Author: CNN

Hong Kong
CNN
 — 

AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes has created a firestorm on social media after sharing a photo of himself receiving a massage topless during a management meeting.

The co-founder of the Malaysian budget airline posted the image this week on LinkedIn, where he praised the culture of his company but received blowback for fostering what some saw as an inappropriate work environment.

In his post, the business mogul said he’d had “a stressful week,” so a colleague suggested he get a massage. The photo depicted him sitting in an office conference room, having his shoulder rubbed by a masked worker.

“Got to love Indonesia and AirAsia culture that I can have a massage and do a management meeting,” Fernandes wrote.

The post was deleted days later after a wave of criticism, with many LinkedIn users saying his behavior was unprofessional. One critic noted it could make other people in the workplace feel uncomfortable.

“I don’t think the women in your company would feel comfortable or safe in this context, and given you’re the boss, they likely won’t challenge you or say anything,” the user commented. “You are clearly a smart leader that cares about culture but this isn’t the way to create a supportive, safe one.”

The executive declined to comment when reached by CNN.

Fernandes earlier told Bloomberg that he’d just endured an 18-hour flight and was in pain, so he took up the suggestion of the massage.

“You can never really explain the thought process behind a post, so I deleted it,” he was quoted as saying. “I didn’t mean to offend anyone.”

Fernandes is best known for relaunching AirAsia, the region’s first low-cost carrier. He now serves as CEO of the airline’s parent company, Capital A.

The entrepreneur has been dubbed by some as the “Richard Branson of Asia,” after starting his career with the Virgin Group founder in the United Kingdom, where they became friends.

Fernandes then went on to oversee Warner Music Group’s Southeast Asia business, before famously buying AirAsia, a bankrupt Malaysian carrier, for just 26 cents in 2001. The carrier was relaunched and remains one of the region’s leading low-cost travel providers.

AirAsia Group rebranded to Capital A last year, in efforts to show how AirAsia was becoming “more than just an airline,” according to a company statement at the time.

Outside of aviation, the group runs what it describes as a “super app,” or platform intended to serve as a one-stop shop for users to do everything from ordering food delivery to booking flights.

Fernandes has long been vocal about his desire to foster an open work culture, telling CNN in a 2007 interview: “I want people to be themselves.”

“I think a hierarchy can be very damaging to an organization,” he said at the time.

“I want to show the world that Malaysia can have a great company, and I want to be remembered for [creating] a great place to work at.”

An 80-year-old Israeli-American and her 13-year-old granddaughter, who were both kidnapped by Hamas militants from their kibbutz on October 7, have been found dead, the family told CNN on Thursday.

The Israel Defense Forces confirmed the deaths of Carmela Dan and Noya Dan to family on Wednesday, according to Jason Greenberg, a relative who lives in Massachusetts.

“Their bodies are being returned to their families for burial at this moment,” he said.

Carmela Dan had Israeli, US and French citizenship. Her granddaughter, Noya Dan, was an Israeli citizen.

The spokesperson of another family member also posted about the deaths on Facebook.

The news comes more than a week after five members of the family were kidnapped from their home in Nir Oz, a kibbutz in southern Israel just a few miles from the border with Gaza. Greenberg previously told CNN there had been a flurry of text messages from the family members saying they were hiding in a safe room and had heard gunfire and smelled smoke.

One last message read:

The family’s house was set ablaze and they were taken hostage, according to Greenberg.

Three other family members, all Israeli citizens, are still missing: Noya’s siblings Erez Kalderon, 12, and Sahar Kalderon, 16, and their father Ofer Kalderon, 50.

The Hamas attacks killed more than 1,400 people in Israel, officials have said.

Washington, DC
CNN
 — 

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Thursday the attack on Israel earlier this month was “horrifying,” and he warned of the uncertain outcome of “highly elevated” geopolitical tensions on the global economy.

The Fed chief also said higher interest rates are constraining the US economy. While he acknowledged steady progress on slowing inflation, he stopped short of declaring victory, citing the economy’s resilience, according to prepared remarks ahead of a discussion at the Economic Club of New York.

“Tight policy is putting downward pressure on economic activity and inflation,” Powell said.

The job market, economic growth and consumer spending have all held steady despite the Fed’s 11 rate hikes, while inflation has steadily slowed over the past year.

However, the war between Israel and Hamas could rattle global energy markets if the conflict escalates to destabilize the broader, oil-rich Middle East; and Powell said “a range of uncertainties, both old and new, complicate our task of balancing the risk of tightening monetary policy too much against the risk of tightening too little.”

Shortly before Powell was set to deliver his prepared remarks, climate change protesters approached the front of the stage, unfurling a sign and chanting. Powell was escorted off the stage and the event’s live stream was turned off. The event continued a few minutes later.

Powell’s strategy echoes that of other Fed officials, who have said the central bank’s decisions are based on doing just enough to defeat inflation while not doing so much that its actions trigger higher unemployment, or risking “unnecessary harm to the economy,” as he put it.

