Month: February 2021

Categories
Entertainment

Dances to Study At Dwelling

Dances to Learn At Home

In the early days of the pandemic, a stripping, hip-shaking dance trend took over social media: the J. Lo TikTok Challenge, a choreography of roughly 30 seconds from Jennifer Lopez’s Super Bowl halftime performance last year. It was hard to watch the routine and not want to learn it; In video for video, the energy was infectious.

But where should a beginner start? A quick web search for “Learn J. Lo TikTok Challenge” would put you in another vortex: the vast, uneven world of online dance tutorials.

While some people excel at capturing choreography straight from video, others do better with slower, step-by-step instructions. The internet is full of tutorials breaking down popular dance routines, but some are more helpful than others. Whether you’re trying to master dances from TikTok, music videos, movies, or anywhere else, a decent tutorial can mean the difference between a frustrating and fulfilling process. And as those who teach them can tell you, how you use these virtual lessons is also important – namely, your approach to learning.

In TikTok, many developers post short tutorials for their own dances (within the platform’s 60-second time limit), often recorded in slow motion for easy tracking. The app’s “Duet” feature, which allows users to dance side by side with a slowed down original, is also handy for studying choreography and synchronizing your movements.

But sometimes, especially with fast and complicated movements, more detailed instructions are helpful. On his YouTube channel, Online Dance Classes, choreographer Vincent Vianen publishes longer tutorials on trendy TikTok dances (all of his videos are free) with clear, specific instructions and ways to practice at different speeds. His teaching style brings even the toughest dance challenges like the original Renegade (created by innovative young dancer Jalaiah Harmon) within reach.

“When I do my tutorials, I really try to get into the head of someone who doesn’t have a lot of experience in dancing,” Vianen said in a video interview from Amsterdam, where he lives. One of his tips for beginners: be patient and let yourself be confused. “When you start, don’t expect to be perfect the same day,” he advised. “Improving yourself with dancing only takes time.”

Dancer Marissa Montanez has been doing online dance tutorials since 2009 when she launched a YouTube channel to teach Lady Gaga’s choreography. As a lead instructor at New York dance gym Banana Skirt Productions, which went online during the pandemic, she often teaches routines from popular music videos for the class series known as Starpop Dance. (She also offers free mini-tutorials on her personal TikTok page; a Banana Rock subscription is $ 19.99 per month.)

For longer routines, Montanez recommends “setting realistic goals,” which can mean only tackling a few eight points at a time. “Being at home gives you the flexibility to break it open when you need to,” she said in a phone interview. She also suggested that she familiarize herself with the original source and fully observe the dance a few times before attempting it herself.

With the interruption of live performances and in-person courses, larger organizations have also turned to tutorials to get people involved in their work. For example, last year the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Verdon Fosse Legacy (dedicated to the work of choreographer Bob Fosse and dancer Gwen Verdon) released instructional videos that make classical modern dance and film musical steps accessible to all levels.

If you’re looking for a place to start learning dance routines at home, here are five options of different styles (in roughly ascending order of difficulty) with tutorials to match. Every workout is a good workout in its own way. So warm up, drink plenty of water and, as Montanez tells her students, be “kind to yourself”.

1st musical comedy moment

In the song-and-dance number “Who’s Got the Pain” from the film “Damn Yankees” from 1958, Gwen Verdon and Bob Fosse dive into their comic stage routine with a powerful, hip-swinging reverse gear. As part of the Verdon Fosse Legacy # FosseMinute series on YouTube, dancer Dana Moore teaches this short sequence known as the Mambo Step. It also includes some basic hat choreography and the regular shouting of “Erp!”

2. Classical modern dance

The heart of Alvin Ailey’s 1960 choreographed repertoire, Revelations, could look terrifyingly complex in a theater. In a 13-minute online workshop, longtime Ailey dancer Hope Boykin brings passages of the choreography to an achievable level. In addition to movement information, it offers insights into the history, imagery and inspiration of the work – knowledge that enriches movement.

3. Timeless TikTok

TikTok dance trends are mostly fleeting, but some rise to the level of classics. Only time will tell, but the “WAP” dance could be one such routine that will forever come to mind – and hit the dance floor – when its song lights up. The dance was created by the digitally savvy dancer Brian Esperon as a companion to Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s summer hit “WAP” and pays tribute to the slippery audacity of the lyrics with a huge kick, parting and a lot of twerking. (Unlike many TikTok dances, which tend to stand in one place, this one really goes down and needs some space to spread out.) As Esperon warns in his tutorial, even he injured himself in the process. So be careful.

4. Super Bowl sensations

It wasn’t just J. Lo who dazzled last year at the Super Bowl halftime show with the irresistible routine (choreographed by Parris Goebel) on the internet. She shared the stage with Shakira, whose performance also resulted in a viral dance, the Champeta Challenge, choreographed by Liz Dany Campo Diaz and named for her high-speed style of Afro-Colombian dance. Vianen has tutorials on J. Lo and Shakira’s challenges on its YouTube channel that could make for a fun (and sweaty) pairing.

5. 80s throwback

Where would choreographed dance be in popular culture without Janet Jackson? Their catalog of dance-driven music videos is huge, but “Rhythm Nation” with its militaristic movements by choreographer Anthony Thomas is one of the most indelible. The banana skirt hosts a few “Rhythm Nation” courses, including one from Montanez. And it takes a bit of digging, but the Bay Area Flash Mob dance troupe’s YouTube channel has videos of Thomas teaching the choreography. Sometimes the best tutorial is one that you put together yourself.

Three more tips for learning dance routines at home:

Record yourself: Vianen, who started his own dance training by watching videos, suggests filming yourself and watching the recording to see how you can improve. “Sometimes you will say, ‘Oof, what is this?'” He said. “You won’t like what you see, but that’s part of progress.” In this way he added, “You will become your own teacher.”

Take breaks: Vianen enjoys learning a dance to solve a puzzle. sometimes it helps to go and come back. “When you let it go, your subconscious can work to solve it without you thinking about it,” he said. When you return you may be closer to a solution.

Keep it under low pressure: Montanez is a reminder to anyone who dances at home not to lose sight of the fun. It doesn’t have to be about achieving fitness goals or achieving perfection. “We can forget that dance can be relaxing, joyful and a liberation from our everyday lives,” she said. “It can be whatever you want.”

