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Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox and its TV networks is heating up.
Dominion unveiled messages and testimony from Fox News anchors expressing disbelief in Donald Trump and his lawyers’ claims of a rigged election in 2020.
“Sydney Powell is lying,” Tucker Carlson said in a text message to his producer. Rupert Murdoch called Rudy Giuliani’s claims “crazy stuff.”
Fox News continued to deny the claims that it knowingly made false comments.

Fox News Channel Host Sean Hannity speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas, August 4, 2022.
Shelby Tauber | Reuters

Rupert Murdoch and Fox News hosts expressed disbelief in former President Donald Trump’s false election fraud claims, according to evidence released from Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox Corp. and its cable TV networks.  
In court papers filed Thursday, text messages and testimony from depositions show that Fox executives and TV personalities were skeptical about claims that the election between the victorious Joe Biden, a Democrat, and Trump, a Republican, was rigged. 

The release follows months of discovery and depositions that have remained private until Thursday, when the companies filed court papers before a Delaware judge laying out each of their cases and unveiling recently gathered evidence. The documents were revealed hours after authorities in Georgia released a small portion of a grand jury report regarding a separate criminal probe into Trump’s alleged election meddling in that state.
Dominion brought the defamation lawsuit against Fox and its right-wing cable networks, Fox News and Fox Business, arguing the networks and its anchors made false claims that its voting machines rigged the results of the 2020 election. 
“Really crazy stuff. And damaging,” Fox Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch said in an email on Nov. 19, days after the election, regarding claims Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani was making on Fox News. 
Top Fox News anchors like Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham expressed disbelief in what Sydney Powell, a pro-Trump attorney who had aggressively promoted claims of election fraud, had said at the time, too. 
“Sydney Powell is lying,” Tucker Carlson said in a text message to his producer. Meanwhile Laura Ingraham said in a message to Carlson: “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.”

“It’s unbelievably offensive to me. Our viewers are good people and they believe it,” Carlson responded, according to court papers. These messages came in the weeks following the election. 
Dominion said in court papers that Fox admitted that Hannity and Lou Dobbs’ shows did not “challenge the narrative” that Dominion was responsible for rigging the election or producing inaccurate results. 

A person walks past Fox News Headquarters at the News Corporation building on May 03, 2022 in New York City.
Alexi Rosenfeld | Getty Images

On Thursday, both Fox Corp and Fox News also filed their own motions for summary judgment. Fox Corp, which saw its push to have the case dismissed denied by the court, said in court papers that following a year of discovery, the record in the case shows it had “no role in the creation and publication of the challenged statements – all of which aired on either Fox Business Network or Fox News Channel.” 
In recent months Murdoch, as well as his son Lachlan Murdoch, the Fox Corp CEO, faced depositions as part of the lawsuit. 
Fox News said once again in court papers that it “fulfilled its commitment to inform fully and comment fairly,” on the claims that Dominion rigged the election against Trump. 
“There will be a lot of noise and confusion generated by Dominion and their opportunistic private equity owners, but the core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan,” Fox said in a statement issued Thursday. 
A Dominion spokesperson didn’t comment and its private-equity owner, Staple Street Capital, didn’t respond to comment. 

Rudolph Giuliani and Sidney Powell, attorneys for President Donald Trump, conduct a news conference at the Republican National Committee on lawsuits regarding the outcome of the 2020 presidential election on Thursday, November 19, 2020.
Tom Williams | CQ-Roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images

“Here, however, overwhelming direct evidence establishes Fox’s knowledge of falsity, not just ‘doubts,'” Dominion said in court papers Thursday, pointing to multiple defamatory statements. 
Dominion pointed to the audience backlash Fox News faced on the 2020 election night when it called Arizona for Joe Biden, later seeing competing right wing networks like Newsmax take advantage of the opening with the audience. 
Dominion’s findings point to hosts including Carlson, Ingraham and Sean Hannity understanding “the threat to them personally.” Dominion points to messages Carlson sent to his producer on Nov. 5, “We worked really hard to build what we have. Those f—-ers are destroying our credibility. It enrages me.” 
The case is being watched closely by First Amendment watchdogs and experts. Libel lawsuits are typically centered around one falsehood. In this case Dominion cites a lengthy list of examples of Fox TV hosts making false claims even after they were proven to be untrue. Media companies are often broadly protected by the First Amendment. 
These cases are typically settled out of court or dismissed quickly. But the Delaware judge overseeing the case has so far dismissed such requests. The trial is slated to begin in mid-April. 
Last week, during a status conference, Dominion’s attorney called out concerns that some evidence, such as board meeting minutes and the results of searches of personal drives, had yet to be produced by Fox and its TV networks. 

