Month: December 2020

Even When the Music Returns, Pandemic Pay Cuts Will Linger

Post author By
Post date December 17, 2020

When the coronavirus outbreak stalled performances in the United States, many of the country’s leading orchestras, dance companies, and opera houses temporarily lowered their workers’ pay, and some stopped paying them altogether.

Hopes that vaccines will allow services to resume next fall are tempered by fears it could take years for hibernating coffers to recover, and many troubled institutions are turning to their unions to negotiate longer-term cuts that consider them necessary to survive.

The crisis poses major challenges for the performing arts unions, which have been among the strongest in the country over the past few decades. While musicians from a few large ensembles, including the New York Philharmonic and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, have agreed to steep cuts that would have been unthinkable in normal times, others resist. Some unions fear that the requested concessions could outlast the pandemic and restore the balance of power between management and work.

“In the past, working arrangements in the performing arts have turned into more money and better terms,” said Thomas W. Morris, who directed major orchestras in the United States for more than three decades. “And suddenly that’s no longer an option. It’s a fundamental change in the pattern. “

Nowhere is the tension between work and management as great as at the Metropolitan Opera, the largest organization for the performing arts in the country. The artists and other workers, many of whom have been on leave without pay since April, are resisting an offer from management to receive reduced wages of up to $ 1,500 a week in exchange for long-term wage cuts and changes in work rules. After failing to reach an agreement with its stage workers, the company locked them out last week just before more were due to return to work to begin building sets for the next season.

But musicians in a growing number of orchestras are agreeing to long-term cuts, recognizing that it may take years for audiences and philanthropy to recover from this lengthy period of darkened concert halls and theaters.

The New York Philharmonic announced a new deal last week that will cut musicians’ base pay by 25 percent through mid-2023 and make players earn less than they did before the pandemic broke out in 2024. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, one of the richest Ensembles of the Country, agreed to a new three-year contract that cut pay by an average of 37 percent in the first year and gradually increased it over the following years, but only fully recovered when the orchestra hit at least one of their three financial benchmarks. The San Francisco Opera agreed to a new deal that will cut the orchestra’s salaries in half this season but gain some ground later.

Unions play an important role behind the scenes in many arts organizations. The contracts they negotiate not only set out pay, but also help create a wide range of working conditions, from the number of permanent members of an orchestra to the number of stagehands required behind the scenes for each performance up to the question of whether additional payment is required for Sunday performances. It is not uncommon for large orchestras to end rehearsals abruptly in the middle of the phrase – even when a famous maestro is conducting – when the digital rehearsal clock indicates that they are about to work overtime.

Workers and artists say many of these rules have improved health and safety and increased the quality of performances; Management has often come at a cost.

Many performing arts nonprofits, including the Met, faced real financial challenges even before the pandemic. Now, they say, they are struggling to survive, taking leave or laying off administrative staff and seeking relief from the unions.

“Unions are very reluctant to make concessions. It goes against everything union strategy has told them for over 100 years, ”said Susan J. Schurman, professor of labor studies and industrial relations at Rutgers University. “But they clearly understand that this is an unprecedented situation.”

At some institutions, including the Met and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, workers are accusing management of taking advantage of the crisis to push for changes to their long-standing union agreements.

Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, wants to cut workers’ wages by 30 percent and restore only half of those cuts when box office revenues recover. He hopes to get most of the cuts by changing the work rules. In a letter to the union that represents the Met’s 300 or so stagehands, Local One of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, he wrote last month: “The health crisis has exacerbated the Met’s previous financial fragility and threatened our very existence.” He also wrote that the average full-time stage worker cost the Met $ 260,000 including services over the past year.

“In order for the Met to get back on its feet, we must all make financial concessions and sacrifices,” Gelb told staff in a video call last month.

There are 15 unions at the Met, and while the leaders of some of the largest unions have said they are ready to agree to some cuts, they are pushing for changes that would outlast the pandemic and redefine the rules of work they long fought for – especially after so many workers, including the orchestra, choir, and legions of backstage workers, endured many months without pay. The Met Orchestra, represented by Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians, said in a statement that management “is taking advantage of this temporary situation to permanently invalidate the contracts of the workers who manage the performances on their global stage.” .

Leonard Egert, the national executive director of the American Guild of Musical Artists, which represents choir members, soloists, dancers, stage managers and other representatives of the Met, said the unions saw the difficult reality and were willing to compromise. “It’s just that nobody wants to sell out the future,” he said.

In Washington, the stagehands at the Kennedy Center are waging a similar battle. David McIntyre, president of Alliance Local 22, said he had been negotiating with the Kennedy Center for months to demand a 25 percent wage cut, which union members find hard to take after many of them have left without pay since March.

Management is also calling for concessions like the elimination of the hour and a half on Sundays, a change that is more permanent than limited to the pandemic. Union members are particularly outraged that the Kennedy Center received $ 25 million from the federal stimulus bill passed in March.

“They’re just trying to get concessions from us by taking advantage of a pandemic when neither of us is working,” McIntyre said.

A Kennedy Center spokeswoman Eileen Andrews said that some of the unions working with already accepted wage cuts, including the musicians of the National Symphony Orchestra, and that recovery from the pandemic must be achieved through “shared sacrifice”. ”

Corporations have lost tens of millions of dollars in ticket revenue, and the prospects for the philanthropy they rely on for survival remain uncertain. While union negotiations take place over video calls rather than the typical stuffy meeting tables, both sides recognize the financial fragility.

In some ways, the pandemic has changed the negotiating landscape. Unions, which usually have tremendous leverage because strikes stop benefits, have less at the moment when there are no benefits to stop. Management leverage has also changed. While the Met’s threat to lock out its stagehands if they didn’t agree on cuts was less of a threat at a moment when most employees were already out of work, its offer was to pay workers who haven’t had paychecks since April , in exchange for long-term agreements can be hard to resist.

In some institutions, memories of the devastating power of recent labor disputes have helped foster collaboration in this crisis. In the Minnesota Orchestra, where a bitter lockout kept the concert hall dark for 16 months from 2012, management and musicians agreed on a 25 percent wage cut until August.

And the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, which had its own hard-fought labor dispute last year, was able to agree on a five-year contract this summer that initially cut player pay before gradually increasing it again.

The last time a national crisis of this magnitude affected any performing arts organization in the country was during the Great Recession, when organizations sought cuts to offset declines in philanthropy and ticket sales, sparking strikes, lockouts, and bitter disputes.

Meredith Snow, chairman of the International Conference of Symphony and Opera Musicians, which represents the players, said work and management seemed – for the time being, at least – for the most part more friendly than they did then.

“Rather, there is the realization that we have to be a unified face for the community,” said Ms. Snow, a violist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, “and that we cannot argue or both will go.” Low.”

“They come together,” she said, “or you sink.”

Tags Cuts, Linger, Music, Pandemic, Pay, Returns

Business

Unemployment Claims Present Toll of Rising Covid Instances: Reside Updates

Post author By
Post date December 17, 2020

Vacant retail shops in Columbus, Ohio. The rate of jobless claims has been rising as coronavirus cases remain high across the country.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

Rising Covid-19 cases are taking a steep toll on economic activity, battering the labor market even as new vaccines offer a ray of hope for next year.

