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Wednesday, November 13, 2024

FBI seizes Polymarket CEO’s phone, electronics after betting platform predicts Trump win: source

FBI agents raided the Manhattan apartment of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan early Wednesday morning — just a week after the election-betting platform successfully predicted Donald Trump’s stunning victory, The Post has learned.

The 26-year-old entrepreneur was roused from bed in his Soho pad at 6 a.m. by US law enforcement who demanded he turn over his phone and other electronic devices, a source close to the matter told The Post.

It’s “grand political theater at its worst,” the source told The Post. “They could have asked his lawyer for any of these things. Instead, they staged a so-called raid so they can leak it to the media and use it for obvious political reasons.”

Coplan was not provided with a reason for the raid, but the source suspects it was political retribution since Polymarket accurately predicted an easy Trump triumph over Vice President Kamala Harris – as opposed to traditional polls.

The source also speculated that the government is likely piggybacking off liberal media reports that accuse Polymarket of market manipulation and rigging its polls in favor of Trump.

“This is obvious political retribution by the outgoing administration against Polymarket for providing a market that correctly called the 2024 presidential election,” the source said.

Coplan was not arrested and has not been charged, a Polymarket spokesperson told The Post on Wednesday evening.

“Polymarket is a fully transparent prediction market that helps everyday people better understand the events that matter most to them, including elections,” the rep said.

“We charge no fees, take no trading positions, and allow observers from around the world to analyze all market data as a public good.”

The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Coplan posted on X after his run-in with the feds: “New phone, who dis?”

Polymarket does not allow trading in the US, though bettors can bypass the ban by accessing the site through VPN.

The FBI’s investigation comes a week after Coplan said Polymarket is planning to return to the US.

The platform – which showed Trump with a 58.6% chance of winning the morning before Election Day and Vice President Kamala Harris’ odds at 41.4% – has also been linked to Trump and his allies.

Billionaire Trump supporter Peter Thiel raised about $70 million in funding for Polymarket, according to a Forbes report earlier this year.

Coplan has also been photographed looking chummy with Donald Trump Jr.

In 2022, the online gambling platform was forced to pause its trading in the US and pay a $1.4 million penalty to settle charges with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that it had failed to register with the agency.

Since then, the platform has only been available for bettors in other countries. After the election, a mystery French trader raked in a whopping $85 million in profits on Trump bets — more than $50 million more than previously reported, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

One week before the election, a Fortune report said analysts at two crypto research firms found widespread evidence of wash-trading on Polymarket – an illegal form of market manipulation in which a trader buys and sells the same entity to create a false impression of market activity.

“Polymarket’s Terms of Use expressly prohibit market manipulation,” a Polymarket spokesperson told Fortune in a statement.

The betting platform is facing scrutiny from France’s gambling regulator, Autorité Nationale des Jeux, to make sure Polymarket complies with the country’s laws.

“We are aware of this site and are currently examining its operation and compliance with French gambling legislation,” a spokesperson for the regulator told Bloomberg.

The Autorité Nationale des Jeux did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Polymarket declined to comment on France’s investigation.

New gambling markets are required to receive advanced approval from the regulator.

The so-called French whale who cashed in on Trump’s win goes by the alias Théo. He previously said his bets were simply about making money and he denied claims that he was trying to influence the election outcome.

“I have nothing more to add,” Théo told The Wall Street Journal in his last email on Monday. “To be frank, I’m a bit tired of the whole thing – I’d like to fade back into my normal daily life.”

https://nypost.com/2024/11/13/business/fbi-seizes-polymarket-ceos-phone-electronics-after-betting-platform-predicts-trump-win-source/

School Districts That Spent COVID-19 Money Hiring Now Grapple With Layoffs

by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Around this time last year, Franklin Central School in upstate New York faced a $1.46 million budget gap and painful choices: Push for a double-digit tax increase, lay off teachers, or send high school students to a neighboring district.

The state was dealing with its own financial issues and reserved the right to shift state aid amounts based on demographics, regardless of the short notice. Franklin was ultimately held harmless, a legal term for being released from responsibility; its state aid remained at $4.6 million, or about 56 percent of the district’s 2024 to 2025 budget.

With state aid flat, there was still a 4 percent tax hike, and $200,000 was applied from the district’s reserve fund. Some positions were eliminated through attrition, and Franklin partnered with neighboring districts to share staff in limited circumstances. But at least no jobs were lost, and the older kids weren’t sent away, Superintendent Bryan Ayres said.

The school building serves fewer than 200 K–12 students in a low-income rural area in New York state’s southern tier region west of the Catskill Mountains. It had three seniors in its class of 2023. The per-pupil expenditure rate is about $35,800, according to the district website.

