Tag: Regulation/Government Policy

Trump subpoena withdrawn by Jan. 6 select committee

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Jan. 6 committee has dropped its subpoena against former President Donald Trump as it wraps up work and prepares to dissolve next week.

Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee’s Democratic chairman, wrote in a letter to Trump lawyer David Warrington on Wednesday that he is formally withdrawing the subpoena. “As you may know, the Select Committee has concluded its hearings, released its final report and will very soon reach its end,” Thompson wrote. “In light of the imminent end of our investigation, the Select Committee can no longer pursue the specific information covered by the subpoena.”

The committee had voted to subpoena Trump during its final televised hearing before the midterm elections in October, demanding testimony and documents from the former president as it has investigated his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and efforts to overturn his 2020 defeat.

Lawmakers on the panel have acknowledged the subpoena would be difficult to enforce, especially as Republicans are poised to take over the House in January. But the move had political and symbolic value.

“We are obligated to seek answers directly from the man who set this all in motion,” Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the panel’s vice chair and one of two Republicans on the nine-member committee, said at the time. “And every American is entitled to those answers.”

Trump then sued the panel in November to avoid cooperating. The lawsuit contended that while former presidents have voluntarily agreed to provide testimony or documents in response to congressional subpoenas in the past, “no president or former president has ever been compelled to do so.”

The committee’s request for documents was sweeping, including personal communications between Trump and members of Congress as well as extremist groups. Trump’s attorneys said it was overly broad and framed it as an infringement of his First Amendment rights.

While the panel never gained Trump’s testimony, the committee interviewed more than 1,000 witnesses, including most of his closest White House aides and allies.

Many of those witnesses provided substantive detail about his efforts to sway state legislators, federal officials and lawmakers to help him overturn his defeat. And White House aides who were with him on Jan. 6 told the panel about his resistance to tell the violent mob of his supporters to leave the Capitol after they had broken in and interrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.

In its final report issued last week, the committee concluded that Trump engaged in a “multipart conspiracy” to upend the 2020 election and failed to act on the violence. The panel also recommended that the Justice Department investigate the former president for four separate crimes, including aiding an insurrection.

On social media Wednesday evening, Trump and his lawyers construed the move as a victory. “They probably did so because they knew I did nothing wrong, or they were about to lose in Court,” Trump wrote on his social-media site. He called the panel “political Thugs.”

On Twitter, Trump lawyer Harmeet Dhillon said the panel had “waved the white flag.”

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December 29, 2022
China could face tens of millions of new COVID cases every day as restrictions are lifted

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While many are cheering China’s scrapping of its stringent zero-COVID policy earlier this month, an increasing number of reports suggest that the latest official tallies of new cases only represent a fraction of the real numbers.

On Friday — before announcing over the weekend that it would no longer provide daily COVID data — China reported about 4,000 new cases for the entire country, as the New York Times reported.

At the same time, local media reported that a health official said there were about half a million cases a day in the city of Qingdao alone. The city of Dongguan estimated it was seeing about 250,000 to 300,000 new cases a day, and the city of Yulin reported 157,000 new cases last Friday, the New York Times report said.

A public-health expert at the University of Hong Kong said that based on data from Hong Kong’s COVID outbreak earlier this year, China could be facing tens of millions of new cases a day, the New York times report said.

That jibes with other reports that some hospitals in China are being overwhelmed with severe cases. Vaccination rates in the country have been relatively low, especially among the elderly.

Even as reports of a nationwide surge in cases increase, so do reports of restrictions that are being lifted.

On Wednesday, Hong Kong will stop requiring PCR COVID tests for arriving travelers and will also end the requirement for vaccine passes in order to enter some public venues.

The lifting of the requirements come as government data showed that 95% of Hong Kong’s population have had at least one shot of a COVID vaccine, while 83% have had three doses.

In the U.S., 80.8% of Americans have had at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, 69% of the population has been fully vaccinated, but only 14.6% have received an updated bivalent booster dose.

For new COVID cases, the seven-day average ticked up to 67,215 on Tuesday from 66,014 on Monday and has edged up 2% from two weeks ago, according to a New York Times tracker.

The daily average for COVID-related hospitalizations was 39,432 on Tuesday, down from 40,156 the day before and down 1% from two weeks ago. Deaths dropped to a two-week low of 388, down 18% from two weeks ago.

On a negative note, the test-positivity rate rose to a four-month high above 14%, which suggests that many new COVID infections are not being reported.

The New York Times

The number of COVID-related patients in intensive-care units fell to 4,871 on Tuesday from Monday’s 4½-month high of 4,931 but has increased 8% from two weeks ago.

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December 28, 2022
Whitmer abduction plot co-leader sentenced to 16 years in federal prison

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GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — The co-leader of a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was sentenced Wednesday to 16 years in prison for conspiring to abduct the Democrat and blow up a bridge to ease an escape.

Adam Fox returned to federal court Tuesday, four months after he and Barry Croft Jr. were convicted of conspiracy charges at a second trial in Grand Rapids, Mich.

They were accused of being at the helm of a wild plot to whip up anti-government extremists just before the 2020 presidential election. Their arrest, as well as the capture of 12 others, was a stunning coda to a tumultuous year of racial strife and political turmoil in the U.S.

The government had pushed for a life sentence, saying Croft offered bomb-making skills and ideology while Fox was the “driving force urging their recruits to take up arms, kidnap the governor and kill those who stood in their way.”

But Judge Robert J. Jonker said that while Fox’s sentence was needed as a punishment and deterrent to future similar acts, the government’s request for life in prison is “not necessary to achieve those purposes.”

See: ‘I love state government’: Michigan’s re-elected Democratic governor throws cold water on talk of national prospects

“It’s too much. Something less than life gets the job done in this case,” Jonker said, later adding that 16 years in prison “is still in my mind a very long time.”

In addition to the 16-year prison sentence, Fox will have to serve five years of supervised release.

Fox and Croft were convicted at a second trial in August, months after a different jury in Grand Rapids couldn’t reach a verdict but acquitted two other men. Croft, a trucker from Bear, Del., will be sentenced Wednesday.

Fox and Croft in 2020 met with like-minded provocateurs at a summit in Ohio, trained with weapons in Michigan and Wisconsin and took a ride to “put eyes” on Whitmer’s vacation home with night-vision goggles, according to evidence.

“People need to stop with the misplaced anger and place the anger where it should go, and that’s against our tyrannical … government,” Fox declared that spring, boiling over COVID-19 restrictions and perceived threats to gun ownership.

Whitmer wasn’t physically harmed. The FBI, which was secretly embedded in the group, broke things up by fall.

“They had no real plan for what to do with the governor if they actually seized her. Paradoxically, this made them more dangerous, not less,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler said in a court filing ahead of the hearing.

In 2020, Fox, 39, was living in the basement of a Grand Rapids–area vacuum shop, the site of clandestine meetings with members of a paramilitary group and an undercover FBI agent. His lawyer said he was depressed, anxious and smoking marijuana daily.

