Month: April 2021

Categories
Health

Biden Takes On Sagging Security Web With Plan to Repair Lengthy-Time period Care

Biden Takes On Sagging Safety Net With Plan to Fix Long-Term Care

President Biden’s $ 400 billion proposal to improve long-term care for older adults and people with disabilities was received either as a long overdue addition to the social security net or as an example of a misguided government transgression.

Republicans ridiculed the inclusion of elderly care in an infrastructure program. Others ridiculed it as a gift to the Service Employees International Union, which aims to organize caregivers. It was also blamed for omitting childcare.

For Ai-jen Poo, co-director of Caring Across Generations, a coalition of stakeholders working to strengthen the long-term care system, this was an answer to years of hard work.

“Although I’ve been fighting for it for years,” she said, “if you’d told me 10 years ago that the President of the United States would give a speech in which $ 400 billion would be allocated to improve access to these services and to strengthen this work. ” Kraft, I didn’t think it would happen. “

What has failed the debate on the President’s proposal is that, despite the large number, its ambitions remain uniquely narrow compared to the enormous and growing demands of an aging population.

Mr Biden’s proposal, which is part of his US $ 2 trillion employment plan, is only aimed at empowering Medicaid, which pays just over half the cost of long-term care in the country. And it is aimed only at home care and outpatient care in facilities such as day care centers for adults – not at nursing homes, which make up just over 40 percent of the Medicaid care budget.

Even so, the money would be used up very quickly.

Consider an important goal: increasing caregiver wages. In 2019, the typical wage for the 3.5 million household and personal care workers was $ 12.15 an hour. They earn less as janitors and telemarketers, less as workers in food processing plants or on farms. Many – usually women of color, often immigrants – live in poverty.

The helpers are employed by care facilities that bill Medicaid for their hours worked in the beneficiaries’ homes. The agencies regularly report labor shortages, which may not be surprising given the low pay.

Increasing wages can be essential to meet booming demand. The Department of Labor estimates that these occupations will require 1.6 million additional workers over 10 years.

It won’t be cheap, however. An increase in the hourly wages of the aides to $ 20 – still below the average wage in the country – would more than consume the eight-year effort of $ 400 billion. That would leave little money for other priorities, such as meeting the demand for care – 820,000 people were on the states’ waiting lists in 2018 with an average waiting time of more than three years – or the provision of more comprehensive services.

The battle for resources is likely to strain the coalition of unions and groups that advance the interests of elderly and disabled Americans who have worked together to advocate Mr. Biden’s plan. Even before nursing homes complain that they are being left out.

The president “needs to strike the right balance between reducing the waiting list and increasing wages,” said Paul Osterman, professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management who has written about the country’s care structures. “There is tension.”

Care for the elderly has long been at the center of political struggles over social security. President Lyndon B. Johnson considered bringing the benefits of establishing Medicare in the 1960s, said Howard Gleckman, an expert in long-term care at the Urban Institute. However, House Ways and Means Committee chair Wilbur Mills cautioned how expensive this approach would be when baby boomers retired. Better, he argued, make it part of Medicaid and let states shoulder a lot of the burden.

That compromise resulted in a patchwork of services that has abandoned millions of seniors and their families and yet consumes around a third of Medicaid spending – about $ 197 billion in 2018, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. According to Kaiser’s calculations, Medicaid pays about half of the long-term care services. Payouts and private insurance together make up just over a quarter of the tab. (Other sources, like veteran programs, cover the rest.)

Unlike institutional care, which requires government Medicaid programs, home and community care services are optional. That explains the waiting lists. This also means that the quality of the services and the rules for using the services are very different.

Although the federal government pays at least half of the state’s Medicaid budgets, the states have plenty of leeway in how the program runs. In Pennsylvania, Medicaid pays an average of $ 50,300 per year per recipient of home or outpatient care. In New York it pays $ 65,600. In contrast, Medicaid pays $ 15,500 per recipient in Mississippi and $ 21,300 in Iowa.

This regulation has also left the middle class in the lurch. The private insurance market is shrinking and can no longer handle the high cost of end-of-life care: it’s too expensive for most Americans and too risky for most insurers.

As a result, middle-class Americans in need of long-term care either resort to relatives – usually daughters who throw millions of women out of work – or use up their resources until they qualify for Medicaid.

Regardless of the boundaries of the Biden proposal, proponents of its main constituencies – those in need of care and those who provide it – stand firm behind it. After all, this would be the largest expansion in long-term care support since the 1960s.

“The two big issues of waiting lists and labor are related,” said Nicole Jorwic, senior director of public policy at Arc, which promotes the interests of people with disabilities. “We are confident that we can do this in such a way that we can overcome the conflicts that have stopped progress in the past.”

And yet the dispute over resources could reopen the conflicts of the past. For example, when President Barack Obama proposed extending the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 to include domestic carers, who would cover them with minimum wage and overtime rules, attorneys for beneficiaries and their families opposed fearing that states with budgetary pressure would cut off -Service around 40 hours a week.

“We have a long way to go to get this into law and get it done,” said Haeyoung Yoon, senior policy director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance, of the Biden proposal. On the way, she said, the supporters have to stick together.

Given the scale of the need, some wonder if there could be a better approach to supporting long-term care than spending more money on Medicaid. The program is constantly being asked for resources that are forced to compete with education and other priorities in state budgets. And Republicans have repeatedly tried to narrow their scope.

“It’s hard to imagine that Medicaid is the right funding tool,” said Robert Espinoza, vice president of policy at PHI, a nonprofit research group that monitors the home care sector.

Some experts have instead proposed the creation of a new line of social insurance, possibly financed by payroll taxes, to provide a minimum of services to all.

A few years ago, the Long-Term Care Financing Collaborative, a group that was formed to ponder how to pay for long-term care for the elderly, reported that half of adults typically have “high levels of personal support at some point “Would need for two years at an average cost of $ 140,000. Today around six million people require these types of services, a number the group expects to grow to 16 million in less than 50 years.

In 2019, the National Social Insurance Academy published a report proposing nationwide insurance programs paid by a special tax to cover a range of services from early childhood care to family vacations to long-term care and support for older adults and the disabled.

This can be structured in a number of ways. One option for seniors, a disaster insurance plan that covers expenses up to $ 110 per day (in 2014, after a waiting period determined by the beneficiary’s income) could be funded by a one percentage point increase in Medicare tax.

Mr. Biden’s plan is not very detailed. Mr Gleckman of the Urban Institute notes that it has become vague since Mr Biden suggested it on the campaign – perhaps because he realized the tensions that would arise from it. In either case, a major overhaul of the system may be required.

“This is a significant historic investment,” said Espinoza. “But when you consider the extent of the crisis ahead of us, it is clear that this is only a first step.”

Categories
Business

Delta Air Strains (DAL) outcomes Q1 2021

Delta Air Lines (DAL) results Q1 2021

A Delta Airlines Boeing 757-251 approaches Washington Ronald Reagan National Airport (DCA) in Arlington, Virginia on February 24, 2021.

Daniel Slim | AFP | Getty Images

Delta Air Lines reported another quarterly loss on Thursday but expects to break even in June as demand for travel rebounds after a deep slump in the Covid pandemic.

