The back-to-back combustible Senate confirmation hearings are over. But Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), still faces crucial committee and full Senate confirmation votes in his mission to lead 18 powerful federal agencies that oversee the nation’s food and health. Testifying in front of the Senate Finance ...
President Donald Trump’s FBI director nominee Kash Patel sparred with Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday in his lengthy confirmation hearing, where he faced off with lawmakers on issues ranging from Trump’s pardoning of Jan. 6 rioters, his role in elevating a song released by the Jan. 6 inmate choir, and his previous call to shut down the FBI headquarters in ...
Innovate UK has temporarily halted its Smart Grants programme—worth £25 million a year—to overhaul how it supports small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The pause aims to address oversubscription issues, with success rates reportedly falling below 10 per cent for applicants, and possibly as low as 2 per cent according to some. Under the existing scheme, SMEs could claim up to ...
Homebase collapsed into administration in November, revealing it owed more than £650 million to unsecured creditors including AO World, Halfords, and The Hut, according to documents newly filed at Companies House. Teneo, the appointed administrator, disclosed that unsecured non-preferential creditor claims totalled £657 million—a sum that includes around £100 million owed to trade creditors. Unsecured creditors rank behind secured creditors ...
Premium mixer maker Fevertree has secured a deal with US beverage giant Molson Coors that will see the latter take an 8.5 per cent stake in the British-based company for £71 million, or 654.2p per share. The move, underpinned by an exclusive licensing agreement, aims to boost Fevertree’s sales, distribution and production footprint across the United States. Shares in Fevertree, ...
OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, is in discussions to raise close to $40 billion in fresh funding—almost doubling its valuation to as high as $340 billion, according to reports. The San Francisco-based company was last valued at $157 billion in October, when it secured $6.6 billion of investment. Microsoft led a previous round of financing totalling $10 billion, integrating OpenAI’s ...
The Senate Thursday evening advanced President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Energy to a final confirmation vote. The vote was 62-35. Chris Wright, the CEO and founder of Liberty Energy Inc., an energy industry service provider based in Colorado, was tapped by the 47th president to head the Department of Energy under his administration. The Trump nominee ...
The Senate has confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department, former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum. He secured confirmation with significant bipartisan support and a 79-18 vote. On Wednesday, senators voted by a 78–20 margin to close debate and move the nomination to a final vote. Burgum appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in ...
The top Republican on the Senate’s chief health committee, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., indicated Thursday during Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s second confirmation hearing of the week that his vote for Trump’s nominee to head Health and Human Services was not a lock, noting that he was ‘struggling’ to confirm Kennedy over his inability to admit vaccines are safe and don’t ...
Conservatives on social media praised Kash Patel, President Donald Trump’s nominee for FBI director, after a thorny exchange with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., during his confirmation hearing on Thursday. That’s a general statement and a mischaracterization of what I said,’ Patel told Klobuchar in response to questioning about a past quote that the senator suggested showed Patel believes some U.S. ...