“The hold harmless piece is critical for us,” Ayres told The Epoch Times, adding that community organizations use the school building for events on evenings and weekends. “The loss of a million dollars in state aid would cripple the community.”

Ayres said that during the pandemic, Franklin spent its federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funds, more than $1 million, on equipment and services, not additional staff the district couldn’t pay after federal money went away.

Districts across the nation that used ESSER to bolster staff and hire teachers during the pandemic now face a fiscal cliff, but unlike Franklin, they won’t be held harmless for their circumstances or prior spending decisions. ESSER funding, which totaled $190 billion over three years, expired in September.

The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported on Oct. 23 that more than half of ESSER funds were spent on salaries and benefits.

It also said states provided oversight on spending: A New York state district’s request for a community center was denied, and in Florida, Texas, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, upgrades or renovations to athletic facilities were not funded. But in New York state and Texas, the report said, ESSER money was allowed to “replace lost state funding and maintain basic operations.”

Chad Aldeman, an education researcher, columnist, and former policy director of the Economics Lab at Georgetown University, said large urban districts with high poverty rates received the largest share of ESSER grants.

Aldeman estimated that 129,000 teaching positions could be cut by summer 2026. His calculations are based on the student–teacher ratios that decreased between the 2018 to 2019 and 2023 to 2024 academic years with the hiring of more teachers with ESSER funds. He completed a spreadsheet that lists staffing levels in thousands of districts. To return to pre-pandemic levels, it shows, for example, Miami-Dade in Florida would need to cut 794 positions; San Francisco 647; Omaha, Nebraska, 290; and Hempstead in Nassau County, New York, 62.

“This has happened before,” Aldeman told The Epoch Times. “During the Great Recession, schools shed 364,000 jobs. It was a big decline in the public sector.”

The Learning Policy Institute reported that during the 2023 to 2024 academic year, nearly 407,000 teaching positions remained vacant or were temporarily filled by uncertified adjuncts.

By contrast, Emerson Collective’s Work in Ed Page, which is updated weekly based on publicly available online postings, indicated that on Oct. 15, there were fewer than 45,000 available teaching positions, most of them requiring certifications, across 49 states and the District of Columbia. Emerson Collective is a policy organization that advocates the use of data analytics for addressing issues in education, public safety, and other areas.

Career transition services firm Challenger, Gray, and Christmas reported on Oct. 14 that there were 25,396 job cuts in the U.S. education sector in 2024 compared with 7,878 the year prior, an increase of 222 percent. Those figures include all job types in K–12 education, colleges and universities, and vendors that provide support services to learning institutions.

An April white paper by the American Institute for Research and the Center for Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Education Research indicated that in Washington state, about 25 percent of the money provided to districts funded new employees, and most of the hiring took place in larger, more urban districts that received larger shares of ESSER funding and served high populations of minority students.

All told, Washington state school districts spent $497 million over three years on additional teachers and other employees.

“If districts are unable to manage reductions via attrition, it is likely that the end of ESSER fundings will be followed by significant layoffs,” wrote one of the paper’s authors, Dan Goldhaber.

Many large school districts, including in Houston; San Diego; Anaheim, California; Hartford, Connecticut; Seattle; and Cleveland, grappled with deficits and job cuts at the end of the prior academic year.

In Michigan, public schools would need to cut 5,100 teaching positions to return to pre-pandemic staffing levels and avoid growing budget deficits, according to an April report from the Citizens Research Council of Michigan. K–12 districts in that state collectively received $3.7 billion in ESSER funds. Based on declining enrollment and the lowest student–teacher ratios, the report notes that Detroit and Ann Arbor are among the 10 districts at the most significant risk for teacher layoffs.

“We don’t know exactly when each of Michigan’s 800-plus local school districts will face these tough staffing decisions or how deep the personnel impacts will go,” the report states. “However, we are starting to see some examples play out as local boards and administrators grapple with the end of their federal relief aid and the realization that their schools are educating far fewer K–12 students than before the pandemic.”

The Epoch Times reached out to the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association teachers union but didn’t receive a response.

Because the pandemic was deemed a national emergency, ESSER funds were approved quickly with little oversight. It was assumed that school districts would use the money to provide remote learning, assure the safety of staff and students, and preserve school employment levels. The final phase of the program, ESSER III, stipulated that 20 percent of the funds must cover learning recovery efforts.

Ahead of this school year, the board of education for Memphis-Shelby County Schools (MSCS) in Tennessee cut 1,100 positions to save $68 million.