Fed Vice Chair Philip Jefferson, who holds an influential role at the US central bank, also laid out that strategy earlier this month, saying that the Fed should “balance the risk of not having tightened enough, against the risk of policy being too restrictive.”

Treasury yields have soared recently on expectations that the Fed will keep rates higher for longer, which could slow the economy. The 10-year Treasury yield fluctuated slightly on Thursday as Powell spoke about inflation and the economy, but continued to hover just under the 5% threshold last breached in 2007.

Markets, meanwhile, inched higher on Thursday afternoon as investors took in the nuances of Powell’s speech. The Dow was 169 points, or 0.5%, higher. The S&P 500 was up 0.6% and the Nasdaq Composite also gained 0.6%.

Financial markets are overwhelmingly pricing in another Fed pause on rate hikes for the October 31-November 1 meeting, but the chances of an additional pause in December are much lower, at around 61%, according to the CME FedWatch Tool.

The economic landscape

US inflation has slowed markedly from its four-decade peak last summer as the Fed raised short-term rates at its most aggressive pace since the 1980s. The closely watched Consumer Price Index rose 3.7% in September from a year earlier, up from June’s 3% annual rate, mostly due to rising gas prices, but still down from the 9.1% rate in June 2022. That’s a welcome development for the Fed, but officials aren’t quite yet ready to declare victory.

The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge has shown a similar deceleration, with the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index rising 3.9% for the 12 months ended in August, the lowest annual increase that index has seen in two years. Inflation is still above the Fed’s 2% target, and officials have said they need to see further evidence of the economy cooling.

“If we continue to see a cooling labor market and inflation heading back to our target, we can hold interest rates steady and let the effects of policy continue to work,” San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly said earlier this month. “Importantly, even if we hold rates where they are today, policy will grow increasingly restrictive as inflation — and inflation expectations — fall.”

However, the US job market remains on strong footing. Employers added a robust 336,000 jobs in September, while the unemployment rate held at a low 3.8% that month. Meanwhile, a separate report showed that job openings unexpectedly surged to 9.6 million in August.

In addition to soaring Treasury yields cooling the economy, dwindling savings accounts, fatigue from high inflation, the resumption of student loan payments this month and even the uncertainty around ongoing labor strikes could ultimately break the US consumer.

New concerns have surfaced around the war between Israel and Hamas, which could roil energy markets if the conflict escalates to disrupt the broader, oil-rich Middle East. Traders will be listening closely to Powell’s address Thursday to learn the extent to which he believes the conflict in the Middle East could impact the US economy and inflation.

For now, most economists agree the US economy will likely be spared a downturn this year. Bets of a 2023 US recession have collapsed and gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economy output, was likely robust in the July-through-September period, based on strong economic data in recent months. The Commerce Department reports third-quarter GDP next week. On top of a strong labor market, retail sales rose in September for the sixth-straight month while US industrial production rose in September to its highest level in nearly five years.

One theme of the US economy this year has been resilience, but that sturdiness will certainly be put to the test in the coming months.

– CNN’s Elisabeth Buchwald and Nicole Goodkind contributed to this report.

Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.

Abu Dhabi, UAE
CNN
 — 

Some of the United States’ closest Arab allies gave President Joe Biden the cold shoulder as he and his diplomats shuttled around the Middle East in an attempt to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spiraling into a wider regional conflagration.

Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority canceled a planned meeting with Biden less than 24 hours before he was supposed to meet them for a four-way summit in the Jordanian capital, Amman, on Wednesday. The cancellation followed a massive blast in Gaza’s Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital that reportedly killed hundreds of Palestinians. Palestinian officials blamed Israel for the hospital blast, while Israeli officials said it was caused by a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket.

“The summit won’t be able to stop the war, which is what we want,” Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told Al Jazeera early Wednesday, calling the hospital blast a war crime. “So, we decided not to hold it,” he said.

Biden arrived in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of the Israeli war cabinet. The president pledged continued backing of Israel and told Netanyahu that the hospital explosion “appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.” The National Security Council said Wednesday that the government currently believes Israel “is not responsible” for the blast.

CNN cannot independently verify what caused the explosion, nor the extent of casualties.

Arab leaders appear to be alarmed at Washington’s near-complete support for Israel in the war and are trying to distance themselves from the Biden administration as anger grows on the Arab street against the Jewish state. At least 3,478 people have been killed in Gaza since the October 7 attack on Israel by Gaza’s Hamas rulers, which killed at least 1,400 in the country.

After news of the hospital blast broke on Tuesday, anti-Israel protests erupted in Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Iran and Turkey, and in Ramallah in the West Bank.

Arab leaders are also likely to be wary of protests at home spiraling as images of dead Palestinians stream in with round-the-clock coverage of the Gaza war on almost every Arabic news channel. Jordan is particularly vulnerable to protests as a large proportion of its population claims Palestinian descent.

