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Showing posts with label Trending News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trending News. Show all posts

Friday, June 17, 2022

Vince McMahon steps down as WWE CEO while the company investigates alleged misconduct

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Vince McMahon steps down as WWE CEO while the company investigates alleged misconduct

 

WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon speaks at a news conference in January 2014.

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Vince McMahon is stepping aside away from the business side of the wrestling company while an investigation is conducted into an alleged hush-money payment to cover up sexual misconduct, the WWE and its board of directors announced Friday.

McMahon has run the company for 40 years after taking over for his father in 1982, when it was known as the World Wrestling Federation. He'll still maintain control of the WWE's creative output during the investigation, and the company announced he'd appear on Friday night's episode of SmackDown.

"I have pledged my complete cooperation to the investigation by the Special Committee, and I will do everything possible to support the investigation. I have also pledged to accept the findings and outcome of the investigation, whatever they are," McMahon said in the company's statement.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the board was investigating a $3 million payout made to a woman to cover up an alleged consensual affair between a WWE paralegal and McMahon, who has faced accusations of sexual misconduct in the past.

The newspaper reported that the board's investigation uncovered several other nondisclosure agreements reached in relation to other misconduct claims against McMahon and Head of Talent Relations John Laurinaitis by women who worked for WWE.

Chief Brand Officer Stephanie McMahon, Vince McMahon's daughter and a WWE executive since 2006, will take over as CEO and chair of the board of directors in his absence.

The company said that in addition to investigating the allegations against McMahon and Laurinaitis, it also would hire an outside company to review the company's human resources department and overall culture.

The McMahon family has been involved in wrestling for more than a hundred years, and Vince McMahon regularly cast himself and his children as villains in the WWE's wrestling storylines. The company achieved a near-monopoly of the industry with the shutdown of World Championship Wrestling in 2001.

That has made the family billionaires, and they've used some of that money to get involved in Republican politics, including two failed runs for U.S. Senate seats by Linda McMahon, Vince's wife. She went on to serve as head of the Small Business Administration for two years under former President Donald Trump.

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Wednesday, June 15, 2022

Mayra Flores flips House seat in Texas special election

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Mayra Flores flips House seat in Texas special election

Mayra Flores flips House seat in Texas special election

Flores fills a South Texas seat previously held by Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela, who resigned in March. She will have to run for re-election in November.
Congressional candidate from Texas Mayra Flores
Mayra Flores at the RNC headquarters in Washington on May 17, 2022.Bill Clark / CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Republicans picked up a seat in the House on Tuesday with the projected win of Mayra Flores in the Texas special election to fill a seat previously held by a Democrat.

Flores defeated Democrat Dan Sanchez to represent the state’s 34th Congressional District by about 51 to 43% of the vote, with 97% of the expected vote in, NBC News projects.

The Republican fills the seat held by Democratic Rep. Filemon Vela, the previous vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, who resigned in late March to take a job with the law and lobbying firm Akin Gump.

Flores, who has worked as a health care worker and touted her husband’s job as a border patrol agent in campaign ads, was the leading candidate in polls ahead of the election. Sanchez, who works as an attorney, trailed Flores in fundraising and barely aired any ads. 

Flores will hold the seat until January under the district's old lines.

In November, there will be a general election to decide who represents the new 34th District, which favors Democrats much more than the current district. The nominees for that race have already been decided in the normal primary process: Flores will face off against Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez under the new lines. 








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As K-pop behemoth BTS hits pause, its fandom reels

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As K-pop behemoth BTS hits pause, its fandom reels

 

As K-pop behemoth BTS hits pause, its fandom reels


An advertisement in Seoul shows K-pop megastars BTS in 2020. (SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg News)

SEOUL — She eked out a muffled, squeaking sob as a single tear ran down her cheek. “Yes i heard the news” was the caption and the only context for the video Erika Titus posted Tuesday on TikTok.

She was, of course, reacting to the news that the massively successful K-pop group BTS was taking a break for an indefinite period. Titus was not alone in her despair: Her video had more than half a million likes, with her followers sharing in the comments how they were coping with the announcement. One fan wrote: “i found out at work and literally had to leave early,” followed by three crying emoji.

And in rainy Seoul on Wednesday, Atsushi Harada, a correspondent for Japan’s NTV News, trekked to the headquarters of BTS’s management company, noting the poignant weather in a tweet about how a poster of BTS member Jungkook had gotten wet. “He looks sad,” Harada wrote.

Such was the impact of what appeared to be the end of an era for not only the most successful K-pop act ever, but also one of the most successful music groups of all time. BTS announced during a live-streamed event Tuesday that its members were taking time off to pursue solo projects and take stock of how they could move forward as a group act.

“I hope you don’t see this as a negative thing, and see it as a healthy plan,” J-Hope said, speaking in Korean. “I think BTS will become stronger that way.” He referred in English to what would ostensibly be the group’s comeback as “chapter two.”

The group also lamented some of the less shiny aspects of K-pop stardom, like the constant pressure and the feeling that they were losing their senses of direction as individuals. The venting session was a rare public acknowledgment of the intense nature of the K-pop industry, in which stars — referred to as “idols” — are trained from a young age, taught to look, speak, dress, dance and sing in specific ways.

“I just felt really sad that they felt sad,” Titus, 19, said in a phone call late Tuesday from her home on Oahu, Hawaii. “They felt all this pressure that people were going to be upset with them” for announcing the break, she said.

