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Kevin Goh of The Ascott discusses its Covid survival strategy.
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Tag: business news
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Japanese yen hits 150 against the U.S. dollar, weakest levels not seen since August 1990
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The Japanese yen weakened past 150 against the U.S. dollar Thursday, hitting a key psychological level that hasn’t been seen since August 1990.
The Bank of Japan’s two-day meeting is slated for next week. Policymakers have ruled out a rate hike in order to defend against further weakening of the currency.
On Thursday, Japan’s 10-year government debt yields breached the 0.25% ceiling that the central bank vowed to defend – last standing at 0.252%. The yield on the 20-year bond also rose to its highest since September 2015.
The Bank of Japan also announced emergency bond-buying operations Thursday. It offered to buy 100 billion yen ($666.98 million) worth of Japanese government bonds with maturities of 10-20 years and another tranche worth 100 billion yen with maturities of 5-10 years.
The central bank has repeatedly vowed to buy an unlimited amount of bonds at a fixed rate in order to cap 10-year government debt yields at 0.25% as part of its stimulus measures for the economy.
On Thursday, Reuters reported Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said the government will take “appropriate steps against excess volatility.”
“Recent rapid and one-sided yen declines are undesirable. We absolutely cannot tolerate excessively volatile moves driven by speculative trading,” he said.
Levels ‘not destabilizing’
When asked how concerning is USD/JPY reaching levels around 150, ANZ chief economist Richard Yetsenga said he’s “not that worried.”
“I don’t think we’re into destabilizing currency territory yet,” he said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”
“There’s lots of emotive words around it, but what problems has it engendered?” he said.
Shortly after the Bank of Japan’s latest decision to maintain low interest rates to support the country’s sluggish economy last month, officials confirmed they intervened to support the currency against further weakening.
That intervention briefly pushed the yen to 142 against the dollar. The spread between the highest and lowest points intraday was also at its widest since 2016.
In April 1990, the yen traded around 159.8 against the dollar and last breached 160 in December 1986.
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Facebook shuttle bus drivers are losing their jobs as Meta slashes costs and employees stay home
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A car passes by Facebook’s corporate headquarters location in Menlo Park, California, on March 21, 2018.
Josh Edelson | AFP | Getty Images
Facebook’s plans to cut costs combined with the company’s relaxed remote work policies set the stage for a bunch of shuttle bus staffers to lose their jobs.
WeDriveU, a key vendor that Meta uses for its commuter shuttles, said it will be reducing staff in and around the social media company’s Silicon Valley headquarters by nearly 100 people beginning in November, according to an employment filing viewed by CNBC. Most are drivers, and some are dispatchers, operations managers and supervisors.
Meta shuttle vendor Hallcon Corporation, meanwhile, said it’s laying off 63 staffers from its San Francisco location around Nov. 25, due to a “significant draw down of client services,” according to a separate filing.
“Some employees may be maintained or recalled to work,” a human resources director at Hallcon wrote in the filing. “However, no Hallcon Company employee who is being laid off should count on being recalled.”
Meta has cut shuttle staffers from other contractor firms as well, according to Stacy Murphy, vice president of Teamsters Bay Area Local 853, a union with over 15,000 members in industries including transportation. Murphy said all of the layoffs are coming from one company: Meta.
Meta janitorial staff protests job cuts.
Silicon Valley Rising
“All four vendors are losing people,” Murphy said, referring to the companies that work with Meta.
The layoffs are landing as Meta looks to cut costs by 10% or more over the coming months in response to macroeconomic challenges and the company’s general underperformance. Meta reported its first-ever revenue decline in the second quarter and is expected to record another drop when third-quarter numbers land next week.
The stock is trading near its lowest since early 2019 and is one of the worst performers this year in the S&P 500.
Bus drivers who shuttled Facebook employees around the Bay Area as the company expanded at a rapid clip over the past decade are in a particularly precarious position. Not only is the company now pulling back on costs but it’s also maintaining more flexibility than its tech peers in allowing employees to work from wherever they want.
The company opened its office back up to employees in March but gave staffers the option to work remote permanently or in a hybrid model. Many of San Francisco’s small businesses are struggling to stay afloat because of the changes in the workplace.
Murphy, along with union members, plan to protest Facebook’s cuts, saying it’s “the worst time” to reduce staff as blue-collar workers face rising costs in a market that remains among the priciest in the country. “It’s crazy,” she said of the rising prices.
Hallcon and WeDriveU did not return requests for comment.
In July, CNBC reported that Meta had canceled a contract with custodial workers at its headquarters, resulting in job cuts. Earlier this month, janitorial service workers rallied outside of Meta Shop, a retail space in Burlingame, California, to protest working conditions as well as the cuts. The rally was organized by a labor coalition called Silicon Valley Rising and South Bay coalition. Workers held up signs that read “Justice for Janitors” and alleged the company isn’t treating its essential workers fairly.
Meta janitorial staff protests job cuts.
Silicon Valley Rising
Murphy said Meta has cut dozens of shuttle staff over the last three months but that the latest notification of layoffs represents “the biggest we’ve ever seen.”
Teamsters organized a rally for Thursday afternoon at the busiest intersection around Facebook’s headquarters to protest Meta’s cutbacks. Murphy said one of the union’s efforts is to put pressure on the company to ask employees to return to offices.
“Other tech companies are demanding they come back — why haven’t they?” Murphy said. “They want to stay at home and that impacts all of the people that support the company’s overall performance.”
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Dog-Like Robots To Make Deliveries Around UT Austin Campus
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Robots are going to college, to get more knowledge.
Boston Dynamics I UT AustinBoston Dynamic’s robot There’s a new pack of visitors touring the campus at The University of Texas at Austin: robots.
And it turns out the point is for the robots to get smarter.
The university will soon host delivery-bearing autonomous robots controllable by app, according to local outlet MySA.