Christopher Gibbons said a life sentence would be extreme.

Fox was regularly exposed to “inflammatory rhetoric” by FBI informants, especially Army veteran Dan Chappel, who “manipulated not only Fox’s sense of ‘patriotism’ but also his need for friendship, acceptance and male approval,” Gibbons said in a court filing.

He said prosecutors had exaggerated Fox’s capabilities, saying he was poor and lacked the capability to obtain a bomb and carry out the plan.

Two men who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and testified against Fox and Croft received substantial breaks: Ty Garbin already is free after a 2½-year prison term, while Kaleb Franks was given a four-year sentence.

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer addresses the media after signing a state budget bill in July.

AP/Carlos Osorio/File

In state court, three men recently were given lengthy sentences for assisting Fox earlier in the summer of 2020. Five more are awaiting trial in Antrim County, where Whitmer’s vacation home is located.

When the plot was extinguished, Whitmer, a Democrat, blamed then-President Donald Trump, saying he had given “comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division.” In August, 19 months after leaving office, Trump said the kidnapping plan was a “fake deal.”

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December 27, 2022
China turns a corner on COVID as it lifts quarantines for foreigners

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China has turned a corner in its zero-Covid policy, lifting quarantines for foreign travelers from early next year, but that has come with cost as cases are surging and hospitals are packed.

The National Health Commission said over the weekend that it will drop the COVID-19 quarantine requirement for passengers arriving in China from abroad, starting Jan. 8. That was a major step in China’s lifting of the zero-COVID policy that have kept foreigners locked out, and its citizens locked in, for more than 2 1/2 years.

“It feels like China has turned the corner,” said Colm Rafferty, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, in a statement, as the Associated Press reported.

While many welcome the lifting of the zero-COVID policy, it has also triggered a surge in cases and has led to hospitals in many smaller cities and towns being overwhelmed. The jump in severe cases comes as China’s health authorities struggle to vaccinate the elderly, amid fears of potential side effects.

In other China COVID news, China Meheco Group Co., which distributes Pfizer Inc.’s
PFE,
-1.35%
Paxlovid COVID-19 vaccine in China, said over the weekend that Paxlovid can only be purchased at hospitals. That limits broader sales of the drug, including through e-commerce channels.

Back in the U.S., the latest data showed that the daily average of new cases and deaths have slipped during the Christmas holiday weekend, while hospitalizations have leveled off.

The seven-day average of new cases was 66,014 on Monday, according to a New York Times tracker. That’s down from 70,508 on Dec. 24, and down 1% from two weeks ago.

However, case counts could be artificially low during as officials who track the numbers take vacation for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. Also, rising test positivity rates suggest many new COVID cases are not reported, as many who test at home don’t report results to health officials.

The daily-average test positivity rate climbed to a four-month high of 14% on Monday, up 14% from two weeks ago.

COVID-related hospitalizations dipped to 40,156 on Monday from 40,969 on Saturday, but had ticked up 3% from two weeks ago. Meanwhile, COVID patients in intensive care units (ICUs) increased to a 4 1/2-month high of 4,931 on Monday, up 11% from two weeks ago.

The daily average of deaths eased to 426 on Monday from 428 on Christmas Eve, and has declined 9% in two weeks.

The number of Americans who have been fully vaccinated was 229.99 million, or 69% of the total population, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while only 14.6% of Americans have received the updated (bivalent) booster dose.

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December 27, 2022
WSJ News Exclusive | IRS Delays Gig-Tax Filing Rule for Side Hustles of More Than $600

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IRS Delays Gig-Tax Filing Rule for Side Hustles of More Than $600

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December 23, 2022
FTX co-founder Gary Wang, ex-Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison plead guilty to federal charges

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On the same day that that the Bahamas extradited FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried to the U.S. to face criminal charges, two former executives at FTX and Alameda Research pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal fraud charges.

Caroline Ellison, 28, the former chief executive of Alameda Research — the crypto trading company founded by Bankman-Fried — and Zixiao (Gary) Wang, 29, co-founder of crypto platform FTX and its former chief technology officer, were charged for their roles in contributing to the crypto platform’s collapse.

The pair each faced decades-long prison sentences if convicted, and pleaded guilty to charges that included wire fraud, securities fraud and commodities fraud in exchange for leniency. In a video Wednesday night, U.S. Attorney Damian Williams of the Southern District of New York said both were cooperating in the continuing investigation into FTX and Bankman-Fried.

Williams added that Bankman-Fried, 30, was in FBI custody and will appear in court in “as soon as possible,” and suggested more charges in the FTX case could be forthcoming.

“If you participated in misconduct at FTX or Alameda, now is the time to get ahead of it,” Williams said. “We are moving quickly and our patience is not eternal. … and we are far from done.”

In a parallel action, the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday also charged Ellison and Wang “for their roles in a multiyear scheme to defraud equity investors in FTX.”

According to the SEC complaint, Ellison helped manipulate the price of FTX-issued crypto token FTT, which served as collateral for undisclosed loans from FTX customers’ assets to Alameda. In addition, the SEC alleges Bankman-Fried misled customers by falsely claiming FTX was a safe trading platform with strict risk-mitigation measures.

The SEC claims Wang created software code to allow Alameda to divert FTX customers’ funds, and that Ellison used those funds for Alameda’s trading activity.

“As part of their deception, we allege that Caroline Ellison and Sam Bankman-Fried schemed to manipulate the price of FTT, an exchange crypto security token that was integral to FTX, to prop up the value of their house of cards,” SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a statement. “We further allege that Ms. Ellison and Mr. Wang played an active role in a scheme to misuse FTX customer assets to prop up Alameda and to post collateral for margin trading. When FTT and the rest of the house of cards collapsed, Mr. Bankman-Fried, Ms. Ellison, and Mr. Wang left investors holding the bag. Until crypto platforms comply with time-tested securities laws, risks to investors will persist. It remains a priority of the SEC to use all of our available tools to bring the industry into compliance.”

Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas last week after he was indicted by U.S. federal prosecutors, who allege he played a key role in the collapse of FTX, diverting billions of dollars of customer assets and defrauding investors, customers and lenders.

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December 21, 2022
Federal spending bill’s pandemic provisions: more public health data, no investigation into COVID’s origin
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COVID-19 cases are once again rising in the U.S., but how prepared are we for the next pandemic?

That’s a question worth asking. The $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill presented by lawmakers on Tuesday includes a pandemic preparedness package, which has provisions that aim to build up the stockpile of drugs and medical supplies, strengthen how the U.S. can predict, model and forecast infectious disease threats, and test out a loan repayment plan for workers with expertise in infectious diseases and emergency preparedness.
The package does not include a task force that would investigate the origins of SARS-CoV-2 or the $9 billion that President Joe Biden requested to address the ongoing pandemic.

