At a divided Federal Reserve, policymakers pushing for lower interest rates look close to getting their way after Chair Jerome Powell on Friday opened the door to a cut in September.
The debate over what happens after that is likely to begin even before the Federal Open Market Committee meets Sept. 16-17 in Washington. And there’s no guarantee that more cuts will follow any time soon.
India and Russia plan to increase their annual trade to $100 billion over the next five years – an increase of 50% – despite US opposition to the growing cooperation between New Delhi and Moscow, a top Indian minister announced on Thursday.
During the first day of a three-day visit to Moscow on Wednesday, Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar emphasized the need for India and Russia to broaden their trade ties, foster additional joint ventures between their companies, and hold more frequent meetings to resolve issues such as payment systems. Russia ranks as India’s fourth-largest trade partner, while India holds the position of Russia’s second-largest.
"We are all acutely aware that we are meeting in the backdrop of a complex geopolitical situation. Our leaders remain closely and regularly engaged," he said while speaking at the India–Russia Business Forum in the Russian capital.
Jaishankar added that rising global uncertainty puts the emphasis back on "dependable and steady partners."
Economic uncertainty has come from recent actions taken by US President Donald Trump to punish India for its ongoing purchases of Russian oil.
New Delhi’s purchases of Russian crude skyrocketed after the start of the war with Ukraine in 2022. After its oil exports to Europe collapsed in the wake of the war, Russia turned to India, offering steep discounts.
In response, Trump has imposed a 25% tariff on Indian goods, saying the oil purchases help fund Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “war machine.” Trump has threatened to raise tariffs on India further, to 50 percent, a rate high enough to ensure Indian exports to the US will not be competitive.
In response, India has said it has the right to buy oil from the cheapest source, calling the tariffs "unreasonable."
Following Trump’s threats, India’s state refiners began last week to buy large volumes of non-Russian crude. Indian Oil Corp. and Bharat Petroleum Corp. have purchased oil from multiple alternate suppliers in recent weeks, including suppliers in the US, Brazil, and Gulf states, for October delivery.
Private Indian refiners are expected to continue purchasing Russian oil per the long-term contracts they have previously signed. Earlier this month, India halted plans to purchase US weapons and military aircraft in response to President Trump’s tariffs on New Delhi’s exports.
“India had been planning to send Defense Minister Rajnath Singh to Washington in the coming weeks for an announcement on some of the purchases, but that trip has been cancelled,” two sources speaking with Reuters said.
In February this year, Trump and India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced plans for the procurement and joint production of Stryker combat vehicles made by General Dynamics Land Systems and Javelin anti-tank missiles made by Raytheon and Lockheed Martin.
The sources told Reuters that India’s defense minister was also planning to announce the purchase of six Boeing P-8I reconnaissance aircraft and support systems for the Indian Navy during the trip to Washington, which has now been canceled.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/india-russia-set-100bn-trade-target-rejecting-us-pushback
Fox Corp’s suite of TV properties is finally rolling out to cord-cutters as the media giant dives head-first into the streaming wars.
Fox One, the ambitious all-in-one app that houses all of Fox Corp’s television offerings, went live on Thursday across web, mobile and connected TV devices, bringing together Fox News, sports programming and entertainment content — available to be had for $19.99 a month.
The offer includes a seven-day free trial and annual pricing at $199.99, positioning itself as a premium alternative to traditional cable packages that have hemorrhaged subscribers in recent years.
The platform is available across major devices including Apple iOS, Android, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Google TV, Xbox, Samsung, LG and Vizio smart TVs.
The launch comes as Fox pivots aggressively toward streaming after its Super Bowl broadcast on Tubi shattered digital records with 15.5 million peak concurrent viewers and 24 million unique viewers earlier this year.
The platform targets cord-cutters and “cord-nevers” — those who have never subscribed to cable — with what Fox bills as a “live-first experience” featuring robust AI integrations for personalized content discovery and enhanced search capabilities powered by partnerships with Perplexity and Sierra AI.
“We are excited to get Fox One in the hands of viewers today, and bring our leading News, Sports and Entertainment programming to fans who have been underserved in the streaming ecosystem to date,” Pete Distad, CEO of Direct to Consumer at Fox Corporation, said in a statement.
Fox News Channel, the top-rated cable news network for over 23 years, will stream live 24/7 on the platform — marking its first availability on a standalone streaming service.
The news division already commands massive digital audiences with 1.5 billion YouTube views and 3.7 billion social media video views in the most recent fiscal quarter alone.
Sports programming includes NFL, MLB, college football and basketball, UFL, NASCAR, IndyCar and FIFA World Cup coverage across Fox Sports, FS1, FS2 and Big Ten Network.
Entertainment offerings feature this fall’s biggest Fox hits including “The Floor,” “Hell’s Kitchen,” “Murder in a Small Town” and the complete Animation Domination lineup with “The Simpsons,” “Bob’s Burgers” and new series.
