou points, you can do so with a checking account. That’s because Citi offers several checking accounts that earn ThankYou points as a benefit: The Citigold, Citi Priority, Citi Private Bank and Citibank Account. With these accounts, you can earn up to 1,600 points per month on everyday banking activities. The exact number of ThankYou points you’ll earn depends on your account type and qualifying activities. Generally, Citigold, Citi Priority and Citi Private Bank accounts earn the most points.
    
            Sharing points is a great way to consolidate existing points with a significant other or family member. Citi ThankYou is one of the few programs that allows members to share points free of charge. The only stipulation is that you can only share points with someone who has a Citi ThankYou card, and Citi Custom Cash card holders are not eligible.
    
            It’s worth noting that shared points expire 90 days after receipt. So you shouldn’t transfer points unless you or the person you’re sending them to has an immediate use for them. Also, note that you can’t send or receive more than 100,000 points per calendar year.
    
            Once you’ve earned a slew of Citi ThankYou points comes the fun part of redeeming them. And thankfully, Citi offers many different ways for you to redeem your ThankYou points. You’ll get the most bang for your buck by redeeming points for travel, though that’s certainly not the only option.
    
            Here’s a look at your Citi ThankYou travel redemption options and how they work.
    
            Transferring points will get you the most value from your Citi ThankYou points. Citi has 18 airline and hotel partners, most of which you can transfer points to at a 1-to-1 ratio — however, that ratio can vary. You can redeem them for stays at all-inclusive resorts, international business-class tickets, domestic award flights and more. But keep in mind that not all airline and hotel loyalty programs are equal.
    
            Ultimately, you’ll want to research which program will offer you the most in return, depending on what your travel plans are. Like with the Chase Ultimate Rewards program, Capital One miles and American Express Membership Rewards program, you’ll need to link your accounts with each of the transfer partners, and you’ll also need to search for award availability with the airline of your choice before transferring any points.
    
            If you’re interested in transferring your Citi ThankYou points to a travel partner, these are your 18 options as well as the transfer rate.
    
            By transferring Citi ThankYou points to partner airlines, you unlock the ability to travel for next to nothing — in most cases when redeeming travel rewards, you’ll just have to pay the taxes and fees on a ticket. As a result, points and miles open up the door for flying experiences that would otherwise be out of reach.
    
            Keep in mind that the most obvious airline choice may not always be your best option. Airlines typically have extensive alliance networks, allowing you to redeem points for partner airlines through their respective programs. For example, Delta Air Lines and Air France/KLM are both members of the SkyTeam alliance, meaning you can transfer your Citi ThankYou points to Flying Blue and redeem for flights operated by Delta Air Lines.
    
            Citi’s airline partners will get you the most value for your points, especially if you redeem them for business- and first-class travel. That being said, Citi’s airline partners offer several sweet spot awards. These heavily discounted awards will save you points on travel and make earning ThankYou points worthwhile. Some of these sweet spots awards that will get you maximum value for your ThankYou points include the following:
    
            Generally speaking, you’ll get the most value out of your Citi ThankYou points by transferring them to airline or hotel partners. But that may not always make sense for all card holders — and it’s not your only option.
    
            Citi ThankYou points are worth 1 cent each when you use them to book travel through the Citi ThankYou portal. That’s significantly less than the value you’ll get from transfer partner redemptions. While transferring points is the best way to maximize your ThankYou points, doing so isn’t always possible. If that’s the case — or if you’re not interested in researching award availability — redeeming at a fixed value for travel via the ThankYou portal is a decent option.
    
            Citi offers several fixed redemption options where you’ll redeem your points at 1 cent per point. This is ideal for folks who would rather leverage points for daily expenses than travel bookings. While redeeming points this way isn’t advisable, as you won’t get as much value out of each point, you should use them however they suit you best.
    
            For example, if you have no travel plans in the foreseeable future but mounting expenses at home, then redeeming your ThankYou points for mortgage or student loan payments might make sense. Here are some additional ways you can redeem your ThankYou points:
    
            Generally speaking, if you’re looking to get the most value out of your Citi ThankYou points, your worst option is when redeeming for a fixed value. However, if you’re willing to sacrifice the value of your points and instead want to save some cash, it could be a solid option. Ultimately, every card holder’s goals for their points will be different, but it’s good that you have options with ThankYou points.
    
            Citi ThankYou points are worth about 1.7 cents each when you redeem them for travel through transfer partners, according to frequent flyer website The Points Guy. The exact amount varies depending on the cabin and destination you’re flying to. Generally speaking, you’ll get the most value by redeeming points for international business- and first-class flights. While 1.7 cents per point isn’t guaranteed for all redemptions, it’s a number you should aim for if you want to redeem ThankYou points for maximum value.
    
            Aside from travel redemptions, you can use ThankYou points for mortgage payments, student loans, statement credits or charitable contributions, and they’re worth 1 cent apiece.
    
            Citi ThankYou points are an incredibly valuable currency and can help you meet your most aspirational travel goals. Whether you’re using points for domestic or international travel, Citi’s wide selection of transfer partners offers terrific redemption value. Between a good credit card selection, top-notch travel partners and flexibility in use, Citi ThankYou points are definitely worth adding to your points portfolio.
    
            Looking for a new travel credit card? Check out CNN Underscored’s list of the best credit cards currently available.
    
            Editorial Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
    
            Note: While the offers mentioned above are accurate at the time of publication, they’re subject to change at any time and may have changed, or may no longer be available.",CNN,10/01/2024,"['The Citi ThankYou Rewards program has evolved over the past decade and is now a formidable competitor with established programs like American Express Membership Rewards® and Chase Ultimate Rewards®.', 'Citi’s got a relatively small portfolio of quality credit cards and a rewarding program to boot.', 'In fact, its credit cards offer some of the most generous category bonuses in exchange for reasonable annual fees.', 'When it comes to redeeming your hard-earned points, Citi has an impressive transfer partner list that makes it possible to maximize your rewards for travel bookings.', 'And if you don’t want to learn the ins and outs of various loyalty programs, Citi also gives you the option to use points for statement credits and direct travel bookings.', 'If you’re curious about how the Citi ThankYou program works, here’s everything you need to know about how to get the most out of the program for travel.', 'You can earn Citi ThankYou points in numerous ways.', 'The easiest is through credit card sign-up bonuses, which range depending on the card.', 'But that’s not the only way to earn points in this program.', 'Between checking account bonuses and authorized user incentives, there are many ways to earn ThankYou points beyond credit cards.', 'Citi has a small but mighty credit card lineup, offering generous welcome bonuses and ongoing rewards.', 'The issuer’s credit cards are generally split into two categories: traditional ThankYou points-earning cards andcash back cards.', 'However, recently, Citi made a change to its program that now sees its cash back credit cards earning ThankYou Rewards points, which can also be redeemed for traditional cash back.', 'Citi has two cards that earn ThankYou points directly.', 'These cards are ideal for maximizing rewards on everyday purchases, with the Citi Premier® Card and Citi Rewards+® Card specifically offering significant bonuses in those everyday categories.', 'As mentioned, there are also a number of other traditionalcash back credit cardsin the Citi portfolio that allow you to boost your earnings.', 'They can be incredibly valuable, considering the Citi® Double Cash Card earns 2% on everything —1% when you buy, 1% when you pay.', 'By adding this card to your wallet, you’ll earn a minimum of 2 ThankYou points per dollar spent on all purchases that aren’t eligible for the bonus categories on the Citi Premier or Rewards+ cards.', 'Considering Citi’s cash back cards have no annual fees, adding one to your wallet could make a lot of sense.', 'You’ll enhance your point earning across the board without additional annual fees.', 'By combining the Citi cards you have in your wallet, you can maximize your earnings and ensure you continue to work your way toward your next redemption.', 'Adding an authorized user can help you earn more Citi points in two ways: bonus points for adding someone and for all of their purchases.', 'First, you’ll sometimes get bonus points just for adding someone to your account.', 'Citi frequently sends out authorized user bonuses to targeted card holders.', 'These bonuses are typically around 2,500 bonus points but can vary.', 'Secondly, you’ll earn Citi ThankYou points based on all the spending your authorized user puts on their card.', 'Of course, you’ll only want to consider adding a member of your household or someone you trust to pay you back as anauthorized useron your account.', 'Authorized users can make charges on the credit card they’ve been added to but have no liability when it comes to paying the bill — that onus falls on you, the primary card holder.', 'If you’d like to earn even more ThankYou points, you can do so with a checking account.', 'That’s because Citi offers several checking accounts that earn ThankYou points as a benefit: The Citigold, Citi Priority, Citi Private Bank and Citibank Account.', 'With these accounts, you can earn up to 1,600 points per month on everyday banking activities.', 'The exact number of ThankYou points you’ll earn depends on your account type and qualifying activities.', 'Generally, Citigold, Citi Priority and Citi Private Bank accounts earn the most points.', 'Sharing points is a great way to consolidate existing points with a significant other or family member.', 'Citi ThankYou is one of the few programs that allows members to share points free of charge.', 'The only stipulation is that you can only share points with someone who has a Citi ThankYou card, and Citi Custom Cash card holders are not eligible.', 'It’s worth noting that shared points expire 90 days after receipt.', 'So you shouldn’t transfer points unless you or the person you’re sending them to has an immediate use for them.', 'Also, note that you can’t send or receive more than 100,000 points per calendar year.', 'Once you’ve earned a slew of Citi ThankYou points comes the fun part of redeeming them.', 'And thankfully, Citi offers many different ways for you to redeem your ThankYou points.', 'You’ll get the most bang for your buck by redeeming points for travel, though that’s certainly not the only option.', 'Here’s a look at your Citi ThankYou travel redemption options and how they work.', 'Transferring points will get you the most value from your Citi ThankYou points.', 'Citi has 18 airline and hotel partners, most of which you can transfer points to at a 1-to-1 ratio — however, that ratio can vary.', 'You can redeem them for stays atall-inclusive resorts,international business-class tickets, domestic award flights and more.', 'But keep in mind that not all airline and hotel loyalty programs are equal.', 'Ultimately, you’ll want to research which program will offer you the most in return, depending on what your travel plans are.', 'Like with the Chase Ultimate Rewards program, Capital One miles andAmerican Express Membership Rewards program, you’ll need to link your accounts with each of the transfer partners, and you’ll also need to search for award availability with the airline of your choice before transferring any points.', 'If you’re interested in transferring your Citi ThankYou points to a travel partner, these are your 18 options as well as the transfer rate.', 'By transferring Citi ThankYou points to partner airlines, you unlock the ability to travel for next to nothing — in most cases when redeeming travel rewards, you’ll just have to pay the taxes and fees on a ticket.', 'As a result, points and miles open up the door for flying experiences that would otherwise be out of reach.', 'Keep in mind that the most obvious airline choice may not always be your best option.', 'Airlines typically have extensive alliance networks, allowing you to redeem points for partner airlines through their respective programs.', 'For example, Delta Air Lines and Air France/KLM are both members of the SkyTeam alliance, meaning you can transfer your Citi ThankYou points to Flying Blue and redeem for flights operated by Delta Air Lines.', 'Citi’s airline partners will get you the most value for your points, especially if you redeem them for business- and first-class travel.', 'That being said, Citi’s airline partners offer several sweet spot awards.', 'These heavily discounted awards will save you points on travel and make earning ThankYou points worthwhile.', 'Some of these sweet spots awards that will get you maximum value for your ThankYou points include the following:  Generally speaking, you’ll get the most value out of your Citi ThankYou points by transferring them to airline or hotel partners.', 'But that may not always make sense for all card holders — and it’s not your only option.', 'Citi ThankYou points are worth 1 cent each when you use them to book travel through the Citi ThankYou portal.', 'That’s significantly less than the value you’ll get from transfer partner redemptions.', 'While transferring points is the best way to maximize your ThankYou points, doing so isn’t always possible.', 'If that’s the case — or if you’re not interested in researching award availability — redeeming at a fixed value for travel via the ThankYou portal is a decent option.', 'Citi offers several fixed redemption options where you’ll redeem your points at 1 cent per point.', 'This is ideal for folks who would rather leverage points for daily expenses than travel bookings.', 'While redeeming points this way isn’t advisable, as you won’t get as much value out of each point, you should use them however they suit you best.', 'For example, if you have no travel plans in the foreseeable future but mounting expenses at home, then redeeming your ThankYou points for mortgage or student loan payments might make sense.', 'Here are some additional ways you can redeem your ThankYou points:  Generally speaking, if you’re looking to get the most value out of your Citi ThankYou points, your worst option is when redeeming for a fixed value.', 'However, if you’re willing to sacrifice the value of your points and instead want to save some cash, it could be a solid option.', 'Ultimately, every card holder’s goals for their points will be different, but it’s good that you have options with ThankYou points.', 'Citi ThankYou points are worth about 1.7 cents each when you redeem them for travel through transfer partners, according to frequent flyer website The Points Guy.', 'The exact amount varies depending on the cabin and destination you’re flying to.', 'Generally speaking, you’ll get the most value by redeeming points for international business- and first-class flights.', 'While 1.7 cents per point isn’t guaranteed for all redemptions, it’s a number you should aim for if you want to redeem ThankYou points for maximum value.', 'Aside from travel redemptions, you can use ThankYou points for mortgage payments, student loans, statement credits or charitable contributions, and they’re worth 1 cent apiece.', 'Citi ThankYou points are an incredibly valuable currency and can help you meet your most aspirational travel goals.', 'Whether you’re using points for domestic or international travel, Citi’s wide selection of transfer partners offers terrific redemption value.', 'Between a good credit card selection, top-notch travel partners and flexibility in use, Citi ThankYou points are definitely worth adding to your points portfolio.', 'Looking for a new travel credit card?', 'Check out CNN Underscored’s list of thebest credit cardscurrently available.', 'Editorial Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.', 'Note: While the offers mentioned above are accurate at the time of publication, they’re subject to change at any time and may have changed, or may no longer be available.']",0.4187524857201869,"Citi has a small but mighty credit card lineup, offering generous welcome bonuses and ongoing rewards.","Authorized users can make charges on the credit card they’ve been added to but have no liability when it comes to paying the bill — that onus falls on you, the primary card holder.",0.8707016060749689,"As mentioned, there are also a number of other traditionalcash back credit cardsin the Citi portfolio that allow you to boost your earnings.",That’s significantly less than the value you’ll get from transfer partner redemptions.,2024-04-29
"Walgreens has a cult ‘peelable’ candy, courtesy of a TikTok craze",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/27/business/gummy-mango-peelable-candy-walgreens/index.html,"
  Published
        3:00 AM EDT, Sat April 27, 2024
    ","It’s tiny, squishy, chewy. It’s shaped like a cute baby mango and GenZers have gone crazy over it. Walgreens can’t keep it in stock.
    
            For the beleaguered drugstore chain, the odd “Gummy Mango” candy is a much-needed win. It arrived last fall in about 2,500 of its 8,700 US stores, and quickly sold out because, of course, TikTok. Online, Walgreens imposed a limit of one bag per customer on the little inventory that remained.
    
            The unexpectedly viral product comes at a time that Walgreens has a lot on its plate that isn’t fun — debt piling up, employee unrest, competitors grabbing market share, store closures, its shoppers spending less on things they don’t need. It’s also juggling with having to keep everyday items like shampoos and shaving cream locked up over theft concerns, much to the annoyance of customers. Walgreens sorely needed some — any — good news.
    
            Fortunately, the mango-flavored treat plays into the company’s long-term strategy of beefing up its front-of-store departments, said Morningstar analyst Keonhee Kim.
    
            The product itself is a $1.99 bag of candy belonging to an on-trend genre of confectionery called gummy candies. This candy from Walgreens’ lower-priced Nice! house brand of snacks and drinks is different because it’s actually peelable. 
    
            In early January, a video explaining its uniqueness by TikToker @Trinhdoesthings got a whopping 8.9 million views.
    
            In the video, she picks up a packet of the candy at a Walgreens store “after seeing it all over social media.” She tears it open at her kitchen table and then peels off the outer skin of the mango-shaped gummy and pops the shiny smooth inner pulp into her mouth, proclaiming, “This is so fun.” She then proceeds to eat the peel, too, while complimenting its chewy texture.
    
            Other TikTok videos compared the treat to the peelable gummy candies in peach and grape flavors from Japanese or Korean brands available on Amazon, or showed ways to punch up the flavor by adding spice to the mango version.
    
            Walgreens said it didn’t work with any paid influencer to hype up its mango gummies but that it took off organically. It also declined to disclose how many packets it has sold to date or total sales thus far.
    
            “The interactivity of it is really cool and it’s what makes the peelable candy really fun,” said Marty Esarte, vice president of Walgreens’ owned brands, in an interview with CNN. “It also creates a discussion point: Is the outer layer better than the inner gummy or are they better together or separate?”
    
            Esarte admits that he didn’t expect the squishy treat to become a viral hit. “Literally in about four to five days after we launched it, we sold through nearly all of the product,” he said. “If we had expected that to happen, we probably would have had more.”
    
            The idea for the candy first surfaced in 2023 during a discussion between Esarte’s team and a Walgreens supplier.
    
            “One of our suppliers who we’ve worked with for more than 20 years identified this peelable candy trend last year that had emerged in Asia and brought it to us as an opportunity,” Esarte said.
    
            The timing meshed perfectly with the latest candy consumption trends. The non-chocolate segment overall, which includes gummy candies, has been on a tear primarily because of Gen Z and millennial consumers, according to the National Confectioners Association.
    
            Younger consumers, especially Gen Z are enamored with anything retro and vintage and this trend translates into foods as well. According to industry publication The Food Institute, Millennial and Gen Z shoppers favor fruit-flavored gummies that they’ve grown up on.
    
            In the United States, the segment saw a 12.1% increase in dollar sales in 2023 versus a year ago to reach $19.2 billion in total sales. It also accounts for more than 30% of all confectionary sales in the country.
    
            As Esarte and his team rushed to restock the mango gummies last last year, a bigger challenge emerged. Their need coincided with the timing of the Chinese New Year when all factory production in China grinds to a halt for a few weeks. The situation wasn’t ideal.
    
            “Whatever product was still available overseas we airfreighted it to get it into stores quickly,” Esarte said.
    
            After weeks of scrambling and rushing, Walgreens is better prepared to make a bigger splash with the mango gummies. “We’ve purchased a much larger amount of the candy and it will go into 8,000 stores by May.”
    
            But Esarte tipped CNN to the next flavor coming. “We’re launching a peelable banana gummy next,” he said. “Banana is a common favorite flavor across the US and the world and we think it’s another great item to add to the peelable gummy mix.”
    
            The banana gummy (priced at $1.99 a bag) will launch in 5,000 Walgreens stores in May. The retailer already sells pineapple and orange gummies, but those aren’t as fun because you can’t peel them.
    
            Morningstar analyst Kim, who covers the healthcare sector, said the candy is a nice win for Walgreens at a time when its problems have been mounting over the last 12 months and its stock is down 50% over that period.
    
            “There was a big leadership change with its CEO leaving and new CEO Tim Wentworth coming in. As Tim takes charge of the company he’s thinking about where future growth for Walgreens will come from and where are some areas where they could cut costs,” said Kim.
    
            One area is the frontend of the drugstore, typically where candy, snacks and other private label merchandise are sold.
    
            “That space is a really important piece of the business,” Kim said. “That area is definitely a more profitable one than the backend oF the prescription dispensing business. Focusing on that piece with newer offerings will be key for Walgreens.”",CNN,27/04/2024,"['It’s tiny, squishy, chewy.', 'It’s shaped like a cute baby mango and GenZers have gone crazy over it.', 'Walgreens can’t keep it in stock.', 'For the beleaguered drugstore chain, the odd “Gummy Mango” candy is a much-needed win.', 'It arrived last fall in about 2,500 of its 8,700 US stores, and quickly sold out because, of course, TikTok.', 'Online, Walgreens imposed a limit of one bag per customer on the little inventory that remained.', 'The unexpectedly viral product comes at a time that Walgreens has a lot on its plate that isn’t fun —debt piling up, employee unrest, competitors grabbing market share,store closures, its shoppers spending less on things they don’t need.', 'It’s also juggling with having to keep everyday items like shampoos and shaving cream locked up over theft concerns, much to the annoyance of customers.', 'Walgreens sorely needed some — any — good news.', 'Fortunately, the mango-flavored treat plays into the company’s long-term strategy of beefing up its front-of-store departments, said Morningstar analyst Keonhee Kim.', 'The product itself is a $1.99 bag of candy belonging to an on-trend genre of confectionery called gummy candies.', 'This candy from Walgreens’ lower-priced Nice!', 'house brand of snacks and drinks is different because it’s actually peelable.', 'In early January, a video explaining its uniqueness by TikToker @Trinhdoesthings got a whopping 8.9 million views.', 'In the video, she picks up a packet of the candy at a Walgreens store “after seeing it all over social media.”', 'She tears it open at her kitchen table and then peels off the outer skin of the mango-shaped gummy and pops the shiny smooth inner pulp into her mouth, proclaiming, “This is so fun.”', 'She then proceeds to eat the peel, too, while complimenting its chewy texture.', 'Other TikTok videos compared the treat to the peelable gummy candies in peach and grape flavors from Japanese or Korean brands available on Amazon, or showed ways to punch up the flavor by adding spice to the mango version.', 'Walgreens said it didn’t work with any paid influencer to hype up its mango gummies but that it took off organically.', 'It also declined to disclose how many packets it has sold to date or total sales thus far.', '“The interactivity of it is really cool and it’s what makes the peelable candy really fun,” said Marty Esarte, vice president of Walgreens’ owned brands, in an interview with CNN. “', 'It also creates a discussion point: Is the outer layer better than the inner gummy or are they better together or separate?”', 'Esarte admits that he didn’t expect the squishy treat to become a viral hit. “', 'Literally in about four to five days after we launched it, we sold through nearly all of the product,” he said. “', 'If we had expected that to happen, we probably would have had more.”', 'The idea for the candy first surfaced in 2023 during a discussion between Esarte’s team and a Walgreens supplier.', '“One of our suppliers who we’ve worked with for more than 20 years identified this peelable candy trend last year that had emerged in Asia and brought it to us as an opportunity,” Esarte said.', 'The timing meshed perfectly with the latest candy consumption trends.', 'The non-chocolate segment overall, which includes gummy candies, has been on a tear primarily because of Gen Z and millennial consumers, according to the National Confectioners Association.', 'Younger consumers, especially Gen Z are enamored with anything retro and vintage and this trend translates into foods as well.', 'According to industry publication The Food Institute, Millennial and Gen Z shoppers favor fruit-flavored gummies that they’ve grown up on.', 'In the United States, the segment saw a 12.1% increase in dollar sales in 2023 versus a year ago to reach $19.2 billion in total sales.', 'It also accounts for more than 30% of all confectionary sales in the country.', 'As Esarte and his team rushed to restock the mango gummies last last year, a bigger challenge emerged.', 'Their need coincided with the timing of the Chinese New Year when all factory production in China grinds to a halt for a few weeks.', 'The situation wasn’t ideal.', '“Whatever product was still available overseas we airfreighted it to get it into stores quickly,” Esarte said.', 'After weeks of scrambling and rushing, Walgreens is better prepared to make a bigger splash with the mango gummies. “', 'We’ve purchased a much larger amount of the candy and it will go into 8,000 stores by May.”', 'But Esarte tipped CNN to the next flavor coming. “', 'We’re launching a peelable banana gummy next,” he said. “', 'Banana is a common favorite flavor across the US and the world and we think it’s another great item to add to the peelable gummy mix.”', 'The banana gummy (priced at $1.99 a bag) will launch in 5,000 Walgreens stores in May.', 'The retailer already sells pineapple and orange gummies, but those aren’t as fun because you can’t peel them.', 'Morningstar analyst Kim, who covers the healthcare sector, said the candy is a nice win for Walgreens at a time when its problems have been mounting over the last 12 months and its stock is down 50% over that period.', '“There was a big leadership change with its CEO leaving and new CEO Tim Wentworth coming in.', 'As Tim takes charge of the company he’s thinking about where future growth for Walgreens will come from and where are some areas where they could cut costs,” said Kim.', 'One area is the frontend of the drugstore, typically where candy, snacks and other private label merchandise are sold.', '“That space is a really important piece of the business,” Kim said. “', 'That area is definitely a more profitable one than the backend oF the prescription dispensing business.', 'Focusing on that piece with newer offerings will be key for Walgreens.”']",0.2533611782819613,Banana is a common favorite flavor across the US and the world and we think it’s another great item to add to the peelable gummy mix.”,,0.4675776998202006,"In the United States, the segment saw a 12.1% increase in dollar sales in 2023 versus a year ago to reach $19.2 billion in total sales.","The non-chocolate segment overall, which includes gummy candies, has been on a tear primarily because of Gen Z and millennial consumers, according to the National Confectioners Association.",2024-04-29
Smart gadgets: Tougher rules for sellers of internet-enabled devices in the UK,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68917837,2024-04-28T23:02:38.000Z,"Manufacturers will have to follow stricter rules if they want to sell ""smart"" gadgets in the UK after a new law came into effect. It is designed to ensure there is better security around devices such as baby monitors, televisions and speakers that are linked to the internet. These gadgets can pose a risk because cyber-criminals use them to hack into home networks and steal private data. The government said the new law should give consumers ""peace of mind"". The risks have ballooned in recent years as our houses have filled with more and more web-linked devices - from games consoles to fitness trackers, doorbells and even dishwashers - also sometimes referred to as the ""internet of things"". Until now, manufacturers were expected to follow security guidelines, but the new law makes three new requirements: Failure to meet these minimum requirements, known as the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure (PSTI) regime, can trigger fines. The government said the laws were a ""world first"" that would protect UK consumers and businesses and boost the country's resilience against cybercrime. The Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said more than half of UK households now had a smart TV and more than half had a voice assistant such as Alexa. It said homes contained an average of nine connected devices.  As well as basic broadband routers, that can include toys that are linked to the web, or home appliances such as radiators, ovens and fridges that can be controlled remotely.  However, since their adoption there has also been a proliferation of reports of hackers taking over such devices to misuse them, sometimes filming or recording covertly, spying on people, or stealing personal data. Sarah Lyons, from the National Cyber Security Centre, said firms making the products needed to take responsibility. ""Businesses have a major role to play in protecting the public by ensuring the smart products they manufacture, import or distribute provide ongoing protection against cyber-attacks and this landmark Act will help consumers to make informed decisions about the security of products they buy,"" she said. Ken Munro a security researcher for Pen Test Partners, a firm that carries out ethical hacking against smart devices, described the new law as ""a step in the right direction"". ""It's got teeth, which I love,"" he said. Previously it has been too easy for manufacturers to end support for older products as they rolled out new models, he said, and it would be useful for consumers to be able to compare how many years of support were promised for the product they are purchasing. A longer support period suggested a manufacturer that was generally taking cyber-security seriously, he said. ""I think some device manufacturers at the bottom of the market might pay lip-service and do the bare minimum to make their products secure,"" he said. Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy at consumer group Which? said the new law would give consumers ""vital protections"". But the Office for Product Safety and Standards should be prepared to ""take strong enforcement action against manufacturers if they flout the law"" he added. ",BBC,28/04/2024,"['Manufacturers will have to follow stricter rules if they want to sell ""smart"" gadgets in the UK after a new law came into effect.', 'It is designed to ensure there is better security around devices such as baby monitors, televisions and speakers that are linked to the internet.', 'These gadgets can pose a risk because cyber-criminals use them to hack into home networks and steal private data.', 'The government said the new law should give consumers ""peace of mind"".', 'The risks have ballooned in recent years as our houses have filled with more and more web-linked devices - from games consoles to fitness trackers, doorbells and even dishwashers - also sometimes referred to as the ""internet of things"".', 'Until now, manufacturers were expected to follow security guidelines, but the new law makes three new requirements: Failure to meet these minimum requirements, known as the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure (PSTI) regime, can trigger fines.', 'The government said the laws were a ""world first"" that would protect UK consumers and businesses and boost the country\'s resilience against cybercrime.', 'The Department for Science Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said more than half of UK households now had a smart TV and more than half had a voice assistant such as Alexa.', 'It said homes contained an average of nine connected devices.', 'As well as basic broadband routers, that can include toys that are linked to the web, or home appliances such as radiators, ovens and fridges that can be controlled remotely.', 'However, since their adoption there has also been a proliferation of reports of hackers taking over such devices to misuse them, sometimes filming or recording covertly, spying on people, or stealing personal data.', 'Sarah Lyons, from the National Cyber Security Centre, said firms making the products needed to take responsibility. ""', 'Businesses have a major role to play in protecting the public by ensuring the smart products they manufacture, import or distribute provide ongoing protection against cyber-attacks and this landmark Act will help consumers to make informed decisions about the security of products they buy,"" she said.', 'Ken Munro a security researcher for Pen Test Partners, a firm that carries out ethical hacking against smart devices, described the new law as ""a step in the right direction"". ""', 'It\'s got teeth, which I love,"" he said.', 'Previously it has been too easy for manufacturers to end support for older products as they rolled out new models, he said, and it would be useful for consumers to be able to compare how many years of support were promised for the product they are purchasing.', 'A longer support period suggested a manufacturer that was generally taking cyber-security seriously, he said. ""', 'I think some device manufacturers at the bottom of the market might pay lip-service and do the bare minimum to make their products secure,"" he said.', 'Rocio Concha, director of policy and advocacy at consumer group Which?', 'said the new law would give consumers ""vital protections"".', 'But the Office for Product Safety and Standards should be prepared to ""take strong enforcement action against manufacturers if they flout the law"" he added.']",0.3467333227559174,"Previously it has been too easy for manufacturers to end support for older products as they rolled out new models, he said, and it would be useful for consumers to be able to compare how many years of support were promised for the product they are purchasing.",These gadgets can pose a risk because cyber-criminals use them to hack into home networks and steal private data.,0.5915933781199985,"The government said the laws were a ""world first"" that would protect UK consumers and businesses and boost the country's resilience against cybercrime.","The risks have ballooned in recent years as our houses have filled with more and more web-linked devices - from games consoles to fitness trackers, doorbells and even dishwashers - also sometimes referred to as the ""internet of things"".",2024-04-29
Why lab-grown diamond sales are surging,https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/27/business/diamonds-manmade-demand/index.html,"
  Published
        7:49 AM EDT, Wed April 27, 2022
    ","It’s proposal season, and engagements are on the rise. So are factory-made diamond sales.
    
            Not that you’d know the difference. Man-made diamonds look the same as naturally occurring ones. The only noticeable difference is the price tag.
    
            “The result is really stunning,” said Edahn Golan, an independent diamond industry analyst.
    
            He said March data showed the number of engagement rings sold that featured a manufactured diamond jumped 63% compared to last year, while the number of engagement rings sold with a natural diamond declined 25% in the same period.
    
            Going back by another month, to February, the data showed the number of rings sold with lab diamonds that month surged even more, to 80% compared to a year earlier while the number fell by 13% for natural diamond engagement rings. 
    
            “The big fear in the natural diamonds industry is that consumers will start accepting lab-grown diamonds in engagement rings,” he said. Too late. “It’s actually happening.” 
    
            Why are consumers flocking to man-made diamonds? Cost is the most obvious reason. The average retail price of the most popular one carat round man-made diamond for an engagement ring in March was $2,318, Golan said.
    
            “This is substantially less – as much as 73% cheaper – than a natural diamond of the same size, cut and clarity as the man-made diamond, which would cost $8,740,” he said. Plus, the lower cost allows couples to buy a bigger stone.
    
            “A lab diamond is a real diamond, but maybe it took a few weeks to make it,” said Golan. “Natural diamonds were formed over 800 million to three billion years and there isn’t an infinite supply of them.” 
    
            This makes natural diamonds quite a bit more expensive, and prices are likely to rise as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has tightened the supply chain for natural raw diamonds.
    
            The sanctions directly target Alrosa, partly owned by the Russian government, which the US government identified as the world’s largest diamond mining company, accounting for 28% of global diamond output.
    
            Man-made diamonds are also becoming popular as consumers are more aware and educated about them, said Dan Moran, a third-generation diamond expert and owner of LA-based fine jeweler Concierge Diamonds. Moran said the typical buyer of man-made diamonds is typically younger than 40 and very budget conscious.
    
            Mined diamonds have a controversial history that’s tied to the use of child labor in some African diamond mines as well as sales of illegally-traded “conflict diamonds” that fund conflict in war-torn areas.
    
            Among Millennials and Gen Z, their eco-conscious mindset and ethical concerns about natural diamond sourcing is another factor influencing their preference for non-traditional engagement rings, according to a report from wedding planning website The Knot.
    
            Although its slice is growing, the market share for man-made diamonds remains relatively small.
    
            Currently, about 7% of the specialty diamond jewelry market is represented by man-made diamonds, up from 3% in 2020, said Golan. 
    
            Some major jewelry retailers are driving the effort to take man-made diamonds mainstream. In 2021, the world’s largest jewelry company, Pandora
            
                (PANDY), made a major shift by announcing it would stop using mined diamonds and would swap to lab-created diamonds in its jewelry. 
    
            Pandora said it’s instituting the change as part of an effort to sell sustainable jewelry, and also because consumers increasingly are asking for it.
    
            Signet,
            
                (SIG) the largest jewelry company in the United States (which owns Zales, Kay Jewelers and Jared chains) called out the popularity of lab diamond jewelry in its March earnings call with analysts.
    
            Calling it a “fast-growing category” in its jewelry portfolio, Signet CEO Virginia Drosos told analysts that lab-created diamonds are among the big jewelry trends she expects this year. 
    
            The company said it has expanded its man-made bridal jewelry selection in both its Zales and Kay Jewelers stores in response to the increased demand. 
    
            Fine jewelry brand Charles and Colvard, which makes lab-created diamonds, said consumers don’t just want to look good with the jewelry they are wearing, they also want to feel good about it.
    
            “As the momentum for conscious consumerism grows, the surge towards lab grown diamonds isn’t surprising,” said Don O’Connell, president and CEO of Charles & Colvard. “[Consumers] want to know the origins of their stones and be reassured they’re conflict-free. They’re embracing the choice to purchase a piece of fine jewelry that aligns with their values.”
    
            Lab-grown diamond brand VRAI said the pandemic, too, has sparked attention and action toward social and environmental issues. It said consumers are being more thoughtful and reassessing their purchasing habits, as well as the companies and industries they are supporting.
    
            There is, however, one important consideration for anyone buying lab-created diamonds: Man-made diamonds have little resale value. 
    
            So while you may not be able to tell a natural diamond from a factory made variety, someone with a trained eye can, said Golan. Once a stone is identified as a factory diamond, even though you paid a lot less for it, you also won’t get much for it. 
    
            But the value of a ring isn’t just monetary.
    
            “As a professional in the industry, I am asked all the time by people about what I think about a ring they have,” said Moran, of Concierge Jewelers. “I always say, if you love it, be happy with it. An engagement ring is a symbol of commitment and enduring love.”",CNN,27/04/2022,"['It’s proposal season, and engagements are on the rise.', 'So are factory-made diamond sales.', 'Not that you’d know the difference.', 'Man-made diamonds look the same as naturally occurring ones.', 'The only noticeable difference is the price tag.', '“The result is really stunning,” said Edahn Golan, an independent diamond industry analyst.', 'He said March data showed the number of engagement rings sold that featured a manufactured diamond jumped 63% compared to last year, while the number of engagement rings sold with a natural diamond declined 25% in the same period.', 'Going back by another month, to February, the data showed the number of rings sold with lab diamonds that month surged even more, to 80% compared to a year earlier while the number fell by 13% for natural diamond engagement rings.', '“The big fear in the natural diamonds industry is that consumers will start accepting lab-grown diamonds in engagement rings,” he said.', 'Too late. “', 'It’s actually happening.”', 'Why are consumers flocking to man-made diamonds?', 'Cost is the most obvious reason.', 'The average retail price of the most popular one carat round man-made diamond for an engagement ring in March was $2,318, Golan said.', '“This is substantially less – as much as 73% cheaper – than a natural diamond of the same size, cut and clarity as the man-made diamond, which would cost $8,740,” he said.', 'Plus, the lower cost allows couples to buy a bigger stone.', '“A lab diamond is a real diamond, but maybe it took a few weeks to make it,” said Golan. “', 'Natural diamonds were formed over 800 million to three billion years and there isn’t an infinite supply of them.”', 'This makes natural diamonds quite a bit more expensive, and prices are likely to rise as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has tightened the supply chain for natural raw diamonds.', 'The sanctions directly target Alrosa, partly owned by the Russian government, which the US government identified as the world’s largest diamond mining company, accounting for 28% of global diamond output.', 'Man-made diamonds are also becoming popular as consumers are more aware and educated about them, said Dan Moran, a third-generation diamond expert and owner of LA-based fine jeweler Concierge Diamonds.', 'Moran said the typical buyer of man-made diamonds is typically younger than 40 and very budget conscious.', 'Mined diamonds have a controversial history that’s tied to the use of child labor in some African diamond mines as well as sales of illegally-traded “conflict diamonds” that fund conflict in war-torn areas.', 'Among Millennials and Gen Z, their eco-conscious mindset and ethical concerns about natural diamond sourcing is another factor influencing their preference for non-traditional engagement rings, according to a report from wedding planning website The Knot.', 'Although its slice is growing, the market share for man-made diamonds remains relatively small.', 'Currently, about 7% of the specialty diamond jewelry market is represented by man-made diamonds, up from 3% in 2020, said Golan.', 'Some major jewelry retailers are driving the effort to take man-made diamonds mainstream.', 'In 2021, the world’s largest jewelry company, Pandora  (PANDY), made a major shift by announcing it would stop using mined diamonds and would swap to lab-created diamonds in its jewelry.', 'Pandora said it’s instituting the change as part of an effort to sell sustainable jewelry, and also because consumers increasingly are asking for it.', 'Signet,  (SIG) the largest jewelry company in the United States (which owns Zales, Kay Jewelers and Jared chains) called out the popularity of lab diamond jewelry in its March earnings call with analysts.', 'Calling it a “fast-growing category” in its jewelry portfolio, Signet CEO Virginia Drosos told analysts that lab-created diamonds are among the big jewelry trends she expects this year.', 'The company said it has expanded its man-made bridal jewelry selection in both its Zales and Kay Jewelers stores in response to the increased demand.', 'Fine jewelry brand Charles and Colvard, which makes lab-created diamonds, said consumers don’t just want to look good with the jewelry they are wearing, they also want to feel good about it.', '“As the momentum for conscious consumerism grows, the surge towards lab grown diamonds isn’t surprising,” said Don O’Connell, president and CEO of Charles & Colvard. “[', 'Consumers] want to know the origins of their stones and be reassured they’re conflict-free.', 'They’re embracing the choice to purchase a piece of fine jewelry that aligns with their values.”', 'Lab-grown diamond brand VRAI said the pandemic, too, has sparked attention and action toward social and environmental issues.', 'It said consumers are being more thoughtful and reassessing their purchasing habits, as well as the companies and industries they are supporting.', 'There is, however, one important consideration for anyone buying lab-created diamonds: Man-made diamonds have little resale value.', 'So while you may not be able to tell a natural diamond from a factory made variety, someone with a trained eye can, said Golan.', 'Once a stone is identified as a factory diamond, even though you paid a lot less for it, you also won’t get much for it.', 'But the value of a ring isn’t just monetary.', '“As a professional in the industry, I am asked all the time by people about what I think about a ring they have,” said Moran, of Concierge Jewelers. “', 'I always say, if you love it, be happy with it.', 'An engagement ring is a symbol of commitment and enduring love.”']",0.3714494325159568,"He said March data showed the number of engagement rings sold that featured a manufactured diamond jumped 63% compared to last year, while the number of engagement rings sold with a natural diamond declined 25% in the same period.",Mined diamonds have a controversial history that’s tied to the use of child labor in some African diamond mines as well as sales of illegally-traded “conflict diamonds” that fund conflict in war-torn areas.,0.8542834222316742,"Currently, about 7% of the specialty diamond jewelry market is represented by man-made diamonds, up from 3% in 2020, said Golan.","This makes natural diamonds quite a bit more expensive, and prices are likely to rise as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has tightened the supply chain for natural raw diamonds.",2024-04-29
Europe is beating inflation. Why can’t America declare victory?,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/26/economy/us-europe-inflation-differences/index.html,"
  Updated
        11:11 AM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","Inflation may have tumbled from multi-decade highs on both sides of the Atlantic, but progress has stalled in the United States, with the Federal Reserve now expected to start cutting interest rates well after its European counterpart.
    
            Annual US inflation, as measured by the Fed’s preferred gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, came in at 2.7% in March, accelerating from 2.5% in February. The Fed aims to keep inflation at 2% over the longer run.
    
            Another measure of US inflation, the Consumer Price Index, has shown the same upward trend: In March, the CPI rose 3.5% compared with the same month in 2023, up from 3.2% in February.
    
            Meanwhile, among the 20 countries that use the euro, annual consumer price inflation has slowed steadily since the start of the year. It stood at 2.4% in March.
    
            The European Central Bank (ECB) looks set to start cutting interest rates in June, three months before the Fed is forecast to do the same, based on market expectations.
    
            There are even indications that the Fed may do something that, until quite recently, seemed inconceivable — raise the cost of borrowing. Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said earlier this month that she would favor a rate hike “should progress on inflation stall or even reverse.”
    
            So why does the United States appear to have a bigger inflation problem than Europe?
    
            Some economists argue there isn’t actually much daylight between the US and European rates of inflation, pointing to a quirk in the US measures.
    
            Unlike the ECB’s preferred gauge, both the PCE and the CPI include owner-occupiers’ housing costs — essentially a measure of how much money you could earn from renting out your home and hence forego if you live in it.
    
            The measure is designed to track inflation in the real estate market while accounting for the fact that most Americans own their homes. But people don’t actually feel these hypothetical housing costs, said Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management.
    
            The weight given to owner-occupiers’ housing costs is much bigger in the US CPI than in the PCE — 32% versus 13%, according to consultancy Capital Economics — but both weights are still much larger than the 0% afforded to these costs in the eurozone’s key measure of consumer prices.
    
            This transatlantic discrepancy exaggerates the recent differences between US and eurozone inflation, according to Simon MacAdam, deputy chief global economist at Capital Economics.
    
            When using a different measure that, among other adjustments, strips out those hypothetical housing costs, MacAdam finds that core inflation rates — which exclude energy and food prices — have been “very similar” in the United States and Europe over the past six months.
    
            “The US hasn’t got a fundamental problem of broad-based excessive price pressure, contrary to some of the recent narrative from commentators,” he wrote in a note last week.
    
            So if the levels of inflation are fundamentally similar on both sides of the Atlantic, then why are their respective central banks looking to start cutting interest rates at different times?
    
            The simple answer is that, as MacAdam put it, “central banks will ultimately alter monetary policy in response to developments in the measure of inflation they target, not harmonized or adjusted measures.”
    
            But it’s more complicated than that. “The (transatlantic) divergence is bigger when it comes to (economic) growth,” Carsten Brzeski, global head of macroeconomic research at ING, told CNN.
    
            The International Monetary Fund expects the US economy to grow 2.7% this year, whereas for the eurozone it sees only a 0.8% expansion.
    
            US employers are hiring at a historic clip, adding 303,000 jobs in March. Washington has also spent a lot more than European governments in recent years to support consumers and businesses through the pandemic, something that has kept consumer demand particularly robust in the United States.
    
            Despite preliminary data Thursday that showed weaker-than-expected US growth in the first quarter, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Reuters that the economy was still “firing on all cylinders.”
    
            Europe’s economy is much weaker due, in part, to the lingering impact of an energy crisis. When Russia — which once provided more than 40% of Europe’s pipeline gas imports — launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the region’s natural gas prices shot up to all-time highs.
    
            As a result, annual inflation in the eurozone peaked at a much higher level than the PCE. The two rates hit 10.6% and 7.1% respectively in 2022.
    
            The strength of the US economy makes it more likely that high inflation will make a sustained comeback, Brzeski said, which is making the Fed more hesitant than the ECB to start cutting rates in the summer.
    
            Both the United States and the eurozone are grappling with labor shortages, which is forcing employers to hike wages in order to attract and keep workers and fueling inflation in the services sector, he noted. But, more broadly, US consumer demand appears stronger.
    
            “We see the savings ratio of US households starting to come down, which means that people in the US are willing to tap into their savings in order to spend,” he said. “In general, European households are a bit more cautious.”
    
            Davide Oneglia, director of European and global macroeconomics at research firm TS Lombard, takes a similar view. “The US consumer is more eager to spend because maybe he sees better prospects for himself in the labor market,” he told CNN.",CNN,26/04/2024,"['Inflation may have tumbled from multi-decade highs on both sides of the Atlantic, but progress has stalled in the United States, with the Federal Reserve now expected to start cutting interest rates well after its European counterpart.', 'Annual US inflation, as measured by the Fed’s preferred gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, came in at 2.7% in March, accelerating from 2.5% in February.', 'The Fed aims to keep inflation at 2% over the longer run.', 'Another measure of US inflation, the Consumer Price Index, has shown the same upward trend: In March, the CPI rose 3.5% compared with the same month in 2023, up from 3.2% in February.', 'Meanwhile, among the 20 countries that use the euro, annual consumer price inflation has slowed steadily since the start of the year.', 'It stood at 2.4% in March.', 'The European Central Bank (ECB) looks set to start cutting interest rates in June, three months before the Fed is forecast to do the same, based on market expectations.', 'There are even indications that the Fed may do something that, until quite recently, seemed inconceivable — raise the cost of borrowing.', 'Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said earlier this month that she would favor a rate hike “should progress on inflation stall or even reverse.”', 'So why does the United States appear to have a bigger inflation problem than Europe?', 'Some economists argue there isn’t actually much daylight between the US and European rates of inflation, pointing to a quirk in the US measures.', 'Unlike the ECB’s preferred gauge, both the PCE and the CPI include owner-occupiers’ housing costs — essentially a measure of how much money you could earn from renting out your home and hence forego if you live in it.', 'The measure is designed to track inflation in the real estate market while accounting for the fact that most Americans own their homes.', 'But people don’t actually feel these hypothetical housing costs, said Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management.', 'The weight given to owner-occupiers’ housing costs is much bigger in the US CPIthan in the PCE — 32% versus 13%, according to consultancy Capital Economics — but both weights are still much larger than the 0% afforded to these costs in the eurozone’s key measure of consumerprices.', 'This transatlantic discrepancy exaggerates the recent differences between US and eurozone inflation, according to Simon MacAdam, deputy chief global economist at Capital Economics.', 'When using a different measure that, among other adjustments, strips out those hypothetical housing costs, MacAdam finds that core inflation rates — which exclude energy and food prices — have been “very similar” in the United States and Europe over the past six months.', '“The US hasn’t got a fundamental problem of broad-based excessive price pressure, contrary to some of the recent narrative from commentators,” he wrote in a note last week.', 'So if the levels of inflation are fundamentally similar on both sides of the Atlantic, then why are their respective central banks looking to start cutting interest rates at different times?', 'The simple answer is that, as MacAdam put it, “central banks will ultimately alter monetary policy in response to developments in the measure of inflation they target, not harmonized or adjusted measures.”', 'But it’s more complicated than that. “', 'The (transatlantic) divergence is bigger when it comes to (economic) growth,” Carsten Brzeski, global head of macroeconomic research at ING, told CNN.', 'The International Monetary Fund expects the US economy to grow 2.7% this year, whereas for the eurozone it sees only a 0.8% expansion.', 'US employers are hiring at a historic clip, adding 303,000 jobs in March.', 'Washington has also spent a lot more than European governments in recent years to support consumers and businesses through the pandemic, something that has kept consumer demand particularly robust in the United States.', 'Despite preliminary data Thursday that showed weaker-than-expected US growth in the first quarter, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Reuters that the economy was still “firing on all cylinders.”', 'Europe’s economy is much weaker due, in part, to the lingering impact of an energy crisis.', 'When Russia —which once provided more than 40% of Europe’s pipeline gas imports — launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the region’s natural gas prices shot up to all-time highs.', 'As a result, annual inflation in the eurozone peaked at a much higher level than the PCE.', 'The two rates hit 10.6% and 7.1% respectively in 2022.', 'The strength of the US economy makes it more likely that high inflation will make a sustained comeback, Brzeski said, which is making the Fed more hesitant than the ECB to start cutting rates in the summer.', 'Both the United States and the eurozone are grappling with labor shortages, which is forcing employers to hike wages in order to attract and keep workers and fueling inflation in the services sector, he noted.', 'But, more broadly, US consumer demand appears stronger.', '“We see the savings ratio of US households starting to come down, which means that people in the US are willing to tap into their savings in order to spend,” he said. “', 'In general, European households are a bit more cautious.”', 'DavideOneglia,director of European and global macroeconomics at research firm TS Lombard, takes a similar view. “', 'The US consumer is more eager to spend because maybe he sees better prospects for himself in the labor market,” he told CNN.']",0.1330937652636778,"Inflation may have tumbled from multi-decade highs on both sides of the Atlantic, but progress has stalled in the United States, with the Federal Reserve now expected to start cutting interest rates well after its European counterpart.","Europe’s economy is much weaker due, in part, to the lingering impact of an energy crisis.",0.0967582490133202,"Washington has also spent a lot more than European governments in recent years to support consumers and businesses through the pandemic, something that has kept consumer demand particularly robust in the United States.","Inflation may have tumbled from multi-decade highs on both sides of the Atlantic, but progress has stalled in the United States, with the Federal Reserve now expected to start cutting interest rates well after its European counterpart.",2024-04-29
Judge’s stern rebuke of Elon Musk’s X gives researchers fresh hope,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/tech/judges-stern-rebuke-of-elon-musks-x-gives-researchers-fresh-hope/index.html,"
  Published
        1:17 PM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
    ","A federal judge’s decision this week reprimanding Elon Musk’s X will have reverberating effects on efforts to hold influential online platforms accountable, legal experts and advocacy groups say.
    
            On Monday, District Judge Charles Breyer dismissed and excoriated a lawsuit by X against online watchdog group Center for Countering Digital Hate as an attempt to silence the non-profit group for sounding alarms about hate speech on the platform.
    
            Breyer wrote in Monday’s order that the lawsuit was “unabashedly” about “punishing” reports written by CCDH, which X had accused of campaigning to drive away its advertisers. Breyer held that the reports were “unquestionably” protected by the group’s free speech rights.
    
            Now, that decision could embolden other research groups and Musk critics who have faced legal threats from the billionaire.
    
            The CCDH case — in the US District Court for the Northern District of California — has been widely viewed as a bellwether for research and accountability on X, where Musk has restored the accounts of previously banned White supremacists and spreaders of misinformation and where Musk himself has amplified various conspiracy theories.
    
            And CCDH is not the only organization that has faced attacks by self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” Musk after criticizing or raising concerns about his platform.
    
            “This is an important decision that sees Elon Musk’s lawsuit for what it is — an effort to punish his critics for constitutionally protected speech and to deter researchers from studying his platform,” said Alex Abdo, litigation director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case arguing that private companies should not be allowed to use breach of contract claims to punish criticism.
    
            “Society needs reliable and ethical research into social media platforms, and often that research relies on being able to study publicly available posts,” Abdo said.
    
            X said it plans to appeal Breyer’s decision.
    
            In his first year as owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, Musk threatened legal action against the Anti-Defamation League for defamation, as well as against Microsoft and Meta for allegedly improper data and trade secret access, respectively. None of those threats ever amounted to real lawsuits.
    
            He did, however, sue the progressive media watchdog Media Matters over its analysis highlighting antisemitic and pro-Nazi content on X, alleging that the group’s testing methodology was not representative of how real users experience the site and that the report was designed to drive away advertisers. Legal experts have described that case as “weak” on the merits and as a “bogus” attempt to chill criticism of X.
    
            This week’s court decision may be only a temporary setback in Musk’s wider plan to stifle criticism, said Media Matters CEO Angelo Carusone. Musk’s new playbook, Carusone said, enlists the help of sympathetic Republican attorneys general to investigate independent reporting organizations and tie them up in legal proceedings.
    
            The states of Texas and Missouri each announced probes into Media Matters following X’s lawsuit against the group, to which Musk responded, “Great!”
    
            As recently as Monday, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a petition in state court seeking to compel Media Matters’ cooperation with his investigation. The filing came a week after he appeared with Musk in a live event on X — which Carusone said shows how Musk hopes to deputize the power of government to silence his critics.
    
            “They have every reason to do it,” Carusone said of the AGs’ investigations. “They get the political benefits, they get the attention. There doesn’t seem to be any cost to them yet. And if they are successful at developing this new playbook, this new terrain, legally, then it’s going to pave the way for them to just use this tool and tactic over and over and over again.”
    
            A representative for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Carusone’s claims.
    
            Researchers from non-profits and academic institutions have had a harder time studying X since Musk’s takeover in 2022. Academics need large samples of posts, shares, likes and other data to study social media trends in mis- and disinformation, public health, elections and other key topics. But one of Musk’s first changes at X was to put access to platform data behind a steep paywall.
    
            Researchers and civil society groups said the new subscription fees — costing up to $2.5 million a year — were “outrageously expensive” and made it impossible to do their work, reducing transparency of a critical platform.
    
            The change may have forced some researchers to rely more heavily on first-person observational data to draw conclusions about user behavior on X. Groups like CCDH have also used automated “scraping” of publicly viewable content from X rather than paying the company for data directly, a tactic that helped give rise to X’s initial lawsuit.
    
            Efforts by X and other social media companies to limit research transparency makes them less accountable to the public at best and, at worst, could mask malicious behavior, said David Karpf, an associate professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University.
    
            “We need independent research to have any real measure of what’s going on at X/Twitter. Musk is only ever going to release data that makes his company look good,” Karpf said. “These platforms are too big and too vital to the spread of information to be left unmonitored.”
    
            “This is an election year,” Karpf added, “and the platforms are taking steps to make it harder to monitor how their services are used for malignant ends.”
    
            Free Press, another media accountability organization that has been critical of Musk’s leadership of X and which called for advertisers to pause their spending on the platform shortly after his takeover, also celebrated Breyer’s ruling as potentially removing at least one hurdle that watchdog organizations face.
    
            “The guardrails for democracy are hanging by a thread and we have dwindling insights into platform practices as researchers face lawsuits, congressional subpoenas and other scare tactics,” said Nora Benavidez, senior counsel and director of digital rights at Free Press.
    
            Ultimately, Benavidez called the ruling “a reminder that platform accountability is essential and will inevitably prevail when up against bullies like Musk who try to silence us.”",CNN,26/03/2024,"['A federal judge’s decision this week reprimanding Elon Musk’s X will have reverberating effects on efforts to hold influential online platforms accountable, legal experts and advocacy groups say.', 'On Monday, District Judge Charles Breyer dismissed and excoriated a lawsuit by X against online watchdog group Center for Countering Digital Hate as an attempt to silence the non-profit group for sounding alarms about hate speech on the platform.', 'Breyer wrote in Monday’s order that the lawsuit was “unabashedly” about “punishing” reports written by CCDH, which X had accused of campaigning to drive away its advertisers.', 'Breyer held that the reports were “unquestionably” protected by the group’s free speech rights.', 'Now, that decision could embolden other research groups and Musk critics who have faced legal threats from the billionaire.', 'The CCDH case — in the US District Court for the Northern District of California —has been widely viewed as a bellwether for research and accountability on X, where Musk has restored the accounts of previously banned White supremacists and spreaders of misinformation and where Musk himself has amplified various conspiracy theories.', 'And CCDH is not the only organization that has faced attacks by self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” Musk after criticizing or raising concerns about his platform.', '“This is an important decision that sees Elon Musk’s lawsuit for what it is — an effort to punish his critics for constitutionally protected speech and to deter researchers from studying his platform,” said Alex Abdo, litigation director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case arguing that private companies should not be allowed to use breach of contract claims to punish criticism.', '“Society needs reliable and ethical research into social media platforms, and often that research relies on being able to study publicly available posts,” Abdo said.', 'X said it plans to appeal Breyer’s decision.', 'In his first year as owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, Musk threatened legal action against the Anti-Defamation League for defamation, as well as against Microsoft and Meta for allegedly improper data and trade secret access, respectively.', 'None of those threats ever amounted to real lawsuits.', 'He did, however, sue the progressive media watchdog Media Matters over itsanalysishighlighting antisemitic and pro-Nazi content on X, alleging that the group’s testing methodology was not representative of how real users experience the site and that the report was designed to drive away advertisers.', 'Legal experts have described that case as “weak” on the merits and as a “bogus” attempt to chill criticism of X.  This week’s court decision may be only a temporary setback in Musk’s wider plan to stifle criticism, said Media Matters CEO Angelo Carusone.', 'Musk’s new playbook, Carusone said, enlists the help of sympathetic Republican attorneys general to investigate independent reporting organizations and tie them up in legal proceedings.', 'The states of Texas and Missouri each announced probes into Media Matters following X’s lawsuit against the group, to which Musk responded, “Great!”', 'As recently as Monday, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a petition in state court seeking to compel Media Matters’ cooperation with his investigation.', 'The filing came a week after he appeared with Musk in a live event on X — which Carusone said shows how Musk hopes to deputize the power of government to silence his critics.', '“They have every reason to do it,” Carusone said of the AGs’ investigations. “', 'They get the political benefits, they get the attention.', 'There doesn’t seem to be any cost to them yet.', 'And if they are successful at developing this new playbook, this new terrain, legally, then it’s going to pave the way for them to just use this tool and tactic over and over and over again.”', 'A representative for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Carusone’s claims.', 'Researchers from non-profits and academic institutions have had a harder time studying X since Musk’s takeover in 2022.', 'Academics need large samples of posts, shares, likes and other data to study social media trends in mis- and disinformation, public health, elections and other key topics.', 'But one of Musk’s first changes at X was to put access to platform data behind a steep paywall.', 'Researchers and civil society groups said the new subscription fees — costing up to $2.5 million a year —were “outrageously expensive” and made it impossible to do their work, reducing transparency of a critical platform.', 'The change may have forced some researchers to rely more heavily on first-person observational data to draw conclusions about user behavior on X. Groups like CCDH have also used automated “scraping” of publicly viewable content from X rather than paying the company for data directly, a tactic that helped give rise to X’s initial lawsuit.', 'Efforts by X and other social media companies to limit research transparency makes them less accountable to the public at best and, at worst, could mask malicious behavior, said David Karpf, an associate professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University.', '“We need independent research to have any real measure of what’s going on at X/Twitter.', 'Musk is only ever going to release data that makes his company look good,” Karpf said. “', 'These platforms are too big and too vital to the spread of information to be left unmonitored.”', '“This is an election year,” Karpf added, “and the platforms are taking steps to make it harder to monitor how their services are used for malignant ends.”', 'Free Press, another media accountability organization that has been critical of Musk’s leadership of X and which called for advertisers to pause their spending on the platform shortly after his takeover, also celebrated Breyer’s ruling as potentially removing at least one hurdle that watchdog organizations face.', '“The guardrails for democracy are hanging by a thread and we have dwindling insights into platform practices as researchers face lawsuits, congressional subpoenas and other scare tactics,” said Nora Benavidez, senior counsel and director of digital rights at Free Press.', 'Ultimately, Benavidez called the ruling “a reminder that platform accountability is essential and will inevitably prevail when up against bullies like Musk who try to silence us.”']",0.0427064270235155,"Musk’s new playbook, Carusone said, enlists the help of sympathetic Republican attorneys general to investigate independent reporting organizations and tie them up in legal proceedings.","“This is an important decision that sees Elon Musk’s lawsuit for what it is — an effort to punish his critics for constitutionally protected speech and to deter researchers from studying his platform,” said Alex Abdo, litigation director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case arguing that private companies should not be allowed to use breach of contract claims to punish criticism.",-0.3806276832308088,"Free Press, another media accountability organization that has been critical of Musk’s leadership of X and which called for advertisers to pause their spending on the platform shortly after his takeover, also celebrated Breyer’s ruling as potentially removing at least one hurdle that watchdog organizations face.","Researchers and civil society groups said the new subscription fees — costing up to $2.5 million a year —were “outrageously expensive” and made it impossible to do their work, reducing transparency of a critical platform.",2024-04-29
Federal labor board has been much more pro-worker under Biden. Employers want courts to end that,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/23/business/starbucks-nlrb-supreme-court-labor-unions/index.html,"
  Updated
        1:06 PM EDT, Tue April 23, 2024
    ","Starbucks and the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency charged with protecting workers’ rights, will battle each other before the Supreme Court Tuesday, in one of numerous cases now pending in which major employers are questioning the NLRB’s powers and even its right to exist.
    
            The NLRB under the labor-friendly Biden administration has been overseeing a period of significantly more organizing and strike activities by the nation’s unions. Some high-profile companies are complaining that the agency is abusing its powers. The companies are asking federal courts, often with conservative, pro-business judges, to stop the agency from standing behind the more activist unions now making their lives more difficult.
    
            Tuesday’s Supreme Court case involves the NLRB’s powers to get employees whom it judges were wrongly fired for union activity immediately rehired, rather than forcing them to go through a long, drawn-out court process. At issue are seven employees Starbucks fired at a store in Memphis in 2022 that the union said were attempting to organize. The employees, known as the “Memphis 7,” have become a nationwide symbol for labor supporters.
    
            Starbucks is arguing that the NLRB’s powers are not being applied uniformly across the country because some federal courts, including the courts that reviewed the Memphis 7 case, are using what critics describe as a more lenient standard to force employers to take preliminary action. In this case, the lower courts required Starbucks to reinstate the employees it had fired.
    
            “The NLRB has long used the federal courts … to obtain injunctions … before the merits of an unfair labor practice case are fully evaluated,” said a statement from Starbucks. “As a company, we felt obligated to stand up for what is right, not only for our partners and our company, but also for the employers across the country who are subject to NLRB requests for injunctions in federal courts.”
    
            But the NLRB argues that the only way to protect workers who are improperly terminated for union activity is to allow it to go to federal court and get immediate action against the offending employer, as it successfully did in the case of the Memphis employees.
    
            “Injunctive relief is one of the most important tools available to the NLRB to protect workers’ statutory rights through effective enforcement of the only federal labor law in the country,” said Jennifer Abruzzo, the NLRB’s General Counsel, in a statement about the case.
    
            “Congress … has empowered the agency to seek this interim relief to immediately end violative conduct and restore the status quo at the workplace while the board’s administrative process proceeds,” Abruzzo said. “Without obtaining this temporary relief, the lawbreaker will fully reap the benefits of having violated workers’ rights — such as by snuffing out a nascent organizing drive — through the passage of time.”
    
            During arguments Tuesday, Starbucks’ attorney argued that the NLRB has too much power to get an injunction to order fired workers returned to work, without the district court getting to weigh evidence in the case itself.
    
            “Preliminary injunctions are extraordinary and drastic remedies,” said Lisa Blatt, a veteran Supreme Court litigator and Starbucks’ attorney in the case. “Such relief is highly inappropriate absent a clear showing.”
    
            Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned how the NLRB could be abusing its powers, as Starbucks was arguing, given that there had been only 14 instances of the board seeking such injunctions in the last year out of the thousands of cases it considered.
    
            “If we’re worried about an abusive board doing things it’s not supposed to be [doing], giving undue deference, it seems like the board is pretty careful when it’s determining whether or not to even seek these injunctions since it’s only asked for it 14 times,” she said.
    
            But both conservative and liberal justices posed tough questions to the government, pressing the Biden administration’s attorney on why lower courts should review labor cases any differently than other controversies involving government agencies.
    
            “The district court is an independent check,” conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett said. “So, it seems like it should be just doing what district courts do.”
    
            Justice Elena Kagan, a member of the court’s liberal wing, appeared to agree, suggesting that lower federal courts should do “what courts normally do, which is applying the law as the court finds it to a case.”
    
            Those questions appeared to cut against the arguments raised by the government that courts should give some special deference to the NLRB’s read on a dispute between employers and employees.
    
            Justice Neil Gorsuch, a conservative member of the court, pointed out that “in all sorts of alphabet soup agencies, we don’t do this. District courts apply the likelihood of success test as we generally perceive it. So why is this particular statutory regime different from so many others?”
    
            And Chief Justice John Roberts suggested that attorneys for both the government and Starbucks could agree, “we can dispose of this in a short opinion,” prompting laughter in the courtroom.
    
            The labor law that controls what happens if an employer illegally fires a worker for supporting a union doesn’t give the workers much in the way of relief. The employer could be forced to provide back pay for the time since the improper firing, but that amount would be reduced by whatever pay the worker received at a job they held in the meantime. The employer doesn’t have to pay any interest, penalty or fine, to the fired workers, their union or the agency.
    
            “The remedies against the employer are so pathetically weak they’re almost an invitation to violate the law,” said Cathy Creighton, an NLRB attorney during the Clinton administration and a union lawyer who now serves as the head of the Buffalo, New York office of Cornell University’s school of Industrial and Labor Relations.
    
            While this is the first such case to reach the Supreme Court, other cases are emerging in which some high profile employers are challenging the agency’s right to exist. The Supreme Court’s decision is expected by the end of June.
    
            Rocket company SpaceX filed two federal lawsuits so far this year questioning the constitutionality of the agency itself after the NLRB announced it was looking at complaints from eight former employees of the nonunion rocket company who said they were fired for writing company management begging them to publicly condemn CEO Elon Musk’s “harmful” behavior on social media.
    
            Three other companies — Starbucks, Amazon and Trader Joe’s — have raised similar arguments in cases still before the NLRB’s administrative law judges, although they have not taken the case to federal court as SpaceX has done and have not joined its suit.
    
            The constitutionality of the NLRB was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1937, two years after the agency was created during the New Deal, said Cornell’s Creighton.
    
            She said the Supreme Court’s rulings with the current conservative majority on some other cases involving unions makes her worried that it is poised to rule against the agency on this case. And she’s also worried that if the question of constitutionality of the NLRB were to reach the high court, it could rule against the agency as well.
    
            “They’re seeking to annihilate the board,” she said about the employers’ challenges to the NLRB. “I’m worried because this court is not ruled by precedent the way other courts have been. Just taking up the issue, they’re signaling they’re not particularly labor friendly.”",CNN,23/04/2024,"['Starbucks and the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency charged with protecting workers’ rights, will battle each other before the Supreme Court Tuesday, in one of numerous cases now pending in which major employers are questioning the NLRB’s powers and even its right to exist.', 'The NLRB under the labor-friendly Biden administration has been overseeing a period of significantly more organizing and strike activities by the nation’s unions.', 'Some high-profile companies are complaining that the agency is abusing its powers.', 'The companies are asking federal courts, often with conservative, pro-business judges, to stop the agency from standing behind the more activist unions now making their lives more difficult.', 'Tuesday’s Supreme Court case involves the NLRB’s powers to get employees whom it judges were wrongly fired for union activity immediately rehired, rather than forcing them to go through a long, drawn-out court process.', 'At issue areseven employees Starbucks fired at a store in Memphis in 2022 that the union said were attempting to organize.', 'The employees, known as the “Memphis 7,” have become a nationwide symbol for labor supporters.', 'Starbucks is arguing that the NLRB’s powers are not being applied uniformly across the country because some federal courts, including the courts that reviewed the Memphis 7 case, are using what critics describe as amore lenient standard to force employers to take preliminary action.', 'In this case, the lower courts required Starbucks to reinstate the employees it had fired.', '“The NLRB has long used the federal courts … to obtain injunctions … before the merits of an unfair labor practice case are fully evaluated,” said a statement from Starbucks. “', 'As a company, we felt obligated to stand up for what is right, not only for our partners and our company, but also for the employers across the country who are subject to NLRB requests for injunctions in federal courts.”', 'But the NLRB argues that the only way to protect workers who are improperly terminated for union activity is to allow it to go to federal court and get immediate action against the offending employer, as it successfully did in the case of the Memphis employees.', '“Injunctive reliefis one of the most important tools available to the NLRB to protect workers’ statutory rights through effective enforcement of the only federal labor law in the country,” said Jennifer Abruzzo, the NLRB’s General Counsel, in a statement about the case.', '“Congress … has empowered the agency to seek this interim relief to immediately end violative conduct and restore the status quo at the workplace while the board’s administrative process proceeds,” Abruzzo said. “', 'Without obtaining this temporary relief, the lawbreaker will fully reap the benefits of having violated workers’ rights — such as by snuffing out a nascent organizing drive — through the passage of time.”', 'During arguments Tuesday, Starbucks’ attorney argued that the NLRB has too much power to get an injunction to order fired workers returned to work, without the district court getting to weigh evidence in the case itself.', '“Preliminary injunctions are extraordinary and drastic remedies,” said Lisa Blatt, a veteran Supreme Court litigator and Starbucks’ attorney in the case. “', 'Such relief is highly inappropriate absent a clear showing.”', 'Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned howthe NLRBcould be abusing its powers, as Starbucks was arguing,given thatthere had been only 14 instances of the board seeking such injunctions in the last year out of the thousands of cases it considered.', '“If we’re worried about an abusive board doing things it’s not supposed to be [doing], giving undue deference, it seems like the board is pretty careful when it’s determining whether or not to even seek these injunctions since it’s only asked for it 14 times,” she said.', 'But both conservative and liberal justices posed tough questions to the government, pressing the Biden administration’s attorney on why lower courts should review labor cases any differently than other controversies involving government agencies.', '“The district court is an independent check,” conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett said. “', 'So, it seems like it should be just doing what district courts do.”', 'Justice Elena Kagan, a member of the court’s liberal wing, appeared to agree, suggesting that lower federal courts should do “what courts normally do, which is applying the law as the court finds it to a case.”', 'Those questions appeared to cut against the arguments raised by the government that courts should give some special deference to the NLRB’s read on a dispute between employers and employees.', 'Justice Neil Gorsuch, a conservative member of the court, pointed out that “in all sorts of alphabet soup agencies, we don’t do this.', 'District courts apply the likelihood of success test as we generally perceive it.', 'So why is this particular statutory regime different from so many others?”', 'And Chief Justice John Roberts suggested that attorneys for both the government and Starbucks could agree, “we can dispose of this in a short opinion,” prompting laughter in the courtroom.', 'The labor law that controls what happens if an employer illegally fires a worker for supporting a union doesn’t give the workers much in the way of relief.', 'The employer could be forced to provide back pay for the time since the improper firing, but that amount would be reduced by whatever pay the worker received at a job they held in the meantime.', 'The employer doesn’t have to pay any interest, penalty or fine, to the fired workers, their union or the agency.', '“The remedies against the employer are so pathetically weak they’re almost an invitation to violate the law,” said Cathy Creighton, an NLRB attorney during the Clinton administration and a union lawyer who now serves as the head of the Buffalo, New York office of Cornell University’s school of Industrial and Labor Relations.', 'While this is the first such case to reach the Supreme Court, other cases are emerging in which some high profile employers are challenging the agency’s right to exist.', 'The Supreme Court’s decision is expected by the end of June.', 'Rocket company SpaceX filed two federal lawsuits so far this year questioning the constitutionality of the agency itself after the NLRB announced it was looking at complaints from eight former employees of the nonunion rocket company who said they were fired for writing company management begging them to publicly condemn CEO Elon Musk’s “harmful” behavior on social media.', 'Three other companies — Starbucks, Amazon and Trader Joe’s — have raised similar arguments in cases still before the NLRB’s administrative law judges, although they have not taken the case to federal court as SpaceX has done and have not joined its suit.', 'The constitutionality of the NLRB was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1937, two years after the agency was created during the New Deal, said Cornell’s Creighton.', 'She said the Supreme Court’s rulings with the current conservative majority on some other cases involving unions makes her worried that it is poised to rule against the agency on this case.', 'And she’s also worried that if the question of constitutionality of the NLRB were to reach the high court, it could rule against the agency as well.', '“They’re seeking to annihilate the board,” she said about the employers’ challenges to the NLRB. “', 'I’m worried because this court is not ruled by precedent the way other courts have been.', 'Just taking up the issue, they’re signaling they’re not particularly labor friendly.”']",0.0307183931533012,"And Chief Justice John Roberts suggested that attorneys for both the government and Starbucks could agree, “we can dispose of this in a short opinion,” prompting laughter in the courtroom.",Rocket company SpaceX filed two federal lawsuits so far this year questioning the constitutionality of the agency itself after the NLRB announced it was looking at complaints from eight former employees of the nonunion rocket company who said they were fired for writing company management begging them to publicly condemn CEO Elon Musk’s “harmful” behavior on social media.,-0.1780935376882553,"Without obtaining this temporary relief, the lawbreaker will fully reap the benefits of having violated workers’ rights — such as by snuffing out a nascent organizing drive — through the passage of time.”",She said the Supreme Court’s rulings with the current conservative majority on some other cases involving unions makes her worried that it is poised to rule against the agency on this case.,2024-04-29
Say goodbye to Ruby Tuesday and Chili’s. These are the hot new restaurants at the mall,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/28/business/mall-restaurants-ruby-tuesday-chilis/index.html,"
  Updated
        10:34 AM EDT, Sun April 28, 2024
    ","Looking for a bite at your local mall? As US malls race to reinvent themselves, they’re turning to sushi conveyor belts, craft-beer membership clubs and Korean barbecue to replace burgers and fries.
    
            Over the last few decades, malls became the town center of many American communities. But the pandemic, over-building and a move by consumers toward discount and online shopping changed all that. As anchor department stores left malls, so did some name-brand chains like Ruby Tuesday, Chili’s, Applebee’s and others.
    
            What’s taking their place illustrates a large shift in US tastes: There’s a boom in smaller and regional restaurant chains with a local following. Plus a much wider menu of global cuisines.
    
            Landlords are counting on emerging restaurant brands like Lazy Dog, Gen Korean BBQ and Postino Wine Café to draw customers back to malls. So-called “eatertainment” concepts such as Puttshack and Topgolf, which can extend the amount of time people spend in a mall, are expanding. One fast-growing chain targeted to families, Kura Revolving Sushi Bar, delivers plates to diners on conveyor belts as rolling robots serve drinks. Tableside monitors offer games, cartoons and toy prizes for big eaters.
    
            At the same time, many national chains are prioritizing drive-thru locations over their sit-down restaurants in malls.
    
            “There’s definitely a newer layer of concepts. There’s a new guard in malls,” said Chris Simms, the CEO and founder of Lazy Dog, which has around 50 ski lodge-themed restaurants around the country. The restaurants have big wooden beams and a bar with craft beers in their center.
    
            Simms said he was drawn to open Lazy Dog restaurants in malls to pick up customers who may be stopping nearby to see a movie or run errands. “There’s something to having that synergy around you. I’m looking for traffic-drivers,” he said. “Malls create a great opportunity for that.”
    
            Food was long an afterthought at malls, and department stores were the primary reason shoppers visited.
    
            But Macy’s, JCPenney, Nordstrom and others are closing hundreds of their stores in malls as online shopping has grown to around 16% of US retail sales. Real estate research firm Green Street estimates about 150 enclosed malls have closed since 2008, leaving about 900 today.
    
            Strong restaurants and entertainment options draw steady food traffic and can increase the amount of time a consumer spends in the mall, making them valuable to landlords and other mall tenants.
    
            The amount of space dedicated to food in malls has grown from 5% in the 1990s to 15 to 20% today, according to Deloitte.
    
            “Food and beverage is an anchor today,” said Mark Hunter, a managing director at commercial real estate investment firm CBRE who specializes in malls. “It has replaced some of the department stores that left. More and more landlords are looking to invest in it.”
    
            Many quick-service restaurants like McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A have closed mall locations.
    
            TGI Fridays announced earlier this year it would close 36 lower-performing locations in 12 states, several of those in malls. (It still has about 230 outlets in the United States.)
    
            Chick-fil-A closed its original location at Greenbriar Mall in Atlanta last year after 56 years. Chick-fil-A restaurants were only located in mall food courts for the company’s first 20 years. 
    
            Some chains are focusing on drive-thru models instead in part because they are more profitable: smaller than sit-down restaurants, requiring less staff and maintenance, said RJ Hottovy, head of analytical research at data analytics company Placer.ai.
    
            Drive-thru sales hit $133 billion in 2022, an increase of 30% from 2019 pre-pandemic levels, according to Technomic, a restaurant industry consulting firm.
    
            “Traditional mall restaurants were casual dining chains like Chili’s, TGI Fridays, and quick-service restaurants in food courts. They want the drive-thru locations now,” Hottovy said.
    
            Gen Korean BBQ is an example of one of the new breed of restaurants growing in malls.
    
            The company has around 40 restaurants and has plans to grow to at least 250. Customers order meat to their tables and cook it themselves.
    
            “There’s so many burgers, chicken and pizza places,” said co-CEO David Kim. “People are wanting to experience something different.”
    
            Gen is growing at both larger regional malls and smaller strip malls.
    
            “A lot of these regional malls are rebranding their spaces to attract restaurants,” Kim said.
    
            It’s a little early to see if this shift in tenants will work long-term. Mall landlords and analysts note it’s a big blow to lose any big-name anchor eatery. But Cheesecake Factory doesn’t have robots.",CNN,28/04/2024,"['Looking for a bite at your local mall?', 'As US malls race to reinvent themselves, they’re turning to sushi conveyor belts, craft-beer membership clubs and Korean barbecue to replace burgers and fries.', 'Over the last few decades, malls became the town center of many American communities.', 'But the pandemic, over-building and a move by consumers toward discount and online shopping changed all that.', 'As anchor department stores left malls, so did some name-brand chains like Ruby Tuesday, Chili’s, Applebee’s and others.', 'What’s taking their place illustrates a large shift in US tastes: There’s a boom in smaller and regional restaurant chains with a local following.', 'Plus a much wider menu of global cuisines.', 'Landlords are counting on emerging restaurant brands like Lazy Dog, Gen Korean BBQ and Postino Wine Café to draw customers back to malls.', 'So-called “eatertainment” concepts such as Puttshack and Topgolf, which can extend the amount of time people spend in a mall, are expanding.', 'One fast-growing chain targeted to families, Kura Revolving Sushi Bar, delivers plates to diners on conveyor belts as rolling robots serve drinks.', 'Tableside monitors offer games, cartoons and toy prizes for big eaters.', 'At the same time, many national chains are prioritizing drive-thru locations over their sit-down restaurants in malls.', '“There’s definitely a newer layer of concepts.', 'There’s a new guard in malls,” said Chris Simms, the CEO and founder of Lazy Dog, which has around 50 ski lodge-themed restaurants around the country.', 'The restaurants have big wooden beams and a bar with craft beers in their center.', 'Simms said he was drawn to open Lazy Dog restaurants in malls to pick up customers who may be stopping nearby to see a movie or run errands. “', 'There’s something to having that synergy around you.', 'I’m looking for traffic-drivers,” he said. “', 'Malls create a great opportunity for that.”', 'Food was long an afterthought at malls, and department stores were the primary reason shoppers visited.', 'But Macy’s, JCPenney, Nordstrom and others are closing hundreds of their stores in malls as online shopping has grown to around 16% of US retail sales.', 'Real estate research firm Green Street estimates about 150 enclosed malls have closed since 2008, leaving about 900 today.', 'Strong restaurants and entertainment options draw steady food traffic and can increase the amount of time a consumer spends in the mall, making them valuable to landlords and other mall tenants.', 'The amount of space dedicated to food in malls has grown from 5% in the 1990s to 15 to 20% today, according to Deloitte.', '“Food and beverage is an anchor today,” said Mark Hunter, a managing director at commercial real estate investment firm CBRE who specializes in malls. “', 'It has replaced some of the department stores that left.', 'More and more landlords are looking to invest in it.”', 'Many quick-service restaurants like McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A have closed mall locations.', 'TGI Fridays announced earlier this year it would close 36 lower-performing locations in 12 states, several of those in malls. (', 'It still has about 230 outlets in the United States.)', 'Chick-fil-A closed its original location at Greenbriar Mall in Atlanta last year after 56 years.', 'Chick-fil-A restaurants were only located in mall food courts for the company’s first 20 years.', 'Some chains are focusing on drive-thru models instead in part because they are more profitable: smaller than sit-down restaurants, requiring less staff and maintenance, said RJ Hottovy, head of analytical research at data analytics company Placer.ai.', 'Drive-thru sales hit $133 billion in 2022, an increase of 30% from 2019 pre-pandemic levels, according to Technomic, a restaurant industry consulting firm.', '“Traditional mall restaurants were casual dining chains like Chili’s, TGI Fridays, and quick-service restaurants in food courts.', 'They want the drive-thru locations now,” Hottovy said.', 'Gen Korean BBQ is an example of one of the new breed of restaurants growing in malls.', 'The company has around 40 restaurants and has plans to grow to at least 250.', 'Customers order meat to their tables and cook it themselves.', '“There’s so many burgers, chicken and pizza places,” said co-CEO David Kim. “', 'People are wanting to experience something different.”', 'Gen is growing at both larger regional malls and smaller strip malls.', '“A lot of these regional malls are rebranding their spaces to attract restaurants,” Kim said.', 'It’s a little early to see if this shift in tenants will work long-term.', 'Mall landlords and analysts note it’s a big blow to lose any big-name anchor eatery.', 'But Cheesecake Factory doesn’t have robots.']",0.1183897806237372,"Strong restaurants and entertainment options draw steady food traffic and can increase the amount of time a consumer spends in the mall, making them valuable to landlords and other mall tenants.",Simms said he was drawn to open Lazy Dog restaurants in malls to pick up customers who may be stopping nearby to see a movie or run errands. “,0.4453388282230922,"Drive-thru sales hit $133 billion in 2022, an increase of 30% from 2019 pre-pandemic levels, according to Technomic, a restaurant industry consulting firm.",Mall landlords and analysts note it’s a big blow to lose any big-name anchor eatery.,2024-04-29
NBC News ousts Ronna McDaniel after network’s anchors launch unprecedented on-air rebellion,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/media/nbc-news-ousts-ronna-mcdaniel/index.html,"
  Updated
        7:44 PM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
    ","NBC News on Tuesday ousted former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, just days after her hiring as a paid political analyst sparked intense backlash from the network’s top television anchors over McDaniel’s role in subverting the 2020 election and attacks on the press.
    
            “There is no doubt that the last several days have been difficult for the News Group,” NBCUniversal News Group President Cesar Conde said in a memo to staff. “After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor.”
    
            “I want to personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down,” Conde continued. “While this was a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team, I approved it and take full responsibility for it.”
    
            Ahead of the network’s decision, McDaniel spent the day Tuesday interviewing attorneys in preparation for a potential legal battle with NBC, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. Creative Artists Agency, the talent agency that brokered McDaniel’s deal with NBC, also parted ways with her, the person said.
    
            The reversal comes after journalists and anchors at both NBC and its cable news sibling MSNBC publicly denounced the decision to hire McDaniel as a paid analyst in a stunning and unprecedented on-air rebuke of network brass that has embarrassed the Peacock Network.
    
            McDaniel, who recently stepped down from the RNC under pressure from former President Donald Trump, was involved in attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
    
            As head of the RNC, she was involved in a phone call in 2020 to pressure Michigan county officials not to certify the vote from the Detroit area, where Joe Biden had a commanding lead. McDaniel told the officials, regarding the certification: “Do not sign it. … We will get you attorneys.”
    
            In the years since, McDaniel continued to claim that the election had “problems” and that Biden did not legitimately win the election, fanning the flames of election denialism.
    
            NBC’s announcement Friday that it had hired McDaniel was quickly met with alarm by the network’s journalists. The revolt spilled into public view on Sunday when McDaniel appeared on “Meet the Press” with moderator Kristen Welker in her first interview since she was hired by the network. Welker disclosed that the interview had been scheduled to take place prior to NBC announcing McDaniel would become a paid contributor for the network, stating that she had no involvement in her hiring.
    
            Following the interview, Chuck Todd, NBC News’ chief political analyst, delivered a stinging on-air criticism of NBC executives for their decision to hire McDaniel, telling Welker, “I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation.”
    
            “There’s a reason a lot of journalists at NBC News are uncomfortable with this,” Todd said, explaining that under McDaniel, the RNC engaged in “gaslighting” and “character assassination” when dealing with the news media.
    
            The following day, MSNBC hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough joined Todd in protesting the decision on their program “Morning Joe.”
    
            “To be clear, we believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage, but it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier,” Brzezinski said. “We hope NBC will reconsider its decision. It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on ‘Morning Joe’ in her capacity as a paid contributor.”
    
            Nicolle Wallace, host of MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” later joined in the rebuke, saying on her program that the network’s decision to hire McDaniel was nothing short of a potential threat to democracy.
    
            “NBC News is, either wittingly or unwittingly, teaching election deniers that what they can do stretches well beyond appearing on our air and interviews to peddle lies about the sanctity and integrity of our elections,” Wallace told viewers.
    
            Rachel Maddow — the network’s biggest star — later devoted the first half-hour of her prime-time program to the controversy, saying the decision to hire McDaniel was “inexplicable.” Maddow took issue with McDaniel’s long track record of demonizing the news media, labeling the press as “fake news,” and launching ugly attacks on NBC News journalists and MSNBC hosts.
    
            “We do not take it personally when we get attacked, when they say they want to put us on trial and execute us for treason,” she said.
    
            “And so I want to associate myself with all my colleagues at MSNBC and NBC News who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company for putting on the payroll someone who hasn’t just attacked us as journalists, but someone who is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government,” she said of McDaniel. “Someone who is still trying to convince Americans that this election stuff doesn’t really work. That this last election wasn’t a real result. That American elections are fraudulent.“
    
            The on-air revolt ensnared NBC’s top leaders, including NBCUniversal News Group chair Cesar Conde, NBC News president Rebecca Blumenstein and senior vice president of politics Carrie Budoff Brown, who were responsible for McDaniel’s hiring. MSNBC president Rashida Jones also did not object to the decision, people familiar with the matter said.
    
            In the wake of Conde’s announcement to sever ties with McDaniel, MSNBC host Joy Reid and Maddow addressed the reversal on the network’s air, praising the move as “bold” and “strong.”
    
            “I think it is a show of strength and a show of respect for the people who work at this company and make us who we are,” Maddow said. “That leadership was willing to change on this, I’m grateful to them.”",CNN,26/03/2024,"['NBC News on Tuesday ousted former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, just days after her hiring as a paid political analyst sparked intense backlash from the network’s top television anchors over McDaniel’s role in subverting the 2020 election and attacks on the press.', '“There is no doubt that the last several days have been difficult for the News Group,” NBCUniversal News Group President Cesar Conde said in a memo to staff. “', 'After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor.”', '“I want to personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down,” Conde continued. “', 'While this was a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team, I approved it and take full responsibility for it.”', 'Ahead of the network’s decision, McDaniel spent the day Tuesday interviewing attorneys in preparation for a potential legal battle with NBC, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.', 'Creative Artists Agency, the talent agency that brokered McDaniel’s deal with NBC, also parted ways with her, the person said.', 'The reversal comes after journalists and anchors at both NBC and its cable news sibling MSNBC publicly denounced the decision to hire McDaniel as a paid analyst in a stunning and unprecedented on-air rebuke of network brass that has embarrassed the Peacock Network.', 'McDaniel, who recently stepped down from the RNC under pressure from former President Donald Trump, was involved in attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.', 'As head of the RNC, she was involved in a phone call in 2020 to pressure Michigan county officials not to certify the vote from the Detroit area, where Joe Biden had a commanding lead.', 'McDanieltold the officials, regarding the certification: “Do not sign it. …', 'We will get you attorneys.”', 'In the years since, McDaniel continued to claim that the election had “problems” and that Biden did not legitimately win the election, fanning the flames of election denialism.', 'NBC’s announcement Friday that it had hired McDaniel was quickly met with alarm by the network’s journalists.', 'The revolt spilled into public view on Sunday when McDaniel appeared on “Meet the Press” with moderator Kristen Welker in her first interview since she was hired by the network.', 'Welker disclosed that the interview had been scheduled to take place prior to NBC announcing McDaniel would become a paid contributor for the network, stating that she had no involvement in her hiring.', 'Following the interview, Chuck Todd, NBC News’ chief political analyst, delivered a stinging on-air criticism of NBC executives for their decision to hire McDaniel, telling Welker, “I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation.”', '“There’s a reason a lot of journalists at NBC News are uncomfortable with this,” Todd said, explaining that under McDaniel, the RNC engaged in “gaslighting” and “character assassination” when dealing with the news media.', 'The following day, MSNBC hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough joined Todd in protesting the decision on their program “Morning Joe.”', '“To be clear, we believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage, but it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier,”Brzezinski said. “', 'We hope NBC will reconsider its decision.', 'It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on ‘Morning Joe’ in her capacity as a paid contributor.”', 'Nicolle Wallace, host of MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” later joined in the rebuke, saying on her program that the network’s decision to hire McDaniel was nothing short of a potential threat to democracy.', '“NBC News is, either wittingly or unwittingly, teaching election deniers that what they can do stretches well beyond appearing on our air and interviews to peddle lies about the sanctity and integrity of our elections,” Wallace told viewers.', 'Rachel Maddow — the network’s biggest star — later devoted the first half-hour of her prime-time program to the controversy, saying the decision to hire McDaniel was “inexplicable.”', 'Maddow took issue with McDaniel’s long track record of demonizing the news media, labeling the press as “fake news,” and launching ugly attacks on NBC News journalists and MSNBC hosts.', '“We do not take it personally when we get attacked, when they say they want to put us on trial and execute us for treason,” she said.', '“And so I want to associate myself with all my colleagues at MSNBC and NBC News who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company for putting on the payroll someone who hasn’t just attacked us as journalists, but someone who is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government,” she said of McDaniel. “', 'Someone who is still trying to convince Americans that this election stuff doesn’t really work.', 'That this last election wasn’t a real result.', 'That American elections are fraudulent.“', 'The on-air revolt ensnared NBC’s top leaders, including NBCUniversal News Group chair Cesar Conde, NBC News president Rebecca Blumenstein and senior vice president of politics Carrie Budoff Brown, who were responsible for McDaniel’s hiring.', 'MSNBC president Rashida Jones also did not object to the decision, people familiar with the matter said.', 'In the wake of Conde’s announcement to sever ties with McDaniel, MSNBC host Joy Reid and Maddow addressed the reversal on the network’s air, praising the move as “bold” and “strong.”', '“I think it is a show of strength and a show of respect for the people who work at this company and make us who we are,” Maddow said. “', 'That leadership was willing to change on this, I’m grateful to them.”']",-0.0710578434549836,"In the wake of Conde’s announcement to sever ties with McDaniel, MSNBC host Joy Reid and Maddow addressed the reversal on the network’s air, praising the move as “bold” and “strong.”","Maddow took issue with McDaniel’s long track record of demonizing the news media, labeling the press as “fake news,” and launching ugly attacks on NBC News journalists and MSNBC hosts.",-0.4204912036657333,"In the wake of Conde’s announcement to sever ties with McDaniel, MSNBC host Joy Reid and Maddow addressed the reversal on the network’s air, praising the move as “bold” and “strong.”",The reversal comes after journalists and anchors at both NBC and its cable news sibling MSNBC publicly denounced the decision to hire McDaniel as a paid analyst in a stunning and unprecedented on-air rebuke of network brass that has embarrassed the Peacock Network.,2024-04-29
"NBC cut ties with Ronna McDaniel after extraordinary pressure, but its problems aren’t over",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/27/media/nbc-ronna-mcdaniel-problems-are-not-over/index.html,"
  Updated
        8:16 AM EDT, Wed March 27, 2024
    ","Only 80 hours elapsed between NBC News announcing Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor and the network ousting her from that very role. But for the leadership at NBC Universal News Group, those were 80 painful hours.
    
            On Tuesday evening, following another full day in which the media rumor mill churned at warp speed, NBCU News Group boss Cesar Conde sent staff a memo, notifying his troops that he had reversed his decision to welcome the former Republican National Committee chair to “the team.”
    
            “After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor,” Conde said, adding that he wanted to “personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down.”
    
            Conde had no real choice. The embattled NBCU boss, who I’m told dealt with the crisis from an unknown location outside of 30 Rock, was facing an unprecedented rebellion from his most high-profile stars, who one by one went on the air and excoriated leadership’s decision to hire McDaniel. The only aspect of Conde’s note that was surprising was the fact that it came 48 hours late, allowing what started off as a crisis to fester and balloon into one of the worst corporate public relations calamities in recent memory.
    
            “What a sh*t show!” a media executive exclaimed to me Tuesday shortly after Conde relieved McDaniel of her NBC News credentials.
    
            In his note, Conde said he took “full responsibility” for McDaniel’s hire. But, he also did point the finger, telling staffers that hiring her was “a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team.” Indeed, multiple people familiar with the matter have told me that the infighting among NBC executives over who was at fault for the disaster has reached a fever pitch, with various factions of the NBCU News Group assigning blame to others.
    
            Regardless of who is to blame, the entire affair made clear who is actually in control of the company — and it’s not Conde & Co. Despite the NBCU C-suite digging their heels in the sand as they resisted dumping McDaniel for days, they were ultimately forced to succumb to pressure from their talent. As a second media executive commented to me, it is now “very clear who is in charge” after the “weak leadership was put on full display.”
    
            “Has Cesar lost the room?” wondered a third media executive.
    
            While the Peacock family argues over who was really at fault, the company is facing a fresh public relations mess. Led by Donald Trump, right-wing personalities are already assailing the network as being overrun with intolerant woke leftists.
    
            “These Radical Left Lunatics are CRAZY and the top people at NBC ARE WEAK,” Trump raged on his Truth Social platform.
    
            Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary under President George W. Bush, wrote on X: “What NBC is saying is if you’re for Trump, you don’t belong. Good. Let NBC be for Democrats only.”
    
            Of course, that narrative is intellectually dishonest. The objection to McDaniel from both within and outside of NBCU was not that she is a Republican. It wasn’t even that she was a Trump-supporting Republican. No, the objection stemmed from the fact that McDaniel was an active participant in the plot to subvert the 2020 vote. And, in addition to that disgraceful history, she had a lengthy track record smearing NBC News and MSNBC.
    
            Nevertheless, NBCU will now have to contend with such dishonest attacks being leveled by the right, which will follow them in the days, months, and even years to come. As unfair as it may be, they will certainly damage the network’s brand in Republican circles — a place it had gone through great pains to appeal to.
    
            NBCU will also have to grapple with McDaniel, who spent the last 24 hours or so interviewing lawyers as she gears up for a possible legal fight with the network, according to a person familiar with the matter. The rift between McDaniel and NBCU had grown to such an extent by Tuesday that she was not informed by network brass that she had been dismissed, I’m told. Instead, McDaniel learned of her ouster in press reports.
    
            While NBCU is being beaten up on the right, the company’s leadership was quickly praised by its journalists and top stars. Shortly after Conde sent out his memo, Rachel Maddow appeared on Joy Reid’s show, where the two lauded Conde for reversing course.
    
            “I think it is a show of strength and a show of respect for the people who work at this company and make us who we are,” Maddow said. “That leadership was willing to change on this, I’m grateful to them.”",CNN,27/03/2024,"['Only 80 hours elapsed between NBC News announcing Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor and the network ousting her from that very role.', 'But for the leadership at NBC Universal News Group, those were 80painful hours.', 'On Tuesday evening, following another full day in which the media rumor mill churned at warp speed, NBCU News Group boss Cesar Conde sent staff a memo, notifying his troops that he had reversed his decision to welcome the former Republican National Committee chair to “the team.”', '“After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor,” Conde said, adding that he wanted to “personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down.”', 'Conde had no real choice.', 'The embattled NBCU boss, who I’m told dealt with the crisis from an unknown location outside of 30 Rock, was facing an unprecedented rebellion from his most high-profile stars, who one by one went on the air and excoriated leadership’s decision to hire McDaniel.', 'The only aspect of Conde’s note that was surprising was the fact that it came 48 hours late, allowing what started off as a crisis to fester and balloon into one of the worst corporate public relations calamities in recent memory.', '“What a sh*t show!”', 'a media executive exclaimed to me Tuesday shortly after Conde relieved McDaniel of her NBC News credentials.', 'In his note, Conde said he took “full responsibility” for McDaniel’s hire.', 'But, he also did point the finger, telling staffers that hiring her was “a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team.”', 'Indeed, multiple people familiar with the matter have told me that the infighting among NBC executives over who was at fault for the disaster has reached a fever pitch, with various factions of the NBCU News Group assigning blame to others.', 'Regardless of who is to blame, the entire affair made clear who is actually in control of the company — and it’s not Conde & Co. Despite the NBCU C-suite digging their heels in the sand as they resisted dumping McDaniel for days, they were ultimately forced to succumb to pressure from their talent.', 'As a second media executive commented to me, it is now “very clear who is in charge” after the “weak leadership was put on full display.”', '“Has Cesar lost the room?”', 'wondered a third media executive.', 'While the Peacock family argues over who was really at fault, the company is facing a fresh public relations mess.', 'Led by Donald Trump, right-wing personalities are already assailing the network as being overrun with intolerant woke leftists.', '“These Radical Left Lunatics are CRAZY and the top people at NBC ARE WEAK,” Trump raged on his Truth Social platform.', 'Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary under President George W. Bush, wrote on X: “What NBC is saying is if you’re for Trump, you don’t belong.', 'Good.', 'Let NBC be for Democrats only.”', 'Of course, that narrative is intellectually dishonest.', 'The objection to McDaniel from both within and outside of NBCU was not that she is a Republican.', 'It wasn’t even that she was a Trump-supporting Republican.', 'No, the objection stemmed from the fact that McDaniel was an active participant in the plot to subvert the 2020 vote.', 'And, in addition to that disgraceful history, she had a lengthy track record smearing NBC News and MSNBC.', 'Nevertheless, NBCU will now have to contend with such dishonest attacks being leveled by the right, which will follow them in the days, months, and even years to come.', 'As unfair as it may be, they will certainly damage the network’s brand in Republican circles — a place it had gone through great pains to appeal to.', 'NBCU will also have to grapple with McDaniel, who spent the last 24 hours or so interviewing lawyers as she gears up for a possible legal fight with the network, according to a person familiar with the matter.', 'The rift between McDaniel and NBCU had grown to such an extent by Tuesday that she was not informed by network brass that she had been dismissed, I’m told.', 'Instead, McDaniel learned of her ouster in press reports.', 'While NBCU is being beaten up on the right, the company’s leadership was quickly praised by its journalists and top stars.', 'Shortly after Conde sent out his memo, Rachel Maddow appeared on Joy Reid’s show, where the two lauded Conde for reversing course.', '“I think it is a show of strength and a show of respect for the people who work at this company and make us who we are,” Maddow said. “', 'That leadership was willing to change on this, I’m grateful to them.”']",-0.0743400881523301,"“I think it is a show of strength and a show of respect for the people who work at this company and make us who we are,” Maddow said. “","“These Radical Left Lunatics are CRAZY and the top people at NBC ARE WEAK,” Trump raged on his Truth Social platform.",-0.3914040706374428,"While NBCU is being beaten up on the right, the company’s leadership was quickly praised by its journalists and top stars.","As unfair as it may be, they will certainly damage the network’s brand in Republican circles — a place it had gone through great pains to appeal to.",2024-04-29
Far-right network OAN retracts false story about Michael Cohen affair with Stormy Daniels,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/29/business/oan-retracts-michael-cohen-stormy-daniels/index.html,"
  Published
        3:53 PM EDT, Mon April 29, 2024
    ","The far-right cable network One America News retracted a story and apologized Monday after it falsely claimed former President Donald Trump’s ex lawyer Michael Cohen was the one who had an affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels and secretly used it to “extort” the Trump Organization.
    
            Cohen and Daniels are both key witnesses against Trump in his ongoing New York state criminal trial. Trump is accused of falsifying business records to cover-up the $130,000 payment that Daniels received so she wouldn’t publicly reveal their alleged affair before the 2016 election.
    
            Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies the affair.
    
            The announcement from OAN contained a public apology to Cohen “for any harm the publication may have caused him” and said that the network “regrets” publishing the “false” allegations about a Cohen-Daniel affair, which they both denied. The network said the story would be removed from its website and social media accounts.
    
            The retraction did not include a financial payment, according to a person familiar with the matter.
    
            The article was published last month and claimed, according to a single unnamed source, that Cohen and Daniels were in a years-long affair and that “the whole hush money scheme was cooked up” by Cohen. The false allegations appear to originate from a right-wing figure who posted the allegations on X, formerly Twitter.
    
            “The notion that right before the election I would extort the man I fervently supported and believed was about to become president, all to make $130,000 that I did not even keep for myself, is beyond absurd. It’s just plain stupid,” Cohen said in a statement.
    
            The acknowledgement from OAN that it had published false claims marks the latest example of how right-wing media outlets continue to face consequences for promoting pro-Trump disinformation. OAN recently settled a defamation lawsuit with Smartmatic, a voting technology company that was falsely accused of rigging the 2020 election against Trump. The terms of that deal aren’t public.
    
            The speed at which OAN settled the Cohen dispute – just four weeks after the story was published – speaks to the potential peril that the small network could face from additional defamation lawsuits.
    
            Cohen hired veteran attorney Justin Nelson after OAN published the story last month. Nelson is best known for representing Dominion Voting Systems in its blockbuster defamation case against Fox News, which ended with a historic $787 million settlement last year.
    
            “Today’s retraction by OAN represents a victory for accountability,” Nelson said in a statement. “This retraction is not about money. It is about protecting the truth.”
    
            An attorney for OAN didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
    
            OAN has established itself as perhaps the most extreme of the pro-Trump news outlets. The little-watched network has regularly given airtime to baseless conspiracy theories, most prominently in the wake of the 2020 election.
    
            Its reporters have sometimes crossed the line into right-wing politicking. For instance, an OAN correspondent who simultaneously worked with the Trump campaign on its 2020 fake electors was indicted last week in Arizona in connection with the electors scheme.
    
            OAN still faces a separate defamation lawsuit brought by Nelson’s law firm on behalf of Dominion over its promotion of 2020 election lies.",CNN,29/04/2024,"['The far-right cable network One America News retracted a story and apologized Monday after it falsely claimed former President Donald Trump’s ex lawyer Michael Cohen was the one who had an affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels and secretly used it to “extort” the Trump Organization.', 'Cohen and Daniels are both key witnesses against Trump in his ongoing New York state criminal trial.', 'Trump is accused of falsifying business records to cover-up the $130,000 payment that Daniels received so she wouldn’t publicly reveal their alleged affair before the 2016 election.', 'Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies the affair.', 'The announcement from OAN contained apublic apologyto Cohen “for any harm the publication may have caused him” and said that the network “regrets” publishing the “false” allegations about a Cohen-Daniel affair, which they both denied.', 'The network said the story would be removed from its website and social media accounts.', 'The retraction did not include a financial payment, according to a person familiar with the matter.', 'The article was published last month and claimed, according to a single unnamed source, that Cohen and Daniels were in a years-long affair and that “the whole hush money scheme was cooked up” by Cohen.', 'The false allegations appear to originate from a right-wing figure who posted the allegations on X, formerly Twitter.', '“The notion that right before the election I would extort the man I fervently supported and believed was about to become president, all to make $130,000 that I did not even keep for myself, is beyond absurd.', 'It’s just plain stupid,” Cohen said in a statement.', 'The acknowledgement from OAN that it had published false claims marks the latest example of how right-wing media outlets continue to face consequences for promoting pro-Trump disinformation.', 'OANrecently settleda defamation lawsuit with Smartmatic, a voting technology company that was falsely accused of rigging the 2020 election against Trump.', 'The terms of that deal aren’t public.', 'The speed at which OAN settled the Cohen dispute – just four weeks after the story was published – speaks to the potential peril that the small network could face from additional defamation lawsuits.', 'Cohen hired veteran attorneyJustin Nelsonafter OAN published the story last month.', 'Nelson is best known for representing Dominion Voting Systems in its blockbuster defamation case against Fox News, which ended with a historic $787 million settlement last year.', '“Today’s retraction by OAN represents a victory for accountability,” Nelson said in a statement. “', 'This retraction is not about money.', 'It is about protecting the truth.”', 'An attorney for OAN didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.', 'OAN has established itself as perhapsthe most extremeof the pro-Trump news outlets.', 'The little-watched network has regularly given airtime to baseless conspiracy theories, most prominently in the wake of the 2020 election.', 'Its reporters have sometimes crossed the line into right-wing politicking.', 'For instance, an OAN correspondent who simultaneouslyworked with the Trump campaignon its 2020 fake electors wasindicted last weekin Arizona in connection with the electors scheme.', 'OAN still faces a separate defamation lawsuit brought by Nelson’s law firm on behalf of Dominion over its promotion of 2020 election lies.']",-0.0847401291775289,"Nelson is best known for representing Dominion Voting Systems in its blockbuster defamation case against Fox News, which ended with a historic $787 million settlement last year.","The announcement from OAN contained apublic apologyto Cohen “for any harm the publication may have caused him” and said that the network “regrets” publishing the “false” allegations about a Cohen-Daniel affair, which they both denied.",-0.1569781899452209,"“Today’s retraction by OAN represents a victory for accountability,” Nelson said in a statement. “",The speed at which OAN settled the Cohen dispute – just four weeks after the story was published – speaks to the potential peril that the small network could face from additional defamation lawsuits.,2024-04-29
Safety regulator probing whether Tesla’s recall of 2 million vehicles with Autopilot was adequate to fix safety threat,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/26/business/tesla-recall-probe-safety-threat/index.html,"
  Published
        10:41 AM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","Federal safety regulators said they are investigating whether Tesla’s massive recall in December of essentially all of its vehicles on US roads was sufficient to fix the safety threat posed by its “Autopilot” feature.
    
            The recall of 2 million Tesla vehicles was ordered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over a software update that is designed to limit the use of its Autopilot feature. The NHTSA had said in December that the two-year probe of roughly 1,000 crashes in which the feature was engaged found it gave drivers a false sense of security and could be easily misused in certain dangerous situations when the technology may be unable to safely navigate the road.
    
            The NHTSA said late Thursday that Tesla’s software update recall requires the owner to opt in and allows a driver to readily reverse it. The NHTSA said it is “therefore opening this recall query investigation to further evaluate the adequacy of the remedy.”
    
            This latest probe is a blow to Tesla and CEO Elon Musk’s efforts to market the cars as effectively able to drive themselves, a luxury feature that makes the vehicles and the company more valuable. Earlier this week, Musk claimed the company would soon unveil plans for a fleet of “robotaxis,” a service that would give Tesla owners the option to earn money by having their vehicles provide driverless taxi rides when the owners aren’t using them.
    
            Tesla and Musk have claimed that cars using Autopilot features — which are available on virtually all Teslas, as well as the more robust “Full Self Driving” feature that comes at a premium price — are safer than human drivers. But NHTSA said its investigation identified at least 13 crashes involving one or more fatalities and many more involving serious injuries in which “foreseeable driver misuse” of the system played an apparent role.
    
            The software update ordered in December was designed to give Tesla drivers more warnings when they are not paying attention to the road while using the Autopilot’s “Autosteer” function. Those notifications were to remind drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and pay attention to the road, according to a statement at the time from NHTSA.
    
            After the recall, Tesla vehicles with Autosteer turned on were supposed to check on the driver’s attention level more routinely. The feature might disengage when it determines the driver isn’t paying attention, the car is approaching traffic controls or it’s off the highway when Autosteer alone isn’t sufficient to drive the car.
    
            Despite the Autopilot name and the way Tesla is marketing the feature, Tesla’s owners manuals say: “Autosteer is intended for use only on highways and limited-access roads with a fully attentive driver.”
    
            Tesla, which has not responded to requests for comment from CNN for several years, did not respond to a request for comment on this latest investigation.",CNN,26/04/2024,"['Federal safety regulators said they are investigating whether Tesla’s massive recall in December of essentially all of its vehicles on US roads was sufficient to fix the safety threat posed by its “Autopilot” feature.', 'The recall of 2 million Tesla vehicles was ordered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over a software update that is designed to limit the use of its Autopilot feature.', 'The NHTSA had said in December that the two-year probe of roughly 1,000 crashes in which the feature was engaged found it gave drivers a false sense of security and could be easily misused in certain dangerous situations when the technology may be unable to safely navigate the road.', 'The NHTSA said late Thursday that Tesla’s software update recall requires the owner to opt in and allows a driver to readily reverse it.', 'The NHTSA said it is “therefore opening this recall query investigation to further evaluate the adequacy of the remedy.”', 'This latest probe is a blow to Tesla and CEO Elon Musk’s efforts to market the cars as effectively able to drive themselves, a luxury feature that makes the vehicles and the company more valuable.', 'Earlier this week, Musk claimed the company would soon unveil plans for a fleet of “robotaxis,” a service that would give Tesla owners the option to earn money by having their vehicles provide driverless taxi rides when the owners aren’t using them.', 'Tesla and Musk have claimed that cars using Autopilot features — which are available on virtually all Teslas, as well as the more robust “Full Self Driving” feature that comes at a premium price — are safer than human drivers.', 'But NHTSA said its investigation identified at least 13 crashes involving one or more fatalities and many more involving serious injuries in which “foreseeable driver misuse” of the system played an apparent role.', 'The software update ordered in December was designed to give Tesla drivers more warnings when they are not paying attention to the road while using the Autopilot’s “Autosteer” function.', 'Those notifications were to remind drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and pay attention to the road, according to a statement at the time from NHTSA.', 'After the recall, Tesla vehicles with Autosteer turned on were supposed to check on the driver’s attention level more routinely.', 'The feature might disengage when it determines the driver isn’t paying attention, the car is approaching traffic controls or it’s off the highway when Autosteer alone isn’t sufficient to drive the car.', 'Despite the Autopilot name and the way Tesla is marketing the feature, Tesla’s owners manuals say: “Autosteer is intended for use only on highways and limited-access roads with a fully attentive driver.”', 'Tesla, which has not responded to requests for comment from CNN for several years, did not respond to a request for comment on this latest investigation.']",0.0957556278129312,"The NHTSA had said in December that the two-year probe of roughly 1,000 crashes in which the feature was engaged found it gave drivers a false sense of security and could be easily misused in certain dangerous situations when the technology may be unable to safely navigate the road.",But NHTSA said its investigation identified at least 13 crashes involving one or more fatalities and many more involving serious injuries in which “foreseeable driver misuse” of the system played an apparent role.,-0.2344114383061727,"Tesla and Musk have claimed that cars using Autopilot features — which are available on virtually all Teslas, as well as the more robust “Full Self Driving” feature that comes at a premium price — are safer than human drivers.","The NHTSA had said in December that the two-year probe of roughly 1,000 crashes in which the feature was engaged found it gave drivers a false sense of security and could be easily misused in certain dangerous situations when the technology may be unable to safely navigate the road.",2024-04-29
Boeing to pay $443 million to airlines for Max 9 grounding as losses and problems mount,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/24/business/boeing-losses/index.html,"
  Updated
        3:10 PM EDT, Wed April 24, 2024
    ","Boeing reported a slightly smaller loss in the first quarter compared to the same time a year ago, but said fixing the problems that got attention after the Alaska Air incident will push back its financial recovery and cost it $443 million in compensation to its airline customers.
    
            Boeing reported a core operating loss of $388 million, or $1.13 a share, from the $440 million it lost on that basis a year earlier. That was significantly less than analysts’ forecast of $1.63 a share in the quarter. But the improvement came from outside its key commercial airplanes unit, where losses from operations nearly doubled to $1.1 billion.
    
            Revenue tumbled $1.4 billion, or 8% to $16.6 billion, as the problems at the airplane maker resulted in a sharp drop in deliveries of jets to its airline customers. The company gets most of its money from sales of commercial planes only upon deliveries to customers.
    
            The slightly better than expected financial results don’t make up for a company struggling with questions from Congress, regulators and the traveling public about the quality and safety of its aircraft. It is not only scrambling to repair its badly damaged reputation but also to satisfy airline customers being hurt by not receiving the aircraft they had been promised. Boeing said it is taking the necessary steps to fix the quality issues. But those fixes will continue to cause additional losses and missed delivery targets in the months ahead.
    
            Boeing said it would produce fewer 737 Max jets than it originally planned for the rest of this year as it tries to fix problems on its assembly lines. Production of its larger 787 Dreamliner will also be limited by supplier issues, it said.
    
            “We will take the time necessary to strengthen our quality and safety management systems, and this work will position us for a stronger and more stable future,” said CEO Dave Calhoun, who announced during the quarter his plans to leave his post by the end of the year.
    
            The company said the results were hurt by the compensation to airline customers for the three-week grounding of the 737 Max 9 jets, following a January 5 incident in which a door plug blew off of an Alaska Airlines flight leaving a gaping hole in the side of the plane shortly after take-off.
    
            Alaska Air and United Airlines, the two carriers with the most 737 Max 9 planes in their fleets, have already announced they had reached compensation agreements with Boeing.
    
            The incident has sparked a series of investigations into Boeing by the National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Justice Department, the latter of which could expose the company to criminal liability. It also focused attention on the safety and quality of its aircraft, and its way of treating employees who raise concerns about those issues, including congressional hearings.
    
            Boeing has said it has made a new commitment to improving its quality and safety issues and that it wants employees with concerns to bring them forward.
    
            Calhoun said he’s confident that Boeing will be able to make the changes it needs to return to profitability for the first time since 2018, but he said the changes it will be making will delay the timeline to be profitable once again.
    
            “While this effort will slow our recovery timing, we are now seeing proof points that give us confidence that we’ll begin to stabilize and improve performance moving forward,” he said on the company’s investors call.
    
            The company would not give any guidance for how much money it will lose this year or exactly when it expects to be profitable. Calhoun said the company is confident with its goal of producing positive cash flow of $10 billion a year, although he said it is now looking to do that later in the 2025 to 2026 window it had set as its goal.
    
            “We are absolutely committed to doing everything that we can to make certain our regulators, our customers, and most importantly, our employees and the public are 100% confident in Boeing,” he said. “It is important that our people and our stakeholders understand how promising Boeing’s future looks. Demand across our portfolio remains incredibly strong. Our people are world class. There’s a lot of work in front of us, but I’m proud of our team and remain fully confident in our future.”
    
            But credit rating agency Moody’s doesn’t have as much confidence in Boeing’s outlook for turning things around. It downgraded the company’s credit rating to Baa2, just one step above junk bond status, and it gave it a negative outlook, suggesting another downgrade could be on the horizon.
    
            Moody’s said it believes “the headwinds buffeting commercial airplanes will now persist at least through 2026.” And it said that the company’s projected annual cash flow will fall short of the $4.3 billion of debt coming due in 2025 and also the $8.0 billion coming due in 2026, and that Boeing will therefore have to issue new debt to fund those shortfalls.
    
            Shares of Boeing (BA), which had lost 35% so far this year through Tuesday’s close, were down another 3% in afternoon trading following the investors call, after being up more than 3% in early trading on the smaller-than-forecast loss.
    
            Boeing has had a string of losses and problems with its planes’ quality dating back at least five years. Two fatal crashes of the 737 Max in late 2018 and early 2019 that killed 346 people were tied to a design flaw in the plane and led to a 20-month grounding of Boeing’s best-selling model. It had subsequent problems with the quality of jets once the 737 Max was returned to service.
    
            All told the company has reported core operating losses of $31.9 billion since the start of the grounding in 2019.
    
            But it reported a record month for orders in December, capping what had been one of its best years ever in terms of commercial jet sales. Deliveries also reached a five-year high, and it even reported a rare core operating profit of $90 million for the fourth quarter of 2023. It also announced plans to increase production of the 737 Max throughout 2024 in order to return to sustained profitability.
    
            But by the time it reported those better results for 2023, the incident aboard the Alaska Air flight had already occurred, dashing hopes that it was about to put its financial problems behind it.
    
            While the NTSB has not determined who specifically is at fault for the accident, a preliminary investigation has found that the jet left a Boeing factory missing the four bolts needed to hold the door plug in place.
    
            This story has been updated to reflect additional reporting and context.",CNN,24/04/2024,"['Boeing reported a slightly smaller loss in the first quarter compared to the same time a year ago, but said fixing the problems that got attention after the Alaska Air incident will push back its financial recovery and cost it $443 million in compensation to its airline customers.', 'Boeing reported a core operating loss of $388 million, or$1.13 a share, from the $440 million it lost on that basis a year earlier.', 'That was significantly less than analysts’ forecast of $1.63 a share in the quarter.', 'But the improvement came from outside its key commercial airplanes unit, where losses from operations nearly doubled to $1.1 billion.', 'Revenue tumbled $1.4 billion, or 8% to $16.6 billion, as the problems at the airplane maker resulted in a sharp drop in deliveries of jets to its airline customers.', 'The company gets most of its money from sales of commercial planes only upon deliveries to customers.', 'The slightly better than expected financial results don’t make up for a company struggling with questions from Congress, regulators and the traveling public about the quality and safety of its aircraft.', 'It is not only scrambling to repair its badly damaged reputation but also to satisfy airline customers being hurt by not receiving the aircraft they had been promised.', 'Boeing said it is taking the necessary steps to fix the quality issues.', 'But those fixes will continue to cause additional losses and missed delivery targets in the months ahead.', 'Boeing said it would produce fewer 737 Max jets than it originally planned for the rest of this year as it tries to fix problems on its assembly lines.', 'Production of its larger 787 Dreamliner will also be limited by supplier issues, it said.', '“We will take the time necessary to strengthen our quality and safety management systems, and this work will position us for a stronger and more stable future,” said CEO Dave Calhoun, who announced during the quarter his plans to leave his post by the end of the year.', 'The company said the results were hurt by the compensation to airline customers for the three-week grounding of the 737 Max 9 jets, following a January 5 incident in which a door plug blew off of an Alaska Airlines flight leaving a gaping hole in the side of the plane shortly after take-off.', 'Alaska Air and United Airlines, the two carriers with the most 737 Max 9 planes in their fleets, have already announced they had reached compensation agreements with Boeing.', 'The incident has sparked a series of investigations into Boeing by the National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Justice Department, the latter of whichcould expose the company to criminal liability.', 'It also focused attention on the safety and quality of its aircraft, and its way of treating employees who raise concerns about those issues, including congressional hearings.', 'Boeing has said it has made a new commitment to improving its quality and safety issues and that it wants employees with concerns to bring them forward.', 'Calhoun said he’s confident that Boeing will be able to make the changes it needs to return to profitability for the first time since 2018, but he said the changes it will be making will delay the timeline to be profitable once again.', '“While this effort will slow our recovery timing, we are now seeing proof points that give us confidence that we’ll begin to stabilize and improve performance moving forward,” he said on the company’s investors call.', 'The company would not give any guidance for how much money it will lose this year or exactly when it expects to be profitable.', 'Calhoun said the company is confident with its goal of producing positive cash flow of $10 billion a year, although he said it is now looking to do that later in the 2025 to 2026 window it had set as its goal.', '“We are absolutely committed to doing everything that we can to make certain our regulators, our customers, and most importantly, our employees and the public are 100% confident in Boeing,” he said. “', 'It is important that our people and our stakeholders understand how promising Boeing’s future looks.', 'Demand across our portfolio remains incredibly strong.', 'Our people are world class.', 'There’s a lot of work in front of us, but I’m proud of our team and remain fully confident in our future.”', 'But credit rating agency Moody’s doesn’t have as much confidence in Boeing’s outlook for turning things around.', 'It downgraded the company’s credit rating to Baa2, just one step above junk bond status, and it gave it a negative outlook, suggesting another downgrade could be on the horizon.', 'Moody’s said it believes “the headwinds buffeting commercial airplanes will now persist at least through 2026.”', 'And it said that the company’s projected annual cash flow will fall short of the $4.3 billion of debt coming due in 2025 and also the $8.0 billion coming due in 2026, and that Boeing will therefore have to issue new debt to fund those shortfalls.', 'Shares of Boeing (BA), which had lost 35% so far this year through Tuesday’s close, were down another 3% in afternoon trading following the investors call, after being up more than 3% in early trading on the smaller-than-forecast loss.', 'Boeing has had a string of losses and problems with its planes’ quality dating back at least five years.', 'Two fatal crashes of the 737 Max in late 2018 and early 2019 that killed 346 people were tied to a design flaw in the plane and led to a 20-month grounding of Boeing’s best-selling model.', 'It had subsequent problems with the quality of jets once the 737 Max was returned to service.', 'All told the company has reported core operating losses of $31.9 billion since the start of the grounding in 2019.', 'But it reported a record month for orders in December, capping what had been one of its best years ever in terms of commercial jet sales.', 'Deliveries also reached a five-year high, and it even reported a rare core operating profit of $90 million for the fourth quarter of 2023.', 'It also announced plans to increase production of the 737 Max throughout 2024 in order to return to sustained profitability.', 'But by the time it reported those better results for 2023, the incident aboard the Alaska Air flight had already occurred, dashing hopes that it was about to put its financial problems behind it.', 'While the NTSB has not determined who specifically is at fault for the accident, a preliminary investigation has found that the jet left a Boeing factory missing the four bolts needed to hold the door plug in place.', 'This story has been updated to reflect additional reporting and context.']",0.0908351697030392,"There’s a lot of work in front of us, but I’m proud of our team and remain fully confident in our future.”","While the NTSB has not determined who specifically is at fault for the accident, a preliminary investigation has found that the jet left a Boeing factory missing the four bolts needed to hold the door plug in place.",-0.0024194962838116,It also announced plans to increase production of the 737 Max throughout 2024 in order to return to sustained profitability.,"Revenue tumbled $1.4 billion, or 8% to $16.6 billion, as the problems at the airplane maker resulted in a sharp drop in deliveries of jets to its airline customers.",2024-04-29
Elon Musk wins official praise for Tesla during surprise visit to China,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/29/cars/elon-musk-surprise-visit-china-premier-li-intl-hnk/index.html,"
  Published
        5:36 AM EDT, Mon April 29, 2024
    ","Elon Musk has made a surprise visit to China as he bids to shore up Tesla’s slumping sales and introduce the carmaker’s self-driving technology in its second biggest market in the face of ferocious competition.
    
            His second trip to the country in less than a year included a meeting Sunday with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who praised Tesla as a “successful model” for US-China collaboration.
    
            The Tesla (TSLA) chief was in town to seek Beijing’s approval for the rollout of Full Self-Driving (FSD) software in China and the transfer of its data overseas, according to a Reuters report.
    
            Virtually all Teslas have a driver-assistance system called Autopilot, while the more robust FSD feature comes at a premium price. Autopilot is available in China, but not the full FSD feature, which needs to comply with the country’s data security rules.
    
            Musk appeared to have made progress on his goals during the two-day trip, which ended on Monday.
    
            On Sunday, the China Association of Auto Manufacturers said in a statement that Tesla’s Model 3 and Y vehicles had passed China’s data security requirements.
    
            Its cars had previously been barred from entering some sensitive areas in China due to spying and data security concerns. And since 2021, the company has been required to store local user data at a facility within the country because it faced scrutiny over whether its cars could ever be used for spying.
    
            Tesla has also reached a deal with Chinese tech giant Baidu (BIDU) to form a partnership on mapping and navigation functions ahead of plans to deploy the FSD system, according to a Bloomberg report.
    
            CNN has reached out to Tesla. Baidu has declined to comment.
    
            Tesla’s stock gained more than 6% on Wall Street in pre-market trading, while Baidu’s shares closed up 2.4% on Monday in Hong Kong. Tesla shares have fallen 32% so far this year.
    
            Musk’s trip coincided with the Beijing Auto Show, which opened last week, where global and Chinese EV makers are displaying their latest models and vying to draw consumers and attention in the world’s biggest EV market.
    
            Tesla has recently made further aggressive price cuts in China and other major markets in the face of declining sales and growing competition.
    
            “This is a watershed moment for Musk as well as Beijing at a time that Tesla has faced massive domestic EV competition in China along with softer demand,” said Dan Ives, managing director and senior equity research analyst for Wedbush Securities.
    
            He said making FSD available in China has been “a key piece missing in the puzzle” for Tesla’s autonomous technology. But that’s not all.
    
            If Musk is able to obtain approval from Beijing to transfer data collected in China abroad, according to Ives, it would be a “game changer” in terms of the acceleration of training its algorithms for its autonomous technology globally.
    
            “We also believe this trip will be significant for Tesla and Musk further strengthening its EV footprint within the Chinese market at a pivotal time,” he said.
    
            Musk’s trip comes just days after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken completed a visit to Beijing by meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping as the two countries try to stabilize ties.
    
            Premier Li was full of praise for Tesla, which vies with China’s BYD for the title of the world’s top seller of battery electric cars.
    
            “The economies of China and the United States are deeply integrated,” he said, according to an official readout of the meeting with the Tesla CEO. “You have me, and I have you. Both sides can benefit from each other’s development.”
    
            Musk praised Tesla’s Gigafactory in Shanghai, which Li backed during his tenure as the city’s party secretary, calling it the company’s “best-performing” factory.
    
            “Tesla is willing to further deepen cooperation with China and achieve more win-win results,” Musk told Li.
    
            Also on Sunday, Musk met with Ren Hongbin, chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, a government-backed trade body that  invited him to Beijing on this trip.
    
            The two talked about Tesla’s future development in China and the prospect of strengthening exchanges between the American and Chinese business communities, according to the CPPIT’s statement.
    
            On Monday, Musk posted about his meeting with Li on both X, the social media platform that he owns, and Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of X — where he has 2.2 million followers.
    
            “Honored to meet with Premier Li Qiang. We have known each other now for many years, since early Shanghai days,” he said, attaching a screenshot of the meeting from Chinese state media.
    
            Musk first met Li in 2018, when Tesla signed a deal with the Shanghai government to open a plant there. Li was then Shanghai’s party boss and seen as a rising political star.
    
            According to Chinese state media, Li provided major support to Tesla and allowed the US company to become the sole owner of its Shanghai factory, while all other foreign automakers were required to partner with local firms.
    
            Since then, Musk has met with Li publicly at least five times, according to state media reports and government statements.",CNN,29/04/2024,"['Elon Musk has made a surprise visit to China as he bids to shore up Tesla’s slumping sales and introduce the carmaker’s self-driving technology in its second biggest market in the face of ferocious competition.', 'His second trip to the country in less than a year included a meeting Sunday with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who praised Tesla as a “successful model” for US-China collaboration.', 'The Tesla (TSLA) chief was in town to seek Beijing’s approval for the rollout of Full Self-Driving (FSD) software in China and the transfer of its data overseas, according to a Reuters report.', 'Virtually all Teslas have a driver-assistance system called Autopilot, while the more robust FSD feature comes at a premium price.', 'Autopilot is available in China, but not the full FSD feature, which needs to comply with the country’s data security rules.', 'Musk appeared to have made progress on his goals during the two-day trip, which ended on Monday.', 'On Sunday, the China Association of Auto Manufacturers said in a statement that Tesla’s Model 3 and Y vehicles had passed China’s data security requirements.', 'Its cars had previously been barred from entering some sensitive areas in China due to spying and data security concerns.', 'And since 2021, the company has been required to store local user data at a facility within the country because it faced scrutinyover whether its cars could ever be used for spying.', 'Tesla has also reached a deal with Chinese tech giant Baidu (BIDU) to form a partnership on mapping and navigation functions ahead of plans to deploy the FSD system,according to a Bloomberg report.', 'CNN has reached out to Tesla.', 'Baidu has declined to comment.', 'Tesla’s stock gained more than 6% on Wall Street in pre-market trading, while Baidu’s shares closed up 2.4% on Monday in Hong Kong.', 'Tesla shares have fallen 32% so far this year.', 'Musk’s trip coincided with the Beijing Auto Show, which opened last week, where global and Chinese EV makers are displaying their latest models and vying to draw consumers and attention in the world’s biggest EV market.', 'Tesla has recently made further aggressive price cuts in China and other major markets in the face of declining sales and growing competition.', '“This is a watershed moment for Musk as well as Beijing at a time that Tesla has faced massive domestic EV competition in China along with softer demand,” said Dan Ives, managing director and senior equity research analyst for Wedbush Securities.', 'He said making FSD available in China has been“a key piece missing in the puzzle” for Tesla’s autonomous technology.', 'But that’s not all.', 'If Musk is able to obtain approval from Beijing to transfer data collected in China abroad, according to Ives, it would be a “game changer” in terms of the acceleration of training its algorithms for its autonomous technology globally.', '“We also believe this trip will be significant for Tesla and Musk further strengthening its EV footprint within the Chinese market at a pivotal time,” he said.', 'Musk’s trip comes just days after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken completed a visit to Beijing by meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping as the two countries try to stabilize ties.', 'Premier Li was full of praise for Tesla, which vies with China’s BYD for the title of the world’s top seller of battery electric cars.', '“The economies of China and the United States are deeply integrated,” he said, according to an official readout of the meeting with the Tesla CEO. “', 'You have me, and I have you.', 'Both sides can benefit from each other’s development.”', 'Musk praised Tesla’s Gigafactory in Shanghai, which Li backed during his tenure as the city’s party secretary, calling it the company’s “best-performing” factory.', '“Tesla is willing to further deepen cooperation with China and achieve more win-win results,” Musk told Li.', 'Also on Sunday, Musk met with Ren Hongbin, chairman of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, a government-backed trade body that invited him to Beijing on this trip.', 'The two talked about Tesla’s future development in China and the prospect of strengthening exchanges between the American and Chinese business communities, according to the CPPIT’s statement.', 'On Monday, Musk posted about his meeting with Li on both X, the social media platform that he owns, and Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of X —where he has 2.2 million followers.', '“Honored to meet with Premier Li Qiang.', 'We have known each other now for many years, since early Shanghai days,” he said, attaching a screenshot of the meeting from Chinese state media.', 'Musk first met Li in 2018, when Tesla signed a deal with the Shanghai government to open a plant there.', 'Li was then Shanghai’s party boss and seen as a rising political star.', 'According to Chinese state media, Li provided major support to Tesla and allowed the US company to become the sole owner of its Shanghai factory, while all other foreign automakers were required to partner with local firms.', 'Since then, Musk has met with Li publicly at least five times, according to state media reports and government statements.']",0.2831657382577211,"Musk praised Tesla’s Gigafactory in Shanghai, which Li backed during his tenure as the city’s party secretary, calling it the company’s “best-performing” factory.",He said making FSD available in China has been“a key piece missing in the puzzle” for Tesla’s autonomous technology.,0.6355094453867745,"Tesla’s stock gained more than 6% on Wall Street in pre-market trading, while Baidu’s shares closed up 2.4% on Monday in Hong Kong.",Tesla shares have fallen 32% so far this year.,2024-04-29
Top soccer clubs are using an AI-powered app to scout future stars,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/01/tech/aiscout-app-soccer-scouting-spc-intl/index.html,"
  Published
        7:14 AM EST, Fri March 1, 2024
    ","A London-based technology company is looking to “democratize” talent-identification and scouting in soccer using a mobile app.
    
            Free to download and available globally, the aiScout app allows aspiring soccer stars to enter virtual trials for professional clubs by uploading self-recorded footage of themselves completing a series of drills. It offers 75 exercises, designed to test a range of skills, with videos showing users how to complete them.
    
            Performances are automatically scored by artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The data can then be accessed by clubs, allowing their scouts to peruse scores for viable talent, honing their search with a variety of filters; from age and gender to position on the pitch.
    
            The app currently has two English Premier League (EPL) partners, Chelsea and Burnley, and clubs can tailor their in-app trials to meet specific needs and set their own benchmarks by having their academy players complete the same drills.
    
            “We’re putting that data up front to make better use of [the scouts’] time,” said Richard Felton-Thomas, chief operating officer of ai.io, the company behind the app.
    
            “To say [to scouts], ‘Go over to this place today because there’s three players in that game that are all actually beating your Chelsea standard’ — that’s going to be the best use of your time.’”
    
            It already appears to be working for some. Ben Greenwood had never had a trial with a professional club until he downloaded the app in 2019. After uploading footage of himself, the 17-year-old landed a trial with Chelsea, becoming the first user of the app to get a trial with a pro club. He signed a contract with EPL team Bournemouth in 2021.
    
            Having beta-tested in with players spanning 125 countries, Greenwood among them, 135 players have been trialed or signed by pro clubs or national teams through the app — which fully launched in September 2023 — according to Felton-Thomas.
    
            Just over 100,000 players make up the current database, but with over 100 clubs lined up to join Chelsea and Burnley, as well as a multi-year partnership with Major League Soccer in the US announced last May, Felton-Thomas projects user numbers to surge into the millions as the operation ramps up this year.
    
            Felton-Thomas said the “lion’s share” of its income comes from charging clubs a license fee to run the platform. Annual fees vary depending on the size of the club and the tools they require, ranging from six figures for “tier one” sides like Chelsea, to thousands of pounds for clubs lower down the footballing pyramid.
    
            The use of smart technology in sport continues to expand, including AI commentary tools and wearable tech for elite athletes. The global market for sports analytics, valued at $2.7 billion in 2023, is projected to grow 22% by the end of the decade, according to market research firm Grand View Research.
    
            Should soccer talent scouts be concerned about being edged out by the arrival of AI in their industry? For Felton-Thomas, new technologies can co-exist with traditional methods.
    
            “It’s more about evolution than revolution,” Felton-Thomas explained.
    
            “We can’t tell you when that player’s actually in that match, how does he deal with adversity? What happens when he’s 2-0 down? What happens when someone’s shouting at him? What happens when he’s just made a massive mistake?”
    
            “We’ve got the ability to just augment real people to do their jobs better and faster, which then gives an opportunity to the player through the AI, but you’re still actually just connecting them to the human on the other side, which is the club and the scout.”
    
            While football remains ai.io’s primary focus, the company is looking into opportunities in other sports to launch in the coming years. Further ahead, it may branch out beyond sports.
    
            “You think about the notion that you can be at home and analyze your movements, and how this could spin into health care, physical assessments for military disciplines and emergency services,” Felton-Thomas told CNN.",CNN,01/03/2024,"['A London-based technology company is looking to “democratize” talent-identification and scouting in soccer using a mobile app.', 'Free to download and available globally, the aiScout app allows aspiring soccer stars to enter virtual trials for professional clubs by uploading self-recorded footage of themselves completing a series of drills.', 'It offers 75 exercises, designed to test a range of skills, with videos showing users how to complete them.', 'Performances are automatically scored by artificial intelligence (AI) technology.', 'The data can then be accessed by clubs, allowing their scouts to peruse scores for viable talent, honing their search with a variety of filters; from age and gender to position on the pitch.', 'The app currently has two English Premier League (EPL) partners, Chelsea and Burnley, and clubs can tailor their in-app trials to meet specific needs and set their own benchmarks by having their academy players complete the same drills.', '“We’re putting that data up front to make better use of [the scouts’] time,” said Richard Felton-Thomas, chief operating officer of ai.io, the company behind the app.', '“To say [to scouts], ‘Go over to this place today because there’s three players in that game that are all actually beating your Chelsea standard’ — that’s going to be the best use of your time.’”', 'It already appears to be working for some.', 'Ben Greenwood had never had a trial with a professional club until he downloaded the app in 2019.', 'After uploading footage of himself, the 17-year-old landed a trial with Chelsea, becoming the first user of the app to get a trial with a pro club.', 'He signed a contractwith EPL team Bournemouthin 2021.', 'Having beta-tested in with players spanning 125 countries, Greenwood among them, 135 players have been trialed or signed by pro clubs or national teams through the app — which fully launched in September 2023 — according to Felton-Thomas.', 'Just over 100,000 players make up the current database, but with over 100 clubs lined up to join Chelsea and Burnley, as well as a multi-year partnership with Major League Soccer in the US announced last May, Felton-Thomas projects user numbers to surge into the millions as the operation ramps up this year.', 'Felton-Thomas said the “lion’s share” of its income comes from charging clubs a license fee to run the platform.', 'Annual fees vary depending on the size of the club and the tools they require, ranging from six figures for “tier one” sides like Chelsea, to thousands of pounds for clubs lower down the footballing pyramid.', 'The use of smart technology in sport continues to expand, includingAI commentary tools and wearable tech for elite athletes.', 'The global market for sports analytics, valued at$2.7 billionin 2023, is projected to grow 22% by the end of the decade, according to market research firm Grand View Research.', 'Should soccer talent scouts be concerned about being edged out by the arrival of AI in their industry?', 'For Felton-Thomas, new technologies can co-exist with traditional methods.', '“It’s more about evolution than revolution,” Felton-Thomas explained.', '“We can’t tell you when that player’s actually in that match, how does he deal with adversity?', 'What happens when he’s 2-0 down?', 'What happens when someone’s shouting at him?', 'What happens when he’s just made a massive mistake?”', '“We’ve got the ability to just augment real people to do their jobs better and faster, which then gives an opportunity to the player through the AI, but you’re still actually just connecting them to the human on the other side, which is the club and the scout.”', 'While football remains ai.io’s primary focus, the company is looking into opportunities in other sports to launch in the coming years.', 'Further ahead, it may branch out beyond sports.', '“You think about the notion that you can be at home and analyze your movements, and how this could spin into health care, physical assessments for military disciplines and emergency services,” Felton-Thomas told CNN.']",0.2022322827681825,"The global market for sports analytics, valued at$2.7 billionin 2023, is projected to grow 22% by the end of the decade, according to market research firm Grand View Research.","“We can’t tell you when that player’s actually in that match, how does he deal with adversity?",0.6922526359558105,"The global market for sports analytics, valued at$2.7 billionin 2023, is projected to grow 22% by the end of the decade, according to market research firm Grand View Research.",Should soccer talent scouts be concerned about being edged out by the arrival of AI in their industry?,2024-04-29
EU investigates Meta over fears of election interference and foreign disinformation,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/29/tech/eu-investigates-meta-election-interference-foreign-disinformation/index.html,"
  Updated
        3:24 PM EDT, Mon April 29, 2024
    ","European Union officials are investigating Meta over concerns the company hasn’t done enough to protect upcoming EU elections or to combat foreign disinformation on its platforms, setting up the possibility of steep fines or other penalties.
    
            The new probe is focused on Meta’s handling of advertising by scammers and foreign election meddlers, said an EU source familiar with the investigation; the source was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. The probe focuses as well on a decision to shut down an analysis tool widely used by researchers and journalists to monitor Meta’s platforms.
    
            A driving factor in the investigation is a concern about Meta’s ability to respond to Russian disinformation campaigns that could undermine election integrity, the source added.
    
            The investigation is the latest example of European regulators flexing their muscle against US tech giants following the passage of a flurry of new laws designed to rein them in.
    
            The EU source said the investigation highlights apparent violations of Europe’s signature law governing online platforms, the Digital Services Act. If confirmed, the violations could lead to significant fines of up to 6% of Meta’s global revenue.
    
            As part of the probe, the EU source said they are also looking into whether decisions by Meta to rank political content lower in users’ feeds may violate the DSA’s transparency rules. They added that Meta’s tools for users to report illegal content don’t appear to align with the DSA’s requirements, either.
    
            The investigation comes after Meta submitted required materials to the European Commission last fall outlining how it manages perceived risks linked to its products. This investigation, however, reflects EU skepticism that Meta has successfully managed those risks.
    
            A key aspect of the investigation targets Meta’s decision to sunset CrowdTangle, a once-popular tool used by civil society groups to track trending conversations on Facebook and Instagram.
    
            Without it, the EU source said, users and researchers will have less visibility into what is happening on Meta services and could have a harder time detecting foreign election interference.
    
            Meta said earlier this year that CrowdTangle will no longer be available after August 14.
    
            Ending support for CrowdTangle without a good enough replacement, the EU source said, could make it harder to track misinformation and voter supression, hurting elections overall.
    
            In a statement, a Meta spokesperson said the company would cooperate with the probe.
    
            “We have a well-established process for identifying and mitigating risks on our platforms,” the spokesperson said. “We look forward to continuing our cooperation with the European Commission and providing them with further details of this work.”
    
            This story has been updated to include more precise attribution and to include additional reporting.",CNN,29/04/2024,"['European Union officialsare investigating Meta overconcerns the company hasn’t done enough to protect upcoming EU elections or to combat foreign disinformation on its platforms, setting up the possibility of steep fines or other penalties.', 'The new probe is focused on Meta’s handling of advertising by scammers and foreign election meddlers, said an EU source familiar with the investigation; the source was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.', 'The probe focuses as well on a decision to shut down an analysis tool widely used by researchers and journalists to monitor Meta’s platforms.', 'A driving factor in the investigation is a concern about Meta’s ability to respond to Russian disinformation campaigns that could undermine election integrity, the source added.', 'The investigation is the latest example of European regulators flexing their muscle against US tech giants following the passage of a flurry of new laws designed to rein them in.', 'The EU source said the investigation highlights apparent violations of Europe’s signature law governing online platforms, the Digital Services Act.', 'If confirmed, the violations could lead to significant fines of up to 6% of Meta’s global revenue.', 'As part of the probe, the EU source said they are also looking into whether decisions by Meta to rank political content lower in users’ feeds may violate the DSA’s transparency rules.', 'They added that Meta’s tools for users to report illegal content don’t appear to align with the DSA’s requirements, either.', 'The investigation comes after Meta submitted required materials to the European Commission last fall outlining how it manages perceived risks linked to its products.', 'This investigation, however, reflects EU skepticism that Meta has successfully managed those risks.', 'A key aspect of the investigation targets Meta’s decision to sunset CrowdTangle, a once-popular tool used by civil society groups to track trending conversations on Facebook and Instagram.', 'Without it, the EU source said, users and researchers will have less visibility into what is happening on Meta services and could have a harder time detecting foreign election interference.', 'Meta said earlier this year that CrowdTangle will no longer be available after August 14.', 'Ending support for CrowdTangle without a good enough replacement, the EU source said, could make it harder to track misinformation and voter supression, hurting elections overall.', 'In a statement, a Meta spokesperson said the company would cooperate with the probe.', '“We have a well-established process for identifying and mitigating risks on our platforms,” the spokesperson said. “', 'We look forward to continuing our cooperation with the European Commission and providing them with further details of this work.”', 'This story has been updated to include more precise attribution and to include additional reporting.']",-0.08008956452864,"The new probe is focused on Meta’s handling of advertising by scammers and foreign election meddlers, said an EU source familiar with the investigation; the source was granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.","As part of the probe, the EU source said they are also looking into whether decisions by Meta to rank political content lower in users’ feeds may violate the DSA’s transparency rules.",-0.470180332660675,"This investigation, however, reflects EU skepticism that Meta has successfully managed those risks.","Ending support for CrowdTangle without a good enough replacement, the EU source said, could make it harder to track misinformation and voter supression, hurting elections overall.",2024-04-29
How CEOs are preparing for possible employee protests,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/29/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html,"
  Published
        8:02 AM EDT, Mon April 29, 2024
    ","A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.
    
            Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently fired about 50 employees for protesting the company’s relationship with the Israeli government. His explanation boiled down to four words: This is a business.
    
            Some people disagreed with his actions, including the group that organized the protest.
    
            “Google is throwing a tantrum because the company’s executives are embarrassed about the strength workers showed at last Tuesday’s historic sit-ins, as well as their botched response to them,” the No Tech for Apartheid group said in a statement.
    
            As workers around the country see protests against the Israel-Hamas war and encampments proliferate on college campuses, they might wonder if these actions could start to spread to offices as well.
    
            Before the Bell spoke with Johnny C. Taylor Jr., president and CEO of trade association SHRM, previously known as the Society for Human Resource Management, about how companies are preparing for potential protests among employees and how workers should express opposing views at the office and beyond.
    
            This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
    
            Do you think Google’s actions were justified? Should employees be allowed to protest at their place of work? 
    
            I fundamentally, 1,000%, agree with Sundar Pichai.
    
            Companies often offer forums where you can share your thoughts, because they want to welcome a diverse perspective. That’s a good place for an employee to share their feelings. You can’t share your feelings by blocking entrances to work, that’s not okay. Taking over the president of a division’s office, not okay. We are ultimately here, as organizations, to run a business. Anything that disrupts the running of that business is not okay.
    
            We hire people and encourage people to have diverse opinions about these things. We don’t want a monolithic workforce, and we’re not judging who’s right or wrong. We’re just saying you can’t disrupt work.
    
            Should employees be worried about protesting outside of the workplace? 
    
            It depends. You shouldn’t engage in anything that compromises a company’s reputation, even outside of working hours. You have to be really careful there, it’s your time and you have a right to protest and to have a point of view. But if that in any way does not reflect your company’s culture or values or (causes) disrepute to their brand, they have a right to fire you. You can always choose to move on, but remember you don’t have a right to work at most companies.
    
            How should corporate leadership work with or address rising tensions in the workplace? 
    
            Good leadership says, ‘we respect your differences and we embrace them.’ Diversity is something they should be committed to. They should say that we can disagree, but we’ve got to disagree better.
    
            Good leadership is CEOs convening their employees and telling them they can talk about their perspectives but that yelling at, shaming or embarrassing colleagues is always unacceptable behavior and a behavioral offense. More and more CEOs are laying this out, we have reached that point. Practicing incivility is not something they’re going to tolerate.
    
            I’m actually pleased about that. Because I think we overcorrected, we actually did. Wanting people to bring their full selves to work is great, but what we have found is people want diversity, as long as they agree with it.
    
            You’d be surprised about how many people want to come to work just to work. They’re not interested in debating social issues at work.
    
            Should the leadership at companies being called out by protesters respond? 
    
            Generally you ignore it. Every day, there will be some group of employees who don’t agree with who you do business with, who does business with you, etc. Just by definition, a CEO could find him or herself every day having to address every one of their client relationships. We establish upfront, the head of HR and the CEO, what our values are and how we’re going to operate. You have to make that clear to employees, we call it cultural clarity. And then employees can self-select — they don’t have to work there.
    
            But there are some issues that are worth addressing and we clearly don’t want to suppress employees or stop them from sharing with us. I think it comes down to three words: challenge, decide, commit.
    
            If you think we should not do business with whomever, then challenge it. I want to hear from my employees as the CEO, and so I give permission to challenge our practices. Based upon that, I will respond and then you have to decide. And after you decide, you must commit. And there are off-ramps for employees if they don’t like the decision.
    
