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Stephen Ayres (L), who entered the U.S. Capitol illegally on January 6, 2021, confers with Jason Van Tatenhove (R), who served as national spokesman for the Oath Keepers and as a close aide to Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, prior to their testimony during the seventh hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday afternoon. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images hide caption

Stephen Ayres (L), who entered the U.S. Capitol illegally on January 6, 2021, confers with Jason Van Tatenhove (R), who served as national spokesman for the Oath Keepers and as a close aide to Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, prior to their testimony during the seventh hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday afternoon.

The committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack held its seventh public hearing Tuesday, focusing on the role right-wing extremist groups such as the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers played in planning the deadly siege.

The committee connected the dots between these groups and the effort to overturn the 2020 election and argued that a tweet from former President Donald Trump spurred some in those groups to organize around Jan. 6, 2021.

This story was updated throughout the hearing.

Update 5:22 p.m. ET

Twitter responds: Twitter issued a response to the claims raised at the hearing that the platform was used by the former president to rally extremist groups on Jan. 6.

"We are clear-eyed about our role in the broader information ecosystem in regards to the January 6th attack on the US Capitol, and while we continue to examine how we can improve moving forward, the fact remains that we took unprecedented steps and invested significant resources to prepare for and respond to the threats that emerged during the 2020 US election," according to a Twitter spokesperson in a statement.

The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers groups were banned from Twitter in 2018 and 2020 respectively, and Proud Boys Chairman Enrique Tarrio had already been permanently suspended long before the insurrection.

The company maintains that it monitored activity both from the former president and his followers in the days leading up to the events, including blocking the phrase #StopTheSteal from use.

The spokesperson noted that there can be difficulty in determining the ways that vague phrases may be interpreted in the absence of law enforcement reporting that provides broader context.

Update 4:24 p.m. ET

The damage inflicted on Jan. 6 persists: Committee member Rep. Jamie Raskin stressed that an insurrection is not an abstract idea, but a very real event with tangible and life-changing impacts. He mentioned that hundreds of people were injured on Jan. 6, including more than 150 police officers some of whom testified at the committee's first hearing last year and have been present at most of this year's.

U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell listens as Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., talks about his injuries suffered on Jan. 6, as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds a hearing on Tuesday. Jacquelyn Martin/AP hide caption

U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell listens as Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., talks about his injuries suffered on Jan. 6, as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol holds a hearing on Tuesday.

Among them is Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, an Army veteran who spent a year on combat duty in the Iraq war and 16 years on the Capitol police force. Gonnell, who testified before the committee last year, said that nothing he experienced in combat could have prepared him for what he faced on Jan. 6.

Gonell was badly wounded in the attack. As Raskin described it, he was beaten, punched, bushed, kicked, stomped on and sprayed with chemical irritants.

Gonnell described his lingering physical and psychological wounds in an NPR interview on the one-year anniversary of the riot. He returned to work after 10 months in an administrative position because he still couldn't raise his left arm, and has been in therapy for his mental health.

In the committee's first hearing on July 27, 2021, Gonell said he had sustained injuries on both of his hands, his left shoulder, left calf and right foot. He underwent bone fusion surgery on his right foot and had just learned he needed surgery on his left shoulder.

"I've been on medical and administrative leave for much of the past six months, and I expect to need further rehabilitation for possibly more than a year," he said.

Raskin provided an update on Tuesday: On June 28, Gonell's medical team told him that the permanent injuries he suffered to his left shoulder and right foot will make it impossible for him to continue in police work.

"Sgt. Gonell, we wish you and your family all the best, we are here for you, we salute you for your valor, your eloquence and your beautiful commitment to America," an audibly emotional Raskin said. Then he added:

"I wonder what former President Trump would say to someone like Sgt. Gonell, who must now go about remaking his life. I wonder if he could even understand what motivated a patriot like Sgt. Gonell."

Update 4:15 p.m. ET

Trump tried to call a committee witness, Cheney says: President Trump attempted to call a witness in the Jan. 6 investigation following the last hearing on June 28 with Cassidy Hutchinson, House Jan. 6 committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney said in her closing statement.

Cheney said it was a witness who has yet to appear in the hearings and didn't take the call but alerted their lawyer, who told the committee. Cheney said the committee supplied the information to the Justice Department.

"We will take any effort to influence witness testimony very seriously," she said.

Update 3:46 p.m. ET

Trump's former campaign manager blamed his rhetoric: The impact of Trump's speech at the ellipse was apparent to his former campaign manager Brad Parscale, according to copies of texts he exchanged with rally organizer Katrina Pierson on the evening of Jan. 6.

He described the situation as "a sitting president asking for civil war," adding that "This week I feel guilty for helping him win" in 2016.