The number of Americans filing initial claims for unemployment insurance remained high last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. After dropping earlier in the fall, claims have moved higher, and they remain at levels that dwarf the pace of past recessions.

There were 935,000 new claims for state benefits, compared with 956,000 the previous week, while 455,000 filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federally funded program for part-time workers, the self-employed and others ordinarily ineligible for jobless benefits.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the number of new state claims was 885,000, an increase of 23,000 from the previous week.

Consumer caution, coupled with new restrictions on business activity like indoor dining, has pummeled the hospitality industry, lodging, airlines and other service businesses. The debut of a coronavirus vaccine this week offers the prospect of relief, but until mass inoculations begin next year, the economy will remain under pressure.

“Businesses are closing, and as a result, we are seeing job losses mount — and that’s exactly what we were fearful of going into the winter,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. “It’s going to be a challenging few months, no doubt.”

At the end of November, more than 20 million workers were collecting unemployment benefits under state or federal programs, Labor Department data indicates.

With the weakening economy as the backdrop, Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress continued talks on Wednesday on another pandemic relief bill, something that economists have warned is overdue. Without action, two key programs for unemployed workers will expire this month, cutting off benefits to millions.

“We are not moving in the right direction,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “With the looming expiration of benefits, it’s even more worrisome.”

Data released on Wednesday showed a 1.1 percent drop in retail sales in November, a disappointing start to the crucial holiday season. Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services, expects economic growth to be weak for the next few months before picking up later in 2021.

“Until we get a lot of people vaccinated, the economy will face a difficult test,” he said. “I don’t know if we will see an outright contraction or the loss of jobs, but the pace of improvement will slow markedly.”

Credit…Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times

The National Labor Relations Board said on Thursday that it had found merit in a complaint that Amazon wrongfully fired a warehouse worker in retaliation for organizing colleagues concerned about pandemic safety conditions.

Kevin Petroccione, a congressional liaison for the National Labor Relations Board, said if Amazon did not settle, the board would file a formal complaint against the company.

Amazon did not respond to a request for comment. The finding was earlier reported by Vice.

The charge of unfair labor practices was brought by Gerald Bryson, who worked at Amazon’s warehouse in Staten Island, N.Y. Mr. Bryson had joined with other workers, including one named Christian Smalls, in a protest over safety concerns in late March after the pandemic struck. Amazon immediately fired Mr. Smalls. About a week later, Mr. Bryson protested again in the parking lot of the building.

Amazon fired Mr. Bryson about two weeks later, saying he had violated the company’s vulgar language policy during a confrontation with another worker in the second protest, according to Frank Kearl, Mr. Bryson’s lawyer.

In June, Mr. Bryson filed a case with the National Labor Relations Board, effectively saying that Amazon selectively enforced its vulgar language policy as an excuse to retaliate against Mr. Bryson for his organizing. Mr. Kearl said the agency told him of the finding late last month.

If Amazon does not reach a settlement, which could include back pay or reinstating Mr. Bryson’s job, the agency plans to file a complaint to be heard by an administrative law judge. It filed a similar retaliation complaint against Amazon in a case of a worker in Pennsylvania who protested conditions during the pandemic. That case is pending.

Do you work in an Amazon warehouse and have a labor issue? We want to hear from you. Contact the reporter of this article at karen.weise@nytimes.com.

Nearly a year after the coronavirus outbreak, the full impact of the pandemic on the U.S. economy remains unclear. Some of the most obvious indicators are in conflict: As some companies report enormous profits, the number of unemployed Americans is nearly 10 million more than it was in February, and hundreds of thousands are expected to have filed new unemployment claims last week.

The Times interviewed a rage of economists and experts who suggested looking at eight measures to understand the state of the economy that President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will face on Jan. 20.

Wages: That wages and salaries have bounced back quickly is a sign that things are on track for a rapid recovery. During the last recession — which Mr. Biden and then-President Barack Obama inherited in 2009 — drops of wages and salaries took years to recover.
Unemployment for Black men: The current crisis has had a particularly negative, persistent impact on employment for Black men, who face an unemployment rate of 11.3 percent, five percentage points higher than the unemployment rate for white men.
Long-term unemployment: The number of Americans who are still in the labor force but have been unemployed for more than six months has been increasing since April. A sociologist with a left-leaning think tank said the rise in long-term unemployment, coupled with the fact that millions of workers have left the labor market altogether since February, indicated “a very serious problem in connecting people who are able to produce needed goods and services with the opportunity to do so.”
Housing costs: Home prices and rents have risen during the pandemic. But while the rising costs have strained low-income renters, the rise in housing prices typically signals strong economic growth.
New businesses: Even as countless businesses have been forced to close over the course of the pandemic, the increase in business applications over the last year is a sign that the economy may be adapting rather than totally seizing.
Spending on goods: Though the pandemic has altered Americans’ day-to-day lives, it hasn’t halted their spending as much as some feared it would. Consumption has shifted toward goods over services — buying alcohol from stores instead of from bars, for example — bucking a generational trend toward a service economy.
Food scarcity — More families across the country are unable to meet their basic needs for housing and food security, according to a Census Bureau survey.

Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

Top Democrats and Republicans in Congress haggled on Thursday over the remaining hurdles to an emerging $900 billion stimulus deal, with Democrats making a last-ditch effort to use the package to deliver more emergency aid to states struggling amid the pandemic.

With Congress running out of time to deliver another round of relief to Americans and stave off a government shutdown on Friday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi reported more momentum toward a compromise that could be ready as early as today.

“We made some progress this morning,” Ms. Pelosi, of California, told reporters at the Capitol. Asked if a final agreement would be announced within the day, she said: “We’ll let you know.”

The plan under discussion would provide a dose of badly needed relief after months of stalled negotiations and amid a national public health crisis that has killed more than 307,000 people.

That includes a new round of stimulus payments, probably $600, to American adults; a temporary infusion of enhanced federal jobless aid of around $300 per week; and rental and food assistance. It would also revive a loan program for struggling small businesses and provide funding for schools, hospitals and the distribution of the vaccine.

With plans to merge a final agreement with a sweeping omnibus government funding package, Congress may have to approve another stopgap spending measure to avert a government shutdown on Friday while negotiators put the finishing touches on the stimulus deal. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the majority leader, warned Republicans on Wednesday that they should prepare to remain in Washington through the weekend.

“I hope it wouldn’t be more than 24 or 48 hours,” Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 2 Republican, said of a possible stopgap bill, adding, “I really think this is coming to a close.”

Ms. Pelosi, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, spoke late Wednesday evening to continue ironing out differences over the measure, a spokesman for Ms. Pelosi said, and they planned to continue talks on Thursday.

In order to reach an agreement, Republicans appear to have dropped their demand for a sweeping coronavirus liability shield for businesses in exchange for Democrats agreeing to exclude a direct funding stream for state and local governments that are facing fiscal crises, according to two officials familiar with the discussions.

But Democrats were pushing to provide billions of dollars for governors to use for health-related expenses during the pandemic — including vaccine distribution — and extend emergency federal assistance for states and local governments through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Republicans who have fiercely opposed sending more aid to states and cities were resisting the moves, concerned about leaving FEMA with enough money for future natural disasters and about the lack of restrictions on how the funds are spent.

