WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House said on Friday the next security assistance package for Ukraine is coming and it is expected to include more air defense capabilities for the country.
“As you have seen in previous packages, I think you can expect to see additional air defense capabilities in this,” John Kirby, spokesperson for the White House National Security Council, told reporters.
(Reporting by Steve Holland and Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
LEWES, DE – A Philadelphia woman was arrested after stabbing another woman and stealing her car in sight of a 1-year-old child in Lewes.
According to the Delaware State Police, Justice Bowser, 27, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was arrested for a carjacking that occurred yesterday in Lewes.
At approximately 5:48 a.m. on December 15, 2022, troopers responded to the 17,000 block of Valley Drive in Lewes in response to a report of a carjacking. Based on the investigation, it was determined that the 56-year-old victim remotely started her vehicle while inside her residence.
After walking outside, she opened the driver’s side door of her car and placed her purse inside. Upon reaching the vehicle’s rear hatch to retrieve an item, she heard the car door close. As she walked back to the driver’s side, she saw Bowser standing by the driver’s side car door and a child seated in the passenger seat. Upon entering the vehicle, the victim attempted to remove Bowser.
Bowser, however, stabbed the victim in the arm with an unknown object and fled the scene in the victim’s automobile.
A DSP trooper observed the vehicle on Coastal Highway south of Broadkill Road at approximately 6:11 a.m. and initiated a traffic stop, but the vehicle fled. A traffic stop was conducted by troopers in the Middletown area later that morning.
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The arrest of Bowser was successful without any further incident. In the course of a subsequent search of Bowser, it was discovered that she was in possession of a knife. During the incident, a 1-year-old child, an undisclosed relative of Bowser, was not injured. Injuries sustained by the 56-year-old victim were not life-threatening. The victim was treated at an area hospital.
(Reuters) – Pandemic-related disruptions to global supply chains and the knock-on effects of Russia’s war in Ukraine have driven up prices of energy, commodities and necessities.
Here’s how governments are trying to help hard-hit consumers and companies:
AMERICAS:
* Brazil’s Senate approved raising the government spending cap, allowing the president-elect’s incoming administration to fund an extension of social welfare payments for poor families. Oil giant Petrobras has cut fuel prices multiple times this year.
* Argentina will raise the floor for income taxes in January. The government has agreed with major oil firms in the country to cap fuel price rises, and signed a deal with supermarkets and suppliers of mass consumer goods to freeze or tightly regulate prices of some 1,500 products.
* The U.S. government in November announced $4.5 billion in measures to lower home energy bills. The administration also unveiled the $430 billion Inflation Reduction Act in August.
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* Mexico will raise the minimum wage by 20% next year after an agreement was reached between employers, labour representatives and the government.
* Canada in November laid out billions in spending to support low earners and offer students debt relief.
EUROPE:
* European Union energy ministers will try on Dec. 19 to reach a final agreement on a bloc-wide gas price cap.
* Germany’s lower house of parliament passed legislation worth an estimated 100 billion euros ($106 billion) to cap power and gas bills for households and industry from January. The government has agreed to nationalise gas importers Uniper and Sefe.
* The Czech government approved capping electricity and natural gas prices for large firms at the same level as prices for households and small firms that are already in place.
* Portugal will limit the rise in the regulated price of electricity next year to 3.3% for around 1 million households and small businesses.
* Slovakia’s parliament approved a special 90% tax on some electricity revenue to cover government aid to people struggling with energy bills. The government will spend 6 billion euros to cap energy prices for households next year.
* Spain’s cabinet in November approved mortgage relief for more than one million vulnerable households, and help for middle-class families.
* Italy’s government plans to spend some 21 billion euros next year to help households and firms with energy costs.
* Britain unveiled a scaled-back version of an existing cap on energy bills and said it would raise pensions and welfare benefits in line with inflation.
* France is fully nationalising energy group EDF. The government will cap household power and gas price rises at 15% next year and is helping struggling small and mid-sized firms.
* Belarus banned consumer price rises from Oct. 6.
* Poland will cap electricity prices for small businesses, hospitals and households in 2023, and raise the minimum wage twice.
* Croatia has capped electricity prices until March.
ASIA-PACIFIC:
* Australia’s parliament approved legislation setting a price cap on natural gas for one year and providing A$1.5 billion ($1.00 billion) in relief for households and small businesses.
* Japan will spend $200 billion on a package including electricity and gasoline bill subsidies. It had already announced a record minimum wage hike and a $103 billion relief bill.
* Indonesia has extended loan forbearance for some businesses yet to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. The government in September ordered regional heads to keep food inflation below 5%.
* The Philippines’ president has ordered agencies to continue supporting the most vulnerable sectors through cash aid and fuel discounts.
* Thailand has agreed to extend an excise tax cut on diesel until Jan. 20.
* India is weighing up the release of wheat state reserves into the open market to cool prices while axing the 40% tax on imports, government sources said. In September it restricted exports of rice to boost supply and calm local prices.
AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST:
* The head of Israel’s parliamentary finance committee has submitted a bill that would limit banks’ ability to raise mortgage rates after central bank rate hikes.
* Turkey in July raised the minimum wage by about 30%, adding to the 50% rise seen at the end of last year.
