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☆ High schools and colleges require students to pay mandatory fees to walk at graduation. Critics say this discriminates against low-income students.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Misha Valencia | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Most high schools and colleges charge students a graduation fee to attend the ceremony. Critics say these high, mandatory fees discriminate against low-income students. She told Insider that nothing had changed since she graduated; the school was still charging mandatory graduation fees. High schools and colleges across the US are charging students mandatory graduation fees — sometimes called a walking fee — to walk in their graduation ceremonies. For example, California and Minnesota have barred mandatory graduation fees in public schools.

☆ News startup Messenger launches with Trump 'exclusive' while advertisers expressed skepticism ahead of debut: 'We can't have another Quibi'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Lucia Moses | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Jimmy Finkelstein's startup The Messenger launched today with a Trump interview leading the site. Advertisers said it'll be tough to sell ads on a site without an established audience. The site led with an interview with former President Donald Trump and ads from the American Petroleum Institute. The Messenger said it'll roll out seven other verticals including business, entertainment, and sports later in the year. Image from The Messenger's launch ad campaign.

☆ US Virgin Islands subpoenas Elon Musk as part of lawsuit into Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking ring
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Ramishah Maruf | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN —The US Virgin Islands has subpoenaed Elon Musk, requesting documents from the billionaire for the government’s lawsuit alleging JPMorgan Chase benefited financially from Jeffrey Epstein’s sex trafficking operation. The Virgin Islands’ government issued the subpoena on April 28 but had difficulty obtaining an address for Musk to locate and serve him, even hiring an investigative firm. The subpoena is requesting all communications between Musk and JPMorgan regarding Epstein or any role the disgraced financier played in the Tesla CEO’s financial management. It also requested any documents regarding fees paid to Epstein or JPMorgan, or any documents regarding Epstein’s sex trafficking ring. In 2022, the US Virgin Islands filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase, alleging the Wall Street giant benefited financially from Epstein’s sex trafficking operation and failed in its duty to report suspicious financial activity.

Check out the companies making headlines in premarket trading. Tesla — Elon Musk's electric vehicle company gained 2.3% in premarket trading. JD.com — The Chinese e-commerce company's U.S.-listed shares lost 1.4% Friday during premarket trading. PacWest — Shares gained 2.4% in the premarket after tumbling 22.7% in the previous session on deposit outflows. First Solar — Shares of the clean energy company climbed 5% in premarket trading after First Solar announced an acquisition of Evolar AB for up to $80 million.

The complaint was sent to the US judges' Committee on Financial Disclosure. For now, questions about Thomas's previously undisclosed financial dealings with Harlan Crow, a billionaire Texas real-estate developer, will fall to an obscure committee of sixteen federal judges — the Committee on Financial Disclosure. Koszczuk said the same letterhead was routinely sent to any member of the public who asked for a judge's financial disclosure report. When Ranjan wrote his article, a review of a Thomas biography, the controversies surrounding Thomas had nothing to do with his financial disclosures. Judges' financial disclosures are only updated annually, and until recently, it wasn't easy to get ahold of them.

☆ The Messenger, Jimmy Finkelstein's digital news startup, meets advertiser skepticism ahead of May 15 launch: 'We can't have another Quibi'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Lucia Moses | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Jimmy Finkelstein's startup The Messenger will roll out an ad campaign touting its mission to provide unbiased news. An ad campaign by Publicis unit Le Truc will kick off May 22 and is designed to provoke, with copy like "Agendas are for meetings. Image from The Messenger's launch ad campaign. The Messenger said it'll have three to four big advertisers at launch as well as a significant amount of programmatic advertising. The Messenger's ad campaign promotes its ambitions to provide unbiased news.

☆ Elon Musk invites longtime CNN host Don Lemon to start new show on Twitter following Tucker Carlson announcement
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Don Lemon and Tucker Carlson were both ousted from their jobs at CNN and Fox News on April 24. And as Musk tried to settle political concerns, he reached out to Lemon to suggest he do the same. Elon Musk reached out to former CNN host Don Lemon to suggest he starts a new show on Twitter, days after Fox News star host Tucker Carlson announced his own plans to do so. Lemon and Carlson, longtime TV news hosts, were both abruptly fired on April 24. If Lemon did take up Musk's offer, it could provide a liberal counterbalance to Carlson's impending Twitter show.

