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The oil industry was a major donor to Donald Trumps presidential campaign, and it’s gotten a return on that investment. Trumps Big Beautiful Bill kills clean energy incentives, gives millions of dollars in tax breaks and handouts to fossil fuel companies and executives, and mandates new oil and gas lease sales on federal land. But Trump isn’t the only politician in the pocket of Big Oil. The Republican lawmakers who supported that tax bill have also taken money from the fossil fuel industryaccepting more than $105 million in donations collectively, according to a recent analysis from environmental advocacy group Climate Power. Thats even as the clean energy tax credits and other incentives in Joe Bidens Inflation Reduction Act sent more than $200 billion to Republican districts, bolstering their economies and creating thousands of jobs. Why did they vote to kill manufacturing jobs in their home-state energy industries and raise utility rates on their own constituents while sending their constituents tax dollars to oil and gas executives? Climate Power asks in its analysis. The mystery isnt hard to solve, it continues. These Republicans in Congress are caught red-handed taking massive donations from the oil and gas industry, and voting to give them billions and to destroy their competition from their own states clean energy industries. All but two Republican House members and three Republican Senators voted to pass Trumps budget bill. The Climate Power report, which was first published in the Guardian, tallied up how much those supporters have received in donations from the fossil fuel industry over their entire careers. Republican House members have accepted $54.4 million, the Guardian reports, and Republican senators $51.5 million. More than $3 million from the oil industry has specifically gone to 15 Republicans whose states have major renewable energy sectors. These 15 lawmakers all backed Trumps budget billrisking nearly 112,000 clean energy jobs in their states. Michigan, for example, is a hub for the battery sector, which was heavily supported by the Inflation Reduction Act. Representative Bill Huizenga has taken more than $200,000 in oil and gas contributions. In Arizona, a prominent state for solar power, three representativesDavid Schweikert, Eli Crane, and Juan Ciscomanihave collectively accepted more than $500,000 in donations from oil and gas companies. In Iowa, more than 60% of the state’s electricity came from wind energy in 2024. Wind is an industry that Trump has had particular ire for. And Iowa Representatives Mariannette Miller-Meek and Zach Nunn have accepted about $230,000 and $130,000 in oil and gas contributions, respectively. Big Oil has been lobbying politicians for decades, but the industry has found a prominent supporter in Trump. While campaigning for his second run at the presidency, he invited oil and gas executives to his Mar-A-Lago estate, promising them benefits if they donated $1 billion to his efforts. Though Trump ultimately didnt receive that massive total, the oil and gas industry did still give: In the last election cycle alone, the industry spent $445 million to influence both Trump and Congress members, a previous Climate Power analysis found. Since regaining control of the White House in January, Trump has led a uniquely damaging assault on the planet, giving free reign to polluters, rolling back dozens of environmental regulations, and freezing billions in funding to support clean technologies like solar farms and EV chargers.
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E-Commerce
Wall Street is edging lower on Tuesday following drops for Palantir and other stars that had been riding the mania surrounding artificial intelligence technology. The S&P 500 slipped 0.4% and is on track for a third straight modest loss after setting its all-time high last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 8 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 11:50 a.m. ET, and the Nasdaq composite was down 1%. The heaviest weight on the market was Nvidia, whose chips are powering much of the move into AI. It sank 2%. Another AI darling, Palantir Technologies, dropped 5.7%, for the largest loss in the S&P 500. It has seen bets build up sharply among investors this year that its stock price will drop, according to S3 Partners. Only Meta Platforms has seen a bigger increase in what’s called short interest, where traders essentially bet a stock’s price will fall. Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, fell 1.7%. Criticism has been rising that stock prices have shot too high, too fast, and have become too expensive. One way companies can make their stock prices look less expensive is to deliver solid growth in profits. Palo Alto Networks climbed 4.7% after reporting earnings and revenue for the latest quarter that topped analysts expectations. The cybersecurity company also gave forecasts for profit and revenue in its upcoming fiscal year that were above Wall Streets. Home Depots rise of 3.1%, meanwhile, was the biggest reason the Dow was doing better than other indexes. The Dow had been flirting earlier in the morning with its own record, which was set in December. The retailer reported results for the latest quarter that were a bit short of what analysts expected. But it nevertheless delivered growth in revenue and stood by its prior forecasts for revenue and profit over the full year. Other big retailers will deliver their latest profit updates in the coming days. Lowes and Target are on deck for Wednesday, while Walmart and Ross Stores will report on Thursday. The weeks likely headliner for Wall Street is arriving on Friday. Thats when the chair of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, will give a highly anticipated speech in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The setting has been home to big policy announcements from the Fed in the past, and the hope on Wall Street is that Powell may give a hint that cuts to interest rates