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UPI
30 minutes ago
- UPI
Trump administration seeks an equity stake in chipmaker Intel
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (L) and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Tuesday confirmed the Trump administration wants an equity stake in Intel in exchange for CHIPs and Science Act funding. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo Aug. 19 (UPI) -- The Trump administration wants U.S. chipmaker Intel to give the federal government an equity stake to receive $8 billion via the CHIPS and Science Act. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Tuesday confirmed President Donald Trump wants Intel to give the federal government a 10% stake in Intel in exchange for money promised to it by the Biden administration upon passage of the CHIPS and Science Act. "We should get an equity stake for our money," Lutnick said when interviewed by CNBC on Tuesday. "We'll deliver the money, which was already committed under theBiden administration," Lutnick continued. "We'll get equity in return for it." Intel officials in the fall announced the tech company will receive an $8 billion grant via the CHIPS and Science Act. The president questions why the federal government is giving that much money to a tech firm that is worth $100 billion, Lutnick said. Commerce Secretary Scott Bessent also confirmed the Trump administration's demand for equity in Intel, saying it's needed to make the tech firm stable and capable of increasing domestic production of chips. Additionally, Taiwan produces most of the global supply of chips, and U.S. national security requires a domestic supply, Bessent told Bloomberg last week. The Trump administration's request for equity in Intel comes a day after Japan-based tech investor SoftBank on Monday announced it will invest $2 billion in Intel in exchange for Intel common stock. "Semiconductors are the foundation of every industry," said Masayoshi Son, SoftBank chairman and chief executive officer. "For more than 50 years, Intel has been a trusted leader in innovation." Son said SoftBank officials believe Intel will have a "critical role" in expanding the United States' semiconductor manufacturing and supply. SoftBank will pay $23 per share for Intel stock, which would amount to nearly 87 million common shares. The Trump administration, likewise, wants equity in Intel in exchange for CHIPs and Science Act funding, rather than giving away taxpayer funds. Intel had begun building U.S. manufacturing facilities near Columbus, Ohio, with an estimated completion date in 2030. Intel Chief Executive Officer Lip-Bu Tan last month said the company is slowing the pace of construction and will continue work based on market conditions, CNBC reported. President Joe Biden signed the CHIPS and Science Act into law on Aug. 9, 2022, which provides about $280 billion in funding for the U.S. semiconductor industry. Biden lauded the act as a success a year ago in August after tech companies pledged more than $395 billion in investments in electronics and semiconductors and created more than 115,000 jobs during the act's first two years. U.S. tech firms account for about 10% of the global supply of chips that power artificial intelligence and a variety of consumer goods, including appliances and computers. The United States was on pace to produce about 30% of the global computer chip supply by 2032, Biden announced.
Yahoo
32 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Oklahoma ideology test for teachers from New York and California draws criticism
Oklahoma will require applicants for teacher jobs coming from California and New York to pass an exam that the Republican-dominated state's top education official says is designed to safeguard against 'radical leftist ideology,' but which opponents decry as a 'MAGA loyalty test.' Ryan Walters, Oklahoma's public schools superintendent, said Monday that any teacher coming from the two blue states will be required to pass an assessment exam administered by PragerU, an Oklahoma-based conservative nonprofit, before getting a state certification. 'As long as I am superintendent, Oklahoma classrooms will be safeguarded from the radical leftist ideology fostered in places like California and New York,' Walters said in a statement. PragerU, short for Prager University, puts out short videos with a conservative perspective on politics and economics. It promotes itself as 'focused on changing minds through the creative use of digital media.' Quinton Hitchcock, a spokesperson for the state's education department, said the Prager test for teacher applicants has been finalized and will be rolling out 'very soon.' The state did not release the entire 50-question test to The Associated Press but did provide the first five questions, which include asking what the first three words of the U.S. Constitution are and why freedom of religion is 'important to America's identity.' Prager didn't immediately respond to a phone message or email seeking comment. But Marissa Streit, CEO of PragerU, told CNN that several questions on the assessment relate to 'undoing the damage of gender ideology.' Jonathan Zimmerman, who teaches history of education at the University of Pennsylvania, said Oklahoma's contract with PragerU to test out-of-state would-be teachers 'is a watershed moment.' 