Trumps launch branded phone service

President Donald Trump’s family is getting into the mobile phone business with a Trump-branded service that will rely on preexisting wireless networks and hardware that is “made in America.”

Trump’s sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., unveiled the service, dubbed Trump Mobile, Monday at Trump Tower in New York on the 10-year anniversary of their father’s announcement that he would run in the 2016 presidential election.

“We’ve partnered with some of the greatest people in the industry to make sure that real Americans get true value from their mobile carriers,” Donald Trump Jr. said.

He and Eric Trump are executive vice presidents at the Trump Organization.

The service will use network capabilities from all three major U.S. carriers — T-Mobile US Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc. — according to a statement. The family is also launching a Trump-branded mobile phone, the T1 — a “sleek gold” model that will be made in the U.S. and cost $499

This new business venture stands to escalate concerns over how the president’s expanding business enterprises conflict with his government responsibilities. Unlike his predecessors, Donald Trump didn’t divest his wealth or move his assets into a blind trust with an independent overseer. His sprawling business empire is managed by two of his sons and operates in several areas that intersect with presidential policy. The Trump family, known for its real estate empire, luxury hotels and golf resorts, has expanded its interests throughout two presidencies to include digital media and cryptocurrencies.

Cosmetics titan Leonard Lauder dies at 92

Leonard Lauder, a renowned philanthropist who expanded the family cosmetics business into a worldwide empire, has died at the age of 92.

Estee Lauders Cos. announced the news in a release on Sunday and said he died on Saturday surrounded by his family.

Lauder, the oldest son of Estee and Joseph H. Lauder who founded the cosmetics company in 1946, formally joined the New York company in 1958.

Over more than six decades, Lauder played a key role in transforming the business from a handful of products sold under a single brand in U.S. stores to a multi-brand global cosmetics and fragrance giant.

He held the title of chairman emeritus at the time of his death.

WhatsApp to start showing ads to users

WhatsApp said Monday that users will start seeing ads in parts of the app, as owner Meta Platforms moves to cultivate a new revenue stream by tapping the billions of people that use the messaging service.

Advertisements will be shown only in the app’s Updates tab, which is used by as many as 1.5 billion people each day. However, they won’t appear where personal chats are located, developers said.

“The personal messaging experience on WhatsApp isn’t changing, and personal messages, calls and statuses are end-to-end encrypted and cannot be used to show ads,” WhatsApp said in a blog post.

It’s a big change for the company, whose founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton vowed to keep the platform free of ads when they created it in 2009.

Facebook purchased WhatsApp in 2014 and the pair left a few years later. Parent company Meta Platforms Inc. has long been trying to generate revenue from WhatsApp.

Compiled from Associated Press and Bloomberg reports.