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☆ Former SEC chief Harvey Pitt passes away at 78
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

May 31 (Reuters) - Harvey Pitt, a former chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, passed away on Tuesday, according to a statement from the director of the SEC Historical Society shared with Reuters. At the time, fellow SEC Commissioner Roel Campos said: "There has certainly never been anyone who loved this agency more than Chairman Pitt." Pitt was a graduate of St. John's University School of Law and the City University of New York, according to the SEC's website. He passed away on Tuesday, according to the statement from Jane Cobb, executive director of the SEC Historical Society. "Over the years, Harvey has been extremely generous with his time and sage advice," said Michael Piwowar, a former SEC commissioner.

Persons: Harvey Pitt, Pitt, George W, Bush, Roel Campos, Jane Cobb, Harvey, Michael Piwowar, Chris Prentice, Douglas Gillison, Niket, Shinjini Ganguli, Paul Simao Organizations: U.S . Securities, Exchange Commission, SEC Historical Society, Reuters, SEC, FBI, Enron, San Francisco Chronicle, Oxley, St, John's University School of Law, City University of New, Georgetown University, University of Pennsylvania, Kalorama Partners, Thomson Locations: City University of New York, Washington, New York, Bengaluru

☆ Tesco Chairman John Allan to step down in June
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Tesco Chairman John Allan will step down at the group's annual shareholders' meeting next month, with Britain's biggest retailer saying claims of inappropriate behavior against him risked becoming a distraction. Allan, one of Britain's highest-profile corporate names, has been Tesco's chairman since 2015. Three of these allegations are vigorously denied by Allan, and for the other Allan unreservedly apologized for the comment he made, Tesco said. "While we have received no complaints about John's conduct and made no findings of wrongdoing, these allegations risk becoming a distraction to Tesco," Grote said. He thanked Allan for his "valuable contribution" to Tesco, noting he successfully led the board through its turnaround and the COVID-19 pandemic, whilst helping to rebuild the business.

☆ Tesco chair Allan to step down after inappropriate behaviour claims
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-19 | by ( James Davey | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

However, prior to Friday's update from Tesco, Allan was due to seek re-election at the June 16 annual general meeting (AGM). Tesco said that pending the appointment of a new chairman, senior independent director Byron Grote will become interim chair and will chair the AGM. Earlier this month, the Guardian newspaper reported that Allan was facing claims of inappropriate behaviour from four women. Three of these allegations are vigorously denied by Allan, and for the other Allan unreservedly apologised for a comment he made, Tesco said. "While we have received no complaints about John's conduct and made no findings of wrongdoing, these allegations risk becoming a distraction to Tesco," Grote said.

☆ I turned down a $250,000 job offer and moved to St. Barts to start a new life. I'm much happier since prioritizing my well-being over money.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-18 | by ( Alicia Gonzalez | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Once she visited St. Barts, she found herself and turned down an attractive job offer to move there. I fell in love with St. Barts while visiting a friend, and I turned down a $250,000-a-year job offer to move there permanently. Around my third month of working from home, a friend invited me to St. Barts, a place I'd never been. When I got to St. Barts, everything changedIt's a very small community, and you run into people all the time. Even though I couldn't be certain what would happen if I declined the job, trusting myself to succeed as an entrepreneur felt right.

Trademark Office to cancel two smaller rivals' "Taco Tuesday" trademarks in what the largest Mexican fast-food chain in the U.S. called a bid to "liberate the phrase for restaurants nationwide." Taco Bell's petitions said the trademarks, owned by Gregory's Restaurant & Bar in New Jersey and Wyoming-based Taco John's in the rest of the country, wrongly monopolize the use of the phrase in the restaurant industry. "Nobody should have exclusive rights in a common phrase," the petitions said. Representatives for Taco John's, whose "Taco Tuesday" trademark registration dates to 1989, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the petitions. The office last year cited similar reasons for rejecting a brewery's bid for a federal "Taco Tuesday" mark covering beer.

