Bill Clinton plans to reshape the Clinton Global Initiative amid rising global crises
'We need to redefine how we show up, how we work, and how we find ways to honor our common humanity,' Clinton wrote in a letter to the CGI community released Thursday. 'This September, our goal will be to connect dots across issues, expose the consequences, and confront the complicated issues in front of us.'
Since its launch in 2005, the CGI annual meeting has served as a platform for political, business and philanthropic leaders to announce new initiatives or new financial support for existing programs addressing the world's problems. At the 2024 meeting, former First Lady Jill Biden announced $500 million in new annual spending for women's health research, while Prince Harry outlined his plans to help children and their parents navigate cyberspace better.
This year's meeting — held once again during United Nations General Assembly week and led by Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Clinton Foundation Vice Chair Chelsea Clinton — will also include Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani, as well as Gilead Sciences CEO Daniel O'Day, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready, and Open Society Foundations President Binaifer Nowrojee. However, the focus this year will be on forging new solutions for economic, health, climate and humanitarian issues.
'The CGI community is built for moments like this,' Clinton wrote. 'This year marks two decades of our community convening and responding directly to global crises.'
In previous years, CGI helped organize responses to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Caribbean hurricanes in 2017, and the COVID-19 pandemic. CGI estimates it has helped more than 500 million people in 186 countries over the past two decades.
President Donald Trump's administration has swiftly dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, arguing that many programs did not advance American interests. A number of philanthropic funders have stepped in to replace some support of humanitarian programs and public health initiatives, but many gaps remain.
CGI hopes to close those gaps with a series of 'Leaders Stage Sessions,' where representatives from a wide range of organizations – including GoFundMe CEO Tim Cadogan, Center for Disaster Philanthropy CEO Patricia McIlreavy, AFL-CIO President, and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten — will work together to create new initiatives.
'Now is the time to stand up and roll up our sleeves — and do our part to reverse the trend lines and begin charting a brighter future,' Clinton said in a statement.
On Tuesday, the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed President Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as part of its Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation. Organizers declined comment on what impact, if any, the subpoenas would have on planning for the CGI annual meeting. Former Secretary Clinton has been called to provide a deposition on Oct. 9, while former President Clinton has been called to offer a deposition on Oct. 14.
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Washington Post
4 hours ago
- Washington Post
Faced with rising seas and falling aid, Fijian villages move uphill
MUANI, Fiji — For years, this coastal village has tried to overcome the effects of climate change. When rising seas began to lap at their doors, residents built a seawall. When flooding continued, they dug culverts and trucked in rock and sand. But the ocean now spills over the seawall, fills the culverts, and erodes the rock and sand. And so, villagers have decided it's time to move. To move Muani, wooden house by wooden house, a few hundred yards to the top of a densely forested hill. 'It will be tough,' rasped Alivereti Taito, the 92-year-old chief, between cigarettes and cups of kava, a brown, peppery drink that has a mild numbing effect. 'But I am worried about the village.' Now the question is whether Muani can afford to wait for the government's help, or whether it will have to move on its own. Over the past decade, Fiji has become a laboratory for an issue that will soon affect millions of people around the globe: climate-driven relocation. It was among the first countries to move a community threatened by climate change when, in 2014, it shifted the sinking village of Vunidogoloa a mile uphill on Fiji's second-largest island, Vanua Levu. Fiji has since become an authority on the logistically and culturally fraught process, with more than 40 villages — including Muani — earmarked for potential relocation. What this nation of 950,000 doesn't have, however, is the money to relocate them all. Developing countries have long demanded assistance from the wealthier nations responsible for the vast majority of the carbon emissions driving climate change. That help began to materialize in 2023 with the creation of a 'loss and damage' fund, to which President Joe Biden pledged $17.5 million. That momentum is now threatened. President Donald Trump has disbanded the U.S. Agency for International Development, which gave Fiji $10 million in assistance last year including funding for climate resilience studies. He has pulled the United States out of the Paris agreement on climate change, rescinded $4 billion in related pledges, and left the loss and damage fund. Biden administration promises of more than $600 million for Pacific island countries, including for a new regional climate fund, are in limbo. The State Department 'continues to carefully review all current and potential assistance programs for alignment with President Trump's foreign policy agenda of making America safer, stronger, and more prosperous, including in the Pacific,' a spokesperson said by email. 