Sam Bankman-Fried, once hailed as a genius in cryptocurrency, was found guilty Thursday of all fraud counts against him, a year after his exchange, FTX, imploded and practically wiped out thousands of customers.

The verdict was reached around 7:40 p.m. ET, about four hours after the federal jury in Manhattan began deliberations.

Bankman-Fried, a co-founder of the digital currency exchange FTX, was charged with seven counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering that swindled customers of FTX and lenders to its affiliated hedge fund, Alameda Research.

Bankman-Fried “perpetrated one of the biggest financial frauds in American history,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said after the verdict.

“The cryptocurrency industry might be new; the players like Bankman-Fried might be new,” Williams said. “But this kind of fraud, this kind of corruption, is as old as time.”

Bankman-Fried faces up to 110 years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for March 28.

FTX and Alameda quickly collapsed in November 2022 after some of their financial liabilities were exposed. The fact that Alameda had taken billions of dollars from FTX’s customers and that much of Alameda’s balance sheet comprised digital currency assets it had created, was central to the case against Bankman-Fried.

Unnerved by disclosures about the firm’s financial position, many of FTX’s customers tried to get their money back. That set off the equivalent of a bank run.

The value of Alameda’s investments crashed, and FTX couldn’t return much of that money because it had been given to Alameda. Some went to the fund’s lenders, and billions were spent on sponsorships, commercials and loans to top executives. That, too, was a major part of the case against Bankman-Fried.

Many of FTX and Alameda’s leaders were also charged after the firms went under. Former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, FTX co-founder Gary Wang and FTX head of engineering Nishad Singh all pleaded guilty. They agreed to cooperate with the prosecution and testify against Bankman-Fried in exchange for lighter sentences.

While Bankman-Fried testified in his own defense, it didn’t appear to have the same weight as the insider testimony against him. The prosecution, in its closing argument, said Bankman-Fried had answered “I can’t recall” 140 times while he was being cross-examined.

Bankman-Fried’s lawyers contended that he did not intend to defraud anyone and that the government was looking for someone to blame after the failures of FTX and Alameda.

Bankman-Fried was asked to rise and face the jury as the verdicts were read Thursday, and he did so. He showed little emotion as each verdict was read.

His father slumped in his seat, hunched over as each guilty verdict came in. His mother was visibly emotional.

Mark S. Cohen, Bankman-Fried’s counsel, said in an emailed statement Thursday that Bankman-Fried’s legal team respects the jury’s decision but that they are disappointed.

“Mr. Bankman Fried maintains his innocence and will continue to vigorously fight the charges against him,” he said.

Forbes had once estimated that Bankman-Fried’s stakes in Alameda and FTX were worth $26 billion. He was 29 at the time. But after the bankruptcies, that was gone. Criminal charges followed weeks later.

He also faces another trial on charges of bribing foreign officials and other counts. That trial is scheduled to begin in March, and he has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

On Thursday, Bankman-Fried was found guilty of two counts of wire fraud conspiracy, two counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering, one count of conspiracy to commit commodities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud.

Williams, the prosecutor, said Bankman-Fried’s conviction should send a message to others.

“It’s a warning, this case, to every single fraudster out there who thinks that they’re untouchable or that their crimes are too complex for us to catch or that they’re too powerful for us to prosecute or that they could try to talk their way out of it when they get caught,” he said. “Those folks should think again.”

The historic $1.78 billion National Association of Realtors verdict in Kansas City, Missouri, this week could trigger a major disruption in the housing market, but it’s unclear when millions of people will know how the decision will affect residential real estate costs.

The case hinged on the commissions, usually of 6%, that sellers pay their agents, who then split them with the buyers’ agents. It has been a cornerstone of how the NAR — a powerful trade group of 1.5 million members — does business. But after just hours of deliberation, a jury found that this standard industry practice amounts to collusion to inflate real estate fees.

When Jerod Breit, a police officer, was selling his Missouri home a few years ago, he said, it was understandable that he’d need to pay a commission to his broker. But the buyer’s broker, too?

