Apple CEO Tim Cook wants the tech industry to take action against “fake news” stories that are polluting the web.

“There has to be a massive campaign. We have to think through every demographic,” Cook said in a rare interview.

Speaking with The Daily Telegraph newspaper, Cook also said “all of us technology companies need to create some tools that help diminish the volume of fake news.”

Other leading tech company CEOs, like Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg, have spoken about the problem in recent months. But Cook’s comments were much more frank.

According to the Telegraph, he said made-up stories and hoaxes are “killing people’s minds.”

And he called the “fake news” plague “a big problem in a lot of the world.”

The term “fake news” was originally coined to describe online stories that are designed to deceive readers. Often times these stories are shared on Facebook and other social networking sites to generate profits for the creators. Other times the stories are essentially propaganda made up for political purposes.

These kinds of stories received widespread attention before and after the American election. Fictional stories with titles like “Pope Francis shocks world, endorses Donald Trump for president” won millions of clicks.

It can be very difficult for web surfers to tell the difference between legitimate news sources and fakes.

That’s where companies like Apple come in.

In the Telegraph interview — part of a multi-day European trip — Cook said “too many of us are just in the complain category right now and haven’t figured out what to do.”

He urged both technological and intellectual solutions.

“We need the modern version of a public-service announcement campaign. It can be done quickly if there is a will,” Cook told the newspaper.

What he described is music to the ears of media literacy advocates.

“It’s almost as if a new course is required for the modern kid, for the digital kid,” Cook said.

There are scattered efforts in some schools to teach media literacy, with a focus on digital skills, but it is by no means universal.

When asked if Apple would commit to funding a PSA campaign, an Apple spokesman said the company had no further comment on Cook’s interview.

The Apple CEO also suggested that tech companies can help weed out fake stories, though he added, “We must try to squeeze this without stepping on freedom of speech and of the press.”

Apple’s own Apple News app has been credited with being a relatively reliable place to find information.

The company “reviews publishers who join Apple News,” BuzzFeed noted last December.

And the app has a “report-a-concern function where users can flag fake news or hate speech.”

Facebook recently started working with fact-checkers to test “warning labels” that show up when users share made-up stories.

Cook, in the newspaper interview, expressed optimism that the “fake news” plague is a “short-term thing — I don’t believe that people want that at the end of the day.”

CNNMoney (New York) First published February 11, 2017: 8:00 PM ET

Nordstrom. Neiman Marcus. TJ Maxx. And now, Sears and Kmart.

Sears Holdings, the company that owns retail stores Sears and Kmart, reportedly said this weekend that it would remove 31 Trump-branded items from its website.

The company pulled the products as part of a plan to focus on its “most profitable items,” Sears spokesman Brian Hanover told Reuters.

Hanover told the news organization that items in the Trump Home line of furnishings were removed from the company’s website, although they could still be purchased through third-party vendors online. Neither store carried the items in their physical stores, he said.

Searches of the Sears and KMart websites did not turn up Trump Home products, except for those sold by third-party vendors.

In a statement Monday, spokesman Chris Brathwaite distanced Sears from any political controversy and reiterated that many Trump-branded products are still available through third-party sellers.

“In this case, certain products were removed from our websites that included a very small number of Trump products,” he said. “The headlines do not do justice to our business or this specific brand of products that we offer through our marketplace sellers.”

Brathwaite added that the company prefers to focus on its business and “leave the politics to others.”

Related: Is Ivanka Trump’s brand losing its bling?

The move makes Sears the latest to ditch products bearing the Trump name.

Earlier this month, Nordstrom (JWN) cited brand “performance,” not politics, as the reason why it decided to stop carrying Ivanka Trump’s clothing and accessories label.

President Trump knocked the department store on Twitter in retaliation. Nordstrom stock jumped 7% in the first two days following the tweet.

Other stores have also sought to distance themselves from Ivanka Trump’s brand.

Neiman Marcus removed the brand landing page from its website, and declined to tell CNNMoney whether it intended to keep Ivanka Trump products in stores or resume online sales in the future.

TJX Companies (TJX), the company that owns TJ Maxx and Marshalls, also said that it had recently told workers not to highlight the first daughter’s brand in stores.

And retailer Belk said last week that it planned to pull Ivanka Trump’s products from its website, but would continue to offer the line in its flagship stores.

Ivanka Trump’s clothing and accessories line has taken a hit in recent months.

Online sales of her brand dipped 26% in January compared to a year earlier, according to Slice Intelligence, a retail analysis firm. Slice studied the brand’s sales on five online stores: Nordstrom, Amazon, Zappos, Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s.

