(NEW YORK) — Apple users eagerly awaiting a new iPhone model will likely get their wish next month.
The company announced on Wednesday that it will hold a public event on Sept. 7 where Apple is expected to launch the latest line of iPhones and likely other products.
Apple is expected to release a set of four iPhone models that could be called the iPhone 14, Bloomberg reported. The new line is widely expected to feature an improved camera, among other updates.
Besides the iPhone, the company reportedly could announce a new line of the Apple Watch. The company is developing new health-related features that could alert a person to an increase in blood pressure as well as a change in body temperature related to fertility, The Wall Street Journal reported last September.
The event will take place at 1 p.m. ET and will be available to stream on Apple’s website.
Apple sent invites on Wednesday for some viewers to see the event in person at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.
Earnings released by Apple last month outpaced analyst expectations for profit and revenue, as the company brought in $83 billion over the third quarter. Growth, however, slowed for the company. Sales jumped 2% year-over-year in the third quarter, a marked decline from 9% year-over-year growth in the prior quarter.
Apple has promoted the public event next month with the teaser tagline “Far out.”
(NEW YORK) — Just a week before repayments on federal student loans were scheduled to resume after a two-year pause, President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced a sweeping new policy to cancel debt for millions of Americans and reform the payment process going forward.
Students who attended college on Pell grants — federal dollars awarded to low-income students who can only contribute a certain amount toward their tuition — will owe up to $20,000 less on their federal loans if they make under $125,000 per year. And non-Pell borrowers making less than $125,000 will owe up to $10,000 less on their federal loans.
The president is also adjusting how much borrowers will have to pay each month and is extending the federal pause on repayments until the end of the year.
And while borrowers should keep their eyes peeled for specific details from the Department of Education (DOE) over the next few days and weeks, here is everything to know so far:
Who will this help?
Biden’s plan will erase at least $10,000 in federal student loan debt for Americans who made less than $125,000 per year in the 2020 or 2021 tax year, or less than $250,000 as a household.
For Americans under that same income bracket who took out Pell grants to pay for college, it would erase an additional $10,000 in debt, bringing the total forgiveness up to $20,000.
The income cap refers to adjusted gross income, a DOE spokesperson told ABC News, referring to income that already excludes retirement plan contributions, alimony and certain other expenses.
Current students are also eligible for federal loan forgiveness, so long as their parents meet the income criteria of $125,000 for a single provider or $250,000 for a married couple who file their taxes jointly.
The forgiveness applies to anyone who took out their loans before July 2022.
In a speech on Wednesday, Biden said 95% of borrowers will get some relief from his plan, or a total of 43 million out of the 45 million total student borrowers.
Nearly 45%, or 20 million people, will have their debt fully canceled, he said.
DOE data shows that erasing even $10,000 of debt could settle the balances of about one-third of federal loan borrowers. An analysis from Princeton University and the University of California at Merced that incorporated incomes found the same.
And for the other half of borrowers who will still have loans to continue paying down, Biden said the DOE would be modifying the terms.
The minimum required monthly payments for undergraduate loans will be cut from 10% down to 5% of peoples’ discretionary income, while the amount of income that is considered non-discretionary — or protected from repayment — was raised to guarantee that no borrower who is making around the annual equivalent of a $15-an-hour minimum wage will have to make monthly payments.
The plan will also ensure that people who took out an original loan of $12,000 or less will have their balance forgiven after 10 years of payments, which was brought down from the initial timeline of 20 years.
The DOE estimates that this change will allow community college graduates to be debt-free within 10 years.
“I think the administration is structurally attempting to fix many of the problems that have plagued the inconvenient payment system. Whether or not it gets the job done is going to depend on the details,” said Persis Yu, policy director and managing counsel for the Student Borrower Protection Center, a leading advocacy organization focused on alleviating student debt.
When will debt cancellation kick in?
Some borrowers will immediately qualify for debt cancellation. But more than likely, it will take months for the vast majority of borrowers, experts told ABC News.
In a briefing with reporters on Wednesday morning, the White House said the DOE would release details on the process in the coming days.
Some people will need to submit a “simple application” on studentaid.gov showing that they meet the income caps, a White House official said, while about eight million people will see their debt canceled automatically because the DOE already has their info on hand.
