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  • Notable US Spies Fast Facts | CNN

    Notable US Spies Fast Facts | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Here is a look at some US citizens who have been convicted of spying against the United States.

    1962 – Aldrich Ames, son of a CIA analyst, joins the agency as a low-level documents analyst.

    1967-1968 – Enters the Career Trainee Program at the CIA and becomes an operations officer.

    1970s – Specializes in Soviet/Russian intelligence services.

    April 16, 1985 – Volunteers to spy against the United States to KGB agents at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC. He receives a payment of $50,000.

    1986-1989 – Ames is stationed in Rome and continues to pass information to Soviet agents. He is paid approximately $1.8 million during this period.

    Late 1980s – The CIA and FBI learn that a number of Russian double agents have been arrested and some executed.

    May 1993 – The FBI begins investigating Ames, with both physical and electronic surveillance.

    February 21, 1994 – Ames and his wife, Rosario, are arrested in Arlington, Virginia, by the FBI, accused of spying for the Soviet Union and later, Russia. It is estimated that Ames has received approximately $2.5 million from Russia and the Soviet Union for his years of spying.

    April 28, 1994 – Ames pleads guilty and is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In October 1994, Ames’ wife receives 63 months in prison.

    October 31, 1995 – CIA Director John Deutch testifies before Congress about the scope of Ames’ espionage. He states that more than 100 US spies were compromised and that tainted intelligence was given to Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

    1970-1991 – David Boone serves in the US Army as a signals intelligence analyst. During the late 1980s, he is assigned to the National Security Agency as a senior cryptologic traffic analyst.

    October 1988 – In the midst of a divorce and financial problems, Boone goes to the Soviet embassy in Washington, DC, and offers to spy on the United States. He is paid about $20,000 a year for his work over the next three years. He continues spying after being transferred to a post in Germany.

    1991 – Boone loses his security clearance and retires from the Army, remaining in Germany.

    1998 – He is contacted by a retired FBI agent posing as a Russian agent. The agent meets with Boone in London and the United States and pays him $9,000 to return to spying for Russia.

    October 14, 1998 – Boone is charged with passing defense documents to the Soviet Union. He pleads guilty in December 1998.

    February 26, 1999 – He is sentenced to 24 years in prison.

    January 14, 2020 – Boone is released from prison.

    1996 – Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins makes visits to Russia to meet with their intelligence agents. He is given a code name and signs a settlement “attesting that he wanted to serve” them.

    1998-2005 – Debbins joins the Army, where he serves in chemical units before being selected for the US Army Special Forces.

    August 21, 2020 – The Department of Justice announces that Debbins has been charged with providing information about US national defenses to Russian agents.

    May 14, 2021 – The DOJ announces that Debbins is sentenced to 188 months in federal prison for conspiring with Russian agents to provide them with US defense intelligence.

    1968-1986 – Noshir Gowadia is employed by Northrop Grumman where he works on technology relating to the B-2 Spirit Bomber, aka the “Stealth” bomber.

    July 2003-June 2005 – Travels to China six times to “provide defense services in the form of design, test support and test data analysis of technologies to assist the PRC with a cruise missile system by developing a stealthy exhaust nozzle.” He is paid over $100,000 during this period.

    October 2005 – Arrested and charged with passing national defense information to China. Superseding indictments are issued in 2006 and 2007.

    August 9, 2010 – Gowadia is found guilty.

    January 24, 2011 – He is sentenced to 32 years in prison.

    January 12, 1976 – Robert Hanssen joins the FBI.

    1979 – Begins spying for the Soviet Union.

    1980 – Begins working for the counterintelligence unit, focusing on the Soviet Union.

    1981 – Transfers to FBI headquarters, initially tracking white-collar crime and monitoring foreign officials assigned to the United States. He is later assigned to the Soviet Analytical Unit.

    1981 – Hanssen’s wife catches him with classified documents and convinces him to stop spying.

    October 4, 1985 – Resumes spying.

    1991 – Breaks off relations with the KGB.

    1999 – Resumes spying, this time for the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service.

    2000 – The FBI identifies Hanssen from a fingerprint and from a tape recording supplied by a disgruntled Russian intelligence operative. The FBI also obtains the complete original KGB dossier on Hanssen.

    December 2000 – The FBI begins surveillance of Hanssen.

    February 18, 2001 – Hanssen is arrested in a Virginia park after making a drop of classified documents. Agents find a bag nearby containing $50,000 that they believe is Hanssen’s payment for the documents.

    July 6, 2001 – Pleads guilty to 15 counts of espionage and conspiracy in exchange for the government not seeking the death penalty.

    May 10, 2002 – He is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    June 5, 2023 – Hanssen dies in prison.

    1984 – Ana Montes is recruited to spy for Cuba. She is never paid for her spying.

    1985-2001 – She is employed by the Defense Intelligence Agency as an analyst. She is promoted several times, eventually becoming the DIA’s top Cuba analyst.

    Fall 2000 – The FBI and DIA begin investigating Montes.

    September 11, 2001 – In response to attacks on the United States, Montes is named acting division chief, which gives her access to the plans to attack Afghanistan and the Taliban.

    September 21, 2001 – Montes is arrested in Washington, DC, and is charged with conspiracy to deliver defense information to Cuba.

    March 20, 2002 – Pleads guilty to espionage and is sentenced to 25 years in prison.

    January 6, 2023 – Montes is released from prison.

    1977 – Walter Kendall Myers begins working for the US State Department on contract, as an instructor.

    1978 – Myers travels to Cuba and is recruited by Cuban intelligence.

    1979 – Myers and his girlfriend [later his wife], Gwendolyn, begin spying for Cuba. It is believed they receive little to no payment for their services.

    1985 – He is hired by the State Dept. as a senior analyst.

    October 31, 2007 – Myers retires from the State Dept.

    June 4, 2009 – The Myers are arrested.

    November 20, 2009 – He pleads guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy to commit espionage. Gwendolyn Myers pleads guilty to conspiracy to gather and transmit national defense information.

    July 16, 2010 – Myers is sentenced to life in prison. His wife is sentenced to 81 months.

    1980 – Harold Nicholson joins the CIA after serving in the United States Army.

    1982-1989 – Nicholson works for the CIA in the Philippines, Thailand and Japan.

    1992-1994 – Deputy Chief of Station/Operations Officer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

    June 1994-November 1996 – Provides Russian Intelligence with sensitive information.

    November 16, 1996 – Arrested at Dulles International Airport carrying classified CIA information.

    November 27, 1996 – Nicholson pleads not guilty.

    June 5, 1997 – He is convicted of espionage and sentenced to 23 years in prison.

    2008 – Nicholson’s son, Nathaniel, is arrested on charges he met with Russian agents to collect money owed to his father.

    January 18, 2011 – Harold Nicholson is sentenced to an additional eight years in prison on charges of conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Nathaniel Nicholson is sentenced to five years probation.

    1965-1979 – Ronald Pelton works for the National Security Agency, with top-level security clearance.

    1979 – Pelton leaves the NSA due to financial problems.

    January 1980 – After declaring bankruptcy in 1979, Pelton begins spying for the Soviet Union. He discloses classified information on the United States’ ability to intercept Soviet communications.

    November 25, 1985 – After a KGB defector reveals his name, Pelton is arrested and charged with espionage.

    June 5, 1986 – He is convicted of spying.

    December 17, 1986 – Pelton is sentenced to three concurrent life sentences plus 10 years.

    November 24, 2015 – Pelton is released from prison.

    1983-1996 – Earl Edwin Pitts works at the FBI.

    1987-1992 – Pitts passes information on FBI operations to the Soviet Union and Russia.

    1995 – A Russian diplomat at the UN names Pitts as a former spy. FBI agents posing as Russian intelligence officers contact Pitts to attempt to lure him back to spying. Pitts delivers documents in exchange for $65,000.

    December 18, 1996 – Pitts is arrested. He is charged two days later with conspiring and attempting to commit espionage.

    February 28, 1997 – Pleads guilty. At the time, he is only the second agent in the FBI’s history to be found guilty of espionage.

    June 23, 1997 – He is sentenced to 27 years in prison.

    December 20, 2019 – Pitts is released from prison.

    1979 – Pollard is hired to work at the Navy Field Operational Intelligence Office. He had been rejected previously from employment at the CIA due to drug use. His specialty is North America and the Caribbean.

    June 1984 – He begins spying for Israel, passing on information on Arab countries. He earns $1,500-$2,500 a month.

    November 21, 1985 – Pollard is arrested outside the Israeli Embassy after his request for asylum is denied.

    June 4, 1986 – Pleads guilty to conspiracy to commit espionage.

    March 4, 1987 – US District Judge Aubrey Robinson Jr. rejects a plea agreement reached by federal prosecutors and Pollard. Instead, he sentences Pollard to life in prison. Pollard is the only person in US history to receive a life sentence for spying on behalf of a US ally. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have rejected pleas for clemency.

    1995 – Israel grants Pollard citizenship.

    May 11, 1998 – Israel admits for the first time that Pollard was working as its agent.

    2002 – Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Pollard in prison.

    July 28, 2015 – Pollard’s attorney announces that Pollard has been granted parole and will be released in November.

    November 20, 2015 – Pollard is released on parole.

    November 20, 2020 – Pollard completes his parole. A month later Pollard and his wife arrive in Israel to start a new life.

    1969-1994 – George Trofimoff, a naturalized American citizen of Russian parentage, works as a civilian for the US Army at the Joint Interrogation Center in Nuremberg, Germany. He also attains the rank of colonel in the Army reserve.

    1994 – Trofimoff and a priest in the Russian Orthodox church, Igor Susemihl, are arrested in Germany on spying charges. The charges are later dropped.

    1994 – Retires and moves to South Florida.

    June 14, 2000 – Trofimoff is arrested. US Attorney Donna Bucella describes him as “the highest-ranking US military officer ever charged with espionage. He is accused of passing classified information on Soviet and Warsaw Pact military capabilities from 1969-1994. Allegedly, he received payment of over $250,000 during that time.

    June 27, 2001 – He is convicted of spying for the Soviet Union and Russia. He is later sentenced to life in prison.

    September 19, 2014 – Trofimoff dies in prison.

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  • Death of Osama bin Laden Fast Facts | CNN

    Death of Osama bin Laden Fast Facts | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the death of Osama bin Laden.

    On May 2, 2011, Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed by US Special Forces during an early morning raid at a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

    – Built in approximately 2006.
    – Significantly larger than other homes in the area, and worth a reported $1 million.
    – Lacked telephone and internet service.
    – Residents burned their trash rather than having it picked up.
    – Approximately 24 people lived at the house.
    – Surrounded by 12- to 18-foot walls topped by barbed wire.
    – Had two security gates.
    – Bin Laden and his family’s living quarters were on the second and third levels.
    – The third floor terrace had a seven-foot privacy wall.
    – Located only about a mile from the Pakistan Military Academy.

    US forces retrieved numerous items from bin Laden’s compound, including 10 hard drives, five computers and more than 100 storage devices, such as disks, DVDs and thumb drives, according to a senior US official.

    2007 (approx.) – US intelligence uncovers the name of one of bin Laden’s most trusted couriers.

    2009 (approx.) – Intelligence sources identify the area of Pakistan where the courier and his brother live.

    August 2010 – US intelligence sources identify the Abbottabad compound as the home of the courier and his brother, who have no obvious means of affording a $1 million home.

    September 2010 – The CIA informs President Barack Obama that bin Laden may be living in the Abbottabad compound. They base this on the size and price tag of the compound as well as the elaborate security.

    February 2011 – The intelligence on the Abbottabad compound is considered strong enough to begin planning action.

    March 14, 2011 – President Obama chairs the first of five National Security Council meetings to discuss an operation to raid bin Laden’s compound.

