CNN
 — 

ESPN’s lead tennis analyst John McEnroe said he tested positive for the virus that causes Covid-19 and will miss some time covering the US Open tennis championships.

“Unfortunately, after feeling a bit under the weather, I tested positive for Covid,” McEnroe said in a statement Tuesday. “I’m watching the US Open from home & can’t wait to get back to work soon.”

ESPN said it wishes the tennis Hall of Famer well and looks “forward to welcoming him back when he’s ready.”

According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, people who have a positive Covid test should stay home for at least five days and isolate from others. People who have moderate or severe cases need to isolate for at least 10 days.

McEnroe’s younger brother, Patrick, who is also an ESPN broadcaster, tested positive for coronavirus in March 2020.

John McEnroe joined the network for its first US Open coverage in 2009. As a player, McEnroe won four of his seven Grand Slam singles titles at the US Open.

The final tennis major of the year started Monday and concludes September 10.

CNN
 — 

For Alexis Ohanian last summer, it started with a simple phone call. The entrepreneur and co-founder of Reddit was in London and his friend wanted him to come to Paris, “He’s like, you’re an idiot if you don’t come down to watch the USA play France.”

Shortly afterwards, Ohanian was alongside 45,000 other fans, watching Megan Rapinoe score twice for the US women’s national team in the quarterfinal of the Women’s World Cup, leading her country towards what would be a fourth world title.

“It was admittedly the first time I’d ever been to a women’s football match,” he told CNN Sport, “and the crowd was electric. I walked away from it thinking, how did I not pay this enough attention? How did I not even know there was a pro league back in the States?”

A few days later, he and his wife, the tennis legend Serena Williams, were watching the tournament final on television. Their young daughter Olympia was running around wearing the jersey of one of the team’s star players, Alex Morgan.

Out loud, Ohanian wondered about the possibility of Olympia one day playing the game professionally, but Serena cut him off.

“Without missing a beat, my wife was like, not until they pay her what she’s worth. And she was half joking, but not really.”

In that moment, Ohanian says he felt compelled to try and make a positive contribution to the world of women’s sports, “Alright babe,” he declared, “challenge accepted!”

READ: Megan Rapinoe says ‘we all have a responsibility to make the world a better place’

Twelve months later, ‘Angel City’ has become a reality. Ohanian is a lead investor on a new Los Angeles soccer project led by the Hollywood actress and activist Natalie Portman.

The National Women’s Soccer League was formed in 2013 with just five teams, four have been added since and the league will hit double figures in 2021 when Racing Louisville FC join in. The following season, Angel City will make it 11 teams in the league.

According to Angel City’s President Julie Uhrman, the idea for this new team came during Portman’s involvement with Time’s Up, a movement established in 2018 to combat sexual harassment.

“You can see that she really gets behind causes that are important to her and she does meaningful work for those causes,” Uhrman told CNN Sport, adding: “she wanted to take her commitment to elevate women’s athletics, to address pay equity and to make it public and meaningful.”

Promoting Angel City’s launch in July, Portman spoke about the challenges which have traditionally held back women’s sports. She was talking on Instagram with somebody who’s experienced it first hand for the last 20 years – Williams.

“Our team told me that only 4% of sports coverage is of women’s sport,” Portman said, “it’s insane that we’re here in 2020 and it’s so disproportionate.”

READ: Alexis Ohanian on being married to Serena Williams

The team, which doesn’t have an official name yet – Angel City is only a nickname – and they won’t play until 2022. But already it’s clear that those behind the club are doing things differently.

For one, the founding investors are almost exclusively women, “I think you can count the number of clubs that are mainly owned by women on one hand and probably with only a couple of fingers,” Uhrman told CNN, “I mean, it’s very unusual.”

Listed on the club’s website are the 31 founding investors and only four are men; Alexis Ohanian is one of those odd-men out.

He described an early meeting with Uhrman, Portman and venture capitalist Kara Nortman, “the three of them sat down and said, ‘this is what we want to build, this is how we want to build it,’ and it was really important to them from day one to have a majority women-owned team.