Some Republicans — in particular Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania — were pushing to curtail the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending authority, which Democrats argue would hamper the Biden administration’s ability to continue supporting the country’s economic recovery. After the Federal Reserve used such authority earlier this year after the enactment of the $2.2 trillion stimulus law, Mr. Mnuchin clawed back the remaining funds in part to offset the cost of another stimulus bill.

There is also a push to include billions of dollars in relief for theaters and venues, something that lawmakers in both parties support.

Zach Montague contributed reporting.

By: Ella Koeze·Source: Refinitiv

A generally upbeat mood prevailed in global stock markets on Thursday, as lawmakers from both parties in Washington signaled they were close to reaching a deal on an economic aid package, an extraordinary shift in tone from both Republicans and Democrats, and more people received a coronavirus vaccine.
Investors are also looking toward an economic recovery sometime next year with one coronavirus vaccine already approved in several countries, and a second close to receiving emergency approval.
Still, the pandemic is far from over and continuing to take a staggering human and economic toll. Claims for state unemployment insurance illustrated this on Thursday, with 935,000 filing new claims last week, the Labor Department said.
The market gains on Thursday were relatively small: the S&P 500 rose about half a percent in early trading. The Stoxx Europe 600 gained 0.5 percent, while the FTSE in Britain was flat. Most Asian indexes closed the day with gains.
In Washington, talks continued on a $900 billion stimulus plan that would provide a new round of direct payments to millions of Americans as well as additional unemployment benefits, food assistance and rental aid. Republicans and Democrats alike signaled that they were ready to coalesce around the main elements, though a final agreement hasn’t been reached.
The Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell, on Wednesday made a point of saying the central bank was in no mood to begin scaling back its efforts to bolster the economy. He said the Fed’s policy decisions were intended to show that policymakers would “deliver powerful support to the economy until the recovery is complete.” He said the economy would face near-term challenges, but would likely bounce back quickly once vaccines were widely available, perhaps by midyear.

Credit…Reuters

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday said that Robinhood, the stock trading app, had misled its customers about how it was paid by Wall Street firms for passing along customer trades, the latest enforcement action against the popular platform.

Robinhood agreed to pay a $65 million fine to settle the charges, the latest blow to the company whose popularity has surged since its founding, offering commission-free trading and an easy-to-use app. Critics have said that the company relied on practices that hurt its rapidly growing base of customers, who tend to be younger and less experienced.

The charges announced on Thursday apply to Robinhood’s disclosures from 2015 to late 2018, the regulator said.

The S.E.C. had charged Robinhood with “repeated misstatements that failed to disclose the firm’s receipt of payments from trading firms for routing customer orders to them, and with failing to satisfy its duty to seek the best reasonably available terms to execute customer orders,” it said in a statement.

“Robinhood provided misleading information to customers about the true costs of choosing to trade with the firm,” Stephanie Avakian, director of the S.E.C.’s enforcement division, said in a statement. “Brokerage firms cannot mislead customers about order execution quality.”

As part of the settlement, Robinhood did not admit or deny the allegations. But Dan Gallagher, its chief legal officer, said that the company was committed to helping meet its customers’ needs. “The settlement relates to historical practices that do not reflect Robinhood today,” he said in a statement.

Millions of investors have turned to Robinhood in recent years, lured by the simple fact that the site allows investors to trade without paying commissions. Much of the retail brokerage industry has since followed suit, resulting in a surge of retail trading activity this year.

Because they do not charge commissions, brokerage firms like Robinhood make money by charging high-speed trading firms for the right to execute their clients’ orders, a practice called payment for order flow. The trading firms are willing to pay Robinhood because they can eke out incremental gains on individual trades, which because of their speed and scale add up to large amounts of money.

But that also means that the high-speed trading firms determine the price one of Robinhood’s clients would pay for shares, or what they might receive for selling stock.

The S.E.C. said that for several years, the company had failed to be transparent with customers about its use of payment for order flow. It also said that the brokerage firm had violated a duty to get customers the best possible prices for their orders, tying that failure to the high payment rates it received from trading firms in exchange for customers’ trades.

In its order summarizing the settlement, the S.E.C. said that although the company was publicly declaring that its customers were getting trading terms as good as or better than what rivals offered, internal reviews showed that was far from the case.

The federal charges come a day after regulators in Massachusetts accused Robinhood of aggressively courting and manipulating inexperienced investors and then failing to protect them. In a complaint, the Massachusetts secretary of the commonwealth, William F. Galvin, said that Robinhood focused on signing up young traders with perks like free shares, and then used “gamification” marketing techniques to persuade them to trade often.

Matt Phillips and Gregory Schmidt contributed reporting.

Google received a kernel of good news on Thursday when European Union authorities approved its acquisition of the fitness-tracking company Fitbit after a lengthy review to determine whether the $2.1 billion takeover violated antitrust laws.

European regulators had been under pressure to block the deal, first announced last year, but allowed it to move forward after Google agreed not use the health and fitness data collected from Fitbit’s wearable devices and services to target ads at internet users. Google also agreed to continue providing its free Android software to competing makers of fitness and health devices.

The announcement comes as Google faces two antitrust lawsuits in the United States. On Wednesday, 10 state attorneys general accused the Silicon Valley giant of abusing its power in digital advertising. In October, the Justice Department accused the company of using illegal tactics to maintain dominance for its search engine.

The European Commission, the E.U.’s executive body, has brought three antitrust cases against Google in recent years. The company is appealing the fines.

Credit…Andrew Testa for The New York Times

The Bank of England, which has been battling not only a pandemic but the threat of a disruptive exit from the European Union, made no changes to its monetary policy Thursday amid signs that both threats could be receding.

The central bank left its benchmark interest rate at 0.1 percent and did not increase its purchases of government bonds. In November, at its last meeting, the bank’s Monetary Policy Committee expanded the bond purchases, a way of holding down market interest rates, by £150 billion. The bank said Thursday it would continue to aim for total asset purchases of £895 billion, or $1.2 trillion.

The bank also extended by six months a program that allows commercial banks to borrow money at or close to the benchmark interest rate, if they funnel the money to small and midsize businesses.

Successful development of vaccines against the coronavirus are “likely to reduce the downside risks to the economic outlook from Covid,” the Monetary Policy Committee said in a statement. But the committee also said growth would be “a little weaker” than policymakers expected in November because of sharper lockdowns.

Negotiators for Britain and the European Union continued to meet in Brussels on Thursday, and there were indications they had narrowed their differences, potentially averting a no-deal Brexit that would be bad for both economies, but especially Britain’s.

In one example of the potential damage, the German automaker BMW warned that it would have to significantly raise prices for cars sold in Britain if there were no deal. Nicolas Peter, the company’s chief financial officer, told German media on Wednesday that BMW would also have to raise the price of British-made Minis sold in Europe because of import and export tariffs.

