June 18, 2026

06 Market

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Excerpt from www.benzinga.com

 

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has initiated a significant price reduction for its iPhone models in China, as it faces mounting competition from local rivals like Huawei Technologies Co.

What Happened: Apple has launched a substantial discounting campaign on its official Tmall site in China, offering discounts of up to $318 (CNY 2,300) on select iPhone models, reported Reuters.

This move comes as Apple seeks to maintain its position in the high-end smartphone market, where it is facing increased competition from local players such as Huawei.

The discounting campaign, which runs from May 20 to May 28, is more substantial than the one Apple offered in February.

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Excerpt from ca.style.yahoo.com

Meta is failing to enforce its own rules against anti-trans hate speech on its platform, a new report from GLAAD warns. The LGBTQ advocacy group found that “extreme anti-trans hate content remains widespread across Instagram, Facebook, and Threads.”

The report documents dozens of examples of hate speech from Meta’s apps, which GLAAD says were reported to the company between June 2023 and March 2024. But though the posts appeared to be clear violations of the company’s policies, “Meta either replied that posts were not violative or simply did not take action on them,” GLAAD says.

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Excerpt from www.advocate.com

In a podcast episode from May 27, 2023, House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, voiced his support for the right-wing boycott of Target due to the retailer’s LGBTQ+ inclusive inventory. Johnson’s comments, made before he became House speaker, highlight the ongoing cultural battle over corporate support for LGBTQ+ rights.

“The things that we see happening in the culture. Everybody’s all wrapped up in Washington, wrapped around the axle on the debt limit crisis and all the other things going on. But underneath all of that is these root problems about our deep concern and the sense that we all have that the foundations of our country, the very foundations are crumbling,” Johnson said. He criticized Target for its Pride Month products, describing some as “not even family-friendly.”

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Excerpt from uk.style.yahoo.com

Jeff Bezos announced on Wednesday that he and his wife MacKenzie are divorcing after 25 years of marriage — and it may be one of the most expensive divorces ever, after Bezos was named the richest man in the world in June 2018.

In a tweet on Wednesday morning, the 54-year-old founder and CEO of Amazon, wrote a statement explaining the divorce, saying they’ve decided to continue their “shared lives as friends.”

“We feel incredibly lucky to have found each other and deeply grateful for every one of the years we have been married to each other. If we had known we would separate after 25 years, we would do it all again,” he said in the statement.

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Excerpt from www.weny.com

The state’s highly decentralized system of administering voting means that “Michigan has 1,500 elections every big election day,” said Kyle Whitney, the city clerk of Marquette in the state’s Upper Peninsula. That helps ensure that balloting and vote-counting is secure because it’s impossible, he said, to “do one thing en masse that could influence the election on a large scale.”

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Excerpt from wirepoints.org

… Gov. J.B. Pritzker is doing a version of that right now with state lawmakers who don’t agree with the nearly $1 billion in tax hikes he’s put into his proposed $52.7 billion budget. The governor wants to hike sports betting taxes by $200 million. He’s pushing for another $500 million from tax hikes on companies. And there’s another $93 million tax hike on ordinary residents. The governor is not allowing the individual income tax standard deduction to fully rise with inflation.

To get his way, the governor, via his proxy Sen. Andy Manar, has sent out a letter to his agencies and lawmakers that effectively says “vote for the tax hikes or I’ll cut your district’s grants by $800 million.” Those are grants in the budget, typically of several million dollars, that lawmakers get for their districts to butter up their voter base. If those grants get cut, those lawmakers can become targets. As the Belleville-News Democrat reported: “While Manar’s letter was addressed to “Agency Directors,” it was just as much a message to rank-and-file lawmakers – particularly those within the supermajority Democratic party.”

Pritzker has given his Democratic allies the same false choice that school district officials often give their residents. You choose. Tax hikes or cuts to popular programs.

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Excerpt from fortune.com

Indonesian president Joko Widodo’s years-long wooing on Elon Musk may have finally paid off. The Southeast Asian leader, commonly known as Jokowi, openly courted the Tesla CEO for investment in the country’s fledgling EV sector, even making a personal visit to see the billionaire in Texas in 2022.

Musk has now made his first visit to Indonesia after Jokowi’s charm offensive. The billionaire traveled to the resort island of Bali over the weekend—not for Tesla, but for one of his other companies: SpaceX. On Sunday, Musk inaugurated SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service in Indonesia, saying he was “excited to bring connectivity to places that have low connectivity.”