            So, generally, we encourage CEOs to want to be challenged to think differently. But they need to be challenged respectfully and civilly. But once a decision is made, that’s it. We can’t keep re-litigating when we also have a business to run
    
            You speak with CEOs every day. Are they worried about employee protests? 
    
            Yes. Most of the CEOs I’ve talked to said they haven’t seen their employees protest, but they’re bracing for it. They don’t think this will be isolated to Google. But I will say that I don’t think it will become that widespread because of how swiftly and unapologetically Google addressed it. I don’t think it will become a thing.
    
            I think Google’s response has given a lot of cover to other companies, but I’m hearing a lot of management teams put plans into place just in case.
    
            Rolls-Royce is vastly expanding its factory in Chichester, England. The BMW subsidiary is adding five new buildings with construction planned to start next year, reports my colleague Peter Valdes-Dapena.
    
            Usually, when a carmaker expands a factory it’s for one simple reason: building more cars. But this is Rolls-Royce. Making and selling more Rolls-Royces would undermine the brand’s vaunted exclusivity.
    
            So this factory expansion isn’t about making more cars, but making more expensive cars, which takes more time and requires more space for workshops and storage of exotic materials.
    
            The expansion signals something about Rolls-Royce’s ultra-wealthy clientele. While they can only buy so many cars, they can certainly spend more on each one.
    
            Since 2020, Rolls-Royce sales have increased 17%, reaching a record of 6,032 cars and SUVs worldwide last year. Over that same time, though, the average amount of money customers paid for their cars increased 43%, going from $350,000 in 2020 to $500,000 each, on average, last year.
    
            That increased revenue per vehicle comes largely from more complex and time-consuming customization — “bespoke,” as Rolls-Royce terms it — requests. It even calls its luxury customization programs “Bespoke” and, for fully customized models, “Coachbuild.”
    
            “We’re not necessarily growing that much in volume,” said Martin Fritsches, president of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Americas. “That’s obviously not our focus point. But clearly, our bespoke area is gaining and relevant. And has been expanding dramatically, particularly in the last couple of years.”
    
            The US government has asked leading artificial intelligence companies for advice on how to use the technology they are creating to defend airlines, utilities and other critical infrastructure, particularly from AI-powered attacks, report my colleagues Brian Fung and Sean Lyngaas.
    
            The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that the panel it’s creating will include CEOs from some of the world’s largest companies and industries.
    
            The list includes Google chief executive Sundar Pichai, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, but also the head of defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman and air carrier Delta Air Lines.
    
            The move reflects the US government’s close collaboration with the private sector as it scrambles to address both the risks and benefits of AI in the absence of a targeted national AI law.
    
            The collection of experts will make recommendations to telecommunications companies, pipeline operators, electric utilities and other sectors about how they can “responsibly” use AI, DHS said. The group will also help prepare those sectors for “AI-related disruptions.”
    
            “Artificial intelligence is a transformative technology that can advance our national interests in unprecedented ways,” said DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, in a release. “At the same time, it presents real risks — risks that we can mitigate by adopting best practices and taking other studied, concrete actions.”
    
            Among the panel’s other participants are the CEOs of technology providers such as Amazon Web Services, IBM and Cisco; chipmakers such as AMD; AI model developers such as Anthropic; and civil rights groups such as the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.",CNN,29/04/2024,"['A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter.', 'Not a subscriber?', 'You can sign upright here.', 'You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.', 'Google CEO Sundar Pichai recently fired about 50 employees for protesting the company’s relationship with the Israeli government.', 'His explanation boiled down to four words: This is a business.', 'Some people disagreed with his actions, including the group that organized the protest.', '“Google is throwing a tantrum because the company’s executives are embarrassed about the strength workers showed at last Tuesday’s historic sit-ins, as well as their botched response to them,” the No Tech for Apartheid group said in a statement.', 'As workers around the country see protests against the Israel-Hamas war and encampments proliferate on college campuses, they might wonder if these actions could start to spread to offices as well.', 'Before the Bell spoke with Johnny C. Taylor Jr., president and CEO of trade association SHRM, previously known as the Society for Human Resource Management, about how companies are preparing for potential protests among employees and how workers should express opposing views at the office and beyond.', 'This interview has been edited for length and clarity.', 'Do you think Google’s actions were justified?', 'Should employees be allowed to protest at their place of work?', 'I fundamentally, 1,000%, agree with Sundar Pichai.', 'Companies often offer forums where you can share your thoughts, because they want to welcome a diverse perspective.', 'That’s a good place for an employee to share their feelings.', 'You can’t share your feelings by blocking entrances to work, that’s not okay.', 'Taking over the president of a division’s office, not okay.', 'We are ultimately here, as organizations, to run a business.', 'Anything that disrupts the running of that business is not okay.', 'We hire people and encourage people to have diverse opinions about these things.', 'We don’t want a monolithic workforce, and we’re not judging who’s right or wrong.', 'We’re just saying you can’t disrupt work.', 'Should employees be worried about protesting outside of the workplace?', 'It depends.', 'You shouldn’t engage in anything that compromises a company’s reputation, even outside of working hours.', 'You have to be really careful there, it’s your time and you have a right to protest and to have a point of view.', 'But if that in any way does not reflect your company’s culture or values or (causes) disrepute to their brand, they have a right to fire you.', 'You can always choose to move on, but remember you don’t have a right to work at most companies.', 'How should corporate leadership work with or address rising tensions in the workplace?', 'Good leadership says, ‘we respect your differences and we embrace them.’', 'Diversity is something they should be committed to.', 'They should say that we can disagree, but we’ve got to disagree better.', 'Good leadership is CEOs convening their employees and telling them they can talk about their perspectives but that yelling at, shaming or embarrassing colleagues is always unacceptable behavior and a behavioral offense.', 'More and more CEOs are laying this out, we have reached that point.', 'Practicing incivility is not something they’re going to tolerate.', 'I’m actually pleased about that.', 'Because I think we overcorrected, we actually did.', 'Wanting people to bring their full selves to work is great, but what we have found is people want diversity, as long as they agree with it.', 'You’d be surprised about how many people want to come to work just to work.', 'They’re not interested in debating social issues at work.', 'Should the leadership at companies being called out by protesters respond?', 'Generally you ignore it.', 'Every day, there will be some group of employees who don’t agree with who you do business with, who does business with you, etc.', 'Just by definition, a CEO could find him or herself every day having to address every one of their client relationships.', 'We establish upfront, the head of HR and the CEO, what our values are and how we’re going to operate.', 'You have to make that clear to employees, we call it cultural clarity.', 'And then employees can self-select — they don’t have to work there.', 'But there are some issues that are worth addressing and we clearly don’t want to suppress employees or stop them from sharing with us.', 'I think it comes down to three words: challenge, decide, commit.', 'If you think we should not do business with whomever, then challenge it.', 'I want to hear from my employees as the CEO, and so I give permission to challenge our practices.', 'Based upon that, I will respond and then you have to decide.', 'And after you decide, you must commit.', 'And there are off-ramps for employees if they don’t like the decision.', 'So, generally, we encourage CEOs to want to be challenged to think differently.', 'But they need to be challenged respectfully and civilly.', 'But once a decision is made, that’s it.', 'We can’t keep re-litigating when we also have a business to run  You speak with CEOs every day.', 'Are they worried about employee protests?', 'Yes.', 'Most of the CEOs I’ve talked to said they haven’t seen their employees protest, but they’re bracing for it.', 'They don’t think this will be isolated to Google.', 'But I will say that I don’t think it will become that widespread because of how swiftly and unapologetically Google addressed it.', 'I don’t think it will become a thing.', 'I think Google’s response has given a lot of cover to other companies, but I’m hearing a lot of management teams put plans into place just in case.', 'Rolls-Royce is vastly expanding its factory in Chichester, England.', 'The BMW subsidiary is adding five new buildings with construction planned to start next year, reports my colleague Peter Valdes-Dapena.', 'Usually, when a carmaker expands a factory it’s for one simple reason: building more cars.', 'But this is Rolls-Royce.', 'Making and selling more Rolls-Royces would undermine the brand’s vaunted exclusivity.', 'So this factory expansion isn’t about making more cars, but making more expensive cars, which takes more time and requires more space for workshops and storage of exotic materials.', 'The expansion signals something about Rolls-Royce’s ultra-wealthy clientele.', 'While they can only buy so many cars, they can certainly spend more on each one.', 'Since 2020, Rolls-Royce sales have increased 17%, reaching a record of 6,032 cars and SUVs worldwide last year.', 'Over that same time, though, the average amount of money customers paid for their cars increased 43%, going from $350,000 in 2020 to $500,000 each, on average, last year.', 'That increased revenue per vehicle comes largely from more complex and time-consuming customization — “bespoke,” as Rolls-Royce terms it — requests.', 'It even calls its luxury customization programs “Bespoke” and, for fully customized models, “Coachbuild.”', '“We’re not necessarily growing that much in volume,” said Martin Fritsches, president of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Americas. “', 'That’s obviously not our focus point.', 'But clearly, our bespoke area is gaining and relevant.', 'And has been expanding dramatically, particularly in the last couple of years.”', 'The US government has asked leading artificial intelligence companies for advice on how to use the technology they are creating to defend airlines, utilities and other critical infrastructure, particularly from AI-powered attacks, report my colleagues Brian Fung and Sean Lyngaas.', 'The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that the panel it’s creating will include CEOs from some of the world’s largest companies and industries.', 'The list includes Google chief executive Sundar Pichai, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, but also the head of defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman and air carrier Delta Air Lines.', 'The move reflects the US government’s close collaboration with the private sector as it scrambles to address both the risks and benefits of AI in theabsence of a targeted national AI law.', 'The collection of experts will make recommendations to telecommunications companies, pipeline operators, electric utilities and other sectors about how they can “responsibly” use AI, DHS said.', 'The group will also help prepare those sectors for “AI-related disruptions.”', '“Artificial intelligence is a transformative technology that can advance our national interests in unprecedented ways,” said DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, in arelease. “', 'At the same time, it presents real risks — risks that we can mitigate by adopting best practices and taking other studied, concrete actions.”', 'Among the panel’s other participants are the CEOs of technology providers such as Amazon Web Services, IBM and Cisco; chipmakers such as AMD; AI model developers such as Anthropic; and civil rights groups such as the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.']",0.0889542030211876,"Good leadership says, ‘we respect your differences and we embrace them.’","Good leadership is CEOs convening their employees and telling them they can talk about their perspectives but that yelling at, shaming or embarrassing colleagues is always unacceptable behavior and a behavioral offense.",0.4113616086542606,"Since 2020, Rolls-Royce sales have increased 17%, reaching a record of 6,032 cars and SUVs worldwide last year.",Making and selling more Rolls-Royces would undermine the brand’s vaunted exclusivity.,2024-04-29
FCC fines wireless carriers millions for sharing user locations without consent,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/29/tech/fcc-fines-att-verizon-200-million/index.html,"
  Published
        3:38 PM EDT, Mon April 29, 2024
    ","The US government has issued millions of dollars in fines to AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon after an investigation found the nation’s top wireless carriers had illegally shared customers’ personal data without their consent.
    
            The fines stem from allegations in 2020 by the Federal Communications Commission that for years, the companies had improperly shared users’ geolocation histories to third parties, including to prisons, as part of their commercial programs.
    
            The fines target a practice in which carriers shared user location information with data resellers, known in the industry as “location aggregators.” These aggregators passed the data onward to their own third-party customers.
    
            Despite promising to stop the tactic after press reports and a congressional probe brought the issue to light in 2018, carriers took nearly a year, or in some cases even longer, to finally stop doing so, the FCC said Monday, wrapping up a matter launched during the Trump administration.
    
            “Each carrier attempted to offload its obligations to obtain customer consent onto downstream recipients of location information, which in many instances meant that no valid customer consent was obtained,” the FCC said in a release.
    
            The FCC said AT&T must pay $57 million, while Verizon was fined nearly $47 million. Sprint was fined $12 million and T-Mobile $80 million. Since the investigation began, Sprint and T-Mobile merged in 2020.
    
            In response to the FCC fines, all of the wireless carriers said they expect to appeal the decision.
    
            “The FCC order lacks both legal and factual merit,” AT&T said in a statement. “It unfairly holds us responsible for another company’s violation of our contractual requirements to obtain consent, ignores the immediate steps we took to address that company’s failures, and perversely punishes us for supporting life-saving location services like emergency medical alerts and roadside assistance that the FCC itself previously encouraged.  We expect to appeal the order after conducting a legal review.”
    
            Verizon said it was “deeply committed to protecting customer privacy.”
    
            “In this case,” the company said in a statement, “when one bad actor gained unauthorized access to information relating to a very small number of customers, we quickly and proactively cut off the fraudster, shut down the program, and worked to ensure this couldn’t happen again. Unfortunately, the FCC’s order gets it wrong on both the facts and the law, and we plan to appeal this decision.”
    
            T-Mobile said in a statement its location data-sharing program was “discontinued more than five years ago after we took steps to ensure that critical services like roadside assistance, fraud protection and emergency response would not be disrupted. We take our responsibility to keep customer data secure very seriously and have always supported the FCC’s commitment to protecting consumers, but this decision is wrong, and the fine is excessive. We intend to challenge it.”
    
            In 2018, a probe by Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden found that the cellphone location information had found its way to Securus, a provider of prison phone services. In the wrong hands, the data could be abused to spy on virtually all Americans. Wyden, at the time, called on the FCC to investigate.
    
            “No one who signed up for a cell plan thought they were giving permission for their phone company to sell a detailed record of their movements to anyone with a credit card,” Wyden said in a statement Monday. “I applaud the FCC for following through on my investigation and holding these companies accountable for putting customers’ lives and privacy at risk.”",CNN,29/04/2024,"['The US government has issued millions of dollars in fines toAT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizonafter an investigation found the nation’s top wireless carriers had illegally shared customers’ personal data without their consent.', 'The fines stem fromallegations in 2020by theFederal Communications Commissionthat for years, the companieshadimproperly shared users’ geolocation histories to third parties,including to prisons, as part of their commercial programs.', 'The fines target a practice in which carriers shared user location information with data resellers, known in the industry as “location aggregators.”', 'These aggregators passed the data onward to their own third-party customers.', 'Despite promising to stop the tactic after press reports and acongressional probebrought the issue to light in 2018, carriers took nearly a year, or in some cases even longer, to finally stop doing so, the FCC said Monday, wrapping up a matter launched during the Trump administration.', '“Each carrier attempted to offload its obligations to obtain customer consent onto downstream recipients of location information, which in many instances meant that no valid customer consent was obtained,” the FCC said in a release.', 'The FCC said AT&T must pay $57 million, while Verizon was fined nearly $47 million.', 'Sprint was fined $12 million and T-Mobile $80 million.', 'Since the investigation began, Sprint and T-Mobile merged in 2020.', 'In response to the FCC fines, all of the wireless carriers said they expect to appeal the decision.', '“The FCC order lacks both legal and factual merit,” AT&T said in a statement. “', 'It unfairly holds us responsible for another company’s violation of our contractual requirements to obtain consent, ignores the immediate steps we took to address that company’s failures, and perversely punishes us for supporting life-saving location services like emergency medical alerts and roadside assistance that the FCC itself previously encouraged.', 'We expect to appeal the order after conducting a legal review.”', 'Verizon said it was “deeply committed to protecting customer privacy.”', '“In this case,” the company said in a statement, “when one bad actor gained unauthorized access to information relating to a very small number of customers, we quickly and proactively cut off the fraudster, shut down the program, and worked to ensure this couldn’t happen again.', 'Unfortunately, the FCC’s order gets it wrong on both the facts and the law, and we plan to appeal this decision.”', 'T-Mobile said in a statement its location data-sharing program was “discontinued more than five years ago after we took steps to ensure that critical services like roadside assistance, fraud protection and emergency response would not be disrupted.', 'We take our responsibility to keep customer data secure very seriously and have always supported the FCC’s commitment to protecting consumers, but this decision is wrong, and the fine is excessive.', 'We intend to challenge it.”', 'In 2018, aprobeby Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden found that the cellphone location information had found its way to Securus, a provider of prison phone services.', 'In the wrong hands, the data could be abused to spy on virtually all Americans.', 'Wyden, at the time, called on the FCC to investigate.', '“No one who signed up for a cell plan thought they were giving permission for their phone company to sell a detailed record of their movements to anyone with a credit card,” Wyden said in a statement Monday. “', 'I applaud the FCC for following through on my investigation and holding these companies accountable for putting customers’ lives and privacy at risk.”']",-0.0086199314701232,"The fines stem fromallegations in 2020by theFederal Communications Commissionthat for years, the companieshadimproperly shared users’ geolocation histories to third parties,including to prisons, as part of their commercial programs.","In the wrong hands, the data could be abused to spy on virtually all Americans.",-0.8971094091733297,,"It unfairly holds us responsible for another company’s violation of our contractual requirements to obtain consent, ignores the immediate steps we took to address that company’s failures, and perversely punishes us for supporting life-saving location services like emergency medical alerts and roadside assistance that the FCC itself previously encouraged.",2024-04-29
"Google has fired 50 employees after protests over Israel cloud deal, organizers say",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/23/tech/google-fires-employees-protest-israel/index.html,"
  Published
        12:09 PM EDT, Tue April 23, 2024
    ","Google has fired an additional 20 workers that it says were involved in protests last week over the company’s cloud-computing contract with the Israeli government, bringing the total number of workers fired to 50, according to the group organizing the demonstrations.
    
            No Tech for Apartheid, the organizers of the protest at Google offices last Tuesday, said in a statement Monday evening that Google had fired an additional 20 workers, on top of the 30 workers terminated last week.
    
            No Tech for Apartheid claims that some of the workers fired were “non-participating bystanders” during last Tuesday’s sit-in protests at Google’s offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California, and not actively involved in the workplace activism. The statement decried the mass firings as “an aggressive and desperate act of retaliation” by the tech giant.
    
            A Google spokesperson declined to share exactly how many workers had been terminated because of the protests but confirmed additional firings had taken place in a statement to CNN on Tuesday morning.
    
            Google had conducted an investigation into the “physical disruption inside our buildings on April 16,” the spokesperson said. “Our investigation into these events is now concluded, and we have terminated the employment of additional employees who were found to have been directly involved in disruptive activity,” the Google spokesperson added.
    
            “To reiterate, every single one of those whose employment was terminated was personally and definitively involved in disruptive activity inside our buildings. We carefully confirmed and reconfirmed this,” the Google spokesperson said.
    
            The organizers of the protest, meanwhile, say that some of the workers fired did not cause any disruption inside Google offices.
    
            “Google is throwing a tantrum because the company’s executives are embarrassed about the strength workers showed at last Tuesday’s historic sit-ins, as well as their botched response to them,” the No Tech for Apartheid group said in a statement. “Now, the corporation is lashing out at any worker that was physically in the vicinity of the protest—including those who were not at all involved in the campaign.”
    
            The worker group also vowed to continue its workplace activism at Google, saying they hope to send a message to company executives that: “We will not stop fighting, and we will not back down.”
    
            The protests from Google workers over the company’s cloud-computing deal with the Israeli government come more than six months since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants left some 1,200 dead in Israel, and as Israel’s counteroffensive attacks in Gaza have now killed at least 34,097 people in Gaza, according to the latest tally from the Palestinian health ministry. More than 70% of those killed in Gaza have been women and children, according to the ministry.
    
            The ongoing civilian carnage in Gaza has deeply divided the American public, and massive protests over US government and business support for Israel have erupted on college campuses and across corporate America in recent weeks.
    
            Last week, in the wake of the protests at Google, CEO Sundar Pichai sent a company-wide memo to staffers urging them to keep “politics” out of the workplace. The chief executive told workers that “this is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers.” Pichai went on to urge Googlers to not “fight over disruptive issues or debate politics” in the workplace.",CNN,23/04/2024,"['Google has fired an additional 20 workers that it says were involved in protests last week over the company’s cloud-computing contract with the Israeli government, bringing the total number of workers fired to 50, according to the group organizing the demonstrations.', 'No Tech for Apartheid, the organizers of the protest at Google offices last Tuesday, said in a statement Monday evening that Google had fired an additional 20 workers, on top of the 30 workers terminated last week.', 'No Tech for Apartheid claims that some of the workers fired were “non-participating bystanders” during last Tuesday’s sit-in protests at Google’s offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California, and not actively involved in the workplace activism.', 'The statement decried the mass firings as “an aggressive and desperate act of retaliation” by the tech giant.', 'A Google spokesperson declined to share exactly how many workers had been terminated because of the protests but confirmed additional firings had taken place in a statement to CNN on Tuesday morning.', 'Google had conducted an investigation into the “physical disruption inside our buildings on April 16,” the spokesperson said. “', 'Our investigation into these events is now concluded, and we have terminated the employment of additional employees who were found to have been directly involved in disruptive activity,” the Google spokesperson added.', '“To reiterate, every single one of those whose employment was terminated was personally and definitively involved in disruptive activity inside our buildings.', 'We carefully confirmed and reconfirmed this,” the Google spokesperson said.', 'The organizers of the protest, meanwhile, say that some of the workers fired did not cause any disruption inside Google offices.', '“Google is throwing a tantrum because the company’s executives are embarrassed about the strength workers showed at last Tuesday’s historic sit-ins, as well as their botched response to them,” the No Tech for Apartheid group said in a statement. “', 'Now, the corporation is lashing out at any worker that was physically in the vicinity of the protest—including those who were not at all involved in the campaign.”', 'The worker group also vowed to continue its workplace activism at Google, saying they hope to send a message to company executives that: “We will not stop fighting, and we will not back down.”', 'The protests from Google workers over the company’s cloud-computing deal with the Israeli government come more than six months since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants left some 1,200 dead in Israel, and as Israel’s counteroffensive attacks in Gaza have now killed at least 34,097 people in Gaza, according to the latest tally from the Palestinian health ministry.', 'More than 70% of those killed in Gaza have been women and children, according to the ministry.', 'The ongoing civilian carnage in Gaza has deeply divided the American public, and massive protests over US government and business support for Israel have erupted on college campuses and across corporate America in recent weeks.', 'Last week, in the wake of the protests at Google, CEO Sundar Pichai sent a company-wide memo to staffers urging them to keep “politics” out of the workplace.', 'The chief executive told workers that “this is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers.”', 'Pichai went on to urge Googlers to not “fight over disruptive issues or debate politics” in the workplace.']",-0.2991697954289949,"The worker group also vowed to continue its workplace activism at Google, saying they hope to send a message to company executives that: “We will not stop fighting, and we will not back down.”","The protests from Google workers over the company’s cloud-computing deal with the Israeli government come more than six months since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants left some 1,200 dead in Israel, and as Israel’s counteroffensive attacks in Gaza have now killed at least 34,097 people in Gaza, according to the latest tally from the Palestinian health ministry.",-0.8573051542043686,,"“Google is throwing a tantrum because the company’s executives are embarrassed about the strength workers showed at last Tuesday’s historic sit-ins, as well as their botched response to them,” the No Tech for Apartheid group said in a statement. “",2024-04-29
"CEOs of OpenAI, Google and Microsoft to join other tech leaders on federal AI safety panel",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/26/tech/openai-altman-government-ai-safety-panel/index.html,"
  Updated
        11:54 AM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","The US government has asked leading artificial intelligence companies for advice on how to use the technology they are creating to defend airlines, utilities and other critical infrastructure, particularly from AI-powered attacks.
    
            The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that the panel it’s creating will include CEOs from some of the world’s largest companies and industries.
    
            The list includes Google chief executive Sundar Pichai, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, but also the head of defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman and air carrier Delta Air Lines.
    
            The move reflects the US government’s close collaboration with the private sector as it scrambles to address both the risks and benefits of AI in the absence of a targeted national AI law.
    
            The collection of experts will make recommendations to telecommunications companies, pipeline operators, electric utilities and other sectors about how they can “responsibly” use AI, DHS said. The group will also help prepare those sectors for “AI-related disruptions.”
    
            “Artificial intelligence is a transformative technology that can advance our national interests in unprecedented ways,” said DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, in a release. “At the same time, it presents real risks — risks that we can mitigate by adopting best practices and taking other studied, concrete actions.”
    
            Among the panel’s other participants are the CEOs of technology providers such as Amazon Web Services, IBM and Cisco; chipmakers such as AMD; AI model developers such as Anthropic; and civil rights groups such as the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
    
            It also includes federal, state and local government officials, as well as leading academics in AI such as Fei-Fei Li, co-director of Stanford University’s Human-centered Artificial Intelligence Institute.
    
            The 22-member AI Safety and Security Board is an outgrowth of a 2023 executive order signed by President Joe Biden, who called for a cross-industry body to make “recommendations for improving security, resilience, and incident response related to AI usage in critical infrastructure.”
    
            That same executive order also led this year to government-wide rules regulating how federal agencies can purchase and use AI in their own systems. The US government already uses machine learning or artificial intelligence for more than 200 distinct purposes, such as monitoring volcano activity, tracking wildfires and identifying wildlife from satellite imagery.
    
            Meanwhile, deepfake audio and video, which use AI to push fake content, have emerged as a key concern for US officials trying to protect the 2024 US election from rampant mis- and disinformation. A fake robocall in January imitating Biden’s voice urged Democrats not to vote in New Hampshire’s primary, sounding alarms among US officials focused on election security. A New Orleans magician told CNN that a Democratic political consultant hired him to make the robocall. But there is concern that foreign adversaries like Russia, China or Iran could exploit the same technology.
    
            “It is a risk that is real,” Mayorkas told reporters on Friday while discussing the AI advisory board. “We are seeing adverse nation-states engaged and we work to counter their efforts to unduly influence our elections.”",CNN,26/04/2024,"['The US government has asked leading artificial intelligence companies for advice on how to use the technology they are creating to defend airlines, utilities and other critical infrastructure, particularly from AI-powered attacks.', 'The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that the panel it’s creating will include CEOs from some of the world’s largest companies and industries.', 'The list includes Google chief executive Sundar Pichai, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, but also the head of defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman and air carrier Delta Air Lines.', 'The move reflects the US government’s close collaboration with the private sector as it scrambles to address both the risks and benefits of AI in the absence of a targeted national AI law.', 'The collection of experts will make recommendations to telecommunications companies, pipeline operators, electric utilities and other sectors about how they can “responsibly” use AI, DHS said.', 'The group will also help prepare those sectors for “AI-related disruptions.”', '“Artificial intelligence is a transformative technology that can advance our national interests in unprecedented ways,” said DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, in a release. “', 'At the same time, it presents real risks — risks that we can mitigate by adopting best practices and taking other studied, concrete actions.”', 'Among the panel’s other participants are the CEOs of technology providers such as Amazon Web Services, IBM and Cisco; chipmakers such as AMD; AI model developers such as Anthropic; and civil rights groups such as the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.', 'It also includes federal, state and local government officials, as well as leading academics in AI such as Fei-Fei Li, co-director of Stanford University’s Human-centered Artificial Intelligence Institute.', 'The 22-member AI Safety and Security Board is an outgrowth of a 2023 executive order signed by President Joe Biden, who called for a cross-industry body to make “recommendations for improving security, resilience, and incident response related to AI usage in critical infrastructure.”', 'That same executive order also led this year to government-wide rules regulating how federal agencies can purchase and use AI in their own systems.', 'The US government already uses machine learning or artificial intelligence for more than 200 distinct purposes, such as monitoring volcano activity, tracking wildfires and identifying wildlife from satellite imagery.', 'Meanwhile, deepfake audio and video, which use AI to push fake content, have emerged as a key concern for US officials trying to protect the 2024 US election from rampant mis- and disinformation.', 'A fake robocall in January imitating Biden’s voice urged Democrats not to vote in New Hampshire’s primary,sounding alarmsamong US officials focused on election security.', 'A New Orleans magiciantold CNNthat a Democratic political consultant hired him to make the robocall.', 'But there is concern that foreign adversaries like Russia, China or Iran could exploit the same technology.', '“It is a risk that is real,” Mayorkas told reporters on Friday while discussing the AI advisory board. “', 'We are seeing adverse nation-states engaged and we work to counter their efforts to unduly influence our elections.”']",0.2029832499577865,"The 22-member AI Safety and Security Board is an outgrowth of a 2023 executive order signed by President Joe Biden, who called for a cross-industry body to make “recommendations for improving security, resilience, and incident response related to AI usage in critical infrastructure.”","“It is a risk that is real,” Mayorkas told reporters on Friday while discussing the AI advisory board. “",-0.4111486226320267,"“Artificial intelligence is a transformative technology that can advance our national interests in unprecedented ways,” said DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, in a release. “","At the same time, it presents real risks — risks that we can mitigate by adopting best practices and taking other studied, concrete actions.”",2024-04-29
Banning TikTok would hit China’s tech ambitions and deepen the global digital divide,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/24/tech/tiktok-ban-bytedance-split-the-world-further-intl-hnk/index.html,"
  Updated
        9:24 AM EDT, Wed April 24, 2024
    ","TikTok is facing an existential crisis in America. If its Chinese owner fails to sell the app in the next year or so, it could be banned in its biggest market.
    
            Not only would that deal another huge blow to China’s tech ambitions, it would further deepen the divide between two digital worlds centered around the rival economic superpowers.
    
            Congress on Tuesday approved legislation that could compel ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a national ban. President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill into law on Wednesday; TikTok has already said it will challenge the law in court.
    
            Beijing has previously said it strongly opposes a forced sale of TikTok, and it has revised its export control rules to give it the power to block a sale on national security grounds. That leaves few options for ByteDance to secure the future of TikTok in the US, its biggest market with 170 million users.
    
            “A forced sale of TikTok in the US amounts to a downgrade of the app, as the Chinese government won’t approve the sale of its algorithms,” said Alex Capri, a research fellow at the Hinrich Foundation and a lecturer at the National University of Singapore’s Business School.
    
            “If TikTok is forced to stop operating in the US, ByteDance’s prospects in other mostly liberal democracies will come under further scrutiny,” he said.
    
            If the Chinese government won’t let ByteDance relinquish TikTok’s algorithm, it could block the sale outright. Alternatively, it may allow TikTok to be sold without the lucrative algorithm that forms the basis for its popularity.
    
            A US ban, or a less powerful version of TikTok, would be a windfall
    
             for YouTube, Google, Instagram and other TikTok competitors, as many of its customers may jump ship, Capri said. And it would be a major hit to the global ambitions of ByteDance.
    
            “It [a TikTok ban] would be the end of ByteDance’s global expansion, as it would be a sign that the Chinese state values the algorithm’s security more than ByteDance’s financial prosperity and global expansion,” said Richard Windsor, tech industry analyst and founder of Radio Free Mobile, a research company based in the US.
    
            “The implications are that the ideological struggle being fought in the technology industry will become more intense.”
    
            A ban on TikTok is also likely to accelerate a shift that is splitting the world’s tech landscape into two blocs, one centered on the US, the other embracing tech from China, according to Capri.
    
            “The move against TikTok in the US is another step towards not only a bifurcated platform economy between Chinese apps and Western apps, but also, more broadly, the bifurcation of entire the global tech landscape,” he said.
    
            “This includes everything from who owns and operates data centers, to space-based internet satellites, to undersea cables and, of course semiconductors.”
    
            In that sense, the TikTok ban has its silver lining for Beijing.
    
            “A ban in the US will spark renewed efforts to spread China’s digital footprint in Southeast Asia, and other mostly developing markets world wide,” Capri said.
    
            The TikTok legislation was included in a wide-ranging foreign aid package meant to support Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.
    
            Once President Biden signs it into law, ByteDance will have up to a year to complete the sale or face an effective ban for the platform.
    
            US officials and legislators have long expressed concerns about TikTok’s potential national security risks, including that it could share data with the Chinese government, or manipulate content displayed on the platform. But TikTok has rejected the claims.
    
            “The new divestiture bill is the result of a concerted lobbying effort by Silicon Valley venture capitalists associated with US technology companies that stand to benefit from the China threat narrative proponents of the bill have been pushing, ” said Paul Triolo, partner for China and Technology Policy Lead at Albright Stonebridge Group.
    
            In general, Chinese companies and apps operating the US are facing growing challenges, he said.
    
            Biden administration officials are beefing up a new office at the Commerce Department to enforce provisions of a Trump-era rule on protecting US information technology supply chains that covers connected apps and could be used to push for further restrictions.
    
            “It seems unlikely that Congress would single out another Chinese company like TikTok for a specific bill, but the Commerce IT supply chain rule could be used in the future to limit the ability of Chinese companies and apps to have access to portions of the US market,” Triolo said.
    
            China’s Commerce Ministry has pledged to take all “necessary measures” to protect its interests, shortly after the House of Representatives passed an earlier version of the TikTok bill last month. But it didn’t elaborate.
    
            On Wednesday, Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry said in response to a question from CNN’s Marc Stewart: “On the TikTok matter, we have stated our position clearly, and I have nothing to add today.”
    
            Most American social networking apps have already been barred in China. Beijing currently blocks most US social media platforms — including Google, YouTube, X, Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook — because they refuse to follow the Chinese government’s rules on data collection and the type of content shared.
    
            Triolo doesn’t expect Beijing to react “strongly” to the US ban on TikTok, though.
    
            “While Beijing is already on record as opposing any forced divestiture of TikTok US from Bytedance, its primary concern would be the transfer of technology involved,” he said. “In general, Beijing cares much less about a social media company than about US technology controls.”
    
            “Beijing will be much more likely to retaliate strongly to new US export controls, and is not likely to respond in kind to the US effort to ban Tiktok US if it eventually happens,” he added.
    
            Beijing recently ordered Apple (AAPL) to remove social messaging apps WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram from the firm’s China app store. But it has not followed up with major crackdowns on virtual private networks, which many tech savvy Chinese use to communicate with friends abroad via these messaging apps.
    
            “The move was likely timed to show that China will continue to block access to some apps it considers to be a national security threat, though the blocked apps have far fewer users in China than the 170 million or so users of TikTok in the US,” Triolo said.
    
            — CNN’s Wayne Chang and Marc Stewart contributed reporting.",CNN,24/04/2024,"['TikTok is facing an existential crisis in America.', 'If its Chinese owner fails to sell the app in the next year or so, it could be banned in its biggest market.', 'Not only would that deal another huge blow to China’s tech ambitions, it would further deepen the divide between two digital worlds centered around the rival economic superpowers.', 'Congress on Tuesday approved legislation that could compel ByteDance to sell TikTok or face a national ban.', 'President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill into law on Wednesday; TikTok has already said it will challenge the law in court.', 'Beijing has previously said it strongly opposes a forced sale of TikTok, and it has revised its export control rules to give it the power to block a sale on national security grounds.', 'That leaves few options for ByteDance to secure the future of TikTok in the US, its biggest market with 170 million users.', '“A forced sale of TikTok in the US amounts to a downgrade of the app, as the Chinese government won’t approve the sale of its algorithms,” said Alex Capri, a research fellow at the Hinrich Foundation and a lecturer at the National University of Singapore’s Business School.', '“If TikTok is forced to stop operating in the US, ByteDance’s prospects in other mostly liberal democracies will come under further scrutiny,” he said.', 'If the Chinese government won’t let ByteDance relinquish TikTok’s algorithm, it could block the sale outright.', 'Alternatively, it may allow TikTok to be sold without the lucrative algorithm that forms the basis for its popularity.', 'A US ban, or a less powerful version of TikTok, would be a windfall  for YouTube, Google, Instagram and other TikTok competitors, as many of its customers may jump ship, Capri said.', 'And it would be a major hit to the global ambitions of ByteDance.', '“It [a TikTok ban] would be the end of ByteDance’s global expansion, as it would be a sign that the Chinese state values the algorithm’s security more than ByteDance’s financial prosperity and global expansion,” said Richard Windsor, tech industry analyst and founder of Radio Free Mobile, a research company based in the US.', '“The implications are that the ideological struggle being fought in the technology industry will become more intense.”', 'A ban on TikTok is also likely to accelerate a shift that is splitting the world’s tech landscape into two blocs, one centered on the US, the other embracing tech from China, according to Capri.', '“The move against TikTok in the US is another step towards not only a bifurcated platform economy between Chinese apps and Western apps, but also, more broadly, the bifurcation of entire the global tech landscape,” he said.', '“This includes everything from who owns and operates data centers, to space-based internet satellites, to undersea cables and, of course semiconductors.”', 'In that sense, the TikTok ban has its silver lining for Beijing.', '“A ban in the US will spark renewed efforts to spread China’s digital footprint in Southeast Asia, and other mostly developing markets world wide,” Capri said.', 'The TikTok legislation was included in a wide-ranging foreign aid package meant to support Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.', 'Once President Biden signs it into law, ByteDance will have up to a year to complete the sale or face an effective ban for the platform.', 'US officials and legislators have long expressed concerns about TikTok’s potential national security risks, including that it could share data with the Chinese government, or manipulate content displayed on the platform.', 'But TikTok has rejected the claims.', '“The new divestiture bill is the result of a concerted lobbying effort by Silicon Valley venture capitalists associated with US technology companies that stand to benefit from the China threat narrative proponents of the bill have been pushing, ” said Paul Triolo, partner for China and Technology Policy Lead at Albright Stonebridge Group.', 'In general, Chinese companies and apps operating the US are facing growing challenges, he said.', 'Biden administration officials are beefing up a new office at the Commerce Department to enforce provisions of a Trump-era rule on protecting US information technology supply chains that covers connected apps and could be used to push for further restrictions.', '“It seems unlikely that Congress would single out another Chinese company like TikTok for a specific bill, but the Commerce IT supply chain rule could be used in the future to limit the ability of Chinese companies and apps to have access to portions of the US market,” Triolo said.', 'China’s Commerce Ministry has pledged to take all “necessary measures” to protect its interests, shortly after the House of Representatives passed an earlier version of the TikTok bill last month.', 'But it didn’t elaborate.', 'On Wednesday, Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry said in response to a question from CNN’s Marc Stewart: “On the TikTok matter, we have stated our position clearly, and I have nothing to add today.”', 'Most American social networking apps have already been barred in China.', 'Beijing currently blocks most US social media platforms — including Google, YouTube, X, Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook — because they refuse to follow the Chinese government’s rules on data collection and the type of content shared.', 'Triolo doesn’t expect Beijing to react “strongly” to the US ban on TikTok, though.', '“While Beijing is already on record as opposing any forced divestiture of TikTok US from Bytedance, its primary concern would be the transfer of technology involved,” he said. “', 'In general, Beijing cares much less about a social media company than about US technology controls.”', '“Beijing will be much more likely to retaliate strongly to new US export controls, and is not likely to respond in kind to the US effort to ban Tiktok US if it eventually happens,” he added.', 'Beijing recently ordered Apple (AAPL) to remove social messaging apps WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram from the firm’s China app store.', 'But it has not followed up with major crackdowns on virtual private networks, which many tech savvy Chinese use to communicate with friends abroad via these messaging apps.', '“The move was likely timed to show that China will continue to block access to some apps it considers to be a national security threat, though the blocked apps have far fewer users in China than the 170 million or so users of TikTok in the US,” Triolo said.', '— CNN’s Wayne Chang and Marc Stewart contributed reporting.']",-0.0572599555987398,"But it has not followed up with major crackdowns on virtual private networks, which many tech savvy Chinese use to communicate with friends abroad via these messaging apps.","“The move was likely timed to show that China will continue to block access to some apps it considers to be a national security threat, though the blocked apps have far fewer users in China than the 170 million or so users of TikTok in the US,” Triolo said.",-0.1384766384174949,"“A ban in the US will spark renewed efforts to spread China’s digital footprint in Southeast Asia, and other mostly developing markets world wide,” Capri said.",And it would be a major hit to the global ambitions of ByteDance.,2024-04-29
Poppy Harlow announces she will exit CNN after nearly two decades,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/26/media/poppy-harlow-exit-cnn/index.html,"
  Updated
        12:31 PM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","Poppy Harlow, the longtime CNN anchor who most recently co-helmed “CNN This Morning,” announced Friday that she will exit the network.
    
            “The nearly two decades since have been a gift,” Harlow wrote in an email to colleagues. “I have been inspired by you and learned so much from you – who are (and will remain) dear friends.”
    
            “I grew up here: as a journalist and as a person,” Harlow added. “I was allowed to stumble, to falter, and then to try again with the support and care of this CNN family. This place has shaped me as a leader, taught me resilience, shown me the value of perspective and how to make hard decisions.”
    
            Mark Thompson, CNN’s chief executive, praised Harlow as a “unique talent who combines formidable reporting and interviewing prowess with a human touch that audiences have always responded to.”
    
            “She’s been a wonderful colleague at CNN, and we know she will have much success in her future endeavors,” Thompson said.
    
            Amy Entelis, executive vice president of talent and content, also praised Harlow in a statement, saying she “leaves CNN after more than 16 memorable years, thousands of hours in the anchor chair and hundreds of reports from the field.”
    
            “Poppy is a brilliant journalist who sets the standard for reporting with compassion and humanity, and we will miss her,” Entelis said.
    
            Harlow joined CNN in 2008 and worked in a variety of roles at the network. During her time, she reported across the world on some of the biggest and most consequential news stories, including the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings and 2015 Paris terror attacks.
    
            Harlow, who has a background in business journalism, hosted the “Boss Files” podcast and also regularly landed notable executives for interviews, including Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill and Melinda Gates, Susan Wojcicki, Jamie Dimon and others.
    
            In 2022, then-CNN chief Chris Licht tapped Harlow to help relaunch the network’s flagship morning show. Harlow became co-host with Kaitlan Collins and Don Lemon. The show, however, struggled to capture an audience and behind-the-scenes drama fueled tabloid headlines. Lemon was ultimately dismissed from the network and Collins was moved to helm a solo prime time show.
    
            Thompson, after taking over from Licht, announced in February that he would reconfigure CNN’s morning lineup. “CNN This Morning” changed time slots and moved to Washington, D.C., where it is now hosted by Kasie Hunt.
    
            The new morning show lineup left Harlow without an anchor slot. CNN engaged in discussions with Harlow, but ultimately she decided to exit the network.
    
            In her email to colleagues, Harlow said that in the immediate future she looks forward to spending more time with family.
    
            “For now, my plan is to walk our children to school and pick them up (hopefully they won’t get sick of me!), and to support the evolution of journalism in every way I can, while preserving the human(ity) in it,” Harlow wrote. “I’m excited for what is ahead – and I will be rooting for CNN always.”",CNN,26/04/2024,"['Poppy Harlow, the longtime CNN anchor who most recently co-helmed “CNN This Morning,” announced Friday that she will exit the network.', '“The nearly two decades since have been a gift,” Harlow wrote in an email to colleagues. “', 'I have been inspired by you and learned so much from you – who are (and will remain) dear friends.”', '“I grew up here: as a journalist and as a person,” Harlow added. “', 'I was allowed to stumble, to falter, and then to try again with the support and care of this CNN family.', 'This place has shaped me as a leader, taught me resilience, shown me the value of perspective and how to make hard decisions.”', 'Mark Thompson, CNN’s chief executive, praised Harlow as a “unique talent who combines formidable reporting and interviewing prowess with a human touch that audiences have always responded to.”', '“She’s been a wonderful colleague at CNN, and we know she will have much success in her future endeavors,” Thompson said.', 'Amy Entelis, executive vice president of talent and content, also praised Harlow in a statement, saying she “leaves CNN after more than 16 memorable years, thousands of hours in the anchor chair and hundreds of reports from the field.”', '“Poppy is a brilliant journalist who sets the standard for reporting with compassion and humanity, and we will miss her,” Entelis said.', 'Harlow joined CNN in 2008 and worked in a variety of roles at the network.', 'During her time, she reported across the world on some of the biggest and most consequential news stories, including the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings and 2015 Paris terror attacks.', 'Harlow, who has a background in business journalism, hosted the “Boss Files” podcast and also regularly landed notable executives for interviews, including Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill and Melinda Gates, Susan Wojcicki, Jamie Dimon and others.', 'In 2022, then-CNN chief Chris Licht tapped Harlow to help relaunch the network’s flagship morning show.', 'Harlow became co-host with Kaitlan Collins and Don Lemon.', 'The show, however, struggled to capture an audience and behind-the-scenes drama fueled tabloid headlines.', 'Lemon was ultimately dismissed from the network and Collins was moved to helm a solo prime time show.', 'Thompson, after taking over from Licht, announced in February that he would reconfigure CNN’s morning lineup. “', 'CNN This Morning” changed time slots and moved to Washington, D.C., where it is now hosted by Kasie Hunt.', 'The new morning show lineup left Harlow without an anchor slot.', 'CNN engaged in discussions with Harlow, but ultimately she decided to exit the network.', 'In her email to colleagues, Harlow said that in the immediate future she looks forward to spending more time with family.', '“For now, my plan is to walk our children to school and pick them up (hopefully they won’t get sick of me!),', 'and to support the evolution of journalism in every way I can, while preserving the human(ity) in it,” Harlow wrote. “', 'I’m excited for what is ahead – and I will be rooting for CNN always.”']",0.213841464833888,I have been inspired by you and learned so much from you – who are (and will remain) dear friends.”,"During her time, she reported across the world on some of the biggest and most consequential news stories, including the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings and 2015 Paris terror attacks.",0.4654355777634514,"“She’s been a wonderful colleague at CNN, and we know she will have much success in her future endeavors,” Thompson said.","The show, however, struggled to capture an audience and behind-the-scenes drama fueled tabloid headlines.",2024-04-29
"Bilt’s May Rent Day promotion: Redeem points toward rent, get free home decor",https://edition.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/travel/bilt-rent-day-promotion,"
  Updated
        4:22 PM EDT, Thu April 25, 2024
    ","The Bilt Mastercard® (see rates and fees) has been incredibly popular since its inception in 2021. With a top-notch travel rewards program and the opportunity to earn points on rent with no transaction fees (up to 100,000 points per calendar year), it’s no surprise to see the card flourish over the past few years.
    
            In addition, Bilt Rewards — the loyalty program behind the Bilt Mastercard — offers lucrative promotions throughout the year, with the most popular known as Rent Day.
    
            With Bilt’s Rent Day promotion — which runs the first of every month — card members earn double points on all purchases (excluding rent) and can take advantage of a unique promotion that changes every month. Bilt typically announces these promotions just a few days before Rent Day.
    
            Bilt Rewards just announced the May edition of its monthly Rent Day promotion, and for better or for worse, it’s different from offers we’ve seen in the past.
    
            Instead of a travel-related offer (which has been the norm), Bilt is incentivizing members to redeem points toward their monthly rent payment in exchange for a credit toward home decor products in the Bilt Home Collection.
    
            Additionally, Bilt recently announced a new partnership with Blade, a swanky helicopter transfer service that runs scheduled flights between New York City airports and Manhattan’s heliports.
    
            Let’s take a closer look at this upcoming Rent Day promotion and Bilt’s partnership with Blade.
    
            Between April 25 and May 1, Bilt members who redeem points toward their rent payment will get 100% of those points back to redeem toward items in the Bilt Home Collection. You can use a minimum of 1,000 points and a maximum of 50,000 points for this offer, and the Home Collection credit is good for six months.
    
            However, your points are only worth 0.55 cents apiece when you redeem them toward your rent payment. For example, if you redeem 10,000 points toward rent, you’ll get a $55 discount.
    
            Travel website The Points Guy values Bilt Rewards points at 2.05 cents apiece when redeemed toward travel, so this isn’t a great redemption in comparison. However, it might be worth considering this month if you’re looking for new home decor anyway.
    
            The Bilt Home Collection usually has things like artwork from partner artists, interesting vases and different types of cups.
    
            This month, Bilt will also offer curated Rent Day dining experiences at restaurants around the country. This includes unique tasting menus, wine pairings and omakase experiences.
    
            These dining experiences will cost $150, or you can redeem 15,000 Bilt points for you and a guest. Availability will be limited, but you can try to grab a seat on April 26.
    
            Those with Bilt elite status will receive priority access to reservations. Platinum status members will have first access at 12 p.m. EST, Gold status members at 12:10 p.m. EST and Silver status members at 12:20 p.m. EST. All other Bilt Rewards members can book at 12:30 p.m. EST.
    
            Dining experiences will be available at select restaurants in New York, Miami, Seattle, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Boston and Washington, D.C.
    
            Every month on Rent Day, Bilt also gives members with the Bilt Mastercard a chance to earn double points on all purchases (excluding rent).
    
            So, if you have a new restaurant you want to check out, flights to book or any other purchases to make, it could be worth waiting until May 1 to earn more points on your purchase. And if you’re dining at a restaurant that participates in Bilt Dining, you can increase your earnings up to a whopping 11 points per dollar.
    
            But remember, to earn Bilt points with your Bilt Mastercard, you must use the card five times each statement period (see Rewards & Benefits).
    
            Earlier this month, Bilt announced a new partnership with Blade, where Bilt Reward members will earn bonus points on every Blade booking. Members will earn 2 bonus points for every dollar spent on Blade flights as long as they pay with a credit or debit card linked to their Bilt Rewards account.
    
            Again, you’ll get more Blade benefits if you have Bilt elite status.
    
            These are nice benefits to have if you live in New York. Blade has lounges at its heliports on West 30th Street and East 34th Street, both of which are outfitted with a complimentary bar, coffee and free snacks.
    
            If getting a discount on rent is your preferred way to redeem Bilt Rewards points, this month’s Rent Day promotion is a great way to earn bonus points to put toward furnishing your home. If you’d rather redeem toward travel, focus on earning double points on all purchases on May 1.
    
            Learn more and apply now for the Bilt Mastercard.
    
            Looking for a travel credit card? Find out which cards CNN Underscored Money chose as the best travel credit cards currently available.",CNN,25/04/2024,"['The Bilt Mastercard® (seerates and fees) has been incredibly popular since its inception in 2021.', 'With a top-notch travel rewards program and the opportunity to earn points on rent with no transaction fees (up to 100,000 points per calendar year), it’s no surprise to see the card flourish over the past few years.', 'In addition, Bilt Rewards —the loyalty program behind the Bilt Mastercard — offers lucrative promotions throughout the year, with the most popular known as Rent Day.', 'With Bilt’s Rent Day promotion —which runs the first of every month — card members earn double points on all purchases (excluding rent) and can take advantage of a unique promotion that changes every month.', 'Bilt typically announces these promotions just a few days before Rent Day.', 'Bilt Rewards just announced the May edition of its monthly Rent Day promotion, and for better or for worse, it’s different from offers we’ve seen in the past.', 'Instead of a travel-related offer (which has been the norm), Bilt is incentivizing members to redeem points toward their monthly rent payment in exchange for a credit toward home decor products in the Bilt Home Collection.', 'Additionally, Bilt recently announced a new partnership with Blade,a swanky helicopter transfer service that runs scheduled flights between New York City airports and Manhattan’s heliports.', 'Let’s take a closer look at this upcoming Rent Day promotion and Bilt’s partnership with Blade.', 'Between April 25 and May 1, Bilt members who redeem points toward their rent payment will get 100% of those points back to redeem toward items in the Bilt Home Collection.', 'You can use a minimum of 1,000 points and a maximum of 50,000 points for this offer, and the Home Collection credit is good for six months.', 'However, your points are only worth 0.55 cents apiece when you redeem them toward your rent payment.', 'For example, if you redeem 10,000 points toward rent, you’ll get a $55 discount.', 'Travel website The Points Guy values Bilt Rewards points at 2.05 cents apiece when redeemed toward travel, so this isn’t a great redemption in comparison.', 'However, it might be worth considering this month if you’re looking for new home decor anyway.', 'The Bilt Home Collection usually has things like artwork from partner artists, interesting vases and different types of cups.', 'This month, Bilt will also offer curated Rent Day dining experiences at restaurants around the country.', 'This includes unique tasting menus, wine pairings and omakase experiences.', 'These dining experiences will cost $150, or you can redeem 15,000 Bilt points for you and a guest.', 'Availability will be limited, but you can try to grab a seat on April 26.', 'Those with Bilt elite status will receive priority access to reservations.', 'Platinum status members will have first access at 12 p.m. EST, Gold status members at 12:10 p.m. EST and Silver status members at 12:20 p.m. EST.', 'All other Bilt Rewards members can book at 12:30 p.m. EST.', 'Dining experiences will be available at select restaurants in New York, Miami, Seattle, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Boston and Washington, D.C.  Every month on Rent Day, Bilt also gives members with the Bilt Mastercard a chance to earn double points on all purchases (excluding rent).', 'So, if you have a new restaurant you want to check out, flights to book or any other purchases to make, it could be worth waiting until May 1 to earn more points on your purchase.', 'And if you’re dining at a restaurant that participates in Bilt Dining, you can increase your earnings up to a whopping 11 points per dollar.', 'But remember, to earn Bilt points with your Bilt Mastercard, you must use the card five times each statement period (see Rewards & Benefits).', 'Earlier this month, Bilt announced a new partnership with Blade, where Bilt Reward members will earn bonus points on every Blade booking.', 'Members will earn 2 bonus points for every dollar spent on Blade flights as long as they pay with a credit or debit card linked to their Bilt Rewards account.', 'Again, you’ll get more Blade benefits if you have Bilt elite status.', 'These are nice benefits to have if you live in New York.', 'Blade has lounges at its heliports on West 30th Street and East 34th Street, both of which are outfitted with a complimentary bar, coffee and free snacks.', 'If getting a discount on rent is your preferred way to redeem Bilt Rewards points, this month’s Rent Day promotion is a great way to earn bonus points to put toward furnishing your home.', 'If you’d rather redeem toward travel, focus on earning double points on all purchases on May 1.', 'Learn more and apply now for the Bilt Mastercard.', 'Looking for a travel credit card?', 'Find out which cardsCNN Underscored Moneychose as thebest travel credit cardscurrently available.']",0.3487739443917381,"Travel website The Points Guy values Bilt Rewards points at 2.05 cents apiece when redeemed toward travel, so this isn’t a great redemption in comparison.",,0.978265517950058,"And if you’re dining at a restaurant that participates in Bilt Dining, you can increase your earnings up to a whopping 11 points per dollar.",,2024-04-29
FTC investigating TikTok over privacy and security,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/tech/ftc-tiktok-probe-privacy-and-security/index.html,"
  Updated
        8:11 PM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
    ","The Federal Trade Commission is investigating TikTok for its data and security practices, two sources told CNN on the condition of anonymity.
    
            The probe is yet another complication for the social media platform, which is already facing the threat of a potential US ban or a forced divestment from its Chinese parent company.
    
            The sources said that the FTC is probing TikTok over an alleged violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection rule, which requires companies to notify parents and obtain consent before collecting data from children under 13.
    
            The agency is also investigating whether TikTok violated a portion of the FTC Act that prohibits “unfair or deceptive” business practices, the sources said, in denying that TikTok user data could be accessed by individuals in China.
    
            The FTC could bring a suit against TikTok or settle with the company in the coming weeks, according to one of the sources. Politico reported news of the probe earlier.
    
            When asked about the investigation, FTC Director of Public Affairs Douglas Farrar replied: “No comment.”
    
            TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
    
            The FTC probe comes as TikTok faces an existential threat in the US. Earlier this month, a bipartisan group in the US House of Representatives voted to pass a law forcing TikTok to be sold by ByteDance or face a ban from US app stores. The bill is now before the Senate, and President Joe Biden has said he would sign it if it gets to his desk. Senate leaders, however, have indicated they are taking a deliberate approach — which could lead to delays or even potentially doom the House bill.
    
            The short-form video company, owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, has denied assertions that its app poses a national security threat to US citizens. TikTok, which does not operate in China, has said that the Chinese government has never accessed US user data.
    
            Cybersecurity experts say Chinese laws require ByteDance to cooperate with that country’s intelligence demands — a fact that, given ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok, could hypothetically put US user data at risk. To address that issue, TikTok has taken steps to store its US user data on cloud servers controlled by US tech giant Oracle and established internal protocols limiting access by non-US employees.
    
            TikTok acknowledged to Congress in 2022 that employees based in China could access US user data, following a report that year by BuzzFeed News that ByteDance employees had accessed that information on multiple occasions. TikTok CEO Shou Chew, in his first appearance before Congress last year, also acknowledged that several ByteDance employees were fired for spying on certain US journalists as part of a “misguided attempt” to hunt down leakers within the company.",CNN,26/03/2024,"['The Federal Trade Commission is investigating TikTok for its data and security practices, two sources told CNN on the condition of anonymity.', 'The probe is yet another complication for the social media platform, which is already facing the threat of a potential US ban or a forced divestment from its Chinese parent company.', 'The sources said that the FTC is probing TikTok over an alleged violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection rule, which requires companies to notify parents and obtain consent before collecting data from children under 13.', 'The agency is also investigating whether TikTok violated a portion of the FTC Act that prohibits “unfair or deceptive” business practices, the sources said, in denying that TikTok user data could be accessed by individuals in China.', 'The FTC could bring a suit against TikTok or settle with the company in the coming weeks, according to one of the sources.', 'Politico reported news of the probe earlier.', 'When asked about the investigation, FTC Director of Public Affairs Douglas Farrar replied: “No comment.”', 'TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.', 'The FTC probe comes as TikTok faces an existential threat in the US.', 'Earlier this month, a bipartisan group in the US House of Representatives voted to pass a law forcing TikTok to be sold by ByteDance or face a ban from US app stores.', 'The bill is now before the Senate, and President Joe Biden has said he would sign it if it gets to his desk.', 'Senate leaders, however, have indicated they are taking a deliberate approach —which could lead to delays or even potentially doom the House bill.', 'The short-form video company, owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, has denied assertions that its app poses a national security threat to US citizens.', 'TikTok, which does not operate in China, has said that the Chinese government has never accessed US user data.', 'Cybersecurity experts say Chinese laws require ByteDance to cooperate with that country’s intelligence demands—a fact that, given ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok, could hypothetically put US user data at risk.', 'To address that issue, TikTok has taken steps to store its US user data on cloud servers controlled by US tech giant Oracle and established internal protocols limiting access by non-US employees.', 'TikTok acknowledged to Congress in 2022 that employees based in China could access US user data, following a report that year by BuzzFeed News that ByteDance employees had accessed that information on multiple occasions.', 'TikTok CEO Shou Chew, in his first appearance before Congress last year, also acknowledged that several ByteDance employees were fired for spying on certain US journalists as part of a “misguided attempt” to hunt down leakers within the company.']",-0.232320081688102,"The Federal Trade Commission is investigating TikTok for its data and security practices, two sources told CNN on the condition of anonymity.","The probe is yet another complication for the social media platform, which is already facing the threat of a potential US ban or a forced divestment from its Chinese parent company.",-0.8880722284317016,,"Senate leaders, however, have indicated they are taking a deliberate approach —which could lead to delays or even potentially doom the House bill.",2024-04-29
The Chevrolet Corvette is officially going electric,https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/25/business/electric-hybrid-corvette/index.html,"
  Updated
        12:22 PM EDT, Mon April 25, 2022
    ","General Motors will produce a fully electric Chevrolet Corvette, GM President Mark Reuss announced in a LinkedIn post Monday morning. 
    
            Reuss didn’t say when the electric Corvette would come, but he hinted that a hybrid model could come relatively soon. “We will offer an electrified Corvette as early as next year,” he wrote. An accompanying video the company posted to Twitter showed what appeared to be a hybrid Corvette, and in another first, showed the front wheels spinning and throwing snow as if being powered. All Corvettes produced by the company previously have been rear-wheel-drive only.
    
            While Reuss’s post implies a hybrid Corvette will be based on the current generation of the car, it’s not clear if the all-electric version will be a variation of this car or a completely different future model.
    
            “Electrified” is an auto industry term encompassing everything from hybrid to fully electric vehicles, and anything with an electric motor can count as “electrified.” It has long been rumored that the current generation of the Corvette, the first with its gasoline engine mounted behind the seats instead of in the front, could be built with a hybrid system. Reuss has also previously hinted there would be electrified variants of the car.
    
            Various companies are working on electric sports cars. Most all-electric vehicles in production so far have been four-door sedans and SUVs, as the need for batteries lends itself to larger and heavier vehicles. Tesla’s first car, the Lotus Elise-based Tesla Roadster, was an electric sports car, but the second-generation of Tesla Roadster, originally unveiled as a prototype in 2017, has yet to go into production.
    
            Some manufacturers, such as Lamborghini, have said that current battery technology doesn’t allow for a optimum sports car performance from a purely electric vehicle. Lamborghini has been working on plug-in hybrid sports cars, though.
    
            To date, the Corvette is only available in the base Stingray version with 6.2-liter V8 engine producing up to 495 horsepower. A 670 horsepower Corvette Z06 with a 5.5-liter V8 was unveiled last fall. The previous generation of the Corvette included included a 755-horsepower ZR1 version. Nothing like that has yet been announced for the current model but GM engineers have said a major reason for putting the engine in the back was to allow for better performance at extremely high horsepower levels.
    
            Besides saving gas, hybrid systems can also be used in high-performance cars to add additional power and to provide for quicker acceleration since electric motors can provide power to the wheels more quickly than gas engines. Ferrari’s most powerful sports cars are hybrids, for instance.  
    
            GM has said it plans to produce only zero-emission vehicles, meaning fully electric or powered by hydrogen fuel cells, by 2035.",CNN,25/04/2022,"['General Motors will produce a fully electric Chevrolet Corvette, GM President Mark Reuss announced in a LinkedIn post Monday morning.', 'Reuss didn’t say when the electric Corvette would come, but he hinted that a hybrid model could come relatively soon. “', 'We will offer an electrified Corvette as early as next year,” he wrote.', 'An accompanying video the company posted to Twitter showed what appeared to be a hybrid Corvette, and in another first, showed the front wheels spinning and throwing snow as if being powered.', 'All Corvettes produced by the company previously have been rear-wheel-drive only.', 'While Reuss’s post implies a hybrid Corvette will be based on the current generation of the car, it’s not clear if the all-electric version will be a variation of this car or a completely different future model.', '“Electrified” is an auto industry term encompassing everything from hybrid to fully electric vehicles, and anything with an electric motor can count as “electrified.”', 'It has long been rumored that the current generation of the Corvette, the first with its gasoline engine mounted behind the seats instead of in the front, could be built with a hybrid system.', 'Reuss has also previously hinted there would be electrified variants of the car.', 'Various companies are working on electric sports cars.', 'Most all-electric vehicles in production so far have been four-door sedans and SUVs, as the need for batteries lends itself to larger and heavier vehicles.', 'Tesla’s first car, the Lotus Elise-based Tesla Roadster, was an electric sports car, but the second-generation of Tesla Roadster, originally unveiled as a prototype in 2017, has yet to go into production.', 'Some manufacturers, such as Lamborghini, have said that current battery technology doesn’t allow for a optimum sports car performance from a purely electric vehicle.', 'Lamborghini has been working on plug-in hybrid sports cars, though.', 'To date, the Corvette is only available in the base Stingray version with 6.2-liter V8 engine producing up to 495 horsepower.', 'A 670 horsepower Corvette Z06 with a 5.5-liter V8 was unveiled last fall.', 'The previous generation of the Corvette included included a 755-horsepower ZR1 version.', 'Nothing like that has yet been announced for the current model but GM engineers have said a major reason for putting the engine in the back was to allow for better performance at extremely high horsepower levels.', 'Besides saving gas, hybrid systems can also be used in high-performance cars to add additional power and to provide for quicker acceleration since electric motors can provide power to the wheels more quickly than gas engines.', 'Ferrari’s most powerful sports cars are hybrids, for instance.', 'GM has said it plans to produce only zero-emission vehicles, meaning fully electric or powered by hydrogen fuel cells, by 2035.']",0.0521320736918344,Nothing like that has yet been announced for the current model but GM engineers have said a major reason for putting the engine in the back was to allow for better performance at extremely high horsepower levels.,"While Reuss’s post implies a hybrid Corvette will be based on the current generation of the car, it’s not clear if the all-electric version will be a variation of this car or a completely different future model.",0.3646016319592793,"Besides saving gas, hybrid systems can also be used in high-performance cars to add additional power and to provide for quicker acceleration since electric motors can provide power to the wheels more quickly than gas engines.","Some manufacturers, such as Lamborghini, have said that current battery technology doesn’t allow for a optimum sports car performance from a purely electric vehicle.",2024-04-29
3 ways Apple’s monopoly lawsuit could change the iPhone experience for fans,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/tech/apples-iphone-changes-lawsuit/index.html,"
  Published
        6:30 AM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
    ","When Apple launched its first Mac computer in 1984, with its iconic Mac smiley-face “hello” greeting, it wanted to differentiate itself in the fledgling PC market. The Mac was approachable with its friendly, innovative design – Apple’s way of setting the Mac apart in the confusing PC landscape.
    
            That consumer-friendly mantra still exists today, with Apple carefully curating an easy-breezy yet controlled user experience across its products, including the billions of iPhones used around the world.
    
            But the Biden administration believes Apple took that too far. On Thursday, the Department of Justice sued Apple for illegally monopolizing the smartphone market. In a press conference, the government provided a long list of how Apple has allegedly squashed competition with restrictive app store terms, high fees and its “walled-garden” approach, restricting how third-party companies interact with its brands and services.
    
            The company denied the lawsuit’s allegations and said it plans to fight them. Apple added that the lawsuit could empower the government “to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology.”
    
            But if successful, the lawsuit could ripple across Apple’s products and services. Although the suit could take years to play out, here’s a closer look what it may eventually mean for iPhone users:
    
            If found liable, the company could be forced to change a number of things.
    
            One such change is how iPhone users could get greater access to “super apps” that have been largely restricted before. The term refers to one-stop-shop apps that allow for messaging, ordering food, payment processing and other capabilities all within one platform.
    
             According to Dipanjan Chatterjee, a principal analyst at market research firm Forrester, super apps most threaten Apple’s preeminence in the lives of its customers.
    
            “An offering like WeChat, dubbed China’s everything app, can provide an alternative to the Apple ecosystem for people to communicate, bank, share memories, talk to businesses and more,” he said. “What Apple fears most is becoming irrelevant to its customers.”
    
            At the same time, super apps like WeChat are created by larger companies and could, therefore, put some smaller companies at a disadvantage. And the concept hasn’t been welcomed much in the US anyway.
    
            The US government, however, could argue that lack of interest may be due to Apple’s high share of the smartphone market and its resistance to offer super apps in its store, Chatterjee said.
    
            Apple may also be required to offer more support for cross-platform messaging, an issue the company previously said it’s already working on.
    
            The company lets iPhone users send high-quality photos and videos to one another, but similar texts to Android phones are slower and grainy. It also maintains those messages in green bubbles, creating a kind of class divide, critics argue.
    
            In November, the company said it will add new features, such as read receipts, typing indicators, better support for group chats and higher quality media sharing of images and videos, across platforms to help close the gap. Apple’s move to add support for the standard called RCS (rich communication services) is intended to roll out later this year. RCS is considered the replacement to alternatives such as SMS, or short messaging service, and can work over both Wi-Fi and mobile data.
    
            The change followed pressure from both regulators and competitors to more seamlessly work across operating systems. The European Union’s Digital Markets Act, for example, requires companies to make their key services interoperable between platforms. The US government could require the same.
    
            Another likely change is how hardware from other companies, such as smartwatches, will interact with the Apple range of devices and software, including the iPhone and Apple’s services like Fitness+. The company has also required Apple Watch users to own iOS devices as a way to keep them locked into its existing ecosystem.
    
            Chatterjee said making this change would have both positives and negatives.
    
            “The net result would reside somewhere along the spectrum of access to more and cheaper options but also the devaluation of the customer experience that is so highly prized by Apple’s customers,” he said.
    
            The Biden administration has also taken issue with Apple’s lack of support for mobile cloud services. Loosening this could allow users to access games and other cloud-based apps without having to pay for pricey hardware.
    
            The DOJ lawsuit claims Apple’s behavior has illegally hindered competition, kept its customers locked into its products and prevented other companies from innovating. Although the Biden administration will have to prove these harms, some critics say any potential changes Apple could make will negatively impact the user experience.
    
            David McQueen, a research director at ABI Research, said he recognizes that the content and applications market should be open, and Apple needs to avoid monopolistic advantages that can restrict competition, push up prices or block innovation. But Apple’s success stems in part to its tight grip on its products and services, keeping things intuitive and seamless.
    
            “If Apple is forced to comply, it could potentially spell the end to the provision of this consistent and unified user experience, although by the same token, consumers will be open to a greater choice of apps and services, helping more developers and providers,” McQueen said.
    
            Chatterjee noted some people are drawn to the Apple family of products precisely because of the carefully managed ecosystem’s ease of use. Apple may have to work that much harder to preserve the integrity of its experience, but any changes probably won’t be enough to make customers to leave and go elsewhere.
    
            “The vast majority of Apple customers would probably be happier with some more choice and lower prices as long as it did not hamper their levels of customer experience, which is threatened by the less control Apple has over the experience,” Chatterjee said.
    
            But he added those currently outside of the Apple ecosystem will likely benefit by “plugging in opportunistically without having to go all in with Apple.”",CNN,26/03/2024,"['When Apple launched its first Mac computer in 1984, with its iconic Mac smiley-face “hello” greeting, it wanted to differentiate itself in the fledgling PC market.', 'The Mac was approachable with its friendly, innovative design – Apple’s way of setting the Mac apart in the confusing PC landscape.', 'That consumer-friendly mantra still exists today, with Apple carefully curating an easy-breezy yet controlled user experience across its products, including the billions of iPhones used around the world.', 'But the Biden administration believes Apple took that too far.', 'On Thursday, the Department of Justice sued Apple for illegally monopolizing the smartphone market.', 'In a press conference, the government provided a long list of how Apple has allegedly squashed competition with restrictive app store terms, high fees and its “walled-garden” approach, restricting how third-party companies interact with its brands and services.', 'The company denied the lawsuit’s allegations and said it plans to fight them.', 'Apple added that the lawsuit could empower the government “to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology.”', 'But if successful, the lawsuit could ripple across Apple’s products and services.', 'Although the suit could take years to play out, here’s a closer look what it may eventually mean for iPhone users:  If found liable, the company could be forced to change a number of things.', 'One such change is how iPhone users could get greater access to “super apps” that have been largely restricted before.', 'The term refers to one-stop-shop apps that allow for messaging, ordering food, payment processing and other capabilities all within one platform.', 'According to Dipanjan Chatterjee, a principal analyst at market research firm Forrester, super apps most threaten Apple’s preeminence in the lives of its customers.', '“An offering like WeChat, dubbed China’s everything app, can provide an alternative to the Apple ecosystem for people to communicate, bank, share memories, talk to businesses and more,” he said.', '“What Apple fears most is becoming irrelevant to its customers.”', 'At the same time, super apps like WeChat are created by larger companies and could, therefore, put some smaller companies at a disadvantage.', 'And the concept hasn’t been welcomed much in the US anyway.', 'The US government, however, could argue that lack of interest may be due to Apple’s high share of the smartphone market and its resistance to offer super apps in its store, Chatterjee said.', 'Apple may also be required to offer more support for cross-platform messaging, an issue the company previously said it’s already working on.', 'The company lets iPhone users send high-quality photos and videos to one another, but similar texts to Android phones are slower and grainy.', 'It also maintains those messages in green bubbles, creating a kind of class divide, critics argue.', 'In November, the company said it will add new features, such as read receipts, typing indicators, better support for group chats and higher quality media sharing of images and videos, across platforms to help close the gap.', 'Apple’s move to add support for the standard called RCS (rich communication services) is intended to roll out later this year.', 'RCS is considered the replacement to alternatives such as SMS, or short messaging service, and can work over both Wi-Fi and mobile data.', 'The change followed pressure from both regulators and competitors to more seamlessly work across operating systems.', 'The European Union’s Digital Markets Act, for example, requires companies to make their key services interoperable between platforms.', 'The US government could require the same.', 'Another likely change is how hardware from other companies, such as smartwatches, will interact with the Apple range of devices and software, including the iPhone and Apple’s services like Fitness+.', 'The company has also required Apple Watch users to own iOS devices as a way to keep them locked into its existing ecosystem.', 'Chatterjee said making this change would have both positives and negatives.', '“The net result would reside somewhere along the spectrum of access to more and cheaper options but also the devaluation of the customer experience that is so highly prized by Apple’s customers,” he said.', 'The Biden administration has also taken issue with Apple’s lack of support for mobile cloud services.', 'Loosening this could allow users to access games and other cloud-based apps without having to pay for pricey hardware.', 'The DOJ lawsuit claims Apple’s behavior has illegally hindered competition, kept its customers locked into its products and prevented other companies from innovating.', 'Although the Biden administration will have to prove these harms, some critics say any potential changes Apple could make will negatively impact the user experience.', 'David McQueen, a research director at ABI Research, said he recognizes that the content and applications market should be open, and Apple needs to avoid monopolistic advantages that can restrict competition, push up prices or block innovation.', 'But Apple’s success stems in part to its tight grip on its products and services, keeping things intuitive and seamless.', '“If Apple is forced to comply, it could potentially spell the end to the provision of this consistent and unified user experience, although by the same token, consumers will be open to a greater choice of apps and services, helping more developers and providers,” McQueen said.', 'Chatterjee noted some people are drawn to the Apple family of products precisely because of the carefully managed ecosystem’s ease of use.', 'Apple may have to work that much harder to preserve the integrity of its experience, but any changes probably won’t be enough to make customers to leave and go elsewhere.', '“The vast majority of Apple customers would probably be happier with some more choice and lower prices as long as it did not hamper their levels of customer experience, which is threatened by the less control Apple has over the experience,” Chatterjee said.', 'But he added those currently outside of the Apple ecosystem will likely benefit by “plugging in opportunistically without having to go all in with Apple.”']",0.2470050112228104,"In November, the company said it will add new features, such as read receipts, typing indicators, better support for group chats and higher quality media sharing of images and videos, across platforms to help close the gap.",The company denied the lawsuit’s allegations and said it plans to fight them.,-0.151834687590599,"“The vast majority of Apple customers would probably be happier with some more choice and lower prices as long as it did not hamper their levels of customer experience, which is threatened by the less control Apple has over the experience,” Chatterjee said.","The DOJ lawsuit claims Apple’s behavior has illegally hindered competition, kept its customers locked into its products and prevented other companies from innovating.",2024-04-29
"‘Should have been done yesterday’: Rural, older Americans could get hurt as affordable internet program runs out of cash",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/29/tech/broadband-affordability-acp-rural-older-americans/index.html,"
  Updated
        12:48 PM EDT, Mon April 29, 2024
    ","For Cindy Westman, the internet is a literal lifeline. She depends on internet access to care for her 12-year-old daughter — who has cerebral palsy and autism — by messaging doctors, accessing test results and scheduling critical medical appointments virtually.
    
            But it’s not easy to stay connected in Westman’s small, rural town of Eureka, Illinois. With a population of 5,100, many of Eureka’s residents struggle to afford food and oil changes, let alone home internet.
    
            “When we’re on the go and she’s hungry, I feed her and then I’ll come home and eat,”  said Westman, who is 43. “She doesn’t know any better, because with her developmental disability, all she knows is, ‘[I’m] hungry, and Mom feeds me.’”
    
            Since 2021, struggling Americans like Westman — who gave up a career in information security to care for her child — have made ends meet with the help of a popular federal benefit known as the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which covers home internet service.
    
            For Westman, who gets by on Social Security disability payments, the up to $30 of monthly credits from the government make all the difference, covering her entire internet bill.
    
            But in just a few weeks, her internet bills, and those of other Americans like her, could skyrocket by hundreds of dollars a year. That’s because the ACP is running out of funds — and Congress shows no signs it will approve more. Policy experts have described the situation as a fast-approaching economic crisis and a major step backward for closing the digital divide between internet haves and have-nots.
    
            In May, that hard reality will begin to set in as Westman’s and more than 23 million other households will receive only partial benefits before the ACP is shut down for good, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has warned, a financial shock that could make it even harder for low-income US households to get by.
    
            “Because of political gameplay, about 60 million Americans will have to make hard choices between paying for the internet or paying for food, rent, and other utilities, widening the digital divide in this country,” said Gigi Sohn, a former top FCC official. “It’s embarrassing that a popular, bipartisan program with support from nearly half of Congress will end because of politics, not policy.”
    
            The collapse of the ACP will affect nearly 60 million individual Americans, going by Census Bureau population estimates. The program is heavily used by Americans over age 50, military veterans and low-income working families nationwide, according to FCC data.
    
            Every week, Cynthia George connects with her granddaughter and great-grandson on video calls. The 71-year-old retiree reads the news on her MSN homepage and googles how to fight the bugs coming from her drain in Florida’s summer heat. She hunts for grocery deals on her Publix app so that her food stamps stretch just a little further.
    
            But George worries the ACP’s collapse may force her to make a difficult choice: Buy enough food to feed herself — or pay her home internet bill.
    
            “My grandkids, they make fun of me,” George said with a chuckle. “They say I’m cheap. I go, ‘No, Grandma’s thrifty.’ I don’t have any choice; I have to account for every penny. And this would mean that that food bill would have to be cut down. There’s no place else I would be able to take it from.”
    
            For many people like George, the loss of subsidies would hinder everything from seeing doctors and getting medications to accessing public benefits to their ability to do school and work.
    
            Biden and congressional Democrats have blamed Republicans on Capitol Hill for blocking legislation that would extend the ACP, even as many red congressional districts have received millions of dollars from the program, according to data published by the White House.
    
            “Most of the people who have signed up from this are from rural America,” Texas Democratic Rep. Marc Veasey, who represents a district in Dallas, told CNN. “People think of this as something that helps people in districts like mine that are in highly populated, very dense urban centers, but the fact of the matter is, [many] Republican constituencies are benefiting from this. And so you would think they would want to actually step up for their own people. They’re not doing it, and it’s frustrating, because as a result, every district is hurting because of it.”
    
            Many ACP subscribers have told CNN they are irate at Congress for letting them down and, through inaction, taking away a basic, essential utility.
    
            Just over two years into the ACP’s existence, the FCC has already been forced to begin shutting down the program — halting new signups, warning users their credits are about to be suspended and announcing sharp cuts to benefits. In May, the program’s final month, ACP subscribers will only receive about half of what the government has promised them.
    
            FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks has crisscrossed the nation talking to Americans who depend on the ACP. During one visit to a nursing home, roughly a dozen older Americans approached him to say the ACP helped them access the internet for the first time.
    
            “It’s telemedicine, visiting their grandkids, going to church online,” Starks told CNN.
    
            “I did a town hall in Las Vegas,” he added, “where a number of folks were downright angry and upset. They said, ‘This program only got started in 2022, and now you’re letting this thing run out of money.’ When you’re talking about these very vulnerable households, asking folks to pay $30 [a month] or more, you might as well be asking them for $1 million. These households know how to stretch a dollar; $30 is a very high mark.”
    
            The ACP has quickly gained adoption since Congress created the program in the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law. It is overwhelmingly popular with both political parties, surveys show.
    
            Military families account for almost half of the ACP’s subscriber base, according to the White House and an outside survey backed by Comcast.
    
            One of those military recipients is Walter Durham, a 68-year-old Navy vet who lives in San Diego and uses the internet to talk to his doctors. He says he relies on the $30 monthly savings on internet to afford healthier foods.
    
            “I’m going to have to either do without Wi-Fi or I will have to come up with other means to pay for Wi-Fi,” Durham told CNN, “because I can’t count on the politicians to do anything to help the American people.”
    
            More than a quarter of ACP users live in rural areas, the Comcast-backed survey said, with roughly 4 in 10 enrolled households located in the southern United States alone. As many as 65% of respondents said they feared losing their job without the ACP; 3 out of 4 said they worry about losing online health care services, and more than 80% said they believe their kids would fall behind in school.
    
            “One of the things that has been the most surprising is how much the program is over-indexing, is over-performing in rural areas,” Starks told CNN.
    
            Large swaths of the ACP’s user base trend older; Americans over 65 account for almost 20% of the program. And as many as 10 million Americans who use the program are at least age 50.
    
            Michelle McDonough, 49, works part time at a tobacco shop in Maine and lives off Social Security disability payments. She is one statistics class away from earning an associate degree in behavioral health. Not only does she go to class virtually, but she also sees a psychiatrist who only meets patients through telehealth visits.
    
            Like George, McDonough also expects she’ll have to cut back on groceries if the ACP goes away. There’s a library roughly five miles from her home with internet access, but having to go out of her way would cost her even more time and money she doesn’t have, she said. Besides, McDonough added, her car is dying and the library is rarely open in snowy weather.
    
            If politicians allow the ACP to collapse, it will be a sign of how out of touch they are with their voters, McDonough said.
    
            “I’m trying to become a productive member of society, something that they say people on low income are not,” McDonough said. “I’m trying. And, you know, one of the programs that’s helping me, they’re talking about taking it away — when there are definitely a lot of other things that they probably could take the funding from.”
    
            Congress authorized the ACP with an initial $14 billion in funding in 2021. That money has now spread to virtually every congressional district in the country. It is the largest internet affordability program in US history, the government has said, describing it as working hand-in-glove with billions of dollars in new infrastructure spending.
    
            In a recent FCC survey, more than half of rural respondents — and 47% of respondents overall — said the ACP was their first-ever experience with having home internet.
    
            If the ACP collapses, some, like George and McDonough, will make cuts to their budget to stay online.
    
            Kamesha Scott, a 29-year-old mother in St. Louis who works two jobs delivering Amazon packages and handling restaurant takeout orders, told CNN she would have to pick up extra shifts to make ends meet. And that would mean seeing her two kids even less, she said.
    
            Expect others to resort to a mishmash of ad hoc solutions, policy experts say.
    
            That could include using the free Wi-Fi at fast-food restaurants, school parking lots and other public spaces. Or it could mean falling back on cellphone data service, at least where it’s available and plans are still affordable.
    
            Roughly a third of the country’s 123,000 public libraries offer mobile hotspot lending, allowing visitors to borrow palm-sized devices that pump out a cellular signal that can substitute for home internet service in a pinch, said Megan Janicki, a policy expert at the American Library Association. But they aren’t a perfect solution: The cell signal may be weak, or users could have to wait to check one out.
    
            “Depending on how long the waitlist is, they’re waiting at least three weeks, if not longer,” Janicki said.
    
            ACP subscribers could turn to other government aid. The FCC’s Lifeline program, which dates to the Reagan administration, similarly gives low-income households a monthly discount on phone or internet service. But the benefit pales in comparison: It’s worth only $9.25 a month, or $34.25 for tribal subscribers — a fraction of what ACP subscribers are currently eligible for.
    
            Earlier this year, a bipartisan group of Senate and House lawmakers unveiled legislation to authorize $7 billion to save the ACP — that’s $1 billion more than the Biden administration asked for. That legislation has the support of more than half the US House, including 22 Republicans, and five members of the US Senate, including three Republicans.
    
            Still, the bill has not moved.
    
            Policy experts have said it is unlikely Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson will let the bill onto the House floor as GOP leaders have decried government spending, despite the program being widely supported by members of both parties.
    
            “It is clear the program would be extended if the speaker would allow a vote,” said Blair Levin, an analyst at the market research firm New Street Research. “So far, he has not said anything about it, but it appears he will not allow the House to vote on the legislation. He has not, to my knowledge, said anything substantive about the legislation or the program.”
    
            A spokesperson for Johnson didn’t respond to a request for comment on proposals to renew the ACP.
    
            There is growing evidence that money spent through the ACP ends up saving taxpayers in the long run. In a recent study, Levin said, researchers estimated that every $1 of ACP spending increases US GDP by $3.89, while other research has outlined how telemedicine can lead to substantial savings in health care.
    
            Even though extending ACP benefits could help lawmakers from both parties as they head home to campaign, perhaps the biggest political beneficiary may be Biden as his campaign touts the administration’s economic record ahead of the election.
    
            Jonathan Blaine, a freelance software engineer in Vermont and an ACP subscriber, pins the blame on certain Republicans who he says would rather hurt working-class people than give Biden a political victory.
    
            “You guys seem to promote that you’re for the working-class people, but realistically, the working-class people are the ones that you’re screwing over most of the time,” Blaine said, speaking directly to GOP lawmakers. “You’re taking ACP away from the farmers that can check the local produce prices and be able to reasonably negotiate their prices with retailers. You’re removing disabled people’s ability to fill their prescriptions online.”
    
            Bills like the recent government funding legislation show that Congress can pass things quickly if it has to, Westman said, lamenting lawmakers’ inaction on the ACP.
    
            “[If] both parties agree, there should be zero resistance and this should have been done yesterday instead of people fearing that they’re losing this funding,” she said.
    
            Correction: This story has been updated to correct the population of Eureka. It is 5,100.",CNN,29/04/2024,"['For Cindy Westman, the internet is a literal lifeline.', 'She depends on internet access to care for her 12-year-old daughter— who has cerebral palsy and autism—by messaging doctors, accessing test results and scheduling critical medical appointments virtually.', 'But it’s not easy to stay connected in Westman’s small, rural town of Eureka, Illinois.', 'With a population of 5,100, many of Eureka’s residentsstruggle to afford food and oil changes, let alone home internet.', '“When we’re on the go and she’s hungry, I feed her and then I’ll come home and eat,” said Westman, who is 43. “', 'She doesn’t know any better, because with her developmental disability, all she knows is, ‘[I’m] hungry, and Mom feeds me.’”', 'Since 2021, struggling Americans like Westman —who gave up a career in information security to care for her child —have made ends meet with the help of a popular federal benefit known as the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which covers home internet service.', 'For Westman, who gets by on Social Security disability payments, the up to $30 of monthly credits from the government make all the difference, covering her entire internet bill.', 'But in just a few weeks, her internet bills, and those of other Americans like her, could skyrocket by hundreds of dollars a year.', 'That’s because the ACP is running out of funds — and Congress shows no signs it will approve more.', 'Policy experts have described the situation as a fast-approaching economic crisis and a major step backward for closing the digital divide between internet haves and have-nots.', 'In May, that hard reality will begin to set in as Westman’s and more than 23 million other households will receive only partial benefits before the ACP is shut down for good, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has warned, a financial shock that could make it even harder for low-income US householdsto get by.', '“Because of political gameplay, about 60 million Americans will have to make hard choices between paying for the internet or paying for food, rent, and other utilities, widening the digital divide in this country,” said Gigi Sohn, a former top FCC official. “', 'It’s embarrassing that a popular, bipartisan program with support from nearly half of Congress will end because of politics, not policy.”', 'The collapse of the ACP will affect nearly 60 million individual Americans, going by Census Bureaupopulation estimates.', 'The program is heavily used by Americans over age 50, military veterans and low-income working families nationwide, according to FCC data.', 'Every week, Cynthia George connects with her granddaughter and great-grandson on video calls.', 'The 71-year-old retiree reads the news on her MSN homepage and googles how to fight the bugs coming from her drain in Florida’s summer heat.', 'She hunts for grocery deals on her Publix app so that her food stamps stretch just a little further.', 'But George worries the ACP’s collapse may force her to make a difficult choice: Buy enough food to feed herself — or pay her home internet bill.', '“My grandkids, they make fun of me,” George said with a chuckle. “', 'They say I’m cheap.', 'I go, ‘No, Grandma’s thrifty.’', 'I don’t have any choice; I have to account for every penny.', 'And this would mean that that food bill would have to be cut down.', 'There’s no place else I would be able to take it from.”', 'For many people like George, the loss of subsidies would hinder everything from seeing doctors and getting medications to accessing public benefits to their ability to do school and work.', 'Biden and congressional Democrats have blamed Republicans on Capitol Hill for blocking legislation that would extend the ACP, even as many red congressional districts have received millions of dollars from the program, according to data published by the White House.', '“Most of the people who have signed up from this are from rural America,” Texas Democratic Rep. Marc Veasey, who represents a district in Dallas, told CNN. “', 'People think of this as something that helps people in districts like mine that are in highly populated, very dense urban centers, but the fact of the matter is, [many] Republican constituencies are benefiting from this.', 'And so you would think they would want to actually step up for their own people.', 'They’re not doing it, and it’s frustrating, because as a result, every district is hurting because of it.”', 'Many ACP subscribers have told CNN they are irate at Congress for letting them down and, through inaction, taking away a basic, essential utility.', 'Just over two years into the ACP’s existence, the FCC has already been forced to begin shutting down the program — halting new signups, warning users their credits are about to be suspended and announcing sharp cuts to benefits.', 'In May, the program’s final month, ACP subscribers will only receive about half of what the government has promised them.', 'FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks has crisscrossed the nation talking to Americans who depend on the ACP.', 'During one visit to a nursing home, roughly a dozen older Americans approached him to say the ACP helped them access the internet for the first time.', '“It’s telemedicine, visiting their grandkids, going to church online,” Starks told CNN.', '“I did a town hall in Las Vegas,” he added, “where a number of folks were downright angry and upset.', 'They said, ‘This program only got started in 2022, and now you’re letting this thing run out of money.’', 'When you’re talking about these very vulnerable households, asking folks to pay $30 [a month] or more, you might as well be asking them for $1 million.', 'These households know how to stretch a dollar; $30 is a very high mark.”', 'The ACP has quickly gained adoption since Congress created the program in the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law.', 'It isoverwhelmingly popularwith both political parties, surveys show.', 'Military families account for almost half of the ACP’s subscriber base, according tothe White Houseand anoutside surveybacked by Comcast.', 'One of those military recipients is Walter Durham, a 68-year-old Navy vet who lives in San Diego and uses the internet to talk to his doctors.', 'He says he relies on the $30 monthly savings on internet to afford healthier foods.', '“I’m going to have to either do without Wi-Fi or I will have to come up with other means to pay for Wi-Fi,” Durham told CNN, “because I can’t count on the politicians to do anything to help the American people.”', 'More than a quarter of ACP users live in rural areas, the Comcast-backed survey said, with roughly4 in 10 enrolled households located in the southern United States alone.', 'As many as 65% of respondents said they feared losing their job without the ACP; 3 out of 4 said they worry about losing online health care services, and more than 80% said they believe their kids would fall behind in school.', '“One of the things that has been the most surprising is how much the program is over-indexing, is over-performing in rural areas,” Starks told CNN.', 'Large swaths of the ACP’s user base trend older; Americans over 65 account for almost 20% of the program.', 'And as many as 10 million Americans who use the program are at least age 50.', 'Michelle McDonough, 49, works part time at a tobacco shop in Maine and lives off Social Security disability payments.', 'She is one statistics class away from earning an associate degree in behavioral health.', 'Not onlydoes she go to class virtually, but she also sees a psychiatrist who only meets patients throughtelehealth visits.', 'Like George, McDonough also expects she’ll have to cut back on groceries if the ACP goes away.', 'There’s a library roughly five miles from her home with internet access, but having to go out of her way would cost her even more time and money she doesn’t have, she said.', 'Besides, McDonough added, her car is dying and the library is rarely open in snowy weather.', 'If politicians allow the ACP to collapse, it will be a sign of how out of touch they are with their voters, McDonough said.', '“I’m trying to become a productive member of society, something that they say people on low income are not,” McDonough said. “', 'I’m trying.', 'And, you know, one of the programs that’s helping me, they’re talking about taking it away — when there are definitely a lot of other things that they probably could take the funding from.”', 'Congress authorized the ACP with an initial $14 billion in funding in 2021.', 'That money has now spread to virtually every congressional district in the country.', 'It is the largest internet affordability program in US history, the government has said, describing it as working hand-in-glove with billions of dollars in new infrastructure spending.', 'In a recentFCC survey, more than half of rural respondents — and 47% of respondents overall — said the ACP was their first-ever experience with having home internet.', 'If the ACP collapses, some, like George and McDonough, will make cuts to their budget to stay online.', 'Kamesha Scott, a 29-year-old mother in St. Louis who works two jobs delivering Amazon packages and handling restaurant takeout orders, told CNN she would have to pick up extra shifts to make ends meet.', 'And that would mean seeing her two kids even less, she said.', 'Expect others to resort to a mishmash of ad hoc solutions, policy experts say.', 'That could include using the free Wi-Fi at fast-food restaurants, school parking lots and other public spaces.', 'Or it could mean falling back on cellphone data service, at least where it’s available and plans are still affordable.', 'Roughly a third of the country’s 123,000 public libraries offer mobile hotspot lending, allowing visitors to borrow palm-sized devices that pump out a cellular signal that can substitute for home internet service in a pinch, said Megan Janicki, a policy expert at the American Library Association.', 'But they aren’t a perfect solution: The cell signal may be weak, or users could have to wait to check one out.', '“Depending on how long the waitlist is, they’re waiting at least three weeks, if not longer,” Janicki said.', 'ACP subscribers could turn to other government aid.', 'The FCC’sLifelineprogram, which dates to the Reagan administration, similarly gives low-income households a monthly discount on phone or internet service.', 'But the benefit pales in comparison: It’s worth only $9.25 a month, or $34.25 for tribal subscribers — a fraction of what ACP subscribers are currently eligible for.', 'Earlier this year, a bipartisan group of Senate and House lawmakersunveiled legislationto authorize $7 billion to save the ACP —that’s $1 billion more than the Biden administration asked for.', 'That legislation has the support of more than half the US House, including 22 Republicans, and fivemembers of the US Senate, including three Republicans.', 'Still, the bill has not moved.', 'Policy experts have said it is unlikely Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson will let the bill onto the House floor as GOP leaders have decried government spending, despite the program being widely supported by members of both parties.', '“It is clear the program would be extended if the speaker would allow a vote,” said Blair Levin, an analyst at the market research firm New Street Research. “', 'So far, he has not said anything about it, but it appears he will not allow the House to vote on the legislation.', 'He has not, to my knowledge, said anything substantive about the legislation or the program.”', 'A spokesperson for Johnson didn’t respond to a request for comment on proposals to renew the ACP.', 'There is growing evidence that money spent through the ACP ends up saving taxpayers in the long run.', 'In a recent study,Levin said,researchers estimated that every $1 of ACP spendingincreases US GDPby $3.89, whileother researchhas outlined how telemedicine can lead to substantial savings in health care.', 'Even though extending ACP benefits could help lawmakers from both parties as they head home to campaign, perhaps the biggest political beneficiary may be Biden as his campaign touts the administration’s economic record ahead of the election.', 'Jonathan Blaine, a freelance software engineer in Vermont and an ACP subscriber, pins the blame on certain Republicans who he says would rather hurt working-class people than give Biden a political victory.', '“You guys seem to promote that you’re for the working-class people, but realistically, the working-class people are the ones that you’re screwing over most of the time,” Blaine said, speaking directly to GOP lawmakers. “', 'You’re taking ACP away from the farmers that can check the local produce prices and be able to reasonably negotiate their prices with retailers.', 'You’re removing disabled people’s ability to fill their prescriptions online.”', 'Bills like the recent government funding legislation show that Congress can pass things quickly if it has to, Westman said, lamenting lawmakers’ inaction on the ACP.', '“[If] both parties agree, there should be zero resistance and this should have been done yesterday instead of people fearing that they’re losing this funding,” she said.', 'Correction: This story has been updated to correct the population of Eureka.', 'It is 5,100.']",0.0409969337790714,"Since 2021, struggling Americans like Westman —who gave up a career in information security to care for her child —have made ends meet with the help of a popular federal benefit known as the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which covers home internet service.",But George worries the ACP’s collapse may force her to make a difficult choice: Buy enough food to feed herself — or pay her home internet bill.,-0.4024200160056352,"In a recent study,Levin said,researchers estimated that every $1 of ACP spendingincreases US GDPby $3.89, whileother researchhas outlined how telemedicine can lead to substantial savings in health care.","For many people like George, the loss of subsidies would hinder everything from seeing doctors and getting medications to accessing public benefits to their ability to do school and work.",2024-04-29
It’s back: Targeted Amex card holders can get up to 30% off at Amazon,https://edition.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/deals/amazon-amex-discount-promotion,"
  
        11:21 AM EST, Wed February 14, 2024
    ","Most American Express card members typically think of their Amex points as opportunities for amazing travel opportunities. While that’s true, there’s another lesser-known use for them — redeeming them for purchases at Amazon. Right now, you may be eligible for an Amazon promotion where you can save big on Amazon purchases by redeeming as little as one Amex point.
    
            Targeted American Express card members can save as much as 30% on their next Amazon purchase, for up to $30 in savings when you use Amex points to pay for at least a portion of your purchase at checkout. However, your offer may be higher or lower.
    
            This offer is set to expire on June 30, 2024, so even if you aren’t in the market to shop at Amazon right now, you have some time to take advantage of the savings. That said, Amazon also states it will deactivate the offer after 24,167 customers have redeemed it.
    
            With many Amazon discounted offers, scoring the deal can be a little complicated. But we’re going to take you through it step by step to make sure you’re getting as much of a discount as possible when you’re shopping at Amazon.
    
            To start, you must have an American Express card that earns Membership Rewards points. Amex cards that earn other types of rewards, such as cash back or airline miles, won’t work. But there are plenty of Amex cards that earn Membership Rewards points — a small sampling of them is at the end of this story.
    
            Next, you’ll need to link your Amazon and American Express accounts. Add your American Express card as a payment method in your Amazon account, if you haven’t already. Then look for the option to enroll in “Shop with Points” under the “Your Account” tab, and click the “Enroll” button for the Amex card you just added.
    
            Once your accounts are connected, you’ll need to activate the offer by clicking on this link. Remember, this is a targeted promotion, so not everyone will be eligible for it — you could be targeted for any one of the offers or none of them. When you click on the link, if you see a message that you’re not eligible, then you’re unfortunately not targeted for this particular promotion.
    
            But even if you’re not targeted, don’t give up hope. If you just enrolled in “Shop with Points,” you may need to wait 24 hours for Amazon’s records to refresh before knowing if you’re targeted, so check back in a day or so.
    
            If you’re eligible, activate the offer by clicking on the “Activate now” button — the enrollment page will indicate your particular discount. You can then shop at Amazon as you normally would, though only products sold and shipped by Amazon are eligible for these discounts. Additionally, Amazon gift cards are excluded, though other third-party retailer gift cards sold by Amazon might be eligible.
    
            But wait! There’s one more step. When you’re ready to check out, you’ll want to make sure to select your linked American Express card as your payment method. Then you’ll need to use at least 1 point to pay for your purchase for the discount to apply.
    
            When paying with Amex Membership Rewards points at Amazon, 1 point equals 0.7 cents. That’s not the best value you can get for Amex points. Frequent flyer website The Points Guy values Membership Rewards points as high as 2 cents each when redeemed for travel.
    
            However, it’s important to note that you don’t have to pay for your entire Amazon purchase with points to get these discounts. In fact, you can use just 1 point and pay for the rest with your Amex card, and you’ll still see the discount applied to your order. However, some accounts might see that you need to redeem slightly more points — 714 to be exact — to receive the savings, so make sure to check the terms of your exact offer.
    
            To pay with the minimum number of points required, enter $0.01 in the points section at checkout, which will apply just 1 point to your payment, You can use any number of points you want, but if you don’t make this change, Amazon may automatically apply the maximum number of points to cover the entire purchase, so you’ll want to make sure to update the amount before you place the order.
    
            Once you’ve applied at least 1 point to your payment, you’ll see the discount added to your order. The discount will apply on every order you place through June 30 until you hit the total maximum in savings — which will depend on your particular offer.
    
            Let’s take a look at some examples of how you can apply this discount to your upcoming Amazon purchases, even if you don’t need anything from Amazon right at the moment.
    
            With airlines having regular delays and cancellations over the last year, placing an Apple AirTag on your luggage can be a great way to track the location of your belongings. An Apple AirTag 4 Pack is currently priced at $78.99 before taxes and shipping, but if you’re targeted for the 30% off American Express offer, that’ll bring the pack down to $55.30, or around $13.83 per AirTag before tax.
    
            Or, if you’re hoping to pick up a set of new Apple AirPods Pro 2, right now Amazon is selling them for $189.99. But you can knock that down even further to as low as $159.99 before taxes if you’re targeted for this offer.
    
            Even if you aren’t eligible for any of these particular Amex promotions, offers like this typically resurface many times throughout the year, so keep on checking back.
    
            Amazon often runs similar promotions for other credit cards, so check out our guides to discounts for Chase and Discover card holders to see what’s available. You might also find that even if you aren’t eligible now for one of these offers, you could magically become targeted in a few weeks, so keep on checking the link to see if you’ve been granted access.
    
            Amazon has been eagerly offers some lucrative promotions over the last few years, so keep your credit card accounts linked to your Amazon account, and if you’re targeted for any of these offers, make sure you use them before they expire at the end of the year.
    
            Also, make sure you read our guide to the best credit cards for Amazon to be sure you’re using the right card when you buy at Amazon.
    
            Looking for a travel credit card? Find out which cards CNN Underscored Money chose as the best travel credit cards currently available.",CNN,14/02/2024,"['Most American Express card members typically think of their Amex points as opportunities for amazing travel opportunities.', 'While that’s true, there’s another lesser-known use for them — redeeming them for purchases at Amazon.', 'Right now, you may be eligible for anAmazonpromotion where you can save big on Amazon purchases by redeeming as little as one Amex point.', 'Targeted American Express card members cansave as much as 30% on their next Amazon purchase, for up to $30 in savings when you use Amex points to pay for at least a portion of your purchase at checkout.', 'However, your offer may be higher or lower.', 'This offer is set to expire on June 30, 2024, so even if you aren’t in the market to shop at Amazon right now, you have some time to take advantage of the savings.', 'That said, Amazon also states it will deactivate the offer after 24,167 customers have redeemed it.', 'With many Amazon discounted offers, scoring the deal can be a little complicated.', 'But we’re going to take you through it step by step to make sure you’re getting as much of a discount as possible when you’re shopping atAmazon.', 'To start, you must have an American Express card that earns Membership Rewards points.', 'Amex cards that earn other types of rewards, such as cash back or airline miles, won’t work.', 'But there are plenty of Amex cards that earn Membership Rewards points — a small sampling of them is at the end of this story.', 'Next, you’ll need tolink your Amazon and American Express accounts.', 'Add your American Express card as a payment method in your Amazon account, if you haven’t already.', 'Then look for the option toenroll in “Shop with Points”under the “Your Account” tab, and click the “Enroll” button for the Amex card you just added.', 'Once your accounts are connected, you’ll need to activate the offer byclicking on this link.', 'Remember, this is a targeted promotion, so not everyone will be eligible for it — you could be targeted for any one of the offers or none of them.', 'When you click on the link, if you see a message that you’re not eligible, then you’re unfortunately not targeted for this particular promotion.', 'But even if you’re not targeted, don’t give up hope.', 'If you just enrolled in “Shop with Points,” you may need to wait 24 hours for Amazon’s records to refresh before knowing if you’re targeted, so check back in a day or so.', 'If you’re eligible, activate the offer byclicking on the “Activate now” button— the enrollment page will indicate your particular discount.', 'You can thenshop at Amazonas you normally would, though only products sold and shipped by Amazon are eligible for these discounts.', 'Additionally, Amazon gift cards are excluded, though otherthird-party retailer gift cardssold by Amazon might be eligible.', 'But wait!', 'There’s one more step.', 'When you’re ready to check out, you’ll want to make sure to select your linked American Express card as your payment method.', 'Then you’ll need to use at least 1 point to pay for your purchase for the discount to apply.', 'When paying with Amex Membership Rewards points at Amazon, 1 point equals 0.7 cents.', 'That’s not the best value you can get for Amex points.', 'Frequent flyer websiteThe Points Guyvalues Membership Rewards points as high as 2 cents each when redeemed for travel.', 'However, it’s important to note that you don’t have to pay for your entireAmazonpurchase with points to get these discounts.', 'In fact,you can use just 1 point and pay for the rest with your Amex card, and you’ll still see the discount applied to your order.', 'However, some accounts might see that you need to redeem slightly more points —714 to be exact —to receive the savings, so make sure to check the terms of your exact offer.', 'To pay with the minimum number of points required, enter $0.01 in the points section at checkout, which will apply just 1 point to your payment, You can use any number of points you want, but if you don’t make this change,Amazonmay automatically apply the maximum number of points to cover the entire purchase, so you’ll want to make sure to update the amount before you place the order.', 'Once you’ve applied at least 1 point to your payment, you’ll see the discount added to your order.', 'The discount will apply on every order you place through June 30 until you hit the total maximum in savings —which will depend on your particular offer.', 'Let’s take a look at some examples of how you can apply this discount to your upcomingAmazonpurchases, even if you don’t need anything from Amazon right at the moment.', 'With airlines having regular delays and cancellations over the last year, placing an Apple AirTag on your luggage can be a great way to track the location of your belongings.', 'An Apple AirTag 4 Pack is currently priced at $78.99 before taxes and shipping, but if you’re targeted for the 30% off American Express offer, that’ll bring the pack down to $55.30, or around $13.83 per AirTag before tax.', 'Or, if you’re hoping to pick up a set of new Apple AirPods Pro 2, right now Amazon is selling them for $189.99.', 'But you can knock that down even further to as low as $159.99 before taxes if you’re targeted for this offer.', 'Even if you aren’t eligible for any of these particular Amex promotions, offers like this typically resurface many times throughout the year, so keep on checking back.', 'Amazon often runs similar promotions for other credit cards, so check out our guides to discounts for Chase and Discover card holders to see what’s available.', 'You might also find that even if you aren’t eligible now for one of these offers, you could magically become targeted in a few weeks, so keep on checking the link to see if you’ve been granted access.', 'Amazon has been eagerly offers some lucrative promotions over the last few years, sokeep your credit card accounts linked to your Amazon account, and if you’re targeted for any of these offers, make sure you use them before they expire at the end of the year.', 'Also, make sure you read our guide to thebest credit cards for Amazonto be sure you’re using the right card when you buy at Amazon.', 'Looking for a travel credit card?', 'Find out which cardsCNN Underscored Moneychose as thebest travel credit cardscurrently available.']",0.2766683229921542,Most American Express card members typically think of their Amex points as opportunities for amazing travel opportunities.,That’s not the best value you can get for Amex points.,-0.0578339397907257,"Amazon has been eagerly offers some lucrative promotions over the last few years, sokeep your credit card accounts linked to your Amazon account, and if you’re targeted for any of these offers, make sure you use them before they expire at the end of the year.",But you can knock that down even further to as low as $159.99 before taxes if you’re targeted for this offer.,2024-04-29
Opinion: The drama around Sam Altman is an urgent warning,https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/21/opinions/sam-altman-openai-ouster-danger-filipovic/index.html,"
  Published
        9:50 AM EST, Tue November 21, 2023
    ","The biggest tech news this week is the ouster of Sam Altman from his role as CEO of OpenAI, a move that has shaken the company and the industry. Hundreds of OpenAI employees have threatened to resign. Altman has already moved on to a role at Microsoft. And OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is on its third CEO in as many days.
    
            It’s all very juicy. But this drama should also be raising larger questions, far beyond one company’s internal hirings and firings, including: Who are the people making the decisions that will determine so much of our technological future? What guiding principles are they using to make those decisions? And how should other institutions – governments, non-tech industries, global alliances, regulatory bodies – reign in the worst excesses of potentially dangerous AI innovators?
    
            OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit, with an explicit mission to harness what may soon be superhuman intelligence “to benefit humanity as a whole.” But that sensibility hasn’t lasted. The company now has a multi-billion-dollar for-profit arm. They have been developing new technologies at lightning speed, and sometimes sending them out to the public before some employees believed they were ready. The company has already reportedly invented an AI technology so dangerous they will never release it – but they also won’t tell reporters or the public exactly what it is.
    
            This dynamic – a potentially dangerous technology developed at extreme speed, largely behind closed doors – is partly to blame for Altman’s firing. The OpenAI board, according to CNN’s David Goldman, worried that “the company was making the technological equivalent of a nuclear bomb, and its caretaker, Sam Altman, was moving so fast that he risked a global catastrophe.” At particular issue seemed to be Altman’s efforts to make the tools behind ChatGPT available to anyone who wanted to make their own version of the chatbot. This could be widely disastrous, some board members worried.
    
            But then they fired him without warning, and apparently without involving Microsoft, the company’s largest shareholder. Now, Altman is at the new AI group at Microsoft, and one has to wonder if the oversight and caution there will be on par with that at OpenAI, or if he’ll be handed carte blanche to push as fast and hard as he wants. And for all the justified reticence of the OpenAI board, the company has carried out much of its work in secrecy – without the public really understanding what a handful of unaccountable technologists are building, and how it is nearly guaranteed to indelibly change their lives.
    
            AI is broadly understood to have the potential to reshape vast swaths of human existence. At the very least, it seems nearly guaranteed to change how we process information, how we communicate, how we learn and how we work (and if we work). And the ramifications could be much more extreme. AI technologies have already demonstrated the ability to lie and to cover their tracks. They have already been able to suggest the design to make a virus spread more quickly. Many researchers acutely understand just how quickly these machines could develop the capacity to annihilate us, including Altman: He has a prepper’s paradise prepared in Big Sur, complete with guns and “gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force” in case AI goes off the rails and the robots go to war against humans, according to reporting in the New Yorker.
    
            But don’t worry, he told an Atlantic reporter: If AI is determined to wipe us out, “no gas mask is helping anyone.” (If you want an excellent and terrifying rundown of AI’s risks – at least those we understand right now, which are almost certainly a mere sliver of the looming perils – the Atlantic profile of Altman and his technology is worth a read).
    
            AI is very exciting technology. But it is also a potentially very dangerous one, and not in the social media sense of “it may give us bad self-esteem and make us lonelier” but in the sense of “it could break down human societies and kill us all.”
    
            Given the life-altering potential of AI – that even if it doesn’t kill us all, it will almost certainly change human existence in unprecedented ways at unprecedented speed – we all have a stake in how it’s being developed. And yet the development is being left to a handful of people (who seem to be largely men) in Silicon Valley, and other tech pockets around the globe. And we all have a stake in whose interests AI will serve – and right now, its development is being funded with billions of dollars by people expecting to make a huge profit.
    
            Do the interests of the public align with the interests of the shareholders to whom profit-driven, potentially tremendously lucrative-for-a-few companies are beholden? Or with the interests of tech entrepreneurs who are primarily excited about being at the forefront of the AI revolution, regardless of the potential human costs?
    
            One thing is clear: AI is coming. And how it is built and unleashed on the public matters more than perhaps any technology of the past century. It is, indeed, up there with the atom bomb in its destructive potential – except likely more difficult to regulate and control.
    
            “Regulation” does not begin to scratch the surface of what’s needed to make sure that the AI future is not a catastrophic one, especially since the development of AI is now a massive international arms race, with particularly horrific implications if bad actors develop this technology first. But regulation is, at minimum, a necessary step.
    
            So is transparency: In the US, companies have wide leverage to work behind a veil of secrecy, and much of what AI companies do is kept secret to stymy competition. But the public certainly has a right to understand what life-altering technologies are set to be inflicted upon us, and what the creators are doing to protect humanity – our jobs, our communities, our families, our connections, our educations and our abilities to build a life of purpose, but also our lives and our safety.
    
            The Altman story is fascinating because Altman is the most powerful figure in AI technology, which in effect makes him one of the most powerful men in the world. But that should give us pause: Who is he, what power does he hold, what is he doing with it, who does he answer to, and are we comfortable with this much life-altering potential being held by a few unaccountable people?",CNN,21/11/2023,"['The biggest tech news this week is theousterof Sam Altman from his role as CEO of OpenAI, a move that has shaken the company and the industry.', 'Hundreds of OpenAI employees have threatened toresign.', 'Altman has alreadymoved onto a role at Microsoft.', 'And OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is on itsthird CEOin as many days.', 'It’s all very juicy.', 'But this drama should also be raising larger questions, far beyond one company’s internal hirings and firings, including: Who are the people making the decisionsthat will determine so much of our technological future?', 'What guiding principles are they using to make those decisions?', 'And how should other institutions – governments, non-tech industries, global alliances, regulatory bodies – reign in the worst excesses of potentially dangerous AI innovators?', 'OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit, with an explicit mission to harness what may soon be superhuman intelligence “to benefit humanity as a whole.”', 'But that sensibility hasn’t lasted.', 'The company now has a multi-billion-dollar for-profit arm.', 'They have been developing new technologies at lightning speed, and sometimes sending them out to the publicbefore some employees believed they were ready.', 'The company has already reportedly invented an AI technology so dangerous they will never release it – but they alsowon’t tellreporters or the public exactly what it is.', 'This dynamic – a potentially dangerous technology developed at extreme speed, largely behind closed doors – is partly to blame for Altman’s firing.', 'The OpenAI board, according toCNN’s David Goldman, worried that “the company was making the technological equivalent of a nuclear bomb, and its caretaker, Sam Altman, was moving so fast that he risked a global catastrophe.”', 'At particular issue seemed to be Altman’s efforts to make the tools behind ChatGPT available to anyone who wanted to make their own version of the chatbot.', 'This could be widely disastrous, some board members worried.', 'But then they fired him without warning, and apparently without involving Microsoft, the company’s largest shareholder.', 'Now, Altman is at the new AI group at Microsoft, and one has to wonder if the oversight and caution there will be on par with that at OpenAI, or if he’ll be handed carte blanche to push as fast and hard as he wants.', 'And for all the justified reticence of the OpenAI board, the company has carried out much of its work in secrecy – without the public really understanding what a handful of unaccountable technologists are building, and how it is nearly guaranteed to indelibly change their lives.', 'AI is broadly understood to have the potential to reshape vast swaths of human existence.', 'At the very least, it seems nearly guaranteed to change how we process information, how we communicate, how we learn and how we work (and if we work).', 'And the ramifications could be much more extreme.', 'AI technologies have already demonstrated the abilityto lie and to cover their tracks.', 'They have already been able tosuggest the designto make a virus spread more quickly.', 'Many researchersacutely understandjust how quickly these machines could develop the capacity to annihilate us, including Altman: He has a prepper’s paradise prepared in Big Sur, complete with guns and “gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force” in case AI goes off the rails and the robots go to war against humans,according to reporting in the New Yorker.', 'But don’t worry, he told an Atlantic reporter: If AI is determined to wipe us out, “no gas mask is helping anyone.” (', 'If you want an excellent and terrifying rundown of AI’s risks – at least those we understand right now, which are almost certainly a mere sliver of the looming perils –the Atlantic profile of Altman and his technologyis worth a read).', 'AI is very exciting technology.', 'But it is also a potentially very dangerous one, and not in the social media sense of “it may give us bad self-esteem and make us lonelier” but in the sense of “it could break down human societies and kill us all.”', 'Given the life-altering potential of AI – that even if it doesn’t kill us all, it will almost certainly change human existence in unprecedented ways at unprecedented speed – we all have a stake in how it’s being developed.', 'And yet the development is being left to a handful of people (who seem to belargelymen) in Silicon Valley, and other tech pockets around the globe.', 'And we all have a stake in whose interests AI will serve – and right now, its development is being funded with billions of dollars by people expecting to make a huge profit.', 'Do the interests of the public align with the interests of the shareholders to whom profit-driven, potentially tremendously lucrative-for-a-few companies are beholden?', 'Or with the interests of tech entrepreneurs who are primarily excited about being at the forefront of the AI revolution, regardless of the potential human costs?', 'One thing is clear: AI is coming.', 'And how it is built and unleashed on the public matters more than perhaps any technology of the past century.', 'It is, indeed, up there with the atom bomb in its destructive potential – except likely more difficult to regulate and control.', '“Regulation” does not begin to scratch the surface of what’s needed to make sure that the AI future is not a catastrophic one, especially since the development of AI is now a massive international arms race, with particularly horrific implications if bad actors develop this technology first.', 'But regulation is, at minimum, a necessary step.', 'So is transparency: In the US, companies have wide leverage to work behind a veil of secrecy, and much of what AI companies do is kept secret to stymy competition.', 'But the public certainly has a right to understand what life-altering technologies are set to be inflicted upon us, and what the creators are doing to protect humanity – our jobs, our communities, our families, our connections, our educations and our abilities to build a life of purpose, but also our lives and our safety.', 'The Altman story is fascinating because Altman is the most powerful figure in AI technology, which in effect makes him one of the most powerful men in the world.', 'But that should give us pause: Who is he, what power does he hold, what is he doing with it, who does he answer to, and are we comfortable with this much life-altering potential being held by a few unaccountable people?']",0.0034737194649936,"But the public certainly has a right to understand what life-altering technologies are set to be inflicted upon us, and what the creators are doing to protect humanity – our jobs, our communities, our families, our connections, our educations and our abilities to build a life of purpose, but also our lives and our safety.","But it is also a potentially very dangerous one, and not in the social media sense of “it may give us bad self-esteem and make us lonelier” but in the sense of “it could break down human societies and kill us all.”",-0.2999433577060699,AI technologies have already demonstrated the abilityto lie and to cover their tracks.,"But it is also a potentially very dangerous one, and not in the social media sense of “it may give us bad self-esteem and make us lonelier” but in the sense of “it could break down human societies and kill us all.”",2024-04-29
FTC votes to ban most employers from using noncompete clauses. But legal challenge is expected,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/23/success/ftc-bans-non-compete-clauses/index.html,"
  Updated
        5:06 PM EDT, Tue April 23, 2024
    ","The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday voted to ban for-profit US employers from making employees sign agreements with noncompete clauses. Such a ban could affect tens of millions of workers.
    
            President Joe Biden soon after the announcement said, “The FTC is cracking down on ‘non-compete agreements,’ contracts that employers use to prevent their workers from changing jobs even if that job will pay a few dollars more, or provide better working conditions. Workers ought to have the right to choose who they want to work for.”
    
            The FTC’s decision was the result of a 3-to-2 vote among its five commissioners Tuesday afternoon. The two commissioners who dissented from the majority said they believed the rule to be “unlawful” and “won’t survive legal challenge.” The US Chamber of Commerce has already said it will sue the FTC as early as this week for what it views as the agency exceeding its administrative authority.
    
            The FTC estimates that 30 million people – one in five US workers – are bound by a noncompete clause in their current jobs. And for most of them, the agency asserts, such a clause restricts them from freely switching jobs, lowers wages, stifles innovation, blocks entrepreneurs from starting new businesses and undermines fair competition.
    
            The final rule is a somewhat narrower version of the proposed rule that the agency put out for public comment in January of 2023.
    
            It will ban for-profit employers from issuing new noncompetes to anyone.
    
            And – with one exception – it makes currently existing noncompete agreements unenforceable after the rule’s effective date, which is set at 120 days from the rule’s publication in the Federal Register.
    
            The rule, however, does allow currently existing noncompete agreements for senior executives to remain in force. Senior executives are defined as workers earning more than $151,164 annually who also are in a “policy-making position.”
    
            An FTC staff member presenting the final rule to the commissioners during Tuesday’s meeting characterized noncompete agreements as “exploitative and coercive” for employees other than senior executives. Typically, senior executives are more likely to have a lawyer represent them in contract negotiations and secure compensation in exchange for signing a noncompete agreement. Whereas rank-and-file employees normally don’t negotiate such agreements, which may be presented to them along with other paperwork on their first day on the job.
    
            The FTC contends that businesses seeking to protect their trade secrets and other confidential information can do so through the use of confidentiality clauses.
    
            The ban would apply nationwide, overriding state laws regarding noncompete agreements. Currently three states (California, North Dakota and Oklahoma) plus Washington, D.C., already have near-complete bans on the books, while some other states – such as Colorado, Maryland, Oregon and Rhode Island – allow them but only within certain parameters, such as limiting them to high-wage earners, said Stefanie Camfield, assistant general counsel at Engage PEO, a human resources services firm.
    
            The FTC estimates that its ban would boost wages and benefits by up to $488 billion over a decade.
    
            Employment lawyers expect there to be legal pushback from employers and business groups that may delay enforcement of the rule while it is challenged in court, and possibly prevent it from ever going into effect if those suing the FTC prevail.
    
            Daryl Joseffer, chief counsel of the U.S. Chamber’s Litigation Center, characterized the FTC rule banning noncompetes as an “administrative power grab.” “They’re trying to regulate a century-old business practice across the entire economy,” Joseffer said.
    
            If the rule is allowed to stand, it opens “a pandora’s box, where they can micromanage any aspect of the economy,” the Chamber’s chief policy officer, Neil Bradley, asserted.
    
            In December of last year, New York State Governor Kathleen Hochul vetoed a bill passed by the state legislature to completely ban noncompete agreements in that state.
    
            A nationwide ban on noncompete clauses can make things easier for rank-and-file workers who want to change jobs and not fear retaliation from their former employer.
    
            “Having a bright line saying you can’t do it at all would be a major help to employees,” said employee-side attorney Anne Clark at Vladeck, Raskin & Clark P.C.
    
            But unless and until a nationwide ban goes into effect, any employee who has already signed a noncompete or is being asked to do so should understand the contours of it.
    
            “Understand what you’re being asked to sign. And if you don’t, ask questions,” said Amanda Wait, a partner at the law firm DLA Piper and a former lawyer with the FTC.
    
            You might start by checking the particulars of the law in your state governing employee agreements and what, if any prohibitions there are on employers. You might also consult with an attorney to help you interpret your noncompete, since courts may use a lot of different factors in determining whether a noncompete is unfairly restrictive, Clark said.
    
            This story has been updated with additional information.",CNN,23/04/2024,"['The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday voted to ban for-profit US employers from making employees sign agreements with noncompete clauses.', 'Such a ban could affect tens of millions of workers.', 'President Joe Biden soon after the announcement said, “The FTC is cracking down on ‘non-compete agreements,’ contracts that employers use to prevent their workers from changing jobs even if that job will pay a few dollars more, or provide better working conditions.', 'Workers ought to have the right to choose who they want to work for.”', 'The FTC’s decision was the result of a 3-to-2 vote among its five commissioners Tuesday afternoon.', 'The two commissioners who dissented from the majority saidthey believed the rule to be “unlawful” and “won’t survive legal challenge.”', 'The US Chamber of Commerce has already said it will sue the FTC as early as this week for what it views as the agency exceeding its administrative authority.', 'The FTC estimates that 30 million people – one in five US workers – are bound by a noncompete clause in their current jobs.', 'And for most of them, the agency asserts, such a clause restricts them from freely switching jobs, lowers wages, stifles innovation, blocks entrepreneurs from starting new businesses and undermines fair competition.', 'The final rule is a somewhat narrower version of the proposed rule that the agency put out for public comment in January of 2023.', 'It will ban for-profit employers from issuing new noncompetes to anyone.', 'And – with one exception – it makes currently existing noncompete agreements unenforceable after the rule’s effective date, which is set at 120 days from the rule’s publication in the Federal Register.', 'The rule, however, does allow currently existing noncompete agreements for senior executives to remain in force.', 'Senior executives are defined as workers earning more than $151,164 annually who also are in a “policy-making position.”', 'An FTC staff member presenting the final rule to the commissioners during Tuesday’s meeting characterized noncompete agreements as “exploitative and coercive” for employees other than senior executives.', 'Typically, senior executives are more likely to have a lawyer represent them in contract negotiations and secure compensation in exchange for signing a noncompete agreement.', 'Whereas rank-and-file employees normally don’t negotiate such agreements, which may be presented to them along with other paperwork on their first day on the job.', 'The FTC contends that businesses seeking to protect their trade secrets and other confidential information can do so through the use of confidentiality clauses.', 'The ban would apply nationwide, overriding state laws regarding noncompete agreements.', 'Currently three states (California, North Dakota and Oklahoma) plus Washington, D.C., already have near-complete bans on the books, while some other states – such as Colorado, Maryland, Oregon and Rhode Island – allow them but only within certain parameters, such as limiting them to high-wage earners, saidStefanie Camfield, assistant general counsel atEngage PEO, a human resources services firm.', 'The FTC estimates that its ban would boost wages and benefits by up to $488 billion over a decade.', 'Employment lawyers expect there to be legal pushback from employers and business groups that may delay enforcement of the rule while it is challenged in court, and possibly prevent it from ever going into effect if those suing the FTC prevail.', 'Daryl Joseffer, chief counsel of the U.S. Chamber’s Litigation Center,characterized the FTC rule banning noncompetes as an “administrative power grab.” “', 'They’re trying to regulate a century-old business practice across the entire economy,” Joseffer said.', 'If the rule is allowed to stand, it opens “a pandora’s box, where they can micromanage any aspect of the economy,” the Chamber’s chief policy officer, Neil Bradley, asserted.', 'In December of last year, New York State Governor Kathleen Hochul vetoed a bill passed by the state legislature to completely ban noncompete agreements in that state.', 'A nationwide ban on noncompete clauses can make things easier for rank-and-file workers who want to change jobs and not fear retaliation from their former employer.', '“Having a bright line saying you can’t do it at all would be a major help to employees,”said employee-side attorney Anne Clark atVladeck, Raskin & Clark P.C.  But unless and until a nationwide ban goes into effect, any employee who has already signed a noncompete or is being asked to do so should understand the contours of it.', '“Understand what you’re being asked to sign.', 'And if you don’t, ask questions,” said Amanda Wait, a partner at the law firm DLA Piper and a former lawyer with the FTC.', 'You might start by checking the particulars of the law in your state governing employee agreements and what, if any prohibitions there are on employers.', 'You might also consult with an attorney to help you interpret your noncompete, since courts may use a lot of different factors in determining whether a noncompete is unfairly restrictive, Clark said.', 'This story has been updated with additional information.']",0.0882771723727758,"Typically, senior executives are more likely to have a lawyer represent them in contract negotiations and secure compensation in exchange for signing a noncompete agreement.",Such a ban could affect tens of millions of workers.,-0.3989237709478898,The FTC estimates that its ban would boost wages and benefits by up to $488 billion over a decade.,"And for most of them, the agency asserts, such a clause restricts them from freely switching jobs, lowers wages, stifles innovation, blocks entrepreneurs from starting new businesses and undermines fair competition.",2024-04-29
A coal billionaire is building the world’s biggest clean energy plant and it’s five times the size of Paris,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/19/business/india-adani-green-energy-plant-climate-intl-hnk/index.html,"
  Updated
        2:36 PM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","Five times the size of Paris. Visible from space. The world’s biggest energy plant. Enough electricity to power Switzerland.
    
            The scale of the project transforming swathes of barren salt desert on the edge of western India into one of the most important sources of clean energy anywhere on the planet is so overwhelming that the man in charge can’t keep up.
    
            “I don’t even do the math any more,” Sagar Adani told CNN in an interview last week.
    
            Adani is executive director of Adani Green Energy Limited (AGEL). He’s also the nephew of Gautam Adani, Asia’s second richest man, whose $100 billion fortune stems from the Adani Group, India’s biggest coal importer and a leading miner of the dirty fuel. Founded in 1988, the conglomerate has businesses in fields ranging from ports and thermal power plants to media and cements.
    
            Its clean energy unit AGEL is building the sprawling solar and wind power plant in the western Indian state of Gujarat at a cost of about $20 billion. It will be the world’s biggest renewable park when it is finished in about five years, and should generate enough clean electricity to power 16 million Indian homes.
    
            The success of the Khavda Renewable Energy Park is critical to India’s efforts to reduce pollution and hit its climate goals while meeting the burgeoning energy needs of the world’s most populous nation and fastest-growing major economy. Coal still accounts for 70% of the electricity India generates.
    
            Situated just 12 miles from one of the world’s most dangerous borders separating India and Pakistan, the park will cover more than 200 square miles and be the planet’s largest power plant regardless of the energy source, AGEL said.
    
            “A region so large, a region that is so unencumbered, there’s no wildlife, there’s no vegetation, there’s no habitation. There is no better alternative use of that land,” said Adani.
    
            The group’s big green plans haven’t been dented by the turbulent year it has had since January 2023, when an American short-seller Hindenburg Research accused it of engaging in fraud over decades.
    
            The Indian mining-to-media conglomerate denounced Hindenburg’s report as “baseless” and “malicious.” But that failed to halt a stunning stock market meltdown that, at one point, wiped more than $100 billion off the value of its listed companies. Gautam Adani’s personal fortune was also hammered, collapsing by more than $80 billion in the month following the release of the report.
    
            But the tycoon has since bounced back and the group is now pouring billions into the clean energy sector.
    
            It plans to invest $100 billion into energy transition over the next decade, with 70% of the investments ear-marked for clean energy.
    
            Adani Group’s clean energy pivot comes at a time when India has set itself some ambitious climate goals. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised that renewable sources such as solar and wind power will fulfil 50% of India’s energy requirements by the end of this decade.
    
            In 2021, Modi pledged India would achieve net zero emissions by 2070, which is still a couple of decades later than developed economies.
    
            The government has set a target of 500 gigawatts (GW) of non-fossil fuel electricity generating capacity by 2030. AGEL, the country’s largest renewable energy company, aims to provide at least 9% of that, with nearly 30 GW generated from its Khavda park in Gujarat alone.
    
            Failing to transition to renewable energy is not an option, said Adani.
    
            “There is no choice for India but to start doing things at a previously unimagined size and scale,” the 30-year-old said.
    
            That’s because energy demand is going to explode in the coming years.
    
            India is the world’s third-largest energy consuming country, although its energy use and emissions per person are less than half the world average, data from the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) shows.
    
            That could change rapidly. Thanks to rising incomes, energy demand has doubled since 2000, with 80% of it still being met by coal, oil and solid biomass. Over the next three decades, the rapidly-expanding economy will see the largest energy demand growth of any country in the world, the IEA said.
    
            “If India does what China did, if India does what Europe did, if India does what the US did, then we are all in for a very, very bleak climatic future,” said Adani, referring to the historic use of fossil fuels as those countries developed.
    
            His dire predictions are not dramatic. India is comfortably placed to grow at an annual rate of at least 6% in the coming few years, analysts say, and may become the world’s third largest economy before the end of this decade.
    
            As it develops and modernizes, its urban population will shoot up, leading to a massive rise in the construction of homes, offices, shops and other buildings. According to analysts, India is set to add the equivalent of a London to its urban population every year for the next 30 years.
    
            Electricity demand is expected to skyrocket in the coming years because of factors ranging from improved living standards to climate change. The latter has been fueling deadly heatwaves across India, and as a result, air conditioner ownership is set to see a sharp spike in the coming years.
    
            By 2050, India’s total electricity demand from residential air conditioners is set to exceed the total energy consumption in the whole of Africa today, the IEA said.
    
            India cannot rely on fossil fuels for its burgeoning needs without disastrous consequences for efforts to tackle the climate crisis.
    
            “If you imagine 800 GW of coal-fired thermal capacity being added … this by itself will kill all other sustainable energy initiatives happening all across the world, in terms of carbon emissions,” said Adani.
    
            The conglomerate’s green plans are impressive, but climate experts are critical of its continued massive investments in fossil fuels.
    
            “[Gautam] Adani continues to walk both sides of the street,” said Tim Buckley, director of Sydney-based think tank Climate Energy Finance.
    
            The Adani Group is not only one of the largest developers and operators of coal mines in India, but also operates the controversial Carmichael Coal Mine in Australia, which has faced fierce opposition from climate change campaigners who say it is a “death sentence” for the Great Barrier Reef.
    
            “Rather than ploughing billions into new fossil fuel projects, India would be far better served if Adani put 100% of its efforts and resources into developing low-cost zero emissions technologies,” Buckley added.
    
            That is not an option at the moment, said Adani.
    
            More than 600 million people in India will be “coming into middle income and upper income over the next decade, decade and a half,” he said. “They cannot be deprived of basic needs of energy. ”
    
            Everyone would be happy if we could “have a 100% of that being provided from sustainable energy sources …[but]… practically, that’s not an option” at the moment, he added.
    
            He also said that activists in developed nations, which have historically emitted more greenhouse gases, are often unable to understand the staggering challenge facing India to grow its economy and its clean energy industry at the same time.
    
            “I think it’s also very important to respect the fact that every country has its own right to make sure that the people of their own country are well-served from an energy perspective,” Adani said.
    
            “So is India doing a bit of coal? Yes, of course India is. But is India doing a massive amount of renewables? Yes, there’s no question,” he added",CNN,26/04/2024,"['Five times the size of Paris.', 'Visible from space.', 'The world’s biggest energy plant.', 'Enough electricity to power Switzerland.', 'The scale of the project transforming swathes of barren salt desert on the edge of western India into one of the most important sources of clean energy anywhere on the planet is so overwhelming that the man in charge can’t keep up.', '“I don’t even do the math any more,” Sagar Adani told CNN in an interview last week.', 'Adani is executive director of Adani Green Energy Limited (AGEL).', 'He’s also the nephew of Gautam Adani, Asia’s second richest man, whose $100 billion fortune stems from the Adani Group, India’s biggest coal importer and a leading miner of the dirty fuel.', 'Founded in 1988, the conglomerate has businesses in fields ranging from ports and thermal power plants to media and cements.', 'Its clean energy unit AGEL is building the sprawling solar and wind power plant in the western Indian state of Gujarat at a cost of about $20 billion.', 'It will be the world’s biggest renewable park when it is finished in about five years, and should generate enough clean electricity to power 16 million Indian homes.', 'The success of the Khavda Renewable Energy Park is critical to India’s efforts to reduce pollution and hit its climate goals while meeting the burgeoning energy needs of the world’s most populous nation and fastest-growing major economy.', 'Coal still accounts for 70% of the electricity India generates.', 'Situated just 12 miles from one of the world’s most dangerous borders separating India and Pakistan, the park will cover more than 200 square miles and be the planet’s largest power plant regardless of the energy source, AGEL said.', '“A region so large, a region that is so unencumbered, there’s no wildlife, there’s no vegetation, there’s no habitation.', 'There is no better alternative use of that land,” said Adani.', 'The group’s big green plans haven’t been dented by the turbulent year it has had since January 2023, when an American short-seller Hindenburg Research accused it ofengaging in fraud over decades.', 'The Indian mining-to-media conglomerate denounced Hindenburg’s report as “baseless” and “malicious.”', 'But that failed to halt a stunning stock market meltdown that, at one point, wiped more than $100 billion off the value of its listed companies.', 'Gautam Adani’s personal fortune was also hammered, collapsing bymore than $80 billionin the month following the release of the report.', 'But the tycoon has since bounced back and the group is now pouring billions into the clean energy sector.', 'It plans to invest $100 billion into energy transition over the next decade, with 70% of the investments ear-marked for clean energy.', 'Adani Group’s clean energy pivot comes at a time when India has set itself some ambitious climate goals.', 'Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised that renewable sources such as solar and wind power will fulfil 50% of India’s energy requirements by the end of this decade.', 'In 2021, Modi pledged India would achieve net zero emissions by2070, which is still a couple of decades later than developed economies.', 'The government has set a target of 500 gigawatts (GW) of non-fossil fuel electricity generating capacity by 2030.', 'AGEL, the country’s largest renewable energy company, aims to provide at least 9% of that, with nearly 30 GW generated from its Khavda park in Gujarat alone.', 'Failing to transition to renewable energy is not an option, said Adani.', '“There is no choice for India but to start doing things at a previously unimagined size and scale,” the 30-year-old said.', 'That’s because energy demand is going to explode in the coming years.', 'India is the world’s third-largest energy consuming country, although its energy use andemissions per personare less than half the world average, data from the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) shows.', 'That could change rapidly.', 'Thanks to rising incomes, energy demand has doubled since 2000, with 80% of it still being met by coal, oil and solid biomass.', 'Over the next three decades, the rapidly-expanding economy will see the largest energy demand growth of any country in the world, the IEA said.', '“If India does what China did, if India does what Europe did, if India does what the US did, then we are all in for a very, very bleak climatic future,” said Adani, referring to thehistoric use of fossil fuels as those countries developed.', 'His dire predictions are not dramatic.', 'India is comfortably placed to grow at an annual rate of at least 6% in the coming few years,analysts say, and may become the world’s third largest economy before the end of this decade.', 'As it develops and modernizes, its urban population will shoot up, leading to a massive rise in the construction of homes, offices, shops and other buildings.', 'According to analysts, India is set toadd the equivalent of a London to its urban population every year for the next 30 years.', 'Electricity demand is expected to skyrocket in the coming years because of factors ranging from improved living standards to climate change.', 'The latter has been fueling deadlyheatwavesacross India, and as a result, air conditioner ownership is set to see a sharp spike in the coming years.', 'By 2050, India’s total electricity demand from residential air conditioners is set to exceed the total energy consumption in the whole of Africa today, the IEA said.', 'India cannot rely on fossil fuels for its burgeoning needs without disastrous consequences for efforts to tackle the climate crisis.', '“If you imagine 800 GW of coal-fired thermal capacity being added … this by itself will kill all other sustainable energy initiatives happening all across the world, in terms of carbon emissions,” said Adani.', 'The conglomerate’s green plans are impressive, but climate experts are critical of its continued massive investments in fossil fuels.', '“[Gautam] Adani continues to walk both sides of the street,” said Tim Buckley, director of Sydney-based think tank Climate Energy Finance.', 'The Adani Group is not only one of the largest developers and operators of coal mines in India, but also operates the controversial Carmichael Coal Mine in Australia, which has faced fierce opposition from climate change campaigners who say it is a“death sentence”for the Great Barrier Reef.', '“Rather than ploughing billions into new fossil fuel projects, India would be far better served if Adani put 100% of its efforts and resources into developing low-cost zero emissions technologies,” Buckley added.', 'That is not an option at the moment, said Adani.', 'More than 600 million people in India will be “coming into middle income and upper income over the next decade, decade and a half,” he said. “', 'They cannot be deprived of basic needs of energy.”', 'Everyone would be happy if we could “have a 100% of that being provided from sustainable energy sources …[but]… practically, that’s not an option” at the moment, he added.', 'He also said that activists in developed nations, which have historicallyemitted moregreenhouse gases, are often unable to understand the staggering challenge facing India to grow its economy and its clean energy industry at the same time.', '“I think it’s also very important to respect the fact that every country has its own right to make sure that the people of their own country are well-served from an energy perspective,” Adani said.', '“So is India doing a bit of coal?', 'Yes, of course India is.', 'But is India doing a massive amount of renewables?', 'Yes, there’s no question,” he added']",0.1483365072376152,"“I think it’s also very important to respect the fact that every country has its own right to make sure that the people of their own country are well-served from an energy perspective,” Adani said.","“If you imagine 800 GW of coal-fired thermal capacity being added … this by itself will kill all other sustainable energy initiatives happening all across the world, in terms of carbon emissions,” said Adani.",0.2314466858903567,"India is comfortably placed to grow at an annual rate of at least 6% in the coming few years,analysts say, and may become the world’s third largest economy before the end of this decade.","Gautam Adani’s personal fortune was also hammered, collapsing bymore than $80 billionin the month following the release of the report.",2024-04-29
GNC is redesigning stores to draw people taking Ozempic,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/29/business/gnc-ozempic-wegovy-novo-nordisk-strategy/index.html,"
  Published
        3:57 PM EDT, Mon April 29, 2024
    ","GNC, the vitamin and dietary supplement chain, has been struggling for years. The brand hopes a new strategy tailored to people taking GLP-1 drugs for weight loss will help draw customers into stores and grow its business.
    
            GNC announced Monday that it was adding a dedicated section in its 2,300 US stores with vitamins, protein shakes and supplements tailored to people managing GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic and Wegovy. GNC is also training store employees on common side effects of GLP-1s and products the company is stocking for these issues.
    
            The full impact of GLP-1s – or glucagon-like peptide 1 agonists – on peoples’ health remains unclear, but some people have reported side effects such as muscle loss and gastrointestinal problems. GNC is positioning its brand as a retailer that can support people managing these issues. Gyms, food manufacturers and retailers are adjusting their strategies to respond to the rise of GLP-1s.
    
            “You’re dealing with GLP-1 side effects. Now what? We can help,” advertises an overhead banner in GNC’s new GLP-1 “support section.”
    
            Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk is reaping huge profits from creating and selling the hit GLP-1 products. Other large pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and Roche are racing to release their versions to the market.
    
            US health care providers wrote more than 9 million prescriptions for Wegovy and other injectable drugs used for weight loss during the last three months of 2022 alone. JPMorgan researchers estimate that 30 million people may be taking GLP-1 drugs by 2030, or around 9% of the US population.
    
            GNC, which filed for bankruptcy in 2020 and closed more than 1,200 stores, is the latest brand to build a strategy around people taking GLP-1s.
    
            WeightWatchers launched a new membership plan for people that gives members access to doctors who can prescribe these medications. It also made a $100 million-plus deal to buy Sequence, a telehealth business that offers virtual prescriptions to patients for these weight loss drugs where appropriate.
    
            Gyms are adjusting their strategies as more of their members take medications for weight loss. Luxury gyms such as Life Time are acquiring weight loss clinics with doctors who can prescribe GLP-1s, while Equinox debuted a personal training program for members taking GLP-1s to preserve muscle mass.
    
            Food companies are also bracing for GLP-1 consumers to buy fewer sugary snacks and drinks. JPMorgan last year said that current GLP-1 users purchased around 8% less food — including snacks, soft drinks and high-carb products — over the prior year, compared with consumers who were not on these drugs.
    
            Food giant Nestlé plans to invest more in nutritious products that it says provide  “benefits” to people on GLP-1 treatments, such as its Opifast high-protein shakes.",CNN,29/04/2024,"['GNC, the vitamin and dietary supplement chain, has been struggling for years.', 'The brand hopes a new strategy tailored to people taking GLP-1 drugs for weight loss will help draw customers into stores and grow its business.', 'GNC announced Monday that it was adding a dedicated section in its 2,300 US stores with vitamins, protein shakes and supplements tailored to people managing GLP-1 medications such as Ozempic and Wegovy.', 'GNC is also training store employees on common side effects of GLP-1s and products the company is stocking for these issues.', 'The full impact of GLP-1s – or glucagon-like peptide 1 agonists – on peoples’ health remains unclear, but some people have reported side effects such as muscle loss and gastrointestinal problems.', 'GNC is positioning its brand as a retailer that can support people managing these issues.', 'Gyms, food manufacturers and retailers are adjusting their strategies to respond to the rise of GLP-1s.', '“You’re dealing with GLP-1 side effects.', 'Now what?', 'We can help,” advertises an overhead banner in GNC’s new GLP-1 “support section.”', 'Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk is reaping huge profits from creating and selling the hit GLP-1 products.', 'Other large pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and Roche are racing to release their versions to the market.', 'US health care providers wrote more than 9 million prescriptions for Wegovy and other injectable drugs used for weight loss during the last three months of 2022 alone.', 'JPMorgan researchers estimate that 30 million people may be taking GLP-1 drugs by 2030, or around 9% of the US population.', 'GNC, which filed for bankruptcy in 2020 and closed more than 1,200 stores, is the latest brand to build a strategy around people taking GLP-1s.', 'WeightWatcherslaunched a new membership planfor people that gives members access to doctors who can prescribe these medications.', 'It also made a $100 million-plus deal to buy Sequence, a telehealth business that offers virtual prescriptions to patients for these weight loss drugs where appropriate.', 'Gyms are adjusting their strategies as more of their members take medications for weight loss.', 'Luxury gyms such as Life Time are acquiring weight loss clinics with doctors who can prescribe GLP-1s, while Equinox debuted a personal training program for members taking GLP-1s to preserve muscle mass.', 'Food companies are also bracing for GLP-1 consumers to buy fewer sugary snacks and drinks.', 'JPMorgan last year said that current GLP-1 users purchased around 8% less food — including snacks, soft drinks and high-carb products — over the prior year, compared with consumers who were not on these drugs.', 'Food giant Nestlé plans toinvest morein nutritious products that it says provide “benefits” to people on GLP-1 treatments, such as its Opifast high-protein shakes.']",0.0579172491372438,Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk is reaping huge profits from creating and selling the hit GLP-1 products.,"The full impact of GLP-1s – or glucagon-like peptide 1 agonists – on peoples’ health remains unclear, but some people have reported side effects such as muscle loss and gastrointestinal problems.",0.3374999430444505,Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk is reaping huge profits from creating and selling the hit GLP-1 products.,"GNC, the vitamin and dietary supplement chain, has been struggling for years.",2024-04-29
Switzerland says UBS may need more cash. The bank is fuming,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/24/investing/ubs-switzerland-too-big-to-fail/index.html,"
  Updated
        11:49 AM EDT, Wed April 24, 2024
    ","A year after the failure of Credit Suisse, the Swiss government says UBS may have to find as much as $27 billion to absorb potential losses and protect taxpayers from ever having to bail out a major bank.
    
            Now, the giant Swiss lender is hitting back, saying its finances are robust and warning that the proposal could harm Switzerland’s standing as a global financial center.
    
            Speaking at the bank’s annual shareholder meeting Wednesday, UBS chairman Colm Kelleher said he was “seriously concerned” about current discussions that could force the bank to hold much more cash and other liquid assets. “Additional capital is the wrong remedy,” he said.
    
            “There can be no regulatory solution for a broken business model,” he continued, referring to Credit Suisse. UBS bought its stricken rival last March in a government-orchestrated rescue aimed at preventing a global financial crisis.
    
            The deal has proved controversial in Switzerland, which is now home to a bank with assets almost double the size of its annual economic output.
    
            Kelleher argued the deal “reinforced Switzerland’s position as a leader in wealth management.”
    
            He emphasized that UBS was “not too big to fail” and was “one of the best-capitalized banks in Europe,” with financial resources to absorb losses in excess of $200 billion.
    
            “Trust cannot be regulated. It was not too-low capital requirements that forced Credit Suisse into the historic weekend rescue,” he added.
    
            The regulatory proposals, unveiled earlier this month, give analysts and shareholders reason to reconsider the potential benefits that UBS will derive from the biggest banking deal in history. Shares in the lender closed almost 3% lower in Zurich Wednesday.
    
            The stock has tumbled 10% since the Swiss government published its recommendations as part of a report on banking sector stability, trimming some of the extraordinary gains notched since the deal was announced a year ago.
    
            Asked whether the proposed measures would require UBS to hold additional capital of between 15 billion and 25 billion Swiss francs ($16.4 billion-$27.3 billion), Swiss finance minister Karin Keller-Keller Sutter told the country’s Tages-Anzeiger newspaper this month that such estimates were “plausible.”
    
