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☆ The S&P 500 broke out above a key level. Now what?
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-04 | by ( Krystal Hur | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —The S&P 500 index on Friday closed at its highest level in almost a year. The S&P 500 ended last week up 1.8% at about 4,282, marking its best weekly gain since late March. Now that the index has managed to breach the top level of resistance, that raises the question: Does this rally have legs? An equal-weighted version of the S&P 500 is up only about 1.5% for the year. The good news is that the S&P 500 will likely return to trading within the 3,800 - 4,200 range, meaning any downside — at least in the short term — will likely be limited, according to Turnquist.

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☆ Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin's potential late entry into the 2024 field seems destined to fail from the start
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( John L. Dorman | Brent D. Griffiths | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

Glenn Youngkin of Virginia is reconsidering a 2024 presidential run, per a recent Axios report. But such a decision would be rife with peril, with Youngkin far down the pack of GOP contenders. Former President Donald Trump speaks to supporters at his rally in Waco, Texas, on March 25, 2023. As of May 31, the GOP polling average on FiveThirtyEight had Trump ahead of DeSantis 54.1%-20.7%, with former Gov. Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert, left, gavels to order the special session of the Virginia General Assembly in Richmond, Va., on September 7, 2022.

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☆ Elon Musk pulled Twitter from the EU's anti-disinformation agreement and continues to troll with alt-right memes and dogwhistles. It could be a sign he'll close the site to Europe completely.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-28 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

European Commissioner Thierry Breton said Twitter pulled out of the EU's disinformation agreement. The law, which establishes requirements for monitoring and flagging disinformation, would make the now voluntary agreement mandatory for large social media sites. "Twitter leaves EU voluntary Code of Practice against disinformation. Politico reported Breton had previously warned Musk that Twitter could be banned from the EU if it fails to abide by the rules. While Musk has withdrawn Twitter from the EU disinformation agreement, he continues to troll by posting content that skirts the lines of potentially being flagged under the DSA and another EU content policy regarding hate speech.

☆ Social Security benefits could be the first to go in a matter of days if the US defaults — and retirees will 'really suffer' if Congress doesn't raise the debt ceiling by then
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-27 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

The US could default on its debt as soon as June 5 if the debt ceiling isn't raised by then. Social Security, Medicaid, and SNAP could be among the first programs to go unpaid. At the top of the list are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and SNAP, along with Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments — all programs that retirees heavily rely upon. Social Security is the biggest federal program, with over 67 million Americans relying on payments. So even if it is possible to prioritize Social Security benefits, we can't insulate Social Security beneficiaries from some serious harm."

☆ A growing number of sports bras, shirts and leggings brands found with high levels of toxic chemical, watchdog warns
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Parija Kavilanz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

The newly tested brands and their products include leggings from Athleta, Champion, Kohl’s, Nike and Patagonia, sports bras from Sweaty Betty, athletic shirts from Fabletics and shorts from Adidas, Champion and Nike. The group had also tested athletic shirts in October from brands that included The North Face, Brooks, Mizuno, Athleta, New Balance, and Reebok and found similar results. Athleta, Nike, Reebok, The North Face and Victoria’s Secret (which owns PINK) did not provide a comment to CNN at the time. BPA (Bisphenol A) is found in a large number of everyday products, from water bottles and canned foods to toys and flooring. Sports bras and athletic shirts are worn for hours at a time, and you are meant to sweat in them, so it is concerning to be finding such high levels of BPA in our clothing,” Allan Sugerman said.

☆ Abortion Showdown in North Carolina May Hinge on a Single Vote
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-15 | by ( Kate Kelly | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On Wednesday, flanked by supporters in a fifth-floor classroom at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, Mr. Cooper made a direct appeal to residents. North Carolina’s Republican-dominated legislature has passed a bill banning most abortions after 12 weeks. Mr. Cooper, a Democrat, vetoed the bill. But to prevent the legislature from using its razor-thin supermajority to override his veto, Mr. Cooper is asking voters to pressure Republican lawmakers. Convincing just one legislator will keep the state’s current abortion law — allowing it up to 20 weeks — in place.