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5 Things to Know

Microsoft Bing’s AI chatbot gets weird and creepy.
Fox News hosts ripped Trump’s false election claims, court filings show.
Tesla recalls EVs with Full Self Driving Beta software over crash concerns.

Here are the most important news items that investors need to start their trading day:

1. Inflated concerns

Just when it looked like Wall Street would shrug off worries about inflation, wholesale prices came in hotter than expected Thursday, sending all three major indices into the red. Investors also chewed over hawkish comments from St. Louis Federal Reserve President James Bullard. A member of the Fed’s policy-setting committee, he said Thursday that he supported a half-point rate hike at their last meeting (they raised the benchmark rate by a quarter point) and that he wouldn’t rule out a bigger increase in March. Read live markets updates.

2. Chatbot gets creepy

Photo by Carl Court

Artificially intelligent chatbots are supposed to be helpful and otherwise fairly bland utilities, right? So far that’s not quite the case, especially in a beta test of Microsoft’s Bing bot that’s powered by super buzzy startup OpenAI. Users have reported that conversations with the system have taken strange turns, evoking comparisons to bad AI in movies, from Skynet to M3gan. It has issued threats, refused to accept that it’s wrong and expressed an intense, creepy kind of love for users. Some testers say they’ve encountered Sydney, which appears to be the chatbot’s alternative personality. A New York Times columnist described it as “a moody, manic-depressive teenager who has been trapped, against its will, inside a second-rate search engine.”

3. What Fox News really thought

A person walks past Fox News Headquarters at the News Corporation building on May 03, 2022 in New York City.
Alexi Rosenfeld | Getty Images

Millions of people believe Republican former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. That support is keeping him in the running for the GOP nomination and the White House in 2024. Millions don’t believe him, though – and that group includes Fox Corp Chairman Rupert Murdoch and several of the company’s right-wing cable hosts. Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing Fox for $1.6 billion in a defmation suit, released reams of communications and documents Thursday showing that Murdoch called such claims “really crazy stuff” and Tucker Carlson dismissed them as lies. Dominion accuses Fox News and Fox Business of spreading election falsehoods even as executives and anchors knew better. Fox rejects Dominion’s claims and calls the situation a matter of constitutionally protected free speech. The two sides are set to go to trial in April.

4. Tesla recalls over 360,000 vehicles

A Tesla sits in traffic at Times Square on Jan. 26, 2023 in New York City.
Leonardo Munoz | VIEW Press | Corbis News | Getty Images

Tesla is under a harsh new spotlight. Elon Musk’s EV company is voluntarily recalling 362,758 vehicles equipped with Full Self-Driving Beta, an experimental driver-assistance software, over its potential to cause crashes. The company will do an over-the-air software update to address the problem. Tesla hadn’t revealed an exact number of cars with FSD, although Musk previously said it was about 400,000. While Musk and Tesla’s supporters are objecting to the term “recall,” a recall notice went out nonetheless. According to a safety recall report on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s website, the software could make Teslas “act unsafe around intersections, such as traveling straight through an intersection while in a turn-only lane, entering a stop sign-controlled intersection without coming to a complete stop, or proceeding into an intersection during a steady yellow traffic signal without due caution.”

5. Ukraine is top of mind as leaders meet

Several of the world’s leaders will meet this weekend at the Munich Security Conference in Germany. Ukraine’s war against Russian invaders will be the primary topic, as the conflict approaches its first anniversary. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was slated to open the meeting via video call. Vice President Kamala Harris, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, among others, are also attending. Russia, however, is banned. Follow live war updates.
– CNBC’s Hakyung Kim, Kif Leswing, Lillian Rizzo, Lora Kolodny and Natasha Turak contributed to this report.
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National Geographic announced the winning photographs from its first “Pictures of the Year” photo competition.
The contest, which opened to U.S. residents in early December, invited readers to submit a digital photograph in one of four categories: nature, people, places and animals.

