Tag: Faces

Categories
Health

U.S. well being consultants attempt to ease Covid vaccine fears as AstraZeneca’s shot faces overview in Europe

U.S. health experts try to ease Covid vaccine fears as AstraZeneca's shot faces review in Europe

A photo illustration of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in the Copes pharmacy in Streatham on February 4, 2021 in London, England.

Dan Kitwood | Getty Images

Medical experts in the US are trying to allay fears that Covid-19 vaccines may be unsafe after several European countries suspended AstraZeneca’s shot after reports of blood clots in some recipients.

On Tuesday, Sweden, Latvia and Lithuania became the youngest countries to join a growing list of nations to stop using the AstraZeneca Oxford shot because of blood clot problems. Germany, France, Italy and Spain said Monday they would also stop administering the shot.

The European Medicines Agency, which assesses drug safety for the EU, convened a meeting on Thursday to review the results. So far it has been claimed that the benefits of the shot in preventing hospitalizations and death still “outweigh the risk of side effects.” The World Health Organization agreed and on Wednesday urged countries to keep using AstraZeneca’s shots.

Without the results of the upcoming European Medicines Agency meeting, it’s hard to tell if the vaccines are causing the reported blood clots, US medical experts told CNBC, but the drug giant already has a PR mess on its hands. Some doctors in the US fear that European nations are reacting prematurely to political pressure and safety concerns, and extensive efforts will be required to restore confidence in the vaccine when it is approved online.

“This vaccine is now a problem,” said Dr. William Schaffner, epidemiologist and professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, told CNBC in a telephone interview.

“I think if the vaccine is cleared – not guilty – there will have to be a significant public relations effort in Europe and around the world to restore confidence in this vaccine,” he said.

No red flags in the US

While the AstraZeneca vaccine has not yet been approved for use in the U.S., White House Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anthony Fauci informed lawmakers on Wednesday that there will likely be enough safety and efficacy data to get dosing approval in April.

When asked if the suspension of AstraZeneca in European countries could create anxiety among Americans taking other vaccines, Fauci reiterated that the shots will undergo rigorous clinical trials and verified by an independent safety oversight body before they become widespread.

“The whole process is both transparent and independent and we are explaining this to people and taking the time to address their hesitation without being confrontational,” Fauci told lawmakers during a hearing with the House Committee on Energy and Trade.

This isn’t the first time Fauci has stressed the safety of the current vaccines amid AstraZeneca’s suspension. The infectious disease expert told MSNBC in an interview on Tuesday that scientists in the US are carefully examining the side effects of vaccine recipients, even after they have been authorized and used.

For example, medical experts were concerned about reports of severe allergic reactions – or anaphylaxis – in people vaccinated with Pfizer and Moderna’s shock. However, these cases seem rare, he said, even though the nation has distributed at least one shot to 73 million adult Americans – more than 28% of the population.

“So far there are no safety signals that turn out to be red flags and you need to monitor these things very carefully,” said Fauci of the vaccines currently in use in the US

Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told Reuters in an interview published Monday that he was “fairly reassured” by statements from European regulators that the problems might arise randomly.

“I was a bit surprised that so many countries decided to stop vaccine administration, especially at a time when the disease is so incredibly threatening even in most of those countries,” Collins later told CNN on Wednesday and added that he has no access to the “primary data that may have led to an alert”.

More data needed

Unwanted medical problems like blood clots occur regardless of whether people are vaccinated or not. The problem scientists are now trying to determine is whether the vaccines were the culprit, Schaffner said.

“We knew in the beginning when we started vaccinating that since we are targeting older adults, medical events would only occur every day in this population, even without vaccines,” Schaffner told CNBC.

“It is possible that if you were vaccinated on Monday, certain medical events could occur on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday,” he said. “The question is, did the vaccine speed up, fail, or cause these events?”

For its part, AstraZeneca said in a statement on Sunday that of the more than 17 million people in the EU and UK who have received a dose of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, fewer than 40 cases of blood clots have been reported to date Week.

The pharmaceutical company said that 15 events involving deep vein thrombosis and 22 events involving pulmonary embolism were reported among those vaccinated in the EU and the United Kingdom. These numbers suggest that adverse events occur less often than expected in the general population, not higher.

“I don’t think this is real, but I am very concerned because this is the vaccine we all count on worldwide,” said Dr. Carlos del Rio, a professor of medicine at Emory University’s medical school, told CNBC in a telephone interview, he added that the shot costs less than its competitors. However, Del Rio noted that without the data it is difficult to determine whether the suspensions are appropriate.

“This requires extensive damage control,” said del Rio.

Politics could be the problem

There are some concerns that the issue with AstraZeneca’s vaccine could be more political. A dangerous time also comes: some European nations are battling another wave of new Covid-19 infections, even when vaccines are used.

So far, the introduction of vaccines in the EU has been slow compared to other countries such as the US and UK

“It is a major concern that Europe just doesn’t have that many people vaccinated,” said Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, former Covid advisor to President Joe Biden, told CNBC on Tuesday. “It’s another reason we need to be concerned about the Covid situation in other countries, not just the US.

The suspensions follow a public dispute between the EU and AstraZeneca in January when the drug company said it was forced to cut its initial dose supply for the block. Several European countries also initially declined to recommend the shot to residents over 65 as there was insufficient evidence that it was effective before that decision was reversed.

“It may be that … governments are trying to respond to people’s concerns about the vaccine, not necessarily the data,” said Emanuel, a bioethicist and oncologist who served as vice provost on global initiatives at the University of Pennsylvania acts.

“Actions don’t necessarily follow data. They follow more emotional responses to things like this,” he said.

– CNBC’s Sam Meredith, Holly Ellyatt and Silvia Amaro contributed to this report.

Categories
Business

Chamath Palihapitiya Faces Questions A few Massive Inventory Sale

Chamath Palihapitiya Faces Questions About a Big Stock Sale

Einer der bekanntesten Namen in SPACs, Chamath Palihapitiya, hatte letzte Woche mit Gegenreaktionen zu kämpfen, nachdem Zulassungsanträge gezeigt hatten, dass er seinen gesamten persönlichen Anteil an Virgin Galactic verkauft hatte, den er über einen Blankoscheck-Fonds öffentlich gemacht hatte. (Er wird weiterhin Vorsitzender bleiben und indirekt über eine Investmentfirma, die eine Beteiligung an dem Unternehmen hält, Aktionär bleiben.) Die Nachricht, dass Aktien vieler SPACs sowie von Virgin Galactic in einem breiteren Marktrückgang gefallen sind, fiel. Bedenken hinsichtlich einer Blankoscheck-Blase hinzugefügt.

Herr Palihapitiya besteht darauf, dass er immer noch Recht hat. Nachdem er beschrieben hatte, was er eine „superharte Woche“ nannte, twitterte er: „Ich habe meine Ziele erneut in Frage gestellt und festgestellt, dass meine strategische Sichtweise immer noch richtig ist.“ Er fügte hinzu, dass er seine Virgin Galactic-Aktien verkauft habe, um Kapital freizusetzen und weiterhin in Unternehmen zu investieren, die sich mit Ungleichheit und Klimawandel befassen. Themen, die er als “einmalige Gelegenheit” bezeichnete. (Zuvor hatte er Reuters mitgeteilt, dass er den Erlös aus dem Aktienverkauf für eine „große Investition“ zur Bekämpfung des Klimawandels verwenden werde, deren Einzelheiten „in den nächsten Monaten veröffentlicht werden“.)

Der Umzug gibt jedoch weiterhin Anlass zur Sorge. Unter ihnen: Wie engagiert – finanziell und anderweitig – sind Herr. Palihapitiya und andere SPAC-Sponsoren für die Unternehmen, die sie mit ihren Blankoscheck-Geldern kaufen? Und verstehen andere Anleger die mit diesen noch nicht erprobten Unternehmen verbundenen Risiken hinreichend?

