A federal judge on Friday indefinitely delayed a final ruling on a request by labor unions to block Elon Musk’s government efficiency team from accessing internal system data, telling both parties, ‘You will hear from me,’ while declining to promise an exact time or date.
The update from U.S. District Judge John Bates, a George W. Bush appointee, comes just one week after he rejected an earlier request from unions representing Labor Department employees for a temporary restraining order to block DOGE access to internal system data. The judge said the plaintiffs lacked standing and failed to show they would be harmed as a result of the actions.
In response, the unions amended their complaint to broaden the scope of the lawsuit, adding the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Arguments Friday stretched for more than three hours, with plaintiffs arguing that DOGE employees were accessing their information illegally since DOGE is not technically a U.S. government agency.
‘There has been reporting that DOGE is directing the cuts of agency staff and contracts, not simply advising the president,’ one lawyer for the plaintiffs told Judge Bates, ‘The situation is extremely fluid and changing.’
The plaintiffs urged Judge Bates to grant a temporary request to block DOGE’s access to the information, which they said would ‘force the agency to implement a more thoughtful process.’
Meanwhile, the Justice Department argued in response that the DOGE personnel in question are ‘detailed’ U.S. government employees who have access to the information under provisions of the Economy Act.
Judge Bates declined to rule from the bench, telling both sides, ‘You will hear from me.’
The update will likely do little in the near term to assuage concerns among employees at the Labor Department and other federal agencies over DOGE’s access to sensitive internal data.
Attorneys for unions representing Labor Department employees argued during last week’s hearing that, absent court intervention, DOGE could access protected agency information, including the financial and medical records of millions of Americans, as well as employee safety and workplace complaints.
The plaintiffs noted that Labor Department systems contain sensitive information about investigations into Musk-owned companies Tesla and SpaceX, as well as information about trade secrets of competing companies, sparking concerns about Elon Musk’s possible access to the information.
Attorney Mark Samburg argued that DOGE access to this information could have a ‘chilling effect’ on new employees coming forward, due to fear of unlawful disclosure or retaliation.
‘The sensitive information of millions of people is currently at imminent risk of unlawful disclosure,’ Samburg said.
Judge Bates suggested Friday that DOGE’s creation and its hierarchy were ‘odd,’ noting that it ‘was created in a way to get it out of OMB [Office of Management and Budget], and instead answering to the chief of staff of the president.’
DOGE ‘took great effort to avoid being an agency, but in this case, you’re an agency,’ he said of DOGE. ‘It just seems to strain credulity.’
DETROIT — As President Donald Trump threatens to further increase tariffs on U.S. trading partners, the greatest impact for the auto industry outside of North America would be additional levies on South Korea and Japan.
The East Asian countries produced a combined 16.8% of vehicles sold last year in the U.S., including a record 8.6% from South Korea and 8.2% from Japan, according to data provided to CNBC by GlobalData.
They were the largest vehicle importers to the U.S. outside of Mexico — and they have little to no duties compared with the 25% tariff Trump has threatened imposing on Canada and Mexico.
Automakers such as General Motors and South Korea-based Hyundai Motor export vehicles tariff-free from South Korea. The country overtook Japan and Canada last year to become the second-largest exporter of new cars to the U.S., based on sales.
It trails only Mexico, which represented 16.2% of U.S. auto sales in 2024, GlobalData reports.
“Obviously Hyundai has a massive amount of exposure. Behind it is GM … with relatively large volume models,” said Jeff Schuster, global vice president of automotive research at GlobalData. “There’s a lot of risk potentially here, but it’s limited, really limited, to those two players.”
Imports from Japan are currently subject to a 2.5% tariff for automakers such as Toyota Motor, Nissan Motor and Honda Motor. Vehicles from Japan represented about 1.31 million autos sold last year in the U.S.
Japan’s percentage of sales has actually decreased in recent years, while South Korea’s exports and sales have continued to rise from less than 845,000 in 2019 to more than 1.37 million in 2024.
South Korea has 0% tariffs on cars despite Trump renegotiating a trade deal with the country during his first term in 2018. That accord was touted for improving vehicle imports to South Korea, but it did little to address vehicle exports to the U.S.
The deal also has done little for increasing automotive exports to South Korea, according to data from the International Trade Commission. U.S. passenger vehicle exports to South Korea have actually decreased by roughly 16%.
Separate from cars, tariffs on trucks exported from South Korea and Japan to the U.S, as well as elsewhere, are 25%.
A tariff is a tax on imports, or foreign goods, brought into the United States. The companies importing the goods pay the tariffs, and some experts fear the companies would simply pass any additional costs on to consumers — raising the cost of vehicles and potentially reducing demand.
South Korea-based Hyundai is the largest exporter of vehicles to the U.S., followed by GM and then Kia Corp., a part of Hyundai that largely operates separately in the U.S.
GM has notably increased its imports from South Korea in recent years. Its U.S. sales of South Korean-produced vehicles — largely entry-level models — have risen from 173,000 in 2019 to more than 407,000 last year, according to GlobalData.
GM is the largest foreign direct investor in Korea’s manufacturing industry, according to the automaker’s website. It has invested 9 trillion South Korean won (roughly $6.2 billion) since establishing the operations in 2002.
GM produces its Buick Encore GX and Buick Envista crossovers, as well as the Chevrolet Trailblazer and Chevrolet Trax crossovers, at plants in South Korea. The company has touted the vehicles as being a pinnacle for the automaker’s profitable growth in lower-margin, entry-level vehicles.
“We’re taking out costs of programs, improving profitability and creating vehicles that customers love, like the new Chevy Trax and the Buick Envista,” GM President Mark Reuss said during the company’s investor day in October. “Trax and Envista have helped raise our share of the U.S. small SUV market to its highest level since 2007.”
Hyundai did not immediately respond when asked about potential tariffs on South Korea. GM and Kia declined to comment.
Terence Lau, dean of the College of Law at Syracuse University who previously worked as a trade expert for Ford Motor, said the automotive industry is built on free trade. If tariffs are implemented, the industry can adjust, but it takes time.
“The car industry can adjust to anything. Really, it can. It’s always going to make product that customers want to buy, because personal mobility and transportation is a human need all around the world,” he said. “What the car industry cannot do well is pivot on a dime.”