“It’s one of the things the system doesn’t tell you to think about — that’s just how it is,” he said. “It wasn’t until after I sold my house in 2017 that it really made me think about that other 3% I was paying to someone that I had never met, I will never meet and did nothing for me.”

Breit joined the class-action lawsuit led by attorney Michael Ketchmark, who called the traditional commission-sharing between agents who should be competitors an “unconscionable” conspiracy.

“It’s the only system, the only industry, in the United States where two competitors get together, they set the compensation and they split it,” he said, adding, “They’re running it like a cartel.”

“I’m from Kansas City, the home of the Kansas City Chiefs — we love Chiefs football here,” Ketchmark said. “When the Denver Broncos come to town, I don’t pay the coach’s salary. Why should you pay?”

Ketchmark vowed more suits to come, and the NAR still faces other scrutiny from authorities. In June, the Justice Department asked a federal judge’s permission to resume an antitrust probe into the association.

A jury has found Sam Bankman-Fried Thursday guilty on all counts in the fraud trial against the former crypto billionaire.

CNBC reported at around 4:55 p.m. Pacific time that the jury found Bankman-Fried guilty. The verdict was reached around four hours after the jury began deliberations.

The co-founder of the digital currency exchange FTX was charged with seven counts of wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering that defrauded customers of his digital currency exchange, FTX, and lenders to its affiliated hedge fund, Alameda Research.

He faces up to 115 years in prison, according to CNBC.

FTX and Alameda quickly collapsed in November 2022 after some of their financial liabilities were exposed. The fact that Alameda had taken billions of dollars from FTX’s customers, and that much of Alameda’s balance sheet was comprised of digital currency assets it had created, was central to the case against Bankman-Fried.

Unnerved by disclosures about the firm’s financial position, many of FTX’s customers tried to get their money back. That set off the equivalent of a bank run. The value of Alameda’s investments crashed, and FTX couldn’t return much of that money because it had been given to Alameda. Some went to the fund’s lenders, and billions were spent on sponsorships, commercials, and loans to top executives. That, too, was a major part of the case against Bankman-Fried.

Much of FTX and Alameda’s leadership were also charged after the firms went under. Former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison, FTX co-founder Gary Wang, and FTX technology chief Nishad Singh all pleaded guilty to the charges against them. They agreed to cooperate with the prosecution and testify against Bankman-Fried in exchange for lighter sentences.

Bankman-Fried’s lawyers contended that he did not intend to defraud anyone and that the government was looking for someone to blame after the failures of FTX and Alameda.

Forbes had once estimated that Bankman-Fried’s stakes in Alameda and FTX were worth $26 billion. He was 29 at the time. But after the bankruptcies, that was gone. Criminal charges followed weeks later.

He also faces another trial on charges of bribing foreign officials and other counts. That trial is scheduled to begin in March, and Bankman-Fried has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

A U.S. jury on Tuesday found the National Association of Realtors and some residential brokerages, including units of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, liable to pay $1.78 billion in damages for conspiring to artificially inflate commissions for home sales.

The verdict by a federal jury in Kansas City, Missouri, could upend decades-old practices that have allowed real estate agents to boost commissions as home prices and mortgage rates rise, hurting consumers by making housing transactions more expensive.

Plaintiffs in the class action included sellers of more than 260,000 homes in Missouri, Kansas and Illinois between 2015 and 2022, who objected to the commissions they were obligated to pay buyers’ brokers.

The verdict followed a two-week trial, and the damages award can be tripled under U.S. antitrust law to more than $5.3 billion.

“Today was a day of accountability,” said Michael Ketchmark, the lead lawyer for the plaintiffs.

The defendants included Berkshire-owned HomeServices of America and two subsidiaries, as well as the realty Keller Williams.

NAR spokesperson Mantill Williams said the trade group plans to appeal, and seek reduced damages.

HomeServices said it was disappointed in the verdict and planned to appeal, while Keller Williams spokesperson Darryl Frost said the realty company would consider its options for an appeal. “This is not the end,” Frost said.

Broker compensation in the U.S. has typically been about 5% to 6% of a home’s sales price, with about half paid to a buyer’s broker.