Egypt on Wednesday declared three days of mourning for the Gaza hospital victims.

“What we have seen from Biden, we have probably not seen from any previous US president, in terms of being so emotionally attached to Israel,” said Abdul Khaleq Abdulla, a commentator from the United Arab Emirates who is attuned to official thinking. Arab states, he said, “are shocked as hell” by Biden’s perceived unwillingness to criticize Israel or bring a stop to the bloodshed.

“The feeling now is that he is a full partner in this crime committed against Palestinians,” he told CNN, adding that Arab states are now “trying to detach themselves, not to meet him, neglect him.”

Egypt and Jordan, both of which border Israel and the Palestinian territories, have notably pushed back against a US plan to establish a safe corridor for Palestinians fleeing Gaza in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, which borders Gaza.

Jordan’s King Abdullah warned Tuesday that the displacement of Palestinians to Jordan and Egypt is a “red line,” and said neither Jordan nor Egypt would accept refugees from Gaza. He said that any suggestion of the two countries taking in fleeing Gazans was a plan “by the usual suspects to try and create de facto issues on the ground,” suggesting that the refugees may not be allowed to return to their homes.

The US suggestion has been met with fury in the Arab world, where media outlets have said that it serves Israel’s interest to de-populate the Gaza Strip of Palestinians and even to re-occupy it, rendering the Palestinians homeless once again without prospects of return. Israel ruled Gaza from 1967 to 2005 and it settled Jews there during that period.

Egyptian newspapers have denounced the idea of Palestinians being expelled from their homes, saying it would be a repeat of the 1948 Nakba, or “catastrophe,” when roughly 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war that led to Israel’s creation. Most Gazans are already refugees whose ancestors came from areas that are now part of Israel.

In a news conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi spoke out against the prospect of moving Palestinians to the Sinai in charged words, saying that Israel, not Egypt, should take in the refugees.

“If there is an idea of expulsion (of Gazans), then there is the Naqab (Negev) desert in Israel, where Palestinians can be moved until Israel finishes its announced operation to liquidate the resistance or the armed groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the strip,” Sisi said.

He warned that the presence of Gazans in the Sinai could turn the peninsula into a base for anti-Israel militancy that would prompt Israel to strike Egypt.

Timothy Kaldas, deputy director of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy in Washington, DC, said no Arab leader wants to be seen as facilitating the emptying out of Gaza.

Sisi is “working very hard to create some distance between himself and his Western partners on this issue, to insulate himself from what could become a lot of public criticism and anger,” he said.

Sisi’s comments came a day after his foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that just as Europe and the US are “sensitive” about the idea of refugee influx, so is Egypt.

“Why should Egypt be presumed to allow the influx of 1 or 2 million people?” Shoukry told CNN Tuesday, adding that the country already hosts nine million refugees. He said he didn’t understand the purpose of the transfer of Palestinians, adding that it could be “intentional.”

Kaldas said Western governments that have fraternized with Arab autocrats have often seen their ability to disregard public opinion as a benefit. That may not be true, he added, especially now.

“The reality is that even autocracies have populations with opinions and passions and breaking points,” Kaldas said. “And this is certainly something that has infuriated everybody in Egypt pretty much.”

CNN’s Akanksha Sharma, Hamdi Alkhshali, DJ Judd, Eyad Kourdi, Tim Lister, Chloe Liu, Ben Wedeman, Celine Alkhaldi and Abeer Salman contributed to this report.

Hong Kong
CNN
 — 

Nokia will slash up to 14,000 jobs in a major cost-cutting drive to address a “weaker” market environment, it said in a statement on Thursday.

The Finnish telecom giant, a major provider of 5G equipment that employs 86,000 people, announced the move as part of a wider restructuring that will lower its headcount to between 72,000 and 77,000.

The move will help the company reduce staffing expenses by 10% to 15%, and save at least €400 million ($421.4 million) in 2024 alone, the company projected.

Overall, it said the reductions are expected to trim Nokia’s costs by up to €1.2 billion (nearly $1.3 billion) cumulatively by the end of 2026. Nokia (NOK) said it would “act quickly” to make changes.

“The most difficult business decisions to make are the ones that impact our people,” CEO Pekka Lundmark said in the statement. “We have immensely talented employees at Nokia and we will support everyone that is affected by this process.”

The announcement came on the same day that Nokia reported worse-than-expected results. It said sales in the third quarter had fallen 15% compared to the same period a year ago, as “macroeconomic uncertainty and higher interest rates continue to pressure operator spending.”

Mobile network sales fell 19% in the third quarter compared to the previous year, the company added, due to a slowdown in the pace of 5G deployment in markets such as India.

This week, Swedish rival Ericsson also warned that sales in the second half of 2023 would likely come in lower than usual, echoing Nokia’s remarks of a “challenging environment and macroeconomic uncertainty.”