Unilever, a major advertiser, said it would resume spending in January on U.S. ads on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter but would continue to monitor the social media platforms for hate speech, misinformation and postelection “polarization.” The company stepped away in June but said on Thursday that it was “encouraged by the platforms’ new commitments and reporting to monitor progress.”
Ten state attorneys general on Wednesday accused Google of illegally abusing its monopoly over the technology that delivers ads online. The state prosecutors said that Google overcharged publishers for the ads it showed across the web and edged out rivals who tried to challenge the company’s dominance. They also said that Google had reached an agreement with Facebook to limit the social network’s own efforts to compete with Google for ad dollars. Google said the suit was “baseless” and that it would fight the case.
Tyson Foods has fired seven workers accused of being involved in a betting pool over how many employees would get the coronavirus, the company said Wednesday. The son of a meatpacking worker who died in April filed a suit claiming that the manager of the Waterloo, Iowa, pork plant organized a “cash buy-in, winner take all” betting pool. In all, about 1,000 workers at the plant — about a third of the work force — tested positive for the virus. Tyson had hired the law firm Covington & Burling to conduct an independent investigation of the matter, led by Eric H. Holder Jr., the former U.S. attorney general.

The Pandemic’s Toll

Credit…Audra Melton for The New York TimesCredit…Audra Melton for The New York Times

There remains widespread confusion about a key element of the plan to protect some of the most vulnerable Americans against the coronavirus, report Rebecca Robbins and Jessica Silver-Greenberg for The New York Times: how nursing homes will get consent to vaccinate residents who aren’t able to make their own medical decisions.

Some states are starting vaccinations in their nursing homes this week, but a broader nationwide effort will start in earnest on Monday as CVS and Walgreens employees begin to arrive at tens of thousands of nursing homes and assisted-living facilities to vaccinate staff and residents.

A CVS executive said such residents’ legal representatives will be able to provide consent to nursing homes electronically or over the phone, but officials at multiple large nursing home chains said they were not aware of that.

If residents or their representatives have not given consent before CVS or Walgreens employees show up, it is not clear whether or when they will have another chance to be inoculated.

There is no federal requirement for people to give consent before getting vaccinated, but it is standard practice and is often needed for billing purposes. States have different requirements about how medical consent can be given and what information needs to be provided to the person who is consenting. Guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is that residents or their representatives should receive a fact sheet about the coronavirus vaccine and then consent to receiving it.

Executives from CVS and Walgreens said in interviews that they had been planning the vaccination campaign for months and were confident it would work. “If there are concerns or challenges, we certainly are open to work with facilities to try to minimize any disruption that they may have,” said Rick Gates, a Walgreens executive leading the company’s planning.

Tags cases, Claims, Covid, Live, Rising, Show, toll, Unemployment, Updates

Health

She Saved 1000’s of Greatest Associates. Then Covid-19 Killed Her.

Post author By
Post date December 17, 2020

She Saved Thousands of Best Friends. Then Covid-19 Killed Her.

Valerie Louie saved our beloved Uncle Mort from a life of abuse. Then she became a victim of a pandemic. Their deaths are being mourned by households of four paws in San Francisco and the Bay Area.

Ms. Louie spent two decades rescuing dogs like Uncle Mort from animal shelters and making them like our homes to have a new best friend. Her specialty was rescuing the truly abandoned and broken puppy, the abused, the blind, the deaf, and the long tooth.

The day she dropped the sad-eyed mutt I identified at one of her shelter events, the little guy immediately put a poop on our dining room carpet.

“It’s just a little,” said Ms. Louie. She had a generous smile and the patience of a clergyman.

Ms. Louie, who died of Covid-19 on November 25 after two weeks in an intensive care unit, didn’t just save rescue dogs. She also saved people. She was a nurse and worked at Oakland Highland Hospital for 32 years, starting in the emergency room. Her last position was as an advanced life support coordinator.

She was a single mother. She leaves behind her son Andrew Louie (21), who lived with her and was also infected with the corona virus at the end of October. He has since recovered.

Ms. Louie died on the Mission Bernal campus of California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, the city she was born and raised in. She was 60. Her legacy lives on.

“I can’t imagine how many dogs she saved, probably thousands,” her son said, repeating a number estimated by other volunteers. She farmed the canines to families after they were retrieved from animal shelters, including so-called killing shelters in central California, where many dogs are bred, adopted, and abandoned.

Friends said she had a special talent as a matchmaker between dog and family. She would keep a mental record of the people looking for rescue dogs and when the right fit came up she would call with the good news.

Some dogs she held – like Ida, a French bulldog found in the mountains of China in 2012. The person who abandoned the dog and found it blind after it was used for breeding discovered Ms. Louie online through an organization she worked with at the time called Rocket Dog Rescue. Ms. Louie let the dog fly to San Francisco, her son said.

“She was a powerhouse,” said Meg McAdam, a close friend who also rescues dogs and works at Oakland Animal Services, “and a San Francisco institution.”

During the pandemic, Ms. Louie rescued about 80 dogs, found them in animal shelters, and bred them to their homes, according to Ms. McAdam.

Honors have been received on a GoFundMe website that Ms. McAdam set up to support Ms. Louie’s son.

“Valerie gave us our cute boomer,” wrote one grateful mourner. “I’ve been praying for her every day since we heard the news.”

Updated

Apr. 17, 2020 at 1:23 am ET

“Valerie gave us our Reggie.”

“She helped us a lot with our Zito.”

I can also testify. In early 2018 I saw Uncle Mort, a tormented little soul, for the first time on the back of Ms. Louie’s Toyota RAV4. It was just another Saturday for Valerie taking dogs to an adoption event at a mall on the southern edge of San Francisco.

I had been lurking at the event for the past two weekends and this feeling of having a dog rose inside me. My wife Meredith, who had long been reluctant because her husband didn’t care for the dog, seemed to temper the idea.

The huddled creature was part long-haired Chihuahua, part depressed. He was 3 years old and much of his life had been spent outside because the man in the house didn’t like his mood, Ms. Louie told me

I told her I would like to try the dog, but I had to convince on the home front. She understood immediately. She’d done it hundreds of times – the real test run for the family on the fence to get a new member with fur and a troubled past.

I signed the papers and a few days later Ms. Louie dropped him off and assessed the fit. She looked around approvingly as the dog laid his opening game on our carpet. His first name was Franco. That didn’t fit.

Franco sounded like a Spanish dictator. The weathered soul in our house looked more like an old Member of Parliament when it was only three years old. We named him Uncle Mort. That was the name of a character in a comic book I’d been writing for a decade; The dog and cartoon character were strikingly similar.

The new name was all the more fitting now that we witnessed his early behavior that made you look nervous when awake but mostly slept with an oversized snore that sounded like your great-uncle after Thanksgiving dinner and passed out on the couch .

We called a dog trainer to see if Mort could learn to love and be loved. The coach was doubtful. “He’ll be a good dog, but don’t get your hopes up that he’ll be the family dog you imagined. He’s had a hard time. “

We raised our hopes. We were rewarded.

Uncle Mort has become the most loving and beloved creature in our house and on some days outperformed the children on both counts. My wife is his “person” and when she returns home from even the briefest of absence, he goes bananas as if he had just discovered the ocean.

Now Meredith calls Uncle Mort her “forever puppy”. Nowadays, Mort is so relaxed that he regularly lies in various positions of seemingly impossible geometry and vulnerability, all four limbs in the air so that he can be caressed around his chest, neck and ears in the way he has become used.

Uncle Mort – or simply “good boy” – became the real dog in the window that we had always dreamed of taking home, and so it really hit our household when we found out that Ms. Louie was on the Intensive care unit was

Your tragedy is a typical Covid-19 tragedy. It’s not clear how she contracted the disease, and she went on a fatal roller coaster ride.