  • Viele Investoren, darunter einige der 1,2 Millionen Twitter-Follower von Herrn Palihapitiya, kaufen wahrscheinlich Anteile an den Unternehmen, in die er investiert, weil sie glauben, dass er langfristig an dem Projekt beteiligt ist, und nicht nur die günstige Wirtschaftlichkeit nutzen, die SPAC-Sponsoren genießen , unabhängig vom Erfolg der Investition. (Wir haben bereits darüber berichtet, wie einige Sponsoren versuchen, diese Fehlausrichtung zu verringern.)

  • Sein Ruf und der anderer SPAC-Sponsoren sind besonders wichtig, da potenzielle Investoren gebeten werden, im Rahmen dieser Deals hohe Prognosen zu akzeptieren. Nehmen wir zum Beispiel Virgin Galactic: Die Investorenpräsentation für die Fusion 2019 mit Herrn Palihapitiya SPAC prognostizierte, dass das Unternehmen im Jahr 2020 einen Umsatz von 31 Millionen US-Dollar und in diesem Jahr 210 Millionen US-Dollar erzielen würde. Die Führungskräfte von Virgin Galactic räumten jedoch im vergangenen Monat ein, dass das Unternehmen im vergangenen Jahr „keine nennenswerten Einnahmen erzielt“ habe.

In anderen SPAC-Nachrichten: Das Bitcoin-Bergbauunternehmen Cipher und der Crowd-Safety-Tech-Anbieter Evolv haben vereinbart, an die Börse zu gehen, indem sie sich mit Blankoscheck-Fonds zusammengeschlossen haben, während das selbstfahrende Lkw-Start-up Plus Berichten zufolge Gespräche führt, um sich mit einem zu kombinieren.

Gouverneur Andrew Cuomo aus New York ruft zum Rücktritt auf: “Auf keinen Fall.” Herr Cuomo widersetzte sich einem Aufruf des Vorsitzenden des Senats des Staates New York, zurückzutreten, nachdem zwei weitere Frauen ihn des unangemessenen Verhaltens beschuldigt hatten. Der einst beliebte Gouverneur sieht sich einem schrumpfenden Kreis von Beratern und sinkenden Umfragewerten gegenüber, da immer mehr New Yorker sagen, sie wollen nicht, dass er wieder läuft.

Präsident Bidens 1,9 Billionen US-Dollar-Konjunkturprogramm quietscht durch den Senat. Der wirtschaftliche Rettungsplan räumte die obere Kammer zwischen 50 und 49 auf, nachdem die Demokraten das Arbeitslosengeld gekürzt hatten, um Senator Joe Manchin zu beruhigen. Die Gesetzesvorlage muss nun ein zweites Mal das Haus passieren, was erwartet wird, bevor Herr Biden sie gesetzlich unterzeichnet.

Öl steigt nach einem Angriff auf eine Anlage in Saudi-Aramco. Rohöl schoss zum ersten Mal seit mehr als einem Jahr über 70 USD pro Barrel, nachdem ein Drohnenangriff auf einen Erdöllagertank in einem großen saudi-arabischen Hafen gerichtet war.

Die Banken an der Wall Street sitzen auf großen Papiergewinnen aus Winterstürmen. Die Handelsschalter von Unternehmen wie Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley und Bank of America profitierten von den Geschäften mit Strom und Erdgas nach dem Tiefkühl im letzten Monat, der die Strompreise in die Höhe trieb. Insolvenzanträge von Energieversorgungsunternehmen und die Vergebung von Kundenrechnungen durch staatliche Gesetzgeber können diese Renditen jedoch einschränken.

MacKenzie Scott heiratet erneut. Die Milliardärs-Philanthropin gab bekannt, dass sie Dan Jewett, einen Lehrer an einer angesehenen Privatschule in Seattle, über ein Jahr nach ihrer Scheidung von Jeff Bezos geheiratet hat. Herr Jewett hat sich verpflichtet, Frau Scott bei ihrem philanthropischen Spenden zu helfen, das sich durch seine Geschwindigkeit und Größe auszeichnet.

Während die Republikaner in Georgia Maßnahmen durchsetzen, von denen Kritiker sagen, dass sie das Stimmrecht der schwarzen Bürger einschränken, fordern die Gegner der Maßnahmen die im Staat ansässigen großen Unternehmen auf, ihre Verteidigung der bürgerlichen Freiheiten zu verstärken. Eine dieser Gesetzesvorlagen hat das Haus bereits verabschiedet, während eine andere bereits in dieser Woche im Senat zur Abstimmung gehen könnte.

Unternehmen haben bereits zuvor eine Rolle in den Bürgerrechtskämpfen in Georgia gespielt. Um seinen Ruf als nationale Drehscheibe für Unternehmen zu stärken, positionierte sich die Landeshauptstadt Atlanta als die führende Stadt des „Neuen Südens“. Führer wie der frühere Bürgermeister Andrew Young, ein Bürgerrechtler und Berater von Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., appellierten an moderate Geschäftszahlen, unter anderem indem sie Anreize boten und die Infrastruktur verbesserten, um Unternehmen anzuziehen.

Unternehmensriesen haben DealBook über die vorgeschlagenen Abstimmungsbeschränkungen informiert:

  • Koks bezeichnete die Abstimmung als “Grundrecht” und sagte, sie unterstütze die Bemühungen der Metro Atlanta Chamber und der Georgia Chamber of Commerce, “einen ausgewogenen Ansatz bei den Wahlgesetzen zu ermöglichen”.

  • Home Depot sagte, dass “Wahlen zugänglich, fair und sicher sein und eine breite Wahlbeteiligung unterstützen sollten.” Es verwies auf eine interne Initiative zur Stimmabgabe und eine Spende von 9.200 Plexiglas-Trennwänden im ganzen Staat, um die Sicherheit der Wahllokale zu verbessern.

  • UPS sagte, es “glaubt an die Bedeutung des demokratischen Prozesses und unterstützt die Erleichterung der Fähigkeit aller Wahlberechtigten, ihre Bürgerpflicht auszuüben.” Es fügte hinzu, dass es mit den Handelskammern von Atlanta und Georgia zusammenarbeitet, “um einen gerechten Zugang zu den Wahlen und die Integrität des Wahlprozesses im gesamten Bundesstaat sicherzustellen”.

  • Delta Die Abstimmung wird als „wesentlicher Bestandteil“ der Unternehmenswerte bezeichnet. “Die Gewährleistung eines Wahlsystems, das eine breite Wahlbeteiligung, einen gleichberechtigten Zugang zu den Wahlen und faire, sichere Wahlprozesse fördert, ist für das Vertrauen der Wähler von entscheidender Bedeutung und schafft ein Umfeld, in dem sichergestellt ist, dass alle Stimmen gezählt werden.”

  • Marken inspirieren, der Besitzer von Dunkin ‘Donuts and Arby’s und das zweitgrößte Restaurantunternehmen in Amerika, hatte keinen Kommentar.

Diese Aussagen reichen nicht aus, sagen Aktivisten. “Nur zu sagen, dass wir Wahlen unterstützen – freie, faire und zugängliche Wahlen -, ohne die derzeit laufenden Probleme tatsächlich anzugehen, hat keine Zähne”, sagte Rev. James Woodall, der Präsident der Georgia NAACP, gegenüber DealBook.

