President Donald Trump likes to say he’s bringing in trillions of dollars in investments from foreign countries, but a provision in his tax cuts bill could cause international companies to avoid expanding into the United States.

The House-passed version of the legislation would allow the federal government to impose taxes on foreign-parented companies and investors from countries judged as charging “unfair foreign taxes” on U.S. companies.

Known as Section 899, the measure could cause companies to avoid investing in the the U.S. out of concern they could face steep taxes. The fate of the measure rests with the Senate — setting off a debate about its prospects and impact.

A new analysis by the Global Business Alliance, a trade group representing international companies such as Toyota and Nestlé, estimates that the provision would cost the U.S. 360,000 jobs and $55 billion annually over 10 years in lost gross domestic product. The analysis estimates that the tax could cut a third off the economic growth anticipated from the overall tax cuts by Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation.

“While proponents say this punitive tax hike is intended as a retaliatory measure against foreign governments, this report confirms that the real victims are American workers in states like North Carolina, South Carolina, Indiana, Tennessee and Texas,” said Jonathan Samford, president and CEO of the Global Business Alliance.

Republican Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, has defended the provision as protecting U.S. interests by giving the president a tool that can be used against countries with tax codes that, in the federal government’s opinion, put American companies at a disadvantage.

“If these countries withdraw these taxes and decide to behave, we will have achieved our goal,” Smith said in a statement last week. “It’s just common sense. I urge my colleagues in the Senate to move quickly to pass this bill and protect Americans from economic bad actors around the world.”

House Republicans have been looking into the issue for a long time and the bill provides the flexibility so that a president doesn’t have to levy taxes. There were concerns among GOP lawmakers during Joe Biden’s presidency that an agreement among countries on corporate tax codes could cause foreign governments to charge U.S. companies more.

The tax gets at a fundamental tension within Trump’s policy agenda: a contradiction in the broad strokes of Trump simultaneously trying to tax imports and foreign profits at higher rates while also seeking investments from companies headquartered abroad.

In late May, Trump defended his approach by saying that his tariffs were causing more countries to invest in the U.S. to avoid imports getting taxed. While some countries and companies have made announcements, there is not evidence of the investments pushing up spending on new factories as measured in the government’s monthly report on construction spending.

The Republican president said his tendency to impose steep tariffs, then retreat to lower rates, had succeeded.

“We have $14 trillion now invested, committed to investing,” Trump said then. “You know we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. I went to Saudi Arabia, the king told me, he said, you got the hottest — we have the hottest country in the world right now.”

The Global Business Alliance was among the groups that signed a letter on Monday warning of the consequences of Section 899 to Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo of Idaho, both Republicans.

The Investment Company Institute, representing financial firms, said the provision “could limit foreign investment to the U.S. — a key driver of growth in American capital markets that ultimately benefits American families saving for their futures.”

The analysis performed by EY Quantitative Economics and Statistics notes there is a degree of uncertainty in how the taxes under Section 899 could be implemented and other countries would respond. But they could be charged against companies based in countries that tax digital services, as is the case in parts of Europe.

If the U.S. judged the taxes unfair, there would be a 30% tax rate on foreign companies’ profits and income. People working in the U.S. for the companies who are not citizens could also be taxed, among other provisions. Still, an exemption is in place so that the foreign holders of U.S. debt are not affected by the potential new taxes.

The possibility of the taxes and seemingly arbitrary nature by which they could be imposed is also a challenge, said Chye-Ching Huang, executive director of New York University’s Tax Law Center.

“Section 899 creates a game of political chicken with trade partners that risks harming businesses, consumers, and workers in the hopes of securing US multinationals the ability to shift more of their profits out of the US to tax havens,” Huang said in an email. “It’s a high-risk strategy that could expand the damage of the failed tariff war.”

There could also be political repercussions if key states in Trump’s political coalition from 2024 suffer layoffs or simply find job growth slowing. The Global Business Alliance finds job losses could amount to 44,200 in Florida, 27,700 in Pennsylvania, 24,500 in North Carolina and 23,500 in Michigan.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Marines and additional National Guard troops headed to Los Angeles on Tuesday, sent by President Donald Trump in response to four days of protests over immigration raids despite the strenuous objections of state and local leaders.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, meanwhile, filed an emergency motion in federal court to block the Trump administration from using the Guard and Marines to assist with immigration raids in Los Angeles, saying the motion was in response to an apparent change in orders that had been issued for the Guard.

Trump’s deployment of roughly 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines to the country’s second-largest city came despite a relative calm to the Monday’s and Tuesday’s protests.

State officials sued Trump on Monday in an attempt to roll back the Guard deployment, saying the president had trampled on California’s sovereignty.

This appears to be the first time in decades that a state’s National Guard was activated without a request from its governor. Trump said in a social media post that the city would have been “completely obliterated” if he hadn’t sent Guard members to the city over the weekend.

Here are some things to know about the lawsuit, the protests and the troop deployments:

LA mayor blasts Trump

Mayor Karen Bass pinned the unrest at some protests squarely on the Trump administration, saying Tuesday that there was “nothing going on here that warranted the federal intervention.”

She also said she was mystified about why the Marines were sent.

“People have asked me what are the Marines going to do when they get here? That’s a good question. I have no idea,” she said at a news conference, emphasizing that violence and looting by protesters won’t be tolerated and that the city was considering imposing a curfew.

She also called out Trump for suggesting the National Guard, not local police, quelled the violence that did happen. She noted Trump made the claim in a Saturday night tweet, but that the National Guard troops didn’t arrive until Sunday.

“If you want to know what the National Guard is doing, drive by the federal building. They are stationary at the federal building protecting the building,” she said. “They are not out doing crowd control or anything like that. So I don’t know how he could say that the National Guard is who saved the day. Who saved the day was our local law enforcement agencies.”

Bass also suggested that the $134 million that the Pentagon said it was costing to deploy troops to LA would have better used to help the city prepare for next summer’s World Cup.

Newsom vs. Trump

The governor on Tuesday filed an emergency request seeking to block the Trump administration from using the Guard and Marines to assist with immigration raids.

The filing included a declaration from Paul Eck, deputy general counsel in the California Military Department. Eck said the department has been told that the Pentagon plans to direct the California National Guard to start providing support for immigration operations. That support would include holding secure perimeters around areas where raids are taking place and securing streets for immigration agents.

The Guard members were originally deployed to protect federal buildings.

Trump and Newsom have been feuding over the immigration raids and protests, with the president and his border czar, Tom Holman, trading taunts with the governor about the possibility of arresting Newsom if he interfered with federal immigration enforcement efforts.

“I would do it if I were Tom. I think it’s great,” Trump said.

Newsom responded in a post on X: “The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor. This is a day I hoped I would never see in America.”

The governor called the presence of troops on the streets of Los Angeles both “illegal and immoral,” writing: “This isn’t about public safety. It’s about stroking a dangerous President’s ego.”

In a post Monday, Newsom called the deployment of Marines “a blatant abuse of power” and said officials would sue to stop it.

“U.S. Marines serve a valuable purpose for this country — defending democracy. They are not political pawns,” Newsom wrote. “The Courts and Congress must act. Checks and balances are crumbling.”

What’s the mood in the city?

Downtown Los Angeles was fairly quiet Tuesday morning, with Guard members outnumbering protesters. Several Guard members were stationed in front of the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal lockup where some immigrants are being held, with long guns and wooden bats slung over their shoulders. Passing drivers occasionally honked at or heckled them, drawing no response. News crews were stationed across the street, awaiting the possible arrival of the Marines, who had arrived in the area by late morning.

Otherwise, there were few signs of the tumult that gripped the city in recent nights, aside from the graffiti scrawled across several buildings — “Abolish ICE,” “Amerikkka,” and obscene slogans directed at Trump and federal law enforcement.

Monday’s demonstrations were less raucous than Sunday’s, with thousands peacefully attending a rally at City Hall to protest Friday’s arrest of union leader David Huerta, who was protesting the immigration raids, and hundreds rallying outside of the Metropolitan Detention Center. The protests have been driven by anger over Trump’s stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws that critics say are tearing apart migrant families.

What’s behind the demonstrations?

The protests were sparked by Trump’s immigration crackdown in the area. They started Friday in downtown Los Angeles before spreading on Saturday to Paramount and neighboring Compton.

Federal agents arrested immigrants in LA’s fashion district, in a Home Depot parking lot and at several other locations on Friday. The next day, they were staging at a Department of Homeland Security office near another Home Depot in Paramount, which drew out protesters who suspected another raid. Federal authorities later said there was no enforcement activity at that Home Depot.

Demonstrators attempted to block Border Patrol vehicles by hurling rocks and chunks of cement. In response, agents in riot gear unleashed tear gas, flash-bang explosives and pepper balls.

The weeklong tally of immigrant arrests in the LA area climbed above 100, federal authorities said. Many have also been arrested while protesting.

What’s happening elsewhere?

Protest over immigration raids have happening in major cities throughout the country, including on Tuesday, though none have reached the scale of those in Los Angeles.

Hundreds of protesters organized by the Austin, Texas, chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation gathered Monday near the state Capitol before moving toward the federal building that houses an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.

Authorities appeared to use chemical irritants to disperse a crowd, and the city’s police chief said Tuesday that four officers were injured during the protests, including three who were struck by thrown rocks.

In Dallas, hundreds of people demonstrated on a city bridge for hours before police determined the rally to be “unlawful.” Police said one person was arrested and that charges were pending.

The demonstrations from Boston to Seattle have ranged from gatherings outside of federal office buildings or statehouses, and marches through downtown neighborhoods. “No Kings” rallies critical of Trump are planned nationwide Saturday to coincide with the president’s scheduled military parade in Washington, D.C.

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Associated Press reporters Michael Casey in Boston, Jesse Bedayn in Denver, Jason Dearen in Los Angeles, Rio Yamat in Las Vegas, Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia, Amy Taxin in Santa Ana, California, Martha Bellisle in Seattle, Kate Payne in Tallahassee, Florida, and Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo Damian Dovarganes

It’s one of crypto’s hottest trends: publicly traded companies buying bitcoin and then buying even more.

President Donald Trump’s media company just announced a plan to raise $2.5 billion to buy bitcoin, joining a growing number of so-called “bitcoin treasury companies” as the world’s most popular cryptocurrency hits all-time highs.

The companies buy bitcoin for different reasons: Some hold it as a hedge against inflation or to signal support for the cryptocurrency industry, while some firms have made using debt and stock sales to buy bitcoin their primary business strategy.