On October 29th, she wrote to Ms. McAdam, her close friend, “I haven’t been this sick forever. I can’t break the fever. “

On November 2, she wrote: “I still sleep days. I lose a lot of time. “

On November 11th, a friend went to her house to check on Ms. Louie and found her in dire straits. She was taken to the hospital and immediately intubated.

Ms. Louie’s son is taking college classes, studying to be a nurse, and recently took on his mother’s role, helping find homes for the last three dogs she chose.

One was Blitz, a gray terrier mix that is deaf. Then there’s Bronco, a long haired dachshund, and Tavish, a one-eyed pug.

“That was a real Valerie dog,” said Ms. McAdam. “These are the dogs she saved.”

At Highland Hospital, where she worked, her loss was also deeply felt. Michelle Hepburn, director of emergency services and trauma at Alameda Health Systems, who operates Highland, adopted Bella, a pit bull puppy, with the help of Ms. Louie.

“Her passion for caring for people and fur babies was evident every waking moment,” said Ms. Hepburn.

Tags Covid19, Friends, Killed, Saved, Thousands

Politics

At Lengthy Final, a Stimulus Nears

Post author By
Post date December 17, 2020

Habemus appeal? Congress seemed to be getting closer on a deal Last night, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told Republican colleagues in private that he feared voter frustration could topple Georgia’s two incumbent Senators next month if Congress doesn’t pass another stimulus bill.

It has been more than eight months since the last coronavirus stimuli law was incorporated into law. The ink on this bill, which was finalized in late March, wasn’t dry before many lawmakers, union leaders and others began to argue that more help was needed.

McConnell has largely refused to negotiate, repeatedly postponing discussions and even rejecting the White House’s occasional attempts to resume talks.

But now that Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler need a win Ahead of the January 5 runoff election in Georgia, McConnell announced that he was ready to move forward.

He told senators on a private phone call yesterday that they should not leave Washington for the holidays until after this weekend, as he expects lawmakers to take a few more days to finalize the deal and write legislative texts.

On the call, McConnell said Loeffler and Perdue were being “hammered” because Congress had stopped providing further pandemic aid.

The draft law is discussed now includes funding for direct stimulus payments to Americans. Senator John Thune, the No. 2 Republican in the chamber, said yesterday he expects $ 600-700 per person, despite some Democrats pushing for a replay of the $ 1,200 spent earlier this year.

The bill would not include the corporate and school liability protection McConnell wanted to create as a condition of talks, nor the steady funding for state, local, and tribal governments that the Democrats had identified as essential.

While Congress fought over the incentive, the heads of state or government have taken matters into their own hands. In New Mexico, $ 1,200 in stimulus checks were sent to around 130,000 unemployed residents after Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a $ 330 million aid package last month that included small business aid and direct payments to those who lost their jobs.

The federal incentive law is expected to be included Billions of dollars in support of vaccine distribution, and this week hospital pharmacists spotted some good news: Many of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine vials that have already been approved for distribution are filled with more than their assigned doses.

The Food and Drug Administration announced yesterday that it would authorize pharmacists to use the remaining doses after the first five doses – the amount that is expected to be in each vial.

Joe Biden has said he will ask Americans to mask themselves for the first 100 days of his term as president. A mask mandate is supported by a large majority in the country but is still not universally popular.

A heartland mayor literally had to dodge this week after passing a mask mandate. Joyce Warshaw, the mayor of Dodge City, Kan., Said she received such violent and threatening hate mail after signing a citywide mask mandate that she feared for her safety. That is why Warshaw stepped down yesterday, a few weeks before the end of her year-long term.

One message read: “We’re coming to get you.” Warshaw said the word “murder” was used several times. “Our nation is seeing so much division and so much inappropriate bullying that is being accepted and it only worried me,” she said. “I don’t know if these people would act on your words.”

To vote the pressure that was built on Biden yesterday Representative Deb Haaland as his Home Secretary, a rare consensus of progressives, moderates and even some Republicans, expressed support for a historic nomination.

Haaland, recently elected to a second term and representing the New Mexico First District in Congress, was the first Native American to head the Home Office.

Progressive groups, tribal leaders, and some of Haaland’s colleagues in Congress had been pushing Biden to select her for the position for weeks, but House Democratic leaders had raised concerns about allowing Biden to recruit too many representatives from the Democratic caucus given his slim majority.

Yesterday the leadership accepted Haaland’s candidacy. “Congresswoman Deb Haaland is one of the most respected and best members of Congress that I have worked with,” said Nancy Pelosi in a statement, adding that she was “an excellent choice” for the Home Secretary.

Some progressive groups have also put pressure on Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico, who is retiring after 12 years in the Senate, to remove himself from the competition for the cabinet job.

Biden is also considering a lot less consensus generating number To serve in his administration: Diana Taylor, a Citigroup board member closely associated with Wall Street.

Taylor was the executive director of Wolfensohn Fund Management and the banking supervisor of New York State under former Republican Governor George Pataki. She is also the longtime romantic partner of Michael Bloomberg.

It’s not clear what role Biden would fit Taylor into, but one of the roles she is being considered for is the Small Business Administration Administrator, according to those familiar with the selection process.

Progressives have expressed concern about their possible choices, which is part of broader concerns about the party’s left flank lack of representation in Biden’s personnel decisions.

“The progressive movement deserves a number of seats – important seats – in the Biden administration,” Senator Bernie Sanders, himself a possible candidate for a cabinet post, told Axios recently. “Did I see that at that point? I didn’t. “

Tags Long, Nears, stimulus

Business

Billionaire Invoice Gross is a Gilligan’s Island superfan and four different shocking details

Post author By
Post date December 17, 2020

Billionaire Bill Gross is a Gilligan's Island superfan and 4 other surprising facts

Bill Gross, co-founder of Pacific Investment Management Co. (PIMCO), and girlfriend Amy Schwartz wear protective masks when they arrive at the State Court in Santa Ana, California, United States on Monday, December 7, 2020.

David Swanson | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Billionaire investor Bill Gross has a special place in his heart for the theme song “Gilligan’s Island”. He is an avid dancer. He admits to being very jealous when it comes to his girlfriend. And he’s especially proud of his $ 1 million glass lawn sculpture.

These are some of the many unusual revelations from the legal battle that took place in a California courtroom between Gross and his neighbor, tech entrepreneur Mark Towfiq, in Laguna Beach. At the center of the hearings, which have dragged on for more than two weeks, are claims for harassment and injunctions. Gross says Towfiq is a “peeping Tom” filming Gross’ friend in her bikini. Towfiq said Gross was a “briefly merged billionaire” who played loud music late at night in retaliation for complaints about the glass lawn sculpture.

The final arguments ended yesterday, and Orange County Superior Court Judge Kimberly A. Knill is likely to rule on the legal issues on Wednesday. The legal aspects, however, have become a side effect alongside the more central drama of the case – a colorful portrait of the 76-year-old investment legend emerged from the turf wars and ego struggles of the two rich men.

Here are five of the most surprising revelations about Gross from witnesses, text messages, documents, and videos at the hearing.

Gilligan’s Island

He’s a super fan of Gilligan’s Island – especially the music. Towfiq complained that Gross blasted the Gilligan’s Island theme late at night on a loop over his outdoor sound system to harass Towfiq. Towfiq suggested that Gross choose the song because of its anger factor.

