Tag: America

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Anheuser-Busch to present away free beer when America hits its vaccination objective.

Anheuser-Busch to give away free beer when America hits its vaccination goal.

Brewing giant Anheuser-Busch said on Wednesday that he would offer Americans another incentive to get vaccinated: free beer.

The company said in a statement that it will buy “America’s next round” of beer, seltzer or soft drink once the country meets President Biden’s goal of giving 70 percent of the adult population at least one coronavirus vaccination by July 4 receive. 63 percent of American adults have received at least one dose.

“We are proud to perform in times of need as well as at times of great celebrations, and last year was no different,” said Michel Doukeris, CEO of Anheuser-Busch. “We look to brighter days with renewed optimism and are proud to work with the White House to make a meaningful impact on our country, our communities and our consumers.”

Reaching your vaccination goal by Independence Day may not be easy. The pace of vaccination in the US has slowed, but the greatest advances in recent weeks have been in vaccinating 12-15 year olds who are not eligible for the free beer. However, progress has been made to reach some groups, including Latinos and those without college degrees, with the highest rates of vaccination reluctance, according to the Kaiser Foundation.

The offer from Anheuser-Busch comes because other companies and federal states have introduced their own promotional gifts to promote vaccinations. West Virginia Governor Jim Justice said Tuesday that the state would be giving away guns and other prizes, including trucks and lifetime hunting and fishing licenses, to vaccinated residents.

Other states, including California, New Mexico and Ohio, have started lottery drawings to give out cash prizes to those vaccinated.

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Business

The Pan America Marks a New Period for Harley Davidson

The Pan America Marks a New Era for Harley Davidson

Recent years have not been kind to Harley-Davidson. Its sales have sagged, its core customers have aged, and its push toward the electric future, while newly serious, has underwhelmed so far.

In 2019, the last full year unaffected by the coronavirus, Harley shipped 218,000 motorcycles, earning $424 million in net income on $5.36 billion in revenue, healthy enough but well off its glory days. Results from the first quarter of 2021 suggest the company, which is based in Milwaukee, may be turning a financial corner, but the reality is that not enough new buyers are entering the market to offset the riders aging out of it. Harley recently made its innovative LiveWire electric model the flagship of a free-standing brand, but electric sales won’t contribute to the bottom line until there’s a more affordable model that sells in higher volume.

The company openly acknowledged these headwinds as far back as 2018, when Matt Levatich, who was the chief executive, laid out his “More Roads to Harley-Davidson” strategy. A key part of this blueprint would be to poach customers from other brands, which meant branching out from Harley’s traditional (some might say stereotypical) beefy cruisers.

Perhaps the most daring proposal was a high-tech, high-performance “adventure touring” motorcycle named the Pan America, to be powered by a new Revolution Max engine, already in development. The response was skepticism — that any Harley would be too heavy and too expensive.

The Pan America was delayed a year, during which Mr. Levatich resigned under pressure from the company’s board and after five years of falling sales. He was replaced by another board member, Jochen Zeitz, who was previously the chief executive of Puma.

Mr. Zeitz grabbed the handlebar, replacing the “More Roads” strategy with a hard-nosed approach he called “Hardwire.” He cut overhead and staff, closed some foreign subsidiaries, reduced the number of U.S. dealers and cut inventories. Additionally, he reduced the pace of new model introductions and spun off an electric bicycle division.

The plan looked like retrenchment, and some industry observers wondered if the Pan America would even be released. But the new chief was just as determined to enter this market. The result, hitting dealerships now, is a bike that is definitely not your dad’s Harley-Davidson cruiser. The audacious 1,250-cubic-centimeter Pan America Special is a shot across the bow to the European manufacturers that have long dominated this niche market.

“Before you launch into a new category, you always get the doubters and the cynics, but I don’t really care about them,” Mr. Zeitz said in an interview. “Adventure and touring are in Harley-Davidson’s DNA,” he added. “We have not been active in the adventure touring market because we didn’t have a bike, but we sure have the history. We would not have been able to build this bike if it wasn’t in the DNA of the company.”

The adventure touring category traces its roots to 1980 when BMW began selling the R 80 G/S — a model inspired by motorcycles raced in the Paris-Dakar rally. Fast-forward 40 years and BMW’s R 1250 GS is still a best seller. You’ve seen them parked in front of your local cafe — tall, brawny motorcycles with knobby tires, often accessorized with rugged aluminum side cases. They’re motorcycles that seem to say, “Today I’m just having a latte, but tomorrow I’m heading for Tierra del Fuego.”

Fans just call them “ADV” bikes. They’re all flagship models that can hold their own on the autobahn, with long-travel suspensions capable of handling fire roads or worse; they all have advanced anti-lock brakes and traction control.

Another European manufacturer, KTM, sells a Super Adventure model that’s even taller. Ducati, known for sport bikes, offers its take on the category with the Multistrada. When Ducati recently introduced adaptive cruise control to motorcycles, it did so on the Multistrada V4 S Sport.

In February, Mr. Zeitz hosted a much-ballyhooed virtual launch of the Pan America on the company’s YouTube channel. To the surprise of skeptics, the weight (the base model is 534 pounds) and the price (from $17,319) seemed competitive. (Those figures were 200 pounds and $2,000 lighter than Harley-Davidson’s most popular heavy cruisers and touring bikes.)

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Of course adventure bikes aren’t ridden virtually. The asphalt, gravel, mud and sand they must take in stride are all too real. So once the coronavirus threat had abated, the company offered test drives at a remote camp in the Mojave Desert, about 100 miles north of Los Angeles. First impressions were made over hundreds of miles of paved and unpaved roads, jeep trails and an infamous stretch of treacherous deep sand.

The model provided was the Pan America Special (which is expected to outsell the base model about two-to-one). The Special has a more expansive electronics package and semiactive suspension. As tested, the bikes weighed about 574 pounds and carried a price tag of about $21,500.

The response this time was far from underwhelming.

“I didn’t really have doubts that the engineers could do a good job,” said Kevin Duke, the editor in chief at Thunder Press, who has been writing about motorcycles for 25 years. “But I was skeptical that they could enter a new market segment and be that good right out of the box.”

Mr. Duke was so impressed by his test ride that it changed his attitude about the company. “The news about Harley for the past couple of years has been quite pessimistic,” he said. “With the older demographic aging out, there was no real hint at what the company could do to gain market share, but this really changes it. The new motor is that good.”

Harley-Davidson calls itself the Motor Company. True to that slogan, engineers acknowledge that they created the motor first and then asked themselves what they could do with it.

The only thing the Revolution Max has in common with other Harley engines is that it’s a V-twin. It produces 150 horsepower and revs to 9,500 r.p.m. — roughly double the red line of its cruiser cousins. Forget the laconic “potato-potato” exhaust note of those slow-revving traditional cruisers; this one roars.

The new motor features a balance shaft so effective that engineers admitted to putting a little vibration back in so it would feel “like a Harley.” It features computer-controlled variable valve timing that is more sophisticated than anything else in the market. The result is a motor that’s ferocious when used aggressively but docile when it has to be, at slow speeds on tricky terrain.

Like the other motorcycles in this class, the Pan America offers a range of ride modes that adjust throttle response, anti-lock brake settings and traction control for rain, “street” or “sport” road settings, as well as two off-road settings. Owners can also create their own ride modes.

Harley raised the stakes with a first for any motorcycle: The Special’s semiactive suspension continuously adjusts to suit the weight of rider, passenger and luggage; terrain encountered; and riding style.

Adventure touring bikes need extra ground clearance and long-travel suspension. As a result, seat heights reach 37 inches — they’re intimidating, even for tall riders. A $1,000 Adaptive Ride Height option on the Pan America Special lowers the suspension as the motorcycle comes to a stop. It is a game changer for shorter or less-experienced riders.

Off-road performance drives bragging rights in the ADV category. But another thing that these motorcycles have in common with Land Rovers and Mercedes-Benz G-wagons — besides being rangy, rugged and expensive — is that they’re driven on paved roads 99 percent of the time.

ADV bikes are just as fun to ride on a winding road as any sport bike. Many motorcyclists graduate to ADVs when their knees, wrists and shoulders can no longer handle a crouched riding position. And unlike conventional road motorcycles, ADVs give riders the option of striking off on paths less taken. That’s why ADVs are popular in Europe (where Harley-Davidson would love to increase its market share of 3 to 4 percent) and becoming more popular here.