“I think we can talk about so many of the disparities in professional sports. And I think one of the ways we get real change is not just proving that this is an amazing business that will generate lots of money and lots of attention and lots of success, but it’s also showing that every bit of how this organization is run can be different and be as, if not more successful as a result.

“And not because it feels good, although it does feel good, but because it’s preposterous that it is not more normal.”

The club knows that they are trying to swim against the tide, and not just because they’re hoping to change the perception of professional women’s sport; they’re also launching a club in a Los Angeles sports market that is already saturated.

READ: Natalie Portman and Serena Williams are among investors behind Angel City

Uhrman rattles off the clubs that they’ll soon be rubbing shoulders with in a city famed for congestion, “Los Angeles is a market where there is already nine professional sports teams and [collegiate] powerhouses like University of Southern California and University of California, Los Angeles.

So even the idea of bringing another professional sports team here, the third soccer club here, is an ambitious, big idea.”

But Angel City believes that their novel approach will cut through the noise, establishing a local, community, club with global appeal. “We know women’s soccer has been incredibly successful during the Olympics and World Cup,” Uhrman says,

“The question is, why is it every four years that they garner such attention? And I think the answer is because of exposure and awareness.”

Behind the key investors is a supporting cast of Hollywood stars, including Jennifer Garner, Eva Longoria and Jessica Chastain, plus Serena Williams and 14 former players on the US women’s national team; it’s a group of women with tens of millions of followers on social media; they’re going to use their collective platforms to shout it from the rooftops.

“There’s this general issue that if you can’t see it,” Uhrman says, “You can’t be it. If you can’t see it, you can’t follow it. [If] you can’t cheer for it, you can’t get your friend to become a part of it, and so there’s a systemic problem that we have to fix and change.”

Uhrman continues, “We have a group of people that come from the entertainment space, the media space, sports and the technology space. We’re thinking about soccer as bigger than sports, in fact we’re thinking about it as entertainment.”

Ohanian says the focus will be on social media storytelling to build the brand and it already seems to be working, “tens of thousands of folks are very excited, [we’ve] sold out merchandise for a team that doesn’t exist yet.”

He compares women’s soccer to e-sports, which drew a rush of investment five years ago, and has concluded that the market has massively undervalued female soccer.

“These are clubs of gamers, young men who draw hundreds of millions of fans all over the world. [But] the average American does not know who the best League of Legends player is, whereas Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan are already cultural icons.

“From a marketing standpoint, no offense to e-sports, they’re far more marketable for brands who want to be aligned with consumer spending in this country.”

In her conversation with Williams on Instagram, Portman remarked that already, Angel City has changed the conversation, “people are starting to think about how to do this in other sports too.”

Women are standing up for and elevating other women; the sisters are doing it for themselves. It’s an LA Story that could have a Hollywood ending and it’s a potential game-changer for women’s sports everywhere.

CNN
 — 

This is it.

The media defamation trial of the century is on the precipice of kicking off in Wilmington, Delaware, in just days.

Jury selection in Dominion Voting Systems’ monster $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit took place all of Thursday, with 300 potential jurors being summoned to court. Good progress was made and the presiding judge noted that there were “more than enough jurors” to start the trial as scheduled on Monday.

It is there, in Courtroom 7E, where the biggest figures in Murdoch Media, accompanied by a throng of high-powered lawyers, will attempt to mount their defense after repeatedly failing to convince a judge to toss the now-historic case.

A version of this article first appeared in the “Reliable Sources” newsletter. Sign up for the daily digest chronicling the evolving media landscape here.

It’s, frankly, extraordinary to write those words. When I watched Fox News broadcast election lies in the aftermath of the 2020 election, never did I expect the network to be held accountable in a meaningful way.

I’ve covered Fox News for a while now. I’ve watched thousands and thousands of hours of the right-wing channel’s programming. I’ve seen its hosts over the years undermine public health, make gross anti-immigrant remarks, peddle lies and propaganda and push deranged conspiracy theories that were once reserved for the right-wing’s furthest fringes.

