WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Jack Smith moved to abandon two criminal cases against Donald Trump on Monday, acknowledging that Trump’s return to the White House will preclude attempts to federally prosecute him for retaining classified documents or trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat. The decision was inevitable, since longstanding Justice Department policy says sitting presidents cannot face criminal prosecution. Yet it was still a momentous finale to an unprecedented chapter in political and law enforcement history, as federal officials attempted to hold accountable a former president while he was simultaneously running for another term. Trump emerges indisputably victorious, having successfully delayed the investigations through legal maneuvers and then winning reelection despite indictments that described his actions as a threat to the country's constitutional foundations. “I persevered, against all odds, and WON," Trump exulted in a post on Truth Social, his social media website. He also said that “these cases, like all of the other cases I have been forced to go through, are empty and lawless, and should never have been brought.” The judge in the election case granted prosecutors' dismissal request. A decision in the documents case was still pending on Monday evening. The outcome makes it clear that, when it comes to a president and criminal accusations, nothing supersedes the voters' own verdict. In court filings, Smith's team emphasized that the move to end their prosecutions was not a reflection of the merit of the cases but a recognition of the legal shield that surrounds any commander in chief. “That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Government stands fully behind,” prosecutors said in one of their filings. They wrote that Trump’s return to the White House “sets at odds two fundamental and compelling national interests: on the one hand, the Constitution’s requirement that the President must not be unduly encumbered in fulfilling his weighty responsibilities . . . and on the other hand, the Nation’s commitment to the rule of law.” In this situation, “the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated,” they concluded. Smith’s team said it was leaving intact charges against two co-defendants in the classified documents case — Trump valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos De Oliveira — because “no principle of temporary immunity applies to them.” Steven Cheung, Trump's incoming White House communications director, said Americans “want an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and we look forward to uniting our country.” Trump has long described the investigations as politically motivated, and he has vowed to fire Smith as soon as he takes office in January. Now he will start his second term free from criminal scrutiny by the government that he will lead. The election case brought last year was once seen as one of the most serious legal threats facing Trump as he tried to reclaim the White House. He was indicted for plotting to overturn his defeat to Joe Biden in 2020, an effort that climaxed with his supporters' violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. But the case quickly stalled amid legal fighting over Trump’s sweeping claims of immunity from prosecution for acts he took while in the White House. The U.S. Supreme Court in July ruled for the first time that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution, and sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to determine which allegations in the indictment, if any, could proceed to trial. The case was just beginning to pick up steam again in the trial court in the weeks leading up to this year’s election. Smith’s team in October filed a lengthy brief laying out new evidence it planned to use against him at trial, accusing him of “resorting to crimes” in an increasingly desperate effort to overturn the will of voters after he lost to Biden. In dismissing the case, Chutkan acknowledged prosecutors' request to do so “without prejudice,” raising the possibility that they could try to bring charges against Trump when his term is over. She wrote that is “consistent with the Government’s understanding that the immunity afforded to a sitting President is temporary, expiring when they leave office.” But such a move may be barred by the statute of limitations, and Trump may also try to pardon himself while in office. The separate case involving classified documents had been widely seen as legally clear cut, especially because the conduct in question occurred after Trump left the White House and lost the powers of the presidency. The indictment included dozens of felony counts accusing him of illegally hoarding classified records from his presidency at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and obstructing federal efforts to get them back. He has pleaded not guilty and denied wrongdoing. The case quickly became snarled by delays, with U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon slow to issue rulings — which favored Trump’s strategy of pushing off deadlines in all his criminal cases — while also entertaining defense motions and arguments that experts said other judges would have dispensed with without hearings. In May, she indefinitely canceled the trial date amid a series of unresolved legal issues before dismissing the case outright two months later. Smith’s team appealed the decision, but now has given up that effort. Trump faced two other state prosecutions while running for president. One of them, a New York case involving hush money payments, resulted in a conviction on felony charges of falsifying business records. It was the first time a former president had been found guilty of a crime. The sentencing in that case is on hold as Trump's lawyers try to have the conviction dismissed before he takes office, arguing that letting the verdict stand will interfere with his presidential transition and duties. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office is fighting the dismissal but has indicated that it would be open to delaying sentencing until Trump leaves office. Bragg, a Democrat, has said the solution needs to balance the obligations of the presidency with “the sanctity of the jury verdict." Trump was also indicted in Georgia along with 18 others accused of participating in a sprawling scheme to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election there. Any trial appears unlikely there while Trump holds office. The prosecution already was on hold after an appeals court agreed to review whether to remove Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over her romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she had hired to lead the case. Four defendants have pleaded guilty after reaching deals with prosecutors. Trump and the others have pleaded not guilty. Associated Press writers Colleen Long, Michael Sisak and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this story.A Stanford University misinformation expert who was called out in a federal court case in Minnesota for submitting a sworn declaration that contained made-up information has blamed an artificial intelligence chatbot. And the bot generated more errors than the one highlighted by the plaintiffs in the case, professor Jeff Hancock wrote in an apologetic court filing, saying he did not intend to mislead the court or any lawyers. “I express my sincere regret for any confusion this may have caused,” Hancock wrote. Lawyers for a YouTuber and Minnesota state legislator suing to overturn a Minnesota law said in a court filing last month that Hancock’s expert-witness declaration contained a reference to a study, by authors Huang, Zhang, Wang, that did not exist. They believed Hancock had used a chatbot in preparing the 12-page document, and called for the submission to be thrown out because it might contain more, undiscovered AI fabrications. It did: After the lawyers called out Hancock, he found two other AI “hallucinations” in his declaration, according to his filing in Minnesota District Court. The professor, founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab, was brought into the case by Minnesota’s attorney general as an expert defense witness in a lawsuit by the state legislator and the satirist YouTuber. The lawmaker and the social-media influencer are seeking a court order declaring unconstitutional a state law criminalizing election-related, AI-generated “deepfake” photos, video and sound. Hancock’s legal imbroglio illustrates one of the most common problems with generative AI , a technology that has taken the world by storm since San Francisco’s OpenAI released its ChatGPT bot in November 2022. The AI chatbots and image generators often produce errors known as hallucinations, which in text can involve misinformation, and in images, absurdities like six-fingered hands. In his regretful filing with the court, Hancock — who studies AI’s effects on misinformation and trust — detailed how his use of OpenAI’s ChatGPT to produce his expert submission led to the errors. Hancock confessed that in addition to the fake study by Huang, Zhang, Wang, he had also included in his declaration “a nonexistent 2023 article by De keersmaecker & Roets,” plus four “incorrect” authors for another study. Seeking to bolster his credibility with “specifics” of his expertise, Hancock claimed in the filing that he co-wrote “the foundational piece” on communication mediated by AI. “I have published extensively on misinformation in particular, including the psychological dynamics of misinformation, its prevalence, and possible solutions and interventions,” Hancock wrote. He used ChatGPT 4.0 to help find and summarize articles for his submission, but the errors likely got in later when he was drafting the document, Hancock wrote in the filing. He had inserted the word “cite” into the text he gave the chatbot, to remind himself to add academic citations to points he was making, he wrote. “The response from GPT-4o, then, was to generate a citation, which is where I believe the hallucinated citations came from,” Hancock wrote, adding that he believed the chatbot also made up the four incorrect authors. Related Articles Education | Bay Area native’s online talk show interviews AI chatbots Education | Letters: Simitian farewell thank you | Growing footprint | SNAP reauthorization | DOGE ax | Democratic apathy | Shifting burden Education | Court declaration by Stanford AI fakery expert contained apparent AI fakery, lawyers claim Education | Apple readies more conversational Siri in bid to catch up in AI Education | Silicon Valley tech boom lifts California’s dreary budget view Hancock had declared under penalty of perjury that he “identified the academic, scientific, and other materials referenced” in his expert submission, the YouTuber and legislator said in their Nov. 16 filing. That filing also questioned Hancock’s reliability as an expert witness. Hancock, in apologizing to the court, asserted that the three errors, “do not impact any of the scientific evidence or opinions” he presented as an expert. The judge in the case has set a