The contest required that photographs be largely unaltered. According to the rules, “only minor burning, dodging and/or color correction is acceptable, as is minor cropping.” Photos with other changes are “unacceptable and … ineligible for a prize.”

Grand prize — Alaska

Bald eagles at Alaska’s Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve compete to perch on a tree log.
Karthik Subramaniam

Karthik Subramaniam, a software engineer in San Francisco who is passionate about wildlife photography, clinched the grand prize. He said he captured his winning shot at the end of a weeklong photography trip in Haines, Alaska, which hosts the world’s largest congregation of bald eagles each fall.
As Subramaniam watched the eagles hunt for salmon in their fishing grounds, an eagle swooped in to steal another’s perch on a tree.
“Hours of observing their patterns and behavior helped me capture moments like these,” he said.
The photo will be featured in an upcoming issue of National Geographic’s U.S. magazine.

In addition to the grand prize winner, Nat Geo also gave honorable mentions to several “winners.” Their photos will be published on National Geographic’s Your Shot Instagram page, which has some 6.5 million followers.
Most of those photographs, along with information provided by Nat Geo, are published below.

Iceland

Iceland’s Fagradalsfjall volcano erupting in 2021.
Riten Dharia

The six-month lava flow that covered the surrounding landscape in hard black rock was “an exhibition of the raw and awesome power of nature,” said Riten Dharia, who photographed the scene on the Reykjanes Peninsula.

Mongolia

In this photograph, a nomadic Kazakh eagle hunter on horseback prepares his golden eagle for a hunt in Bayan-Olgii, Mongolia, where training eagles to hunt is a 3000-year tradition, according to Nat Geo.

A hunter and his eagle on horseback in the grasslands outside of Bayan-Olgii, Mongolia.
Eric Esterle

To capture the moment, photographer Eric Esterle lay on his stomach at the edge of the stream as the horse passed less than a few feet away, he said.
“I remember covering my camera with my body and putting my head down,” he said.

Austria

Seeing this golden tree hidden among tall trunks in the forest gave photographer Alex Berger “goosebumps,” he said.

A golden tree deep in the Austrian Alps.
Alex Berger

Berger said he spotted it by a small stream while on a road trip through the Austrian Alps.
The mountain ranges of the Alps stretch about 750 miles through eight countries.

The island of South Georgia

Rhez Solano photographed this crowd of king penguins on the beaches of Gold Harbour on the island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic Ocean.

King penguins crowd together on the beaches of the island of South Georgia.
Rhez Solano

The island hosts king penguins along with gentoo penguins and elephant seals.
Roughly half of the island is covered in ice, and there is no permanent human population living on it, though travelers can visit it by cruise ship or yachts, according to its governmental website.

North Carolina, U.S.

Freelance photographer Tihomir Trichkov said he took this shot while headed home from the airport early one morning in October.
It captures fog that had settled over a valley visible from North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Parkway.

A view of the foggy valley from North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Parkway.
Tihomir Trichkov

The scene depicts “the little slice of heaven that I live in,” Trichkov said of his home in Highlands, North Carolina.
“The Smoky Mountains are simply gorgeous,” he said.

Washington, U.S.

This photo depicts the night sky reflected in the waters of Tipsoo Lake in Mount Rainier National Park, Washington.

Tipsoo Lake in Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state.
W. Kent Williamson

From across the lake, photographer W. Kent Williamson said he could see the lantern lights of climbers heading to Mount Rainier’s 14,411-foot summit.
“The night sky was unusually clear, and the Milky Way could be seen just above the mountain,” he said.

Peru

A lone salt miner uses a wooden rake to extract salt from a hillside at Peru’s Salt Mines of Maras in this photograph captured by An Li.

Salt wells on a hillside in the Salt Mines of Maras in Peru.

The mines comprise around 4,500 salt wells, each of which produces some 400 pounds of salt per month. Families who own the wells continue the tradition of salt extraction that dates back to the Inca Empire.