Gross said blasting Gilligan’s Island at any time of the day or night was the order of the day in both houses because it had a special meaning. It all started one day last summer when he was watching old episodes of the show on YouTube and discovered that the footage in the marina title sequence looked like it was taken from the exact location of his Newport Beach home.

“I could look at the television and look out the window, and there were the same palm trees from 55 years ago,” Gross testified. “I said ‘that’s amazing.’ “”

He showed his girlfriend Amy Schwartz, and the song quickly topped the charts in large households.

“We kept playing it and it just became something we did,” he explained. “We play it all the time.”

They also enjoy other theme songs that they play sometimes.

“In the course of time we have learned texts and we act together with hands and pointing. It’s like a little piece … we really like it.”

Also on his playlist: 50 Cent and Kenny Loggins, who played at Schwartz’s birthday party.

‘The jealous guy’

He’s the “jealous guy”. Gross’ girlfriend, or as he calls her “life partner”, is Amy Schwartz, the 51-year-old former tennis player and amateur golfer. Gross said Towfiq often filmed Amy next door, sometimes in her bikini.

Towfiq said he only filmed his neighbors to document the sculpture and its harassment.

“I’m a jealous guy,” said Gross. “She is very attractive. I am very jealous.”

He said the couple referred to Towfiq as a “peeping mark” because Gross assumed he had watched them so often.

“Sometimes Amy went out on the balcony and said, ‘I wonder if Mark is watching, he’s filming this.’ “”

Gross said Towfiq once filmed the couple returning from the beach, “with their hair wet and salt all over their bodies. It almost seemed like this was his full-time job.”

Happy to be standing

For Gross, happiness is complicated and fear is relative. At the beginning of his testimony, Gross was asked if he was “unhappy” when he learned that his sculpture could be removed for violating the Laguna Beach Code.

“At my age, happiness and sadness are not applicable in situations like this,” he said. “I’m just happy to be standing.”

He added: “I don’t judge my mood that way at the moment. I can’t say whether I’m happy or sad.”

Gross’ moods became a frequent topic of discussion. Towfiq said Gross’ previous owner Patrick Boyd Gross described him as “an angry billionaire with a short fuse”. Boyd, a former money manager at Gross’ former company PIMCO, offered Towfiq his “condolences” when he heard that Gross would be the new neighbor.

In a session that sounded more like a therapy session than a court testimony, Gross examined his feelings of anxiety and how they developed over the course of his life as he became more isolated from the world. He said he felt “very scared” when Towfiq was filming Gross in his gym shorts and reading decibel levels on their property line late at night.

“I was very scared,” said Gross. “It was malicious … this man took me in. He crouched behind my own wall.”

Gross then recalled fights in Vietnam and later in life that almost crashed on a plane.

“I saw bullets from Viet Cong and 15 years later on a plane that nearly crashed in North Carolina,” he said. “I’m not saying that this incident was something like that. But for the past five or ten years I have been more protected from anxious situations and have not really been used to them.”

Enthusiastic dancer

He’s a dance machine. Gross said he and Schwartz are enthusiastic dancers – and not just for the theme song “Gilligan’s Island”. When asked to specify what he said he was dancing on the balcony, Gross said, “Oh yeah. On the balcony, in the bedroom, up and down the lawn path entrance because it’s a good long area to get creative Inventing steps. Amy and I do this a lot. “

Gross said they would dance to Gilligan’s Island over and over again sometimes. “Only two or three – I mean, you can only dance until you’re ready for bed.”

Requires privacy

He needs protection from the public. While not exactly a celebrity outside of the investing world, Gross said he is often followed by the public, which is why he has to live behind so many gates and walls.

“We needed privacy,” he said when asked about his purchase of the Laguna Beach home.

“Amy has always emphasized that I am a public figure and that we just have to stand behind a goal.” His lawyer then mentions the risk of people coming off the beach, and Gross said “Millions of people couldn’t come to see where Gross lives”.

Tags Bill, Billionaire, facts, Gilligans, Gross, Island, superfan, surprising

World News

‘Airspace developments’ to 3D-printing: How building is altering

Post author By
Post date December 17, 2020

'Airspace developments' to 3D-printing: How construction is changing

Construction cranes in the center of Berlin

Busà Photography | Moment | Getty Images

Whether it’s futuristic skyscrapers glistening in the sunshine to erect terraces built over 200 years ago, buildings come in all shapes, sizes and styles. The techniques and methods for developing these structures are just as varied.

In the UK, where space can be tight and housing demand high, the role of modular buildings, put together before being installed in an off-site location, could be very important in the years to come.

It was announced earlier this week that Newham Council Cabinet in east London had approved plans for a modular system that would “expand the potential for building new homes on existing council blocks”.

In a statement released Monday, Populo Living, the council’s wholly-owned housing association, said the first phase of the program could create over 200 new homes for rent at affordable prices.

The modular project would focus on the concept of “airspace development”. Put simply, this refers to using empty airspace over existing structures as a location for new housing stock.

In a report on the project from Newham’s cabinet, the “airspace model” was described as “using modular or external constructions”, which resulted in homes being delivered more quickly and with minimal disruption to residents.

The authorities in the region hope that houses built in this way will be energy-efficient and built according to sustainable “CO2-free standards”.

The idea of using pre-assembled or prefabricated houses in the UK goes back many years. Large numbers were developed to address a significant housing shortage after the end of World War II.

Newham’s plans are the latest example of how local authorities in the UK combine this established idea with the “airspace model”.

Earlier this year, 11 factory-assembled apartments on stilts were installed using cranes over an open-air car park in the St. George neighborhood of Bristol, a city in south-west England.

The structures were designed by a company called Zed Pods and have a number of sustainable features, including roof-mounted solar panels, triple-glazed windows, and solar-assisted heat pumps.

3D printed schools

One of the advantages of the modular case is that in many cases it can be developed quite quickly.

Another option for companies to produce structures quickly is to use 3D printing technology.

On Wednesday it was announced that 14Trees, a joint venture between LafargeHolcim and CDC Group owned by the UK government, is “using 3D printing technology on a large scale to build affordable, low-carbon homes and schools in Africa”.

The program starts in Malawi. The start date is currently planned for the first quarter of 2021.

The speed at which the buildings can be built is an advantage of implementing the system.

According to LafargeHolcim, the walls of a prototype house by 14Trees, also in Malawi, were built in 12 hours. If “conventional methods” had been used, the company claims, it would have taken nearly four days. In addition, the walls of a prototype school in Malawi were printed in 18 hours “as opposed to several days”.

A number of 3D printed developments have been completed around the world in recent years.

This summer, a concrete house was built using a 3D printer in Antwerp, Belgium, while Arup and CLS Architetti, an Italian company, were involved in a project in 2018 using a 3D printer to build a concrete house. in Milan. According to Arup, the structure took only 48 hours to print.

Tags 3Dprinting, Airspace, changing, construction, developments

Health

Putin calls on public to take the coronavirus vaccine

Post author By
Post date December 17, 2020

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke on screen during his annual press conference on December 17, 2020 in Moscow.