“The world at large has no idea what’s happening and they’re in for a big shock,” Dylan LeClair, an executive at the Japan-based Metaplanet, which recently went from being a budget hotel firm to a bitcoin treasury company, said at a recent crypto conference. “This is a one-way train, nothing is going to stop this.”

The massive increases in some firms’ stock price may seem to validate LeClair’s bravado, but there are plenty of warnings that a downturn in bitcoin’s prices could lead to large selloffs.

Here’s a look at bitcoin treasury companies by the numbers:

582,000

That’s how many bitcoins owned by MicroStrategy – the undisputed goliath of bitcoin treasury companies.

With nearly 3% of the total bitcoin supply, MicroStrategy owns more bitcoins than every other bitcoin treasury company combined. It also owns more bitcoin than every nation state combined, according to the tracking site bitcointreasuries.net.

Now called Strategy, the software company first started buying bitcoin in 2020 with reserve cash. Now, its software business is a small part of a perpetual bitcoin-buying machine that uses a variety of strategies – like selling shares or issuing debt – to keep growing its bitcoin holdings.

More than 3000%

That’s how much MicroStrategy’s stock price has increased in the last five years, compared to around 1,000% gain in bitcoin and the 1,500% jump for chipmaker and stock market darling Nvidia during that same period.

The company’s success has boosted the profile of MicroStrategy’s founder and chairman, Michael Saylor, who has visited Trump at Mar-a-Lago and the White House while becoming bitcoin’s enigmatic high priest.

“Bitcoin is a swarm of cyber hornets serving the goddess of wisdom, feeding on the fire of truth, exponentially growing ever smarter, faster, and stronger behind a wall of encrypted energy,” Saylor said in a social media post.

Saylor’s success has also spawned many imitators.

“It’s kind of shocking … that it took someone four years after Michael Saylor started doing it to finally do it and pull the trigger and now it feels like everyone’s pulling the trigger,” said Eric Semler, the chairman of Semler Scientific, a healthcare company that started acquiring bitcoin last year.

$90,000

That’s the average purchase price of bitcoin for half of the 61 publicly traded bitcoin strategy companies, excluding bitcoin mining companies and bitcoin exchange-traded funds, according to a recent analysis by Standard Chartered.

Geoff Kendrick, the bank’s head of digital assets research, said in the report that restrictions on investors buying bitcoin directly help explain the popularity of bitcoin treasury companies, as their stocks can serve as bitcoin proxies. But as crypto becomes more mainstream, the case for investing in bitcoin treasury companies becomes weaker, Kendrick said.

He added that bitcoin’s volatility could force some newer bitcoin treasury companies to sell their holdings to satisfy their debts if it falls under the purchase price.

“The question then becomes, how much pain can companies withstand before being forced to sell their BTC?” Kendrick said, referring to the symbol for bitcoin.

Triple digits

That’s how much of a one-day percentage increase in stock prices firms have seen after recently announcing plans to hold other types of cryptocurrencies as corporate treasuries, highlighting how the appetite for such companies extends beyond bitcoin.

SharpLink Gaming, a gambling marketing firm, saw its share price increase by more than 400% after it announced plans to buy up to $425 million in Ethereum, the second most popular form of cryptocurrency. And crypto firm Upexi saw its stock price soar more than 300% after it announced plans to buy $100 million of Solana, a cryptocurrency popular in the meme coin ecosystem.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Mark Humphrey—AP

The U.S. and China held a second day of talks Tuesday in London aimed at easing their trade dispute, after President Donald Trump said China is “not easy” but the U.S. was “doing well” at the negotiations.

A Chinese delegation led by Vice Premier He Lifeng met U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trade Representative Jamieson Greer for several hours on Monday at Lancaster House, an ornate 200-year-old mansion near Buckingham Palace.

Wang Wentao, China’s commerce minister, and trade negotiator Li Chenggang are also in Beijing’s delegation.

Lutnick said as he arrived Tuesday morning that the talks were “going well,” and he expected them to continue all day.

Asked late Monday how the negotiations were going, Trump told reporters: “We are doing well with China. China’s not easy.”

The two sides are trying to build on negotiations in Geneva last month that agreed to a 90-day suspension of most of the 100%-plus tariffs they had imposed on each other in an escalating trade war that had sparked fears of recession.

Since the Geneva talks, the U.S. and China have exchanged angry words over advanced semiconductors that power artificial intelligence, visas for Chinese students at American universities and rare earth minerals that are vital to carmakers and other industries.

Trump spoke at length with Chinese leader Xi Jinping by phone last Thursday in an attempt to put relations back on track. Trump announced on social media the following day that the trade talks would resume in London.

China, the world’s biggest producer of rare earths, has signaled it may ease export restrictions it placed on the elements in April, alarming automakers around the world who rely on them. Beijing, in turn, wants the U.S. to lift restrictions on Chinese access to the technology used to make advanced semiconductors.

Trump said that he wants to “open up China,” the world’s dominant manufacturer, to U.S. products.

“If we don’t open up China, maybe we won’t do anything,” Trump said at the White House. “But we want to open up China.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Li Ying—Xinhua via AP

The leaders of a sex-focused women’s wellness company that promoted “orgasmic meditation” have been convicted of federal forced labor charges.

A Brooklyn jury on Monday found Nicole Daedone, founder of OneTaste Inc., and Rachel Cherwitz, the California-based company’s former sales director, guilty after deliberating for less than two days following a five-week trial. The two each face up to 20 years in prison when sentenced later.

Prosecutors had argued the two women ran a yearslong scheme that groomed adherents — many of them victims of sexual trauma — to do their bidding.

They said Daedone, 57, of New York, and Cherwitz, 44, of California, used economic, sexual and psychological abuse, intimidation and indoctrination to force OneTaste members into sexual acts they found uncomfortable or repulsive, such as having sex with prospective investors or clients.

The two told followers the questionable acts were necessary in order to obtain “freedom” and “enlightenment” and demonstrate their commitment to the organization’s principles.

Prosecutors said OneTaste leaders also didn’t pay promised earnings to the members-turned-workers and even forced some of them to take out new credit cards to continue taking the company’s courses.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Nina Gupta, in her closing statement last week, said the defendants “built a business on the backs” of victims who “gave everything” to them, including “their money, their time, their bodies, their dignity, and ultimately their sanity.”

“The jury’s verdict has unmasked Daedone and Cherwitz for who they truly are: grifters who preyed on vulnerable victims by making empty promises of sexual empowerment and wellness only to manipulate them into performing labor and services for the defendants’ benefit,” said Joseph Nocella, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.

Daedone’s defense team cast her as a “ceiling-shattering feminist entrepreneur” who created a unique business around women’s sexuality and empowerment.

Cherwitz’s lawyer, Celia Cohen, argued that the witnesses who testified weren’t forced to do anything. When they didn’t like the organization anymore or wanted to try other things, she said, they simply left.

“No matter what you think about OneTaste and what they were doing, they chose it. They knew what it was about,” she said in her closing statement last week. “The fact they are regretting the actions that they took when they were younger is not evidence of a crime.”

Lawyers for the defendants said their clients maintain their innocence and intend to appeal.

“We are deeply disappointed in today’s verdict,” the lawyers said in a statement Monday. “This case raised numerous novel and complex legal issues that will require review by the Second Circuit.”

Daedone co-founded OneTaste in San Francisco in 2004 as a sort of self-help commune that viewed female orgasms as key to sexual and psychological wellness and interpersonal connection.

A centerpiece was “orgasmic meditation,” or “OM,” which was carried out by men manually stimulating women in a group setting.

The company enjoyed glowing media coverage in the 2010s and quickly opened outposts from Los Angeles to London. Portrayed as a cutting-edge enterprise that prioritized women’s sexual pleasure, it generated revenue by providing courses, coaching, OM events, and other sexual practices for a fee.

Daedone sold her stake in the company in 2017 for $12 million — a year before OneTaste’s marketing and labor practices came under scrutiny.

The company’s current owners, who have rebranded it the Institute of OM Foundation, have said its work has been misconstrued and the charges against its former executives were unjustified.

They maintain sexual consent has always been a cornerstone of the organization. The company didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Jeenah Moon—AP

It was an unusual question coming from a police officer. Heather Brady was napping at home in San Francisco on a Sunday afternoon when the officer knocked on her door to ask: Had she applied to Arizona Western College?

She had not, and as the officer suspected, somebody else had applied to Arizona community colleges in her name to scam the government into paying out financial aid money.

When she checked her student loan servicer account, Brady saw the scammers hadn’t stopped there. A loan for over $9,000 had been paid out in her name — but to another person — for coursework at a California college.

“I just can’t imagine how many people this is happening to that have no idea,” Brady said.

The rise of artificial intelligence and the popularity of online classes have led to an explosion of financial aid fraud. Fake college enrollments have been surging as crime rings deploy “ghost students” — chatbots that join online classrooms and stay just long enough to collect a financial aid check.

In some cases, professors discover almost no one in their class is real. Students get locked out of the classes they need to graduate as bots push courses over their enrollment limits. And victims of identity theft who discover loans fraudulently taken out in their names must go through months of calling colleges, the Federal Student Aid office and loan servicers to try to get the debt erased.

On Friday, the U.S. Education Department introduced a temporary rule requiring students to show colleges a government-issued ID to prove their identity. It will apply only to first-time applicants for federal student aid for the summer term, affecting some 125,000 borrowers. The agency said it is developing more advanced screening for the fall.

“The rate of fraud through stolen identities has reached a level that imperils the federal student aid program,” the department said in its guidance to colleges.

Public colleges have lost millions of dollars to fraud

An Associated Press analysis of fraud reports obtained through a public records request shows California colleges in 2024 reported 1.2 million fraudulent applications, which resulted in 223,000 suspected fake enrollments. Other states are affected by the same problem, but with 116 community colleges, California is a particularly large target.

Criminals stole at least $11.1 million in federal, state and local financial aid from California community colleges last year that could not be recovered, according to the reports.

Colleges typically receive a portion of the loans intended for tuition, with the balance going directly to students for other expenses. Community colleges are targeted in part because their lower tuition means larger percentages of grants and loans go to borrowers.

Scammers frequently use AI chatbots to carry out the fraud, targeting courses that are online and allow students to watch lectures and complete coursework on their own time.