Delta and its competitors continue to lose money, but have become optimistic about bookings improving as more travelers are vaccinated, travel restrictions are lifted and more attractions reopen. The airline said domestic leisure bookings rebounded to about 85% from 2019 levels, although international and business travel remains depressed.

Bookings in March doubled from January, CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street”. However, he added that the demand for business travel for this time of year is only 20% of the norm.

“When I look at the first quarter, it became clear to us that our business has taken a turn,” said Bastian. “We have seen a huge increase in bookings over the past few months.”

The Atlanta-based airline, which was the first to report results this quarter, posted a net loss of $ 1.18 billion on revenue of $ 4.15 billion from January through March, a 60% decrease from that month Delta generated $ 10.47 billion in Q1 2019 based on that, which is a loss of $ 3.55 per share, compared to a forecast of $ 3.17 per share.

Delta forecast a 50% to 55% drop in revenue for the second quarter compared to the same period in 2019 with planned capacity one-third lower than two years ago. The cost of cutting fuel costs will rise 6% to 9% this quarter, it said. These costs include a race to train pilots paused during the pandemic or flight pilots flying various types of aircraft in time for the midsummer travel season.

The capacity and revenue forecast “calls for a slower than expected near-term recovery,” Cowen & Co. wrote in a note after the results were released.

Delta’s shares fell more than 3% in the early afternoon.

Bastian said in an earnings release that the company expects “positive cash generation for the June quarter and sees a way to return to profitability in the September quarter as demand continues to recover”.

Here’s how Delta outperformed Wall Street expectations in the first quarter, based on Refinitiv’s average estimates:

  • Adjusted earnings per share: a loss of $ 3.55 versus an expected loss of $ 3.17 per share
  • Total sales: $ 4.15 billion versus expected $ 3.91 billion in sales

The airline is the last US airline to block center seats. This practice started earlier in the pandemic to make customers feel better about flying. Delta will be releasing this policy next month.

A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published on Wednesday found that laboratory models show that physically distancing passengers on board can reduce exposure to the virus that causes Covid-19 by up to 57%. The study did not consider face masks that are required by the federal government on flights.

Bastian defended the decision to sell all seats on Delta’s planes and disagreed with the study’s conclusions as the researchers failed to enforce pandemic safety protocols.

“Our experts tell us that given the vaccination rates they are at and the demand for such a high vaccination rate, it is perfectly safe to sit in that middle seat,” he said.

Categories
Business

Retail Gross sales Soar and Jobless Claims Drop in New Indicators of Restoration: Reside Updates

Shoppers in New York City on Tuesday. Retail sales surged last month, and the latest jobless claims report also provided fresh signs of economic revival.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Gabby Jones for The New York Times

Jobless claims fell last week to their lowest level of the pandemic and the latest data on retail sales blew past expectations, renewing confidence in a dynamic economic revival.

About 613,000 people filed first-time claims for state unemployment benefits last week, the Labor Department said Thursday, a decrease of 153,000 from the previous week.

In addition, 132,000 filed for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a federal program that covers freelancers, part-timers and others who do not routinely qualify for state benefits. That was a decline of 20,000 from the previous week.

Neither figure is seasonally adjusted. On a seasonally adjusted basis, new state claims totaled 576,000.

“We’re gaining momentum here, which is just unquestionable,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at the accounting firm Grant Thornton. But she cautioned that the jobless claims levels, while good news, were still extraordinarily high compared to what they were before the pandemic.

“You’re still not popping champagne corks,” she said. “I will breath again — and breath easy again — once we get these number back down in the 200,000 range.”

In another sign of the recovery underway, retail sales surged in March, the Commerce Department said Thursday, as Americans spent their latest round of government stimulus checks and the continued roll out of coronavirus vaccines lured more people back into stores.

The 9.8 percent increase last month was a strong comeback from the nearly 3 percent drop in February.

With the pandemic’s end seemingly in sight, the economy is poised for a robust comeback. But weekly applications for unemployment claims have remained stubbornly high for months, frustrating the recovery even as businesses reopen and vaccination rates increase. They have also been a volatile economic indicator, temporarily dipping to their lowest level of the pandemic in mid-March before rising again in recent weeks.

“The job market conditions for job seekers have really improved extremely quickly between January and now,” said Julia Pollak, a labor economist at the job site ZipRecruiter. “But there are still huge barriers to returning to work.”

Jobless claims for the next few months could remain significantly elevated as the labor market adjusts to a new normal.

Concerns about workplace safety persist, especially for workers on the younger end of the spectrum who have only just become eligible for vaccinations. Many children are still attending schools remotely, complicating the full-time work prospects for their caregivers.

But there is hope on the horizon as those barriers begin to fall. President Biden moved up the deadline for states to make all adults eligible for vaccination to April 19, and every state has complied. Students who have been learning remotely will begin to return to the classroom in earnest.

“This was the deepest, swiftest recession ever, but it’s also turning into the fastest recovery,” Ms. Pollak said. “And I don’t think we should lose sight of that just because some of the measures are a little stubborn.”

Retail sales surged in March, the Commerce Department said on Thursday, as Americans spent their latest round of government stimulus checks and the continued roll out of coronavirus vaccines lured more people back into stores.

The 9.8 percent increase last month was a strong comeback from the nearly 3 percent drop in February, when previous stimulus money had dissipated and a series of winter storms made travel difficult across much of the United States.

The rebound in March sales shows how, a year after the nation’s economy locked down to prevent the spread of the virus, consumer spending remains highly dependent on government support. It also reflects that many areas of consumption frozen by the pandemic have bounced back. Sales of clothing and accessories rose 18 percent, while restaurants and bars saw a 13 percent increase.

President Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which was signed into law last month, provides direct payments of $1,400 to lower-income Americans. Many of these checks began arriving in households toward the end of last month, when economists saw signs that spending was ramping up again, such as increased hotel occupancy and travel through airports.

Economists at Morgan Stanley had predicted that core retail sales would jump 6.5 percent in March, driven by the stimulus checks that started arriving in people’s bank accounts around March 17. The investment bank said 30 percent of consumers tend to spend their checks within the first 10 days, suggesting that many other consumers have yet to spend their checks, which could strengthen April sales.

More broadly, American consumers are also feeling increasingly optimistic as more people become vaccinated and venture out more frequently. One measure of consumer confidence, tabulated by the Conference Board, said confidence increased about 20 points in March from February, fueled by increased income and stronger business and employment expectations.

Kevin Durant of the Brooklyn Nets was an early investor in Coinbase and stands to reap a big profit from the company’s market debut.Credit…Elsa/Getty Images

Heavy trading volume greeted the highly anticipated market debut of Coinbase on Wednesday, which ended the day worth some $86 billion. The cryptocurrency company’s coming-out party made some insiders very rich, opened up new possibilities for cementing its position in the blockchain economy and blazed a trail for other crypto companies to follow its lead onto the public markets, the DealBook newsletter writes.

The stake held by Brian Armstrong, Coinbase’s co-founder and chief executive, is now worth roughly $13 billion. Shares held by its other co-founder, Fred Ehrsam, are worth about $6.7 billion. (Andreessen Horowitz’s stake is worth $11.2 billion, while Union Square Ventures’ holding is worth $5.3 billion.) Other investors who stand to collect big paper profits — if they held on to their shares — include the National Basketball Association star Kevin Durant, the rapper Nas and Alexis Ohanian, a co-founder of Reddit.

