Texas sues General Motors, says it illegally collected and sold driver data
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing one of the nation’s largest automakers after he claimed it was illegally collecting and selling drivers’ data. Paxton is accusing General Motors of selling that data to insurance companies without drivers’ consent or knowledge.
GM is the first car manufacturer to be hit with a lawsuit after the Texas Office of the Attorney General opened an investigation into several manufacturers in June.
The lawsuit alleges GM installed technology in more than 14 million vehicles, allowing the company to compile “driving scores.” The scores assess nearly 2 million Texas drivers on their “bad” habits. These include speeding, braking too fast, steering too sharply into turns, not using seatbelts and driving late at night.
Paxton said insurers could then use the data when deciding whether to raise premiums, cancel policies or deny coverage.
The attorney general claims the technology was installed on most GM vehicles starting with the 2015 model year.
GM was already facing data privacy concerns after The New York Times reported in March the company shared drivers’ data with data brokers. These brokers then gave that information to insurance companies.
The Texas lawsuit calls for the deletion of improperly collected data, compensation for drivers, civil fines, and other remedies for violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
Prosecutors say Romanian businessman hired Hunter Biden to ‘influence’ US policy
With a month to go until Hunter Biden’s federal tax trial, prosecutors are making new allegations the president’s son accepted payments from a Romanian businessman to influence U.S. policy. And new details are emerging about the terror plot that resulted in the cancellation of Taylor Swift’s concerts in Austria. These stories and more highlight The Morning Rundown for Thursday, Aug. 8, 2024.
Prosecutors say Romanian businessman hired Hunter Biden to ‘influence’ U.S. policy
New details are coming out of Hunter Biden’s federal tax case. While the trial doesn’t begin until September, there’s a new court filing from the special counsel laying out a new allegation the prosecution plans to bring up.
Federal prosecutors allege the president’s son was compensated by a Romanian businessman who was trying to influence U.S. policy and end a local investigation of him in Romania.
According to the Wednesday, Aug. 7 filing, the special counsel intends to go after Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings even more, including his association with Burisma — a Ukrainian natural gas company — and an energy company in China.
The prosecution said it evidence will show he “performed almost no work in exchange for millions of dollars” from these entities and will speak to Hunter Biden’s “state of mind” and “intent” during the years in question.
Hunter Biden’s team had requested certain evidence be omitted from trial, questioning its relevance to the federal tax charges, which include failing to pay taxes, failing to file, and filing a fraudulent form.
He’s charged with three felonies and six misdemeanors in the tax case. The president’s youngest son is accused of failing to pay more than a million dollars in taxes between 2016 and 2019. Prosecutors allege he used the funds to live lavishly, including spending millions on drugs, escorts and luxury cars. Hunter Biden has pleaded not guilty in the case.
This is separate from Hunter Biden’s federal gun case where he was convicted in June of lying about his illegal drug use while filling out a form to purchase a gun. He has not been sentenced yet in that case.
Biden ‘not confident’ in peaceful transfer of power if Trump loses election
We’re getting a preview of President Joe Biden’s one-on-one interview with CBS News. While the full interview will air on Sunday, Aug. 11, there’s a clip that is getting a lot of attention Thursday morning, Aug. 8.
CBS News reporter Robert Costa asked the president if he’s confident there will be a peaceful transfer of power in January.
“If Trump loses, I’m not confident at all,” Biden said. “He means what he says, he means it, all the stuff about if we lose there will be a bloodbath.”
He added, “You can’t love your country only when you win.”
Trump’s “bloodbath” comments came during a rally in March. The former president has said he was referring to a “bloodbath” in the economy and auto industry if he loses the 2024 election.
Three months later, Trump was asked during the presidential debate on June 27 whether he would accept the 2024 election results. He said as long as it’s a “fair and legal” election, he’ll accept whatever the results are come November.
Taylor Swift shows in Austria canceled over foiled terror plot
Three of Taylor Swift’s concerts set for Vienna, Austria have been canceled after authorities say they foiled a terror attack planned for that leg of her Eras Tour. Austrian police said they’ve arrested two suspects who they say are ISIS sympathizers and became “radicalized by the internet.”
Police chemical substances and technical devices were found at the home of a 19-year-old suspect and are being evaluated. Authorities also said they’ve made “further detentions” but didn’t give any more details.
The concert’s promoter said all tickets for the canceled shows will be automatically refunded within the next 10 business days.