Online sales of Ivanka’s brand had surged in late 2015, and last month’s numbers appear to be more of a “return to reality,” according to Taylor Stanton, Slice’s marketing and communications manager. The brand’s dip in performance was abnormal in light of an uptick in 2016 online sales in the apparel and accessories category, said Jack Beckwythe, a Slice analyst.

Related: Kellyanne Conway unrepentant for Ivanka Trump plug

The Ivanka Trump brand has defended its performance.

Rosemary Young, senior director of marketing at Ivanka Trump, told CNNMoney last week that the brand was growing and experienced “significant year-over-year revenue growth in 2016.”

“We believe that the strength of a brand is measured not only by the profits it generates, but the integrity it maintains,” Young said.

Retailers like Bloomingdale’s, Amazon (AMZN), Lord & Taylor, Macy’s (M) and Zappos all still carry Ivanka Trump products.

Ivanka Trump has taken a leave of absence from her namesake company since her father won the presidency. She has no formal role in the administration but is expected to have a voice on issues such as women’s empowerment and child care.

–CNNMoney’s Jackie Wattles contributed to this story.

CNNMoney (New York) First published February 12, 2017: 3:35 PM ET

For the first time in a decade, Corporate America is steering more money into stock buybacks than investing in the future.

S&P 500 companies rewarded shareholders with $384 billion worth of buybacks during the first half of 2018, according to a Goldman Sachs report published Friday. That big bonanza for Wall Street is up 48% from last year and reflects spiking profitability thanks to corporate tax cuts and the strong US economy.

But that doesn’t mean companies aren’t spending on job-creating investments, like new equipment, research projects and factories. Business spending is up 19% — it’s just that buybacks are growing much faster.

In fact, Goldman Sachs said that buybacks are garnering the largest share of cash spending by S&P 500 firms. It’s a milestone because capital spending had represented the single largest use of cash by corporations in 19 of the past 20 years.

And the trend may not be done yet. Goldman Sachs predicted that share buyback authorizations among all US companies in all of 2018 will surpass $1 trillion for the first time ever.

Apple (AAPL) alone spent a whopping $45 billion on buybacks during the first half of 2018, triple what it did during the same time period last year, the firm said. That included a record-shattering sum during the first quarter.

Amgen (AMGN), Cisco (CSCO), AbbVie (ABBV) and Oracle (ORCL) have also showered investors with big boosts to their buyback programs.

Buybacks are typically cheered by shareholders, at least in the short term. One reason is that buybacks artificially inflate earnings per share by eliminating the number of shares outstanding.

Moreover, companies stepping into the market with giant purchase orders provide persistent demand, lifting share prices.

The impact of buybacks is so profound that some worry about how stocks will hold up without them. Companies generally aren’t allowed to buy back stock during so-called “blackout” periods that begin the month before reporting earnings.

David Kostin, chief US equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, warned that the upcoming blackout period poses a “near-term risk” to the market. He noted that market volatility tends to be higher during buyback blackouts.

The good news is that large companies are investing a sizable chunk of their winnings from the corporate tax overhaul. The Republican tax law, enacted in late 2017, slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. It also gave companies a tax break on foreign profits that are returned to the United States.

Capital spending is on track for the fastest growth in at least 25 years, Goldman Sachs estimates.

“Rumors of the demise of capital spending have been greatly exaggerated,” Kostin wrote.

The growth of business spending, much like buybacks, has been dominated by some of the biggest companies in the United States. Goldman Sachs estimates that 79% of the growth in S&P 500 capital spending came from 10 companies alone.

For example, Google owner Alphabet (GOOGL) alarmed investors in April by disclosing more than $7 billion of capital expenditures in the first quarter. Facebook (FB), under fire for its handling of the 2016 election, is spending heavily on people and technology. Microsoft (MSFT), Intel (INTC) and Micron (MU) are also accelerating their capital spending.

Even though CEOs continue to green light vast buybacks, they have been quietly taking a different approach with their own money. Corporate insiders sold $10.3 billion of shares in August, the most since November 2017, according to research firm TrimTabs.

CNNMoney (New York) First published September 17, 2018: 3:14 PM ET

You may never have to plug in your iPhone again.

Apple has joined an industry group devoted to wireless charging, strengthening existing rumors that the next iPhone will charge without a cord. The Wireless Power Consortium, which is made up of some 200 organizations that promote a single wireless charging standard, confirmed to CNNTech that Apple joined the group last week.

IPhone rumors swirl months before each new version is announced, and hype around the so-called ‘iPhone 8″ is particularly high: Apple (AAPL) is expected to unveil a major redesign of the this fall to mark the 10-year anniversary of the smartphone.

