GisermanGroup.com #BreakingNews
💸Stocks 🆙 On Jobs Report
🏠Home Affordability At Lows
🚘Your EV Made By Chinese Slave Labor
📺Trump Racketeering Trial Will Be Televised
🍫Why Your Chocolate Fix Will Cost More
🍀Government Calls To Ease Marijuana Restrictions
🦠COVID’s Back
💸Stocks Up On Jobs Report
Stock UP on the Just Released August Jobs report which shows only 186k jobs created, and hopes the Fed will hold interest rates steady as a resul. The Nasdaq registered a fifth consecutive winning day, but still suffered its worst monthly loss of 2023, down over 2%. The Dow dropped 2.36% for the month
GisermanGroup.com client, Mario Veneroso, of Kingsview Wealth Management tells Fox Business stocks went into August with a bang-up first half of the year:
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🪙Bitcoin ETF
Bitcoin jumped 7.15% to $27,851.82 as Grayscale Investments moved closer to launching a spot-based Bitcoin exchange-traded fund in the US. It’s a potential watershed moment in the cryptocurrency industry’s quest to tap billions of dollars from everyday investors. Coinbase shares also up big time as a result.
Exiger’s Samar Pratt, a GisermanGroup.com client, Client, on FinTechTV says Crypto has also gained a foothold at BNY Mellon:
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🏠Home Affordability At Lows
Housing affordability is at its lowest level in 40 years. Existing Home Sales in July hit the lowest in 13 years, with the average price of a home sold soaring above $400,000. The average rate on a 30-year mortgage hit 7.48%, the highest level since 2000, according to Mortgage News Daily. But Sales of new single-family homes rose in July as an acute shortage of existing homes drove buyers to new units as prices dropped by nearly 10%.
Warnings now that mortgage rates are headed to 8%. Consumers and economists surveyed by the Federal Reserve expect mortgage rates to rise to 8.4% by next year, and 8.8% in three years’ time.
SitusAMC’s Tim Rood, a GisermanGroup.com client, breaks it all down to Fox’s Neil Cavuto:
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Demand for homes around the country continues to outpace supply, despite a rapid rise in borrowing costs.
Rood, on Scripps News says Housing is the Cinderella Story of the Year:
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🚘Your EV Made By Chinese Slave Labor
Your Electric Car and Truck may include parts manufactured by Chinese Slave-Labor.
Electric-vehicle batteries and other car parts are the latest products under scrutiny in Washington's effort to stamp out U.S. links to forced-labor in China.
China and Supply Chain Expert, Exiger CEO Brandon Daniels, a GisermanGroup.com client, says, "If you're a car manufacturer and you have not started mapping your supply chains for the parts made in China and where they are getting their goods from, you are running a real peril as we go into the back half of the year.”
Daniels says, “Increased inspection of products destined for auto assembly plants by U.S. Customs and Border Protection could signal difficult times ahead for automakers who will need solid proof that their supply chains are free of links to a region where Chinese authorities have established labor camps for Uyghurs and other Muslim minority groups.”
💻TikTok Ban
New York City has banned China-owned TikTok on government devices, citing security concerns, joining a number of cities and states that have put such restrictions on the app.
The Biden administration is demanding TikTok’s Chinese-owners sell their stakes in the video-sharing app or face a full U.S. ban.
Matt Hayden Former Cybersecurity Czar at the Department of Homeland Security and a GisermanGroup.com client on Scripps News says TikTok is dangerous:
It’s a trying time for all of us.
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📺Trump Racketeering Trial Will Be Televised
Donald Trump’s racketeering trial will be televised, the Fulton County, Georgia, judge who will be presiding has ruled.
Judge Scott McAfee says that all court proceedings in the case will be livestreamed on the Fulton County Court Youtube channel, and there will be pool coverage for television and radio.
Trump capitalizing on his mugshot after being arrested and processed at Atlanta’s Fulton County Jail to the tune of a $7.1 million fundraising bonanza.
Trump’s 2024 campaign released a line of merchandise with his mugshot and the slogan, “NEVER SURRENDER!”
