Tag: concerns

Health

San Francisco, neighboring counties reinstate masks mandate amid delta variant considerations

Post author By
Post date August 3, 2021

A bartender takes drink orders at Oasis on July 29, 2021 in San Francisco, California.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Health officials in seven Northern California counties on Monday mandated masks be used in indoor public places, elevating a facial covering recommendation they issued in July to a requirement.

The coalition of officials — from Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Sonoma Counties and the City of Berkeley — first advised residents to wear masks indoors regardless of their vaccination status just over two weeks ago. Citing a surge in cases attributed to the highly contagious delta variant, the new mandate will take effect Tuesday.

“Indoor masking is a temporary measure that will help us deal with the Delta variant, which is causing a sharp increase in cases, and we know increases in hospitalizations and deaths will follow,” San Francisco acting health officer Dr. Naveena Bobba said in a statement.

According to the CDC, Contra Costa County recorded 2,723 new cases over the past seven days, a spike of 53% from the week prior. Sonoma County’s case total increased 58%, with 684 new coronavirus patients last week.

San Francisco County reported 1,513 additional cases last week, 47% more than the previous seven days. Marin, Santa Clara, and San Mateo Counties each saw cases climb between 33% and 41% last week, while Alameda County’s 2,385 new cases last week marked an 11% jump from the week before.

The mask mandate arrives after Los Angeles County responded to climbing coronavirus case totals by reinstating its mask mandate July 17. In addition to wearing masks inside, the order calls for businesses to implement the indoor face-covering order and requests that employers provide masks to their clientele.

“When we all wear face coverings indoors, we are protecting our fellow residents and helping our healthcare workers,” Bobba said.

Tags concerns, Counties, Delta, Francisco, mandate, mask, neighboring, reinstate, San, Variant

Health

Delta Plus, a New Variant, Raises Considerations in India

Post author By
Post date June 25, 2021

As India reopens after a devastating second wave of coronavirus infections, virologists worry that another, potentially more virulent version of the virus could accelerate the onset of a third wave within a few months.

The version known locally as Delta Plus is described by scientists as a sub-line of the highly contagious Delta variant, which has quickly spread to India, the UK, the US, and other countries. The new variant carries a spike protein mutation, which can also be found in the beta variant, which was first identified in South Africa, although it is unclear how this common mutation could affect the function of the variant.

Reports suggest that cases of Delta Plus have been found in nearly a dozen countries, including the United States. In India, Delta Plus was first detected in April in the western state of Maharashtra. Authorities in India this week declared it a new “worrying variant” in the country after finding more than 40 cases in three states: Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Kerala.

The Indian Ministry of Health announced this week that Delta Plus has shown increased portability. States where the variant was found have been asked to step up testing, improve surveillance, and speed up contact tracing to try to prevent it from spreading.

Due to its recent discovery, studies of this particular variant have not yet been carried out, so scientists have limited information. However, they have begun to speculate about their ability to spread.

“It is most likely able to evade immunities,” said Shahid Jameel, virologist and director of the Trivedi School of Biosciences at Ashoka University in Sonipat, India. “That’s because it carries all of the symptoms of the original Delta variant as well as its partner beta variant.”

Indian Health Ministry officials stressed that both Covid vaccines that are widely used in the country – the AstraZeneca vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India and the Covaxin vaccine made by Indian company Bharat Biotech – are likely to be effective against variants, including Delta are pluses.

Understand the Covid crisis in India

India’s vaccination campaign picked up pace this week, with more than 6.7 million people vaccinated across the country on Thursday, according to official figures. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has stated that the syringes should be offered free to all adults in support of vaccination efforts that have been hampered by mismanagement and lack of care. About 5.5 percent of the population are fully vaccinated, and 18 percent have received at least one vaccination.

In Maharashtra, one of the hardest hit states, officials said Delta Plus was becoming a significant problem and warned that if cases increased, they would reintroduce restrictions.

“We are at the end of a second wave and will be careful how we unlock,” said Rajesh Tope, the country’s health minister. “The lessons we learned from dealing with the second wave are used to stop the spread of any new variant.”

Delta Plus was also identified this month by UK health officials calling it Delta-AY.1. They wrote in a June 11 report that they had discovered 36 cases, the first five of which were contacts from people who had recently traveled through Nepal and Turkey. Half of the 36 cases occurred in people who were not vaccinated and none of the cases resulted in death, but the report warned that “limited epidemiological information” was available about the variant.

Tags concerns, Delta, India, Raises, Variant

Health

100 Million Vaccine Doses Held Up Over Contamination Issues, Emergent Reveals

Post author By
Post date May 20, 2021

Contamination Woes Hold Back 100 Million Vaccine Doses

WASHINGTON – The executive director of Emergent BioSolutions, whose Baltimore facility ruined millions of coronavirus vaccine doses, announced on Wednesday that more than 100 million doses of the vaccine were being put on hold by Johnson & Johnson as regulators screen for possible contamination.

In more than three hours of testimony before a House subcommittee, chief executive Robert G. Kramer calmly acknowledged unsanitary conditions, including mold and peeling paint, at the Baltimore plant. He acknowledged that Johnson & Johnson had discovered – not emergent – contaminated cans and fought off aggressive questions from the Democrats about his stock sales and hundreds of thousands of dollars in bonuses for company executives.

Emergent’s Bayview Baltimore facility shut down a month ago after contamination spoiled the equivalent of 15 million cans. However, Mr. Kramer told the legislature that he expected the plant to resume production “in a few days”. He said he took “very seriously” a report from federal regulators that identified manufacturing defects and assumed “full responsibility”.

“Nobody is more disappointed than us that we had to stop manufacturing new vaccines around the clock,” Kramer told the panel, adding: “I apologize for the failure of our controls.”

