Late on Friday, Biden vetoed the bill that would strike down Securities and Exchange Commission guidance that the crypto industry, the banks and Congress all say has stymied its ability to work with banks. The guidance, known as staff accounting bulletin No. 121, has also drawn pushback from banks since it was published in 2022. Lenders have said it effectively restricts them from scaling up services to hold digital assets on behalf of customers by making it too costly.
Supermodel sisters Bella and Gigi Hadid plan to donate $1 million to support Palestinian relief efforts — and have set some of the cash to go to the UN’s embattled Palestinian refugee aid agency, whose employees have been linked to Hamas.
The funds have been earmarked to be equally distributed among four organizations aiding Palestinian women and children, among them the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The sisters are planning to donate to a UN agency with alleged Hamas ties.AFP via Getty Images
In January, UNRWA announced it had fired nine of its 12 staffers who Israel alleged were involved in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that left roughly 1,200 dead, with another 253 kidnapped.
A damning Israeli dossier, compiled through interrogations of Hamas terrorists and documents found in Gaza, estimated roughly 1,200 of UNRWA’s staffers had ties to Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The UN aid agency has previously come under fire from US House Republicans for allegedly aiding Hamas with “food, fuel and supplies” intended to provide humanitarian relief amid the terror group’s war with Israel.
The United States cutoff all funding to UNRWAthrough March 2025 under the $1.2 trillion spending bill passed earlier this year.
Other organizations set to receive the donations from the Hadid siblings are HEAL Palestine, Palestine Children’s Relief Fund and World Central Kitchen.
The Hadids, whose father is Palestinian-American real estate tycoon Mohamed Hadid, have been outspoken about their support for Palestinians affected by the ongoing war in Gaza.
In May, Bella Hadid wrote on Instagram that she was “devastated at the loss of the Palestinian people and the lack of empathy coming from the government systems worldwide.”
Earlier this week, Bella Hadid posted a photo of herself at the Cannes Film Festival wearing a dress with a keffiyeh pattern in a “to represent the history, labor of love, resilience and, most importantly, the art of historic Palestinian embroidery.”
In November, however, Gigi Hadid was criticized for falsely claiming Israel was “the only country in the world that keeps children as prisoners of war,” while also accusing Israelis of a number of heinous crimes against Palestinians, including rape and murder.
Americans continue to be fans of gasoline-powered vehicles and prefer them to electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrids, a new study by KPMG has shown.
Assuming all costs and features are the same, just 21% of consumers prefer an EV, the inaugural KPMG American Perspectives Survey found.
The survey assessed the views of 1,100 adults nationwide to understand their outlook on their personal financial situation and the U.S. economy and their attitudes to energy and automobiles, among other issues.
Asked which type of vehicle they want to purchase, assuming costs and features are equal, 38% said standard gas-powered vehicle, 34% picked hybrid, and only 21% an EV. Standard gasoline vehicles are the top preference in the Midwest and Northeast, with 40% and 37% of people preferring them to other types of cars, respectively.
In addition, consumer expectations for EV charging times during road trips showed a major gap between U.S. consumers and the perception of auto industry executives about consumer preferences, the KPMG survey found.
A total of 60% of consumers want charging in 20 minutes or less compared to 41% which is what auto executives believe.
The survey found that fewer consumers are likely to pay for self-driving features and entertainment, compared to safety, Wi-Fi, and a charging locator.
Many U.S. consumers resist buying electric vehicles because of politics—Republican voters are likely to have negative opinions about EVs and wouldn’t buy such a car even when they can afford it.
Most conservative respondents in a Morning Consult poll for The Wall Street Journal view electric cars unfavorably, with 41% saying their opinion is ‘very unfavorable’ and another 20% ‘somewhat unfavorable.’
Just 31% of people who identified themselves as conservative said they had a favorable view of EVs. This compares with 66% of respondents who identified themselves as liberals and have a favorable opinion of electric cars.
America's transition to a decarbonized economy demands massive base metals and rare Earth minerals. Currently, China dominates the rare Earth mineral market. However, initiatives are already underway by the US federal government to sever reliance on the Chicoms and boost domestic mining and refining abilities.
