Equifax's chief executive, Richard Smith, is retiring.

\n\nThe chief executive of Equifax is retiring, the company said Tuesday, just weeks after the troubled credit reporting agency disclosed that it had suffered a massive data breach affecting as many as 143 million people.\n\nThe departure of Richard Smith comes as Equifax has drawn fire from countless consumers and dozens of federal lawmakers over its handling of the breach. Equifax announced earlier this month that hackers gained unauthorized access to sensitive personal data — Social Security numbers, birth dates and home addresses — for nearly half of the country. The company also faces multiple federal investigations over its handling of the hack and reports that executives sold an unusual amount of stock before the breach was publicly disclosed.\n\nEquifax's board of directors appointed board member Mark Feidler to serve as the company's nonexecutive chairman, the company said in a statement Tuesday. Paulino do Rego Barros Jr., who led the company's Asia Pacific division, will become the interim chief executive.\n\n“The cybersecurity incident has affected millions of consumers, and I have been completely dedicated to making this right,” Smith said in the statement. “At this critical juncture, I believe it is in the best interests of the company to have new leadership to move the company forward.”\n\nSmith, 57, had been the chairman and chief executive since 2005, after spending 22 years at General Electric. During Smith's time at Equifax, the company’s stock price had soared 200 percent, and its market value swelled from $3 billion to $20 billion. Smith also expanded the company’s business into 24 countries.

Equifax is facing multiple federal investigations over its handling of the hack.

\n\nFormer Equifax CEO Richard Smith says he is "deeply sorry" for the security breach in which sensitive personal information of as many as 143 million Americans was compromised.\nSmith, who is set to testify before a House Energy and Commerce Committee Tuesday, apologized for the cyber attack disclosed by the credit reporting company on September 8. He confirmed that the hack occurred due to "human error and technology failures," according to prepared remarks posted on the committee\'s website Monday.\n\n"To each and every person affected by this breach, I am deeply sorry this occurred," said Smith, who will make his first of four appearances on Capitol Hill this week on the breach. "The company failed to prevent sensitive information from falling into the hands of wrongdoers."\n\nThe former CEO announced his retirement last week from the credit reporting company.\n\nEquifax has come under fire for its handling of the huge cybersecurity breach. The company is one of three nationwide credit-reporting companies that track and rate the financial history of U.S. consumers, gathering data from credit card companies, banks, retailers and lenders.\n\nIn his eight-page testimony, Smith outlined the chronology of events that lead to the breach, which allowed criminals to access personal information including names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and in some cases driver\'s license numbers and credit card information.\n\nThe former CEO said hackers were able to infiltrate a software weakness in an online portal that allows consumers to dispute items on their credit report.

\n\nThe blows keep coming for Equifax (NYSE:EFX) as shares continue to tumble and the Federal Trade Commission announced plans to open an investigation into the credit reporting company Thursday after the company went public with its massive security breach last week, putting 143 million American’s personal data at risk.\n\nIn case you missed all drama, here’s a timeline of events, involving one of the biggest security breaches of all time.\n\nMid-May through July 2017 – This is the time frame in which Equifax says hackers gained unauthorized access to its data.\n\nThursday, July 29 – Equifax discovers the hack and immediately stopped the intrusion.\n\nTuesday, August 1 & Wednesday, August 2– Three top executives from Equifax sell nearly $2 million worth of company stock.\n\nThursday, September 7 – Equifax officially alerts the public about the cybersecurity incident and provides a dedicated website for consumers to check if they were affected. Later on that night, the company also issues a statement saying the three executives “had no knowledge that an intrusion had occurred at the time they sold their shares.”\n\nFriday, September 8 –Shares of Equifax shed more than 13% of their value in trading. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tears into the company on social media for trying to push customers to give up their right to sue.\n\n\n.@Equifax is forcing you to give up your right to join a class action against the company if you want their credit protection product. pic.twitter.com/anu0SE58wg\n\n— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) September 8, 2017\n

Equifax discovers the hack and stops the intrusion.


After months of waffling, lawsuits, verbal mudslinging, and the near miss of a full-blown trial, Elon Musk now owns Twitter.\n\nOn Thursday night, Mr. Musk closed his $44 billion deal to buy the social media service, said three people with knowledge of the situation. He also began cleaning the house, with at least four top Twitter executives — including the chief executive and chief financial officer — getting fired on Thursday. Mr. Musk had arrived at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters on Wednesday and met with engineers and ad executives.\n\nThe closing of the deal, which followed months of drama and legal challenges as Mr. Musk changed his mind about buying the company, sets Twitter on an uncertain course. Mr. Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist,” has said that he wants to make the social media platform a more freewheeling place for all types of commentary and that he would “reverse the permanent ban” of former President Donald J. Trump from the service. Mr. Musk’s open approach to speech on Twitter could exacerbate long-simmering issues of toxic content and misinformation, affecting political debates around the world. Early tests will come within days, when Brazil elects its president and American voters go to the polls on Nov. 8 for the midterm elections. Twitter said it would prohibit misleading claims about voting and the outcome of elections, but that was before Mr. Musk owned it.

Twitter acquisition was confirmed in an SEC filing.

Musk originally offered to buy Twitter for $44 billion in April ($54.20 per share), a deal that Twitter ultimately accepted. Musk in May put the takeover "temporarily on hold" because of a dispute over the number of fake or spam accounts that Twitter claimed to have. Twitter said that fake accounts represented less than five percent of users, but Musk was not convinced. In July, Musk decided he no longer wanted to buy Twitter and attempted to call off the purchase, claiming that Twitter did not comply with its contractual obligations and that he was not provided with the relevant business information that he requested. Twitter in turn filed a lawsuit to force Musk to go on with the sale, accusing him of trashing the company, disrupting its operations, and destroying stockholder value. Musk\'s decision to offer to continue on with the purchase comes ahead of a trial that was set to begin on October 17. With Musk once again on board, it is probable that the acquisition will go through, provided he does not change his mind again.

Musk put the takeover "temporarily on hold".

Elon Musk appears to be closer to completing his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter than at any point since he first said the deal was “on hold” nearly five months ago. But it’s not a done deal yet. Musk earlier this week sent a letter to Twitter (TWTR) proposing to move forward with the acquisition at the original price of $54.20 per share and suggesting the litigation over his initial effort to exit the deal be dropped. Twitter (TWTR) replied saying it had received the letter and plans to close the deal on the originally agreed upon terms. But Twitter and Musk on Wednesday had yet to reach an agreement on ending the litigation, which would avert the trial that’s set to take place in less than two weeks, a person familiar with the negotiations told CNN. The source added it was unclear if the two parties would reach an agreement on Wednesday. The judge overseeing the case on Wednesday also filed a letter saying that neither party has moved to stay the proceedings in the case and “I, therefore, continue to press on toward our trial set to begin on October 17.” As it considers Musk’s revived acquisition proposal, Twitter must also think about how to avoid getting stuck in a situation where the billionaire pulls more shenanigans and drags the process out even longer. That could mean continuing the legal fight, for now, or adding new provisions to the original contract.

Elon Musk sends a letter to Twitter proposing to move forward with the acquisition.

Elon Musk closes $44 billion deal to buy Twitter.

On April 5, Musk discloses he has purchased more than 9% of Twitter\'s shares on the open market. At first, he is offered a board seat. That plan quickly falls through — and Twitter decides to adopt a poison-pill strategy to fend off a hostile takeover from Musk. Musk subsequently makes an offer to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share, or about $44 billion — a price well above the company\'s stock price at the time. He says his goal is to apply free speech principles to the platform, which he claimed had been mismanaged. "The company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form," he writes. "Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company." Musk says he would fund the deal through a combination of cash and borrowing. At this point, shares in Musk\'s automotive company, Tesla, begin to decline; by mid-November, they will have lost close to half their value. By April 25, Twitter decides to accept Musk\'s offer. “The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing,” Twitter’s Independent Board Chair Bret Taylor says in a statement. “The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.” On May 13, Musk tweets he is putting the deal to acquire Twitter "temporarily on hold" pending additional information about the volume of fake and spam accounts on the platform.

Shares in Musk's automotive company, Tesla, begin to decline.


Gwyneth Paltrow\'s attorneys asked the daughter of a man suing the actor-turned-lifestyle influencer over a 2016 ski collision about missing GoPro camera footage that they called "the most important piece of evidence" at trial Thursday.\n\nSteve Owens, Paltrow\'s attorney, asked one of the man\'s daughters, Polly Grasham, about emails exchanged with her father about the mysterious footage and the possibility that the lawsuit was filed against Paltrow because she was famous.\n\nThe GoPro footage has not been found or included as evidence for the trial.\n\n"I\'m famous ... At what cost?" Terry Sanderson, the 76-year-old retired optometrist suing Paltrow, wrote in the subject line of an email to his family after the crash.\n\nSanderson is suing Paltrow for more than $300,000 in damages, claiming that she skied recklessly into him on a beginner run at Deer Valley Resort seven years ago, breaking his ribs and leaving him with a concussion. Paltrow has claimed Sanderson caused the crash and countersued for $1 and attorney fees.\n\nThe trial took on an increasingly personal note on the third day of proceedings when Sanderson\'s daughter and a neuropsychologist testified about his declining health.\n\nSanderson\'s attorneys tried to persuade jurors that the collision had changed the course of their client\'s life, leaving him brain-impaired and damaging his relationships with loved ones.\n\nPaltrow\'s attorneys questioned whether Grasham and neuropsychologist Dr. Alina Fong could say with certainty that Sanderson\'s downturn wasn\'t a result of aging or documented, pre-crash conditions.

The witness Craig Ramon was recalled to testify about newly obtained evidence related to a message board earlier on Monday.