Categories
Business

Fred Segal, Designer Who Commodified California Cool, Dies at 87

Fred Segal, Designer Who Commodified California Cool, Dies at 87

Fred Segal, whose fashion boutiques became a Los Angeles landmark selling figure-hugging jeans and chambray shirts to Bob Dylan, Farah Fawcett and the Beatles, died Thursday in Santa Monica, California. He was 87 years old.

The cause was complications from a stroke, said a spokeswoman for his family.

Mr. Segal became one of the best-known designers and retailers on the West Coast in the 1960s, shaping the image of Southern California fashion as airy, sexy and relaxed. His ivy-covered shop became a meeting place for fashionistas, Hollywood actors, and well-known artists and musicians. For tourists, it was often a sightseeing tour right next to Grauman’s Chinese theater and the Hollywood sign.

Recognition…Family photo

Mr. Segal opened his first shop in 1960. According to the company’s website, it was a 700-square-foot space on Santa Monica Boulevard that sold jeans, chambray shirts and pants, velvets, and flannels.

In 1961, Mr. Segal and his nephew, Ron Herman, opened a half-size store on Melrose Avenue, selling only jeans that they sold for $ 19.95 a pair – a price they were at the time when they were men was still practically unknown, was practically unknown was wearing suits and jeans that normally sold for $ 3 a pair.

“My concept was that people wanted to be comfortable, casual and sexy, so I thought it would work, and obviously it worked,” Segal said in a 2012 interview with Haute Living magazine.

People flocked to the store to buy the jeans, spurred on by celebrities like Jay Sebring, the barber who was one of the inspirations for Warren Beatty’s character in Shampoo, who wore tight, flared jeans and a fitted shirt he had bought from Mr. Segal. Mr. Segal’s customers soon included the Beatles, Elvis Presley and Diana Ross, as well as members of the Jackson Five and Jefferson Airplane.

“When I first came to LA in the late 1970s, everyone was talking about two things: Gucci bags and Fred Segal,” writer Pleasant Gehman told the New York Times in 2001.

His designs were characterized by fits that were unusual for the time. The trousers were cut for men to drop low on the hips, for example, and his stores also sold fitted French T-shirts and Danskin jerseys.

In addition to his designs, Mr. Segal was part of a small group of retailers at the time – others included Tommy Perse, Linda Dresner, and Joan Weinstein – who pioneered the concept of working closely with designers and matching the designers’ clothes in their stores sell, said Ikram Goldman, the owner of Chicago boutique Ikram.

“You had an exquisite eye,” said Ms. Goldman. “These are the people who discovered talent and brought it to light in ways that – before Instagram, before social media, before the news hit you – introduced collections you hadn’t seen before.”

In 2006, a New York Times reporter described Mr. Segal as “the outfitter of those Hollywood fantasies, selling uniforms of expensive shirts and impossibly thoughtful blue jeans and kitten heels to the city’s wealthy residents and celebrities.”

Frederick Mandel Segal was born in Chicago on August 16, 1933. His parents, David and Helen Segal, had multiple jobs, according to the family spokeswoman, and Mr. Segal grew up poor.

Mr. Segal never went to fashion school. He worked as a traveling shoe salesman and shone in Venice Beach – two jobs where he could watch people and develop a sense of what buyers wanted.

Tired of traveling, he decided to open his first shop in 1960.

Mr. Segal owed his early success to his ability to be honest with customers.

“I learned at a very young age that the non-competitive space has integrity,” Segal told Haute Living. “When I was selling to my customers in my store and they came to buy this or that, when they put on an outfit and asked for my advice, I would sometimes say, ‘Take this off, don’t even buy this, it would be ridiculous , you don’t even look good in it. ‘That is really deep honesty. You don’t find that in the store, you know? “

After all, there were Fred Segal stores in Taiwan and in Bern, the capital of Switzerland. In 2015, the brand opened a store in Tokyo that also included an on-site food truck selling Mexican street corn, shrimp on a roll, and hot dogs along with Coca-Cola and Corona.

The name Fred Segal became so popular that it was mentioned casually in films such as “Clueless” and “Legally Blonde”.

Mr. Segal is survived by his wife Tina; five children, Michael, Judy, Sharon, Nina, and Annie; 10 grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.

Mike Ives contributed to the coverage and Jack Begg contributed to the research.

Categories
Politics

Covid Stimulus Invoice Heads to the Senate

Covid Stimulus Bill Heads to the Senate

WASHINGTON – President Biden’s agenda faces its greatest test as Democrats prepare to maneuver his $ 1.9 trillion stimulus package through the equally-divided Senate. This could strain the fragile alliance between progressives and centrists and the limits of its power in Congress.

An early morning vote to pass the comprehensive pandemic relief measure only underscored the depth of partisan divide over the proposal, which was rejected by every Republican. However, the path in the Senate is far more bumpy. A thicket of arcane rules and one-vote control threatens to jeopardize vital aspects of the plan as the Democrats rush to deliver it to Mr Biden’s desk within two weeks.

Mr Biden’s proposal to raise the federal minimum wage under the plan to $ 15 an hour by 2025 is already due to budgetary rules for the measure, which the Democrats are pushing forward in a complex process that allows them to be voted by a simple majority to adopt, run aground vote bypassing the Republican opposition.

In the coming week, they will also face challenges in navigating other aspects of the bill through procedural obstacles and political pitfalls, including debates about how much to spend on closing state and local budget deficits and how to expand tax benefits should be distributed to help impoverished families.

The challenge for Mr Biden will be to hold both sides together in the face of the unitary Republican opposition to obtain a bill that White House officials believe will cushion vulnerable Americans until the pandemic ends and keep the economy pumping as it reopens will bring.

“We have no time to waste,” said Mr Biden at the White House on Saturday. “If we act decisively, quickly and courageously now, we can finally be one step ahead of this virus.”

The progressives are pushing for party leaders to change Senate rules to keep the wage increase in the bill, arguing that the Democrats must not scale back their ambitions for Mr Biden’s first major legislative package.

The debate over the minimum wage, New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters, “sets the stage for how effective we will be for the remainder of the term in office.”

Moderates, including Senators Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, want to keep the Senate rules – which effectively require 60 votes to drive most major laws – intact and oppose such a large increase in the minimum wage in the Package off.

