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☆ U.S. Congress votes to block ESG investing, Biden veto expected
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( David Morgan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Republicans said their resolution would prevent fund managers from basing investment decisions on ESG factors primarily. But they acknowledged that it would not stop funds from considering ESG issues altogether. The Labor Department said the Trump-era rule failed to account for the positive impact that ESG investing can have on long-term returns. In 2022, ESG funds were hit by fallout from the Ukraine war, tumbling financial markets and U.S. political backlash against the industry. Republicans used a tool called the Congressional Review Act that allows them to bypass the customary 60-vote Senate threshold to challenge the Labor Department rule.

☆ Opponents of Biden's student-loan forgiveness are spotlighting another way to give borrowers debt relief
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A challenger to Biden's student-debt relief argued he could have used the Higher Education Act of 1965 to cancel student debt. "During the campaign, they were talking about doing broad-based debt relief," he said. Senator Warren and others passed resolutions urging the Secretary to use the Higher Education Act to pass debt forgiveness. She added at the end of the arguments that Biden's relief "is a pandemic-related program. So unlike the HEROES Act, the Higher Education Act would allow for the canceling of debts without the existence of an emergency like COVID-19.

☆ Republican drive against Biden ESG investment rule gains momentum
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( David Morgan | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Approval could open the door to other Republican efforts to overturn Biden administration regulations. "We 100% have the votes," a Senate Republican aide said after Tester released a statement. The Democratic-led Senate was due to vote on the Republican resolution at 4 p.m. EST (2100 GMT). The Labor Department said the Trump-era rule failed to account for the positive impact that ESG investing can have on long-term returns. Industry has been split on the Biden rule, with fossil-fuel companies opposed and other businesses voicing support.

☆ A New York Times book critic says Ron DeSantis' memoir reads like it was 'churned out by ChatGPT'
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Cheryl Teh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The New York Times' nonfiction book critic Jennifer Szalai tore into Ron DeSantis' book on Monday. Szalai wrote that DeSantis' new book "reads like a politician's memoir churned out by ChatGPT." Szalai is a full-time book critic and writes weekly book reviews for The Times. The new DeSantis book gives readers a closer look at his life"The Courage to Be Free," a deeper look into DeSantis' life, was released on February 28. I didn't want Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck in our wedding photos," DeSantis wrote.

☆ DeSantis' new memoir skips juicy details about his life that could emerge in a presidential bid. Here's what he left out.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Kimberly Leonard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

DeSantis published his first memoir, "The Courage to Be Free," on TuesdayThe book is widely viewed as laying the groundwork for a presidential run. DeSantis doesn't mention his gap year between Yale and Harvard, when he taught at the elite Darlington School. DeSantis writes extensively about his legislative victories in his book, but not about the legal battles that have ensued. DeSantis writes nothing about the January 6 attack on the Capitol to overturn the election results, nor does he address Trump's false claims about election fraud. He also, without naming Trump, writes about "the dangers of truning over the country to the likes of Dr. Anthony Fauci" during the pandemic.

☆ Rupert Murdoch acknowledged that Fox News hosts endorsed false stolen election claims
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

New York CNN —Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of Fox Corporation, acknowledged in a deposition taken by Dominion Voting Systems that some Fox News hosts endorsed false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Murdoch’s remarks were made public in a legal filing as part of Dominion’s $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News. In his deposition, Murdoch rejected that the right-wing talk network as an entity endorsed former President Donald Trump’s election lies. “Some of our commentators were endorsing it,,” Murdoch said, according to the filing, when asked about the talk hosts’ on-air positions about the election. Top legal experts told CNN after last week’s filing that Dominion’s legal position appeared strong.

☆ DeSantis saw Harvard and Yale degrees as 'scarlet letters' when running for office: book
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Kimberly Leonard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

DeSantis worried when running for Congress that his Ivy league degrees would work against him. He had been in the Navy after attending Yale and then Harvard Law School, and was concerned voters would be suspicious of his "elite" educational background, he wrote. "I viewed having earned degrees from Yale and Harvard Law School to be political scarlet letters as far as a GOP primary went," DeSantis wrote in the book. In his book, DeSantis credits his extensive door knocking with wife Casey DeSantis for helping him win in a crowded primary. "I am one of very few people who went through both Yale and Harvard Law School and came out more conservative than when I went in," DeSantis said.