'We remain fully committed to continued engagement with Pacific island countries to identify opportunities to promote our shared interest in fostering greater peace and prosperity in the region,' the spokesperson said. But the funding gap has created a void some analysts say could be filled by China, which Trump calls the United States' biggest rival. In May, Beijing hosted a summit for 11 Pacific island countries including Fiji, after which they pledged climate cooperation. China also promised 100 'small and beautiful' climate projects in the region, although it's unclear if any will involve village relocation. 'The Chinese are seizing the low-hanging fruit that the Trump administration has offered them,' said Wesley Morgan, a climate and Pacific researcher at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. Fiji is trying to fund its own relocations, while also hoping that two villages in the process of being moved succeed and spur more international aid. But it doesn't even have enough money to assess which villages should move. The Fijian government did not respond to a request for comment. Many villagers are tired of delays. Some communities have uprooted without government assistance. Muani is heading in that direction. The village has allowed a state-owned company to harvest pine trees from its land, a decision that has led to soil erosion and made it harder to fish, but has also generated money that can be used for relocation. Until the new site is cleared, however, villagers face a painful decision: whether to deepen their ties to a place that may soon cease to exist. 'I can't wait for the village to move,' said Seru Tuicakau as he built a new house on extra-high stilts just 20 yards from Muani's failing sea wall. The 38-year-old father of three had only three months at home before returning to Australia to pick oranges. Waves lapped at Sailosi Ramatu's knees as he stood where his house once was. A sea wall built decades earlier was hidden underwater. Another was in ruins on the beach. The 65-year-old raised a broken arm. 'My grandfather was born over there,' he said, pointing 10 yards out to sea. It had been a decade since Ramatu led the relocation of Vunidogoloa, the first village to be officially relocated because of climate change in Fiji — perhaps one of the first in the world. Its story shows the promise and perils now facing dozens of villages here. 'It was good living by the ocean,' Ramatu said. 'But with climate change, the ocean became our biggest enemy.' Pacific island nations are especially vulnerable. Sea levels in some parts of Fiji rose more than 11 inches between 1990 and 2020 — triple the global average — according to a 2024 United Nations report. While attention has focused on sparsely populated, low-lying atoll nations such as Tuvalu and Kiribati becoming completely uninhabitable, 10 times as many people are imminently threatened in higher-sitting islands including Fiji, said Patrick Nunn, a geographer at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia. About three-quarters of Tuvalu's population — or 8,750 people — have applied for a visa to help people there escape the effects of climate change. But for many in Fiji, the answer isn't to move abroad but to move up. For Vunidogoloa's 140 or so residents, relocation began by leaving their home of more than 150 years. Like many Pacific peoples, Fijians have strong social and spiritual connections to the land, which they consider their ancestral and future home. They often bury a child's umbilical cord under a hardy tree, spiritually tethering them to that place. The move has been traumatizing for many in the community. 'We were born there, we stayed there, everything was there,' said chief Simione Botu. 'When we came to the new site there was nothing.' It took five years for the government to build about 30 houses, and even then they didn't have kitchens — villagers had to add those themselves. People who had always fished had to learn how to farm or tend cattle. And for some elderly villagers, moving was 'like taking them to a foreign land,' Ramatu said. But there were improvements. Villagers no longer need rafts to leave home during storms or king tides. Getting to the hospital used to be difficult. Now, the village is on a main road. The houses have iron roofs instead of thatch. Most important, the villagers no longer live in fear of the waves. Five other villages have since been relocated, completely or partially, with varying success. In Vunisavisavi, another coastal community not far from Vunidogoloa, a USAID plan to relocate the village of about a dozen houses was pared back to just four buildings in 2016. The new homes are sturdy and dry but are on a hillside with their backs to the village. Residents say they weren't properly consulted. 'Before, it was a happy life,' said Lorima Bulimaitoga, 32. 