Home sellers complained that this model suppressed competition by keeping commissions for buyer brokers in the 2-1/2 to 3% range despite the brokers’ diminishing role, with many buyers able to find homes independently online.

Sellers said the arrangement had “severe anticompetitive effects” and made “no economic sense, except for the buyer broker.”

The defendants denied wrongdoing, with the NAR saying there was no evidence agents were required to “make offers of compensation at all, let alone at amounts that stabilize, fix, or raise commissions.”

Re/Max and Anywhere Real Estate, whose brands include Century 21, Coldwell Banker and Corcoran, had been defendants but settled before trial, with Re/Max paying $55 million and Anywhere paying $83.5 million, without admitting liability.

Shares of real estate brokerages not involved in the verdict closed lower.

Re/Max fell 4.4% and Anywhere fell 2.7%, while online brokers Zillow Group and Redfin declined 6.9% and 5.7%, respectively.

The U.S. Department of Justice is separately asking a federal appeals court in Washington to let it revive an antitrust probe into the NAR’s practices.

The Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged Wednesday as it continues to track inflation and the health of the economy.

The central bank voted unanimously to leave its primary interest rate in the range of 5.25% to 5.50%. U.S. interest rates are the highest they’ve been in 23 years. That means interest rates on loans such as mortgages have gone up sharply, and so have payments on Treasury bonds and interest-bearing accounts.

In a statement, the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee said the economy continues to grow at a strong pace and the jobs market remains strong as well, although it has weakened in recent months. It added that inflation remains high.

The Fed meets eight times a year, and it has now left rates unchanged for two meetings in a row. That hadn’t happened since March 2022, when it started raising rates at a rapid clip.

Greg McBride, chief financial analyst for the financial services company Bankrate, said the Fed didn’t need to raise its benchmark rate because other interest rates have continued to rise.

‘The rise in long-term interest rates in recent months has had the same desired effect of monetary tightening, effectively doing some of the Fed’s dirty work for them,’ he said in a statement to NBC News.

The Fed made a similar point in its statement, noting that tighter financial and credit conditions would likely crimp spending by households and businesses.

Since the Federal Reserve’s last meeting in September, new data has shown that inflation is continuing to gradually come down. It’s still not clear if it’s coming down fast enough, or if it will continue to decline and get to the 2% annual level the Fed says it wants to see.

Projections by members of the Federal Open Market Committee, which makes decisions about raising or lowering interest rates, show that policymakers think it will take until 2025 or 2026 to get inflation to that level.

A sculpture of an eagle looks out from behind protective construction wrapping as the Federal Reserve Board building in Washington undergoes renovations on Oct. 23.J. Scott Applewhite / AP

The Federal Reserve raised interest rates sharply from March 2022 through this summer as it tried to get inflation under control. Inflation had hit 40-year highs in mid-2022, peaking at 9.1% annually. By contrast, that rate was 3.7% in September.

Prices for most items haven’t come down over that time, but the slower increases have been a relief to some consumers. Wages have been rising faster than inflation lately, which makes it easier for people to afford goods and services.

In an ideal scenario, inflation would continue to come down even as the economy keeps growing indefinitely. Markets are concluding that this means interest rates will probably stay high for a long time.

However, it remains to be seen if inflation will keep declining the way the Fed wants, or if the central bank will need to raise interest rates further to make sure that happens. So far, the U.S. economy has stayed generally strong even though interest rates have spiked. The job market has also cooled off somewhat, but remains strong as well.

That’s good news in most cases, but faster economic growth can contribute to greater inflation. Some experts are worried inflation could flare up again and want the Fed to raise rates further to prevent that from happening.

The Fed itself is keeping its options open. Fed Chair Jerome Powell has long said that it will be ‘data dependent’ and make its decisions based on how circumstances develop.

According to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool, which tracks futures trading, investors think there’s about a 1 in 4 chance that the Fed will raise rates in December during the Federal Open Market Committee’s final meeting of the year.

People with prescriptions to fill could run into an unexpected snag over the next couple of days, as hundreds of pharmacists may call out of work to protest working conditions at CVS and Walgreens.