In January, Wayne Chaw started getting emails about a class he never signed up for at De Anza Community College, where he had taken coding classes a decade earlier. Identity thieves had obtained his Social Security number and collected $1,395 in financial aid in his name.

The energy management class required students to submit a homework assignment to prove they were real. But someone wrote submissions impersonating Chaw, likely using a chatbot.

“This person is typing as me, saying my first and last name. … It’s very freaky when I saw that,” said Chaw.

The fraud involved a grant, not loans, so Chaw himself did not lose money. He called the Social Security Administration to report the identity theft, but after five hours on hold, he never got through to a person.

As the Trump administration moves to dismantle the Education Department, federal cuts may make it harder to catch criminals and help victims of identity theft. In March, the Trump administration fired more than 300 people from the Federal Student Aid office, and the department’s Office of Inspector General, which investigates fraud, has lost more than 20% of its staff through attrition and retirements since October.

“I’m just nervous that I’m going to be stuck with this,” Brady said. “The agency is going to be so broken down and disintegrated that I won’t be able to do anything, and I’m just going to be stuck with those $9,000” in loans.

Criminal cases around the country offer a glimpse of the schemes’ pervasiveness.

In the past year, investigators indicted a man accused of leading a Texas fraud ring that used stolen identities to pursue $1.5 million in student aid. Another person in Texas pleaded guilty to using the names of prison inmates to apply for over $650,000 in student aid at colleges across the South and Southwest. And a person in New York recently pleaded guilty to a $450,000 student aid scam that lasted a decade.

Identify fraud victims who never attended college are hit with student debt

Brittnee Nelson of Shreveport, Louisiana, was bringing her daughter to day care two years ago when she received a notification that her credit score had dropped 27 points.

Loans had been taken out in her name for colleges in California and Louisiana, she discovered. She canceled one before it was paid out, but it was too late to stop a loan of over $5,000 for Delgado Community College in New Orleans.

Nelson runs her own housecleaning business and didn’t go to college. She already was signed up for identity theft protection and carefully monitored her credit. Still, her debt almost went into collections before the loan was put in forbearance. She recently got the loans taken off her record after two years of effort.

“It’s like if someone came into your house and robbed you,” she said.

The federal government’s efforts to verify borrowers’ identity could help, she said.

“If they can make these hurdles a little bit harder and have these verifications more provable, I think that’s really, really, really going to protect people in the long run,” she said.

Delgado spokesperson Barbara Waiters said responsibility for approving loans ultimately lies with federal agencies.

“This is an unfortunate and serious matter, but it is not the direct or indirect result of Delgado’s internal processes,” Waiters said.

In San Francisco, the loans taken out in Brady’s name are in a grace period, but still on the books. That has not been her only challenge. A few months ago, she was laid off from her job and decided to sign up for a class at City College San Francisco to help her career. But all the classes were full.

After a few weeks, Brady finally was able to sign up for a class. The professor apologized for the delay in spots opening up: The college has been struggling with fraudulent applications.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Sarah Reingewirtz—MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images

In his confirmation hearings to lead the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya pledged his openness to views that might conflict with his own. “Dissent,” he said, ”is the very essence of science.”

That commitment is being put to the test.

On Monday, scores of scientists at the agency sent their Trump-appointed leader a letter titled the Bethesda Declaration, challenging “policies that undermine the NIH mission, waste public resources, and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe.”

It says: “We dissent.”

In a capital where insiders often insist on anonymity to say such things publicly, 92 NIH researchers, program directors, branch chiefs and scientific review officers put their signatures on the letter — and their careers on the line. An additional 250 of their colleagues across the agency endorsed the declaration without using their names.

The letter, addressed to Bhattacharya, also was sent to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and members of Congress who oversee the NIH. White House spokesman Kush Desai defended the administration’s approach to federal research and said President Donald Trump is focused on restoring a “Gold Standard” of science, not “ideological activism.”

The letter came out a day before Bhattacharya is to testify to a Senate committee about Trump’s proposed budget, opening him to questions about the broadside from declaration signers, and it stirred Democrats on a House panel to ask the Republican chair for hearings on the matter.

Confronting a ‘culture of fear’

The signers went public in the face of a “culture of fear and suppression” they say Trump’s administration has spread through the federal civil service. “We are compelled to speak up when our leadership prioritizes political momentum over human safety and faithful stewardship of public resources,” the declaration says.

Bhattacharya responded to the declaration by saying it “has some fundamental misconceptions about the policy directions the NIH has taken in recent months,” such as suggestions that NIH has ended international collaboration.

“Nevertheless, respectful dissent in science is productive,” he said in a statement. “We all want the NIH to succeed.”

Named for the agency’s headquarters location in Maryland, the Bethesda Declaration details upheaval in the world’s premier public health research institution over the course of mere months.

It addresses the termination of 2,100 research grants valued at more than $12 billion and some of the human costs that have resulted, such as cutting off medication regimens to participants in clinical trials or leaving them with unmonitored device implants.

In one case, an NIH-supported study of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis in Haiti had to be stopped, ceasing antibiotic treatment mid-course for patients.

In a number of cases, trials that were mostly completed were rendered useless without the money to finish and analyze the work, the letter says. “Ending a $5 million research study when it is 80% complete does not save $1 million,” it says, “it wastes $4 million.”

The mask comes off

Jenna Norton, who oversees health disparity research at the agency’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, recently appeared at a forum by Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, D-Md., to talk about what’s happening at the NIH.

At the event, she masked to conceal her identity. Now the mask is off. She was a lead organizer of the declaration.

“I want people to know how bad things are at NIH,” Norton told The Associated Press.

The signers said they modeled their indictment after Bhattacharya’s Great Barrington Declaration in 2020, when he was a professor at Stanford University Medical School.

His declaration drew together likeminded infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists who dissented from what they saw as excessive COVID-19 lockdown policies and felt ostracized by the larger public health community that pushed those policies, including the NIH.

“He is proud of his statement, and we are proud of ours,” said Sarah Kobrin, a branch chief at the NIH’s National Cancer Institute who signed the Bethesda Declaration.

Cancer research is sidelined

As chief of the Health Systems and Interventions Research Branch, Kobrin provides scientific oversight of researchers across the country who’ve been funded by the cancer institute or want to be. Cuts in personnel and money have shifted her work from improving cancer care research to what she sees as minimizing its destruction. “So much of it is gone — my work,” she said.

The 21-year NIH veteran said she signed because she didn’t want to be “a collaborator” in the political manipulation of biomedical science.

Ian Morgan, a postdoctoral fellow with the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, also signed the declaration. “We have a saying in basic science,” he said. “You go and become a physician if you want to treat thousands of patients. You go and become a researcher if you want to save billions of patients.

“We are doing the research that is going to go and create the cures of the future,” he added. But that won’t happen, he said, if Trump’s Republican administration prevails with its searing grant cuts.

The NIH employees interviewed by the AP emphasized they were speaking for themselves and not for their institutes nor the NIH.

Dissenters range across the breadth of NIH

Employees from all 27 NIH institutes and centers gave their support to the declaration. Most who signed are intimately involved with evaluating and overseeing extramural research grants.

The letter asserts “NIH trials are being halted without regard to participant safety” and the agency is shirking commitments to trial participants who “braved personal risk to give the incredible gift of biological samples, understanding that their generosity would fuel scientific discovery and improve health.”

The Trump administration has gone at public health research on several fronts, both directly, as part of its broad effort to root out diversity, equity and inclusion values throughout the bureaucracy, and as part of its drive to starve some universities of federal money.

At the White House, Desai said Americans “have lost confidence in our increasingly politicized healthcare and research apparatus that has been obsessed with DEI and COVID, which the majority of Americans moved on from years ago.”

A blunt ax swings

This has forced “indiscriminate grant terminations, payment freezes for ongoing research, and blanket holds on awards regardless of the quality, progress, or impact of the science,” the declaration says.

Some NIH employees have previously come forward in televised protests to air grievances, and many walked out of Bhattacharya’s town hall with staff. The declaration is the first cohesive effort to register agency-wide dismay with the NIH’s direction.

The dissenters remind Bhattacharya in their letter of his oft-stated ethic that academic freedom must be a lynchpin in science.

With that in place, he said in a statement in April, “NIH scientists can be certain they are afforded the ability to engage in open, academic discourse as part of their official duties and in their personal capacities without risk of official interference, professional disadvantage or workplace retaliation.”

Now it will be seen whether that’s enough to protect those NIH employees challenging the Trump administration and him.

“There’s a book I read to my kids, and it talks about how you can’t be brave if you’re not scared,” said Norton, who has three young children. “I am so scared about doing this, but I am trying to be brave for my kids because it’s only going to get harder to speak up.

“Maybe I’m putting my kids at risk by doing this,” she added. “And I’m doing it anyway because I couldn’t live with myself otherwise.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP

Sly Stone, the revolutionary musician and dynamic showman whose Sly and the Family Stone transformed popular music in the 1960s and ’70s and beyond with such hits as “Everyday People,” “Stand!” and “Family Affair,” died Monday at age 82

Stone, born Sylvester Stewart, had been in poor health in recent years. His publicist Carleen Donovan said Stone died in Los Angeles surrounded by family after contending with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and other ailments.

Founded in 1966-67, Sly and the Family Stone was the first major group to include Black and white men and women, and well embodied a time when anything seemed possible — riots and assassinations, communes and love-ins. The singers screeched, chanted, crooned and hollered. The music was a blowout of frantic horns, rapid-fire guitar and locomotive rhythms, a melting pot of jazz, psychedelic rock, doo-wop, soul and the early grooves of funk.

Sly’s time on top was brief, roughly from 1968-1971, but profound. No band better captured the gravity-defying euphoria of the Woodstock era or more bravely addressed the crash which followed. From early songs as rousing as their titles — “I Want To Take You Higher,” “Stand!” — to the sober aftermath of “Family Affair” and “Runnin’ Away,” Sly and the Family Stone spoke for a generation whether or not it liked what they had to say.

Stone’s group began as a Bay Area sextet featuring Sly on keyboards, Larry Graham on bass; Sly’s brother, Freddie, on guitar; sister Rose on vocals; Cynthia Robinson and Jerry Martini horns and Greg Errico on drums. They debuted with the album “A Whole New Thing” and earned the title with their breakthrough single, “Dance to the Music.” It hit the top 10 in April 1968, the week the Rev. Martin Luther King was murdered, and helped launch an era when the polish of Motown and the understatement of Stax suddenly seemed of another time.

