New this morning: Huntsworth offered a short, upbeat trading update this morning. The parent of Grayling, Red, and Citigate said it "continues to trade well" and indicated it is on track for a pre-tax profit of $30.6 million this year.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been holding his annual marathon press conference this morning. He’s offered an endorsement of sorts of President Donald Trump, praising his economic policies and dismissed allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election as "some sort of spy-mania." Putin is running for another six-year term in March’s election.
On the agenda for today: The Federal Communications Commission is set to roll back Net Neutrality protections that limit the power of internet providers to do things like determine loading speeds. Much of the browsing public is understandably not happy, and some are resorting to astroturf. A study by the Pew Research Center found that 94% of comments sent to the FCC were submitted multiple times, according to NPR.
Another sign 2017 is on track to be the weirdest year ever: the U.S. Secret Service took the highly unusual step Wednesday night of publicly stating that it did not physically remove former Trump aide and reality show villain Omarosa Manigault Newman from the White House, as had been widely reported.
.@omarosa on her time at the White House with Trump administration: "There were a lot of things that I observed during the last year that I was very unhappy with, that I was very uncomfortable with." pic.twitter.com/qKHSyw6y4B
— Good Morning America (@GMA) December 14, 2017
More on the last point: Defeated Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore put out a campaign-style video on Wednesday night in which he rallied against "abortion, sodomy, and materialism" and vowed to fight on. More than a day after the Associated Press called the race for opponent Doug Jones, Moore still hasn’t conceded.