Before embarking on the Pan America project, Harley-Davidson surveyed its customers. Many of them already owned or were considering an adventure motorcycle. The Pan America gives those customers a made-in-America option. (The Revolution Max engines are manufactured in Milwaukee; the motorcycles are assembled in York, Pa.) Another upside to a Harley that the European makers can’t match: its extensive dealer network.

Every Harley dealer, roughly 600 of them, will carry the Pan America — a decision made easier because customers raced to put down deposits before the machines hit sales floors.

Under Mr. Zeitz, Harley-Davidson has been careful to build dealer enthusiasm. Dealers who hit certain targets have already cycled through Harley’s training camp in the Mojave, so they’ll be able to talk the talk when a new kind of customer walks through the door.

When those customers ride away, whether it’s to Starbucks or South America, the Pan America will be right at home.

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Business

The Luckiest Employees in America? Youngsters.

The Luckiest Workers in America? Teenagers.

Roller coaster riders and lemonade slingers at Kennywood Amusement Park, a summer staple in Pittsburgh, don’t have to buy their own uniforms this year. Those with a high school diploma also earn $ 13 as a starting wage – up from $ 9 last year – and new hires get free season passes for themselves and their families.

The high wages and perks for Kennywood’s seasonal workers, where nearly half of the workforce are under the age of 18, reflect what happens across the country as employers seek to hire waiters, receptionists, and other service workers to meet rising demand satisfy when the economy opens up again.

For American teenagers looking for work, this may be their best summer in years.

With businesses trying to get filled from barely occupied to full practically overnight, teenagers seem to win more than any other demographic. The proportion of 16-19 year olds in work has not been so high since 2008, before the spreading global financial crisis led to a decline in employment. Around 256,000 young people in this age group found employment in April – which makes up the vast majority of those newly hired – a significant change after young people suffered severe job losses at the start of the pandemic. Whether the trend can hold will be clearer when the job data for May is released on Friday.

It could have a downside. Some educators warn that jobs can be a distraction from school. And while employment itself can provide learning opportunities, the recent wave of recruitment has been led by white teenagers, raising concerns that minority youth may miss out on a hot summer job market.

“A rising tide doesn’t raise all boats,” said Alicia Sasser Modestino, an economist at Northeastern University who studies labor markets for young people. Still, “There could be some really good opportunities for teenagers that we haven’t seen in a long time – that’s good.”

For Hayley Bailley, a 17-year-old from Irwin, Pennsylvania, Kennywood’s summer hiring spurt meant an opportunity to earn more for the car she wants to buy. Ms. Bailley, a high school graduate, was excited to take a job running an antique roller coaster and snapping people into paddle boats when she believed she was paying $ 9. When she found out the park was raising the pay to $ 13 an hour, she was delighted.

“I love it,” she said. She doesn’t even mind walking backwards on the carousel to make sure everyone is driving safely, though it can be confusing. “After you see the little kids and they give you high fives, it doesn’t matter at all.”

It’s not just Kennywood who pays. According to Luke Pardue, an economist with the company, in a database compiled by payroll platform Gusto, small businesses have raised wages for youth in the service sector in recent months. Teens had taken a blow at the start of the pandemic but returned to their pre-coronavirus wage levels in March 2021 and spent the first half of May hurrying their wages beyond that.

“It’s great that business and small businesses have this pressure relief valve,” said Pardue. “From the perspective of gaining experience and also earning money, this is a positive development.”

For employers, young people can be a critical new source of labor at a time when demand is growing and vacancies are not filled.

Health concerns and childcare challenges seem to deter some older workers from finding work quickly. Extended unemployment insurance benefits can also give workers the financial cushion they need for better opportunities. These challenges are compounded by the fact that the United States issued far fewer work visas to immigrants during the pandemic due to travel and other restrictions. As a result, there is a lack of employees from abroad who normally fill temporary, agricultural and seasonal positions.

The recruitment crisis is felt across the country.

Cape Cod restaurants have long relied on seasonal workers to prepare lobster rolls and maintain bar and bus tables. However, it has become difficult to fill jobs with fewer overseas workers and rising property prices are keeping local seasonal workers out, said Will Moore, manager at Spankys Clam Shack and Seaside Saloon in Hyannis, Mass.

“I think everyone’s hoping that when the college kids get here and the high school kids graduate, band aids will come over the holes,” he said.

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May 28, 2021 at 12:54 p.m. ET

With temperatures rising in Henderson, Kentucky, officials feared they would not have enough lifeguards to open their only public swimming pool for the summer.

By mid-May, they had around six applicants for the position, paying a starting salary of $ 8.50 an hour. The city requires a minimum of eight lifeguards a day to keep the entire pool safe. The limited interest reflected a perfect storm: the pool was not opened last year due to the pandemic, so lifeguards could not be hired as of 2020, and youth workers were welcomed by higher wages on local fast food and big box retail jobs lured.

The city government increased the starting salary to $ 10 an hour on May 25 and lowered the minimum age for applicants from 16 to 15 years. It seems to have worked: more teenagers applied and the city has started surveying candidates for the vacancies.

“It seems that a lot of entry-level retail salaries really increased between 2020 and 2021, and we just had to catch up if we were to be competitive and attract qualified applicants,” said Trace Stevens, City Park Director and Recreation.

Teens make more than just thicker paychecks when employers try to attract applicants. Kennywood employees receive seasonal parking passes for themselves and three family members – a bonus worth around $ 300. Applebee’s offered an “Apps for Apps” deal in which interviewed applicants received a free starter voucher. Restaurants and gas stations across the country are offering signing bonuses.

But the benefits and better pay may not reach everyone. White teens lost their jobs sharply at the start of the pandemic, and led the gains in 2021, although black teens added comparatively few and Hispanic teens actually lost jobs. This continues a long-term disparity with white teens working in much larger numbers, and the gap could worsen if the current trajectory continues.

Restricted access to transport is one factor that can deter minority youth from work, said Ms. Sasser Modestino. While places like Cape Cod and suburbs begin to boom, pedestrian traffic remains low in some urban centers on public transportation, which can put youth who live in cities at a disadvantage.

“We haven’t seen the demand yet,” said Joseph McLaughlin, director of research and evaluation at Boston Private Industry Council, who helps students with paid internships and helps others apply to private employers such as grocery stores.

Ms. Sasser Modestino’s research has shown that the long-term decline in youth work is partly due to a shift towards study preparation and internships, but that many young people still need and want jobs for economic reasons. But the types of jobs teenagers have traditionally held have dwindled – blockbuster gigs are a thing of the past – and older workers are increasingly filling them.

Teens who benefit now may not have a cheap job market in the long run, said Anthony P. Carnevale, director of the Center for Education and Labor at Georgetown University.

“There can certainly be a brief positive effect as young people can move into many occupations that adults have declined in for some reason,” he said. “It will only be temporary because we always take care of the adults first.”

Educators have raised another concern: that today’s numerous and successful teenage jobs could distract students from their studies.

When classes resumed last August at Torrington High School, which serves 330 students in a small Wyoming town, headmaster Chase Christensen found that about 10 of his senior students were not returning. They had taken full-time jobs, including night shifts in a nursing home and working in a gravel pit, and were reluctant to give up the money. Five have dropped out or not graduated from high school since then.

“They got used to paying a full-time worker,” Christensen said. “You get jobs that high schoolers don’t normally get.”

If better career prospects in the short term overtake teenagers’ plans for additional education or training, it could also create problems. Economic research consistently finds that those who manage to get additional training have better-paying careers.

Nonetheless, Ms. Sasser Modestino pointed out that much of the hiring is now for summer jobs, which are less likely to disrupt school. And there can be advantages. For people like Ms. Bailley, this represents an opportunity to save on textbooks and lessons. She wants to go to community college to qualify and then get an engineering degree.

“I’ve always been interested in robots, I love programming and coding,” she explained, saying that learning how roller coasters work fits with her academic interests.

Shaylah Bentley, 18, and a new season ticket at Kennywood, said the above-expected wage she earns will allow her to decorate her dormitory at Slippery Rock University. She is on the advance for the second year this year and is studying sports science.

“I wanted to save money on school and expenses,” she said. “And have something to do this summer.”

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World News

Manitoba is now the worst sizzling spot in North America, with its hospitals overwhelmed.

Manitoba is now the worst hot spot in North America, with its hospitals overwhelmed.

The coronavirus is now spreading faster in Manitoba than any other province or state in Canada, the United States, or Mexico. Indigenous and colored people are disproportionately affected.