            The Swiss government will publish more detailed proposals in the first quarter of next year.
    
            In a note Tuesday, Anke Reingen, a banking analyst at RBC Capital Markets, wrote that UBS shareholders’ concerns were “justified.”
    
            Investors are anxious because, in general, the more capital a bank has to hold in reserve the less it can return to shareholders or deploy to boost earnings.
    
            UBS is enjoying a lofty market valuation, with its shares up almost 40% over the past year. But that leaves the stock more vulnerable to declines as a result of “execution risk in the Credit Suisse integration,” suggested Citi analyst Andrew Coombs. He added that the new regulatory proposals injected “greater uncertainty” over the stock’s value.
    
            Kelleher on Wednesday again highlighted the merits of the deal, while acknowledging that there was still “a long way to go” to make it a success.
    
            He noted that the transaction added client assets equivalent to seven to 10 years of organic growth and “cements” UBS’s status as the “pre-eminent global wealth manager.”
    
            “However, to maintain this competitive edge, it is imperative that our regulatory policies ensure a level playing field,” he added. “In other words, Switzerland’s regulation must remain broadly aligned with global standards.”
    
            Kelleher also defended UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti’s pay package for 2023, which drew considerable criticism from shareholders. “He arguably has the toughest job in the financial services industry globally and he has delivered,” he said.
    
            Ermotti earned 14.4 million Swiss francs ($15.9 million) in 2023, making him the highest-paid bank CEO in Europe, according to Reuters.",CNN,24/04/2024,"['A year after the failure of Credit Suisse, the Swiss government says UBS may have to find as much as $27 billion to absorb potential losses and protect taxpayers from ever having to bail out a major bank.', 'Now, the giant Swiss lender is hitting back, saying its finances are robust and warning that the proposal could harm Switzerland’s standing as a global financial center.', 'Speaking at the bank’s annual shareholder meeting Wednesday, UBS chairman Colm Kelleher said he was “seriously concerned” about current discussions that could force the bank to hold much more cash and other liquid assets. “', 'Additional capital is the wrong remedy,” he said.', '“There can be no regulatory solution for a broken business model,” he continued, referring to Credit Suisse.', 'UBS bought its stricken rival last March in a government-orchestrated rescue aimed at preventing a global financial crisis.', 'The deal has proved controversial in Switzerland, which is now home to a bank with assets almost double the size of its annual economic output.', 'Kelleher argued the deal “reinforced Switzerland’s position as a leader in wealth management.”', 'He emphasized that UBS was “not too big to fail” and was “one of the best-capitalized banks in Europe,” with financial resources to absorb losses in excess of $200 billion.', '“Trust cannot be regulated.', 'It was not too-low capital requirements that forced Credit Suisse into the historic weekend rescue,” he added.', 'The regulatory proposals, unveiled earlier this month, give analysts and shareholders reason to reconsider the potential benefits that UBS will derive from the biggest banking deal in history.', 'Shares in the lender closed almost 3% lower in Zurich Wednesday.', 'The stock has tumbled 10% since the Swiss government published its recommendations as part of a report on banking sector stability, trimming some of the extraordinary gains notched since the deal was announced a year ago.', 'Asked whether the proposed measures would require UBS to hold additional capital of between 15 billion and 25 billion Swiss francs ($16.4 billion-$27.3 billion), Swiss finance minister Karin Keller-Keller Sutter told the country’s Tages-Anzeiger newspaper this month that such estimates were “plausible.”', 'The Swiss government will publish more detailed proposals in the first quarter of next year.', 'In a note Tuesday, Anke Reingen, a banking analyst at RBC Capital Markets, wrote that UBS shareholders’ concerns were “justified.”', 'Investors are anxious because, in general, the more capital a bank has to hold in reserve the less it can return to shareholders or deploy to boost earnings.', 'UBS is enjoying a lofty market valuation, with its shares up almost 40% over the past year.', 'But that leaves the stock more vulnerable to declines as a result of “execution risk in the Credit Suisse integration,” suggested Citi analyst Andrew Coombs.', 'He added that the new regulatory proposals injected “greater uncertainty” over the stock’s value.', 'Kelleher on Wednesday again highlighted the merits of the deal, while acknowledging that there was still “a long way to go” to make it a success.', 'He noted that the transaction added client assets equivalent to seven to 10 years of organic growth and “cements” UBS’s status as the “pre-eminent global wealth manager.”', '“However, to maintain this competitive edge, it is imperative that our regulatory policies ensure a level playing field,” he added. “', 'In other words, Switzerland’s regulation must remain broadly aligned with global standards.”', 'Kelleher also defended UBS CEO Sergio Ermotti’s pay package for 2023, which drew considerable criticism from shareholders. “', 'He arguably has the toughest job in the financial services industry globally and he has delivered,” he said.', 'Ermotti earned 14.4 million Swiss francs ($15.9 million) in 2023, making him the highest-paid bank CEO in Europe, according to Reuters.']",0.0870259020335376,He noted that the transaction added client assets equivalent to seven to 10 years of organic growth and “cements” UBS’s status as the “pre-eminent global wealth manager.”,UBS bought its stricken rival last March in a government-orchestrated rescue aimed at preventing a global financial crisis.,0.0854817283780951,"UBS is enjoying a lofty market valuation, with its shares up almost 40% over the past year.","But that leaves the stock more vulnerable to declines as a result of “execution risk in the Credit Suisse integration,” suggested Citi analyst Andrew Coombs.",2024-04-29
Manufacturing in Mexico is having its moment. The US is buying in — and so is China,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/28/business/us-china-mexico-manufacturing-nearshoring-hnk-intl/index.html,"
  Published
        9:40 PM EDT, Sun April 28, 2024
    ","As US supply chains decouple from China, Mexico’s manufacturing sector is emerging as a winner.
    
            Manufacturing in Mexico is attractive for companies that experienced pandemic-era supply chain snarls or want to decrease reliance on trade between the US and China amid geopolitical uncertainty.
    
            That’s called nearshoring, which is when companies bring production facilities closer to home markets.
    
            As nearshoring continues and global supply chains are reorganized, Mexico’s manufacturing sector has an opportunity for long-term success, according to Alberto Ramos, head of Latin American economics research at Goldman Sachs, who spoke with CNN.
    
            Ramos said Mexico and China have been competing for the US manufacturing market for years, but amid a shifting US-China relationship, Mexico looks poised to pull ahead.
    
            Mexico surpassed China as the top exporter to the US in 2023. Those exports were driven by manufacturing, which comprises 40% of Mexico’s economy, according to Morgan Stanley.
    
            US imports from Mexico continued to increase in February, according to April 4 trade data released by the Commerce Department. Meanwhile, Chinese exports to the US were down 20% in 2023, compared to 2022.
    
            US Trade Representative Katherine Tai told CNN’s Julia Chatterley that supply chains have made the US economy over-reliant on the Chinese economy in the past.
    
            “The challenge for us is how do you create more resilience in your economy and in trade? Because right now, the way trade has been operating, our supply chains have been so entangled and they have created so much concentration in the Chinese economy, that we all feel extremely vulnerable because the supply chains are fragile,” Tai said.
    
            Amid shifting geopolitics and competition, US and Chinese companies both see potential in Mexican manufacturing: Low labor costs, geographic proximity to American markets and the US-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) agreement — a free trade accord established in 2020 that makes trade in North America more cost-effective and efficient — are all factors contributing to a potential boom.
    
            While US policy intends to decrease reliance on China and “create more resilience” in US trade, moving supply chains can be tricky.
    
            In fact, the US drive to disengage from the Chinese economy might be enabling China  to access new markets and avoid US tariffs.
    
            Cars are a major export for Mexico, and they illustrate much of what’s happening.
    
            Mexico is a global hub for car factories, hosting plants from major companies operating in the US, including General Motors, Ford, Stellantis and nearly a dozen more.
    
            Virtually every American auto manufacturer depends on parts from Mexico to build its cars or trucks, because those parts can be substantially cheaper than those made in the US.
    
            Free trade agreements like the USMCA mean companies in the US, Mexico and Canada face fewer barriers moving, selling and buying parts across North America.
    
            A diversion from free trade is tariff policy: In 2018, the US hiked tariffs on imports from China, which makes it more expensive for Chinese goods to enter US markets and dissuades companies from relying on Chinese supply chains.
    
            Cars require tens of thousands of parts, which can be made in any number of places. And while Mexico’s manufacturing sector is increasing exports to the US, Chinese companies might be using Mexico as a route to avoid US tariffs on Chinese goods, according to Xeneta, an ocean freight rate benchmarking and market intelligence platform.
    
            Shipping container exports from China to Mexico were up nearly 60% in January compared to a year ago, according to Container Trade Statistics analyzed by Xeneta.
    
            The surge in exports from China to Mexico suggests the possibility “that the increase in trade we are witnessing is due to importers trying to circumvent US tariffs,” Peter Sand, chief analyst at Xeneta, wrote in a March 15 research note.
    
            An April report by Moody’s Analytics said that while Mexico has increased its manufacturing output, production may be boosted by goods manufactured outside of the country.
    
            The increase in Mexican exports to the US has “been roughly matched by simultaneous and closely correlated growth in Mexican imports from China,” according to S&P Global Market Intelligence country risk analysts Jose Enrique Sevilla-Macip and John Raines.
    
            Goldman’s Ramos said there is an economic incentive to move production to Mexico to avoid tariffs. “It’s a way to circumvent the policy objectives that were behind the enactment of tariffs,” he told CNN.
    
            On Capitol Hill, the possibility that Chinese steel is ducking US tariffs has garnered attention from lawmakers. The Biden administration announced that it is working with the Mexican government to prevent China and other countries from evading US tariffs on steel and aluminum via US imports from Mexico.
    
            As early as February, Tai inquired about “the lack of transparency” around Mexico’s steel and aluminum imports from “third countries” during a meeting with Raquel Buenrostro, Mexico’s secretary of economy.
    
            Concerns of tariff evasion are drawing a response from the US president — and will continue to beyond November’s election. The USMCA is set to be reviewed in 2026.
    
            Both US President Joe Biden and his challenger, former President Donald Trump, espouse goals to grow domestic manufacturing, but they diverge on how to go about doing so.
    
            Biden told steelworkers in Pittsburgh recently that the US government should consider tripling tariffs on Chinese steel. And Trump has proposed a potential 60% tariff on Chinese goods if he returns to the presidency.
    
            “With both US presidential candidates vying to win important Midwestern swing states that have significant auto industries, the issue of US-Mexico-China trade will only increase as the 2024 presidential campaign unfolds,” S&P Global’s Sevilla-Macip and Raines said.
    
            While supply chains are shifting, moving factories isn’t always that simple. It can take significant investment, from time to money to people. The companies that are moving forward, though, are creating long-term opportunities for the Mexican manufacturing industry.
    
            “It certainly feels like things are booming in Monterrey,” a city in northern Mexico, said Christoffer Enemaerke, a portfolio manager at RBC. On a recent trip there, he told CNN, “we met with companies and experts in the real estate industry and the feedback was that nearshoring is likely to be a multi-year driver of growth for Mexico, particularly in the northern part of the country.”
    
            Tesla (TSLA), for example, said last year that it would build a new plant in Monterrey. “We’re super excited about it,” CEO Elon Musk said during an investor day for the company, adding that the plant would add capacity, rather than replace capacity elsewhere.
    
            Sentiment on the ground is exciting, but most investment flows are yet to be seen,  Ramos told CNN.
    
            Analysts at Morgan Stanley see the value of Mexico’s exports to the United States growing from $455 billion to about $609 billion in the next five years.
    
            That also makes Mexico an attractive base for many Chinese companies. EV maker BYD, a global competitor to Musk’s Tesla, announced in February plans for a major expansion in Mexico.
    
            While BYD doesn’t currently sell cars in the US market, a move to Mexico would provide better access to the Mexican market while preparing the company for a potential move into the US.
    
            “Chinese investment and exports to Mexico are highly likely to become a headline issue ahead of the 2026 scheduled review of the USMCA,” Sevilla-Macip and Raines said.
    
            Until then, though, places like Monterrey continue to reap the rewards.
    
            Monterrey, said RBC’s Enemaerke, “feels booming, new and vibrant, more so than other industrial cities I’ve been to, which have mainly been in Asia.”
    
            CNN’s Michael Nam contributed to this report.",CNN,28/04/2024,"['As US supply chains decouple from China, Mexico’s manufacturing sector is emerging as a winner.', 'Manufacturing in Mexico is attractive for companies that experienced pandemic-era supply chain snarls or want to decrease reliance on trade between the US and China amid geopolitical uncertainty.', 'That’s called nearshoring, which is when companies bring production facilities closer to home markets.', 'As nearshoring continues and global supply chains are reorganized, Mexico’s manufacturing sector has an opportunity for long-term success, according to Alberto Ramos, head of Latin American economics research at Goldman Sachs, who spoke with CNN.', 'Ramos said Mexico and China have been competing for the US manufacturing market for years, but amid a shifting US-China relationship, Mexico looks poised to pull ahead.', 'Mexicosurpassed China as the top exporter to the US in 2023.', 'Those exports were driven by manufacturing, which comprises 40% of Mexico’s economy, according to Morgan Stanley.', 'US imports from Mexico continued to increase in February, according to April 4 trade data released by the Commerce Department.', 'Meanwhile, Chinese exports to the US were down 20%in 2023, compared to 2022.', 'US Trade Representative Katherine Tai told CNN’s Julia Chatterley that supply chains have made the US economy over-reliant on the Chinese economy in the past.', '“The challenge for us is how do you create more resilience in your economy and in trade?', 'Because right now, the way trade has been operating, our supply chains have been so entangled and they have created so much concentration in the Chinese economy, that we all feel extremely vulnerable because the supply chains are fragile,” Tai said.', 'Amid shifting geopolitics and competition, US and Chinese companies both see potential in Mexican manufacturing: Low labor costs, geographic proximity to American markets and the US-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) agreement — a free trade accord established in 2020 that makes trade in North America more cost-effective and efficient — are all factors contributing to a potential boom.', 'While US policy intends to decrease reliance on China and “create more resilience” in US trade, moving supply chains can be tricky.', 'In fact, the US drive to disengage from the Chinese economy might be enabling China to access new markets and avoid US tariffs.', 'Cars are a major export for Mexico, and they illustrate much of what’s happening.', 'Mexico is a global hub for car factories, hosting plants from major companies operating in the US, including General Motors, Ford, Stellantis and nearly a dozen more.', 'Virtually every American auto manufacturer depends on parts from Mexico to build its cars or trucks, because those parts can be substantially cheaper than those made in the US.', 'Free trade agreements like the USMCA mean companies in the US, Mexico and Canada face fewer barriers moving, selling and buying parts across North America.', 'A diversion from free trade is tariff policy: In 2018, the US hiked tariffs on imports from China, which makes it more expensive for Chinese goods to enter US markets and dissuades companies from relying on Chinese supply chains.', 'Cars require tens of thousands of parts, which can be made in any number of places.', 'And while Mexico’s manufacturing sector is increasing exports to the US, Chinese companies might be using Mexico as a route to avoid US tariffs on Chinese goods, according to Xeneta, an ocean freight rate benchmarking and market intelligence platform.', 'Shipping container exports from China to Mexico were up nearly 60% in January compared to a year ago, according to Container Trade Statistics analyzed by Xeneta.', 'The surge in exports from China to Mexico suggests the possibility “that the increase in trade we are witnessing is due to importers trying to circumvent US tariffs,” Peter Sand, chief analyst at Xeneta, wrote in a March 15 research note.', 'An April report by Moody’s Analytics said that while Mexico has increased its manufacturing output, production may be boosted by goods manufactured outside of the country.', 'The increase in Mexican exports to the US has “been roughly matched by simultaneous and closely correlated growth in Mexican imports from China,” according to S&P Global Market Intelligence country risk analysts Jose Enrique Sevilla-Macip and John Raines.', 'Goldman’s Ramos said there is an economic incentive to move production to Mexico to avoid tariffs. “', 'It’s a way to circumvent the policy objectives that were behind the enactment of tariffs,” he told CNN.', 'On Capitol Hill, the possibility that Chinese steel is ducking US tariffs has garnered attention from lawmakers.', 'The Biden administration announced that it is working with the Mexican government to prevent China and other countries from evading US tariffs on steel and aluminum via US imports from Mexico.', 'As early as February, Tai inquired about “the lack of transparency” around Mexico’s steel and aluminum imports from “third countries” during a meeting with Raquel Buenrostro, Mexico’s secretary of economy.', 'Concerns of tariff evasion are drawing a response from the US president — and will continue to beyond November’s election.', 'The USMCA is set to be reviewed in 2026.', 'Both US President Joe Biden and his challenger, former President Donald Trump, espouse goals to grow domestic manufacturing, but they diverge on how to go about doing so.', 'Biden told steelworkers in Pittsburgh recently that the US government should consider tripling tariffs on Chinese steel.', 'And Trump has proposed a potential 60% tariff on Chinese goods if he returns to the presidency.', '“With both US presidential candidates vying to win important Midwestern swing states that have significant auto industries, the issue of US-Mexico-China trade will only increase as the 2024 presidential campaign unfolds,” S&P Global’s Sevilla-Macip and Raines said.', 'While supply chains are shifting, moving factories isn’t always that simple.', 'It can take significant investment, from time to money to people.', 'The companies that are moving forward, though, are creating long-term opportunities for the Mexican manufacturing industry.', '“It certainly feels like things are booming in Monterrey,” a city in northern Mexico, said Christoffer Enemaerke, a portfolio manager at RBC.', 'On a recent trip there, he told CNN, “we met with companies and experts in the real estate industry and the feedback was that nearshoring is likely to be a multi-year driver of growth for Mexico, particularly in the northern part of the country.”', 'Tesla (TSLA), for example, said last year that it would build a new plant in Monterrey. “', 'We’re super excited about it,” CEO Elon Musk said during an investor day for the company, adding that the plant would add capacity, rather than replace capacity elsewhere.', 'Sentiment on the ground is exciting, but most investment flows are yet to be seen, Ramos told CNN.', 'Analysts at Morgan Stanley see the value of Mexico’s exports to the United States growing from $455 billion to about $609 billion in the next five years.', 'That also makes Mexico an attractive base for many Chinese companies.', 'EV maker BYD, a global competitor to Musk’s Tesla, announced in February plans for a major expansion in Mexico.', 'While BYD doesn’t currently sell cars in the US market, a move to Mexico would provide better access to the Mexican market while preparing the company for a potential move into the US.', '“Chinese investment and exports to Mexico are highly likely to become a headline issue ahead of the 2026 scheduled review of the USMCA,” Sevilla-Macip and Raines said.', 'Until then, though, places like Monterrey continue to reap the rewards.', 'Monterrey, said RBC’s Enemaerke, “feels booming, new and vibrant, more so than other industrial cities I’ve been to, which have mainly been in Asia.”', 'CNN’s Michael Nam contributed to this report.']",0.2401477276531286,"Amid shifting geopolitics and competition, US and Chinese companies both see potential in Mexican manufacturing: Low labor costs, geographic proximity to American markets and the US-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) agreement — a free trade accord established in 2020 that makes trade in North America more cost-effective and efficient — are all factors contributing to a potential boom.","As early as February, Tai inquired about “the lack of transparency” around Mexico’s steel and aluminum imports from “third countries” during a meeting with Raquel Buenrostro, Mexico’s secretary of economy.",0.6882414203701597,Analysts at Morgan Stanley see the value of Mexico’s exports to the United States growing from $455 billion to about $609 billion in the next five years.,"Meanwhile, Chinese exports to the US were down 20%in 2023, compared to 2022.",2024-04-29
"Merck beats earnings expectations, raises outlook on strong Keytruda and vaccine sales",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/merck-mrk-earnings-q1-2024.html,2024-04-25T15:12:55+0000,"In this articleMerck on Thursday reported first-quarter revenue and adjusted earnings that topped expectations as it posted strong sales of its blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda and vaccine products.The pharmaceutical giant also raised and narrowed its full-year revenue and adjusted earnings forecasts. Merck now expects 2024 sales to come in between $63.1 billion and $64.3 billion, up from previous guidance of $62.7 to $64.2 billion. The company expects full-year adjusted earnings of $8.53 to $8.65 per share, up from its prior forecast of $8.44 to $8.59 per share. That outlook includes a one-time charge of roughly 26 cents per share related to Merck's acquisition of Harpoon Therapeutics in January. The company develops immune-based cancer drugs. The guidance also includes a negative impact of 30 cents per share from foreign exchange changes. Shares of Merck rose 4% on Thursday following the results.Here is what Merck reported for the first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG: The company posted a net income of $4.76 billion, or $1.87 per share, for the first quarter. That compares with a net income of $2.82 billion, or $1.11 per share, during the year-earlier period. Excluding acquisition and restructuring costs, Merck earned $2.07 per share for the first quarter. Both adjusted and nonadjusted profit for the period include the charge related to the Harpoon deal.Merck raked in $15.78 billion in revenue for the quarter, up 9% from the same period a year ago. Those results come as Merck shows substantial progress in preparing for Keytruda's patent expiration in 2028. The loss of exclusive rights to the drug will likely cause sales to fall, forcing the company to draw revenue from elsewhere.But Merck has a handful of new deals under its belt and key drug launches that will help it offset those losses. That includes Winrevair, a medication approved in the U.S. last month to treat a progressive and life-threatening lung condition. Some analysts expect that worldwide sales of Winrevair could reach $5 billion by 2030. Merck is seeing ""high interest"" in Winrevair from patient groups and a range of prescribers, and is making ""good progress"" in enabling access to the drug, Chief Financial Officer Caroline Litchfield said during an earnings call Thursday. Several payers have already established coverage policies for the drug, she noted.""We have confidence in a successful launch of Winrevair consistent with our prior expectations and look forward to providing updates on our progress,"" Litchfield said.Merck is also cutting costs under a new restructuring program it announced in February. Those efforts aim to improve the manufacturing network of both its pharmaceutical division and animal health business. The company recorded charges of $246 million related to restructuring in the first quarter, which are excluded from its adjusted results. Merck's pharmaceutical unit booked $14.01 billion in revenue during the first quarter, up 10% from the same period a year ago. That division develops a wide range of drugs for several disease areas, including oncology and infectious diseases. Merck's immunotherapy Keytruda, which is used to treat several types of cancer, largely drove the growth. Keytruda generated $6.95 billion in revenue during the quarter, up 20% from the year-earlier period. Analysts had been expecting $6.71 billion in Keytruda sales, according to estimates from FactSet. Litchfield said the growth reflects increased uptake in patients at the earliest stages of cancer, and continued demand to treat metastatic cancers, which refers to when the disease spreads to a different part of the body than where it started.Merck also reported a jump in sales of Gardasil, a vaccine that prevents cancer from HPV, the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S.Gardasil brought in $2.25 billion in sales, up 14% from the first quarter of 2023. That is in line with the $2.24 billion that analysts expected, FactSet estimates said. Litchfield said the increase reflects strong demand, particularly in China.Another vaccine called Vaxneuvance, which prevents patients from getting sick with pneumococcal disease, also posted strong growth during the quarter. The shot recorded $219 million in sales, up 106% from the year-earlier period. Meanwhile, Merck's Type 2 diabetes treatment Januvia drew $670 million in sales, down 24% from the same period a year ago. The company said the decline was primarily due to lower prices of the drug, falling demand in the U.S. and generic competition in several international markets.Analysts had expected Januvia sales of $687.3 million, according to FactSet estimates.Januvia is one of 10 drugs targeted in ongoing Medicare drug price negotiations, a policy under the Inflation Reduction Act that aims to make costly medications more affordable for seniors.Sales of Merck's Covid antiviral pill Lagevrio also fell 11% to $350 million during the quarter. Still, that total blew past analysts' expectations of $106.4 million in sales, according to FactSet. Demand for Lagevrio and other Covid products from companies such as Pfizer and Moderna has plunged over the past year, as cases and public concern about the virus dwindled from their pandemic peaks.Merck's animal health division, which develops vaccines and medicines for dogs, cats and cattle, posted $1.51 billion in sales for the first quarter. That is up only 1% from the same period a year ago. In February, Merck said it would buy Elanco Animal Health's aquatic business for $1.3 billion in cash. The deal includes Elanco's entire portfolio of medicines, vaccines and supplements for aquatic species, along with two manufacturing plants and a research facility.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"['In this articleMerck on Thursday reported first-quarter revenue and adjusted earnings that topped expectations as it posted strong sales of its blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda and vaccine products.', 'The pharmaceutical giant also raised and narrowed its full-year revenue and adjusted earnings forecasts.', 'Merck now expects 2024 sales to come in between $63.1 billion and $64.3 billion, up from previous guidance of $62.7 to $64.2 billion.', 'The company expects full-year adjusted earnings of $8.53 to $8.65 per share, up from its prior forecast of $8.44 to $8.59 per share.', ""That outlook includes a one-time charge of roughly 26 cents per share related to Merck's acquisition of Harpoon Therapeutics in January."", 'The company develops immune-based cancer drugs.', 'The guidance also includes a negative impact of 30 cents per share from foreign exchange changes.', 'Shares of Merck rose 4% on Thursday following the results.', 'Here is what Merck reported for the first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:The company posted a net income of $4.76 billion, or $1.87 per share, for the first quarter.', 'That compares with a net income of $2.82 billion, or $1.11 per share, during the year-earlier period.', 'Excluding acquisition and restructuring costs, Merck earned $2.07 per share for the first quarter.', 'Both adjusted and nonadjusted profit for the period include the charge related to the Harpoon deal.', 'Merck raked in $15.78 billion in revenue for the quarter, up 9% from the same period a year ago.', ""Those results come as Merck shows substantial progress in preparing for Keytruda's patent expiration in 2028."", 'The loss of exclusive rights to the drug will likely cause sales to fall, forcing the company to draw revenue from elsewhere.', 'But Merck has a handful of new deals under its belt and key drug launches that will help it offset those losses.', 'That includes Winrevair, a medication approved in the U.S. last month to treat a progressive and life-threatening lung condition.', 'Some analysts expect that worldwide sales of Winrevair could reach $5 billion by 2030.Merck is seeing ""high interest"" in Winrevair from patient groups and a range of prescribers, and is making ""good progress"" in enabling access to the drug, Chief Financial Officer Caroline Litchfield said during an earnings call Thursday.', 'Several payers have already established coverage policies for the drug, she noted.', '""We have confidence in a successful launch of Winrevair consistent with our prior expectations and look forward to providing updates on our progress,"" Litchfield said.', 'Merck is also cutting costs under a new restructuring program it announced in February.', 'Those efforts aim to improve the manufacturing network of both its pharmaceutical division and animal health business.', 'The company recorded charges of $246 million related to restructuring in the first quarter, which are excluded from its adjusted results.', ""Merck's pharmaceutical unit booked $14.01 billion in revenue during the first quarter, up 10% from the same period a year ago."", 'That division develops a wide range of drugs for several disease areas, including oncology and infectious diseases.', ""Merck's immunotherapy Keytruda, which is used to treat several types of cancer, largely drove the growth."", 'Keytruda generated $6.95 billion in revenue during the quarter, up 20% from the year-earlier period.', 'Analysts had been expecting $6.71 billion in Keytruda sales, according to estimates from FactSet.', 'Litchfield said the growth reflects increased uptake in patients at the earliest stages of cancer, and continued demand to treat metastatic cancers, which refers to when the disease spreads to a different part of the body than where it started.', 'Merck also reported a jump in sales of Gardasil, a vaccine that prevents cancer from HPV, the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S.Gardasil brought in $2.25 billion in sales, up 14% from the first quarter of 2023.', 'That is in line with the $2.24 billion that analysts expected, FactSet estimates said.', 'Litchfield said the increase reflects strong demand, particularly in China.', 'Another vaccine called Vaxneuvance, which prevents patients from getting sick with pneumococcal disease, also posted strong growth during the quarter.', 'The shot recorded $219 million in sales, up 106% from the year-earlier period.', ""Meanwhile, Merck's Type 2 diabetes treatment Januvia drew $670 million in sales, down 24% from the same period a year ago."", 'The company said the decline was primarily due to lower prices of the drug, falling demand in the U.S. and generic competition in several international markets.', 'Analysts had expected Januvia sales of $687.3 million, according to FactSet estimates.', 'Januvia is one of 10 drugs targeted in ongoing Medicare drug price negotiations, a policy under the Inflation Reduction Act that aims to make costly medications more affordable for seniors.', ""Sales of Merck's Covid antiviral pill Lagevrio also fell 11% to $350 million during the quarter."", ""Still, that total blew past analysts' expectations of $106.4 million in sales, according to FactSet."", 'Demand for Lagevrio and other Covid products from companies such as Pfizer and Moderna has plunged over the past year, as cases and public concern about the virus dwindled from their pandemic peaks.', ""Merck's animal health division, which develops vaccines and medicines for dogs, cats and cattle, posted $1.51 billion in sales for the first quarter."", 'That is up only 1% from the same period a year ago.', ""In February, Merck said it would buy Elanco Animal Health's aquatic business for $1.3 billion in cash."", ""The deal includes Elanco's entire portfolio of medicines, vaccines and supplements for aquatic species, along with two manufacturing plants and a research facility.""]",0.0870368521989354,"""We have confidence in a successful launch of Winrevair consistent with our prior expectations and look forward to providing updates on our progress,"" Litchfield said.","Merck also reported a jump in sales of Gardasil, a vaccine that prevents cancer from HPV, the most common sexually transmitted infection in the U.S.Gardasil brought in $2.25 billion in sales, up 14% from the first quarter of 2023.",0.6245327122283705,"Merck now expects 2024 sales to come in between $63.1 billion and $64.3 billion, up from previous guidance of $62.7 to $64.2 billion.",Sales of Merck's Covid antiviral pill Lagevrio also fell 11% to $350 million during the quarter.,2024-04-28
"Southwest cuts growth plans, warning effect of Boeing airplane delays will last into 2025",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/southwest-airlines-luv-earnings-q1-2024.html,2024-04-25T20:08:03+0000,"In this articleSouthwest Airlines on Thursday posted a wider loss for the first quarter than the same period last year and warned that Boeing's airplane delays will hamper its growth into 2025.The airline expects to grow capacity 4% this year, down from a plan to expand 6%. For the second quarter, it forecast growth of 8% to 9% and said revenue would be down as much as 3.5%.Shares of Southwest slid almost 7% on Thursday. The airline said in a quarterly filing that it now expects to receive only 20 Boeing 737 Max 8 planes, down from its previous forecast of 46 of them. The carrier will now delay retiring some of its older Boeing planes and is cutting costs, including by offering staff voluntary time off. Southwest said it expects to end the year with 2,000 fewer employees than it had at the end of 2023.It will shut down operations at some airports, including in Syracuse, New York; Bellingham International Airport in Washington; Cozumel International Airport; and Houston's George Bush Intercontinental. The carrier is also scaling back service in Atlanta and at Chicago O'Hare International Airport.""Achieving our financial goals is an immediate imperative,"" CEO Bob Jordan said in an earnings release. ""The recent news from Boeing regarding further aircraft delivery delays presents significant challenges for both 2024 and 2025. We are reacting and replanning quickly to mitigate the operational and financial impacts while maintaining dependable and reliable flight schedules for our Customers.""The Dallas-based carrier operates an all-Boeing 737 fleet and is acutely affected by Boeing's aircraft delays stemming from its safety and quality crises.The carrier had previously warned that slower Boeing deliveries were hampering its growth.Southwest is not only rethinking its network but also its business model. Jordan told CNBC that the airline might ditch its single-class cabin and open seating. While he said no decisions have been made, it would be a massive shift, just as big rivals like United and Delta post strong revenue growth for premium seats.Here is how Southwest performed in the first quarter compared with Wall Street expectations, according to consensus estimates from LSEG:Southwest lost $231 million, or 39 cents a share, in the first three months of the year, compared with a loss of $159 million, or 27 cents a share, a year earlier when it was dealing with the aftermath of its holiday meltdown.Adjusting for one-time items, including costs related to labor contracts and fuel, Southwest lost $218 million, or 36 cents a share.Revenue rose almost 11% to $6.33 billion, slightly below analysts' estimates as compiled by LSEG.Correction: Southwest Airlines revenue of $6.33 billion came in slightly below analysts' estimates as compiled by LSEG.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"[""In this articleSouthwest Airlines on Thursday posted a wider loss for the first quarter than the same period last year and warned that Boeing's airplane delays will hamper its growth into 2025.The airline expects to grow capacity 4% this year, down from a plan to expand 6%."", 'For the second quarter, it forecast growth of 8% to 9% and said revenue would be down as much as 3.5%.Shares of Southwest slid almost 7% on Thursday.', 'The airline said in a quarterly filing that it now expects to receive only 20 Boeing 737 Max 8 planes, down from its previous forecast of 46 of them.', 'The carrier will now delay retiring some of its older Boeing planes and is cutting costs, including by offering staff voluntary time off.', ""Southwest said it expects to end the year with 2,000 fewer employees than it had at the end of 2023.It will shut down operations at some airports, including in Syracuse, New York; Bellingham International Airport in Washington; Cozumel International Airport; andHouston's George Bush Intercontinental."", ""The carrier is also scaling back service in Atlanta and at Chicago O'Hare International Airport."", '""Achieving our financial goals is an immediate imperative,"" CEO Bob Jordan said in an earnings release. ""', 'The recent news from Boeing regarding further aircraft delivery delays presents significant challenges for both 2024and 2025.', 'We are reacting and replanning quickly to mitigate the operational and financial impacts while maintaining dependable and reliable flight schedules for our Customers.', '""The Dallas-based carrier operates an all-Boeing 737 fleet and is acutely affected by Boeing\'s aircraft delays stemming from its safety and quality crises.', 'The carrier had previously warned that slower Boeing deliveries were hampering its growth.', 'Southwest is not only rethinking its network but also its business model.', 'Jordan told CNBC that the airline might ditch its single-class cabin and open seating.', 'While he said no decisions have been made, it would be a massive shift, just as big rivals like United and Delta post strong revenue growth for premium seats.', 'Here is how Southwest performed in the first quarter compared with Wall Street expectations, according to consensus estimates from LSEG:Southwest lost $231 million, or 39 cents a share, in the first three months of the year, compared with a loss of $159 million, or 27 cents a share, a year earlier when it was dealing with the aftermath of its holiday meltdown.', 'Adjusting for one-time items, including costs related to labor contracts and fuel, Southwest lost $218 million, or 36 cents a share.', ""Revenue rose almost 11% to $6.33 billion, slightly below analysts' estimates as compiled by LSEG.Correction: Southwest Airlines revenue of $6.33 billion came in slightly below analysts' estimates as compiled by LSEG.""]",0.1153596879470297,"While he said no decisions have been made, it would be a massive shift, just as big rivals like United and Delta post strong revenue growth for premium seats.","The carrier will now delay retiring some of its older Boeing planes and is cutting costs, including by offering staff voluntary time off.",-0.3292938907941182,"While he said no decisions have been made, it would be a massive shift, just as big rivals like United and Delta post strong revenue growth for premium seats.","The airline said in a quarterly filing that it now expects to receive only 20 Boeing 737 Max 8 planes, down from its previous forecast of 46 of them.",2024-04-28
Disney technology executive Aaron LaBerge to leave company for personal reasons,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/22/disney-cto-aaron-laberge-to-leave-company-for-personal-reasons.html,2024-04-22T18:03:15+0000,"Aaron LaBerge, the chief technology officer for Disney Entertainment and ESPN, is leaving the company, according to an internal memo.LaBerge is taking a job as CTO of PENN Entertainment, which operates ESPN Bet, the sports media company's licensed online sportsbook. He'll be responsible for driving technology strategy as a top executive in the company's interactive division. LaBerge is leaving for personal reasons related to his family and will stay on at Disney until June, the memo said.LaBerge has been a key figure in developing Disney's streaming services and, more recently, integrating advertising into Disney+. He's also led efforts to unify Hulu and Disney+ within one streaming application, which debuted last month.At ESPN, LaBerge has been a central figure behind the company's streaming services, including ESPN+, the upcoming sports streaming application co-owned by Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox, and ESPN's flagship streaming service that will launch in 2025.His departure adds to a growing list of veteran Disney executives who have left the company in recent years. They include former CEO Bob Chapek, former head of streaming Kevin Mayer, ex-finance chief Christine McCarthy, former Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn, former Disney general counsel Alan Braverman, ex-head of communications Zenia Mucha, and former president of Walt Disney Pictures, Sean Bailey.""We want to thank Aaron for the contributions he has made and the leadership he has provided at Disney over his 20 years,"" said ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro and Disney Entertainment co-Chairmen Dana Walden and Alan Bergman in an internal note to employees. ""It is a silver lining that he will continue to help Disney and ESPN win, as he transitions to a role at PENN Entertainment — where he will be a key partner in the continued growth and success of ESPN BET (and the rest of their Interactive business).""According to his biography, LaBerge has been responsible for ""helping set the vision and strategic leadership for how the Company uses technology to enable storytelling and innovation, drive its business, and create amazing consumer experiences with entertainment and sports content.""A search for LaBerge's successor is already underway, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked to remain anonymous because the transition plan is private. Chris Lawson, currently Disney's executive vice president of content operations and one of LaBerge's direct reports, will take over LaBerge's job on an interim basis when he departs.LaBerge first joined Disney in the late 1990s as part of the company's takeover of Starwave, a Paul Allen-founded company that partnered with ESPN before Disney fully acquired it it in 1998.WATCH: Three stock lunch: Alphabet, Disney and Salesforce",CNBC,22/04/2024,"['Aaron LaBerge, the chief technology officer for Disney Entertainment and ESPN, is leaving the company, according to an internal memo.', ""LaBerge is taking a job as CTO of PENN Entertainment, which operates ESPN Bet, the sports media company's licensed online sportsbook."", ""He'll be responsible for driving technology strategy as a top executive in the company's interactive division."", 'LaBerge is leaving for personal reasons related to his family and will stay on at Disney until June, the memo said.', ""LaBerge has been a key figure in developing Disney's streaming services and, more recently, integrating advertising into Disney+."", ""He's also led efforts to unify Hulu and Disney+ within one streaming application, which debuted last month."", ""At ESPN, LaBerge has been a central figure behind the company's streaming services, including ESPN+, the upcoming sports streaming application co-owned by Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox, and ESPN's flagship streaming service that will launch in 2025.His departure adds to a growing list of veteran Disney executives who have left the company in recent years."", 'They include former CEO Bob Chapek, former head of streaming Kevin Mayer, ex-finance chief Christine McCarthy, former Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horn, former Disney general counsel Alan Braverman, ex-head of communications Zenia Mucha, and former president of Walt Disney Pictures, Sean Bailey.', '""We wantto thank Aaron for the contributions he has made and the leadership he has provided at Disney over his 20 years,"" said ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro and Disney Entertainment co-Chairmen Dana Walden and Alan Bergman in an internal note to employees. ""', 'It is a silver lining that he will continue to help Disney and ESPN win, as he transitions to a role at PENN Entertainment — where he will be akey partner in the continued growth and success of ESPN BET (and the rest of their Interactive business).""According to his biography, LaBerge has been responsible for ""helping set the vision and strategic leadership for how the Company uses technology to enable storytelling and innovation, drive its business, and create amazing consumer experiences with entertainment and sports content.', '""A search for LaBerge\'s successor is already underway, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked to remain anonymous because the transition plan is private.', ""Chris Lawson, currently Disney's executive vice president of content operations and one of LaBerge's direct reports, will take over LaBerge's job on an interim basis when he departs."", ""LaBerge first joined Disney in the late 1990s as part of the company's takeover of Starwave, a Paul Allen-founded company that partnered with ESPN before Disney fully acquired it it in 1998.WATCH: Three stock lunch: Alphabet, Disney and Salesforce""]",0.2673360788282376,"It is a silver lining that he will continue to help Disney and ESPN win, as he transitions to a role at PENN Entertainment — where he will be akey partner in the continued growth and success of ESPN BET (and the rest of their Interactive business).""According to his biography, LaBerge has been responsible for ""helping set the vision and strategic leadership for how the Company uses technology to enable storytelling and innovation, drive its business, and create amazing consumer experiences with entertainment and sports content.",,0.9995514750480652,"It is a silver lining that he will continue to help Disney and ESPN win, as he transitions to a role at PENN Entertainment — where he will be akey partner in the continued growth and success of ESPN BET (and the rest of their Interactive business).""According to his biography, LaBerge has been responsible for ""helping set the vision and strategic leadership for how the Company uses technology to enable storytelling and innovation, drive its business, and create amazing consumer experiences with entertainment and sports content.",,2024-04-28
"Walmart-backed fintech One introduces buy now, pay later as it prepares bigger push into lending",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/23/walmart-backed-fintech-one-introduces-buy-now-pay-later.html,2024-04-23T15:51:01+0000,"In this articleWalmart's majority-owned fintech startup One has begun offering buy now, pay later loans for big-ticket items at some of the retailer's more than 4,600 U.S. stores, CNBC has learned.The move puts One in direct competition with Affirm, the BNPL leader and exclusive provider of installment loans for Walmart customers since 2019. It's a relationship that the Bentonville, Arkansas, retailer expanded recently, introducing Affirm as a payment option at Walmart self-checkout kiosks.It also likely signals that a battle is brewing in the store aisles and ecommerce portals of America's largest retailer. At stake is the role of a wide spectrum of players, from fintech firms to card companies and established banks.One's push into lending is the clearest sign yet of its ambition to become a financial superapp, a mobile one-stop shop for saving, spending and borrowing money.Since it burst onto the scene in 2021, luring Goldman Sachs veteran Omer Ismail as CEO, the fintech startup has intrigued and threatened a financial landscape dominated by banks — and poached talent from more established lenders and payments firms.But the company, based out of a cramped Manhattan WeWork space, has operated mostly in stealth mode while developing its early products, including a debit account released in 2022.Now, One is going head-to-head with some of Walmart's existing partners like Affirm who helped the retail giant generate $648 billion in revenue last year.On a recent visit by CNBC to a New Jersey Walmart location, ads for both One and Affirm vied for attention among the Apple products and Android smartphones in the store's electronics section.Offerings from both One and Affirm were available at checkout, and loans from either provider were available for purchases starting at around $100 and costing as much as several thousand dollars at an annual interest rate of between 10% to 36%, according to their respective websites.Electronics, jewelry, power tools and automotive accessories are eligible for the loans, while groceries, alcohol and weapons are not.Buy now, pay later has gained popularity with consumers for everyday items as well as larger purchases. From January through March of this year, BNPL drove $19.2 billion in online spending, according to Adobe Analytics. That's a 12% year-over-year increase.Walmart and One declined to comment for this article.One's expanding role at Walmart raises the possibility that the company could force Affirm, Capital One and other third parties out of some of the most coveted partnerships in American retail, according to industry experts.""I have to imagine the goal is to have all this stuff, whether it's a credit card, buy now, pay later loans or remittances, to have it all unified in an app under a single brand, delivered online and through Walmart's physical footprint,"" said Jason Mikula, a consultant formerly employed at Goldman's consumer division.Affirm declined to comment about its Walmart partnership. Shares of Affirm climbed 2% Tuesday, rebounding after falling more than 8% in premarket activity.For Walmart, One is part of its broader effort to develop new revenue sources beyond its retail stores in areas including finance and health care, following rival Amazon's playbook with cloud computing and streaming, among other segments. Walmart's newer businesses have higher margins than retail and are a part of its plan to grow profits faster than sales.In February, Walmart said it was buying TV maker Vizio for $2.3 billion to boost its advertising business, another growth area for the retailer.When it comes to finance, One is just Walmart's latest attempt to break into the banking business. Starting in the 1990s, Walmart made repeated efforts to enter the industry through direct ownership of a banking arm, each time getting blocked by lawmakers and industry groups concerned that a ""Bank of Walmart"" would crush small lenders and squeeze big ones.To sidestep those concerns, Walmart adopted a more arms-length approach this time around. For One, the retailer created a joint venture with investment firm firm Ribbit Capital — known for backing fintech firms including Robinhood, Credit Karma and Affirm — and staffed the business with executives from across finance.Walmart has not disclosed the size of its investment in One.The startup has said that it makes decisions independent of Walmart, though its board includes Walmart U.S. CEO, John Furner, and its finance chief, John David Rainey.One doesn't have a banking license, but partners with Coastal Community Bank for the debit card and installment loans.After its failed early attempts in banking, Walmart pursued a partnership strategy, teaming up with a constellation of providers, including Capital One, Synchrony, MoneyGram, Green Dot, and more recently, Affirm. Leaning on partners, the retailer opened thousands of physical MoneyCenter locations within its stores to offer check cashing, sending and receiving payments, and tax services.But Walmart and One executives have made no secret of their ambition to become a major player in financial services by leapfrogging existing players with a clean-slate effort.One's no-fee approach is especially relevant to low- and middle-income Americans who are ""underserved financially,"" Rainey, a former PayPal executive, noted during a December conference.""We see a lot of that customer demographic, so I think it gives us the ability to participate in this space in maybe a way that others don't,"" Rainey said. ""We can digitize a lot of the services that we do physically today. One is the platform for that.""One could generate roughly $1.6 billion in annual revenue from debit cards and lending in the near term, and more than $4 billion if it expands into investing and other areas, according to Morgan Stanley.Walmart can use its scale to grow One in other ways. It is the largest private employer in the U.S. with about 1.6 million employees, and it already offers its workers early access to wages if they sign up for a corporate version of One.There are signs that One is making a deeper push into lending beyond installment loans.Walmart recently prevailed in a legal dispute with Capital One, allowing the retailer to end its credit-card partnership years ahead of schedule. Walmart sued Capital One last year, alleging that its exclusive partnership with the card issuer was void after it failed to live up to contractual obligations around customer service, assertions that Capital One denied.The lawsuit led to speculation that Walmart intends to have One take over management of the retailer's co-branded and store cards. In fact, in legal filings Capital One itself alleged that Walmart's rationale was less about servicing complaints and more about moving transactions to a company it owns.""Upon information and belief, Walmart intends to offer its branded credit cards through One in the future,"" Capital One said last year in response to Walmart's suit. ""With One, Walmart is positioning itself to compete directly with Capital One to provide credit and payment products to Walmart customers.""Capital One said last month that it could appeal the decision. The company declined to comment further.Meanwhile, Walmart said last year when its lawsuit became public that it would soon announce a new credit card option with ""meaningful benefits and rewards.""One has obtained lending licenses that allow it to operate in nearly every U.S. state, according to filings and its website. The company's app tells users that credit building and credit score monitoring services are coming soon.And while One's expansion threatens to supersede Walmart's existing financial partners, Walmart's efforts could also be seen as defensive.Fintech players including Block's Cash App, PayPal and Chime dominate account growth among people who switch bank accounts and have made inroads with Walmart's core demographic. The three services made up 60% of digital player signups last year, according to data and consultancy firm Curinos.But One has the advantage of being majority owned by a company whose customers make more than 200 million visits a week.It can offer them enticements including 3% cashback on Walmart purchases and a savings account that pays 5% interest annually, far higher than most banks, according to customer emails from One.Those terms keep customers spending and saving within the Walmart ecosystem and helps the retailer better understand them, Morgan Stanley analysts said in a 2022 research note.""One has access to Walmart's sizable and sticky customer base, the largest in retail,"" the analysts wrote. ""This captive and underserved customer base gives One a leg up vs. other fintechs.""",CNBC,23/04/2024,"[""In this articleWalmart's majority-owned fintech startup One has begun offering buy now, pay later loans for big-ticket items at some of the retailer's more than 4,600 U.S. stores, CNBC has learned."", 'The move puts One in direct competition with Affirm, the BNPL leader and exclusive provider ofinstallment loans for Walmart customers since 2019.', ""It's a relationship that the Bentonville, Arkansas, retailer expanded recently, introducing Affirm as a payment option at Walmart self-checkout kiosks."", ""It also likely signals that a battle is brewing in the store aisles and ecommerce portals of America's largest retailer."", 'At stake is the role of a wide spectrum of players, from fintech firms to card companies and established banks.', ""One's push into lending is the clearest sign yet of its ambition to become a financial superapp, a mobile one-stop shop for saving, spending and borrowing money."", 'Since it burst onto the scene in 2021, luring Goldman Sachs veteran Omer Ismail as CEO, the fintech startup has intrigued and threatened a financial landscape dominated by banks — and poached talent from more established lenders and payments firms.', ""But the company, based out of a cramped Manhattan WeWork space, has operated mostly in stealth mode while developing its early products, including a debit account released in 2022.Now, One is going head-to-head with some of Walmart's existing partners like Affirm who helped the retail giant generate $648 billion in revenue last year."", ""On a recent visit by CNBC to a New Jersey Walmart location, ads for both One and Affirm vied for attention among the Apple products and Android smartphones in the store's electronics section."", 'Offerings from both One and Affirm were available at checkout, and loans from either provider were available for purchases starting at around $100 and costing as much as several thousand dollars at an annual interest rate of between 10% to 36%, according to their respective websites.', 'Electronics, jewelry, power tools and automotive accessories are eligible for the loans, while groceries, alcohol and weapons are not.', 'Buy now, pay later has gained popularity with consumers for everyday items as well as larger purchases.', 'From January through March of this year, BNPL drove $19.2 billion in online spending, according to Adobe Analytics.', ""That's a 12% year-over-year increase."", 'Walmart and One declined to comment for this article.', ""One's expanding role at Walmart raises the possibility that the company could force Affirm, Capital One and other third parties out of some of the most coveted partnerships in American retail, according to industry experts."", '""I have to imagine the goal is to have all this stuff, whether it\'s a credit card, buy now, pay later loans or remittances, to have it all unified in an app under a single brand, delivered online and through Walmart\'s physical footprint,"" said Jason Mikula, a consultant formerly employed at Goldman\'s consumer division.', 'Affirm declined to comment about its Walmart partnership.', 'Shares of Affirm climbed 2% Tuesday, rebounding after falling more than 8% in premarket activity.', ""For Walmart, One is part of its broader effort to develop new revenue sources beyond its retail stores in areas including finance and health care, following rival Amazon's playbook with cloud computing and streaming, among other segments."", ""Walmart's newer businesses have higher margins than retail and are a part of its plan to grow profits faster than sales."", 'In February, Walmart said it was buying TV maker Vizio for $2.3 billion to boost its advertising business, another growth area for the retailer.', ""When it comes to finance, One is just Walmart's latest attempt to break into the banking business."", 'Starting in the 1990s, Walmart made repeated efforts to enter the industry through direct ownership of a banking arm, each time getting blocked by lawmakers and industry groups concerned that a ""Bank of Walmart"" would crush small lenders and squeeze big ones.', 'To sidestep those concerns, Walmart adopted a more arms-length approach this time around.', 'For One, the retailer created a joint venture with investment firm firm Ribbit Capital — known for backing fintech firms including Robinhood, Credit Karma and Affirm — and staffed the business with executives from across finance.', 'Walmart has not disclosed the size of its investment in One.', 'The startup has said that it makes decisions independent of Walmart, though its board includes Walmart U.S. CEO, John Furner, and its finance chief, John David Rainey.', ""One doesn't have a banking license, but partners with Coastal Community Bank for the debit card and installment loans."", 'After its failed early attempts in banking, Walmart pursued a partnership strategy, teaming up with a constellation of providers, including Capital One, Synchrony, MoneyGram, Green Dot, and more recently, Affirm.', 'Leaning on partners, the retailer opened thousands of physical MoneyCenter locations within its stores to offer check cashing, sending and receiving payments, and tax services.', 'But Walmart and One executives have made no secret of their ambition to become a major player in financial services by leapfrogging existing players with a clean-slate effort.', 'One\'s no-fee approach is especially relevant to low- and middle-income Americans who are ""underserved financially,"" Rainey, a former PayPal executive, noted during a December conference.', '""We see a lot of that customer demographic, so I think it gives us the ability to participate in this space in maybe a way that others don\'t,"" Rainey said. ""', 'We can digitize a lot of the services that we do physically today.', 'One is the platform for that.', '""One could generate roughly $1.6 billion in annual revenue from debit cards and lending in the near term, and more than $4 billion if it expands into investing and other areas, according to Morgan Stanley.', 'Walmart can use its scale to grow One in other ways.', 'It is the largest private employer in the U.S. with about 1.6 million employees, and it already offers its workers early access to wages if they sign up for a corporate version of One.', 'There are signs that One is making a deeper push into lending beyond installment loans.', 'Walmart recently prevailed in a legal dispute with Capital One, allowing the retailer to end its credit-card partnership years ahead of schedule.', 'Walmart sued Capital One last year, alleging that its exclusive partnership with the card issuer was void after it failed to live up to contractual obligations around customer service, assertions that Capital One denied.', ""The lawsuit led to speculation that Walmart intends to have One take over management of the retailer's co-branded and store cards."", ""In fact, in legal filings Capital One itself alleged that Walmart's rationale was less about servicing complaints and more about moving transactions to a company it owns."", '""Upon information and belief, Walmart intends to offer its branded credit cards through One in the future,"" Capital One said last year in response to Walmart\'s suit. ""', 'With One, Walmart is positioning itself to compete directly with Capital One to provide credit and payment products to Walmart customers.', '""Capital One said last month that it could appeal the decision.', 'The company declined to comment further.', 'Meanwhile, Walmart said last year when its lawsuit became public that it would soon announce a new credit card option with ""meaningful benefits and rewards.', '""One has obtained lending licenses that allow it to operate in nearly every U.S. state, according to filings and its website.', ""The company's app tells users that credit building and credit score monitoring services are coming soon."", ""And while One's expansion threatens to supersede Walmart's existing financial partners, Walmart's efforts could also be seen as defensive."", ""Fintech players including Block's Cash App, PayPal and Chime dominate account growth among people who switch bank accounts and have made inroads with Walmart's core demographic."", 'The three services made up 60% of digital player signups last year, according to data and consultancy firm Curinos.', 'But One has the advantage of being majority owned by a company whose customers make more than 200 million visits a week.', 'It can offer them enticements including 3% cashback on Walmart purchases and a savings account that pays 5% interest annually, far higher than most banks, according to customer emails from One.', 'Those terms keep customers spending and saving within the Walmart ecosystem and helps the retailer better understand them, Morgan Stanley analysts said in a 2022 research note.', '""One has access to Walmart\'s sizable and sticky customer base, the largest in retail,"" the analysts wrote. ""', 'This captive and underserved customer base gives One a leg up vs. other fintechs.""']",0.1047730639049195,"Meanwhile, Walmart said last year when its lawsuit became public that it would soon announce a new credit card option with ""meaningful benefits and rewards.","Walmart sued Capital One last year, alleging that its exclusive partnership with the card issuer was void after it failed to live up to contractual obligations around customer service, assertions that Capital One denied.",0.5972028147606623,"In February, Walmart said it was buying TV maker Vizio for $2.3 billion to boost its advertising business, another growth area for the retailer.","And while One's expansion threatens to supersede Walmart's existing financial partners, Walmart's efforts could also be seen as defensive.",2024-04-28
The new class war: A wealth gap between millennials,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/26/wealth-gap-between-millennials-new-class-war.html,2024-04-26T20:47:22+0000,"A version of this article first appeared in CNBC's Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.The wealth gap between rich millennials and the rest of their age group is the largest of any generation, creating a new wave of class tension and resentment, according to a recent study.Even as the vast majority of millennials struggle with student debt, low-wage service-jobs, unaffordable housing and low savings, the millennial elite are surpassing previous generations. According to the study, the average millennial has 30% less wealth at the age of 35 than baby boomers did at the same age. Yet the top 10% of millennials have 20% more wealth than the top baby boomers at the same age.""Millennials are so different from one another that it is not particularly meaningful to talk about the 'average' Millennial experience,"" wrote the study's authors, Rob Gruijters, Zachary Van Winkle and Anette Eva Fasang. ""There are some Millennials who are doing extremely well—think Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman—while others are struggling.""The study finds that millennials — typically defined as those between the age of 28 and 43 today — have faced repeated financial headwinds. Coming of age during the financial crisis, they have lower levels of homeownership, larger debts outweighing assets, low-wage and unstable jobs, and lower rates of dual-income family formation.At the same time, the authors say the top 10% of millennials have benefited from greater rewards for skilled jobs. As they put it, ""The returns to high-status work trajectories have increased, while the returns to low-status trajectories have stagnated or declined.""The millennials who ""went to college, found graduate level jobs, and started families relatively late,"" ended up with ""higher levels of wealth than Baby Boomers with similar life trajectories,"" according to the report.There may be another factor creating so much wealth among millennials: inheritances. In what's known as ""the great wealth transfer,"" baby boomers are expected to pass down between $70 trillion and $90 trillion in wealth over the next 20 years. Much of that is expected to go to their millennial children. High-net-worth individuals worth $5 million or more will account for nearly half of that total, according to Cerulli Associates.Wealth management firms say some of that wealth has already starting trickling down to the next generation.""The great wealth transfer, which we've all been talking about for the last 10 years, is underway,"" said John Mathews, head of UBS' Private Wealth Management division. ""The average age of the world's billionaires is almost 69 right now. So this whole transition or wealth handover will start to accelerate.""Tensions between millennial classes are likely to escalate as more wealth is transferred in the coming years. Wealth displays on social media by millennial ""nepo babies"" could add to the intra-generational class war and drive nonwealthy millennials to overspend or create the appearance of lavish lifestyles to keep up.A survey by Wells Fargo found that 29% of affluent millennials (defined as having assets of $250,000 to over $1 million of investible assets) admit they ""sometimes buy items they cannot afford to impress others."" According to the survey, 41% of affluent millennials admit to funding their lifestyles with credit cards or loans, versus 28% of Gen Xers and 6% of baby boomers.The battle between rich millennials and the rest could also shape their attitudes toward wealth. For over four decades, the vast majority of millionaires and billionaires created in America have been self-made, mostly entrepreneurs. A study by Fidelity Investments found that 88% of American millionaires are self-made.Yet inherited wealth could become more common. A study by UBS found that among newly minted billionaires last year, heirs who inherited their fortunes racked up more wealth than self-made billionaires for the first time in at least nine years. And, all the billionaires under the age of 30 on the latest Forbes billionaires list inherited their wealth, for the first time in 15 years.The surge in wealth among millennial heirs is also creating a lucrative new market for wealth-management firms, luxury companies, travel firms and real estate brokers.Clayton Orrigo, one of the top luxury real estate brokers in Manhattan, has built a thriving business on moneyed millennials. The founder of the Hudson Advisory Team at Compass has sold over $4 billion in real estate and regularly brokers deals over $10 million. He says the ""vast majority"" of his business lately is from buyers in their 20s and 30s with inherited wealth.""I just sold a $16 million apartment to someone in their mid-20s, and the buyer accessed the family trust,"" he said. ""The wealth that is behind these kids is extreme.""Inherited wealth has become Orrigo's specialty. He says he works on forging close relationships with family offices, trusts and young money elite mingling at New York membership clubs like Casa Cipriani.The pattern is familiar: A wealthy family calls wanting a rental for their son or daughter; a few years later, they want a $5 million or $10 million two-bedroom condo to buy in a new, high-security building downtown.""My gig is working very quietly and very discreetly with the wealthiest families in the world,"" Orrigo said.Sign up to receive future editions of CNBC's Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank.",CNBC,26/04/2024,"[""A version of this article first appeared in CNBC's Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high-net-worth investor and consumer."", 'Sign upto receive future editions, straight to your inbox.', 'The wealth gap between rich millennials and the rest of their age group is the largest of any generation, creating a new wave of class tension and resentment, according to a recent study.', 'Even as the vast majority of millennials struggle with student debt, low-wage service-jobs, unaffordable housing and low savings, the millennial elite are surpassing previous generations.', 'According to the study, the average millennial has 30% less wealth at the age of 35 than baby boomers did at the same age.', 'Yet the top 10% of millennials have 20% more wealth than the top baby boomers at the same age.', '""Millennials are so different from one another that it is not particularly meaningful to talk about the \'average\' Millennial experience,"" wrote the study\'s authors, Rob Gruijters, Zachary Van Winkle and Anette Eva Fasang. ""', 'There are some Millennials who are doing extremely well—think Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman—while others are struggling.', '""The study finds that millennials — typically defined as those between the age of 28 and 43 today — have faced repeated financial headwinds.', 'Coming of age during the financial crisis, they have lower levels of homeownership, larger debts outweighing assets, low-wage and unstable jobs, and lower rates of dual-income family formation.', 'At the same time, the authors say the top 10% of millennials have benefited from greater rewards for skilled jobs.', 'As they put it, ""The returns to high-status work trajectories have increased, while the returns to low-status trajectories have stagnated or declined.', '""The millennials who ""went to college, found graduate level jobs, and started families relatively late,"" ended up with ""higher levels of wealth than Baby Boomers with similar life trajectories,"" according to the report.', 'There may be another factor creating so much wealth among millennials: inheritances.', 'In what\'s known as ""the great wealth transfer,"" baby boomers are expected to pass down between $70 trillion and $90 trillion in wealth over the next 20 years.', 'Much of that is expected to go to their millennial children.', 'High-net-worth individuals worth $5 million or more will account for nearly half of that total, according to Cerulli Associates.', 'Wealth management firms say some of that wealth has already starting trickling down to the next generation.', '""The great wealth transfer, which we\'ve all been talking about for the last 10 years, is underway,"" said John Mathews, head of UBS\'Private Wealth Management division. ""', ""The average age of the world's billionaires is almost 69 right now."", 'So this whole transition or wealth handover will start to accelerate.', '""Tensions between millennial classes are likely to escalate as more wealth is transferred in the coming years.', 'Wealth displays on social media by millennial ""nepo babies"" could add to the intra-generational class war and drive nonwealthy millennials to overspend or create the appearance of lavish lifestyles to keep up.', 'A survey by Wells Fargo found that 29% of affluent millennials (defined as having assets of $250,000 to over $1 million of investible assets) admit they ""sometimes buy items they cannot afford to impress others.""', 'According to the survey, 41% of affluent millennials admit to funding their lifestyles with credit cards or loans, versus 28% of Gen Xers and 6% of baby boomers.', 'The battle between rich millennials and the rest could also shape their attitudes toward wealth.', 'For over four decades, the vast majority of millionaires and billionaires created in America have been self-made, mostly entrepreneurs.', 'A study by Fidelity Investments found that 88% of American millionaires are self-made.', 'Yet inherited wealth could become more common.', 'A study by UBS found that among newly minted billionaires last year, heirs who inherited their fortunes racked up more wealth than self-made billionaires for the first time in at least nine years.', 'And, all the billionaires under the age of 30 on the latest Forbes billionaires list inherited their wealth, for the first time in 15 years.', 'The surge in wealth among millennial heirs is also creating a lucrative new market for wealth-management firms, luxury companies, travel firms and real estate brokers.', 'Clayton Orrigo, one of the top luxury real estate brokers in Manhattan, has built a thriving business on moneyed millennials.', 'The founder of the Hudson Advisory Team at Compass has sold over $4 billion in real estate and regularly brokers deals over $10 million.', 'He says the ""vast majority"" of his business lately is from buyers in their 20s and 30s with inherited wealth.', '""I just sold a $16 million apartment to someone in their mid-20s, and the buyer accessed the family trust,"" he said. ""', 'The wealth that is behind these kids is extreme.', '""Inherited wealth has become Orrigo\'s specialty.', 'He says he works on forging close relationships with family offices, trusts and young money elite mingling at New York membership clubs like Casa Cipriani.', 'The pattern is familiar: A wealthy family calls wanting a rental for their son or daughter; a few years later, they want a $5 million or $10 million two-bedroom condo to buy in a new, high-security building downtown.', '""My gig is working very quietly and very discreetly with the wealthiest families in the world,"" Orrigo said.', ""Sign up to receive future editions of CNBC'sInside Wealthnewsletter with Robert Frank.""]",0.3328991275805766,"In what's known as ""the great wealth transfer,"" baby boomers are expected to pass down between $70 trillion and $90 trillion in wealth over the next 20 years.","Coming of age during the financial crisis, they have lower levels of homeownership, larger debts outweighing assets, low-wage and unstable jobs, and lower rates of dual-income family formation.",0.0389725693634578,"At the same time, the authors say the top 10% of millennials have benefited from greater rewards for skilled jobs.","""The study finds that millennials — typically defined as those between the age of 28 and 43 today — have faced repeated financial headwinds.",2024-04-28
"Professional pickleball signs first international deal, looks to grow the sport in India",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/us-pro-pickleball-group-signs-first-international-deal-in-india.html,2024-04-25T19:41:55+0000,"America's fastest-growing sport, pickleball, is going after a new frontier: India.The United Pickleball Association and Global Sports announced a deal on Thursday to bring the PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball to the world's most populous country.It's the first international deal and major announcement for the United Pickleball Association, which was created after a merger between Major League Pickleball and the Professional Pickleball Association last February.The PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball retained their own distinct brands after the merger. The PPA Tour features an individual bracket-style tour, while MLP is a team-based format.Terms of the deal were not available.""The PPA Tour India and MLP India will create a pathway for players to compete on pickleball's biggest stage and reach the top of the sport. With the partnership of Global Sports, we will elevate the game and introduce it to millions of new fans,"" said Connor Pardoe, founder and CEO of the PPA Tour.As part of the partnership, the PPA Tour will make an official tour stop in India next February. The Indian Open event will be the debut PPA Tour event in Asia and is expected to bring players from all over the world to participate.The deal will also launch PPA Tour India, offering ranking points to players at events around the country.Major League Pickleball, the team-based league, will hold a competition in India featuring a mix of players from India, as well as MLP and PPA Tour professionals.United Pickleball Association said the group also plans to hold an open process to sell MLP franchises, with the goal of launching a full 12-team season in 2025-26.Franchises are expected to cost in the seven-figure range, according to sources.In September, Major League Pickleball announced its expansion into Australia.The APP Tour, which represents both amateurs and seniors, has also been active in bringing the sport overseas to India, the United Kingdom, Spain and Sweden.Global Sports, which was at the forefront of bringing pickleball to India, operates courts and organizes tournaments in India.""Pickleball in India has grown by leaps in the last couple of years, and this will give existing players a platform to compete at the highest level,"" said Shashank Khaitan, partner at Global Sports.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"[""America's fastest-growing sport, pickleball, is going after a new frontier: India."", ""The United Pickleball Association and Global Sports announced a deal on Thursday to bring the PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball to the world's most populous country."", ""It's the first international deal and major announcement for the United Pickleball Association, which was created after a merger between Major League Pickleball and the Professional Pickleball Association last February."", 'The PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball retained their own distinct brands after the merger.', 'The PPA Tour features an individual bracket-style tour, while MLP is a team-based format.', 'Terms of the deal were not available.', '""The PPA Tour India and MLP India will create a pathway for players to compete on pickleball\'s biggest stage and reach the top of the sport.', 'With the partnership of Global Sports, we will elevate the game and introduce it to millions of new fans,"" said Connor Pardoe, founder and CEO of the PPA Tour.', 'As part of the partnership, the PPA Tour will make an official tour stop in India next February.', 'The Indian Open event will be the debut PPA Tour event in Asia and is expected to bring players from all over the world to participate.', 'The deal will also launch PPA Tour India, offering ranking points to players at events around the country.', 'Major League Pickleball, the team-based league, will hold a competition in India featuring a mix of players from India, as well as MLP and PPA Tour professionals.', 'United Pickleball Association said the group also plans to hold an open process to sell MLP franchises, with the goal of launching a full 12-team season in 2025-26.Franchises are expected to cost in the seven-figure range, according to sources.', 'In September, Major League Pickleball announced its expansion into Australia.', 'The APP Tour, which represents both amateurs and seniors, has also been active in bringing the sport overseas to India, the United Kingdom, Spain and Sweden.', 'Global Sports, which was at the forefront of bringing pickleball to India, operates courts and organizes tournaments in India.', '""Pickleball in India has grown by leaps in the last couple of years, and this will give existing players a platform to compete at the highest level,"" said Shashank Khaitan, partner at Global Sports.']",0.1651015723437605,"The APP Tour, which represents both amateurs and seniors, has also been active in bringing the sport overseas to India, the United Kingdom, Spain and Sweden.","As part of the partnership, the PPA Tour will make an official tour stop in India next February.",0.9883124828338624,"""Pickleball in India has grown by leaps in the last couple of years, and this will give existing players a platform to compete at the highest level,"" said Shashank Khaitan, partner at Global Sports.",,2024-04-28
"Bristol Myers Squibb beats on revenue, launches $1.5 billion cost cuts as it posts quarterly loss",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/bristol-myers-squibb-bmy-earnings-q1-2024.html,2024-04-25T16:26:45+0000,"In this articleBristol Myers Squibb on Thursday reported first-quarter revenue that topped expectations as sales of its popular blood cancer treatment Revlimid and blockbuster blood thinner Eliquis came in higher than expected. But the pharmaceutical company swung to a quarterly loss due to one-time charges related to its recently closed deals. It also said it plans to cut $1.5 billion in costs by 2025, and reinvest the money in drug development.Bristol Myers will lay off 2,200 employees this year, discontinue some drug programs, eliminate open roles, consolidate its sites and reduce management layers, among other cost savings. The company said it will prioritize investment in its key drug brands, optimize operations across the company and focus its resources on research and development programs that could deliver the highest returns for the company and the greatest health benefits for patients.Two-thirds of savings are associated with drug research and development, Bristol Myers executives said during an earnings call Thursday. The company has discontinued about 12 drug programs so far and will evaluate others to drop throughout year, said Bristol Myers Chief Medical Officer Dr. Samit Hirawat.Bristol Myers CEO Chris Boerner added that the majority of savings are coming from existing in-house operations, not from newly acquired companies.""We are taking important actions to effectively manage the decade,"" Boerner said during the call. ""Our management team has focused on ensuring the discipline execution required to deliver both this year and set us up for the longer term.""For the first quarter, Bristol Myers said the charges that weighed it down primarily reflect its $14 billion acquisition of neuroscience drugmaker Karuna Therapeutics and the collaboration agreement with SystImmune, a subsidiary of a Chinese biotech startup, to co-develop and market its experimental cancer treatment. Those deals come as Bristol Myers faces pressure to launch new drugs and offset the potential loss of revenue from top-selling treatments. The company's popular blood cancer treatment Revlimid — and eventually, Eliquis and cancer immunotherapy Opdivo — faces competition from cheaper copycats. Shares of Bristol Myers fell more than 7% on Tuesday.Here is what Bristol Myers reported for the first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG: Bristol Myers, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, swung to a net loss of $11.9 billion, or $5.89 per share, during the first quarter. That compares to net income of $2.3 billion, or $1.07 per share, for the same period a year ago. Excluding certain items, its adjusted loss per share was $4.40 for the period. The loss reflects a one-time $6.30 per share charge related to the recently closed deals, Bristol Myers said in a release.Bristol Myers reported first-quarter revenue of $11.87 billion, up 5% from the year-earlier period. The company reiterated its full-year revenue forecast of a low single-digit increase. But Bristol Myers lowered its 2024 adjusted earnings guidance to 40 cents to 70 cents per share to reflect the effect of the recent deals. That compares with a previous forecast of $7.10 to $7.40 per share, which did not include charges related to its buyouts of Karuna Therapeutics and radiopharmaceutical company RayzeBio, along with divestitures and other items. Bristol Myers said revenue growth for the first quarter was primarily driven by higher sales of Eliquis and some of its newer drugs. Eliquis booked $3.72 billion in sales for the quarter, up 9% from the year-ago period. Analysts had expected Eliquis to draw $3.59 billion in revenue, according to estimates compiled by FactSet.Eliquis, which Bristol Myers shares with Pfizer, is among the first 10 drugs facing ongoing price negotiations with the federal Medicare program. The blood thinner is expected to lose market exclusivity by 2028.The effect of those negotiations on Eliquis is still unclear, Bristol Myers executives said during the call. The final negotiated price for the drug will be published later this year and go into effect in 2026, which is when the company expects a hit to revenue and profit.Meanwhile, Revlimid raked in $1.67 billion in sales, down 5% from the same period a year ago. Still, that surpassed analysts' revenue expectations of $1.22 billion for the drug, according to FactSet estimates.  Anemia drug Reblozyl and advanced melanoma treatment Opdualag also posted revenue growth during the first quarter. Reblozyl booked $354 million in sales, up 72% from the year-earlier period. Analysts had expected revenue of $330.8 million, according to FactSet.Opdualag generated $206 million in sales for the first quarter, which is up 76% from the same period a year ago. Analysts had expected revenue of $206.5 million, FactSet estimates said. The performance of other new drugs fell short of Wall Street's expectations. Abecma, a cell therapy for a rare blood cancer called multiple myeloma, drew $82 million in sales for the quarter. Analysts had expected $112.6 million in revenue, according to FactSet. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this month expanded its approval of that drug, allowing multiple myeloma patients to use it as an earlier line of treatment.An older drug, Opdivo, generated $2.07 billion in sales for the quarter, down 6% from the first quarter of 2023. Analysts had expected the drug to book $2.3 billion in revenue for the period, FactSet estimates said.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"['In this articleBristol Myers Squibb on Thursday reported first-quarter revenue that topped expectations as sales of its popular blood cancer treatment Revlimid and blockbuster blood thinner Eliquis came in higher than expected.', 'But the pharmaceutical company swung to a quarterly loss due to one-time charges related to its recently closed deals.', 'It also said it plans to cut $1.5 billion in costs by 2025, and reinvest the money in drug development.', 'Bristol Myers will lay off 2,200 employees this year, discontinue some drug programs, eliminate open roles, consolidate its sites and reduce management layers, among other cost savings.', 'The company said it will prioritize investment in its key drug brands, optimize operations across the company and focus its resources on research and development programs that could deliver the highest returns for the company and the greatest health benefits for patients.', 'Two-thirds of savings are associated with drug research and development, Bristol Myers executives said during an earnings call Thursday.', 'The company has discontinued about 12 drug programs so far and will evaluate others to drop throughout year, said Bristol Myers Chief Medical Officer Dr. Samit Hirawat.', 'Bristol Myers CEO Chris Boerner added that the majority of savings are coming from existing in-house operations, not from newly acquired companies.', '""We are taking important actions to effectively manage the decade,"" Boerner said during the call. ""', 'Our management team has focused on ensuring the discipline execution required to deliver both this year and set us up for the longer term.', '""For the first quarter, Bristol Myers said the charges that weighed it down primarily reflect its $14 billion acquisition of neuroscience drugmaker Karuna Therapeutics and the collaboration agreement with SystImmune, a subsidiary of a Chinese biotech startup, to co-develop and market its experimental cancer treatment.', 'Those deals come as Bristol Myers faces pressure to launch new drugs and offset the potential loss of revenue from top-selling treatments.', ""The company's popular blood cancer treatment Revlimid — and eventually, Eliquis and cancer immunotherapy Opdivo — faces competition from cheaper copycats."", 'Shares of Bristol Myers fell more than 7% on Tuesday.', ""Here is what Bristol Myers reported for the first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:Bristol Myers, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, swung to a net loss of $11.9 billion, or $5.89 per share, during the first quarter."", 'That compares to net income of $2.3 billion, or $1.07 per share, for the same period a year ago.', 'Excluding certain items, its adjusted loss per share was $4.40 for the period.', 'The loss reflects a one-time $6.30 per share charge related to the recently closed deals, Bristol Myers said in a release.', 'Bristol Myers reported first-quarter revenue of $11.87 billion, up 5% from the year-earlier period.', 'The company reiterated its full-year revenue forecast of a low single-digit increase.', 'But Bristol Myers lowered its 2024 adjusted earnings guidance to 40 cents to 70 cents per share to reflect the effect of the recent deals.', 'That compares with a previous forecast of $7.10 to $7.40 per share, which did not include charges related to its buyouts of Karuna Therapeutics and radiopharmaceutical company RayzeBio, along with divestitures and other items.', 'Bristol Myers said revenue growth for the first quarter was primarily driven by higher sales of Eliquis and some of its newer drugs.', 'Eliquis booked $3.72 billion in sales for the quarter, up 9% from the year-ago period.', 'Analysts had expected Eliquis to draw $3.59 billion in revenue, according to estimates compiled by FactSet.', 'Eliquis, which Bristol Myers shares with Pfizer, is among the first 10 drugs facing ongoing price negotiations with the federal Medicare program.', 'The blood thinner is expected to lose market exclusivity by 2028.The effect of those negotiations on Eliquis is still unclear, Bristol Myers executives said during the call.', 'The final negotiated price for the drug will be published later this year and go into effect in 2026, which is when the company expects a hit to revenue and profit.', 'Meanwhile, Revlimid raked in $1.67 billion in sales, down 5% from the same period a year ago.', ""Still, that surpassed analysts' revenue expectations of $1.22 billion for the drug, according to FactSet estimates."", 'Anemia drug Reblozyl and advanced melanoma treatment Opdualag also posted revenue growth during the first quarter.', 'Reblozyl booked $354 million in sales, up 72% from the year-earlier period.', 'Analysts had expected revenue of $330.8 million, according to FactSet.', 'Opdualag generated $206 million in sales for the first quarter, which is up 76% from the same period a year ago.', 'Analysts had expected revenue of $206.5 million, FactSet estimates said.', ""The performance of other new drugs fell short of Wall Street's expectations."", 'Abecma, a cell therapy for a rare blood cancer called multiple myeloma, drew $82 million in sales for the quarter.', 'Analysts had expected $112.6 million in revenue, according to FactSet.', 'The U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this month expanded its approval of that drug, allowing multiple myeloma patients to use it as an earlier line of treatment.', 'An older drug, Opdivo, generated $2.07 billion in sales for the quarter, down 6% from the first quarter of 2023.', 'Analysts had expected the drug to book $2.3 billion in revenue for the period, FactSet estimates said.']",0.0461499500993691,"The company said it will prioritize investment in its key drug brands, optimize operations across the company and focus its resources on research and development programs that could deliver the highest returns for the company and the greatest health benefits for patients.","The company's popular blood cancer treatment Revlimid — and eventually, Eliquis and cancer immunotherapy Opdivo — faces competition from cheaper copycats.",0.3070554855991812,"Reblozyl booked $354 million in sales, up 72% from the year-earlier period.","Meanwhile, Revlimid raked in $1.67 billion in sales, down 5% from the same period a year ago.",2024-04-28
Open seating no more? Southwest CEO says airline is weighing cabin changes,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/southwest-weighing-cabin-changes-to-drive-revenue.html,2024-04-25T19:59:11+0000,"In this articleSouthwest Airlines is considering changes to its single-class, open-seating cabins to drive up revenue, CEO Bob Jordan told CNBC on Thursday, a shift that would be among the largest in the airline's history.""We're looking into new initiatives, things like the way we seat and board our aircraft,"" Jordan said in an interview after the carrier's disappointing first-quarter report.Southwest's all-Boeing 737 fleet has a single economy class cabin and no seating assignments, though it does offer earlier boarding for a fee so customers can snag their preferred seats. The airline has focused on keeping its product simple and user-friendly for years, aiming to keep its own costs and complexity to a minimum.Meanwhile, rivals including Delta and United have touted high revenue growth for premium seating such as business class and strong upsell rates.Analysts have repeatedly asked Southwest about opportunities for premium seating or additional fees. (The airline doesn't charge travelers for their first two checked bags.)Most U.S. airlines charge travelers to choose many of its seats in advance, even those that don't come with extra legroom. Eight U.S. carriers — Alaska, Allegiant, American, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, Spirit and United — together brought in $4.2 billion from seating fees in their domestic networks in 2022, according to Jay Sorensen, an airline ancillary revenue expert at IdeaWorksCompany.Jordan said no decisions have been made on what kind of changes Southwest will ultimately make, but he said studies have yielded ""interesting"" results.""Customer preferences do change over time,"" Jordan said.While details were scarce during Southwest's earnings call, when asked whether Southwest would consider a separated cabin on its planes, Ryan Green, the carrier's chief commercial officer said: ""Curtains and things like that are a bit far afield from what Southwest Airlines is.""Green added that the carrier is not considering charging for checked bags because ""people choose Southwest Airlines because we don't have bag fees.""— CNBC's Phil LeBeau contributed to this report.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"[""In this articleSouthwest Airlines is considering changes to its single-class, open-seating cabins to drive up revenue, CEO Bob Jordan told CNBC on Thursday, a shift that would be among the largest in the airline's history."", '""We\'re looking into new initiatives, things like the way we seat and board our aircraft,"" Jordan said in an interview after the carrier\'s disappointing first-quarter report.', ""Southwest's all-Boeing 737 fleet has a single economy class cabin and no seating assignments, though it does offer earlier boarding for a fee so customers can snag their preferred seats."", 'The airline has focused on keeping its product simple and user-friendly for years, aiming to keep its own costs and complexity to a minimum.', 'Meanwhile, rivals including Delta and United have touted high revenue growth for premium seating such as business class and strong upsell rates.', 'Analysts have repeatedly asked Southwest about opportunities for premium seating or additional fees. (', ""The airline doesn't charge travelers for their first two checked bags.)Most U.S. airlines charge travelers to choose many of its seats in advance, even those that don't come with extra legroom."", 'Eight U.S. carriers — Alaska, Allegiant, American, Delta, Frontier, JetBlue, Spirit and United — together brought in $4.2 billion from seating fees in their domestic networks in 2022, according to Jay Sorensen, an airline ancillary revenue expert at IdeaWorksCompany.', 'Jordan said no decisions have been made on what kind of changes Southwest will ultimately make, but he said studies have yielded ""interesting"" results.', '""Customer preferences do change over time,"" Jordan said.', 'While details were scarce during Southwest\'s earnings call, when asked whether Southwest would consider a separated cabin on its planes, Ryan Green, the carrier\'s chief commercial officer said: ""Curtains and things like that are a bit far afield from what Southwest Airlines is.', '""Green added that the carrier is not considering charging for checked bags because ""people choose Southwest Airlines because we don\'t have bag fees.""—', ""CNBC's Phil LeBeau contributed to this report.""]",0.2277260589164618,"Meanwhile, rivals including Delta and United have touted high revenue growth for premium seating such as business class and strong upsell rates.","Southwest's all-Boeing 737 fleet has a single economy class cabin and no seating assignments, though it does offer earlier boarding for a fee so customers can snag their preferred seats.",0.9218981464703878,"Meanwhile, rivals including Delta and United have touted high revenue growth for premium seating such as business class and strong upsell rates.",,2024-04-28
"Starbucks, Workers United made 'significant progress' in this week's contract talks",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/26/starbucks-workers-united-union-make-progress-in-negotiations.html,2024-04-26T17:46:12+0000,"In this articleStarbucks and Workers United, representing roughly 400 of its cafes, said Friday in a joint release that they made ""significant progress"" in their contract talks this week.The two parties discussed a process to resolve grievances, details related to the union's representation of Starbucks baristas, and other topics on Wednesday and Thursday in Atlanta, according to the press release.The two-day session marked the first time in nearly a year that Starbucks and Workers United came to the bargaining table. It followed a February announcement that the two sides were ending their bitter stalemate.The coffee giant spent more than two years battling the union, which is an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU. Workers United has broadly pushed for higher wages and more consistent scheduling, among a range of other priorities.This week's talks are the closest that any of the unionized locations, which make up a small fraction of Starbucks' total U.S. footprint, have come to a collective bargaining agreement.Yet, there's still a long road ahead.""There's more to do, but we are committed to working together,"" both sides said in a joint statement.Starbucks and the union plan to meet again in late May to keep working on the framework that will inform every single-store contract, according to the release. Individual stores will still have to negotiate and ratify their contracts once that foundation has been built.Labor laws do not require that the employer and union reach a collective bargaining agreement, only that both bargain in good faith. After a year, workers who lose faith in the union can petition to decertify, putting a ticking clock on negotiations. Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Starbucks and Workers United represent about 400 cafes. An earlier version misstated the number.",CNBC,26/04/2024,"['In this articleStarbucks and Workers United, representing roughly 400 of its cafes, said Friday in a joint release that they made ""significant progress"" in their contract talks this week.', ""The two parties discussed a process to resolve grievances, details related to the union's representation of Starbucks baristas, and other topics on Wednesday and Thursday in Atlanta, according to the press release."", 'The two-day session marked the first time in nearly a year that Starbucks and Workers United came to the bargaining table.', 'It followed a February announcement that the two sides were ending their bitter stalemate.', 'The coffee giant spent more than two years battling the union, which is an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU.', 'Workers United has broadly pushed for higher wages and more consistent scheduling, among a range of other priorities.', ""This week's talks are the closest that any of the unionized locations, which make up a small fraction of Starbucks' total U.S. footprint, have come to a collective bargaining agreement."", ""Yet, there's still a long road ahead."", '""There\'s more to do, but we are committed to working together,"" both sides said in a joint statement.', 'Starbucks and the union plan to meet again in late May to keep working on the framework that will inform every single-store contract, according to the release.', 'Individual stores will still have to negotiate and ratify their contracts once that foundation has been built.', 'Labor laws do not require that the employer and union reach a collective bargaining agreement, only that both bargain in good faith.', 'After a year, workers who lose faith in the union can petition to decertify, putting a ticking clock on negotiations.', 'Correction: This article has been updated to reflect that Starbucks and Workers United represent about 400 cafes.', 'An earlier version misstated the number.']",0.239976481095241,"Labor laws do not require that the employer and union reach a collective bargaining agreement, only that both bargain in good faith.",It followed a February announcement that the two sides were ending their bitter stalemate.,0.999555766582489,"In this articleStarbucks and Workers United, representing roughly 400 of its cafes, said Friday in a joint release that they made ""significant progress"" in their contract talks this week.",,2024-04-28
E.W. Scripps exploring sale of Black-culture broadcast network Bounce TV,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/23/ew-scripps-exploring-sale-of-black-culture-broadcast-network-bounce-tv.html,2024-04-23T20:06:23+0000,"In this articleE.W. Scripps, one of the largest local TV broadcasters in the U.S., has hired a financial advisor to evaluate inbound interest in acquiring Bounce TV, its over-the-air network geared toward African Americans, according to Scripps CEO Adam Symson.The sale process comes after Paramount Global shopped around Black entertainment company BET Media Group last year, but ultimately decided not to sell. Interested parties from that potential deal, many of them with Black leadership, have since approached Scripps with interest in owning Bounce TV, Symson said in an exclusive CNBC interview. If Scripps pursues a deal, it hopes to attract a price tag in the hundreds of millions, according to people familiar with the matter.E.W. Scripps trades for about $3.70 per share at a market valuation of roughly $315 million. The stock is down more than 50% this year amid concerns over pay-TV cancellations that diminish the audience for broadcast networks.Symson declined to comment on the names of the bidders or the potential price for Bounce TV. People familiar with the process said a deal could happen around mid-year or the third quarter.""The number of inbounds and conversations that we have had with interested and qualified potential suitors has picked up significantly over the last year,"" Symson said. ""The earlier BET process, which was never consummated, may have opened up people's eyes to the power of Bounce.""Some advertising agencies and big brands earmark some spending specifically for minority-controlled businesses, Symson said, which can increase the value of media assets if they're sold from conglomerates to Black owners. He added a platform such as Bounce TV could also serve as a landing spot for a catalog of Black creators.Scripps officials began telling Bounce TV employees about the inbound interest on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the communications.Bounce TV, which debuted in 2011, is a free over-the-air network that broadcasts a combination of syndicated shows, movies and original content. All content is geared to African American audiences. Bounce TV's ""Johnson,"" a dramedy created by Deji LaRay, is entering its fourth season. The network is also launching a new comedy series, ""Mind Your Business,"" that premieres June 1.Ratings for Bounce TV have improved in recent years, even as legacy media has struggled. In the first quarter, Bounce TV viewership was up 14% on linear and 9% on connected TVs, Symson said. About 70% of Bounce TV's audience is over the air. The other 30% is derived through pay TV and streaming, he said.While Symson declined to give specifics about Bounce TV's finances, he said the company has doubled the network's revenue since acquiring it as part of the takeover of Katz Networks for $302 million in 2017.  Scripps operates a portfolio of more than 60 stations in more than 40 U.S. markets.",CNBC,23/04/2024,"['In this articleE.W. Scripps, one of the largest local TV broadcasters in the U.S., has hired a financial advisor to evaluate inbound interest in acquiring Bounce TV, its over-the-air network geared toward African Americans, according to Scripps CEO Adam Symson.', 'The sale process comes after Paramount Global shopped around Black entertainment company BET Media Group last year, but ultimately decided not to sell.', 'Interested parties from that potential deal, many of them with Black leadership, have since approached Scripps with interest in owning Bounce TV, Symson said in an exclusive CNBC interview.', 'If Scripps pursues a deal, it hopes to attract a price tag in the hundreds of millions, according to people familiar with the matter.', 'E.W. Scripps trades for about $3.70 per share at a market valuation of roughly $315 million.', 'The stock is down more than 50% this year amid concerns over pay-TV cancellations that diminish the audience for broadcast networks.', 'Symson declined to comment on the names of the bidders or the potential price for Bounce TV.', 'People familiar with the process said a deal could happen around mid-year or the third quarter.', '""The number of inbounds and conversations that we have had with interested and qualified potential suitors has picked up significantly over the last year,"" Symson said. ""', ""The earlier BET process, which was never consummated, may have opened up people's eyes to the power of Bounce."", '""Some advertising agencies and big brands earmark some spending specifically for minority-controlled businesses, Symson said, which can increase the value of media assets if they\'re sold from conglomerates to Black owners.', 'He added a platform such as Bounce TV could also serve as a landing spot for a catalog of Black creators.', 'Scripps officials began telling Bounce TV employees about the inbound interest on Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the communications.', 'Bounce TV, which debuted in 2011, is a free over-the-air network that broadcasts a combination of syndicated shows, movies and original content.', 'All content is geared to African American audiences.', 'Bounce TV\'s ""Johnson,"" a dramedy created by Deji LaRay, is entering its fourth season.', 'The network is also launching a new comedy series, ""Mind Your Business,"" that premieres June 1.Ratings for Bounce TV have improved in recent years, even as legacy media has struggled.', 'In the first quarter, Bounce TV viewership was up 14% on linear and 9% on connected TVs, Symson said.', ""About 70% of Bounce TV's audience is over the air."", 'The other 30% is derived through pay TV and streaming, he said.', ""While Symson declined to give specifics about Bounce TV's finances, he said the company has doubled the network's revenue since acquiring it as part of the takeover of Katz Networks for $302 million in 2017."", 'Scripps operates a portfolio of more than 60 stations in more than 40 U.S. markets.']",0.2397046910172554,"Interested parties from that potential deal, many of them with Black leadership, have since approached Scripps with interest in owning Bounce TV, Symson said in an exclusive CNBC interview.",,0.6905460804700851,"In the first quarter, Bounce TV viewership was up 14% on linear and 9% on connected TVs, Symson said.",The stock is down more than 50% this year amid concerns over pay-TV cancellations that diminish the audience for broadcast networks.,2024-04-28
"PepsiCo earnings beat estimates but product recalls, weaker lower-income consumer hurt U.S. sales",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/23/pepsico-pep-q1-2024-earnings.html,2024-04-23T15:48:06+0000,"In this articlePepsiCo on Tuesday reported quarterly earnings and revenue that beat analysts' expectations, despite weaker U.S. demand caused by Quaker Oats recalls and backlash to higher prices for its drinks and snacks.Shares of the company fell more than 2% in morning trading.Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:Pepsi reported first-quarter net income attributable to the company of $2.04 billion, or $1.48 per share, up from $1.93 billion, or $1.40 per share, a year earlier.Excluding items, Pepsi earned $1.61 per share.Net sales rose 2.3% to $18.25 billion. The company's organic revenue, which excludes acquisitions, divestitures and foreign exchange, increased 2.7% in the quarter.But the company's volume is still under pressure. Pepsi, along with many of its rivals, has seen its volume fall in response to higher prices for its Gatorade, Fritos and other products in its portfolio.The company's food division saw its volume decrease 0.5%, while its beverage segment reported flat volume. The metric strips out pricing and currency changes to reflect demand.A recall of many Quaker Foods cereals and bars only worsened Pepsi's volume problem. The company issued the first recall for potential salmonella contamination in December, then widened it in January. The North American Quaker Food division reported that its volume cratered 22% in the quarter. The Quaker Foods recall dented Pepsi's organic volume by roughly 1%.Pepsi will officially close a Quaker Oats plant tied to the recalls in June, although production there has already ceased. Pepsi said the company has resumed limited production of certain products affected by the recalls.Pepsi's other North American divisions also reported weaker volume. Volume in its beverage unit fell 5% in the quarter, while Frito-Lay North America reported a 2% decline in its volume.Frito-Lay North America's effective net pricing was up 3% in the quarter, while Pepsi's domestic beverages unit's prices rose 6%.In the U.S., lower-income consumers are still trying to stretch their paychecks, Pepsi CEO Ramon Laguarta told analysts on the company's conference call. Pepsi is trying to target the demographic and keep them as customers, particularly for its snacks like Cheetos.Outside of the U.S., demand was stronger. Its Asia-Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and China region reported 12% volume growth for snacks. Chinese consumers are cautious and saving more money, but they're still buying more Pepsi products, according to Laguarta. Even in Europe, which has also struggled with higher grocery prices, beverage volume increased 7% and snack volume rose 2%.Pepsi also reiterated its 2024 outlook. For the full year, the company is expecting organic revenue will rise at least 4% and core constant currency earnings per share will climb at least 8%.""As we look ahead, we continue to expect a normalization and moderation in category growth rates versus the last few years,"" Pepsi executives said in prepared remarks. ""We also continue to expect that consumers will remain watchful with their budgets and choiceful with their purchases.""",CNBC,23/04/2024,"[""In this articlePepsiCo on Tuesday reported quarterlyearningsand revenue that beat analysts' expectations, despite weaker U.S. demand caused by Quaker Oats recalls and backlash to higher prices for its drinks and snacks."", 'Shares of the company fell more than 2% in morning trading.', ""Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:Pepsi reported first-quarter net income attributable to the company of $2.04 billion, or $1.48 per share, up from $1.93 billion, or $1.40 per share, a year earlier."", 'Excluding items, Pepsi earned $1.61 per share.', 'Net salesrose2.3% to $18.25 billion.', ""The company's organic revenue, which excludes acquisitions, divestitures and foreign exchange, increased 2.7% in the quarter."", ""But the company's volume is still under pressure."", 'Pepsi, along with many of its rivals, has seen its volume fall in response to higher prices for its Gatorade, Fritos and other products in its portfolio.', ""The company's food division saw its volume decrease 0.5%, while its beverage segment reported flat volume."", 'The metric strips out pricing and currency changes to reflect demand.', ""A recall of many Quaker Foods cereals and bars only worsened Pepsi's volume problem."", 'The company issued the first recall for potential salmonella contamination in December, then widened it in January.', 'The North American Quaker Food division reported that its volume cratered 22% in the quarter.', ""The Quaker Foods recall dented Pepsi's organic volume by roughly 1%.Pepsi will officially close a Quaker Oats plant tied to the recalls in June, although production there has already ceased."", 'Pepsi said the company has resumed limited production of certain products affected by the recalls.', ""Pepsi's other North American divisions also reported weaker volume."", 'Volume in its beverage unit fell 5% in the quarter, while Frito-Lay North America reported a 2% decline in its volume.', ""Frito-Lay North America's effective net pricing was up 3% in the quarter, while Pepsi's domestic beverages unit's prices rose 6%.In the U.S., lower-income consumers are still trying to stretch their paychecks, Pepsi CEO Ramon Laguarta told analysts on the company's conference call."", 'Pepsi is trying to target the demographic and keep them as customers, particularly for its snacks like Cheetos.', 'Outside of the U.S., demand was stronger.', 'Its Asia-Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and China region reported 12% volume growth for snacks.', ""Chinese consumers are cautious and saving more money, but they're still buying more Pepsi products, according to Laguarta."", 'Even in Europe, which has also struggled with higher grocery prices, beverage volume increased 7% and snack volume rose 2%.Pepsi also reiterated its 2024 outlook.', 'For the full year, the company is expecting organic revenuewill riseat least 4% and core constant currency earnings per sharewill climb at least8%.""As we look ahead, we continue to expect a normalization and moderation in category growth rates versus the last few years,"" Pepsi executives said in prepared remarks. ""', 'We also continue to expect that consumers will remain watchful with their budgets and choiceful with their purchases.""']",0.0676508517705506,"For the full year, the company is expecting organic revenuewill riseat least 4% and core constant currency earnings per sharewill climb at least8%.""As we look ahead, we continue to expect a normalization and moderation in category growth rates versus the last few years,"" Pepsi executives said in prepared remarks. """,A recall of many Quaker Foods cereals and bars only worsened Pepsi's volume problem.,0.0850448608398437,"The company's organic revenue, which excludes acquisitions, divestitures and foreign exchange, increased 2.7% in the quarter.","Volume in its beverage unit fell 5% in the quarter, while Frito-Lay North America reported a 2% decline in its volume.",2024-04-28
Boeing expects slower production increase of 787 Dreamliner because of parts shortages,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/22/boeing-expects-slower-production-increase-of-787-dreamliner.html,2024-04-22T21:24:55+0000,"In this articleBoeing told employees on Monday that it expects a slower increase in production and deliveries of new 787 Dreamliner planes because of supplier shortages of ""a few key parts.""Boeing has already slowed down deliveries and output of its 737 Max planes in the aftermath of a near catastrophe in January when a door plug blew out from one of the jetliners mid-flight.The company had separately been trying to boost output of 787 Dreamliners after quality problems suspended deliveries for nearly two years, ending in mid-2022.""We continue to take steps to improve the overall health of our production system, putting into action your ideas for improving safety, first-pass quality, training, performing more work in sequence and ensuring our teams have the necessary resources to excel,"" said Scott Stocker, 787 vice president and general manager, in a memo to staff at Boeing's South Carolina 787 plant.Stocker said Boeing is still facing supplier shortages.""To that end, we have shared with our customers that we expect a slower increase in our rate of production and deliveries,"" he wrote in the memo, reported earlier by Reuters, adding that the company still plans to increase the rate steadily because of high demand.Boeing was producing about five 787 Dreamliners per month as of late last year and said in January it aimed to get up to 10 a month as early as next year.Boeing is set to report quarterly results and will likely detail its production plans before the market opens on Wednesday.",CNBC,22/04/2024,"['In this articleBoeing told employees on Monday that it expects a slower increase in production and deliveries of new 787 Dreamliner planes because of supplier shortages of ""a few key parts.', '""Boeing has already slowed down deliveries and output of its 737 Max planes in the aftermath of a near catastrophe in January when a door plug blew out from one of the jetliners mid-flight.', 'The company had separately been trying to boost output of 787 Dreamliners after quality problems suspended deliveries for nearly two years, ending in mid-2022.""We continue to take steps to improve the overall health of our production system, putting into action your ideas for improving safety, first-pass quality, training, performing more work in sequence and ensuring our teams have the necessary resources to excel,"" said Scott Stocker, 787 vice president and general manager, in a memo to staff at Boeing\'s South Carolina 787 plant.', 'Stocker said Boeing is still facing supplier shortages.', '""To that end, we have shared with our customers that we expect a slower increase in our rate of production and deliveries,"" he wrote in the memo, reported earlier by Reuters, adding that the company still plans to increase the rate steadily because of high demand.', 'Boeing was producing about five 787 Dreamliners per month as of late last year and said in January it aimed to get up to 10 a month as early as next year.', 'Boeing is set to report quarterly results and will likely detail its production plans before the market opens on Wednesday.']",0.1277970121336743,"The company had separately been trying to boost output of 787 Dreamliners after quality problems suspended deliveries for nearly two years, ending in mid-2022.""We continue to take steps to improve the overall health of our production system, putting into action your ideas for improving safety, first-pass quality, training, performing more work in sequence and ensuring our teams have the necessary resources to excel,"" said Scott Stocker, 787 vice president and general manager, in a memo to staff at Boeing's South Carolina 787 plant.","""Boeing has already slowed down deliveries and output of its 737 Max planes in the aftermath of a near catastrophe in January when a door plug blew out from one of the jetliners mid-flight.",0.1885810613632202,"The company had separately been trying to boost output of 787 Dreamliners after quality problems suspended deliveries for nearly two years, ending in mid-2022.""We continue to take steps to improve the overall health of our production system, putting into action your ideas for improving safety, first-pass quality, training, performing more work in sequence and ensuring our teams have the necessary resources to excel,"" said Scott Stocker, 787 vice president and general manager, in a memo to staff at Boeing's South Carolina 787 plant.","""Boeing has already slowed down deliveries and output of its 737 Max planes in the aftermath of a near catastrophe in January when a door plug blew out from one of the jetliners mid-flight.",2024-04-28
Starbucks resumes bargaining with union after two sides thaw relationship,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/24/starbucks-resumes-bargaining-with-workers-united-union.html,2024-04-26T17:34:52+0000,"In this articleStarbucks and the union that represents its baristas will resume contract negotiations on Wednesday, ending an extended stalemate.The two sides' return to the bargaining table follows their February announcement that they found a ""constructive path forward"" during mediation discussions related to litigation over the union's use of Starbucks' branding. It marked a major pivot for Starbucks, which had spent the previous two years battling Workers United and the broader movement to unionize its cafes.Roughly 400 company-owned Starbucks in the U.S. have voted to unionize under Workers United since the first elections in December 2021, according to a tally from the National Labor Relations Board, as of Monday. But none of those locations, which make up a small fraction of total U.S. footprint, have come close to a collective bargaining agreement.Starbucks and the union, which is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union, have previously met to bargain, but those talks quickly ended in stalemate. Both sides have accused the other of sabotaging the talks.Starbucks had previously insisted on face-to-face negotiations, with no representatives appearing via Zoom. The union has accused Starbucks of using that excuse as a stalling tactic. This time around, about 150 union representatives will appear in person to bargain, while several hundred more will weigh in remotely outside of the face-to-face meetings.Store agreements will be negotiated and ratified separately, but the union might make proposals that could affect all of the Starbucks workers it represents. Workers United has broadly pushed for higher wages and more consistent scheduling, among a range of other priorities.Labor laws do not require that the employer and union reach a collective bargaining agreement, only that both bargain in good faith. After a year, workers who lose faith in the union can petition to decertify, putting a ticking clock on negotiations. The NLRB has 19 pending petitions to decertify. Citing unfair labor practices by Starbucks, the labor board has denied 18 other petitions to decertify.The company said it has also been negotiating with other unions that represent its cafes, such as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which is bargaining for a store outside of Pittsburgh.The resumption of contract negotiations comes a day after another significant moment for both Starbucks and unions. On Tuesday, the company appeared before the Supreme Court to appeal a lower court's approval of an injunction sought by the NLRB to reinstate seven fired workers at a Memphis cafe.Starbucks argued that other agencies seeking injunctions have a higher threshold to receive one than the labor board does. Experts have said that the Supreme Court's eventual ruling could weaken the NLRB — and organized labor. The court is expected to release its decision this summer.Starbucks could share more about the union negotiations during its quarterly earnings call. The coffee giant is expected to report its results on Tuesday.",CNBC,26/04/2024,"['In this articleStarbucks and the union that represents its baristas will resume contract negotiations on Wednesday, ending an extended stalemate.', 'The two sides\' return to the bargaining table follows their February announcement that they founda ""constructive path forward"" during mediation discussions related to litigation over the union\'s use of Starbucks\' branding.', 'It marked a major pivot for Starbucks, which had spent the previous two years battling Workers United and the broader movement to unionize its cafes.', 'Roughly 400 company-owned Starbucks in the U.S. have voted to unionize under Workers United since the first elections in December 2021, according to a tally from the National Labor Relations Board, as of Monday.', 'But none of those locations, which make up a small fraction of total U.S. footprint, have come close to a collective bargaining agreement.', 'Starbucks and the union, which is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union, have previously met to bargain, but those talks quickly ended in stalemate.', 'Both sides have accused the other of sabotaging the talks.', 'Starbucks had previously insisted on face-to-face negotiations, with no representatives appearing via Zoom.', 'The union has accused Starbucks of using that excuse as a stalling tactic.', 'This time around, about 150 union representatives will appear in person to bargain, while several hundred more will weigh in remotely outside of the face-to-face meetings.', 'Store agreements will be negotiated and ratified separately, but the union might make proposals that could affect all of the Starbucks workers it represents.', 'Workers United has broadly pushed for higher wages and more consistent scheduling, among a range of other priorities.', 'Labor laws do not require that the employer and union reach a collective bargaining agreement, only that both bargain in good faith.', 'After a year, workers who lose faith in the union can petition to decertify, putting a ticking clock on negotiations.', 'The NLRB has 19 pending petitions to decertify.', 'Citing unfair labor practices by Starbucks, the labor board has denied 18 other petitions to decertify.', 'The company said it has also been negotiating with other unions that represent its cafes, such as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which is bargaining for a store outside of Pittsburgh.', 'The resumption of contract negotiations comes a day after another significant moment for both Starbucks and unions.', ""On Tuesday, the company appeared before the Supreme Court to appeal a lower court's approval of an injunction sought by the NLRB to reinstate seven fired workers at a Memphis cafe."", 'Starbucks argued that other agencies seeking injunctions have a higher threshold to receive one than the labor board does.', ""Experts have said that the Supreme Court's eventual ruling could weaken the NLRB — and organized labor."", 'The court is expected to release its decision this summer.', 'Starbucks could share more about the union negotiations during its quarterly earnings call.', 'The coffee giant is expected to report its results on Tuesday.']",0.0722775234451613,"Labor laws do not require that the employer and union reach a collective bargaining agreement, only that both bargain in good faith.","Citing unfair labor practices by Starbucks, the labor board has denied 18 other petitions to decertify.",-0.1644300669431686,"Workers United has broadly pushed for higher wages and more consistent scheduling, among a range of other priorities.",Experts have said that the Supreme Court's eventual ruling could weaken the NLRB — and organized labor.,2024-04-28
A CVS Health pharmacy in Vegas becomes first to join new national pharmacy union,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/26/cvs-omnicare-pharmacy-in-vegas-is-first-to-join-new-pharmacy-union.html,2024-04-26T19:44:59+0000,"In this articleA CVS Omnicare pharmacy in Las Vegas has become the first location to join a new national pharmacy union, a milestone for organizers trying to help thousands of U.S. pharmacy workers address what they call unsafe working conditions. Nearly 30 pharmacy staff at the Las Vegas branch of CVS's Omnicare won their union election on Thursday by a landslide margin of 87% to 13%, according to a press release from the guild. The pharmacists and pharmacy technicians there fill prescriptions for the elderly and other vulnerable patients at long-term care facilities across Nevada. Those workers now join the Pharmacy Guild, which will represent them in labor negotiations with CVS. ""We're going to try to get a best-in-the-industry contract for these people that have trusted our union to represent them. It's a historic win and a very decisive one,"" Shane Jerominski, a community pharmacist and co-founder of the Pharmacy Guild, told CNBC.  Jerominski and other organizers of a recent nationwide walkout of pharmacy staff partnered with IAM Healthcare – a union representing thousands of health-care professionals – to launch the Pharmacy Guild in November. That work stoppage in late October, which organizers dubbed ""Pharmageddon,"" spanned major drugstore chains like CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid, drawing widespread media attention to the scope of workers' concerns.Like the walkout effort, the Pharmacy Guild aims to help pharmacy staff address what many employees call unsafe staffing levels and increasing workloads throughout the industry that put both employees and patients at risk. The guild also calls for legislative and regulatory changes to establish higher standards of practice in pharmacies to protect patients. The unionization effort is the culmination of years of growing discontent among retail pharmacy staff, who often grapple with understaffed teams and increasing work expectations imposed by corporate management. The Covid pandemic only exacerbated those issues, as new duties like testing and vaccination stretched pharmacists and technicians even thinner. In a statement, a CVS Health spokesperson said the company respects its employees' right to unionize or refrain from doing so, including the decision of Omnicare Las Vegas workers to choose union representation. The company added that it will work ""closely and collaboratively"" with its employees to address their current and future concerns and is ""committed to providing a positive and rewarding work environment."" Omnicare, acquired by CVS in 2015, is not a public-facing pharmacy like most of the chain's nearly 10,000 locations. There are Omnicare pharmacies in 49 states, according to CVS's website. But Omnicare and other pharmacies share the same issues that range from staffing levels to low starting pay for technicians, Jerominski said. ""It's not specific to Omnicare, the problems they were expressing were the same problems I'm hearing across the country. It's ubiquitous across all major chains,"" Jerominski said. ""You can only ask a company to support you for so long. … This is the reason why the walkouts happened. They finally said 'No, we are going to get the help that we demand.'"" The Pharmacy Guild will now work to strike a union contract with CVS to address the concerns of Omnicare workers in Las Vegas. Jerominski said those employees want consistent work schedules that guarantee pharmacy technicians 40 hours a week year-round.""You can't retain individuals with a skill set and a family, especially with the stress level that this job has, if you don't even just guarantee them their 40 hours,"" Jerominski told CNBC. The Pharmacy Guild is seeing momentum build in other parts of the country. Pharmacy staff at two retail stores in Rhode Island have officially confirmed that they filed to unionize with the guild, according to Jerominski.CVS's headquarters is based in the state.",CNBC,26/04/2024,"['In this articleA CVS Omnicare pharmacy in Las Vegas has become the first location to join a new national pharmacy union, a milestone for organizers trying to help thousands of U.S. pharmacy workers address what they call unsafe working conditions.', ""Nearly 30 pharmacy staff at the Las Vegas branch of CVS's Omnicare won their union election on Thursday by a landslide margin of 87% to 13%, according to a press release from the guild."", 'The pharmacists and pharmacy technicians there fill prescriptions for the elderly and other vulnerable patients at long-term care facilities across Nevada.', 'Those workers now join the Pharmacy Guild, which will represent them in labor negotiations with CVS.""We\'re going to try to get a best-in-the-industry contract for these people that have trusted our union to represent them.', 'It\'s a historic win and a very decisive one,"" Shane Jerominski, a community pharmacist and co-founder of the Pharmacy Guild, told CNBC.Jerominski and other organizers of a recent nationwide walkout of pharmacy staff partnered with IAM Healthcare – a union representing thousands of health-care professionals – to launch the Pharmacy Guild in November.', 'That work stoppage in late October, which organizers dubbed ""Pharmageddon,"" spanned major drugstore chains like CVS, Walgreens and Rite Aid, drawing widespread media attention to the scope of workers\' concerns.', 'Like the walkout effort, the Pharmacy Guild aims to help pharmacy staff address what many employees call unsafe staffing levels and increasing workloads throughout the industry that put both employees and patients at risk.', 'The guild also calls for legislative and regulatory changes to establish higher standards of practice in pharmacies to protect patients.', 'The unionization effort is the culmination of years of growing discontent among retail pharmacy staff, who often grapple with understaffed teams and increasing work expectations imposed by corporate management.', 'The Covid pandemic only exacerbated those issues, as new duties like testing and vaccination stretched pharmacists and technicians even thinner.', ""In a statement, a CVS Health spokesperson said the company respects its employees' right to unionize or refrain from doing so, including the decision of Omnicare Las Vegas workers to choose union representation."", 'The company added that it will work ""closely and collaboratively"" with its employees to address their current and future concerns and is ""committed to providing a positive and rewarding work environment.', '""Omnicare, acquired by CVS in 2015, is not a public-facing pharmacy like most of the chain\'s nearly 10,000 locations.', ""There are Omnicare pharmacies in 49 states, according to CVS's website."", 'But Omnicare and other pharmacies share the same issues that range from staffing levels to low starting pay for technicians, Jerominski said.', '""It\'s not specific to Omnicare, the problems they were expressing were the same problems I\'m hearing across the country.', 'It\'s ubiquitous across all major chains,"" Jerominski said. ""', 'You can only ask a company to support you for so long. …', 'This is the reason why the walkouts happened.', ""They finally said 'No, we are going to get the help that we demand."", '\'""The Pharmacy Guild will now work to strike a union contract with CVS to address the concerns of Omnicare workers in Las Vegas.', 'Jerominski said those employees want consistent work schedules that guarantee pharmacy technicians 40 hours a week year-round.', '""You can\'t retain individuals with a skill set and a family, especially with the stress level that this job has, if you don\'t even just guarantee them their 40 hours,"" Jerominski told CNBC.The Pharmacy Guild is seeing momentum build in other parts of the country.', 'Pharmacy staff at two retail stores in Rhode Island have officially confirmed that they filed to unionize with the guild, according to Jerominski.', ""CVS's headquarters is based in the state.""]",0.2197163049413804,"Those workers now join the Pharmacy Guild, which will represent them in labor negotiations with CVS.""We're going to try to get a best-in-the-industry contract for these people that have trusted our union to represent them.","""It's not specific to Omnicare, the problems they were expressing were the same problems I'm hearing across the country.",0.1158540580007765,"It's a historic win and a very decisive one,"" Shane Jerominski, a community pharmacist and co-founder of the Pharmacy Guild, told CNBC.Jerominski and other organizers of a recent nationwide walkout of pharmacy staff partnered with IAM Healthcare – a union representing thousands of health-care professionals – to launch the Pharmacy Guild in November.","The Covid pandemic only exacerbated those issues, as new duties like testing and vaccination stretched pharmacists and technicians even thinner.",2024-04-28
Ford tops first-quarter earnings estimates as commercial unit offsets EV losses,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/24/ford-f-earnings-q1-2024.html,2024-04-24T21:50:43+0000,"In this articleDETROIT — Sales of Ford Motor trucks and other commercial vehicles led the automaker to beat Wall Street's earnings estimates for the first quarter, offsetting losses of its electric vehicles.The company maintained its 2024 earnings guidance of adjusted earnings before interest and taxes, or EBIT, of between $10 billion and $12 billion. It slightly lowered capital expenditure expectations and raised its adjusted free cash flow outlook for the year.The automaker now expects to generate adjusted free cash flow of $6.5 billion to $7.5 billion, up from a previous outlook of $6 billion to $7 billion. Its forecast for capital expenditures is now $8 billion to $9 billion, narrower than the $8 billion to $9.5 billion range it originally estimated.Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler on Wednesday described the quarter as ""solid,"" with the company tracking to the higher end of its previously announced guidance.While the automaker beat earnings estimates, it slightly missed on automotive revenue. Here are the results for Ford's first quarter, compared with Wall Street expectations, according to LSEG:Ford's overall revenue for the first quarter, including its credit business, increased about 3% year over year to $42.78 billion.Net income for the period was $1.33 billion, or 33 cents per share, compared with $1.76 billion, or 44 cents, a year earlier. Adjusted EBIT declined 18% year over year to $2.76 billion, or 49 cents per share.Ford's traditional business, known as Ford Blue, reported adjusted earnings that were down 66% compared to a year earlier to $905 million. Its Ford Pro commercial business earned $3.01 billion, up 120% from the first quarter of last year. Ford's Model e electric vehicle unit posted a $1.32 billion loss from January through March.The notable decline in Ford Blue was related to the launch of the company's refreshed F-150 pickup, which it held shipments of during most of the quarter to address undisclosed quality issues.Ford CEO Jim Farley said the company avoided ""about 12 recalls"" thanks to the additional quality checks during the stop-shipment, helping to lower warranty costs for the company.""What we're going to see long-term is less recalls and lower warranty costs because of this new process,"" Farley said Wednesday during the company's first-quarter earnings call. ""I'm really proud of the team's progress and quality and we have so much more to do.""Ford has faced years of inflated warranty costs, including $1.9 billion in 2023, which have affected its earnings. The company last year said it has a $7 billion to $8 billion annual disadvantage compared to traditional rivals due to production costs, quality issues and other operational inefficiencies.Ford previously said it assembled 144,000 of the F-150 full-size and Ranger midsize pickups during the first quarter of the year. Those vehicles began shipping to dealers and customers earlier this month. Roughly 92% of the pickups built were F-150s.As part of its 2024 guidance, first released in February, Ford said it expected its EV business to lose between $5 billion and $5.5 billion this year. Ford Blue earnings were expected to be roughly flat at $7 billion to $7.5 billion for 2024, while Ford Pro was expected to come in around $8 billion to $9 billion for the full year.Lawler said Ford remains on track this year to take $2 billion in costs out of the business through reductions in things such as materials, freight and manufacturing. He said much of those savings will occur during the second half of the year.Ford's first-quarter earnings come a day after its crosstown rival General Motors reported strong first-quarter results and raised its full-year guidance.— CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this report.",CNBC,24/04/2024,"[""In this articleDETROIT — Sales of Ford Motor trucks and other commercial vehicles led the automaker to beat Wall Street's earnings estimates for the first quarter, offsetting losses of its electric vehicles."", 'The company maintained its 2024 earnings guidance of adjusted earnings before interest and taxes, or EBIT, of between $10 billion and $12 billion.', 'It slightly lowered capital expenditure expectations and raised its adjusted free cash flow outlook for the year.', 'The automaker now expects to generate adjusted free cash flow of $6.5 billion to $7.5 billion, up from a previous outlook of $6 billion to $7 billion.', 'Its forecast for capital expenditures is now $8 billion to $9 billion, narrower than the $8 billion to $9.5 billion range it originally estimated.', 'Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler on Wednesday described the quarter as ""solid,"" with the company tracking to the higher end of its previously announced guidance.', 'While the automaker beat earnings estimates, it slightly missed on automotive revenue.', ""Here are the results for Ford's first quarter, compared with Wall Street expectations, according to LSEG:Ford's overall revenue for the first quarter, including its credit business, increased about 3% year over year to $42.78 billion."", 'Net income for the period was $1.33 billion, or 33 cents per share, compared with $1.76 billion, or 44 cents, a year earlier.', 'Adjusted EBIT declined 18% year over year to $2.76 billion, or 49 cents per share.', ""Ford's traditional business, known as Ford Blue, reported adjusted earnings that were down 66% compared to a year earlier to $905 million."", 'Its Ford Pro commercial business earned $3.01 billion, up 120% from the first quarter of last year.', ""Ford's Model e electric vehicle unit posted a $1.32 billion loss from January through March."", ""The notable decline in Ford Blue was related to the launch of the company's refreshed F-150 pickup, which it held shipments of during most of the quarter to address undisclosed quality issues."", 'Ford CEO Jim Farley said the company avoided ""about 12 recalls"" thanks to the additional quality checks during the stop-shipment, helping to lower warranty costs for the company.', '""What we\'re going to see long-term is less recalls and lower warranty costs because of this new process,"" Farley said Wednesday during the company\'s first-quarter earnings call. ""', ""I'm really proud of the team's progress and quality and we have so much more to do."", '""Ford has faced years of inflated warranty costs, including $1.9 billion in 2023, which have affected its earnings.', 'The company last year said it has a $7 billion to $8 billion annual disadvantage compared to traditional rivals due to production costs, quality issues and other operational inefficiencies.', 'Ford previously said it assembled 144,000 of the F-150 full-size and Ranger midsize pickups during the first quarter of the year.', 'Those vehicles began shipping to dealers and customers earlier this month.', 'Roughly 92% ofthe pickups builtwere F-150s.', 'As part of its 2024 guidance, first released in February, Ford said it expected its EV business to lose between $5 billion and $5.5 billion this year.', 'Ford Blue earnings were expected to be roughly flat at $7 billion to $7.5 billion for 2024, while Ford Pro was expected to come in around $8 billion to $9 billion for the full year.', 'Lawler said Ford remains on track this year to take $2 billion in costs out of the business through reductions in things such as materials, freight and manufacturing.', 'He said much of those savings will occur during the second half of the year.', ""Ford's first-quarter earnings come a day after its crosstown rival General Motors reported strong first-quarter results and raised its full-year guidance.—"", ""CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this report.""]",0.0596242489508853,I'm really proud of the team's progress and quality and we have so much more to do.,"The company last year said it has a $7 billion to $8 billion annual disadvantage compared to traditional rivals due to production costs, quality issues and other operational inefficiencies.",0.0452342525772426,"The automaker now expects to generate adjusted free cash flow of $6.5 billion to $7.5 billion, up from a previous outlook of $6 billion to $7 billion.","Adjusted EBIT declined 18% year over year to $2.76 billion, or 49 cents per share.",2024-04-28
FDA approves Pfizer’s first gene therapy for rare inherited bleeding disorder,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/26/fda-approves-pfizer-gene-therapy-beqvez-for-treatment-of-hemophilia-b.html,2024-04-26T13:22:54+0000,"In this articleThe Food and Drug Administration on Friday announced that the agency approved Pfizer's treatment for a rare genetic bleeding disorder, making it the company's first gene therapy to win clearance in the U.S. The agency greenlighted the drug, which will be marketed as Beqvez, for adults with moderate to severe hemophilia B who meet certain requirements.The treatment will be available by prescription to eligible patients this quarter, a Pfizer spokesperson told CNBC. It has a hefty $3.5 million price tag before insurance and other rebates, the spokesperson added, making it by far one of the most expensive drugs in the U.S.More than 7,000 people in the U.S. are living with the debilitating condition, which predominantly affects men, according to an advocacy group. The condition is caused by insufficient levels of a certain protein that helps blood clot to stop bleeding and seal wounds. Without that protein, called factor IX, patients with hemophilia B bruise easily and bleed more frequently and for longer periods of time. Beqvez is a one-time treatment designed to enable patients to produce factor IX themselves and prevent and control bleeding. In a late-stage trial, the drug was superior to the often-cumbersome standard treatment for hemophilia B, which involves administering the protein multiple times a week or a month through the veins. ""Many people with hemophilia B struggle with the commitment and lifestyle disruption of regular [factor IX] infusions, as well as spontaneous bleeding episodes, which can lead to painful joint damage and mobility issues,"" said Adam Cuker, director of Penn Medicine's Comprehensive and Hemophilia Thrombosis Program, in a Pfizer release on Friday.Pfizer's drug ""has the potential to be transformative for appropriate patients by reducing both the medical and treatment burden over the long term,"" Cuker added. The approval is a big step for Pfizer, which is trying to regain its footing following the rapid decline of its Covid business last year. The company is betting big on cancer drugs and treatments for other disease areas to help turn its business around. Pfizer is one of several companies to invest in the rapidly growing field of gene and cell therapies — one-time, high-cost treatments that target a patient's genetic source or cell to cure or significantly alter the course of a disease. Some health experts expect these therapies to replace traditional lifelong treatments that people take to manage chronic diseases. Pfizer gained the rights to produce and market Beqvez from Spark Therapeutics in 2014. The company is offering payers a warranty program to cover patients who receive Beqvez, a spokesperson told CNBC. Pfizer expects that program to offer ""financial protection by insuring against the risk of efficacy failure,"" the release said.The gene therapy will compete with Australia-based CSL Behring's Hemgenix, a similar treatment that won FDA approval for hemophilia B in 2022. That drug has a similar list price of $3.5 million in the U.S. before insurance and other rebates. Notably, some health experts have said that high costs and logistical issues, among other factors, have limited the uptake of Hemgenix and another approved gene therapy for the more common hemophilia A. Pfizer also seeks FDA approval for its experimental antibody, marstacimab, to treat hemophilia A and B. The company is also developing a gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic disorder that causes muscles to weaken gradually.",CNBC,26/04/2024,"[""In this articleThe Food and Drug Administration on Friday announced that the agency approved Pfizer's treatment for a rare genetic bleeding disorder, making it the company's first gene therapy to win clearance in the U.S.The agency greenlighted the drug, which will be marketed as Beqvez, for adults with moderate to severe hemophilia B who meet certain requirements."", 'The treatment will be available by prescription to eligible patients this quarter, a Pfizer spokesperson told CNBC.', 'It has a hefty $3.5 million price tag before insurance and other rebates, the spokesperson added, making it by far one of the most expensive drugs in the U.S.More than 7,000 people in the U.S. are living with the debilitating condition, which predominantly affects men, according to an advocacy group.', 'The condition is caused by insufficient levels of a certain protein that helps blood clot to stop bleeding and seal wounds.', 'Without that protein, called factor IX, patients with hemophilia B bruise easily and bleed more frequently and for longer periods of time.', 'Beqvez is a one-time treatment designed to enable patients to produce factor IX themselves and prevent and control bleeding.', 'In a late-stage trial, the drug was superior to the often-cumbersome standard treatment for hemophilia B, which involves administering the protein multiple times a week or a month through the veins.', '""Many people with hemophilia B struggle with the commitment and lifestyle disruption of regular [factor IX] infusions, as well as spontaneous bleeding episodes, which can lead to painful joint damage and mobility issues,"" said Adam Cuker, director of Penn Medicine\'s Comprehensive and Hemophilia Thrombosis Program, in a Pfizer release on Friday.', 'Pfizer\'s drug ""has the potential to be transformative for appropriate patients by reducing both the medical and treatment burden over the long term,"" Cuker added.', 'The approval is a big step for Pfizer, which is trying to regain its footing following the rapid decline of its Covid business last year.', 'The company is betting big on cancer drugs and treatments for other disease areas to help turn its business around.', ""Pfizer is one of several companies to invest in the rapidly growing field of gene and cell therapies — one-time, high-cost treatments that target a patient's genetic source or cell to cure or significantly alter the course of a disease."", 'Some health experts expect these therapies to replace traditional lifelong treatments that people take to manage chronic diseases.', 'Pfizer gained the rights to produce and market Beqvez from Spark Therapeutics in 2014.The company is offering payers a warranty program to cover patients who receive Beqvez, a spokesperson told CNBC.', 'Pfizer expects that program to offer ""financial protection by insuring against the risk of efficacy failure,"" the release said.', ""The gene therapy will compete with Australia-based CSL Behring's Hemgenix, a similar treatment that won FDA approval for hemophilia B in 2022."", 'That drug has a similar list price of $3.5 million in the U.S. before insurance and other rebates.', 'Notably, some health experts have said that high costs and logistical issues, among other factors, have limited the uptake of Hemgenix and another approved gene therapy for the more common hemophilia A.Pfizer also seeks FDA approval for its experimental antibody, marstacimab, to treat hemophilia A and B. The company is also developing a gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic disorder that causes muscles to weaken gradually.']",0.1071113389428697,"The gene therapy will compete with Australia-based CSL Behring's Hemgenix, a similar treatment that won FDA approval for hemophilia B in 2022.","Pfizer expects that program to offer ""financial protection by insuring against the risk of efficacy failure,"" the release said.",0.1729708313941955,"In this articleThe Food and Drug Administration on Friday announced that the agency approved Pfizer's treatment for a rare genetic bleeding disorder, making it the company's first gene therapy to win clearance in the U.S.The agency greenlighted the drug, which will be marketed as Beqvez, for adults with moderate to severe hemophilia B who meet certain requirements.","Notably, some health experts have said that high costs and logistical issues, among other factors, have limited the uptake of Hemgenix and another approved gene therapy for the more common hemophilia A.Pfizer also seeks FDA approval for its experimental antibody, marstacimab, to treat hemophilia A and B. The company is also developing a gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic disorder that causes muscles to weaken gradually.",2024-04-28
"CEOs of OpenAI, Google and Microsoft to join other tech leaders on federal AI safety panel",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/26/tech/openai-altman-government-ai-safety-panel/index.html,"
  Updated
        11:54 AM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","The US government has asked leading artificial intelligence companies for advice on how to use the technology they are creating to defend airlines, utilities and other critical infrastructure, particularly from AI-powered attacks.
    
            The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that the panel it’s creating will include CEOs from some of the world’s largest companies and industries.
    
            The list includes Google chief executive Sundar Pichai, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, but also the head of defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman and air carrier Delta Air Lines.
    
            The move reflects the US government’s close collaboration with the private sector as it scrambles to address both the risks and benefits of AI in the absence of a targeted national AI law.
    
            The collection of experts will make recommendations to telecommunications companies, pipeline operators, electric utilities and other sectors about how they can “responsibly” use AI, DHS said. The group will also help prepare those sectors for “AI-related disruptions.”
    
            “Artificial intelligence is a transformative technology that can advance our national interests in unprecedented ways,” said DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, in a release. “At the same time, it presents real risks — risks that we can mitigate by adopting best practices and taking other studied, concrete actions.”
    
            Among the panel’s other participants are the CEOs of technology providers such as Amazon Web Services, IBM and Cisco; chipmakers such as AMD; AI model developers such as Anthropic; and civil rights groups such as the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
    
            It also includes federal, state and local government officials, as well as leading academics in AI such as Fei-Fei Li, co-director of Stanford University’s Human-centered Artificial Intelligence Institute.
    
            The 22-member AI Safety and Security Board is an outgrowth of a 2023 executive order signed by President Joe Biden, who called for a cross-industry body to make “recommendations for improving security, resilience, and incident response related to AI usage in critical infrastructure.”
    
            That same executive order also led this year to government-wide rules regulating how federal agencies can purchase and use AI in their own systems. The US government already uses machine learning or artificial intelligence for more than 200 distinct purposes, such as monitoring volcano activity, tracking wildfires and identifying wildlife from satellite imagery.
    
            Meanwhile, deepfake audio and video, which use AI to push fake content, have emerged as a key concern for US officials trying to protect the 2024 US election from rampant mis- and disinformation. A fake robocall in January imitating Biden’s voice urged Democrats not to vote in New Hampshire’s primary, sounding alarms among US officials focused on election security. A New Orleans magician told CNN that a Democratic political consultant hired him to make the robocall. But there is concern that foreign adversaries like Russia, China or Iran could exploit the same technology.
    
