Category: 3. Business

Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott’s foundation has donated $18 million to Alaska Pacific University.

APU President Janelle Vanasse said it’s a transformational contribution to the university.

“APU is heading in a really exciting direction, and to have somebody like MacKenzie Scott and her team recognize that — we’re just so grateful for that, and just think it’s really validating and we’re excited about what’s next for us,” she said.

MacKenzie Scott became one of the wealthiest women in the world through her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. She’s known for making massive gifts with no strings attached. Vanasse said APU never applied to Scott’s foundation, Yield Giving, for a grant because that’s not how it works.

“You don’t apply. She has a team that kind of does their own quiet research, is what they call it,” she said. “And they find organizations that they want to support, and they choose us.”

The $18 million is equivalent to about 70% of APU’s annual budget. Vanasse said it will nearly double a foundation that benefits the university. The immediate plan is to leave it there to help build the university’s financial sustainability. She said it will help APU keep tuition costs as low as possible.

• $5 million for design, development, and infrastructure costs to enable
  delivery of the first 13 homes of the Fitzroy Crossing Key Worker Housing Project
• Homes will be delivered by local Aboriginal-owned organisation Leedal
  (via Tarunda Housing Pty Ltd)
• Grant is part of the Cook Government’s efforts to ensure regional Western
  Australians have a place to call home

The Cook Government has announced a $5
million capital grant to support more key worker housing in the Kimberley.

The grant awarded to Kimberley-based Leedal (via
Tarunda Housing Pty Ltd) will go towards the costs of design, development, and
civil works to support delivery of 13 homes in the first stage of a key worker
housing project in the Fitzroy Valley.

The Fitzroy Crossing Key Worker Housing
Project is being funded through the North-West Aboriginal Housing Fund (NWAHF)
and will eventually deliver up to 51 homes.

On completion, the homes will be available to
Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) and non-government
service delivery organisations to meet demand for worker accommodation in the
region.

Leedal is an Indigenous-owned organisation
that operates tourist businesses and key town facilities in Fitzroy Crossing on
behalf of six incorporated ACCOs in the Fitzroy Valley.

The State Government’s
NWAHF invests in Aboriginal-led housing programs and supports the delivery of
housing as well as culturally informed support services.

Comments attributed to Housing and Works Minister John
Carey:

“Our government’s partnership
with Leedal will support the delivery of more homes for Aboriginal key workers
in Fitzroy Crossing.

“These homes will
ensure that low to middle-income Aboriginal workers are able to source
affordable housing close to where they work.

“It’s part of our
record $6.3 billion investment in housing and homelessness measures across the
State since 2021.”

Comments attributed to
Kimberley MLA Divina D’Anna:

“The Cook Government is
continuing to make important investments to benefit the Fitzroy Crossing
community, including in this development and the newly completed expansion of
the renal health centre.

“This $5 million grant
to Leedal means more secure homes for Aboriginal key workers in the community,
also supporting the local economy.”

By Ben Christopher and Jeanne Kuang, CalMatters

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

In his final year in office, Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to go after large investors buying and owning California housing — in the same week that President Donald Trump also took rhetorical aim at Big Landlord.

It’s an unlikely meeting of the minds of two political foes who, in a race to head off the electorate’s concerns about affordability, have landed upon the same populist message: Blame Wall Street.

Newsom plans to say during his State of the State address to lawmakers on Thursday that he wants to work with them to regulate the practice of investors buying up large stocks of housing to rent out, forcing California residents to compete with them to afford buying a home, according to the governor’s office.

Proposals could include “enhanced state oversight and enforcement and potential changes to the state tax code,” according to the governor’s office.

“When housing is treated primarily as a corporate investment strategy, Californians feel the impact,” a source in the office said. “Prices go up, rents rise, and fewer people have a chance to buy a home.”

That sounds similar to a proposal Trump made on his social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday. The two previously closely aligned on policy related to clearing of homeless encampments. 