Public opinion of actress Gwyneth Paltrow seems to have changed following her big win in a ski collision lawsuit.\n\nPaltrow was sued by retired optometrist Terry Sanderson in 2019 over a ski crash that he claimed left him severely injured. However, a jury ruled that the Goop founder was not at fault for the accident and awarded her $1 in damages Thursday. Sanderson himself was found to be 100% at fault for the collision.\n\nPrior to the ski collision trial, which lasted for eight days in Utah state court, Paltrow had received an interesting reaction from the public. The Oscar-winning actress has faced tremendous backlash over the years for her beliefs and comments, including the recent drama over her "starvation diet." \n\nPaltrow also came under fire when she announced she and ex-husband Chris Martin planned to "consciously uncouple" rather than divorce after 10 years of marriage. \n\nThe lawsuit, brought against Paltrow by Sanderson, was seen by some – including PR expert Dave Quast – to be "extremely opportunistic."\n\nCelebrity branding expert and founder of Achilles PR Doug Eldridge explained that Paltrow chose to be "authentic" and as an actress chose to play herself throughout this trial. "She took a positive PR bump post trial for four reasons: 1) she won, 2) she countersued for $1 dollar (along with what is likely mid-six figures in legal fees), 3) her answers were ridiculous, and 4) her courtroom wardrobe was strategic and effective."

Paltrow was criticized by the public for promoting starvation diets and her ideas on conscious uncoupling

Gwyneth Paltrow\'s ski crash trial came to an end Thursday when a jury sided with the actor, saying she was not at fault for a 2016 collision at Utah’s Deer Valley Resort that injured a retired optometrist.\n\nTerry Sanderson sued Paltrow for $300,000, alleging that reckless skiing caused her to run into him from behind on Feb. 26, 2016. Sanderson said he suffered four broken ribs, a concussion and lasting brain damage that affected his daily life and personal relationships.\n\nPaltrow, who has repeatedly denied running into Sanderson, countersued for $1 and her legal fees.\n\nThe trial went on for more than a week. The jury deliberated for just a few hours before deciding that Sanderson, not Paltrow, was at fault.\n\nHere’s a timeline of the events that led up to the court case, and memorable moments from trial.\n\nSanderson filed a lawsuit on Jan. 29, 2019, saying that Paltrow was skiing "out of control" when she hit him from behind, knocked him down, and then landed on top of him. He said after the collision, the actor got up and skied away and did not offer any help.\n\nHe was initially seeking more than $3.1 million but amended it to $300,000.\n\nSanderson said it took him three years to file the suit because his legal team could not come to a resolution after meeting with Paltrow and her attorney.

Sanderson's legal team could not come to a resolution with Paltrow and her attorney.

Gwyneth Paltrow is on trial over a 2016 ski accident in Utah involving a retired optometrist who claims he suffered life-altering injuries.\n\nTerry Sanderson, 76, says the Hollywood actress was distracted and caused the crash. He is seeking $300,000 (£245,000) in damages.\n\nMs Paltrow, 50, denies the charge, and has countersued for $1 plus compensation for attorneys\' fees.\n\nMr Sanderson first filed suit against Ms Paltrow in 2019, three years after their collision.\n\nThe former US army captain and optometrist, who says he has never been injured in more than 30 years of skiing, accuses the Oscar winner of being "reckless" and racing into him from behind on a beginner slope at the upscale Deer Valley Resort in western Utah.\n\nLawyers for Mr Sanderson, who was 69 at the time, allege Ms Paltrow was distracted by her children and emitted a "blood-curdling scream" before landing on top of him, then left him "lying in the snow" without calling for help.\n\nHe claims the February 2016 crash left him unconscious, and that he suffered a traumatic brain injury and four broken ribs, as well as "loss of enjoyment of life, emotional distress and disfigurement".\n\nHe initially sought $3.1m over what he deems a "hit and run", but that lawsuit was dismissed last May.\n\nHe took the stand twice during the trial, defending himself against allegations he is trying to exploit a celebrity.\n\n\nA movie star-turned-lifestyle influencer, Ms Paltrow rejects the plaintiff\'s version of events and alleges he skied directly into her back.

Paltrow has counter-sued for $1 plus lawyers fees.

The trial over a 2016 ski accident involving actor and businesswoman Gwyneth Paltrow wrapped up Thursday, with the jury ruling that she was not responsible for the collision at a Utah ski resort.\n\nAfter a short deliberation, the jury concluded that plaintiff Terry Sanderson was entirely at fault for the collision, with the decision ultimately hinging on which party jurors believed was higher on the slopes when the crash occurred. \n\nSanderson, 76, sued Paltrow for $3.1 million after alleging that she crashed into him at the tony Deer Valley resort in Park City, Utah. After a judge dismissed his initial suit, he later refiled his complaint seeking more than $300,000. Paltrow, 50, countersued for a symbolic $1 and attorney fees.\n\nIn each taking the stand last week, Paltrow and Sanderson presented starkly different accounts of the collision and called a succession of medical experts and witnesses to buttress their claims. Paltrow\'s ski instructor at the time of the incident, Deer Valley veteran Eric Christiansen, blamed Sanderson for the crash, which occurred on a beginner ski run. \n\n\n"Gwyneth was making her turns very rhythmically," he said under oath, while alleging that Sanderson "was making wide radius turns and taking up a large swath of the ski slope."\n\nFor his part, Sanderson has accused Paltrow of barreling into him, breaking four of his ribs and causing a severe concussion whose symptoms lingered for years.

Terry Sanderson sued Gwyneth Paltrow over a ski accident for $3.1 million.


\n\nThe Panama Papers are an unprecedented leak of 11.5m files from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The records were obtained from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The ICIJ then shared them with a large network of international partners, including the Guardian and the BBC.\n\nWhat do they reveal?\nThe documents show the myriad ways in which the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes. Twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens.\n\nA $2bn trail leads all the way to Vladimir Putin. The Russian president’s best friend – a cellist called Sergei Roldugin – is at the centre of a scheme in which money from Russian state banks is hidden offshore. Some of it ends up in a ski resort where in 2013 Putin’s daughter Katerina got married.\n\nAmong national leaders with offshore wealth are Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister; Ayad Allawi, ex-interim prime minister and former vice-president of Iraq; Petro Poroshenko, president of Ukraine; Alaa Mubarak, son of Egypt’s former president; and the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson.\n\nAn offshore investment fund run by the father of British prime minister David Cameron avoided ever having to pay tax in Britain by hiring a small army of Bahamas residents to sign its paperwork.

Documents revealed by the Panama Papers leak have implicated the new head of world football.

11.5 million files were leaked from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca.

\n\nA network of secret offshore deals and vast loans worth $2bn has laid a trail to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.\n\nAn unprecedented leak of documents shows how this money has made members of Putin’s close circle fabulously wealthy.\n\nThough the president’s name does not appear in any of the records, the data reveals a pattern – his friends have earned millions from deals that seemingly could not have been secured without his patronage.\n\nThe documents suggest Putin’s family has benefited from this money – his friends’ fortunes appear his to spend.\n\nThe files are part of an unprecedented leak of millions of papers from the database of Mossack Fonseca, the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm. They show how the rich and powerful are able to exploit secret offshore tax regimes in myriad ways.\n\nThe offshore trail starts in Panama, darts through Russia, Switzerland and Cyprus – and includes a private ski resort where Putin’s younger daughter, Katerina, got married in 2013.\n\nThe Panama Papers shine a particular spotlight on Sergei Roldugin, who is Putin’s best friend. Roldugin introduced Putin to the woman he subsequently married, Lyudmila, and is godfather to Putin’s older daughter, Maria.\n\nA professional musician, he has apparently accumulated a fortune – having been placed in ostensible control of a series of assets worth at least $100m, possibly more.\n\nRoldugin appears to have been picked for this role because of his lesser profile. He has denied in documents to bank officials in Switzerland and Luxembourg that he is close to any Russian public figures.

Roldugin has denied that he is close to any Russian public figures.

Süddeutsche Zeitung shared the records with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).


\n\nThe global energy crisis has triggered unprecedented momentum behind renewables, with the world set to add as much renewable power in the next 5 years as it did in the past 20\n\nThe global energy crisis is driving a sharp acceleration in installations of renewable power, with total capacity growth worldwide set to almost double in the next five years, overtaking coal as the largest source of electricity generation along the way and helping keep alive the possibility of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C, the IEA says in a new report.\n\nEnergy security concerns caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have motivated countries to increasingly turn to renewables such as solar and wind to reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels, whose prices have spiked dramatically. Global renewable power capacity is now expected to grow by 2 400 gigawatts (GW) over the 2022-2027 period, an amount equal to the entire power capacity of China today, according to Renewables 2022, the latest edition of the IEA’s annual report on the sector.\n\nThis massive expected increase is 30% higher than the amount of growth that was forecast just a year ago, highlighting how quickly governments have thrown additional policy weight behind renewables. The report finds that renewables are set to account for over 90% of global electricity expansion over the next five years, overtaking coal to become the largest source of global electricity by early 2025.\n\n

Investment in clean energy technologies is significantly outpacing spending on fossil fuels.