            “It is a risk that is real,” Mayorkas told reporters on Friday while discussing the AI advisory board. “We are seeing adverse nation-states engaged and we work to counter their efforts to unduly influence our elections.”",CNN,26/04/2024,"['The US government has asked leading artificial intelligence companies for advice on how to use the technology they are creating to defend airlines, utilities and other critical infrastructure, particularly from AI-powered attacks.', 'The Department of Homeland Security said Friday that the panel it’s creating will include CEOs from some of the world’s largest companies and industries.', 'The list includes Google chief executive Sundar Pichai, Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella and OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman, but also the head of defense contractors such as Northrop Grumman and air carrier Delta Air Lines.', 'The move reflects the US government’s close collaboration with the private sector as it scrambles to address both the risks and benefits of AI in the absence of a targeted national AI law.', 'The collection of experts will make recommendations to telecommunications companies, pipeline operators, electric utilities and other sectors about how they can “responsibly” use AI, DHS said.', 'The group will also help prepare those sectors for “AI-related disruptions.”', '“Artificial intelligence is a transformative technology that can advance our national interests in unprecedented ways,” said DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, in a release. “', 'At the same time, it presents real risks — risks that we can mitigate by adopting best practices and taking other studied, concrete actions.”', 'Among the panel’s other participants are the CEOs of technology providers such as Amazon Web Services, IBM and Cisco; chipmakers such as AMD; AI model developers such as Anthropic; and civil rights groups such as the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.', 'It also includes federal, state and local government officials, as well as leading academics in AI such as Fei-Fei Li, co-director of Stanford University’s Human-centered Artificial Intelligence Institute.', 'The 22-member AI Safety and Security Board is an outgrowth of a 2023 executive order signed by President Joe Biden, who called for a cross-industry body to make “recommendations for improving security, resilience, and incident response related to AI usage in critical infrastructure.”', 'That same executive order also led this year to government-wide rules regulating how federal agencies can purchase and use AI in their own systems.', 'The US government already uses machine learning or artificial intelligence for more than 200 distinct purposes, such as monitoring volcano activity, tracking wildfires and identifying wildlife from satellite imagery.', 'Meanwhile, deepfake audio and video, which use AI to push fake content, have emerged as a key concern for US officials trying to protect the 2024 US election from rampant mis- and disinformation.', 'A fake robocall in January imitating Biden’s voice urged Democrats not to vote in New Hampshire’s primary,sounding alarmsamong US officials focused on election security.', 'A New Orleans magiciantold CNNthat a Democratic political consultant hired him to make the robocall.', 'But there is concern that foreign adversaries like Russia, China or Iran could exploit the same technology.', '“It is a risk that is real,” Mayorkas told reporters on Friday while discussing the AI advisory board. “', 'We are seeing adverse nation-states engaged and we work to counter their efforts to unduly influence our elections.”']",0.2029832499577865,"The 22-member AI Safety and Security Board is an outgrowth of a 2023 executive order signed by President Joe Biden, who called for a cross-industry body to make “recommendations for improving security, resilience, and incident response related to AI usage in critical infrastructure.”","“It is a risk that is real,” Mayorkas told reporters on Friday while discussing the AI advisory board. “",-0.4111486226320267,"“Artificial intelligence is a transformative technology that can advance our national interests in unprecedented ways,” said DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, in a release. “","At the same time, it presents real risks — risks that we can mitigate by adopting best practices and taking other studied, concrete actions.”",2024-04-28
JPMorgan Chase is caught in U.S-Russia sanctions war after overseas court orders $440 million seized from bank,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/24/jpmorgan-chase-is-caught-in-us-russia-sanctions-war-after-overseas-court-orders-440-million-seized-from-bank.html,2024-04-24T22:24:46+0000,"In this articleA Russian court sided with state-run lender VTB Bank in its efforts to recoup $439.5 million from JPMorgan Chase that the American lender froze in U.S. accounts after the Ukraine invasion.The court ordered the seizure of funds in JPMorgan's Russian accounts and ""movable and immovable property,"" including the bank's stake in a Russian subsidiary, according to a court order published Wednesday.The order came after VTB filed a suit last week in a St. Petersburg arbitration court, seeking to be made whole for funds frozen in the U.S., and asking for relief because JPMorgan has said it plans to exit Russia.The next hearing in the Russian case is July 17.JPMorgan declined to comment. VTB did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.The order was the latest example of American banks getting caught between the demands of Western sanctions regimes and overseas interests. JPMorgan is the biggest U.S. bank by assets and run by veteran CEO Jamie Dimon.  Two years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Biden administration has mounted an unprecedented set of sanctions, oil price caps and trade restrictions designed to weaken Moscow's military machine.On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed into law a sweeping foreign aid bill that includes new powers for U.S. officials to locate and seize Russian assets in the U.S. It also boosted an ongoing American effort to convince European allies to release Russian state assets to assist Ukraine.In its own lawsuit against VTB last week in the Southern District of New York, JPMorgan sought to block VTB's effort, noting that U.S. law prohibits the bank from releasing VTB's $439.5 million.This leaves JPMorgan exposed to a nearly half-billion-dollar loss, for abiding by U.S. sanctions.The American bank, seeking to block VTB's effort, said the Russian company broke its contractual promise to seek relief in American courts, instead finding a friendlier venue in Russia.JPMorgan said Russian courts have enabled similar efforts by Russian lenders against American or European banks at least a half dozen other times.JPMorgan said it faced ""certain and irreparable harm"" from VTB's efforts.",CNBC,24/04/2024,"['In this articleA Russian court sided with state-run lender VTB Bank in its efforts to recoup $439.5 million from JPMorgan Chase that the American lender froze in U.S. accounts after the Ukraine invasion.', 'The court ordered the seizure of funds in JPMorgan\'s Russian accounts and ""movable and immovable property,"" including the bank\'s stake in a Russian subsidiary, according to a court order published Wednesday.', 'The order came after VTB filed a suit last week in a St. Petersburg arbitration court, seeking to be made whole for funds frozen in the U.S., and asking for relief because JPMorgan has said it plans to exit Russia.', 'The next hearing in the Russian case is July 17.JPMorgan declined to comment.', ""VTB did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment."", 'The order was the latest example of American banks getting caught between the demands of Western sanctions regimes and overseas interests.', 'JPMorgan is the biggest U.S. bank by assets and run by veteran CEO Jamie Dimon.', ""Two years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the Biden administration has mounted an unprecedented set of sanctions, oil price caps and trade restrictions designed to weaken Moscow's military machine."", 'On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed into law a sweeping foreign aid bill that includes new powers for U.S. officials to locate and seize Russian assets in the U.S. It also boosted an ongoing American effort to convince European allies to release Russian state assets to assist Ukraine.', ""In its own lawsuit against VTB last week in the Southern District of New York, JPMorgan sought to block VTB's effort, noting that U.S. law prohibits the bank from releasing VTB's $439.5 million."", 'This leaves JPMorgan exposed to a nearly half-billion-dollar loss, for abiding by U.S. sanctions.', ""The American bank, seeking to block VTB's effort, said the Russian company broke its contractual promise to seek relief in American courts, instead finding a friendlier venue in Russia."", 'JPMorgan said Russian courts have enabled similar efforts by Russian lenders against American or European banks at least a half dozen other times.', 'JPMorgan said it faced ""certain and irreparable harm"" from VTB\'s efforts.']",0.0204917561348164,"On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed into law a sweeping foreign aid bill that includes new powers for U.S. officials to locate and seize Russian assets in the U.S. It also boosted an ongoing American effort to convince European allies to release Russian state assets to assist Ukraine.","In its own lawsuit against VTB last week in the Southern District of New York, JPMorgan sought to block VTB's effort, noting that U.S. law prohibits the bank from releasing VTB's $439.5 million.",-0.0723157450556755,"On Wednesday, President Joe Biden signed into law a sweeping foreign aid bill that includes new powers for U.S. officials to locate and seize Russian assets in the U.S. It also boosted an ongoing American effort to convince European allies to release Russian state assets to assist Ukraine.","This leaves JPMorgan exposed to a nearly half-billion-dollar loss, for abiding by U.S. sanctions.",2024-04-28
"Paramount and Skydance inch closer to a merger as key hurdle looms, sources say",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/paramount-skydance-inch-closer-to-a-merger-agreement.html,2024-04-25T21:14:50+0000,"In this articleParamount Global and Skydance Media are making progress on a deal that would merge the media companies and buy out controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, according to people familiar with the matter.Paramount Global's special committee, in charge of accepting or rejecting transactions, and David Ellison's Skydance Media, backed by private equity firms KKR and RedBird Capital Partners, are narrowing in on how to value Skydance's assets as part of a merger, as well as how much equity to add to the company as part of a recapitalization, the people told CNBC.The sides are close to agreeing on a value for Skydance, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. The entertainment company would be valued at around $5 billion and merged with Paramount Global, they said. Skydance CEO Ellison and the private equity firms plan to raise roughly $4.5 billion to $5 billion in new equity, the people said; some of that — about $2 billion — would be used to pay Redstone, and another substantial portion would be used to pay down debt.The buyers would ideally like to get a deal done in May, said the people. Three of the people said that Paramount Global was slow to provide data during due diligence to the Skydance consortium, which has slightly pushed back the timeline on a deal. The exclusivity window on merger talks ends May 3, but the Skydance consortium wants to extend it by two weeks, said the people.Skydance plans to name Ellison as CEO of Paramount Global and former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell as president, said two of the people. Current Paramount CEO Bob Bakish would depart the company, the people said.Separately, private equity firm Apollo Global Management and Sony have held preliminary discussions about teaming up for a deal that would buy out all Paramount Global shareholders at a premium, according to people familiar with the matter. The special committee hasn't received concrete details on that offer and isn't viewing it as a competitive bid to Skydance's interest, two of the people said.Still, the committee had more details on an initial offer made by Apollo, which it chose to ignore in favor of exclusive talks with Skydance, one of the people said. The special committee favored Skydance's offer over Apollo's in part because it offered shareholders future upside by keeping the company public with a cleaner balance sheet, the person said.Spokespeople for Apollo, the Paramount Global special committee, Paramount Global, and Skydance's consortium declined to comment.One significant hurdle that remains is Paramount Global's renewal agreement with Charter Communications for CBS and its cable networks. That deal is relevant to the value of Paramount Global, which could take a hit if Charter drops the networks or agrees to a lower carriage rate, the people said.The deadline for that agreement is April 30. Paramount Global reports first-quarter earnings one day earlier, on April 29.Paramount Global is still dependent on its traditional TV business, which accounts for about two-thirds of the company's total revenue.There are signs Charter could prove to be a tough negotiator with Paramount Global: Last year the cable provider, the second-largest in the U.S., briefly stopped carrying Disney's networks when renewal negotiations between those two companies faltered. The parties reached a deal 10 days later.Paramount's cable networks are far less popular than Disney's ESPN, which may put Bakish in a position of weakness.The timing of the renewal and the deal talks set up an awkward dynamic, where Bakish, who would ultimately leave the company under a Skydance merger, will control Paramount Global's fate with Charter.Thus far, Bakish has always reached renewal deals with the major pay-TV distributors since taking over as CEO, dating back to his time running Viacom, beginning in 2016.Bakish has privately argued against the Skydance deal because it dilutes common shareholders, according to people familiar with the matter. Several Paramount Global investors have also publicly written letters to the company's board urging directors not to move forward with a Skydance deal, arguing it gives Redstone a massive premium for her controlling shares while leaving common shareholders out in the cold.Under the terms of the deal, nearly 50% of the company would be owned by Skydance and its private equity partners, CNBC reported April 5. The rest of the company would be owned by common shareholders, and the company would continue to trade publicly.""At Paramount, we're always looking for ways to create shareholder value. And to be clear, that's for all shareholders,"" Bakish said during his company's most recent earnings call, in February.Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"['In this articleParamount Global and Skydance Media are making progress on a deal that would merge the media companies and buy out controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, according to people familiar with the matter.', ""Paramount Global's special committee, in charge of accepting or rejecting transactions, and David Ellison's Skydance Media, backed by private equity firms KKR and RedBird Capital Partners, are narrowing in on how to value Skydance's assets as part of a merger, as well as how much equity to add to the company as part of a recapitalization, the people told CNBC.The sides are close to agreeing on a value for Skydance, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private."", 'The entertainment company would be valued at around $5 billion and merged with Paramount Global, they said.', 'Skydance CEO Ellison and the private equity firms plan to raise roughly $4.5 billion to $5 billion in new equity, the people said; some of that — about $2 billion — would be used to pay Redstone, and another substantial portion would be used to pay down debt.', 'The buyers would ideally like to get a deal done in May, said the people.', 'Three of the people said that Paramount Global was slow to provide data during due diligence to the Skydance consortium, which has slightly pushed back the timeline on a deal.', 'The exclusivity window on merger talks ends May 3, but the Skydance consortium wants to extend it by two weeks, said the people.', 'Skydance plans to name Ellison as CEO of Paramount Global and former NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell as president, said two of the people.', 'Current Paramount CEO Bob Bakish would depart the company, the people said.', 'Separately, private equity firm Apollo Global Management and Sony have held preliminary discussions about teaming up for a deal that would buy out all Paramount Global shareholders at a premium, according to people familiar with the matter.', ""The special committee hasn't received concrete details on that offer and isn't viewing it as a competitive bid to Skydance's interest, two of the people said."", 'Still, the committee had more details on an initial offer made by Apollo, which it chose to ignore in favor of exclusive talks with Skydance, one of the people said.', ""The special committee favored Skydance's offer over Apollo's in part because it offered shareholders future upside by keeping the company public with a cleaner balance sheet, the person said."", ""Spokespeople for Apollo, the Paramount Global special committee, Paramount Global, and Skydance's consortium declined to comment."", ""One significant hurdle that remains is Paramount Global's renewal agreement with Charter Communications for CBS and its cable networks."", 'That deal is relevant to the value of Paramount Global, which could take a hit if Charter drops the networks or agrees to a lower carriage rate, the people said.', 'The deadline for that agreement is April 30.', ""Paramount Global reports first-quarter earnings one day earlier, on April 29.Paramount Global is still dependent on its traditional TV business, which accounts for about two-thirds of the company's total revenue."", ""There are signs Charter could prove to be a tough negotiator with Paramount Global: Last year the cable provider, the second-largest in the U.S., briefly stopped carrying Disney's networks when renewal negotiations between those two companies faltered."", 'The parties reached a deal 10 days later.', ""Paramount's cable networks are far less popular than Disney's ESPN, which may put Bakish in a position of weakness."", ""The timing of the renewal and the deal talks set up an awkward dynamic, where Bakish, who would ultimately leave the company under a Skydance merger, will control Paramount Global's fate with Charter."", 'Thus far, Bakish has always reached renewal deals with the major pay-TV distributors since taking over as CEO, dating back to his time running Viacom, beginning in 2016.Bakish has privately argued against the Skydance deal because it dilutes common shareholders, according to people familiar with the matter.', ""Several Paramount Global investors have also publicly written letters to the company's board urging directors not to move forward with a Skydance deal, arguing it gives Redstone a massive premium for her controlling shares while leaving common shareholders out in the cold."", 'Under the terms of the deal, nearly 50% of the company would be owned by Skydance and its private equity partners, CNBC reported April 5.', 'The rest of the company would be owned by common shareholders, and the company would continue to trade publicly.', '""At Paramount, we\'re always looking for ways to create shareholder value.', 'And to be clear, that\'s for all shareholders,"" Bakish said during his company\'s most recent earnings call, in February.', 'Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.']",0.2275447691168776,"Paramount Global's special committee, in charge of accepting or rejecting transactions, and David Ellison's Skydance Media, backed by private equity firms KKR and RedBird Capital Partners, are narrowing in on how to value Skydance's assets as part of a merger, as well as how much equity to add to the company as part of a recapitalization, the people told CNBC.The sides are close to agreeing on a value for Skydance, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.","Thus far, Bakish has always reached renewal deals with the major pay-TV distributors since taking over as CEO, dating back to his time running Viacom, beginning in 2016.Bakish has privately argued against the Skydance deal because it dilutes common shareholders, according to people familiar with the matter.",-0.4220497012138366,"The special committee favored Skydance's offer over Apollo's in part because it offered shareholders future upside by keeping the company public with a cleaner balance sheet, the person said.","Paramount's cable networks are far less popular than Disney's ESPN, which may put Bakish in a position of weakness.",2024-04-28
Chipotle posts big earnings beat as diners shake off higher prices,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/24/chipotle-mexican-grill-cmg-q1-2024-earnings.html,2024-04-24T22:10:02+0000,"In this articleChipotle Mexican Grill on Wednesday reported quarterly earnings and revenue that beat analysts' expectations, fueled by higher traffic to its restaurants.The stock rose 4% in extended trading.Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:Chipotle reported first-quarter net income of $359.3 million, or $13.01 per share, up from $291.6 million, or $10.50 per share, a year earlier.Excluding a 36-cent hit from increases to its legal reserves, the burrito chain earned $13.37 per share.Net sales climbed 14.1% to $2.7 billion.The company's same-store sales rose 7%, topping StreetAccount estimates of 5.2%. Chipotle said traffic increased 5.4% from the year-ago period, while the average check was up just 1.6%.In February, Chief Financial Officer Jack Hartung told analysts that ""unusually cold weather"" hurt January sales. But demand rebounded in the rest of the quarter to offset the sluggish first month.Chipotle has become the rare restaurant chain to report rising transactions despite higher menu prices. The company once again raised its prices in October, citing inflation. Others in the restaurant industry have turned to limited-time offers and deals to appeal to customers, particularly those with lower incomes.CEO Brian Niccol said the company saw traffic growth across income groups during the quarter. He credited the chain's value perception among diners. Previously, executives have also emphasized that most of its customers come from higher-income brackets.Earlier this month, Chipotle raised prices in California roughly 7% to offset the state's higher minimum wage for fast-food workers, but the company does not have plans for any more hikes, Niccol said on CNBC's ""Closing Bell"" on Wednesday.Chipotle has also been focusing on making its burritos and bowls more quickly, improving the industry metric known as throughput. Niccol said throughput reached its highest level in four years during the first quarter.The chain added 47 new locations to its footprint during the first quarter, inching closer to its long-term goal of doubling its total number of restaurants to reach 7,000 stores.For the full year, Chipotle now anticipates same-store sales will grow by a mid-to-high single-digit percentage, up from its prior range of a mid-single-digit increase. The company reiterated its forecast of 285 to 315 new locations in 2024.In March, Chipotle's board approved a 50-for-1 stock split, one of the largest in the New York Stock Exchange's history. The company is seeking shareholder approval at its annual meeting on June 6. If investors vote ""yes,"" the stock will start trading on a post-split basis on June 26.",CNBC,24/04/2024,"[""In this articleChipotle Mexican Grill on Wednesday reported quarterlyearningsand revenue that beat analysts' expectations, fueled by higher traffic to its restaurants."", 'The stock rose 4% in extended trading.', ""Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:Chipotle reported first-quarter net income of $359.3 million, or $13.01 per share, up from $291.6 million, or $10.50 per share, a year earlier."", 'Excluding a 36-cent hit from increases to its legal reserves, the burrito chain earned $13.37 per share.', 'Net salesclimbed14.1% to $2.7 billion.', ""The company's same-store sales rose 7%, topping StreetAccount estimates of 5.2%."", 'Chipotle said traffic increased 5.4% from the year-ago period, while the average check was up just 1.6%.In February, Chief Financial Officer Jack Hartung told analysts that ""unusually cold weather"" hurt January sales.', 'But demand rebounded in the rest of the quarter to offset the sluggish first month.', 'Chipotle has become the rare restaurant chain to report rising transactions despite higher menu prices.', 'The company once again raised its prices in October, citing inflation.', 'Others in the restaurant industry have turned to limited-time offers and deals to appeal to customers, particularly those with lower incomes.', 'CEO Brian Niccol said the company saw traffic growth across income groups during the quarter.', ""He credited the chain's value perception among diners."", 'Previously, executives have also emphasized that most of its customers come from higher-income brackets.', 'Earlier this month, Chipotle raised prices in California roughly 7% to offset the state\'s higher minimum wage for fast-food workers, but the company does not have plans for any more hikes, Niccol said on CNBC\'s ""Closing Bell"" on Wednesday.', 'Chipotle has also been focusing on making its burritos and bowls more quickly, improving the industry metric known as throughput.', 'Niccol said throughput reached its highest level in four years during the first quarter.', 'The chain added 47 new locations to its footprint during the first quarter, inching closer to its long-term goal of doubling its total number of restaurants to reach 7,000 stores.', 'For the full year, Chipotle now anticipates same-store sales will grow by a mid-to-high single-digit percentage, up from its prior range of a mid-single-digit increase.', ""The company reiterated its forecast of 285 to 315 new locations in 2024.In March, Chipotle's board approved a 50-for-1 stock split, one of the largest in the New York Stock Exchange's history."", 'The company is seeking shareholder approval at its annual meeting on June 6.', 'If investors vote ""yes,"" the stock will start trading on a post-split basis on June 26.']",0.1267962532755779,He credited the chain's value perception among diners.,But demand rebounded in the rest of the quarter to offset the sluggish first month.,0.852291489348692,"The company's same-store sales rose 7%, topping StreetAccount estimates of 5.2%.",Chipotle has become the rare restaurant chain to report rising transactions despite higher menu prices.,2024-04-28
FTC sues to block Coach parent Tapestry's acquisition of Capri Holdings,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/22/ftc-sues-to-block-tapestry-acquisition-of-capri-holdings.html,2024-04-22T21:58:59+0000,"The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Monday sued to block the $8.5 billion acquisition of Capri Holdings by Coach and Kate Spade's parent company, Tapestry.The move by regulators brings at least a temporary halt to a deal that would marry two major names in American luxury retail and put six fashion brands under a single company: Tapestry's Coach, Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman and Capri's Versace, Jimmy Choo and Michael Kors. With the transaction, the luxury brands could be poised to better compete with European luxury names, such as Burberry and LVMH's Louis Vuitton.In a news release, the FTC said the combined company would harm shoppers and employees. It said Tapestry and Capri ""currently compete on everything from clothing to eyewear to shoes.""""With the goal to become a serial acquirer, Tapestry seeks to acquire Capri to further entrench its stronghold in the fashion industry,"" Henry Liu, director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition, said in the release. ""This deal threatens to deprive consumers of the competition for affordable handbags, while hourly workers stand to lose the benefits of higher wages and more favorable workplace conditions.""Tapestry argued the federal agency ""fundamentally misunderstands both the marketplace and the way in which consumers shop.""In a statement, the company said it must win the business of consumers who increasingly shop across brands, channels and price points.""The bottom line is that Tapestry and Capri face competitive pressures from both lower- and higher-priced products,"" it said. ""In bringing this case, the FTC has chosen to ignore the reality of today's dynamic and expanding $200 billion global luxury industry.""Capri echoed that argument in its own statement, saying consumers ""have hundreds of handbag choices at every price point across all channels, and barriers to entry are low.""Tapestry and Capri both said they will fight for the transaction in court, with Tapestry saying it will work ""expeditiously to close the transaction in calendar year 2024.""Tapestry announced the proposed acquisition in August. The deal had been expected to close in 2024. It had already secured approval from regulators in Europe and Japan, according to a financial filing by the company earlier this month, but was still waiting for the approval of U.S. officials — the only regulator still outstanding.When Tapestry unveiled the deal, CEO Joanne Crevoiserat told CNBC that the combined companies would be able to reach more customers across the globe. Together, the two companies would have over $12 billion in annual revenue and a presence in more than 75 countries.Both Tapestry and Capri have been under pressure, as consumers continue to be choosier with discretionary spending. Yet Capri, in particular, has been more vulnerable because of its heavier reliance than Tapestry on department stores and other wholesale retailers.Led by Crevoiserat, Tapestry has raised the profile of Coach's brand, attracted younger shoppers, and tried to lean on fashion and loyalty, rather than deep discounts, to drive higher sales and profits. The vast majority of Tapestry's sales are through its own website and stores, with wholesale accounting for only about 10% of sales globally in the most recently reported fiscal quarter.As of Monday's close, shares of Tapestry are up nearly 10% so far this year compared with the stock of Capri, which has fallen about 24% over the same period.",CNBC,22/04/2024,"[""The U.S. Federal Trade Commissionon Monday sued to block the $8.5 billion acquisition of Capri Holdings by Coach and Kate Spade's parent company, Tapestry."", ""The move by regulators brings at least a temporary halt to a deal that would marry two major names in American luxury retail and put six fashion brands under a single company: Tapestry's Coach, Kate Spade and Stuart Weitzman and Capri's Versace, Jimmy Choo and Michael Kors."", ""With the transaction, the luxury brands could be poised to better compete with European luxury names, such as Burberry and LVMH's Louis Vuitton."", 'In a news release, the FTC said the combined company would harm shoppers and employees.', 'It said Tapestry and Capri ""currently compete on everything from clothing to eyewear to shoes.', '""""With the goal to become a serial acquirer, Tapestry seeks to acquire Capri to further entrench its stronghold in the fashion industry,"" Henry Liu, director of the FTC\'s Bureau of Competition, said in the release. ""', 'This deal threatens to deprive consumers of the competition for affordable handbags, while hourly workers stand to lose the benefits of higher wages and more favorable workplace conditions.', '""Tapestry argued the federal agency ""fundamentally misunderstands both the marketplace and the way in which consumers shop.', '""In a statement, the company said it must win the business of consumers who increasingly shop across brands, channels and price points.', '""The bottom line is that Tapestry and Capri face competitive pressures from both lower- and higher-priced products,"" it said. ""', ""In bringing this case, the FTC has chosen to ignore the reality of today's dynamic and expanding $200 billion global luxury industry."", '""Capri echoed that argument in its own statement, saying consumers ""have hundreds of handbag choices at every price point across all channels, and barriers to entry are low.', '""Tapestry and Capri both said they will fight for the transaction in court, with Tapestry saying it will work ""expeditiously to close the transaction in calendar year 2024.""Tapestry announced the proposed acquisition in August.', 'The deal had been expected to close in 2024.', 'It had already secured approval from regulators in Europe and Japan, according to a financial filing by the company earlier this month, but was still waiting for the approval of U.S. officials — the only regulator still outstanding.', 'When Tapestry unveiled the deal, CEO Joanne Crevoiserat told CNBC that the combined companies would be able to reach more customers across the globe.', 'Together, the two companies would have over $12 billion in annual revenue and a presence in more than 75 countries.', 'Both Tapestry and Capri have been under pressure, as consumers continue to be choosier with discretionary spending.', 'Yet Capri, in particular, has been more vulnerable because of its heavier reliance than Tapestry on department stores and other wholesale retailers.', ""Led by Crevoiserat, Tapestry has raised the profile of Coach's brand, attracted younger shoppers, and tried to lean on fashion and loyalty, rather than deep discounts, to drive higher sales and profits."", ""The vast majority of Tapestry's sales are through its own website and stores, with wholesale accounting for only about 10% of sales globally in the most recently reported fiscal quarter."", ""As of Monday's close, shares of Tapestry are up nearly 10% so far this year compared with the stock of Capri, which has fallen about 24% over the same period.""]",-0.0241006633612018,"It had already secured approval from regulators in Europe and Japan, according to a financial filing by the company earlier this month, but was still waiting for the approval of U.S. officials — the only regulator still outstanding.","""Tapestry argued the federal agency ""fundamentally misunderstands both the marketplace and the way in which consumers shop.",0.033528881413596,"As of Monday's close, shares of Tapestry are up nearly 10% so far this year compared with the stock of Capri, which has fallen about 24% over the same period.","Both Tapestry and Capri have been under pressure, as consumers continue to be choosier with discretionary spending.",2024-04-28
General Motors raises 2024 guidance after big first-quarter earnings beat,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/23/general-motors-gm-earnings-q1-2024.html,2024-04-23T20:07:30+0000,"In this articleDETROIT — General Motors on Tuesday raised its 2024 guidance after beating Wall Street's top- and bottom-line expectations for the first quarter.The automaker said it was boosting its forecast after strong North American operations offset losses elsewhere during the first quarter. The company now expects adjusted earnings of $12.5 billion to $14.5 billion, or $9 to $10 a share, up from a previous range of $12 billion to $14 billion, or $8.50 to $9.50 a share.GM also raised expectations for adjusted automotive free cash flow to a range of $8.5 billion to $10.5 billion, up from an earlier forecast of $8 billion to $10 billion.GM shares jumped more than 4% Tuesday following the report. Here's how the company performed in the first quarter, compared with average estimates compiled by LSEG:GM said revenue during the first three months of this year was up 7.6% from roughly $40 billion a year earlier. Its net income during the first quarter rose about 26% to $2.95 billion.The automaker's net income attributable to stockholders, which excludes some dividend payouts, was up 24.4% to $2.98 billion, or $2.56 per share, from the first quarter of 2023 when the company reported net income attributable to stockholders of about $2.4 billion, or $1.69 a share. The automaker's adjusted earnings before interest and taxes were $3.87 billion, or $2.62 per share, during the first quarter. GM's North American operations, driven by truck sales, were largely responsible for the company's first-quarter beat and guidance raise, the automaker said.  The division increased adjusted earnings during the quarter to $3.84 billion, up 7.4% from a year earlier.Steady vehicle pricing and increased retail sales in North America also helped GM achieve a 10.6% adjusted profit margin in the region for the period – above its previously announced 8% to 10% range for the year.GM CFO Paul Jacobson said prices for the automaker's vehicles were roughly flat to slightly lower due to vehicle mix during the quarter, but not down as much as the 2% to 2.5% decline the company anticipated for the year.""Our consumer has been remarkably resilient in this period of higher interest rates,"" Jacobson told reporters during a briefing. ""We think in this environment that we can continue to perform.""GM's financing arm reported adjusted earnings of $737 million during the first quarter, down 4.4% from a year earlier.The company's North America results helped to offset losses of $106 million in China and $10 million in other international markets during the first three months of the year.When asked Tuesday about potentially exiting the Chinese market, GM CEO Mary Barra said during the company's earnings call the automaker ""remains committed"" to the region.The question, which would have been unfathomable just a few years ago, comes after GM China's earnings fell from billions of dollars annually during the mid-2010s to the quarterly loss amid increased competition and shifting consumer demand.Jacobson, however, noted GM's loss in China was ""slightly better"" than the company had previously forecast.GM specifically noted that sales of its highly profitable pickups remain strong, while production of its all-electric vehicles continues to ramp up following bottlenecks in production, particularly with battery modules.""As we continue to strengthen our [internal combustion engine] portfolio, scale EVs and reinvest in the business, we are very focused on capital efficiency, enhancing profitability and free cash flow, and we will continue to take steps to create shareholder value,"" Barra said in a letter to shareholders.Jacobson said the company still plans to produce between 200,000 and 300,000 EVs during 2024.While North America continues to be strong for the automaker, vehicle inventory levels in the U.S. are rising. The company ended the first quarter with a 63 days' supply of vehicles – above the automaker's previous guidance of 50 days to 60 days.Jacobson said the company is watching those levels but is not too concerned about the number of vehicles ahead of a spring and summer selling season that includes some factory shutdowns for retooling.""We actually feel pretty good about where we are,"" he said. ""It's something that obviously we're watching. But right now, no signs of any softness that we can see.""Regarding GM's embattled Cruise autonomous vehicle unit, Jacobson said Tuesday the company expects to spend $1.7 billion on the operations this year as it relaunches operations following an October accident involving a pedestrian.Barra said the automaker is evaluating how to the fund Cruise, of which GM owns more than 80%, moving forward, including potentially accepting additional outside investments.Correction: This story has to been updated to correct that General Motors plans to produce between 200,000 and 300,000 EVs during 2024.",CNBC,23/04/2024,"[""In this articleDETROIT — General Motors on Tuesday raised its 2024 guidance after beating Wall Street's top- and bottom-line expectations for the first quarter."", 'The automaker said it was boosting its forecast after strong North American operations offset losses elsewhere during the first quarter.', 'The company now expects adjusted earnings of $12.5 billion to $14.5 billion, or $9 to $10 a share, up from a previous range of $12 billion to $14 billion, or $8.50 to $9.50 a share.', 'GM also raised expectations for adjusted automotive free cash flow to a range of $8.5 billion to $10.5 billion, up from an earlier forecast of $8 billion to $10 billion.', 'GM shares jumped more than 4% Tuesday following the report.', ""Here's how the company performed in the first quarter, compared with average estimates compiled by LSEG:GM said revenue during the first three months of this year was up 7.6% from roughly $40 billion a year earlier."", 'Its net income during the first quarter rose about 26% to $2.95 billion.', ""The automaker's net income attributable to stockholders, which excludes some dividend payouts, was up 24.4% to $2.98 billion, or $2.56 per share, from the first quarter of 2023 when the company reported net income attributable to stockholders of about $2.4 billion, or $1.69 a share."", ""The automaker's adjusted earnings before interest and taxes were $3.87 billion, or $2.62 per share, during the first quarter."", ""GM's North American operations, driven by truck sales, were largely responsible for the company's first-quarter beat and guidance raise, the automaker said."", 'The division increased adjusted earnings during the quarter to $3.84 billion, up 7.4% from a year earlier.', 'Steady vehicle pricing and increased retail sales in North America also helped GM achieve a 10.6% adjusted profit margin in the region for the period – above its previously announced 8% to 10% range for the year.', ""GM CFO Paul Jacobson said prices for the automaker's vehicles were roughly flat to slightly lower due to vehicle mix during the quarter, but not down as much as the 2% to 2.5% decline the company anticipated for the year."", '""Our consumer has been remarkably resilient in this period of higher interest rates,"" Jacobson told reporters during a briefing. ""', 'We think in this environment that we can continue to perform.', '""GM\'s financing arm reported adjusted earnings of $737 million during the first quarter, down 4.4% from a year earlier.', ""The company's North America results helped to offset losses of $106 million in China and $10 million in other international markets during the first three months of the year."", 'When asked Tuesday about potentially exiting the Chinese market, GM CEO Mary Barra said during the company\'s earnings call the automaker ""remains committed"" to the region.', ""The question, which would have been unfathomable just a few years ago, comes after GM China's earnings fell from billions of dollars annually during the mid-2010s to the quarterly loss amid increased competition and shifting consumer demand."", 'Jacobson, however, noted GM\'s loss in China was ""slightly better"" than the company had previously forecast.', 'GM specifically noted that sales of its highly profitable pickups remain strong, while production of its all-electric vehicles continues to ramp up following bottlenecks in production, particularly with battery modules.', '""As we continue to strengthen our [internal combustion engine] portfolio, scale EVs and reinvest in the business, we are very focused on capital efficiency, enhancing profitability and free cash flow, and we will continue to take steps to create shareholder value,"" Barra said in a letter to shareholders.', 'Jacobson said the company still plans to produce between 200,000 and 300,000 EVs during 2024.While North America continues to be strong for the automaker, vehicle inventory levels in the U.S. are rising.', ""The company ended the first quarter with a 63 days' supply of vehicles – above the automaker's previous guidance of 50 days to 60 days."", 'Jacobson said the company is watching those levels but is not too concerned about the number of vehicles ahead of a spring and summer selling season that includes some factory shutdowns for retooling.', '""We actually feel pretty good about where we are,"" he said. ""', ""It's something that obviously we're watching."", 'But right now, no signs of any softness that we can see.', '""Regarding GM\'s embattled Cruise autonomous vehicle unit, Jacobson said Tuesday the company expects to spend $1.7 billion on the operations this year as it relaunches operations following an October accident involving a pedestrian.', 'Barra said the automaker is evaluating how to the fund Cruise, of which GM owns more than 80%, moving forward, including potentially accepting additional outside investments.', 'Correction: This story has to been updated to correct that General Motors plans to produce between 200,000 and 300,000 EVs during 2024.']",0.204808735023361,"""As we continue to strengthen our [internal combustion engine] portfolio, scale EVs and reinvest in the business, we are very focused on capital efficiency, enhancing profitability and free cash flow, and we will continue to take steps to create shareholder value,"" Barra said in a letter to shareholders.","""Regarding GM's embattled Cruise autonomous vehicle unit, Jacobson said Tuesday the company expects to spend $1.7 billion on the operations this year as it relaunches operations following an October accident involving a pedestrian.",0.8176416863094677,Its net income during the first quarter rose about 26% to $2.95 billion.,"The question, which would have been unfathomable just a few years ago, comes after GM China's earnings fell from billions of dollars annually during the mid-2010s to the quarterly loss amid increased competition and shifting consumer demand.",2024-04-28
FDIC says Republic First Bank is closed by Pennsylvania regulators,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/26/business/regulators-seize-republic-first-bancorp/index.html,"
  Updated
        7:38 PM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on Friday said that Republic First Bank has been closed by Pennsylvania state regulators, in what the FDIC said was the first US bank failure this year.
    
            “Philadelphia-based Republic First Bank (doing business as Republic Bank) was closed today by the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver. To protect depositors, the FDIC entered into an agreement with Fulton Bank, National Association of Lancaster, Pennsylvania to assume substantially all of the deposits and purchase substantially all of the assets of Republic Bank,” the FDIC said in a statement.
    
            The bank had about $6 billion in total assets and $4 billion in total deposits at the end of January, the FDIC said in its release.
    
            That makes Republic Bank (FRBK) far smaller than the regional bank failures that rocked the financial world last year. Silicon Valley Bank, for example, had about $209 billion at the end of 2022; it collapsed in March 2023.
    
            The FDIC said the former bank’s “32 branches in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York will reopen as branches of Fulton Bank on Saturday (for branches with normal Saturday hours) or on Monday during normal business hours.”
    
            Those who have deposits at Republic Bank will become depositors at Fulton Bank, the FDIC said. The agency’s deposit insurance covers up to $250,000 per depositor.
    
            Bloomberg News reported earlier in the week that the FDIC had approached buyers for the regional lender.
    
            The FDIC said that Republic Bank was the first bank to fail in the United States since Citizens Bank in Sac City, Iowa, in November 2023.
    
            Republic First Bank is a separate entity from First Republic Bank, a San Francisco-based commercial bank that was closed in May 2023. The majority of the bank’s assets were sold to JPMorgan Chase.
    
            The Philadelphia-based bank’s failure comes at a tumultuous time for regional banks, as elevated interest rates have hurt the credit-dependent industry.
    
            Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse sparked a broader crisis last year. Signature Bank’s failure followed days later, and First Republic Bank failed a few weeks after that. In total, there were five bank failures in 2023, according to the FDIC.
    
            Recently, New York Community Bank saw wild swings in its stock price as customers began pulling their cash from the regional lender after it said it had identified “material weakness” in the company’s controls. The bank got a $1 billion equity investment lifeline from investors, including former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s firm, Liberty Strategic Capital, in March.
    
            This story has been updated.",CNN,26/04/2024,"['The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on Friday said that Republic First Bank has been closed by Pennsylvania state regulators, in what the FDIC said was the first US bank failure this year.', '“Philadelphia-based Republic First Bank (doing business as Republic Bank) was closed today by the Pennsylvania Department of Banking and Securities, which appointed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) as receiver.', 'To protect depositors, the FDIC entered into an agreement with Fulton Bank, National Association of Lancaster, Pennsylvania to assume substantially all of the deposits and purchase substantially all of the assets of Republic Bank,” the FDIC said in a statement.', 'The bank had about $6 billion in total assets and $4 billion in total deposits at the end of January, the FDIC said in its release.', 'That makes Republic Bank (FRBK) far smaller than the regional bank failures that rocked the financial world last year.', 'Silicon Valley Bank, for example, had about $209 billion at the end of 2022; it collapsed in March 2023.', 'The FDIC said the former bank’s “32 branches in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York will reopen as branches of Fulton Bank on Saturday (for branches with normal Saturday hours) or on Monday during normal business hours.”', 'Those who have deposits at Republic Bank will become depositors at Fulton Bank, the FDIC said.', 'The agency’s deposit insurance covers up to $250,000 per depositor.', 'Bloomberg News reported earlier in the week that the FDIC had approached buyers for the regional lender.', 'The FDIC said that Republic Bank was the first bank to fail in the United States since Citizens Bank in Sac City, Iowa, in November 2023.', 'Republic First Bank is a separate entity from First Republic Bank, a San Francisco-based commercial bank that was closed in May 2023.', 'The majority of the bank’s assets were sold to JPMorgan Chase.', 'The Philadelphia-based bank’s failure comes at a tumultuous time for regional banks, as elevated interest rates have hurt the credit-dependent industry.', 'Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse sparked a broader crisis last year.', 'Signature Bank’s failure followed days later, and First Republic Bank failed a few weeks after that.', 'In total, there were five bank failures in 2023, according to the FDIC.', 'Recently, New York Community Bank saw wild swings in its stock price as customers began pulling their cash from the regional lender after it said it had identified “material weakness” in the company’s controls.', 'The bank got a $1 billion equity investment lifeline from investors, including former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s firm, Liberty Strategic Capital, in March.', 'This story has been updated.']",-0.101466138295481,"To protect depositors, the FDIC entered into an agreement with Fulton Bank, National Association of Lancaster, Pennsylvania to assume substantially all of the deposits and purchase substantially all of the assets of Republic Bank,” the FDIC said in a statement.",Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse sparked a broader crisis last year.,-0.5649114847183228,That makes Republic Bank (FRBK) far smaller than the regional bank failures that rocked the financial world last year.,"Recently, New York Community Bank saw wild swings in its stock price as customers began pulling their cash from the regional lender after it said it had identified “material weakness” in the company’s controls.",2024-04-28
"American Airlines cuts some international flights into 2025, citing Boeing delivery delays",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/26/american-airlines-cuts-some-international-flights-citing-boeing-delays.html,2024-04-26T19:57:37+0000,"In this articleAmerican Airlines on Friday said Boeing's 787 Dreamliner delivery delays are forcing it to cut some long-haul flights in the second half of the year and into early 2025, the latest carrier to change its schedule tied to the plane-maker's production problems.American expects to receive three Dreamliners this year, down from six, it said in a filing Thursday. Boeing said earlier this week that parts shortages will prevent it from ramping up production of the wide-body planes.""We're making these adjustments now to ensure we're able to re-accommodate customers on affected flights,"" American said in a statement. ""We'll be proactively reaching out to impacted customers to offer alternate travel arrangements. We remain committed to our customers and team members and mitigating the impact of these delays while continuing to offer a comprehensive global network.""American will suspend some routes to Europe at the end of the summer. Here's what's changing:American will also offer just a single daily flight between New York and Rome, instead of twice daily, starting Aug. 5, and service between Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Kona, Hawaii, won't operate this winter.American said it will continue to offer 55 long-haul international routes this winter and that it will add nonstop service between Philadelphia and Barcelona on a daily basis starting in January, as well as seasonal service between Miami and Montevideo, Uruguay. It will also add three-times-a-day flights between Miami and Sao Paulo.The airline is further evaluating its schedule because of Boeing's 737 Max delays, it said.Boeing didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.Correction: American Airlines will add three-times-a-day flights between Miami and Sao Paulo. A previous version of this story mischaracterized the schedule.",CNBC,26/04/2024,"[""In this articleAmerican Airlines on Friday said Boeing's 787 Dreamliner delivery delays are forcing it to cut some long-haul flights in the second half of the year and into early 2025, the latest carrier to change its schedule tied to the plane-maker's production problems."", 'American expects to receive three Dreamliners this year, down from six, it said in a filing Thursday.', 'Boeing said earlier this week that parts shortages will prevent it from ramping up production of the wide-body planes.', '""We\'re making these adjustments now to ensure we\'re able to re-accommodate customers on affected flights,"" American said in a statement. ""', ""We'll be proactively reaching out to impacted customers to offer alternate travel arrangements."", 'We remain committed to our customers and team members and mitigating the impact of these delays while continuing to offer a comprehensive global network.', '""American will suspend some routes to Europe at the end of the summer.', ""Here's what's changing:American will also offer just a single daily flight between New York and Rome, instead of twice daily, starting Aug. 5, and service between Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport and Kona, Hawaii, won't operate this winter."", 'American said it will continue to offer 55 long-haul international routes this winter and that it will add nonstop service between Philadelphia and Barcelona on a daily basis starting in January, as well as seasonal service between Miami and Montevideo, Uruguay.', 'It will also add three-times-a-day flights between Miami and Sao Paulo.', ""The airline is further evaluating its schedule because of Boeing's 737 Max delays, it said."", ""Boeing didn't immediately respond to a request for comment."", 'Correction: American Airlines will add three-times-a-day flights between Miami and Sao Paulo.', 'A previous version of this story mischaracterized the schedule.']",0.0283126784543538,We remain committed to our customers and team members and mitigating the impact of these delays while continuing to offer a comprehensive global network.,"In this articleAmerican Airlines on Friday said Boeing's 787 Dreamliner delivery delays are forcing it to cut some long-haul flights in the second half of the year and into early 2025, the latest carrier to change its schedule tied to the plane-maker's production problems.",-0.2854051291942596,We remain committed to our customers and team members and mitigating the impact of these delays while continuing to offer a comprehensive global network.,"American expects to receive three Dreamliners this year, down from six, it said in a filing Thursday.",2024-04-28
"Biogen tops profit estimates as cost cuts take hold, Alzheimer's drug Leqembi launch picks up",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/24/biogen-biib-earnings-q1-2024-.html,2024-04-24T14:26:32+0000,"In this articleBiogen on Wednesday reported first-quarter profit that topped estimates as the company's cost-cutting efforts took hold and sales of its closely watched Alzheimer's drug, Leqembi, came in higher than expected.Biogen and Eisai's Leqembi became the first drug found to slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease to win approval in the U.S. in July. The treatment's launch has been sluggish, but uptake appeared to accelerate towards the end of the first quarter.Leqembi brought in about $19 million in sales for the quarter, up from the $10 million the drug generated last year. That blows past the $11 million analysts had expected, according to estimates compiled by FactSet. The number of patients on the therapy increased nearly 2.5 times since the end of 2023, according to Biogen. The company added that the number of new patients who started Leqembi jumped in March, making up more than 20% of the cumulative patients now on the treatment. Biogen did not provide a specific number of patients using Leqembi. But in February, Biogen CEO Chris Viehbacher told reporters that there were around 2,000 patients currently on Leqembi. Biogen and Eisai had previously aimed to treat 10,000 patients by March, but indicated in February that it would not meet the target.Biogen is seeing an ""awful lot of momentum"" in the Leqembi rollout and expects quarter-over-quarter growth in the number of patients, but that increase may not be linear, Viehbacher said during an earnings call Wednesday. He noted that Biogen plans to expand its U.S. marketing force by 30% to support Leqembi's launch.Bottlenecks related to Leqembi's requirements, such as twice-monthly infusions and regular brain scans, have slowed the uptake of the drug, he added.The company hopes the drug and other newly launched products will drive growth as it cuts costs and sees sales plummet for its multiple sclerosis therapies, some of which face generic competition.Shares of Biogen rose 6% on Wednesday following the results.Here's what Biogen reported for the first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG: The biotech company booked sales of $2.29 billion for the quarter, down 7% from the same period a year ago. It reported net income of $393.4 million, or $2.70 per share, for the first quarter, up from net income of $387.9 million, or $2.67 per share, for the same period a year ago. Adjusting for one-time items, the company reported earnings of $3.67 per share.Biogen reiterated its full-year 2024 adjusted earnings forecast of $15 to $16 per share. Analysts surveyed by LSEG had expected full-year earnings guidance of $15.49 per share. The company also reiterated its 2024 sales guidance of a low- to mid-single-digit percentage decline compared with last year.Apart from Leqembi, investors also have their eyes on other newly launched drugs. That includes Skyclarys, brought in by Biogen's acquisition of Reata Pharmaceuticals in July. That drug notched $78 million in first-quarter revenue.Analysts had expected sales of $68.8 million, according to FactSet estimates. The Food and Drug Administration cleared Skyclarys last year, making it the first approved treatment for Friedreich's ataxia, a rare inherited degenerative disease that can impair walking and coordination in children as young as 5. In February, European Union regulators approved Skyclarys for the treatment of Friedreich's ataxia in patients ages 16 and up. More than 1,100 patients in the U.S. and 300 in the EU are now taking Skyclarys, Biogen executives said during the earnings call on Wednesday.Biogen has also partnered with Sage Therapeutics on the first pill for postpartum depression, which won FDA approval in August. But the agency declined to clear the drug for major depressive disorder, which is a far larger market. Biogen said that pill, called Zurzuvae, generated first-quarter sales of $12 million. Analysts had expected just $5 million in sales of that drug, FactSet said.Meanwhile, Biogen's first-quarter revenue from multiple sclerosis products fell 4% to $1.08 billion as some of its therapies face competition from cheaper generics. The company's once-blockbuster drug Tecfidera, which is facing competition from a generic rival, posted revenue of $254.3 million in the first quarter, down from $274.5 million from the same period a year ago. Still, that came in higher than analysts' estimate of $227.7 million, according to FactSet. Vumerity, an oral medication for relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis, generated $127.5 million in sales. That came in below analysts' estimates of $137.9 million, FactSet estimates said. Biogen's rare disease drugs recorded $423.9 million in sales, down from the $443.3 million in the same period a year ago. Spinraza, a medication used to treat a rare neuromuscular disorder called spinal muscular atrophy, recorded $341.3 million in sales. That came under analysts' estimate of $415.1 million in revenue, according to FactSet. Biogen said the timing of Spinraza shipments and increased competition affected first-quarter revenue comparisons outside of the U.S.The company's biosimilar drugs booked $196.9 million in sales, up slightly from the $192.4 million reported during the year-earlier period. Analysts had expected sales of $192.5 million from those medicines.Correction: Skyclarys had $78 million in first-quarter revenue. An earlier version misstated the quarter.",CNBC,24/04/2024,"[""In this articleBiogen on Wednesday reported first-quarter profit that topped estimates as the company's cost-cutting efforts took hold and sales of its closely watched Alzheimer's drug, Leqembi, came in higher than expected."", ""Biogen and Eisai's Leqembi became the first drug found to slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease to win approval in the U.S. in July."", ""The treatment's launch has been sluggish, but uptake appeared to accelerate towards the end of the first quarter."", 'Leqembi brought in about $19 million in sales for the quarter, up from the $10 million the drug generated last year.', 'That blows past the $11 million analysts had expected, according to estimates compiled by FactSet.', 'The number of patients on the therapy increased nearly 2.5 times since the end of 2023, according to Biogen.', 'The company added that the number of new patients who started Leqembi jumped in March, making up more than 20% of the cumulative patients now on the treatment.', 'Biogen did not provide a specific number of patients using Leqembi.', 'But in February, Biogen CEO Chris Viehbacher told reporters that there were around 2,000 patients currently on Leqembi.', 'Biogen and Eisai had previously aimed to treat 10,000 patients by March, but indicated in February that it would not meet the target.', 'Biogen is seeing an ""awful lot of momentum"" in the Leqembi rollout and expects quarter-over-quarter growth in the number of patients, but that increase may not be linear, Viehbacher said during an earnings call Wednesday.', ""He noted that Biogen plans to expand its U.S. marketing force by 30% to support Leqembi's launch."", ""Bottlenecks related to Leqembi's requirements, such as twice-monthly infusions and regular brain scans, have slowed the uptake of the drug, he added."", 'The company hopes the drug and other newly launched products will drive growth as it cuts costs and sees sales plummet for its multiple sclerosis therapies, some of which face generic competition.', 'Shares of Biogen rose 6% on Wednesday following the results.', ""Here's what Biogen reported for the first quarter compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:The biotech company booked sales of $2.29 billion for the quarter, down 7% from the same period a year ago."", 'It reported net income of $393.4 million, or $2.70 per share, for the first quarter, up from net income of $387.9 million, or $2.67 per share, for the same period a year ago.', 'Adjusting for one-time items, the company reported earnings of $3.67 per share.', 'Biogen reiterated its full-year 2024 adjusted earnings forecast of $15 to $16 per share.', 'Analysts surveyed by LSEG had expected full-year earnings guidance of $15.49 per share.', 'The company also reiterated its 2024 sales guidance of a low- to mid-single-digit percentage decline compared with last year.', 'Apart from Leqembi, investors also have their eyes on other newly launched drugs.', ""That includes Skyclarys, brought in by Biogen's acquisition of Reata Pharmaceuticals in July."", 'That drug notched $78 million in first-quarter revenue.', 'Analysts had expected sales of $68.8 million, according to FactSet estimates.', ""The Food and Drug Administration cleared Skyclarys last year, making it the first approved treatment for Friedreich's ataxia, a rare inherited degenerative disease that can impair walking and coordination in children as young as 5."", ""In February, European Union regulators approved Skyclarys for the treatment of Friedreich's ataxia in patients ages 16 and up."", 'More than 1,100 patients in the U.S. and 300 in the EU are now taking Skyclarys, Biogen executives said during the earnings call on Wednesday.', 'Biogen has also partnered with Sage Therapeutics on the first pill for postpartum depression, which won FDA approval in August.', 'But the agency declined to clear the drug for major depressive disorder, which is a far larger market.', 'Biogen said that pill, called Zurzuvae, generated first-quarter sales of $12 million.', 'Analysts had expected just $5 million in sales of that drug, FactSet said.', ""Meanwhile, Biogen's first-quarter revenue from multiple sclerosis products fell 4% to $1.08 billion as some of its therapies face competition from cheaper generics."", ""The company's once-blockbuster drug Tecfidera, which is facing competition from a generic rival, posted revenue of $254.3 million in the first quarter, down from $274.5 million from the same period a year ago."", ""Still, that came in higher than analysts' estimate of $227.7 million, according to FactSet."", 'Vumerity, an oral medication for relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis, generated $127.5 million in sales.', ""That came in below analysts' estimates of $137.9 million, FactSet estimates said."", ""Biogen's rare disease drugs recorded $423.9 million in sales, down from the $443.3 million in the same period a year ago."", 'Spinraza, a medication used to treat a rare neuromuscular disorder called spinal muscular atrophy, recorded $341.3 million in sales.', ""That came under analysts' estimate of $415.1 million in revenue, according to FactSet."", ""Biogen said the timing of Spinraza shipments and increased competition affected first-quarter revenue comparisons outside of the U.S.The company's biosimilar drugs booked $196.9 million in sales, up slightly from the $192.4 million reported during the year-earlier period."", 'Analysts had expected sales of $192.5 million from those medicines.', 'Correction: Skyclarys had $78 million in first-quarter revenue.', 'An earlier version misstated the quarter.']",0.1486621680354227,Biogen and Eisai's Leqembi became the first drug found to slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease to win approval in the U.S. in July.,"But the agency declined to clear the drug for major depressive disorder, which is a far larger market.",0.3975433243645562,"Leqembi brought in about $19 million in sales for the quarter, up from the $10 million the drug generated last year.","Biogen's rare disease drugs recorded $423.9 million in sales, down from the $443.3 million in the same period a year ago.",2024-04-28
"American Airlines swings to a loss, but tops estimates for Q2 forecast",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/american-airlines-aal-1q-2024-earnings.html,2024-04-25T14:31:32+0000,"In this articleAmerican Airlines swung to a loss in the first quarter, but its forecast for the current period surpassed analysts' estimates.American expects to earn between $1.15 and $1.45 per share in the second quarter, on an adjusted basis, largely above the $1.18 that analysts compiled by LSEG estimated on average. American reiterated its forecast to earn between $2.25 and $3.25 per share for the full year.""While we aren't satisfied with our first-quarter financial results, we have a strong foundation in place, and we remain on track to deliver on our full-year financial targets,"" CEO Robert Isom said in an earnings release.American said it expects second-quarter capacity to be up 7% to 9%, and unit revenues to fall 1% to 3% from last year.Similar to Southwest, United and Alaska, American is affected by Boeing's latest quality control and safety crises. American will receive seven fewer aircraft from Boeing than it previously projected, Isom said, adding that he did not expect a material impact from the delays.""My message is Boeing hasn't changed since the last time we talked,"" Isom told CNBC in an interview. ""Get your act together. Deliver.""Here is how American performed in the first quarter compared with Wall Street estimates compiled by LSEG:American posted a loss of $312 million, or 48 cents per share, in the first quarter, compared with a profit of $10 million, or 2 cents per share, during the same period a year earlier. Adjusting for one-time items, including costs associated with new labor contracts, American lost $226 million, or 34 cents per share.Operating expenses rose nearly 7%, including an 18% rise in salaries and related costs.Revenue rose 3.1% to $12.57 billion.— CNBC's Phil LeBeau contributed to this report.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"[""In this articleAmerican Airlines swung to a loss in the first quarter, but its forecast for the current period surpassed analysts' estimates."", 'American expects to earn between $1.15 and $1.45 per share in the second quarter, on an adjusted basis, largely above the $1.18 that analysts compiled by LSEG estimated on average.', 'American reiterated its forecast to earn between $2.25 and $3.25 per share for the full year.', '""While we aren\'t satisfied with our first-quarter financial results, we have a strong foundation in place, and we remain on track to deliver on our full-year financial targets,"" CEO Robert Isom said in an earnings release.', 'American said it expects second-quarter capacity to be up 7% to 9%, and unit revenues to fall 1% to 3% from last year.', ""Similar to Southwest, United and Alaska, American is affected by Boeing's latest quality control and safety crises."", 'American will receive seven fewer aircraft from Boeing than it previously projected, Isom said, adding that he did not expect a material impact from the delays.', '""My message is Boeing hasn\'t changed since the last time we talked,"" Isom told CNBC in an interview. ""', 'Get your act together.', 'Deliver.', '""Here is how American performedin the first quartercompared with Wall Street estimates compiled by LSEG:American posted a loss of $312 million, or 48 cents per share, in the first quarter, compared with a profit of $10 million, or 2 cents per share, during the same period a year earlier.', 'Adjusting for one-time items, including costs associated with new labor contracts, American lost $226 million, or 34 cents per share.', 'Operating expenses rose nearly 7%, including an 18% rise in salaries and related costs.', 'Revenue rose 3.1% to $12.57 billion.—', ""CNBC's Phil LeBeau contributed to this report.""]",0.1568187498239613,"""While we aren't satisfied with our first-quarter financial results, we have a strong foundation in place, and we remain on track to deliver on our full-year financial targets,"" CEO Robert Isom said in an earnings release.","In this articleAmerican Airlines swung to a loss in the first quarter, but its forecast for the current period surpassed analysts' estimates.",0.3057788718830455,Revenue rose 3.1% to $12.57 billion.—,"Adjusting for one-time items, including costs associated with new labor contracts, American lost $226 million, or 34 cents per share.",2024-04-28
"Boeing reports better-than-feared quarter, says supply chain is stabilizing amid 737 Max crisis",https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/24/boeing-ba-earnings-q1-2024.html,2024-04-24T19:00:54+0000,"In this articleBoeing on Wednesday reported a better-than-expected quarter but continued to burn cash as it tries to stabilize production following a near-catastrophic door blowout on a 737 Max earlier this year.Boeing burned through $3.9 billion in the first quarter, beating a previous company forecast and Wall Street analysts' expectations for a cash burn of as much as $4.5 billion for the three-month period.""Near term, yes, we are in a tough moment,"" CEO Dave Calhoun, who announced in March that he would step down by year-end, said in a note to employees Wednesday. ""Lower deliveries can be difficult for our customers and for our financials. But safety and quality must and will come above all else. We are absolutely committed to doing everything we can to make certain our regulators, customers, employees, and the flying public are 100 percent confident in Boeing.""Boeing has been hamstrung in ramping up production, especially of its bestselling 737 Max planes, and instead has lowered output. After the door plug blew out on the Alaska Airlines Max 9 on Jan. 5, the Federal Aviation Administration has barred Boeing from increasing production. The FAA also said it found numerous issues of noncompliance along Boeing's supply chain and on Feb. 28, gave Boeing 90 days to come up with a quality control improvement plan.Calhoun reiterated Wednesday that the company's 737 Max production has dropped below 38 Max jets per month and the company said the rate would stay there for at least through the first half of the year. Deliveries have slowed sharply this quarter. Boeing earlier this week told staff that it expects slower production increases and deliveries of its 787 Dreamliners because of parts shortages.Boeing's all-important commercial airplane unit revenue dropped 31% to $4.65 billion in the quarter compared with last year, with negative margins widening to 24.6% from 9.2%, including the impact of $443 million in compensation to Boeing customers because of the Jan. 5 accident and temporary grounding of the planes.The company will have a ""sizable use of cash"" in the second quarter too, said CFO Brian West on an earnings call Wednesday.Ratings agency Moody's on Wednesday downgraded Boeing, citing its cash shortfall and said Boeing will have to issue more debt to pay more than $4 billion due in 2025.""We are using this period, as difficult as it is, to deliberately slow the system, stabilize the supply chain, fortify our factory operations and position Boeing to deliver with the predictability and quality our customers demand for the long term,"" Calhoun said. ""As these efforts begin to take hold, we're seeing early signs of more predictable, stable and efficient cycle times in our 737 factory, and expect this will continue to slowly improve.""Boeing lost $355 million in the first quarter, or 56 cents a share, down from a $425 million, or 69 cent per-share, loss a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, including pension costs, The company lost $388 million, or $1.13 a share.Revenue fell 8% to $16.57 million, slightly ahead of analysts' estimates.Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street analysts surveyed by LSEG were expecting:Calhoun on Wednesday stood by the company's goal of $10 billion in annual free cash flow in the 2025-2026 period, but said hitting that target would likely be delayed by about six months.""I believe it, I just do,"" Calhoun said of the $10 billion goal.Boeing has been scrambling to reduce what is known as ""traveled work,"" when manufacturing steps occur out of order because of defects. Calhoun told CNBC in an interview Wednesday that the company's fuselage maker Spirit AeroSystems will ""only ship a conforming fuselage.""Boeing has been in talks to buy back Spirit, which it spun off almost 20 years ago. The Wichita, Kansas-based company also supplies Airbus, and conversations around how to address non-Boeing customers are key to an acquisition deal.Calhoun said it is ""more than likely"" that the companies reach a deal during the second quarter.""Spirit, in working with its other customers, is taking actions to ensure that all of those relationships are what they need to be,"" he told CNBC. ""We're going to be patient and let them get their job done with their respective customers and we'll get a deal done.""— CNBC's Phil Lebeau contributed to this report.",CNBC,24/04/2024,"['In this articleBoeing on Wednesday reported a better-than-expected quarter but continued to burn cash as it tries to stabilize production following a near-catastrophic door blowout on a 737 Max earlier this year.', ""Boeing burned through $3.9 billion in the first quarter, beating a previous company forecast and Wall Street analysts' expectations for a cash burn of as much as $4.5 billion for the three-month period."", '""Near term, yes, we are in a tough moment,"" CEO Dave Calhoun, who announced in March that he would step down by year-end, said in a note to employees Wednesday. ""', 'Lower deliveries can be difficult for our customers and for our financials.', 'But safety and quality must and will come above all else.', 'We are absolutely committed to doing everything we can to make certain our regulators, customers, employees, and the flying public are 100 percent confident in Boeing.', '""Boeing has been hamstrung in ramping up production, especially of its bestselling 737 Max planes, and instead has lowered output.', 'After the door plug blew out on the Alaska Airlines Max 9 on Jan. 5, the Federal Aviation Administration has barred Boeing from increasing production.', ""The FAA also said it found numerous issues of noncompliance along Boeing's supply chain and on Feb. 28, gave Boeing 90 days to come up with a quality control improvement plan."", ""Calhoun reiterated Wednesday that the company's 737 Max production has dropped below 38 Max jets per month and the companysaid the rate would stay there for at least through the first half of the year."", 'Deliveries have slowed sharply this quarter.', 'Boeing earlier this week told staff that it expects slower production increases and deliveries of its 787 Dreamliners because of parts shortages.', ""Boeing's all-important commercial airplane unit revenue dropped 31% to $4.65 billion in the quarter compared with last year, with negative margins widening to 24.6% from 9.2%, including the impact of $443 million in compensation to Boeing customers because of the Jan. 5 accident and temporary grounding of the planes."", 'The company will have a ""sizable use of cash"" in the second quarter too, said CFO Brian West on an earnings call Wednesday.', 'Ratings agency Moody\'s on Wednesday downgraded Boeing, citing its cash shortfall and said Boeing will have to issue more debt to pay more than $4 billion due in 2025.""We are using this period, as difficult as it is, to deliberately slow the system, stabilize the supply chain, fortify our factory operations and position Boeing to deliver with the predictability and quality our customers demand for the long term,"" Calhoun said. ""', ""As these efforts begin to take hold, we're seeing early signs of more predictable, stable and efficient cycle times in our 737 factory, and expect this will continue to slowly improve."", '""Boeing lost $355 million in the first quarter, or 56 cents a share, down from a $425 million, or 69 cent per-share, loss a year earlier.', 'Excluding one-time items, including pension costs, The company lost $388 million, or $1.13 a share.', ""Revenue fell 8% to $16.57 million, slightly ahead of analysts' estimates."", ""Here's what the company reported compared with what Wall Street analysts surveyed by LSEG were expecting:Calhoun on Wednesday stood by the company's goal of $10 billion in annual free cash flow in the 2025-2026 period, but said hitting that target would likely be delayed by about six months."", '""I believe it, I just do,"" Calhoun said of the $10 billion goal.', 'Boeing has been scrambling to reduce what is known as ""traveled work,"" when manufacturing steps occur out of order because of defects.', 'Calhoun told CNBC in an interview Wednesday that the company\'s fuselage maker Spirit AeroSystems will ""only ship a conforming fuselage.', '""Boeing has been in talks to buy back Spirit, which it spun off almost 20 years ago.', 'The Wichita, Kansas-based company also supplies Airbus, and conversations around how to address non-Boeing customers are key to an acquisition deal.', 'Calhoun said it is ""more than likely"" that the companies reach a deal during the second quarter.', '""Spirit, in working with its other customers, is taking actions to ensure that all of those relationships are what they need to be,"" he told CNBC. ""', 'We\'re going to be patient and let them get their job done with their respective customers and we\'ll get a deal done.""—', ""CNBC's Phil Lebeau contributed to this report.""]",0.0101127055458851,"As these efforts begin to take hold, we're seeing early signs of more predictable, stable and efficient cycle times in our 737 factory, and expect this will continue to slowly improve.","Ratings agency Moody's on Wednesday downgraded Boeing, citing its cash shortfall and said Boeing will have to issue more debt to pay more than $4 billion due in 2025.""We are using this period, as difficult as it is, to deliberately slow the system, stabilize the supply chain, fortify our factory operations and position Boeing to deliver with the predictability and quality our customers demand for the long term,"" Calhoun said. """,-0.3083933472633361,"As these efforts begin to take hold, we're seeing early signs of more predictable, stable and efficient cycle times in our 737 factory, and expect this will continue to slowly improve.","Boeing's all-important commercial airplane unit revenue dropped 31% to $4.65 billion in the quarter compared with last year, with negative margins widening to 24.6% from 9.2%, including the impact of $443 million in compensation to Boeing customers because of the Jan. 5 accident and temporary grounding of the planes.",2024-04-28
What the pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses actually want,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/26/investing/what-pro-palestinian-protesters-want/index.html,"
  Updated
        11:24 AM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","College campuses across America have been shaken by unrest that has resulted in clashes with police, shut down some classrooms and captured the attention of the nation.
    
            Although much of the initial focus has been on antisemitic incidents and how university officials and police are responding to the demonstrations, all of this raises a fundamental question: What do the pro-Palestinian protesters actually want?
    
            The specific demands of the protesters vary somewhat from school to school yet the central demand is that universities divest from companies linked to Israel or businesses that are profiting off its war with Hamas. Universities have largely refused to budge on this demand, and experts say divestment may not have a significant impact on the companies themselves.
    
            Other common threads include demanding universities disclose their investments, sever academic ties with Israeli universities and support a ceasefire in Gaza.
    
            “We asked that Columbia University pull all investments away from companies that profit off of the genocide of Palestinians or Israeli companies that profit off of the oppression of Palestinians,” Althea, a student protester at Columbia, told CNN. Althea asked for her last name not to be used for privacy reasons.
    
            Protest movements at some universities are also calling for school officials to protect free speech and spare students from being punished for participating in the protests.
    
            At the University of Southern California, where dozens were arrested on Wednesday, protesters are demanding “full amnesty” for those brought into custody and that there be “no policing on campus.”
    
            At Princeton University, protesters are demanding, among other things, that the Ivy League school end research on weapons of war “used to enable genocide,” according to a flyer at a campus demonstration on Thursday.
    
            Some demands are local.
    
            At Columbia University, where the pro-Palestinian protest movement started last week, protesters are demanding support for low-income Harlem residents, including housing and reparations, according to Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the student group responsible for organizing the encampment.
    
            The Columbia protesters are also calling for the university to “disclose and sever all ties” with the New York Police Department.
    
            Students are also calling for an academic boycott from Israeli universities. For example, Columbia protesters want the university to sever ties with the school’s center in Tel Aviv and a dual degree program with Tel Aviv University. New York University protesters use the school’s Tel Aviv center as a rallying cry as well.
    
            Still, divestment is at the top of the list of demands from protesters and the one they mention most often.
    
            As Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson addressed students at Columbia on Wednesday, students chanted: “Disclose, divest, we will not stop we will not rest.”
    
            Like many major universities, Columbia has a massive endowment. It was valued at $13.6 billion, as of mid-2023.
    
            And there is a history of student activists targeting endowments during demonstrations. In the 1980s, students successfully persuaded Columbia to divest from apartheid South Africa.
    
            More recently, Columbia and other universities have divested from fossil fuels and private prisons.
    
            Charlie Eaton, assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Merced and author of “Bankers in the Ivory Tower,” said Columbia can “absolutely” make the choice to divest from Israel-linked investments.
    
            “It’s not unreasonable practice for schools to make decisions about how they invest based not just on maximizing investment returns, but also around principles of equity and justice in what they invest in,” he said.
    
            But Mark Yudof, chairman of the Academic Engagement Network, which opposes campus antisemitism, said it’s not a simple solution to implement.
    
            “The truth is it’s sometimes murky to figure out who is doing business in Israel and what the relationship is to the war,” Yudof said.
    
            Yudof, the former president of the University of California, said he’s not aware of a single university that has divested from Israel despite years of pressure to do so.
    
            “I don’t think it will happen,” he said.
    
            However, none of the universities have announced plans to divest from Israel-linked investments and some experts say they will be very reluctant to accept this demand.
    
            “A significant obstacle to divestment is that any university supporting divestment would be sending a clear signal that they either: (a) acquiesce in; or (b) support the destruction of the State of Israel and its citizens,” said Jonathan Macey, a professor at Yale Law School.
    
            Macey said that while such a move may be supported by protesters, it would be “viewed as hostile and threatening to many students, faculty and staff.”
    
            Lauren Post, an analyst at the Anti-Defamation League, said the push for divestment is related to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
    
            Although Post acknowledged that some individuals may be pushing for divestment as a way to hold Israel accountable, she said the ADL views the goals of BDS as antisemitic.
    
            “The goal – ultimately dismantling the state of Israel, is antisemitic,” said Post.
    
            Yudof, the former University of California president, said he also feels it is antisemitic.
    
            “It smacks of a double standard. Why is it only Israel?” He criticized protesting college students for focusing on Israel instead of undemocratic regimes around the world, including Iran and Russia.
    
            It’s worth noting, however, that the student protests don’t directly say they are affiliated with BDS.
    
            “We are not going anywhere until our demands are met,” Khymani James, a student at Columbia University, said during a news briefing Wednesday.
    
            James, a student activist associated with the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) coalition, has since apologized for saying on video that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.”
    
            James acknowledged the statement in a post on X, saying it was from an Instagram Live video in January. “I misspoke in the heat of the moment, for which I apologize.”
    
            The apology came early Friday morning, hours after an interview with CNN at Columbia where James repeatedly declined to apologize for the video, saying that the focus should be on Palestinian liberation.
    
            There is also a debate over how effective divestment campaigns are.
    
            One issue is that selling stock in a company means the university would give up its influence over the company.
    
            “Be careful what you ask for. If you sell your stock, someone else will buy it and they may be less concerned about the issue you care about,” said Cary Krosinsky, a lecturer at Yale who has advised university endowments.
    
            Another issue is that while university endowments are large, public companies are much bigger. If a university divests, many companies would not even notice it.
    
            University endowments own approximately 0.1% of public companies, according to research by Krosinsky.
    
            “0.1% is not going to move the needle very much. Someone else will buy the stock and life will go on,” he said.
    
            Most university funds are invested with private equity funds and hedge funds, rather than broad-ranging mutual or index funds.
    
            Of course, the divestment push is about more than directly punishing companies. It’s about a desire to send a message and raise awareness.
    
            More than wanting to take down defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, protesters would view divestment as a symbolic victory for justice and equality.
    
            Students are “complicit in what this institution does,” graduate student Basil Rodriguez said to CNN Wednesday, noting that students pay tuition.
    
            Rodriguez is Palestinian herself, and said her family members have been “murdered and executed” and displaced.
    
            Student protesters say the demands to disclose and to divest are interconnected.
    
            Protesters argue that many of the financial interests of universities are opaque and the links to Israel may be even greater than officials realize.
    
            “At the same time, this is only the tip of the iceberg,” Rodriguez said. “We demand full financial transparency.”
    
            CNN’s John Towfighi contributed to this report.",CNN,26/04/2024,"['College campuses across America have been shaken by unrest that has resulted in clashes with police, shut down some classrooms and captured the attention of the nation.', 'Although much of the initial focus has been on antisemitic incidents and how university officials and police are responding to the demonstrations, all of this raises a fundamental question: What do the pro-Palestinian protesters actually want?', 'The specific demands of the protesters vary somewhat from school to school yet the central demand is that universities divest from companies linked to Israel or businesses that are profiting off its war with Hamas.', 'Universities have largely refused to budge on this demand, and experts say divestment may not have a significant impact on the companies themselves.', 'Other common threads include demanding universities disclose their investments, sever academic ties with Israeli universities and support a ceasefire in Gaza.', '“We asked that Columbia University pull all investments away from companies that profit off of the genocide of Palestinians or Israeli companies that profit off of the oppression of Palestinians,” Althea, a student protester at Columbia, told CNN.', 'Althea asked for her last name not to be used for privacy reasons.', 'Protest movements at some universities are also calling for school officials to protect free speech and spare students from being punished for participating in the protests.', 'At the University of Southern California, where dozens were arrested on Wednesday, protesters are demanding “full amnesty” for those brought into custody and that there be “no policing on campus.”', 'At Princeton University, protesters are demanding, among other things, that the Ivy League school end research on weapons of war “used to enable genocide,” according to a flyer at a campus demonstration on Thursday.', 'Some demands are local.', 'At Columbia University, where the pro-Palestinian protest movement started last week, protesters are demanding support for low-income Harlem residents, including housing and reparations, according to Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the student group responsible for organizing the encampment.', 'The Columbia protesters are also calling for the university to “disclose and sever all ties” with the New York Police Department.', 'Students are also calling for an academic boycott from Israeli universities.', 'For example, Columbia protesters want the university to sever ties with the school’s center in Tel Aviv and a dual degree program with Tel Aviv University.', 'New York University protesters use the school’s Tel Aviv center as a rallying cry as well.', 'Still, divestment is at the top of the list of demands from protesters and the one they mention most often.', 'As Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson addressed students at Columbia on Wednesday, students chanted: “Disclose, divest, we will not stop we will not rest.”', 'Like many major universities, Columbia has a massive endowment.', 'It was valued at $13.6 billion, as of mid-2023.', 'And there is a history of student activists targeting endowments during demonstrations.', 'In the 1980s, students successfully persuaded Columbia to divest from apartheid South Africa.', 'More recently, Columbia and other universities have divested from fossil fuels and private prisons.', 'Charlie Eaton, assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Merced and author of “Bankers in the Ivory Tower,” said Columbia can “absolutely” make the choice to divest from Israel-linked investments.', '“It’s not unreasonable practice for schools to make decisions about how they invest based not just on maximizing investment returns, but also around principles of equity and justice in what they invest in,” he said.', 'But Mark Yudof, chairman of the Academic Engagement Network, which opposes campus antisemitism, said it’s not a simple solution to implement.', '“The truth is it’s sometimes murky to figure out who is doing business in Israel and what the relationship is to the war,” Yudof said.', 'Yudof, the former president of the University of California, said he’s not aware of a single university that has divested from Israel despite years of pressure to do so.', '“I don’t think it will happen,” he said.', 'However, none of the universities have announced plans to divest from Israel-linked investments and some experts say they will be very reluctant to accept this demand.', '“A significant obstacle to divestment is that any university supporting divestment would be sending a clear signal that they either: (a) acquiesce in; or (b) support the destruction of the State of Israel and its citizens,” said Jonathan Macey, a professor at Yale Law School.', 'Macey said that while such a move may be supported by protesters, it would be “viewed as hostile and threatening to many students, faculty and staff.”', 'Lauren Post, an analyst at the Anti-Defamation League, said the push for divestment is related to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.', 'Although Post acknowledged that some individuals may be pushing for divestment as a way to hold Israel accountable, she said the ADL views the goals of BDS as antisemitic.', '“The goal – ultimately dismantling the state of Israel, is antisemitic,” said Post.', 'Yudof, the former University of California president, said he also feels it is antisemitic.', '“It smacks of a double standard.', 'Why is it only Israel?”', 'He criticized protesting college students for focusing on Israel instead of undemocratic regimes around the world, including Iran and Russia.', 'It’s worth noting, however, that the student protests don’t directly say they are affiliated with BDS.', '“We are not going anywhere until our demands are met,” Khymani James, a student at Columbia University, said during a news briefing Wednesday.', 'James, a student activist associated with the Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) coalition, has since apologized for saying on video that “Zionists don’t deserve to live.”', 'James acknowledged the statement ina post on X, saying it was from an Instagram Live video in January. “', 'I misspoke in the heat of the moment, for which I apologize.”', 'The apology came early Friday morning, hours after an interview with CNN at Columbia where James repeatedly declined to apologize for the video, saying that the focus should be on Palestinian liberation.', 'There is also a debate over how effective divestment campaigns are.', 'One issue is that selling stock in a company means the university would give up its influence over the company.', '“Be careful what you ask for.', 'If you sell your stock, someone else will buy it and they may be less concerned about the issue you care about,” said Cary Krosinsky, a lecturer at Yale who has advised university endowments.', 'Another issue is that while university endowments are large, public companies are much bigger.', 'If a university divests, many companies would not even notice it.', 'University endowments own approximately 0.1% of public companies, according to research by Krosinsky.', '“0.1% is not going to move the needle very much.', 'Someone else will buy the stock and life will go on,” he said.', 'Most university funds are invested with private equity funds and hedge funds, rather than broad-ranging mutual or index funds.', 'Of course, the divestment push is about more than directly punishing companies.', 'It’s about a desire to send a message and raise awareness.', 'More than wanting to take down defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, protesters would view divestment as a symbolic victory for justice and equality.', 'Students are“complicit in what this institution does,” graduate student Basil Rodriguez said to CNN Wednesday, noting that students pay tuition.', 'Rodriguez is Palestinian herself, and said her family members have been “murdered and executed” and displaced.', 'Student protesters say the demands to disclose and to divest are interconnected.', 'Protesters argue that many of the financial interests of universities are opaque and the links to Israel may be even greater than officials realize.', '“At the same time, this is only the tip of the iceberg,” Rodriguez said. “', 'We demand full financial transparency.”', 'CNN’s John Towfighi contributed to this report.']",-0.0210135387028766,"“We asked that Columbia University pull all investments away from companies that profit off of the genocide of Palestinians or Israeli companies that profit off of the oppression of Palestinians,” Althea, a student protester at Columbia, told CNN.","At Princeton University, protesters are demanding, among other things, that the Ivy League school end research on weapons of war “used to enable genocide,” according to a flyer at a campus demonstration on Thursday.",-0.5928670540452003,"More than wanting to take down defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, protesters would view divestment as a symbolic victory for justice and equality.","Universities have largely refused to budge on this demand, and experts say divestment may not have a significant impact on the companies themselves.",2024-04-28
Honda to build $11 billion electric vehicle hub in Canada,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/honda-to-build-11-billion-electric-vehicle-hub-in-canada.html,2024-04-25T15:57:06+0000,"In this articleDEROIT — Honda Motor and yet-to-be-named joint venture partners plan to invest $11 billion in Ontario, Canada, to create a ""comprehensive EV value chain,"" the Japanese automaker announced Thursday.The company said the new North American electric vehicle epicenter will include new assembly and battery plants as well as other facilities to support production of all-electric and fuel cell-powered vehicles.Honda said vehicle production will begin in 2028, with annual vehicle capacity of 240,000 units once it is fully operational. The investment in Alliston, Ontario, is expected to greatly assist in Honda's goal of exclusively offering all-electric and fuel cell-powered vehicles by 2040.The timing of the investment may seem odd to industry onlookers and investors, as many automakers have announced pullbacks in their all-electric vehicle plans amid slower-than-expected adoption of EVs.Honda said the investment is ""for a future increase in EV demand in North America,"" with the battery plant capable of producing 36 gigawatt hours, or GWh, per year.The project is expected to create as least 1,000 new jobs, adding to the 4,200 employees the company currently has at its two existing manufacturing facilities in Ontario.Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau said during a livestreamed press conference on Thursday that Honda's investment, 15 billion Canadian dollars, is the largest ever for the country's automotive industry. The company is expected to receive upward of CA$2.5 billion in assistance in tax credits and other incentives from the Canadian government, officials said.The investment is a major win for Canada and comes after Honda last year confirmed a $4.4 billion investment for a new U.S. battery plant in Ohio.""In North America, following the initiative to establish our EV production system capability in the U.S., we will now begin formal discussions toward the establishment of a comprehensive EV value chain here in Canada, with the support of the governments of Canada and Ontario,"" Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said in a release. ""We will strengthen our EV supply system and capability with an eye toward a future increase in EV demand in North America.""Honda said it has ""begun the process of evaluating the scope of its investment and completing negotiations with its joint venture partners."" Its partner in the U.S. facility is LG Energy Solution.The company said it expects to finalize the plans over the next six months.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"['In this articleDEROIT — Honda Motor and yet-to-be-named joint venture partners plan to invest $11 billion in Ontario, Canada, to create a ""comprehensive EV value chain,"" the Japanese automaker announced Thursday.', 'The company said the new North American electric vehicle epicenter will include new assembly and battery plants as well as other facilities to support production of all-electric and fuel cell-powered vehicles.', 'Honda said vehicle production will begin in 2028, with annual vehicle capacity of 240,000 units once it is fully operational.', ""The investment in Alliston, Ontario, is expected to greatly assist in Honda's goal of exclusively offering all-electric and fuel cell-powered vehicles by 2040.The timing of the investment may seem odd to industry onlookers and investors, as many automakers have announced pullbacks in their all-electric vehicle plans amid slower-than-expected adoption of EVs."", 'Honda said the investment is ""for a future increase in EV demand in North America,"" with the battery plant capable of producing 36 gigawatt hours, or GWh, per year.', 'The project is expected to create as least 1,000 new jobs, adding to the 4,200 employees the company currently has at its two existing manufacturing facilities in Ontario.', ""Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau said during a livestreamed press conference on Thursday that Honda's investment, 15 billion Canadian dollars, is the largest ever for the country's automotive industry."", 'The company is expected to receive upward of CA$2.5 billion in assistance in tax credits and other incentives from the Canadian government, officials said.', 'The investment is a major win for Canada and comes after Honda last year confirmed a $4.4 billion investment for a new U.S. battery plant in Ohio.', '""In North America, following the initiative to establish our EV production system capability in the U.S., we will now begin formal discussions toward the establishment of a comprehensive EV value chain here in Canada, with the support of the governments of Canada and Ontario,"" Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said in a release. ""', 'We will strengthen our EV supply system and capability with an eye toward a future increase in EV demand in North America.', '""Honda said it has ""begun the process of evaluating the scope of its investment and completing negotiations with its joint venture partners.""', 'Its partner in the U.S. facility is LG Energy Solution.', 'The company said it expects to finalize the plans over the next six months.']",0.3341687447145106,"""In North America, following the initiative to establish our EV production system capability in the U.S., we will now begin formal discussions toward the establishment of a comprehensive EV value chain here in Canada, with the support of the governments of Canada and Ontario,"" Honda CEO Toshihiro Mibe said in a release. ""","The investment in Alliston, Ontario, is expected to greatly assist in Honda's goal of exclusively offering all-electric and fuel cell-powered vehicles by 2040.The timing of the investment may seem odd to industry onlookers and investors, as many automakers have announced pullbacks in their all-electric vehicle plans amid slower-than-expected adoption of EVs.",0.9815447671072824,We will strengthen our EV supply system and capability with an eye toward a future increase in EV demand in North America.,,2024-04-28
Judge’s stern rebuke of Elon Musk’s X gives researchers fresh hope,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/tech/judges-stern-rebuke-of-elon-musks-x-gives-researchers-fresh-hope/index.html,"
  Published
        1:17 PM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
    ","A federal judge’s decision this week reprimanding Elon Musk’s X will have reverberating effects on efforts to hold influential online platforms accountable, legal experts and advocacy groups say.
    
            On Monday, District Judge Charles Breyer dismissed and excoriated a lawsuit by X against online watchdog group Center for Countering Digital Hate as an attempt to silence the non-profit group for sounding alarms about hate speech on the platform.
    
            Breyer wrote in Monday’s order that the lawsuit was “unabashedly” about “punishing” reports written by CCDH, which X had accused of campaigning to drive away its advertisers. Breyer held that the reports were “unquestionably” protected by the group’s free speech rights.
    
            Now, that decision could embolden other research groups and Musk critics who have faced legal threats from the billionaire.
    
            The CCDH case — in the US District Court for the Northern District of California — has been widely viewed as a bellwether for research and accountability on X, where Musk has restored the accounts of previously banned White supremacists and spreaders of misinformation and where Musk himself has amplified various conspiracy theories.
    
            And CCDH is not the only organization that has faced attacks by self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” Musk after criticizing or raising concerns about his platform.
    
            “This is an important decision that sees Elon Musk’s lawsuit for what it is — an effort to punish his critics for constitutionally protected speech and to deter researchers from studying his platform,” said Alex Abdo, litigation director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case arguing that private companies should not be allowed to use breach of contract claims to punish criticism.
    
            “Society needs reliable and ethical research into social media platforms, and often that research relies on being able to study publicly available posts,” Abdo said.
    
            X said it plans to appeal Breyer’s decision.
    
            In his first year as owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, Musk threatened legal action against the Anti-Defamation League for defamation, as well as against Microsoft and Meta for allegedly improper data and trade secret access, respectively. None of those threats ever amounted to real lawsuits.
    
            He did, however, sue the progressive media watchdog Media Matters over its analysis highlighting antisemitic and pro-Nazi content on X, alleging that the group’s testing methodology was not representative of how real users experience the site and that the report was designed to drive away advertisers. Legal experts have described that case as “weak” on the merits and as a “bogus” attempt to chill criticism of X.
    
            This week’s court decision may be only a temporary setback in Musk’s wider plan to stifle criticism, said Media Matters CEO Angelo Carusone. Musk’s new playbook, Carusone said, enlists the help of sympathetic Republican attorneys general to investigate independent reporting organizations and tie them up in legal proceedings.
    
            The states of Texas and Missouri each announced probes into Media Matters following X’s lawsuit against the group, to which Musk responded, “Great!”
    
            As recently as Monday, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a petition in state court seeking to compel Media Matters’ cooperation with his investigation. The filing came a week after he appeared with Musk in a live event on X — which Carusone said shows how Musk hopes to deputize the power of government to silence his critics.
    
            “They have every reason to do it,” Carusone said of the AGs’ investigations. “They get the political benefits, they get the attention. There doesn’t seem to be any cost to them yet. And if they are successful at developing this new playbook, this new terrain, legally, then it’s going to pave the way for them to just use this tool and tactic over and over and over again.”
    
            A representative for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Carusone’s claims.
    
            Researchers from non-profits and academic institutions have had a harder time studying X since Musk’s takeover in 2022. Academics need large samples of posts, shares, likes and other data to study social media trends in mis- and disinformation, public health, elections and other key topics. But one of Musk’s first changes at X was to put access to platform data behind a steep paywall.
    
            Researchers and civil society groups said the new subscription fees — costing up to $2.5 million a year — were “outrageously expensive” and made it impossible to do their work, reducing transparency of a critical platform.
    
            The change may have forced some researchers to rely more heavily on first-person observational data to draw conclusions about user behavior on X. Groups like CCDH have also used automated “scraping” of publicly viewable content from X rather than paying the company for data directly, a tactic that helped give rise to X’s initial lawsuit.
    
            Efforts by X and other social media companies to limit research transparency makes them less accountable to the public at best and, at worst, could mask malicious behavior, said David Karpf, an associate professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University.
    
            “We need independent research to have any real measure of what’s going on at X/Twitter. Musk is only ever going to release data that makes his company look good,” Karpf said. “These platforms are too big and too vital to the spread of information to be left unmonitored.”
    
            “This is an election year,” Karpf added, “and the platforms are taking steps to make it harder to monitor how their services are used for malignant ends.”
    
            Free Press, another media accountability organization that has been critical of Musk’s leadership of X and which called for advertisers to pause their spending on the platform shortly after his takeover, also celebrated Breyer’s ruling as potentially removing at least one hurdle that watchdog organizations face.
    
            “The guardrails for democracy are hanging by a thread and we have dwindling insights into platform practices as researchers face lawsuits, congressional subpoenas and other scare tactics,” said Nora Benavidez, senior counsel and director of digital rights at Free Press.
    
            Ultimately, Benavidez called the ruling “a reminder that platform accountability is essential and will inevitably prevail when up against bullies like Musk who try to silence us.”",CNN,26/03/2024,"['A federal judge’s decision this week reprimanding Elon Musk’s X will have reverberating effects on efforts to hold influential online platforms accountable, legal experts and advocacy groups say.', 'On Monday, District Judge Charles Breyer dismissed and excoriated a lawsuit by X against online watchdog group Center for Countering Digital Hate as an attempt to silence the non-profit group for sounding alarms about hate speech on the platform.', 'Breyer wrote in Monday’s order that the lawsuit was “unabashedly” about “punishing” reports written by CCDH, which X had accused of campaigning to drive away its advertisers.', 'Breyer held that the reports were “unquestionably” protected by the group’s free speech rights.', 'Now, that decision could embolden other research groups and Musk critics who have faced legal threats from the billionaire.', 'The CCDH case — in the US District Court for the Northern District of California —has been widely viewed as a bellwether for research and accountability on X, where Musk has restored the accounts of previously banned White supremacists and spreaders of misinformation and where Musk himself has amplified various conspiracy theories.', 'And CCDH is not the only organization that has faced attacks by self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” Musk after criticizing or raising concerns about his platform.', '“This is an important decision that sees Elon Musk’s lawsuit for what it is — an effort to punish his critics for constitutionally protected speech and to deter researchers from studying his platform,” said Alex Abdo, litigation director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case arguing that private companies should not be allowed to use breach of contract claims to punish criticism.', '“Society needs reliable and ethical research into social media platforms, and often that research relies on being able to study publicly available posts,” Abdo said.', 'X said it plans to appeal Breyer’s decision.', 'In his first year as owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, Musk threatened legal action against the Anti-Defamation League for defamation, as well as against Microsoft and Meta for allegedly improper data and trade secret access, respectively.', 'None of those threats ever amounted to real lawsuits.', 'He did, however, sue the progressive media watchdog Media Matters over itsanalysishighlighting antisemitic and pro-Nazi content on X, alleging that the group’s testing methodology was not representative of how real users experience the site and that the report was designed to drive away advertisers.', 'Legal experts have described that case as “weak” on the merits and as a “bogus” attempt to chill criticism of X.  This week’s court decision may be only a temporary setback in Musk’s wider plan to stifle criticism, said Media Matters CEO Angelo Carusone.', 'Musk’s new playbook, Carusone said, enlists the help of sympathetic Republican attorneys general to investigate independent reporting organizations and tie them up in legal proceedings.', 'The states of Texas and Missouri each announced probes into Media Matters following X’s lawsuit against the group, to which Musk responded, “Great!”', 'As recently as Monday, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a petition in state court seeking to compel Media Matters’ cooperation with his investigation.', 'The filing came a week after he appeared with Musk in a live event on X — which Carusone said shows how Musk hopes to deputize the power of government to silence his critics.', '“They have every reason to do it,” Carusone said of the AGs’ investigations. “', 'They get the political benefits, they get the attention.', 'There doesn’t seem to be any cost to them yet.', 'And if they are successful at developing this new playbook, this new terrain, legally, then it’s going to pave the way for them to just use this tool and tactic over and over and over again.”', 'A representative for X did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Carusone’s claims.', 'Researchers from non-profits and academic institutions have had a harder time studying X since Musk’s takeover in 2022.', 'Academics need large samples of posts, shares, likes and other data to study social media trends in mis- and disinformation, public health, elections and other key topics.', 'But one of Musk’s first changes at X was to put access to platform data behind a steep paywall.', 'Researchers and civil society groups said the new subscription fees — costing up to $2.5 million a year —were “outrageously expensive” and made it impossible to do their work, reducing transparency of a critical platform.', 'The change may have forced some researchers to rely more heavily on first-person observational data to draw conclusions about user behavior on X. Groups like CCDH have also used automated “scraping” of publicly viewable content from X rather than paying the company for data directly, a tactic that helped give rise to X’s initial lawsuit.', 'Efforts by X and other social media companies to limit research transparency makes them less accountable to the public at best and, at worst, could mask malicious behavior, said David Karpf, an associate professor in the School of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University.', '“We need independent research to have any real measure of what’s going on at X/Twitter.', 'Musk is only ever going to release data that makes his company look good,” Karpf said. “', 'These platforms are too big and too vital to the spread of information to be left unmonitored.”', '“This is an election year,” Karpf added, “and the platforms are taking steps to make it harder to monitor how their services are used for malignant ends.”', 'Free Press, another media accountability organization that has been critical of Musk’s leadership of X and which called for advertisers to pause their spending on the platform shortly after his takeover, also celebrated Breyer’s ruling as potentially removing at least one hurdle that watchdog organizations face.', '“The guardrails for democracy are hanging by a thread and we have dwindling insights into platform practices as researchers face lawsuits, congressional subpoenas and other scare tactics,” said Nora Benavidez, senior counsel and director of digital rights at Free Press.', 'Ultimately, Benavidez called the ruling “a reminder that platform accountability is essential and will inevitably prevail when up against bullies like Musk who try to silence us.”']",0.0427064270235155,"Musk’s new playbook, Carusone said, enlists the help of sympathetic Republican attorneys general to investigate independent reporting organizations and tie them up in legal proceedings.","“This is an important decision that sees Elon Musk’s lawsuit for what it is — an effort to punish his critics for constitutionally protected speech and to deter researchers from studying his platform,” said Alex Abdo, litigation director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which had filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case arguing that private companies should not be allowed to use breach of contract claims to punish criticism.",-0.3806276832308088,"Free Press, another media accountability organization that has been critical of Musk’s leadership of X and which called for advertisers to pause their spending on the platform shortly after his takeover, also celebrated Breyer’s ruling as potentially removing at least one hurdle that watchdog organizations face.","Researchers and civil society groups said the new subscription fees — costing up to $2.5 million a year —were “outrageously expensive” and made it impossible to do their work, reducing transparency of a critical platform.",2024-04-28
Right-wing media ruptures over Marjorie Taylor Greene’s threat to oust Mike Johnson,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/26/media/right-wing-media-marjorie-taylor-greenes-mike-johnson/index.html,"
  Published
        7:36 AM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","Editor’s Note: A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.
    
            Marjorie Taylor Greene has exposed the fault lines in right-wing media.
    
            As the extremist Republican congresswoman threatens to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson’s over his support for Ukraine aid, a rift has ruptured wide open in the MAGA Media landscape, separating the hardline and absolutist faction from the establishment wing.
    
            On one side are outlets controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch. His powerful media properties — Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post – have spent the last two weeks leveling blistering criticism against Greene and those who support challenging Johnson’s authority over the House leader’s move to pass funding for Kyiv.
    
            As the extremist Republican congresswoman threatens to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson’s over his support for Ukraine aid, a rift has ruptured wide open in the MAGA Media landscape, separating the hardline and absolutist faction from the establishment wing.
    
            While The Journal has showered Johnson in glowing praise, Fox News and the Post have gone different routes. Fox News published a scathing editorial on its website last week, referring to Greene as an “idiot” and contending “she is trying to wreck the GOP.” The Post went further, putting Greene on its cover over the weekend and blasting her as “MOSCOW MARJORIE.”
    
            All the while, the insurgent bloc of the right-wing media universe have taken the opposite approach. They’ve subjected Johnson to an onslaught of ugly attacks and portrayed Greene as one of the only members of the Republican Party who dares to stand on principle.
    
            Steve Bannon, host of the influential “War Room” podcast and Donald Trump’s former chief political strategist, has leveled some of the harshest attacks against the embattled House speaker. Earlier this week, he referred to the Ukraine aid package as “a desecration” and urged listeners to call their representatives to voice support for firing Johnson.
    
            Bannon is far from alone. Charlie Kirk, the MAGA personality and radio host who has a close relationship with the Trump family, accused Johnson of having “lied in the name of God” and wondered, “Where’s the evidence that this guy’s actually a Christian?” Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson questioned if Johnson is “being blackmailed to do the bidding of the left.” Over at Breitbart, the outlet published a hit piece on a member of Johnson’s staff, characterizing her as a RINO turncoat. And The Gateway Pundit has slung untold amounts of mud at Johnson, with one headline this week exclaiming, “WHAT A SNAKE.”
    
            Greene, a savvy information warrior, has leveraged the platforms wielded by media allies to make her case against Johnson to the conservative base — a strategy that has further fueled their attacks and underscored the division in right-wing media. Over the last few weeks, she has made appearances on the programs hosted by Bannon, Kirk, and Carlson. And she has granted interviews to other supportive outlets, including the far-right One America News.
    
            Yet, it’s unlikely she will emerge from this battle victorious — a reality that has underscored the importance of Murdoch’s right-wing media empire. While its influence has unquestionably waned in recent years, the power of Murdoch’s outlets — Fox News in particular — is still great. If not for Murdoch’s blessing, Johnson would find himself in much hotter water and in far greater jeopardy of losing his position as speaker.
    
            That said, the coverage of Johnson from the hardliners in MAGA Media has certainly hurt his reputation amongst much of the base, with many now surely under the belief he is a squishy D.C. swamp creature. He may exit alive, but he has been badly wounded by the fight.
    
            And his opponents are not only left unvanquished, but continue to see their powers balloon each and every day — all while the legacy media model that crowned Murdoch GOP kingmaker continues to erode. Greene might not prevail in her battle against Johnson this time around, but it has served as a harbinger of things to come amid a larger war for the soul of the Republican Party. While the winds might not entirely favor Greene and the MAGA Media hardliners in this very moment, they do appear to be shifting.
    
            The Murdoch-influenced GOP empowered Trump. That could very well pale in comparison to what the rising, more extremist wing of right-wing media delivers in the years ahead.",CNN,26/04/2024,"['Editor’s Note:A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter.', 'Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.', 'Marjorie Taylor Greene has exposed the fault lines in right-wing media.', 'As the extremist Republican congresswoman threatens to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson’sover his support for Ukraine aid, a rift has ruptured wide open in the MAGA Media landscape, separating the hardline and absolutist faction from the establishment wing.', 'On one side are outlets controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch.', 'His powerful media properties — Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post – have spent the last two weeks leveling blistering criticism against Greene and those who support challenging Johnson’s authority over the House leader’s move to pass funding for Kyiv.', 'As the extremist Republican congresswoman threatens to oust House Speaker Mike Johnson’s over his support for Ukraine aid, a rift has ruptured wide open in the MAGA Media landscape, separating the hardline and absolutist faction from the establishment wing.', 'While The Journal has showered Johnson in glowing praise, Fox News and the Post have gone different routes.', 'Fox News published a scathing editorial on its website last week, referring to Greene as an “idiot” and contending “she is trying to wreck the GOP.”', 'The Post went further, putting Greene on its cover over the weekend and blasting her as “MOSCOW MARJORIE.”', 'All the while, the insurgent bloc of the right-wing media universe have taken the opposite approach.', 'They’ve subjected Johnson to an onslaught of ugly attacks and portrayed Greene as one of the only members of the Republican Party who dares to stand on principle.', 'Steve Bannon, host of the influential “War Room” podcast and Donald Trump’s former chief political strategist, has leveled some of the harshest attacks against the embattled House speaker.', 'Earlier this week, he referred to the Ukraine aid package as “a desecration” and urged listeners to call their representatives to voice support for firing Johnson.', 'Bannon is far from alone.', 'Charlie Kirk, the MAGA personality and radio host who has a close relationship with the Trump family, accused Johnson of having “lied in the name of God” and wondered, “Where’s the evidence that this guy’s actually a Christian?”', 'Meanwhile, Tucker Carlson questioned if Johnson is “being blackmailed to do the bidding of the left.”', 'Over at Breitbart, the outlet published a hit piece on a member of Johnson’s staff, characterizing her as a RINO turncoat.', 'And The Gateway Pundit has slung untold amounts of mud at Johnson, with one headline this week exclaiming, “WHAT A SNAKE.”', 'Greene, a savvy information warrior, has leveraged the platforms wielded by media allies to make her case against Johnson to the conservative base — a strategy that has further fueled their attacks and underscored the division in right-wing media.', 'Over the last few weeks, she has made appearances on the programs hosted by Bannon, Kirk, and Carlson.', 'And she has granted interviews to other supportive outlets, including the far-right One America News.', 'Yet, it’s unlikely she will emerge from this battle victorious — a reality that has underscored the importance of Murdoch’s right-wing media empire.', 'While its influence has unquestionably waned in recent years, the power of Murdoch’s outlets — Fox News in particular — is still great.', 'If not for Murdoch’s blessing, Johnson would find himself in much hotter water and in far greater jeopardy of losing his position as speaker.', 'That said, the coverage of Johnson from the hardliners in MAGA Media has certainly hurt his reputation amongst much of the base, with many now surely under the belief he is a squishy D.C. swamp creature.', 'He may exit alive, but he has been badly wounded by the fight.', 'And his opponents are not only left unvanquished, but continue to see their powers balloon each and every day — all while the legacy media model that crowned Murdoch GOP kingmaker continues to erode.', 'Greene might not prevail in her battle against Johnson this time around, but it has served as a harbinger of things to come amid a larger war for the soul of the Republican Party.', 'While the winds might not entirely favor Greene and the MAGA Media hardliners in this very moment, they do appear to be shifting.', 'The Murdoch-influenced GOP empowered Trump.', 'That could very well pale in comparison to what the rising, more extremist wing of right-wing media delivers in the years ahead.']",-0.0801548351063512,"While its influence has unquestionably waned in recent years, the power of Murdoch’s outlets — Fox News in particular — is still great.","Steve Bannon, host of the influential “War Room” podcast and Donald Trump’s former chief political strategist, has leveled some of the harshest attacks against the embattled House speaker.",-0.2636017501354217,"While its influence has unquestionably waned in recent years, the power of Murdoch’s outlets — Fox News in particular — is still great.","That said, the coverage of Johnson from the hardliners in MAGA Media has certainly hurt his reputation amongst much of the base, with many now surely under the belief he is a squishy D.C. swamp creature.",2024-04-28
What investors should know about the UAW's organizing drive of VW,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/22/uaw-vw-organizing-drive-what-investors-should-know.html,2024-04-22T20:21:56+0000,"In this articleDETROIT – The United Auto Workers notched a big win this weekend.Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, overwhelmingly voted in favor of joining the UAW late Friday – marking the Detroit union's first victory at a foreign-owned automaker plant in the South. The vote could have wide-ranging impacts on other automakers, organized labor and the overall U.S. automotive industry.""This is a really profound victory for the UAW and the labor movement in general,"" said Alex Hertel-Fernandez, a former Department of Labor official and an international and public affairs professor at Columbia University. ""It's also a really decisive victory.""Union organizing passed with 73% of the vote, or 2,628 workers, in support of the UAW, according to the National Labor Relations Board, which oversaw voting from Wednesday to Friday.The German automaker and union, barring any challenges to voting, are expected to move forward with bargaining over a contract for roughly 4,300 workers covered under the vote. The NLRB still needs to certify the results.Here's what investors should know about the vote and next steps for the UAW:The UAW saw the Friday vote as the union's best shot at organizing the VW plant following strikes and record contracts with General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler parent Stellantis in 2023.The union, led by President Shawn Fain, is using the deals with the Detroit automakers, which included record wage increases and benefits, as springboards for an unprecedented organizing drive of 13 non-union automakers in the U.S.Other than Volkswagen, the union is targeting: BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Lucid, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Rivian, Subaru, Tesla, Toyota and Volvo. The drive covers nearly 150,000 U.S. autoworkers, according to the UAW.""This is likely to be contagious,"" said Hertel-Fernandez. ""Where workers see successes in organizing or strikes, it tends to inspire further action in that industry and beyond it.""Next up for the union are 5,200 Mercedes-Benz workers at an SUV plant in Vance, Alabama. Workers at the facility earlier this month filed NLRB paperwork for a formal election that is scheduled for May 13 through May 17.""We're going to carry this fight on to Mercedes and everywhere else,"" Fain told VW workers Friday night following the historic vote. ""So, thank you all, thank you all for your fight, for your work. And let's get to it. Let's go to work. And let's win more for the working class all over this nation.""Top of the list of likely impacts from organizing efforts at VW is labor costs.UAW organizers used the record contracts with the Detroit automakers to gain support for the union in Chattanooga. UBS said in an investor note that VW has a relatively low operating margin in the U.S., and ""substantial pay increases could undermine the profitability outlook of the local US operations.""But for the Big Three Detroit automakers — and their shareholders — the VW organizing drive could be a positive.GM, Ford and Stellantis have higher all-in labor costs than non-organized automakers such as VW. Depending on contract details, labor pushes like VW and others could somewhat even that playing field.""Overall, given the substantial pay gap between UAW-unionized workers (Detroit-3) and non-unionized workers in the southern states, it can be assumed that the vote will lead to more upwards pressure on wages for VW over time,"" UBS said in an investor note.Before last year's contracts with the Detroit automakers, all-in labor costs for Ford, GM and Stellantis were between $63 and $67 an hour, according to industry experts. That compared with workers at non-domestic, or transplant, automakers such as VW at $55 an hour. Those costs included all benefits and health care costs.Still, there's no guarantee that VW – a much smaller automaker in the U.S. – will agree to the same terms as the traditional domestic automakers.Fain on Friday said ""the real fight begins now,"" referring to the expected negotiations between the union and VW.The VW vote was widely expected to be the easiest in the UAW's organizing plans, as the union had already established a presence there following votes that narrowly failed in 2019 and 2014.The margin of success in Chattanooga could bode well for UAW efforts at other automakers, according to Sharon Block, a professor at Harvard Law School and former DOL and NLRB official.""I think it's really hard to overestimate the importance of this moment and to overestimate just how strategic the UAW has been in this campaign, which I think suggests that this is not the last time that we're going to be talking about a UAW victory in an auto plant in the South,"" Block said.Though opposition during the VW vote was sparse, the most notable instance came a day before the election began, in the form of a letter from six Republican governors condemning the UAW's push to organize automotive factories in the South and warning of potential layoffs.""We have worked tirelessly on behalf of our constituents to bring good-paying jobs to our states. These jobs have become part of the fabric of the automotive manufacturing industry. Unionization would certainly put our states' jobs in jeopardy — in fact, in this year already, all of the UAW automakers have announced layoffs,"" read the statement, which was signed by governors in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.Block called the letter an ""empty threat"" and ""cynical ploy"" but noted that increased labor costs can result in fewer jobs.Fewer jobs in the U.S. automotive industry also means fewer eligible workers for union membership.Membership with the UAW at the Detroit automakers has significantly fallen in recent decades, as free trade agreements allowed automakers to produce vehicles for cheaper elsewhere.UAW membership, largely made up of autoworkers but also including workers in agriculture and aerospace, peaked at 1.5 million in 1979. As of last year, the union's membership was 370,239 workers – down 3.3% from 2022 and 75% from its peak. Workers from the Detroit automakers only made up roughly 150,000 of that 2023 total.– CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this report.",CNBC,22/04/2024,"['In this articleDETROIT – The United Auto Workers notched a big win this weekend.', ""Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, overwhelmingly voted in favor of joining the UAW late Friday – marking the Detroit union's first victory at a foreign-owned automaker plant in the South."", 'The vote could have wide-ranging impacts on other automakers, organized labor and the overall U.S. automotive industry.', '""This is a really profound victory for the UAW and the labor movement in general,"" said Alex Hertel-Fernandez, a former Department of Labor official and an international and public affairs professor at Columbia University. ""', ""It's also a really decisive victory."", '""Union organizing passed with 73% of the vote, or 2,628 workers, in support of the UAW, according to the National Labor Relations Board, which oversaw voting from Wednesday to Friday.', 'The German automaker and union, barring any challenges to voting, are expected to move forward with bargaining over a contract for roughly 4,300 workers covered under the vote.', 'The NLRB still needs to certify the results.', ""Here's what investors should know about the vote and next steps for the UAW:The UAW saw the Friday vote as the union's best shot at organizing the VW plant following strikes and record contracts with General Motors, Ford Motor and Chrysler parent Stellantis in 2023.The union, led by President Shawn Fain, is using the deals with the Detroit automakers, which included record wage increases and benefits, as springboards for an unprecedented organizing drive of 13 non-union automakers in the U.S.Other than Volkswagen, the union is targeting: BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Lucid, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Rivian, Subaru, Tesla, Toyota and Volvo."", 'The drive covers nearly 150,000 U.S. autoworkers, according to the UAW.""This is likely to be contagious,"" said Hertel-Fernandez. ""', 'Where workers see successes in organizing or strikes, it tends to inspire further action in that industry and beyond it.', '""Next up for the union are 5,200 Mercedes-Benz workers at an SUV plant in Vance, Alabama.', 'Workers at the facility earlier this month filed NLRB paperwork for a formal election that is scheduled for May 13 through May 17.""We\'re going to carry this fight on to Mercedes and everywhere else,"" Fain told VW workers Friday night following the historic vote. ""', 'So, thank you all, thank you all for your fight, for your work.', ""And let's get to it."", ""Let's go to work."", ""And let's win more for the working class all over this nation."", '""Top of the list of likely impacts from organizing efforts at VW is labor costs.', 'UAW organizers used the record contracts with the Detroit automakers to gain support for the union in Chattanooga.', 'UBS said in an investor note that VW has a relatively low operating margin in the U.S., and ""substantial pay increases could undermine the profitability outlook of the local US operations.', '""But for the Big Three Detroit automakers — and their shareholders — the VW organizing drive could be a positive.', 'GM, Ford and Stellantis have higher all-in labor costs than non-organized automakers such as VW.', 'Depending on contract details, labor pushes like VW and others could somewhat even that playing field.', '""Overall, given the substantial pay gap between UAW-unionized workers (Detroit-3) and non-unionized workers in the southern states, it can be assumed that the vote will lead to more upwards pressure on wages for VW over time,"" UBS said in an investor note.', ""Before last year's contracts with the Detroit automakers, all-in labor costs for Ford, GM and Stellantis were between $63 and $67 an hour, according to industry experts."", 'That compared with workers at non-domestic, or transplant, automakers such as VW at $55 an hour.', 'Those costs included all benefits and health care costs.', ""Still, there's no guarantee that VW – a much smaller automaker in the U.S. – will agree to the same terms as the traditional domestic automakers."", 'Fain on Friday said ""the real fight begins now,"" referring to the expected negotiations between the union and VW.The VW vote was widely expected to be the easiest in the UAW\'s organizing plans, as the union had already established a presence there following votes that narrowly failed in 2019 and 2014.The margin of success in Chattanooga could bode well for UAW efforts at other automakers, according to Sharon Block, a professor at Harvard Law School and former DOL and NLRB official.', '""I think it\'s really hard to overestimate the importance of this moment and to overestimate just how strategic the UAW has been in this campaign, which I think suggests that this is not the last time that we\'re going to be talking about a UAW victory in an auto plant in the South,"" Block said.', ""Though opposition during the VW vote was sparse, the most notable instance came a day before the election began, in the form of a letter from six Republican governors condemning the UAW's push to organize automotive factories in the South and warning of potential layoffs."", '""We have worked tirelessly on behalf of our constituents to bring good-paying jobs to our states.', 'These jobs have become part of the fabric of the automotive manufacturing industry.', 'Unionization would certainly put our states\' jobs in jeopardy — in fact, in this year already, all of the UAW automakers have announced layoffs,"" read the statement, which was signed by governors in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.', 'Block called the letter an ""empty threat"" and ""cynical ploy"" but noted that increased labor costs can result in fewer jobs.', 'Fewer jobs in the U.S. automotive industry also means fewer eligible workers for union membership.', 'Membership with the UAW at the Detroit automakers has significantly fallen in recent decades, as free trade agreements allowed automakers to produce vehicles for cheaper elsewhere.', 'UAW membership, largely made up of autoworkers but also including workers in agriculture and aerospace, peaked at 1.5 million in 1979.', ""As of last year, the union's membership was 370,239 workers – down 3.3% from 2022 and 75% from its peak."", 'Workers from the Detroit automakers only made up roughly 150,000 of that 2023 total.–', ""CNBC's Michael Bloom contributed to this report.""]",0.1384780391661381,In this articleDETROIT – The United Auto Workers notched a big win this weekend.,"Block called the letter an ""empty threat"" and ""cynical ploy"" but noted that increased labor costs can result in fewer jobs.",0.208338725566864,In this articleDETROIT – The United Auto Workers notched a big win this weekend.,"UBS said in an investor note that VW has a relatively low operating margin in the U.S., and ""substantial pay increases could undermine the profitability outlook of the local US operations.",2024-04-28
Comcast beats earnings estimates even as it sheds more broadband subscribers,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/25/comcast-cmcsa-earnings-1q24.html,2024-04-25T15:24:55+0000,"In this articleComcast beat first-quarter earnings expectations on Thursday as broadband drove revenue even as the company and its peers have seen customer growth slow.Here is how Comcast performed, compared with estimates from analysts surveyed by LSEG:For the quarter that ended March 31, net income rose 0.6% to $3.86 billion, or 97 cents a share, compared with $3.83 billion, or 91 cents a share, a year earlier. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, slid 0.6% to roughly $9.4 billion.The company's revenue grew 1.2% to $30.06 billion compared to the same period last year. Revenue from the domestic broadband customers segment boosted that growth as rates increased, even as Comcast lost 65,000 customers during the quarter.Comcast's stock was trading down about 6% on Thursday.Cable broadband companies' customer additions have slumped in recent quarters and weighed on stock prices.The slowdown in the buying and selling of houses due to high interest rates has led to a decline in new home internet connections. Cable providers have also been hit with heightened competition for home broadband from wireless companies such as T-Mobile and Verizon.Mike Cavanagh, president of Comcast, said on Thursday's earnings call that the market is ""extremely competitive,"" especially for ""cost-conscious customers.""Earlier this month, Comcast said it would launch NOW, a prepaid and month-to-month low-cost internet and phone plan program. The plan is designed to provide fixed wireless options at a low cost.The plan supplements Comcast's long-standing internet option for low-income customers, called Internet Essentials.Company executives do not expect an improvement in the near term, particularly with the expected end of the federal government's Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP, which offers a $30 discount on broadband services to qualifying low-income households, in April.Comcast's wireless business saw a 21% increase in customers during the quarter to 6.9 million total lines. The company lost 487,000 cable TV customers during the quarter as consumers continued to cut the cord in favor of streaming.The company's theme parks adjusted EBITDA fell 3.9% to $632 million during the quarter, due to an increase in operating expenses such as higher marketing and promotion costs, as well as the negative effect of foreign currency.On Thursday, Cavanagh noted attendance at the Orlando theme park ""felt some pressure"" in the most recent quarter, as the company is in between introducing new attractions. He added the company is confident about long-term growth and future opportunities for its parks.Increased competition, particularly from cruises, also weighed on theme parks, Comcast Chief Financial Officer Jason Armstrong said on Thursday's call.Similarly, earnings for its media business, which includes NBCUniversal, and studios also declined. The three businesses now report under the same segment, which collectively saw revenue rise 1.1% to $10.37 billion.Still, Comcast executives touted the strength of Universal Pictures' film slate, from recent Academy Award winners ""Oppenheimer"" and ""The Holdovers,"" to upcoming highly anticipated movies such as the adaptation of the Broadway hit ""Wicked.""Peacock, which executives also highlighted as a bright spot and a boost to NBCUniversal, is also reaping the benefits of the film slate.Being the exclusive home of ""Oppenheimer"" when it was first released to streaming earlier this year proved to be a win for the platform. Comcast said it was the most-watched movie in Peacock history.The service added three million paid subscribers during the quarter, bringing its total number of customers to 34 million. The exclusive National Football League Wild Card game on Peacock helped to add, and then retain, more customers than expected, executives said on Thursday's call.""We're 3.5 years in, we're at a place where we're really seeing traction in our approach,"" Cavanagh said Thursday, pointing to the strength in the combination of sports and entertainment.While Peacock is known for its large offering of live sports, including the NFL and the Premier League, Cavanagh said subscribers spend 90% of their time on nonsports programming on shows such as Peacock original ""Ted,"" and its Universal film collection. He added that the company expects Peacock to have ""real pricing power"" over time.Revenue for the streamer rose 54% to $1.1 billion compared to the same period last year. While domestic advertising was flat during the quarter, the company saw its domestic distribution revenue increase, driven by the growth at Peacock. Media companies have been facing a longer-than-expected soft advertising market.Losses stemming from Peacock weighed on the segment and offset higher revenue. The company saw an adjusted EBITDA loss of $639 million related to Peacock during the quarter. That improved, however, from an adjusted EBITDA loss of $704 million in the same period last year.Peacock losses were said to peak in 2023, and executives expect them to narrow in upcoming quarters. The Olympics in Paris this summer should also drive growth for the streaming service.With more hours of the Olympics on its broadcast network NBC, in addition to Peacock, the company is on track to generate its most advertising revenue in its history for the Olympics.Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.",CNBC,25/04/2024,"['In this articleComcast beat first-quarter earnings expectations on Thursday as broadband drove revenue even as the company and its peers have seen customer growth slow.', 'Here is how Comcast performed, compared with estimates from analysts surveyed by LSEG:For the quarter that ended March 31, net income rose 0.6% to $3.86 billion, or 97 cents a share, compared with $3.83 billion, or 91 cents a share, a year earlier.', 'Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, slid 0.6% to roughly $9.4 billion.', ""The company's revenue grew 1.2% to $30.06 billion compared to the same period last year."", 'Revenue from the domestic broadband customers segment boosted that growth as rates increased, even as Comcast lost 65,000 customers during the quarter.', ""Comcast's stock was trading down about 6% on Thursday."", ""Cable broadband companies' customer additions have slumped in recent quarters and weighed on stock prices."", 'The slowdown in the buying and selling of houses due to high interest rates has led to a decline in new home internet connections.', 'Cable providers have also been hit with heightened competition for home broadband from wireless companies such as T-Mobile and Verizon.', 'Mike Cavanagh, president of Comcast, said on Thursday\'s earnings call that the market is ""extremely competitive,"" especially for ""cost-conscious customers.', '""Earlier this month, Comcast said it would launch NOW, a prepaid and month-to-month low-cost internet and phone plan program.', 'The plan is designed to provide fixed wireless options at a low cost.', ""The plan supplements Comcast's long-standing internet option for low-income customers, called Internet Essentials."", ""Company executives do not expect an improvement in the near term, particularly with the expected end of the federal government's Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP, which offers a $30 discount on broadband services to qualifying low-income households, in April."", ""Comcast's wireless business saw a 21% increase in customers during the quarter to 6.9 million total lines."", 'The company lost 487,000 cable TV customers during the quarter as consumers continued to cut the cord in favor of streaming.', ""The company's theme parks adjusted EBITDA fell 3.9% to $632 million during the quarter,due to an increase in operating expenses such as higher marketing and promotion costs, as well as the negative effect of foreign currency."", 'On Thursday, Cavanagh noted attendance at the Orlando theme park ""felt some pressure"" in the most recent quarter, as the company is in between introducing new attractions.', 'He added the company is confident about long-term growth and future opportunities for its parks.', ""Increased competition, particularly from cruises, also weighed on theme parks, Comcast Chief Financial Officer Jason Armstrong said on Thursday's call."", 'Similarly, earnings for its media business, which includes NBCUniversal, and studios also declined.', 'The three businesses now report under the same segment, which collectively saw revenue rise 1.1% to $10.37 billion.', 'Still, Comcast executives touted the strength of Universal Pictures\' film slate, from recent Academy Award winners ""Oppenheimer"" and ""The Holdovers,"" to upcoming highly anticipated movies such as the adaptation of the Broadway hit ""Wicked.', '""Peacock, which executives also highlighted as a bright spot and a boost to NBCUniversal, is also reaping the benefits of the film slate.', 'Being the exclusive home of ""Oppenheimer"" when it was first released to streaming earlier this year proved to be a win for the platform.', 'Comcast said it was the most-watched movie in Peacock history.', 'The service added three million paid subscribers during the quarter, bringing its total number of customers to 34 million.', ""The exclusive National Football League Wild Card game on Peacock helped to add, and then retain, more customers than expected, executives said on Thursday's call."", '""We\'re 3.5 years in, we\'re at a place where we\'re really seeing traction in our approach,"" Cavanagh said Thursday, pointing to the strength in the combination of sports and entertainment.', 'While Peacock is known for its large offering of live sports, including the NFL and the Premier League, Cavanagh said subscribers spend 90% of their time on nonsports programming on shows such as Peacock original ""Ted,"" and its Universal film collection.', 'He added that the company expects Peacock to have ""real pricing power"" over time.', 'Revenue for the streamer rose 54% to $1.1 billion compared to the same period last year.', 'While domestic advertising was flat during the quarter, the company saw its domestic distribution revenue increase, driven by the growth at Peacock.', 'Media companies have been facing a longer-than-expected soft advertising market.', 'Losses stemming from Peacock weighed on the segment and offset higher revenue.', 'The company saw an adjusted EBITDA loss of $639 million related to Peacock during the quarter.', 'That improved, however, from an adjusted EBITDA loss of $704 million in the same period last year.', 'Peacock losses were said to peak in 2023, and executives expect them to narrow in upcoming quarters.', 'The Olympics in Paris this summer should also drive growth for the streaming service.', 'With more hours of the Olympics on its broadcast network NBC, in addition to Peacock, the company is on track to generate its most advertising revenue in its history for the Olympics.', 'Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC.']",0.1527713570776127,He added the company is confident about long-term growth and future opportunities for its parks.,"Company executives do not expect an improvement in the near term, particularly with the expected end of the federal government's Affordable Connectivity Program, or ACP, which offers a $30 discount on broadband services to qualifying low-income households, in April.",0.1793343950720394,"The three businesses now report under the same segment, which collectively saw revenue rise 1.1% to $10.37 billion.","The company's theme parks adjusted EBITDA fell 3.9% to $632 million during the quarter,due to an increase in operating expenses such as higher marketing and promotion costs, as well as the negative effect of foreign currency.",2024-04-28
The home insurance market is crumbling. These owners are paying the price,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/29/economy/home-insurance-prices-climate-change/index.html,"
  Updated
        2:34 PM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","The home insurance market is crumbling in New Orleans, leaving Alfredo Herrera with few options for coverage — and skyrocketing insurance premiums.
    
            Herrera, 35, works in finance for a local bank. He bought his 900-square-foot home in New Orleans’ Mid-City neighborhood in 2020 for $270,000, and lives there with his partner.
    
            In 2022, he paid $1,600 a year for home insurance. But last July, his insurer canceled his coverage, saying it was leaving Louisiana.
    
            In the past, acquiring or keeping homeowners’ insurance didn’t present much of a problem.
    
            But as climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather, insurers — especially those in areas most impacted by floods and fires — are raising their premiums, or pulling out altogether, impacting the affordability and availability of home and fire insurance.
    
            Herrera shopped around for a new plan, but he struggled to find a policy. Louisiana Citizens, the insurer of last resort for property owners in the state, was out of the question. It would have cost more than $7,000 annually.
    
            Herrera eventually found a policy with a small company in the state that charged him $4,930 annually — a 208% increase from what he paid in 2022.
    
            “It’s a very difficult situation,” he said. He never imagined that when he bought his home, private insurance options would be this limited and the last resort insurer would be so expensive.
    
            “We’re against the wall,” Herrera said. “There’s no competition.”
    
            Herrera’s insurance story is common in Louisiana and other places across the country at increasingly higher risk for extreme weather.
    
            There were a record 28 weather and climate disasters with losses totaling over $1 billion last year in America, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. By comparison, between 1980 and 2023, the typical annual average for these events was 8.5.
    
            A Louisiana State University survey last year found that 17% of Louisiana homeowners reported their provider canceled their policy. Sixty-three percent of policyholders said the cost of their insurance coverage increased from the prior year, the survey found.
    
            There was roughly a 10% to 12% increase in homeowners’ insurance costs last year in the United States, said Mark Friedlander, spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute, a nonprofit industry association.
    
            The main drivers are the higher costs insurers face, including from more severe storms; higher replacement costs; and re-insurance, the type of insurance used by insurers to limit their risks. These are passed on to consumers. So even if a homeowner doesn’t live in a high-risk area, that owner is likely paying a higher premium to cover people in the riskiest places.
    
            In 2023, Neil Fernandes paid $1,700 a year for Farmers Insurance coverage for his home in Santa Clarita, California, where the 42-year-old software engineer lives with his wife and child.
    
            But last year, Farmers said it was raising his premium to $3,200. When he asked why, Farmers cited rising costs and increased fire hazards in the state. Fernandes said the fire hazards around his home haven’t changed and he lives a quarter mile from a fire station.
    
            He started shopping around for other policies, but he found limited options.
    
            Frustrated by the lack of choices, he switched to AAA home insurance for $2,880 a year.
    
            He and his family have had to change their lifestyle to cover the increase. He’s driving less to save on car insurance. They aren’t eating out as much, or traveling, and are putting off home improvement upgrades.
    
            Fernandes is challenging AAA’s assessment of his home insurance value, which he said is over-estimated.
    
            AAA did not comment to CNN.
    
            And he worries about more home insurance price shocks in the future, something he did not anticipate when he bought his home.
    
            “As a home owner, I always worry about things like paying taxes for good schools and community upkeep,” he said. “Now I have to worry about insurance coverage.”
    
            In some places most exposed to climate change, insurers have stopped issuing policies.
    
            In May, State Farm, the largest home insurer in California, announced it would pause issuing policies in that state, citing wildfire risks. Farmers Insurance deemed it too risky to continue insuring homes in Florida and pulled out of the market there entirely.
    
            On March 20, State Farm said it would not renew 72,000 home insurance policies in California, representing just over 2% of the company’s policies in the state. The company cited “inflation, catastrophe exposure [and] reinsurance costs” among the reasons.
    
            More people are being driven to the state-supported “insurer of last resort,” where they typically have to pay more money for a narrower policy. 
    
            More states are looking to start state-backed insurance providers as companies pull out.
    
            In Florida, Citizens Property Insurance has seen the number of policies it has issued rise about 50% in the last year alone to 1.3 million — equal to 16% of the market and far more than any national insurer writes in the state.
    
            The US Senate Budget Committee is launching an investigation into whether Florida’s state-backed home and property insurance company has enough money in the bank to withstand future disasters.
    
            But climate change isn’t the only factor driving up costs. Insurance companies also point to the rising cost of replacing homes, as inflation for building supplies and labor has soared.
    
            The insurance industry says that rebuilding and replacement costs surged 55% between 2019 and 2022. Costs have since fallen, however. And reinsurance has gone up between 30% and 40% after years of losses in the industry, according to Matthew Carletti, an insurance industry analyst for JMP Securities.
    
            Homeowners who have a mortgage are not able to go without homeowners insurance as their mortgage servicer will require an escrow account for insurance. But for those who have paid off their home or bought it with cash, the high additional costs of homeowners insurance and the challenge of getting it can lead some to take their chances without it.
    
            Some 6 million homeowners chose to forgo homeowners insurance, according to a report from the Consumer Federation of America. That’s about 7.4% of all homeowners in the country, and amounts to about $1.6 trillion of unprotected value.
    
            CFA warned that the problem of uninsured homes is likely to get worse in coming years unless major investments in climate change adaptation and stronger oversight of the insurance industry are made.
    
            Diana Troxell and her husband are not sure how they will pay for their 250% annual premium increase for their manufactured home in rural Cottonwood, California. Right now, they are getting help from family to pay for groceries and gas.
    
            Troxell, 76, works seasonally as a face painter at the county fair. She and her husband rely primarily on Social Security to scrape by.
    
            They have lived in their home for 19 years and had a policy with Foremost Insurance, paying about $1,910 a year.
    
            But Foremost last year told them their policy would not be renewed due to wildfire exposure.
    
            “We went into a shock mode,” she said. “We couldn’t figure out what to do.”
    
            They looked to sell their home and rent in California, but they couldn’t afford it.
    
            With no other insurance options available, they turned to California FAIR Plan, a state program for residents and businesses who can’t obtain insurance through a regular insurance company. In 2021, the FAIR Plan accounted for 3% of the state’s policies in 2021, nearly double the share from 2018.
    
            Now they are paying about $6,660 a year through the FAIR plan.
    
            “We’re in ‘how are we going to do this’ mode?” she said. “We’re living month to month.”
    
            CNN’s Ella Nilsen contributed to this article.",CNN,26/04/2024,"['The home insurance market is crumbling in New Orleans, leaving Alfredo Herrera with few options for coverage — and skyrocketing insurance premiums.', 'Herrera, 35, works in finance for a local bank.', 'He bought his 900-square-foot home in New Orleans’ Mid-City neighborhood in 2020 for $270,000, and lives there with his partner.', 'In 2022, he paid $1,600 a year for home insurance.', 'But last July, his insurer canceled his coverage, saying it was leaving Louisiana.', 'In the past, acquiring or keeping homeowners’ insurance didn’t present much of a problem.', 'But as climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather, insurers —especially those in areas most impacted byfloodsand fires —are raising their premiums, or pulling out altogether,impacting the affordability and availability ofhome and fire insurance.', 'Herrera shopped around for a new plan, but he struggled to find a policy.', 'Louisiana Citizens, the insurer of last resort for property owners in the state, was out of the question.', 'It would have cost more than $7,000 annually.', 'Herrera eventually found a policy with a small company in the state that charged him $4,930 annually — a 208% increase from what he paid in 2022.', '“It’s a very difficult situation,” he said.', 'He never imagined that when he bought his home, private insurance options would be this limited and the last resort insurer would be so expensive.', '“We’re against the wall,” Herrera said. “', 'There’s no competition.”', 'Herrera’s insurance story is common in Louisiana and other places across the country at increasingly higher risk for extreme weather.', 'There were a record 28 weather and climate disasters with losses totaling over $1 billion last year in America,according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.', 'By comparison, between 1980 and 2023, the typical annual average for these events was 8.5.', 'A Louisiana State University survey last year found that 17% of Louisiana homeowners reported their provider canceled their policy.', 'Sixty-three percent of policyholders said the cost of their insurance coverage increased from the prior year, the survey found.', 'There was roughly a 10% to 12% increase in homeowners’ insurance costs last year in the United States, said Mark Friedlander, spokesperson for the Insurance Information Institute, a nonprofit industry association.', 'The main drivers are the higher costs insurers face, including from more severe storms; higher replacement costs; and re-insurance, the type of insurance used by insurers to limit their risks.', 'These are passed on to consumers.', 'So even if a homeowner doesn’t live in a high-risk area, that owner is likely paying a higher premium to cover people in the riskiest places.', 'In 2023, Neil Fernandes paid $1,700 a year for Farmers Insurance coverage for his home in Santa Clarita, California, where the 42-year-old software engineer lives with his wife and child.', 'But last year, Farmers said it was raising his premium to $3,200.', 'When he asked why, Farmers cited rising costs and increased fire hazards in the state.', 'Fernandes said the fire hazards around his home haven’t changed and he lives a quarter mile from a fire station.', 'He started shopping around for other policies, but he found limited options.', 'Frustrated by the lack of choices, he switched to AAA home insurance for $2,880 a year.', 'He and his family have had to change their lifestyle to cover the increase.', 'He’s driving less to save on car insurance.', 'They aren’t eating out as much, or traveling, and are putting off home improvement upgrades.', 'Fernandes is challenging AAA’s assessment of his home insurance value, which he said is over-estimated.', 'AAA did not comment to CNN.', 'And he worries about more home insurance price shocks in the future, something he did not anticipate when he bought his home.', '“As a home owner, I always worry about things like paying taxes for good schools and community upkeep,” he said. “', 'Now I have to worry about insurance coverage.”', 'In some places most exposed to climate change, insurers have stopped issuing policies.', 'In May, State Farm, the largest home insurer in California, announced it would pause issuing policies in that state, citing wildfire risks.', 'Farmers Insurance deemed it too risky to continue insuring homes in Florida and pulled out of the market there entirely.', 'On March 20, State Farm said it would not renew 72,000 home insurance policies in California, representing just over 2% of the company’s policies in the state.', 'The company cited “inflation, catastrophe exposure [and] reinsurance costs” among the reasons.', 'More people are being driven to the state-supported “insurer of last resort,” where they typically have to pay more money for a narrower policy.', 'More states are looking to start state-backed insurance providers as companies pull out.', 'In Florida, Citizens Property Insurance has seen the number of policies it has issued rise about 50% in the last year alone to 1.3 million — equal to 16% of the market and far more than any national insurer writes in the state.', 'The US Senate Budget Committee is launching an investigation intowhetherFlorida’s state-backed home and property insurance company has enough money in the bank to withstand future disasters.', 'But climate change isn’t the only factor driving up costs.', 'Insurance companies also point to the rising cost of replacing homes, as inflation for building supplies and labor has soared.', 'The insurance industry says that rebuilding and replacement costs surged 55% between 2019 and 2022.', 'Costs have since fallen, however.', 'And reinsurance has gone up between 30% and 40% after years of losses in the industry, according to Matthew Carletti, an insurance industry analyst for JMP Securities.', 'Homeowners who have a mortgage are not able to go without homeowners insurance as their mortgage servicer will require an escrow account for insurance.', 'But for those who have paid off their home or bought it with cash, the high additional costs of homeowners insurance and the challenge of getting it can lead some to take their chances without it.', 'Some 6 million homeowners chose to forgo homeowners insurance, according to a report from the Consumer Federation of America.', 'That’s about 7.4% of all homeowners in the country, and amounts to about $1.6 trillion of unprotected value.', 'CFA warned that the problem of uninsured homes is likely to get worse in coming years unless major investments in climate change adaptation and stronger oversight of the insurance industry are made.', 'Diana Troxell and her husband are not sure how they will pay for their 250% annual premium increase for their manufactured home in rural Cottonwood, California.', 'Right now, they are getting help from family to pay for groceries and gas.', 'Troxell, 76, works seasonally as a face painter at the county fair.', 'She and her husband rely primarily on Social Security to scrape by.', 'They have lived in their home for 19 years and had a policy with Foremost Insurance, paying about $1,910 a year.', 'But Foremost last year told them their policy would not be renewed due to wildfire exposure.', '“We went into a shock mode,” she said. “', 'We couldn’t figure out what to do.”', 'They looked to sell their home and rent in California, but they couldn’t afford it.', 'With no other insurance options available, they turned to California FAIR Plan, a state program for residents and businesses who can’t obtain insurance through a regular insurance company.', 'In 2021, the FAIR Plan accounted for 3% of the state’s policies in 2021, nearly double the share from 2018.', 'Now they are paying about $6,660 a year through the FAIR plan.', '“We’re in ‘how are we going to do this’ mode?”', 'she said. “', 'We’re living month to month.”', 'CNN’s Ella Nilsen contributed to this article.']",-0.0690198957186037,"In 2021, the FAIR Plan accounted for 3% of the state’s policies in 2021, nearly double the share from 2018.","There were a record 28 weather and climate disasters with losses totaling over $1 billion last year in America,according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.",-0.3159444723278284,"And reinsurance has gone up between 30% and 40% after years of losses in the industry, according to Matthew Carletti, an insurance industry analyst for JMP Securities.",CFA warned that the problem of uninsured homes is likely to get worse in coming years unless major investments in climate change adaptation and stronger oversight of the insurance industry are made.,2024-04-28
3 ways Apple’s monopoly lawsuit could change the iPhone experience for fans,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/tech/apples-iphone-changes-lawsuit/index.html,"
  Published
        6:30 AM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
    ","When Apple launched its first Mac computer in 1984, with its iconic Mac smiley-face “hello” greeting, it wanted to differentiate itself in the fledgling PC market. The Mac was approachable with its friendly, innovative design – Apple’s way of setting the Mac apart in the confusing PC landscape.
    
            That consumer-friendly mantra still exists today, with Apple carefully curating an easy-breezy yet controlled user experience across its products, including the billions of iPhones used around the world.
    
            But the Biden administration believes Apple took that too far. On Thursday, the Department of Justice sued Apple for illegally monopolizing the smartphone market. In a press conference, the government provided a long list of how Apple has allegedly squashed competition with restrictive app store terms, high fees and its “walled-garden” approach, restricting how third-party companies interact with its brands and services.
    
            The company denied the lawsuit’s allegations and said it plans to fight them. Apple added that the lawsuit could empower the government “to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology.”
    
            But if successful, the lawsuit could ripple across Apple’s products and services. Although the suit could take years to play out, here’s a closer look what it may eventually mean for iPhone users:
    
            If found liable, the company could be forced to change a number of things.
    
            One such change is how iPhone users could get greater access to “super apps” that have been largely restricted before. The term refers to one-stop-shop apps that allow for messaging, ordering food, payment processing and other capabilities all within one platform.
    
             According to Dipanjan Chatterjee, a principal analyst at market research firm Forrester, super apps most threaten Apple’s preeminence in the lives of its customers.
    
            “An offering like WeChat, dubbed China’s everything app, can provide an alternative to the Apple ecosystem for people to communicate, bank, share memories, talk to businesses and more,” he said. “What Apple fears most is becoming irrelevant to its customers.”
    
            At the same time, super apps like WeChat are created by larger companies and could, therefore, put some smaller companies at a disadvantage. And the concept hasn’t been welcomed much in the US anyway.
    
            The US government, however, could argue that lack of interest may be due to Apple’s high share of the smartphone market and its resistance to offer super apps in its store, Chatterjee said.
    
            Apple may also be required to offer more support for cross-platform messaging, an issue the company previously said it’s already working on.
    
            The company lets iPhone users send high-quality photos and videos to one another, but similar texts to Android phones are slower and grainy. It also maintains those messages in green bubbles, creating a kind of class divide, critics argue.
    
            In November, the company said it will add new features, such as read receipts, typing indicators, better support for group chats and higher quality media sharing of images and videos, across platforms to help close the gap. Apple’s move to add support for the standard called RCS (rich communication services) is intended to roll out later this year. RCS is considered the replacement to alternatives such as SMS, or short messaging service, and can work over both Wi-Fi and mobile data.
    
            The change followed pressure from both regulators and competitors to more seamlessly work across operating systems. The European Union’s Digital Markets Act, for example, requires companies to make their key services interoperable between platforms. The US government could require the same.
    
            Another likely change is how hardware from other companies, such as smartwatches, will interact with the Apple range of devices and software, including the iPhone and Apple’s services like Fitness+. The company has also required Apple Watch users to own iOS devices as a way to keep them locked into its existing ecosystem.
    
            Chatterjee said making this change would have both positives and negatives.
    
            “The net result would reside somewhere along the spectrum of access to more and cheaper options but also the devaluation of the customer experience that is so highly prized by Apple’s customers,” he said.
    
            The Biden administration has also taken issue with Apple’s lack of support for mobile cloud services. Loosening this could allow users to access games and other cloud-based apps without having to pay for pricey hardware.
    
            The DOJ lawsuit claims Apple’s behavior has illegally hindered competition, kept its customers locked into its products and prevented other companies from innovating. Although the Biden administration will have to prove these harms, some critics say any potential changes Apple could make will negatively impact the user experience.
    
            David McQueen, a research director at ABI Research, said he recognizes that the content and applications market should be open, and Apple needs to avoid monopolistic advantages that can restrict competition, push up prices or block innovation. But Apple’s success stems in part to its tight grip on its products and services, keeping things intuitive and seamless.
    
            “If Apple is forced to comply, it could potentially spell the end to the provision of this consistent and unified user experience, although by the same token, consumers will be open to a greater choice of apps and services, helping more developers and providers,” McQueen said.
    
            Chatterjee noted some people are drawn to the Apple family of products precisely because of the carefully managed ecosystem’s ease of use. Apple may have to work that much harder to preserve the integrity of its experience, but any changes probably won’t be enough to make customers to leave and go elsewhere.
    
            “The vast majority of Apple customers would probably be happier with some more choice and lower prices as long as it did not hamper their levels of customer experience, which is threatened by the less control Apple has over the experience,” Chatterjee said.
    
            But he added those currently outside of the Apple ecosystem will likely benefit by “plugging in opportunistically without having to go all in with Apple.”",CNN,26/03/2024,"['When Apple launched its first Mac computer in 1984, with its iconic Mac smiley-face “hello” greeting, it wanted to differentiate itself in the fledgling PC market.', 'The Mac was approachable with its friendly, innovative design – Apple’s way of setting the Mac apart in the confusing PC landscape.', 'That consumer-friendly mantra still exists today, with Apple carefully curating an easy-breezy yet controlled user experience across its products, including the billions of iPhones used around the world.', 'But the Biden administration believes Apple took that too far.', 'On Thursday, the Department of Justice sued Apple for illegally monopolizing the smartphone market.', 'In a press conference, the government provided a long list of how Apple has allegedly squashed competition with restrictive app store terms, high fees and its “walled-garden” approach, restricting how third-party companies interact with its brands and services.', 'The company denied the lawsuit’s allegations and said it plans to fight them.', 'Apple added that the lawsuit could empower the government “to take a heavy hand in designing people’s technology.”', 'But if successful, the lawsuit could ripple across Apple’s products and services.', 'Although the suit could take years to play out, here’s a closer look what it may eventually mean for iPhone users:  If found liable, the company could be forced to change a number of things.', 'One such change is how iPhone users could get greater access to “super apps” that have been largely restricted before.', 'The term refers to one-stop-shop apps that allow for messaging, ordering food, payment processing and other capabilities all within one platform.', 'According to Dipanjan Chatterjee, a principal analyst at market research firm Forrester, super apps most threaten Apple’s preeminence in the lives of its customers.', '“An offering like WeChat, dubbed China’s everything app, can provide an alternative to the Apple ecosystem for people to communicate, bank, share memories, talk to businesses and more,” he said.', '“What Apple fears most is becoming irrelevant to its customers.”', 'At the same time, super apps like WeChat are created by larger companies and could, therefore, put some smaller companies at a disadvantage.', 'And the concept hasn’t been welcomed much in the US anyway.', 'The US government, however, could argue that lack of interest may be due to Apple’s high share of the smartphone market and its resistance to offer super apps in its store, Chatterjee said.', 'Apple may also be required to offer more support for cross-platform messaging, an issue the company previously said it’s already working on.', 'The company lets iPhone users send high-quality photos and videos to one another, but similar texts to Android phones are slower and grainy.', 'It also maintains those messages in green bubbles, creating a kind of class divide, critics argue.', 'In November, the company said it will add new features, such as read receipts, typing indicators, better support for group chats and higher quality media sharing of images and videos, across platforms to help close the gap.', 'Apple’s move to add support for the standard called RCS (rich communication services) is intended to roll out later this year.', 'RCS is considered the replacement to alternatives such as SMS, or short messaging service, and can work over both Wi-Fi and mobile data.', 'The change followed pressure from both regulators and competitors to more seamlessly work across operating systems.', 'The European Union’s Digital Markets Act, for example, requires companies to make their key services interoperable between platforms.', 'The US government could require the same.', 'Another likely change is how hardware from other companies, such as smartwatches, will interact with the Apple range of devices and software, including the iPhone and Apple’s services like Fitness+.', 'The company has also required Apple Watch users to own iOS devices as a way to keep them locked into its existing ecosystem.', 'Chatterjee said making this change would have both positives and negatives.', '“The net result would reside somewhere along the spectrum of access to more and cheaper options but also the devaluation of the customer experience that is so highly prized by Apple’s customers,” he said.', 'The Biden administration has also taken issue with Apple’s lack of support for mobile cloud services.', 'Loosening this could allow users to access games and other cloud-based apps without having to pay for pricey hardware.', 'The DOJ lawsuit claims Apple’s behavior has illegally hindered competition, kept its customers locked into its products and prevented other companies from innovating.', 'Although the Biden administration will have to prove these harms, some critics say any potential changes Apple could make will negatively impact the user experience.', 'David McQueen, a research director at ABI Research, said he recognizes that the content and applications market should be open, and Apple needs to avoid monopolistic advantages that can restrict competition, push up prices or block innovation.', 'But Apple’s success stems in part to its tight grip on its products and services, keeping things intuitive and seamless.', '“If Apple is forced to comply, it could potentially spell the end to the provision of this consistent and unified user experience, although by the same token, consumers will be open to a greater choice of apps and services, helping more developers and providers,” McQueen said.', 'Chatterjee noted some people are drawn to the Apple family of products precisely because of the carefully managed ecosystem’s ease of use.', 'Apple may have to work that much harder to preserve the integrity of its experience, but any changes probably won’t be enough to make customers to leave and go elsewhere.', '“The vast majority of Apple customers would probably be happier with some more choice and lower prices as long as it did not hamper their levels of customer experience, which is threatened by the less control Apple has over the experience,” Chatterjee said.', 'But he added those currently outside of the Apple ecosystem will likely benefit by “plugging in opportunistically without having to go all in with Apple.”']",0.2470050112228104,"In November, the company said it will add new features, such as read receipts, typing indicators, better support for group chats and higher quality media sharing of images and videos, across platforms to help close the gap.",The company denied the lawsuit’s allegations and said it plans to fight them.,-0.151834687590599,"“The vast majority of Apple customers would probably be happier with some more choice and lower prices as long as it did not hamper their levels of customer experience, which is threatened by the less control Apple has over the experience,” Chatterjee said.","The DOJ lawsuit claims Apple’s behavior has illegally hindered competition, kept its customers locked into its products and prevented other companies from innovating.",2024-04-28
JetBlue shares tumble nearly 19% after airline lowers 2024 revenue outlook,https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/23/jetblue-jblu-lowers-2024-revenue-outlook.html,2024-04-23T20:07:59+0000,"In this articleJetBlue Airways shares tumbled more than 18% Tuesday after the airline lowered its 2024 revenue forecast, a setback as it tries to return to profitability.The carrier said second-quarter revenue would likely drop as much as 10.5% on the year, more than double the decline analysts polled by LSEG expected. New York-JetBlue forecast full-year sales would drop in the low single digits, also below Wall Street expectations, after estimating flat sales for the year in its January report.JetBlue has been on a cost-cutting spree, culling unprofitable routes, and focusing on those with steady demand and high sales for premium seats. The carrier last month called off its merger agreement with budget carrier Spirit Airlines after a judge blocked that $3.8 billion deal on antitrust grounds.The outlook update Tuesday shows a growing divide between JetBlue and its larger rivals that have big international networks like Delta and United, which have forecast profits, strong revenue and record demand this summer.""As we look to the full year, significant elevated capacity in our Latin [America] region, which represents a large portion of JetBlue's network, will likely continue to pressure revenue and we expect a setback in our expectations for the full year,"" Joanna Geraghty, who became CEO in February, said in an earnings release. ""We have full confidence that continuing to take action on our refocused standalone strategy is the right path forward to ultimately return to profitability again.""JetBlue is affected by a Pratt & Whitney engine recall that has grounded some of its planes.""It's definitely a big hinderance,"" Geraghty told CNBC of the engine issue. ""Pratt's a good partner. We're focused on trying to make progress on compensation with them. We're not where we need to be. ... But that is ultimately what is depressing our growth.""Geraghty said the airline expects lower capacity next year.In an investor presentation Tuesday, the airline said it was ""actively exploring"" more cost cuts. JetBlue earlier this year said it would defer $2.5 billion in aircraft spending until the end of the year.In the first three months of the year, JetBlue lost $716 million, or $2.11 per share, compared with a loss of $192 million, or 58 cents a share, in the same period of 2023.Adjusting for one-time items, including break-up charges related to the failed Spirit merger, JetBlue lost $145 million, or 43 cents per share, narrower than the 52-cent adjusted loss analysts polled by LSEG expected.Revenue dropped 5.1% from last year to $2.21 billion, matching LSEG revenue expectations.Bright spots included strong demand in the peak travel period, domestic and Europe flights ""as well as continued outsized demand for our premium seating options,"" said JetBlue's President, Marty St. George, who returned to the airline earlier this year.— CNBC's Phil LeBeau contributed to this report.",CNBC,23/04/2024,"['In this articleJetBlue Airways shares tumbled more than 18% Tuesday after the airline lowered its 2024 revenue forecast, a setback as it tries to return to profitability.', 'The carrier said second-quarter revenue would likely drop as much as 10.5% on the year, more than double the decline analysts polled by LSEG expected.', 'New York-JetBlue forecast full-year sales would drop in the low single digits, also below Wall Street expectations, after estimating flat sales for the year in its January report.', 'JetBlue has been on a cost-cutting spree, culling unprofitable routes, and focusing on those with steady demand and high sales for premium seats.', 'The carrier last month called off its merger agreement with budget carrier Spirit Airlines after a judge blocked that $3.8 billion deal on antitrust grounds.', 'The outlook update Tuesday shows a growing divide between JetBlue and its larger rivals that have big international networks like Delta and United, which have forecast profits, strong revenue and record demand this summer.', '""As we look to the full year, significant elevated capacity in our Latin [America] region, which represents a large portion of JetBlue\'s network, will likely continue to pressure revenue and we expect a setback in our expectations for the full year,"" Joanna Geraghty, who became CEO in February, said in an earnings release. ""', 'We have full confidence that continuing to take action on our refocused standalone strategy is the right path forward to ultimately return to profitability again.', '""JetBlue is affected by a Pratt & Whitney engine recall that has grounded some of its planes.', '""It\'s definitely a big hinderance,"" Geraghty told CNBC of the engine issue. ""', ""Pratt's a good partner."", ""We're focused on trying to make progress on compensation with them."", ""We're not where we need to be. ..."", 'But that is ultimately what is depressing our growth.', '""Geraghty said the airline expects lower capacity next year.', 'In an investor presentation Tuesday, the airline said it was ""actively exploring"" more cost cuts.', 'JetBlue earlier this year said it woulddefer $2.5 billion in aircraft spendinguntil the end of the year.', 'In the first three months of the year, JetBlue lost $716 million, or $2.11 per share, compared with a loss of $192 million, or 58 cents a share, in the same period of 2023.Adjusting for one-time items, including break-up charges related to the failed Spirit merger, JetBlue lost $145 million, or 43 cents per share, narrower than the 52-cent adjusted loss analysts polled by LSEG expected.', 'Revenue dropped 5.1% from last year to $2.21 billion, matching LSEG revenue expectations.', 'Bright spots included strong demand in the peak travel period, domestic and Europe flights ""as well as continued outsized demand for our premium seating options,"" said JetBlue\'s President, Marty St. George, who returned to the airline earlier this year.—', ""CNBC's Phil LeBeau contributed to this report.""]",0.1087231275982441,"The outlook update Tuesday shows a growing divide between JetBlue and its larger rivals that have big international networks like Delta and United, which have forecast profits, strong revenue and record demand this summer.","In the first three months of the year, JetBlue lost $716 million, or $2.11 per share, compared with a loss of $192 million, or 58 cents a share, in the same period of 2023.Adjusting for one-time items, including break-up charges related to the failed Spirit merger, JetBlue lost $145 million, or 43 cents per share, narrower than the 52-cent adjusted loss analysts polled by LSEG expected.",-0.245643176138401,"Bright spots included strong demand in the peak travel period, domestic and Europe flights ""as well as continued outsized demand for our premium seating options,"" said JetBlue's President, Marty St. George, who returned to the airline earlier this year.—","Revenue dropped 5.1% from last year to $2.21 billion, matching LSEG revenue expectations.",2024-04-28
OpenAI’s wild week. How the Sam Altman story unfolded,https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/22/tech/openai-sam-altman-chaos-explained-intl-hnk/index.html,"
  Updated
        3:32 PM EST, Wed November 22, 2023
    ","In a year of wild tech stories that has seen Elon Musk transform Twitter, cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapse and Silicon Valley Bank implode, this week’s whiplash-inducing turmoil at OpenAI is among the most captivating.
    
            Sam Altman — the leader of one of the world’s most influential AI companies, OpenAI, and perhaps the most visible figure in the fledgling industry — was fired Friday night by the startup’s directors in a surprise move. Less than five days later, he’s back as the company’s CEO, now with a board that is, in theory, more supportive of his vision.
    
            The series of extraordinary events unfolded just days after OpenAI held its first-ever developer conference, where it laid out new, commercialized versions of its technology, including the option to customize its ChatGPT AI chatbot.
    
            If you’re just catching up, here’s what you missed from a week so incredible you’d be forgiven for thinking the script could have been written by an early version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
    
            Around 3 p.m. ET, Altman joined a Google Meet call with most of OpenAI’s board that had been convened by fellow co-founder and OpenAI chief scientist Ilya Sutskever, during which Altman was fired and told that the news would soon be made public.
    
            Within the next half hour, the board also informed Greg Brockman, another co-founder and OpenAI president, that he would be removed from the board.
    
            Around 3:30 p.m. ET, OpenAI publicly announced that it had fired Altman over concerns that he was not always truthful with the board. The board said Mira Murati, the company’s chief technology officer, would become interim CEO.
    
            OpenAI’s strategic partners, including its biggest financial backer Microsoft, were also reportedly informed of Altman’s ouster just minutes before the board’s announcement.
    
            Hours after being fired, Altman posted on X that he “loved working with such talented people” and that he would have “more to say about what’s next later.”
    
            Brockman promptly quit. “Please don’t spend any time being concerned. We will be fine,” Brockman said in a Friday post on X. “Greater things coming soon.”
    
            A key factor in the CEO’s firing was tension between Altman, who favored developing AI more aggressively, and members of the OpenAI board, who wanted to move more cautiously, according to CNN contributor Kara Swisher, who spoke to sources knowledgeable about the unfolding events.
    
            Within 24 hours of Altman being fired, reports emerged that he and other ex-OpenAI loyalists were mulling plans for their own venture.
    
            OpenAI’s board was also reportedly having second thoughts and considering asking the ousted CEO to return.
    
            By Sunday afternoon, Altman was back at OpenAI’s headquarters — this time with a guest badge — to negotiate his potential return. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reportedly mediated the discussion. A 5 p.m. PT deadline was reportedly set for the board to agree to Altman’s demands, including adding a seat for Microsoft, and reinstating him as CEO.
    
            But those talks broke down.
    
            As Sunday turned into Monday, Nadella tweeted that Altman, along with Brockman, would join Microsoft to run a new AI research group. At OpenAI, the group found a new interim CEO: Emmett Shear, the former CEO of Amazon’s streaming service, Twitch. Murati would return to her role as OpenAI’s chief technology officer.
    
            In a post on X early Monday, Shear, who left his role at Twitch in March, described the chance to join OpenAI as “a once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity. He added that the company would hire an independent investigator to report on what happened in the lead-up to Altman’s firing.
    
            But OpenAI employees were not convinced. More than 500 staffers signed an open letter calling on the company’s board to resign and reinstate Altman and Brockman. They also threatened to follow the co-founders to Microsoft if their demands were not met.
    
            Altman posted on X, saying, “we have more unity and commitment and focus than ever before. we are all going to work together some way or other, and i’m so excited. one team, one mission.”
    
            The drama was far from over. The Verge reported Monday afternoon that Altman and Brockman could still return to OpenAI if the board members who fired him resign.
    
            And Nadella, speaking to CNBC, said he was “open to both options” when asked whether Altman would actually join Microsoft.
    
            “Look, that is for the OpenAI board and management and the employees to choose,” Nadella said. “We chose to explicitly partner with OpenAI and we want to continue to do so, and obviously, that depends on the people of OpenAI staying there or coming to Microsoft.”
    
            Altman was reinstated late Tuesday as OpenAI’s CEO, the company said on X.
    
            “We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board,” the company said, adding that the board will be chaired by Bret Taylor, a former co-CEO of Salesforce. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers will also join the board, alongside existing director, Quora CEO Adam D’Angelo.
    
            “We are collaborating to figure out the details,” it said.
    
            In his own post on X, formerly Twitter, Altman wrote that he is “looking forward” to returning to OpenAI and building on the firm’s “strong partnership” with Microsoft.
    
            It’s unclear how Shear will be affected by Altman’s return. Posting on X, Shear wrote: “I am deeply pleased by this result, after (some) 72 very intense hours of work … I’m glad to have been a part of the solution.”
    
            Brockman is also returning to OpenAI, according to his post on X.
    
            Ultimately, Microsoft and Altman appear to be the big winners from the dust-up: Altman will continue leading the firm he helped to found. And Microsoft has wrested more control over the company it has backed with billions to bolster its ambitions in developing AI.
    
            “We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board,” Nadella said on X. “We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.”",CNN,22/11/2023,"['In a year of wild tech stories that has seen Elon Musk transform Twitter, cryptocurrency exchange FTX collapse and Silicon Valley Bank implode, this week’s whiplash-inducing turmoil at OpenAI is among the most captivating.', 'Sam Altman — the leader of one of the world’s most influential AI companies, OpenAI, and perhaps themost visible figure in the fledgling industry — was fired Friday night by the startup’s directors in a surprise move.', 'Less than five days later, he’s back as the company’s CEO, now with a board that is, in theory, more supportive of his vision.', 'The series of extraordinary events unfolded just days after OpenAI held itsfirst-ever developer conference, where it laid out new, commercialized versions of its technology, including the option to customize its ChatGPT AI chatbot.', 'If you’re just catching up, here’s what you missed from a week so incredible you’d be forgiven for thinking the script could have been written by an early version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.', 'Around 3 p.m. ET, Altman joined a Google Meet call with most of OpenAI’s board that had been convened by fellow co-founder and OpenAI chief scientistIlya Sutskever, during which Altman was fired and told that the news would soon be made public.', 'Within the next half hour, the board also informed Greg Brockman, another co-founder and OpenAI president, that he would be removed from the board.', 'Around 3:30 p.m. ET, OpenAI publicly announced that it had fired Altman over concerns that he was not always truthful with the board.', 'The board said Mira Murati, the company’s chief technology officer, would become interim CEO.', 'OpenAI’s strategic partners, including its biggest financial backer Microsoft, were also reportedly informed of Altman’s ouster just minutes before the board’s announcement.', 'Hours after being fired, Altman posted on X that he “loved working with such talented people” and that he would have “more to say about what’s next later.”', 'Brockman promptly quit. “', 'Please don’t spend any time being concerned.', 'We will be fine,” Brockmansaid in a Friday poston X. “Greater things coming soon.”', 'A key factor in the CEO’s firing wastension between Altman, who favored developing AImore aggressively, and members of the OpenAI board, who wanted to move more cautiously,according to CNN contributor Kara Swisher,who spoke to sources knowledgeable about the unfolding events.', 'Within 24 hours of Altman being fired, reports emerged that he and other ex-OpenAI loyalists were mulling plans for their own venture.', 'OpenAI’s board was also reportedly having second thoughts and considering asking the ousted CEO to return.', 'By Sunday afternoon, Altman wasback at OpenAI’s headquarters— this time with a guest badge — to negotiate his potential return.', 'Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella reportedly mediated the discussion.', 'A 5 p.m. PT deadline was reportedly set for the board to agree to Altman’s demands, including adding a seat for Microsoft, and reinstating him as CEO.', 'But those talks broke down.', 'As Sunday turned into Monday, Nadella tweeted that Altman, along with Brockman, would join Microsoft to run a new AI research group.', 'At OpenAI, the group found a new interim CEO: Emmett Shear, the former CEO of Amazon’s streaming service, Twitch.', 'Murati would return to her role as OpenAI’s chief technology officer.', 'In a post on X early Monday, Shear, who left his role at Twitch in March, described the chance to join OpenAI as “a once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity.', 'He added that the company would hire an independent investigator to report on what happened in the lead-up to Altman’s firing.', 'But OpenAI employees were not convinced.', 'More than 500 staffers signed an open letter calling on the company’s board to resign and reinstate Altman and Brockman.', 'They also threatened to follow the co-founders to Microsoft if their demands were not met.', 'Altman posted on X, saying, “we have more unity and commitment and focus than ever before.', 'we are all going to work together some way or other, and i’m so excited.', 'one team, one mission.”', 'The drama was far from over.', 'The Verge reported Monday afternoonthat Altman and Brockman could still return to OpenAI if the board members who fired him resign.', 'And Nadella, speaking to CNBC, said he was “open to both options” when asked whether Altman would actually join Microsoft.', '“Look, that is for the OpenAI board and management and the employees to choose,” Nadella said. “', 'We chose to explicitly partner with OpenAI and we want to continue to do so, and obviously, that depends on the people of OpenAI staying there or coming to Microsoft.”', 'Altmanwas reinstated late Tuesday as OpenAI’s CEO, the company said on X.  “We have reached an agreement in principle for Sam Altman to return to OpenAI as CEO with a new initial board,” the company said, adding that the board will be chaired by Bret Taylor, a former co-CEO of Salesforce.', 'Former Treasury SecretaryLarry Summers will also join the board, alongside existing director, Quora CEOAdam D’Angelo.', '“We are collaborating to figure out the details,” it said.', 'In his own post on X, formerly Twitter, Altmanwrotethat he is “looking forward” to returning to OpenAI and building on the firm’s “strong partnership” with Microsoft.', 'It’s unclear how Shear will be affected by Altman’s return.', 'Posting on X, Shear wrote:“I am deeply pleased by this result, after (some) 72 very intense hours of work … I’m glad to have been a part of the solution.”', 'Brockman is also returning to OpenAI, according to hispost on X.  Ultimately, Microsoft and Altman appear to be the big winners from the dust-up: Altman will continue leading the firm he helped to found.', 'And Microsoft has wrested more control over the company it has backed with billions to bolster its ambitions in developing AI.', '“We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board,” Nadellasaidon X. “We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.”']",0.062777217389235,"“We are encouraged by the changes to the OpenAI board,” Nadellasaidon X. “We believe this is a first essential step on a path to more stable, well-informed, and effective governance.”","Around 3:30 p.m. ET, OpenAI publicly announced that it had fired Altman over concerns that he was not always truthful with the board.",0.549453833273479,And Microsoft has wrested more control over the company it has backed with billions to bolster its ambitions in developing AI.,"Sam Altman — the leader of one of the world’s most influential AI companies, OpenAI, and perhaps themost visible figure in the fledgling industry — was fired Friday night by the startup’s directors in a surprise move.",2024-04-28
"Bilt’s May Rent Day promotion: Redeem points toward rent, get free home decor",https://edition.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/travel/bilt-rent-day-promotion,"
  Updated
        4:22 PM EDT, Thu April 25, 2024
    ","The Bilt Mastercard® (see rates and fees) has been incredibly popular since its inception in 2021. With a top-notch travel rewards program and the opportunity to earn points on rent with no transaction fees (up to 100,000 points per calendar year), it’s no surprise to see the card flourish over the past few years.
    