London CNN —The publisher of UK tabloid the Daily Mirror has apologized to Prince Harry for using unlawful methods to gather information about his private life. The pair has filed at least seven lawsuits against British and US media organizations since 2019, including Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers, according to Reuters. News Group Newspapers publishes the Sun and used to produce News of the World, which was shut down in 2011 over its own phone hacking scandal. A spokesperson for Mirror Group Newspapers said in a statement Wednesday that “where historical wrongdoing” has taken place, the group has taken “full responsibility” and apologized “unreservedly” for its actions. Mirror Group Newspapers “is now part of a very different company.

☆ Jordan Neely Was Killed - The New York Times
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Roxane Gay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

A former marine held Mr. Neely in a chokehold for several minutes, killing the man. News reports keep saying Mr. Neely died, which is a passive thing. No one appears to have intervened during those minutes to help Mr. Neely, though two men apparently tried to help the former marine. Did anyone ask the former marine to release Mr. Neely from his chokehold? Now that it’s too late, there are haunting, heartbreaking images of Mr. Neely, helpless and pinned, still being choked.

☆ Canada online news bill is 'unreasonable,' Google executive says
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Sam Jabri-Pickett | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Introduced in April 2022, the bill, known as Bill C-18, is the latest legislation that aims to make digital media platforms pay their fair share for linking news content. Both eventually struck deals with Australian media companies after amendments to the legislation were offered. Since the Australian law took effect, the tech firms have approved more than 30 deals with media outlets compensating them for content-generating traffic. Canada's news industry has called for tighter regulation of tech companies to prevent them from elbowing news businesses out of the online advertising market. News industry says it has suffered financial losses as firms like Google and Meta steadily gain greater market share of online advertising revenue.

☆ What to Watch at the Fed’s May Meeting
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Jeanna Smialek | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Federal Reserve officials are set to release an interest rate decision on Wednesday afternoon, and while investors widely expect policymakers to lift borrowing costs by a quarter-point, they will be watching carefully for any hint at what might come next. This would be the central bank’s 10th consecutive interest rate increase — capping the fastest series of rate increases in four decades. But it could also be the central bank’s last one, for now. Officials will not release fresh economic projections after this meeting, which will leave economists carefully parsing both the central bank’s 2 p.m. policy decision statement and a 2:30 p.m. news conference with Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, for hints at what comes next. But the economy has been fairly resilient and inflation is showing staying power, which could make some Fed officials feel that they still have work to do.

☆ Former top execs of SVB and Signature Bank will testify at Senate hearing this month
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-03 | by ( Christina Wilkie | In | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

People walk by a Manhattan branch of Signature Bank which was closed by bank regulators on Sunday on March 13, 2023 in New York City. WASHINGTON — Former top executives of the failed Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank will testify before the Senate on May 16, the chamber's Banking Committee announced late Wednesday. Scott Shay and Eric Howell were the chairman and president, respectively, of New York-based Signature Bank when it collapsed just days after SVB's failure. Former Signature Bank CEO Joseph DePaolo received a similar letter at the time. The former bank executives can expect a grilling from senators on both sides of the aisle.

REUTERS/Alyssa PointerLOS ANGELES, May 1 (Reuters) - Negotiators for Hollywood writers and film and television studios engaged in 11th-hour contract talks on Monday to try and avert a strike that would disrupt TV production across an industry grappling with seismic changes. The Writers Guild of America could call a work stoppage as early as Tuesday if it cannot reach a deal with companies such as Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) and Netflix Inc (NFLX.O). Writers say they have suffered financially during the streaming TV boom, in part due to shorter seasons and smaller residual payments. Half of TV series writers now work at minimum salary levels, compared with one-third in the 2013-14 season, according to Guild statistics. The WGA wants safeguards to prevent studios from using AI to generate new scripts from writers' previous work.