The network has always seemed to find a way to sail through the controversy, even the most hellish storms it has faced. Sometimes it has emerged even stronger and more emboldened than before.

But this time is different. This time, the normal tricks the network turns to during times of crisis will not free it from trouble. This time, in a court of law, the network will need to put forward an honest, fact-driven argument.

Fox News is about to enter the true No Spin Zone, where deception is strictly prohibited. Where it is not in charge. And where its top executives like Rupert Murdoch and Suzanne Scott and hosts like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity cannot simply ignore a request for comment and resort to, instead, attacking “the media” on-air.

In this setting, where lies cannot be casually told and truth cannot be distorted beyond reality to fit a dishonest narrative, it will be fascinating to see how the network fares. If the pre-trial hearings are any indicator, it won’t be pretty. The case hasn’t even started and the presiding judge has already lost his patience with Fox’s legal team and put them on notice.

Perhaps the winds will shift for Fox News when the judge gavels in the trial on Monday. But if they play out like the last few weeks of court have, Fox News is in for a brutal ride.

CNN
 — 

When customers at Silicon Valley Bank rushed to withdraw billions of dollars last month, venture capitalist Arlan Hamilton stepped in to help some of the founders of color who panicked about losing access to payroll funds.

As a Black woman with nearly 10 years of business experience, Hamilton knew the options for those startup founders were limited.

SVB had a reputation for servicing people from underrepresented communities like hers. Its failure has reignited concerns from industry experts about lending discrimination in the banking industry and the resulting disparities in capital for people of color.

Hamilton, the 43-year-old founder and managing partner of Backstage Capital, said that when it comes to entrepreneurs of color, “we’re already in the smaller house. We already have the rickety door and the thinner walls. And so, when a tornado comes by, we’re going to get hit harder.”

Established in 1983, the midsize California tech lender was America’s 16th largest bank at the end of 2022 before it collapsed on March 10. SVB provided banking services to nearly half of all venture-backed technology and life-sciences companies in the United States.

Hamilton, industry experts and other investors told CNN the bank was committed to fostering a community of minority entrepreneurs and provided them with both social and financial capital.

SVB regularly sponsored conferences and networking events for minority entrepreneurs, said Hamilton, and it was well known for funding the annual State of Black Venture Report spearheaded by BLK VC, a nonprofit organization that connects and empowers Black investors.

“When other banks were saying no, SVB would say yes,” said Joynicole Martinez, a 25-year entrepreneur and chief advancement and innovation officer for Rising Tide Capital, a nonprofit organization founded in 2004 to connect entrepreneurs with investors and mentors.

Martinez is also an official member of the Forbes Coaches Council, an invitation-only organization for business and career coaches. She said SVB was an invaluable resource for entrepreneurs of color and offered their clients discounted tech tools and research funding.

Many women and people of color say they are turned away

Minority business owners have long faced challenges accessing capital due to discriminatory lending practices, experts say. Data from the Small Business Credit Survey, a collaboration of all 12 Federal Reserve banks, shows disparities on denial rates for bank and nonbank loans.

In 2021, about 16% of Black-led companies acquired the total amount of business financing they sought from banks, compared to 35% of White-owned companies, the survey shows.

“We know there’s historic, systemic, and just blatant racism that’s inherent in lending and banking. We have to start there and not tip-toe around it,” Martinez told CNN.

Asya Bradley is an immigrant founder of multiple tech companies like Kinley, a financial services business aiming to help Black Americans build generational wealth. Following SVB’s collapse, Bradley said she joined a WhatsApp group of more than 1,000 immigrant business founders. Members of the group quickly mobilized to support one another, she said.

Immigrant founders often don’t have Social Security numbers nor permanent addresses in the United States, Bradley said, and it was crucial to brainstorm different ways to find funding in a system that doesn’t recognize them.

“The community was really special because a lot of these folks then were sharing different things that they had done to achieve success in terms of getting accounts in different places. They also were able to share different regional banks that have stood up and been like, ‘Hey, if you have accounts at SVB, we can help you guys,’” Bradley said.