    March 29, 2011 – Second National Security meeting.

    April 12, 2011 – Third meeting.

    April 19, 2011 – Fourth meeting.

    April 28, 2011 – Last of the National Security Council meetings on the bin Laden raid.

    April 29, 2011 – At 8:20 a.m. ET, President Obama gives the order to raid bin Laden’s compound.

    May 2, 2011 – In the early morning hours (mid-afternoon on May 1 in the United States), a group of 25 Navy Seals raid the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
    – They arrive outside the compound in two Black Hawk helicopters.
    – The operation takes 40 minutes total.
    – US Special Forces breach the outer walls of the compound before fighting their way through the ground floor of the three-story building. The firefight then moves to the second and third floors.
    – In the last 5-10 minutes of the firefight, bin Laden is killed by a gunshot wound to the head.
    – Three men, including a son of bin Laden, are killed as well as one woman.
    – Bin Laden’s body is identified by one of his wives. Facial recognition is also used.

    May 2, 2011 – Bin Laden is buried at sea off the deck of the USS Carl Vinson in the Arabian Sea.
    – He is buried within 24 hours according to Islamic law.
    – The hour-long ceremony aboard the USS Carl Vinson is conducted according to Islamic law.

    May 2, 2011 – A DNA test is done on a sample from the body, confirming that it is bin Laden.

    May 3, 2011 – Attorney General Eric Holder declares the raid “lawful, legitimate and appropriate in every way.”

    May 3, 2011 – White House Press Secretary Jay Carney offers new details on the raid. He clarifies that the woman killed was on the first floor, not with bin Laden, and was killed in the crossfire. Carney also says that bin Laden was not armed but did put up resistance.

    May 3, 2011 – A congressional source tells CNN that bin Laden had approximately $745 and two telephone numbers sewn into his clothing.

    May 3, 2011 – Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mojahed releases a statement, “Obama has not got any strong evidence that can prove his claim over killing of the Sheikh Osama bin Laden… And secondly, the closest sources for Sheikh Osama bin Laden have not confirmed” the death.

    May 4, 2011 – White House Press Secretary Carney announces that President Obama has decided not to release photos of bin Laden’s body.

    May 6, 2011 – Al Qaeda confirms bin Laden’s death, in a statement on jihadist forums.

    May 12, 2011 – US officials confirm to CNN that US authorities have interviewed three of bin Laden’s wives.

    May 13, 2011 – It is revealed that a large amount of pornography was seized from the Abbottabad compound during the raid. It is unclear to whom it belonged.

    May 13, 2011 – A US military official tells CNN the Navy Seal team who carried out the bin Laden raid wore helmet-mounted digital cameras that recorded the mission.

    May 17, 2011 – Senator John Kerry announces that Pakistan will return the tail of the US helicopter damaged during the raid.

    May 18, 2011 – Admiral Mike Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates tell reporters there is no evidence that the senior Pakistani leadership knew of bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan.

    May 26, 2011 – A team of CIA forensic specialists is granted permission by the Pakistani government to examine the compound.

    June 15, 2011 – Pakistan’s intelligence agency arrests several people suspected of assisting the CIA before the raid.

    June 17, 2011 – The US Justice Department formally drops terrorism-related criminal charges against bin Laden.

    July 11, 2011 – Pakistani security forces detain a doctor suspected of helping the CIA attempt to collect the DNA of bin Laden’s family members through a vaccination drive.

    October 6, 2011 – Pakistan’s information ministry says the doctor suspected of helping the CIA target bin Laden will be charged with treason. Also, bin Laden’s compound will be turned over to city officials.

    February 2012 – Pakistani authorities begin to demolish the compound.

    May 9, 2012 – Citing that it is of national security interest, a federal judge has denies Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information request regarding the release of bin Laden death photos.

    May 23, 2012 – Shakeel Afridi, the Pakistani doctor accused of helping the CIA track down bin Laden, is fined $3,500 for spying for the United States and sentenced to 33 years in prison for treason by a tribal court.

    September 4, 2012 – The memoir “No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama bin Laden” by former US Navy SEAL Matt Bissonnette, written under the name Mark Owen, is published.

    February 11, 2013 – Conflicting information about which Navy SEAL killed bin Laden appears when Esquire magazine reports on an unnamed former Navy SEAL who says he fired the kill shot, not the point man as told in Bissonette’s book “No Easy Day.”

    May 21, 2013 – A three-judge federal appeals court panel rejects an appeal from a conservative legal group, ruling that the release of post-mortem images of bin Laden’s body could result in attacks on Americans.

    October 31, 2014 – Adm. Brian Losey, head of the Naval Warfare Special Command, releases an open letter warning Navy SEALs against betraying their promise of secrecy. This is in advance of two upcoming interviews from SEALs involved in the bin Laden mission.

    November 7, 2014 – Former Navy SEAL Robert O’Neill says in an interview with The Washington Post that he was the one who fired the shot that killed bin Laden.

    May 10, 2015 – In a published report, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh contends the Obama Adminstration lied about the circumstances surrounding the killing of bin Laden. The White House later dismisses the report as “baseless.”

    May 20, 2015 – The Office of the Director of National Intelligence begins releasing and declassifying documents recovered in the raid in May 2011.

    March 1, 2016 – A second batch of recovered documents is released by the DNI. Included in the materials are bin Laden’s personal letters and will.

    August 2016 – Bissonnette agrees to pay the US government all past and future proceeds of the book “No Easy Day,” settling a lawsuit by the government for “breach of contract” by violating a non-disclosure agreement.

    November 1, 2017 – The CIA announces the release of thousands of files it says came from the bin Laden raid. Among them is the deceased al Qaeda founder’s personal journal.

    April 2023 – Newly released photos, obtained from the Obama Presidential Library via a Freedom of Information Act request by The Washington Post, offer a window into the meticulous planning – and tension – among the highest-ranking members of the US government on May 1, 2011.

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  • Hank Greenberg Fast Facts | CNN

    Hank Greenberg Fast Facts | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Here is a look at the life of former AIG Chief Executive Officer Hank Greenberg.

    Birth date: May 4, 1925

    Birth place: New York, New York

    Birth name: Maurice Raymond Greenberg

    Father: Jacob Greenberg

    Mother: Ada (Rheingold) Greenberg

    Marriage: Corinne (Zuckerman) Greenberg (1950-March 17, 2024, her death)

    Children: Jeffrey, Evan, Scott and Cathleen

    Education: University of Miami, B.A., 1948; New York Law School, LL.B., 1950

    Military: US Army, Captain

    Recipient of the Bronze Star for his service during the Korean War.

    Awarded the Legion of Honor from France.

    Chairman of the Board of The Starr Foundation.

    Vice chairman of the National Committee on United States-China Relations.

    Member of the board of the Council on Foreign Relations.

    1952-1960 – Works for Continental Casualty Company.

    1960 – Is hired as a vice president for the insurance-holding company C.V. Starr & Co., Inc.

    1968 – C.V. Starr & Co., Inc. begins distributing some the firm’s subsidiaries in order to raise capital to establish American International Group, Inc. (AIG). Greenberg becomes the Chairman and CEO of AIG.

    1988-1995 – Director of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

    1994-1995 – Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

    March 2005 – Greenberg resigns as CEO and chairman of the board of AIG.

    May 2005 – New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer files a lawsuit in New York County Supreme Court against Greenberg on behalf of the state, charging him with engaging in fraud to exaggerate AIG’s finances.

    2005-present – Chairman and CEO of C.V. Starr & Co., Inc. and Starr International Company, Inc.

    September 16, 2008 – The Federal Reserve Bank of New York announces an emergency $85 billion loan to AIG to rescue the company, on the condition that the federal government own 79.9% stake in the company. Greenberg is AIG’s largest individual shareholder before the bailout, with 11% ownership in the company.

    April 2009 – The loan expands to $184.6 billion. The government eventually owns a 92% stake in the company.

    August 2009 – The Securities and Exchange Commission charges Greenberg for his involvement in the fraudulent accounting transactions that inflated AIG’s finances. Without conceding or denying the SEC charges, Greenberg agrees to pay $15 million in penalties, and AIG settles the charges by repaying $700 million plus a fine of $100 million.

    November 21, 2011 – Greenberg and his Starr International Company sue the federal government for $25 billion, claiming the 2008 takeover was unconstitutional. Starr International also sues the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in federal district court in Manhattan.

    November 2012 – Greenberg and Starr International’s lawsuit against the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is dismissed. The ruling is upheld in appeals court in January 2014.

    January 2013 – Greenberg’s book, “The AIG Story,” is released.

    May 2013 – Greenberg’s lawsuit against the federal government achieves class action status. Three hundred thousand stockholders, including AIG employees and retirees, would share the reward if they win the lawsuit.

    June 25, 2013 – A New York appeals court rules that the 2005 fraud lawsuit, filed by Spitzer, against Greenberg, will not be dismissed.

    July 2013 – Greenberg files a lawsuit against Spitzer in New York’s Putnam County Supreme Court, alleging defamation related to statements he made between 2004 and 2012.

    June 25, 2014 – After granting a request by Spitzer to dismiss most of his statements, a judge rules that Greenberg’s defamation lawsuit against him will go to trial.

    October 6, 2014 – Greenberg and Starr International’s class action lawsuit against the government officially begins in the Court of Federal Claims in Washington, DC. Closing arguments take place on April 22, 2015.

    June 15, 2015 – Starr International wins its lawsuit against the federal government “due to the Government’s illegal exaction,” but the court awards no monetary damages.

    February 10, 2017 – Greenberg and the New York attorney general’s office reach a settlement in the 2005 civil fraud lawsuit. Greenberg agrees to pay $9 million, and former AIG Chief Financial Officer Howard Smith agrees to pay $900,000.

    September 13, 2017 – The Supreme Court of New York Appellate Division denies summary judgment for several of Greenberg’s defamation charges against Spitzer.

    January 15, 2020 – St. John’s University’s presents Greenberg with a Lifetime Leadership Award at its Annual Insurance Leader of the Year Award Dinner. The school also announces that it has voted to rename its School of Risk Management, Insurance and Actuarial Science in his honor. It is now the Maurice R. Greenberg School of Risk Management, Insurance and Actuarial Science.

    November 12, 2020 – A judge in New York’s Putnam County Supreme Court rules to dismiss Greenberg’s defamation case against Spitzer.

    January 2023 – The Starr Foundation gifts Georgia State’s J. Mack Robinson College of Business $15 million. Georgia State University announces they will rename its Department of Risk Management & Insurance to the Maurice R. Greenberg School of Risk Science in recognition of the donation.

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  • Michael Hayden Fast Facts | CNN

    Michael Hayden Fast Facts | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the life of Michael Hayden, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

    Birth date: March 17, 1945

    Birth place: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

    Birth name: Michael Vincent Hayden

    Father: Harry Hayden

    Mother: Sadie Hayden

    Marriage: Jeanine (Carrier) Hayden

    Children: Margaret, Michael and Liam

    Education: Duquesne University, B.A, 1967; Duquesne University, M.A., 1969

    Military service: US Air Force, 1967-2008, General

    Is a retired four-star general.

    Is a distinguished visiting professor and founder of the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security at George Mason University.

    Worked as a cab driver during college.

    January 1970-January 1972 – Analyst at Headquarters Strategic Air Command at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska.

    January 1972-May 1975 – Chief of Current Intelligence Division at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam.

    July 1975-August 1979 – Academic Instructor at Reserve Officer Training Corps Program, St. Michael’s College in Vermont.

    June 1980-July 1982 – Chief of Intelligence, 51st Tactical Fighter Wing, Osan Air Force Base, South Korea.

    1984-1986 – Air attaché, US Embassy, Bulgaria.