Organizers of the ‘Pharmageddon’ protest told NBC News that around 900 people in as many as 10 states could participate in the ongoing protest, which started Monday and will end Wednesday. There was no way to independently verify that number.

Lannie Duong, a clinical pharmacist based in California, is one of the key organizers of the protests. She said that, along with sickouts and walkouts, members have discussed protesting at the corporate headquarters of Walgreens and CVS, which are in Deerfield, Illinois, and Woonsocket, Rhode Island, respectively. Those protests are scheduled for Wednesday.

The protests are that much more notable because the pharmacists don’t have a union and aren’t asking for better pay. They primarily want their employers to hire more staff to alleviate the workload and to eliminate policies that push them to work faster. They say those conditions are making it more likely they will make a mistake that could harm a patient.

Pharmacists and other health care workers have complained about those issues for years, even before the Covid-19 pandemic, which made them worse. But the current pharmacy protests started attracting notice after at least a dozen CVS stores in the Kansas City area refused to show up for work in mid-September. They’ve spread since then.

CVS pharmacist Estrella Clemons pulls vaccines from a fridge in North Decatur, Ga., on Sept. 20.Miguel Martinez / TNS/ABACA via Reuters file

Pressure behind the counter

An operations manager at a Nebraska Walgreens spoke to NBC News about those issues. They manage their store’s pharmacy and asked that their name not be used because of worries that the company may retaliate against them.

They said the store’s sole pharmacist and its pharmacy technicians constantly have to stop what they’re doing to cover other jobs within the pharmacy. It’s the only way to prevent long lines of annoyed customers, but it’s a distracting environment.

‘My pharmacist at any point has three or four customers waiting for him to do something with their prescription, whether it be double-checking it or consulting,’ they said. ‘Every single one of us is jumping from customer to customer to customer all day long.’

That causes more mistakes, like errors in counting out pills. The operations manager said their store’s pharmacy fills about 450 prescriptions in a typical nine-hour day. For about half of those, the pills have to be counted out one by one.

They also said the pharmacy technicians usually don’t take breaks and, for many years, the operations manager didn’t either. They said the increasingly tough working conditions are being combined with meager pay raises.

According to the operations manager, their store fills far more prescriptions than it used to, and at the same time, vaccinations have become a bigger and bigger part of the company’s business. The manager said they give about 45 vaccinations in a typical eight-hour shift, which translates into 1 every 10 minutes or so.

‘It’s definitely gone downhill, especially since the pandemic,’ they said. ‘I’m tired of leaving the front and going and crying in the pharmacy, drying my tears and then giving people a shot.’

The manager added that their pharmacist supports the protest, but doesn’t plan to go on strike. The pharmacy part of the store wouldn’t be able to open at all without them.

Walgreens said only two pharmacies were closed on Monday and one remained shuttered on Tuesday. The company also said it is listening to employees’ concerns and frustrations.

‘We recognize the incredible work our pharmacists and technicians do every day and have taken a number of steps in our pharmacies to ensure that our teams can concentrate on providing optimal patient care,’ the company said in a statement.

CVS said it was not seeing any ‘unusual activity’ connected to store closures or walkouts. It said it has made changes to address some of the past complaints.

‘In response to recent feedback from our pharmacy teams, we’re making targeted investments to address their key concerns, including enabling teams to schedule additional support as needed, enhancing pharmacist and technician recruitment and hiring, and strengthening pharmacy technician training,’ the company said in a statement.

Al Carter, executive director of the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy and a former practicing pharmacist, said drugstores can’t control how much they are paid for filling prescriptions. (The payments are made by prescription benefit managers, and Walgreens and CVS each own a large player in that industry.) But they can control their spending on employees’ pay, so they run the tightest ships they can.

Employees say it’s far too tight, especially with their responsibilities growing, community pharmacies closing, and the three largest U.S. chains all in the process of closing stores.

In a news statement Monday, American Pharmacists Association CEO Michael D. Hogue said the group stands with the pharmacists who went on strike.

‘For far too long, employers have made the situation worse than it needed to be,’ he wrote, adding that quotas requiring pharmacists to fill a certain number of prescriptions or administer large numbers of vaccinations are destroying their relationships with patients.