Party leaders and White House officials remain confident that Mr Biden will have the vote regardless of the fate of the wage increase. All but two House Democrats voted for the legislation, the American rescue plan, which is supported by non-partisan voters. But Congressional Republicans came to an agreement against it after being effectively frozen in the process of drafting the bill.

“The House partisan vote reflects a deliberately partisan process and a missed opportunity to meet the needs of Americans,” Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, said in a statement.

The measure now goes to the Senate, which is split 50 to 50, with Vice President Kamala Harris controlling the decisive vote. Mr. Biden’s early attempts to find common ground with moderate Republican senators on the package resulted in only general expressions of bipartisan aspirations. Republicans proposed a plan that is less than a third of what the president is asking to tackle the toll of a crisis that has left 10 million Americans unemployed.

With unemployment benefits for workers laid off longest in the crisis to expire on March 14, Democrats only have two weeks to finalize the package in the Senate and resend it to Mr Biden’s house and desk . As party leaders have chosen to use a swift budget process known as reconciliation to move swiftly through legislation and bypass the Republican opposition in the Senate, the bill must adhere to a number of tough budget rules along the way.

While the House added the federal minimum wage hike to the version passed on Saturday, a key Senate official warned that it violates the reconciliation rules so Republicans can appeal and remove it from the package. It is likely that further changes to the bill will be needed to ensure that it complies with Senate rules and can enlist the support of any Democrat.

Senate Democrats are now spending the weekend figuring out possible ways to save the minimum wage regime, which would gradually raise the minimum wage to $ 15 by 2025.

House progressives warned Friday that they could withhold their votes for the stimulus package if the wage increase were canceled. The debate has fueled an already simmering argument over whether Democrats should seek to overturn Senate rules, especially those governing filibusters, which mandate a 60-vote threshold to move forward and which the minority party has long used to Block important legislative initiatives.

“This is not about whether you have the votes – it is about whether you will do what you said,” said Rev. William J. Barber II, co-chair of Campaign of the Poor, a grassroots organization who plans to continue lobbying for Ms Harris to force a vote on the merits of Parliament’s judgment and for Mr Manchin, Ms Sinema and other lawmakers to support the procedural steps required to make the minimum wage law law. “Don’t hide behind a rule. Don’t hide behind a backdoor meeting. “

Mr Biden has publicly acknowledged that the wage increase could fall off the bill and stated that he would sign the package regardless. His chief of staff Ron Klain ruled out the possibility that Mrs. Harris would override the leadership of Senate MP Elizabeth MacDonough, who said the proposal was out of order under the reconciliation. Top Democrats have signaled they have no plans to oust Ms. MacDonough, who became the first woman to hold the post in 2012 despite liberal demands.

However, White House business officials argue that even increasing wages to $ 9.50 this year, as called for in the bill, would boost the incomes and spending of the worst-paid workers in the economy and fuel economic growth.

Democrats have begun devising alternative plans – including tax penalties for large companies that pay low hourly wages – that could qualify under Senate rules and achieve similar goals. Top Democrats, including New York City Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, are considering adding an amendment to penalize companies paying less than $ 15 an hour, potentially creating an escalating tax on wages and salaries Pay slips from large companies are collected.

Party leaders say they will find a middle ground that will allow the stimulus package to move forward.

“We agree that we are here to do the work for the American people,” Californian spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi said at a press conference on Friday. When asked if Democrats would ultimately be able to pass the legislation without incorporating the minimum wage rule, she said, “Absolutely.”

Democrats are preparing for additional legislative revisions resulting from Ms. MacDonough’s guidance, including changing how quickly people can take advantage of an extended tax credit designed to help low-income families with children. Also, with some moderate Democrats in favor of elements of the relief plan, they may be forced to reduce or otherwise change the distribution of the $ 350 billion allocated to state, local, and tribal governments.

Republicans face their own dangers in opposing the measure en masse. The bill has strong and bipartisan support from national polls, with seven in ten Americans voting in favor. Most of the polls show that Republican voters have been hugely supportive of the effort. Some show mostly Republican support.

Critical provisions of the bill that Republican lawmakers ridiculed as wasteful – including direct payments of $ 1,400 per adult per child to individuals earning up to $ 75,000 per year and couples earning up to $ 150,000 per year – are reduced by up to four supported by five Americans.

Corporate groups and budget hawks have struck a middle ground and urged the Democrats to push back or change the package in the Senate. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has called for a bipartisan compromise to raise wages to less than $ 15 an hour. The US Travel Association on Saturday called on lawmakers to take additional steps in the bill to support an industry that “lost half a trillion dollars and millions of jobs over the past year” – with no immediate recovery in sight .

The Federal Responsible Budget Committee, which has raised concerns about the size of the package and the direction of its spending, has urged lawmakers to cut the $ 350 billion given to state and local governments and reduce the number of Americans who do so do receive direct payments to avoid sending money to people who haven’t lost hours or income during the crisis.

But without the majority stake required to get rid of the filibuster in the Senate, some Democrats see negotiations with Republicans as the only way to get a minimum wage increase into law.

“Not the answer we were hoping for, but as a lawyer I expected the answer,” Rhode Island Democrat Senator Sheldon Whitehouse wrote on Twitter of the MP’s rejection of the minimum wage, which he called “within limits.” .

“Now we have to do it the hard, old-fashioned way,” he added.

Categories
Health

5 issues to know earlier than the inventory market opens Feb. 26, 2021

5 things to know before the stock market opens Feb. 26, 2021

Here are the top news, trends, and analysis investors need to get their trading day started:

1. Stocks try to bounce off the tech-driven router on Thursday

Traders work on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

NYSE

US stock futures were troubled as tech stocks rebounded from Thursday’s price, which dragged the Nasdaq down 3.5% for its worst one-day performance since October. Tesla fell slightly again in the pre-market on Friday, a day after falling 8% in a brutal week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 559 points, or 1.8%, on Thursday from a record high in the previous session. The Dow had its worst day in nearly a month and the S&P 500 was down nearly 2.5%. The sell-off was due to the rapid rise in bond yields.

All three stock benchmarks tracked weekly losses. Before the last day of trading in February, the Nasdaq held onto a profit for the month, which started off strong. The Nasdaq fell nearly 7% from its record high February 12. The Dow and S&P 500 remained solidly in the green all month. However, the S&P 500 was nearly 2.7% below its last record high, also on February 12.

