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Dominion Voting Systems said Fox News and its parent company still haven’t produced evidence, two months before the two are set to go to trial.
A Fox attorney said he disagreed, pointing out Dominion has been late to produce documents itself.
Dominion sued Fox for $1.6 billion, arguing the company and its networks made false claims that its voting machines rigged the 2020 election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

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

Dominion Voting Systems is calling out Fox News and its parent company, Fox Corp, for failing to turn over evidence, with less than two months before the companies are set to go to trial over a defamation lawsuit.
On Wednesday, attorneys for Dominion and Fox met before a Delaware Superior Court judge to discuss scheduling for upcoming checkpoints.

However, an attorney for Dominion said they are concerned that some evidence – such as certain board meeting minutes and the results of searches of personal drives – has yet to be produced by Fox and its cable TV networks. While this issue was already raised in July and January, the Dominion attorney said Wednesday they are still missing documents.
“We have not gotten anything. We pointed out categories of missing documents for both Fox News and Fox Corp that are still missing. And we are not talking about a document slipping through … we are talking about categories of documents,” said Dominion attorney Justin Nelson on Wednesday.
Nelson said Dominion’s attorneys had been assured that Fox’s legal team would “ask the hard questions about missing documents so that we didn’t have to do it and engage in further discovery practice.”

“And that just hasn’t happened,” Nelson said, “and I understand why because they can’t do it.”
Fox attorney Dan Webb, a veteran trial attorney added to Fox’s roster last year, said he disagreed with much of what Nelson said during the hearing Wednesday.

“The parties are having problems on both sides,” Webb said Wednesday. “I think 70,000 documents were recently produced on damages, which is a huge issue in this case, that were late produced.”
Dominion brought the defamation lawsuit against Fox and its right-wing cable news networks, Fox News and Fox Business, seeking $1.6 billion in damages. It argues the networks and their anchors made false claims that Dominion’s voting machines rigged the results of the 2020 election.
Both attorneys acknowledged that Fox sent a letter to the special master Tuesday night regarding the matter. The Delaware judge on Wednesday didn’t weigh in further.
Dominion’s attorney Nelson refuted any issues Fox raised about Dominion’s production of documents in the case. “As best as I can tell, Dominion has still produced more documents than Fox in this case,” Nelson said.
In recent months, Fox Corp executives including Chairman Rupert Murdoch and his son and Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch have faced questioning as part of the lawsuit.
Meanwhile Fox’s TV personalities, including Maria Bartiromo, Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson have also appeared for depositions.
Hannity reportedly admitted he didn’t believe Dominion cheated Republican Donald Trump in the 2020 election, which Democrat Joe Biden won. The reported statements differ from the claims made on Hannity’s show following the election.
Documents and depositions have otherwise remained private. The New York Times recently requested that the documents in the case be unsealed.
Fox has vigorously denied the claims in the lawsuit that is being watched closely by First Amendment watchdogs and experts. Libel lawsuits are typically centered around one falsehood. But in this case Dominion cites a lengthy list of examples of Fox TV hosts making false claims even after they were shown to be untrue. Media companies are often broadly protected by the First Amendment.
Fox’s calls to dismiss the case have been denied by the court. A trial is slated to begin April 17. Neither side has shown signs of entering settlement talks. Dominion’s attorney said Wednesday the legal team, which had hoped for an earlier trial date, doesn’t want it moved any later despite the issue with evidence production.
“We are put in this impossible situation of preparing for trial where there are missing documents,” Nelson said.
Also Wednesday, Fox posted better-than-expected quarterly earnings bolstered by strong ad revenue. Class A shares of the company rose more than 3%.
Correction: This story was updated to clarify what Dominion’s attorney said about his client’s document disclosure.

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Mattel’s fourth quarter missed analyst’s expectations on sales after a disappointing holiday quarter.
Mattel shares fell sharply in after-hours trading.
Mattel had hoped the holiday season would boost sales as inflationary pressures continue to squeeze consumer demand.

The Mattel company logo is pictured during the inauguration of the expansion of the Montoi plant, in Escobedo, Mexico March 15, 2022.
Daniel Becerril | Reuters

Barbie-maker Mattel posted fourth-quarter results after market close on Wednesday that came in well below Wall Street’s expectations after holiday sales failed to offset slowing consumer demand.
CFO Anthony DiSilvestro attributed the low performance to fewer orders from retailers and higher costs to manage inventory.