* Tunisia’s government in September signed a deal with a major labour union to raise public sector pay and the minimum wage.
* Botswana in July cut VAT by 2% for six months.
* Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates in July raised social welfare spending.
($1 = 0.9414 euros = 1.4943 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Reuters bureaus; Compiled by Olivier Sorgho, Tristan Chabba and Anna Mackenzie; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
(Reuters) – TuSimple Holdings Inc appointed interim financial chief Eric Tapia on a permanent basis and reconstituted its audit committee, the self-driving trucking firm said on Friday, weeks after an internal probe revealed links to a China-backed firm.
The company reappointed former chief executive Cheng Lu as its top boss last month after it fired his predecessor Xiaodi Hou following the probe.
The investigation by its board revealed that some employees spent paid hours last year working for Hydron Inc, a startup working on autonomous trucks mostly in China.
TuSimple also said on Friday it had appointed three new independent board members last week.
“With the appointment of Eric as permanent CFO, three new independent board members in the last week, the reconstitution of the Board’s Audit Committee and other board committees, we’re moving forward with our plan to restore accountability and transparency to this company,” CEO Lu said.
Tapia joined TuSimple in 2021, and has been the interim chief financial officer since July 7.
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Shares of San Diego, California-based TuSimple edged higher in premarket trading.
(Reporting by Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila)
MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russia’s Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina said on Friday that the sale of bailed-out lender Otkritie Bank to Russia’s No. 2 bank VTB would go through before the end of the year.
“As for the sale of Otkritie, it is in the final stages,” Nabiullina told a news conference. “We confirm our intention to complete the transaction by the end of this year.
She declined to disclose the price until all negotiations have concluded.
Both VTB and Otkritie have been targeted by Western sanctions over Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
Earlier this month, VTB said it had temporarily suspended coupon payments on a number of subordinated bond issues, a move approved by the central bank.
“As far as the VTB and Otkritie deal is concerned, we have no doubt about the solvency of the buyer,” Nabiullina said.
The central bank bailed out Otkritie, once Russia’s largest private lender, in 2017 as part of a years-long campaign to clean up Russia’s banking sector.
Otkritie had previously been linked with a possible sale to Italy’s UniCredit or even a public stock market launch before sanctions torpedoed plans for anything more than a domestic transaction.
“We were going to sell it on the market, including at a possible IPO, but due to the change in the situation, that has become almost impossible,” Nabiullina said on Friday.
“We are a regulator and a supervisory authority, therefore owning a bank is not normal.”
(Reporting by Alexander Marrow and Olesya Astakhova; Writing by Jake Cordell; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
By Sheila Dang
(Reuters) – Twitter Inc’s head of trust and safety told Reuters the company manually reviewed “any and all accounts” that violated its new privacy policy by posting links to a Twitter account called ElonJet that tracked Elon Musk’s private jet using information in the public domain.
Twitter on Thursday suspended the accounts of several journalists, including from the New York Times, CNN and the Washington Post.
“I understand that the focus seems to be mainly on journalist accounts but we applied the policy equally to journalists and non-journalist accounts today,” said Ella Irwin, head of trust and safety, in an email to Reuters.
(Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
(This Dec.14 story has been corrected to say that Gary Shedlin, Mark McCombe and Rob Fairbairn will step down from BlackRock’s global executive committee, not step down as vice chairmen, in paragraph 3)
(Reuters) – BlackRock Inc plans to make a slew of leadership changes across divisions and create a new unit, according to a memo seen by Reuters on Wednesday, at a time when the asset manager resists pressure to remove its Chief Executive Larry Fink.
With Fink at the helm, the world’s largest asset manager has constantly drawn criticism over its environmental social and governance (ESG) policies and sustainability-linked practices.
Gary Shedlin, Mark McCombe and Rob Fairbairn will step down from BlackRock’s global executive committee (GEC), but will continue to be key advisers as vice chairmen at the firm, according to the memo.
The company said in October that its Chief Financial Officer Shedlin will step down on or around March 1 after BlackRock completes its reporting processes for fiscal 2022.
Among other changes at the asset manager, reported earlier on Wednesday by Bloomberg News, Sandy Boss was named as the chief operating officer of BlackRock’s global client business.
The company is also planning to build BlackRock Global Markets, a new unit to oversee trading, lending and financing. The company’s former human resources head Manish Mehta will manage the unit.
Joud Abdel Majeid will succeed Sandy Boss as global head of investment stewardship and also join the GEC, while Caroline Heller will succeed Mehta.
Armando Senra will become head of the Americas institutional business and will oversee Canada and Latin America, while Dominik Rohe succeeds Senra as head of the Americas iShares and index business.
The moves, effective Feb. 1, will “promote BlackRock’s next generation of leaders,” the memo said, amid mounting pressure about Fink’s succession plans from activist investors.
Last week, North Carolina’s state treasurer Dale Folwell and hedge fund Bluebell Capital Partners called for Fink’s departure.
(Reporting by Mehnaz Yasmin in Bengaluru and Ross Kerber in Boston; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
By Jason Hovet
PRAGUE (Reuters) – The Czech National Bank (CNB) is likely to hold interest rates steady at its final policy meeting of 2022 on Dec. 21 and will not begin cutting rates until the second half of 2023, a Reuters poll showed on Friday.