The market listing makes it easier for Coinbase to negotiate mergers and acquisitions. “We want to be able to have a public mark on our stock price because it helps us do more and more M.&A.,” Emilie Choi, the company’s chief operating officer, told the technology site Protocol. “There’s so much innovation happening in the crypto ecosystem, and we can’t possibly do it all in-house.” But the listing also brings more scrutiny of the company’s internal culture, which has included accusations of unfair treatment of Black and female employees and poor customer service.

Coinbase could lead the way for others. The tech investor Ron Conway called Coinbase “the Google for the crypto economy.” As crypto goes mainstream, others with similarly big ambitions may follow Coinbase onto the public markets, including rival markets like Binance, the biggest crypto exchange, and Gemini, the company founded by the Winklevoss twins. Exchange-traded funds that hold Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies directly also haven’t yet been approved by the S.E.C., but proponents believe that could happen soon.

Coinbase has come a long way since its humble beginnings. Here’s Mr. Armstrong’s original Hacker News post from March 2012 looking for a co-founder for his crypto venture, which drew dismissive comments like, “Because bitcoin worked out so well. Have fun with that, dude.” Bitcoin was worth about $5 then; it’s more than $60,000 now.

Bank of America and Citigroup were aided by the release of the cash cushions they had set aside during the economic downturn last year to absorb potential losses.Credit…Carlo Allegri/Reuters

Profit at both Bank of America and Citigroup jumped for the first three months of this year, bouncing back from the lows of the early stages of the pandemic in 2020, as they reduced their loss cushions to reflect an improving economy.

Citigroup more than tripled its profit from a year ago, reporting earnings of $7.9 billion even as its sales fell 7 percent, to $19.3 billion. Bank of America doubled its profit to $8.1 billion from $4 billion. Its revenue of $22 billion was flat.

Like JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, which reported first-quarter results on Wednesday, both banks were aided by the release of the cash cushions they had set aside during the economic downturn last year to absorb potential losses. Citi released $3.9 billion of the reserve it had built up to absorb loan losses, whereas Bank of America’s provision for losses decreased $6.6 billion.

“It’s been a better than expected start to the year, and we are optimistic about the macro environment,” said Jane Fraser, who became Citi’s chief executive last month. “This is the healthiest we have seen the consumer emerge from a crisis in recent history.” Similarly, Bank of America’s chief, Brian Moynihan, noted that “progress in the health crisis and the economy point to an accelerating recovery.”

During a call Thursday morning with analysts and investors, Mr. Moynihan noted that March had been a record month for consumer spending by Bank of America customers.

Low interest rates, which have been a central feature of the Federal Reserve’s efforts to shore up the economy, dogged both companies. At Citi, investment banking and stock trading were areas of strength, rising 46 percent and 26 percent from the prior year.

At Bank of America, investment-banking fees for advising corporations on deals hit a record $2.2 billion, a 62 percent rise, thanks partly to a doubling of activity in stock underwriting deals, including initial public offerings. Global markets revenue rose 17 percent, which was primarily attributable to gains in the sales and trading of bonds and related products.

As part of its earnings release, Citi announced that would exit the consumer market in 13 countries in Asia and Europe, including Australia, China, India, and Russia, reflecting a desire to focus on the bank’s more profitable geographies. In those areas, “we don’t have the scale we need to compete,” Ms. Fraser said.

By: Ella Koeze·Data delayed at least 15 minutes·Source: FactSet

Stocks on Wall Street climbed on Thursday, with shares lifted by a new round of earnings reports and as economic data from the United States added to signs of a budding economic recovery.

The S&P 500 climbed about 0.7 percent, putting it on track for a record, while the Nasdaq composite rose by more than 1 percent. European stock indexes also rose. The Stoxx Europe 600 index increased about 0.3 percent, for a third straight day of gains in record territory.

The gains came after the U.S. government reported that jobless claims fell last week to their lowest level of the pandemic, and the latest data on retail sales blew past expectations.
About 613,000 people filed first-time claims for state unemployment benefits last week, the Labor Department said Thursday, a decrease of 153,000 from the previous week.

Separately, the Commerce Department said that retail sales surged 9.8 percent in March, a strong comeback from the nearly 3 percent drop in February, when previous stimulus money had dissipated and a series of winter storms made travel difficult across much of the United States.

Other signs of recovery came as companies reported earnings. Executives at Bank of America and Citigroup both joined their counterparts at other large financial firms in sounding an optimistic tone about the outlook for the economy. Shares of Citigroup rose more than 1.5 percent after its earnings report, while Bank of America’s stock fell slightly.

“It’s been a better-than-expected start to the year, and we are optimistic about the macro environment,” said Jane Fraser, who became Citi’s chief executive last month. “This is the healthiest we have seen the consumer emerge from a crisis in recent history.”

And Delta reported that it has stemmed daily operating losses, a sign that its planes are fuller and fares are returning to more normal levels. Its shares were lower, however, after the company said that in the first three months of the year, it lost $1.2 billion as revenue plunged from a year earlier.

After a bumper market debut, Coinbase shares rose 3 percent in early trading. On Wednesday, the cryptocurrency exchange ended its first day of trading at $328.28 a share, valuing the company at nearly $86 billion — more than 10 times its last valuation as a private company.

Despite the economic optimism, yields on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes dropped sharply to 1.58 percent. On Wednesday, Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, reiterated the central bank’s intention of keeping monetary policy accommodative for a long time. He said the bank would probably slow its bond-buying program “well before” it lifts its policy interest rate.

”Delta is accelerating into the recovery with our brand stronger and more trusted than ever before,” the airline’s chief executive, Ed Bastian said.Credit…Charlie Riedel/Associated Press

Airlines are still racking up big losses even as ticket sales begin to recover.

Delta Air Lines said on Thursday that it lost $1.2 billion in the first three months of the year and its revenue fell about 60 percent, to $4.2 billion, from the first quarter of 2019.

But the airline said it was optimistic that business would soon improve.

“A year after the onset of the pandemic, travelers are gaining confidence and beginning to reclaim their lives,” Ed Bastian, the company’s chief executive, said in a statement. “Delta is accelerating into the recovery with our brand stronger and more trusted than ever before.”

The airline said it stemmed daily operating losses last month, a sign that its planes are fuller and fares are returning to more normal levels. Well over one million travelers have been screened at airport security checkpoints each day for more than a month, according to the Transportation Security Administration.

“If recovery trends hold, we expect positive cash generation for the June quarter and see a path to return to profitability in the September quarter as the demand recovery progresses,” Mr. Bastian said.

The airline said it expected revenue in the current quarter to be down about 50 to 55 percent compared with the same period in 2019. It expects to fly about 68 percent as many people in the quarter as it did in 2019.

The airline said ticket sales for domestic flights had recovered to 85 percent of 2019 levels, though lucrative corporate and international travelers have yet to come back in meaningful numbers. Delta will officially lift its ban on the sales of middle seats next month, allowing it to earn more from each flight.

“In the June quarter, we expect significant sequential improvement in revenue as leisure demand accelerates into the peak summer period and we add capacity,” Glen Hauenstein, Delta’s president, said in the statement.

Delta is the first major U.S. airline to report first-quarter results. United Airlines and American Airlines are scheduled to do so next week.

