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☆ Biden faces widening partisan split over Israel
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-06 | by ( Ronald Brownstein | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +17 min

CNN —President Joe Biden is facing more critical moments this week that will test his fraught relationship with his base over Israel’s war in Gaza and potentially widen the partisan split about the Jewish state that has been building for years. Against this backdrop, partisan polarization about Israel among American voters was already widening years before the brutal Hamas attack last October and the devastating Israeli response it triggered. An array of polls this spring show how the war in Gaza has hardened this partisan split. Nearly half of Democrats, but only a little over one-fifth of Republicans in the CBS poll, said the US should pressure Israel to stop the fighting. “Biden has a Democratic caucus that is putting a lot of faith in this process,” she said.

Persons: Joe Biden, Long, Benjamin Netanyahu, Netanyahu, “, ”, Aaron David Miller, Biden, Harry Truman, Lyndon B, Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W, Bush, Reagan, George W, Donald Trump, Clinton, Barack Obama, Republicans —, Obama, Israel, Biden —, Gallup, Trump, That’s, Chuck Schumer, Mike Johnson, Biden’s, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, Waleed Shahid, Shahid, David, it’s Goliath, David ”, Miller, “ Biden, ’ ”, Ben Rhodes, ” Biden, “ We’re, Saudi Arabia — “, Mark Mellman, Schumer, Sen, Bernie Sanders, Israel’s, Chris Murphy of, Chris Van Hollen, Chris Coons, Tim Kaine, Virginia, Van Hollen, Amanda Klasing, — Organizations: CNN, Israel, Republican, Democratic, Gallup Organization, Carnegie Endowment, International Peace, Holocaust Memorial, GOP, Whites, Republican Party, Republicans, Gallup, Trump, Chicago Council, Global Affairs, Quinnipiac University, CBS, Liberal, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, National Security Council, Amnesty International, Amnesty Locations: Gaza, Israel, United States, Iran, Quinnipiac, Washington, New York, Missouri, Yom Kippur, Saudi Arabia, Sens, Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware, Rafah

☆ From Sports Betting to Meme Coins, Young Men Are Gambling in Droves
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-16 | by ( Emily Stewart | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

For young men in particular, it's an enticing, if a bit troubling, prospect. For some young men, a level of nihilism about the economy leads to an impetus to take some risks. Along with the rise of new customers, problem-gambling behavior is increasing, especially among young men. The New Jersey report identified a significant prevalence of high-risk stock trading among young men. According to the National Council on Problem Gambling, some 2.5 million Americans have a severe gambling problem, and another 5 million to 8 million have a problem it considers mild or moderate.

Persons: You've, Donald Trump's, Crypto, they're, they've, Timothy Fong, we've, Fong, it's, Kahlil Philander, haven't, Philander, Davids, Goliaths, Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway, Emily Stewart Organizations: GameStop, AMC, NCAA, Pew Research, UCLA, Washington State University, National Council, sportsbooks, Business Locations: America, United States, Berkshire, New Jersey, Atlantic, Jersey, Plenty

☆ Airlines Avelo and Breeze, three years after their pandemic debut, prepare for a profitable year
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-02 | by ( Ryan Anastasio | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

The inaugural flight of an Avelo Airlines Boeing 737-800 takes off from Hollywood Burbank Airport to Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport in Santa Rosa on April 28, 2021. "When you have Goliaths, and you're just David, it's really hard," said Avelo Airlines CEO Andrew Levy. David Neeleman, founder and CEO of Breeze Airways, before boarding the airline's inaugural flight at Tampa International Airport in Tampa, Florida, on May 27, 2021. A Breeze Airways airplane on the tarmac at Tampa International Airport in Tampa, Florida, on May 27, 2021. Operational costsOffering low airfares has made industry-wide cost increases all the more daunting for Avelo and Breeze.