Mr Kramer’s appearance before the House Select Coronavirus Crisis Subcommittee, which has launched a full investigation into his company, provided the public with an initial glimpse into the men who run Emergent, a politically affiliated federal entrepreneur who has a niche market for the Biological Defense Preparation dominates with the US government as the main customer.

Mr. Kramer, who testified virtually, was assisted by Fuad El-Hibri, the company’s founder and chairman, who has grown from a small biotech company to a $ 1.5 billion company in annual sales over the past two decades has expanded. Executive compensation documents released by the subcommittee show that the company’s board of directors praised Mr. El-Hibri, who cashed in more than $ 42 million in stock and options last year, for “his critical relationships with important customers, Congress and other stakeholders. ”

Those members of Congress include Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the No. 2 Republican in the House, and the Chief Republican on the House subcommittee. Federal campaign records indicate that Mr. El-Hibri and his wife have donated more than $ 150,000 to groups associated with Mr. Scalise since 2018. The company’s Political Action Committee has donated approximately $ 1.4 million to members of both parties over the past 10 years.

Mr El-Hibri expressed his remorse on Wednesday. “The cross-contamination incident is unacceptable,” he said.

Mr. Kramer’s estimate of 100 million cans held increased the number of Johnson & Johnson cans effectively quarantined due to regulatory concerns about contamination by 30 million. Federal officials had previously estimated that the equivalent of about 70 million cans – most of them for domestic use – could not be released until purity was tested.

The House Democrats began their investigation into Emergent after the New York Times documented months of problems at the Baltimore plant, including failure to properly disinfect equipment and protect it from viral and bacterial contamination.

Hours before the hearing began, the committee’s staff released confidential audits previously reported by The Times that cited repeated violations of manufacturing standards. A leading federal manufacturing expert reiterated these concerns in a June 2020 report, warning that Emergent did not have trained staff and adequate quality control in place.

“My teenage son’s room gives your facility a run for its money,” Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, Democrat of Illinois, told Mr. Kramer.

Mr. Kramer initially stated that the contamination of the Johnson & Johnson cans “was identified by our quality control procedures and checks and balances.” However, when questioned, he admitted that a Johnson & Johnson laboratory in the Netherlands had picked up the problem. Johnson & Johnson hired Emergent to manufacture its vaccine and is now claiming greater control over the facility at the urging of the Biden government.

The federal government placed a $ 628 million contract with Emergent last year, primarily to reserve space at the Baltimore plant for vaccine manufacturing. The legislature is examining, among other things, whether the company is maintaining its contacts with a leading representative of the Trump administration, Dr. Robert Kadlec, used to secure this mandate and whether federal officials have ignored known shortcomings in placing the work on Emergent.

Mr El-Hibri told lawmakers that the government and Johnson & Johnson are aware of the risks.

“Everyone was open-minded that this is a facility that has never manufactured a licensed product before,” he said. While the Baltimore plant was “not in perfect working order – far from it,” he argued that the plant was “in the highest state of readiness” among the plants that the government had to choose from.

For Republicans, including Mr Scalise, Wednesday’s session became a means of defending Emergent and the Trump administration and raising other virus-related issues: the unproven theory that the coronavirus leaked from a laboratory in China that “Lies of the Communist Party” of China “, mask mandates and the demand of the Biden government for a renunciation of an international agreement on intellectual property.

“You are a reputable company that did Yeoman’s job protecting this bio-defense country,” exclaimed Mark E. Green, Republican of Tennessee, adding, “So you have your people a bonus for their incredible work given. “

Emergent is able to work in Washington. The board of directors is made up of former government officials, and Senate lobbying data shows the company has spent an average of $ 3 million a year on lobbying over the past decade. That’s roughly the equivalent of two pharmaceutical giants, AstraZeneca and Bristol Myers Squibb, whose annual sales are at least 17 times higher.

Democrats urged Mr. Kramer and Mr. El-Hibri to open their contacts with Dr. Kadlec, who had previously consulted for Emergent. Documents indicate that Emergent agreed to pay him $ 120,000 annually for his advisory work between 2012 and 2015 and that he recommended that Emergent be given a “priority rating” so that the contract can be approved quickly. Dr. Kadlec said he didn’t negotiate the deal but signed it.

“Did you or any other Emergent executives speak or make contacts with Dr. Kadlec while these contracts were being issued?” Representative Nydia M. Velázquez, Democrat of New York, asked Mr. Kramer.

“Congressman,” he replied cautiously, “I haven’t had any discussions with Dr. Kadlec about it.”

The government has paid Emergent $ 271 million to date, although American regulators have not yet approved a single dose of vaccine made in the vaccine in Baltimore.

An investigation by the Times found that Emergent was an oversized influence on the Strategic National Stockpile, the country’s emergency medical reserve. In a few years, the company’s anthrax vaccine made up half of the inventory budget.

The investigation found that some federal officials believed the company was undermining taxpayers – an issue that also surfaced at Wednesday’s hearing when New York Democrat Carolyn B. Maloney asked how much it would cost to make the vaccine and what he sells for. Mr. El-Hibri promised to provide the information later.

Company executives also consider their coronavirus work to be one of the “main drivers” of 2020 revenue, according to a memorandum released Wednesday by committee staff. Executives have been rewarded for what the company’s board of directors calls “exemplary overall company performance for 2020 , including a significant overachievement of the sales and earnings targets ”.

Mr Kramer received a $ 1.2 million cash bonus in 2020, the records show, and this year also sold $ 10 million worth of shares in stores that he said were planned in advance and dated Companies have been approved. Three of the company’s executive vice presidents received awards between $ 445,000 and $ 462,000.

Sean Kirk, who is responsible for overseeing development and manufacturing processes at all Emergent production sites, received a special bonus of $ 100,000 last year in addition to his regular bonus of $ 320,611, including for expanding the contract manufacturing capacities of the Company to Covid- 19 show the documents. Mr. Kirk is now on personal vacation.