About the ‘Pictures of the Year’ contest

The contest is Nat Geo’s latest effort to highlight photography from contributors.
It launched alongside the magazine’s annual “Pictures of the Year” issue, which features the best 49 photos taken by Nat Geo photographers, chosen from more than 2 million submissions.
The goal of the “Picture of the Year” contest is to provide aspiring photographers the “same spotlight,” according to Nat Geo.
To see the full gallery of winners, visit natgeo.com/PhotoContestWinner. More

As marijuana legalization spreads, states are looking at different ways to ensure those most affected by decades of racially biased anti-drug policies have a leg up.
Under a special program, New Jersey prioritizes granting licenses to dispensaries run by people with marijuana convictions on their records.
Lawmakers hope that by making equity a cornerstone of their newly legalized markets, those who dealt marijuana in the illegal, or “legacy” market, will be persuaded to go legit.

Tahir Johnson said he’s on track to be one of the first people with a marijuana related conviction to open a licensed dispensary in New Jersey. “The generational wealth this will create for my family is surreal,” he said.
Stefan Sykes for CNBC

TRENTON, N.J. – Tahir Johnson has been arrested for marijuana possession three times. Now, for the first time in his life, the convictions won’t hurt his employment prospects. They’ll help.
Johnson, 39, will be one of the first people with a marijuana-related conviction to own and operate a legal dispensary in New Jersey when he opens Simply Pure Trenton next month in his hometown of Ewing, which borders the state’s capital city. Last year, he was among about a dozen in the state to win a conditional license because of his status as a “social equity applicant.”

“I checked all the boxes,” Johnson said of his application. “And I was especially confident because of my previous arrests.” 
New Jersey is prioritizing granting licenses to dispensaries run by minorities, women and disabled veterans; dispensaries located in “impact zones” or communities disproportionately impacted by policing and marijuana arrests; and dispensaries run by people with prior marijuana convictions. It’s a part of a concerted effort to redress decades of racially biased anti-drug policies.
Johnson fit into all three priority categories. Since he won his conditional license, he raised capital, purchased a property and secured approval from municipal authorities. 

Tahir Johnson stands in front of what will soon be “Simply Pure Trenton”. The mixed use property is over 6,000 square feet and sits along a high traffic roadway.
Stefan Sykes for CNBC

A conditional license is a provisional license that allows awardees to begin operating while they fulfill requirements for an annual license. The New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory Commission, or CRC, issued the first 11 of them in May 2022. Since then, about one-quarter of all licenses have gone to social equity applicants, and 16% went specifically to applicants with prior marijuana convictions, according to a recent report from the agency.
“It’s a full circle moment,” said Johnson, whose past is riddled with run-ins with police, overnight stays in jail, and court battles over small amounts of marijuana recovered during traffic stops. These days, Johnson spends his time hiring staff, meeting with contractors and preparing merchandise. He expects the business will profitable.

Stefan Sykes for CNBC

“The generational wealth this will create for my family is surreal,” he said. 
In the third quarter of 2022, there were $177 million in marijuana sales across the state, including $116 million in recreational sales alone, according to data from the Cannabis Regulatory Commission.

Emphasizing equity

Lawmakers say efforts that prioritize entrepreneurs like Johnson are a part of a broader reckoning to right the wrongs of the past and give those most affected by marijuana prohibition a leg up against corporate competitors. Similar initiatives are underway in states like New York, which has reserved the first 150 licenses solely for people with marijuana-related offenses, or their relatives.
“There are plenty of people that went to jail or prison for marijuana that have more experience than a lot of these corporate entities,” said Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora. “We wanted to make sure they were able to get into the doorway themselves and be just as successful as a company coming in here from Colorado.”

Trenton Mayor Reed Gusciora stands on the balcony of his office in City Hall. It faces a busy commercial strip including storefront “NJWeedman’s Joint & Dispensary.” 
Stefan Sykes 

Gusciora, who helped introduce legislation for recreational use, said he’s thrilled at the influx of marijuana businesses trying to open in Trenton. He hopes the city can be a model for what a healthy, equitable legal market looks like. But before that can happen, those most impacted by the war on drugs need to be included, Gusciora said.
“The whole purpose of legalization was to put drug dealers out of business,” said the mayor. “And now unless you allow them to get in legitimately, that defeats the whole purpose of legalization.”
John Dockery has been dealing marijuana since he was a teenager in the 1990s. His first charge at 19 for simple possession significantly limited his job prospects and kept him dealing, he said.

