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The fate of Tribune Publishing hangs in the balance, but Dr Soon Shiong, the LA Times owner who is also the second largest shareholder in the newspaper chain that includes the New York Daily News and Chicago Tribune, nearly forget a crucial vote to sell the publisher is set for Friday, May 21.

“I’ve been really focused on what I’m doing.” he told the Washington Post. “I was hoping that there [was] more than one buyer coming through the process,” he said. “And I think I understand that maybe it’s fallen by the wayside. So when Friday comes I’ll turn to all the people who looked at this for me on my behalf, get the advice and make the decision. So unfortunately, I’ve really not made any decision at this point in time.”

Soon-Shiong is seen as the last line of defense to block the takeover of Tribune by the newsroom-slashing hedge fund Alden Global Capital. Alden owns 32 percent of the stock and has a bid valued at $630 million on the table to take it private.

Only the non-Alden shareholders can vote, and the takeover requires a two thirds vote to pass. Soon-Shiong owns 24 percent of the Tribune stock and no takeover deal can succeed unless he votes yes.

The deadline for votes to be cast is 10 am Central Daylight Time.

Journalists at Tribune papers from the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun and Hartford Courant and elsewhere rallied against the Alden takoever bid in cities across the country last Saturday. They were hoping hotel mogul Stewart Bainum, who wants to buy the Baltimore Sun, would find enough other backers to join him to top Alden’s $17.25a share offer.

A spokeswoman for the LA Times which Soon-Shiong paid $500 million to acquire along with the San Diego Union Tribune and some weekly papers from Tribune publishing in 2018, said he expected to announce his decision Friday morning.

Barry Meier got a great plug on Sunday for his new book, “Spooked: The Trump Dossier, Black Cube and the Rise of the Private Spies,” when The New York Times’ business section took an excerpt from it to lead its front page. 

An identifier at the bottom of the article calls Meier a “former reporter” for the Times, and indeed in 2017 he was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning Times team for international reporting. 

The paper, however, neglected to mention that Meier is also the spouse of Times business editor Ellen Pollock. 

That raised eyebrows, since giving such prized placement in the biz section is sure to goose book sales. 

“It’s inappropriate,” said Jon Friedman, a former media columnist at Marketwatch and now an adjunct professor at Stony Brook University. 

The Times says Ellen Pollock is not involved in editorial decisions involving Meier.AP

“It’s not the scandal of the century, but the reader should have all the information . . . All the Times had to do was give it a one-liner. The fact that they didn’t raises questions.” 

The Times hasn’t bothered to correct the omission since being asked about it. 

“Barry Meier has written for The New York Times as a reporter or contributor for 32 years,” a spokeswoman said. “When he contributes, Ellen Pollock is not involved in the editorial process.” 

While a US senator has been pushing legislation to boost the nation’s semiconductor industry, his wife — who happens to own the Strand Bookstore in Manhattan — has been cleaning up on shares of chipmakers that have stood to benefit.

Since last year, Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, has pushed legislation to bolster US chip companies, including by co-sponsoring the America LEADS Act and speaking out in favor of the CHIPS Act, two bills designed to promote semiconductor design and production on American soil amid rising competition from China. 

Wyden’s efforts got a leg up on Wednesday, when Senate majority leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) introduced a bill for $52 billion in subsidies for domestic chip production and research and development. 

Meanwhile, his wife Nancy Bass Wyden — who warned in October that the iconic Strand “cannot survive” without more business after being slammed by the pandemic — has been buying up potentially millions of dollars worth of shares in American chip designers and manufacturers like Nvidia, according to government documents.

In March of 2020, Wyden declared his support for the CHIPS Act, saying, “There’s bipartisan interest in building up our domestic manufacturing to bolster the supply of semiconductors and other critical components and products.” 

Nancy Bass Wyden, wife of Oregon Rep. Ron Wyden and owner of NYC’s Strand bookstore, during a 2015 book launch at the store. Getty Images

Shortly thereafter, Wyden’s wife began purchasing between $245,000 and $600,000 worth of stock in California-based NVIDIA, one of the country’s top semiconductor firms, according to a Post analysis of publicly-available financial disclosures. 

Bass Wyden’s buys included $50,000 to $100,000 of NVIDIA stock in April of last year and between $100,000 and $250,000 in May, as well as four other transactions leading up to her husband announcing his co-sponsorship of the America LEADS Act in September.

“The minute you have congressmen or their family members trading in individual stocks, the odor is not very good,” Duke University corporate and securities law professor James Cox told The Post. “We should prevent congressmen and their families from owning anything other than broadly-based index funds.” 

However, Cox added that the chances of the Wyden family’s transactions constituting illegal insider trading were “slim to none.”

Wyden’s office and Bass-Wyden did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday. 

Patrons line up outside Strand bookstore in November 2020 amid expressed concerns that pandemic regulations would lead to a shuttering of the iconic bookshop.Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images

Senators and their immediate families are required to disclose equities trades and other financial information under the STOCK Act of 2012. Craig Holman, a Capitol Hill lobbyist for progressive consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, helped draft and promote the legislation.

