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Fox News
an hour ago
- Politics
- Fox News
What Trump told faith leaders after slamming AT&T's tech issues that nearly prevented massive call
President Donald Trump celebrated his administration's work curbing anti-Christian bias while rallying support for the passage of the "big, beautiful bill" as the "most pro-family legislation" in recent history during a massive phone call with faith leaders that was nearly postponed due to tech issues, Fox News Digital learned. "When we pass the 'one big, beautiful bill,' we'll also have a tremendous victory for school choice," Trump said on the Monday phone call, according to comments shared with Fox News Digital. "This bill is the most pro-family legislation in modern times. … It also expands the Child Tax Credit and creates brand new 'Trump Accounts' for every newborn child helping them to get a stronger life, which is what they need. Everyone should let their congregations and members of Congress know that they support the 'one big, beautiful bill.'" Trump spoke with more than 10,000 faith leaders during his first Faith Office National Conference call of his second term. Faiths stretching from Christianity, Judaism and Islam were represented on the call, which was also joined by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, faith director of the White House Faith Office Jenny Korn and advisor to the White House Faith Office Paula White, Fox News Digital learned. The call nearly didn't happen and was on the verge of being postponed, according to Trump's Truth Social post Monday afternoon that railed against phone company AT&T for being "unable to make their equipment work properly." "I'm doing a major Conference Call with Faith Leaders from all over the Country, and AT&T is totally unable to make their equipment work properly," Trump wrote in his first message. "This is the second time it's happened. If the Boss of AT&T, whoever that may be, could get involved — It would be good. There are tens of thousands of people on the line!" "I apologize for the long wait on the Faith Leaders Conference Call. AT&T ought to get its act together," he added in another post before the call carried on. "Please pass along the word to the tens of thousands of people who are there. We may have to reschedule the call, but we'll use another carrier the next time. AT&T obviously doesn't know what they're doing!" "We've reached out to the White House and are working to quickly understand and assess the situation," AT&T said on X Monday in response to Leavitt sharing Trump's Truth Social post. "Following up — Our initial analysis indicates the disruption was caused by an issue with the conference call platform, not our network," the company added in another X post. "Unfortunately, this caused the delay, and we are working diligently to better understand the issue so we can prevent disruptions in the future." Trump celebrated his administration's wins protecting religious liberty, according to comments obtained by Fox News Digital of the call that included no members of the media. "Together, we're fighting to defend religious liberty like no administration is ever done before," Trump told the thousands of faith leaders. "Starting on day one when I stopped the radical war on Christians. I pardoned the pro-life activist thrown in jail for praying in peaceful protest, and there were many of them." "We reinstated the service members thrown out of our military over religious objections to the Biden vaccine mandates and restoring them to their former rank with full… backpay and penalties," Trump continued before also touting that he set up a "DOJ task-force to eradicate anti-Christian bias — who would ever think — but that's happening also, and it has happened, and nobody ever talks about that." Trump's address followed the U.S. military's surprise attacks on Iran on June 22 that destroyed a trio of nuclear facilities in the country. Dubbed "Midnight Hammer," the operation followed Israel launching preemptive strikes on Iran on June 12 after months of attempted and stalled nuclear negotiations, and subsequent heightened concern that Iran was advancing its nuclear program. Trump celebrated to the faith leaders that the U.S. successfully ended the "12 Day War" between Israel and Iran with the strikes. "As we restore prosperity for American families at home, we're also bringing peace and stability back to our world. Earlier this month we carried our historic strikes… against Iran's nuclear program, and we ended the 12 Day War," Trump said. "I also stopped the conflict between Indian and Pakistan. On Friday, we signed a historic peace agreement to end the terrible conflict between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo," he added.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Should You Invest In Your Mobile Provider? Why Verizon and AT&T Are Good Picks