Led by Sly Stone, with his leather jumpsuits and goggle shades, mile-wide grin and mile-high Afro, the band dazzled in 1969 at the Woodstock festival and set a new pace on the radio. “Everyday People,” “I Wanna Take You Higher” and other songs were anthems of community, non-conformity and a brash and hopeful spirit, built around such catchphrases as “different strokes for different folks.” The group released five top 10 singles, three of them hitting No. 1, and three million-selling albums: “Stand!”, “There’s a Riot Goin’ On” and “Greatest Hits.”

For a time, countless performers wanted to look and sound like Sly and the Family Stone. The Jackson Five’s breakthrough hit, “I Want You Back,” and the Temptations’ “I Can’t Get Next to You” were among the many songs from the late 1960s that mimicked Sly’s vocal and instrumental arrangements. Miles Davis’ landmark blend of jazz, rock and funk, “Bitches Brew,” was inspired in part by Sly, while fellow jazz artist Herbie Hancock even named a song after him.

“He had a way of talking, moving from playful to earnest at will. He had a look, belts, and hats and jewelry,” Questlove wrote in the foreword to Stone’s memoir, “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” named for one of his biggest hits and published through Questlove’s imprint in 2023. “He was a special case, cooler than everything around him by a factor of infinity.”

In 2025, Questlove released the documentary “Sly Lives! (aka The Burden of Black Genius).”

Sly’s influence has endured for decades. The top funk artist of the 1970s, Parliament-Funkadelic creator George Clinton, was a Stone disciple. Prince, Rick James and the Black Eyed Peas were among the many performers from the 1980s and after shaped in part by Sly, and countless hip-hop artists have sampled his riffs, from the Beastie Boys to Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. A 2005 tribute record included Maroon 5, John Legend and the Roots.

“Sly did so many things so well that he turned my head all the way around,” Clinton once wrote. “He could create polished R&B that sounded like it came from an act that had gigged at clubs for years, and then in the next breath he could be as psychedelic as the heaviest rock band.”

A dream dies, a career burns away

By the early ’70s, Stone himself was beginning a descent from which he never recovered, driven by the pressures of fame and the added burden of Black fame. His record company was anxious for more hits, while the Black Panthers were pressing him to drop the white members from his group. After moving from the Bay Area to Los Angeles in 1970, he became increasingly hooked on cocaine and erratic in his behavior. A promised album, “The Incredible and Unpredictable Sly and the Family Stone” (“The most optimistic of all,” Rolling Stone reported) never appeared. He became notorious for being late to concerts or not showing up at all, often leaving “other band members waiting backstage for hours wondering whether he was going to show up or not,” according to Stone biographer Joel Selvin.

Around the country, separatism and paranoia were setting in. As a turn of the calendar, and as a state of mind, the ’60s were over. “The possibility of possibility was leaking out,” Stone later explained in his memoir.

On “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” Stone had warned: “Dying young is hard to take/selling out is harder.” Late in 1971, he released “There’s a Riot Going On,” one of the grimmest, most uncompromising records ever to top the album charts. The sound was dense and murky (Sly was among the first musicians to use drum machines), the mood reflective (“Family Affair”), fearful (“Runnin’ Away”) and despairing: “Time, they say, is the answer — but I don’t believe it,” Sly sings on “Time.” The fast, funky pace of the original “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” was slowed, stretched and retitled “Thank You For Talkin’ to Me, Africa.”

The running time of the title track was 0:00.

“It is Muzak with its finger on the trigger,” critic Greil Marcus called the album.

“Riot” highlighted an extraordinary run of blunt, hard-hitting records by Black artists, from the Stevie Wonder single “Superstition” to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” album, to which “Riot” was an unofficial response. But Stone seemed to back away from the nightmare he had related. He was reluctant to perform material from “Riot” in concert and softened the mood on the acclaimed 1973 album “Fresh,” which did feature a cover of “Que Sera Sera,” the wistful Doris Day song reworked into a rueful testament to fate’s upper hand.

By the end of the decade, Sly and the Family Stone had broken up and Sly was releasing solo records with such unmet promises as “Heard You Missed Me, Well I’m Back” and “Back On the Right Track.” Most of the news he made over the following decades was of drug busts, financial troubles and mishaps on stage. Sly and the Family Stone was inducted into the Rock & Roll of Fame in 1993 and honored in 2006 at the Grammy Awards, but Sly released just one album after the early ’80s, “I’m Back! Family & Friends,” much of it updated recordings of his old hits.

He would allege he had hundreds of unreleased songs and did collaborate on occasion with Clinton, who would recall how Stone “could just be sitting there doing nothing and then open his eyes and shock you with a lyric so brilliant that it was obvious no one had ever thought of it before.”

Sly Stone had three children, including a daughter with Cynthia Robinson, and was married once — briefly and very publicly. In 1974, he and actor Kathy Silva wed on stage at Madison Square Garden, an event that inspired an 11,000-word story in The New Yorker. Sly and Silva soon divorced.

A born musician, a born uniter

He was born Sylvester Stewart in Denton, Texas, and raised in Vallejo, California, the second of five children in a close, religious family. Sylvester became “Sly” by accident, when a teacher mistakenly spelled his name “Slyvester.”

He loved performing so much that his mother alleged he would cry if the congregation in church didn’t respond when he sang before it. He was so gifted and ambitious that by age 4 he had sung on stage at a Sam Cooke show and by age 11 had mastered several instruments and recorded a gospel song with his siblings. He was so committed to the races working together that in his teens and early 20s he was playing in local bands that included Black and white members and was becoming known around the Bay Area as a deejay equally willing to play the Beatles and rhythm and blues acts.

Through his radio connections, he produced some of the top San Francisco bands, including the Great Society, Grace Slick’s group before she joined the Jefferson Airplane. Along with an early mentor and champion, San Francisco deejay Tom “Big Daddy” Donahue, he worked on rhythm and blues hits (Bobby Freeman’s “C’mon and Swim”) and the Beau Brummels’ Beatle-esque “Laugh, Laugh.” Meanwhile, he was putting together his own group, recruiting family members and local musicians and settling on the name Sly and the Family Stone.

“A Whole New Thing” came out in 1967, soon followed by the single “Dance to the Music,” in which each member was granted a moment of introduction as the song rightly proclaimed a “brand new beat.” In December 1968, the group appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and performed a medley that included “Dance to the Music” and “Everyday People.” Before the set began, Sly turned to the audience and recited a brief passage from his song “Are You Ready”:

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Mark J. Terrill—AP

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday removed every member of a scientific committee that advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how to use vaccines and pledged to replace them with his own picks.

Major physicians and public health groups criticized the move to oust all 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

Kennedy, who was one of the nation’s leading anti-vaccine activists before becoming the nation’s top health official, has not said who he would appoint to the panel, but said it would convene in just two weeks in Atlanta.

Although it’s typically not viewed as a partisan board, the entire current roster of committee members were Biden appointees.

“Without removing the current members, the current Trump administration would not have been able to appoint a majority of new members until 2028,” Kennedy wrote in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. “A clean sweep is needed to re-establish public confidence in vaccine science.”

When reached by phone, the panel’s now-former chair — Dr. Helen Keipp Talbot of Vanderbilt University — declined to comment. But another panel member, Noel Brewer at the University of North Carolina, said he and other committee members received an email late Monday afternoon that said their services on the committee had been terminated but gave no reason.

“I’d assumed I’d continue serving on the committee for my full term,” said Brewer, who joined the panel last summer.

Brewer is a behavioral scientist whose research examines why people get vaccinated and ways to improve vaccination coverage. Whether people get vaccinated is largely influenced by what their doctors recommend, and doctors have been following ACIP guidance.

“Up until today, ACIP recommendations were the gold standard for what insurers should pay for, what providers should recommend, and what the public should look to,” he said.

But Kennedy already took the unusual step of changing COVID-19 recommendations without first consulting the committee — a move criticized by doctors’ groups and public health advocates.

“It’s unclear what the future holds,” Brewer said. “Certainly provider organizations have already started to turn away from ACIP.”

Kennedy said the committee members had too many conflicts of interest. Currently, committee members are required to declare any potential such conflicts, as well as business interests, that arise during their tenure. They also must disclose any possible conflicts at the start of each public meeting.

But Dr. Tom Frieden, president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives and former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Kennedy’s actions were based on false conflict-of-interest claims and set “a dangerous and unprecedented action that makes our families less safe” by potentially reducing vaccine access for millions of people.

“Make no mistake: Politicizing the ACIP as Secretary Kennedy is doing will undermine public trust under the guise of improving it,” he said in a statement. “We’ll look back at this as a grave mistake that sacrificed decades of scientific rigor, undermined public trust, and opened the door for fringe theories rather than facts.”

Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, called Kennedy’s mass ouster “a coup.”

“It’s not how democracies work. It’s not good for the health of the nation,” Benjamin told The Associated Press.

Benjamin said the move raises real concerns about whether future committee members will be viewed as impartial. He added that Kennedy is going against what he told lawmakers and the public, and the public health association plans to watch Kennedy “like a hawk.”

“He is breaking a promise,” Benjamin said. “He said he wasn’t going to do this.”

Dr. Bruce A. Scott, president of the American Medical Association, called the committee a trusted source of science- and data-driven advice and said Kennedy’s move, coupled with declining vaccination rates across the country, will help drive an increase in vaccine-preventable diseases.

“Today’s action to remove the 17 sitting members of ACIP undermines that trust and upends a transparent process that has saved countless lives,” Scott said in a statement.

Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a doctor who had expressed reservations about Kennedy’s nomination but voted to install him as the nation’s health secretary nonetheless, said he had spoken with Kennedy moments after the announcement.

“Of course, now the fear is that the ACIP will be filled up with people who know nothing about vaccines except suspicion,” Cassidy said in a social media post. “I’ve just spoken with Secretary Kennedy, and I’ll continue to talk with him to ensure this is not the case.”

The committee had been in a state of flux since Kennedy took over. Its first meeting this year had been delayed when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services abruptly postponed its February meeting.

During Kennedy’s confirmation, Cassidy had expressed concerns about preserving the committee, saying he had sought assurances that Kennedy would keep the panel’s current vaccine recommendations.

The webpage that featured the committee’s members was deleted Monday evening, shortly after Kennedy’s announcement.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Jose Luis Magana—AP

After stumbling out of the starting gate in Big Tech’s pivotal race to capitalize on artificial intelligence, Apple tried to regain its footing Monday during an annual developers conference that focused mostly on incremental advances and cosmetic changes in its technology.

