Month: May 2021

Categories
Politics

Rep. Liz Cheney urges Republicans to reject Trump ‘cult of character’

Rep. Liz Cheney urges Republicans to reject Trump 'cult of personality'

Republican Conference Chair Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., Speaks during a press conference following a House Republican meeting in Washington on Tuesday, April 20, 2021.

Caroline Brehman | CQ Appeal, Inc. | Getty Images

The GOP must “turn away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump personality cult,” argued Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the house, on Wednesday.

“The Republican Party is at a turning point and Republicans have to choose whether to vote for truth and allegiance to the Constitution,” Cheney wrote in the Washington Post.

The Cheney clear-up call came as a flurry of House Republicans, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise, saying they are done with serving as Chair of the House Republican Conference.

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But in the statement, Wyoming’s Cheney appeared to be addressing concerns about her status in the party.

“History is watching. Our children are watching. We must be brave enough to defend the fundamental principles that underpin and protect our freedom and our democratic process. I am determined to do so regardless of the short-term political consequences.” Cheney wrote.

Cheney was the only member of the Republican leadership to vote for the impeachment of former President Donald Trump following the January 6th invasion of the Capitol by a crowd of his supporters. Trump “called this mob, gathered the mob and lit the flame of this attack,” Cheney said at the time.

Trump was acquitted in the Senate for instigating a riot.

Since Trump left office, Cheney has set himself apart from many of her Republican counterparts in her willingness to continue speaking out against Trump, who continues to falsely insist on beating President Joe Biden and spreading unsubstantiated conspiracy theories about widespread electoral fraud.

On Tuesday, McCarthy reportedly said of Cheney, “I’ve had it with her. You know, I’ve lost confidence.” A Scalise spokeswoman said the whip had pledged its support to Rep. Elise Stefanik, RN.Y., who emerged as a passionate defender of Trump during his first impeachment.

Trump and other Republicans also supported Stefanik.

Cheney’s comment claimed that it was not enough to simply look away from Trump’s unsubstantiated election claims.

“Trump is trying to unravel critical elements of our constitutional structure that make democracy work – confidence in the outcome of elections and the rule of law. No other American president has ever done this,” Cheney said.

“While accepting or ignoring Trump’s statements may seem attractive to some for fundraising and political causes, this approach will cause profound damage to our party and our country in the long term,” she wrote.

She noted that after the attack on the Capitol, McCarthy said Trump “was responsible” for the attack and “should have denounced the mob as soon as he saw what was going on”.

McCarthy has now “changed his story,” said Cheney.

Cheney rejected Trump’s persistent claims about a “rigged” election that cast doubt on US institutions. “This is immensely harmful as we are now on the world stage against communist China and its claims that democracy is a failed system,” she wrote.

Republicans, Cheney said, should support the Justice Department’s ongoing investigation into the Jan. 6 invasion. More than 400 people are now charged with the attack.

The GOP should also support a “parallel bipartisan review” of the invasion “by a summoning commission to seek and find facts,” she said.

After all, Republicans must “stand up for truly conservative principles and turn away from the dangerous and anti-democratic Trump personality cult,” Cheney said.

Citing the memory of former President Ronald Reagan, a Republican icon, she said he had “formed a broad coalition from across the political spectrum to bring America back to its senses, and we must do the same now”.

“But that will not happen if Republicans choose to abandon the rule of law and join Trump’s crusade to undermine the foundation of our democracy and reverse the legal outcome of the last election,” she said.

Read the full comment The Washington Post.

Categories
World News

India’s worsening Covid disaster may spiral into an issue for the world

India’s worsening Covid crisis could spiral into a problem for the world

A woman wearing a mask against Covid-19 as a precaution stands in a crowded area near India Gate in New Delhi on March 19, 2021 as coronavirus cases continue to rise across India.

Money sharma | AFP | Getty Images

India’s Covid-19 cases soared to daily record highs in April, and experts warn that the country’s deepening health crisis could undo efforts to end the global pandemic.

The South Asian country, which is home to around 1.4 billion people, or 18% of the world’s population, was responsible for 46% of new Covid cases worldwide last week, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday. One in four deaths in the past week came from India, the UN health department said.

India has reported more than 300,000 new cases daily for the past two weeks, overtaking Brazil in April to become the second worst infected country in the world. According to the Ministry of Health, the cumulative coronavirus infections in India reached around 20.67 million on Wednesday with more than 226,000 deaths. However, several studies of India’s data found that cases were likely severely underreported.