“I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes,” the president wrote, sending stock prices of major publicly traded residential investment firms plummeting. He urged Congress to put the proposal into law and promised to unveil additional housing policy proposals at the World Economic Forum summit in Davos, Switzerland later this month.

Newsom is stopping short of calling for an outright ban on institutional investors’ ownership, though the source said he will seek to “curb” it with the goal of making home ownership more affordable for California residents. 

He hasn’t yet proposed anything concrete. Whatever Newsom seeks to do, he’ll need the approval of the state Legislature.

Trump, for his part, did not offer any details about his proposal, such as how institutional investors would be defined under the proposed law or why he targeted single-family homes in particular. The White House’s press office did not respond to an email with those questions. 

The twin announcements come after years of long-shot efforts by California progressives to address a surge in companies buying up single-family housing stock in the wake of the Great Recession. The issue has been the subject of renewed anxiety in post-fire Los Angeles, where a recent report by RedFin showed investors (loosely defined as any buyer with a name that includes “LLC,” “Inc” or “Corp”) have purchased 27 of 61 burned vacant lots that sold in Altadena — more than 40%. 

Asked about that report in an interview on MS Now this week, Newsom said he had signed an executive order last year seeking to protect homeowners who find it too expensive to rebuild from falling for “predatory” lowball offers for their properties. But he acknowledged “the broader market conditions are challenging.”

The proposals mark new territory for Newsom’s housing affordability platform. The governor, now in his final year in office, has spent most of the past seven years focused on boosting construction. It’s a pivot toward populism for the governor, who is widely expected to run for president in 2028.

Blaming deep-pocketed investors for the nation’s housing woes has become an increasingly ideological-spanning exercise in recent years, with politicians as diverse as New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vice President J.D. Vance championing the cause.

Shortly after Trump’s post, Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio, an enthusiastic supporter of the president, promised to introduce legislation in his own post on X.

Is this actually a problem in California?

Many housing industry professionals, economists and policy researchers are skeptical.

“It’s really hard to buy a house right now so people are looking for someone to blame for that, but I think (institutional investors) are more of a symptom of the affordability crisis than they are a perpetuator of it,” said Caitlin Gorback, a University of Texas at Austin economist who has studied investors’ effect on local real estate markets.

Research on the topic is mixed, though most analyses have found that by taking owner-occupied homes  and converting them into rentals, these companies tend to increase the supply of rentals. That puts downward pressure on rents, while taking away purchasable homes leads to higher prices. 

Fewer than 3% of all single-family homes in the state are owned by companies that own at least 10 properties.

That conversion also takes away opportunities for would-be homeowners to buy a coveted single-family home. But even that comes with an under-appreciated upside, said Gorback: It provides more priced-out renters the opportunity to live in single-family homes — typically located in wealthier, whiter and higher-resourced neighborhoods — something that has historically reserved for those who can afford to buy.

While apartment buildings are commonly owned and managed by large financial companies, single-family rentals weren’t seen as Wall Street-worthy money-making opportunities until the aftermath of the Great Recession. Since then, companies like Invitation Homes, Blackstone, Progress Residential and AMH Homes have focused on markets with relatively low prices and rapidly growing populations.

That doesn’t describe California. As a result, larger investors — however defined — make up a relatively small share of single-family landlords in the state. Fewer than 3% of all single-family homes in the state are owned by companies that own at least 10 properties, according to an analysis by the California Research Bureau, which conducts research for state lawmakers. A mere 20,066 are owned by firms with portfolios of 1,000 units or more. The largest of those owners is Invitation Homes, which owns over 11,000 homes in the state and reached a settlement with Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office last year over allegations it price-gouged tenants and illegally raised rents on more than 1,900 properties.

There are more than 16 million rental units across the state, according to Census data.

Though inveighing against big monied investors for the high cost of housing is a “huge distraction,” it has obvious political appeal, said Stan Oklobdzija, a UC Riverside public policy professor. “Attacking institutional investors is the latest iteration of appearing to do something without actually doing anything. …It’s just kind of archetypical cheap talk.”

