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  • Microsoft to pay $20 million to settle Xbox Live privacy allegations | CNN Business

    Microsoft to pay $20 million to settle Xbox Live privacy allegations | CNN Business

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Microsoft will pay $20 million to settle US government allegations that the tech giant violated children’s privacy by illegally collecting their personal information through its Xbox Live gaming service.

    According to the Federal Trade Commission, Microsoft broke the law by failing to tell parents about the full breadth of information it gathered from kids under the age of 13.

    That information, the FTC said in a lawsuit filed Monday, included the fact that children may share images of themselves in their account profiles, as well as video and audio recordings of themselves, their real names and logs of their activity on the platform.

    Microsoft also allegedly kept for years the personal information of millions of people, including children, who started creating accounts with Xbox Live but who never completed the sign-up process.

    “Even when a user indicated that they were under 13, they were also asked, until late 2021, to provide additional personal information including a phone number and to agree to Microsoft’s service agreement and advertising policy, which until 2019 included a pre-checked box allowing Microsoft to send promotional messages and to share user data with advertisers,” the FTC said in a release.

    In a statement, Microsoft said: “We recently entered into a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to update our account creation process and resolve a data retention glitch found in our system. We are committed to complying with the order.”

    Parental settings give adults some control over what their children’s accounts show to other users. For example, Xbox Live’s default settings restrict who children can interact with on the service, the FTC said. But other default settings, the agency alleged, allow kids to access third-party games and apps with minimal friction.

    Microsoft failed to sufficiently disclose to parents what information the company was collecting from kids and how it was being used, the FTC said, alleging violations of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

    In agreeing to settle the claims, Microsoft committed to several additional measures beyond the financial penalty.

    Microsoft agreed to delete any personal information it collects from kids if they don’t complete the account registration process. It also agreed to tell third-party game publishers when a user may be a child, effectively putting the third-party publishers on notice to comply with COPPA in handling the user’s information.

    The settlement comes as the FTC has challenged Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition of video game giant Activision-Blizzard, a proposed deal that would turn Microsoft into the world’s third-largest game publisher and give it control over popular franchises such as “Call of Duty” and “World of Warcraft.”

    US and UK officials have alleged that Microsoft’s acquisition could give it anti-competitive control over the games industry by being able to withhold titles from rival platforms, particularly in the nascent cloud gaming sector. To address the concerns, Microsoft has struck licensing deals with other companies to ensure their customers continue to have access to Activision games following the deal’s close.

    Those concessions have convinced the European Union to approve the deal, but litigation to block the deal involving US and UK regulators remains ongoing.

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  • Anita Dunn, Biden’s brawler-in-chief, looks to 2024 | CNN Politics

    Anita Dunn, Biden’s brawler-in-chief, looks to 2024 | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Anita Dunn saw an opportunity with “Dark Brandon.”

    The liberal meme, created by Joe Biden’s most online fans as a play on the right-wing “Let’s Go Brandon” code bashing the president, depicts a grinning Biden with red lasers shooting out of his eyes. After Dunn, Biden’s top messaging and communications adviser, became aware of the meme, she brought it to the president – and they jumped on an opportunity to go on the offensive in the never-ending social media meme wars.

    He’s nodded to Dark Brandon in official speeches, aides have shared the image on social media, and his 2024 campaign is selling $32 T-shirts emblazoned with his online alter-ego. While it’s a minor part of his repertoire, it shows how Dunn – a longtime Democratic operative and Biden confidante – has used her influence to engage in the kind of street brawling needed to combat perceptions of the aging president and the challenge ahead as he seeks a second term.

    “It fits well with who she is, which is a f**k-sh*t-up-brawler. It’s not a coincidence that the stuff that came behind Dark Brandon was very much in line with Anita’s way of seeing the world,” Rob Flaherty, the White House’s director of digital strategy, told CNN.

    CNN spoke to more than a dozen current and former White House and administration officials, lawmakers and Democratic strategists – many of whom requested anonymity to speak freely – who paint a picture of Dunn as a deeply loyal aide with a big-picture view of Biden’s strategy – with a hand in nearly all aspects of his political life.

    Her instincts for brawling are now directly intertwined with the president’s political fortunes, as she bolsters an already expansive role as a presidential adviser with steering 2024 messaging from the White House. For a president who relies on a very tight circle of trusted advisers, sources say Dunn has emerged as a powerful chief political communicator, a key strategist and someone who will fight on his behalf. She takes these responsibilities on with a combination of deep experience and Biden’s trust.

    While sources both inside and outside the White House say no communicator is better prepared for the moment than Dunn, her messaging task ahead is massive: A high-profile candidate of Biden’s age has never run before, and the president is facing low approval ratings after two years in the White House, which could be a drag on his reelection campaign. With Biden widely expected to face a familiar, but powerful, foe in former President Donald Trump, the mission facing Biden’s advisers is to find a message that can resonate enough with voters to beat Trump again.

    Just a third of Americans (33%) say that Biden winning in 2024 would be a step forward or a triumph for the country, per a May CNN poll conducted by SSRS. Voters also have serious questions about Biden’s age – he’s 80 now, and would be 86 at the end of a potential second term. Recent Washington Post/ABC News polling indicates that nearly two-thirds of respondents feel that Biden lacks the mental sharpness (63%) or is not in good enough physical health (62%) to serve effectively as president.

    Those poll numbers mean that Dunn’s most important task ahead is to help the president communicate to an unconvinced American public why he deserves a second term. And that has given her a White House portfolio that is virtually unparalleled.

    “The circle is small and isn’t exactly expanding anytime soon. That makes voices like Anita’s carry a significant amount of weight,” a Biden adviser said.

    Ostensibly, Dunn’s White House role centers around messaging, political strategy, oversight and crisis communication on the key issues facing the White House.

    “Like the rest of the senior staff, Anita works to act on the strategies and agenda President Biden assigns for her portfolio,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said.

    She’s in close touch with Cabinet secretaries, members of Congress, outside groups and prospective candidates. A former Hill aide, Dunn is keenly aware of congressional dynamics, but her work inside the Obama White House has shaped her views on how to approach the daily challenges confronting the president.

    “She has this perch where she spans the overall strategic plan for (Biden) and for the White House, and also communicates outward with the political apparatus of the (Democratic National Committee) and the campaign and tries to keep the entire Joe Biden enterprise swimming in the same direction,” a White House aide said.

    She’s also playing an active role in Biden’s reelection campaign strategy, with multiple sources familiar with the dynamic indicating she is spearheading 2024 political messaging from the White House and coordinating with senior campaign staff.

    A former White House senior adviser put it more bluntly: When it comes to 2024, “she’s running everything.”

    Pressed in an interview with CBS News on how she will balance those two roles, Dunn declined to comment, citing the Hatch Act.

    “I’m going to be here at the White House serving the people,” she said. “I’m a White House employee, and I have a government job, and I will continue to do my government job.”

    For an incumbent president running for reelection, there is no commodity more valuable than time, especially time spent in front of the cameras, with an audience of critics looking for signs of fatigue. And with Biden officially jumping into the 2024 race, it’s expected that his current pace of activity will continue for the foreseeable future – using the bully pulpit to highlight key policies at the White House, visiting battleground states to showcase his accomplishments and traveling abroad to meet world leaders. That makes everything he says – and how and where he says it – part of an implicit reelection campaign.

    Dunn – in concert with a tight circle of aides, including White House chief of staff Jeff Zients, deputy chiefs of staff Jen O’Malley Dillon and Bruce Reed, senior adviser Mike Donilon, and counselor to the president Steve Ricchetti – is key to making those decisions and how to communicate them.

    For instance, Dunn was central to a recent decision to frame the president’s age as a sign of wisdom and experience.

    “It’s a legitimate thing to raise the question of age,” Biden told donors at a recent campaign fundraiser. “I hope what I’ve been able to bring to this job, and will continue to bring, is a little bit of wisdom.”

    His explicit use of that framing had Dunn’s fingerprints all over it – part of Bidenworld’s effort to mitigate a weakness by tying it to legislative accomplishments that supporters believe have little precedent over the past several decades.

    Multiple sources told CNN that Dunn has been a decision-maker for campaign issues such as staffing, announcement timing, headquarters location and selecting campaign leadership.

    She’s also recently been involved in strategically elevating the profile of Vice President Kamala Harris, making it clear internally that the West Wing needs to do a better job at bolstering Harris heading into the campaign, a source familiar with the dynamic said.

    Dunn is expected to remain in her White House role but continue to advise Biden on 2024 matters, multiple sources said, with campaign manager and former White House staffer Julie Chavez Rodriguez leading the charge from the campaign side.

    It’s a similar model to how former President Barack Obama’s top advisers coordinated between the West Wing and the campaign, and not unusual.

    “You want a strategist like Anita at the White House. Reelects are about organizing, ground game, targeting digital and ads and messages to particular audiences. It is a game of execution,” said Jennifer Palmieri, a longtime Democratic strategist who served as communications director during the Obama administration after Dunn.

    “The most important messaging that people will judge the president on is the job he is doing at the White House,” Palmieri said.

    Dunn’s deep loyalty and instinct to fight has also raised eyebrows outside the White House. TJ Ducklo, a 2020 Biden campaign aide who resigned from his White House role after privately threatening a reporter weeks into the administration, is expected to play a role in the 2024 campaign, a decision that has been publicly defended in a rare on-the-record statement from Dunn. (That reporter later called for Ducklo’s redemption.)

    “TJ made a mistake, took responsibility for it, and paid a price,” Dunn said in her statement – in her personal capacity – to Politico’s “West Wing Playbook” last month.

    One former senior White House adviser, however, called that an “unforced error” by Dunn. The former adviser asked for anonymity to speak freely without retribution.

    Her allegiance to Ducklo, the adviser said, “leaves the president vulnerable and exposed to unnecessary criticism and charges of hypocrisy.”

    “It’s in direct contradiction to the president’s own values and integrity and the standards that he himself demanded of everybody in the White House,” the former adviser said.

    A current White House aide fired back.

    “The president has values. Taking responsibility when you have done wrong means a lot. So does forgiveness,” that aide said.

    Dunn, 65, is one-half of a Washington power couple at the epicenter of Bidenworld – husband Bob Bauer is the president’s personal attorney and the lead attorney handling the special counsel investigation into classified documents found at Biden’s private office and residence. Yet she has risen from roles in the Jimmy Carter White House to the Senate to building public affairs powerhouse SKDK to the 2008 Obama campaign entirely on her own, sparked by her intense preparation.

    “She made preparation her friend,” said veteran Democratic operative Minyon Moore, who has known Dunn for decades.

    “Every time she walks in a room, she’s probably more prepared than most of her counterparts. And I think that’s how she was able to tackle the business very early, because they knew she had done her homework. They knew she could think through many layers. She was smart as heck. And so, you want a person like Anita in the room,” Moore said.

