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Ex-police commissioner on Jacob Blake shooting: 'Video does not tell the whole story'

Former Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis reacts to Wisconsin officials not charging the officer who shot Jacob Blake.

Latest Stories

  • GameStop closes up 51% after chaotic day of trading

    GameStop (GME) shares closed 51% higher at $65.01 each on Friday after an apparent crush on short-sellers.

  • Powerball winner in Maryland should remember this before cashing the $730 million ticket: expert

    Be wise with how you allocate your money, $730 million Powerball winner.

  • Biden’s Student Loan Freeze Shows Path to Erase Billions of Debt

    (Bloomberg) -- Thanks to vagaries of the accounting world, Donald Trump’s administration had a chance in the final weeks of the presidential race to cancel more than $200 billion of student loans with no immediate hit to the Department of Education’s massive portfolio. Yet it didn’t do it.Now, perhaps Joe Biden will.For years, bean counters at the department have been writing down the value of its $1.4 trillion portfolio of student debt as they adopted ever-more-pessimistic views of how much borrowers will repay. In September, the analysts made their biggest adjustment yet, valuing loans at just 82 cents on every dollar owed, down from 104 cents in 2015, records show. The debt is now worth $258 billion less than the amount outstanding.Had officials under Education Secretary Betsy DeVos decided to identify some of the borrowers least likely to repay, and then forgiven those debts, it wouldn’t have put a major dent in the remaining portfolio’s value. Such losses were, theoretically, already reflected anyway.By Wall Street standards, the government’s loan writedowns are gigantic, amounting to $98 billion in September alone. While they have gone virtually unnoticed in the political realm so far, they are almost sure to attract attention now, as consumer advocates urge Biden’s new administration to ease the burden on young professionals and jump-start the pandemic-stricken economy.Some are starting to ask: If the government doesn’t expect to collect hundreds of billions of dollars from borrowers, why not try to erase it now?“Betsy DeVos has already decided that a bunch of this debt is not going to be paid back,” said Mike Pierce, director of policy at the nonprofit Student Borrower Protection Center and a former official at the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. “That makes it much easier for the Biden administration to justify canceling.”The Education Department didn’t respond to messages seeking comment both before and after the change in administration.Loans or RentShortly after his inauguration as U.S. president on Wednesday, Biden asked the department to extend his predecessor’s pandemic policy of waiving interest and to continue letting borrowers skip monthly payments on government-owned student loans until at least the end of September. About 24 million borrowers have stopped payments, department data show.Biden has expressed sympathy for borrowers but suggested he’s reluctant to wipe away debt without an act of Congress. In November, he said student-loan burdens are “holding people up. They’re in real trouble. They’re having to make choices between paying their student loan and paying their rent.”While Wall Street often values its debt holdings based on the prices they would fetch in the market, the government’s markdowns mainly reflect “amounts not expected to be recovered.” From a valuation perspective, that means there wouldn’t be much immediate difference between forgiving doomed loans and waiting for borrowers to turn out their empty pockets.Still, there’s the issue of moral hazard: If authorities offer relief to struggling borrowers, it could create an incentive for others to stop repaying too, causing more of the portfolio to sour.Rush for ReliefMuch of the gap between what is owed and what the government reckons will be repaid stems from loan programs that cap monthly payments relative to borrowers’ incomes. Income-based repayment plans promise the possibility of loan forgiveness after two decades of steady payment, or one decade for public-service workers. As annual borrower defaults climbed past 1 million, Barack Obama’s administration made the repayment plans increasingly generous. Enrollment has tripled since 2014.The anticipated cost of income-based plans has risen, too. The Education Department recently realized borrowers in the plans were earning “substantially” less than it had forecast. So the government cut its projections of borrowers’ future income by 35%, boosting the estimated tab to be forgiven in later years.“There already is significant loan forgiveness,” said Constantine Yannelis, who researches student debt and teaches finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. “We’re just talking about moving it up or giving it to borrowers who wouldn’t qualify for it under current rules.”Yannelis said he recently found that debt owed by lower-income borrowers had a lower present value to the federal government than debt owed by high-income borrowers.Rising OddsAcross-the-board loan cancellations make little sense, but the government has all the information it needs to target forgiveness, said Adam Looney, a finance professor at the University of Utah whose research on student loans dates to his time as a tax official at the U.S. Treasury Department. In fact, he said, the Education Department’s own valuation reflects a belief the government will eventually cancel large amounts owed by people earning little or at least too little relative to their debts.Forgiving loans could encourage future students to over-borrow on the hope that their debts will be wiped away, advisers to the federal consumer bureau warned in a report this month. And that could, in turn, remove some of the pressure on colleges to lower their costs.But there is a growing expectation in the public anyway that relief is coming. In a December survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, respondents estimated there is a 39% chance -- more than ever in five years of polling -- that the federal government will cancel some amount of student loans over the next year.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Dave Ramsey says these are 10 reasons you're not getting ahead

