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Swifties have plenty to celebrate on Friday as Taylor Swift announced that she now owns the master recordings of her first six albums after years of trying and failing to buy them. Swift posted the news to her website, explaining that she was able to purchase the original versions of the albums from Shamrock Capital, the private equity firm that bought the recordings from music manager Scooter Braun in 2020 for at least $300 million. In an emotional letter, Swift called securing her masters a dream come true. Swift described herself as endlessly thankful to Shamrock Capital for handling the deal fairly and offering her the first chance shes ever been given to buy her own music back. This was a business deal to them, but I really felt like they saw it for what it was to me: My memories and my sweat and my handwriting and my decades of dreams, Swift wrote. An uphill battle, even for a billionaire titan of the music industry After two decades of having the carrot dangled and then yanked away, Swift admitted that she almost stopped believing that she would ever own the original recordings. But thats all in the past now, Swift wrote. Ive been bursting into tears of joy at random intervals ever since I found out that this is really happening. I really get to say these words: All of the music Ive ever made now belongs to me. In 2019, Braun acquired Nashville indie record label Big Machine, along with the rights to the albums Swift had recorded there. After Brauns purchase, Swift stated that she was in no way consulted on the deal and had suffered from incessant, manipulative bullying by the industry executive. Its a shame to know that I will now be unable to help grow the future of these past works and it pains me very deeply to be separated from the music I spent over a decade creating, Swift said after the deal went public. An update on the status of Reputation In light of her struggle to regain control of her own music, Swift set out to re-record all of the albums she didnt own. Swift began issuing Taylors Version updates to her missing catalogue albums in 2021, putting out re-recordings of Fearless, Red, Speak Now and 1989 accompanied by previously unreleased songs. Fans eager for news that Swift had finished re-recording her sixth studio album, Reputation, have plenty to be happy for but are still in for a wait. In her announcement, Swift divulged that, full transparency, shes less than a quarter of the way done with the process. To be perfectly honest, its the one album in the first 6 that I thought couldnt be improved upon by redoing it. Not the music, or photos, or videos. So I kept putting it off, Swift wrote, adding that shes happy with a now-finished re-recording of her self-titled debut album. Those 2 albums can still have their moments to re-emerge when the time is right But if it happens, it wont be from a place of sadness and longing for what I wish I could have, Swift wrote. It will just be a celebration now.
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E-Commerce
Elon Musk wrapped up his time with President Trump’s administration on Friday with a lengthy press conference during which both men heaped praise on one other in what seemed like an attempt to shut down any suggestions of friction between them. Trump said that despite his status of special government employee ending Friday, Musk is “really not leaving.” Hes going to be back and forth, I think, Trump told reporters in the ornately embellished Oval Office. He added that DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) was Musk’s “baby.” Musk stood by Trump, sporting a bruise near his eye he said was from “horsing around” with his 5-year-old son. When asked about his future role in government, Musk deferred to the president. “I expect to continue to provide advice whenever the president would like advice,” he said. “I expect to remain a friend and an advisor and certainly if there’s anything the president wants me to do, I’m at the president’s service.” A 130-day experiment in government disruption The conference marked the end of one of the most turbulent governmental periods in history. For the past 130 days, Musk took a spot as one of Trump’s most visible employees after spending hundreds of millions of dollars on his campaign. In that role, he powered an efficiency drive that he said was meant to cut $1 trillion from the federal budget by October 1. During that process, the agency cut wide swaths of important government agencies, amassed a number of lawsuits on the legality of its actions, and is still far short of its budget-cutting goal. At the same time, Musk’s public perception dropped for not only him but his handful of companies. Investors voiced concerns that Musk was spending too much time in Washington, D.C., rather than focusing on running his businesses. Tesla, for example, has struggled with lagging sales in Europe and China, as well as consumer protests at its showrooms. “This ends a dark chapter for Musk and Tesla,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in an email. Tesla stock is set to end the month up more than 24%.