Figures released on Wednesday show that the Prairie Province of central Canada has reported an average of 35 new cases per 100,000 per day over the past two weeks. Canada as a whole averages 10 per 100,000 per day; the United States 7 per 100,000; and Mexico 2 per 100,000. The next higher states or provinces are Alberta with 16 and Colorado with 15.

Dr. Marcia Anderson, the leader of the Manitoba First Nation Pandemic Response Coordination Team for public health, told reporters Wednesday that from the beginning of the month through May 19, 61 percent of the cases in Manitoba were indigenous and other non-white people, despite being 37 Make up percent of the province’s population.

People of Southeast Asian descent are most disproportionately affected at 146 per 1,000 people, 13 times the rate among whites.

The surge in Covid-19 cases has overwhelmed intensive care units at Manitoba hospitals, forcing some patients to be evacuated by air to other provinces. Eighteen patients were flown to neighboring Ontario, including some to Ottawa, about 1,000 miles away. Saskatchewan, the province to the west, was due to receive an evacuated patient from Manitoba on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, a group of doctors urged the province to follow the example of Ontario and others by introducing a stay-at-home order and closing non-essential businesses. These steps have allowed other provinces to contain their recent waves of infections.

Shops in Manitoba were limited to 10 percent of capacity, and gyms and hair salons have been closed for several weeks. On Tuesday, Provincial Prime Minister Brian Pallister extended the restrictions on outdoor gatherings held last weekend. They now last until the end of this week.

Mr Pallister suggested Tuesday that the worsening situation in the province was not caused by too few restrictions, but rather by people not complying with the restrictions already in place.

“I no longer have much sympathy for people who knowingly and willingly violate public health rules,” he said.

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Business

One America Information Community Stays True to Trump

One America News Network Stays True to Trump

Months after President Biden’s inauguration, One America News Network, a right-wing cable news broadcaster that is available in approximately 35 million households, continued to air segments that cast doubt on the validity of the 2020 presidential election.

“There are still serious doubts about who is actually president,” OAN correspondent Pearson Sharp said in a March 28 report.

This segment was one of a series of similar reports from a channel that has become sort of Trump TV for the post-Trump era, a point of sale whose coverage coincides with the former president’s grievances at a time when he was from Excluding the main social media platforms.

Some of OAN’s reporting was not fully supported by staff. In interviews with 18 current and former OAN newsroom staff, 16 said the broadcaster had broadcast reports they considered misleading, inaccurate or untrue.

According to much of the OAN coverage, it is almost as if there was never a transfer of power. The broadcaster did not broadcast live coverage of Mr. Biden’s swearing-in ceremony and inaugural address. Through April, Donald J. Trump was consistently referred to as “President Trump” and President Biden only as “Joe Biden” or “Biden” in news articles on the OAN website. This practice is not followed by other news organizations including OAN competitor Newsmax, a conservative cable channel and news site.

OAN has also advocated the debunked theory that the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6 were leftist agitators. Towards the end of a March 4 news segment describing the attack as the work of “anti-fascists” and “anti-Trump extremists” and describing the president as “Beijing Biden,” Mr. Sharp said, “History will tell that it was the Democrats, and not the Republicans, who called for this violence. “Research has found no evidence that people who identify with Antifa, a loose collective of anti-fascist activists, were implicated in the Capitol uprising.

Charles Herring, president of Herring Networks, the company that owns OAN, defended the reports that cast doubt on the election. “Based on our research, the November 2020 elections clearly revealed irregularities among voters,” he said. “The real question is to what extent.”

Herring Networks was founded by Mr. Hering’s father, technology entrepreneur Robert Herring, who ran the OAN at the age of 79 with Charles and one other son, Robert Jr. Around 150 employees work for the station at its headquarters in San Diego.

Nielsen does not report viewership statistics for OAN that is not a Nielsen client. (Charles Herring quoted Nielsen’s “high fees”.) In a poll last month, Pew Research reported that 7 percent of Americans, including 14 percent of Republicans, had received political news from the OAN. In contrast, 43 percent of Americans and 62 percent of Republicans received political news from Fox News, according to the poll.

While OAN appeals to a relatively small audience, its coverage reflects the views of Republicans. In a Reuters / Ipsos poll last month, around half of Republicans said the January 6 attack, which killed five people, was largely a nonviolent protest or the work of leftist activists. Six in ten Republicans polled said they believed Mr Trump’s claim that the election was “stolen”.

OAN, which began in 2013, gained attention when it fully aired Mr Trump’s campaign speeches ahead of the 2016 election. In the past few months, it has been courting viewers who may have felt abandoned by Fox News. On election night, it was the first news agency to project Mr. Biden as the winner from Arizona, a major swing state. In an advertisement in mid-November, OAN accused Fox News of “joining the mainstream media in censoring factual reports.”

OAN’s stories “speak to people who want to believe the choice was illegitimate,” said Stephanie L. Edgerly, associate professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. “These are two mutually reinforcing narratives from people who believe it and want to keep fueling the fire of OAN.”

Marty Golingan, who has been the station’s producer since 2016, said OAN has changed in recent years. When he first started, the company focused more on neutral reporting based on reports from The Associated Press or Reuters. He saw it as a scratchy upstart to produce naughty feature films, he said.

It moved to the right during the Trump presidency, Golingan said. And as he watched the coverage of the pro-Trump crowd breaking into the Capitol, he feared that his work might inspire the attack.

He added that he and others at OAN disagreed with much of the broadcaster’s coverage. “The majority of people did not believe that the allegations of electoral fraud are in the air,” Golingan said in an interview, referring to his colleagues.

He remembered seeing a photo of someone in the Capitol holding a flag with the OAN logo on it. “I thought, OK, this is not good,” said Mr. Golingan. “That happens when people listen to us.”

Charles Herring defended OAN’s coverage. “A review process with multiple reviews is in place to ensure reporting is up to the company’s journalistic standards,” he said. “And yes, we’ve had a lot of mistakes, but we’re doing our best to keep them to a minimum and learn from our missteps.”

Mr. Golingan added that Lindsay Oakley, the OAN’s news director, had reprimanded him since Inauguration Day for copying Mr. Biden as “President Biden”. Ms. Oakley did not respond to requests for comment.

“OAN White House staff use the term President Biden and then possibly Mr. Biden,” said Charles Herring. “The term biden or biden administration can also be used.” He declined to respond to a question about the broadcaster’s use of “President Trump” for Mr. Trump.

Allysia Britton, a news producer, said she was one of more than a dozen employees who left OAN after the Capitol uprising. She criticized some of the station’s reports, saying it did not meet journalistic standards.

“Many people have raised concerns,” Ms. Britton said in an interview. “And the thing is, if people talk about anything, you’re going to get in trouble.”

Charles Herring confirmed that about a dozen OAN employees had left in the past few months, saying many of them were not high-level employees.

OAN employees refer to orders in which the older Mr. Herring has a particular interest as “H-stories”, said several current and former employees. The day after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, Mr Herring instructed OAN staff in an email audited by the New York Times to “report all things Antifa did yesterday”.

Some “H-Stories” are reported by Kristian Rouz, an OAN correspondent who wrote for Sputnik, a website supported by the Russian government. In a report on the pandemic in May, Rouz said Covid-19 may have started as a “globalist conspiracy to establish comprehensive population control,” ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, billionaires George Soros and Bill Gates, and “The Deep State.”

Ms. Britton, the former OAN producer, recalled checking out a website that Mr. Rouz had quoted in support of some of his reports. “It literally took me to this chat room where it’s only conservatives commenting on each other,” she said.

In an email to staff last month, Ms. Oakley, the news director, warned producers not to ignore or downplay Mr. Rouz’s work. “His stories should be viewed and treated as ‘H-stories’,” she wrote in the email The Times checked. “These stories are often broken up and copied by ME according to Mr. H’s instructions.”

OAN’s online audience is significant with nearly 1.5 million subscribers to the YouTube channel. In one of the most popular videos, with around 1.5 million views since its November 24th launch, Dominion Voting Systems, the voting technology company whose equipment has been used in more than two dozen states over the past year, including several made by Mr. . Trump were won. The video, hosted by OAN White House correspondent Chanel Rion, shows a man saying he infiltrated Dominion and company executives said they would “make sure” Mr. Trump lost.

Dominion has sued Fox News and two of Mr. Trump’s attorneys, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sidney Powell, on charges of making or promoting defamatory claims. A Dominion attorney who failed to respond to requests for comment said the company was considering further legal action.

