Van Lathan: Trump needs a before and after picture to sell econ plan, just like Jenny Craig
Van Lathan talks about what he thinks the President needs to do in order to convince the American public that his economic strategy will work. He says the White House isn't doing a good job articulating what it is they are trying to achieve with the short term pain of the tariffs.
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Miami Herald
39 minutes ago
- Miami Herald
Jeep parent Stellantis ponders drastic action on struggling brand
The merger between Fiat Chrysler and PSA Group in 2021 brought so much promise for the brand. It created Stellantis (STLA) , a company with a portfolio of over 14 automotive brands, including iconic U.S. names like Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge that, combined with its European counterparts like Citroën, Peugeot, Fiat, and Maserati, would offer an unrivaled global footprint. But it has been a rough four years for Stellantis. Related: Jeep, Dodge parent has no solution for this emerging problem Under former CEO Carlos Tavares' leadership, Stellantis laid off American factory workers, shuffled its C-suite, and forced its U.S. brands to push products that American customers didn't like. Stellantis and Tavares separated in December, leaving the conglomerate rudderless for about six months before the company made a late May announcement. Last month, Stellantis named Antonio Filosa its new CEO, and it plans to elect him to the board of directors and make him an executive director in the coming weeks. Filosa cut his teeth as Stellantis Chief Operating Officer of South America, where he has led its Fiat brand to much success while also boosting Peugeot, Citroën, Ram, and Jeep sales on the continent. "I have worked closely with Antonio over the past six months, during which time his responsibilities have increased, and his strong and effective leadership spanning both North and South America at a moment of unprecedented challenge have confirmed the excellent qualities he brings to the role," said John Elkann, Stellantis executive chairman. "Together with the entire Board, I look forward to working with him." While Filosa's tenure doesn't officially begin until Monday, June 23, part of the interview process for the gig involved his thoughts on the viability of each of the brands in the company's portfolio, according to a new report citing multiple sources with knowledge of the process. Stellantis is considering the possible sale of its luxury Maserati unit, among other options, Reuters reported. McKinsey, which is advising Stellantis on the matter, has also said divestment of its only luxury brand is a viable option. Stellantis responded bluntly to the reports: "Respectfully, Maserati is not for sale," a company spokesperson said. Related: Major U.S. automaker makes harsh decision in wake of tariff tussle But low sales in North America was one of the reasons Tavares is no longer head of Stellantis. So is the fact that Maserati saw sales decline by more than half in 2024 to 11,300 units, while posting an operating loss of 260 million euros ($298 million) last year. Maserati doesn't have any new model launches scheduled after Stellantis put its previous business plan on hold last year. Although the brand currently doesn't have a business plan in place, Brand Head Santo Ficili has said that one will be presented soon after the new boss starts on Monday. Some board members apparently are not sure Maserati is a sustainable asset, however. Shortly after President Donald Trump announced his reciprocal tariffs on U.S. trading partners, Stellantis temporarily halted production at its auto assembly factories in Mexico and Canada. The Wall Street Journal reported that Stellantis would idle its minivan plant in Windsor, Canada, for two weeks and shutter its Jeep facility in Toluca, Mexico, for the rest of the month. "With the new automotive sector tariffs now in effect, it will take our collective resilience and discipline to push through this challenging time," Filosa told the Journal. "But we will quickly adapt to these policy changes and will protect our company, maintain our competitive edge, and continue delivering great products to our customers." Stellantis reported that total first-quarter U.S. sales decreased 12% year-over-year, despite a 16% increase in Ram brand sales and a 1% increase in Chrysler brand sales. Jeep brand sales saw a 2% increase. The company reported total sales of 293,225 vehicles in the first three months of the year. Related: Maserati launches program targeting Ferrari's elitist snobbery The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
Newsweek
2 hours ago
- Newsweek
How Animal Testing in US Could Be Transformed Under Trump
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. Millions of animals each year are killed in U.S. laboratories as part of medical training and chemical, food, drug and cosmetic testing, according to the non-profit animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). For many animals held captive for research, including a huge range of species from dogs, cats and hamsters to elephants, dolphins and many other species, pain is "not minimized," U.S. Department of Agriculture data shows. The issue of animal testing is something most Americans agree on: it needs to change and gradually be stopped. A Morning Consult poll conducted at the end of last year found that 80 percent of the 2,205 participants either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: "The US government should commit to a plan to phase out experiments on animals." Since President Donald Trump began his second term, his administration has been making moves to transform and reduce animal testing in country, although the question remains as to whether it will be enough to spare many more animals from pain and suffering this year. Animal Testing In US Could Be Transformed Animal Testing In US Could Be Transformed Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty/Canva