Many people think of cults as strictly religious, but that's not always the case. And though most people don't want to believe it, given the right circumstances, it can be easy to fall prey to a cult.

Still, there's hope — and here are 10 stories of people who say they successfully escaped from a cult.

Maude Julien wrote a memoir about how her father created a "three-person family cult."

In 1936, Louis Didier, a 34-year-old businessman in northern France, convinced a poor couple to let him take in their 6-year-old daughter named Jeannine. By 1957, Didier had married Jeannine and he decided they were to have a child together. They had a girl they named Maude Julien.

Julien describes how her father attempted to make her into a "superhuman" child. In the time between the first and second World Wars, he would experiment on her. Around the age of 6, he would ply her with whiskey and then command her to do complicated tasks. He also regularly made her hold onto electric fences with her hands or kept her in a basement in the darkness with bells on her sweater so he would know if she moved.

He also reasoned that since musicians survived concentration camps, his daughter needed to learn as many musical instruments as possible. That's eventually how she escaped; a music tutor convinced her father to send the formerly homeschooled Maude away to "a harsh school" to continue her music training.

Today, Julien is 60 years old and is a psychotherapist. She went on to write a memoir about her experiences titled "The Only Girl in the World."

The entire Phoenix family of actors — River, Joaquin, Rain, Liberty, and Summer — spent part of their childhoods as members of The Children of God.

In 2014, Joaquin Phoenix sat down for an interview with Playboy and talked about growing up in The Children of God.

"My parents had a religious experience and felt strongly about it. They wanted to share that with other people who wanted to talk about their experience with religion," he said. "These friends were like, 'Oh, we believe in Jesus as well.' I think my parents thought they'd found a community that shared their ideals."

But according to Phoenix, that wasn't the case and the group was actually a cult.

"Cults rarely advertise themselves as such," he continued. "It's usually someone saying, 'We're like-minded people. This is a community,' but I think the moment my parents realized there was something more to it, they got out."

In reviewing a biography of the tragically short life of Joaquin's brother River Phoenix, LA Weekly wrote that Children of God "infamously encouraged both incest and adultery." The parents constantly preached the Children of God word to any who would listen in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela — while the Phoenix kids begged from locals since families in the cult were responsible for providing their own food.

The family eventually left. In Joaquin's interview with Playboy, he said that he could see the cult's beliefs and actions evolving in a disturbing way.

Rose McGowan also spent her childhood growing up as a member of The Children of God.

For the first nine years of her life, Rose McGowan says she and her family were a part of a Children of God branch in the beautiful Italian countryside. According to McGowan, her dad was a leader in the branch — not just a run-of-the-mill member.

The Children of God believed strongly in both an imminent apocalypse and also free love. McGowan told People that when the Children of God started heavily pushing the idea of child-adult sexual relations, her father left and took her with him.

McGowan talked to People magazine about her family's escape.

"My dad, Nat, Daisy and I escaped with my dad's other wife in the middle of the night," she said. "I remember running through a cornfield in thunder and lightning, holding my dad's hand and running as fast as I could to keep up with him … [The cult] sent people to find us. I remember a man trying to break in with a hammer."

• Moscow and Beijing heralded the recent Vostok 2018 war games in eastern Russia as a tremendous success, celebrating closer military-to-military relations between China and Russia.
• But the deployment of a Chinese spy ship to shadow Russian ships suggests that the bilateral relationship between China and Russia continues to be plagued by distrust.

China reportedly sent an uninvited surveillance ship to spy on the recent joint military exercises with Russia, a move highlighting how lingering distrust and competitiveness weaken the so-called "strategic partnership" emerging between Moscow and Beijing.

Beijing sent thousands of People's Liberation Army troops accompanied by tanks, helicopters, and artillery to eastern Russia for joint drills last week. China also deployed a PLA Navy Dongdiao-class auxiliary general intelligence (AGI) vessel to shadow Russian naval assets training at sea while Chinese ground troops trained on land, USNI News reported, citing a US official. The latter was apparently not invited, but the opportunity to gather valuable intelligence on a competitor was presumably too good to pass up.

While consistent with past Chinese practices — the Chinese navy has sent spy ships to the Rim of the Pacific exercises — it is unusual to surveil an ally while training alongside them, even if it is technically legal under international law.

Given rising tensions between Washington and Moscow and Beijing, some observers suggested that increasing US pressure was driving Russia and China together, laying the groundwork for a possible alliance. A strategic military partnership between the two powers is alarming given each country's interest in challenging America's leadership and unilateral power and authority in the international system.

"It sends a signal to Washington that if the U.S. continues on its current course by pressuring Russia and imposing more sanctions, Russia will fall even more into the firm embrace of China," Alexander Gabuev of the Carnegie Institute in Moscow recently told the Associated Press.

The "main political significance" of the Vostok 2018 drills "comes from the signaling by both Russia and China about the possible emergence of a strategic partnership, aimed at countering the threat that both countries feel from continued U.S. dominance of the international system," Dmitry Gorenburg argued in The Washington Post.

The massive war games, touted as "unprecedented" and expected to be held every five years going forward, came as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to stand together against unilateralism. In June, Xi called Putin his "best friend," a sentiment seemingly shared by the latter.

But despite the budding bromance between Chinese and Russian leadership, the bilateral relationship between the two countries is undermined by decades of distrust dating back to the Cold War, when Soviet and Chinese troops skirmished along the border and tensions rose to the point that Russia was considering a nuclear strike on China.

Chinese state-affiliated media downplayed talk of a Chinese-Russian alliance, suggesting that the concept was being overhyped. "China and Russia are not allies, and they are firm in not forging an alliance," the nationalist Global Times explained in a recent editorial. "But the outside world shouldn't make China and Russia feel an urgent need to strengthen their military cooperation."

Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said recently that he sees "little in the long term that aligns Russia and China."

Exactly what the Chinese intelligence vessel was doing remains unclear, but experts suspect that it was gathering information on Russia's more technologically-sophisticated navy given China's interest in advancing its radar and electronic warfare capabilities, USNI News reported. Assuming the ship was indeed uninvited, China may have been trying to learn more about Russian warfighting than Russia was willing to teach.

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• ESPN's Rachel Nichols grilled Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban on his lack of knowledge about allegations of sexual harassment and workplace misconduct within the Mavs.
• Investigators released a report following a seven-month investigation into the organization that substantiated allegations made against several Mavericks employees about misconduct.
• Cuban apologized for his lack of knowledge and said he did not have any excuses.
• In addition to policy changes within the team mandated by the NBA, Cuban is donating $10 million to organizations that support women in leadership roles.

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban appeared on ESPN's "The Jump" Wednesday after the release of a report from independent investigators into the allegations of sexual harassment and workplace misconduct in the Mavericks.

The investigation came after a Sports Illustrated report in February detailed allegations made against former Mavs president and CEO Terdema Ussery, former team beat writer Earl Sneed, and sales employee Chris Hyde.

The investigation substantiated claims that Ussery had engaged in inappropriate touching and kissing of female employees. It found Hyde had viewed pornographic images at work, made inappropriate comments, and had dropped a used condom on the floor for other employees to see. It also found that Sneed had twice engaged in domestic violence, including once with a fellow Mavs employee, who showed up to work bruised.

The investigation also found that Cuban did not know about Ussery's behavior. None of the women interviewed by investigators said they had spoken to Cuban directly, and Cuban denied any knowledge of the overall culture, though he was aware of specific incidents regarding Hyde and Sneed.

