“It’s a great day in South Carolina when I can come home,” Nikki Haley delivered her signature line with a hometown twist to supporters. Republican presidential candidate and former UN Ambassador Haley steps off of her campaign bus ahead of an event on Feb. 13 in her hometown of Bamberg, S.C.
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“It’s a great day in South Carolina when I can come home,” Nikki Haley delivered her signature line with a hometown twist to supporters. Republican presidential candidate and former UN Ambassador Haley steps off of her campaign bus ahead of an event on Feb. 13 in her hometown of Bamberg, S.C.
Meg Kinnard/AP
Nikki Haley is struggling to find widespread support in her home state ahead of the Republican primary on Feb. 24.
But in her hometown of Bamberg, South Carolina, they’re a little more enthusiastic.
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“She always found this was her home,” said Paula Dyches, owner of Rusty & Paula’s Restaurant, on the main drag through Bamberg.
Paula Dyches stands in the construction site that her diner, Rusty & Paula’s Restaurant, has become after a tornado tore through the small town of Bamberg, S.C., which is also Nikki Haley’s hometown.
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Paula Dyches stands in the construction site that her diner, Rusty & Paula’s Restaurant, has become after a tornado tore through the small town of Bamberg, S.C., which is also Nikki Haley’s hometown.
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The diner is often a hub for local activity, hosting events for politicians including Haley in the past. Today though, it’s a construction zone, as the town recovers from a major tornado that tore through in January.
Dyches says the restaurant flooded and the roof blew off. But she was happy to host a few residents from the area, who gathered around a table to talk about Haley’s last push before the primary.
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Bamberg County Republican Party Chair Sharon Carter gathered local Republicans together at Rusty & Paula’s Restaurant in Bamberg, S.C., to talk about Nikki Haley’s candidacy for president.
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Bamberg County Republican Party Chair Sharon Carter gathered local Republicans together at Rusty & Paula’s Restaurant in Bamberg, S.C., to talk about Nikki Haley’s candidacy for president.
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Sharon Carter, who invited the group, is chairwoman of the Bamberg County Republican Party. As such, she can’t officially endorse any candidate in the state’s primary on Saturday.
But she has some thoughts about this weekend’s matchup between the former President and South Carolina’s former governor:
“It is astonishing to me that people are choosing Trump in her hometown,” Carter said. “Because people who do know her know that she’s an authentically real person.”
Jerome Boyce, who lives in the nearby town of Denmark, is among those local residents backing Trump.
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“Trump has got it. Trump has a track record. Nikki Haley does not,” Boyce said, sitting across the table from Carter.
Boyce says Haley – who’s also a former ambassador to the United Nations – was a good governor for South Carolina during the six years she led the state.
But Boyce opposed her work to remove the Confederate flag from the grounds of the South Carolina statehouse in 2015, in the aftermath of the racist shooting that left nine people dead at a historically Black church in Charleston.
“It’s my heritage,” Boyce explained. “It’s Southern.”
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Across town, Randy Maxwell saw that moment as an example of Haley’s strength in leadership.
“I’m as Southern as you get,” he said. “But that’s a thing of the past. And it stood for, whether you like to hear it or not, it stood for slavery. It stood for racism. It stood for division in our country.”
Of Haley, he said, “she did the right thing. She didn’t hesitate.”
Just a small town girl
Randy (left) and Mary Jane Maxwell stand outside their home in Bamberg, S.C. The Maxwells support Nikki Haley in her run for president and plan to write her in even if she doesn’t make it to the general election.
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Randy (left) and Mary Jane Maxwell stand outside their home in Bamberg, S.C. The Maxwells support Nikki Haley in her run for president and plan to write her in even if she doesn’t make it to the general election.
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He and his wife, Mary Jane Maxwell, live just a few blocks from Haley’s childhood home. They’re enthusiastically supporting her in the primary.
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Mary Jane remembers Haley as a “well-mannered” child who became an “amazing young lady” who’s made her home state proud. She contrasts Haley’s temperament with Trump’s.
“He did some good things for America, but he is just such a bully,” she says. “And well, he does not have any characteristics that we want any of our grandchildren to have.”
Mary Jane Maxwell says she has supported Trump in the past, but she doesn’t think she could vote for him again. Randy Maxwell says he’s never voted for Trump and never will.
But he admits that Haley is staring down a likely defeat here at home in South Carolina.
“It will not look good for her,” he says. “It will not look good for any candidate if you don’t win your home state. Trump just has so much base that they’re not going to change.”
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Facing another Trump-Biden matchup, the Maxwells say they’d probably write Haley in.
The main street in Bamberg, S.C., where tornado damage from a storm in January is still evident. Nikki Haley, who was born and raised in Bamberg, visited the town just days before the S.C. primary election.
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The main street in Bamberg, S.C., where tornado damage from a storm in January is still evident. Nikki Haley, who was born and raised in Bamberg, visited the town just days before the S.C. primary election.
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Bamberg’s mayor, Nancy Foster, says there’s excitement about Haley’s campaign here, even though the town leans Democratic.
“It puts Bamberg on the map, so we’re excited for her and we hope she makes it,” Foster said
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Stephanie Crosby-Lee grew up in Bamberg. She’s glad to see a woman in the race – even though she is a Democrat and supports President Biden.
Crosby-Lee was stopping by a local lunch spot on Thursday with her mother, who still lives nearby. She wishes Haley, with her high profile, would do more for the town’s struggling economy. But she sees value in Haley continuing her campaign, even if she can’t ultimately beat Trump.
“One thing I do know, she gave him a run for his money,” she said.