There are already Signs that India’s outbreak is spreading to other countries. Neighbors Nepal and Sri Lanka have also reported spikes in infections, while other regional economies such as Hong Kong and Singapore have imported Covid cases from India.

So the coronavirus crisis in India could turn into a bigger global problem.

Possible new Covid variants

Prolonged large outbreaks in any country could increase the possibility of new variants of Covid-19, health experts warned. Some of the variants could elude immune responses triggered by vaccines and previous infections.

“Here’s the bottom line: we know there are variations in major outbreaks. And so far our vaccines are holding up, we’re seeing a few breakthrough infections, but not a lot,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University School of Public Health, told CNBC’s “The News with Shepard Smith”.

“But India is a big country, and of course if there are big outbreaks there we will all be concerned about other variants that are bad for Indians and of course spread around the world,” he added.

India first discovered variant B.1.617 in October last year – also known as the “double mutant”. The variant has now been reported in at least 17 countries, including the US, UK and Singapore.

The WHO has classified the B.1.617 as an interesting variant, suggesting that the mutated strain may be more contagious, deadly, and more resistant to current vaccines and treatments. The organization said more study is needed to understand the meaning of the variant.

Global vaccine supply at risk

India is a major vaccine maker, but the domestic health crisis has prompted authorities to stop exporting Covid-19 vaccines as the country prioritizes its domestic needs.

The Serum Institute of India (SII) – the country’s main producer – has the right to manufacture the Covid vaccine jointly developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford. Part of the production is planned for Covax, the global initiative to supply poor countries with Covid vaccines.

Developing countries are lagging behind advanced countries in securing vaccine supplies in what the WHO has called a “shocking imbalance” in distribution.

Delaying vaccine exports through India could therefore leave lower-income countries vulnerable to new coronavirus outbreaks.

Threat to the global economy

India is the sixth largest economy in the world and is a major contributor to global growth.

Some economists have downgraded their growth forecasts for India. However, they remained optimistic about the outlook for the economy for the year as the restrictions to curb the spread of the virus were more targeted compared to the strict nationwide lockdown last year.

The International Monetary Fund expected the Indian economy to grow 12.5% ​​in the fiscal year ended March 2022 last month, after shrinking 8% in the previous fiscal year.

However, the renewed outbreak in India has resulted in several countries tightening travel restrictions – and that’s bad news for airlines, airports and other companies that depend on the travel industry, said Uma Kambhampati, an economics professor at the University of Reading in the USA United Kingdom

Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has warned that India’s health crisis could weigh on the U.S. economy, Reuters reported. According to the report, many U.S. companies are hiring millions of Indian workers to perform their back office operations.

“With all these problems and the spreading humanitarian crisis, it has become imperative for the world to act quickly to help India, whether or not such aid is requested,” said Kambhampati in a report published on The Conversation has been published. Profit website with comments from academics and researchers.

Correction: This story has been updated to accurately reflect that the World Health Organization said India caused 46% of the new Covid cases worldwide over the past week. Due to an editing bug, an earlier version of the story misrepresented the timeframe.

Categories
Entertainment

A Uncommon Peek Inside a Semi-Secret ‘Secret Backyard’

A Rare Peek Inside a Semi-Secret ‘Secret Garden’

When Marsha Norman suggested the idea to producer Jerry Goehring to stream the 2018 workshop over a deadlocked Broadway revival of “The Secret Garden” as a benefit, he thought it was a great idea.

He just didn’t know if it would be possible.

“I said,” To be honest, I don’t know it’s ever been done before, “said Goehring, a member of the team that was out to bring the magnificent musical, which has never been revived there since the Tony Award, onto Broadway In 1991 he won the production with Mandy Patinkin.

Securing the rights to stream a musical – let alone a workshop, footage that should never see the light of day and show actors in their harshest form – can be complicated.

But it helped that Norman, the musical’s Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, was already on board – as was new director Warren Carlyle (“After Midnight”) and all 21 actors, including Sierra Boggess (Lily) and Clifton Duncan (Archibald Craven) and Drew Gehling (Neville Craven).

“They all asked ‘Please, what can we do to help?'” Goehring said this week.

The buy-in of all the members involved and the compensation of the actors were the conditions for the Actors’ Equity Association, the union, to give approval for the project, which will benefit the Dramatists Guild Foundation and the Actors Fund.