The robot project is a collaboration between robotics companies Boston Dynamics and Unitree, as well as academics, the school said in a press release. The project began in September 2021 and involved creating the type of robot that would run around campus. But, it’s hitting a new phase.
“The researchers plan a five-year study focusing on what it takes to create, safely operate and maintain this kind of robot network, while also adapting with the humans who live and work around it,” the school wrote.
It will begin early next year. Besides being useful in research, it will be a bonafide, useful delivery network, according to the release, and will first deploy at the beginning of next year.
The robots will do things like deliver hand sanitizer and wipes or offer them to people walking around in specific “pedestrian zones,” the release continued.
One of Boston Dynamic’s robots, Spot, looks like this, per a launch video from 2019:
These robots are “autonomous,” meaning they can move around on their own power, but they will be closely monitored.
“In later phases of the research, the robots will go out in teams of two, monitored both by chaperones and people remotely. This means researchers will always have the ability to stop the robots if necessary,” the school wrote.
Courtesy UT Austin. The data is being collected and analyzed by a team of researchers from multiple schools at the University. It is headed, however, by Luis Sentis of UT’s Cockrell School of Engineering.
“Robotic systems are becoming more ubiquitous,” he said in the release.
“In addition to programming robots to perform a realistic task such as delivering supplies, we will be able to gather observations to help develop standards for safety, communication, and behavior to allow these future systems to be useful and safe in our community,” Sentis added.
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Gabrielle Bienasz
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We’ll continue to see double-digit declines in home sales, says KPMG’s Swonk
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Diane Swonk, KPMG chief economist, joins ‘Power Lunch’ to discuss whether the U.S. is currently in a housing recession, if the housing sector is a leading indicator for the rest of the economy and more.
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Fed’s Harker sees ‘lack of progress’ on inflation, expects aggressive rate hikes ahead
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Philadelphia Federal Reserve President Patrick Harker on Thursday said higher interest rates have done little to keep inflation in check, so more increases will be needed.
“We are going to keep raising rates for a while,” the central bank official said in remarks for a speech in New Jersey. “Given our frankly disappointing lack of progress on curtailing inflation, I expect we will be well above 4% by the end of the year.”
The latter comment was in reference to the fed funds rate, which currently is targeted in a range between 3%-3.25%.
Markets widely expect the Fed to approve a fourth consecutive 0.75 percentage point interest rate hike in early November, followed by another in December. The expectation is that the Federal Open Market Committee, of which Harker is a nonvoting member this year, will then take rates a bit higher in 2023 before settling in a range around 4.5%-4.75%.
Harker indicated that those higher rates are likely to stay in place for an extended period.
“Sometime next year, we are going to stop hiking rates. At that point, I think we should hold at a restrictive rate for a while to let monetary policy do its work,” he said. “It will take a while for the higher cost of capital to work its way through the economy. After that, if we have to, we can tighten further, based on the data.”
Inflation is currently running around its highest level in more than 40 years.
According to the Fed’s preferred gauge, headline personal consumption expenditures inflation is running at a 6.2% annual rate, while the core, excluding food and energy prices, is at 4.9%, both well above the central bank’s 2% target.
“Inflation will come down, but it will take some time to get to our target,” Harker said.
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The Rock’s ‘Black Adam’ is a bland, ‘color-by-numbers’ DC Comics superhero movie, critics say
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Dwayne Johnson stars in Warner Bros.’ “Black Adam.”
Warner Bros.
Not even Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson could salvage Warner Bros.’ latest entrant into the DC Extended Universe.
“Black Adam,” which premieres Friday, did not impress critics, generating a meager 53% on Rotten Tomatoes from 102 reviews as of Thursday afternoon. While expectations are that the film can pull between $55 million and $75 million during its opening weekend, poor word of mouth could dash the reportedly $200 million film’s hopes before it has a chance to take off.
The film centers on Black Adam, a man who was bestowed the almighty power of the gods, but uses those gifts for vengeance. He is imprisoned for nearly 5,000 years and emerges in modern times to dole out his own unique form of justice.
Unlike his traditional superhero counterparts — in this film it’s the Justice Society, not the Justice League — Black Adam is not averse to the use of deadly force.
Here’s what critics had to say about “Black Adam” ahead of its theatrical debut:
Kristy Puchko, Mashable
“Watching an action movie shouldn’t feel like a chore, but ‘Black Adam’ does,” wrote Kristy Puchko in her review of the film for Mashable. “Amid a slew of publicly damned decisions, Warner Bros. has released a DC Extended Universe movie that is more exhausting than exciting, spooling out tedious exposition alongside ugly action for a muddled mess of a movie that squanders its big budget and the promising star power of Dwayne Johnson, Aldis Hodge, and Noah Centineo.”
Puchko noted that “Black Adam” rushes through the introductions of Cyclone, Atom Smasher, Hawkman and Doctor Fate “so quickly that it’s actually comical.”
“In their rush to ‘meet the team,’ the screenwriters ramble out more hasty exposition that’s difficult to grasp amid the cross-cutting of so many introductions and quirky cameos (which I’ll admit are a thrill),” she said. “‘Black Adam’ is in such a hurry to pitch this batch of C-list heroes into their battle with the protagonist, that your head might be spinning.”
Mark Kennedy, Associated Press
“‘Black Adam’ isn’t bad,” said Mark Kennedy in his review of the film for the Associated Press. “It’s just predictable and color-by-numbers, stealing from other films like an intellectual property super-villain.”
Kennedy noted that Johnson is a natural choice to play Black Adam, able to mix “might with humor,” but ultimately his performance and the overall film were “let down by a derivative and baggy screenplay.”
“[The film] goes from one violent scene to another like a video game in order to paper over a plot both undercooked and overcooked,” he said. “At one point, with the audience exhausted by all the carnage, they introduce skeletons who rise up as a legion from hell, just what we wanted.”
Pierce Brosnan and Dwayne Johnson star in Warner Bros.’ “Black Adam.”
