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Tucker Carlson’s Putin interview: 9 takeaways
Here are the takeaways from Putin’s sit-down with Carlson.
1. Putin isn’t done with his war
The main message Putin sought to convey to Americans: There’s no point helping Ukraine with more money and weapons. And Carlson, who has himself previously questioned U.S. support for Ukraine as it seeks to defend its people and its land in the face of Russia’s assault, was all too happy to help deliver that message.

“If you really want to stop fighting, you need to stop supplying weapons. It will be over within a few weeks. That’s it,” Putin claimed, adding that it was up to the U.S. to tell Ukraine to come to the negotiating table.

But that’s not really the full story, as Putin himself made clear in two telling responses to Carlson’s follow-up questions.

First, asked whether Russia had achieved its war aims, Putin said: “No. We haven’t achieved our aims yet because one of them is de-nazification.” The claim that Russia is seeking to “de-nazify” Ukraine is widely seen as code for the removal of the country’s democratically elected (Jewish) president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In a strong indication of what he meant by his comment, Putin said “we have to get rid of those people” who he claimed, without basis, “support” Nazism.

Second, when Carlson asked whether Putin would “be satisfied with the territory that you have now,” the Russian autocrat refused to respond, returning to his point about de-nazification and insisting he hadn’t yet finished answering the previous question. We’ll take that as another no.
Eva Hartog and Sergey Goryashko

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February 9, 2024
Inside graveyard of rusting Soviet space rocket sat abandoned in warehouse

A SOVIET space rocket has been left to rot near a desert in an abandoned ship graveyard.

The rusting 2,650-ton Energia M rocket was once envisioned as the USSR’s lethal weapon that could take down Nasa’s space program.

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Picture of the Energia M rotting away inside Russia’s Baikonur Cosmodrome launch facilityCredit: mediadrumimages.com/@gregabandon

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A top view shows the nose cone of the rocket covered in bird poop.Credit: mediadrumimages.com/@gregabandon

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Rusty chains dangling around the rocket give away how long the rocket has been abandoned forCredit: youtube/@Ninurta

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A picture of the rocket showing its decaying boostersCredit: youtube/@Ninurta

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The sad remains of the warehouse where the rocket sits abandonedCredit: Exclusivepix Media

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The sad remains of what was once thought to be the future of Russian space exploration was abandoned to the elements decades ago.

Tucked deep into the Kazakh desert, in Russia‘s Baikonur Cosmodrome launch facility, the rocket has only been blasted by the faeces of several birds.

Several structures surrounding the rocket have been reduced to rubble, depicting the sorry state of the once-blooming launch pad.

Massive exposed pipes and metal chains in the cavern can be seen dangling inside the creepy warehouse.

Although the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch facility remains active, large parts of the grounds are now little more than a graveyard for the relics of the Soviet Union’s space program.

The USSR initially launched the project in what can only be described as a battle of egos with America, and their space program.

In the ’70s the Soviets began to develop the rocket Energia in a bid to rival Nasa‘s Saturn V launch vehicle – which was responsible for the Apollo mission to the moon.

The rocket was designed to serve as a “heavy-lift expendable launch system” and booster for the Soviet Buran space shuttle – the Soviet version of Nasa aircraft.

Inside haunting underwater graveyard buried underneath tropical paradise with human skulls and abandoned belongings

In 1993, a prototype of the rocket called “Energia M” was placed inside the hanger of the Baikonur Cosmodrome launch facility.

As a mockup, the rocket was not meant to be fuelled or launched into space – but experts said they were close to being able to do so.

I must say that the scale of this bloody rocket is enormous. I could not comprehend the rocket that cost millions was rusting away just like that

Greg Abandoned

But with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Russia’s crumbling economy in the ’90s, Boris Yeltsin was forced to cancel the space program entirely.

And for more than 30 years, the rocket has been left untouched inside the abandoned hanger of the Russian space pad.

Now, the machine and its cavern have become an adventure spot for photographers and urban explorers.

In 2022, photographer Greg Abandoned spotted the warehouse inside the launch facility while adventuring through the wilderness.

The explorer was left awestruck seeing the mammoth size of the rocket – and the sorry state of the hanger.

He said: “I must say that the scale of this bloody rocket is enormous.

“Standing there at the bottom and looking up at this monster was a remarkable experience.

“I could not comprehend the rocket that cost millions was rusting away just like that.”

Greg also discovered two Soviet space shuttles in an adjacent hanger.

One of them was called Ptichka which was meant to go to space at some point in the future but never left Earth.

The other one was a test vehicle that was never meant to fly.

To date both the spacecraft, along with the rocket, remain marooned in the hangar, providing a stark symbol of the decline of the Soviet Space program.

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Other Soviet space shuttles, like Ptichka, have also been relegated to collecting dustCredit: mediadrumimages.com/@gregabandon

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The eerie hanger where the shuttle was left abandonedCredit: Exclusivepix Media

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They may have survived the Cold War, but they’ve been destroyed by timeCredit: mediadrumimages

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Now, the abandoned spacecraft hangar has become a playground for adventurersCredit: Exclusivepix Media

Sayan Bose

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February 7, 2024
More than 18 million rental units at risk from climate hazards as extreme weather becomes more common, Harvard study finds

D3sign | Stone | Getty Images

Extreme weather and climate hazards are becoming more frequent, posing a threat not only for homeowners but for renters.

More than 18 million rental units across the U.S. are exposed to climate- and weather-related hazards, according to the latest American Rental Housing Report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Harvard researchers paired data from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Risk Index with the five-year American Community Survey to find out what units are in the areas that are expected to have annual economic loss from environmental hazards such as wildfires, flooding, earthquakes, hurricanes and more.

“The rental housing stock is the oldest it ever has been, and a lot of it is not suited for the growing frequency, severity and diversity in environmental hazards,” said Sophia Wedeen, research analyst focused on rental housing, residential remodeling and affordability at the Joint Center for Housing Studies.

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In 2023, there were 28 weather and climate disasters with damages totaling $1 billion or more, a record high, according to the latest report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Environmental Information. These weather disruptions collectively cost $92.9 billion in damages, an estimate adjusted for inflation, the agency found.

“It’s clear that not only are climate hazards happening more often, but they’re happening more often in places where people live, which is why we’re seeing all of these damages increase over time,” said Jeremy Porter, head of climate implications research for First Street Foundation, a nonprofit organization in New York.

In addition, about twice as many properties in the U.S. have flood risks than what FEMA accounts for, according to research by First Street Foundation.

And flood insurance is only mandated for properties inside official flood zones, Porter said.

“Half the properties across the country don’t know they have a flood risk, which means the building owner may not have flood insurance,” he said.

Some renters ‘can’t afford to move away from the risk’

At a national level, 45% of single-family rentals and 35% to 40% of units in small, midsize and large multifamily buildings are located in census tracts, or neighborhoods, that are exposed to annual losses from climate-related hazards, the Harvard study found.

Units with the highest risk are manufactured housing, such as mobile homes and RVs, said Wedeen. While they’re a smaller share of the rental stock, 52% of manufactured units are located in areas with extreme weather exposure.

