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Former Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino thinks the school should fight the NCAA to reclaim its vacated championship title.
November 6, 2019Read More
(Bloomberg) — Sign up to our Brexit Bulletin, follow us @Brexit and subscribe to our podcast.Things keep going wrong for Boris Johnson as he seeks to win a Conservative majority in the U.K.’s Dec. 12 general election.The prime minister’s bid was rocke…
November 6, 2019Read More
Louisville women’s basketball has some work to do, but plenty of positives to build off of after its opening game.
November 6, 2019Read More
A magnitude 5.4 earthquake struck Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan on Wednesday, according to the country’s seismological center. The center’s website said the 5.4 magnitude quake struck at 11:10 a.m. local time, some 125 kilometers (77 miles) we…
November 6, 2019Read More
Turkey has captured a wife of the slain leader of the Islamic State group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday. Erdogan made the announcement while delivering a speech in the capital of Ankara but gave no other …
November 6, 2019Read More
Reuters / Toby MelvilleBoris Johnson has spent decades perfecting his act as Britain’s most famous buffoon—and the election campaign he’s spent his life preparing for has, fittingly, started like a clown car, immediately falling to pieces around him an…
November 6, 2019Read More
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday launched the Conservatives’ election campaign in a traditional stronghold of the Labour opposition he hopes to win over by vowing to “get Brexit done”. Addressing supporters who were dressed in t-shir…
November 6, 2019Read More
Celebrities including Kim Kardashian West have taken up the cause of the Texas death row inmate.
November 6, 2019Read More
1.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked President Trump to lift his new tariffs on Scotch whiskey and other goods, a Johnson spokesperson said Tuesday. Johnson, who is struggling to save his Brexit plan, also asked Trump in the same phone call not to impose levies on imported British cars. The White House declined to provide details on the trade discussion, offering only a general statement. “The two leaders again reaffirmed their commitment to strengthening the special relationship through a robust bilateral free trade agreement once the United Kingdom leaves the E.U.,” the White House said. “The president also stressed the need for NATO allies to robustly fund their defenses,” it said. The Trump administration last month imposed a 25 percent tariff on Scotch and several other products to retaliate for European Union aircraft subsidies. [Reuters] 2.AT&T has agreed to a $60 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission for allegedly misleading customers about its “unlimited” data plans. The FTC sued AT&T in 2014, saying it failed to “adequately disclose” to people who signed up for unlimited data plans that their data speeds would be throttled if they used a certain amount of data in a billing cycle. Under the settlement, AT&T can’t represent its data plans as “unlimited” without “disclosing any material restrictions on the speed or amount of data.” The $60 million will be deposited into a fund used to provide partial refunds to current and former customers who signed up for the unlimited plans before 2011. [The Verge] 3.SoftBank Group said Wednesday it took a $4.6 billion financial hit from its investment in struggling U.S. office-sharing startup WeWork. Masayoshi Son, leader of Japan’s SoftBank, acknowledged that he had misjudged WeWork’s ousted leader and co-founder Adam Neumann. “I overestimated Adam’s good side,” he said, adding that he had “turned a blind eye” to Neumann’s negative traits, “especially when it comes to governance.” Still, Son defended the investment against recent criticism, saying his tech conglomerate’s recent bailout of WeWork was “not a rescue” but a chance to buy discounted shares to reduce the average cost of SoftBank’s shares in the company. “We may not be able to make a big gain, but at least we may be able to get back our investment,” he said. [The New York Times] 4.U.S. stock index futures were flat on Wednesday, bouncing between slight gains and losses after Tuesday’s fresh record for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Futures for the Dow, S&P 500, and Nasdaq Composite were down, but by less than 0.1 percent. The Dow gained 0.1 percent on Tuesday, marking its third straight day of gains. Investors are showing caution as they await new signs of progress toward a deal toward ending the U.S.-China trade war. China is urging President Trump to lift new tariffs imposed in September on $125 billion worth of Chinese imports as the two sides try to negotiate “phase one” of a deal. Also on Wednesday, corporate earnings season continued with reports from CVS Health before the bell, and from Qualcomm and several others after trading closed. [CNBC] 5.An attorney for black customers asked to change tables at a Chicago-area Buffalo Wild Wings over their skin color held a news conference Tuesday calling for the restaurant chain to make broad changes or face a discrimination lawsuit. A racially mixed group of about 20 people went to the restaurant on Oct. 26 for a child’s birthday party, and say an employee asked them to move to a different table because a regular customer didn’t want to sit near black people. “I was appalled,” Justin Vahl, one of the adults in the party, said. The franchise fired two employees involved in the incident and said others would undergo sensitivity training, while the customer who started the controversy was banned from the chain’s 1,200 restaurants. [The Associated Press, Chicago Tribune]
November 6, 2019Read More
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged voters to back his Conservatives in a Dec. 12 election or face the “horror show” of two referendums next year if Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn was elected. Officially launching the start of campaign from outside his…
November 6, 2019Read More
WASHINGTON — The overall U.S. trade deficit widened in the first nine months of 2019, to nearly $500 billion, a sign that the Trump administration’s approach to trade has so far done little to make a dent in the imbalance.The trade deficit for both goods and services in the first three quarters of the year jumped by 5.4%, to $481.3 billion, from the same period last year, according to data released by the Commerce Department on Tuesday. Total American exports fell by $7 billion from the previous year, while imports grew by $17.8 billion.After the Trump administration and China came to a temporary cease-fire last month in a conflict that has begun to weigh on the global economy, negotiators are still at work trying to reach an interim trade deal. Some worry that any agreement will fall short of the transformative changes the Trump administration originally sought and ultimately may not be worth the pain of U.S. tariffs on China.So far, the global trade war President Donald Trump has initiated has not had the effect he desires in terms of bolstering American manufacturing and exports. In fact, some business executives say they have been hurt by the uncertainty it has created.Peter Bragdon, the executive vice president at Columbia Sportswear, said his company was accustomed to navigating bad public policy but “nobody is used to navigating public