    Dunn operates largely behind the scenes – actively eschewing Washington’s social scene, social media and most television appearances.

    Her loyalty to Biden was cemented when she was among a small group of advisers working toward a potential 2016 presidential run, Biden wrote in his 2017 memoir, “Promise Me, Dad.” Though he ultimately decided against running, Dunn’s encouragement solidified a strong level of trust, multiple people close to her say.

    Dunn joined Biden’s 2020 campaign as a senior adviser and is widely credited for helping turn the tide of Biden’s political fortunes in that campaign’s Democratic primary after she was tapped to lead the operation following a fourth-place showing in the Iowa caucuses.

    She encouraged a sharper messaging posture from her desk in the center of the campaign “bullpen” workspace.

    When Biden arrived in the White House, Dunn briefly joined the administration as a senior adviser before returning to SKDK in August 2021, the temporary nature of her service allowing her to skirt disclosure of a cadre of investments and high-profile clients.

    She continued to advise Biden informally and rejoined the White House in May 2022 in a permanent capacity, a move requiring multimillion-dollar financial disclosures.

    Dunn’s omnipresence in Biden’s orbit has been just as clear in the period when she was out of the White House as when she’s been in. She was a constant presence on conference calls or in visits to the White House.

    “The president trusts her counsel – and there’s good evidence as to why,” one adviser said, pointing to her central role in his path to the presidency, loyalty during Biden’s 2016 deliberations and her work inside the West Wing.

    Over her career, Dunn has developed a reputation as an aggressive messaging tactician with strict discipline.

    She’s led White House messaging efforts on legislative accomplishments, seeking to highlight the legislation’s tangible impacts on real Americans, though some Democrats argue the White House has not done enough to sell those measures to the public.

    “What she tries to do is find the connective tissue,” said a senior administration official, who talks to Dunn regularly. “There’s nobody in government that has a better big picture perspective of what’s going on.”

    Multiple colleagues suggested Dunn can inspire a certain level of anxiety in her subordinates – demanding a high level of results and keeping the receipts – while also being seen as a supportive mentor. At the White House, Dunn is known for leading a weekly meeting known as “Fridays at 5,” a 5 p.m. in-person convening that is met with both eye-rolling (given its timing) and appreciation. It includes the entire communications staff, from interns to press assistants to the highest levels. Dunn will lead shout-outs at the beginning of each meeting, identifying achievements and often spotlighting junior staff.

    “It’s really emblematic of Anita,” the White House aide said. “The fact that she took it upon herself to establish this very expansive view of who’s on the communications team across the entire White House and set a weekly meeting where those people get direct exposure to her, as the senior adviser to the president, is really neat.”

    Dunn’s counsel isn’t only valued inside the White House walls – Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who ran against Biden for president in 2020, regularly seeks her advice.

    “She’s someone that you feel like you can trust and she’s going to have your back. And I think that’s why she’s been such a trusted adviser to President Biden,” the Minnesota senator told CNN, saying that Dunn has been a key messaging coordinator for her Senate colleagues in advancing Biden’s policies.

    That intense loyalty to the president is ultimately why Dunn has been given such a powerful role inside Biden’s political operation.

    “The people that were there and believed in him when he was counted out hold a unique bond and trust with the president. That relationship, with her obvious expertise, means she’s empowered to do what she needs to do,” a former colleague said.

    “Few people have the experience and discipline to keep their eye on the ball like she does. She’s not distracted, and she knows what messages are going to land, even if the pundits disagree,” the former colleague added.

    This story has been updated with additional details.

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  • Fact check: Biden makes 5 false claims about guns, plus some about other subjects | CNN Politics

    Fact check: Biden makes 5 false claims about guns, plus some about other subjects | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    President Joe Biden made false claims about a variety of topics, notably including gun policy, during a series of official speeches and campaign remarks over the last two weeks.

    He made at least five false claims related to guns, a subject on which he has repeatedly been inaccurate during his presidency. He also made a false claim about the extent of his support from environmental groups. And he used incorrect figures about the population of Africa, his own travel history and how much renewable energy Texas uses.

    Here is a fact check of these claims, plus a fact check on a Biden exaggeration about guns. The White House declined to comment on Tuesday.

    Beau Biden and red flag laws

    In a Friday speech at the National Safer Communities Summit in Connecticut, Biden spoke of how a gun control law he signed in 2022 has provided federal funding for states to expand the use of gun control tools like “red flag” laws, which allow the courts to temporarily seize the guns of people who are deemed to be a danger to themselves or others. After mentioning red flag laws, Biden invoked his late son Beau Biden, who served as attorney general of Delaware, and said: “As my son was the first to enforce when he was attorney general.”

    Facts First: Biden’s claim is false. Delaware did not have a red flag law when Beau Biden was state attorney general from 2007 to 2015. The legislation that created Delaware’s red flag program was named the Beau Biden Gun Violence Prevention Act, but it was passed in 2018, three years after Beau Biden died of brain cancer. (In 2013, Beau Biden had pushed for a similar bill, but it was rejected by the state Senate.) The president has previously said, correctly, that a Delaware red flag law was named after his son.

    Delaware was far from the first state to enact a red flag law. Connecticut passed the first such state law in the country in 1999.

    Stabilizing braces

    In the same speech, the president spoke confusingly of his administration’s effort to make it more difficult for Americans to purchase stabilizing braces, devices that are attached to the rear of pistols, most commonly AR-15-style pistols, and make it easier to fire them one-handed.

    “Put a pistol on a brace, and it…turns into a gun,” Biden said. “Makes them where you can have a higher-caliber weapon – a higher-caliber bullet – coming out of that gun. It’s essentially turning it into a short-barreled rifle, which has been a weapon of choice by a number of mass shooters.”

    Facts First: Biden’s claims that a stabilizing brace turns a pistol into a gun and increases the caliber of a gun or bullet are false. A pistol is, obviously, already a gun, and “a pistol brace does not have any effect on the caliber of ammunition that a gun fires or anything about the basic functioning of the gun itself,” said Stephen Gutowski, a CNN contributor who is the founder of the gun policy and politics website The Reload.

    Biden’s assertion that the addition of a stabilizing brace can “essentially” turn a pistol into a short-barreled rifle is subjective; it’s the same argument his administration’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has made in support of its attempt to subject the braces to new controls. The administration’s regulatory effort is being challenged in the courts by gun rights advocates.

    Gun manufacturers and lawsuits

    Repeating a claim he made in his 2022 State of the Union address and on other occasions, Biden said at a campaign fundraiser in California on Monday: “The only industry in America you can’t sue is the – is the gun manufacturers.”

    Facts First: Biden’s claim is false, as CNN and other fact-checkers have previously noted. Gun manufacturers are not entirely exempt from being sued, nor are they the only industry with some liability protections. Notably, there are significant liability protections for vaccine manufacturers and, at present, for people and entities involved in making, distributing or administering Covid-19 countermeasures such as vaccines, tests and treatments.

    Under the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, gun manufacturers cannot be held liable for the use of their products in crimes. However, gun manufacturers can still be held liable for (and thus sued for) a range of things, including negligence, breach of contract regarding the purchase of a gun or certain damages from defects in the design of a gun.

    In 2019, the Supreme Court allowed a lawsuit against gun manufacturer Remington Arms Co. to continue. The plaintiffs, a survivor and the families of nine other victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, wanted to hold the company – which manufactured the semi-automatic rifle that was used in the 2012 killing – partly responsible by targeting the company’s marketing practices, another area where gun manufacturers can be held liable. In 2022, those families reached a $73 million settlement with the company and its four insurers.

    There are also more recent lawsuits against gun manufacturers. For example, the parents of some of the victims and survivors of the 2022 massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, have sued over the marketing practices of the company that made the gun used by the killer. Another suit, filed by the government of Buffalo, New York, in December over gun violence in the city, alleges that the actions of several gun manufacturers and distributors have endangered public health and safety. It is unclear how those lawsuits will fare in the courts.

    – Holmes Lybrand contributed to this item.

    The NRA and lawsuits

    At a campaign fundraiser in California on Tuesday, Biden said the National Rifle Association, the prominent gun rights advocacy organization, itself cannot be sued.

    “And the fact that the NRA has such overwhelming power – you know, the NRA is the only outfit in the nation that we cannot sue as an institution,” Biden said. “They got – they – before this – I became president, they passed legislation saying you can’t sue them. Imagine had that been the case with tobacco companies.”

    Facts First: Biden’s claim is false. While gun manufacturers have liability protections, no law was ever passed to forbid lawsuits against the NRA. The NRA has faced a variety of lawsuits in recent years.

    Machine guns

    At the same Tuesday fundraiser in California, Biden said that he taught the Second Amendment in law school, “And guess what? It doesn’t say that you can own any weapon you want. It says there are certain weapons that you just can’t own.” One example Biden cited was this: “You can’t own a machine gun.”

    Facts First: Biden’s claim is false. The Second Amendment does not explicitly say people cannot own certain weapons – and the courts have not interpreted it to forbid machine guns. In fact, with some exceptions, people in more than two-thirds of states are allowed to own and buy fully automatic machine guns as long as those guns were legally registered and possessed prior to May 19, 1986, the day President Ronald Reagan signed a major gun law. There were more than 700,000 legally registered machine guns in the US as of May 2021, according to official federal data.

    Federal law imposes significant national restrictions on machine gun purchases, and the fact that there is a limited pool of pre-May 19, 1986 machine guns means that buying these guns tends to be expensive – regularly into the tens of thousands of dollars. But for Americans in most of the country, Biden’s claim that you simply “can’t” own a machine gun, period, is not true.

    “It’s not easy to obtain a fully automatic machine gun today, I don’t want to give that impression – but it is certainly legal. And it’s always been legal,” Gutowski said in March, when Biden previously made this claim about machine guns.

    California, where Biden made this remark on Tuesday, has strict laws restricting machine guns, but there is a legal process even there to apply for a state permit to possess one.

    The ‘boyfriend loophole’

    In the Friday speech to the National Safer Communities Summit, Biden said “we fought like hell to close the so-called boyfriend loophole” that had allowed people convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence to buy and possess guns if the victim was not someone they were married to, living with or had a child with. Biden then said that now “we finally can say that those convicted of domestic violence abuse against their girlfriend or boyfriend cannot buy a firearm, period.”

    Facts First: Biden’s categorical claim that such offenders now “cannot buy a firearm, period” is an exaggeration, though Biden did sign a law in 2022 that made significant progress in closing the “boyfriend loophole.” That 2022 law added “dating” partners to the list of misdemeanor domestic violence offenders who are generally prohibited from gun purchases – but in a concession demanded by Republicans, the law says these offenders can buy a gun five years after their first conviction or completion of their sentence, whichever comes later, if they do not reoffend in the interim.

