Oct 12, 2018

Gary Cohn joins blockchain startup

Gary Cohn speaks at an event hosted by the Economics Club of Washington D.C. Photo: Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Gary Cohn, former economic adviser to President Trump and Goldman Sachs president, has joined the advisory board of Spring Labs, a startup developing blockchain tech to help lenders and other companies verify customer identity, he told the Financial Times.

Why it matters: Cohn is not the first Wall Street executive to be interested in this new area of digital currencies, nor the first to focus his enthusiasm on the underlying technology rather than the cryptocurrencies themselves.

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Fadel Allassan
39 mins ago - World

China bans Cruz and Rubio over Xinjiang criticism

Photos: Graeme Jennings/Pool/Getty Images; Al Drago/Pool/Getty Images

China said Monday that it will ban entry to Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas) over their criticisms of human rights abuses in Xinjiang, the AP reports.

The big picture: The move seems to be retaliatory after the U.S. announced sanctions on four Chinese officials for human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims and other ethnic minorities in the region last week.

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Mike Allen
1 hour ago - Politics & Policy

Roger Stone says he plans to campaign for Trump

Roger Stone appears yesterday outside his home in Fort Lauderdale. Photo: Johnny Louis/Getty Images

Roger Stone told Axios in a phone interview that he plans to write and speak for President Trump's re-election now that Stone "won't die in a squalid hellhole of corona-19 virus."

"I'm asthmatic," said Stone, 67. "Sending me to a prison where I could not be socially distanced ... would, I think, be a death sentence."

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Scott Rosenberg, Kyle Daly
1 hour ago - Technology

Facebook's plan: Make nice, but don't give in

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

Facebook last week took steadily intensifying heat from fleeing advertisers and boycott leaders and received a big thumbs-down from its own civil-rights auditors. Its response, essentially: We hear you, but we'll carry on.

The big picture: Early on in Facebook's rise, CEO Mark Zuckerberg learned to handle external challenges by offering limited concessions and soothing words, then charging forward without making fundamental changes.

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