A new Emerson College Polling survey following the August Republican Primary debate finds half of Republican Primary voters (50%) plan to vote for Donald Trump, the lowest support to date for the former President in Emerson national polls. Trump’s support has dropped by six percentage points since last week’s pre-debate national poll.
Trump is now Fulton County Jail inmate #P01135809. He has been booked on felony charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020.
Trump was photographed, fingerprinted and if you bet on his weight via an online gambling site, the ‘under’ bet won. Authorities listed him as having “blond or strawberry” hair, a height of 6-feet-3inches and a weight of 215 pounds — 24 pounds less than the White House doctor reported Trump weighing in 2018. These numbers were filled out in advance by aides, according to someone familiar with the preparations, not by officials at the jail.
Trump’s weight left many users on X, formerly known as Twitter, incredulous. “215? That’s an insane lie,” tweeted Rick Wilson, co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump political action committee.“If Trump weight (sic) 215lbs, then I have flowing blond locks past my shoulders,” Wilson, who is bald, snarked in a second tweet.
This is Trump's fourth indictment this year, but it's the first time he's had his mugshot taken. “He’s scared $hitless,” former White House chief of staff John Kelly told the Washington Post.
🗓️Trump’s Trial Date ‘Dance Card’ is filling up:
August 28:Federal Court DC Hearing
Oct. 2: New York civil fraud trial
Jan. 15: Second E. Jean Carroll civil defamation trial, NY
March 4 Wash, DC Election Conspiracy trial
March 25: Manhattan hush-money trial
May 20: Federal classified documents trial in Florida
🥶McConnell Freezes Again
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell released a letter from the attending physician of Congress pronouncing him “medically clear” to continue his schedule as planned, a day after he appeared to freeze again during a news conference in his home state of Kentucky.
Video showed the Republican senator speaking in Covington when he was asked by reporter about whether he will run for reelection in 2026. McConnell trailed off and was seen staring ahead for more than 30 seconds before an aide stepped in to ask if he'd heard the question.
The aide then turns to the room and says," Alright, I am sorry you all. We are going to need a minute."
An aide for the senator said while McConnell feels fine, he will be consulting a physician out of caution before his next event.
📺New CNN Chief
Mark Thompson, the former chief executive of The New York Times and director general of the BBC, has been named CNN chief executive and chairman.
CNN, one of the world’s leading news organizations, has been buffeted by a nearly endless string of crises for the last 18 months. Ratings have plunged, profits have fallen, and the network is still reeling from Chris Licht’s tenure as chief executive, which was terminated in June amid sagging staff morale.
“Mark is a true innovator who has transformed for the digital age two of the world’s most respected news organizations,” David Zaslav, the chief executive of CN Parent Warner Bros. Discovery, said in a statement. “His strategic vision, track record in transformational leadership and sheer passion for news make him a formidable force for CNN and journalism at this pivotal time.”
🍫Why Your Chocolate Fix Will Cost More
Chocoholics take notice.
Consumers have seen a 20% rise in prices and are starting to cut back on the amount of chocolate they buy.
The industry has enjoyed bumper profits over the past couple of years as demand for chocolate held up despite price hikes, but data seen by Reuters shows this trend may be breaking just as prices for cocoa hit 46-year-highs and sugar prices are near their highest in more than a decade.
🍀Government Calls To Ease Marijuana Restrictions
Government Health officials are recommending easing restrictions on marijuana, a move that sets the stage for potentially expanding the cannabis market.
A top official at the Department of Health and Human Services wrote Drug Enforcement Agency Administrator Anne Milgram calling for marijuana to be reclassified as a Schedule III drug under the Controlled Substances Act, according to a letter dated Aug. 29 seen by Bloomberg News.
🌀Dangerous Hurricane Slams Florida
Airlines canceled about 900 flights Wednesday as Hurricane Idalia closed airports in Florida and disrupted air travel across the South in advance of a busy holiday weekend. Idalia with winds of 130 miles per hour made landfall in Florida as a Category 3 hurricane, moving up the coast hitting Georgia and North Carolina as well. Two deaths from car crashes were attributed to the hurricane, Hundreds of thousands are without power.