Family of French explorer killed in Titan catastrophe files $50M lawsuit
The family of French explorer Paul Henri Nargeolet who died when the Titan submersible imploded during a deep dive to the wreckage of the Titanic is suing for more than $50 million. They said the crew of five people on board experienced “terror and mental anguish” before the disaster and accuse OceanGate, the sub’s operator, of gross negligence.
After the June 2023 incident when the vessel imploded due to catastrophic pressure loss, it was revealed that industry experts had raised serious safety concerns about the project years earlier.
The lawsuit also alleges OceanGate failed to disclose the Titan’s flaws and purposely concealed any issues from French explorer Paul Henri Nargeolet. It also saysNargeolet — who had taken part in 37 dives to the Titanic wreckage, more than anyone else in the world — would not have taken the voyage if he’d known about the Titan’s issues.
The implosion killed four other people, including OceanGate’s CEO. This is the first lawsuit to be filed in connection with the disaster.
Intel shareholders sue after stock plunges over job and dividend cuts
Intel’s shareholders are suing a chip maker. Intel said the company hid problems with its manufacturing business ahead of announced layoffs and poor earnings.
The lawsuit accuses Intel, its CEO, and CFO of making false and misleading statements that “artificially inflated” the company’s stock price prior to announcing a loss of more than a billion dollars between April and June of 2024.
American Quincy Hall comes from behind to win men’s 400-meter final
Team USA won more medals on day 12 of the Paris Olympics on Wednesday, Aug. 7. The team picked up three more gold medals.
Team USA now tops the charts with 27 gold medals and 94 medals overall.
On Wednesday, the U.S. won wrestling, women’s cycling, and in track and field — even though it looked like sprinter Quincy Hall was out of the running with just seconds to go in the race.
Hall pulled off an amazing comeback with just a quarter of the 400-meter final to go. He fell into fourth place as the runners rounded the last bend but then picked up the pace and passed his competition to cross the finish line first.
Korea semiconductor company SK Hynix gets $450 million in CHIPS Act grant
The U.S. will officially host five of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturers after dolling out tens of billions of dollars in grant money. The Biden administration announced Tuesday, Aug. 6, it’s awarding hundreds of millions in grants to South Korea’s SK Hynix for its new facility in West Lafayette, Indiana.
“These are the only companies in the world capable of producing leading-edge chips at scale,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimonda said of the five companies establishing production on U.S. soil.
The Commerce Department now says it has dished out more than $30 billion of the $39 billion set aside as part of the bipartisan CHIPS Act.
Meanwhile, defense contractor BAE Systems received the first CHIPS Act grant totaling $35 million to quadruple the manufacturing of chips used in F-15 and F-35 fighter jets.
The bottom line
Semiconductors are crucial to the artificial intelligence boom the tech sector is facing today, and only about 10% of chips are made in the United States. That’s down from roughly 37% in 1990.
The Semiconductor Industry Association said the increased investment from the government and private sector will triple U.S. capacity by 2032. However, that will still only account for 14% of global manufacturing.
Trump open to Chinese EV factories in the US, but with some conditions
Keeping Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) out of the U.S. has been a major goal of President Joe Biden’s administration. However, during a speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday, July 18, former President Donald Trump said he would take a different approach, indicating his willingness to allow Chinese EV makers to establish operations in the U.S., provided that the production plants are constructed and staffed by American workers.
“They’re building some of the largest auto plants anywhere in the world,” Trump said. “We’re going to bring it back. We’re going to make them. We don’t mind that happening. But those plants are going to be built in the United States, and our people are going to man those plants.”
Trump’s proposal is aimed at preventing Chinese companies from building plants in Mexico to avoid the tariffs recently increased by the Biden administration and to capitalize on the federal government’s EV tax credit offerings.
“Large factories just started are being built across the border in Mexico,” Trump said. “So with all the other things happening at our border, and they’re being built by China to make cars and to sell them into our country.”
The former president said that if elected again, he plans to put forth policies to deter Beijing-backed companies from building out their facilities in Mexico. Trump claimed he would consider imposing substantial tariffs on these Chinese EVs manufactured in south of the U.S. border.
“If they don’t agree with us, we’ll put a tariff of approximately 100 to 200% on each car, and they will be unsellable in the United States,” Trump said.