As the market already faces a declining supply of low-rent units available, “environmental hazards would really exacerbate the existing affordability concerns,” Wedeen said.

Renters in manufactured housing, low-rent or subsidized units are also often stuck with the housing they have or lack the same level of mobility as wealthier renters, experts say.

“These populations are more vulnerable and don’t have the financial means to protect themselves against the risks that exist,” Porter said. “It’s sort of a compounding risk when we see these increases in climate hazards and start impacting people who can’t afford to move away from the risk.”

Most of the state and local funds that cover post-disaster assistance go to homeowners, not rental property owners.

“That in turn puts a lot of burden on renters who are displaced by natural disasters and who may find it hard to find new housing,” she said.

Many homes need upgrades to withstand disasters

Low-rent or subsidized units also face preservation issues, leaving them in poor physical condition. According to the Harvard study, units renting for less than $600 per month have higher rates of physical inadequacy from disrepair and structural deterioration.

Manufactured housing units are more likely to be physically inadequate, meaning they are “much less able to withstand the impact of a weather-related hazard,” Wedeen said.

What renters need is greater investment in the existing housing stock and upgrades that can mitigate the damage to a building and improve its resilience to hazards, Wedeen said.

“Without substantial investment, displacements and units becoming uninhabitable is only going to continue,” Wedeen said.

How renters can protect themselves

It’s important for tenants to understand that they need renter’s insurance to protect their possessions.

Landlords and building owners are responsible for repairing physical damage to the unit or building from a climate-related hazard, and those repairs will depend on whether the landlord or building owner is covered by property insurance, said Porter.

But the landlord’s insurance on the building does not cover renters’ personal property.

Renters should check what type of disasters are included in their renter’s insurance policy. They may need riders or a separate policy to cover risks such as flooding or earthquakes, experts say.

While a lot of the risks are out of the hands of renters, they can research to make informed decisions and prepare.

Before moving to a new area, renters should research the floodplain, look for a building with resilient features and find out what risks that area is exposed to by using search tools such as the FEMA flood map or riskfactor.com, a search tool backed by First Street Foundation’s data analysis.

In some areas, landlords must disclose to prospective tenants if a property is in a floodplain or has experienced flooding in the past.

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February 7, 2024
Tucker Carlson faces media fury over Putin interview

But Carlson’s monologue, in which he lambasted Western media and claimed it wasn’t making an effort to hear Putin’s side of the story, has sparked backlash from American and Russian journalists.

“Many journalists have interviewed Putin, who also makes frequent, widely covered speeches,” wrote Anne Applebaum, an American journalist and historian, on X (formerly Twitter). “Carlson’s interview is different because he is not a journalist, he’s a propagandist, with a history of helping autocrats conceal corruption.”

Carlson, who was ousted by Fox last year, said the interview would be published “unedited” and “not behind a paywall” on his personal website. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday confirmed that the interview had already taken place, but did not share when it would air.

While Western media outlets have done “scores of interviews” with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Carlson said, “not a single Western journalist has bothered to interview the president of the other country involved in this conflict, Vladimir Putin.”

“Most Americans have no idea why Putin invaded Ukraine or what his goals are now,” he said. “They’ve never heard his voice. That’s wrong.”

While it’s true that Carlson will be the first American to interview Putin since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost two years ago, journalists from major outlets in the United States and Europe were quick to point out that this is not for lack of trying.

Claudia Chiappa

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February 7, 2024
‘Project Iceworm’s’ network of tunnels in ‘ONLY place you could survive WW3’
A TOP secret military project hiding a spiralling network of sub-zero tunnels and nuclear warheads may be the only place on Earth you could “survive World War Three”.

Ominous warnings from Russia, missile strikes in the Middle East, unease in China and tensions brought up by the Israel-Hamas conflict have taken the world into “a new era” of international relations.

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‘Project Iceworm’ was the hidden base from where the US planned to launch nuclear missiles against RussiaCredit: W Robert Moore/National Geographic/Getty Images

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The underground labyrinth still exists to this day and can home 200 peopleCredit: W Robert Moore/National Geographic/Getty Images

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An aerial shot of the campCredit: U.S. Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory via University of Zurich

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Many fear the crisis in Ukraine could still develop, with officials warning it could see the bloodiest conflict in Europe since WW2 if resulting in nuclear war.

And Iran’s terror proxies – including Hezbollah and the Houthis – have already gone up against Israel, the US and UK.

Nato recently announced its biggest call-up in decades as 90,000 troops prepare to begin World War Three drills.

But one secret underground labyrinth of tunnels could prove to be the safest place to hideout if global conflict erupts.
Project Iceworm key points

Project Iceworm was a top secret United States Army program of the Cold War, which aimed to build a network of mobile nuclear missile launch sites under the Greenland ice sheet.

The end goal was to install a vast network of nuclear missile launch sites that could survive a first strike.

The missiles, which could strike targets within the Soviet Union, were never fielded

A highly publicised “cover” project, known as Camp Century, was launched in 1960

The US army engineering corps excavated Camp Century in 1959 around 200km (124 miles) from the coast of Greenland, which was then a county of Denmark.

The camp’s three-kilometre network of tunnels, eight metres beneath the ice, housed laboratories, a shop, a hospital, a cinema, a chapel and accommodation for as many as 200 soldiers.

Unstable ice conditions within the ice sheet caused the project to be cancelled in 1966.
Codenamed Project Iceworm, it was built as the US planned to store hundreds of ballistic missiles which could be launched to strike targets inside the USSR.

The colossal building, also known as Camp Century for cover, was buried deep beneath the surface ice on the remote Danish territory of Greenland.

US military chiefs had planned to launch a nuclear attack on Russia from the clandestine camp, built in 1959 in the height of tensions with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The US was so secretive, the Danish – who governed Greenland before it was given autonomy in 1979 – didn’t even know what lay beneath.

However, the doomsday plans were shelved in 1966 due to shifting ice.

By then, nearly two miles of tunnels had been completed, containing a hospital, a shop, a theatre and a church for the facility’s 200 inhabitants.

Engineers realised the constantly moving ice was too unstable and would have deformed and perhaps even collapsed the tunnels.

Brits face conscription if UK goes to war with Russia because ‘military is too small’, Army chief warns amid WW3 threat

Known as “the city under the ice”, the camp’s three-kilometre network of tunnels remains nestled in a wilderness of ice and snow.

American officials pretended that they were conducting a polar research project at the time.

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The plan was to create 2,500 miles of tunnels, covering an area of 52,000 square milesCredit: YouTube

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Incredible video shows US Army Engineers on site building the facilityCredit: YouTube

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The US army would use those tunnels to move missiles so the Soviets had no idea where they were

Army researchers did perform some science, including drilling the first ice core to the base of the Greenland ice sheet.

And incredible footage from the time shows soldiers surveying the site before construction workers move in to begin work on the colossal structure.

The narrator states: “Camp Century is buried below the surface of this ice cap. Beneath it, the ice descends for 6,000 feet.

“In this remote setting, less than 800 miles from the North Pole, Camp Century is a symbol of man’s unceasing goal to conquer his environment, to increase his ability to live and fight if necessary under polar conditions.”

From 1964 it was used only intermittently, and three years later it was abandoned altogether, the departing soldiers taking the reaction chamber of the nuclear generator with them.