Now a Tropical Storm, Idalia descended on the Carolinas on its way out to the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday, leaving a trail of flooding and destruction throughout the Southeast that stretched back to its landfall as a hurricane in Florida.
Rescue and repair efforts continued in the areas the storm passed Wednesday and there was no immediate word on the toll from the ferocious winds and inundating waters, but authorities counted at least one death.
The storm left as many as a half-million customers without power in Florida and other states at one point as it ripped down power poles and lines. Still, it was far less destructive than feared, providing only glancing blows to Tampa Bay and other more populated areas as it came ashore with 125 mph (201 kph) winds in rural Florida.
Wagner Group Commander Killed In Plane Crash
U.S. officials are increasing certainty that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the mercenary chief, was killed in Wednesday’s plane crash near Moscow and that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the killing of Prigozhin, who mounted June’s short-lived mutiny against his authority.
Russia’s civil aviation authority confirmed that the Wagner founder was on the flight.
Social-media channels close to the Wagner Group claim Russian air defenses shot down the jet. Video footage posted by onlookers showed what looked like the trail of a missile and the plane falling from the sky with one wing missing.
It’s a trying time for all of us.
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🎡Bob Barker Dead
Bob Barker, the longtime host of television’s “The Price Is Right” has died,.
“It is with profound sadness that we announce that the World’s Greatest MC whoever lived, Bob Barker has left us,” publicist Roger Neal said in a statement Saturday.
Barker, who was also a longstanding and prominent advocate for animal rights, was a fixture of daytime television for half a century — first as the host of “Truth or Consequences,” from 1956 to 1974, and, most famously, starting in 1972, on “The Price Is Right,” the longest-running game show on American television.
Bob Barker was 99.
💉COVID’s Back-New Strains, Vaccines
A late-summer wave of coronavirus infections has touched schools, workplaces and local government, as experts warned the public to brace for even more Covid-19 spread this fall and winter.
Hospitalizations have increased 24 percent in a two-week period ending Aug. 12, according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Wastewater monitoring suggests a recent rise in Covid infections in the West and Northeast.
Three new COVID-19 variants are now spreading across the country.
Levels of COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths for now remain far below previous peaks seen during past summer and winter waves of the virus, but have been climbing steadily for several weeks.
Public health officials have said that they're well-equipped for the latest seasonal uptick in the virus, with COVID-19 tests and forthcoming vaccines expected to work for the variants on the rise around the country.
But the appearance of a new "highly mutated" variant has raised questions among virus trackers about what the coming months could hold.
🔥Maui Wildfire
It’s the deadliest U.S. wildfire in 100 years. Burning across Maui, killing over 100 with hundreds still unaccounted for. More than 1000 buildings destroyed. Electricity is out to much of the island. Financial losses are approaching $6 billion.
The legal fallout has begun. A lawsuit blames equipment from the Hawaiian Electric Industries,
Fast-moving blazes prompted thousands to evacuate, forced some residents to flee by swimming into the Pacific Ocean and reduced a historic town to ashes.
Among the many challenges the authorities are now facing is identifying the victims and searching for survivors. Days after the fires broke out, canine teams have been able to scout only 3% of the disaster zone.
Hawaii has become more vulnerable to disastrous wildfires because climate change has reduced rainfall.
In 2014, a wildfire-protection plan for the area was written by the Hawaii Wildfire Management Organization, a nonprofit that works with government agencies. It warned that Lahaina was among Maui’s most fire-prone areas because of its proximity to parched grasslands, steep terrain and frequent winds. It was mostly ignored.
📉Shocker: Christie Beats DeSantis in NH Poll
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has surpassed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the critical early presidential primary state of New Hampshire, according to an Emerson College survey.
Christie leapfrogged DeSantis for second place in the Granite State, garnering 9 percent support. DeSantis’s support, on the other hand, fell to 8 percent from 17 percent in March.
Trump still leads with 49% of Republican New Hampshire voters.
🧨Hunter Biden Special Counsel
Hunter Biden is now facing the threat of a trial during the heat of his father's re-election campaign.