Warner Bros.
Alonso Duralde, The Wrap
For Alonso Duralde of The Wrap “Black Adam” felt like “both too much and not enough,” a film where the “narrative gambits are helped by a sludgy visual style that’s either distractingly artificial or dispiritingly gloomy, except when it manages to be both.”
“The ensemble does what it can with the material, but no one’s going to be including this in their eventual life-achievement reels,” he said. “There’s a jarring sense of four-quadrant casting at work here — Brosnan for the parents! Centineo for the teens! Skateboard kid for the tweens! — that reads too obviously as a marketing strategy and not as a cast of characters who would actually be interacting in these circumstances.”
Like many other critics, Duralde said the film tries to make a correlation between the Justice Society’s sudden appearance in Kahndaq, a fictional country in the Middle East, and past U.S. imperialism, it stops short of making any meaningful statement.
David Ehrlich, IndieWire
Critics also narrowed in on the narrative choices of “Black Adam.” The superhero film tries to brand its titular character as a vengeful, dark anti-hero, but does nothing story-wise to elevate or redefine the genre.
“‘Black Adam’ so desperately wants to be a darker and gristlier version of the same hamburger that audiences have been served over and over again for the last 15 years, but Johnson — who’s also a producer on the film, and a part-time architect of this cinematic universe in addition to our own — can’t abide the idea of doing something that might leave even one audience member behind,” said David Ehrlich in his review of the film.
He called “Black Adam” “exhaustingly derivative,” noting that the film felt like it had been “audience-tested within an inch of its life.”
Not even the main antagonist of the film could inspire critics.
“They team up to fight what might be the single most forgettable villain in comic book movie history, which is a wild thing to say about a giant hell demon with a pentagram scar across its entire chest,” Ehrlich wrote.
Dwayne Johnson is Black Adam in Warner Bros.’ newest DC film “Black Adam.”
Warner Bros.
Matt Singer, ScreenCrush
Johnson has been connected to the Black Adam character at least 15 years, explained Matt Singer in his review of the film for ScreenCrush. The project has won and lost directors and writers for years, but the former WWE wrestler has always been attached.
“Alas, 15 years of work produced a pretty middling movie, one that does not seem to reflect what must have been hundreds of hours of writing and countless screenplay drafts,” he said.
“Instead, Black Adam plays like a committee-made product designed to zhoosh up the stagnant DC Extended Universe with a massive star and a batch of new heroes to spin off into future movies,” Singer said. “After two hours of dour table setting, you’re left with a clear direction for DC’s cinematic future — and a lot less interest in actually watching it.”
Read the full review from ScreenCrush.
Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal and CNBC. NBCUniversal owns Rotten Tomatoes.
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5 things to know before the stock market opens Thursday
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Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, October 14, 2022.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
Here are the most important news items that investors need to start their trading day:
1. Yielding to reality
Stocks fell Wednesday, snapping a two-session winning streak, as bond yields surged. It was a reminder to investors that, even with a stronger-than-expected earnings season under way, the Federal Reserve is calling most of the shots these days. The central bank is likely to keep raising its benchmark rate in sizable increments as long as prices keep rising at the hot pace we’ve seen for much of the year. Could we see a peak in yields soon? DoubleLine’s Jeffrey Gundlach, known as the “Bond king,” tweeted that he thinks it could happen between now and the end of the year. Read live market updates here.
2. Tesla sticks to the plan
Elon Musk said Friday that SpaceX cannot continue fund Starlink terminals in Ukraine “indefinitely” in light of the cost. However, Musk, who is also CEO of electric car company Tesla, he said Saturday that SpaceX will keep funding the Ukrainian government “for free” even though Starlink is “still losing money.”
Adrees Latif | Reuters
“We’re very pedal to the metal, come rain or shine,” Elon Musk said Wednesday, after Tesla reported quarterly earnings. He was talking about a potential recession and whether that might mean a production slowdown for his industry-leading electric vehicle company. “We are not reducing our production in any meaningful way, recession or not recession,” he said. Tesla posted earnings that came in above expectations, but its stock slid after hours because revenue missed projections.
Read more: Wall Street will be watching automakers for signs of weaker demand
3. Biden boosts EVs, slams oil companies
U.S. President Joe Biden holds a video conference event with electric battery industry grant winners, related to recent infrastructure initiatives, from the White House in Washington, October 19, 2022.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
Speaking of EVs, President Joe Biden on Wednesday awarded $2.8 billion in grants to boost battery production for the vehicles. The funds, which come from Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure law, will go to companies in at least 12 states. The Energy Department said the projects will help develop lithium to supply about 2 million EVs each year, graphite to supply about 1.2 million EVs annually, and nickel to supply about 400,000 EVs every year. On the flip side, with the midterm elections right around the corner, Biden urged oil companies to invest their profits in more production instead of buybacks. Gas prices are well below their peak from earlier this year, but they’re still high, and voters are worried most about inflation and the economy.
4. Ukraine limits power usage
Women walk past a billboard reading “Citizens, you are free!”, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in the recently retaken town of Kupiansk, Ukraine, October 18, 2022.
Clodagh Kilcoyne | Reuters
Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelenskyy’s government imposed nationwide limits on power usage as the country tries to recovery from a new wave of Russian air attacks. Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s national energy company, said “constant missile attacks are destroying our energy infrastructure, and energy workers need time to restore it.” Elsewhere, Zelenskyy urged Ukrainian men in regions occuped by Russian forces to resist conscription into Vladimir Putin’s military. His comments came after Putin imposed martial law in illegally annexed regions of Ukraine. Read live war updates here.
5. Anarchy in the UK
Even with a new finance minister in place, along with a revamped economic plan, UK Prime Minister Liz Truss’s government is teetering on the edge of complete failure. After just six weeks on the job, Truss is facing pressure from multiple sides to quit after her government plunged UK markets into chaos with its proposals to cut taxes for the wealthy while the nation deals with high levels of inequality and a cost-of-living crisis. Truss told a heated session of Parliament on Wednesday that she was a “fighter, not a quitter.” But then another member of her Cabinet quit, and one member of her Conservative Party said she only has Thursday and maybe Friday to turn things around.