The presummer rite, which attracted thousands of developers from nearly 60 countries to Apple’s Silicon Valley headquarters, subdued compared with the feverish anticipation that surrounded the event in the last two years.

Apple highlighted plans for more AI tools designed to simplify people’s lives and make its products even more intuitive. It also provided an early glimpse at the biggest redesign of its iPhone software in a decade. In doing so, Apple executives refrained from issuing bold promises of breakthroughs that punctuated recent conferences, prompting CFRA analyst Angelo Zino to deride the event as a “dud” in a research note.

More AI, but what about Siri?

In 2023, Apple unveiled a mixed-reality headset that has been little more than a niche product, and last year WWDC trumpeted its first major foray into the AI craze with an array of new features highlighted by the promise of a smarter and more versatile version of its virtual assistant, Siri — a goal that has yet to be realized.

“This work needed more time to reach our high-quality bar,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s top software executive, said Monday at the outset of the conference. The company didn’t provide a precise timetable for when Siri’s AI upgrade will be finished but indicated it won’t happen until next year at the earliest.

“The silence surrounding Siri was deafening,” said Forrester Research analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee said. “No amount of text corrections or cute emojis can fill the yawning void of an intuitive, interactive AI experience that we know Siri will be capable of when ready. We just don’t know when that will happen. The end of the Siri runway is coming up fast, and Apple needs to lift off.”

Is Apple, with its ‘liquid glass,’ still a trendsetter?

The showcase unfolded amid nagging questions about whether Apple has lost some of the mystique and innovative drive that has made it a tech trendsetter during its nearly 50-year history.

Instead of making a big splash as it did with the Vision Pro headset and its AI suite, Apple took a mostly low-key approach that emphasized its effort to spruce up the look of its software with a new design called “Liquid Glass” while also unveiling a new hub for its video games and new features like a “Workout Buddy” to help manage physical fitness.

Apple executives promised to make its software more compatible with the increasingly sophisticated computer chips that have been powering its products while also making it easier to toggle between the iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

“Our product experience has become even more seamless and enjoyable,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told the crowd as the 90-minute showcase wrapped up.

IDC analyst Francisco Jeronimo said Apple seemed to be largely using Monday’s conference to demonstrate the company still has a blueprint for success in AI, even if it’s going to take longer to realize the vision that was presented a year ago.

“This year’s event was not about disruptive innovation, but rather careful calibration, platform refinement and developer enablement —positioning itself for future moves rather than unveiling game-changing technologies,” Jeronimo said.

Apple’s next operating system will be iOS 26

Besides redesigning its software. Apple will switch to a method that automakers have used to telegraph their latest car models by linking them to the year after they first arrive at dealerships. That means the next version of the iPhone operating system due out this autumn will be known as iOS 26 instead of iOS 19 — as it would be under the previous naming approach that has been used since the device’s 2007 debut.

The iOS 26 upgrade is expected to be released in September around the same time Apple traditionally rolls out the next iPhone models.

Playing catchup in AI

Apple opened the proceedings with a short video clip featuring Federighi speeding around a track in a Formula 1 race car. Although it was meant to promote the June 27 release of the Apple film, “F1” starring Brad Pitt, the segment could also be viewed as an unintentional analogy to the company’s attempt to catch up to the rest of the pack in AI technology.

While some of the new AI tricks compatible with the latest iPhones began rolling out late last year as part of free software updates, the delays in a souped-up Siri became so glaring that the chastened company stopped promoting it in its marketing campaigns earlier this year.

While Apple has been struggling to make AI that meets its standards, the gap separating it from other tech powerhouses is widening. Google keeps packing more AI into its Pixel smartphone lineup while introducing more of the technology into its search engine to dramatically change the way it works. Samsung, Apple’s biggest smartphone rival, is also leaning heavily into AI. Meanwhile, ChatGPT recently struck a deal that will bring former Apple design guru Jony Ive into the fold to work on a new device expected to compete against the iPhone.

Regulatory and trade challenges

Besides grappling with innovation challenges, Apple also faces regulatory threats that could siphon away billions of dollars in revenue that help finance its research and development. A federal judge is currently weighing whether proposed countermeasures to Google’s illegal monopoly in search should include a ban on long-running deals worth $20 billion annually to Apple while another federal judge recently banned the company from collecting commissions on in-app transactions processed outside its once-exclusive payment system.

On top of all that, Apple has been caught in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, a key manufacturing hub for the Cupertino, California, company. Cook successfully persuaded Trump to exempt the iPhone from tariffs during the president’s first administration, but he has had less success during Trump’s second term, which seems more determined to prod Apple to make its products in the U.S.

The multidimensional gauntlet facing Apple is spooking investors, causing the company’s stock price to plunge by 20% so far this year — a decline that has erased about $750 billion in shareholder wealth. After beginning the year as the most valuable company in the world, Apple now ranks third behind longtime rival Microsoft, another AI leader, and AI chipmaker Nvidia.

Apple’s shares closed down by more than 1% on Monday — an early indication the company’s latest announcements didn’t inspire investors.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Jeff Chiu—AP

Another 2,000 National Guard troops along with 700 Marines are headed to Los Angeles on orders Monday from President Donald Trump, escalating a military presence local officials and Gov. Gavin Newsom don’t want and the police chief says creates logistical challenges for safely handling protests.

An initial 2,000 Guard troops ordered by Trump started arriving Sunday, which saw the most violence during three days of protests driven by anger over Trump’s stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws that critics say are breaking apart migrant families.

Monday’s demonstrations were was far less raucous, with thousands peacefully attending a rally at City Hall and hundreds protesting outside a federal complex that includes a detention center where some immigrants are being held following workplace raids across the city.

Trump has described Los Angeles in dire terms that Mayor Karen Bass and Newsom say are nowhere close to the truth. They say he is putting public safety at risk by adding military personnel even though police say they don’t need the help.

Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said in a statement he was confident in the police department’s ability to handle large-scale demonstrations and that the Marines’ arrival without coordinating with the police department presented a “significant logistical and operational challenge” for them.

Newsom called the deployments reckless and “disrespectful to our troops” in a post on the social platform X.

“This isn’t about public safety,” Newsom said. “It’s about stroking a dangerous President’s ego.”

The protests began Friday in downtown Los Angeles after federal immigration authorities arrested more than 40 people across the city. The smell of smoke hung in the air downtown Monday, one day after crowds blocked a major freeway and set self-driving cars on fire as police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades.

Additional protests against immigration raids continued into the evening on Monday in several other cities including San Francisco and Santa Ana in California and Dallas and Austin in Texas.

California pushes back against presence of federal troops

California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit over the use of National Guard troops following the first deployment, telling reporters in his announcement Monday that Trump had “trampled” the state’s sovereignty.

“We don’t take lightly to the president abusing his authority and unlawfully mobilizing California National Guard troops,” Bonta said. He sought a court order declaring Trump’s use of the Guard unlawful and asking for a restraining order to halt the deployment.

Trump said Monday that the city would have been “completely obliterated” if he had not deployed the Guard.

U.S. officials said the Marine troops were deployed to protect federal property and personnel, including federal immigration agents. Trump’s Monday order put more National Guard members on active duty, but one U.S. official warned that the order was just signed and it could take a day or two to get troops moving. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss troop movements.

Despite their presence, there has been limited engagement so far between the Guard and protesters while local law enforcement implements crowd control.

Bass criticized the deployment of National Guard troops and Marines as a “deliberate attempt” by the Trump administration to “create disorder and chaos in our city.”

She made a plea to the federal government: “Stop the raids.”

Early protests remained peaceful

On Monday, thousands flooded the streets around City Hall for a union rally ahead of a hearing for arrested labor leader David Huerta, who was freed a few hours later on a $50,000 bond. Huerta’s arrest on Friday while protesting immigration raids has become a rallying cry for people angry over the administration’s crackdown. He is the president of the Service Employees International Union California, which represents thousands of the state’s janitors, security officers and other workers.

Early protests had a calm and even joyful atmosphere at times, with people dancing to live music and buoyed by Huerta’s release.

Protesters linked hands in front of a line of police officers outside the downtown federal detention center where Huerta was being held. Religious leaders joined the protesters, working with organizers at times to de-escalate moments of tension.

There was a heavy law enforcement presence in the few square blocks including the federal detention facility, while most in the immense city of some 4 million people went about their normal business on peaceful streets.

Chanting against a line of National Guard troops with Homeland Security officers behind them surrounding the federal buildings ramped up in the afternoon as people yelled, “Free them all!” and “National Guard go away.”

As the crowd thinned, police began pushing protesters away from the area, firing crowd-control munitions as people chanted, “Peaceful protest.” Officers became more aggressive in their tactics in the evening, occasionally surging forward to arrest protesters that got too close. At least a dozen people remaining in the busy Little Tokyo neighborhood were surrounded by police and detained.

Other protests took shape Monday across LA County. Outside a Los Angeles clothing warehouse, relatives of detained workers demanded at a news conference in the morning that their loved ones be released.

The family of Jacob Vasquez, 35, who was detained Friday at the warehouse, where he worked, said they had yet to receive any information about him.

“Jacob is a family man and the sole breadwinner of his household,” Vasquez’s brother, Gabriel, told the crowd. He asked that his last name not be used, fearing being targeted by authorities.

Several dozen people were arrested in protests throughout the weekend. Authorities say one was detained Sunday for throwing a Molotov cocktail at police and another for ramming a motorcycle into a line of officers.

Guard deployment is a nearly unprecedented escalation

The deployment appeared to be the first time in decades that a state’s National Guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration’s mass deportation efforts.

The last time the National Guard was activated without a governor’s permission was in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

In a directive Saturday, Trump invoked a legal provision allowing him to deploy federal service members when there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Jae Hong—AP

When children of wealthy families reach adulthood, they often benefit from the largesse of parents in the form of a trust fund. It’s another way they get a leg up on less affluent peers, who may receive nothing at all — or even be expected to support their families.

But what if all children — regardless of their family’s circumstances — could get a financial boost when they turn 18?

That’s the idea behind a House GOP proposal backed by President Donald Trump. It would create tax-deferred investment accounts — coined “Trump Accounts” — for babies born in the U.S. over the next four years, starting them each with $1,000. At age 18, they could withdraw the money to put toward a down payment for a home, education or to start a small business. If the money is used for other purposes, it’ll be taxed at a higher rate.