GLOBAL CONFLICT

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 sparked fears of global war but ongoing conflicts involving Iran and the Middle East, China and Taiwan, and North Korea has the world holding its breath.

General Sir Patrick Sanders, Chief of the General Staff, recently said Brits could even face a call-up if the UK goes to war with Russia.

With reports of Putin’s health deteriorating, there are fears that he could turn to nuclear nuclear weapons out of desperation.

Ukraine has fought back courageously ever since and continued to defy the odds by defending itself against Russian onslaughts with the help of Western military aid.

In November 2022, WW3 tensions grew after it was reported that Russian-built missiles crossed into Poland, a Nato country.

Although the stray missile was likely fired by Ukraine as it defended its territory from a Russian onslaught, the incident marked the first time a Nato country has been hit during Russia’s war in Ukraine.

North Korea is also ready to pounce on the West as Putin’s alliance with deranged leader Kim Jong-Un continues to grow.

Just weeks ago Putin unleashed North Korean rockets in Ukraine, killing hundreds in an unprecedented development.

But Kim has also threatened to start a war of his own after labelling South Korea his “principal enemy” – adding that the nuclear weapons at his disposal are not to be ignored.

This came just days after his sister and prominent ally – Kim Yo-Jong – vowed to unleash an “immediate military strike” on neighbouring South Korea over the “slightest provocation”.

Across the Asian continent, fears continue to mount over a possible Chinese invasion of Taiwan.

Beijing has already threatened to spark “uncontrolled escalation” and all-out warfare over one “misunderstanding”, as president Xi Jinping looks to stamp his authority.

China regards self-governing island Taiwan as part of its territory – and has vowed to take it by force if necessary, carrying out ever more regular invasion rehearsals.

In the Middle East, Israel’s ongoing war with Palestinian terror group Hamas has widened the threat of Iran in recent months.

Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon have all been dragged into the conflict, as have the UK and US.

But after Iran attacked targets inside Pakistan with bomb-carrying drones and rockets, fears of an all-out war in the Middle East have never been higher.

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Anxious specialists watch a control panel at nuclear power plant, Camp Century, GreenlandCredit: Getty

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Codenamed Project Iceworm, US planned to store hundreds of ballistic missiles which could be launched to strike targets inside the USSRCredit: YouTube
Ethan Singh

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February 6, 2024
Michigan school shooter’s mother found guilty of involuntary manslaughter

In 2021, Ethan Crumbley walked out of a toilet, pulled a gun from his backpack at school and killed four students.

A Michigan jury has convicted a school shooter’s mother of involuntary manslaughter in a first-of-its-kind trial to determine whether she had any responsibility in the killing of four students in 2021.

Prosecutors said on Tuesday that Jennifer Crumbley was negligent when she failed to tell Oxford High School that the family owned guns, including a 9mm handgun that her son, Ethan, used at the November 30 attack.

Crumbley, 45, faced four counts of involuntary manslaughter, one for each of the victims. Her husband, James, 47, is set to face his trial next month.

Oakland County prosecutors argued during the trial that the mother, despite not pulling the trigger herself, negligently stored the gun and ammunition and, therefore, should be held criminally responsible for the deaths.

They said that she and her husband knew Ethan was mentally in a “downward spiral” and posed a danger to others but allowed him access to the fateful pistol.

Ethan Crumbley, in Pontiac, US, February 22, 2022 [File: David Guralnick/Pool via Reuters]

They added that Crumbley had a duty under Michigan law to prevent her son, who was 15 at the time, from harming others.

But Shannon Smith, the lawyer for Crumbley, argued that she was not responsible for buying or storing the gun used by her son and that there were no warning signs that he would harm his classmates or to foresee a crime taking place.

Crumbley testified in her defence during the trial and said her husband was responsible for securely storing firearms at home and that her son had been anxious about getting into college.

During Smith’s closing arguments, she asked the jury, comprising six men and six women, including some gun owners, to find her client not guilty since her son’s crimes were “unforeseeable”.

“Can every parent really be responsible for everything that their children do?” Smith asked.

School shooting

On the morning of the school shooting, staff members who were concerned with Ethan’s drawing of a gun, bullet and wounded man next to the words “Blood everywhere,” “My life is useless,” and “The thoughts won’t stop – help me”, on his math assignment, met the Crumbleys.

According to prosecutors, Ethan’s parents were told that he needed counselling and they needed to take him home, but the couple resisted taking him and did not search his bag or ask about the gun.

However, Jennifer challenged that account, telling jurors they had mutually agreed that Ethan could remain in school that day and did not think he posed a danger to other students.

Hours later, Ethan walked out of a toilet, pulled a gun from his backpack and shot 10 students and a teacher, killing four students.

The gun used was a Sig Sauer 9mm that his father, James, had bought just four days earlier. Jennifer had also taken her son to a shooting range that weekend.

Ethan, now 17, pleaded guilty to murder and “terrorism” and is serving a life sentence.

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February 6, 2024
Tucker Carlson confirms he’s interviewing Vladimir Putin

News of Carlson’s visit first broke at the weekend after the Mash Telegram channel, rumored to have links to Russian law enforcement, reported he’d been spotted in Moscow at the Bolshoi Theater after having flown in several days earlier.

In a video published by the Russian outlet Izvestia a day later, Carlson said he had come to Russia to “talk to people, look around, and see how it’s doing … and it’s doing very well.”

Responding to a question as to whether he was there to interview Putin, Carlson responded: “We’ll see.”

Elon Musk, the owner of X (formerly Twitter), the platform on which the video will be published, has promised not to suppress or block the interview once it’s posted, Carlson said. He then aimed another broadside at the West.

“Western governments, by contrast, will certainly do their best to censor this video and other less principled platforms because that’s what they do,” Carlson said.

The last time Putin sat down with an American journalist was in June 2021 with NBC’s Keir Simmons. In October 2021 Putin briefly spoke to CNBC’s Hadley Gamble at the Russian Energy Week event in Moscow. Before that the Russian president also talked to U.S. TV journalist Megyn Kelly, then with NBC, before his last election win in 2018.

Nicolas Camut, Eva Hartog and Sergey Goryashko

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February 6, 2024
CNBC Daily Open: Wall Street rattled over Fed worries

A trader works, as a screen displays a news conference by Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell following the Fed rate announcement, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., January 31, 2024.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

What you need to know today

Wall Street retreats
U.S. stocks lost ground on Monday and Treasury yields rose amid lingering concerns that the Federal Reserve may not cut rates as much as expected. The blue-chip Dow fell over 200 points. The S&P 500 also slumped after hitting a record high last week. The Nasdaq Composite also dropped 0.2%.

Oil’s supply crunch
The oil market faces a supply crunch by the end of 2025 as the world is not replacing crude reserves fast enough, according to Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub. About 97% of the oil produced today was discovered in the 20th century, she told CNBC.

Palantir surges
Shares of Palantir spiked 19% in extended trading after the company reported revenue that topped analysts’ estimates. In a letter to shareholders, Palantir CEO Alex Karp said demand for large language models in the U.S. “continues to be unrelenting.”