Pierson responded that he did what he felt right at the time, to which Parscale replied, "Yeah. But a woman is dead."

"If I was Trump and knew my rhetoric killed someone," he later wrote. Pierson responded that it wasn't the rhetoric.

"Katrina," he texted. "Yes it was."

Update 3:42 p.m. ET:

Trump's last-minute speech revisions escalated tensions: The committee reconstructed how Trump edited his Ellipse speech up until the last minute and then went off-script, based on documents from the National Archives and testimony from witnesses.

Trump made changes to the script the night before and the morning of Jan. 6, according to Rep. Stephanie Murphy. One of his first changes was to insert the lines "Together we will stop the steal," and "All of us ... here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical left Democrats. Our country has had enough, we will not take it anymore."

The next morning, he spoke to chief speechwriter Stephen Miller for nearly half an hour, after which he inserted this line: "We will see whether Mike Pence enters history as a truly great and courageous leader. All he has to do is refer the illegally submitted electoral votes back to the states that were given false and fraudulent information where they want to recertify."

Speechwriters cut that line after then-Trump senior adviser Eric Herschmann and others objected to it. But later that morning, after the famously tense phone call in which Trump pressured Pence not to certify the election results and erupted in anger when Pence refused speechwriters were instructed to "reinsert the Mike Pence lines," Murphy said.

Trump made changes to his speech even as he delivered it, ad-libbing references to fighting and the need for people to have courage and be strong. The word "peacefully" was in the written version and used only once, Murphy pointed out, adding that this rhetoric stoked tensions and riled up supporters even more.

"A single scripted reference in the speech to Mike Pence became eight, a single scripted reference to rally-goers marching to the Capitol became four, with President Trump ad-libbing that he would be joining the protesters at the Capitol."

Update 3:30 p.m. ET:

Trump's intent to call for the march to the Capitol was a secret: Rep. Stephanie Murphy expanded on the committee's case showing that Trump and some White House officials knew about the potential for violence on Jan. 6 but didn't attempt to cancel or modify their plans.

They aired testimony from Katrina Pierson, a former Trump campaign spokesperson and an organizer of the Jan. 6 rally. She grew increasingly apprehensive after learning that the proposed speaking lineup included far-right activists including Roger Stone, Infowars founder Alex Jones and "Stop the Steal" founder Ali Alexander.

She reached out to Meadows on Jan. 2, writing that "Things have gotten crazy and I desperately need some direction." Phone records show Meadows called her eight minutes later. Pierson recounted that she had expressed her concerns to Meadows, mentioning the heated rhetoric of Jones and Alexander in particular and noting that they had already entered the Georgia state capitol to protest results of the 2020 election.

Despite such concerns, White House officials and rally organizers did not modify their plans or attempt to lower the temperature among Trump supporters. Murphy presented evidence showing that Trump had decided to call on protesters to march to the Capitol, but chose not to announce it until his speech on the morning of Jan. 6.

Pierson wrote in an email that Trump's plan was to hold an "intimate" rally at the Ellipse before calling on everyone to march to the Capitol. And the committee obtained access to a draft tweet telling people to arrive early and march to the Capitol after which the president saw but never sent. It also showed texts from two people involved in the rally to others, saying that there were plans to order protesters to march to the Capitol, but that they had to be kept under wraps.

The committee showed an undated draft tweet that went unsent from Trump where he would have publicly said that there would be a march to the Capitol and a text message from rally organizer Kylie Kramer on Jan. 4 in which she told My Pillow CEO and election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell that Trump would "call for it unexpectedly" but that they didn't want word to get out so there wouldn't be a counter march. A Jan. 5 text from rally organizer Ali Alexander said to be to a conservative journalist that said Trump intended to call on supporters to march to the Capitol.

Murphy painted Trump's speech as "not a spontaneous call to action, but a deliberate strategy decided upon in advance by the president."

Update 3:17 p.m. ET:

GOP House members who met with Trump: Rep. Stephanie Murphy said that the Trump administration worked closely with a group of members of Congress to contest the results of the 2020 election and to "encourage members of the public to fight the outcome on Jan. 6."

The former president's schedule obtained by the committee shows a private meeting with members on Dec. 21. White House visitor logs also obtained by the committee show members present for that meeting included Republican Reps. Brian Babin, of Texas; Andy Bigg of Arizona; Matt Gaetz of Florida; Louie Gohmert of Texas; Paul Gosar of Arizona; Andy Harris of Maryland; Jody Hice of Georgia; Jim Jordan of Ohio; Scott Perry of Pennsylvania; and Republican Rep.-elect Marjorie Taylor Green of Georgia.