“We are not fixing the things that led to a bad response over COVID, and we’re facing a serious possibility that new variants of concern could arise in China,” Dr. Zeke Emanuel, vice provost of global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania, told Axios.

COVID news to know:

Masks are coming back. Oakland is now requiring masks in government buildings, reports the San Francisco Chronicle, while New York City Mayor Eric Adams wore a mask on Tuesday during a press briefing telling New Yorkers to take precautions against circulating viruses. “The mayor is signaling to you that it is the socially conscious thing to do right now,” he said, according to the New York Times.

Germany sending COVID shots to China. Germany said Wednesday that it has shipped doses of the vaccine developed by BioNTech
BNTX,
+1.44%
and Pfizer
PFE,
+0.74%
to China, to be administered to Germans who live there, according to the Associated Press. The vaccine is not authorized for use in China.

At least 67,000 people in the U.S. are testing positive every day. That’s 24% higher than it was two weeks ago, according to a New York Times tracker. COVID hospitalization and deaths continue to increase, as well, with about 40,000 people in the hospital and 407 people dying every day. At the beginning of December, about 250 deaths were reported every day.

Few seniors in the U.S. are getting a booster. Nearly 95% of all Americans who are 65 years old and older got the primary series of COVID shots. But only 36% have opted to get the new bivalent boosters, which equally protect against the original strain of the virus and the BA.4/BA.5 subvariants. The rationale? They aren’t sure it works, can’t find it, or didn’t know it was available, according to the New York Times.
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December 21, 2022
China predicts COVID ‘normalcy’ within months, but experts forecast more than 1 million deaths

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China’s closely watched reopening is now causing concern as the number of new COVID-19 cases grows and the country reports the first deaths in several weeks.

Much of the news out of China this week is in stark contrast to zero COVID, the strict policy that was in place up until a month ago. In response to widespread protests, authorities have lifted many of the restrictions that limited how people in China were able to move, work and treat their illnesses.

Now some local governments are encouraging people with mild COVID to continue to work. Beijing reported five COVID deaths on Tuesday and two on Monday — the first COVID fatalities to be reported in the country in weeks. Cities like Guangzhou are expanding “fever clinics” that can handle up to 110,000 patients a day, up from 40,000. And basic cold medicines are in short supply.

Chinese authorities have reportedly told state media that the surge is part of an “exit wave” of cases, according to the Financial Times. A headline from Monday’s China Daily, an English-language news outlet in China, reads: “Virus experts expect normalcy by spring.”

Experts have predicted that millions of people in China will get sick, and up to 1.6 million people could die in 2023.

COVID news to know:

• In the U.S., it’s still hard to find children’s cold medications. CVS Health
CVS,
-0.31%
and Walgreens Boots Alliance
WBA,
+0.95%
this week put limits on purchases of children’s cold and flu medicines in response to high demand amid a surge in cases of pediatric COVID, influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, according to the Wall Street Journal. This includes medications like acetaminophen and ibuprofen.

• Testing positive a second or third time may worsen long-COVID symptoms, according to a study published in Nature in November. However, it can be hard to predict how each new infection will affect an individual patient. “It makes sense that repeat infections would not be beneficial to a person’s health,” one doctor told WebMD. “But I think it’s really hard to know what the additional risk of each subsequent infection would be because there are all sorts of other things in the mix.”

• COVID hospitalizations are rising in the U.S. There are about 40,000 people hospitalized with COVID right now, a figure that is 11% higher than it was two weeks ago, according to the most recent update of a New York Times tracker. The numbers of new infections and COVID-related deaths are also rising this month. The seven-day daily average of new cases is about 66,000, while about 413 people are dying each day.

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December 20, 2022
Wells Fargo ordered to pay $3.7 billion for alleged mismanagement of auto loans, mortgages and deposit accounts

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The Consumer Financial Protection Board on Tuesday said it is requiring Wells Fargo & Co. to pay $3.7 billion as a result of alleged widespread mismanagement of auto loans, mortgages and deposit accounts.

The CFPB said Wells Fargo “repeatedly misapplied loan payments, wrongfully foreclosed on homes and illegally repossessed vehicles, incorrectly assessed fees and interest, charged surprise overdraft fees, along with other illegal activity affecting over 16 million consumer accounts.”

Wells Fargo
WFC,
-2.01%
has been ordered to pay more than $2 billion in redress to consumers in addition to a $1.7 billion civil penalty for legal violations.

“Consumers were illegally assessed fees and interest charges on auto and mortgage loans, had their cars wrongly repossessed, and had payments to auto and mortgage loans misapplied by the bank,” the CFBP said.

Wells Fargo did not admit wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

Wells Fargo CEO Charlie Scharf said the settlement marks an “important milestone in our work to transform the operating practices of Wells Fargo and to put these issues behind us.”

As a result of the settlement, the CFPB will terminate a 2016 consent order, Wells Fargo said.

The settlement will also provide clarity and a path forward for termination of a 2018 consent order and will underscore that the CFPB “recognizes recent acceleration of efforts,” the bank said.

“The CFPB recognized that since 2020, the company has accelerated corrective actions and remediation, including to address the matters covered by today’s settlement,” the bank said in a statement.

Wells Fargo warned it will book an operating-loss expense of $3.5 billion, or $2.8 billion net of tax, when it reports fourth-quarter results on Jan. 13.

“Wells Fargo has made significant progress in strengthening its risk and control infrastructure over the past several years,” the bank said.

Jefferies analyst Ken Usdin said in a research note that the CFPB action marks a “positive step in the regulatory improvement process” for Wells Fargo.

But he said Wells Fargo’s plan to book a fourth-quarter operating loss of $3.5 billion does not mean that the bank’s accrual for probable and estimable losses (RPL), which it discloses every quarter, will go to zero.

“We would hope that probable and estimated losses would decline somewhat after [the fourth quarter] given the magnitude of today’s settlement,” Usdin said. “[Wells Fargo’s] separate announcement that it will book $3.5 billion of operating losses in [the fourth quarter] suggests that only some of the CFPB-specific settlement was already reserved for. But this sizable [fourth-quarter] number also means that [Wells Fargo] has been booking losses for other actions along the way that are still open-ended.”

Scharf has been CEO of Wells Fargo since late 2019 and has been focusing on bringing the megabank into regulatory compliance.

While an asset cap has remained in place for Wells Fargo since 2018 as punishment for its phony-accounts scandal, other regulatory matters are now in the rear-view mirror.

In December 2021, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) terminated a consent order issued in 2015 regarding add-on products that the bank sold to retail banking customers.

A CFPB consent order issued in 2016 regarding the bank’s retail practices expired in 2021, and a 2015 consent order from the OCC regarding Wells Fargo’s bank-secrecy and anti-money-laundering compliance was terminated in January 2021.

Finally, a CFPB consent order issued in 2015 regarding claims that the bank violated the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act expired in January 2020.