But because the DOE does not have income data for the other two-thirds of borrowers, they will need to receive authorization from those borrowers to obtain such data from the Internal Revenue Service — or borrowers will have to certify their income under penalty of perjury, financial aid expert Mark Kantrowitz told ABC News in an interview.
“So you might have some borrowers getting forgiveness within a month or two, immediately, and then some borrowers taking a few additional months and they would have to complete that form,” Kantrowitz said.
“One thing I recommend all borrowers do is make sure your contact information, your mailing address, your email address or telephone numbers are up to date with your loan servicer and on the studentaid.gov website,” Kantrowitz said.
At a briefing later Wednesday, Susan Rice, Biden’s domestic policy adviser, told reporters that “anybody can go today to studentaid.gov and provide their email address and they will be notified when the website is available for people to fill out a very simple short form attesting to their income and become eligible.”
But just how “simple” the application is for people, and how many people know about it, is a subject of concern for debt-relief advocates who think a complicated process could keep people from taking advantage of the new policy.
“There’s a lot of low-income folks who will never learn about this application. They will not be able to figure it out, they won’t have the resources available to navigate the bureaucratic process,” Yu said. “And so in imposing this hurdle, we’re actually putting in a barrier for the folks who need it the most.”
The solution, Yu argued, would be a broad cancellation that does not try to target people based on their income, which would make the process easier to execute by the DOE.
How much will this cost the government?
A recent study by the University of Pennsylvania’s business school found that erasing $10,000 in student loan debt will cost about $300 billion. If the program continues for 10 years, the cost becomes $330 billion, or $344 billion if there is no income limit, per the report.
The changes to the monthly loan payments will also affect the cost, but the White House declined to give specifics on Wednesday, saying only that the cost would be spread over time and would be difficult to estimate.
“It’s fairly complicated, as a process, for determining the cost implications,” a White House official said.
Because the federal government backs many student loans, U.S. taxpayers will likely foot the bill — something Biden addressed directly on Wednesday by comparing student debt cancellation to the Paycheck Protection Program, a loan forgiveness program for businesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“No one complained that those loans caused inflation. A lot of these folks in small businesses are working in middle-class families. They needed help. It was the right thing to do,” Biden said.
“So the outrage over helping working people with student loans, I think is just simply wrong, dead wrong,” he said.
He also pushed back against Republicans who he pointed out, under former President Donald Trump, passed a massive tax cut that benefited many wealthy Americans and corporations, with the GOP arguing the move aided the economy.
In contrast, Biden said Wednesday, his plan would benefit the “middle class and working families. It helps both current and future borrowers. And it’ll fix a badly broken system.”
Does this policy fulfill Biden’s campaign promise?
While the president did pledge to cancel $10,000 in student loan debt on the trail — a commitment he has now made good on — that was just one of his vows around reforming the higher-education system.
Many critics who want to see Biden do more have pointed out that as a candidate he also proposed forgiving all tuition loan debt from undergraduate students that earn less than $125,000 per year and who attended two- or four-year public colleges, as he wrote in a 2020 Medium article.
“The federal government would pay the monthly payment in lieu of the borrower until the forgivable portion of the loan was paid off. This benefit would also apply to individuals holding federal student loans for tuition from private HBCUs and MSIs,” Biden wrote then.
That pledge led some progressives to commend the progress so far but still call for more.
“While not as high as we called for, this crucial step from the President keeps his campaign promise and responds to calls from the CPC, the Black Caucus, the Hispanic Caucus, and millions across the country to address the crippling issue of student debt,” the Congressional Progressive Caucus said in a statement on Wednesday.
Yu, with the Student Borrower Protection Center, also applauded the move — but said it would be important to watch the rollout with a critical eye.
“We’re very excited to see him take this bold action, which is one of the things he’s promised,” Yu said.
But because Biden pledged debt cancellation for all, while the current policy is tailored to people under a certain income, Yu said the positive impact remains to be seen.
“I think really the test will be like: Are we able to get this relief to all of the borrowers who are eligible for it? That will be the real test of whether or not he’s kept his campaign promise,” Yu said.
With midterm elections roughly two months away, it also remains to be seen if erasing federal loan debt for some borrowers could bolster Biden’s underwater approval rating.
