GisermanGroup.com #BreakingNews
🚨#TRUMP Pleads Not Guilty To 34 Counts
📺No #TVCameras in Courtoom
🐭#Disney’s Iger Takes on #DeSantis
🎢Stocks Sink
🏠SilverLining: Low #Mortgages
💸#Bank #Bailout: Is YOUR #Money Safe?
🤖#ChatBots ‘Profound Risk To Society’
⏰#TikTok Ban
🔫Video: Shooter Kills 3 Kids At #School
⚾️Batter Up - #Baseball’s Back
🏀#NCAA Final
🚨TRUMP Pleads Not Guilty
Donald Trump Pleads Not Guilty To 34 Counts of falsifying business records to hide hush-money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels weeks before the 2016 election.
Before the arraignment hearing, Trump was formally booked and fingerprinted.
Lawyers for Trump urged a judge to deny a request by media outlets for TV cameras in the Manhattan courtroom. But five pool photographers were allowed “to take still photos for several minutes.”
Get this: Trump’s planning to give a speech at Mar-a-Lago tomorrow evening after he’s arraigned in New York.
Trump is the first former president to face criminal charges, and as a candidate for President is seeking to milk the event for voters and campaign donations.
The campaign has been using the indictment in fund-raising appeals, and said it had raised $4 million in just 24 hours, though financial records corroborating the claim will not be available for weeks.
Trump has posted this threatening picture of himself holding a baseball bat — with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s hands up — on his Truth Social platform.
Cyrus Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney who preceded Bragg, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was “disturbed” that Trump has been attacking not just Bragg but also the judge in the case.
Cops set up barricades outside the Manhattan court house ahead of any action. The NYPD, Secret Service, US Marshals and New York State Court Officers are all involved in security discussions.
Trump called on his supporters to protest in the face of the expected charges in a post on his Truth Social Web Site.
Trump’s post is reminiscent of his call in late 2020 for supporters to come to Washington on January 6th to protest the election results: “Be there, will be wild!”
Trump’s rant on his social network is a doozy, calling for all investigators to be fired:
“District Attorney Bragg is a danger to our Country, and should be removed immediately, along with Radical Lunatic Bombthrower Jack Smith, who is harassing and intimidating innocent people at levels not seen before, ‘Get Trump’ Letitia James, the worst Attorney General in the United States, and Atlanta D.A. Fani Willis, who is trying to make PERFECT phone calls into a plot to destroy America, but reigns over the most violent Crime Scene in America, and does nothing about it!”
Meantime there are reports multiple Secret Service agents who guard Trump will testify before a D.C. grand jury likely on Friday. The grand jury appearances are related to the Special Counsel Jack Smith probe into the handling of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, and may change the former President with obstruction of Justice.
🐭#Disney’s Iger Takes on #DeSantis
Walt Disney CEO Robert Iger called Florida’s actions against Disney over the past year “antibusiness” and “anti-Florida” in his first in-depth comments about the company’s ongoing battle with Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“While the company may have not handled the position that it took very well, a company has the right to freedom of speech just like individuals do,” Iger said at Disney’s annual meeting of shareholders, in response to a question about the dispute.
The two sides have been clashing since Disney’s decision in early 2022 to publicly oppose the Parental Rights in Education bill, a measure that prohibits classroom instruction on gender and sexuality for young elementary school students.
🎢Stocks Sinking
Stocks sinking a day after OPEC cuts oil production. Washington has stepped in to criticize the decision by eight OPEC+ producers — including group leader Saudi Arabia and key allies Kuwait and the UAE — removing more than 1-million barrels per day from global oil markets.
It comes after The Nasdaq gained 16% for the first quarter. It was the best quarter since 2020 for the tech-heavy index. The Dow ended the period with a 0.38% increase.
BUT, a widely anticipated recession has YET failed to materialize. The labor market has remained robust, even with a pickup in layoffs in the technology sector in recent months. And inflation, while still high, has continued to ease, consumer prices rose 6% from a year earlier in February, the smallest annual gain since September 2021.
💸Bank Bailout: Is YOUR Money Safe?
Next troubled Bank Charles Schwab, facing pressure from bond losses and rising cash yields.
Schwab’s stock closed on Friday at $52.38, down from $76.20 on March 8, two days before the federal government shuttered Silicon Valley Bank. It’s down nearly 44 percent, from $93.16, on March 29 of last year.