☆ ‘It’s a major blow’: Dominion has uncovered ‘smoking gun’ evidence in case against Fox News, legal experts say
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

While the legal experts cautioned that they would like to see Fox News’ formal legal response to the filing, they all indicated in no uncertain terms that the evidence compiled in Dominion’s legal filing represents a serious threat to the channel. On one occasion, Carlson demanded that Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich be fired after she fact-checked a Trump tweet pushing election fraud claims. Tushnet said that in all of her years practicing and teaching law, she had never seen such damning evidence collected in the pre-trial phase of a defamation suit. “Donald Trump seems to be very good at generating unprecedented situations.”David Korzenik, an attorney who teaches First Amendment law and represents a number of media organizations, said that the filing showed Dominion’s case against Fox News has serious teeth. “Their motion for summary judgment takes an extreme and unsupported view of defamation law and rests on an accounting of the facts that has no basis in the record.”But the attorneys said Dominion’s filing showed it had built a powerful case against Fox.

The stores that Kroger and Albertsons may sell could be worth more than $1 billion, the sources said. Kroger and Albertsons will choose to proceed with the spin-off if they are unable to strike a deal with a potential buyer. Kroger, Albertsons and the FTC declined to comment. Haggen filed for bankruptcy months later and blamed the deal with Albertsons for its demise. Albertsons then agreed to buy many of the Haggen stores back for $300 million.

☆ How a photo of DeSantis allegedly partying with high schoolers enflamed a bitter rivalry between Trump and the Florida governor
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Tom Porter | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Donald Trump launched a new attack on rumored 2024 rival Ron DeSantis. He shared an old picture that allegedly shows DeSantis partying with school pupils. "Here is Ron DeSanctimonious grooming high school girls with alcohol as a teacher," a caption on the user's post reads. In a New York Times article in 2022, former pupils at the school recalled DeSantis partying with seniors. The post Trump shared alludes to a far-right campaign to stoke opposition to LGBTQ education in classrooms by smearing teachers as "groomers", or pedophiles.

☆ Trump shares photos of DeSantis alleging he partied and drank with high school girls when he was a teacher
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( Kimberly Leonard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Trump reshared a 20-year-old photo of DeSantis that appears to show him posing with recent high school graduates. The original poster accused DeSantis of using alcohol for "grooming" high school girls. Ron DeSantis that accused him of drinking alcohol with minors when he was a high school teacher. Still, the caption reads, "Here is Ron DeSantimonious grooming high school girls with alcohol as a teacher," followed by the vomit emoji. The original message Trump reshared was from a user named Dong-Chan Lee, whose Truth Social describes him as a "paleoconservative" and Trump supporter.

☆ Biden's stock buyback tax isn't working. In State of the Union, he's asking Congress for more
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Eric Rosenbaum | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +14 min

In September 2021, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) proposed that stock buybacks should be taxed at 2%. Lazonick, who thought any minor buyback tax would be ineffective, says he has been proven correct. If a higher buyback tax is enacted, he is betting it will not have the outcomes that Democrats envision. While it's hard to see a higher tax getting passed in the current Congress, it does make sense for Biden to state his desire for 4%. Changing a buyback tax, though, might first prove harder.

☆ Trump claims Ron DeSantis cried in front of him while asking for his endorsement back in 2018
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Cheryl Teh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Donald Trump claims Ron DeSantis cried while asking for his endorsement in 2018. Trump backed DeSantis for governor in 2018. —The Republican Accountability Project (@AccountableGOP) February 2, 2023DeSantis was known for being the Trump-backed candidate in the 2018 GOP gubernatorial primary. In an endorsement tweet on June 22, 2018, Trump called DeSantis a "top student at Yale and Harvard Law School." In July 2018, while he was running for governor, DeSantis released a campaign video in which he called himself a "pitbull Trump defender."