Starlink received a license to operate in Indonesia earlier this month. It’s the third Southeast Asian country to approve the satellite internet service, following the Philippines in 2022 and Malaysia last year.

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Excerpt from fortune.com

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Reese’s Book Club dominates the literary landscape, five states will have abortion rights on their November ballots, and GM tries to salvage its $10 billion investment in self-driving business Cruise after a scary safety incident. Have a productive Monday!

– Safety first. As General Motors poured $10 billion into autonomous driving startup Cruise, GM CEO Mary Barra hoped that the investment would help the automaker pull ahead in the EV race. GM has manufactured electric vehicles since the 1990s, but has been outshone by Tesla—and GM’s strategy is still go to 100% electric by 2035. Barra believed in the technology so much she posted a video on her LinkedIn two years ago in which she was thrilled by her first ride in a Cruise car. “I can’t stop smiling,” she said at the time.

But a serious safety incident last year has put that all in jeopardy. In October 2023, a self-driving robotaxi in San Francisco hit a woman, ran over her, and dragged her for 20 feet. The car incorrectly labeled the incident a “side collision” and tried to pull over, not registering it was dragging a person along with it.

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Excerpt from www.wionews.com

To counter China’s increasing influence in the electric vehicle (EV) market, Japan and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are set to unveil their inaugural joint strategy for automobile production and sales within the region.

This collaborative initiative, as reported by the Nikkei newspaper on Monday, aims to establish a solid framework by 2035, focusing on several strategic areas including decarbonisation, mineral resource procurement, and investment in next-generation automotive technologies.

Scheduled for discussion during the economic ministers’ meeting between Japan and ASEAN members, potentially as early as September next year, the strategy will address the growing necessity for enhanced cooperation in personnel training and sustainable production practices.

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Excerpt from accelerationeconomy.com

While a news report last week speculating about Oracle landing a $10-billion cloud deal with Elon Musk’s xAI triggered great shock and wonder within the media, it turns out that Oracle chairman Larry Ellison offered a big, fat, and very public hint about this whole possibility two months ago.

Among the widespread media coverage last week, Investors Business Daily’s headline proclaimed, “Oracle Stock Jumps On Report of $10B Cloud Deal With Musk’s AI Startup.” The accompanying article said in part, “Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI is in talks with Oracle on a multiyear, $10 billion cloud-computing deal…. Musk’s xAI startup would become one of Oracle’s largest customers, according to the report.”

Okay, fair enough — AI is the hottest business topic in the world today, and the cloud is the engine that’s powering the AI Revolution, and Oracle’s unique approach to cloud data centers has made the company a highly disruptive and fast-growing player in the Cloud Wars.

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Excerpt from tokenpost.com

Shiba Inu, the popular meme coin, is experiencing a period of growth and increased utility. Amoré Orthodontic Aligners, a company that specializes in orthodontic care, recently announced that it will now accept SHIB as payment for braces, retainers, and other services.

Amoré Orthodontic Aligners, a prominent supplier of orthodontic care, has announced that it would now take Shiba Inu (SHIB) as payment for its services, demonstrating cryptocurrency’s expanding popularity. This revelation follows Shiba Inu’s sponsorship of the Blockchain Futurist Conference in Canada, which reinforces the meme coin’s potential for real-world applications, as per Coinfomania.

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Excerpt from insidethemagic.net

Disney CEO Bob Iger promised one thing when he returned to lead the Mouse House: he would slash budgets, lay off employees, and make investors money. He’s now keeping the first two parts of that promise by cutting yet more money for traditional television and pouring even more billions of dollars into the struggling Disney+ streaming service.

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Excerpt from thewest.com.au

The State’s largest producer of domestic gas is on the front foot to tout the credentials of the energy source amid ongoing environmental pressures.

Chevron’s Australia director of operations Danny Woodall told a media tour on Monday that a stable policy environment would ensure its $50 billion Gorgon project — located on Barrow Island off WA’s north-west coast — would be viable well into the future.

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Excerpt from progressivegrocer.com

Prices will be lower at Target this summer across more than 5,000 national and own brand products.

Target is helping its customers get ready for summer by lowering prices on more than 5,000 products throughout its stores. Price cuts have already gone live on 1,500 food, beverage and household essential items, with more price cuts planned throughout the summer.

New, lower prices will be reflected on everyday essentials like milk, meat, bread, soda, fresh fruit and vegetables, snacks, yogurt, peanut butter, coffee, diapers, paper towels, pet food and more. Price cuts will be seen across both national brands and Target’s own brands such as up&up, Everspring and Good & Gather.