The plan is also likely to face pushback from those who opted not to attend college altogether because of the cost of doing so.
To that end, the new policy also stipulates that borrowers who meet the income requirements and recently paid off their loans can request a $10,000 refund or the total of payments made since March 13, 2020.
(NEW YORK) — After working for seven years in the corporate world as an aerospace engineer, Anita Vandyke said she needed to shed the material excess in her life and “give more.”
Vandyke is now a zero waste lifestyle author and influencer promoting the protection of the Earth and its resources.
Vandyke, who lives in Australia, runs the popular Instagram account @rocket_science, where she documents her own minimalist and zero waste journey. She’s also authored three books on zero waste living.
According to a 2020 study from researchers at Penn State, the average U.S. household wastes around 30% of the food it buys, translating to approximately $240 billion in food waste annually, nationwide.
The practice of zero-waste living traditionally means minimizing material consumption and waste to conserve natural resources and reduce pollution, Vandyke told ABC News. But for her, it also encompasses a mindset of cherishing all resources, including money, time and relationships.
Vandyke said her zero waste lifestyle was partly inspired by her childhood and upbringing by her Chinese immigrant parents.
“I learned all these kind of zero waste environmental tips out of necessity in terms of the frugal living that we had to do growing up,” she said. “A lot of these tips and tricks are actually not only saving the planet, but they also save money as well.”
As a working single mom, Vandyke said preserving the environment also means, to her, prolonging time spent with loved ones — the “only nonrenewable resource that we have.”
“We have to make sure that we look after our family, ourselves and also the environment in the limited time we have,” said Vandyke, whose husband died this year from cancer.
After graduating from medical school last year, Vandyke is now working as a doctor in Sydney, drawing connections between her work in health care and her environmental habits.
“To have healthy people, thriving people who have good soil, good air, good water, we have to have a healthy planet,” she said.
Vandyke assured anyone scared to plunge into a minimalist lifestyle that small changes can make a cumulative difference.
“Aim for effort, not perfection,” she said.
Here are few simple ways Vandyke said families can reduce their waste and live greener:
Make a family grocery list
As simple as it sounds, Vandyke said keeping a running grocery list during the week is a convenient way to ensure you’re not buying too much or too little before finishing your remaining food. She writes the list on a small whiteboard on the refrigerator.
“I also get people to contribute in the family,” she said. “So if I need to buy butter or bread, they can write that … and make that an ongoing list that is visible for the whole family to see.”
Create an “eat first” box
It’s easy to lose track of various expiration dates. To stay organized, Vandyke said she places items at the end of their shelf life in a box labeled “eat first” in the refrigerator. Her family then prioritizes finishing those “lonely” ingredients before buying more groceries.
Her household regularly has “mixed vegetable nights,” coming up with creative ways to use all the scraps and leftovers in the eat first box.
“Before you go shopping, I like to see what’s in the fridge, chop up all those things, make it into a curry, a stir fry, or fried rice, something that you can use up all your vegetables before you go out and buy any more,” Vandyke said.
Compost
Composting is the process of recycling organic matter, such as leaves and food scraps, into a fertilizer that can enrich soil and plants.
As alternatives to the traditional compost bin, Vandyke recommends families buy a bokashi bucket, which ferments food scraps into a liquid fertilizer, or create a worm farm, which are odorless and relatively low maintenance.
“There’s different types of benefits for different families, and you just have to find the right one for you,” she said.
However, Vandyke said her favorite method of composting is actually not composting at all.
ShareWaste is a website that connects people who wish to recycle their food scraps with community gardens or neighbors with personal gardens who are already composting.
“What I do is I freeze my compost or put it in the fridge and once a week, I take it to the local community garden,” Vandyke said. “That way, I don’t have to upkeep anything because I have a small home. But this allows me to prevent waste in the long run.”
Engage kids from an early age
By engaging children in zero-waste living, Vandyke said parents can cultivate environmentally conscious habits and an appreciation of natural resources from a young age.
For example, cooking meals with children is an opportunity to educate them on their food sources so they value the ingredients and don’t waste them.