  • Herr Woodall behauptete, dass es für in Georgia ansässige Unternehmen jetzt schwieriger sei, sowohl für eine gemäßigte Sozialpolitik zu werben als auch für lokale Politiker zu sorgen, die die Gesetze zu Wahlbeschränkungen vorantreiben. “Georgia feiert, der beste Staat zu sein, um Geschäfte zu machen”, sagte er. “Aber das wird sich ändern, wenn die Menschen das Gefühl haben, dass Unternehmen sie nicht unterstützen oder ihr Leben buchstäblich auf dem Spiel steht.”

Ebitda? ROI? Es kann ein Fall für die ESG angeführt werden, das Akronym, das in ihren letzten vierteljährlichen Gewinnaufrufen mehr Führungskräfte als je zuvor erwähnt. Laut FactSet hat ein Viertel der S & P 500-Unternehmen diese Abkürzung für Umwelt-, Sozial- und Governance-Fragen in ihren Aufrufen für das vierte Quartal bis letzte Woche angegeben – fast doppelt so viele wie im gleichen Zeitraum des Vorjahres.

Die Überprüfung der Namen durch die ESG spiegelt die breiteren Bedenken der Sitzungssäle wider. über die Aktionärsrendite hinaus. Dies ist auch ein Ergebnis von Investoren wie BlackRock, die Unternehmen dazu drängen, Ziele hinsichtlich ihrer Klimaauswirkungen, ihres Engagements für Rassengerechtigkeit und anderer ESG-Themen festzulegen. Dies kommt auch daher, dass die Biden-Administration die ESG zu einer immer wichtigeren regulatorischen Priorität macht.

Kurz gesagt, hier ist der Status Quo: von Martine Ferland, der stellvertretenden Vorsitzenden von Marsh & McLennan, bei einem kürzlich durchgeführten Investorenanruf:

„Wir beobachten natürlich die Agenda der Biden-Administration, aber wir denken, dass wir dort gut positioniert sind. Insbesondere sind wir sehr stark in der ESG, wie der Beratung zu Vielfalt und Inklusion, sowie in Bezug auf verantwortungsbewusstes Investieren und die Unterstützung von Kunden bei der Bewältigung des Übergangs zu einer kohlenstoffarmen Wirtschaft. “

Ohne Zweifel war das größte Ereignis im Fernsehen gestern Abend Oprah Winfreys Prime-Time-Interview mit Meghan Markle und Prince Harry of Britain. Die zweistündige Sendung brachte eine Reihe von Bomben-Schlagzeilen, aber wir wollten auch einen Blick auf das große Geld werfen, das hinter der Sendung steckt.

  • Frau Winfrey soll gesammelt haben mindestens 7 Millionen US-Dollar Für die Rechte an dem Interview berichtet das Wall Street Journal. CBS gewann die Rechte, nachdem Frau Winfreys Produktionsfirma auch NBC und ABC aufstellte.

  • Der Sender ITV soll bezahlt haben 1 Million Pfund (1,4 Millionen US-Dollar) für die britischen Rechte an dem Interview, so der Guardian. Es wird heute Abend um 21 Uhr britischer Zeit ausgestrahlt.

  • CBS suchte angeblich nach 325.000 US-Dollar für 30-Sekunden-Werbespots Verdoppeln Sie während der Sendung die üblichen Raten für diesen Zeitraum.

  • ITV fragte auch nach bis zu £ 120.000 für Werbeflächen während der Ausstrahlung mehr als doppelt so hoch wie die Standardtarife.

  • Harry und Meghan erhielten keine Entschädigung für das Interview. (Im Interview sagten die beiden, sie hätten kein Geld mehr von der königlichen Familie erhalten, obwohl sie Verträge zur Erstellung von Inhalten mit Netflix unterzeichnet haben.)

Angebote

  • Apollo Global Management erklärte sich bereit, Athene Holding, eine Tochtergesellschaft für Altersvorsorge, zu kaufen, die dem Private-Equity-Riesen Milliarden mehr Kapital für Investitionen zur Verfügung stellt. (Apollo)

  • General Electric steht Berichten zufolge kurz vor einer Vereinbarung über den Verkauf seines Flugzeugleasinggeschäfts an AerCap im Wert von mehr als 30 Milliarden US-Dollar. (WSJ)

  • Instacart erwägt angeblich, anstelle eines Börsengangs (Reuters) über eine direkte Notierung an die Börse zu gehen.

Politik und Politik

Technik

  • John McAfee, der Gründer des Antivirensoftware-Herstellers, der seinen Namen trägt, wurde beschuldigt, ein Pump-and-Dump-Programm auf Twitter betrieben zu haben. (WaPo)

  • “Wie feiern Silicon Valley Techies, bei einer Pandemie reich zu werden?” (NYT)

  • Der CEO von Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, könnte dank Aktienoptionen mehr als 1 Million US-Dollar pro Tag nach der direkten Notierung des Unternehmens verdienen. (Bloomberg)

Das Beste vom Rest

  • Die SEC beschuldigte AT & T und drei Mitarbeiter, einige Wall Street-Analysten zu Unrecht über den Verkauf von Smartphones informiert zu haben. Das Unternehmen bestritt die Anklage. (WSJ)

  • Ein Blick auf das Leben nach der Pandemie laut neuen Anzeigen: in maßgeschneiderter Kleidung und viel mehr Reisen. (NYT)

  • Jack Dorsey verkauft den ersten Tweet von Twitter als sogenanntes nicht fungibles Token – „NFT“ für Kenner – und das derzeit höchste Gebot liegt bei 2,5 Millionen US-Dollar. (CNBC)

Wir freuen uns über Ihr Feedback! Bitte senden Sie Ihre Gedanken und Vorschläge per E-Mail an dealbook@nytimes.com.

Categories
Health

Cuomo faces political disaster attributable to Covid dying probe, bullying accusations

Cuomo faces political crisis due to Covid death probe, bullying accusations

Governor Andrew Cuomo holds a daily press conference at the base of the Mario Cuomo Bridge in Tarrytown, New York on June 15, 2020.

Lev Radin | Pacific Press | LightRocket via Getty Images

What a difference a few months have made for New York Governor Andrew Cuomo – and not in a good way.

Cuomo was hailed last year by many who viewed him as a competent, scientifically respectful, no-nonsense, fatherly counterpoint to Donald Trump’s direct, expertly despicable, and often confusing approach to dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

Cuomo’s daily press conferences, detailing the gritty Covid-19 stats in New York and urging citizens to take precautions against infection, became a must-see TV for weeks, as did his towel joke in interviews with the CNN presenter Chris Cuomo – his own brother.

As a result, it was discussed again that Cuomo, whose father Mario worried about running for president, earned him the sobriety of “Hamlet on the Hudson,” being a candidate for the Democratic White House nomination in 2024 would, or some position in the federal government before that.

Cuomo even landed a contract to write a book, American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the Covid-19 Pandemic, which was published in October – even as the crisis continued to threaten his own state and elsewhere.

But it is Cuomo’s management approach to the health crisis that has created a political crisis in his administration that threatens his electoral future.

Thousands of vulnerable New Yorkers died in nursing homes during the pandemic. Your loved ones and the public deserve responses and transparency from their elected leadership.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez MP

DN.Y.

The U.S. Department of Justice is currently conducting a criminal investigation into nursing home deaths in New York related to the coronavirus. This was announced this week. The disclosure of this probe came weeks after New York attorney general Letitia James said deaths related to these hires were underreported by the Cuomo administration by up to 50%.

And Cuomo is also facing an effort in the state legislature to deprive him of his emergency powers, a push fueled by resentment at the governor’s verbal armament against lawmakers who stand in his way.

There is even talk of indicting Cuomo.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive Democrat whose district includes parts of Queens and the Bronx in New York, issued a statement Friday approving requests from other elected officials for a “full investigation into government’s dealings with.” Nursing Homes During the Pandemic “joined. “

Ocasio-Cortez also said she supports “our state’s return to equal governance,” an indication of Cuomo’s years of dominance in the legislature.