Lau argued that a single-digit tariff can be a “nuisance,” but once they hit 10% or more, that’s when additional costs can really began eating into the margin or products.
Ford Motor CEO Jim Farley last week argued that if Trump is going to implement tariffs affecting the automotive industry, it should take a “comprehensive” look at all countries to even the playing field in North America.
Farley singled out Toyota and Hyundai for importing hundreds of thousands of vehicles annually from Japan and South Korea, respectively.
“There are millions of vehicles coming into our country that are not being applied to these [incremental tariffs],” Farley said during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call with investors. “So if we’re going to have a tariff policy … it better be comprehensive for our industry.
“We can’t just cherry-pick one place or the other because this is a bonanza for our import competitors.”
The White House did not respond for comment on potential tariffs on South Korea.
Trump on Thursday signed a presidential memorandum laying out his plan to impose “reciprocal tariffs” on foreign nations, but did not go into detail regarding what countries could be targeted.
As a presidential candidate, Trump floated the possibility of imposing across-the-board tariffs on all U.S. imports. But he also advocated for Congress to pass what he called the “Trump Reciprocal Trade Act,” which would empower him to slap tariffs on the goods of any country that has higher tariffs on U.S.-made goods.
— CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger contributed to this report.
Consumers sharply curtailed their spending in January, indicating a potential weakening in economic growth ahead, according to a Commerce Department report Friday.
Retail sales slipped 0.9% for the month from an upwardly revised 0.7% gain in December, even worse than the Dow Jones estimate for a 0.2% decline. The sales totals are adjusted for seasonality but not inflation for a month, in which prices rose 0.5%.
Excluding autos, prices fell 0.4%, also well off the consensus forecast for a 0.3% increase. A “control” measure that strips out several nonessential categories and figures directly into calculations for gross domestic product fell 0.8% after an upwardly revised increase of 0.8%.
With consumer spending making up about two-thirds of all economic activity in the U.S., the sales numbers indicate a potential weakening in growth for the first quarter.
Receipts at sporting goods, music and book stores tumbled 4.6% on the month, while online outlets reported a 1.9% decline and motor vehicles and parts spending dropped 2.8%. Gas stations along with food and drinking establishments both reported 0.9% increases.
Stock market futures held in slightly negative territory following the release, while Treasury yields lost ground. Traders raised bets that the Federal Reserve could cut interest rates again as soon as June.
“The drop was dramatic, but several mitigating factors show there’s no cause for alarm. Some of it can be chalked up to bad weather, and some to auto sales tanking in January after an unusual surge in December due to fat dealer incentives,” said Robert Frick, corporate economist with Navy Federal Credit Union. “Especially considering December was revised up strongly, the rolling average of consumer spending remains solid,” Frick added.
Inflation remains ahead of the Fed’s 2% goal. The consumer price index posted a 0.5% gain in January and showed a 3% annual inflation rate. However, the producer price index, a proxy for wholesale prices, showed some softening in key pipeline inputs.
In other economic news Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that import prices accelerated 0.3% in January, in line with expectations for the largest one-month move since April 2024. On a year-over-year basis, import prices increased 1.9%.
Fuel prices increased 3.2% on the month, also the biggest gain since April 2024. Food, feeds and beverage costs rose 0.2% following a 3% surge in December.
With prices rising rapidly and showing no signs of slowing anytime soon, some of the nation’s biggest grocery store chains — including Trader Joe’s, Walmart and Costco — have begun limiting the amount of eggs individual consumers can buy.
This time last year, the average price for a dozen eggs was around $3, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By last month, it had risen to around $5.
And egg prices are expected to climb this year by 20.3 percent, according to the latest outlook from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Market analysts blame the price hikes on the highly infectious bird flu that has decimated the chicken population and reduced egg supplies during the winter holiday season, when the demand is strong. More than 13 million hens have been lost or slaughtered since December as a result of the bird flu outbreak, according to the Agriculture Department’s latest Egg Markets Overview.
Trader Joe’s is dealing with the shortages by limiting the amount of eggs customers can buy.
“Due to ongoing issues with the supply of eggs, we are currently limiting egg purchases to one dozen per customer, per day, in all Trader Joe’s stores across the country,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “We hope these limits will help to ensure that as many of our customers who need eggs are able to purchase them when they visit Trader Joe’s.”
Walmart is limiting bulk buyers to two 60-count cartons per purchase “to help ensure more customers can have access to eggs,” a spokesperson said.
“Although supply is very tight, we’re working with suppliers to try and help meet customer demand, while striving to keep prices as low as possible.”
There are no restrictions on purchasers of smaller quantities of eggs, the spokesperson said.
At Sam’s Club, purchasers are allowed to buy two cartons of each brand of eggs on the shelves, a spokesperson said.
But at Kroger and Aldi there is a two dozen eggs per trip limit, while Whole Foods and Costco are capping egg purchases at three one-dozen cartons per person in select stores.
A sign asks customers to limit their purchases of eggs at a grocery store Monday in South Pasadena, Calif. Frederic J. Brown / AFP – Getty Images
Meanwhile, the White House found itself taking flak again from Democrats demanding that President Donald Trump fulfill his campaign promise to immediately start reducing the price of groceries.
“Over the last several weeks, you have done nothing to address these rising costs,” the Congressional Dads Caucus said in a letter Thursday to Trump. “Moreover, your flurry of executive actions has hampered the government’s response to effectively address the underlying causes of this crisis. Eggs are a basic necessity for families in our districts, and the financial burden caused by these surging prices must be resolved.”
In some areas of New York, “the average price of a dozen eggs has reached more than $8 in some stores,” said Tony Hernandez, spokesperson for Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., who leads the group that fired off the letter.
In response to the harsh criticism from congressional Democrats, a White House spokesperson, Anna Kelly, blamed the egg crisis on the ‘Biden Administration’s slow and ineffective response to the bird flu outbreak, which began in 2022.’
“Moms and dads across the country gave President Trump a mandate to take every action to drive down costs, and he is delivering,’ Kelly said in emailed statement.
Trump and Brooke Rollins, who is the president’s pick to head the Agriculture Department, ‘will refocus the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) on its core mission: protecting the health of the United States’ plants, animals, and natural resources,’ Kelly wrote.