“I have the greatest confidence in the integrity of Ron Wyden and I don’t think he’s manipulating the semiconductor business,” Holman told The Post. “But I do want to point out that it does have that appearance and it can be a real political problem.”

“I would encourage the Senator to not have himself or his wife trading in stocks in businesses that he directly oversees,” Holman added.  

It’s not the first time Bass-Wyden has caught attention for her stock investments. 

In April and May of 2020, records show that Bass-Wyden bought between $115,000 and $250,000 worth of stock in Amazon, the biggest online competitor to independent bookstores. The transactions came shortly after Bass Wyden laid off 188 Strand employees despite the bookstore receiving a loan of $1 million to $2 million under the Paycheck Protection Program, a policy her husband helped shepherd through the Senate.

Yahoo! Finance chart shows stock prices over the last six months for Applied Materials, which closed up Thursday at $130.31 a share. The company is one of two California-based suppliers to semiconductor manufacturers in which Nancy Bass Wyden bought shares between April 2020 and February 2021.Yahoo! Finance

Bass Wyden’s chip dealing does not end with NVIDIA. The bookstore baroness, who married Wyden in 2005, purchased between $31,000 and $115,000 worth of shares of both Applied Materials and KLA Corp., two California-based suppliers to semiconductor manufacturers, through a series of transactions in April 2020 through February 2021, according to disclosures. 

She then cashed-out all of her stock in both companies in April of 2021 for between $150,000 and $350,000 each, the disclosures show.

Bass-Wyden also bought between $46,000 and $165,000 worth of shares of California semiconductor manufacturer Broadcom in a series of transactions from April 2020 through March 2021. She then sold all of the stock for between $101,000 and $265,000 in April of this year, records show. 

While Senate disclosures do not show exactly how much money Bass-Wyden made, she appears to have taken in a handsome profit. Between the day Bass-Wyden first purchased Applied Materials shares and the day she fully cashed out, the stock’s price surged by 190 percent, according to Marketwatch data. For KLA, that figure is 124 percent and for Broadcom it’s 91 percent. 

Comedian-turned-media mogul Byron Allen has sued McDonald’s for $10 billion in damages, alleging racial discrimination tied to its advertising practices.  

The head of Allen Media Group claims racial stereotyping is at play in the fast-food giant’s refusal to contract with his AMG’s Entertainment Studios and Weather Group in violation of federal and state law.

Entertainment Studios owns 12 television networks. His Weather Group owns The Weather Channel.

But Allen claims the burger joint behind the Big Mac has refused to advertise on Entertainment Studios networks or The Weather Channel since he acquired the network in 2018.

The lawsuit also blasts McDonald’s for giving African American-owned media less than $5 million of its roughly $1.6 billion annual television advertising budget even as African Americans represent some 40 percent of McDonald’s US sales.

Byron has previously sued cable giants like Comcast, claiming race was a factor in their refusal to air channels from his Entertainment Studios Network. Allen in recent months has joined forces with other Black-owned media owners to pressure automaker GM to advertise with them.

“Once we receive the complaint, we will review and respond accordingly,” McDonald’s in a statement. It added: “Together with our franchisees, we have doubled down on our relationships with diverse-owned partners. This includes increasing our spend with diverse-owned media from 4 percent to 10 percent and with Black-owned media from 2 percent to 5 percent of total national advertising over the next four years.” McDonald’s was hit with the complaint on the same day it announced the aforementioned initiative to increase its advertising dollars in diverse-owned media companies and content creators. The largest restaurant company in the world will now spend 10 percent of its advertising budget on businesses owned by Black, Hispanic, Asian Pacific American, women and LGBTQ platforms between 20121 and 2024, up from 4 percent.

Robinhood wants to give amateur investors access to initial public offering shares ahead of its own planned IPO.

The popular no-fee trading app that’s become synonymous with the Reddit rally unveiled IPO Access on Thursday, giving users the ability to buy shares at their listing price before they begin trading on stock exchanges.

IPO shares are normally only offered to large investors of Wall Street brokerage firms.

It’s unclear if the new product will give Robinhood traders access to Robinhood’s own planned IPO, which is expected for June. If it does, the product stands to help buoy the startup’s stock debut by expanding demand from Wall Street to Main Street.

The new feature lets users explore upcoming IPOs and request to purchase shares ahead of time with no account minimum. The product will be gradually rolled out over the next few weeks, the company said.

At the end of the blogpost unveiling their new product, Robinhood added this disclaimer: “IPOs can be risky and speculative investments, and may not be appropriate for every investor.”

The coda appears to be a nod to rampant criticism that the company doesn’t adequately warn investors of the risk associated with trading stocks and cryptocurrencies.

Robinhood, which has been criticized for the “gamification” of trading, appears to be ramping up disclosures in general ahead of its IPO, which comes on the heels of a tumultuous year for the app.

Robinhood soared in popularity during the pandemic as stuck-at-home consumers looked for ways to spend their stimulus checks. But its decision to halt buying of Reddit rally favorite, Gamestop, earlier this year spawned a spate of congressional hearings.