Red Sea tensions
Higher shipping costs due to tensions in the Red Sea could hinder the global fight against inflation, said the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Clare Lombardelli, chief economist at the OECD, told CNBC that shipping-driven inflation pressures remain a risk rather than its base case.

[PRO] Banking allure
The banking sector offers attractive opportunities despite an increase in volatility, according to fund manager Cole Smead. “It’s the banks that made bad decisions that are making [other] banks look attractive in pricing,” Smead told CNBC, who picked two bank stocks that are in play.

The bottom line

Investors are once again getting ahead of themselves on the Fed’s next move.

Markets were rattled after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell reiterated the central bank is unlikely to rush to lower interest rates.

Wall Street has been parsing his hawkish comments, yet in essence what Powell said over the weekend was no different than what he shared at Wednesday’s press conference: that he wants to see more evidence that inflation is coming down to a sustainable level.

Still, the debate over the timing of rate cuts unsettled Fed watchers.

This sparked a sell-off spurred by higher bond yields. The yield on the 10-year Treasury spiked for a second day, trading around 4.163%. Typically, higher yields tend to indicate investors think the Fed will take longer to cut rates.

Fresh data out Monday also didn’t help. A new survey showed the U.S. services sector expand at a faster-than-expected clip in January.

This on top of the booming jobs report released Friday, fueled investor worries that rates may stay elevated for much longer.

Wall Street will now look ahead to the swath of Fed speakers this week. Perhaps they will shed more light on the path for rate cuts.

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February 5, 2024
Solana Investors Flock Back With $13M Inflows Beating Ethereum, Avalanche

Investment products for digital assets received significant influxes of $708 million last week, contributing to year-to-date inflows of $1.6 billion and increasing the total global assets under management to $53 billion.

However, trading volumes in ETPs dropped to $8.2 billion from the previous week’s total of $10.6 billion, though they still surpass the 2023 weekly average of $1.5 billion. According to CoinShares’ latest report, these volumes represent 29% of Bitcoin’s overall trading activity on trusted exchanges.

Solana Signal Strong Comeback

Following a period of lackluster performance in recent weeks, investment products focused on Solana are showing renewed strength amid a broader market rebound.

In the latest edition of ‘Digital Asset Fund Flows Weekly Report,’ CoinShares reported that Solana experienced inflows of more than $13 million last week, surpassing both Ethereum and Avalanche, which saw outflows of $6.4 million and $1.3 million, respectively, during the same period. Other altcoins such as Cardano, Litecoin, and XRP also noted minor inflows of $0.6 million, $0.3 million, and $0.1 million, respectively.

As expected, investment products focused on Bitcoin continued to steal the show. The asset manager’s report further revealed that the leading cryptocurrency attracted inflows amounting to $703 million last week, constituting 99% of all flows.

On the other hand, short positions in Bitcoin experienced slight outflows totaling $5.3 million. This essentially aligned with a reversal of the previous negative price momentum.

US Investment Scene Booms

Regionally, the spotlight remains on the United States, where inflows reached $721 million last week, boosted by newly issued ETFs attracting $1.7 billion in inflows. These newly launched ETFs have maintained an average of $1.9 billion in inflows over the past four weeks, accumulating total inflows of $7.7 billion since their introduction on January 11th.

However, this has been countered by outflows from established issuers amounting to $6 billion, though recent data suggests a significant slowdown in the pace of these outflows.

Meanwhile, Switzerland, Germany, and Brazil recorded weekly inflows of $20.9 million, $3.5 million, and $1.3 million, respectively, followed by Australia and France with $0.9 million and $0.1 million inflows. However, Canada and Sweden recorded $31.3 million and $8.2 million outflows during the same period.

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Chayanika Deka

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February 5, 2024
Palantir stock jumps 19% as AI demand drives revenue beat
Palantir co-founder and CEO Alex Karp arrives for a U.S. Senate bipartisan Artificial Intelligence Insight Forum at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 13, 2023.

Stefani Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images

Palantir shares surged more than 19% in after-hours trading on Monday after the company reported fourth-quarter earnings that beat analysts’ expectations for revenue. Full-year guidance for 2024 came roughly in line with Wall Street’s estimates.

Here’s how the company did:

Earnings per share: 8 cents adjusted vs. 8 cents expected by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv

Revenue: $608.4 million vs. $602.4 million expected by LSEG

Revenue in the fourth quarter increased 20% to $608.4 million from $508.6 million a year earlier. The company reported a net income of $93.4 million, or 4 cents per share, compared with $30.9 million, or 1 cent per share, in the year-ago quarter.

In a letter to shareholders, Palantir CEO Alex Karp said the company’s expansion and growth “have never been greater,” especially as demand for large language models in the U.S. “continues to be unrelenting.” Palantir has been rolling out its Artificial Intelligence Platform, or AIP, and Karp said the company carried out nearly 600 pilots with the technology in 2023, up from fewer than 100 in 2022.

“Our results reflect both the strength of our software and the surging demand that we are seeing across industries and sectors for artificial intelligence platforms,” Karp wrote.

Palantir said it expects to report between $612 million and $616 million in revenue during its first quarter, and forecast revenue for the full year of $2.65 billion to $2.67 billion. Wall Street was expecting sales of $617 million for the first quarter and $2.66 billion for the year.

Palantir, known for its defense and intelligence work with the U.S. government, said its U.S. commercial revenue grew 70% year over year. Palantir said its U.S. commercial customer count increased 55% from 143 customers to 221 customers.

In the prior period, Palantir reported its fourth straight quarter of profitability, which means it’s now eligible for inclusion in the S&P 500.

WATCH: Palantir shares climb after earnings show jump in commercial customers
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February 5, 2024
EU capitals fear Russian retaliation and cyberattacks after asset freezes

The EU’s unrelated effort to funnel cash to Ukraine from its central budget faced serious political resistance, prompting governments to look at alternative sources of money. It took weeks of diplomatic backchanneling before leaders convinced Hungary on Feb. 1 to lift its veto over the EU’s €50 billion cash pot for Ukraine.

Financial stability

The assets confiscation plan could generate over €200 billion to support Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction, according to backers of the proposal. G7 countries are aiming to come up with a coordinated roadmap amid growing pressure from the United States, which, along with the United Kingdom and Canada, has fewer qualms than EU countries such as Germany, France and Italy.

In Europe, there are fears Moscow might retaliate by lodging a flurry of appeals against Euroclear, a Belgium-based financial depository that holds the vast majority of Russian reserves in Europe.

“An institution like Euroclear is a very systemic financial institution,” Belgian Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem said | Nicolas Maeterlinck/Belga/AFP via Getty Images

“An institution like Euroclear is a very systemic financial institution,” Belgian Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem told reporters at the end of January. “We should … try to avoid an impact [of Russian asset confiscation] on financial stability.”

In a sign of the sort of retaliation countries fear might come, Russian entities have already filed 94 lawsuits in Russia demanding payback to Euroclear, which operates under Belgian law, after their investments and their profits in Europe were frozen, according to a Belgian official with knowledge of the proceedings.

Top Russian lenders, including Rosbank, Sinara Bank and Rosselkhozbank, filed legal claims against Euroclear worth hundreds of millions of rubles.