Mr Golingan, the producer, said some OAN employees were hoping Dominion would sue the channel. “A lot of people said, ‘This is crazy and if they sue us we might stop posting stories like that,'” he said.

Weeks after Dominion filed its first libel suits, OAN broadcast a two-hour video in which MyPillow executive director Mike Lindell presented his case that there had been widespread electoral fraud. YouTube removed the video the day it was posted, saying it violated the platform’s election integrity policy. Last month, Dominion’s “voting machines” were described as “infamous” in an OAN report.

Two of the current and former employees interviewed for this article – Dan Ball, a talk show host, and Neil W. McCabe, a former reporter – said OAN’s coverage was impartial. Mr McCabe, now a writer for The Tennessee Star, said the network gave “a voice to people who just aren’t covered”.

Susan Beachy contributed to the research.

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Politics

One America Information Community Stays True to Trump

One America News Network Stays True to Trump

Months after President Biden’s inauguration, One America News Network, a right-wing cable news broadcaster that is available in approximately 35 million households, continued to air segments that cast doubt on the validity of the 2020 presidential election.

“There are still serious doubts about who is actually president,” OAN correspondent Pearson Sharp said in a March 28 report.

This segment was one of a series of similar reports from a channel that has become sort of Trump TV for the post-Trump era, a point of sale whose coverage coincides with the former president’s grievances at a time when he was from Excluding the main social media platforms.

Some of OAN’s reporting was not fully supported by staff. In interviews with 18 current and former OAN newsroom staff, 16 said the broadcaster had broadcast reports they considered misleading, inaccurate or untrue.

According to much of the OAN coverage, it is almost as if there was never a transfer of power. The broadcaster did not broadcast live coverage of Mr. Biden’s swearing-in ceremony and inaugural address. Through April, Donald J. Trump was consistently referred to as “President Trump” and President Biden only as “Joe Biden” or “Biden” in news articles on the OAN website. This practice is not followed by other news organizations including OAN competitor Newsmax, a conservative cable channel and news site.

OAN has also advocated the debunked theory that the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6 were leftist agitators. Towards the end of a March 4 news segment describing the attack as the work of “anti-fascists” and “anti-Trump extremists” and describing the president as “Beijing Biden,” Mr. Sharp said, “History will tell that it was the Democrats, and not the Republicans, who called for this violence. “Research has found no evidence that people who identify with Antifa, a loose collective of anti-fascist activists, were implicated in the Capitol uprising.

Charles Herring, president of Herring Networks, the company that owns OAN, defended the reports that cast doubt on the election. “Based on our research, the November 2020 elections clearly revealed irregularities among voters,” he said. “The real question is to what extent.”

Herring Networks was founded by Mr. Hering’s father, technology entrepreneur Robert Herring, who ran the OAN at the age of 79 with Charles and one other son, Robert Jr. Around 150 employees work for the station at its headquarters in San Diego.

Nielsen does not report viewership statistics for OAN that is not a Nielsen client. (Charles Herring quoted Nielsen’s “high fees”.) In a poll last month, Pew Research reported that 7 percent of Americans, including 14 percent of Republicans, had received political news from the OAN. In contrast, 43 percent of Americans and 62 percent of Republicans received political news from Fox News, according to the poll.

While OAN appeals to a relatively small audience, its coverage reflects the views of Republicans. In a Reuters / Ipsos poll last month, around half of Republicans said the January 6 attack, which killed five people, was largely a nonviolent protest or the work of leftist activists. Six in ten Republicans polled said they believed Mr Trump’s claim that the election was “stolen”.

OAN, which began in 2013, gained attention when it fully aired Mr Trump’s campaign speeches ahead of the 2016 election. In the past few months, it has been courting viewers who may have felt abandoned by Fox News. On election night, it was the first news agency to project Mr. Biden as the winner from Arizona, a major swing state. In an advertisement in mid-November, OAN accused Fox News of “joining the mainstream media in censoring factual reports.”

OAN’s stories “speak to people who want to believe the choice was illegitimate,” said Stephanie L. Edgerly, associate professor at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. “These are two mutually reinforcing narratives from people who believe it and want to keep fueling the fire of OAN.”

Marty Golingan, who has been the station’s producer since 2016, said OAN has changed in recent years. When he first started, the company focused more on neutral reporting based on reports from The Associated Press or Reuters. He saw it as a scratchy upstart to produce naughty feature films, he said.

It moved to the right during the Trump presidency, Golingan said. And as he watched the coverage of the pro-Trump crowd breaking into the Capitol, he feared that his work might inspire the attack.

He added that he and others at OAN disagreed with much of the broadcaster’s coverage. “The majority of people did not believe that the allegations of electoral fraud are in the air,” Golingan said in an interview, referring to his colleagues.

He remembered seeing a photo of someone in the Capitol holding a flag with the OAN logo on it. “I thought, OK, this is not good,” said Mr. Golingan. “That happens when people listen to us.”

Charles Herring defended OAN’s coverage. “A review process with multiple reviews is in place to ensure reporting is up to the company’s journalistic standards,” he said. “And yes, we’ve had a lot of mistakes, but we’re doing our best to keep them to a minimum and learn from our missteps.”

Mr. Golingan added that Lindsay Oakley, the OAN’s news director, had reprimanded him since Inauguration Day for copying Mr. Biden as “President Biden”. Ms. Oakley did not respond to requests for comment.

“OAN White House staff use the term President Biden and then possibly Mr. Biden,” said Charles Herring. “The term biden or biden administration can also be used.” He declined to respond to a question about the broadcaster’s use of “President Trump” for Mr. Trump.

Allysia Britton, a news producer, said she was one of more than a dozen employees who left OAN after the Capitol uprising. She criticized some of the station’s reports, saying it did not meet journalistic standards.

“Many people have raised concerns,” Ms. Britton said in an interview. “And the thing is, if people talk about anything, you’re going to get in trouble.”

Charles Herring confirmed that about a dozen OAN employees had left in the past few months, saying many of them were not high-level employees.

OAN employees refer to orders in which the older Mr. Herring has a particular interest as “H-stories”, said several current and former employees. The day after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol, Mr Herring instructed OAN staff in an email audited by the New York Times to “report all things Antifa did yesterday”.

Some “H-Stories” are reported by Kristian Rouz, an OAN correspondent who wrote for Sputnik, a website supported by the Russian government. In a report on the pandemic in May, Rouz said Covid-19 may have started as a “globalist conspiracy to establish comprehensive population control,” ties to Bill and Hillary Clinton, billionaires George Soros and Bill Gates, and “The Deep State.”

Ms. Britton, the former OAN producer, recalled checking out a website that Mr. Rouz had quoted in support of some of his reports. “It literally took me to this chat room where it’s only conservatives commenting on each other,” she said.

In an email to staff last month, Ms. Oakley, the news director, warned producers not to ignore or downplay Mr. Rouz’s work. “His stories should be viewed and treated as ‘H-stories’,” she wrote in the email The Times checked. “These stories are often broken up and copied by ME according to Mr. H’s instructions.”

OAN’s online audience is significant with nearly 1.5 million subscribers to the YouTube channel. In one of the most popular videos, with around 1.5 million views since its November 24th launch, Dominion Voting Systems, the voting technology company whose equipment has been used in more than two dozen states over the past year, including several made by Mr. . Trump were won. The video, hosted by OAN White House correspondent Chanel Rion, shows a man saying he infiltrated Dominion and company executives said they would “make sure” Mr. Trump lost.

Dominion has sued Fox News and two of Mr. Trump’s attorneys, Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sidney Powell, on charges of making or promoting defamatory claims. A Dominion attorney who failed to respond to requests for comment said the company was considering further legal action.

Mr Golingan, the producer, said some OAN employees were hoping Dominion would sue the channel. “A lot of people said, ‘This is crazy and if they sue us we might stop posting stories like that,'” he said.

Weeks after Dominion filed its first libel suits, OAN broadcast a two-hour video in which MyPillow executive director Mike Lindell presented his case that there had been widespread electoral fraud. YouTube removed the video the day it was posted, saying it violated the platform’s election integrity policy. Last month, Dominion’s “voting machines” were described as “infamous” in an OAN report.

Two of the current and former employees interviewed for this article – Dan Ball, a talk show host, and Neil W. McCabe, a former reporter – said OAN’s coverage was impartial. Mr McCabe, now a writer for The Tennessee Star, said the network gave “a voice to people who just aren’t covered”.