Shares of Wells Fargo fell 0.3% on Tuesday. The stock is down 13.1% in 2022, compared with a 19.6% loss by the S&P 500
SPX,
+0.10%.

Also read: Fed banking supervisor eyes ‘holistic’ review of bank regulations while doubling down on protections they offer

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December 20, 2022
House Jan. 6 select committee expected to advise Justice Department to hit Trump with criminal charges

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The House Jan. 6 committee is wrapping up its investigation of the violent 2021 U.S. Capitol insurrection, with lawmakers expected to cap one of the most exhaustive and aggressive congressional probes in memory with an extraordinary recommendation: The Justice Department should consider criminal charges against former President Donald Trump.

At a final meeting on Monday, the panel’s seven Democrats and two Republicans are poised to recommend criminal charges against Trump and potentially against associates and staff who helped him launch a multifaceted pressure campaign to try to overturn the 2020 election.

Context: What to expect as House Jan. 6 panel readies final report on Trump’s ‘attempted coup’

Also: Jan. 6 select committee to review referral recommendations from Cheney, Raskin, Schiff and Lofgren at Monday session

While a criminal referral is mostly symbolic, with the Justice Department ultimately deciding whether to prosecute Trump or others, it is a decisive end to a probe that had an almost singular focus from the start.

“I think the president has violated multiple criminal laws and I think you have to be treated like any other American who breaks the law, and that is you have to be prosecuted,” Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from Southern California and a member of the panel, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

The panel, set to dissolve on Jan. 3 with the advent of a Republican-led House, has conducted more than 1,000 interviews, held 10 well-watched public hearings and collected more than a million documents since it launched in July 2021. As it has gathered the massive trove of evidence, the members have become emboldened in declaring that Trump is to blame for the violent attack on the Capitol by his supporters almost two years ago.

From the archives (June 2022): Fox News is notable exception as prime-time Jan. 6 committee hearing blankets TV airwaves

Also (July 2022): Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s live testimony before Jan. 6 select committee was a TV ratings hit: Nielsen data

After beating their way past police, injuring many of them, the Jan. 6 rioters stormed the Capitol and interrupted the certification of President Joe Biden’s win, echoing Trump’s lies about widespread election fraud and sending lawmakers and others running for their lives.

The attack came after weeks of Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat — a campaign that was extensively detailed by the committee in its multiple public hearings. Many of Trump’s former aides testified about his unprecedented pressure on states, federal officials and on Vice President Mike Pence to find a way to thwart the popular will.

“This is someone who in multiple ways tried to pressure state officials to find votes that didn’t exist, this is someone who tried to interfere with a joint session, even inciting a mob to attack the Capitol,” Schiff said. “If that’s not criminal, then I don’t know what it is.”

See: Justice Department urges judge to hold Trump’s legal team in contempt over Mar-a-Lago case

Members of the committee have said that the referrals for other individuals may also include ethics violations, legal misconduct and campaign finance violations. Lawmakers have suggested in particular that their recommended charges against Trump could include conspiracy to defraud the United States, obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress and insurrection.

On insurrection, Schiff said Sunday that “if you look at Donald Trump’s acts and you match them up against the statute, it’s a pretty good match.” He said that the committee will focus on those individuals — presumably Trump — for whom they believe there is the strongest evidence.

See: North Carolina state investigators say they’ve completed voter-fraud probe of Trump chief of staff Meadows

Also: Nevada elections department subpoenaed in Trump 2020 election investigation

And: Trump ally Kari Lake pursues formal challenge to loss in race for governor of Arizona

While a so-called criminal referral has no real legal standing, it is a forceful statement by the committee and adds to political pressure already on Attorney General Merrick Garland and special counsel Jack Smith, who is conducting an investigation into Jan. 6 and Trump’s actions.

The committee is also expected at the hearing to preview its massive final report, which will include findings, interview transcripts and legislative recommendations. Lawmaker have said a portion of that report will be released Monday.

“We obviously want to complete the story for the American people,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat and constitutional scholar who serves on the select committee. “Everybody has come on a journey with us and we want a satisfactory conclusion, such that people feel that Congress has done its job.”

The panel was formed in the summer of 2021 after Senate Republicans blocked the formation of what would have been a bipartisan, independent commission to investigate the insurrection. That opposition spurred the Democratic-controlled House to form a committee of its own. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of California, a Trump ally, decided not to participate after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rejected some of his appointments. That left an opening for two anti-Trump Republicans in the House — Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois — to join the seven Democrats serving on the committee.

From the archives (January 2021): Kevin McCarthy becomes poster boy for Republicans walking back their recent Trump criticism

While the committee’s mission was to take a comprehensive accounting of the insurrection and educate the public about what happened, they’ve also aimed their work at an audience of one: the attorney general. Lawmakers on the panel have openly pressured Garland to investigate Trump’s actions, and last month he appointed a special counsel, Smith, to oversee several probes related to Trump, including those related to the insurrection.

In court documents earlier this year, the committee suggested criminal charges against Trump could include conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding of Congress.

Wall Street Journal: Trump tax returns may be released after House panel meets Tuesday

In a “conspiracy to defraud the United States,” the committee argues that evidence supports an inference that Trump and his allies “entered into an agreement to defraud the United States” when they disseminated misinformation about election fraud and pressured state and federal officials to assist in that effort. Trump still says he won the election to this day.

The panel also asserts that Trump obstructed an official proceeding, the joint session of Congress in which the Electoral College votes are certified. The committee said Trump either attempted or succeeded at obstructing, influencing or impeding the ceremonial process on Jan. 6 and “did so corruptly” by pressuring Pence to try to overturn the results as he presided over the session. Pence declined to do so.

The committee may make ethics referrals for five House Republicans — including McCarthy — who ignored congressional subpoenas from the panel. Those referrals are unlikely to result in punishment since Republicans are set to take over the House majority in January.

Read on: McCarthy’s long-held speaker ambition set to come to a head when new Congress convenes in January

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December 19, 2022
White House preps fresh push to urge COVID preparedness ahead of holidays, including free tests for all households

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The White House has unveiled a fresh push to increase COVID preparedness heading into the holidays and will again make free tests available to Americans, after a three-month hiatus.

Starting Thursday, households can order four rapid virus tests through covidtest.gov, a senior administration official told the Associated Press.

Cases of COVID-19…

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December 15, 2022
SEC votes to propose major overhaul of U.S. stock-trading rules

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The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday voted to propose a package of rule changes, including measures that could affect, but not block, the controversial practice known as payment for order flow.

In this practice, brokers send many small orders from individual investors to market makers or other venues, who compensate the brokers for the order flow. The brokerage industry argues that the practice, which is banned in several countries, offers a net saving to investors, allowing for zero-commission trades and otherwise…

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December 14, 2022
Vanguard sees a recession in 2023 — and one ‘silver lining’ for investors

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The last 12 months was a year of fast-rising inflation, fast-rising interest rates and fast-rising questions about a future recession.

