By Daniel Wiessner

(Reuters) – Three teachers in Florida on Wednesday sued the state over its law prohibiting transgender and nonbinary teachers from using their preferred pronouns in school, saying it violates their constitutional rights.

The lawsuit filed in federal court in Florida’s capital, Tallahassee, says the state law is designed “to stigmatize and demonize transgender and nonbinary people” and deprives them of the equal protection of the law guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.

The state law, which took effect in July, says school employees cannot tell students to call the employees by their preferred titles or pronouns, if the preference does not correspond to the sex assigned at birth.

Several other states have passed laws saying teachers and classmates do not have to refer to students by their preferred pronouns.

One plaintiff, identified as AV Schwandes, says they are non-binary and were fired from a teaching job at a “virtual school” in October for continuing to use the honorific “Mx.” at work. The other plaintiffs are transgender women who say they have been forced to accept being misgendered.

“Florida intentionally sends the state-sanctioned, invidious, and false message that transgender and nonbinary people and their identities are inherently dangerous, especially to children,” the teachers’ lawyers from the Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights group, wrote in the lawsuit.

The Florida Attorney General’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The case is the latest to challenge laws adopted by Florida and other Republican-led U.S. states aimed at limiting discussions of gender identity and sexual orientation in schools. Critics call them “don’t say gay” laws and claim they are unlawful and harmful to LGBT people.

In April, Florida education officials voted to ban classroom instruction on those topics in all public school grades after state lawmakers in 2022 barred it through third grade.

A federal judge in August dismissed a challenge to that law, and an appeal has been put on hold after the state and the students and parents who sued said they were negotiating a settlement.

Last month, civil rights groups sued to block a similar Iowa law that covers kindergarten through sixth grade.

(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and David Gregorio)

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Alphabet’s Google, Meta Platforms, Qualcomm and seven other tech companies on Wednesday teamed up to push for open digital ecosystems in response to new EU tech rules in a move that may also take the edge of possible future legislation.

Calling itself the Coalition for Open Digital Ecosystems (CODE), the group said it wants to promote more open platforms and systems to boost growth and innovation in Europe.

The group said it will work with academics, policymakers and companies on digital openness and how this can be achieved in Europe “through the implementation of the Digital Markets Act (DMA) and in future EU regulatory framework developments”.

The DMA requires gatekeepers — tech giants that control access to their platforms — to allow third parties to inter-operate with the gatekeeper’s own services and allow their business users to promote their offer and conclude contracts with their customers outside the gatekeeper’s platform.

“We have had a number of conversations in the past few months about what ‘good’ looks like when it comes to digital ecosystems in Europe, what fosters innovation, and what will positively impact competitiveness. We think openness is the crucial element,” Lynx founder Stan Larroque said in a statement.

Other members of the group are Chinese smart devices maker Honor, China’s Lenovo, French augmented reality start-up Lynx, U.S. telecoms equipment maker Motorola, UK electronics maker Nothing, Norwegian tech company Opera and German messaging services provider Wire.

The Coalition said it aims to open up digital ecosystems through cross-industry collaboration and promote seamless connectivity and interoperable systems, among others.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

By Leroy Leo and Michael Erman

(Reuters) -Pfizer on Wednesday forecast 2024 sales that could be as much as $5 billion below Wall Street expectations, a move top executives said provided a more reliable view of its COVID-19 business than it had this year, driving shares to a 10-year low.

Revenue from Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine and treatment, which peaked at $57 billion in 2022, are now expected to be $8 billion in 2024, a further drop from the $13 billion analysts’ forecast and Pfizer’s own lowered view of $12.5 billion for this year.

“We want to be conservative,” Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said on a conference call with investors. “We want to be reliable so we won’t create uncertainty (again), which was the case, unfortunately, this year.”

Pfizer used some of its COVID windfall to acquire companies, including a $43 billion deal for cancer drugmaker Seagen it expects to close this week, and began selling a new RSV vaccine. But the recent RSV launch has been disappointing, trailing a rival’s shot, and shares have fallen 44% so far this year.

In addition, COVID vaccinations in the U.S. have dropped sharply with just about 17% of the eligible population getting the most recent updated boosters due in part to declining concern about the virus, as well as vaccine fatigue.

The New York-based drugmaker also forecast 2024 adjusted profit in the range of $2.05 to $2.25 per share, lower than analysts’ expectation of $3.16.