Instagram is developing a service for children as a way to keep those under 13 off its main platform.Credit…Jenny Kane/Associated Press

An international coalition of 35 children’s and consumer groups called on Instagram on Thursday to scrap its plans to develop a version of the popular photo-sharing app for users under age 13.

Instagram’s push for a separate children’s app comes after years of complaints from legislators and parents that the platform has been slow to identify underage users and protect them from sexual predators and bullying.

But in a letter to Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook — the company that owns the photo-sharing service — the nonprofit groups warned that a children’s version of Instagram would not mitigate such problems. While 10- to 12-year-olds with Instagram accounts would be unlikely to switch to a “babyish version” of the app, the groups said, it could hook even younger users on endless routines of photo-scrolling and body-image shame.

“While collecting valuable family data and cultivating a new generation of Instagram users may be good for Facebook’s bottom line,” the groups, led by the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood in Boston, said in the letter to Mr. Zuckerberg, “it will likely increase the use of Instagram by young children who are particularly vulnerable to the platform’s manipulative and exploitative features.”

The coalition of nonprofit groups also includes the Africa Digital Rights’ Hub in Ghana; the Australian Council on Children and the Media; the Center for Digital Democracy in Washington; Common Sense Media in San Francisco; the Consumer Federation of America; and the 5Rights Foundation in Britain.

Stephanie Otway, a Facebook spokeswoman, said that Instagram was in the early stages of developing a service for children as part of an effort to keep those under 13 off its main platform. Although Instagram requires users to be at least 13, many younger children have lied about their age to set up accounts.

Ms. Otway said that company would not show ads in any Instagram product developed for children younger than 13, and that it planned to consult with experts on children’s health and safety on the project. Instagram is also working on new age-verification methods to catch younger users trying to lie about their age, she said.

“The reality is that kids are online,” Ms. Otway said. “They want to connect with their family and friends, have fun and learn, and we want to help them do that in a way that is safe and age-appropriate.”

The Thomson Reuters offices in Times Square. The company’s media organization will begin charging for access to its website.Credit…Andrew Kelly/Reuters

Reuters will begin charging for access to its website as it tries to capture a slice of the digital subscription business.

The company, one of the largest news organizations in the world, announced the new paywall on Thursday, as well as a redesigned website aimed at a “professional” audience wanting business, financial and general news.

After registration and a free preview period, a subscription to Reuters.com will cost $34.99 a month, the same as Bloomberg’s digital subscription. The Wall Street Journal’s digital subscription costs $38.99 a month, while The New York Times costs $18.42 monthly.

Reuters.com attracts 41 million unique visitors a month. Months of audience research showed that those readers were divided in two separate groups: those wanting breaking news and professionals looking for context and analysis about how news affected their industry, Josh London, chief marketing officer at Reuters, said in an interview.

Reuters will roll out new sections on its website for subscribers in coming weeks that include coverage of legal news, sustainable business, energy, health care and the auto industry. It also plans to introduce industry-specific newsletters.

Mr. London described the new website as “the largest digital transformation at Reuters in a decade.” He declined to provide specifics on digital subscription goals but said that it represented “a major opportunity for us.”

Arlyn Gajilan, the digital news director at Reuters, said she expected to expand the digital team working on the revamped website.

On Monday, Reuters announced that Alessandra Galloni, a global managing editor, would become its next editor in chief. Ms. Galloni, who will be the first woman to helm the news agency in its history, starts her new role on Monday. She takes over from Stephen J. Adler, who retired after running Reuters for a decade.

Ms. Gajilan said that Ms. Galloni had been closely involved in the new direction of Reuters.com.

“She’s a very strong advocate for all things digital at Reuters,” Ms. Gajilan said.

Dan Rozycki, president of the Transtec Group in Texas, is looking at alternatives for his semiconductor supplies.Credit…Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times

Shortages of semiconductors, fueled by pandemic interruptions and production issues at multibillion-dollar chip factories, have sent shock waves through the economy. Questions about chips are reverberating among both businesses and policymakers trying to navigate the world’s dependence on the small components.

Most attention has focused on temporary closings of big U.S. car plants. But the chips are in everything from cash registers and kitchen appliances, and the problem is affecting many other sectors, particularly the server systems and PCs used to deliver and consume internet services that became crucial during the pandemic, Don Clark reports for The New York Times.

“Every aspect of human existence is going online, and every aspect of that is running on semiconductors,” said Pat Gelsinger, the new chief executive of the chip maker Intel who attended the meeting with the president on Monday. “People are begging us for more.”

The chip shortage potentially affects just about any company adding communications or computing features to products. Many examples were described in 90 comments filed by companies and trade groups to a supply chain review by President Biden, including a laundry list of needs from industry giants like Amazon and Boeing.

Dan Rozycki is the president of a small engineering firm, that sells small sensors used to monitor construction sites to ensure concrete is hardening properly. His firm is for now among the lucky chip users. It planned ahead and has enough chips to keep making the roughly 50,000 sensors it supplies each year to construction sites. But his distributor has warned him it might not be able to deliver more of them until late 2022, he said.

“Is that going to halt those projects?” Mr. Rozycki asked. He is scouring the market for other distributors that might have the two needed chips in stock. Other possibilities include redesigning the sensors to use different chips.

  • A former editor at Vanity Fair has been working to create a new digital publication, in which writers will share in subscription revenue — Vanity Fair meets Substack. The new company behind the publication, Heat Media, hopes to unveil it in the coming months, four people with knowledge of the matter said. The start-up is partly the brainchild of Jon Kelly, a former editor at Vanity Fair. One of the backers is the private equity firm TPG, which would take three seats on the Heat Media board, the people said. Another investor is 40 North, a related investment arm of Standard Industries, a global industrials company, the people said. Heat Media has raised around $7 million so far, according to the people.

  • Kimberly Godwin, a veteran CBS News executive, was named the next president of ABC News on Wednesday, making her the first Black woman to lead a major broadcast network’s news division. Ms. Godwin succeeds James Goldston, who announced his departure from ABC in January. She will begin in her job in early May. Ms. Godwin most recently served as CBS’s executive vice president of news.

Categories
Health

5 issues to know earlier than the inventory market opens Thursday, April 15

5 things to know before the stock market opens Thursday, April 15

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

1. Stocks are likely to burst on strong earnings reports

Traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Source: NYSE

2. Covid Stimulus Checks Could Really Boost Retail Sales

People shop on 5th Avenue in New York during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on February 17, 2021.

Brendan McDermid | Reuters

The trading department reported Thursday that retail sales rose 9.8% in March, well above estimates for a 6.1% increase. A new series of Covid Stimulus Checks boosted consumer purchases last month as the U.S. economy continued to receive support from aggressive Congressional spending. Retail sales in February were revised up slightly, falling 2.7%.

The Department of Labor reported 576,000 initial jobless claims Thursday last week, well below expectations for 710,000 new registrations. This was certainly the lowest level since the pandemic began and was a sharp drop from the previous week’s revised upward of 769,000.

3. The BofA exceeds estimates for strong investment banking

Signage outside a Bank of America branch in San Francisco, California, the United States, on Thursday, Jan. 14, 2021.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Bank of America’s profits exceeded estimates on strong investment banking and trading results and risk release releases as fewer consumers faced loan defaults. Like other banking competitors, BofA has benefited greatly from the improving US economic outlook in recent months.