But Nokia has maintained its outlook for 2023, forecasting between €23.2 billion and €24.6 billion ($24.4 billion and $25.9 billion) in sales for the full year.

“We continue to believe in the mid to long term attractiveness of our markets,” Lundmark said.

Las Vegas
CNN
 — 

The 60-year-old man arrested in the killing of rapper Tupac Shakur is expected in court Thursday, where he will be arraigned on a murder charge.

Duane Keith Davis, known as “Keffe D,” is accused of orchestrating the shooting that cut short the life of Shakur, a 25-year-old trailblazer whose brief, prolific career cemented his legacy as one of the most influential hip-hop artists of all time. His untimely death added a grim layer to that mystique, and for years it had been the subject of conspiracy theories.

Davis is expected to plead not guilty to a charge of murder with use of a deadly weapon in a gang-related homicide stemming from the fatal September 7, 1996, shooting of Shakur, Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said in a news conference after Davis’ initial court hearing. Wolfson stressed Davis is presumed innocent until proven otherwise.

Davis appeared in court for the first time two weeks ago, dressed in a Clark County Detention Center jumpsuit. He said his defense attorney needed time to arrange to be present, and District Court Judge Tierra D. Jones opted to delay his arraignment until Thursday.

Shakur’s slaying was the subject of a decadeslong investigation by police that culminated this month with Davis’ arrest following his indictment by a grand jury. He is the only suspect in the case still alive, police said.

Physical evidence seized at his house and witnesses who have come forward in the last several years are expected to be used in the trial against Davis, Wolfson told CNN’s Anderson Cooper.

“We wanted to gather as much supporting evidence as we could. We didn’t want to proceed just with his admissions. Certain witnesses came forward in the last couple of years,” Wolfson said. “So we felt at this point, when we put it all together, that we had a strong enough case to charge Mr. Davis with murder with use of a deadly weapon with a gang enhancement.”

Davis is being held without bail, Wolfson said, and his office intends to continue to ask the judge not to set bail at arraignment.

“We believe under Nevada law and evidence in this case, that the proof is evident,” Wolfson told reporters, “and the presumption is great that he will be convicted of first-degree murder and that allows us to ask for a no bail setting.”

Edi Faal, Davis’ Los Angeles-based personal attorney, declined to comment on the case but indicated he is working to assist his client in obtaining local representation in Nevada.

For years, Davis has placed himself at the scene of the crime, stating publicly he was in the front seat of a white Cadillac when it pulled up alongside Shakur’s car and shots rang out from the back seat. Shakur was shot four times and died six days later.

Authorities have cast Davis as the alleged ringmaster of the plot to kill Shakur, which they contend was retaliation for an attack on Davis’ nephew, Orlando Anderson, that stemmed from a broader conflict between two gangs in Compton, California.

Shakur and Marion “Suge” Knight, then-CEO of Death Row Records, were affiliated with the Mob Piru gang, said Jason Johansson, the homicide lieutenant of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Davis and Anderson were affiliated with the Southside Compton Crips, Johansson said.

At the time of the fatal shooting, Shakur was in Las Vegas to see Mike Tyson box at the MGM Grand Hotel, an event that also was attended by Davis and his nephew. While leaving the fight, members of Death Row Records kicked and punched Anderson near an elevator bank inside the MGM, Johansson said, playing surveillance footage that showed Shakur and Knight among the participants.

Afterward, Davis “began to devise a plan to obtain a firearm and retaliate against Suge Knight and Mr. Shakur,” Johansson said. Davis got a gun, then got into the white Cadillac with Anderson, Terrence Brown and Deandre Smith, the lieutenant said.

Anderson and Smith were in the back seat, according to a copy of the indictment. And at some point, Davis provided the gun to the back-seat passengers, Johansson said.

Then, someone pulled the trigger – though the indictment doesn’t say who. Either way, Davis “was the shot-caller for this group of individuals that committed this crime,” Johansson said. “He orchestrated the plan that was carried out to commit this crime.”

Anderson denied involvement to CNN before his death in a 1998 gang-related shooting.

Davis confessed to his role in the crime in 2009, but authorities couldn’t bring charges due to a proffer agreement – in which a suspect agrees to provide potentially useful information in an investigation that generally cannot be used as evidence against the suspect – a former detective on the case, Greg Kading, told CNN.

The investigation was “reinvigorated” in 2018, Johansson said, in part thanks to “Davis’ own admissions to his involvement.” Authorities felt it was their last opportunity to solve the case and bring charges, he said.

Police in July searched the Henderson, Nevada, home of Davis’ wife, looking for writings or documents related to Shakur’s murder, according to an affidavit requesting a search warrant. They seized a copy of Davis’ memoir, in which he wrote about street gang life and the shooting of Shakur, describing himself and Knight – in prison on a manslaughter charge in an unrelated case – as the only two living witnesses to the shooting.