Persons: Charles M, Schulz, Patrick T, Fallon, They've, David, it's, Andrew Levy, Avelo, Levy, David Neeleman, Matt May, Henry Harteveldt, Harteveldt, Connecticut's, Neeleman Organizations: Avelo Airlines Boeing, Hollywood Burbank Airport, Airport, AFP, Getty, U.S, Breeze Airways, Los Angeles International, Avelo, United, Breeze, Southwest Airlines, Tampa International Airport, Bloomberg, Atmosphere Research, New Haven Airport, Wilmington, JetBlue Airways, Azul, Westchester County Airport, Canton Airport, International Airport, Airlines Locations: Hollywood, Sonoma, Santa Rosa, Angeles, Islip, Long, New York City, Delta, Southwest, U.S, Ukraine, Tampa , Florida, Florida, South Carolina, California, Puerto Rico, New, Westchester, Akron, Ohio, Hartford , Connecticut, Charleston , South Carolina, Vegas, Los Angeles, Breeze

☆ 'Survivor' contestants share 17 facts about being on the show that would surprise even the biggest fans
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-29 | by ( Meghan Cook | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +16 min

Eight "Survivor" competitors spoke with Business Insider about their time on the show and shared behind-the-scenes secrets that might surprise even the series's biggest fans. The production team has a set of 'identical' replacement clothesLauren-Ashley Beck and Karishma Patel on "Survivor: Island of the Idols." Beck added that she sometimes said things out loud before remembering that they could be aired on national television. Contestants aren't allowed to directly address the camera crewKellee Kim and Lauren-Ashley Beck on "Survivor: Island of the Idols." But Beck added that after spending weeks with the crew, it's hard to not notice certain things about them.

Persons: —, Lauren, Ashley Beck, Beck, Davie Rickenbacker, Rickenbacker, Elaine Stott, Stott, We're, we're, Patel, Karishma Patel, Janet Carbin, aren't, Carbin, castmates, Malcolm Freberg, Carbin's, Kellee Kim, they're, Tyson Apostol, Dean Kowalski, Tom Laidlaw, Chelsea Walker, Robert Voets, Jeff, doesn't, Andrea Boehlke, Boehlke, David, — Nick Wilson, Nick, Goliath, Dan Rengering, I've, she's Organizations: Service, CBS, Business, Getty, YouTube Locations: Philippines, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Cambodia, Fiji, Tribal, Ponderosa

☆ A simple, low-cost protection trade for those doubting this bull market
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-22 | by ( Michael Khouw | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

For an agonizing month, the S & P 500 toyed with the prior all-time highs of January 2022 before finally breaking through to new all-time highs on Friday. Yet here we are, reviewing the biggest trading day of the year so far, and AMD was the best-performing stock in the S & P. Nvidia was 12th. What is true is that the S & P 500 rises over time. Market Cap weighted indices, such as the S & P 500 represent the largest and generally most successful publicly traded companies. Notice that a January 2025 SPDR S & P 500 Trust (SPY) $460 strike put costs just over $16 per contract.

Persons: bender, Stocks, SPDR Organizations: AMD, Nvidia, Healthcare, Centene Corp, United Health, Enphase Energy, SEC, Investors, Apple, Microsoft, U.S . Locations: China, U.S

☆ AI Davids ride coattails of industry Goliaths
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

New York, Dec 5 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Artificial intelligence Goliaths like OpenAI continue to open the door for what might become the industry’s Davids. With a low-cost approach and data privacy focus, it may be able to eventually carve out a solid European business. Mistral has whiffs of what OpenAI, eyeing a mooted $86 billion valuation and eight years old, once was, but with tweaks. Mistral has also focused on “open sourcing” its models, which means they can be downloaded and used for free. As a Paris-based company, Mistral could build out its business with a specific focus on complying with AI rules being finalized by the European Union.

Persons: industry’s Davids, eyeing, Anita Ramaswamy, Neiman Marcus, Lauren Silva Laughlin, Aditya Sriwatsav Organizations: Reuters, Mistral, Bloomberg, European Union, X, Saks, Thomson Locations: York, Paris, Kuwait, Hong Kong

☆ Disney starts drafting broadcast TV’s grand finale
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-14 | by ( Jennifer Saba | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +9 min

It was pretty much the only way to watch “Gunsmoke” or “Howdy Doody” until cable networks arrived in force in the 1980s, bundled together for a monthly subscription fee. For Disney, ABC represented a watershed moment. Look deeper and the big broadcasters attracted only one in five viewers, while one in three watched cable networks. The TV group, excluding cable networks such as Fox News, generated an EBITDA margin of nearly 12% for the year ending June 30. Assume any deal includes cable networks such as Disney Channel and National Geographic.