2. The yield on 10-year government bonds has fallen slightly from the high for the year

The 10-year government bond yield fell on Friday morning but remained above 1.4% after rising to 1.6% in the previous session, its highest level since February 2020 and more than 0.5% since late January was. The rise in 10-year return, which serves as the benchmark for mortgage rates and auto loans, was driven by expectations of an improvement in economic conditions with coronavirus vaccine adoption, as well as fears of higher inflation.

A new round of government business reviews approved in December brought personal income to its largest monthly gain since April 2020, despite inflation remaining low. The Commerce Department reported Friday morning that January personal income rose 10%, slightly exceeding expectations. Personal consumption expenditure inflation was in line with estimates of 1.5%.

3rd house to hand over Covid bill; Senate official says no minimum wage

Service workers will vote in Washington on January 26, 2021, for the introduction of the wage increase law, which includes a minimum wage of $ 15 for workers with tips.

Ever Countess | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Inflation concerns are being fueled by the thought that the $ 1.9 trillion Covid economy, which will be passed on Friday, could overheat the economy in addition to accelerating growth. Democrats on Capitol Hill are trying to enforce their relief efforts, including raising the federal minimum wage to $ 15 an hour, without support from the GOP. However, a key impartial official, the Senate MP, ruled that Democrats cannot include the minimum wage increase in the bill. The decision means the Senate will likely pass a different version of the legislation than the House, and officials will have to approve the plan a second time.

4. FDA panel votes on J & J’s single-shot Covid vaccine

A health care worker fills a syringe from a vial with a dose of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine against the COVID-19 coronavirus as South Africa continues its vaccination campaign at Klerksdorp Hospital on February 18, 2021.

Phill Magakoe | AFP | Getty Images

A key advisory body to the Food and Drug Administration will vote on Friday on whether to recommend approval of Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot Covid vaccine for use in an emergency. This would pave the way for a third preventive treatment in the US while the full FDA doesn’t – I don’t have to follow the recommendation of the vaccines committee, it often does. On similar requests from Pfizer and Moderna for vaccines, the FDA approved these companies’ two-shot regulations a day after the panel of external medical advisors endorsed the emergency approval.

5. DoorDash stock falls after the company dropped its first results since going public

A DoorDash Inc. delivery bag lies on the floor of Chef Geoff’s restaurant in Washington, DC

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

As more Americans get vaccinated and the economy continues to open fully, companies like DoorDash that have benefited from home trading could be hurt. In its first public company report, the grocery delivery company announced to shareholders that it expects some of the tailwinds it has experienced on home orders in the US to reverse once the country gets the virus under control. Shares were down 10% on the Friday before going public. Even with that drop, DoorDash would have been up nearly 50% from its offering price of $ 102 per share in December. While DoorDash posted fourth quarter revenue of $ 970 million late Thursday, beating estimates, it also recorded an adjusted loss per share of $ 2.67.

– Follow all developments on Wall Street in real time with CNBC Pro’s live market blog. Find out about the latest pandemics on our coronavirus blog.

Categories
World News

U.S. Universities Plan for a ‘Extra Regular’ Fall

U.S. Universities Plan for a 'More Normal' Fall

Colleges and universities across the country are committed to fully reopening in the fall. Some administrators fear students will not return to campus if normality, or an appearance of it, is not restored by September.

Schools from large government to small private institutions have announced plans to bring students back to dormitories, appoint professors to teach most (if not all) classes in person, and resume extracurricular activities, in stark contrast to the final school year of largely virtual courses and limited social contact. The announcements of these changes coincide with the sending of letters of admission to the Class of 2025.

Some schools have suffered a financial blow because admission was postponed or room and board costs were lost.

Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, with 5,600 undergraduate and graduate students, announced earlier this month that it would be returning to “traditional residential education” this fall with in-person courses and on-campus activities.

Kansas State University announced on Wednesday that it too is planning a “more normal” fall semester with largely personal courses, events and activities. The state of Ohio announced Thursday that it plans to offer “robust” personal activities and classes to allow students to live in dormitories and fans to attend soccer games.

Katherine Fleming, the Provost of New York University, told colleagues in an email on Tuesday that “all faculties should teach their classes in person in the classroom in the fall of 2021”. However, she acknowledged that this would depend in part on whether enough professors had been vaccinated by then.

In fact, most school officials said that whether they can keep those promises depends on factors such as the suppression of the virus, the availability of the vaccine – which is still scarce, even for eligible individuals – and guidance from government authorities .

Despite hopes of the fall, schools are struggling to keep the virus at bay. Positivity rates rose among college students as well as the general population on vacation when people were traveling. Administrators have issued many stern warnings that small groups and gatherings were a source of infection. However, many have found that the classroom itself has not been proven to be a vector of infection as long as students and teachers follow safety guidelines such as wearing masks and social distancing.

More than 120,000 coronavirus cases have been linked to American colleges and universities since January 1, and more than 530,000 cases have been reported since the pandemic began, according to a survey by the New York Times. The Times has recorded more than 100 deaths, but the vast majority were staff members, not students.

Categories
Business

Virgin Galactic (SPCE) falls after check delays push again tourism service

Virgin Galactic (SPCE) falls after test delays push back tourism service

Preflight operations are ongoing on the Unity SpaceShipTwo vehicle and the company’s mother ship Eve.

Virgo Galactic

Virgin Galactic shares fell in trading on Friday after the company’s fourth quarter results showed delays in its flight test program. The expected start of its commercial service has now been postponed to 2022.

The space tourism company reported a quarterly loss that was in line with Wall Street analysts’ expectations, but the next space flight test of its SpaceShipTwo vehicle “Unity” has been postponed from February to May. The company identified an electromagnetic interference problem with Unity on a new flight control computer. CEO Michael Colglazier said the company anticipates eight to nine weeks of proofreading.

Delays in Virgin Galactic’s spacecraft testing program, which had previously been thrown back after an engine stall during a space flight attempt in December, caused the company to postpone its schedule for starting regular space tourism flights.

Virgin Galactic’s shares fell 11.9% on Friday, trading at $ 37.23 per share. The share has risen significantly since the beginning of the year and has gained more than 55% since the beginning of the year, even after the decline on Friday.

The new plan for 2021

Colglazier gave investors an updated look at the milestones Virgin Galactic is expected to achieve this year given the testing delays.

