Month: February 2017

(CNN) — Silicon Valley is drawing a line in the sand on transgender rights.

Several big tech companies are joining a legal brief supporting transgender rights ahead of a Supreme Court case on the issue next month. The case may decide whether schools can prevent transgender students from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity.

Apple, Yelp and lending startup Affirm are signing on to an amicus brief spearheaded by Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT organization, according to reps for the companies.

Microsoft, PayPal, IBM, Salesforce and Box are also signing on, according to a source familiar with the brief. More may sign on, as the deadline to join is 8 p.m. ET, according to the source.

The brief is expected to be filed by March 2, according to Christina Ra, a spokeswoman for Affirm.

Axios was first to report the news.

The legal move comes just days after the Trump administration withdrew Obama-era protections for transgender students in public schools.

Microsoft, Google, Twitter and others were quick to criticize the policy change.

“We support efforts toward greater acceptance, not less, and we strongly believe that transgender students should be treated as equals,” Apple said in a statement Thursday about the policy change. “We disagree with any effort to limit or rescind their rights and protections.”

Many of these companies also pushed back against Trump’s travel ban last month by signing on to an amicus brief. The transgender issue could turn into the second high-profile clash with tech in the opening days of the new administration.

The tech industry also pushed back against a controversial North Carolina law last year that banned transgender individuals from using public bathrooms for the gender with which they identify. However, that outspokenness took place under the Obama administration, which also opposed the bathroom law.

Tech companies continue to face pressure from progressive employees and customers to push back against Trump’s most controversial policies. But they must now balance that with the need to work with the administration on key issues like tax reform and regulations.

(CNNMoney) — Throwing out the first pitch at a baseball game is a tradition for U.S. presidents.

But an executive from the Baltimore Orioles is not eager to welcome President Trump.

Team VP John Angelos says he doesn’t want Trump to throw out the first pitch unless Trump apologizes for all of the offensive comments he’s made.

Angelos made the comments Thursday during a call with the BmoreOpinionated Podcast, a weekly series that covers Baltimore sports.

“You don’t say those things about women, you don’t say those things about different ethnic groups, different national origins, people who are disabled, all of that — and if you do say them, you’re a big enough person to withdraw them and apologize,” Angelos said.

“To have somebody that’s the leader of the country say things that are demeaning to different groups is incredibly debilitating to the country.”

Whether or not Trump gets an invite is up to the team’s owners but Peter Angelos, John’s father, happens to be the majority stakeholder.

Of course, presidents appear at stadiums all over the country, but the capital’s proximity to both Camden Yards, the home of the Orioles, and Nationals Park, where the Washington Nationals play, make them both frequent stops for the leader of the free world.

The Nationals did not respond when asked whether they plan to invite Trump to throw the first pitch this season.

Trump has had some practice on the mound. He threw out the first pitch in August 2006 at a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, in July 2000 at a White Sox game at Wrigley Field and during spring training in March 2004.

When podcast host Jason La Canfora asked Angelos whether he’d like to see fans boo Trump at Camden Yards, Angelos didn’t exactly demur.

“I appreciate your comments but I don’t think that’s enough,” Angelos said. He added that leaders need to speak up, and commended athletes like Misty Copeland, Steph Curry and Colin Kaepernick for doing so.

“They need to stand up and not normalize and not legitimize and not whitewash that kind of conduct,” he said. “I wouldn’t accept that from a Democrat or a Republican or somebody from outer space.”

Angelos said that demeaning comments are dangerous because they can “embolden and radicalize” people.

“Racial biases and all these things are forms of psychological imbalance,” Angelos said.

While Angelos said he isn’t a Democrat or a Republican, he and the team he’s a part of have a history of making a statement.

Since 2015, the Orioles have played “This Land Is Your Land” during the seventh-inning stretch at Friday home games to honor their diverse community.

Angelos and team manager Buck Showalter, also spoke out during the Baltimore protests over Freddie Gray, who died from injuries he sustained while in police custody.

When the team closed Camden Yards during the protests, Angelos tweeted that “inconvenience at a ball game irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.”

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — President Trump has repeatedly vowed to replace Obamacare with something better.

Now, he’ll have the chance to talk to some of the nation’s leading health insurers about how to do that.

Health insurers are meeting with the president on Monday, and Obamacare is expected to be at the top of the agenda. Among the attendees will be Humana CEO Bruce Broussard, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina’s CEO Brad Wilson and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, an industry group that represents 36 independent insurers.

The president and insurers will have a lot to discuss. Trump’s first executive order directed federal agencies to start rolling back Obamacare. And he has promised to unveil a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare with more affordable coverage, though he has left many in the dark about the details — including Congressional Republicans.

Trump has also vowed that the transition to the new Republican plan will be a smooth one that will not yank coverage from those who currently have it through Obamacare. He can only fulfill that pledge if the insurers play along.

Insurers, however, have grown increasingly jittery amid Trump’s sweeping pronouncements and the infighting on Capitol Hill that has slowed the drive to repeal the law. Most recently, the nation’s governors have entered the fray, with some Republican state leaders lobbying hard to keep Medicaid expansion. They will meet with the president early Monday morning to press their case.

