Harvard’s governing body will not allow 13 pro-Palestine student protesters to graduate. The Harvard Corporation has rejected a faculty offer to award degrees to students, who face disciplinary action for participating in a protest camp. In related news, hedge fund mogul Ken Griffin, an alumnus who halted his financial support of the school over its handling of anti-Semitism on campus, urged graduates to “debate ideas constructively, even in moments of disagreement heated”.
The case for an antitrust fight against Live Nation
The Justice Department and several states plan to sue Live Nation Entertainment, Ticketmaster’s parent company, as early as Thursday, The Times reports. The antitrust investigation took more than a year — and follows an even longer period of frustration with the company’s dominance in ticket sales for live events.
Here’s the focus of the case, according to The Times:
The government plans to argue in a lawsuit that Live Nation strengthened its power through Ticketmaster’s exclusive ticket sales contracts with concert venues, as well as the company’s dominance over concert tours and other businesses like venue management, they said. two of the people, who declined to be named because the process was still private. That helped the company maintain a monopoly, raising prices and fees for consumers, limiting innovation in the ticket industry and hurting competition, the people said.
The government will argue that tours promoted by the company were more likely to play at venues where Ticketmaster was the exclusive ticket service, one of the people said, and that Live Nation artists played at venues it owned.
Bloomberg News, which first reported the timing of the lawsuit, added that the Justice Department may seek to break up the company, which was formed by the 2010 merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster.
Live Nation has been trying to avoid such a lawsuit for some time, denying that it sets high prices and fees and arguing that it faces increasing competition. Last year, it agreed to be more transparent about the fees that are added to ticket sales, signing on to the Biden administration’s fight against so-called junk fees.
Last month, Live Nation co-hosted a party in Washington before the White House Correspondents’ Association’s annual dinner to make its case. Attendees watched a performance by country singer Jelly Roll – and were greeted by napkins that promoted positive facts about the company’s impact on the economy.