The company has already shown interest in doing away with cumbersome cords. The Apple Watch charges wirelessly, provided consumers spend $79 on a magnetic charging dock. And the latest MacBook now comes with only one USB port.

Related: Apple stock nears a record high

Apple would also create another iPhone revenue stream by selling a wireless charging station separately. The feature would simplify charging for smartphone owners. Rather than plugging in one’s phone, a user would only need to place it on the charging dock.

Apple said in a statement Monday it was joining the Wireless Power Consortium to contribute its ideas as wireless charging standards are developed.

As for the speculated possible features of the next iPhone, other rumors include an edge-to-edge display, a glass body and the removal of the home button.

CNNMoney (Washington) First published February 13, 2017: 2:42 PM ET

Editor’s Note: This story was originally published September 19, 2018.

New York
CNN Business
 — 

The United States has an abundance of natural gas that pollution-riddled China badly needs to wean itself off coal.

Eying China’s voracious demand, Cheniere Energy, ExxonMobil (XOM) and other American energy companies are racing to build more than two dozen expensive facilities to export liquefied natural gas, which is super-cooled natural gas that can be transported by ship.

China even marked President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing last fall by agreeing to invest as much as $43 billion into an LNG project in Alaska.

But this pairing of an able buyer and well-supplied seller no longer looks like a slam dunk. As part of the escalating trade war, China on Tuesday said it will impose a 10% tariff on $60 billion of US products – including LNG.

The trade tensions could make it more difficult for the next wave of LNG export facilities to get the financing needed to get off the ground.

“It’s obviously very concerning. The potential for some projects to get delayed is very real,” said Charlie Riedl, executive director of the Center for Liquefied Natural Gas, a trade group that represents Exxon, Chevron (CVX) and other energy companies.

The shale boom created an excess of natural gas in the United States. In a bid to get rid of the glut, the United States began exporting LNG in 2016 when Houston-based Cheniere (LNG) opened the Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana. Earlier this year, Dominion Energy (D) opened Cove Point in Maryland, the nation’s second export facility .

China is the big elephant in the room. China’s appetite for LNG is growing rapidly. And it’s on the verge of overtaking Japan as the biggest buyer of LNG in the world.

That’s one major reason why the United States is planning to quadruple its export capacity by building at least 25 new facilities. LNG is a centerpiece of Trump’s energy dominance agenda.

In the 12 months leading up until June 2018, China was the second-largest buyer of US LNG, according to energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie. Shell, the US subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA), was the largest seller.

However, China has dialed back its US LNG purchases in recent months as trade tensions have ratcheted up, according to ClipperData. Beijing is instead turning more to LNG powerhouses Qatar, Australia and Russia.

“China has been able to find willing sellers closer to its own backyard,” said Matt Smith, ClipperData’s director of commodity research.

Now, the tariffs will likely price US LNG out of the Chinese market, according to S&P Global Platts.

“There are other suppliers around the world that would gladly supply China – and they don’t have a 10% tariff,” said Riedl.

Kyle Isakower, vice president for economic policy at the American Petroleum Institute, said in a statement that the trade situation “works against US energy sector growth and counter to the administration’s stated goal of ‘energy dominance.’”

The good news is that China had threatened an even bigger tariff – 25% – on US LNG. Cheniere’s share price rallied 2% on Tuesday in response to the lower-than-feared rate.

In any case, analysts don’t believe that overall US LNG exports will be dramatically hurt in the short run. There are plenty of other buyers, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Latin America. And Washington has been pushing Europe to break its addiction to natural gas from Russia.

“If China buys less, someone else will buy more,” said Pavel Molchanov, an energy analyst at Raymond James. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a Chinese buyer, a European buyer or a Latin American buyer. Revenue is revenue.”

The real fallout of the US-China trade war could be felt in that next wave of LNG projects that’s in the works.

Due to the enormous cost to build each facility, financing hinges on the ability to sign a long-term buyer to a contract. And the obvious buyer had been China. Until now, that is.

For instance, Cheniere announced plans in May to expand its Corpus Christi export terminal in Texas. The expansion was backstopped in part by a contract with PetroChina (PTR).

Cheniere did not respond to a request for comment on the impact of the tariffs from China.

In August, Cheniere CEO Jack Fusco told analysts that threatened tariffs from China may slow down talks with counterparts in China about future growth.

However, Fusco said that the tariffs won’t impact existing contracts. And he emphasized that the US-China energy relationship has been beneficial to both sides, including by creating thousands of direct and indirect American jobs.

“China is an important growth market for Cheniere,” Fusco said. “We expect to sell meaningful amounts of LNG into China over the long term.”