“They said they rarely get requests for archive footage,” said Goehring, who teamed up with producers Michael F. Mitri and Carl Moellenberg to develop the project. “But if at the end of the day 100 percent of the members on the show agree, we could do it.”

The two-hour workshop, which includes a full run of the show with no costumes or sets, premieres on Thursday, May 6th at 8 p.m. on Broadway on Demand and will remain available until May 9th. It is dedicated to Rebecca Luker, the musical Original Lily, who died in December aged 59, less than a year after announcing she had ALS

“It’s wonderful and terrifying at the same time,” said Carlyle, who directed and choreographed the workshop. “It’s at its roughest, with all of my terrible ideas and some good ideas. It’s really like pulling the curtain back. “

Göhring said the workshop showed the production in its “early stages” – and was never intended to be seen by any kind of audience, let alone the public.

“We weren’t going to invite anyone,” he said, noting that at first the writers just wanted the opportunity to get a first look at the entire show – artistically. “But it turned out to be so special that everyone agreed that we should invite our friends in the industry, including Broadway theater owners, to hear their opinions.”

Based on the 1911 children’s novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, the musical tells the story of an orphaned English girl whose personality blossoms when she and a sick cousin restored a neglected garden. The original Broadway production brought in three Tonys including Luker, Patinkin, a pre-Hedwig John Cameron Mitchell, and 11-year-old Daisy Eagan, who won Mary Lennox for her performance as heroine.

The revival, Carlyle said, is a “total redesign”. It will offer reduced sets, more intimate orchestrations and a different scenic design. But all of Lucy Simon’s songs are intact, he assured the fans of the original, who just shifted – not that anyone would dare cut “Lily’s Eyes”.

“We joke that we lost a lot of big bushes,” he said. “A lot of the big scene transitions from the early 1990s have been eliminated, so it really goes a lot better.”

It is clear, said Carlyle, that the workshop is a rough draft: the garden is imaginary; the dress code more t-shirts than vests. Pieces of tape on the bare floor mark the edge of the stage and the position of the grand pianos. There are few props.

“There are no frills,” he said. “This enables me, as a director, to ensure that we understand the story correctly.”

To keep track of scene changes, the team added digital renderings by production designer Jason Sherwood (“Rent: Live”) as transitions. But in the end, said Carlyle, the material speaks for itself.

“The book Marsha wrote and Lucy’s music are so powerful that you can be in an empty room with talented artists and move around just like it’s on a Broadway stage,” he said.

There are reasons the Broadway show never got revived: critics said the elaborate set and costumes made the actors struggle to be in focus, and the book was overflowing with supporting characters.

“Whether ‘The Secret Garden’ is a compelling dramatic adaptation of its source or just a beautiful, stately shrine is sure to be the subject of intense public debate,” wrote New York Times theater critic Frank Rich in his review of the original. “For one thing, I often had problems getting the pulse of the show.”

Broadway is still a destination for the future, said Goehring, although the pandemic has set the time axis in motion.

“We are currently not looking for new investments,” he said. “Our only goal is to raise money for nonprofits.”

The 2018 workshop was the last in a series of high-profile iterations of the musical, which included a 2016 concert at Lincoln Center with Ben Platt, Ramin Karimloo and Boggess. David Armstrong directed a production at 5th Avenue Theater in Seattle and the Shakespeare Theater Company in Washington DC in 2016-17.

No cast has yet been determined or the theater secured, but Göhring hopes the orchestrations will take shape in the fall.

“As soon as we’re all back in the same room, we’ll keep working on it,” he said.

“Our ultimate goal is to do this as best we can,” he added. “No matter how long that takes.”

In the secret garden: workshop and livestream experience
May 6th to 9th; livestream.broadwayondemand.com

Categories
Business

Why Biden’s Plan to Elevate Taxes for Wealthy Traders Isn’t Hurting Shares

Why Biden’s Plan to Raise Taxes for Rich Investors Isn’t Hurting Stocks

“Most Democrats appear to be on board to reduce the differential between the capital gains tax rate and ordinary income, but there is resistance to treating the rates as the same,” wrote analysts at Beacon Policy Advisors, a policy advisory firm. “This means that there is likely to be a middle ground to increase the capital recovery rate for top earners to, say, 28 percent.”

Updated

May 5, 2021, 10:31 p.m. ET

If stocks continued to climb, it would be broadly in line with the previous periods when capital gains taxes were raised.