The company’s next big event won’t be Unity, but rather the launch of the second spacecraft in the Virgin Galactic fleet – and the first of its SpaceShip III generation. According to Colglazier, the SpaceShip III vehicle has a “modular design” with “improved manufacturing and assembly processes” that the company expects to enable “better performance in terms of flight rate” and maintenance.

In the meantime, Virgin Galactic will be working this spring to address the electromagnetic interference (EMI) issue with Unity. The company’s analysis found that EMI was the main culprit behind the flight abandonment in December, and additional EMI issues during pre-flight preparations resulted in Virgin Galactic withdrawing from a space test expected earlier this month.

“To reduce EMI levels, we will add functionality to the new flight control computer. Once we have completed these changes, we will thoroughly test the system on site in both the lab and Unity and then begin our flight test program again,” said Virgin Galactic President Mike Moses on the company’s earnings conference call.

Unity’s flight attempt in May will effectively be a replica of the December test with only two pilots on board.

Meanwhile, Virgin Galactic expects the first SpaceShip III vehicle “to begin gliding tests this summer,” Colglazier said. In addition, the company will begin assembling a second SpaceShip III vehicle.

“Our current flight test protocol for the first SpaceShipThree vehicle is four glide flights and four powered flights, and we expect the space flights to generate revenue,” said Colglazier.

A shadowy look at the company’s upcoming SpaceShip III generation.

Virgo Galactic

Given Unity’s past delays, Coglalzier declined to provide specific target dates for the second space flight attempt, saying only that Virgin Galactic expects it to happen “this summer”. Unity’s second space flight will carry four passengers along with the pilots – most of the people Virgin Galactic has flown at one time.

Then Virgin Galactic will conduct a third space flight test, in which Unity company founder Sir Richard Branson has been on the road for almost two decades.

The company added a fourth space flight test for Unity as part of a partnership with the Italian Air Force. Colglazier said the flight will carry three passengers and several research payloads that will serve as “suborbital astronaut training” for the Italians. That flight is expected to “take place in late summer or early fall,” said Colglazier, and will complete Unity’s flight tests.

Virgin Galactic then begins a period of maintenance outages that Colglazier expects to last about four months. The company will carry out an “analysis and rehabilitation phase” with its carrier aircraft Eve, Spacecraft Unity and SpaceShip III.

“We decided to implement improvements and accelerations of the long-term maintenance updates for our mother ship Eve to improve the predictability and frequency of the flight rate,” said Colglazier.

Given the downtime, Virgin Galactic now expects “Unity to begin flying private astronauts in early 2022” – marking the start of the company’s commercial space tourism service. The company most recently believes that “SpaceShip III will be able to complete its flight tests,” Colglazier said early next year.

Wall Street lowers expectations

Virgin Galactic pilots walk to the company’s SpaceShipTwo Unity spacecraft attached to the Eve jet carrier aircraft.

Virgo Galactic

Several analysts have adjusted expectations for Virgin Galactic’s future results, lowering prospects in light of the testing delays.

“The big news out of print was the redesign of the flight plan,” said UBS analyst Myles Walton in a statement to investors.

UBS has a neutral rating for Virgin Galactic and is lowering its price target from $ 52 per share to $ 40 per share. Walton said he saw “a bit more technical risk on the agenda than before” despite being “encouraged by the speed in building a base for economies of scale when the green light is given to commercial operations”.

Alembic Global Advisors downgraded Virgin Galactic from overweight to neutral, with the price target shifting from $ 27 per share to $ 39 per share.

“What drives our downgrade is a combination of the stock’s current valuation (the stock has risen 78% since more than doubling in 2020) and a fresh outlook from management, the additional investment and longer time it takes to achieve the Passenger travel by consumers who now appear to be on a timeline of early 2022, “Alembic analyst Pete Skibitski wrote in a note.

Credit Suisse analyst Robert Spingarn adjusted his company’s price target for Virgin Galactic from $ 36 to $ 42 per share at the start of the year in light of the company’s strong performance.

“The updated plan, based on higher numbers and newer versions of the spacecraft, is likely to take longer than what we considered when we started reporting,” Spingarn said.

Credit Suisse pushed back its forecast that Virgin Galactic would achieve a high volume of flights from Spaceport America in New Mexico by 2025 from 2024. Spingarn also noted that Virgin Galactic appears to be “happy” with about 11-quarters cash on their runway, according to current quarterly burn rate.

“We now have a higher line of investment which, depending on the pace of further progress and the burn rate, could require additional capital by the end of 2022,” noted Spingarn.

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Categories
Health

What Is Delta-8-THC?: The Hemp By-product That is a Scorching Vendor

This Drug Gets You High, and Is Legal (Maybe) Across the Country

Texas has one of the most restrictive medical marijuana laws in the country, allowing prescription-only sales for a handful of conditions.

That didn’t stop Lukas Gilkey, CEO of Hometown Hero CBD in Austin, Texas. His company sells joints, blunts, gummy bears, steamers, and tinctures that provide a recovery high. In fact, business is booming online too, where he is selling to many people in other states with strict marijuana laws.

But Mr. Gilkey says he’s not an outlaw and that he doesn’t sell marijuana, just a close relationship. He offers products with a chemical compound – Delta-8-THC – which is extracted from hemp. Chemically, it is only slightly different from Delta 9, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.

And that little distinction, it turns out, can make a big difference in the eyes of the law. According to federal law, psychoactive Delta 9 is expressly prohibited. However, delta-8 THC from hemp is not a loophole that some business owners claim they can sell in many states where hemp ownership is legal. The number of customers “coming to Delta 8 is staggering,” said Gilkey.

“You have a drug that essentially gets you high but is completely legal,” he added. “The whole thing is weird.”

The Rise of Delta 8 is a case study of how hardworking cannabis entrepreneurs are pulling hemp and marijuana apart to create countless new product lines with different marketing angles. They build brands from a variety of potencies, flavors, and strains of THC, the intoxicating substance in cannabis, and of CBD, the non-intoxicating compound often sold as a health product.

With Delta 8, entrepreneurs also believe they have found a way to exploit the country’s broken and convoluted laws on recreational marijuana use. However, it is not that simple. Federal agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration, are still reviewing their options for enforcement and regulation.

“Dealing with Delta-8 THC is in no way without significant legal risk,” said Alex Buscher, a Colorado attorney specializing in cannabis law.