Citigroup’s results exceeded analysts’ estimates for first quarter earnings with strong investment banking revenues and an above-expected loan loss provision release. The company also said it is closing retail banking operations in 13 countries in Asia and parts of Europe to focus more on wealth management outside of the US

4. Coinbase is set to jump after a strong but volatile debut

Monitors display Coinbase signage during the company’s IPO on April 14, 2021 on the Nasdaq marketplace in New York City.

Robert Nickelsberg | Getty Images

Coinbase Global shares rose another 8% on the Thursday before going public, a day after the cryptocurrency exchange debuted with a market value of nearly $ 86 billion. Nasdaq announced a reference price of $ 250 per share for Coinbase’s direct listing late Tuesday. In one volatile session, the stock opened at $ 381 and quickly rose to $ 429, for a market cap of $ 100 billion. It fell back below its debut price at one point, hitting a low of around $ 310. It closed at $ 328. Coinbase hit the public market when a record amount of cash was flowing into bitcoin and cryptocurrencies.

5. The CDC Panel is delaying the decision on J&J Covid’s vaccination break

Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen COVID-19 vaccine will be stored in Chicago, Illinois for use with United Airlines employees at the United Clinic at O’Hare International Airport on March 9, 2021.

Scott Olson | Getty Images

The CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has decided to postpone a decision on Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine while investigating cases of six women developing a rare but serious bleeding disorder, one person dead and one other is in critical condition. The panel met Wednesday, the day after the FDA called on states to temporarily stop using J & J’s vaccine “out of caution”. Moving the panel means the pause for J & J’s vaccine will continue to apply. The CDC committee unanimously voted for a reunion in a week.

– Follow all market action like a pro on CNBC Pro. Get the latest information on the pandemic on CNBC’s coronavirus blog.

Categories
Business

Day by day U.S. knowledge on April 15

Daily U.S. data on April 15

The rate of new US coronavirus cases remains high as the country seeks to ramp up its vaccination campaign following the suspension of sales of Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine.

The country reports about 71,200 new Covid cases daily, based on a seven-day average of data from Johns Hopkins University. This is well below the country’s winter peak, but on par with the summer surge, when the average daily cases were more than 67,000.

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that an average of 3.3 million daily doses of vaccine have been administered over the past week.

A CDC panel on Wednesday decided to postpone a decision on Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine while investigating the cases of six women with a bleeding disorder.

US vaccine shots administered

After 2.5 million vaccine doses given Wednesday, the US has received an average of 3.3 million daily vaccinations over the past week. This daily average was over 3 million for eight consecutive days.

US officials say discontinuing use of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine will not slow the vaccine’s rollout in the country as Moderna and Pfizer are adequately supplied to maintain the current rate of vaccination.

According to CDC data, approximately 7.5 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine out of nearly 195 million total doses have been administered in the US. Pfizer and Moderna vaccines make up the bulk of the vaccines given to Americans to date.

US percentage of the vaccinated population

Approximately 37% of the US population have had at least one Covid vaccine, and 23.1% are fully vaccinated.

Of those 65 and older, about 80% have received one or more doses, and 63% are fully vaccinated, according to the CDC.

US Covid cases

The 7-day average of daily new coronavirus cases in the US is 71,282, according to Johns Hopkins, an 8% increase from a week ago.

In Michigan – the state that has the worst per capita outbreak in the country – the number of infections continues to rise. The state reports a 7-day average of nearly 7,900 new cases per day and is approaching the state’s pandemic high of more than 8,300 a day recorded in December.

Overall, cases are increasing in 33 states and Washington, DC

US Covid deaths

The US reported 956 Covid deaths on Wednesday, Hopkins data shows, bringing the country’s total pandemic deaths to over 564,400.

Categories
Entertainment

The Circle: Who Is the Actual River, aka Lee?

THE CIRCLE Lee Swift stars in season 2 of THE CIRCLE. Cr. Netflix © 2021

The first four episodes of The circle Season two is officially available for streaming on Netflix. Can you imagine which candidate has already stolen our hearts? That’s right, Lee! Originally from Dallas, Lee Swift is an outstanding and proud gay man who has been with his partner for 32 years. He deserves an award for himself. When he’s not fishing people by portraying himself as over 30 years younger (more on that later), he writes erotic novels under the female pen name Kris Cook. “I was a catfish before they used the term catfish,” he joked in his intro package. To save you time, we have already visited Lee’s professional website, which you can find here.

As if we couldn’t love Lee anymore, he announced that he had to ask his 20-year-old niece for help with “social media slang” before he got on the show. While we personally adore Lee’s bubbly personality, the 58-year-old decided to change things up a little and step in The circle Group chat as River, a 24 year old from Mertzon, TX who also happens to be Lee’s friend IRL.

As a successful writer, Lee hoped he would advance as a fictional character in the competition. “As a writer, I think that makes me a professional liar,” he quipped. “Well, I don’t think anyone has a chance.” Lee, who fishes as his friend River, writes in his Circle bio that he is a waiter and student who is “fun” and exciting, but also has a “sensitive” side. In order not to engage in flirtatious behaviors, Lee tells the group that he was recently out of a relationship and is still healing his broken heart.

As for the similarities between Lee’s fake person on the show and the real River, there aren’t any. Except for the fact that they’re good friends.

First up, River’s real name is Doak Rapp, and while his fake character on the show may be gay, he’s straight. Likewise, he’s not from a small farm in Texas, but from Dallas. While Roak is a pretty private person on social media himself, it can be seen from Lee’s Instagram that he’s a fashionable guy!

Stay up to date on all of the things Doak (@ avengers_assemble21) and Lee (@leeswiftauthor) do by following them on Instagram and make sure you get used to it The circle on Netflix, where new episodes appear every week.

Categories
Politics

Scott Stringer Has Skilled to Be Mayor for A long time. Will Voters Be Persuaded?

Katie Glueck

Scott Stringer’s deep experience in New York City politics has yet to translate into momentum in the mayor’s race. Could an endorsement from the Working Families Party help?

The New York City mayoral race is one of the most consequential political contests in a generation, with immense challenges awaiting the winner. This is the second in a series of profiles of the major candidates.

April 14, 2021

On a late February morning in TriBeCa, the most seasoned politician in the New York City mayor’s race was sitting outside, futzing with his fogging-up eyeglasses as he wrestled with an assessment of an election that appeared to be slipping from his grasp.

For Scott M. Stringer, every chapter of his steady ascent through New York politics — serving on a community planning board as a teenager; becoming a protégé of Representative Jerrold Nadler; moving from district leader to state assemblyman, Manhattan borough president and finally, city comptroller — has laid the groundwork for a long-expected mayoral bid.

He has deep experience, boasts a raft of endorsements and verges on jubilant when describing his passion for his hometown. For much of the mayoral campaign, none of that has been enough to generate a surge of enthusiasm around his candidacy, according to polling and interviews with more than 30 activists, lawmakers and other New York Democrats.

Mr. Stringer is working hard to change that.

“If I was a book, and you’re in a bookstore and you saw the cover of the book, you may say, ‘I’m not sure I want to read that,’” Mr. Stringer said, framing a picture of himself with his hands, reaching from his head to his midline.