In 2013, when the tax on Americans with the highest incomes rose from 15 percent to its current 23.8 percent, the S&P 500 rose nearly 30 percent. It’s been the best year for stocks in two decades. And after the maximum rate had risen from 20 percent to 28 percent at the end of 1986, the market continued to grow by almost 40 percent through most of 1987.

Stocks finally suffered the worst one-day collapse ever on Black Monday in October 1987, but that crash had little to do with taxation and the markets ended the year a little higher. In 1991, a small increase in the capital gains rate for those with the highest incomes to 28.9 percent coincided with a 26 percent increase in the S&P 500. The main driver of this profit had nothing to do with taxes; It was the beginning of a recession.

Similarly, investors seem to be focused on evidence that the economy is on the verge of breakneck growth. That surge is fueled by a flow of federal government spending, rock-bottom interest rates, and more Covid-19 vaccinations. In the first three months of the year, the economy grew by 6.4 percent on an annual basis. At this rate, 2021 would be the best year of growth since 1984.

Economic growth and corporate profits tend to increase together. The earnings reports of listed companies are already showing signs of an additional upswing in the economy.

Tech giants like Tesla, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and Google’s parent company Alphabet reported first-quarter earnings that exceeded analysts’ expectations.

Categories
Health

New Covid Instances in Arizona Are Up 21 P.c in Two Weeks

New Covid Cases in Arizona Are Up 21 Percent in Two Weeks

While most of the United States has seen a steady decline in new coronavirus cases recently, Arizona was an outlier.

The state has not been inundated with another wave of the virus, but public health experts are concerned about a steady increase in cases and hospitalizations. As of Tuesday, Arizona’s daily average was up 19 percent in the past two weeks, the second largest increase in the nation over that period after Wyoming. Only four other states reported increases of more than 10 percent during this period: Washington, Hawaii, Arkansas and Oregon.

The daily number of new cases in Arizona is 10 per 100,000 people, still below the national average of 14 per 100,000. In the past 14 days, the country has seen a 26 percent decrease in new coronavirus cases, and 27 states have seen a 15 percent or more decrease in new coronavirus cases, according to a New York Times database.

Will Humble, a former state health director who heads the Arizona Public Health Association, attributed the spike in new cases to several factors, including a spring influx of travelers and the spread of a variant of the virus first discovered in the UK. Variant B.1.1.7 was associated with increased transferability.

Mr Humble said the Arizona surge likely wouldn’t result in a significant increase in deaths, which have declined in the state. Most older adults and other people in the state who are at increased risk of developing serious illnesses have already been vaccinated, while those in their twenties, thirties, and forties who are more likely to have new infections are more likely to be.

Mr Humble said the surge in cases had “very different public health implications” than it did a few months ago, when far fewer people were vaccinated.

“We’re not going to have the kind of deadly experiences we’d have in December, January or February,” said Humble. Even so, there has been “a remarkable upward movement” in hospital and intensive care units.

Arizona was slow to put restrictions in place last summer and was quick to remove them as falls have skyrocketed and ICU beds are nearly full. From early June to mid-July, the state reported new cases at the highest rate in the country for its size, peaking at 3,800 per day.

In January, Arizona again had its highest daily incidence rate in a while. At one point it was averaging over 8,000 a day, more than double that of the summer summit.

Governor Doug Ducey signed an executive order in March that lifted all Covid-19 restrictions in the state and prevented local governments from issuing mask mandates.

Mr Humble said politics may have made Arizona more vulnerable: “There is no mitigation here at all, and it has not been in months,” he said.

About 41 percent of Arizonans received a first dose of the vaccine, and 30 percent were fully vaccinated, just below the national average. However, the picture varies greatly from country to country. Three of Arizona’s 15 counties vaccinated more than 40 percent of residents, but five vaccinated less than 30 percent as of Tuesday.

Dr. Cara Christ, the director of the Arizona Department of Health, said last month that the initial rush for vaccines had slowed significantly. “Before, vaccine appointments were made almost immediately as soon as they were available,” she said. “The time has come now that it is possible to make an appointment on the same day at practically every state location.”

Categories
Business

SpaceX lands Starship rocket SN15 after check flight

SpaceX lands Starship rocket SN15 after test flight

The Starship prototype SN15 missile lands on the company’s landing pad in Boca Chica, Texas on May 5, 2020.