– CNBC’s Sarah Min, Jonathan Vanian, Emma Newburger, Emma Kinery, Holly Ellyatt and Annie Nova contributed to this report.
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Britain’s political scene is in absolute chaos — right at the worst possible time. Here’s what you need to know
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Political chaos in the U.K. continues, including a high-profile resignation and questions over how long Liz Truss has in office.
House of Commons – PA Images / Contributor / Getty Images
LONDON — An extraordinary day in British politics plunged embattled Prime Minister Liz Truss into even deeper turmoil.
On a fast-moving day of developments, Wednesday saw a high-profile resignation, reports of parliamentarians being bullied and further speculation over how long Truss may have left.
The culmination of events prompted one member of the Conservative Party to publicly express his anger with the government.
“This is an absolute disgrace,” Conservative lawmaker Charles Walker told BBC News on Wednesday evening. “I think it’s a shambles and a disgrace. It’s utterly appalling,” he said.
“I hope all those people that put Liz Truss in Number 10, I hope it was worth it … Because the damage they have done to our party is extraordinary,” Walker said, visibly angry as he spoke.
“I’ve had enough of talentless people putting their tick in the right box not because it’s in the national interest but because it’s in their own personal interest,” he said.
Here’s a look at how the day unfolded.
Wednesday midday: ‘A fighter not a quitter’
At midday on Wednesday, Truss faced fellow lawmakers in the House of Commons for the first time since a major U-turn on her controversial fiscal package.
The government’s so-called “mini-budget” on Sept. 23 was the first – and last – big fiscal announcement from former Finance Minister Kwasi Kwarteng, who was hastily replaced by Jeremy Hunt following a backlash to the spending plans.
Truss said she was “a fighter not a quitter” as she was grilled by parliamentarians.
Opposition Labour leader Keir Starmer asked how the British public could have faith in a leader whose “promises didn’t last a week.”
Truss has apologized for mistakes made during her first six weeks in office.
Wednesday evening: A resignation and bullying accusations
Britain’s Interior Minister Suella Braverman was then added to the list of departures from Truss’ government, as she resigned after just 43 days in the position – the shortest stint in the role since World War II.
In her resignation letter, Braverman said she sent an official document from a personal email – breaching ministerial rules – and that this was the reason for her departure. But she also used the letter to express her “concerns about the direction of this government,” saying that key pledges to voters had been broken.
“Pretending we haven’t made mistakes, carrying on as if everyone can’t see that we have made them, and hoping that things will magically come right is not serious politics. I have made a mistake; I accept responsibility; I resign,” Braverman said.
Braverman has been replaced by former Transport Minister Grant Shapps.
Later on Wednesday evening, lawmakers were asked to vote on whether fracking would be completely banned across the U.K., but members of the Conservative Party were told the vote was being treated as a “confidence motion” in Truss’ government.
Members were also told they would “lose the whip” – effectively losing their position in Parliament – if they voted to ban fracking. Unsurprisingly the majority voted not to ban fracking.
The vote itself was chaotic, with reports of members being “bullied” into making the decision favored by the Conservatives.
“That looked like bullying to me. It’s bullying like I’ve not seen since school,” Labour MP Chris Bryant told BBC News.
A government spokesperson was not immediately available to comment when contacted by CNBC on Thursday morning.
Party whips – those tasked with encouraging members to vote in line with the party consensus – can be quite assertive, Bryant said, but they typically use “the force of reason, not the force of force.”
Thursday morning: Truss has 12 hours to ‘turn the ship around’
Thursday morning saw Conservative MPs trying to explain the events of the night before – and delivering fresh assessments of how long Truss has left in office.
Transport Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan described Wednesday as a “very turbulent day,” speaking on the BBC’s “Breakfast” program, but she defended the prime minister.
“Yes, Liz Truss is our prime minister and she has the confidence of the Cabinet,” Trevelyan said when asked if Truss was the right person to lead the government.
Conservative MP Simon Hoare said the next few hours would be critical for Truss to retain her authority.
He said he had never seen such a growing sense of pessimism across all wings of the party, speaking on BBC Radio 4’s “Today” program.
“Can the ship be turned around? Yes. But I think there’s about 12 hours to do it,” he said, describing Thursday and Friday as “crunch days” for the prime minister.
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Trump deposed in rape-defamation lawsuit by writer E. Jean Carroll
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held at the Hilton Anatole on August 06, 2022 in Dallas, Texas. CPAC began in 1974, and is a conference that brings together and hosts conservative organizations, activists, and world leaders in discussing current events and future political agendas.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump was deposed Wednesday for a civil lawsuit accusing him of defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of raping her, her representation confirmed.
Trump on Oct. 12 lost his bid to delay being questioned under oath by Carroll’s lawyers when a federal judge brushed aside arguments that a pending appeal in the lawsuit warranted putting the case on hold.
The timing of Trump’s deposition and its location were not immediately available Wednesday.
“As we have said all along, my client was pleased to set the record straight today. This case is nothing more than a political ploy like many others in the long list of witch hunts against Donald Trump,” Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, said in a statement.
Carroll was scheduled to have been deposed for the case last Friday.
A trial in the case is scheduled for February.
Even if that trial is put on hold, or outright canceled as the result of the pending appeal, Carroll plans to sue the 76-year-old Trump in New York state court next month under a new law that lifted the statute of limitations for claims of rape and sexual abuse.
Carroll’s lawyers could use Trump’s Wednesday deposition in that planned suit.
The deposition comes two months after Trump refused to answer questions under oath in a deposition by attorneys for New York Attorney General Letitia James in connection with a civil investigation of his company, the Trump Organization. Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 440 times in that deposition.