Persons: Walt Disney, Bob Iger, ”, Howdy Doody, Fox, Rupert Murdoch, Michael Eisner, Iger, what’s, “ Abbott, Singer, Morgan Stanley, Disney’s, they’re, reckons Morgan Stanley, Jeffrey Goldfarb, Sharon Lam, Aditya Sriwatsav, Oliver Taslic Organizations: Reuters, Magic Kingdom, ABC, Disney, ESPN, Charter Communications, American Broadcasting Company, NBC, CBS, Capital Cities, RJR Nabisco, Paramount Global, Comcast, Warner Bros Discovery, Fox, Paramount, National Football League, NFL, Reuters Graphics Reuters, Bloomberg, Apple, Nielsen, BET, Wall Street Journal, Charter, U.S . Federal Communications Commission, Local, Disney Channel, Geographic, Apollo Global Management, TPG, Walt Disney, Thomson Locations: U.S, United States

The Google sign is reflected in a rain puddle outside their offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S., June 27, 2017. Acquire Licensing RightsWASHINGTON, Sept 13 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Want to know how to remove Google as the iPhone’s default search tool? According to him, the search engine operated by Alphabet (GOOGL.O) enlists Apple (AAPL.O) to answer the query by directing users to its website. Using Google as the default search engine wasn’t Apple’s “choice,” Dintzer said. Follow @BenWinck on XFollow @thereallsl on XCONTEXT NEWSThe U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust case against Alphabet’s Google started on Sept. 12.

Persons: John Schmidtlein, Kenneth Dintzer, Google, ” Schmidtlein, Schmidtlein, ” Dintzer, It’s, Tim Cook, Alphabet’s Google, Ben Winck, Lauren Silva Laughlin, Jeffrey Goldfarb, Sharon Lam Organizations: Google, Rights, Reuters, Apple, U.S . Department of, Yahoo, Verizon Communications, Microsoft, Netscape, U.S, U.S . Department, Alphabet’s, Thomson Locations: Cambridge , Massachusetts, U.S, Safari, Japan, Washington, New York

☆ Alphabet moonshots are ready for launch
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-29 | by ( Anita Ramaswamy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Alphabet logo and AI Artificial Intelligence words are seen in this illustration taken, May 4, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration Acquire Licensing RightsNEW YORK, Aug 29 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Alphabet (GOOGL.O) is poised to welcome the autumn harvest. Verily boss Stephen Gillett told employees this month that it will cut its ties to several of Alphabet’s services next year. Such a financial services business strays from Alphabet’s wheelhouse, and with artificial intelligence demanding fresh attention, it’s wise to be prudent about capital allocation. Waymo, the autonomous vehicle technology business, secured a vote of approval this month from San Francisco to operate driverless rideshares in the city.

Persons: Dado Ruvic, Ruth Porat, Morgan Stanley, ”, Stephen Gillett, wheelhouse, Chris Hohn’s, Ford, Porat, Verily, Jeffrey Goldfarb, Aditya Sriwatsav Organizations: REUTERS, Reuters, Life Sciences, Wall Street Journal, Temasek, TCI Fund Investments, Google, Sciences, Wall, Thomson Locations: San Francisco

☆ Salesforce cage-rattlers leave in profitable peace
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Acquire Licensing RightsNEW YORK, Aug 15 (Reuters Breakingviews) - For activist investors in Salesforce (CRM.N), the low-hanging fruit should suffice. Fast growth and big-ticket acquisitions that Salesforce boss Marc Benioff had pursued turned anathema last year. The stock price roughly halved, falling faster than the Nasdaq-100 Technology Sector Index (.NDXT). Benioff eventually acquiesced, slashing 10% of the workforce, disbanding the deals committee and unveiling a $20 billion stock buyback plan. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

Persons: Porte, Jeff Smith’s, Dan Loeb’s, Marc Benioff, ValueAct, Benioff, Jonathan Guilford, Exor’s Philips, Bain, BoE, Jeffrey Goldfarb, Sharon Lam Organizations: Viva Technology, Porte de, Reuters, Big Tech, Nasdaq, Profit, Elliott Investment Management, Twitter, FC Barcelona’s, Messi, Thomson Locations: Paris, France, Salesforce, Salesforce’s

☆ Ending the retailers’ crisis has a high price tag
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-02 | by ( Aimee Donnellan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

BARCELONA, May 2 (Reuters Breakingviews) - High-street retailers are facing a heavy bill to weather the cost-of-living crisis. The cost of heating stores and staff requests for pay rises are squeezing operating margins at top players like H&M (HMb.ST) and Next (NXT.L). Shrinking disposable income is making it hard for these retailers to boost sales to protect margins. Most bricks-and-mortar retailers trade on higher multiples than they did before the war in Ukraine sparked soaring inflation. But that leaves a squeezed middle of retailers like H&M exposed to the brunt of the retail crisis.