In New York City, some bodegas have taken to selling eggs one at a time because their customers can’t afford to shell out $10 or more to buy a dozen eggs, a price that is not unusual in the very expensive city.
“These people don’t have enough money to buy a dozen eggs, so I have to sell them separately,” Fernando Rodriguez, 62, owner of Pamela’s Green Deli in The Bronx, told the New York Post.
Fragrance brand Brown Girl Jane’s perfume bottles sit on shelves at Sephora near some of the most storied labels in the fashion and beauty world, including Prada and Dior.
For the Black-owned brand, getting a retailer to bet on it was just the start, Brown Girl Jane CEO and co-founder Malaika Jones said. She said Sephora has supported the company so it can better compete with well-known brands with huge marketing budgets and glossy celebrity endorsements.
Brown Girl Jane got a $100,000 grant last year to help grow its business through Sephora’s Accelerate program, which aims to boost founders who are people of color. Sephora spotlighted the fragrance brand in an email to customers in early February, putting itin front of potential shoppers who don’t know its name. Brown Girl Jane’s sales more than doubled after Sephora began carrying the company’s fragrances online and at select stores about a year ago.
Brown Girl Jane’s sales have more than doubled since the brand got picked up by Sephora last year. The beauty retailer took the 15 Percent Pledge, an effort to add more Black-owned brands to shelves.Courtesy Brown Girl Jane
While Sephora has put its weight behind its brand incubator, much larger retailers like Walmart and Target recently scaled back similar efforts focused on finding and funding more brands founded by people of color.Without that support from the retailers themselves, brands like Brown Girl Jane could face a tougher time getting on shelves — and succeeding once they get there.
“For small brands, but for any brands, really, it’s a constant fight for relevance and for visibility,” Jones said. “And so when you don’t have that commitment or even that understanding from the retailer side, it becomes quite difficult for small brands to survive — even when they’ve made it on shelves.”
When retailers launched supplier diversity programs — many of them in the months after police killed George Floyd in 2020 — top industry leaders including Walmart CEO Doug McMillon and Target CEO Brian Cornell spoke out about the institutional barriers thatpeople of color face, including when financing their businesses. Now, as more retailers drop diversity, equity and inclusion programs, Black-owned brands may find it harder to clear those hurdles.
In January, Target dropped specific DEI pledges that it made four years ago after Floyd was murdered a short distance from its Minneapolis headquarters. Among those goals, the big-box retailer hadcommitted to adding products from more than 500 Black-owned brands to its shelves or website and spending $2 billion with Black-owned businesses by 2025.
Late last year, Walmart confirmed that it was ending key diversity initiatives, including winding down the Center for Racial Equity, a nonprofit that the retailer started and funded with $100 million to tackle racial inequities. It had chosen finance as one of those focus areas, noting the gap in funding for Black entrepreneurs.
Gutting those efforts could jeopardize a valuable pathway for Black founders to build their businesses and reach the millions of shoppers who browse the websites and aisles at the nation’s largest and best-known retailers.
Not every major retailer has dropped DEI initiatives. Sephora, Costco and E.l.f. Beauty, among others, have reaffirmed their commitments. And the most prominent effort to increase the share of Black-owned brands on retail shelves, the 15 Percent Pledge, still has major backers.
Companies from Google to Ford and Tractor Supplyhave rolled back their initiatives to boost representation of people of color, women and LGBTQ+ people, as political backlash and pressure from conservative activists has intensified. The trend only accelerated afterPresident Donald Trump issued an executive order banning DEI programs in the federal government and describing the efforts as “dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences.”
It’s a sharp change from about five years ago, when companies released a wave of announcements committing to fighting inequity. They made bold pledges to add more diversity to their workforces and C-suites, seek out Black and minority vendors and donate to philanthropic causes that fought racism and supportedexpanded opportunities for marginalized groups.
Fear of litigation, activist investor scrutiny and political pressure has caused companies to backpedal or keep their initiatives below the radar, said Jon Solorzano, an attorney at Vinson & Elkins who advises companies on DEI.
One of those lawsuits targeted The Fearless Fund, an Atlanta-based venture capital fund dedicated to awarding grants to businesses founded by Black women to bridge a longstanding funding gap. Only 1.3% of the more than $345 billion raised by venture-backed startups in 2021 went to Black founders, according to Deloitte and Venture Forward’s 2023 report. About 2.4% went to startups led by female founders and 2.1% of that total went to startups led by Hispanic founders.
American Alliance for Equal Rights, a conservative group founded by Edward Blum, sued The Fearless Fund in 2023, accusing it of discriminating against non-Black business owners. Blum previously fought against race-based college admissions, a campaign that led to the Supreme Court’s ruling that affirmative action policies are unconstitutional — which some companies cited last year in ending their DEI initiatives.
As part of a settlement reached last year, The Fearless Fund shut down its grant program.
Solorzano said that lawsuit had a chilling effect and will “seriously undermine some of these [supplier] initiatives.” He said he expects more corporations to scrub numbers from their diversity programs, including supplier programs focused on increasing Black- and minority-owned brands on shelves.
Yet ending or scaling back efforts to seek out merchandise that reflects the diversity of U.S. consumers could put a company at risk, too, he said. Not only could companies face boycotts, but also they could miss out on fresher items and brands that help them stand apart from competitors.
Even as some retailers walk back diversity pledges, Sephora, Costco and E.l.f. Beauty, have doubled down on those efforts not as a feel-good move, but as a meaningful part of their business strategies.
Sephora, a 15 Percent Pledge memberwhich is owned by LVMH, has increased the percentage of Black-owned brands on its shelves from 3% in 2020 to about 10% as of 2025, said Artemis Patrick, CEO of Sephora North America. In its hair category, 15% of the brands are Black-owned.
Shoppers walk by a Sephora store in San Diego.Kevin Carter / Getty Images
Sephora started Accelerate in 2016 with a focus on female founders. The six-month incubator helps mentor business owners, connects them to investors and gives them the opportunity to launch at Sephora.
The retailer pivoted the program in 2020 to focus on Black and other minority founders to address “the need of the evolving consumer and where we truly did feel like we had an assortment gap,” Patrick said.