In his speech, Trump also criticized the United Auto Workers (UAW), a union representing over 400,000 automotive industry employees, which endorsed Biden earlier this year, over China’s use of Mexico as a potential way to get its EVs into the United States. He said the UAW should be “ashamed for allowing this to happen,” and suggested that the union’s president, Shawn Fain, should be “fired immediately.”
Tariffs 101: Is raising tariffs on China a win for Americans?
Regarding tariffs on Chinese goods, 2024 presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump are more in lockstep than not. Both candidates appear to believe raising tariffs on China is a winning issue in key battleground states.
On Tuesday, May 14, President Biden announced additional tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, solar cells, advanced batteries, and semiconductors. The White House said increased tariffs will apply to about $18 billion worth of annual imports from China.
Four years ago, Biden said then-President Trump was going after China in the wrong way. However, since becoming president, Biden has not only kept Trump’s tariffs on China in place, he’s now tacking on.
As for how the two candidates differ in their tariff goals, Biden’s additions are more targeted while Trump has floated enormous tariff increases on all Chinese goods if reelected in November.
To understand why both candidates are leaning into tariffs and what price Americans pay, Straight Arrow News spoke with Kyla Scanlon, an economic commentator and author of “In This Economy? How Money & Markets Really Work.”
Below is an excerpt from the interview, edited for clarity. Watch the conversation in the video above.
Simone Del Rosario: Kyla, I want to talk about how tariffs really work. What do Biden and Trump think these tariffs will achieve versus what really happens when we increase tariffs on foreign trade partners?
Kyla Scanlon: Tariffs are tough, right? So it’s a tax on imports. Here specifically, it would be on China. And right now, it’s definitely a political talking point.
Everybody wants to see friend-shoring, reshoring, and that’s why these tariffs are being positioned as such and being talked about right now. I think people are hoping that it’ll achieve electoral votes, political points.
It’s tough because normally the U.S. consumer does end up paying the cost for these tariffs in the long run because they make everything more expensive to consume.
Simone Del Rosario: Are tariffs a proven way to protect the American manufacturing sector? And is America’s manufacturing sector robust enough to be able to benefit from this?
Kyla Scanlon: It’s a good question. Detroit has seen a slowdown in clean energy production and electrification. You’ve seen an uptick in dirty energy, as they call it. We don’t import a lot of solar cells and EVs from China but it’s something that we’re relying on more and more, and that’s why the tariffs that Biden is imposing are a little bit more strenuous. We are relying on it more so it is going to be more economically impactful. It’ll just take time.
It’s not a lot of money, it’s about $18 billion worth against 8% of total exposed volume that the tariffs end up amounting to. So it’s not a lot of stuff and it’s unsure if China will retaliate yet, they’re not very happy about it.
But there’s definitely going to be an economic cost to doing this. The clean energy fight is super important and we kind of have to do everything that we can and getting into a political war about it is not always so useful, right?
Simone Del Rosario: You said that the American consumer ends up paying for this. We’ve already shouldered so much in goods inflation over the past couple of years. How might increased tariffs affect the current inflation rate?
Kyla Scanlon: Reshoring is inflationary, inherently, right, because it is cheaper to import certain things. Comparative advantage is a real economic concept. So I think that’s the big worry with things like this is that we are reliant on some aspects of pulling technology from other countries, and if we try to produce everything ourselves, that’s going to be expensive.
It’s going to be expensive in building the manufacturing plants and hiring the labor and training up the labor. And we have the Inflation Reduction Act, but even with that, it’s still going to be probably a meaningful cost.
Simone Del Rosario: I’m curious why these politicians, again, think that tariffs are a winning issue. What do you think the message is to Americans when we increase tariffs on places like China versus what’s actually happening with prices? Where’s the disconnect?
Kyla Scanlon: It’s a framing thing. President Biden tweeted out that part of his housing plan was to give people $400 per month for two years so they could purchase their first home or contribute money toward their first home.
That’s not a great way to talk about housing policy – we really have to build more homes – but if you’re framing it from a political perspective, people do like the idea of getting $400 per month. But if you’re like, ‘We’re gonna build 100 more homes,’ sometimes that doesn’t fly as well.
So tariffs are ultimately that sort of thing. They’re ultimately a framing tool. And that’s why it’s been implemented and why they’re talked about. It is like, ‘Okay, we’re going to go up against China.’
We have outsourced a lot of manufacturing to China. We have outsourced a lot of work to China and now with worries around AI and whether the economy is actually slowing. The more that you can politically position to be like, ‘We’re bringing everything back here,’ the better.