☆ Peltz's Trian seeks to rally Disney shareholders against board director Froman
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Svea Herbst-Bayliss | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

REUTERS/Fred ProuserNEW YORK, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Activist investor Nelson Peltz's hedge fund Trian Fund Management wrote to Walt Disney Co (DIS.N) shareholders on Thursday to make the case for replacing the media and entertainment conglomerate's board director Michael Froman. Trian, which owns a roughly $1 billion stake in the home of Mickey Mouse, has asked Disney shareholders to drop Froman — a former U.S. Trade Representative — from the company's 12-member board and elect Peltz instead. Trian did not spell out in the letter why it had picked Froman to target among the Disney directors, but suggested that Peltz was more qualified to serve. In the letter, Trian also directed its criticism at the full Disney board, blaming it for a 44% drop in Disney's stock last year. A shareholder vote to decide on the composition of Disney's board has not yet been set but is expected in the spring.

☆ News outlets raced to publish Trump’s lawsuit against Woodward. Experts say the suit ‘has no legal merit whatsoever’
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Trump this week filed a $50 million lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, alleging that when Woodward published audio of their interviews in his audiobook it breached his rights by constituting copyright violations. Most legal experts CNN contacted on Tuesday quickly dismissed Trump’s lawsuit against Woodward as meritless. But instead of major outlets pausing to gather this much-needed context after Trump filed his suit against Woodward, most newsrooms simply published stories echoing his complaint. Judge Donald Middlebrooks pointed to Trump’s “pattern of misusing the courts to serve political purposes” as he took note of several other failed lawsuits Trump has brought in recent years. It is also dismaying given the larger discussion among the press over the years about not succumbing hook, line, and sinker for Trump’s stunts.

☆ Elizabeth Warren says Biden could use other tools to carry out student-loan forgiveness if the Supreme Court strikes it down, but 'now is not the time to talk about Plan B'
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-30 | by ( Ayelet Sheffey | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Sen. Elizabeth Warren said there are other tools to carry out student-debt relief if the Supreme Court strikes it down. But she said a Plan B should not be the focus right now, and she supports the legality of Biden's plan. Warren had previously advocated for using the Higher Education Act, instead of the HEROES Act, to cancel student debt. Both of them argue that the president does not have the authority to enact broad debt relief without Congressional approval. "If the Supreme Court applies the law as it is written, then that cancellation will go through.

☆ Some CEOs are pushing workers to return to the office, but it could come with a cost: hurting diversity
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-28 | by ( Marguerite Ward | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

But remote work has benefited many people with disabilities, many Black workers, and others. But Dimon appears more bearish when it comes to another measure that's been shown to promote diversity: remote work. Citadel CEO Ken Griffin slammed remote work at a conference last year, saying innovation and creativity declines because of it. The shift to remote work has been especially helpful for people with physical difficulties and mobility limitations. MoMo Productions/Getty ImagesSome Black workers report facing less discrimination and fewer microaggressions working from home than when they're at the office.

☆ Elon Musk returns to the stand in class-action lawsuit over controversial tweet
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-23 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Washington, DC CNN —Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the stand again on Monday morning in a California courtroom to testify for a second day in the lawsuit over his controversial “funding secured” tweet from 2018. Musk had spoken to executives of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund about the funding he would need to take Tesla private. However, it was anything but “secured.” Musk shared his recollection of the incident in his testimony Monday. He pointed to an incident in May of 2020 when he tweeted that “Tesla stock price is too high.” The stock price dropped the day of his tweet but recovered and closed the year higher than it had opened. Musk testified Friday that no one at Tesla reviewed his tweets in 2018 before he published them.

He called it the most democratic way to communicate but said his tweets did not always affect Tesla stock the way he expected. "Just because I tweet something does not mean people believe it or will act accordingly," Musk told the jury in San Francisco federal court. [1/5] Tesla CEO Elon Musk testifies during a securities-fraud trial in San Francisco, California, U.S., January 20, 2023 in this courtroom sketch. Earlier on Friday, Tesla investor Timothy Fries told the jury that he lost $5,000 buying Tesla stock after Musk sent the tweet, which sparked volatile swings in Tesla's stock. Musk's attorney, Alex Spiro, told the jury in his opening statement Wednesday that Musk believed he had financing from Saudi backers and was taking steps to make the deal happen.