“Thousands of New Yorkers at risk were killed in nursing homes during the pandemic,” she said. “Your loved ones and the public deserve answers and transparency from their elected leadership.”

An excuse, a probe

The contrast between Cuomo’s current situation and last fall was vividly illustrated last week when he left the White House without speaking to reporters after speaking to President Joe Biden and other governors and others at the White House about fighting pandemics and vaccinations had spoken to Mayor.

If that meeting had happened last summer, it would be unlikely that Cuomo would have missed the opportunity to share his thoughts on the seat with journalists.

That meeting, however, followed a report in the New York Post that Cuomo’s top adviser Melissa DeRosa recently apologized to Democratic lawmakers for holding back the Covid death count in government nursing homes last year while Trump was still president fear that the statistics will be “used against us” by federal prosecutors.

That excuse apparently raised the prosecutors’ antennas itself.

On Thursday evening, the Wall Street Journal reported that prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York had requested data on deaths in nursing homes related to Covid.

The request is “part of a broader investigation into how the state is dealing with the pandemic in these care facilities,” according to sources speaking to The Journal.

A source for the article said the data request came after DeRosa’s apology was reported.

Families of Covid victims and Republican lawmakers in New York last year criticized Cuomo for an order from the state Department of Health requiring nursing homes to withdraw their residents even if they were discharged from a hospital with Covid.

These critics accuse these policies of accelerating the spread of the virus in nursing homes.

Cuomo, whose press office did not immediately respond to a request from CNBC for comment, said this week, “My health experts do not believe it was wrong and we have gone through all the facts multiple times.”

The governor also said he had followed instructions from two leading federal agencies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

“If we believed it was wrong we would say we believe it is wrong and we made a mistake by following the CDC and CMS guidelines and then I would be the federal government because of Sue for misconduct related to their CDC and CMS policies, “Cuomo said.

“Classic Andrew Cuomo”

On Tuesday, nine Democratic members of the State Assembly sent their colleagues a letter accusing Cuomo of deliberately obstructing the judiciary in violation of federal criminal law. That letter called on the gathering to withdraw the government’s emergency powers granted it last year as the pandemic spread.

“This is a necessary first step in correcting the criminal injustice of this governor and his government,” said the letter, which was signed by Honorable Ron Kim from Queens.

Kim said this week, after being quoted in a New York Post article for criticizing the withholding of data from nursing homes, he received an angry phone call from Cuomo on Feb.11.

“You didn’t see my anger,” Cuomo Kim warned, according to lawmakers. “They will be destroyed,” said the governor, according to Kim.

Kim also told the Post that the governor said, “I can tell the whole world what a bad person you are and you will be done.”

In an interview with NBC New York, Kim said, “He spent 10 minutes calling me names, yelling at me, threatening me and my career, my livelihood.”

Kim’s wife, who allegedly overheard Cuomo for cursing MPs so loudly, was so shocked by the governor’s threats that she “didn’t sleep that night,” said Kim.

Cuomo’s spokesman Rich Azzopardi told The Post that Kim “lied about his conversation with Governor Cuomo”.

“I know because I was one of three other people in the room when the call came,” Azzopardi said, according to The Post.

“At no point did anyone threaten to ‘destroy’ someone with their ‘anger’ or to engage in a ‘cover-up’.” “

Kim had not backed off with his claims.

Kim appeared on ABC’s “The View” on Friday and said, “Cuomo is an abuser.”

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, who often has a whipping boy for Cuomo, told MNBC’s “Morning Joe” show that the call to Kim was “classic Andrew Cuomo”.

“A lot of people in New York State got these calls, you know, bullying is nothing new,” said de Blasio.

“I believe Ron Kim, and it’s very, very sad – no officer, no person telling the truth should be treated like that.”

Categories
Politics

Trump faces felony, civil investigations after White Home

Trump faces criminal, civil investigations after White House

Donald Trump

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump could easily have avoided conviction on his second impeachment – but he might find it much more difficult to beat the various serious criminal and civil investigations he is now facing.

And at least one of those investigations has the potential for Trump to be jailed if convicted.

That would be an unprecedented event in American history as no ex-president has ever been charged with a crime, let alone one.

Trump, a Republican whose spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment, has claimed the probes were politically motivated witch hunts by Democratic prosecutors.

But judges in two of those investigations have repeatedly ruled against Trump’s attorneys in evidence-related disputes.

These decisions underscore the criminal and civil risk Trump faces, as well as the fact that on Jan. 20 he lost the protection from law enforcement that came into effect through serving as president.

“There are a lot of balls in the air in the potential criminal arena and if I were Donald Trump I wouldn’t just rest,” said Joseph Tacopina, a senior New York City criminal lawyer.

Find him the voices

During that call, which was taped, Trump pressured Raffensperger, the state’s top election official, to “find” enough votes for him to reverse his election loss to Joe Biden in Georgia.

Willis plans to ask a grand jury to issue subpoenas in the investigation next month, which, according to her office, is “monitoring” possible violations of electoral fraud laws as well as “false statements to state and local government agencies, conspiracy and extortion” and other charges.

Trump had claimed for months without evidence that he had been removed from a second term in office by widespread electoral fraud in Biden’s favor.

Thousands of Trump supporters who believed these falsehoods violently led to rioting in the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, however, ultimately failed to get Congress to reject Biden’s victory. Trump was charged by the House of Representatives for instigating this uprising with his allegations.

A Justice Department official said last month, while prosecutors are now focused on indicting individuals who rioted in the Capitol itself, “we will continue to obey the facts and the law” when dealing with whether or not Trump others are to be charged with inciting his allies.

Senate Minority Chairman Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who was one of 43 Republicans who voted for Trump’s acquittal Saturday as one of 43 Republicans in his impeachment trial, made a speech following the ruling that suggested that Trump could be prosecuted for the riot.

McConnell voted in favor of acquittal because a former president could not be charged with impeachment. But McConnell also said there is “no question” that Trump “is practically and morally responsible for provoking the“ insurrection ”.

“He hasn’t gotten away with anything,” said McConnell. “We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil trials. And former presidents are not immune to being [held] accountable by both. “

McConnell’s argument was underpinned by a civil lawsuit filed Tuesday by the NAACP and Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., In federal court in Washington. Trump, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and two right-wing groups, the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, conspired to start the Capitol uprising.

“The uprising was the result of a carefully crafted plan by Trump, Giuliani and extremist groups like the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys, all of whom shared the common goal of using intimidation, harassment and threats to stop the certification of the electoral college.” The NAACP said Biden’s victory in a statement.

Trump’s spokesman, Jason Miller, said Trump “did not instigate or conspire to violence in the Capitol on Jan. 6”.

The worst criminal case

While the Capitol riot investigation and Georgia investigation are the most recent investigations, perhaps the most serious criminal case Trump faces is likely the one that has been carried out by the Manhattan Attorney’s Office for several years.

DA Cyrus Vance Jr.’s investigation appeared to have initially focused on a relatively minor issue: whether Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, was properly accounted for in their financial books, hushed up cash payments to two women who said they had sex with him.

If the company hadn’t properly recorded these payments in its records, the Trump Organization could have gotten away with a small civil penalty, if only this.

One of those payments was made by Trump’s attorney at the time, Michael Cohen, to pornstar Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election.

The other payment was made by the Trump allied editor of The National Enquirer to Playboy model Karen McDougal in the months leading up to the same election.

Trump, who denied having sex with both women, still refunded Cohen the payment to Daniels. Cohen later pleaded guilty to federal crimes which included campaign funding violations related to facilitating payouts to both women.

Cohen, who was in prison, has been working with Vance’s probe since 2018.