As signs emerged inflation is starting to ease after hitting the highest in three decades, most analysts in the poll expected the Czech central bank to keep its two-week repo rate unchanged at 7.00% throughout the first half of 2023.
The central bank launched one of Europe’s sharpest rate-hiking cycles last year, but has kept rates on hold since August after Ales Michl was made governor and three new members took seats on the seven-seat board.
Michl has backed rate stability to anchor an economy heading into a mild recession, although he and other central bankers have not ruled out rate hikes.
The bank has also been ready to intervene in currency markets to prevent a weak crown from adding to inflation pressures.
Five of the eight analysts who replied to poll questions on interventions said they expected the bank to keep acting in markets for at least six more months, while the others expected it to stop in the first half of the year.
No analysts in the poll expected the bank would need to raise rates further, with inflation starting to ease, helped by state measures to lessen the impact of high energy costs on households and companies.
Czech inflation was at 16.2% year-on-year in November, down from a high of 18% in September. The central bank said November inflation would be 3.6 percentage points higher without the government’s energy schemes.
Inflation is expected to return to single digits next year.
Analysts were split on the pace of rate cuts. The median forecast saw the base rate down to 6.50% in the third quarter, the period that seven analysts saw as the start of easing. The rate was expected to be 5.75% in the fourth quarter.
Two analysts forecast earlier rate cuts in the second quarter, while another two expected policy easing would not start until the fourth quarter of next year.
(Reporting by Jason Hovet; editing by Barbara Lewis)
By Valentina Za
MILAN (Reuters) – UniCredit has struck a deal with asset manager Azimut Holding in a move that paves the way for the Italian bank to return to fund management a decade after it pulled away from the business.
Under the accord, whose financial terms were not disclosed, Azimut will set up a company in Ireland which UniCredit can acquire control of in five years at the latest. Azimut is expected to keep a minority stake.
CEO Andrea Orcel had been trying to renegotiate the terms of a deal struck by predecessor Jean Pierre Mustier who sold the bank’s asset management activities to Amundi, striking a 10-year distribution agreement with the French asset manager.
Orcel was unhappy with minimum guaranteed levels under the Amundi contract but discussions have led nowhere and relations have soured, people with knowledge of the matter have said.
Asset management fees can help steady banks’ earnings, making lenders less reliant on making money from loans. “This accord gives UniCredit the chance to re-internalise a fundamental piece of our asset management business,” Orcel told a press conference on Friday.
“If it is a success, as we think it will be, it can be replicated elsewhere … we start with Italy but we don’t have to end with Italy.”
Shares in Azimut jumped 6.7% following the letter of intent, topping Italy’s blue-chip index. UniCredit rose 1.1%. Asked about the implications of the Azimut deal for the Amundi partnership, Orcel did not rule out UniCredit could seek other partners after 2027. “We always respect a contract … [when that expires] there either will be another partnership or other partners,” he said. Azimut’s Irish asset management company will develop products to be distributed through UniCredit’s network in Italy on a non-exclusive basis. A meeting with Irish regulators for the approval process is scheduled already on Monday. The launch of the first funds for Italian clients is expected in the second half of 2023 and Orcel said the accord would start having visible effects on earnings only from 2024.
Azimut Chairman Pietro Giuliani said Azimut, which currently attracts the majority of the assets it manages from abroad, would see a shift back towards Italian clients for a few years. “That’s a price we’re happy to pay to build an important, international asset manager in Italy,” he said. The call option can be exercised earlier subject to circumstances which the two companies declined to detail.
(Reporting by Valentina Za; editing by Elisa Martinuzzi and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)
NEW YORK, NY – A fake cop got violent when his police impersonation routine went south during an attempted robbery.
On December 11th, two men met near 21st Avenue and 83rd Street in Brooklyn to complete an online sale transaction at around 5:35 pm.
During the transaction, the buyer claimed to be a police officer and assaulted the 29-year-old seller, punching him in the face. The police impersonator then robbed the victim and fled the scene.
NYPD detectives released a video of the incident and are asking the public to assist in identifying the assailant.
Laurel Duggan on December 15, 2022
A group of San Francisco merchants is petitioning for the city to refund the year’s taxes, citing open-air drug markets that the group says have scared away customers, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
A group of small businesses in the Tenderloin, a San Francisco neighborhood known for rampant homelessness and drug use, banded together to form the Tenderloin Business Coalition, according to the Chronicle. The neighborhood is controlled by drug dealers rather than law enforcement and is “on the verge of collapse,” the group said in its petition to the city.
“The result is a catastrophic loss of revenue for the small businesses that are vital to the health and safety of the neighborhood,” the petition reads, according to the outlet. “Due to this untenable situation, businesses are closing and there is a real and palpable fear that the neighborhood is now on the verge of collapse.”
The group is demanding a full refund of city sales and property taxes for 2022 along with the immediate removal of drug dealers from the Tenderloin’s streets and a meeting with Democratic Mayor London Breed.
A business group in the city’s Castro district threatened to withhold taxes in August and demanded the city take action over rampant homelessness and the associated drug trade and psychotic episodes playing out in the neighborhood, according to the Chronicle.