The company had hoped that the “all-important holiday season” would be a potential buoy for sales as demand has slowed amid inflation.
“Our fourth quarter results were below our expectations, as the macro-economic environment was more challenging than anticipated,” CEO Ynon Kreiz said in the Wednesday earnings announcement.
Shares of Mattel were down roughly 10% in after-hours trading on Wednesday.
Here’s how Mattel performed in the fourth quarter, compared with what Wall Street anticipated, based on an average of analysts’ estimates compiled by Refinitiv:

Adjusted earnings per share: 18 cents vs. 29 cents expected
Revenue: $1.40 billion vs. $1.68 billion expected

For the three months ended Dec. 31, the company reported net income of $16.1 million, or 5 cents per share, a plunge from $225.8 million, or 64 cents per share, a year earlier.

The toy manufacturing giant had been confident at the beginning of last year that it would continue to ride its pandemic momentum, driven by toy-buying parents trying to keep children at home entertained. It said it expected customers to be minimally fazed by price hikes as inflation and currency headwinds ramped up manufacturing costs.
But customers appeared to feel the squeeze as the company’s toys, like Barbie and Hot Wheels, become increasingly expensive, and the company’s fourth-quarter sales declined 22% year over year .
Mattel saw its North America segment decrease 26% during the period, weighed down by declining sales in its young children’s brands like Fisher-Price, dolls and action figures. International sales also fell, off 18%.
The company underperformed its own full-year earnings expectations, reporting 2022 earnings per share of $1.11. In October, the company cut its forecast to an expected range of $1.32 to $1.42.
As it enters its 2023 fiscal year, Mattel is projecting adjusted earnings per share for the full year of between $1.10 and $1.20. It anticipates continued sales declines in the first half of the year as retailers further reduce inventory levels.
The inflationary environment has put pressure on toy manufacturers industry-wide. Rival toymaker Hasbro cut 15% of its workforce in January and simultaneously warned of weak holiday performance. Hasbro went into the fiscal year markedly more conservative than Mattel as macro pressures mounted and it adjusted to a leadership change.
As consumer demand slows from its pandemic highs, Mattel has been working to diversify its revenue streams, using the intellectual property of its toy brands for non-manufacturing ventures.
Its “Barbie” movie starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling is scheduled for a July 21 release. Mattel announced last April that J.J. Abrams’ production company Bad Robot would produce a Hot Wheels movie in partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery. The company has a dozen other feature films in the works for brands like Polly Pocket, Barney and more.
The project is a part of Kreiz’s larger strategy to use the “built-in fanbase” to transition Mattel from purely a toy manufacturer to a multi-segmented house of toy franchises.

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Disney reported fiscal first-quarter earnings that beat on the top and bottom line.
This is CEO Bob Iger’s first earnings since he returned to the company in November.
A recent price hike for Disney’s streaming services likely led to the loss of around 2.4 million Disney+ subscribers during the quarter.

LOS ANGELES – Smaller subscriber losses and a beat on the top and bottom lines were the highlights of Disney’s fiscal first-quarter earnings report.
While the company’s linear TV and direct-to-consumer units struggled during the period, its theme parks saw significant growth year-over-year.

Shares of the company were up 5% after the bell.
Here are the results, compared with estimates from Refinitiv and StreetAccount:

Earnings per share: 99 cents per share, adj. vs 78 cents per share expected, according to a Refinitiv survey of analysts
Revenue: $23.51 billion vs $23.37 billion expected, according to Refinitiv
Disney+ total subscriptions: 161.8 million vs 161.1 million expected, according to StreetAccount

With CEO Bob Iger back at the helm, Disney is seeking to make a “significant transformation” of its business by reducing expenses and putting the creative power back in the hands of its content creators.
“We believe the work we are doing to reshape our company around creativity, while reducing expenses, will lead to sustained growth and profitability for our streaming business, better position us to weather future disruption and global economic challenges, and deliver value for our shareholders,” Iger said in a statement ahead of the company’s earnings call.
During the call Iger announced that the media and entertainment giant would reorganize, cut thousands of jobs and slash $5.5 billion in costs. The company will now be made up of three divisions:

Disney Entertainment, which includes most of its streaming and media operations
An ESPN division that includes the TV network and ESPN+
A Parks, Experiences and Products unit 