John Dockery said he’s “so used to stuff feeling like it’s not programmed for us” and was surprised to have been awarded a license last year.  
Stefan Sykes for CNBC

“From the beginning of my adulthood, I had to disclose my charge every time I went for a job, and it stopped me from progressing in life,” said the Trenton native, who last year was among the first to receive a conditional license.
At first, Dockery was suspicious of New Jersey’s legalization efforts. He had racked up six charges over the years but said this was the “norm” for Trenton.
“I don’t know many people without at least one marijuana charge,” Dockery said. “Whether it’s a misdemeanor or a felony, everyone here has at least one.”

John Dockery rolls a joint. He’s sold marijuana since he was 
Stefan Sykes for CNBC 

In Trenton, African Americans represent nearly half of the city’s population. In recent years, the state said it was an “Impact Zone,” or an area where marijuana criminalization contributed to higher concentrations of law enforcement activity, unemployment and poverty. In Mercer County, where Trenton is located, African Americans were more than four times as likely as white residents to be charged with possessing the drug, despite similar rates of usage. 

Dockery said even though he was exactly the kind of applicant the state promised to give priority to while issuing licenses, he was “so used to stuff feeling like it’s not programmed for us” that the award came as a surprise.

From ‘legacy’ to legal

New Jersey lawmakers are hopeful that individuals like Dockery, who dealt marijuana in the existing illegal or “legacy” market, will want to join the burgeoning legal market and apply as social equity applicants.
For longtime dealer Ed Forchion, the decision to go legit concludes a decades-long saga of arrests, raids, court battles and stints in prison. Forchion, 58, has sold marijuana most of his life and gained fame in New Jersey as a staunch advocate for legalization, running for political office in the state through his Legalize Marijuana Party.

Ed Forchion, who also goes by “NJ Weedman,” stands outside of Trenton City Hall. Marijuana is decriminalized in New Jersey, and individuals like Forchion have largely had their offenses reversed in recent years.
Stefan Sykes for CNBC

He began selling weed openly at his Trenton storefront in 2016. His dispensary, “NJ Weedman’s Joint,” sits opposite Trenton’s City Hall.
“Who wants the threat of arrest all the time?” said Forchion, who also goes by the moniker “NJ Weedman”. “While I was willing to fight, while I was willing to battle, I’d much rather pay taxes and be legal, and be considered an ingenious, smart, intelligent businessman, rather than a conniving, manipulative drug dealer.”
Marijuana is decriminalized in the state, and individuals like Forchion have largely had their offenses reversed in recent years.
While he’s ready to join the legal market, Forchion sees some shortcomings to the framework proposed by the Cannabis Regulatory Commission, such as its ban on dispensaries selling food or drinks of any kind. 

Ed Forchion smokes marijuana in his dispensary located across the street from Trenton City Hall. His decision to go legit concludes a decades-long saga of arrests, raids, court battles and stints in prison.
Stefan Sykes for CNBC 

“I don’t see how I can comply,” said Forchion, whose dispensary doubles as a restaurant.
Nevertheless, Forchion applauds the agency’s efforts for paving a way for people like him. He’s also moving towards legitimacy – albeit at his own pace.
“The black market was here first, so the state’s going to have to catch up to me and people like me,” he said. “But my goal in the end is to hand a thriving, legal business to my kids.”

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James Bullard, president of Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, at the Jackson Hole economic symposium, in Moran, Wyoming, U.S., on Thursday, Aug. 22, 2019.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

This report is from today’s CNBC Daily Open, our new, international markets newsletter. CNBC Daily Open brings investors up to speed on everything they need to know, no matter where they are. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.
U.S. stocks are cowed by a persistently hot economy — and hawkish rhetoric from the Fed.

What you need to know today

The U.S. producer price index, which measures inflation at the wholesale level, rose 0.7% in January. It was the biggest increase since June, and 0.3 percentage points higher than economists had expected.

Tesla is recalling 362,758 vehicles equipped with its experimental driver-assistant software. The company warned that the software, known as Full Self-Driving Beta, may cause vehicles to crash.

PRO Crypto is making a comeback in 2023, according to Bernstein analyst Gautam Chhugani. Investors may be viewing recent regulatory actions in the U.S. as less severe than they had expected.

The bottom line

Looking at the January figures, the U.S. economy is firing on all cylinders. A quick recap: The lowest unemployment rate in 53 years. A rebound in consumer spending despite higher prices. And overnight, we found out that the producer price index rose the most in eight months. This almost bizarrely strong economy implies that inflation — while still falling — remains uncomfortably high and sticky.

