Aurelia Butler

BOSTON (Reuters) – The founder of a defunct cryptocurrency business was sentenced on Tuesday to more than eight years in prison for defrauding investors and customers out of millions of dollars by marketing a virtual currency called My Big Coin with lies and half-truths.Federal prosecutors had urged U.S. District Judge Denise Casper in Boston to impose a 13-year prison term on Randall Crater to send a message to others in the first sentencing of a cryptocurrency company founder for a marketing fraud.While Casper concluded that that request went too far, she rejected Crater’s contention that a 30-month prison term was sufficient to punish him for his false claims, including that My Big Coin was a real cryptocurrency backed by gold.”Certainly cryptocurrency is a newer enterprise, a newer market, a 21st Century market,” Casper said. “But the scheme at its core was age-old, and that was fraud.”Crater, who was sentenced to 100 months in total and ordered to forfeit nearly $7.7 million, is expected to appeal. In court, he apologized but said he never meant to defraud anyone.”I did not set out to steal money from anyone,” he said. “That does not mean I am not remorseful.”A jury in July found Crater, 52, guilty of committing wire fraud and making unlawful monetary transactions in a prosecution that spilled out of a precedent-setting case by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission.The CFTC’s 2018 lawsuit against Crater and his failed company, Nevada-based My Big Coin Inc, led to one of the first court rulings holding that a virtual currency could be considered a commodity within the regulator’s jurisdiction.Prosecutors subsequently secured Crater’s indictment in 2019 and accused him of causing investors and customers to lose $7.5 million from 2014 to 2017 with lies about My Big Coin, whose name sounded similar to the popular virtual currency bitcoin.Prosecutors said those false claims included that My Big Coin was a real virtual currency, was backed by gold and had a partnership with MasterCard. Prosecutors said he used the money to buy cars, jewelry, artwork and antique coins. More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden and House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy won’t come to their first meeting over raising the debt ceiling with any specific proposals to stave off a possible default, both sides indicated on Tuesday. Instead, the Wednesday meeting between Biden and McCarthy is likely to serve as the opening bell for months of back-and-forth maneuvering over raising the United States’ $31.4 trillion borrowing cap. Neither side is showing signs they’re willing to negotiate on anything just yet. Failure to reach agreement could lead to a possible default on U.S. debt as early as June. Republicans in the House have said any debt-ceiling hike should be paired with steep spending cuts. The White House says it will only discuss future spending cuts after the debt ceiling is raised.Biden will call on McCarthy to release a budget plan in the meeting and to commit to support the nation’s debt obligations, according to a White House memo seen by Reuters. “Raising the debt ceiling is not a negotiation; it is an obligation of this country and its leaders to avoid economic chaos,” White House economic adviser Brian Deese and director of the Office of Management and Budget Shalanda Young wrote. McCarthy, for his part, said Biden needs to be willing to make concessions in order to get a debt-ceiling hike though Congress.”The first thing they should do, especially as the President of the United States, (is) say he’s willing to sit down and find a common ground and negotiate together,” McCarthy told reporters in the U.S. Capitol. Unlike most other developed countries, the United States puts a hard limit on how much it can borrow, and Congress must periodically raise that cap because the U.S. government spends more than it takes in.The debt ceiling increase is usually voted in on a bipartisan basis, but Republicans have used their leverage previously to win spending cuts.Biden seemed to question McCarthy’s ability to keep Republicans in line Tuesday at a fundraiser in New York, calling McCarthy “a decent man, I think,” but noting the concessions he had to make to conservatives to become speaker. “Look what he had to do, and to make commitments that are just absolutely off the wall for a Speaker of the House to make in terms of being able to become a leader.” Detailed proposals may not emerge for several weeks. The White House has said it would release its budget proposal on March 9. House Republicans, meanwhile, will aim to produce their budget proposal in April, said House Republican Leader Steve Scalise. “I hope the president meets his deadline just like we’re going to work to meet our deadline,” Scalise said at a news conference.The White House has seized on the lack of consensus to highlight fringe proposals from some Republicans, including one that abolishes the Internal Revenue Service in favor of a higher sales tax and one that trims Social Security retirement benefits.McCarthy has ruled out cuts to Social Security and Medicare, the two largest government benefit programs. “You got to remember, you got a president here who’s never been in business… And he’s saying, ‘I’m not going to talk to you about the debt ceiling?,'” said Roger Williams, a House Republican, while exiting a conference meeting.    “It’s ridiculous. So maybe we can get that out of the way tomorrow with their meeting, and we begin to talk about what we can add and what we can subtract.”PAST SHOWDOWN A 2011 debt ceiling showdown between Democratic President Barack Obama and House Republicans took the country to the brink of default and prompted a first-ever downgrade of the country’s top-notch credit rating.Veterans of that battle warn that the politics and math are tougher this time around, making it more difficult to find a resolution until the government is about to run out of money – or after it has.”I think that the possibility of miscalculation runs higher today than it did in 2011,” said Neil Bradley, a former House Republican leadership aide who is now a top official at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.The showdown over the growing U.S. debt threatens to roil the global economy if the United States defaults. The Treasury Department has already started taking “extraordinary measures” to stave off a default until summer after hitting the U.S. government’s $31.4 trillion borrowing limit earlier in January. (This story has been corrected to change “billion” to “trillion” in paragraph 2. The error first occurred in the previous version of this story.) More

KYIV (Reuters) – Russian forces are making incremental gains in their push to take territory in Ukraine’s eastern province of Donetsk, focusing on the town of Bakhmut north of the regional capital.Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government is lobbying hard for some of its neighbours and Western allies to supply fighter jets that it can use to repulse Russian advances. It took months of Ukraine’s appeals before Western countries last week pledged modern battle tanks, and Kyiv wants jets sooner rather than later.In Paris after meeting Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov, French Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu said “there was no taboo” about supplying Kyiv with fighter planes.The United States and Britain have thus far rejected the idea but repeated their willingness to continue military support to Ukraine, which Russian forces invaded in February 2022 in what Moscow called a “special military operation” to protect Russian security and Russian speakers. The invasion has killed thousands of civilians, uprooted millions and reduced cities to rubble.More recently Russia has characterized the conflict as confronting what it says is an aggressive and expansionist U.S.-led NATO military alliance.The West has so far refused to send weapons that could be used to attack deep inside Russia for fear of starting a wider war although Moscow has denounced recent Western pledges of weapons as provocations. The United States, which has provided Ukraine about $27.2 billion in military aid since Russia’s invasion, is preparing a $2.2 billion package of additional assistance. That is expected to offer Kyiv longer-range rockets for the first time and other munitions and weapons, two U.S. officials briefed on the matter told Reuters on Tuesday.RUSSIA TARGETS BAKHMUT AREABakhmut came under renewed fire as did Klishchiivka and Kurdyumivka, villages on the southern approaches to Bakhmut, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said in a statement on Tuesday night. Weeks of relentless pounding of Bakhmut have been similar to the drive by Russian forces to capture two cities further north – Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk – in June and July.Russian forces on Tuesday made no headway in attempts to advance on Avdiivka, the second focal point of Russian attacks in Donetsk region, Kyiv’s military general staff said.Russian forces also tried to advance near Lyman, a town further north in Donetsk region that was recaptured by Ukrainian forces in October, the military said.Russia was reaching further west in Donetsk by firing on the town of Vuhledar and a half dozen other towns and villages, the Ukraine military said. Vuhledar is about 148 km (90 miles) away from the main fighting in and around Bakhmut.Britain’s Ministry of Defence said the Russian force in the new Vuhledar assault was at least the size of a brigade, a unit typically comprising several thousand troops.The Ukrainian military statement did not mention the village of Blahodatne, which Russia says it has captured, and sits on one of the main roads into Bakhmut about 5 km (3 miles) north.Reuters was not immediately able to verify the situation there or other battlefield reports.Zelenskiy said he had several meetings with top defence officials on Tuesday.”We are examining in detail all the key sectors and what the prospects for them are,” he said in an evening video address, without providing details. “What the occupier is preparing and how we are already responding to Russia’s preparations to wreak revenge,” a reference to the setbacks Ukrainian troops inflicted on Russian forces last year in repelling advances around the country and retaking territory that had been occupied by Russia.DIPLOMATIC TENSIONSIn Washington, the United States said Russia was violating the New START nuclear arms control treaty between the two countries. U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration has been eager to preserve the treaty but ties with Moscow are the worst in decades over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.”Russia’s refusal to facilitate inspection activities prevents the United States from exercising important rights under the treaty and threatens the viability of U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control,” a State Department spokesperson said. Also in Washington, former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a staunch supporter of providing military aid to Ukraine, met with Republican lawmakers. The Republicans took over the House of Representatives from the Democrats at the start of this year and some hardline members among them have called for an end to U.S. military and other assistance to Ukraine, which amounts to tens of billions of dollars.”My mission is to demonstrate that Ukraine will win – and that there is no conceivable case for delay in further supporting the Ukrainians to win this year,” Johnson said in a statement.U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken will discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine with Chinese officials during a Feb. 5-6 trip to China, the White House said on Tuesday.A week after seeming to open the door for Russia and Belarus to compete at the 2024 Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said it is standing by sanctions imposed against the countries over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. More