Pfizer shares closed down another 6.7% on Wednesday, losing nearly $11 billion in market capitalization.

U.S. shares of Pfizer’s German vaccine partner BioNTech fell 5.5%, while COVID vaccine rival Moderna rose 0.7%.

“They’re in a bad place honestly,” said Jeff Jonas, portfolio manager for Gabelli Funds, which owned over 750,000 Pfizer shares as of September, according to LSEG data.

Jonas said the company has taken on a lot of debt to do deals like Seagen. But he is skeptical the company has done enough to fully offset lost revenue from drugs expected to face generic competition in coming year.

“They’re stuck in their ways and then they’re not necessarily going to make the type of bold move that they need to reinvigorate R&D,” Jonas said of research and development.

Seagen is expected to add $3.1 billion to revenue next year.

‘A FLOOR FOR 2024 SALES’

The lower forecasts come a day after Pfizer said it would reorganize its cancer division to include the Seagen acquisition. It also raised its cost-cut target by $500 million on Wednesday.

Pfizer now expects annual revenue in the range of $58.5 billion to $61.5 billion, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $63.17 billion, according to LSEG data.

The COVID-19 vaccine and antiviral treatment Paxlovid helped Pfizer bring in over $100 billion in revenue in 2022. Pfizer had originally forecast sales of $21.5 million in COVID sales for 2023, but later cut that forecast by more than 40%.

The COVID-19 sales targets “likely represent a floor for 2024 sales,” said J.P. Morgan analyst Chris Schott.

The precipitous drop in COVID product sales had also forced Pfizer to launch a program to cut jobs and expenses, which is now expected to save at least $4 billion a year by the end of 2024.

Pfizer said on Tuesday that Chief Commercial Officer Angela Hwang would step down, and the company would reorganize its commercial business, not including oncology, into two divisions, one focused on the United States and the other on the rest of the world.

Citi analyst Andrew Baum said Pfizer’s management is acting with increasing urgency to address its weak stock performance. However, the absence of promising high-potential pipeline assets makes it difficult for the company with several Pfizer products expected to go off patent in the next few years.

(Reporting by Leroy Leo in Bengaluru; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Bill Berkrot)

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – General Motors CEO Mary Barra said Wednesday the Detroit automaker still plans on moving to all electric vehicle sales by 2035 even as it has recently delayed some EV production.

“Our plan is to only be selling EVs, light-duty EVs at that time but of course we’re going to be responsive to where the customer is at but we have a plan to do that,” Barra told reporters after an appearance at the Washington Economic Club.

GM in October said it was abandoning a goal of building 400,000 EVs from 2022 through mid-2024 as it delays production of electric pickup trucks at its plant in Michigan’s Orion Township by a year. GM also in October scrapped a $5 billion plan to jointly develop affordable EVs with Honda Motor.

The Biden administration is pursuing aggressive vehicle emissions regulations and Barra said they must be achievable.

“I think we’re in a good position with the number of EVs that we have that we’re launching,” Barra said Wednesday. “I think we just need to make sure that the regulations stay aligned with where the customer is, the charging has to be there.”

The American Automotive Policy Council, representing GM, Ford Motor and Stellantis, in October urged regulators to halve its proposed fuel economy increases from 4% to 2% annually for trucks, saying the proposal “would disproportionately impact the truck fleet.”

U.S. automakers separately have warned fuel economy fines would cost GM $6.5 billion, Stellantis billion and Ford $1 billion. Reuters reported in June GM paid $128.2 million in fines covering 2016 and 2017, the first time the automaker had paid fuel economy penalties.

Automakers also have raised alarm at the Energy Department’s proposal to significantly revise how it calculates the petroleum-equivalent fuel economy rating for EVs. Barra met with Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm and raised the issue, sources told Reuters.

GM said in October it could support the administration’s fuel economy proposal if the Energy Department rescinded its petroleum-equivalent proposal.

(Reporting by David Shepardson)

By Raphael Satter

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Apple has said it now requires a judge’s order to hand over information about its customers’ push notification to law enforcement, putting the iPhone maker’s policy in line with rival Google and raising the hurdle officials must clear to get app data about users.

The new policy was not formally announced but appeared sometime over the past few days on Apple’s publicly available law enforcement guidelines. It follows the revelation from Oregon Senator Ron Wyden that officials were requesting such data from Apple and Google, the unit of Alphabet that makes the operating system for Android phones.