However, cannabis industry experts said Delta 8 sales actually exploded. Delta 8 is “the fastest growing segment” of hemp products, said Ian Laird, CFO of New Leaf Data Services, which tracks the hemp and cannabis market. Estimating consumer sales at least $ 10 million, he added, “Delta 8 really came out of nowhere last year.”

Marijuana and hemp are essentially the same plant, but marijuana has higher concentrations of delta-9 THC – and as a source of poisoning, it has been a primary focus of business and state and federal lawmakers. Delta 8, if discussed at all, was an esoteric, less potent by-product of both plants.

That changed with the 2018 Farm Bill, an enormous federal law that, among other things, legalized the widespread cultivation and distribution of hemp. The law also specifically allowed the sale of the plant’s byproducts – the only exception was Delta 9, which had THC levels high enough to define it as marijuana.

With no mention of Delta 8 in the legislation, entrepreneurs jumped into the void and began extracting and packaging it as a legal edible and smokable alternative.

Exactly what type of high Delta 8 produces depends on who you ask. Some consider it “marijuana light” while others “refer to it as pain relief with less psychoactivity,” said David Downs, executive editor for content at Leafly.com, a popular source of news and information about cannabis.

In both cases, Delta 8 has become “extremely ascending,” Downs said, reflecting what he calls the “Interregnum of Prohibition of Doom,” where consumer demand and entrepreneurship exploit loopholes in rapidly evolving and broken laws.

“We are receiving reports that in prohibited states like Georgia you can go to a rest stop and look at what looks like a cannabis bud in a jar,” Downs said. The bud is hemp sprayed with highly concentrated Delta 8 oil.

Joe Salome owns the Georgia Hemp Company, which began selling Delta 8 locally in October and shipping it nationally – about 25 orders a day, he said. “It has moved out enormously.”

Its website touts Delta 8 as “very similar to its psychoactive brother, THC,” and offers users the same relief from stress and inflammation, “without the same fearful high that some may experience with THC.”

Mr Salome said he didn’t need to buy an expensive government license to sell medical marijuana because he felt protected by the farm bill.

“Everything is fine there,” he said, explaining that it was now legal to “sell all parts of the facility.”

The legal landscape is contradicting at best. Many states are more permissive than the federal government, which considers marijuana an illegal and highly dangerous drug under the Controlled Substances Act. Medical marijuana is legal in 36 states. It is legal for recreational use in 14 states.

But in the blink of an eye, the federal government opened the door to the sale of hemp products under the Agriculture Act, even in states that have not legalized recreational marijuana use. Few states like Idaho ban hemp altogether, but Delta 8 entrepreneurs are finding a receptive market in others.

Mr. Gilkey’s lawyers believe the farm bill is on their side. “Delta 8, when derived from or derived from hemp, is considered hemp,” said Andrea Steel, co-chair of the cannabis group of companies at Coats Rose, a Houston law firm. She stressed that the legality also depends on whether Delta 9 exceeds the legal limits.

Ms. Steel noted that when making a Delta 8 product, it can be difficult, if not impossible, to filter all of the Delta 9 out of hemp.

“Adding another crease,” she said, “a lot of labs don’t have the ability to differentiate between Delta 8 and Delta 9.”

Lisa Pittman, the other co-chair of the cannabis group of companies at Coats Rose, said the Farm Bill authors may not have considered the ramifications of the law in their reading of the subject.

Ms. Pittman said the ultimate question of a product’s legality may depend on other factors, including how the Delta 8 is manufactured and sourced. In particular, the lawyers said the DEA The rule on this topic seems to suggest that Delta 8 could be illegal if it is made “synthetically” rather than organically.

Lawsuits relating to the interpretation of the DEA rule are currently pending.

Mr Gilkey said he paid more than $ 50,000 in legal fees to make sure he wasn’t breaking the law. A US Coast Guard veteran, Mr. Gilkey worked on a boat anti-drug unit outside of San Diego. He “saw some really tough things,” he said, “and wasn’t happy about the war on drugs.”

He ran a shop in Austin that sold e-liquid for vaping machines. Then in 2019 he started his current business selling CBD. Late last spring, he said he was getting calls from customers on Delta 8.

“I said please explain what this is,” he recalled. Mr. Gilkey, whose company supplies products to other retail stores around the country, saw a great opportunity. After checking with the lawyers, he started packing gummies, vape pens, and other full-size products with Delta 8 that he received from a major hemp supplier.

“It’s about to go mainstream,” he said. And it’s just the beginning. “There is a Delta 10 in the works.”

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Business

Covid Vaccines: Johnson & Johnson’s shot licensed by F.D.A.

Covid Vaccines: Johnson & Johnson's shot authorized by F.D.A.

WASHINGTON – The Food and Drug Administration on Saturday approved Johnson & Johnson’s one-of-a-kind emergency Covid-19 vaccine, starting millions of doses of a third effective vaccine that could hit Americans early next week.

The announcement came at a critical time as the sharp drop in coronavirus cases appears to have plateaued and millions of Americans are on waiting lists to be shot.

Johnson & Johnson has pledged to make 100 million cans available to the US by the end of June. Combined with the 600 million doses of two-shot vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna due to arrive in late July, there will be more than enough shots to cover any American adult who wants one.

But federal and state health officials are concerned that some people may view Johnson & Johnson’s shot as an inferior option despite poor data.

The 72 percent effectiveness of the new vaccine at the clinical trial site in the US – as a number of scientists have celebrated – is below the rate of around 95 percent found in trials testing the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines. Across all trial sites, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine showed 85 percent effectiveness against severe forms of Covid-19 and 100 percent effectiveness against hospitalizations and deaths.

“Don’t necessarily get involved in the numbers game because it’s a really good vaccine and we need as many good vaccines as possible,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the government’s leading infectious disease expert, in an interview on Saturday. “Instead of analyzing the difference between 94 and 72, accept the fact that you now have three highly effective vaccines. Period.”

If the Johnson & Johnson vaccine had been the first to be approved in the US instead of the third, “everyone would be doing handstands and backflips and high-fives,” said Dr. James T. McDeavitt, Dean of Clinical Affairs, Baylor College of Medicine.

On Sunday, a committee of vaccine experts advising the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet to discuss whether certain populations should be prioritized for the vaccine. These guidelines have been eagerly awaited by state health authorities in anticipation of FDA approval.