    The financial expert and radio host says these money blunders can be costly.

  • Stock-market legend sees few weeks of ‘putting your last, desperate chips into the game’—then pop

    In an interview with Bloomberg TV's “Front Row,” the storied investor, Jeremy Grantham, who is often credited with several prescient market calls over the past two decades, insists that a steady rise in stocks, fostered by free money from the Federal Reserve and the government can't continue without consequences.

  • The Biden Boom Is Coming And These Stocks Could Soar

    With the Biden Administration likely to pump trillions into green energy infrastructure in the coming years, renewable stocks should outperform the market

  • This former Michigan State University basketball player started selling mortgages in his 20s now he's worth more than $11 billion

    The country's leader in the wholesale mortgage market is now a public company. Here's what the company's CEO Mat Ishbia told Yahoo Finance.

  • Trump's Loan Extension on a Manhattan Building Shows His Debt Options

    (Bloomberg) -- A recently refinanced mortgage for a building in Manhattan may show how Donald Trump is able to deal with his upcoming debt maturities, albeit at a higher cost.Investors Bank agreed to extend the mortgage on Trump Park Avenue, a condo building at the corner of 59th Street, by a year to 2021, according to his latest financial disclosure, released hours after he left office.The interest rate increased 25 basis points to 3.5%. It’s at least the second time the due date has been pushed out since the $23 million loan was originated in 2010, records show. It’s now estimated to be less than $10 million.Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney and fixer, owns a unit there, and other owners have included former baseball star Alex Rodriguez. When Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner lived in the building, Rupert Murdoch and his then-wife Wendi Deng reportedly were among their neighbors, Deng said in 2010.It has since lost some of its cachet. Seven of eight units listed for sale last year on StreetEasy failed to sell. Most were then listed for rent. A one-bedroom condo on the ninth floor that was listed for $2.1 million in 2019 could be rented for $3,600 a month as of last week. The Trump Organization developed the building and still owns more than a dozen of the units, which form collateral for the mortgage.Brian Doran, general counsel at Investors Bank’s parent company, declined to comment.Doral ResortThe Trump Organization has almost $600 million of estimated debt coming due within the next four years. These include loans tied to Trump Tower in New York and the Doral Golf Resort outside Miami, where revenues dropped to $44 million last year from $77 million a year earlier.With longtime lender Deutsche Bank AG refusing to work with the former president, and corporations distancing themselves from the family business, that has raised questions over how easily the debt can be refinanced.Trump’s business would be far from alone in changing loan terms during the pandemic. There’s been a significant increase over the past year in commercial mortgage modifications, particularly in New York City, as Covid-19 wrecked property valuations, halted foreclosures and evictions, and allowed millions of people to temporarily stop paying rent.More than 10% of all commercial mortgages that have been bundled into securities have requested some kind of relief from creditors during the pandemic, said Manus Clancy, a senior managing director at data provider Trepp LLC. Most of those debtors were hotels and retail businesses, he said. Residential property owners have yet to face similar levels of distress.Representatives of the Trump Organization didn’t respond to a request for comment.The mortgage on his Park Avenue building was one of a few loans that came due during Trump’s first term. Three mortgages were paid off in 2017, while the due date on a loan for his Seven Springs estate in Mount Kisco, New York, was extended to 2029 from 2019. The rate on that mortgage increased to 4.5% from 4%.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Palantir Stock, IBD Stock Of The Day, Claws Back As Other Top Software IPOs Struggle

    Snowflake, Palantir and C3.ai marked three of last year's biggest IPOs. All three software growth stocks corrected in late 2020. But Palantir stock has clawed back and boasts high ratings.