Apps of all kinds rely on push notifications to alert smartphone users to incoming messages, breaking news, and other updates. These are the audible “dings” or visual indicators users get when they receive an email or their sports team wins a game. What users often do not realize is that almost all such notifications travel over Google and Apple’s servers.

In a letter first disclosed by Reuters last week, Wyden said the practice gave the two companies unique insight into traffic flowing from those apps to users, putting them “in a unique position to facilitate government surveillance of how users are using particular apps.”

Apple and Google acknowledged receiving such requests. Apple added a passage to its guidelines saying such data was available “with a subpoena or greater legal process.” The passage has now been updated to refer to more stringent warrant requirements.

Apple did not issue an official statement. Google said in a statement it had always required judicial approval to hand over this kind of information.

Wyden said in a statement that Apple was “doing the right thing by matching Google and requiring a court order to hand over push notification related data.”

(Reporting by Raphael Satter; Editing by David Gregorio and Richard Chang)

By Stephen Culp

NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. stocks advanced Tuesday and the dollar dipped after a report showed sticky U.S. inflation meandering lower as the Federal Reserve convened to assess policy and investors awaited a sign on when to expect interest rate cuts.

Oil prices tumbled to their lowest in more than six months, with WTI crude prices diving 3.8% on worries of softening global demand.

Wall Street’s three major indexes notched their highest closing prices of 2023.

The Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) unexpectedly inched higher on a monthly basis in November, but edged lower on an annual basis, stoking concerns that inflation is taking longer to return to the Fed’s 2% target than many had hoped and raising the possibility that the central bank will keep policy rates in restrictive territory longer.

“There’s something for everyone in this release,” said Scott Ladner, chief investment officer at Horizon Investments in Charlotte, North Carolina.

“If you want to believe that inflation is reigniting, there are elements of the report that support that.” Ladner added. “If you want to believe inflation is cooling, you can find things in there to support that too.

“We’re getting a middling reaction to a middling number.”

The Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) gathered for its two-day monetary policy meeting, which is expected to culminate in a decision to leave the Fed funds target rate at 5.25%-5.50%.

The Fed is also expected to release its Summary Economic Projections and dot plot, which should shed light on the central bank’s path forward.

“I’m expecting a steady-as-she-goes, a ‘we’ll rely on the data’ kind of message from the Fed,” said Peter Tuz, president of Chase Investment Counsel in Charlottesville, Virginia. “Anything indicating too much strength in the economy or unexpected weakness will be a surprise to me.”

“It’s a tightrope that (Federal Reserve Chair) Jay Powell’s been on for a while and I don’t think he’s going to step off of it for several more months,” Tuz added.

In a busy week for central banks elsewhere, the European Central Bank and the Bank of England are also due to issue interest rate decisions on Thursday.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 173.01 points, or 0.48%, to 36,577.94, the S&P 500 gained 21.26 points, or 0.46%, to 4,643.7 and the Nasdaq Composite added 100.91 points, or 0.7%, to 14,533.40.

European shares reversed course to close lower following the CPI report, after Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC-40 touched record highs.

The pan-European STOXX 600 index lost 0.21% and MSCI’s gauge of stocks across the globe gained 0.39%.

Emerging market stocks rose 0.40%. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan closed 0.51% higher, while Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.16%.

Treasury yields edged lower after the core CPI number landed largely in line with expectations, bolstering views that the Fed will hold its key policy rate steady on Wednesday.

Benchmark 10-year notes last rose 8/32 in price to yield 4.2082%, from 4.239% late on Monday.

The 30-year bond last rose 9/32 in price to yield 4.3151%, from 4.33% late on Monday.

The dollar lost ground against a basket of world currencies in anticipation of the Fed’s updated economic and interest rate projections expected on Wednesday.

The dollar index fell 0.26%, with the euro up 0.33% to $1.0796.

The Japanese yen strengthened 0.42% versus the greenback at 145.55 per dollar, while Sterling was last trading at $1.2568, up 0.12% on the day.

Oil prices tumbled as concerns about excess supply and slowing demand overshadowed supply risks due to escalating tensions in the Middle East.

U.S. crude slid 3.80% to settle at $68.61 per barrel, while Brent settled at $73.24 per barrel, down 3.67% on the day.

Gold reversed its gains following the inflation data, and was last slightly lower.

Spot gold dropped 0.1% to $1,978.91 an ounce.