A administration official familiar with the distribution of the vaccine said deliveries would start Monday and deliveries could arrive as early as Tuesday.

Johnson & Johnson has announced that it will ship nearly four million cans once the FDA clears distribution and another 16 million cans by the end of March. That’s far less than the 37 million cans foreseen in his $ 1 billion federal contract, but the contract states that deliveries 30 days late are still considered to be on time.

The federal government is paying the company $ 10 per dose for a total of 100 million doses that should be ready by the end of June, significantly less per dose than agreed to pay Moderna and Pfizer, who developed their vaccine with a German partner, BioNTech .

With Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine, states can rapidly increase the number of people fully vaccinated. Unlike the other two vaccines, it can be stored at standard refrigeration temperatures for at least three months.

Dr. Danny Avula, the vaccine coordinator for Virginia, said supplies from Johnson & Johnson would add nearly a fifth to the state’s vaccine allotment next week.

“I’m super excited,” he said. “One hundred percent effectiveness against deaths and hospitalizations? That’s all I need to hear “

He said the state is planning mass vaccination events specifically for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, in part to suppress suspicions that it is a lesser product targeted at specific groups.

“It will be very clear that this is Johnson & Johnson. Here’s what you need to know about it. If you want to do this, come in with your eyes open, ”he said. “If not, keep your place on the list.”

Michele Roberts, assistant secretary for the Washington State Department of Health, said it was difficult to explain the technical aspects of the differences between Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine studies and those of other drug companies. Because the studies were conducted at different times and with different protocols, accurate comparisons can be problematic. All three studies showed that the vaccines offer strong protection against Covid-19, especially in severe illness.

Updated

Apr. 27, 2021, 6:11 p.m. ET

Understanding the subtle contrasts requires a lot of “scientific expertise,” she said. “There are so many different factors at play. But that’s not quick public news. “

Even some clinicians misinterpret the differences between the Covid-19 vaccines, health officials said. “They assume it’s apples to apples, but it’s apples to oranges, or worse, apples to ripening,” said Dr. Nirav Shah, the director of the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Last week, said Dr. Shah, the head of a group of specialist clinics in his state initially turned down his offer to ship doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, saying his doctors were concerned that this would be less effective than the other two.

He said he said to him, “Stop right there. We now need to have a Zoom talk with all of your medical staff. “Instead, he carefully explained the results from Johnson & Johnson to the vendor, who then spoke to their employees. Twenty minutes later the provider sent him a message: “We are on board. Send us the J & J. ”

Some state officials have been frustrated with what they see as the lack of a coordinated plan by the Biden government to introduce the new vaccine. The governors have sought advice from the White House, but government officials have so far left it to the states to decide.

Although Johnson & Johnson received ample federal support and agreed to manufacture at risk, federal officials familiar with the way it worked said the company had an overly conservative approach to manufacturing and emphasized scaling at the back of its contract.

As a result, Johnson & Johnson is expected to ship the majority of its 100 million cans in late spring or early summer. The country will continue to need them: by the end of May, Pfizer and Moderna have promised to ship enough doses to vaccinate 200 million Americans, so that around 60 million eligible adults are not yet covered. However, with more contagious variants of the virus spreading, health officials are keen to vaccinate as many Americans as possible as soon as possible.

Johnson & Johnson produced its first batch of approximately four million cans at its Dutch facility, federal officials said. The company’s new facility in Baltimore is expected to supply the majority of its cans for the United States.

Americans are becoming more open to Covid-19 vaccines, according to the latest survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has been overseeing attitudes since December. Fifty-five percent of adults say they either received a dose or will receive it as soon as possible, up from 34 percent in December.

However, Rupali Limaye, who studies vaccine hesitation at Johns Hopkins University, said she was concerned about whether health officials and community leaders would emphasize the strengths of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, including how well it did the occurrence of Severe Covid-19, hospitalization and hospitalization prevents death.

“People will want to know: why is this so much less and what does it mean to us?” She said. “I worry that there will be more questions than trust.”

Without further instructions from the federal government, the state health authorities consult with each other as to where the new source of supply should be directed.

Dr. Marcus Plescia, the chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Authorities, which represents state health authorities, predicted that “many states will be a little careful” about where they originally ship the vaccine.

“They don’t mean to say, ‘OK, we’re going to use this vaccine for our rural population because it’s easier to ship.'” This can spark a backlash from people who, for some reason, mistakenly suspect a second-rate vaccine is being offered , he said.

Dr. Maine-based Shah said the new vaccine is particularly good for drive-through vaccination sites, also because it is less likely to cause the kind of side effects that need to be monitored. Health officials in other states also said it might make sense to target the doses at transient populations who are less likely to show up in second shots. Universities could be particularly interested.

Dr. Jennifer Dillaha, the state epidemiologist with the Arkansas Health Department, said the simpler storage conditions for the vaccine could also increase the number of vaccinations in other non-medical facilities such as senior centers or locations in underserved communities with no pharmacies or health care providers.

To limit possible confusion, some state health officials said they plan to initially route the new vaccine to new locations, not those who are already administering the other vaccines.

Dr. Shah said some Maine pharmacists would prefer to treat one type of Covid-19 vaccine at a time. Although that can change, said Dr. Shah: “Every day is important. Anything that is introduced into the workflow that slows the rate of vaccination hurts us. “

Carl Zimmer contributed to the reporting.

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Politics

Home to cross $1.9 trillion Biden reduction invoice

House to pass $1.9 trillion Biden relief bill

The House is expected to pass a $ 1.9 trillion Covid-19 stimulus package on Friday and send President Joe Biden’s relief plan to the Senate.

Both chambers want to approve the bill and send it to Biden’s desk before March 14th, when key programs supporting millions of unemployed Americans expire. Pitfalls await him in the Senate where a single Democratic vote against the plan would stall him and a decision banning lawmakers from including a $ 15 an hour minimum wage threw a wrench into the process.

Democrats, who wielded tight control over Congress, chose to pass the legislation by budget vote. The process allows them to pass the bill without a Republican vote in the Senate, but it also limits what lawmakers can include in it.