Aspiring officials “appear to have wasted tax dollars while filling their own pockets,” accused Ms. Maloney.

Mr Krishnamoorthi asked Mr Kramer if he would consider giving his bonus to American taxpayers.

“I will not make this commitment,” replied Mr. Kramer.

“I didn’t think so,” replied Krishnamoorthi-san.

Rebecca R. Ruiz contributed to the coverage.

Tags concerns, Contamination, Doses, Emergent, Held, million, Reveals, Vaccine

Business

Shares Drop for a Third Day as Inflation Issues Improve

Post author By
Post date May 13, 2021

Drivers line up at a QuickTrip filling station in Atlanta on Tuesday.

Here’s what you need to know:

Stocks on Wall Street dropped for the third consecutive day on Wednesday as new data on consumer prices added to investors’ concerns that inflation could upend the Federal Reserve’s efforts to keep interest rates low to bolster the economy.

The S&P 500 fell 2.1 percent, pushing its losses this week to 4 percent. It was the benchmark index’s worst day since February and its worst three-day performance since October.

The drop came after the Labor Department said the Consumer Price Index climbed 4.2 percent during the month, from a year earlier, the fastest pace of increase since 2008. From March to April, prices increased 0.8 percent.

Analysts had been expecting a high annual increase, given the comparison to last April, when the economy was cratering amid the early stages of the Covid crisis and price growth slowed to a crawl. But the report still caught them off guard.

“While the high levels were expected, not many were expecting them to be this high,” wrote analysts at Bespoke Investment Group in a note on Wednesday.

The worry for stock investors is that persistently hotter-than-expected inflation readings could force the Fed — which is supposed to focus on price stability as well as employment — to lift interest rates earlier than expected to.

Analysts agree that the Fed’s willingness to keep interest rates low has been a key driver of the stock market’s gains of more than 80 percent since March 2020; higher interest rates can discourage risk taking in the markets, and when concern about inflation dominates it can hit the highest-flying stocks hard.

On Wednesday, yields on long-term Treasury bonds — which are driven by expectations about both inflation and how the Fed may shift interest rates — rose sharply. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.695 percent. It was as low as 1.50 percent late last week.

The Fed has signaled that it intends to keep interest rates low for the foreseeable future, and has said that it will likely disregard signs of sharp price increases as the economy reopens from the virus, and will view them as transitory.

But on Wednesday, technology stocks, which are particularly sensitive to concerns about rising rates, were hit harder. The Nasdaq composite fell 2.7 percent, bringing its losses for the week to more than 5 percent.

In the oil markets, West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. crude benchmark, rose 1.2 percent, to $66.08 a barrel.

Gasoline prices continued to rise as the Colonial Pipeline, a 5,500-mile conduit stretching from Texas to New York, remained closed because of a ransomware attack. The AAA motor club said Wednesday that the national average price had reached $3.008 a gallon, up about 2 cents from Tuesday’s average price and 8 cents from a week ago. A year ago, the average price was $1.854. The pipeline operator said it began to restart operations Wednesday evening.

Credit…Megan Varner/Getty Images

Panic over the shutdown of a vital fuel pipeline in the United States has driven Americans to search for gas for their vehicles, causing several thousand gas stations across the nation to run out of fuel. Hundreds of others are limiting sales.

State officials in the Southeast have made efforts to stabilize the flow of gas, but consumers have become gripped by a fear that there could be a gas shortage. Many have turned to social media to vent, posting videos and pictures of long lines and empty pumps at filling stations. Some have begun comparing President Biden to President Jimmy Carter, who was the nation’s leader when gas lines rattled the country after the Iranian revolution and other Middle East troubles.

But the energy crises of the 1970s were caused by embargoes, the revolution and declining production. Experts say the reaction to the pipeline outage is somewhat out of proportion with the actual risk.

“The oil and gasoline is there,” said Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy expert at Tufts University. “We can pump it manually, we can carry it by truck, and the government and other entities can hire ships. And we have oil in inventories.”

Officials in states with the longest gas lines are asking for calm. “I’m urging everyone to be careful and be patient,” said South Carolina’s attorney general, Alan Wilson.

“Remember when it wasn’t a good idea to panic buy toilet paper last year? Please don’t do it with gas now,” the Virginia Department of Emergency Management tweeted on Wednesday.

At the White House, officials said that they were taking steps to make it easier to send fuel by ship, rail or truck, but acknowledged that those measures would take time.

The frenzy came after the Colonial Pipeline, which runs 5,500 miles from Texas to New Jersey, was shut down on Friday after a ransomware attack. Colonial Pipeline said Wednesday evening that it had begun restarting the flow of fuel.

David E. Sanger contributed reporting.

Credit…Lam Yik Fei for The New York Times

Three months after Tesla said it would begin accepting the cryptocurrency Bitcoin as payment, the electric carmaker has abruptly reversed course.

In a message posted to Twitter on Wednesday, Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, said Tesla had suspended accepting Bitcoin because of concern about the energy consumed by computers crunching the calculations that underpin the currency.

“Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at a great cost to the environment,” Mr. Musk wrote. “We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.”

Earlier this year, Tesla announced that it had purchased $1.5 billion worth of Bitcoin and Mr. Musk trumpeted the company’s plan to accept the currency. Tesla later sold about $300 million of its Bitcoin holdings, proceeds that padded its bottom line in the first quarter.

“Tesla will not be selling any Bitcoin and we intend to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy,” Mr. Musk wrote on Wednesday, referring to the process through which new Bitcoin is created.

The price of Bitcoin dipped slightly after the announcement, according to Coindesk.

As cryptocurrencies explode in value, the amount of energy used by the digital currencies is increasingly under scrutiny. Some estimates put the energy use of Bitcoin at more than the entire country of Argentina.