Gregorio Sorgi

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February 5, 2024
Plenty of People Could Quit Therapy Right Now

About four years ago, a new patient came to see me for a psychiatric consultation because he felt stuck. He’d been in therapy for 15 years, despite the fact that the depression and anxiety that first drove him to seek help had long ago faded. Instead of working on problems related to his symptoms, he and his therapist chatted about his vacations, house renovations, and office gripes. His therapist had become, in effect, an expensive and especially supportive friend. And yet, when I asked if he was considering quitting treatment, he grew hesitant, even anxious. “It’s just baked into my life,” he told me.

Among those who can afford it, regular psychotherapy is often viewed as a lifelong project, like working out or going to the dentist. Studies suggest that most therapy clients can measure their treatments in months instead of years, but a solid chunk of current and former patients expect therapy to last indefinitely. Therapists and clients alike, along with celebrities and media outlets, have endorsed the idea of going to therapy for extended stretches, or when you’re feeling fine. I’ve seen this myself with friends who are basically healthy and think of having a therapist as somewhat like having a physical trainer. The problem is, some of the most commonly sought versions of psychotherapy are simply not designed for long-term use.

Therapy comes in many varieties, but they all share a common goal: to eventually end treatment because you feel and function well enough to thrive on your own. Stopping doesn’t even need to be permanent. If you’ve been going to therapy for a long time, and you’re no longer in acute distress, and you have few symptoms that bother you, consider taking a break. You might be pleasantly surprised by how much you learn about yourself.

Therapy, in both the short and long term, can be life-altering. Short-term therapy tends to be focused on a particular problem, such as a depressed mood or social anxiety. In cognitive behavioral therapy, usually used for depressive and anxiety disorders, a clinician helps a client relieve negative feelings by correcting the distorted beliefs that he has about himself. In dialectical behavior therapy, commonly used to treat borderline personality disorder, patients learn skills to manage powerful emotions, which helps improve their mood and relationships. Both treatments typically last less than a year. If you start to get rusty or feel especially challenged by life events that come your way, you simply return for another brief stint. Termination is expected and normal.

Read: What’s the smallest amount of therapy that’s still effective?

Some types of therapy, such as psychodynamic therapy and psychoanalysis, are designed to last for several years—but not forever. The main goal of these therapies is much more ambitious than symptom relief; they aim to uncover the unconscious causes of suffering and to change a client’s fundamental character. At least one well-regarded study found that long-term therapy is both highly effective and superior to briefer treatment for people diagnosed with a clinically significant psychiatric illness; other papers have shown less conclusive evidence for long-term therapy. And few studies compare short and extended treatment for clients with milder symptoms.

In fact, there’s reason to believe that talk therapy in the absence of acute symptoms may sometimes cause harm. Excessive self-focus—easily facilitated in a setting in which you’re literally paying to talk about your feelings—can increase your anxiety, especially when it substitutes for tangible actions. If your neurotic or depressive symptoms are relatively mild (meaning they don’t really interfere with your daily functioning), you might be better served by spending less time in a therapist’s office and more time connecting with friends, pursuing a hobby, or volunteering. Therapists are trained to use the tools they’ve learned for certain types of problems, and many of the stress-inducing minutiae of daily life are not among them. For example, if you mention to your therapist that you’re having trouble being efficient at work, he might decide to teach you a stress-reduction technique, but your colleagues or boss might provide more specific strategies for improving your performance.

One of my childhood friends, whose parents were both psychoanalysts, went to weekly therapy appointments while we were growing up. He was a happy, energetic kid, but his parents wanted him and his sister to be better acquainted with their inner lives, to help them deal with whatever adversity came their way. My friend and his sister both grew up to be successful adults, but also highly anxious and neurotic ones. I imagine their parents would say the kids would have been worse without the therapy—after all, mental illness ran in their family. But I can find no substantial clinical evidence supporting this kind of “preventive” psychotherapy.

Read: What it’s like to visit an existential therapist

Beginning therapy in the first place is, to be clear, a privilege. Therapy is not covered by many insurance plans, and a very large number of people who could benefit from it can’t afford it for any duration. Only 47 percent of Americans with a psychiatric illness received any form of treatment in 2021; in fact, federal estimates suggest that the United States is several thousand mental-health professionals short, a gap that is likely to grow in the coming years. Stopping therapy when you’re ready opens up space for others who might need this scarce service more than you do.

I do not mean to suggest that a therapy vacation should be considered lightly, or that it’s for everyone. If you have a serious mental-health disorder, such as major depression or bipolar disorder, you should discuss with your mental-health provider whether ending therapy is appropriate for your individual situation. (Keep in mind that your therapist might not be ready to quit when you are. Aside from a financial incentive to continue treatment, parting with a charming, low-maintenance patient is not so easy.) My rule of thumb is that you should have minimal to no symptoms of your illness for six months or so before even considering a pause. Should you and your therapist agree that stopping is reasonable, a temporary break with a clear expiration date is ideal. At any time, if you’re feeling worse, you can always go back.

Psychiatrists do something similar with psychiatric meds: For example, when I prescribe a depressed patient an antidepressant, and then they remain stable and free of symptoms for several years, I usually consider tapering the medication to determine whether it’s still necessary for the patient’s well-being. I would do this only for patients who are at a low risk of relapse—for example, people who’ve had just one or two episodes, rather than many over a lifetime. Pausing therapy should be even less risky: The beautiful thing about therapy is that, unlike a drug, it equips you with new knowledge and skills, which you carry with you when you leave.

Read: The quick therapy that actually works

About a year after my patient and I first talked about ending therapy, I ran into him in a café. He told me that stopping had taken him six months, but now he was thriving. Maybe you, like my patient, are daunted by the idea of quitting cold turkey. If so, consider taking a vacation from treatment instead. It might be the perfect way to see how far you’ve really come.

Richard A. Friedman

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February 5, 2024
Gold prices to hit $2,200 and a ‘dramatic’ outperformance awaits silver in 2024, says UBS

Gold and silver bars of various sizes lie in a safe on a table at the precious metals dealer Pro Aurum in Munich.

Sven Hoppe | Picture Alliance | Getty Images

Gold and silver are expected to climb further in 2024 on expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve will start cutting interest rates, UBS forecasts.

“We are expecting gold to be pushed higher by a Fed easing. Also this comes with a weaker dollar” said the investment bank’s precious metals strategist Joni Teves, who expects the metal to hit $2,200 per ounce by the end of the year.

Gold prices tend to have an inverse relationship with interest rates. As interest rates dip, gold becomes more appealing compared to alternative investments like bonds, which would yield weaker returns in a low interest rate environment.

In turn, lower rates weaken the dollar, making gold cheaper for international buyers, driving up demand.

While there is still much uncertainty on the timing and extent of rate cuts, UBS maintained its expectations for the Federal Reserve to ease policy. Last week, the Fed announced its decision to leave rates unchanged in January, on top of shooting down hopes of a rate cut in March.

In a scenario where the Fed is easing, we think silver can do really well. It tends to outperform a move in gold.

The bullion’s appeal as a safe haven asset has risen since Israel’s war with Hamas began on Oct. 7, which contributed to gold prices notching an all-time high of $2,100 an ounce last month.