☆ Tech groupthink could hinder AI competition
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW YORK, May 1 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Everyone wants a piece of OpenAI, the startup behind artificial intelligence-powered chatbot ChatGPT. Now that OpenAI has the support of venture capital’s biggest names, that norm will make life harder for smaller challengers - especially given the steep costs of training AI models and how stretched venture funding is now. Rivals could look to the other tech goliaths; competitor Anthropic, backed by Microsoft nemesis Google, recently completed a similarly sized fundraise. By planting its flag in Silicon Valley early, OpenAI may have won a lasting edge in the AI race. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ Only the big will crack the $1 trln LBO code
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( Jonathan Guilford | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +9 min

Lenders will only tiptoe back, meaning deals need the big checks and extra elbow grease in credit markets that favor the largest private equity firms. Private equity firms depend on borrowed money to reduce how much of their own they use in any single deal and to magnify returns as a percentage of their initial investment. Imagine a private equity firm acquires a company for $1 billion, then flips it five years later for $1.5 billion. Though the private equity industry is awash in so-called dry powder, fundraising is increasingly tilting to the largest fund managers. Buyout firms are apt to keep their plans more conservative to garner higher ratings – meaning, again, less leverage and more upfront cash.

☆ Spooked dealmakers scurry back into their foxholes
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Jeffrey Goldfarb | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

NEW YORK, March 23 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Jonathan Kanter, a lawyer by training, has become something of a magician. Pay closer attention, however, and Kanter is methodically rewriting a decades-old regulatory playbook. Last year, these breakup charges reached their highest level in a decade, at an average 4.5% of deal prices. The Department of Agriculture partnered with the DOJ on the case, another feature of Kanter’s plan of attack. As legal weaknesses emerge, dealmakers should be in position to better structure transactions and defend themselves at trial.

☆ Big bank selloff rests on tiny kernel of truth
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-10 | by ( Liam Proud | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

LONDON, March 10 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The travails of Silicon Valley Bank (SIVB.O) are rippling across the global banking system, wiping billions off the market capitalisations of HSBC (HSBA.L), Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) and JPMorgan (JPM.N). It’s nonetheless a useful reminder that rising interest rates bring risks as well as benefits. The trigger for the selloff seems to have been a $1.8 billion equity issue by SVB Financial, which does business as Silicon Valley Bank. Shrinking deposits saw Chief Executive Greg Becker sell down a $21 billion portfolio of Treasury and agency mortgage bonds. As interest rates rise banks are charging more for loans.

☆ An Advocate for Managing Startups Differently Gets New Advice
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-04 | by ( Corrie Driebusch | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

In Personal Board of Directors, top business leaders talk about the people they turn to for advice, and how those people have shaped their perspective and helped them succeed. Previous installments from the series are here. Eric Ries has spent the past two decades as a go-to mentor in Silicon Valley and the founder of a David-size stock exchange trying to take on twin Goliaths: Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange. But a “humiliating” startup failure at age 20 almost took him out of the game entirely.

☆ Breaking down October's big stock bounce — and why the market didn't need Big Tech to do it
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Michael Santoli | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

This is the daily notebook of Mike Santoli, CNBC's senior markets commentator, with ideas about trends, stocks and market statistics. -The S & P has managed tentatively to have broken the downtrend from the mid-August peak and has rebuilt a bit of a cushion. Before the report AMZN had traded exactly in line with S & P 500 over the prior three years. -Market breadth today is mixed, 50-50, AAPL really pushing the indexes quite a bit on its own. VIX succumbing to stronger indexes and the "Friday effect," though will likely rebuild into the Fed next week.

☆ The 10 most bizarre weapons of World War II
▼ + stars: | 2015-07-22 | by ( Alex Lockie | Lloyd Lee | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +12 min

World War II brought many successful innovations in technology including weapons. From explosive rats to a 155-foot-long gun, here are some of the most bizarre weapons from WWII. During World War II, the world's major powers set their sights on advancing technology, medicine, and communications in order to be efficient and fearsome in battle. PanjandrumThe Panjandrum, a rocket-propelled explosive cart, was one of the more curious weapons to have come out of World War II. Explosive ratsDogs were not the only unfortunate animal victims of experimental war weapons.

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