    1986-1989 – Political-Military Affairs Officer, US Air Force Headquarters.

    1989-1991 – Director for Defense Policy and Arms Control, National Security Council.

    1991-1993 – Chief, Secretary of the Air Force Staff Group.

    1993-1995 – Director of Intelligence, US European Command.

    1996-1997 – Commander, Air Intelligence Agency, and Director, Joint Command and Control Warfare Center.

    1997-1999 – Deputy Chief of Staff, United Nations Command and US Forces Korea.

    1999-2005 – Director of the National Security Agency.

    April 2005 – Is appointed principal deputy director of national intelligence.

    May 8, 2006 – President George W. Bush nominates Hayden to be director of the CIA.

    May 30, 2006 – Is sworn in as the director of the CIA.

    February 5, 2008 – During congressional testimony, Hayden acknowledges for the first time that the CIA has used waterboarding in the interrogations of detainees.

    July 1, 2008 – Retires from the Air Force.

    February 12, 2009 – Steps down as the director of the CIA.

    February 13, 2009 – Leon Panetta is sworn in as the new director of the CIA.

    April 2009 – Joins the Chertoff Group, a security consulting firm founded by Michael Chertoff, former Department of Homeland Security secretary.

    September 11, 2014 – In an interview with U.S. News and World Report, Hayden compares the White House strategy of using air strikes against ISIS to casual sex. Hayden says, “The reliance on air power has all of the attraction of casual sex: It seems to offer gratification but with very little commitment.”

    December 9, 2014 – The Senate releases a report criticizing the CIA’s interrogation tactics used against terrorist detainees during the Bush era. Hayden responds in an interview with Politico, calling the Senate’s conclusions “analytically offensive.”

    February 23, 2016 – Hayden’s book “Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror” is published.

    August 9, 2016 – After signing a letter, along with 49 other Republican national security officials, declaring Donald Trump unqualified to be president, Hayden tells CNN that Trump represents a “clear and present danger” and says he “fears for our future” if Trump governs as he has campaigned.

    May 1, 2018 – Hayden’s book “The Assault on Intelligence: American National Security in an Age of Lies” is published.

    November 23, 2018 – According to a statement released by his family, Hayden suffers a stroke at home earlier in the week.

    January 18, 2019 – Hayden returns home after suffering a stroke.

    October 7, 2020 – Hayden tells CNN’s Jim Sciutto that reelecting Trump would be “very bad for America,” while endorsing Democratic nominee Joe Biden for president.

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  • James Lovell Fast Facts | CNN

    James Lovell Fast Facts | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the life of astronaut James Lovell.

    Birth date: March 25, 1928

    Birth place: Cleveland, Ohio

    Birth name: James Arthur Lovell Jr.

    Father: James Lovell Sr.

    Mother: Blanche Lovell

    Marriage: Marilyn (Gerlach) Lovell (1952-present)

    Children: Jeffrey, Susan, James III and Barbara

    Education: Attended University of Wisconsin, 1946-1948; US Naval Academy, B.S., 1952

    Military: US Navy, 1952-1973, Captain (Ret.)

    The first astronaut to make four space flights, including Apollo 8 and Apollo 13.

    He is the astronaut known for the phrase, “Houston, we’ve had a problem,” during the Apollo 13 mission.

    Has more than 715 hours of spaceflight.

    On Christmas Eve, the Apollo 8 astronauts described the moon and then read from the book of Genesis during a live television broadcast from space.

    1958-1962 – Works as a test pilot at the Naval Air Test Center in Maryland.

    September 1962 – Is selected by NASA to be an astronaut.

    December 4-18, 1965 – Serves as the pilot on Gemini 7 under Commander Frank Borman. They are joined in space by Gemini 6; it is the first manned spacecraft rendezvous.

    November 11-15, 1966 – Serves as the commander of Gemini 12, with pilot Buzz Aldrin.

    December 21-27, 1968 – Along with crewmen Borman and William Anders, Lovell serves as command module pilot of Apollo 8, the first manned mission to the moon.

    April 11-17, 1970 – Serves as commander of Apollo 13 with crew John Swigert and Fred Haise. An explosion two days into the flight causes the mission to be aborted, and the remaining time is spent working towards returning to Earth safely.

    April 18, 1970 – Receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

    1971-1973 – Serves as deputy director of the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

    March 1, 1973 – Retires from the Navy and NASA. Begins working at the Bay-Houston Towing Company.

    January 1977 – Is appointed president of Fisk Telephone Systems, Inc.

    1981 – Is named an executive vice president of Centel Corporation, which acquired Fisk Telephone Systems in 1980.

    1991 – Retires from Centel Corporation.

    March 19, 1993 – Lovell Is inducted into the US Astronauts Hall of Fame.

    1994 – Lovell’s book, co-written with Jeffrey Kluger, “Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13,” is published.

    1995 – The movie “Apollo 13” premieres. Lovell’s character is played by Tom Hanks.

    July 26, 1995 – Is awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor by President Bill Clinton.

    1998 – Is enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame.

    1999 – Opens the restaurant Lovells of Lake Forest in Lake Forest, Illinois.

    October 2010 – The Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center is established in Chicago.

    November 2011 – An Apollo 13 checklist that Lovell used for calculations sells at auction for $388,375. After the sale, NASA questions whether Lovell had the right to sell the checklist.

    January 2012 – NASA Chief Charles Bolden meets with Lovell and other astronauts to discuss to work out the issue of artifact ownership. No agreement is reached.

    September 2012 – President Barack Obama signs a bill into law giving NASA’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo astronauts full ownership rights to the artifacts they collected from their missions.

    September 8, 2018 – Is honored with the Adler Planetarium’s Lifetime Achievement Award.

    July 20, 2019 – Sotheby’s offers a “Space Exploration” auction which includes many personal items from Lovell and the other astronauts involved in the Apollo moon missions. Days later, three original NASA moon landing videos sell for $1.82 million at the auction.

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  • Robert Levinson Fast Facts | CNN

    Robert Levinson Fast Facts | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the life of Robert Levinson, who went missing in Iran in 2007.

    Birth date: March 10, 1948

    Birth place: Flushing, New York

    Birth name: Robert Alan Levinson

    Father: Name unavailable publicly

    Mother: Name unavailable publicly

    Marriage: Christine (Gorman) Levinson

    Children: Douglas, Samantha, David, Daniel, Sarah, Stephanie and Susan

    Education: City College of New York, B.A., 1970

    During his career at the FBI, Levinson specialized in investigating organized crime in Russia.

    His family said Levinson suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure.

    1970s – Levinson is hired by the FBI after six years with the Drug Enforcement Agency.

    1998 – Levinson retires from the FBI.

    1998-2007 – Levinson works as a private investigator.

    2006 – Levinson is hired as a contractor by Tim Sampson, head of the Illicit Finance Group within the Office of Transnational Issues at the CIA, to write reports for the agency. The contract is for approximately $85,000. Three CIA employees, including Sampson, later lose their jobs for overstepping their authority as analysts and withholding information about Levinson after he disappeared.

    March 8-9, 2007 – According to State Department officials, Levinson travels to Kish Island in Iran and checks into a hotel. Reportedly, Levinson is in the Middle East to investigate cigarette smuggling on behalf of a client. During the visit, he meets with American fugitive Dawud Salahuddin, who is the last person to acknowledge seeing him on March 9.

    June 1, 2007 – US President George W. Bush says he is “disturbed” by Iran’s refusal to provide any information on Levinson. “I call on Iran’s leaders to tell us what they know about his whereabouts.”

    December 2007 – Levinson’s wife, Christine Levinson, meets with government officials in Iran, but does not learn anything about her husband’s disappearance.

    2008 – The CIA pays the Levinson family more than $2 million to head off a lawsuit, according to family attorney David McGee.

    March 3, 2011 – US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says that evidence is growing that Levinson is alive and being held somewhere in southwest Asia.

    December 2011 – The Levinson family publicly releases a “proof of life” video they received in November 2010. In the video, Levinson says, “I have been treated well, but I need the help of the United States government to answer the requests of the group that has held me for three-and-a-half years. And please help me get home. Thirty-three years of service to the United States deserves something. Please help me.”

    March 6, 2012 – The FBI offers a $1 million reward for information leading to his safe return.

    September 2012 – Christine Levinson attempts to meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad during the UN General Assembly in New York. He does not meet with her but tells CNN, “They told me (Levinson) was in Iran, and of course the question came up in my mind, what was an American intelligence officer doing in Iran…an individual is lost, how are we supposed to find him among 7 billion people spread across the globe? What we can do is assist, help and cooperate, which we have been doing, and we are doing… as a humanitarian gesture and action.”

    January 2013 – The Levinson family releases a series of photographs they received in April 2011. In the photos, a bearded, shackled Levinson, wearing an orange jumpsuit, holds signs written in broken English.

    September 27, 2013 – US President Barack Obama speaks by phone with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. One of the topics discussed is Levinson.

    December 12, 2013 – The Associated Press and The Washington Post report that Levinson was working for the CIA when he disappeared in 2007, possibly investigating corruption among Iranian officials. The AP says it first learned of Levinson’s CIA ties in 2010 but delayed publishing the information at the government’s request. The next day the New York Times reports it has known of Levinson’s CIA work since 2007 but also delayed publishing the information to avoid jeopardizing his safety.

    December 13, 2013 – White House Spokesman Jay Carney says Levinson “was not a US government employee when he went missing in Iran.”

    December 2013 – Salahuddin, the last person to acknowledge seeing Levinson, tells the Christian Science Monitor that both he and Levinson were detained by Iranian police on March 9, 2007.

    January 21, 2014 – In an interview with CNN, Levinson’s family discloses that they have known for some time that he was working for the CIA. They accuse the US government of failing to do enough to find Levinson.

    March 9, 2015 – The FBI increases the reward for information on Levinson to $5 million.

    February 11, 2016 – The Senate passes a resolution recognizing that Levinson is the longest held US civilian in US history and urges Iran to “act on its promises to assist in the case of Robert Levinson.”

    March 21, 2017 – Levinson’s family files a lawsuit against Iran with the US District Court in Washington, DC. The complaint states that the family is filing suit under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act “for injuries suffered by each of them as a result of Iran’s unlawful acts of hostage taking, torture and other torts.”

    November 4, 2019 – The Department of State Rewards for Justice Program announces a reward of up to $20 million for information leading to the safe return of Levinson, in addition to the FBI’s previously announced reward of $5 million.

    March 9, 2020 – On the 13th anniversary of Levinson’s abduction, the FBI renews its “repeated calls to Iran to uphold its prior commitments to cooperate and to share information which could lead to Bob’s return.”

    March 25, 2020 – The family of Levinson announces that they believe he is dead. “We recently received information from U.S. officials that has led both them and us to conclude that our wonderful husband and father died while in Iranian custody,” they said in a statement.

    October 1, 2020 – A US court orders the government of Iran to pay more than $1.4 billion to Levinson’s family for compensatory and punitive damages.

    December 14, 2020 – Senior US government officials say they have identified and sanctioned two senior Iranian intelligence officials who were involved in the abduction and “probable death” of Levinson.

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  • Alan Greenspan Fast Facts | CNN

    Alan Greenspan Fast Facts | CNN

    Here’s a look at the life of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

    Birth date: March 6, 1926

    Birth place: New York, New York

    Birth name: Alan Greenspan

    Father: Herbert Greenspan, stockbroker

    Mother: Rose (Goldsmith) Greenspan

    Marriages: Andrea Mitchell (1997-present); Joan Mitchell (1952-1953, annulled)

    Education: New York University, B.S., 1948; New York University, M.A., 1950; New York University, Ph.D., 1977

    Studied music at Juilliard and toured the country playing tenor sax and clarinet with The Henry Jerome Orchestra.

