Apple to pay up to $500 million to settle U.S. lawsuit over slow iPhones

Apple Inc has agreed to pay up to $500 million to settle litigation accusing it of quietly slowing down older iPhones as it launched new models, to induce owners to buy replacement phones or batteries.

The preliminary proposed class-action settlement was disclosed on Friday night and requires approval by U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California.

It calls for Apple to pay consumers $25 per iPhone, which may be adjusted up or down depending on how many iPhones are eligible, with a minimum total payout of $310 million.

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U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear Democratic bid to save Obamacare

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a politically explosive case on whether Obamacare is lawful, taking up a bid by 20 Democratic-led states including New York and California to save the landmark healthcare law.

The impetus for the Supreme Court case was a 2018 ruling by a federal judge in Texas that Obamacare as currently structured in light of a key Republican-backed change made by Congress violates the U.S. Constitution and is invalid in its entirety. The ruling came in a legal challenge to the law by Texas and 17 other conservative states backed by President Donald Trump’s administration.

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Stock markets are headed for a 40 percent plunge, says economist who predicted financial crisis

The end of a very rough week for U.S. markets brought a worrying prediction.

While one expert warned fallout from the global coronavirus outbreak could be “worse than the financial crisis” of 2008, the economist who correctly predicted that very crisis is now saying the idea of a major global recession “doesn’t sound too farfetched.”

Nouriel Roubini, a New York University business professor and market prognosticator who foretold the housing bubble burst, told Yahoo Finance on Friday to expect “severe” consequences as the coronavirus continues to rattle markets. How severe? He told Der Spiegel it could be worse than investors even believe at this point, predicting “global equities to tank by 30 to 40 percent this year.”

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Judge sentences Trump adviser Stone to three years and four months in prison

A federal judge on Thursday sentenced President Donald Trump’s long-time adviser Roger Stone to three years and four months in prison for charges that include lying to lawmakers investigating Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson handed down the sentence after Stone’s lawyer asked that the veteran Republican operative receive no prison time in a case that has drawn Trump’s ire. Stone’s belligerence and lies represents “a threat to our democracy,” the judge said in a stern lecture during the hours-long sentencing hearing.

“He was not prosecuted – as some have complained – for standing up for the president. He was prosecuted for covering up for the president,” Jackson said.

“There was nothing unfair, phony or disgraceful about the investigation or the prosecution,” Jackson added, citing words that Trump has used.

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Kobe Bryant death: Latest news, updates, reactions as Lakers legend, NBA icon dies at 41 in helicopter crash

Los Angeles Lakers icon and five-time NBA champion Kobe Bryant died Sunday in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California. An investigation into the crash that killed all nine people on board, including Bryant, 41, and his 13-year-old daughter Gianna, is ongoing, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

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