    It’s also worth noting that the law’s new restriction on dating partners applies only to people who committed the domestic violence against a someone with whom they were in or “recently” had been in a “continuing” and “serious” romantic or intimate relationship. In other words, it omits people whose offense was against partners from their past or someone they dated casually.

    Marium Durrani, vice president of policy at the National Domestic Violence Hotline, said there are “definitely some gaps” in the law, “so it’s not a blanket end-all be-all,” but she said it is “really a step in the right direction.”

    Biden said at a campaign rally in Philadelphia on Saturday: “Let me just say one thing very seriously. You know, I think this is the first time – and I’ve been around, as I said, a while – in history where, last week, every single environmental organization endorsed me.”

    Facts First: It’s not true that every single environmental organization had endorsed Biden. Four major environmental organizations did endorse him the week prior, the first time they had issued a joint endorsement, but other well-known environmental organizations have not yet endorsed in the presidential election.

    The four groups that endorsed Biden together in mid-June were the Sierra Club, NextGen PAC, and the campaign arms of the League of Conservation Voters and the Natural Resources Defense Council. That is not a complete list of every single environmental group in the country. For example, Environmental Defense Fund, The Nature Conservancy, the National Audubon Society, Earthjustice and Greenpeace, in addition to some lesser-known groups, have not issued presidential endorsements to date.

    Biden’s claim of an endorsement from every environmental group comes amid frustration from some activists over his recent approvals of fossil fuel projects.

    In official speeches last Tuesday and last Wednesday and at a press conference the week prior, Biden claimed that Africa’s population would soon reach 1 billion. “You know, soon – soon, Africa will have 1 billion people,” he said last Wednesday.

    Facts First: This is false. Africa’s population exceeded 1 billion in 2009, according to United Nations figures; it is now more than 1.4 billion. Sub-Saharan Africa alone has a population of more than 1.1 billion.

    At a campaign fundraiser in Connecticut on Friday, Biden spoke about reading recent news articles about the use of renewable energy sources in Texas. He said, “I think it’s 70% of all their energy produced by solar and wind because it is significantly cheaper. Cheaper. Cheaper.”

    Facts First: Biden’s “70%” figure is not close to correct. The federal Energy Information Administration projected late last year that Texas would meet 37% of its electricity demand in 2023 with wind and solar power, up from 30% in 2022.

    Texas has indeed been a leader in renewable energy, particularly wind power, but the state is far from getting more than two-thirds of its energy from wind and solar alone. The organization that provides electricity to 90% of the state has a web page where you can see its current energy mix in real time; when we looked on Wednesday afternoon, during a heat wave, the mix included 15.8% solar, 10.2% wind and 6.6% nuclear, while 67.1% was natural gas or coal and lignite.

    In his Friday speech at the National Safer Communities Summit, Biden made a muddled claim about his past visits to Afghanistan and Iraq – saying that “you know, I spent a lot of time as president, and I spent 30-some times – visits – many more days in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

    Facts First: Biden’s claim that he has visited Afghanistan and Iraq “30-some times” is false – the latest in a long-running series of exaggerations about his visits to the two countries. His presidential campaign said in 2019 that he made 21 visits to these countries, but he has since continued to put the figure in the 30s. And he has not visited either country “as president.”

    At another campaign fundraiser in California on Monday, Biden reprised a familiar claim about his travels with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who is, like him, a former vice president.

    “It wasn’t appropriate for Barack to be able to spend a lot of time getting to know him, so it was an assignment I was given. And I traveled 17,000 miles with him, usually one on one,” Biden said.

    Facts First: Biden’s “17,000 miles” claim remains false. Biden has not traveled anywhere close to 17,000 miles with Xi, though they have indeed spent lots of time together. This is one of Biden’s most common false claims as president, a figure he has repeated over and over in speeches despite numerous fact checks.

    Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler noted in 2021 that Biden and Xi often did not even travel parallel routes to their gatherings, let alone physically travel together. The only apparent way to get Biden’s mileage past 17,000, Kessler found, is to add the length of Biden’s flight journeys between Washington and Beijing, during which Xi was not with him.

    A White House official told CNN in early 2021 that Biden was adding up his “total travel back and forth” for meetings with Xi. But that is very different than traveling “with him” as Biden keeps saying, especially in the context of his boasts about how well he knows Xi. Biden has had more than enough time to make his language more precise.

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  • Proud Boys members ordered to pay over $1 million in ‘hateful and overtly racist’ church destruction civil suit | CNN Politics

    Proud Boys members ordered to pay over $1 million in ‘hateful and overtly racist’ church destruction civil suit | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Members of the right-wing extremist group, the Proud Boys, have been ordered to pay more than a million dollars as part of a civil suit judgment involving the destruction of property in December 2020 at the predominantly Black campus of the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington, DC.

    DC Superior Court Judge Neal E. Kravitz approved Friday’s default judgment against Proud Boys members Joseph R. Biggs, Enrique Tarrio, Jeremy Bertino and John Turano, as well as the group’s limited liability corporation.

    In a blistering order, Kravitz described the “highly orchestrated” and “hateful and overtly racist conduct” from members of the Proud Boys during the “attack” on the Metropolitan AME church, in which a Black Lives Matter sign owned by the church was allegedly destroyed.

    CNN has reached out to attorneys for Tarrio and Biggs for comment on the judgment, and is attempting to locate attorney information for the other named defendants.

    A request for comment on the judgment has also been made to the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church.

    According to Kravitz’s order, on December 12, 2020, several people in Proud Boys regalia “leaped over Metropolitan AME’s fence, entered the church’s property, and went directly to the Black Lives Matter sign. They then broke the zip ties that held the sign in place, tore down the sign, threw it to the ground, and stomped on it while loudly celebrating. Many others then jumped over the fence onto the church’s property and joined in the celebration of the sign’s destruction.”

    Describing the target of the attack, Kravitz wrote, “For generations, the leaders of Metropolitan AME and the members of its congregation have vocally and publicly supported movements for civil rights and racial justice,” adding, “Church leaders and congregants view supporting the Black Lives Matter movement as a continuation of the church’s mission of advocacy for civil rights and racial justice.”

    In his rebuke of the Proud Boys, the judge wrote that the group has “incited and committed acts of violence against members of Black and African American communities across the country. They also have victimized women, Muslims, Jews, immigrants, and other historically marginalized people.”

    The church sought compensatory damages as part of the civil suit, in part to repair the sign and increase security in the wake of the attack and due to “ongoing threats,” the order said.

    “The ultimate goal of this lawsuit was not monetary windfall, but to stop the Proud Boys from being able to act with impunity, without fear of consequences for their actions,” the plaintiff’s co-counsel, Arthur Ago, said in a statement after the judgment. “And that’s exactly what we accomplished.”

    In July 2021, Tarrio, the group’s leader, pleaded guilty to property destruction in a criminal case involving the burning of a Black Lives Matter banner at a different, predominately Black church in Washington, and also pleaded guilty to attempted possession of a high-capacity magazine, a violation of local gun control laws. He was later sentenced to more than five months in jail for those crimes.

    In May, Tarrio and Biggs were also among a group of four Proud Boys members found guilty of seditious conspiracy by a jury in Washington for their roles in attempting to forcibly prevent the peaceful transfer of power from President Donald Trump to Joe Biden after the 2020 election.

    This headline has been updated.

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  • Oklahoma governor calls on officials to resign over recording of racist and threatening remarks | CNN

    Oklahoma governor calls on officials to resign over recording of racist and threatening remarks | CNN

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    CNN
     — 

    The governor of Oklahoma is calling on four McCurtain County officials to resign after they allegedly participated in a secretly recorded conversation that included racist remarks about lynching Black people and talking about killing journalists.

    The McCurtain Gazette-News over the weekend published the audio it said was recorded following a Board of Commissioners meeting on March 6.

    The paper said the audio of the meeting was legally obtained, but the McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that it was illegally recorded and is investigating. The sheriff’s office also said it believes the recording had been altered.

    “I am both appalled and disheartened to hear of the horrid comments made by officials in McCurtain County,” Gov. Kevin Stitt said in a statement Sunday. “There is simply no place for such hateful rhetoric in the state of Oklahoma, especially by those that serve to represent the community through their respective office. I will not stand idly by while this takes place,” the statement said.

    The governor called for the immediate resignations of McCurtain County Sheriff Kevin Clardy, District 2 Commissioner Mark Jennings, sheriff’s investigator Alicia Manning and jail administrator Larry Hendrix. He also said he would ask the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to look into the case.

    McCurtain County is in southeastern Oklahoma, about 200 miles from Oklahoma City.

    The recording was made hours after Gazette-News reporter Chris Willingham filed a lawsuit against the sheriff’s office, Manning and the Board of County Commissioners, alleging they had defamed him and violated his civil rights, the newspaper reported.

    In the recording, Manning spoke of needing to go near the newspaper’s office and expressed concern about what would happen if she ran into Willingham, the Oklahoman reported, citing additional reporting from the Gazette-News.

    According to the Oklahoman report, Jennings said, “Oh, you’re talking about you can’t control yourself?” and Manning replied: “Yeah, I ain’t worried about what he’s gonna do to me. I’m worried about what I might do to him. My papaw would have whipped his a**, would have wiped him and used him for toilet paper … if my daddy hadn’t been run over by a vehicle, he would have been down there.”

    Jennings replied that his father was once upset by something the newspaper published and “started to go down there and just kill him,” according to the Gazette-News.

    “I know where two big, deep holes are here if you ever need them,” Jennings allegedly said. Clardy, the sheriff, allegedly said he had the equipment.

    “I’ve got an excavator,” Clardy is accused of saying during the discussion. “Well, these are already pre-dug,” Jennings allegedly said.

    In other parts of the recording, officials expressed disappointment that Black people could no longer be lynched, according to the paper.

    CNN has not been able to verify the authenticity of the recording or confirm who said what. CNN has reached out to all four county officials for comment.

    The Oklahoma Sheriffs’ Association voted Tuesday to suspend the membership of Clardy, Manning and Hendrix, the group’s executive director told CNN.

    Willingham and his father, Bruce Willingham, the paper’s publisher, have been advised to temporarily leave town, CNN affiliate KJRH reported.

    “For nearly a year, they have suffered intimidation, ridicule and harassment based solely on their efforts to report the news for McCurtain County,” Kilpatrick Townsend, the law firm representing the Willingham family, told CNN in a statement.

    The McCurtain County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement Monday that there is an “ongoing investigation into multiple significant violations” of the Oklahoma Security of Communications Act, which makes it “illegal to secretly record a conversation in which you are not involved and do not have the consent of at least one of the involved parties.” It also said the recording has yet to be “duly authenticated or validated.”