    Was a close friend of writer Ayn Rand.

    1948-1953 – Works at the National Industrial Conference Board.

    1953 – Opens economic consulting firm Townsend-Greenspan & Co. with William Townsend.

    1968 – Volunteers for the Richard Nixon presidential campaign.

    1974-1977 – Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

    1977-1987 – After Jimmy Carter is inaugurated as president, Greenspan returns to Townsend-Greenspan & Co.

    1981-1983 – Chairman of the National Commission on Social Security Reform.

    June 2, 1987 – Is nominated to be chairman of the Federal Reserve by President Ronald Reagan.

    July 31, 1987 – Townsend-Greenspan & Co. formally closes.

    August 11, 1987 – Is sworn in as chairman of the Federal Reserve.

    September 26, 2002 – Receives the honorary title Knight of the British Empire from Queen Elizabeth II.

    November 9, 2005 – Is awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush.

    January 31, 2006 – Retires as Federal Reserve chairman.

    2006 – Opens the consulting firm Greenspan Associates.

    September 17, 2007 – Greenspan’s book, “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World,” is published.

    October 22, 2013 – Greenspan’s book, “The Map and the Territory: Risk, Human Nature, and the Future of Forecasting,” is published.

    October 2018 – “Capitalism in America: A History,” a book written by Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge, is published.

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  • David Petraeus Fast Facts | CNN

    David Petraeus Fast Facts | CNN

    Here is a look at the life of David Petraeus, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

    Birth date: November 7, 1952

    Birth place: Cornwall, New York

    Birth name: David Howell Petraeus

    Father: Sixtus Petraeus, Danish-born sea captain

    Mother: Miriam (Howell) Petraeus

    Marriage: Hollister “Holly” Knowlton (July 6, 1974-present)

    Children: Anne and Stephen

    Education: US Military Academy – West Point, B.S., 1974; Princeton University, M.P.A., International Relations, 1985; Princeton University, Ph.D., International Relations, 1987

    Military: US Army, 1974-2011, four-star general

    Growing up in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, friends nicknamed Petraeus “Peaches.”

    1974 – Is commissioned as an infantry officer in the US Army upon graduation from West Point.

    1975-1979 – Platoon leader, adjutant, 1st Battalion, 509th Airborne Battalion Combat Team in Vicenza, Italy.

    1979-1982 – Commander, then aide de camp, 24th Infantry Division (Mechanized) at Fort Stewart, Georgia.

    1985-1987 – Instructor, then Assistant Professor of Social Sciences, US Military Academy at West Point.

    1987-1988 – Military Assistant to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, NATO, Brussels, Belgium.

    1989 – Serves as aide to the Army’s chief of staff.

    1991 – Is shot in the chest during a training exercise at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

    1991-1993 – Commander, 3rd Battalion of the 187th Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division.

    1995-1997 – Commander, 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division.

    2000 – Breaks his pelvis during a parachute jump.

    2000-2001 – Chief of staff, XVIII Airborne Corps., US Army, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

    2000 – Is promoted to brigadier (one star) general.

    2001-2002 – Serves in Bosnia as the assistant chief of staff for military operations of the NATO Stabilization Force.

    2002-2004 – Commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division US Army, Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

    March 2003 – Leads troops into battle as commander of the 101st Airborne Division during the US-led invasion of Iraq.

    June 2004-September 2005 – Commander of the Multinational Security Transition Command in Iraq.

    October 2005-2007 – Commanding general of the Combined Arms Center, US Army, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

    February 2007-September 2008 – Commander of all coalition forces in Iraq.

    October 31, 2008-July 4, 2010 – Commander in Chief of Central Command.

    October 6, 2009 – Announces that he was diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer and underwent two months of radiation treatment.

    June 15, 2010 – Becomes “a little lightheaded” and faints while testifying at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

    July 4, 2010-July 18, 2011 – Commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

    April 28, 2011 – Nominated by President Barack Obama to replace Leon Panetta as CIA director.

    June 30, 2011 – Unanimously confirmed by the US Senate as the next director of the CIA.

    July 18, 2011 – Petraeus turns over command of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan to Gen. John R. Allen.

    August 31, 2011 – Retires from the Army.

    September 6, 2011 – Petraeus is sworn in as the new director of the CIA.

    November 9, 2012 – Petraeus submits his resignation to President Obama, citing personal reasons and admits he had an extramarital affair.

    March 27, 2013 – Publicly apologizes for his extramarital affair during a speech at the University of Southern California.

    May 30, 2013 – It is announced that Petraeus has joined private equity firm KKR as the chairman of a new global institute.

    July 1, 2013 – Joins the University of Southern California faculty as a Judge Widney Professor, “a title reserved for eminent individuals from the arts, sciences, professions, business, and community and national leadership.”

    January 9, 2015 – A federal law enforcement official tells CNN that Justice Department prosecutors are recommending charges be filed against Petraeus for disclosure of classified information to his former lover Paula Broadwell who was working on a book with Petraeus at the time.

    March 3, 2015 – Pleads guilty to one federal charge of removing and retaining classified information as part of a plea deal. According to court documents, Petraeus admitted removing several so-called black books – notebooks in which he kept classified and non-classified information from his tenure as the commander of the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan – and giving them to Broadwell.

    March 16, 2015 – White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest confirms that the National Security Council and the Obama administration have consulted with Petraeus on matters related to Iraq and ISIS.

    April 23, 2015 – Petraeus is sentenced to serve two years probation and fined $100,000 for sharing classified information with his biographer and lover, Broadwell. Prosecutors agree to not send him to jail because the classified information was never released to the public or published in the biography.

    September 22, 2015 – Petraeus speaks before the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding the US’s Middle East policy. He begins this, his first public hearing since his resignation, with a formal apology for the indiscretions that led to his resignation.

    June 10, 2016 – Along with retired NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, announces that they are launching Veterans Coalition for Common Sense to encourage elected leaders to “do more to prevent gun tragedies.”

    June 12, 2019 – The University of Birmingham announces that Petraeus has accepted an honorary professorship in the Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security. The three-year position begins immediately.

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  • US new home sales surged in September | CNN Business

    US new home sales surged in September | CNN Business


    Washington, DC
    CNN
     — 

    New home sales in the United States surged higher in September from the month before, even as mortgage rates remained over 7%, making financing a home costlier and pushing people out of the market.

    Sales of newly constructed homes jumped 12.3% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 759,000, from a revised rate of 676,000 in August, according to a joint report from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Census Bureau. Sales were up 33.9% from a year ago.

    This represents the fastest pace of sales since February 2022 and easily exceeds analysts’ expectations of a sales pace of 680,000.

    Sales of existing homes have been trending down since February and are down 20% year to date in September from a year ago. There is an ongoing inventory and affordability crunch that has homeowners with mortgage rates of 3% or 4% reluctant to sell and buy another home at a much higher rate. In August, rates topped 7% and have lingered there as the Federal Reserve continues to address inflation.

    The average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage was 7.63% last week, according to Freddie Mac, and there are indications it could continue to climb.

    “With one more Fed interest rate hike expected for the year, interest rates are not anticipated to drop any time soon,” said Kelly Mangold of RCLCO Real Estate Consulting.

    New construction has been an appealing alternative, attracting determined buyers frustrated by the historically low supply of existing homes. Still, affordability concerns remain.

    “The constraints in the housing market have created a significant amount of pent-up demand, as more and more households are living in homes they may have outgrown and are deciding to buy despite current market conditions,” said Mangold.

    According to the report, new home sales activity increased the most in the south, “a region that continues to outperform due to availability of land, population and job growth, and a relatively lower cost of living,” said Mangold.

    While new home sales are a much smaller share of the overall sales market than existing home sales, the inventory picture is rosier for new construction homes.

    The seasonally adjusted estimate of new homes for sale at the end of September was 435,000. This represents a supply of 6.9 months at the current sales pace.

    By comparison, there were 1.13 million existing homes for sale at the end of September, or the equivalent of 3.4 months’ supply at the current monthly sales pace.

    Typically, the ratio of existing homes to new homes has been closer to 5 to 1, but lately it has been closer to 2 to 1, according to the National Association of Realtors.

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  • The fate of this consumer watchdog is in the hands of the Supreme Court | CNN Business

    The fate of this consumer watchdog is in the hands of the Supreme Court | CNN Business


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    On Tuesday, the Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments in a case that will determine the fate of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

    The case was brought on by the Community Financial Services Association of America, a trade group representing payday lenders.

    The group scored a victory last year in a case it brought before the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in New Orleans. The three-judge panel ruled the CFPB’s funding violates the Constitution’s Appropriations Clause and separation of powers. The Supreme Court will have the final say on that, however.

    The consumer watchdog agency was created after the 2008 financial crisis by way of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The agency was the brainchild of Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren. She began advocating for it in 2007 when she was a Harvard Law School professor.

    The broad purpose of the CFPB is to protect consumers from financial abuses and to serve as the central agency for consumer financial protection authorities.

    Prior to the CFPB’s formation, “[c]onsumer financial protection had not been the primary focus of any federal agency, and no agency had effective tools to set the rules for and oversee the whole market,” the agency said on its site.

    The CFPB is funded by the Federal Reserve in an effort to keep the agency independent from political pressure. It also means that the agency doesn’t depend on Congressional appropriations funds.

    While there are critics of the agency’s current structure and funding, it has saved consumers money, made it easier for them to seek redress and to get better clarity and more tailored responses from companies when they have a problem with their accounts, loans or credit reports.

    “Today virtually all financial transactions for residential real estate in the United States depend upon compliance with the CFPB’s rules, and consumers rely on the rights and protections provided by those rules,” the Mortgage Bankers Association, the National Association of Homebuilders and the National Association of Realtors said in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court.

    For instance, the CFPB recently ordered Bank of America to pay $100 million to customers and $90 million in penalties saying that the nation’s second-largest bank harmed consumers by double-dipping on fees, withholding credit card rewards and opening fake accounts.

    The CFPB also took action against Wells Fargo after the agency found the bank had been engaging in multiple abusive and unlawful consumer practices across several financial products between 2011 and 2022 — from auto loans to mortgage loans to bank accounts.

    The agency ordered the bank to pay a $1.7 billion civil penalty in addition to more than $2 billion to compensate consumers.

    The Supreme Court’s decision, which likely won’t be announced until the spring of 2024, has far-reaching implications.

    If the Supreme Court finds the CFPB’s funding structure unconstitutional, it could shutter the agency and invalidate all of its prior rulings.

    “Without those rules substantial uncertainty would arise as to how to undertake mortgage transactions in accordance with federal law,” the associations said in their joint brief. “The housing market could descend into chaos, to the detriment of all mortgage borrowers,” they added.

    It could also call into question the constitutionality of other government agencies like the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation that also aren’t funded by Congressional appropriations.

    “We are confident in the constitutionality of the statute that created the CFPB within the Federal Reserve System and provides its funding,” Sam Gilford, a spokesperson for the CFPB, told CNN in a statement. “We will continue to carry out the vital work Congress has charged us to perform.”

    There’s also a way for the Supreme Court to change the CFPB’s funding structure in a way that wouldn’t invalidate prior rulings, said Joseph Lynyak III, a partner at the law firm of Dorsey & Whitney and a regulatory reform expert.

    “This result would be far more probable rather than voiding the last decade of the CFPB’s activity,” he added.

    From listening to the case on Tuesday, though, Lynyak believes the Supreme Court will rule that the CFPB’s funding structure is constitutional.

    “As we have argued from the outset, the CFPB’s unique funding mechanism lacks any contemporary or historical precedent,” said Noel Francisco, a lawyer arguing on behalf of those challenging the constitutionality of the CFPB’s funding structure.