\n\nChina has been the world's largest and fastest-growing producer of renewable energy for more than a decade, but has widened its lead over international rivals through a steep acceleration in the roll out of wind capacity since 2021.\n\nChina added more wind generation capacity in the past two years than over the previous seven, and in 2022 generated 46% more wind power than all of Europe, the second largest wind generation market, according to data from think tank Ember.\n\nAs Europe had been the world's top wind power producer until 2020, China's widening lead over the rest of the world in such a tight time frame further cements China's status as the global green energy leader, and underscores Beijing's commitment to overhauling its massive energy system at a record pace.\n\nFurther, the rapid roll out of wind capacity, along with a more than 27% surge in solar generation in 2022 from the year before, helped push China's electricity share from clean energy sources to a record 34.2% last year.\n\nThat in turn will help the country's energy system to limit reliance on high-polluting fossil fuels such as coal even as economic growth gathers momentum in 2023 following the lifting of COVID-19 movement curbs that restricted activity in 2022.\n\nWhile China has deployed record volumes of both solar and wind power capacity over the past decade, wind generation capacity has grown more steeply than solar capacity since 2020.\n

China has been the world's largest and fastest-growing producer of renewable energy for more than a decade.

\n\nThe U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a nearly $11 billion investment on Tuesday to help bring affordable clean energy to rural communities throughout the country.\n\nRural electric cooperatives, renewable energy companies and electric utilities will be able to apply for funding through two programs, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said during a media briefing on Monday.\n\nVilsack said it was the largest single federal investment in rural electrification since President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Rural Electrification Act in 1936 as part of the New Deal.\n\n"This is an exciting opportunity for the Rural Utility Service to work collaboratively with our great partners, the Rural Electric cooperatives, in order to advance a clean energy future for rural America," Vilsack said. "So this is an exciting and an historic day, and it continues an ongoing effort to ensure that rural America is a full participant in this clean energy economy."\n\nThe Empowering Rural America program will make $9.7 billion available for rural electric cooperatives to create renewable energy, zero-emission and carbon capture systems.\n\nJim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, praised the administration for the investment.\n\n"This is an exciting and transformative opportunity for co-ops and their local communities, particularly as we look toward a future that depends on electricity to power more of the economy," Matheson said. "USDA has smartly structured this program in a way that will help electric co-ops leverage new tools to reduce costs and keep energy affordable while meeting the future energy needs of their rural communities."\n\n

Jim Matheson, CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, praises the administration.


\n\nEquifax says a giant cybersecurity breach compromised the personal information of as many as 143 million Americans — almost half the country.\nCyber criminals have accessed sensitive information -- including names, social security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and the numbers of some driver\'s licenses.\n\nAdditionally, Equifax said that credit card numbers for about 209,000 U.S. customers were exposed, as was "personal identifying information" on roughly 182,000 U.S. customers involved in credit report disputes. Residents in the U.K. and Canada were also impacted.\n\nThe breach occurred between mid-May and July, Equifax said. The company said it discovered the hack on July 29.\n\nThe data breach is one of the worst ever, by its reach and by the kind of information exposed to the public.\n\n"This is clearly a disappointing event for our company, and one that strikes at the heart of who we are and what we do," said Equifax chairman and CEO Richard F. Smith.\n\nEquifax is one of three nationwide credit-reporting companies that track and rates the financial history of U.S. consumers. The companies are supplied with data about loans, loan payments and credit cards, as well as information on everything from child support payments, credit limits, missed rent and utilities payments, addresses and employer history, which all factor into credit scores.\n\nUnlike other data breaches, not all of the people affected by the Equifax breach may be aware that they\'re customers of the company.

\n\nFormer Equifax CEO Richard Smith says he is "deeply sorry" for the security breach in which sensitive personal information of as many as 143 million Americans was compromised.\nSmith, who is set to testify before a House Energy and Commerce Committee Tuesday, apologized for the cyber attack disclosed by the credit reporting company on September 8. He confirmed that the hack occurred due to "human error and technology failures," according to prepared remarks posted on the committee\'s website Monday.\n\n"To each and every person affected by this breach, I am deeply sorry this occurred," said Smith, who will make his first of four appearances on Capitol Hill this week on the breach. "The company failed to prevent sensitive information from falling into the hands of wrongdoers."\n\nThe former CEO announced his retirement last week from the credit reporting company.\n\nEquifax has come under fire for its handling of the huge cybersecurity breach. The company is one of three nationwide credit-reporting companies that track and rate the financial history of U.S. consumers, gathering data from credit card companies, banks, retailers and lenders.\n\nIn his eight-page testimony, Smith outlined the chronology of events that lead to the breach, which allowed criminals to access personal information including names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and in some cases driver\'s license numbers and credit card information.\n\nThe former CEO said hackers were able to infiltrate a software weakness in an online portal that allows consumers to dispute items on their credit report.

\n\nThe blows keep coming for Equifax (NYSE:EFX) as shares continue to tumble and the Federal Trade Commission announced plans to open an investigation into the credit reporting company Thursday after the company went public with its massive security breach last week, putting 143 million American’s personal data at risk.\n\nIn case you missed all drama, here’s a timeline of events, involving one of the biggest security breaches of all time.\n\nMid-May through July 2017 – This is the time frame in which Equifax says hackers gained unauthorized access to its data.\n\nThursday, July 29 – Equifax discovers the hack and immediately stopped the intrusion.\n\nTuesday, August 1 & Wednesday, August 2– Three top executives from Equifax sell nearly $2 million worth of company stock.\n\nThursday, September 7 – Equifax officially alerts the public about the cybersecurity incident and provides a dedicated website for consumers to check if they were affected. Later on that night, the company also issues a statement saying the three executives “had no knowledge that an intrusion had occurred at the time they sold their shares.”\n\nFriday, September 8 –Shares of Equifax shed more than 13% of their value in trading. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tears into the company on social media for trying to push customers to give up their right to sue.\n\n\n.@Equifax is forcing you to give up your right to join a class action against the company if you want their credit protection product. pic.twitter.com/anu0SE58wg\n\n— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) September 8, 2017\n

Equifax discovers the hack and stops the intrusion.

\n\nHackers were able to access personal data of 143 million Equifax customers.\nHow did it happen?\n\nMuch is still unknown. But it came down to a flaw in a tool designed to build web applications, the company said in a press release this week. And Equifax admitted it was aware of the security flaw a full two months before the company says hackers first gained accessed to its data.\n\nSome of the information hackers had access to includes names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and some driver\'s license numbers.\n\nThe tool is called Apache Struts, and it\'s used by many large businesses and government organizations. Equifax used it to support its online dispute portal -- where Equifax (EFX) customers go to log issues with their credit reports. The flaw allowed hackers to take control of a website.\n\nA cybersecurity arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, US-CERT, "identified and disclosed" the Apache Struts flaw in March, Equifax said in a statement.\n\nAnd the company\'s security department "was aware of this vulnerability at that time, and took efforts to identify and to patch any vulnerable systems."\n\nYet, according to the company, hackers exploited the flaw months later.\n\nEquifax has said it discovered the data breach on July 29. On Friday, it said it waited until it "observed additional suspicious activity" a day later to take the affected web application offline.\n\nAnd on August 2 Equifax contacted Mandiant, a professional cybersecurity firm, to help the company assess what data had been compromised.\n\n

\n\nThe chief executive of Equifax is retiring, the company said Tuesday, just weeks after the troubled credit reporting agency disclosed that it had suffered a massive data breach affecting as many as 143 million people.\n\nThe departure of Richard Smith comes as Equifax has drawn fire from countless consumers and dozens of federal lawmakers over its handling of the breach. Equifax announced earlier this month that hackers gained unauthorized access to sensitive personal data — Social Security numbers, birth dates and home addresses — for nearly half of the country. The company also faces multiple federal investigations over its handling of the hack and reports that executives sold an unusual amount of stock before the breach was publicly disclosed.\n\nEquifax's board of directors appointed board member Mark Feidler to serve as the company's nonexecutive chairman, the company said in a statement Tuesday. Paulino do Rego Barros Jr., who led the company's Asia Pacific division, will become the interim chief executive.\n\n“The cybersecurity incident has affected millions of consumers, and I have been completely dedicated to making this right,” Smith said in the statement. “At this critical juncture, I believe it is in the best interests of the company to have new leadership to move the company forward.”\n\nSmith, 57, had been the chairman and chief executive since 2005, after spending 22 years at General Electric. During Smith's time at Equifax, the company’s stock price had soared 200 percent, and its market value swelled from $3 billion to $20 billion. Smith also expanded the company’s business into 24 countries.

Equifax is facing multiple federal investigations over its handling of the hack.


\n\nOn Sunday, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published a massive leak of documents, dubbed the Panama Papers. CNNMoney has you covered with what you need to know about the story and responses to it.\n\nICIJ and an international coalition of media outlets investigated the trove of papers, which allegedly reveal a clandestine network involving associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and business ties between a member of FIFA’s ethics committee and men whom the United States has indicted for corruption.\n\nThe more-than 11 million documents, which date back four decades, are allegedly connected to Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca. ICIJ reports that the firm helped establish secret shell companies and offshore accounts for global power players. ICIJ reports that a 2015 audit found that Mossack Fonseca knew the identities of the real owners of just 204 of 14,086 companies it had incorporated in Seychelles, an Indian Ocean archipelago often described as a tax haven.\n\nAnd as Gerard Ryle, the director of ICIJ, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour: “These documents, if nothing else, raise an awful lot of questions.”\n\nThe documents reference 12 current or former world leaders, as well as 128 other politicians and public officials.

Pakistan’s Supreme Court unanimously removed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from office over corruption allegations.