Many women, people of color and immigrants opt for community or regional banks like SVB, Bradley says, because they are often rejected from the “top four banks” — JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Citibank.

In her case, Bradley said her gender might have been an issue when she could only open a business account at one of the “top four banks” when her brother co-signed for her.

“The top four don’t want our business. The top four are rejecting us consistently. The top four do not give us the service that we deserve. And that’s why we’ve gone to community banks and regional banks such as SVB,” Bradley said.

None of the top four banks provided a comment to CNN. The Financial Services Forum, an organization representing the eight largest financial institutions in the United States has said the banks have committed millions of dollars since 2020 to address economic and racial inequality.

Last week, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon told CNN’s Poppy Harlow that his bank has 30% of its branches in lower-income neighborhoods as part of a $30 billion commitment to Black and Brown communities across the country.

Wells Fargo specifically pointed to its 2022 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion report, which discusses the bank’s recent initiatives to reach underserved communities.

The bank partnered last year with the Black Economic Alliance to initiate the Black Entrepreneur Fund — a $50 million seed, startup, and early-stage capital fund for businesses founded or led by Black and African American entrepreneurs. And since May 2021, Wells Fargo has invested in 13 Minority Depository Institutions, fulfilling its $50 million pledge to support Black-owned banks.

Black-owned banks work to close the lending gap and foster economic empowerment in these traditionally excluded communities, but their numbers have been dwindling over the years, and they have far fewer assets at their disposal than the top banks.

OneUnited Bank, the largest Black-owned bank in the United States, manages a little over $650 million in assets. By comparison, JPMorgan Chase manages $3.7 trillion in assets.

Because of these disparities, entrepreneurs also seek funding from venture capitalists. In the early 2010s, Hamilton intended to start her own tech company — but as she searched for investors, she saw that White men control nearly all venture capital dollars. That experience led her to establish Backstage Capital, a venture capital fund that invests in new companies led by underrepresented founders.

“I said, ‘Well, instead of trying to raise money for one company, let me try to raise for a venture fund that will invest in underrepresented — and now we call them underestimated — founders who are women, people of color, and LGBTQ specifically,’ because I am all three,” Hamilton told CNN.

Since then, Backstage Capital has amassed a portfolio of nearly 150 different companies and has made over 120 diversity investments, according to data from Crunchbase.

But Bradley, who is also an ‘angel investor’ of minority-owned businesses, said she remains “really hopeful” that community banks, regional banks and fintechs “will all stand up and say, ‘Hey, we are not going to let the good work of SVB go to waste.’”

Editor’s Note: This story was updated with the final sale price and other details following the auction.

CNN
 — 

In 1998, Michael Jordan laced up a pair of his iconic black and red Air Jordan 13s to bring home a Bulls victory during Game 2 of his final NBA championship — and now they are the most expensive sneakers ever to sell at auction.

The game-winning sneakers sold for $2.2 million at Sotheby’s in New York on Tuesday, smashing the sneaker auction record of $1.47 million, set in 2021 by a pair of Nike Air Ships that Jordan wore earlier in his career.

The sale arrives during “Jordan Year” — a reference to the NBA star player’s iconic jersey number 23. In January, Air Jordan partnered with Sotheby’s to auction off 13 pairs of retro sneakers that were designed in memory of The Notorious B.I.G. All lots outsold their high estimates of $5,000 by multiples, with the highest selling for more than $32,000.

Last year, Jordan’s Game 1 jersey, also from the 1998 finals, became the most expensive item of worn sports memorabilia to sell at auction when it fetched $10.1 million at a Sotheby’s sale.

Jordan’s farewell run with the Chicago Bulls is often referred to as “The Last Dance,” after the title of an ESPN and Netflix documentary that chronicled the season. Jordan announced his (second) retirement weeks before the finals, leading to the six-game series against the Utah Jazz becoming the most-watched in NBA history, based on Nielsen TV ratings. (Jordan would later return from 2001 to 2003 to play with the Washington Wizards, but did not win another championship).