LOS ANGELES, May 1 (Reuters) - Negotiators for Hollywood writers and film and television studios engaged in 11th-hour contract talks on Monday to try and avert a strike that would disrupt TV production across an industry grappling with seismic changes. Writers say they have suffered financially during the streaming TV boom, in part due to shorter seasons and smaller residual payments. Half of TV series writers now work at minimum salary levels, compared with one-third in the 2013-14 season, according to Guild statistics. The WGA wants safeguards to prevent studios from using AI to generate new scripts from writers' previous work. The last WGA strike in 2007 and 2008 lasted 100 days.

☆ Palace email says queen knew Murdoch's UK group spied on her family
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Sam Tobin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Clive Goodman, the News of the World's then royal reporter, was jailed in 2007 for illegally intercepting royal household phone messages. Harry, estranged from his father King Charles, says he did not bring a lawsuit earlier because of a "secret agreement" between Buckingham Palace and Murdoch's executives to protect the royal family from embarrassment. News Group denies any such agreement, while the palace has not commented. Osman told Brooks in a separate 2018 email that there was an "institutional appetite" within the royal family to resolve Harry’s phone-hacking case. Harry, who now lives in California with his family, was not in court, but is following the proceedings by video link.

☆ Newsmax Sees a Ratings Boost After Carlson’s Exit at Fox
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Michael M. Grynbaum | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Newsmax, the niche conservative news channel that has long played David to Fox News’s Goliath, has seized on Tucker Carlson’s shock dismissal from its rival network and declared itself the true TV home for right-wing Americans. Viewership of Newsmax remains far below that of Fox News. But its audience at certain hours has doubled, and in some time slots tripled, in the immediate aftermath of Mr. Carlson’s exit — an abrupt spike that has turned heads in conservative circles and the cable news industry. On Monday evening, Eric Bolling’s 8 p.m. Newsmax program drew 531,000 viewers, according to Nielsen. On Tuesday, Mr. Bolling’s audience grew to 562,000 viewers, equal to about 80 percent of Anderson Cooper’s CNN viewership that evening.

☆ California's reappearing phantom lake could remain for two years in the Central Valley
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Emma Newburger | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

An aerial view of a home (C) surrounded by floodwaters in the reemerging Tulare Lake, in California’s Central Valley, on April 14, 2023 in Corcoran, California. Mario Tama | Getty Images News | Getty ImagesSatellite images taken over the past several weeks show a dramatic resurrection of Tulare Lake in California's Central Valley and the flooding that could remain for as long as two years across previously arid farmland. This week, a heat wave could prompt widespread snow melt in the mountains and threaten the small farming communities already dealing with the resurrected Tulare Lake. Satellite imagery shows a large swath of farmland before water filled the Tulare Basin. Planet LabsSatellite images show miles of flooding after California's Tulare Lake returns.

☆ Insiders say Tucker Carlson overplayed his hand at Fox but the 'whole universe' of right-wing media is courting him now
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Claire Atkinson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

the Fox insider said. Lachlan Murdoch had defended Carlson time and again, most publicly in April 2021, pushing back against Anti-Defamation League complaints of the anchor's "great replacement theory" comments. Lachlan Murdoch and Rupert Murdoch. A second Fox News insider, who is familiar with conversations happening in Australia, said Lachlan Murdoch was looking long term. The board has also put pressure on the Murdoch family to change things at Fox News.

☆ Google's 80-acre San Jose mega-campus is on hold as company reckons with economic slowdown
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Jennifer Elias | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

The city of San Jose may now be paying the price. CNBC has learned that, as part of Google's downsizing that went into effect early this year, the company has gutted its development team for the San Jose campus. By then, the company had already completed much of its multi-year land grab of downtown San Jose for the future campus. Google spent several years planning for the San Jose complex and invested significant resources in winning over the local community. "We all originally knew that it's going to be a long-term plan," San Jose councilmember Omar Torres, who represents the downtown area, told San Jose Spotlight in February.