Mikhail Svetlov | Getty Images News | Getty Images

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin urged the public to receive the coronavirus vaccine but said he has not yet received it himself.

At his annual press conference in December on Thursday, Putin encouraged Russians to take the Sputnik V vaccine and said he would receive it as soon as he was able.

“Our health care professionals say the vaccines … are for people of certain ages … people like me are not allowed to take vaccines yet. I’m a law abiding citizen and I always listen to what our health care professionals say, that’s why I haven’t been vaccinated yet, but I will certainly do that as soon as it is allowed. “

“Our vaccine is effective and safe, so I see no reason why we should be afraid of getting a shot,” he said, adding that Russia’s priority is to vaccinate its own citizens and increase its manufacturing capacity this.

Sputnik V has been tested on volunteers aged 18 to 60 years and is therefore only recommended for people between these age groups. Since Putin is 68 years old, he does not qualify.

The Russian direct investment fund, which supports the Russian vaccine, said Thursday that a separate study will be conducted in the age group over 60 to see if it is “safe and efficient” for the elderly.

Vaccinating the elderly, and especially those with underlying health needs, is considered a priority by most experts as they are the most susceptible to dying from Covid-19. In the UK, where the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine is already being made available to the public, the elderly and health care workers are the first to receive it.

Attempts in over 60 years

The Russian news agency Tass reported in October that the first group of volunteers aged 60 and over had been vaccinated with the Russian Sputnik V, which was attended by a total of 110 people.

The first group of volunteers had 28 members, including people with chronic conditions common to the elderly, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and chronic kidney failure. The oldest person in the group was 82, Tass reported.

The chief researcher of the Central Clinical Hospital of Russia, Nikita Lomakin, who leads the studies, said no negative reactions were observed in the first group.

Later in October, the head of the Federal Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology in Gamaleya said people over 60 will develop Covid antibodies after being vaccinated, but they may be less effective than those produced by younger people.

“The vaccination has definitely started, a certain number of people aged 60, 70, maybe even 80 years of age have been vaccinated,” said Alexander Gintsburg of Gamaleya, Tass reported. “We don’t expect anything out of the ordinary, there won’t be any additional side effects, they’ll develop antibodies. The only thing is to what extent the antibodies neutralize the virus: younger people develop antibodies that interact very well with the virus, while older people develop antibodies that a lot.” interact less with the virus – dozens or even hundreds of times less. “

Tags calls, coronavirus, public, Putin, Vaccine

Business

Make-up With out the Markup – The New York Instances

Post author By
Post date December 17, 2020

Makeup Without the Markup - The New York Times

Some people are lucky enough to have a good idea in life that they then build into a successful business. Marcia Kilgore had five.

First, in 1996, she founded Bliss, a cult New York beauty center that grew into a lucrative line of beauty products that later became LVMH’s first North American acquisition for an estimated $ 30 million.

Then there was the affordable bath, body and cosmetic brand Soap & Glory, which became a staple of the UK bathroom and was sold to the Boots Alliance drugstore chain in 2014. Next came the FitFlop ergonomic shoe line; and then Soaper Duper, a vegan label for bath and body products.

But it’s her fifth company, Beauty Pie, that the 52-year-old serial entrepreneur thinks is her best idea yet.

“I’ve had some good ones in the past,” said Ms. Kilgore. “I’m proud of them all. But beauty pie? Beauty Pie darkens the rest. “

Headquartered in London, Beauty Pie started operations four years ago and is a shopping club for beauty addicts. Members pay a monthly membership fee for backdoor access to some of the world’s finest fragrance, skin care and cosmetic factories, many of which supply well-known luxury brands that charge sky-high multiples for products after the logo is stamped. With Beauty Pie, members receive regular deliveries of Japanese skin cleansers and South Korean serums, Italian lipsticks and perfumes from Grasse, France, all of which come in pink packaging.

The idea came to Ms. Kilgore one afternoon in a Milan train station when she was returning from a beauty region in Italy known as the Lipstick Valley. She had approximately $ 5,000 worth of free samples from local factories in a shoulder bag.

“I suddenly thought, ‘What if all the women who normally buy these products in Sephora or department stores could feel like I have right now?'” Recalled Ms. Kilgore. “That they got a lot by cutting out the middlemen. That they can access beauty at a real cost, which means they can afford and explore so much more in terms of great products. I knew there was a real power in making customers feel good, even if it would unbalance some noses in the industry. “

After all, what energized your company from the start is what makes customers feel good. Ms. Kilgore was born in Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1968. Her father died when she was eleven years old. Money was tight and after high school she moved to New York with $ 300.

For several years she worked as a personal trainer. After completing a course in aesthetics after recurrent acne bouts, Ms. Kilgore found a new niche: offering facials from her East Village apartment.

In 1996 she opened the Bliss Spa in SoHo. A Vogue article got lyrical about their rubs, scrubs, and wraps. Oprah Winfrey and Calvin Klein and Madonna became customers. The waiting lists for treatments like the Quadruple Thighpass and Double Oxygen Facial with Ms. Kilgore were up to 18 months long. (In 1997, Julia Roberts told people that even she sometimes found it difficult to get an appointment.)

A cheesy bestselling line followed, plus spas and a decade of 90-hour workweek for Ms. Kilgore and her team to have customers relax in the electrolysis room with King Kong videos and talk to them like old friends.

“Bliss stood out as a brand because it had a personality that was quirky, interesting, and different from everything else back then, just like Marcia herself,” said beauty entrepreneur Bobbi Brown.

“She was also a smart pioneer who opened a whole new lucrative sector of the health and beauty sector,” said Ms. Brown. “She’s never been someone afraid to take risks.”

With each of her ventures, Ms. Kilgore seems to be able to fill a moment in the beauty zeitgeist and then sell it, an industry that was once dominated by a handful of global giants. In recent years, however, there has been a proliferation of independent start-ups whose success has been driven by innovative products, social media know-how, and keen consumers.

Beauty Pie has come at a time when customers know more than ever how and where their products are made and are increasingly gaining transparency from retailers. Online subscriptions for toiletries, flowers and housewares are also enjoying increasing popularity, especially since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.

An annual Beauty Pie membership costs $ 99 or starts at $ 10 per month. This includes lower prices for more than 300 products.

“At some point I thought I might need a bulletproof vest to ruffle the feathers of the old beauty guard with the fact that I couldn’t do it, that anyone could hate me,” said Ms. Kilgore from Geneva, where she lives with her husband and two Children together. With skin so radiant that it cuts through the fluff of the zoom screen, she is a seductive ambassador for her brand – including on social media, where she often gives tips and gets feedback on new releases.

“But then I thought about it again,” said Ms. Kilgore. “This is about democratizing luxury beauty. It’s about respecting the intelligence and needs of a customer that I know I understand. “

If she had given in to her fears, she said, “I would hate myself. When you’re almost too afraid to do something, there’s usually a reason. The reason for this is that it’s a really good idea. “

Some industry watchers have suggested that the volume of purchases must be up to hundreds of dollars for a Beauty Pie membership to make financial sense in terms of overall savings. Others have found that at a time when the sector is full of innovation and choice, not all beauty lovers want to set their beauty budgets in one place and that the different membership levels could be confusing for some buyers.