Dec. 17 hearing to determine whether Hancock’s expert declaration should be thrown out, and whether the Minnesota attorney general can file a corrected version of the submission. Stanford, where students can be suspended and ordered to do community service for using a chatbot to “ substantially complete an assignment or exam ” without permission from their instructor, did not immediately respond to questions about whether Hancock would face disciplinary measures. Hancock did not immediately respond to similar questions. Hancock is not the first to submit a court filing containing AI-generated nonsense. Last year, lawyers Steven A. Schwartz and Peter LoDuca were fined $5,000 each in federal court in New York for submitting a personal-injury lawsuit filing that contained fake past court cases invented by ChatGPT to back up their arguments. “I did not comprehend that ChatGPT could fabricate cases,” Schwartz told the judge.Special counsel moves to abandon election interference and classified documents cases against TrumpA Michigan man got a voicemail that changed his life. On Oct. 29 a 42-year-old Michigan man, who has chosen to remain anonymous, received a call from the Michigan Lottery headquarters telling the player from Macomb County that he won $100,000 after he was selected in a random drawing. He won the $100,000 prize playing the $300,000,000 Extraordinaire second chance game. “I must have listened to (the voicemail) at least 12 times because I was so stunned,” the lucky winner told lottery officials in a Nov. 21 news release. California man claims he hasn't been paid $44 MILLION lottery prize months after winning Illinois Lottery player snags $10M jackpot prize on $50 scratch-off ticket He was so convinced it wasn't true he did his due diligence to confirm before he got excited. '“I had a hard time believing it was real until I confirmed the phone number on the Lottery website and found an email from the Lottery confirming my prize. The man recently visited Lottery headquarters to claim his prize. “It’s hard to explain the feeling of winning $100,000. You always dream of sitting in this room at the Lottery headquarters receiving a big check, so it’s pretty unbelievable to actually be here,” he said. He said he plans to use his winnings responsibly- paying off bills and buying furniture for his new home. This comes after a Maryland lottery player won using the ages of her nearest and dearest. The Charles County winner used the ages of her family’s children, siblings, and a grandchild for the $50,000, according to the Maryland Lottery . However, being doubtful of her chances, the woman had held onto her ticket for a month before checking it. In a lottery news release, she said: “I can’t believe I won using all of their ages" - before explaining how she planned to use the money to pay her bills. DAILY NEWSLETTER: Sign up here to get the latest news and updates from the Mirror US straight to your inbox with our FREE newsletter.wheel of fortune casino slots 。

OneDigital Investment Advisors LLC lifted its holdings in CenterPoint Energy, Inc. ( NYSE:CNP – Free Report ) by 7.5% during the third quarter, according to the company in its most recent Form 13F filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission. The institutional investor owned 8,497 shares of the utilities provider’s stock after purchasing an additional 590 shares during the quarter. OneDigital Investment Advisors LLC’s holdings in CenterPoint Energy were worth $250,000 as of its most recent SEC filing. Several other large investors have also added to or reduced their stakes in the business. Boston Partners lifted its position in CenterPoint Energy by 3.3% during the 1st quarter. Boston Partners now owns 17,545,528 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $499,962,000 after buying an additional 556,802 shares in the last quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD raised its holdings in CenterPoint Energy by 38.8% during the first quarter. Price T Rowe Associates Inc. MD now owns 10,602,621 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $302,070,000 after acquiring an additional 2,961,464 shares in the last quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC boosted its position in CenterPoint Energy by 46.6% during the second quarter. Barrow Hanley Mewhinney & Strauss LLC now owns 4,666,563 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $144,570,000 after purchasing an additional 1,484,079 shares during the last quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans grew its stake in CenterPoint Energy by 1.3% in the second quarter. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans now owns 4,043,757 shares of the utilities provider’s stock valued at $125,275,000 after purchasing an additional 53,655 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Dimensional Fund Advisors LP increased its position in shares of CenterPoint Energy by 8.3% during the 2nd quarter. Dimensional Fund Advisors LP now owns 2,611,909 shares of the utilities provider’s stock worth $80,914,000 after purchasing an additional 200,693 shares during the last quarter. Institutional investors and hedge funds own 91.77% of the company’s stock. Analyst Ratings Changes CNP has been the subject of several analyst reports. Bank of America assumed coverage on shares of CenterPoint Energy in a research note on Thursday, September 12th. They issued a “neutral” rating and a $29.00 target price for the company. StockNews.com downgraded shares of CenterPoint Energy from a “hold” rating to a “sell” rating in a research report on Thursday, October 17th. Morgan Stanley dropped their target price on shares of CenterPoint Energy from $32.00 to $31.