☆ This Black founder sold her company to P&G—why she says she’s ‘selling up,’ not selling out
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-21 | by ( Ashton Jackson | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

On Jan. 11, Monique Rodriguez, founder and CEO of multi-million-dollar natural hair care brand Mielle Organics, announced she had sold her company to P&G Beauty, sending Black Twitter into a frenzy. "I don't wanna hear nothing about supporting Black businesses because the second Black companies get all the support they need from the Black dollar they hand everything over to the person with the biggest check," said one Twitter user. Some would consider selling your company — often for millions — to be a major accomplishment, but Black founders are continually scrutinized by their peers and customers for making this choice. However, when Dennis sold the brand to Unilever in for an estimated $1.6 billion, he was called a sellout. "If there were Black conglomerates, and Black, big, private equity firms and partnerships that allowed them to inject capital and allow us to grow, we would go to those Black companies," Rodriguez says.

☆ Elon Musk takes the stand in his ‘funding secured’ tweet trial
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Matt Mcfarland | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

CNN —Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the stand in a California court room Friday to testify in the class-action lawsuit over his controversial “funding secured” tweet in 2018. Musk has said at the time that he was thinking about taking Tesla private at $420 a share. Musk argued that his tweets do not cause Tesla’s stock price to move higher or lower. He pointed to an incident in May of 2020 when he tweeted that “Tesla stock price is too high.”The stock price dropped immediately after his tweet but recovered and closed the day higher than it had opened the day. “To have no guardrails is very troubling,” Subramanian said of Musk’s Twitter account.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party, which long championed campaign finance reform, got so good at the game that it used more dark money than Republicans during the 2020 presidential campaign. He was also charged with campaign finance violations, allegedly using "straw donors" to circumvent contribution limits by giving money to allies who would then donate to politicians in their own names. There have been no campaign finance bills introduced in the new Congress, no new policies from regulators and barely even any discussion about reform. But I’m not so surprised," said Sheila Krumholz, the executive director of OpenSecrets, which tracks political donations, of Bankman-Fried’s use of the campaign finance system. "This is yet another example of how lax campaign finance rules allow someone with money to throw their weight around and build influence and maybe it is not gaining traction because it’s just one of many stories like this."

Ben Ferencz, the last surviving prosecutor from the Nuremberg trials, answered the phone in bright spirits. The trials marked the first time in history that mass murderers were prosecuted for war crimes, and Ferencz was only 27 at the time. He went on to play a crucial role in securing compensation for Holocaust survivors and in the creation of the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Now he was sitting at his desk in Delray Beach, Florida, a 102-year-old man answering a reporter’s questions with wit and remarkable recall. “Goodbye, Mr. Ohlendorf.”What did he think about the war in Ukraine and the uptick in antisemitic incidents around the globe?

☆ 'Fearless' Special Counsel Jack Smith arrives in Washington to lead Trump probes
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Sarah N. Lynch | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith in November to take over two investigations involving Trump, who is running for president in 2024. Grand juries in Washington have been hearing testimony in recent months for both investigations from many former top Trump administration officials. In 1999, Smith started working at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn. In 2008, Smith left to supervise war crime prosecutions at the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Smith is also known for being expeditious, and Fodeman predicted the special counsel's investigations involving Trump will probably move swiftly.

Last year, the nation’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, the Human Rights Campaign, labeled 2021 the “worst year” for LGBTQ rights in modern U.S. history, citing a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in state legislatures across the country. “The LGBTQ+ community is really under siege right now,” said Ricardo Martinez, CEO of LGBTQ advocacy group Equality Texas. One bill that was successfully implemented, and gained national headlines for months, was Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law, or what critics have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The word “grooming” has long been associated with mischaracterizing LGBTQ people, particularly gay men and transgender women, as child sex abusers. Those losses came after some conservative groups ramped up misleading or inflammatory campaign ads targeting transgender rights.

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