☆ Larry Elder, Republican Who Lost in California’s Recall Election, Runs for President
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( E. Justin Swanson | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Larry Elder, a conservative talk radio host who was a breakout star on the right after running unsuccessfully in California’s recall election in 2021, said on Thursday evening that he was running for president. He made the announcement on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News, joining a growing Republican field that is led by former President Donald J. Trump and Gov. “My father was a World War II vet,” Mr. Elder told Mr. Carlson. He was a Marine.” He added: “My older brother, late older brother, Kirk, was in the Navy during the Vietnam era. Gavin Newsom in the attempted recall, and would have succeeded him had voters not overwhelmingly chosen to keep Mr. Newsom in office.

☆ Dominion isn’t Rupert Murdoch’s costliest legal defeat. Not even close
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Julia Horowitz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

But for now, the price tag attached to the Dominion case isn’t the worst Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch has had to stomach. A phone hacking scandal involving Murdoch’s tabloid newspaper empire in the United Kingdom has proven much more costly over the past decade or so. It looked at legal fees and damages, as well as expenses tied to the subsequent restructuring of Murdoch’s UK media empire. The last big Murdoch legal fightThe editor of Murdoch’s News of the World and a private investigator were convicted of conspiracy to hack the voicemails of British royals in 2007. Britain’s Prince Harry and actor Hugh Grant are among those who have filed legal challenges against The Sun tied to phone hacking.

☆ Fact Check-New COVID sublineages identified since Fauci’s retirement
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-17 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Reuters reported on Jan. 5, 2023, (here) that the Omicron sublineage XBB.1.5, the most transmissible one to date, was already spreading rapidly in the U.S. in December 2022. PANGO’s website (here) shows multiple new lineages identified from virus samples deposited around the world, and given names, in 2023. These include: XBB.1.24 and XBB.1.22.2 first spotted on Feb. 2, XBB.2.3.1 first seen on Jan. 29 and XBB.2.3.2 first identified on Jan. 18. The claims allude to the theory that the COVID-19 virus or its variants were planned or fabricated by the government or by Fauci. More than one new Omicron sublineage of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been identified since Anthony Fauci’s retirement.

☆ Fox mogul Rupert Murdoch survived the phone-hacking scandal. Dominion's $1.6 billion lawsuit will test whether he can do it again.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-16 | by ( Jack Newsham | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +15 min

Now, two voting-technology companies, Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic, want to make another Murdoch media property pay even more for Fox News's role in spreading election denial. But the phone-hacking scandal showed how Murdoch has weathered challenges to his power before. Another key difference from the phone-hacking scandal is the presence of written records that show Fox execs knew exactly what was going on. In the last quarter of 2022, Fox Corp. netted $321 million on $4.6 billion in revenue. And during the phone-hacking scandal, Murdoch showed fierce loyalty.

☆ Today's homebuyers have their mortgage rate tipping point, and it's artificially low
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Diana Olick | In Dianaolick | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Today's homebuyers are exceptionally sensitive to mortgage rates with house prices so high — and they've found their tipping point. After years of government intervention following the great recession and the first years of the Covid-19 pandemic that kept mortgage rates artificially low, today's buyers have a skewed view of what "normal" mortgage rates are. In addition, 62% of buyers said they believed that a "historically normal mortgage rate" was below 5.5%. "Today's homebuyers are extremely sensitive to fluctuating interest rates, and a significant drop in mortgage rates would likely make the market more competitive." Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they've had to reduce their housing budgets due to the current level of mortgage rates.

NPR said Wednesday it will stop sharing content on Twitter after the social media company labeled NPR "state-affiliated media," a term also used for Russia- and China-based propaganda outlets. NPR was surprised by Twitter's decision to label the company "state-affiliated media," according to a report by the outlet. NPR CEO John Lansing told his employees that NPR "will not immediately return to the platform" even if Twitter drops the designation. He stripped the news organization's verification checkmark shortly thereafter, citing the company's refusal to pay for the platform's revamped Twitter Blue subscription service. Twitter relaunched its updated Twitter Blue subscription service in December after Musk pulled and delayed the launch in November.

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