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Apple suppliers Skyworks Solutions and Qorvo will merge in a cash-and-stock deal to create a radio chip company with an enterprise value of $22 billion. Qorvo shareholders will receive $32.50 in cash and 0.96 of a Skyworks common share for each Qorvo share held at the close of the transaction, which is expected in early 2027, pending shareholder and regulatory approvals. Activist investor Starboard Value, which owns about 8% of Qorvo, has already signed off on the deal. On a conference call with investors Tuesday, Skyworks said its biggest customers also expressed approval of the merger. After closing, Skyworks shareholders will own roughly 63% of the combined company, with Qorvo shareholders owning the remaining 37%. The companies which make radio frequency components and semiconductors for a broad array of technology including mobile phones, said that with demand growing, they will be better able compete with larger rivals as a single company. Skyworks CEO Phil Brace will take the chief executive job at the combined company, while Qorvo CEO Bob Bruggeworth will join the board. Upon closing, the companys board will have eight directors from Skyworks and three from Qorvo. Skyworks specializes in high-performance analog and mixed-signal semiconductors, while Qorvo provides connectivity and power solutions. The companies say combining will create a $5.1 billion mobile business. Skyworks, based in Irvine, California, released its preliminary fourth-quarter results on Tuesday, beating Wall Street revenue and profit expectations. Qorvo, based in Greensboro, North Carolina, posted preliminary results from its most recent quarter as well, which also came in ahead of Wall Street’s projections.
Category:
E-Commerce
Two decades after a Republican-controlled Congress gave gun manufacturers immunity from being sued over crimes committed with their firearms, blue state Democrats upset about gun violence think theyve found a way to penetrate that legal shield. Since 2021, 10 states have passed laws intended to make it easier to sue gunmakers and sellers. The newest such law, in Connecticut, took effect this month. It opens firearms manufacturers and retailers up to lawsuits if they don’t take steps to prevent guns from getting into the hands of people banned from owning them, or who should be suspected of intending to use them to hurt themselves or others. Other states have allowed lawsuits against companies deemed to have created a public nuisance through the sale or marketing of firearms. The legislation and flurry of lawsuits against gun companies that followed has outraged gun rights advocates, who accuse the states of trying to skirt the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. That law, which blocked a wave of similar lawsuits two decades ago, says gun companies operating legally cannot be held liable for violent acts committed by people misusing weapons. They know these laws are unconstitutional. They know these laws violate the PLCAA, said Lawrence G. Keane, senior vice president for government and public affairs at the National Shooting Sports Foundation. They dont care,” he said, adding that the real goal of the lawsuits was to harass the industry and drain it financially. Gun control groups say the states have simply set clearer requirements for gun companies to ensure their products arent sold or used illegally. These laws dont just open the courthouse doors to survivors. They also force the gun industry to operate more responsibly and, most importantly, can help prevent future tragedies, said Po Murray, chair of the Newtown Action Alliance, a gun-violence prevention group founded after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. Two decades of federal immunity Congress adopted protections for the gun industry after lawsuits filed in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and elsewhere attempted to hold the firearms industry responsible for violent crime. Many of those suits argued that gun companies had knowingly oversupplied certain markets with cheap handguns and ignored signs that those weapons were being trafficked to places with strict gun controls. The firearms industry and the National Rifle Association saw the lawsuits as unfair. As long as gun companies weren’t breaking rules around sales, they shouldn’t be held responsible for violence, they said. President George W. Bush, a Republican, agreed and signed the shield law in 2005, saying it helped stem frivolous lawsuits.” Our laws should punish criminals who use guns to commit crimes, not law-abiding manufacturers of lawful products, Bush said at the time. A new approach The legal protections Congress gave the gun industry aren’t absolute. For example, a gunmaker that sells a faulty firearm can still be sued over dangerous defects. Another exception allows lawsuits against companies that knowingly violate laws regulating how firearms are sold and marketed. When Congress drafted that exception, it cited the example of a shop that knowingly sold a gun to someone banned from owning one, such as a convicted felon. The new state laws have sought to expand