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Friday. Scotiabank lifted their price target on CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $30.00 and gave the stock a “sector perform” rating in a report on Tuesday, October 29th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company upped their price objective on CenterPoint Energy from $28.00 to $32.00 and gave the company an “equal weight” rating in a research note on Wednesday, October 16th. Two investment analysts have rated the stock with a sell rating, nine have assigned a hold rating and one has assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company presently has an average rating of “Hold” and an average target price of $30.00. CenterPoint Energy Price Performance Shares of NYSE CNP opened at $31.93 on Friday. The firm has a market cap of $20.81 billion, a P/E ratio of 21.15, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.72 and a beta of 0.92. The business’s 50 day moving average is $29.71 and its 200-day moving average is $29.17. The company has a current ratio of 1.11, a quick ratio of 0.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.87. CenterPoint Energy, Inc. has a 1-year low of $25.41 and a 1-year high of $32.34. CenterPoint Energy ( NYSE:CNP – Get Free Report ) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Monday, October 28th. The utilities provider reported $0.31 earnings per share for the quarter, hitting the consensus estimate of $0.31. The firm had revenue of $1.86 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.88 billion. CenterPoint Energy had a return on equity of 9.73% and a net margin of 11.25%. During the same quarter last year, the business earned $0.40 EPS. Equities research analysts predict that CenterPoint Energy, Inc. will post 1.62 earnings per share for the current year. CenterPoint Energy Increases Dividend The firm also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, December 12th. Shareholders of record on Thursday, November 21st will be issued a $0.21 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend is Thursday, November 21st. This represents a $0.84 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 2.63%. This is an increase from CenterPoint Energy’s previous quarterly dividend of $0.20. CenterPoint Energy’s payout ratio is currently 55.63%. CenterPoint Energy Profile ( Free Report ) CenterPoint Energy, Inc operates as a public utility holding company in the United States. The company operates through two segments, Electric and Natural Gas. The Electric segment includes electric transmission and distribution services to electric customers and electric generation assets, as well as optimizes assets in the wholesale power market. Read More Want to see what other hedge funds are holding CNP? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for CenterPoint Energy, Inc. ( NYSE:CNP – Free Report ). Receive News & Ratings for CenterPoint Energy Daily - Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts' ratings for CenterPoint Energy and related companies with MarketBeat.com's FREE daily email newsletter .

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NEW YORK (AP) — Walmart's sweeping rollback of its diversity policies is the strongest indication yet of a profound shift taking hold at U.S. companies that are revaluating the legal and political risks associated with bold programs to bolster historically underrepresented groups in business. The changes announced by the world's biggest retailer followed a string of legal victories by conservative groups that have filed an onslaught of lawsuits challenging corporate and federal programs aimed at elevating minority and women-owned businesses and employees. The risk associated with some of programs crystalized with the election of former President Donald Trump, whose administration is certain to make dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion programs a priority. Trump's incoming deputy chief of policy will be his former adviser Stephen Miller , who leads a group called America First Legal that has aggressively challenged corporate DEI policies. “There has been a lot of reassessment of risk looking at programs that could be deemed to constitute reverse discrimination,” said Allan Schweyer, principal researcher the Human Capital Center at the Conference Board. “This is another domino to fall and it is a rather large domino,” he added. Among other changes, Walmart said it will no longer give priority treatment to suppliers owned by women or minorities. The company also will not renew a five-year commitment for a racial equity center set up in 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd. And it pulled out of a prominent gay rights index . Schweyer said the biggest trigger for companies making such changes is simply a reassessment of their legal risk exposure, which began after U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June 2023 that ended affirmative action in college admissions. Since then, conservative groups using similar arguments have secured court victories against various diversity programs, especially those that steer contracts to minority or women-owned businesses. Most recently, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty won a victory in a case against the U.S. Department of Transportation over its use of a program that gives priority to minority-owned businesses when it awards contracts. Companies are seeing a big legal risk in continuing