One unlikely area where 40% of the nation's lithium supply could be sourced from is 'Trump's coal country,' otherwise known as good ole' Appalachia.
According to Justin Mackey, a research scientist at the National Energy Technology Laboratory and PhD student at the University of Pittsburgh, wastewater from oil/gas rigs across the Marcellus Shale formation could supply the nation with 40% of its lithium needs.
"This is lithium concentrations that already exist at the surface in some capacity in Pennsylvania, and we found that there was sufficient lithium in the waters to supply somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of the current US national demand," Mackey told CBS News.
Mackey said there are lithium mining operations in the US. But he told local media outlet Pittwire, "This is different. This is a waste stream, and we're looking at a beneficial use of that waste."
He said finding lithium in water recycled in hydraulic fracking wasn't difficult, adding, "If you can extract value out of materials, and specifically lithium from this, then you reduce the cost of remediating and handling this waste."
The researcher said future wastewater extractions of lithium from oil/gas rigs in neighboring states, such as West Virginia, Western Maryland, and Ohio, could spark an "economic boom for the region."
Trump country has been economically decimated over the last several decades amid de-industrial trends. Death and despair, along with big pharma, helped ignite an opioid and pill epidemic that has killed tens of thousands, if not more.
Could Trump's coal country be primed for revitalization trends and capitalize off decarbonizing trends? If so, then the land across the region could become increasingly more valuable over the coming decade.
Former Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said former President Trump’s hush money trial and verdict sets a “dangerous precedent.”
“This is a dangerous precedent. If you don’t think Republican D.A.s and the Republican attorney general is going to turn this around, they will,” Buck said Friday on “Real Time With Bill Maher.” “And what I saw in Congress was I saw two impeachments that were unwarranted and the Democrats talking about that after the fact.”
Buck, who retired from Congress in a surprise announcement earlier this year, said Republicans are trying to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and President Biden because “what one side does, the other side picks up on very quickly.”
“And that’s a bad slope,” he said.
Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, made history Thursday when he became the first former U.S. president to be convicted. He was found guilty on all 34 felony charges against him for falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to conceal an alleged affair with porn actor Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
The verdict throws the 2024 presidential election into uncharted territory, as both sides grapple with how to move forward.
Immediately after the decision, Trump began fundraising on the announcement and said he plans to appeal.
The judge set the sentencing date for July 11, four days before the Republican National Convention, where Trump is expected to take the party’s nomination. The former president said in a press conference following the conviction that the “real verdict is going to be Nov. 5, by the people,” referring to Election Day.
Trump may face prison time, though first-time offenders on similar charges rarely are incarcerated.
Buck said he doesn’t think the former president will go to prison.
“I don’t think he goes to jail on a white-collar crime like this. I just don’t think that’s the sentence,” Buck said. “If you look at the sentencing history for crimes like this in Manhattan, I just don’t think he gets jail time.”
Switching to UZEDY at four weeks after the last dose of once-monthly paliperidone palmitate provided the most comparable pharmacokinetic (PK) profile based on the relevant PK modeling data
Additional data include new Phase 3 RISE and SHINE analyses demonstrating no new or unexpected safety concerns in young adults with schizophrenia treated with UZEDY
Global ADVANCE survey findings also reveal real-world experiences and perspectives on long-acting injectable (LAI) schizophrenia treatments from healthcare professionals, caregivers and patients
Seoul warned the public on Saturday to avoid more balloons sent from North Korea and to report them to the military or police.
South Korea's military said North Korea was sending more balloons carrying "filth" across the heavily fortified border.
North Korea sent hundreds of balloons carrying trash and excrement earlier this week, calling them "gifts of sincerity" and vowing to send more. South Korean Defence Minister Shin Won-sik on Saturday called this "unimaginably petty and low-grade bahaviour".
A public message broadcasted by the city of Seoul asked the public to refrain from touching balloons "identified in the sky near Seoul" and to report them as these were "being handled by the military".
Other regional governments had been asked to broadcast similar messages, the defence ministry said.
North Korea has said the balloons were retaliation for an ongoing propaganda campaign by North Korean defectors and activists in South Korea, who send balloons containing anti-Pyongyang leaflets, food, medicine, money and USB sticks loaded with K-pop music videos and dramas across the border.