Iger’s return comes as legacy media companies contend with a rapidly shifting landscape, as ad dollars dry up and consumers increasingly cut off their cable subscriptions in favor of streaming. Even the streaming space has been difficult to navigate in recent quarters, as expenses have swelled and consumers become more cost conscious about their media spending.
A recent price hike for Disney’s streaming services likely led to the loss of around 2.4 million Disney+ subscribers during the quarter. The company had been expected to lose more than 3 million, according to StreetAccount.
The company said Wednesday that it will no longer provide long-term subscriber guidance in an effort to “move beyond the emphasis on short-term quarterly metrics,” Iger said on the call. Netflix made a similar decision late last year.
Additionally, as was forecast by Disney in previous quarters, its direct-to-consumer business has once again posted an operating loss. In the most recent quarter, the operating loss was $1.05 billion, narrower than the $1.2 billion Wall Street had predicted.
Net income was $1.28 billion, or 70 cents a share, compared with $1.1 billion, or 60 cents a share, a year ago. Revenue rose 8% to $23.51 billion from $21.82 billion a year ago.
A bright spot for Disney came from its parks, experiences and products divisions, which saw a 21% increase in revenue to $8.7 billion during the most recent quarter.
A little more than $6 billion of that revenue came from its theme park locations. The company said guests spent more time and money during the quarter visiting its parks, hotels and cruises as well as on additive digital products like Genie+ and Lightning Lane.
Additionally, Iger said the company will ask its board to approve the reinstatement of its dividend by the end of the calendar year. Disney suspended its dividends in early 2020 due to the pandemic.
“Our cost-cutting initiatives will make this possible, and while initially it will be a modest dividend, we hope to build upon it over time,” Iger said.
Tune in to CNBC at 9 a.m. ET Thursday for an exclusive interview with Disney CEO Bob Iger.

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Shares of Michael Kors owner Capri Holdings plunged Wednesday.
Revenue fell across the company’s luxury brands, which also include Jimmy Choo and Versace, dragged lower by slowing traffic in China.
The company slashed its earnings forecast for fiscal year 2023 and came in under Wall Street expectations.

A general view outside of a Michael Kors location
Christopher Jue | Michael Kors | Getty Images

Shares of Michael Kors owner Capri Holdings plunged 23% Wednesday after the company missed earnings expectations and cut its annual profit forecast.
High-end fashion companies outperformed many other industries last year amid decades-high inflation, but increasing prices have led some consumers to curb spending on luxury goods. Some industry experts expected brands such as Michael Kors, which has a younger and less wealthy customer base, to take a larger hit than higher-priced brands like Hermès.

Here’s how the company did:

Earnings per share: $1.84 vs. $2.22 expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.
Revenue: $1.51 billion vs. $1.53 billion expected by analysts, according to Refinitiv.

The apparel manufacturer reported a 6% drop in revenue from the year-ago period. Capri reported that net income was $225 million, down from $322 million in the year prior.
Revenue fell across the company’s luxury brands: Michael Kors revenue fell 7.2% year over year to $1.1 billion, Jimmy Choo revenue fell 5.6% to $168 million, and Versace revenue fell 0.8% to $249 million.
Each division posted double-digit revenue declines in Asia as the result of slower store traffic following China’s unwinding of its zero-Covid policy.
Capri also reported a 21% increase in net inventory as of Dec. 31, totaling $1.19 billion. That marked an improvement over the prior quarter, the company said, and it expects inventory levels to fall below the prior year by the end of the current quarter.

“Overall, our performance in the third quarter was more challenging than anticipated,” CEO John Idol said in an earnings release. “We were disappointed with the performance of our global wholesale business in the quarter which resulted in expense deleverage and a lower operating margin.”
Idol said the company has begun efforts to “better align operating expenses with the change in revenue.”
Capri said it now expects full year 2023 sales of $5.56 billion, below analyst expectations of $5.72 billion, according to Refinitiv. The company slashed its full-year earnings per share forecast to $6.10 from a prior forecast of $6.85.
Capri’s fiscal year 2024 forecast came in under estimates, as well: The company expects earnings per share of $6.40 on approximate revenue of $5.8 billion. Analysts polled by Refinitiv had been expecting earnings per share of $7.24 and revenue of $6.03 billion.

Stock chart icon

A 5-day chart of Capri Holdings stock.

Clarification: Capri Holdings said it expects inventory levels to fall below the prior year by the end of the fourth quarter. A previous version of this story misrepresented the company’s statements about inventory.

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Southwest’s COO will faces questions from a Senate panel on Thursday over the airline’s holiday meltdown.
The airline canceled some 16,700 flights in the final days of December.
The debacle made for an $800 million pretax hit and drove the carrier to a net loss last quarter.