are coming soon. The Fed has been keeping its main interest rate steady this year, primarily because of the fear of the possibility that President Donald Trumps tariffs could push inflation higher. But a surprisingly weak report on job growth across the country may be superseding that. Traders on Wall Street widely expect the Fed to cut interest rates at its next meeting in September in order to give the economy a boost. Treasury yields have come down notably in the bond market as a result, and they fell on Tuesday. The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.31%, from 4.34%, late Monday. Strategists at Bank of America, though, warn that Powell may not sound as inclined to cut interest rates as the market is expecting. He could remain noncommittal and discuss the possibility of a worst-case scenario for the economy called stagflation. The Fed has no good tool to fix that situation, in which the economy stagnates at the same time that inflation remains high. On Wall Street, Tegna rose 4.1% after Nexstar Media Group said it will buy the owner of 64 television stations across the country for $22 per share in cash, giving the deal a total value of $6.2 billion, including debt. Nexstar, which owns the CW and local television broadcasters of its own, added 0.4%. The companies said combining will give them a broader reach and allow them to better compete with Big Tech and legacy media. Viking Therapeutics tumbled 43% after the biopharmaceutical company released results from a clinical trial of its oral tablet, which could treat obesity and other metabolic disorders. In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe after falling modestly in Asia. Tokyos Nikkei 225 index slipped 0.4% as market heavyweight SoftBank Group Corp. fell 4% after it announced it was taking a $2 billion stake in U.S. chipmaker Intel. Intel climbed 7.7%. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick also confirmed in an interview on CNBC that the Trump administration may take an ownership stake in Intel. By Stan Choe, AP business writer AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
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E-Commerce
Were on the other side of Taylor Swifts Eras Tour now, but the landmark 149 show world tours rollout was plagued by bots, resellers, and spiking ticket prices that left many unhappy fans empty-handed. Now, we know a little more about how all of that went down. The Eras Tour was big money, no matter how you slice it. The tour inspired expensive geopolitical maneuvering in Southeast Asia, gave some sluggish American local economies a shot in the arm, and drove $261 million in box office sales after the fact. For unscrupulous resellers, it was a massive payday. According to a new lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission filed on Monday, one elaborate ticket reselling scheme flooded Ticketmaster with an army of fake accounts, buying up sought-after tickets for live shows like Swifts Eras Tour. The lawsuit alleges that Key Investment Group, a ticket broker based in Maryland, used fake accounts to bypass Ticketmasters security measures and the companys limits on ticket purchases. The FTC believes that the reseller operated thousands of Ticketmaster accounts, many that it paid to purchase, and relied on a combination of virtual credit card numbers, IP spoofing and SIM card fraud to execute the purchases. Buying up thousands of tickets According to the complaint, the group was able to buy at least 379,776 tickets over the course of a single year, paying almost $57 million for the trove. By reselling the tickets on secondary markets for heavy markups, the scheme netted at least $64 million in sales. For a single Eras Tour show at Nevadas Allegiant Stadium, the reselling group bought 273 tickets using 49 different accounts, selling them for a total of $119,227, the FTC alleges. Swifts tour enforced a strict six-ticket limit in place for each show. The company allegedly purchased at least 10 tickets to each Taylor Swift concert from March to August 2023, making $1.2 million in profit from reselling the 2,280 tickets. Sketchy ticket flipping practices like the ones in the new FTC complaint run afoul the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, a 2016 law enacted to prevent ticket resellers from buying up tickets and manipulating prices. While Swifts concerts likely proved the most lucrative, the reselling scheme cast a wide net that included buying up more than 1500 tickets to a Bruce Springsteen show at MetLife Stadium. Todays action puts brokers on notice that the Trump-Vance FTC will police operations that unlawfully circumvent ticket sellers purchase limits, ensuring that consumers have an opportunity to buy tickets at fair prices, FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson said. Swift hype builds again News of the ticket reselling crackdown comes a week after Swift announced a new album, The Life of a Showgirl, expected in October. The pop superstar announced her new music on New Heights, a podcast hosted by Swifts boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, and his brother. The album will be the first in a true new era for Swift. In May, she successfully purchased the master recordings of her first six albums, a struggle that took years to pull off. Swift bought the original recordings from Shamrock Capital, a private equity firm that winded up with them after music manager Scooter Braun offloaded the recordings for at least $300 million. Ive been bursting into tears of joy at random intervals ever since I found out that this is really happening, Swift said at the time. I really get to say these words: All of the music Ive ever made… now belongs to me. Swifts new album will be the first since her 2024 release, The Tortured Poets Department, which smashed streaming records and set a new high bar for the most vinyl albums ever sold within a single week.
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E-Commerce
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