The appointment of U.S. Attorney David Weiss as special counsel in the case included the news that Hunter Biden's plea agreement was at an impasse.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said Weiss told him the investigation had "reached the stage" where the powers of a special counsel were necessary, and a trial a real possibility.
The decision caught Democrats by surprise. So much for those who thought Hunter Biden’s legal woes would be taken care of in a plea agreement, leaving them to contend only with attacks from Republican lawmakers with a record of overstating their findings.
⛽️Gas Prices Pump Higher
Gas prices hit $3.82, according to the AAA, with the price of the crude oil benchmark West Texas Intermediate hovering at around $80 per barrel over the last week.
The increase in national average gas prices stems partly from hot weather, which is exacerbated by climate change, with AAA spokesperson Andrew Gross saying: “Last month’s extreme heat played a role in the recent spike in gas prices due to some refineries pulling back.”
🐖Pig Kidney Working In Human
A genetically modified pig kidney transplanted into a brain-dead patient over a month ago is still working normally..
The procedure was carried out by a team of surgeons in New York on 14 July, and researchers are now tracking the kidney's performance for a second month.
It is the longest period a gene-edited pig kidney has functioned in a human.
"Is this organ really going to work like a human organ? So far it's looking like it is," said Dr Robert Montgomery, director of NYU Langone's transplant institute.
The deceased patient, Maurice "Mo" Miller from upstate New York, died suddenly at 57 with a previously undiagnosed brain cancer - ruling out routine organ donation.
The possibility that pig kidneys might one day help ease a dire shortage of transplantable organs is what persuaded his family to donate his body for the research.
But is it Kosher?
🎄Christmas Sales Starting Now
Ho, ho, ho or no, no, no?
Lowe's announcing that it's starting to sell Christmas-themed items including wreaths, inflatables and trees. The move comes after Home Depot's holiday merchandise debuted.
Look for hot toy lists in the coming weeks.
Amazon will hold a sale for Prime members in October — well ahead of Black Friday.
This is the earliest we can remember. Deck the halls
✋Amazon’s Pay-By-Hand Tech
Ready to Hand it to Amazon?
Amazon rolling out new technology that allows you to scan your palm to pay, instead of using a credit card or your cell phone. And the company has plans to expand use of the tech all the way to accessing your medical records.
Instead of pulling out a credit card or even a phone for Apple Pay, subscribing customers hover their palms over an Amazon One device to pay.
The technology is already available at 200 locations across the U.S. from supermarkets to stadiums.
Not everyone is happy with the idea of one of the world’s biggest tech conglomerates scanning everyone’s hands and storing that data in its cloud.
🚕RoboTaxis Get Green Light
RoboTaxis now have the green light to operate in San Francisco.
After a contentious public hearing with hours of public comment, the California Public Utilities Commission has authorized GM’s Cruise and Google’s Waymo to begin offering paid rides to the public at all hours of the day and across San Francisco.
The historic decision makes San Francisco the first city in the world to have two companies offering fully operational paid autonomous driving taxi services and put autonomous vehicles on the fast track towards widespread use in California
Self-driving cars are popping up in more cities in the U.S. but as they spread, so do concerns about their safety.
💉Employers Squeezed By Costs of Weight-Loss Drugs
So many people have turned to drugs used for weight loss that some employers are cutting off insurance coverage to head off climbing bills.
Use of drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy has exploded as word has spread about their weight-loss benefits. Demand has risen so high so fast that Novo Nordisk, the maker of the drugs, hasn’t been able to manufacture enough, while analysts have been revising multibillion-dollar sales estimates upward.
The cost of the drugs can run as much as $1,350 a month for a patient, have quickly leapt into the tens of millions of dollars for insurance plans. The outlays are straining the finances of some plans, including those funded by employers.
Meantime the makers of the drugs, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, are being sued for failure to adequately warn patients about the possible risk of severe stomach problems associated with Ozempic and Mounjaro.
🎥Actors Strike
Tens of thousands of Hollywood Television and Movie Actors are on Strike
SAG-AFTRA’s national board of directors voted unanimously to approve a strike action, widening the scope of labor unrest in an entertainment industry that is already facing numerous headwinds.