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Excerpt from www.casino.org

Donald Trump has secured the financial backing of the Republican Jewish Coalition, which has pledged to commit over $5 million to his 2024 campaign. The RJC has long been supported by the Adelson family, which amassed tens of billions of dollars through the Las Vegas Sands casino empire. (Image: Bloomberg)

The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) works to strengthen ties between the Jewish community and GOP decision-makers. The nonprofit additionally focuses on improving relations between the U.S. and Israeli governments.

With unrest on college campuses and in major cities across the country regarding the Israeli war with Hamas in Gaza, with protests focusing on freeing Palestine, the RJC says it’s “more energized than ever” to support Trump’s candidacy for the White House.

 

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Excerpt from www.weny.com

“What’s happening in Gaza and Israel is heartbreaking: Hamas’ vicious attack on Israel, killing innocent lives and holding people hostage; innocent Palestinians caught in the middle of all this – men, women and children killed or displaced and in desperate need of water, food and medicine,” the president said.

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Excerpt from www.jsonline.com

 

MADISON – U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson is not pledging to accept the result of the November presidential election, leaving a door open to objecting to the certification of election results — a scenario that prompted an attack on the U.S. Capitol four years ago when former President Donald Trump lost reelection.

Johnson told The Cap Times on Saturday he could not answer whether he would accept the results of the 2024 presidential election, calling it an “impossible hypothetical.”

“We have to see exactly what happens,” Johnson said in an interview at the state Republican Party convention in Appleton. “If there are all kinds of abuses, we might have to start questioning those abuses, might have to investigate them. I certainly want to (accept the results).”

A spokeswoman for Johnson did not immediately answer questions early Sunday about what kind of events could push Johnson to seek an investigation.

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Excerpt from www.kake.com

“But you know as well as I that the enemy is inside more than just the gates of the United Nations. It is also in powerful Western institutions in my country and beyond, where the virus, the vile virus of antisemitism is spreading. This is why total victory means not just physical self-defense but ideological self-defense,” added Stefanik, who claimed that pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses who are calling for a ceasefire in the conflict are “cosplaying Hamas.”

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Excerpt from www.benzinga.com

This is what Nic Chahine averages with his options buys. Not selling covered calls or spreads… BUYING options. Most traders don’t even have a winning percentage of 27% buying options. He has an 83% win rate. Here’s how he does it.


Tesla, Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) is currently going through harrowing times, dealing with an inclement economic environment and rising competition. Amid these trying times, CEO Elon Musk on Saturday lamented about “naysayers” who wished that the company go down.

What Happened: A Tesla investor shared his grievance regarding so much hate toward the electric vehicle maker. “The number of people that wish $TSLA (a US company) to go bankrupt and would rather see BYD (a Chinese company) thrive and win is concerning, absurded, and backwards,” the investor said on X, formerly Twiter.

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Kansas City Chiefs’ Kicker Harrison Butker went viral after delivering a graduation speech to a private Catholic University that calls out anti-family, anti-heteronormative woke culture and calls on women to choose Motherhood over a corporate career. While the NFL condemned the speech, others have rallied in support of the kicker, including making his jersey the number one selling jersey in the NFL.

The MSM has been busy mischaracterizing his speech and pretending that it is the social norm to be outraged that some believe a woman’s best future might be, on average, being a Mom, not a CEO. One response from a tone-deaf anti-Americanist leftist, Gayle King, was to insist a man should lose his millionaire job for daring to say women should be mothers. She screeched, “I think everybody has the right to be wrong or hold opinions that others feel are wrong, but he has a right to say what he believes. But it is — it is — was very antiquated thinking, I think, in 2024. But a lot of people — a lot of people feel the way he does. The fact that he got a standing ovation, I think, says a lot.”

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Excerpt from www.sportskeeda.com

Why is Harrison Butker getting ‘canceled’? Exploring reasons for backlash on Chiefs kicker after viral commencement …  Sportskeeda

 

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Excerpt from www.newsbusters.org

On Friday, CBS finally joined the virulently anti-family liberal media’s rhetorical lynch mob fighting to convict Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker in the court of public opinion with a discussion during CBS Mornings and, while ABC moved on, NBC’s Today upped the intensity of its disgusting and hypocritical venom toward a speech about the importance of the family.

In other words, Butker stood up for something the three co-hosts on Today have personally and repeatedly discussed is paramount to their lives. Instead of scorning him, they could have mentioned the numerous charities Butker has supported, include Foster’s Outriders charity (which our Craig Bannister explained here).