“You have to know that the rice that you make, or the broccoli that you have, all the fruit and vegetables that you have, you have to know where it comes from,” Vandyke said. “It just doesn’t come from the supermarket, it comes from a farm, it comes from a lot of resources to grow and make that food.”
Vandyke said she also raids her household’s recycling bins for cardboard boxes and glass jars that her children can then upcycle into jewelry boxes and other practical arts and crafts.
She also encourages parents to regularly bring their children outdoors to experience their natural environment and show them “what you’re fighting for.”
“The children appreciate nature,” she said, and by taking them outdoors, it makes the concept of conservation “really tangible to them.”
(NEW YORK) — Rothy’s and Evian are taking reduce, reuse, recycle to a whole new level.
The two brands have teamed up to created a limited-edition tennis-inspired capsule collection made with recycled water bottles from the 2021 U.S. Open.
Approximately 72,000 Evian bottles from the tennis tournament were blended with other recycled plastic bottles to create items in the line.
“We are excited to collaborate with evian to showcase Rothy’s transformative capabilities and prove that through innovation we find new uses for single use plastic,” Saskia van Gendt, Rothy’s head of sustainability, said in a press release.
According to the brands, this is a first-of-its-kind circular production collection.
From a cap to a bag for your tennis racket, this collection has everything you need to hit the court in style.
(NEW YORK) — Condiment fans are clamoring on social media over the luxurious and spicy new collaboration from Hidden Valley Ranch and hot sauce company Truff, Spicy Truffle Ranch.
The two companies announced the ultra-limited release on Tuesday, encouraging interested tasters to join the online waitlist to get notified when the black truffle infused hot sauce and ranch dressing blend goes live later this month.
From pizza to chicken wings, ranch and hot sauce are a well-known go-to for all things dipping, dunking and drizzling, so it comes as no surprise that fans are hyped about the hybrid Spicy Truffle Ranch blend.
“TRUFF is all about flavor exploration and reimagination. While we’ve had the privilege of working with world-class chefs, sometimes the best suggestions come from our customers, who have been very vocal about requesting a truffle ranch,” Truff co-founder Nick Ajluni said. “Partnering with Hidden Valley Ranch was the obvious choice. Not only are they the original ranch, but they’re a truly iconic brand with a passionate community that’s helped make ranch a cultural phenomenon.”
This unique new spicy truffle ranch features “the spice of red chiles, umami depth of black truffles, and tangy, creaminess of ranch dressing, all of which morph into a truly gourmet condiment,” according to the press release.
Deb Crandall, marketing director at Hidden Valley Ranch, hailed Truff as “the perfect partner” to deliver ranch fans a “new and unexpected” flavor experience.
Truff Hot Sauce, an upscale version of the spicy pantry staple, first reached viral acclaim when it debuted in 2017 and quickly became the fastest-growing company in the hot sauce space with its distinctive flavors, sleek bottle and truffle-shaped cap. The company now offers a variety of products, including pasta sauce, mayonnaise and truffle oil.
Previous iterations of Truff Hot Sauce have been tried and beloved by celebrities like Oprah and Machine Gun Kelly to home cooks.
The limited-time Spicy Truffle Ranch sauce officially goes live Aug. 30 at 11 a.m. ET and will be available for $24.99 in TRUFF’s larger 18-ounce “magnum” bottles while supplies last.
(NEW YORK) — As alarms over inflation and a possible recession sounded in recent months, a stock market rally offered a source of optimism — until this week.
The S&P 500 fell 2.1% on Monday, its worst day in more than two months. As of trading on Wednesday afternoon, the index had recovered some of its losses but remained down for the week.
The recent drop marks the latest swing of this year’s market seesaw. Bouncing back from a historic plunge over the first half of 2022, the S&P 500 rose more than 15% during a two-month period beginning in mid-June. Over that same period, the tech-heavy Nasdaq spiked more than 17% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose nearly 14%.
In fact, that rally makes up a key reason for the downturn in recent days, as investors determined that stocks became overpriced, market analysts said. The plunge also stems from fear that the Federal Reserve will continue a series of aggressive rate hikes, which aim to slash inflation by slowing the economy but risk tipping the U.S. into a recession, they added.