☆ DeSantis pledges he would 'clean house' at the FBI as president in response to Durham report
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Kimberly Leonard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Special counsel John Durham slammed the FBI over its Trump-Russia investigation in a new report. DeSantis said the report showed "I was right," because he'd defended Trump as a US congressman. "What I would do is clean house top to bottom in these agencies," he said of the FBI and others. The report was published Monday and overseen by Special Counsel John Durham — who was appointed by former President Trump's attorney general Bill Barr — and was the conclusion of a four-yearlong investigation into the 2016 election. The FBI opened its investigation in July 2016 and Special Counsel Robert Mueller took over in 2017.

☆ Taco Bell is fighting to cancel a rival's trademark on the phrase 'Taco Tuesday,' saying nobody should have 'exclusive rights'
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Taco Bell is challenging trademarks on the phrase "Taco Tuesday" in a PR blitz. "Nobody should have should have exclusive rights in a common phrase," one of Taco Bell's petitions reads. Taco John's controls a trademark for "Taco Tuesday" in 49 states, according to Nation's Restaurant News. Taco John's website on Tuesday after it released its response to Taco Bell's petitions. "Taco John's, despite all of its claims to the contrary, did not invent Taco Tuesday — nowhere even close to inventing Taco Tuesday," Arellano told Marketplace.

Critics have said such awards encourage frivolous lawsuits and excessive fees going to class action attorneys who may seek to benefit their own interests instead. The Supreme Court in 2019 sidestepped resolving a challenge to cy pres awards in a case involving Google. Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, dissenting in that case, called cy pres settlements "unfair and unreasonable." Monsanto has called the group, which advocates against what it considers abusive class action procedures, a "serial objector to class-action settlements." The group said in court papers that further steps could have taken to distribute the settlement award to class members.

☆ Chipotle, Papa John's link ESG goals to bonus compensation, and pay practice is moving below the C-suite level
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-14 | by ( Ian Thomas | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

Companies are increasingly linking ESG metrics to executive compensation packages. That percentage of Russell 1000 companies linking ESG goals to compensation has quickly grown in recent years, from 14% in 2020 to 18% in 2021 to 28% in 2022. In 2021, Mastercard changed its executive compensation model for its most senior executives, EVPs and above, to link their bonus structure to goals set around carbon neutrality, financial inclusion and gender pay parity. Papa John's took a similar step last year, introducing an ESG bonus incentive for eligible employees and executives for goals around enhancing diversity, equity and inclusion, environmental impact, and its broader mission around cleaner and better ingredients. "For example, if there is an ESG goal around emissions, does a director of finance have any direct oversight or responsibility for how that is achieved?"

☆ Bowlero, the public company that reimagined bowling, faces dozens of discrimination claims that the feds want to settle for $60 million
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-11 | by ( Gabrielle Fonrouge | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +19 min

The 73 EEOC claims brought by individual former employees against the company sparked the larger pattern or practice investigation into age discrimination. Only a fraction of EEOC age discrimination complaints — 2.8% in fiscal 2021 — resulted in reasonable cause determinations, EEOC data show. It went from running six bowling alleys to 272 overnight after it acquired AMF, which was then the largest bowling company in the world and was in bankruptcy. The following year, Shannon's company acquired the Brunswick Corporation, the second-largest bowling company in the world, and changed his company's name to Bowlero. Dowe said negotiations fell apart when Bowlero countered the EEOC's $60 million settlement proposal with a proposal of $500,000.

☆ ChatGPT is powered by these contractors making $15 an hour
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-08 | by ( David Ingram | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +7 min

Out of the limelight, Savreux and other contractors have spent countless hours in the past few years teaching OpenAI's systems to give better responses in ChatGPT. So far, AI contract work hasn't inspired a similar movement in the U.S. among the Americans quietly building AI systems word-by-word. watch nowJob postings for AI contractors refer to both the allure of working in a cutting-edge industry as well as the sometimes-grinding nature of the work. There's no definitive tally of how many contractors work for AI companies, but it's an increasingly common form of work around the world. A spokesperson for OpenAI said no one was available to answer questions about its use of AI contractors.

This is weighing on how much the private equity firms are offering to buy companies. So far, bids for Subway have ranged between $8.5 billion and $10 billion, one of the sources said. This is a more expensive route that private equity firms may not opt for, three of the sources added. To be sure, Subway is allowing bidders to use any financing route they want, as long as they can show they can secure committed financing. TPG and Bain were part of a group that owned Burger King when John Chidsey, who is now Subway's CEO, headed that burger fast-food restaurant chain.