\n\nIcelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson resigned on Tuesday, after documents leaked from a Panama-based law firm revealed that his wife possesses a secret offshore account worth millions of dollars.\n\nThe money is housed in a shell corporation called Wintris, which had bought bonds in Icelandic banks. So when Iceland\'s financial sector collapsed in 2008, Wintris became a creditor to those banks. In 2013, Gunnlaugsson became the prime minister, having run partly on a promise to get tougher with Iceland\'s remaining foreign creditors.\n\nSo what Icelandic voters didn\'t know when they elected him in 2013, but have learned with this week\'s "Panama Papers" revelations, is that Gunnlaugsson\'s own wife was secretly one of the creditors he\'d promised to crack down on — an enormous and undisclosed conflict of interest.\n\nWhen the truth came out this week, it led to mass protests on Monday calling for Gunnlaugsson\'s resignation. He stepped down the next day.\n\nWhat happened in Iceland shows the political power of the Panama Papers, but it also shows the degree to which the political turmoil from the 2008 financial crisis is, in some ways, still ongoing in that country.\n\nWhat\'s more, if Gunnlaugsson\'s resignation leads Iceland to schedule new elections soon, that vote could end up empowering a radical political party called the Pirate Party, a left-libertarian amalgam that\'s obsessed with transparency and direct democracy.\n\n

Mass protests on Monday called for Gunnlaugsson's resignation.

\n\nReports published this week on the secretive industry that banks and lawyers use to hide the financial holdings of some of the world’s top leaders and billionaires brought a powerful global response, including the resignation of one prime minister, while the White House and U.S. agencies reacted more cautiously.\n\nPresident Barack Obama addressed the massive leak of documents, which led to the reporting, on Tuesday during a press conference about business tax reform.\n\n“There is no doubt that the problem of global tax avoidance generally, is a huge problem,” the president said. The president also noted in his remarks that the problem is not unique to other nations. “There are folks here in America who are taking advantage of the same stuff. A lot of it is legal, but that’s exactly the problem,” the president added. “It’s not that they’re breaking the laws, it’s that the laws are so poorly designed that they allow people, if they’ve got enough lawyers and enough accountants, to wiggle out of responsibilities that ordinary citizens are having to abide by.”\n\nThe Justice Department, which is investigating alleged corruption in the world’s top soccer body, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), said it may focus more on the financial dealings raised in the reporting based on the documents.\n\n

President Barack Obama addressed the massive leak of documents during a press conference about business tax reform.

\n\nA network of secret offshore deals and vast loans worth $2bn has laid a trail to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.\n\nAn unprecedented leak of documents shows how this money has made members of Putin’s close circle fabulously wealthy.\n\nThough the president’s name does not appear in any of the records, the data reveals a pattern – his friends have earned millions from deals that seemingly could not have been secured without his patronage.\n\nThe documents suggest Putin’s family has benefited from this money – his friends’ fortunes appear his to spend.\n\nThe files are part of an unprecedented leak of millions of papers from the database of Mossack Fonseca, the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm. They show how the rich and powerful are able to exploit secret offshore tax regimes in myriad ways.\n\nThe offshore trail starts in Panama, darts through Russia, Switzerland and Cyprus – and includes a private ski resort where Putin’s younger daughter, Katerina, got married in 2013.\n\nThe Panama Papers shine a particular spotlight on Sergei Roldugin, who is Putin’s best friend. Roldugin introduced Putin to the woman he subsequently married, Lyudmila, and is godfather to Putin’s older daughter, Maria.\n\nA professional musician, he has apparently accumulated a fortune – having been placed in ostensible control of a series of assets worth at least $100m, possibly more.\n\nRoldugin appears to have been picked for this role because of his lesser profile. He has denied in documents to bank officials in Switzerland and Luxembourg that he is close to any Russian public figures.

Roldugin has denied that he is close to any Russian public figures.


Twitter de-lists from the New York Stock Exchange.

Elon Musk, Twitter’s most important shitposter, has added the company to his business empire after months of legal skirmishes, according to CNBC, The Washington Post, and Insider. The acquisition was confirmed in an SEC filing from the company on Friday morning, noting it’s delisting $TWTR from the New York Stock Exchange. He celebrated by firing executives. Musk fired Parag Agrawal, who succeeded Jack Dorsey as Twitter CEO, and chief financial officer Ned Segal, both of who were in the building at the time and escorted out by security, according to Reuters. Vijaya Gadde, the company’s policy chief whom Musk had publicly criticized, was also ousted. Sean Edgett, the general counsel, is gone, too, The New York Times reports. (Bloomberg says security escorted him out, as well.) Chief customer officer Sarah Personette was not among the executives fired but announced she resigned on October 28th with a tweet thread posted the following Tuesday. In it, she mentions, “I do believe the new administration understands the importance of holding up the standards of GARM.”\nThe execs were in line for handsome payouts for their trouble, Insider reports: Agrawal $38.7 million, Segal $25.4 million, Gadde $12.5 million, and Personette, who tweeted yesterday about how excited she was for Musk’s takeover, $11.2 million. However, a subsequent report from The Information indicated Musk has said they’re fired “for cause” in an attempt to block them from receiving those payouts. It’s unclear what this may mean for Personette.

Twitter acquisition was confirmed in an SEC filing.

Twitter has begun laying off sizable chunks of the company, the first major move by Elon Musk since his acquisition of the company was completed last week.\n\nTwitter told employees in an email sent Thursday evening and seen by NBC News that the company would notify staffers by email about their employment.\n\n“We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward,” the email said.\n\nThe firings immediately prompted a class action lawsuit against Twitter for allegedly failing to give a 60-day warning of mass layoffs.\n\nIt had been widely reported that Musk planned to slash the company\'s 7,500-person payroll after he finalized his $44 billion acquisition late last week. He immediately dismissed CEO Parag Agrawal, as well as Twitter’s chief financial officer and its head of legal, public policy and trust and safety upon taking over the company.\n\nA Twitter employee said Thursday\'s email was the first communication staff members had received from Twitter since the acquisition Oct. 27.\n\n"It\'s total chaos, house melting down, everyone looking towards this email," the employee said.\n\nAccording to the email from Twitter, staff members will get notices either through their company email accounts — if they still have jobs — or their personal email accounts if their "employment is impacted."\n\nWorries about layoffs began to emerge before the buyout transaction was complete, but Twitter\'s general counsel urged employees not to dwell on rumors before Musk took ownership.

Lawsuits filed against Twitter for allegedly failing to give 60-day warning of mass layoffs

On April 5, Musk discloses he has purchased more than 9% of Twitter\'s shares on the open market. At first, he is offered a board seat. That plan quickly falls through — and Twitter decides to adopt a poison-pill strategy to fend off a hostile takeover from Musk. Musk subsequently makes an offer to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share, or about $44 billion — a price well above the company\'s stock price at the time. He says his goal is to apply free speech principles to the platform, which he claimed had been mismanaged. "The company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form," he writes. "Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company." Musk says he would fund the deal through a combination of cash and borrowing. At this point, shares in Musk\'s automotive company, Tesla, begin to decline; by mid-November, they will have lost close to half their value. By April 25, Twitter decides to accept Musk\'s offer. “The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing,” Twitter’s Independent Board Chair Bret Taylor says in a statement. “The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.” On May 13, Musk tweets he is putting the deal to acquire Twitter "temporarily on hold" pending additional information about the volume of fake and spam accounts on the platform.

Shares in Musk's automotive company, Tesla, begin to decline.


Twitter has lost many users permanently.

Twitter has begun laying off sizable chunks of the company, the first major move by Elon Musk since his acquisition of the company was completed last week.\n\nTwitter told employees in an email sent Thursday evening and seen by NBC News that the company would notify staffers by email about their employment.\n\n“We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward,” the email said.\n\nThe firings immediately prompted a class action lawsuit against Twitter for allegedly failing to give a 60-day warning of mass layoffs.\n\nIt had been widely reported that Musk planned to slash the company\'s 7,500-person payroll after he finalized his $44 billion acquisition late last week. He immediately dismissed CEO Parag Agrawal, as well as Twitter’s chief financial officer and its head of legal, public policy and trust and safety upon taking over the company.\n\nA Twitter employee said Thursday\'s email was the first communication staff members had received from Twitter since the acquisition Oct. 27.\n\n"It\'s total chaos, house melting down, everyone looking towards this email," the employee said.\n\nAccording to the email from Twitter, staff members will get notices either through their company email accounts — if they still have jobs — or their personal email accounts if their "employment is impacted."\n\nWorries about layoffs began to emerge before the buyout transaction was complete, but Twitter\'s general counsel urged employees not to dwell on rumors before Musk took ownership.

Twitter sends email to employees notifying them of layoffs.

Elon Musk, the CEO of Twitter, has reportedly issued stock grants to the company\'s staff at a valuation of close to $20 billion.\n\nThe price is only half of what he paid for Twitter in October 2022, when he shelled out $44 billion to buy the microblogging platform, according to multiple media sources on Saturday.\n\n"Musk sent Twitter employees an email about the state of Twitter 2.0. He acknowledged the company has been through a period of radical change, but said the changes were necessary… Because Twitter was previously about 4 months away from running out of money." Zoe Schiffer, a tech journalist, tweeted on Saturday. \n\n"Comp increases will be based on X Corp stock. Current grants are based on a $20 billion valuation. Musk says he sees a \'clear but difficult path\' to $250 billion valuation, which would mean current grants could 10x. Musk says Twitter is on the path of an inverse startup." she wrote in the thread of comments.\n\nTwitter\'s value has dropped significantly since the acquisition, but it is still far higher than Twitter\'s competitors\' public market valuation levels, according to a report by The information.\n\nThe site has lost advertisers as a result of the Musk-mandated reinstatement of some previously banned users, an increase in antisemitic and other hate speech, broken functionality, and a botched blue check rollout that cost Eli Lilly millions of dollars.\n\nDespite the fact that ad revenue surprisingly increased during the fourth quarter of 2022, the site has lost many users permanently, reported The Wrap.

Twitter reinstates banned user accounts.