But analysts differed over whether this week’s downturn marks a brief hiccup or a sign of more losses to come, suggesting that murky economic data supports varied interpretations about the outlook of the economy and in turn corporate profits, the key focus for stock forecasters.
“Markets don’t go up or down forever,” Ed Yardeni, the president of market advisory firm Yardeni Research and former chief investment strategist at Deutsche Bank’s U.S. equities division, told ABC News. “At some point, buyers get exhausted and new buyers think things have gotten expensive and are waiting for a pullback.”
“It’s a tug of war between the bulls and the bears,” he added. “For a while, the bears were gaining ground. Over the last couple months, the bulls gained ground and now we may be at a standoff for a while.”
The volatility in markets owes in large part to looming concern that sky-high inflation will require the Fed to pursue ongoing, sizable hikes to interest rates, which would slow the economy and risk a recession, the analysts said.
Typically, the market has climbed in response to news about slowing inflation and a potential softening of rate increases; inflation spikes and rate moves are a common cause of selloffs.
For instance, lower-than-expected inflation data released earlier this month sent the S&P 500 soaring to its highest level in three months, reflecting optimism that price increases have peaked.
At meetings in each of the past two months, the central bank has increased its benchmark interest rate 0.75% — dramatic hikes last matched in 1994.
The rate increases may have contributed to a slowdown in price hikes. While still elevated, price increases last month waned from the near-historic pace reached in June, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The consumer price index, or CPI, rose 8.5% over the past year as of July, a marked slowdown from a 9.1% year-over-year rate measured in June, the bureau said.
Still, Fed officials have signaled in recent days that the central bank intends to continue a series of rate hikes, aiming to bring inflation back down to its target of 2%. Last Thursday, San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly told CNN that a 50- or 75-point basis hike at the central bank’s meeting next month would be “reasonable” and that rate hikes would continue into at least 2023.
Such signals from the Fed have contributed to the market decline this week, Ivan Feinseth, a market analyst at Tigress Financial, told ABC News.
“There’s fear that the Fed will have to raise rates aggressively to fend off inflation, but also fear of overreaching and the Fed in and of itself decimating the economy,” he said.
Market forecasters also face the challenge of murky economic data, Guggenheim analyst John DiFucci told ABC News.
Inflation remains near a 40-year high and GDP has slowed, raising the specter of stagflation, a damaging combination of high prices and anemic growth. But observers can take solace in employment data, which persists at robust levels, as the economy added a blockbuster 528,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate stands at 3.5%.
“Things look pretty strong in certain indicators of the macro economy, whereas things look pretty weak in other indicators,” he said. “That’s the schizophrenic behavior of the market.”
Analysts offered conflicting assessments of the market outlook, in part because the murky market data sets an uncertain future for the economy.
The Fed may ease off of its aggressive rate hikes if inflation continues to fall, which could send stocks higher toward the end of the year, said Feinseth of Tigress Financial.
“We could see a new all-time high in the stock market by the end of year,” he said.
A potential recession, however, would hammer corporate profits, causing a prolonged downturn in the market, said DiFucci of Guggenheim.
“If we’re going to go through a longer period of weakness, stocks that typically trade at higher multiples are likely to moderate or come down,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”
Yardeni, who identifies as “right in the middle” on the spectrum between market bears and bulls, predicted that stocks would move “sideways.”
“Everyone is asking these days if the market will be up or down,” he said. “The third option is nowhere fast.”
Onur Dogman/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Former Twitter head of security, Peiter Zatko, alleged in a whistleblower federal complaint last month that the social media giant had numerous wide-ranging information security system lapses, according to a copy of the complaint made public on Tuesday.
According to the complaint, the company prioritized growth over policing spam and bots on the platform, as some employees stood to receive $10 million bonuses based on increasing daily users.
In response, Twitter blasted Zatko, who worked at the company from November 2020 to January 2022, saying he was spreading a “false narrative about Twitter” and was fired for “ineffective leadership and poor performance.” The company also said Zatko’s public remarks are “riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context.”
In a statement, attorneys representing Katko rebuked the characterization from Twitter.
“Mr. Zatko repeatedly raised concerns about Twitter’s grossly inadequate information security systems to the Company’s Executive Committee and Board of Directors throughout his tenure,” they said.