☆ Jim Cramer: An economic wave is about to hit that will be fantastic for investors
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-14 | by ( Jim Cramer | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +12 min

Ultimately, I have gotten to know my way around the CPI and it's a sloppy way to figure out pricing. Don't be frightened of the wave of deflation or misinterpret it as anything but fantastic for investors. As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust's portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade.

☆ Fox’s Costs From Defamation Suit Lead to a Quarterly Net Loss
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-09 | by ( Michael M. Grynbaum | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Lachlan Murdoch, the executive chairman of the Fox Corporation, conceded on Tuesday that a Delaware judge’s pretrial rulings against the company “severely limited our defense at trial” and contributed to his decision to settle the landmark defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems. Mr. Murdoch, on a call with investors and analysts, called the $787.5 million settlement — believed to be the largest in the history of defamation law — “a decision clearly in the best interest of the company and its shareholders.”In a remark that echoed the trademark defiance of his father, Rupert Murdoch, he also defended the conduct of Fox News personnel, saying the settlement “in no way alters Fox’s commitment to the highest journalistic standards across our networks, or our passion for unabashedly reporting the news of the day.”His remarks came after Fox revealed a real-world consequence of the landmark settlement: The company swung to a net loss in the first three months of the year, its quarterly revenue erased — and then some — by payments associated with resolving the lawsuit with Dominion, an election technology firm.

☆ Texas lawmaker lobbies for 3rd graders to be trained to administer aid for gunshot wounds in the event of a school shooting, says report
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-07 | by ( Bethany Dawson | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

A Texas lawmaker has proposed a bill to ensure school children can administer emergency first aid. Senator Barbara Gervin-Hawkins has said third graders should receive this training to save lives. These stations are emergency first aid resources that can be used in times of tragedy, such as school shootings. He noted that the bleeding stations themselves aren't a bad idea but that it's sad to be discussing recruiting such young children. There have been roughly 25 school shootings in 2023 alone, with the killing of six at Covenant School shooting in Nashville seeing the most fatalities.

CNN —A New York judge dismissed a 2021 lawsuit that former President Donald Trump brought against the New York Times and its journalists over the disclosure of his tax information in a 2018 Times article. With the order granting the Times’ motion to dismiss the Trump case against it and its journalists, Judge Robert Teed, of New York County Supreme Court, ordered Trump to pay their attorneys’ fees, legal expenses and costs. Reed concluded the journalists’ conduct was protected by the New York Constitution, leading him to dismiss the claims Trump brought against the Times defendants. “The revised anti-SLAPP law was specifically designed to apply to lawsuits like this one,” Judge Reed wrote. “The New York Times is no different and its reporters went well beyond the conventional news gathering techniques permitted by the First Amendment.”The lawsuit also names Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, as a defendant.

☆ China approves wide-ranging expansion of counter-espionage law
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

In this photo illustration, the People's Republic of China flag logo is displayed on a smartphone screen on 25 July 2022. Chinese lawmakers passed a wide-ranging update to Beijing's anti-espionage legislation on Wednesday, banning the transfer of any information related to national security and broadening the definition of spying. China's top legislative body passed the revised Counter-Espionage Law — its first update since 2014 — following three days of deliberations, and it will take effect from July 1, state media reported. The law does not define what falls under China's national security or interests. It expands the definition of espionage to include cyber attacks against state organs or critical information infrastructure, state news agency Xinhua reported.

☆ ‘Best Friends’ Australia and New Zealand Patch Up a Major Difference
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Natasha Frost | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Hundreds of New Zealanders were about to take an oath to become Australian citizens, and cheering them on in their pursuit of dual citizenship was the head of the New Zealand government. Australia was about to reverse a two-decade-old policy and restore rights for the almost 700,000 New Zealanders living in Australia to easily gain citizenship, putting them on par with Australian migrants across the Tasman Sea in New Zealand. Australia and New Zealand often describe each other as their closest international partners. The new center-left government in Australia, led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, has taken steps to address these issues. At the citizenship ceremony on Sunday in Brisbane, Australia, Chris Hipkins, the prime minister of New Zealand, said his presence was a sign of the “bonds that bind us all together.” That sentiment was later echoed by Clare O’Neil, Australia’s home affairs minister: “Our Kiwi cousins are our very best friends in the world.”