“Michael Jordan game-worn sports memorabilia has proven time and time again to be the most elite and coveted items on the market,” said Brahm Wachter, Sotheby’s head of streetwear and modern collectables, in a press release prior to the sale. “However, items from his ‘Last Dance’ season are of a greater scale and magnitude as seen with our record-breaking sale of his Game 1 jersey in 2022.”

The pair of sneakers sold Tuesday were worn during Game 2, in Salt Lake City, which the Bulls won 93-88 after losing Game 1, with Jordan scoring 37 points. They are the last pair of black and red Air Jordan 13s that Jordan ever wore on the court for an NBA game, a press release from Sotheby’s noted.

Following Game 2, Jordan signed and gifted the set of worn shoes to the ball boy in the visitor’s locker room, as he was known to do, according to Sotheby’s.

The Air Jordan 13 sneakers starred in a sports memorabilia sale called “Victoriam,” which featured items worn by athletes including Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant and Roger Federer. Several other Jordan items were included in the two-part auction, with a game-worn 1998 Bulls jersey and a pair of 1985 Air Jordan 1s fetching $508,000 and $127,000 respectively.

Other top lots included one of Kobe Bryant’s LA Lakers shooting shirts, which sold for over $406,000, and a soccer jersey, worn by the late Pelé on his debut for the New York Cosmos in 1975, that sold fetched over $177,000.

Top image: The Air Jordan 13 sneakers signed by Michael Jordan.

Hong Kong
CNN
 — 

China has launched a cybersecurity probe into Micron Technology, one of America’s largest memory chip makers, in apparent retaliation after US allies in Asia and Europe announced new restrictions on the sale of key technology to Beijing.

The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) will review products sold by Micron in the country, according to a statement by the watchdog late on Friday.

The move is aimed at “ensuring the security of key information infrastructure supply chains, preventing cybersecurity risks caused by hidden product problems, and maintaining national security,” it noted.

It came on the same day that Japan, a US ally, said it would restrict the export of advanced chip manufacturing equipment to countries including China, following similar moves by the United States and the Netherlands.

Washington and its allies have announced curbs on China’s semiconductor industry, which strike at the heart of Beijing’s bid to become a tech superpower.

Last month, the Netherlands also unveiled new restrictions on overseas sales of semiconductor technology, citing the need to protect national security. In October, the United States banned Chinese companies from buying advanced chips and chipmaking equipment without a license.

Micron told CNN it was aware of the review.

“We are in communication with the CAC and are cooperating fully,” it said, adding that it stands by the security of its products. “Micron’s product shipments, engineering, manufacturing, sales and other functions are operating as normal.”

Shares in Micron sank 4.4% on Wall Street Friday following the news, the biggest drop in more than three months. On Monday, they closed another 1.2% lower. Micron derives more than 10% of its revenue from China.

In an earlier filing, the Idaho-based company had warned of such risks.

“The Chinese government may restrict us from participating in the China market or may prevent us from competing effectively with Chinese companies,” it said last week.

China has strongly criticized restrictions on tech exports, saying last month it “firmly opposes” such measures.

In efforts to boost growth and job creation, Beijing is seeking to woo foreign investments as it grapples with mounting economic challenges. The newly minted premier Li Qiang and several top economic officials have been rolling out the welcome wagon for global CEOs and promising they would “provide a good environment and services.”

But Beijing has also exerted growing pressure on foreign companies to bring them into line with its agenda.

Last month, authorities closed the Beijing office of Mintz Group, a US corporate intelligence firm, and detained five local staff.

Days earlier, they suspended Deloitte’s operations in Beijing for three months and imposed a fine of $31 million over alleged lapses in its work auditing a state-owned distressed debt manager.

New York
CNN
 — 

Twitter’s traditional bird icon was booted and replaced with an image of a Shiba Inu, an apparent nod to dogecoin, the joke cryptocurrency that CEO Elon Musk is being sued over.