Prices went up while stock markets and savings account balances went down, leaving consumers and investors dizzy and their wallets hurting.

There may be more financial pain, that’s pretty sure — but it might not be as bad as feared, according to Vanguard’s look ahead to 2023.

The likely recession will not send jobless rates charging sharply higher, sticker shock will fade for the price of goods, and the rise in rent and mortgages will also ease, Vanguard said.

“On Tuesday, inflation data for November showed prices are continuing to cool. Analysts say that makes a 50-basis point increase, rather than a 75-basis-point increase, more likely.”

The good news: This opens up chances for stocks to rebound, the asset-manager added.

The outlook, released this week, comes as Americans are trying to guess what 2023 holds for their finances while they manage their holiday shopping budgets, and 2022 investments.

On Tuesday, inflation data for November showed prices are continuing to cool. From October to November, the cost of living nudged up 0.1%, lower than the 0.3% forecast, the Consumer Price Index showed. Year over year, the inflation rate receded to 7.1% from 7.7% in October, according to the CPI data.

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve will announce its latest decision on interest rate increases. A 50-basis point increase is widely expected after four jumbo-sized 75-basis point hikes from the central bank.

Here’s one roadmap for what’s next, as far as Vanguard’s researchers and experts can see.

Hot inflation will cool

Inflation rates during 2022 climbed to four-decade highs. There have been signs of easing, such as smaller-than-expected price increases in October.

“As we step into 2023, early signs of a recovery in goods supply and softening demand could help balance supply and demand for consumption goods and bring prices lower,” the authors noted ahead of Tuesday’s CPI numbers.

But the cost and demand of services are going to prevent a quick fall, they noted. Signs of slowing price increases are already emerging in rents and mortgages, but they will take longer to ease than prices of consumer goods, the authors said.

That echoes the view from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, who said Sunday there will be “much lower inflation,” absent any unanticipated shocks to the economy.

But while hot inflation will cool, it will still be warm to the touch. The Fed says 2% inflation is its target goal; Vanguard sees 3% inflation by the end of 2023.

A recession is very much on the cards

As “generationally high inflation” slowed economies across the world, the Fed and other central banks have countered with interest-rate increases to tame price increases. That “will ultimately succeed, but at a cost of a global recession in 2023,” according to Vanguard’s report. Vanguard sees a 90% chance of a recession in the United States by the end of next year.

Vanguard is hardly alone in the recession call, so the question is how bad could the big picture look?

In Vanguard’s view, it’s not so bad. “Households, businesses, and financial institutions are in a much better position to handle the eventual downturn, such that drawing parallels with the 1970s, 1980s, 2008, or 2020 seems misplaced,” the authors wrote.

Job losses may be clustered

For now, the jobless rate in a tight labor market is 3.7%, which is just a little above the lowest levels in five decades. That stands against the headline-grabbing list of companies where layoffs are mounting, notably in the tech sector.

When a recession, in all likelihood, lands next year, “unemployment may peak around 5%, a historically low rate for a recession,” the Vanguard outlook said. As interest rates climb, the job losses “should be most concentrated in the technology and real estate sectors, which were among the strongest beneficiaries of the zero-rate environment.”

The unemployment rate going from 3.7% to the 5% vicinity is “a sizable move,” Roger Aliaga-Díaz, Americas chief economist for Vanguard, said in a Monday press conference on the report. “But it is less dramatic of a rise than compared to past recessions perhaps.”

Spotting the opportunities

When interest rates go up, bond prices go down. So it’s been difficult for bonds with lower returns and “near-term pain” for investors this year, the Vanguard outlook said.

“However the bright side of higher rates is higher interest payments. These have led our return expectations for U.S. and international bonds to increase by more than twofold,” the report said.

Vanguard said U.S. bond return projections could be 4.1% – 5.1% annually over the next year versus its 1.4% – 2.4% return estimate last year. For U.S. stocks, the forecast could be 4.7% – 6.7% annually, while returns in emerging market equities could be between 7% and 9%.

On Tuesday morning, stock markets are soaring higher on the cooler than expected inflation data, igniting hopes of an end of year Santa Claus rally.

“‘There’s one silver lining of our outlook for a modest global recession. And it’s the clear silver lining of higher expected returns for investors.’”

— Joseph Davis, Vanguard’s chief global economist

Still, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
+0.30%
is down nearly 5% year to date. The S&P 500
SPX,
+0.73%
is off 14% in that time and for the Nasdaq Composite
COMP,
+0.38%
is down more than 26%.

When the market hits bottom is impossible to know, the outlook said — but it noted “valuations and yields are clearly more attractive than they were a year ago.”

“There’s one silver lining of our outlook for a modest global recession. And it’s the clear silver lining of higher expected returns for investors,” said Joseph Davis, Vanguard’s chief global economist.

“We’re long concerned that the low rate environment was both unsustainable and ultimately a tax and a headwind for savers and long term investors,” Davis said.

But even with all the turbulence this year, “we certainly are starting to see the dividends to higher real interest rates around the world in the higher projected returns that we anticipate for investors over the coming decade.”

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December 13, 2022
Omicron subvariants are now dominant in the U.S. as COVID cases tick up and New York City becomes a hot spot

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Omicron subvariants continued to account for more new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. in the latest week than did BA.5, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, which are sublineages of BA.5, accounted for 67.9% of cases in the week through Dec. 10, while BA.5 accounted for 11.5%, the data show.

Last week, BQ.1.1 and BQ.1 accounted for 62.8% of all cases in the U.S., while BA.5 accounted for 13.8%.

In the New York region, which includes New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, the numbers were even higher, with BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 accounting for 73.3% of new cases, compared with 10% for BA.5.

In the previous week, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 accounted for 72.4% of all cases, compared with 6.9% for BA.5.

New York City is again emerging as a hot spot for COVID, according to a New York Times tracker, which shows cases up about 60% in recent weeks and hospitalizations at their highest level since February.

The test-positivity rate in New York City stood at 13% on Thursday, the tracker shows.

Overall, known U.S. cases are up 53% from two weeks ago. The daily average for hospitalizations is up 30% at 37,066, while the daily average for deaths is up 35% to 460.

For now, the numbers remain far below the peaks seen last winter, when omicron first hit, but with flu and other respiratory infections currently sweeping the country and affecting young children, experts are warning people to take precautions.

Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

• A rash of COVID-19 cases in schools and businesses was reported by social-media users Friday in areas across China. This comes after the ruling Communist Party loosened its antivirus rules as it tries to reverse a deepening economic slump, the Associated Press reported. Official data showed a fall in new cases, but after the government on Wednesday ended mandatory testing for many people, those data no longer cover large parts of the population. That was among the dramatic changes aimed at gradually emerging from the zero-COVID restrictions that have confined millions of people to their homes and sparked protests and demands for President Xi Jinping to resign.