SpaceX

Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched and landed the latest prototype of his Starship rocket on Wednesday in the fifth test flight at high altitude of the system.

The spaceship’s prototype rocket, serial number 15 or SN15, flew up to 10 kilometers, or approximately 33,000 feet.

“Spaceship is nominally landing!” Musk tweeted after landing. Nominal is a space industry term used to denote when things go according to plan.

SN15 was the first Starship prototype that was not destroyed after a test flight at high altitude. While a small fire broke out at the base of the rocket after landing, the fire appeared to be contained a few minutes later.

The company is developing Starship to bring cargo and people on missions to the moon and Mars.

Earlier this month, NASA placed an almost $ 3 billion contract with SpaceX to build a lunar variant of Starship to bring astronauts to the surface of the moon for the agency’s Artemis missions. While Musk’s company continued to advance Starship development, NASA stopped SpaceX work on the HLS program after Jeff Bezos ‘Blue Origin and Leidos’ subsidiary Dynetics each filed protests against NASA’s procurement.

The SN15 flight was similar to what SpaceX has conducted over the past six months with the test flights of the prototypes SN8, SN9, SN10 and SN11. While each of the previous missiles was successfully launched and several development goals were achieved, all four prototypes were explosively destroyed – SN8 and SN9 on impact during the landing attempts, SN10 a few minutes after landing and SN11 just before the landing attempt.

The Starship prototypes are about 150 feet tall, or about the size of a 15-story building, and are each powered by three Raptor rocket engines.

It’s made of stainless steel and is the early version of the rocket that Musk unveiled in 2019.

The Starship prototype SN15 rocket is on the company’s launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas.

SpaceX

SpaceX noted in a statement on its website that the SN15 has “vehicle enhancements in terms of structure, avionics and software” compared to previous Starship prototypes.

“Specifically, a new, improved avionics suite, an updated fuel architecture in the tail skirt, and a new design and configuration for Raptor engines,” said SpaceX.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which has an inspector at the SpaceX facilities to monitor the test flights, conducted a “breakdown” investigation of the SN11 flight.

Last week, the FAA announced the approval of the next three Starship launches – SN15, SN16, and SN16 – and said it would “verify that SpaceX has implemented corrective actions resulting from the SN11 breakdown investigation”.

The FAA approved multiple launches “because SpaceX makes few changes to the launcher and relies on the FAA-approved method to calculate the risk to the public.”

Categories
Politics

Federal Decide Strikes Down Moratorium on Evicting Renters

Federal Judge Strikes Down Moratorium on Evicting Renters

Homeowners have long argued that the moratorium was based on legally shaky ground, questioning the constitutionality of tying a major intervention in the national housing market to federal law aimed at stopping disease transmission.

The ruling “further demonstrates the illegality of this policy and reaffirms the extent to which the CDC has exceeded its authority,” said Robert Pinnegar, president of the National Apartment Association, a trade association representing large landlords that has also pushed for an end to the moratorium.

“The government must end enforcement of the CDC regulation and begin notifying stakeholders, including judges, now to prepare them to end,” he said.

The moratorium covers tens of millions of Americans at various income levels.

The Executive Order signed by Mr. Trump applies to every single renter earning less than $ 99,000 per year and families earning twice as much. According to the Census Bureau, around 8.2 million renters said they had slumped in their rents during the pandemic.

Enforcing the moratorium has always been an uncertain, even chaotic matter, left to the discretion of the judges of the State Housing Court.

These judges make decisions based on a variety of criteria, not just the federal moratorium, including local eviction orders and subjective factors such as a renter’s payment history and a landlord’s records of repairs.

Federal decisions, like the one passed on Wednesday, are significant but serve as a guide rather than an order – although a clear decision from a prominent federal court is likely to sway some local judges, said Eric Dunn, litigation director for the National Housing Law Project, a tenants’ agency .

Categories
Business

Pandemic Aid Fund for Eating places Is Open, however Money Will Go Quick

Pandemic Relief Fund for Restaurants Is Open, but Cash Will Go Fast

Restaurants, bars, caterers, and other food companies devastated by the pandemic filed for help on Monday for a new federal aid program worth $ 28.6 billion, but the money is not expected to last long.

Despite some glitches after thousands appeared on the Restaurant Revitalization Fund application website when it went online at noon, the process was fairly straightforward, according to applicants.

This was a welcome change from the technical issues plaguing other small business administration utilities that manage the restaurant fund.