What Is The Trump Administration Doing About It? There have been various steps taken in different federal agencies to tackle the issue of animal testing since Trump was sworn in on January 20. In April, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced it was "taking a groundbreaking step to advance public health by replacing animal testing in the development of monoclonal antibody therapies and other drugs with more effective, human-relevant methods." The FDA said that its animal testing requirement will be "reduced, refined, or potentially replaced" with a range of approaches, including artificial intelligence-based models, known as New Approach Methodologies or NAMs data. A Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) official told Newsweek: "The agency is paving the way for faster, safer, and more cost-effective treatments for American patients. "As we restore the agency's commitment to gold-standard science and integrity, this shift will help accelerate cures, lower drug prices, and reaffirm U.S. leadership in ethical, modern science." The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced it was "adopting a new initiative to expand innovative, human-based science while reducing animal use in research," in alignment with the FDA's initiative. The agency said that while "traditional animal models continue to be vital to advancing scientific knowledge," new and emerging technologies could act as alternative methods, either alone or in combination with animal models. The NIH Office of Extramural Research told Newsweek it was "committed to transparently assessing where animal use can be reduced or eliminated by transitioning to [new approach methodologies (NAMs)]." "Areas where research using animals is currently necessary represent high-priority opportunities for investment in NAMs," the agency added. It added that it will "further its efforts to coordinate agency-wide efforts to develop, validate, and scale the use of NAMs across the agency's biomedical research portfolio and facilitate interagency coordination and regulatory translation for public health protection." During Trump's first term, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signed a directive to "prioritize efforts to reduce animal testing and committed to reducing testing on mammals by 30 percent by 2025 and to eliminate it completely by 2035," an EPA spokesperson told Newsweek. Although, the spokesperson added: "the Biden Administration halted progress on these efforts by delaying compliance deadlines." As a member of the House, Lee Zeldin, the EPA's current administrator, co-sponsored various bills during Trump's first term regarding animal cruelty, covering issues such as phasing out animal-based testing for cosmetic products; ending taxpayer funding for painful experiments on dogs at the Department of Veteran Affairs; empowering federal law enforcement to prosecute animal abuse cases that cross state lines; and others, the spokesperson said. What The Experts Think Needs To Be Done The Trump administration's efforts to tackle the issue of animal testing appear to be a step in the right direction, according to experts who spoke with Newsweek. "I was pleasantly surprised and quite frankly a bit shocked to read the simultaneous announcements by the NIH and the FDA regarding a new emphasis on the use of alternatives to animals," Jeffrey Morgan, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Brown University in Rhode Island, told Newsweek. Morgan, who is also the director of the Center for Alternatives to Animals in Testing at Brown University, said that both agencies are moving together in the same direction on the issue "sends a unified and very powerful message to the research and biotech communities." He added that the announcements showed "a major acknowledgement of the limitations of the use of animals in research and testing." "What is especially exciting is that the NIH announcement will encourage the entry of new investigators into the field, further accelerating innovation in alternatives with exciting impacts for both discovery and applied research across all diseases," he said. He added that the FDA announcement and its emphasis on a new regulatory science that embraces data from alternatives was "equally exciting." "The demands of this new regulatory science will likewise accelerate innovation because it will establish the much-needed regulatory framework for the rigorous evaluation of data from alternatives," he said. While the administration's initiatives to shift research away from animal testing is heading in the right direction, its policies are "overdue," Dr. Thomas Hartung, a professor in the department of environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Maryland, told Newsweek. "The animal tests for safety were introduced more than 50 years ago. There is no other area of science where we do not adapt to scientific progress," he said. Hartung added that animal "testing takes too long and is too expensive to really provide the safety consumers want." He said that running animal tests for new chemicals can cost millions and take years in some cases. "Nobody can wait that long, even if they can afford the testing costs," he said. Hartung also believes the shifts in the industry to reduce animal testing have been "coming for a while," as over the last two decades, America's opposition to animal use in medical research has been increasing. "The alignment of FDA and NIH really makes the difference now, which I think is evidence of a strong relationship of their leaderships," he said. Yet in order to make a real difference, Hartung said clear deadlines are key to show that "this is not just lip service." He also said that he thought "the transformative nature of artificial intelligence in this field is not fully acknowledged." "We also need an objective framework for change to better science, such as the evidence-based toxicology approach," he said.