President Biden urging federal banking regulators to take up a set of reforms reversing Trump-era regulatory rollbacks, following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
Efforts to stop a spreading panic following recent bank failures seemed to be working, as the largest banks in the U.S. swooped in to rescue First Republic with a flood of cash totaling $30 Billion.
BUT, there are 186 including Schwab and other banks across the country that could fail according to a study published on the Social Science Research Network.
Still the crisis has a Silver Lining: Mortgage Rates Are Lower and as a result home sales rose in February. It comes as home prices dropped for the first time in 11 years.
SitusAMC’s Tim Rood, a GisermanGroup Client breaks it all down to Fox’s Neil Cavuto:
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🤖ChatBots ‘Profound Risk To Society’
More than 1,000 technology leaders and researchers, including Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, have urged artificial intelligence labs to pause development of the most advanced systems, warning in an open letter that A.I. tools present “profound risks to society and humanity.”
Artificial intelligence is taking over “clerical white collar work,” says IBM CEO Arvind Krishna. Jobs like customer service, human resources, and positions within finance and health care could all see ChatBots taking them over — not years from now but in the current day, according to Krishna.
Researchers from OpenAI and the University of Pennsylvania argued in a new research paper that 80 percent of the US workforce could have at least 10 percent of their work tasks affected by the introduction of ChatGPT. They also found that about 19 percent of workers may find at least 50 percent of their duties impacted by GPT, or General-purpose technologies.
There’s one big hitch: Governments — notably Washington — haven’t kept pace with regulations for the technology. That could lead to dire consequences: “By failing to establish such guardrails, policymakers are creating the conditions for a race to the bottom in irresponsible A.I.,” Carly Kind, the director of the Ada Lovelace Institute, a policy research group, told The Times.
⏰TikTok: Time Running Out On Chinese Co.
Ban TikTok.
A high-stakes showdown as TikTok’s CEO testifies in front of a House Committee.
The Biden administration demanding TikTok’s Chinese owners sell their stakes in the video-sharing app or face a U.S. ban.
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told lawmakers that China-based employees at its parent company ByteDance may still have access to some U.S. data but added that won’t be the case once its risk mitigation plan is complete.
Matt Hayden Former Cybersecurity Czar at the Department of Homeland Security and a GisermanGroup client on Scripps News says TikTok is dangerous:
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WSJ Reporter Arrested In Russia
President Biden, European governments and the chief of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization denounced the arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and demanded his release, while a senior Russian diplomat said the investigation in the reporter’s case was ongoing and declined to state when he would be permitted visits from lawyers and U.S. diplomats.
Gershkovich, 31 years old, was arrested in the Russian city of Yekaterinburg. Russian authorities have accused Gershkovich of espionage, which the Journal and the Biden administration deny. He is currently being held at a jail in Moscow run by Russia’s Federal Security Service, or FSB.
🔫Video: Shooter Kills 3 Kids At School
Nashville school shooter Audrey Hale’ manifesto is set to be released to the public after the FBI and its’ highly skilled team of criminal profilers analyze its contents.
Three children and three adults were killed and the heavily-armed transgender shooter is dead at a private Christian school in Nashville. All of the kids were 9 years old!
This video of the incident was released overnight.
The 28 year old shooter said to have been armed with two rifles and a handgun, and a former student at the school. She apparently left behind what police call a manifesto and detailed maps of the scene planning the shooting.
Police say they shot and killed the suspect within minutes of arriving at the scene and hearing shots fired on the second floor. Here’s the policy body-cam video:
Hale, was under doctor’s care, Chief John Drake of the Nashville Police Department at a news conference added that the alleged shooter’s parents felt that their child “should not own weapons.”
CLICK: School Shootings This Year
This is the photo on the Christmas Card of the Congressman who represents the Nashville district:
Enough Said!
🏠Home Sales Surprise
If the economy is so bad, why then are home sales so good? Home prices nationally rose 0.16% in February according to Black Knight. That is the strongest one-month gain since May of last year.
SitusAMC’s Tim Rood, former FannieMae Executive, and a GisermanGroup client, on Yahoo Finance, FBN's Cavuto and on Scripps News says Housing is the Cinderella Story of the Year:
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⚾️Batter Up - Baseball’s Back
On This Baseball’s Opening Week
….we give you our favorite baseball song to get you in the mood:
But Get This:
A breakdown of the typical cost to see a live Major League Baseball last year puts the national average at $256 for a family of four.
That ain’t peanuts!