So far, more than 33 Black- and minority-owned brands have gone through the incubator, she said.
“Our business is really good and the fact that we’ve been really focused on diversifying our assortment, I think there’s a strong correlation,” she said.
She added “it would be very strange in a beauty category to not be driving diversity in your assortment that meets the needs of your clients.”
At Costco’s annual meeting last month, 98% of shareholders rejected a proposal that requested a report on the risk of Costco maintaining diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
A Costco in Cranberry Township, Pa.Gene J. Puskar / AP file
In a proxy statement ahead of themeeting, the warehouse club’s board of directors said diversity benefits its business and helps it better serve a wide range of customers.
“Among other things, a diverse group of employees helps bring originality and creativity to our merchandise offerings, promoting the ‘treasure hunt’ that our customers value,” it wrote.
Costco’s board added that diversity across its suppliers “fosters creativity and innovation in the merchandise and services that we offer our members.”
Tarang Amin, CEO of popular Gen Z makeup brand E.l.f. Beauty, called the company’s diversity “a key competitive advantage in terms of our results” in an interview with CNN earlier this month. He said the company’s employees are 74% women, 76% Gen Z and millennial and over 44% diverse and “reflect the community we serve.”
Nearly five years ago, Aurora James challenged companies in an Instagram post to dedicate more of their shelf space to Black-owned businesses. That idea, which she proposed days after Floyd’s murder, started the 15 Percent Pledge.
“So many of your businesses are built on Black spending power,” she wrote at the time. “So many of your stores are set up in Black communities. So many of your posts seen on Black feeds. This is the least you can do for us. We represent 15% of the population and we need to represent 15% of your shelf space.”
Sephora was the first company to sign the pledge. About 22 companies are active participants in the pledge, including Macy’s and Nordstrom, according to the nonprofit. The 15 Percent Pledge has a directory of Black-owned brands on its website. It also awards grants to businesses and raises money to back Black-owned businesses through an annual gala, which drew celebrities, actors and business leaders including Kim Kardashian, Kelly Rowland and Jesse Williams earlier this month.
Some of the changes inspired by the pledge are visible on shelves.
Sephora has more than tripled the Black-owned brands on its shelves in the past five years. In the email to customers, it noted that number had spiked from eight to 30 since it took the Fifteen Percent Pledge in 2020.
Those brands include makeup, shampoos and more backed by small entrepreneurs and celebrities, including Fenty Beauty by Rihanna, Pattern by Tracee Ellis Ross and Sienna Naturals, which was co-founded by Hannah Diop and actress Issa Rae.
Nordstrom, which also signed on to the 15 Percent Pledge, has now added more Black-owned brands, too, including Buttah Skin, Briogeo and Honor the Gift.
And Macy’s, another 15 Percent Pledge participant, has had an accelerator for over a decade which was launched to support underrepresented brand owners and founders. The Workshop, which started in 2011, offers grant funding and education for companies seeking to make it on retailers’ shelves and websites.
James, who herself is a Black founder of a luxury brand called Brother Vellies, said she’s disheartened to see companies back away from supporting smaller Black- and minority-owned suppliers.
“The idea is not about giving preferential treatment,” she said. “The idea is about making sure that we cast our net wide enough that we’re not just looking at the obvious channels.”
By relying more on big conglomerates, retailers miss out on funding smaller U.S. business that create jobs and stimulate the local economy, she said.
“In a time when I think small business all across America is suffering, to specifically target groups of founders and say, ‘You can’t get access or opportunity,’ just feels like a blow to all small businesses across America,” she said.
She said the reversal of DEI by some companies show their commitments never ran deep.
“Target never took the pledge. Walmart never took the pledge,” she said. “I don’t think that they were ever really that serious about what they were doing.”
Not every company has stuck with the pledge. Gap did not renew with the group late last year — but said in a statement that it’s not backing away from DEI efforts. Over the past year, the company has gone through major changes as part of a turnaround led by Richard Dickson, its new CEO.
In a statement, the denim and apparel retailer, which also includes Old Navy and Athleta, said the pledge looked different for the company because it sells and manufacturers its own brands. It said it “joined the pledge with the goal of increasing our diverse access and pipeline programs, and we met and exceeded that goal.”
A Gap spokesman declined to share specific goals, but said they focused on recruiting talent from diverse backgrounds.
This week, Gap rolled out a limited-time initiative to support Black businesses by selling shirts and hoodies from six Black designers from Harlem’s Fashion Row online and in select stores.
Walmart and Target have downplayed concerns that they will start to carry fewer Black-owned brands. A Walmart spokesperson pointed to the company’s Supplier Inclusion Program, which focuses on adding products from smaller vendors. She said the company also works with banks and lenders to expedite payments for orders or connect suppliers to loans.
Even as Target phases out DEI goals for Black-owned businesses, the discounter will keep offering Black-owned and minority-owned brands, a spokesman said. On its website, it’s promoting its collection of Black History Month items. He said Target will offer its Forward Founders program two times per year, which is designed for early-stage consumer packaged goods companies across categories including beauty, food and pets.
When Target launched Forward Founders in 2021, the company said the program was “designed to help Black-owned businesses increase their potential for long-term success in retail.”
Since last year, Target’s website has said the program is “evolving” — noting that founders no longer fill out an application for programs and Target will reach out to them if they’re “a strategic fit.” A spokesman said the company’s changes to its DEI initiatives do not affect its programs to boost founders, but did not offer more detail.
Some Black founders have warned against boycotting Target and other retailers that have walked back DEI efforts, saying it could further hurt Black-owned businesses.
In an Instagram post, social media personality, actress, and entrepreneur Tabitha Brown said “it’s definitely heartbreaking to feel unsupported.” But Brown, who has an active contract with Target, encouraged shoppers to use their dollars strategically when shopping Target’s shelves.
She’s developed merchandise with Target, including a collection of clothing, swimwear and home decor. Target also carries Donna’s Recipe, a haircare brand she co-founded.
“You can still go into those stores, if you choose to, and buy specific brands that you want to support. And let the other things not get your money,” she said.
She said if sales of Black-owned brands fall, retailers will remove them from their shelves.