And the investigation, as court files and news reports suggest, has only grown in scope since then.

Last August, a court filing by Vance said the investigation could consider possible “insurance and banking fraud by the Trump organization and its officials”.

A month later, another filing from Vance suggested the investigation could also investigate Trump for possible tax crimes.

Cohen had testified to Congress in early 2019 that Trump had not properly inflated and deflated the value of his real estate assets for tax and insurance purposes.

Doubtful tax systems and outright fraud

Vance’s records appeared to refer to this testimony, and one file specifically stated that the New York Times reported that Trump operated “dubious tax systems, including outright fraud,” in the 1990s.

Shortly before Christmas, Vance’s investigators requested records from three cities in Westchester County, New York, as part of the investigation. The records refer to Trump’s 213 acre Seven Springs Estate property that extends across these towns.

And the Wall Street Journal reported last Saturday that Vance’s office is also monitoring loans Trump took out on Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue and three other Manhattan properties: 40 Wall Street, the Trump Plaza apartment building, and Trump International Hotel and Tower.

At the same time, Vance is waiting for the US Supreme Court to decide whether Trump should hear an appeal against a grand jury subpoena for years of income tax returns and other financial documents the prosecutor is seeking as part of his investigation.

The Supreme Court rejected Trump’s argument last summer that the subpoena issued to his accountants Mazars USA was on hold because of his then president status. However, the Supreme Court said Trump could bring new arguments against the subpoena to a judge in Mahattan federal court.

However, these arguments were quickly rejected by this judge and then by a jury of the 2nd District Court of Appeal.

Trump then asked the Supreme Court in October to hear his appeal against these denials. However, the court has yet to say whether it will.

Gerald Lefcourt, a Manhattan criminal defense attorney, said, “It is very strange that it has taken the Supreme Court so long” to decide whether it will accept the case, especially given that it has previously come across other related arguments decided with the summons.

“When will they rule?” Lefcourt asked rhetorically.

If the Supreme Court denies Trump’s motion, Vance, whose office has refused to comment on the nature of his investigation, would quickly get the tax returns and other documentation.

However, since these records are expected to be extensive, they can take several months to sift through and determine if they provide evidence of criminal prosecution.

Tacopina, the fellow criminal defense attorney, said Vance’s persistent search for Trump’s tax returns – which the former president voluntarily refused to publish publicly for years – could be a sign of how strongly the prosecutor believes his case is right.

“Cy Vance is fighting way too hard for this case to fall,” said Tacopina. “He seems to be on something.”

Civil investigation

While Vance awaits the Supreme Court decision, New York attorney general Letitia James conducts a civil investigation into Trump and his company, the focus of which partially overlaps with the criminal investigation.

James’ investigations have been ongoing since 2019 but did not become known until August with a court battle for answers that her investigators sought from Eric Trump, the second eldest son of Donald Trump, who runs the Trump Organization with his brother Donald Trump Jr.

James’ office said it was researching how Trump valued certain properties, including the Seven Springs Estate, as well as properties in Manhattan, Chicago and Los Angeles.

A big question related to the Seven Springs property is whether the site’s valuation has been grossly inflated to demand a $ 2.1 million tax deduction for a 2015 conservation donation.

Eric Trump, after initially agreeing to be interviewed by James’ investigators, later turned down that deal, the AG said. Eric Trump then tried to postpone the interview until after the presidential election.

James then asked a judge to force Eric to follow the interview the judge conducted in September.

James later called the ruling a “great victory” which “makes it clear that no one is above the law, not even an organization or a person named Trump”.

For his part, Eric Trump said at the time: “The New York attorney general called my father an ‘illegitimate’ president and promised to bring him down while she was running for office. Her actions since have shown continued political vengeance and an attempt at her meddle in the upcoming elections. “

Eric was questioned under oath by James’ investigators in early October.

Categories
Business

HNA Was As soon as China’s Largest Dealmaker. Now It Faces Chapter.

HNA Was Once China’s Biggest Dealmaker. Now It Faces Bankruptcy.

HONG KONG – Lenders are pushing for bankruptcy. Its chairman and co-founder has been tacitly stripped of power. Almost $ 10 billion of his money was misappropriated.

HNA Group, the giant Chinese conglomerate that has thrown tens of billions of dollars in trophy deals around the world, is nearing the biggest corporate collapse in recent Chinese history. The downsizing is an extraordinary twist for the company, which began as a regional airline in southern China’s Hainan Province and owned large stakes in Hilton Hotels, Deutsche Bank, Virgin Australia, and others. At that time, HNA employed 400,000 people worldwide.

For China’s leadership, HNA is now a cautionary story. Its story offers a glimpse of how Beijing treats its most powerful entrepreneurs. China has got its economy tighter, and regulators recently conquered another empire – that of China’s most famous billionaire, Jack Ma.

“It is a sharp reminder to China’s private sector and big soaring corporations and executives that you are never more important than the Communist Party,” said Jude Blanchette, a China scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Narrowing down large companies isn’t exactly central planning, but it certainly sets guidelines for how companies behave to make sure they’re going in the right direction.”

The pressure on companies whose behavior could pose a risk to the Chinese financial system is mounting. Xi Jinping, China’s leader, told a meeting of senior officials from the country’s Communist Party late last month that the government must foresee and anticipate risks even if it seeks growth. He urged officials to make plans to deal with the “gray rhino” events, highlighting major and obvious problems in the economy that are being ignored until they become urgent threats. Chinese media had often referred to HNA as a gray rhinoceros before its demise.

The party has strengthened its hand in private business in recent months and urged entrepreneurs to identify “politically, intellectually and emotionally” with their goals. It has also pledged to prevent something called “disorderly capital expansion,” an indication of the type of lavish spending on borrowed money that HNA had become known for.

The party’s recent high profile targets include Chinese online shopping giant Alibaba Group. In December, the authorities launched an antitrust investigation into the company Mr. Ma co-founded. A month earlier, days before a planned IPO of Mr. Ma’s financial giant Ant Group, regulators stepped in to stop this.

HNA was once the face of modern enterprise China, leading the first wave of private Chinese companies with political backing to make large global acquisitions. His propensity to fund borrowed money to buy shares in global famous names was expensive and risky, and seemed to dare regulators in Beijing and around the world to turn it upside down.

As HNA’s creditors wait for a Chinese court to approve their bankruptcy and reorganization petition, questions about the extent of the conglomerate’s problems arise. It has $ 200 billion in debt that it can’t pay off, and those owed money have to sift through dozens, possibly hundreds, of its subsidiaries, said Michelle Luo, a bankruptcy attorney at Hui Ye law firm.

The task became even more daunting when three of HNA’s subsidiaries announced late last month that HNA shareholders and dozen of subsidiaries had embezzled nearly $ 10 billion in corporate funds to repay their own debts. The HNA Group was one of dozens of shareholders and subsidiaries listed in the alleged allegedly money embezzled. Hainan Airlines, one of HNA’s subsidiaries, said some funds were used to pay for wealth management products but did not disclose specific details.

HNA’s bankruptcy is the largest China has seen since the country first implemented its bankruptcy law in 2007, Ms. Luo said. It will also test the strength of the law – only 76 publicly traded companies have gone through bankruptcy proceedings in China.

Much of HNA’s restructuring is likely to take place behind closed doors and with strong government involvement. Officials from China’s Civil Aviation Administrator and the China Development Bank, the country’s main political bank, took over management of some of the company’s affairs last year, and two government officials joined the board of directors.

The fate of Chen Feng, chairman and co-founder of HNA, has been in doubt since he was removed from a list of members of the HNA Communist Party Committee, the company’s main decision-making body, according to an official release late last month.