Murphy said part of discussion focused on the role of the vice president in the certification of the votes.

Update 3:03 p.m. ET:

Extremist groups' coordination raised red flags: The Jan. 6 committee presented evidence of coordination among far-right groups whose leaders have been charged with seditious conspiracy, the organizer of President Trump's "stop the steal" rally on Jan. 6, 2021, and outside Trump allies in the leadup to the attack on the Capitol.

In the hours after former Trump sent a tweet on Dec. 19, 2020, summoning supporters to Washington for Jan. 6, Kelly Meggs, the head of the Florida Oath Keepers, posted a Facebook message stating that his group would "work together" with the Three-Percenters and Proud Boys, other right-wing extremist groups.

Rep. Jamie Raskin said that Meggs called Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio for several minutes on Dec. 19.

Raskin showed messages from an encrypted chat he said was launched by the Proud Boys on Dec. 20 with operational details for Jan. 6 planning.

Six days before one-time Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn participated in an Oval Office meeting focused on overturning the election, he was photographed with key members of the Oath Keepers outside the Capitol.

The committee revealed an encrypted chat called F.O.S. (Friends of Roger Stone) that included Tarrio, Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and Ali Alexander, organizer of Trump's Stop the Steal rally at the Ellipse. The former lawyer for the Oath Keepers said the three were at the center of organizing post-election protests in Washington.

Donell Harvin, former D.C. homeland security chief, said his agency had intelligence of operational coordination among violent individuals organizing to come to the city for Jan. 6.

"All the red flags went up," he said.

Update 2:46 p.m. ET:

Two witnesses sit for live testimony: Stephen Ayres, who faced a number of charges for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, and pleaded guilty to one charge of disorderly and disruptive conduct, has taken his seat to testify at today's hearing, alongside former Oath Keepers spokesman Jason Van Tatenhove. The committee did not disclose the identity of witnesses in advance for security and to avoid intimidation.

Van Tatenhove worked for the group starting in 2014 for about two years. He was "only an employee," not a member of the group, and "purged my life of that world years ago," he said in an interview with KDVR TV in Denver.

Federal investigators say Ayres, who is 38 years old from Champion, Ohio, and two unidentified friends filmed a video in their hotel room to "share what really happened" at the Capitol and posted it on YouTube following the riot. According to an FBI affidavit, at some point during the video, Ayres' male friend claimed that "Antifa breached" the Capitol and that police "escorted" them into the building. In response, Ayers agreed that the entire incident was "definitely planned out," according to the FBI report.

Ayres pleaded guilty to one charge, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds. Sentencing is set for Sept. 13.

Update 2:33 p.m. ET:

Right-wing media stoked 'wild' protest: On Dec. 19, the former president tweeted "Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 election. Big protest in D.C. on january 6th. Be there, will be wild!"

This tweet and its message proliferated across right-wing media platforms from print to broadcast, Rep. Jamie Raskin said.

"He is now calling for we the people to take actions and to show our numbers," said Alex Jones, a far-right radio host, in a video. "The time for games is over. The time for action is now."

A right-wing commentator told viewers: "We will only be saved by millions of Americans moving to Washington, occupying the entire area, if necessary, storming into the Capitol..."

A pro-Trump Youtuber repeated that Jan. 6 would be a "red wedding," a reference to "mass slaughter," Raskin said.

A former Twitter employee testified anonymously to the committee that they, and other Twitter employees, were concerned about Trump's use of the social media platform to directly communicate with right-wing extremist groups.

"If former President Donald Trump was any other user, he would have been permanently suspended a very long time ago," the employee said.

Update 2:21 p.m. ET:

An 'unhinged' meeting in the White House: Rep. Jamie Raskin outlined the details of an unplanned, contentious Dec. 18 meeting that began in the Oval Office and some increasingly tense six hours later wound up in the president's private residence.

As he described it, attorney Sidney Powell, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former Overstock.com CEO Patrick Byrne showed up at the White House, gained access from a junior staffer and made their way to the Oval Office, where they were able to speak with the president alone for more than 10 minutes before White House officials learned of the gathering and ran into the room.

"What ensued was a heated and profane clash between this group and President Trump's White House advisers, who traded personal insults, accusations of disloyalty to the president and even challenges to physically fight," Raskin said, adding that the meeting was best described by the testimony of those who were in the room as well as those outside who could hear the shouting coming from inside.

The outside advisers met with Trump for 10 to 15 minutes before, as Powell put it, "I bet Pat Cipollone set a new land speed record" trying to intervene. Cipollone testified that he didn't think they were providing the president with good advice and wasn't sure how they got into the building (He recalled the first thing he said to the "Overstock person" was "Who are you?"