“And then what happens to all the businesses who worked so hard to get where they are?” she said.
Handbag designer Brandon Blackwood said he worries that it will be harder for the next founder like him to get picked up by a major retailer.
Brandon Blackwood’s brand took off in 2020 when he made a tote labeled with three words instead of a logo: “End Systemic Racism.” The bag went viral.Nico Daniels / Courtesy Brandon Blackwood
His brand took off in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter movement, after he made a tote decorated with three words instead of a logo: “End Systemic Racism.” The bag gained traction through social media.
Yet he said major retailers that picked up handbags from his brand at the time, including Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom, “helped put my product in front of a lot of people that wouldn’t necessarily have seen it.”
“That really helped us and that really helped our brand awareness,” he said.
If retailers drop supplier diversity initiatives, he said it will thin out choices for customers.
For Brown Girl Jane, winning the confidence and business of major retailers — and particularly, Sephora — has been game changing, said Jones, the company’s co-founder and CEO. The brand got picked up first by Nordstrom in 2021. Now, Macy’s, Saks Fifth Avenue and Bloomingdale’s also sell its fragrances.
Sephora is its the biggest wholesale deal so far: The beauty retailer carries some exclusive scents, including Carnivale, a fragrance that sells for $102 and blends together juicy mango, sandalwood and creamy vanilla.
Jones said the company’s annual revenue is now in the $5 million to $7 million range. Roughly half of the company’s sales come from wholesale.
She described getting picked up by Sephora last year as a “vote of confidence,” but said they’ve also been “the biggest champion and a true partner of the brand.”
And she said that customers of all races desire her brand — and others from Black founders. About 40% of Brown Girl Jane’s customers are white, she said.
By backing away from DEI, she said companies also send a message to their buyers that casting a wide net for new brands doesn’t matter.
“It’s one thing to say ‘Ok, yeah. They [buyers] can still find who they find,’” she said. “But we know that without intentionality, a lot of these brands are just going to be overlooked.”
US President Donald Trump’s “lengthy and highly productive” phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin has sparked fears in Europe of a “dirty deal” being struck to end the war in Ukraine on terms favorable to Moscow without Kyiv’s involvement.
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday said Ukraine would not accept a peace deal negotiated by the United States and Russia alone. He conceded it was “not pleasant” that Trump spoke with Putin before calling Kyiv, calling into doubt the West’s policy of “nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine” that has largely held over three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, warned against a “quick fix” and a “dirty deal” to end the war, saying that Europe and Ukraine must be at the table for talks because no peace deal can be implemented without their involvement.
For European members of NATO the future suddenly looks a whole lot more uncertain. Since the foundation of the alliance, Europe has relied on the American nuclear umbrella, the deployment of sizable US military contingents in Europe and the vast US defense budget and weapons pipeline.
Trump’s call with Putin, and his subsequent announcement that negotiations would begin immediately on reaching a deal in Ukraine, blindsided European leaders and threatened to leave them with the grunt work of funding and overseeing any settlement.
In other words: Washington will do the deal (and may get paid in rare earth minerals by Ukraine as Trump has demanded), and Europe will pick up the tab.
Newly minted US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told NATO allies in Brussels that European and non-European troops – but not Americans – would have to police any agreement between Ukraine and Russia. There was also a brutal denial of Ukraine’s aspirations to join the alliance. Hegseth said Washington did “not believe that NATO membership for Ukraine is a realistic outcome.”
A NATO official subsequently briefed that “NATO membership is not necessarily something that needs to be negotiated with Russia. It’s something that’s a decision for allies and that decision has been linked to when the time is right.”
The official insisted that “the alliance’s position has not changed and Ukraine is still on a path to membership.”
‘Any deal behind our backs will not work’
The Europeans, both in NATO and in the EU – are struggling to be heard as Trump focuses on doing a deal with Putin to end what he has called the pointless bloodshed in Ukraine.
Kallas said that “any deal behind our backs will not work.” She added that “appeasement also always, always fails. So Ukraine will continue to resist and Europe will continue to back Ukraine.”
The allies have been fond of the mantra “No settlement in Ukraine without Ukraine.” That might now be expanded to “…without Ukraine and Europe.” Six European governments, including France, the UK and Germany, said Wednesday night in a panicked joint statement: “We are looking forward to discussing the way ahead together with our American allies.… Ukraine and Europe must be part of any negotiations.”
Šakalienė and her Baltic counterparts, on Russia’s borders, are especially anxious at the turn of events. She said there was a stark choice: “Whether we decide to fall under the illusion that Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin are going to find a solution for all of us, and that would be a deadly trap, or we will, as Europe, embrace our own economic, financial and military capacity.”
Šakalienė acknowledged that historically the US had been “paying for our security. And that needs to be corrected.”
Her Estonian counterpart, Hanno Pevkur, cited the poet Alexandre Dumas – “One for all, all for one” – as the bedrock of the transatlantic relationship, and also spoke of raising defense spending.
Flat-footed
But production lines, investment in new technology and recruitment do not happen overnight. There’s been intense talk since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began of ramping up defense industries in Europe. But that’s a multi-year process.
The head of French defense giant Dassault, Éric Trappier, said last year that “Europe believes all of a sudden that working on defence is a good thing… Between that realisation and the reality of building a European defense industry it’s going to take many years and even many decades,” he told the Financial Times.
Those words were echoed Thursday by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. “We are not producing enough and this is a collective problem…. Russia is producing in three months in ammunition, but the whole of the alliance is producing in a year.”
European weapons manufacturers have also complained about arcane decision-making processes in Brussels, where the European Commission has angled for a much greater role in procurement.
And this sudden increase in spending is expected at a time of sluggish growth and tight public finances.
The events of 1989, when the Soviet bloc evaporated, left a legacy of defense cutbacks in the West that are only now being reversed.
Together, as Zelensky noted this week, Ukraine and Europe have fewer men under arms than Russia. Zelensky is doubtful that Europe or another monitoring force alone is up to the task of securing any peace. “I don’t think any UN troops or anything like that have ever really helped anyone,” he told the Guardian this week. “We are for a (peacekeeping) contingent if it is part of security guarantees, and I would underline again that without America this is impossible.”