Musk addressed the change Monday afternoon, tweeting, “as promised” above an image of a year-old conversation in which another user suggested that Musk “just buy Twitter” and “change the bird logo to a doge.”

The doge logo appeared on the site two days after Musk asked a judge to throw out a $258 billion racketeering lawsuit accusing him of running a pyramid scheme to support the dogecoin, according to Reuters.

Lawyers for Musk and Tesla called the lawsuit by dogecoin investors a “fanciful work of fiction” over Musk’s “innocuous and often silly tweets.”

It wasn’t clear whether the logo change was permanent. Musk has been known to use Twitter to troll both his fans and his critics.

The price of dogecoin, which is typically volatile, was up more than 20% over the past 24 hours, to about 9 cents. It was trading just under 8 cents Monday morning.

Dogecoin was created December 6, 2013, by a pair of software engineers — as a joke. The name is a nod to the “doge” meme that became popular a decade ago. Its Shiba Inu mascot mimicks that meme: a dog surrounded by a bunch of Comic Sans text in broken English.

Hong Kong
CNN
 — 

HSBC’s top brass defended their strategy Monday to frustrated shareholders in the lender’s largest market, as Europe’s biggest bank continued to face calls to be split up.

At an informal shareholder meeting in Hong Kong, Chairman Mark Tucker and CEO Noel Quinn took questions from investors on issues ranging from how the bank was approaching demands for an overhaul of its business to its purchase of Silicon Valley Bank’s UK arm.

In prepared remarks, Tucker and Quinn each reiterated the board’s recommendation that shareholders vote against a resolution on the docket for its annual general meeting in May that would force the bank to come up with a plan to spin off or reorganize its Asian business — the lender’s main source of profits.

Tucker said the board was unanimous in its opposition to the resolution, stating plainly: “It would not be in your interest to split the bank.”

He said the board had previously reviewed a range of options for restructuring the bank, and concluded that such alternatives would “materially destroy value for shareholders,” including dividends.

“Our strategy is working,” Tucker told the room of more than 1,000 shareholders. “Our current strategy is moving dividends up.”

HSBC has been facing calls to separate its Asian business from the rest of the bank over the past year.

Shareholders in Hong Kong — where HSBC is a mainstay of many retail investors’ portfolios — contend that the London-based lender’s performance has been dragged down by its businesses in other regions.

Quinn addressed those complaints head-on Monday, saying “our profits in Hong Kong and the UK are no longer being dragged down by underperformance elsewhere. The group is performing well as a whole.”

Pressed later by a shareholder on the issue, Quinn said a breakup of the bank would result in “significant revenue loss” because much of its business relied on cross-border transactions.

Investors have also been unhappy with HSBC scrapping its dividend in 2020, at the request of British regulators. They argue that if the lender cordoned off its activities in Asia, it would no longer have to expose Hong Kong shareholders to requests in other jurisdictions.

Christine Fong, a district council member in Hong Kong, said she represented about 500 small shareholders who had been affected by the dividend cancellation.

“Street hawkers, taxi drivers or teachers — they all relied on the dividend to pay for their regular expenses, like mortgage, insurance payments, school fees,” Fong told CNN.

“That’s why, three years ago, what HSBC did upset those small minority shareholders.”

Fong has now joined calls for shareholders to vote in favor of the proposal for the bank to spin off its Asian business, despite the lender bringing back its dividend in 2021, albeit at a lower level.

Ken Lui, an activist shareholder in Hong Kong who put the resolution together, doubled down on his call for support ahead of the meeting Monday.

The resolution will require 75% of votes to be passed in May, but “nothing is impossible,” he told reporters outside the meeting venue.

Lui, who said he personally held a stake worth 100 million Hong Kong dollars ($12.7 million), laid out plans for his team to focus on “targeted outreach to institutional shareholders to present our case and gain their support.”

His group will also canvass 18 districts of Hong Kong “to tell HSBC shareholders that they finally have a chance to speak for themselves and protect their rights through voting,” he added.

HSBC is also facing pressure from its largest shareholder.

