 |
|
|
|||||
The Senate is slogging through a tense overnight session that has dragged into Tuesday, with Republican leaders searching for ways to secure support for President Donald Trump’s big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts while fending off proposed amendments, mostly from Democrats trying to defeat the package.An endgame appeared to be taking shape. Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota spent the night reaching for last-minute agreements between those in his party worried the bill’s reductions to Medicaid will leave millions without care and his most conservative flank, which wants even steeper cuts to hold down deficits ballooning with the tax cuts.Vice President JD Vance arrived at the Capitol, on hand to break a tie vote if needed.It’s a pivotal moment for the Republicans, who have control of Congress and are racing to wrap up work with just days to go before Trump’s holiday deadline Friday. The 940-page “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” as it’s formally titled, has consumed Congress as its shared priority with the president.At the same time House Speaker Mike Johnson has signaled more potential problems ahead, warning the Senate package could run into trouble when it is sent back to the House for a final round of voting, as skeptical lawmakers are being called back to Washington ahead of Trump’s Fourth of July deadline.In a midnight social media post urging them on, Trump called the bill “perhaps the greatest and most important of its kind.” Vice President JD Vance summed up his own series of posts, simply imploring senators to “Pass the bill.”What started as a routine, but laborious day of amendment voting, in a process called vote-a-rama, spiraled into an almost round-the-clock marathon as Republican leaders were buying time to shore up support.The droning roll calls in the chamber belied the frenzied action to steady the bill. Grim-faced scenes played out on and off the Senate floor, and tempers flared.The GOP leaders have no room to spare, with narrow majorities in both chambers. Thune can lose no more than three Republican senators, and already twoSen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who warns people will lose access to Medicaid health care, and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who opposes raising the debt limit by $5 trillionhave indicated opposition.Attention quickly turned to key senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, who have also wroked to stem the the health care cuts, but also a loose coalition of four conservative GOP senators pushing for even steeper reductions.Murkowski in particular was the subject of the GOP leadership’s attention, as Thune and others sat beside her in conversation.Then all eyes were on Paul after he returned from a visit to Thune’s office with a stunning offer that could win his vote. He had suggested substantially lowering the debt ceiling, according to two people familiar with the private meeting and granted anonymity to discuss it.And on social media, billionaire Elon Musk was again lashing out at Republicans as “the PORKY PIG PARTY!!” for including the $5 trillion debt limit provision, which is needed to allow continued borrowing to pay the bills.Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said his side was working to show “how awful this is.”“Republicans are in shambles because they know the bill is so unpopular,” Schumer said as he walked the halls.A new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law. The CBO said the package would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion over the decade. Senators insisting on changes Few Republicans appear fully satisfied as the final package emerges, in either the House or Senate.Collins had proposed bolstering the $25 billion proposed rural hospital fund to $50 billion, offset with a higher tax rate on those earning more than $25 million a year, but her amendment failed.And Murkowski was trying to secure provisions to spare people in her state from some food stamp cuts, which appeared to be accepted, while she was also working to beef up federal reimbursements to hospitals in Alaska and others states, that failed to comply with parliamentary rules.“Radio silence,” Murkowski said when asked how she would vote.At the same time, conservative Senate Republicans insisting on a vote on their plan for health care cuts, including Rick Scott of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, filed into Thune’s office for a near-midnight meeting.A few of the amendments from Democrats were winning support from a few Republicans, though almost none were passing.One amendment was overwhelmingly approved, 99-1. It would strip a provision barring states from regulating artificial intelligence if they receive certain federal funding. What’s in the big bill All told, the Senate bill includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, according to the latest CBO analysis, making permanent Trump’s 2017 rates, which would expire at the end of the year if Congress fails to act, while adding the new ones he campaigned on, including no taxes on tips.The Senate package would roll back billions of dollars in green energy tax credits, which Democrats warn will wipe out wind and solar investments nationwide. It would impose $1.2 trillion in cuts, largely to Medicaid and food stamps, by imposing work requirements on able-bodied people, including some parents and older Americans, making sign-up eligibility more stringent and changing federal reimbursements to states.Additionally, the bill would provide a $350 billion infusion for border and national security, including for deportations, some of it paid for with new fees charged to immigrants. Democrats fighting all day and night Unable to stop the march toward passage, the Democrats as the minority party in Congress are using the tools at their disposal to delay and drag out the process.Democrats forced a full reading of the text, which took 16 hours, and they have a stream of amendments.Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, raised particular concern at the start of debate late Sunday about the accounting method being used by the Republicans, which says the tax breaks from Trump’s first term are now “current policy” and the cost of extending them should not be counted toward deficits.She said that kind of “magic math” won’t fly with Americans trying to balance their own household books. Associated Press writers Ali Swenson, Fatima Hussein, Michelle L. Price, Kevin Freking, Matt Brown, Seung Min Kim and Chris Megerian contributed to his report. Lisa Mascaro, Mary Clare Jalonick and Matt Brown, Associated Press