For nearly a decade, Democrats in the state Legislature have proposed bills to track or ban the practice. Former Gov. Jerry Brown in 2018 vetoed a bill to create a registry of institutional investors that own 100 or more single-family homes, noting that “collecting the data would not stop the purchase of these homes by private investors.” 

In 2024, lawmakers proposed banning investors that own at least 1,000 single-family homes from buying more houses and renting them out, prohibiting institutional investors from buying single-family homes for any reason and banning developers from selling entire new single-family subdivisions to investors to rent. All three bills died in committees. 

Assemblymember Alex Lee, author of the first proposal, revived the bill last year. It passed the Assembly and awaits a hearing in a Senate committee. 

Lee, a Democratic Socialist who has long critiqued the role of big money in the state’s real estate market, said he was “flabbergasted” to find himself on the same page with Trump, whom he described as a “far-right fascist.” Though he expressed doubts that the Trump administration would follow through with the promises the president made in his social media post, he said that “Democrats need to wake up to this populist, but righteous, position.”

“We can’t let the far-right capture the housing positions that the people care about,” Lee said.

Newsom evidently agrees.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

People using dating apps and social media platforms will be better protected from receiving unsolicited nude images, as a new law compelling tech firms to stop this type of content before it reaches users comes into force today (Thursday 8 January).

Platforms will be required to take proactive steps to prevent this vile content from appearing in the first place, not just react after the harm is done. Tech firms will now face some of the strongest requirements under the Online Safety Act as ‘cyberflashing’ becomes a Priority Offence.

Companies could tackle these images for example by using automated systems that pre-emptively detect and hide the image, implementing moderation tools or stricter content policies.

Those that fail to comply could face fines of up to 10% of their qualifying worldwide revenue, or have their services blocked in the UK.

Bumble was the first dating app to explicitly moderate cyberflashing to protect its members from seeing unwanted pictures. 

The women-first dating app launched Private Detector, an AI-powered feature that automatically detects and blurs nudity in images sent within chats. It then alerts the recipient who can choose to view, block, or report the image. The AI model is carefully trained with vast datasets to avoid misclassification.

Liz Kendall, Technology Secretary, said: 

We’ve cracked down on perpetrators of this vile crime – now we’re turning up the heat on tech firms. Platforms are now required by law to detect and prevent this material.

The internet must be a space where women and girls feel safe, respected, and able to thrive.

Elymae Cedeno, VP of Trust and Safety at Bumble said: 

Receiving unsolicited sexual images is a daily violation that disproportionately impacts women and undermines their sense of safety online. Strengthening the law to make cyberflashing a Priority Offence is an important step toward ensuring platforms proactively address this behaviour to better protect members.

As part of our long standing safety commitments, Bumble introduced features like Private Detector, which uses AI to identify and blur nude images in chats, giving members greater control over what they see. We hear regularly from our community about the impact of this behaviour, and we welcome measures that increase accountability and help create a safer digital environment.

Ofcom will now consult on new codes of practice, setting out exactly what steps platforms must take to protect users from unsolicited sexual images.

The priority offence marks another step in making the online world safer, particularly for women and children, who are disproportionately targeted. 1 in 3 teenage girls has received unsolicited sexual images*. This government is serious about ending that.

This builds on the government’s wider commitment to tackle online abuse and halve violence against women and girls, making clear that the digital world is not a law-free zone.

Minister for Safeguarding and Violence against Women and Girls Jess Phillips said:

For too long cyberflashing has been just another degrading abuse women and girls are expected to endure. We are changing this.

By placing the responsibility on tech companies to block this vile content before users see it, we are preventing women and girls from being harmed in the first place. 

We will deploy the full power of the state to make this country safe for women and girls, both online and offline.

Through the cross-government strategy to Build a Safer Society for Women and Girls, published on 18 December, we committed to making the ‘cyberflashing’ offence a ‘priority offence’ under the Online Safety Act.