“This is a pro-family initiative that will help millions of Americans harness the strength of our economy to lift up the next generation,” Trump said at a White House event Monday for the proposal. “They’ll really be getting a big jump on life, especially if we get a little bit lucky with some of the numbers and the economy.”

While the investment would be symbolically meaningful, it’s a relatively small financial commitment to addressing child poverty in the wider $7 trillion federal budget. Assuming a 7% return, the $1,000 would grow to roughly $3,570 over 18 years.

It builds on the concept of “ baby bonds,” which two states — California and Connecticut — and the District of Columbia have introduced as a way to reduce gaps between wealthy people and poor people.

At at time when wealth inequality has soured some young people on capitalism, giving them a stake in Wall Street could be the antidote, said Utah Republican Rep. Blake Moore, who led the effort to get the initiative into a massive House spending bill.

“We know that America’s economic engine is working, but not everyone feels connected to its value and the ways it can benefit them,” Moore wrote in an op-ed for the Washington Examiner. “If we can demonstrate to our next generation the benefits of investing and financial health, we can put them on a path toward prosperity.”

Families of all income levels could receive ‘Trump Accounts’

The bill would require at least one parent to produce a Social Security number with work authorizations, meaning the U.S. citizen children born to some categories of immigrants would be excluded from the benefit. But unlike other baby bond programs, which generally target disadvantaged groups, this one would be available to families of all incomes.

Economist Darrick Hamilton of The New School, who first pitched the idea of baby bonds a quarter-century ago, said the GOP proposal would exacerbate rather than reduce wealth gaps. When he dreamed up baby bonds, he envisioned a program that would be universal but would give children from poor families a larger endowment than their wealthier peers, in an attempt to level the playing field. The money would be handled by the government, not by private firms on Wall Street.

“It is upside down,” Hamilton said. “It’s going to enhance inequality.”

Hamilton added that $1,000 — even with interest — would not be enough to make a significant difference for a child living in poverty.

A Silicon Valley investor who created the blueprint for the proposal, Brad Gerstner, said in an interview with CNBC last year that the accounts could help address the wealth gap and the loss of faith in capitalism that represent an existential crisis for the U.S.

“The rise and fall of nations occurs when you have a wealth gap that grows, when you have people who lose faith in the system,” Gerstner said. “We’re not agentless. We can do something.”

Critics say poor families have more immediate needs

The proposal comes as Congressional Republicans and Trump face backlash for proposed cuts to programs that poor families with children rely on, including food assistance and Medicaid.

Even some who back the idea of baby bonds are skeptical, noting Trump wants to cut higher education grants and programs that aid young people on the cusp of adulthood — the same age group Trump Accounts are supposed to help. Pending federal legislation would slash Medicaid and food and housing assistance that many families with children rely on.

Young adults who grew up in poverty often struggle with covering basics like rent and transportation — expenses that Trump Accounts could not be tapped to cover, said Eve Valdez, an advocate for youth in foster care in southern California. Valdez, a former foster youth, said she was homeless when she turned 18.

Accounts for newborn children that cannot be accessed for 18 years mean little to families struggling to meet basic needs today, said Shimica Gaskins of End Child Poverty California.

“Having children have health care, having their families have access to SNAP and food are what we really need … the country focused on,” Gaskins said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Win McNamee/Getty Images

The Pentagon planned to deploy about 700 Marines to Los Angeles on Monday to help National Guard members respond to immigration protests, three U.S. officials said, as California prepared to sue President Donald Trump over his use of the Guard troops and growing numbers of demonstrators took to the city’s streets for a fourth day.

The Marines were moving toward LA from their base at Twentynine Palms in the Southern California desert, the officials said on condition of anonymity to discuss military plans.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced the planned lawsuit by telling reporters that Trump had “trampled” the state’s sovereignty.

“We don’t take lightly to the president abusing his authority and unlawfully mobilizing California National Guard troops” Bonta said. He planned to seek a court order declaring Trump’s use of the Guard unlawful and asking for a restraining order to halt the deployment.

The smell of smoke hung in the air downtown Monday, one day after crowds blocked a major freeway and set self-driving cars on fire as police responded with tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades. It could take days to clear the debris from burned cars and to clean off or paint over graffiti sprayed on City Hall and other nearby buildings.

The law enforcement presence was heavy, with police cars blocking the street in front of the federal detention facility that was a focus of the protests.

But the clashes unfolded over just a few square blocks in an immense city of some 4 million people, most of whom went about their normal business on peaceful streets.

On Monday, thousands of people flooded the streets around City Hall for a union rally ahead of a hearing for arrested labor leader David Huerta, who was freed a few hours later on a $50,000 bond. Huerta’s arrest on Friday while protesting immigration raids has become a rallying cry for people angry over the administration’s crackdown. He is the president of the Service Employees International Union California, which represents thousands of the state’s janitors, security officers and other workers.

Earlier in the day, religious leaders joined protesters outside the downtown federal detention where Huerta was held, working at times to quell outbursts of anger in the otherwise peaceful demonstration. Protesters linked hands and at times sang in front of a line of police officers, who unsuccessfully asked people to move off the road and onto the sidewalk.

Bonta accused Trump of fanning protesters’ anger with his announcement of the deployment, saying he set off Sunday’s clashes with law enforcement in downtown Los Angeles. “This was not inevitable,” he said.

Trump said Monday that the city would have been “completely obliterated” if he had not deployed the Guard.

Later, at a White House event, he added that state leaders “were afraid to do anything.”

U.S. officials said about 1,000 National Guard members were in the city under federal orders by midday Monday. The full 2,000 members authorized by the president were expected to be on the ground by the end of the day. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the details of military operations.

The arrival of the National Guard followed two days of protests that began Friday in downtown Los Angeles before spreading Saturday to Paramount, a heavily Latino city south of the city, and neighboring Compton.

Other protests were taking shape Monday afternoon in LA, and more protests were scheduled for cities across the country.

Outside a Los Angeles clothing warehouse, relatives of detained workers demanded at a news conference that their loved ones be released.

The family of Jacob Vasquez, 35, who was detained Friday at the warehouse, where he worked, said they had yet to receive any information about him.

“Jacob is a family man and the sole breadwinner of his household,” Vasquez’s brother, Gabriel, told the crowd. He asked that his last name not be used, fearing being targeted by authorities.

On Sunday, many protesters dispersed as evening fell and police declared an unlawful assembly, a precursor to officers moving in and arresting those who refuse to leave. Some of those who stayed threw objects at police from behind a makeshift barrier. Others hurled chunks of concrete, rocks, electric scooters and fireworks at California Highway Patrol officers and their vehicles. Officers ran under an overpass to take cover at one point.

The Guard was deployed specifically to protect federal buildings, including the downtown detention center where protesters concentrated.

Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said officers were “overwhelmed” by the remaining protesters. He said they included regular agitators who show up at demonstrations to cause trouble.

Several dozen people were arrested throughout the weekend. One was detained Sunday for throwing a Molotov cocktail at police and another for ramming a motorcycle into a line of officers.

Governor says Guard not needed

Newsom urged Trump to rescind the Guard deployment in a letter Sunday, calling it a “serious breach of state sovereignty.”

The governor, who was was in Los Angeles meeting with local law enforcement and officials, also told protesters that they were playing into Trump’s plans and would face arrest for violence or property destruction.

“Trump wants chaos and he’s instigated violence,” he said. “Stay peaceful. Stay focused. Don’t give him the excuse he’s looking for.”

The deployment appeared to be the first time in decades that a state’s National Guard was activated without a request from its governor, a significant escalation against those who have sought to hinder the administration’s mass deportation efforts.

Newsom, meanwhile, has repeatedly said that California authorities had the situation under control. He mocked Trump for posting a congratulatory message to the Guard on social media before troops had even arrived in Los Angeles.

The last time the National Guard was activated without a governor’s permission was in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect a civil rights march in Alabama, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

In a directive Saturday, Trump invoked a legal provision allowing him to deploy federal service members when there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Kyle Grillot—Bloomberg via Getty Images

Precious metals traders at top banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley posted their best performance in five years in the first quarter, in part thanks to an arbitrage opportunity that sparked a rush of bullion into the U.S.

Twelve leading banks together made $500 million in revenue from precious metals in the first quarter of 2025, the second highest figure in a decade of data compiled by Crisil Coalition Greenwich. That’s approximately twice the average earnings per quarter over the past ten years, the market intelligence firm’s data showed.

Some of the windfall came from a lucrative premium for bullion in the U.S., as fears that precious metals would be subject to tariffs prompted dealers to ship huge volumes of gold and silver into U.S. futures exchange warehouses. 

Gold and silver prices on New York’s Comex exchange spiked above other international benchmarks in the first quarter, meaning traders could buy bullion in trading hubs like London, Switzerland or Hong Kong and transport it to the U.S. to reap a profit before any tariffs came into effect. A similar dynamic was in place in 2020, when the pandemic grounded commercial flights, creating a prolonged arbitrage opportunity for banks that could find some way of shipping bullion to New York.

Morgan Stanley delivered more gold to settle proprietary Comex positions than any other bank in the first quarter, dispatching 67 metric tons of gold, according to exchange data. That amount of metal is worth approximately $7 billion dollars at current market prices. 

JPMorgan, the dominant dealer in precious metals, delivered more than $4 billion worth of gold to settle February futures contracts, in one of the biggest daily delivery notices in the history of the exchange. The trade eventually screeched to a halt in April as bullion was exempted from President Donald Trump’s package of reciprocal tariffs.

Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan declined to comment. 

Bullion-dealing banks — and JPMorgan in particular — have a history of profiting from dislocations in prices across the Atlantic. Unprecedented arbitrage opportunities helped the bank’s metals desk make a record sum of $1 billion in 2020.

Volatility sparked by the unfolding of President Donald Trump’s tariff plans also drove revenue for the 12 banks, said Angad Chhatwal, head of fixed income, currencies and commodities for Coalition. Trading volumes in the London market have also grown in recent years, against the backdrop of a stunning rally in the gold price, which has doubled since late 2022. 

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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The United States on Monday imposed sanctions on the two fugitive sons of incarcerated Mexican Sinaloa Cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and announced a reward offer of up to $10 million each for information leading to the arrest or conviction of the men.

The U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions on Archivaldo Ivan Guzman Salazar and Jesus Alfredo Guzman Salazar who are believed to be currently located in Mexico.