They also said, “On January 19, 2022, a mere two weeks after Mr. Zatko clashed with Mr. Agrawal and Mr. Kordestani about these issues, Twitter abruptly terminated his employment.”
The complaint, first reported by The Washington Post, becomes public as Tesla CEO Elon Musk — the richest person in the world, according to the Forbes Billionaires list — has sought to terminate his $44 billion bid to acquire Twitter over concerns about spam accounts on the platform.
Twitter sued Musk last month in an attempt to force him to complete his purchase of the company after he declared in early July he was walking away from the deal.
Alex Spiro, an attorney at law firm Quinn Emanuel who represents Musk in that suit, said the firm has subpoenaed Zatko, who goes by the nickname “Mudge.”
“We found his exit and that of other key employees curious in light of what we have been finding,” Spiro said in a statement.
Whistleblower Aid, the lawyers that are representing Zatko, told ABC News in a statement “the disclosure speaks for itself and Mudge stands by everything in it.”
Whistleblower Aid confirmed Zatko’s complaint and the authenticity of the document published by The Washington Post. Zatko sent his complaint in July to the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice.
The complaint makes a host of allegations about Twitter’s failure to secure its platform.
The complaint alleges that Twitter made false and misleading statements to users and the FTC about the company’s efforts to protect the privacy and integrity of the platform for more than a decade.
In turn, Twitter violated a settlement that the company reached with the FTC in 2011 in which the company agreed to create a “comprehensive information security program,” the complaint says.
According to the complaint, the misleading remarks made by Twitter include a tweet from CEO Parag Agrawal in May, in which he said that the company is “strongly incentivized to detect and remove as much spam as we possibly can.”
A Twitter spokesperson told ABC News: “Mr. Zatko was fired from his senior executive role at Twitter in January 2022 for ineffective leadership and poor performance. What we’ve seen so far is a false narrative about Twitter and our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context.”
“Mr. Zatko’s allegations and opportunistic timing appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders. Security and privacy have long been company-wide priorities at Twitter and will continue to be,” the spokesperson added.
The whistleblower complaint is the latest in a series of major developments for Twitter and Musk as they remain locked in a legal dispute over his decision to terminate his acquisition of the company.
Previously, Musk has claimed that Twitter has not provided him with an accurate estimate of the number of bots on the platform. Twitter has rebuked that claim, saying it has provided Musk with information in accordance with conditions set out in the acquisition deal.
Last month, a Delaware court determined that the trial in a lawsuit brought by Twitter against Musk should take place in October, granting an expedited timeline for the case.
Onur Dogman/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Former Twitter head of security, Peiter Zatko, alleged in a whistleblower federal complaint last month that the social media giant had numerous wide-ranging information security system lapses, according to a copy of the complaint made public on Tuesday.
According to the complaint, the company prioritized growth over policing spam and bots on the platform, as some employees stood to receive $10 million bonuses based on increasing daily users.
In response, Twitter blasted Zatko, who worked at the company from November 2020 to January 2022, saying he was spreading a “false narrative about Twitter” and was fired for “ineffective leadership and poor performance.” The company also said Zatko’s public remarks are “riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context.”
In a statement, attorneys representing Katko rebuked the characterization from Twitter.
“Mr. Zatko repeatedly raised concerns about Twitter’s grossly inadequate information security systems to the Company’s Executive Committee and Board of Directors throughout his tenure,” they said.
They also said, “On January 19, 2022, a mere two weeks after Mr. Zatko clashed with Mr. Agrawal and Mr. Kordestani about these issues, Twitter abruptly terminated his employment.”
The complaint, first reported by The Washington Post, becomes public as Tesla CEO Elon Musk — the richest person in the world, according to the Forbes Billionaires list — has sought to terminate his $44 billion bid to acquire Twitter over concerns about spam accounts on the platform.
Twitter sued Musk last month in an attempt to force him to complete his purchase of the company after he declared in early July he was walking away from the deal.
Alex Spiro, an attorney at law firm Quinn Emanuel who represents Musk in that suit, said the firm has subpoenaed Zatko, who goes by the nickname “Mudge.”
“We found his exit and that of other key employees curious in light of what we have been finding,” Spiro said in a statement.