Elon Musk, Twitter’s most important shitposter, has added the company to his business empire after months of legal skirmishes, according to CNBC, The Washington Post, and Insider. The acquisition was confirmed in an SEC filing from the company on Friday morning, noting it’s delisting $TWTR from the New York Stock Exchange. He celebrated by firing executives. Musk fired Parag Agrawal, who succeeded Jack Dorsey as Twitter CEO, and chief financial officer Ned Segal, both of who were in the building at the time and escorted out by security, according to Reuters. Vijaya Gadde, the company’s policy chief whom Musk had publicly criticized, was also ousted. Sean Edgett, the general counsel, is gone, too, The New York Times reports. (Bloomberg says security escorted him out, as well.) Chief customer officer Sarah Personette was not among the executives fired but announced she resigned on October 28th with a tweet thread posted the following Tuesday. In it, she mentions, “I do believe the new administration understands the importance of holding up the standards of GARM.”\nThe execs were in line for handsome payouts for their trouble, Insider reports: Agrawal $38.7 million, Segal $25.4 million, Gadde $12.5 million, and Personette, who tweeted yesterday about how excited she was for Musk’s takeover, $11.2 million. However, a subsequent report from The Information indicated Musk has said they’re fired “for cause” in an attempt to block them from receiving those payouts. It’s unclear what this may mean for Personette.

Twitter acquisition was confirmed in an SEC filing.

It’s been five months since Elon Musk took over Twitter after a long-drawn out, tumultuous negotiating period. There has been a lot of controversy since he positioned himself at the helm of the social media platform, including massive layoffs, allowing too-long tweets, and altering the algorithm to make his Super Bowl tweets rank higher. He closed the deal to acquire Twitter on Oct. 28, after paying his original officer price of $54.20 a share for a grand total of approximately $44 billion. He fired some of the company’s top executives almost immediately, including CEO Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, and chief legal officer Vijay Gadde. Soon after, he began to lay off staff members to remove around half of the 7,500-strong workforce. Twitter value drops to half of Musk’s acquisition price. Now, it appears that Twitter is facing financial challenges. Changes since Musk’s takeover have resulted in more hate speech, issues in acquiring blue check verification, and problems with the app’s features. According to Zoe Schiffer, managing editor of Platformer, a tech news website, the billionaire sent an email to Twitter employees admitting that the company has been through radical changes which were necessary. Musk also reportedly acknowledged that the platform was previously about four months from running out of money. Per Schiffer, the value of Twitter is now half of what Musk paid for it. “Current grants are based on a $20b valuation,” she tweeted, although Musk says he is hopeful of eventually getting a valuation of $250 billion. Advertisers concerned about their brand have left the platform, leading to plummeting revenues for the company in recent months.


\n\nIt’s the hashtag that rocked the world.\n\nSince #MeToo went viral two weeks ago in the wake of sexual harassment allegations against producer Harvey Weinstein, Twitter reports that more than 1.7 million women and men have used the hashtag in 85 countries.\n\nIn Italy, women rallied behind a version called #QuellaVoltaChe, which translates to “That time when,” while French women decided to out their harassers by name under #BalanceTonPorc, which roughly translates to “snitch out your pig.”\n\nAt least nine well-known powerful men have been accused of various forms of sexual assault, including former President George H.W. Bush, Hollywood producer James Toback and journalist and author Mark Halperin. And just last week, California Rep. Jackie Speier launched #MeTooCongress, asking Washington staffers to share their stories on harassment on the Hill.\n\nBut can a hashtag, a meme or any viral moment – no matter how widespread – really turn into a lasting movement that that will create social change and reduce sexual abuse of women?\n\nMaybe. But experts say it’s going to take a coordinated effort between antiviolence organizations, the media and Hollywood as well as concrete actions from each and every one of us, especially men.\n\n“I am really tired of talking about women,” said Toni Van Pelt, president of the National Association of Women. “We must focus on the men. We must be demanding that the men step forward and take responsibility, whether they think they are the good guy or not.

A wave of awareness and brave confrontations was created over sexual harassment and assault.

\n\nHollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein has been found guilty of rape and sexual assault by courts in New York and Los Angeles.\n\nHere is a summary of the key events that led him to court:\n\n- Weinstein issues an apology acknowledging he "has caused a lot of pain" - but disputes allegations he harassed female employees over nearly three decades.\n\n- It is announced that Harvey Weinstein has been sacked by the board of his company, with immediate effect. \n\n- The organisation behind the Oscars votes to expel Weinstein. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences says: "What\'s at issue here is a deeply troubling problem that has no place in our society."\n\n- Weinstein\'s former company files for bankruptcy, months after the Oscar-winning producer was accused of multiple sexual assaults.\n\n- Weinstein faces fresh sexual assault charges in New York from a third woman, in a case dating back to 2006.\n\n- After five days of deliberation, the jury finds Weinstein guilty of a criminal sexual act in the first degree and third-degree rape.\n\n- Weinstein goes on trial in LA, facing 11 charges involving five alleged victims.\n\n- Weinstein is found guilty by a Los Angeles jury of raping a woman.\n

Twitter reports that more than 1.7 million women and men have used the #MeToo hashtag.

Weinstein issues an apology but disputes allegations he harassed female employees.


\n\nIn a historic and far-reaching decision, the U.S. Supreme Court officially reversed Roe v. Wade on Friday, declaring that the constitutional right to abortion, upheld for nearly a half century, no longer exists.\n\nWriting for the court majority, Justice Samuel Alito said that the 1973 Roe ruling and repeated subsequent high court decisions reaffirming Roe "must be overruled" because they were "egregiously wrong," the arguments "exceptionally weak" and so "damaging" that they amounted to "an abuse of judicial authority."\n\nThe decision, most of which was leaked in early May, means that abortion rights will be rolled back in nearly half of the states immediately, with more restrictions likely to follow. For all practical purposes, abortion will not be available in large swaths of the country. The decision may well mean too that the court itself, as well as the abortion question, will become a focal point in the upcoming fall elections and in the fall and thereafter.\n\nJoining the Alito opinion were Justice Clarence Thomas, appointed by the first President Bush, and the three Trump appointees — Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Chief Justice John Roberts, appointed by President George W. Bush, concurred in the judgment only, and would have limited the decision to upholding the Mississippi law at issue in the case, which banned abortions after 15 weeks. Calling the decision "a serious jolt to the legal system," he said that both the majority and dissent displayed "a relentless freedom from doubt on the legal issue that I cannot share."

Lawsuits have been filed in several states arguing that new restrictive abortion laws are in violation of state constitutions.

\n\nNovember 8, 2016: Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. During his presidency, he appointed three conservative judges to the court - Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — solidifying a conservative majority.\n\nJune 27, 2016: In its strongest defense of abortion rights in 25 years, the court strikes down Texas rules forcing clinics to meet hospital-like standards and doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.\n\nDecember 1, 2021: Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization was brought to the Supreme Court, a case dealing with a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks. Upholding Mississippi's ban would mean overturning Roe.\n\nMay 2, 2022: A Politico report details a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion indicating the Court would overturn Roe v. Wade. The news set off protests and rallies across the country.\n\nJune 24, 2022: The court ruled 6-3 to uphold Mississippi's law, with the decision to overturn Roe a 5-4 vote. Chief Justice John Roberts joined the conservative justices in the decision to uphold Mississippi's law, but urged a concurring opinion concerning Roe. The decision is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states in the nation.\n\n

May 2, 2022: Politico report details leaked Supreme Court draft opinion indicating the Court would overturn Roe v. Wade.

June 24, 2022: Supreme Court rules 6-3 to uphold Mississippi's law, with the decision to overturn Roe a 5-4 vote.

\n\nThe American public is rendering its initial judgment on the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and most disapprove of the ruling, including two-thirds of women who disapprove. \n\nBy more than a 20-point margin, Americans call it a step backward rather than forward for America. And women, by more than three to one, think the ruling will make women's lives worse rather than better. \n\nThose who approve — and in particular, the three-fourths of conservatives who do — say they feel both hopeful and happy. \n\nAs they look ahead, those disapproving of Friday's ruling are especially likely to think the high court might someday limit or end birth control and also same-sex marriage.\n\nViews on Roe being overturned divide along partisan lines, though perhaps not as completely as political debate or legislative battles might suggest. One in six Democrats approves, and one in five Republicans disapproves. \n\nAcross demographic groups, younger people are especially likely to disapprove; most moderates disapprove along with nine in 10 liberals; two-thirds of Hispanic Americans disapprove, three-fourths of Black Americans and just over half of White Americans disapprove. \n\nApproval is high among Republicans, those who identify as conservatives, and evangelical Christians.\n\nThose who approve of Roe being overturned report feeling hopeful most of all, and happy and relieved. White evangelicals are also particularly likely to express these positive sentiments.\n\n

Three-fourths of conservatives approve of the ruling.

\n\nFor decades, the legal battle over abortion focused on the U.S. Supreme Court and its guiding document, the U.S. Constitution.\n\nNow, with Roe v. Wade overturned, the legal spotlight has shifted to the states, where abortion supporters and opponents must contend with 50 different constitutions that, in many places, guarantee rights more broadly than their federal counterpart.\n\nThe legal chaos has already begun. In a half-dozen states and counting, lawsuits argue that new restrictive abortion laws are in violation of state constitutions.\n\nSo, too, the stakes have grown for ballot measures scheduled this year to amend those constitutions, whether to protect the right to an abortion or eliminate it.\n\n"For anyone who thought, \'Oh, Roe v. Wade is done and now this whole thing is over\' — I have bad news," Mary Ziegler, an abortion law expert at the University of California Davis, tells NPR. "This is just going to be an even more complicated chapter that we\'re entering into."\n\nAnd experts say the uncertainty could continue for years to come, given the relative ease of amending state constitutions and the judicial elections in many states that can result in rapid changes to a court\'s ideological makeup.\n\nIn the days since the Dobbs decision, abortion rights organizations have filed lawsuits challenging state courts to find a right to abortion in at least four states, including Utah, Kentucky, Idaho and Mississippi. (Some other active legal challenges, including lawsuits in Wisconsin, Louisiana and Texas, do not ask judges to evaluate the constitutionality of abortion rights.