Read more: Mark Cuban fires 2 Mavericks employees after report details allegations of a 'hostile work environment' including sexual harassment and domestic violence

On Wednesday, Nichols grilled Cuban about his lack of knowledge about the accusations. Cuban repeatedly said he did not have any excuses and that he had mistakes in his handling of the situations.

"You run an NBA franchise where you've talked a lot publicly about how you know everything that goes on there, you have the finger on the pulse, and you did know a few of these isolated incidents — we'll get back to them," Nichols said. "But even the best-case scenario of you not knowing, the best version of this is that women in your office felt unsafe coming to work. That they made official complaints to human resources. That they were threatened, they were not promoted. If you just didn't know any of this, how do you explain that?"

"I didn't know, and I don't have an explanation," Cuban said. "I can give you lots of reasons, but they don't matter. What does matter is it was my responsibility, it didn't happen, and I have to be accountable for it."

"In hindsight, it was staring me right in the face, and I missed it," Cuban added.

Several times, Nichols pressed Cuban on his lack of knowledge, reading directly from the investigators' report, including when Cuban told Ussery through an intermediary that he would not throw him under the bus following SI's report. Cuban said he was trying to avoid a PR battle with Ussery.

In one instance, Nichols asked why Cuban kept Ussery as CEO when he bought the team in 2000 when it had been reported that Ussery had been accused of similar actions.

Cuban said he wasn't aware of those accusations and that he should have done his due diligence, but ultimately did not.

Later in the interview, Nichols brought up Sneed, who had previously pleaded guilty to beating his then-fiancee, leaving her bruised and with a broken wrist. Nichols noted that Cuban offered to pay his legal expenses. When Cuban said he only had information coming from Sneed, Nichols said the investigation showed Cuban had been emailed by Sneed's former fiancee.

Cuban said he made a mistake in not following up, starting an investigation, or looking for a police report.

The Mavericks have undergone structural changes in leadership, including the hiring of new CEO Cynthia Marshall, who also later appeared on "The Jump" to discuss changes to the organization. The NBA mandated changes to the Mavs policies and reporting to the league office. Cuban is also donating $10 million to various organizations that support women in leadership roles.

Two excerpts of Cuban's interview can be seen below:

The full report can be found here >

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How do you put a face to infidelity? The answer is, you can't. Just as you were taught not to judge a book by its cover, it's near impossible to look someone in the eye and, in just one glance, know they're a cheater. The truth is, anyone can be unfaithful— it just depends on how you define the term.

Relationship counselor and clinical sexologist Dr. Martha Tara Lee of Eros Coaching said cheating is subjective because different people have different boundaries.

"Cheating can be emotional, and/or physical. It is all depending on how the person concerned is feeling," Lee told INSIDER. "Most people are more disturbed by the breaking of trust and the intimacy in the ‘rival' relationship, than whether there is sex involved."

According to a 2010 to 2017 General Social Survey issued by the Institute for Family Studies, 20% of men and 13% of women have had sex with someone who was not their spouse while married. And what's most heartbreaking about these statistics is, of those who had been cheated on and found out about it, most probably never saw it coming — at least, not until it was too late.

Anyone can be unfaithful, but while you shouldn't necessarily base your judgments off of the stereotypical cheats you see depicted in Hollywood, there are some common personality traits cheaters share. If any of the following red flags are waving right in front of you, it could be a sign your partner's up to something.

Cheaters like to keep their personal lives private.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that secrets are no fun unless you share with everyone. But not only are a cheater's secrets not fun, they're rarely shared with anyone.

A cheater's secrets can often be revealed through their recent calls list, in text messages on their phone, or a private folder in their email. But a locked phone especially, Susan Winter said, is a dead giveaway.

"Your partner doesn't want you to see their private activity, and therefore is purposefully excluding you from a vital portion of their lives." the New York City-based relationship expert told INSIDER.

Cheaters tend to put some pretty intense privacy setting on their personal lives too, so it's not just their romantic happenings they'll keep to themselves, Winters explained. They prefer to keep all personal details such as things about their family, who their friends are, and where they work on the DL, too.

"What do you actually know about your partner's life, their family, upbringing, and personal life?" Winters said. "A cheater keeps their cards close to their chest."

Cheaters will rarely, if ever, call you by name.

You might recall this trick of the trade from the 2006 teen dramedy "John Tucker Must Die," but apparently the three-time cheater's strategy of calling his three girlfriends "baby" and "sweetheart" wasn't just clever writing, it's a legitimate tactic cheaters use to make sure they aren't mixing up your name with their other partner's name.

Winters said cheaters will latch onto cutesy nicknames like "baby" and "sweetheart" so that the odds of a slip up are in their favor.

"Calling out the wrong name in the heat of passion is a faux pas that's hard to backpedal," Winter explained, while pet names are easy to remember, especially if someone is sleeping with multiple partners.

Cheaters know how to lie, and know how to lie well.

Don't feel bad if you've ever fallen for a cheater's false promises and lame excuses for canceling plans in the past. It's easy to do because they're eerily good at it.

So good, in fact, that LeslieBeth Wish, a noted psychotherapist, author, and founder of Love Victory said cheaters will sometimes lay the groundwork for future lies ahead of time in order to cover their tracks later on in the relationship.

"They might begin way ahead of time by telling you that their workload at the office just dramatically increased because of reorganization or people leaving," Wish told INSIDER. "These are lies, of course, so that when they are not with you, they have a great story to draw from."

What's even more disturbing about cheaters is that not only do they know what to say, they know how to say it, and how to carry themselves so that their body language doesn't give away a lie.

"They are masters at seeming believable," Wish explained. "They can look you in the eye and say things such as:  ‘What a long day at work,' when they were actually with another person."

Morning sickness, a missed period, mood swings — these are all classic signs that you might be expecting a baby. But any woman who's ever been pregnant can tell you that these aren't the only symptoms, even in the earliest stages of pregnancy. And surprisingly enough, a lot of these signs aren't exactly something you'd connect to being pregnant.

If you're feeling any of these signs, you could be pregnant, especially if you're also experiencing nausea and a late period like many women do. Though these are not guaranteed signs of pregnancy, it might not be a bad idea to grab a test if you notice that several of these symptoms happening to you. 

Feeling hotter than usual can indicate a baby on board.

Most people equate hot flashes with menopause, but as it turns out if you notice you're sweating more than usual —especially first thing in the morning — it could mean you're pregnant.

According to Healthline, ovulation makes your body temperature rise. So if that hot feeling sticks around for longer than two weeks, you might have yourself a fertilized egg.

Your nose is stuffed, but you aren't actually sick.

Bad news: for some women, pregnancy means perpetually having a cold. As Parenting pointed out, increased hormones and blood production cause mucous membranes to swell, dry and bleed. 

You're cramping, but not dealing with your period.

Several pregnancy symptoms are the same as signs that your period is on its way — one of nature's cruel jokes. But if you feel those familiar cramps come on, it might not be that time of the month. Rather, it might mean you're pregnant, and once again, that increased blood flow is to blame.

"The cramping that occurs during early pregnancy comes from the increased blood flow to the uterus," Dr. Michele Justice told The Bump. "The cramps before your period are due to increased prostaglandins that help the uterus prepare to shed its lining."

• Fairfax County, Virginia conducted a focus group this summer with college interns from across various county departments.
• County officials learned that college students were failing to send back their absentee ballots because they didn't know how to get a stamp.
• "That seems to be like a hump that they can’t get across," Lisa Conners, of the Fairfax County Office of Public Affairs, told WTOP on Tuesday.