Breed did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Small Businesses Revolt Over Liberal City’s Open-Air Drug Markets
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Alexa Schwerha on December 15, 2022
Lawrence University, a private school in Appleton, Wisconsin, offered a course called “Doing Nothing” during the fall semester which invited students to focus on relaxation and tools on how to de-stress, according to its website.
Constance Kassor, an associate professor of religious studies, introduced the one-unit course which was held once a week, according to the university website. Students were not allowed to have their phones in class and, instead, were encouraged to practice mindfulness activities including meditation, tai chi and learning about sleep.
Students also read poetry and knitted, Fox6 Milwaukee reported.
The course is graded on a satisfactory/unsatisfactory scale and was the most in-demand class during the fall semester with 52 students enrolled, according to the website. Kassor said she hopes the class will be offered regularly.
“One of the key ideas behind this class is to encourage students to be fully present with their whole selves: mentally, physically, and emotionally,” Kassor said, according to the website. “The course isn’t structured with an end goal or final product or project in mind. It’s about being intentional about how and why we choose to do the things that we do. Our aim is to really build a culture of belonging and inclusion at LU.”
Kassor announced the course earlier in the semester on Twitter and stated that the popularity of the course “should tell us something about the current state of college students.”
A variety of instructors were brought in to teach students different practices, and Kassor said that the only requirements were to “show up, participate, and put your phone away.”
“This is a real course, designed to give stressed students strategies to relax and disconnect,” Kassor tweeted. “It’s 1/6 of a ‘standard’ course at my uni & it’s team taught by 12 people. So students don’t pay more, and instructors aren’t paid more for it.”
Kassor and Lawrence University did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
College Students Can Take A Course In ‘Doing Nothing’ At This University
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Jennie Taer on December 15, 2022
An Arizona border county declared an emergency Wednesday as illegal immigrants needing medical aid strain the local health care system and an anticipated surge is expected to only make the situation worse.
Yuma County Board of Supervisors Chairman Tony Reyes cited the “stress” on local healthcare workers and made the declaration in anticipation of the expected end of Title 42, the public health rule used to expel certain illegal immigrants, while the area faces a surge in COVID-19, Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) and flu cases, according to a statement from his office. Title 42 likely ending on Dec. 21 will make an already record surge of illegal immigration at the southern border even worse, former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott recently told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“The projected increase of asylum seekers and migrants has and will continue to strain the ability of medical staff and local hospital resources to provide essential and necessary medical care to Yuma residents as well as the migrant community,” the declaration stated.
Authorities in the Yuma border sector have apprehended more than 300,000 illegal immigrants in fiscal year 2022, according to the emergency declaration. During that time period, federal authorities apprehended more than 2.3 million migrants along the entire southern border with Mexico.
The end of Title 42 is expected to increase numbers 40% or more, according to the declaration.
“The increased numbers of asylum seekers and migrants will place a severe strain on federal and state resources, nonprofit organizations and others providing humanitarian and healthcare services,” the declaration stated.
Border County Declares Emergency Over Illegal Immigrants Overwhelming Local Health Care System
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Kate Anderson on December 15, 2022
The bust of former Chief Justice Roger Taney will be removed from the Capitol building due to his involvement in the Dred Scott decision in 1857 and replaced with Justice Thurgood Marshall, according to a House Bill passed Wednesday.
Taney wrote the majority opinion for Dred Scott v. Sandford when the Supreme Court ruled that citizenship did not extend to enslaved people of African American descent. The bill was introduced to the House in 2020 by Democratic Rep. Steny Hoyer and Rep. David Trone, according to NBC News.
“The Dred Scott v. Sandford Supreme Court decision is a stain on our country’s history, and it was made under the Taney Court,” Trone stated in the press release for the bill. “It’s time for us to remove this statue and denounce the institutions of slavery and racism once and for all. They have no place in the United States Capitol or anywhere in our country.”
Taney’s bust would be replaced by Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court Justice to sit on the bench, according to the New York Times. Marshall, a civil rights activist who argued before the Supreme Court during Brown v. Board of Education, was nominated by President Lyndon B. Johnson to the Supreme Court in 1967.
If signed by President Biden, Capitol officials will remove Taney’s bust within 45 days and replace it with Marshall’s within two years, according to NBC. The bill was sponsored by Democratic Sen. Benjamin Cardin and passed the Senate a week before the House vote, according to the Times.
A statue of Taney was removed from Maryland’s state House in 2017. The statue had been on the grounds since 1872 almost a decade after Taney’s death.
The Supreme Court, Hoyer, Cardin and Trone did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Congress To Remove Bust Of Supreme Court Justice Responsible For Dred Scott Ruling
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Carla Sands on December 15, 2022
On Sunday, U.S. Energy Envoy Amos Hochstein called U.S. shale investors “un-American” for refusing to ramp up drilling. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has done nearly everything in its power to put American producers out of business.
The Biden administration continues to weaponize access to capital. They do this through woke Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) policies and subsidies for special interests like wind and solar — all to end the very fuel responsible for the flourishing economies and industrialization of the west.
At the heart of the Biden administration’s policies lies a fundamental truth: their privileged worldview and commitment to their radical climate agenda is not only “un-American,” it is also anti-progress, anti-prosperity and at its core, anti-human.
As the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit convenes in Washington this week on the heels of the United Nations annual climate conference, COP27, this warped policy will be on full display, as the Biden administration tries to put a façade over a fundamentally anti-prosperity agenda for Africa.