Fox Corp is sister company to The Post’s corporate parent News Corp. Shares of Fox Corp, which are listed on the Nasdaq, were trading flat as of 2 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday.
Fox Television Stations add local news muscle as the number one local news source, producing over 1,350 hours weekly and featuring more than 600 local sporting events including top NFL, MLB and NBA games.
The service includes unlimited DVR storage, personalized highlight packages and a vertical video format for trending clips currently in beta testing.
Starting Oct. 2, Fox One will bundle with ESPN’s new direct-to-consumer service for $39.99 monthly, offering access to all ESPN linear networks plus ESPN+, covering 47,000 live events annually.
The ESPN partnership represents a major strategic alliance as both companies chase streaming revenues while traditional cable subscriptions continue declining nationwide.
Existing pay-TV customers can authenticate within Fox One at no additional cost, while cord-cutters get full access to the premium content portfolio previously locked behind cable paywalls.
Fox Nation and B1G+ are available as add-ons, with a Fox Nation bundle priced at $24.99 monthly or $19.99 when purchasing annual plans at launch.
Fox One’s “We Live For LIVE” marketing campaign targets cord-cutters through creator platforms, social media, podcasts and digital-first strategies, emphasizing the company’s live programming dominance.
The service leverages technological innovations from Tubi Media Group to enhance user experience with advanced content discovery features and seamless integration of live and on-demand programming.
Fox Corporation has positioned the launch as extending its DNA in live programming, from breaking news and record-setting sports to competition series and acclaimed animation.
The company promises Fox One will “rapidly evolve” in coming weeks and months to exceed customer expectations for premium, personalized viewing in an AI-powered entertainment landscape.
With cable subscriptions plummeting and streaming wars intensifying, Fox One represents the media conglomerate’s boldest bet yet on direct-to-consumer revenue streams.
https://nypost.com/2025/08/21/business/fox-one-all-in-one-streaming-app-launches-for-19-99-a-month/
The DOJ has just released transcripts and audio from two days of interviews last month with Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who said that President Trump was "never inappropriate with anybody" while he and Epstein were associates, and that her father was an intelligence asset.
"Did you ever hear Mr. Epstein or anybody say that President Trump had done anything inappropriate with masseuses or with anybody in your world?" asked Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in Tallahassee, Florida last month.
"Absolutely never, in any context," Maxwell replied.
"I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way," Maxwell said in another segment.
Maxwell also said her father, the late Robert Maxwell, was an intelligence asset...
Robert Maxwell, a media tycoon and former Labour MP, was notably given a state funeral in Jerusalem after 'accidentally' falling off his Yacht, the "Lady Ghislaine." He was long speculated to have been a secret agent for the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence office that is equivalent to the CIA. By proxy, that suspicion has led to speculation that the intelligence agency Epstein was associated with was the Mossad as well.
"It’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Epstein had connections to the [Israeli intelligence community]," said Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie K. Brown, whose investigative reporting was the reason that the Epstein case was reopened after it was buried by federal prosecutors in 2008. "Robert Maxwell certainly had those kinds of connections, and Epstein had a close relationship with Robert Maxwell."
Ghislaine, however, said that her father and Epstein never met.
She also does not believe Epstein killed himself. She also provided some tricky answers about Mossad...
"I do not believe he died by suicide," said Maxwell, who added that she has no idea who might have killed him.
Also interesting is that Ghislaine admitted to being "part of the beginning process of the Clinton Global Initiative."
Hospital accountable care organization (ACO) participation did not impact emergency department admission rates, length of stay, or costs, suggesting limited effectiveness in reducing spending for unplanned admissions and challenging hospital-led ACO cost-saving strategies.
ABSTRACT
Objectives: Hospital participation in accountable care organizations (ACOs)—Medicare’s signature alternative payment model—continues to grow despite mixed evidence on spending and quality. This study examines whether hospital ACO participation is associated with changes in emergency department (ED) admission practices, hospital length of stay (LOS), and spending for unplanned admissions.
Study Design: A difference-in-differences analysis of Medicare fee-for-service ED visits and hospitalizations (2008-2019).
Methods: Medicare claims were linked to ACO tracking data from Torch Insight to identify hospitals that joined an ACO between 2012 and 2017 (6 cohorts, followed for a maximum of 5 years), the start date of their initial contract, and ACO characteristics. Key outcomes included ED admission and observation stay rates, hospital LOS for emergent admissions, and total costs for an index ED event.
Results: Among the 995 hospitals (27.6% of the short-term hospitals in our study) that joined a Medicare ACO during the study period, program participation up to 5 years was not associated with changes in the rate of hospitalization from the ED, hospital LOS, or total costs of the index event. Findings remained consistent across ACO program, contract risk levels, year of program entry, and overall ACO performance (eg, whether the ACO generated shared savings).
Conclusions: Hospitals did not significantly alter care delivery for unplanned hospitalizations after joining an ACO. These findings suggest that hospital-led ACOs may have limited impact on reducing costs for emergent admissions, raising concerns about their ability to drive meaningful care transformation.