If you watch the financial news on any given day, you're far more likely to hear the names Apple (AAPL), Nvidia (NVDA) or Microsoft (MSFT) than Verizon (VZ) or AT&T (T). That's because the double and even triple digits those tech giant stocks are capable of providing in any given year are inherently exciting. Verizon and AT&T, on the other hand, are more associated with adjectives like 'conservative,' 'defensive' or even 'boring.' Read Next: Explore More: But investors who quickly dismiss mobile providers like Verizon and AT&T might be missing out on a solid opportunity. Here's why. Also see the best long-term stocks to watch and invest in now. Many investors shy away from 'defensive' stocks like mobile providers because they don't offer the potential for huge gains. But these are the very stocks that investors turn to during recessions or market sell-offs precisely because of their defensive nature. When big tech stocks are dropping 40%, 50% or even more, it can panic even the most steadfast of investors. To remain in the market, money often flows to stocks like Verizon and AT&T, which may drop only a little bit or perhaps even rise when momentum stocks are crashing. The reason these types of stocks tend to hold up during recessions or other market corrections is their services are always needed, regardless of the current economic situation. Even if you lose your job, for example, you're likely to keep paying your mobile phone bill as long as possible because it can be hard to look for a job — or get an offer — if you can't use your phone. Whereas demand for technology and other industries and services can be cyclical, mobile phone service has become one of life's essentials. Check Out: Stocks like Verizon and AT&T will never have the premium valuations of stocks like Nvidia and Microsoft. But these low valuations can also offer an investment opportunity. Even within the low-multiple universe of mobile providers, Verizon and AT&T are exceptionally cheap, with price-to-earnings (P/E) ratios of 10.41 and 17.63, respectively. Competitor T-Mobile (TMUS), on the other hand, sports a lofty 23.53 P/E. Meanwhile, both stocks also offer well-above-average dividend yields, making them very attractive to income investors. The S&P 500, for example, currently yields a relatively meager 1.27%. AT&T, on the other hand, pays a hefty 3.84% dividend yield, while Verizon pays a whopping 6.26%. That means even if Verizon stock doesn't go anywhere, you'll earn a return of 6.26% — not to mention that the company has an 18-year track record of raising dividends. If you're looking for stability and income, these characteristics could make either of these stocks worth a look. Looking for a more growth-oriented stock? Maybe AT&T and Verizon aren't quite as stodgy as you might imagine. As 5G has rapidly become essential to the modern world, both AT&T and Verizon are actively expanding their networks. This has tied into the explosive growth of artificial intelligence (AI), as the insatiable demand for AI solutions from both individuals and businesses is driving connectivity, which is the main business of Verizon and AT&T. Even the core wireless divisions of both companies have been performing well, providing some tailwind for the stocks going forward. Although Verizon and AT&T have some things going for them, their stocks are not the right solution for every investor. Your financial objectives, risk tolerance and time horizon should dictate whether or not you should pick up shares in these companies. However, if you're a value investor, an income investor or optimistic about the role of these companies in the wireless, fiber optic and AI industries, they might be worth a look. After all, there's a reason Visual Capitalist ranks Verizon and AT&T as the 15th and 24th most valuable brands in the world, respectively. But if you're not comfortable researching the positives and negatives of these stocks on your own, consider working with a financial advisor. More From GOBankingRates 6 Big Shakeups Coming to Social Security in 2025 This article originally appeared on Should You Invest In Your Mobile Provider? Why Verizon and AT&T Are Good Picks Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
7 hours ago
He pioneered the cellphone. It changed how people around the world talk to each other — and don't
DEL MAR, Calif. -- Dick Tracy got an atom-powered two-way wrist radio in 1946. Marty Cooper never forgot it. The Chicago boy became a star engineer who ran Motorola's research and development arm when the hometown telecommunications titan was locked in a 1970s corporate battle to invent the portable phone. Cooper rejected AT&T's wager on the car phone, betting that America wanted to feel like Dick Tracy, armed with 'a device that was an extension of you, that made you reachable everywhere.' Fifty-two years ago, Cooper declared victory in a call from a Manhattan sidewalk to the head of AT&T's rival program. His four-pound DynaTAC 8000X has evolved into a global population of billions of smartphones weighing mere ounces apiece. Some 4.6 billion people — nearly 60% of the world — have mobile internet, according to a global association of mobile network operators. The tiny computers that we carry by the billions are becoming massive, interlinked networks of processors that perform trillions of calculations per second – the computing power that artificial intelligence needs. The simple landlines once used to call friends or family have evolved into omnipresent glossy screens that never leave our sight and flood our brain with hours of data daily, deluging us with endless messages, emails, videos and a soundtrack that many play constantly to block the outside world. From his home in Del Mar, California, the inventor of the mobile phone, now 96, watches all of this. Of one thing Cooper is certain: The revolution has really just begun. Now, the winner of the 2024 National Medal of Technology and Innovation — the United States' highest honor for technological achievement – is focused on the cellphone's imminent transition to a thinking mobile computer fueled by human calories to avoid dependence on batteries. Our new parts will run constant tests on our bodies and feed our doctors real-time results, Cooper predicts. 