“What my job is, is to get people of all different backgrounds to take that book off the shelf, open up the book, look at the different chapters of my career and the issues I’ve championed.”

Mr. Stringer, 60, would appear to have the resources, the résumé and the name recognition to do just that, trailing only Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, in funds on hand so far.

He is hoping that his carefully cultivated political network and a mood of citywide emergency will help him attract voters motivated by both his progressive pitch and his pledges of steady managerial competence.

On Tuesday, Mr. Stringer was endorsed as the first choice of the Working Families Party, aiding his efforts to emerge as the race’s left-wing standard-bearer.

Still, in recent months, it is Andrew Yang — embraced as a celebrity from the 2020 presidential race — who has led polls and infused significant energy into the mayoral campaign. Mr. Stringer, who began the race as a top candidate, has scrambled to brand Mr. Yang as an unserious purveyor of “half-baked ideas” even as he dominates news media coverage.

Mr. Adams and Maya D. Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, beat out Mr. Stringer for several major labor endorsements. Those candidates and others in the crowded field are also competing with Mr. Stringer for either the “government experience” mantle or the title of left-wing standard-bearer.

And for all of his prominent supporters, detailed policy plans and ambitious ideas on issues like climate and post-pandemic education, Mr. Stringer is also a white man who spent his career rising through traditional political institutions. New York Democrats in several recent races have preferred to elevate candidates of color and political outsiders.

Now he faces his most challenging balancing act to date, as he campaigns as a veteran government official while seeking to ally himself with the activist left.

“He’s trying to thread this needle between new and old supporters,” said Susan Kang, a member of the steering committee of the New York City Democratic Socialists, in an interview late last month. “You know how if you try to make everybody happy, you don’t make anybody happy? That is something that has given people pause.”

Yet with the Working Families Party’s endorsement, Mr. Stringer found new cause for optimism. It was a signal to deeply progressive voters that the group believes they should unite around supporting Mr. Stringer’s candidacy, at a time of growing left-wing concern about Mr. Yang.

Mr. Stringer remains in contention for other major endorsements, including one from the United Federation of Teachers. And he is aware that many voters have just begun to pay attention. Major debates do not begin until May, and the race to the June 22 primary may not crystallize until more candidates hit the airwaves with television advertising in the final weeks of the race.

Still, one supporter recently compared Mr. Stringer to Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Mr. Stringer’s choice in the 2020 presidential primary. Like Ms. Warren, Mr. Stringer has a long list of policy plans and is thoughtful about governance. But Ms. Warren, the ally noted, did not win.

Mr. Stringer said his campaign planned to be “very aggressive” in the coming weeks, “reminding people of my record and who I am and what I believe in and what I would do as mayor.”

“I need a message moment,” he said.

Any book written about Mr. Stringer would have a common theme: He is a political animal.

Mr. Stringer, born to a politically active Jewish family, was raised in Washington Heights. His father was counsel to Mayor Abraham Beame, his mother was elected to the City Council, and his stepfather also worked in city government.

He made his campaign trail debut at age 12, volunteering for Representative Bella S. Abzug, his mother’s cousin, who went on to run for mayor.

At 16, he was tapped for a community planning board position. His appointment made the front page of The New York Times, and while on the board, he honed a version of at least one line that he still uses today: that the A train was his “lifeline.” Soon he was working for Mr. Nadler, serving on his assembly staff.

“He was a little cocky,” Mr. Nadler recalled. “He learned to restrain that and to work with people very carefully.”

Mr. Stringer, who did a stint as a tenant organizer, also served as a Democratic district leader in the 1980s, building a base on the Upper West Side, where the political culture reflects a vibrant Jewish community.

Longtime observers tend to reach for Yiddish phrases of affection and derision to describe him. Admirers call the affable Mr. Stringer, a married public-school father of two sons, a “mensch.” Detractors privately dismiss the nasal-voiced candidate as a “nebbish.”

New York City voters have often embraced politicians with more boldly distinctive personas.

Mr. Stringer, who once taught his parrot to say “Vote for Scott,” is working on it.

Asked in a campaign video to share something about himself that might surprise others, Mr. Stringer insisted, “I really am funny.” After a reporter asked him to tell a joke, Mr. Stringer spent the rest of an hourlong interview sprinkling his remarks with wisecracks.

“Scott, when he’s not doing his work politically, he’s actually quite funny, he’s got a great personality” said Michael Mulgrew, the president of the United Federation of Teachers. “But I guess because of his years of experience, he’s guarded when he’s doing his governmental work.”

Mr. Stringer was elected to the State Assembly in 1992, following failed efforts running bars. In Albany, he pressed for some reforms of the State Capitol’s insular political culture, including a requirement that lawmakers be present in order to cast their votes.

He mulled and abandoned several options for higher office, including a 2013 mayoral bid. Instead, he ran for city comptroller. In the greatest test of his career, he faced a late entry from Eliot Spitzer, the deep-pocketed and aggressive former governor who resigned after revelations of his involvement with a prostitution ring.

Many had expected Mr. Spitzer to steamroll Mr. Stringer. For awhile, he seemed on track to do so. But Mr. Stringer held his own in a brutally personal race and overcame a polling deficit, though Mr. Spitzer beat Mr. Stringer with Black voters by significant margins.

“We were not just behind early, we were behind at the end,” Mr. Stringer said. “I fought back through the debates, through the campaigning, and I won. So for me, this positioning is what I’m used to.”

There are key differences, though: In 2013, Mr. Stringer had overwhelming support from unions and the political establishment. Now, labor endorsements are more scattered.

And this race is unfolding in a pandemic. He had been cautious about in-person campaigning, after his mother died from Covid-related complications. Now vaccinated, he is seeking to match the more frenetic pace that some rivals, most notably Mr. Yang, have maintained for months.

As comptroller, Mr. Stringer handled issues from housing authority audits to promoting kosher and halal food in public schools.

He also supported closing Rikers Island and was a key part of the effort to divest $4 billion in city pension funds from fossil fuel companies; he cited that initiative when asked to name the proudest accomplishment of his career.

People who have watched Mr. Stringer in the role say that he has been active in issuing audits and reports on issues vital to the city’s well-being, while embracing a time-honored comptroller tradition of tangling with the mayor.

“Have there been contracts that have gone haywire? It doesn’t seem so,” said State Senator John C. Liu, who preceded Mr. Stringer as comptroller and has yet to endorse in the mayor’s race. “Has the office conducted audits that improved the performance of agencies? I believe there have been some.”

On the whole, Mr. Liu ruled, “He has done a fine job as comptroller.”

Kathryn S. Wylde, who heads the business-aligned Partnership for New York City, said that she believed Mr. Stringer had been “bold on corporate governance issues, he’s been bold in taking on the mayor.”

Mr. Stringer has pressed for more disclosures about board diversity, and he has sharply criticized the de Blasio administration over issues ranging from affordable housing to its handling of prekindergarten contracts.

“He’s done an aggressive job — and substantive — on all the key responsibilities of the comptroller,” Ms. Wylde said.

To many New Yorkers, Mr. Stringer retains a reputation of being a traditional Democrat. He supported Hillary Clinton over Senator Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential race, and served as a delegate for Mrs. Clinton. In 2018, he supported Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo over his progressive challenger, Cynthia Nixon.

Mr. Stringer has since called for Mr. Cuomo’s resignation amid accusations of sexual harassment.