American Press
3 hours ago
- American Press
Columbia protester Mahmoud Khalil freed from immigration detention
Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was released Friday from federal immigration detention, freed after 104 days by a judge's ruling after becoming a symbol of President Donald Trump 's clampdown on campus protests. The former Columbia University graduate student left a federal facility in Louisiana on Friday. He is expected to head to New York to reunite with his U.S. citizen wife and infant son, born while Khalil was detained. 'Justice prevailed, but it's very long overdue,' he said outside the facility in a remote part of Louisiana. 'This shouldn't have taken three months.' Email newsletter signup The Trump administration is seeking to deport Khalil over his role in pro-Palestinian protests. He was detained on March 8 at his apartment building in Manhattan. Khalil was released after U.S. District Judge Michael Farbiarz said it would be 'highly, highly unusual' for the government to continue detaining a legal U.S. resident who was unlikely to flee and hadn't been accused of any violence. 'Petitioner is not a flight risk, and the evidence presented is that he is not a danger to the community,' he said. 'Period, full stop.' During an hourlong hearing conducted by phone, the New Jersey-based judge said the government had 'clearly not met' the standards for detention. The government filed notice Friday evening that it's appealing Khalil's release. The Department of Homeland Security said in a post on the social platform X that the same day Farbiarz ordered Khalil's release, an immigration judge in Louisiana denied him bond and 'ordered him removed.' The decision was made by Judge Jamee Comans, who is in a court located in the same detention facility from which Khalil was released. 'An immigration judge, not a district judge, has the authority to decide if Mr. Khalil should be released or detained,' the post said. Khalil was the first person arrested under Trump's crackdown on students who joined campus protests against Israel's devastating war in Gaza. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Khalil must be expelled from the country because his continued presence could harm American foreign policy. The Trump administration has argued that noncitizens who participate in such demonstrations should be deported as it considers their views antisemitic. Protesters and civil rights groups say the administration is conflating antisemitism with criticism of Israel in order to silence dissent. Farbiarz has ruled that the government can't deport Khalil on the basis of its claims that his presence could undermine foreign policy. But the judge gave the administration leeway to continue pursuing a potential deportation based on allegations that he lied on his green card application, an accusation Khalil disputes. The international affairs graduate student isn't accused of breaking any laws during the protests at Columbia. He served as a negotiator and spokesperson for student activists and wasn't among the demonstrators arrested, but his prominence in news coverage and willingness to speak publicly made him a target of critics. The judge agreed Friday with Khalil's lawyers that the protester was being prevented from exercising his free speech and due process rights despite no obvious reason for his continued detention. The judge noted that Khalil is now clearly a public figure. Khalil said Friday that no one should be detained for protesting Israel's war in Gaza. He said his time in the Jena, Louisiana, detention facility had shown him 'a different reality about this country that supposedly champions human rights and liberty and justice.' 'Whether you are a U.S. citizen, an immigrant or just a person on this land doesn't mean that you are less of a human,' he said, adding that 'justice will prevail, no matter what this administration may try to portray' about immigrants. Khalil had to surrender his passport and can't travel internationally, but he will get his green card back and be given official documents permitting limited travel within the country, including New York and Michigan to visit family, New Jersey and Louisiana for court appearances and Washington to lobby Congress. In a statement after the judge's ruling, Khalil's wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, said she can finally 'breathe a sigh of relief' after her husband's three months in detention. 'We know this ruling does not begin to address the injustices the Trump administration has brought upon our family, and so many others,' she said. 'But today we are celebrating Mahmoud coming back to New York to be reunited with our little family.' The judge's decision comes after several other scholars targeted for their activism have been released from custody, including another former Palestinian student at Columbia, Mohsen Mahdawi; a Tufts University student, Rumeysa Ozturk; and a Georgetown University scholar, Badar Khan Suri. ___ Marcelo reported from New York. Jennifer Peltz contributed from New York.
