Morning Headlines - Friday, Mar. 17, 2023 | Recent News

U.S. and World Headlines

First Republic Bank Getting Bailed Out By Large Banks In $30 Billion Plan

First Republic Bank has reached an agreement with some of the largest U.S. banks to stabilize its balance sheet in the aftermath of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, federal regulators said Thursday.

The San Francisco-based bank will receive $30 billion in deposits from 11 banks, according to a joint statement from the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

“This show of support by a group of large banks is most welcome, and demonstrates the resilience of the banking system,” they said in a statement.

Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo are each depositing $5 billion, the banks announced in a statement. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are depositing $2.5 billion each.

Poland To Be First NATO Country To Provide Fighter Jets To Ukraine

Poland said Thursday it plans to give Ukraine about a dozen MiG-29 fighter jets, which would make it the first NATO member to fulfill Kyiv's increasingly urgent requests for warplanes to defend itself against the Russian invasion.

Warsaw will hand over four of the Soviet-made warplanes "within the next few days," President Andrzej Duda said, and the rest needed servicing but would be supplied later. The Polish word he used to describe the total number can mean between 11 and 19.

"They are in the last years of their functioning, but they are in good working condition," Duda said.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Says Ai Will Reshape Society, Acknowledges Risks: 'A Little Bit Scared Of This'

The CEO behind the company that created ChatGPT believes artificial intelligence technology will reshape society as we know it. He believes it comes with real dangers, but can also be "the greatest technology humanity has yet developed" to drastically improve our lives.

"We've got to be careful here," said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. "I think people should be happy that we are a little bit scared of this."

Altman sat down for an exclusive interview with ABC News' chief business, technology and economics correspondent Rebecca Jarvis to talk about the rollout of GPT-4 -- the latest iteration of the AI language model.

Americans Feel More Positive Than Negative About Jews, Mainline Protestants, Catholics

Far more Americans express favorable than unfavorable views of Jews, mainline Protestants and Catholics, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey that measures U.S. adults’ broad sentiments toward several religious groups.

At the other end of the spectrum, more Americans express negative than positive attitudes toward atheists, Muslims and Mormons (members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).

Some survey respondents may find it strange or difficult to be asked to rate an entire group of people. Indeed, most Americans give a neutral response – or choose not to answer the question – when asked about some religious groups. For example, about six-in-ten U.S. adults (59%) say they hold “neither favorable nor unfavorable” views of Muslims or “don’t know enough to say,” while 17% express very or somewhat favorable views of Muslims and 22% express very or somewhat unfavorable views of the group.

TikTok CEO: App Sale Won't Address U.S. Concerns

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew insisted Thursday that forcing the app's Chinese parent company, Bytedance, to sell it would not address the the national security concerns of the U.S. and other governments.

Chew's comments to the Wall Street Journal coincided with the U.K. and New Zealand becoming the latest to announce new TikTok restrictions on government devices due to security concerns.

The Biden Administration has warned TikTok that it faces a ban in the United States if ByteDance doesn't sell its stake in the U.S. version of the app, per Axios' Sara Fischer and Ashley Gold.

LeMahieu Says GOP Abortion Bill Won’t Be Considered On Senate Floor

Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu says a GOP bill to add exceptions to Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban will not be considered on the Senate floor, adding “discussion on this specific proposal is unnecessary.”

In his statement, the Oostburg Republican knocked Dem Gov. Tony Evers for making a “snap decision” to suggest he would veto the bill. He said it is “not a topic to use as a political football.”

The bill had hit other roadblocks as it was unveiled, with anti-abortion groups raising concerns and the Republican co-authors acknowledging they lacked the needed GOP votes to pass it in both houses.

Bipartisan Bill Would Expand Definition Of Illegal Student Strip Search

A bipartisan group of Wisconsin lawmakers want to expand the definition of illegal strip searches of students. The proposed change in legislation comes a year after a Suring High School administrator forced six girls to strip down to their underwear during a search for vaping cartridges.

It's already illegal for school employees to strip search a pupil, but current law defines such a search as exposing or touching genitals, buttocks or breasts. A bipartisan bill introduced in the Wisconsin Assembly Tuesday seeks to change the definition to include searches in which students are still wearing undergarments.

The bill is directly tied to a controversial search of six teenage girls at Suring High School conducted by former Suring Public Schools Administrator Kelly Casper in February 2022. The girls' families were outraged to learn Casper made them strip to their underwear while searching for nicotine vapes.

Daniel Kelly, Janet Protasiewicz On Health Orders, 2020 Vote

The 2023 candidates for a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat share their perspectives about rulings on public health powers during the COVID-19 pandemic and the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

Ziegler To Continue As Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice

Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Annette Ziegler has been reelected by her fellow justices to a second two-year term leading the state’s highest court.

The court announced Thursday that justices had voted in private to keep Ziegler in the post she first assumed in 2021. The court did not announce the vote breakdown.

The chief justice has no additional voting power on the Supreme Court. However, the person who holds the title is the administrative head of the state’s judicial system and has administrative authority over to procedures adopted by the Supreme Court.

Ziegler has served on the court since 2007. She is part of the four-justice conservative majority.

Wisconsin's Top Banking Regulator On Recent Bank Failures: 'Everything (Now) Should Be Fine'

Wisconsin's top banking and credit union regulator is trying to tamp down any fears of bank failures in Wisconsin.

Over the last week, Silicon Valley Bank in California, and Signature Bank in New York financially collapsed.

But Cheryll Olson-Collins, Secretary-designee of the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions told a legislative hearing Wednesday that after meetings with other state and federal regulators, she's convinced the California bank and Wisconsin banks have key differences.