    “Our preliminary information indicates that the media released audio recording has, in fact, been altered. The motivation for doing so remains unclear at this point. That matter is actively being investigated,” the statement said.

    The Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office has received an audio recording and is investigating, Communications Director Phil Bacharach said.

    The FBI wouldn’t confirm or deny whether it was involved in the investigation, with spokesperson Kayla McCleery saying it is agency policy not to comment.

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  • Top House Democrats rebuke Jayapal comments that Israel is a ‘racist state’ as she tries to walk them back | CNN Politics

    Top House Democrats rebuke Jayapal comments that Israel is a ‘racist state’ as she tries to walk them back | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Top House Democrats are rebuking Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal’s comments from earlier this weekend that “Israel is a racist state,” which she sought to walk back on Sunday.

    “Israel is not a racist state,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar and Vice Chair Ted Lieu said in a statement that did not mention the progressive leader by name.

    A draft statement signed by a handful of other House Democrats and circulating among lawmakers’ offices on Sunday expresses “deep concern” over what it calls Jayapal’s “unacceptable” comments, adding, “We will never allow anti-Zionist voices that embolden antisemitism to hijack the Democratic Party and country.”

    Their pushback comes ahead of Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s address to a joint meeting of Congress later this week, which some progressives have said they’ll skip, citing concerns about human rights. House progressives have been vocal about their opposition to Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the US sponsorship of Israel’s Iron Dome defense system.

    Jayapal, a Washington State Democrat, said “Israel is a racist state” on Saturday while addressing pro-Palestine protesters who interrupted a panel discussion at the Netroots Nation conference in Chicago.

    “As somebody who’s been in the streets and participated in a lot of demonstrations, I want you to know that we have been fighting to make it clear that Israel is a racist state, that the Palestinian people deserve self-determination and autonomy, that the dream of a two-state solution is slipping away from us, that it does not even feel possible,” she told protesters chanting “Free Palestine.”

    Jayapal sought to clarify her remarks in a Sunday afternoon statement, saying that she does “not believe the idea of Israel as a nation is racist,” while offering an apology “to those who I have hurt with my words.”

    She went on to call out Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “extreme right-wing government,” which she said she believes “has engaged in discriminatory and outright racist policies.”

    But her initial remark – made after protesters yelled “Israel is a racist state” during a panel she was participating in with Illinois progressive Reps. Jan Schakowsky and Jesús “Chuy” García – struck a nerve with some members of her own party.

    Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who has signed the statement circulating among Democratic lawmakers, told CNN’s Jim Acosta on Sunday that not only was Jayapal’s statement “hurtful and harmful, it was wholly inaccurate and insensitive. I’m thankful that she retracted it.”

    The Florida Democrat added that Jayapal had spoken to a number of Jewish members of Congress on Sunday “and that is in part, I think, what resulted in the retraction and apology.”

    “We need to make sure we continue to work together,” Wasserman Schultz said. “But we all have to be careful about what we say in the heat of the moment, and I think she learned that the hard way.”

    CNN reached out to Jayapal earlier Sunday before she released her statement.

    In her statement, the congressman reiterated her commitment to “a two-state solution that allows both Israelis and Palestinians to live freely, safely, and with self-determination alongside each other.”

    And she explained her earlier comment by saying, in part, “On a very human level, I was also responding to the deep pain and hopelessness that exists for Palestinians and their diaspora communities when it comes to this debate, but I in no way intended to deny the deep pain and hurt of Israelis and their Jewish diaspora community that still reels from the trauma of pogroms and persecution, the Holocaust, and continuing anti-semitism and hate violence that is rampant today.”

    The draft statement from some Democrats nodded to antisemitism and also invoked American national security.

    “Israel is the legitimate homeland of the Jewish people and efforts to delegitimize and demonize it are not only dangerous and antisemitic, but they also undermine Americas’s national security,” the lawmakers write.

    House Democratic leadership also touted Israel as “an invaluable partner.”

    “Our commitment to a safe and secure Israel as an invaluable partner, ally and beacon of democracy in the Middle East is ironclad,” the leaders wrote in their own statement. “We look forward to welcoming Israeli President Isaac Herzog to the United States House of Representatives this week.”

    Jayapal said Friday she doesn’t believe she will attend Herzog’s speech Wednesday on Capitol Hill. “I don’t think I am. I haven’t fully decided.”

    “I think this is not a good time for that to happen,” Jayapal told CNN’s Manu Raju when asked if Speaker Kevin McCarthy had made a mistake in inviting Herzog.

    Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri have all said they will not attend.

    Democratic leadership has been supportive of Herzog’s visit, with then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York extending the invitation last year. “I look forward to welcoming him with open arms,” Jeffries, a New York Democrat, said at a news conference last week, calling Herzog “a force for good in Israeli society.”

    Herzog will visit the White House on Tuesday. “As Israel celebrates its 75th anniversary, the visit will highlight our enduring partnership and friendship. President (Joe) Biden will reaffirm the ironclad commitment of the United States to Israel’s security,” the White House said in a statement.

    “President Biden will stress the importance of our shared democratic values, and discuss ways to advance equal measures of freedom, prosperity, and security for Palestinians and Israelis,” the statement continued.

    Netanyahu has not been invited to Washington by the Biden administration since taking office again in December last year, amid a raft of policy differences between the two governments.

    This story and headline have been updated with additional developments.

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  • Lawmakers reluctant to pursue gun control measures following Nashville school shooting | CNN Politics

    Lawmakers reluctant to pursue gun control measures following Nashville school shooting | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Monday’s deadly school shooting in Nashville has sparked a familiar cycle of condolences and calls to action among lawmakers in Washington, but both sides of the aisle have been quick to concede that the recent violence is probably not enough to sway a divided Congress to move substantive gun control efforts forward.

    After three children and three adults were killed in a shooting at a private Christian elementary school in Nashville on Monday, President Joe Biden asserted that he’s done all he can do to address gun control and urged members on Capitol Hill to act. But the shooting, so far, has not compelled lawmakers in Washington – particularly Republican leadership and some members representing Tennessee – to push forward gun control, signaling no end to the impasse within the GOP-controlled House and nearly deadlocked Senate.

    The Nashville incident was just among the latest in 130 mass shooting incidents so far this year, according to data from the national Gun Violence Archive.

    White House officials are not currently planning a major push around gun safety reform in the wake of the deadly Nashville school shooting, three senior administration officials said. But Biden and White House officials will continue to urge Congress to act.

    Biden on Tuesday told CNN’s MJ Lee, “I can’t do anything except plead with the Congress to act reasonably.”

    “I have done the full extent of my executive authority – to do on my own, anything about guns …The Congress has to act. The majority of the American people think having assault weapons is bizarre, it’s a crazy idea. They’re against that. And so I think the Congress could be passing an assault weapon ban,” he added.

    Biden has taken more than 20 executive actions on guns since taking office, including regulating the use of “ghost guns” and sales of stabilizing braces that effectively turn pistols into rifles. He also signed a bipartisan bill in 2022 which expands background checks and provides federal funding for so-called “red flag laws” – although it failed to ban any weapons and fell far short of what Biden and his party had advocated for.

    White House officials have been sober about the political realities Democrats face with the current makeup of Congress, where Republicans in control of the House have rejected Biden’s calls for an assault weapons ban. Even when both chambers of Congress were controlled by Democrats during the first two years of Biden’s term, an assault weapon ban gained little traction, in part because of a 60-vote threshold necessary for passage.

    Many Republicans in Congress, including those in positions of leadership and in the Tennessee delegation, have either been reluctant to use the deadly violence in Nashville as a potential springboard for reform or they’ve outright rejected calls for additional action on further regulating guns, arguing that there isn’t an appetite for tougher restrictions.

    On Tuesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy would not answer questions on whether any congressional action should be taken on guns after the shooting in Nashville. And House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Republican from Louisiana who survived being shot in 2017, demurred when asked if the most recent school shooting in Nashville would move Congress to address any sort of reforms.

    “I really get angry when I see people try to politicize it for their own personal agenda, especially when we don’t even know the facts,” he said when asked if his conference was prepared to do anything to address the spate of mass shootings, mentioning only improving mental health and securing schools.

    “Let’s get the facts. And let’s work to see if there’s something that we can do to help secure schools,” he added. “We’ve talked about things that we can do and it just seems like on the other side, all they want to do is take guns away from law abiding citizens. … And that’s not the answer, by the way.”

    Sen. Thom Tillis, a key GOP negotiator in last year’s bipartisan gun legislation, said on Tuesday that he doesn’t see a path forward on new gun legislation. Instead, he believes that lawmakers need to focus on implementing what has already been signed into law.

    “The full implementation is going to take months and years,” Tillis said of the gun bill that passed last summer. “There is a lot of unimplemented or to be implemented provisions in there. Let’s talk about that first.”

    House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican whose committee has jurisdiction over gun policy, said Tuesday that he doesn’t think Congress should take action to limit assault weapons, though he declined to say why it’s okay to ban fully automatic rifles but not semi-automatic weapons.

    “The Second Amendment is the Second Amendment,” he continued. “I believe in the Second Amendment and we shouldn’t penalize law-abiding American citizens.”

    Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who has been involved in past negotiations on gun legislation, said: “I don’t know if there’s much space to do more, but I’ll certainly look and see.”

    Graham said he is opposed to a ban on AR-15s – which was one of the weapons the Nashville suspect used during Monday’s shooting – noting that he owns one himself and arguing that it would “be hard to implement a national red flag law.”

    Asked by CNN’s Manu Raju why he wouldn’t support a ban of AR-15s, Andy Ogles, who represents the district where Monday’s shooting took place, replied, “Why not talk about the real issue facing the country – and that’s mental health.” And Sen. Bill Hagerty, the Tennessee Republican, refused to discuss calls to ban AR-15s after the Nashville shooting.

    “The tragedy that happened in my state was the result of a depraved person and somebody very very sick. And the result has been absolutely devastating for the people in my community. Right now with the victims, the family and the people in my community – we are all mourning right now,” Hagerty told CNN.

    Asked about banning those weapons, he added: “I’m certain politics will wave into everything. But right now I’m not focused on the politics of the situation. I’m focused on the victims.

    Tennessee GOP Rep. Tim Burchett told reporters that “laws don’t work” to curb gun violence.

    “We want to legislate evil – it’s just not gonna happen,” he said. “If you think Washington is going to fix this problem, you’re wrong. They’re not going to fix this problem. They are the problem.”

    Asked by CNN why private citizens need AR-15s, Burchett pointed to self-defense. He also argued that even though other countries don’t observe the United States’ high frequency of shootings, “other countries don’t have our freedom either … And when people abuse that freedom, that’s what happens.”

    Meanwhile, some Democrats in Congress are slamming House Republicans for their disinterest.