What we won’t see is a real commitment to Africa’s energy future. The right course is to prioritize affordable and reliable energy to lift its people out of poverty. Instead, the Summit promises more western climate posturing and delusions of a green utopia at the expense of improved health and prosperity for the African people.
It is not lost on leaders across the African continent that abundant, affordable and reliable energy has been key to the success of the western world. Just as this administration’s hostility to U.S. traditional energy production should be classed as “un-American,” its refusal to allow African development of hydrocarbons should be publicly shunned as “anti-African.”
As energy costs skyrocket and Europe flounders in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the importance of rational energy policy is glaring. Even as Britain and Germany double down on coal, American and European leaders met in Sharm El Sheikh to reaffirm a collective commitment to radical climate-driven deindustrialization.
In fact, in his opening speech, President Biden asserted that “it’s more urgent than ever that we double down on our climate commitments.” “No nation,” he declared, should be able to “hold the global economy hostage.”
Yet the Biden Administration committed to doing just that – holding the growth prospects of the diverse African economies hostage by ending support for “international financing” of hydrocarbons. In fact, the Treasury Department unveiled its plan last summer to weaponize multilateral development banks in its war on the very energy responsible for historic growth, and increased standards of living for billions.
With U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calling “humanity” a “weapon of mass extinction” due to our “bottomless appetite for unchecked and unequal economic growth,” the logical anti-growth, anti-prosperity and fundamentally anti-human consequences of the continued commitment to radical climate agenda could not be clearer.
It calls for a world where the morally superior among the world elites serve as a check on the supposed greed of the rest of humanity — greed like the universal human desire for a better life. It is no wonder that African leaders are seeing through the façade.
As President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda eloquently put it in the lead-up to COP27, “it is no surprise some of my counterparts call for reparations or handouts. But this is the last thing Africans need or most want. Dialing down the brazen double-standards is what we desire, along with the lifting of the moratorium on fossil fuel investments for Africa herself so we can meet the needs of our own people.”
President Joe Biden would be wise to hear these words and dial down on the anti-energy agenda instead of “doubling down on our climate commitments.” Better yet, we should dial up American energy and bring shared prosperity — not handouts — for the American people and those across the globe.
The U.S. has abundant resources and capabilities to expand energy access at home and in partnerships abroad. Instead of throwing allegations of “un-American” behavior, the Biden administration should embrace and export the fundamental American principles of our great nation of free-thinkers, builders, and innovators.
As President Biden has repeatedly said, the U.S. should bring light, not darkness, to the world. That starts by embracing the value of American energy and innovation at home and in our engagements abroad.
We can be drivers of a worldwide commitment to the God-given value of every man and woman and to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Carla Sands is the former U.S. Ambassador to the Kingdom of Denmark. She currently serves as the Vice-Chair of the Center for Energy & Environment at the America First Policy Institute.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
CARLA SANDS: Let’s Hope African Leaders Will See Through The Biden Admin’s Anti-Prosperity Agenda
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John Hugh DeMastri on December 15, 2022
Samuel Levine, director of the consumer protection bureau at the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), warned companies such as Twitter that the government would not hesitate to go to court over violations of agreements with the FTC, in an interview with Axios Thursday.
Twitter’s privacy policies must comply with a 2010 consent decree issued by the FTC, mandating that users be made aware of all the ways in which their data is used by the company, according to Axios. While Levine did not specifically comment on the FTC’s relationship with Twitter he noted that companies typically violated privacy rules when their business models relied on harvesting data in order to optimize advertisements.
Twitter CEO Elon Musk argued that the company ought to collaborate with advertisers to target users with ads that were so focused they could be considered “content” that users might engage in an Oct. 27 tweet laying out the social media platform’s advertising stance, a policy which could violate the platform’s consent decree.
“We are not afraid to take companies to court,” Levine said to Axios. “We try to focus on cases where we can have the most impact … we want to send a message to other companies in the marketplace.”
…but the @FTC consent decree requires @twitter to maintain staff, a security program, & risk assessment for material changes to operations & business — which this huge shift would representhttps://t.co/veIuRLzB1k
May be key context for resignation of security & privacy staff. pic.twitter.com/XUcdlDFTXW— Alex Howard (@digiphile) December 14, 2022
The FTC fined Twitter $150 million in May for violating its consent decree by failing to inform users what their personal data was being used for, and then using that data for commercial purposes, according to the FTC. The consent decree also mandates that Twitter designate at least one employee to manage information security and manage risks to users, but it is not clear following the wave of mass layoffs at the company that Twitter still had an employee in charge of ensuring compliance, according to Axios.
Twitter is several weeks late on rent at both its San Francisco headquarters and offices around the world and refused to pay a nearly $200,000 bill for private flights made the week following Musk’s acquisition, according to The New York Times.
The FTC declined to comment for this story. Twitter did not immediately respond to a Daily Caller News Foundation request for comment.
Biden Regulator Fires Warning Shot At Musk’s Twitter, Tech Companies
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Alexa Schwerha on December 15, 2022
It was reported that students and lawmakers rallied near Barnard College in New York City on Wednesday in support of legislation that would require New York colleges to provide abortion pills to students, according to an event page for the rally.