CNN
 — 

The House remains paralyzed with no end in sight to the Republican leadership crisis as GOP Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio continues his bid for speaker despite facing stiff resistance.

The Ohio Republican, who has made a name for himself as a hardline conservative agitator, has so far vowed to stay in the race despite two failed votes for the gavel. The House could hold a third vote for speaker as soon as Thursday afternoon, though no vote has been officially scheduled yet.

Tensions are rising among House Republicans as pressure grows to find a way to resolve the standoff. In a sign of growing opposition to his candidacy, Jordan fared worse in a second round of voting on Wednesday than he had in the first vote a day earlier.

After Wednesday’s failed speaker vote, a number of Republicans who oppose Jordan made clear they won’t be swayed and some expressed outrage over what they described as a pressure campaign against them by Jordan allies.

The House remains effectively frozen as Republicans have failed to coalesce around a viable alternative to Kevin McCarthy after the former speaker was ousted in a historic vote by a group of conservative hardliners.

Now, more moderate and mainstream Republicans are the ones digging in, with some concerned over the prospect of a conservative firebrand like Jordan as speaker and others angry over the role hardliners played in pushing out McCarthy and then opposing House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s bid for speaker.

As it increasingly looks uncertain that any candidate can secure the 217 votes to win the gavel, some Republicans have been pushing to expand the powers of the interim speaker, GOP Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina. But such a move would be controversial and has divided Republicans.

Some of Jordan’s opponents have predicted that the Ohio Republican will lose even more support in Thursday’s speaker vote.

During the first round of voting, 20 House Republicans voted against Jordan. In the second round, that number rose to 22. There were four new Republican votes against Jordan and two that flipped into his column.

Given the narrow House GOP majority, Jordan can only afford to lose a handful of votes and the high number of votes against him so far puts the gavel far out of reach for now.

Jordan is a polarizing figure in the speaker’s fight. He is a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump, and helped found the hardline House Freedom Caucus. As the chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, he has also been a key figure in House GOP-led investigations.

His struggle to win the gavel has highlighted the limits of Trump’s influence in the speaker’s race after the former president endorsed Jordan.

It took McCarthy 15 rounds of voting in January to secure the gavel.

Some Republicans, however, have argued that given the unprecedented situation the House is now in without a speaker the current race should not go on for that long.

A fast-approaching government shutdown deadline and conflict unfolding abroad has also fueled calls for Republicans to bring an end to the leadership vacuum as soon as possible.

Los Angeles
CNN
 — 

Netflix has raised its prices again.

The streaming giant said in its third-quarter earnings report that its premium ad-free plan in the United States will increase by $3 per month, to $22.99, starting Wednesday. Its one-stream basic plan will rise to $11.99 in the United States. All other plans, including its entry-level, $6.99-a-month ad-supported tier, will remain at the same monthly cost.

Netflix also announced price increases for some subscription tiers in the United Kingdom and France.

The company reported a 9% year-over-year increase in average paid memberships, adding 8.8 million subscribers last quarter. That’s compared to 2.4 million in the third quarter last year. Overall, Netflix reported 247 million paid global subscribers in the third quarter.

Netflix attributed some of its strong subscriber growth to its continued password-sharing crackdown. Netflix said it has officially rolled out its “paid sharing” program in every region where the company operates, and fewer customers than they expected cancelled their memberships as a result. Rather, many customers who previously borrowed passwords from others are converting into full paying subscribers, according to Netflix.

Netflix also said that adoption of its advertising tier plans continues to grow, with membership up almost 70% compared to the previous quarter.

The company brought in $8.54 billion in revenue last quarter, boosted by higher-than-expected growth of its membership base. Earnings per share for the quarter came in at $3.73.

Netflix’s stock jumped by 12% in after-hours trading.

In a letter to shareholders, Netflix called the last six months “challenging” given this summer’s writers’ guild and actors’ guild strikes. On Netflix’s third-quarter earnings call, Ted Sarandos, the company’s co-CEO, said the company is “totally committed” to ending the actors strike after an agreement with the writers guild was reached last month.

Last week, negotiations between SAG-AFTRA, which represents Hollywood’s actors, and the studios, were suspended after the two sides disagreed about SAG-AFTRA’s latest proposal.

“The industry, our communities and the economy are all hurting,” Sarandos said Wednesday. “We need to get a deal done that respects all sides as soon as we possibly can.”

On the earnings call, co-CEOs Sarandos and Greg Peters also stressed Netflix’s investments in newer business areas, like gaming and sports content, to draw new subscribers.

“Games is a huge entertainment opportunity,” Peters said. “From a strategic perspective, we believe we can build games into a strong content category, leveraging our current films and series.”

Netflix last raised prices in January 2022, but its biggest competitors have all raised prices since then. Disney+ in August hiked prices by $3 a month – for the second time this year. The company also raised Hulu prices. And Max, owned by CNN parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, raised prices in January 2023 by $1 a month – its first-ever price hike.