Abortion rights organizations have filed lawsuits challenging state courts in at least four states.


It’s been five months since Elon Musk took over Twitter after a long-drawn out, tumultuous negotiating period. There has been a lot of controversy since he positioned himself at the helm of the social media platform, including massive layoffs, allowing too-long tweets, and altering the algorithm to make his Super Bowl tweets rank higher. He closed the deal to acquire Twitter on Oct. 28, after paying his original officer price of $54.20 a share for a grand total of approximately $44 billion. He fired some of the company’s top executives almost immediately, including CEO Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, and chief legal officer Vijay Gadde. Soon after, he began to lay off staff members to remove around half of the 7,500-strong workforce. Twitter value drops to half of Musk’s acquisition price. Now, it appears that Twitter is facing financial challenges. Changes since Musk’s takeover have resulted in more hate speech, issues in acquiring blue check verification, and problems with the app’s features. According to Zoe Schiffer, managing editor of Platformer, a tech news website, the billionaire sent an email to Twitter employees admitting that the company has been through radical changes which were necessary. Musk also reportedly acknowledged that the platform was previously about four months from running out of money. Per Schiffer, the value of Twitter is now half of what Musk paid for it. “Current grants are based on a $20b valuation,” she tweeted, although Musk says he is hopeful of eventually getting a valuation of $250 billion. Advertisers concerned about their brand have left the platform, leading to plummeting revenues for the company in recent months.

Twitter revenues plumment in recent months.

Elon Musk, Twitter’s most important shitposter, has added the company to his business empire after months of legal skirmishes, according to CNBC, The Washington Post, and Insider. The acquisition was confirmed in an SEC filing from the company on Friday morning, noting it’s delisting $TWTR from the New York Stock Exchange. He celebrated by firing executives. Musk fired Parag Agrawal, who succeeded Jack Dorsey as Twitter CEO, and chief financial officer Ned Segal, both of who were in the building at the time and escorted out by security, according to Reuters. Vijaya Gadde, the company’s policy chief whom Musk had publicly criticized, was also ousted. Sean Edgett, the general counsel, is gone, too, The New York Times reports. (Bloomberg says security escorted him out, as well.) Chief customer officer Sarah Personette was not among the executives fired but announced she resigned on October 28th with a tweet thread posted the following Tuesday. In it, she mentions, “I do believe the new administration understands the importance of holding up the standards of GARM.”\nThe execs were in line for handsome payouts for their trouble, Insider reports: Agrawal $38.7 million, Segal $25.4 million, Gadde $12.5 million, and Personette, who tweeted yesterday about how excited she was for Musk’s takeover, $11.2 million. However, a subsequent report from The Information indicated Musk has said they’re fired “for cause” in an attempt to block them from receiving those payouts. It’s unclear what this may mean for Personette.

Elon Musk has completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, the company confirmed in a securities filing Friday, putting the world’s richest man in charge of one of the world’s most influential social media platforms.\n\nThe company said the deal “became effective” on Thursday, as part of a filing notifying its intention to de-list from the New York Stock Exchange, a move that happened later on Friday. The confirmation comes after a source familiar with the deal told CNN the deal had closed Thursday night.\n\nMusk also appeared to acknowledge the takeover in a tweet Thursday night saying, “the bird is freed.”. The deal’s closing removes a cloud of uncertainty that has hung over Twitter’s business, employees and shareholders for much of the year. It also averts a court battle that was set to take place if the acquisition did not close by 5 p.m. ET Friday. But Musk’s takeover now raises a host of new questions for the future of the social media platform, and the many corners of society impacted by it. Musk on Thursday fired CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Neg Segal and policy head Vijaya Gadde, according to two sources familiar with the situation. He also fired Sean Edgett, Twitter’s general counsel, a source told CNN.\nDespite multiple news outlets confirming the changes Thursday night, Twitter staff had still not formally been informed of the changes as of Friday morning, two Twitter employees told CNN.

Twitter de-lists from the New York Stock Exchange.


\n\nThe merger of two Swiss banks will result in layoffs in Switzerland and the U.S.\n\nThe acquisition of Credit Suisse by UBS for over $3 billion, marks the end of an era in Switzerland as the rivalry between the two banks concluded on Sunday. \n\nThe repeated scandals and trading losses at Credit Suisse in recent years spooked investors and customers, leading clients to withdraw $10 billion one day last week, according to the Wall Street Journal. \n\nThe deal was finalized on Sunday, before Asia's stock markets opened, as Switzerland’s President Alain Berse announced it. The rivals had been reluctant to merge.\n\nA sign that the deal was driven by \u200b\u200bthe government was that the government officials took center stage in the press conference announcing the transaction. UBS Chairman Colm Kelleher and Credit Suisse Chairman Axel Lehman were placed at the far end of the table.\n\n“With the takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS, a solution has been found to secure financial stability and protect the Swiss economy in this exceptional situation,” the Swiss National Bank said in a statement.\n\nThe deal comes after three days of intense talks, which saw UBS and Credit Suisse very reluctant to tie the knot. The former felt that the bank was doing well and did not need to be saddled with a deal that could only bring problems. The latter felt that its turnaround plan would be enough to recover. But the Swiss authorities feared that the crisis of confidence suffered by Credit Suisse would intensify and, above all, that it would spread to other banks.

Swiss President Alain Berse announces the merger.

\n\nSwitzerland’s biggest bank, UBS, has agreed to buy its ailing rival Credit Suisse in an emergency rescue deal aimed at stemming financial market panic unleashed by the failure of two American banks earlier this month.\n\n“UBS today announced the takeover of Credit Suisse,” the Swiss National Bank said in a statement Sunday. It said the rescue would “secure financial stability and protect the Swiss economy.”\n\nUBS is paying 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.25 billion) for Credit Suisse, about 60% less than the bank was worth when markets closed on Friday. Credit Suisse shareholders will be largely wiped out, receiving the equivalent of just 0.76 Swiss francs in UBS shares for stock that was worth 1.86 Swiss francs on Friday. Owners of $17 billion worth of “additional tier one” bonds — a riskier class of bank debt — will lose everything, Swiss regulators said.\n\nExtraordinarily, the deal will not need the approval of shareholders after the Swiss government agreed to change the law to remove any uncertainty about the deal.\n\nCredit Suisse (CS) had been losing the trust of investors and customers for years. In 2022, it recorded its worst loss since the global financial crisis. But confidence collapsed last week after it acknowledged “material weakness” in its bookkeeping and as the demise of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank spread fear about weaker institutions at a time when soaring interest rates have undermined the value of some financial assets.\n\n

Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank collapsed.

Fear spread regarding weaker bank institutions.

\n\nOn March 19, 2023, it was announced that UBS plans to acquire Credit Suisse in an allshares transaction, valuing Credit Suisse at CHF 0.76 per share / CHF 3 billion. The Swiss Federal Council, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA and the Swiss National Bank expressed their support for the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in Q2/23 following approvals by relevant authorities. AT1 capital instruments issued by Credit Suisse of appr. CHF 16 billion in aggregate have been written-down in full.\n\nIntroduction\n\nPursuant to public information, Credit Suisse was experiencing a crisis of confidence and faced outflows of clients funds, intensified by the recent events in the US financial markets.\n\nOn March 16, 2023, Credit Suisse announced the intention to access a covered loan facility as well as a short-term liquidity facility of up to appr. CHF 50 billion.\n\nFollowing intervention by, and request of, the Swiss Federal Department of Finance, the Swiss National Bank and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA, Credit Suisse and UBS entered into a merger agreement on March 19, 2023.\n\nThe Swiss Federal Council on March 16, 2023 issued an ordinance regarding additional liquidity assistance loans and the granting of loan loss guarantees by the Swiss Confederation for liquidity assistance loans by the Swiss National\n\nBank to systematically important banks (the Additional Liquidity Assistance Ordinance). In order to adapt this ordinance to the most recent developments, the Swiss Federal Council amended this Additional Liquidity Assistance Ordinance, effective on March 19, 2023 (the Amended Additional Liquidity Assistance Ordinance).\n\n

The Swiss Federal Council amended the Additional Liquidity Assistance Ordinance.

Swiss National Bank issues statement to secure financial stability and protect Swiss economy.


What is ChatGPT? I asked the buzzy artificial intelligence chatbot, which has ignited conversation in schools, corporate boardrooms and social media, to explain itself.\n\nIn its own description, ChatGPT is “an AI-powered chatbot developed by OpenAI, based on the GPT (Generative Pretrained Transformer) language model. It uses deep learning techniques to generate human-like responses to text inputs in a conversational manner.”\n\nThe tool is the talk of the business world. It has been mentioned on earnings calls by management from a range of companies including oil giants, banks — and even the industrial behemoth Caterpillar.\n\nIt has also sparked concerns over potential abuses. In classrooms, students have used ChatGPT to generate entire essays, while hackers have begun testing it to write malicious code.\n\nSo what is ChatGPT, exactly? Here’s a simple guide on all you need to know about the popular AI chatbot.\n\nChatGPT is an AI chatbot developed by San Francisco-based startup OpenAI. OpenAI was co-founded in 2015 by Elon Musk and Sam Altman and is backed by well-known investors — most notably Microsoft. \n\nIt is one of several examples of generative AI. These are tools that allow users to enter written prompts and receive new human-like text or images and videos generated by the AI.\n\nPrior examples include Dall-E, a text-to-image program from OpenAI that garnered attention from people captivated by its ability to come up with realistic, often absurd, pictures that match people’s text descriptions.

