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| Happy Friday, Insiders! Here are our top stories today: - More than 12,000 unionized autoworkers employed by Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis went on strike on Friday
- Federal prosecutors indicted Hunter Biden, the president's son, on gun charges
- EU regulators fined TikTok more than $300M over its failure to protect children's privacy
If you find this newsletter useful, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Thank you! Have a great weekend! Your faithful IDB writer, Daniel
p/Dan-Smith | |
| 1 | | More than 12,000 autoworkers represented by the United Auto Workers (UAW) union went on strike on Friday. This is the first time that workers at plants operated by General Motors, Ford, and Stellantis go on strike at the same time. More: - Two of the plants are in Ohio, while one is in Missouri.
- General Motors offered workers a 20% pay hike over a four-year period.
- CEO Mary Barra, whose pay rose by 34% between 2019 and 2022, said her company made a "very compelling offer" to the unionized workers.
- President Joe Biden is expected to dispatch administration officials to help the union and the automakers reach an agreement.
- UAW President Shawn Fain, who has advocated for a more militant negotiating stance since taking over the post in March, said the strike is the union's "defining moment."
Zoom Out: - In 2019, ~48,000 UAW members who worked at General Motors plants went on strike.
- The six-week strike led to a new four-year contract that included major pay increases and commitments from the automaker to invest more in its U.S. plants.
- If the current strike were to last as long, it would cost each Big Three automaker an estimated $5.4B.
Q: Do you expect to see more major strikes in the U.S. in the coming years? Join the debate here. |     | |
| 2 | | Planet Fitness (PLNT) stock is down over 12% after the company ousted its CEO in a surprise move. 
What happened: The company's board has removed Chris Rondeau from his position as CEO. Rondeau, who has served as CEO since 2013, will be replaced via a search of internal and external candidates. Former New Hampshire governor and Planet Fitness board member Craig Benson will serve as interim CEO. PLNT stock fell to a 52-week low following the news. Slow growth: The company's finance chief Thomas Fitzgerald recently told analysts that Planet Fitness will likely miss its target of opening 600 stores by 2025 due to higher borrowing costs, a rise in construction costs, and a lack of suitable locations for new stores. Planet Fitness opened 26 new stores in the second quarter, compared with 34 a year earlier. | | | |
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| 3 | | Federal prosecutors indicted Hunter Biden for making false statements on a 2018 gun license application and possessing a firearm as a prohibited person. This was the first instance in U.S. history in which federal prosecutors indicted the child of a sitting president. More: - The indictment comes a month after a plea deal between Hunter Biden and the Justice Department fell apart at the last minute.
- In a bid to avoid prosecution for a gun charge, Hunter Biden in June agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor charges related to tax and business deals, but the deal later collapsed.
- Hunter Biden allegedly failed to pay income taxes for either 2017 or 2018 despite owing more than $100,000 in taxes each year.
- His attorney said Hunter Biden only had the gun for 11 days and that he was "not a threat to public safety."
- David Weiss, the special counsel in the Hunter Biden investigation, told a judge in August that the firearms diversion agreement was not valid because the plea deal was never finalized.
Zoom Out: - The gun charge comes from Hunter Biden's allegedly false answer on a federal form he filed out in 2018 to acquire a handgun.
- The form asked whether the applicant was an "unlawful user" of drugs.
- Hunter Biden, whose struggles with drug addiction are well-documented, answered "No."
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| 4 | | GOOD NEWS: A retired Colorado Rockies baseball player teamed up with the RIP Medical Debt organization to pay off a total of $10M in outstanding medical debt for some lucky Coloradans. RIP Medical Debt has paid off more than $10B in medical debt for more than 6.7 million U.S. families. More: - Five-time All-Star first baseman Todd Helton said he was inspired by his friend and fellow University of Tennessee alumnus Ryan Jumonville.
- Helton said Jumonville "recently took care of $100M in medical debt" for people in Florida and that he wanted to do the same for some Colorodans.
- RIP Medical Debt helps people who are at four times or below the federal poverty line or whose medical debt payments exceed 5% of their gross annual income.
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| 5 | | On Friday, European regulators issued a €345M ($368M) fine to TikTok over the video app's failure to protect children's privacy. An investigation, which focused on the second half of 2020, found that TikTok's signup process for teenage users made their accounts public by default, putting them at risk of harassment. More: - The investigation by Ireland's Data Protection Commission (DPC) found that children under 13 were able to access the platform, even though they should have been blocked from doing so.
- It found that TikTok's "family pairing" feature allowed adults to send direct messages to 16 and 17-year-old users without their consent.
- TikTok said it disagreed with the fine because in 2021 it made accounts for teens under 16 private by default and disabled direct messaging for 13- to 15-year-olds.
Zoom Out: - DPC regulates Big Tech firms that have their EU headquarters in Dublin for tax purposes.
- The agency is also investigating whether TikTok complied with the EU's General Data Protection Regulation when transferring customer data to China, where TikTok-owner ByteDance is based.
- DPC has issued major fines against Meta, and its Instagram and WhatsApp subsidiaries, in recent years.
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| 6 | | The government of the Dominican Republic (DR) shut down its border with Haiti on Friday morning. Over 1,000 Haitian migrants in the DR returned to Haiti ahead of the border closure, which was prompted by Haitian efforts to build a water channel from the shared River Massacre. More: - The DR government said the border closure would last "as long as necessary" and that bilateral talks would continue.
- Dominican President Luis Abinader said his government could send a "peace force" to Haiti if the Haitian government failed to control the water channel construction.
- A group of Haitians are building a canal diverting water from the river without the consent of their government.
- The Dominican government said this construction violates a bilateral treaty signed in 1929.
Zoom Out: - Extreme poverty and escalating gang violence have led many Haitians to migrate illegally to the DR in recent years.
- The DR has responded by deporting thousands of Haitians.
- The UN said that Haitian women seeking pregnancy and post-partum medical care in the DR were arrested and deported ahead of Friday's border closure.
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- Thailand's new Prime Minister, Srettha Thavisin, said he is opposed to recreational cannabis use. Last year, the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce estimated that the Thai cannabis market could be worth $1.2B by 2025.
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Term of the Day Customer relationship management: Customer relationship management (CRM) is a strategy for managing a company's interactions with its customers or potential customers. Question of the Week Do you share details about your salary with your coworkers? Join the conversation |
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INSIDE DAILY BRIEF LEADERBOARD (7 DAYS) |
 | Writer | | Dr. Daniel Smith is an Inside writer with a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Cambridge. Follow him on Twitter @DJS12321 or email him at Daniel@inside.com. | | This newsletter was edited by Eduardo Garcia | |
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