While building HNA, Mr. Chen shaped his corporate culture with his own personal interests as a Buddhist and calligrapher. Mr. Chen, a former People’s Liberation Army pilot, said he was different from other entrepreneurs. “I don’t drink, smoke, do banquets, go to karaoke or get massages,” he once told the South China Morning Post. He had the company headquarters in Hainan built to look like a Buddha.

For years, doors opened for the company. It was cheaply funded by China’s state-sponsored banks. The executives had the kind of political connections that private companies in China could only dream of.

On his first state visit to the UK, China’s top leader Xi Jinping performed at an event in Manchester for HNA’s Hainan Airlines. Mr. Chen was once an advisor to Wang Qishan, China’s vice president. Another HNA manager partnered with the son of Wen Jiabao, the former prime minister of China, the New York Times reported in 2018.

HNA also had an influence abroad. One of the earliest supporters was George Soros, the billionaire. Executives mingled with Wall Street power brokers at black-tie galas and met with leaders in Washington. You have a business deal with Governor Jeb Bush. They attempted to buy Skybridge Capital, an investment firm co-founded by Anthony Scaramucci who at the time expected to create a link between the White House and the US business community. (The deal was canceled after companies realized regulators weren’t going to approve it.)

But the glory days of HNA were numbered as the authorities in China began to question the enormous debt that HNA and some of its politically affiliated counterparts such as Anbang Insurance Group, Fosun International and Dalian Wanda took up to fuel their global shopping spree.

Authorities took control of Anbang, a troubled insurance conglomerate that owned the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York, and sentenced its founder, Wu Xiaohui, to 18 years in prison for fraud. Wanda, the former owner of AMC Entertainment, and Fosun, which owns Club Med and luxury fashion house Lanvin, quickly sold some of their overseas acquisitions.

As HNA turned to its own growing bill, it began to lose some of its businesses. She also tried to borrow money from her own employees by offering them high-yield investment products.

The Chinese government has not commented on the decryption of the HNA. The China Securities Regulatory Commission and the Hainan Supervision Bureau of the China Securities Regulatory Commission did not respond to a faxed request for comment. HNA did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

China’s state-controlled news media has tried to portray HNA’s bankruptcy process as a measure aimed at protecting the company’s assets rather than trying to get to the heart of them.

“The focus of bankruptcy and restructuring is not on ‘destruction’ but on ‘building’,” said a comment in Shanghai Security News. “It can also be seen as ‘rebirth’.”

On Chinese social media, some customers of HNA’s airlines asked if their tickets would be refunded, while people who had invested in its investment products complained that the company would repay the banks before returning any money it received from normal Had borrowed people. Others said they weren’t surprised at the company’s ultimate fate.

“In the end, the HNA Group still failed,” wrote Chen Haijian, a finance professional in Nanjing, on his personal page on WeChat, a Chinese social media platform.

“It feels like people have been saying this phrase for over 10 years.”

Cao Li contributed to the coverage from Hong Kong.

Categories
Politics

Who’s Jonathan Braun? Trump’s Final Minute Pardon Nonetheless Faces Accusations of Violence

Who is Jonathan Braun? Trump's Last Minute Pardon Still Faces Accusations of Violence

President Donald J. Trump’s late-night commutation of a 10-year prison sentence being served by a drug smuggler named Jonathan Braun made the action sound almost routine. The White House said only that upon his release, Mr. Braun would “seek employment to support his wife and children.”

What the White House did not mention is that Mr. Braun, a New Yorker from Staten Island who had pleaded guilty in 2011 to leading a large-scale marijuana smuggling ring, still faces both criminal and civil investigations in an entirely separate matter, and has a history of violence and threatening people.

According to lawsuits filed in June against Mr. Braun and two associates by the New York State attorney general, Letitia James, and the Federal Trade Commission, Mr. Braun helped start and worked as a de facto enforcer for an operation that made predatory loans to small-business owners, threatening them with violence if they refused to pay up.

Federal prosecutors for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan also have a continuing investigation into that operation, a person with knowledge of the investigation said Friday.

As recently as two and a half years ago, Mr. Braun was accused of throwing a man off a deck at an engagement party. Federal prosecutors said in a court proceeding that he threatened to beat a rabbi who borrowed money to renovate a preschool at his synagogue. “I am going to make you bleed,” he told the rabbi, according to court documents, adding, “I will make you suffer for every penny.”

How much Mr. Trump and his aides knew about Mr. Braun’s past and his current legal troubles is not clear. In its announcement of the pardon this week, the White House appears to have substantially overstated how much of his 10-year sentence Mr. Braun had completed, saying he had served five years when he had only reported to prison a year ago. (The White House announcement also misspelled his first name, calling him Jonathon.)

Mr. Braun’s family had told people it was willing to spend millions of dollars for lawyers and others to try to get him out of prison, according to two people who have been in contact with the family members in recent months.

No one registered under federal lobbying laws to make Mr. Braun’s case to the Trump administration, though registration would not necessarily be required for legal representation. The White House announcement of the wave of 143 pardons and commutations early Wednesday, just hours before Mr. Trump left office, did not cite anyone who had backed the commutation of Mr. Braun’s sentence.

The lawyer Alan M. Dershowitz, who represented Mr. Trump in his first impeachment trial, said he “played a very limited role” in Mr. Braun’s clemency push, “almost exclusively” advising his father about the clemency process, and was paid “a very small amount of money” for his assistance.

Mr. Dershowitz said he believed Mr. Braun’s argument for clemency was “meritorious,” because Mr. Braun cooperated with prosecutors “for a good many years, and was told that his cooperation would be recognized and he didn’t get that recognition.”

His case is the latest evidence of how far the pardon process under Mr. Trump had strayed from the rigorous Justice Department guidelines and screening that previous presidents had largely relied on for clemency recommendations.

“Jonathan Braun has threatened small-business owners with violence, death and even kidnapping,” Ms. James said. “A federal commutation will not protect Mr. Braun from being held accountable in New York for the civil charges against him.”

Interviews and court documents paint a portrait of Mr. Braun as a major drug smuggler who once beat one of his underlings so badly with a belt that Mr. Braun told others he had left the victim “black and blue.” In another instance, he threatened violence against a woman who worked for him who was threatening to cooperate with prosecutors.

In response to questions about the pardon, Mr. Braun’s lawyer, Marc Fernich, declined to discuss how Mr. Braun had gotten his case in front of White House officials or who had represented him. But Mr. Fernich praised Mr. Trump’s action.

“Mr. Braun’s 10-year sentence was grossly unreasonable — an extreme statistical outlier — on the facts and circumstances of his case,” Mr. Fernich said in an email message. He said he applauded Mr. Trump’s “courage in correcting what was a grave injustice.”

A spokesman for Mr. Trump did not return an email message seeking comment.

Mr. Braun was indicted in 2010 and entered a plea deal in the drug case the next year after initially fleeing the country for Canada and Israel before turning himself in. He was not sentenced until 2019 and did not have to report to prison until last January.

While free on bail after his guilty plea but before reporting to prison, he plunged into a new enterprise, helping run an operation that made loans to small-business owners at extremely high interest rates. According to the suits filed last year by Ms. James, the New York State attorney general, and the Federal Trade Commission, Mr. Braun regularly threatened those who had trouble repaying the loans.

“I know where you live.” Mr. Braun told a small-business owner who he claimed owed him money, according to court documents filed by Ms. James.

Mr. Braun told the business owner he knew where his mother lived.

“I will take your daughters from you,” he said, according to the suit.

Mr. Braun is accused in the suit of telling another business owner: “Be thankful you’re not in New York, because your family would find you floating in the Hudson.”

Previous presidents relied on a Justice Department screening process for pardons that ensured they were being given in an evenhanded way and that those with money and connections were not receiving preferential treatment. But Mr. Trump largely disregarded that process and wielded his clemency powers unlike any previous president.

