In brief: Obama calls for changes in state broadband laws
CEDAR FALLS, Iowa – Wading into a states’ rights dispute over Internet access, President Barack Obama on Wednesday called for the repeal of laws that prevent local communities from creating their own broadband networks.
Obama, for the second time in three months, cast himself as an antagonist to large cable and telephone companies that provide the bulk of the nation’s Internet service.
Obama said faster speeds would create jobs and allow local businesses to compete in the global economy. “Today high-speed broadband is not a luxury, it’s a necessity,” Obama said from a storage area at Cedar Falls Utilities, with shelves full of coiled wire and other equipment.
Obama is encouraging the Federal Communications Commission to pre-empt state laws that stifle competition and said his administration will work to cut red tape.
Obama said his administration will provide technical and financial assistance to towns and cities that want to improve Internet service for their residents. The modest proposals do not require congressional approval and are part of a series of measures Obama is rolling out before his State of the Union address next week.
His stance is at odds with major cable and telephone companies such as AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner Cable Inc. that currently provide Internet service, often with little or no competition. Obama has already angered them by calling for new FCC rules that treat Internet service providers as public utilities.
Slim becomes largest NYT shareholder
NEW YORK – The New York Times Co. said Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim is now the largest holder of its publicly traded shares.
The business magnate, who built his fortune by amassing a range of retail, industrial and telecom companies, is ranked by Forbes as the world’s second-richest person with an estimated net worth of $72 billion.
Slim lent the newspaper company $250 million at the height of the recession, as print advertising sales dropped across the industry.
The company said Wednesday that Slim and entities he controls recently spent nearly $101.1 million to exercise warrants he received for that investment, acquiring 15.9 million shares for about $6.36 each, roughly half the stock’s current price. The purchase brings his stake to about 27.8 million Class A shares, or 16.8 percent.
The ownership doesn’t change control of the company. The Sulzberger family controls the New York Times Co. through a trust.
SAN FRANCISCO – A revised settlement has been reached in a class-action lawsuit alleging Apple and Google conspired with other Silicon Valley companies to block more than 60,000 high-tech employees from getting better job offers.
The terms of the new agreement weren’t disclosed in a letter filed Tuesday with an appeals court in San Francisco. Donald Falk, a lawyer who filed the letter on behalf of Google Inc., declined to comment Wednesday.
The new settlement comes five months after U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh rejected an earlier deal that would have required Apple Inc., Google, Intel Corp. and Adobe Systems Inc. to pay $324.5 million to resolve a lawsuit alleging the companies secretly agreed not to recruit each other’s workers.
Koh concluded the evidence in the case warranted a payment of at least $380 million. The new amount in the settlement is expected to be filed with Koh’s court “imminently,” according to Falk’s letter.