with DEI efforts, said Dan Lennington, a deputy counsel at the institute. His organization says it has identified more than 60 programs in the federal government that it considers discriminatory, he said. “We have a legal landscape within the entire federal government, all three branches -- the U.S. Supreme Court, the Congress and the President -- are all now firmly pointed in the direction towards equality of individuals and individualized treatment of all Americans, instead of diversity, equity and inclusion treating people as members of racial groups,” Lennington said. The Trump administration is also likely to take direct aim at DEI initiatives through executive orders and other policies that affect private companies, especially federal contractors. “The impact of the election on DEI policies is huge. It can’t be overstated,” said Jason Schwartz, co-chair of the Labor & Employment Practice Group at law firm Gibson Dunn. With Miller returning to the White House, rolling back DEI initiatives is likely to be a priority, Schwartz said. “Companies are trying to strike the right balance to make clear they’ve got an inclusive workplace where everyone is welcome, and they want to get the best talent, while at the same time trying not to alienate various parts of their employees and customer base who might feel one way or the other. It’s a virtually impossible dilemma,” Schwartz said. A recent survey by Pew Research Center showed that workers are divided on the merits of DEI policies. While still broadly popular, the share of workers who said focusing on workplace diversity was mostly a good thing fell to 52% in the November survey, compared to 56% in a similar survey in February 2023. Rachel Minkin, a research associated at Pew called it a small but significant shift in short amount of time. There will be more companies pulling back from their DEI policies, but it likely won’t be a retreat across the board, said David Glasgow, executive director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at New York University. “There are vastly more companies that are sticking with DEI," Glasgow said. "The only reason you don’t hear about it is most of them are doing it by stealth. They’re putting their heads down and doing DEI work and hoping not to attract attention.” Glasgow advises organizations to stick to their own core values, because attitudes toward the topic can change quickly in the span of four years. “It’s going to leave them looking a little bit weak if there’s a kind of flip-flopping, depending on whichever direction the political winds are blowing,” he said. One reason DEI programs exist is because without those programs, companies may be vulnerable to lawsuits for traditional discrimination. “Really think carefully about the risks in all directions on this topic,” Glasgow said. Walmart confirmed will no longer consider race and gender as a litmus test to improve diversity when it offers supplier contracts. Last fiscal year, Walmart said it spent more than $13 billion on minority, women or veteran-owned good and service suppliers. It was unclear how its relationships with such business would change going forward. Organizations that that have partnered with Walmart on its diversity initiatives offered a cautious response. The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council, a non-profit that last year named Walmart one of America's top corporation for women-owned enterprises, said it was still evaluating the impact of Walmart's announcement. Pamela Prince-Eason, the president and CEO of the organization, said she hoped Walmart's need to cater to its diverse customer base will continue to drive contracts to women-owned suppliers even if the company no longer has explicit dollar goals. “I suspect Walmart will continue to have one of the most inclusive supply chains in the World,” Prince-Eason wrote. “Any retailer's ability to serve the communities they operate in will continue to value understanding their customers, (many of which are women), in order to better provide products and services desired and no one understands customers better than Walmart." Walmart's announcement came after the company spoke directly with conservative political commentator and activist Robby Starbuck, who has been going after corporate DEI policies, calling out individual companies on the social media platform X. Several of those companies have subsequently announced that they are pulling back their initiatives, including Ford , Harley-Davidson, Lowe’s and Tractor Supply . Walmart confirmed to The Associated Press that it will better monitor its third-party marketplace items to make sure they don’t feature sexual and transgender products aimed at minors. The company also will stop participating in the Human Rights Campaign’s annual benchmark index that measures workplace inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees. A Walmart spokesperson added that some of the changes were already in progress and not as a result of conversations that it had with Starbuck. RaShawn “Shawnie” Hawkins, senior director of the HRC Foundation’s Workplace Equality Program, said companies that “abandon” their commitments workplace inclusion policies “are shirking their responsibility to their employees, consumers, and shareholders.” He said the buying power of LGBTQ customers is powerful and noted that the index will have “record participation” of more than 1,400 companies in 2025."Special counsel moves to abandon election interference and classified documents cases against Trump

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