Category:
E-Commerce
Shares of Tesla are down in premarket trading today after President Donald Trump and the EV maker’s CEO, Elon Musk, traded barbs on their social media platforms, reigniting a public feud that had boiled over early last month only to die down in more recent weeks. At the center of the feud is Trumps controversial legislative darling, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is currently making its way through Congress. Heres what you need to know about the latest Trump-Musk blowup and its impact on Tesla stock. Whats happened? Donald Trump and Elon Musk are at each others throats again. This latest dustup comes almost a month after the two men had a very explosive and very public blowout on social media. In early June, the inciting incident for the Trump-Musk feud was the president’s signature piece of legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. And the current feud is about the same. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is widely seen as being good for the ultra-wealthy and bad for nearly everyone else. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the act provides $3.8 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Those tax cuts will primarily be paid for by stripping access to Medicaid and other government healthcare and social services, costing up to 10.9 million Americans their healthcare coverage. However, it’s other provisions in the bill that seem to irk Musk. The latest version of the bill cuts subsidies for electric vehicles and alternative energy, while giving subsidies to the coal industry, notes Reuters. The CBO also says the bill will add $3.3 trillion to the U.S. deficit over the next decade. Musk, who led the controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for President Trump in the first half of the year, is historically outspoken in his desire to cut government spending and reduce the U.S. deficit. As the Senate began its vote-a-rama on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act yesterday, Musk went into overdrive, renewing his criticisms of the bill and making threats about the steps he would take next if the bill passes the Senate. What did Musk say? Musk started posting about the bill on X yesterday afternoon it was being addressed in the Senate chamber. In a post that kicked off the first of many, Musk said, It is obvious with the insane spending of this bill, which increases the debt ceiling by a record FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS that we live in a one-party country the PORKY PIG PARTY!! That post went on to proclaim that it was Time for a new political party that actually cares about the people. Less than an hour later, Musk escalated his rhetoric against the bill, issuing threats against congressional Republicans who vote for it. Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame! Musk said. And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth. A few hours later, Musk issued another statement, in which he doubled down on his threat to form a new political party in America. If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day, the Tesla CEO said. Our country needs an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a VOICE. Musk is one of the few people in the country whose threats to start a new political party and primary Republicans who support the bill hold weight. Thats because Musk is the richest individual in the world, and he has the financial resources to back challengers to politicians he disagrees with. Conceivably, Musk’s wealth could also be leveraged to launch a new political party. In the United States, both Democrats and Republicans worry about the possibility that a third party may one day gain popularity. Even if such a hypothetical party struggled to garner the majority of votes needed to become dominant, it could at the very least divert votes from both existing parties, which could ultimately benefit their main opposition. How did Trump react? Not well. After Musk’s flurry of tweets threatening to help oust Republicans who support the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and to form a new party, the president lashed out at Musk on his social media platform, Truth Social, and made threats of his own. In his post on Truth Social, the president focused on the loss of subsidies for EV makers in the bill, suggesting that is why Musk is actually upset about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, the president said, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa. No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. But Trump didnt stop there. The president then went on to suggest that perhaps a DOGE investigation into Musks subsidies was needed. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? The president wrote. BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!! After Trumps comments, shares in Elon Musks electric vehicle company, Tesla, Inc. (Nasdaq: TSLA), are currently falling in premarket trading this morning. Why is TSLA stock falling? Because as president of the United States, Trump could cause a lot of trouble for Elon Musks electric car company. He could do this through regulatory hurdles via the Department of Transportation, notes Reuters. For example, the agency could delay or even deny the approval of Teslas Robotaxi expansion. Of course, Trump could also reduce the profits of Musk’s other companies, including the privately held SpaceX, by denying future government contracts. Whether any of this will actually happen remains to be seen. But this latest spat between Trump and Musk underscores their propensity to air their grievances in public, and that appears to be worrying Tesla investors. As of the time of this writing, TSLA shares are currently down nearly 5% in premarket trading to around $302 per share. The stock is down more than 16% year to date.