  • Short Squeeze Sends GameStop Shares to 2007 Levels. What Happens Next.

    (GME) stock rocketed above its 2007 peak Friday in a move that one short selling expert thinks could possibly kill investor interest in shorting the videogame retailer. Pointing to an earlier squeeze where a moderate amount of older short sellers covered their positions as the stock surged in recent weeks, S3 Partners’ Ihor Dusaniwsky told Barron’s he thinks today’s action has piled up mark-to-market losses for even newer short sellers betting on a price decline.

  • If I inherit a Roth IRA, are the distributions taxed?

    Q: When the inheritor of a Roth IRA receives the funds, is it true that the distributions would not be taxed? It would be unusual for any taxes to be due on an RMD from an inherited Roth IRA. The only portion of an inherited IRA that could be subject to tax is earnings.

  • With Biden, you could get a 'stimulus check' for health insurance

    The $1.9 trillion relief bill could slash your premiums by hundreds of dollars.

  • BlackBerry Insiders Unload Shares Amid Biggest Rally in 21 Years

    (Bloomberg) -- Corporate insiders unloaded shares of BlackBerry Ltd. amid a frenzy of buying that turned it one of the hottest stocks of the new year.BlackBerry shares rallied about 5% on Friday to extend a seven-day advance to 80%, its biggest such percentage increase since February 2000. Thus far this year, the stock has more than doubled, making it the top performer in the S&P/Toronto Stock Exchange Composite Index. The shares closed at their highest price since March 2018 on Thursday.At least two BlackBerry executives sold shares amid the advance, according to filings with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission. Chief Marketing Officer Mark Wilson on Jan. 20 sold more than $990,000 of BlackBerry stock, reducing his directly owned shares by nearly 60%. Chief Financial Officer Steve Rai also sold nearly $430,000 of the stock on the same day, liquidating all directly owned shares.“The executives traded during an open trading window as permitted under company policy, and all of our executives continue to have strong equity-based incentives through our long-term equity program,” BlackBerry said in a statement to Bloomberg.The insider sales are not a sign that the stock will collapse, according to Jonathan Moreland, an analyst at Insiderinsights.com.“What it suggests is that these very knowledgeable corporate insiders think this is a pretty good price,” he said. “So if you’re a holder, you might consider lightening up a bit.”Much of the stock’s recent advance came after it settled a dispute with Facebook over patent royalties.The terms of the settlement weren’t disclosed, but “may not yield a royalty payment as significant as BlackBerry had originally hoped,” wrote John Butler, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. He speculated that the final accord may possibly “take the form of a cross-licensing agreement, with minimal royalties exchanging hands.”Earlier this month, the Globe and Mail reported that BlackBerry had sold 90 patents to China’s Huawei. In December, the company signed an agreement with Amazon Web Services for an “Intelligent Vehicle Data Platform.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • EVgo to go public via SPAC in bid to power EV charging expansion

    EVgo, the wholly owned subsidiary of LS Power that owns and operates public fast chargers for electric vehicles, has reached a deal to become a publicly traded company through a merger with special-purpose acquisition company Climate Change Crisis Real Impact I Acquisition Corporation. The combined company, which will be listed under the new ticker symbol "EVGO" will have a market valuation of $2.6 billion. LS Power and EVgo management, which today own 100% of the company will be rolling all of its equity into the transaction.

  • Never got a stimulus check? A new Biden executive order aims to fix that

    The president has ordered the Treasury to get money to those who are still waiting.

