World shares mixed as Fed rate hike decision looms
The Federal Reserve is set to make its final interest rate hike for the year, prompting mixed world shares.
Abroad, shares in England, France, and Germany all declined while shares in Asia were higher.
At home, U.S. futures were down slightly and oil prices also fell.
The Fed is expected to raise its benchmark rate a half-point Wednesday, the seventh increase of the year. The past four hikes have each been three-quarters of a point.
The hike is the latest effort by the Fed and Chairman Jerome Powell to get inflation under control.
The Bank of England and European Central are expected to release their own decisions on Thursday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Jack Dorsey announces first plan to support ‘open internet development’
Jack Dorsey, co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, said he will give $1 million per year to encrypted messaging app Signal to support “open internet development.”
Dorsey made the announcement Tuesday in a blog post on Revue, a newsletter service owned by Twitter.
The $1 million per year payment he plans to give to Signal will be made as a grant to the company.
The move by the ex-Twitter boss is the first in a series of grants he intends to give.
Since departing Twitter, Dorsey has said social media should not be “owned by a single company or group of companies.”
He also said social media needs to be “resilient to corporate and government influence.”
Musk drops Twitter’s Trust and Safety advisory group
Twitter CEO Elon Musk has disbanded the company’s Trust and Safety Council.
Twitter first formed the advisory group, consisting of nearly 100 independent civil, human rights and other organizations, in 2016.
It was founded to address hate speech, child exploitation, suicide, self-harm and other problems on the platform, although its impact on the platform has been contested.
Musk has personally said Twitter, under its former leadership, lacked effective means to stop child trafficking and other illicit activities.
The council was scheduled to meet with Twitter representatives on Monday night but Twitter prefaced the meeting by disbanding the group.
The meeting was then canceled, multiple council members told The Associated Press. The members spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fears of retaliation.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Federal Reserve to continue inflation fight with 50-basis-point rate hike this week
The Federal Reserve is set to slow its rapid pace of interest rate increases at its final meeting of the year this week amid early signs that stubbornly high inflation is finally starting to cool.
The U.S. central bank is widely expected to lift the federal funds rate by 50 basis points at the conclusion of its two-day meeting on Wednesday – a slightly smaller increase than the 75-basis-point increases approved at the past four meetings but still large by historical standards.
The move would set the federal funds rate between 4.25% to 4.5%, further restricting economic activity as the borrowing costs for homes, cars and other items march higher. It would mark the highest rate level since 2007.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell confirmed at the end of November that smaller rate hikes are on the table in December. However, he said policymakers have more work to crush stubbornly high inflation.
“Given our progress in tightening policy, the timing of that moderation is far less significant than the questions of how much further we will need to raise rates to control inflation and the length of time it will be necessary to hold policy at a restrictive level,” he said during a speech in Washington.
Read more from the report by clicking here: Fed likely to slow interest rate hikes at final meeting of the year
FTX founder, Alameda Research CEO retain lawyers amid FTX probe, new charges
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison have each retained high-powered criminal defense attorneys specializing in white-collar crimes amid the ongoing law enforcement probes into the collapse of their crypto empire.
Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas on Monday at the request of U.S. authorities ahead of his likely extradition at a later date. On Tuesday, a federal prosecutor unsealed an indictment revealing Bankman-Fried has been charged with eight crimes.
The charges against him include wire fraud on customers, plus a related conspiracy charge; wire fraud on lenders, plus a conspiracy charge; in addition to conspiracies to commit commodities fraud, securities fraud, money laundering, and violate campaign finance laws.
In total, the charges Bankman-Fried faces carry a total potential sentence of up to 115 years in prison based on federal sentencing guidelines for those crimes. The wire fraud charges – including the conspiracy charges – and the money laundering conspiracy count carry a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison apiece. Each of the commodities and securities fraud charges and the campaign finance conspiracy charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison.
The task of preventing Bankman-Fried from spending the rest of his life in prison if found guilty of the crimes he stands accused of falls to Mark Cohen, of Cohen & Gresser law firm.
For more on the story, click here: Sam Bankman-Fried, Caroline Ellison retain high-powered white collar lawyers amid FTX probe
Read More: STOCK MARKET NEWS: Feds set to announce 7th rate hike, US lawmakers avert government