            In addition, Bilt Rewards — the loyalty program behind the Bilt Mastercard — offers lucrative promotions throughout the year, with the most popular known as Rent Day.
    
            With Bilt’s Rent Day promotion — which runs the first of every month — card members earn double points on all purchases (excluding rent) and can take advantage of a unique promotion that changes every month. Bilt typically announces these promotions just a few days before Rent Day.
    
            Bilt Rewards just announced the May edition of its monthly Rent Day promotion, and for better or for worse, it’s different from offers we’ve seen in the past.
    
            Instead of a travel-related offer (which has been the norm), Bilt is incentivizing members to redeem points toward their monthly rent payment in exchange for a credit toward home decor products in the Bilt Home Collection.
    
            Additionally, Bilt recently announced a new partnership with Blade, a swanky helicopter transfer service that runs scheduled flights between New York City airports and Manhattan’s heliports.
    
            Let’s take a closer look at this upcoming Rent Day promotion and Bilt’s partnership with Blade.
    
            Between April 25 and May 1, Bilt members who redeem points toward their rent payment will get 100% of those points back to redeem toward items in the Bilt Home Collection. You can use a minimum of 1,000 points and a maximum of 50,000 points for this offer, and the Home Collection credit is good for six months.
    
            However, your points are only worth 0.55 cents apiece when you redeem them toward your rent payment. For example, if you redeem 10,000 points toward rent, you’ll get a $55 discount.
    
            Travel website The Points Guy values Bilt Rewards points at 2.05 cents apiece when redeemed toward travel, so this isn’t a great redemption in comparison. However, it might be worth considering this month if you’re looking for new home decor anyway.
    
            The Bilt Home Collection usually has things like artwork from partner artists, interesting vases and different types of cups.
    
            This month, Bilt will also offer curated Rent Day dining experiences at restaurants around the country. This includes unique tasting menus, wine pairings and omakase experiences.
    
            These dining experiences will cost $150, or you can redeem 15,000 Bilt points for you and a guest. Availability will be limited, but you can try to grab a seat on April 26.
    
            Those with Bilt elite status will receive priority access to reservations. Platinum status members will have first access at 12 p.m. EST, Gold status members at 12:10 p.m. EST and Silver status members at 12:20 p.m. EST. All other Bilt Rewards members can book at 12:30 p.m. EST.
    
            Dining experiences will be available at select restaurants in New York, Miami, Seattle, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Boston and Washington, D.C.
    
            Every month on Rent Day, Bilt also gives members with the Bilt Mastercard a chance to earn double points on all purchases (excluding rent).
    
            So, if you have a new restaurant you want to check out, flights to book or any other purchases to make, it could be worth waiting until May 1 to earn more points on your purchase. And if you’re dining at a restaurant that participates in Bilt Dining, you can increase your earnings up to a whopping 11 points per dollar.
    
            But remember, to earn Bilt points with your Bilt Mastercard, you must use the card five times each statement period (see Rewards & Benefits).
    
            Earlier this month, Bilt announced a new partnership with Blade, where Bilt Reward members will earn bonus points on every Blade booking. Members will earn 2 bonus points for every dollar spent on Blade flights as long as they pay with a credit or debit card linked to their Bilt Rewards account.
    
            Again, you’ll get more Blade benefits if you have Bilt elite status.
    
            These are nice benefits to have if you live in New York. Blade has lounges at its heliports on West 30th Street and East 34th Street, both of which are outfitted with a complimentary bar, coffee and free snacks.
    
            If getting a discount on rent is your preferred way to redeem Bilt Rewards points, this month’s Rent Day promotion is a great way to earn bonus points to put toward furnishing your home. If you’d rather redeem toward travel, focus on earning double points on all purchases on May 1.
    
            Learn more and apply now for the Bilt Mastercard.
    
            Looking for a travel credit card? Find out which cards CNN Underscored Money chose as the best travel credit cards currently available.",CNN,25/04/2024,"['The Bilt Mastercard® (seerates and fees) has been incredibly popular since its inception in 2021.', 'With a top-notch travel rewards program and the opportunity to earn points on rent with no transaction fees (up to 100,000 points per calendar year), it’s no surprise to see the card flourish over the past few years.', 'In addition, Bilt Rewards —the loyalty program behind the Bilt Mastercard — offers lucrative promotions throughout the year, with the most popular known as Rent Day.', 'With Bilt’s Rent Day promotion —which runs the first of every month — card members earn double points on all purchases (excluding rent) and can take advantage of a unique promotion that changes every month.', 'Bilt typically announces these promotions just a few days before Rent Day.', 'Bilt Rewards just announced the May edition of its monthly Rent Day promotion, and for better or for worse, it’s different from offers we’ve seen in the past.', 'Instead of a travel-related offer (which has been the norm), Bilt is incentivizing members to redeem points toward their monthly rent payment in exchange for a credit toward home decor products in the Bilt Home Collection.', 'Additionally, Bilt recently announced a new partnership with Blade,a swanky helicopter transfer service that runs scheduled flights between New York City airports and Manhattan’s heliports.', 'Let’s take a closer look at this upcoming Rent Day promotion and Bilt’s partnership with Blade.', 'Between April 25 and May 1, Bilt members who redeem points toward their rent payment will get 100% of those points back to redeem toward items in the Bilt Home Collection.', 'You can use a minimum of 1,000 points and a maximum of 50,000 points for this offer, and the Home Collection credit is good for six months.', 'However, your points are only worth 0.55 cents apiece when you redeem them toward your rent payment.', 'For example, if you redeem 10,000 points toward rent, you’ll get a $55 discount.', 'Travel website The Points Guy values Bilt Rewards points at 2.05 cents apiece when redeemed toward travel, so this isn’t a great redemption in comparison.', 'However, it might be worth considering this month if you’re looking for new home decor anyway.', 'The Bilt Home Collection usually has things like artwork from partner artists, interesting vases and different types of cups.', 'This month, Bilt will also offer curated Rent Day dining experiences at restaurants around the country.', 'This includes unique tasting menus, wine pairings and omakase experiences.', 'These dining experiences will cost $150, or you can redeem 15,000 Bilt points for you and a guest.', 'Availability will be limited, but you can try to grab a seat on April 26.', 'Those with Bilt elite status will receive priority access to reservations.', 'Platinum status members will have first access at 12 p.m. EST, Gold status members at 12:10 p.m. EST and Silver status members at 12:20 p.m. EST.', 'All other Bilt Rewards members can book at 12:30 p.m. EST.', 'Dining experiences will be available at select restaurants in New York, Miami, Seattle, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Dallas, Boston and Washington, D.C.  Every month on Rent Day, Bilt also gives members with the Bilt Mastercard a chance to earn double points on all purchases (excluding rent).', 'So, if you have a new restaurant you want to check out, flights to book or any other purchases to make, it could be worth waiting until May 1 to earn more points on your purchase.', 'And if you’re dining at a restaurant that participates in Bilt Dining, you can increase your earnings up to a whopping 11 points per dollar.', 'But remember, to earn Bilt points with your Bilt Mastercard, you must use the card five times each statement period (see Rewards & Benefits).', 'Earlier this month, Bilt announced a new partnership with Blade, where Bilt Reward members will earn bonus points on every Blade booking.', 'Members will earn 2 bonus points for every dollar spent on Blade flights as long as they pay with a credit or debit card linked to their Bilt Rewards account.', 'Again, you’ll get more Blade benefits if you have Bilt elite status.', 'These are nice benefits to have if you live in New York.', 'Blade has lounges at its heliports on West 30th Street and East 34th Street, both of which are outfitted with a complimentary bar, coffee and free snacks.', 'If getting a discount on rent is your preferred way to redeem Bilt Rewards points, this month’s Rent Day promotion is a great way to earn bonus points to put toward furnishing your home.', 'If you’d rather redeem toward travel, focus on earning double points on all purchases on May 1.', 'Learn more and apply now for the Bilt Mastercard.', 'Looking for a travel credit card?', 'Find out which cardsCNN Underscored Moneychose as thebest travel credit cardscurrently available.']",0.3487739443917381,"Travel website The Points Guy values Bilt Rewards points at 2.05 cents apiece when redeemed toward travel, so this isn’t a great redemption in comparison.",,0.978265517950058,"And if you’re dining at a restaurant that participates in Bilt Dining, you can increase your earnings up to a whopping 11 points per dollar.",,2024-04-28
Digital humans: the relatable face of artificial intelligence?,https://edition.cnn.com/business/digital-humans-ai-dj-dex-spc/index.html,"
  Published
        5:33 AM EDT, Tue March 19, 2024
    ","Scrolling through the Instagram account of DJ and aspiring model Dex you’ll see her wearing new outfits, performing at shows around the world and chatting to her thousands of followers about her hobbies.
    
            However, it’s clear that there is something different about Dex; she’s an entirely virtual “digital human,” designed by a startup in the UK.
    
            For her performances, Dex is displayed on a video screen or as a holographic projection, with her mixes created by humans. She is animated using Unreal Engine — a 3D modeling software widely used in video games — combined with motion-capture. Generative artificial intelligence allows her to remember information and respond to questions, using a voice also generated by AI.
    
            “She’s probably one of the only digital humans in the performance space that you can have a conversation and interact with,” says Denise Harris, CCO of startup Sum Vivas. “You can ask her anything. She is a genius about music.”
    
            Last month, Dex performed at Digital Fashion Weeks in New York, Paris and Milan, and she has modeled outfits by Prada and Louis Vuitton at digital fashion events.
    
            For Liverpool-based Sum Vivas she’s a “showpiece” for more practical applications. The company is now developing digital humans that can “listen” to people’s questions and converse in real time. “Shellie” can provide product information as an avatar on company websites, while “Arif” is set to direct passengers and answer questions as a multilingual concierge on screens at airports.
    
            According to CEO and founder Rob Sims, digital humans can help bridge the gap between AI technology and people. “What we’ve found is when people start working with and conversing with a digital human, they very quickly suspend disbelief,” Sims tells CNN. “It becomes natural.”
    
            Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT was launched in November 2022, considerable hype has surrounded the potential of generative AI — artificial intelligence powered by huge datasets of information, capable of generating text outputs in a conversational way.
    
            Record levels of investment into generative AI have followed, with over $21 billion poured into the industry during the first nine months of last year, according to data insights company Pitchbook. In March 2023, Google launched Bard (recently renamed Gemini) and around the same time Anthropic released its AI assistant Claude. As generative AI chatbots become increasingly ubiquitous, Sum Vivas is one of several companies looking to make them more human.
    
            US and New Zealand-based UneeQ has developed animated conversational “digital humans” that can be used as virtual sales reps and customer service agents on company websites, and this month it debuted Sama 2.0, an animated cabin crew member that answers questions on Qatar Airways’ website and app.
    
            Microsoft recently announced that users of its Azure software would be able to create lifelike avatars capable of turning text prompts into animated speech. However, there are widespread concerns about the impact AI could have on the job market. 
    
            “When we rely on automated tools, what skills are we losing in the process?” asks Jennifer Ding, senior researcher at the Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. “In some ways, we think of AI as something that’s helping us or augmenting our work,” she says. “However, alongside, this fear of replacement is bubbling up more and more.”
    
            Harris, however, points to new opportunities within digital human design and development. “Every scenario that we found, we’re creating jobs and working in harmony with people rather than taking away jobs,” she says.
    
            “Digital humans, first and foremost, should work with other human colleagues,” adds Sims. “We’ll move into a stage where digital humans will start to become just another member of the team, with added benefits for that team, and obviously the customers they serve.”",CNN,19/03/2024,"['Scrolling through the Instagram account of DJ and aspiring model Dex you’ll see her wearing new outfits, performing at shows around the world and chatting to her thousands of followers about her hobbies.', 'However, it’s clear that there is something different about Dex; she’s an entirely virtual “digital human,” designed by a startup in the UK.', 'For her performances, Dex is displayed on a video screen or as a holographic projection, with her mixes created by humans.', 'She is animated using Unreal Engine — a 3D modeling software widely used in video games — combined with motion-capture.', 'Generative artificial intelligence allows her to remember information and respond to questions, using a voice also generated by AI.', '“She’s probably one of the only digital humans in the performance space that you can have a conversation and interact with,” says Denise Harris, CCO of startup Sum Vivas. “', 'You can ask her anything.', 'She is a genius about music.”', 'Last month, Dex performed at Digital Fashion Weeks in New York, Paris and Milan, and she has modeled outfits by Prada and Louis Vuitton at digital fashion events.', 'For Liverpool-based Sum Vivas she’s a “showpiece” for more practical applications.', 'The company is now developing digital humans that can “listen” to people’s questions and converse in real time. “', 'Shellie” can provide product information as an avatar on company websites, while “Arif” is set to direct passengers and answer questions as a multilingual concierge on screens at airports.', 'According to CEO and founder Rob Sims, digital humans can help bridge the gap between AI technology and people. “', 'What we’ve found is when people start working with and conversing with a digital human, they very quickly suspend disbelief,” Sims tells CNN. “', 'It becomes natural.”', 'Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT was launched in November 2022, considerable hype has surrounded the potential of generative AI — artificial intelligence powered by huge datasets of information, capable of generating text outputs in a conversational way.', 'Record levels of investment into generative AI have followed, with over $21 billion poured into the industry during the first nine months of last year, according to data insights company Pitchbook.', 'In March 2023, Google launched Bard (recently renamed Gemini) and around the same time Anthropic released its AI assistant Claude.', 'As generative AI chatbots become increasingly ubiquitous, Sum Vivas is one of several companies looking to make them more human.', 'US and New Zealand-based UneeQ has developed animated conversational “digital humans” that can be used as virtual sales reps and customer service agents on company websites, and this month it debuted Sama 2.0, an animated cabin crew member that answers questions on Qatar Airways’ website and app.', 'Microsoft recently announced that users of its Azure software would be able to create lifelike avatars capable of turning text prompts into animated speech.', 'However, there are widespread concerns about the impact AI could have on the job market.', '“When we rely on automated tools, what skills are we losing in the process?”', 'asks Jennifer Ding, senior researcher at the Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence. “', 'In some ways, we think of AI as something that’s helping us or augmenting our work,” she says. “', 'However, alongside, this fear of replacement is bubbling up more and more.”', 'Harris, however, points to new opportunities within digital human design and development. “', 'Every scenario that we found, we’re creating jobs and working in harmony with people rather than taking away jobs,” she says.', '“Digital humans, first and foremost, should work with other human colleagues,” adds Sims. “', 'We’ll move into a stage where digital humans will start to become just another member of the team, with added benefits for that team, and obviously the customers they serve.”']",0.1214444180579973,"Since OpenAI’s ChatGPT was launched in November 2022, considerable hype has surrounded the potential of generative AI — artificial intelligence powered by huge datasets of information, capable of generating text outputs in a conversational way.","However, alongside, this fear of replacement is bubbling up more and more.”",0.2107271328568458,"Harris, however, points to new opportunities within digital human design and development. “","However, there are widespread concerns about the impact AI could have on the job market.",2024-04-28
Australia is taking on ‘arrogant billionaire’ Elon Musk over violent images on X,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/24/media/australia-elon-musk-x-sydney-church-stabbing-hnk-intl/index.html,"
  Updated
        11:59 PM EDT, Thu April 25, 2024
    ","In one camp is a tech billionaire with more than 181 million followers on his own social network. In the other, political leaders representing a country of just 26 million people.
    
            Insults have been hurled for days by both sides in an increasingly bare-knuckled fight between X owner Elon Musk and the Australian government that’s playing out both online and in the Federal Court.
    
            At issue is the right of X to publish a video showing the moment a 16-year-old allegedly stabbed a bishop in an Orthodox Christian Church in Sydney earlier this month.
    
            Australian authorities say the clips threw fuel on a riot that erupted outside the church after the attack and shouldn’t be available for general viewing on a global platform, where it could be used to radicalize potential offenders.
    
            The country’s eSafety commissioner ordered social media giants to take it down.
    
            Most complied, but X didn’t go far enough, according to the commissioner.
    
            Australia wants X to remove the video completely, not just hide it from Australian users who could circumvent a local ban by using virtual private networks.
    
            X says that’s an assault on free speech.
    
            “Our concern is that if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet? Musk posted on X.
    
            Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday labelled Musk an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he’s above the law, but also above common decency.”
    
            After deleting her X account and urging other politicians to do the same, Jacqui Lambie, a straight-talking senator and former soldier from Tasmania, posted an image of herself on Facebook dressed in army fatigues with a message to Musk to “put his big boy pants on and do the right thing.”
    
            The post dropped around midnight in the United States, and as of writing, the X boss hadn’t responded. Though her previous calls on national television for Musk to be jailed resulted in him branding her “an enemy of the people of Australia.”
    
            X did not reply to a request for comment.
    
            On Wednesday, more than a week after the attack, the video was still available to view on the X account of the Australian Jewish Association (AJA). President David Adler told CNN he hadn’t been asked to take it down, either by X or Australia’s eSafety commissioner.
    
            Adler said the AJA received an email from X saying Australian authorities had contacted the company with a takedown request, noting the video “violates the law(s) of Australia.”
    
            According to the email, seen by CNN, X said: “We want you to have an opportunity to evaluate the request and, if you wish, take appropriate action to protect your interests.”
    
            The AJA hasn’t taken the video down, because Adler believes it’s important for people to see.
    
            “The reason we did that is because security issues are of critical interest to the Jewish community,” said Adler. “Politicians are not adequately taking the risks of extremism seriously enough. And one of the benefits of showing exactly what happened is a public awakening. Politicians often won’t act without public pressure and there needs to be a bit of an awakening about the risk.”
    
            The eSafety office told CNN it doesn’t have the power to compel posters to take down their content, but it does require platforms to do “everything practical and reasonable” to minimize any harm caused to the community.
    
            On Wednesday, the risks of extremism became apparent with a series of raids at 13 locations in Sydney by the Joint Counter Terrorism Team related to the church attack.
    
            Seven youths, age 15 to 17, were arrested and another five were helping police with their inquiries, Australian Federal Police (AFP) Deputy Commissioner Krissy Barrett told a news conference.
    
            “We identified links between the alleged offender and a network of associates and peers who we believe shared a similar violent extremist ideology,” she said. “At this time, we have no evidence of specific locations, times or targets of a violent act.”
    
            The arrests came as the heads of the AFP and Australia’s Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) gave a joint address to the National Press Club warning that the risks are extreme — and urging social media companies to work with police against forces seeking to radicalize children.
    
            “Some of our children and other vulnerable people are being bewitched online by a cauldron of extremist poison on the open and dark web. And that’s one serious problem. The other is that the very nature of social media allows that extremist poison to spray across the globe almost instantaneously,” said AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw.
    
            Musk’s refusal to take down the videos resulted in Australia’s e-safety commissioner taking legal action on X to act or risk fines of up to 782,500 Australian dollars ($508,000) for each day of non-compliance.
    
            On Wednesday, the parties were back in the Federal Court in Sydney, where X lawyer Marcus Hoyne made clear that the social media platform hadn’t changed its position and would fight what he called the commissioner’s attempted reach over an “exorbitant jurisdiction.”
    
            He said X would file an affidavit from Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, the cleric who was stabbed multiple times during the church attack, “stating that he is strongly of the view that the material should be available.”
    
            Christ The Good Shepherd Church, where the attack happened, declined to comment when contacted by CNN.
    
            Joanne Gray, a lecturer in digital cultures at the University of Sydney, said the eSafety commissioner’s attempt to extend the takedown orders beyond Australia’s borders was not an overreach.
    
            “There’s a long history of platforms working with policymakers and civil society and different groups to moderate content, and Musk’s position is a deviation from that,” she told CNN.
    
            Gray said taking down harmful material in the jurisdiction where it was published typically limits its spread and any potential harm caused, though conceded the system isn’t perfect.
    
            Gray said Musk was trying to apply his stated belief in free speech absolutism to Australia, not to set a precedent for other platforms to follow.
    
            “It’s extremely problematic that any individual has control over a communication platform that has the potential to reach a global audience in a way that is unaccountable,” she said.
    
            Musk’s fight with the Australian government is one of many the billionaire is waging against authorities he accuses of imposing limits on free speech.
    
            Since Musk bought X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2022, he has stripped back its content moderation and reinstated some previously blocked accounts, earning him strong support from loyal followers.
    
            In a statement Wednesday, Australia’s eSafety commissioner said the takedown request wasn’t designed to stifle discussion about the church attack.
    
            “The removal notice given to X Corp does not relate to commentary, public debate or other posts about this event, even those which may link to extreme violent content. It only concerns the video of the violent stabbing attack,” it said.
    
            Musk’s supporters have applauded the billionaire’s stance in Australia and taken aim at his critics.
    
            Lambie’s office confirmed there had been an increase in the trolling of her Facebook account, and Wednesday’s post was closed for comments in order to discourage more.
    
            The court granted a further injunction requiring X to hide the violent material until May 10, when all parties will return to court.
    
            This story has been updated with additional information.",CNN,25/04/2024,"['In one camp is a tech billionaire with more than 181 million followers on his own social network.', 'In the other, political leaders representing a country of just 26 million people.', 'Insults have been hurled for days by both sides in an increasingly bare-knuckled fight between X owner Elon Musk and the Australian government that’s playing out both online and in the Federal Court.', 'At issue is the right of X to publish a video showing the moment a 16-year-old allegedly stabbed a bishop in an Orthodox Christian Church in Sydney earlier this month.', 'Australian authorities say the clips threw fuel on a riot that erupted outside the church after the attack and shouldn’t be available for general viewing on a global platform, where it could be used to radicalize potential offenders.', 'The country’s eSafety commissioner ordered social media giants to take it down.', 'Most complied, but X didn’t go far enough, according to the commissioner.', 'Australia wants X to remove the video completely, not just hide it from Australian users who could circumvent a local ban by using virtual private networks.', 'X says that’s an assault on free speech.', '“Our concern is that if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet?', 'Musk posted on X.  Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Tuesday labelled Musk an “arrogant billionaire who thinks he’s above the law, but also above common decency.”', 'After deleting her X account and urging other politicians to do the same, Jacqui Lambie, a straight-talking senator and former soldier from Tasmania, posted an image of herself on Facebook dressed in army fatigues with a message to Musk to “put his big boy pants on and do the right thing.”', 'The post dropped around midnight in the United States, and as of writing, the X boss hadn’t responded.', 'Though her previous calls on national television for Musk to be jailed resulted in him branding her “an enemy of the people of Australia.”', 'X did not reply to a request for comment.', 'On Wednesday, more than a week after the attack, the video was still available to view on the X account of theAustralian Jewish Association (AJA).', 'President David Adler told CNN he hadn’t been asked to take it down, either by X or Australia’s eSafety commissioner.', 'Adler said the AJA received an email from X saying Australian authorities had contacted the company with a takedown request, noting the video “violates the law(s) of Australia.”', 'According to the email, seen by CNN, X said: “We want you to have an opportunity to evaluate the request and, if you wish, take appropriate action to protect your interests.”', 'The AJA hasn’t taken the video down, because Adler believes it’s important for people to see.', '“The reason we did that is because security issues are of critical interest to the Jewish community,” said Adler. “', 'Politicians are not adequately taking the risks of extremism seriously enough.', 'And one of the benefits of showing exactly what happened is a public awakening.', 'Politicians often won’t act without public pressure and there needs to be a bit of an awakening about the risk.”', 'The eSafety office told CNN it doesn’t have the power to compel posters to take down their content, but it does require platforms to do “everything practical and reasonable” to minimize any harm caused to the community.', 'On Wednesday, the risks of extremism became apparent with a series of raids at 13 locations in Sydney by the Joint Counter Terrorism Team related to the church attack.', 'Seven youths, age 15 to 17, were arrested and another five were helping police with their inquiries, Australian Federal Police (AFP) Deputy Commissioner Krissy Barrett told a news conference.', '“We identified links between the alleged offender and a network of associates and peers who we believe shared a similar violent extremist ideology,” she said. “', 'At this time, we have no evidence of specific locations, times or targets of a violent act.”', 'The arrests came as the heads of the AFP and Australia’s Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) gave a joint address to the National Press Club warning that the risks are extreme — and urging social media companies to work with police against forces seeking to radicalize children.', '“Some of our children and other vulnerable people are being bewitched online by a cauldron of extremist poison on the open and dark web.', 'And that’s one serious problem.', 'The other is that the very nature of social media allows that extremist poison to spray across the globe almost instantaneously,” said AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw.', 'Musk’s refusal to take down the videos resulted in Australia’s e-safety commissioner taking legal action on X to act or risk fines of up to 782,500 Australian dollars ($508,000) for each day of non-compliance.', 'On Wednesday, the parties were back in the Federal Court in Sydney, where X lawyer Marcus Hoynemade clear that the social media platform hadn’t changed its position and would fight what he called the commissioner’s attempted reach over an “exorbitant jurisdiction.”', 'He said X would file an affidavit from Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel, the cleric who was stabbed multiple times during the church attack, “stating that he is strongly of the view that the material should be available.”', 'Christ The Good Shepherd Church, where the attack happened, declined to comment when contacted by CNN.', 'Joanne Gray, a lecturer in digital cultures at the University of Sydney, said the eSafety commissioner’s attempt to extend the takedown orders beyond Australia’s borders was not an overreach.', '“There’s a long history of platforms working with policymakers and civil society and different groups to moderate content, and Musk’s position is a deviation from that,” she told CNN.', 'Gray said taking down harmful material in the jurisdiction where it was published typically limits its spread and any potential harm caused, though conceded the system isn’t perfect.', 'Gray said Musk was trying to apply his stated belief in free speech absolutism to Australia, not to set a precedent for other platforms to follow.', '“It’s extremely problematic that any individual has control over a communication platform that has the potential to reach a global audience in a way that is unaccountable,” she said.', 'Musk’s fight with the Australian government is one of many the billionaire is waging against authorities he accuses of imposing limits on free speech.', 'Since Musk bought X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2022, he has stripped back its content moderation and reinstated some previously blocked accounts, earning him strong support from loyal followers.', 'In a statement Wednesday, Australia’s eSafety commissioner said the takedown request wasn’t designed to stifle discussion about the church attack.', '“The removal notice given to X Corp does not relate to commentary, public debate or other posts about this event, even those which may link to extreme violent content.', 'It only concerns the video of the violent stabbing attack,” it said.', 'Musk’s supporters have applauded the billionaire’s stance in Australia and taken aim at his critics.', 'Lambie’s office confirmed there had been an increase in the trolling of her Facebook account, and Wednesday’s post was closed for comments in order to discourage more.', 'The court granted a further injunction requiring X to hide the violent material until May 10, when all parties will return to court.', 'This story has been updated with additional information.']",-0.1839318587557732,"According to the email, seen by CNN, X said: “We want you to have an opportunity to evaluate the request and, if you wish, take appropriate action to protect your interests.”","On Wednesday, the risks of extremism became apparent with a series of raids at 13 locations in Sydney by the Joint Counter Terrorism Team related to the church attack.",-0.1259015032223292,"Since Musk bought X, formerly known as Twitter, in 2022, he has stripped back its content moderation and reinstated some previously blocked accounts, earning him strong support from loyal followers.","Musk’s refusal to take down the videos resulted in Australia’s e-safety commissioner taking legal action on X to act or risk fines of up to 782,500 Australian dollars ($508,000) for each day of non-compliance.",2024-04-28
A coal billionaire is building the world’s biggest clean energy plant and it’s five times the size of Paris,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/19/business/india-adani-green-energy-plant-climate-intl-hnk/index.html,"
  Updated
        2:36 PM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","Five times the size of Paris. Visible from space. The world’s biggest energy plant. Enough electricity to power Switzerland.
    
            The scale of the project transforming swathes of barren salt desert on the edge of western India into one of the most important sources of clean energy anywhere on the planet is so overwhelming that the man in charge can’t keep up.
    
            “I don’t even do the math any more,” Sagar Adani told CNN in an interview last week.
    
            Adani is executive director of Adani Green Energy Limited (AGEL). He’s also the nephew of Gautam Adani, Asia’s second richest man, whose $100 billion fortune stems from the Adani Group, India’s biggest coal importer and a leading miner of the dirty fuel. Founded in 1988, the conglomerate has businesses in fields ranging from ports and thermal power plants to media and cements.
    
            Its clean energy unit AGEL is building the sprawling solar and wind power plant in the western Indian state of Gujarat at a cost of about $20 billion. It will be the world’s biggest renewable park when it is finished in about five years, and should generate enough clean electricity to power 16 million Indian homes.
    
            The success of the Khavda Renewable Energy Park is critical to India’s efforts to reduce pollution and hit its climate goals while meeting the burgeoning energy needs of the world’s most populous nation and fastest-growing major economy. Coal still accounts for 70% of the electricity India generates.
    
            Situated just 12 miles from one of the world’s most dangerous borders separating India and Pakistan, the park will cover more than 200 square miles and be the planet’s largest power plant regardless of the energy source, AGEL said.
    
            “A region so large, a region that is so unencumbered, there’s no wildlife, there’s no vegetation, there’s no habitation. There is no better alternative use of that land,” said Adani.
    
            The group’s big green plans haven’t been dented by the turbulent year it has had since January 2023, when an American short-seller Hindenburg Research accused it of engaging in fraud over decades.
    
            The Indian mining-to-media conglomerate denounced Hindenburg’s report as “baseless” and “malicious.” But that failed to halt a stunning stock market meltdown that, at one point, wiped more than $100 billion off the value of its listed companies. Gautam Adani’s personal fortune was also hammered, collapsing by more than $80 billion in the month following the release of the report.
    
            But the tycoon has since bounced back and the group is now pouring billions into the clean energy sector.
    
            It plans to invest $100 billion into energy transition over the next decade, with 70% of the investments ear-marked for clean energy.
    
            Adani Group’s clean energy pivot comes at a time when India has set itself some ambitious climate goals. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised that renewable sources such as solar and wind power will fulfil 50% of India’s energy requirements by the end of this decade.
    
            In 2021, Modi pledged India would achieve net zero emissions by 2070, which is still a couple of decades later than developed economies.
    
            The government has set a target of 500 gigawatts (GW) of non-fossil fuel electricity generating capacity by 2030. AGEL, the country’s largest renewable energy company, aims to provide at least 9% of that, with nearly 30 GW generated from its Khavda park in Gujarat alone.
    
            Failing to transition to renewable energy is not an option, said Adani.
    
            “There is no choice for India but to start doing things at a previously unimagined size and scale,” the 30-year-old said.
    
            That’s because energy demand is going to explode in the coming years.
    
            India is the world’s third-largest energy consuming country, although its energy use and emissions per person are less than half the world average, data from the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) shows.
    
            That could change rapidly. Thanks to rising incomes, energy demand has doubled since 2000, with 80% of it still being met by coal, oil and solid biomass. Over the next three decades, the rapidly-expanding economy will see the largest energy demand growth of any country in the world, the IEA said.
    
            “If India does what China did, if India does what Europe did, if India does what the US did, then we are all in for a very, very bleak climatic future,” said Adani, referring to the historic use of fossil fuels as those countries developed.
    
            His dire predictions are not dramatic. India is comfortably placed to grow at an annual rate of at least 6% in the coming few years, analysts say, and may become the world’s third largest economy before the end of this decade.
    
            As it develops and modernizes, its urban population will shoot up, leading to a massive rise in the construction of homes, offices, shops and other buildings. According to analysts, India is set to add the equivalent of a London to its urban population every year for the next 30 years.
    
            Electricity demand is expected to skyrocket in the coming years because of factors ranging from improved living standards to climate change. The latter has been fueling deadly heatwaves across India, and as a result, air conditioner ownership is set to see a sharp spike in the coming years.
    
            By 2050, India’s total electricity demand from residential air conditioners is set to exceed the total energy consumption in the whole of Africa today, the IEA said.
    
            India cannot rely on fossil fuels for its burgeoning needs without disastrous consequences for efforts to tackle the climate crisis.
    
            “If you imagine 800 GW of coal-fired thermal capacity being added … this by itself will kill all other sustainable energy initiatives happening all across the world, in terms of carbon emissions,” said Adani.
    
            The conglomerate’s green plans are impressive, but climate experts are critical of its continued massive investments in fossil fuels.
    
            “[Gautam] Adani continues to walk both sides of the street,” said Tim Buckley, director of Sydney-based think tank Climate Energy Finance.
    
            The Adani Group is not only one of the largest developers and operators of coal mines in India, but also operates the controversial Carmichael Coal Mine in Australia, which has faced fierce opposition from climate change campaigners who say it is a “death sentence” for the Great Barrier Reef.
    
            “Rather than ploughing billions into new fossil fuel projects, India would be far better served if Adani put 100% of its efforts and resources into developing low-cost zero emissions technologies,” Buckley added.
    
            That is not an option at the moment, said Adani.
    
            More than 600 million people in India will be “coming into middle income and upper income over the next decade, decade and a half,” he said. “They cannot be deprived of basic needs of energy. ”
    
            Everyone would be happy if we could “have a 100% of that being provided from sustainable energy sources …[but]… practically, that’s not an option” at the moment, he added.
    
            He also said that activists in developed nations, which have historically emitted more greenhouse gases, are often unable to understand the staggering challenge facing India to grow its economy and its clean energy industry at the same time.
    
            “I think it’s also very important to respect the fact that every country has its own right to make sure that the people of their own country are well-served from an energy perspective,” Adani said.
    
            “So is India doing a bit of coal? Yes, of course India is. But is India doing a massive amount of renewables? Yes, there’s no question,” he added",CNN,26/04/2024,"['Five times the size of Paris.', 'Visible from space.', 'The world’s biggest energy plant.', 'Enough electricity to power Switzerland.', 'The scale of the project transforming swathes of barren salt desert on the edge of western India into one of the most important sources of clean energy anywhere on the planet is so overwhelming that the man in charge can’t keep up.', '“I don’t even do the math any more,” Sagar Adani told CNN in an interview last week.', 'Adani is executive director of Adani Green Energy Limited (AGEL).', 'He’s also the nephew of Gautam Adani, Asia’s second richest man, whose $100 billion fortune stems from the Adani Group, India’s biggest coal importer and a leading miner of the dirty fuel.', 'Founded in 1988, the conglomerate has businesses in fields ranging from ports and thermal power plants to media and cements.', 'Its clean energy unit AGEL is building the sprawling solar and wind power plant in the western Indian state of Gujarat at a cost of about $20 billion.', 'It will be the world’s biggest renewable park when it is finished in about five years, and should generate enough clean electricity to power 16 million Indian homes.', 'The success of the Khavda Renewable Energy Park is critical to India’s efforts to reduce pollution and hit its climate goals while meeting the burgeoning energy needs of the world’s most populous nation and fastest-growing major economy.', 'Coal still accounts for 70% of the electricity India generates.', 'Situated just 12 miles from one of the world’s most dangerous borders separating India and Pakistan, the park will cover more than 200 square miles and be the planet’s largest power plant regardless of the energy source, AGEL said.', '“A region so large, a region that is so unencumbered, there’s no wildlife, there’s no vegetation, there’s no habitation.', 'There is no better alternative use of that land,” said Adani.', 'The group’s big green plans haven’t been dented by the turbulent year it has had since January 2023, when an American short-seller Hindenburg Research accused it ofengaging in fraud over decades.', 'The Indian mining-to-media conglomerate denounced Hindenburg’s report as “baseless” and “malicious.”', 'But that failed to halt a stunning stock market meltdown that, at one point, wiped more than $100 billion off the value of its listed companies.', 'Gautam Adani’s personal fortune was also hammered, collapsing bymore than $80 billionin the month following the release of the report.', 'But the tycoon has since bounced back and the group is now pouring billions into the clean energy sector.', 'It plans to invest $100 billion into energy transition over the next decade, with 70% of the investments ear-marked for clean energy.', 'Adani Group’s clean energy pivot comes at a time when India has set itself some ambitious climate goals.', 'Prime Minister Narendra Modi has promised that renewable sources such as solar and wind power will fulfil 50% of India’s energy requirements by the end of this decade.', 'In 2021, Modi pledged India would achieve net zero emissions by2070, which is still a couple of decades later than developed economies.', 'The government has set a target of 500 gigawatts (GW) of non-fossil fuel electricity generating capacity by 2030.', 'AGEL, the country’s largest renewable energy company, aims to provide at least 9% of that, with nearly 30 GW generated from its Khavda park in Gujarat alone.', 'Failing to transition to renewable energy is not an option, said Adani.', '“There is no choice for India but to start doing things at a previously unimagined size and scale,” the 30-year-old said.', 'That’s because energy demand is going to explode in the coming years.', 'India is the world’s third-largest energy consuming country, although its energy use andemissions per personare less than half the world average, data from the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) shows.', 'That could change rapidly.', 'Thanks to rising incomes, energy demand has doubled since 2000, with 80% of it still being met by coal, oil and solid biomass.', 'Over the next three decades, the rapidly-expanding economy will see the largest energy demand growth of any country in the world, the IEA said.', '“If India does what China did, if India does what Europe did, if India does what the US did, then we are all in for a very, very bleak climatic future,” said Adani, referring to thehistoric use of fossil fuels as those countries developed.', 'His dire predictions are not dramatic.', 'India is comfortably placed to grow at an annual rate of at least 6% in the coming few years,analysts say, and may become the world’s third largest economy before the end of this decade.', 'As it develops and modernizes, its urban population will shoot up, leading to a massive rise in the construction of homes, offices, shops and other buildings.', 'According to analysts, India is set toadd the equivalent of a London to its urban population every year for the next 30 years.', 'Electricity demand is expected to skyrocket in the coming years because of factors ranging from improved living standards to climate change.', 'The latter has been fueling deadlyheatwavesacross India, and as a result, air conditioner ownership is set to see a sharp spike in the coming years.', 'By 2050, India’s total electricity demand from residential air conditioners is set to exceed the total energy consumption in the whole of Africa today, the IEA said.', 'India cannot rely on fossil fuels for its burgeoning needs without disastrous consequences for efforts to tackle the climate crisis.', '“If you imagine 800 GW of coal-fired thermal capacity being added … this by itself will kill all other sustainable energy initiatives happening all across the world, in terms of carbon emissions,” said Adani.', 'The conglomerate’s green plans are impressive, but climate experts are critical of its continued massive investments in fossil fuels.', '“[Gautam] Adani continues to walk both sides of the street,” said Tim Buckley, director of Sydney-based think tank Climate Energy Finance.', 'The Adani Group is not only one of the largest developers and operators of coal mines in India, but also operates the controversial Carmichael Coal Mine in Australia, which has faced fierce opposition from climate change campaigners who say it is a“death sentence”for the Great Barrier Reef.', '“Rather than ploughing billions into new fossil fuel projects, India would be far better served if Adani put 100% of its efforts and resources into developing low-cost zero emissions technologies,” Buckley added.', 'That is not an option at the moment, said Adani.', 'More than 600 million people in India will be “coming into middle income and upper income over the next decade, decade and a half,” he said. “', 'They cannot be deprived of basic needs of energy.”', 'Everyone would be happy if we could “have a 100% of that being provided from sustainable energy sources …[but]… practically, that’s not an option” at the moment, he added.', 'He also said that activists in developed nations, which have historicallyemitted moregreenhouse gases, are often unable to understand the staggering challenge facing India to grow its economy and its clean energy industry at the same time.', '“I think it’s also very important to respect the fact that every country has its own right to make sure that the people of their own country are well-served from an energy perspective,” Adani said.', '“So is India doing a bit of coal?', 'Yes, of course India is.', 'But is India doing a massive amount of renewables?', 'Yes, there’s no question,” he added']",0.1483365072376152,"“I think it’s also very important to respect the fact that every country has its own right to make sure that the people of their own country are well-served from an energy perspective,” Adani said.","“If you imagine 800 GW of coal-fired thermal capacity being added … this by itself will kill all other sustainable energy initiatives happening all across the world, in terms of carbon emissions,” said Adani.",0.2314466858903567,"India is comfortably placed to grow at an annual rate of at least 6% in the coming few years,analysts say, and may become the world’s third largest economy before the end of this decade.","Gautam Adani’s personal fortune was also hammered, collapsing bymore than $80 billionin the month following the release of the report.",2024-04-28
US new home sales surged in March despite elevated mortgage rates,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/23/economy/new-home-sales-march/index.html,"
  Updated
        11:19 AM EDT, Tue April 23, 2024
    ","Sales of newly built single-family homes in the United States soared in March despite mortgage rates remaining elevated that month.
    
            New home sales, which make up about 10% of the market, jumped 8.8% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 693,000, according to government figures released Tuesday. That trounced the 670,000 rate projected by economists, according to a FactSet poll, and was the strongest monthly increase since December 2022.
    
            Sales of new homes increased across the country last month, rising the most in the Northeast region by a robust 27.8% from February.
    
            Meanwhile, sales of existing homes, which make up the vast majority of the housing market, fell 4.3% in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.19 million, the sharpest drop in more than a year, the National Association of Realtors reported last week.
    
            The broader US housing market is expected to remain tough for Americans, with mortgage rates poised to stay well above 6% this year, economists say. The Federal Reserve doesn’t directly set mortgage rates, but its actions do influence them, and the central bank isn’t expected to cut interest rates anytime soon. A persistent undersupply of housing also remains a key pressure point in the market, contributing to low affordability.
    
            Housing inventory has improved in recent months, but supply still isn’t keeping up with demand. This means homebuyers have limited options as some homeowners who locked in a low mortgage rate before the Fed began to hike rates in 2022 largely prefer to not sell their homes.
    
            “Despite high prices and mortgage rates, homebuyers have limited options on the resale market, although resale inventories have improved some over the course of this year,” Gregg Logan, managing director at RCLCO Real Estate Consulting, said in a note Tuesday.
    
            “The willingness of the major homebuilders to utilize incentives such as price reductions, mortgage rate buy-downs and paying buyers closings costs continue to support a healthy pace of new home sales,” he added.
    
            The housing market began the year with some momentum as home sales surged, homebuilder sentiment perked up and inventory levels climbed, but now it seems to have fizzled out.
    
            In addition to the March drop in existing home sales, residential construction of single-family homes also fell that month, declining 12.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.022 million units, according to Commerce Department data released earlier this month. Residential construction fell throughout the country except in the West. Meanwhile, building permits for future construction tumbled 3.7% in March to a five-month low.
    
            Data from the National Association of Home Builders showed that 22% of builders cut homes prices in April, down from 24% in March. Meanwhile, the share of builders who offered a sales incentive edged lower to 57% in April from 60% in March. Sentiment among homebuilders in America held steady in April, NAHB said.
    
            “April’s flat reading suggests potential for demand growth is there, but buyers are hesitating until they can better gauge where interest rates are headed,” NAHB’s chief economist, Robert Dietz, said in a release.
    
            This story has been updated with additional context.",CNN,23/04/2024,"['Sales of newly built single-family homes in the United States soared in March despite mortgage rates remaining elevated that month.', 'New home sales, which make up about 10% of the market, jumped 8.8% last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 693,000, according to government figures released Tuesday.', 'That trounced the 670,000 rate projected by economists, according to a FactSet poll, and was the strongest monthly increase since December 2022.', 'Sales of new homes increased across the country last month, rising the most in the Northeast region by a robust 27.8% from February.', 'Meanwhile, sales of existing homes, which make up the vast majority of the housing market, fell4.3% in March toa seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.19 million, the sharpest drop in more than a year, the National Association of Realtors reported last week.', 'The broader US housing market is expected to remain tough for Americans, with mortgage rates poised to stay well above 6% this year, economists say.', 'The Federal Reserve doesn’t directly set mortgage rates, but its actions do influence them, and the central bank isn’t expected to cut interest rates anytime soon.', 'A persistent undersupply of housing also remains a key pressure point in the market, contributing to low affordability.', 'Housing inventory has improved in recent months, but supply still isn’t keeping up with demand.', 'This means homebuyers have limited options as some homeowners who locked in a low mortgage rate before the Fed began to hike rates in 2022 largely prefer to not sell their homes.', '“Despite high prices and mortgage rates, homebuyers have limited options on the resale market, although resale inventories have improved some over the course of this year,” Gregg Logan, managing director at RCLCO Real Estate Consulting, said in a note Tuesday.', '“The willingness of the major homebuilders to utilize incentives such as price reductions, mortgage rate buy-downs and paying buyers closings costs continue to support a healthy pace of new home sales,” he added.', 'The housing market began the year with some momentum as home sales surged, homebuilder sentiment perked up and inventory levels climbed, but now it seems to have fizzled out.', 'In addition to the March drop in existing home sales, residential construction of single-family homes also fell that month, declining 12.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.022 million units, according to Commerce Department data released earlier this month.', 'Residential construction fell throughout the country except in the West.', 'Meanwhile, building permits for future construction tumbled 3.7% in March to a five-month low.', 'Data from the National Association of Home Builders showed that 22% of builders cut homes prices in April, down from 24% in March.', 'Meanwhile, the share of builders who offered a sales incentive edged lower to 57% in April from 60% in March.', 'Sentiment among homebuilders in America held steady in April, NAHB said.', '“April’s flat reading suggests potential for demand growth is there, but buyers are hesitating until they can better gauge where interest rates are headed,” NAHB’s chief economist, Robert Dietz, said in a release.', 'This story has been updated with additional context.']",0.1218299331330223,"“The willingness of the major homebuilders to utilize incentives such as price reductions, mortgage rate buy-downs and paying buyers closings costs continue to support a healthy pace of new home sales,” he added.","A persistent undersupply of housing also remains a key pressure point in the market, contributing to low affordability.",-0.0355474666545265,"Sales of new homes increased across the country last month, rising the most in the Northeast region by a robust 27.8% from February.","Meanwhile, sales of existing homes, which make up the vast majority of the housing market, fell4.3% in March toa seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.19 million, the sharpest drop in more than a year, the National Association of Realtors reported last week.",2024-04-28
FTC investigating TikTok over privacy and security,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/tech/ftc-tiktok-probe-privacy-and-security/index.html,"
  Updated
        8:11 PM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
    ","The Federal Trade Commission is investigating TikTok for its data and security practices, two sources told CNN on the condition of anonymity.
    
            The probe is yet another complication for the social media platform, which is already facing the threat of a potential US ban or a forced divestment from its Chinese parent company.
    
            The sources said that the FTC is probing TikTok over an alleged violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection rule, which requires companies to notify parents and obtain consent before collecting data from children under 13.
    
            The agency is also investigating whether TikTok violated a portion of the FTC Act that prohibits “unfair or deceptive” business practices, the sources said, in denying that TikTok user data could be accessed by individuals in China.
    
            The FTC could bring a suit against TikTok or settle with the company in the coming weeks, according to one of the sources. Politico reported news of the probe earlier.
    
            When asked about the investigation, FTC Director of Public Affairs Douglas Farrar replied: “No comment.”
    
            TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
    
            The FTC probe comes as TikTok faces an existential threat in the US. Earlier this month, a bipartisan group in the US House of Representatives voted to pass a law forcing TikTok to be sold by ByteDance or face a ban from US app stores. The bill is now before the Senate, and President Joe Biden has said he would sign it if it gets to his desk. Senate leaders, however, have indicated they are taking a deliberate approach — which could lead to delays or even potentially doom the House bill.
    
            The short-form video company, owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, has denied assertions that its app poses a national security threat to US citizens. TikTok, which does not operate in China, has said that the Chinese government has never accessed US user data.
    
            Cybersecurity experts say Chinese laws require ByteDance to cooperate with that country’s intelligence demands — a fact that, given ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok, could hypothetically put US user data at risk. To address that issue, TikTok has taken steps to store its US user data on cloud servers controlled by US tech giant Oracle and established internal protocols limiting access by non-US employees.
    
            TikTok acknowledged to Congress in 2022 that employees based in China could access US user data, following a report that year by BuzzFeed News that ByteDance employees had accessed that information on multiple occasions. TikTok CEO Shou Chew, in his first appearance before Congress last year, also acknowledged that several ByteDance employees were fired for spying on certain US journalists as part of a “misguided attempt” to hunt down leakers within the company.",CNN,26/03/2024,"['The Federal Trade Commission is investigating TikTok for its data and security practices, two sources told CNN on the condition of anonymity.', 'The probe is yet another complication for the social media platform, which is already facing the threat of a potential US ban or a forced divestment from its Chinese parent company.', 'The sources said that the FTC is probing TikTok over an alleged violation of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection rule, which requires companies to notify parents and obtain consent before collecting data from children under 13.', 'The agency is also investigating whether TikTok violated a portion of the FTC Act that prohibits “unfair or deceptive” business practices, the sources said, in denying that TikTok user data could be accessed by individuals in China.', 'The FTC could bring a suit against TikTok or settle with the company in the coming weeks, according to one of the sources.', 'Politico reported news of the probe earlier.', 'When asked about the investigation, FTC Director of Public Affairs Douglas Farrar replied: “No comment.”', 'TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.', 'The FTC probe comes as TikTok faces an existential threat in the US.', 'Earlier this month, a bipartisan group in the US House of Representatives voted to pass a law forcing TikTok to be sold by ByteDance or face a ban from US app stores.', 'The bill is now before the Senate, and President Joe Biden has said he would sign it if it gets to his desk.', 'Senate leaders, however, have indicated they are taking a deliberate approach —which could lead to delays or even potentially doom the House bill.', 'The short-form video company, owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, has denied assertions that its app poses a national security threat to US citizens.', 'TikTok, which does not operate in China, has said that the Chinese government has never accessed US user data.', 'Cybersecurity experts say Chinese laws require ByteDance to cooperate with that country’s intelligence demands—a fact that, given ByteDance’s ownership of TikTok, could hypothetically put US user data at risk.', 'To address that issue, TikTok has taken steps to store its US user data on cloud servers controlled by US tech giant Oracle and established internal protocols limiting access by non-US employees.', 'TikTok acknowledged to Congress in 2022 that employees based in China could access US user data, following a report that year by BuzzFeed News that ByteDance employees had accessed that information on multiple occasions.', 'TikTok CEO Shou Chew, in his first appearance before Congress last year, also acknowledged that several ByteDance employees were fired for spying on certain US journalists as part of a “misguided attempt” to hunt down leakers within the company.']",-0.232320081688102,"The Federal Trade Commission is investigating TikTok for its data and security practices, two sources told CNN on the condition of anonymity.","The probe is yet another complication for the social media platform, which is already facing the threat of a potential US ban or a forced divestment from its Chinese parent company.",-0.8880722284317016,,"Senate leaders, however, have indicated they are taking a deliberate approach —which could lead to delays or even potentially doom the House bill.",2024-04-28
Baltimore files legal claim against owner and operator of cargo ship that rammed bridge,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/23/business/baltimore-bridge-collapse-lawsuit-hnk-intl/index.html,"
  Published
        1:48 AM EDT, Tue April 23, 2024
    ","Baltimore filed a legal claim on Monday against the owner and manager of the ship that crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge last month, causing it to collapse.
    
            The Dali, a 213-million-pound ship carrying cargo containers, is owned by Grace Ocean Private Limited and managed by Synergy Marine PTE LTD.
    
            Attorneys for Baltimore’s mayor and City Council accused both companies of providing the vessel with an “incompetent crew” that lacked proper skill and training, according to the claim obtained by CNN.
    
            The city is seeking unspecified damages from both companies.
    
            In the early morning hours of March 26, the bridge — a vital economic channel used by 30,000 Marylanders daily — collapsed after being struck by the massive cargo ship which had lost power and veered off course.
    
            “The Dali slammed into the bridge, causing the bridge’s immediate collapse, killing at least six individuals, destroying Baltimore property, and bringing the region’s primary economic engine to a grinding halt,” the document said.
    
            The claim says the Dali left port despite indications that it had an inconsistent power supply.
    
            “As the Mayor stated in his announcement last week, the City is pursuing its legal claims against those responsible for the Key Bridge catastrophe to ensure that the City, its residents, and its businesses are adequately compensated for their losses. As this matter is now the subject of active litigation, we will reserve further comment for the appropriate judicial forum,” the Baltimore City Law Office told CNN.
    
            “Petitioners’ negligence is, in other words, readily apparent, and no blame could conceivably be lain at the City’s feet,” it added.
    
            Earlier this month, Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine filed a petition in federal court asking for a $43.6 million limit on potential liability payouts.
    
            In its Monday court filings, Baltimore asked the court to deny the companies’ petition to limit liability.
    
            Darrell Wilson, a representative for Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine, told CNN late Monday that “out of respect for the ongoing investigations and any future legal proceedings, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.”
    
            The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Coast Guard are leading a criminal investigation into the ship crash, a US official familiar with the matter said last week.
    
            Federal investigators will also look into whether the crew failed to report an earlier issue with the ship that delayed its departure, the official said on April 15.
    
            — CNN’s Gabe Cohen contributed to this report",CNN,23/04/2024,"['Baltimore filed a legal claim on Monday against the owner and manager of the ship that crashed into theFrancis Scott Key Bridgelast month, causing it to collapse.', 'The Dali, a 213-million-pound ship carrying cargo containers, is owned by Grace Ocean Private Limited and managed by Synergy Marine PTE LTD.', 'Attorneys for Baltimore’s mayor and City Council accused both companies of providing the vessel with an “incompetent crew” that lacked proper skill and training, according to the claim obtained by CNN.', 'The city is seeking unspecified damages from both companies.', 'In the early morning hours of March 26, the bridge — a vital economic channel used by 30,000 Marylanders daily — collapsed after being struck by the massive cargo ship which had lost power and veered off course.', '“The Dali slammed into the bridge, causing the bridge’s immediate collapse, killing at least six individuals, destroying Baltimore property, and bringing the region’s primary economic engine to a grinding halt,” the document said.', 'The claim says the Dali left port despite indications that it had an inconsistent power supply.', '“As the Mayor stated in his announcement last week, the City is pursuing its legal claims against those responsible for the Key Bridge catastrophe to ensure that the City, its residents, and its businesses are adequately compensated for their losses.', 'As this matter is now the subject of active litigation, we will reserve further comment for the appropriate judicial forum,” the Baltimore City Law Office told CNN.', '“Petitioners’ negligence is, in other words, readily apparent, and no blame could conceivably be lain at the City’s feet,” it added.', 'Earlier this month, Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine filed a petition in federal court asking for a $43.6 million limit on potential liability payouts.', 'In its Monday court filings, Baltimore asked the court to deny the companies’ petition to limit liability.', 'Darrell Wilson, a representative for Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine, told CNN late Monday that “out of respect for the ongoing investigations and any future legal proceedings, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.”', 'The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Coast Guard are leading a criminal investigation into the ship crash, a US official familiar with the matter said last week.', 'Federal investigators will also look into whether the crew failed to report an earlier issue with the ship that delayed its departure, the official said on April 15.', '— CNN’s Gabe Cohen contributed to this report']",-0.263790409464266,"Darrell Wilson, a representative for Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine, told CNN late Monday that “out of respect for the ongoing investigations and any future legal proceedings, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this time.”","“The Dali slammed into the bridge, causing the bridge’s immediate collapse, killing at least six individuals, destroying Baltimore property, and bringing the region’s primary economic engine to a grinding halt,” the document said.",-0.9835676550865172,,"“The Dali slammed into the bridge, causing the bridge’s immediate collapse, killing at least six individuals, destroying Baltimore property, and bringing the region’s primary economic engine to a grinding halt,” the document said.",2024-04-28
Federal labor board has been much more pro-worker under Biden. Employers want courts to end that,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/23/business/starbucks-nlrb-supreme-court-labor-unions/index.html,"
  Updated
        1:06 PM EDT, Tue April 23, 2024
    ","Starbucks and the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency charged with protecting workers’ rights, will battle each other before the Supreme Court Tuesday, in one of numerous cases now pending in which major employers are questioning the NLRB’s powers and even its right to exist.
    
            The NLRB under the labor-friendly Biden administration has been overseeing a period of significantly more organizing and strike activities by the nation’s unions. Some high-profile companies are complaining that the agency is abusing its powers. The companies are asking federal courts, often with conservative, pro-business judges, to stop the agency from standing behind the more activist unions now making their lives more difficult.
    
            Tuesday’s Supreme Court case involves the NLRB’s powers to get employees whom it judges were wrongly fired for union activity immediately rehired, rather than forcing them to go through a long, drawn-out court process. At issue are seven employees Starbucks fired at a store in Memphis in 2022 that the union said were attempting to organize. The employees, known as the “Memphis 7,” have become a nationwide symbol for labor supporters.
    
            Starbucks is arguing that the NLRB’s powers are not being applied uniformly across the country because some federal courts, including the courts that reviewed the Memphis 7 case, are using what critics describe as a more lenient standard to force employers to take preliminary action. In this case, the lower courts required Starbucks to reinstate the employees it had fired.
    
            “The NLRB has long used the federal courts … to obtain injunctions … before the merits of an unfair labor practice case are fully evaluated,” said a statement from Starbucks. “As a company, we felt obligated to stand up for what is right, not only for our partners and our company, but also for the employers across the country who are subject to NLRB requests for injunctions in federal courts.”
    
            But the NLRB argues that the only way to protect workers who are improperly terminated for union activity is to allow it to go to federal court and get immediate action against the offending employer, as it successfully did in the case of the Memphis employees.
    
            “Injunctive relief is one of the most important tools available to the NLRB to protect workers’ statutory rights through effective enforcement of the only federal labor law in the country,” said Jennifer Abruzzo, the NLRB’s General Counsel, in a statement about the case.
    
            “Congress … has empowered the agency to seek this interim relief to immediately end violative conduct and restore the status quo at the workplace while the board’s administrative process proceeds,” Abruzzo said. “Without obtaining this temporary relief, the lawbreaker will fully reap the benefits of having violated workers’ rights — such as by snuffing out a nascent organizing drive — through the passage of time.”
    
            During arguments Tuesday, Starbucks’ attorney argued that the NLRB has too much power to get an injunction to order fired workers returned to work, without the district court getting to weigh evidence in the case itself.
    
            “Preliminary injunctions are extraordinary and drastic remedies,” said Lisa Blatt, a veteran Supreme Court litigator and Starbucks’ attorney in the case. “Such relief is highly inappropriate absent a clear showing.”
    
            Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned how the NLRB could be abusing its powers, as Starbucks was arguing, given that there had been only 14 instances of the board seeking such injunctions in the last year out of the thousands of cases it considered.
    
            “If we’re worried about an abusive board doing things it’s not supposed to be [doing], giving undue deference, it seems like the board is pretty careful when it’s determining whether or not to even seek these injunctions since it’s only asked for it 14 times,” she said.
    
            But both conservative and liberal justices posed tough questions to the government, pressing the Biden administration’s attorney on why lower courts should review labor cases any differently than other controversies involving government agencies.
    
            “The district court is an independent check,” conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett said. “So, it seems like it should be just doing what district courts do.”
    
            Justice Elena Kagan, a member of the court’s liberal wing, appeared to agree, suggesting that lower federal courts should do “what courts normally do, which is applying the law as the court finds it to a case.”
    
            Those questions appeared to cut against the arguments raised by the government that courts should give some special deference to the NLRB’s read on a dispute between employers and employees.
    
            Justice Neil Gorsuch, a conservative member of the court, pointed out that “in all sorts of alphabet soup agencies, we don’t do this. District courts apply the likelihood of success test as we generally perceive it. So why is this particular statutory regime different from so many others?”
    
            And Chief Justice John Roberts suggested that attorneys for both the government and Starbucks could agree, “we can dispose of this in a short opinion,” prompting laughter in the courtroom.
    
            The labor law that controls what happens if an employer illegally fires a worker for supporting a union doesn’t give the workers much in the way of relief. The employer could be forced to provide back pay for the time since the improper firing, but that amount would be reduced by whatever pay the worker received at a job they held in the meantime. The employer doesn’t have to pay any interest, penalty or fine, to the fired workers, their union or the agency.
    
            “The remedies against the employer are so pathetically weak they’re almost an invitation to violate the law,” said Cathy Creighton, an NLRB attorney during the Clinton administration and a union lawyer who now serves as the head of the Buffalo, New York office of Cornell University’s school of Industrial and Labor Relations.
    
            While this is the first such case to reach the Supreme Court, other cases are emerging in which some high profile employers are challenging the agency’s right to exist. The Supreme Court’s decision is expected by the end of June.
    
            Rocket company SpaceX filed two federal lawsuits so far this year questioning the constitutionality of the agency itself after the NLRB announced it was looking at complaints from eight former employees of the nonunion rocket company who said they were fired for writing company management begging them to publicly condemn CEO Elon Musk’s “harmful” behavior on social media.
    
            Three other companies — Starbucks, Amazon and Trader Joe’s — have raised similar arguments in cases still before the NLRB’s administrative law judges, although they have not taken the case to federal court as SpaceX has done and have not joined its suit.
    
            The constitutionality of the NLRB was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1937, two years after the agency was created during the New Deal, said Cornell’s Creighton.
    
            She said the Supreme Court’s rulings with the current conservative majority on some other cases involving unions makes her worried that it is poised to rule against the agency on this case. And she’s also worried that if the question of constitutionality of the NLRB were to reach the high court, it could rule against the agency as well.
    
            “They’re seeking to annihilate the board,” she said about the employers’ challenges to the NLRB. “I’m worried because this court is not ruled by precedent the way other courts have been. Just taking up the issue, they’re signaling they’re not particularly labor friendly.”",CNN,23/04/2024,"['Starbucks and the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency charged with protecting workers’ rights, will battle each other before the Supreme Court Tuesday, in one of numerous cases now pending in which major employers are questioning the NLRB’s powers and even its right to exist.', 'The NLRB under the labor-friendly Biden administration has been overseeing a period of significantly more organizing and strike activities by the nation’s unions.', 'Some high-profile companies are complaining that the agency is abusing its powers.', 'The companies are asking federal courts, often with conservative, pro-business judges, to stop the agency from standing behind the more activist unions now making their lives more difficult.', 'Tuesday’s Supreme Court case involves the NLRB’s powers to get employees whom it judges were wrongly fired for union activity immediately rehired, rather than forcing them to go through a long, drawn-out court process.', 'At issue areseven employees Starbucks fired at a store in Memphis in 2022 that the union said were attempting to organize.', 'The employees, known as the “Memphis 7,” have become a nationwide symbol for labor supporters.', 'Starbucks is arguing that the NLRB’s powers are not being applied uniformly across the country because some federal courts, including the courts that reviewed the Memphis 7 case, are using what critics describe as amore lenient standard to force employers to take preliminary action.', 'In this case, the lower courts required Starbucks to reinstate the employees it had fired.', '“The NLRB has long used the federal courts … to obtain injunctions … before the merits of an unfair labor practice case are fully evaluated,” said a statement from Starbucks. “', 'As a company, we felt obligated to stand up for what is right, not only for our partners and our company, but also for the employers across the country who are subject to NLRB requests for injunctions in federal courts.”', 'But the NLRB argues that the only way to protect workers who are improperly terminated for union activity is to allow it to go to federal court and get immediate action against the offending employer, as it successfully did in the case of the Memphis employees.', '“Injunctive reliefis one of the most important tools available to the NLRB to protect workers’ statutory rights through effective enforcement of the only federal labor law in the country,” said Jennifer Abruzzo, the NLRB’s General Counsel, in a statement about the case.', '“Congress … has empowered the agency to seek this interim relief to immediately end violative conduct and restore the status quo at the workplace while the board’s administrative process proceeds,” Abruzzo said. “', 'Without obtaining this temporary relief, the lawbreaker will fully reap the benefits of having violated workers’ rights — such as by snuffing out a nascent organizing drive — through the passage of time.”', 'During arguments Tuesday, Starbucks’ attorney argued that the NLRB has too much power to get an injunction to order fired workers returned to work, without the district court getting to weigh evidence in the case itself.', '“Preliminary injunctions are extraordinary and drastic remedies,” said Lisa Blatt, a veteran Supreme Court litigator and Starbucks’ attorney in the case. “', 'Such relief is highly inappropriate absent a clear showing.”', 'Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson questioned howthe NLRBcould be abusing its powers, as Starbucks was arguing,given thatthere had been only 14 instances of the board seeking such injunctions in the last year out of the thousands of cases it considered.', '“If we’re worried about an abusive board doing things it’s not supposed to be [doing], giving undue deference, it seems like the board is pretty careful when it’s determining whether or not to even seek these injunctions since it’s only asked for it 14 times,” she said.', 'But both conservative and liberal justices posed tough questions to the government, pressing the Biden administration’s attorney on why lower courts should review labor cases any differently than other controversies involving government agencies.', '“The district court is an independent check,” conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett said. “', 'So, it seems like it should be just doing what district courts do.”', 'Justice Elena Kagan, a member of the court’s liberal wing, appeared to agree, suggesting that lower federal courts should do “what courts normally do, which is applying the law as the court finds it to a case.”', 'Those questions appeared to cut against the arguments raised by the government that courts should give some special deference to the NLRB’s read on a dispute between employers and employees.', 'Justice Neil Gorsuch, a conservative member of the court, pointed out that “in all sorts of alphabet soup agencies, we don’t do this.', 'District courts apply the likelihood of success test as we generally perceive it.', 'So why is this particular statutory regime different from so many others?”', 'And Chief Justice John Roberts suggested that attorneys for both the government and Starbucks could agree, “we can dispose of this in a short opinion,” prompting laughter in the courtroom.', 'The labor law that controls what happens if an employer illegally fires a worker for supporting a union doesn’t give the workers much in the way of relief.', 'The employer could be forced to provide back pay for the time since the improper firing, but that amount would be reduced by whatever pay the worker received at a job they held in the meantime.', 'The employer doesn’t have to pay any interest, penalty or fine, to the fired workers, their union or the agency.', '“The remedies against the employer are so pathetically weak they’re almost an invitation to violate the law,” said Cathy Creighton, an NLRB attorney during the Clinton administration and a union lawyer who now serves as the head of the Buffalo, New York office of Cornell University’s school of Industrial and Labor Relations.', 'While this is the first such case to reach the Supreme Court, other cases are emerging in which some high profile employers are challenging the agency’s right to exist.', 'The Supreme Court’s decision is expected by the end of June.', 'Rocket company SpaceX filed two federal lawsuits so far this year questioning the constitutionality of the agency itself after the NLRB announced it was looking at complaints from eight former employees of the nonunion rocket company who said they were fired for writing company management begging them to publicly condemn CEO Elon Musk’s “harmful” behavior on social media.', 'Three other companies — Starbucks, Amazon and Trader Joe’s — have raised similar arguments in cases still before the NLRB’s administrative law judges, although they have not taken the case to federal court as SpaceX has done and have not joined its suit.', 'The constitutionality of the NLRB was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1937, two years after the agency was created during the New Deal, said Cornell’s Creighton.', 'She said the Supreme Court’s rulings with the current conservative majority on some other cases involving unions makes her worried that it is poised to rule against the agency on this case.', 'And she’s also worried that if the question of constitutionality of the NLRB were to reach the high court, it could rule against the agency as well.', '“They’re seeking to annihilate the board,” she said about the employers’ challenges to the NLRB. “', 'I’m worried because this court is not ruled by precedent the way other courts have been.', 'Just taking up the issue, they’re signaling they’re not particularly labor friendly.”']",0.0307183931533012,"And Chief Justice John Roberts suggested that attorneys for both the government and Starbucks could agree, “we can dispose of this in a short opinion,” prompting laughter in the courtroom.",Rocket company SpaceX filed two federal lawsuits so far this year questioning the constitutionality of the agency itself after the NLRB announced it was looking at complaints from eight former employees of the nonunion rocket company who said they were fired for writing company management begging them to publicly condemn CEO Elon Musk’s “harmful” behavior on social media.,-0.1780935376882553,"Without obtaining this temporary relief, the lawbreaker will fully reap the benefits of having violated workers’ rights — such as by snuffing out a nascent organizing drive — through the passage of time.”",She said the Supreme Court’s rulings with the current conservative majority on some other cases involving unions makes her worried that it is poised to rule against the agency on this case.,2024-04-28
Elon Musk in China to discuss enabling full self driving,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68914929,2024-04-28T06:31:58.000Z,"Elon Musk is visiting Beijing with media reports saying he aims to discuss enabling autonomous driving mode on Tesla cars in China. Mr Musk wants to enable Full Self Driving (FSD) in China and transfer data collected in the country abroad to train its algorithms. FSD is available in countries including the US but not in China. The news came after a US report tied Tesla's autonomous driving modes to at least 13 crashes, involving one death. During a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Mr Musk was quoted by state media as saying Tesla was willing deep cooperation with China to ""achieve more win-win results"". In response, Mr Li told Mr Musk the Chinese market would ""always be open to foreign-funded firms,"" according to the reports. China is Tesla's second-biggest market. Other carmakers such as Xpeng - headquartered in Guangzhou - have been attempting to compete with Tesla by rolling out similar self-driving functions in their cars.  On Sunday, Mr Musk described Chinese car manufacturers as ""the most competitive car companies in the world"". Tesla has taken previously taken steps to reassure Chinese authorities about the rollout of FSD in the country, including establishing a data centre in Shanghai to process data about Chinese consumers in accordance with local laws.  The trip comes days after the US's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it was investigating whether a recall successfully addressed safety concerns relating to Tesla's driver assistance system.  The NHTSA said that despite requirements that drivers maintain focus on the road and be prepared to take control at a moment's notice when autonomous driving was enabled, drivers involved in the crashes ""were not sufficiently engaged"". The regulator's analysis was conducted before a recall Tesla said would fix the issue. Tesla's software is supposed to make sure that drivers are paying attention and that the feature is only in use in appropriate conditions, such as driving on highways. Mr Musk has promised that Teslas will be able to act as autonomous ""robotaxis"" for years. In 2015, he said Teslas would achieve ""full autonomy"" by 2018. And in 2019, he said the company would have robotaxis operating by the following year.  This month, the Tesla chief executive said he would reveal the company's robotaxi in August.  Critics accuse Mr Musk of consistently hyping up the prospects of full autonomous driving to prop up the company's share price, which has fallen on the back of challenges including falling demand for electric vehicles worldwide and competition from cheaper Chinese manufacturers. Mr Musk denies the accusations. Tesla has been cutting the prices of its cars in China and other markets to drum up demand. ""Tesla prices must change frequently in order to match production with demand,"" Mr Musk recently said on X, the microblogging platform previously known as Twitter which the billionaire owns.  Tesla recently reported a 13% fall in automotive sales to $17.3bn (£13.7bn) for the first three months of this year. Overall sales across Tesla dropped by 9% while its profits fell sharply to $1.13bn compared to $2.51bn for the same period last year. So far in 2024, its share price has collapsed by 32%. ",BBC,28/04/2024,"['Elon Musk is visiting Beijing with media reports saying he aims to discuss enabling autonomous driving mode on Tesla cars in China.', 'Mr Musk wants to enable Full Self Driving (FSD) in China and transfer data collected in the country abroad to train its algorithms.', 'FSD is available in countries including the US but not in China.', ""The news came after a US report tied Tesla's autonomous driving modes to at least 13 crashes, involving one death."", 'During a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Mr Musk was quoted by state media as saying Tesla was willing deep cooperation with China to ""achieve more win-win results"".', 'In response, Mr Li told Mr Musk the Chinese market would ""always be open to foreign-funded firms,"" according to the reports.', ""China is Tesla's second-biggest market."", 'Other carmakers such as Xpeng - headquartered in Guangzhou - have been attempting to compete with Tesla by rolling out similar self-driving functions in their cars.', 'On Sunday, Mr Musk described Chinese car manufacturers as ""the most competitive car companies in the world"".', 'Tesla has taken previously taken steps to reassure Chinese authorities about the rollout of FSD in the country, including establishing a data centre in Shanghai to process data about Chinese consumers in accordance with local laws.', ""The trip comes days after the US's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said it was investigating whether a recall successfully addressed safety concerns relating to Tesla's driver assistance system."", 'The NHTSA said that despite requirements that drivers maintain focus on the road and be prepared to take control at a moment\'s notice when autonomous driving was enabled, drivers involved in the crashes ""were not sufficiently engaged"".', ""The regulator's analysis was conducted before a recall Tesla said would fix the issue."", ""Tesla's software is supposed to make sure that drivers are paying attention and that the feature is only in use in appropriate conditions, such as driving on highways."", 'Mr Musk has promised that Teslas will be able to act as autonomous ""robotaxis"" for years.', 'In 2015, he said Teslas would achieve ""full autonomy"" by 2018.', 'And in 2019, he said the company would have robotaxis operating by the following year.', ""This month, the Tesla chief executive said he would reveal the company's robotaxi in August."", ""Critics accuse Mr Musk of consistently hyping up the prospects of full autonomous driving to prop up the company's share price, which has fallen on the back of challenges including falling demand for electric vehicles worldwide and competition from cheaper Chinese manufacturers."", 'Mr Musk denies the accusations.', 'Tesla has been cutting the prices of its cars in China and other markets to drum up demand. ""', 'Tesla prices must change frequently in order to match production with demand,"" Mr Musk recently said on X, the microblogging platform previously known as Twitter which the billionaire owns.', 'Tesla recently reported a 13% fall in automotive sales to $17.3bn (£13.7bn) for the first three months of this year.', 'Overall sales across Tesla dropped by 9% while its profits fell sharply to $1.13bn compared to $2.51bn for the same period last year.', 'So far in 2024, its share price has collapsed by 32%.']",0.0510888454679214,"During a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Mr Musk was quoted by state media as saying Tesla was willing deep cooperation with China to ""achieve more win-win results"".",Mr Musk denies the accusations.,-0.0696933031082153,"During a meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Mr Musk was quoted by state media as saying Tesla was willing deep cooperation with China to ""achieve more win-win results"".",Tesla recently reported a 13% fall in automotive sales to $17.3bn (£13.7bn) for the first three months of this year.,2024-04-28
Huawei sales are soaring in China as Apple sinks,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/23/tech/huawei-apple-smartphone-sales-china-hnk-intl/index.html,"
  Published
        6:51 AM EDT, Tue April 23, 2024
    ","Huawei is not only making a roaring comeback in China, it is also on the verge of overtaking Apple in the world’s largest smartphone market.
    
            The Shenzhen-based conglomerate, which has been a flashpoint in the escalating rivalry between Washington and Beijing, saw 70% year-on-year growth in its smartphone sales in China in the first quarter, while Apple’s sales declined by more than 19%, according to Counterpoint Research.
    
            “Apple’s sales were subdued during the quarter as Huawei’s comeback has directly impacted Apple in the premium segment,” said Ivan Lam, senior research analyst at Counterpoint.
    
            The iPhone maker, which led China’s smartphone market with a share of nearly 20% in the first quarter of 2023, has fallen to the third spot in the first three months of this year, according to Counterpoint. Its market share now stands at 15.7%, while Huawei’s has jumped to 15.5%, from 9.3% last year.
    
            Huawei’s popular Mate 60 Pro smartphone made headlines last year when the US government sought more information about the model, which included a sophisticated processor. Its debut shocked industry experts who questioned how the company could acquire such a chip following sweeping efforts by the United States to restrict China’s access to foreign chip technology because of national security concerns.
    
            Counterpoint’s data comes just days after another market research firm IDC said Apple’s global smartphone sales had tumbled 10% in the first quarter, mainly because of loss of momentum in China.
    
            China is the largest market behind the United States for Apple, but the company is facing a challenging time in the world’s second-largest economy. Chinese consumers, who once would have considered Apple, are now turning to Chinese brands.
    
            Overall smartphone sales in China grew 1.5% in the first quarter, according to Counterpoint. Local smartphone makers Vivo and Honor were the top two brands by market share.",CNN,23/04/2024,"['Huawei is not only making a roaring comeback in China,it is also on the verge of overtaking Apple in the world’s largest smartphone market.', 'The Shenzhen-based conglomerate, which has been a flashpoint in the escalating rivalry between Washington and Beijing, saw 70% year-on-year growth in its smartphone sales in China in the first quarter, while Apple’s sales declined by more than 19%, according to Counterpoint Research.', '“Apple’s sales were subdued during the quarter as Huawei’s comeback has directly impacted Apple in the premium segment,” said Ivan Lam, senior research analyst at Counterpoint.', 'The iPhone maker, which led China’s smartphone market with a share of nearly 20% in the first quarter of 2023, has fallen to the third spot in the first three months of this year, according to Counterpoint.', 'Its market share now stands at 15.7%, while Huawei’s has jumped to 15.5%, from 9.3% last year.', 'Huawei’s popular Mate 60 Pro smartphone made headlines last year when the US governmentsought more informationabout the model, which included a sophisticated processor.', 'Its debut shocked industry experts who questioned how the company could acquire such a chip following sweeping efforts by the United States to restrict China’s access to foreign chip technology because of national security concerns.', 'Counterpoint’s data comes just days after another market research firm IDC said Apple’s global smartphone sales had tumbled 10% in the first quarter, mainly because of loss of momentum in China.', 'China is the largest market behind the United States for Apple, but the company is facing a challenging time in the world’s second-largest economy.', 'Chineseconsumers, who once would have considered Apple, are now turning to Chinese brands.', 'Overall smartphone sales in China grew 1.5% in the first quarter, according to Counterpoint.', 'Local smartphone makers Vivo and Honor were the top two brands by market share.']",0.1803139752444078,"Huawei’s popular Mate 60 Pro smartphone made headlines last year when the US governmentsought more informationabout the model, which included a sophisticated processor.","Counterpoint’s data comes just days after another market research firm IDC said Apple’s global smartphone sales had tumbled 10% in the first quarter, mainly because of loss of momentum in China.",-0.2978354427549574,"Overall smartphone sales in China grew 1.5% in the first quarter, according to Counterpoint.","Counterpoint’s data comes just days after another market research firm IDC said Apple’s global smartphone sales had tumbled 10% in the first quarter, mainly because of loss of momentum in China.",2024-04-28
"Post Office paid widow in instalments for silence, inquiry hears",https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c88z431n2v5o,2024-04-26T15:52:26.920Z,"The widow of a sub-postmaster who took his own life had to sign a non-disclosure agreement with the Post Office in exchange for staggered compensation payments, an inquiry has heard. The family of sub-postmaster Martin Griffiths also had to agree not to pursue legal action to try to clear his name and get more money. The details emerged as part of a long-running inquiry into the prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters by the Post Office.  During a second day of questioning, former Post Office executive Angela van den Bogerd was shown emails where she and her colleagues discussed hiring a media lawyer after learning that Mr Griffiths was seriously ill in hospital. It also emerged that the then chief executive, Paula Vennells, questioned whether Mr Griffiths had ""previous mental health issues and potential family issues"" to feed back to the board. Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office prosecuted hundreds of sub-postmasters for offences such as theft and false accounting on the strength of faulty Horizon accounting software. Mr Griffiths had been pursued for a supposed shortfall amounting to £100,000 at his post office in Cheshire. He had written to the Post Office that July about a £39,000 shortfall at his branch between February 2012 and May 2013. He was also being held culpable for losses from an armed robbery at his branch in May of that year. An email from campaigner Alan Bates to Post Office executives quoted Mr Griffiths' mother saying that ""the Post Office had driven him to suicide"". The email was eventually forwarded to Ms van den Bogerd with a suggestion from the communications head Mark Davies to hire a specialist media lawyer. Counsel for the inquiry Jason Beer KC asked Ms van den Bogerd: ""The immediate reaction was not 'what can we, the Post Office, do to help this man's family', was it?"" She replied: ""Not at this point."" Mr Beer asked if that was what it was like working in the Post Office at this time. ""That the first thought was, we need a media lawyer?"" She replied: ""In all my time with Post Office from very, very early on, I was very conscious that PR was very important."" Following his death, the family was offered £140,000, with the condition that they do not pursue the Post Office for any more money, and keep quiet about the deal. The payments were staggered, which the Post Office ""asked for as an incentive to Mrs Griffiths maintaining confidentiality"", according to a 2015 email from Post Office litigation lawyer Rodric Williams to Ms van den Bogerd. She said the deal had been offered as a way of getting money to Mrs Griffiths more quickly than through the mediation scheme the Post Office had set up. In further questioning, Ms van den Bogerd was hit with accusation after accusation  from lawyer Ed Henry, each of which she denied or disagreed with. Mr Henry accused her of ""deliberately supressing the truth"" to which she replied: ""No I would never do that."" Mr Henry said she was ""letting wrongful convictions stand"", to which she said: ""No."" The hearing was attended by a number of former sub-postmasters, including Parmod Kalia. He used to work at the Orpington branch, and was given a six month jail sentence after being falsely accused of stealing £22,000 from the Post Office. Mr Kalia sat in the inquiry room with tears in his eyes as lawyer Ed Henry questioned Ms van den Bogerd about a letter she sent to him in 2015 insisting that the Horizon system was robust. As the inquiry broke for lunch, Mr Kalia told the BBC that the exchange was ""very tough"" to watch. “He [Mr Henry] brought back memories of my mum. I had to beg and borrow from her, and I could never pay her back."" “It was very important for the barrister to bring it up."" He said he wanted ""some kind of acceptance"" from Ms van den Bogerd. “I haven't got what I’m looking for, which is a public apology to me personally. I know she apologised to everyone yesterday, but that was off a bit of paper.” “She’s broken me” he added. ",BBC,26/04/2024,"['The widow of a sub-postmaster who took his own life had to sign a non-disclosure agreement with the Post Office in exchange for staggered compensation payments, an inquiry has heard.', 'The family of sub-postmaster Martin Griffiths also had to agree not to pursue legal action to try to clear his name and get more money.', 'The details emerged as part of a long-running inquiry into the prosecution of hundreds of sub-postmasters by the Post Office.', 'During a second day of questioning, former Post Office executive Angela van den Bogerd was shown emails where she and her colleagues discussed hiring a media lawyer after learning that Mr Griffiths was seriously ill in hospital.', 'It also emerged that the then chief executive, Paula Vennells, questioned whether Mr Griffiths had ""previous mental health issues and potential family issues"" to feed back to the board.', 'Between 1999 and 2015, the Post Office prosecuted hundreds of sub-postmasters for offences such as theft and false accounting on the strength of faulty Horizon accounting software.', 'Mr Griffiths had been pursued for a supposed shortfall amounting to £100,000 at his post office in Cheshire.', 'He had written to the Post Office that July about a £39,000 shortfall at his branch between February 2012 and May 2013.', 'He was also being held culpable for losses from an armed robbery at his branch in May of that year.', 'An email from campaigner Alan Bates to Post Office executives quoted Mr Griffiths\' mother saying that ""the Post Office had driven him to suicide"".', 'The email was eventually forwarded to Ms van den Bogerd with a suggestion from the communications head Mark Davies to hire a specialist media lawyer.', 'Counsel for the inquiry Jason Beer KC asked Ms van den Bogerd: ""The immediate reaction was not \'what can we, the Post Office, do to help this man\'s family\', was it?""', 'She replied: ""Not at this point.""', 'Mr Beer asked if that was what it was like working in the Post Office at this time. ""', 'That the first thought was, we need a media lawyer?""', 'She replied: ""In all my time with Post Office from very, very early on, I was very conscious that PR was very important.""', 'Following his death, the family was offered £140,000, with the condition that they do not pursue the Post Office for any more money, and keep quiet about the deal.', 'The payments were staggered, which the Post Office ""asked for as an incentive to Mrs Griffiths maintaining confidentiality"", according to a 2015 email from Post Office litigation lawyer Rodric Williams to Ms van den Bogerd.', 'She said the deal had been offered as a way of getting money to Mrs Griffiths more quickly than through the mediation scheme the Post Office had set up.', 'In further questioning, Ms van den Bogerd was hit with accusation after accusation from lawyer Ed Henry, each of which she denied or disagreed with.', 'Mr Henry accused her of ""deliberately supressing the truth"" to which she replied: ""No I would never do that.""', 'Mr Henry said she was ""letting wrongful convictions stand"", to which she said: ""No.""', 'The hearing was attended by a number of former sub-postmasters, including Parmod Kalia.', 'He used to work at the Orpington branch, and was given a six month jail sentence after being falsely accused of stealing £22,000 from the Post Office.', 'Mr Kalia sat in the inquiry room with tears in his eyes as lawyer Ed Henry questioned Ms van den Bogerd about a letter she sent to him in 2015 insisting that the Horizon system was robust.', 'As the inquiry broke for lunch, Mr Kalia told the BBC that the exchange was ""very tough"" to watch. “', 'He [Mr Henry] brought back memories of my mum.', 'I had to beg and borrow from her, and I could never pay her back."" “', 'It was very important for the barrister to bring it up.""', 'He said he wanted ""some kind of acceptance"" from Ms van den Bogerd. “', ""I haven't got what I’m looking for, which is a public apology to me personally."", 'I know she apologised to everyone yesterday, but that was off a bit of paper.” “', 'She’s broken me” he added.']",-0.0867481427947272,"He said he wanted ""some kind of acceptance"" from Ms van den Bogerd. “","In further questioning, Ms van den Bogerd was hit with accusation after accusation from lawyer Ed Henry, each of which she denied or disagreed with.",-0.4651322662830353,She said the deal had been offered as a way of getting money to Mrs Griffiths more quickly than through the mediation scheme the Post Office had set up.,"He had written to the Post Office that July about a £39,000 shortfall at his branch between February 2012 and May 2013.",2024-04-28
The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge just moved in the wrong direction,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/26/economy/pce-inflation-spending-march/index.html,"
  Updated
        10:39 AM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","Inflation remained stubbornly high last month, but it hasn’t stopped Americans from spending.
    
            The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index — a closely watched inflation gauge favored by the Federal Reserve — accelerated to 2.7% for the year ended in March, according to data released Friday by the Commerce Department.
    
            That rate was above economists’ expectations for a 2.6% gain and landed above February’s reading of 2.5%.
    
            On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.3%, unchanged from the pace seen in February.
    
            “We’re moving in the wrong direction, again, on the inflation story,” Ben Ayers, Nationwide’s senior economist, told CNN in an interview.
    
            Inflation has cooled significantly from the decades-high levels seen in the summer of 2022; however, progress that was made last year did not continue into 2024. While rising gas prices played their role, the biggest bogeyman to lower inflation has been shelter costs and overall services, where price hikes tend to be more “sticky.”
    
            “Those [price increases for services] don’t go away overnight, and I think that’s the concerning part for us as economists, but also for the Fed,” Ayers said. “That means a longer road for this higher inflationary environment over this year than we thought.”
    
            While many economists prefer to measure the nation’s inflation levels using the monthly Consumer Price Index (which shows prices are up 3.5% annually through March), the Fed bases its 2% inflation target on the overall PCE index. In its evaluation of monetary policy, the Fed also is closely watching shifts in underlying inflation — seen best through the “core” PCE index that strips out volatile food and energy prices.
    
            The core PCE index held steady in March on both a monthly and annual basis, 0.3% and 2.8%, respectively.
    
            While both indexes are much lower than they were at their peaks (7.1% PCE inflation in June 2022, 5.6% for core in February 2022), they also remain stuck above the Fed’s 2% target. After 11 rate hikes in two years, the Fed has been on hold and eyeing potential rate cuts for this year.
    
            The timing of those cuts got pushed back after a series of hot inflation reports to start 2024, economists and analysts say.
    
            The Fed has a policymaking meeting next week, and central bankers are widely expected to stay the course and keep rates where they are until clearer progress is being made.
    
            That’s expected to occur in the coming months, wrote Tuan Nguyen, economist at RSM US. A key reason for that will be disinflation in housing prices.
    
            Inflation gauges capture changes in rent — and the implicit rental value of owned homes — on a lag. Market-rate rents have stabilized, and economists expect that to be reflected in the inflation data in the coming months.
    
            “We expect housing inflation to likely be halved, bringing overall inflation much closer to the Fed’s 2% target than currently anticipated,” Nguyen wrote, adding that RSM views the first rate cuts as not likely to occur until September.
    
            When Ross Fondren moved to Austin, Texas, from Arkansas in 2020, it didn’t take long for housing costs to take a huge bite of income. From 2021 to 2022, Austin was among the top 10 fastest-growing rental markets in the nation, with rents rising on average by more than 25% in some months.
    
            More recently, rents have been stable and have gone down in some places across the city, Fondren said.
    
            The trip to the grocery store certainly isn’t as painful as it was two years ago, he said, but the most significant increases he and his wife are seeing now are in their insurance renewal notices and from other service providers.
    
            His wife’s six-month auto premium went up by $75 and his by $100, increases of 7% and 10%, respectively.
    
            “You definitely notice those things,” said Fondren, 32, who has a part-time job working for UPS and another officiating soccer. “Thankfully, we’ve paid off debts for our cars, so it’s not as impactful as if it would’ve happened last year before we had paid some things off. But you still notice a price increase here and there.”
    
            The oil changes that two years ago ran under $100 are now topping off at $115, he said. The basic haircut for Fondren (who jests that as a “half-balding man already, so not a lot to do,”) that was $15 is now $20. Internet and other bills seem to be inching up by $1 or $2 each month, he added.
    
            The increases, even those ticky-tacky ones, do add up. But for now, they’re manageable, Fondren said, noting he and his wife both received “decent raises” recently in addition to paying down debt.
    
            “It’s probably my first time as an adult of going through a big economic change like Covid and then the big inflation jump. So it’s a wake-up call for me, and I think, ‘Oh, this is how the world works at times,’” Fondren said. “But I think overall, it’s fine.”
    
            Despite higher-than-typical inflation seemingly stuck in neutral, the economy-powering consumers aren’t batting an eye: Spending remained strong last month and didn’t taper off like economists had been expecting.
    
            Consumer spending remained strong in March, jumping 0.8% and equaling the blistering pace seen a month before. Economists were expecting consumers to pull back some: They forecasted an increase of 0.5%, according to FactSet estimates.
    
            Taking inflation out of the equation, the economy-powering spending was still up 0.5%, according to the report. Inflation-adjusted disposable personal income grew 0.2%.
    
            “We’ve seen good hiring, good levels of spending,” Nationwide’s Ayers said, “but the downside is that has also brought back inflation concerns to the front.”
    
            It likely will need to take a slowdown in the historically strong labor market to help ease inflation, Ayers said. And if there’s a significant cooling, that could leave many people in a bind, he added.
    
            “I think the propensity to spend for consumers is higher than it usually is,” Ayers said. “And that is raising some concerns that — not everyone — but some households have overextended themselves.”
    
            Friday’s report showed that savings as a percentage of disposable income dropped to 3.2%, the lowest rate since October 2022.",CNN,26/04/2024,"['Inflation remained stubbornly high last month, but it hasn’t stopped Americans from spending.', 'The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index — a closely watched inflation gauge favored by the Federal Reserve — accelerated to 2.7% for the year ended in March, according to data released Friday by the Commerce Department.', 'That rate was above economists’ expectations for a 2.6% gain and landed above February’s reading of 2.5%.', 'On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.3%, unchanged from the pace seen in February.', '“We’re moving in the wrong direction, again, on the inflation story,” Ben Ayers, Nationwide’s senior economist, told CNN in an interview.', 'Inflation has cooled significantly from the decades-high levels seen in the summer of 2022; however, progress that was made last year did not continue into 2024.', 'While rising gas prices played their role, the biggest bogeyman to lower inflation has been shelter costs and overall services, where price hikes tend to be more “sticky.”', '“Those [price increases for services] don’t go away overnight, and I think that’s the concerning part for us as economists, but also for the Fed,” Ayers said. “', 'That means a longer road for this higher inflationary environment over this year than we thought.”', 'While many economists prefer to measure the nation’s inflation levels using the monthly Consumer Price Index (which shows prices are up 3.5% annually through March), the Fed bases its 2% inflation target on the overall PCE index.', 'In its evaluation of monetary policy, the Fed also is closely watching shifts in underlying inflation — seen best through the “core” PCE index that strips out volatile food and energy prices.', 'The core PCE index held steady in March on both a monthly and annual basis, 0.3% and 2.8%, respectively.', 'While both indexes are much lower than they were at their peaks (7.1% PCE inflation in June 2022, 5.6% for core in February 2022), they also remain stuck above the Fed’s 2% target.', 'After 11 rate hikes in two years, the Fed has been on hold and eyeing potential rate cuts for this year.', 'The timing of those cuts got pushed back after a series of hot inflation reports to start 2024, economists and analysts say.', 'The Fed has a policymaking meeting next week, and central bankers are widely expected to stay the course and keep rates where they are until clearer progress is being made.', 'That’s expected to occur in the coming months, wrote Tuan Nguyen, economist at RSM US.', 'A key reason for that will be disinflation in housing prices.', 'Inflation gauges capture changes in rent — and the implicit rental value of owned homes — on a lag.', 'Market-rate rents have stabilized, and economists expect that to be reflected in the inflation data in the coming months.', '“We expect housing inflation to likely be halved, bringing overall inflation much closer to the Fed’s 2% target than currently anticipated,” Nguyen wrote, adding that RSM views the first rate cuts as not likely to occur until September.', 'When Ross Fondren moved to Austin, Texas, from Arkansas in 2020, it didn’t take long for housing costs to take a huge bite of income.', 'From 2021 to 2022, Austin was among the top 10 fastest-growing rental markets in the nation, with rents rising on average by more than 25% in some months.', 'More recently, rents have been stable and have gone down in some places across the city, Fondren said.', 'The trip to the grocery store certainly isn’t as painful as it was two years ago, he said, but the most significant increases he and his wife are seeing now are in their insurance renewal notices and from other service providers.', 'His wife’s six-month auto premium went up by $75 and his by $100, increases of 7% and 10%, respectively.', '“You definitely notice those things,” said Fondren, 32, who has a part-time job working for UPS and another officiating soccer. “', 'Thankfully, we’ve paid off debts for our cars, so it’s not as impactful as if it would’ve happened last year before we had paid some things off.', 'But you still notice a price increase here and there.”', 'The oil changes that two years ago ran under $100 are now topping off at $115, he said.', 'The basic haircut for Fondren (who jests that as a “half-balding man already, so not a lot to do,”) that was $15 is now $20.', 'Internet and other bills seem to be inching up by $1 or $2 each month, he added.', 'The increases, even those ticky-tacky ones, do add up.', 'But for now, they’re manageable, Fondren said, noting he and his wife both received “decent raises” recently in addition to paying down debt.', '“It’s probably my first time as an adult of going through a big economic change like Covid and then the big inflation jump.', 'So it’s a wake-up call for me, and I think, ‘Oh, this is how the world works at times,’” Fondren said. “', 'But I think overall, it’s fine.”', 'Despite higher-than-typical inflation seemingly stuck in neutral, the economy-powering consumers aren’t batting an eye: Spending remained strong last month and didn’t taper off like economists had been expecting.', 'Consumer spending remained strong in March, jumping 0.8% and equaling the blistering pace seen a month before.', 'Economists were expecting consumers to pull back some: They forecasted an increase of 0.5%, according to FactSet estimates.', 'Taking inflation out of the equation, the economy-powering spending was still up 0.5%, according to the report.', 'Inflation-adjusted disposable personal income grew 0.2%.', '“We’ve seen good hiring, good levels of spending,” Nationwide’s Ayers said, “but the downside is that has also brought back inflation concerns to the front.”', 'It likely will need to take a slowdown in the historically strong labor market to help ease inflation, Ayers said.', 'And if there’s a significant cooling, that could leave many people in a bind, he added.', '“I think the propensity to spend for consumers is higher than it usually is,” Ayers said. “', 'And that is raising some concerns that — not everyone — but some households have overextended themselves.”', 'Friday’s report showed that savings as a percentage of disposable income dropped to 3.2%, the lowest rate since October 2022.']",0.1205542546255935,"It likely will need to take a slowdown in the historically strong labor market to help ease inflation, Ayers said.","But for now, they’re manageable, Fondren said, noting he and his wife both received “decent raises” recently in addition to paying down debt.",0.2677611282893589,Inflation-adjusted disposable personal income grew 0.2%.,"Friday’s report showed that savings as a percentage of disposable income dropped to 3.2%, the lowest rate since October 2022.",2024-04-28
Europe is beating inflation. Why can’t America declare victory?,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/26/economy/us-europe-inflation-differences/index.html,"
  Updated
        11:11 AM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","Inflation may have tumbled from multi-decade highs on both sides of the Atlantic, but progress has stalled in the United States, with the Federal Reserve now expected to start cutting interest rates well after its European counterpart.
    
            Annual US inflation, as measured by the Fed’s preferred gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, came in at 2.7% in March, accelerating from 2.5% in February. The Fed aims to keep inflation at 2% over the longer run.
    
            Another measure of US inflation, the Consumer Price Index, has shown the same upward trend: In March, the CPI rose 3.5% compared with the same month in 2023, up from 3.2% in February.
    
            Meanwhile, among the 20 countries that use the euro, annual consumer price inflation has slowed steadily since the start of the year. It stood at 2.4% in March.
    
            The European Central Bank (ECB) looks set to start cutting interest rates in June, three months before the Fed is forecast to do the same, based on market expectations.
    
            There are even indications that the Fed may do something that, until quite recently, seemed inconceivable — raise the cost of borrowing. Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said earlier this month that she would favor a rate hike “should progress on inflation stall or even reverse.”
    
            So why does the United States appear to have a bigger inflation problem than Europe?
    
            Some economists argue there isn’t actually much daylight between the US and European rates of inflation, pointing to a quirk in the US measures.
    
            Unlike the ECB’s preferred gauge, both the PCE and the CPI include owner-occupiers’ housing costs — essentially a measure of how much money you could earn from renting out your home and hence forego if you live in it.
    
            The measure is designed to track inflation in the real estate market while accounting for the fact that most Americans own their homes. But people don’t actually feel these hypothetical housing costs, said Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management.
    
            The weight given to owner-occupiers’ housing costs is much bigger in the US CPI than in the PCE — 32% versus 13%, according to consultancy Capital Economics — but both weights are still much larger than the 0% afforded to these costs in the eurozone’s key measure of consumer prices.
    
            This transatlantic discrepancy exaggerates the recent differences between US and eurozone inflation, according to Simon MacAdam, deputy chief global economist at Capital Economics.
    
            When using a different measure that, among other adjustments, strips out those hypothetical housing costs, MacAdam finds that core inflation rates — which exclude energy and food prices — have been “very similar” in the United States and Europe over the past six months.
    
            “The US hasn’t got a fundamental problem of broad-based excessive price pressure, contrary to some of the recent narrative from commentators,” he wrote in a note last week.
    
            So if the levels of inflation are fundamentally similar on both sides of the Atlantic, then why are their respective central banks looking to start cutting interest rates at different times?
    
            The simple answer is that, as MacAdam put it, “central banks will ultimately alter monetary policy in response to developments in the measure of inflation they target, not harmonized or adjusted measures.”
    
            But it’s more complicated than that. “The (transatlantic) divergence is bigger when it comes to (economic) growth,” Carsten Brzeski, global head of macroeconomic research at ING, told CNN.
    
            The International Monetary Fund expects the US economy to grow 2.7% this year, whereas for the eurozone it sees only a 0.8% expansion.
    
            US employers are hiring at a historic clip, adding 303,000 jobs in March. Washington has also spent a lot more than European governments in recent years to support consumers and businesses through the pandemic, something that has kept consumer demand particularly robust in the United States.
    
            Despite preliminary data Thursday that showed weaker-than-expected US growth in the first quarter, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Reuters that the economy was still “firing on all cylinders.”
    
            Europe’s economy is much weaker due, in part, to the lingering impact of an energy crisis. When Russia — which once provided more than 40% of Europe’s pipeline gas imports — launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the region’s natural gas prices shot up to all-time highs.
    
            As a result, annual inflation in the eurozone peaked at a much higher level than the PCE. The two rates hit 10.6% and 7.1% respectively in 2022.
    
            The strength of the US economy makes it more likely that high inflation will make a sustained comeback, Brzeski said, which is making the Fed more hesitant than the ECB to start cutting rates in the summer.
    
            Both the United States and the eurozone are grappling with labor shortages, which is forcing employers to hike wages in order to attract and keep workers and fueling inflation in the services sector, he noted. But, more broadly, US consumer demand appears stronger.
    
            “We see the savings ratio of US households starting to come down, which means that people in the US are willing to tap into their savings in order to spend,” he said. “In general, European households are a bit more cautious.”
    
            Davide Oneglia, director of European and global macroeconomics at research firm TS Lombard, takes a similar view. “The US consumer is more eager to spend because maybe he sees better prospects for himself in the labor market,” he told CNN.",CNN,26/04/2024,"['Inflation may have tumbled from multi-decade highs on both sides of the Atlantic, but progress has stalled in the United States, with the Federal Reserve now expected to start cutting interest rates well after its European counterpart.', 'Annual US inflation, as measured by the Fed’s preferred gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, came in at 2.7% in March, accelerating from 2.5% in February.', 'The Fed aims to keep inflation at 2% over the longer run.', 'Another measure of US inflation, the Consumer Price Index, has shown the same upward trend: In March, the CPI rose 3.5% compared with the same month in 2023, up from 3.2% in February.', 'Meanwhile, among the 20 countries that use the euro, annual consumer price inflation has slowed steadily since the start of the year.', 'It stood at 2.4% in March.', 'The European Central Bank (ECB) looks set to start cutting interest rates in June, three months before the Fed is forecast to do the same, based on market expectations.', 'There are even indications that the Fed may do something that, until quite recently, seemed inconceivable — raise the cost of borrowing.', 'Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said earlier this month that she would favor a rate hike “should progress on inflation stall or even reverse.”', 'So why does the United States appear to have a bigger inflation problem than Europe?', 'Some economists argue there isn’t actually much daylight between the US and European rates of inflation, pointing to a quirk in the US measures.', 'Unlike the ECB’s preferred gauge, both the PCE and the CPI include owner-occupiers’ housing costs — essentially a measure of how much money you could earn from renting out your home and hence forego if you live in it.', 'The measure is designed to track inflation in the real estate market while accounting for the fact that most Americans own their homes.', 'But people don’t actually feel these hypothetical housing costs, said Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management.', 'The weight given to owner-occupiers’ housing costs is much bigger in the US CPIthan in the PCE — 32% versus 13%, according to consultancy Capital Economics — but both weights are still much larger than the 0% afforded to these costs in the eurozone’s key measure of consumerprices.', 'This transatlantic discrepancy exaggerates the recent differences between US and eurozone inflation, according to Simon MacAdam, deputy chief global economist at Capital Economics.', 'When using a different measure that, among other adjustments, strips out those hypothetical housing costs, MacAdam finds that core inflation rates — which exclude energy and food prices — have been “very similar” in the United States and Europe over the past six months.', '“The US hasn’t got a fundamental problem of broad-based excessive price pressure, contrary to some of the recent narrative from commentators,” he wrote in a note last week.', 'So if the levels of inflation are fundamentally similar on both sides of the Atlantic, then why are their respective central banks looking to start cutting interest rates at different times?', 'The simple answer is that, as MacAdam put it, “central banks will ultimately alter monetary policy in response to developments in the measure of inflation they target, not harmonized or adjusted measures.”', 'But it’s more complicated than that. “', 'The (transatlantic) divergence is bigger when it comes to (economic) growth,” Carsten Brzeski, global head of macroeconomic research at ING, told CNN.', 'The International Monetary Fund expects the US economy to grow 2.7% this year, whereas for the eurozone it sees only a 0.8% expansion.', 'US employers are hiring at a historic clip, adding 303,000 jobs in March.', 'Washington has also spent a lot more than European governments in recent years to support consumers and businesses through the pandemic, something that has kept consumer demand particularly robust in the United States.', 'Despite preliminary data Thursday that showed weaker-than-expected US growth in the first quarter, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Reuters that the economy was still “firing on all cylinders.”', 'Europe’s economy is much weaker due, in part, to the lingering impact of an energy crisis.', 'When Russia —which once provided more than 40% of Europe’s pipeline gas imports — launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the region’s natural gas prices shot up to all-time highs.', 'As a result, annual inflation in the eurozone peaked at a much higher level than the PCE.', 'The two rates hit 10.6% and 7.1% respectively in 2022.', 'The strength of the US economy makes it more likely that high inflation will make a sustained comeback, Brzeski said, which is making the Fed more hesitant than the ECB to start cutting rates in the summer.', 'Both the United States and the eurozone are grappling with labor shortages, which is forcing employers to hike wages in order to attract and keep workers and fueling inflation in the services sector, he noted.', 'But, more broadly, US consumer demand appears stronger.', '“We see the savings ratio of US households starting to come down, which means that people in the US are willing to tap into their savings in order to spend,” he said. “', 'In general, European households are a bit more cautious.”', 'DavideOneglia,director of European and global macroeconomics at research firm TS Lombard, takes a similar view. “', 'The US consumer is more eager to spend because maybe he sees better prospects for himself in the labor market,” he told CNN.']",0.1330937652636778,"Inflation may have tumbled from multi-decade highs on both sides of the Atlantic, but progress has stalled in the United States, with the Federal Reserve now expected to start cutting interest rates well after its European counterpart.","Europe’s economy is much weaker due, in part, to the lingering impact of an energy crisis.",0.0967582490133202,"Washington has also spent a lot more than European governments in recent years to support consumers and businesses through the pandemic, something that has kept consumer demand particularly robust in the United States.","Inflation may have tumbled from multi-decade highs on both sides of the Atlantic, but progress has stalled in the United States, with the Federal Reserve now expected to start cutting interest rates well after its European counterpart.",2024-04-28
"NBC cut ties with Ronna McDaniel after extraordinary pressure, but its problems aren’t over",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/27/media/nbc-ronna-mcdaniel-problems-are-not-over/index.html,"
  Updated
        8:16 AM EDT, Wed March 27, 2024
    ","Only 80 hours elapsed between NBC News announcing Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor and the network ousting her from that very role. But for the leadership at NBC Universal News Group, those were 80 painful hours.
    
            On Tuesday evening, following another full day in which the media rumor mill churned at warp speed, NBCU News Group boss Cesar Conde sent staff a memo, notifying his troops that he had reversed his decision to welcome the former Republican National Committee chair to “the team.”
    
            “After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor,” Conde said, adding that he wanted to “personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down.”
    
            Conde had no real choice. The embattled NBCU boss, who I’m told dealt with the crisis from an unknown location outside of 30 Rock, was facing an unprecedented rebellion from his most high-profile stars, who one by one went on the air and excoriated leadership’s decision to hire McDaniel. The only aspect of Conde’s note that was surprising was the fact that it came 48 hours late, allowing what started off as a crisis to fester and balloon into one of the worst corporate public relations calamities in recent memory.
    
            “What a sh*t show!” a media executive exclaimed to me Tuesday shortly after Conde relieved McDaniel of her NBC News credentials.
    
            In his note, Conde said he took “full responsibility” for McDaniel’s hire. But, he also did point the finger, telling staffers that hiring her was “a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team.” Indeed, multiple people familiar with the matter have told me that the infighting among NBC executives over who was at fault for the disaster has reached a fever pitch, with various factions of the NBCU News Group assigning blame to others.
    
            Regardless of who is to blame, the entire affair made clear who is actually in control of the company — and it’s not Conde & Co. Despite the NBCU C-suite digging their heels in the sand as they resisted dumping McDaniel for days, they were ultimately forced to succumb to pressure from their talent. As a second media executive commented to me, it is now “very clear who is in charge” after the “weak leadership was put on full display.”
    
            “Has Cesar lost the room?” wondered a third media executive.
    
            While the Peacock family argues over who was really at fault, the company is facing a fresh public relations mess. Led by Donald Trump, right-wing personalities are already assailing the network as being overrun with intolerant woke leftists.
    
            “These Radical Left Lunatics are CRAZY and the top people at NBC ARE WEAK,” Trump raged on his Truth Social platform.
    
            Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary under President George W. Bush, wrote on X: “What NBC is saying is if you’re for Trump, you don’t belong. Good. Let NBC be for Democrats only.”
    
            Of course, that narrative is intellectually dishonest. The objection to McDaniel from both within and outside of NBCU was not that she is a Republican. It wasn’t even that she was a Trump-supporting Republican. No, the objection stemmed from the fact that McDaniel was an active participant in the plot to subvert the 2020 vote. And, in addition to that disgraceful history, she had a lengthy track record smearing NBC News and MSNBC.
    
            Nevertheless, NBCU will now have to contend with such dishonest attacks being leveled by the right, which will follow them in the days, months, and even years to come. As unfair as it may be, they will certainly damage the network’s brand in Republican circles — a place it had gone through great pains to appeal to.
    
            NBCU will also have to grapple with McDaniel, who spent the last 24 hours or so interviewing lawyers as she gears up for a possible legal fight with the network, according to a person familiar with the matter. The rift between McDaniel and NBCU had grown to such an extent by Tuesday that she was not informed by network brass that she had been dismissed, I’m told. Instead, McDaniel learned of her ouster in press reports.
    
            While NBCU is being beaten up on the right, the company’s leadership was quickly praised by its journalists and top stars. Shortly after Conde sent out his memo, Rachel Maddow appeared on Joy Reid’s show, where the two lauded Conde for reversing course.
    
            “I think it is a show of strength and a show of respect for the people who work at this company and make us who we are,” Maddow said. “That leadership was willing to change on this, I’m grateful to them.”",CNN,27/03/2024,"['Only 80 hours elapsed between NBC News announcing Ronna McDaniel as a paid contributor and the network ousting her from that very role.', 'But for the leadership at NBC Universal News Group, those were 80painful hours.', 'On Tuesday evening, following another full day in which the media rumor mill churned at warp speed, NBCU News Group boss Cesar Conde sent staff a memo, notifying his troops that he had reversed his decision to welcome the former Republican National Committee chair to “the team.”', '“After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor,” Conde said, adding that he wanted to “personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down.”', 'Conde had no real choice.', 'The embattled NBCU boss, who I’m told dealt with the crisis from an unknown location outside of 30 Rock, was facing an unprecedented rebellion from his most high-profile stars, who one by one went on the air and excoriated leadership’s decision to hire McDaniel.', 'The only aspect of Conde’s note that was surprising was the fact that it came 48 hours late, allowing what started off as a crisis to fester and balloon into one of the worst corporate public relations calamities in recent memory.', '“What a sh*t show!”', 'a media executive exclaimed to me Tuesday shortly after Conde relieved McDaniel of her NBC News credentials.', 'In his note, Conde said he took “full responsibility” for McDaniel’s hire.', 'But, he also did point the finger, telling staffers that hiring her was “a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team.”', 'Indeed, multiple people familiar with the matter have told me that the infighting among NBC executives over who was at fault for the disaster has reached a fever pitch, with various factions of the NBCU News Group assigning blame to others.', 'Regardless of who is to blame, the entire affair made clear who is actually in control of the company — and it’s not Conde & Co. Despite the NBCU C-suite digging their heels in the sand as they resisted dumping McDaniel for days, they were ultimately forced to succumb to pressure from their talent.', 'As a second media executive commented to me, it is now “very clear who is in charge” after the “weak leadership was put on full display.”', '“Has Cesar lost the room?”', 'wondered a third media executive.', 'While the Peacock family argues over who was really at fault, the company is facing a fresh public relations mess.', 'Led by Donald Trump, right-wing personalities are already assailing the network as being overrun with intolerant woke leftists.', '“These Radical Left Lunatics are CRAZY and the top people at NBC ARE WEAK,” Trump raged on his Truth Social platform.', 'Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary under President George W. Bush, wrote on X: “What NBC is saying is if you’re for Trump, you don’t belong.', 'Good.', 'Let NBC be for Democrats only.”', 'Of course, that narrative is intellectually dishonest.', 'The objection to McDaniel from both within and outside of NBCU was not that she is a Republican.', 'It wasn’t even that she was a Trump-supporting Republican.', 'No, the objection stemmed from the fact that McDaniel was an active participant in the plot to subvert the 2020 vote.', 'And, in addition to that disgraceful history, she had a lengthy track record smearing NBC News and MSNBC.', 'Nevertheless, NBCU will now have to contend with such dishonest attacks being leveled by the right, which will follow them in the days, months, and even years to come.', 'As unfair as it may be, they will certainly damage the network’s brand in Republican circles — a place it had gone through great pains to appeal to.', 'NBCU will also have to grapple with McDaniel, who spent the last 24 hours or so interviewing lawyers as she gears up for a possible legal fight with the network, according to a person familiar with the matter.', 'The rift between McDaniel and NBCU had grown to such an extent by Tuesday that she was not informed by network brass that she had been dismissed, I’m told.', 'Instead, McDaniel learned of her ouster in press reports.', 'While NBCU is being beaten up on the right, the company’s leadership was quickly praised by its journalists and top stars.', 'Shortly after Conde sent out his memo, Rachel Maddow appeared on Joy Reid’s show, where the two lauded Conde for reversing course.', '“I think it is a show of strength and a show of respect for the people who work at this company and make us who we are,” Maddow said. “', 'That leadership was willing to change on this, I’m grateful to them.”']",-0.0743400881523301,"“I think it is a show of strength and a show of respect for the people who work at this company and make us who we are,” Maddow said. “","“These Radical Left Lunatics are CRAZY and the top people at NBC ARE WEAK,” Trump raged on his Truth Social platform.",-0.3914040706374428,"While NBCU is being beaten up on the right, the company’s leadership was quickly praised by its journalists and top stars.","As unfair as it may be, they will certainly damage the network’s brand in Republican circles — a place it had gone through great pains to appeal to.",2024-04-28
Chinese owner denies it’s willing to sell TikTok as US ban looms,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/25/business/bytedance-denies-reports-selling-tiktok-intl-hnk/index.html,"
  Updated
        12:01 AM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance said Thursday that it has no plans to sell the social media platform, its first official response on the fraught issue since President Joe Biden signed a bill that could lead to a nationwide ban of the wildly popular app.
    
            “Foreign media reports that ByteDance is exploring the sale of TikTok are untrue,” the Beijing-based company said in a statement on Toutiao, a news aggregation app that it owns and is popular in mainland China.
    
            “ByteDance doesn’t have any plan to sell TikTok,” it said.
    
            The statement was in direct response to an article by the Information on Thursday that said Bytedance was exploring scenarios for selling TikTok’s US business without the algorithm that recommends videos to TikTok users.
    
            In the statement, Bytedance attached screenshots of the Information’s report, which cited three people with knowledge of deliberations.
    
            Until now Beijing-based ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok and a host of other apps, had remained quiet on this week’s legislation in the US pushing for a forced sale. Chinese authorities have also been muted since the bill was signed into law despite Beijing previously making clear it would oppose any such measure.
    
            Congress passed the bill this week as part of a wide-ranging foreign aid package to support Israel and Ukraine. It was approved by the House on Saturday, and by the Senate on Tuesday.
    
            The legislation poses the most serious risk to TikTok since US officials began raising concerns about the app in 2020. Under what is now US law, TikTok is forced to find a new owner within months or be banned from the United States entirely, its biggest market with 170 million users.
    
            On Wednesday, TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew said the company would fight in the courts to stay online in the US.
    
            “Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere,” he said in a video posted on the app.
    
            The Chinese government has previously said it strongly opposes a forced sale of TikTok, and has the legal ability to do so. It views TikTok’s technology as highly valuable and has taken steps since 2020 to ensure it can veto any sale by ByteDance.
    
            TikTok’s algorithms, which keep users glued to the app, are believed to be key to its success. The algorithms give recommendations based on users’ behavior, thus pushing videos they want to watch.
    
            US lawmakers have long been concerned about Beijing’s influence over the app. In particular, they worry that TikTok could share data with the Chinese government or manipulate content displayed on its platform. So far, there’s little evidence to support these concerns.
    
            But as a China-based company, ByteDance is subject to a myriad of national intelligence, data security and cybersecurity laws.
    
            In 2018, China amended its National Intelligence Law, which requires any organization or citizen to support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence work. That means ByteDance is legally bound to help with gathering intelligence.
    
            As a result, a number of countries have banned officials from downloading TikTok onto their phones, but the US law is one of the most sweeping measures taken so far. India banned TikTok entirely in 2020.",CNN,26/04/2024,"['TikTok’s Chinese parent company ByteDance said Thursday that it has no plans to sell the social media platform, its first official response on the fraught issue since President Joe Biden signed a bill that could lead to a nationwide ban of the wildly popular app.', '“Foreign media reports that ByteDance is exploring the sale of TikTok are untrue,” the Beijing-based company said in a statement on Toutiao, a news aggregation app that it owns and is popular in mainland China.', '“ByteDance doesn’t have any plan to sell TikTok,” it said.', 'The statement was in direct response to an article by the Information on Thursday that said Bytedance was exploring scenarios for selling TikTok’s US business without the algorithm that recommends videos to TikTok users.', 'In the statement, Bytedance attached screenshots of the Information’s report, which cited three people with knowledge of deliberations.', 'Until now Beijing-based ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok and a host of other apps, had remained quiet on this week’s legislation in the US pushing for a forced sale.', 'Chinese authorities have also been muted since the bill was signed into law despite Beijing previously making clear it would oppose any such measure.', 'Congress passed the bill this week as part of a wide-ranging foreign aid package to support Israel and Ukraine.', 'It wasapproved by the Houseon Saturday, and by the Senate on Tuesday.', 'The legislation poses the most serious risk to TikTok since US officials beganraising concerns about the app in 2020.', 'Under what is now US law, TikTok is forced to find a new owner within months or be banned from the United States entirely, its biggest market with 170 million users.', 'On Wednesday, TikTok’s CEO Shou Chew said the company would fight in the courts to stay online in the US.', '“Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere,” he said in a video posted on the app.', 'The Chinese government has previouslysaidit strongly opposes a forced sale of TikTok, and has the legal abilityto do so.', 'It views TikTok’s technology as highly valuable and has taken steps since 2020 to ensure it can veto any sale by ByteDance.', 'TikTok’salgorithms, which keep users glued to the app, are believed to be key to its success.', 'The algorithms give recommendations based on users’ behavior, thus pushing videos they want to watch.', 'US lawmakers have long beenconcerned aboutBeijing’s influence over the app.', 'In particular, they worry that TikTok could share data with the Chinese government or manipulate content displayed on its platform.', 'So far, there’s little evidence to support these concerns.', 'But as a China-based company, ByteDance is subject to a myriad of national intelligence, data security and cybersecurity laws.', 'In 2018, China amended its National Intelligence Law, which requires any organization or citizen to support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence work.', 'That means ByteDance is legally bound to help with gathering intelligence.', 'As a result, a number of countries have banned officials from downloading TikTok onto their phones, but the US law is one of the most sweeping measures taken so far.', 'India banned TikTok entirely in 2020.']",0.1072955187912297,"In 2018, China amended its National Intelligence Law, which requires any organization or citizen to support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence work.","Under what is now US law, TikTok is forced to find a new owner within months or be banned from the United States entirely, its biggest market with 170 million users.",-0.9262235164642334,,Chinese authorities have also been muted since the bill was signed into law despite Beijing previously making clear it would oppose any such measure.,2024-04-28
"The electric car revolution is on track, says IEA",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/23/cars/electric-vehicle-sales-forecast-iea/index.html,"
  Updated
        6:55 AM EDT, Tue April 23, 2024
    ","Global electric vehicle sales are set to rise by more than a fifth to reach 17 million this year, powered by drivers in China, according to the International Energy Agency.
    
            In a report Tuesday, the IEA projected that “surging demand” for EVs over the next decade was set “to remake the global auto industry and significantly reduce oil consumption for road transport.”
    
            It expects half of all cars sold globally to be electric by 2035, up from more than one in five this year, provided charging infrastructure keeps pace. The IEA includes battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles in its definition of EVs.
    
            The agency’s bullish long-term outlook for EVs — based on current government policies — comes just days after the world’s biggest battery EV maker Tesla slashed its prices in major markets to counter declining sales and growing competition from Chinese upstarts and established carmakers.
    
            Recent negative headlines about slowing EV penetration are out of step with positive global trends, according to IEA executive director Fatih Birol. The data “does not at all show a reverse of the growth of electric cars. It shows an extremely robust increase of global electric car sales,” he told reporters Tuesday.
    
            The growth is not driven just by Chinese buyers. The number of new battery electric cars sold in the European Union rose almost 4% in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period in 2023, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.
    
            In a statement, Birol said: “Rather than tapering off, the global EV revolution appears to be gearing up for a new phase of growth.”
    
            Despite the upbeat trends, EV makers are grappling with slim profit margins, squeezed by price wars as competition heats.
    
            In the past few days, Tesla and Chinese EV maker Li Auto have cut prices on major models in China, the world’s biggest EV market, with Tesla also cutting prices in Germany and the United States.
    
            Earlier this month, Tesla posted its first annual drop in sales in nearly four years. The company’s stock has plunged more than 40% so far this year. China’s BYD has also stumbled after it briefly surpassed Tesla as global market leader, with its sales falling to about 300,000 in the first quarter from more than 525,000 in the final three months of 2023.
    
            Automakers may be hurting from the price cuts but they will be crucial to increasing the take-up of EVs around the world, according to the IEA, which emphasized that the “pace of the transition to EVs… will hinge on affordability.”
    
            In China, more than 60% of EVs sold last year were less expensive than conventional cars, but in Europe and the United States the purchase price for new cars with internal combustion engines remains lower on average.
    
            “Intensifying market competition and improving battery technologies are expected to reduce (EV) prices in the coming years,” the IEA said.
    
            “Growing electric car exports from Chinese automakers, which accounted for more than half of all electric car sales in 2023, could add to downward pressure on purchase prices,” it added.
    
            Last year, Chinese carmakers accounted for more than half of global electric car sales, compared with their 10% share of the conventional car market. “China is the de facto leader of electric car manufacturing around the world,” Birol said.
    
            Concerns about soaring imports of Chinese EVs prompted the European Union to open an investigation late last year into China’s state support for EV makers. The auto industry is a major employer in Europe and crucial to the region’s biggest economy, Germany, which is home to Volkswagen, Audi and BMW.
    
            EV sales in China will account for almost 60% of the global total this year and about 45% of all car sales in the country.
    
            By 2030, almost one in three cars on the roads in China is set to be electric, up from fewer than one in 10 last year, according to the IEA. That compares with its forecast for 17% in the United States and 18% in the European Union, compared with just over 2% and almost 4% respectively last year.
    
            “This shift will have major ramifications for both the auto industry and the energy sector,” Birol said. The IEA sees global oil demand peaking in 2030, helped by the electrification of the transport sector.
    
            In addition to affordability, another barrier to mass adoption of electric cars is a lack of public charging infrastructure in Europe and the United States.
    
            Under current government policies, the number of public EV charging points worldwide is expected to reach 15 million by the end of the decade, a near-fourfold increase from last year, according to the IEA. 
    
            Olesya Dmitracova contributed to this article, which has been updated with additional content.",CNN,23/04/2024,"['Global electric vehicle sales are set to rise by more than a fifth to reach 17 million this year, powered by drivers in China, according to the International Energy Agency.', 'In a report Tuesday, the IEA projected that “surging demand” for EVs over the next decade was set “to remake the global auto industry and significantly reduce oil consumption for road transport.”', 'It expects half of all cars sold globally to be electric by 2035, up from more than one in five this year, provided charging infrastructure keeps pace.', 'The IEA includes battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles in its definition of EVs.', 'The agency’s bullish long-term outlook for EVs — based on current government policies — comes just days after the world’s biggest battery EV maker Tesla slashed its prices in major markets to counter declining sales and growing competition from Chinese upstarts and established carmakers.', 'Recent negative headlines about slowing EV penetration are out of step with positive global trends, according to IEA executive director Fatih Birol.', 'The data “does not at all show a reverse of the growth of electric cars.', 'It shows an extremely robust increase of global electric car sales,” he told reporters Tuesday.', 'The growth is not driven just by Chinese buyers.', 'The number of new battery electric cars sold in the European Union rose almost 4% in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period in 2023, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association.', 'In a statement, Birol said: “Rather than tapering off, the global EV revolution appears to be gearing up for a new phase of growth.”', 'Despite the upbeat trends, EV makers are grappling with slim profit margins, squeezed by price wars as competition heats.', 'In the past few days, Tesla and Chinese EV maker Li Auto have cut prices on major models in China, the world’s biggest EV market, with Tesla also cutting prices in Germany and the United States.', 'Earlier this month, Tesla posted its first annual drop in sales in nearly four years.', 'The company’s stock has plunged more than 40% so far this year.', 'China’s BYD has also stumbled after it briefly surpassed Tesla as global market leader, with its sales falling to about 300,000 in the first quarter from more than 525,000 in the final three months of 2023.', 'Automakers may be hurting from the price cuts but they will be crucial to increasing the take-up of EVs around the world, according to the IEA, which emphasized that the “pace of the transition to EVs… will hinge on affordability.”', 'In China, more than 60% of EVs sold last year were less expensive than conventional cars, but in Europe and the United States the purchase price for new cars with internal combustion engines remains lower on average.', '“Intensifying market competition and improving battery technologies are expected to reduce (EV) prices in the coming years,” the IEA said.', '“Growing electric car exports from Chinese automakers, which accounted for more than half of all electric car sales in 2023, could add to downward pressure on purchase prices,” it added.', 'Last year, Chinese carmakers accounted for more than half of global electric car sales, compared with their 10% share of the conventional car market. “', 'China is the de facto leader of electric car manufacturing around the world,” Birol said.', 'Concerns about soaring imports of Chinese EVs prompted the European Union to open an investigation late last year into China’s state support for EV makers.', 'The auto industry is a major employer in Europe and crucial to the region’s biggest economy, Germany, which is home to Volkswagen, Audi and BMW.', 'EV sales in China will account for almost 60% of the global total this year and about 45% of all car sales in the country.', 'By 2030, almost one in three cars on the roads in China is set to be electric, up from fewer than one in 10 last year, according to the IEA.', 'That compares with its forecast for 17% in the United States and 18% in the European Union, compared with just over 2% and almost 4% respectively last year.', '“This shift will have major ramifications for both the auto industry and the energy sector,” Birol said.', 'The IEA sees global oil demand peaking in 2030, helped by the electrification of the transport sector.', 'In addition to affordability, another barrier to mass adoption of electric cars is a lack of public charging infrastructure in Europe and the United States.', 'Under current government policies, the number of public EV charging points worldwide is expected to reach 15 million by the end of the decade, a near-fourfold increase from last year, according to the IEA.', 'Olesya Dmitracova contributed to this article, which has been updated with additional content.']",0.1070060039911753,"It shows an extremely robust increase of global electric car sales,” he told reporters Tuesday.","Automakers may be hurting from the price cuts but they will be crucial to increasing the take-up of EVs around the world, according to the IEA, which emphasized that the “pace of the transition to EVs… will hinge on affordability.”",0.2753257536888122,"It expects half of all cars sold globally to be electric by 2035, up from more than one in five this year, provided charging infrastructure keeps pace.","China’s BYD has also stumbled after it briefly surpassed Tesla as global market leader, with its sales falling to about 300,000 in the first quarter from more than 525,000 in the final three months of 2023.",2024-04-28
Microsoft stock hits all-time high after hiring former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman,https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/20/investing/microsoft-stock-record-high-altman-openai/index.html,"
  Updated
        4:19 PM EST, Mon November 20, 2023
    ","Microsoft stock reached a record high on Monday after the company said that Sam Altman, former chief executive of OpenAI, will join the company to head its artificial intelligence innovation leg.
    
            Shares of the tech behemoth rose 2.1% to an all-time high close of $377.44 on Monday, beating the previous record of $376.17.
    
            That comes after shares of Microsoft fell 1.7% on Friday, when Sam Altman was ousted from his position at OpenAI in a boardroom coup. Microsoft is the artificial intelligence firm’s biggest stakeholder, with a $13 billion investment in the company.
    
            Greg Brockman, who co-founded OpenAI and quit after Altman’s firing, is also joining Microsoft.
    
            Altman’s hiring ended days of speculation that the former chief executive could return to the firm after his dramatic firing. Emmett Shear, former CEO of Amazon-owned streaming service Twitch, will replace OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati as interim chief executive.
    
            Microsoft shares are up about 56% for the year. The stock is one of the “Magnificent Seven” that have powered the lion’s share of the market’s returns this year, boosted by Wall Street’s bet that artificial intelligence is the next big thing in tech.
    
            Dan Ives, tech analyst at Wedbush Securities, reiterated his $425 price target for Microsoft’s stock following Altman’s and Brockman’s hires.
    
            “We view Microsoft now even in a stronger position from an AI perspective with Altman and Brockman” at the company, Ives wrote in a note on Monday.
    
            Other members of the “Magnificent Seven” saw a boost on Monday. Nvidia shares gained 2.3% to end the trading session at $504.20 ahead of its earnings due on Tuesday, notching a record-high close for the chipmaker.",CNN,20/11/2023,"['Microsoft stock reached a record high on Monday after the company said that Sam Altman, former chief executive of OpenAI, will join the company to head its artificial intelligence innovation leg.', 'Shares of the tech behemoth rose 2.1% to an all-time high close of $377.44 on Monday, beating the previous record of $376.17.', 'That comes after shares of Microsoft fell 1.7% on Friday, when Sam Altman was ousted from his position at OpenAI in a boardroom coup.', 'Microsoft is the artificial intelligence firm’s biggest stakeholder, with a $13 billion investment in the company.', 'Greg Brockman, who co-founded OpenAI and quit after Altman’s firing, is also joining Microsoft.', 'Altman’s hiring ended days of speculation that the former chief executive could return to the firm after his dramatic firing.', 'Emmett Shear, former CEO of Amazon-owned streaming service Twitch, will replace OpenAI chief technology officer Mira Murati as interim chief executive.', 'Microsoft shares are up about 56% for the year.', 'The stock is one of the “Magnificent Seven” that have powered the lion’s share of the market’s returns this year, boosted by Wall Street’s bet that artificial intelligence is the next big thing in tech.', 'Dan Ives, tech analyst at Wedbush Securities, reiterated his $425 price target for Microsoft’s stock following Altman’s and Brockman’s hires.', '“We view Microsoft now even in a stronger position from an AI perspective with Altman and Brockman” at the company, Ives wrote in a note on Monday.', 'Other members of the “Magnificent Seven” saw a boost on Monday.', 'Nvidia shares gained 2.3% to end the trading session at $504.20 ahead of its earnings due on Tuesday, notching a record-high close for the chipmaker.']",0.3148943375907157,"The stock is one of the “Magnificent Seven” that have powered the lion’s share of the market’s returns this year, boosted by Wall Street’s bet that artificial intelligence is the next big thing in tech.","Greg Brockman, who co-founded OpenAI and quit after Altman’s firing, is also joining Microsoft.",0.7688216765721639,Microsoft shares are up about 56% for the year.,"That comes after shares of Microsoft fell 1.7% on Friday, when Sam Altman was ousted from his position at OpenAI in a boardroom coup.",2024-04-28
FTC votes to ban most employers from using noncompete clauses. But legal challenge is expected,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/23/success/ftc-bans-non-compete-clauses/index.html,"
  Updated
        5:06 PM EDT, Tue April 23, 2024
    ","The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday voted to ban for-profit US employers from making employees sign agreements with noncompete clauses. Such a ban could affect tens of millions of workers.
    
            President Joe Biden soon after the announcement said, “The FTC is cracking down on ‘non-compete agreements,’ contracts that employers use to prevent their workers from changing jobs even if that job will pay a few dollars more, or provide better working conditions. Workers ought to have the right to choose who they want to work for.”
    
            The FTC’s decision was the result of a 3-to-2 vote among its five commissioners Tuesday afternoon. The two commissioners who dissented from the majority said they believed the rule to be “unlawful” and “won’t survive legal challenge.” The US Chamber of Commerce has already said it will sue the FTC as early as this week for what it views as the agency exceeding its administrative authority.
    
            The FTC estimates that 30 million people – one in five US workers – are bound by a noncompete clause in their current jobs. And for most of them, the agency asserts, such a clause restricts them from freely switching jobs, lowers wages, stifles innovation, blocks entrepreneurs from starting new businesses and undermines fair competition.
    
            The final rule is a somewhat narrower version of the proposed rule that the agency put out for public comment in January of 2023.
    
            It will ban for-profit employers from issuing new noncompetes to anyone.
    
            And – with one exception – it makes currently existing noncompete agreements unenforceable after the rule’s effective date, which is set at 120 days from the rule’s publication in the Federal Register.
    
            The rule, however, does allow currently existing noncompete agreements for senior executives to remain in force. Senior executives are defined as workers earning more than $151,164 annually who also are in a “policy-making position.”
    
            An FTC staff member presenting the final rule to the commissioners during Tuesday’s meeting characterized noncompete agreements as “exploitative and coercive” for employees other than senior executives. Typically, senior executives are more likely to have a lawyer represent them in contract negotiations and secure compensation in exchange for signing a noncompete agreement. Whereas rank-and-file employees normally don’t negotiate such agreements, which may be presented to them along with other paperwork on their first day on the job.
    
            The FTC contends that businesses seeking to protect their trade secrets and other confidential information can do so through the use of confidentiality clauses.
    
            The ban would apply nationwide, overriding state laws regarding noncompete agreements. Currently three states (California, North Dakota and Oklahoma) plus Washington, D.C., already have near-complete bans on the books, while some other states – such as Colorado, Maryland, Oregon and Rhode Island – allow them but only within certain parameters, such as limiting them to high-wage earners, said Stefanie Camfield, assistant general counsel at Engage PEO, a human resources services firm.
    
            The FTC estimates that its ban would boost wages and benefits by up to $488 billion over a decade.
    
            Employment lawyers expect there to be legal pushback from employers and business groups that may delay enforcement of the rule while it is challenged in court, and possibly prevent it from ever going into effect if those suing the FTC prevail.
    
            Daryl Joseffer, chief counsel of the U.S. Chamber’s Litigation Center, characterized the FTC rule banning noncompetes as an “administrative power grab.” “They’re trying to regulate a century-old business practice across the entire economy,” Joseffer said.
    
            If the rule is allowed to stand, it opens “a pandora’s box, where they can micromanage any aspect of the economy,” the Chamber’s chief policy officer, Neil Bradley, asserted.
    
            In December of last year, New York State Governor Kathleen Hochul vetoed a bill passed by the state legislature to completely ban noncompete agreements in that state.
    
            A nationwide ban on noncompete clauses can make things easier for rank-and-file workers who want to change jobs and not fear retaliation from their former employer.
    
            “Having a bright line saying you can’t do it at all would be a major help to employees,” said employee-side attorney Anne Clark at Vladeck, Raskin & Clark P.C.
    
            But unless and until a nationwide ban goes into effect, any employee who has already signed a noncompete or is being asked to do so should understand the contours of it.
    
            “Understand what you’re being asked to sign. And if you don’t, ask questions,” said Amanda Wait, a partner at the law firm DLA Piper and a former lawyer with the FTC.
    
            You might start by checking the particulars of the law in your state governing employee agreements and what, if any prohibitions there are on employers. You might also consult with an attorney to help you interpret your noncompete, since courts may use a lot of different factors in determining whether a noncompete is unfairly restrictive, Clark said.
    
            This story has been updated with additional information.",CNN,23/04/2024,"['The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday voted to ban for-profit US employers from making employees sign agreements with noncompete clauses.', 'Such a ban could affect tens of millions of workers.', 'President Joe Biden soon after the announcement said, “The FTC is cracking down on ‘non-compete agreements,’ contracts that employers use to prevent their workers from changing jobs even if that job will pay a few dollars more, or provide better working conditions.', 'Workers ought to have the right to choose who they want to work for.”', 'The FTC’s decision was the result of a 3-to-2 vote among its five commissioners Tuesday afternoon.', 'The two commissioners who dissented from the majority saidthey believed the rule to be “unlawful” and “won’t survive legal challenge.”', 'The US Chamber of Commerce has already said it will sue the FTC as early as this week for what it views as the agency exceeding its administrative authority.', 'The FTC estimates that 30 million people – one in five US workers – are bound by a noncompete clause in their current jobs.', 'And for most of them, the agency asserts, such a clause restricts them from freely switching jobs, lowers wages, stifles innovation, blocks entrepreneurs from starting new businesses and undermines fair competition.', 'The final rule is a somewhat narrower version of the proposed rule that the agency put out for public comment in January of 2023.', 'It will ban for-profit employers from issuing new noncompetes to anyone.', 'And – with one exception – it makes currently existing noncompete agreements unenforceable after the rule’s effective date, which is set at 120 days from the rule’s publication in the Federal Register.', 'The rule, however, does allow currently existing noncompete agreements for senior executives to remain in force.', 'Senior executives are defined as workers earning more than $151,164 annually who also are in a “policy-making position.”', 'An FTC staff member presenting the final rule to the commissioners during Tuesday’s meeting characterized noncompete agreements as “exploitative and coercive” for employees other than senior executives.', 'Typically, senior executives are more likely to have a lawyer represent them in contract negotiations and secure compensation in exchange for signing a noncompete agreement.', 'Whereas rank-and-file employees normally don’t negotiate such agreements, which may be presented to them along with other paperwork on their first day on the job.', 'The FTC contends that businesses seeking to protect their trade secrets and other confidential information can do so through the use of confidentiality clauses.', 'The ban would apply nationwide, overriding state laws regarding noncompete agreements.', 'Currently three states (California, North Dakota and Oklahoma) plus Washington, D.C., already have near-complete bans on the books, while some other states – such as Colorado, Maryland, Oregon and Rhode Island – allow them but only within certain parameters, such as limiting them to high-wage earners, saidStefanie Camfield, assistant general counsel atEngage PEO, a human resources services firm.', 'The FTC estimates that its ban would boost wages and benefits by up to $488 billion over a decade.', 'Employment lawyers expect there to be legal pushback from employers and business groups that may delay enforcement of the rule while it is challenged in court, and possibly prevent it from ever going into effect if those suing the FTC prevail.', 'Daryl Joseffer, chief counsel of the U.S. Chamber’s Litigation Center,characterized the FTC rule banning noncompetes as an “administrative power grab.” “', 'They’re trying to regulate a century-old business practice across the entire economy,” Joseffer said.', 'If the rule is allowed to stand, it opens “a pandora’s box, where they can micromanage any aspect of the economy,” the Chamber’s chief policy officer, Neil Bradley, asserted.', 'In December of last year, New York State Governor Kathleen Hochul vetoed a bill passed by the state legislature to completely ban noncompete agreements in that state.', 'A nationwide ban on noncompete clauses can make things easier for rank-and-file workers who want to change jobs and not fear retaliation from their former employer.', '“Having a bright line saying you can’t do it at all would be a major help to employees,”said employee-side attorney Anne Clark atVladeck, Raskin & Clark P.C.  But unless and until a nationwide ban goes into effect, any employee who has already signed a noncompete or is being asked to do so should understand the contours of it.', '“Understand what you’re being asked to sign.', 'And if you don’t, ask questions,” said Amanda Wait, a partner at the law firm DLA Piper and a former lawyer with the FTC.', 'You might start by checking the particulars of the law in your state governing employee agreements and what, if any prohibitions there are on employers.', 'You might also consult with an attorney to help you interpret your noncompete, since courts may use a lot of different factors in determining whether a noncompete is unfairly restrictive, Clark said.', 'This story has been updated with additional information.']",0.0882771723727758,"Typically, senior executives are more likely to have a lawyer represent them in contract negotiations and secure compensation in exchange for signing a noncompete agreement.",Such a ban could affect tens of millions of workers.,-0.3989237709478898,The FTC estimates that its ban would boost wages and benefits by up to $488 billion over a decade.,"And for most of them, the agency asserts, such a clause restricts them from freely switching jobs, lowers wages, stifles innovation, blocks entrepreneurs from starting new businesses and undermines fair competition.",2024-04-28
The Chevrolet Corvette is officially going electric,https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/25/business/electric-hybrid-corvette/index.html,"
  Updated
        12:22 PM EDT, Mon April 25, 2022
    ","General Motors will produce a fully electric Chevrolet Corvette, GM President Mark Reuss announced in a LinkedIn post Monday morning. 
    
            Reuss didn’t say when the electric Corvette would come, but he hinted that a hybrid model could come relatively soon. “We will offer an electrified Corvette as early as next year,” he wrote. An accompanying video the company posted to Twitter showed what appeared to be a hybrid Corvette, and in another first, showed the front wheels spinning and throwing snow as if being powered. All Corvettes produced by the company previously have been rear-wheel-drive only.
    
            While Reuss’s post implies a hybrid Corvette will be based on the current generation of the car, it’s not clear if the all-electric version will be a variation of this car or a completely different future model.
    
            “Electrified” is an auto industry term encompassing everything from hybrid to fully electric vehicles, and anything with an electric motor can count as “electrified.” It has long been rumored that the current generation of the Corvette, the first with its gasoline engine mounted behind the seats instead of in the front, could be built with a hybrid system. Reuss has also previously hinted there would be electrified variants of the car.
    
            Various companies are working on electric sports cars. Most all-electric vehicles in production so far have been four-door sedans and SUVs, as the need for batteries lends itself to larger and heavier vehicles. Tesla’s first car, the Lotus Elise-based Tesla Roadster, was an electric sports car, but the second-generation of Tesla Roadster, originally unveiled as a prototype in 2017, has yet to go into production.
    
            Some manufacturers, such as Lamborghini, have said that current battery technology doesn’t allow for a optimum sports car performance from a purely electric vehicle. Lamborghini has been working on plug-in hybrid sports cars, though.
    
            To date, the Corvette is only available in the base Stingray version with 6.2-liter V8 engine producing up to 495 horsepower. A 670 horsepower Corvette Z06 with a 5.5-liter V8 was unveiled last fall. The previous generation of the Corvette included included a 755-horsepower ZR1 version. Nothing like that has yet been announced for the current model but GM engineers have said a major reason for putting the engine in the back was to allow for better performance at extremely high horsepower levels.
    
            Besides saving gas, hybrid systems can also be used in high-performance cars to add additional power and to provide for quicker acceleration since electric motors can provide power to the wheels more quickly than gas engines. Ferrari’s most powerful sports cars are hybrids, for instance.  
    
            GM has said it plans to produce only zero-emission vehicles, meaning fully electric or powered by hydrogen fuel cells, by 2035.",CNN,25/04/2022,"['General Motors will produce a fully electric Chevrolet Corvette, GM President Mark Reuss announced in a LinkedIn post Monday morning.', 'Reuss didn’t say when the electric Corvette would come, but he hinted that a hybrid model could come relatively soon. “', 'We will offer an electrified Corvette as early as next year,” he wrote.', 'An accompanying video the company posted to Twitter showed what appeared to be a hybrid Corvette, and in another first, showed the front wheels spinning and throwing snow as if being powered.', 'All Corvettes produced by the company previously have been rear-wheel-drive only.', 'While Reuss’s post implies a hybrid Corvette will be based on the current generation of the car, it’s not clear if the all-electric version will be a variation of this car or a completely different future model.', '“Electrified” is an auto industry term encompassing everything from hybrid to fully electric vehicles, and anything with an electric motor can count as “electrified.”', 'It has long been rumored that the current generation of the Corvette, the first with its gasoline engine mounted behind the seats instead of in the front, could be built with a hybrid system.', 'Reuss has also previously hinted there would be electrified variants of the car.', 'Various companies are working on electric sports cars.', 'Most all-electric vehicles in production so far have been four-door sedans and SUVs, as the need for batteries lends itself to larger and heavier vehicles.', 'Tesla’s first car, the Lotus Elise-based Tesla Roadster, was an electric sports car, but the second-generation of Tesla Roadster, originally unveiled as a prototype in 2017, has yet to go into production.', 'Some manufacturers, such as Lamborghini, have said that current battery technology doesn’t allow for a optimum sports car performance from a purely electric vehicle.', 'Lamborghini has been working on plug-in hybrid sports cars, though.', 'To date, the Corvette is only available in the base Stingray version with 6.2-liter V8 engine producing up to 495 horsepower.', 'A 670 horsepower Corvette Z06 with a 5.5-liter V8 was unveiled last fall.', 'The previous generation of the Corvette included included a 755-horsepower ZR1 version.', 'Nothing like that has yet been announced for the current model but GM engineers have said a major reason for putting the engine in the back was to allow for better performance at extremely high horsepower levels.', 'Besides saving gas, hybrid systems can also be used in high-performance cars to add additional power and to provide for quicker acceleration since electric motors can provide power to the wheels more quickly than gas engines.', 'Ferrari’s most powerful sports cars are hybrids, for instance.', 'GM has said it plans to produce only zero-emission vehicles, meaning fully electric or powered by hydrogen fuel cells, by 2035.']",0.0521320736918344,Nothing like that has yet been announced for the current model but GM engineers have said a major reason for putting the engine in the back was to allow for better performance at extremely high horsepower levels.,"While Reuss’s post implies a hybrid Corvette will be based on the current generation of the car, it’s not clear if the all-electric version will be a variation of this car or a completely different future model.",0.3646016319592793,"Besides saving gas, hybrid systems can also be used in high-performance cars to add additional power and to provide for quicker acceleration since electric motors can provide power to the wheels more quickly than gas engines.","Some manufacturers, such as Lamborghini, have said that current battery technology doesn’t allow for a optimum sports car performance from a purely electric vehicle.",2024-04-28
Can markets make a comeback? That depends on tech earnings,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/23/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html,"
  Published
        7:25 AM EDT, Tue April 23, 2024
    ","A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter. Not a subscriber? You can sign up right here. You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.
    