“Bitcoin uses more electricity per transaction than any other method known to mankind, and so it’s not a great climate thing,” Bill Gates said in February.

Mr. Musk also said on Wednesday that Tesla was “looking at other cryptocurrencies” that use a fraction of the energy consumed by Bitcoin. Mr. Musk has been a promoter of Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that started as a joke but that has exploded in value. In an appearance on “Saturday Night Live” last week, Mr. Musk referred to Dogecoin as a “hustle.” Dogecoin fell by nearly a third in price on the night of the show.

Credit…Ahikam Seri/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

With fighting raging between Israel and Palestinian groups, Chevron, the American energy giant, said Wednesday that it had shut down a major offshore natural gas facility in the eastern Mediterranean on orders from the Israeli government.

“In accordance with instructions received from the Ministry of Energy, we have shut-in and depressurized the Tamar Platform,” Chevron said in a statement.

The company said that it was continuing to supply customers through another platform in Israeli waters called Leviathan that also processes gas from an offshore field.

Chevron acquired a 25 percent stake in the Tamar Platform and its gas field and wells through its $4 billion acquisition of Noble Energy last year. The deal was the first entry of a major Western oil company into exploration and production of oil and gas in Israeli waters.

The Tamar Platform is about 12 miles from the Gaza Strip, where militants have been launching rockets toward Israel and Israel has been aiming airstrikes. Leviathan is further away. The two gas facilities are major sources of fuel for the Israeli economy, especially for electric power generation.

In recent years the international oil industry has begun to consider the Eastern Mediterranean region as a potential major hub for natural gas. Israeli gas has also served to increase the country’s energy independence and strengthen economic ties with former enemies like Egypt and Jordan, which are customers for the fuel.

Last month Delek Drilling, one of Chevron’s Israeli partners, said that it had reached a preliminary agreement to sell its share of Tamar to Mubadala Petroleum, an arm of the government of Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, for around $1 billion. The United Arab Emirates normalized relations with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords signed in August.

“This is an area that looks as if it could have the resource quality and the scale to become a pretty significant energy province,” said Mike Wirth, Chevron’s chief executive, in an interview last year.

Snap announced on Tuesday that it had suspended Yolo and LMK, two anonymous messaging services, within the Snapchat app in response to a lawsuit filed on Monday.

The lawsuit accuses Snapchat, Yolo and LMK of “creating, maintaining and distributing anonymous messaging apps to teens that are inherently dangerous and defective, and for falsely promising the enforcement of safeguards.” Yolo and LMK are developed by other companies and integrate into Snapchat using an integration provided by Snap.

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of Carson Bride, 16, who committed suicide last year after being bullied and threatened on Snapchat, Yolo and LMK, according to the suit filed in United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The plaintiffs in the case are his mother, Kristin Bride, and the Tyler Clementi Foundation, which works to combat bullying.

A representative from Snap wrote in an email to The Times that the company was suspending Yolo and LMK “out of an abundance of caution for the safety of the Snapchat community” while it investigates the claims.

LMK and Yolo both maintain separate apps outside of Snapchat. As of Wednesday, LMK is still available for download on both the Apple App Store and the Google Play store. Yolo was not available in either store.

Snapchat, which had 280 million daily active users as of late March, allows vetted developers to integrate their apps through a portal called Snap Kit. Small companies can access bigger audiences through these partnerships, and Snapchat can add new functions to its app without having to develop each one.

Yolo and LMK allow users to post questions — “What color suits me best?” or “Does this outfit look good?” — on Snapchat Stories, to which other users can respond anonymously. Yolo and LMK also have features in their stand-alone apps that allow anonymous messaging in group chats.

Greg Henrion, one of the founders of Yolo, dismissed concerns about bullying on the platform in an interview with TechCrunch in 2019. “We’re strict on moderation,” he said. “When looking at the reviews about bullying, it’s like nothing compared to any other anonymous app. I think we solved 90 percent of the problem.”

Yolo and LMK did not respond to requests for comment.

The lawsuit argues that the anonymous messaging apps have been known to cause harm for decades and that the existence of bullying on LMK and Yolo was “foreseeable.”

Yik Yak, an anonymous messaging app created in 2013, shut down in 2017 after becoming associated with bullying, discriminatory speech and threats of bomb and gun violence. Other anonymous platforms, like ask.fm and Kik, have been linked to suicides by young people and sexual abuse cases. In 2018, Pew Research Center reported that 59 percent of teenagers experience cyberbullying.

Credit…Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times

Millions of low-income Americans became eligible on Wednesday for an emergency discount on high-speed internet service and devices to get online, an effort aimed at providing relief to families that have struggled during the pandemic as school, work and health care have moved online.

The Federal Communications Commission’s subsidy program, the Emergency Broadband Benefit, can be used for $50 monthly discounts for individuals on SNAP or Medicaid, recipients of Pell grants, and families with children on free and reduced-price lunch plans. Low-income households on tribal lands can apply for $75 in monthly broadband subsidies. The program also allows for a one-time $100 subsidy for a laptop or tablet.

The F.C.C. said 825 broadband providers have agreed to offer the discounts.

The program, which Congress approved $3.2 billion for late last year, is one of several efforts to bring broadband internet to all American homes. The F.C.C. earlier this week also approved a $7.2 billion program to give students high-speed internet access through schools and libraries. President Biden has promised to make broadband affordable and available for all and has proposed a $100 billion effort to connect every rural and low-income home to high-speed internet service.

The Emergency Broadband Benefit program comes late in the pandemic, with schools and workplaces beginning to open again. The delay was largely because of wrangling over details of the subsidies in Congress and at the F.C.C. during the Trump administration. And it’s unclear what will happen once the one-time emergency benefit fund runs out.

The program will end either when the $3.2 billion fund is depleted or six months after the Department of Health and Human Services declares an end to the pandemic.