Ping An

(PNGAY), China’s biggest insurer, holds an 8% stake in HSBC and has backed calls for the bank to rethink its structure.

In a series of remarks made public by the Chinese firm last November, Huang Yong, chairman of Ping An’s asset management arm, said “we will support any initiatives including a spinoff that are conducive to improve HSBC’s performance and value.”

Since then, the insurance giant’s views haven’t changed, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The source told CNN that Ping An has been calling for HSBC to explore a reorganization, with an eye on boosting its valuation and simplifying its regulatory obligations around the globe.

The insurer has not recommended a specific path forward but will support any initiatives, including a spinoff of its Asian business, that could boost its stock performance or value, the person added. Ping An did not immediately respond to a request for comment on how it planned to vote at the upcoming general meeting.

HSBC’s leaders were also asked Monfday why the bank had scooped up the British unit of SVB following the stunning collapse of its parent in the United States. The purchase was made for £1 ($1.20) last month, just days after SVB had folded.

Critics have questioned HSBC’s ability to perform adequate due diligence on SVB UK’s customers because of how quickly the deal came together.

“Did HSBC look into the clients of SVB in detail? Say, the financial statement — whether they can pay back the loan?” said Fong.

Quinn and Tucker defended the acquisition, calling it a good business opportunity that allowed the bank to gain hundreds of innovative startups as customers. They pushed back on the notion that management hadn’t had time to carry out proper due diligence.

Tucker also weighed in on recent tumult in the banking industry, saying he did not expect an “immediate impact” on HSBC.

“After the collapse of a number of smaller regional banks and the takeover of Credit Suisse, the share prices of all banks have been suppressed,” he noted.

But he said he did not believe such developments represented “a systemic risk” to the sector. “I do expect a period of uncertainty” before nerves settle, he added.

Editor’s Note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM radio’s daily program “The Dean Obeidallah Show.” Follow him @DeanObeidallah@masto.ai. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN.

CNN
 — 

Last year, GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia spoke at a white nationalist event organized by Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes that caused Republican leaders to denounce her.

Last week, Greene’s Twitter account was temporarily suspended by the Elon Musk-headed platform over a tweet with a graphic referring to a “Trans Day of Vengeance,” as she denounced a planned transgender rights rally.

And come Tuesday, Greene has announced plans to protest in New York City when former President Donald Trump is expected to be arraigned on an indictment of more than 30 counts, calling the proceedings against him an “unconstitutional WITCH HUNT!”

But on Sunday, Greene was featured on CBS’ “60 Minutes” in an interview the long-running show promoted on Twitter with the tease: “Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, nicknamed MTG, isn’t afraid to share her opinions, no matter how intense and in-your-face they are. She sits down with Lesley Stahl this Sunday on 60 Minutes.” The images attached to this tweet by “60 Minutes” include Greene and Stahl walking through the US Capitol, taking a stroll outside and Greene showing Stahl something on her phone.

In the segment that aired Sunday night, Stahl noted the congresswoman had moved from the fringe to the GOP’s front row in two years despite a “sharp tongue” and “some pretty radical views” as well as “over the top” comments such as “the Democrats are a party of pedophiles.” Stahl also referred to video of Greene chasing a Parkland, Florida, school shooting survivor, still maintaining that the 2020 election was stolen and failing to criticize Trump over spending. (The interview was conducted before news of his indictment.)

But Stahl didn’t mention Greene spoke at a white nationalist event a year ago while a member of Congress or her extreme anti-Muslim views and her defense of January 6 rioters.

Criticism of CBS for amplifying Greene has been swift and well-deserved even before the program aired. Former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois tweeted beforehand: “Wow. Insane that 60 min would do this.” (Kinzinger is a CNN senior political commentator.)

Journalist Molly Jong-Fast also slammed “60 Minutes” with the tweet: “Attention is currency and 60 minutes is spending its currency on the Jewish space lasers woman.” (Jong-Fast was apparently referring to Greene’s past claim that a massive California wildfire was started by “a laser” beamed from space controlled by a prominent Jewish banking family.)