☆ Kevin McCarthy's bill to raise the debt ceiling squeezes by in the House after a series of contentious last-minute changes to secure enough GOP votes
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | Juliana Kaplan | Eliza Relman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Under the legislation — which still has a long road to becoming law — the debt ceiling would rise by just $1.5 trillion, or until March 31, 2024, depending on whichever comes first. Democratic senators insisted on Wednesday that the House bill is dead on arrival in the Senate. "I don't think it will have any impact on what happens in the Senate," Sen. Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat, told Insider of the House bill on Wednesday afternoon. But GOP Sen. Ron Johnson told Insider that he thinks House Republicans "are doing the right thing." That means that both parties need to come to an agreement on an approach to raise the debt ceiling before the country hurdles into a default, expected early this summer.

☆ Michigan passes 3 gun safety laws, and lawmakers say they're not done yet: 'We don't have to live like this'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-23 | by ( Katie Balevic | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The Michigan governor has signed multiple gun safety laws this month, including more background checks. Gretchen Whitmer is expected to also sign a "red flag" law, allowing judges to confiscate guns from people they deem dangerous. Lawmakers say they hope to target gun manufacturers and domestic abusers next, per Bridge Michigan. The new background check law requires checks for all firearms purchased in Michigan and strengthens penalties for illegal sales. Next on their gun safety agenda, Michigan state Democratic lawmakers say they hope to keep domestic abusers from getting their hands on firearms, ban the sale of large-capacity magazines, and force gun manufacturers to be liable for gun deaths, the Bridge Michigan reported.

☆ A Maine senator lays out why everyone should be a YIMBY: Building more housing could bring families extra income and help solve the labor shortage
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-22 | by ( Eliza Relman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent, told Insider the lack of affordable housing is "a national crisis." Maine is facing a severe shortage as it's welcomed a surge of new residents in recent years. The law also eliminated all single-family zoning, eliminates some regulatory restrictions on multi-unit homes, and incentivizes the construction of affordable housing. New Mainers, though welcomed in an aging state in need of more workers, have exacerbated the housing shortage. A lack of affordable housing is central: the state housing authority reported last year that the average price of a house in nearly every county in Maine was unaffordable for the average household income.

☆ John Edwards and Donald Trump were both accused of paying money to women who said they had affairs with them. But the cases are quite different.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Like Donald Trump, John Edwards was accused of paying off a mistress during a campaign. Edwards was charged with campaign finance violations over the payments but wasn't convicted. For one, Trump has not been charged with violating federal campaign finance laws. It may well be true that the Edwards precedent is why the Justice Department didn't charge Trump with a campaign finance violation. Bragg does not need to prove that Trump broke federal campaign finance laws; he needs to prove that he falsified business records, which is a crime no matter the reason.

☆ Bob Iger says that if Ron DeSantis wants to end his feud with Disney, they could just sit down and 'discuss all of this'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-14 | by ( Cheryl Teh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Disney CEO Bob Iger says there's a way for Ron DeSantis to settle his feud with Disney: Talk it out. Iger told Time he'd be happy to sit down with DeSantis to hash out their disagreements. "I do not view this as a going-to-mattresses situation for us," Iger told Time. Ron DeSantis to end his increasingly acrimonious feud with Disney: Come to the negotiating table and hash it out. On April 3, Iger said DeSantis' attempt to strip Disney of its tax status is "anti-business" and "anti-Florida."

☆ Walmart's plan to abruptly close 4 Chicago stores slammed as 'unethical' and 'unceremoniously abandoning these neighborhoods'
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( Ben Tobin | Dominick Reuter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Walmart announced this week that it is closing four stores in Chicago in a matter of days. Elected officials said that the decision to close the stores "worsens food deserts" in the area. In a rare press release on April 11 announcing store closures, Walmart said bluntly that these stores "have not been profitable since we opened the first one nearly 17 years ago." "Walmart's decision to close four stores in predominantly Black and Brown communities not only worsens food deserts, but will also increase grocery costs for families." The four Walmart stores closing in Chicago

☆ Arkansas governor signs sweeping bill imposing a minimum age limit for social media usage
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-12 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

Sarah Huckabee Sanders has signed a sweeping bill imposing a minimum age limit for social media usage, in the latest example of states taking more aggressive steps intended to protect teens online. The legislation, known as the Social Media Safety Act and taking effect in September, is aimed at giving parents more control over their kids’ social media usage, according to lawmakers. It defines social media companies as any online forum that lets users create public profiles and interact with each other through digital content. The confusion over YouTube appears to stem from the carveout for businesses that offer cloud storage and that make less than 25% of their revenue from social media. “The purpose of this bill was to empower parents and protect kids from social media platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat,” Dees said in a statement.