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E-Commerce
Following a divided Supreme Court ruling Friday, more than half a million people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela stand to have their legal immigration status in the U.S. revoked. The decision follows another recent ruling clearing the way for President Trumps no-holds-barred immigration crackdown and puts close to one million people at risk of imminent deportation, even as the case continues its way through the courts. The Supreme Courts decision to grant a stay in the case will temporarily pause an immigration program known as CHNV (Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela) that offered temporary legal entry into the U.S. for people fleeing countries stricken by war and instability. Previously, a federal judge ruled that the administration could not suspend the program across the board, a decision that was upheld by an appeals court last month. Following those rulings, the Trump administration sought an emergency appeal with the Supreme Court and on Friday it was successful. A Biden-era immigration program Earlier this month in a parallel case, the Supreme Court cleared the way for the White House to remove the legal status of 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants living within the country through a program granting them legal protections known as Temporary Protected Status. The Biden administration introduced an expanded humanitarian parole program in 2023, building on a previous program specific to Venezuela that was implemented the year prior. Under the expanded process, up to 30,000 people per month from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Haiti, and Cuba who have a sponsor in the U.S. and pass background checks could be granted work authorization and allowed to stay in the U.S. for two years. The initiative aimed to expand and expedite legal pathways for orderly migration by offering an additional immigration path that discouraged illegal alternatives. The Biden administration attributed a drop in unlawful immigration from Venezuela to the success of the humanitarian parole program. The new Supreme Court ruling is the latest emergency order responding to the Trump administrations barrage of executive actions seeking to dismantle existing immigration policies. The ruling did not provide an explanation for the decision, which reverses a lower courts previous decision to block the administrations effort to end the humanitarian parole program. Moving faster than the courts After taking office, President Trump moved immediately to dismantle Biden-era immigration policies, which he characterized as enabling a large-scale invasion of the country. In an executive order issued on January 20, Trump announced his intention to end the humanitarian parole program and signaling the coming battle over immigration in the courts. One of my most important obligations is to protect the American people from the disastrous effects of unlawful mass migration and resettlement, Trump said in the order. In March, the Department of Homeland Security moved to execute those plans, revoking temporary legal protections for more than 500,000 people in the U.S. Trump has boasted of plans to deport upwards of 15 million people, but that number exceeds most estimates of how many total unauthorized immigrants are even in the U.S. to begin with. While Trumps immigration numbers may not eclipse those of his former political rivals, his administrations methods and priorities vary sharply. A rhetorical shift with familiar numbers Despite centering his public image around immigration policy, Trump actually deported fewer people during his first term than former President Obama did during either of his two consecutive terms. During his first four years, Trump deported roughly 1.5 million people half of the 2.9 billion from Obamas first term but has promised to execute the largest deportation program in American history upon taking office again. For comparison, former President Biden deported more people in 2024 than any president within a single year in the last decade. While the Obama administration focused its efforts on recent arrivals in the U.S., Trump is targeting people who have been in the country for years along with large swaths of people who entered the U.S. legally during the Biden era. Trump also made headlines by announcing that the U.S. would detail 30,000 people in Guantánamos infamous military prison, but has backed away from the flashy enforcement plan over concerns around cost and logistics. Leaning on a centuries-old law To achieve its anti-immigration aims, the Trump administration has undertaken a rash and potentially illegal series of deportations, leaning on an obscure law known as the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, which was previously invoked only three times across history. In March, an ICE official admitted to mistakenly deporting a man with protected legal status to El Salvador. The administration initially said that it could not bring the man, Abrego Garcia, back to the U.S., though Trump later said that he could return Garcia with a single phone call but chose not to. Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor denounced the courts emergency decision in a dissent on Friday, accusing the administration of intending to inflict maximum predecision damage through its appeal. The Court has plainly botched this assessment today, Jackson wrote in the dissent, arguing that the decision undervalues the devastating consequences of allowing the Government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending.
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E-Commerce
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