The Constitution gives presidents the ability to issue pardons and commutations, a brake on the criminal justice system and a way to show grace and mercy. But Mr. Trump doled out clemency to friends, allies, donors, witnesses who did not cooperate with investigations that involved him and his campaign, and those who could help him politically.

“When the Justice Department process is short-circuited, and there’s insufficient vetting — if you don’t take the time to look at someone’s history and potential other exposure — this is what you end up with: a process that appears corrupted by money and influence,” said Daniel Zelenko, a white-collar defense lawyer at Crowell and Moring and former federal prosecutor and enforcement lawyer at the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The full story of Mr. Braun’s arrest, indictment and sentencing spans a decade and, according to prosecutors’ statements in court and filings in his case, often unfolded like a crime thriller.

In 2009, agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration raided a house on Staten Island that Mr. Braun’s drug trafficking network used to stash large stockpiles of drugs. Mr. Braun, who was in Florida at the time, learned from his underlings about the raid.

Immediately, Mr. Braun rented a car and with at least one associate drove 25 hours to the New York border with Canada.

“In the dead of night, dressed entirely in black and utilizing a motorless boat, Braun was ferried across the river into Canada, and remained there for several months, hiding out in one of the properties owned by his Canadian associate,” according to court documents filed by the Justice Department.

Clemency Power ›

Presidential Pardons, Explained

President Trump has discussed potential pardons that could test the boundaries of his constitutional power to nullify criminal liability. Here’s some clarity on his ability to pardon.

    • May a president issue prospective pardons before any charges or conviction? Yes. In Ex parte Garland, an 1866 case involving a former Confederate senator who had been pardoned by President Andrew Johnson, the Supreme Court said the pardon power “extends to every offense known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment.” It is unusual for a president to issue a prospective pardon before any charges are filed, but there are examples, perhaps most famously President Gerald R. Ford’s pardon in 1974 of Richard M. Nixon to prevent him from being prosecuted after the Watergate scandal.
    • May a president pardon his relatives and close allies? Yes. The Constitution does not bar pardons that raise the appearance of self-interest or a conflict of interest, even if they may provoke a political backlash and public shaming. In 2000, shortly before leaving office, President Bill Clinton issued a slew of controversial pardons, including to his half brother, Roger Clinton, over a 1985 cocaine conviction for which he had served about a year in prison, and to Susan H. McDougal, a onetime Clinton business partner who had been jailed as part of the Whitewater investigation.
    • May a president issue a general pardon? This is unclear. Usually, pardons are written in a way that specifically describes which crimes or sets of activities they apply to. There is little precedent laying out the degree to which a pardon can be used to instead foreclose criminal liability for anything and everything.
    • May a president pardon himself? This is unclear. There is no definitive answer because no president has ever tried to pardon himself and then faced prosecution anyway. As a result, there has never been a case which gave the Supreme Court a chance to resolve the question. In the absence of any controlling precedent, legal thinkers are divided about the matter.
    • Find more answers here.

Mr. Braun then fled to Israel, where he took refuge for several months, hoping to avoid being apprehended as he continued to run his drug operation from an encrypted BlackBerry phone, the documents say. In the fall of 2009, Mr. Braun returned to the United States, where he was arrested and jailed.

When he was indicted in 2010, he was charged with operating a marijuana ring that was one of the major distributors in New York City, smuggling in and selling $1.72 billion worth from 2007 to 2010.

“It is neither an exaggeration nor hyperbole to state that the defendant and his criminal enterprise generated illegal proceeds exceeding the gross domestic product of a small country,” the Justice Department said in a 2010 filing.

His lawyers sought at that point to persuade a judge to release him on bail, but prosecutors successfully kept him in jail, laying out how Mr. Braun had told others that he planned to flee the United States if he was released on bail.

“Braun specifically told a cooperating government witness that he would ‘never do time in jail,’” prosecutors said in a court filing. “Braun went on to explain that ‘for 10 grand, I could get a fake passport’ and be ‘on a beach somewhere where there is no extradition,’ still ‘making money.’”

In arguing that Mr. Braun should remain in prison, the prosecutors laid out a gruesome episode in which he beat a younger man working for him who had been given the job of guarding $100,000 worth of marijuana being kept in a house in California.

After Mr. Braun learned that the marijuana had been stolen, he called the man and demanded he give him $100,000. The man refused. Mr. Braun and one of his enforcers booked flights to California, arriving there the next morning. They broke into the house, where they found the man in bed.

“Braun then took off his belt and proceeded to viciously whip his worker with the belt,” the court documents say. “At one point, the ‘kid’ tried to get away from Braun, but Braun’s enforcer pushed him back down onto the bed so that Braun could continue the beating. In Braun’s own words, his brutal assault left the ‘kid’s’ entire body ‘black and blue.’”

Mr. Braun pleaded guilty in 2011 to two counts of conspiring to import a controlled substance and money laundering. As part of his plea, prosecutors allowed him to be released on bail and live at home while awaiting sentencing. His sentencing was delayed repeatedly.

Legal experts and defense lawyers say that defendants are typically on their best behavior when they are out on bail and awaiting sentencing. But Mr. Braun continued to flout the law, according to the suits later filed against him by the New York State attorney general and the Federal Trade Commission.

In 2018, Bloomberg News wrote a series of articles about how Mr. Braun had emerged as a leading short-term lender to small businesses. While structured to try to avoid usury laws, the rates Mr. Braun changed were as high as 400 percent a year. The New York attorney general’s office opened an investigation in response to the articles.

The next year, a judge held a sentencing hearing for Mr. Braun on the drug trafficking charges. At the hearing, prosecutors laid out two recent episodes in which Mr. Braun had violently assaulted others. One allegation said that Mr. Braun had thrown someone off a two-story balcony at a Staten Island engagement party in the summer of 2018.

The other allegation related to how Mr. Braun had lent money to the Brooklyn rabbi for the preschool. The rabbi had fallen behind on the payments and Mr. Braun reportedly threatened to beat and humiliate him.

“I am coming to Crown Heights,” Mr. Braun said, according to a lawsuit filed by the synagogue. “I will hang papers all over the lampposts in Crown Heights stating that you are a liar and a thief. I am going to tell people that you are running an illegal operation and a scam.”

Fearing the rabbi would be attacked, the synagogue wired Mr. Braun $1,000 and hired a lawyer. In a subsequent call between Mr. Braun and the lawyer, Mr. Braun called the lawyer a profanity, according to the suit filed by the synagogue.

Shortly after Mr. Braun’s commutation was announced, Mr. Dershowitz said he received a call from Mr. Braun and his father.

“Everybody was very grateful. There were a lot of tears going around,” Mr. Dershowitz said, explaining that the father called again on Friday before the Jewish Sabbath. “And he said he is going to continue to call me every Shabbos, so I should expect a call.”

Kenneth P. Vogel and Ben Protess contributed reporting. Susan C. Beachy and Kitty Bennett contributed research.

Categories
Business

10 Challenges Biden Faces in Righting the Financial system

10 Challenges Biden Faces in Righting the Economy

All presidents take office and vow to swiftly put an ambitious agenda into practice. But for Joseph R. Biden Jr., the raging coronavirus pandemic and associated economic pain mean that many things must be done quickly if he is to get the economy going. Speaking Thursday on his $ 1.9 trillion spending proposal, Mr Biden repeatedly stressed the need to act “now”.

However, putting together a majority in Congress could take time: compromises and concessions are required to get the votes it needs to advance the law.

The new president is expected to reverse many of Donald J. Trump’s policies that override those of the Obama administration, of which Mr Biden was vice president. But in some business-related areas – like trade relations with China and the European Union – he is unlikely to bring the United States back to pre-Trump order. It is also unlikely to withdraw from the Trump administration’s efforts to contain the power of big tech companies.