Former White House lawyer Eric Herschmann said Flynn brought diagrams to show a conspiracy theory involving Venezuela and communications via internet-connected thermostats. He recalled siding with Cipollone against the outside advisers, asking repeatedly for them to provide evidence for their claims and testifying that they showed "a general disregard for the importance of backing up what you say with the facts."

The rhetoric and volume escalated. Trump's personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, recalled telling the White House officials that they weren't tough enough, calling them a pejorative term. After the meeting finally ended around midnight, Cassidy Hutchinson, the Meadows aide who testified at the most recent hearing, wrote in a text message that "the West Wing is UNHINGED," and captured a photo of Meadows escorting Giuliani off the grounds.

It was in the hours after this meeting that Trump tweeted that his supporters should come to Washington on Jan. 6, telling them: "Be there, will be wild!"

Update 1:54 p.m. ET:

'That's a terrible idea': Former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone told the committee that he was "vehemently opposed" to the potential appointment of Sidney Powell as special counsel to oversee seizing voting machines and potential criminal charges as part of a plan to overturn the results of the election.

A video of former White House counsel Pat Cipollone is shown as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack holds a hearing on Tuesday afternoon. J. Scott Applewhite/AP hide caption

A video of former White House counsel Pat Cipollone is shown as the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack holds a hearing on Tuesday afternoon.

"To have the federal government seize voting machines? That's a terrible idea for the country," Cipollone said during his taped interview, noting that there is already an established way to contest elections.

"I don't understand why we even have to tell you why that's a bad idea for the country, it's a terrible idea."

Update 1:44 p.m. ET:

Top White House aides were ready to concede: Those closest to Trump in the White House considered the 2020 election over and lost by mid-December, according to new video testimony released on Tuesday.

Dozens of lawsuits had failed to find evidence of voter fraud widespread enough to affect the outcome by the time the Electoral College formally cast its votes in favor of Biden on Dec. 14, 2020. The following day, Republican Mitch McConnell, then the Senate majority leader, congratulated Biden as the president-elect and announced that "the Electoral College has spoken."

In his testimony on Friday played at Tuesday's hearing, Cipollone said that he also believed at the time that there was no evidence of widespread fraud and that Trump should have conceded the election, saying "That would be in line with my thinking on these things."

He also said then-White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows shared that view, too, adding he had heard him express that sentiment around the same time and not as a one-time statement.

Update 1:24 p.m. ET:

A sneak peek of future hearings: Cheney said in opening remarks that former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone's testimony behind closed doors to the committee last week "met expectations."

The next hearing will focus on Trump's behavior during the violence of Jan. 6, according to Cheney. That hearing, per committee aides, is expected to be scheduled for next week.

But Cipollone's testimony will not be saved for that hearing; segments of his interview will be featured today.

Update 1:22 p.m. ET:

Cheney opens: Committee Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo, said in opening remarks that over the course of the seven hearings, the strategy for defending Trump has changed among his supporters.

"Now the argument seems to be that President Trump was manipulated by others outside the administration," Cheney said. "President Trump is a 76-year-old man. He is not an impressionable child."

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Jan. 6 committee's seventh hearing focuses on Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. - NPR

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) (R) listens to U.S. President Donald Trump in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on November 14, 2018 in Washington, DC.Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Sen. Lindsey Graham once said Trump is "entertaining as hell," Mark Leibovich wrote in his new book.

"Any tweet he sends is like crack cocaine for this guy," Graham said, according to the book.

Graham is now fighting a subpoena from a grand jury impaneled to investigate 2020 election interference.

Before his relationship with former President Donald Trump involved grand jury subpoenas, Sen. Lindsey Graham was enjoying the ride.

"He's entertaining as hell," Graham said of Trump, according to Mark Leibovich's new book "Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission," which comes out on Tuesday.

Graham, a staunch supporter of Trump's since the 2016 election, took on a "Trump-explainer mode" during a 2019 interview with Leibovich, saying Trump is "good for business."

"And he knows he's good for business. What's going to happen next? Stay tuned. Any tweet he sends is like crack cocaine for this guy," Graham said.

Graham is now fighting a subpoena from a Fulton County Grand Jury impaneled to investigate 2020 election interference after Trump called on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger at the time to "find" more than 11,000 votes for him.

The subpoena alleged Graham also called Raffensperger to encourage him to question absentee ballots. Graham has called it a "fishing expedition."

Leibovich's book describes how Graham became a staunch ally of Trump's, even though Graham "had minimal regard for Trump as a serious thinker and moral human being."

Leibovich wrote that Graham "reserved a certain awe" for Trump and "He couldn't believe how Trump could endure the crises he did or got away with what he got away with."