For a while, it seemed as if markets could live with that — and even embrace it as a new normal, in which economic growth can exist comfortably with inflation higher than 2%. With each hotter-than-expected inflation report, markets rose.
Until yesterday. Markets finally caved in. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.26%, the S&P 500 lost 1.38% and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.78%. “It shouldn’t be a surprise to see the market take a breather as hopes of a dovish Fed in the coming months fade,” said Mike Loewengart, head of model portfolio construction at Morgan Stanley.
Indeed, it’s not just that Federal Reserve doves might be fluttering away. It’s that the hawks are swooping in. Markets had widely anticipated, and priced in, 25 basis-point interest rate hikes for the Fed’s next two meetings. Yesterday, that forecast was badly shaken.
St. Louis Federal President James Bullard said Thursday that he “was an advocate for a 50-basis-point hike and … argued that we should get to the level of rates the committee viewed as sufficiently restrictive as soon as we could.” Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester echoed Bullard’s hawkishness, saying she wants higher rate increases. Neither Mester nor Bullard vote this year on the Federal Open Market Committee, but their sentiments could signal a Fed increasingly determined to strangle inflation.

Subscribe here to get this report sent directly to your inbox each morning before markets open.
Correction: This report has been updated to accurately state the U.S. trading day it discusses. An earlier version used the wrong day of the week. More

Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania checked himself into a hospital to “receive treatment for clinical depression,” his chief of staff said.
Fetterman had suffered a debilitating stroke on the campaign trail before winning his first term in office.
Fetterman had been hospitalized last week after feeling lightheaded. His doctors determined that he had not suffered another stroke, his office said at the time.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) departs a closed-door, classified briefing for Senators at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023 in Washington, DC.
Kent Nishimura | Los Angeles Times | Getty Images

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., checked himself into a hospital to “receive treatment for clinical depression,” his chief of staff said Thursday.
Fetterman, the 53-year-old freshman senator who last year suffered a debilitating stroke on the campaign trail, was admitted to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, on Wednesday night, chief of staff Adam Jentleson said in a statement.

“While John has experienced depression off and on throughout his life, it only became severe in recent weeks,” the statement said.
“On Monday, John was evaluated by Dr. Brian P. Monahan, the attending physician of the United States Congress,” the chief of staff said. “Yesterday, Dr. Monahan recommended inpatient care at Walter Reed. John agreed, and he is receiving treatment on a voluntary basis.”
“After examining John, the doctors at Walter Reed told us that John is getting the care he needs, and will soon be back to himself,” Jentleson said.
Fetterman had been hospitalized last week after feeling lightheaded. His doctors determined that he had not suffered another stroke, his office said at the time.
“After what he’s been through in the past year, there’s probably no one who wanted to talk about his own health less than John,” his wife, Gisele Fetterman, said in a pair of tweets Thursday afternoon. “I’m so proud of him for asking for help and getting the care he needs.”

She asked for privacy during the “difficult time for our family,” adding: “Take care of yourselves. Hold your loved ones close, you are not alone.”
Fetterman missed votes on Capitol Hill on Wednesday night and Thursday, NBC News reported.
Fetterman said in June that he had “almost died” after suffering a stroke in May, shortly before winning his party’s nomination to run for the Senate seat in Pennsylvania that was held by now-retired Republican Sen. Pat Toomey.
The stroke took Fetterman, then the state’s lieutenant governor, off the campaign trail for months. When he made his public return, Fetterman said he was suffering from lingering auditory processing and speech issues.
He struggled significantly to deliver clear thoughts during his one and only debate with his Republican opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, in October.
But Fetterman maintained a polling advantage over Oz, a celebrity doctor and TV host backed by former President Donald Trump, even while he was absent from public view.
His victory over Oz in the midterms flipped a red seat blue and helped Democrats extend their slim majority in the Senate.
Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania said he was proud of his fellow Democrat “for getting the help he needs and for publicly acknowledging his challenges to break down the stigma for others.”
It’s common for stroke survivors to experience depression, and the cause may be biochemical or psychological, according to the American Stroke Association.
Fetterman had been frustrated with his post-stroke health challenges throughout the campaign, his staff has told NBC. His difficulties with communication have also had an impact on his relationship with his family, as has his time away from them due to his Senate duties, NBC reported.
“Millions of Americans, like John, struggle with depression each day. I am looking forward to seeing him return to the Senate soon,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a tweet.