    He added that it “improperly shields the agency from congressional oversight and accountability, and unconstitutionally strips Congress of its power of the purse under the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution.

    But both Republican and Democratic-appointed justices told Francisco on Tuesday they could not understand the crux of his argument.

    “I’m at a total loss,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Echoing her remarks, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said, “we’re all struggling to figure out what’s the standard that you would use.”

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  • 5 takeaways from America’s landmark lawsuit against Amazon | CNN Business

    5 takeaways from America’s landmark lawsuit against Amazon | CNN Business


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    An antitrust lawsuit from 17 states and the Federal Trade Commission this week against Amazon represents the US government’s biggest regulatory challenge yet against the e-commerce juggernaut.

    The landmark case targets Amazon’s retail platform, alleging that it’s harmed shoppers and sellers alike on a massive scale.

    Through an alleged “self-reinforcing cycle of dominance and harm,” the plaintiffs claim, Amazon has run an illegal monopoly in ways that are “paying off for Amazon, but at great cost to tens of millions of American households and hundreds of thousands of sellers.”

    In response, Amazon has argued the case is “wrong on the facts and the law” and warned that a victory for the FTC would lead to slower shipping times or higher prices, including perhaps for Amazon’s Prime subscription service.

    Here are five of the biggest highlights and takeaways from the plaintiffs’ 172-page lawsuit.

    The plaintiffs’ central claim is that Amazon has used a variety of tactics to lure shoppers and sellers onto its platform and then to trap them there, preventing other online retailers like Walmart, Target or eBay from attracting those same consumers and vendors to their own sites.

    Walmart, Target and eBay are not parties to the suit.

    Not only has that lock-in effect hurt competition between the likes of Amazon and Walmart, the lawsuit claims, but it has also given Amazon confidence it can exploit its sellers and shoppers with impunity — allowing the company to extract ever more value from them without fear those people will leave for a rival platform.

    The complaint portrays Amazon as offering a kind of Faustian bargain — first enticing sellers with the ability to access tens of millions of potential customers and drawing in shoppers with low prices and numerous Prime benefits, such as Amazon Music and Prime Video, that other e-commerce platforms can’t hope to match.

    Then, in the plaintiffs’ narrative, Amazon takes advantage of sellers’ and shoppers’ dependence by increasing platform fees; bloating its search results with advertising that sellers are forced to buy if they want any hope of reaching shoppers; requiring sellers to use Amazon’s in-house fulfillment services if they want the best seller benefits, including the coveted “Prime” badge; and punishing sellers who try to sell their goods elsewhere online at a lower price than on Amazon.

    The overall result, the plaintiffs claim, is a worse experience for Amazon users and artificially high prices for everyone, including on non-Amazon platforms.

    “There are internet-wide effects here,” FTC Chair Lina Khan told reporters on a conference call Tuesday.

    Amazon has responded that the lawsuit “reveals the Commission’s fundamental misunderstanding of retail.” Amazon’s general counsel, David Zapolsky, wrote in a blog post that the company’s pricing programs for sellers are meant to “help them offer competitive prices,” that consumers “love Prime because it’s such a great experience,” and that the claim “that we somehow force sellers to use our optional services is simply not true.”

    A big, swirling question is whether Amazon could be broken up as a result of this suit.

    Officially, the FTC is saying that talk of a breakup is premature.

    “At this stage, the complaint is really focused on the issue of liability,” Khan said at an event hosted by Bloomberg News on Tuesday, hours after the lawsuit was filed.

    If the courts find that Amazon did violate the law, then there could be a separate remedies phase to consider potential penalties.

    A breakup is not off the table. The plaintiffs’ complaint, filed in Seattle federal court, suggests that any court order to address the issue could include “structural relief,” a legal term referring to a potential breakup of Amazon.

    Khan also left open the possibility that Amazon executives could be held personally liable and added to the case if there is sufficient evidence of their responsibility for Amazon’s alleged misconduct.

    “We want to make sure that we are bringing cases against the right defendants,” Khan said in response to a question from CNN about whether the FTC considered naming specific executives in Tuesday’s case. “If we think that there is a basis for doing so, we won’t hesitate to do that.”

    Those remarks echo what Khan has said elsewhere about her willingness to name individuals in FTC enforcement actions. Just this month, the FTC added three Amazon officials to a separate consumer protection case dealing with Amazon Prime.

    An entire section of the complaint is devoted to a mysterious algorithm Amazon has developed named Project Nessie. Virtually every detail surrounding Project Nessie is heavily redacted from the complaint, but what little is revealed about the program suggests it is an “algorithmic tool” and “pricing system” that has allegedly helped Amazon “extract” an undisclosed amount of “excess profit” from Amazon shoppers.

    Amazon did not respond to CNN’s questions about Project Nessie. And Project Nessie isn’t the only matter subject to redactions in the lawsuit; black bars obscuring key business numbers, executive testimony and other evidence are strewn throughout the complaint.

    In response to public questioning about the redactions, FTC spokesperson Douglas Farrar said in a statement: “We share the frustration that much of the data and quotes by Amazon executives … is redacted,” and that “we do not believe that there are compelling reasons to keep much of this information secret from the public.”

    Farrar added that Amazon has a limited procedural window in which to file arguments for why many of the redacted details should remain sealed.

    Whether the FTC can prove in court that Amazon’s actions are illegal will hinge, to a large degree, on showing that Amazon has monopolized certain specific markets.

    The exercise is not as simple as pointing to Amazon’s sales figures or the percentage of online shopping that happens on Amazon’s platform. Instead, the plaintiffs have to show that Amazon is part of a well-defined geographic and economic market that it dominates.

    The complaint tries to define two such markets in the United States: a market the plaintiffs label as “online superstores” — essentially describing large retail websites that offer many different types of goods, with convenient search, checkout and shipping features for consumers — and a seller-focused “online marketplace services” market that grants third-party vendors access to customers, provides them with sales tools like data analytics and listing services, and a review or product ratings system, among other things.

    Expect Amazon to try to challenge how the plaintiffs draw their market boundaries. Zapolsky’s blog post argues that the plaintiffs have attempted to “gerrymander” their proposed markets to make it look like Amazon is more dominant than it is.

    Whether that argument succeeds will be up to the court, but it is clear the plaintiffs have carefully crafted their market definitions. For example, they claim that in this case, Amazon can’t be said to compete with online grocery delivery services such as FreshDirect or Instacart because of the unique and often hyper-local constraints of shipping perishable goods. The FTC also wants to exclude medium-sized or interest-specific retail sites that don’t offer a wide variety of products. Presumably this might exclude websites belonging to companies like the pet care retailer Chewy, or the electronics seller Best Buy.

    FreshDirect, Instacart, Chewy and Best Buy are not parties to the suit.

    Excluding those types of companies allows the plaintiffs to make claims such as that “Amazon’s share of the overall value of goods sold by online superstores is well above 60% — and rising.”

    Even as the lawsuit takes on some of the most important parts of Amazon’s retail business, there is much that the suit doesn’t cover.

    In recent years, critics of Amazon have lobbed a kitchen sink of antitrust allegations at the company, including that it snoops on seller data to figure out what products it should sell under its own brand; that the fact Amazon sells its own products alongside third-party sellers creates an anticompetitive conflict of interest; that Amazon has used predatory pricing to weaken rivals and to ultimately acquire them; and that Amazon wields enormous power in labor markets. Many of these observations were included as part of a 450-page congressional report that Khan helped author while working as a House Judiciary Committee staffer prior to being appointed to the FTC.

    Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has acknowledged in congressional testimony the possibility that employees may have inappropriately accessed seller data in violation of company policy, but Amazon has broadly disputed most of the other allegations.

    Virtually none of those claims, however, are reflected in this week’s lawsuit. The complaint does allege that Amazon biases its search results to rank its own products higher than those sold by third parties, but largely as a byproduct of Amazon’s main moves to protect its dominance.

    The complaint doesn’t articulate how regulators came to select some allegations and not others.

    When a reporter asked Khan to reflect on her past criticism of how narrowly courts have focused on the issue of consumer prices, in contrast to Tuesday’s Amazon suit that mentions the word “price” some 223 times, not including any redacted parts, Khan said her job was to present the case that stood the best chance of winning.

    “As enforcers, we want to both follow the facts where they take us and also look at how the law applies to the facts,” Khan said. “You want to bring the strongest case that you can.”

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  • Dow tumbles by more than 400 points, on pace for biggest one-day decline since March | CNN Business

    Dow tumbles by more than 400 points, on pace for biggest one-day decline since March | CNN Business


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    Stocks tumbled Tuesday after a slew of economic data stoked fears about the US economy’s cloudy outlook and further interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.

    The benchmark S&P 500 index slid 1.2%, on track for its lowest close since June. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 416 points, or 1.2%, on pace for its biggest one-day drop since March; and the Nasdaq Composite lost 1.5%.

    The S&P 500 is hovering around the threshold that it passed to enter bull market territory earlier this summer, which represents a climb of more than 20% off its most recent low last October.

    Housing data released Tuesday morning showed that new home sales fell 8.7% in August from July, as mortgage rates edged above 7% to the highest levels in decades.

    At the same time, US home prices climbed to a record high in July, marking the sixth straight month of increases as a tight supply of homes continues to drive up prices, according to the latest Case-Shiller home prices index.

    “The Fed will see the reacceleration of house prices as a reason to keep interest rates higher for longer,” said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank. “The Fed cannot afford to look past house prices’ influence on the cost of living.”

    Investors have been on edge since the Fed last week indicated it could hike interest rates once more this year and delay rate cuts for longer than expected. That sent yields soaring to their highest level in decades, as investors recalibrate their expectations for how long rates will stay higher.

    Oil prices gained on Tuesday after paring back their recent gains earlier. West Texas Intermediate crude futures, the US benchmark, rose to roughly $90 a barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, climbed to $94 a barrel.

    JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said Tuesday in an interview with the Times of India that he is preparing the bank’s clients for a 7% interest rate scenario, further spooking investors.

    The possibility of a government shutdown also looms over Wall Street as the fiscal year’s end on September 30 fast approaches without any spending deal.

    Moody’s warned Monday that such an event could be negative for America’s credit rating, which already saw a downgrade from Fitch earlier this year after the federal government narrowly avoided breaching the debt ceiling.

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  • The Fed has a perfect interest rate in mind. Here’s what it is | CNN Business

    The Fed has a perfect interest rate in mind. Here’s what it is | CNN Business

    There’s a star the Federal Reserve is chasing.

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  • Two pilots were killed in a collision at a Reno air show | CNN

    Two pilots were killed in a collision at a Reno air show | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Two pilots were killed when their planes collided Sunday during the National Championship Air Races and Air Show in Reno, Nevada, organizers of the event said.

    “Around 2:15 p.m. this afternoon, at the conclusion of the T-6 Gold race, upon landing, two planes collided and it has been confirmed that both pilots are deceased,” the Reno Air Racing Association said in a statement posted on Facebook.

    In a later statement, organizers identified the two pilots as Nick Macy and Chris Rushing.

    “Both expertly skilled pilots and Gold winners in the T-6 Class, Macy piloted Six-Cat and Rushing flew Baron’s Revenge,” the updated statement said. “Families of both pilots have been notified and support services are onsite as they deal with this tragedy.”

    No other injuries were reported, it added.

    The remainder of the races were canceled, organizers said.

    The National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement sent to CNN it is investigating the cause of the crash. The agency, which is leading the probe, identified the two aircraft as a North American T-6G and North American AT-6B, and said they had just completed the race.

    “The wreckage of each plane came to rest one-half mile from each other,” NTSB said, adding the wreckage will be taken to an off-site facility for analysis.