'That will let people anticipate diseases before they happen,' Cooper envisions. 'People are going to die from old age and accidents but they're not going to die from disease. That's a revolution in medicine.' Human behavior is already adapting to smartphones, some observers say, using them as tools that allow overwhelmed minds to focus on quality communication. The phone conversation has become the way to communicate the most intimate of social ties, says Claude Fischer, a sociology professor at the University of California, Berkeley and author of 'America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940.' For almost everyone, the straight-up phone call has become an intrusion. Now everything needs to be preceded by a message. 'There seems to be a sense that the phone call is for heart-to-heart and not just for information exchange,' Fischer says. And this from a 20-year-old corroborates that: 'The only person I call on a day-to-day basis is my cousin,' says Ayesha Iqbal, a psychology student at Suffolk County Community College. 'I primarily text everyone else.' Child education student Katheryn Ruiz, 19, concurs, saying 'texting is used for just like nothing substantial, like nothing personal.' Sometimes the roles are reversed, though. Sixty-eight-year-old Diana Cunningham of Overbrook, Kansas, pop. 1005, uses a group text to stay in touch with her kids and grandkids. Her 18-year-old granddaughter Bryndal Hoover, a senior at nearby Lawrence High School, says she prefers voice calls over texting because then I can understand, 'Oh, how should I go about a conversation?'' When she was a girl, Karen Wilson's family shared a party line with other phone customers outside Buffalo, New York. Wilson, 79, shocked her granddaughter by telling her about the party line when the girl got a cellphone as a teenager. 'What did you do if you didn't wait?'' the girl asked. Responded her grandmother: '`You went down to their house and you yelled, 'Hey, Mary, can you come out?'' Many worry about the changes exerted by our newly interconnected, highly stimulated world. We increasingly buy online and get products delivered without the possibility of serendipity. There are fewer opportunities to greet a neighbor or store employee and find out something unexpected, to make a friend, to fall in love. People are working more efficiently as they drown. 'There's no barrier to the number of people who can be reaching out to you at the same time and it's just overwhelming,' says Kristen Burks, an associate circuit judge in Macon, Missouri. Most importantly, sociologists, psychologists and teachers say, near-constant phone-driven screen time is cutting into kids' ability to learn and socialize. A growing movement is pushing back against cellphones' intrusion into children's daily lives. 'At the turn of the millennium, technology companies based on the West Coast of the United States created a set of world-changing products,' New York University social psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes in 'The Anxious Generation,' which has been on The New York Times bestseller list for a year. 'By creating a firehose of addictive content that entered through kids' eyes and ears, and by displacing physical play and in-person socializing, these companies have rewired childhood and changed human development on an almost unimaginable scale,' he writes. Seven states have signed — and twenty states have introduced — statewide bell-to-bell phone bans in schools. Additional states have moved to prohibit them during teaching time. That doesn't sit well with the smartphone's inventor, who says there are better solutions than regulation. 'Accommodating disruptive technologies requires disruptive solutions,' Cooper wrote from Del Mar. 'Wouldn't it be better for teachers to integrate the cellphone that provides access to all the information in the world?' That advantage is coming to rich countries faster than poor ones. The first time that Nnaemeka Agbo had to leave his family in Nigeria for a prolonged period, life shuttled him to Russia for studies, like many other young Nigerians increasingly desperate to relocate to seek better opportunities. Adjusting to life in Russia when he moved there in 2023 was tough, he says, but one thing kept him going; WhatsApp calls with family. 'One thing that kept me sane was calling home every time, and it made me feel closer to my people,' the 31-year-old says. In a country that has one of the world's highest poverty and hunger levels despite being Africa's top oil producer, Agbo's experience mirrors many young people in Nigeria increasingly forced to choose between remaining at home with family or aiming at a better life elsewhere. At least 37% of African adults expressed their desire to live somewhere else in 2023, the highest rate in the world, according to a Gallup survey published in October last year. For many, phone calls blur the distance and offer comfort. 