Humana has already said it is dropping out of the individual market completely in 2018. At least three other carriers — Aetna, Anthem and Molina Healthcare — have said they are weighing whether to participate in the Obamacare exchanges next year. This could prompt even more insurers to withdraw and those that remain to hike premiums.

They will likely look to Trump to ease their concerns.

His administration so far has sent them mixed signals. His Health & Human Services Department has answered some of the industry’s concerns in a proposed rule it issued earlier this month. The rule would provide insurers with greater flexibility in how much their policies would pay in each tier of coverage on the Obamacare exchanges, make it harder for people to sign up outside of open enrollment periods and give carriers more time to have their 2018 plans approved by state and federal regulators.

However, at the same time, the Internal Revenue Service quietly reversed a decision to start rejecting tax returns that fail to indicate whether filers had health insurance, received an exemption or paid the penalty for not having coverage. While this has always been key to enforcing Obamacare’s individual mandate, the IRS had been processing returns without this information.

The IRS attributed the reversal to Trump’s executive order that directed agencies to reduce the potential financial burden on Americans. However, it noted in a statement that the individual mandate is still in effect.

Any weakening of the individual mandate is sure to strike fear into the hearts of insurers. They depend on the mandate to bring in young and healthy participants to balance out older and sicker enrollees, which Obamacare requires them to cover.

Insurers have a long list of suggestions for the Trump administration and lawmakers on how to first stabilize Obamacare and then revamp the individual market. They will have the opportunity to present them to the president firsthand on Monday.

(CNN) — NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — The speakers at this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference struck the same anti-media tone that has defined President Trump’s first month in office.

But young conservatives listening to those same speeches have a more nuanced — even sympathetic — view.

Some even admitted they got their news from the sources the White House regularly maligns.

“I know Trump says ‘the failing New York Times,’ but they’re credible,” said Cody Leach, a student at the University of Alabama who sported the ubiquitous Make America Great Again cap and a tie autographed by Fox News host Sean Hannity.

Conversations with a dozen students who attended this week’s conference revealed the breadth of their news consumption. While many spoke fondly of conservative outlets like Fox News, Breitbart and The Blaze, they also signaled a desire to seek out sources that may challenge their beliefs. And that includes Trump’s favorite media punching bags.

Leach, like Trump, said he’s “not a fan of the mainstream media.” But the 18-year-old political science major’s reasons were different from what you might expect from the president.

He said mainstream news outlets are so slanted against conservatism that it has given rise to alternative media, “which gives these fringe elements and certain movements power.”

Leach said he was wary of clicky but dubious outlets like Occupy Democrats on the left and the Conservative Tribune on the right that pop up on his Facebook feed.

“It’s clickbait journalism,” he said. “It’s 21st century yellow journalism.”

Nevertheless, Leach does watch CNN, and he said he’s a fan of Anderson Cooper. He also watches Fox News and MSNBC, and reads The Wall Street Journal. And after some initial skepticism, he warmed up to Breitbart, the right-wing outlet where top White House adviser Steve Bannon previously served as chairman.

“Breitbart is interesting,” Leach said. “I wasn’t always a fan of them, but I came around because, like I said, if the mainstream media won’t give us facts, we have to find our facts somewhere else.”

Every year, young conservative activists make the pilgrimage to CPAC for speeches, workshops and revelry. The cavernous, glimmering convention center here has been teeming since Wednesday with fresh-faced teenagers and twentysomethings decked out in Republican regalia. A conference organizer said 55% of last year’s attendees were students.

Polling data has shown that young people maintain an eclectic media diet, a trend driven in part by social media. In a 2015 study by the American Press Institute, almost nine in 10 millennials said they often encountered “diverse opinions,” with three-quarters saying they investigated perspectives that differed from their own.

Coleman Theodore, a 19-year-old student at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, said he watches CNN and Fox News, and reads both Breitbart and BuzzFeed.

“When it comes to the mainstream media, I don’t see at it as something like fake news,” said Coleman, who wore a bow tie and a “Big Government Sucks” pin on his lapel. “I see it as a good chance to get your source from both sides.”

Alexa Archambault, a 19-year-old student at the University of Buffalo, echoed that sentiment.

“A lot of people think of the mainstream media as CNN and The New York Times, and I think it definitely does have a liberal bias to it,” she said. “But I think that Fox News is also considered the mainstream media, so you do have an alternative point of view. I think that’s healthy and a good thing to have.”

“I try and stay on both sides of the aisle,” Archambault added. “I watch Fox, I read The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. And I do watch CNN.”

She spoke shortly before Trump addressed the conference on Friday, a speech in which he once again maligned much of the press as “fake news” and the “enemy of the people.”

Archambault said she believes Trump’s attacks on the media are designed to excite “people who have felt like they don’t have a voice.” But she also took issue with the “fake news” charge.

“I think the term ‘fake news,’ it started as one thing and it’s evolved into something else,” Archambault said. “A lot of people say something is ‘fake news’ when they don’t agree with it, and I don’t agree with that.”