According to the bill’s text, schools within the State University of New York (SUNY) and City University of New York (CUNY) systems would be required to provide abortion medication at affiliated health centers. As the first college in the state to announce such a plan, Barnard College announced in October that it would provide abortion medication on-campus by the Fall 2023 semester.
NY Assemblymember Harvey Epstein and Democrat state Senator Cordell Cleare, who sponsored the bills, as well as Democrat Assemblymember Jessica González-Rojas attended the rally, according to Epstein’s tweet. The rally was sponsored by the Reproductive Justice Collective NY, which claims to “advocat[e] for reproductive rights with an intersectional focus” at Columbia University and in New York City.
Joined the Reproductive Justice Collective, @SenatorCCleare, @votejgr, @PSC_CUNY 1st VP @avsqz, @uupinfo VP Alissa Karl, & @PPGNYact to demand medication abortion on SUNY/CUNY campuses.
Medication abortion is healthcare! It should be available at student health centers. pic.twitter.com/S9ShwmFi7B
— Harvey Epstein (@HarveyforNY) December 14, 2022
The bill would affect 89 public colleges in the state, according to a press release issued by Epstein and Cordell. It would require public universities to stock abortion pills in their health centers or, if they cannot, provide referrals to hospitals or clinics off-campus. It would also establish a fund for abortion mediation which would be overseen by the State Comptroller, health commissioner and chancellors from both university systems.
The lawmakers also called on Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul of New York “to incorporate the legislation and funding in her first executive budget after winning a full term.”
The lawmakers claim that it is necessary to increase accessibility to abortion as SUNY campuses, on average, are located 11 miles away from an abortion provider and due to “increased harassment at clinics across New York, by anti-abortion groups that have been emboldened as a result of the Dobbs decision.”
“Students rely on their health centers for medical care. Abortion is medical care, yet far too many schools do not provide access to abortion services at their health centers,” Epstein said in the press release. “As we face an increasingly hostile environment for civil rights, in New York we’re fighting back to guarantee not only the right to abortion but access to it for a population that has limited time, resources, and transportation options.”
Gonzáloz-Rojas called putting abortion pills in university health center “a no-brainer.”
SUNY, CUNY, Epstein, González-Rojas, Cleare, the Reproductive Justice Collective NY, Columbia and Hochul did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundations request for comment. Barnard College confirmed that the rally was not held on its campus.
Students, Lawmakers Demand New York Colleges Stock Abortion Pills On-Campus
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OSLO (Reuters) -Finnish energy group Fortum said on Friday its Chief Financial Officer Bernhard Gunther will step down in the first quarter of 2023 and will be replaced by CFO Tiina Tuomela of Germany’s Uniper.
Fortum, which earlier this year agreed to sell loss-making Uniper to the German government and is also in the process of exiting Russia, said it now plans to announce a new strategy on March 2.
“Fortum is repositioning its geographic scope and strategic focus,” the company said in a statement.
Prior to joining Uniper, Tuomela was part of Fortum’s executive management team from 2014 to 2021. She is also chair of the board at Finnish nuclear power company TVO and a board member at technology company Wartsila.
(Reporting by Terje Solsvik, editing by Gwladys Fouche)
Trevor Schakohl on December 15, 2022
The D.C. Bar’s disciplinary counsel recommended disbarring former New York City Mayor and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani Thursday, with a hearing panel having preliminarily ruled that he probably committed professional misconduct while trying to overturn Pennsylvania’s 2020 election results, according to NBC News.
Disciplinary Counsel Phil Fox said Thursday that Giuliani should be disbarred and accused him of attacking the 2020 presidential election’s legitimacy, claiming he “weaponized his law license to bring a frivolous action in an attempt to undermine the Constitution,” NBC News reported. The hearing panel decided that Giuliani probably broke at least one professional misconduct rule, without publicly identifying a specific violation.
Giuliani’s law license was already suspended in New York in June 2021 because he made “knowingly false and misleading factual statements to support his claim that the presidential election was stolen from” former President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court of the State of New York’s Appellate Division ruled. The D.C. Court of Appeals suspended his license in the District the next month awaiting a review result in the New York case.
“Any lawyer that engages in this kind of misconduct, harming the country as this has done, has at least got to realize that his or her law license is at risk,” Fox declared, according to the outlet. Giuliani’s attorney John Leventhal deemed the disciplinary counsel’s arguments heavily reliant on politics and called for his client to receive a reprimand letter, private admonition or some other minor punishment.
Giuliani criticized the panel when the proceedings ended for not preventing Fox from mounting a “personal attack” against him, NBC News reported. The D.C. Bar hearing panel is set to release a final decision on the probable misconduct finding several weeks from now, and Leventhal did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.
Rudy Giuliani Should Be Disbarred, Disciplinary Counsel Recommends
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Trevor Schakohl on December 15, 2022
Authorities arrested and federally charged a Chinese citizen with stalking after he allegedly threatened an activist who posted a pro-democracy flyer in the area of the Berklee College of Music’s (BCM) Boston campus.
BCM student Xiaolei Wu, 25, has been accused of sending messages directed at the activist via social media and email multiple times in October after she posted a flyer stating, “Stand with Chinese People,” “We Want Freedom” and “We Want Democracy,” according to the Massachusetts District Attorney’s Office Wednesday press release. Wu allegedly vowed to “chop your bastard hands off” if she posted more, claiming he told China’s public security agency about her actions and the agency would “greet” her family.