Susan Beachy contributed to the research.

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Business

Ford slashes automobile manufacturing at six vegetation in North America as a consequence of chip scarcity

Ford F-150 production cut due to semiconductor chip shortage

Ford Motor is significantly reducing production at six plants in North America due to the ongoing global shortage of semiconductor chips, including facilities that make highly profitable pick-ups.

Measures vary by plant, but range from overtime cancellations to facilities closed for up to three weeks from April to June. Or a combination of both.

The affected plants are located in Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, and Ontario, Canada. They manufacture a wide range of products – from F-150 pickups and vans to Ford Explorer SUVs and Ford Escape Crossovers.

Production of the F-150 in Dearborn, Michigan, will cease in the weeks of April 5th through April 12th, the company said. Ford is also canceling overtime at the factory in the weeks of April 26, May 10, May 31, and June 21. Another facility in Missouri that will manufacture the full-size F-150 will be shut down for a week starting Monday. Overtime at the plant will be suspended for eight weeks through most of June.

Semiconductors are key components that are used, among other things, in the infotainment, power steering and braking systems of new vehicles. With several plants closed due to Covid last year, suppliers turned semiconductors from automakers to other industries, creating a shortage after consumer demand fell more than expected.

Ford previously expected the shortage could cut its profits by $ 1 billion to $ 2.5 billion in 2021. Without releasing any new guidance, the company said it would “provide an update on the financial implications of semiconductor shortages” when it reports its first quarter earnings on April 28th.

This is a developing story. Check back soon for more updates.

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Politics

Construct America Bonds could also be key to financing Biden infrastructure plans

Build America Bonds may be key to financing Biden infrastructure plans

Republicans and Democrats agree that the US desperately needs a major infrastructure overhaul and that Congress should at least approve significant repairs to roads and bridges.

The violent disagreement between the two parties begins with which provisions are worth adding to the federal deficit and how such a massive enterprise can be funded.

And while Wall Street worries about potential increases in corporate and individual income tax rates, Democrats could soon turn to an Obama-era tool to fund their infrastructure plans: Build America Bonds.

BABs are special municipal bonds that enable states and counties to pay off debts with interest costs subsidized by the federal government. This underwriting not only helped to relieve nervous investors after the financial crisis, but also made municipal debt even more attractive, with interest rates sometimes exceeding 7%.

This approach could be especially helpful as President Joe Biden is pushing his infrastructure forward, especially after the high price of his $ 1.9 trillion Covid-19 aid package. Even the most modest estimates put the cost of repairing the country’s infrastructure in the trillions of dollars.

According to a report released by the American Society of Civil Engineers in early March, the country’s total infrastructure needs will be nearly $ 6 trillion over the next 10 years. It is said there is a $ 125 billion backlog on bridge repairs, a $ 435 billion backlog for roads, and a $ 176 billion backlog for transit systems.

Those amounts, just for repairs already deemed necessary, come before the expansive and innovative technology that the Democrats are looking to include in Biden’s upcoming bill. The White House is expected to come up with a bill worth at least $ 3 trillion and include a litany of infrastructure and welfare programs.

Biden for BABs?

Vikram Rai, head of Citi’s municipal bond strategy, believes Build America Bonds are the answer.

Build America Bonds entered US markets more than a decade ago when the Obama administration was looking for ways to fund capital projects across the country and stimulate the economy after the great recession.

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The beauty of subsidizing the interest associated with Muni bonds, Rai says, is that every dollar the federal government spends helps strengthen the integrity of larger spending projects that legally only states and communities can operate.

The federal government owns less than 10% of the national infrastructure, while the rest is run by states, cities, and the private sector.

“That $ 2 trillion, $ 3 trillion price tag – that’s not really accurate because the only way the price is that high is when the federal government grants state and local governments,” Rai said in a phone interview in early March.

If the federal government subscribes to BABs, states and cities can issue far more debt than investors would otherwise accept, with no astronomical interest costs and doubts as to whether they could repay.

“What a lot of people don’t realize is that just a few tax increases – like increasing the corporate tax rate or introducing a carbon tax – even those very minor tax increases are more than enough to fund the initial outlay on infrastructure projects,” Rai said.

“These projects are ultimately self-sustaining,” he added. “There is a magnifying glass effect, a stimulating effect: it creates employment, it creates tax revenue. So it’s child’s play.”

Rai added at the time that it is almost certain that the White House is considering BABs among a variety of funding options.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg later confirmed Friday, after this story was originally published, that the administration is considering the bonds among other funding options.

“I hear a lot of appetite that there are sustainable flows of funding,” said Buttigieg. Build America Bonds “show promise in terms of the way we use this type of funding. There have also been ideas about things like a national infrastructure bank.”

A critical characteristic of BABs is that, unlike 83% of the municipal bond market, they are taxed by the federal government.

Most of the bonds issued by state and local governments under “normal” terms are attractive to investors because the interest is generally exempt from federal income tax. As a result, US investors are willing to accept a lower interest rate than they would otherwise charge.

However, for overseas investors, US municipal bond rates are still taxable from their home country, so they are typically apathetic, low-yielding debt issued in the US

By making BABs subject to federal taxes, state and local governments are forced to offer higher interest rates on their bonds in order to guarantee investors the same effective return.

Given that overseas investors, with their multi-trillion dollar demand base, have shown an unwavering interest in investing in US infrastructure, they would be keen to see a taxable structure. This is because, according to Rai, from her point of view, BABs are indistinguishable from a conventional taxable bond.

Political dangers

The downside to BABs, while they may be more effective than grants made for that amount, is that the federal government is still paying billions of dollars in interest costs by the time the BABs mature.

The Obama-era program, which had no annual caps and subsidized interest costs of 35%, expired in late 2010 after states and communities sold more than $ 180 billion of the bonds, far more than the federal government originally expected.

Some lawmakers, such as Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore, continue to support the program and are open to the possibility that they could play a role again in future infrastructure initiatives.

“Build America Bonds were an overwhelming success on the Recovery Act,” Wyden, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, told CNBC on Wednesday. “I’m incredibly proud of this program and a similar funding structure will be part of the conversation as we move forward.”

Leading Republicans, on the other hand, were fed up with the costs associated with BABs by 2011. GOP lawmakers said the federal government’s pledge to subsidize 35% of interest payments on local bonds was too high.

Former Senator Orrin Hatch, then the senior Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, said in February 2011 that the bonds were “simply a disguised government bailout” that had helped New York and California disproportionately.

“These bonds rightly expired in late 2010, and I hope the Obama administration does not try to revive such a nonsensical provision in its upcoming budget,” he said at the time.

Senator Pat Toomey, R-Penn., A member of the Senate Finance Committee, is a “no” to the bond revival.

“State and local governments have never been more cashless. In addition to the record tax rallies last year, Congress sent them $ 500 billion. Despite all of this, Congress sent them another $ 350 billion that they didn’t need two weeks ago.” he told CNBC on Friday. “So no, I don’t support misallocating billions of dollars more to incentivize potentially unworthy projects and to encourage bankrupt or irresponsible state and local governments to take on even more debt.”

Rai acknowledged that appetites for BABs can vary depending on the creditworthiness of each state. States like New York with stronger balance sheets may be more attractive than Illinois.

He countered, however, that even cities in Illinois could see significant revenue generation from BABs if the state works to stop local municipal borrowing. The federal government’s pledge to subsidize interest costs could be cut from 35% to 30% or even 28%, as the Democrats proposed in 2011, Rai said.

Given the plight of national infrastructure, some Republicans may see BABs as a compelling option for funding infrastructure projects that will ultimately pay for themselves in job creation and tax revenue over time.

Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker, the highest ranking GOP member on the Commerce Committee, co-sponsored a bill in 2020 with Senator Michael Bennet, D-Colo., Calling for a revival of the BABs with certain improvements.

As with BABs, their so-called American Infrastructure Bonds program would create a class of taxable “direct-pay” municipal bonds to help troubled governments fund critical public projects.

The Wicker and Bennet bonds would be exempt from seizure, the process by which Congress has gradually undermined the level of its payments to fund the original class of BABs.

“Enabling our local executives to launch critical infrastructure projects is a proven and cost-effective way to help our communities get out of severe financial difficulties with assets that will add value to the region over the years,” Wicker said in a press release dated July.