James last month sued Trump, his company, three of his adult children and others, alleging widespread fraud involving allegedly false financial statements related to the company’s business. James is seeking at least $250 million in damages in that case, as well as sanctions.
Carroll, 78, in a 2019 New York magazine article, accused Trump of raping her in a dressing room in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s after a chance encounter in the store.
Trump, who was president at the time the article appeared, responded that Carroll was lying and motivated by money and political considerations to concoct the account.
Carroll then sued Trump for defamation in New York state court.
The case was transferred a year later to U.S. District Court in Manhattan as the Department of Justice, then under the control of the Trump-appointed Attorney General William Barr, sought to replace Trump as the defendant in the case. The department argued that because Trump was president at the time he allegedly defamed Carroll, the government had the power to step in and act as the defendant because he was a government employee.
If the DOJ was allowed to do so, it would effectively end the lawsuit. Under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, the federal government has the power to deny plaintiffs the right to sue it.
Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected that bid. “The President of the United States is not an employee of the Government within the meaning of the relevant statutes,” he said in a ruling.
“Even if he were such an employee, President Trump’s allegedly defamatory statements concerning Ms. Carroll would not have been within the scope of his employment,” wrote Kaplan, who is not related to Carroll’s attorney.
The DOJ appealed Kaplan’s ruling.
In September, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Kaplan’s ruling on the question of whether Trump was acting as a government employee at the time he replied to Carroll’s article. But the appeals court also asked its sister appeals court in Washington, D.C., to rule on whether Trump made the statements about Carroll within the scope of his employment, as defined by local District of Columbia law.
The D.C. federal appeals court has not yet ruled on that question.
Kaplan, in his decision last week, said that Trump was not entitled to delay his deposition pending the outcome in the D.C. court because he had not shown a required strong likelihood of success on that question.
Kaplan also wrote that there was reason to believe that Trump was continuing to engage in delaying tactics in the litigation and that the “advanced age” of both Trump and Carroll was a reason not to further postpone action in the case.
“The defendant should not be permitted to run the clock out on plaintiff’s attempt to gain a remedy for what allegedly was a serious wrong,” Kaplan wrote.
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Uninsured kids will still receive Covid vaccines for free after shots move to commercial market
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A child is administered a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pediatric vaccine.
Mayela Lopez | Reuters
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took a major step Wednesday toward ensuring that kids who are uninsured can receive Covid-19 vaccines for free after the federal government shifts its immunization program to the commercial market.
The CDC’s independent advisors voted unanimously on Wednesday to include Covid shots authorized for kids by the Food and Drug Administration in the federal government’s Vaccines For Children program.
The Vaccines for Children program provides vaccines to kids under age 19 whose families cannot afford them. Children are eligible for the program if they qualify for Medicaid or are uninsured, underinsured or Native American.
Including Covid shots in the program does not make them a routine childhood vaccination for school, said Dr. Jose Romero, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.
The U.S. government has been providing Covid vaccines to everyone in the U.S. for free during the pandemic. But the Biden administration is working on a plan to transition the vaccination program to the commercial market as soon as 2023, which means people will have to start paying for the shots.
Dr. Jeanne Santoli, a CDC official, said the public health agency will start awarding contracts for healthcare providers to give the Covid shots for free to uninsured kids.
Currently, children as young as six months old are eligible for Pfizer’s and Moderna’s two-dose primary series with the first-generation shots that target the original Covid strain. Kids as young as age 5 are eligible for the new booster shots that target the dominant omicron BA.5 subvariant.
The decision to include Covid shots in the free vaccine program will prove crucial to maintaining access for many children. As many as 5.3 million kids are expected to lose health insurance through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program whenever the Biden administration decides to end the Covid public health emergency, according to the Health and Human Services Department.
“This is an access issue. This is an issue to allow children that don’t have insurance to gain access to this vaccine,” said Romero.
Although Covid is generally less severe in kids than adults, more than 162,000 children under age 18 have been hospitalized with Covid since August 2020, according to data from the CDC. More than 1,800 children have died from Covid since the pandemic began, according to the data.
Public health officials are also worried about kids developing long Covid even after a mild infection.
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Bill Gates: Business Environmental Naming Rules Should Support Innovation
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This week, Microsoft co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates discussed his opinion on the idea that businesses over-hype their commitment to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) values in an interview with CNBC.
Alex Wong I Getty ImagesBill Gates in Washington, D.C. in 2019, talking about climate change. Gates told the outlet that while determining whether a company meets sustainability requirements is difficult, it’s still important information that investors need to have to support technologies to help fight climate change — i.e., don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.
“The part that I believe in is where you accelerate the innovation. To me, it’s not so much who you don’t invest in but who you do invest in,” Gates said to CNBC.
Gates is also the creator of Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a climate investment firm, which he started in 2015.
The idea of “ESG” funds, which supposedly focus on environmental or social goals, has come into the spotlight lately.
Notably, Elon Musk publicly criticized a prominent ESG index after it removed his electric car company, Tesla, (which had to do with factors including allegations of racism at his factories), but kept six oil businesses.
The SEC has also recently proposed rules to increase requirements on funds that claim to have a certain focus, like ESG funds, and more regulations for ESGs specifically.
Gates seemed to push back on the idea that the requirements are worth nitpicking about, even though he acknowledged there is a lot of “controversy” about how to measure if a company is meeting environmental requirements.
“The whole measurement thing is a little immature,” he said. “The field is going to get mature on that.”
The SEC has proposed that investment funds that name themselves a specific way (such as an ESG fund) must spend at least 80% of their money, on that focus (previously, it was just a suggestion) for example.
“There is a way to measure it, and it should be one of the factors people look at when they invest in companies,” Gates said adding that “a lot of investors really do want to get” information related to sustainability incentives.