☆ A solid start to earnings season will be put to the test in the week ahead
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Zev Fima | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +14 min

The biggest week of this earnings season showed us that things aren't as bad as many feared. The week ahead of earnings, including several more Club names, should tell us more. The results are always important, but it's the guidance and management commentary we will really hone in on to better understand the path ahead. In Amazon's case, a solid first quarter for its AWS cloud business was overshadowed by management seeing a material slowdown in April. ET: Nonfarm Payrolls Looking back It was the biggest week of this earnings season for the Club as several of our mega-cap holdings and industry bellwethers reported results.

☆ Prescient bets by the likes of Shaquille O'Neal and Serena Williams have triggered an explosion in tech investing among Europe's sports stars
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Callum Burroughs | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

European sports stars are following US counterparts, such as Shaquille O'Neal, in betting on tech. O'Neal, who also made early bets on Google and Lyft, has shown how sports stars can become successful venture capitalists once their playing careers end. He's not alone in the US, with the football star Tom Brady and the basketball stars LeBron James and Steph Curry all actively investing in tech. The tennis legend Serena Williams went a step further and set up her own fund, Serena Ventures. Shaquille O'Neal has proven to be a shrewd tech investor with early bets on Ring, Google, and Lyft.

☆ Restaurants are expected to post strong earnings, but signs of trouble ahead could emerge
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( Amelia Lucas | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

As restaurants prepare to present their first-quarter earnings, investors are anticipating strong results. When restaurants released their fourth-quarter reports in February, many touted impressive sales growth in January. Starting in the second quarter, restaurants will face comparisons to last year's sales bump driven by double-digit price increases, so they'll have to depend on higher traffic to drive sales growth. The relatively high valuations for restaurant stocks bring a downside for the industry, McCarthy said. Morgan Stanley's Harbour wrote that stocks could fall even on solid results "if the path forward is less clear."

☆ You can now order from MrBeast Burger through your Xbox while gaming — here's how to do it
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Alex Bitter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

You can now order MrBeast Burger through video games on Xbox and computers. The Youtuber's fast food brand is now available through Liifer, a food ordering app that integrates with games, Liifer said Thursday. The Liifer partnership is the latest expansion for MrBeast Burger. "MrBeast Burger is increasingly popular with gamers, especially after MrBeast was included in Epic Game's Fortnite in December," said Stephanie Sollers, CEO of Virtual Dining Concepts. MrBeast Burger fills orders using a mix of ghost kitchens, some of which it owns and some it has partnership agreements with.

Trump won 76% of the white evangelical vote in 2020, down from 80% in 2016, according to Edison Research exit polls. In a March poll, Trump edged DeSantis among evangelicals in a two-way matchup 51% to 42%, a nine-point improvement for Trump from the month before. The gathering is traditionally an important stop for Republican presidential candidates, although this year DeSantis, who was invited, will not be going. Vander Plaats said evangelicals will consider whether Trump can prevail next year after losing the 2020 election to President Joe Biden. “I don’t think President Trump is a principled man -- I think he was a great president,” Ascol said.

The Walmart heirs' combined worth is roughly $234 billion, according to Bloomberg. The family grants money and resources to support education, environmental efforts, and their home community through the Walton Family Foundation. In public, the Waltons live pretty modest lifestyles despite their wealth. Sam Walton, the original man behind the company that now encompasses both Walmart and Sam's Club, set his family up for financial success when he divided the ownership before he died. He wasn't a man of flashy luxury, but you can see how his children are living a slightly more lavish life now.

☆ Billionaire Mark Cuban says successful people aren't afraid to go broke: 'When you've got nothing to lose, you go for it'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Ashton Jackson | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Before becoming a billionaire, Mark Cuban slummed it in an apartment with five other guys, sleeping on the floor and using "nasty" towels taken from a Motel 6. Those circumstances may seem pretty bleak, but they're exactly what drove Cuban to put his all into entrepreneurship. Cuban, who has an estimated net worth of $6.5 billion, referenced his "Shark Tank" co-star Daymond John's phrase "the power of broke," saying it's "one of the defining elements" of any successful business owner. Most people consult with friends and explore their idea on Google, but ultimately never follow through, Cuban said. Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to "Shark Tank."