Guzman’s other sons — Joaquin Guzman Lopez and Ovidio Guzman Lopez — are currently incarcerated in the United States. In May, federal prosecutors announced they would not seek the death penalty for Joaquin Guzman Lopez if he’s convicted of multiple charges in Chicago.

Sanctions were also imposed on a faction of the Sinaloa cartel known as the “Chapitos,” or little Chapos, which has been identified as a main exporter of fentanyl to the U.S. as well as a regional network of Chapitos associates and businesses based in Mazatlan, Mexico, that allegedly engage in drug trafficking, extortion and money laundering.

According to federal prosecutors, El Chapo smuggled mountains of cocaine and other drugs into the United States over 25 years. He was convicted in 2019 on multiple conspiracy counts and sentenced to life in a U.S. prison.

“At the Department of the Treasury, we are executing on President Trump’s mandate to completely eliminate drug cartels and take on violent leaders like ‘El Chapo’s’ children,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement.

The Sinaloa Cartel, through various incarnations, is Mexico’s oldest criminal group, dating to the 1970s. One of their most lucrative businesses in recent years has been the production of the synthetic opioid fentanyl, blamed for tens of thousands of overdose deaths each year in the U.S. The Trump administration in February labeled the Sinaloa cartel a foreign terrorist organizations.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

Amazon said Monday that it will spend $20 billion on two data center complexes in Pennsylvania, including one it is building alongside a nuclear power plant that has drawn federal scrutiny over an arrangement to essentially plug right into the power plant.

Kevin Miller, vice president of global data centers at Amazon’s cloud computing subsidiary, Amazon Web Services, told The Associated Press that the company will build another data center complex just north of Philadelphia.

One data center is being built next to northeastern Pennsylvania’s Susquehanna nuclear power plant. The other will be in Fairless Hills at a logistics campus, the Keystone Trade Center, on what was once a U.S. Steel mill.

At a news conference in Berwick in the shadow of the power plant, Gov. Josh Shapiro called it the largest private sector investment in Pennsylvania’s history. He said Monday’s announcement is “just the beginning” because his administration is working with Amazon on additional data center projects in the state.

While critics say data centers employ relatively few people and pack little long-term job-creation punch, their advocates say they require a huge number of construction jobs to build, spend enormous sums at area vendors and generate strong tax revenues for local governments.

Shapiro touted the work that will keep construction trades members busy building Amazon’s data centers, the tech jobs that will be waiting for graduates of area colleges and the millions of dollars in property taxes that will flow to schools and local governments.

“For too long, we’ve watched as talents across Pennsylvania got hollowed out and left behind,” Shapiro said at the news conference. “No more. Now is our time to rebuild those communities and invest in them. This investment in Pennsylvania starts reversing that trend.”

Neither Shapiro’s administration nor Amazon provided details about the taxpayer-paid financial incentives that Amazon is getting to build in Pennsylvania, typically a key element of data center deals as states compete for large installations they hope will be an economic bonanza.

Amazon, however, will likely qualify for Pennsylvania’s existing sales tax exemption on purchases of data center equipment, such as servers and routers, an exemption that most states offer and that is viewed as a must-have for a state to compete.

The announcements add to the billions of dollars in Big Tech’s data center cash already flowing into the state.

Since 2024 started, Amazon has committed to about $10 billion apiece to data center projects in Mississippi, Indiana, Ohio and North Carolina as it ramps up its investment in infrastructure to compete with other tech giants to meet growing demand for artificial intelligence products.

The rapid growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence has fueled demand for data centers that need power to run servers, storage systems, networking equipment and cooling systems.

The majority owner of the Susquehanna nuclear power plant, Talen Energy, announced last year that it had sold its data center to Amazon for $650 million in a deal to eventually provide 960 megawatts. That’s 40% of the output of one of the nation’s largest nuclear power plants, or enough to power more than a half-million homes.

However, the arrangement between Talen and Amazon — called a “behind the meter” connection — has been held up by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in the first such case to come before the agency.

It has raised questions over whether diverting power to higher-paying customers will leave enough for others and whether it’s fair to excuse big power users from paying for the grid.

For Big Tech, plugging energy-hungry data centers directly into a power plant can take years off their development timelines and is a much faster route to procuring power than having to connect to the congested electricity grid.

It’s not clear when FERC, which blocked the deal on a procedural grounds, will decide the matter, leaving in limbo regulatory treatment of the deal and others that likely would follow.

Already in Pennsylvania, Microsoft announced a deal with the owner of the shuttered Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to restart the reactor under a 20-year agreement to supply its data centers in four states with energy.

Meanwhile, the owners of what was once Pennsylvania’s biggest coal-fired power plant say they will turn it into a $10 billion natural gas-powered data center campus.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey

The Senate has set an ambitious timeline for passing President Donald Trump’s sweeping legislation to cut taxes and spending. But getting it on the Republican president’s desk by July 4 will require some big decisions, and soon.

Republican senators are airing concerns about different parts of the legislation, including cuts to Medicaid, changes to food aid and the impact on the deficit. To push the bill to passage, Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota and other negotiators will need to find a compromise that satisfies both ends of their conference — and that can still satisfy the House, which passed the bill last month by only one vote.

A look at some of the groups and senators who leaders will have to convince as they work to push Trump’s “big, beautiful” bill toward a Senate vote:

Rural state lawmakers

Every Republican senator represents a state with a rural constituency — and some of their states are among the most rural in the country. Many in those less-populated areas rely heavily on Medicaid for health care, leading several of them to warn that the changes to the program in the bill could be devastating to communities that are already struggling.

Of particular concern is a freeze on a so-called provider tax that some states use to help pay for large portions of their Medicaid programs. The extra tax often leads to higher payments from the federal government, which critics say is a loophole that allows states to inflate their budgets. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri and several others have argued that freezing that tax revenue would hurt rural hospitals, in particular.

“Hospitals will close,” Hawley said last month. “It’s that simple. And that pattern will replicate in states across the country.”

Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville said Thursday that provider taxes in his state are “the money we use for Medicaid.”

“You start cutting that out, we’ve got big problems,” Tuberville said. Eliminating those taxes “might lose some folks.”

At the same time, Republican senators have little interest in a House-passed provision that spends more money by raising a cap on state and local tax deductions, known as SALT. The higher cap traditionally benefits more urban areas in states with high taxes, such as New York and California.

The House included the new cap after New York Republicans threatened to oppose the bill, but Senate Republicans uniformly dislike it. “I think there’s going to have to be some adjustment” on the SALT provision, Thune said Wednesday, noting that “senators are just in a very different place” from the House.

Former (and maybe future) governors

The House-passed bill would also shift some Medicaid and food stamp costs to states, a change that has the former governors in the Senate, in particular, worried.

West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice, who was governor of his state for eight years before his election to the Senate last year, said he favors many aspects of the bill. He supports the new work requirements for Medicaid and food stamp recipients, the restrictions on benefits for immigrants who are in the country illegally and the efforts to cut down on fraud. “There’s real savings there,” Justice said. “But then we ought to stop.”

“We’re on our way to cannibalizing ourselves,” Justice said. “We don’t want to hurt kids and hurt our families.”

The provision stirring the most unease would shift 5% of administrative costs to the state for administering food stamps — known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. States that have high error rates in the program would have to take on an even higher percentage of federal costs.

North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven, also a former governor, said senators are working to get feedback from current governors and may propose some “incentive-oriented ideas” instead of a penalty for the high error rates.

“We don’t know if the states have really looked at the impacts of some of this yet,” Hoeven said.

Tuberville, who is running for governor of Alabama next year, said the program should be reformed instead of shifting costs.

“I know what our budget is and what we can afford, and we can’t start a federal program and then say, ‘Oh, let’s, let’s send it back to the states and let them take a big hunk of it,’” Tuberville said. “I mean, that’s not the way we do it.”

The moderates

Thune needs to bring Republican moderates on board with the bill, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Both have reservations with the Medicaid cuts, among other things.

Collins said she wants to review how the SNAP changes will affect her state. Murkowski has questioned expiring subsidies for the Affordable Care Act and whether they might be needed if people are kicked off Medicaid.

Last month, Murkowski said she wants to make sure that people are not negatively impacted by the bill, “so we’re looking at it through that lens for both Medicaid and on energy.”

Murkowski and Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, John Curtis of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas have also supported energy tax credits that would be phased out quickly under the House bill. The four senators argued that the quick repeal creates uncertainty for businesses and could raise prices for consumers.

The right flank

Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Lee of Utah and Rick Scott of Florida have argued the legislation does not save enough money and threatened to vote against it.

Paul is considered the least likely to support the measure. He says he won’t vote for it if it raises the debt ceiling — a key priority for GOP leaders in both the House and the Senate. The package would raise the nation’s debt limit by $4 trillion to allow more borrowing to pay the nation’s bills, as the Treasury Department says the limit needs to be raised by the middle of July.

Johnson has been railing against the legislation since it was unveiled in the House, arguing that it does little to reduce government spending over time. He took those arguments to Trump last week at a meeting between the president and members of the Senate Finance Committee.

After the meeting, Johnson said he would continue to argue that the bill needs to do more to cut costs. But he said he came away with the recognition that he needed to be “more positive” as Trump exerts political pressure on Republicans to pass it.

“We’re a long ways from making the deficit curve bend down, but I recognize that’s going to take time,” Johnson said. “The truth is, there are a lot of good things in this bill that I absolutely support. I want it to succeed.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Alex Brandon—AP

Dotting the roadside in what is widely considered Africa’s largest urban slum are typical stands selling vegetables. What isn’t typical is their acceptance of bitcoin as a form of payment.

Around 200 people use bitcoin in Soweto West, a neighborhood of the Kibera slum in Kenya‘s capital. It’s part of an initiative to extend financial services to one of the country’s poorest and most under-banked areas.

Its promoters say the adoption of crypto fits with the ideals of bitcoin as an accessible, democratic technology — but experts say it also has major risks.

Bitcoin came to Soweto West via AfriBit Africa, a Kenyan fintech company, through its nonprofit initiative to improve financial inclusion.

“In many cases, people in Kibera do not have an opportunity to secure their lives with normal savings,” said AfriBit Africa co-founder Ronnie Mdawida, a former community worker. With bitcoin, “they do not need documentation to have a bank account … that gives them the foundation for financial freedom.”

Bitcoin, the first and largest crypto, was created in 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis as a decentralized digital asset that could act as an alternative method of payment.

