CIA Director Bill Burns said on Monday that Ukraine is likely to lose “significant ground in 2024” in its battle against Russia if the US Congress fails to pass a bill to give it additional supplemental funds. Ukrainian fighters withdrew from Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine last month, and Burns said Kiev would be forced to make similar decisions without more US aid.With the aid, he said, the CIA estimated that Ukraine could “hold out” on the front lines in 2024 and early 2025. He said Ukrainian strikes had sunk 15 Russian ships over the past six months, and that additional…
Author: ricardofrancois
Open Editor's Digest for freeRula Khalaf, editor of the Financial Times, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.In Hong Kong, a city that is adapting to life under Beijing's national security law and introducing its own version of it, global companies are creating practical barriers to doing business. US law firm Latham & Watkins isolates its lawyers from international databases. Deloitte and KPMG require employees to take feature phones when they visit. Although the companies have not explicitly stated why they are doing so, many other global companies are discussing whether to take similar actions. These moves sometimes seem…
One of Wall Street's biggest bulls on Meta Platforms believes his business can easily grow during a Trump presidency. Jefferies' Brent Thiel sees Facebook as vital — even though President Donald Trump called it an “enemy of the people” on CNBC's “Squawk Box” on Monday. “I don't agree with that view that it's the enemy,” the company's technology leader told CNBC's Fast Money. “The opposite has happened for small businesses.” “The reality is that the economic value of all these small business ads is off the charts.” But President Trump's comments appear to have sparked profit-taking today. Meta, Facebook's parent…
A lively Oscars ceremony, anchored by two bona fide Best Picture nominees in “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie,” helped boost ABC's telecast to its largest audience since 2020.The 96th Academy Awards ceremony, Sunday, at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood, on ABC, was watched by an average audience of 19.5 million viewers, an increase of 4% from 2023, according to Nielsen data. Last year's telecast attracted an average of 18.7 million viewers. The ratings performance marks the third straight year the Oscars have grown since hitting an all-time low of 10.5 million viewers in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Oscars telecast is…
A Los Angeles County probation officer was arrested last week and charged with having sex with a minor being held in a juvenile facility, the department said Monday.The officer, who was not named in the department's statement, was arrested on March 7 and charged with having sex with an inmate, arranging a meeting with a minor for lewd purposes and bringing contraband into the prison. A law enforcement source, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, identified the officer as 51-year-old Rafaela Martinez. Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department booking records show a person by…
A man was arrested on suspicion of felony DUI after a car crash early Sunday that sent several people to the hospital, including a 5-month-old baby who was in critical condition, authorities said.Los Angeles Police Department officers responded to a single-vehicle accident near Crenshaw Boulevard and 52nd Street in Hyde Park just before 2 a.m. Sunday. Reports from KTLA-TV Channel 5 indicated that the driver attempted to flee the scene after his vehicle struck a pole near the intersection.The authorities said that the police were unable to confirm the man's attempt to escape, but he was arrested in connection with…
Maybe a few Years from now, the halls of the Georgia World Congress Center will be filled with humanoid robots during MODEX Week. However, in 2024, Digit will stand alone at the supply chain show. It's a testament to Agility's healthy edge over competitors like Figure, Tesla, 1X and Apptronik. This time last year at Modex (Chicago's version of the conference), Digit had something of an industrial automation party. A row of bipedal robots moved handbags to a nearby conveyor belt at specific times throughout the week. This Week in Atlanta, an eight-figure crew works every day from the show's…
Global logistics companies told CNBC they have begun planning for a potential Trump win in November and what strategies will be needed to mitigate any additional tariffs, with Mexico seen as a key import gateway for any escalation in the trade war against China that began under Trump and continues. During the Biden presidency.The planning began after the former president said in February that he was considering a plan to impose tariffs of 60% or more on Chinese goods as well as a blanket 10% tariff on all US imports during his potential second term.In an appearance on CNBC on…
The Wolverines could be preparing for a comeback in California.A new bill seeks to reintroduce these solitary, muscular carnivores into the state's mountainous regions, where they were hunted, poisoned and trapped into oblivion for more than 100 years.Wolverines are extremely rare in the lower 48 states and received federal protection under the Endangered Species Act in November. Conservation efforts in California date back to the early 1970s, when wolverines were classified as a fully protected species under the state's Fish and Game Act and listed as endangered under the state's Endangered Species Act. Several sightings of the elusive wolverine in…
Shoppers are seen at a Kroger supermarket on October 14, 2022, in Atlanta, Georgia. Ilya Novelage | AFP | Getty ImagesRising gasoline prices will likely put a floor on inflation in February, which could reinforce the Federal Reserve's decision to take a slow approach to interest rate cuts.Economists expect prices across a wide range of goods and services to rise 0.4% on the month, ahead of January's pace of 0.3%, according to the Dow Jones consensus. Excluding food and energy, the increase in core inflation is expected to rise by 0.3%, which is also a tenth of a percentage point…