☆ Trump and his sons say his indictment makes the US like a 'third world' country, but plenty of other democracies have prosecuted ex-leaders
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( John Haltiwanger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Trump and his sons are decrying his indictment as a sign the US is now a "third world" country. But other democracies across the world have prosecuted, convicted, and even jailed former leaders. Trump's sons offered similar takes, portraying the charges against the former president as a political attack orchestrated by his opponents. Trump is the first former US president to be criminally charged, and his indictment comes amid a period of historic political polarization. The researchers said that in "mature democracies, prosecutions can hold leaders accountable and solidify the rule of law."

☆ Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus Supplier Paid California Workers $1.58
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Charles R. Davis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The Department of Labor randomly investigated 50 clothing companies in Southern California. It found that more than 80% were breaking one or more provisions of federal labor law. One garment maker was paying workers just $1.58 an hour. In what the department described as a "particularly egregious case," one garment manufacturer — making clothes for brands including Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Stitch Fix, and Von Maur, per investigators — was found to be paying some workers an hourly rate of just $1.58. It shows, she argued, "that strong federal action is needed to change the abusive pay rates in the American garment manufacturing industry."

☆ The Fed's latest move confirms it's trying to thread the needle between cooling inflation and helping banks in turmoil
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates by 25 basis points on Wednesday. It's the second interest rate increase this year. It comes on the heels of Silicon Valley Bank's collapse, which prompted some calls to pause the rate hikes. "We expect 2023 to be a year of significant decline in inflation," Powell said in February. So while the committee is slowing interest rate hikes for now, they plan to continue increases this year.

☆ Uber, Lyft trade group questions Biden's labor nominee's gig workers stance
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Nandita Bose | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

WASHINGTON, March 20 (Reuters) - Rideshare and delivery companies want the Biden administration's nominee for the Department of Labor to clarify her position on an incoming worker-classification rule that could expand workers' rights, a trade group representing the companies said on Monday. The Department of Labor in October proposed a rule that would make it more difficult for companies to treat workers as independent contractors, which would shake up ride-hailing, delivery and other industries that rely on gig workers. Before joining the U.S. Department of Labor, Su was the secretary for the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, and before then was California labor commissioner from 2011-2018. A report on her tenure released in May 2013 found that her work resulted in a spike in enforcement activity. Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Mark Porter and Josie KaoOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ After SVB's collapse, Biden calls on Congress to hold bank executives accountable for failures: 'No one is above the law'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( Juliana Kaplan | Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

After the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, President Joe Biden wants harsher penalties for executives at failed banks. On Friday, Biden released a statement calling on Congress to "impose tougher penalties for senior bank executives whose mismanagement contributed to their institutions failing." The banking industry has fallen under intense scrutiny over the past week after federal regulators shut down Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and crypto-friendly Signature Bank. Lawmakers — and now the president — want bank executives to be held accountable for actions that jeopardize taxpayer dollars. Warren, along with Sen. Richard Blumenthal, have also stressed the importance of holding bank executives accountable for failures.

☆ Atlanta DA Fani Willis loves using a law designed for going after the mob. She may use it to charge Trump.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Jacob Shamsian | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The law — designed for going after the mob — makes sense for her investigation into Donald Trump, experts say. In her time in the district attorney's office, Willis has aggressively used Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization statute. One sprawling 56-count RICO case, against the rapper Young Thug's alleged gang, is in its second month of jury selection ahead of what's expected to be a nine-month trial. But if she were to bring a case, experts believe RICO charges are likely. Rahmani cautioned that a RICO case may make Willis look too aggressive.

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