“We do think investors will start to build allocations to gold in an environment where there is a lot of macro uncertainty [and] geopolitical risks,” said Teves.

Prospects for gold’s “poorer cousin” are also optimistic, with silver on course to “really, really shine.”

Silver is not as common of a geopolitical and safety haven compared to gold, which partly explains why it has underperformed gold in the last few years, the strategist said. But the tables could turn in its favor when the Fed eases.

“In a scenario where the Fed is easing, we think silver can do really well. It tends to outperform a move in gold,” Teves said. “Silver has been underperforming gold quite a lot. So there is a lot of catching up to do and I think the move could be quite dramatic,” she added.

Silver’s performance is tied closely to the health of the overall economy due to its wide industrial applications. The precious metal is commonly incorporated in the manufacturing of automobiles, solar panels, jewelry and electronics.

Gold last traded at $2,052 per ounce, while silver was priced at $22.69 per ounce.

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February 4, 2024
US conducts new ‘self-defense’ strike on Yemen’s Houthis following attacks by Iran-backed militants

WASHINGTON — The United States and Britain struck 36 Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday in a second wave of assaults meant to further disable Iran-backed groups that have relentlessly attacked American and international interests in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. But Washington once more did not directly target Iran as it tries to find a balance between a forceful response and intensifying the conflict.

U.S. Central Command said its forces conducted an additional strike on Sunday “in self-defense against a Houthi anti-ship cruise missile prepared to launch against ships in the Red Sea,” according to a post on X, formerly Twitter.

“U.S. forces identified the cruise missile in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and determined it presented an imminent threat to U.S. Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region. This action will protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for U.S. Navy vessels and merchant vessels,” the post added.

The strikes on Saturday against the Houthis were launched by U.S. warships and American and British fighter jets. The strikes followed an air assault in Iraq and Syria on Friday that targeted other Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in retaliation for the drone strike that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan last weekend.

The Houthi targets on Saturday were in 13 different locations and were struck by U.S. F/A-18 fighter jets from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier, by British Typhoon FGR4 fighter aircraft and by the Navy destroyers USS Gravely and the USS Carney firing Tomahawk missiles from the Red Sea, according to U.S. officials and the U.K. Defense Ministry. The U.S. officials were not authorized to publicly discuss the military operation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. warned its response after the soldiers’ deaths at the Tower 22 base in Jordan last Sunday would not be limited to one night, one target or one group. While there has been no suggestion the Houthis were directly responsible, they have been one of the prime U.S. adversaries since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. The Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza said that more than 26,000 people have been killed and more than 64,400 wounded in the Israeli military operation since the war began.

The Houthis have been conducting almost daily missile or drone attacks against commercial and military ships transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden and they have made clear that they have no intention of scaling back their campaign despite pressure from the American and British campaign.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a Houthi official, said “military operations against Israel will continue until the crimes of genocide in Gaza are stopped and the siege on its residents is lifted, no matter the sacrifices it costs us.” He wrote online that the “American-British aggression against Yemen will not go unanswered, and we will meet escalation with escalation.”

The Biden administration has indicated that this is likely not the last of its strikes. The U.S. has blamed the Jordan attack on the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a coalition of Iranian-backed militias. Iran has tried to distance itself from the drone strike, saying the militias act independently of its direction.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the military action, with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, “sends a clear message to the Houthis that they will continue to bear further consequences if they do not end their illegal attacks on international shipping and naval vessels.”

He added: “We will not hesitate to defend lives and the free flow of commerce in one of the world’s most critical waterways.”

The Defense Department said the strikes targeted sites associated with the Houthis’ deeply buried weapons storage facilities, missile systems and launchers, air defense systems, radars and helicopters. The British military said it struck a ground control station west of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, that has been used to control Houthi drones that have launched against vessels in the Red Sea.

President Joe Biden was briefed on the strikes before he left Delaware on Saturday for a West Coast campaign trip, according to an administration official.

The latest strikes marked the third time the U.S. and Britain had conducted a large joint operation to strike Houthi weapon launchers, radar sites and drones. The strikes in Yemen are meant to underscore the broader message to Iran that Washington holds Tehran responsible for arming, funding and training the array of militias – from Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen – who are behind attacks across the Mideast against U.S. and international interests.

Video shared online by people in Sanaa included the sound of explosions and at least one blast was seen lighting up the night sky. Residents described the blasts as happening around buildings associated with the Yemeni presidential compound. The Houthi-controlled state-run news agency, SABA, reported strikes in al-Bayda, Dhamar, Hajjah, Hodeida, Taiz and Sanaa provinces.

Hours before the latest joint operation, the U.S. took another self-defense strike on a site in Yemen, destroying six anti-ship cruise missiles, as it has repeatedly when it has detected a missile or drone ready to launch. The day before the strikes the U.S. destroyer Laboon and F/A-18s from the Eisenhower shot down seven drones fired from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen into the Red Sea and the destroyer Carney shot down a drone fired in the Gulf of Aden and U.S. forces took out four more drones that were prepared to launch.

The Houthis’ attacks have led shipping companies to reroute their vessels from the Red Sea, sending them around Africa through the Cape of Good Hope – a much longer, costlier and less efficient passage. The threats also have led the U.S. and its allies to set up a joint mission where warships from participating nations provide a protective umbrella of air defense for ships as they travel the critical waterway that runs from the Suez Canal down to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

During normal operations, about 400 commercial vessels transit the southern Red Sea at any given time.

In the wake of the strikes Friday in Iraq and Syria, Hussein al-Mosawi, spokesperson for Harakat al-Nujaba, one of the main Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, said Washington “must understand that every action elicits a reaction.” But in an AP interview in Baghdad, he also struck a more conciliatory tone. “We do not wish to escalate or widen regional tensions,” he said.

Iraqi officials have attempted to rein in the militias, while also condemning U.S. retaliatory strikes as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and calling for an exit of the 2,500 U.S. troops who are in the country as part of an international coalition to fight the Islamic State group. Last month, Iraqi and U.S. military officials launched formal talks to wind down the coalition’s presence, a process that will likely take years.

Copyright © 2024 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

AP

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February 4, 2024
US conducts new ‘self-defense’ strike on Yemen’s Houthis following attacks by Iran-backed militants

WASHINGTON — The United States and Britain struck 36 Houthi targets in Yemen on Saturday in a second wave of assaults meant to further disable Iran-backed groups that have relentlessly attacked American and international interests in the wake of the Israel-Hamas war. But Washington once more did not directly target Iran as it tries to find a balance between a forceful response and intensifying the conflict.

U.S. Central Command said its forces conducted an additional strike on Sunday “in self-defense against a Houthi anti-ship cruise missile prepared to launch against ships in the Red Sea,” according to a post on X, formerly Twitter.

“U.S. forces identified the cruise missile in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and determined it presented an imminent threat to U.S. Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region. This action will protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for U.S. Navy vessels and merchant vessels,” the post added.

The strikes on Saturday against the Houthis were launched by U.S. warships and American and British fighter jets. The strikes followed an air assault in Iraq and Syria on Friday that targeted other Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in retaliation for the drone strike that killed three U.S. troops in Jordan last weekend.