    “As a country and as a Congress, we can do better and we know that, so shame on Speaker McCarthy for not bringing something up, for not announcing that we can and do more. All we’re going to get are thoughts and prayers out of their Twitter accounts, and that’s not enough” Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar of California said during a press conference.

    On the other side of the Capitol, however, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin told reporters that he is “not very hopeful” that the Senate can pass gun legislation this Congress.

    “I’m not very hopeful, yet we have to try,” he said.

    Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal called on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to force a vote on a semi-automatic weapons ban to put Republicans on the record.

    “We need a fight in Congress, and I’m prepared to conduct that fight, others are as well,” he told CNN. “And ultimately the American people deserve to know where each of us stands on common sense gun violence prevention.”

    Schumer would not say whether he intends to put legislation banning assault weapons on the Senate floor for a vote this Congress. There is nowhere close to enough support to overcome a legislative filibuster.

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  • HHS secretary says ‘everything is on the table’ amid calls to ignore medication abortion ruling | CNN Politics

    HHS secretary says ‘everything is on the table’ amid calls to ignore medication abortion ruling | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra on Sunday said “everything is on the table” following a Texas federal judge’s ruling to suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the medication abortion drug mifepristone.

    In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union,” the secretary would not say whether he believes the FDA should ignore the ruling and keep the drug on the market, but he maintained that the Biden administration is considering all options.

    “We want the courts to overturn this reckless decision,” Becerra said, adding that there was a “good chance” of Supreme Court intervention but declining to say how, exactly, the administration will handle the ruling in the interim.

    “Everything is on the table. The president said that way back when the Dobbs decision came out. Every option is on the table,” the secretary told Bash, referring to last year’s Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade.

    Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in a separate appearance on “State of the Union,” did not back away from her call Friday on CNN for the ruling to be ignored, saying that if it was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court, “it would essentially institute a national abortion ban.”

    “I do not believe that the courts have the authority over the FDA that they just asserted, and I do believe that it creates a crisis,” she told Bash.

    Ocasio-Cortez called the ruling “an extreme abuse of power” and said there was precedent for the executive branch ignoring court rulings.

    “I do think that when it comes to gaming out what the very real possibilities are in the coming days, weeks and months, this is not just about speculation, but this is about preparation. And the reality of our courts right now is very disturbing,” she said.

    Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas warned in a separate interview with Bash on Sunday that House GOP appropriators could defund certain FDA programs if the ruling is ultimately ignored.

    “The House Republicans have the power of the purse, and if the administration wants to not lead this ruling, not live up to this ruling, then we’re going to have a problem,” the second-term lawmaker said. “And it may come a point where House Republicans on the appropriation side have to defund FDA programs that don’t make sense.”

    US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk on Friday issued a ruling to halt the decades-old approval of mifepristone, but he paused the ruling from taking effect for a week so it could be appealed, a process that is underway.

    “This is not America,” Becerra said Sunday. “What you saw is that one judge in that one court in that one state, that’s not America. America goes by the evidence. America does what’s fair. America does what is transparent, and we can show that what we do is for the right reasons. That’s not America.”

    Within an hour of the ruling Friday, a different federal judge ruled in favor of 17 Democratic-led states and Washington, DC, looking to expand access to the abortion pill, allowing them to keep the drug available.

    Becerra on Sunday touted the proven safety of the drug, a factor that Kacsmaryk questioned in his ruling. He confirmed that the Department of Justice had already filed its appeal and is waiting for its day in court.

    Still, Becerra had little to say about what tangible preparations the administration would take to secure access to abortion should the drug no longer be available after the weeklong pause.

    “Well, [women] certainly have access today, and we intend to do everything to make sure it’s available for them not just in a week but moving forward, period,” Becerra told Bash when asked if women would have access to the medication after this week.

    The Justice Department and Danco, a mifepristone manufacturer that intervened in the case to defend the approval, have both filed notices of appeal. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Danco said in statements that in addition to the appeals, they will seek “stays” of the ruling, meaning emergency requests that the decision remains frozen while the appeal moves forward.

    They’re appealing to the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which is sometimes said to be the country’s most conservative appellate court. Yet some legal scholars are skeptical that the 5th Circuit, as conservative as it is, would let Kacmsaryk’s order take effect.

    “I got to believe that, Dana, an appeals court, the Supreme Court, whatever court has to understand that this ruling by this one judge overturns not just access to mifepristone, but possibly any number of drugs,” Becerra said.

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  • Meta’s latest round of layoffs is underway | CNN Business

    Meta’s latest round of layoffs is underway | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Facebook parent Meta on Wednesday began its latest round of layoffs focusing on technical workers, who are often thought of as more immune to job cuts in Silicon Valley.

    Meta spokesperson Nkechi Nneji confirmed to CNN that some previously announced layoffs were taking place Wednesday, and pointed to CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s March announcement that the company would cut another 10,000 employees in the coming months.

    Zuckerberg’s notice said that restructurings and layoffs in Meta’s tech groups would take place in April. Among those affected by Wednesday’s layoffs were members of the company’s sustainability, well-being, user experience, news feed and messaging teams, according to public LinkedIn posts.

    Meta reportedly told North American employees to work from home on Wednesday in anticipation of the layoffs. (CNN has not independently confirmed that.)

    Members of Meta’s recruiting team were notified of additional layoffs last month, and cuts to the company’s business groups are expected to take place in late May.

    The 10,000 job reductions mark the second recent round of significant job cuts at Meta. The company said in November that it was eliminating approximately 13% of its workforce, or 11,000 jobs, in the single largest round of cuts in its history.

    In September, Meta reported a headcount of 87,314, per a securities filing. With 11,000 job cuts announced in November and the 10,000 announced last month, Meta’s headcount will fall to around 66,000 — a total reduction of about 25%.

    Meta has said the layoffs are part of its “year of efficiency,” as the company attempts to engineer a turnaround following repeated revenue declines, heightened competition, concerns about user growth and big losses in its Reality Labs division amid its pivot to building the so-called metaverse. Zuckerberg has also taken responsibility for over-hiring earlier in the pandemic, when there was strong demand for the company’s products and online advertising, which dropped off somewhat once the world reopened.

    Zuckerberg said last month that, in some cases, it may take through the end of this year to complete its staff restructuring processes.

    “As I’ve talked about efficiency this year, I’ve said that part of our work will involve removing jobs — and that will be in service of both building a leaner, more technical company and improving our business performance to enable our long term vision,” Zuckerberg said in his March statement.

    Meta is set to report earnings for the first three months of 2023 next week, during which Wall Street analysts expect it to post its fourth straight quarterly decline in revenue and a more than 30% decline in profits. Still, Meta’s shareholders appear to have been reassured by Zuckerberg’s plans for efficiency — the company’s shares were up more than 70% year-to-date as of midday Wednesday.

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  • Reporters’ notebook: An intensely personal trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau | CNN Politics

    Reporters’ notebook: An intensely personal trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    This week, we traveled to Poland to help commemorate the 80th anniversary of the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, when Jews revolted against their Nazi oppressors, who had forced them to live behind barbed wire walls in horrific conditions.

    We also participated in the March of the Living, an annual two-mile walk from the Auschwitz concentration camp to Birkenau, where Nazis brought Jews from all over Europe to be starved, humiliated, terrorized and murdered in gas chambers.

    For both of us, this trip was intensely personal.

    I thought I knew what was in store for me visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau. I had been there some years back when I was working on a report for CNN about my family history – I’m the child of Holocaust survivors. I had heard my parents, both Polish Jews, speak of their painful experiences surviving the war. But I never knew my grandparents because all four of them were rounded up by the Nazis and killed during the Holocaust.

    But this time was different. As our expert guide showed us the Auschwitz gas chamber, I mentioned that I had learned a few years earlier that my dad’s parents were killed at Auschwitz. Our guide said that Polish Jews were largely killed in the very gas chamber we were standing in. He pointed out the gas chamber and the adjacent crematorium, where their bodies were burned and the remains then discarded in a pit. It was the first time I realized that I was standing right where my paternal grandparents had been murdered. Tears came to my eyes.

    My father had told me much about my grandparents, Isaac and Chaya Blitzer. They were very religious and truly wonderful people who had lived and raised their six children nearby. I wish I had known them.

    I never knew my mother’s parents, Wolf and Chaya Zylberfuden, either. My mom always spoke so lovingly of them. They were rounded up elsewhere in Poland and sent to a labor camp, where they were forced to make ammunition for Nazi soldiers. The conditions there were awful, and they soon died of typhoid fever, which was spreading around the area.

    I proudly carry the names of my two grandfathers – Wolf Isaac Blitzer.

    And now a new generation is carrying on the lessons of the Holocaust. At the annual March of the Living, thousands of people – Jews and non-Jews, young and old – come from all around the world to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp to honor and remember those who were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators. They also come to learn and then to educate others about the horrors of the Holocaust.

    On this visit, I learned more and deepened my understanding of what my grandparents, parents and their siblings endured during the Holocaust. And as I did, I kept thinking about how important it is for all of us to educate ourselves about this horrible history to make sure we never forget. It is especially vital today in light of increasing antisemitism and Holocaust denialism. As the child of Holocaust survivors, it is hard to comprehend that there are truly evil people out there spreading lies that none of this ever happened.

    That’s why I was so moved by what I saw during our visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

    I had never been to Auschwitz before. I was never actually sure that I wanted to visit this place that represented the depths of hell for the 1.1 million people murdered by the Nazis there, including my own great-grandparents.

    I am now so glad that I went.

    Since I was a little girl, I have heard about the horrors of the Nazi atrocities, not just from the history books but also from my own grandfather Frank Weinman, who along with my grandmother Teri Vidor Weinman, were among the few to escape.

    They miraculously got to America in October 1941, thanks to Frank’s brother Charles, who was living in Chicago and had convinced his boss to put up the exorbitant sums of money the America government then required for Jewish refugees like my grandparents to get US visas to flee Nazi persecution.

    Grandma Teri and her family were Hungarian Jews, and her parents, Rudolph and Matilda Vidor, along with her sister Magda, were safe from Hitler’s wrath until 1944, when he invaded Hungary.

    Before visiting Auschwitz, I knew that they had been killed there.

    But having our expert guide tell my brother David and me exactly where and how was numbing.

    We saw a freight train exactly like the one they were shoved into with little to no water or food, traveling for days from Hungary to camps in Nazi-occupied Poland. We stood on the train tracks the Germans built to bring them into Auschwitz-Birkenau.

    The main railway building is pictured on the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on January 25, 2021.

    We saw what was left of what was likely the gas chamber where they were murdered and informed that because of their ages – both were in their 50s and not considered strong enough for hard labor – they probably were killed within a hour of arriving.

    It was a lot to take in, and it will take a while for my brother and me to process it all.

    But for both of us, our immediate takeaway was one of defiance – that our mere existence is proof that Hitler did not succeed in his quest to annihilate our family just because we are Jews.