Democrats are counting on Generation Z, many of whom recently gained the right to vote, to help turn Congress blue in the midterm elections.

But 49 cents may be all it takes to keep these post-Millennials from exercising their civic duty.

On Tuesday, a Fairfax County, Virginia official said they are noticing a disturbing trend: young people failing to mail in their absentee ballots because they don't know how to get a stamp.

Lisa Connors, of the Fairfax County Office of Public Affairs, ran a focus group this summer comprised of colleges students interning in various county departments.

"One thing that came up, which I had heard from my own kids but I thought they were just nerdy, was that the students will go through the process of applying for a mail-in absentee ballot, they will fill out the ballot, and then, they don’t know where to get stamps," Connors told WTOP. "That seems to be like a hump that they can’t get across."

Connors went on to say that many in the focus group said "they knew lots of people who did not send in their ballots because it was too much of a hassle or they didn't know where to get a stamp."

"Across the board, they were all nodding and had a very spirited conversation about 'Oh yeah, I know so many people who didn’t send theirs in because they didn't have a stamp,'" Connors said.

As a way to combat this abstention for the upcoming midterm elections, the county is focusing on raising awareness of in-person absentee voting, which students can do while they're home on fall breaks. That voting starts in Virginia on Friday.

Another potential hurdle that the county is worried about is voters mixing up their home address, where they are registered to vote, with the address they want their absentee ballot shipped to, according to WTOP. If they mix this up on the ballot, then it's rendered invalid.

You can buy stamps from the US Postal Service online and in person, as well as from other online retailers like Amazon and Stamps.com. Banks, gas stations, pharmacies, and big box retailers like Walmart also sell them.

SEE ALSO: Both Democrats and Republicans think Obama's return to politics will help win them the midterms

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• Social Capital's rupture has largely been blamed on the firm's charismatic co-founder, early Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya.
• However, some insiders speculate that the firm's troubles could have been avoided, had its limited partners intervened early on. 
• They also said that it's unlikely that Social Capital's investors will re-invest if they're given the opportunity in the future.

It's been several months since Social Capital, the high-profile Silicon Valley VC firm, began to unravel. And now, the finger pointing has begun.

The venture firm's abrupt and still unexplained strategic belly flop, at a time when it seemed poised to reach new heights, has become one of Silicon Valley's biggest mysteries.

Hints of discord began in August of last year, when the firm's co-founder, Mamoon Hamid, left for a partner position at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byer. In the year since Hamid's departure, Social Capital has lost seven members, subsequently resulting in the removal of its team profile page from the firm's website. Insiders suggest that there will be still more departures from Social Capital in the upcoming months.

In past conversations with Business Insider, a number of people close to the firm blamed Palihapitiya as the reason for the firm's departures. Palihapitiya, insiders said, was a dynamic leader who was prone to changing the firm's agenda only to seemingly lose interest later on. 

It was only about a year ago when Palihapitiya pitched the idea of transforming Social Capital from a venture capital firm into a data-driven asset management firm that could play in everything from public equities to real estate. Now, the future of the venture fund itself is a question mark.

But who's to blame?

Despite grumbles on the part of Social Capital's investors early on, one person familiar with matters suggested that the numerous departures could have been checked, had Social Capital's limited partners (LPs) effectively voiced their concerns.

"The LPs did nothing," the person said. "They have their voting rights, their ability to call a team in. It comes down to bad board governance, and the governance at Social was poor...Shame on the LPs for not figuring it out and fixing it."

While the power of Social Capital's investors was effectively limited by Fund III's lack of a "no-fault divorce" clause, which would have allowed them to vote to remove its general partners, multiple people maintained that by the time the firm began to unravel, investors were ready to cut their losses. "It all happened over such a quick period of time," one person said. "A lot of funds were close to being deployed and they wondered what is the point of fighting it."

Most insiders agreed that one takeaway remains clear about Palihapitiya's approach to venture capital. It wasn't that he had suddenly lost interest, they said; it was that he was never really interested in the first place. At best, they suggested, he was distracted. 

"You'd question his true intentions...He didn’t want to be a venture capitalist," a source said. "He found it limiting. It put him into too small of a box." Over the years, Palihapitiya's interest has alit on everything from poker championships to basketball teams (he's a co-owner of the Golden State Warriors). One person who has known Palihapitiya for many years suggested that his interest lay more in making financial bets than discovering and funding new technologies. 

'He was not interested in anything venture since day one'

Palihapitiya's involvement in the firm was inconsistent, insiders agreed. These signs were apparent from the firm's very beginnings, they said. One source said that Palihapitiya didn't contribute to the decision making process in investing in two of the firm's hallmark deals, Slack and Carta. "He was never involved," one person said. "He was not interested in anything venture since day one. "

A third person said that Palihapitiya became difficult to reach after February, and speculated that his absence might have been related to rumors of a new romance with Nathalie Dompé, whose family owns a successful Italian pharmaceutical  company. Dompé and Palihapitiya's acquaintance began when her family expressed interest in becoming limited partners of the fund earlier this year, another person said. (Palihapitiya and his wife Brigette Lau, who was also a partner at Social Capital, filed for divorce in February.) Neither Palihapitiya, Dompé, nor a spokesperson for Social Capital returned requests for comment.

What happens next is anyone's guess.

The firm's past troubles could make it difficult to raise a new fund, many suggested. While people close to the firm said that Social Capital is still pouring more money into its existing portfolio companies, some expressed doubt that the firm's existing investors would be backing any future efforts on the behalf of either Social Capital or Palihapitiya.

"There is not a single LP...not a single professional institutional endowment that will return," one person said. 

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• Stock exchanges have been for-profit entities for more than a decade, and it's a situation critics say has created many conflicts of interest.
• In a speech on Wednesday, SEC commissioner Robert J. Jackson, Jr. unloaded on the exchanges, highlighting four "puzzling practices" that he thinks are unfair to the average investor.
• Jackson outlines four reforms he's taking steps to enact, with the ultimate goal of creating a fairer trading marketplace for everyday investors.

Stock exchanges are just as interested in turning a profit as the investors who transact on their platforms. It's a reality that most traders have simply accepted and incorporated into their daily routine.

But Robert J. Jackson, Jr. is trying to do something to challenge that status quo.

Appointed by President Donald Trump earlier this year to fill a Democratic seat at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Jackson is making it his express mission to highlight the conflicts that arise when exchanges are for-profit entities. And — perhaps more importantly — he's offering solutions.

Jackson addressed these issues on Wednesday at an event co-sponsored by the George Mason University Law & Economics Center and the Healthy Markets Association, an investor-oriented nonprofit.

Near the beginning of his speech, Jackson highlighted a not-so-distant past where exchanges were collectively owned nonprofits. He laments a shift that took place about a decade ago, which saw them transform into profit-hungry businesses.

"Their profit motive gives exchanges every reason to structure stock markets in a way that maximizes their rents," said Jackson. "And every time exchanges raise prices, that money comes out of investors' pockets. American investors are paying for it, one microsecond a time."

Jackson went on to list four "puzzling practices that look nothing like the competitive marketplaces investors deserve." They are as follows:

1) The two-tiered system for stock-price information

Jackson notes that there are two data feeds for stock information: the fast private feeds that exchanges sell, and the slower one that's available to the public.