“High-speed internet service is vital for families to take advantage of today’s health, education, and workplace opportunities,” Jessica Rosenworcel, the acting chair of the F.C.C., said in a statement. “And the discount for laptops and desktop computers will continue to have positive impact even after this temporary discount program wraps up.”

Credit…Pool photo by Graeme Jennings

The Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday approved the nomination of Lina Khan to be a member of the Federal Trade Commission, clearing the way for a vote by the full Senate that would make Ms. Kahn, a prominent critic of the tech giants, one of its most powerful regulators.

The nomination of Ms. Khan, 32, has buoyed progressive hopes that President Biden will try to rein in Silicon Valley. At her confirmation hearing in April, Ms. Khan said that she saw a “whole range of potential risks” associated with the tech companies’ abilities to take over markets and dominate them.

Mr. Biden also appointed Tim Wu, a legal scholar who has pushed for antitrust action against the tech companies, to an economic policy role in the White House. Mr. Biden has yet to say who will lead the F.T.C. or the Justice Department’s antitrust division during his administration.

Ms. Khan would join the commission as antitrust regulators mount a campaign against the power of the largest tech companies. The F.T.C. last year filed a lawsuit accusing Facebook of cornering the market through acquisitions of small companies like Instagram and WhatsApp. The agency has also been investigating Amazon, and the Department of Justice last fall filed its own antitrust lawsuit against Google.

Ms. Khan’s ascendence to the F.T.C. would cap a quick rise. She came to prominence in law school, when she wrote a law review note charting how Amazon’s power exposed flaws in the way judges had enforced antitrust law. After law school, she worked for a progressive member of the F.T.C. and helped write a House Judiciary Committee report criticizing the sweeping power of the tech giants. Last year, Ms. Khan also joined Columbia Law School as a professor.

Some conservatives have worried that she would be too heavy-handed in regulating industry. Four Republicans specified that they were voting against her nomination.

Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the top Republican on the Commerce Committee, voted for her nomination but said he shared some concerns about Ms. Khan.

“I believe she is focused on addressing one of the most pressing issues of the day: reining in the big social media platforms,” he said. “However, I do remain concerned that a broadly over-regulatory approach as an F.T.C. commissioner could have a negative effect on the economy and undermine free-market principles.”

Credit…Pau Barrena/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The economic outlook has brightened considerably across Europe after lockdowns restricted growth at the start of the year. Now, economists foresee the complete recovery by the end of next year from the early effects of the pandemic.

The British economy grew 2.1 percent in March from the previous month, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday. The reopening of schools was one of the biggest reasons for the larger-than-expected jump in economic growth, as well as a rise in retail spending even though many stores remained closed because of lockdowns.

The statistics agency estimated that gross domestic product fell 1.5 percent in the first quarter, slightly less than economists surveyed by Bloomberg had predicted, while the country was under lockdown with nonessential stores, restaurants and other services such as hairdressers shut.

Though the British economy is still nearly 9 percent smaller than it was at the end of 2019, before the pandemic, the Bank of England forecasts it to return to that size by the end of this year.

The European Commission also upgraded its forecasts for the region on Wednesday. It predicted the European Union economies would grow 4.2 percent this year, up from a forecast of 3.7 percent three months ago. Germany’s economy is forecast to grow 3.4 percent this year and Spain, which suffered Europe’s deepest recession last year, is expected to grow nearly 6 percent.

“The E.U. and euro area economies are expected to rebound strongly as vaccination rates increase and restrictions are eased,” the commission, the executive arm for the European Union, said on Wednesday. The recovery will be driven by household spending, investment and a rising demand for European exports, it said.

Still, despite the optimistic outlook, the commission warned that the risks were “high and will remain so as long as the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic hangs over the economy.”

Even as millions of people were vaccinated, the number of new coronavirus cases globally reached a peak in late April as the pandemic has struck especially hard in India. The uneven distribution of vaccines around the world and the emergence of new variants has the potential to set back the recovery.

The National Institute Of Economic and Social Research in London said on Monday that it did not expect the British economy to return to its prepandemic size until the end of 2022, predicting a slower recovery than the central bank.

Economists at the institute expect lower global growth because of uncertainty about the global vaccine rollout and lingering doubts about the end of the pandemic inducing more people to hold onto their savings, rather than spend it.

Credit…Philip Fong/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The comeback continued for SoftBank on Wednesday, as the Japanese technology investment firm posted a net profit of more than $36 billion for the year ending in March.

Yet a recent slide in confidence in technology stocks could make it more difficult for Masayoshi Son, the founder of the technology conglomerate turned investment powerhouse, to keep up the momentum after what seemed like an impossible change of fortune.

Last May, SoftBank was in crisis after posting a loss of more than $12 billion. Its big bets on Wall Street favorites, like WeWork, the troubled office space company, and Uber, resulted in huge losses.

But it was not down for long. Riding high on a post-pandemic stock boom, SoftBank has since notched seemingly unthinkable gains. When compared with its previously released figures, the year-end results implied a profit for the first three months of 2021 alone of more than $17 billion.

In a live-streamed press event Wednesday, Mr. Son opened by showing a photo of the humble town where SoftBank began, before calling the huge earnings numbers “lucky plus lucky plus lucky.”

SoftBank Group’s net income

Mr. Son told investors on Wednesday that he would not deny that he is a gambler. But he said he regretted some decisions. The question now is whether his current run of luck can continue.

SoftBank’s profit, mostly paper gains from increases in investment values, was based heavily on a jump in the price of South Korean e-commerce firm Coupang after it listed earlier this year. Results were also lifted by strong share price rises from other SoftBank investments, DoorDash and Uber.

The share price of all three companies has fallen sharply over the past month on a broader pullback in technology shares, in part related to fears over inflation out of the United States.

Investors appeared more interested in the broader tech sell off than Mr. Son’s luck, as SoftBank’s shares fell more than 3 percent on Wednesday, despite the solid gains.