Ms. Kilgore said both memberships and revenue have increased significantly since March, despite refusing to provide figures for the company. However, she revealed that Beauty Pie had recently made a venture capital investment – the first time she had borrowed any of her businesses.

“For the first few years, I just put all incoming interests from investors in one folder,” said Ms. Kilgore. “But if you want to play in this arena and attract the best talent for your company, you have to have those resources.” She noted that the money raised by Index Ventures, Balderton Capital and General Catalyst would be used in part to improve Beauty Pie’s technology operations, marketing reach, and product lineup.

Index Ventures’ Danny Rimer said it took a long time to convince Ms. Kilgore that it was worth working with investors

“Marcia has built everything herself so far, but we knew we had to convince her,” said Rimer. “There’s nothing more important to an early or late stage investment – even with a great product – than the entrepreneur behind it. We need to be convinced that this person was brought to the planet to incorporate their vision into a company. “

Ms. Kilgore described herself as a “fierce workaholic,” though one whose normally relentless itinerary had been curtailed by this year’s lockdown. Lately, downtime has been associated with meditation apps, learning Mandarin and French, and hiking in the mountains near her home with a 45 pound vest. Maybe not most people’s idea of relaxing, but she said she wouldn’t have it any other way.

After selling previous businesses like Bliss and Soap & Glory made her rich, Ms. Kilgore had considered stepping back from the roller coaster of start-up life.

Then, she said, she realized that “working on how to make people happy” makes her happy “from the days I did three part-time jobs to support my mother in high school, or when I was doing facials on a box in my apartment and then watched my clients float out the door. “

“It just gives me the greatest thrill,” she said. “And I’m not ready to give that up.”

Tags Makeup, Markup, Times, York

Politics

Biden campaigns for Democrats in Georgia Senate runoff

Post author By
Post date December 17, 2020

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden speaks during a rally in support of Democratic Senate candidates in Atlanta, Georgia, December 15, 2020.

Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Images

WASHINGTON – A triumphant president-elect, Joe Biden, went to Georgia on Tuesday to lead an election rally for two Democratic Senate candidates in the state that earned him his biggest disgruntled win in the 2020 presidential contest.

The drive-in rally in Atlanta was intended to benefit Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, both of whom will run run-off against incumbent Republican senators on Jan. 5. It was Biden’s first campaign event as president-elect, held just a day after the election campaign. The electoral college confirmed its victory over President Donald Trump.

The two runoff elections are about control of the U.S. Senate, and thus the power to either give the green light to Biden’s candidates and his ambitious (and expensive) domestic agenda, or vice versa, to block them.

If either of the two Republican Senators, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, win their races, the GOP will retain its current control of the Chamber, and Biden can expect fights for every candidate and every bill.

Biden had no illusions on Tuesday about the importance of these races. “I need two senators from this state who want to get something done, not two senators who are just getting in each other’s way,” he said. “Send me these two men and we’ll control the Senate and change the lives of the Georgia people.”

After the angry November victory fueled by suburban and black voters, Democrats rely almost entirely on replicating the record turnout they saw last month. It’s a major challenge – special elections traditionally attract far fewer voters than presidential elections – but Biden urged his supporters to buck the trends.

“Will Georgia break the record for voting in these Senate elections? I think so,” he said. “But there are a lot of people who bet you won’t. There are a lot of people who think, ‘Georgia broke the record for votes cast in the presidential election, there is no way you can do it again.'”

“Are you ready to prove them wrong? I think you are. I think Georgia is going to shock the nation with the number of people voting on January 5th,” Biden said.

In a state with a long history of racial voter suppression, Biden reminded people that Loeffler and Perdue supported a recent lawsuit launched by the Texas Attorney General that sought to disqualify millions of Georgia votes in election results.

“Your two Republican senators fully embraced what Texas told the Supreme Court,” he said. “You were fully in favor of nullifying nearly 5 million votes in Georgia. You may want to remember that January 5th is coming.”

Poll averages currently show both Senate races neck to neck, although historical trends favor incumbent senators.

Biden also drew a sharp contrast between the two Democrats in the race and their Republican opponents when it comes to much-needed funding for coronavirus aid.

“We need funding for testing and vaccine distribution. We need to get money into people’s pockets right now,” he said. “We can do so much to make the lives of the people of Georgia and the country so much better, and we need senators who are ready.”

After Biden’s trip, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris is also expected to visit Georgia to bolster Ossoff and Warnock, although concrete plans have not yet been released.

Tags Biden, campaigns, Democrats, Georgia, runoff, Senate

Business

French President Emmanuel Macron checks optimistic for Covid

Post author By
Post date December 17, 2020

French President Emmanuel Macron tests positive for Covid

French President Emmanuel Macron, wearing a protective face mask, watches as he makes a statement alongside Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas after his meeting at the Elysee Palace on October 28, 2020 in Paris, France.

Chesnot | Getty Images News | Getty Images

French President Emmanuel Macron tested positive for Covid-19, his office announced on Thursday, prompting several other European officials to go into quarantine. It comes just days after France began easing restrictions on the pandemic.

The diagnosis was made “as soon as the first symptoms appeared,” Elysee Palace said in a brief statement that did not provide details of his symptoms. “In accordance with health directives that apply to everyone, the President of the Republic will isolate himself for 7 days.”

Macron, who turns 43 next week, will continue to work remotely, the statement added.

His 67-year-old wife, Brigitte, will also self-isolate, but she has not reported any Covid symptoms, her office said.

French Prime Minister Jean Castex (55), Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez (48), Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa (59) and European Council President Charles Michel (44) said they were being quarantined because they were in the past Days of contact with Macron.

Sanchez, who had lunch with Macron on Monday, said he would cease all public activities until Christmas Eve.

Macron also met with Angel Gurria from the OECD this week. The French president hosted a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

Covid curfew

France has registered more cases of the coronavirus than any other European nation, trailing only the US, India, Brazil and Russia for the highest number of infections in the world.

According to the Johns Hopkins University, more than 2.4 million people in France have been infected with Covid, including 59,472 deaths.

Champs-Elysees Avenue and the Arc de Triomphe can be seen after the Christmas lights were turned on on November 22, 2020 in Paris, France.

Xinhua News Agency | Xinhua News Agency | Getty Images

Earlier this week, Macron relaxed a six-week ban on movement with a curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. until mid-January, with the exception of Christmas Eve.

The public health measures stipulate that museums, theaters, cinemas, bars and restaurants must remain closed at least until January.

French ski resorts will also remain closed, but Macron said the hugely popular tourist attractions may reopen “on favorable terms” from next month.

Johnson from Great Britain wishes Macron a “speedy recovery”

Macron is one of several world leaders who tested positive for the coronavirus this year, including US President Donald Trump, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Johnson, who was admitted to intensive care during his personal battle with Covid in April, said via Twitter that he was sorry to hear Macron tested positive for Covid and wished him a speedy recovery.

The UK’s post-Brexit transition period ends on December 31, and there is pressure on talks between the UK and the EU to reach a trade deal by then.

The EU and the UK Parliament have to ratify an agreement if there is an agreement.

One of the sticking points was fishing rights, with Macron pushing for guaranteed access to British fishing waters. The UK has now insisted that a new fisheries agreement must be based on the understanding that “British fishing grounds are primarily for British boats”.

Tags Covid, Emmanuel, French, Macron, Positive, President, tests