            Markets have had a rough time this month, but don’t count them out just yet.
    
            Monday’s bounceback, buoyed by a strong start to earnings season, could mark a sea change for investors.
    
            What’s happening: US stocks slid from recent highs last week as inflation proved sticky and heightened geopolitical tensions drove major indexes to their longest slump in 18 months.
    
            The S&P 500 and Nasdaq dropped six days in a row, the longest downswing since October 2022. The Nasdaq tumbled 2.1% on Friday as tech stocks plunged, marking its worst day since January 31.
    
            “We’ve expected inflation would be on a rollercoaster,” wrote analysts at BlackRock in a note on Monday. “Further escalation of Middle East tensions could see oil prices staying elevated, reinforcing higher inflation and higher-for-longer interest rates.”
    
            Those sticky inflation rates have pushed investors to slash their expectations for interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve. They’re now anticipating just one cut this year, according to the CME FedWatch tool. That’s down from six at the beginning of the year.
    
            “We question whether the slide in stocks is a blip or a bigger shift toward pricing in inflation — and interest rates — settling higher than pre-pandemic,” wrote the BlackRock analysts.
    
            That’s why earnings this week are so critical for the market.
    
            “With stocks under pressure and rate cut hopes fading, we think the bar is higher for tech firms to deliver on earnings expectations — and for other sectors to show an earnings recovery,” they wrote. “US earnings updates this week will be key to see if they can keep topping expectations and buoying risk appetite in a higher-for-longer interest rate environment.”
    
            Tesla, Facebook-parent Meta, IBM, Microsoft and Alphabet all report first quarter earnings later this week.
    
            “Big Tech earnings may determine whether the stock market avoids its first four-week losing streak in two years,” wrote Chris Larkin, managing director of trading and investing at E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley on Monday.
    
            The good news: This earnings season has been strong so far.
    
            About 15% of S&P 500 companies have reported first quarter earnings, and nearly three-quarters of those companies have posted a positive earnings-per-share surprise. About 60% of companies have beaten revenue expectations, according to FactSet data.
    
            Analysts at Wells Fargo say they expect S&P 500 Index profits to expand for the third consecutive quarter.
    
            But investors are nervously waiting for the Magnificent Seven, those massive Tech stocks that carry an outsized portion of market weight, to report.
    
            FactSet estimates predict the worry is overblown, at least for most of that group.
    
            Companies in the Magnificent Seven are expected to drive earnings higher for the S&P 500 for the first quarter, according to FactSet. Nvidia, Amazon, Meta, Alphabet and Microsoft are projected to be the top five contributors to year-over-year earnings growth for the S&P 500. The other two Magnificant Seven stocks are Tesla and Apple.
    
            The bad news: Other economists aren’t as certain that things will go well for Big Tech this quarter.
    
            Analysts at Bank of America wrote that they expect Magnificent Seven earnings to slow compared to last year and that they expect all seven companies to see decelerating growth when measured by earnings per share.
    
            Others are lukewarm on Big Tech and the hype around artificial intelligence.
    
            “With AI, we’re not at the craziness of the 1990s dotcom bubble just yet — but it is starting to feel a little bit like that,” wrote Dave Sekera, chief US market strategist at Morningstar in a note on Monday.
    
            “I think what you’re really going to start hearing this quarter and maybe the next couple quarters is a lot of talk about AI. As an investor, you need to have a skeptical ear regarding those companies that talk about AI but don’t necessarily have a clear path as to how AI is going to either bolster their results or expand their margins.”
    
            Overall, for big tech, he said “I think this quarter is one of those where no new news is good news.”
    
            Taylor Swift is breaking records. Again.
    
            Swift’s latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” which dropped on Friday, became the most-streamed album on its first day across Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Music, reports my colleague Liam Reilly.
    
            The pop star’s 11th studio album raked in a stunning 300 million streams in a single day on Friday on Spotify alone, becoming the most-streamed album in a single day in just 12 hours.
    
            Amazon and Apple also said Swift’s album broke records across their respective streaming platforms.
    
            “The album broke the record for biggest pop album of all time by first-day streams,” Apple Music said.
    
            Amazon Music reported “The Tortured Poets Department” had in just three days become the music service’s most-streamed album worldwide in its first week.
    
            The album’s opening track, “Fortnight (feat. Post Malone),” also received laurels, becoming the most-streamed song in a single day on Spotify.
    
            Tesla has announced aggressive price cuts in China and Germany, shortly after reducing prices in the United States, as the world’s largest maker of electric vehicles (EV) faces declining sales and growing competition in major markets, reports my colleague Laura He.
    
            The latest round of price cuts adds to a series of price cuts that Tesla has made dating back to early last year to try to maintain demand in the face of increased competition from EV offerings by traditional automakers and higher interest rates driving up the cost of car purchases for many buyers. Tesla’s price cuts have squeezed its profit margins and caused its stock to fall about 4% in trading Monday, ahead of its first quarter earnings report due out after the bell Tuesday.
    
            On Sunday, the EV giant slashed the starting prices of four models sold in mainland China, its largest overseas market, by 14,000 yuan ($1,932). The Model Y, the company’s bestselling car in the country, now starts at its lowest -ever price of 249,900 yuan ($34,502).
    
            In Germany, Tesla’s biggest market in Europe, the price of its Model 3 rear-wheel drive was also lowered by 2,000 euros ($2,132) to 40,990 euros ($43,707), according to its official website.
    
            The first cuts were announced on Friday in the US, when Tesla reduced the prices of three of its five models. The prices of the Model Y, Model X and Model S were cut by $2,000 each, while those for the Model 3 and the Cybertruck remained unchanged.
    
            The flurry of cuts comes during a tough time for Tesla. Its stock has plunged more than 40% year-to-date, after it reported a drop in quarterly deliveries for the first time in nearly four years and announced job cuts equivalent to more than 10% of its global staff.",CNN,23/04/2024,"['A version of this story first appeared in CNN Business’ Before the Bell newsletter.', 'Not a subscriber?', 'You can sign upright here.', 'You can listen to an audio version of the newsletter by clicking the same link.', 'Markets have had a rough time this month, but don’t count them out just yet.', 'Monday’s bounceback, buoyed by a strong start to earnings season, could mark a sea change for investors.', 'What’s happening: US stocks slid from recent highs last week as inflation proved sticky and heightened geopolitical tensions drove major indexes to their longest slump in 18 months.', 'The S&P 500 and Nasdaq dropped six days in a row, the longest downswing since October 2022.', 'The Nasdaq tumbled 2.1% on Friday as tech stocks plunged, marking its worst day since January 31.', '“We’ve expected inflation would be on a rollercoaster,” wrote analysts at BlackRock in a note on Monday. “', 'Further escalation of Middle East tensions could see oil prices staying elevated, reinforcing higher inflation and higher-for-longer interest rates.”', 'Those sticky inflation rates have pushed investors to slash their expectations for interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.', 'They’re now anticipating just one cut this year, according to the CME FedWatch tool.', 'That’s down from six at the beginning of the year.', '“We question whether the slide in stocks is a blip or a bigger shift toward pricing in inflation — and interest rates — settling higher than pre-pandemic,” wrote the BlackRock analysts.', 'That’s why earnings this week are so critical for the market.', '“With stocks under pressure and rate cut hopes fading, we think the bar is higher for tech firms to deliver on earnings expectations — and for other sectors to show an earnings recovery,” they wrote. “', 'US earnings updates this week will be key to see if they can keep topping expectations and buoying risk appetite in a higher-for-longer interest rate environment.”', 'Tesla, Facebook-parent Meta, IBM, Microsoft and Alphabet all report first quarter earnings later this week.', '“Big Tech earnings may determine whether the stock market avoids its first four-week losing streak in two years,” wrote Chris Larkin, managing director of trading and investing at E*TRADE from Morgan Stanley on Monday.', 'The good news: This earnings season has been strong so far.', 'About 15% of S&P 500 companies have reported first quarter earnings, and nearly three-quarters of those companies have posted a positive earnings-per-share surprise.', 'About 60% of companies have beaten revenue expectations, according to FactSet data.', 'Analysts at Wells Fargo say they expect S&P 500 Index profits to expand for the third consecutive quarter.', 'But investors are nervously waiting for the Magnificent Seven, those massive Tech stocks that carry an outsized portion of market weight, to report.', 'FactSet estimates predict the worry is overblown, at least for most of that group.', 'Companies in the Magnificent Seven are expected to drive earnings higher for the S&P 500 for the first quarter, according to FactSet.', 'Nvidia, Amazon, Meta, Alphabet and Microsoft are projected to be the top five contributors to year-over-year earnings growth for the S&P 500.', 'The other two Magnificant Seven stocks are Tesla and Apple.', 'The bad news: Other economists aren’t as certain that things will go well for Big Tech this quarter.', 'Analysts at Bank of America wrote that they expect Magnificent Seven earnings to slow compared to last year and that they expect all seven companies to see decelerating growth when measured by earnings per share.', 'Others are lukewarm on Big Tech and the hype around artificial intelligence.', '“With AI, we’re not at the craziness of the 1990s dotcom bubble just yet — but it is starting to feel a little bit like that,” wrote Dave Sekera, chief US market strategist at Morningstar in a note on Monday.', '“I think what you’re really going to start hearing this quarter and maybe the next couple quarters is a lot of talk about AI.', 'As an investor, you need to have a skeptical ear regarding those companies that talk about AI but don’t necessarily have a clear path as to how AI is going to either bolster their results or expand their margins.”', 'Overall, for big tech, he said “I think this quarter is one of those where no new news is good news.”', 'Taylor Swift is breaking records.', 'Again.', 'Swift’s latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” which dropped on Friday, became the most-streamed album on its first day across Spotify, Amazon Music, and Apple Music, reports my colleague Liam Reilly.', 'The pop star’s 11th studio album raked in a stunning 300 million streams in a single day on Friday onSpotifyalone, becoming the most-streamed album in a single day in just 12 hours.', 'Amazon andApple also said Swift’s album broke records across their respective streaming platforms.', '“The album broke the record for biggest pop album of all time by first-day streams,”Apple Music said.', 'Amazon Music reported“The Tortured Poets Department” had in just three days become the music service’s most-streamed album worldwide in its first week.', 'The album’s opening track, “Fortnight (feat.', 'Post Malone),” also received laurels, becoming the most-streamed song in a single day on Spotify.', 'Tesla has announced aggressive price cuts in China and Germany, shortly after reducing prices in the United States, as the world’s largest maker of electric vehicles (EV) faces declining sales and growing competition in major markets, reports my colleague Laura He.', 'The latest round of price cuts adds to aseries of price cutsthat Tesla has made dating back to early last year to try to maintain demand in the face of increased competition from EV offerings by traditional automakers and higher interest rates driving up the cost of car purchases for many buyers.', 'Tesla’s price cuts havesqueezed its profit marginsand caused its stock to fall about 4% in trading Monday, ahead of its first quarter earnings report due out after the bell Tuesday.', 'On Sunday, the EV giant slashed the starting prices of fourmodels sold in mainland China, its largest overseas market, by 14,000 yuan ($1,932).', 'The Model Y, the company’s bestselling car in the country, now starts at its lowest -ever price of 249,900 yuan ($34,502).', 'In Germany, Tesla’s biggest market in Europe, the price of its Model 3 rear-wheel drive was also lowered by 2,000 euros ($2,132) to 40,990 euros ($43,707), according to its official website.', 'The first cuts were announced on Friday in the US, when Tesla reduced theprices of three of its five models.', 'The prices ofthe Model Y, Model X and Model S were cut by $2,000each, while those for the Model 3 and the Cybertruck remained unchanged.', 'The flurry of cuts comes during a tough time forTesla.', 'Its stock has plunged more than 40% year-to-date, after it reported a drop in quarterly deliveries for the first time in nearly four years andannounced job cutsequivalent to more than 10% of its global staff.']",0.0601849808284716,Analysts at Bank of America wrote that they expect Magnificent Seven earnings to slow compared to last year and that they expect all seven companies to see decelerating growth when measured by earnings per share.,"The Nasdaq tumbled 2.1% on Friday as tech stocks plunged, marking its worst day since January 31.",-0.0119181500898825,Analysts at Wells Fargo say they expect S&P 500 Index profits to expand for the third consecutive quarter.,Analysts at Bank of America wrote that they expect Magnificent Seven earnings to slow compared to last year and that they expect all seven companies to see decelerating growth when measured by earnings per share.,2024-04-28
How to make high interest rates work for your hard-earned savings,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/20/success/interest-rates-savings-cash/index.html,"
  Published
        3:00 PM EDT, Wed March 20, 2024
    ","The Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate remains at a 23-year high. That’s thanks to the central bank’s decision Wednesday to once again hold it steady, as it has done at the policy-making committee’s past five meetings.
    
            That decision may be disappointing to some investors, homebuyers and those with a lot of credit card debt, since movement in the Fed’s overnight lending rate influences rates — directly or indirectly — on consumer financial products (e.g., credit cards, bank loans and mortgages).
    
            But with the Fed signaling that no rate cuts are likely until summer, it also means anyone with savings still has at least a few more months to make hay of their stash.
    
            That’s because you can still get inflation-beating interest rates that will grow any money you have set aside for emergencies, vacations, down payments or any other goal in your sights over the next several years.
    
            However, that won’t happen if you just let it sit in a traditional checking or savings account that yields next to nothing. There are more lucrative, low-risk options out there, with rates that are still at or near their peaks. “But perhaps not for much longer,” said Ted Rossman, senior analyst at Bankrate. “If one of those fits into your financial plans, it’s best to act soon.”
    
            So, consider the following options when deciding where to park your hard-earned savings.
    
            The average annual percentage yield on bank savings accounts was just 0.52% as of March 13, according to Bankrate. That average is kept low by the biggest brick-and-mortar banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, which still are offering a paltry 0.01%.
    
            By contrast, there are still FDIC-insured online banks offering inflation-beating rates of between 4.35% and 5.35% on their high-yield savings accounts. Generally speaking, these are the best vehicles in which to keep your emergency funds for quick, easy access.
    
            Choosing between an account that pays 0.52% and one that pays 5.35% can mean forfeiting hundreds of dollars in interest. “If you put $10,000 in a savings account, that’s a difference of $496 in interest earnings over the course of the year, assuming monthly compounding,” Rossman said.
    
            While the rates on high-yield savings accounts have gone down a bit in recent months, “widespread cuts in online savings account rates are unlikely until the first Fed rate cut is near,” said Ken Tumin, founder of DepositAccounts.com.
    
            As with any bank savings rate, high-yield savings account rates can change overnight, and the bank may not alert you when it lowers it. So make sure to check your monthly statement.
    
            Another high-return, low-risk investment that is great for money you likely won’t need to tap for a few months or even a couple of years is a certificate of deposit.
    
            You can get the best returns on CDs through a brokerage such as Schwab, E*Trade or Fidelity. That’s because you can comparison shop for CDs from any number of FDIC-insured banks and will not have to set up individual accounts with each institution.
    
            As of March 13, the average rate on a one-year CD was 1.95%, but some banks are offering as much are 5.4%.
    
            If you can get a one-year CD at, say, 5.4%, you will make $540 on a $10,000 investment.
    
            To get the greatest benefit from a CD, you have to leave the money invested for a fixed period. You can always access your principal sooner if you need to, but there may be early withdrawal penalties.
    
            As of March 20, CDs listed on Schwab.com with durations from three months up to three years were all yielding between 5.2% and 5.51%. CD rates on durations between four and 10 years ranged from 4.40% to 5.15%.
    
            Say you invest $10,000 in a one-year CD with a 5.36% APY. At the end of that period, you’d get your principal back plus $536 in interest when the CD matures, according to Bankrate’s CD calculator. If you chose a two-year CD at 5.25%, you’d bank an extra $1,078, assuming compounding interest. The same investment in a five-year CD at 5.15% would earn $2,854.
    
            “It makes sense to go long with CDs. To hedge your bets, include terms from one to five years. Starting a CD ladder will provide this mix,” Tumin said.
    
            If you don’t go through a brokerage you may get a reasonable deal from your primary bank, Tumin said.
    
            For example, he noted, Wells Fargo is still offering up to 5.01% on both 4-month and 7-month CDs. Or, at Bank of America, you can get up to 4.75% on a 7-month CD.
    
            But Tumin cautions that with any big bank CD you should take your money out at the end of the term, otherwise your bank may automatically renew it and lock you in to a much lower-yielding CD.
    
            If you don’t want to set up an online savings account at another bank, your own bank may offer you a money market deposit account that pays a higher yield than your regular checking or savings accounts.
    
            Money market accounts may have higher minimum deposit requirements than a regular savings account, but they are more liquid than a fixed-term certificate of deposit or Treasury bill, meaning they give you access to your money more quickly while still potentially giving you some of the highest yields available, said Doug Ornstein, senior manager for integrated solutions at TIAA Wealth Management.
    
            But don’t confuse money market accounts with money market mutual funds, which invest in short-term, low-risk debt instruments. As of March 19, they had an average 7-day yield of 5.14%, according to the Crane Money Fund Index, which tracks the top 100 taxable money market funds.
    
            Unlike money market deposit accounts, money market mutual funds are not insured by the FDIC. But if you invest in a money market fund through a brokerage, your overall account is likely to be insured through the Securities Investor Protection Corp, which offers protection in the event your brokerage ever goes under.
    
            Another option for money you can leave untouched anywhere from several months to a few years is to buy short-term Treasury bills and medium-term notes, which are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.
    
            Three- and six-month bills had yields of 5.39% and 5.33% respectively on March 20 before the Fed’s meeting ended, while nine-month and one-year bills were offering 5.19% and 5.08% respectively, according to rates posted on Schwab.com for a $25,000 investment. Rates on Treasury notes with durations from two years to 10 years ranged between 4.29% and 4.72%.
    
            If you’re someone who manages your portfolio like a hawk, you may feel comfortable buying T-bills on your own from TreasuryDirect.gov. But if you don’t, it might be easier just to buy new issues through your brokerage account or invest in a short-term bond index fund or ETF, said Andy Smith, executive director of financial planning at Edelman Financial Engines.
    
            And if you’re looking at money that will be needed in three to five years, you might consider a diversified fund of highly rated government and corporate bonds, Ornstein said. An 18-month AAA-rated corporate bond, for instance, was yielding 4.82% this week, while the three-year was at 4.49%. Meanwhile, three-year AAA-rated municipal bonds (which are issued by local governments) had a rate of 3.98%, according to Schwab.com.
    
            When deciding on the best accounts and investments for your specific goals and peace of mind, it may pay to consult a fee-only fiduciary adviser — meaning, someone who doesn’t get paid a commission to sell you a particular investment.
    
            What you’ll always want to do is build in flexibility for yourself so you can easily access cash, regardless of your timeline for key goals. “What happens if something changes and you need that down payment a lot sooner — or your parents need medical care fast?” Smith said.
    
            That means balancing your desire for great yield with a need and desire for ease of access without penalty. Translation: Don’t chase yield for yield’s sake.
    
            Think of it this way, Ornstein said: Unless you have huge sums to invest or are an institutional investor, the difference between getting a 5.1% yield versus 5% is negligible, and in fact it could even cost you more if there are penalties for taking your money out early. “Most of the time convenience is really important. Give up the 0.1%,” he advised.",CNN,20/03/2024,"['The Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate remains at a 23-year high.', 'That’s thanks to the central bank’s decision Wednesday to once again hold it steady, as it has done at the policy-making committee’s past five meetings.', 'That decision may be disappointing to some investors, homebuyers and those with a lot of credit card debt, since movement in the Fed’s overnight lending rate influences rates — directly or indirectly — on consumer financial products (e.g., credit cards, bank loans and mortgages).', 'Butwith the Fed signaling that no rate cuts are likely until summer, it also means anyone with savings still has at least a few more months to make hay of their stash.', 'That’s because you can still get inflation-beating interest rates that will grow any money you have set aside for emergencies, vacations, down payments or any other goal in your sights over the next several years.', 'However, that won’t happen if you just let it sit in a traditional checking or savings account that yields next to nothing.', 'There are more lucrative, low-risk options out there, with rates that are still at or near their peaks. “', 'But perhaps not for much longer,” said Ted Rossman, senior analyst at Bankrate. “', 'If one of those fits into your financial plans, it’s best to act soon.”', 'So, consider the following options when deciding where to park your hard-earned savings.', 'The average annual percentage yield on bank savings accounts was just 0.52% as of March 13, according to Bankrate.', 'That average is kept low by the biggest brick-and-mortar banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America, which still are offering a paltry 0.01%.', 'By contrast, there are still FDIC-insured online banks offering inflation-beating rates of between 4.35% and 5.35% on their high-yield savings accounts.', 'Generally speaking, these are the best vehicles in which to keep your emergency funds for quick, easy access.', 'Choosing between an account that pays 0.52% and one that pays 5.35% can mean forfeiting hundreds of dollars in interest. “', 'If you put $10,000 in a savings account, that’s a difference of $496 in interest earnings over the course of the year, assuming monthly compounding,” Rossman said.', 'While the rates on high-yield savings accounts have gone down a bit in recent months, “widespread cuts in online savings account rates are unlikely until the first Fed rate cut is near,” said Ken Tumin, founder of DepositAccounts.com.', 'As with any bank savings rate, high-yield savings accountratescan change overnight, and the bank may not alert you when it lowers it.', 'So make sure to check your monthly statement.', 'Another high-return, low-risk investment that is great for money you likely won’t need to tap for a few months or even a couple of years is a certificate of deposit.', 'You can get the best returns on CDs through a brokerage such as Schwab, E*Trade or Fidelity.', 'That’s because you can comparison shop for CDs from any number of FDIC-insured banks and will not have to set up individual accounts with each institution.', 'As of March 13, the average rate on a one-year CD was 1.95%, but some banks are offering as much are 5.4%.', 'If you can get a one-year CD at, say, 5.4%, you will make $540 on a $10,000 investment.', 'To get the greatest benefit from a CD, you have to leave the money invested for a fixed period.', 'You can always access your principal sooner if you need to, but there may be early withdrawal penalties.', 'As of March 20, CDs listed on Schwab.com with durations from three months up to three years were all yielding between 5.2% and 5.51%.', 'CD rates on durations between four and 10 years ranged from 4.40% to 5.15%.', 'Say you invest $10,000 in a one-year CD with a 5.36%APY.', 'At the end of that period, you’d get your principal back plus $536 in interest when the CD matures, according to Bankrate’s CD calculator.', 'If you chose a two-year CD at 5.25%, you’d bank an extra $1,078, assuming compounding interest.', 'The same investment in a five-year CD at 5.15% would earn $2,854.', '“It makes sense to go long with CDs.', 'To hedge your bets, include terms from one to five years.', 'Starting a CD ladder will provide this mix,” Tumin said.', 'If you don’t go through a brokerage you may get a reasonable deal from your primary bank, Tumin said.', 'For example, he noted, Wells Fargo is still offering up to 5.01% on both 4-month and 7-month CDs.', 'Or, at Bank of America, you can get up to 4.75% on a 7-month CD.', 'But Tumin cautions that with any big bank CD you should take your money out at the end of the term, otherwise your bank may automatically renew it and lock you in to a much lower-yielding CD.', 'If you don’t want to set up an online savings account at another bank, your own bank may offer you a money market deposit account that pays a higher yield than your regular checking or savings accounts.', 'Money market accounts may have higher minimum deposit requirements than a regular savings account, but they are more liquid than a fixed-term certificate of deposit or Treasury bill, meaning they give you access to your money more quickly while still potentially giving you some of the highest yields available, said Doug Ornstein, senior manager for integrated solutions at TIAA Wealth Management.', 'But don’t confuse money market accounts with money market mutual funds, which invest in short-term, low-risk debt instruments.', 'As of March 19, they had an average 7-day yield of 5.14%, according to the Crane Money Fund Index, which tracks the top 100 taxable money market funds.', 'Unlike money market deposit accounts, money market mutual funds are not insured by the FDIC.', 'But if you invest in a money market fund through a brokerage, your overall account is likely to be insured through the Securities Investor Protection Corp, which offers protection in the event your brokerage ever goes under.', 'Another option for money you can leave untouched anywhere from several months to a few years is to buy short-term Treasury bills and medium-term notes, which are backed by the full faith and credit of the United States.', 'Three- and six-month bills had yields of 5.39% and 5.33%respectively on March 20 before the Fed’s meeting ended, while nine-month and one-year bills were offering 5.19% and 5.08%respectively, according to rates posted on Schwab.com for a $25,000 investment.', 'Rates on Treasury notes with durations from two years to 10 years ranged between 4.29% and 4.72%.', 'If you’re someone who manages your portfolio like a hawk, you may feel comfortable buying T-bills on your own from TreasuryDirect.gov.', 'But if you don’t, it might be easier just to buy new issues through your brokerage account or invest in a short-term bond index fund or ETF, said Andy Smith, executive director of financial planning at Edelman Financial Engines.', 'And if you’re looking at money that will be needed in three to five years, you might consider a diversified fund of highly rated government and corporate bonds, Ornstein said.', 'An 18-month AAA-rated corporate bond, for instance, was yielding 4.82% this week, while the three-year was at 4.49%.', 'Meanwhile, three-year AAA-rated municipal bonds (which are issued by local governments) had a rate of 3.98%, according to Schwab.com.', 'When deciding on the best accounts and investments for your specific goals and peace of mind, it may pay to consult a fee-only fiduciary adviser — meaning, someone who doesn’t get paid a commission to sell you a particular investment.', 'What you’ll always want to do is build in flexibility for yourself so you can easily access cash, regardless of your timeline for key goals. “', 'What happens if something changes and you need that down payment a lot sooner — or your parents need medical care fast?”', 'Smith said.', 'That means balancing your desire for great yield with a need and desire for ease of access without penalty.', 'Translation: Don’t chase yield for yield’s sake.', 'Think of it this way, Ornstein said: Unless you have huge sums to invest or are an institutional investor, the difference between getting a 5.1% yield versus 5% is negligible, and in fact it could even cost you more if there are penalties for taking your money out early. “', 'Most of the time convenience is really important.', 'Give up the 0.1%,” he advised.']",0.1607169988950149,That means balancing your desire for great yield with a need and desire for ease of access without penalty.,"But don’t confuse money market accounts with money market mutual funds, which invest in short-term, low-risk debt instruments.",0.3840319812297821,"For example, he noted, Wells Fargo is still offering up to 5.01% on both 4-month and 7-month CDs.","That decision may be disappointing to some investors, homebuyers and those with a lot of credit card debt, since movement in the Fed’s overnight lending rate influences rates — directly or indirectly — on consumer financial products (e.g., credit cards, bank loans and mortgages).",2024-04-28
Why this campus turmoil story is so complex,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/26/business/campus-turmoil-complex/index.html,"
  Updated
        7:53 AM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","The nuance and history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains difficult to capture succinctly, particularly during escalating turmoil among groups with deep-held — and entrenched — views on the issue.
    
            Students inside campus encampments that have spread across the United States over the past week are from a variety of backgrounds — including Palestinians, Arabs, Jews and Muslims, joined by students of other religious and ethnic backgrounds. They hold a spectrum of political and social views too: liberal and heterodox, progressive and absolutist. Many have been motivated by the reports and video coming out of Gaza that is often unbearable to watch. Many of these students see the actions of the Israeli military in Gaza as a continuation of a more than 70-year-long oppression of Palestinian rights, land and culture. Protesters say they want their schools to stand against what they believe is genocide in Gaza.
    
            CAIR has reported record incidents of Islamophobia on campus, and the Anti-Defamation League has recorded a historic number of incidents of violence and threats against Jewish students. Some Jewish students have said they were threatened by protesters and encountered antisemitic rhetoric at some of the rallies over the past week, and those concerns were amplified by pro-Israel (and some American) politicians. The White House and multiple governors have voiced support for Jewish students and urged protesters and universities to exercise restraint.
    
            As antisemitism has surged to record levels since Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, many Jews feel Israel requires more support now than ever – as a refuge for Jews, who have long been an oppressed minority. Even if they oppose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies and the country’s actions in Gaza, many Jews believe anti-Israel and anti-Zionist sentiment and even peaceful protest of Israel is itself antisemitic, because the concept of Israel as a Jewish homeland is core to Judaism. And some support the Israeli government’s efforts to crush Hamas in Gaza.
    
            CNN reporting on the ground has largely described students inside the encampments engaging in activities like poetry readings, painting and completing school assignments. There have also been examples of multi-faith prayers and group dancing. Yet hundreds of protesters have been arrested for trespassing and for violating school rules, including blocking access to campus buildings or other disruptions on campus. The protests and some protesters’ social media posts have made some Jewish students feel unsafe, even as most university administrators have largely resisted taking action against protesters exercising their right to free expression in an unobtrusive, nonviolent manner, as the vast majority of the protests have been. Advocates of the protesters, including some politicians, have criticized the universities’ responses, including the arrests.",CNN,26/04/2024,"['The nuance and history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains difficult to capture succinctly, particularly during escalating turmoil among groups with deep-held — and entrenched — views on the issue.', 'Students inside campus encampments that have spread across the United States over the past week are from a variety of backgrounds — including Palestinians, Arabs, Jews and Muslims, joined by students of other religious and ethnic backgrounds.', 'They hold a spectrum of political and social views too: liberal and heterodox, progressive and absolutist.', 'Many have been motivated by the reports and video coming out of Gaza that is often unbearable to watch.', 'Many of these students see the actions of the Israeli military in Gaza as a continuation of a more than 70-year-long oppression of Palestinian rights, land and culture.', 'Protesters say they want their schools to stand against what they believe is genocide in Gaza.', 'CAIR has reported record incidents of Islamophobia on campus, and the Anti-Defamation League has recorded a historic number of incidents of violence and threats against Jewish students.', 'Some Jewish students have said they were threatened by protesters and encountered antisemitic rhetoric at some of the rallies over the past week, and those concerns were amplified by pro-Israel (and some American) politicians.', 'The White House and multiple governors have voiced support for Jewish students and urged protesters and universities to exercise restraint.', 'As antisemitism has surged to record levels since Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, many Jews feel Israel requires more support now than ever – as a refuge for Jews, who have long been an oppressed minority.', 'Even if they oppose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies and the country’s actions in Gaza, many Jews believe anti-Israel and anti-Zionist sentiment and even peaceful protest of Israel is itself antisemitic, because the concept of Israel as a Jewish homeland is core to Judaism.', 'And some support the Israeli government’s efforts to crush Hamas in Gaza.', 'CNN reporting on the ground has largely described students inside the encampments engaging in activities like poetry readings, painting and completing school assignments.', 'There have also been examples of multi-faith prayers and group dancing.', 'Yet hundreds of protesters have been arrested for trespassing and for violating school rules, including blocking access to campus buildings or other disruptions on campus.', 'The protests and some protesters’ social media posts have made some Jewish students feel unsafe, even as most university administrators have largely resisted taking action against protesters exercising their right to free expression in an unobtrusive, nonviolent manner, as the vast majority of the protests have been.', 'Advocates of the protesters, including some politicians, have criticized the universities’ responses, including the arrests.']",-0.1635614746264136,"CNN reporting on the ground has largely described students inside the encampments engaging in activities like poetry readings, painting and completing school assignments.","Yet hundreds of protesters have been arrested for trespassing and for violating school rules, including blocking access to campus buildings or other disruptions on campus.",0.0094680488109588,"As antisemitism has surged to record levels since Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, many Jews feel Israel requires more support now than ever – as a refuge for Jews, who have long been an oppressed minority.","The protests and some protesters’ social media posts have made some Jewish students feel unsafe, even as most university administrators have largely resisted taking action against protesters exercising their right to free expression in an unobtrusive, nonviolent manner, as the vast majority of the protests have been.",2024-04-28
The ex-flight attendant who became the first female boss of Japan Airlines,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68823400,2024-04-25T23:25:29.000Z,"When Mitsuko Tottori was named as the new boss of Japan Airlines (JAL) in January, it sent a shockwave across the country's corporate sector. Not only was Ms Tottori the carrier's first female boss, she had also started her career as a member of cabin crew. The headlines ranged from ""first woman"" and ""first former flight attendant"" to ""unusual"" and ""no way!"" One website even described her as ""an alien molecule"" or ""a mutant"", a reference to her having worked at Japan Air System (JAS), a much smaller airline that JAL bought two decades ago. ""I didn't know about an alien mutant,"" Ms Tottori  laughs as she spoke to me from Tokyo. In short, she was not from the elite group of businessmen that the carrier had customarily appointed to its top job. Out of the last 10 men who held the post, seven were educated at the country's top university. Ms Tottori is a graduate of a far less prestigious women-only junior college. With Ms Tottori's appointment, JAL has joined the less than 1% of Japan's top companies led by women. ""I don't think of myself as the first woman or the first former flight attendant. I want to act as an individual so I didn't expect to get this much attention."" ""But I realise the public or our employees don't necessarily see me like that,"" she adds. Her appointment also came just two weeks after JAL's flight attendants were lauded for the successful evacuation of passengers from a plane that collided with a coast guard aircraft during landing. Japan Airlines Flight 516 burst into flames after the collision on the runway at Tokyo's Haneda airport. Five of the six crew on the coastguard plane died and captain was injured. However, within minutes of the collision, all 379 people on board the Airbus A350-900 had safely escaped. The rigorous training of the carrier's flight attendants was suddenly in the spotlight. As a former flight attendant herself, Ms Tottori learned the importance of aviation safety first hand. Four months after she became a flight attendant in 1985, Japan Airlines was involved in the deadliest single aircraft accident in aviation history, which killed 520 people on Mount Osutaka. ""Every member of staff at JAL is given an opportunity to climb Mount Osutaka and speak to those who remember the accident,"" Ms Tottori says.  ""We also exhibit aircraft debris at our safety promotion centre so instead of just reading about it in a book, we look with our own eyes and feel with our own skin to learn about the accident."" While her appointment in the top job came as a surprise, JAL has changed rapidly since it went bankrupt in 2010, in what was the country's biggest ever corporate failure outside the financial sector. The airline managed to continue flying thanks to major state-backed financial support and the business underwent a sweeping restructuring with a new board and management. Its saviour was then-77-year-old retiree and ordained Buddhist monk, Kazuo Inamori. Without his transformational influence it is unlikely that someone like Ms Tottori could have become JAL's leader. I spoke to him in an interview in 2012. He did not mince his words, saying JAL was an arrogant firm that did not care about its customers. Under Mr Inamori's leadership the company promoted people from frontline operations, like pilots and engineers, rather than from bureaucratic posts. ""I felt very uncomfortable because the company didn't feel like a private firm at all,"" Mr Inamori, who died in 2022, told me. ""Many former government officials used to get golden parachutes into the firm."" JAL has come a long way since then, and the attention its first female president is receiving is not surprising. The Japanese government has been trying for almost a decade to increase the number of female bosses in the country. It now wants a third of leadership positions at major businesses to go to women by 2030, after failing to achieve the goal by 2020. ""It is not just about the corporate leaders' mindset, but it is also important for women to have the confidence to become a manager,"" says Ms Tottori. ""I hope my appointment would encourage other women to try things that they were afraid of trying before."" ",BBC,25/04/2024,"[""When Mitsuko Tottori was named as the new boss of Japan Airlines (JAL) in January, it sent a shockwave across the country's corporate sector."", ""Not only was Ms Tottori the carrier's first female boss, she had also started her career as a member of cabin crew."", 'The headlines ranged from ""first woman"" and ""first former flight attendant"" to ""unusual"" and ""no way!""', 'One website even described her as ""an alien molecule"" or ""a mutant"", a reference to her having worked at Japan Air System (JAS), a much smaller airline that JAL bought two decades ago. ""', 'I didn\'t know about an alien mutant,"" Ms Tottori laughs as she spoke to me from Tokyo.', 'In short, she was not from the elite group of businessmen that the carrier had customarily appointed to its top job.', ""Out of the last 10 men who held the post, seven were educated at the country's top university."", 'Ms Tottori is a graduate of a far less prestigious women-only junior college.', 'With Ms Tottori\'s appointment, JAL has joined the less than 1% of Japan\'s top companies led by women. ""', ""I don't think of myself as the first woman or the first former flight attendant."", 'I want to act as an individual so I didn\'t expect to get this much attention."" ""', 'But I realise the public or our employees don\'t necessarily see me like that,"" she adds.', ""Her appointment also came just two weeks after JAL's flight attendants were lauded for the successful evacuation of passengers from a plane that collided with a coast guard aircraft during landing."", ""Japan Airlines Flight 516 burst into flames after the collision on the runway at Tokyo's Haneda airport."", 'Five of the six crew on the coastguard plane died and captain was injured.', 'However, within minutes of the collision, all 379 people on board the Airbus A350-900 had safely escaped.', ""The rigorous training of the carrier's flight attendants was suddenly in the spotlight."", 'As a former flight attendant herself, Ms Tottori learned the importance of aviation safety first hand.', 'Four months after she became a flight attendant in 1985, Japan Airlines was involved in the deadliest single aircraft accident in aviation history, which killed 520 people on Mount Osutaka. ""', 'Every member of staff at JAL is given an opportunity to climb Mount Osutaka and speak to those who remember the accident,"" Ms Tottori says. ""', 'We also exhibit aircraft debris at our safety promotion centre so instead of just reading about it in a book, we look with our own eyes and feel with our own skin to learn about the accident.""', ""While her appointment in the top job came as a surprise, JAL has changed rapidly since it went bankrupt in 2010, in what was the country's biggest ever corporate failure outside the financial sector."", 'The airline managed to continue flying thanks to major state-backed financial support and the business underwent a sweeping restructuring with a new board and management.', 'Its saviour was then-77-year-old retiree and ordained Buddhist monk, Kazuo Inamori.', ""Without his transformational influence it is unlikely that someone like Ms Tottori could have become JAL's leader."", 'I spoke to him in an interview in 2012.', 'He did not mince his words, saying JAL was an arrogant firm that did not care about its customers.', 'Under Mr Inamori\'s leadership the company promoted people from frontline operations, like pilots and engineers, rather than from bureaucratic posts. ""', 'I felt very uncomfortable because the company didn\'t feel like a private firm at all,"" Mr Inamori, who died in 2022, told me. ""', 'Many former government officials used to get golden parachutes into the firm.""', 'JAL has come a long way since then, and the attention its first female president is receiving is not surprising.', 'The Japanese government has been trying for almost a decade to increase the number of female bosses in the country.', 'It now wants a third of leadership positions at major businesses to go to women by 2030, after failing to achieve the goal by 2020. ""', 'It is not just about the corporate leaders\' mindset, but it is also important for women to have the confidence to become a manager,"" says Ms Tottori. ""', 'I hope my appointment would encourage other women to try things that they were afraid of trying before.""']",0.0432886213684849,"As a former flight attendant herself, Ms Tottori learned the importance of aviation safety first hand.","Four months after she became a flight attendant in 1985, Japan Airlines was involved in the deadliest single aircraft accident in aviation history, which killed 520 people on Mount Osutaka. """,0.5970875263214112,Her appointment also came just two weeks after JAL's flight attendants were lauded for the successful evacuation of passengers from a plane that collided with a coast guard aircraft during landing.,"When Mitsuko Tottori was named as the new boss of Japan Airlines (JAL) in January, it sent a shockwave across the country's corporate sector.",2024-04-28
Meta AI spending plans cause share price slump,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cl40v5x483yo,2024-04-24T21:10:00.133Z,"Shares in Meta - the owner of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram - fell sharply after it announced higher than expected spending on artificial intelligence (AI). They went down more than 15% in after-hours trading in New York despite the tech giant revealing strong earnings figures. Boss Mark Zuckerberg said it would take some time before its huge AI investment increased revenues. Meta also said its X rival, Threads, now has more than 150 million monthly active users, increasing the pressure on the Elon Musk-owned platform. ""Threads is well on its way to beating X by becoming the Twitter alternative users and advertisers are longing for,"" said Mike Proulx, from analysts Forrester. He also said Meta stood to gain from TikTok's possible sale or ban in the US - a development the app has vowed to fight. Meta has been updating its ad-buying products with AI tools to boost earnings growth. It has also been introducing more AI features on its social media platforms such as chat assistants. The firm said it now expected to spend between $35bn and $40bn, (£28bn-32bn) in 2024, up from an earlier prediction of $30-$37bn. For investors, that outweighed the positive news on earnings. First quarter revenue rose 27% to $36.46bn, while analysts had expected earnings of $36.16bn. Analysts though said there was a logic to Meta's approach. Sophie Lund-Yates, from Hargreaves Lansdown, said Meta's ""substantial investment"" in AI has helped it get people to spend time on its platforms, so advertisers were willing to spend more money ""in a time when digital advertising uncertainty remains rife"". More than 50 countries are due to have elections this year, she said, ""which hugely increases uncertainty"" and can spook advertisers. Ms Lund-Yates said that ""looking further ahead, the biggest risk [for Meta] remains regulatory"". Last year, Meta was fined €1.2bn (£1bn) by Ireland's data authorities for mishandling people's data when transferring it between Europe and the US. And in February of this year, Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg faced blistering criticism from US lawmakers and was pushed to apologise to families of victims of child sexual exploitation. Ms Lund-Yates added that the firm has ""more than enough resources to throw at legal challenges, but that doesn’t rule out the risks of ups and downs in market sentiment"". ",BBC,24/04/2024,"['Shares in Meta - the owner of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram - fell sharply after it announced higher than expected spending on artificial intelligence (AI).', 'They went down more than 15% in after-hours trading in New York despite the tech giant revealing strong earnings figures.', 'Boss Mark Zuckerberg said it would take some time before its huge AI investment increased revenues.', 'Meta also said its X rival, Threads, now has more than 150 million monthly active users, increasing the pressure on the Elon Musk-owned platform. ""', 'Threads is well on its way to beating X by becoming the Twitter alternative users and advertisers are longing for,"" said Mike Proulx, from analysts Forrester.', ""He also said Meta stood to gain from TikTok's possible sale or ban in the US - a development the app has vowed to fight."", 'Meta has been updating its ad-buying products with AI tools to boost earnings growth.', 'It has also been introducing more AI features on its social media platforms such as chat assistants.', 'The firm said it now expected to spend between $35bn and $40bn, (£28bn-32bn) in 2024, up from an earlier prediction of $30-$37bn.', 'For investors, that outweighed the positive news on earnings.', 'First quarter revenue rose 27% to $36.46bn, while analysts had expected earnings of $36.16bn.', ""Analysts though said there was a logic to Meta's approach."", 'Sophie Lund-Yates, from Hargreaves Lansdown, said Meta\'s ""substantial investment"" in AI has helped it get people to spend time on its platforms, so advertisers were willing to spend more money ""in a time when digital advertising uncertainty remains rife"".', 'More than 50 countries are due to have elections this year, she said, ""which hugely increases uncertainty"" and can spook advertisers.', 'Ms Lund-Yates said that ""looking further ahead, the biggest risk [for Meta] remains regulatory"".', ""Last year, Meta was fined €1.2bn (£1bn) by Ireland's data authorities for mishandling people's data when transferring it between Europe and the US."", 'And in February of this year, Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg faced blistering criticism from US lawmakers and was pushed to apologise to families of victims of child sexual exploitation.', 'Ms Lund-Yates added that the firm has ""more than enough resources to throw at legal challenges, but that doesn’t rule out the risks of ups and downs in market sentiment"".']",0.0464174435548974,"Shares in Meta - the owner of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram - fell sharply after it announced higher than expected spending on artificial intelligence (AI).",He also said Meta stood to gain from TikTok's possible sale or ban in the US - a development the app has vowed to fight.,0.287859776190349,"First quarter revenue rose 27% to $36.46bn, while analysts had expected earnings of $36.16bn.","Shares in Meta - the owner of Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram - fell sharply after it announced higher than expected spending on artificial intelligence (AI).",2024-04-28
Apple announces its annual developers conference is set for June 10,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/tech/apple-annual-developers-conference-june-10/index.html,"
  Updated
        2:20 PM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
    ","Apple announced its annual Worldwide Developer Conference will kick off on June 10, when the company is expected to show off its latest AI advancements.
    
            The conference, which is widely anticipated each year as a major showcase for Apple software news, will run Monday, June 10 through Friday, June 14.
    
            Although last year’s WWDC focused on the unveiling of the Vision Pro mixed reality headset, which launched in stores in February, this year is expected to turn to Apple’s AI efforts. The company is reportedly interested in licensing and building Google’s Gemini AI engine, which includes chatbots and other AI tools, into upcoming iPhones and its iOS 18 features.
    
            As more tech companies pour billions of dollars into the development and rollout of artificial intelligence, Apple has largely been left out of the conversation, with many other tech companies making big strides in the space. A partnership with Google would catapult Apple into the growing AI arms race.
    
            Apple researchers also recently said they’ve developed a family of multimodal models — which refers to an AI system that can interpret and generate different types of data, such as text and images at the same time — called MM1. A report from those researchers said those new methods boast “superior abilities” and can offer advanced reasoning and in-context learning to respond to text and images.
    
            In a press release on Tuesday, the company said WWDC 2024 will also share software updates coming to the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV and Vision Pro headset.",CNN,26/03/2024,"['Apple announced its annual Worldwide Developer Conference will kick off on June 10, when the company is expected to show off its latest AI advancements.', 'The conference, which is widely anticipated each year as a major showcase for Apple software news, will run Monday, June 10 through Friday, June 14.', 'Although last year’s WWDC focused on the unveiling of the Vision Pro mixed reality headset, which launched in stores in February, this year is expected to turn to Apple’s AI efforts.', 'The company is reportedly interested in licensing and building Google’s Gemini AI engine, which includes chatbots and other AI tools, into upcoming iPhones and its iOS 18 features.', 'As more tech companies pour billions of dollars into the development and rollout of artificial intelligence, Apple has largely been left out of the conversation, with many other tech companies making big strides in the space.', 'A partnership with Google would catapult Apple into the growing AI arms race.', 'Apple researchers also recently said they’ve developed a family of multimodal models — which refers to an AI system that can interpret and generate different types of data, such as text and images at the same time — called MM1.', 'A report from those researchers said those new methods boast “superior abilities” and can offer advanced reasoning and in-context learning to respond to text and images.', 'In a press release on Tuesday, the company said WWDC 2024 will also share software updates coming to the iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV and Vision Pro headset.']",0.3259092919755588,A report from those researchers said those new methods boast “superior abilities” and can offer advanced reasoning and in-context learning to respond to text and images.,,0.9975101351737976,A report from those researchers said those new methods boast “superior abilities” and can offer advanced reasoning and in-context learning to respond to text and images.,,2024-04-28
Google surges after buying back billions of dollars of its own stock,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/25/tech/google-tech-earnings-dividend/index.html,"
  Updated
        11:36 PM EDT, Thu April 25, 2024
    ","Alphabet, the parent company of Google, bounced back from an absolutely dreadful day for tech shares, as its stock surged Thursday after the closing bell. All it had to do was to hand out billions of dollars to investors.
    
            The tech giant announced its first quarterly cash dividend, saying it will pay $0.20 per share on June 17 to shareholders of record as of June 10, as well as a $70 billion share buyback. Buybacks and dividends help to boost stock prices by rewarding investors with cash just for holding the stock — but they’re widely criticized for artificially inflating the stock price without spending on employees or improvements to the underlying business.
    
            Google’s stock jumped as much as 13% in after-hours trading following the report.
    
            The announcement came as part of Google’s earnings report for the first three months of the year, in which it also reported that it exceeded Wall Street analysts’ expectations for both sales and profits.
    
            Revenue from the quarter reached more than $80.5 billion, up 15% from the same period in the prior year and ahead of the $78.75 billion analysts had projected, according to FactSet estimates. The company also reported 57% year-over-year growth in profits to nearly $23.7 billion.
    
            Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai attributed the success to the company’s investments in artificial intelligence, including the large language model and suite of AI products it calls Gemini.
    
            “We are well under way with our Gemini era and there’s great momentum across the company. Our leadership in AI research and infrastructure, and our global product footprint, position us well for the next wave of AI innovation,” Pichai said.
    
            Google’s results were a sign of how investors may reward some tech companies for their investments in artificial intelligence, which many see as the future of the sector.
    
            “We have clear paths to AI monetization through ads and cloud, as well as subscriptions,” Pichai said on a call with analysts following Thursday’s report.
    
            But not every company has successfully convinced investors that they’re investing in AI responsibly. Meta shares sank on Thursday after the company raised its annual expense forecast to fund its AI ambitions, despite better-than-expected earnings results Wednesday.
    
            But in addition to Google, multiple positive tech earnings reports on Thursday helped reverse what had been a sluggish day for tech stocks.
    
            Social media company Snap, the parent company of social media platform Snapchat, also saw its stock climb after-hours on the heels of a rosy first-quarter earnings report that beat Wall Street’s estimates.
    
            Snap reported revenue of some $1.19 billion for the first three months of the year, up 21% from the year-ago quarter. And it said daily active users increased 10% year-over-year. The company also offered a better-than-expected outlook for the current quarter.
    
            Snap has been working to improve its advertising technology and offerings, while undergoing a restructuring aimed at cutting costs. While it nonetheless reported a net loss of $305 million for the March quarter, it was an improvement from its loss a year ago and better than analysts expected.
    
            Snap shares soared roughly 25% in after-hours trading immediately following the report.
    
            Meanwhile, Microsoft reported quarterly profits of $21.9 billion, up from $18.3 billion a year ago, signaling that the company’s efforts to double down on AI are also paying off. Revenue grew 17% year-over-year to $61.9 billion.
    
            “Microsoft Copilot and Copilot stack are orchestrating a new era of AI transformation, driving better business outcomes across every role and industry,” chief executive officer Satya Nadella said in a statement, referring to Microsoft’s AI services.
    
            Microsoft shares climbed more than 4% in after-hours trading Thursday.
    
            While rivals play catch up, Jeremy Goldman, a senior director at market research company eMarketer, wrote in an analyst note that it’s clear that Microsoft’s early bets on OpenAI’s ChatGPT are paying off through products like its Copilot for Microsoft365, an AI chat assistant built into its existing suite of business products.
    
            “Investors should keep an eye on potential AI overspending, but for now, Satya Nadella’s forward-looking strategy is building value by infusing productive intelligence across Microsoft’s entire portfolio, from the cloud to the desktop.”
    
            Microsoft’s Azure cloud business also experienced strong growth – revenue grew 31% – boosted by AI tailwinds.",CNN,25/04/2024,"['Alphabet, the parent company of Google, bounced back from an absolutely dreadful day for tech shares, as its stock surged Thursday after the closing bell.', 'All it had to do was to hand out billions of dollars to investors.', 'The tech giant announced its first quarterly cash dividend, saying it will pay $0.20 per share on June 17 to shareholders of record as of June 10, as well as a $70 billion share buyback.', 'Buybacks and dividends help to boost stock prices by rewarding investors with cash just for holding the stock — but they’re widely criticized for artificially inflating the stock price without spending on employees or improvements to the underlying business.', 'Google’s stock jumped as much as 13% in after-hours trading following the report.', 'The announcement came as part of Google’s earnings report for the first three months of the year, in which it also reported that it exceeded Wall Street analysts’ expectations for both sales and profits.', 'Revenue from the quarter reached more than $80.5 billion, up 15% from the same period in the prior year and ahead of the $78.75 billion analysts had projected, according to FactSet estimates.', 'The company also reported 57% year-over-year growth in profits to nearly $23.7 billion.', 'Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai attributed the success to the company’s investments in artificial intelligence, including the large language model and suite of AI products it calls Gemini.', '“We are well under way with our Gemini era and there’s great momentum across the company.', 'Our leadership in AI research and infrastructure, and our global product footprint, position us well for the next wave of AI innovation,” Pichai said.', 'Google’s results were a sign of how investors may reward some tech companies for their investments in artificial intelligence, which many see as the future of the sector.', '“We have clear paths to AI monetization through ads and cloud, as well as subscriptions,” Pichai said on a call with analysts following Thursday’s report.', 'But not every company has successfully convinced investors that they’re investing in AI responsibly.', 'Meta shares sank on Thursday after the company raised its annual expense forecast to fund its AI ambitions, despite better-than-expected earnings results Wednesday.', 'But in addition to Google, multiple positive tech earnings reports on Thursday helped reverse what had been a sluggish day for tech stocks.', 'Social media company Snap, the parent company of social media platform Snapchat, also saw its stock climb after-hours on the heels of a rosy first-quarter earnings report that beat Wall Street’s estimates.', 'Snap reported revenue of some $1.19 billion for the first three months of the year, up 21% from the year-ago quarter.', 'And it said daily active users increased 10% year-over-year.', 'The company also offered a better-than-expected outlook for the current quarter.', 'Snap has been working to improve its advertising technology and offerings, while undergoing a restructuring aimed at cutting costs.', 'While it nonetheless reported a net loss of $305 million for the March quarter, it was an improvement from its loss a year ago and better than analysts expected.', 'Snap shares soared roughly 25% in after-hours trading immediately following the report.', 'Meanwhile, Microsoft reported quarterly profits of $21.9 billion, up from $18.3 billion a year ago, signaling that the company’s efforts to double down on AI are also paying off.', 'Revenue grew 17% year-over-year to $61.9 billion.', '“Microsoft Copilot and Copilot stack are orchestrating a new era of AI transformation, driving better business outcomes across every role and industry,” chief executive officer Satya Nadella said in a statement, referring to Microsoft’s AI services.', 'Microsoft shares climbed more than 4% in after-hours trading Thursday.', 'While rivals play catch up, Jeremy Goldman, a senior director at market research company eMarketer, wrote in an analyst note that it’s clear that Microsoft’s early bets on OpenAI’s ChatGPT are paying off through products like its Copilot for Microsoft365, an AI chat assistant built into its existing suite of business products.', '“Investors should keep an eye on potential AI overspending, but for now, Satya Nadella’s forward-looking strategy is building value by infusing productive intelligence across Microsoft’s entire portfolio, from the cloud to the desktop.”', 'Microsoft’s Azure cloud business also experienced strong growth – revenue grew 31% – boosted by AI tailwinds.']",0.4239755682621723,But not every company has successfully convinced investors that they’re investing in AI responsibly.,"Alphabet, the parent company of Google, bounced back from an absolutely dreadful day for tech shares, as its stock surged Thursday after the closing bell.",0.9254777254881682,Revenue grew 17% year-over-year to $61.9 billion.,"Meta shares sank on Thursday after the company raised its annual expense forecast to fund its AI ambitions, despite better-than-expected earnings results Wednesday.",2024-04-28
Spotify turns up volume to make record profits,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68884501,2024-04-23T23:18:55.000Z,"Music streaming giant Spotify has announced record profits of over €1bn (£860m) after a year of cutting costs and laying off staff.  The Swedish company has been growing its user base for years, offering subscribers access to podcasts and audiobooks.  But its quarterly gross profit came at the expense of missing its forecast for monthly active users. Last year it cut 17% of its workforce in a move to clamp down on costs. Spotify's CEO Daniel Ek said last December about 1,500 jobs would be axed as part of ""substantial action to rightsize our costs"" so that the company could meet its objectives.  But the tech company has been on a mission expand worldwide and reach a billion users by 2030.  On Tuesday it announced that mission would start again in earnest, with money being spent to win over new audiences.  ""We are going to add back some marketing spend over the year,"" Mr Ek said. ""Because we want to keep on having the growth and we saw that in some territories, we may have pulled back a little bit too much."" Much of Spotify's profits were driven by its podcast business. Gross margins rose to 27.6% in the quarter, up from 25.2% a year earlier.  It invested over a billion euros to build up its podcast business, including spending hundreds of millions for popular shows such as the ""The Joe Rogan Experience"". ""It [podcasting] was a drag last year. Now it is another profit centre for us,"" Mr Ek said. The company's quarterly revenue rose 20% to €3.64bn, beating estimates of €3.61bn.  Spotify has raised prices to boost revenue and experimented with different subscription plans. The streaming service would also provide a music-only tier for ""those consumers that only care about the music side"", the firm's CEO said.  Spotify currently has 615 million users, a shade down on its own forecast of 618 million for the quarter. It aims to have 631 million midway through the year.  However, the number of premium subscribers rose by 14% in the first quarter to 239 million, in line with estimates. Spotify shares, which initially fell on the quarter results, reversed course to rise 8% in premarket trading on Tuesday. Since it launched in 2006, Spotify has invested a huge amount of money growing the business, and in securing exclusive content.  Podcasts created by Michelle and Barack Obama, as well as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, have all featured on the platform. The deal with Harry and Meghan cost a reported $25m (£19.7m) and saw just 12 episodes delivered over two-and-a-half years before the deal ended last June. ",BBC,23/04/2024,"['Music streaming giant Spotify has announced record profits of over €1bn (£860m) after a year of cutting costs and laying off staff.', 'The Swedish company has been growing its user base for years, offering subscribers access to podcasts and audiobooks.', 'But its quarterly gross profit came at the expense of missing its forecast for monthly active users.', 'Last year it cut 17% of its workforce in a move to clamp down on costs.', 'Spotify\'s CEO Daniel Ek said last December about 1,500 jobs would be axed as part of ""substantial action to rightsize our costs"" so that the company could meet its objectives.', 'But the tech company has been on a mission expand worldwide and reach a billion users by 2030.', 'On Tuesday it announced that mission would start again in earnest, with money being spent to win over new audiences. ""', 'We are going to add back some marketing spend over the year,"" Mr Ek said. ""', 'Because we want to keep on having the growth and we saw that in some territories, we may have pulled back a little bit too much.""', ""Much of Spotify's profits were driven by its podcast business."", 'Gross margins rose to 27.6% in the quarter, up from 25.2% a year earlier.', 'It invested over a billion euros to build up its podcast business, including spending hundreds of millions for popular shows such as the ""The Joe Rogan Experience"". ""', 'It [podcasting] was a drag last year.', 'Now it is another profit centre for us,"" Mr Ek said.', ""The company's quarterly revenue rose 20% to €3.64bn, beating estimates of €3.61bn."", 'Spotify has raised prices to boost revenue and experimented with different subscription plans.', 'The streaming service would also provide a music-only tier for ""those consumers that only care about the music side"", the firm\'s CEO said.', 'Spotify currently has 615 million users, a shade down on its own forecast of 618 million for the quarter.', 'It aims to have 631 million midway through the year.', 'However, the number of premium subscribers rose by 14% in the first quarter to 239 million, in line with estimates.', 'Spotify shares, which initially fell on the quarter results, reversed course to rise 8% in premarket trading on Tuesday.', 'Since it launched in 2006, Spotify has invested a huge amount of money growing the business, and in securing exclusive content.', 'Podcasts created by Michelle and Barack Obama, as well as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, have all featured on the platform.', 'The deal with Harry and Meghan cost a reported $25m (£19.7m) and saw just 12 episodes delivered over two-and-a-half years before the deal ended last June.']",0.1906110485978383,"On Tuesday it announced that mission would start again in earnest, with money being spent to win over new audiences. ""","Gross margins rose to 27.6% in the quarter, up from 25.2% a year earlier.",0.2569666728377342,"The company's quarterly revenue rose 20% to €3.64bn, beating estimates of €3.61bn.","Spotify currently has 615 million users, a shade down on its own forecast of 618 million for the quarter.",2024-04-28
Safety regulator probing whether Tesla’s recall of 2 million vehicles with Autopilot was adequate to fix safety threat,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/26/business/tesla-recall-probe-safety-threat/index.html,"
  Published
        10:41 AM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","Federal safety regulators said they are investigating whether Tesla’s massive recall in December of essentially all of its vehicles on US roads was sufficient to fix the safety threat posed by its “Autopilot” feature.
    
            The recall of 2 million Tesla vehicles was ordered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over a software update that is designed to limit the use of its Autopilot feature. The NHTSA had said in December that the two-year probe of roughly 1,000 crashes in which the feature was engaged found it gave drivers a false sense of security and could be easily misused in certain dangerous situations when the technology may be unable to safely navigate the road.
    
            The NHTSA said late Thursday that Tesla’s software update recall requires the owner to opt in and allows a driver to readily reverse it. The NHTSA said it is “therefore opening this recall query investigation to further evaluate the adequacy of the remedy.”
    
            This latest probe is a blow to Tesla and CEO Elon Musk’s efforts to market the cars as effectively able to drive themselves, a luxury feature that makes the vehicles and the company more valuable. Earlier this week, Musk claimed the company would soon unveil plans for a fleet of “robotaxis,” a service that would give Tesla owners the option to earn money by having their vehicles provide driverless taxi rides when the owners aren’t using them.
    
            Tesla and Musk have claimed that cars using Autopilot features — which are available on virtually all Teslas, as well as the more robust “Full Self Driving” feature that comes at a premium price — are safer than human drivers. But NHTSA said its investigation identified at least 13 crashes involving one or more fatalities and many more involving serious injuries in which “foreseeable driver misuse” of the system played an apparent role.
    
            The software update ordered in December was designed to give Tesla drivers more warnings when they are not paying attention to the road while using the Autopilot’s “Autosteer” function. Those notifications were to remind drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and pay attention to the road, according to a statement at the time from NHTSA.
    
            After the recall, Tesla vehicles with Autosteer turned on were supposed to check on the driver’s attention level more routinely. The feature might disengage when it determines the driver isn’t paying attention, the car is approaching traffic controls or it’s off the highway when Autosteer alone isn’t sufficient to drive the car.
    
            Despite the Autopilot name and the way Tesla is marketing the feature, Tesla’s owners manuals say: “Autosteer is intended for use only on highways and limited-access roads with a fully attentive driver.”
    
            Tesla, which has not responded to requests for comment from CNN for several years, did not respond to a request for comment on this latest investigation.",CNN,26/04/2024,"['Federal safety regulators said they are investigating whether Tesla’s massive recall in December of essentially all of its vehicles on US roads was sufficient to fix the safety threat posed by its “Autopilot” feature.', 'The recall of 2 million Tesla vehicles was ordered by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over a software update that is designed to limit the use of its Autopilot feature.', 'The NHTSA had said in December that the two-year probe of roughly 1,000 crashes in which the feature was engaged found it gave drivers a false sense of security and could be easily misused in certain dangerous situations when the technology may be unable to safely navigate the road.', 'The NHTSA said late Thursday that Tesla’s software update recall requires the owner to opt in and allows a driver to readily reverse it.', 'The NHTSA said it is “therefore opening this recall query investigation to further evaluate the adequacy of the remedy.”', 'This latest probe is a blow to Tesla and CEO Elon Musk’s efforts to market the cars as effectively able to drive themselves, a luxury feature that makes the vehicles and the company more valuable.', 'Earlier this week, Musk claimed the company would soon unveil plans for a fleet of “robotaxis,” a service that would give Tesla owners the option to earn money by having their vehicles provide driverless taxi rides when the owners aren’t using them.', 'Tesla and Musk have claimed that cars using Autopilot features — which are available on virtually all Teslas, as well as the more robust “Full Self Driving” feature that comes at a premium price — are safer than human drivers.', 'But NHTSA said its investigation identified at least 13 crashes involving one or more fatalities and many more involving serious injuries in which “foreseeable driver misuse” of the system played an apparent role.', 'The software update ordered in December was designed to give Tesla drivers more warnings when they are not paying attention to the road while using the Autopilot’s “Autosteer” function.', 'Those notifications were to remind drivers to keep their hands on the wheel and pay attention to the road, according to a statement at the time from NHTSA.', 'After the recall, Tesla vehicles with Autosteer turned on were supposed to check on the driver’s attention level more routinely.', 'The feature might disengage when it determines the driver isn’t paying attention, the car is approaching traffic controls or it’s off the highway when Autosteer alone isn’t sufficient to drive the car.', 'Despite the Autopilot name and the way Tesla is marketing the feature, Tesla’s owners manuals say: “Autosteer is intended for use only on highways and limited-access roads with a fully attentive driver.”', 'Tesla, which has not responded to requests for comment from CNN for several years, did not respond to a request for comment on this latest investigation.']",0.0957556278129312,"The NHTSA had said in December that the two-year probe of roughly 1,000 crashes in which the feature was engaged found it gave drivers a false sense of security and could be easily misused in certain dangerous situations when the technology may be unable to safely navigate the road.",But NHTSA said its investigation identified at least 13 crashes involving one or more fatalities and many more involving serious injuries in which “foreseeable driver misuse” of the system played an apparent role.,-0.2344114383061727,"Tesla and Musk have claimed that cars using Autopilot features — which are available on virtually all Teslas, as well as the more robust “Full Self Driving” feature that comes at a premium price — are safer than human drivers.","The NHTSA had said in December that the two-year probe of roughly 1,000 crashes in which the feature was engaged found it gave drivers a false sense of security and could be easily misused in certain dangerous situations when the technology may be unable to safely navigate the road.",2024-04-28
Columbia student protesters are demanding divestment. Here’s what the university has divested from in the past,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/27/business/columbia-history-divestment-student-protests/index.html,"
  Updated
        4:42 PM EDT, Sat April 27, 2024
    ","One of the core demands over the past week by the pro-Palestinian student groups at Columbia University has been for the school to withdraw investment funds from what they describe as companies profiting from Israel’s military action in Gaza.
    
            Columbia’s endowment is worth $13.6 billion and is managed by a university-owned investment firm.
    
            The request from Columbia University Apartheid Divest — a coalition of student groups behind the movement — includes, among other steps, divesting endowment funds from several weapons manufacturers and tech companies that do business with Israel’s government. The group has described those companies as profiting “from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and military occupation of Palestine.” Israel denies accusations of genocide.
    
            This is not the first time such demands have been made. Columbia has a history of student activism, from the now-famous 1968 student occupation of multiple campus buildings to raise awareness of the Vietnam War, to hunger strikes over issues such as the university’s expansion in Upper Manhattan.
    
            And protesting students also have a history of pushing for Columbia to divest in different movements.
    
            In 2000, the university established an advisory committee on socially responsible investing, made up of students, faculty and alumni, to provide feedback to the managers of Columbia’s endowment investments. The group has a formal process for submitting divestment proposals.
    
            Columbia University Apartheid Divest submitted a formal proposal to the committee for withdrawing investments related to Israel in December, which has yet to yield success. Students at Columbia College, the university’s undergraduate school, voted to support the divestment proposal last week.
    
            And students are continuing to push for the university to adopt the proposal.
    
            “We are building on the legacy of decades of students who are called for freedom, for liberation, for equality and for an end to apartheid systems across the world … for all oppressed peoples,” Columbia student organizer Catherine Elias told CNN earlier this week.
    
            Currently, Columbia lists five areas where it refrains from investing: tobacco, private prison operations, thermal coal, Sudan and fossil fuels — all decisions that were made in the past decade. But the school’s divestment history goes back even farther.
    
            In the 1980s, a group of Columbia students began to call on the school to cut financial ties with companies doing business in South Africa over its apartheid racial segregation policy.
    
            Daniel Armstrong, who founded the Coalition for a Free South Africa as a Columbia student in early 1980s and now owns a mentoring business in Los Angeles, said the effort began with fliers and guest speakers but grew in the subsequent years.
    
            Students “began seeing that this isn’t a crazy position to have,” Armstrong told CNN. “Then our student newspaper began supporting it, which I thought was a huge step as far as legitimizing the demand for divestment.”
    
            In 1983, Columbia’s student Senate approved the move to divest with nearly unanimous support, but the university’s trustees said no.
    
            In April 1985, students led a three-week student demonstration against Columbia’s investments in South Africa, the New York Times reported at the time. The demonstration involved around 150 students blocking access to the entrance of a campus building.
    
            Months after that protest, trustees voted to sell the majority of Columbia’s stock in American companies doing business in South Africa. That included a laundry list of investments in notable companies including American Express, Chevron, Ford and Coca-Cola, among others, which together totaled $39 million in stock and about 4% of Columbia’s total portfolio, the New York Times reported.
    
            Columbia was the first Ivy League university to divest from South Africa, and various other colleges followed suit, including the University of California, Berkeley, as well as Johns Hopkins University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. South Africa’s apartheid ended in the early 1990s.
    
            Since that time, student activists have successfully pushed Columbia to divest from several other areas.
    
            In 2015, Columbia became the first US university to divest from private prison companies after a year-plus-long student activist campaign raising concerns about human rights abuses. The university sold its shares in G4S, the world’s largest private security firm, and Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison company in the United States.
    
            In 2019, a group of Columbia students affiliated with the climate activism organization Extinction Rebellion staged a weeklong hunger strike in the library to encourage the university to go beyond an earlier commitment to divest from thermal coal and withdraw funds from all fossil fuels.
    
            Despite some pushback from university leaders in the ensuing months, the group presented a formal divestment proposal to the socially responsible investing committee.
    
            “People have criticized (these movements) for using the goal of divestment because it’s a symbolic goal and if the university divests then someone else will just buy those same shares,” said Savannah Pearson, who participated in the 2019 hunger strike as an undergraduate student at Columbia. But, she said, “symbols have a lot of power … and it can inspire other schools to do the same thing.”
    
            The fossil fuel divestment proposal was approved by Columbia’s Board of Trustees in early 2021. The policy includes, among other things, a commitment not to invest in “companies whose primary business is the exploration and production of fossil fuels.” Columbia’s announcement was followed by student advocacy, and eventually similar commitments, at other Ivy League universities.
    
            “A small group of students can transform an institution like Columbia University, but they can’t do it without support and buy-in from the wider community,” said Michael Cusack, who as a graduate student at Columbia’s Teachers College in 2019 helped to author the group’s proposal.",CNN,27/04/2024,"['One of the core demands over the past week by thepro-Palestinian student groups at Columbia University has been for the school to withdraw investment funds from what they describe as companies profiting from Israel’s military action in Gaza.', 'Columbia’s endowment is worth $13.6 billion and is managed by a university-owned investment firm.', 'The request from Columbia University Apartheid Divest — a coalition of student groups behind the movement — includes, among other steps, divesting endowment funds from several weapons manufacturers and tech companies that do business with Israel’s government.', 'The group has described those companies as profiting “from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and military occupation of Palestine.”', 'Israel denies accusations of genocide.', 'This is not the first time such demands have been made.', 'Columbia has a history of student activism, from the now-famous 1968 student occupation of multiple campus buildings to raise awareness of the Vietnam War, to hunger strikes over issues such as the university’s expansion in Upper Manhattan.', 'And protesting students also have a history of pushing for Columbia to divest in different movements.', 'In 2000, the university established an advisory committee on socially responsible investing, made up of students, faculty and alumni, to provide feedback to the managers of Columbia’s endowment investments.', 'The group has a formal process for submitting divestment proposals.', 'Columbia University Apartheid Divest submitted a formal proposal to the committee for withdrawing investments related to Israel in December, which has yet to yield success.', 'Students at Columbia College, the university’s undergraduate school, voted to support the divestment proposal last week.', 'And students are continuing to push for the university to adopt the proposal.', '“We are building on the legacy of decades of students who are called for freedom, for liberation, for equality and for an end to apartheid systems across the world … for all oppressed peoples,” Columbia student organizer Catherine Elias told CNN earlier this week.', 'Currently, Columbia lists five areas where it refrains from investing: tobacco, private prison operations, thermal coal, Sudan and fossil fuels — all decisions that were made in the past decade.', 'But the school’s divestment history goes back even farther.', 'In the 1980s, a group of Columbia students began to call on the school to cut financial ties with companies doing business in South Africa over its apartheid racial segregation policy.', 'Daniel Armstrong, who founded the Coalition for a Free South Africa as a Columbia student in early 1980s and now owns a mentoring business in Los Angeles, said the effort began with fliers and guest speakers but grew in the subsequent years.', 'Students “began seeing that this isn’t a crazy position to have,” Armstrong told CNN. “', 'Then our student newspaper began supporting it, which I thought was a huge step as far as legitimizing the demand for divestment.”', 'In 1983, Columbia’s student Senate approved the move to divest with nearly unanimous support, but the university’s trustees said no.', 'In April 1985, students led a three-week student demonstration against Columbia’s investments in South Africa, the New York Times reported at the time.', 'The demonstration involved around 150 students blocking access to the entrance of a campus building.', 'Months after that protest, trustees voted to sell the majority of Columbia’s stock in American companies doing business in South Africa.', 'That included a laundry list of investments in notable companies including American Express, Chevron, Ford and Coca-Cola, among others, which together totaled $39 million in stock and about 4% of Columbia’s total portfolio, the New York Times reported.', 'Columbia was the first Ivy League university to divest from South Africa, and various other colleges followed suit, including the University of California, Berkeley, as well as Johns Hopkins University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.', 'South Africa’s apartheid ended in the early 1990s.', 'Since that time, student activists have successfully pushed Columbia to divest from several other areas.', 'In 2015, Columbia became the first US university to divest from private prison companies after a year-plus-long student activist campaign raising concerns about human rights abuses.', 'The university sold its shares in G4S, the world’s largest private security firm, and Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison company in the United States.', 'In 2019, a group of Columbia students affiliated with the climate activism organization Extinction Rebellion staged a weeklong hunger strike in the library to encourage the university to go beyond an earlier commitment to divest from thermal coal and withdraw funds from all fossil fuels.', 'Despite some pushback from university leaders in the ensuing months, the group presented a formal divestment proposal to the socially responsible investing committee.', '“People have criticized (these movements) for using the goal of divestment because it’s a symbolic goal and if the university divests then someone else will just buy those same shares,” said Savannah Pearson, who participated in the 2019 hunger strike as an undergraduate student at Columbia.', 'But, she said, “symbols have a lot of power … and it can inspire other schools to do the same thing.”', 'The fossil fuel divestment proposal was approved by Columbia’s Board of Trustees in early 2021.', 'The policy includes, among other things, a commitment not to invest in “companies whose primary business is the exploration and production of fossil fuels.”', 'Columbia’s announcement was followed by student advocacy, and eventually similar commitments, at other Ivy League universities.', '“A small group of students can transform an institution like Columbia University, but they can’t do it without support and buy-in from the wider community,” said Michael Cusack, who as a graduate student at Columbia’s Teachers College in 2019 helped to author the group’s proposal.']",0.0600682143151576,"But, she said, “symbols have a lot of power … and it can inspire other schools to do the same thing.”","Columbia has a history of student activism, from the now-famous 1968 student occupation of multiple campus buildings to raise awareness of the Vietnam War, to hunger strikes over issues such as the university’s expansion in Upper Manhattan.",0.9971441626548768,"Then our student newspaper began supporting it, which I thought was a huge step as far as legitimizing the demand for divestment.”",,2024-04-28
"Google has fired 50 employees after protests over Israel cloud deal, organizers say",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/23/tech/google-fires-employees-protest-israel/index.html,"
  Published
        12:09 PM EDT, Tue April 23, 2024
    ","Google has fired an additional 20 workers that it says were involved in protests last week over the company’s cloud-computing contract with the Israeli government, bringing the total number of workers fired to 50, according to the group organizing the demonstrations.
    
            No Tech for Apartheid, the organizers of the protest at Google offices last Tuesday, said in a statement Monday evening that Google had fired an additional 20 workers, on top of the 30 workers terminated last week.
    
            No Tech for Apartheid claims that some of the workers fired were “non-participating bystanders” during last Tuesday’s sit-in protests at Google’s offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California, and not actively involved in the workplace activism. The statement decried the mass firings as “an aggressive and desperate act of retaliation” by the tech giant.
    
            A Google spokesperson declined to share exactly how many workers had been terminated because of the protests but confirmed additional firings had taken place in a statement to CNN on Tuesday morning.
    
            Google had conducted an investigation into the “physical disruption inside our buildings on April 16,” the spokesperson said. “Our investigation into these events is now concluded, and we have terminated the employment of additional employees who were found to have been directly involved in disruptive activity,” the Google spokesperson added.
    
            “To reiterate, every single one of those whose employment was terminated was personally and definitively involved in disruptive activity inside our buildings. We carefully confirmed and reconfirmed this,” the Google spokesperson said.
    
            The organizers of the protest, meanwhile, say that some of the workers fired did not cause any disruption inside Google offices.
    
            “Google is throwing a tantrum because the company’s executives are embarrassed about the strength workers showed at last Tuesday’s historic sit-ins, as well as their botched response to them,” the No Tech for Apartheid group said in a statement. “Now, the corporation is lashing out at any worker that was physically in the vicinity of the protest—including those who were not at all involved in the campaign.”
    
            The worker group also vowed to continue its workplace activism at Google, saying they hope to send a message to company executives that: “We will not stop fighting, and we will not back down.”
    
            The protests from Google workers over the company’s cloud-computing deal with the Israeli government come more than six months since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants left some 1,200 dead in Israel, and as Israel’s counteroffensive attacks in Gaza have now killed at least 34,097 people in Gaza, according to the latest tally from the Palestinian health ministry. More than 70% of those killed in Gaza have been women and children, according to the ministry.
    
            The ongoing civilian carnage in Gaza has deeply divided the American public, and massive protests over US government and business support for Israel have erupted on college campuses and across corporate America in recent weeks.
    
            Last week, in the wake of the protests at Google, CEO Sundar Pichai sent a company-wide memo to staffers urging them to keep “politics” out of the workplace. The chief executive told workers that “this is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers.” Pichai went on to urge Googlers to not “fight over disruptive issues or debate politics” in the workplace.",CNN,23/04/2024,"['Google has fired an additional 20 workers that it says were involved in protests last week over the company’s cloud-computing contract with the Israeli government, bringing the total number of workers fired to 50, according to the group organizing the demonstrations.', 'No Tech for Apartheid, the organizers of the protest at Google offices last Tuesday, said in a statement Monday evening that Google had fired an additional 20 workers, on top of the 30 workers terminated last week.', 'No Tech for Apartheid claims that some of the workers fired were “non-participating bystanders” during last Tuesday’s sit-in protests at Google’s offices in New York and Sunnyvale, California, and not actively involved in the workplace activism.', 'The statement decried the mass firings as “an aggressive and desperate act of retaliation” by the tech giant.', 'A Google spokesperson declined to share exactly how many workers had been terminated because of the protests but confirmed additional firings had taken place in a statement to CNN on Tuesday morning.', 'Google had conducted an investigation into the “physical disruption inside our buildings on April 16,” the spokesperson said. “', 'Our investigation into these events is now concluded, and we have terminated the employment of additional employees who were found to have been directly involved in disruptive activity,” the Google spokesperson added.', '“To reiterate, every single one of those whose employment was terminated was personally and definitively involved in disruptive activity inside our buildings.', 'We carefully confirmed and reconfirmed this,” the Google spokesperson said.', 'The organizers of the protest, meanwhile, say that some of the workers fired did not cause any disruption inside Google offices.', '“Google is throwing a tantrum because the company’s executives are embarrassed about the strength workers showed at last Tuesday’s historic sit-ins, as well as their botched response to them,” the No Tech for Apartheid group said in a statement. “', 'Now, the corporation is lashing out at any worker that was physically in the vicinity of the protest—including those who were not at all involved in the campaign.”', 'The worker group also vowed to continue its workplace activism at Google, saying they hope to send a message to company executives that: “We will not stop fighting, and we will not back down.”', 'The protests from Google workers over the company’s cloud-computing deal with the Israeli government come more than six months since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants left some 1,200 dead in Israel, and as Israel’s counteroffensive attacks in Gaza have now killed at least 34,097 people in Gaza, according to the latest tally from the Palestinian health ministry.', 'More than 70% of those killed in Gaza have been women and children, according to the ministry.', 'The ongoing civilian carnage in Gaza has deeply divided the American public, and massive protests over US government and business support for Israel have erupted on college campuses and across corporate America in recent weeks.', 'Last week, in the wake of the protests at Google, CEO Sundar Pichai sent a company-wide memo to staffers urging them to keep “politics” out of the workplace.', 'The chief executive told workers that “this is a business, and not a place to act in a way that disrupts coworkers.”', 'Pichai went on to urge Googlers to not “fight over disruptive issues or debate politics” in the workplace.']",-0.2991697954289949,"The worker group also vowed to continue its workplace activism at Google, saying they hope to send a message to company executives that: “We will not stop fighting, and we will not back down.”","The protests from Google workers over the company’s cloud-computing deal with the Israeli government come more than six months since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants left some 1,200 dead in Israel, and as Israel’s counteroffensive attacks in Gaza have now killed at least 34,097 people in Gaza, according to the latest tally from the Palestinian health ministry.",-0.8573051542043686,,"“Google is throwing a tantrum because the company’s executives are embarrassed about the strength workers showed at last Tuesday’s historic sit-ins, as well as their botched response to them,” the No Tech for Apartheid group said in a statement. “",2024-04-28
Poppy Harlow announces she will exit CNN after nearly two decades,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/26/media/poppy-harlow-exit-cnn/index.html,"
  Updated
        12:31 PM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","Poppy Harlow, the longtime CNN anchor who most recently co-helmed “CNN This Morning,” announced Friday that she will exit the network.
    
            “The nearly two decades since have been a gift,” Harlow wrote in an email to colleagues. “I have been inspired by you and learned so much from you – who are (and will remain) dear friends.”
    
            “I grew up here: as a journalist and as a person,” Harlow added. “I was allowed to stumble, to falter, and then to try again with the support and care of this CNN family. This place has shaped me as a leader, taught me resilience, shown me the value of perspective and how to make hard decisions.”
    
            Mark Thompson, CNN’s chief executive, praised Harlow as a “unique talent who combines formidable reporting and interviewing prowess with a human touch that audiences have always responded to.”
    
            “She’s been a wonderful colleague at CNN, and we know she will have much success in her future endeavors,” Thompson said.
    
            Amy Entelis, executive vice president of talent and content, also praised Harlow in a statement, saying she “leaves CNN after more than 16 memorable years, thousands of hours in the anchor chair and hundreds of reports from the field.”
    
            “Poppy is a brilliant journalist who sets the standard for reporting with compassion and humanity, and we will miss her,” Entelis said.
    
            Harlow joined CNN in 2008 and worked in a variety of roles at the network. During her time, she reported across the world on some of the biggest and most consequential news stories, including the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings and 2015 Paris terror attacks.
    
            Harlow, who has a background in business journalism, hosted the “Boss Files” podcast and also regularly landed notable executives for interviews, including Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill and Melinda Gates, Susan Wojcicki, Jamie Dimon and others.
    
            In 2022, then-CNN chief Chris Licht tapped Harlow to help relaunch the network’s flagship morning show. Harlow became co-host with Kaitlan Collins and Don Lemon. The show, however, struggled to capture an audience and behind-the-scenes drama fueled tabloid headlines. Lemon was ultimately dismissed from the network and Collins was moved to helm a solo prime time show.
    
            Thompson, after taking over from Licht, announced in February that he would reconfigure CNN’s morning lineup. “CNN This Morning” changed time slots and moved to Washington, D.C., where it is now hosted by Kasie Hunt.
    
            The new morning show lineup left Harlow without an anchor slot. CNN engaged in discussions with Harlow, but ultimately she decided to exit the network.
    
            In her email to colleagues, Harlow said that in the immediate future she looks forward to spending more time with family.
    
            “For now, my plan is to walk our children to school and pick them up (hopefully they won’t get sick of me!), and to support the evolution of journalism in every way I can, while preserving the human(ity) in it,” Harlow wrote. “I’m excited for what is ahead – and I will be rooting for CNN always.”",CNN,26/04/2024,"['Poppy Harlow, the longtime CNN anchor who most recently co-helmed “CNN This Morning,” announced Friday that she will exit the network.', '“The nearly two decades since have been a gift,” Harlow wrote in an email to colleagues. “', 'I have been inspired by you and learned so much from you – who are (and will remain) dear friends.”', '“I grew up here: as a journalist and as a person,” Harlow added. “', 'I was allowed to stumble, to falter, and then to try again with the support and care of this CNN family.', 'This place has shaped me as a leader, taught me resilience, shown me the value of perspective and how to make hard decisions.”', 'Mark Thompson, CNN’s chief executive, praised Harlow as a “unique talent who combines formidable reporting and interviewing prowess with a human touch that audiences have always responded to.”', '“She’s been a wonderful colleague at CNN, and we know she will have much success in her future endeavors,” Thompson said.', 'Amy Entelis, executive vice president of talent and content, also praised Harlow in a statement, saying she “leaves CNN after more than 16 memorable years, thousands of hours in the anchor chair and hundreds of reports from the field.”', '“Poppy is a brilliant journalist who sets the standard for reporting with compassion and humanity, and we will miss her,” Entelis said.', 'Harlow joined CNN in 2008 and worked in a variety of roles at the network.', 'During her time, she reported across the world on some of the biggest and most consequential news stories, including the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings and 2015 Paris terror attacks.', 'Harlow, who has a background in business journalism, hosted the “Boss Files” podcast and also regularly landed notable executives for interviews, including Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill and Melinda Gates, Susan Wojcicki, Jamie Dimon and others.', 'In 2022, then-CNN chief Chris Licht tapped Harlow to help relaunch the network’s flagship morning show.', 'Harlow became co-host with Kaitlan Collins and Don Lemon.', 'The show, however, struggled to capture an audience and behind-the-scenes drama fueled tabloid headlines.', 'Lemon was ultimately dismissed from the network and Collins was moved to helm a solo prime time show.', 'Thompson, after taking over from Licht, announced in February that he would reconfigure CNN’s morning lineup. “', 'CNN This Morning” changed time slots and moved to Washington, D.C., where it is now hosted by Kasie Hunt.', 'The new morning show lineup left Harlow without an anchor slot.', 'CNN engaged in discussions with Harlow, but ultimately she decided to exit the network.', 'In her email to colleagues, Harlow said that in the immediate future she looks forward to spending more time with family.', '“For now, my plan is to walk our children to school and pick them up (hopefully they won’t get sick of me!),', 'and to support the evolution of journalism in every way I can, while preserving the human(ity) in it,” Harlow wrote. “', 'I’m excited for what is ahead – and I will be rooting for CNN always.”']",0.213841464833888,I have been inspired by you and learned so much from you – who are (and will remain) dear friends.”,"During her time, she reported across the world on some of the biggest and most consequential news stories, including the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings and 2015 Paris terror attacks.",0.4654355777634514,"“She’s been a wonderful colleague at CNN, and we know she will have much success in her future endeavors,” Thompson said.","The show, however, struggled to capture an audience and behind-the-scenes drama fueled tabloid headlines.",2024-04-28
Your complete guide to earning and redeeming points in the Citi ThankYou Rewards program,https://edition.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/travel/citi-thankyou-points-rewards,"
  Updated
        12:10 PM EST, Wed January 10, 2024
    ","The Citi ThankYou Rewards program has evolved over the past decade and is now a formidable competitor with established programs like American Express Membership Rewards® and Chase Ultimate Rewards®. Citi’s got a relatively small portfolio of quality credit cards and a rewarding program to boot. In fact, its credit cards offer some of the most generous category bonuses in exchange for reasonable annual fees.
    
            When it comes to redeeming your hard-earned points, Citi has an impressive transfer partner list that makes it possible to maximize your rewards for travel bookings. And if you don’t want to learn the ins and outs of various loyalty programs, Citi also gives you the option to use points for statement credits and direct travel bookings.
    
            If you’re curious about how the Citi ThankYou program works, here’s everything you need to know about how to get the most out of the program for travel.
    
            You can earn Citi ThankYou points in numerous ways. The easiest is through credit card sign-up bonuses, which range depending on the card. But that’s not the only way to earn points in this program. Between checking account bonuses and authorized user incentives, there are many ways to earn ThankYou points beyond credit cards.
    
            Citi has a small but mighty credit card lineup, offering generous welcome bonuses and ongoing rewards. The issuer’s credit cards are generally split into two categories: traditional ThankYou points-earning cards and cash back cards. However, recently, Citi made a change to its program that now sees its cash back credit cards earning ThankYou Rewards points, which can also be redeemed for traditional cash back.
    
            Citi has two cards that earn ThankYou points directly. These cards are ideal for maximizing rewards on everyday purchases, with the Citi Premier® Card and Citi Rewards+® Card specifically offering significant bonuses in those everyday categories.
    
            As mentioned, there are also a number of other traditional cash back credit cards in the Citi portfolio that allow you to boost your earnings. They can be incredibly valuable, considering the Citi® Double Cash Card earns 2% on everything — 1% when you buy, 1% when you pay. By adding this card to your wallet, you’ll earn a minimum of 2 ThankYou points per dollar spent on all purchases that aren’t eligible for the bonus categories on the Citi Premier or Rewards+ cards.
    
            Considering Citi’s cash back cards have no annual fees, adding one to your wallet could make a lot of sense. You’ll enhance your point earning across the board without additional annual fees.
    
            By combining the Citi cards you have in your wallet, you can maximize your earnings and ensure you continue to work your way toward your next redemption.
    
            Adding an authorized user can help you earn more Citi points in two ways: bonus points for adding someone and for all of their purchases. First, you’ll sometimes get bonus points just for adding someone to your account. Citi frequently sends out authorized user bonuses to targeted card holders. These bonuses are typically around 2,500 bonus points but can vary.
    
            Secondly, you’ll earn Citi ThankYou points based on all the spending your authorized user puts on their card. Of course, you’ll only want to consider adding a member of your household or someone you trust to pay you back as an authorized user on your account. Authorized users can make charges on the credit card they’ve been added to but have no liability when it comes to paying the bill — that onus falls on you, the primary card holder.
    
            If you’d like to earn even more ThankYou points, you can do so with a checking account. That’s because Citi offers several checking accounts that earn ThankYou points as a benefit: The Citigold, Citi Priority, Citi Private Bank and Citibank Account. With these accounts, you can earn up to 1,600 points per month on everyday banking activities. The exact number of ThankYou points you’ll earn depends on your account type and qualifying activities. Generally, Citigold, Citi Priority and Citi Private Bank accounts earn the most points.
    
            Sharing points is a great way to consolidate existing points with a significant other or family member. Citi ThankYou is one of the few programs that allows members to share points free of charge. The only stipulation is that you can only share points with someone who has a Citi ThankYou card, and Citi Custom Cash card holders are not eligible.
    
            It’s worth noting that shared points expire 90 days after receipt. So you shouldn’t transfer points unless you or the person you’re sending them to has an immediate use for them. Also, note that you can’t send or receive more than 100,000 points per calendar year.
    
            Once you’ve earned a slew of Citi ThankYou points comes the fun part of redeeming them. And thankfully, Citi offers many different ways for you to redeem your ThankYou points. You’ll get the most bang for your buck by redeeming points for travel, though that’s certainly not the only option.
    
            Here’s a look at your Citi ThankYou travel redemption options and how they work.
    
            Transferring points will get you the most value from your Citi ThankYou points. Citi has 18 airline and hotel partners, most of which you can transfer points to at a 1-to-1 ratio — however, that ratio can vary. You can redeem them for stays at all-inclusive resorts, international business-class tickets, domestic award flights and more. But keep in mind that not all airline and hotel loyalty programs are equal.
    
            Ultimately, you’ll want to research which program will offer you the most in return, depending on what your travel plans are. Like with the Chase Ultimate Rewards program, Capital One miles and American Express Membership Rewards program, you’ll need to link your accounts with each of the transfer partners, and you’ll also need to search for award availability with the airline of your choice before transferring any points.
    
            If you’re interested in transferring your Citi ThankYou points to a travel partner, these are your 18 options as well as the transfer rate.
    
            By transferring Citi ThankYou points to partner airlines, you unlock the ability to travel for next to nothing — in most cases when redeeming travel rewards, you’ll just have to pay the taxes and fees on a ticket. As a result, points and miles open up the door for flying experiences that would otherwise be out of reach.
    
            Keep in mind that the most obvious airline choice may not always be your best option. Airlines typically have extensive alliance networks, allowing you to redeem points for partner airlines through their respective programs. For example, Delta Air Lines and Air France/KLM are both members of the SkyTeam alliance, meaning you can transfer your Citi ThankYou points to Flying Blue and redeem for flights operated by Delta Air Lines.
    
            Citi’s airline partners will get you the most value for your points, especially if you redeem them for business- and first-class travel. That being said, Citi’s airline partners offer several sweet spot awards. These heavily discounted awards will save you points on travel and make earning ThankYou points worthwhile. Some of these sweet spots awards that will get you maximum value for your ThankYou points include the following:
    
            Generally speaking, you’ll get the most value out of your Citi ThankYou points by transferring them to airline or hotel partners. But that may not always make sense for all card holders — and it’s not your only option.
    
            Citi ThankYou points are worth 1 cent each when you use them to book travel through the Citi ThankYou portal. That’s significantly less than the value you’ll get from transfer partner redemptions. While transferring points is the best way to maximize your ThankYou points, doing so isn’t always possible. If that’s the case — or if you’re not interested in researching award availability — redeeming at a fixed value for travel via the ThankYou portal is a decent option.
    
            Citi offers several fixed redemption options where you’ll redeem your points at 1 cent per point. This is ideal for folks who would rather leverage points for daily expenses than travel bookings. While redeeming points this way isn’t advisable, as you won’t get as much value out of each point, you should use them however they suit you best.
    
            For example, if you have no travel plans in the foreseeable future but mounting expenses at home, then redeeming your ThankYou points for mortgage or student loan payments might make sense. Here are some additional ways you can redeem your ThankYou points:
    
            Generally speaking, if you’re looking to get the most value out of your Citi ThankYou points, your worst option is when redeeming for a fixed value. However, if you’re willing to sacrifice the value of your points and instead want to save some cash, it could be a solid option. Ultimately, every card holder’s goals for their points will be different, but it’s good that you have options with ThankYou points.
    
            Citi ThankYou points are worth about 1.7 cents each when you redeem them for travel through transfer partners, according to frequent flyer website The Points Guy. The exact amount varies depending on the cabin and destination you’re flying to. Generally speaking, you’ll get the most value by redeeming points for international business- and first-class flights. While 1.7 cents per point isn’t guaranteed for all redemptions, it’s a number you should aim for if you want to redeem ThankYou points for maximum value.
    
            Aside from travel redemptions, you can use ThankYou points for mortgage payments, student loans, statement credits or charitable contributions, and they’re worth 1 cent apiece.
    
            Citi ThankYou points are an incredibly valuable currency and can help you meet your most aspirational travel goals. Whether you’re using points for domestic or international travel, Citi’s wide selection of transfer partners offers terrific redemption value. Between a good credit card selection, top-notch travel partners and flexibility in use, Citi ThankYou points are definitely worth adding to your points portfolio.
    
            Looking for a new travel credit card? Check out CNN Underscored’s list of the best credit cards currently available.
    
            Editorial Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.
    
            Note: While the offers mentioned above are accurate at the time of publication, they’re subject to change at any time and may have changed, or may no longer be available.",CNN,10/01/2024,"['The Citi ThankYou Rewards program has evolved over the past decade and is now a formidable competitor with established programs like American Express Membership Rewards® and Chase Ultimate Rewards®.', 'Citi’s got a relatively small portfolio of quality credit cards and a rewarding program to boot.', 'In fact, its credit cards offer some of the most generous category bonuses in exchange for reasonable annual fees.', 'When it comes to redeeming your hard-earned points, Citi has an impressive transfer partner list that makes it possible to maximize your rewards for travel bookings.', 'And if you don’t want to learn the ins and outs of various loyalty programs, Citi also gives you the option to use points for statement credits and direct travel bookings.', 'If you’re curious about how the Citi ThankYou program works, here’s everything you need to know about how to get the most out of the program for travel.', 'You can earn Citi ThankYou points in numerous ways.', 'The easiest is through credit card sign-up bonuses, which range depending on the card.', 'But that’s not the only way to earn points in this program.', 'Between checking account bonuses and authorized user incentives, there are many ways to earn ThankYou points beyond credit cards.', 'Citi has a small but mighty credit card lineup, offering generous welcome bonuses and ongoing rewards.', 'The issuer’s credit cards are generally split into two categories: traditional ThankYou points-earning cards andcash back cards.', 'However, recently, Citi made a change to its program that now sees its cash back credit cards earning ThankYou Rewards points, which can also be redeemed for traditional cash back.', 'Citi has two cards that earn ThankYou points directly.', 'These cards are ideal for maximizing rewards on everyday purchases, with the Citi Premier® Card and Citi Rewards+® Card specifically offering significant bonuses in those everyday categories.', 'As mentioned, there are also a number of other traditionalcash back credit cardsin the Citi portfolio that allow you to boost your earnings.', 'They can be incredibly valuable, considering the Citi® Double Cash Card earns 2% on everything —1% when you buy, 1% when you pay.', 'By adding this card to your wallet, you’ll earn a minimum of 2 ThankYou points per dollar spent on all purchases that aren’t eligible for the bonus categories on the Citi Premier or Rewards+ cards.', 'Considering Citi’s cash back cards have no annual fees, adding one to your wallet could make a lot of sense.', 'You’ll enhance your point earning across the board without additional annual fees.', 'By combining the Citi cards you have in your wallet, you can maximize your earnings and ensure you continue to work your way toward your next redemption.', 'Adding an authorized user can help you earn more Citi points in two ways: bonus points for adding someone and for all of their purchases.', 'First, you’ll sometimes get bonus points just for adding someone to your account.', 'Citi frequently sends out authorized user bonuses to targeted card holders.', 'These bonuses are typically around 2,500 bonus points but can vary.', 'Secondly, you’ll earn Citi ThankYou points based on all the spending your authorized user puts on their card.', 'Of course, you’ll only want to consider adding a member of your household or someone you trust to pay you back as anauthorized useron your account.', 'Authorized users can make charges on the credit card they’ve been added to but have no liability when it comes to paying the bill — that onus falls on you, the primary card holder.', 'If you’d like to earn even more ThankYou points, you can do so with a checking account.', 'That’s because Citi offers several checking accounts that earn ThankYou points as a benefit: The Citigold, Citi Priority, Citi Private Bank and Citibank Account.', 'With these accounts, you can earn up to 1,600 points per month on everyday banking activities.', 'The exact number of ThankYou points you’ll earn depends on your account type and qualifying activities.', 'Generally, Citigold, Citi Priority and Citi Private Bank accounts earn the most points.', 'Sharing points is a great way to consolidate existing points with a significant other or family member.', 'Citi ThankYou is one of the few programs that allows members to share points free of charge.', 'The only stipulation is that you can only share points with someone who has a Citi ThankYou card, and Citi Custom Cash card holders are not eligible.', 'It’s worth noting that shared points expire 90 days after receipt.', 'So you shouldn’t transfer points unless you or the person you’re sending them to has an immediate use for them.', 'Also, note that you can’t send or receive more than 100,000 points per calendar year.', 'Once you’ve earned a slew of Citi ThankYou points comes the fun part of redeeming them.', 'And thankfully, Citi offers many different ways for you to redeem your ThankYou points.', 'You’ll get the most bang for your buck by redeeming points for travel, though that’s certainly not the only option.', 'Here’s a look at your Citi ThankYou travel redemption options and how they work.', 'Transferring points will get you the most value from your Citi ThankYou points.', 'Citi has 18 airline and hotel partners, most of which you can transfer points to at a 1-to-1 ratio — however, that ratio can vary.', 'You can redeem them for stays atall-inclusive resorts,international business-class tickets, domestic award flights and more.', 'But keep in mind that not all airline and hotel loyalty programs are equal.', 'Ultimately, you’ll want to research which program will offer you the most in return, depending on what your travel plans are.', 'Like with the Chase Ultimate Rewards program, Capital One miles andAmerican Express Membership Rewards program, you’ll need to link your accounts with each of the transfer partners, and you’ll also need to search for award availability with the airline of your choice before transferring any points.', 'If you’re interested in transferring your Citi ThankYou points to a travel partner, these are your 18 options as well as the transfer rate.', 'By transferring Citi ThankYou points to partner airlines, you unlock the ability to travel for next to nothing — in most cases when redeeming travel rewards, you’ll just have to pay the taxes and fees on a ticket.', 'As a result, points and miles open up the door for flying experiences that would otherwise be out of reach.', 'Keep in mind that the most obvious airline choice may not always be your best option.', 'Airlines typically have extensive alliance networks, allowing you to redeem points for partner airlines through their respective programs.', 'For example, Delta Air Lines and Air France/KLM are both members of the SkyTeam alliance, meaning you can transfer your Citi ThankYou points to Flying Blue and redeem for flights operated by Delta Air Lines.', 'Citi’s airline partners will get you the most value for your points, especially if you redeem them for business- and first-class travel.', 'That being said, Citi’s airline partners offer several sweet spot awards.', 'These heavily discounted awards will save you points on travel and make earning ThankYou points worthwhile.', 'Some of these sweet spots awards that will get you maximum value for your ThankYou points include the following:  Generally speaking, you’ll get the most value out of your Citi ThankYou points by transferring them to airline or hotel partners.', 'But that may not always make sense for all card holders — and it’s not your only option.', 'Citi ThankYou points are worth 1 cent each when you use them to book travel through the Citi ThankYou portal.', 'That’s significantly less than the value you’ll get from transfer partner redemptions.', 'While transferring points is the best way to maximize your ThankYou points, doing so isn’t always possible.', 'If that’s the case — or if you’re not interested in researching award availability — redeeming at a fixed value for travel via the ThankYou portal is a decent option.', 'Citi offers several fixed redemption options where you’ll redeem your points at 1 cent per point.', 'This is ideal for folks who would rather leverage points for daily expenses than travel bookings.', 'While redeeming points this way isn’t advisable, as you won’t get as much value out of each point, you should use them however they suit you best.', 'For example, if you have no travel plans in the foreseeable future but mounting expenses at home, then redeeming your ThankYou points for mortgage or student loan payments might make sense.', 'Here are some additional ways you can redeem your ThankYou points:  Generally speaking, if you’re looking to get the most value out of your Citi ThankYou points, your worst option is when redeeming for a fixed value.', 'However, if you’re willing to sacrifice the value of your points and instead want to save some cash, it could be a solid option.', 'Ultimately, every card holder’s goals for their points will be different, but it’s good that you have options with ThankYou points.', 'Citi ThankYou points are worth about 1.7 cents each when you redeem them for travel through transfer partners, according to frequent flyer website The Points Guy.', 'The exact amount varies depending on the cabin and destination you’re flying to.', 'Generally speaking, you’ll get the most value by redeeming points for international business- and first-class flights.', 'While 1.7 cents per point isn’t guaranteed for all redemptions, it’s a number you should aim for if you want to redeem ThankYou points for maximum value.', 'Aside from travel redemptions, you can use ThankYou points for mortgage payments, student loans, statement credits or charitable contributions, and they’re worth 1 cent apiece.', 'Citi ThankYou points are an incredibly valuable currency and can help you meet your most aspirational travel goals.', 'Whether you’re using points for domestic or international travel, Citi’s wide selection of transfer partners offers terrific redemption value.', 'Between a good credit card selection, top-notch travel partners and flexibility in use, Citi ThankYou points are definitely worth adding to your points portfolio.', 'Looking for a new travel credit card?', 'Check out CNN Underscored’s list of thebest credit cardscurrently available.', 'Editorial Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are the author’s alone, not those of any bank, credit card issuer, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities.', 'Note: While the offers mentioned above are accurate at the time of publication, they’re subject to change at any time and may have changed, or may no longer be available.']",0.4187524857201869,"Citi has a small but mighty credit card lineup, offering generous welcome bonuses and ongoing rewards.","Authorized users can make charges on the credit card they’ve been added to but have no liability when it comes to paying the bill — that onus falls on you, the primary card holder.",0.8707016060749689,"As mentioned, there are also a number of other traditionalcash back credit cardsin the Citi portfolio that allow you to boost your earnings.",That’s significantly less than the value you’ll get from transfer partner redemptions.,2024-04-28
"FTC is sued by business groups over its ban on noncompete agreements, which may delay enforcement",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/25/success/ftc-noncompete-ban-lawsuit/index.html,"
  Updated
        9:45 AM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","Less than 24 hours after the Federal Trade Commission issued a final rule this week banning employers from using noncompete agreements in the United States, the US Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable filed a lawsuit against the agency in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas.
    
            Another lawsuit was filed in federal court in the Northern District of Texas by business tax services firm Ryan.
    
            And more may be filed in the coming weeks. “We think it’s likely additional lawsuits could be filed,” said employment lawyer Daniel Turinsky, a partner at DLA Piper.
    
            Even before the rule was issued, the US Chamber had promised to sue on grounds that, in its view, the agency exceeded its administrative authority by outlawing what it deems “unfair methods of competition.”
    
            The suit argues that without a clear legislative mandate from Congress, the FTC does not have the power to issue and enforce its blanket noncompete ban.
    
            “The FTC contends that by using regulation they can simply declare common business practices to be ‘unfair methods of competition’ and thus illegal. This is despite the fact that noncompete agreements have been around longer than the 110-year-old FTC and until now no one has suggested that they are illegal,” the US Chamber said in a release announcing the lawsuit. “If the FTC can regulate noncompete agreements, then they can decide to regulate or even ban any other business practice. All without a vote from Congress.”
    
            The Chamber and the Business Roundtable, along with a third plaintiff — the Longview Chamber of Commerce in Longview, Texas — are asking the court to issue a stay to stop the rule from going into effect, a preliminary injunction that would prohibit the FTC from enforcing the rule while the case is being litigated, “or both.”
    
            In response to the US Chamber’s lawsuit, FTC Chair Lina Khan expressed confidence the agency is on firm ground legally. Appearing on CNN’s “The Lead With Jake Tapper” after the new noncompete prohibition was announced, she said the agency has “clear legal authority” to issue such a ban.
    
            The FTC rule isn’t set to go into effect until 120 days from the day it is published in the Federal Register. So likely not before September.
    
            But that effective date could be postponed if the federal courts in Texas — or any other courts where suits are filed — decide to grant a stay or preliminary injunction.
    
            That leaves employers and employees in limbo when it comes to existing noncompete agreements, almost all of which would become unenforceable if and when the rule takes effect. (The only exception here are existing noncompetes for senior executives — they will remain in force regardless.)
    
            In the near term, “I’m generally telling clients to take a wait-and-see approach with respect to the FTC rule while court challenges play out in the next few weeks,” Turinsky said.
    
            If the rule is put on ice until the cases are decided, and then appeals are filed, that could further delay the rule’s effective date by many more months if it isn’t ultimately struck down completely.
    
            Translation: It could be awhile before the validity of the non-compete ban is determined, said James Witz, a shareholder at Littler, an employer-side law firm, and co-chair of the firm’s Unfair Competition and Trade Secrets Practice Group.
    
            But employers still seeking to issue new noncompetes while the cases are litigated, may face resistance from some employees who are now aware of the FTC’s action, Witz noted.",CNN,26/04/2024,"['Less than 24 hours after the Federal Trade Commission issued a final rule this week banning employers from using noncompete agreements in the United States, the US Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable filed a lawsuit against the agency in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas.', 'Another lawsuit was filed in federal court in the Northern District of Texas by business tax services firm Ryan.', 'And more may be filed in the coming weeks. “', 'We think it’s likely additional lawsuits could be filed,” said employment lawyer Daniel Turinsky, a partner at DLA Piper.', 'Even before the rule was issued, the US Chamber had promised to sue on grounds that, in its view, the agency exceeded its administrative authority by outlawing what it deems “unfair methods of competition.”', 'The suit argues that without a clear legislative mandate from Congress, the FTC does not have the power to issue and enforce its blanket noncompete ban.', '“The FTC contends that by using regulation they can simply declare common business practices to be ‘unfair methods of competition’ and thus illegal.', 'This is despite the fact that noncompete agreements have been around longer than the 110-year-old FTC and until now no one has suggested that they are illegal,” the US Chamber said in a release announcing the lawsuit. “', 'If the FTC can regulate noncompete agreements, then they can decide to regulate or even ban any other business practice.', 'All without a vote from Congress.”', 'The Chamber and the Business Roundtable, along with a third plaintiff — the Longview Chamber of Commerce in Longview, Texas — are asking the court to issue a stay to stop the rule from going into effect, a preliminary injunction that would prohibit the FTC from enforcing the rule while the case is being litigated, “or both.”', 'In response to the US Chamber’s lawsuit, FTC Chair Lina Khan expressed confidence the agency is on firm ground legally.', 'Appearing on CNN’s “The Lead With Jake Tapper” after the new noncompete prohibition was announced, she said the agency has “clear legal authority” to issue such a ban.', 'The FTC rule isn’t set to go into effect until 120 days from the day it is published in the Federal Register.', 'So likely not before September.', 'But that effective date could be postponed if the federal courts in Texas — or any other courts where suits are filed — decide to grant a stay or preliminary injunction.', 'That leaves employers and employees in limbo when it comes to existing noncompete agreements, almost all of which would become unenforceable if and when the rule takes effect. (', 'The only exception here are existing noncompetes for senior executives — they will remain in force regardless.)', 'In the near term, “I’m generally telling clients to take a wait-and-see approach with respect to the FTC rule while court challenges play out in the next few weeks,” Turinsky said.', 'If the rule is put on ice until the cases are decided, and then appeals are filed, that could further delay the rule’s effective date by many more months if it isn’t ultimately struck down completely.', 'Translation: It could be awhile before the validity of the non-compete ban is determined, said James Witz, a shareholder at Littler, an employer-side law firm, and co-chair of the firm’s Unfair Competition and Trade Secrets Practice Group.', 'But employers still seeking to issue new noncompetes while the cases are litigated, may face resistance from some employees who are now aware of the FTC’s action, Witz noted.']",-0.0700374361376802,But that effective date could be postponed if the federal courts in Texas — or any other courts where suits are filed — decide to grant a stay or preliminary injunction.,"The suit argues that without a clear legislative mandate from Congress, the FTC does not have the power to issue and enforce its blanket noncompete ban.",-0.3911002427339554,"In response to the US Chamber’s lawsuit, FTC Chair Lina Khan expressed confidence the agency is on firm ground legally.","If the rule is put on ice until the cases are decided, and then appeals are filed, that could further delay the rule’s effective date by many more months if it isn’t ultimately struck down completely.",2024-04-28
"Walgreens has a cult ‘peelable’ candy, courtesy of a TikTok craze",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/27/business/gummy-mango-peelable-candy-walgreens/index.html,"
  Published
        3:00 AM EDT, Sat April 27, 2024
    ","It’s tiny, squishy, chewy. It’s shaped like a cute baby mango and GenZers have gone crazy over it. Walgreens can’t keep it in stock.
    
            For the beleaguered drugstore chain, the odd “Gummy Mango” candy is a much-needed win. It arrived last fall in about 2,500 of its 8,700 US stores, and quickly sold out because, of course, TikTok. Online, Walgreens imposed a limit of one bag per customer on the little inventory that remained.
    
            The unexpectedly viral product comes at a time that Walgreens has a lot on its plate that isn’t fun — debt piling up, employee unrest, competitors grabbing market share, store closures, its shoppers spending less on things they don’t need. It’s also juggling with having to keep everyday items like shampoos and shaving cream locked up over theft concerns, much to the annoyance of customers. Walgreens sorely needed some — any — good news.
    
            Fortunately, the mango-flavored treat plays into the company’s long-term strategy of beefing up its front-of-store departments, said Morningstar analyst Keonhee Kim.
    
            The product itself is a $1.99 bag of candy belonging to an on-trend genre of confectionery called gummy candies. This candy from Walgreens’ lower-priced Nice! house brand of snacks and drinks is different because it’s actually peelable. 
    
            In early January, a video explaining its uniqueness by TikToker @Trinhdoesthings got a whopping 8.9 million views.
    
            In the video, she picks up a packet of the candy at a Walgreens store “after seeing it all over social media.” She tears it open at her kitchen table and then peels off the outer skin of the mango-shaped gummy and pops the shiny smooth inner pulp into her mouth, proclaiming, “This is so fun.” She then proceeds to eat the peel, too, while complimenting its chewy texture.
    
            Other TikTok videos compared the treat to the peelable gummy candies in peach and grape flavors from Japanese or Korean brands available on Amazon, or showed ways to punch up the flavor by adding spice to the mango version.
    
            Walgreens said it didn’t work with any paid influencer to hype up its mango gummies but that it took off organically. It also declined to disclose how many packets it has sold to date or total sales thus far.
    
            “The interactivity of it is really cool and it’s what makes the peelable candy really fun,” said Marty Esarte, vice president of Walgreens’ owned brands, in an interview with CNN. “It also creates a discussion point: Is the outer layer better than the inner gummy or are they better together or separate?”
    
            Esarte admits that he didn’t expect the squishy treat to become a viral hit. “Literally in about four to five days after we launched it, we sold through nearly all of the product,” he said. “If we had expected that to happen, we probably would have had more.”
    
            The idea for the candy first surfaced in 2023 during a discussion between Esarte’s team and a Walgreens supplier.
    
            “One of our suppliers who we’ve worked with for more than 20 years identified this peelable candy trend last year that had emerged in Asia and brought it to us as an opportunity,” Esarte said.
    
            The timing meshed perfectly with the latest candy consumption trends. The non-chocolate segment overall, which includes gummy candies, has been on a tear primarily because of Gen Z and millennial consumers, according to the National Confectioners Association.
    
            Younger consumers, especially Gen Z are enamored with anything retro and vintage and this trend translates into foods as well. According to industry publication The Food Institute, Millennial and Gen Z shoppers favor fruit-flavored gummies that they’ve grown up on.
    
            In the United States, the segment saw a 12.1% increase in dollar sales in 2023 versus a year ago to reach $19.2 billion in total sales. It also accounts for more than 30% of all confectionary sales in the country.
    
            As Esarte and his team rushed to restock the mango gummies last last year, a bigger challenge emerged. Their need coincided with the timing of the Chinese New Year when all factory production in China grinds to a halt for a few weeks. The situation wasn’t ideal.
    
            “Whatever product was still available overseas we airfreighted it to get it into stores quickly,” Esarte said.
    
            After weeks of scrambling and rushing, Walgreens is better prepared to make a bigger splash with the mango gummies. “We’ve purchased a much larger amount of the candy and it will go into 8,000 stores by May.”
    
            But Esarte tipped CNN to the next flavor coming. “We’re launching a peelable banana gummy next,” he said. “Banana is a common favorite flavor across the US and the world and we think it’s another great item to add to the peelable gummy mix.”
    
            The banana gummy (priced at $1.99 a bag) will launch in 5,000 Walgreens stores in May. The retailer already sells pineapple and orange gummies, but those aren’t as fun because you can’t peel them.
    
            Morningstar analyst Kim, who covers the healthcare sector, said the candy is a nice win for Walgreens at a time when its problems have been mounting over the last 12 months and its stock is down 50% over that period.
    
            “There was a big leadership change with its CEO leaving and new CEO Tim Wentworth coming in. As Tim takes charge of the company he’s thinking about where future growth for Walgreens will come from and where are some areas where they could cut costs,” said Kim.
    
            One area is the frontend of the drugstore, typically where candy, snacks and other private label merchandise are sold.
    
            “That space is a really important piece of the business,” Kim said. “That area is definitely a more profitable one than the backend oF the prescription dispensing business. Focusing on that piece with newer offerings will be key for Walgreens.”",CNN,27/04/2024,"['It’s tiny, squishy, chewy.', 'It’s shaped like a cute baby mango and GenZers have gone crazy over it.', 'Walgreens can’t keep it in stock.', 'For the beleaguered drugstore chain, the odd “Gummy Mango” candy is a much-needed win.', 'It arrived last fall in about 2,500 of its 8,700 US stores, and quickly sold out because, of course, TikTok.', 'Online, Walgreens imposed a limit of one bag per customer on the little inventory that remained.', 'The unexpectedly viral product comes at a time that Walgreens has a lot on its plate that isn’t fun —debt piling up, employee unrest, competitors grabbing market share,store closures, its shoppers spending less on things they don’t need.', 'It’s also juggling with having to keep everyday items like shampoos and shaving cream locked up over theft concerns, much to the annoyance of customers.', 'Walgreens sorely needed some — any — good news.', 'Fortunately, the mango-flavored treat plays into the company’s long-term strategy of beefing up its front-of-store departments, said Morningstar analyst Keonhee Kim.', 'The product itself is a $1.99 bag of candy belonging to an on-trend genre of confectionery called gummy candies.', 'This candy from Walgreens’ lower-priced Nice!', 'house brand of snacks and drinks is different because it’s actually peelable.', 'In early January, a video explaining its uniqueness by TikToker @Trinhdoesthings got a whopping 8.9 million views.', 'In the video, she picks up a packet of the candy at a Walgreens store “after seeing it all over social media.”', 'She tears it open at her kitchen table and then peels off the outer skin of the mango-shaped gummy and pops the shiny smooth inner pulp into her mouth, proclaiming, “This is so fun.”', 'She then proceeds to eat the peel, too, while complimenting its chewy texture.', 'Other TikTok videos compared the treat to the peelable gummy candies in peach and grape flavors from Japanese or Korean brands available on Amazon, or showed ways to punch up the flavor by adding spice to the mango version.', 'Walgreens said it didn’t work with any paid influencer to hype up its mango gummies but that it took off organically.', 'It also declined to disclose how many packets it has sold to date or total sales thus far.', '“The interactivity of it is really cool and it’s what makes the peelable candy really fun,” said Marty Esarte, vice president of Walgreens’ owned brands, in an interview with CNN. “', 'It also creates a discussion point: Is the outer layer better than the inner gummy or are they better together or separate?”', 'Esarte admits that he didn’t expect the squishy treat to become a viral hit. “', 'Literally in about four to five days after we launched it, we sold through nearly all of the product,” he said. “', 'If we had expected that to happen, we probably would have had more.”', 'The idea for the candy first surfaced in 2023 during a discussion between Esarte’s team and a Walgreens supplier.', '“One of our suppliers who we’ve worked with for more than 20 years identified this peelable candy trend last year that had emerged in Asia and brought it to us as an opportunity,” Esarte said.', 'The timing meshed perfectly with the latest candy consumption trends.', 'The non-chocolate segment overall, which includes gummy candies, has been on a tear primarily because of Gen Z and millennial consumers, according to the National Confectioners Association.', 'Younger consumers, especially Gen Z are enamored with anything retro and vintage and this trend translates into foods as well.', 'According to industry publication The Food Institute, Millennial and Gen Z shoppers favor fruit-flavored gummies that they’ve grown up on.', 'In the United States, the segment saw a 12.1% increase in dollar sales in 2023 versus a year ago to reach $19.2 billion in total sales.', 'It also accounts for more than 30% of all confectionary sales in the country.', 'As Esarte and his team rushed to restock the mango gummies last last year, a bigger challenge emerged.', 'Their need coincided with the timing of the Chinese New Year when all factory production in China grinds to a halt for a few weeks.', 'The situation wasn’t ideal.', '“Whatever product was still available overseas we airfreighted it to get it into stores quickly,” Esarte said.', 'After weeks of scrambling and rushing, Walgreens is better prepared to make a bigger splash with the mango gummies. “', 'We’ve purchased a much larger amount of the candy and it will go into 8,000 stores by May.”', 'But Esarte tipped CNN to the next flavor coming. “', 'We’re launching a peelable banana gummy next,” he said. “', 'Banana is a common favorite flavor across the US and the world and we think it’s another great item to add to the peelable gummy mix.”', 'The banana gummy (priced at $1.99 a bag) will launch in 5,000 Walgreens stores in May.', 'The retailer already sells pineapple and orange gummies, but those aren’t as fun because you can’t peel them.', 'Morningstar analyst Kim, who covers the healthcare sector, said the candy is a nice win for Walgreens at a time when its problems have been mounting over the last 12 months and its stock is down 50% over that period.', '“There was a big leadership change with its CEO leaving and new CEO Tim Wentworth coming in.', 'As Tim takes charge of the company he’s thinking about where future growth for Walgreens will come from and where are some areas where they could cut costs,” said Kim.', 'One area is the frontend of the drugstore, typically where candy, snacks and other private label merchandise are sold.', '“That space is a really important piece of the business,” Kim said. “', 'That area is definitely a more profitable one than the backend oF the prescription dispensing business.', 'Focusing on that piece with newer offerings will be key for Walgreens.”']",0.2533611782819613,Banana is a common favorite flavor across the US and the world and we think it’s another great item to add to the peelable gummy mix.”,,0.4675776998202006,"In the United States, the segment saw a 12.1% increase in dollar sales in 2023 versus a year ago to reach $19.2 billion in total sales.","The non-chocolate segment overall, which includes gummy candies, has been on a tear primarily because of Gen Z and millennial consumers, according to the National Confectioners Association.",2024-04-28
It’s back: Targeted Amex card holders can get up to 30% off at Amazon,https://edition.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/deals/amazon-amex-discount-promotion,"
  
        11:21 AM EST, Wed February 14, 2024
    ","Most American Express card members typically think of their Amex points as opportunities for amazing travel opportunities. While that’s true, there’s another lesser-known use for them — redeeming them for purchases at Amazon. Right now, you may be eligible for an Amazon promotion where you can save big on Amazon purchases by redeeming as little as one Amex point.
    
            Targeted American Express card members can save as much as 30% on their next Amazon purchase, for up to $30 in savings when you use Amex points to pay for at least a portion of your purchase at checkout. However, your offer may be higher or lower.
    
            This offer is set to expire on June 30, 2024, so even if you aren’t in the market to shop at Amazon right now, you have some time to take advantage of the savings. That said, Amazon also states it will deactivate the offer after 24,167 customers have redeemed it.
    
            With many Amazon discounted offers, scoring the deal can be a little complicated. But we’re going to take you through it step by step to make sure you’re getting as much of a discount as possible when you’re shopping at Amazon.
    
            To start, you must have an American Express card that earns Membership Rewards points. Amex cards that earn other types of rewards, such as cash back or airline miles, won’t work. But there are plenty of Amex cards that earn Membership Rewards points — a small sampling of them is at the end of this story.
    
            Next, you’ll need to link your Amazon and American Express accounts. Add your American Express card as a payment method in your Amazon account, if you haven’t already. Then look for the option to enroll in “Shop with Points” under the “Your Account” tab, and click the “Enroll” button for the Amex card you just added.
    
            Once your accounts are connected, you’ll need to activate the offer by clicking on this link. Remember, this is a targeted promotion, so not everyone will be eligible for it — you could be targeted for any one of the offers or none of them. When you click on the link, if you see a message that you’re not eligible, then you’re unfortunately not targeted for this particular promotion.
    
            But even if you’re not targeted, don’t give up hope. If you just enrolled in “Shop with Points,” you may need to wait 24 hours for Amazon’s records to refresh before knowing if you’re targeted, so check back in a day or so.
    
            If you’re eligible, activate the offer by clicking on the “Activate now” button — the enrollment page will indicate your particular discount. You can then shop at Amazon as you normally would, though only products sold and shipped by Amazon are eligible for these discounts. Additionally, Amazon gift cards are excluded, though other third-party retailer gift cards sold by Amazon might be eligible.
    
            But wait! There’s one more step. When you’re ready to check out, you’ll want to make sure to select your linked American Express card as your payment method. Then you’ll need to use at least 1 point to pay for your purchase for the discount to apply.
    
            When paying with Amex Membership Rewards points at Amazon, 1 point equals 0.7 cents. That’s not the best value you can get for Amex points. Frequent flyer website The Points Guy values Membership Rewards points as high as 2 cents each when redeemed for travel.
    
            However, it’s important to note that you don’t have to pay for your entire Amazon purchase with points to get these discounts. In fact, you can use just 1 point and pay for the rest with your Amex card, and you’ll still see the discount applied to your order. However, some accounts might see that you need to redeem slightly more points — 714 to be exact — to receive the savings, so make sure to check the terms of your exact offer.
    
            To pay with the minimum number of points required, enter $0.01 in the points section at checkout, which will apply just 1 point to your payment, You can use any number of points you want, but if you don’t make this change, Amazon may automatically apply the maximum number of points to cover the entire purchase, so you’ll want to make sure to update the amount before you place the order.
    
            Once you’ve applied at least 1 point to your payment, you’ll see the discount added to your order. The discount will apply on every order you place through June 30 until you hit the total maximum in savings — which will depend on your particular offer.
    
            Let’s take a look at some examples of how you can apply this discount to your upcoming Amazon purchases, even if you don’t need anything from Amazon right at the moment.
    
            With airlines having regular delays and cancellations over the last year, placing an Apple AirTag on your luggage can be a great way to track the location of your belongings. An Apple AirTag 4 Pack is currently priced at $78.99 before taxes and shipping, but if you’re targeted for the 30% off American Express offer, that’ll bring the pack down to $55.30, or around $13.83 per AirTag before tax.
    
            Or, if you’re hoping to pick up a set of new Apple AirPods Pro 2, right now Amazon is selling them for $189.99. But you can knock that down even further to as low as $159.99 before taxes if you’re targeted for this offer.
    
            Even if you aren’t eligible for any of these particular Amex promotions, offers like this typically resurface many times throughout the year, so keep on checking back.
    
            Amazon often runs similar promotions for other credit cards, so check out our guides to discounts for Chase and Discover card holders to see what’s available. You might also find that even if you aren’t eligible now for one of these offers, you could magically become targeted in a few weeks, so keep on checking the link to see if you’ve been granted access.
    
            Amazon has been eagerly offers some lucrative promotions over the last few years, so keep your credit card accounts linked to your Amazon account, and if you’re targeted for any of these offers, make sure you use them before they expire at the end of the year.
    
            Also, make sure you read our guide to the best credit cards for Amazon to be sure you’re using the right card when you buy at Amazon.
    
            Looking for a travel credit card? Find out which cards CNN Underscored Money chose as the best travel credit cards currently available.",CNN,14/02/2024,"['Most American Express card members typically think of their Amex points as opportunities for amazing travel opportunities.', 'While that’s true, there’s another lesser-known use for them — redeeming them for purchases at Amazon.', 'Right now, you may be eligible for anAmazonpromotion where you can save big on Amazon purchases by redeeming as little as one Amex point.', 'Targeted American Express card members cansave as much as 30% on their next Amazon purchase, for up to $30 in savings when you use Amex points to pay for at least a portion of your purchase at checkout.', 'However, your offer may be higher or lower.', 'This offer is set to expire on June 30, 2024, so even if you aren’t in the market to shop at Amazon right now, you have some time to take advantage of the savings.', 'That said, Amazon also states it will deactivate the offer after 24,167 customers have redeemed it.', 'With many Amazon discounted offers, scoring the deal can be a little complicated.', 'But we’re going to take you through it step by step to make sure you’re getting as much of a discount as possible when you’re shopping atAmazon.', 'To start, you must have an American Express card that earns Membership Rewards points.', 'Amex cards that earn other types of rewards, such as cash back or airline miles, won’t work.', 'But there are plenty of Amex cards that earn Membership Rewards points — a small sampling of them is at the end of this story.', 'Next, you’ll need tolink your Amazon and American Express accounts.', 'Add your American Express card as a payment method in your Amazon account, if you haven’t already.', 'Then look for the option toenroll in “Shop with Points”under the “Your Account” tab, and click the “Enroll” button for the Amex card you just added.', 'Once your accounts are connected, you’ll need to activate the offer byclicking on this link.', 'Remember, this is a targeted promotion, so not everyone will be eligible for it — you could be targeted for any one of the offers or none of them.', 'When you click on the link, if you see a message that you’re not eligible, then you’re unfortunately not targeted for this particular promotion.', 'But even if you’re not targeted, don’t give up hope.', 'If you just enrolled in “Shop with Points,” you may need to wait 24 hours for Amazon’s records to refresh before knowing if you’re targeted, so check back in a day or so.', 'If you’re eligible, activate the offer byclicking on the “Activate now” button— the enrollment page will indicate your particular discount.', 'You can thenshop at Amazonas you normally would, though only products sold and shipped by Amazon are eligible for these discounts.', 'Additionally, Amazon gift cards are excluded, though otherthird-party retailer gift cardssold by Amazon might be eligible.', 'But wait!', 'There’s one more step.', 'When you’re ready to check out, you’ll want to make sure to select your linked American Express card as your payment method.', 'Then you’ll need to use at least 1 point to pay for your purchase for the discount to apply.', 'When paying with Amex Membership Rewards points at Amazon, 1 point equals 0.7 cents.', 'That’s not the best value you can get for Amex points.', 'Frequent flyer websiteThe Points Guyvalues Membership Rewards points as high as 2 cents each when redeemed for travel.', 'However, it’s important to note that you don’t have to pay for your entireAmazonpurchase with points to get these discounts.', 'In fact,you can use just 1 point and pay for the rest with your Amex card, and you’ll still see the discount applied to your order.', 'However, some accounts might see that you need to redeem slightly more points —714 to be exact —to receive the savings, so make sure to check the terms of your exact offer.', 'To pay with the minimum number of points required, enter $0.01 in the points section at checkout, which will apply just 1 point to your payment, You can use any number of points you want, but if you don’t make this change,Amazonmay automatically apply the maximum number of points to cover the entire purchase, so you’ll want to make sure to update the amount before you place the order.', 'Once you’ve applied at least 1 point to your payment, you’ll see the discount added to your order.', 'The discount will apply on every order you place through June 30 until you hit the total maximum in savings —which will depend on your particular offer.', 'Let’s take a look at some examples of how you can apply this discount to your upcomingAmazonpurchases, even if you don’t need anything from Amazon right at the moment.', 'With airlines having regular delays and cancellations over the last year, placing an Apple AirTag on your luggage can be a great way to track the location of your belongings.', 'An Apple AirTag 4 Pack is currently priced at $78.99 before taxes and shipping, but if you’re targeted for the 30% off American Express offer, that’ll bring the pack down to $55.30, or around $13.83 per AirTag before tax.', 'Or, if you’re hoping to pick up a set of new Apple AirPods Pro 2, right now Amazon is selling them for $189.99.', 'But you can knock that down even further to as low as $159.99 before taxes if you’re targeted for this offer.', 'Even if you aren’t eligible for any of these particular Amex promotions, offers like this typically resurface many times throughout the year, so keep on checking back.', 'Amazon often runs similar promotions for other credit cards, so check out our guides to discounts for Chase and Discover card holders to see what’s available.', 'You might also find that even if you aren’t eligible now for one of these offers, you could magically become targeted in a few weeks, so keep on checking the link to see if you’ve been granted access.', 'Amazon has been eagerly offers some lucrative promotions over the last few years, sokeep your credit card accounts linked to your Amazon account, and if you’re targeted for any of these offers, make sure you use them before they expire at the end of the year.', 'Also, make sure you read our guide to thebest credit cards for Amazonto be sure you’re using the right card when you buy at Amazon.', 'Looking for a travel credit card?', 'Find out which cardsCNN Underscored Moneychose as thebest travel credit cardscurrently available.']",0.2766683229921542,Most American Express card members typically think of their Amex points as opportunities for amazing travel opportunities.,That’s not the best value you can get for Amex points.,-0.0578339397907257,"Amazon has been eagerly offers some lucrative promotions over the last few years, sokeep your credit card accounts linked to your Amazon account, and if you’re targeted for any of these offers, make sure you use them before they expire at the end of the year.",But you can knock that down even further to as low as $159.99 before taxes if you’re targeted for this offer.,2024-04-28
Top soccer clubs are using an AI-powered app to scout future stars,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/01/tech/aiscout-app-soccer-scouting-spc-intl/index.html,"
  Published
        7:14 AM EST, Fri March 1, 2024
    ","A London-based technology company is looking to “democratize” talent-identification and scouting in soccer using a mobile app.
    
            Free to download and available globally, the aiScout app allows aspiring soccer stars to enter virtual trials for professional clubs by uploading self-recorded footage of themselves completing a series of drills. It offers 75 exercises, designed to test a range of skills, with videos showing users how to complete them.
    
            Performances are automatically scored by artificial intelligence (AI) technology. The data can then be accessed by clubs, allowing their scouts to peruse scores for viable talent, honing their search with a variety of filters; from age and gender to position on the pitch.
    
            The app currently has two English Premier League (EPL) partners, Chelsea and Burnley, and clubs can tailor their in-app trials to meet specific needs and set their own benchmarks by having their academy players complete the same drills.
    
            “We’re putting that data up front to make better use of [the scouts’] time,” said Richard Felton-Thomas, chief operating officer of ai.io, the company behind the app.
    
            “To say [to scouts], ‘Go over to this place today because there’s three players in that game that are all actually beating your Chelsea standard’ — that’s going to be the best use of your time.’”
    
            It already appears to be working for some. Ben Greenwood had never had a trial with a professional club until he downloaded the app in 2019. After uploading footage of himself, the 17-year-old landed a trial with Chelsea, becoming the first user of the app to get a trial with a pro club. He signed a contract with EPL team Bournemouth in 2021.
    
            Having beta-tested in with players spanning 125 countries, Greenwood among them, 135 players have been trialed or signed by pro clubs or national teams through the app — which fully launched in September 2023 — according to Felton-Thomas.
    
            Just over 100,000 players make up the current database, but with over 100 clubs lined up to join Chelsea and Burnley, as well as a multi-year partnership with Major League Soccer in the US announced last May, Felton-Thomas projects user numbers to surge into the millions as the operation ramps up this year.
    
            Felton-Thomas said the “lion’s share” of its income comes from charging clubs a license fee to run the platform. Annual fees vary depending on the size of the club and the tools they require, ranging from six figures for “tier one” sides like Chelsea, to thousands of pounds for clubs lower down the footballing pyramid.
    
            The use of smart technology in sport continues to expand, including AI commentary tools and wearable tech for elite athletes. The global market for sports analytics, valued at $2.7 billion in 2023, is projected to grow 22% by the end of the decade, according to market research firm Grand View Research.
    
            Should soccer talent scouts be concerned about being edged out by the arrival of AI in their industry? For Felton-Thomas, new technologies can co-exist with traditional methods.
    
            “It’s more about evolution than revolution,” Felton-Thomas explained.
    
            “We can’t tell you when that player’s actually in that match, how does he deal with adversity? What happens when he’s 2-0 down? What happens when someone’s shouting at him? What happens when he’s just made a massive mistake?”
    
            “We’ve got the ability to just augment real people to do their jobs better and faster, which then gives an opportunity to the player through the AI, but you’re still actually just connecting them to the human on the other side, which is the club and the scout.”
    
            While football remains ai.io’s primary focus, the company is looking into opportunities in other sports to launch in the coming years. Further ahead, it may branch out beyond sports.
    
            “You think about the notion that you can be at home and analyze your movements, and how this could spin into health care, physical assessments for military disciplines and emergency services,” Felton-Thomas told CNN.",CNN,01/03/2024,"['A London-based technology company is looking to “democratize” talent-identification and scouting in soccer using a mobile app.', 'Free to download and available globally, the aiScout app allows aspiring soccer stars to enter virtual trials for professional clubs by uploading self-recorded footage of themselves completing a series of drills.', 'It offers 75 exercises, designed to test a range of skills, with videos showing users how to complete them.', 'Performances are automatically scored by artificial intelligence (AI) technology.', 'The data can then be accessed by clubs, allowing their scouts to peruse scores for viable talent, honing their search with a variety of filters; from age and gender to position on the pitch.', 'The app currently has two English Premier League (EPL) partners, Chelsea and Burnley, and clubs can tailor their in-app trials to meet specific needs and set their own benchmarks by having their academy players complete the same drills.', '“We’re putting that data up front to make better use of [the scouts’] time,” said Richard Felton-Thomas, chief operating officer of ai.io, the company behind the app.', '“To say [to scouts], ‘Go over to this place today because there’s three players in that game that are all actually beating your Chelsea standard’ — that’s going to be the best use of your time.’”', 'It already appears to be working for some.', 'Ben Greenwood had never had a trial with a professional club until he downloaded the app in 2019.', 'After uploading footage of himself, the 17-year-old landed a trial with Chelsea, becoming the first user of the app to get a trial with a pro club.', 'He signed a contractwith EPL team Bournemouthin 2021.', 'Having beta-tested in with players spanning 125 countries, Greenwood among them, 135 players have been trialed or signed by pro clubs or national teams through the app — which fully launched in September 2023 — according to Felton-Thomas.', 'Just over 100,000 players make up the current database, but with over 100 clubs lined up to join Chelsea and Burnley, as well as a multi-year partnership with Major League Soccer in the US announced last May, Felton-Thomas projects user numbers to surge into the millions as the operation ramps up this year.', 'Felton-Thomas said the “lion’s share” of its income comes from charging clubs a license fee to run the platform.', 'Annual fees vary depending on the size of the club and the tools they require, ranging from six figures for “tier one” sides like Chelsea, to thousands of pounds for clubs lower down the footballing pyramid.', 'The use of smart technology in sport continues to expand, includingAI commentary tools and wearable tech for elite athletes.', 'The global market for sports analytics, valued at$2.7 billionin 2023, is projected to grow 22% by the end of the decade, according to market research firm Grand View Research.', 'Should soccer talent scouts be concerned about being edged out by the arrival of AI in their industry?', 'For Felton-Thomas, new technologies can co-exist with traditional methods.', '“It’s more about evolution than revolution,” Felton-Thomas explained.', '“We can’t tell you when that player’s actually in that match, how does he deal with adversity?', 'What happens when he’s 2-0 down?', 'What happens when someone’s shouting at him?', 'What happens when he’s just made a massive mistake?”', '“We’ve got the ability to just augment real people to do their jobs better and faster, which then gives an opportunity to the player through the AI, but you’re still actually just connecting them to the human on the other side, which is the club and the scout.”', 'While football remains ai.io’s primary focus, the company is looking into opportunities in other sports to launch in the coming years.', 'Further ahead, it may branch out beyond sports.', '“You think about the notion that you can be at home and analyze your movements, and how this could spin into health care, physical assessments for military disciplines and emergency services,” Felton-Thomas told CNN.']",0.2022322827681825,"The global market for sports analytics, valued at$2.7 billionin 2023, is projected to grow 22% by the end of the decade, according to market research firm Grand View Research.","“We can’t tell you when that player’s actually in that match, how does he deal with adversity?",0.6922526359558105,"The global market for sports analytics, valued at$2.7 billionin 2023, is projected to grow 22% by the end of the decade, according to market research firm Grand View Research.",Should soccer talent scouts be concerned about being edged out by the arrival of AI in their industry?,2024-04-28
Your ultimate guide to the American Express Membership Rewards program,https://edition.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/travel/american-express-membership-rewards-guide,"
  Updated
        1:03 PM EDT, Mon April 1, 2024
    ","American Express Membership Rewards® are among the most valuable travel rewards points out there. That’s primarily because they fall into the category of “transferable rewards,” meaning you’re not tied down to a single airline or hotel program with which you can redeem them.
    
            In other words, you’re not just earning points that can transfer to Delta SkyMiles, but they can also transfer to any of the other 16 airlines in the Membership Rewards portfolio.
    
            Having Membership Rewards points gives you options, and that’s always a good thing. If you’re ready to give your rewards portfolio a boost, here’s everything you need to know about earning and redeeming Amex Membership Rewards.
    
            You can earn Membership Rewards points in various ways. Some require little effort, while others involve a heavier lift. It’s a good idea to take advantage of all the options out there in order to maximize your earnings. Here’s a look at how to earn Membership Rewards most efficiently.
    
            The primary way to earn Amex points is through credit cards that earn Membership Rewards. Amex has an extensive lineup of personal and business cards offering generous welcome bonuses and recurring benefits to help you earn maximum points.
    
            These include well-known cards like The Platinum Card® from American Express and the American Express® Gold Card. With a single welcome bonus offer, you can give a pretty substantial boost to your Membership Rewards points balance. Here’s a look at the current welcome bonus offers on personal credit cards that earn Membership Rewards.
    
            Keep in mind, too, that many of these cards carry an annual fee:
    
            All information about the Amex EveryDay Credit Card, Amex EveryDay Preferred Credit Card and the American Express Green Card has been collected independently by CNN Underscored.
    
            Similarly, American Express offers a suite of business credit cards.
    
            All information about the Business Green Rewards Card from American Express has been collected independently by CNN Underscored.
    
            Keep in mind that several of these cards also carry an annual fee:
    
            Beyond the welcome bonus offers available, American Express makes it easy to earn Membership Rewards through category bonuses. If you spend a lot on groceries, it may be worth considering the Amex Gold card to earn 4 points per dollar spent at US supermarkets (on up to $25,000 in purchases per year).
    
            If you travel often, the Amex Platinum card is a great option for earning 5 points per dollar spent on eligible bookings made directly with an airline or with Amex Travel. Plus, you’ll have access to airport lounges, like American Express Centurion Lounges and Delta Sky Clubs, among others.
    
            When applying for American Express cards, be sure to take note of the application rules. For example, you can’t earn an Amex welcome bonus more than once (with a few exceptions), and you generally won’t be approved for more than two cards every 90 days. Before applying for a credit card, it’s important to do your research.
    
            As mentioned before, American Express makes it manageable to earn bonus points long after the welcome bonus offer. One of those ways is by adding an authorized user to your Amex card, which will occasionally earn you bonus points.
    
             Aside from the special promotions where Amex will offer you bonus points for adding an authorized user, doing so can also help you double up your point earnings. That’s because you’ll not only earn points per dollar spent on your purchases, but you’ll also earn rewards on the authorized user’s purchases.
    
            Of course, you’ll only want to consider adding a member of your household or someone you trust to pay you back as an authorized user on your account. Authorized users can make charges on the credit card they’ve been added to but have no liability when it comes to paying the bill — that onus falls on you, the primary card holder. Choose carefully who you add to your account, and you can earn extra Amex points without lifting a finger.
    
            If you’ve picked up an American Express credit card, earned the welcome bonus offer and think others would enjoy doing the same, you can get rewarded for spreading the word to family and friends.
    
            American Express offers bonuses to current card holders when you refer someone and they are approved for an eligible card. You can earn up to 20,000 points per successful approval, though the exact bonus varies by card.
    
            To find out your card’s current referral bonus, head over to the Amex referral site. You’ll see referral bonuses based on your card. Simply enter your friend’s name and email address for each card you want to refer and they’ll get an email, inviting them to apply for the card. You can also copy the referral link on the page and share that with your friends and family directly.
    
            Referrals are a lucrative way to earn Amex Membership Rewards points for recommending credit cards to your friends and family. Keep in mind there is a limit to how many friends you can refer in a year.
    
            Booking travel with American Express is rewarding, too — you can earn bonus points on your credit card, plus you can often get additional perks and rewards. For example, with the Amex Platinum, you’ll get 5 points per dollar spent on hotels booked through Amex Travel.
    
            As an added incentive, you’ll receive perks like free breakfast for two, room upgrades when available and hotel credits to use at the spa or onsite restaurant just by booking with Fine Hotels & Resorts or the Hotel Collection. In general, booking travel through American Express pays off in more ways than one.
    
            Card holders can also utilize one of the most underrated benefits of having an Amex card: Amex Offers. With Amex Offers, card holders can earn statement credits or bonus points at select retailers. In other words, it’s the perfect opportunity to save some cash or earn bonus points for purchases you were already planning on making.
    
            To find and take advantage of Amex Offers, you’ll need to log in to your account. From there, scroll to the bottom of the page to the Amex Offers & Benefits section of the page. Be sure to click “View All” to load all of your eligible offers, and also be sure to select “Add to Card” in order to activate your Amex Offer. From there, you’ll be eligible to earn the bonus points or cash savings that come as part of each Amex Offer — so long as you use the registered card to make your purchase. Amex Offers are a massive perk of Amex cards that can save you money or earn you bonus points on purchases you were already planning to make.
    
            Thanks to a partnership with American Express, you can turn your Rakuten cash back rewards into Membership Rewards. It’s a great way to earn Membership Rewards points on regular purchases, without much added effort.
    
            If you already have a Rakuten account, you can easily switch your earning preference to Membership Rewards. Simply log into your account and follow these steps:
    
            After this, rewards get transferred to your Membership Rewards account quarterly.
    
            Now, for the fun part! Once you’ve earned Membership Rewards points, it’s time to put them to good use. Amex gives you several options to redeem points, but the best option is travel. You can choose between statement credits for travel bookings or transferring them to airline or hotel partners.
    
            Here’s a closer look at your options and how they work.
    
            American Express has 20 airline and hotel transfer partners — in other words, the Amex points you’ve earned can be transferred to any of the 20 hotel and airline partners. The best way to redeem Membership Rewards for maximum value is through airline transfers. But keep in mind that not all airline loyalty programs are equal.
    
            Ultimately, you’ll want to research which program will offer you the most in return, depending on what your travel plans are. With each of the partners, you’ll need to link your accounts, and you’ll also need to search for award availability with the airline of your choice before transferring any points.
    
            If you’re looking to transfer your Amex Membership Rewards points, these are the 20 airline and hotel partner options, as well as the transfer rate.
    
            It’s worth noting that Amex occasionally runs transfer promotions for certain airlines or hotels. So, at times, you can get more points in return than the standard transfer rate listed above. Bonuses like these can increase the value of your points by enabling you to book sought-after award tickets for substantially less.
    
            By transferring Amex Membership Rewards points to partner airlines, you unlock the ability to travel for next to nothing — in most cases when redeeming points and miles, you’ll just have to pay the taxes and fees on a ticket. As a result, points and miles open up the door for flying experiences that would otherwise be out of reach.
    
            Keep in mind that the most obvious airline choice may not always be your best option. Airlines typically have extensive alliance networks, allowing you to redeem points for partner airlines through their respective programs. For example, British Airways and American Airlines are both members of the Oneworld alliance, meaning you can transfer your Amex Membership Rewards points to British Airways Executive Club and redeem for flights operated by American Airlines.
    
            Because of the vast number of airline transfer partners, your options are virtually endless for where your Membership Rewards points can take you. But, some redemptions are better than others — particularly when it comes to award sweet spots.
    
            Some examples of these sweet spot awards using your Amex Membership Rewards points include the following:
    
            Generally speaking, you’ll get the most value out of your Amex Membership Rewards points by transferring them to airline partners. But that may not always make sense for all card holders — and it’s not your only option.
    
            If figuring out transfer partner options and award charts sounds daunting, you can also use your Membership Rewards for fixed redemptions. This includes using points for statement credits, travel bookings via Amex Travel, charitable donations, online shopping and gift cards.
    
            Using points for statement credits toward qualifying purchases isn’t a great use of your points because you’ll only get 0.6 cents per point in value. If you’re looking to maximize the value of your Amex points, this isn’t the best route to take.
    