🏀NCAA Finals
The Huskies have their fifth national title.
After a thoroughly dominant run through the NCAA tournament, No. 4 UConn delivered an exclamation point handling No. 5 San Diego State, 76-59.
The Huskies came within a few points of being the most dominant team in tournament history. They beat Iona by 24, St. Mary’s by 15, Arkansas by 23, Gonzaga by 28 and Miami by 13 before Monday’s matchup with the Aztecs. They would’ve needed to beat San Diego State by 26 in order to break the all-time tournament record for point differential, but the Aztecs kept it respectable in the second half.
GisermanGroup.com will design a campaign to get you and your business in front of the public.
GisermanGroup.com gets YOU noticed, contact us now
📺FoxNews: A Dangerous TV Show
Fox News suffers a setback in its defense against a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit that claims it lied about voter fraud in the 2020 election. judge says the case, brought by Dominion Voting Systems, is strong enough to conclude that Fox hosts and guests had repeatedly made false claims about Dominion machines and their supposed role in a fictitious plot to steal the election from President Trump, and will go forward.
Rupert Murdoch, chairman of Fox News’s parent company, acknowledged in a deposition that several hosts for his networks promoted a false narrative that the election in 2020 was stolen from Donald Trump, according to just released court documents.
“They endorsed,” Murdoch said under oath in response to direct questions about the hosts Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro, Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, a legal filing by Dominion Voting Systems said. “I would have liked us to be stronger in denouncing it in hindsight.”
Despite what Fox News reported after the 2020 election, behind the scenes its most prominent stars and highest-ranking executives privately trashed claims of election fraud. That's according to damning messages contained in that court filing, part of Dominion Voting Systems'$1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox.
The messages show that TuckerCarlson, Hannity, and Laura Ingraham laughed at lies being pushed by former President Donald Trump’s camp asserting that the election was rigged.
In messages, Hannity said Giuliani was "acting like an insane person" and Ingraham described him as "an idiot." Murdoch said it was "really bad" that Giuliani was advising Trump.
The messages also revealed that Murdoch did not believe Trump’s election lies and even floated the idea of having Carlson, Hannity, and Ingraham appear together in prime time to declare Biden as the rightful winner of the election. Such an act, which never happened, "Would go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election was stolen," Murdoch said.
🍋CNN’s Morning Debacle
CNN’s low rated morning show was already in trouble. Its three anchors show little chemistry reflected in dropping audience numbers. Now, Don Lemon, one of the morning-show anchors has been criticized by the man who created the losing show, after his on-air comments about women and aging set-off an uproar inside the cable news channel. Lemon made no on-air mentions this morning but did send the above tweet.
Lemon upset colleagues when he asserted on the air that Nikki Haley, the 51-year-old Republican presidential candidate, “isn’t in her prime, sorry.” “A woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s,” Lemon said, to the visible dismay of his “CNN This Morning” co-anchors, Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins. He refused to back down after Harlow questioned his remarks, telling her to “look it up.”
Lemon returned to the show after a memo sent by CNN’s chairman Chris Licht said Lemon “has agreed to participate in formal training” over his on-air behavior and that the network took “this situation very seriously.”
☕️Cool Beans: Coffee Good For You
Go ahead have that second cup. A new study says Coffee is good for you.
The research showed that coffee has striking effects on physical activity levels, causing people to move more, taking, on average, 1,000 extra steps a day — a significant boost in activity that might help explain why coffee consumption has long been linked to better health.
But the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, did find some downsides to a daily cuppa. It showed that people lost about 36 minutes of nightly sleep on days when they drank coffee — and the more coffee they drank, the less they slept.
☕️How About Olive Oil With Your Coffee—Really
Coming to a Starbucks near you coffee with olive oil!
The coffee chain plans to launch a line of olive-oil-infused drinks, set to debut in the company’s coffee shops in Italy this week and the U.S. in the spring. The Oleato beverages will include an oat-milk latte imbued with extra-virgin olive oil, and a cold brew drink topped with “golden foam” infused with the oil, executives said. Star-bucks is also adding the oil to its Iced Shaken Espresso beverage, pairing it with oat milk and hazelnut.
🏛️Santos “An Ass,” Says Romney
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) verbally attacked Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) on the House floor at the State of the Union because he believed the lawmaker should have been “staying quiet” rather than out shaking hands, as Santos comes under fire for lies about his background and potential campaign finance violations that are now under investigation.