He finds that exchanges have underinvested in the public feed, simply because it's not helping to pad their bottom line like the private one.

"It’s like letting Barnes & Noble run our public libraries," said Jackson. "Nobody should be surprised to find that our libraries don’t have enough books."

2) Legal limits on liability when investors are harmed

Jackson argues that the exchanges often try to posture themselves as regulators, rather than for-profit operators. And that, in turn, helps them wiggle out of legal liability.

In his mind, enforcement agencies like the SEC are still too easy on the exchanges.

"Treating for-profit exchanges with not-for-profit kid gloves has allowed stock exchanges to operate, in many respects, above the law," said Jackson. "Holding firms responsible for their actions is one way to make sure that corporations are careful when they expose people to risk."

3) The structure of stock exchanges and the price of connectivity

Jackson notes that 12 of the 13 US stock exchanges are owned by just three companies. He argues that this consolidation is done with one ultimate goal in mind: to have greater control over pricing.

"One reason our exchanges do this is so they can charge investors to connect to each exchange," he said. "That, of course, raises the concern that exchanges will charge investors too much to connect, secure in the knowledge that our rules, not market dynamics or the quality of their product, help them keep prices high."

4) Payments exchanges make to brokers

Jackson says the rules that have been established to ensure the best execution of trades are actually vulnerable to conflicts of interest that harm investors in the end.

"When a broker places an order on behalf of a customer, we expect the broker to send the order to the exchange that is likely to get the best price for their customers," said Jackson. "But to nobody’s surprise, research shows that brokers very often send their orders to the exchange that gives the broker the biggest rebate."

Mike Williams, executive director of the Equity Markets Association, issued the following statement as a response to Jackson's speech:

"US exchanges are the most heavily regulated, transparent and trusted participants in our national equity trading infrastructure, and today provide more valuable, efficient and resilient trading and data services, at the lowest relative cost to investors, than at any time in history."

Jackson's proposed reforms

The arguments outlined above may seem daunting, but Jackson has some ideas of how to right the ship. He notes that he has some support from within the SEC, which should aid him in his quest to reform the exchanges. His proposed reforms include:

1) A pilot study to test the effects of rebates

In the spring, the SEC unanimously approved a pilot study to assess how rebates impact market conditions. Jackson notes that the initiative, against which exchanges have "fought mightily," will provide valuable insight around how markets behave without rebates.

"I think the time has come for the SEC and investors to know the facts about rebates and other incentives," he said.

2) Enhanced transparency

Jackson proposes exchanges start disclosing revenue figures in more straightforward fashion. He says that raising investor awareness on the subject will be a crucial step.

It "would go a long way in giving investors a clearer view regarding the costs they pay to invest in America’s public companies," he said.

3) Roundtable discussions with other high-ranking officials

Jackson says he's planning to work closely with Brett Redfearn, who's served as the SEC's Director of the Division of Trading and Markets since October 2017. He says these types of roundtable discussions will help keep the actions of exchanges in check.

"It is time for the Commission to have a market-wide conversation about how exchanges make their rules and prices," he said.

4) A review of exchange immunity and limits on liability

This is an extension of puzzling practice no. 2, listed above. Jackson thinks it's unfair that exchanges are essentially able to write their own rules, then be exempt from legal liability.

"The exchanges cannot have it both ways — both claiming that business considerations limit the degree to which they can regulate public companies while making broad claims to regulatory immunity," said Jackson.

SEE ALSO: The inside story of how an old-school Scottish firm became an early investor in many of Silicon Valley's most prized unicorns, and made a killing in the process

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• Federal prosecutors have charged three men in connection with an alleged $364 million Ponzi scheme that could have more than 400 victims nationwide. 
• The men were indicted on charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, identity theft, and money laundering.
• The indictment alleges that the three men took $73 million of investors’ funds "to purchase and renovate high end homes in Maryland, Texas, Nevada, and Florida, purchase luxury automobiles, jewelry, boats, and a share in a jet plane, gamble $25 million at casinos, and support a lavish lifestyle."

A federal grand jury has indicted three men on charges related to an alleged $364 million ponzi scheme.

The three alleged fraudsters — Kevin B. Merrill, Jay B. Ledford and Cameron Jezierski — promised to pay investors significant profits from the purchase and resale of consumer debt portfolios, but in fact, they "touted their purported investment expertise to siphon millions of dollars from unsuspecting investors,"according to the SEC's complaint. 

A press release from the Department of Justice US Attorney’s Office in the District of Maryland said: 

"The indictment alleges that Merrill, Ledford, and Jezierski personally enriched themselves and concealed their diversion of $73 million of investors’ funds to purchase and renovate high end homes in Maryland, Texas, Nevada, and Florida, purchase luxury automobiles, jewelry, boats, and a share in a jet plane, gamble $25 million at casinos, and support a lavish lifestyle.

The men were charged with conspiracy, wire fraud, identity theft, and money laundering, according to the Department of Justice. The victims included small business owners, restauranteurs, bankers, talent agents, professional athletes, and financial advisors. 

"We allege that the defendants engaged in a brazen fraud, deceiving investors to perpetuate their wrongdoing and line their pockets with ill-gotten gains," said Kelly L. Gibson, Associate Regional Director of the SEC's Philadelphia Regional Office. "Investors should be warned that low-risk, high-return investments that never lose should be a red flag."

According to the SEC, Ledford misappropriated at least $40 million. That includes the transfer of at least $17 million to personal bank accounts, and the purchase of: "a $368,000 Ferrari, a $330,000 seven-carat diamond ring, and a $168,000 23-carat diamond bracelet, while transferring $13 million to casinos."

Merrill misappropriated at least $45 million, according to the SEC. The SEC said: 

"He transferred over $7 million to his personal bank accounts, spent $10.2 million on at least 25 high-end automobiles (including a 2008 Bugatti Veyron, a 2014 Pagani Huayra Diablo, a 2014 Ferrari F12 Berlinetta, a 2017 Rolls Royce Dawn, and multiple other models made by Ferrari and Lamborghini), $5.5 million toward the purchase of a house in Naples, Florida, over $2 million for home renovations, $500,000 for an interest in a Gulfstream 200 private jet, a $100,000 club membership in Naples, $350,000 on a boat, and transferring approximately $1 million to casinos.

Attorneys for the three men were not listed in court documents.

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• Alaska Airlines is only major US carriers to have a frequent flyer program which still offers mile-for-mile redeemable miles without spending component.
• The airline sees its frequent flyer program as a valuable weapon against rivals such as American, Delta, and United.
• Alaska hopes to use the program's generous reward offers as a way to convert prospective customers into loyal repeat customers. 

In recent years, airlines across the industry have worked to optimize their frequent flyer programs to balance rewards for those who fly the most and those who spend the most money.

In most cases, tweaks to the system have added mechanisms to account for dollars spent with the airline in addition to the total mileage flown. 

For most passengers, the changes have resulted in less generous frequent flyer programs. 

The only major US airline to buck this trend is Alaska Airlines which has not factored spending into ints frequent flyer mileage formula. Instead, you earn however many miles you fly on Alaska. 

"The fact that we do mile-for-mile and we have our companion fare (the program is) so generous," Alaska Airlines managing director of marketing and advertising, Natalie Bowman told Business Insider.

(Alaska's companion fare allows holders of the airline's credit cards to purchase one round-trip ticket every year to anywhere in its route network for $121.)

This year, both US News and noted travel blog The Points Guy named Alaska's program the best in the US. 