policy that is this horrible. It’s chaotic and incoherent.””It’s not surprising that investments have slowed in the United States because of the chaos,” Bragdon said.Trump administration officials insist their negotiations will alter the terms of trade yet and have been in discussions with the Chinese to try to reach a deal in the coming weeks. China has been pressing the administration to roll back more tariffs as a condition of its officials’ traveling to the United States to sign an agreement. Administration officials are considering the proposal but insist the final decision will hinge on further concessions by China and be made at Trump’s discretion, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations.Speaking at the opening of an import fair in Shanghai on Tuesday, President Xi Jinping of China broadly endorsed free trade principles and promised to welcome foreign investment to China while also denouncing the kind of unilateralism that the Trump administration has pursued. He did not mention when, where or even whether an agreement might be signed.Trump has long pointed to the trade deficit — when the value of what the country imports exceeds its exports — as proof that unfair practices by China and other countries have been hurting the United States. But economists have argued that the figure is a poor metric for measuring American well-being or the health of the economy. They say the trade deficit continues to widen largely because the United States is growing faster than other countries, leading to greater purchases of foreign products by Americans and slowing sales abroad.On Oct. 11, Trump announced that he had reached an interim, or phase-one, trade deal with China that would strengthen intellectual property protections, open its financial markets and include large purchases of American agricultural products. In return, U.S. officials said they agreed to cancel increases in tariffs planned for October and potentially for December, although not roll back existing tariffs on more than $360 billion of Chinese products.But officials have continued to spar over its terms. The cancellation of a summit of global leaders in Chile, where the United States and China planned to sign their deal, has further thrown plans for the trade agreement into flux.Trump administration officials have pushed for a signing in the United States, with Trump publicly floating the possibility of signing the agriculture-heavy pact in the farm state of Iowa.”First, we’ll see if we get the deal,” he told reporters Saturday. “And if we get the deal, the meeting place will come very easily. It’ll be someplace in the U.S.”But the Chinese have been reluctant to send Xi to the United States without a firm commitment for a deal that will not end up embarrassing them.”I doubt very much that Xi Jinping would agree to any meeting in the United States without the certainty of tariff reductions,” said Myron Brilliant, the executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “But I don’t think the administration will do that without some clarity on the enforceability of the agreement and progress of areas of concern in the intellectual property arena.”In return for significant concessions, some Trump administration officials have been willing to roll back tariffs placed Sept 1. on roughly $112 billion of Chinese goods. These weigh more heavily on American consumers than the strategic Chinese industries that endured Trump’s initial tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese products.But not all advisers agree. Some officials view the tariffs as a powerful tool for ensuring China keeps its commitments, saying they should be rolled back only after China makes key reforms. They also see the tariffs as helping to ward off political criticism that Trump is folding to China.Trump administration officials insist the agreement will help rebalance a trading relationship in which the United States has too often been on the losing end. But critics say they fear that the deal’s provisions, which are not yet public, appear to fall short of accomplishing the administration’s ambitious goals and may not be worth the pain that tariffs have imposed on American businesses.The two sides have mostly completed large parts of the stage-one agreement, including provisions pertaining to currency, automotive trade, financial services and large Chinese purchases of American agricultural goods like soybeans and pork. After signing the pact, China and the United States will continue negotiating on more reforms, Trump has said.But the administration is still pressing Chinese officials to make more significant commitments to protect intellectual property, beyond tougher enforcement of patents and trademarks, those familiar with the discussions say. And the agreement also does not appear to touch on more difficult areas, including the role of state-owned enterprises, China’s restrictions on data flows and its huge subsidies to its companies.In an interview in Saudi Arabia last week, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said he believed that phase one of the deal was “on track.””We’re trying to get the documents done in time for the two presidents to meet and sign. That’s our objective,” he said. “It’s a very extensive agreement that includes intellectual property rights, structural changes to agriculture, financial services currency and FX and an enforcement/dispute resolution chapter.”While officials from both countries continue to haggle, the economic toll of the trade war is adding up.A survey by researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta estimated this week that trade tensions and tariffs subtracted roughly 40,000 new jobs a month from the economy in the first half of the year, a total that is set to grow. Last month, the International Monetary Fund estimated that the U.S. trade war with China could cost the global economy around $700 billion by 2020, a loss equivalent to the size of Switzerland’s entire economy.Organizations including the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the Federal Reserve have all warned that the trade war is weighing on investment and potentially weakening the economy.”It is likely that some of the weakness in capital spending is a result of elevated uncertainty, for foreign growth generally but also specifically for trade developments,” Randall Quarles, an official at the Federal Reserve, said in a speech Friday.Monthly figures released Tuesday also provided the first look at how tariffs imposed on more than $100 billion of Chinese goods Sept. 1 affected trade. While the trade deficit in goods and services in September narrowed from the previous month to $52.5 billion, both imports and exports of goods to China ticked down as the new levies went into effect. Imports of cellphones, toys, machinery and semiconductors fell, suggesting that American businesses and consumers are growing more cautious. And the data showed American companies shifting to buy more goods from other locations, including Mexico, Vietnam and Taiwan.”In a very narrow sense, higher tariffs on China are working: They clearly have reduced trade and thus the trade deficit with China,” Brad Setser, an economist at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on Twitter. But “imports from both Taiwan and Vietnam are up substantially,” he added.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2019 The New York Times Company
November 6, 2019Read More
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