Credit…Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Amazon on Wednesday won an appeal against European Union efforts to force the company to pay more taxes in the region, illustrating how American tech giants are turning to the courts to beat back tougher oversight.

The General Court of the European Union struck down a 2017 decision by European regulators that ordered Amazon to pay $300 million to Luxembourg, home of the company’s European headquarters and where regulators said the company received unfair tax treatment. The court said regulators did not sufficiently prove that Amazon had violated a law meant to prevent companies from receiving special tax benefits from European governments.

The decision, which comes as European Union and American officials attempt to reach a global tax agreement that could result in higher levies against tech companies, undercuts an effort by Margrethe Vestager, an executive vice president at the European Commission, who issued the Amazon penalty and has led efforts to force big tech firms to pay more in taxes. The companies have been criticized for using complex corporate structures to take advantage of low-tax countries like Luxembourg and Ireland. In 2020, Amazon earned 44 billion euros in Europe, but reported paying no taxes in Luxembourg.

Tech companies are using the courts to fight European regulators trying to rein in the industry’s power. Last year, Apple won an appeal against Ms. Vestager to annul a decision to repay about $14.9 billion in taxes to Ireland, where the company has a European headquarters. That case is now before the European Union’s highest court.

Google has appealed three decisions and billions of dollars in fines issued by the European Commission over anticompetitive business practices related to its search engine, advertising business and Android mobile operating system.

More legal battles may loom, as regulators have issued preliminary charges against Apple and Amazon for violating antitrust laws.

On Wednesday, Amazon cheered the decision by the Luxembourg-based court.

“We welcome the court’s decision, which is in line with our longstanding position that we followed all applicable laws and that Amazon received no special treatment,” Conor Sweeney, a company spokesman, said in a statement.

Ms. Vestager said the European Commission would study the Amazon ruling before deciding whether to appeal.

“All companies should pay their fair share of tax,” Ms. Vestager said in a statement. “Tax advantages given only to selected multinational companies harm fair competition in the E.U.”

Credit…Vinted-Investment/via Reuters

The pandemic revealed just how important e-commerce is to the future of the global fashion industry. In a year of lockdowns, millions of shoppers turned online to satisfy their desire for clothes, accelerating a shift toward digital sales and rapid growth for many e-commerce companies.

This week, two leading European names announced their latest funding rounds, as investors look to capitalize on the expansion of the online fashion market.

Lyst, a London-based online fashion platform with 150 million users, said it had raised $85 million ahead of a planned initial public offering. In 2020, the company — which acts as an inventory-free search portal for high-fashion brands and stores to sell to trend-focused online shoppers — said it had seen a 1,100 percent increase in new users on its app. It said the company has a gross merchandise value of more than $500 million.

Appetite for secondhand fashion also boomed in the last year, as more shoppers looked to declutter wardrobes, earn cash by selling old clothes and became more aware of the environmental impact of the industry.

Vinted, which is based in Lithuania, says it is Europe’s largest secondhand fashion marketplace with more than 45 million members globally. On Tuesday, the company said it had raised 250 million euros in a Series F funding round, giving the start-up a valuation of 3.5 billion euros, or $4.24 billion.

“We want to replicate the success we’ve built in our existing European markets in new geographies and will continue investing not only to improve our product, but also to ensure we continue to have a positive impact,” said Vinted’s chief executive, Thomas Plantenga.

Credit…Alvaro Dominguez

Today in the On Tech newsletter, Shira Ovide asks: When have Jeff Bezos’ ideas and his relentlessness to pull them off been helpful, and when have those same qualities led Amazon astray?

Tags concerns, Day, drop, Increase, inflation, Stocks

Business

IPL suspended indefinitely over coronavirus considerations

Post author By
Post date May 4, 2021

IPL suspended indefinitely over coronavirus concerns

Bowler Trent Boult from Delhi Daredevils plays against the Rajasthan Royals during an IPL cricket match.

Vishal Bhatnagar | NurPhoto | Getty Image

The 2021 Indian Premier League has been suspended amid concerns about coronavirus levels in the country.

The number of new coronavirus infections in India exceeded 20 million on Tuesday. 357,229 new cases have been reported in the past 24 hours, adding further strain to an already overwhelmed health system.

Three Australian cricketers – Adam Zampa, Kane Richardson and Andrew Tye – have already dropped out of their IPL season to go home while Indian weirdo Ravichandran Ashwin has taken a break to spend time with his family.

The regular season should end on May 23rd. Qualifiers and eliminators should follow before the final on May 30th.

“The Indian Premier League Governing Council (IPL GC) and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) unanimously decided in an emergency meeting to postpone the IPL 2021 season with immediate effect,” said an IPL statement.

“BCCI does not want to compromise on the safety of players, support staff and other participants involved in organizing the IPL. This decision was made with the safety, health and wellbeing of all involved in mind.

Pandemic Raises Considerations About Childhood Lead Poisoning

Post author By
Post date March 11, 2021

Pandemic Raises Concerns About Childhood Lead Poisoning

“We fear the children who go missing are likely the children at higher risk,” said Dr. Courtney. Some states reported that the decline in lead screenings was particularly pronounced in children who received Medicaid, he added.

The consequences could be devastating for lead-poisoned children. While there is no way to reverse lead poisoning, nutritional supplements and education services can help reduce the damage. Children who miss their checkups may not receive these essential measures.

In addition, in many cases, increased levels of lead in the blood are required to trigger the removal or remediation of lead. “If you don’t test, you won’t find it,” said Dr. Morri Markowitz, director of the Lead Poisoning Treatment and Prevention Program at Montefiore Children’s Hospital, New York City. “If you don’t find it, don’t intervene and the child will still be exposed and may continue to ingest lead.” He added, “And then it can go on, and if you look it will get worse.”