Last September, a group of New York’s leading left-leaning lawmakers, many of them women and people of color, gathered at Inwood Hill Park to cheer on Mr. Stringer’s announcement for mayor.

It was a scene years in the making.

In early 2018, Alessandra Biaggi and Jessica Ramos were political unknowns, seeking to topple powerful moderate members of the State Senate. Mr. Stringer heard out Ms. Biaggi over a side of pickles at the Riverdale Diner; Ms. Ramos of Queens sought his support at drinks in Albany.

He became an early champion of several insurgent progressives, cultivating genuine relationships over strategy sessions, phone calls and meals. Those endorsements were an uncertain political bet at the time.

By last fall, they appeared to have paid off: As he announced his mayoral campaign, he was flanked by a diverse group of progressive lawmakers — including State Senators Biaggi and Ramos — who, to their admirers, represent the future of the party.

It is less clear if their endorsements will translate into grass-roots enthusiasm for Mr. Stringer among voters who are skeptical of his left-wing bona fides.

In his 2005 borough president race, a rival ran an ad criticizing Mr. Stringer for taking real estate developer money at a time when the city’s traditional power donors were looking for receptive politicians (the mayor at the time, the billionaire Michael R. Bloomberg, accepted no donations). It wasn’t until much more recently that he said he would stop taking cash from big developers, as prominent progressives highlighted the issue.

He has become a sharp critic of segregated schools, saying definitively that he wants to eliminate the admissions exam that determines access to top city high schools, which some critics say perpetuates racial inequality. But he has not typically been associated with major integration efforts in past years.

And he appears uncomfortable discussing aspects of the policing debate.

Amid protests over the killing of George Floyd, Mr. Stringer declared that it was time to defund the police.

But Mr. Stringer no longer emphasizes calls to “defund,” a term associated with a specific movement — another reminder that he is not fully part of the activist left. Pressed on whether he believed the phrase was divisive, Mr. Stringer would not answer directly.

“I have used it,” he said. “I don’t think you should be judged based on, you know, one word or another word. And I do believe that when you’re going to talk about these issues, you have to be prepared to come forth with a plan.”

He has proposed reallocating $1.1 billion in police funds over four years and has been more specific on the matter than some of his rivals, though Dianne Morales, perhaps the race’s most left-wing candidate, has pushed for far more, urging $3 billion in cuts from the police budget.

No saga better illustrates Mr. Stringer’s political high-wire act than his 2019 endorsement in the Queens district attorney race. His embrace of Tiffany L. Cabán, the choice of the New York Democratic Socialists, over Melinda Katz, a colleague from his Assembly days who narrowly won, delighted progressive activists but stunned old allies.

Critics who spoke with him at the time say Mr. Stringer had privately described New Yorkers as moving to the left, and they sensed that he wanted to embrace that shift. Mr. Stringer has said he believed Ms. Cabán, who is now running for City Council, was the more qualified candidate, but he also sounded testy when pressed on his decision in an interview with a Jewish outlet, to the irritation of some activists.

“Scott, you know, seemed to have changed some of his positions over the years,” said Representative Gregory Meeks, the chairman of the Queens Democrats. “That has caused him, in Queens County at least, which I can speak to, to have some difficulty.”

From Mr. Stringer’s earliest days in politics, he learned to think strategically about relationships.

He has maintained communication with business leaders, and his central message that he will be prepared from Day 1 to “manage the hell out of the city” is not ideological.

Ms. Wylde said that some business leaders “know him as a steady hand.”

“When I think he’s going totally off the deep end, we have a conversation,” she added.

Ranked-choice voting, which enables voters to support up to five candidates, will test Mr. Stringer’s political skills like never before.

Even if he is not the favorite of deeply progressive voters, he hopes to be their second choice. That could also work with moderates who see him as more of a manager than a firebrand. But first he must cement his standing as a leading candidate in the homestretch of the race.

Mr. Stringer knows that he has significant work to do.

In a campaign video he filmed to introduce himself to voters, he said that his favorite movie was “The Candidate,” a 1972 film that traced the arc of a dazzling young candidate, played by Robert Redford, who had little understanding of government process.

He has little in common with Mr. Redford’s character. But Mr. Stringer, too, must prove that he can win.

Categories
Health

Western Warnings Tarnish Vaccines the World Badly Wants

Western Warnings Tarnish Vaccines the World Badly Needs

South Africa immediately copied the American break in Johnson & Johnson vaccinations and enraged doctors who still call for gunshots, especially in remote parts of the country. In February, health officials dropped the AstraZeneca vaccine there because of its limited effectiveness against a dangerous variant.

To date, only half of 1 percent of the population is vaccinated and only 10,000 shots are fired a day. At this rate, it could be weeks, if not longer, for a single rare case of blood clotting to occur, said Jeremy Nel, an infectious disease doctor in Johannesburg. He was dismayed by the decision to pause the shooting, given the risk of building confidence in vaccines in a country where two-fifths of the population say they don’t intend to vaccinate.

“The slower you go, the more that failure is measured in terms of death,” said Dr. Nel. “Even if you are late by a week, there is a non-trivial chance that will cost your life.”

The solution in many European countries – stop using apparently riskier vaccines in younger people who are less at risk of Covid-19 – would not be practical in Africa, where the average age in many countries is under 20.

Further restrictions would tighten the hurdles for Covax, including a lack of funding for any part of vaccination programs beyond doses at airports.

Mali, in West Africa, has administered 7 percent of the AstraZeneca doses administered by Covax. Sudan in East Africa has given 8 percent of the doses it has received.

Analysts fear that dissatisfaction with AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines could fuel demand for recordings made in Russia and China, which are far less well known. Some global health officials have turned their attention to the Novavax vaccine, which is not yet approved but makes up a third of the Covax portfolio.

Categories
Business

Jobless claims will provide a gauge of the pandemic’s financial toll.

Jobless claims will offer a gauge of the pandemic’s economic toll.

With the seemingly end of the pandemic, the economy is facing a dynamic revival. One measure, however, has continued to thwart the resurgence: the number of weekly jobless claims that have been stubbornly high for months, even as businesses reopen and vaccination rates rise.

After the new claims hit a pandemic low in mid-March, initial claims for state unemployment benefits have risen as the impact of the pandemic continues to affect the economy. Last week, the Ministry of Labor announced that a total of 741,000 workers had applied for state unemployment benefits for the first time.

The Department of Labor will publish its latest weekly unemployment claims report on Thursday. If the number of applications falls, confidence in the upturn in the labor market will increase again after the recent bump. However, if it does increase, there will be a strong indication of the ongoing strain on the workforce from the pandemic.

In any case, unemployment claims could remain much higher for the next few months than they were before the pandemic as the labor market adapts to a new normal.

“The labor market conditions for job seekers improved very quickly between January and now,” said Julia Pollak, labor economist at the ZipRecruiter construction site. “But there are still major barriers to getting back to work.”

Workplace safety concerns remain particularly among workers who have not yet been vaccinated. Many children still attend schools remotely, making full-time job prospects difficult for their caregivers.

But there is hope on the horizon when these barriers begin to fall. President Biden extended the deadline for states to qualify all adults for vaccination to April 19, and every state has complied. Students who have learned from a distance return to class in earnest.