A Southwest Airlines passenger jet lands at Chicago Midway International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, on December 28, 2022.
Kamil Krzaczynski | AFP | Getty Images

Southwest Airlines plans to apologize before a Senate panel on Thursday over the carrier’s December meltdown that stranded hundreds of thousands of travelers around Christmas.
“In hindsight, we did not have enough winter operational resilience,” Chief Operating Officer Andrew Watterson said in written testimony, which was reviewed by CNBC, ahead of Senate Commerce Committee hearing.

Southwest canceled more than 16,700 flights between Dec. 21 and Dec. 31 as its crew-scheduling software couldn’t keep pace with massive flight disruptions from brutal coast-to-coast winter weather. The debacle made for an $800 million pretax hit and drove the carrier to a net loss last quarter.
Watterson plans to tell the committee that the carrier has made short-term improvements to communicate more easily with crews when things go wrong and has improved tools that keep track of the operation’s stability.
With those mitigation tools, “we are confident in our flight network and the schedules we have published for sale,” Watterson plans to say, according to the testimony. “The upgrade to the Crew software will equip us to better handle recovery from a mass cancellation event.”
Committee Chair Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., called the hearing as political pressure mounts over a host of flight disruptions last year that drove up the cost of trips, if not derailed them, for thousands of consumers.
Lawmakers also have their sights set on airline fees. President Joe Biden is aiming to crack down on seat charges, among other fees, and mentioned the issue during his State of the Union speech Wednesday night.

Southwest’s CEO Bob Jordan, a more than three-decade veteran at the carrier who has been in the job for one year, will not attend the hearing Thursday. A spokesperson said Jordan had previous commitments, including an employee event.
The hearing will also include testimony from Casey Murray, president of the Southwest pilots’ labor union; Sharon Pinkerton, senior vice president of legislative and regulatory policy at Airlines for America, an industry group that represents the country’s largest airlines; Paul Hudson, president of consumer rights group Flyers’ Rights; and Clifford Winston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

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SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said the company plans to attempt a major Starship milestone: firing all 33 engines at once, a key test before the first orbital launch attempt.
“Tomorrow is a big day for SpaceX,” Shotwell said in Washington, D.C.
SpaceX had hoped to get Starship to space as early as summer 2021.

Starship prototype 24 stacked on top of Super Heavy booster prototype 7 at the company’s facility near Brownsville, Texas on January 9, 2023.

WASHINGTON – SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said Wednesday the company plans to attempt a major Starship milestone this week.
SpaceX on Thursday will attempt a “static fire,” simultaneously testing all 33 engines that sit at the base of Starship’s rocket booster. The company conducted a test firing of 14 of those engines in November, as it pushes to make an orbital launch attempt with a Starship prototype.

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“Tomorrow is a big day for SpaceX,” Shotwell said, speaking at the FAA’s annual Commercial Space Transportation conference in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday.

SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell
Jay Westcott / NASA

Starship is a nearly 400-foot-tall rocket, designed to carry cargo and people beyond Earth. It is also critical to NASA’s plan to return astronauts to the moon, with SpaceX having won a nearly $3 billion contract from the agency in 2021.
Last month the company completed a “wet dress rehearsal,” with Starship prototype 24 stacked on Super Heavy booster prototype 7, in the most recent crucial test.

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Speaking to reporters at the conference, Shotwell on Wednesday emphasized the scale of the prototypes and the experimental nature of a first attempt.
“Keep in mind, this first one is really a test flight … and the real goal is to not blow up the launch pad, that is success,” Shotwell said.

While SpaceX had hoped to conduct the first orbital Starship launch as early as summer 2021, delays in progress and regulatory approval have pushed back that timeline. SpaceX needs a license from the FAA in order to launch Starship, with Shotwell saying “I think we’ll be ready to fly right at the timeframe that we get the license.”
But on the development side, Shotwell said there have been “no big problems” that caused those delays.
“There’s a lot of little things to get done, especially because we weren’t really focusing on the orbital ship — we were focusing on the production systems that will build the ship. We know how to get to orbit,” Shotwell said.

While the company has ramped up the pace of its Falcon series of rockets to a launch every four days, Shotwell noted that those existing rockets can’t be produced at a daily rate.
“Why can’t we build a rocket every day? That’s what we’re focusing on with Starship, is attacking every part of the production process to be able to build lots of these machines,” Shotwell said.
SpaceX is already signing deals to fly crews on Starship, including three privately booked flights by wealthy individuals aiming to go to space and the moon. But Shotwell reiterated a previous caution that CEO Elon Musk has given, noting that Starship needs to launch on “hundreds of flights before we fly people.”