These strengthened protections will tackle the problem at the root, before women are subject to this gross violation.

Note to editors

The survey was carried out by YouGov between people aged 12–18-year-olds in England.

KARACHI:

Bank Alfalah has decided to exit its operations in Afghanistan amid persistent political, economic and regulatory challenges in the country, a move that reflects both country-specific risks and a broader strategic shift underway across Pakistan’s banking sector.

According to a statement and market commentary, the decision comes against the backdrop of frozen Afghan foreign reserves, uncertainty surrounding international recognition of the Taliban-led government, and prolonged disruptions to cross-border trade and financial flows.

Banking sector analyst Asad Ali of Topline Securities said that, given the prevailing conditions in Afghanistan, the bank’s decision was pragmatic and largely expected.

“Amid ongoing challenges in Afghanistan, including frozen reserves and uncertainty over international recognition, the bank has decided to exit its operations in the country,” he told The Express Tribune. “The Afghanistan business was limited in scale, comprising only two branches, and the decision is not expected to have a material impact on the bank’s balance sheet.”

He added that the move should not be viewed in isolation. “Globally, banks are reassessing cross-border operations, particularly in high-risk jurisdictions. Afghanistan’s situation is one factor, but there are internal strategic reasons as well. If you look at other banks, you will see the same trend – many are closing or have already closed their foreign subsidiaries,” he said, pointing to heightened compliance costs, tighter global regulatory scrutiny and capital allocation priorities.

On January 7, 2026, Bank Alfalah moved closer to formally exiting the Afghan market, where it has operated since 2005. The State Bank of Pakistan and Da Afghanistan Bank have granted in-principle approval to Ghazanfar Bank to commence due diligence for the acquisition of Bank Alfalah’s Afghanistan operations. This follows an earlier, unsuccessful attempt to divest the unit in 2019 and signals a more definitive step toward disengagement from the Afghan financial system.

The bank’s exit coincides with a critical phase in Pakistan-Afghanistan economic relations. Secretary of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Joint Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PAJCCI), Muhammad Shoaib, said the bilateral economic relationship is at a “very sensitive juncture,” marked by a prolonged border crisis and a visible withdrawal of Pakistani financial institutions from Afghanistan.

Since October 10, 2025, major trade crossings, including Torkham, Chaman-Spin Boldak and Ghulam Khan, have remained largely closed following deadly military clashes and escalating security tensions. The three-month-long standstill has effectively paralysed bilateral trade and transit activity, severely disrupting supply chains.

Approximately 12,000 containers and thousands of trucks carrying transit goods are reportedly stranded at Karachi Port and along various border points. Traders are incurring heavy financial losses, with daily demurrage and detention charges estimated at $150 to $200 per container.

The impact has been particularly severe for Pakistan’s export-oriented sectors. The 2025-26 citrus (kinnow) season has been described by exporters as “completely damaged,” as Afghanistan typically absorbs around 60% of Pakistan’s citrus exports. With the Afghan transit route blocked, exports to Russia and Central Asian states have also stalled, leaving large quantities of produce unsold. Exports of potatoes and bananas to Central Asia have similarly come to a halt, while cement and pharmaceutical manufacturers have seen a key regional market effectively disappear.

Afghanistan, meanwhile, is facing its own economic fallout. Essential imports ordered from global markets remain stuck in Pakistan, contributing to supply shortages and rising food prices, including tomatoes, grapes and apples, in Afghan markets. Seasonal Afghan exports such as pomegranates, grapes and coal have also been restricted, resulting in significant revenue losses for local producers.

In response to the prolonged closures, Afghanistan has accelerated efforts to bypass Pakistan by developing alternative trade routes. Afghan traders are increasingly using Iran’s Chabahar port and overland corridors through Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. Iran and Afghanistan have also agreed to boost rail freight capacity on the Khaf-Herat line. Despite tensions with Pakistan, Afghanistan’s total trade volume reportedly reached around $14 billion in 2025, suggesting that alternative routes are partially offsetting the disruption.