With Hegseth saying there is no way the US will commit troops to some sort of 1,000-kilometer long demilitarized zone stretching from the Black Sea to Kharkiv, there is no clarity over what those guarantees might be. Zelensky said Thursday that rather than a contingent of maybe 5,000 peacekeepers, there would need to be 100,000 as part of a “deterrent package.”
Some European ministers fear that Trump fatally misunderstands Putin. German defense minister Boris Pistorius said Thursday he regretted the new administration taking Ukraine’s prospective membership of NATO off the table immediately and added: “Putin is constantly provoking the West and attacking us again. It would be naive to believe the threat would actually diminish after such a peace agreement.”
Their next chance for allies to temper – or at least interrogate – the administration’s strategy will be at this weekend’s Munich Security conference, to be attended by US Vice-President JD Vance and Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg.
Europe sidelined?
Europeans may now be forgiven for glancing backwards to existential moments in their modern history.
One is the Munich agreement of 1938 that gave Hitler free rein to continue Nazi aggression against allies that were neither armed nor ready for war against a fully militarized society.
The other is the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 that suppressed the Prague Spring, an effort at liberalization that threatened Moscow’s dominance of Eastern Europe, just as Ukraine’s sharp tilt to the EU was seen as a threat by Putin.
At that time, US Senator Henry Jackson told NATO parliamentarians that while there was little disagreement in the US about the value of the Atlantic Alliance, there was “a widespread feeling in my country that so many Europeans were less concerned with the security of their homelands than we were.
“To many Americans it has seemed that a prosperous Western Europe was not making a reasonably proportionate contribution to the common defense effort,” Jackson said. “I am convinced that the future vitality of the alliance depends in very large measure on the degree and quality of European efforts to keep NATO strong.”
Fast forward half a century and the demands of the Trump administration that European members of NATO, many of which have struggled to reach a defense spending target of 2% of GDP, are now expected to hit 4 or 5% – (a level higher even than the US) and step beyond that security umbrella.
Hamas said it will release Israeli hostages as initially planned after holding “positive” talks with mediators, following a dispute with Israel over the Gaza ceasefire deal.
The militant group had postponed the release of more hostages this weekend, accusing Israel of violating the fragile ceasefire. In response, Israel warned it would return to fighting.
After talks with key mediators Egypt and Qatar, Hamas said that the releases – which will see Palestinian prisoners exchanged in return – will go ahead.
“Hamas confirms its continued position to implement the deal according to what was signed, which includes exchanging prisoners according to the specified timetable,” a statement by the militant group said.
“The talks were characterized by a positive spirit,” the statement said, adding that Egypt and Qatar affirmed they would work to “remove obstacles and fill gaps.”
Israel has not responded to Hamas’ statement.
It is unclear yet whether Hamas’ announcement will be enough to resolve the dispute with Israel. The standoff had threatened the first pause in fighting in over a year, and the next phase of the ceasefire has yet to be determined.
US President Donald Trump has suggested dismissing the multi-staged approach of the deal altogether and giving Hamas an ultimatum to release all the hostages at once.
While Netanyahu welcomed Trump’s demand, he hasn’t explicitly agreed to it – instead issuing an ambiguous statement, saying Hamas must “return our hostages by Saturday noon” – without giving a figure – or the military “will return to intense fighting until Hamas is completely defeated.”
So far, 16 out of 33 Israeli hostages scheduled for release in the current phase of the agreement have been freed by Hamas, and 656 Palestinian prisoners from a list of nearly 2,000 have been released by Israel.
In its statement on Thursday, Hamas said mediators pledged to follow up on its demands for Israel to allow the entry of housing supplies, medical equipment, fuel, and relief aid. The group also said mediators confirmed they would “remove obstacles” to resuming the ceasefire agreement.
The first of two vessels carrying 1,000 tons of a Chinese-made chemical that could be a key component in fuel for Iran’s military missile program has anchored outside the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas on Thursday, ship tracking data shows. It could be a signal that Iran’s missile production is back to business as usual after the devastating, and embarrassing, attacks by Israel on key factories last year.
The ship, Golbon, left the Chinese port of Taicang three weeks ago loaded with most of a 1,000-ton shipment of sodium perchlorate, the main precursor in the production of the solid propellant that powers Iran’s mid-range conventional missiles, according to two European intelligence sources.
The sodium perchlorate could allow for the production of sufficient propellant for some 260 solid rocket motors for Iran’s Kheibar Shekan missiles or 200 of the Haj Qasem ballistic missiles, according to the intelligence sources.
The shipment comes as Iran has suffered a series of regional setbacks with the collective defeat suffered by its allies: The fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Hezbollah’s losses in Lebanon. Following Israel’s strike on Iran’s missile production facilities in October, some Western experts believed it could take at least a year before Iran could resume solid-propellant production. This delivery points to Iran being not far from – or that they could already be back to – the production of its missiles.
The shipment was purchased on behalf of the Procurement Department of the Self Sufficiency Jihad Organization (SSJO), part of the Iranian body responsible for the development of Iran’s ballistic missiles, according to the sources.
The sources could not say if the Chinese government knew of the shipments prior to media reporting about their movement late January. The delivery of sodium perchlorate in itself is not illegal, nor does it breach Western sanctions.
China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning told reporters in January that she was not aware of the specifics of the case, but that China has always abided by its export control laws as well as the country’s international obligations.
Sanctions backdoor
The United States and United Kingdom have levied sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines company, with the State Department saying the firm is the “preferred shipping line for Iranian proliferators and procurement agents.”
The UK treasury said the company was “involved in hostile activity” by Iran and highlighted its links to the Iranian defense sector.
Both the Golbonand Jairanare under US sanctions.
Meanwhile, China has remained a diplomatic and economic ally for sanctions-hit Iran, decrying “unilateral” US sanctions against the country and welcoming Tehran into Beijing and Moscow-led international blocs like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS.
China also remains by far Iran’s largest energy buyer, though it has not reported purchases of Iranian oil in its official customs data since 2022, according to analysts.
Despite China’s historic ties to Iran’s defense sector, observers say Beijing has scaled back security ties over the past decade as it seeks to bolster relations with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. The US has in recent years, however, sanctioned a number of Chinese entities for alleged roles supporting Iranian military drone production. Recent joint naval drills between China, Iran and Russia have also signaled a potential deepening of government to government strategic ties.