    Event organizers said they are cooperating with the NTSB, the Federal Aviation Administration and “all local authorities to identify the cause of the accident and ensure that all of our pilots, spectators and volunteers have the necessary support during this time.”

    The event, which has been running for more than five decades, prides itself in being an “institution for northern Nevada and aviation enthusiasts from around the world,” according to its website. Over the past decade, the event has brought more than a million spectators and “generated more than $750 million” for the regional economy, according to the site.

    This is not the event’s first fatal crash. A pilot was killed last year in a plane crash during a race and In 2011, 11 people were killed and more than 60 others injured when a plane veered out of control and slammed into spectators.

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  • Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hints at more bad news for borrowers | CNN Business

    Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell hints at more bad news for borrowers | CNN Business


    Washington, DC
    CNN
     — 

    Additional interest rate hikes are still on the table and rates could remain elevated for longer than expected, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Friday.

    Delivering a highly anticipated speech at the Kansas City Fed’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Powell again stressed that the Fed will pay close attention to economic growth and the state of the labor market when making policy decisions.

    “Although inflation has moved down from its peak — a welcome development — it remains too high,” Powell said. “We are prepared to raise rates further if appropriate, and intend to hold policy at a restrictive level until we are confident that inflation is moving sustainably down toward our objective.”

    The Fed chief’s annual presentation at the symposium, which has become a major event in the world of central banking, typically hints at what to expect from monetary policy in the coming months.

    Powell’s speech wasn’t a full-throated call for more rate hikes, but rather a balanced assessment of inflation’s evolution over the past year and the possible risks to the progress the Fed wants to see. He made it clear the central bank is retaining the option of more hikes, if necessary, and that what Fed officials ultimately decide will depend on data.

    US stocks opened higher before Powell’s speech, tumbled in late morning trading and then rose again.

    The Fed raised its benchmark lending rate by a quarter point in July to a range of 5.25-5.5%, the highest level in 22 years, following a pause in June. Minutes from the Fed’s July meeting showed that officials were concerned about the economy’s surprising strength keeping upward pressure on prices, suggesting more rate hikes if necessary. Some officials have said in recent speeches that the Fed can afford to keep rates steady, underscoring the intense debate among officials on what the Fed should do next.

    Financial markets still see an overwhelming chance the the Fed will decide to hold rates steady at its September meeting, according to the CME FedWatch tool, given that inflationary pressures have continued to wane.

    Here are some key takeaways from Powell’s speech.

    Chair Powell said there is still a risk that inflation won’t come down to the Fed’s 2% target as the central bank faces the proverbial last mile in its battle with higher prices.

    “Additional evidence of persistently above-trend growth could put further progress on inflation at risk and could warrant further tightening of monetary policy,” Powell said.

    Concerns over the economy running too hot for the Fed’s comfort only recently emerged.

    Economic growth in the second quarter picked up from the prior three-month period and the Atlanta Fed is currently estimating growth will accelerate even more in the third quarter.

    That could be a problem for the Fed, since the central bank’s primary mechanism for fighting inflation is by cooling the economy through tweaking the benchmark lending rate.

    Generally, if demand is red hot, employers will want to hire to meet that demand. But many firms continue to have difficulty hiring, according to business surveys from groups such as the National Federation of Independent Business. In theory, that could prompt wage increases in order to secure talent — and those higher costs could then be passed on to consumers.

    “if you’re a policymaker, you’re looking at the level of output relative to your estimate of what’s sustainable for maximum employment and 2% inflation,” William English, finance professor at Yale University who worked at the Fed’s Board of Governors from 2010 to 2015, told CNN. “So what does that mean for monetary policy? That may mean that they need rates to be higher for longer than they thought to get the economy on to that desirable trajectory, but there are a lot of questions around that force, and a lot of uncertainty.”

    Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester is one of the Fed officials backing a more aggressive stance on fighting inflation.

    “We’ve come come a long way, but we don’t want to be satisfied, because inflation remains too high — and we need to see more evidence to be assured that it’s coming down in a sustainable way and in a timely way,” Mester said in an interview with CNBC after Powell’s remarks.

    Meanwhile, some other officials think there will eventually be enough restraint on the economy and that more hikes could cause unnecessary economic damage. The lagged effects of rate hikes on the broader economy are a key uncertainty for officials, since it’s not clear when exactly those effects will fully take hold. Research suggests it takes at least a year.

    “We are in a restrictive stance in my view, and we’re putting pressure on the economy to slow inflation,” Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker told Bloomberg in an interview Friday after Powell’s speech. “What I’m hearing — and I’ve been around my district all summer talking to people — is ‘you’ve done a lot very quickly.’”

    Powell pointed to the steady progress on inflation in the past year: The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge — the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index — rose 3% in June from a year earlier, down from the 3.8% rise in May. The Commerce Department officially releases July PCE figures next week, though Powell already previewed that report in his speech. He said the Fed’s favorite inflation measure rose 3.3% in the 12 months ended in July.

    The Consumer Price Index, another closely watched inflation measure, rose 3.2% in July, a faster pace than the 3% in June, though underlying price pressures continued to decelerate that month.

    In his speech Friday, Powell stood firmly by the Fed’s current 2% inflation target, which was formalized in 2012 — at least for now. The Fed is set to review its policy framework around 2025, which could be an opportunity to establish a new inflation target.

    Harvard economist Jason Furman said in an op-ed published in The Wall Street Journal this week that the central bank should aim for a different inflation goal, which could be something slightly higher than 2% or even a range of between 2% and 3%.

    For now, Powell has made it clear he is sticking with the stated inflation target.

    Still, inflation’s progress has hyped up not only American consumers and businesses, but also some Fed officials.

    Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee reiterated to CNBC Friday that he still sees “a path to a soft landing,” a scenario in which inflation falls down to target without a spike in unemployment or a recession.

    Powell also weighed in on an ongoing debate among economists about whether the “neutral rate of interest,” also known as r*, is higher since the economy is still on strong footing despite the Fed’s aggressive pace of rate hikes.

    In theory, the neutral rate is when real interest rates neither restrict nor stimulate growth. The Fed chair said higher interest rates are likely pulling on the economy’s reins, implying that r* might not be structurally higher, though he said it’s an unobservable concept.

    “We see the current stance of policy as restrictive, putting downward pressure on economic activity, hiring, and inflation. But we cannot identify with certainty the neutral rate of interest, and thus there is always uncertainty about the precise level of monetary policy restraint,” Powell said.

    Either way, while the Fed chief hinted that more rate hikes might be coming down the pike, there’s no guarantee either way.

    The Fed paused its historic inflation fight for the first time in June, mostly based on uncertainty over how the spring’s bank stresses would affect lending. The central bank could decide to pause again in September over uncertainty as it waits for more data.

    “We think that the Fed is more likely to take a wait-and-see approach with the data and try to understand a little bit more about why the labor market is remaining so strong, even despite the inflationary experience that we’ve had and the higher interest rates in the economy,” Sinead Colton Grant, head of investor solutions at BNY Mellon Wealth Management, told CNN in an interview.

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  • US wholesale inflation rose more than expected in July | CNN Business

    US wholesale inflation rose more than expected in July | CNN Business


    Minneapolis
    CNN
     — 

    US wholesale inflation rose more than expected in July, reversing a yearlong cooling trend, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

    The Producer Price Index, which tracks the average change in prices that businesses pay to suppliers, rose 0.8% annually. That’s above June’s upwardly revised increase of 0.2% and higher than expectations for a 0.7% gain, according to consensus estimates on Refinitiv.

    Producer price hikes increased 0.3% from June to July, the highest monthly increase since January.

    PPI is a closely watched inflation gauge since it captures average price shifts before they reach consumers, and is a proxy for potential price changes in stores.

    Services and demand for services were the primary culprits behind the lift higher for producer prices, said Kurt Rankin, senior economist for PNC Financial Services. Services prices rose 0.5% from June, the highest monthly increase since March 2022 for the category, BLS data shows.

    “The inflation story now, be it for producers or consumers, is demand,” he told CNN. “Mainly that’s consumers still spending money on services.”

    The food index, which had declined for three straight months, rose 0.5% in July, suggesting a 6.3% annualized pace of inflation, he said.

    “Consumers continue to go out and spend money,” Rankin said. “And as long as consumers are spending money, that’s going to create demand from producers, so that’s going to drive up their costs for their raw materials, for their transportation needs, etc.”

    “And they’re going to pass those prices on to consumers,” he added.

    That’s an unpleasant cycle.

    “The numbers over the past six months have been much more encouraging, but it’s a reminder that the Federal Reserve has an eye toward the possibility of inflation flaring up again,” he said.

    The report comes just one day after the Consumer Price Index showed that prices rose 3.2% annually in July. That increase, which was below the 3.3% economists were anticipating, was largely driven by year-over-year comparisons to a softer inflation number the year before.

    Similar base effects played their role in the headline PPI increase as well, noted Rankin.

    The tick upward to 0.8% doesn’t tell the whole story, because the index decreased in five of the previous seven months. Annualizing the 0.3% monthly gain, however, would put the PPI rate at about 3.6% and core at 3.8%, he said.

    “So the July number does suggest that there’s still some producer cost pressures,” he said.

    When stripping out the more volatile categories of food and energy, core PPI rose 2.4% annually in July. That’s in line with what was seen in June but a tick above economists’ expectations for a slight cooling.

    On a month-to-month basis, core PPI increased 0.3%, also the highest monthly gain since January.

    “The underlying trends show that PPI inflation is reverting to its pre-pandemic run rate, though progress is likely to be slower in [the second half of 2023] than [the first half],” Oxford Economics economists Matthew Martin and Oren Klachkin wrote Friday in a note. “While these data will comfort Fed officials, policymakers will likely maintain a hawkish tone and keep a close eye on whether last month’s jump in services prices persists in the months ahead.”

    US stock futures tumbled after the report was released, as the hotter-than-expected data fueled concerns that the Fed could continue to hike rates in order to rein in inflation. The Dow has since pared its losses and is back in the green.

    One month does not make a trend, and this result alone should not trigger a September increase from the Fed, but it certainly could heighten concerns, Rankin said.

    “One spark could reignite this,” he said. “We’re seeing energy prices, oil prices, rising over the past few weeks. Any flareup in oil prices goes straight through to not only manufacturing costs, but transportation of goods to market, even transportation of food to restaurants. So even services, leisure and hospitality get hit when energy prices spike, so that possibility is always there.”

    The PPI’s energy index, which increased 0.7% in June, showed that prices were flat for July.

    “So the fact that energy prices were not a contributor tho this month’s reading makes this number jumping a bit a stark reminder that the Federal Reserve’s fight against inflation and their rhetoric regarding that fight is going to remain hawkish in the near term.”

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  • International Space Station Fast Facts | CNN

    International Space Station Fast Facts | CNN



    CNN
     — 

    Here’s a look at the International Space Station (ISS), a spacecraft built by a partnership of 16 nations: United States, Canada, Japan, Russia, Brazil, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

    Information on ISS crews and expeditions can be found here.

    The ISS includes three main modules connected by nodes: the US Laboratory Module Destiny, the European Research Laboratory Columbus, and the Japanese Experiment Module Kibo (Hope). Each was launched separately and connected in space by astronauts.

    Mass: 925,335 pounds (419,725 kilograms)

    Habitable Volume: 13,696 cubic feet (388 cubic meters)

    Solar Array Length: 239 feet (75 meters)

    The ISS orbits Earth 16 times a day.

    As of June 22, 2023, 266 spacewalks have been conducted for station assembly and maintenance.

    November 1998 – A Russian Proton rocket places the first piece, the Zarya module, in orbit.

    December 1998 – The space shuttle Endeavour crew, on the STS-88 mission, attaches the Unity module to Zarya initiating the first ISS assembly sequence.