During the June 25 board meeting, MSCS Superintendent Marie Feagins said 300 of those positions were contingent on ESSER funds, while 551 other jobs were to be eliminated through attrition. Dozens of management-level employees in the central office were to be offered classroom positions at lower pay rates. Pink slips were issued to more than 200 members of the instructional staff, including teachers who had not yet completed their certifications, those who performed below expectations, and those who were assigned to monitor remote learners.

https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/school-districts-spent-covid-19-money-hiring-now-grapple-layoffs

Trump Expected To Appoint Ukraine Peace Envoy 'Soon': Fox

President-elect Donald Trump has long promised to immediately negotiate an end to the Russia-Ukraine war upon entering office. Fox News is reporting Wednesday that toward this end he may "soon" appoint a Ukrainian peace envoy to head this up.

"You're going to see a very senior special envoy, someone with a lot of credibility, who will be given a task to find a resolution, to get to a peace settlement," one of several sources told Fox. The person previewed that the appointment will happen "in short order."

Fox notes that "The job is not expected to be a salaried role - from 2017 to 2019, Kurt Volker had served as special representative to Ukrainian negotiations on a volunteer basis."

This comes amid the last couple days of new members of Trump's future administration being announced. Many Trump supporters have observed that hawks have filled up key posts so far - with most being known especially for their stridently pro-Israel positions, such as Pete Hegseth, nominated for Defense Secretary. Steven Witkoff has also been named as special envoy for the Middle East.

Over the weekend a Washington Post report said Trump held his first phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin wherein Trump warned the Russian leader not to escalate in Ukraine. Strangely, the Kremlin is denying that the phone call ever took place.

As for what a potential Trump peace plan for Ukraine might look like, the WSJ days ago revealed that a main option being considered would see a 'freeze' on the war, which to Kiev's dismay would involve "cementing Russia’s seizure of roughly 20 percent of Ukraine" while imposing a 20-year suspension on Ukraine pursuing NATO membership.

Informal Trump adviser Elon Musk responded to a report about that plan on X, writing that "The senseless killing will end soon. Time is up for the warmonger profiteers."

As for who might be named special envoy for Ukraine peace, it's anyone's guess. Most State Department veterans who have worked on the conflict are likely hawks. Thus the "old hands" are unlikely to back any plan which permanently cedes the Donbass to Russian control.

This means Trump would likely need an 'outsider' for his vision of enacting a rapid Ukraine ceasefire to have a chance. But it would also likely be someone commanding respect and influence among the Ukrainian and Russian sides.

As for the the Russian side, the Kremlin has signaled openness to engaging Trump on the issue. However, Moscow would likely grow cold to the idea if a well-known Russia hawk was chosen for the crucial spot. Kremlin officials are without doubt watching Trump's nominations closely, as the future trajectory of the conflict could hang in the balance.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trump-expected-appoint-ukrainian-peace-envoy-soon-fox

'Thune Elected Senate Majority Leader and Will Allow Fast Recess Appointments'

For all the bitching about Senator John Thune, he is geared to cooperate with Trump.

Thune Elected Senate Majority Leader

To the consternation of Rick Scott supporters, Republican John Thune of South Dakota is Elected the Next Senate Majority Leader.