As a result, the frequent flier program has become a valuable weapon against larger full-service carriers such as American, United, and Delta.

"Alaska Airlines has to go above and beyond its rivals because it doesn't have the network diversity of rivals," Raymond James & Associates senior vice president of equity research, Savi Syth, told Business Insider.

In addition, Syth noted that Alaska's decision to not feature a revenue component is due to the fact that it caters to a slightly different clientele than its rivals which are focused on high-spending business traveling "road warriors." 

With the acquisition of Virgin America, Alaska Airlines has firmly cemented its intention to become the carrier of choice for the West Coast of the United States. 

However, Alaska's larger rivals won't back down so easily.

Delta invaded Alaska Air's home turf in 2014 when it added Seattle-Tacoma International Airport to its network of hubs. 

Alaska secondary hubs in Los Angeles and San Francisco are just as competitive. United is a major player at SFO while all three major legacy carriers have hubs at LAX.

For that reason, the airline's mileage program has become a key part of Alaska's business strategy in California.

"The travel mindset in California is that you take weekend trips on a regular basis," Bowman said. "It's not such a big deal to fly from LA to San Francisco a couple of times a quarter."

"So what we've tried to do is show just how a few of those trips can earn you free travel on Alaska must faster than with any other airline," Bowman added. 

Alaska's goal is to use the generous rewards program to turn prospective customers into loyal repeat customers.

SEE ALSO: Alaska Airlines exec reveals how it’s going to add basic economy without repeating the mistakes of Delta, American, and United

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NOW WATCH: Ray Dalio says the economy looks like 1937 and a downturn is coming in about two years

• Michael Bloomberg, the former Republican mayor of New York, is considering a run for the presidency in 2020 as a centrist Democrat, despite an energized left wing and a crowded field.  
• Many Democratic strategists say Bloomberg has no path to victory. 
• "It's hard to imagine someone more out of touch with the Democratic base," said one operative. 

Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire media mogul and former New York mayor, is seriously considering a run for the presidency in 2020 as a centrist Democrat, despite an energized left wing and a crowded field.  

The former Republican, who's spending $80 million largely on Democratic candidates in this year's midterm elections, has received a warm welcome into the Democratic fold from party leaders, but strategists on the left say a presidential bid would likely be dead on arrival. 

Despite his newfound allegiance to the Democratic Party, Bloomberg holds an array of positions anathema to the progressive left.

While an influential champion of gun control and environmental protection policies, Bloomberg defends stop-and-frisk policing (ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge in 2013), breaks with progressive Democrats on bank regulation, and believes the movement against sexual misconduct has gone too far in some cases, according to a recent interview he did with The New York Times.

The 2020 primary is looking to be a competitive battle for the left — half a dozen likely presidential contenders in the Senate have spent the last few years catering to the party's energized base with increasingly progressive policy proposals and rhetoric. Some Democratic operatives say Bloomberg couldn't be farther from what progressives are looking for.

"It's hard to imagine someone more out of touch with the Democratic base than a billionaire who defends racist policing tactics, advocates going soft on Wall Street, and dismisses the significance of the #MeToo movement," said one New York-based Democratic strategist, who requested anonymity to avoid jeopardizing relations with fellow Democrats. "Even millions of dollars couldn't make those viewpoints palatable to Democratic voters."

Other liberal Democrats expressed the same sentiment, in slightly softer terms. 

"I think it's great that the Democratic presidential primary is shaping up to be robust, but at the same time I feel as though he may not be completely in touch with where the Democratic Party is right now," said Carolyn Fiddler, communications director for the progressive advocacy group Daily Kos.

Bloomberg has long been called out of touch — both on the left and the right. And this isn't the first time he's mulled a presidential run. He considered running as an independent in 2016 — an idea the GOP laughed off, citing his positions on guns and abortion as far too liberal to appeal to a primary electorate. He ultimately decided not to run after determining he had no path to victory. 

"His trial balloon went over like the Hindenburg," the Democratic strategist said.

But others in the party would like a moderate in Bloomberg's mold on the general election ticket, although they concede the chances of that happening are low. 

"In a general election he would do exceptionally well, he would pull in a lot of independents, he would pull in a lot of moderates," said Adrienne Elrod, a former spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton's campaign, said of Bloomberg, adding, "The left and progressives are louder than they've ever been. They're vocal, they're energized, they're motivated, and they want someone whose ideologies align with theirs." 

SEE ALSO: Michael Bloomberg is weighing a 2020 run as a centrist Democrat

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NOW WATCH: Inside the Trump 'MAGA' hat factory

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Thursday.

1. Amazon is thinking about opening 3,000 cashierless brick-and-mortar stores by 2021, Bloomberg reports. Jeff Bezos is experimenting with different formats for "Amazon Go" according to people familiar with the matter.

2. The new Apple Watch reviews are in, and its features may be overshadowed by its steep price tag. The new Apple Watch models go on sale on Friday, the first major redesign of the product since Apple first released it in 2015.

3. The EU is now going after Amazon after slapping Google and Apple with giant fines. The European Union's competition commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, said on Wednesday that the EU had started a preliminary investigation into Amazon over potential antitrust violations.

4. Apple will log how many "phone calls or emails you send and receive" to give "trust scores" to your devices. Apple is going to start using phone call and email metadata in an attempt to combat fraud.

5. Sony announced the launch of a $100 mini version of the original PlayStation. Sony is releasing the console — which is 45% smaller than its original counterpart — in December.

6. Jack Ma said Trump's trade war with China will wreck Alibaba's plans to help create 1 million US jobs. The comment, made in an interview with Chinese media outlet Xinhua, comes two days after Trump announced a fresh set of tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods.

7. A Drug Enforcement Agency plane collided with a Tesla Model X as it crash-landed on a Texas street. A Drug Enforcement Agency plane crash-landed in the Sugar Land, Texas, area on Wednesday, injuring one of the three special agents on board.

8. Salesforce's newest AI product Einstein Voice is like Amazon's Alexa for the workforce. Einstein Voice includes an assistant tool, which can interpret voice memos and enter data from what it hears, as well as surface critical data from Salesforce using only voice commands.

9. Mark Zuckerberg's money manager invested $100 million in a hot startup, and it shows how Microsoft's $7.5 billion GitHub acquisition is sending shockwaves through Silicon Valley. GitLab has raised $100 million in a round led by Iconiq Capital, with the deal valuing the startup at $1.1 billion.

10. The Lyft app will now tell you the fastest way to get anywhere, even if it means taking public transit instead of a Lyft ride. Lyft and a company called Trafi are partnering to add additional transportation methods like public transit to Lyft's in-app routing system.

Have an Amazon Alexa device? Now you can hear 10 Things in Tech each morning. Just search for "Business Insider" in your Alexa's flash briefing settings.

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NOW WATCH: An aerospace company reintroduced its precision helicopter with two crossing motors

Good morning! Here's what you need to know in markets on Thursday.

1.U.S. President Donald Trump is set to nominate former Federal Reserve economist Nellie Liang to the central bank’s board of governors, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday, citing a person familiar with the matter.

2. China plans to reduce the average tariff rate on imports from most of its trading partners as soon as October, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday. In July, China cut import tariffs on almost 1,500 consumer products ranging from cosmetics to home appliances as part of efforts to open up its economy, the world's second biggest.

3. Volkswagen will end almost of all its operations in Iran, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing a U.S. official who led the discussions with the carmaker. The Trump administration persuaded Volkswagen to comply with U.S. sanctions on Iran, Bloomberg said. 