    For years, not knowing exactly when or how her parents were killed, my Grandma Teri chose April 19, the day of the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, to say Kaddish, the Jewish prayer recited on the anniversary of a loved one’s death.

    This week, my brother and I got to say Kaddish just steps from where they died.

    May their memory be a blessing.

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  • Exclusive: Senior US general ordered Twitter announcement of drone strike on al Qaeda leader that may have instead killed civilian | CNN Politics

    Exclusive: Senior US general ordered Twitter announcement of drone strike on al Qaeda leader that may have instead killed civilian | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The senior general in charge of US forces in the Middle East ordered that his command announce on Twitter that a senior al Qaeda leader had been targeted by an American drone strike in Syria earlier this month – despite not yet having confirmation of who was actually killed in the strike, according to multiple defense officials.

    Nearly three weeks later, US Central Command still does not know whether a civilian died instead, officials said. CENTCOM did not open a review of the incident, officially known as a civilian-casualty credibility assessment report, until May 15 – twelve days after the strike. That review is ongoing.

    One defense official with direct knowledge of the situation told CNN that some of CENTCOM Commander Gen. Erik Kurilla’s subordinates urged him to hold off on the tweet until there was more clarity on who was actually killed.

    Two other officials denied that, and said they were not aware of any staffers voicing consternation or disagreement with the announcement.

    Either way, the statement ultimately posted to Twitter from the official CENTCOM Twitter account did not identify the supposed senior al Qaeda leader, raising more questions about what had occurred.

    “At 11:42 am local Syrian time on 3 May, US Central Command Forces conducted a unilateral strike in Northwest Syria targeting a senior Al Qaeda leader,” the tweet read. “We will provide more information as operational details become available.”

    The tweet has not been taken down and CENTCOM has not tweeted about the strike again.

    The episode raises questions about how thoroughly CENTCOM has implemented the military’s civilian harm mitigation policy – a process for preventing, mitigating and responding to civilian casualties caused by US military operations.

    The policy was developed in 2022 after a botched US drone strike in Kabul killed 10 civilians in August 2021.

    Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said on Tuesday that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is “absolutely” confident in the Defense Department’s civilian harm mitigation efforts.

    “In terms of CENTCOM’s strike, as you know, they conducted that strike on the third of May. They are investigating the allegations of civilian casualties,” Ryder said at a Pentagon news briefing. “So, you know, I think our record speaks for itself in terms of how seriously we take these. Very few countries around the world do that. The secretary has complete confidence that we will continue to abide by the policies that we put into place.”

    CENTCOM acknowledged last week following a Washington Post report questioning the strike that the operation may have resulted in a civilian casualty and said in a statement that it was “investigating” the incident. The civilian casualty review was not launched until a week after the Post began presenting information to CENTCOM suggesting that the strike had killed a civilian.

    CENTCOM still has not opened a formal investigation into the strike, known as a 15-6 investigation, defense officials told CNN. The officials said the civilian casualty review first needs to determine that a noncombatant was indeed killed in the strike. Then, a commander needs to decide that there are other unanswered questions remaining about the operation that require a more thorough investigation. A 15-6 investigation was launched less than a week after the errant Kabul strike.

    Defense officials told CNN that in the immediate aftermath of the strike, Kurilla and his staff had high confidence that they had killed the senior al-Qaeda leader, though they declined to say why they were so convinced. But they also knew it would likely take a few days to confirm the person’s identity definitively. The US has no military footprint in northwest Syria, an area still recovering from the effects of a devastating earthquake.

    But as the days passed, CENTCOM still could not determine the identity of who they had killed. Some defense officials considered that a red flag, they told CNN.

    By May 8, CENTCOM still had not confirmed the person’s identity, and began receiving information from the Washington Post that raised questions about whether a civilian had been killed, defense officials said. The Post’s information led CENTCOM to open a review into the strike, and whether it had killed a civilian, on May 15.

    There is still some disagreement within the administration about the identity of the person killed, defense officials told CNN. Some intelligence officials continue to believe that the target of the strike was a member of al-Qaeda, even if he wasn’t a senior leader. But there is a growing belief inside the Pentagon that the man – identified by his family as Loutfi Hassan Mesto, a 56-year-old father of ten – was a farmer with no ties to terrorism.

    Mesto’s family told CNN that he had been out grazing his sheep when he was killed. Loutfi never left his village during the Syrian uprisings and did not support any political faction, his brother said.

    Mohamed Sajee, a distant relative living in Qurqaniya, also told CNN that Loutfi was never known to be in favor or against the Syrian regime.

    “It’s impossible that he was with al Qaeda, he doesn’t even have a beard,” he said.

    The Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, told CNN they arrived on the scene of the strike after being contacted on their local emergency number.

    “The team noticed only one crater caused by the missile, which was next to the man’s body,” the White Helmets said, also confirming that the man had been grazing his sheep.

    “When the team arrived, his wife, neighbors, and other people were at the location,” the group added.

    The White Helmets tweeted on May 3 that they had recovered the body of Mesto, who they described as “a civilian aged 60” who was killed in a missile strike while grazing sheep. CENTCOM was aware of the White Helmets’ tweet, officials said, but the group’s information was not considered solid enough yet to open a review.

    The May 3 incident bears a stunning similarity to another CENTCOM operation: a US drone strike in Kabul during the closing days of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which killed 10 Afghan civilians, including 7 children. The Pentagon initially claimed it had eliminated an ISIS-K threat and defended the operation for weeks, with Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley going as far as to call it a “righteous” strike in a Pentagon briefing two days later.

    A suicide bombing at Kabul’s international airport three days earlier, which killed 13 US service members, had added pressure on CENTCOM to act against any potential threats, and officials believed at the time that another attack was imminent.

    Austin ultimately decided no one would be punished over the botched operation, even as he instructed Central Command and Special Operations Command to improve policies and procedures to prevent civilian harm more effectively.

    Austin committed to adjusting Defense Department policies to better protect civilians, even establishing a civilian protection center of excellence in 2022.

    “Leaders in this department should be held to account for high standards of conduct and leadership,” Austin said at the time.

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  • New Iowa law restricts gender identity education, bans books with sexual content | CNN Politics

    New Iowa law restricts gender identity education, bans books with sexual content | CNN Politics

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    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds signed a sweeping bill into law Friday that will restrict education about gender identity and sexual orientation and ban books with certain sexual content from school libraries, as well as require schools to notify parents if their child asks to use a new name or pronoun.

    Iowa is just one of several Republican-led states to pass laws strengthening what advocates often describe as “parental rights” over the past few years.

    The controversial movement, which critics argue is aimed at limiting the rights of LGBTQ and other marginalized students, emerged as a top issue for the national Republican Party during the Covid-19 pandemic and is expected to play a key role during the 2024 election cycle.

    The Human Rights Campaign, a civil rights organization, likened Iowa’s parental rights law to legislation enacted in Florida last year that opponents dubbed “Don’t Say Gay.” The Florida law banned certain instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom and set off a social and political firestorm.

    Iowa state Sen. Ken Rozenboom, chair of the education committee, has said that the parental rights bill “matches up with what most schools are doing now.”

    “But we need to rein in those schools that believe that ‘the purpose of public education is to teach [students] what society needs them to know.’ We must put parents back in charge of their children’s education,” he wrote in his newsletter in March.

    Iowa has passed several new laws this year addressing parents’ rights. In March, Reynolds signed into law a ban on gender-affirming care for minors, as well as a law that makes it easier for families to use taxpayer dollars to send their children to private K-12 schools regardless of their income.

    The new Iowa law, also known as SF 496, touches on a range of education-related issues.

    It prohibits instruction relating to gender identity or sexual orientation to students in kindergarten through sixth grade.

    The law also requires school administrators to notify parents if their child “requests an accommodation” related to their gender identity, including using a name or pronoun that is different than the one “assigned to the student in the school district’s registration forms or records.”

    When it comes to books, the law puts restrictions on school libraries for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. The libraries can only have books deemed “age-appropriate,” which, according to the law, excludes any materials with “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act.”

    School employees found to be in repeated violation of some of these provisions could face disciplinary action, according to the law.

    Similar laws restricting what books are allowed in libraries have recently gone into effect in other states, including Florida, Missouri and Utah.

    “Vague language in the laws regarding how they should be implemented, as well as the inclusion of potential punishments for educators who violate them, have combined to yield a chilling effect,” according to a report published in April by PEN America, a nonprofit that works to defend free expression and tracks book bans.

    Laws like the one in Florida give incentives to teachers, media specialists and school administrators to proactively remove books from shelves, the report said.

    There were more book bans across the country during the fall 2022 semester than in each of the prior two semesters, according to PEN America. The bans were most prevalent in Texas, Florida, Missouri, Utah and South Carolina.

    About one-third of the titles banned are books about race or racism or feature characters of color. About 26% of the titles have LGBTQ+ characters or themes.

    “Those children tell us all the time that finding books that reflect their experiences and answer questions they would never ask adults is lifesaving for them,” said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom and executive director of the Freedom to Read Foundation.

    The past year has brought an escalation to the book ban movement, with many state lawmakers introducing legislation that could have an impact on what’s available at public and school libraries.

    “We’re looking at over 31 bills that oppose some kind of restriction on the ability of librarians to create collections that serve the needs of every student or attempt to censor books based on one group’s opinion,” Caldwell-Stone added.

    There are at least 62 “parental rights” bills that have been introduced in 24 states this year, according to FutureEd, a think tank at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy.

    Most have yet to become law. But last year, six bills were signed by governors – two in Florida, two in Arizona and one each in Georgia and Louisiana.

    Many of the bills focus on parents’ right to know what their children are learning in classrooms, particularly around issues of race and gender.

    The Republican-controlled US House passed its own “Parents Bill of Rights” bill in March, though the Senate is not expected to take up the legislation.

    Overall, a record number of anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced this year. Some focus on education, but others concern health care, bathroom access and drag performances.

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  • Meta threatens to pull news content in California if bill to pay publishers passes | CNN Business

    Meta threatens to pull news content in California if bill to pay publishers passes | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, threatened to remove news from its social media sites in California if the state passes a bill requiring big tech companies to pay news outlets for their content.

    In a statement posted on Twitter, Andy Stone, Meta’s communications director, called California’s Journalism Preservation Act “a slush fund that primarily benefits big, out-of-state media companies under the guise of aiding California publishers.”

    “The bill fails to recognize that publishers and broadcasters put their content on our platform themselves and that substantial consolidation in California’s local news industry came over 15 years ago, well before Facebook was widely used,” Stone said.

    The bill, sponsored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, requires digital companies such as Google and Facebook to pay local news publishers a “journalism usage fee” whenever their news content is used or posted on those platforms. The bill also requires news publishers to invest 70% of usage fee profits into journalism jobs.