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Politics

How 535,000 Covid Deaths Spurred Political Awakenings Throughout America

How 535,000 Covid Deaths Spurred Political Awakenings Across America

Pamela Addison is, in her own words, “one of the shyest people in the world”. Certainly not the kind of person to file a comment on a newspaper, set up a stranger support group, or ask a United States senator to vote for $ 1.9 trillion.

No one is more surprised than she that she has done all of these things in the past five months.

Her husband Martin Addison, a 44-year-old health care worker in New Jersey, died on April 29 after a month of illness from the coronavirus. The last time she saw him was when he was loaded into an ambulance. At 37, Ms. Addison had to look after a 2-year-old daughter and a young son and make ends meet on her own.

“Seeing the impact my story had on people – it was very therapeutic and healing for me,” she said. “And knowing that I am doing it to honor my husband is what gives me the greatest pleasure because I am doing it for him.”

With the staggering coronavirus death toll in the United States – more than 535,000 people – come thousands of stories like theirs. Many people who have lost loved ones or whose lives have been compromised by long-distance ailments have turned to policy, soliciting responses and new guidelines from a government whose failures under the Trump administration allowed the country to become one of the hardest hit countries are going through the pandemic.

There’s Marjorie Roberts, who got sick while running a gift shop in an Atlanta hospital and now has lung scars. Mary Wilson-Snipes, who is still on oxygen more than two months after she returned from the hospital. John Lancos, who lost his 41-year-old wife on April 23. Janis Clark, who lost her 38-year-old husband on the same day.

In January, she and dozens of others took advocacy training on Zoom given by a group called Covid Survivors for Change. This month, the group organized virtual meetings with the offices of 16 Senators – 10 Democrats and six Republicans – and more than 50 group members campaigning for the coronavirus relief package.

The immediate purpose of the training was to get people, who in many cases had never attended a school council meeting, to do things like lobbying for a senator. The long term purpose was to address the problem of numbers.

Numbers are dehumanizing, as activists like to say. In sufficient quantities – for example 536,472 as of Wednesday morning – they are also numbing. It is for this reason that converting numbers into people is so often the job of activists seeking to change their policies after a tragedy.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving, founded by a woman whose daughter was killed by a drunk driver, did that. Groups promoting stricter gun laws, such as Moms Demand Action and March for Our Lives, have tried to do this. Now, some coronavirus survivors think it’s their turn.

“This bond, this collective national trauma, is almost too difficult for people to grasp,” said Chris Kocher, executive director of Covid Survivors for Change who previously worked with gun violence survivors at Everytown for Gun Safety. “But you can understand a story and a lived life.”

Mr Kocher started organizing CSC last summer – on a “minimal” budget, he said – and the group kicked off publicly in October with a memorial service with Dionne Warwick.

Just before campaigning for their Senators on March 3, CSC members heard from someone who was once in their position: Georgia representative Lucy McBath, who joined Moms Demand Action after her son Jordan Davis was killed in 2012. She discussed her own experiences of transitioning from personal tragedy to political activism and how survivors’ stories might influence elected officials.

A CSC member, Ms. Wilson-Snipes, 52, also worked with Moms Demand Action. She started a chapter in Junction City, Kan. After her son Felix was fatally shot in 2018. In November she got Covid-19 and was hospitalized with pneumonia.

Ms. Wilson-Snipes came home on Christmas Eve with an oxygen machine that she still needs. Her lungs are still inflamed, and her chest is still painful.

While the guidelines she promoted with Moms Demand Action are different from those she and others advocate with Covid Survivors for Change – like wearing masks and providing financial aid to people affected by the virus – she said the message was the same: “It could be in my family’s shoes, in my shoes. “

This was also the message Ms. Addison conveyed in an article after President Donald J. Trump contracted the coronavirus and told the nation, “Don’t be afraid of Covid.” That was the moment she got angry enough to speak, she said because Mr. Trump’s words were “probably the most painful words I had ever heard from a leader”.

Updated

March 17, 2021, 3:25 p.m. ET

The Star Ledger released Ms. Addison’s statement in October and she was shocked by the intensity of the reaction.

“I never really thought about it that much – that I could use my story to make change,” she said.

She decided to start a Facebook group for newly widowed parents and found her first members through comments on her comment. In January she took part in the Covid Survivors for Change training. This month, she and other members in New Jersey spoke to Senator Cory Booker’s office.

Another cohort spoke to the Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff’s office. One of them was Ms. Roberts, 60, the former gift shop manager with lung damage from the virus.

“March 26th I woke up, I was fine,” said Ms. Roberts. “And when the sun went down that night, my whole life and that of my entire family were forever changed.”

After the Ossoff meeting she called Mr. Kocher tearfully. For almost a year, she said, it was the first time she had felt heard.

The political mobilization of coronavirus survivors is still at an early stage, and it is impossible to know whether it will fade or solidify into something permanent after the pandemic ends. However, Covid Survivors for Change isn’t the only group seeking long-term change.

Another organization, Marked by Covid – founded by Kristin Urquiza, who lost her father to the virus and spoke at the Democratic National Convention – recently launched a comprehensive political platform. Among other things, it calls for a “public health workforce” of one million people to take on tasks such as contact tracing, a reimbursement program similar to the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund, and a commission to review the government’s pandemic response.

The platform also includes much more contentious proposals, such as a federal job guarantee, universal health and child care, debt relief for doctors and students, and a ban on imports of products related to deforestation. Ms. Urquiza said the idea is to address factors that make pandemics more likely and make Americans economically safe enough to weather crises.

“It’s really not just about making sure we’re responding to the most pressing parts that are right in front of our faces,” she said.

Covid Survivors for Change, on the other hand, has no official platform. Although members campaigning for Congress did so in support of President Biden’s stimulus package, the group is impartial and has focused on training survivors to further the policies they have chosen.

Several members said the virus pulled them into the political arena in ways that shocked them a year ago.

Janis Clark, 65, said her husband Ron Clark has always been politically active. “Whenever he saw politics, it was like, ‘Here comes the half-hour dissertation,'” she said with a laugh. “I would get nervous about PTA functions.”

Mr Clark died on April 23 after two weeks at home with a fever of 104 and over three weeks on a ventilator. He never found out that his daughter was pregnant.

Desperate to understand what the virus number really meant, Ms. Clark began to write. She wrote to the New York Democrat Paul Tonko, who represents her district around Albany. She wrote to Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand. Little did she know that they probably wouldn’t answer.

“I just wanted someone to hear my story,” she said. “And it was like, how do you reach out to these people? I don’t know what the right way is. I never wrote anything to my congressman. “

In February, Ms. Clark signed an open letter organized by Covid Survivors for Change. She urged the senators to pass an aid package and called for a funeral reimbursement program and more medical resources for survivors. Now she thinks she could do more – maybe even take part in a demonstration if she’s sure.

For some people it feels like building something out of rubble.

Mr. Lancos met his wife Joni Lancos when he was working as an interpreter for the National Park Service at Federal Hall in Manhattan and she was a clerk on the third floor. Her first date was November 3, 1977. He took her to a Broadway show with Danish pianist Victor Borge.

In April last year, 41 years and 15 days after their wedding and less than 18 hours after her first symptoms, she died in an intensive care unit in Brooklyn

There was no memorial service, not when the streets of New York screamed day and night with the sirens of ambulances that carried the dying. Seventy-year-old Mr. Lancos searched in isolation the debris of grief and his own infection that left him with brain fog and short-term memory loss. The funeral home sent him five photos of a rabbi praying over his wife’s coffin.

“That was it,” said Mr. Lancos through tears. “That was my funeral for my wife when I saw these five photos.”

On March 3, he was one of the Covid Survivors for Change members speaking to the office of Mr Schumer, the Senate Majority Leader. Then he recorded a short message for a video.

“I think Joni would -” he said, pausing to take a calm breath, “be proud of what I did today.”

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Business

Prolonged Keep America to Be Acquired for $6 Billion: Reside Updates

The hotel operator Extended Stay America will be acquired by two private equity firms, Blackstone and Starwood Capital.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Bruce Bennett/Getty Images

The investment firms Blackstone and Starwood Capital announced on Monday that they planned to acquire the hotel operator Extended Stay America for $6 billion, the latest deal premised on a post-pandemic rebound in travel.

The deal is a bet that the mid-tier hotel chain that provides guests with amenities like kitchens and laundry facilities will prosper as the U.S. economy recovers. The chain had a 74 percent occupancy rate last year, above the industry average, with many rooms filled by essential workers.

