1. The House of Representatives passed a $1.1 trillion spending bill on Thursday night that keeps the government funded through next summer, meaning the threat of another shutdown is off the table until then.
That sounds like good news for all, but both liberal and conservative lawmakers are not happy. Many on the right wanted to use the bill as an opportunity to push back against President Barack Obama’s immigration executive action. Liberals are mostly upset about one section that rolls back financial industry regulation.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon personally called lawmakers to press them to pass the bill, according to The Washington Post. The lobbying push behind the legislation is a sneak peak at how financial institutions will try to exert their influence in the next two years with a Republican-controlled House and Senate, says Politico.
Citigroup is holding government funding hostage to ram through its government bailout provision. Join me in opposing the #CitigroupShutdown
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) December 11, 2014
2. Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past few months, you probably know "Serial" is a true-crime podcast that investigates pieces of a 1999 murder, and part of the case involves Best Buy. So it probably wasn’t the best idea for the big-box retailer to joke about the show in a tweet. It apologized late Thursday afternoon.
We deeply apologize for our earlier tweet about Serial. It lacked good judgment and doesn’t reflect the values of our company. We are sorry.
— Best Buy (@BestBuy) December 11, 2014
3. Two high-ranking Sony Pictures Entertainment executives have issued mea culpas for racially insensitive jokes about President Obama’s presumed movie preferences in emails revealed by the recent cyberattack against the company.
Leaked messages also show that New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd offered to show a Sony executive a column she wrote before its publication as well as volumes of employee information.
This is an unambiguously fireable act in a major newsroom with clearly stated editorial standards to uphold: http://t.co/7u1wnrgu6P
— Raju Narisetti (@raju) December 12, 2014
4. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg held his second town hall with employees and the public on Thursday evening. He said making product mistakes is a big part of Facebook’s success.
5. A former executive at Korean Air Lines apologized on Friday for demanding a flight return to its gate earlier this week after she didn’t like the way she was served macadamia nuts — the BBC calls it a case of "nut rage." She has resigned from the company.
6. Here’s a lesson for all startup PR firms, and new companies in general: secure your social media accounts before launch. Perennial PR, rebranded from Strange Fruit PR earlier this week after it was accused of having a racially insensitive name, was beat to the @PerennialPR account by a parodist who continued to mock the agency. Some called it bullying; others said it was a case of the food-and-drink-focused firm getting its just deserts.
@PerennialPR there is a line between "encouraging productive change" and "straight-up bullying" and you crossed it 20 miles ago.
— dan solomon (@dansolomon) December 10, 2014