The plan includes:

  • A weekly unemployment insurance supplement of $ 400 and an expansion of programs that extend unemployment benefits to an additional million Americans by August 29th
  • $ 1,400 direct payments to most Americans and the same amount to dependents
  • $ 20 billion for a national Covid-19 vaccination program and $ 50 billion for testing
  • $ 350 billion for state, local, and tribal government
  • Payments to families of up to $ 3,600 per child over one year
  • $ 170 billion to K-12 schools and higher education institutions to cover reopening costs and student aid
  • An increase in the federal minimum wage to $ 15 per hour by 2025

While economists are more likely to believe that additional incentives would provide workers with a robust safety net when the economy recovers – not to mention accelerating GDP growth – they disagree on the need for a 1.9 bill Trillion dollars.

The case of growing up

Proponents of the spending argue that the U.S. economy is still in a precarious position and millions of Americans are still unemployed due to layoffs in the pandemic and forced government closures.

While the Department of Labor’s most recent report on unemployment claims showed a decline in first-time applicants for unemployment benefits, it also found that as of February 6, more than 19 million Americans were still enrolled in some form.

Earlier this month, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told CNBC that Biden’s plan could bring the economy back to full employment before the end of 2021.

She highlighted the number of people the virus has challenged over the past year for households that are still struggling to buy groceries and stay one step ahead of rent payments.

“We think it’s very important to have a big package [that] addresses the pain this caused – 15 million Americans are behind on their rent, 24 million adults and 12 million children who don’t have enough to eat, small businesses fail, “Yellen said on Feb. 18.

The possible risks

Economists criticizing the plan tend to focus on the scope of the legislation and the potential benefits of a bill that is better tailored to the needs of businesses and workers in industries that continue to suffer most from Covid-19, such as airlines and food service and hospitality.

The most startling criticism came from Biden’s fellow Democrat and ex-Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who warned in a February 4 comment that the bill could spark a rebound in inflation after a decade of largely flat prices.

“Given the commitments made by the Fed, government officials’ rejection of even the possibility of inflation, and the difficulty in mobilizing Congressional support for tax hikes or spending cuts, there is a risk that inflation expectations will rise sharply,” he wrote in The Washington Post .

Although macroeconomic inflation has missed the Federal Reserve’s 2% target for the vast majority of the past decade, investors are becoming increasingly concerned about the potential for price hikes.

Nathan Sheets, chief economist at PGIM Fixed Income, said that while he appreciated these concerns, he was not too concerned.

“While I see real risk of inflation rising and falling in the summer as rising demand outpaces supply rebound, I would expect that spike to be temporary,” he wrote in an email on Wednesday.

Sheets, who also served as undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs under former President Barack Obama, added that the potential economic benefits of more incentives appear to outweigh the potential risks.

“The job market is stuck in a deep hole,” he wrote. “Getting those 10 million jobs back will require sustained economic growth, especially given that around half of job losses are people who have left the workforce.”

Many Republicans have questioned the need to send more aid than is needed to accelerate the Covid-19 vaccination effort and strengthen the health system.

On Wednesday, House Minority Chairman Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., Described much of the spending as “a waste or wish list of progressives.”

A group of the Senate’s most centrist Republicans previously offered Biden a $ 600 billion plan that included vaccine distribution funds, lower direct payments to fewer people than Democrats requested, and an unemployment bonus that expired sooner than their peers wanted. The president said he would rather pass the sweeping package with only democratic votes than spend weeks negotiating a smaller bill with the GOP.

Advantages cliff and minimum wage

Democrats were keeping an eye on exceeding the March 14 deadline, when approximately 19 million Americans on unemployment benefits would lose a $ 300 weekly payment. Many unemployed people would lose their insurance if two eligibility and benefit weeks programs expired in the next month.

Congress let similar provisions expire last summer and did not renew them until December. This contributed to millions of people falling into poverty and seeking food aid.

The urge to pass the laws got into trouble Thursday night. Senate MP Elizabeth MacDonough ruled that lawmakers could not include a minimum wage of $ 15 an hour in the budget vote proposal.

The Democrats included a provision in their bill that would gradually raise the federal wage floor to $ 15 by 2025. Parliament did not remove them from legislation following the MP’s decision, House spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi said House Democrats “believe the minimum wage increase is necessary.”

The US last raised the minimum wage in 2009 to USD 7.25 per hour.

If the raise stays in the bill, the Senate will likely pass different laws than the House. The representatives would then have to meet to approve a bill a second time, probably in March.

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Categories
Business

Biden tells Congress Syria strikes are according to U.S. proper to self-defense

Biden tells Congress Syria strikes are consistent with U.S. right to self-defense

President Joe Biden arrives at Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base in Houston, Texas, United States on February 26, 2021.

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

President Joe Biden told Congress on Saturday that the air strikes he ordered this week in Syria were in line with the U.S. right to self-defense, as members of his own party demanded more transparency about why military action was taken without the approval of the Congress were taken.

“The United States has taken this action in accordance with the United States’ right of self-defense contained in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter,” wrote Biden in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate President Patrick Leahy.

Biden on Thursday ordered air strikes against facilities in eastern Syria that Iranian-backed militias are using, according to the Pentagon. The Department of Defense said several facilities at a border checkpoint were destroyed and there were casualties, but did not provide additional information.

These strikes were in response to a February 15 attack in which missiles struck Erbil International Airport in northern Iraq, where a coalition military base is located. The attack killed a civilian contractor from the US-led military coalition and injured several others, including an American service member.

“I led this military action to protect and defend our personnel and partners from these attacks and future such attacks,” Biden wrote in his letter on Saturday.

The letter comes after some Senate Democrats pushed back over the strikes against Biden, asking him to provide information on why military action was taken without the approval of Congress. According to the resolution of the armed forces, presidents must inform Congress within 48 hours of taking military action. In the letter, Biden cited his constitutional authority as Commander-in-Chief.

“I conducted this military action consistent with my responsibility to protect the citizens of the United States at home and abroad and to advance the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States, under and as my constitutional authority to conduct United States external relations Commander in Chief and Chief Executive, ”wrote Biden.

According to a spokesman for the National Security Council, the Pentagon briefed Congress leaders ahead of the military strikes. House spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi was also notified ahead of the strike, according to a Democratic adviser.

Iran condemned the US air strikes on Saturday and declined responsibility for the rocket strikes on US targets. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said the US strikes were “illegal and a violation of Syrian sovereignty,” according to Iranian state media reports.

– CNBC’s Christian Nunley and Reuters contributed to this report.