Hollywood studios continue to demand more from streaming services for their TV shows and movies, as production costs rise. Meanwhile, consumer demand for streaming services has slowed dramatically since the pandemic, cutting into streamers’ revenue growth. Raising prices is one way to solve that issue.

Making streaming shows will get only more expensive after the end of the writers strike, which boosted pay and benefits for Hollywood writers. And the actors, who are still on strike, are demanding more, too.

Netflix is one of the few profitable streaming services, and investors are demanding Netflix continue to grow its earnings. That’s why the company has been pushing its lower-priced ad tier, in which it can hide some of the cost by keeping prices low for consumers but charge more to advertisers over time.

On the company’s earnings call, Peters said the company plans to eventually offer an even wider range of price points for Netflix subscriptions to grow its subscriber base.

More price offerings could allow “entertainment fans from around the world that have different needs to be able to access the great story-telling that our creative partners are doing at a price-point that works for them,” Peters said.

Washington
CNN
 — 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his presidential campaign and a super PAC backing him are inaccurately depicting a comment Republican rival Nikki Haley made on CNN on Sunday about the people of Gaza.

The DeSantis camp has been claiming this week that Haley, the former US ambassador to the United Nations and governor of South Carolina, said in a CNN interview that the US should take in refugees from Gaza – the Palestinian territory controlled by Hamas, the Islamist group that perpetrated the terrorist attacks that killed more than 1,400 people in Israel this month.

On Monday, the pro-DeSantis super PAC, Never Back Down, posted a video clip of Haley’s remarks and claimed the video showed Haley arguing in favor of “bringing Gaza refugees to America.” The same day, the DeSantis campaign posted a video of DeSantis responding to what the campaign claimed was “Nikki Haley wanting to import Gazan refugees to the U.S.” On Tuesday, DeSantis claimed in a Fox interview that Haley had been speaking on CNN about bringing people from Gaza to the US.

All of these claims are wrong.

Facts First: Haley is opposed to the US accepting refugees from Gaza, and she did not say on CNN that the US should take in these refugees. DeSantis and his allies have been falsely portraying Haley’s response to a question that was not even about US refugee policy toward Gaza.

Rather, Haley was asked by CNN anchor Jake Tapper for her thoughts about DeSantis having said that while the people of Gaza are not all Hamas, “they are all antisemitic” and “none of them” believes Israel has the right to exist. Haley responded that many Gazans don’t want to be ruled by Hamas, just as many Iranians oppose the regime that governs them, and the US should continue to distinguish between terrorists and civilians.

She did not say the US should take in any of these Gaza civilians as refugees. And in subsequent remarks, Haley has expressed firm opposition to the US accepting refugees from Gaza. She argued on Fox on Tuesday that “Hamas-sympathizing” Middle Eastern countries should take in these refugees instead.

You can read the full transcript of Haley’s Sunday exchange with Tapper here. The exchange was not about whether the US should accept refugees from Gaza.

Here’s what actually happened.

Tapper noted that a high proportion of Gaza residents are children and asked Haley if she thinks “the US, Israel, Egypt needs to be doing more to help these innocent Palestinian civilians get out of harm’s way.” Haley said, “You know what, we should care about the Palestinian citizens, especially the innocent ones, because they didn’t ask for this.”

But then she continued: “But where are the Arab countries? Where are they? Where is Qatar? Where is Lebanon? Where is Jordan? Where is Egypt? Do you know we give Egypt over a billion dollars a year? Why aren’t they opening the gates? Why aren’t they taking the Palestinians? You know why? Because they know they can’t vet them, and they don’t want Hamas in their neighborhood. So why would Israel want them in their neighborhood?”

After Haley completed her answer, Tapper asked her to listen to a clip of DeSantis’ assertions in Iowa on Saturday that not all Gazans are Hamas but that all are antisemitic and none thinks Israel has the right to exist. DeSantis made these claims in the course of arguing that the US should not accept refugees from Gaza, but CNN did not play the portion of his comments about refugees to Haley during the interview; Tapper was specifically asking Haley for her thoughts on how DeSantis characterized Gazans’ beliefs.

Before he got to his question, Tapper read out some results from a July poll of Gaza, which found, among other things, that 50% of Gazans want Hamas to “stop calling for Israel’s destruction, and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders.” Tapper then said: “So I’m not really certain that Governor DeSantis has a real read on the difference between Hamas and the people of Gaza. What was your response when you heard what Governor DeSantis said?”

Haley responded by invoking her two-year tenure as US ambassador to the UN in 2017 and 2018, when she said many Gazans indeed opposed Hamas.

“I dealt with this every day for two years. And what I can tell you is, you have to realize that, whether we’re talking about Gazans and Palestinians, all of them don’t – you’ve got half of them at the time that I was there didn’t want to be under Hamas’ rule. They didn’t want to have terrorists overseeing them. They knew that they were living a terrible life because of Hamas. You had the other half that supported Hamas and wanted to be a part of that. We see that with Iran too. The Iranian people don’t want to be under that Iranian regime. They don’t – we saw what happened to Mahsa Amini. We saw how they treat them,” Haley said.