Category:
E-Commerce
Yahoo is at a critical inflection point. Despite having a large user baseacross Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, and Yahoo Newsthe media company hasnt reclaimed the buzz of its early days. CEO Jim Lanzone candidly discusses the fear of being left behind and how hes pushing the brand to shed its old skin. He explains the wide-ranging implications as AI remakes search engines into answer engines and shares insights about the line between fantasy sports and gambling. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. I wanted to ask you, you talk about it like Yahoo is sort of in a turnaround or a restart. But I mean, Yahoo News is the number-one news site on the internet, right? Yahoo Finance is the number one. Your fantasy sports platform is huge. You’ve got a big ad tech business, which I’m sure you talk about here. Second-largest email platform. You’ve got search, not Google-size search, but still substantial . . . All that sounds pretty robust. Yeah. Amazing ingredients with which to do a turnaround. So the way I would think about it is that absolutely the brands are still extremely relevant and they’ve had very loyal user bases. As a business, I think a lot of people know, but some maybe don’t, that we were spun out of Verizon. Over the years, Yahoo was a stand-alone public company. It was acquired by Verizon in the mid-2010s. They also acquired AOL, which we also own and is one of our brands. And we were acquired for about $5 billion. So if you think about the other brands in and around our rankings in the traffic rankings, they’re all trillion dollar brands. And so we had something to work with in terms of the size and loyalty of some of the audiences. But in some cases, email’s one of them. We had a big announcement last week. The core product hadn’t been improved in over 10 years. And so in the last nine months, every product that we operate has been relaunched with brand-new versions. And so taking advantage of the size of that audience to rebuild the business to be super valuable is the more turnaround side of it. And when you look at something that is robust, like the fantasy sports, as the NFL season comes, which will be your next big burst, right? We actually have a lot planned for it this year. I was curious, how much of the goal is to use this opportunity to introduce those users to other things you have, versus give them new things around what they already are coming for? I mean, what you’ll find is that our individual brands have in some ways different audiences. People who really use Yahoo Finance as their way to make more money and save more money and attract stocks and all that is pretty independent of people who love fantasy or love checking sports scores with Yahoo Sports. I definitely think the secret sauce of Yahoo, especially for advertisers, since we’re here, is that, collectively, it’s hundreds of millions of people who have a first-party relationship with us, which makes our ad targeting extremely effective. So one Yahoo overall is something that actually is true about the actual business. Getting people to use Yahoo as one point for everything is something that will happen over time, but we’re not going top-down in how we go about it. But it sounds like you don’t necessarily, at least right now, need to convert people into being like, “I’m a Yahoo, and I do everything in the Yahoo world.” I think that was the ’90s Yahoo, and I think the internet kind of moved past that. That said, we did relaunch the Yahoo homepage in February after months of testing different variations of it because the user base gets pretty locked in with how they do things, and you can really mess it up in the link chain if you change something. So we found one that really worked, and the most interesting thing about it was we went back to adding more portal-like features. Over the years, it’d become kind of just a newsfeed, and we added things back that were more utility-based around weather and other things and found that people love that. So actually, the Yahoo homepage that is more of a place to get things done is probably more the direction we’ll head with it than just straight news. Not everything about the way the internet was framed in the beginning was wrong. Right? It’s interesting because having competed against the people at Yahoo for the first 20-plus years of my career and taking that eye towards it, working here, you do kind of get an appreciation for how . . . If you go back and look at the 2007 version of the homepage or 2003, there was some magic to that and how it all worked, especially with the way the internet has gone with a lot of slop and misinformation, disinformation, clickbait, and people trying to get you to do things. The fact that it kind of had everything in one place, I don’t know, it was maybe taken for granted a little bit. So we actually have taken some inspiration from that. Obviously we try to modernize it. But yeah, we’ve taken some inspiration from it. So with the generative AI wave, media is changing like crazy. As search engines like Google become more of an answer engine as opposed to a search engine, sites like a lot of yours may see some of their referral traffic decline. At the same time, you have a search business yourselves. And if you follow where that is going to become more of an answer engine, you may encourage the development in that direction in people’s habits, which could undercut the other part of your business. I’m just curious how you think about those pieces fitting together. Yeah. And I spent the first 10 years of my career in search, and a lot of what we did back in the day was absolutely moving things towards an answer engine. And so I would say that’s not really new. What people know as Google OneBox, a lot of the search engines in the early 2000s were doing, already brought answers like the weather or music lyrics or multimedia or translations directly into the page. So this has always been the case. Now, there are certain kinds of queries called navigational queries. Those are trying to get you directly to a website. I do find it interesting that a lot of the generative . . . A lot of the large language models, they’re getting a lot of their traffic and sending it to places that are more canonical. So for ChatGPT, 50% of their citations are Wikipedia. For Perplexity, almost 50% are Reddit. And so those are more evergreen, deeper, almost more educational responses. A lot of Yahoo’s content is real-time, stock prices, sports scores. So for us personally, we operate in a kind of a different space. But you don&8217;t expect that referral traffic to decline? So a couple things. So one is I actually strongly believe that the role of search is not to take traffic from the open web, but to send traffic. And in our case, Yahoo’s been doing that for over two decades. We have relationships with all of our publishers where we share revenue, we send traffic downstream. And so I actually think that’s part of what Yahoo’s always done really well is help create a healthy ecosystem. That was also part of the bargain of the open web for search, that you would make yourself available to the engine that would then send you traffic downstream. Having that traffic get cut off and just subsuming that data to then keep it for yourself was not part of that grand bargain. I think we’re in the early days of figuring out how that’s going to go. What I actually think will happen in search over time, because I think we’re still in the primordial phase here of what AI versions of search will look like, is that the page will respond to your query and to what the search engine knows about you personally to have a different version of the search results page depending on the query type and depending on you. And so you’re never going to get the same kind of response to each one of these. I personally really believe that it should ultimately wind up sending traffic downstream to the sources, and little citation links probably are not going to do that.
Category:
E-Commerce
All news |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||