The asset has found more popular use as a store of value, like a digital form of gold. Bitcoin has attracted enthusiastic supporters as prices have climbed almost 1,000% in the last five years. But its volatility and lack of regulation are concerns.

AfriBit Africa introduced bitcoin into Soweto West in early 2022 through crypto-denominated grants to local garbage collectors, who are often funded by nonprofits. The groups are made up of dozens of young people, who Mdawida says are more likely to be open to new tech.

After gathering on a Sunday to collect trash, garbage collectors are paid a few dollars’ worth of bitcoin. AfriBit Africa estimates that it has put some $10,000 into the community, with garbage collectors acting as the main agents of spreading bitcoin in Soweto West. In Kibera, many people earn about a dollar a day.

Now a small number of other residents hold bitcoin, and some merchants and motorcycle taxis accept payments in crypto.

Damiano Magak, 23, a garbage collector and food seller, said he prefers bitcoin to M-PESA, the ubiquitous mobile money platform in Kenya, because M-PESA transaction costs are higher and the network can be slower.

There are no fees for M-PESA transactions between individuals or businesses up to 100 Kenyan shillings (78 cents), but after that the fees increase with transaction size. Fees for the Lightning bitcoin network where transactions take place are free if people use a platform that AfriBit Africa introduced into the community.

Onesmus Many, 30, another garbage collector, said he feels safer with his money in a bitcoin wallet instead of in cash because of crime.

Some merchants have found benefits to accepting crypto, including Dotea Anyim. She said around 10% of customers at her vegetable stand pay in bitcoin.

“I like it because it is cheap and fast and doesn’t have any transaction costs,” she says. “When people pay using bitcoin, I save that money and use cash to restock vegetables.”

The possibility that crypto prices could keep rising also appeals to residents of Soweto West. Magak and Many said they now have around 70% to 80% of their net worth in bitcoin, a far higher level of exposure than most people.

“It is my worth and I’m risking it in bitcoin,” Magak said.

That concerns Ali Hussein Kassim, a fintech entrepreneur and chair of the FinTech Alliance in Kenya.

“In an extremely volatile asset like bitcoin, it’s overexposure. I can’t afford to lose 80% of my wealth. How about a guy in Kibera?” Kassim said. “You are exposing a vulnerable community to an ecosystem and to financial services that they can’t necessarily afford to play in.”

Kassim acknowledged the potential benefits that digital assets could bring, particularly in facilitating cheaper cross-border payments like remittances, but failed to see the benefit in Kibera.

Bitcoin’s volatility could negate the benefits of cheaper transaction fees, Kassim said, and bitcoin does not have the same protections as other financial services due to a lack of regulation.

Mdawida disagreed, calling bitcoin’s unregulated nature a benefit.

“We don’t shy away from the risks involved,” the AfriBit Africa co-founder said, noting the group’s investments in bitcoin education in Kibera, including financial literacy training and crypto courses in the community.

Efforts to introduce bitcoin into developing countries have faced challenges. Bitcoin was adopted as legal tender in El Salvador and Central African Republic but both countries have reversed their decision.

In Kenya, the digital asset sector has faced legal and regulatory challenges, including crackdowns on cryptocurrency giveaways. This small project, focusing only on Soweto West, has been allowed.

“On my phone I put notifications on when bitcoin rises … and it’s all smiles,” Magak said. “Whenever it fluctuates up and down, I know at the end of the day it will just rise.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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After stumbling out of the starting gate in Big Tech’s pivotal race to capitalize on artificial intelligence, Apple will try to regain its footing Monday at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference.

The presummer rite, which attracts thousands of developers to Apple’s Silicon Valley headquarters, is expected to be more subdued than the feverish anticipation that surrounded the event during the previous two years.

In 2023, Apple unveiled a mixed-reality headset that has been little more than a niche product, and last year WWDC trumpeted its first major foray into the AI craze with an array of new features highlighted by the promise of a smarter and more versatile version of its virtual assistant, Siri.

But heading into this year’s showcase, Apple faces nagging questions about whether the nearly 50-year-old company has lost some of the mystique and innovative drive that turned it into a tech trendsetter. Instead of making a big splash as it did with the Vision Pro headset, Apple this year is expected to focus on an overhaul of its software that may include a new, more tactile look for the iPhone’s native apps and a new nomenclature for identifying its operating system updates.

Even though it might look like Apple is becoming a technological laggard, Forrester Research analyst Thomas Husson contends the company still has ample time to catch up in an AI race that’s “more of a marathon, than a sprint. It will force Apple to evolve its operating systems.”

If reports about its iOS naming scheme pan out, Apple will switch to a method that automakers have used to telegraph their latest car models by linking them to the year after they first arrive at dealerships. That would mean the next version of the iPhone operating system due out this autumn will be known as iOS 26 instead of iOS 19 — as it would be under the current sequential naming approach.

Whatever it’s named, the next iOS will likely be released as a free update in September, around the same time as the next iPhone models if Apple follows its usual road map.

Meanwhile, Apple’s references to AI may be less frequent than last year when the technology was the main attraction.

While some of the new AI tricks compatible with the latest iPhones began rolling out late last year as part of free software updates, Apple still hasn’t been able to soup up Siri in the ways that it touted at last year’s conference. The delays became so glaring that a chastened Apple retreated from promoting Siri in its AI marketing campaigns earlier this year.

“It’s just taking a bit longer than we thought,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told analysts last month when asked about the company’s headaches with Siri. “But we are making progress, and we’re extremely excited to get the more personal Siri features out there.”

While Apple has been struggling to make AI that meets its standards, the gap separating it from other tech powerhouses is widening. Google keeps packing more AI into its Pixel smartphone lineup while introducing more of the technology into its search engine to dramatically change the way it works. Samsung, Apple’s biggest smartphone rival, is also leaning heavily into AI. Meanwhile, ChatGPT recently struck a deal that will bring former Apple design guru Jony Ive into the fold to work on a new device expected to compete against the iPhone.

“While much of WWDC will be about what the next great thing is for the iPhone, the unspoken question is: What’s the next great thing after the iPhone?” said Dipanjan Chatterjee, another analyst for Forrester Research.

Besides facing innovation challenges, Apple also faces regulatory threats that could siphon away billions of dollars in revenue that help finance its research and development. A federal judge is currently weighing whether proposed countermeasures to Google’s illegal monopoly in search should include a ban on long-running deals worth $20 billion annually to Apple while another federal judge recently banned the company from collecting commission on in-app transactions processed outside its once-exclusive payment system.

On top of all that, Apple has been caught in the cross-hairs of President Donald Trump’s trade war with China, a key manufacturing hub for the Cupertino, California, company. Cook successfully persuaded Trump to exempt the iPhone from tariffs during the president’s first administration, but he has had less success during Trump’s second term, which seems more determined to prod Apple to make its products in the U.S..

“The trade war and uncertainty linked to the tariff policy is of much more concern today for Apple’s business than the perception that Apple is lagging behind on AI innovation,” Husson said.

The multi-dimensional gauntlet facing Apple is spooking investors, causing the company’s stock price to plunge by nearly 20% so far this year — a decline that has erased $750 billion in shareholder wealth. After beginning the year as the most valuable company in the world, Apple now ranks third behind longtime rival Microsoft, another AI leader, and AI chipmaker Nvidia.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Mary Altaffer—AP

In the box office showdown between a deadly assassin and a chaotic CG alien, “Lilo & Stitch” still had the edge. The Disney juggernaut celebrated a third weekend at the top of the charts, while the John Wick spinoff “Ballerina” did not jeté as high as expected.

According to studio estimates Sunday, “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina” earned $25 million from 3,409 theaters in the U.S. and Canada. Several weeks ago it was tracking to open in the $35 to $40 million range, but that was adjusted down several times. Ultimately, it still came in lower than forecasts. The movie, directed by Len Wiseman, makes a sideline character out of Keanu Reeves’ John Wick and focuses on Ana de Armas. It takes place during the events of “John Wick 3.”

The box office performance is a bit perplexing result considering that “Ballerina” got good critic reviews and audience exit polls. Conventional wisdom would say that word of mouth might have given it a boost over the weekend. But, recently, opening weekend isn’t the end all that it used to be. “Ballerina” could be in the game for the long haul.

“Even though its part of the John Wick franchise, it’s playing like a true original. And that’s not a bad thing,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “This was not a movie that was ever going to open like a ‘Mission: Impossible’ or another huge franchise.”

The Lionsgate release, a Thunder Road Films and 87Eleven Entertainment production, had a hefty production price tag reported to be in the $90 million range. But much of that cost has already been offset by foreign pre-sales. Internationally, it earned $26 million from 82 countries, bringing its global opening to $51 million.

As the first spinoff, it’s the second lowest opening of the five-film franchise – above only the first film which opened just over $14 million in 2014, which does not account for inflation. The franchise overall has grossed more than $1 billion worldwide.

Dergarabedian added that the R-rated “Ballerina” could also be positioned for a strong second weekend, when it goes up against family-targeted “How to Train Your Dragon.”

First place once again went to “Lilo & Stitch,” which added another $32.5 million in North America, bringing its domestic total to $335.8 and global tally to $772.6 million. In just 17 days, it’s already made more domestically than the live-action “The Little Mermaid” did in its entire run ($298 million).

“Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning” slid to third place with $15 million, bringing its worldwide total to $450.4 million. “Karate Kid: Legends” earned $8.7 million to take fourth place. And “Final Destination: Bloodlines” rounded out the top five with $6.5 million.

The new Wes Anderson movie “The Phoenician Scheme” expanded beyond New York and Los Angeles to 1,678 theaters nationwide. The Focus Features release starring Benicio del Toro made an estimated $6.3 million and landed in sixth place.

The R-rated anime “Dan Da Dan: Evil Eye” also made the top 10 in its first weekend. The GKIDS release made $3.1 million from 1,080 theaters.

Overall, the box office is up over 26% from this point in 2024.

Top 10 movies by domestic box office

With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

• 1. “Lilo & Stitch,” $32.5 million.
• 2. “From the World of John Wick: Ballerina,” $25 million.
• 3. “Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning,” $15 million.
• 4. “Karate Kid: Legends,” $8.7 million.
• 5. “Final Destination: Bloodlines,” $6.5 million.
• 6. “The Phoenician Scheme,” $6.3 million.
• 7. “Bring Her Back,” $3.5 million.
• 8. “Dan Da Dan: Evil Eye,” $3.1 million.
• 9. “Sinners,” $2.9 million.
• 10. “Thunderbolts,” $2.5 million.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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