“It was impressively smooth,” said Sarah Horak, who owns three bars and restaurants in Grand Forks, ND. She was able to submit her first application just 10 minutes after signing up on the website.

Congress created the restaurant fund as part of the $ 1.9 trillion relief bill passed in March. For the first 21 days, the Small Business Administration will only approve claims from companies that are majority-owned by individuals who fall into one of the priority groups set by law: women, veterans, and individuals who are considered both socially and economically disadvantaged.

That latter group includes those who meet certain income and wealth limits and are Blacks, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, Americans in the Asia-Pacific region, or Americans from South Asia, according to the agency.

Applicants from these groups are asked to certify their own eligibility for the exclusivity period. This three-week priority period alone should exhaust the fund.

The money allocated by Congress “probably won’t be enough to meet the demand that is out there,” admitted Patrick Kelley, who heads the SBA’s Capital Access Office, in a webinar last week. He hoped that Congress would provide more money if needed.

The fund offers grants of up to $ 10 million. The amount each company can receive is the difference between 2019 and 2020 gross earnings minus certain other federal aids such as loans from the paycheck protection program.

Ms. Horak went into debt more than $ 300,000 last year to keep her restaurants alive. She hopes the scholarship will help repay those loans and hire additional staff when customers return to their newly opened stores.

Updated

May 5, 2021, 6:26 p.m. ET

“We’re seeing some positive trends in traffic, but it’s still not nearly normal,” she said.

Applicants who are not eligible during the priority period nervously wait to see if there is anything left for them. Jeremy Yoder and his wife Barbie Yoder opened the Alaska Crepe Co. in Ketchikan, Alaska in 2019. He applied for a scholarship on Monday.

“We had to learn to run really lean last year,” said Yoder. The Yoders’ business relies heavily on cruise-goers, and this year – like last year – could be an almost complete loss on the tourism front.

Mr. Yoder took a full-time job in the tech industry last year to support his family and business. “We’re doing enough to keep the doors open, but we’re certainly not profitable,” he said. “We lose money every day when we’re open.”

Tamra Patterson, the owner of Chef Tam’s Underground Cafe in Memphis, was still trying to complete her application late Monday afternoon. She made it through several steps but received a message that her responses had failed the agency’s “knowledge-based authentication” test.

The SBA said in a Twitter post that it was having problems with this part of the application process. “Your place in line is reserved and you will be able to complete your application shortly,” she informed those concerned.

Ms. Patterson, who is Black, said she hadn’t been approved for any other federal assistance programs, including the paycheck protection program. “Every time I tried to apply, I ran into some kind of hiccups,” she said.

Ms. Patterson’s restaurant had sales of more than $ 1 million in 2019, she said. Shortly before the pandemic, she moved her once tiny company to a much larger area of ​​7,000 square meters and expanded her workforce to 38 employees.

She had to fire almost everyone after the pandemic hit. Take-out and delivery brought some revenue, but their sales fell by at least 80 percent last year, she said.

Ms. Patterson hopes the grant will give her company some breathing space. She wants to give her eleven workers who have worked “non-stop” time off and catch up on bills, such as the payments she owes her grocery vendors and other creditors.

“Just to be able to pay my rent in full and on time would be amazing,” she said.

The Small Business Administration said their goal is to respond to applicants within 14 days. An SBA spokesman declined to comment on Monday afternoon how many applications had been received.

This is the second funding program that the agency recently started. Applications were made last week for the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant, a $ 16 billion relief fund for theaters, music clubs, and other live events businesses. Almost 9,500 companies applied for this relief on the first day of the program, but the agency has not yet made any grant decisions.

Categories
Health

Theranos blood take a look at accuracy at coronary heart of Elizabeth Holmes legal case

Theranos blood test accuracy at heart of Elizabeth Holmes criminal case

Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes will attend the US government fraud court hearing against her on May 5, 2021.

CNBC

Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes promised a technological breakthrough, but it really was a house of cards, prosecutors said during a trial Wednesday.

“Miss Holmes went out, told the world, and told investors, we have tests with the highest accuracy rate,” said US assistant attorney Robert Leach, adding that her expert’s testimony “lies.”

The argument was in response to efforts by the defense, Dr. Stephen Master, an associate professor of pathology and laboratory in the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, from taking a stand. In 2013, after interviewing Holmes at a conference, Master said that her claims about Theranos’ miniLab technology “fell far short of previous claims”.