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Lindsey Graham said that Donald Trump's tweets were like 'crack cocaine for this guy' - Yahoo! Voices

NEW YORK, July 10, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C., a nationally recognized shareholder rights law firm, reminds investors that class actions have been commenced on behalf of stockholders of IonQ, Inc. (NYSE: IONQ), Energy Transfer LP (NYSE: ET), Digital Turbine, Inc. (NASDAQ: APPS), and Teladoc Health, Inc. (NYSE: TDOC). Stockholders have until the deadlines below to petition the court to serve as lead plaintiff. Additional information about each case can be found at the link provided.

IonQ, Inc. (NYSE: IONQ)

Class Period: March 20, 2021 May 2, 2022

Lead Plaintiff Deadline: August 1, 2022

On May 3, 2022, Scorpion Capital released a research report alleging, among other things, that IonQ is a scam built on phony statements about nearly all key aspects of the technology and business. It further claimed that the Company reported [f]ictitious revenue via sham transactions and related-party round-tripping.

On this news, the Companys stock fell $0.71, or 9%, to close at $7.15 per share on May 3, 2022, on unusually heavy trading volume.

The complaint filed in this class action alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements, as well as failed to disclose material adverse facts about the Companys business, operations, and prospects. Specifically, Defendants failed to disclose to investors: (1) that IonQ had not yet developed a 32-qubit quantum computer; (2) that the Companys 11-qubit quantum computer suffered from significant error rates, rendering it useless; (3) that IonQs quantum computer is not sufficiently reliable, so it is not accessible despite being available through major cloud providers; (4) that a significant portion of IonQs revenue was derived from improper round-tripping transactions with related parties; and (5) that, as a result of the foregoing, Defendants positive statements about the Companys business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times.

For more information on the IonQ class action go to: https://bespc.com/cases/IONQ

Energy Transfer LP (NYSE: ET)

Class Period: April 13, 2017 December 20, 2021

Lead Plaintiff Deadline: August 2, 2022

Energy Transfer is a Delaware company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Energy Transfer is a company engaged in natural gas and propane pipeline transport. It was founded in 1996 and became a publicly traded partnership in 2006. The Partnership through its subsidiaries provides transportation, storage, and terminalling services for products like natural gas, crude oil, NGL, and refined products. The Partnership also constructs natural gas pipelines through its various subsidiaries.

On April 13, 2017, the horizontal directional drilling activities ("HDD") for the Rover Pipeline Project, one of the Partnership's natural gas pipeline construction projects, caused a large inadvertent release of drilling mud near the Tuscarawas River in Ohio. On August 8, 2019, Energy Transfer filed its quarterly report on Form 10-Q with the SEC, reporting the Partnership's financial and operating results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2019. This quarterly report disclosed that two years earlier, in mid-2017 the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ("FERC")'s Enforcement Staff began a formal investigation "regarding allegations that diesel fuel may have been included in the drilling mud at the Tuscarawas River HDD." On this news, the price of Energy Transfer stock declined $0.65, or 4.6% over two trading days, to close at $13.38 on August 12, 2019.

Then, on December 16, 2021, FERC publicly issued to Energy Transfer the Order To Show Cause and Notice of Proposed Penalty, which directed the Partnership to show cause why it should not be assessed a civil penalty in the amount of $40,000,000. The order presented the allegation by the Enforcement Staff that the HDD crews intentionally included diesel fuel and other toxic substances and unapproved additives in the drilling mud during its HDDs under the Tuscarawas River. On this news, the price of Energy Transfer shares declined $0.24, or 2.8% over the course of two trading days, to close at $8.25, on December 20, 2021.

The Complaint alleges Energy Transfer concealed and misrepresented that: (a) Energy Transfer had inadequate internal controls and procedures to prevent contractors from engaging in illegal conduct with regards to drilling activities, and/or failed to properly mitigate known issues related to such controls and procedures; (b) Energy Transfer through its subsidiary hired third-party contractors to conduct HDDs for the Rover Pipeline Project, whose conduct of adding illegal additives in the drilling mud caused severe pollution near the Tuscarawas River when the April 13 Release took place; and (c) Energy Transfer continually downplayed its potential civil liabilities when FERC was actively investigating the Partnership's wrongdoing related to the April 13 Release and consistently provided it with updated information about FERC's findings on this matter.

For more information on the Energy Transfer class action go to: https://bespc.com/cases/ET

Digital Turbine, Inc. (NASDAQ: APPS)

Class Period: August 9, 2021 May 17, 2022

Lead Plaintiff Deadline: August 5, 2022

Digital Turbine is a software company that delivers products to assist third parties in monetizing through the utilization of mobile advertising. The Company completed the acquisitions of AdColony Holdings AS (AdColony) and Fyber N.V. (Fyber) on April 29 and May 25, 2021, respectively.