‘Supervisors who are not pharmacists do not understand the needs of care teams and make unreasonable demands on time-based productivity,” Hogue said.

Prosecutors cross-examined FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried on Monday after the former crypto billionaire testified in his own defense.

Bankman-Fried is facing decades in prison on seven federal charges, including wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The trial is expected to conclude in the next few days.

Several times during cross-examination Monday, prosecutors asked Bankman-Fried questions, then displayed exhibits that disputed his answers.

In one instance, Assistant U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon asked Bankman-Fried if he had assured people that Alameda Research played by the same rules as others on the FTX exchange. Bankman-Fried said he was not sure he had done so.

The government then showed a tweet where he had directly addressed the topic, then an email where he wrote that the account of Alameda Research, FTX’s ‘sister’ hedge fund, was like everyone else’s.

FTX co-founder Gary Wang and senior executive Nishad Singh both testified that Alameda was allowed to have a negative balance and a $65 billion line of credit with FTX.

Bankman-Fried completed his testimony for the defense earlier in the day. In that testimony, he tried to rebut charges that were levied against him by FTX insiders like Wang, Singh and former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison.

For example, Bankman-Fried testified he did not go to the Middle East in October 2022 to raise funds to fill holes in FTX’s balance sheet. He said he viewed Alameda and FTX as solvent and made the trip to speak at a conference and meet with investors, regulators and employees.

He was also asked about a now-infamous, and since deleted, tweet he sent last Nov. 7: ‘FTX is fine. Assets are fine.’

Bankman-Fried said that at the time, he thought that Alameda had some $10 billion in assets and that FTX’s balance sheet was fine.

‘My view was the exchange was OK and there was no holes in the assets,’ he told the court.

However, customers began withdrawing their money faster and faster after some of Alameda’s financial liabilities and its close ties to FTX became public.

Alameda’s assets were cut in half as digital currencies plunged in value. FTX didn’t have enough assets available to handle the $4 billion in daily withdrawals.

Bankman-Fried testified that the hedge trades the firm had used to protect itself from market downturns did not work. He testified earlier that Ellison did not follow instructions to hedge some of its bets. He also testified that he realized on Nov. 8, 2022, that Alameda Research would have to be shut down.

Both FTX and Alameda filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11.

Bankman-Fried is scheduled to face additional charges at a separate trial in March and has also pleaded not guilty to those allegations.

The United Auto Workers strike is set to end as the union and General Motors announced a tentative agreement on a new contract Monday.

The breakthrough comes just days after similar deals with Ford and Stellantis.

The union announced a framework agreement with Ford on Wednesday, followed Saturday by a deal with Stellantis, which makes Ram, Dodge and Chrysler vehicles.

United Auto Workers members hold picket signs near a General Motors Assembly Plant in Delta Township, Mich., on Sept. 29.Paul Sancya / AP file

The pacts must be approved by local UAW leaders and then ratified by a simple majority of each automaker’s union-represented workers. That process will take several days.

About 13,000 UAW members went on strike Sept. 15, following the expiration of their previous contract with the Big Three. That gradually expanded to about 40,000 of the union’s 146,000 members walking off the job. That slowed production for each company, with the effects ramping up over time.

GM said Tuesday that the strike would reduce its annual pretax profit by $800 million and that it was costing it $200 million per week at the time.

If members approve the contracts, they will last 4½ years, through April 30, 2028. Union members will get an 11% initial wage increase and a pay bump of 25% over the course of the deal. The new contract also reinstates cost-of-living adjustments, lets workers reach top wages in three years instead of eight, and protects workers’ right to strike over plant closures, among other significantly enhanced benefits.

UAW members agreed to give up on cost-of-living adjustments in the wake of the 2007-08 Great Recession, which forced GM and Chrysler to accept government bailouts followed by corporate restructuring.

That became a major point of contention in the current talks, with UAW President Shawn Fain saying the automakers were making record profits while their employees struggled with reduced benefits for retirees, lower pay for newer hires and the effects of the worst inflation in 40 years.