potential liability for gun companies by creating new rules for the industry. New York passed a law in 2021 requiring gun companies to create controls to prevent unlawful possession or use of their products. It also says they cannot knowingly or recklessly contribute to a condition that endangers public safety. Any business operating in New York must adhere to our laws and if they dont, they are held accountable, said Democratic state Sen. Zellnor Myrie, the law’s chief proponent. Several states and cities have used the new liability laws to sue Glock over the design of its pistols, saying it is too easy to convert them into automatic weapons. Many of the new laws follow legal theories from a lawsuit filed against gunmaker Remington by families of Sandy Hook victims. The suit, which was settled for $73 million in 2022, argued that Remingtons marketing violated state consumer protection law. Whats next? Its too soon to say if courts will uphold the new state laws. A panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in July that New Yorks law wasnt expressly barred by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, but that decision is not expected to be the last word. One of the judges, Dennis Jacobs, made it clear he believes the law is vulnerable to future legal challenges, calling it nothing short of an attempt to end-run PLCAA. The U.S. Supreme Court, which is controlled 6-3 by Republican-nominated justices, hasn’t yet considered the state liability laws, but the gun industry was encouraged when the justices unanimously agreed in June to toss out a $10 billion lawsuit Mexico filed against top firearms manufacturers claiming their business practices fuel cartel violence. Justice Elena Kagan, a Democratic nominee, wrote in her opinion how Congress passed PLCAA to halt lawsuits similar to the one filed by Mexico. She said Mexico had made no plausible argument that the companies knowingly helped gun trafficking. The Court doubts Congress intended to draft such a capacious way out of PLCAA, and in fact it did not, she wrote. Susan Haigh, Associated Press Associated Press Writer Dave Collins contributed to this report.
Category:
E-Commerce
A new internet theory about American politics and society just dropped. From anti-vaxxers to AI slop, everything can be explained by one simple idea: Everyone is twelve now. In September, Bluesky user and musician Patrick Cosmos (@veryimportant.lawyer) posted, “working on a new unified theory of american reality i’m calling ‘everyone is twelve now.'” He continued: “‘Im strong and I want to have like fifty kids and a farm’ of course you do. Youre twelve. ‘I dont want to eat vegetables I think steak and French fries is the only meal’ hell yeah homie youre twelve. ‘Maybe if theres crime we should just send the army’ bless your heart my twelve year old buddy.” Its funny, but it also feels depressingly accurate. Its already being called “the most important political thread of our time. Or as another user wrote: making a pilgrimage to a post that will one day be studied in history books. It took a few weeks for the theory to spread to X, Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, and other platforms, but once it did, it became the go-to comeback under conservative posts and government propaganda alike. You wanna do a ride-along in the backseat of a big plane and cosplay being a pilot? Of course you do, youre twelve, user @jjellisart said in response to a video of Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, in a fighter jet. You wanna dress up like a knight and play swords? Of course you do, youre twelve, he also posted to a Homeland Security propaganda post of medieval knights. The meme even made its way into the political press corps after White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt replied to a HuffPost reporters question about the location of Donald Trumps upcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin with: Your mom did. One user quote-tweeted the exchange with: The Everyone is Twelve Now theory is rapidly gaining credibility, I fear. So whats behind the apparent sudden collective regression? According to the National Literacy Institute, 54% of U.S. adults read below a sixth-grade level. That limited literacy makes it harder to understand complex and nuanced issues and easier to fall for oversimplified narratives peddled on social media. As one Reddit user suggested: an ideology specially crafted to appeal to nostalgia kinda has to be childish. the world was never perfect, so to pretend it was you have to appeal to childlike innocence. Case in point: a glass bottle of Coca Cola balanced on the hood of a red Bronco as marketing material for the Department of Homeland Security. It might also explain why government agencies like the DHS have leaned into childhood classic Pokémon references and viral TikTok trends as part of their social media strategy. In the context of the everyone is twelve theory, it suddenly makes a lot of sense And once youve seen it, youll start spotting examples everywhere you look. Unless, of course, youre twelve.
Category:
E-Commerce
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