            You’ll get slightly more value by redeeming your Membership Rewards for travel bookings. By doing so, you’ll get 1 cent per point toward airfare and 0.7 cents per point toward car rentals, hotels, cruises and vacation bookings. Business Platinum card holders also get a 35% rebate when redeeming points for flight bookings through Amex Travel.
    
            If you choose to redeem your points for gift cards, you’ll get 1 cent per point in value. However, if you use Pay With Points (valid with Amazon, Best Buy, Boxed, Dell and GrubHub and others), you’ll get a value of just 0.5 cents to 1 cent each (depending on the Amex card) — one of the lowest-value options out there.
    
            Generally speaking, you should try to extract as much value as possible out of your Amex Membership Rewards points. However, that’s not always the case for everyone. You may want to save a few dollars here or there on a purchase you’re making online. Ultimately, we love Membership Rewards points so much because you have the option to use them however you like — whether for travel, Amazon purchases, gift cards and more.
    
            When it comes to the worth of your Membership Rewards points, it ultimately comes down to how you use them. The value you can get ranges from about 0.6 cents each to about 2 cents each. Frequent flyer website The Points Guy values Amex Membership Rewards points at 2 cents apiece.
    
            Amex offers 0.6 cents per point in value when you use points for statement credits. Meanwhile, travel bookings will get you a somewhat higher 1 cent per point. The highest value comes from transferring points to airline and hotel partners, as detailed above. Convert your points to airline miles and you can get 2 cents or more in value on premium award redemptions.
    
            American Express Membership Rewards points are some of the most versatile and valuable out there. By earning them, you give yourself the option to save money on travel, buying gift cards, Amazon purchases and so much more. Ultimately, it’s the flexibility that makes having an Amex credit card so rewarding.
    
            Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Platinum card.Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Gold card.Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Business Platinum card.Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Business Gold card.Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Blue Business Plus card.
    
            Looking for a travel credit card? Find out which cards CNN Underscored Money chose as the best travel credit cards currently available.",CNN,01/04/2024,"['American Express Membership Rewards® are among the most valuable travel rewards points out there.', 'That’s primarily because they fall into the category of “transferable rewards,” meaning you’re not tied down to a single airline or hotel program with which you can redeem them.', 'In other words, you’re not just earning points that can transfer to Delta SkyMiles, but they can also transfer to any of the other 16 airlines in the Membership Rewards portfolio.', 'Having Membership Rewards points gives you options, and that’s always a good thing.', 'If you’re ready to give your rewards portfolio a boost, here’s everything you need to know about earning and redeeming Amex Membership Rewards.', 'You can earn Membership Rewards points in various ways.', 'Some require little effort, while others involve a heavier lift.', 'It’s a good idea to take advantage of all the options out there in order to maximize your earnings.', 'Here’s a look at how to earn Membership Rewards most efficiently.', 'The primary way to earn Amex points is through credit cards that earn Membership Rewards.', 'Amex has an extensive lineup of personal and business cards offering generous welcome bonuses and recurring benefits to help you earn maximum points.', 'These include well-known cards like The Platinum Card® from American Express and the American Express® Gold Card.', 'With a single welcome bonus offer, you can give a pretty substantial boost to your Membership Rewards points balance.', 'Here’s a look at the current welcome bonus offers on personal credit cards that earn Membership Rewards.', 'Keep in mind, too, that many of these cards carry an annual fee:  All information about the Amex EveryDay Credit Card, Amex EveryDay Preferred Credit Card and the American Express Green Card has been collected independently by CNN Underscored.', 'Similarly, American Express offers a suite of business credit cards.', 'All information about the Business Green Rewards Card from American Express has been collected independently by CNN Underscored.', 'Keep in mind that several of these cards also carry an annual fee:  Beyond the welcome bonus offers available, American Express makes it easy to earn Membership Rewards through category bonuses.', 'If you spend a lot on groceries, it may be worth considering the Amex Gold card to earn 4 points per dollar spent at US supermarkets (on up to $25,000 in purchases per year).', 'If you travel often, the Amex Platinum card is a great option for earning 5 points per dollar spent on eligible bookings made directly with an airline or with Amex Travel.', 'Plus, you’ll have access to airport lounges, like American Express Centurion Lounges and Delta Sky Clubs, among others.', 'When applying for American Express cards, be sure to take note of the application rules.', 'For example, you can’t earn an Amex welcome bonus more than once (with a few exceptions), and you generally won’t be approved for more than two cards every 90 days.', 'Before applying for a credit card, it’s important to do your research.', 'As mentioned before, American Express makes it manageable to earn bonus points long after the welcome bonus offer.', 'One of those ways is by adding an authorized user to your Amex card, which will occasionally earn you bonus points.', 'Aside from the special promotions where Amex will offer you bonus points for adding an authorized user, doing so can also help you double up your point earnings.', 'That’s because you’ll not only earn points per dollar spent on your purchases, but you’ll also earn rewards on the authorized user’s purchases.', 'Of course, you’ll only want to consider adding a member of your household or someone you trust to pay you back as an authorized user on your account.', 'Authorized users can make charges on the credit card they’ve been added to but have no liability when it comes to paying the bill — that onus falls on you, the primary card holder.', 'Choose carefully who you add to your account, and you can earn extra Amex points without lifting a finger.', 'If you’ve picked up an American Express credit card, earned the welcome bonus offer and think others would enjoy doing the same, you can get rewarded for spreading the word to family and friends.', 'American Express offers bonuses to current card holders when you refer someone and they are approved for an eligible card.', 'You can earn up to 20,000 points per successful approval, though the exact bonus varies by card.', 'To find out your card’s current referral bonus, head over to the Amex referral site.', 'You’ll see referral bonuses based on your card.', 'Simply enter your friend’s name and email address for each card you want to refer and they’ll get an email, inviting them to apply for the card.', 'You can also copy the referral link on the page and share that with your friends and family directly.', 'Referrals are a lucrative way to earn Amex Membership Rewards points for recommending credit cards to your friends and family.', 'Keep in mind there is a limit to how many friends you can refer in a year.', 'Booking travel with American Express is rewarding, too — you can earn bonus points on your credit card, plus you can often get additional perks and rewards.', 'For example, with the Amex Platinum, you’ll get 5 points per dollar spent on hotels booked through Amex Travel.', 'As an added incentive, you’ll receive perks like free breakfast for two, room upgrades when available and hotel credits to use at the spa or onsite restaurant just by booking with Fine Hotels & Resorts or the Hotel Collection.', 'In general, booking travel through American Express pays off in more ways than one.', 'Card holders can also utilize one of the most underrated benefits of having an Amex card: Amex Offers.', 'With Amex Offers, card holders can earn statement credits or bonus points at select retailers.', 'In other words, it’s the perfect opportunity to save some cash or earn bonus points for purchases you were already planning on making.', 'To find and take advantage of Amex Offers, you’ll need to log in to your account.', 'From there, scroll to the bottom of the page to the Amex Offers & Benefits section of the page.', 'Be sure to click “View All” to load all of your eligible offers, and also be sure to select “Add to Card” in order to activate your Amex Offer.', 'From there, you’ll be eligible to earn the bonus points or cash savings that come as part of each Amex Offer — so long as you use the registered card to make your purchase.', 'Amex Offers are a massive perk of Amex cards that can save you money or earn you bonus points on purchases you were already planning to make.', 'Thanks to a partnership with American Express, you can turn your Rakuten cash back rewards into Membership Rewards.', 'It’s a great way to earn Membership Rewards points on regular purchases, without much added effort.', 'If you already have a Rakuten account, you can easily switch your earning preference to Membership Rewards.', 'Simply log into your account and follow these steps:  After this, rewards get transferred to your Membership Rewards account quarterly.', 'Now, for the fun part!', 'Once you’ve earned Membership Rewards points, it’s time to put them to good use.', 'Amex gives you several options to redeem points, but the best option is travel.', 'You can choose between statement credits for travel bookings or transferring them to airline or hotel partners.', 'Here’s a closer look at your options and how they work.', 'American Express has 20 airline and hotel transfer partners — in other words, the Amex points you’ve earned can be transferred to any of the 20 hotel and airline partners.', 'The best way to redeem Membership Rewards for maximum value is through airline transfers.', 'But keep in mind that not all airline loyalty programs are equal.', 'Ultimately, you’ll want to research which program will offer you the most in return, depending on what your travel plans are.', 'With each of the partners, you’ll need to link your accounts, and you’ll also need to search for award availability with the airline of your choice before transferring any points.', 'If you’re looking to transfer your Amex Membership Rewards points, these are the 20 airline and hotel partner options, as well as the transfer rate.', 'It’s worth noting that Amex occasionally runs transfer promotions for certain airlines or hotels.', 'So, at times, you can get more points in return than the standard transfer rate listed above.', 'Bonuses like these can increase the value of your points by enabling you to book sought-after award tickets for substantially less.', 'By transferring Amex Membership Rewards points to partner airlines, you unlock the ability to travel for next to nothing — in most cases when redeeming points and miles, you’ll just have to pay the taxes and fees on a ticket.', 'As a result, points and miles open up the door for flying experiences that would otherwise be out of reach.', 'Keep in mind that the most obvious airline choice may not always be your best option.', 'Airlines typically have extensive alliance networks, allowing you to redeem points for partner airlines through their respective programs.', 'For example, British Airways and American Airlines are both members of the Oneworld alliance, meaning you can transfer your Amex Membership Rewards points to British Airways Executive Club and redeem for flights operated by American Airlines.', 'Because of the vast number of airline transfer partners, your options are virtually endless for where your Membership Rewards points can take you.', 'But, some redemptions are better than others — particularly when it comes to award sweet spots.', 'Some examples of these sweet spot awards using your Amex Membership Rewards points include the following:  Generally speaking, you’ll get the most value out of your Amex Membership Rewards points by transferring them to airline partners.', 'But that may not always make sense for all card holders — and it’s not your only option.', 'If figuring out transfer partner options and award charts sounds daunting, you can also use your Membership Rewards for fixed redemptions.', 'This includes using points for statement credits, travel bookings via Amex Travel, charitable donations, online shopping and gift cards.', 'Using points for statement credits toward qualifying purchases isn’t a great use of your points because you’ll only get 0.6 cents per point in value.', 'If you’re looking to maximize the value of your Amex points, this isn’t the best route to take.', 'You’ll get slightly more value by redeeming your Membership Rewards for travel bookings.', 'By doing so, you’ll get 1 cent per point toward airfare and 0.7 cents per point toward car rentals, hotels, cruises and vacation bookings.', 'Business Platinum card holders also get a 35% rebate when redeeming points for flight bookings through Amex Travel.', 'If you choose to redeem your points for gift cards, you’ll get 1 cent per point in value.', 'However, if you use Pay With Points (valid with Amazon, Best Buy, Boxed, Dell and GrubHub and others), you’ll get a value of just 0.5 cents to 1 cent each (depending on the Amex card) — one of the lowest-value options out there.', 'Generally speaking, you should try to extract as much value as possible out of your Amex Membership Rewards points.', 'However, that’s not always the case for everyone.', 'You may want to save a few dollars here or there on a purchase you’re making online.', 'Ultimately, we love Membership Rewards points so much because you have the option to use them however you like — whether for travel, Amazon purchases, gift cards and more.', 'When it comes to the worth of your Membership Rewards points, it ultimately comes down to how you use them.', 'The value you can get ranges from about 0.6 cents each to about 2 cents each.', 'Frequent flyer website The Points Guy values Amex Membership Rewards points at 2 cents apiece.', 'Amex offers 0.6 cents per point in value when you use points for statement credits.', 'Meanwhile, travel bookings will get you a somewhat higher 1 cent per point.', 'The highest value comes from transferring points to airline and hotel partners, as detailed above.', 'Convert your points to airline miles and you can get 2 cents or more in value on premium award redemptions.', 'American Express Membership Rewards points are some of the most versatile and valuable out there.', 'By earning them, you give yourself the option to save money on travel, buying gift cards, Amazon purchases and so much more.', 'Ultimately, it’s the flexibility that makes having an Amex credit card so rewarding.', 'Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Platinum card.', 'Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Gold card.', 'Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Business Platinum card.', 'Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Business Gold card.', 'Click here for rates and fees of the Amex Blue Business Plus card.', 'Looking for a travel credit card?', 'Find out which cardsCNN Underscored Moneychose as thebest travel credit cardscurrently available.']",0.5246481979610982,"If you’ve picked up an American Express credit card, earned the welcome bonus offer and think others would enjoy doing the same, you can get rewarded for spreading the word to family and friends.",But keep in mind that not all airline loyalty programs are equal.,0.9622429311275482,"With a single welcome bonus offer, you can give a pretty substantial boost to your Membership Rewards points balance.",,2024-04-28
Rolls-Royce is growing its factory so it can build cars more slowly,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/28/cars/rolls-royce-doubling-factory-luxury-cars/index.html,"
  Published
        4:00 AM EDT, Sun April 28, 2024
    ","Rolls-Royce is vastly expanding its factory in Chichester, England. The BMW subsidiary is adding five new buildings with construction planned to start next year.
    
            Usually, when a carmaker expands a factory it’s for one simple reason: building more cars. But this is Rolls-Royce. Making and selling more Rolls-Royces would undermine the brand’s vaunted exclusivity.
    
            So this factory expansion isn’t about making more cars, but making more expensive cars, which takes more time and requires more space for workshops and storage of exotic materials.
    
            The expansion  signals something about Rolls-Royce’s ultra-wealthy clientele. While they can only buy so many cars, they can certainly spend more on each one.
    
            Since 2020, Rolls-Royce sales have increased 17%, reaching a record of 6,032 cars and SUVs worldwide last year. Over that same time, though, the average amount of money customers paid for their cars increased 43%, going from $350,000 in 2020 to $500,000 each, on average, last year.
    
            That increased revenue per vehicle comes largely from more complex and time-consuming customization — “bespoke,” as Rolls-Royce terms it — requests. It even calls its luxury customization programs “Bespoke” and, for fully customized models, “Coachbuild.”
    
            “We’re not necessarily growing that much in volume,” said Martin Fritsches, president of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Americas. “That’s obviously not our focus point. But clearly, our bespoke area is gaining and relevant. And has been expanding dramatically, particularly in the last couple of years.”
    
            This will be the first major expansion of the factory since it was built in 2003 following BMW’s purchase of the brand in 1998. Before that, Rolls-Royce cars were built alongside Bentleys — Rolls-Royce had acquired Bentley in 1931 — at a factory in Crewe, UK.
    
            Bentley, now owned by Volkswagen, still builds cars in Crewe and has its own customization program, as well. Last year, nearly three quarters of Bentley customers requested custom options beyond the brand’s already lengthy options list, an increase of 43% from the year before.
    
            Italian supercar manufacturers Lamborghini and Ferrari have also both reported increased levels of interest in customization programs.
    
            “We are limited in terms of (market) size and in terms of [market] segments,” Lamborghini chief executive Stephan Winkelmann said in a recent interview with CNN. “So we have to get the most out of every single car.”
    
            The increase in extreme vehicle customization results, in large part, from increasing levels of extraordinary wealth around the world. There are simply more ultra-rich people in the world and they have more money to spend on things like cars with diamond dust in the paint and picnic gear built into the cargo area.
    
            “The customer is rich, but he’s not stupid. You have to earn your price increase,” said Javier Gonzalez Lastra, investment partner with Tema ETFs, which operates a luxury goods investment fund.
    
            Bespoke doesn’t just mean choosing paint colors, although customers can certainly do that. Rolls-Royce buyers even provide nail polishes or neckties and ask that their car match the color. But customers also want special wood inlay designs, custom fabric patterns and built-in cabinetry in their cars. These are the sorts of requests that have been increasing in number and complexity, Fritsches said.
    
            These sorts of requests take time — and space — to fulfill. One car, a Rolls-Royce sedan called the Phantom Syntopia, sported iridescent paint made with differing amounts of glass particles to create flowing designs on the outside of the car. The same effect was used on lacquered tray tables inside the car. Besides that, a curving fabric design in the interior sparkled with light from thousands of thin fiberoptic cables. The car even had a custom scent inside, a first for Rolls-Royce.
    
             The Phantom Syntopia likely would have cost more than $3 million according to sources, although Rolls-Royce would not confirm an exact price. It took 18 months to build after a four year design and development process, according to Rolls-Royce.
    
            “This is a clear example where you have to dedicate a lot more time to craftsmanship,” said Fritsches, “and this is where you need the additional space to store additional materials.”
    
            While the Phantom Syntopia was an extreme example, other projects involve requests for options such as detailed wood and mother-of-pearl inlays.
    
            A larger number of highly customized cars means that, in order to get customers their finished cars without making them wait years, more space is needed for assembly and for various specialized workshops, Fritsches explained.
    
            Rolls-Royce has even created a small number of entirely custom-built cars that are not just standard models, such as the Phantom or Cullinan, with unique features or colors. These cars, like the Rolls-Royce Boat Tail, of which three were built, are entirely unique and can cost tens of millions of dollars.",CNN,28/04/2024,"['Rolls-Royce is vastly expanding its factory in Chichester, England.', 'The BMW subsidiary is adding five new buildings with construction planned to start next year.', 'Usually, when a carmaker expands a factory it’s for one simple reason: building more cars.', 'But this is Rolls-Royce.', 'Making and selling more Rolls-Royces would undermine the brand’s vaunted exclusivity.', 'So this factory expansion isn’t about making more cars, but making more expensive cars, which takes more time and requires more space for workshops and storage of exotic materials.', 'The expansion signals something about Rolls-Royce’s ultra-wealthy clientele.', 'While they can only buy so many cars, they can certainly spend more on each one.', 'Since 2020, Rolls-Royce sales have increased 17%, reaching a record of 6,032 cars and SUVs worldwide last year.', 'Over that same time, though, the average amount of money customers paid for their cars increased 43%, going from $350,000 in 2020 to $500,000 each, on average, last year.', 'That increased revenue per vehicle comes largely from more complex and time-consuming customization — “bespoke,” as Rolls-Royce terms it — requests.', 'It even calls its luxury customization programs “Bespoke” and, for fully customized models, “Coachbuild.”', '“We’re not necessarily growing that much in volume,” said Martin Fritsches, president of Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Americas. “', 'That’s obviously not our focus point.', 'But clearly, our bespoke area is gaining and relevant.', 'And has been expanding dramatically, particularly in the last couple of years.”', 'This will be the first major expansion of the factory since it was built in 2003 following BMW’s purchase of the brand in 1998.', 'Before that, Rolls-Royce cars were built alongside Bentleys — Rolls-Royce had acquired Bentley in 1931 — at a factory in Crewe, UK.', 'Bentley, now owned by Volkswagen, still builds cars in Crewe and has its own customization program, as well.', 'Last year, nearly three quarters of Bentley customers requested custom options beyond the brand’s already lengthy options list, an increase of 43% from the year before.', 'Italian supercar manufacturers Lamborghini and Ferrari have also both reported increased levels of interest in customization programs.', '“We are limited in terms of (market) size and in terms of [market] segments,” Lamborghini chief executive Stephan Winkelmann said in a recent interview with CNN. “', 'So we have to get the most out of every single car.”', 'The increase in extreme vehicle customization results, in large part, from increasing levels of extraordinary wealth around the world.', 'There are simply more ultra-rich people in the world and they have more money to spend on things like cars with diamond dust in the paint and picnic gear built into the cargo area.', '“The customer is rich, but he’s not stupid.', 'You have to earn your price increase,” said JavierGonzalez Lastra,investment partner with Tema ETFs, which operates a luxury goods investment fund.', 'Bespoke doesn’t just mean choosing paint colors, although customers can certainly do that.', 'Rolls-Royce buyers even provide nail polishes or neckties and ask that their car match the color.', 'But customers also want special wood inlay designs, custom fabric patterns and built-in cabinetry in their cars.', 'These are the sorts of requests that have been increasing in number and complexity, Fritsches said.', 'These sorts of requests take time — and space — to fulfill.', 'One car, a Rolls-Royce sedan called the Phantom Syntopia, sported iridescent paint made with differing amounts of glass particles to create flowing designs on the outside of the car.', 'The same effect was used on lacquered tray tables inside the car.', 'Besides that, a curving fabric design in the interior sparkled with light from thousands of thin fiberoptic cables.', 'The car even had a custom scent inside, a first for Rolls-Royce.', 'The Phantom Syntopia likely would have cost more than $3 million according to sources, although Rolls-Royce would not confirm an exact price.', 'It took 18 months to build after a four year design and development process, according to Rolls-Royce.', '“This is a clear example where you have to dedicate a lot more time to craftsmanship,” said Fritsches, “and this is where you need the additional space to store additional materials.”', 'While the Phantom Syntopia was an extreme example, other projects involve requests for options such as detailed wood and mother-of-pearl inlays.', 'A larger number of highly customized cars means that, in order to get customers their finished cars without making them wait years, more space is needed for assembly and for various specialized workshops, Fritsches explained.', 'Rolls-Royce has even created a small number of entirely custom-built cars that are not just standard models, such as the Phantom or Cullinan, with unique features or colors.', 'These cars, like the Rolls-Royce Boat Tail, of which three were built, are entirely unique and can cost tens of millions of dollars.']",0.1993594453598202,There are simply more ultra-rich people in the world and they have more money to spend on things like cars with diamond dust in the paint and picnic gear built into the cargo area.,Making and selling more Rolls-Royces would undermine the brand’s vaunted exclusivity.,0.8411184112230937,"Since 2020, Rolls-Royce sales have increased 17%, reaching a record of 6,032 cars and SUVs worldwide last year.",Making and selling more Rolls-Royces would undermine the brand’s vaunted exclusivity.,2024-04-28
NBC News ousts Ronna McDaniel after network’s anchors launch unprecedented on-air rebellion,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/media/nbc-news-ousts-ronna-mcdaniel/index.html,"
  Updated
        7:44 PM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
    ","NBC News on Tuesday ousted former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, just days after her hiring as a paid political analyst sparked intense backlash from the network’s top television anchors over McDaniel’s role in subverting the 2020 election and attacks on the press.
    
            “There is no doubt that the last several days have been difficult for the News Group,” NBCUniversal News Group President Cesar Conde said in a memo to staff. “After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor.”
    
            “I want to personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down,” Conde continued. “While this was a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team, I approved it and take full responsibility for it.”
    
            Ahead of the network’s decision, McDaniel spent the day Tuesday interviewing attorneys in preparation for a potential legal battle with NBC, a person familiar with the matter told CNN. Creative Artists Agency, the talent agency that brokered McDaniel’s deal with NBC, also parted ways with her, the person said.
    
            The reversal comes after journalists and anchors at both NBC and its cable news sibling MSNBC publicly denounced the decision to hire McDaniel as a paid analyst in a stunning and unprecedented on-air rebuke of network brass that has embarrassed the Peacock Network.
    
            McDaniel, who recently stepped down from the RNC under pressure from former President Donald Trump, was involved in attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
    
            As head of the RNC, she was involved in a phone call in 2020 to pressure Michigan county officials not to certify the vote from the Detroit area, where Joe Biden had a commanding lead. McDaniel told the officials, regarding the certification: “Do not sign it. … We will get you attorneys.”
    
            In the years since, McDaniel continued to claim that the election had “problems” and that Biden did not legitimately win the election, fanning the flames of election denialism.
    
            NBC’s announcement Friday that it had hired McDaniel was quickly met with alarm by the network’s journalists. The revolt spilled into public view on Sunday when McDaniel appeared on “Meet the Press” with moderator Kristen Welker in her first interview since she was hired by the network. Welker disclosed that the interview had been scheduled to take place prior to NBC announcing McDaniel would become a paid contributor for the network, stating that she had no involvement in her hiring.
    
            Following the interview, Chuck Todd, NBC News’ chief political analyst, delivered a stinging on-air criticism of NBC executives for their decision to hire McDaniel, telling Welker, “I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation.”
    
            “There’s a reason a lot of journalists at NBC News are uncomfortable with this,” Todd said, explaining that under McDaniel, the RNC engaged in “gaslighting” and “character assassination” when dealing with the news media.
    
            The following day, MSNBC hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough joined Todd in protesting the decision on their program “Morning Joe.”
    
            “To be clear, we believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage, but it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier,” Brzezinski said. “We hope NBC will reconsider its decision. It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on ‘Morning Joe’ in her capacity as a paid contributor.”
    
            Nicolle Wallace, host of MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” later joined in the rebuke, saying on her program that the network’s decision to hire McDaniel was nothing short of a potential threat to democracy.
    
            “NBC News is, either wittingly or unwittingly, teaching election deniers that what they can do stretches well beyond appearing on our air and interviews to peddle lies about the sanctity and integrity of our elections,” Wallace told viewers.
    
            Rachel Maddow — the network’s biggest star — later devoted the first half-hour of her prime-time program to the controversy, saying the decision to hire McDaniel was “inexplicable.” Maddow took issue with McDaniel’s long track record of demonizing the news media, labeling the press as “fake news,” and launching ugly attacks on NBC News journalists and MSNBC hosts.
    
            “We do not take it personally when we get attacked, when they say they want to put us on trial and execute us for treason,” she said.
    
            “And so I want to associate myself with all my colleagues at MSNBC and NBC News who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company for putting on the payroll someone who hasn’t just attacked us as journalists, but someone who is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government,” she said of McDaniel. “Someone who is still trying to convince Americans that this election stuff doesn’t really work. That this last election wasn’t a real result. That American elections are fraudulent.“
    
            The on-air revolt ensnared NBC’s top leaders, including NBCUniversal News Group chair Cesar Conde, NBC News president Rebecca Blumenstein and senior vice president of politics Carrie Budoff Brown, who were responsible for McDaniel’s hiring. MSNBC president Rashida Jones also did not object to the decision, people familiar with the matter said.
    
            In the wake of Conde’s announcement to sever ties with McDaniel, MSNBC host Joy Reid and Maddow addressed the reversal on the network’s air, praising the move as “bold” and “strong.”
    
            “I think it is a show of strength and a show of respect for the people who work at this company and make us who we are,” Maddow said. “That leadership was willing to change on this, I’m grateful to them.”",CNN,26/03/2024,"['NBC News on Tuesday ousted former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, just days after her hiring as a paid political analyst sparked intense backlash from the network’s top television anchors over McDaniel’s role in subverting the 2020 election and attacks on the press.', '“There is no doubt that the last several days have been difficult for the News Group,” NBCUniversal News Group President Cesar Conde said in a memo to staff. “', 'After listening to the legitimate concerns of many of you, I have decided that Ronna McDaniel will not be an NBC News contributor.”', '“I want to personally apologize to our team members who felt we let them down,” Conde continued. “', 'While this was a collective recommendation by some members of our leadership team, I approved it and take full responsibility for it.”', 'Ahead of the network’s decision, McDaniel spent the day Tuesday interviewing attorneys in preparation for a potential legal battle with NBC, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.', 'Creative Artists Agency, the talent agency that brokered McDaniel’s deal with NBC, also parted ways with her, the person said.', 'The reversal comes after journalists and anchors at both NBC and its cable news sibling MSNBC publicly denounced the decision to hire McDaniel as a paid analyst in a stunning and unprecedented on-air rebuke of network brass that has embarrassed the Peacock Network.', 'McDaniel, who recently stepped down from the RNC under pressure from former President Donald Trump, was involved in attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.', 'As head of the RNC, she was involved in a phone call in 2020 to pressure Michigan county officials not to certify the vote from the Detroit area, where Joe Biden had a commanding lead.', 'McDanieltold the officials, regarding the certification: “Do not sign it. …', 'We will get you attorneys.”', 'In the years since, McDaniel continued to claim that the election had “problems” and that Biden did not legitimately win the election, fanning the flames of election denialism.', 'NBC’s announcement Friday that it had hired McDaniel was quickly met with alarm by the network’s journalists.', 'The revolt spilled into public view on Sunday when McDaniel appeared on “Meet the Press” with moderator Kristen Welker in her first interview since she was hired by the network.', 'Welker disclosed that the interview had been scheduled to take place prior to NBC announcing McDaniel would become a paid contributor for the network, stating that she had no involvement in her hiring.', 'Following the interview, Chuck Todd, NBC News’ chief political analyst, delivered a stinging on-air criticism of NBC executives for their decision to hire McDaniel, telling Welker, “I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation.”', '“There’s a reason a lot of journalists at NBC News are uncomfortable with this,” Todd said, explaining that under McDaniel, the RNC engaged in “gaslighting” and “character assassination” when dealing with the news media.', 'The following day, MSNBC hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough joined Todd in protesting the decision on their program “Morning Joe.”', '“To be clear, we believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage, but it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier,”Brzezinski said. “', 'We hope NBC will reconsider its decision.', 'It goes without saying that she will not be a guest on ‘Morning Joe’ in her capacity as a paid contributor.”', 'Nicolle Wallace, host of MSNBC’s “Deadline: White House,” later joined in the rebuke, saying on her program that the network’s decision to hire McDaniel was nothing short of a potential threat to democracy.', '“NBC News is, either wittingly or unwittingly, teaching election deniers that what they can do stretches well beyond appearing on our air and interviews to peddle lies about the sanctity and integrity of our elections,” Wallace told viewers.', 'Rachel Maddow — the network’s biggest star — later devoted the first half-hour of her prime-time program to the controversy, saying the decision to hire McDaniel was “inexplicable.”', 'Maddow took issue with McDaniel’s long track record of demonizing the news media, labeling the press as “fake news,” and launching ugly attacks on NBC News journalists and MSNBC hosts.', '“We do not take it personally when we get attacked, when they say they want to put us on trial and execute us for treason,” she said.', '“And so I want to associate myself with all my colleagues at MSNBC and NBC News who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company for putting on the payroll someone who hasn’t just attacked us as journalists, but someone who is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government,” she said of McDaniel. “', 'Someone who is still trying to convince Americans that this election stuff doesn’t really work.', 'That this last election wasn’t a real result.', 'That American elections are fraudulent.“', 'The on-air revolt ensnared NBC’s top leaders, including NBCUniversal News Group chair Cesar Conde, NBC News president Rebecca Blumenstein and senior vice president of politics Carrie Budoff Brown, who were responsible for McDaniel’s hiring.', 'MSNBC president Rashida Jones also did not object to the decision, people familiar with the matter said.', 'In the wake of Conde’s announcement to sever ties with McDaniel, MSNBC host Joy Reid and Maddow addressed the reversal on the network’s air, praising the move as “bold” and “strong.”', '“I think it is a show of strength and a show of respect for the people who work at this company and make us who we are,” Maddow said. “', 'That leadership was willing to change on this, I’m grateful to them.”']",-0.0710578434549836,"In the wake of Conde’s announcement to sever ties with McDaniel, MSNBC host Joy Reid and Maddow addressed the reversal on the network’s air, praising the move as “bold” and “strong.”","Maddow took issue with McDaniel’s long track record of demonizing the news media, labeling the press as “fake news,” and launching ugly attacks on NBC News journalists and MSNBC hosts.",-0.4204912036657333,"In the wake of Conde’s announcement to sever ties with McDaniel, MSNBC host Joy Reid and Maddow addressed the reversal on the network’s air, praising the move as “bold” and “strong.”",The reversal comes after journalists and anchors at both NBC and its cable news sibling MSNBC publicly denounced the decision to hire McDaniel as a paid analyst in a stunning and unprecedented on-air rebuke of network brass that has embarrassed the Peacock Network.,2024-04-28
NBC News boss Cesar Conde faces backlash from his network’s anchors over ‘inexplicable’ decision to hire ex-RNC chair Ronna McDaniel,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/media/nbc-news-cesar-conde-ronna-mcdaniel-backlash/index.html,"
  Published
        8:05 AM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
    ","Cesar Conde has a decision to make — and it’s not an especially difficult one.
    
            The NBCUniversal News Group chair is facing a torrent of backlash from his own staff after greenlighting the hire of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel as a paid network contributor.
    
            Over the last 24 hours, the most prominent and recognizable NBC News and MSNBC personalities have voiced strong displeasure with the company’s decision to welcome McDaniel to “the team.” And they’re not doing it via anonymous comments to the press. They’re doing it on the record on NBCU’s own air. Chuck Todd broke the dam on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” with a set of candid comments about the hiring, and Rachel Maddow capped the flood of backlash Monday night with a blistering 30-minute monologue eviscerating the network’s leadership for the “inexplicable” move.
    
            Suffice to say, NBCU News Group is in unprecedented territory. Never has a network’s C-suite ever been so thoroughly flogged by its most high-profile stars in such no holds barred fashion. Saying that Conde simply has a crisis on his hands would be a contender for understatement of the year. It’s a five-alarm fire at NBCU News Group, and one of Conde’s own making.
    
            While NBC News president Rebecca Blumenstein and senior vice president of politics Carrie Budoff Brown were most directly responsible for McDaniel’s hiring, a decision that MSNBC boss Rashida Jones did not object to it at the time, the buck ultimately stops with Conde, who hold the real power at the Peacock Network. McDaniel’s hiring could not have happened without Conde’s blessing.
    
            It does not take a brilliant political mind with prescient foresight to understand that hiring McDaniel would ignite a firestorm of outrage — from both within 30 Rock and outside it. Conde, someone who ostensibly supports American democracy, should have rejected McDaniel’s hiring on the grounds that NBCU News Group could not put someone on its payroll who tried to subvert the 2020 vote.
    
            As so many of NBCU’s staffers have underscored, the objection to McDaniel is not that she is a Republican. It’s not even that she is a Donald Trump-supporting Republican. It’s that she was an active participant in the plot to overthrow the last presidential election. That is not to even mention McDaniel’s years of demonizing the press, smearing the journalists who work at NBC News and MSNBC as she sought to destroy the credibility of the organization that she ran to after being chased out of the RNC.
    
            The notion put forward by NBC that it needed to hire McDaniel to bring its viewers “an insider’s perspective on national politics and the future of the Republican Party” is absurd. If that’s the case, the network should move to hire free agents like Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens. They too have their hands on the pulse of the Republican Party. In fact, they represent much more of where the GOP stands today than McDaniel. So, using NBC’s logic, why not hire them? (Spoiler: News organizations rightfully have established basic standards for paid contributors. Asking that your employees have a commitment to democracy, to the truth, and to basic decency is not a big ask.)
    
            But even if Conde has no allegiance to basic democratic principles, which this hire calls into question, given that he is known to be a political player who cares deeply about his own image in the press, he should have been wise enough to foresee that hiring McDaniel would be an ill-conceived move. How this did not occur to Conde is unfathomable and shows a tremendous lack of judgment.
    
            Even more bizarre is Conde’s management, or lack thereof, since the controversy erupted. It was clear early on that his employees at NBC News and MSNBC did not support McDaniel’s hiring. If that was not evident on Friday, it was clear as day on Sunday after “Meet the Press.” The network’s employees were not only flabbergasted and demoralized by the move, but absolutely enraged by it.
    
            At that point, the writing should have been on the wall for Conde — as it was for every other media executive that I have spoken with over the last 24 hours. It is evident that McDaniel has no real future as an NBC analyst and the decision to bring her on as a contributor will have to be reversed. After all, which NBC or MSNBC program is going to invite her on after all of this?
    
            The only real question for Conde after the Sunday morning scolding should have been how he chose to back out of the deal in the least painful way possible. To be fully honest, I very much expected a Sunday evening announcement from NBC, one that would have earned praise from the company’s staff and quickly been swept away by the rush of Trump news Monday morning.
    
            But no such announcement came.
    
            Instead, Conde has allowed the mess to spiral absolutely out of control. MSNBC’s top stars hammered the network’s leadership throughout the day Monday over the hire. NBC News’ Guild blasted Conde, saying in a statement that under him the company had quietly laid off employees over the last month and instead chosen to “prioritize an election denier over its reporters.” The already severe crisis was allowed to blossom into one of the worst corporate public relations catastrophes in recent memory.
    
            All the while, Conde has remained silent. I asked his spokesperson, Stephen Labaton, on Monday whether the NBCU News Group boss had any comment on the situation. Does he have any regret? I didn’t get an on-the-record response. Suffice to say, however, that what Conde does moving forward will say a lot about his character and commitment to democratic values. It will also say a lot about the NBCU News Group and what type of organization it is.
    
            In her biting monologue on Monday night, however, Maddow did offer Conde a way out of this mess.
    
            “Mistakes will be made,” Maddow said.”But our resilience as a democracy is going to be recognizing when decisions are bad ones and reversing those bad decisions. Hearing legitimate criticism, responding to it, and correcting course. Not digging in. Not blaming others. Take a minute. Acknowledge that maybe it wasn’t the right call.”
    
            “It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to acknowledge when you are wrong,” Maddow added. “It is a sign of strength. And our country needs us to be strong now.”",CNN,26/03/2024,"['Cesar Conde has a decision to make — and it’s not an especially difficult one.', 'The NBCUniversal News Group chair is facing a torrent of backlash from his own staff after greenlighting the hire of former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel as a paid network contributor.', 'Over the last 24 hours, the most prominent and recognizable NBC News and MSNBC personalities have voiced strong displeasure with the company’s decision to welcome McDaniel to “the team.”', 'And they’re not doing it via anonymous comments to the press.', 'They’re doing it on the record on NBCU’s own air.', 'Chuck Todd broke the dam on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” with a set of candid comments about the hiring, and Rachel Maddow capped the flood of backlash Monday night with a blistering 30-minute monologue eviscerating the network’s leadership for the “inexplicable” move.', 'Suffice to say, NBCU News Group is in unprecedented territory.', 'Never has a network’s C-suite ever been so thoroughly flogged by its most high-profile stars in such no holds barred fashion.', 'Saying that Conde simply has a crisis on his hands would be a contender for understatement of the year.', 'It’s a five-alarm fire at NBCU News Group, and one of Conde’s own making.', 'While NBC News president Rebecca Blumenstein and senior vice president of politics Carrie Budoff Brown were most directly responsible for McDaniel’s hiring, a decision that MSNBC boss Rashida Jones did not object to it at the time, the buck ultimately stops with Conde, who hold the real power at the Peacock Network.', 'McDaniel’s hiring could not have happened without Conde’s blessing.', 'It does not take a brilliant political mind with prescient foresight to understand that hiring McDaniel would ignite a firestorm of outrage — from both within 30 Rock and outside it.', 'Conde, someone who ostensibly supports American democracy, should have rejected McDaniel’s hiring on the grounds that NBCU News Group could not put someone on its payroll who tried to subvert the 2020 vote.', 'As so many of NBCU’s staffers have underscored, the objection to McDaniel is not that she is a Republican.', 'It’s not even that she is a Donald Trump-supporting Republican.', 'It’s that she was an active participant in the plot to overthrow the last presidential election.', 'That is not to even mention McDaniel’s years of demonizing the press, smearing the journalists who work at NBC News and MSNBC as she sought to destroy the credibility of the organization that she ran to after being chased out of the RNC.', 'The notion put forward by NBC that it needed to hire McDaniel to bring its viewers “an insider’s perspective on national politics and the future of the Republican Party” is absurd.', 'If that’s the case, the network should move to hire free agents like Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens.', 'They too have their hands on the pulse of the Republican Party.', 'In fact, they represent much more of where the GOP stands today than McDaniel.', 'So, using NBC’s logic, why not hire them? (', 'Spoiler: News organizations rightfully have established basic standards for paid contributors.', 'Asking that your employees have a commitment to democracy, to the truth, and to basic decency is not a big ask.)', 'But even if Conde has no allegiance to basic democratic principles, which this hire calls into question, given that he is known to be a political player who cares deeply about his own image in the press, he should have been wise enough to foresee that hiring McDaniel would be an ill-conceived move.', 'How this did not occur to Conde is unfathomable and shows a tremendous lack of judgment.', 'Even more bizarre is Conde’s management, or lack thereof, since the controversy erupted.', 'It was clear early on that his employees at NBC News and MSNBC did not support McDaniel’s hiring.', 'If that was not evident on Friday, it was clear as day on Sunday after “Meet the Press.”', 'The network’s employees were not only flabbergasted and demoralized by the move, but absolutely enraged by it.', 'At that point, the writing should have been on the wall for Conde — as it was for every other media executive that I have spoken with over the last 24 hours.', 'It is evident that McDaniel has no real future as an NBC analyst and the decision to bring her on as a contributor will have to be reversed.', 'After all, which NBC or MSNBC program is going to invite her on after all of this?', 'The only real question for Conde after the Sunday morning scolding should have been how he chose to back out of the deal in the least painful way possible.', 'To be fully honest, I very much expected a Sunday evening announcement from NBC, one that would have earned praise from the company’s staff and quickly been swept away by the rush of Trump news Monday morning.', 'But no such announcement came.', 'Instead, Conde has allowed the mess to spiral absolutely out of control.', 'MSNBC’s top stars hammered the network’s leadership throughout the day Monday over the hire.', 'NBC News’ Guild blasted Conde, saying in a statement that under him the company had quietly laid off employees over the last month and instead chosen to “prioritize an election denier over its reporters.”', 'The already severe crisis was allowed to blossom into one of the worst corporate public relations catastrophes in recent memory.', 'All the while, Conde has remained silent.', 'I asked his spokesperson, Stephen Labaton, on Monday whether the NBCU News Group boss had any comment on the situation.', 'Does he have any regret?', 'I didn’t get an on-the-record response.', 'Suffice to say, however, that what Conde does moving forward will say a lot about his character and commitment to democratic values.', 'It will also say a lot about the NBCU News Group and what type of organization it is.', 'In her biting monologue on Monday night, however, Maddow did offer Conde a way out of this mess.', '“Mistakes will be made,” Maddow said.', '”But our resilience as a democracy is going to be recognizing when decisions are bad ones and reversing those bad decisions.', 'Hearing legitimate criticism, responding to it, and correcting course.', 'Not digging in.', 'Not blaming others.', 'Take a minute.', 'Acknowledge that maybe it wasn’t the right call.”', '“It is a sign of strength, not weakness, to acknowledge when you are wrong,” Maddow added. “', 'It is a sign of strength.', 'And our country needs us to be strong now.”']",-0.032955005531589,"Over the last 24 hours, the most prominent and recognizable NBC News and MSNBC personalities have voiced strong displeasure with the company’s decision to welcome McDaniel to “the team.”",The already severe crisis was allowed to blossom into one of the worst corporate public relations catastrophes in recent memory.,-0.5018035081716684,"To be fully honest, I very much expected a Sunday evening announcement from NBC, one that would have earned praise from the company’s staff and quickly been swept away by the rush of Trump news Monday morning.","The network’s employees were not only flabbergasted and demoralized by the move, but absolutely enraged by it.",2024-04-28
Boeing: Dead whistleblower warned of safety breaches,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/68907597,2024-04-26T21:01:13.000Z,"A former Boeing employee, who was found dead in March, accused the company of ""countless"" violations of US law in testimony given just before his death. John Barnett claimed the firm tried to ""eliminate"" quality inspections at a plant that makes 787 planes. The former quality control manager had been giving a formal legal deposition against the plane manufacturer. The 62-year-old's death after two days of testimony was from a ""self-inflicted gunshot wound"", officials said. Boeing says it was ""saddened"" by Mr Barnett's death, but said the issues he raised had been reviewed and addressed. The aerospace giant's safety standards are currently under the spotlight, in part due to an incident in January when a disused door fell off a brand new 737 Max shortly after take-off. The transcript of Mr Barnett's deposition has now been released by his lawyers. The lengthy document runs to more than 140 pages. Mr Barnett had worked for Boeing for more than 30 years before his retirement on health grounds in 2017. He subsequently filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming he had suffered retaliation from managers after raising a number of serious safety concerns, a charge the company denies. The bulk of Mr Barnett's deposition focuses on the period from 2010 onwards, after he had moved from Boeing's facility in Everett, Washington to what was then a brand-new factory in North Charleston. The plant had been set up to help assemble the 787 Dreamliner, a state-of-the-art airliner used mainly on long-haul routes. Mr Barnett had previously told the BBC and others that managers there had routinely ignored formal procedures in order to build planes as quickly as possible. In his deposition, he provided more detail on these allegations, in support of his legal complaint that he had been ""denigrated, humiliated and treated with scorn"" by senior managers, who had subjected him to a gaslighting campaign, and created a ""hostile work environment"" as a result of his actions. A key part of his testimony focused on the alleged falsification of records relating to problems within the production process and in particular the logging of defective or substandard parts. He claimed employees had been under pressure to circumvent established procedures, set out in Boeing's own Quality Management System, to save time. A common theme within the factory, he said, was: ""We don't have time to follow processes, we're building airplanes"". This, he said, had allowed ""an awful lot"" of faulty parts onto the production line, while others had simply been lost. These included two large sections of aircraft fuselage, which ""weren't anywhere to be found"". In one specific instance, he claimed a contaminated and faulty tube designed to work in an oxygen system had been removed from a scrap bin and might have been installed on an aircraft that was now in service. Such parts normally had to be carefully sterilised to reduce the risk of unwanted chemical reactions. Without that, he said, there was a risk that if the system was activated, it could cause an explosion that would ""bring the whole plane down"". He suggested that there had been ""countless"" occasions on which paperwork had been falsified, and agreed with his lawyer's suggestion that each violation of procedure amounted to a ""criminal offense and felony"". Mr Barnett was also deeply critical of what he saw as a drive at the South Carolina plant to reduce quality control inspections, again to speed up the manufacturing process. ""So the push for probably the last 15 to 20 years at Boeing is to eliminate quality [inspections]"", he said. ""But when here in Charleston they put that push on steroids"". Boeing's own lawyers focused more on Mr Barnett's claims that he had been retaliated against, and appeared to question his assertion that his safety concerns had not been taken seriously at the time. In a statement given to the BBC, Boeing said: ""We are saddened by Mr Barnett's passing and our thoughts continue to be with his family and friends. ""Boeing reviewed and addressed quality issues that Mr Barnett raised before he retired in 2017, as well as other quality issues referred to in the complaint. Engineering analysis determined the issues he raised did not affect airplane safety"". It also drew attention to a decision made earlier in Mr Barnett's case, in 2020, in which the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration concluded the company had not breached whistleblower protection law. It added: ""We appreciate employees who raise their voice, and we have systems in place to encourage them to speak up confidentially or anonymously. ""To ensure the safety, quality and conformance of our products, we investigate all allegations of improper behaviour. We then work diligently to address them and make improvements."" Mr Barnett's lawsuit is expected to continue. It will be taken forward by his mother Vicky Stokes and his brother Rodney Barnett as representatives of his estate. The case is now expected to go to trial in September. ",BBC,26/04/2024,"['A former Boeing employee, who was found dead in March, accused the company of ""countless"" violations of US law in testimony given just before his death.', 'John Barnett claimed the firm tried to ""eliminate"" quality inspections at a plant that makes 787 planes.', 'The former quality control manager had been giving a formal legal deposition against the plane manufacturer.', 'The 62-year-old\'s death after two days of testimony was from a ""self-inflicted gunshot wound"", officials said.', 'Boeing says it was ""saddened"" by Mr Barnett\'s death, but said the issues he raised had been reviewed and addressed.', ""The aerospace giant's safety standards are currently under the spotlight, in part due to an incident in January when a disused door fell off a brand new 737 Max shortly after take-off."", ""The transcript of Mr Barnett's deposition has now been released by his lawyers."", 'The lengthy document runs to more than 140 pages.', 'Mr Barnett had worked for Boeing for more than 30 years before his retirement on health grounds in 2017.', 'He subsequently filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming he had suffered retaliation from managers after raising a number of serious safety concerns, a charge the company denies.', ""The bulk of Mr Barnett's deposition focuses on the period from 2010 onwards, after he had moved from Boeing's facility in Everett, Washington to what was then a brand-new factory in North Charleston."", 'The plant had been set up to help assemble the 787 Dreamliner, a state-of-the-art airliner used mainly on long-haul routes.', 'Mr Barnett had previously told the BBC and others that managers there had routinely ignored formal procedures in order to build planes as quickly as possible.', 'In his deposition, he provided more detail on these allegations, in support of his legal complaint that he had been ""denigrated, humiliated and treated with scorn"" by senior managers, who had subjected him to a gaslighting campaign, and created a ""hostile work environment"" as a result of his actions.', 'A key part of his testimony focused on the alleged falsification of records relating to problems within the production process and in particular the logging of defective or substandard parts.', ""He claimed employees had been under pressure to circumvent established procedures, set out in Boeing's own Quality Management System, to save time."", 'A common theme within the factory, he said, was: ""We don\'t have time to follow processes, we\'re building airplanes"".', 'This, he said, had allowed ""an awful lot"" of faulty parts onto the production line, while others had simply been lost.', 'These included two large sections of aircraft fuselage, which ""weren\'t anywhere to be found"".', 'In one specific instance, he claimed a contaminated and faulty tube designed to work in an oxygen system had been removed from a scrap bin and might have been installed on an aircraft that was now in service.', 'Such parts normally had to be carefully sterilised to reduce the risk of unwanted chemical reactions.', 'Without that, he said, there was a risk that if the system was activated, it could cause an explosion that would ""bring the whole plane down"".', 'He suggested that there had been ""countless"" occasions on which paperwork had been falsified, and agreed with his lawyer\'s suggestion that each violation of procedure amounted to a ""criminal offense and felony"".', 'Mr Barnett was also deeply critical of what he saw as a drive at the South Carolina plant to reduce quality control inspections, again to speed up the manufacturing process. ""', 'So the push for probably the last 15 to 20 years at Boeing is to eliminate quality [inspections]"", he said. ""', 'But when here in Charleston they put that push on steroids"".', ""Boeing's own lawyers focused more on Mr Barnett's claims that he had been retaliated against, and appeared to question his assertion that his safety concerns had not been taken seriously at the time."", 'In a statement given to the BBC, Boeing said: ""We are saddened by Mr Barnett\'s passing and our thoughts continue to be with his family and friends. ""', 'Boeing reviewed and addressed quality issues that Mr Barnett raised before he retired in 2017, as well as other quality issues referred to in the complaint.', 'Engineering analysis determined the issues he raised did not affect airplane safety"".', ""It also drew attention to a decision made earlier in Mr Barnett's case, in 2020, in which the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration concluded the company had not breached whistleblower protection law."", 'It added: ""We appreciate employees who raise their voice, and we have systems in place to encourage them to speak up confidentially or anonymously. ""', 'To ensure the safety, quality and conformance of our products, we investigate all allegations of improper behaviour.', 'We then work diligently to address them and make improvements.""', ""Mr Barnett's lawsuit is expected to continue."", 'It will be taken forward by his mother Vicky Stokes and his brother Rodney Barnett as representatives of his estate.', 'The case is now expected to go to trial in September.']",-0.0823417804701127,"It added: ""We appreciate employees who raise their voice, and we have systems in place to encourage them to speak up confidentially or anonymously. ""","A former Boeing employee, who was found dead in March, accused the company of ""countless"" violations of US law in testimony given just before his death.",-0.8674986958503723,,"He subsequently filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming he had suffered retaliation from managers after raising a number of serious safety concerns, a charge the company denies.",2024-04-28
Opinion: The drama around Sam Altman is an urgent warning,https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/21/opinions/sam-altman-openai-ouster-danger-filipovic/index.html,"
  Published
        9:50 AM EST, Tue November 21, 2023
    ","The biggest tech news this week is the ouster of Sam Altman from his role as CEO of OpenAI, a move that has shaken the company and the industry. Hundreds of OpenAI employees have threatened to resign. Altman has already moved on to a role at Microsoft. And OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is on its third CEO in as many days.
    
            It’s all very juicy. But this drama should also be raising larger questions, far beyond one company’s internal hirings and firings, including: Who are the people making the decisions that will determine so much of our technological future? What guiding principles are they using to make those decisions? And how should other institutions – governments, non-tech industries, global alliances, regulatory bodies – reign in the worst excesses of potentially dangerous AI innovators?
    
            OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit, with an explicit mission to harness what may soon be superhuman intelligence “to benefit humanity as a whole.” But that sensibility hasn’t lasted. The company now has a multi-billion-dollar for-profit arm. They have been developing new technologies at lightning speed, and sometimes sending them out to the public before some employees believed they were ready. The company has already reportedly invented an AI technology so dangerous they will never release it – but they also won’t tell reporters or the public exactly what it is.
    
            This dynamic – a potentially dangerous technology developed at extreme speed, largely behind closed doors – is partly to blame for Altman’s firing. The OpenAI board, according to CNN’s David Goldman, worried that “the company was making the technological equivalent of a nuclear bomb, and its caretaker, Sam Altman, was moving so fast that he risked a global catastrophe.” At particular issue seemed to be Altman’s efforts to make the tools behind ChatGPT available to anyone who wanted to make their own version of the chatbot. This could be widely disastrous, some board members worried.
    
            But then they fired him without warning, and apparently without involving Microsoft, the company’s largest shareholder. Now, Altman is at the new AI group at Microsoft, and one has to wonder if the oversight and caution there will be on par with that at OpenAI, or if he’ll be handed carte blanche to push as fast and hard as he wants. And for all the justified reticence of the OpenAI board, the company has carried out much of its work in secrecy – without the public really understanding what a handful of unaccountable technologists are building, and how it is nearly guaranteed to indelibly change their lives.
    
            AI is broadly understood to have the potential to reshape vast swaths of human existence. At the very least, it seems nearly guaranteed to change how we process information, how we communicate, how we learn and how we work (and if we work). And the ramifications could be much more extreme. AI technologies have already demonstrated the ability to lie and to cover their tracks. They have already been able to suggest the design to make a virus spread more quickly. Many researchers acutely understand just how quickly these machines could develop the capacity to annihilate us, including Altman: He has a prepper’s paradise prepared in Big Sur, complete with guns and “gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force” in case AI goes off the rails and the robots go to war against humans, according to reporting in the New Yorker.
    
            But don’t worry, he told an Atlantic reporter: If AI is determined to wipe us out, “no gas mask is helping anyone.” (If you want an excellent and terrifying rundown of AI’s risks – at least those we understand right now, which are almost certainly a mere sliver of the looming perils – the Atlantic profile of Altman and his technology is worth a read).
    
            AI is very exciting technology. But it is also a potentially very dangerous one, and not in the social media sense of “it may give us bad self-esteem and make us lonelier” but in the sense of “it could break down human societies and kill us all.”
    
            Given the life-altering potential of AI – that even if it doesn’t kill us all, it will almost certainly change human existence in unprecedented ways at unprecedented speed – we all have a stake in how it’s being developed. And yet the development is being left to a handful of people (who seem to be largely men) in Silicon Valley, and other tech pockets around the globe. And we all have a stake in whose interests AI will serve – and right now, its development is being funded with billions of dollars by people expecting to make a huge profit.
    
            Do the interests of the public align with the interests of the shareholders to whom profit-driven, potentially tremendously lucrative-for-a-few companies are beholden? Or with the interests of tech entrepreneurs who are primarily excited about being at the forefront of the AI revolution, regardless of the potential human costs?
    
            One thing is clear: AI is coming. And how it is built and unleashed on the public matters more than perhaps any technology of the past century. It is, indeed, up there with the atom bomb in its destructive potential – except likely more difficult to regulate and control.
    
            “Regulation” does not begin to scratch the surface of what’s needed to make sure that the AI future is not a catastrophic one, especially since the development of AI is now a massive international arms race, with particularly horrific implications if bad actors develop this technology first. But regulation is, at minimum, a necessary step.
    
            So is transparency: In the US, companies have wide leverage to work behind a veil of secrecy, and much of what AI companies do is kept secret to stymy competition. But the public certainly has a right to understand what life-altering technologies are set to be inflicted upon us, and what the creators are doing to protect humanity – our jobs, our communities, our families, our connections, our educations and our abilities to build a life of purpose, but also our lives and our safety.
    
            The Altman story is fascinating because Altman is the most powerful figure in AI technology, which in effect makes him one of the most powerful men in the world. But that should give us pause: Who is he, what power does he hold, what is he doing with it, who does he answer to, and are we comfortable with this much life-altering potential being held by a few unaccountable people?",CNN,21/11/2023,"['The biggest tech news this week is theousterof Sam Altman from his role as CEO of OpenAI, a move that has shaken the company and the industry.', 'Hundreds of OpenAI employees have threatened toresign.', 'Altman has alreadymoved onto a role at Microsoft.', 'And OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is on itsthird CEOin as many days.', 'It’s all very juicy.', 'But this drama should also be raising larger questions, far beyond one company’s internal hirings and firings, including: Who are the people making the decisionsthat will determine so much of our technological future?', 'What guiding principles are they using to make those decisions?', 'And how should other institutions – governments, non-tech industries, global alliances, regulatory bodies – reign in the worst excesses of potentially dangerous AI innovators?', 'OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit, with an explicit mission to harness what may soon be superhuman intelligence “to benefit humanity as a whole.”', 'But that sensibility hasn’t lasted.', 'The company now has a multi-billion-dollar for-profit arm.', 'They have been developing new technologies at lightning speed, and sometimes sending them out to the publicbefore some employees believed they were ready.', 'The company has already reportedly invented an AI technology so dangerous they will never release it – but they alsowon’t tellreporters or the public exactly what it is.', 'This dynamic – a potentially dangerous technology developed at extreme speed, largely behind closed doors – is partly to blame for Altman’s firing.', 'The OpenAI board, according toCNN’s David Goldman, worried that “the company was making the technological equivalent of a nuclear bomb, and its caretaker, Sam Altman, was moving so fast that he risked a global catastrophe.”', 'At particular issue seemed to be Altman’s efforts to make the tools behind ChatGPT available to anyone who wanted to make their own version of the chatbot.', 'This could be widely disastrous, some board members worried.', 'But then they fired him without warning, and apparently without involving Microsoft, the company’s largest shareholder.', 'Now, Altman is at the new AI group at Microsoft, and one has to wonder if the oversight and caution there will be on par with that at OpenAI, or if he’ll be handed carte blanche to push as fast and hard as he wants.', 'And for all the justified reticence of the OpenAI board, the company has carried out much of its work in secrecy – without the public really understanding what a handful of unaccountable technologists are building, and how it is nearly guaranteed to indelibly change their lives.', 'AI is broadly understood to have the potential to reshape vast swaths of human existence.', 'At the very least, it seems nearly guaranteed to change how we process information, how we communicate, how we learn and how we work (and if we work).', 'And the ramifications could be much more extreme.', 'AI technologies have already demonstrated the abilityto lie and to cover their tracks.', 'They have already been able tosuggest the designto make a virus spread more quickly.', 'Many researchersacutely understandjust how quickly these machines could develop the capacity to annihilate us, including Altman: He has a prepper’s paradise prepared in Big Sur, complete with guns and “gas masks from the Israeli Defense Force” in case AI goes off the rails and the robots go to war against humans,according to reporting in the New Yorker.', 'But don’t worry, he told an Atlantic reporter: If AI is determined to wipe us out, “no gas mask is helping anyone.” (', 'If you want an excellent and terrifying rundown of AI’s risks – at least those we understand right now, which are almost certainly a mere sliver of the looming perils –the Atlantic profile of Altman and his technologyis worth a read).', 'AI is very exciting technology.', 'But it is also a potentially very dangerous one, and not in the social media sense of “it may give us bad self-esteem and make us lonelier” but in the sense of “it could break down human societies and kill us all.”', 'Given the life-altering potential of AI – that even if it doesn’t kill us all, it will almost certainly change human existence in unprecedented ways at unprecedented speed – we all have a stake in how it’s being developed.', 'And yet the development is being left to a handful of people (who seem to belargelymen) in Silicon Valley, and other tech pockets around the globe.', 'And we all have a stake in whose interests AI will serve – and right now, its development is being funded with billions of dollars by people expecting to make a huge profit.', 'Do the interests of the public align with the interests of the shareholders to whom profit-driven, potentially tremendously lucrative-for-a-few companies are beholden?', 'Or with the interests of tech entrepreneurs who are primarily excited about being at the forefront of the AI revolution, regardless of the potential human costs?', 'One thing is clear: AI is coming.', 'And how it is built and unleashed on the public matters more than perhaps any technology of the past century.', 'It is, indeed, up there with the atom bomb in its destructive potential – except likely more difficult to regulate and control.', '“Regulation” does not begin to scratch the surface of what’s needed to make sure that the AI future is not a catastrophic one, especially since the development of AI is now a massive international arms race, with particularly horrific implications if bad actors develop this technology first.', 'But regulation is, at minimum, a necessary step.', 'So is transparency: In the US, companies have wide leverage to work behind a veil of secrecy, and much of what AI companies do is kept secret to stymy competition.', 'But the public certainly has a right to understand what life-altering technologies are set to be inflicted upon us, and what the creators are doing to protect humanity – our jobs, our communities, our families, our connections, our educations and our abilities to build a life of purpose, but also our lives and our safety.', 'The Altman story is fascinating because Altman is the most powerful figure in AI technology, which in effect makes him one of the most powerful men in the world.', 'But that should give us pause: Who is he, what power does he hold, what is he doing with it, who does he answer to, and are we comfortable with this much life-altering potential being held by a few unaccountable people?']",0.0034737194649936,"But the public certainly has a right to understand what life-altering technologies are set to be inflicted upon us, and what the creators are doing to protect humanity – our jobs, our communities, our families, our connections, our educations and our abilities to build a life of purpose, but also our lives and our safety.","But it is also a potentially very dangerous one, and not in the social media sense of “it may give us bad self-esteem and make us lonelier” but in the sense of “it could break down human societies and kill us all.”",-0.2999433577060699,AI technologies have already demonstrated the abilityto lie and to cover their tracks.,"But it is also a potentially very dangerous one, and not in the social media sense of “it may give us bad self-esteem and make us lonelier” but in the sense of “it could break down human societies and kill us all.”",2024-04-28
Hungary opens up to Chinese tech despite protests,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68848770,2024-04-26T23:23:41.000Z,"""We do not intend to become the world leader,"" said Hungary's foreign minister in Beijing last October, about his country's ambitious plans for manufacturing Electric Vehicle batteries, ""because the world leader is China"".  China has an astonishing 79% share of the lithium-ion global battery manufacturing capacity, ahead of the US on 6%. Hungary is now third with 4% and aims soon to overtake the Americans, explained Peter Szijjarto, during his visit to China. With 36 factories already built, under construction or planned, his words were no idle boast.  Viktor Orban's Fidesz government has trumpeted its ""opening to the East"". When it comes to maintaining strong economic ties with Russia, Budapest draws considerable criticism. More important in economic terms are the growing ties with China and South Korea. Electric vehicles are the cornerstone of that push, and for once Hungary is attracting the envy of fellow EU members, rather than their approbation.  By this summer, there will be 17 flights a week between Budapest and Chinese cities. In 2023, China became the single biggest investor in Hungary with €10.7bn.   Looking south from the tower of the Reformed Great Church in Debrecen, the solid grey building blocks of China's CATL factory stretch into the distance. The world's biggest battery maker has a big foothold in eastern Hungary. Until last year sunflowers and oilseed rape painted the landscape green and yellow. Now the Chinese SemCorp separator foil factory and the Chinese EcoPro cathode plant have sprung up too.  Go past the construction site of Debrecen's new, all-electric BMW factory and you will find another Chinese battery maker, Eve Energy.  Meanwhile, bulldozers in southern Hungary are stripping the soil over a 300 hectare-site to prepare it for a Chinese ""gigafactory"" for BYD electric cars. South Korean and Japanese factories have already started manufacturing batteries or battery components here. ""Hungary is in the centre of Europe and in close proximity to the biggest industrial players in the automotive industry,"" says Noemi Sidlo from CATL's Hungarian division. It was an obvious destination and the local and national governments were keen to help, she explained.  Mr Orban's Fidesz government has bent over backwards to attract Chinese investment, promising CATL €800m in tax incentives and infrastructural support to clinch the deal - more than 10% of the €7.3bn investment. Add to that Chinese investment in a high-speed railway intended to connect Central Europe to the ports of Thessaloniki and Piraeus and Budapest's enthusiasm for Chinese investment is even clearer. The feeling appears to be mutual. When Chinese President Xi Jinping comes to Europe in May, he will visit just three countries - France, Serbia, and Hungary. What could still go wrong for Viktor Orban's plans?  Rather a lot, say his critics. Environmental protests against the swathe of factories are growing, despite near-silence in the Fidesz-controlled media about potential problems. The mayor of Debrecen, Laszlo Papp, has refused to talk to the BBC. Repeated emails to the foreign ministry and the Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency have gone unanswered.  Opponents complain that there is no way to challenge the projects locally because they have been granted ""enhanced national interest"" status. South of Debrecen lies the pretty village of Mikepercs which has become increasingly dwarfed by construction sites. ""None of us mothers are against green cars,"" says local campaigner Eva Kozma, ""but it is incredibly unfair they built such an enormous factory here, without asking the local people."" She points to environmental issues caused by battery factories elsewhere in Hungary: ""That's not a green future if everyone here gets cancer, just because in other towns people who are luckier than us can flit around in their nice green cars.""  Noemi Sidlo from CATL insists her fears are ungrounded. Water supply is also a major headache in Debrecen. Situated on the Great Hungarian plain, rainfall is in decline, underground water supplies are depleted, and government plans have so far come to little to retain more of the waters that flow through the Danube and Tisza rivers. Hungary risks trading its status as a water superpower, to become an electromobility superpower. Maps from the 19th Century show much of the current surface of the country covered in water. Another problem is labour, in a country where unemployment is below 5%.  CATL alone will need 9,000 workers, but the Hungarian government rides to power in election after election on a slogan of ""keep migrants out"". The right-wing Our Homeland Movement recently highlighted the growing number of Turkish workers in Debrecen, building the BMW plant.  Another concern among critics is that cheap labour, cheap land, and generous government incentives will turn Hungary into a ""servant-state"" of Chinese and South-East Asian companies.  The government acknowledges there is a risk that wages will be kept low and domestic research and development will be affected. ""We have to convince the investors, not only to bring production here, but also research,"" Balazs Orban, political director of the Prime Minister's Office told the BBC.  ""How we merge their research with the Hungarian companies. This is the biggest challenge for the upcoming 10 years."" ",BBC,26/04/2024,"['""We do not intend to become the world leader,"" said Hungary\'s foreign minister in Beijing last October, about his country\'s ambitious plans for manufacturing Electric Vehicle batteries, ""because the world leader is China"".', 'China has an astonishing 79% share of the lithium-ion global battery manufacturing capacity, ahead of the US on 6%.', 'Hungary is now third with 4% and aims soon to overtake the Americans, explained Peter Szijjarto, during his visit to China.', 'With 36 factories already built, under construction or planned, his words were no idle boast.', 'Viktor Orban\'s Fidesz government has trumpeted its ""opening to the East"".', 'When it comes to maintaining strong economic ties with Russia, Budapest draws considerable criticism.', 'More important in economic terms are the growing ties with China and South Korea.', 'Electric vehicles are the cornerstone of that push, and for once Hungary is attracting the envy of fellow EU members, rather than their approbation.', 'By this summer, there will be 17 flights a week between Budapest and Chinese cities.', 'In 2023, China became the single biggest investor in Hungary with €10.7bn.', ""Looking south from the tower of the Reformed Great Church in Debrecen, the solid grey building blocks of China's CATL factory stretch into the distance."", ""The world's biggest battery maker has a big foothold in eastern Hungary."", 'Until last year sunflowers and oilseed rape painted the landscape green and yellow.', 'Now the Chinese SemCorp separator foil factory and the Chinese EcoPro cathode plant have sprung up too.', ""Go past the construction site of Debrecen's new, all-electric BMW factory and you will find another Chinese battery maker, Eve Energy."", 'Meanwhile, bulldozers in southern Hungary are stripping the soil over a 300 hectare-site to prepare it for a Chinese ""gigafactory"" for BYD electric cars.', 'South Korean and Japanese factories have already started manufacturing batteries or battery components here. ""', 'Hungary is in the centre of Europe and in close proximity to the biggest industrial players in the automotive industry,"" says Noemi Sidlo from CATL\'s Hungarian division.', 'It was an obvious destination and the local and national governments were keen to help, she explained.', ""Mr Orban's Fidesz government has bent over backwards to attract Chinese investment, promising CATL €800m in tax incentives and infrastructural support to clinch the deal - more than 10% of the €7.3bn investment."", ""Add to that Chinese investment in a high-speed railway intended to connect Central Europe to the ports of Thessaloniki and Piraeus and Budapest's enthusiasm for Chinese investment is even clearer."", 'The feeling appears to be mutual.', 'When Chinese President Xi Jinping comes to Europe in May, he will visit just three countries - France, Serbia, and Hungary.', ""What could still go wrong for Viktor Orban's plans?"", 'Rather a lot, say his critics.', 'Environmental protests against the swathe of factories are growing, despite near-silence in the Fidesz-controlled media about potential problems.', 'The mayor of Debrecen, Laszlo Papp, has refused to talk to the BBC.', 'Repeated emails to the foreign ministry and the Hungarian Investment Promotion Agency have gone unanswered.', 'Opponents complain that there is no way to challenge the projects locally because they have been granted ""enhanced national interest"" status.', 'South of Debrecen lies the pretty village of Mikepercs which has become increasingly dwarfed by construction sites. ""', 'None of us mothers are against green cars,"" says local campaigner Eva Kozma, ""but it is incredibly unfair they built such an enormous factory here, without asking the local people.""', 'She points to environmental issues caused by battery factories elsewhere in Hungary: ""That\'s not a green future if everyone here gets cancer, just because in other towns people who are luckier than us can flit around in their nice green cars.""', 'Noemi Sidlo from CATL insists her fears are ungrounded.', 'Water supply is also a major headache in Debrecen.', 'Situated on the Great Hungarian plain, rainfall is in decline, underground water supplies are depleted, and government plans have so far come to little to retain more of the waters that flow through the Danube and Tisza rivers.', 'Hungary risks trading its status as a water superpower, to become an electromobility superpower.', 'Maps from the 19th Century show much of the current surface of the country covered in water.', 'Another problem is labour, in a country where unemployment is below 5%.', 'CATL alone will need 9,000 workers, but the Hungarian government rides to power in election after election on a slogan of ""keep migrants out"".', 'The right-wing Our Homeland Movement recently highlighted the growing number of Turkish workers in Debrecen, building the BMW plant.', 'Another concern among critics is that cheap labour, cheap land, and generous government incentives will turn Hungary into a ""servant-state"" of Chinese and South-East Asian companies.', 'The government acknowledges there is a risk that wages will be kept low and domestic research and development will be affected. ""', 'We have to convince the investors, not only to bring production here, but also research,"" Balazs Orban, political director of the Prime Minister\'s Office told the BBC. ""', 'How we merge their research with the Hungarian companies.', 'This is the biggest challenge for the upcoming 10 years.""']",0.0227902111288965,"Mr Orban's Fidesz government has bent over backwards to attract Chinese investment, promising CATL €800m in tax incentives and infrastructural support to clinch the deal - more than 10% of the €7.3bn investment.",Until last year sunflowers and oilseed rape painted the landscape green and yellow.,0.1730355262756347,Add to that Chinese investment in a high-speed railway intended to connect Central Europe to the ports of Thessaloniki and Piraeus and Budapest's enthusiasm for Chinese investment is even clearer.,"Situated on the Great Hungarian plain, rainfall is in decline, underground water supplies are depleted, and government plans have so far come to little to retain more of the waters that flow through the Danube and Tisza rivers.",2024-04-28
Do women-only co-working spaces have a future?,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68733573,2024-04-23T23:25:42.000Z,"Women-only business networking and co-working clubs like Chief in London and The Co-Working Space in Nottingham have recently closed their doors. The concept gained a lot of traction around the height of the MeToo movement. Some women find the idea a step backwards, but for others these clubs are a way to level the playing field. The idea of men-only ""gentlemen's clubs"" is well established, with centuries-old places like White's and The Garrick Club in London. But women-only ones have been on the rise too over the past decade, often with a twist - they focus on the idea of co-working. Co-working spaces are big, open-plan offices with hot desks and nice amenities where people can come and work on a membership basis. They have grown in popularity as remote working has become easier.  Women-only co-working spaces hit the headlines about eight years ago thanks to The Wing in the US. It was founded in New York by Audrey Gelman, former press secretary to Hillary Clinton, against the backdrop of the MeToo movement and Donald Trump's rise to power. It raised millions in funding, with a promise of female empowerment.  But then it suffered a spectacular fall during the pandemic. There was a staff revolt, with allegations of mistreatment and racism. Its pricing model led to accusations of social exclusivity. It was also hit by legal challenges for sexual discrimination over its core women-only membership policy. The self-proclaimed ""female utopia"" abruptly closed all of its spaces in the summer of 2022, including a branch in London. Despite the demise of The Wing, other women-only co-working spaces are still operating. There are about 50 in Europe, including several in the UK. One such place is The Hearth, in north London. Bonnie Lister Parsons, founder of SOS Dance Global, a digital platform that teaches women how to dance, is a regular. So why is she a member? It's been challenging growing her business as a woman, she explains, as only about 2% of venture capital funding goes to female-led companies. ""When you are operating in a world with a lot of headwinds, being in an all-female space is refreshing - and joyful,"" she says. She also says she wasn't impressed by her tour of the co-working space WeWork, where they were keen to boast about the free beer on tap: ""For the guy showing me round it was a massive selling point. I know not all women dislike beer, but personally, I couldn't care less.""  Audrey Gelman, founder of The Wing, used to argue that rival co-working spaces had ""pumps for beer, but not for breast milk"".  The Hearth is designed to feel like ""your dream home"", according to its founder Oi Leng Lui. The walls and furnishings are relaxing, pastel colours and an aromatic smell is pumped into the space where women hot desk. There is even a wellness room. Susie Campbell, a business adviser and coach, is another regular. ""I used to work in the City for many years - a very male-dominated environment,"" she explains. ""The air conditioning was always down too low... there's something just really safe here and a sense of community."" There are a handful of other women-only co-working spaces in the UK, including Egg in Edinburgh and Maven in Winchester, a former bridal shop which the owner decided to convert.  Zoe Ellis-Moore is the founder of Spaces to Places, which advises companies on how to find the best flexible office space. Women-only co-working spaces should be seen as part of a wider trend of people wanting to work flexibly in ""tribes"", she says. ""We've seen a huge growth in these niche areas,"" she says, ""like spaces for tech start-ups or flexible catering spaces for hospitality companies."" Start-ups and freelancers want to work flexibly, but with a community of like-minded people, she points out, and women-only spaces represent a tribe, just like these. In 2017, the New York City Commission on Human Rights launched an investigation into The Wing over the issue of gender discrimination and the following year, a man filed a lawsuit against The Wing in Washington DC after he was refused admission.   The Wing adapted its membership rules to say that anyone could join, as long as they were committed to its mission of supporting women.  Other women-only spaces in the US followed suit.  The Coven in Minnesota started in 2018 as a women-only space after a successful crowdfunding campaign and now has four spaces. It has 1,000 members but men now make up about 20% of that figure. ""We were hearing from members that they wanted to invite more of their male friends into the space,"" says Erin Farrell, co-founder of The Coven, ""which led us to think, when we talk about physical and psychological safety, how tied to gender is that?""  Ms Farrell says they were aware of the legal challenges that The Wing was facing, but their own language never excluded men, it was always just women-focused, so accepting men was not a significant issue.  Those that choose to join tend to be ""allies and accomplices"", she adds, and the clubs' amenities and programme of events remain women-focused. So where does this leave women-only spaces in the UK? ""Equality legislation in the UK [enshrined in the Equality Act] generally protects against discrimination based on gender in the supply of services,"" according to Sarah Evans, partner at Constantine Law, which specialises in employment and discrimination law, ""but there are exceptions, including for associations, groups and private clubs.""  ""Criteria apply, but women-only co-working groups, with the aim of supporting and facilitating women doing business together, are highly unlikely to fall foul of anti-discrimination laws,"" she says. The other pressing question is, are these spaces empowering women in the long term? Some workplace experts are not convinced. ""While women-only spaces can provide temporary relief from conflict, judgement, assumptions, and distractions,"" says Blaire Palmer, leadership consultant and author of Punks in Suits, ""it is vital that we all learn how to challenge each other and develop the skills to bring our unique perspective to our work.  ""Women-only spaces are useful for exploring, in a safer environment, the challenges of being a woman in what is still not a level playing field, but they should never become a place to hide permanently."" However, others think that women-only work clubs are counterproductive. ""Women-only co-working spaces are a step backwards,"" according to Anne Kirby, who set up The Candy Factory co-working space in Pennsylvania. ""Yes, women have unique challenges and are at a disadvantage in the business world, but how does removing yourself from real life get you anywhere? How can we expect men to understand the need for respect and equality if we subtract them from our daily work lives? ""We're working to disrupt the 'good ol' boys club' mentality; why create the same thing for women?""  Back downstairs at The Hearth, a lunch-and-learn workshop is taking place. The women who were working away on their laptops are now sitting in a square listening to a talk by Elena Megan, a self-discovery and mindset coach.  An audience member shares a story that perhaps explains the attraction of a women-only co-working space like this for some. She says she has always struggled to network with men because she feels they do not treat her like an equal professional.  The other members nod and murmur in agreement. ",BBC,23/04/2024,"['Women-only business networking and co-working clubs like Chief in London and The Co-Working Space in Nottingham have recently closed their doors.', 'The concept gained a lot of traction around the height of the MeToo movement.', 'Some women find the idea a step backwards, but for others these clubs are a way to level the playing field.', 'The idea of men-only ""gentlemen\'s clubs"" is well established, with centuries-old places like White\'s and The Garrick Club in London.', 'But women-only ones have been on the rise too over the past decade, often with a twist - they focus on the idea of co-working.', 'Co-working spaces are big, open-plan offices with hot desks and nice amenities where people can come and work on a membership basis.', 'They have grown in popularity as remote working has become easier.', 'Women-only co-working spaces hit the headlines about eight years ago thanks to The Wing in the US.', ""It was founded in New York by Audrey Gelman, former press secretary to Hillary Clinton, against the backdrop of the MeToo movement and Donald Trump's rise to power."", 'It raised millions in funding, with a promise of female empowerment.', 'But then it suffered a spectacular fall during the pandemic.', 'There was a staff revolt, with allegations of mistreatment and racism.', 'Its pricing model led to accusations of social exclusivity.', 'It was also hit by legal challenges for sexual discrimination over its core women-only membership policy.', 'The self-proclaimed ""female utopia"" abruptly closed all of its spaces in the summer of 2022, including a branch in London.', 'Despite the demise of The Wing, other women-only co-working spaces are still operating.', 'There are about 50 in Europe, including several in the UK.', 'One such place is The Hearth, in north London.', 'Bonnie Lister Parsons, founder of SOS Dance Global, a digital platform that teaches women how to dance, is a regular.', 'So why is she a member?', 'It\'s been challenging growing her business as a woman, she explains, as only about 2% of venture capital funding goes to female-led companies. ""', 'When you are operating in a world with a lot of headwinds, being in an all-female space is refreshing - and joyful,"" she says.', 'She also says she wasn\'t impressed by her tour of the co-working space WeWork, where they were keen to boast about the free beer on tap: ""For the guy showing me round it was a massive selling point.', 'I know not all women dislike beer, but personally, I couldn\'t care less.""', 'Audrey Gelman, founder of The Wing, used to argue that rival co-working spaces had ""pumps for beer, but not for breast milk"".', 'The Hearth is designed to feel like ""your dream home"", according to its founder Oi Leng Lui.', 'The walls and furnishings are relaxing, pastel colours and an aromatic smell is pumped into the space where women hot desk.', 'There is even a wellness room.', 'Susie Campbell, a business adviser and coach, is another regular. ""', 'I used to work in the City for many years - a very male-dominated environment,"" she explains. ""', 'The air conditioning was always down too low... there\'s something just really safe here and a sense of community.""', 'There are a handful of other women-only co-working spaces in the UK, including Egg in Edinburgh and Maven in Winchester, a former bridal shop which the owner decided to convert.', 'Zoe Ellis-Moore is the founder of Spaces to Places, which advises companies on how to find the best flexible office space.', 'Women-only co-working spaces should be seen as part of a wider trend of people wanting to work flexibly in ""tribes"", she says. ""', 'We\'ve seen a huge growth in these niche areas,"" she says, ""like spaces for tech start-ups or flexible catering spaces for hospitality companies.""', 'Start-ups and freelancers want to work flexibly, but with a community of like-minded people, she points out, and women-only spaces represent a tribe, just like these.', 'In 2017, the New York City Commission on Human Rights launched an investigation into The Wing over the issue of gender discrimination and the following year, a man filed a lawsuit against The Wing in Washington DC after he was refused admission.', 'The Wing adapted its membership rules to say that anyone could join, as long as they were committed to its mission of supporting women.', 'Other women-only spaces in the US followed suit.', 'The Coven in Minnesota started in 2018 as a women-only space after a successful crowdfunding campaign and now has four spaces.', 'It has 1,000 members but men now make up about 20% of that figure. ""', 'We were hearing from members that they wanted to invite more of their male friends into the space,"" says Erin Farrell, co-founder of The Coven, ""which led us to think, when we talk about physical and psychological safety, how tied to gender is that?""', 'Ms Farrell says they were aware of the legal challenges that The Wing was facing, but their own language never excluded men, it was always just women-focused, so accepting men was not a significant issue.', 'Those that choose to join tend to be ""allies and accomplices"", she adds, and the clubs\' amenities and programme of events remain women-focused.', 'So where does this leave women-only spaces in the UK? ""', 'Equality legislation in the UK [enshrined in the Equality Act] generally protects against discrimination based on gender in the supply of services,"" according to Sarah Evans, partner at Constantine Law, which specialises in employment and discrimination law, ""but there are exceptions, including for associations, groups and private clubs."" ""', 'Criteria apply, but women-only co-working groups, with the aim of supporting and facilitating women doing business together, are highly unlikely to fall foul of anti-discrimination laws,"" she says.', 'The other pressing question is, are these spaces empowering women in the long term?', 'Some workplace experts are not convinced. ""', 'While women-only spaces can provide temporary relief from conflict, judgement, assumptions, and distractions,"" says Blaire Palmer, leadership consultant and author of Punks in Suits, ""it is vital that we all learn how to challenge each other and develop the skills to bring our unique perspective to our work. ""', 'Women-only spaces are useful for exploring, in a safer environment, the challenges of being a woman in what is still not a level playing field, but they should never become a place to hide permanently.""', 'However, others think that women-only work clubs are counterproductive. ""', 'Women-only co-working spaces are a step backwards,"" according to Anne Kirby, who set up The Candy Factory co-working space in Pennsylvania. ""', 'Yes, women have unique challenges and are at a disadvantage in the business world, but how does removing yourself from real life get you anywhere?', 'How can we expect men to understand the need for respect and equality if we subtract them from our daily work lives? ""', 'We\'re working to disrupt the \'goodol\' boys club\' mentality; why create the same thing for women?""', 'Back downstairs at The Hearth, a lunch-and-learn workshop is taking place.', 'The women who were working away on their laptops are now sitting in a square listening to a talk by Elena Megan, a self-discovery and mindset coach.', 'An audience member shares a story that perhaps explains the attraction of a women-only co-working space like this for some.', 'She says she has always struggled to network with men because she feels they do not treat her like an equal professional.', 'The other members nod and murmur in agreement.']",0.226144467537617,"Ms Farrell says they were aware of the legal challenges that The Wing was facing, but their own language never excluded men, it was always just women-focused, so accepting men was not a significant issue.",She says she has always struggled to network with men because she feels they do not treat her like an equal professional.,-0.0436989710881159,"We've seen a huge growth in these niche areas,"" she says, ""like spaces for tech start-ups or flexible catering spaces for hospitality companies.""",But then it suffered a spectacular fall during the pandemic.,2024-04-28
"NBC hires former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, who has demonized the press and refused to acknowledge Biden was fairly elected",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/22/media/ronna-mcdaniel-nbc/index.html,"
  Published
        1:53 PM EDT, Fri March 22, 2024
    ","NBC News on Friday announced that it had hired Ronna McDaniel, the former Republican National Committee chair who has repeatedly attacked the network and its journalists, assailed the news media as “fake news” and promoted false claims around the 2020 vote, as an on-air commentator ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
    
            “It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team,” Carrie Budoff Brown, senior vice president of politics at NBC News, said in a memo to staff.
    
            McDaniel exited the RNC earlier this month after leading the organization since 2016.
    
            During her time as chair, McDaniel repeatedly attacked the press, which has become increasingly popular in Republican circles over the last several years as Donald Trump demonizes journalists and news institutions.
    
            McDaniel echoed many such attacks, labeling the press as “fake news” and calling the media “corrupt.” At times, she even targeted NBC News and MSNBC with dishonest attacks.
    
            In 2019, for instance, McDaniel accused Richard Engel, NBC News’ chief foreign correspondent, of “actively cheering for an economic downturn.”
    
            “How can NBC let him keep his job when he’s made his bias so clear?” McDaniel asked.
    
            McDaniel has a lengthier history attacking the progressive cable news channel MSNBC, which she will appear on in her new role. In recent years, she has repeatedly attacked the channel for “spreading lies” and blasted those she described as the network’s “primetime propagandists.”
    
            An NBC spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment about her attacks on the news media and NBC.
    
            In her role as RNC chief, McDaniel also fanned the flames of election denialism after the 2020 presidential contest.
    
            McDaniel was involved in a phone call in 2020 to pressure Michigan county officials not to certify the vote from the Detroit area, where Joe Biden had a commanding lead. McDaniel told the officials, regarding the certification: “Do not sign it. … We will get you attorneys.”
    
            The Michigan Department of State’s office condemned her claims of supposed voter fraud in the wake of the election, stating they had “no merit.” The state’s “elections were conducted fairly, effectively and transparently and are an accurate reflection of the will of Michigan voters,” it said in a detailed fact check posted online.
    
            In an interview with CNN’s Chris Wallace last year, McDaniel defended her claims of voting “irregularity” in the election.
    
            “I think saying that there were problems with 2020 is very real. I don’t think that’s election denying,” McDaniel told Wallace. “I’m from Wayne County. We had a woman send a note saying I’m being told to backdate ballots. We had to look into that. That’s deeply concerning. When you have friends who are poll-watching and being kicked out, that’s deeply concerning. We have every right to look at that.”
    
            In the interview, Wallace pressed McDaniel if she believed Biden legitimately won the election.
    
            “I think there were lots of problems with 2020. Ultimately, he won the election but there were lots of problems with the 2020 election,” she said. “But I don’t think he won it fair. I don’t. I’m not going to say that.”
    
            NBC’s hiring of McDaniel, however, plays into a recent trend at the network’s outlets, which has seemingly softened its stance on Trump as he inches toward the Republican nomination for president.
    
            Earlier this month, CNBC hosted Trump for a lengthy phone interview in which the network’s anchors allowed him to peddle lies and conspiracy theories on air without scrutiny.
    
            MSNBC has even started carrying Trump’s remarks live on television, a practice that the network boasted for years it would not do. Star host Rachel Maddow, who has said carrying Trump’s lies on the air is dangerous, even objected to the network broadcasting a recent speech from the presumptive Republican nominee, calling it “irresponsible.”",CNN,22/03/2024,"['NBC News on Friday announced that it had hired Ronna McDaniel, the former Republican National Committee chair who has repeatedlyattacked the network and its journalists,assailed thenewsmedia as “fake news” and promoted false claims around the 2020vote,as an on-air commentatorahead of the 2024 presidential election.', '“It couldn’t be a more important moment to have a voice like Ronna’s on the team,” Carrie Budoff Brown, senior vice president of politics at NBC News, said in a memoto staff.', 'McDaniel exited the RNC earlier this month after leading the organization since 2016.', 'During her time as chair, McDaniel repeatedly attacked the press, which has become increasingly popular in Republican circles over the last several years as Donald Trump demonizes journalists and news institutions.', 'McDaniel echoed many such attacks, labeling the press as “fake news” and calling the media “corrupt.”', 'At times, she even targeted NBC Newsand MSNBCwith dishonest attacks.', 'In 2019, for instance, McDaniel accused Richard Engel, NBC News’ chief foreign correspondent, of “actively cheering for an economic downturn.”', '“How can NBC let him keep his job when he’s made his bias so clear?”', 'McDaniel asked.', 'McDaniel has a lengthier history attacking the progressive cable news channel MSNBC, which she will appear on in her new role.', 'In recent years, she has repeatedly attacked the channel for “spreading lies” and blasted those she described as the network’s “primetime propagandists.”', 'An NBC spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment about her attacks on the news media and NBC.', 'In her role as RNC chief, McDaniel also fanned the flames of election denialism after the 2020 presidential contest.', 'McDaniel was involved in a phone call in 2020 to pressure Michigan county officials not to certify the vote from the Detroit area, where Joe Biden had a commanding lead.', 'McDanieltold the officials, regarding the certification: “Do not sign it. …', 'We will get you attorneys.”', 'The Michigan Department of State’s office condemned her claims of supposed voter fraud in the wake of the election, stating they had “no merit.', '”The state’s “elections were conducted fairly, effectively and transparently and are an accurate reflection of the will of Michigan voters,” it said in adetailed fact checkposted online.', 'In an interview with CNN’s Chris Wallace last year, McDaniel defended her claims of voting “irregularity” in the election.', '“I think saying that there were problems with 2020 is very real.', 'I don’t think that’s election denying,” McDaniel told Wallace. “', 'I’m from Wayne County.', 'We had a woman send a note saying I’m being told to backdate ballots.', 'We had to look into that.', 'That’s deeply concerning.', 'When you have friends who are poll-watching and being kicked out, that’s deeply concerning.', 'We have every right to look at that.”', 'In the interview,Wallace pressed McDaniel if she believed Biden legitimately won the election.', '“I think there were lots of problems with 2020.', 'Ultimately, he won the electionbut there were lots of problems with the 2020 election,” she said. “', 'But I don’t think he won it fair.', 'I don’t.', 'I’m not going to say that.”', 'NBC’s hiring of McDaniel, however, plays into a recent trend at thenetwork’s outlets, which has seemingly softened its stance on Trump as he inches toward the Republican nomination for president.', 'Earlier this month, CNBC hosted Trump for a lengthy phone interview in which the network’s anchors allowed him to peddle lies and conspiracy theories on airwithout scrutiny.', 'MSNBC has even started carrying Trump’s remarks live on television, a practice that the network boasted for years it would not do.', 'Star host Rachel Maddow, who has said carrying Trump’s lieson the airis dangerous, even objected to the network broadcasting a recent speech from the presumptive Republican nominee, calling it “irresponsible.”']",-0.069193576701305,But I don’t think he won it fair.,"At times, she even targeted NBC Newsand MSNBCwith dishonest attacks.",-0.2803101042906443,"NBC’s hiring of McDaniel, however, plays into a recent trend at thenetwork’s outlets, which has seemingly softened its stance on Trump as he inches toward the Republican nomination for president.",“I think there were lots of problems with 2020.,2024-04-28
"As pro-Palestinian protests sweep campus, student journalists are rushing to the big story and exams",https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/26/business/as-pro-palestinian-protests-sweepcollegecampuses-student-journalistsarerushing-to-the-bigstoryandexams/index.html,"
  Published
        11:32 AM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","Arianna Smith is juggling a lot right now.
    
            Smith is editor-in-chief of The Lantern, Ohio State University’s student-run newspaper, which has scrambled in recent days to cover pro-Palestinian protests roiling the campus.
    
            It’s also finals week, and in the coming days the newspaper’s staff will transition to the next year’s staff. But the news doesn’t account for exams.
    
            “We have had reporters and editors drop everything they are doing [to cover the story], even though they have finals that they should be studying for,” Smith told CNN.
    
            As universities across the country crack down on demonstrations over Israel’s military actions in Gaza and police arrest hundreds of protesters, student-run newspapers have quickly become an essential source of news coverage for both the campus communities and nation at large, providing crucial transparency and scrutiny of authorities.
    
            And, for many of these student journalists, it’s becoming a seminal moment in their nascent careers.
    
            “It’s so important to have journalists that care about being objective, and to have journalists that really know the power that their writing has,” Smith said of her newspaper’s reporters.
    
            When demonstrations broke out on the Columbus campus this week, resulting in multiple arrests, the Lantern’s staff reported from the protest scenes, detailed actions of the police, and investigated Ohio State University policies barring encampments.
    
            “We’re not only covering the protests, but we’re covering and getting the opinions from these people that are involved in this protest,” Smith said. “And we’re also making sure that we’re analyzing the legalities behind all of these policies that the university is enforcing.”
    
            At the University of Southern California, nearly 100 people were arrested this week as protests swelled on campus and university leaders imposed restrictions on demonstrations.
    
            Anjali Patel, editor-in-chief of the university’s newspaper, The Daily Trojan, immediately recognized the student-led publication had an advantage over the national press as they raced to cover the story.
    
            “Given that we’re student journalists, we know the campus and the students here. That gives us a different angle than professional news outlets,” Patel said. “We’re also completely student-led, so the way that we approach work and reporting is different, but I think that’s to our advantage.”
    
            The tension at USC has been boiling since administrators canceled its Muslim valedictorian’s commencement speech — and, on Thursday, the main graduation ceremony — citing safety concerns. As pressure mounted on campus, the newspaper mobilized a handful of writers who worked together to cover the protests. But, as police were deployed on campus, The Daily Trojan increased the number of assigned reporters to cover events.
    
            When officers moved to make dozens of arrests Wednesday at a protest encampment, it was “all hands on deck,” Patel said, adding that The Daily Trojan deployed at least five photographers and eight other staff members to cover the demonstrations.
    
            These young journalists, while juggling classes and the stress of exams, are also intimately involved with the student community, translating the student body’s mood on their campus for the rest of the nation.
    
            At the University of Texas at Austin, dozens of protesters were arrested Wednesday after pro-Palestinian demonstrators were met by state troopers “in full riot gear with batons,” Amelia Kimball, associate managing editor of The Daily Texan told CNN.
    
            Kimball reported that there was a “physical clash” between students and police on campus with numerous students taken into custody and “put in squad cars.”
    
            The arrests came as Texas Governor Greg Abbott warned that “antisemitism will not be tolerated in Texas” and called for students participating in the protests to be expelled.
    
            “I think there’s a real feeling of betrayal on campus and I think there’s a lot of anger [after students were arrested],” Kimball told CNN’s John Berman.
    
            “State troopers were on campus before students even began to gather,” Kimball added. “And so things just escalated far beyond what students had expected at all, and so yeah, I think students feel betrayed by the university and by our state government.”",CNN,26/04/2024,"['Arianna Smith is juggling a lot right now.', 'Smith iseditor-in-chiefof The Lantern, Ohio State University’s student-run newspaper,whichhas scrambled in recent days to coverpro-Palestinian protestsroiling thecampus.', 'It’s also finals week, and in the coming days the newspaper’s staff will transition to the next year’s staff.', 'But the news doesn’t account for exams.', '“We have had reporters and editors drop everything they are doing [to cover the story], even though they have finals that they should be studying for,” Smith told CNN.', 'As universities across the country crack down on demonstrations over Israel’s military actions in Gaza and police arrest hundreds of protesters,student-runnewspapers havequickly becomean essential source ofnews coverage for both the campus communities and nation at large, providing crucial transparency and scrutiny of authorities.', 'And,for many of these student journalists,it’s becoming a seminal moment in their nascent careers.', '“It’s so important to have journalists that care about being objective, and to have journalists that really know the power that their writing has,”Smith said of her newspaper’s reporters.', 'When demonstrations broke out on the Columbus campus this week, resulting in multiple arrests, the Lantern’sstaffreportedfrom the protest scenes, detailed actions of the police, andinvestigatedOhio State University policiesbarring encampments.', '“We’re not only covering the protests, but we’re covering and getting the opinions from these people that are involved in this protest,” Smith said. “', 'And we’re also making sure that we’re analyzing the legalities behind all of these policies that the university is enforcing.”', 'At the University of Southern California,nearly 100 peoplewerearrestedthisweek as protests swelled on campusanduniversityleadersimposed restrictionson demonstrations.', 'Anjali Patel, editor-in-chief of the university’s newspaper, The Daily Trojan, immediately recognized the student-led publication had an advantage over the national press as they raced to cover the story.', '“Given that we’re studentjournalists, we know the campus and the students here.', 'That gives us a different angle than professional news outlets,”Patel said.', '“We’re also completely student-led, so the way that we approach work and reporting is different, but I think that’s to our advantage.”', 'The tension at USC has been boiling sinceadministrators canceleditsMuslim valedictorian’scommencementspeech — and,on Thursday,themaingraduation ceremony — citing safety concerns.', 'As pressure mounted on campus, the newspaper mobilized a handful of writers who workedtogether to cover the protests.', 'But, aspolicewere deployed on campus, The Daily Trojan increasedthe number of assignedreportersto cover events.', 'When officers moved to make dozens of arrests Wednesday at a protest encampment,it was“all hands on deck,” Patel said, adding that The Daily Trojan deployed at least fivephotographersandeight other staff memberstocover the demonstrations.', 'Theseyoungjournalists,while juggling classes and the stress of exams,are also intimatelyinvolvedwith the student community,translatingthe student body’s moodon their campusforthe rest of the nation.', 'At the University of Texas at Austin, dozens of protesters were arrested Wednesday after pro-Palestinian demonstrators were met by state troopers“in full riot gear with batons,” Amelia Kimball, associate managing editor ofThe Daily Texan told CNN.', 'Kimball reported that there was a “physical clash” between students and police on campuswith numerous students taken into custody and “put in squad cars.”', 'The arrests came as Texas Governor Greg Abbott warned that “antisemitism will not be tolerated in Texas” and called for students participating in the protests to be expelled.', '“I think there’s a real feeling of betrayal on campus and I think there’s a lot of anger [after students were arrested],” Kimballtold CNN’s John Berman.', '“State troopers were on campus before students even began to gather,”Kimballadded. “', 'And so things just escalated far beyond what students had expected at all, and so yeah, I think students feel betrayed by the university and by our state government.”']",-0.1761489202507428,"“It’s so important to have journalists that care about being objective, and to have journalists that really know the power that their writing has,”Smith said of her newspaper’s reporters.","“I think there’s a real feeling of betrayal on campus and I think there’s a lot of anger [after students were arrested],” Kimballtold CNN’s John Berman.",-0.0097335378328959,"Anjali Patel, editor-in-chief of the university’s newspaper, The Daily Trojan, immediately recognized the student-led publication had an advantage over the national press as they raced to cover the story.","And so things just escalated far beyond what students had expected at all, and so yeah, I think students feel betrayed by the university and by our state government.”",2024-04-28
What is divestment? And does it work?,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/28/investing/stocks-lookahead-divestment-college-protests/index.html,"
  Published
        7:30 AM EDT, Sun April 28, 2024
    ","As Pro-Palestinian protests continue to sweep across major US universities, a unifying message has emerged.
    
            From Princeton University in New Jersey to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the same chant can be heard: “Disclose! Divest! We will not stop, we will not rest!”
    
            Signs marking the perimeter of the student encampment on Columbia University’s West Lawn display a similar message — from the Columbia University Apartheid Divest group — reading, “Divest all finances, including the endowment, from corporations that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and occupation in Palestine.”
    
            Israel denies accusations of genocide.
    
            The specifics of student protesters’ divestment demands vary in scope from school to school.
    
            That coalition at Columbia wants the school to divest its $13.6 billion endowment from any company linked to Israel or businesses that are profiting from the Israel-Hamas war. Protest leaders have mentioned selling shares of major companies in speeches.
    
            Other students, like those at Cornell University and Yale, are asking their schools to stop investing in weapons manufacturers.
    
            Other common threads include demanding universities disclose their investments, sever academic ties with Israeli universities and support a ceasefire in Gaza.
    
            So far, universities have mostly refused to budge on any of it, and some experts doubt the effectiveness of such a campaign. But students remain steadfast in their demands.
    
            So what is it, exactly, that they’re demanding?
    
            What it means: The concept of divestment appears fairly simple at face value — an investor or institution sells off its shares of a company to avoid complicity in activities they deem unethical or harmful.
    
            That action is intended not only to reallocate funds to more ethical investments but also to make a public statement that can pressure a company or government to change policies.
    
            There’s a history of student activists targeting endowments during demonstrations. In the 1980s, students successfully persuaded Columbia to divest from apartheid South Africa.
    
            More recently, Columbia and other universities have divested from fossil fuels and private prisons.
    
            But a quick look under the hood shows that things aren’t so straightforward. Critics argue that while divestment can be an effective expression of disapproval and a call for change, its actual impact on corporate behavior and market trends is more tenuous.
    
            Stock prices remain steady: Research finds that there’s very little correlation between divestment campaigns and stock value or company behavior, Witold Henisz, vice dean and faculty director of the environmental, social and governance initiative at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, told CNN.
    
            Economists from the University of California system studied the impact that widespread divestment movements had on South Africa in the 1980s and found that there was almost no effect on share price.
    
            The researchers posited that it was likely because “the boycott primarily reallocated shares and operations from ‘socially responsible’ [investors] to more indifferent investors and countries.”
    
            When you sell shares, said Henisz, you essentially give someone who cares less about the issue voice and you give up your own voice.
    
            Divesting may feel good, he said, “but it may have perverse outcomes.”
    
            It’s really rare that there are enough sellers and few enough buyers to actually change the cost of capital, he added.
    
            Proponents for divestment counter that its value lies in raising awareness and stigmatizing partnerships with targeted regimes or industries.
    
            Detangling interests: University investments are much more complicated now than they were in the 1980s. Many endowments are managed by asset managers and are invested in opaque private equity funds.
    
            “The economy is so global now that even if a university decided that they were going to instruct their dominant management groups to divest from Israel, it would be almost impossible to disentangle,” said Nicholas Dirks, former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley.
    
            In regard to the calls to divest from any company with Israeli links, “it’s not clear to me that it’s really possible to fully divest from companies that touch in some way a country with such close political and trade ties to the US,” Dirks said.
    
            How it might end: Still, college students at schools across the United States say they won’t end their protests until university administrators meet their demands.
    
            Negotiations between the Columbia administration and student protesters have been progressing but remain contentious.
    
            But most schools are unlikely to agree to divest or to make any politically charged statements, said Dirks, who is also the former vice president of Columbia’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “There are shared objectives that people have, which are to make sure students can be students and that faculty can exercise some governance roles,” he said.
    
            Conversations about reinstating suspended students and expunging their records will likely be negotiation points, he said. “They’ll try to find a way to get to the end of the year and have students finish their classes and graduate.”
    
            Inflation may have tumbled from multi-decade highs on both sides of the Atlantic, but progress has stalled in the United States, with the Federal Reserve now expected to start cutting interest rates well after its European counterpart, reports my colleague Anna Cooban.
    
            Annual US inflation, as measured by the Fed’s preferred gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, came in at 2.7% in March, accelerating from 2.5% in February. The Fed aims to keep inflation at 2% over the longer run.
    
            Another measure of US inflation, the Consumer Price Index, has shown the same upward trend: In March, the CPI rose 3.5% compared with the same month in 2023, up from 3.2% in February.
    
            Meanwhile, among the 20 countries that use the euro, annual consumer price inflation has slowed steadily since the start of the year. It stood at 2.4% in March.
    
            The European Central Bank (ECB) looks set to start cutting interest rates in June, three months before the Fed is forecast to do the same, based on market expectations.
    
            There are even indications that the Fed may do something that, until quite recently, seemed inconceivable — raise the cost of borrowing. Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said earlier this month that she would favor a rate hike “should progress on inflation stall or even reverse.”
    
            So why does the United States appear to have a bigger inflation problem than Europe?
    
            Read more here to find out. 
    
            Monday: Earnings from Domino’s Pizza. The Dallas Fed releases April manufacturing activity.
    
            Tuesday:  Earnings from Amazon, Eli Lilly, Samsung, Coca-Cola, AMD, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Mondelez, Mercedes-Benz Group, Volkswagen, PayPal, adidas, Diamondback Energy, Restaurant Brands, Pinterest and Caesars Entertainment.  Chicago PMI for April and the Conference Board releases consumer confidence for April.
    
            Wednesday: Earnings from Mastercard, Qualcomm, Pfizer, Marriott, Estee Lauder, DoorDash, eBay, Etsy. The US Commerce Department releases March figures on new orders for durable goods. The Federal Reserve announces its latest interest rate decision, followed by a news conference featuring Chair Jerome Powell.
    
            Thursday: Earnings from Apple, Novo Nordisk, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Cigna, Universal Music Group, Live Nation, DraftKings.
    
            Friday: Earnings from Hershey. The US Labor Department releases April data gauging the job market, including monthly payroll growth, wage gains and the unemployment rate.",CNN,28/04/2024,"['As Pro-Palestinian protests continue to sweep across major US universities, a unifying message has emerged.', 'From Princeton University in New Jersey to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the same chant can be heard: “Disclose!', 'Divest!', 'We will not stop, we will not rest!”', 'Signs marking the perimeter of the student encampment on Columbia University’s West Lawn display a similar message — from the Columbia University Apartheid Divest group — reading, “Divest all finances, including the endowment, from corporations that profit from Israeli apartheid, genocide, and occupation in Palestine.”', 'Israeldeniesaccusations ofgenocide.', 'The specifics of student protesters’ divestment demands vary in scope from school to school.', 'That coalition at Columbia wants the school to divest its $13.6 billion endowment from any company linked to Israel or businesses that are profiting from the Israel-Hamas war.', 'Protest leaders have mentioned selling shares of major companies in speeches.', 'Other students, like those at Cornell University and Yale, are asking their schools to stop investing in weapons manufacturers.', 'Other common threads include demanding universities disclose their investments, sever academic ties with Israeli universities and support a ceasefire in Gaza.', 'So far, universities have mostly refused to budge on any of it, and some experts doubt the effectiveness of such a campaign.', 'But students remain steadfast in their demands.', 'So what is it, exactly, that they’re demanding?', 'What it means: The concept of divestment appears fairly simple at face value — an investor or institution sells off its shares of a company to avoid complicity in activities they deem unethical or harmful.', 'That action is intended not only to reallocate funds to more ethical investments but also to make a public statement that can pressure a company or government to change policies.', 'There’s a history of student activists targeting endowments during demonstrations.', 'In the 1980s, students successfully persuaded Columbia to divest from apartheid South Africa.', 'More recently, Columbia and other universities have divested from fossil fuels and private prisons.', 'But a quick look under the hood shows that things aren’t so straightforward.', 'Critics argue that while divestment can be an effective expression of disapproval and a call for change, its actual impact on corporate behavior and market trends is more tenuous.', 'Stock prices remain steady: Research finds that there’s very little correlation between divestment campaigns and stock value or company behavior, Witold Henisz, vice dean and faculty director of the environmental, social and governance initiative at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, told CNN.', 'Economists from the University of California system studied the impact that widespread divestment movements had on South Africa in the 1980s and found that there was almost no effect on share price.', 'The researchers posited that it was likely because “the boycott primarily reallocated shares and operations from ‘socially responsible’ [investors] to more indifferent investors and countries.”', 'When you sell shares, said Henisz, you essentially give someone who cares less about the issue voice and you give up your own voice.', 'Divesting may feel good, he said, “but it may have perverse outcomes.”', 'It’s really rare that there are enough sellers and few enough buyers to actually change the cost of capital, he added.', 'Proponents for divestment counter that its value lies in raising awareness and stigmatizing partnerships with targeted regimes or industries.', 'Detangling interests: University investments are much more complicated now than they were in the 1980s.', 'Many endowments are managed by asset managers and are invested in opaque private equity funds.', '“The economy is so global now that even if a university decided that they were going to instruct their dominant management groups to divest from Israel, it would be almost impossible to disentangle,” said Nicholas Dirks, former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley.', 'In regard to the calls to divest from any company with Israeli links, “it’s not clear to me that it’s really possible to fully divest from companies that touch in some way a country with such close political and trade ties to the US,” Dirks said.', 'How it might end: Still, college students at schools across the United States say they won’t end their protests until university administrators meet their demands.', 'Negotiations between the Columbia administration and student protesters have been progressing but remain contentious.', 'But most schools are unlikely to agree to divest or to make any politically charged statements, said Dirks, who is also the former vice president of Columbia’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “', 'There are shared objectives that people have, which are to make sure students can be students and that faculty can exercise some governance roles,” he said.', 'Conversations about reinstating suspended students and expunging their records will likely be negotiation points, he said. “', 'They’ll try to find a way to get to the end of the year and have students finish their classes and graduate.”', 'Inflation may have tumbled from multi-decade highs on both sides of the Atlantic, but progress has stalled in the United States, with the Federal Reserve now expected to start cutting interest rates well after its European counterpart, reports my colleague Anna Cooban.', 'Annual US inflation, as measured by the Fed’spreferred gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures index,came in at 2.7%in March, accelerating from 2.5% in February.', 'The Fed aims to keep inflation at 2% over the longer run.', 'Another measure of US inflation, the Consumer Price Index, has shown the same upward trend: In March, the CPI rose 3.5% compared with the same month in 2023, up from 3.2% in February.', 'Meanwhile, among the 20 countries that use the euro, annual consumer price inflation has slowed steadily since the start of the year.', 'It stood at 2.4% in March.', 'The European Central Bank (ECB) looks set to start cutting interest rates in June, three months before the Fed is forecast to do the same, based on market expectations.', 'There are even indications that the Fed may do something that, until quite recently, seemed inconceivable — raise the cost of borrowing.', 'Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said earlier this month that she would favor a rate hike “should progress on inflation stall or even reverse.”', 'So why does the United States appear to have a bigger inflation problem than Europe?', 'Read more here to find out.', 'Monday:Earnings from Domino’s Pizza.', 'The Dallas Fed releases April manufacturing activity.', 'Tuesday: Earnings from Amazon, Eli Lilly, Samsung, Coca-Cola, AMD, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Mondelez, Mercedes-Benz Group, Volkswagen, PayPal, adidas, Diamondback Energy, Restaurant Brands, Pinterest and Caesars Entertainment.', 'Chicago PMI for April and the Conference Board releases consumer confidence for April.', 'Wednesday:Earnings from Mastercard, Qualcomm, Pfizer, Marriott, Estee Lauder, DoorDash, eBay, Etsy.', 'The US Commerce Department releases March figures on new orders for durable goods.', 'The Federal Reserve announces its latest interest rate decision, followed by a news conference featuring Chair JeromePowell.', 'Thursday:Earnings from Apple, Novo Nordisk, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Cigna, Universal Music Group, Live Nation, DraftKings.', 'Friday:Earnings from Hershey.', 'The US Labor Department releases April data gauging the job market, including monthlypayrollgrowth, wage gains and the unemployment rate.']",0.0636436096503633,"Inflation may have tumbled from multi-decade highs on both sides of the Atlantic, but progress has stalled in the United States, with the Federal Reserve now expected to start cutting interest rates well after its European counterpart, reports my colleague Anna Cooban.","So far, universities have mostly refused to budge on any of it, and some experts doubt the effectiveness of such a campaign.",0.0024541974067687,"Another measure of US inflation, the Consumer Price Index, has shown the same upward trend: In March, the CPI rose 3.5% compared with the same month in 2023, up from 3.2% in February.","Inflation may have tumbled from multi-decade highs on both sides of the Atlantic, but progress has stalled in the United States, with the Federal Reserve now expected to start cutting interest rates well after its European counterpart, reports my colleague Anna Cooban.",2024-04-28
Say goodbye to Ruby Tuesday and Chili’s. These are the hot new restaurants at the mall,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/28/business/mall-restaurants-ruby-tuesday-chilis/index.html,"
  Updated
        10:34 AM EDT, Sun April 28, 2024
    ","Looking for a bite at your local mall? As US malls race to reinvent themselves, they’re turning to sushi conveyor belts, craft-beer membership clubs and Korean barbecue to replace burgers and fries.
    
            Over the last few decades, malls became the town center of many American communities. But the pandemic, over-building and a move by consumers toward discount and online shopping changed all that. As anchor department stores left malls, so did some name-brand chains like Ruby Tuesday, Chili’s, Applebee’s and others.
    
            What’s taking their place illustrates a large shift in US tastes: There’s a boom in smaller and regional restaurant chains with a local following. Plus a much wider menu of global cuisines.
    
            Landlords are counting on emerging restaurant brands like Lazy Dog, Gen Korean BBQ and Postino Wine Café to draw customers back to malls. So-called “eatertainment” concepts such as Puttshack and Topgolf, which can extend the amount of time people spend in a mall, are expanding. One fast-growing chain targeted to families, Kura Revolving Sushi Bar, delivers plates to diners on conveyor belts as rolling robots serve drinks. Tableside monitors offer games, cartoons and toy prizes for big eaters.
    
            At the same time, many national chains are prioritizing drive-thru locations over their sit-down restaurants in malls.
    
            “There’s definitely a newer layer of concepts. There’s a new guard in malls,” said Chris Simms, the CEO and founder of Lazy Dog, which has around 50 ski lodge-themed restaurants around the country. The restaurants have big wooden beams and a bar with craft beers in their center.
    
            Simms said he was drawn to open Lazy Dog restaurants in malls to pick up customers who may be stopping nearby to see a movie or run errands. “There’s something to having that synergy around you. I’m looking for traffic-drivers,” he said. “Malls create a great opportunity for that.”
    
            Food was long an afterthought at malls, and department stores were the primary reason shoppers visited.
    
            But Macy’s, JCPenney, Nordstrom and others are closing hundreds of their stores in malls as online shopping has grown to around 16% of US retail sales. Real estate research firm Green Street estimates about 150 enclosed malls have closed since 2008, leaving about 900 today.
    
            Strong restaurants and entertainment options draw steady food traffic and can increase the amount of time a consumer spends in the mall, making them valuable to landlords and other mall tenants.
    
            The amount of space dedicated to food in malls has grown from 5% in the 1990s to 15 to 20% today, according to Deloitte.
    
            “Food and beverage is an anchor today,” said Mark Hunter, a managing director at commercial real estate investment firm CBRE who specializes in malls. “It has replaced some of the department stores that left. More and more landlords are looking to invest in it.”
    
            Many quick-service restaurants like McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A have closed mall locations.
    
            TGI Fridays announced earlier this year it would close 36 lower-performing locations in 12 states, several of those in malls. (It still has about 230 outlets in the United States.)
    
            Chick-fil-A closed its original location at Greenbriar Mall in Atlanta last year after 56 years. Chick-fil-A restaurants were only located in mall food courts for the company’s first 20 years. 
    
            Some chains are focusing on drive-thru models instead in part because they are more profitable: smaller than sit-down restaurants, requiring less staff and maintenance, said RJ Hottovy, head of analytical research at data analytics company Placer.ai.
    
            Drive-thru sales hit $133 billion in 2022, an increase of 30% from 2019 pre-pandemic levels, according to Technomic, a restaurant industry consulting firm.
    
            “Traditional mall restaurants were casual dining chains like Chili’s, TGI Fridays, and quick-service restaurants in food courts. They want the drive-thru locations now,” Hottovy said.
    
            Gen Korean BBQ is an example of one of the new breed of restaurants growing in malls.
    
            The company has around 40 restaurants and has plans to grow to at least 250. Customers order meat to their tables and cook it themselves.
    
            “There’s so many burgers, chicken and pizza places,” said co-CEO David Kim. “People are wanting to experience something different.”
    
            Gen is growing at both larger regional malls and smaller strip malls.
    
            “A lot of these regional malls are rebranding their spaces to attract restaurants,” Kim said.
    
            It’s a little early to see if this shift in tenants will work long-term. Mall landlords and analysts note it’s a big blow to lose any big-name anchor eatery. But Cheesecake Factory doesn’t have robots.",CNN,28/04/2024,"['Looking for a bite at your local mall?', 'As US malls race to reinvent themselves, they’re turning to sushi conveyor belts, craft-beer membership clubs and Korean barbecue to replace burgers and fries.', 'Over the last few decades, malls became the town center of many American communities.', 'But the pandemic, over-building and a move by consumers toward discount and online shopping changed all that.', 'As anchor department stores left malls, so did some name-brand chains like Ruby Tuesday, Chili’s, Applebee’s and others.', 'What’s taking their place illustrates a large shift in US tastes: There’s a boom in smaller and regional restaurant chains with a local following.', 'Plus a much wider menu of global cuisines.', 'Landlords are counting on emerging restaurant brands like Lazy Dog, Gen Korean BBQ and Postino Wine Café to draw customers back to malls.', 'So-called “eatertainment” concepts such as Puttshack and Topgolf, which can extend the amount of time people spend in a mall, are expanding.', 'One fast-growing chain targeted to families, Kura Revolving Sushi Bar, delivers plates to diners on conveyor belts as rolling robots serve drinks.', 'Tableside monitors offer games, cartoons and toy prizes for big eaters.', 'At the same time, many national chains are prioritizing drive-thru locations over their sit-down restaurants in malls.', '“There’s definitely a newer layer of concepts.', 'There’s a new guard in malls,” said Chris Simms, the CEO and founder of Lazy Dog, which has around 50 ski lodge-themed restaurants around the country.', 'The restaurants have big wooden beams and a bar with craft beers in their center.', 'Simms said he was drawn to open Lazy Dog restaurants in malls to pick up customers who may be stopping nearby to see a movie or run errands. “', 'There’s something to having that synergy around you.', 'I’m looking for traffic-drivers,” he said. “', 'Malls create a great opportunity for that.”', 'Food was long an afterthought at malls, and department stores were the primary reason shoppers visited.', 'But Macy’s, JCPenney, Nordstrom and others are closing hundreds of their stores in malls as online shopping has grown to around 16% of US retail sales.', 'Real estate research firm Green Street estimates about 150 enclosed malls have closed since 2008, leaving about 900 today.', 'Strong restaurants and entertainment options draw steady food traffic and can increase the amount of time a consumer spends in the mall, making them valuable to landlords and other mall tenants.', 'The amount of space dedicated to food in malls has grown from 5% in the 1990s to 15 to 20% today, according to Deloitte.', '“Food and beverage is an anchor today,” said Mark Hunter, a managing director at commercial real estate investment firm CBRE who specializes in malls. “', 'It has replaced some of the department stores that left.', 'More and more landlords are looking to invest in it.”', 'Many quick-service restaurants like McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A have closed mall locations.', 'TGI Fridays announced earlier this year it would close 36 lower-performing locations in 12 states, several of those in malls. (', 'It still has about 230 outlets in the United States.)', 'Chick-fil-A closed its original location at Greenbriar Mall in Atlanta last year after 56 years.', 'Chick-fil-A restaurants were only located in mall food courts for the company’s first 20 years.', 'Some chains are focusing on drive-thru models instead in part because they are more profitable: smaller than sit-down restaurants, requiring less staff and maintenance, said RJ Hottovy, head of analytical research at data analytics company Placer.ai.', 'Drive-thru sales hit $133 billion in 2022, an increase of 30% from 2019 pre-pandemic levels, according to Technomic, a restaurant industry consulting firm.', '“Traditional mall restaurants were casual dining chains like Chili’s, TGI Fridays, and quick-service restaurants in food courts.', 'They want the drive-thru locations now,” Hottovy said.', 'Gen Korean BBQ is an example of one of the new breed of restaurants growing in malls.', 'The company has around 40 restaurants and has plans to grow to at least 250.', 'Customers order meat to their tables and cook it themselves.', '“There’s so many burgers, chicken and pizza places,” said co-CEO David Kim. “', 'People are wanting to experience something different.”', 'Gen is growing at both larger regional malls and smaller strip malls.', '“A lot of these regional malls are rebranding their spaces to attract restaurants,” Kim said.', 'It’s a little early to see if this shift in tenants will work long-term.', 'Mall landlords and analysts note it’s a big blow to lose any big-name anchor eatery.', 'But Cheesecake Factory doesn’t have robots.']",0.1183897806237372,"Strong restaurants and entertainment options draw steady food traffic and can increase the amount of time a consumer spends in the mall, making them valuable to landlords and other mall tenants.",Simms said he was drawn to open Lazy Dog restaurants in malls to pick up customers who may be stopping nearby to see a movie or run errands. “,0.4453388282230922,"Drive-thru sales hit $133 billion in 2022, an increase of 30% from 2019 pre-pandemic levels, according to Technomic, a restaurant industry consulting firm.",Mall landlords and analysts note it’s a big blow to lose any big-name anchor eatery.,2024-04-28
Why lab-grown diamond sales are surging,https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/27/business/diamonds-manmade-demand/index.html,"
  Published
        7:49 AM EDT, Wed April 27, 2022
    ","It’s proposal season, and engagements are on the rise. So are factory-made diamond sales.
    
            Not that you’d know the difference. Man-made diamonds look the same as naturally occurring ones. The only noticeable difference is the price tag.
    
            “The result is really stunning,” said Edahn Golan, an independent diamond industry analyst.
    
            He said March data showed the number of engagement rings sold that featured a manufactured diamond jumped 63% compared to last year, while the number of engagement rings sold with a natural diamond declined 25% in the same period.
    
            Going back by another month, to February, the data showed the number of rings sold with lab diamonds that month surged even more, to 80% compared to a year earlier while the number fell by 13% for natural diamond engagement rings. 
    
            “The big fear in the natural diamonds industry is that consumers will start accepting lab-grown diamonds in engagement rings,” he said. Too late. “It’s actually happening.” 
    
            Why are consumers flocking to man-made diamonds? Cost is the most obvious reason. The average retail price of the most popular one carat round man-made diamond for an engagement ring in March was $2,318, Golan said.
    
            “This is substantially less – as much as 73% cheaper – than a natural diamond of the same size, cut and clarity as the man-made diamond, which would cost $8,740,” he said. Plus, the lower cost allows couples to buy a bigger stone.
    
            “A lab diamond is a real diamond, but maybe it took a few weeks to make it,” said Golan. “Natural diamonds were formed over 800 million to three billion years and there isn’t an infinite supply of them.” 
    
            This makes natural diamonds quite a bit more expensive, and prices are likely to rise as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has tightened the supply chain for natural raw diamonds.
    
            The sanctions directly target Alrosa, partly owned by the Russian government, which the US government identified as the world’s largest diamond mining company, accounting for 28% of global diamond output.
    
            Man-made diamonds are also becoming popular as consumers are more aware and educated about them, said Dan Moran, a third-generation diamond expert and owner of LA-based fine jeweler Concierge Diamonds. Moran said the typical buyer of man-made diamonds is typically younger than 40 and very budget conscious.
    
            Mined diamonds have a controversial history that’s tied to the use of child labor in some African diamond mines as well as sales of illegally-traded “conflict diamonds” that fund conflict in war-torn areas.
    
            Among Millennials and Gen Z, their eco-conscious mindset and ethical concerns about natural diamond sourcing is another factor influencing their preference for non-traditional engagement rings, according to a report from wedding planning website The Knot.
    
            Although its slice is growing, the market share for man-made diamonds remains relatively small.
    
            Currently, about 7% of the specialty diamond jewelry market is represented by man-made diamonds, up from 3% in 2020, said Golan. 
    
            Some major jewelry retailers are driving the effort to take man-made diamonds mainstream. In 2021, the world’s largest jewelry company, Pandora
            
                (PANDY), made a major shift by announcing it would stop using mined diamonds and would swap to lab-created diamonds in its jewelry. 
    
            Pandora said it’s instituting the change as part of an effort to sell sustainable jewelry, and also because consumers increasingly are asking for it.
    
            Signet,
            
                (SIG) the largest jewelry company in the United States (which owns Zales, Kay Jewelers and Jared chains) called out the popularity of lab diamond jewelry in its March earnings call with analysts.
    
            Calling it a “fast-growing category” in its jewelry portfolio, Signet CEO Virginia Drosos told analysts that lab-created diamonds are among the big jewelry trends she expects this year. 
    
            The company said it has expanded its man-made bridal jewelry selection in both its Zales and Kay Jewelers stores in response to the increased demand. 
    
            Fine jewelry brand Charles and Colvard, which makes lab-created diamonds, said consumers don’t just want to look good with the jewelry they are wearing, they also want to feel good about it.
    
            “As the momentum for conscious consumerism grows, the surge towards lab grown diamonds isn’t surprising,” said Don O’Connell, president and CEO of Charles & Colvard. “[Consumers] want to know the origins of their stones and be reassured they’re conflict-free. They’re embracing the choice to purchase a piece of fine jewelry that aligns with their values.”
    
            Lab-grown diamond brand VRAI said the pandemic, too, has sparked attention and action toward social and environmental issues. It said consumers are being more thoughtful and reassessing their purchasing habits, as well as the companies and industries they are supporting.
    
            There is, however, one important consideration for anyone buying lab-created diamonds: Man-made diamonds have little resale value. 
    
            So while you may not be able to tell a natural diamond from a factory made variety, someone with a trained eye can, said Golan. Once a stone is identified as a factory diamond, even though you paid a lot less for it, you also won’t get much for it. 
    
            But the value of a ring isn’t just monetary.
    
            “As a professional in the industry, I am asked all the time by people about what I think about a ring they have,” said Moran, of Concierge Jewelers. “I always say, if you love it, be happy with it. An engagement ring is a symbol of commitment and enduring love.”",CNN,27/04/2022,"['It’s proposal season, and engagements are on the rise.', 'So are factory-made diamond sales.', 'Not that you’d know the difference.', 'Man-made diamonds look the same as naturally occurring ones.', 'The only noticeable difference is the price tag.', '“The result is really stunning,” said Edahn Golan, an independent diamond industry analyst.', 'He said March data showed the number of engagement rings sold that featured a manufactured diamond jumped 63% compared to last year, while the number of engagement rings sold with a natural diamond declined 25% in the same period.', 'Going back by another month, to February, the data showed the number of rings sold with lab diamonds that month surged even more, to 80% compared to a year earlier while the number fell by 13% for natural diamond engagement rings.', '“The big fear in the natural diamonds industry is that consumers will start accepting lab-grown diamonds in engagement rings,” he said.', 'Too late. “', 'It’s actually happening.”', 'Why are consumers flocking to man-made diamonds?', 'Cost is the most obvious reason.', 'The average retail price of the most popular one carat round man-made diamond for an engagement ring in March was $2,318, Golan said.', '“This is substantially less – as much as 73% cheaper – than a natural diamond of the same size, cut and clarity as the man-made diamond, which would cost $8,740,” he said.', 'Plus, the lower cost allows couples to buy a bigger stone.', '“A lab diamond is a real diamond, but maybe it took a few weeks to make it,” said Golan. “', 'Natural diamonds were formed over 800 million to three billion years and there isn’t an infinite supply of them.”', 'This makes natural diamonds quite a bit more expensive, and prices are likely to rise as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has tightened the supply chain for natural raw diamonds.', 'The sanctions directly target Alrosa, partly owned by the Russian government, which the US government identified as the world’s largest diamond mining company, accounting for 28% of global diamond output.', 'Man-made diamonds are also becoming popular as consumers are more aware and educated about them, said Dan Moran, a third-generation diamond expert and owner of LA-based fine jeweler Concierge Diamonds.', 'Moran said the typical buyer of man-made diamonds is typically younger than 40 and very budget conscious.', 'Mined diamonds have a controversial history that’s tied to the use of child labor in some African diamond mines as well as sales of illegally-traded “conflict diamonds” that fund conflict in war-torn areas.', 'Among Millennials and Gen Z, their eco-conscious mindset and ethical concerns about natural diamond sourcing is another factor influencing their preference for non-traditional engagement rings, according to a report from wedding planning website The Knot.', 'Although its slice is growing, the market share for man-made diamonds remains relatively small.', 'Currently, about 7% of the specialty diamond jewelry market is represented by man-made diamonds, up from 3% in 2020, said Golan.', 'Some major jewelry retailers are driving the effort to take man-made diamonds mainstream.', 'In 2021, the world’s largest jewelry company, Pandora  (PANDY), made a major shift by announcing it would stop using mined diamonds and would swap to lab-created diamonds in its jewelry.', 'Pandora said it’s instituting the change as part of an effort to sell sustainable jewelry, and also because consumers increasingly are asking for it.', 'Signet,  (SIG) the largest jewelry company in the United States (which owns Zales, Kay Jewelers and Jared chains) called out the popularity of lab diamond jewelry in its March earnings call with analysts.', 'Calling it a “fast-growing category” in its jewelry portfolio, Signet CEO Virginia Drosos told analysts that lab-created diamonds are among the big jewelry trends she expects this year.', 'The company said it has expanded its man-made bridal jewelry selection in both its Zales and Kay Jewelers stores in response to the increased demand.', 'Fine jewelry brand Charles and Colvard, which makes lab-created diamonds, said consumers don’t just want to look good with the jewelry they are wearing, they also want to feel good about it.', '“As the momentum for conscious consumerism grows, the surge towards lab grown diamonds isn’t surprising,” said Don O’Connell, president and CEO of Charles & Colvard. “[', 'Consumers] want to know the origins of their stones and be reassured they’re conflict-free.', 'They’re embracing the choice to purchase a piece of fine jewelry that aligns with their values.”', 'Lab-grown diamond brand VRAI said the pandemic, too, has sparked attention and action toward social and environmental issues.', 'It said consumers are being more thoughtful and reassessing their purchasing habits, as well as the companies and industries they are supporting.', 'There is, however, one important consideration for anyone buying lab-created diamonds: Man-made diamonds have little resale value.', 'So while you may not be able to tell a natural diamond from a factory made variety, someone with a trained eye can, said Golan.', 'Once a stone is identified as a factory diamond, even though you paid a lot less for it, you also won’t get much for it.', 'But the value of a ring isn’t just monetary.', '“As a professional in the industry, I am asked all the time by people about what I think about a ring they have,” said Moran, of Concierge Jewelers. “', 'I always say, if you love it, be happy with it.', 'An engagement ring is a symbol of commitment and enduring love.”']",0.3714494325159568,"He said March data showed the number of engagement rings sold that featured a manufactured diamond jumped 63% compared to last year, while the number of engagement rings sold with a natural diamond declined 25% in the same period.",Mined diamonds have a controversial history that’s tied to the use of child labor in some African diamond mines as well as sales of illegally-traded “conflict diamonds” that fund conflict in war-torn areas.,0.8542834222316742,"Currently, about 7% of the specialty diamond jewelry market is represented by man-made diamonds, up from 3% in 2020, said Golan.","This makes natural diamonds quite a bit more expensive, and prices are likely to rise as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has tightened the supply chain for natural raw diamonds.",2024-04-28
The clean energy race could trigger the biggest mining deal in decades,https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/25/business/anglo-american-takeover-bhp-mining/index.html,"
  Updated
        4:23 AM EDT, Fri April 26, 2024
    ","Mining giant BHP has made a near-$40 billion bid to take over its UK rival Anglo American in what would be the largest mining deal on record.
    
            BHP said in a statement Thursday that it valued Anglo American shares at £25.08 ($31.40) apiece, or £31.1 billion ($38.9 billion) in total. If completed, the acquisition would increase BHP’s access to copper reserves, it added.
    
            Anglo American said Friday that it had rejected BHP’s proposed offer because it “significantly undervalues” the company. BHP has until May 22 to make a formal offer, and the Australian mining group could yet come forward with a higher bid.
    
            “There’s every chance BHP will come back to the table,” said Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
    
            Copper is an essential component in some renewable energy technologies, including solar panels and electric vehicles, as well as in electrical grids. And it is in high demand: The price of copper on the London Metals Exchange has risen more than 15% this year to almost $10,000 a metric ton, its highest level in about two years.
    
            “First and foremost” the proposed takeover is about copper, William Tankard, principal analyst of base metals at CRU Group, told CNN.
    
            BHP is the world’s second-biggest producer of mined copper, while Anglo American is the ninth-biggest, according to CRU Group analysis. Their combination would attract the scrutiny of competition authorities around the world, Tankard added.
    
            Under the terms of BHP’s rejected offer, the deal would be worth more than the $38.3 billion acquisition of Switzerland’s Xstrata by commodities company Glencore in 2012, according to Dealogic data. It would also be the biggest merger or acquisition in the mining industry by value since Dealogic began collecting the data in 2004.
    
            Shares in Anglo American ticked down 0.5% in early trade Friday to £25.48 ($31.89), after jumping 16% the previous day on news of BHP’s offer. The Australian company’s stock closed 4.6% down Friday.
    
            BHP has been looking to bulk up in copper for a while. A year ago, the Melbourne-based company acquired Australian rival Oz Minerals to widen its access to copper and nickel.
    
            The Oz buyout was part of BHP’s strategy to “meet increasing demand for the critical minerals needed for electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels,” company CEO Mike Henry said in a statement at the time.
    
            Tankard at CRU Group called copper “the ubiquitous future-facing commodity.” “Whether we’re talking about EVs or data centers, or general electrification… there’s a common theme, and that theme is copper.”
    
            Anglo American is one of the largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange and the approach by BHP may fuel concerns about an exodus from from the London market.
    
            Wael Sawan, the CEO of Shell, told Bloomberg last month that he believed the energy giant’s London listing made the company “undervalued,” drawing comparisons to its much bigger rivals Exxon Mobil and Chevron, both listed in New York.
    
            That fuelled speculation that the £186 billion ($232 billion) oil behemoth could ditch London for Wall Street, a switch that would deal a huge blow to Britain’s main stock exchange. Several companies have already moved their primary listings elsewhere or chosen New York for going public in recent years.
    
            The offer for Anglo American “will send a fresh chill through the City of London,” Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, wrote in a note Thursday. “There are concerns that, if the deal goes through, it could be the tip of the iceberg and more giants could leave the exchange.”
    
            Correction: An earlier version of this article gave an incorrect ranking for BHP among the world’s biggest producers of mined copper.
    