    “This threat from Meta is a scare tactic that they’ve tried to deploy, unsuccessfully, in every country that’s attempted this,” Wicks said in a statement. “It’s egregious that one of the wealthiest companies in the world would rather silence journalists than face regulation.”

    According to a spokesperson for Wicks, the bill is due for a vote in the California State Assembly on Thursday.

    The bill has garnered praise from some of the largest journalism unions in California, including Media Guild of the West and Pacific Media Workers Guild. In a joint letter, the two unions called Meta and Google “powerful landlords overseeing an ever-expanding slum of low-quality information, happy to collect advertising rents from struggling tenants while avoiding paying for upkeep.”

    However, the bill also has its detractors. Free Press Action, a non-profit media advocacy organization, has criticized the bill as doing “nothing to support trustworthy local reporting and would instead pad the profits of massive conglomerates.”

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  • Twitter isn’t letting users view the site without logging in | CNN Business

    Twitter isn’t letting users view the site without logging in | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Twitter appears to be restricting access to its platform for anyone not logged into an account.

    People without a Twitter account or who weren’t logged in used to be able to scroll the platform’s homepage and view public accounts and tweets. But as of this week, when such a user opens the platform they are met with a screen prompting them to sign up or sign in to Twitter.

    Internet users began noticing the change late this week, and on Friday, multiple CNN reporters were unable to access Twitter without logging in.

    It was not immediately clear whether the change was an intentional policy update or a glitch, both of which have been common at Twitter since Musk took over the platform. Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.

    The change comes as billionaire owner Elon Musk attempts to revamp Twitter’s business following months of challenges since his takeover late last year — now with the help of new CEO Linda Yaccarino.

    Twitter’s leadership is urging advertisers to return to the platform after many fled over concerns about increased hate speech, layoffs and general questions about the company’s direction. Musk has also sought to grow subscription revenue by offering a blue verification checkmark for users who sign up for its Twitter Blue service.

    The restriction on public access to Twitter could be an effort to grow the platform’s user base, which has always been significantly smaller than social media rivals like Facebook and Instagram.

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  • Elon Musk rebrands Twitter as X | CNN Business

    Elon Musk rebrands Twitter as X | CNN Business

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    New York
    CNN
     — 

    In a radical rebranding, Twitter owner Elon Musk has replaced Twitter’s iconic bird logo with X.

    Musk made the shock announcement of his plans early Sunday. By Monday morning US time, he tweeted that X.com now points to Twitter.com.

    “Interim X logo goes live later today,” he wrote, shortly before sharing a photo of Twitter’s headquarters lit up by a giant new X.

    The Twitter website now features the same logo, while the familiar blue bird is gone.

    Previously, Musk said he was bidding “adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds.”

    Twitter

    (TWTR)    , founded in 2006, has used its vivid, globally recognized blue bird emblem for more than a decade.

    The renaming could be seen as something of a brand overhaul “Hail Mary” for the company: Musk in recent months has repeatedly warned that Twitter, facing steep losses in ad revenue, was on the edge of bankruptcy.

    Increasing the pressure, earlier this month rival social media platform Threads launched from Facebook

    (FB)     parent Meta. It surpassed 100 million user sign-ups in its first week.

    Twitter had 238 million active users prior to being taken private by Musk in October 2022.

    One of the world’s richest men, Musk was once best known for his innovative efforts through companies SpaceX and Tesla

    (TSLA)     to launch rockets and build electric cars.

    Now, many of the headlines he makes are for his eccentric remarks on his personal Twitter account – often sharing conspiracy theories and getting into public spats on the social media platform.

    Musk overhauled the site after acquiring it for $44 billion in late October, then followed with mass layoffs, disputes over millions of dollars allegedly owed in severance and Musk’s note to employees that remaining at the company would mean “working long hours at high intensity.” He wrote: “Only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade.”

    The upheaval prompted organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League, Free Press and GLAAD, to pressure brands to rethink advertising on Twitter.

    The groups pointed to the mass layoffs as a key factor in their thinking, citing fears that Musk’s cuts would make Twitter’s election-integrity policies effectively unenforceable, even if they technically remain active.

    Musk also began overseeing controversial policy changes which led to frequent service disruptions at Twitter and upended his own reputation in the process.

    In June, Musk named Linda Yaccarino, a former NBCUniversal marketing executive, CEO of the company.

    She commented on the name change on Twitter Sunday afternoon: “It’s an exceptionally rare thing – in life or in business – that you get a second chance to make another big impression. Twitter made one massive impression and changed the way we communicate. Now, X will go further, transforming the global town square.”

    As the new venture begins, it faces challenges. Musk recently disclosed that the platform still has a negative cash flow due to a 50% drop in advertising revenue and heavy debt loads.

    Criticizing the exit, or pause, of such Twitter advertisers as General Mills

    (GIS)    , Macy’s

    (M)     and some car companies that compete with Tesla, Musk has called himself a “free speech absolutist” and said he wanted to buy Twitter to bolster users’ ability to speak freely on the platform.

    Musk explained his approach to free speech by saying: “Is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like? And if that is the case, then we have free speech.”

    He added that Twitter would “be very reluctant to delete things” and that the platform would aim to allow all legal speech. Many users have worried that could mean a rise in hate speech.

    Meanwhile, the initial frenzy around rival Threads appears to have come back to earth, especially as it has been plagued with spam and lacks several user-friendly features Twitter, or, now X, offers.

    Adam Mosseri, who is overseeing the Threads launch for Meta, has hinted at plans to add features such as a desktop version of the app, a feed of only accounts a user follows and an edit button.

    Its ability to draw advertising support is, as yet, unproven.

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  • Samuel Alito tells Congress to stay out of Supreme Court ethics controversy | CNN Politics

    Samuel Alito tells Congress to stay out of Supreme Court ethics controversy | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Congress should stay out of the Supreme Court’s business and stop trying to impose ethics rules on justices and clerks, Justice Samuel Alito said in an interview published by The Wall Street Journal editorial page Friday.

    “Congress did not create the Supreme Court,” Alito said. “I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it. No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court – period.”

    Spurred by a string of stories calling out questionable ethical decisions and a lack of transparency and disclosure, Senate Democrats have advanced legislation meant to create a code of ethics for the Supreme Court.

    One of the authors of the Journal interview, attorney David B. Rivkin Jr., represents the plaintiffs in a major tax case the court will hear next term.

    In an unusual move, Alito last month sought to preempt a ProPublica report on him by publishing a Wall Street Journal op-ed rather than responding to ProPublica’s request for comment directly.

    Alito, a conservative appointed by George W. Bush, said he’s realized that nobody’s going to defend him if he doesn’t do so himself.

    “I marvel at all the nonsense that has been written about me in the last year,” Alito told the Journal, adding that “the traditional idea about how judges and justices should behave is they should be mute.”

    “But that’s just not happening,” he said. “And so at a certain point I’ve said to myself, nobody else is going to do this, so I have to defend myself.”

    As for criticism of the court’s recent decisions, such as Alito’s majority opinion striking down Roe v. Wade last year, the justice compared any effort to defy the court on a vast scale to objections in the South after major civil rights cases in the 1950s, including Brown v. Board of Education, which declared “separate but equal” was unconstitutional.

    “If we’re viewed as illegitimate, then disregard of our decisions becomes more acceptable and more popular,” Alito said. “So you can have a revival of the massive resistance that occurred in the South after Brown.”

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  • Twitter threatens to sue hate-speech watchdog group | CNN Business

    Twitter threatens to sue hate-speech watchdog group | CNN Business

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    Washington, DC
    CNN
     — 

    Elon Musk has called himself a free-speech absolutist and has praised “even my worst critics.” But now Twitter has threatened to sue a nonprofit known for sharply criticizing the platform for its handling of hate speech and misinformation.

    In a July 20 letter shared publicly Monday, Twitter threatened to sue the Center for Countering Digital Hate, accusing the group of a campaign to hurt Twitter by driving away its advertisers. The CCDH has published numerous reports about various social media companies’ approach to everything from vaccine misinformation to online racism and antisemitism.

    The letter by Alex Spiro, an outside attorney representing Twitter owner Musk, alleges that CCDH has made “inflammatory, outrageous, and false or misleading assertions about Twitter and its operations” through its reports, which he argued lack scientific rigor.

    To back up his claim, Spiro cited one report in which CCDH staff flagged tweets from 100 Twitter Blue subscribers to the platform as being harmful and found that after several days, the company had not taken action on the vast majority of it. The resulting CCDH report said Twitter had failed to act on “99% of Twitter Blue accounts tweeting hate.”

    “This article leaves no doubt that CCDH intends to harm Twitter’s business by driving advertisers away from the platform with incendiary claims,” Spiro wrote to CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed, adding that Twitter is investigating whether it can sue the nonprofit for making false descriptions of the company.

    CCDH tweeted Spiro’s July 20 letter along with the organization’s reply to Twitter — which Musk has since rebranded as X — that called the legal threat “ridiculous.”

    “These allegations not only have no basis in fact (your letter states none), but they represent a disturbing effort to intimidate those who have the courage to advocate against incitement, hate speech and harmful content online, to conduct research and analysis regarding the drivers of such disinformation, and to publicly release the findings of that research, even when the findings may be critical of certain platforms,” wrote CCDH’s attorneys in a response dated Monday.

    Spiro didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

    Since taking over Twitter, Musk has slashed roughly 80% of the company’s staff, including many working on the platform’s content moderation teams.

    In December, Twitter shuttered its Trust and Safety Council comprised of outside experts on online safety, human rights, mental health, suicide prevention and child sexual exploitation.

    Reports from multiple groups, including CCDH but also the Anti-Defamation League as well as researchers from Tufts University and the University of Southern California, have pointed to observed increases in hate speech.

    Musk claimed that impressions of hate speech — which he described as based on a list of “bad words” — declined in the month following his takeover.

    But concerns about the platform’s handling of hateful content under Musk last year have persisted, prompting many brands to pause their advertising on Twitter and contributing to sharp financial losses at the company.

    Despite claiming in April that most of Twitter’s advertisers had returned, Musk acknowledged this month that Twitter’s ad revenue remains down by 50% and that the company is still cash-flow negative.

    In addition, Twitter has made changes to its platform restricting how third parties can access its data, a move that has drawn widespread criticism from academic researchers who study extremism and other online harms. The changes, which require researchers to pay hefty fees, could inhibit studies on how misinformation, harassment and spam spread on Twitter, experts have said.

    Threatening lawsuits has become a favored tactic for Musk as Twitter faces continued pressure. Earlier this month, Twitter threatened to sue Facebook-parent Meta over the launch of its competing app, Threads, accusing the company of copying Twitter’s product through trade secret theft. In May, Spiro sent a letter to Microsoft accusing it of over-using its ability to download tweets from the platform as Musk stepped up his criticism of the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant as a perceived rival in artificial intelligence technology.