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The three unmanned aerial objects that were shot down over the weekend by the U.S. military were “most likely tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions,” President Joe Biden said.
“Nothing right now suggests that they were related to China’s spy balloon program,” he added.
The remarks came after days of mounting pressure on the White House, from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, to share more of what was known with the public.

WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden said Thursday that three unmanned aerial objects shot down over the weekend by the U.S. military were “most likely tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions,” and were not connected to the massive Chinese surveillance balloon that was shot down on Feb. 4.
“We don’t yet know what these three objects were, but nothing right now suggests that they were related to China’s spy balloon program or that they were surveillance vehicles from any other country,” Biden said at the White House.

The remarks came after days of mounting pressure from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, who said the American people deserved to hear from the president exactly what the administration knew about the spy balloon and why Biden later ordered three more floating objects shot down by American fighter jets.
The president explained that in the wake of the Chinese balloon, American military defense radars raised their sensitivity levels “to pick up more slow-moving objects above our country and around the world.”
“In doing so, they tracked three unidentified objects, in Alaska, Canada and over Lake Huron in the Midwest,” he said.
“I gave the order to take down these three objects due to hazards to civilian commercial air traffic, and because we could not rule out the surveillance risk over sensitive facilities,” said Biden.

Sailors assigned to Assault Craft Unit 4 prepare material recovered in the Atlantic Ocean from a high-altitude balloon brought down over U.S. territorial waters on February 4 for transport to federal agents at Joint Expeditionary Base-Little Creek in Virginia Beach, Virginia, February 10, 2023.
Ryan Seelbach | US Navy Photo | via Reuters

As of Thursday, the White House said it had recovered key surveillance technology from the Chinese balloon. “What we learn will strengthen our capabilities,” he added.

It was not clear whether any debris from the three smaller objects had been recovered, or for how long those efforts would continue.
Following the destruction of the spy balloon, the United States announced new sanctions last week on six Chinese military and aerial technology firms for their alleged involvement in China’s global aerial surveillance program.
On Thursday, Beijing announced its intent to levy sanctions against major U.S. defense contractors in an apparent retaliation for the American sanctions.
But rather than raise the stakes even higher with his remarks, Biden sought to defuse tensions between the world’s two largest economies, tensions that some experts say are near an all-time high.
“We seek competition, not conflict with China,” said the president. “We’re not looking for a new Cold War … we will compete and will we responsibly manage that competition so that it doesn’t veer into conflict.”
The spy balloon episode, he said, “underscores the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between our diplomats and military professionals” in Beijing and Washington.
Biden also said he expected to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping and “get to the bottom” of what happened.

Two white balloons float near the Chinese flag as activist Rev. Patrick Mahoney protests against the Chinese government over the alleged Chinese surveillance balloon that was shot down over the US last week, during a demonstration outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington, DC, February 15, 2023.
Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images

Speaking later to NBC’s Peter Alexander, Biden said the balloon incident was an example of the hundreds of individual events “of consequence” that occur between two major world powers like the U.S. and China, which are significant on their own, but “don’t necessarily reflect any fundamental change in policy.”
“I think the last thing that Xi wants is to fundamentally rip the relationship with the United States that was made, in terms of access” to U.S. markets, Biden told Alexander.
The massive Chinese surveillance balloon was first detected in American airspace off of Alaska on Jan. 28, and was shot down on Feb. 4 in U.S. airspace off the coast of South Carolina.
Floating visibly above the continental U.S. and Canada for eight days, the spy balloon caused an outcry, with both the public and members of Congress demanding to know why Biden had not ordered the balloon be shot down sooner.
Less than a week after the spy balloon was destroyed, the first of three more objects was taken down in waters above the Arctic Ocean on Friday. The size of a small car and floating at 40,000 feet, this object was much smaller than the Chinese balloon.
One day later, a balloon that was similar in size and altitude was shot down over the Canadian Yukon. The third floating object was slightly smaller and floating at just 20,000 feet when it was taken out over Lake Huron on Sunday.