'Instead of Prager simply being a resource that you can draw in an optional way, Prager has become institutionalized as part of the state system,' he said. 'There's no other way to describe it.' Zimmerman said the American Historical Association did a survey last year of 7th- to 12th-grade teachers and found that only a minority were relying on textbooks for day-to-day instruction. He said the upside to that is that most history books are 'deadly boring.' But he said that means history teachers are relying on online resources, such as those from Prager. 'I think what we're now seeing in Oklahoma is something different, which is actually empowering Prager as a kind of gatekeeper for future teachers,' Zimmerman said. One of the nation's largest teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers, has often been at odds with President Donald Trump 's administration and the crackdown on teacher autonomy in the classroom. 'This MAGA loyalty test will be yet another turnoff for teachers in a state already struggling with a huge shortage," said AFT President Randi Weingarten. She was critical of Walters, who pushed for the state's curriculum standards to be revised to include conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election. 'His priority should be educating students, but instead, it's getting Donald Trump and other MAGA politicians to notice him,' Weingarten said in a statement. Tina Ellsworth, president of the nonprofit National Council for the Social Studies, also raised concerns that the test would prevent teachers from applying for jobs. 'State boards of education should stay true to the values and principles of the U.S. Constitution,' Ellsworth said. 'Imposing an ideology test to become a teacher in our great democracy is antithetical to those principles.' State Rep. John Waldron, the Oklahoma Democratic Party chairman, decried the test as 'political posturing.' 'If you want to see a textbook definition of indoctrination, how about a loyalty test for teachers,' said Waldron. 'It's a sad echo of a more paranoid past.' Waldron, a New Jersey native, said he would have been in the target demographic for this kind of test when he moved from Washington, D.C., to Oklahoma to teach social studies in 1999. He said it would have struck him as an indication that the state 'wasn't serious about attracting quality teachers.' 'Teachers are not rushing here from other states to teach. We've got an enormous teacher shortage and it's not like we have a giant supply of teachers coming in from blue states anyway,' he said. ___ Hollingsworth reported from Mission, Kansas, and Stengle from Dallas. Solve the daily Crossword
New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Pirro has ordered her office to maximize criminal charges on street arrests.
The U.S. attorney in Washington, Jeanine Pirro, has instructed her prosecutors to maximize criminal charges against anyone arrested in the administration's crackdown on street crime, and charge them with stiffer federal crimes whenever possible. Ms. Pirro held a staff meeting on Monday, as did her deputy overseeing criminal cases, to emphasize that going forward, there would be far less prosecutorial discretion to allow for charging lesser offenses in any case, according to people familiar with the remarks. 'In line with President Trump's directive to make D.C. safe, U.S. Attorney Pirro has made it clear that the old way of doing things is unacceptable,' said Tim Lauer, a spokesman for Ms. Pirro. 'She directed her staff to charge the highest crime that is supported by the law and the evidence.' The new directive comes as an influx of hundreds of new federal agents are deployed in Washington, suddenly thrust into street patrol duty. Many federal agents have never done such work before, have little training in the use of force and are inexperienced in what types of suspicious behavior justifies a search of a stranger on the street. Ms. Pirro's decree also reflects the unique role that her office holds in local law enforcement. She oversees prosecutions in Superior Court, which pursues categories of crime usually handled by local district attorneys, and she also oversees prosecutions in Federal District Court, which handles more serious violations of federal criminal statutes. Ms. Pirro's instruction amounts to a declaration that her understaffed office will now seek to ramp up criminal charges arising from the president's takeover of law enforcement in the nation's capitol and shift more defendants into the federal courthouse, where prison terms are often much stiffer. Ms. Pirro has publicly complained that she is short-handed by some 60 prosecutors, a situation that current and former members of the office said was largely because her predecessor, Ed Martin, fired more than a dozen prosecutors and spurred many others to quit. As part of the administration's takeover, Ms. Pirro and other Justice Department officials have been distributing cards to law enforcement officers and agents with a 24-hour-a-day phone number to call prosecutors in her office with any legal questions about how to handle suspects or arrests. Typically, prosecutors in Washington have had to drop or abandon many criminal cases because the evidence is insufficient to win a conviction. Ms. Pirro's new, more aggressive approach seems to signal that when in doubt, her office will file felony charges first and let the cases proceed to court.