• U.S.-listed shares of China Jo-Jo Drugstores Inc.
CJJD,
+51.20%
rallied on Friday as the stores filled with customers buying cold medicines after COVID restrictions were eased, MarketWatch’s Jaimy Lee reported. The stock was up 22%. The company, which is based in Hangzhou, China, operates drugstores and an online pharmacy in China. It is also a wholesale distributor of pharmacy products and grows and sells herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine.

Some movie theaters in China reopened and COVID-testing booths were dismantled ahead of an announcement by authorities on Wednesday that will scrap most testing and quarantine requirements. The changes come after nationwide protests against Beijing’s zero-COVID policy. Photo: Ng Han Guan/Associated Press

• Pfizer
PFE,
-0.12%
and German partner BioNTech
BNTX,
-0.88%
have received fast-track designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a single-dose mRNA-based vaccine candidate targeting both COVID and flu. The companies have already announced that they are in early-stage trials to review the safety and immunogenicity of their combined vaccine in healthy adults. The vaccine will target the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron sublineages, which have become dominant globally, as well as four different flu strains recommended for use in the Northern Hemisphere by the World Health Organization. If approved, the vaccine would be the first to target both COVID and flu.

• A bill to rescind the COVID vaccine mandate for members of the U.S. military and to provide nearly $858 billion for national defense was passed by the House on Thursday as lawmakers scratch one of the final items off their yearly to-do list, the AP reported. The bill provides about $45 billion more for defense programs than President Joe Biden requested, the second consecutive year Congress has significantly exceeded his request, as lawmakers seek to boost the nation’s military competitiveness with China and Russia. The bill is expected to easily pass the Senate and then be signed into law by Biden.

Here’s what the numbers say:

The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 648 million on Friday, while the death toll rose above 6.65 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. leads the world with 99.4 million cases and 1,084,236 fatalities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 228.6 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.9% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.

So far, just 42 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 13.5% of the overall population.

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December 9, 2022
FTC sues to block Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of game giant Activision Blizzard

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The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday sued Microsoft Corp. to block its $69 billion deal to buy Activision Blizzard Inc.

The acquisition, which would be Microsoft’s
MSFT,
+1.07%
largest and the biggest ever in the video gaming industry, would “enable Microsoft to suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription content and cloud-gaming business,” the FTC claimed.

“Microsoft has already shown that it can and will withhold content from its gaming rivals,” Holly Vedova, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Competition, said in a statement. “Today we seek to stop Microsoft from gaining control over a leading independent game studio and using it to harm competition in multiple dynamic and fast-growing gaming markets.”

FTC members pointed to Microsoft’s record of “acquiring and using valuable gaming content to suppress competition from rival consoles,” including its acquisition of ZeniMax, parent company of Bethesda Softworks.

Microsoft President Brad Smith indicated the software giant will fight the lawsuit. In a statement, he said Microsoft has “been committed since Day One to addressing competition concerns.”

“While we believed in giving peace a chance, we have complete confidence in our case and welcome the opportunity to present our case in court,” Smith said.

Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, in a statement, said the suit “sounds alarming, so I want to reinforce my confidence that this deal will close. The allegation that this deal is anti-competitive doesn’t align with the facts, and we believe we’ll win this challenge.”

Still, In recent weeks Microsoft has taken steps to demonstrate to regulators its acquisition of Activision would not give it an unfair advantage in the gaming market. On Tuesday, Microsoft said it would bring the “Call of Duty” franchise to Nintendo Co.’s
7974,
-1.31%
Switch, a rival of Microsoft Xbox, and Microsoft has said it would make Call of Duty available on rival Sony Group Corp.’s
SONY,
-0.06%
PlayStation.

“It’s a bad idea,” Geoffrey Manne, president of the International Center for Law and Economics, said of the FTC’s lawsuit vs. Microsoft. “There may be markets in which some activities of some of these large tech companies cause concerns, but when they are expanding into new markets or enhancing competition in markets where they aren’t leaders, we should be encouraging them, not threatening them with lawsuits.”

The government’s action in administrative court marks the first serious regulatory threat to Microsoft’s business in more than two decades, when the Justice Department brought a landmark antitrust lawsuit against the software giant that took years and was settled in 2002. Since then, Microsoft had sidestepped antitrust scrutiny and Smith in particular has focused the glare on its tech rivals Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
+2.24%,
Apple Inc.
AAPL,
+1.19%,
Alphabet Inc.’s
GOOGL,
-0.94%

GOOG,
-0.89%
Google, and Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc.
META,
+1.26%.

Read more: Microsoft’s shadowy presence in antitrust push is angering the rest of Big Tech

Shares of Microsoft are up 1% in trading Thursday. Activision’s
ATVI,
-1.33%
stock is down 1.5%.

The FTC’s lawsuit comes the same day it is heading to court in San Jose, Calif., in what is expected to be a three-week trial to bloc Meta’s $300 million acquisition of VR fitness app maker Within.

The trial is likely to showcase an intriguing look at the agency’s ability to stifle alleged anticompetitive conduct using largely untested legal theories at a time when Congress is sitting on tech antitrust legislation.

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December 8, 2022
Landmark bill protecting same-sex and interracial marriages passes House

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The House gave final approval Thursday to legislation protecting same-sex marriages, a monumental step in a decadeslong battle for nationwide recognition of such unions that reflects a stunning turnaround in societal attitudes.

President Joe Biden is expected to promptly sign the measure, which requires all states to recognize same-sex marriages, a relief for hundreds of thousands of couples who have married since the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision that legalized those marriages nationwide.

The bipartisan legislation, which passed 258-169, would also protect interracial unions by requiring states to recognize legal marriages regardless of “sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin.”

In debate ahead of the vote, several gay members of Congress talked about what it would mean for them and their families. Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., said he was set to marry “the love of my life” next year and that it is “unthinkable” that his marriage might not be recognized in some states.

Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., said he and his husband should be able to visit each other in the hospital just like any other married couple and receive spousal benefits “regardless of if your spouse’s name Samuel or Samantha.”

Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., said that the idea of marriage equality used to be a “far-fetched idea; now it’s the law of the land and supported by the vast majority of Americans.”

While the bill received GOP votes, most Republicans opposed the legislation and some conservative advocacy groups lobbied aggressively against it, arguing that it doesn’t do enough to protect those who want to refuse services for same-sex couples.

“God’s perfect design is indeed marriage between one man and one woman for life,” said Rep. Bob Good, R-Va. “And it doesn’t matter what you think or what I think, that’s what the Bible says.”

Rep. Vicky Hartzler, R-Mo., choked up as she begged colleagues to vote against the bill, which she said undermines “natural marriage” between a man and a woman.

“I’ll tell you my priorities,” Hartzler said. “Protect religious liberty, protect people of faith and protect Americans who believe in the true meaning of marriage.”

Democrats moved the bill quickly through the House and Senate after the Supreme Court’s June decision that overturned the federal right to an abortion. That ruling included a concurring opinion from Justice Clarence Thomas that suggested same-sex marriage should also be reconsidered.