Since becoming the first Korean act to win a Billboard music award in 2017, BTS has been one of South Korea’s biggest exports, bringing in billions in ticket sales, sponsorships, music downloads and merchandise. It took the top prize at the American Music Awards last year, and in 2019, it was the first group since the Beatles to have three No. 1 hits in a year on Billboard’s Top 200.

HYBE, BTS’s management company, released a statement saying the group was not taking a hiatus but “would start solo projects while remaining active as a group.”

Still, Tuesday’s announcement sent shares of HYBE down nearly 25 percent. It also came amid a growing debate in South Korea over whether BTS and other K-pop stars should be granted exemption from the country’s mandatory military service.

In April, South Korea’s culture minister called for an exemption for BTS, saying it would be “a cultural loss for mankind” for K-pop stars to pause their work for military service. Critics say that proposed exemptions would be bending the conscription rules to help the rich and powerful skip national duty.

All able-bodied South Korean men are required to enlist by age 28, though parliament revised a law in 2020 to let K-pop stars postpone their national service until they are 30. The band’s oldest member, Jin, 29, said in an April news conference that he would leave any decisions about military service to his management company. Lee Jin-hyeong, chief commercial officer at HYBE, told the conference that “the conscription laws continue to change in an unpredictable manner, which actually make things hard for our artists.”

Jin is expected to enlist this year unless a related law is revised to allow the K-pop stars an exemption in recognition of their contributions to South Korea’s international reputation.

“BTS surely needs a break after years of tireless work, but the impending reality of military service must have been a significant factor in their new decision,” said Lim Jin-mo, a pop music critic in South Korea. He said the national duty is a sensitive topic even for top K-pop stars like BTS because “an exemption can be seen as a preferential treatment, possibly invoking a sense of deprivation and discontent among fellow Korean citizens.”

As much as BTS’s news shook the K-pop industry, Lee Kee-woong, a pop culture expert at Sungkonghoe University in Seoul, said the impact is likely to be short-lived. “I think it will bounce back quite quickly,” Lee said. With the industry’s exponential growth in recent years, there’s now a multitude of rising bands that could quickly fill the gap while BTS takes a break.

Asked whether she had doubts about whether the group would follow through on its promise for a second chapter, Titus said she had faith: “It can’t end like this!”









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Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Coinbase Lays Off 1,100 Employees—Billionaire CEO Warns Recession Could Worsen Impact Of $1 Trillion Crypto Crash

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Coinbase Lays Off 1,100 Employees—Billionaire CEO Warns Recession Could Worsen Impact Of $1 Trillion Crypto Crash

 The billionaire chief of popular crypto-brokerage Coinbase on Tuesday announced plans to lay off about 18% of the company's workforce to lower costs ahead of a potential recession, joining other tech firms in downsizing staffing levels as stocks and cryptocurrencies plunge deeper into bear market territory.

KEY FACTS

In a regulatory filing released Tuesday, Coinbase said it plans to layoff approximately 1,100 employees in response to "current market conditions and ongoing business prioritization efforts.”

"We grew too quickly," CEO Brian Armstrong wrote in a blog post Tuesday, adding that labor costs have grown "too high to effectively manage this uncertain market" and warning the economy "appear[s]

to be entering a recession after a 10+ year economic boom."

The firm said U.S. employees affected by the layoffs will be terminated Tuesday, and that it will “follow applicable local guidelines” for non-U.S. workers; Coinbase expects to have about 5,000 employees after "substantially" completing the cuts by the end of this month.

Departing employees will receive at least 14 weeks of severance, four months of health insurance and job-search resources, the company said, estimating it will incur about $40 million to $45 million in restructuring expenses related to the termination benefits.

In a letter to shareholders last month, Coinbase warned plunging crypto prices and volatility that began late last year “directly impacted” first-quarter financials and pushed trading volume down to $309 billion (8% lower than last year)—resulting in the firm's first quarterly loss as a publicly traded company.

Coinbase stock fell 6% in pre-market trading after the announcement and has collapsed more than 85% from a closing high in November.

CRUCIAL QUOTE

“Down markets are challenging to navigate and require a different mindset… A recession could lead to another crypto winter, and could last for an extended period,” Armstrong, whose fortune Forbes pegs at $2.2 billion, said Tuesday, noting that trading revenue (the company's largest revenue source) has declined significantly during past periods of crypto-market weakness. “The actions we are taking today will allow us to more confidently manage through this period even if it is severely prolonged,” Armstrong added.

KEY BACKGROUND

Coinbase debuted on the public market last April after a watershed year for cryptocurrencies, but Federal Reserve efforts to combat sky-high inflation—at the risk of stunting economic growth—have deflated asset valuations—and hit the cryptocurrency industry particularly hard. The price of bitcoin plunged nearly 20% to an overnight low of less than $21,000 on Monday after crypto lending company Celsius first sparked fears by suspending withdrawals due to “extreme market conditions.” Amid the selloff, Binance was forced to halt its exchange due to a backlog issue, while crypto firm BlockFi later announced it was laying off 20% of its workforce due to the challenging market environment.

SURPRISING FACT

The overall value of the world's cryptocurrencies has plunged about 70% to $929 billion, from an all-time high of about $3 trillion in November and $2 trillion at the start of the quarter. Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq has plummeted about 32% this year.

TANGENT

Last week, Armstrong lashed out at employees who reportedly started an online petition to remove top executives in response to a hiring freeze and rescinded job offers. “This is really dumb on multiple levels,” Armstrong said of the rebellion, adding: “If you want to do a vote of no confidence, you should do it on me and not blame the execs.”


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