The Houthi targets on Saturday were in 13 different locations and were struck by U.S. F/A-18 fighter jets from the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier, by British Typhoon FGR4 fighter aircraft and by the Navy destroyers USS Gravely and the USS Carney firing Tomahawk missiles from the Red Sea, according to U.S. officials and the U.K. Defense Ministry. The U.S. officials were not authorized to publicly discuss the military operation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The U.S. warned its response after the soldiers’ deaths at the Tower 22 base in Jordan last Sunday would not be limited to one night, one target or one group. While there has been no suggestion the Houthis were directly responsible, they have been one of the prime U.S. adversaries since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing more than 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages. The Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza said that more than 26,000 people have been killed and more than 64,400 wounded in the Israeli military operation since the war began.

The Houthis have been conducting almost daily missile or drone attacks against commercial and military ships transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden and they have made clear that they have no intention of scaling back their campaign despite pressure from the American and British campaign.

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a Houthi official, said “military operations against Israel will continue until the crimes of genocide in Gaza are stopped and the siege on its residents is lifted, no matter the sacrifices it costs us.” He wrote online that the “American-British aggression against Yemen will not go unanswered, and we will meet escalation with escalation.”

The Biden administration has indicated that this is likely not the last of its strikes. The U.S. has blamed the Jordan attack on the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a coalition of Iranian-backed militias. Iran has tried to distance itself from the drone strike, saying the militias act independently of its direction.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that the military action, with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and New Zealand, “sends a clear message to the Houthis that they will continue to bear further consequences if they do not end their illegal attacks on international shipping and naval vessels.”

He added: “We will not hesitate to defend lives and the free flow of commerce in one of the world’s most critical waterways.”

The Defense Department said the strikes targeted sites associated with the Houthis’ deeply buried weapons storage facilities, missile systems and launchers, air defense systems, radars and helicopters. The British military said it struck a ground control station west of Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, that has been used to control Houthi drones that have launched against vessels in the Red Sea.

President Joe Biden was briefed on the strikes before he left Delaware on Saturday for a West Coast campaign trip, according to an administration official.

The latest strikes marked the third time the U.S. and Britain had conducted a large joint operation to strike Houthi weapon launchers, radar sites and drones. The strikes in Yemen are meant to underscore the broader message to Iran that Washington holds Tehran responsible for arming, funding and training the array of militias – from Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen – who are behind attacks across the Mideast against U.S. and international interests.

Video shared online by people in Sanaa included the sound of explosions and at least one blast was seen lighting up the night sky. Residents described the blasts as happening around buildings associated with the Yemeni presidential compound. The Houthi-controlled state-run news agency, SABA, reported strikes in al-Bayda, Dhamar, Hajjah, Hodeida, Taiz and Sanaa provinces.

Hours before the latest joint operation, the U.S. took another self-defense strike on a site in Yemen, destroying six anti-ship cruise missiles, as it has repeatedly when it has detected a missile or drone ready to launch. The day before the strikes the U.S. destroyer Laboon and F/A-18s from the Eisenhower shot down seven drones fired from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen into the Red Sea and the destroyer Carney shot down a drone fired in the Gulf of Aden and U.S. forces took out four more drones that were prepared to launch.

The Houthis’ attacks have led shipping companies to reroute their vessels from the Red Sea, sending them around Africa through the Cape of Good Hope – a much longer, costlier and less efficient passage. The threats also have led the U.S. and its allies to set up a joint mission where warships from participating nations provide a protective umbrella of air defense for ships as they travel the critical waterway that runs from the Suez Canal down to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

During normal operations, about 400 commercial vessels transit the southern Red Sea at any given time.

In the wake of the strikes Friday in Iraq and Syria, Hussein al-Mosawi, spokesperson for Harakat al-Nujaba, one of the main Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, said Washington “must understand that every action elicits a reaction.” But in an AP interview in Baghdad, he also struck a more conciliatory tone. “We do not wish to escalate or widen regional tensions,” he said.

Iraqi officials have attempted to rein in the militias, while also condemning U.S. retaliatory strikes as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty and calling for an exit of the 2,500 U.S. troops who are in the country as part of an international coalition to fight the Islamic State group. Last month, Iraqi and U.S. military officials launched formal talks to wind down the coalition’s presence, a process that will likely take years.

Copyright © 2024 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

AP

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February 4, 2024
Iran says US-British strikes in Yemen are ‘fueling chaos and disorder’ in Mideast

Iran on Sunday denounced U.S. and British air strikes on Yemen as “fueling chaos and disorder” and risking an escalation of the war in the Middle East.

Washington and London, with support from partner nations, on Saturday launched a fresh round of air and missile strikes on Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen in retaliation for the group’s continued attacks on international shipping. A day earlier, U.S. long-range aircraft bombarded Iranian military and proxy targets in Iraq and Syria.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanani, claimed that the strikes contradict U.S. and U.K. policy of wanting to avoid an escalation in the conflict.

These attacks are “in clear contradiction with the repeated claims of Washington and London that they do not want the expansion of war and conflict in the region,” Kanani said, according to AFP. He added that further attacks on Houthi rebels in Yemen would constitute a “threat to international peace and security.”

Hans von der Burchard

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February 4, 2024
House Speaker Johnson announces ‘standalone’ Israel funding package

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) holds a news conference following a caucus meeting at the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center on January 30, 2024 in Washington, DC.

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., on Saturday announced an Israel-only funding package to be voted on next week, another step in the deadlocked negotiations over emergency aid that President Joe Biden initially proposed in October.

The House proposal comes as a challenge to a long-awaited Senate package that is expected to be released this weekend. The Senate’s bill is expected to include broader foreign aid than just Israel and address border security funding.

But the Republican-majority House has voiced its intention to be hard on the Senate’s proposal, especially as Johnson tries to appease Republican hardliners who expect him to deliver on their ultraconservative wish list to limit spending and maximize border security.

“While the Senate appears poised to finally release text of their supplemental package after months of behind closed door negotiations, their leadership is aware that by failing to include the House in their negotiations, they have eliminated the ability for swift consideration of any legislation,” Johnson wrote in a letter he addressed to “Friends.”

“Next week, we will take up and pass a clean, standalone Israel supplemental package,” the speaker added.

The House bill includes $17.6 billion for Israel’s military and U.S. military forces in the region as the war with Hamas in Gaza continues. If approved, this funding would add to the $14.3 billion that the House passed for Israel in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack.

This bill separates aid to Israel from Ukraine, Taiwan and the U.S. southern border, all of which were linked in Biden’s original $105 billion aid proposal. That initial bill included $61 billion for Ukraine, $14.3 billion for Israel, $6.4 billion for the U.S. border and $2 billion for Taiwan.

But disagreements over how to address the U.S. border and whether to continue funding Ukraine’s defense against Russia stalled the passage of Biden’s October aid package.

Democrats and Republicans have gone back and forth for months negotiating the proposal, leading to a near-miss government shutdown and eating into some lawmakers’ holiday break.

Democrats argue that Ukraine funding is essential to preventing the further rise of authoritarian Russian leader Vladimir Putin and his threat to global democracy. Meanwhile, Republicans want to rein in Ukraine aid, claiming that without a clear end in sight, the nearly two-year war has led to U.S. overspending.