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Hasbro is maintaining a conservative outlook, mirroring the modest approach it had in 2022.
Hasbro reported disappointing holiday sales, which it had anticipated given slowing consumer demand.
The toy maker behind Dungeons & Dragons and Transformers thinks things will pick up in the second half of 2023.

A Hasbro Monopoly board game arranged in Dobbs Ferry, New York, Feb. 6, 2022.
Tiffany Hagler-Geard | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Hasbro’s 2023 outlook might feel like déjà vu. At first, anyway.
The toymaker on Thursday announced its fourth-quarter results while issuing conservative guidance for the year, mimicking the modest expectations it had when it entered 2022.

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Hasbro is maintaining some optimism though, pointing to key bright spots from releases like Transformers and its growing Wizards of the Coast gaming division, which houses Dungeons & Dragons, along with the turnaround plan it announced in October.
Shares were flat by market close on Thursday.
Hasbro projected that full-year revenue will decline in 2023, but forecasted that the majority of the squeeze will be felt in the first half of the year. Hasbro said it expects revenue for the year to decline in the low-single digits, percentage-wise, which missed Wall Street’s expectations. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv were projecting a 2.2% revenue increase.
The toy industry as a whole has felt a slowdown. Mattel had more optimism than Hasbro going into 2022 and had hoped that the holiday season would boost its dipping sales. But despite its confidence, the company underperformed in consumer product sales for its fourth quarter.
CEO Chris Cocks said on a call with analysts that he expects the slowing consumer demand that weighed on this year’s sales will continue into the first three quarters of 2023, but he hopes it will lighten up in the last quarter.

Cocks also said on the call that Hasbro would be looking to introduce a product line priced between $20 to $30, a cheaper option to help target the inflation-weary consumer.
In the toy industry, “anything below $30 is performing quite well. Anything above that is performing quite poorly,” UBS Executive Director Arpiné Kocharyan told CNBC.
Hasbro is maintaining hope that new releases like expansion packs for Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering games will pay off and compensate for product sales declines. “There’s a lot of entertainment coming in Q2 that will have a nice halo effect in Q3 and Q4,” said Cocks. The company announced on Thursday that Magic: The Gathering is on track to be its first billion-dollar brand.
In general, for Wizards of the Coast, Cocks said, “You should expect an up Q1, a down Q2, a significant up Q3, and a fair up Q4,” which is based on the timing of the game’s new releases.
“By and large, this company outlook is going to be determined by how strong Wizard is,” Kocharyan told CNBC, noting that the gaming segment was a boon for dips in product sales.
“For this company, in terms of what makes or breaks it, a strong 2023 is going to be determined by how they fix some of the core brand portfolio led by Nerf,” Kocharyan added. Nerf lost some market share in the fourth quarter due to lower-priced competition.
The company, which houses brands like Peppa Pig and Play-Doh, has taken several hits in recent times, which led it to proceed with caution into 2022.
Hasbro started the year by losing the battle for Disney princess licensing rights to its rival Mattel in January. It also exited other brand licenses including Trolls. Then in February, the company adjusted to new leadership with Cocks taking over as CEO from interim chief Rich Stoddart after former CEO Brian Goldner died in 2021. Pandemic disruption to its film productions also meant delaying a key revenue stream that had helped buoy sagging product sales.
All of those factors, along with rising costs, slowing consumer demand, and exiting markets like Russia, amounted to about $300 million in revenue headwinds. Cocks said that he anticipates the majority of those headwinds to weigh on revenue for the first two quarters of 2023.
Kocharyan said she has some reservations as to how much the company can reliably predict an upswing in the second half of 2023.
The company reported a disappointing holiday quarter for 2022, which it had been anticipating due to outsized inventory without enough consumer demand to sell it off. It posted $1.68 billion in revenue, matching Wall Street’s expectations.
“As we announced previously, our fourth quarter and full-year 2022 results came in below our expectations,” said Cocks in the fourth-quarter earnings statement released Thursday. The toymaker cut 15% of its workforce in January in an effort to slim down costs amid sluggish performance in its consumer products division.
This is the first full quarter since Hasbro announced its three-year turnaround plan in October. The company had said it would focus its priorities on its direct to consumer segment, licensing and entertainment. The company has set a goalpost to secure a 20% operating profit margin by 2027.

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