On May 17, 2022, Digital Turbine issued a press release revealing that it will restate its financial statements for the interim periods ended June 30, 2021, September 30, 2021, and December 31, 2021, following a review of the presentation of revenue net of license fees and revenue share for the Companys recently acquired businesses."

On this news, the Companys shares fell $1.93, or 7.1%, to close at $25.28 per share on May 18, 2022, on unusually heavy trading volume.

The complaint filed in this class action alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements, as well as failed to disclose material adverse facts about the Companys business, operations, and prospects. Specifically, Defendants failed to disclose to investors: (1) that the Companys recent acquisitions, AdColony and Fyber, act as agents in certain of their respective product lines; (2) that, as a result, revenues for those product lines must be reported net of license fees and revenue share, rather than on a gross basis; (3) that the Companys internal control over financial reporting as to revenue recognition was deficient; and (4) that, as a result of the foregoing, the Companys net revenues was overstated throughout fiscal 2022; and (5) that, as a result of the foregoing, Defendants positive statements about the Companys business, operations, and prospects were materially misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis.

For more information on the Digital Turbine class action go to: https://bespc.com/cases/APPS

Teladoc Health, Inc. (NYSE: TDOC)

Class Period: October 28, 2021 April 27, 2022

Lead Plaintiff Deadline: August 5, 2022

Teladoc provides virtual healthcare services in the U.S. and internationally through Business-to-Business (B2B) and Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) distribution channels. The Company offers its customers various virtual products and services addressing, among other medical issues, mental health through its BetterHelp D2C product, and chronic conditions.

Teladoc touts itself as the first and only company to provide a comprehensive and integrated whole person virtual healthcare solution that both provides and enables care for a full spectrum of clinical conditions[.] Despite recent market concerns over new entrants to the telehealth field, such Amazon.com, Inc. (Amazon) and Walmart Inc. (Walmart), the Company has continued to assure investors of the Companys dominant market position in the industry.

In fact, as recently as February 2022, Teladoc forecasted full year (FY) 2022 revenue of $2.55 - $2.65 billion, as well as adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) of $330 - $355 million, on anticipated continued growth through its competitive advantages.

Throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Companys business, operations, and prospects. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) increased competition, among other factors, was negatively impacting Teladocs BetterHelp and chronic care businesses; (ii) accordingly, the growth of those businesses was less sustainable than Defendants had led investors to believe; (iii) as a result, Teladocs revenue and adjusted EBITDA projections for FY 2022 were unrealistic; (iv) as a result of all the foregoing, Teladoc would be forced to recognize asignificant non-cash goodwill impairment charge; and (v) as a result, the Companys public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

On April 27, 2022, Teladoc announced its first quarter (Q1) 2022 financial results, including revenue of $565.4 million, which missed consensus estimates by $3.23 million, and [n]et loss per share of $41.58, primarily driven by [a] non-cash goodwill impairment charge of $6.6 billion or $41.11 per share[.] Additionally, the Company revised its FY 2022 revenue guidance to $2.4 - $2.5 billion and adjusted EBITDA guidance to $240 - $265 million to reflect dynamics we are currently experiencing in the [D2C] mental health and chronic condition markets. On a conference call with investors and analysts that day to discuss Teladocs Q1 2022 results, Defendants largely attributed the Companys poor performance, revised FY 2022 guidance, and $6.6 billion non-cash goodwill impairment charge to increased competition in its BetterHelp and chronic care businesses.

On this news, Teladocs stock price fell $22.48 per share, or 40.15%, to close at $33.51 per share on April 28, 2022.

For more information on the Teladoc class action go to: https://bespc.com/cases/TDOC

About Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C.:

Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C. is a nationally recognized law firm with offices in New York, California, and South Carolina. The firm represents individual and institutional investors in commercial, securities, derivative, and other complex litigation in state and federal courts across the country. For more information about the firm, please visit http://www.bespc.com. Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee similar outcomes.

Contact Information:

Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C.

Brandon Walker, Esq.

Melissa Fortunato, Esq.

(212) 355-4648

investigations@bespc.com

http://www.bespc.com

Excerpt from:
Bragar Eagel & Squire, P.C. Reminds Investors That Class Action Lawsuits Have Been Filed ... - The Bakersfield Californian

EU treaty reforms have progressively increased the power of the European Parliament by making it a co-legislator with national governments in many important policy areas. But have these reforms had a positive impact on the EUs democratic legitimacy? Drawing on a new study, Miriam Sorace demonstrates that decisions made jointly between national governments and the European Parliament tend to match public opinion more closely than those made by governments alone. This suggests that further empowering the Parliament and reducing the use of unanimous decision-making would help tackle the EUs democratic deficit.