“We allege that Mr. Wu’s threatening and harassing behavior was not free speech. Rather, it was an attempt to silence and intimidate the activist’s expressed views dissenting of the PRC,” U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins said. “We believe Mr. Wu stalked, harassed, and reported the victim’s support for democracy to law enforcement in the People’s Republic of China so it would launch an investigation into the victim and her family.”
Wu also allegedly sought the activist’s home address and publicly posted her email address to expose her for online abuse from others, the press release reported. He faces a maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment, three years’ supervised release and a $250,000 fine.
Wu is currently suspended from the Berklee College of Music, it told the Daily Caller News Foundation Thursday.
“The described behavior is troubling to Berklee,” the college stated. “We cannot, however, comment on ongoing law enforcement investigations.”
Rollins’ office declined the DCNF’s request for further comment.
The FBI did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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MILAN (Reuters) – The Italian economy is expected to grow by 0.4% next year, a sharp slowdown compared with the 3.8% seen for 2022, the central bank said on Friday.
Yet the view for 2023 is slightly better compared with the 0.3% seen in October, while expectations for 2024 growth stand at 1.2% against the previous estimate of 1.4%.
The weak growth scenario is set against a backdrop of stubborn inflation, as the cost of living is seen by the central bank at an average 7.3% in 2023 (compared to 8.8% forecast for 2022), before slowing to 2.6% in 2024 and 1.9% in 2025.
Alexa Schwerha on December 15, 2022
Republican state Rep.-elect Jeanette Ward of Wyoming is turning her attention to higher education after the University of Wyoming (UW) suspended a church elder from operating a table within its student union for one year after he displayed the name of a transgender student on a sign defending biological sex.
UW issued a one-year suspension to Laramie Faith Community Church elder Todd Schmidt after he displayed a sign earlier this month which read “God created male and female and [student’s name] is male,” referencing a male student who is currently in the Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority chapter. Ward, along with 24 other lawmakers, sent a letter to UW asking that it “reverse the direction that the culture of [the] university is taking.”
UW responded to the letter, obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, on Dec. 14 and claimed that while it understood the lawmaker’s concerns, the suspension would be upheld as its investigation concluded Schmidt’s sign violated the school’s harassment policy despite the student’s name being removed upon request.
“I have given [UW] a chance,” Ward told the DCNF. “We have given them a chance, I and the 24 other signatories of that letter. We gave them a chance to choose a path of peace, but they have declined that option.”
The letter then claimed that Schmidt was not banned from the university or the union and mentioned that he “has been on various locations around campus in the last two weeks, including at the Union this last Friday, engaging the community.”
“It is unacceptable that the University persists in violating the 1st Amendment rights of Todd Schmidt,” Ward wrote back to the university in a Dec. 14 email obtained by the DCNF.
Ward told the DCNF that she intends to use funding against UW once she takes office in January, and she specifically stated her intent to defund the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Office as well as gender studies programs.
“Higher education does not respect 1st Amendment rights, that’s clearly evidenced by the situation here,” she said. “The best that I can do here is to try to hit them in their pocket books.”
Ward said that while the ultimate decision of how to respond to the university after the letter will be left up to Schmidt, she “stand[s] ready to help him in any way [she] possibly can.”
Schmidt told the student newspaper The Cowboy Daily that he hasn’t decided if he wants to pursue legal action to challenge the suspension, but that he hopes the pressure from the lawmakers will push the university to reverse the suspension.
The letter also tried to clear the air about how the male student was accepted into the sorority. UW confirmed that decisions about who is accepted are made by the chapter and do not involve the university itself.
“Any decisions related to offering bids to pledges, membership, and residence privileges within a particular house are made by local members in compliance with their national charters and policies,” the letter read. “Having said that, in the interest of correcting the record, I thought you would want to know that the student targeted by Elder Schmidt does not currently live in a sorority house.”
The University of Wyoming, Laramie Faith Community Church and the Kappa Kappa Gamma chapter did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
‘Unacceptable:’ State Lawmaker Aims To Defund University After It Suspends Church Elder
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Jennie Taer on December 15, 2022
Republican Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert introduced a bill Thursday that seeks to end taxpayer funding of abortions for illegal immigrants, according to a copy of the bill first shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
If passed, the “No Taxpayer Funds for Illegal Alien Abortions Act” would bar Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Health and Human Services (HHS) employees or contractors from transporting illegal immigrant across state lines to get abortions, according to the bill. The Biden administration in November instructed federal officials caring for pregnant unaccompanied illegal immigrant girls to transport them to areas of the country where abortion is legal.
“The Biden administration is unlawfully using taxpayer money to transport pregnant, illegal alien children across state lines for late-term abortions. My colleagues and I have introduced bicameral legislation to end these illegal and horrific policies once and for all,” Boebert said in a statement to the DCNF.
Congress has included the Hyde Amendment in its appropriations since 1976 to prohibit taxpayer money from funding abortions unless “the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or where the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest.”
The bill includes restrictions on ICE or HHS to prevent them from using taxpayer funds to pay for illegal immigrants’ abortions with limited exceptions, including if the mother’s life was in danger or if the pregnancy was a product of rape or incest.
