Category: Corruption

Shares of Sage Therapeutics fell more than 50% Monday after the Food and Drug Administration approved the biotech company’s oral drug zuranolone for postpartum depression, but not for major depressive disorder, a bigger potential market. Shares of Biogen, which jointly developed the treatment with Sage, were up modestly. Who is Sage Therapeutics? Biogen Inc owns more than 10% of Sage Therapeutics, while FMR LLC owns almost 10%. Fidelity Management & Research Co. LLC  owns almost 12% and Wellington Management Co….

ORLANDO, Fla. — Students in a Florida school district will be reading only excerpts from William Shakespeare’s plays for class rather than the full texts under redesigned curriculum guides developed, in part, to take into consideration the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” laws. The changes to the Hillsborough County Public Schools’ curriculum guides were made with Florida’s new laws prohibiting classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in mind. Other reasons included revised state standards and an effort to get…

The US Supreme Court has temporarily reinstated a rule cracking down on the proliferation of firearms without serial numbers, known as “ghost guns”, reversing a ruling by a lower court. In a narrow 5-4 decision on Tuesday, the nation’s highest judicial body ruled to keep in place regulations introduced by the administration of President Joe Biden to restrict “ghost guns”, which can be constructed from separate parts or put together using 3D printers. The ruling is only temporary, though, while…

Italy has dealt a surprise blow to its banks and sent shock waves across the sector in Europe by setting a one-off 40 percent tax on profits reaped from higher interest rates, after reprimanding lenders for failing to reward deposits. Sharply higher official interest rates have yielded record profits for banks, as the cost of loans has soared while lenders have held off paying more on deposits. Countries such as Spain and Hungary have already imposed windfall taxes on the…

Canadian news industry groups have asked the country’s antitrust regulator to investigate Meta Platforms’ decision to block news on its platforms in the country, accusing the Facebook parent of abusing its dominant position. Meta started blocking news on its Facebook and Instagram platforms for all users in Canada last week in response to a law requiring internet giants to pay for news articles. Canada’s Online News Act, part of a global trend to make tech firms pay for news, became…

Students rights are limited on school grounds. But they don’t cease to exist. And what they do off-campus is subject to even fewer limitations. These are long-held facts backed by years of court precedent, the most famous of which is the Supreme Court’s 1969 Tinker decision. This is the baseline for school-student interactions when it comes to constitutional rights, as written by Justice Abe Fortas: It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to…

United Nations agencies scramble to replace depleting aid stocks as regional sanctions start to kick in. Niger’s military coup is disrupting humanitarian efforts by the United Nations as border and airspace closures threaten to cut off supplies of medicine and food, says a UN official. UN aid agencies are scrambling to replenish depleting stocks just as regional sanctions potentially increase the number of people in need, its humanitarian chief in Niger, Louise Aubin, warned on Tuesday. “The risk is that…

The grey, two-storey home with white trim toppled and slid, crashing into the river below as rushing waters carried off a bobbing chunk of its roof. Next door, a condo building teetered on the edge of the bank, its foundation already having fallen away as erosion undercut it. The destruction came at the weekend as a glacial dam burst in Alaska’s capital, swelling the levels of the Mendenhall River to an unprecedented degree. The bursting of such snow-and-ice dams is…

On July 28, 2023, Weekend Australian Magazine published a bombshell report based on an exclusive interview with Dr. Robert (Bob) Kadlec, the HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) who served under Donald Trump. To many readers this may seem like just more Washington, DC Kabuki theater with a side order of limited hangout (much like the prior Vanity Fair article in which Kadlec provided a generous scoop of spin with a topping of CYA). Personally, I find this whole “inside…

The Air Force has detected unsafe levels of a likely carcinogen at underground launch control centers at a Montana nuclear missile base where a striking number of men and women have reported cancer diagnoses. A new cleanup effort has been ordered. The discovery “is the first from an extensive sampling of active U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile bases to address specific cancer concerns raised by missile community members,” Air Force Global Strike Command said in a release Monday. In those samples, two…

As SoftBank prepares to dive deeper into AI investments, the group posted an unexpected consecutive quarterly overall loss, as well as a continued loss in its existing investment business. SoftBank’s Vision Fund 1 and 2 and its Latin American fund together posted a quarterly investment loss of 13 billion yen ($91 million). That is significantly less than the 2,919 billion yen loss a year ago ($20 billion) but cumulatively, the company said that investments across the three funds, as of…

Occupied Jerusalem, SANA- Dozens of Palestinians were injured Tuesday at dawn, as the Israeli occupation forces stormed Askar camp, east of Nablus city in the West Bank. ‘The occupation forces raided the camp, opened fire on the Palestinians and threw toxic gas bombs at them, causing the injury of six, in addition to 185 suffocation cases, Wafa News Agency said. The occupation also stormed the eastern region in Nablus and demolished the house of the family of martyr Abdel-Fattah Kharousha….

SAN FRANCISCO – Moody’s Investors Service lowered the credit rating of 10 small and mid-sized US banks and said it may downgrade major lenders including US Bancorp, Bank of New York Mellon, State Street, and Truist Financial as part of a sweeping look at mounting pressures on the industry. Higher funding costs, potential regulatory capital weaknesses and rising risks tied to commercial real estate (CRE) loans amid weakening demand for office space are among strains prompting the review, Moody’s said…

This reporting is featured in this week’s edition of Confider, the newsletter pulling back the curtain on the media. Subscribe here and send your questions, tips, and complaints here. The meltdown over at Los Angeles continues as the once-esteemed magazine’s new owners cook up creative ways to stiff writers past and present, Confider has learned. Since taking over the storied publication earlier this year, celebrity attorneys Mark Geragos and Ben Meiselas and their publisher Chris Gialanella have refused to pay…

SEC Charges Recidivist and Others in Offering Fraud Scheme Lit. Release No. 25804 / August 7, 2023 Securities and Exchange Commission v. Christopher A. Slaga a/k/a Keith Renko, Q4 Capital, LLC, J4 Capital Advisors LLC, and Hayden F. Greene, No. 8:23-cv-01425 (C.D. Cal. filed August 7, 2023) The Securities and Exchange Commission filed today a complaint in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California charging Christopher Slaga and two entities he controlled, Q4 Capital, LLC and J4 Capital…

Following are details of the cases against former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was arrested on Saturday after a court sentenced him to three years in prison for illegally selling state gifts. Khan has denied wrongdoing. An Islamabad court issued the arrest warrant after convicting the cricket star-turned-politician, who remains the leading opposition figure despite his removal. Police moved quickly to take Khan from his home in the eastern city of Lahore to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. It is…