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  • Appeals court can rule at any time in dispute over suspending FDA approval of medication abortion drug | CNN Politics

    Appeals court can rule at any time in dispute over suspending FDA approval of medication abortion drug | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    The Justice Department and a manufacturer of abortion pills have submitted the final round of court briefs in the emergency dispute over whether an appeals court should freeze a judge’s ruling that would suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of medication abortion drugs.

    Now that the filings have been submitted, the US 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Court could rule at any time on whether to put a hold on the order from US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk.

    Kacsmaryk on Friday night said he was halting the FDA’s approval of the drug mifepristone but that he was delaying the order by seven days to give the pill’s defenders time to appeal the case. The Justice Department has asked the appeals court to act by 12 p.m. CT Thursday on its request that Kacsmaryk’s ruling be paused, to give the government time to seek a Supreme Court intervention if need be. The 5th Circuit is not obligated to meet that deadline.

    The Justice Department wrote in its new filing that Kacsmaryk purported “to be acting in a restrained manner … but there is nothing modest about upending the decades-long status quo by blocking access nationwide to a safe and effective drug.”

    “Effectively requiring Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro to cease distribution of mifepristone after more than two decades would upend the status quo, severely harming women, healthcare systems, and the public,” the Justice Department said, referring to the two US manufacturers of mifepristone.

    The Justice Department filing pushed back on the assertions by the challengers, made in their filing overnight in the emergency dispute, that the 5th Circuit did not have the authority to hear the appeal of Kacsmaryk’s ruling. The Justice Department also called out Kacsmaryk and the challengers for relying on anonymous blog posts to claim mifepristone is unsafe.

    Danco Labroratories, which intervened in the case to defend mifepristone’s approval, wrote in its new filing with the appeals court that if the ruling is not frozen, “women across the nation will face serious, unnecessary health risks from the elimination of access to a drug FDA has repeatedly deemed safe and effective and that is the standard of care.”

    In an overnight filing, the anti-abortion doctors who sued to ban medication abortion drugs told a federal appeals court that it should leave in place the ruling that will halt the drug’s FDA approval.

    The anti-abortion doctors defended Kacsmaryk’s ruling called it a “meticulously considered” ruling that “paints an alarming picture of decades-long agency lawlessness – all to the detriment of the women and girls FDA is charged to protect.”

    Mifepristone has been approved by the FDA for terminating pregnancies for nearly 23 years. Leading medical associations have rebuked the claims by the approval’s legal challengers and by the judge that the drug is unsafe.

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  • Who says romance is dead? Couples are using ChatGPT to write their wedding vows | CNN Business

    Who says romance is dead? Couples are using ChatGPT to write their wedding vows | CNN Business

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    CNN
     — 

    When Elyse Nguyen was nearing her wedding date in February and still hadn’t started writing her vows, a friend suggested she try a new source of inspiration: ChatGPT.

    The AI chatbot, which was released publicly in late November, can generate compelling written responses to user prompts and offers the promise of helping people get over writer’s block, whether it be for an essay, an email, or an emotional speech.

    “At first we inputted the prompt as a joke and the output was pretty cheesy with personal references to me and my husband,” said Nguyen, a financial analyst at Qualcomm. “But the essence of what vows should incorporate was there – our promises to each other and structure.”

    She made edits, changed the prompts to add humor and details about her partner’s interests, and added some personal touches. Nguyen ultimately ended up using a good portion of ChatGPT’s suggestions and said her husband was on board with it.

    “It helped alleviate some stress because I had no prior experience with wedding vows nor did I know what should be included,” Nguyen said. “Plus, ChatGPT is a genius with alliteration, analogies and metaphors. Having something like, ‘I promise to be your partner in life with the enthusiasm of a golfer’s first hole in one’ in my back pocket was comical.”

    Nearly five months after ChatGPT went viral and ignited a new AI arms race in Silicon Valley, more couples are looking to it for help with wedding planning, including writing vows and speeches, drafting religious marriage contracts, and setting up websites for the special day.

    Ellen Le recently created some of her wedding website through a new Writer’s Block Assistant tool on online wedding planning service Joy, which was one of the first third-party platforms to incorporate ChatGPT’s technology. (Last month, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, opened up access to the chatbot, paving the way for it to be integrated into numerous apps and services.)

    Le, a product manager at a startup, said she used the feature to draft an “about us” page and write directions from San Francisco to her Napa Valley wedding. The Writer’s Block Assistant tool helps users write vows, best man and maid of honor speeches, thank you cards and wedding website “about us” pages. It also lets users highlight personal stories and select the style or tone before pulling it into a speech.

    “I started drafting my vows and when I typed in how we met, it produced this very delightful story,” Le said. “Some of it was inaccurate, making up certain details, but it gave me a helping hand and something to react to, rather than just spending 10 hours thinking about how to get started.”

    Le said her fiance, who often uses ChatGPT for work, is considering using AI to help with his vows too.

    Joy co-founder and CEO Vishal Joshi, who studied artificial intelligence and electrical engineering at NIT Rourkela in India, said the company launched Writer’s Block Assistant in March after it conducted an internal study that found most of its users were somewhat overwhelmed with getting started on writing vows and speeches, and wished they had help. He said the company has already seen thousands of submissions since launching the tool.

    “Almost two decades ago, AI enthusiasts like myself and my research peers had only dreamt of mass market adoption we are seeing today, and we know this is just the true beginning,” Joshi said. “Just like smartphones, if applied well, the positive impact of AI on our lives can far outshine the negatives. We’re working on responsibly innovating using AI to advance the wedding and event industry as a whole.”

    Michael Grinn and Kate Gardiner used viral AI tool ChatGPT to write the Ketubah, a Jewish wedding contract, for their June wedding.

    ChatGPT has sparked concerns in recent months about its potential to perpetuate biases, spread misinformation and upend certain livelihoods. Now, as it finds its way into marriage ceremonies, it could raise more nuanced questions about whether people risk losing something by injecting technology into what is supposed to be a deeply personal and, for many, spiritual moment in life.

    Michael Grinn, an anesthesiologist with practices in Miami and New York, was experimenting with ChatGPT when he asked it to produce a traditional Ketubah – a Jewish marriage contract – for his upcoming June wedding.

    Grinn and his fiance Kate Gardiner, the founder and CEO of a public relations firm, then requested it make some language changes around gender equality and intimacy. “At the end, we both looked at each other and were like, we can’t disagree with the result,” he said.

    Editing took about an hour, but it still shaved hours off what otherwise could have been a lengthy process, he said. Still, Grinn plans to write his own vows. “I want them to be less refined and something no one else helped me with.”

    He does, however, plan to use ChatGPT for inspiration for officiating his best man’s wedding. “It mostly comes down to time because I’ve been working so much,” he said, “and this is so efficient.”

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  • Trump campaign says it saw surge in donations after indictment | CNN Politics

    Trump campaign says it saw surge in donations after indictment | CNN Politics

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    CNN
     — 

    Former President Donald Trump raised a combined $18.8 million in the first quarter of 2023 through his joint fundraising committee and his campaign – and saw a spike in donations after being indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on March 30 – according to new figures provided by his campaign.

    The campaign told CNN it also raised $15.4 million in the two weeks after charges were filed against the former president, showing how much his supporters have rallied around Trump after learning of the indictment.

    The Trump campaign said the fundraising figures suggest his legal woes have benefited him both politically and financially – at least in the short term – and energized his base as he continues to campaign for his third shot at the presidency.

    Politico first reported Trump’s first quarter fundraising numbers.

    Trump’s campaign previously said on March 31 that it had raised $4 million in the 24 hours since his indictment was first announced. The former president has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony criminal charges of falsifying business records.

    During the first quarter, from January 1 to March 31, Trump received a total of 541,971 donations, according to the figures provided by his campaign. The average donation was roughly $34.

    Comparatively, Trump received 312,564 donations in the two weeks after charges were filed against the former president, beginning on March 30, with the average donation totaling roughly $49.

    Prior to the indictment, the former president was bringing in roughly $168,000 per day between January 1 to March 30. It’s unclear whether the boost the Trump campaign says it received since his indictment will continue into the second quarter.

    The former president has been raising money for his 2024 presidential bid through both his campaign and his political action committee, Save America PAC. Filings Saturday night with the Federal Election Commission show that $14.4 million of the first-quarter haul went to Trump’s main campaign account.

    The figure lags behind the $30 million he raised during the first quarter of the 2020 election cycle, when he still occupied the Oval Office.

    In all, the Trump campaign spent $3.5 million in the first quarter and had $13.9 million in cash on hand as of March 31.

    More than $727,000 of his campaign dollars during the three-month period funded payroll, filings show. A little more than $488,000 went to TAG Air Inc. – the Trump-owned company that operates his airplanes.

    Other Republicans who have announced their 2024 candidacies include Nikki Haley, a former United Nations ambassador and ex-South Carolina governor, whose campaign has said she collected $11 million in the six weeks since she launched her bid on February 15. But the filings show she raised less than that, and her campaign appears to have double-counted money routed among various committees. In all, Haley raised $8.3 million across three committees connected to her campaign.

    Another South Carolinian, Republican Sen. Tim Scott – who announced a presidential exploratory committee on Wednesday, after the end of the first quarter – reported Saturday that he had nearly $22 million remaining in his Senate campaign account as of March 31. That’s money Scott could transfer directly into a presidential campaign account.

    Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who declared his bid for the GOP nomination in February, loaned his campaign $10.25 million and raised about $1.2 million from contributors through March 31. He had nearly $9.4 million in cash on hand at the end of the quarter, his FEC filing shows.

    Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to launch a 2024 GOP presidential bid, has built a sizable war chest through his state-level fundraising committee. Friends of Ron DeSantis has more than $85 million remaining in its coffers, recent state records show.

    He faces restrictions on the use of that money for a presidential bid, but it could potentially be transferred to another committee backing his candidacy.

    Already, a pro-DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down, which launched in March, has announced that it had raised $30 million as of early April. The group debuted its first national TV ad Sunday, taking direct aim at the former president.

    “Donald Trump is being attacked by a Democrat prosecutor in New York, so why is he spending millions attacking the Republican governor of Florida?” the ad said. “What happened to Donald Trump?” The one-time buy on Fox will be followed by a seven-figure national ad buy beginning Monday, according to a source familiar with the super PAC’s plans.

    Details on Trump’s fundraising after the first quarter ended on March 31 won’t be disclosed to regulators for several months.

    On Friday, the former president filed his personal financial disclosure report with the FEC – offering the public a first look at his post-presidential finances. The 101-page report provided some new insights into Trump’s finances since he left office, including his social media business venture, and last year’s sale of digital trading cards known as NFTs, or non-fungible tokens.

    This story has been updated with additional information.

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