'Now we have sleepless nights, worried about landslides.' Mariana Sarawaqa said villagers want the government to build a sea wall and raise the land — expensive and unlikely measures, especially so far from the capital, Suva, and tourism hub, Nadi. As they wait, an air of sadness has settled on Vunisavisavi. Some families have moved away. Sarawaqa has been teaching children to plant mangrove seedlings 'to help the village not to drown.' These missteps — building houses without kitchens, putting them on hillsides where people live in fear of landslides — led Fiji to overhaul its approach. In 2019, the government in Suva established a trust fund for village relocation partially financed by taxes on environmentally damaging goods and services, such as plastic bags and international flights. It also created a relocation task force and, in 2023, a 135-page standard operation procedure that is a model for other small island states. But the trust has just $3.5 million, barely enough to move one village, said Leba Gaunavinaka, a specialist at Fiji's Ministry of Climate Change. New Zealand is the only nation to chip in as other countries wait to see if Fiji can deliver on two current relocations. In Nabavatu, patience is wearing thin. In late March, more than four years after tropical cyclones triggered a landslide, around 150 people were still living in tents. There has finally been some progress, however. The government recently cleared a block of land and began preparations to build 37 houses for a total of $2.6 million. 'We will be happy to get out of this jail,' Esala Tawake, 70, said. Things have moved more quickly in Cogea, a village in the bend of a river a few hours away. Here, 18 houses were swept away four years ago. When the government was slow to relocate the community, Cogea turned to the Fiji Council of Social Services, a civil society organization funded by a German religious charity. FCOSS was building two houses at an elevated site 10 minutes away, with another 28 planned for a total of $1.2 million. A dozen men from Cogea were busy hammering and sawing. Women from the community brought them food and gardened. Many villagers still had 'trauma' from the cyclones, said chief Paula Navosa. But the hammering in the distance gave him hope. 'We are happy to be moving.' On a Friday morning in Muani, four dozen students packed into an elementary classroom for a weekly quiz competition. 'What is one effect of climate change,' asked headmaster Malakai Vucago. 'Rising sea levels,' replied a boy. Even the youngest here understand the peril. Villagers have been discussing a move for a half-decade. In the past year, one of three local clans agreed to provide land on a hill above town. And in February, the community held a meeting with Fiji's finance minister to ask for help clearing trees and connecting power and water. Until that happens, however, villagers have no choice but to build at the old site, where the culverts and sea wall are increasingly ineffective. Dan Area, Taito's son who serves as acting chief, said the village was waiting on the government to approve the move and commit funds, but he feared that an election next year might upend things. In the meantime, logging was raising money that Muani eventually might need to relocate on its own. Nunn, the geographer, said many villages are finding ways to move without government aid — something Pacific island countries will need to embrace as wealthy nations cut foreign climate aid either for ideological reasons or to address their own climate crises. One way or another, Muani will have to move. When it does, not everyone will go. Malakai Kuve is one of several elders who vow to stay. As another high tide topped the sea wall, the 60-year-old recalled his childhood here with an old American pop song. 'Just a memory's all that's left of you,' he sang.
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
S&P 500 Gains and Losses Today: Apple Stock Extends Its Rise; The Trade Desk Craters After Earnings
Key Takeaways The S&P 500 added 0.8% on Friday, Aug. 8, 2025, finishing just short of the closing record it set last week. Gilead Sciences shares logged the S&P 500's best performance after the drugmaker beat quarterly sales and profit forecasts. The Trade Desk said its customers were reining in ad spending amid tariff pressures, and shares U.S. equities indexes climbed to close out the week as investors weighed comments by Federal Reserve officials suggesting interest-rate cuts could be approaching, as well as President Trump's nomination of Stephen Miran to a Fed position. The S&P 500 ended Friday's session 0.8% higher, finishing just short of the all-time high set last week, while the Nasdaq advanced nearly 1% to secure its second straight record close. The Dow added 0.5%. Gilead Sciences (GILD) stock was the top performer in the S&P 500 on Friday, jumping 8.3% after the biopharmaceutical company posted stronger-than-expected revenue and adjusted earnings per share for the second quarter. Descovy, Gilead's HIV treatment that is also prescribed as a pre-exposure prophylaxis to lower the risk of HIV infection, helped drive sales growth during the quarter, with a rise in demand and higher average selling prices. Cybersecurity firm Gen Digital (GEN) beat quarterly sales and profit expectations and raised its full-year outlook. The provider of antivirus software and identity protection services benefitted from strong demand for its AI-driven security solutions amid an uptick in AI-powered scams. Gen Digital shares surged 7.7%. Monster Beverage (MNST) surpassed analysts' top- and bottom-line expectations on record quarterly revenue, and shares of the energy drink maker climbed 6.4%. Analysts pointed to a growing market for energy drinks and suggested Monster could also benefit from its innovations in zero-sugar products. Apple (AAPL) shares rose over 4%, in the stock's third straight day of gains after CEO Tim Cook joined President Trump at the White House to announce a $100 billion investment in U.S. production, and Trump said the iPhone maker would be exempt from new tariffs on chips. Shares of The Trade Desk (TTD) plummeted 38.6%, falling the furthest of any stock in the S&P 500 on Friday. The provider of a cloud-based platform that helps advertisers optimize their campaigns said some of the large companies that use its services are limiting ad spending in response to tariff pressures. While The Trade Desk grew its quarterly revenue 18.7% year-over-year to edge out analysts' sales forecasts, its adjusted earnings slightly missed expectations. The company also named a new CFO. Internet domain provider GoDaddy (GDDY) topped sales and profit expectations for the second quarter and lifted its full-year revenue guidance, boosted by demand for its AI tools that help businesses maximize their digital footprint. However, GoDaddy said it will no longer operate as a registry service provider for the .CO level domain as of the fourth quarter of 2025, which the company says could weigh on bookings and revenue beginning later this year. GoDaddy shares dropped 11.3%. Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) shares ended Friday's session 8% lower, a day after the entertainment giant posted its quarterly results. Although the studio division generated significant year-over-year revenue growth, boosted by strong box-office sales from a number of theatrical releases, WBD's global linear networks revenue was down from a year ago, reflecting challenges in the TV business. Read the original article on Investopedia Sign in to access your portfolio
NBC News
16 hours ago
- NBC News
Nasdaq posts record closing high with tech gains, rate cut optimism
U.S. stocks ended higher and the Nasdaq notched a record closing high for the second straight day on Friday as technology-related shares, including Apple, gained and as investors were optimistic about potential interest rate cuts. The three major indexes also registered solid gains for the week. Apple shares climbed 4.2% on Friday and were up 13.3% for the week in their biggest weekly percentage gain since 2020. U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday said Apple would invest an additional $100 billion in the U.S., bringing its total commitment to $600 billion over the next four years. The S&P 500 technology and communication services indexes led sector gains for the S&P 500 on Friday and the indexes also posted record high closes. Also helping the S&P 500, shares of Gilead Sciences jumped 8.3% after it raised its full-year financial outlook. Recent weaker economic data has underpinned expectations for rate cuts, while investors are evaluating Trump's interim pick for a Federal Reserve governor. The president late in Thursday's session nominated Council of Economic Advisers Chair Stephen Miran to a short-term board seat following Adriana Kugler's abrupt exit last week, as he narrowed his shortlist to succeed Fed Chair Jerome Powell, whose term ends on May 15. Miran, who is often aligned with Trump, has previously suggested Powell was 'too late' in lowering rates. 'There are certainly investors who think if the Fed is going to cut rates then the overarching theme is, don't fight the Fed on lower rates,' said Rick Meckler, partner at Cherry Lane Investments, a family investment office in New Vernon, New Jersey. 'The other side of the equation has really been the tariffs, and how the tariffs turn out remains uncertain.' Expectations for a rate cut of at least 25 basis points by the Fed at its September meeting stand at 89.4%, according to CME's FedWatch Tool, up from 80.3% a week ago. Futures are pointing to at least two cuts by year-end. Trump's higher tariffs on imports from dozens of countries kicked in this week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 206.97 points, or 0.47%, to 44,175.61, the S&P 500 gained 49.45 points, or 0.78%, to 6,389.45 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 207.32 points, or 0.98%, to 21,450.02. It was the Nasdaq's 18th record closing high for 2025, with the index now up about 11% for the year so far. The S&P 500 ended just shy of a record closing finish. For the week, the S&P 500 rose 2.4%, the Dow gained 1.3% and the Nasdaq climbed 3.9%. A look at inflation trends will test the U.S. stock market's rally in the coming week, with some investors saying equities could be set for a pullback. The monthly U.S. consumer price index report is due on Tuesday. Investors also are monitoring U.S.-India trade relations as New Delhi shelved fresh U.S. arms and aircraft purchases, according to three Indian officials, after Trump hiked tariffs on Indian exports to 50% this week. Among other gainers Friday, shares of Expedia rose 4.1% after the company raised its annual forecast for gross bookings and revenue growth. With results in now from more than 450 of S&P 500 companies, estimated earnings growth for the second quarter was at 13.2% on Friday, up from 5.8% on July 1, according to LSEG. Advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.37-to-1 ratio on the NYSE. There were 272 new highs and 88 new lows on the NYSE. On the Nasdaq, 2,442 stocks rose and 2,157 fell as advancing issues outnumbered decliners by a 1.13-to-1 ratio. Volume on U.S. exchanges was 16.18 billion shares, compared with the 18.27 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.