Even as lead rates fell last spring, the amount of time children spent in their homes, where lead exposure is most likely, increased. The pandemic and the financial troubles it has brought about may also have caused some families and owners to postpone significant repair and maintenance work on buildings.

“I am very concerned that we may have more children who have been exposed when they have been in homes with peeling, peeling paint,” said Dr. Joneigh Khaldun, Michigan State’s chief medical officer and assistant general manager of health for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. “We just don’t even know.”

Widespread closures of buildings have created other risks. Although color is the leading cause of childhood lead poisoning, Lead pipes are also a threat. The longer the water stagnates in such pipes, the more lead seeps into them; Schools and daycare centers that closed last year could dangerously contaminate their water if they reopen.

“You can expect high levels of lead in some taps,” said Jennifer Hoponick Redmon, senior environmental health scientist at RTI International, a North Carolina-based nonprofit research organization. “In schools and day-care centers – and really in all closed places – water has to be flushed before people can use the water for drinking and cooking again.”

Tags Childhood, concerns, Lead, Pandemic, Poisoning, Raises

Health

Germany set to increase lockdown on issues over new coronavirus variants

Post author By
Post date February 10, 2021

Germany set to extend lockdown on concerns over new coronavirus variants

Chancellor Angela Merkel wears a protective face mask when leaving the country after speaking to the media at her annual summer press conference in Berlin on August 28, 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic.

Anadolu Agency | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

Chancellor Angela Merkel will announce that Germany will extend its lockdown until March 14, amid concerns about new strains of the coronavirus.

A draft document appeared early Wednesday setting out plans between Merkel and state officials to maintain the lockdown and urge citizens to maintain socially distant rules, but gradually lift some restrictions in the coming weeks.

The reopening of schools is a priority for the German leadership, although due to the federal system of the country the individual federal states can be expected to be able to decide how to do this. Stores and hotels could start reopening next month in areas where infection rates are also low. The restrictions should end on February 14th.

There are concerns in Germany about the spread of more contagious variants of the virus, particularly the mutation that was first discovered in the UK last fall. However, the daily number of new infections in Germany has fallen as public life continues to be blocked across the country.

The Robert Koch Institute, a public health institution, reported 8,072 new coronavirus cases and 813 deaths on Wednesday. This brought the total number of infections to around 2.3 million and the death toll to 62,969.

German lawmakers reportedly described the situation as “very fragile” on Wednesday.

Slow rollout of the EU

The slow introduction of coronavirus vaccines in Germany and the rest of the EU is a problem for the federal government, which is an important pillar of the bloc. The EU has been slower than the UK and US to order vaccines from major drug manufacturers and has faced supply shortages.

The longer the introduction of vaccinations, the longer the economic damage is expected from lockdowns. According to the GDP data published in January for the full year (gross domestic product), the German economy contracted by 5% in 2020.

Ludovic Subran, Allianz’s chief economist, told CNBC on Wednesday that the slow roll-out of vaccinations could seriously hurt the EU’s growth prospects in 2021.

“I’m getting a little nervous and we are only in February that we miss the boat here, that the vaccination is the best investment and we should put all our forces (efforts) there,” he told CNBC’s “Street Signs Europe”.

“Our projections show that Europe won’t return to pre-crisis (growth) levels until 2022. Then we saw the vaccination chaos and started thinking, ‘OK, we’re really jeopardizing the recovery here’ … the problem is we’re vaccinating four times here slower than the UK and US, “he said, adding,” This is really a big problem as it will make or break the 2021 GDP recovery for Europe. “

—CNBC’s Annette Weisbach contributed to this article.

Tags concerns, coronavirus, Extend, Germany, Lockdown, set, Variants

Politics

Decide Postpones Guantanamo Arraignments Over Covid Considerations

Post author By
Post date February 3, 2021

Judge Postpones Guantanamo Arraignments Over Covid Concerns

WASHINGTON – A military judge Tuesday indefinitely postponed indictments against three Guantánamo Bay prisoners who were due to appear in court for the first time after 17 years in prison. The coronavirus pandemic made traveling to the naval base too risky.

Indonesian prisoner Hambali, who has been held as a former leader of a Southeast Asian extremist group since 2003, and two accused accomplices were due to appear before the court martial on February 22nd. But Colonel Charles L. Pritchard Jr., the military judge who was due to travel to Guantanamo this week, ruled that “the various lawyers’ beliefs that travel is a serious threat to their health” was baseline.

Colonel Pritchard is the youngest military judge to join the Bank of Guantánamo Military Commissions and the youngest to postpone a trial deemed too risky in almost a year of the coronavirus repeal. The capital punishment pre-trial hearings against five men charged with planning the September 11, 2001 attacks have been delayed by a year.

The judge, court staff and attorneys in charge of the hearing began quarantine in the Washington area the weekend before a charter flight to the base Thursday.

Once there, the passengers should be quarantined individually for 14 days according to a plan worked out by the public prosecutor’s office in order to protect the residents of 6,000 inhabitants and in prison from the risk of infection.

“The risk to the health and safety of those involved in the legal proceedings due to the global Covid-19 pandemic is high,” the judge wrote in a seven-page order on Tuesday. “The government’s proposed mitigation measures lower the risk, but the risk remains.” He suggested that traveling to the base may not be safe until the end of summer.

Updated

Apr. 2, 2021, 7:52 p.m. ET

The case had been inactive throughout the Trump administration, but on day two of the Biden administration, a senior Pentagon official appointed under the Trump administration in charge of military commissions cleared the prosecution.

The defendants include Mr. Hambali, charged as Encep Nurjaman and the former leader of the extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah, and his accused accomplices, Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep and Mohammed Farik Bin Amin, who are Malaysians.