Elon Musk is warning of the dangers of artificial intelligence and plans to create an alternative AI chatbot called “TruthGPT”.

It has sparked concerns over potential abuses, such as students using it to generate entire essays and hackers testing it to write malicious code.

Microsoft\n plans to release software to help large companies create their own chatbots similar to ChatGPT, CNBC has learned.\n\nIn the two months since startup OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public, it has become a hit, impressing people with its ability to spit out comments on a wide variety of topics and in many styles. UBS analysts said last week that it’s on track to reach 100 million monthly active users more quickly than video-sharing app TikTok.\n\nMicrosoft is seeking to capitalize on the attention in multiple ways. The company provides the cloud-computing back end for ChatGPT, and in January Microsoft said it had invested billions of dollars in OpenAI. Microsoft has also been working to incorporate OpenAI technologies into its own products. On Tuesday, Microsoft announced that it is augmenting Bing, its search engine, and Edge, its internet browser, with ChatGPT-like technology.\n\nIn addition, Microsoft plans to announce technology for companies, schools and governments to create their own bots with ChatGPT, according to a person briefed on the matter, who asked not to be named while discussing private plans. Microsoft imagines helping clients launch new chatbots or refine their existing ones with the new technology, which could suggest responses for call-center agents to use during customer service conversations, the person said.\n\nThe underlying artificial intelligence model of ChatGPT cannot currently provide substantial answers about anything that happened after 2021, because it hasn’t been trained on recent information.

Microsoft plans to release software to help large companies create their own chatbots similar to ChatGPT.

Google announced plans Monday to publicly launch its highly anticipated chatbot, which will be integrated with its marquee search engine as Big Tech companies race to deliver artificial intelligence products to the public after Open AI’s ChatGPT captivated millions.\n\nCEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post it will unveil its chatbot—called Bard—to the public “in the coming weeks.”\n\nOne of its primary features will be providing snippets of information in response to searches that have no obvious answer, such as the question, “is the piano or guitar easier to learn, and how much practice does each need?”\n\nGoogle—through its parent company, Alphabet—has spent more money than any other business on artificial intelligence, putting more than $31 billion toward research and development in 2021, according to the Wall Street Journal.\n\n“Soon, you’ll see AI-powered features in Search that distill complex information and multiple perspectives into easy-to-digest formats, so you can quickly understand the big picture,” Pichai said.\n\nThe race is on for tech companies to roll out chatbots following the immense accomplishments of ChatGPT, which has attracted some 100 million monthly average users since it publicly launched at the end of November. Investors have been hungry to latch onto the chatbot hype, with BuzzFeed’s stock more than doubling in a single trading day last month after the company said it would start using ChatGPT to create content.

Investors showed great interest in ChatGPT, sending BuzzFeed’s stock surging after the company announced plans for it to create content.

OpenAI has launched its first subscription plan for ChatGPT, opening up the popular AI model for premium use just two months after its public launch.\n\nThe new plan, called ChatGPT Plus and announced in a company blog post on Wednesday, will charge subscribers $20 for monthly use of ChatGPT’s tools. Users will get priority access to ChatGPT “during peak times,” faster responses and “priority access to new features and improvements,” the company wrote. The subscription is only available initially in the United States and will roll out to a waitlist first.\n\nOpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the announcement. The company also noted in its post that a waitlist is now available for an upcoming ChatGPT API.\n\nThe move comes just weeks after OpenAI president and chairman Greg Brockman posted to the company’s official Discord server asking users for input on ways to “monetize ChatGPT.” Some users (including this author) reported seeing an offer for a $42 per month pro tier in January, which promised early and priority access to new features and better reliability should the service, which has suffered repeated outages due to high demand in past weeks, again hit capacity.\n\nAfter OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late November, more than one million users overwhelmed the tool’s site within five days, OpenAI has said. Since then, product releases and other announcements have flowed fast out of the San Francisco-based company led by CEO Sam Altman.

OpenAI launches subscription plan for ChatGPT


\n\nIf you\'re an American with a credit history -- and at least 143 million are -- you probably already know your Equifax data, including at least your name, social security number, birthdate, and home address, may have been stolen.\n\nWho\'s to blame?\n\nAccording to an unsubstantiated report by equity research firm Baird, citing no evidence, the blame falls on the open-source server framework, Apache Struts. The firm\'s source, per one report, is believed to be Equifax.\n\nApache Struts is a popular open-source software programming Model-View-Controller (MVC) framework for Java. It is not, as some headlines have had it, a vendor software program.\n\nIt\'s also not proven that Struts was the source of the hole the hackers drove through.\n\nIn fact, several headlines -- some of which have since been retracted -- all source a single quote by a non-technical analyst from an Equifax source.\n\nNot only is that troubling journalistically, it\'s problematic from a technical point of view. In case you haven\'t noticed, Equifax appears to be utterly and completely clueless about their own technology. Equifax\'s own data breach detector isn\'t just useless: it\'s untrustworthy.\n\nAdding insult to injury, the credit agency\'s advice and support site looks, at first glance, to be a bogus, phishing-type site: "equifaxsecurity2017.com." That domain name screams fake. And what does it ask for if you go there? The last six figures of your social security number and last name. In other words, exactly the kind of information a hacker might ask for.\n\nEquifax\'s technical expertise, it has been shown, is less than acceptable.\n\n

Automatic scan on March 15th failed to detect vulnerability.

\n\nThe Equifax data breach that leaked information on the now-145 million people was caused by a vulnerability in Apache's Struts system. Trouble is, the software provider supplied a patch back in March that should have eliminated that vulnerability. But Equifax's former CEO (who suddenly retired last week) told the House Energy and Commerce Committee that a single IT technician was at fault for the whole thing after they failed to install the patch.\n\nWhile speaking to the committee (video below), former CEO Richard Smith outlined the company's normal procedure for new patches: Have a technician install it and then scan the system for any remaining vulnerabilities. Apparently, both the human and computer steps failed.\n\nAs Smith outlines in his written testimony (PDF), the Department of Homeland Security's Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) sent Equifax (alongside many other companies) a notice on March 8th, 2017 about the vulnerability in certain versions of Apache Struts. Equifax sent out an internal mass-email, which should have required its internal IT team to fix the vulnerability within 48 hours, but that didn't happen. An automatic scan for vulnerabilities on March 15th also failed to indicate that Equifax was using a Struts version that had the vulnerability.\n\nBased on Equifax's postmortem investigations, the hacker that exploited this exact weakness likely first used it to pry into Equifax on May 13th, and then continued until July 30th, and Equifax's security tools were none the wiser.

DHS CERT sent Equifax notice about vulnerability on March 8th.

Equifax was using the open-source server framework, Apache Struts.

Equifax failed to fix vulnerability within 48 hours.


\n\nProtests have intensified this week in Iran over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody after she was arrested for allegedly wearing her headscarf too loosely. Amini died on Sept. 16 three days after her arrest in Tehran, and many Iranians are alleging that she was killed by law enforcement. Protestors have faced a brutal crackdown from the government who have deployed riot police, resulting in arrests, injuries and at least 17 deaths, according to the state media.\n\nIranian authorities claim that Amini died of heart failure, but her family and protestors across Iran accuse the government of covering up her murder. The international protests have expanded to express anger over a range of issues, not just restrictions women face over hijabs and more generally in Iran but also against the current regime. At one Iranian protest, a street full of Iranians chanted “death to the oppressor, be it the shah or the supreme leader!”\n\nMahsa Amini, 22, was arrested on Sept. 13 while visiting Tehran by the notorious morality police who enforce compulsory conservative Islamic behavior and dress. Hijabs are mandatory to wear in public for all women in Iran, regardless of religion or nationality. Amini was accused of violating the country’s law on headscarves.\n\nIran’s security forces said that upon her arrest, Amini was taken to a detention center where she received training on hijab rules, and it was there that she collapsed from a heart attack.

Over 500 people, including 70 children and at least 29 women, have been killed.

\n\nThe US is expected to issue new sanctions this week against law enforcement officials and those directly involved in the crackdown on protests in Iran, a source familiar with the planned movement told CNN.\n\nPresident Joe Biden, who has moved quickly to throw his support behind the demonstrators, issued an intentionally vague statement Monday promising further costs “on perpetrators of violence against peaceful protestors.” A source told CNN those costs are expected to be in the form of additional sanctions this week, with more action to potentially follow.\n\nThe massive protests sweeping Iran were sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman detained by morality police on September 13 after being accused of violating the country’s conservative dress code. In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly last month, Biden alluded to the protests over her death and said the US stood with the “brave women of Iran who right now are demonstrating to secure their basic rights.”\n\nDays later, the US announced sanctions on Iran’s morality police “for abuse and violence against Iranian women and the violation of the rights of peaceful Iranian protestors.”\n\nThe effort to move quickly to respond to the protests sweeping Iran comes after some top officials in the Biden administration acknowledged that the US was too slow to respond when protests erupted in Iran in 2009. Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser who served in the Obama administration, told NBC recently that officials were concerned about undermining the protesters instead of aiding them.\n\n

US expected to issue new sanctions against law enforcement officials involved in Iran protests crackdown.

A lot of Iranians are frustrated with the government for various reasons about the current regime.