            Rob North contributed reporting. This story has been updated with additional information.",CNN,26/04/2024,"['Mining giant BHP has made a near-$40 billion bid to take over its UK rival Anglo American in what would be the largest mining deal on record.', 'BHP said in a statement Thursday that it valued Anglo American shares at £25.08 ($31.40) apiece, or £31.1 billion ($38.9 billion) in total.', 'If completed, the acquisition would increase BHP’s access to copper reserves, it added.', 'Anglo American said Friday that it had rejected BHP’s proposed offer because it “significantly undervalues” the company.', 'BHP has until May 22 to make a formal offer, and the Australian mining group could yet come forward with a higher bid.', '“There’s every chance BHP will come back to the table,” said Sophie Lund-Yates, lead equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.', 'Copper is an essential component in some renewable energy technologies, includingsolar panelsandelectric vehicles, as well as in electrical grids.', 'And it is in high demand: The price of copper on the London Metals Exchange has risen more than 15% this year to almost $10,000 a metric ton, its highest level in about two years.', '“First and foremost” the proposed takeover is about copper, William Tankard, principal analyst of base metals at CRU Group, told CNN.', 'BHP is the world’s second-biggest producer of mined copper, while Anglo American is the ninth-biggest, according to CRU Group analysis.', 'Their combination would attract the scrutiny of competition authorities around the world, Tankard added.', 'Under the terms of BHP’s rejected offer, the deal would be worth more than the $38.3 billion acquisition of Switzerland’s Xstrata by commodities company Glencore in 2012, according to Dealogic data.', 'It would also be the biggest merger or acquisition in the mining industry by value since Dealogic began collecting the data in 2004.', 'Shares in Anglo American ticked down 0.5% in early trade Friday to £25.48 ($31.89), after jumping 16% the previous day on news of BHP’s offer.', 'The Australian company’s stock closed 4.6% down Friday.', 'BHP has been looking to bulk up in copper for a while.', 'A year ago, the Melbourne-based company acquired Australian rival Oz Minerals to widen its access to copper and nickel.', 'The Oz buyout was part of BHP’s strategy to “meet increasing demand for the critical minerals needed for electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels,” company CEO Mike Henry said in astatementat the time.', 'Tankard at CRU Group called copper “the ubiquitous future-facing commodity.” “', 'Whether we’re talking about EVs or data centers, or general electrification… there’s a common theme, and that theme is copper.”', 'Anglo American is one of the largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange and the approach by BHP may fuel concerns about an exodus from from the London market.', 'Wael Sawan, the CEO of Shell, told Bloomberg last month that he believed the energy giant’s London listing made the company “undervalued,” drawing comparisons to its much bigger rivals Exxon Mobil and Chevron, both listed in New York.', 'That fuelled speculation that the £186 billion ($232 billion) oil behemoth could ditch London for Wall Street, a switch that would deal a huge blow to Britain’s main stock exchange.', 'Several companies have already moved their primary listings elsewhere or chosen New York for going public in recent years.', 'The offer for Anglo American “will send a fresh chill through the City of London,” Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, wrote in a note Thursday. “', 'There are concerns that, if the deal goes through, it could be the tip of the iceberg and more giants could leave the exchange.”', 'Correction: An earlier version of this article gave an incorrect ranking for BHP among the world’s biggest producers of mined copper.', 'Rob North contributed reporting.', 'This story has been updated with additional information.']",0.0368400845170265,"BHP said in a statement Thursday that it valued Anglo American shares at £25.08 ($31.40) apiece, or £31.1 billion ($38.9 billion) in total.",Rob North contributed reporting.,-0.0243265368044376,"And it is in high demand: The price of copper on the London Metals Exchange has risen more than 15% this year to almost $10,000 a metric ton, its highest level in about two years.","Shares in Anglo American ticked down 0.5% in early trade Friday to £25.48 ($31.89), after jumping 16% the previous day on news of BHP’s offer.",2024-04-28
What's behind a dramatic fall in Indian families' savings,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-68874403,2024-04-26T01:59:44.000Z,"For decades, India has been a nation of savers. They stash away a significant portion of their earnings for future security, often at the expense of current consumption.  But something seems to be amiss now. Recent data from the Reserve Bank of India says India's net household savings stood at a 47-year-old low. Household net savings are the total money and investments families have, like deposits, stocks and bonus, minus any money they owe, like loans and debt.   Savings shrank to 5.3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the financial year 2023, down from 7.3% in 2022. One economist called this fall ""dramatic"". There has also been a sharp jump in household debt in the same period. Annual borrowings stood at 5.8% of GDP - the second-highest level after the 1970s.  As households increasingly rely on debt to fuel consumption, their savings inevitably erode. The more they borrow, they dedicate more of their income to repaying debt, leaving less for savings.  Nikhil Gupta, economist at Motilal Oswal Financial Services, says a significant portion of India's increasing household debt is made up of non-mortgage loans. Farm and business loans comprise over half of these loans. (An interesting aside: In 2022, non-mortgage debt in India matched Australia and Japan, and surpassed many other major nations, including the US and China.) Mr Gupta also found that while borrowing for consumption - credit cards, consumer durables, weddings, health emergencies, for example - makes up less than 20% of total household debt, it was the fastest-growing segment.  So what does this trend of low savings and high debt tell us about India's economy, the fifth largest in the world? Do increased borrowing and spending point to optimism for the future, or do they warn of challenges such as declining incomes, inflation and economic stress?   ""There is some amount of consumer confidence. There are many Indians who hope income growth will be strong enough in future. Or they just want to have a good life right now rather than think about what will happen to the future,"" Mr Gupta says. ""Is there a change in [the Indian] mindset about spending [more]? Maybe,"" he says, adding that it's not clear yet what is driving this. What about borrowing money out of necessity or desperation, typically during times of financial hardship or crisis? Extended distress borrowing could easily lead to loan defaults. On the other hand, if the lenders are doing their homework, why would they continue to lend to non-creditworthy borrowers in the throes of a financial crisis? A key problem, according to Mr Gupta, is the lack of granular detail in the official data on the borrowers. What kind of jobs they do? How many people have taken how many loans? (One borrower can take multiple loans.) What are they using the loans for? What is their repayment history?  Some clues are available. Mr Gupta and fellow economist Tanisha Ladha at Motilal Oswal have found that the bulk of household debt growth in the past decade was driven by 'credit widening' - an increase in the number of borrowers - rather than 'credit deepening' or higher loans per borrower. Having more people borrowing is preferable to having each borrower take out larger loans. They also found that Indian households have a debt service ratio (DSR) - the share of income used to service loans - of approximately 12%, similar to Nordic countries. This ratio is higher than that of China, France, the UK, and the US, all of which have higher household debt levels. The difference is due to higher interest rates and shorter loan tenures in India, resulting in a relatively higher DSR despite lower debt-to-income ratios. In September, India's finance ministry dismissed fears about reducing savings and increasing borrowings, saying people were taking advantage of low interest rates after the pandemic to buy cars, education loans and homes.  Also, it said, more people were borrowing to buy assets like home and vehicles which is ""not a sign of distress but of confidence in the future employment and income prospects"".  Zico Dasgupta and Srinivas Raghavendra of Azim Premji University, however, sound a note of caution. The decline in savings coupled with the increase in debt prompted concerns regarding ""debt repayment and financial fragility"", the two economists wrote in The Hindu.  Others like economist Rathin Roy worry about a growing reliance on borrowing in a nation with the lowest per capita income among G20 countries. The government borrows to fund basic services and subsidies, while households borrow to consume, he noted in Business Standard. This reduces the already ""declining flow of financial savings"" and increases the cost of borrowing. Mr Gupta and Ms Ladha believe that the current high level of borrowing in a year does not endanger India's financial or macroeconomic stability. But there are concerns about its sustainability if this trend persists.  ""Consumer India's consumption is located at the crossroads of high aspiration for a better life, woefully inadequate quality and quantity of public goods and amenities and modest incomes which are also unstable,"" writes Rama Bijapurkar, a business consultant, in her new book Lilliput Land.  In other words, the Indian consumer is engaged in a deft balancing act.  ",BBC,26/04/2024,"['For decades, India has been a nation of savers.', 'They stash away a significant portion of their earnings for future security, often at the expense of current consumption.', 'But something seems to be amiss now.', ""Recent data from the Reserve Bank of India says India's net household savings stood at a 47-year-old low."", 'Household net savings are the total money and investments families have, like deposits, stocks and bonus, minus any money they owe, like loans and debt.', 'Savings shrank to 5.3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the financial year 2023, down from 7.3% in 2022.', 'One economist called this fall ""dramatic"".', 'There has also been a sharp jump in household debt in the same period.', 'Annual borrowings stood at 5.8% of GDP - the second-highest level after the 1970s.', 'As households increasingly rely on debt to fuel consumption, their savings inevitably erode.', 'The more they borrow, they dedicate more of their income to repaying debt, leaving less for savings.', ""Nikhil Gupta, economist at Motilal Oswal Financial Services, says a significant portion of India's increasing household debt is made up of non-mortgage loans."", 'Farm and business loans comprise over half of these loans. (', 'An interesting aside: In 2022, non-mortgage debt in India matched Australia and Japan, and surpassed many other major nations, including the US and China.)', 'Mr Gupta also found that while borrowing for consumption - credit cards, consumer durables, weddings, health emergencies, for example - makes up less than 20% of total household debt, it was the fastest-growing segment.', ""So what does this trend of low savings and high debt tell us about India's economy, the fifth largest in the world?"", 'Do increased borrowing and spending point to optimism for the future, or do they warn of challenges such as declining incomes, inflation and economic stress? ""', 'There is some amount of consumer confidence.', 'There are many Indians who hope income growth will be strong enough in future.', 'Or they just want to have a good life right now rather than think about what will happen to the future,"" Mr Gupta says. ""', 'Is there a change in [the Indian] mindset about spending [more]?', 'Maybe,"" he says, adding that it\'s not clear yet what is driving this.', 'What about borrowing money out of necessity or desperation, typically during times of financial hardship or crisis?', 'Extended distress borrowing could easily lead to loan defaults.', 'On the other hand, if the lenders are doing their homework, why would they continue to lend to non-creditworthy borrowers in the throes of a financial crisis?', 'A key problem, according to Mr Gupta, is the lack of granular detail in the official data on the borrowers.', 'What kind of jobs they do?', 'How many people have taken how many loans? (', 'One borrower can take multiple loans.)', 'What are they using the loans for?', 'What is their repayment history?', 'Some clues are available.', ""Mr Gupta and fellow economist Tanisha Ladha at Motilal Oswal have found that the bulk of household debt growth in the past decade was driven by 'credit widening' - an increase in the number of borrowers - rather than 'credit deepening' or higher loans per borrower."", 'Having more people borrowing is preferable to having each borrower take out larger loans.', 'They also found that Indian households have a debt service ratio (DSR) - the share of income used to service loans - of approximately 12%, similar to Nordic countries.', 'This ratio is higher than that of China, France, the UK, and the US, all of which have higher household debt levels.', 'The difference is due to higher interest rates and shorter loan tenures in India, resulting in a relatively higher DSR despite lower debt-to-income ratios.', ""In September, India's finance ministry dismissed fears about reducing savings and increasing borrowings, saying people were taking advantage of low interest rates after the pandemic to buy cars, education loans and homes."", 'Also, it said, more people were borrowing to buy assets like home and vehicles which is ""not a sign of distress but of confidence in the future employment and income prospects"".', 'Zico Dasgupta and Srinivas Raghavendra of Azim Premji University, however, sound a note of caution.', 'The decline in savings coupled with the increase in debt prompted concerns regarding ""debt repayment and financial fragility"", the two economists wrote in The Hindu.', 'Others like economist Rathin Roy worry about a growing reliance on borrowing in a nation with the lowest per capita income among G20 countries.', 'The government borrows to fund basic services and subsidies, while households borrow to consume, he noted in Business Standard.', 'This reduces the already ""declining flow of financial savings"" and increases the cost of borrowing.', ""Mr Gupta and Ms Ladha believe that the current high level of borrowing in a year does not endanger India's financial or macroeconomic stability."", 'But there are concerns about its sustainability if this trend persists. ""', 'Consumer India\'s consumption is located at the crossroads of high aspiration for a better life, woefully inadequate quality and quantity of public goods and amenities and modest incomes which are also unstable,"" writes Rama Bijapurkar, a business consultant, in her new book Lilliput Land.', 'In other words, the Indian consumer is engaged in a deft balancing act.']",0.0188201266844309,There are many Indians who hope income growth will be strong enough in future.,"What about borrowing money out of necessity or desperation, typically during times of financial hardship or crisis?",-0.0114283756567881,There are many Indians who hope income growth will be strong enough in future.,"Savings shrank to 5.3% of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the financial year 2023, down from 7.3% in 2022.",2024-04-28
Newcastle Building Society to help failed trust fund families,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c98zy5r80d5o,2024-04-26T16:16:20.121Z,"A building society has said it will offer “voluntary” financial support to some of its customers who lost their savings when a trust fund firm went bust. Philips Trust Corporation (PTC) went into administration in 2022 leaving more than 2,000 people out of pocket. Some of those have argued Newcastle Building Society (NBS) bears some responsibility for them eventually ending up at PTC. However, at NBS’s annual general meeting this week, its head said it was not responsible for PTC’s actions but would offer “meaningful” support to some customers. Chief executive Andrew Haigh said the firm could not share details about payments as it was working out ""where exactly this financial support will apply"". In the meeting, he said the building society considered the actions of PTC “worthy of consideration by the police”. NBS said it had been in touch with the police and stressed it never had a relationship with PTC and did not refer customers. Gordon Crosthwaite said his mother-in-law Kathleen Birtley, from Northumberland, put about £105,000 into a PTC trust after initially being referred to the Will Writing Company by NBS.  She hoped the money would be used to take care of her disabled son when she died, he said.  But Mr Crosthwaite said he feared she would not get the money back. It was unclear what Mr Haigh meant by ""meaningful"" support and who would actually receive any money, he added.  ""We'll wait and see,"" he said. The BBC understands an entity connected with PTC took over the assets of the Will Writing Company, which went into administration in 2018 and whose services had originally been referred to customers by NBS. NBS maintains it wrote to customers to make clear it had no relationship to parties connected to PTC, after PTC acquired the assets of the Will Writing Company. Some customers said they had not received the first letter and argued they received a second letter too late to act on it. Newcastle solicitor Claire Springle said she believed some of her clients only ended up with PTC because they had accounts with the building society. NBS referred some customers the Will Writing Company to help them write wills and plan their estates, said Mr Springle. This firm then recommended some to its sister company, Family Trust Corporation (FTC), to help them put their homes and savings into trusts. Ms Springle said many of her clients, most of whom were older, did this because they thought they could avoid future care costs. When PTC took over parts of the Will Writing Company in 2018 several FTC customers switched the ownership of their trusts to PTC, according to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). After PTC went bust in 2022, it emerged it had moved its customers’ money to higher risk investments, the FCA said. NBS maintains PTC independently contacted customers inviting them to transfer to itself some less risky regulated trusts that had been set up by FTC. “This meant that, unfortunately, a lot of its customers face potential investment losses,” the regulatory body said. PTC's administrators, Kroll, said it held approximately 2,345 trusts. Follow BBC North East on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk. ",BBC,26/04/2024,"['A building society has said it will offer “voluntary” financial support to some of its customers who lost their savings when a trust fund firm went bust.', 'Philips Trust Corporation (PTC) went into administration in 2022 leaving more than 2,000 people out of pocket.', 'Some of those have argued Newcastle Building Society (NBS) bears some responsibility for them eventually ending up at PTC.', 'However, at NBS’s annual general meeting this week, its head said it was not responsible for PTC’s actions but would offer “meaningful” support to some customers.', 'Chief executive Andrew Haigh said the firm could not share details about payments as it was working out ""where exactly this financial support will apply"".', 'In the meeting, he said the building society considered the actions of PTC “worthy of consideration by the police”.', 'NBS said it had been in touch with the police and stressed it never had a relationship with PTC and did not refer customers.', 'Gordon Crosthwaite said his mother-in-law Kathleen Birtley, from Northumberland, put about £105,000 into a PTC trust after initially being referred to the Will Writing Company by NBS.', 'She hoped the money would be used to take care of her disabled son when she died, he said.', 'But Mr Crosthwaite said he feared she would not get the money back.', 'It was unclear what Mr Haigh meant by ""meaningful"" support and who would actually receive any money, he added. ""', 'We\'ll wait and see,"" he said.', 'The BBC understands an entity connected with PTC took over the assets of the Will Writing Company, which went into administration in 2018 and whose services had originally been referred to customers by NBS.', 'NBS maintains it wrote to customers to make clear it had no relationship to parties connected to PTC, after PTC acquired the assets of the Will Writing Company.', 'Some customers said they had not received the first letter and argued they received a second letter too late to act on it.', 'Newcastle solicitor Claire Springle said she believed some of her clients only ended up with PTC because they had accounts with the building society.', 'NBS referred some customers the Will Writing Company to help them write wills and plan their estates, said Mr Springle.', 'This firm then recommended some to its sister company, Family Trust Corporation (FTC), to help them put their homes and savings into trusts.', 'Ms Springle said many of her clients, most of whom were older, did this because they thought they could avoid future care costs.', 'When PTC took over parts of the Will Writing Company in 2018 several FTC customers switched the ownership of their trusts to PTC, according to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).', 'After PTC went bust in 2022, it emerged it had moved its customers’ money to higher risk investments, the FCA said.', 'NBS maintains PTC independently contacted customers inviting them to transfer to itself some less risky regulated trusts that had been set up by FTC. “', 'This meant that, unfortunately, a lot of its customers face potential investment losses,” the regulatory body said.', ""PTC's administrators, Kroll, said it held approximately 2,345 trusts."", 'Follow BBC North East on X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and Instagram.', 'Send your story ideas to northeastandcumbria@bbc.co.uk.']",0.1906699339867517,"This firm then recommended some to its sister company, Family Trust Corporation (FTC), to help them put their homes and savings into trusts.",But Mr Crosthwaite said he feared she would not get the money back.,-0.5707357823848724,"However, at NBS’s annual general meeting this week, its head said it was not responsible for PTC’s actions but would offer “meaningful” support to some customers.","This meant that, unfortunately, a lot of its customers face potential investment losses,” the regulatory body said.",2024-04-28
Google accused of making it harder to search for rival,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckv7jz9x1l9o,2024-04-25T14:16:44.431Z,"Google has been accused of taking advantage of its market dominance to make it harder to search for a rival email service. Tuta Mail - which says it has more than ten million users worldwide - alleges that, since March, it hasn’t appeared prominently in Google searches for “encrypted email."" The company has made a complaint to the EU claiming that Google - which has its own hugely popular Gmail service - has damaged a rival business. Google has denied the accusation, insisting Tuta remains ""easily accessible"" via its search engine. In its complaint, Tuta notes that its “ranking” – how high up Google’s search results it appears - fell dramatically in March 2024 for searches such as ""secure email."" As a result, monthly visits to pages on its website have dropped by almost 90%, Tuta's formal complaint to the EU alleges. ""At the beginning of March 2024 Google suddenly stopped displaying our website for thousands of keywords,"" it wrote in the complaint.  Following the change, traffic to its website only came from searches mentioning the name of its products. “Google must stop this unfair limitation of showing our website in search results immediately,” Matthias Pfau, co-founder of Tuta Mail said. Google's algorithm uses a number of factors to determine the ranking of search results. When the algorithm is updated, it can have a big impact on businesses that rely on the visits search sends to their websites. There was an update in early March, as a result of which Google warned there would be more fluctuations in rankings than usual. But it denies its updates are intended to favour any particular website, including its own. ""Search ranking updates absolutely do not aim to preference Google products, or any other particular website. The email provider in question is easily accessible globally on Search,"" Google wrote. Gmail has more than a billion users worldwide. Tuta argues that “niche” email services such as its own will not be able to grow into serious competitors if they don’t appear for common search terms. In a blog post the firm accused the company of breaching a new EU law that came into force in March, which designated some large firms, including Google, as “gatekeepers” subject to additional legal restrictions. This includes not treating their own services more favourably than rivals. “Google in its role as a gatekeeper is impacting the profits and marketability of our private email service Tuta Mail - a direct competitor to Google's Gmail, which goes against the Digital Markets Act”, the company wrote. But, according to a Google spokesperson, Tuta ranks above Gmail for a range of email-related searches, including ones that don't mention it as a brand and those it referred to in its blog. ",BBC,25/04/2024,"['Google has been accused of taking advantage of its market dominance to make it harder to search for a rival email service.', 'Tuta Mail - which says it has more than ten million users worldwide - alleges that, since March, it hasn’t appeared prominently in Google searches for “encrypted email.""', 'The company has made a complaint to the EU claiming that Google - which has its own hugely popular Gmail service - has damaged a rival business.', 'Google has denied the accusation, insisting Tuta remains ""easily accessible"" via its search engine.', 'In its complaint, Tuta notes that its “ranking” – how high up Google’s search results it appears - fell dramatically in March 2024 for searches such as ""secure email.""', 'As a result, monthly visits to pages on its website have dropped by almost 90%, Tuta\'s formal complaint to the EU alleges. ""', 'At the beginning of March 2024 Google suddenly stopped displaying our website for thousands of keywords,"" it wrote in the complaint.', 'Following the change, traffic to its website only came from searches mentioning the name of its products. “', 'Google must stop this unfair limitation of showing our website in search results immediately,” Matthias Pfau, co-founder of Tuta Mail said.', ""Google's algorithm uses a number of factors to determine the ranking of search results."", 'When the algorithm is updated, it can have a big impact on businesses that rely on the visits search sends to their websites.', 'There was an update in early March, as a result of which Google warned there would be more fluctuations in rankings than usual.', 'But it denies its updates are intended to favour any particular website, including its own. ""', 'Search ranking updates absolutely do not aim to preference Google products, or any other particular website.', 'The email provider in question is easily accessible globally on Search,"" Google wrote.', 'Gmail has more than a billion users worldwide.', 'Tuta argues that “niche” email services such as its own will not be able to grow into serious competitors if they don’t appear for common search terms.', 'In a blog post the firm accused the company of breaching a new EU law that came into force in March, which designated some large firms, including Google, as “gatekeepers” subject to additional legal restrictions.', 'This includes not treating their own services more favourably than rivals. “', ""Google in its role as a gatekeeper is impacting the profits and marketability of our private email service Tuta Mail - a direct competitor to Google's Gmail, which goes against the Digital Markets Act”, the company wrote."", ""But, according to a Google spokesperson, Tuta ranks above Gmail for a range of email-related searches, including ones that don't mention it as a brand and those it referred to in its blog.""]",-0.092089366197724,"Google in its role as a gatekeeper is impacting the profits and marketability of our private email service Tuta Mail - a direct competitor to Google's Gmail, which goes against the Digital Markets Act”, the company wrote.","Google must stop this unfair limitation of showing our website in search results immediately,” Matthias Pfau, co-founder of Tuta Mail said.",-0.908499789237976,,"As a result, monthly visits to pages on its website have dropped by almost 90%, Tuta's formal complaint to the EU alleges. """,2024-04-28
'We need a miracle' - Israeli and Palestinian economies battered by war,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68884729,2024-04-24T00:35:26.000Z,"More than six months into the devastating Gaza war, its impact on the Israeli and Palestinian economies has been huge.  Nearly all economic activity in Gaza has been wiped out and the World Bank says the war has also hit Palestinian businesses in the occupied West Bank hard.  As Israelis mark the Jewish festival of Passover, the much-vaunted ""start-up nation"" is also trying to remain an attractive proposition for investors. The cobbled streets of Jerusalem's Old City are eerily quiet. There are none of the long queues to visit the holy sites - at least those that remain open.  Just after Easter and Ramadan and right in the middle of Passover, all four quarters of the Old City should be teeming with visitors. Just 68,000 tourists arrived in Israel in February, according to the country's Central Bureau of Statistics. That's down massively from 319,100 visitors in the same month last year.  While it may be surprising that any visitors pass through Jerusalem at a time of such tension, many of those who do are religious pilgrims from across the globe who will have paid for their journeys well in advance. Zak's Jerusalem Gifts was one of only a handful of stores on Christian Quarter Street in the Old City, which is situated in occupied East Jerusalem, to have bothered opening up on the day I passed by. ""We're only really doing online sales,"" says Zak, whose business specialises in antiques and biblical coins.  ""There are no actual people. The last week, after the Iran-Israel escalation, business dropped down again. So we are just hoping that after the holidays some big major miracle will happen."" It's not just in Jerusalem's Old City that they need a miracle. Some 250km (150 miles) further north, on Israel's volatile border with Lebanon, almost daily exchanges of fire with Hezbollah since the war in Gaza began have forced the Israeli army to close much of the area and 80,000 residents have been evacuated further south. A similar number of Lebanese have been forced to leave their homes on the other side of the border. Agriculture in this part of Israel is another economic sector that has been hit hard. Ofer ""Poshko"" Moskovitz isn't really permitted to enter his avocado orchard in the kibbutz of Misgav Am because of its proximity to the border. But he occasionally ventures in anyway, walking wistfully among the trees, to gaze at all of his ""money falling on the ground"".  ""I must go to pick in the orchard because it's very important for the next season,"" Poshko says. ""If I don't pick this fruit, the next season will be a very poor one."" He says he is losing a lot of money because he can't pick the avocados - around 2m shekels ($530,000; £430,000) this season, he says. Although they provide a living for thousands of people, agriculture and tourism account for relatively small parts of both the Israeli or Palestinian economies. So what does the wider picture show? Last week ratings agency S&P Global cut Israel's long-term ratings (to A-plus from AA-minus) reflecting a loss of market confidence after increased tensions between Israel and Iran and concerns the war in Gaza could spread across the wider Middle East. That loss of confidence was also reflected in falling Israeli GDP - the total value of goods and services produced in the economy - which decreased by 5.7% in the last quarter of 2023. Many Israelis though say the country's renowned high-tech and start-up sector is proving to be more ""war-proof"" than expected. The coastal city of Tel Aviv is only 54km from Jerusalem. More pertinently, perhaps, it's less than 70km from Gaza.  At times, you'd be forgiven for forgetting - however momentarily - that Israel is embroiled in its longest war since independence in 1948. Families make the most of the early summer sun to play in the surf, couples eat lunch in the many open-air beach restaurants and young people strum away on guitars on the green spaces between the coastal road and the Mediterranean. The backdrop is a city that is economically active and physically growing fast. ""They joke that Israel's national bird should be the crane - the mechanical kind!"" says Jon Medved, founder and CEO of the online global venture investment platform Our Crowd. An engaging character with an overwhelmingly upbeat view of his world, Medved tells me that, ""in the first quarter of this year, almost $2bn was invested in Israeli start-ups…  We're having one of the best years we've ever had. People who are engaged with Israel are not disengaging."" Medved insists that, despite everything, Israel is still the ""start-up nation"" and a good option for would-be investors. ""There are 400 multinational corporations that have operations here. Not a single multinational, has closed its operation in Israel since the war."" To an extent, Elise Brezis agrees with Mr Medved's assessment. The economics professor at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv acknowledges that despite the last quarter's GDP figures, Israel's economy remains ""remarkably resilient"". ""When it comes to tourism, yes, we have a reduction in exports. But we had also reduction in imports,"" says Brezis. ""So in fact, the balance of payments is still okay. That's what is so problematic is that from the data, you don't really feel that there is such a terrible situation in Israel."" But Prof Brezis detects a wider malaise in Israeli society that isn't reflected in economic data. ""Israel's economy might be robust, but Israeli society is not robust right now. It's like looking at a person and saying, 'Wow, his salary is high,' [...] but in fact he's depressed. And he's thinking, 'What will I do with my life?' - That's exactly Israel today."" If the outlook in Israel is mixed, then across the separation barrier that divides Jerusalem and Bethlehem the view from the Palestinian side is overwhelmingly bleak. Tourism is especially important to the economies of towns like Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.  While some people are still heading to Jerusalem's sites, in the place where Christians believe Jesus was born tourism ""stopped immediately"" after 7 October last year, says Dr Samir Hazboun, chairman of Bethlehem's Chamber of Commerce and Industry. That's when Hamas attacked Israeli communities near Gaza, killing about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, taking about 250 hostages and sparking the current war. There's huge dependence and reliance on Israel's economy here - but Israel virtually closed off the landlocked West Bank after 7 October and this has had a disastrous impact on the life and work of many Palestinians, Dr Hazboun says. ""The Bethlehem governorate right now is closed,"" he says. ""There are around 43 gates [in the Israeli security barrier] but only three are open. So with between 16,000 and 20,000 Palestinian workers from our area working in Israel, immediately, they lost their income."" The chamber of commerce says that the revenues from local Palestinians working in Israel amounted to 22bn shekels ($5.8bn) annually. ""You can imagine the impact on the economy,"" says Dr Hazboun, who is particularly concerned for the prospects for younger Palestinians the longer the war continues and more the Israeli and West Bank economies decouple. ""The younger generation now are jobless, they are not working. Many of them are talented people,"" he laments. ""In June I'm expecting around 30,000 new graduates from the Palestinian universities. What they will do?  In Gaza itself the economy has been completely destroyed by six months of war. Israel's relentless aerial bombardment and ground operations have killed 34,183 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Unlike in some parts of Israel, where there is optimism around being able to ride out the storm and continue attracting investors, in the West Bank and Gaza there is little hope things will return to any kind of normal. ",BBC,24/04/2024,"['More than six months into the devastating Gaza war, its impact on the Israeli and Palestinian economies has been huge.', 'Nearly all economic activity in Gaza has been wiped out and the World Bank says the war has also hit Palestinian businesses in the occupied West Bank hard.', 'As Israelis mark the Jewish festival of Passover, the much-vaunted ""start-up nation"" is also trying to remain an attractive proposition for investors.', ""The cobbled streets of Jerusalem's Old City are eerily quiet."", 'There are none of the long queues to visit the holy sites - at least those that remain open.', 'Just after Easter and Ramadan and right in the middle of Passover, all four quarters of the Old City should be teeming with visitors.', ""Just 68,000 tourists arrived in Israel in February, according to the country's Central Bureau of Statistics."", ""That's down massively from 319,100 visitors in the same month last year."", 'While it may be surprising that any visitors pass through Jerusalem at a time of such tension, many of those who do are religious pilgrims from across the globe who will have paid for their journeys well in advance.', 'Zak\'s Jerusalem Gifts was one of only a handful of stores on Christian Quarter Street in the Old City, which is situated in occupied East Jerusalem, to have bothered opening up on the day I passed by. ""', 'We\'re only really doing online sales,"" says Zak, whose business specialises in antiques and biblical coins. ""', 'There are no actual people.', 'The last week, after the Iran-Israel escalation, business dropped down again.', 'So we are just hoping that after the holidays some big major miracle will happen.""', ""It's not just in Jerusalem's Old City that they need a miracle."", ""Some 250km (150 miles) further north, on Israel's volatile border with Lebanon, almost daily exchanges of fire with Hezbollah since the war in Gaza began have forced the Israeli army to close much of the area and 80,000 residents have been evacuated further south."", 'A similar number of Lebanese have been forced to leave their homes on the other side of the border.', 'Agriculture in this part of Israel is another economic sector that has been hit hard.', 'Ofer ""Poshko"" Moskovitz isn\'t really permitted to enter his avocado orchard in the kibbutz of Misgav Am because of its proximity to the border.', 'But he occasionally ventures in anyway, walking wistfully among the trees, to gaze at all of his ""money falling on the ground"". ""', 'I must go to pick in the orchard because it\'s very important for the next season,"" Poshko says. ""', 'If I don\'t pick this fruit, the next season will be a very poor one.""', ""He says he is losing a lot of money because he can't pick the avocados - around 2m shekels ($530,000; £430,000) this season, he says."", 'Although they provide a living for thousands of people, agriculture and tourism account for relatively small parts of both the Israeli or Palestinian economies.', 'So what does the wider picture show?', ""Last week ratings agency S&P Global cut Israel's long-term ratings (to A-plus from AA-minus) reflecting a loss of market confidence after increased tensions between Israel and Iran and concerns the war in Gaza could spread across the wider Middle East."", 'That loss of confidence was also reflected in falling Israeli GDP - the total value of goods and services produced in the economy - which decreased by 5.7% in the last quarter of 2023.', 'Many Israelis though say the country\'s renowned high-tech and start-up sector is proving to be more ""war-proof"" than expected.', 'The coastal city of Tel Aviv is only 54km from Jerusalem.', ""More pertinently, perhaps, it's less than 70km from Gaza."", ""At times, you'd be forgiven for forgetting - however momentarily - that Israel is embroiled in its longest war since independence in 1948."", 'Families make the most of the early summer sun to play in the surf, couples eat lunch in the many open-air beach restaurants and young people strum away on guitars on the green spaces between the coastal road and the Mediterranean.', 'The backdrop is a city that is economically active and physically growing fast. ""', 'They joke that Israel\'s national bird should be the crane - the mechanical kind!""', 'says Jon Medved, founder and CEO of the online global venture investment platform Our Crowd.', 'An engaging character with an overwhelmingly upbeat view of his world, Medved tells me that, ""in the first quarter of this year, almost $2bn was invested in Israeli start-ups… We\'re having one of the best years we\'ve ever had.', 'People who are engaged with Israel are not disengaging.""', 'Medved insists that, despite everything, Israel is still the ""start-up nation"" and a good option for would-be investors. ""', 'There are 400 multinational corporations that have operations here.', 'Not a single multinational, has closed its operation in Israel since the war.""', ""To an extent, Elise Brezis agrees with Mr Medved's assessment."", 'The economics professor at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv acknowledges that despite the last quarter\'s GDP figures, Israel\'s economy remains ""remarkably resilient"". ""', 'When it comes to tourism, yes, we have a reduction in exports.', 'But we had also reduction in imports,"" says Brezis. ""', 'So in fact, the balance of payments is still okay.', 'That\'s what is so problematic is that from the data, you don\'t really feel that there is such a terrible situation in Israel.""', 'But Prof Brezis detects a wider malaise in Israeli society that isn\'t reflected in economic data. ""', ""Israel's economy might be robust, but Israeli society is not robust right now."", ""It's like looking at a person and saying, 'Wow, his salary is high,' [...] but in fact he's depressed."", ""And he's thinking, 'What will I do with my life?' -"", 'That\'s exactly Israel today.""', 'If the outlook in Israel is mixed, then across the separation barrier that divides Jerusalem and Bethlehem the view from the Palestinian side is overwhelmingly bleak.', 'Tourism is especially important to the economies of towns like Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.', 'While some people are still heading to Jerusalem\'s sites, in the place where Christians believe Jesus was born tourism ""stopped immediately"" after 7 October last year, says Dr Samir Hazboun, chairman of Bethlehem\'s Chamber of Commerce and Industry.', ""That's when Hamas attacked Israeli communities near Gaza, killing about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, taking about 250 hostages and sparking the current war."", 'There\'s huge dependence and reliance on Israel\'s economy here - but Israel virtually closed off the landlocked West Bank after 7 October and this has had a disastrous impact on the life and work of many Palestinians, Dr Hazboun says. ""', 'The Bethlehem governorate right now is closed,"" he says. ""', 'There are around 43 gates [in the Israeli security barrier] but only three are open.', 'So with between 16,000 and 20,000 Palestinian workers from our area working in Israel, immediately, they lost their income.""', 'The chamber of commerce says that the revenues from local Palestinians working in Israel amounted to 22bn shekels ($5.8bn) annually. ""', 'You can imagine the impact on the economy,"" says Dr Hazboun, who is particularly concerned for the prospects for younger Palestinians the longer the war continues and more the Israeli and West Bank economies decouple. ""', 'The younger generation now are jobless, they are not working.', 'Many of them are talented people,"" he laments. ""', ""In June I'm expecting around 30,000 new graduates from the Palestinian universities."", 'What they will do?', 'In Gaza itself the economy has been completely destroyed by six months of war.', ""Israel's relentless aerial bombardment and ground operations have killed 34,183 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry."", 'Unlike in some parts of Israel, where there is optimism around being able to ride out the storm and continue attracting investors, in the West Bank and Gaza there is little hope things will return to any kind of normal.']",-0.0504824617095796,"Unlike in some parts of Israel, where there is optimism around being able to ride out the storm and continue attracting investors, in the West Bank and Gaza there is little hope things will return to any kind of normal.","That's when Hamas attacked Israeli communities near Gaza, killing about 1,200 people, mainly civilians, taking about 250 hostages and sparking the current war.",-0.2119207361648822,"An engaging character with an overwhelmingly upbeat view of his world, Medved tells me that, ""in the first quarter of this year, almost $2bn was invested in Israeli start-ups… We're having one of the best years we've ever had.",That loss of confidence was also reflected in falling Israeli GDP - the total value of goods and services produced in the economy - which decreased by 5.7% in the last quarter of 2023.,2024-04-28
Anglo American rejects £31bn mega-deal with rival BHP,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c89zyxy4p4yo,2024-04-26T12:10:38.245Z,"Anglo American has rejected a £31.1bn takeover proposed by rival miner BHP, branding it ""highly unattractive"" and  ""opportunistic"". BHP confirmed on Thursday that it had approached Anglo American about a deal which would create the world's largest copper producer. But Anglo American has rebuffed the approach, in particular the plan to significantly restructure its business. BHP wants to buy Anglo American for its copper operations. Copper is used to conduct electricity and demand is growing as some economies shift to renewable energy and electric vehicles. Anglo American owns two copper mines, in Chile and Peru where BHP also has some operations. A deal would bring together two of the industry's biggest mining companies and could face significant competition hurdles if it went ahead. Copper prices rose above $10,000 per tonne for the first time in two years after news of the proposal emerged. Fawad Razaqzada, analyst at City Index, said: ""While there is an increasing demand propelled by the green transition and infrastructure development, concerns have risen regarding supply disruptions stemming from factors such as labour strikes, regulatory alterations, and operational hurdles at mining sites. ""There are some fears that BHP's bid to acquire Anglo American would further limit copper production growth, just as demand is likely to rise given that the metal is vital for the green transition."" BHP has proposed spinning off Anglo's platinum and South African iron ore divisions. But Anglo said that under BHP's plan its business would bear the brunt of any major changes that may needed to get regulatory approval. “The BHP proposal is opportunistic and fails to value Anglo American’s prospects,"" said Anglo American's chair Stuart Chambers. He added: ""The proposed structure is also highly unattractive, creating substantial uncertainty and execution risk borne almost entirely by Anglo American, its shareholders and its other stakeholders."" Anglo American's share price edged down on Friday to £25.47, just above the price per share BHP is offering for its smaller rival. ",BBC,26/04/2024,"['Anglo American has rejected a £31.1bn takeover proposed by rival miner BHP, branding it ""highly unattractive"" and ""opportunistic"".', ""BHP confirmed on Thursday that it had approached Anglo American about a deal which would create the world's largest copper producer."", 'But Anglo American has rebuffed the approach, in particular the plan to significantly restructure its business.', 'BHP wants to buy Anglo American for its copper operations.', 'Copper is used to conduct electricity and demand is growing as some economies shift to renewable energy and electric vehicles.', 'Anglo American owns two copper mines, in Chile and Peru where BHP also has some operations.', ""A deal would bring together two of the industry's biggest mining companies and could face significant competition hurdles if it went ahead."", 'Copper prices rose above $10,000 per tonne for the first time in two years after news of the proposal emerged.', 'Fawad Razaqzada, analyst at City Index, said: ""While there is an increasing demand propelled by the green transition and infrastructure development, concerns have risen regarding supply disruptions stemming from factors such as labour strikes, regulatory alterations, and operational hurdles at mining sites. ""', 'There are some fears that BHP\'s bid to acquire Anglo American would further limit copper production growth, just as demand is likely to rise given that the metal is vital for the green transition.""', ""BHP has proposed spinning off Anglo's platinum and South African iron ore divisions."", ""But Anglo said that under BHP's plan its business would bear the brunt of any major changes that may needed to get regulatory approval. “"", 'The BHP proposal is opportunistic and fails to value Anglo American’s prospects,"" said Anglo American\'s chair Stuart Chambers.', 'He added: ""The proposed structure is also highly unattractive, creating substantial uncertainty and execution risk borne almost entirely by Anglo American, its shareholders and its other stakeholders.""', ""Anglo American's share price edged down on Friday to £25.47, just above the price per share BHP is offering for its smaller rival.""]",0.0201166611117185,But Anglo said that under BHP's plan its business would bear the brunt of any major changes that may needed to get regulatory approval. “,"Anglo American has rejected a £31.1bn takeover proposed by rival miner BHP, branding it ""highly unattractive"" and ""opportunistic"".",-0.4094068884849548,"Copper prices rose above $10,000 per tonne for the first time in two years after news of the proposal emerged.","Anglo American's share price edged down on Friday to £25.47, just above the price per share BHP is offering for its smaller rival.",2024-04-28
US economic growth slows but inflation grows,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68898432,2024-04-25T14:09:40.000Z,"The US economy grew by less than forecast in the first three months of this year but inflation gathered pace, which could delay an interest rate cut.  Official figures revealed the economy expanded at an annualised rate of 1.6%, far below expectations and the growth seen in the final months of 2023. Meanwhile, inflation, which measures the pace of price rises, has increased. At the start of the year, experts had been forecasting a series of interest rate cuts in the US. However, inflation is yet to fall back to the Federal Reserve's 2% target, and on Thursday, figures from the US Department of Commerce showed that inflation increased by 3.4% in the first three months of 2024. This is compared to an increase of 1.8% in the final three months of 2023. Raising interest rates makes borrowing - for things such as loans and mortgages - more expensive and theoretically is meant to encourage people to spend less. The idea is that this helps to bring inflation down by dampening demand. However, US inflation has not fallen back as quickly as expected. At the same time, economic growth - measured as gross domestic product (GDP) - has slowed from 3.4% growth in the final three months of last year to 1.6%. Economists had been expected it to decelerate but only to 2.4%. Olu Sonola, head of US economic research at Fitch, the credit rating agency, said: ""The hot inflation print is the real story in this report. ""If growth continues to slowly decelerate, but inflation strongly takes off again in the wrong direction, the expectation of a Fed interest rate cut in 2024 is starting to look increasingly more out of reach."" The key US interest rate is between 5.25% to 5.5% - the highest level in more than 20 years. Stuart Cole, chief macro economist at Equiti Capital in London, said the US Federal Reserve, which sets interest rates, was ""now finding itself caught between a rock and a hard place"". ""The growth numbers suggest monetary policy has worked its magic and the Fed's foot on the monetary brake can be eased somewhat,"" he said. ""But the inflation figures suggest otherwise, and potentially even point to the need for a further tightening."" The 1.6% growth figure is the first estimate of GDP. A second reading, ""based on more complete source data"", will be released on 30 May. Nevertheless, the economy is a key issue as the US heads towards an election later this year. ",BBC,25/04/2024,"['The US economy grew by less than forecast in the first three months of this year but inflation gathered pace, which could delay an interest rate cut.', 'Official figures revealed the economy expanded at an annualised rate of 1.6%, far below expectations and the growth seen in the final months of 2023.', 'Meanwhile, inflation, which measures the pace of price rises, has increased.', 'At the start of the year, experts had been forecasting a series of interest rate cuts in the US.', ""However, inflation is yet to fall back to the Federal Reserve's 2% target, and on Thursday, figures from the US Department of Commerce showed that inflation increased by 3.4% in the first three months of 2024."", 'This is compared to an increase of 1.8% in the final three months of 2023.', 'Raising interest rates makes borrowing - for things such as loans and mortgages - more expensive and theoretically is meant to encourage people to spend less.', 'The idea is that this helps to bring inflation down by dampening demand.', 'However, US inflation has not fallen back as quickly as expected.', 'At the same time, economic growth - measured as gross domestic product (GDP) - has slowed from 3.4% growth in the final three months of last year to 1.6%.', 'Economists had been expected it to decelerate but only to 2.4%.', 'Olu Sonola, head of US economic research at Fitch, the credit rating agency, said: ""The hot inflation print is the real story in this report. ""', 'If growth continues to slowly decelerate, but inflation strongly takes off again in the wrong direction, the expectation of a Fed interest rate cut in 2024 is starting to look increasingly more out of reach.""', 'The key US interest rate is between 5.25% to 5.5% - the highest level in more than 20 years.', 'Stuart Cole, chief macro economist at Equiti Capital in London, said the US Federal Reserve, which sets interest rates, was ""now finding itself caught between a rock and a hard place"". ""', 'The growth numbers suggest monetary policy has worked its magic and the Fed\'s foot on the monetary brake can be eased somewhat,"" he said. ""', 'But the inflation figures suggest otherwise, and potentially even point to the need for a further tightening.""', 'The 1.6% growth figure is the first estimate of GDP.', 'A second reading, ""based on more complete source data"", will be released on 30 May.', 'Nevertheless, the economy is a key issue as the US heads towards an election later this year.']",0.2672875493103288,Raising interest rates makes borrowing - for things such as loans and mortgages - more expensive and theoretically is meant to encourage people to spend less.,"The US economy grew by less than forecast in the first three months of this year but inflation gathered pace, which could delay an interest rate cut.",0.1737287600835164,"Official figures revealed the economy expanded at an annualised rate of 1.6%, far below expectations and the growth seen in the final months of 2023.","At the same time, economic growth - measured as gross domestic product (GDP) - has slowed from 3.4% growth in the final three months of last year to 1.6%.",2024-04-28
The challenge of upgrading iconic steel windows,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68777865,2024-04-15T23:11:05.000Z,"Every winter, architect Kevin Adams would perform his early morning ritual of devotion. Cloth in hand, he'd head to the stylish Crittall windows in the East London flat where he once lived - because these windows, though stylish, were also sopping wet. ""You'd know to expect it - you wipe it down, you open the window as soon as you can, you don't let it puddle or rot the sills,"" he says of the moisture that used to form on the single-glazing and thin steel frames of his windows when the weather was cold. ""I put up with it because I loved them. We do all kinds of things for love, don't we?"" Not everyone who has lived with vintage steel-framed windows feels so affectionate towards them, however. Crittall Windows became synonymous both with modernism - and condensation, which can lead to serious problems such as mould, says Mr Adams, a teaching fellow at the Edinburgh College of Art.  While many consider such windows iconic and a key part of British architectural heritage, given today's high energy prices and rising awareness around the dangers of mould, efficient windows have become essential. Crittall, like all other companies in the glazing industry, has had to stay relevant to survive. The firm, now based in Witham, Essex, has been manufacturing steel-framed windows since the 1880s. The frames Crittall developed could be mass produced, then simply cut and welded to fit an array of standard window sizes. The style was popular in both commercial and residential buildings during the 1920s and 1930s but also after World War Two, says Adams. ""Perfect for a post-war economy that was mass building without much money and with a shortage of materials,"" he explains. Factories and warehouses often benefitted from metal-framed windows - lightweight but strong steel meant the frames could be extra thin, allowing more room for glass, which let natural light flood through. Workers appreciated this - but so did the wealthy, who wanted light, airy homes. A large, art deco country house built by Walter Crittall in the 1930s was listed for sale last year at £1.65m.  On the Crittall factory floor today, there is a machine that dates to the 1920s. It is still used occasionally for gently bending steel frame sections into curved pieces, says managing director Russell Ager: ""It's an incredible piece of kit."" But the company has moved on in many other ways, he stresses, and nearby machines in the building are now state-of-the-art. ""We've done so much work to improve the thermal performance of the products,"" adds Mr Ager. Today you can get double and even triple-glazed Crittall windows. And crucially, the steel frames are now made with a thermal break, a glass fibre section of insulation within the frame that prevents heat escaping through its structure. The lack of a thermal break is what made the older frames so prone to becoming cold when the weather outside was chilly. Cold glass and steel encourage moisture in the indoor air to condense. The latest Crittall windows can achieve a U-value - a measure of their insulating performance - as low as 0.8, which is better than standard double-glazed windows. They are heftier than the vintage versions but Crittall has retained the classic look of relatively skinny metal frames and rectangular or square panes of glass. TikTok and Instagram accounts focusing on home décor often feature windows such as this, though Crittall has many competitors now that make similar-looking products, admits Mr Ager. According to Mr Adams, in the post-war era, there weren't many other firms operating in the same market as Crittall in the UK. But that has changed. Many companies, including KJM Group and Velfac offer aluminium alternatives. And there are other steel window makers out there, too, such as Fabco. ""Most consumers… buy our product because they love the look of it,"" says Mr Ager. Business, at the moment, is good. During the early stage of the Covid-19 pandemic, Crittall's sales to residential customers seeking to improve their properties spiked by 30%. And while this was then followed by a decrease, currently the firm's orders in 2024 are up 20% on last year already, says Mr Ager. More technology of business Dated heritage installations reaching the end of their life present another opportunity. Crittall recently replaced 100-year-old windows that the firm had made for a building in Central London with new, energy efficient versions of the same products. This kind of upgrade is not accessible to all, however, because of the relatively high cost of contemporary glazing, notes Claire Bennie, director of Municipal, a housing design and development consultancy. ""Every year we have a chat about it at our AGM and everyone is afraid of taking the plunge,"" she says, referring to residents' meetings at the block of 1930s flats in London where she lives. The old Crittall windows in the property give the building ""elegance"", says Ms Bennie but also makes them ""freezing"". Her own flat's windows are not prone to condensation - but only because they are so draughty that they stay well-ventilated, she explains.  It will be increasingly difficult to justify the installation of new metal-framed windows in the future because of the embodied carbon in materials such as steel, says Ms Bennie. To reduce emissions and tackle climate change, sustainable timber building products ought to become more and more prominent, she argues. Mr Ager says Crittall windows are made with 100% recycled steel and the company is working to make its products and operations as sustainable as possible. Other challenges facing the company in the coming years, include the possibility that building regulations in England will change, so as to demand extremely energy efficient windows in new build properties. Stricter standards could mean a need to make the frames thicker still and even better insulated, says Mr Ager: ""The frames would almost become unrecognisable. It would be a big issue for anybody that makes a metal frame."" Sustainability is paramount, stresses Ms Bennie, but she does say the ergonomic design of Crittall windows is hard to beat. The windows are often easy to open into a position where you can reach outside and clean them yourself, for instance. And the classic balcony doors made by the firm fold back neatly so as not to take up precious space outside. ""I wish modern window manufacturers would take a lesson from Crittall,"" she says, ""In how to make windows liveable and a pleasure to use.""  ",BBC,15/04/2024,"['Every winter, architect Kevin Adams would perform his early morning ritual of devotion.', 'Cloth in hand, he\'d head to the stylish Crittall windows in the East London flat where he once lived - because these windows, though stylish, were also sopping wet. ""', 'You\'d know to expect it - you wipe it down, you open the window as soon as you can, you don\'t let it puddle or rot the sills,"" he says of the moisture that used to form on the single-glazing and thin steel frames of his windows when the weather was cold. ""', 'I put up with it because I loved them.', 'We do all kinds of things for love, don\'t we?""', 'Not everyone who has lived with vintage steel-framed windows feels so affectionate towards them, however.', 'Crittall Windows became synonymous both with modernism - and condensation, which can lead to serious problems such as mould, says Mr Adams, a teaching fellow at the Edinburgh College of Art.', ""While many consider such windows iconic and a key part of British architectural heritage, given today's high energy prices and rising awareness around the dangers of mould, efficient windows have become essential."", 'Crittall, like all other companies in the glazing industry, has had to stay relevant to survive.', 'The firm, now based in Witham, Essex, has been manufacturing steel-framed windows since the 1880s.', 'The frames Crittall developed could be mass produced, then simply cut and welded to fit an array of standard window sizes.', 'The style was popular in both commercial and residential buildings during the 1920s and 1930s but also after World War Two, says Adams. ""', 'Perfect for a post-war economy that was mass building without much money and with a shortage of materials,"" he explains.', 'Factories and warehouses often benefitted from metal-framed windows - lightweight but strong steel meant the frames could be extra thin, allowing more room for glass, which let natural light flood through.', 'Workers appreciated this - but so did the wealthy, who wanted light, airy homes.', 'A large, art deco country house built by Walter Crittall in the 1930s was listed for sale last year at £1.65m. On the Crittall factory floor today, there is a machine that dates to the 1920s.', 'It is still used occasionally for gently bending steel frame sections into curved pieces, says managing director Russell Ager: ""It\'s an incredible piece of kit.""', 'But the company has moved on in many other ways, he stresses, and nearby machines in the building are now state-of-the-art. ""', 'We\'ve done so much work to improve the thermal performance of the products,"" adds Mr Ager.', 'Today you can get double and even triple-glazed Crittall windows.', 'And crucially, the steel frames are now made with a thermal break, a glass fibre section of insulation within the frame that prevents heat escaping through its structure.', 'The lack of a thermal break is what made the older frames so prone to becoming cold when the weather outside was chilly.', 'Cold glass and steel encourage moisture in the indoor air to condense.', 'The latest Crittall windows can achieve a U-value - a measure of their insulating performance - as low as 0.8, which is better than standard double-glazed windows.', 'They are heftier than the vintage versions but Crittall has retained the classic look of relatively skinny metal frames and rectangular or square panes of glass.', 'TikTok and Instagram accounts focusing on home décor often feature windows such as this, though Crittall has many competitors now that make similar-looking products, admits Mr Ager.', ""According to Mr Adams, in the post-war era, there weren't many other firms operating in the same market as Crittall in the UK."", 'But that has changed.', 'Many companies, including KJM Group and Velfac offer aluminium alternatives.', 'And there are other steel window makers out there, too, such as Fabco. ""', 'Most consumers… buy our product because they love the look of it,"" says Mr Ager.', 'Business, at the moment, is good.', ""During the early stage of the Covid-19 pandemic, Crittall's sales to residential customers seeking to improve their properties spiked by 30%."", ""And while this was then followed by a decrease, currently the firm's orders in 2024 are up 20% on last year already, says Mr Ager."", 'More technology of business Dated heritage installations reaching the end of their life present another opportunity.', 'Crittall recently replaced 100-year-old windows that the firm had made for a building in Central London with new, energy efficient versions of the same products.', 'This kind of upgrade is not accessible to all, however, because of the relatively high cost of contemporary glazing, notes Claire Bennie, director of Municipal, a housing design and development consultancy. ""', 'Every year we have a chat about it at our AGM and everyone is afraid of taking the plunge,"" she says, referring to residents\' meetings at the block of 1930s flats in London where she lives.', 'The old Crittall windows in the property give the building ""elegance"", says Ms Bennie but also makes them ""freezing"".', ""Her own flat's windows are not prone to condensation - but only because they are so draughty that they stay well-ventilated, she explains."", 'It will be increasingly difficult to justify the installation of new metal-framed windows in the future because of the embodied carbon in materials such as steel, says Ms Bennie.', 'To reduce emissions and tackle climate change, sustainable timber building products ought to become more and more prominent, she argues.', 'Mr Ager says Crittall windows are made with 100% recycled steel and the company is working to make its products and operations as sustainable as possible.', 'Other challenges facing the company in the coming years, include the possibility that building regulations in England will change, so as to demand extremely energy efficient windows in new build properties.', 'Stricter standards could mean a need to make the frames thicker still and even better insulated, says Mr Ager: ""The frames would almost become unrecognisable.', 'It would be a big issue for anybody that makes a metal frame.""', 'Sustainability is paramount, stresses Ms Bennie, but she does say the ergonomic design of Crittall windows is hard to beat.', 'The windows are often easy to open into a position where you can reach outside and clean them yourself, for instance.', 'And the classic balcony doors made by the firm fold back neatly so as not to take up precious space outside. ""', 'I wish modern window manufacturers would take a lesson from Crittall,"" she says, ""In how to make windows liveable and a pleasure to use.""']",0.2012343859627007,"Factories and warehouses often benefitted from metal-framed windows - lightweight but strong steel meant the frames could be extra thin, allowing more room for glass, which let natural light flood through.","The style was popular in both commercial and residential buildings during the 1920s and 1930s but also after World War Two, says Adams. """,0.3039323623691286,"And while this was then followed by a decrease, currently the firm's orders in 2024 are up 20% on last year already, says Mr Ager.","Perfect for a post-war economy that was mass building without much money and with a shortage of materials,"" he explains.",2024-04-28
Why a deluge of Chinese-made drugs is hard to curb,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68669244,2024-04-18T22:57:01.000Z,"When Sammy left her village in Sichuan province to attend university in northern China more than a decade ago, she was following a well-trodden rite of passage.  The English language graduate was the first person in her family to go to university. She had a passion for foreign languages and dreamed of becoming a teacher. She had never heard of synthetic opioids before.  After graduating, Sammy found work at a chemicals company in the Chinese city of Shijiazhuang, selling what she thought were chemicals to clients around the world. She would practice English every day speaking to her customers online, and earn a commission for each sale she made. Her dreams of becoming a teacher quickly faded. ""Maybe others are just like me… At the start we don't know what we are selling, but when we find out we have fallen in love with the work,"" she said. ""This work can make money,"" she adds. Sammy [not her real name] is an unlikely drug trafficker. She is one of what international law enforcement agencies estimate could be thousands of online sales representatives, working for illicit Chinese pharmaceutical and chemical companies producing and smuggling illegal laboratory made drugs.  The US government has long accused China of flooding the country with deadly drugs like fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to 50 times stronger than heroin, claims the Chinese government denies. The US says Chinese-made opioids are fuelling the worst drug crisis in the country's history. In 2022 more than 70,000 Americans died from fentanyl overdoses. According to a report published by the US select committee on the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government provides subsidies to companies openly trafficking illicit synthetic drugs. The report found tens of thousands of posts online advertising illegal drugs and pre-cursors. The study claims that ""wholly state owned"" companies are involved in the trafficking of drugs. The Chinese government has consistently denied knowledge of the illegal drug trade. Many like Sammy fall into the drug trade seemingly by accident, initially unaware of the products they are peddling online and their deadly consequences. But others are more aware of what they are selling.  Each morning Sara [not her real name] posts photos and videos across her social media platforms advertising drugs; synthetic cannabinoids, precursors for MDMA, and nitazenes, a synthetic opioid considered up to 50 times more potent than even fentanyl. ""We have many customers in Britain and have cooperated with them many times,"" boasts Sara, an international trade graduate, now working for an online platform.  When challenged, she is not drawn into a moral discussion about selling drugs. She claims she never asks customers how they use what she sells.   The UK National Crime and Agency (NCA) believes drug dealers are mixing the synthetic opioid with street drugs such as heroin. According to the NCA, there have been more than 100 deaths linked to nitazenes over the past nine months, leading health professionals to warn the UK may be facing a drug-related crisis.  The BBC has found hundreds of adverts for nitazenes online. Suppliers contacted claim to send shipments through courier services, mislabelling deliveries and hiding drugs in fake packaging. The BBC has also seen courier tracking numbers provided by online sales representative in China claiming to have made successful deliveries across the UK. Sara entered the business after university. She thought she was selling chemicals.  She has worked in the industry for two and a half years. ""I know most of the products,"" she says. ""My boss has been running this company for more than seven years, and he knows lots of customers and freight forwarders. If the product is detained, he will lose the most. So he will try his best to make the product reach you smoothly,"" she adds. In March, the UK government classified 15 synthetic opioids as Class A drugs. Under the Misuse of Drugs act anyone caught supplying or producing the drugs could face up to life in prison. Those caught in possession face seven years.   According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), China has between 40,000 and 100,000 pharmaceutical companies. ""China has long had one of the most significant pharmaceutical industries in Asia, as well as one of the largest chemical industries. And we've seen industry growth in other countries of the region,"" said Jeremy Douglas in late 2023, the then regional representative of the UNODC . ""While both industries are regulated, the challenge is significant given the sheer scale, and at the same time there are a number of ways to move products. Parcel post, air freight and shipping containers are all moving globally in high volumes,"" he said. Mr Douglas says that synthetic drugs are disrupting the traditional drug trade. Outside of China, synthetic drugs offer opportunities for both traditional crime organisations and upstarts able to buy directly from producers half a world away.  ""Synthetics like fentanyl have several advantages over traditional drugs - compact, easily shippable, pre-existing demand, replaceable. They're attractive to traffickers."" That was confirmed in my conversations with sales people working for Chinese pharmaceutical firms. ""First of all, our packaging is completely secret, no one knows what it is until you open it, and second, we will change the name of the package and will not reveal any name about the product,"" says Sara. ""We will get the logistics order number when we send the package, we will track the situation of the package at any time, and any anomalies can be known and solved in time,"" she adds. According to Europol, the European police agency, China is the world's biggest manufacturer and distributor of synthetic, lab-made drugs. Some mimic the effects of traditional drugs like cannabis or cocaine. Chemists synthesise new drugs in order to stay one step ahead of the law. ""It is criminal entrepreneurship, but in a legitimate framework which is really unique,"" says Dr Louise Shelley the director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at George Mason University, and author of Dark Commerce.  ""I have not seen such a professionalism and a corporate element in this anywhere else in the world. Criminal activity was a type of social mobility."" In 2020, researchers from TraCCC studied over 350 English language websites advertising the synthetic opioid fentanyl. ""From all the adverts that we found, nearly 40% of them were from corporate registries, and the largest hub of that was in Wuhan,"" says Dr Shelly. The sales people contacted by the BBC see the drug trade as simply another aspect of e-commerce. When challenged over selling drugs that damage lives, one described herself as a ""middleman."" ""Somebody needs it, somebody makes it, and I am just a middleman who lets customers know that I have it and what they do with it, I don't care,"" she says. ""Then I figured out I just need to make money. I don't know and don't care. Everyone has their own needs."" The woman boasts of clients from Canada to Croatia. She provided photos of recent drugs shipments complete with labels showing a UK address. ""I didn't know at first until I went online and translated the product into Chinese,"" she says via a message punctuated with a teary emoji.  Another seller says: ""This industry is easy, and you can get higher wages, which attracts a large number of young people"". Natalie [not her real name], focuses on fentanyl. ""We buy from over 10 different labs and have a large selection. I have a professional shipping agent who packaged goods so has a very high delivery success rate to the UK."" Meanwhile, another supplier claimed to be able to smuggle drugs into the UK hidden in dog food packaging.  ""You don't need to worry about the packaging. We guarantee you safe delivery.""  ""We ship in large quantities all over the world every day. Please trust our professional team. We guarantee 100% safe transportation.""  In 2019, the Chinese government banned all forms of fentanyl and its analogues. In January 2024, China and the US launched a joint operation to curb the production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. ""As long as market demand remains high in some parts of the world then that demand will be met in one way or another,"" said Mr Douglas from the UNODC.  ",BBC,18/04/2024,"['When Sammy left her village in Sichuan province to attend university in northern China more than a decade ago, she was following a well-trodden rite of passage.', 'The English language graduate was the first person in her family to go to university.', 'She had a passion for foreign languages and dreamed of becoming a teacher.', 'She had never heard of synthetic opioids before.', 'After graduating, Sammy found work at a chemicals company in the Chinese city of Shijiazhuang, selling what she thought were chemicals to clients around the world.', 'She would practice English every day speaking to her customers online, and earn a commission for each sale she made.', 'Her dreams of becoming a teacher quickly faded. ""', 'Maybe others are just like me… At the start we don\'t know what we are selling, but when we find out we have fallen in love with the work,"" she said. ""', 'This work can make money,"" she adds.', 'Sammy [not her real name] is an unlikely drug trafficker.', 'She is one of what international law enforcement agencies estimate could be thousands of online sales representatives, working for illicit Chinese pharmaceutical and chemical companies producing and smuggling illegal laboratory made drugs.', 'The US government has long accused China of flooding the country with deadly drugs like fentanyl, a synthetic opioid up to 50 times stronger than heroin, claims the Chinese government denies.', ""The US says Chinese-made opioids are fuelling the worst drug crisis in the country's history."", 'In 2022 more than 70,000 Americans died from fentanyl overdoses.', 'According to a report published by the US select committee on the Chinese Communist Party, the Chinese government provides subsidies to companies openly trafficking illicit synthetic drugs.', 'The report found tens of thousands of posts online advertising illegal drugs and pre-cursors.', 'The study claims that ""wholly state owned"" companies are involved in the trafficking of drugs.', 'The Chinese government has consistently denied knowledge of the illegal drug trade.', 'Many like Sammy fall into the drug trade seemingly by accident, initially unaware of the products they are peddling online and their deadly consequences.', 'But others are more aware of what they are selling.', 'Each morning Sara [not her real name] posts photos and videos across her social media platforms advertising drugs; synthetic cannabinoids, precursors for MDMA, and nitazenes, a synthetic opioid considered up to 50 times more potent than even fentanyl. ""', 'We have many customers in Britain and have cooperated with them many times,"" boasts Sara, an international trade graduate, now working for an online platform.', 'When challenged, she is not drawn into a moral discussion about selling drugs.', 'She claims she never asks customers how they use what she sells.', 'The UK National Crime and Agency (NCA) believes drug dealers are mixing the synthetic opioid with street drugs such as heroin.', 'According to the NCA, there have been more than 100 deaths linked to nitazenes over the past nine months, leading health professionals to warn the UK may be facing a drug-related crisis.', 'The BBC has found hundreds of adverts for nitazenes online.', 'Suppliers contacted claim to send shipments through courier services, mislabelling deliveries and hiding drugs in fake packaging.', 'The BBC has also seen courier tracking numbers provided by online sales representative in China claiming to have made successful deliveries across the UK.', 'Sara entered the business after university.', 'She thought she was selling chemicals.', 'She has worked in the industry for two and a half years. ""', 'I know most of the products,"" she says. ""', 'My boss has been running this company for more than seven years, and he knows lots of customers and freight forwarders.', 'If the product is detained, he will lose the most.', 'So he will try his best to make the product reach you smoothly,"" she adds.', 'In March, the UK government classified 15 synthetic opioids as Class A drugs.', 'Under the Misuse of Drugs act anyone caught supplying or producing the drugs could face up to life in prison.', 'Those caught in possession face seven years.', 'According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), China has between 40,000 and 100,000 pharmaceutical companies. ""', 'China has long had one of the most significant pharmaceutical industries in Asia, as well as one of the largest chemical industries.', 'And we\'ve seen industry growth in other countries of the region,"" said Jeremy Douglas in late 2023, the then regional representative of the UNODC . ""', 'While both industries are regulated, the challenge is significant given the sheer scale, and at the same time there are a number of ways to move products.', 'Parcel post, air freight and shipping containers are all moving globally in high volumes,"" he said.', 'Mr Douglas says that synthetic drugs are disrupting the traditional drug trade.', 'Outside of China, synthetic drugs offer opportunities for both traditional crime organisations and upstarts able to buy directly from producers half a world away. ""', 'Synthetics like fentanyl have several advantages over traditional drugs - compact, easily shippable, pre-existing demand, replaceable.', 'They\'re attractive to traffickers.""', 'That was confirmed in my conversations with sales people working for Chinese pharmaceutical firms. ""', 'First of all, our packaging is completely secret, no one knows what it is until you open it, and second, we will change the name of the package and will not reveal any name about the product,"" says Sara. ""', 'We will get the logistics order number when we send the package, we will track the situation of the package at any time, and any anomalies can be known and solved in time,"" she adds.', ""According to Europol, the European police agency, China is the world's biggest manufacturer and distributor of synthetic, lab-made drugs."", 'Some mimic the effects of traditional drugs like cannabis or cocaine.', 'Chemists synthesise new drugs in order to stay one step ahead of the law. ""', 'It is criminal entrepreneurship, but in a legitimate framework which is really unique,"" says Dr Louise Shelley the director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at George Mason University, and author of Dark Commerce. ""', 'I have not seen such a professionalism and a corporate element in this anywhere else in the world.', 'Criminal activity was a type of social mobility.""', 'In 2020, researchers from TraCCC studied over 350 English language websites advertising the synthetic opioid fentanyl. ""', 'From all the adverts that we found, nearly 40% of them were from corporate registries, and the largest hub of that was in Wuhan,"" says Dr Shelly.', 'The sales people contacted by the BBC see the drug trade as simply another aspect of e-commerce.', 'When challenged over selling drugs that damage lives, one described herself as a ""middleman."" ""', 'Somebody needs it, somebody makes it, and I am just a middleman who lets customers know that I have it and what they do with it, I don\'t care,"" she says. ""', 'Then I figured out I just need to make money.', ""I don't know and don't care."", 'Everyone has their own needs.""', 'The woman boasts of clients from Canada to Croatia.', 'She provided photos of recent drugs shipments complete with labels showing a UK address. ""', 'I didn\'t know at first until I went online and translated the product into Chinese,"" she says via a message punctuated with a teary emoji.', 'Another seller says: ""This industry is easy, and you can get higher wages, which attracts a large number of young people"".', 'Natalie [not her real name], focuses on fentanyl. ""', 'We buy from over 10 different labs and have a large selection.', 'I have a professional shipping agent who packaged goods so has a very high delivery success rate to the UK.""', 'Meanwhile, another supplier claimed to be able to smuggle drugs into the UK hidden in dog food packaging. ""', ""You don't need to worry about the packaging."", 'We guarantee you safe delivery."" ""', 'We ship in large quantities all over the world every day.', 'Please trust our professional team.', 'We guarantee 100% safe transportation.""', 'In 2019, the Chinese government banned all forms of fentanyl and its analogues.', 'In January 2024, China and the US launched a joint operation to curb the production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl. ""', 'As long as market demand remains high in some parts of the world then that demand will be met in one way or another,"" said Mr Douglas from the UNODC.']",-0.0146332805685231,"Synthetics like fentanyl have several advantages over traditional drugs - compact, easily shippable, pre-existing demand, replaceable.","It is criminal entrepreneurship, but in a legitimate framework which is really unique,"" says Dr Louise Shelley the director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at George Mason University, and author of Dark Commerce. """,0.3921927426542554,"And we've seen industry growth in other countries of the region,"" said Jeremy Douglas in late 2023, the then regional representative of the UNODC . ""","According to the NCA, there have been more than 100 deaths linked to nitazenes over the past nine months, leading health professionals to warn the UK may be facing a drug-related crisis.",2024-04-28
Even in peaceful countries be ready for a siren blast,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68761255,2024-04-11T23:13:02.000Z,"I was halfway through my morning run when I heard it. The sound of the apocalypse. An air raid-style siren, slowly wailing up and down in pitch, was blaring over Belfast at 0830 GMT. I glanced at the sky. But nobody else nearby seemed to be taking any notice. My wife, who had her earphones in, hadn't heard the noise at all until I pointed it out. It was the same at the supermarket on the way home. The din of the siren was audible across East Belfast, and yet, life continued as normal.  The bizarre Belfast siren was, the BBC understands, associated with a fuel storage facility in Belfast Harbour. It is a fire alarm and has to be so loud partly because of the large size of the facility in question. This kind of siren, so strongly associated in Britain with World War Two, is actually more than a century old, and has been used for all kinds of emergencies - not just Luftwaffe bombing raids. Other sounds and tones are sometimes deployed for outdoor alerts, but that lazily wavering siren that is so strange and chilling is still in place at multiple sites around the country - from military bases to chemical factories. Just in case. ""That wail pattern does a great job,"" says Evan Kerr, VP of operations at Sentry Siren, a US firm that still makes mechanical sirens. ""You need to get people's attention."" He explains that the sound is produced by a fast rotating fan inside a flat cylindrical housing, the outer rim of which is perforated with slits. It's the forcing of air through these slits, at oscillating speeds, that creates the extremely loud wail in all directions.  These days, this sound can be replicated by a digital recording played through loudspeakers but Mr Kerr argues that mechanical wailing sirens, which have been manufactured since at least 1905, are proven, reliable and nearly maintenance-free. He says some sirens made by his firm, previously known as Sterling Siren Fire Alarm Company, have been in place for many decades. In the UK, there are air raid-style sirens in a number of locations. Notably, at the Royal Navy base in Portsmouth. This siren, which is tested regularly, would be used to warn members of the public about an accident with the nuclear-powered submarines that are stationed there.  A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence says that there are also outdoor warning alarms at naval bases on the River Clyde in Scotland and Devonport in Plymouth: ""The sirens are regularly maintained and monitored. There are no plans to change the emergency alarm system."" Some siren locations are, perhaps, less obvious. Take The State Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Carstairs, Scotland. Its siren system was sounded, for example, when two murderers escaped in the 1970s. Broadmoor used to have a siren but this was decommissioned in 2019 and, if a dangerous individual were to escape the hospital now, an alert would be sent to locals in the form of an email or text message. Industrial sites that handle significant quantities of hazardous materials are also legally required to have outdoor warning systems. Take Hampton Water Treatment Works in West London - even it has a siren.  In Bradford, there is a siren at a large chemical plant owned by Solenis. In information sent to locals, the company explains why an accident might be harmful. A toxic cloud could form or, for example: ""A release of a flammable vapour, with subsequent ignition, may result in an explosion with the potential for damage both within the Solenis site, and outside its boundaries."" Advice from the company explains that, if people hear the siren when it is not due to be tested, they should shelter in their homes, close all windows and curtains, block incoming draughts, switch on the radio and ""stay calm and rest"". More technology of business In Huddersfield, chemical company Syngenta makes insecticides and other agricultural products. It too has a siren system in place to warn people in the event of a chemical emergency . These are just some examples. There are dozens of outdoor warning sirens around the UK and many, though not all, use the familiar wailing pattern of a traditional air raid-style siren. One siren aficionado has even marked the locations of these systems on an online map.  The bizarre Belfast siren was, the BBC understands, associated with a fuel processing facility in Belfast Harbour. But online rumours had claimed the noise signalled the movement of cranes at Belfast's famous Harland & Wolff (H&W) shipyard. H&W confirms that this was not the case. The incident raises the question: Would people react appropriately during a real emergency? People must be informed about what sirens in their area might be used for says Andrea Davis, president and chief executive of The Resiliency Initiative, a US firm that advises communities on emergency management.  ""So [they] are familiar - 'Hey, I know this sound, it's not a scary sound, it's an action sound - I need to do something',"" she explains. Failing to activate a siren during an emergency could also be harmful. Mrs Davis criticises officials in Hawaii for not using outdoor sirens when a devastating wildfire hit Maui in August 2023. Erica Kuligowski, a social scientist at RMIT University in Australia, who has studied the efficacy of emergency warning systems agrees that sirens must be packaged with additional information that makes it clear what the warning is about, and what people should do in response.  ""We need a series of pieces of information or else it's difficult to prompt people to act,"" she says. The range of situations that might require a siren around the world are extremely varied. Sentry Siren, for instance, recently shipped five of its units to Iceland. They'll be used to alert people to volcanic activity, which has caused significant disruption in Iceland in recent months. And Monika Pavlik, international business manager at Telegrafia, a Slovakia-based siren manufacturer, says her firm's devices have been deployed in Ukraine where they are used as contemporary air raid warning systems. Countries neighbouring Ukraine, fearful of Russian aggression, are increasingly interested in such sirens, she adds: ""It is a constant threat."" Telegrafia specialises in sirens that use digital recordings rather than mechanical components for producing noise. But this means the devices can blast verbal information across an area or turn text into explanatory spoken word announcements. The company's sirens, which are installed in 93 countries around the world, can also be triggered automatically - for example by sensors detecting a flood. Or, a government could set off connected sirens across an entire country in the event of a nationwide emergency. These days, sirens tend to make the news as false alarms, or when tests of siren systems are reported locally. Most of the time, thankfully, there's no emergency. There's always a risk that people will ignore these audible warnings when something really has gone wrong, however, which is why taking multiple steps to inform the public about an unfolding disaster or accident is so important, say experts. Despite the rise of alternative technologies such as mobile phone alerts, there is still huge demand for traditional outdoor warning sirens, says Mr Kerr of Sentry Siren: ""Why wouldn't you use all the tools available to you?"" ",BBC,11/04/2024,"['I was halfway through my morning run when I heard it.', 'The sound of the apocalypse.', 'An air raid-style siren, slowly wailing up and down in pitch, was blaring over Belfast at 0830 GMT.', 'I glanced at the sky.', 'But nobody else nearby seemed to be taking any notice.', ""My wife, who had her earphones in, hadn't heard the noise at all until I pointed it out."", 'It was the same at the supermarket on the way home.', 'The din of the siren was audible across East Belfast, and yet, life continued as normal.', 'The bizarre Belfast siren was, the BBC understands, associated with a fuel storage facility in Belfast Harbour.', 'It is a fire alarm and has to be so loud partly because of the large size of the facility in question.', 'This kind of siren, so strongly associated in Britain with World War Two, is actually more than a century old, and has been used for all kinds of emergencies - not just Luftwaffe bombing raids.', 'Other sounds and tones are sometimes deployed for outdoor alerts, but that lazily wavering siren that is so strange and chilling is still in place at multiple sites around the country - from military bases to chemical factories.', 'Just in case. ""', 'That wail pattern does a great job,"" says Evan Kerr, VP of operations at Sentry Siren, a US firm that still makes mechanical sirens. ""', 'You need to get people\'s attention.""', 'He explains that the sound is produced by a fast rotating fan inside a flat cylindrical housing, the outer rim of which is perforated with slits.', ""It's the forcing of air through these slits, at oscillating speeds, that creates the extremely loud wail in all directions."", 'These days, this sound can be replicated by a digital recording played through loudspeakers but Mr Kerr argues that mechanical wailing sirens, which have been manufactured since at least 1905, are proven, reliable and nearly maintenance-free.', 'He says some sirens made by his firm, previously known as Sterling Siren Fire Alarm Company, have been in place for many decades.', 'In the UK, there are air raid-style sirens in a number of locations.', 'Notably, at the Royal Navy base in Portsmouth.', 'This siren, which is tested regularly, would be used to warn members of the public about an accident with the nuclear-powered submarines that are stationed there.', 'A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence says that there are also outdoor warning alarms at naval bases on the River Clyde in Scotland and Devonport in Plymouth: ""The sirens are regularly maintained and monitored.', 'There are no plans to change the emergency alarm system.""', 'Some siren locations are, perhaps, less obvious.', 'Take The State Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Carstairs, Scotland.', 'Its siren system was sounded, for example, when two murderers escaped in the 1970s.', 'Broadmoor used to have a siren but this was decommissioned in 2019 and, if a dangerous individual were to escape the hospital now, an alert would be sent to locals in the form of an email or text message.', 'Industrial sites that handle significant quantities of hazardous materials are also legally required to have outdoor warning systems.', 'Take Hampton Water Treatment Works in West London - even it has a siren.', 'In Bradford, there is a siren at a large chemical plant owned by Solenis.', 'In information sent to locals, the company explains why an accident might be harmful.', 'A toxic cloud could form or, for example: ""A release of a flammable vapour, with subsequent ignition, may result in an explosion with the potential for damage both within the Solenis site, and outside its boundaries.""', 'Advice from the company explains that, if people hear the siren when it is not due to be tested, they should shelter in their homes, close all windows and curtains, block incoming draughts, switch on the radio and ""stay calm and rest"".', 'More technology of business In Huddersfield, chemical company Syngenta makes insecticides and other agricultural products.', 'It too has a siren system in place to warn people in the event of a chemical emergency .', 'These are just some examples.', 'There are dozens of outdoor warning sirens around the UK and many, though not all, use the familiar wailing pattern of a traditional air raid-style siren.', 'One siren aficionado has even marked the locations of these systems on an online map.', 'The bizarre Belfast siren was, the BBC understands, associated with a fuel processing facility in Belfast Harbour.', ""But online rumours had claimed the noise signalled the movement of cranes at Belfast's famous Harland & Wolff (H&W) shipyard."", 'H&W confirms that this was not the case.', 'The incident raises the question: Would people react appropriately during a real emergency?', 'People must be informed about what sirens in their area might be used for says Andrea Davis, president and chief executive of The Resiliency Initiative, a US firm that advises communities on emergency management. ""', 'So [they] are familiar - \'Hey, I know this sound, it\'s not a scary sound, it\'s an action sound - I need to do something\',"" she explains.', 'Failing to activate a siren during an emergency could also be harmful.', 'Mrs Davis criticises officials in Hawaii for not using outdoor sirens when a devastating wildfire hit Maui in August 2023.', 'Erica Kuligowski, a social scientist at RMIT University in Australia, who has studied the efficacy of emergency warning systems agrees that sirens must be packaged with additional information that makes it clear what the warning is about, and what people should do in response. ""', 'We need a series of pieces of information or else it\'s difficult to prompt people to act,"" she says.', 'The range of situations that might require a siren around the world are extremely varied.', 'Sentry Siren, for instance, recently shipped five of its units to Iceland.', ""They'll be used to alert people to volcanic activity, which has caused significant disruption in Iceland in recent months."", ""And Monika Pavlik, international business manager at Telegrafia, a Slovakia-based siren manufacturer, says her firm's devices have been deployed in Ukraine where they are used as contemporary air raid warning systems."", 'Countries neighbouring Ukraine, fearful of Russian aggression, are increasingly interested in such sirens, she adds: ""It is a constant threat.""', 'Telegrafia specialises in sirens that use digital recordings rather than mechanical components for producing noise.', 'But this means the devices can blast verbal information across an area or turn text into explanatory spoken word announcements.', ""The company's sirens, which are installed in 93 countries around the world, can also be triggered automatically - for example by sensors detecting a flood."", 'Or, a government could set off connected sirens across an entire country in the event of a nationwide emergency.', 'These days, sirens tend to make the news as false alarms, or when tests of siren systems are reported locally.', ""Most of the time, thankfully, there's no emergency."", ""There's always a risk that people will ignore these audible warnings when something really has gone wrong, however, which is why taking multiple steps to inform the public about an unfolding disaster or accident is so important, say experts."", 'Despite the rise of alternative technologies such as mobile phone alerts, there is still huge demand for traditional outdoor warning sirens, says Mr Kerr of Sentry Siren: ""Why wouldn\'t you use all the tools available to you?""']",-0.1702984417179804,"That wail pattern does a great job,"" says Evan Kerr, VP of operations at Sentry Siren, a US firm that still makes mechanical sirens. ""","There's always a risk that people will ignore these audible warnings when something really has gone wrong, however, which is why taking multiple steps to inform the public about an unfolding disaster or accident is so important, say experts.",0.2383095145225525,"That wail pattern does a great job,"" says Evan Kerr, VP of operations at Sentry Siren, a US firm that still makes mechanical sirens. """,Failing to activate a siren during an emergency could also be harmful.,2024-04-28
Why green steam is a hot issue for business,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68687140,2024-04-25T23:36:47.000Z,"Colorado-based New Belgium Brewing can trace its roots to 1988 and a cycle trip through Belgium.  The experience inspired co-founders Kim Jordan and Jeff Lebesch to bring Belgian brewing techniques back to their home town. Three years later and the duo were selling Fat Tire, one of their first beers at a local festival, and they now have over a dozen beers in production. But while they have spent 30 years creating flavours unique to the US market, they have at least one thing in common with all brewers - the use of steam. Steam is used to sanitise their brewing equipment, as well as being a key part of the brewing process. Large cone-shaped kettles are used to boil wort - liquid extracted from the initial brewing stage of mashing barley - generating steam. This boiling process helps to remove flavours the brewer does not want in the beer, before the wort is transferred to vessels to ferment with yeast, resulting in beer. Some of the steam generated by the kettles is captured by a heat exchanger, which allows the brewer to use this waste heat in the next batch of brewing. The driving force behind the industrial revolution, steam remains crucial to production processes across multiple industries. As well as its frequent use in the food and beverage industry, steam is also used for sterilisation by pharmaceutical companies, and for heating a wide range of buildings such as hospitals. But steam is still primarily generated using boilers run on fossil fuels, giving it a big carbon footprint. Fossil fuels made up 73% of industrial energy use in the US in 2018, with 40% of these fossil fuels used to heat boilers producing steam. To cut that, one option would be to switch to electric. Assuming the electricity is generated from sustainable sources, then the carbon footprint is slashed. But using electricity does have downsides. ""The biggest challenge is cost, which is likely to limit the pace of customer adoption,"" says Maurizio Preziosa, from UK-based engineering firm Spirax Group. While cost might be an issue, the switch is relatively straightforward.  Mr Preziosa says that his firm's technology can usually slot into the existing system. ""Customers can continue to use the rest of their existing steam infrastructure,"" Mr Preziosa explains. This has the additional benefit of reducing downtime, a potential obstacle to adoption for companies reliant on tightly calibrated production processes.  US-based AtmosZero has a different approach to creating steam. Their boiler is a heat pump, which extracts heat from the air and turns it into high temperature steam.  It works by circulating liquid refrigerants with low boiling points through a closed loop, capturing warmth from the air. The slightly warmed refrigerant is compressed, raising it to a temperature high enough to boil water.  A heat exchanger then transfers that heat from the refrigerant, to water to make steam.  The big advantage of this approach is that it cuts operating costs. The company's chief executive, Addison Stark estimates that their heat pump technology could save companies hundreds of thousands of dollars compared to the options currently available. ""Being a heat pump-based system, we are significantly more efficient than current boilers - we create about two units of heat output for one unit of energy input, dramatically reducing the operating costs,"" Mr Stark explains. More technology of business AtmosZero is still in the early stages, with more development work needed. The goal is to build a manufacturing plant and start delivering boiler systems in early 2026. Mr Stark is confident the system will work at the scale needed by industry. ""We are mass-manufactured and simple to deploy."" Makers of green steam equipment see demand rising in the coming years.  ""The expectations of end consumers are shifting,"" Maurizio Preziosa from Spirax Group explains. ""They want to buy from companies who operate sustainably by reducing their impact on people and planet, and this, along with regulatory pressure, is driving demand from our customers who serve those consumers,"" he says. Back in Colorado, preparations are under way at New Belgium Brewing where AtmosZero will be swapping out one of the brewery's combustion boilers for their heat pump system. This is the next step on a journey of sustainability the company has been on since those early days selling their beer at local festivals.  As well as installing solar panels and creating electricity from wastewater, Fat Tire, one of their first beers, became the first certified carbon neutral beer in America in August 2020. This is part of a wider company ambition to become completely carbon neutral by 2030. Changing the way they use steam may just be the key step towards this goal. ",BBC,25/04/2024,"['Colorado-based New Belgium Brewing can trace its roots to 1988 and a cycle trip through Belgium.', 'The experience inspired co-founders Kim Jordan and Jeff Lebesch to bring Belgian brewing techniques back to their home town.', 'Three years later and the duo were selling Fat Tire, one of their first beers at a local festival, and they now have over a dozen beers in production.', 'But while they have spent 30 years creating flavours unique to the US market, they have at least one thing in common with all brewers - the use of steam.', 'Steam is used to sanitise their brewing equipment, as well as being a key part of the brewing process.', 'Large cone-shaped kettles are used to boil wort - liquid extracted from the initial brewing stage of mashing barley - generating steam.', 'This boiling process helps to remove flavours the brewer does not want in the beer, before the wort is transferred to vessels to ferment with yeast, resulting in beer.', 'Some of the steam generated by the kettles is captured by a heat exchanger, which allows the brewer to use this waste heat in the next batch of brewing.', 'The driving force behind the industrial revolution, steam remains crucial to production processes across multiple industries.', 'As well as its frequent use in the food and beverage industry, steam is also used for sterilisation by pharmaceutical companies, and for heating a wide range of buildings such as hospitals.', 'But steam is still primarily generated using boilers run on fossil fuels, giving it a big carbon footprint.', 'Fossil fuels made up 73% of industrial energy use in the US in 2018, with 40% of these fossil fuels used to heat boilers producing steam.', 'To cut that, one option would be to switch to electric.', 'Assuming the electricity is generated from sustainable sources, then the carbon footprint is slashed.', 'But using electricity does have downsides. ""', 'The biggest challenge is cost, which is likely to limit the pace of customer adoption,"" says Maurizio Preziosa, from UK-based engineering firm Spirax Group.', 'While cost might be an issue, the switch is relatively straightforward.', 'Mr Preziosa says that his firm\'s technology can usually slot into the existing system. ""', 'Customers can continue to use the rest of their existing steam infrastructure,"" Mr Preziosa explains.', 'This has the additional benefit of reducing downtime, a potential obstacle to adoption for companies reliant on tightly calibrated production processes.', 'US-based AtmosZero has a different approach to creating steam.', 'Their boiler is a heat pump, which extracts heat from the air and turns it into high temperature steam.', 'It works by circulating liquid refrigerants with low boiling points through a closed loop, capturing warmth from the air.', 'The slightly warmed refrigerant is compressed, raising it to a temperature high enough to boil water.', 'A heat exchanger then transfers that heat from the refrigerant, to water to make steam.', 'The big advantage of this approach is that it cuts operating costs.', 'The company\'s chief executive, Addison Stark estimates that their heat pump technology could save companies hundreds of thousands of dollars compared to the options currently available. ""', 'Being a heat pump-based system, we are significantly more efficient than current boilers - we create about two units of heat output for one unit of energy input, dramatically reducing the operating costs,"" Mr Stark explains.', 'More technology of business AtmosZero is still in the early stages, with more development work needed.', 'The goal is to build a manufacturing plant and start delivering boiler systems in early 2026.', 'Mr Stark is confident the system will work at the scale needed by industry. ""', 'We are mass-manufactured and simple to deploy.""', 'Makers of green steam equipment see demand rising in the coming years. ""', 'The expectations of end consumers are shifting,"" Maurizio Preziosa from Spirax Group explains. ""', 'They want to buy from companies who operate sustainably by reducing their impact on people and planet, and this, along with regulatory pressure, is driving demand from our customers who serve those consumers,"" he says.', ""Back in Colorado, preparations are under way at New Belgium Brewing where AtmosZero will be swapping out one of the brewery's combustion boilers for their heat pump system."", 'This is the next step on a journey of sustainability the company has been on since those early days selling their beer at local festivals.', 'As well as installing solar panels and creating electricity from wastewater, Fat Tire, one of their first beers, became the first certified carbon neutral beer in America in August 2020.', 'This is part of a wider company ambition to become completely carbon neutral by 2030.', 'Changing the way they use steam may just be the key step towards this goal.']",0.1313956987949602,"Being a heat pump-based system, we are significantly more efficient than current boilers - we create about two units of heat output for one unit of energy input, dramatically reducing the operating costs,"" Mr Stark explains.","Some of the steam generated by the kettles is captured by a heat exchanger, which allows the brewer to use this waste heat in the next batch of brewing.",0.6398535641756925,"Makers of green steam equipment see demand rising in the coming years. ""","The biggest challenge is cost, which is likely to limit the pace of customer adoption,"" says Maurizio Preziosa, from UK-based engineering firm Spirax Group.",2024-04-28
Sainsbury's says almost everyone now shops in store,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68895280,2024-04-25T07:00:09.000Z,"Sainsbury's says shoppers are returning to its stores as the surge in online shopping seen during the Covid pandemic continues to unwind. The UK's second largest supermarket said online sales had been above 20% at the height of the pandemic, but are now back to about 13%.  Its comments came as it reported strong food sales after spending heavily on keeping prices low to attract shoppers. However, other areas were weaker, with sales of clothing and fuel falling. Sainsbury's said pre-tax profits for the past year had fallen 15% to £277m, reflecting costs related to its decision to wind down its banking division. However, underlying profits rose 1.6% to £701m, which was slightly higher than expected, and Sainsbury's said it was ""confident of delivering strong profit growth in the year ahead"". The UK's second largest supermarket said its food business was ""firing on all cylinders"", with grocery sales growing by 9.4% over the past year. Chief executive Simon Roberts said that more than 87% of all food sold was done so ""in a physical store"".   Supermarkets have been fighting hard for customers, with shoppers still feeling the effects of steep price rises over the past two years, which have ratcheted up the cost of living. Sainsbury's response has been to focus heavily on its food, which accounts for about three-quarters of its business,  and it said it has spent £780m over the past three years on keeping prices low, including promotions such as Nectar prices and price-matching budget chain Aldi. Mr Roberts said he expected inflation - which measures the pace of price rises - to ""continue to stabilise"". Official figures released last week showed that overall inflation fell to 3.2% in March, partly due to declines in some food prices. Mr Roberts said he expected inflation to remain in ""low single digits"" in the year ahead. He also said there were signs that shoppers were beginning to ""trade up"" by buying more premium products when it came to food. However, he said it would probably take a cut in interest rates later this year to lift sales of more expensive non-food items for cautious shoppers. ""It is going to take a change in interest rates later in the year - let's hope - for the environment on discretionary spend begin to change,"" said Mr Roberts. While Sainsbury's food business performed well, its general merchandise sales - which include its Argos business - slipped 0.5% and clothing sales fell 6.4%. The company also owns the Habitat brand. The retailer said trading at Argos had been hit by last summer's wet weather, which affected sales of seasonal goods such as barbecues and paddling pools.  The weather also impacted clothes sales, as competitors launched sales to clear stock, and Sainsbury's said there had been some disruption to clothing supplies in recent months because of Houthi rebels attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. As Sainsbury's announced its results, a ""technical issue"" hit some of its online deliveries on Thursday. However, the retailer said the problem had been fixed, and had only affected a ""small number"" of customers. Read more tips here ",BBC,25/04/2024,"[""Sainsbury's says shoppers are returning to its stores as the surge in online shopping seen during the Covid pandemic continues to unwind."", ""The UK's second largest supermarket said online sales had been above 20% at the height of the pandemic, but are now back to about 13%."", 'Its comments came as it reported strong food sales after spending heavily on keeping prices low to attract shoppers.', 'However, other areas were weaker, with sales of clothing and fuel falling.', ""Sainsbury's said pre-tax profits for the past year had fallen 15% to £277m, reflecting costs related to its decision to wind down its banking division."", 'However, underlying profits rose 1.6% to £701m, which was slightly higher than expected, and Sainsbury\'s said it was ""confident of delivering strong profit growth in the year ahead"".', 'The UK\'s second largest supermarket said its food business was ""firing on all cylinders"", with grocery sales growing by 9.4% over the past year.', 'Chief executive Simon Roberts said that more than 87% of all food sold was done so ""in a physical store"".', 'Supermarkets have been fighting hard for customers, with shoppers still feeling the effects of steep price rises over the past two years, which have ratcheted up the cost of living.', ""Sainsbury's response has been to focus heavily on its food, which accounts for about three-quarters of its business, and it said it has spent £780m over the past three years on keeping prices low, including promotions such as Nectar prices and price-matching budget chain Aldi."", 'Mr Roberts said he expected inflation - which measures the pace of price rises - to ""continue to stabilise"".', 'Official figures released last week showed that overall inflation fell to 3.2% in March, partly due to declines in some food prices.', 'Mr Roberts said he expected inflation to remain in ""low single digits"" in the year ahead.', 'He also said there were signs that shoppers were beginning to ""trade up"" by buying more premium products when it came to food.', 'However, he said it would probably take a cut in interest rates later this year to lift sales of more expensive non-food items for cautious shoppers. ""', 'It is going to take a change in interest rates later in the year - let\'s hope - for the environment on discretionary spend begin to change,"" said Mr Roberts.', ""While Sainsbury's food business performed well, its general merchandise sales - which include its Argos business - slipped 0.5% and clothing sales fell 6.4%."", 'The company also owns the Habitat brand.', ""The retailer said trading at Argos had been hit by last summer's wet weather, which affected sales of seasonal goods such as barbecues and paddling pools."", ""The weather also impacted clothes sales, as competitors launched sales to clear stock, and Sainsbury's said there had been some disruption to clothing supplies in recent months because of Houthi rebels attacks on shipping in the Red Sea."", 'As Sainsbury\'s announced its results, a ""technical issue"" hit some of its online deliveries on Thursday.', 'However, the retailer said the problem had been fixed, and had only affected a ""small number"" of customers.', 'Read more tips here']",0.0009373406900937,"However, underlying profits rose 1.6% to £701m, which was slightly higher than expected, and Sainsbury's said it was ""confident of delivering strong profit growth in the year ahead"".","However, other areas were weaker, with sales of clothing and fuel falling.",-0.0594508963472702,"The UK's second largest supermarket said its food business was ""firing on all cylinders"", with grocery sales growing by 9.4% over the past year.","Sainsbury's said pre-tax profits for the past year had fallen 15% to £277m, reflecting costs related to its decision to wind down its banking division.",2024-04-28
"Real Bedford: McMullen Park lease extended, owner says",https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-68906565,2024-04-26T19:56:54.000Z,"The Bitcoin podcast co-owner of non-league football club Real Bedford has announced the team's lease on their ground has been extended for 15 years.  Formerly known as Bedford FC, the team play at McMullen Park in Bedford. Podcaster Peter McCormack announced the news on X, describing it as ""great news for the town and everybody involved in football in Bedford."" The club received a $4.5m (£33.6m) cryptocurrency investment earlier this month. Following the investment from Winklevoss Capital, an investment firm owned by Gemini founders and twin brother Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the pair became co-owners of the club. The lease on McMullen Park, just off the A421 near Cardington and right next to Bedford Town's ground, was due to run out in two years before the successful renegotiation. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Mr McCormack said: ""I am pleased to announce that the council has just confirmed that they will be giving @realbedforda 15-year lease extension at McMullen Park. ""This is great news for the town and everybody involved in football in Bedford. Thank you to those who worked hard to get this over the line, especially Alan Young at @BedsFA."" He has previously spoken of his aspirations to make the non-league club into a Premier League side and moving to a bigger ground in the town long-term. He took over Bedford FC in 2021 and on Tuesday secured a second successive promotion and will compete in the Southern League Division One Central next season, which is the eighth tier of the English football league. Mr McCormack previously said the club was ""relentless about success"" and ""we're trying to build a club for the football league"". He said he was trying to do ""something different"" and create an international brand. Got a story? Email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp 0800 169 1830 . ",BBC,26/04/2024,"[""The Bitcoin podcast co-owner of non-league football club Real Bedford has announced the team's lease on their ground has been extended for 15 years."", 'Formerly known as Bedford FC, the team play at McMullen Park in Bedford.', 'Podcaster Peter McCormack announced the news on X, describing it as ""great news for the town and everybody involved in football in Bedford.""', 'The club received a $4.5m (£33.6m) cryptocurrency investment earlier this month.', 'Following the investment from Winklevoss Capital, an investment firm owned by Gemini founders and twin brother Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the pair became co-owners of the club.', ""The lease on McMullen Park, just off the A421 near Cardington and right next to Bedford Town's ground, was due to run out in two years before the successful renegotiation."", 'In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Mr McCormack said: ""I am pleased to announce that the council has just confirmed that they will be giving @realbedforda 15-year lease extension at McMullen Park. ""', 'This is great news for the town and everybody involved in football in Bedford.', 'Thank you to those who worked hard to get this over the line, especially Alan Young at @BedsFA.""', 'He has previously spoken of his aspirations to make the non-league club into a Premier League side and moving to a bigger ground in the town long-term.', 'He took over Bedford FC in 2021 and on Tuesday secured a second successive promotion and will compete in the Southern League Division One Central next season, which is the eighth tier of the English football league.', 'Mr McCormack previously said the club was ""relentless about success"" and ""we\'re trying to build a club for the football league"".', 'He said he was trying to do ""something different"" and create an international brand.', 'Got a story?', 'Email eastofenglandnews@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp 0800 169 1830 .']",0.3037237209161095,"In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Mr McCormack said: ""I am pleased to announce that the council has just confirmed that they will be giving @realbedforda 15-year lease extension at McMullen Park. """,,0.9791503846645356,"In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Mr McCormack said: ""I am pleased to announce that the council has just confirmed that they will be giving @realbedforda 15-year lease extension at McMullen Park. """,,2024-04-28
What is Bitcoin? Key cryptocurrency terms and what they mean,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-63963079,2022-12-13T23:07:08.000Z,"After Bitcoin's price banked a new all time high in March, the sticky subject of cryptocurrencies is back in the spotlight.  And while crypto market-moving events such as Bitcoin ""halving"" or the launch of ""spot ETFs"" may be familiar to crypto fans, their meaning is less obvious to many. But worry not. If you're hearing these for the first time, or just need a refresher, here are a few key words and what they mean. While many may struggle with the finer points of crypto, pretty much everyone has heard of its most famous product: Bitcoin. But what actually is it? Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which is to say a type of digital currency. Unlike traditional currencies - the dollar or pound, for example - Bitcoin is not controlled by centralised financial institutions. This makes it popular for people who think decentralisation can bring financial freedom, but it also makes it extremely volatile - rising and falling in value at the whim of Bitcoin buyers and sellers.   Throughout February and March 2024, its price rose rapidly and it briefly reached a new record high. But its value can plummet just as quickly as it spikes - a pattern which has been repeated multiple times since the cryptocurrency was launched. The blockchain, the system that underpins Bitcoin, is sustained by rewarding so-called ""miners"" - whose job it is to validate transactions - by paying them with the cryptocurrency. However, unlike some other digital currencies, there is not an infinite supply of bitcoins. The amount that can be mined is capped at 21 million, and most are already in circulation.  So roughly every four years - or when the Bitcoin blockchain reaches a certain size - the number of bitcoins rewarded to those who successfully validate transactions is cut in half. The most recent Bitcoin ""halving"" (or ""halvening"") event took place on 20 April 2024, reducing the reward for miners from 6.25 bitcoins to 3.125. This ensures Bitcoin's supply is drawn out for longer while demand, in theory, goes up over time. But with fewer rewards for miners, it can also lead some to consider whether it is financially worthwhile for them to continue the costly operation of running their powerful computers. Blockchain is the technology underpinning all cryptocurrencies, and many related products like non fungible tokens (NFTs). In essence, it is a virtual spreadsheet on which all the buying and selling of crypto is recorded. They are arranged in blocks linked together in a giant chain - hence the name.  Every cryptocurrency transaction is individually recorded onto the blockchain by a huge network of volunteers verifying its authenticity by using computer programmes.  The incentive to do this for Bitcoin's network is that the first person to validate transactions is rewarded in Bitcoin. This potentially lucrative process, known as mining, is also controversial because of the incredible amount of energy used as people the world over race to be the first to successfully update the blockchain. A crypto exchange is the digital platform where investors can buy, sell and trade cryptocurrencies. Similar to traditional investing, a crypto exchange acts as a brokerage where people can transfer traditional money, like pounds or dollars, from their banks into cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum. Most transactions are accompanied by fees. A crypto wallet is a place where investors hold their cryptocurrency. It stores the virtual assets much like a traditional wallet holds cash. There are two types, a hot wallet and a cold wallet. Hot wallets are connected to the internet, and thus more accessible for quick transfers and easy access. Cold wallets are physical devices like specially designed USBs that store crypto offline typically for safer and longer term storage. Ethereum is used to describe both the second largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, represented by the Ether token, and the blockchain underpinning it. This supports an array of different applications and digital assets, such as non-fungible tokens.  It functions in a similar way to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but in 2022 switched to a greener operating system requiring less computers and energy. ETFs are portfolios that let investors bet on multiple assets without having to buy any themselves. Traded on stock exchanges like shares, their value depends on how the overall portfolio performs in real time. They can comprise a combination of gold and silver bullion, for example, or a mix of shares in both technology and insurance companies. A spot Bitcoin ETF buys the cryptocurrency directly, ""on the spot"", at its current price, throughout the day. While some ETFs already contained Bitcoin indirectly, the US approved several spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024. This allowed new investors, such as investment management firms like Blackrock and Fidelity, to enter the speculative world of Bitcoin without having to worry about digital wallets or navigating crypto exchanges. ",BBC,13/12/2022,"[""After Bitcoin's price banked a new all time high in March, the sticky subject of cryptocurrencies is back in the spotlight."", 'And while crypto market-moving events such as Bitcoin ""halving"" or the launch of ""spot ETFs"" may be familiar to crypto fans, their meaning is less obvious to many.', 'But worry not.', ""If you're hearing these for the first time, or just need a refresher, here are a few key words and what they mean."", 'While many may struggle with the finer points of crypto, pretty much everyone has heard of its most famous product: Bitcoin.', 'But what actually is it?', 'Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, which is to say a type of digital currency.', 'Unlike traditional currencies - the dollar or pound, for example - Bitcoin is not controlled by centralised financial institutions.', 'This makes it popular for people who think decentralisation can bring financial freedom, but it also makes it extremely volatile - rising and falling in value at the whim of Bitcoin buyers and sellers.', 'Throughout February and March 2024, its price rose rapidly and it briefly reached a new record high.', 'But its value can plummet just as quickly as it spikes - a pattern which has been repeated multiple times since the cryptocurrency was launched.', 'The blockchain, the system that underpins Bitcoin, is sustained by rewarding so-called ""miners"" - whose job it is to validate transactions - by paying them with the cryptocurrency.', 'However, unlike some other digital currencies, there is not an infinite supply of bitcoins.', 'The amount that can be mined is capped at 21 million, and most are already in circulation.', 'So roughly every four years - or when the Bitcoin blockchain reaches a certain size - the number of bitcoins rewarded to those who successfully validate transactions is cut in half.', 'The most recent Bitcoin ""halving"" (or ""halvening"") event took place on 20 April 2024, reducing the reward for miners from 6.25 bitcoins to 3.125.', ""This ensures Bitcoin's supply is drawn out for longer while demand, in theory, goes up over time."", 'But with fewer rewards for miners, it can also lead some to consider whether it is financially worthwhile for them to continue the costly operation of running their powerful computers.', 'Blockchain is the technology underpinning all cryptocurrencies, and many related products like non fungible tokens (NFTs).', 'In essence, it is a virtual spreadsheet on which all the buying and selling of crypto is recorded.', 'They are arranged in blocks linked together in a giant chain - hence the name.', 'Every cryptocurrency transaction is individually recorded onto the blockchain by a huge network of volunteers verifying its authenticity by using computer programmes.', ""The incentive to do this for Bitcoin's network is that the first person to validate transactions is rewarded in Bitcoin."", 'This potentially lucrative process, known as mining, is also controversial because of the incredible amount of energy used as people the world over race to be the first to successfully update the blockchain.', 'A crypto exchange is the digital platform where investors can buy, sell and trade cryptocurrencies.', 'Similar to traditional investing, a crypto exchange acts as a brokerage where people can transfer traditional money, like pounds or dollars, from their banks into cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Ethereum.', 'Most transactions are accompanied by fees.', 'A crypto wallet is a place where investors hold their cryptocurrency.', 'It stores the virtual assets much like a traditional wallet holds cash.', 'There are two types, a hot wallet and a cold wallet.', 'Hot wallets are connected to the internet, and thus more accessible for quick transfers and easy access.', 'Cold wallets are physical devices like specially designed USBs that store crypto offline typically for safer and longer term storage.', 'Ethereum is used to describe both the second largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin, represented by the Ether token, and the blockchain underpinning it.', 'This supports an array of different applications and digital assets, such as non-fungible tokens.', 'It functions in a similar way to Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, but in 2022 switched to a greener operating system requiring less computers and energy.', 'ETFs are portfolios that let investors bet on multiple assets without having to buy any themselves.', 'Traded on stock exchanges like shares, their value depends on how the overall portfolio performs in real time.', 'They can comprise a combination of gold and silver bullion, for example, or a mix of shares in both technology and insurance companies.', 'A spot Bitcoin ETF buys the cryptocurrency directly, ""on the spot"", at its current price, throughout the day.', 'While some ETFs already contained Bitcoin indirectly, the US approved several spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024.', 'This allowed new investors, such as investment management firms like Blackrock and Fidelity, to enter the speculative world of Bitcoin without having to worry about digital wallets or navigating crypto exchanges.']",0.2672071279961822,"But with fewer rewards for miners, it can also lead some to consider whether it is financially worthwhile for them to continue the costly operation of running their powerful computers.",But worry not.,-0.0973098344273037,"Throughout February and March 2024, its price rose rapidly and it briefly reached a new record high.",But its value can plummet just as quickly as it spikes - a pattern which has been repeated multiple times since the cryptocurrency was launched.,2024-04-28
Lloyds hit as banks compete for mortgage customers,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68887633,2024-04-24T07:24:09.000Z,"Lloyds Banking Group's profits plunged by 28% in early 2024 as competition grew for mortgages and deposits. The bank posted pre-tax profits of £1.6bn between January and March, down from £2.3bn last year. Lloyds said its margins had been hit ""mainly within UK mortgages"" amid heightened competition between lenders to offer squeezed buyers better deals. The UK's biggest lender also made less from loans to businesses, but more from credit cards and car finance. The group, which owns Halifax and Bank of Scotland, said in the three months to the end of March that its net interest income, which is the difference between the money it generates from loans and pays out for deposits, fell 10% to £3.2bn ($4bn).  The fall was expected as more people moved their cash into savings accounts with higher returns and mortgage rates eased because of the competition stepping up among lenders. ""The company has seen competition in the mortgage market bring down its returns and savers move deposits into higher interest accounts - meaning it is paying out more to customers, "" said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell. Like other UK banks, Lloyds' profits were boosted by the increase in interest rates over the past couple of years, which have allowed lenders to charge more on loans.  For the whole of 2023, Lloyds' pre-tax profits jumped to £7.5bn, which was higher than expected and up 57% on 2022. Borrowing costs have risen as the Bank of England has increased its base interest rate in a bid to bring down inflation - which measures price rises over time. But Mr Mould suggested that ""Lloyds' brief moment in the sun, when rates moved sharply higher and it was able to generate higher margins, seems to have come to an end"". In January, competition for customers saw lenders cut rates sharply although borrowing to a buy a property has remained more expensive than many people have been used to in the past decade. The Bank of England is expected to cut rates this year, but predictions of when such a move might take place has seen some lenders start raising mortgage rates in recent days. Lloyds' rivals HSBC, NatWest and Barclays all raised rates on fixed-term loans, though not on all products, due to financial markets predicting an interest rate cut might not be as soon as previously expected. Lloyds said it still believed the Bank would cut rates by 0.25 percentage points three times before the end of 2024, which if happens, would see rates fall from 5.25% to 4.5%. On Wednesday, the average two-year fixed mortgage stood at 5.83%, while the average five-year deal was 5.41%.   Lloyds' latest results also showed the shift in more customers moving cash out of current accounts and into savings accounts had continued. The group also said it had faced higher running costs in early 2024, including a new sector-wide Bank of England levy on lenders and a £100m additional charge to cover employee severance after a recent round of redundancies. It confirmed it had not set aside any further cash to the £450m it has already allocated to cover the potential cost of an investigation into car finance deals by the UK's financial regulator. A probe into whether people had beenpaying too much for cars was launched by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in January. Matt Britzman, equity analyst at investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown, said while Lloyds' profit fall looked ""substantial from this time last year"", it had been expected. Charlie Nunn, Lloyds' chief executive, said the quarterly results provided the group with ""further confidence"" around its strategic ambitions and showed the bank was ""continuing to support customers"". As well as announcing its latest earnings, Lloyds released forecasts for house prices. The group said it expected house prices to rise by 1.5% in 2024 and average that amount over the next four years. Separately on Wednesday, Heathrow Airport reported a huge rise in profits before tax of £189m for the three months to 31 March after recording a £60m loss for the same period last year. The UK's biggest airport said some 18.5 million passengers travelled through it in early 2024, partly driven by growth on business routes to Delhi and Mumbai in India and strong North American traffic. It has predicted this summer will be its ""busiest on record"", adding it had ""a robust operating plan in place to keep the airport running smoothly, even if unnecessary industrial action materialises"". Holiday firm Jet2 also said its summer season was 55% sold so far, with forward bookings for package holiday customers up by 13% and flight-only passengers up by more than 18%. ",BBC,24/04/2024,"[""Lloyds Banking Group's profits plunged by 28% in early 2024 as competition grew for mortgages and deposits."", 'The bank posted pre-tax profits of £1.6bn between January and March, down from £2.3bn last year.', 'Lloyds said its margins had been hit ""mainly within UK mortgages"" amid heightened competition between lenders to offer squeezed buyers better deals.', ""The UK's biggest lender also made less from loans to businesses, but more from credit cards and car finance."", 'The group, which owns Halifax and Bank of Scotland, said in the three months to the end of March that its net interest income, which is the difference between the money it generates from loans and pays out for deposits, fell 10% to £3.2bn ($4bn).', 'The fall was expected as more people moved their cash into savings accounts with higher returns and mortgage rates eased because of the competition stepping up among lenders. ""', 'The company has seen competition in the mortgage market bring down its returns and savers move deposits into higher interest accounts - meaning it is paying out more to customers, "" said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.', ""Like other UK banks, Lloyds' profits were boosted by the increase in interest rates over the past couple of years, which have allowed lenders to charge more on loans."", ""For the whole of 2023, Lloyds' pre-tax profits jumped to £7.5bn, which was higher than expected and up 57% on 2022."", 'Borrowing costs have risen as the Bank of England has increased its base interest rate in a bid to bring down inflation - which measures price rises over time.', 'But Mr Mould suggested that ""Lloyds\' brief moment in the sun, when rates moved sharply higher and it was able to generate higher margins, seems to have come to an end"".', 'In January, competition for customers saw lenders cut rates sharply although borrowing to a buy a property has remained more expensive than many people have been used to in the past decade.', 'The Bank of England is expected to cut rates this year, but predictions of when such a move might take place has seen some lenders start raising mortgage rates in recent days.', ""Lloyds' rivals HSBC, NatWest and Barclays all raised rates on fixed-term loans, though not on all products, due to financial markets predicting an interest rate cut might not be as soon as previously expected."", 'Lloyds said it still believed the Bank would cut rates by 0.25 percentage points three times before the end of 2024, which if happens, would see rates fall from 5.25% to 4.5%.', 'On Wednesday, the average two-year fixed mortgage stood at 5.83%, while the average five-year deal was 5.41%.', ""Lloyds' latest results also showed the shift in more customers moving cash out of current accounts and into savings accounts had continued."", 'The group also said it had faced higher running costs in early 2024, including a new sector-wide Bank of England levy on lenders and a £100m additional charge to cover employee severance after a recent round of redundancies.', ""It confirmed it had not set aside any further cash to the £450m it has already allocated to cover the potential cost of an investigation into car finance deals by the UK's financial regulator."", 'A probe into whether people had beenpaying too much for cars was launched by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) in January.', 'Matt Britzman, equity analyst at investment firm Hargreaves Lansdown, said while Lloyds\' profit fall looked ""substantial from this time last year"", it had been expected.', 'Charlie Nunn, Lloyds\' chief executive, said the quarterly results provided the group with ""further confidence"" around its strategic ambitions and showed the bank was ""continuing to support customers"".', 'As well as announcing its latest earnings, Lloyds released forecasts for house prices.', 'The group said it expected house prices to rise by 1.5% in 2024 and average that amount over the next four years.', 'Separately on Wednesday, Heathrow Airport reported a huge rise in profits before tax of £189m for the three months to 31 March after recording a £60m loss for the same period last year.', ""The UK's biggest airport said some 18.5 million passengers travelled through it in early 2024, partly driven by growth on business routes to Delhi and Mumbai in India and strong North American traffic."", 'It has predicted this summer will be its ""busiest on record"", adding it had ""a robust operating plan in place to keep the airport running smoothly, even if unnecessary industrial action materialises"".', 'Holiday firm Jet2 also said its summer season was 55% sold so far, with forward bookings for package holiday customers up by 13% and flight-only passengers up by more than 18%.']",0.3043739212593588,"Like other UK banks, Lloyds' profits were boosted by the increase in interest rates over the past couple of years, which have allowed lenders to charge more on loans.","In January, competition for customers saw lenders cut rates sharply although borrowing to a buy a property has remained more expensive than many people have been used to in the past decade.",0.2630734118548306,"Like other UK banks, Lloyds' profits were boosted by the increase in interest rates over the past couple of years, which have allowed lenders to charge more on loans.","The group, which owns Halifax and Bank of Scotland, said in the three months to the end of March that its net interest income, which is the difference between the money it generates from loans and pays out for deposits, fell 10% to £3.2bn ($4bn).",2024-04-28
Tesla Autopilot recall to be probed by US regulator,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4n17zl39v8o,2024-04-26T13:50:43.146Z,"The US auto regulator is investigating whether Tesla's biggest ever recall successfully addressed safety concerns relating to its driver assistance system. In December, Tesla issued a software update to two million of its vehicles in the US to fix problems with its Autopilot feature. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says it will now probe the ""adequacy"" of that fix. Tesla has been approached for comment. The NHTSA has just concluded a nearly three-year-long investigation into crashes involving cars fitted with Autopilot. The agency said there had been at least 13 Tesla crashes, involving at least one death, and many more involving serious injuries, in which ""foreseeable driver misuse of the system played an apparent role."" A document outlining the NHTSA's new probe says it has identified concerns in Tesla's recall remedy after initial testing of remedied cars and analysing crashes which took place following its implementation. It also says that ""Tesla has stated that a portion of the remedy both requires the owner to opt in and allows a driver to readily reverse it."" The new investigation comes shortly after Tesla recalled thousands of its new Cybertrucks over an accelerator crash risk. 2024 has also seen sales and profits fall at the car-maker, and an on-going row about boss Elon Musk's enormous pay package. This was shortly after the firm announced layoffs to 10% of its global workforce after delivering less vehicles than investors expected. Mr Musk told investors in its latest earnings call that new electric vehicle model launches would be brought forward, but also that Tesla should be viewed as more than just a car company. He added its humanoid robot Optimus ""will be more valuable than everything else combined"". Autopilot is designed to assist drivers with steering, acceleration and braking and, despite what its name might suggest, still requires driver input and attention. Launched in 2015, the software forms part of the firm's wider vision for an autonomous driving future where human input is no longer needed at the wheel. Elon Musk, who owns Tesla, has previously suggested it can drive more safely than humans in some situations. It requires drivers to have their hands on the wheel and to be ""fully attentive"". But following its Autopilot investigation into Tesla crashes, the NHTSA said it found ""the prominence and scope of the feature's controls may not be sufficient to prevent driver misuse"". In early April, Tesla agreed to settle a lawsuit over a crash in 2018 which killed Apple engineer Walter Huang after his Model X, operating on Autopilot, collided with a highway barrier. The BBC has previously heard from former Tesla employees who had raised concerns over the safety of its vehicles and software. Whistleblower Lukasz Krupski told the BBC in December he did not believe the technology powering the firm's vehicles was safe. ",BBC,26/04/2024,"[""The US auto regulator is investigating whether Tesla's biggest ever recall successfully addressed safety concerns relating to its driver assistance system."", 'In December, Tesla issued a software update to two million of its vehicles in the US to fix problems with its Autopilot feature.', 'The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says it will now probe the ""adequacy"" of that fix.', 'Tesla has been approached for comment.', 'The NHTSA has just concluded a nearly three-year-long investigation into crashes involving cars fitted with Autopilot.', 'The agency said there had been at least 13 Tesla crashes, involving at least one death, and many more involving serious injuries, in which ""foreseeable driver misuse of the system played an apparent role.""', ""A document outlining the NHTSA's new probe says it has identified concerns in Tesla's recall remedy after initial testing of remedied cars and analysing crashes which took place following its implementation."", 'It also says that ""Tesla has stated that a portion of the remedy both requires the owner to opt in and allows a driver to readily reverse it.""', 'The new investigation comes shortly after Tesla recalled thousands of its new Cybertrucks over an accelerator crash risk.', ""2024 has also seen sales and profits fall at the car-maker, and an on-going row about boss Elon Musk's enormous pay package."", 'This was shortly after the firm announced layoffs to 10% of its global workforce after delivering less vehicles than investors expected.', 'Mr Musk told investors in its latest earnings call that new electric vehicle model launches would be brought forward, but also that Tesla should be viewed as more than just a car company.', 'He added its humanoid robot Optimus ""will be more valuable than everything else combined"".', 'Autopilot is designed to assist drivers with steering, acceleration and braking and, despite what its name might suggest, still requires driver input and attention.', ""Launched in 2015, the software forms part of the firm's wider vision for an autonomous driving future where human input is no longer needed at the wheel."", 'Elon Musk, who owns Tesla, has previously suggested it can drive more safely than humans in some situations.', 'It requires drivers to have their hands on the wheel and to be ""fully attentive"".', 'But following its Autopilot investigation into Tesla crashes, the NHTSA said it found ""the prominence and scope of the feature\'s controls may not be sufficient to prevent driver misuse"".', 'In early April, Tesla agreed to settle a lawsuit over a crash in 2018 which killed Apple engineer Walter Huang after his Model X, operating on Autopilot, collided with a highway barrier.', 'The BBC has previously heard from former Tesla employees who had raised concerns over the safety of its vehicles and software.', ""Whistleblower Lukasz Krupski told the BBC in December he did not believe the technology powering the firm's vehicles was safe.""]",0.0573262183127233,The US auto regulator is investigating whether Tesla's biggest ever recall successfully addressed safety concerns relating to its driver assistance system.,"In early April, Tesla agreed to settle a lawsuit over a crash in 2018 which killed Apple engineer Walter Huang after his Model X, operating on Autopilot, collided with a highway barrier.",0.0205486714839935,"In early April, Tesla agreed to settle a lawsuit over a crash in 2018 which killed Apple engineer Walter Huang after his Model X, operating on Autopilot, collided with a highway barrier.","2024 has also seen sales and profits fall at the car-maker, and an on-going row about boss Elon Musk's enormous pay package.",2024-04-28
How fraudsters are getting fake articles onto Facebook,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68843985,2024-04-24T23:08:44.000Z,"I have been really busy recently, writing articles about famous people. I've done interviews with the likes of Zoe Ball, Jeremy Clarkson and Chris Tarrant. There has been a common theme to these stories, and it is all about how each celebrity made vast sums of money from an online investment opportunity in crypto currencies. And if this all sounds a bit unbelievable, that's because it is - I hadn't done a single one of these interviews, nor written any of the articles. And none of the famous people involved, or me, would dream of endorsing crypto investments of any kind. Instead, the fake stories were all AI-generated scams that appeared on Facebook news feeds in a BBC template, and with my byline. The fraudsters behind them hope that people will click through to the full article, and from there be tempted to invest in a fake investment scheme being promoted on the page. I was curious as to how these scam posts were getting onto Facebook in the first place, so I contacted Tony Gee, a senior consultant at cybersecurity firm Penn Test Partners. After examining the URL, or web address, of one scam page he said it was most likely a paid-for Facebook advert. Mr Gee said he could tell that because the URL had a unique value that Facebook adds to allow it to track outbound clicks. I put this finding to Facebook's owner Meta, who said: ""We don't allow fraudulent activity on our platforms, and have removed the ads brought to our attention."" But how are the scammers able to get the fake ads onto Facebook news feeds in the first place? How can they get past Facebook's automated detection systems? Prof Alan Woodward, a computer scientist at the University of Surrey, says the criminals appear to be using tools that very quickly redirect users to another web page. So when the advert is first placed with Facebook, the link goes through to a harmless page, one that doesn't try to con you out of your cash. But then once this has been approved by Facebook, the fraudsters then put on a redirect that instantly takes people somewhere else - to a web page that very much wants to maliciously dent your bank account. ""If you control a website then it is relatively easy to include a redirect command, such that before someone's browser has had a chance to show them the original webpage, their browser is sent to an alternative one,"" says Prof Woodward. He adds that the fraudsters can quickly and easily keep changing the destination of the redirect. ""As soon as you are able to obfuscate the true nature of a URL, that is manna for scammers,"" he says. This is a type of online fraud called ""cloaking"", whereby malicious adverts are able to get past a social media firm's review stage because the fraudsters have hidden their intentions. Meta says it is using what it has learnt about this technique to improve its automated detection systems. Read more stories on artificial intelligence Margaret (not her real name) is a retiree who lives in Buckinghamshire. She was recently conned out of £250 when she fell victim to fake advert on Instagram, which is also owned by Meta. She had been tempted to click on a link to a fictitious ITV article in which presenter Robert Peston (or rather, a scammer pretending it was him), chats about an investment opportunity he had come across. Margaret who trusts Mr Peston and the ITV brand decided to invest. In addition to paying the £250, Margaret sent off pictures of her passport, and both sides of her credit card. She immediately started getting phone calls. ""It was someone with an American accent welcoming me and saying my money was already making money,"" she tells me. The phone calls kept coming, as did a torrent of emails. Margaret became suspicious, particularly when they started asking her about her income and savings, and when she intended to invest more money. ""I contacted my bank and was refunded but it didn't stop the scammers."" Margaret still receives daily calls, and even started getting them from someone purporting to be from the US National Security Agency promising to help her investigate the scam. ""My own mental health is being impacted and I believe I am at risk, in particular identity theft and indeed potential monetary theft,"" she says. ""They are so mega persistent, and are dangerous pests."" It is an issue that UK consumer watchdog Which? has been looking into. ""Malicious advertisers may mask web links or impersonate trusted brands such as the BBC to evade online platforms' reporting systems, and people often don't know they're looking at a scam or a deepfake until it's too late,"" says Rocio Concha, its director of policy and advocacy. ""It should not fall on consumers to protect themselves from this fraudulent content online. Ofcom must use its powers under the Online Safety Act  [which was passed late last year] to ensure that online platforms are verifying the legitimacy of their advertisers to prevent scammers reaching consumers."" Ofcom said in a statement that tackling fraud ""is a priority"" for the regulator. ""The UK's new online safety laws will be an important part of making it harder for fraudsters to operate,"" it added. ""Under the new laws, online services will be required to assess the risk of their users being harmed by illegal content on their platforms - including fraud, take appropriate steps to protect their users, and remove illegal content when they identify it or are told about it."" Nicolas Corry is managing director at financial investigation firm Skadi. He says he was ""troubled"" by the amount of causal fraud occurring on Facebook and other social media sites. ""These companies are making vast amounts of profits, and exposing people to fraud,"" he adds. ""And then it's the finance companies that pay for this, or the victims themselves."" Mr Corry says social media firms should be more rigorously checking each advert, and its links, before they allow them to go up.  ",BBC,24/04/2024,"['I have been really busy recently, writing articles about famous people.', ""I've done interviews with the likes of Zoe Ball, Jeremy Clarkson and Chris Tarrant."", 'There has been a common theme to these stories, and it is all about how each celebrity made vast sums of money from an online investment opportunity in crypto currencies.', ""And if this all sounds a bit unbelievable, that's because it is - I hadn't done a single one of these interviews, nor written any of the articles."", 'And none of the famous people involved, or me, would dream of endorsing crypto investments of any kind.', 'Instead, the fake stories were all AI-generated scams that appeared on Facebook news feeds in a BBC template, and with my byline.', 'The fraudsters behind them hope that people will click through to the full article, and from there be tempted to invest in a fake investment scheme being promoted on the page.', 'I was curious as to how these scam posts were getting onto Facebook in the first place, so I contacted Tony Gee, a senior consultant at cybersecurity firm Penn Test Partners.', 'After examining the URL, or web address, of one scam page he said it was most likely a paid-for Facebook advert.', 'Mr Gee said he could tell that because the URL had a unique value that Facebook adds to allow it to track outbound clicks.', 'I put this finding to Facebook\'s owner Meta, who said: ""We don\'t allow fraudulent activity on our platforms, and have removed the ads brought to our attention.""', 'But how are the scammers able to get the fake ads onto Facebook news feeds in the first place?', ""How can they get past Facebook's automated detection systems?"", 'Prof Alan Woodward, a computer scientist at the University of Surrey, says the criminals appear to be using tools that very quickly redirect users to another web page.', ""So when the advert is first placed with Facebook, the link goes through to a harmless page, one that doesn't try to con you out of your cash."", 'But then once this has been approved by Facebook, the fraudsters then put on a redirect that instantly takes people somewhere else - to a web page that very much wants to maliciously dent your bank account. ""', 'If you control a website then it is relatively easy to include a redirect command, such that before someone\'s browser has had a chance to show them the original webpage, their browser is sent to an alternative one,"" says Prof Woodward.', 'He adds that the fraudsters can quickly and easily keep changing the destination of the redirect. ""', 'As soon as you are able to obfuscate the true nature of a URL, that is manna for scammers,"" he says.', 'This is a type of online fraud called ""cloaking"", whereby malicious adverts are able to get past a social media firm\'s review stage because the fraudsters have hidden their intentions.', 'Meta says it is using what it has learnt about this technique to improve its automated detection systems.', 'Read more stories on artificial intelligence Margaret (not her real name) is a retiree who lives in Buckinghamshire.', 'She was recently conned out of £250 when she fell victim to fake advert on Instagram, which is also owned by Meta.', 'She had been tempted to click on a link to a fictitious ITV article in which presenter Robert Peston (or rather, a scammer pretending it was him), chats about an investment opportunity he had come across.', 'Margaret who trusts Mr Peston and the ITV brand decided to invest.', 'In addition to paying the £250, Margaret sent off pictures of her passport, and both sides of her credit card.', 'She immediately started getting phone calls. ""', 'It was someone with an American accent welcoming me and saying my money was already making money,"" she tells me.', 'The phone calls kept coming, as did a torrent of emails.', 'Margaret became suspicious, particularly when they started asking her about her income and savings, and when she intended to invest more money. ""', 'I contacted my bank and was refunded but it didn\'t stop the scammers.""', 'Margaret still receives daily calls, and even started getting them from someone purporting to be from the US National Security Agency promising to help her investigate the scam. ""', 'My own mental health is being impacted and I believe I am at risk, in particular identity theft and indeed potential monetary theft,"" she says. ""', 'They are so mega persistent, and are dangerous pests.""', 'It is an issue that UK consumer watchdog Which?', 'has been looking into. ""', 'Malicious advertisers may mask web links or impersonate trusted brands such as the BBC to evade online platforms\' reporting systems, and people often don\'t know they\'re looking at a scam or a deepfake until it\'s too late,"" says Rocio Concha, its director of policy and advocacy. ""', 'It should not fall on consumers to protect themselves from this fraudulent content online.', 'Ofcom must use its powers under the Online Safety Act [which was passed late last year] to ensure that online platforms are verifying the legitimacy of their advertisers to prevent scammers reaching consumers.""', 'Ofcom said in a statement that tackling fraud ""is a priority"" for the regulator. ""', 'The UK\'s new online safety laws will be an important part of making it harder for fraudsters to operate,"" it added. ""', 'Under the new laws, online services will be required to assess the risk of their users being harmed by illegal content on their platforms - including fraud, take appropriate steps to protect their users, and remove illegal content when they identify it or are told about it.""', 'Nicolas Corry is managing director at financial investigation firm Skadi.', 'He says he was ""troubled"" by the amount of causal fraud occurring on Facebook and other social media sites. ""', 'These companies are making vast amounts of profits, and exposing people to fraud,"" he adds. ""', 'And then it\'s the finance companies that pay for this, or the victims themselves.""', 'Mr Corry says social media firms should be more rigorously checking each advert, and its links, before they allow them to go up.']",-0.0567924797953978,"Ofcom must use its powers under the Online Safety Act [which was passed late last year] to ensure that online platforms are verifying the legitimacy of their advertisers to prevent scammers reaching consumers.""","Under the new laws, online services will be required to assess the risk of their users being harmed by illegal content on their platforms - including fraud, take appropriate steps to protect their users, and remove illegal content when they identify it or are told about it.""",-0.0352201461791992,Meta says it is using what it has learnt about this technique to improve its automated detection systems.,"He says he was ""troubled"" by the amount of causal fraud occurring on Facebook and other social media sites. """,2024-04-28
"TikTok will not be sold, Chinese parent ByteDance tells US",https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c289n8m4j19o,2024-04-26T02:49:22.588Z,"TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance says it has no intention of selling the business after the US passed a law to force it to sell the hugely popular video app or be banned in America. ""ByteDance doesn't have any plans to sell TikTok,"" the company posted on its official account on Toutiao, a social media platform it owns. TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the BBC. Earlier this week, TikTok said it would challenge in court the ""unconstitutional"" law. The statement from ByteDance came in response to an article by the technology industry website The Information that said it was exploring the potential sale of TikTok’s operation in the US without the algorithm that powers it. ""Foreign media reports of ByteDance selling TikTok are not true,"" the company said in the post, which included a screen shot of the article with the Chinese characters meaning ""false rumour"" stamped on it.  The sell-or-ban measure was signed into law by US President Joe Biden on Wednesday. Beijing's tightening grip on private companies has raised concerns in the US, and other Western countries, about how much control the Chinese Communist Party has over ByteDance, and the data it holds. TikTok has repeatedly denied claims the Chinese government has control over ByteDance. ""We are confident and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts,"" said TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew in a video posted on the platform this week. ""The facts, and the Constitution, are on our side... rest assured, we aren't going anywhere."" According to TikTok, ByteDance's Chinese founder owns 20% of shares, through a controlling stake in the company. About 60% is owned by institutional investors, including major US investment firms Carlyle Group, General Atlantic, and Susquehanna International Group. The remaining 20% is owned by its employees around the world and three of ByteDance's five board members are American. The Chinese government has also dismissed such concerns as paranoia and has warned that a TikTok ban would ""inevitably come back to bite the US"". However, TikTok is not facing an immediate ban in the US. The new law gives ByteDance nine months to sell the business, and an additional three-month grace period, before a potential ban can be enforced. That means the sale deadline would most likely come some time in 2025, after the winner of the 2024 presidential election takes office. ",BBC,26/04/2024,"['TikTok\'s Chinese parent company ByteDance says it has no intention of selling the business after the US passed a law to force it to sell the hugely popular video app or be banned in America. ""', 'ByteDance doesn\'t have any plans to sell TikTok,"" the company posted on its official account on Toutiao, a social media platform it owns.', 'TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the BBC.', 'Earlier this week, TikTok said it would challenge in court the ""unconstitutional"" law.', 'The statement from ByteDance came in response to an article by the technology industry website The Information that said it was exploring the potential sale of TikTok’s operation in the US without the algorithm that powers it. ""', 'Foreign media reports of ByteDance selling TikTok are not true,"" the company said in the post, which included a screen shot of the article with the Chinese characters meaning ""false rumour"" stamped on it.', 'The sell-or-ban measure was signed into law by US President Joe Biden on Wednesday.', ""Beijing's tightening grip on private companies has raised concerns in the US, and other Western countries, about how much control the Chinese Communist Party has over ByteDance, and the data it holds."", 'TikTok has repeatedly denied claims the Chinese government has control over ByteDance. ""', 'We are confident and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts,"" said TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew in a video posted on the platform this week. ""', 'The facts, and the Constitution, are on our side... rest assured, we aren\'t going anywhere.""', ""According to TikTok, ByteDance's Chinese founder owns 20% of shares, through a controlling stake in the company."", 'About 60% is owned by institutional investors, including major US investment firms Carlyle Group, General Atlantic, and Susquehanna International Group.', ""The remaining 20% is owned by its employees around the world and three of ByteDance's five board members are American."", 'The Chinese government has also dismissed such concerns as paranoia and has warned that a TikTok ban would ""inevitably come back to bite the US"".', 'However, TikTok is not facing an immediate ban in the US.', 'The new law gives ByteDance nine months to sell the business, and an additional three-month grace period, before a potential ban can be enforced.', 'That means the sale deadline would most likely come some time in 2025, after the winner of the 2024 presidential election takes office.']",-0.0682909980731593,"That means the sale deadline would most likely come some time in 2025, after the winner of the 2024 presidential election takes office.","The Chinese government has also dismissed such concerns as paranoia and has warned that a TikTok ban would ""inevitably come back to bite the US"".",-0.3191591103871663,"We are confident and we will keep fighting for your rights in the courts,"" said TikTok boss Shou Zi Chew in a video posted on the platform this week. ""","The Chinese government has also dismissed such concerns as paranoia and has warned that a TikTok ban would ""inevitably come back to bite the US"".",2024-04-28
UK businesses to suffer if TikTok banned in the US,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3gl5qly48qo,2024-04-24T23:05:36.429Z,"A TikTok ban in the US could have a ""potentially devastating"" impact on some UK businesses, online traders are warning. President Biden has signed into law a bill that gives TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, nine months to sell its stake in the app or it will be blocked in the US. TikTok has said it will challenge this in court. Some 1.5 million UK businesses operate on the app, according to TikTok. Isobel Perl, founder of Perl Cosmetics in London, is worried about the possible impact of a ban as a quarter of her sales now come from the US. Ms Perl founded her skincare and accessories business after losing her job during the pandemic and uses apps such as TikTok to drive traffic to her website. The first six months were ""just figuring out how to run a business on her own"" and it wasn't until she started using TikTok that the brand really took off, she said. ""I mostly use TikTok to drive sales to our website, of all the social media apps it drives the most traffic"". She's been using the app to grow her business outside of the UK. A TikTok ban in the US ""could be potentially devastating to businesses in the UK, TikTok is quite a unique way of reaching customers,"" she said.  Kyle Frank, founder of Franks Remedies, also sells skincare products on TikTok. He's worked hard to grow his customer base on the app and America is now a big market for him.  He told BBC World Service's Marketplace programme, that a ban would really hurt his business.  ""Certain months 60-70% of our monthly sales have come from the US,"" he said.  The US has become his second biggest market and TikTok has been a successful way of reaching those customers, he added. ""We haven't really had to spend any money on ads or marketing to get those customers and connect with them.""  In recent months US officials have voiced alarm over TikTok's popularity with young people. The law has been introduced because of concerns TikTok might share user data with the Chinese government - claims it has always denied. TikTok said it would challenge this ""unconstitutional"" law in court.  ""The fact is, we have invested billions of dollars to keep U.S. data safe and our platform free from outside influence and manipulation,"" it said in a statement. A spokesman for TikTok denounced the bill, saying it ""would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate seven million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24bn (£19.4bn) to the US economy annually"". Jenny Bailey from Merseyside runs Calla Shoes, a footwear brand that specialises in shoes for women with bunions.  She said whenever she sees a big surge in traffic from TikTok, a lot of those customers are from the US. ""We've managed to grow our US revenue from around 20% to 50% of our total business,"" she said. If TikTok does end up being banned in the US she believes ""the opportunity to grow organically as quickly as we have would be severely affected"". Other social media apps that Jenny uses just don't have the same impact, she said. ""We know what works on TikTok can sometimes work quite well on Instagram, but we don't get those big spikes in traffic from the USA on Instagram that we see on TikTok.""  It could take several years before the app is blocked as legal action, likely all the way to the Supreme Court, would delay the process. ",BBC,24/04/2024,"['A TikTok ban in the US could have a ""potentially devastating"" impact on some UK businesses, online traders are warning.', ""President Biden has signed into law a bill that gives TikTok's Chinese owner, ByteDance, nine months to sell its stake in the app or it will be blocked in the US."", 'TikTok has said it will challenge this in court.', 'Some 1.5 million UK businesses operate on the app, according to TikTok.', 'Isobel Perl, founder of Perl Cosmetics in London, is worried about the possible impact of a ban as a quarter of her sales now come from the US.', 'Ms Perl founded her skincare and accessories business after losing her job during the pandemic and uses apps such as TikTok to drive traffic to her website.', 'The first six months were ""just figuring out how to run a business on her own"" and it wasn\'t until she started using TikTok that the brand really took off, she said. ""', 'I mostly use TikTok to drive sales to our website, of all the social media apps it drives the most traffic"".', ""She's been using the app to grow her business outside of the UK."", 'A TikTok ban in the US ""could be potentially devastating to businesses in the UK, TikTok is quite a unique way of reaching customers,"" she said.', 'Kyle Frank, founder of Franks Remedies, also sells skincare products on TikTok.', ""He's worked hard to grow his customer base on the app and America is now a big market for him."", 'He told BBC World Service\'s Marketplace programme, that a ban would really hurt his business. ""', 'Certain months 60-70% of our monthly sales have come from the US,"" he said.', 'The US has become his second biggest market and TikTok has been a successful way of reaching those customers, he added. ""', 'We haven\'t really had to spend any money on ads or marketing to get those customers and connect with them.""', ""In recent months US officials have voiced alarm over TikTok's popularity with young people."", 'The law has been introduced because of concerns TikTok might share user data with the Chinese government - claims it has always denied.', 'TikTok said it would challenge this ""unconstitutional"" law in court. ""', 'The fact is, we have invested billions of dollars to keep U.S. data safe and our platform free from outside influence and manipulation,"" it said in a statement.', 'A spokesman for TikTok denounced the bill, saying it ""would trample the free speech rights of 170 million Americans, devastate seven million businesses, and shutter a platform that contributes $24bn (£19.4bn) to the US economy annually"".', 'Jenny Bailey from Merseyside runs Calla Shoes, a footwear brand that specialises in shoes for women with bunions.', 'She said whenever she sees a big surge in traffic from TikTok, a lot of those customers are from the US. ""', 'We\'ve managed to grow our US revenue from around 20% to 50% of our total business,"" she said.', 'If TikTok does end up being banned in the US she believes ""the opportunity to grow organically as quickly as we have would be severely affected"".', 'Other social media apps that Jenny uses just don\'t have the same impact, she said. ""', 'We know what works on TikTok can sometimes work quite well on Instagram, but we don\'t get those big spikes in traffic from the USA on Instagram that we see on TikTok.""', 'It could take several years before the app is blocked as legal action, likely all the way to the Supreme Court, would delay the process.']",-0.0949055464739127,"The US has become his second biggest market and TikTok has been a successful way of reaching those customers, he added. ""","A TikTok ban in the US could have a ""potentially devastating"" impact on some UK businesses, online traders are warning.",-0.163652241230011,"We've managed to grow our US revenue from around 20% to 50% of our total business,"" she said.",In recent months US officials have voiced alarm over TikTok's popularity with young people.,2024-04-28
Football betting: Regulator to meet over 'inaccurate' stats concern,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68646059,2024-04-27T10:53:44.000Z,"The gambling watchdog will meet figures in the football betting industry over claims that wrong results are being recorded, the BBC has learned. Bookmakers use data providers to settle bets placed on statistics like the number of tackles or shots in a match.  But the BBC has spoken to customers who claim they have lost bets because of inaccurate data they cannot appeal. Andrew Rhodes, CEO of the Gambling Commission, says it is important such decisions are accurate and fair.  Sean Murphy stood to win £370 if Mo Salah had two shots on target in a Premier League game against Manchester City last season. Salah scored in the 76th minute and replays appeared to show a second shot on target earlier in the half.  But, the referee mistakenly awarded a goal-kick and Opta, the data partner of Sean's bookmaker, recorded the shot as off target. ""You feel robbed,"" says Sean. He argues that despite the referee's error the effort still met Opta's published definition of a shot on target.  ""If the keeper didn't get a hand on it, it's a goal, therefore it's a shot on target, therefore my bet should've won,"" he claims. Stats-based football bets are some of the most widely promoted by bookmakers.  Many offer 'Bet Builders' that combine several data predictions into a larger wager.  Connor, another bettor, needed Sunderland to make 14 or more tackles in their FA Cup tie against Newcastle to win his 'Bet Builder'. Opta recorded 13 and the bet was a narrow loser.  However, replays appeared to show a tackle by Jobe Bellingham that had been mis-recorded as a blocked pass.  ""It was a blatant tackle... I was in disbelief,"" Connor says.  ""There's nothing that we can do about it, because there's no appeals process."" We showed these two incidents and five others to a football analytics expert.   Dr Alireza Monajati, from the University of East London, assessed that in most cases the customers' concerns were valid. ""No data company asserts absolute accuracy,"" he added. ""Even with a high accuracy rate, say 95%, it implies a 5% margin of inaccuracy."" Nearly 300 people tried to appeal their football data bets to the Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS) last year.  It made up around 15% of their workload. The UK's biggest betting resolution body admits it is frustrated by the subjective nature of these markets, but it does not overturn the vast majority of cases.  ""Our position is, if a bookmaker says we will settle bets based on what a third party declares, we think that is fair enough,"" says IBAS Managing Director, Richard Hayler. ""Our concern is that if the person who placed the bet thinks the data agency has made a mistake, there is not currently a mechanism for them to get the agency to have a second look."" Opta is the third party data agency used by most bookmakers. Paddy Power, Bet365, William Hill, and many more bookmakers have terms that state Opta's statistics will be used to settle their data bets. Others also use data from organisations like the Press Association or governing bodies like FIFA and UEFA. Different data providers often return different results. For example, in the 2022 FIFA World Cup Final, Opta recorded 30 'shots', whereas FIFA counted 31 'attempts on goal'. Opta's parent company, Stats Perform, said: ""We take the quality, consistency, and accuracy of our sports data incredibly seriously. ""We work tirelessly and are proud of our data collection people, processes and event definitions that underpin the trust in the B2B services we provide to the club, league, media and betting sectors. "" They told us that their clients, including bookmakers, can contact a ""premium round-the-clock support team"" if they believe there is a data error. End users, such as betting customers, with a data query ""should raise it directly with the company producing the product they are using"". They added: ""If a bettor is not satisfied with the response from their bookmaker,"" they will also review queries from the Gambling Commission and IBAS.  The Betting and Gaming Council, which represents most of the UK's betting companies, declined to comment saying that the mechanics of settling bets is one for individual operators.  ",BBC,27/04/2024,"['The gambling watchdog will meet figures in the football betting industry over claims that wrong results are being recorded, the BBC has learned.', 'Bookmakers use data providers to settle bets placed on statistics like the number of tackles or shots in a match.', 'But the BBC has spoken to customers who claim they have lost bets because of inaccurate data they cannot appeal.', 'Andrew Rhodes, CEO of the Gambling Commission, says it is important such decisions are accurate and fair.', 'Sean Murphy stood to win £370 if Mo Salah had two shots on target in a Premier League game against Manchester City last season.', 'Salah scored in the 76th minute and replays appeared to show a second shot on target earlier in the half.', 'But, the referee mistakenly awarded a goal-kick and Opta, the data partner of Sean\'s bookmaker, recorded the shot as off target. ""', 'You feel robbed,"" says Sean.', 'He argues that despite the referee\'s error the effort still met Opta\'s published definition of a shot on target. ""', 'If the keeper didn\'t get a hand on it, it\'s a goal, therefore it\'s a shot on target, therefore my bet should\'ve won,"" he claims.', 'Stats-based football bets are some of the most widely promoted by bookmakers.', ""Many offer 'Bet Builders' that combine several data predictions into a larger wager."", ""Connor, another bettor, needed Sunderland to make 14 or more tackles in their FA Cup tie against Newcastle to win his 'Bet Builder'."", 'Opta recorded 13 and the bet was a narrow loser.', 'However, replays appeared to show a tackle by Jobe Bellingham that had been mis-recorded as a blocked pass. ""', 'It was a blatant tackle... I was in disbelief,"" Connor says. ""', 'There\'s nothing that we can do about it, because there\'s no appeals process.""', 'We showed these two incidents and five others to a football analytics expert.', 'Dr Alireza Monajati, from the University of East London, assessed that in most cases the customers\' concerns were valid. ""', 'No data company asserts absolute accuracy,"" he added. ""', 'Even with a high accuracy rate, say 95%, it implies a 5% margin of inaccuracy.""', 'Nearly 300 people tried to appeal their football data bets to the Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS) last year.', 'It made up around 15% of their workload.', 'The UK\'s biggest betting resolution body admits it is frustrated by the subjective nature of these markets, but it does not overturn the vast majority of cases. ""', 'Our position is, if a bookmaker says we will settle bets based on what a third party declares, we think that is fair enough,"" says IBAS Managing Director, Richard Hayler. ""', 'Our concern is that if the person who placed the bet thinks the data agency has made a mistake, there is not currently a mechanism for them to get the agency to have a second look.""', 'Opta is the third party data agency used by most bookmakers.', ""Paddy Power, Bet365, William Hill, and many more bookmakers have terms that state Opta's statistics will be used to settle their data bets."", 'Others also use data from organisations like the Press Association or governing bodies like FIFA and UEFA.', 'Different data providers often return different results.', ""For example, in the 2022 FIFA World Cup Final, Opta recorded 30 'shots', whereas FIFA counted 31 'attempts on goal'."", 'Opta\'s parent company, Stats Perform, said: ""We take the quality, consistency, and accuracy of our sports data incredibly seriously. ""', 'We work tirelessly and are proud of our data collection people, processes and event definitions that underpin the trust in the B2B services we provide to the club, league, media and betting sectors. ""', 'They told us that their clients, including bookmakers, can contact a ""premium round-the-clock support team"" if they believe there is a data error.', 'End users, such as betting customers, with a data query ""should raise it directly with the company producing the product they are using"".', 'They added: ""If a bettor is not satisfied with the response from their bookmaker,"" they will also review queries from the Gambling Commission and IBAS.', ""The Betting and Gaming Council, which represents most of the UK's betting companies, declined to comment saying that the mechanics of settling bets is one for individual operators.""]",0.0503043296268803,"If the keeper didn't get a hand on it, it's a goal, therefore it's a shot on target, therefore my bet should've won,"" he claims.","He argues that despite the referee's error the effort still met Opta's published definition of a shot on target. """,-0.1026665994099208,Sean Murphy stood to win £370 if Mo Salah had two shots on target in a Premier League game against Manchester City last season.,But the BBC has spoken to customers who claim they have lost bets because of inaccurate data they cannot appeal.,2024-04-28
How robots are taking over warehouse work,https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68639533,2024-04-23T01:17:00.000Z,"Shoppers probably don't think much about what happens next when they place an online grocery order. But it sets-off an intricate dance of software, artificial intelligence, robots, vans and workers. At an Ocado warehouse just outside Luton, I'm in the middle of such a dance. As far as I can see, hundreds of robots whizz around a grid, fetching items for online orders. They move with dizzying speed and precision. In the early days of online shopping, when you placed an order, humans would dash around a warehouse or a store collecting your items. But for years now, Ocado has been using robots to collect and distribute products, bringing them to staff, who pack them into boxes for delivery. And Ocado is not the only firm investing in such automation. In its warehouses, Asda uses a system from Swiss automation firm Swisslog and Norway's AutoStore. In the US, Walmart has been automating parts of its supply chain using robotics from an American company called Symbotic. Back in Luton, Ocado has taken its automation process to a higher level. The robots which zoom around the grid, now bring items to robotic arms, which reach out and grab what they need for the customer's shop. Bags of rice, boxes of tea, packets of crumpets are all grabbed by the arms using a suction cup on the end. It might seem like a trivial addition, but training a robot to recognise an item, grab it successfully and move it, is surprisingly difficult.  At Ocado around 100 engineers have spent years training the artificial intelligence (AI) to take on that task.  James Matthews, chief executive of Ocado Technology explains the AI has to interpret the information coming from its cameras.  ""What is an object? Where are the edges of that object? How would one grasp it?"" In addition the AI has to work out how to move the arm. ""How do I pick that up and accelerate in a way without flinging it across the room? How do I place it in a bag?"" he says. The Luton warehouse has 44 robotic arms, which at the moment account for 15% of the products that flow through the facility, that's about 400,000 items a week. The rest are handled by staff at picking stations.  The staff handle items that robots are not ready for yet, like wine bottles which are heavy and have curved surfaces, making them difficult to grasp. But the system is ramping up. The company is developing different attachments for the robot arms that will allow them to handle a wider variety of items. ""We're just playing it carefully and ramping slowly over time,"" says Mr Matthews. ""It's a deliberate constraint on our behalf, so we continue providing good service to people, and not crushed custard creams in every order, or worse, putting stuff on the track that goes under the wheels of one of the bots and creates an incident."" In two or three years Ocado expects the robots will account for 70% of the products.  This inevitably means fewer human staff, but the Luton warehouse still has 1,400 staff, and many of those will still be needed in the future. ""There will be some sort of curve that tends towards fewer people per building. But it's not as clear cut as, 'hey, look, we're on the verge of just not needing people'. We're a very long way from that,"" Mr Matthews says. Ocado is hoping to sell its automation technology to companies outside the grocery sector. Late last year it announced a deal with Canada's McKesson, a large pharmaceuticals distributor. ""Think about which industries have the need to move things around efficiently inside of warehouse... it's endless,"" says Mr Matthews.  More technology of business So where will the automation of warehouses end? Are we heading to human-free warehouses that can run 24 hours a day? Not so fast, says Sarah Bolton, who specialises in commercial real estate at law firm Taylor Wessing. ""It's almost prohibitively expensive, we're talking hundreds of millions of pounds to fully automate a warehouse,"" she points out.  ""So you're really only talking about the big tenants in the really big warehouses looking at full automation, just because you have to have that size to make it anywhere near financially viable."" She also points that automation needs modern buildings, including floors that can stand heavy weights, large spaces without support columns, so there's less for the robots to crash into. Reliable electricity connections are also vital. ""You're reliant on new build, and there's a massive undersupply of new build warehouse stock in the UK at the minute,"" says Ms Bolton.  AutoStore is tackling some of those challenges. It has a company called Pio which is developing automation for smaller businesses. It uses much of the same technology that AutoStore supplies to big firms - robots buzzing around on a storage grid where goods are stacked vertically. However the upfront costs of Pio's system are lower, with the cost related to the volume of goods the system handles. The software is simpler and designed to integrate easily with common e-commerce systems like Shopify. ""It's a complete offering... where the upfront cost is very reduced. So it's quite affordable for these companies to get access to automation and start to get the benefits out of it. And since the technology is very flexible and scalable, you can continue to basically increase volume by adding more robots rather than more storage capacity,"" says Carlos Fernández, chief product officer at AutoStore. At the moment 10 clients are running Pio's automation system with another five customers signed up. Mr Fernández sees huge growth potential.  ""Over the coming years, there's going to be a journey of making the technology simpler and more affordable. It won't require you to be a large corporation to run complex automation projects, and you won't need to invest big amounts of capital also to start getting the benefits."" ",BBC,23/04/2024,"[""Shoppers probably don't think much about what happens next when they place an online grocery order."", 'But it sets-off an intricate dance of software, artificial intelligence, robots, vans and workers.', ""At an Ocado warehouse just outside Luton, I'm in the middle of such a dance."", 'As far as I can see, hundreds of robots whizz around a grid, fetching items for online orders.', 'They move with dizzying speed and precision.', 'In the early days of online shopping, when you placed an order, humans would dash around a warehouse or a store collecting your items.', 'But for years now, Ocado has been using robots to collect and distribute products, bringing them to staff, who pack them into boxes for delivery.', 'And Ocado is not the only firm investing in such automation.', ""In its warehouses, Asda uses a system from Swiss automation firm Swisslog and Norway's AutoStore."", 'In the US, Walmart has been automating parts of its supply chain using robotics from an American company called Symbotic.', 'Back in Luton, Ocado has taken its automation process to a higher level.', ""The robots which zoom around the grid, now bring items to robotic arms, which reach out and grab what they need for the customer's shop."", 'Bags of rice, boxes of tea, packets of crumpets are all grabbed by the arms using a suction cup on the end.', 'It might seem like a trivial addition, but training a robot to recognise an item, grab it successfully and move it, is surprisingly difficult.', 'At Ocado around 100 engineers have spent years training the artificial intelligence (AI) to take on that task.', 'James Matthews, chief executive of Ocado Technology explains the AI has to interpret the information coming from its cameras. ""', 'What is an object?', 'Where are the edges of that object?', 'How would one grasp it?""', 'In addition the AI has to work out how to move the arm. ""', 'How do I pick that up and accelerate in a way without flinging it across the room?', 'How do I place it in a bag?""', 'he says.', ""The Luton warehouse has 44 robotic arms, which at the moment account for 15% of the products that flow through the facility, that's about 400,000 items a week."", 'The rest are handled by staff at picking stations.', 'The staff handle items that robots are not ready for yet, like wine bottles which are heavy and have curved surfaces, making them difficult to grasp.', 'But the system is ramping up.', 'The company is developing different attachments for the robot arms that will allow them to handle a wider variety of items. ""', 'We\'re just playing it carefully and ramping slowly over time,"" says Mr Matthews. ""', 'It\'s a deliberate constraint on our behalf, so we continue providing good service to people, and not crushed custard creams in every order, or worse, putting stuff on the track that goes under the wheels of one of the bots and creates an incident.""', 'In two or three years Ocado expects the robots will account for 70% of the products.', 'This inevitably means fewer human staff, but the Luton warehouse still has 1,400 staff, and many of those will still be needed in the future. ""', 'There will be some sort of curve that tends towards fewer people per building.', ""But it's not as clear cut as, 'hey, look, we're on the verge of just not needing people'."", 'We\'re a very long way from that,"" Mr Matthews says.', 'Ocado is hoping to sell its automation technology to companies outside the grocery sector.', 'Late last year it announced a deal with Canada\'s McKesson, a large pharmaceuticals distributor. ""', 'Think about which industries have the need to move things around efficiently inside of warehouse... it\'s endless,"" says Mr Matthews.', 'More technology of business So where will the automation of warehouses end?', 'Are we heading to human-free warehouses that can run 24 hours a day?', 'Not so fast, says Sarah Bolton, who specialises in commercial real estate at law firm Taylor Wessing. ""', 'It\'s almost prohibitively expensive, we\'re talking hundreds of millions of pounds to fully automate a warehouse,"" she points out. ""', 'So you\'re really only talking about the big tenants in the really big warehouses looking at full automation, just because you have to have that size to make it anywhere near financially viable.""', ""She also points that automation needs modern buildings, including floors that can stand heavy weights, large spaces without support columns, so there's less for the robots to crash into."", 'Reliable electricity connections are also vital. ""', 'You\'re reliant on new build, and there\'s a massive undersupply of new build warehouse stock in the UK at the minute,"" says Ms Bolton.', 'AutoStore is tackling some of those challenges.', 'It has a company called Pio which is developing automation for smaller businesses.', 'It uses much of the same technology that AutoStore supplies to big firms - robots buzzing around on a storage grid where goods are stacked vertically.', ""However the upfront costs of Pio's system are lower, with the cost related to the volume of goods the system handles."", 'The software is simpler and designed to integrate easily with common e-commerce systems like Shopify. ""', ""It's a complete offering... where the upfront cost is very reduced."", ""So it's quite affordable for these companies to get access to automation and start to get the benefits out of it."", 'And since the technology is very flexible and scalable, you can continue to basically increase volume by adding more robots rather than more storage capacity,"" says Carlos Fernández, chief product officer at AutoStore.', ""At the moment 10 clients are running Pio's automation system with another five customers signed up."", 'Mr Fernández sees huge growth potential. ""', ""Over the coming years, there's going to be a journey of making the technology simpler and more affordable."", 'It won\'t require you to be a large corporation to run complex automation projects, and you won\'t need to invest big amounts of capital also to start getting the benefits.""']",0.1068244655536913,"But it sets-off an intricate dance of software, artificial intelligence, robots, vans and workers.","She also points that automation needs modern buildings, including floors that can stand heavy weights, large spaces without support columns, so there's less for the robots to crash into.",0.649489245631478,So it's quite affordable for these companies to get access to automation and start to get the benefits out of it.,There will be some sort of curve that tends towards fewer people per building.,2024-04-28