The three men were captured in Thailand in 2003 on charges of conspiracy in the 2002 nightclub bombings in Bali that killed 202 people, and in the 2003 Jakarta Marriott Hotel bombing in which at least 11 people were killed and at least 80 injured were indicted for their first three years on the CIA’s secret network of prisoners before being brought to Guantánamo for trial in 2006.

Military commission rules require an inmate to be tried within 30 days of the charges being approved, but the judge’s decision appeared to suspend this watch.

Colonel Pritchard, the head of the Army’s southeastern judicial district, was forced to travel to Washington last week to be quarantined before traveling to Guantánamo. In his decision, he noted that most of the people traveling to the court hearings have not yet been vaccinated against the virus, and neither have the prisoners.

He also noted Saturday’s decision by the Biden government to suspend a plan to offer vaccines to the 40 inmates in the prison this week. Under the original plan, the three defendants could have voluntarily received their February 1 shots and boosters in time for the February 22 trial.

By Tuesday, all soldiers and other service members working on the prison operation had been offered the Moderna vaccine, said Maj. Gregory J. McElwain, an Army spokesman, and declined to say how many of the estimated 1,500 troops are refused to receive this one shot. The Navy’s medical staff has been gradually vaccinating volunteers among residents of the base since Jan. 9.

This week, as part of the tiered program, the vaccines were offered to school teachers and foreign workers of the base commissioner and bars, as well as the naval forces guarding the perimeter of the base.

Prosecutors suggested that the hearing be postponed to April 3. The judge wrote that he would issue a new court order “in due course”.

Tags Arraignments, concerns, Covid, Guantanamo, Judge, Postpones

Business

A Co-Founding father of The Intercept Says She Was Fired for Airing Issues

Post author By
Post date January 15, 2021

A Co-Founder of The Intercept Says She Was Fired for Airing Concerns

Documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras said in an open letter published Thursday that she was fired from First Look Media for publicly criticizing how the company reacted to its failure to protect the identity of an anonymous source currently in jail is located.

The source, Reality Winner, was working as a linguist for the National Security Agency when she provided top-secret government documents to The Intercept, an investigative website run by First Look Media founded by Ms. Poitras and journalists Glenn Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill.

Ms. Winner was arrested on June 3, 2017, two days before The Intercept published an article based on material she posted under the heading “Top Secret NSA Report Details Russian Hacking Efforts Days Before the 2016 Election”. She was sentenced to more than five years in prison in 2018.

Betsy Reed, editor-in-chief of The Intercept, admitted to readers in a July 2017 notice that the publication had not done enough to protect Ms. Winner’s identity.

In the open letter, Ms. Poitras said the company had not responded with sufficient transparency about the aftermath of the story.

Ms. Poitras left The Intercept in 2016 but continued to work on film projects until she was released on November 30, advising for First Look Media. In an interview with the New York Times media, she accused the company of retaliation for criticizing the company from columnist Ben Smith.

In this interview, Ms. Poitras accused First Look Media’s investigation of failing to protect Ms. Winner and accused the company of “covering up and betraying core values”.

She returned to this criticism in the letter she published on Thursday on the website of her production company Praxis Films.

“Instead of conducting an honest, independent and transparent assessment with significant ramifications, First Look Media fired me for speaking out and exposing the gap between the organization’s supposed values and its practice,” she wrote.

Ms. Poitras added that the focus of her criticism was not that a source was exposed – “Journalists make mistakes, sometimes with dire consequences,” she wrote – but that research into the publication into handling the Winner story was inadequate .

First Look Media denied Ms. Poitras’ account, saying it refused to renew her contract because she was working on projects outside the company. It also defended its investigations.

“We did not renew the agreement with Laura Poitras on independent contractors because, despite our financial agreement, she has not worked for our company for more than two years,” First Look Media said in a statement. “This is simply not a sustainable situation for us or a company. For this and only for this reason, her contract was not renewed in 2021. Any implication that our decision was based on her speaking to the press is wrong. “

The Intercept was launched in 2014, with the help of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, after Ms. Poitras and Mr. Greenwald released blockbuster reports on National Security Agency secrets leaked by Edward J. Snowden. Her work won the Pulitzer Public Service Award, and Ms. Poitras won an Oscar for best documentary for Citizenfour, the 2014 film about Mr. Snowden.

Mr Greenwald left The Intercept in October claiming that an article he had written about Joseph R. Biden and his son Hunter had been censored by its editors, an allegation which the publication denied.

Tags Airing, cofounder, concerns, Fired, Intercept

Health

California governor cancels Covid briefing over security considerations

Post author By
Post date January 7, 2021

California governor cancels Covid briefing over safety concerns

Gavin Newsom, California Governor, speaks during a press conference in Sacramento, California

Rich Pedroncelli | Bloomberg | Getty Images

California Governor Gavin Newsom canceled his planned coronavirus update on Wednesday out of “caution” after a crowd of protesters who supported President Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol.

“We are concerned for the safety of the California Congress delegation and US Capitol staff and we endeavor to provide assistance in any way we can,” the Democratic governor said in a statement, adding that he was concerned about the safety of his own office staff California too.

“Peaceful protest is an important mechanism of our democracy, but what we are seeing in our nation’s Capitol is reprehensible and an outright attack on our democracy and democratic institutions,” Newsom said.

The news comes as California faces the deadliest days of the Covid-19 pandemic. According to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University, the state reports around 354 Covid deaths daily, a record average per week and an increase of nearly 49% compared to a week ago.

A governor’s spokesman told CNBC that the capital’s staff had been asked to work from home for the rest of the day. People who gathered to protest on the Capitol grounds have since left and there have been no major incidents, the spokesman said.

The Sacramento Police Department said in a tweet that 11 people were arrested for illegally possessing pepper spray and that there were some physical fights. However, the protesters have broken up and a large police presence will remain in the area all night.

Tags briefing, California, cancels, concerns, Covid, Governor, safety

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