Vlad Tenev, CEO of Robinhood Markets, testifying during an entirely virtual hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services.House Financial Services Committ

Robinhood was accused of a conflict of interest in banning Gamestop buys because the app makes money through order flow paid by Wall Street firms like Citadel, which had a vested financial interest in GameStop’s decline.

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev, who has denied the allegations, was forced to defend the company’s actions in front of top political figures earlier this year.

The controversy resulted in newly tapped SEC chief, Gary Gensler, vowing to look at Gamestop’s business model, cautioning investors in a hearing earlier this month that there’s no such thing as a free app. “There are costs. It’s like an iceberg: Most of the iceberg is below the surface,” Gensler said.  “The costs are below the surface.”

Alphabet’s Google said on Thursday it would open its first physical store in NYC this summer, mirroring a retail approach that has helped Apple rake in billions of dollars in the last two decades.

The Google store will be located in Chelsea near Google’s NYC campus, which houses over 11,000 employees.

Google, which has set up pop-up stores in the past to promote its products, said it would sell Pixel smartphones, Pixelbooks and Fitbit fitness trackers along with Nest smart home devices at the retail outlet.

Visitors will also be able to avail themselves of customer service for their devices and pick up their online orders at the store.

The announcement signals the internet giant has taken a leaf out of Apple’s playbook of operating physical stores and providing in-person services to boost sales.

Apple, which opened its first two retail stores in Virginia in 2001, has 270 stores in the United States and many more around the world that drive its sales and also provide shoppers hands-on customer service.

Kohl’s raised its financial outlook for the year on Thursday, after a solid rebound in the first quarter from the devastating impact of the pandemic.

But those raised expectations fell short of what many industry analysts had been projecting and shares plunged nearly 11 percent Thursday. During a conference call, Kohl’s explained that it it took into account logjams at ports and inflationary pressures in wages that could increase costs in the second half of the year.

Kohl’s is trying to manage supply chain issues by adding more drivers and increasing frequency of store deliveries.

More shoppers came back to shop in stores as COVID-19 vaccinations became more common and Kohl’s bounced back to a profit after the chain, based in Menomonee Fall, Wisconsin, lost money last year when it was forced close its doors along with thousands of other retailers.

Quarterly sales and profits topped almost all expectations, but Kohl’s said it expects net sales to increase only in the mid-to-high teens percentage range. That spooked investors.

“Kohl’s is either being conservative and cautious with its forecasts – which is understandable given how uncertain everything remains – or lacks confidence that its various initiatives and a strong consumer economy will deliver results as quickly as investors might like,” wrote Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData. ”Either way, the suggestion is that Kohl’s will, overall, lose market share over the course of 2021.”

Like Kohl’s, a number of major retailers have posted banner numbers for the first quarter this week as shoppers, newly vaccinated, come out of hibernation.

“The US consumer is in a stronger position,” said CEO Michelle Gass during a call with analysts Thursday. “Spending has picked up driven by stimulus, easing COVID restrictions and people resuming more normalcy in their daily lives.”

The company had pushed to reinvigorate stores before the pandemic struck. Late last year, it announced that Sephora would replace all cosmetics areas at Kohl’s with 2,500 square foot shops. It’s building on that initiative and said Thursday that it would create upscale areas devoted to brands like Calvin Klein near those cosmetics shops to capture some of the expected traffic.

Last month it added three independent members to its board as part of an agreement with an investor group that believes that Kohl’s hasn’t kept up with a fast-changing retail landscape. Those investors say Kohl’s needs to cut its inventory, fix its store label assortment, cut expenses and improve its app and website, among other things.

Kohl’s Corp. reported quarterly net income of $14 million, or 9 cents per share, after reporting a loss in the same period a year earlier. Earnings, adjusted to extinguish debt, were $1.05 per share. Wall Street expected the chain only to break even, according to a survey by Zacks Investment Research.

Its revenue of $3.89 billion, a 60 percent increase from the year-ago period, also topped expectations.

Gass told The AP during a phone interview Thursday that Kohl’s is figuring out what pandemic habits will linger. Even as Americans return to clothing more typical to pre-pandemic times, she said they’re looking for more comfort.

In March Kohl’s introduced FLX, a new store label athleisure brand for exactly that reason.

Like other retailers, Kohl’s is facing labor shortages. Gass said the chain is offering temporary financial perks to workers in some of its distribution centers, but isn’t seeing any labor shortages at its stores.

Kohl’s upped its net sales expectations to an increase in the mid-to-high teens percentage range, compared to the previous outlook in the mid-teens. Operating margin is now expected to be in the range of 5.7 percent to 6.1 percent compared with the previous expectation of 4.5 percent to 5.0 percent.

Adjusted earnings per share is now forecast to be in the range of $3.80 to $4.20, excluding any non-recurring charges, compared with the previous expectation of $2.45 to $2.95.

Shares fell nearly 11 percent, or $6.59 per share to $53.66. in late morning trading Thursday.