CBS roped Butker into their “Talk of the Table” segment with fill-in featured co-host Nancy Chen claiming Butker “seemed to dismiss women with career goals.”

Oof. We’re already off to a bad start. Butker said, in fact, nothing of the sort of instead argued many of the female graduates would come to see motherhood and marriage as their greatest accomplishment.

Co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King and co-host Nate Burleson went first, opining Butker shouldn’t lose his job.

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Excerpt from amgreatness.com

The Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City–Saint Joseph has issued a statement voicing support for Kansas City Chief’s kicker Harrison Butker and his “right to share his faith and express his opinions.”

Since his commencement speech, Butker has seen his words get distorted in the media and has faced enraged calls for his dismissal from the team.  The NFL put out a statement distancing itself from player, and espousing a “commitment to inclusion.”

The official X account of the city of Kansas City even went so far as to partially doxx Butker, prompting Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey to launch an investigation into the Mayor’s office.

In a statement to the Catholic News Agency (CNA) Thursday, Bishop James V. Johnston defended the devout KC kicker.

“Harrison Butker’s passion for his Catholic faith and his family are beautiful and well known,” Johnston said.  “And like most people, he also has strong opinions on where we are as a Church and as a nation.”

Johnston continued:  “The Catholic Church believes that God calls everyone to pursue holiness no matter what path they take. As St. Paul notes, that diversity of callings and vocations is essential to the life and mission of the Church.”

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Excerpt from english.hani.co.kr

One of Korea’s top three shipyards, located in Geoje, South Gyeongsang Province. (Yonhap)

Reports have shown that China’s competitiveness in the shipbuilding sector has, for the first time, surpassed that of South Korea. While Korea’s shipbuilding industry is booming thanks to a string of orders for liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers, alarm bells are ringing over China’s rising competitiveness. The alarms also serve as a warning: Measuring competitiveness by total orders or specific orders of vessels alone may be misleading.

In a report released Monday, the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade (KIET) said that South Korea had “ceded its top spot in the shipbuilding industry’s value chain competitiveness to China in 2023.”

The report concerned the lagging competitiveness of South Korea’s shipbuilding value chain and explored possible directions for South Korea’s maritime strategy going forward.

Disney and Warner Brothers Discovery have announced plans to merge three streaming services, Disney +, Hulu, and Max. The new streaming giant hopes to be unveiled at the start of summer 2024.

Joe Earley, President, Direct to Consumer, Disney Entertainment, said of the merger “On the heels of the very successful launch of Hulu on Disney+, this new bundle with Max will offer subscribers even more choice and value. This incredible new partnership puts subscribers first, giving them access to blockbuster films, originals, and three massive libraries featuring the very best brands and entertainment in streaming today.”

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Excerpt from www.jedinews.com

As the streaming wars hot up, Disney Entertainment and Warner Bros. Discovery have announced a new streaming bundle that includes Disney+, Hulu and Max, available this Summer in the USA, providing subscribers with an unprecedented selection of content.

Disney Entertainment and Warner Bros. Discovery announced a new streaming bundle that includes Disney+, Hulu and Max. Beginning this Summer in the U.S, the streaming services will be offered together, providing subscribers with the best value in entertainment and an unprecedented selection of content from the biggest and most beloved brands in entertainment including ABC, CNN, DC, Discovery, Disney, Food Network, FX, HBO, HGTV, Hulu, Marvel, Pixar, Searchlight, Warner Bros., and many more.

The new bundle will be available for purchase on any of the three streaming platform’s websites and offered as both an ad-supported and ad-free plan.

 

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Excerpt from uk.movies.yahoo.com

By Anna Irrera

NEW YORK (Reuters) – PayPal Holdings Inc <PYPL.O> is teaming up with criminologists and experts at several universities to probe the payment systems used in the trafficking of illegal firearms in the United States, the company said on Tuesday.

The research aims to help financial companies and law enforcement understand what types of payment methods are used to finance illegal transactions and prevent them from taking place, PayPal executives said.

The effort will be led by the Centre on Crime and Community Resilience at Northeastern University and the University of Chicago Crime Lab.

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Excerpt from www.businessinsider.com

It seems like Jeff Bezos is concerned about Amazon lagging behind rivals in the AI race.

The founder and former CEO has been emailing Amazon executives asking why more AI firms aren’t using its cloud services, according to an unnamed source who spoke to CNBC.

The person reportedly said Amazon is considered the “most vulnerable” Big Tech company in the AI arena. Aware of that perception, Bezos is “very involved” in its AI efforts and has been mapping out the competitive playing field, according to CNBC.