The company’s new owners hope those rooms will soon add more tourists and traveling professionals. Extended Stay has about 600 locations across the United States.

“Our occupancy levels across the brand now rival the pre-Covid levels,” Bruce Haase, Extended Stay’s chief executive, told analysts on the company’s earnings call last month. “And unlike the rest of the industry that was still reaching for occupancy, we can now turn much of our attention to driving higher rates.”

The company’s shares have more than doubled over the past year, and the acquisition offer is a 15 percent premium to its closing stock price at the end of last week.

Starwood and Blackstone both have experience investing in hospitality, and Blackstone has even owned Extended Stay before — twice. It acquired the company for $3.1 billion in 2004, before selling it three years later for $8 billion. It was also part of a consortium that bought the business out of bankruptcy in 2010, outbidding a group led by Starwood Capital. Extended Stay then went public in 2013.

Other private equity firms have similarly bet on a recovery of the hospitality industry. Apollo Global Management announced plans this month to join with Vici Properties to acquire the Venetian hotel and casino in a $6.25 billion deal that also includes the Las Vegas property’s large expo center.

A photo illustration of a Stripe logo on a smartphone.Credit…Pavlo Gonchar/Sipa, via Associated Press

The payments company Stripe is worth $95 billion after a new round of funding, making it the most valuable start-up in the United States.

The San Francisco and Dublin-based company said on Sunday that it had raised $600 million in new funding from investors including Sequoia Capital, Fidelity Management and Ireland’s National Treasury Management Agency. The investment nearly triples Stripe’s last valuation of $35 billion.

The funding comes amid a surge in the adoption of digital tools and services in the pandemic as more people live, work and make purchases online. That has fueled a wave of investment into, and eye-popping valuations at, tech start-ups, as well as a frenzy of highly valued initial public offerings. Investors have valued Airbnb, the home rental start-up that recently went public, at $123 billion. Roblox, a kids gaming start-up, saw its valuation soar to $45 billion when it went public last week.

Founded in 2010, Stripe builds software that enables businesses to process payments online. As more people have turned to online shopping in the pandemic, Stripe’s offerings have been in demand. It is the largest among a class of fast-growing, highly valued financial technology companies.

Stripe is now processing hundreds of billions of dollars in payments each year across 42 countries, Dhivya Suryadevara, Stripe’s chief financial officer, said in an interview. “We are in a hyper-growth industry and within that, the company itself is experiencing hyper-growth,” she said. Ms. Suryadevara declined to share specifics on Stripe’s revenue or growth.

Credit…Richard Drew/Associated Press

Stripe has been considered a candidate to go public. Coinbase, another financial technology start-up, filed to go public later this month in a transaction that some expect could hit $100 billion. Robinhood, a stock trading app, has also seen its valuation surge in the pandemic.

Stripe said in an announcement that it planned to use the money to expand in Europe, including its office in Dublin. The company’s sibling founders, John Collison, 30, and Patrick, 32, were born in Ireland.

In a statement, John Collison, Stripe’s president, said the company would focus heavily on Europe this year. “The growth opportunity for the European digital economy is immense,” he said.

The company, which got its start working with start-ups and small businesses, will also invest in building more tools to help larger businesses handle payments. It counts 50 businesses that process more than $1 billion a year as customers.

Gene Sperling at the White House in 2013.Credit…Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Biden has tapped Gene Sperling, a longtime top economic aide to Democratic presidents, to oversee spending from the $1.9 trillion relief package that the president signed into law last week and planned to promote across the country this week.

Mr. Sperling was director of the National Economic Council under President Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama. In Mr. Obama’s administration, where he first served as a counselor in the Treasury Department, Mr. Sperling helped to coordinate a bailout of Detroit automakers and other parts of the administration’s response to the 2008 financial crisis.

He advised Mr. Biden’s campaign informally in 2020, helping to hone the campaign’s “Build Back Better” policy agenda. He will serve as the White House American Rescue Plan coordinator and as a senior adviser to Mr. Biden.

His appointment could be announced as soon as today. Mr. Biden is scheduled to give remarks on the implementation of his relief bill, known as the American Rescue Plan, on Monday afternoon. The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, told reporters last week that Mr. Biden intended to appoint someone to “run point” on implementing the plan — a role that Mr. Biden held for the Obama administration’s $800 billion stimulus plan in 2009.

Mr. Sperling did not respond to a message seeking comment. Friends have described him in recent months as eager to join the administration, and he had been mentioned as a possible appointee to head the Office of Management and Budget after Mr. Biden’s first nominee for that position, Neera Tanden, withdrew amid Senate opposition. His appointment was reported earlier by Politico.

Mr. Sperling’s challenge with the rescue plan will be different than the one Mr. Biden faced in 2009, because the relief bill that Mr. Biden just signed differs starkly from Mr. Obama’s signature stimulus plan. The Biden plan is more than twice as large as Mr. Obama’s, and it centers on a wide range of payments to low- and middle-income Americans, including $1,400-per-person direct checks that Treasury officials started sending electronically to Americans over the weekend. It includes money meant to hasten the end of the Covid-19 pandemic, including billions for vaccine deployment and coronavirus testing.

But the plans also have similarities, including more than $400 billion each in total spending for school districts and state and local governments.

An administration official said Mr. Sperling would work with White House officials and leaders of federal agencies to hasten the delivery of the money, including partnering with state and local governments on their shares of relief spending from the bill.

The Tesla car manufacturing plant in Fremont, Calif., remained open during the pandemic despite restrictions put in place by local officials.Credit…Jim Wilson/The New York Times

More than 400 workers at a Tesla plant in California tested positive for the coronavirus between May and December, according to public health data released by a transparency website.

The data provides the first glimpse into virus cases at Tesla, whose chief executive, Elon Musk, had played down the severity of the pandemic and reopened the plant, in Fremont, Calif., in May in defiance of guidelines issued by local public health officials.

Automakers across the country halted production and closed plants for two months last year from mid-March until mid-May. After resuming production, other automakers publicly announced when workers had tested positive for the virus and halted production to prevent further infection among employees and to disinfect work areas.

Tesla, however, has released little information about employee coronavirus cases.

The data was obtained by the website PlainSite, which works to make legal and governmental documents publicly accessible. It showed that 440 cases were reported at the Tesla plant, which employs some 10,000 people. The number of cases rose to 125 in December from fewer than 11 in May.

A year ago, after officials in California ordered manufacturing plants to close, Mr. Musk suggested on Twitter that the measure was unnecessary and that cases in the United States would be “close to zero.”

He also called virus restrictions “fascist,” threatened to move Tesla out of California, and then reopened the plant a week before health officials said it was safe to do so. More recently, Mr. Musk has questioned on Twitter the effectiveness of Covid vaccines.

The Maryland hotel executive Stewart W. Bainum Jr. had been planning to create a nonprofit group that would buy The Baltimore Sun.Credit…Andrew Gombert/European Pressphoto Agency

A deal that would reshape the American newspaper industry has run into complications just one month after an agreement was reached, according to three people with knowledge of the matter.

As a result, the New York hedge fund Alden Global Capital may have to fend off a new suitor for Tribune Publishing, the chain that owns major metropolitan dailies across the country, including The Chicago Tribune, The Daily News and The Baltimore Sun, the people said.

On Feb. 16, Alden, the largest shareholder in Tribune Publishing, with a 32 percent stake, reached an agreement to buy the rest of the chain in a deal that valued the company at $630 million, reports The New York Times’s Marc Tracy. In the deal, Alden would take ownership of all the Tribune Publishing papers — and then spin off The Sun and two smaller Maryland papers, selling them for $65 million to a nonprofit organization controlled by the Maryland hotel magnate Stewart W. Bainum Jr.

In recent days, Mr. Bainum and Alden have found themselves at loggerheads over details of the operating agreements that would be in effect as the Maryland papers transitioned from one owner to another, the people said. In response, Mr. Bainum has taken a preliminary step toward making a bid for all of Tribune Publishing, the people said.

Mr. Bainum has asked a special committee of the Tribune Publishing board made up of three independent directors for permission to be released from a nondisclosure agreement prohibiting him from discussing the deal, so that he would be able to pursue partners for a new bid, the people said.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Bainum said he had no comment. Through a spokesman, Tribune Publishing’s special committee declined to comment. An Alden spokesman had no comment.