4. Luxury British carmaker Aston Martin said on Thursday it was seeking a valuation of up to 5.07 billion pounds ($6.7 billion) as it set a price range of £17.50 to £22.50 per share for its stock market flotation.The company, famed for making the sports car driven by fictional secret agent James Bond, said last month it was pursuing an IPO, the first British carmaker to do so for decades.

5. Nestle said on Thursday it was exploring strategic options for its skin health business, saying it believes the unit might be better off outside of the Swiss food maker. Following a strategic review earlier this year, Nestle's board decided to increase the company's focus on food, drinks and nutritional health products.

6. The CEO of British American Tobacco Nicandro Durante is preparing to step down in the wake of a sector-wide share price decline prompted by investor concerns over slowing sales growth, Sky News reported on Wednesday. Durante is expected to leave the company at some point in the next year and likely to be replaced by an internal candidate, Sky News said, citing sources.

7. Amazon.com Inc is considering a plan to open as many as 3,000 new Amazon Go cashierless stores in the next few years, Bloomberg reported. The Amazon Go store, which has no cashiers and allows shoppers to buy things with the help of a smartphone app, is widely seen as a concept that can alter brick-and-mortar retail. 

8. Coinbase has hired finance executive Brian Brooks as chief legal officer, it said on Wednesday, as the cryptocurrency exchange grows its compliance and government affairs capabilities amid intensifying regulatory scrutiny of the nascent market.Brooks was most recently executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of Fannie Mae, the U.S. mortgage finance company. 

9. Hard pressed to quash allegations that its popular "fear gauge" is being manipulated, Cboe Global Markets is turning to artificial intelligence to help put those concerns to rest.In its latest effort to police trading tied to the volatility index, known as the VIX, the Cboe is working with FINRA, its regulatory services provider, to develop machine learning techniques to tell whether market conditions surrounding the VIX settlement are potentially anomalous, the exchange told Reuters.

10. Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive officer of DoubleLine Capital, on Wednesday said bond prices across the U.S. Treasury yield curve could fall if the 30-year yield closes above 3.25 percent twice in a row.The yield on the 10-year Treasury note and 30-year Treasury bond both hit four-month highs early Wednesday. The 10-year yield was currently trading around 3.08% and the 30-year around 3.22 %.

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NOW WATCH: Ray Dalio says the economy looks like 1937 and a downturn is coming in about two years

• Exclusive: Liam Fox is planning to scrap EU food standards using controversial "Henry the 8th" powers, multiple sources have told Business Insider.
• The UK trade secretary wants to use government powers to rewrite UK food standards in order to strike a post-Brexit trade deal with the Trump administration.
• Sources claim Fox wants to alter food standards through the Trade Bill. Fox described the story as "fake news" in a tweet.
• Labour accuses Fox of risking putting UK "farmers and food producers out of business."
• The UK will need to lower its food standards to sign a comprehensive trade deal with the US.

LONDON — Liam Fox is planning to use controversial "Henry VIII" powers to scrap European food standards in order to pave the way for a trade deal with the US after Brexit.

Theresa May's government has insisted that they will not water down EU regulations which currently prohibit the sale of products such as chlorinated chicken and hormone-injected beef in Britain.

However, Fox and Crawford Falconer, the UK's chief trade negotiation adviser, have privately discussed rewriting UK food standards through the upcoming Trade Bill, a source in Fox's Department for International Trade told Business Insider.

The Trade Secretary plans to use statutory instruments which allow the government to rewrite parts of legislation without a vote in parliament, in order to alter the bill once it has been voted on by MPs.

Fox's plans were confirmed by another government source as well as two sources who work closely with his department.

"Nothing is completely off the table. We are going to keep the same high level of health and safety standards but we are on course to negotiate with the US for an FTA and that will require compromise," a government source said.

UK food standards currently mirror those of the EU. The EU enforces stringent rules and regulations on food and the environment. These prohibit contentious agricultural products like chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-treated beef from entering EU markets, including the UK's.

However, Fox believes the UK should diverge from EU rules after Brexit in order to sign wide-ranging free trade deals with countries with lower standards.

 Trade experts have warned that any post-Brexit UK-US trade deal will likely require the UK to abandon the EU's food standards. Sir Peter Westmacott, the UK's former ambassador to the US, told BI that US-produced agricultural products would also be produced at a "relatively low cost," posing a threat to UK farmers. 

A government spokesperson denied that the Trade bill would be used to lower food standards after Brexit.

"It is not true that the Trade Bill will lower UK food standards and to suggest otherwise is false," they said.

Fox described the suggestion that UK food standards will be lower after Brexit as fake news.

Outfoxed by Gove

Fox has previously defended the potential sale of chlorinated chicken in the UK.

"There are no health reasons why you couldn’t eat chickens that have been washed in chlorinated water," the Trade Secretary told MPs last year.

However, Fox's push to reduce UK food standards have been resisted by Michael Gove's Department for Environment, who are wary that it would contradict Gove's promise not to compromise environmental standards.

"DEFRA and DIT are not pals," a source who has worked with DIT said.

"DEFRA have a big trade team now which sees its mandate as stopping DIT from doing silly things. BEIS (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) are also gearing up to battle DIT, but are further behind in the process."

Gove has previously publicly dismissed suggestions that the UK should lower standards in order to win a deal with the US.

"The Cabinet is agreed that there should be no compromise on high animal welfare and environmental standards. In America they cannot guarantee the same high standards in terms of how chickens are reared that we insist on here," he told MPs last year.

"Unless there is a change in the American side, we would say that those animal welfare rules are things on which we will not compromise."

'Nightmare scenario' for British consumers

Fox's apparent determination to push ahead with plans to alter food standards after Brexit comes as the prime minister comes under renewed pressure to abandon plans to sign up Britain to continued regulatory alignment with the EU after Brexit.

The Initiative for Free Trade, a right-wing organisation with close links to Fox and US President Trump, will this week unveil proposals for a UK-US free trade deal based on cutting back food and environmental regulations. 

Fox's colleague, Treasury minister Liz Truss, reportedly told one of the think tanks involved in the proposals that the UK is being held back by "a thicket of regulation and control" and should pursue an "Anglo-American dream."

The government's opponents accused Fox and the government of setting up a "nightmare" scenario for British consumers.

"Theresa May has not even concluded a withdrawal agreement and already Liam Fox is seizing powers to lower our food and animal welfare standards and protections," Barry Gardiner MP, Labour's Shadow International Trade Secretary told BI.

"All in order to strike a quick and grubby trade deal with President Trump.

"When will the Tories understand that lower environmental standards, chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-fed beef is not a dream but a nightmare? Opening up our markets to big US agribusiness risks putting many of our farmers and food producers out of business and fundamentally damage our countryside."

Labour MP Peter Kyle, a leading supporter of the People's Vote campaign, told BI: "In the UK we are rightly proud of the high-quality, world-class food we produce. Our farmers do not want to reduce standards or to allow cheaply-produced, lower quality imports to flood the market just to appease the likes of Donald Trump."

"Our food production and environmental standards must not be carved up at the whims of Liam Fox."

A senior source in the House of Lords warned that peers would also block any move by Fox to redesign the country's food standards using Henry VIII powers."It will go down like a bucket of sick," they told BI.

"For Henry VIII powers to be abused like that would go down very badly in the House of Lords."