\n\nWorld leaders at the UN General Assembly must support calls for the establishment of an independent international investigative and accountability mechanism to address the prevailing crisis of impunity in Iran. Their urgent need for action was demonstrated most recently by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, and the barrage of gunfire unleashed on protesters which has left at least eight people dead and hundreds injured, Amnesty International said today.\n\nIranian security forces are violently quashing largely peaceful protests sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death on 16 September, days after her violent arrest by the “morality police” for not complying with discriminatory compulsory veiling laws. Amnesty International collected evidence on the security forces’ unlawful use of birdshot and other metal pellets, teargas, water cannon, and beatings with batons to disperse protesters.\n\n“The global outpouring of rage and empathy over Mahsa Amini’s death must be followed by concrete steps by the international community to tackle the crisis of systemic impunity that has allowed widespread torture, extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings by Iranian authorities to continue unabated both behind prison walls and during protests,” said Diana Eltahawy, Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.\n\n“The Iranian authorities’ latest brutal crackdown on protests coincides with Ebrahim Raisi’s speech at the UN.

UN General Assembly called for the establishment of an independent international investigative and accountability mechanism to address the crisis of impunity in Iran.


\n\nSwitzerland’s biggest bank, UBS, has agreed to buy its ailing rival Credit Suisse in an emergency rescue deal aimed at stemming financial market panic unleashed by the failure of two American banks earlier this month.\n\n“UBS today announced the takeover of Credit Suisse,” the Swiss National Bank said in a statement Sunday. It said the rescue would “secure financial stability and protect the Swiss economy.”\n\nUBS is paying 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.25 billion) for Credit Suisse, about 60% less than the bank was worth when markets closed on Friday. Credit Suisse shareholders will be largely wiped out, receiving the equivalent of just 0.76 Swiss francs in UBS shares for stock that was worth 1.86 Swiss francs on Friday. Owners of $17 billion worth of “additional tier one” bonds — a riskier class of bank debt — will lose everything, Swiss regulators said.\n\nExtraordinarily, the deal will not need the approval of shareholders after the Swiss government agreed to change the law to remove any uncertainty about the deal.\n\nCredit Suisse (CS) had been losing the trust of investors and customers for years. In 2022, it recorded its worst loss since the global financial crisis. But confidence collapsed last week after it acknowledged “material weakness” in its bookkeeping and as the demise of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank spread fear about weaker institutions at a time when soaring interest rates have undermined the value of some financial assets.\n\n

UBS acquires Credit Suisse for over $3 billion.

\n\nThe merger of two Swiss banks will result in layoffs in Switzerland and the U.S.\n\nThe acquisition of Credit Suisse by UBS for over $3 billion, marks the end of an era in Switzerland as the rivalry between the two banks concluded on Sunday. \n\nThe repeated scandals and trading losses at Credit Suisse in recent years spooked investors and customers, leading clients to withdraw $10 billion one day last week, according to the Wall Street Journal. \n\nThe deal was finalized on Sunday, before Asia's stock markets opened, as Switzerland’s President Alain Berse announced it. The rivals had been reluctant to merge.\n\nA sign that the deal was driven by \u200b\u200bthe government was that the government officials took center stage in the press conference announcing the transaction. UBS Chairman Colm Kelleher and Credit Suisse Chairman Axel Lehman were placed at the far end of the table.\n\n“With the takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS, a solution has been found to secure financial stability and protect the Swiss economy in this exceptional situation,” the Swiss National Bank said in a statement.\n\nThe deal comes after three days of intense talks, which saw UBS and Credit Suisse very reluctant to tie the knot. The former felt that the bank was doing well and did not need to be saddled with a deal that could only bring problems. The latter felt that its turnaround plan would be enough to recover. But the Swiss authorities feared that the crisis of confidence suffered by Credit Suisse would intensify and, above all, that it would spread to other banks.

Swiss National Bank issues statement to secure financial stability and protect Swiss economy.

\n\nOn March 19, 2023, it was announced that UBS plans to acquire Credit Suisse in an allshares transaction, valuing Credit Suisse at CHF 0.76 per share / CHF 3 billion. The Swiss Federal Council, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA and the Swiss National Bank expressed their support for the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in Q2/23 following approvals by relevant authorities. AT1 capital instruments issued by Credit Suisse of appr. CHF 16 billion in aggregate have been written-down in full.\n\nIntroduction\n\nPursuant to public information, Credit Suisse was experiencing a crisis of confidence and faced outflows of clients funds, intensified by the recent events in the US financial markets.\n\nOn March 16, 2023, Credit Suisse announced the intention to access a covered loan facility as well as a short-term liquidity facility of up to appr. CHF 50 billion.\n\nFollowing intervention by, and request of, the Swiss Federal Department of Finance, the Swiss National Bank and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA, Credit Suisse and UBS entered into a merger agreement on March 19, 2023.\n\nThe Swiss Federal Council on March 16, 2023 issued an ordinance regarding additional liquidity assistance loans and the granting of loan loss guarantees by the Swiss Confederation for liquidity assistance loans by the Swiss National\n\nBank to systematically important banks (the Additional Liquidity Assistance Ordinance). In order to adapt this ordinance to the most recent developments, the Swiss Federal Council amended this Additional Liquidity Assistance Ordinance, effective on March 19, 2023 (the Amended Additional Liquidity Assistance Ordinance).\n\n

UBS announced its plans to acquire Credit Suisse in an all-shares transaction.

Fear spread regarding weaker bank institutions.

The Swiss Federal Council amended the Additional Liquidity Assistance Ordinance.


Gwyneth Paltrow is on trial over a 2016 ski accident in Utah involving a retired optometrist who claims he suffered life-altering injuries.\n\nTerry Sanderson, 76, says the Hollywood actress was distracted and caused the crash. He is seeking $300,000 (£245,000) in damages.\n\nMs Paltrow, 50, denies the charge, and has countersued for $1 plus compensation for attorneys\' fees.\n\nMr Sanderson first filed suit against Ms Paltrow in 2019, three years after their collision.\n\nThe former US army captain and optometrist, who says he has never been injured in more than 30 years of skiing, accuses the Oscar winner of being "reckless" and racing into him from behind on a beginner slope at the upscale Deer Valley Resort in western Utah.\n\nLawyers for Mr Sanderson, who was 69 at the time, allege Ms Paltrow was distracted by her children and emitted a "blood-curdling scream" before landing on top of him, then left him "lying in the snow" without calling for help.\n\nHe claims the February 2016 crash left him unconscious, and that he suffered a traumatic brain injury and four broken ribs, as well as "loss of enjoyment of life, emotional distress and disfigurement".\n\nHe initially sought $3.1m over what he deems a "hit and run", but that lawsuit was dismissed last May.\n\nHe took the stand twice during the trial, defending himself against allegations he is trying to exploit a celebrity.\n\n\nA movie star-turned-lifestyle influencer, Ms Paltrow rejects the plaintiff\'s version of events and alleges he skied directly into her back.

Paltrow denies responsibility for the accident and claims it was actually Sanderson at fault.

Gwyneth Paltrow\'s ski crash trial came to an end Thursday when a jury sided with the actor, saying she was not at fault for a 2016 collision at Utah’s Deer Valley Resort that injured a retired optometrist.\n\nTerry Sanderson sued Paltrow for $300,000, alleging that reckless skiing caused her to run into him from behind on Feb. 26, 2016. Sanderson said he suffered four broken ribs, a concussion and lasting brain damage that affected his daily life and personal relationships.\n\nPaltrow, who has repeatedly denied running into Sanderson, countersued for $1 and her legal fees.\n\nThe trial went on for more than a week. The jury deliberated for just a few hours before deciding that Sanderson, not Paltrow, was at fault.\n\nHere’s a timeline of the events that led up to the court case, and memorable moments from trial.\n\nSanderson filed a lawsuit on Jan. 29, 2019, saying that Paltrow was skiing "out of control" when she hit him from behind, knocked him down, and then landed on top of him. He said after the collision, the actor got up and skied away and did not offer any help.\n\nHe was initially seeking more than $3.1 million but amended it to $300,000.\n\nSanderson said it took him three years to file the suit because his legal team could not come to a resolution after meeting with Paltrow and her attorney.

Gwyneth Paltrow was skiing at the Deer Valley Resort when she collided with retired optometrist, Terry Sanderson.

The trial over a 2016 ski accident involving actor and businesswoman Gwyneth Paltrow wrapped up Thursday, with the jury ruling that she was not responsible for the collision at a Utah ski resort.\n\nAfter a short deliberation, the jury concluded that plaintiff Terry Sanderson was entirely at fault for the collision, with the decision ultimately hinging on which party jurors believed was higher on the slopes when the crash occurred. \n\nSanderson, 76, sued Paltrow for $3.1 million after alleging that she crashed into him at the tony Deer Valley resort in Park City, Utah. After a judge dismissed his initial suit, he later refiled his complaint seeking more than $300,000. Paltrow, 50, countersued for a symbolic $1 and attorney fees.\n\nIn each taking the stand last week, Paltrow and Sanderson presented starkly different accounts of the collision and called a succession of medical experts and witnesses to buttress their claims. Paltrow\'s ski instructor at the time of the incident, Deer Valley veteran Eric Christiansen, blamed Sanderson for the crash, which occurred on a beginner ski run. \n\n\n"Gwyneth was making her turns very rhythmically," he said under oath, while alleging that Sanderson "was making wide radius turns and taking up a large swath of the ski slope."\n\nFor his part, Sanderson has accused Paltrow of barreling into him, breaking four of his ribs and causing a severe concussion whose symptoms lingered for years.

Terry Sanderson sued Gwyneth Paltrow over a ski accident for $3.1 million.

Sanderson's legal team could not come to a resolution with Paltrow and her attorney.

Sanderson's initial lawsuit was dismissed.