☆ Daily Mail publisher urges UK court to reject lawsuit by Harry, Elton John
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Michael Holden | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Harry, the singer Elton John and five other high-profile people are suing publisher Associated Newspapers, alleging they were the victims of "numerous unlawful acts" carried out by the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday journalists or private investigators working on the titles' behalf. "The claims are rejected by the defendant in their entirety," Beltrami told the court, which began the four-day preliminary hearing on Monday. Harry has said he felt like he was under 24-hour surveillance, and feared an ex-girlfriend would be "harassed to death". Elton John said the Mail had sought medical records around the birth of his son. In his argument, Associated's Beltrami said those involved could have discovered their claims years earlier, adding they were now "far too late".

☆ Factbox: Prince Harry and Elton John's evidence in UK lawsuits
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

LONDON, March 28 (Reuters) - Britain's Prince Harry, singer Elton John and five other high-profile figures' written statements in their lawsuits against the publisher of the Daily Mail newspaper were published on Tuesday. Harry also spoke of feeling like he was "under 24-hour surveillance", which he suggested was in part the result of Associated Newspapers' alleged unlawful actions. She said in her witness statement that Law believed information being published about their divorce was being leaked by her. "I was not instructed or commissioned by the Mail on Sunday or the Daily Mail to conduct any unlawful information gathering," Burrows said in his witness statement. Associated Newspapers has said in a statement that it categorically denies the claimants' allegations and would vigorously defend them if necessary.

☆ Elon Musk tells William Shatner that Twitter shouldn't have different standards for celebrities when it comes to $8 blue checkmarks
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Kate Duffy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Elon Musk told William Shatner there shouldn't be different standards for celebrities on Twitter. Twitter says the only way users can keep their blue ticks is by signing up to Twitter Blue, a monthly subscription which costs $8. Stephen King, Josh Gad, and Lynda Carter were among the celebrities to criticize Musk over charging Twitter users for a blue tick. Before Blue Origin sent Shatner into space on an 11-minute journey, Musk commented "Godspeed Captain" on NASA's Twitter post. Following the flight, the billionaire tweeted: "Congrats, was cool to send William Shatner to space."

LONDON, March 27 (Reuters) - The first hearing in a lawsuit brought by Prince Harry, singer Elton John and other high profile figures against the publisher of the Daily Mail newspaper over alleged phone-tapping and other breaches of privacy, is due to begin on Monday. Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and the Mail Online, has said it "utterly and unambiguously" denies the allegations. It is seeking over four days of hearings this week at London's High Court to have the case thrown out. His wife Meghan also won a privacy case against the publisher in 2021 for printing a letter she had written to her estranged father. Meanwhile, Harry is expected to appear in court in May to give evidence in a libel trial against the Daily Mirror newspaper over accusations of phone-hacking.

☆ As John Fetterman heals, his Senate staff soldiers on with the help of veteran lawmakers and crisis bonding: 'We all have each other's back'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Warren Rojas | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Sen. John Fetterman has been hospitalized for clinical depression since February 15. Casey is coordinating with Fetterman staff on constituent services issues and legislative priorities, according to recent reports, but doesn't call Fetterman directly so as not to disturb his ongoing recovery. Some of the others working hard to meet that internal standard include legislative assistant Madeleine Marr, a former aide to Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire. Conservative commentator Stephen L. Miller has been more blunt, accusing Fetterman's staff of unduly wielding power in his absence. "John Fetterman's chief of staff is not an elected senator," Miller wrote in an op-ed run by the Delaware Valley Journal.

☆ Women's NCAA roundup: No. 12 Florida Gulf Coast upsets No. 5 Washington State
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-18 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

5 seed in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, this time handing Pac-12 champs Washington State a 74-63 defeat in Villanova, Pa., on Saturday. Tishara Morehouse chipped in 16 points for the Eagles. The Cougars (23-11) were the Eagles' victims this time, as 16 points and 12 rebounds from Tara Wallack wasn't enough to propel Washington State to its fifth straight win. Here are more results from the first half of Saturday's action in the women's NCAA Tournament. It was the first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance for Saint Louis, which won the Atlantic 10 Tournament.

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