Haley continued: “There are so many of these people who want to be free from this terrorist rule. They want to be free from all of that. And America’s always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists. And that’s what we have to do. But right now, we can never take our eyes off of the terrorists. I mean, what Hamas did was beyond thuggish, brutal, and sick.”

Again, nowhere did Haley say that the US should take in Gazans as refugees.

The DeSantis camp has emphasized Haley’s comment that “America’s always been sympathetic to the fact that you can separate civilians from terrorists.”

DeSantis said in a Fox interview on Tuesday: “Over the weekend, she was taking issue with what I said, saying that you can separate someone who’s Hamas in Gaza with somebody who’s more of a freedom-lover. So why would she be talking about that we can vet these people if she wasn’t saying that they should come to this country? We would have no role in vetting them unless you’re bringing them to this country.”

But Haley did not use the word “vet” on CNN in the context of the US; when she did use the word, she was talking about how Middle Eastern countries cannot vet refugees from Gaza. And it’s a baseless leap to claim that Haley was talking about refugees when she spoke of how the US should distinguish terrorists from Hamas-opposing civilians.

There are numerous possible reasons other than refugee policy that someone could find it important for the US government to understand the beliefs of Gaza’s population. For example, Gazans’ views about Hamas could be pertinent to the durability of Hamas’ control over Gaza. Gazans’ views could also affect the willingness of a member of Congress or a president to authorize humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, or affect their positions on Israel’s military actions.

In a new television ad attacking Haley over her comments on CNN, the pro-DeSantis super PAC used a question mark that appeared to slightly hedge its claim about what Haley was saying – putting text over the video of Haley’s remarks that reads, “NIKKI HALEY ON GAZA REFUGEES?”

But the ad – which juxtaposes some of Haley’s words with a clip of DeSantis expressing opposition to the US taking refugees from Gaza – is misleading nonetheless. A single question mark is not nearly sufficient to explain that these Haley comments never even mentioned the US taking in refugees.

In a Wednesday email, a spokesperson for the super PAC repeated DeSantis’ argument that Haley’s comment about how America needs to “separate civilians from terrorists” was about refugees. The spokesperson also said, “DeSantis said Gazans are antisemitic and do not believe in Israel’s right to exist BECAUSE he was arguing against bringing Gaza refugees to the U.S. So it is fair to view Haley’s rejection of DeSantis’ statements in that context.” And the spokesperson criticized Haley’s past positions on US refugee policy.

CNN
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Ibrahim Wadi, 62, and his son Ahmad, 24, were on their way to a funeral for four Palestinians shot dead by Israeli settlers in their occupied West Bank community, when their car came under attack.

The father and son were driving through the small village of Qusra, just south of Nablus, which has become a focal point of violence over recent days, when they themselves were fired upon by armed settlers on Thursday. Family members told CNN that the men were transferred to a nearby hospital and died of their wounds soon after.

They are among at least 61 people, including children, to be killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7, when Hamas launched its unprecedented, surprise assault on Israel, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health there. More than 1,250 have been injured.

Hamas’ attack has left more than 1,400 people dead in Israel, mostly civilian, with at least 199 believed to be held hostage inside Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.

Israel announced a “complete siege” of the enclave in response, carrying out widespread airstrikes across the Gaza Strip that left at least 3,478 people dead and threatening a ground invasion, according to the health ministry in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas. Meanwhile, tensions are mounting in the West Bank, where Palestinians have been killed in confrontations with both Israeli forces and settlers.

Hani Odeh, Qusra’s mayor, told CNN that settlers roam freely in the village under the protection of Israeli police. He said he had informed a member of COGAT, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, that he was going to attend the funeral, along with Ahmad and Ibrahim.

A few hours beforehand, the Israeli official told him to take a different route than the one they would usually take, to avoid settlers in the area. But to Odeh’s surprise, the road to which they were diverted was filled with settlers, who eventually shot and killed Ahmad and Ibrahim in their car.

Odeh told CNN he watched the attack happen from his own vehicle while Israeli soldiers patrolled the street. He went up to one officer, urging him to disperse the settlers, but no one did anything. He said it felt like a trap.

CNN reached out to COGAT and the IDF for comment on Odeh’s claims but have yet to receive a response.

Brig. Gen. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military’s spokesperson, said last week that the military was on high alert in the occupied territory, adding it was preparing to thwart any potential attacks. “Anyone who challenges us in Judea and Samaria will be met with huge force,” Hagari said, using the Jewish biblical names for the West Bank.