Romney told Santos he “shouldn’t have been there” during a tense exchange when the two came in contact on the House floor, the senator confirmed to reporters.
The Utah senator told reporters he “didn’t hear anything” if Santos responded to him, though Santos claims he responded, “Go tell that to the 142K that voted for me” and Romney then called him “an ass.”
Santos is facing an ethics investigation for misleading voters about his past, including his professional experience. He is also facing investigations into false statements he made during his campaign about his education, work history and ancestry. More questions arose recently regarding the source of six-figure loans to his campaign.
A disabled veteran claims that Santos lied about large portions of his resume — purportedly bilked him out of $3,000 meant to go toward life-saving care for his dog.
Santos reportedly dressed as a drag queen named “Kitara” while living in Brazil more than a decade ago as more details of the congressman’s convoluted identity continue to emerge.
Researchers found no evidence that Santos had earned degrees at Baruch College and New York University, as he has claimed. They turned up records showing his involvement with the company accused of a Ponzi scheme — a relationship he had played down. They found eviction records, business records and a suspended Florida driver’s license, which together raised questions about whether he was a legal New York resident and as rich as he claimed to be.
The House Republican leadership is facing growing pressure to punish Santos after GOP leaders in New York call on the congressman to step down.
🕕FTX Drama Leads to Crypto Collapse
The fallout from the collapse of FTX is expanding as a growing number of crypto businesses report that they’re struggling financially.Silvergate’s shares plunged after a run on the bank. The crypto-focused bank’s stock fell nearly 43%. Coinbase, a cryptocurrency trading platform, said it would lay off about 20% of its employees, its latest move to cut costs as crypto markets decline. The layoffs come after nearly a fifth of employees were let go in June.
Federal authorities are moving to seize hundreds of millions of dollars in assets in the U.S. tied to the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, a sign that the battle over control of the company’s remaining funds is escalating.
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried pleaded not guilty to fraud and other criminal charges, in New York Federal Court following the collapse of his cryptocurrency exchange. His trial is scheduled for October.
Politicians were among the biggest benefactors. Bankman-Fried; Ryan Salame, the former co-C.E.O. of FTX; and Nishad Singh, a former head of engineering at the company, have donated a total of $84.3 million to Democrats, Republicans and political action committees since 2019, according to data collected by OpenSecrets.org.
Meantime, a lawsuit has been filed against stars who promoted the firm including Larry David, Tom Brady, and Stephen Curry.
Exiger’s Samar Pratt on FinTechTV explains how Crypto had just gained a foothold at BNY Mellon before this meltdown:
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Get The Notice You Deserve in 2023
It’s a trying time for all of us.
>>Get your business noticed now<<
GisermanGroup.com will design a campaign to get you and your business in front of the public.
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💊Weight Loss Wonder Drug Worth Billions
What price beauty?
An Eli Lilly drug if approved for weight loss could become the best-selling drug of all time.
Experts are confident that the drug, called tirzepatide, will be granted approval by the Food and Drug Administration sometime this year. If that’s the case, it would join two other popular — and expensive — recently approved weight loss drugs on the market, Wegovy and Saxenda, both from the drugmaker Novo Nordisk.
The drugs have been shown in clinical trials to be highly effective for weight loss. All three drugs — which are given as injections — work in a similar way: They’re a class of drugs called GLP-1 agonists, which mimic a hormone that helps reduce food intake and appetite.
Oh yea it would cost you $13,000 a year (and most insurances won’t pay)!
💻They Want Your Password
Warning-New Scams to steal your passwords.
If you've had a password hacked recently, you aren't alone. The volume of password attacks has soared to an estimated 921 attacks every second. That's a 74% rise in one year, according to the latest Microsoft Digital Defense Report.
Exiger's Robert Kolasky with more on Bloomberg & CBS:
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💰Money Does Buy Happiness
Money really does buy happiness.
The rule extends well beyond the $75,000-a-year salary threshold that had been seen as the upper limit for making an impact, according to a team of scientists that include the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist who introduced the idea of a happiness plateau more than a decade ago.
Happiness does increase steadily in line with incomes and even accelerates as pay rises beyond $100,000 a year and more — as long as the person enjoys a certain baseline level of happiness to begin with. That’s according to a study of 33,391 people living in the US, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.
The results contradict a famous 2010 paper by the psychologist Daniel Kahneman and economist Angus Deaton, which reported that happiness goes up with income until the relationship starts to “flatten” at between $60,000 and $90,000 a year.