Media titan Barry Diller delivered a devastating forecast for Hollywood, if the writers and actors’ strikes are not resolved soon.
Appearing on CBS’ Face the Nation Sunday, Diller — the head of the media conglomerate IAC, who previously served as CEO for Paramount and 20th Century Fox — weighed in on the state of the industry amid the SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America strikes. Diller called the current challenges facing the industry a “perfect storm.”
“You had Covid, which sent people home to watch streaming television and killed theaters,” Diller said. “You’ve had the results of huge investments in streaming which have produced all these losses for all these companies that are now kind of retrenching. So at this moment, it’s kind of a perfect storm.”
📺ABC For Sale?
Disney CEO Bob Iger has opened the door to selling the company’s traditional TV assets.
Disney owns a portfolio of TV networks, broadcast stations, the ABC network, and cable TV channels like ESPN.
Disney is going to be “expansive” in its thinking about the traditional TV business, leaving the door open to a possible sale of the networks. “They may not be core to Disney,” Iger said on CNBC, adding the creativity that has come from those networks has been key for Disney.
It comes as the linear TV business struggles during the media industry’s transition to streaming and digital offerings.
🕊️Meta Stock @ 52 Week Hi as Musk-Zuckerberg War Gets Elon Musk-owned Twitter, meanwhile, had about 107 million users on July 14, according to Similarweb, which tracks usage only on the social media platform’s Android app.
Elon Musk is letting the personal insults fly as the social media feud with Mark Zuckerberg heats up.
Musk Tweets:
“Zuck is a cuck,” the Twitter chief writes on Twitter…he goes on:
“I propose a literal dick measuring contest.”
Zuckerberg says his new sight ‘Threads’ hit 100 million sign-ups less than a week after launching, but usage is way down from the peak.
Twitter’s lawyer wrote a letter to Meta accusing the company of “systematic” and “unlawful misappropriation” of trade secrets following the launch of Threads.
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🏛️Newsom, Kennedy In?
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s rising media profile in recent weeks has renewed speculation over his Democratic presidential aspirations.
He’s made appearances on the national media with NBC’s “Today” show and Fox News’s “Hannity,” raising renewed interest in his political future.
Some of that national spotlight has been used to go after Republican Presidential candidate Rob DeSantis over several dozen migrants who were flown to California.
Meantime, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine activist with a celebrated Democratic lineage has emerged with unexpected strength in early polls even as he spreads conspiracy theories and consorts with right-wing figures and billionaire donors.
Kennedy’s support from Democrats, as high as 20% in some surveys, serves as a bracing reminder of voters’ appetite for a Biden alternative.
💻U.S. Government Hacked
Several U.S. government agencies, including the Energy Department, have been hacked, and a Russian group is demanding ransom.
The data-stealing cyberattack exploitEd a software bug that had already compro-mised major businesses in the U.K. and elsewhere is blamed. So far none of the information has shown up on the dark web or elsewhere.
🏓PickleBall Coming To YOUR Mall
Pickleball is coming to your local mall, replacing shuttered Bed Bath & Beyond, Old Navy and Sears stores.
It’s an effort to fill vacant spaces and draw in customers to shop.
Consumers are craving fun, social experiences after years of limited gatherings during the pandemic, and they have shifted their spending from goods to experiences like theaters, arcades and amusement parks.
Malls are responding to these trends by turning to a wider range of tenants and activities to draw traffic, real estate investment firm JLL said in a report this week that malls are drawing on the huge PickleBall crowds and building courts.
🍀Americans Spend More On Weed Than On Beer & Chocolate Combined
U.S Legal sales of marijuana and marijuana products -- like edibles -- reached an estimated $30 billion in 2022, according to a report from MJBizDaily.
That total is more than Americans spent on chocolate and craft beer combined, -- $20 billion and $7.9 billion, respectively.
And get this — legal sales are still vastly outweighed by illicit ones – Whitney Economics estimates that legal transactions constituted just 25% of total cannabis market in 2021.
💻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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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