SEE ALSO: Frontrunner to replace Vince Cable as Lib Dem leader has 'major concerns' about his plans to elect a 'celebrity' leader

DON'T MISS: Trump will 'force' May's government to accept hormone beef and chlorinated chicken after Brexit

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• Danske Bank, Denmark's biggest lender, has been rocked by a money-laundering scandal which may have involved $235 billion.
• If the bank is found guilty of any wrongdoing it will likely face a significant fine.
• One estimate suggests the fine could be as high as 53 billion Danish krone ($8.3 billion), while others believe somewhere in the hundreds of millions of dollars is more likely.
• The bank has not yet been found to have done anything wrong, so a fine may not be levied at all.

The scandal surrounding the Estonian arm of Denmark's biggest lender, Danske Bank, is one of the biggest in the financial sector in many years.

Danske Bank admitted on Wednesday that as much as $235 billion of transactions flowing through its Estonian branch between 2007 and 2015 may have been suspicious, and connected to potential money laundering.

So far, the bank's CEO, Thomas Borgen has resigned, saying that while an investigation into the branch found no legal wrongdoing from him, he believed the best course of action was to stand down.

"It is clear that Danske Bank has failed to live up to its responsibility in the case of possible money laundering in Estonia," he said in resigning on Wednesday.

As well as Borgen's resignation, Danske has already had to contend with a sharp drop in its share price as investors pull out in anticipation of possible regulatory and legal punishments on the back of the scandal.

Going forward, however, another major issue the bank is likely to have to contend with is one or more substantial fines for its failings in the scandal. No one knows how much any potential fine will be yet, or even if any will be levied, but early estimates range from hundreds of millions of dollars, to billions.

Perhaps the biggest estimate of how much the fine may be so far comes from Danish bank Jyske Bank, a key competitor of Danske Bank. According to a column from Breakingviews, analysts at Jyske have calculated that the heaviest penalty for Danske Bank could amount to 53 billion Danish krone ($8.3 billion).

That is based on about $150 billion of the Estonian transactions being fraudulent, and regulators following the penalties they have imposed on the likes of Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas in previous incidents.

Most estimates are significantly less extreme than that outcome. Credit Suisse, for example, said in a note on Wednesday that markets are expecting the total fine to be below 15 billion krone ($2.3 billion), around 28% of the most pessimistic forecast from Jyske.

The Danish government has also put a smaller number on a potential fine for Danske Bank if it is found to have committed any wrongdoing.  The Danish government said on Wednesday afternoon it could be looking to levy a fine of 4 billion kroner ($630 billion) in the event wrongdoing is proved.

According to Bloomberg that estimate is "based on an assumption that the bank’s profits from transactions tainted by laundering amount to about 1.5 billion kroner ($235 million.)"

Danske Bank has not yet been found to be responsible for anything connected to the scandal, so it is possible that it could avoid a fine altogether.

The bank has already received a fine for violating anti-money laundering rules in relation to the monitoring of transactions to and from correspondent banks. In December last year, it was hit with a 12.5 million krone ($2 million) fine. That fine, however, did not concern its Estonian operation.

SEE ALSO: The CEO of Denmark's biggest bank is out after a $235 billion money-laundering scandal

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• More Amazon workers have donated to Bernie Sanders than Barack Obama over the past 14 years, according to political data firm GovPredict.
• It could be a boost for Sanders' campaign against Amazon's working standards, showing his ideas and ideology resonate with certain sections of Amazon employees.
• Amazon has called Sanders' claims about pay and warehouse working conditions "inaccurate and misleading."
• GovPredict found that more than 90% of the political donations made by Amazon employees have gone to Democrat candidates and causes since 2004.

More Amazon workers have donated to Bernie Sanders than Barack Obama over the past 14 years — and it could provide a boost for the Democrat's war on the tech company.

That's the finding of a detailed study on the political donations of Amazon employees by GovPredict, a political data firm with backing from the prestigious Silicon Valley tech incubator Y Combinator. The company combs through campaign filings to find details of donations.

GovPredict found that 275 Amazon workers have provided funding for Sanders since 2004. Hillary Clinton is the only politician to have received more backing from Amazon staff, with 310 employees contributing to her cause. Barack Obama had support from 171 Amazon employees.

However, when you look at the amount donated to US politicians by Amazon staff, Sanders was in fourth place. Below is a chart produced by GovPredict, showing Clinton leading the way with $610,805 in donations from employees of the Seattle-based tech firm.

The findings could be a boost for Sanders' campaign against Amazon's working standards. The lawmaker introduced a bill, the Stop BEZOS Act, earlier this month in a bid to increase worker pay at large companies like Amazon and Walmart. The aim is to force employers to increase wages to a level at which workers do not need to rely on programs like food stamps or housing assistance.

GovPredict's findings reflect political donations from every level at Amazon, including those who work in the company's warehouses, who are among those Sanders is campaigning for. It shows that Sanders' ideas and ideology resonate with certain sections of Amazon employees.

Business Insider contacted Amazon for comment. The firm fired back at Sanders in a blog post last month, calling his claims about working conditions "inaccurate and misleading." It goes on to tout its pay and benefits, as well as the working conditions in its warehouses — areas that Sanders has repeatedly criticised.

More broadly, GovPredict found that more than 90% of the political donations made by Amazon employees went to Democrat candidates and causes over the past 14 years. The political party has received $6.7 million from Amazon staff, while $731,576 was given to the Republicans, including $17,436 for President Donald Trump.

The findings were almost identical to similar research GovPredict carried out on Alphabet's political donations, meaning a picture is emerging on big tech's liberal leanings.

The Amazon research was presented in a blog post by GovPredict CEO Emil Pitkin. Pitkin is a former Harvard graduate and launched GovPredict at the Y Combinator demo day in 2015. The company is also said to have $120,000 in seed funding from Y Combinator, which has backed startups such as Airbnb, Reddit, and Stripe.

SEE ALSO: Joe Biden's former top economist thinks Bernie Sanders' bill attacking Amazon and Jeff Bezos 'may backfire'

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• An Instagram star from Hong Kong has come under fire for taking an unusual carry-on item onto a business class flight.
• Harimao Lee posted a photo of herself sipping Champagne on her Cathay Pacific flight to Rome while draped in fairy lights.
• People on social media questioned the influencer's choice of lighting, with some noting that she was sitting in the seat backwards.
• The post appears to be sponsored by Cathay Pacific as #cathaycreators is tagged in the caption.
• Lee doesn't seem to mind the criticism, though.
• She has since posted more pictures of herself in exotic locations, draped in her beloved fairly lights.

Some people will stop at nothing to capture the perfect travel photo.

One such person is Hong Kong Instagram star Harimao Lee — who has 127,000 followers at the time of writing.

Lee has come under fire on social media for her affinity for fairy lights, which she took on her business class Cathay Pacific flight in order to capture this snap:

She wrote in the caption: "It was the long dark night during the flight from HK to Rome. Stargazing is one thing to do in the cabin." However, the glare from the fairy lights may have made stargazing somewhat tricky.

The post appears to be sponsored by the Hong Kong airline, as #cathaycreators is tagged in the caption.

People on social media tore into the influencer for her choice of lighting, which is an admittedly unusual item to carry in your hand luggage.

Travel writer Cynthia Drescher‏ wrote on Twitter: "Awful lot of effort to make an already great seat (J, CX 77W) look Insta-glam. (She's sitting backwards/in the footwell, brought fairy lights, and has vacant side stare (at what?) down pat)."