Addressing the border situation, DG ISPR Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif recently stated that Pakistan’s trade and cross-border movement are restricted due to security concerns, emphasising that national security remains the state’s top priority.

KARACHI:

Pakistan’s latest government securities auctions attracted strong investor interest on Wednesday, with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) raising a total of Rs1.09 trillion through treasury bills and Pakistan Investment Bonds (PIB) Floaters, while cut-off yields declined across all T-bill tenors.

In the treasury bills auction, the government accepted Rs979 billion against a cumulative target of Rs850 billion, whereas total bids amounted to Rs2.56 trillion.

The government accepted Rs87 billion for one-month T-bills at a cut-off yield of 10.20%, marking a decline of 29 basis points from the previous auction. In the three-month tenor, Rs80 billion was accepted against bids of Rs521 billion, with the cut-off yield easing 34 basis points to 10.15%.

The six-month paper saw acceptance of Rs52 billion out of bids worth Rs404 billion as the cut-off yield fell 32 basis points to 10.16%. The bulk of the auction was concentrated in 12-month papers, where the government raised Rs761 billion against bids of Rs1.38 trillion at a cut-off yield of 10.16%, down 33 basis points from the previous auction.

Weighted average yields were largely in line with the cut-off yields, indicating consistent bidding across tenors.

Meanwhile, in the 10-year Pakistan Investment Bonds (Floating Rate – Semi-Annual) auction, the government accepted Rs108 billion against a target of Rs50 billion, while total bids stood at Rs758 billion. The cut-off price was set at 97.20, translating into a cut-off rate of 10.93%. The spread over the benchmark narrowed to 47 basis points, compared with 63 basis points in the previous auction.

Furthermore, the Pakistani rupee edged up slightly against the US dollar on Wednesday, closing at 280.06 in the inter-bank market compared to 280.07 a day earlier.

Meanwhile, gold prices in Pakistan fell, following international market losses as investors booked profits after a recent rally amid mixed global economic signals. Locally, gold per tola dropped by Rs1,200 to Rs466,762, while 10-gram rate fell by Rs1,028 to Rs400,173, according to the All-Pakistan Gems and Jewellers Sarafa Association.

A day earlier, gold had surged by Rs3,200 per tola, reflecting volatility driven by global price movements. Silver, however, remained stable at Rs8,361 per tola.

Internationally, gold slipped over 1% as profit-taking intensified, though weaker-than-expected US private payroll data bolstered expectations of potential Federal Reserve rate cuts. Spot gold touched $4,445 per ounce, up from an earlier low of $4,422. Analysts noted the market remained range bound, with $4,500 and $4,423 being high and low levels, respectively.

Adnan Agar of Interactive Commodities highlighted that Friday’s US non-farm payroll data could trigger significant price movements, while silver pulled back from recent highs near $82 to around $77.

The IWF’s Ngaire Alexander told the BBC tools like Grok now risked “bringing sexual AI imagery of children into the mainstream”.

He said the material would be classified as Category C under UK law – the lowest severity of criminal material.

But he said the user who uploaded it had then used a different AI tool, not made by xAI, to create a Category A image – the most serious category.

“We are extremely concerned about the ease and speed with which people can apparently generate photo-realistic child sexual abuse material (CSAM),” he said.

The charity, which aims to remove child sexual abuse material, external from the internet, operates a hotline where suspected CSAM can be reported, and employs analysts who assess the legality and severity of that material.

Its analysts found the material by on the dark web – the images were not found on the social media platform X.

X and xAI were previously contacted by Ofcom, following reports Grok can be used to make “sexualised images of children” and undress women.

The BBC has seen several examples on the social media platform X of people asking the chatbot to alter real images to make women appear in bikinis without their consent, as well as putting them in sexual situations.

The IWF said it had received reports of such images on X, however these had not so far been assessed to have met the legal definition of CSAM.

In a previous statement, X said: “We take action against illegal content on X, including CSAM, by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary.

“Anyone using or prompting Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.”