Republicans have elected South Dakota Sen. John Thune as the next Senate majority leader, completing a momentous shift in their leadership that elevates a top deputy of Mitch McConnell into a key position as President-elect Donald Trump returns to the White House.
Thune, 63, is in his fourth Senate term and has promised to work closely with Trump, despite differences the two have had over the years, and will be a crucial part of the incoming president’s efforts to push through his policy agenda. The two spoke on the phone shortly after Thune was elected, the senator posted on X Wednesday afternoon, adding that “Senate Republicans are excited and ready to get to work” with the incoming president.
Trump later congratulated Thune on his social media platform, Truth Social. “He moves quickly, and will do an outstanding job,” Trump wrote. “I look forward to working with him.”
Thune beat out two other competitors, Sens. John Cornyn and Rick Scott, by gaining majority support from GOP senators in two rounds of secret ballots behind closed doors. Scott was eliminated on the first round and the final vote between Thune and Cornyn was 29-24, according to several people who requested anonymity to discuss the private meeting.
“It is a new day in the United States Senate,” Thune told reporters immediately after he was elected. He said his majority will work to toughen border security laws, lower energy costs and overturn regulations they see as burdensome.
“We are excited to reclaim the majority and to get to work with our colleagues in the House to enact President Trump’s agenda,” Thune said.
As the candidates tried to win over individual senators, all of their pitches centered around how close they would be to Trump. That was a more difficult task for Cornyn and Thune, who broke publicly with the former president over his effort to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. At the time, Thune called Trump’s actions “inexcusable.”
In recent months, though, Thune has worked to smooth over that relationship, visiting Trump at his Florida home and consulting with him on how to implement the incoming president’s agenda. Thune told The Associated Press over the summer that he views their potential relationship as a professional one. If they both won their elections, Thune said then, “we’ve got a job to do.”
As he made his case, Thune has made clear that he will listen to Trump’s demands. When Trump posted on X Sunday that the new leader “must agree” to allow him to appoint Cabinet members and others when the Senate is on recess, avoiding confirmation votes, Thune quickly responded in a statement that the Senate must “quickly and decisively” act to get nominees in place and that “all options are on the table to make that happen, including recess appointments.”
Speaking to reporters after he was elected, Thune noted that “the Senate has an advise and consent rule in the Constitution” but that they will do everything they can to get his nominees in place.
Well liked and a respected communicator, Thune has been perceived as a front-runner for much of the year. As he geared up to run for leader, Thune spent much of the year campaigning for his colleagues. According to his aides, he raised more than $31 million to elect Senate Republicans this cycle, including a $4 million transfer from his own campaign accounts to the Senate’s main campaign arm.
In the week since the election, Scott aggressively stepped up his campaign for GOP leader, campaigning publicly as the candidate closest to Trump and winning endorsements from people who are close to the former and future president, such as billionaire Elon Musk. But some questioned whether that strategy might backfire.
South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds, Thune’s home state colleague, said that he prefers the way that Thune and Cornyn have “handled it one-on-one with everybody,” but that he had talked to Scott as well. “We’ve got three qualified individuals,” he said ahead of the race.
Still, both Thune and Cornyn adopted some of Scott’s ideas as they worked to win over voters. Thune told the conference in a candidate forum Tuesday evening that he would allow more amendments on the floor and improve communication from McConnell’s regime, addressing frequent complaints from that wing of the conference.

Two Good Things

Trump appointments will sail through, most likely in one big fell swoop.
The Senate did not go through the endless and counterproductive leadership bickering as did the House last year.

I don’t know who the theoretical best candidate was. But I would rather see cooperation than endless bickering.

It’s going to take statesmanship, not petulant demands, to get some things passed this session. House republicans proved that.

This seems like a good start, especially given the slim majority of Republicans in the House.

https://mishtalk.com/economics/thune-elected-senate-majority-leader-and-will-allow-fast-recess-appointments/

EU regulators quiz Novo Nordisk, Catalent rivals on $16.5 bln deal

EU antitrust regulators have asked pharma rivals and customers for feedback in four business areas in light of Novo Holdings' planned $16.5 billion takeover of Catalent, people familiar with the matter said.

Novo Holdings is the controlling shareholder of Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk, whose profits from blockbuster weight-loss drug Wegovy propelled it to become Europe's most valuable company by market value.While the questionnaire shows the European Commission seeking to understand the market, it could allow rivals and customers to flag potential anti-competitive concerns.

The questionnaire seeks feedback on vertical links in parts of the contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) industry, including injectables, pre-filled syringes orally dissolved pills, and soft gels, the sources said.

The regulator distributed it to big pharma and CDMO companies, the sources said. This came after Novo Holdings put in a request for EU approval for the deal on Oct. 31.

The EU watchdog has set a Dec. 6 deadline for its preliminary review. Novo Holdings has until Nov. 29 to offer remedies during this phase, if any are required.

European Union regulators can either clear the deal with or without remedies, or open a full-scale, four-month investigation if they have serious concerns.

The $16.5 billion deal, announced in February, underscores Novo Nordisk's drive to boost output of Wegovy, a once-weekly injection.

After the deal closes, Novo Holdings will sell three of Catalent's fill-finish sites - in Italy, Belgium and the United States - onto Novo Nordisk for $11 billion. The sites will then by fully used by Novo Nordisk for filling its injection pens.

Novo Holdings, Novo Nordisk and Catalent all recently reiterated their expectations that the transaction will close towards the end of this year.

In May, the companies said they had received a second request from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for more information on the deal. There has been no update from the FTC on its review of the deal since then.

Novo Nordisk faces competition from U.S. rival Eli Lilly's injection Zepbound in the fast-growing obesity drug race. Some analysts have estimated the market could be worth as much as $150 billion by the early 2030s.

U.S-based Catalent, one of the world's largest contract manufacturers, made a huge windfall during the COVID-19 pandemic as it was contracted to help make vaccines by several companies.

But the company faced a range of problems in the pandemic's aftermath, as COVID-vaccine revenue fell and its costs increased due to actions to address quality control lapses identified during inspections by U.S. drug regulators at three plants.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/eu-regulators-quiz-novo-nordisk-174249880.html

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