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Gabrielle Bienasz
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UK’s Suella Braverman resigns as interior minister after 43 days, former Transport Secretary Grant Shapps to replace her
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The U.K.’s Suella Braverman is resigning from her position as interior minister after just 43 days in the role, she announced Wednesday, citing a breach of rules as well as concerns over the direction of the government.
She will be succeeded by former Transport Secretary Grant Shapps, Downing Street confirmed roughly an hour after her announcement. Notably, Shapps did not back Prime Minister Liz Truss in this summer’s leadership race and has criticized some of her policies.
In a resignation letter posted to Twitter, Braverman said, “It is with the greatest regret that I am choosing to tender my resignation.”
In the letter, she said she had sent an official document — a draft written ministerial statement that had not been published — from her personal email to a parliamentary colleague in order to get support for her policy. This, she said, “constitutes a technical infringement of the rules.”
Braverman said that she had realized her mistake and reported it to official channels, but that resigning was the right thing to do.
In a letter to Braverman posted on the Downing Street website, Truss wrote: “I accept your resignation and respect the decision you have made. It is important that the Ministerial Code is upheld, and that Cabinet confidentiality is respected.”
The departure is the latest surprise turn of events for the U.K.’s Conservative Party, whose government led by Prime Minister Liz Truss has come under increasing fire for throwing markets into turbulence and drastically changing policy plans within the span of a few days.
Braverman ran against Truss for the Conservative leadership race this summer but was knocked out in an early stage. She has held past roles as attorney general, from 2020 to 2022, and in the “Brexit” department in 2018.
In her short time as home secretary, beginning with the Truss government on Sept. 6, she has made headlines for outspoken comments on reducing net migration, affirming the controversial policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda, and just on Wednesday morning defending the government’s Public Order Bill.
It comes at a hugely turbulent time for the government, with Truss under intense pressure to resign just two months into her premiership after a budget on Sept. 23 sparked chaos in financial markets.
On Friday, Truss fired her finance minister, Kwasi Kwarteng, over the incident, despite having campaigned on the program of tax cuts which set off the chaos.
Kwarteng was succeeded by former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who on Monday proceeded to reverse the majority of the economic policies laid out in the government’s mini-budget announced on Sept. 23. Brought in in a bid to calm markets and project an image of stability, Hunt has provoked rumor of being more in control of government than Truss and even a potential successor.
Shapps, Braverman’s successor, was not initially given a so-called front bench role by Truss. He was also among the Conservative voices who criticized elements of her tax cut program, saying that the removal of the top rate of income tax had “jarred for people in a way which was unsustainable.”
In her letter, Braverman referred to the wider government, adding that it was “obvious to everyone that we are going through a tumultuous time” and said she had “concerns about the direction of this government.”
Braverman said she was concerned about the breaking of key pledges to voters, though did not specifically highlight the recent U-turn on fiscal policy, instead citing pledges to reduce overall migration numbers and small boat crossings to the U.K. Truss and Braverman had been reportedly clashing behind the scenes on revising U.K. migration policy as the nation faces acute worker shortages.
In what could also be read as a message to the embattled prime minister, Braverman said: “The business of government relies upon people accepting responsibility for their mistakes. Pretending we haven’t made mistakes, carrying on as if everyone can’t see that we have made them, and hoping that things will magically come right is not serious politics. I have made a mistake; I accept responsibility; I resign.”
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SpaceX rolls out Starlink aviation product for satellite internet to private jets
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One of the company’s flat aviation-specific Starlink antennas is seen on top of an aircraft.
SpaceX
SpaceX rolled out aviation-specific Starlink satellite internet service on Tuesday, with Elon Musk’s company looking to expand further into the inflight WiFi market.
The company is charging $150,000 for the hardware needed to connect a jet to Starlink, with monthly service costs between $12,500 a month and $25,000 a month. Deliveries to aviation customers are scheduled to “start in mid-2023,” the company said, and reservations require a $5,000 initial payment.
SpaceX advertises “global coverage” through a flat-panel antenna that customers would install on top of an aircraft. SpaceX said it is seeking Federal Aviation Administration certificates for a variety of aircraft, most of which are typically owned and operated as private jets.
As for the quality of the service, SpaceX says Starlink aviation customers can expect speeds up to 350 Megabits per second, “enabling all passengers to access streaming-capable internet at the same time.”
“Passengers can engage in activities previously not functional in flight, including video calls, online gaming, virtual private networks and other high data rate activities,” SpaceX said on its Starlink website.
SpaceX won’t install the antennas, however, noting that customers “will have to arrange the installation with a provider.”
But the company’s aviation service does not require a long-term contract, with SpaceX saying “all plans include unlimited data” and the “hardware is under warranty for as long as you subscribe to the service.”
One of the company’s flat aviation-specific Starlink antennas is seen on top of an aircraft.
SpaceX
SpaceX has signed early deals with commercial air carriers, inking agreements with Hawaiian Airlines and semiprivate charter provider JSX to provide Wi-Fi on planes. Up until now SpaceX has been approved to conduct a limited amount of inflight testing, seeing the aviation Wi-Fi market as “ripe for an overhaul.”
This latest offering marks a direct challenge to leading inflight connectivity provider Gogo. But William Blair analyst Louie DiPalma said in a note to investors on Wednesday that the Starlink product “appears to be too big and too expensive to challenge” Gogo’s position in the small-to-midsize business jet market and that “this will likely come as a welcome relief to Gogo investors.”
“Starlink’s entry into the business jet connectivity market has pressured Gogo shares. We anticipate that Gogo will be able to fend off competition because of its unique air-to-ground cellular network. Gogo is the dominant provider of inflight connectivity for business jets, and serves over 6,600 business jets with its cellular network and an additional 4,500 aircraft with [satellite] connectivity,” DiPalma said.
Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note that, while Starlink’s “premium pricing” is expected to have “a relatively limited impact to Gogo in the near-term,” SpaceX’s new service “highlights growing competitive
intensity in a market that Gogo has historically dominated with >80% market share.”Starlink is the SpaceX’s plan to build an interconnected internet network with thousands of satellites, designed to deliver high-speed internet to anywhere on the planet. SpaceX has launched nearly 3,500 Starlink satellites into orbit, and the service had about 500,000 subscribers as of June. The company has raised capital steadily to fund development of both Starlink and its next-generation rocket Starship, with $2 billion brought in just this year.
The FCC has authorized SpaceX to provide mobile Starlink internet service, with the company’s product offerings now including services to residential, business, RV, maritime and aviation customers.
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U.S. to provide millions in funding for tidal energy and river current systems
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While there is excitement about the potential of renewable technologies such as tidal power, there are challenges when it comes to scaling up.
Laro Pilartes / 500Px | 500Px | Getty Images
The U.S. Department of Energy said $35 million in funding would be made available “to advance tidal and river current energy systems” under plans it hopes will provide a shot in the arm to a sector whose current footprint is tiny.
In a statement Tuesday outlining the move, the DOE said the funding opportunity — which is slated for release in 2023 — represented the “largest investment in tidal and river current energy technologies in the United States.”
A notice of intent related to the funding opportunity has been posted online. The DOE said it proposed “to develop a tidal or river current research, development, and demonstration site and to support in-water demonstration of at least one tidal energy system.”
Alejandro Moreno, who is acting assistant secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, said oceans and rivers represented “a huge potential source of renewable energy.” The DOE said the funding would come from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
Over the past few years a number of projects related to tidal power, including ones in the United States, have taken significant steps forward.
In July 2021, for instance, a tidal turbine dubbed “the world’s most powerful” started grid-connected power generation at the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney, an archipelago located north of mainland Scotland.
In May 2022, a £4.6 million (around $5.18 million) facility that can test tidal turbine blades under strenuous conditions was officially opened, with those behind it hoping it will accelerate the development of marine energy technology and lower costs.
While there is excitement about the potential of renewable technologies such as tidal power, there are significant challenges when it comes to scaling up, a point the DOE acknowledged in its announcement.
“The U.S. tidal and river current energy industry requires long-term and substantial funding to move from testing devices one at a time to establishing a commercial site,” it said.
“The complexity of installing devices and navigating permitting processes, combined with a lack of connection to local power grids, have proven to be a consistent barrier to advancing tidal and river current energy.”
Today, America’s electricity generation mix remains heavily reliant on fossil fuels.
According to preliminary figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2021 fossil fuels’ share of utility-scale electricity generation was 60.8%. By contrast, renewables’ share stood at 20.1%, while nuclear accounted for 18.9%.
While tidal barrage developments were the initial focus of those operating in the marine energy industry — EDF’s La Rance tidal barrage dates back to the 1960s, for example — recent years have seen companies focus their attention on different systems.
These include tidal stream devices which, the European Marine Energy Centre says, “are broadly similar to submerged wind turbines.” Compared to other renewables, the overall size of tidal stream and wave energy projects is very small.
In data released in March 2022, Ocean Energy Europe said 2.2 MW of tidal stream capacity was installed in Europe last year, compared to just 260 kilowatts in 2020.
For wave energy, 681 kW was installed, which OEE said was a threefold increase. Globally, 1.38 MW of wave energy came online in 2021, while 3.12 MW of tidal stream capacity was installed.
By way of comparison, Europe installed 17.4 gigawatts of wind power capacity in 2021, according to figures from industry body WindEurope.
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UK inflation moves back up to 40-year high as Brits battle cost-of-living crisis
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The Office for National Statistics announced inflation figures Wednesday as the U.K. undergoes a historic cost-of-living crisis and political turmoil.
Westend61 / Getty Images
LONDON — The consumer price index rose 10.1% in September, according to estimates published Wednesday by the Office for National Statistics, just exceeding a consensus forecast among economists polled by Reuters.
Reuters estimated an increase of 10% for September. The figure for September matches the 40-year high British inflation reached in July.
The rate rose in the year to September 2022 as the country’s cost-of-living crisis continues to hammer households and businesses ahead of a tough winter. Inflation unexpectedly dipped to 9.9% in August, down from 10.1% in July, on the back of a fuel price decline.
Increasing food, transport and energy prices were the biggest contributing factors to inflation, the ONS said. Food was up 14.6% year-on-year, transport was up 10.9% compared to last year, while the price of furniture and household goods rose 10.8%.
Sterling fell against the dollar following the news, trading at $1.1289, down from $1.1330.
The inflation data comes just as the Bank plans to sell off some of its government bonds, known as gilts, from Nov. 1.
Britain’s Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt said in a statement that “help for the most vulnerable” will be a priority as the U.K. weathers high inflation rates, along with “delivering wider economic stability and driving long-term growth that will help everyone.”
September’s inflation rate highlights the severity of the U.K.’s inflation crisis, and comes as the country weathers a period of economic volatility.
On Monday the new British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt reversed the majority of the tax cuts introduced by his predecessor, Kwasi Kwarteng, on Sept. 23, and Prime Minister Liz Truss apologized for “mistakes” that had caused severe market turbulence.
Questions are now being raised over how long Truss will remain in office.
People in the U.K. are feeling “pessimistic” about the price of groceries, with 84% saying they spent the same or more on groceries in the last three months, according to McKinsey & Company.
“The level of inflation is already driving consumers to think differently about Christmas with 58% planning to cut back on Christmas spending and 8% not planning to do any shopping at all,” Samantha Phillips, a partner at McKinsey, said in a research note.
The forecast from the ONS won’t prompt the Bank of England to reassess how it approaches interest rates, according to Marcus Brookes, chief investment officer at Quilter Investors.
“[The Bank of England] may be satisfied by the moves made in Westminster for now, but in the coming weeks, we will see what it really makes of the government’s fiscal policy as it makes its next move at its November Monetary Policy Committee meeting,” Brookes said.