(Reporting by Stephen Culp Additional reporting by Amanda Cooper in LondonEditing by Mark Potter, David Evans and Alex Richardson)

By Raphael Satter

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Apple has said it now requires a judge’s order to hand over information about its customers’ push notification to law enforcement, putting the iPhone maker’s policy in line with rival Google and raising the hurdle officials must clear to get app data about users.

The new policy was not formally announced but appeared sometime over the past few days on Apple’s publicly available law enforcement guidelines. It follows the revelation from Oregon Senator Ron Wyden that officials were requesting such data from Apple as well as from Google, the unit of Alphabet that makes the operating system for Android phones.

Apps of all kinds rely on push notifications to alert smartphone users to incoming messages, breaking news, and other updates. These are the audible “dings” or visual indicators users get when they receive an email or their sports team wins a game. What users often do not realize is that almost all such notifications travel over Google and Apple’s servers.

In a letter first disclosed by Reuters last week, Wyden said the practice gave the two companies unique insight into traffic flowing from those apps to users, putting them “in a unique position to facilitate government surveillance of how users are using particular apps.”

Apple and Google both acknowledged receiving such requests. Apple added a passage to its guidelines saying such data was available “with a subpoena or greater legal process.” The passage has now been updated to refer to more stringent warrant requirements.

Apple did not offer an official statement. Google did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

Wyden said in a statement that Apple was “doing the right thing by matching Google and requiring a court order to hand over push notification related data.”

(Reporting by Raphael Satter; Editing by David Gregorio)

By Blake Brittain

(Reuters) – A federal judge in Virginia has rejected cybersecurity company Centripetal Networks’ patent infringement claims against Cisco Systems in a multi-billion-dollar fight over network-security technology.

A different judge in the same court, U.S. District Judge Henry Morgan, had awarded Centripetal $2.75 billion in the case in 2020, marking the largest patent damages award in U.S. history. A federal appeals court later overturned that award on ethics grounds because Morgan’s wife owned Cisco stock.

Morgan had died in the interim, and the appeals court directed that the case be heard by a new judge. U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Hanes held new hearings in the case and ruled on Monday that Cisco did not infringe the patents.

Representatives for Centripetal and Cisco did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

Reston, Virginia-based Centripetal sued Cisco in 2018, claiming Cisco’s routers, network-security software and other products infringed patents related to Centripetal’s technology for blocking security threats from entering a computer network.

Morgan ruled for Centripetal in 2020 after a non-jury trial. He awarded Centripetal $1.9 billion in damages, plus royalties that Cisco said increased the total to more than $2.7 billion.

Morgan told the companies before issuing his ruling that he had learned his wife owned 100 shares of Cisco stock worth $4,688. He said that he was unaware of the stock during the trial and that it had not influenced his handling of the case.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit threw out the award and sent the case back to the Virginia court. The appeals court found that Morgan either should have recused himself from the case or made sure the stock was sold.

The U.S. Supreme Court later declined to review the Federal Circuit’s decision.

(Reporting by Blake Brittain in Washington; additional reporting by Nate Raymond; Editing by David Bario and Rosalba O’Brien)

By Chuck Mikolajczak

NEW YORK (Reuters) -U.S. stocks closed at fresh highs of the year on Tuesday, after inflation data did little to alter views for the timing of a rate cut by the Federal Reserve, as investors awaited the central bank’s last policy decision of the year on Wednesday.

The November Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 3.1% on an annual basis, in line with estimates from economists polled by Reuters, as a drop in gasoline prices was overshadowed by a rise in rents. Core prices, excluding volatile items such as food and energy costs, also matched expectations, showing a 4% annual rise.

On a month-on-month basis, consumer prices ticked up 0.1% last month, compared with estimates of remaining unchanged.

Markets had recently been pricing in a rate cut by the Federal Reserve as soon as March, but traders pared those bets and are now targeting May for the first rate cut after the central bank began its hiking cycle in March 2022.

Expectations for a cut of at least 25 basis points in March fell to 43.7%, from about 50% before the data, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool. The market is now pricing in a chance of about 78% for a cut in May, up from about 75% on Monday.

“The market is certainly assuming that inflation is going to keep coming down, that earnings in this next year are going to show some decent growth and the Fed is going to cut rates,” said Scott Wren, senior global market strategist at the Wells Fargo Investment Institute in St. Louis.