A key ingredient
Although sodium perchlorate trade is not restricted by Western sanctions, it can be chemically transformed into ammonium perchlorate – a fuel and oxidizer which is a controlled product.
“There really aren’t very many alternative things” that the chemical in the Chinese deliveries can be used for, aside from for rocket propellants, fireworks and fuel, he said, adding: “perchlorates have a fairly narrow range of uses.”
Increasing controls on perchlorates in the West have seen China become a major alternative supplier of such chemicals, he said.
“This is just the latest shipment in a decades-old pattern,” Lewis added.
Supply troubles
Defense analyst Hinz said that while Iran has previously boasted of its ability to produce ammonium perchlorate themselves, this delivery hints at supply chain bottlenecks as domestic precursor supply has been unable to meet missile production needs. It’s a problem even countries like the US can face, he added.
Hinz said that Iran’s solid propellant production infrastructure has “dramatically expanded in the last few years – and potentially even since October 7, (2023),” with new sites built and existing ones enlarged.
Kheibar Shekan missiles have a range of 880 miles (around 1,420 km), with their Haj Qasem cousins able to reach targets 900 miles (around 1,450 km) away, according to the Western intelligence source. Although not the most technically advanced weapons in Iran’s arsenal, their range does make them valuable for attacks on Israel.
Hinz said that variants of such missiles have been used by Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen against Israel, despite the distance ostensibly outstripping the missiles’ standard range. Modifications of the warhead mass or secondary propulsion units could lengthen their reach, he said.
Solid propellant is also used in Iran’s short-range missiles – like those used in the past against US bases in the region and in exports to Russia, Hinz said. Iran’s largest and most powerful ballistic missiles typically use liquid propellant.
According to the Israel Defense Forces, wreckage from at least one Kheibar Shakan missile was recovered following Iran’s October 1, 2024 barrage against Israel. Analysis from one of the Western sources confirmed that some 50 medium-range missiles with solid propulsion were fired at Israel by Iran in this attack.
Iran’s arsenal is believed to hold “over 3,000 ballistic missiles,” US Air Force Gen. Kenneth McKenzie told Congress in 2023 – but exact numbers of each type of missile are unknown.
Last year was the deadliest for journalists in more than three decades, with the majority killed in the Middle East, according to a report released Wednesday by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
At least 124 journalists and media workers were killed in 2024, the most recorded since the CPJ began collecting data three decades ago.
Nearly 70% of those deaths were at the hands of the Israeli military in Gaza and Lebanon, the report said, with 82 Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza.
The Israel Defense Forces denied targeting media workers, saying it “takes all operationally feasible measures to mitigate harm to civilians including journalists.”
Last year’s death toll exceeded the previous record in 2007, when 113 journalists were killed, almost half of them amid the US-led war in Iraq.
“The war in Gaza is unprecedented in its impact on journalists and demonstrates a major deterioration in global norms on protecting journalists in conflict zones, but it is far from the only place journalists are in danger,” the committee’s CEO Jodie Ginsberg said in a statement.
It accused Israel of being “slow and not transparent” in its inquiries into soldiers’ killings of journalists, of shifting blame to the victims and ignoring its duty to hold its military to account.
After Gaza and Lebanon, the report identified Sudan and Pakistan as the deadliest places for journalists, with six media workers killed in each last year. Mexico, Syria, Myanmar, Iraq and Haiti also had multiple killings of journalists in 2024.
“The number of conflicts globally – whether political, criminal, or military in nature – has doubled in the past five years, and this is reflected in the high number of deaths of journalists in nations such as Sudan, Pakistan, and Myanmar,” the CPJ said, citing data from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) monitoring initiative.
Targeted killings on the rise
The CPJ report said at least 24 journalists worldwide had been killed deliberately because of their work over the past year, describing this as “an alarming rise in the number of targeted killings.”
Among them was Ismail Al-Ghoul, a 27-year-old Palestinian journalist, who was killed alongside his cameraman, Rami Al-Rifi, in an Israeli airstrike on Al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza last July, sparking condemnation from advocacy groups.
In the immediate aftermath of Al-Ghoul’s killing, his employer, Al Jazeera, denied what it called “baseless allegations made by the Israeli occupation forces in an attempt to justify its deliberate killing of our colleague, journalist Ismail Al-Ghoul, and his companion, cameraman Rami Al-Rifi.”
The IDF has rarely provided specific answers about the circumstances that led to the killing of journalists. Instead, the Israeli military has issued vague statements that reiterate their forces do not intentionally target journalists or that the matter is under investigation.
Trapped in the strip alongside their fellow Gaza residents, Palestinian reporters have been the eyes and ears of those suffering under the shadow of war. And with foreign media largely unable to enter, it is their photos, footage and reporting, often gathered at great personal risk, that have shown the world what is happening.
The committee said 10 journalists were deliberately killed by Israel in Gaza and Lebanon. The 14 other journalists whose deaths it determined were deliberate were from Haiti, Mexico, Pakistan, Myanmar, Mozambique, India, Iraq, and Sudan.
Failures to protect press
The report highlighted the ongoing failures to protect journalists and media workers, especially freelancers, in countries with consistently high rates of killings.
It cited the killing of a veteran journalist, Alejandro Martínez Noguez, who was shot last August in Mexico while under police protection as an example of the “persistent flaws” in the country’s mechanisms meant to protect journalists.
“The death tolls in Mexico, Pakistan, India, and Iraq reinforced the extreme dangers journalists face in these nations, which have experienced repeated killings over multiple decades despite numerous efforts in some of these countries, including at the national level, to address this,” the report said.
Freelancers, it said, were killed at an “unprecedented rate” last year. A total of 43 were killed, more than a third of all media worker deaths, the majority of which were Palestinians in Gaza.
“The typical freelancer frequently works alone, without staffers’ access to protective equipment, security guards, insurance for medical treatment, or benefits that would help surviving family members,” the report said.
It called on governments, international institutions and media organizations to ensure accountability for threats and attacks against journalists and to provide media workers with the necessary support to do their work.