The border has been another major sticking point, as the number of migrants crossing over to the U.S. reached record highs over the past few months. The influx has overwhelmed some cities, whose mayors say they do not have the resources or infrastructure to accommodate the incoming migrant population. That crisis has led Republicans to press even harder for their border security wish list, which includes policies that the Democrat-majority Senate would likely never pass.

These clashes deadlocked the emergency aid package for months. Democrat and Republican lawmakers assured that they were working to find middle ground.

Both sides appeared optimistic that they were making progress. For example, in January, Johnson and Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said they had a productive meeting with Biden where they assured they would be able to reach a bipartisan agreement to address the border, Ukraine and the rest of the president’s funding requests.

However, in recent weeks, politics have hindered that progress. In closed-door meetings, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky reportedly told senators that former President Donald Trump wanted to torpedo the deal so as not to deliver Biden a campaign victory during an election year. Trump has regularly used the border crisis as a campaign talking point against Biden in his 2024 bid for re-election.

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February 3, 2024
In Northern Ireland, ‘a Protestant state’ finally has a Catholic leader

Demands and priorities

Britain is providing the executive an extra £3.3 billion to start patching holes in services and pay long-delayed wage hikes that just triggered the biggest public sector strike in Northern Ireland’s history. The trouble is, the head of Northern Ireland’s civil service, Jayne Brady, has already told the new leaders that these eye-watering sums are still too small to pay the required bills. The U.K. expects Stormont to raise regional taxes, something local leaders have been loath to do.

If anything can unite unionist and republican politicians, it’s their shared demand for the U.K. Treasury to keep sending more moolah — even though the British government already has committed to pay Northern Ireland over the odds into perpetuity at a new rate of £1.24 versus an equivalent £1 spent in England.

Money demands and spending priorities should underpin short-term stability at Stormont. But a U.K. general election looms within months and DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson wants to reverse his party’s losses to Sinn Féin. That could be complicated by the fact that he’s just compromised on Brexit trade rules in a fashion that distresses and confuses many within his own divided party, leaving him vulnerable.

To strengthen his leadership, Donaldson boosted pragmatic allies and sought to neuter less reasonable opponents in Saturday’s DUP moves at Stormont.

The assembly’s new non-partisan speaker will be DUP lawmaker Edwin Poots, who defeated Donaldson for the party leadership in 2021 only to be tossed out almost immediately.

That move puts Poots — who used his previous role as Stormont’s agriculture minister to block essential resources for the required post-Brexit checks at ports — into a new strait-jacket of neutrality.

Little-Pengelly, by contrast, is one of Donaldson’s most trusted lieutenants and a Stormont insider. He put her into his own assembly seat when, shortly after the 2022 election, Donaldson dumped it in favor of staying an MP in London.

While Stormont is never more than one crisis away from another collapse, for Saturday, peace reigned — and an Irish republican, committed to Northern Ireland’s eventual dissolution, is in charge of making the place work.

Shawn Pogatchnik

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February 3, 2024
How RealPage influences rent prices across the U.S.

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RealPage software is used to set rental prices on 4.5 million housing units in the U.S. A series of lawsuits allege that a group of landlords are sharing sensitive data with RealPage, which then artificially inflates rents. The complaints surface as housing supply in the U.S. lags demand. Some of the defendant landlords report high occupancy within their buildings, alongside strong jobs growth in their operating regions and slow home construction.

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Sat, Feb 3 20248:27 AM EST

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February 3, 2024
Why U.S. renters are taking corporate landlords to court

A group of renters in the U.S. say their landlords are using software to deliver inflated rent hikes.

“We’ve been told as tenants by employees of Equity that the software takes empathy out of the equation. So they can charge whatever the software tells them to charge,” said Kevin Weller, a tenant at Portside Towers since 2021.

Tenants say the management started to increase prices substantially after giving renters concessions during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The 527-unit building is located roughly 20 minutes away from the World Trade Center, on the shoreline of Jersey City, New Jersey. A group of tenants at the tower is involved in a sprawling class-action lawsuit against RealPage and 34 co-defendant landlords. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in the case in December 2023, arguing that the complaints adequately allege violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

In November 2023, the attorney general of Washington, D.C., filed a similar but more narrow complaint against RealPage and 14 landlords that collectively manage more than 50,000 apartment units in the District.

“Effectively, RealPage is facilitating a housing cartel,” said Attorney General of the District of Columbia Brian Schwalb in an interview with CNBC. His office filed the complaint on antitrust grounds. They allege that landlords share competitively sensitive data through RealPage, which then sets artificially high rents on a key slice of the local rental market.

Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, November 2023

“Rather than making independent decisions on what the market here in D.C. calls for in terms of filling vacant units, landlords are compelled, under the terms of their agreement with RealPage, to charge what RealPage tells them,” said Schwalb.

RealPage says its revenue management products use anonymized, aggregated data to deliver pricing recommendations on roughly 4.5 million housing units in the U.S. The company says its tools can increase landlord revenues between 2% and 7%.

“Just turning the system on will outperform your manual analyst. There’s almost no way it can’t,” said Jeffrey Roper, a former RealPage employee and inventor of YieldStar.

YieldStar is one of three key revenue management tools offered by RealPage. The software balances prices, occupancy and lease lengths to help property managers optimize their portfolio’s yield. The company feeds data from its models into a newer tool dubbed “AIRM” that considers the effect of credit, marketing and leasing effectiveness.

RealPage told CNBC that its landlord customers are under no obligation to take their price suggestions. The company also said it charges a fixed fee on each apartment unit managed with its software.

RealPage was acquired by Miami-based private equity firm Thoma Bravo for $10.2 billion in 2021. In court filings, Thoma Bravo has claimed that it is not liable for the alleged acts of its subsidiary outlined by plaintiffs in the class-action complaints.

Renters told CNBC they discovered how revenue management software is used in real estate after reading a 2022 ProPublica investigation. Equity Residential investor materials show that the company started to experiment with Lease Rent Options between 2005 and 2008. RealPage acquired the product in 2017.

“How could we possibly know?” said Harry Gural, a tenant in an Equity Residential property located in the Van Ness neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Gural says he has been involved in legal matters against his landlord’s pricing practices for more than seven years.

Affiliates of Equity Residential are contesting a separate decision made by a local housing authority in Jersey City regarding prices set on the Portside Towers property. The company has filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the decision, stating that the decision could result in millions of dollars in refunds for tenants.

Equity Residential and other defendant landlords declined to comment on ongoing RealPage litigation.

Redfin reports that asking rents in the U.S. ticked down to $1,964 a month in December 2023, a decline from recent highs. Prices are coming down in markets such as Atlanta and Austin, Texas, where home construction is high. But analysts believe low rates of homebuilding on the U.S. East Coast could give well-located landlords more pricing power.

“Guys like us that own 80,000 well-located apartments, we’re still in a pretty good spot,” said Equity Residential CEO Mark Parrell in a June 2023 interview with CNBC.

Watch the video above to learn about the rising tide of lawsuits against U.S. corporate landlords.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article misstated when Equity Residential purchased Portside Towers.

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February 3, 2024