    June 1999 – The space shuttle Discovery crew, on mission STS-96, supplies two modules with tools and cranes.

    July 2000 – Zvezda, the fifth flight, docks with the ISS to become the third major component of the station.

    November 2000 – The first permanent crew, Expedition One, arrives at the station.

    November/December 2000 – The space shuttle Endeavour crew, on mission STS-97, installs the first set of US solar arrays on the station and visits Expedition One.

    February 2001 – Mission STS-98 delivers the US Destiny Laboratory Module.

    March 2001 – STS-102 delivers Expedition Two to the station and brings Expedition One home. The crew also brings Leonardo, the first Multi-Purpose Logistics Module, to the station.

    September 16, 2001 – The Russian Docking Compartment, Pirs, arrives at the ISS.

    June 2002 – STS-111 delivers the Expedition Five crew and brings the Expedition Four crew home. The crew also brings the Mobile Base System to the orbital outpost.

    December 2002 – STS-113 delivers the Expedition Six crew and the P1 Truss.

    May 3, 2003 – Expedition Six crew return to Earth on Soyuz TMA-1. Crew members Kenneth Bowersox and Don Pettit are the first American astronauts ever to land in a Soyuz spacecraft.

    July 29, 2003 – Marks the 1,000th consecutive day of people living and working aboard the ISS (this is a record for the station, but not for space).

    August 10, 2003 – Russian Cosmonaut Yuri Malenchenko marries his fiancée Ekaterina Dmitriev from space. The bride and groom exchange vows over a hotline set up for the event. Dmitriev stands next to a life-sized picture of Malenchenko.

    April 22, 2004 – The second of four gyroscopes that stabilize the orbiting outpost of the ISS fails. NASA officials say this does not pose an immediate threat to the crew. An extra spacewalk will have to be conducted to the fix the electrical component box thought to be at fault.

    November 2, 2005 – Fifth anniversary of continuous human presence in space on the ISS.

    February 3, 2006 – SuitSat-1, an unmanned space suit containing a radio transmitter is deployed as a part of an ISS spacewalk. The suit is supposed to transmit recorded messages in six languages to school children and amateur radio operators for several days before reentering Earth’s atmosphere and burning up, but it goes silent shortly after its deployment.

    March 31, 2006 – Arriving with the crew of Expedition Thirteen is Marcos Pontes, the first Brazilian astronaut. Staying eight days, Pontes conducts scientific experiments before returning to Earth with the crew of Expedition Twelve.

    July 7, 2006 – The arrival of Thomas Reiter of Germany via the Space Shuttle Discovery returns the station’s long-duration crew to three for the first time since May 2003 and the Columbia shuttle disaster. Reiter is the first non-US and non-Russian long-duration station crewmember, and he remains onboard during the first part of Expedition Fourteen.

    September 9, 2006 – Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with the ISS, delivering the P3/P4 truss and its solar wings before undocking September 21 and returning to Earth.

    September 20, 2006 – Arriving with the crew of Expedition Fourteen is Anousheh Ansari, an American businesswoman. She spends about eight days conducting experiments and blogging about her experiences before returning to Earth with two of the three members of Expedition Thirteen.

    December 2006 – Arrival of Flight Engineer Sunita Williams via space shuttle mission STS-116. Williams replaces Reiter, who returns to Earth with the crew of STS-116.

    April 7, 2007 – Charles Simonyi becomes the fifth space tourist when he accompanies the Expedition Fifteen crew to the ISS. He spends 12 days aboard the space station before returning to Earth with the crew of Expedition Fourteen.

    June 10, 2007 – Space Shuttle Atlantis docks with the the ISS to install a new segment and solar panel on the space station and retrieve astronaut Williams, who has been at the space station since December. Williams is replaced by Flight Engineer Clayton Anderson, who will return to earth aboard Discovery on Mission STS-120.

    June 15, 2007 – Four days after ISS’s computers crash, two Russian cosmonauts bring them back online. The computers control the station’s orientation as well as oxygen production. The crew used Atlantis’ thrusters to help maintain the station’s position while its computers were down.

    October 25, 2007 – Space Shuttle Discovery docks with the ISS. In the days while docked with the ISS, the Discovery crew delivers and connects Harmony to the ISS, a living and working compartment that will also serve as the docking port for Japanese and European Union laboratories. Discovery and ISS crew also move an ISS solar array to prepare for future ISS expansion, planning a special spacewalk to repair damage to the solar array that occurred during its unfurling.

    November 14, 2007 – ISS crew move the Harmony node from its temporary location on the Unity node to its permanent location attached to Destiny.

    February 9, 2008 – Space Shuttle Atlantis arrives. Its crew delivers the European-made Columbus laboratory, a 23-foot long module that will be home to a variety of science experiments. Atlantis remains docked with the ISS for just under nine days.

    March 9, 2008 – “Jules Verne,” the first of a series of European space vessels designed to deliver supplies to the ISS, launches from the Ariane Launch Complex in Kourou, French Guiana. The vessels, called Automated Transfer Vehicles (ATV), are propelled into space atop an Ariane 5 rocket, and are designed to dock with the ISS with no human assistance. The Jules Verne will wait to dock with the ISS until after Space Shuttle Endeavour’s March mission is completed.

    March 12, 2008 – Space Shuttle Endeavour docks with the ISS.

    March 24, 2008 – Endeavour detaches from the ISS. While docked, crew members make five spacewalks to deliver and assemble the Dextre Robotics System, deliver and attach the Kibo logistics module, attach science experiments to the exterior of the ISS, and perform other inspection and maintenance tasks.

    April 3, 2008 – The unmanned European cargo ship Jules Verne successfully docks with the ISS. Able to carry more than three times the volume of the Russian-built Progress resupply vehicles, the Jules Verne contains fuel, water, oxygen and other supplies.

    April 10, 2008 – Two members of Expedition 17 crew arrive at the ISS via a Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Travelling with them is Yi So-yeon, a space flight participant and South Korea’s first astronaut. Yi later returns to Earth aboard an older Soyuz spacecraft along with members of the Expedition 16 crew.

    June 2, 2008 – Space Shuttle Discovery docks with the ISS. Discovery is carrying Japan’s Kibo lab, a replacement pump for the station’s toilet, and astronaut Gregory Chamitoff, who is replacing Garrett Reisman as part of the station’s crew.

    June 11, 2008 – Discovery undocks with the ISS after its crew successfully delivers and installs the Japanese-built Kibo lab, delivers parts to repair the ISS’s malfunctioning toilet, collects debris samples from the station’s faulty solar power wing, and retrieves an inspection boom left behind during a previous shuttle mission. Station crewmember Reisman departs with Discovery.

    October 12, 2008 – The Soyuz TMA-13 capsule carrying two Americans – flight commander Michael Fincke and computer game millionaire Richard Garriott, and Russian flight engineer Yuri Lonchakov – lifts off from Kazakhstan. It docks with the ISS on October 14.

    March 12, 2009 – Orbital debris from a prior space shuttle mission forces the crew of Expedition 18 to temporarily retreat to its Soyuz capsule.

    August 24, 2011 – Russian emergency officials report that an unmanned Russian cargo craft, the Progress-M12M that was to deliver 3.85 tons of food and supplies to the ISS, crashed in a remote area of Siberia.

    May 19, 2012 – SpaceX’s launch of the Falcon 9 rocket, the first private spacecraft bound for the ISS, is aborted a half a second before liftoff. SpaceX engineers trace the problem to a faulty rocket engine valve.

    May 22, 2012 – The unmanned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The rocket carries the Dragon spacecraft, which is filled with food, supplies and science experiments and bound for the ISS.

    May 25, 2012 – The unmanned SpaceX Dragon spacecraft connects to the International Space Station, the first private spacecraft to successfully reach an orbiting space station.

    October 7, 2012 – SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, with its Dragon capsule carrying 1,000 pounds of supplies bound for the ISS, launches from Florida’s Cape Canaveral. It is the first of a dozen NASA-contracted flights to resupply the International Space Station, at a total cost of $1.6 billion.

    May 9, 2013 – The crew discovers that the ISS is leaking ammonia. The crew performs a spacewalk and corrects the leak two days later.

    November 9, 2013 – Russian cosmonauts perform the first ever spacewalk of the Olympic Torch ahead of the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.

    December 11, 2013 – A pump on one of the station’s two external cooling loops shuts down after hitting a temperature limit, according to NASA. The malfunctioning loop had been producing too much ammonia, possibly the result of a malfunctioning valve.

    December 24, 2013 – Astronauts complete a repair job to replace the problematic pump. Their spacewalk lasts seven and a half hours, and is the second ever spacewalk on Christmas Eve. The first was in 1999 for a Hubble Repair Mission.

    March 10, 2014 – After five and a half months aboard the ISS, Expedition 38 astronauts return to earth aboard the Soyuz TMA-10M spacecraft.

    September 16, 2014 – NASA announces that Boeing and Space X have been awarded contracts to build vehicles that will shuttle astronauts to and from the space station.

    December 15, 2015 – Astronaut Tim Peake is the first British European Space Agency astronaut to arrive at the ISS.

    March 2, 2016 – NASA astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko land in the Kazakhstan desert after a nearly yearlong mission on the ISS.

    August 3, 2018 – NASA selects nine astronauts, seven men and two women, for missions in spacecraft developed by Boeing and SpaceX. The flights, scheduled for 2019, will be the first launches to space from US soil since the Space Shuttle program was retired in 2011, and the first in capsules developed and built by the private sector.

    June 2019 – NASA announces the ISS is opening for commercial use. The newest NASA directive is intended to allow “commercial manufacturing and production and allow both NASA and private astronauts to conduct new commercial activities aboard the orbiting laboratory.”

    October 18, 2019 – NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch conduct the first all-female spacewalk outside of the ISS. The spacewalk last seven hours and 17 minutes.

    May 30, 2020 – SpaceX and NASA’s Falcon 9, bound for the ISS, launches. This is the first crewed spaceflight to launch from US soil since 2011. The astronauts spend two months working on the ISS, then return to Earth on August 2.

    November 16, 2020 – The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft with four astronauts on board safely docks with the ISS. The spacecraft launched from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on November 15 and marks the first fully operational crewed mission for SpaceX.

    April 21, 2021 – Russia announces that it is ready to start building its own space station with the aim of launching it into orbit by 2030, according to Interfax news agency. The project will mark a new chapter for Russian space exploration. Russia, which signed a memorandum of understanding in March to explore establishing a joint lunar base with China, will notify its ISS partners regarding its departure from ISS at a future date.

    June 16, 2021 – NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet conduct a spacewalk to install solar arrays on the space station. After technical delays, the work is completed four days later. The arrays are rolled up like carpet and are 750 pounds (340 kilograms) and 10 feet (three meters) wide. They will provide a power boost to the space station.

    January 31, 2022 – NASA reveals it intends to keep operating the ISS until the end of 2030, after which the ISS will be crashed into a remote part of the Pacific Ocean known as Point Nemo.

    April 9, 2022 – The first crew entirely comprised of private citizens reaches the ISS.

    July 26, 2022 – Russia announces it is planning to pull out of the ISS after 2024, ending its decades-long partnership with NASA at the orbiting outpost.

    October 6, 2022 – A SpaceX capsule carrying a multinational crew of astronauts docks with the ISS after a 29-hour trek. The mission launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 12 p.m. ET on October 5. The four crew members included astronauts Nicole Mann and Josh Cassada of NASA, astronaut Koichi Wakata of Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and cosmonaut Anna Kikina of Roscosmos, the first Russian to travel on a SpaceX spaceflight.

    October 24, 2022 – According to NASA, the ISS fires its thrusters to maneuver out of the way of a piece of oncoming Russian space junk.