'No matter how busy my schedule is, I must call my people every weekend, even if that's the only call I have to make,' Agbo says. In Africa, where only 37% of the population had internet access in 2023, according to the International Telecommunication Union, regular mobile calls are the only option many have. In northern Nigeria's Zamfara state, Abdulmalik Saidu says the mobile connectivity rate is so low that 'sometimes we stay for weeks without network.' When 19-year-old Shamsu Deen-Cole flew from Sierra Leone to the United States to study international relations in 1971, making a call to his parents in Sierra Leone would take days, starting with telling his parents when to expect the call. Calls would cost around $150 for under 10 minutes. 'There was no time for extra talks or complimentary because it would all add up in cost,' recalls Deen-Cole, 73. Tabane Cissé, who moved from Senegal to Spain in 2023, makes phone calls about investing Spanish earnings at home. Otherwise, it's all texts, or voice notes, with one exception. His mother doesn't read or write, but when he calls 'it's as if I was standing next to her,' Cissé says. 'It brings back memories — such pleasure.' He couldn't do it without the cell phone. And half a world away, that suits Marty Cooper just fine. 'There are more cell phones in the world today than there are people,' Cooper says. 'Your life can be made infinitely more efficient just by virtue of being connected with everybody else in the world. But I have to tell you that this is only the beginning.' Weissenstein contributed from New York and Asadu from Lagos, Nigeria. Aroun R. Deen in New York, Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City, Missouri, Renata Brito in Barcelona, Spain and Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, New York also contributed.
Tom's Guide
10 hours ago
- Tom's Guide
AT&T unveils a new way to protect customers from SIM swapping — here's what you need to know
SIM swapping is one of the more nefarious and difficult-to-deal-with cybercrimes that can affect phone users. However, a new feature from AT&T, called Wireless Account Lock, wants to help defend against it. AT&T announced the feature in a news post that details how Wireless Account Lock can help to protect your phone. According to AT&T, users can turn the feature on and off via a toggle located in the AT&T app available for postpaid wireless accounts. When activated, the Account Lock blocks the phone from performing certain functions, including: These features will remain locked until the Wireless Account Lock is deactivated within the app, which requires physical access to the phone. AT&T is also providing a Business Account Lock, which offers more power to an account administrator by allowing them to exempt certain lines from the lock, as well as being able to enable select lock functions if desired, rather than locking all of them. The main reason for this new feature is to limit the number of SIM swapping scams, which can be a major issue for customers and businesses to handle. The scam involves the scammer faking a request to move your phone number over to a new SIM card, which then allows them to receive calls and texts meant for you. With that, they can do things like bypass two-factor authentication by receiving the call or text themselves. It can be difficult to tell if you have been the victim of this kind of scam, but there are a couple of major red flags to be on the lookout for. The first is if you experience a sudden loss of service, blocking your ability to receive calls or texts. Also, make sure to check for any unauthorized transactions on your accounts, or if you lose access online. This new feature should go a long way in helping to keep AT&T customers safe, but there are other steps that everyone can take to help protect themselves. Firstly, it's wise to set up a PIN or a strong password with your network provider, which will be required when trying to make any account changes. On top of this, it is a good idea to set up biometrics, like Face ID or a fingerprint scan, on your accounts as an extra level of security. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. For more help with security, we have breakdowns on how to protect your phone from viruses and malware, as well as guides on how to protect your new devices. We also have a breakdown of the best password managers, as well as the best VPNs, to help you keep your devices safe.
Tahawul Tech
10 hours ago
- Business
- Tahawul Tech
Trump starts feud with tecom provider AT&T
US President Donald Trump has called out American telecommunications company AT&T for problems he encountered during a conference call, although the operator insisted the issue was not caused by its network. President Trump took to his Truth Social platform to state: 'I'm doing a major conference call with faith leaders from all over the country and AT&T is totally unable to make their equipment work properly.' He then called on AT&T's boss, 'whoever that may be', to get involved, stating it was the second time it had happened. President Trump did not elaborate on what exactly the issue was. The president concluded by stating it would have to reschedule the call, 'but we'll use another carrier next time'. Responding on X, AT&T said it contacted the White House and then conducted an initial analysis to find 'the disruption was caused by an issue with the conference call platform, not our network'. The operator added it is 'working diligently to better understand the issue so we can prevent disruptions in the future'. Source: Mobile World Live Image Credit: ATT