David Hogg, who survived the 2018 horrific school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland and has since become an activist against gun violence, responded, “I look forward to your questions about why she thinks school shootings are fake and why she’s supported QAnon.”

Greene amplified the conspiracy theory — two years before being elected to Congress — that the Parkland shooting that took 17 lives was staged. And in 2019, Greene appeared on video confronting Hogg outside the Capitol when he was championing laws to save lives from gun violence, screaming that the then-teenager was a “coward.” She also called Hogg “#littleHitler” on social media.

Greene’s own tweet promoting Sunday’s segment was not filled with her typical smears of “fake news” when she doesn’t like the coverage. Rather, Greene urged people to tune in as she praised “60 Minutes” host Stahl (and misspelled her first name): “It was an honor to spend a few days with the legendary icon Leslie Stahl and talented crew @60Minutes.” Greene added, “Leslie is a trailblazer for women in journalism. And while we may disagree on some issues, I respect her greatly.”

Now, it is true that “60 Minutes” over its 50-plus-year history has featured what the show has dubbed “controversial” guests. These include a 2000 interview with Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, whose 1995 terrorist attack left 168 dead, including 19 children. And the show did a 1979 interview with Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Perhaps “60 Minutes” views Greene — who has repeatedly downplayed and even defended the January 6, 2021, attack plus called for the GOP to become the party of “Christian nationalism” — in the vein of its long list of controversial guests. (CBS had not responded to a request from CNN for comment at time of publishing.)

However, the choice of Greene as a guest instantly recalls the comments of then-CBS CEO Les Moonves during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign when he admitted that Trump’s candidacy “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.” Moonves added, “The money’s rolling in and this is fun. … (T)his is going to be a very good year for us,” concluding, “Sorry. It’s a terrible thing to say. But bring it on, Donald. Keep going.”

Moonves may be gone from CBS, but it appears his mindset continues at “60 Minutes.” And that may be good for “60 Minutes,” but it’s definitely not good for America.

CNN
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French government minister Marlene Schiappa has come under fire from members of her own party after appearing on the front cover of Playboy magazine.

Schiappa, who has been a government minister since 2017, appeared on the cover of the magazine to accompany a 12-page interview she did on women’s and LGBT rights. Schiappa, who is the current Minister for the Social Economy and French Associations, was photographed for the cover wearing a white dress.

Schiappa has been a long-time advocate for women’s rights and was appointed as the country’s first ever Gender Equality Minister in 2017. In this role, she successfully spearheaded a new sexual harassment law which allows for on the spot fines to be issued to men who catcall, harass or follow women on the street.

Her appearance has drawn criticism from political colleagues including French Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.

Borne pulled up Schiappa over the cover, telling her it “wasn’t appropriate, especially during this period,” CNN affiliate BFMTV reported Saturday, citing a source close to the prime minister.

France is currently in the throes of a political and social crisis triggered by French President Emmanuel Macron’s move to push ahead with controversial pension reforms despite widespread public opposition.

“We are in the middle of a social crisis, there is the issue of policing, there are people between life and death, and I have the impression of being behind a smoke screen,” Sandrine Rousseau, Green Party politician and fellow women’s rights activist, told BFMTV Friday.

French politician, Jean Luc Mélenchon who came third in the 2022 presidential elections criticized both Schiappa’s appearance and the decision by French President Emmanuel Macron to give an interview to children’s magazine, Pif Gadget, this week.

“In a country where the President expresses himself in Pif and his minister in Playboy, the problem would be the opposition. France is going off the rails,” Mélenchon tweeted Saturday.

Schiappa responded to her critics in a tweet on Saturday, saying: “Defending the right of women to have control of their bodies, that’s everywhere and all the time. In France, women are free. With all due respect to the detractors and hypocrites.”

French Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin came to Schiappa’s defense during an interview with French news channel CNews on Sunday calling her a “woman of character.”

“I wanted to say that Marlene Schiappa is a courageous female politician who has her character and who has her style which is not mine, but I respect,” he remarked.