    December 22, 2022 – Two NASA astronauts carry out a spacewalk to install a new solar panel on the ISS. The spacewalk lasts about seven hours.

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  • Nevada GOP Senate candidate raised money to help other candidates — the funds mostly paid down his old campaign’s debt instead | CNN Politics

    Nevada GOP Senate candidate raised money to help other candidates — the funds mostly paid down his old campaign’s debt instead | CNN Politics



    CNN
     — 

    Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sam Brown created a political action committee to “help elect Republicans” but most of its funds were spent paying down debt from his failed previous campaign. The group donated less than 7% of its funds to the candidates it was set up to support, according to campaign finance records – a move one campaign finance expert likened to using the PAC as a “slush fund.”

    Brown formed the Duty First PAC in July 2022, saying the organization would help Republicans take back Congress. A month earlier, Brown lost the Republican Senate primary to Adam Laxalt after raising an impressive $4.4 million for his upstart campaign, but his campaign was left with more than $300,000 in debt.

    Now Brown is running again in Nevada as a top recruit of Senate Republicans.

    A former Army captain, Brown made lofty promises when launching his PAC, Duty First.

    “With your support, we will: Defeat the socialist Democrats. Help elect Republicans who believe in accountability to the Constitution and service to the people. Stand with the #DutyFirst movement, chip in with a grassroots contribution today,” he said in a tweet announcing the PAC.

    “We’ll ensure that the socialist agenda of the Democrats does not win in November, and the Republicans continue to be held accountable to defending our Constitution and defending our conservative principles. The country’s counting on us,” Brown said in an accompanying video for the PAC’s launch in July 2022.

    Since then, the PAC raised a small amount – just $91,500 – and used the majority of their money – $55,000 – to repay debt from Brown’s failed campaign for Senate, which Brown had transferred over. Campaign finance experts told CNN this falls into a legal gray area.

    Of the $90,000 spent so far, just $6,000 made its way to five Nevadan Republican candidates’ committees. An additional payment for $1,000 was listed as going directly to congressional candidate Mark Robertson as a contribution but lists the amount as being directly paid to the candidate at his home – not to his committee.

    Instead, the Duty First PAC made over a dozen debt payments. A combined $23,000 was spent on website and software services used by Brown’s Senate campaign. Another $11,275 went towards paying down the failed campaign’s credit card, with an additional $3,000 spent on credit card interest fees.

    Duty First paid off over $1,200 in credit card debt accrued at a country club near where Brown previously lived in Dallas, Texas, and ran for the state house in 2014. A spokesman for the Brown campaign said in an email to CNN the “facility fee” charges were for a fundraiser “hosted by supporters of Sam’s campaign.”

    The most recent FEC filing shows Brown is now trying to dispute over $80,000 in remaining debt from the previous campaign, which the spokesman said “will be resolved in due course.” A majority of the disputed debt owed is for direct mail services used by Brown’s previous campaign.

    Duty First PAC is also responsible for eventually repaying Brown $70,000 that he personally loaned his committees.

    The spokesperson for Brown’s campaign defended the PAC’s spending.

    “The PAC promised to support conservative candidates in Nevada, and it did exactly that by donating to every Republican candidate in Nevada’s federal races during the 2022 general election,” they said.

    According to a CNN analysis of Duty First PAC’s FEC filings, of all the money raised, less than 7% went to candidates. When considering Brown’s personal loans, debt the PAC took on from Brown’s campaign, and expenditures, fewer than 2% of the PAC’s funds went towards candidates in 2022

    The money not spent on debt went to a variety of consulting and digital marketing expenses. The PAC spent $1,090 on a storage unit, more than it donated to the winning campaign of Republican Rep. Mark Amodei.

    Despite this, Brown played up his PAC’s donations to candidates in interviews and in posts on social media.

    “I have pledged to help defeat the Democrats in Nevada,” he added in an email, announcing the launch of the PAC.

    The PAC’s donations were from grassroots donors, who typically donated $50 or less.

    Just a day before the 2022 midterm election, Brown announced donations to several candidates running for office in Nevada.

    Records with the FEC show the 2022 donations to House candidates were made on October 31, while the donation to Laxalt’s Senate campaign was made in early September.

    “The Duty First PAC proudly supports conservatives fighting for Nevada,” he said in a tweet after making the donations on November 7, 2022. “This past week, we donated funds to the four Republicans working to take back the House. Join us in supporting them right now!”

    Later, following the 2022 midterms in a late November interview on a local Nevada radio station, Brown played up the PAC’s work and said it would continue to work between election cycles.

    “Duty First is here to kind of work between the cycles, so to speak and help candidates who are running,” Brown said. “In fact this cycle, you know, we had raised money and supported all of our Republican federal candidates, Adam Laxalt, as well as the four Congressionals.”

    “And so, it’s our way of pushing back against the Democrat agenda and their representation,” Brown said. “But, also, it gives Duty First supporters and people that believe in our mission, a sort of platform to remind Republicans what we’re about.”

    Campaign finance experts CNN spoke to said Brown marketing the Duty First PAC as a way for people to financially support conservative candidates was a “creative way” for Brown to pay off old campaign debts behind the scenes.

    “It creates a situation where contributors to a PAC may think that PAC is doing one thing, which is supporting political candidates, when in fact what it’s doing is being used to pay off long standing debts from a previous campaign,” said Stephen Spaulding, vice president of policy at Common Cause and former advisor to an FEC commissioner.

    Since the FEC has not issued an advisory opinion that would “apply to that candidate and any other candidate that has a very similar situation,” Spaulding said transferring debts between campaign committees and PACs is a gray area in campaign finance law. In Brown’s case, his candidate committee was rolled into a PAC, Sam Brown PAC, that was associated with his candidacy, which the campaign finance experts agree is a common maneuver for candidates. But what struck the experts as odd was that Brown terminated the Sam Brown PAC, and transferred his outstanding loans and debts to the Duty First PAC.

    Brown’s 2024 candidate committee, Sam Brown for Nevada, is an entirely new committee with its own FEC filings, despite having the same name as his previous committee. This committee, formed in July 2023, is not affiliated with the Duty First PAC, nor is it obligated to pay off the remaining $271,000 in previous campaign debt and loans.

    “Unfortunately, Sam Brown, like too many other politicians, has given almost no money to other candidates and, instead, has used his PAC as a slush fund,” said Paul S. Ryan, executive director at Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation. “Many donors would understandably be upset if they learned their money wasn’t used to help elect other candidates like Brown – the reason they made their contributions,” he added.

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  • US regulator seeks court order to compel Elon Musk to testify about his Twitter acquisition | CNN Business

    US regulator seeks court order to compel Elon Musk to testify about his Twitter acquisition | CNN Business


    New York
    CNN
     — 

    The US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday applied for a court order to force Elon Musk to testify in an ongoing probe related to his acquisition of Twitter and public disclosures he made in connection with the deal, according to court filings.

    The filing Thursday in San Francisco federal court seeks a judge’s order requiring Musk to testify, alleging “blatant refusal to comply” with an earlier SEC subpoena.

    X, the company formerly known as Twitter, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The SEC action is the latest turn in a long-running inquiry into whether Musk fully complied with his disclosure obligations when he began acquiring large amounts of Twitter stock, prior to his deal to buy the company. And it underscores years of friction between Musk and the agency over his public comments on numerous matters involving his companies.

    Musk began buying up large amounts of Twitter stock in early 2022, and he revealed on April 4 of that year that he had become the company’s largest shareholder. Later that month, Musk inked a deal to buy the platform for $44 billion and — after a monthslong legal battle attempting to exit the deal — officially closed the acquisition in October of last year. Musk has faced a number of legal challenges related to his Twitter acquisition in the months since his takeover.

    Musk testified twice as part of the SEC’s investigation in July 2022, according to the agency.

    Starting that same month, Musk produced “hundreds of documents” to federal investigators working on the probe, “including documents Musk authored,” according to a declaration by an SEC attorney filed alongside the agency’s court request.

    The SEC served Musk with a subpoena to testify again in the matter in May 2023, according to the court filing. The current subpoena at issue seeks evidence and testimony from Musk that the SEC does not yet possess, the agency said.

    Despite previously agreeing to testify on September 15 and rescheduling the testimony once, Musk “abruptly notified the SEC” two days before his scheduled appearance to say he would not be showing up, the filing states.

    The SEC attempted to negotiate with Musk to find alternative dates later this fall, according to court documents.

    “These good faith efforts were met with Musk’s blanket refusal to appear for testimony,” it adds.

    “The subpoena with which Musk failed to comply relates to an ongoing nonpublic investigation by the SEC,” the filing continued, “regarding whether, among other things, Musk violated various provisions of the federal securities laws in connection with (1) his 2022 purchases of Twitter, Inc (“Twitter”) stock, and (2) his 2022 statements and SEC filings relating to Twitter.”

    When Musk informed the SEC he would not be appearing to testify, his lawyer, Alex Spiro, wrote to the agency on September 13, saying Musk had “already sat for testimony twice in this matter” and that “enough is enough.”

    Spiro’s letter, which was included as an exhibit in the SEC’s court filings, accused regulators of seeking Musk’s testimony in bad faith and attempting to waste Musk’s time.

    In addition, Spiro claimed that the recent release of Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk would interfere because it contained “new information potentially relevant to this matter” that would take time for both sides to digest.

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  • US watchdog teases crackdown on data brokers that sell Americans’ personal information | CNN Business

    US watchdog teases crackdown on data brokers that sell Americans’ personal information | CNN Business


    Washington
    CNN
     — 

    The US government plans to rein in the vast data broker industry with new, privacy-focused regulations that aim to safeguard millions of Americans’ personal information from data breaches, violent criminals and even artificial intelligence chatbots.

    The coming proposal by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau would extend existing regulations that govern credit reports, arrest records and other data to what the agency describes as the “surveillance industry,” or the sprawling economy of businesses that traffic in increasingly digitized personal information.

    The potential rules, which are not yet public or final, could bar data brokers from selling certain types of consumer information — including a person’s income or their criminal and payment history — except in specific circumstances, the CFPB said.

    The push could also see new restrictions on the sale of personal information such as Social Security numbers, names and addresses, which the CFPB said data brokers often buy from the major credit reporting bureaus to create their own profiles on individual consumers.

    Issued under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the regulations would seek to ensure that data brokers selling that sensitive information do so only for valid financial purposes such as employment background checks or credit decisions, and not for unrelated purposes that may allow third parties to use the data to, for example, train AI algorithms or chatbots, the CFPB said.

    The announcement follows an agency study into the data broker industry this year that found widespread concerns about how consumer data is being collected, used and shared. The inquiry received numerous submissions from the public warning about the disproportionate risks that unregulated data sharing can have on minorities, seniors, immigrants and victims of domestic violence.

    “Reports about monetization of sensitive information — everything from the financial details of members of the U.S. military to lists of specific people experiencing dementia — are particularly worrisome when data is powering ‘artificial intelligence’ and other automated decision-making about our lives,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement. “The CFPB will be taking steps to ensure that modern-day data brokers in the surveillance industry know that they cannot engage in illegal collection and sharing of our data.”

    The CFPB’s proposal will first be floated with a group of small businesses for feedback before being publicly unveiled in a formal rulemaking, the agency said.

    The CFPB isn’t the only US agency clamping down on the massive data industry. Last year, the Federal Trade Commission proposed a sweeping set of regulations that may restrict how all businesses collect and use consumer data, taking aim at what FTC Chair Lina Khan has described as the “persistent tracking and routinized surveillance of individuals.”

    The agency initiatives reflect how Congress has continually failed to produce a comprehensive, national-level consumer privacy law, despite years of lawmaker negotiations and the rise of privacy regulations overseas that increasingly affect US businesses.

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