“This has been the deepest and fastest recession ever, but it will also be the fastest rebound,” said Ms. Pollak. “And I don’t think we should lose sight of that just because some of the measures are a bit persistent.”

Categories
World News

How Mario Draghi Is Making Italy a Energy Participant in Europe

How Mario Draghi Is Making Italy a Power Player in Europe

ROME – The European Union stumbled upon a Covid-19 vaccine rollout in late March that was fraught with bottlenecks and logistical issues when Mario Draghi took matters into his own hands. The new Italian Prime Minister confiscated a shipment of vaccines for Australia – an opportunity to show that a new, aggressive and powerful force had arrived in the European bloc.

The move rocked a Brussels tour that seemed to be sleeping at the counter. Within a few weeks, partly due to its urgent and technical efforts behind the scenes, the European Union had approved even more comprehensive and stringent measures to curb the export of Covid-19 vaccines much-needed in Europe. The Australia Experiment, as officials in Brussels and Italy call it, marked a turning point for both Europe and Italy.

It also showed that Mr Draghi, known as the former President of the European Central Bank who helped save the euro, was ready to lead Europe from behind, where Italy has been for years and lags behind its European partners in terms of economic dynamism and Reforms are urgently needed.

In his brief tenure – he took power in February after a political crisis – Mr Draghi has quickly used his European relations, his ability to navigate EU institutions and his almost messianic reputation to turn Italy into something of an actor Making the continent hasn’t been around for decades.

After his girlfriend, Chancellor Angela Merkel, resigned from office in September, President Emmanuel Macron of France faces tough elections next year and the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to demonstrate competence, Draghi is ready to create a leadership vacuum to fill Europe.

Increasingly, he seems to speak for the whole of Europe.

“The difference is that when Mario Draghi speaks, everyone knows that he is not only pushing, he is increasing Italian interest,” said Vincenzo Amendola, the Italian minister for European affairs of the European Union, in an interview.

Knowing that Mr. Draghi has derived his influence from his international reputation, Mr. Amendola said that given the potential leadership gap in Europe, “you need stable leaders who bring trust”.

At home, Mr Draghi’s vaccination game in March provided political red meat to an Italian population hungry for vaccines and a sense of freedom of choice, but it was supposed to improve the leverage of Europe as a whole.

Abroad, his first stop in Libya sought to restore dwindling Italian influence in the troubled former Italian colony, which is vital to Italy’s energy needs and efforts to curb illegal migration from Africa. He also did not shy away from fighting with Turkey’s autocratic leader, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “With these dictators – let’s call them what they are – you have to be open about expressing your different views and visions of society,” Draghi said.

But within the European Union, Mr Draghi has shown that Italy is now above its weight.

Last week, Mr Draghi, who is alternately funny and shaky but always direct, kept the pressure on Brussels when it came to vaccine exports. In the original contract negotiations with the pharmaceutical companies, he referred to “light” efforts and stated that the European Union had not yet acted despite its new, strict rules on export bans.

But he has also skillfully offset his criticism of Mrs von der Leyen’s commission by defending it after Mr Erdogan denied her a chair instead of a sofa during a visit to Turkey last week, saying he regretted the humiliation very much.

Making his debut at a European meeting as Italian Prime Minister in February, 73-year-old Draghi made it clear he wasn’t there to cheer. He said of an economic summit that was attended by batsmen like his successor to the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, to “curb your enthusiasm” when it came to a closer fiscal union.

Updated

April 15, 2021, 6:18 p.m. ET

This type of association is Mr. Draghi’s long-term ambition. But before he can tackle the near or deeper economic problems at home, those around him realize that his priority must be to resolve Europe’s response to the pandemic.

Italian officials said his distance from the contract negotiations, which were concluded before he took office, gave him freedom of action. He suggested that AstraZeneca misled the bloc about supplying vaccines and sold Europe the same doses two or three times, and he immediately launched an export ban.

“He understood immediately that it was about vaccinations and supplies,” said Lia Quartapelle, a foreign affairs representative for the Italian Democratic Party.

On February 25th, he participated in a video conference of the European Council with Ms. von der Leyen and other leaders of the European Union. The heads of state greeted him warmly. “We owe you so much,” the Bulgarian Prime Minister told him.

Ms. von der Leyen then gave an optimistic presentation about the introduction of vaccines in Europe. But the new member of the club told Ms. von der Leyen bluntly that he found her vaccination prognosis “hardly reassuring” and did not know whether the numbers promised by AstraZeneca could be trusted, an official gift at the meeting.

He begged Brussels to get harder and drive faster.

Ms. Merkel checked together with him Ms. von der Leyen’s numbers, which pushed the Commission President, a former German defense minister, into the background. Mr Macron, who had campaigned for Mrs von der Leyen to be nominated but had quickly entered into a strategic alliance with Mr Draghi, continued to pile up. He called on Brussels, which negotiated vaccination contracts on behalf of its members, to “put pressure on companies that do not comply”.

At the time, Frau von der Leyen was being criticized less and less in Germany for her perceived weakness on the vaccine issue, although her own commissioners argued that an overly aggressive reaction with a vaccine export ban could harm the bloc in the future.

Mr Draghi, speaking face to face during the February meeting, tightened the screws. Mr Macron, for example, who emerged as his partner – the two are referred to as “Dracon” by the Germans – pushed for a more muscular Europe.

Behind the scenes, Mr Draghi complemented his more public hard line with an advertising campaign. The Italian, known to call European executives and pharmaceutical directors privately on their cell phones, turned to Ms. von der Leyen.

Of all the players in Europe, he knew her the least well, according to the European Commission and Italian officials, and he wanted to remedy the situation and make sure she didn’t feel isolated.

At the beginning of March, Mr Draghi found the perfect present for Mrs von der Leyen: 250,000 doses of confiscated AstraZeneca vaccine for Australia.

“He told me that he had called von der Leyen a lot in the previous days,” said Ms. Quartapelle, who spoke to Mr. Draghi the day after the program was frozen. “He worked a lot with von der Leyen to convince them.”

The move was recognized in Brussels, according to representatives of the Commission, as it exonerated Ms. von der Leyen and gave her political cover, while at the same time giving the impression that it was difficult to sign.

The episode has become a clear example of how Mr Draghi is building relationships that have the potential to generate great profits not just for himself and Italy, but for the whole of Europe.

On March 25, when the Commission suspected 29 million AstraZeneca cans in a warehouse outside Rome, Ms. von der Leyen called Mr. Draghi for help, officials said with knowledge of the calls. He was obliged and the police were dispatched quickly.

In the meantime, Mr Draghi and Mr Macron, along with Spain and others, continued to support a tougher line by the Commission on vaccine exports. The Netherlands were against it, and Germany, with a vibrant pharmaceutical market, was queasy.

When the European heads of state and government met again on March 25 at a video conference, Ms. von der Leyen was more confident about the political and pragmatic benefits of stopping exports of Covid vaccines made in the European Union. She re-presented slides, this time approving a broader six-week restriction on exports from the bloc, and Mr Draghi stepped down into a support role.

“Let me thank you for a job,” he said.

After the meeting, Mr Draghi gave, albeit modestly, Italy – and in a broader sense itself – appreciation for the moves that made export bans possible. “This is more or less the discussion that has been going on,” he told reporters, “because that was the topic that we were initially bringing up.”