The House passed a bill to protect the same-sex unions in July with the support of 47 Republicans, a robust and unexpected show of support that kick-started serious negotiations in the Senate. After months of talks, the Senate passed the legislation last week with 12 Republican votes.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., presided over the vote as one of her last acts in leadership before stepping aside in January. She said the legislation “will ensure that “the federal government will never again stand in the way of marrying the person you love.”

The legislation would not require states to allow same-sex couples to marry, as the Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges decision now does. But it would require states to recognize all marriages that were legal where they were performed and it would protect current same-sex unions if the Obergefell decision were overturned.

While it’s not everything advocates may have wanted, passage of the legislation represents a watershed moment. Just a decade ago, many Republicans openly campaigned on blocking same-sex marriages; today more than two-thirds of the public support them.

Democrats in the Senate, led by Wisconsin’s Tammy Baldwin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, slowly won over key Republican votes by negotiating an amendment that would clarify that the legislation does not affect the rights of private individuals or businesses that are already enshrined in current law. The amended bill would also make clear that a marriage is between two people, an effort to ward off some far-right criticism that the legislation could endorse polygamy.

In the end, several religious groups, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, came out in support of the bill. The Mormon church said it would support rights for same-sex couples as long as they didn’t infringe upon religious groups’ right to believe as they choose.

Conservative groups that opposed the bill pushed the almost four dozen Republicans who previously backed the legislation to switch their position. The Republicans who supported the bill in July represented a wide range of the GOP caucus — from more moderate members to Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, the chair of the conservative hard-right House Freedom Caucus, and New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the No. 3 House Republican. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy voted against the measure.

Thursday’s vote came as the LGBTQ community has faced violent attacks, such as the shooting earlier this month at a gay nightclub in Colorado that killed five people and injured at least 17.

“We have been through a lot,” said Kelley Robinson, the incoming president of the advocacy group Human Rights Campaign. But Robinson says the votes show “in such an important way” that the country values LBGTQ people.

“We are part of the full story of what it means to be an American,” said Robinson, who was inside the Senate chamber for last week’s vote with her wife and young son. “It really speaks to them validating our love.”

The vote was personal for many senators, too. The day the bill passed their chamber, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was wearing the tie he wore at his daughter’s wedding to another woman. He recalled that day as “one of the happiest moments of my life.”

Baldwin, the first openly gay senator who has been working on gay rights issues for almost four decades, tearfully hugged Schumer as the final vote was underway. She tweeted thanks to the same-sex and interracial couples who she said made the moment possible.

“By living as your true selves, you changed the hearts and minds of people around you,” she wrote.

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December 8, 2022
Democratic incumbent Warnock wins Georgia’s Senate runoff election — here’s why it matters

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Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia has defeated his Republican challenger Herschel Walker in their closely watched runoff election, according to an Associated Press projection.

While Democrats already had maintained their grip on the Senate by winning other crucial races in last month’s midterm elections, Warnock’s win means his party will have a 51-49 majority in the Senate for the next two years of President Joe Biden’s term.

That’s an upgrade from their situation over the past two years, when the chamber has been split 50-50, and they’ve controlled it only because Vice President Kamala Harris can cast tiebreaking votes.

Democrats now are expected to adjust ratios on Senate committees so they have a one-vote majority on each panel. Currently, committee ratios are set at 50-50 to reflect the chamber’s split.

A Stifel analyst has warned investors that committees next year could end up issuing subpoenas without Republican support, increasing headline risk for some sectors such as tech
XLK,
-2.14%,
social media
SOCL,
-2.05%,
financials
XLF,
-0.88%
and healthcare
XLV,
-0.76%.

A 51-49 Senate also is expected to lessen the influence of two moderate Democratic senators — West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema.

Manchin derailed Biden’s Build Back Better package a year ago, and Democratic-run Washington ended up passing a scaled-back measure in August. Sinema’s recent moves, meanwhile, have included successfully opposing changes to the so-called carried-interest loophole that allows private-equity firms to pay lower tax rates.

Walker’s loss is another blow for Donald Trump as the former president ramps up his 2024 White House campaign. Trump already saw other allies flop in their Senate midterm races, with, for example, Mehmet Oz coming up short in Pennsylvania and Blake Masters going down in Arizona.

Warnock had been favored to win by betting markets such as PredictIt, but Cook Political Report said the contest would be close and rated it as a toss-up.

Walker faced criticism from both Democrats and Republicans for his past treatment of women and gaffes while campaigning.

Related: Second woman claims Herschel Walker pressured her to have abortion

The former football star’s loss means the 2022 midterms end on a downbeat note for Republicans, and that’s after their hopes for a red wave were dashed. The GOP took control of the House of Representatives, but will have a slim majority in that chamber.

Analysts had said voters appeared increasingly focused on issues on which Republicans claimed high ground such as inflation. But exit polls on Nov. 8 suggested the party performed worse than expected because many Democrats and independents voted partly to show their disapproval of Trump — and those voters were energized by the Supreme Court’s June decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.

See: Anti-Trump vote and Dobbs abortion ruling boost Democrats in 2022 election

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December 6, 2022
Interactive: Here are the politicians who received money from FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried

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Sam Bankman-Fried opened up his wallet to Washington in a big way during the 2022 election cycle, donating about $40 million publicly.

So which politicians got money from the founder and former CEO of collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX?

MarketWatch has compiled an interactive list below of the candidates and committees who received funds from Bankman-Fried based on the latest disclosures to the Federal Election Commission.

Overall, he gave almost all of the $40 million to Democratic politicians or groups, and just over $200,000 to Republicans, according to the disclosures.

In a wide-ranging interview at the New York Times Dealbook Summit last week, Bankman-Fried said donations were made to candidates who voiced support for pandemic prevention.

At least two Democratic senators received over $20,000 each from Bankman-Fried through joint political action committees tied to their candidacies. Those are Michigan’s Debbie Stabenow and New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan. New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand got at least $10,000. Gillibrand is the co-sponsor of a crypto bill that would have the Commodity Futures Trading Commission oversee bitcoin, ether and most other digital assets and give a secondary regulatory role to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In the wake of FTX’s collapse, politicians have been saying they will donate or have donated the money that they received from SBF to charities or other groups, or they’re giving it back.

Gillibrand spokesman Evan Lukaske said the senator donated her funds to Ariva Inc., a Bronx-based nonprofit that offers free financial counseling. Stabenow, whose own bill empowering the CFTC to regulate crypto was backed by Bankman-Fried, plans to donate the contributions to a local charity. A representative for Sen. Hassan did not respond to requests for comment.

Related: ‘Bedazzled by money’: Democratic ties to Sam Bankman-Fried under scrutiny after FTX collapse

While 50 Democratic House and Senate candidates received donations, only eight Republican Senate candidates received money from the former CEO.