  • JPMorgan Upgrades Ford: 'Incoming Tide Of Hot New Products'

    A great week for Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) got even better on Friday when the stock got a major upgrade from a big name Wall Street bank.The Ford Analyst: JPMorgan analyst Ryan Brinkman upgraded Ford's stock from Neutral to Overweight and raised his price target from $11 to $14.The Ford Thesis: Brinkman said Ford's "incoming tide of hot new products," including the Mustang Mach-E, the F-160 pickup and the Bronco, will likely drive near-term earnings upside. He said the new F-150 will have the biggest impact on Ford's financials starting in the second quarter of 2021."Additional factors working in Ford's favor are a new CEO laser focused on improving execution, a budding turnaround in China, and the recent bold move to restructure its South American operations, thereby freeing capital for more profitable growth initiatives," Brinkman wrote in a note.JPMorgan is calling for 2021 Ford EPS of $1.45, well ahead of Wall Street consensus estimates of just $1.02.Related Link: How Option Traders Are Playing Ford Following .7B Rivian EV Truck InvestmentThe upgrade comes the same week Ford electric truck investment Rivian raised more than $2.7 billion at a $28 billion valuation. Ford has an undisclosed stake in Rivian after investing $500 million in the company at a much lower valuation back in April 2019. Ford has said it's spending more than $11.5 billion in EVs through 2022.Ford shares are higher by 12% in the past week, but Brinkman sees additional upside ahead for both Ford and General Motors Company (NYSE: GM). Earlier this week, Brinkman reiterated an Outperform rating for GM and raised his price target from $49 to $63.On Friday, Brinkman also raised his price target for Neutral-rated Ferrari NV (NYSE: RACE) from $180 to $195 and for Underweight-rated Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) from $105 to $125.Benzinga's Take: EV stocks have been some of the hottest investments in the market in the past couple of years, but Ford has been mostly left out of that rally. However, if Ford investor sentiment is finally starting to turn, the stock has a long way to go to close the valuation gap with other EV stocks.Latest Ratings for F DateFirmActionFromTo Jan 2021JP MorganUpgradesNeutralOverweight Nov 2020Morgan StanleyDowngradesOverweightEqual-Weight Nov 2020UBSMaintainsNeutral View More Analyst Ratings for F View the Latest Analyst RatingsSee more from Benzinga * Click here for options trades from Benzinga * How Option Traders Are Playing Ford Following .7B Rivian EV Truck Investment * This Day In Market History: Alan Greenspan Issues Dot-Com Bubble Warning(C) 2021 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

  • What Is A Dividend? Plus The 5 Best Dividend Stocks Now

    What is a dividend and which companies have the best-yielding dividends? Read on for a primer on how best to approach this method of investing.

