Alex Jones asks judge to halt sale of Infowars site to The Onion
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(New York) — Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones accused The Onion and Sandy Hook Elementary School families of “collusive bidding” and asked a bankruptcy court judge to halt the sale of his Infowars platform.
Jones, who defamed the Sandy Hook families by calling the 2012 massacre a hoax and the parents of the 20 first graders actors, called The Onion’s winning $1.75 million bid “sheer nonsense” because it’s half of what the losing bidder offered.
The Onion began a “systematic effort to confuse Mr. Jones’s personal public following with messages espousing gun control in a manner such that Mr Jones’s personal public following would be utterly confused and misled,” Jones said in an overnight court filing.
His request follows a similar push for an injunction by First United American Companies, which is affiliated with Jones through the sale of dietary supplements.
The plaintiffs nor the trustee immediately responded to Jones but the trustee has previously called the auction result legitimate and asked the court for approval.
(NEW YORK CITY) — The U.S. stock market climbed higher in early trading on Tuesday, as voters rushed to the polls and the nation awaited the results of a closely contested presidential election.
The S&P 500 ticked upward about 1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 300 points, jumping about 0.8%. The tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 1.3%.
Gains at large tech firms are helping to boost the market. Shares of Nvidia, an artificial intelligence chipmaker, climbed nearly 3% in early trading.
As of the early afternoon, tech giants Microsoft and Amazon each saw shares rise about 1.5%.
The market upswing follows a flurry of largely positive economic news over the past week. Government data released last week showed robust economic growth over a recent three-month period, alongside a continued cooldown of inflation.
U.S. hiring slowed in October, but fallout from hurricanes and labor strikes likely caused an undercount of the nation’s workers, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data on Friday showed.
Ivan Feinseth, a market analyst at investment firm Tigress Financial, attributed the returns on Tuesday to eager anticipation among investors to move past the U.S. election.
“The nightmare of an endless election and a contentious battle has consumed a lot of the focus and attention. It’s almost over. Then it goes back to the fundamentals of the market,” Feinseth said.
The gains on Election Day extended a banner year for U.S. stocks. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq have each climbed more than 20% this year while the Dow Jones is up about 11%.
The performance has owed to enthusiasm about artificial intelligence as well as resilient economic growth and expectations that interest rates would ease, Feinseth said.
The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate a half of a percentage point in September, dialing back its yearslong fight against inflation and delivering relief for borrowers saddled with high costs.
The Fed is widely expected to cut interest rates by another quarter of a percentage point when it meets on Thursday, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment.
An expectation of interest rate cuts among investors often sends stocks higher, since lower rates pave the way for cheaper corporate borrowing and the potential for higher profits.
“The market looks toward the future, and the Fed is now on the side of the bulls,” Feinseth said.
Over the full span of the next administration, the market will likely move higher whether the nation elects Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump, experts previously told ABC News. However, each candidate’s policies could favor different types of stocks while posing unique risks, they added.
Trump has proposed a combination of low corporate tax rates and loose regulation that would likely bolster corporate profits and propel the stock market higher, experts said. Prices would likely increase under Harris, as they have under the economic stewardship of President Joe Biden, they added.
(NEW YORK) — Drivers have enjoyed a sharp decline in gasoline prices over recent weeks — and the good times are expected to continue.
Gas prices have plummeted about 13% from a 2024 peak in April, which amounts to a decline of nearly 50 cents per gallon, according to AAA data shared with ABC News.
The national average price of a gallon of gas stands at $3.20, AAA data shows. In 16 states, an average gallon of gas costs less than $3, including Texas Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Kansas and Iowa.
Speaking to ABC News, some experts forecasted that the national average price would likely follow suit, dropping below $3 per gallon for the first time since May 2021.
The drop in prices owes in part to sluggish demand for gas as the busy summer traveling season has given way to an autumn slowdown, experts said. Meanwhile, they added, a sharp decline in the price of crude oil has propelled an even larger drop-off in gas prices than typically seen at this time of year.
“Gas prices continue to crumble across the entire nation,” Patrick de Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told ABC News. “The outlook is bright.”
Relief for consumers stems to a large degree from seasonal fluctuations that take hold every fall, experts said.
A slowdown in travel has eased demand for gas as families have returned from summer vacation and resumed routine driving associated with work and school commutes.
Alongside that softening of demand, refineries have begun shifting toward a less-expensive blend of winter fuel. Refineries contend with fewer regulations from the Environmental Protection Agency in the cooler fall and winter months, allowing for a cheaper blend of fuel.
“This is something we see every year,” Andrew Gross, a spokesperson at AAA, told ABC News.
The decline in prices also owes to a steep drop in the cost of crude oil, the underlying commodity that refineries turn into gas. The price of Brent crude oil has fallen 21% over the past year, and more than 7% over the last month.
A surge in oil production has coincided with a global economic slowdown, which in turn has eased demand for crude as consumers soften spending and companies downshift production. The resulting imbalance between supply and demand has sent prices plummeting, experts said.
“There’s pretty good supply and not much demand,” Timothy Fitzgerald, a professor of business economics at Texas Tech University who studies the petroleum industry, told ABC News.