Whistleblower Aid, the lawyers that are representing Zatko, told ABC News in a statement “the disclosure speaks for itself and Mudge stands by everything in it.”
Whistleblower Aid confirmed Zatko’s complaint and the authenticity of the document published by The Washington Post. Zatko sent his complaint in July to the Federal Trade Commission, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice.
The complaint makes a host of allegations about Twitter’s failure to secure its platform.
The complaint alleges that Twitter made false and misleading statements to users and the FTC about the company’s efforts to protect the privacy and integrity of the platform for more than a decade.
In turn, Twitter violated a settlement that the company reached with the FTC in 2011 in which the company agreed to create a “comprehensive information security program,” the complaint says.
According to the complaint, the misleading remarks made by Twitter include a tweet from CEO Parag Agrawal in May, in which he said that the company is “strongly incentivized to detect and remove as much spam as we possibly can.”
A Twitter spokesperson told ABC News: “Mr. Zatko was fired from his senior executive role at Twitter in January 2022 for ineffective leadership and poor performance. What we’ve seen so far is a false narrative about Twitter and our privacy and data security practices that is riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies and lacks important context.”
“Mr. Zatko’s allegations and opportunistic timing appear designed to capture attention and inflict harm on Twitter, its customers and its shareholders. Security and privacy have long been company-wide priorities at Twitter and will continue to be,” the spokesperson added.
The whistleblower complaint is the latest in a series of major developments for Twitter and Musk as they remain locked in a legal dispute over his decision to terminate his acquisition of the company.
Previously, Musk has claimed that Twitter has not provided him with an accurate estimate of the number of bots on the platform. Twitter has rebuked that claim, saying it has provided Musk with information in accordance with conditions set out in the acquisition deal.
Last month, a Delaware court determined that the trial in a lawsuit brought by Twitter against Musk should take place in October, granting an expedited timeline for the case.
(NEW YORK) — As airlines announce cutting hundreds of flights a day in the fall, industry experts warn ABC News that this situation will become the new normal as air travel demand recovers from the pandemic and deals with a piloting shortage.
But they also cautioned that the airlines may not leave people stranded as they quickly adapt their operations to accommodate for these conditions.
The major airlines have scheduled 574,489 departures in October and 555,515 in November, according to recent data from Airline Data Inc. This is a far cry from the 677,882 departures in October 2019 and 639,248 in November 2019, according to the data.
“These large volume cuts are new. They haven’t occurred in the previous several years,” Jeff Pelletier, the managing director for Airline Data Inc., told ABC News Monday.
Despite the cuts, which Pelletier said haven’t been seen since after Sept. 11, he and other industry watchers say the airlines will be working nonstop to ensure that passengers aren’t stranded.
“These cuts are, right now, placeholders,” Brett Snyder, the president of Cranky Concierge travel assistance, told ABC News. “Typically, airlines plan out their flights about 100 days out, but those can change based on demand and other factors.”
Still, he said the situation should push the industry to rethink the way it plans out its future flights.
The cuts to flights for both October and November vary from airline to airline, according to data.
American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and United Airlines saw the biggest decreases in planned departing flights from October 2019 to October 2022, according to Airline Data Inc. The three airlines combined have roughly 95,000 fewer flights in October compared to the same period in 2019 the data showed.
American, Delta and United plan to fly, combined, 79,000 fewer flights in November compared to November 2019, the data showed.
American Airlines said in a statement Monday that its planned October and November departure cuts are in line with its operating procedures prior to the pandemic. American Airlines CEO Robert Isom told investors in July that the airline expects its full-year capacity to be down approximately 7.5% to 9.5% versus 2019.
“We’re sizing the airline for the resources we’ve available and the operating conditions we face, and we’ll make other changes as needed. Even with these adjustments, American still offers customers the largest network of any U.S. airline with an average of more than 5,400 daily departures,” Isom told investors in July.
Pelletier said it will be several years before new pilots can be hired and brought online so, in the meantime, the airlines are adapting in the most efficient way possible. The carriers are using “up to date booking curves” to allocate their aircraft to destinations with more bookings while also lowering the number of flights to destinations that haven’t been popular around this time of the year.
“They’re using that time, that opportunity to say, ‘You know what? Let’s remove an aircraft where there’s lower bookings. Let’s put it where the passengers really want to go that way,'” he said.