Holmes’ defenders argued that the master was used as a “parrot” by the government and that his conclusions about certain Theranos blood tests were “based on emails and customer complaints,” not practical experience.

Wednesday’s hearing was the second day of the argument about what evidence can be admitted and excluded from Holmes’ criminal fraud trial, which begins August 31st.

Prosecutors, among other things, alleged that Holmes was presenting an inappropriate defense in good faith.

“Efforts to return money to victims cannot undo the fraud once it is committed,” said John Bostick, another US assistant attorney.

The judge is expected to rule on critical motions, including whether to provide evidence of Holmes’ assets and expenses, private text exchanges and regulatory reports by the end of the week.

The hearing came when a former Theranos executive who had been close to Holmes in the company’s final days told CNBC that management was discussing Holmes’ resignation as CEO on several occasions. For Holmes, however, “that was a non-runner”.

“If she had resigned, I think she would have saved herself a lot of legal danger,” said the former Theranos manager, who asked not to be named. “Everyone who knows Elizabeth knows that she saw herself as a company, and I don’t think she can see the company going on without her.”

Holmes left Stanford at 19 to start Theranos. By the time the company collapsed in 2018, she had a six-figure salary and a multi-billion dollar stake in the blood testing startup.

However, an investigation by the Wall Street Journal found that the technology didn’t work as Holmes claimed it did. Now she faces a dozen fraud charges for falsely claiming that Theranos technology can perform dozens of blood tests on a drop or two of blood. She pleaded not guilty.

Despite the chaos in the final months of her reign, Holmes believed Theranos could still be saved.

Holmes achieved a partial victory this week when the judge ruled that defenders can refer to Silicon Valley’s hype culture to explain why Holmes exaggerated the technology behind Theranos.

Categories
World News

2 Individuals Discovered Responsible of Homicide of Italian Police Officer

2 Americans Found Guilty of Murder of Italian Police Officer

ROME – Two American men were found guilty of murder on Wednesday and sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of an Italian military policeman in July 2019 when the two young natives from San Francisco were vacationing in Rome.

A jury ended a 14-month trial, largely behind closed doors due to pandemic restrictions, and found Finnegan Elder, 21, and Gabriel Natale Hjorth, 20, guilty of murdering Deputy Brig. Mario Cerciello Rega, 35.

A gasp was heard in the courtroom as the verdicts were pronounced, and the slain officer’s widow leaned against her lawyer and sobbed.

The two Americans were teenagers on July 26, 2019 when an early morning argument on a deserted street corner with two plainclothes police officers – Brigadier Cerciello Rega and another officer, Andrea Varriale – became fatal.

The defense argued that the two Americans acted in self-defense during the altercation, which lasted less than a minute, believing the officers were malicious thugs. Prosecutors alleged the couple acted with murder intent.

The fight crowned a tangled evening that began with an abandoned drug deal in a trendy nightlife. After an unsuccessful attempt to buy cocaine, the two Americans stole a backpack from Sergio Brugiatelli, a middleman who brokered the drug deal, and then asked for money to return the bag.

Brigadier Cerciello Rega and his partner had been dispatched to fetch the backpack and the officer was killed on the rendezvous for the surrender.

Mr. Elder stabbed Brigadier Cerciello Rega repeatedly with a 7-inch military-style knife after they began fighting, and Mr. Natale Hjorth briefly wrestled with Officer Varriale. Mr. Elder never denied killing Brigadier Cerciello Rega but said he defended himself and believed the officer tried to suffocate him.

The teenagers were arrested a few hours after the murder at their hotel, just one block away, where Brigadier Cerciello Rega was killed.

Officer Varriale, 27, who was injured while wrestling with Mr Natale Hjorth, has repeatedly admitted to his report that he and his partner identified themselves as Carabinieri or members of the Italian military police when they approached the teenagers. When he commented last July, he said they pulled out their badges and announced themselves clearly.

The case attracted international attention partly because of the young age of the victim and the men on trial. Brigadier Cerciello Rega, who had just returned to work after his honeymoon, received a hero’s funeral which was broadcast live on national television.

The widow of Brigadier Cerciello Rega, Rosa Maria Esilio, was in the main courtroom – usually used for larger terrorist trials – when the verdict was read. After learning the charges prevailed, she hugged her husband’s brother.

Mr. Elder and Mr. Natale Hjorth have spent the past 21 months in prisons in Rome while awaiting trial and judgment.