The decline of gas prices is expected to continue. Gas prices typically drop over the course of the fall as demand wanes and the cheaper blend of winter fuel takes hold.
“Nearly every state east of the Rockies now has some retail outlets selling gas below $3 a gallon and the national average may very well follow suit in October,” said Gross.
Still, the anticipated price relief could be undone by a host of possible disruptions, experts said. Hurricane season could send a storm hurtling toward major refineries in the Gulf of Mexico, taking production offline and pinching gas supply. While an economic surge, perhaps triggered by widely expected interest rate cuts, could prompt an uptick in demand for oil and gas, said de Haan.
“There are some wild cards that we’re watching,” he added. “Outside those factors, there’s not much that could cause a big jump in the price of gasoline.”
By the early part of next year, however, seasonal fluctuations will turn against consumers as demand for gasoline begins to swell, he added.
(NEW YORK) — An escalation of conflicts in the Middle East in recent weeks has triggered a sharp increase in oil prices, raising uncertainty about where costs will head in the final weeks before Election Day.
Oil prices surged about 13% over an 11-day stretch ending on Monday. Prices fell markedly on Tuesday, however, as nearly a week passed without the onset of a widely anticipated Israeli counterattack on Iran.
The rise of oil prices carries potential implications for the presidential election next month. A hike in the cost of crude oil typically raises the price of gasoline, which holds substantial sway over general consumer attitudes, experts told ABC News.
For now, the recent increase in oil prices is not large enough to impact the election, experts said. However, they added, a further spike over the coming weeks could sour consumer sentiment and weaken approval of Vice President Kamala Harris, since her party occupies the White House.
“People use gasoline as a gauge of the economy and how they’re feeling about it,” Denton Cinquegrana, chief oil analyst at the Oil Price Information Service, told ABC News.
“A small change in prices probably won’t move the needle. If the price of a gallon goes up 50 cents, then that gets people’s attention,” Cinquegrana added, noting that such an increase is possible, but unlikely.
At least one expert cast doubt over the impact of even a sharp hike in oil and gas prices, saying it is unclear whether voters would fault Harris for the price spike and, even if they did, whether the few weeks remaining in the campaign affords enough time for higher prices to register with voters.
“People look at the economy over the long term, not the last month,” Jon Krosnick, a professor of political science at Stanford University who studies the relationship between gas prices and political perceptions, told ABC News.
In the aftermath of the Iranian attack on Israel last week, petroleum analysts told ABC News that the resulting spike in oil prices could push up gasoline prices between 10 and 15 cents per gallon. An increase of that magnitude would not affect the election, experts said, since the moderate uptick would do little to irk consumers and diminish their opinion about the nation’s economy.
“I do suspect that prices are going to continue to move higher, but I don’t think it will be significantly higher,” Cinquegrana said. “Unless something really goes haywire, I don’t expect prices to spike ahead of the election.”
A slight increase in gas prices may not matter much to consumers because costs at the pump have eased significantly over the past year, experts said.
Fuel prices have plummeted in recent months due to sluggish demand for gas as the busy summer traveling season has given way to an autumn slowdown. The average price of a gallon of gas is about 15% lower than where it stood a year ago, AAA data shows.
Despite its recent uptick, the price of oil has also fallen from a 2022 peak reached when the blazing-hot economic rebound from the pandemic collided with a supply shortage imposed by the Russia-Ukraine war.
A major escalation of the conflict between Israel and Iran, however, could send oil and gas prices much higher, analysts said, pointing to potentially dire consequences of an anticipated retaliatory strike by Israel against Iran.
While sanctions have constrained Iranian oil output in recent years, the nation asserts control over the passage of tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, a trading route that facilitates the transport of about 15% of global oil supply.
Intensification of the war could limit Iranian oil production or transport through the Strait of Hormuz, cutting global supply and sending prices upward, some experts said.
“The risk of a wider war in the Middle East has gone up,” Jim Burkhard, vice president and head of research for oil markets, energy and mobility at S&P Global, told ABC News. “There’s the risk of something happening that could lead to higher prices.”
A further surge in oil prices would send gas prices skyrocketing, which could damage Harris’ political fortunes if voters fault the Biden administration for the sudden increase in costs right before they cast their ballots, Carola Binder, an economics professor at the University of Texas at Austin who studies the relationship between gas prices and consumer attitudes, told ABC News.
“If there was a huge increase in gas prices, I could imagine that hurting Harris’ chances,” Binder said. “Consumer sentiment does affect elections.”
Such a forecast drew sharp disagreement from Krosnick, even though his research helped establish an understanding of the political implications of rising gas prices.
Krosnick co-authored a 2016 study in the academic journal Political Psychology that examined the relationship between gas prices and presidential approval rating between the mid-1970s and mid-2000s. The study found that elevated gas prices drove a president’s approval downward. To be exact, each 10-cent increase in the gas price was associated with more than half a percentage point decline in presidential approval, the research showed.
The findings do not shed light on a scenario in which gas prices spike ahead of next month’s election, Krosnick said, noting that his research examined shifts in public opinion over a much longer period of time. Plus, he added, voters may not fault Harris for the Middle East conflict that would drive the potential price increase.
“There isn’t enough time for there to be a sustained change in prices,” Krosnick said. “It takes a while to ripple out to consumers.”