“This is going to be the new norm, I believe, for at least the next couple of years,” he added.
Snyder also noted that the fall typically sees a decrease in planned flights in October and November, even before the pandemic, and these new numbers reflect the fact that the industry is still recovering.
He added that passengers looking to book a flight during those two months shouldn’t worry because airlines have, in the past, added extra flights closer to departure based on demand and timing.
“I would bet we would see more flights added around Thanksgiving,” he said.
On Thursday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg wrote a letter to carriers, calling on them to improve their customer service. He warned airlines that new rules may be coming to better empower travelers who face flight disruptions within the airlines’ control.
Roughly 24% of domestic flights of U.S. airlines have been delayed and 3.2% have been canceled during the first six months of this year, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
“Americans expect when they purchase an airline ticket they will arrive at their destination safely, reliably and affordably,” Buttigieg wrote.
Airlines for America, or A4A, the group that lobbies on behalf of all major U.S. airlines, responded to the letter and said its members are “committed” to working with stakeholders to overcome these challenges.
Carriers noted that increased demand and staffing issues were factors behind the disruptions. A4A also cited data that indicated 63% of the cancellations for the first five months of 2022 were caused by weather and the National Airspace System (NAS) collectively.
Pelletier said anyone who purchased a ticket for a flight in October or November should check with their airline to make sure there weren’t any last second scheduling changes. For passengers who haven’t booked their flight, he warned that they should be prepared for timing issues but reiterated that they would be able to make their destination.
“Maybe you need to travel a day before, [or] a day after,” he said. “At this point, everybody needs to be flexible, both the airlines and as they try to accommodate as many passengers as they can and the traveling public in order to get from point A to point B. They’ll get there.”
Snyder agreed that the airlines do not want to lose the revenue or their customers’ trust as they continue to rebound from the pandemic and will do everything they can to accommodate their request. He added that the situation should prompt the carriers to come up with a new system where they schedule their flights more accurately in advance to avoid any more problems that can occur from outside factors.
“They need to create a better placeholder, but that’s been hard because demand has been so variable since the pandemic,” he said.
ABC News’ Sam Sweeney and Barbara Friedman contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Tesla will split its stock on Wednesday, joining giant firms like Amazon and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, which have chopped up shares this year as a means of reducing their price and making them more accessible to investors.
The stock split has largely fallen out of fashion in corporate America. Shares, however, usually rise over the year following a split, according to a study conducted by Nasdaq.
Here’s what a stock split means and why it matters:
What does the stock split entail?
Tesla is set to split its shares 3 to 1, meaning the current holder of a single share will receive two additional shares for a total of three. Each of the three shares will be valued at a third of the price of an investor’s original share, leaving the total value of a shareholder’s stock unchanged.
Investors who held Tesla stock on Aug. 17 will be eligible to receive the additional shares.
As of Tuesday morning, the stock price stood at about $875, so if that price holds, a 3 to 1 split would leave shares at about $291.
What does the stock split mean for Tesla?
Typically a stock split signals optimism in a company. It also indicates confidence that the share price will eventually rise to a level near or surpassing where it stood before the split.
Recent performance of Tesla shares support such an interpretation. Over the past month, Tesla stock has surged, rising more than 6% as of early trading on Tuesday. Prior to a drop over the past week, the stock had risen more than 13% since a month ago.
The company last month reported mixed second quarter earnings, which showed a decline in profit of nearly one-third from the previous three-month period in part due to production slowdowns at a factory in Shanghai amid COVID lockdowns.
When compared with the same quarter a year ago, Tesla profit had doubled and revenue had grown 42%, signaling strong growth over the long term.
Still, on the whole, the company’s shares have suffered a difficult 2022, falling more than 18% since the outset of the year. That drop is in line with each of the three major stock indexes, which have plummeted this year.
What usually happens to a stock after a split?
Stock splits usually trigger a rise in the price of shares, according toa Nasdaq study that examined stock splits at large companies between 2012 and 2018. Even the mere announcement of a stock split yielded an average 2.5% price increase for a stock, the Nasdaq found; and a year after a stock split, shares saw an average price hike of nearly 5%.
