ICE chief stands by mask use in immigration raids, despite criticism
In an interview that aired on CBS's 'Face the Nation' on Sunday, Todd M. Lyons, the acting director of ICE, said that although he was not a proponent of mask use, if ICE agents used them 'to keep themselves and their families safe, then I will allow it.'
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Forbes
15 minutes ago
- Forbes
Trump Media Awarded CEO Devin Nunes $5.9 Million in Stock, Despite $20 Million Loss
Trump Media, which lost $20 million last quarter while expanding into new products, including crypto, awarded CEO Devin Nunes $5.9 million in stock on Wednesday, with the shares set to vest over three years, according to an SEC filing. President Donald Trump talks with Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes at the Republican National Convention in July 2024. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images Trump Media & Technology Group (NASDAQ: DJT)—the parent company of Truth Social and the Truth+ streaming platform and holder of about $2 billion worth of bitcoin—awarded Nunes 348,000 restricted stock units on Wednesday under its 2024 equity incentive plan. The stock will vest in equal annual installments through May 2028, contingent on Nunes remaining with the company. Based on Friday's closing price of $17, Nunes' new stock is worth about $5.9 million, bringing the value of his total stake in Trump Media—1.4 million shares and restricted stock units—to approximately $24.4 million. Last week, Trump Media disclosed a second-quarter net loss of $20 million on $883,300 in revenue—about what a mall-based Chick-fil-A typically brings in—though the company highlighted recent achievements including holding $3.1 billion in financial assets (mostly bitcoin it purchased with the proceeds of a private placement), launching a subscription service for Truth+ and filing registration statements with the SEC to launch a crypto-focused ETF. The company also issued 142,000 restricted stock units each—worth $2.4 million—to CFO Phillip Juhan, CTO Vladimir Novachki and General Counsel Scott Glabe. Company spokesperson Shannon Devine declined to specify what criteria Nunes met to receive the restricted stock units, but touted the firm's 'uncancellable social media platform,' bitcoin holdings and first quarter of positive operating cash flow. The company didn't say, and its SEC filings and press releases do not appear to offer a clear rationale. Under Trump Media's 2024 equity incentive plan, a board committee has broad discretion to grant bonuses based on 33 possible criteria, including financial performance, stock price targets and corporate transactions. Key Background Before joining Trump Media, Nunes was a 10-term Republican congressman and chair of the House Intelligence Committee from rural California, earning $174,000 annually. Trump tapped him to be CEO and a director of the company in December 2021. While his business experience appears to be limited to his family's dairy farm, Trump Media pitched Nunes to investors as a leader with 'familiarity with public scrutiny and media savvy.' In recent months, the company has launched an iPad app for Truth Social, entered public beta for an AI search engine, raised $2.3 billion from a private placement to fund a bitcoin treasury, filed to launch a crypto ETF and rolled out its Truth+ streaming platform globally. $47 million: That's the total compensation Trump Media awarded to Nunes in 2024—including salary, bonuses and stock—though much of the equity won't vest until 2027. News Peg On Monday, a new special-purpose acquisition company—New America Acquisition I Corp., which is targeting firms with a role in domestic manufacturing—named Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump to its advisory board. According to SEC filings, Don Jr. received 2 million founder shares in the company, while Eric received 3 million. Trump Media, where Don Jr. serves on the board and acts as trustee for his father's 115 million shares, also went public via a SPAC—a merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp. that took 29 months to consummate. Separately, Nunes and Eric Swider, another Trump Media board member who led Digital World, launched another SPAC in March, aiming to acquire a firm in the cryptocurrency and blockchain, data security, and dual-use technology sectors. Tangent Last week, a federal judge dismissed a defamation lawsuit Nunes filed against NBCUniversal over a 2021 comment by MSNBC host Rachel Maddow about his communications with a suspected Russian agent. Forbes Valuation Forbes estimates Donald Trump's net worth at $5.1 billion. In November 2023, Trump Media sued 20 media outlets, including Forbes, for reporting that included calculations of its financial results while still a private company. The defendants have moved to dismiss the claims, but the case is ongoing. Further Viewing Trump Media Board Member Who Led SPAC Merger Sells Nearly All His Shares (Forbes) Truth Social Hosted Party At Trump's Mar-A-Lago (Forbes) When It Comes To Truth Social, Republicans In Congress Aren't Buying What Trump's Selling (Forbes) The Tech Mogul Behind Trump's Truth Social Used To Own Porn Domains (Forbes) 'We'd Call That Corruption': How Trump Used The Presidency To Expand His Global Empire (Forbes)
Fox News
15 minutes ago
- Fox News
North Carolina teen's body discovered in Florida one week after he vanished with chilling final message
The body of a missing North Carolina teen has been found in Florida, where he disappeared more than a week ago after sending a disturbing final message to his mother, according to family and officials. Giovanni Pelletier, 18, was found dead in a retention pond near the southbound off-ramp of Interstate 75 and State Road 70 on Friday, the Manatee County Sheriff's Office told FOX13 Tampa on Saturday. His backpack and cellphone were found nearby the previous day. Pelletier's mother, Bridgette Pelletier, confirmed the body of her son was found in a Facebook post. "My son was recently found after a desperate search by OUR FAMILY ALONE, and we are still facing an active investigation into his death," she wrote. "I am living every parent's worst nightmare, trying to find the strength to give him the goodbye he deserves. We ask that you please respect our privacy at this time as we try to navigate this for his 4 younger siblings." Pelletier's cause of death was not immediately known. Pelletier, who lived in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, with his family, was last seen on Aug. 1 while on vacation with his family in Englewood, Florida, when he left around 1:30 a.m. to visit relatives in Brevard County, the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office said. The teen had left in a vehicle with cousins from his estranged biological father's side of the family, WRAL News reported. But shortly into the trip, Pelletier sent a chilling text message to his mother: "Mom, help." He reportedly sent similar messages to his grandfather and an aunt on his father's side. The Charlotte County Sheriff's Office said the cousins said Pelletier "suddenly began to act erratically before exiting the vehicle and walking away near SR70" in Manatee County. Pelletier family members from North Carolina immediately began searching for the missing 18-year-old. Nearly two dozen others joined the search effort on Monday, using ATVs and drones, FOX13 reported. Pelletier's aunt, Desiree Pelletier, told WRAL News on Thursday, before the teen's body was found, that the family was concerned about the involvement of the cousins after she claimed they changed their story. "How on earth are we supposed to be okay with these three boys saying this is what happened and then they change it?" she told the station. "How are we supposed to be okay and not go for the possibility of something happened to him?" The white Chevy Malibu that Pelletier had traveled in with his cousins has been seized by the Brevard County Sheriff's Office, according to FOX13. No further details about the investigation were immediately available.