“Every journalist killed is the loss of a truth-teller. Those who chronicle our reality and hold power to account deserve justice. We will not stop seeking it,” the committee said in a post on X.
Daniella Gilboa has wasted no time in putting the joy back into her life after being released from 15 months in captivity in Gaza. She got engaged to her longtime boyfriend and sang at a party when she and other freed hostages left the hospital.
But Orly knows that what she is seeing in these first days after Daniella’s release is just the surface. “There are a lot of things under and I’m sure that we can see them when the days go by.”
It’s the same for Naama Levy and Liri Albag, released alongside Daniella on January 25, their mothers said. They appear physically healthy, and they are home. But they were imprisoned in Gaza for 477 days and free less than three weeks, so much of their recovery is yet to come.
“She’s back in her room,” Ayelet Levy Shachar said of her daughter and her girly pink bedroom complete with soft toys. “Although she does prefer to sleep with her mom at night.”
Naama, Liri and Daniella were all in their teens on October 7, 2023, when Hamas fighters stormed their outpost at Kibbutz Nahal Oz near the border with Gaza.
They were performing their mandatory military service as unarmed “spotters,” tasked with looking at activity inside Gaza and reporting back to commanders at another base.
Fifteen of their fellow spotters were killed in the surprise militant attack on communities and a music festival that left 1,200 Israelis dead and 250 kidnapped in the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust. The Israeli war on Hamas that followed has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, injured twice as many and leveled much of Gaza.
Daniella, Liri and Naama were captured with four more young women: Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Ori Megidish and Noa Marciano. Ori was rescued weeks after the attack, while Noa was killed in Gaza. Karina was also released on January 25, while Agam was freed five days later.
Video taken by Hamas on October 7 and later released by the women’s families showed the female soldiers being lined up against a wall by men with rifles. Their hands were bound behind them, and they were ordered to sit, many still in their pajamas, their faces and bodies spattered with blood.
On the day of the attack, with no word from Naama, Ayelet had first thought maybe her daughter was just unable to reach her in the chaos. But then she saw a video of Naama being dragged by her hair, her pants covered in blood, and being shoved into a vehicle.
And unknown to her, her daughter saw it too.
“She saw the video, she knew about it, and she did see myself and her father in different interviews,” Ayelet said. “She heard sometimes on the radio her brother speaking, her grandfather speaking. It wasn’t an everyday thing, but sometimes she was exposed to the media, and it did give her a lot of strength and support and helped her throughout those days.
“She waited to catch a glimpse of one of us. She told me even that she was following with the color of my hair during this time,” Ayelet added with a laugh.
Naama was wounded by shrapnel that day. Some she was later able to pick out of her skin; the rest remains in her body, Ayelet said.
Naama and Liri had only arrived at the outpost a couple of days before the attack, but Daniella had already been there nine months, her mom said.
Orly knows Daniella was hit in the leg that day, but much else is still unknown.
Orly Gilboa, the mother of freed hostage Daniella, is treading carefully with her daughter, letting her speak about what happened when she is ready.
Marko Djurica/Reuters
Orly, like so many friends and relatives of the hostages, worked to keep the names and photos of those captured in the news.
Marko Djurica/Reuters
“October 7 is the most hard thing for her to speak about, and I don’t ask her about it,” Orly said. “She didn’t tell me yet about what happened that day. I just know that she lost a lot of her good friends … The loss of them is very hard for her, even more than the period of time of the captivity … I assume that in a few days or a few months, she’ll decide to talk about it, and she will tell me about it herself. I don’t want to make any pain for her.”
The mothers have learned a little about the conditions their girls, all now 20 years old, were kept in.
Shira Albag said Liri was held with Agam Berger, and sometimes Naama.
“Liri most of the time was in apartments with civilians,” she said. “It was difficult because they needed to do some things for the people of the house — to clean the house and to cook for them and to sit with the children and try to teach them English or play with them.”
Despite the physical closeness, there was little human kindness. “They didn’t treat them nice,” she said of the captors.
Amit Soussana, a woman freed in November 2023, has credited Liri for saving her life. She said the militants were convinced she was in the Israeli military and tied her up and beat her as they demanded a confession. At one point, other hostages were brought in to pressure her. Instead, Liri spoke to the guard and persuaded the captors that Amit was not a soldier.
“It seems like Liri, but I heard this story from Amit. Liri didn’t tell us yet the story,” Shira said. “I know it was very difficult for her. She saved Amit’s life. But when Liri will be ready, she will tell the story herself.”
Liri, Daniella and Naama were, along with Karina Ariev, the second group of hostages to be released under the first phase of the ceasefire deal. In a highly choreographed handover, they were paraded on a stage, dressed in olive-green military style outfits, and given certificates about their release and “gift bags” including souvenir keychains.
Their release was in marked contrast to the chaotic first handover of the 2025 truce and they seemed healthier than the three pale, emaciated men freed on Saturday.
Daniella watched that last release with her mother and talked about the condition of one of the men — her cousin Eli Sharabi.
“Daniella told me, ‘Mama, just know that if we were released two months ago, I looked like Eli’ because she also lost a lot of weight there,” Orly said. A change happened two or three months ago when Daniella and Karina were separated from other captives. And instead of four of them having to share one plate of food, then it was just two.
“It’s important to understand that we see Daniella, how she looks like right now, it doesn’t mean anything about what happened there and how she felt there.”
Hamas and its allies still hold a total of 73 people — some believed to be dead — taken from Israel during the October 7 attacks. Three additional hostages, held captive since 2014, are also still in Gaza.
Ayelet took time to thank US President Donald Trump for getting the ceasefire deal done and allowing the release of hostages. The terms of the deal map closely to an agreement then-President Joe Biden unveiled last May but could not complete.
Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister until November, told Israel’s Channel 12 News earlier this month that Hamas had agreed to that deal in July, but Israel did not go along with it.
“Unfortunately, there are fewer hostages still alive now, more time has passed, and we are paying a heavier price,” he said.
Ayelet echoed that sentiment. “They could have been home sooner. They should have been home sooner,” she said.
The drive and passion shown by the families and much of Israel over nearly 500 days to get the hostages freed is ramping up to a new urgency as the truce — and hope for more releases — hangs by a thread.