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Kakao co-CEO resigns after mass outage locked 53 million users out
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A top executive at Kakao Corp., the operator of South Korea’s top mobile messenger KakaoTalk, will step down. His resignation comes after a fire at a data center led to a mass outage over the weekend and disrupted services for its messenger’s 53 million users worldwide.
Co-CEO Namkoong Whon apologized following the outage and said he would resign.
“I feel the heavy burden of responsibility over this incident and will step down from my position as CEO and lead the emergency disaster task force overseeing the aftermath of the incident,” Namkoong said at a press conference at the company’s office in the outskirts of Seoul on Wednesday.
“We will do our best to restore our users’ faith in Kakao and make sure incidents like these never happen again,” he said, according to a CNBC translation.
Namkoong was appointed CEO in March, according to the company’s website. Kakao reported 47.5 million monthly active users in Korea during the second quarter. That’s more than 90% of South Korea’s population of 51.74 million people, as of Nov. 1, 2021.
Hong Eun-taek, who led the company alongside Namkoong as co-CEO, will remain the sole head of the company, according to a company filing.
“We sincerely apologize to all those that have suffered from the disruptions during the outage,” Hong said as he bowed alongside Namkoong.
Shares of the company traded 4% higher in Korea’s morning session ahead of the press conference.
This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.
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There Was a Real Snake on a Plane via United Airlines at Newark
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As if people who are afraid of flying need something else to be worried about: There was, in fact, a snake on a plane.
Kevin Winter I Getty ImagesSamuel L. Jackson and snake at the premiere of the 2006 movie On Monday, a passenger found a snake under their seat after a plane landed at Newark Airport in New Jersey, according to CNN.
“Passengers in business class started shrieking and pulling their feet up” someone who was on the plane told CNN affiliate News 12 The Bronx.
The plane was traveling from Tampa to Newark on United. Staff on the plane were “alerted by passengers,” and then asked for assistance with the issue, the airline told CNN.
Police arrived at the gate to remove the snake which the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey told the outlet was of the garden variety — fitting that it was found in the Garden State.
In 2006, Samuel L. Jackson starred in the action thriller “Snakes on a Plane,” where passengers on an airplane were contending with vicious, violent snakes at the behest of a crime leader who did not want a witness onboard to testify about his crimes. Scores of people die in the cult classic.
It has a 69% Rotten Tomatoes score and received a positive review in the New York Times the year it was released.
“All anyone really needs to know about this amusingly crude, honestly satisfying artifact is snakes + plane + Samuel L. Jackson,” the outlet wrote.
Shockingly, this has actually happened before. In February, passengers on a flight from Malaysia faced a snake of uncertain provenance that somehow managed to get behind the overhead lights and went viral on TikTok, per USA Today.
Venomous snakes are not allowed on planes, but you can sometimes travel with non-poisonous ones as pets.
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Gabrielle Bienasz
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Netflix’s message to shareholders: Focus on revenue and profit, not subscriber adds
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Netflix logo
Mario Tama | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Netflix has a message for investors: start focusing on revenue and profit, and stop obsessing about subscriber growth.
Netflix made its argument with several pointed comments in its quarterly shareholder letter. The world’s largest streamer said it will stop forecasting paid subscriber adds. The company’s rationale behind the change is to get investors focused on revenue instead of customer growth.
“We are increasingly focused on revenue as our primary top line metric,” Netflix wrote as it reported third quarter earnings Tuesday. “This will become particularly important heading into 2023 as we develop new revenue streams like advertising and paid sharing, where membership is just one component of our revenue growth.”
Netflix will continue to provide guidance for revenue, operating income, operating margin and net income — traditional metrics of profitability — and it will still report subscriber adds each quarter. It just won’t forecast what’s to come.
Part of the change is motivated by the increasingly wide array of revenue per user. A given subscriber could be paying $6.99 per month for Netflix’s new advertising tier, which debuts in the U.S. on November 3, or $19.99 per month for Netflix’s premium, no-ad service.
“Focusing on subscribers in our early days was helpful, but now that we have such a wide range of price points and different partnerships all over the world, the economic impact of any given subscriber can be quite different,” Spencer Wang, Netflix’s vice president of finance, said during the company’s earnings call Tuesday. “That’s particularly true if you’re trying to compare our business with our streaming services.”
Theoretically, Netflix’s advertising tier and coming crackdown on password sharing should reinvigorate subscriber growth. But Netflix, which gained 2.4 million subscribers in the third quarter on an “especially strong” content slate, led by “Stranger Things 4,” may see quarters with 10 million or more subscriber adds as a relic of the past.
Focusing on Netflix’s strengths
Instead of operating in a world filled with comparisons to a pandemic era fueled by surging growth, Netflix is attempting to steer investor focus to the fact that its streaming service actually makes money. Netflix directly addressed this point in the “Competition” section of its shareholder letter.
“It’s hard to build a large and profitable streaming business – our best estimate is that all of these competitors are losing money on streaming, with aggregate annual direct operating losses this year alone that could be well in excess of $10 billion, compared with our +$5-$6 billion of annual operating profit,” Netflix wrote.
In other words: Netflix is saying it has built a great streaming business, while Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, Comcast‘s NBCUniversal, Paramount Global, and others want to build a great streaming business. Netflix acknowledged some of their competitors may get there, through consolidation and price hikes.
This is a clear competitive advantage for Netflix, unlike subscriber adds, where Disney — earlier in its growth cycle, having launched Disney+ in 2019 — has the upper hand. Disney added 14.4 million Disney+ customers last quarter while Netflix lost 970,000.
Netflix shares surged after hours, rising 14%. The company is once again adding subscribers after losing customers in the first and second quarters. Next quarter, Netflix said it will add 4.5 million more customers.
But Netflix says we’re not supposed to be focused on that anymore. The question is whether investors will listen.
Disclosure: Comcast’s NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.
WATCH: Pleasant surprises in this market are most welcome, says Netflix investor
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