‘Starlink will make money’

The Starlink logo is seen on a mobile device with an grahpic illustration of planet Earth in this illustration photo in Warsaw, Poland on 21 September, 2022.
STR | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Shotwell noted that SpaceX’s current main product, its Falcon rockets and Dragon capsules, “makes money,” with the company’s regular outside fundraising going to its ambitious development projects.
SpaceX raised $750 million at a $137 billion valuation during its most recent round of funding, CNBC reported last month.
“The cash flow from those operations basically pay for our development. Where it falls short, we take external investment,” Shotwell said.
For its satellite internet service Starlink, the company is making progress in the financial stability of the business. SpaceX has launched more than 3,500 satellites to create a global broadband network, with the service reaching 1 million subscribers in December.
“This year, Starlink will make money. We actually had a cash flow positive quarter last year,” Shotwell said.
Asked about SpaceX’s plans to IPO its Starlink business, Shotwell on Wednesday said there is “no update.” Last year, CNBC reported that Musk told employees that the company isn’t likely to take Starlink public until 2025 or later.

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Netflix outlined its long-awaited password-sharing guidelines for users in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain.
The streaming company is testing its crackdown on users outside of the U.S. before launching domestically.
Users will be asked to set a “primary location” for their Netflix accounts and will be allowed two “sub accounts” for users who don’t live in that household.

Netflix sign in page displayed on a laptop sscreen and Netflix logo displayed on a phone screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on January 2, 2023.
Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Netflix on Wednesday outlined its long-awaited password-sharing guidelines, starting first with users in Canada, New Zealand, Portugal and Spain, marking the latest step in the company’s telegraphed crackdown.
The streaming company said users in those countries will be asked to set a “primary location” for their Netflix accounts and will be allowed two “sub accounts” for users who don’t live in that home-base household. Beyond that, the company will charge a monthly fee per extra user: CA$7.99 in Canada, NZ$7.99 in New Zealand, 3.99 euros in Portugal and 5.99 euros in Spain.

“Today, over 100 million households are sharing accounts — impacting our ability to invest in great new TV and films,” said Chengyi Long, the company’s director of product innovation.
Netflix is testing its password-sharing restrictions outside of the U.S. before rolling them out domestically in March. The price in Canada could forecast what it will ultimately charge in the program’s U.S. debut.
The changes announced Wednesday will roll out right away, along with a new “Manage Access and Devices” page that will allow users to curate who has access to their accounts.
If an account has more than the maximum profiles allowed, the user will be able to transfer surplus profiles to a new account and save the additional fee. The transferred profiles will maintain all of their personalized recommendations and viewing history from the original account.
Netflix said it plans to revisit and refine the new account management page based on user feedback.

The user guidelines come after the streamer posted a huge beat in subscriber numbers for its fourth quarter and announced that former CEO Reed Hastings would step down.
The company announced last fall that it would limit password sharing with the stalling of subscriber growth in its U.S.-Canada region.

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A household with the median income in New York City would have to pay nearly 69% of their income to rent the average apartment there, Moody’s Analytics found.
To not be considered rent burdened in New York in the average-priced apartment, a household needs to earn $177,000 or more a year, said Lu Chen and Mary Le, economists at Moody’s Analytics.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images News | Getty Images

New York is the most rent-burdened metro area in the U.S., according to a new report from Moody’s Analytics.
A household with the median income in the Big Apple would need to pay nearly 69% of earnings to rent the averaged-priced apartment there, the research division of the rating agency found.

Families who direct 30% or more of their income to housing typically are considered “rent burdened” by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and “may have difficulty affording necessities such as food, clothing, transportation and medical care.”
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To not be considered rent burdened in New York in the average apartment, a household would need to earn $177,000 or more a year, said Lu Chen and Mary Le, economists at Moody’s Analytics.
Rents can be disproportionately higher than incomes when “the location is highly desirable from a lifestyle or future income perspective,” Chen and Le wrote in an email. “Both of these are true for a place like New York City.”

Keeping rent under 30% is ‘increasingly unattainable’

For decades, people have been advised not to spend more than 30% of their gross income on housing, said Allia Mohamed, co-founder and CEO of Openigloo, which allows renters to review buildings and landlords across the U.S.

However, Mohamed said, “in high-rent cities, in particular, this parameter has become increasingly unattainable.”
Recognizing that problem, the Biden administration last month rolled out a blueprint for a renters’ bill of rights, which aims to add new tenant protections and curtail exorbitant rent increases in certain properties.

More than 44 million households, or roughly 35% of the U.S. population, live in rental housing, according to the White House.
“Renters should have access to housing that is safe, decent and affordable and should pay no more than 30% of household income on housing costs,” the blueprint reads.

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