“Taxpayer money should never fund abortions, whether for citizens or non-citizens. Our priority at the southern border should be security and peace, not death and destruction,” Boebert said in her statement.
The bill also attempts to prevent any taxpayer funding used to make people perform or help facilitate abortions.
The Biden administration’s latest guidance to federal officials was a result of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June, handing the question of the legality of abortions to states.
Neither ICE nor HHS immediately responded to requests for comment.
EXCLUSIVE: Rep. Boebert Unveils Bill To End Taxpayer Funded Abortions For Illegal Immigrants
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Harold Hutchison on December 15, 2022
Democratic Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas warned of a potential “catastrophe” at the U.S.-Mexico border Thursday as the end of Title 42, a Trump-era pandemic policy used to expel migrants, approaches.
“I am afraid that a catastrophe will happen that, you know, that there will be homeless migrants on the streets and freezing temperatures and people will die,” Escobar told CNN host Kate Bolduan. “I’m worried about that. And will that break through the logjam in Congress? I don’t know if even that will change things.”
WATCH:
U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan ruled in November that Title 42 would end effective Dec. 21. United States Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) encountered over 2.3 million migrants in Fiscal Year 2022, with another 230,000 in October, the first month of the new fiscal year, according to official figures, while another 600,000 migrants evaded CBP, Fox News reported.
Escobar called for what she called “immigration reform,” citing a labor shortage.
“There are a number of House Democrats who are concerned that, you know, if they sound — if they support immigration reform, that — you know, that will harm them at home,” Escobar said. “And here’s the reality. Here’s the reality around that political issue. Poll after poll shows that Americans want us to pass immigration reform. We have the business community. I hear from business leaders all the time, Republican business leaders, CEOs who tell me, why can’t we put some of those folks to work?”
Escobar did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
‘People Will Die’: Dem Rep Sounds The Alarm As Wave Of Migrants Prepares To Cross Border
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Star Parker on December 15, 2022
There are plenty of post-mortems about Raphael Warnock’s defeat of Republican candidate Herschel Walker in the runoff for the Senate seat in Georgia.
Yes, in the same state, Republican Brian Kemp won a decisive victory in the race for governor. And, yes, to be kind, Walker was not a great flagbearer to draw voters, particularly black voters, to the Republican Party.
But let’s ask why voters, particularly black voters, would send Warnock to represent them for another six years in the U.S. Senate.
The Georgia electorate is around 30% black, and 90% of them voted for Warnock.
What are these black voters thinking about?
Warnock is a boilerplate Democrat of the left, with an agenda of government spending as the answer to every problem, who is also the address to turn to keep the door open to abortion and the LGBTQ agenda.
Atlanta, which is about 50% black, has a poverty rate of 18.5% compared to a national average of 11.6%, and among black adults in Atlanta, 75% are not married compared to 50% of all adults nationwide.
Is Warnock’s agenda, pretty much the agenda of his party, really what these folks need?
Let’s turn to economist John Cochrane of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. In an essay about the importance of economic growth, he notes that the U.S. economy averaged 3.5% growth annually from 1947 to 2000. Since then, the average has hovered around 2%.
What if the average growth from 1947 to 2000 was 2% instead of 3.5%, asks Cochrane. He answers that average income in 2000 would have been $23,000 instead of $50,000.
Taking 1.5% off the annual growth rate lops off roughly half the average earning potential of working Americans.
Democrats love to pitch their programs as about rich versus poor, “haves” versus “have nots.” But if we are doomed to slow, sclerotic growth, who will suffer the most? The “haves” or the “have nots”?
Check out the latest long-term economic projections from the Congressional Budget Office.
They forecast economic growth over the next 30 years averaging less than 2% per year. This while the federal government bloats to levels unimaginable in healthier times. CBO projects national debt, now 100% of our GDP, something not seen since World War II, to 185% of GDP by 2052.
Cochrane notes that the core of economic growth is “productivity, the value of goods and services each worker can produce in a unit of time.”
But productivity is declining because an increasing percentage of every income earner’s reality is controlled by government. Transfer payments, taxing one set of Americans to make payments to others, now amount to $4 trillion — 80% of the federal budget and more than 20% of disposable income (four times higher than in the 1950s).
When people are rewarded for not working, they don’t work. Today’s labor force participation rate — the percent of the population of working age that is either working or looking for work — is now 62% compared to 67% 20 years ago.
So, my fellow black Americans, Warnock and his party may make you feel good that they will deliver more government money to you that the country doesn’t have.
But you buy into this feel-good moment at the expense of the future of your children and grandchildren.
Warnock is a pastor, so he surely read in his Bible that man’s punishment for the original sin was work.
The ship is sinking, folks.
And the first to drown will be those low-income Americans who think they will be saved by short-term government fixes served up by the Democratic Party and their faithful servants like Pastor Warnock.
This doesn’t let Republicans off the hook. I appeal to Republicans to belly up, finally, to the task at hand, and get these truths to all Americans, and particularly those low-income black Americans whose votes you so badly need.
Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education and host of the weekly television show “Cure America with Star Parker.” To find out more about Star Parker and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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STAR PARKER: Why Did Black Georgians Vote For The One Candidate Who Will Make Their Future Worse?
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