  • Top Cannabis Analysts Share Why They Are Bullish on These 2 Stocks

    Joe Biden has been inaugurated as the 46th President, just two weeks after the Democrats locked down control of the Senate with wins in both Georgia Senatorial runoff elections. These events give the Dems control of both Houses of Congress and the White House. While their Congressional margins are narrow – the narrowest possible in the Senate, where new Vice President Kamala Harris will have to cast tie-breaking votes in a 50-50 chamber – the Democrats do have the votes needed to push through their legislative agenda. And part of that agenda is Federal cannabis legislation. Don’t expect it to happen right away, as Congress and President Biden will have plenty of other priorities to handle first. But Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, a leading politician of the Democrats’ progressive wing, promised state-level legalization in his State of the State address – and like California, New York tends to be a trendsetter. In addition, Biden has tapped Federal judge Merrick Garland as his choice to head the Department of Justice; Garland is generally seen as centrist, but he has a judicial record from the Federal bench of respecting state-level cannabis legalization regimes. “[With] room for equity valuations to continue moving higher, we remain bullish on US cannabis and believe 2021 will be a pivotal year for the industry… We think investors will increasingly benefit from better visibility into company-specific growth rates and operational metrics through 2021... We also look for a continuation of state-led legalization initiatives,” Cormark Securities' Jesse Pytlak noted. Bearing this in mind, we used TipRanks’ database to take a closer look at two cannabis stocks backed by top cannabis analysts. These names received enough support from the analyst community to earn a “Strong Buy” consensus rating. Aphria, Inc. (APHA) Headquartered in Leamington, Ontario, Aphria is one of the giants of Canada’s legal cannabis sector. The company boasts a market cap exceeding CA$4 billion, and reported over CA$160.5 million in its last fiscal quarter, a year-over-year gain of 33%. That figure was a company record. The company announced in December an agreement for merger and acquisition with competing firm Tilray, a move that will create the world’s largest cannabis company, with a market value of CA$5 billion. The agreement will see all Aphria shareholders receive 0.8381 shares of Tilray. The merged entity will operate under the TLRY stock ticker when the move is completed. In the meantime, investors can take comfort in Aphria’s share growth. The stock is up 124% over the past 52 weeks. A significant portion of that gain has come in the 5 weeks since announcing the Tilray deal; APHA shares have appreciated 58% in that time. Aphria has caught the eye of 5-star Cantor analyst Pablo Zunaic, who believes that the company’s prospects are “[all] about what APHA + TLRY can do in a fast-deregulating cannabis world.” Zunaic added, “The leading Canadian company (16% APHA rec share plus TLRY 4% share), with a budding international unit (exporting to Israel, Germany Poland, Malta; production in Germany/Portugal; owned German distribution), plus ancillary assets that may be useful depending on the shape of future deregulation, should deserve a premium…” In line with these comments, the analyst rates APHA an Overweight (i.e. Buy), and his CA$26 price target implies a 59% upside potential from current levels. (To watch Zunaic’s track record, click here) Zunaic isn’t the only analyst bullish on Aphria. The company has 10 recent reviews, and their breakdown is 8 Buys against 2 Holds, making the analyst consensus view a Strong Buy. However, the recent share appreciation has pushed the trading price above the CA$15.09 average price target; APHA shares are now priced at CA$16.32. (See APHA stock analysis on TipRanks) Trulieve Cannabis (TCNNF) Trulieve is a $5.23 billion medical cannabis company, operating in California, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. The company’s headquarters are in Florida, the nation’s third-largest state by population, where it commands a 51% market share in the medical cannabis sector. The rapid growth of medical cannabis has fueled a tremendous growth in Trulieve’s share price over the past year. Trulieve shares have gained a truly impressive 296% over the past 12 months. Medical cannabis is a profitable and growing market, and Trulieve’s revenues reflect that. The company has reported a steadily increasing top line for the past two year, with the most recent quarterly report, 3Q20, showing $136.3 million, a company record and a 13% gain quarter-over-quarter. Matt McGinley, 5-star analyst from Needham, sums up a bullish case on Trulieve, noting: “While our fundamental outlook for the industry and this company have not materially changed into '21, prospects for federal reforms have improved as have prospects for funding that growth based on recent capital markets activity. As such, we believe multiples will re-rate higher to more appropriately reflect the high rate of growth of the industry.” Unsurprisingly, the analyst rates TCNNF an Outperform (i.e. Buy), and sets a price target of $60.50, suggesting that the stock will grow ~38% over the next 12 months. (To watch McGinley’s track record, click here) The Strong Buy analyst consensus rating on this stock shows that Wall Street agrees on the value of Trulieve. The rating is based on 6 unanimous Buy reviews. The average price target of $49.49 suggests an upside of ~13% from the current trading price of $43.93. (See Trulieve stock analysis on TipRanks) To find good ideas for cannabis stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.

  • How Is Your 401(k) Taxed When You Retire?

    The taxes you owe on your 401(k) distributions at retirement depend in large part on whether your funds are in a traditional 401(k) or a Roth 401(k).

  • Get ready for Apple’s first $100 billion quarter in history

    Even a pandemic can't stop Apple Inc. from hitting new records. The smartphone giant is likely to post its first-ever quarter with revenue above $100 billion Wednesday.