Scholars disagree over the effect that territorial weights have on the democratic quality of a political system. Some argue that fully democratic legislatures need to vote simply by ideological majorities in most policy domains i.e. those that affect all citizens as individuals rather than territories and/or do not generate permanent minorities. Others argue that for large, decentralised political systems, territorial vetoes are always required, and do not see a plausible link between embedding territoriality in legislative institutions and democratic deficits.

In a recent study, I have looked at whether territorial vetoes in decision-making make it difficult for a political system to deliver the policies that citizens want by looking at the case of the European Union. The EU is a heavily territorial political system, which is often challenged on democratic deficit grounds, and which is currently undergoing constitutional reflection, as the Conference on the Future of Europe process attests. Examining the EU is particularly salient, since many policy challenges are, in our globalised world, supranational in nature; and since the EU is taken as a model by many other global governance institutions.

In the EU, some important policy issues are still exclusively decided by the Council of Ministers (with one minister from the executive branch of each member state) via unanimity. The European Parliament has been progressively empowered, most notably through the codecision reform, which gives it the same veto powers as the Council, effectively making it a co-legislator. The codecision reform has, however, been applied in stages: different policy areas were assigned codecision in different treaty reform rounds, and often only subsets of the policy area were assigned codecision.

I leverage this staggered application of codecision a reform that weakened the weight of member states in EU law-making by looking at the case of EU employment and social policy. In EU employment and social policy, codecision was only applied in 1999 with the Amsterdam Treaty, and only to a subset of such policies: those that were assigned the cooperation procedure before 1999. Whilst the cooperation procedure granted slightly more powers to the European Parliament, its role was still largely consultative, and the territorial chamber (the Council of Ministers) retained its nearly absolute veto power.

I thus compare EU employment and social policies that were decided under the most territorial procedure (consultation) to EU employment and social policies that were decided by cooperation before 1999 and by codecision after 1999. This setup allows for a difference-in-differences causal analysis and means we can control for time-varying characteristics that might impact on EU policy and public opinion, such as the role of economic downturns, as well as characteristics specific to each sub-domain of EU employment policy (for example the salience of policy proposals).

The texts of EU employment and social policies were analysed by samples of online human coders and were placed on the pro-worker or pro-business side on the basis of a thoroughly piloted and validated text analysis codebook. Each EU policy was then matched to European public opinion positions on the economic left-right scale (using Eurobarometer data as well as data from Devin Caughey, Tom OGrady and Christopher Warshaw). The main outcome measured is the standardised difference between EU policies and European public opinion.

I find that EU policies decided by codecision more closely track shifts in public preferences than those decided using other decision rules. Figure 1 below shows the main results from the analysis graphically by plotting the policy-opinion standardised distances over-time and by policy sub-topic/group. The image shows that post-1999 legislation decided by consultation (the most territorial procedure) is farther from public opinion than legislation adopted under codecision.

This means that EU legislation in employment policy tended to further deviate from the public mood after 1999. Had codecision not been introduced, we would have therefore seen an overall increase in policy-opinion mismatches in this policy area post-1999 (the complicating effect of enlargement on the Council-led aggregation of European public opinion might be a reason for this post-1999 trend). Legislation decided by codecision also appears to better track the public mood than that decided by cooperation.

Figure 1: Absolute policy-opinion difference by treatment group

There are some signs, therefore, that codecision a reform that fundamentally changed how EU laws are passed by increasing the powers of the European Parliament and majoritarianism in the Council has indeed improved the democratic credentials and the democratic legitimacy of EU policies (measured as the policy-opinion link).

This has significant implications for international organisations, and it speaks to some important EU reform proposals that are currently animating the Conference on the Future of Europe. The backlash against globalisation is, according to some, partly due to international organisations having a democratic deficit. If international organisations are serious about tackling their democratic deficits as they acquire salient, redistributive policy competences, moving away from territorial, inter-state bargaining should be prioritised.

These findings furthermore lend credence to the expectation from democratic theory that strongly territorially weighted decision-making rules can hurt the democratic legitimacy of policy outputs. My study thus has implications for any political system that strongly relies on territorial representation: democratic discontent, in fact, is expected to be higher in such systems since their policies are expected to track public opinion preferences less well.

For more information, see the authors accompanying paper at the Journal of European Public Policy

Note: This article gives the views of theauthor, not the position of EUROPP European Politics and Policy or the London School of Economics. Featured image credit: CC-BY-4.0: European Union 2022 Source: EP

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Strengthening the European Parliament has brought EU decisions closer to the views of the public - London School of Economics

Nightly protests in North Macedonia over the past week have left dozens injured. At the heart of the turmoil is the small Balkan countrys long-running quest to join the European Union, a process that has faced one hurdle after the other.