SBF — known for being a Democratic megadonor — has claimed he made contributions that don’t show up in FEC disclosures. He told video blogger Tiffany Fong that he donated as much to Republicans as he did to Democrats, but the GOP donations were “dark-money” contributions, making his claim difficult to verify. Such secret contributions, allowed by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, wouldn’t show up in the FEC disclosures used to compile MarketWatch’s list.

Another FTX exec, Ryan Salame, became known as a Republican megadonor earlier this year, with a MarketWatch analysis in October finding that he publicly gave about $17 million to GOP groups.

Use our interactive below to search through donations as reported to the FEC.

Donations also filtered into committees associated with Bankman-Fried himself — Guarding Against Pandemics and GMI PAC.

MarketWatch’s Victor Reklaitis contributed to this story.

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December 6, 2022
U.S. COVID cases are climbing again as new omicron variants spread

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COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the U.S. are rising and intensive-care-unit beds are being filled again, in a trend that may spell an end to the stable period the country experienced during the fall months.

The daily average of new cases was up 22% on Thursday from two weeks ago, to 49,070, according to a New York Times tracker. Cases are rising in 40 states, led by Oklahoma, where they are up 89% from two weeks ago.

The daily average for hospitalizations is up 21% from two weeks ago to 33,708, although as always, the trend is not uniform across the nation. Louisiana is the state with the highest increase in hospitalizations, up 109% from two weeks ago, followed by California, where they have climbed 66%.

Visits to the ICU are up 17%, while test-positivity rates are up 29%, to 10%, the tracker shows. On a brighter note, the daily average for deaths is down 3% to 274.

Experts are warning that new omicron subvariants are on the rise and are quickly replacing earlier ones.

The most recent data release from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that the BQ.1.1 and BQ.1 sublineages of BA.5 accounted for 62.8% of all cases in the U.S. in the week through Dec. 3, exceeding the 13.8% of cases caused by BA.5.

That was up from 57.3% of cases in the week through Nov. 26, when 19.4% of cases were caused by BA.5.

In the New York region, which includes New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, those numbers were even higher, with BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 accounting for 72.4% of all cases, compared with 6.9% for BA.5.

That was up from the prior week, when BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 accounted for 70.8% of all cases, compared with 10.4% for BA.5.

See now: Elon Musk may want employees back in the office, but 29% of Americans still work from home

For now, the new sublineages have not been shown to be likely to cause more severe disease than earlier ones, but they are more transmissible, which is why they have become dominant.

Experts continue to urge people to get their updated booster, which is the best protection against developing severe COVID or dying of it.

Coronavirus Update: MarketWatch’s daily roundup has been curating and reporting all the latest developments every weekday since the coronavirus pandemic began

Other COVID-19 news you should know about:

• Local governments in China are facing a new challenge in the battle against COVID: They are running out of cash needed to finance mass testing and enforce quarantines, CNN reported on Friday. The zero-COVID policy kept China out of recession in 2020, but now the bills are mounting, placing financial strain on municipal authorities across the world’s most populous nation, said CNN. For nearly three years, local governments have borne the brunt of enforcing pandemic controls.

• Former NBA star Jeremy Lin, who plays for a Chinese team, was fined 10,000 yuan ($1,400) for criticizing quarantine facilities, according to China’s professional league and a news report Friday, the AP reported. The ruling Communist Party is trying to crush criticism of the human cost and disruption of its zero-COVID strategy, which has confined millions of people to their homes.

Large protests erupted across China as crowds voiced their frustration over nearly three years of COVID-19 controls. Here’s how a deadly fire in Xinjiang sparked domestic upheaval and a political dilemma for Xi Jinping’s leadership. Photo: Thomas Peter/Reuters

• Formula One confirmed Friday that the Chinese Grand Prix will not take place in 2023, making it the fourth year in a row the race has been canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, the AP reported separately. “Formula One can confirm, following dialogue with the promoter and relevant authorities, that the 2023 Chinese Grand Prix will not take place due to the ongoing difficulties presented by the COVID-19 situation,” Formula One said in a statement.

• German doctors are warning that pediatric units are stretched to the breaking point in some hospitals in part due to rising cases of respiratory infections among infants, the AP reported. The intensive-care association DIVI said the seasonal surge in cases of respiratory syncytial virus and a shortage of nurses was causing a “catastrophic situation” in hospitals. RSV is a common, highly contagious virus that infects nearly all babies and toddlers by age 2, some of whom can fall seriously ill. Experts say the easing of coronavirus pandemic restrictions means RSV is currently affecting a larger number of babies and children whose immune systems aren’t primed to fend off the infection.

Physicians are reporting high numbers of respiratory illnesses like RSV and the flu earlier than the typical winter peak. WSJ’s Brianna Abbott explains what the early surge means for the winter months. Photo illustration: Kaitlyn Wang

Here’s what the numbers say:

The global tally of confirmed cases of COVID-19 topped 644.1 million on Friday, while the death toll rose above 6.63 million, according to data aggregated by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. leads the world with 98.9 million cases and 1,081,147 fatalities.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s tracker shows that 228.4 million people living in the U.S., equal to 68.8% of the total population, are fully vaccinated, meaning they have had their primary shots.

So far, just 39.7 million Americans have had the updated COVID booster that targets the original virus and the omicron variants, equal to 12.7% of the overall population.

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December 2, 2022
Senate passes bill to prevent rail strike, rejects measure providing paid sick leave

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The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted 80-15 in favor of a bill that would prevent a rail strike by imposing a deal on freight-rail workers, after rejecting a separate House-passed measure that would require rail companies to provide those workers with seven days of paid sick leave per year.

The vote for the bill imposing a deal keeps Washington on track to block a strike, as the House of Representatives passed it Wednesday. President Joe Biden is expected to sign the legislation into law given that he called on Monday for Congress to act.

Business groups have been warning that even a short-term strike would have a tremendous impact and cause economic pain.

The deal that would be imposed on rail employees includes a 24% increase in wages from 2020 through 2024, but workers have remained concerned about a lack of paid sick time.

In the vote on sick leave, there were 52 senators in favor, while 43 were opposed, and 60 votes for it were needed. A half dozen Republican senators were in favor, while Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia was the only Democrat in opposition.

“While I am sympathetic to the concerns union members have raised, I do not believe it is the role of Congress to renegotiate a collective bargaining agreement that has already been negotiated,” Manchin said in a statement.

Earlier Thursday, the Senate also voted against an amendment from Republican senators that aimed to deliver a cooling-off period so talks between rail companies and their workers could continue.

Railroad operators’ stocks finished with gains Tuesday as traders reacted to Washington’s moves to prevent a strike, but Norfolk Southern Corp.
NSC,
-0.05%,
CSX Corp.
CSX,
-0.03%
and Union Pacific Corp.
UNP,
-0.69%
all lost ground Thursday as the broad market
SPX,
-0.09%

DJIA,
-0.56%
closed mostly lower.

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December 1, 2022