Haley is poised to keep raising – and spending – money of her own. Her campaign has announced a seven-figure ad buy ahead of Super Tuesday next month, and she’s vowed to continue campaigning regardless of what happens in her home state on Saturday.
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Amazon has been accused of listing products from independent retailers without their consent, even as the ecommerce giant sues start-up Perplexity over its AI software shopping without permission.
The $2.5tn online retailer has listed some independent shops’ full inventory on its platform without seeking permission, four business owners told the Financial Times, enabling customers to shop through Amazon rather than buy directly.
Two independent retailers told the FT that they had also received orders for products that were either out of stock or were mispriced and mislabelled by Amazon leading to customer complaints.
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“Nobody opted into this,” said Angie Chua, owner of Bobo Design Studio, a stationery store based in Los Angeles.
Tech companies are experimenting with artificial intelligence “agents” that can perform tasks like shopping autonomously based on user instructions.
Amazon has blocked agents from Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and a host of other AI start-ups from its website.
It filed a lawsuit in November against Perplexity, whose Comet browser was making purchases on Amazon on behalf of users, alleging that the company’s actions risked undermining user privacy and violated its terms of service.
In its complaint, Amazon said Perplexity had taken steps “without prior notice to Amazon and without authorisation” and that it degraded a customer shopping experience it had invested in over several decades.
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Perplexity in a statement at the time said that the lawsuit was a “bully tactic” aimed at scaring “disruptive companies like Perplexity” from improving customers’ experience.
The recent complaints against Amazon relate to its “Buy for Me” function, launched last April, which lets some customers purchase items that are not listed with Amazon but on other retailers’ sites.
Retailers said Amazon did not seek their permission before sending them orders that were placed on the ecommerce site. They do not receive the user’s email address or other information that might be helpful for generating future sales, several sellers told the FT.
“We consciously avoid Amazon because our business is rooted in community and building a relationship with customers,” Chua said. “I don’t know who these customers are.”
Several of the independent retailers said Amazon’s move had led to poor experiences for customers, or hurt their business.
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Sarah Hitchcock Burzio, the owner of Hitchcock Paper Co. in Virginia, said that Amazon had mislabelled items leading to a surge in orders as customers believed they were receiving more expensive versions of a product at a much lower price.
“There were no guardrails set up so when there were issues there was nobody I could go to,” she said.
Product returns and complaints for the “Buy for Me” function are handled by sellers rather than Amazon, even when errors are produced by the Seattle-based group.
Amazon enables sellers to opt out of the service by contacting the company on a specific email address.
Amazon said: “Shop Direct and Buy for Me are programmes we’re testing that help customers discover brands and products not currently sold in Amazon’s store, while helping businesses reach new customers and drive incremental sales.
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“We have received positive feedback on these programmes. Businesses can opt out at any time.”
President Donald Trump said Tuesday night that Venezuela will turn over 30 million to 50 million barrels of oil to the United States, to be sold at market value and with the proceeds controlled by the US.
Interim authorities in Venezuela will turn over “sanctioned oil” Trump said on Truth Social.
The US will use the proceeds “to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!” he wrote.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright has been directed to “execute this plan, immediately,” and the barrels “will be taken by storage ships, and brought directly to unloading docks in the United States.”
CNN has reached out to the White House for more information.
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A senior administration official, speaking under condition of anonymity, told CNN that the oil has already been produced and put in barrels. The majority of it is currently on boats and will now go to US facilities in the Gulf to be refined.
Although 30 to 50 million barrels of oil sounds like a lot, the United States consumed just over 20 million barrels of oil per day over the past month.
That amount may lower oil prices a bit, but it probably won’t lower Americans’ gas prices that much: Former President Joe Biden released about four to six times as much — 180 million barrels of oil — from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 2022, which lowered gas prices by only between 13 cents and 31 cents a gallon over the course of four months, according to a Treasury Department analysis.
US oil fell about $1 a barrel, or just under 2%, to $56, immediately after Trump made his announcement on Truth Social.
Selling up to 50 million barrels could raise quite a bit of revenue: Venezuelan oil is currently trading at $55 per barrel, so if the United States can find buyers willing to pay market price, it could raise between $1.65 billion and $2.75 billion from the sale.
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Venezuela has built up significant stockpiles of crude over since the United States began its oil embargo late last year. But handing over that much oil to the United States may deplete Venezuela’s own oil reserves.
The oil is almost certainly coming from both its onshore storage and some of the seized tankers that were transporting oil: The country has about 48 million barrels of storage capacity and was nearly full, according to Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at the Price Futures Group. The tankers were transporting about 15 million to 22 million barrels of oil, according to industry estimates.
It’s unclear over what time period Venezuela will hand over the oil to the United States.
The senior administration official said the transfer would happen quickly because Venezuela’s crude is very heavy, which means it can’t be stored for long.
But crude does not go bad if it is not refined in a certain amount of time, said Andrew Lipow, the president of Lipow Oil Associates, in a note. “It has sat underground for hundreds of millions of years. In fact, much of the oil in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been around for decades,” he wrote.
new video loaded: Nvidia Shows Off New A.I. Chip at CES
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Nvidia Shows Off New A.I. Chip at CES
At the annual tech conference, CES, Nvidia showed off a new A.I. chip, known as Vera Rubin, which is more efficient and powerful than previous generations of chips.
This is the Vera CPU. This is one CPU. This is groundbreaking work. I would not be surprised if the industry would like us to make this format and this structure an industry standard in the future. Today, we’re announcing Alpamayo, the world’s first thinking, reasoning autonomous vehicle A.I.
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At the annual tech conference, CES, Nvidia showed off a new A.I. chip, known as Vera Rubin, which is more efficient and powerful than previous generations of chips.