The most recent obstacle is a veto by EU member Bulgaria. A French proposal for a compromise to address Bulgarias concerns has divided North Macedonia, sparking the sometimes violent protests. Frances plan also met deep objections in Bulgaria and helped to bring down the government, which had accepted the compromise.

What is the dispute about?

North Macedonia has been an EU candidate for 17 years. The country emerged from the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s and sought to forge a strong national identity. But in a region where borders and ethnicities have shifted and overlapped over centuries, it was beset by problems from the start.

The countrys chosen name, Macedonia, sparked outrage in neighboring Greece, which said the term harbored expansionist aims against its own province of the same name and was an attempt to usurp Greek history and culture. Athens held up Skopjes EU and NATO membership bids for years, until a 2019 deal was reached that included the smaller country changing its name to North Macedonia.

But the following year, neighboring Bulgaria blocked the renamed nations attempts to join the EU, accusing Skopje of disrespecting shared cultural and historic ties. Among Bulgarias key demands were acknowledgment that the language of North Macedonia derived from Bulgarian, and the recognition of a Bulgarian minority.

The size of the Bulgarian community in North Macedonia is a matter of contention. Official data from the 2021 census put it at 3,504 people, or about 0.2% of the population. Bulgaria has doubted the figure, noting that about 90,000 of North Macedonias roughly 2 million population received dual Bulgarian citizenship over the last two decades based on their family roots. About 53,000 more applications are pending.

Why does it matter?

North Macedonias EU bid is tied to a similar bid by neighboring Albania. Both countries see joining the 27-nation bloc as a means of securing stability and prosperity in an increasingly unstable world. The EU prospects of the Western Balkan countries gained increased attention in the wake of the blocs efforts to bring Ukraine closer following the Russian invasion.

What is the French proposal?

France held the rotating EU presidency between January and June and so has been deeply involved in negotiations to break the deadlock. EU leaders held a summit with Western Balkan nations last month, during the same week they made Ukraine and Moldova candidates for EU membership.

French President Emmanuel Macron hoped to present unblocking the EU bids of North Macedonia and Albania as a major success. On Thursday, the French Embassy in Skopje posted a message from Macron.

Once again, North Macedonia has reached a crucial moment in its history. Seventeen years after receiving candidate status, a historic opportunity has opened: . The choice is yours, he said.

Macrons proposal envisages concessions from both sides. The government in Skopje would commit to changing its constitution to recognize a Bulgarian minority, protect minority rights and banish hate speech.

The French leader stressed the proposal doesnt question the official existence of a Macedonian language, but he noted that, like all deals, it rests on compromises and on a balance.

How was the proposal received?

The compromises in the French proposal led to rifts in both countries.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkovs centrist government was toppled in a no-confidence vote on June 22. A junior governing partner quit the fragile four-party coalition, describing Petkovs willingness to lift the veto of North Macedonia as a national betrayal. An early election could result in a stronger presence in parliament of nationalist and pro-Russia lawmakers.

The National Assembly already has approved the proposal, but legislators set additional conditions for agreeing to North Macedonias EU membership. They included proper constitutional protection for Bulgarians living in North Macedonia, and no assumption that Bulgaria would recognize Macedonian as a separate language from Bulgarian.

In North Macedonia, both President Stevo Pendarovski and the government of Prime Minister Dimitar Kovacevsk backed the proposal as a reasonable compromise. Accepting it will be neither a historic triumph, as one camp would call it, nor a historic failure or debacle, as those in the other camp say, Pendarovski said.

The government has stressed the proposal does not endanger national interests or identity. But the center-right main opposition party, the VMRO-DPMNE, as well as others, disagree, saying the deal favors Bulgarian demands that question North Macedonias history, language, identity, culture and heritage.

Biljana Vankovska, a law professor at the Saint Cyril and Methodius Universitys Institute for Security, Defense and Peace, slammed the French proposal as bowing to the nationalistic and chauvinistic demands of Bulgaria.

It is unbelievable that a small nation was asked to give up its language, history and constitution-making powers to external powers in order to start the EU accession process, she said.

Political analyst Albert Musliu, head of the Association for Democratic Initiatives think tank, argued the proposal offers North Macedonia a chance to start membership talks with the EU.

If you ask me whether it is fair, then yes, the proposal is unfair, but international order is not based on fairness, he said.

Whats next?

Bulgaria has accepted the French proposal, which now requires the backing of North Macedonias parliament. The text is now at committee level in parliament. No plenary session has been scheduled.

Read more from the original source:
Explained: What's behind North Macedonia's long road to the European Union? - The Indian Express