The result of the talks was a far larger pay increase than the UAW’s members had received in the past. The union said the agreement also includes five payments of $500 to union retirees and surviving spouses of union members.

‘Record profits mean record contracts,’ Fain often said.

In leading his first strike as president, Fain spoke about fighting back against ‘corporate greed’ after workers sacrificed to help the car companies survive. That helped cast the strike in political terms. Seeking to bolster his credentials with workers, President Joe Biden accepted Fain’s invitation and joined a picket line early in the strike. He was the first sitting president to do so.

Other prominent politicians, especially Democrats, also voiced their support.

It was the first time UAW members had gone on strike simultaneously at all three companies. In the past, the union had struck at one company to force it to the bargaining table and then pushed the two other leading automakers to accept similar terms.

The tactic of starting with a limited strike and gradually expanding was unconventional, as well. Fain, who became president of the autoworkers’ union in March, said it was inspired by the union’s ‘sit down strike’ against GM almost 90 years ago.

Fain told specific groups of employees to go on strike with little notice, which made it hard for the auto makers to prepare for the union’s actions and had an outsize impact relative to the size of the strike even as most UAW members kept going to work. Workers walked off the job at GM, Ford, and Stellantis’ profitable truck and SUV plants not at the beginning of the strike, but closer to its end.

The transition to electric vehicles and away from internal combustion engines was also a key area of dispute, as the union accused the Big Three of intending to move jobs out of unionized manufacturing plants and into lower-wage facilities where batteries are made.

The union says GM agreed that the new contract will include people who work at those electric battery plants, as well as workers at GM Subsystems.

The tentative agreement means GM employees will go back to work, as Ford and Stellantis staffers did after those agreements were announced.

Like many booming metros, Tampa is finding that more people equals more garbage. In response, officials there are leaning into an approach popular in Florida: Set it on fire.

“All areas that are experiencing growth are going to find issues of capacity” for managing waste, said Jack Mariano, the commissioner of Pasco County, just north of Tampa’s Hillsborough County. “Everybody’s facing: Where are we gonna put the trash?”

In September, Pasco authorities approved a $540 million plan to add a fourth boiler to the county’s waste-to-energy facility, or WTE, boosting capacity at the incinerator complex by around 50% while feeding more power — from a turbine spun by steam heated through garbage burning — to the electric grid.

Authorities plan to tap Inflation Reduction Act funds to offset about $60 million of the project, targeted for completion in summer 2026, Mariano said. The plant is one of three in the Tampa area that process solid waste, but it currently can handle less than two-thirds as much as a nearby Hillsborough WTE and a third the volume of Pinellas County’s to the west, a facility official said.

The Pasco County Resource Recovery Facility is expected to burn 440,000 tons of waste this year, nearly 100,000 more than usual.Octavio Jones for NBC News

WTEs have been around for decades, but their technology is getting cleaner and safer, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and ongoing research. Regulators have required substantial upgrades over the years, including to the Pasco plant, built in 1989. Many of the facilities are eligible for tax credits expanded by the Inflation Reduction Act, an Energy Department spokesperson said.

Justin Roessler, Pasco County’s solid waste and resource recovery director, said the incinerator there already includes “rigorous air pollution controls” such as activated-carbon injection to filter harmful gases. The site’s emissions are monitored continuously for anomalies, which are reported to regulators if detected.

The expansion plan includes outfitting the boilers with new technology to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions, a local official said. When the project is finished, Pasco will boast “the first waste-to-energy facility in the country to have a CO2 limit in its permit,” Roessler said. “We are very proud of that.”

Still, waste-to-energy plants handle highly hazardous materials, and even the cleanest operations emit federally allowable levels of noxious chemicals formed during combustion. Lately, residents’ concerns over the potential health risks have drawn more scrutiny.

Ana Vale relocated her family from Atlanta last year to a home in Doral, Florida, about 20 doors down from Miami-Dade County’s incinerator. About two weeks after moving in, her now-14-year-old daughter began complaining about her skin itching and burning. Soon afterward, a dermatologist diagnosed her with eczema.

Then, on Feb. 12, the plant caught fire and burned down, raising Vale’s concerns even further.