Forbes
15 minutes ago
- Forbes
Alaska Cong. Begich Seeks More Balanced Protections For Marine Mammals
The House Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee held a July 22 hearing on a draft bill sponsored by Rep. Nick Begich (R-AK) which would amend the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Begich and other supporters of reform of the MMPA believe the law needs to be modernized to better reflect current science, eliminate conflicts and duplication of bureaucratic processes, and provide for more consistent and certain application of the law. The effort to amend the MMPA is in line with the Trump administration's goal of streamlining federal permitting processes to speed development of domestic energy resources needed to meet rising demand. 'The MMPA has been in place for over 50 years and during that time, it's served an important role in conserving marine mammals and protecting our oceans,' Begich said. 'As the decades have passed, we've seen how its implementation, particularly in the use of vague or overly precautionary standards, has led to confusion, delay and unintended harm.' He also stated: 'My goal is simple. I want a bill that protects marine mammals and also works for the people who live and work alongside them, especially in Alaska.' An Array Of Competing Stakeholders As will always be the case with an effort to amend one of the major federal statutes related to environmental or wildlife protections, the proposed bill has attracted strong views both pro and con. Wyoming Republican Harriet Hageman, who Chairs the subcommittee, said the discussion draft 'will make vital reforms to the MMPA,' and would advance 'the goals of House Republicans and the Trump Administration to streamline the permitting process and provide clear direction to federal regulatory agencies.' But the bill's opponents had different views, often becoming emotional in their statements. Kathleen Collins, Senior Marine Campaign Manager, International Fund for Animal Welfare, said the notion of the proposed reforms making their way into law 'is heartbreaking.' She went onto warn members that, if the bill is ultimately passed and signed by President Trump, 'The blood of thousands of marine mammals will be on the hands of Congress, and the entire well-being of the ocean ecosystem could very well be altered.' Along the same lines, Alaska Director at the Center for Biological Diversity Cooper Freeman warned, "If Begich's bill passes, it would needlessly make our marine mammal species far more vulnerable to injury and death than they already are and could change Alaska's oceans forever. We can't let his bill become law." EnerGeo Wants To Eliminate Redundancies Certainly, it is not in any stakeholder's or policymaker's best long-term interests to amend the MMPA in a way that would produce the fright scenario outcomes laid out by the bill's opponents. Any short-term gains which might be made would quickly be washed away by an inevitable backlash should changes to the law be tied to major harms to protected species. By the same token, it is not in the public's best interest to allow identified inefficiencies and duplications of bureaucratic processes to needlessly impede commercial fishing, energy, and other offshore industrial activities. The bill's proponents believe there is a middle ground to be struck to properly balance all the competing stakeholder interests. One such proponent, Forrest Burkholder, President and CEO of SAExploration, who testified on behalf of EnerGeo Alliance, told the hearing that fixing these issues would 'increase permitting efficiency, decrease uncertainty, and ultimately benefit all stakeholders, the implementing agencies, and most importantly, marine mammals.' EnerGeo Alliance is a trade association representing the geoscience industry which conducts most geological and seismic surveys for wind, oil and gas, and other industries seeking to mount offshore developments. In a recent interview, Dustin Van Liew, senior vice president, global policy & government affairs, told me that EnerGeo's main goal for legislation is reforms that promote 'the objective application of the best available scientific and commercially available data and information.' A lack of objectivity and an inconsistent application of the law is a common complaint from the business world, since uncertainty in the regulatory process only serves to make project planning and execution more difficult and costly. Van Liew says that, too often, permitting decisions are based on non-objective assumptions and computer models that are loaded up with findings from non-peer-reviewed study drafts rather than sound science. EnerGeo has also compiled a list of examples of time-wasting duplications of efforts stemming from competing requirements between the MMPA and the Endangered Species Act (ESA). One of the main drivers of this longstanding problem is that the two laws are, generally, administered by different agencies: The MMPA by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) inside the Department of Commerce, and the ESA by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) at the Interior Department – with additional overlaps depending on the species being managed. 'There are varying layers of requirements that the two different departments and the agencies within those departments are all trying to analyze,' Van Liew says, adding, 'And then of course NEPA overlays all of this as well,' a reference to time-consuming environmental impact statements required under the National Environmental Policy Act. One Piece Of A Much Larger Energy Permitting Puzzle Last month's hearing on Begich's discussion draft is an early step in the long, complicated process of turning a bill into law. But the testimony taken serves to highlight tensions between the myriad stakeholder interests at play. It also helps to highlight the larger drama that makes getting to a bigger, comprehensive approach to streamlining federal permitting processes such a gargantuan goal to attain. When one realizes that modernizing the MMPA to allow human offshore activities while preserving marine mammal protections is just one piece in a puzzle made up of a thousand equally challenging parts, the task seems overwhelming. Yet, if America is to be able to meet its future energy demands, getting there is less a goal than it is an imperative.