CNN spoke with residents in the West Bank who say they are fearful of a wave of violence from the Israeli military and security forces, as well as revenge attacks by the estimated 700,000 Israeli settlers living in the area. The latest killings come against the backdrop of a year in which the West Bank has seen a surge in settler attacks, including one that an Israeli military commander called a “pogrom.”

Even before the war with Hamas, the West Bank had been boiling. Following a wave of Palestinian attacks on Israelis last year, Israel launched regular incursions and raids into the West Bank targeting what they said were militant strongholds. The resulting violence left a record number of both Palestinians and Israelis dead, numbers not seen in at least a decade.

Days after the deadly violence in Qusra, home to around 7,000 people, residents are still reeling. Photographs commemorating the six people who were killed plaster the walls of homes and buildings. A bleak emptiness fills the air.

Torched cars, broken water pumps and ransacked electricity lines surround an apartment building on the edge of the village where the first four killings took place. Inside the floor is littered with glass, and bullet marks scar the walls.

Armed settlers attacked the building on October 11, triggering calls for help from residents. When several neighbors arrived at the scene, the settlers opened fire and four people were shot dead: Musa’ab Abu Raidi, 19, Obaida Abu Srour, 18, Hassan Muhannad, 22, and Moath Odesa, 29.

Inside the apartment building, Rabeea, 19, and her brother, Abdulrahman, 12, watched with horror as the attack unfolded. The siblings, who asked that CNN not use their last name for fear of reprisals from Israeli settlers, recounted how settlers lobbed rocks and fired at the building as they hid inside with their mother.

Their older brother and his 6-year-old daughter were injured and receiving treatment at a hospital nearby. Odeh, the mayor, told CNN that they were among 12 people to be hospitalized after the attack.

Rabeea said her brother can’t sleep at night; he’s too scared to be alone. CNN met the family as they were packing up their things and getting ready to move to another village.

“I feel so bad. I want to cry but, what can we do?” she said. “I want to stay here but we can’t do anything.”

They’ve been here before. Seven years ago, Rabeea and Abdulrahman said their father was shot dead by Israeli settlers near Nablus. The fear of being attacked forced their family to pick up and move to Qusra. Now, too scared to stay, they are being driven from their home again.

Since Israel took control and occupied the West Bank in 1967 from Jordan following the six-day war, the territory, which residents hope will form part of a future Palestinian state, has been settled by Israeli civilians, often under military protection.

Most of the world considers these settlements illegal under international law, but despite this successive Israeli governments have pledged support for them. Israel views the West Bank as “disputed territory,” and contends its settlement policy is legal.

This year, following the election of the most right-wing, extremist government in Israeli history under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, violence between settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank flared.

As of mid-September this year, the United Nations had reported 798 settler-related incidents in the occupied territory, leading to 216 Palestinians injured. In the same period, Israeli forces killed 179 Palestinians in the West Bank.

The IDF says most are terror suspects or people engaging violently with its troops during raids, but does not offer evidence in every case for this assertion.

Settlers have long been accused of carrying out acts of violence against Palestinians. As well as killings, these attacks have included incidents of physical assault, property damage and harassment.

Odeh insisted their aim is to drive Palestinians from their home and ultimately from the occupied West Bank.

This year, in the wake of international criticism, Netanyahu instructed Jewish settlers not to grab land in the West Bank without the Israeli government’s permission. But under his leadership, Israel has approved a record number of housing units in West Bank settlements.

Members of his far-right government, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who are themselves settlers, have been accused of inciting violence against Palestinians since taking power.

In the wake of Hamas’ attack on October 7, Palestinians are being subjected to tight restrictions on movement within the West Bank and between the West Bank and Israel, with Israeli military forces imposing a full closure of checkpoints and roadblocks, according to several residents who spoke to CNN.

Palestinians living in the West Bank told CNN the closure has significantly impacted their daily lives, restricting their ability to travel for work, school, medical treatment and other essential activities.

In a call with US President Joe Biden on Saturday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas demanded an end to settler attacks against people in Palestinian cities, villages and refugee camps in the West Bank, while stressing the need to stop the killing of civilians on both sides.

At the home of Ibrahim and Ahmad, who lived a short drive away from the apartment building that was attacked in Qusra, and in full view of an encroaching Israeli settlement, their family – wives, daughters, and sisters – were in mourning on Sunday.

“Thank God, we are strong. And God willing, we will continue to have strength and patience,” Khitam Wadi, Ibrahim’s wife and Ahmad’s mother, told CNN.

“My husband loved his land. He defended his land. And we will continue to do the same so long as we are alive,” she added.

Evidently shaken, Khitam found it hard to describe her grief. But the younger women in the family, while in pain, were adamant on standing their ground.

“I’m sad, of course. This all affects me, but not to the extent that it weakens me. We’ve been experiencing the same thing our entire lives, nothing has changed,” Aseel, Ahmad’s sister and Ibrahim’s daughter, said.

“This is our home. My dad taught me to love my land. I will teach my kids the same. And I will stay for as long as I live.”