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A Democratic president. A new Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives pushing for sharp spending cuts. A rapidly growing pile of debt – and a showdown that threatens to throw the global economy into turmoil.Sound familiar? Those elements driving the debate over raising the federal government’s $31.4 trillion debt ceiling were also in place back in 2011, taking the country to the brink of default and prompting a downgrade of the country’s top-notch credit rating. Veterans of that battle warn that this time around the politics and math are tougher, making it more difficult to find a resolution until the government is about to run out of money – or after it has.”This year is going to be much harder than 2011, because of the shrill nature of the political discourse,” said Charlie Bass, a Republican who served in the House during that time.Unlike most other developed countries, the United States puts a hard limit on how much it can borrow. Because the U.S. government spends more than it takes in, lawmakers must periodically raise the debt ceiling.As in 2011, Republicans aim to pair this year’s debt-ceiling hike with sharp spending cuts to narrow annual budget deficits that have ballooned in recent years due to tax cuts and COVID-19 relief.President Joe Biden insists that Congress must raise the debt ceiling without other conditions and has vowed not to negotiate with Republicans. He is due to meet top House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday for talks on how to avoid a default that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says may come as soon as June.Both leaders lived through the 2011 showdown, Biden as vice president to Democrat Barack Obama and McCarthy as the No. 3 House Republican.Eric Cantor, who as the No. 2 House Republican spent hours with Biden trying to find a solution, said the president’s no-negotiations stance may prove unsustainable. “He was very much a conciliator at that point, so this is very different right now,” Cantor said in an interview. “I’m not sure how long it lasts.”Biden and several aides still serving under him were scarred by the 2011 negotiations, according to two officials granted anonymity to discuss views within the administration. They were initially shocked that hardline Republicans would even broach the subject after years of drama-free debt-ceiling hikes and then decided to negotiate to avoid the worst.SMALL, POWERFUL RIGHT WINGMcCarthy will have to try to balance the demands of a vocal right wing in his party with the reality of divided government.His grip on power is tenuous. Republicans hold a narrow 222-212 majority in the House, compared with their 242-193 majority in 2011, which will require moderates and conservatives to stick together.To win the speaker’s gavel after Congress convened in January, McCarthy agreed to enable any single member to call for a vote to unseat him, which could easily lead to his ouster if he seeks to work with Democrats. McCarthy also agreed to place three hardline conservatives on the Rules Committee, which sets the agenda for the House floor. That could enable them to block any compromise from even coming up for a vote.”It’s an obstacle we didn’t have to worry about in 2011,” said Brendan Buck, who served as an aide to then-Speaker John Boehner.Democrats hold a narrow Senate majority, as they did in 2011, and Republican leader Mitch McConnell is again in a position to help shape the outcome. Any agreement that emerges from that chamber will need bipartisan support, which could prove difficult for a Republican House majority to accept. Some House Republicans protested when McConnell in December 2021 cut a deal to raise the debt ceiling and avoid default.Only one in four Republicans serving in the House today held their seats in 2011 and observers said they may not be fully aware of risks involved with courting default – or the reality of divided government.”There’s some lessons that can be taught and some lessons that can only be learned,” said Jon Lieber, a former McConnell aide.Some newer Republican lawmakers have absorbed former President Donald Trump’s confrontational approach to governing, which adds another layer of risk, said Bass, the former Republican lawmaker.”I think they would rather see the United States go bankrupt, the dollar collapse, and see people’s fortunes go down the tubes all to make a political point,” he said.Steve Stivers, a Republican who served in the House from 2011 to 2021, predicts that Washington will find a solution before the Treasury Department runs out of money. “That’s what things like the debt ceiling are built for – they’re forcing mechanisms that create an artificial deadline,” he said.Others are less certain.”I think that the possibility of miscalculation runs higher today than it did in 2011,” said Neil Bradley, a former top Cantor aide. More