The pharmaceutical industry is popular right now, which is perhaps unsurprising considering that the end of the pandemic depends on Covid-19 vaccines. Drug makers’ rapid response to the crisis has transformed public sentiment about the industry, moving it from one of the most reviled to one of the most respected, according to new data from the Harris Poll, reported first in the DealBook newsletter.

A year of living in existential and economic fear created unlikely heroes. For the past year or so, the Harris Poll has monitored public sentiment in weekly surveys of more than 114,000 people. At the height of the emergency, more than half of respondents were afraid of dying from the virus and a similar share were afraid of losing their jobs. “Only in the past month, with vaccines rising and hospitalizations and deaths declining, is fear abating,” the report noted.

Business generally got good grades during the pandemic. Many respondents cited companies as important to solving problems, where previously they were considered the cause of social woes. Two-thirds said that companies could do a better job coordinating the vaccine rollout than the government could.

Approval ratings rose for many industries from January last year to February this year. But the reputation of the pharma industry — stained by its role in the opioid crisis and criticized for high drug prices — benefited the most. In January 2020, only 32 percent of respondents viewed the industry positively; late last month, that had almost doubled, to 62 percent.

“The pharmaceutical industry’s ability to innovate and perform under intense pressure and in a time of crisis is the ultimate validation for any business,” said John Gerzema, the chief executive of the Harris Poll.

Allison Herren Lee, the S.E.C.’s acting chair, will say that corporate disclosures on E.S.G. issues are a high priority.Credit…Erin Scott/Reuters

Allison Herren Lee was named acting chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission in January, and she has been active since, especially when it comes to environmental, social and governance issues.

The agency has issued a flurry of notices that such disclosures will be priorities this year. On Monday, Ms. Lee, who was appointed as a commissioner by President Donald J. Trump in 2019, is speaking at the Center for American Progress, where she will call for input on additional E.S.G. transparency, according to prepared remarks reviewed by the DealBook newsletter.

The supposed distinction between what’s good and what’s profitable is diminishing, Ms. Lee will argue in the speech, saying that “acting in pursuit of the public interest and acting to maximize the bottom line” are complementary.

The S.E.C.’s job is to meet investor demand for data on a range of corporate activities. “That demand is not being met by the current voluntary framework,” she will say. “Human capital, human rights, climate change — these issues are fundamental to our markets, and investors want to and can help drive sustainable solutions on these issues.”

Ms. Lee will also argue that “political spending disclosure is inextricably linked to E.S.G. issues,” based on research showing that many companies have made climate pledges while donating to candidates with contradictory voting records. The same goes for racial justice initiatives, she will say.

Although Ms. Lee is only the acting chief, she’s laying the groundwork for more action, based on recent statements by Gary Gensler, President Biden’s choice to lead the S.E.C. In his confirmation hearing this month, Mr. Gensler said that investors increasingly wanted companies to disclose risks associated with climate change, diversity, political spending and other E.S.G. issues.

Not everyone at the S.E.C. is on board. Hester Peirce and Elad Roisman, fellow commissioners also appointed by Mr. Trump, recently protested the “steady flow” of climate and E.S.G. notices. They issued a public statement, asking, “Do these announcements represent a change from current commission practices or a continuation of the status quo with a new public relations twist?”

As of

Data delayed at least 15 minutes

Source: Factset

Stocks on Wall Street were little changed on Monday after closing at a new high on Friday. Most European stock indexes were higher.

The yield on 10-year Treasury notes, a key driver of stock market movement lately, fell to 1.61 percent on Monday. It had climbed as high as 1.64 percent on Friday, a level not seen since February 2020, as investors considered whether a nearly $1.9 trillion stimulus package would be inflationary alongside an expected economic recovery as more Americans are vaccinated.

But on Sunday, Janet L. Yellen, the Treasury secretary, pushed back against these concerns. “Is there a risk of inflation? I think there’s a small risk and I think it’s manageable,” she said on ABC. She added that she expected prices to rise over the spring and summer but only temporarily because of how much they fell last year.

“We have had very well-anchored inflation expectations and a Federal Reserve that’s learned about how to manage inflation,” Ms. Yellen said.

  • The S&P 500 dipped in early trading, while the Nasdaq composite was up slightly. The Dow Jones industrial average was flat.

  • West Texas Intermediate crude, the American benchmark, fell about 1.4 percent to below $65 a barrel.

  • The Stoxx Europe 600 rose 0.2 percent, led higher by gains in health care and consumer stocks. The FTSE 100 in Britain fell 0.2 percent.

  • Shares in Flutter Entertainment, a British betting and entertainment company, rose nearly 7 percent after it confirmed that it was considering publicly listing shares of FanDuel, its U.S. sports betting website.

  • The board of Danone, the French food company, said Monday it had removed its chairman and chief executive, Emmanuel Faber. Its share price rose about 3 percent. The shake-up comes after a monthslong campaign by activist investors, The Financial Times reported. Under Mr. Faber, Danone changed its legal status to be a purpose-driven company with a social mission of “health through food.” Danone’s water and dairy brands include Evian, Alpro and Silk.

  • Shares in Tencent were at their lowest in two months, dropping 3.5 percent on Monday after a loss of 4.4 percent on Friday. The Chinese tech company is facing a crackdown from antitrust regulators, Bloomberg reported.

Heather Kilpatrick lost her job last March and stayed home with her 3-year-old daughter in East Boston. She has just taken a new job that enables her to work remotely.Credit…Tony Luong for The New York Times

In the year since the pandemic upended the economy, more than four million people have quit the labor force. They are not counted in the most commonly cited unemployment rate, which stood at 6.2 percent in February, making the group something of a hidden casualty of the pandemic.

Now, as the labor market begins to emerge from the pandemic’s vise, whether those who have left the labor force return to work — and if so, how quickly — is one of the big questions about the shape of the recovery, Sydney Ember reports for The New York Times.

For the legion of older workers who hope to return to work after the pandemic, a challenging path may lie ahead. Studies show that older people who leave the work force will have a more difficult time re-entering it because of age discrimination and other reasons. If that reality holds during the recovery, the number of older workers who have left the labor force — either because they could not find a job or because they retired early — could be one of the pandemic’s enduring consequences.

One prevailing question is whether employers, as in the past, will look askance at those who have been out of the labor force for a significant time.

Even in a tight labor market, long-term unemployed workers faced a stigma, said Maria Heidkamp, the director of the New Start Career Network, which helps older job seekers in New Jersey.

“In addition to any age, race or gender discrimination that they may already encounter, there’s a lot of evidence that it is easier to get a job if you already have a job,” she said. Though employers may overlook any pandemic résumé gap, she said, “there’s no reason to think that that is going to be different for these people, who are on the sidelines right now who want to come back.”

Still, many economists believe that the extraordinary number of people who have left the labor force will be more of a temporary blip than emblematic of a deeper structural issue. They expect that many who have left the labor force in the last year will return to work once health concerns and child care issues are alleviated. And they are optimistic that as the labor market heats up, it will draw in workers who grew disenchanted with the job search.

A screenshot of Matt Granite during an Amazon Live video.

Matt Granite, who goes by The Deal Guy, streams daily on Amazon Live, covering everything from kitchen gadgets to snowblowers. Under each video is a carousel display of the products he’s discussing. When a viewer clicks that item and buys it, Mr. Granite gets a cut, with commissions varying from 10 percent for luxury and beauty products to 1 percent for Amazon Fresh items. Mr. Granite’s YouTube channel still brings in more revenue through ad rolls and sponsorships, but he said the revenue and audience numbers for his Amazon Live videos have grown over the past year.

This type of shopping, called e-commerce livestreaming, lets brand representatives, store owners, influencers — and really, just about anyone — stand in front of a smartphone and start a conversation with viewers who tune in, Jackie Snow reports for The New York Times.

Amazon isn’t the only company trying out this type of hawking on an American audience.

“Everybody is thinking about this,” said Mark Yuan, a co-founder of And Luxe, a livestream e-commerce consulting company based in New York. “But they are rushing to it because of the pandemic. Before they had a choice. Now they have no choice.”

E-commerce livestreams are still a niche enterprise in the United States, but they are big business in China, where they drive about 9 percent, or about $63 billion, of the country’s online market. Kim Kardashian West went on a popular Chinese influencer’s stream and sold out her perfume stock within minutes after 13 million people tuned in. At least one Chinese college offers e-commerce livestreaming as a degree. Chinese retailers have also innovated during the pandemic lockdowns, with more streams focused on one-on-one consultations and store walk-throughs.