"Only a couple of months to go until she can bring a Christmas tree on board,"another user wrote.

Lee is paying no attention to the haters, though.

She has since posted a picture of her entangled in her beloved fairy lights while looking out over the now Instagram-famous Cinque Terre in Italy.

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• A sealed one-day auction between Comcast and Fox for Sky is on course to commence Saturday.
• These types of auctions are rare, with only two in the past decade.
• Analysts predict that Comcast will win in a bidding war for Sky.

The battle for the British broadcaster Sky may be in its final days. Comcast and 21st Century Fox, which have competing bids out for Sky, have until Friday to drop out of bidding before a larger clash of the media titans begins.

Unless there is a breakthrough, the bidding process will end after a single-day auction starting Saturday, the British Takeover Panel declared on Thursday.

The Takeover Panel has a standard auction time frame of five days, and bidding can be sealed or open. One-day sealed auctions are rare, with only two in the past decade, the Morningstar analyst Allan Nichols told Business Insider.

"This is very rare in UK M&A," Alex DeGroote, an independent media analyst, told Business Insider. "And a suitably dramatic end to this saga."

A potential bidding war

Once an auction begins, there are few potential outcomes, according to analysts.

It's possible neither company will increase its latest bid for Sky. Comcast's most recent offer is £14.75 a share, valuing Sky at £26 billion, or $34 billion, while Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox bid is £14 a share.

Or, both companies could bid in an auction. "The market is betting on a bidding war," Nichols said. The shares for Sky have traded much higher than those of either offer, indicating that the market anticipates a competitive bidding process that drives the purchase price higher.

Both analysts said they expected Comcast to win in an auction scenario.

"Comcast is overall positioned better to win," DeGroote said. "It has saved its firepower for this Sky auction, it has more balance-sheet headroom, and it can derive material operating synergies in a combination."

Another outcome is that shareholders could reject any offer on the table. They have until October 6 to do so. If they reject the offers, any future offers would have to be on hold for six months.

The battle for Sky is linked to an earlier fight between Disney and Comcast for some 21st Century Fox assets. In July, Comcast dropped out of that bidding, allowing Disney to win Murdoch's entertainment assets plus the 39% of Sky that Fox already owned. If Fox wins out in an auction, it will control Sky. If Comcast wins, it will own the 61% not owned by Fox.

Sky is an attractive asset to both Comcast and Disney as they work to expand their international footprints. The British pay-TV business serves 23 million customers, mostly direct-broadcast-satellite subscribers, in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland.

It has a strong content portfolio, with exclusive rights through 2020 to run HBO shows like "Game of Thrones" and "Westworld" across Europe and with the majority of Premier League TV rights and exclusive rights to the German Bundesliga.

SEE ALSO: 'It's a signal Verizon is not seriously interested in major investments': Insiders say Verizon's choice of Guru Gowrappan to run Oath reveals the future of Verizon's ad business

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• Australia's biggest supermarket — Woolworths — announced Thursday that it will stop selling sewing needles.
• It is a response to a crisis in the country which has seen people hide needles inside strawberries and other fruit.
• More than 100 reports have been made of hidden needles, and 2 people who accidentally ate needles had to go to hospital.
• The crisis has spread panic, plunged Australia's fruit industry into chaos, and prompted Parliament to pass a new law.

Australia's biggest supermarket chain has stopped selling sewing needles as part of a response to a growing trend of people hiding them in strawberries and other fruit.

Woolworths announced on Thursday that it is temporarily removing needles from sale, according to the Reuters news agency. All 995 Woolworths branches are affected.

Other fruit have also been found with needles inside, including at least one case of needles in an apple, a banana, and a mango.

Two people have gone to hospital after accidentally eating one of the needles. One person — a child — has been arrested after reportedly admitting to putting needles in strawberries.

On Wednesday, an Australian government minister said that at least 100 reports have been received of needles in fruit. Some of the reports may be false alarms.

The phenomenon – which has turned many Australians off buying strawberries and thrown Australia's fruit industry into chaos – appears to have worsened over the past week.

The problem came to light from a Facebook post earlier this month by a man who said his friend had swallowed part of a needle hidden in a strawberry and went to the hospital.

Cases have since been reported in many parts of the country, according to this map compiled by News.com.au.

On Thursday, lawmakers in Australia passed new legislation increasing the jail term for those convicted of hiding needles in fruit to 15 years.

You can read the full ammendment to the Criminal Code Act 1995 here.

On Wednesday, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison called said that anybody who hides a needle in a strawberry is "a coward and a grub."

"It's not a joke. It's not funny," he told reporters. "You are putting the livelihoods of hardworking Australians at risk, and you are scaring children."

He added: "And if you do that sort of thing in this country, we will come after you, and we will throw the book at you."

The governments of Western Australia, New South Wales, and Queensland are all offering a reward of 100,000 Australian dollars ($72,000) for information.

Police said on Wednesday that they had arrested one person in connection with the phenomenon.

According to News.com.au, Stuart Smith, a senior officer in the New South Wales police force, said: "In the last two days we found a young person has admitted to a prank, including putting needles in strawberries, and he'll be dealt with under the youth cautioning system."

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• Former FBI Director James Comey says the Russia investigation into the Trump campaign appears to be nearing its end.
• He suggested that Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's recent guilty pleas and agreement to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller suggested Mueller was closing in on Trump.
• Comey said: "The way you normally do investigations is you work from the bottom up, and so they're getting pretty high."
  
• Comey admitted that the secrecy with which the investigation has been conducted means he can't be totally sure of its progress.

James Comey said that Special Counsel Robert Mueller may be nearing the end of his investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia.

The former FBI director gave an interview to St. Louis Public Radio on Wednesday in which he gave an assessment of the progress made by Mueller, his immediate predecessor at the FBI.

Comey said the fact that Paul Manafort, Trump's campaign chairman, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and agreed to cooperate with Mueller suggests that Mueller may be almost done.

Comey said on Wednesday:

"I think there's an argument to be made that the conviction — the plea and cooperation by Paul Manafort — may represent that we're in the fourth quarter.

"Because the way you normally do investigations is you work from the bottom up, and so they're getting pretty high."

He added, however, that he "can't say with certainty" where Mueller is at, because the investigation has largely been conducted under wraps.

"The reason I'm hesitant to even say that is [because] Bob Mueller's conducted his investigation like a pro," Comey said. "You know nothing about it except through his public filings, and that's the way it's supposed to be. So I can't say with certainty where he is."

Listen to Comey discuss this around the 8:00 mark in the clip below:

Mueller's investigation started in May 2017 shortly after Trump fired Comey as FBI director. It has so far lasted 16 months.

Manafort last week pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice and one count of conspiracy against the US last week in a case that centered on his political consulting work from 2006 to 2015 for pro-Russian interests.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, however, claimed that Manafort's case "had absolutely nothing to do with the president or his victorious 2016 presidential campaign."

"The perfect storm of cooperators"

Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, is also cooperating with a Manhattan US attorney's office investigation into his and the president's dealings leading up to the election.

He pleaded guilty last month to five counts of tax evasion, one count of bank fraud, and two counts related to campaign-finance violations.

Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization's longtime chief financial officer, was granted immunity by federal prosecutors last month so he could share information about Cohen and Trump.

One former federal prosecutor said federal investigators now have "the perfect storm of cooperators."

SEE ALSO: Experts say federal investigators now have 'the perfect storm of cooperators' against Trump

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