“The market is counting on more of a soft landing that would allow the Fed to ease up.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 173.01 points, or 0.48%, to 36,577.94, the S&P 500 gained 21.26 points, or 0.46%, to 4,643.70 and the Nasdaq Composite gained 100.91 points, or 0.70%, to 14,533.40.

The Dow closed at its highest level since Jan. 4, 2022, the S&P 500 its highest close since Jan. 14, 2022, and the Nasdaq its highest closing level since March 29, 2022.

Wren also said stocks were facing resistance at their highs of the year, with a strong push to the upside unlikely for the near-to-intermediate term.

Another factor dampening volatility could be an options expiration at the end of the week, with the S&P 500 not registering a move of 1% in either direction for 19 straight sessions, the longest such streak since August.

Markets will get another look at inflation data in the form of the Producer Price Index (PPI) before all eyes turn to the Fed’s policy announcement at the conclusion of its two-day meeting on Wednesday.

The European Central Bank and the Bank of England are also scheduled to deliver their policy verdicts later this week.

Oracle slumped 12.44% as the cloud services provider forecast third-quarter revenue below estimates on slowing demand for its cloud service.

Energy was the worst-performing of the 11 major S&P sectors, falling 1.35% as crude prices settled down nearly 4%. The tech sector, however, was among the best-performing, rising for a fourth straight session to close at a record high of 3,344.07, on track for its biggest yearly percentage gain since 2019.

Google-parent Alphabet dipped 0.58% after “Fortnite” maker Epic Games prevailed in its high-profile antitrust trial over the company.

Advancing issues were roughly even with decliners on the NYSE while declining issues outnumbered advancers by a 1.3-to-1 ratio on the Nasdaq.

The S&P 500 posted 74 new 52-week highs and 2 new lows while the Nasdaq recorded 198 new highs and 187 new lows.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 10.52 billion shares, compared with the 10.95 billion average for the full session over the last 20 trading days.

(Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak in New YorkEditing by Matthew Lewis)

By Andrew Goudsward

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A former Georgia elections worker told a jury on Tuesday that she feared for her life after Rudy Giuliani and other allies of former U.S. President Donald Trump falsely accused her of attempting to rig the 2020 election.

Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, a former voter registration officer in Fulton County, testified at the second day of Giuliani’s defamation trial that her life “flipped upside down” in early December 2020 when Trump allies began falsely claiming that she and her mother, Ruby Freeman, engaged in fraud after the November election.

“How can someone with so much power go public and talk about things that he obviously has no clue about?” Moss, 39, said of Giuliani. “It’s just obvious that it’s lies.”

A federal judge has already determined that Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and personal lawyer for Trump, defamed Moss and Freeman. The only issue for the jury to decide is how much Giuliani owes in damages.

Moss testified that the ordeal has affected “every single aspect” of her life, forcing her out of her job and leaving her fearful of going out alone. She spoke of receiving a flood of racist messages that included threats to lynch her and her mother.

“I literally felt that someone is going to come and attempt to hang me and there’s nothing that anyone will be able to do about it,” Moss said.

Giuliani’s lawyer Joseph Sibley has argued that others besides Giuliani bear responsibility for the harm the two workers suffered. During cross-examination, Sibley questioned Moss on whether there was evidence that Giuliani intended to spur threats and racist attacks against her and her mother.

“Rudy Giuliani and his crew were the start of it all,” Moss said. “They lit the torch.”

REPEATING FALSE CLAIMS

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who is overseeing the case, scolded Giuliani earlier on Tuesday for repeating the accusations as he left the courthouse following the first day of the trial.

Giuliani told reporters on Monday outside the courthouse that “everything I said was true” and again accused Moss and Freeman of “changing votes,” according to an ABC News report. Giuliani confirmed in court on Tuesday that he made the statement.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs noted that the judge has already deemed that Giuliani’s prior statements were false and he should not be allowed to challenge that determination during the trial.

Howell said Giuliani’s Monday remarks “could support another defamation claim” and contradicted his lawyer’s statement in court that the workers were “good people.”

The judge said it would be “grossly unfair” for Giuliani to make similar statements when he testifies at trial, which is expected later this week.

Sibley, Giuliani’s lawyer, told the judge that the case has “taken a toll” on the 79-year-old Giuliani, but he would be able to manage his client’s statements in court.

“I can’t control what he says outside the courtroom,” Sibley said.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Bill Berkrot and Lisa Shumaker)