Here are some of the policy areas that need Mr Biden’s attention and will determine the success of his presidency.

– Peter Eavis

Twelve years ago, President Barack Obama inherited a free fall economy. Mr Biden is luckier: the economy recovered significantly after the collapse last spring, which is largely due to government aid in the trillions. However, progress has slowed in recent months, and in December it reversed as employers shed jobs amid the resurgent pandemic.

Mr. Biden’s first assignment will be to fix the ship, which he is proposing through a $ 1.9 trillion spending plan he announced last week. Once the immediate crisis is over, Mr Biden will face perhaps an even more difficult set of challenges: healing the scars the pandemic has left on families and communities, and addressing the profound problems of inequality that have existed for decades but the pandemic exposed.

– Ben Casselman

The recent decisions by Facebook, Twitter and other tech companies to cut off President Trump and right-wing groups have greatly escalated the debate over online language and the influence of Silicon Valley.

At the center of the debate is a law called Section 230, which exempts websites from legal responsibility for the content they host. Republicans and some Democrats are calling for the law to be revised or repealed, while the mighty tech companies are likely to resist major changes. The Biden administration also inherits the federal government’s antitrust lawsuits against Google and Facebook, as well as a congress that continues to question the power of the industry.

– Cecilia Kang

Mr Biden has repeatedly stated that federal tax law favors the rich and big businesses and proposed several measures to make them pay more and fund spending on clean energy, infrastructure, education and other parts of his national agenda. He wants to take back some of Mr. Trump’s tax cuts for 2017 for those earning more than $ 400,000 and increase interest rates for corporations, high-income investors, and heirs to a large fortune. Mr Biden must overcome opposition from business lobbyists and align his proposals with competing plans by leading Congressional Democrats, who also want to levy taxes on business and the rich, but often differ with Mr Biden on how.

– Jim Tankersley

China has emerged even stronger from the pandemic, presenting a more formidable US economic competitor. Exports to the United States are soaring despite Mr Trump’s tariffs. After years of heavy investment in the training and automation of workers, China’s manufacturing sector has proven to be extremely competitive.

Updated

Jan. 20, 2021 at 10:22 ET

Trump’s export restrictions and problems with the Boeing 737 Max have depressed China’s imports of high quality manufactured goods from the US, mainly semiconductors and aircraft. China’s rapidly growing military power and a growing willingness to confront nearby democracies will give the Biden government a difficult decision on whether to allow more tech sales that could make China even stronger.

– Keith Bradsher

The Biden administration has set ambitious goals for revitalizing American industry and working with allies to combat China. The immediate challenge is deciding what to do with many of Mr Trump’s trade actions, including tariffs on Chinese products valued at more than $ 360 billion and the resulting trade deal that will induce China to sell American products in the Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of to buy. And it also needs to find out how to reassure allies like Europe that have been affected by Mr. Trump’s aggressive approach to trade.

– Ana Swanson

Mr Biden has promised tighter supervision of the financial system. His priorities include reversing the Trump administration’s withdrawal of risk-taking rules by banks and harmful practices like payday loans, and curbing the activities of non-bank financial technology companies.

Mr. Biden’s team also has to deal with the unregulated “shadow banking” system of hedge funds, private equity firms and money managers who hold trillions of dollars and have the potential to cause tremendous market turmoil. In a broader sense, his ambitions to close the racial wealth gap and tackle climate change are likely to influence his approach to financial regulation.

– Emily Flitter

Small businesses employ roughly half of America’s non-governmental workers, and an estimated 400,000 have permanently closed since the pandemic began.

Mr Biden has called for $ 15 billion in direct grants to at least one million of the hardest hit small businesses – that would be up to $ 15,000 per recipient – and a federal investment of $ 35 billion in state and local Funding programs. It also seeks 14 weeks of paid care and sick leave for workers during the coronavirus crisis, with the government taking over the bill for organizations with fewer than 500 employees.

– Stacy Cowley

Total household debt fell during the pandemic, but job losses plunged millions of families into poverty. In addition to checks for $ 1,400 per person and expanded unemployment benefits, Mr. Biden is seeking $ 30 billion to help troubled households catch up on overdue rents, water and energy bills. He also suggested a minimum wage of $ 15 an hour.

Mr Biden plans to extend moratorium on federal student loan payments; he hasn’t said how long. While Mr Biden is helping clear $ 10,000 per person in federal debt, he hasn’t included it in his American bailout plan. Progressives in Congress can insist that they be included in any stimulus package.

– Stacy Cowley

Mr Biden’s goal of creating a carbon-free electricity system by 2035 requires a radical overhaul of the energy industry, requiring hundreds of billions of dollars in investment, as well as new measures like strengthening the electricity grid in states like California. Some critics have argued that the goal is not achievable.

A major shift to renewables and electric vehicles will reduce the demand for oil, gas and coal and threaten some businesses. It could also result in job losses as people trained to work with fossil fuels may not have the skills required for jobs in the renewable energy sector.

– Clifford Krauss and Ivan Penn

The transport sector has received billions in federal aid, but is still affected by the pandemic. The Biden administration needs to decide whether to do more to help her, including more financial aid and requiring travelers to wear masks.

Mr Biden’s promise to repair and upgrade the country’s highways, railways, transportation systems and other infrastructure is a priority for businesses too. The transport sector is an important contributor to climate change, which Mr Biden has pledged to tackle aggressively. Doing this without causing major job losses will be a major challenge.

– Niraj Chokshi

Categories
Business

Carmakers Put Their Greatest Faces Ahead

Carmakers Put Their Biggest Faces Forward

Every generation of automotive design has its Mona Lisa – and its Dogs Playing Poker.

We had tail fins (time for a comeback?) And the replica convertible tops of Landau vinyl roofs (I judge my parents cruelly – but rightly – after this difficult decision of the 1980s). Do you remember the sharp-edged rear ends of the Cadillac Seville, Lincoln Continental, and Chrysler Imperial? No? Lucky you.

We can look back on 2020 when automakers reached their peak. Of course there is this pandemic and political chaos. But more than ever there are bars inside. Grids are big. Grids are bold. Grilles are a little unnecessary on some cars, but there they are. Some might qualify for their own zip code if they weren’t on wheels.

To understand why, it is helpful to understand the difficulties automakers face in creating great designs. Cars and trucks are global products that must meet what appears to be a myriad of global government safety and fuel efficiency standards. Imagine if a new law student has to pass the American, German, Japanese, Korean, and Swedish bar exams to be able to work. I rest my case, Your Honor.

Automakers are spending billions of dollars to face the regulatory blizzard and sculpting silhouettes to cheat the wind. We only see the styling that surrounds the technology. Design is the hiss, the emotion, at least a tiebreaker when choosing a vehicle.

When Akio Toyoda took over the presidency of the company with his family name on the building in 2009, he famously declared: “No more boring cars.” Now look at the list. My God, what a big face you have, Camry.

“Years ago Lexus had no identity,” said Kevin Hunter, president of Toyota’s Calty Design Research Studio. “The attempt was made to be a brand for everyone, which neutralized our position and identity.”

This is how the spindle lattice was born. The exaggerated hourglass shape is now the distinctive face of Lexus, Toyota’s luxury brand. Originally compared to Predator or Darth Vader’s mask, it quickly shared different camps. And that’s fine with Mr. Hunter.

“We call the identity our own, very different from our competitors,” he said. “It’s very big and polarizing, that’s true, but we like the fact that we’re polarizing now. It means we’re pushing the envelope and taking more risks. Consumers are realizing it – the radiator grille connects our cars as a coherent unit. “

Since aerodynamics dictate car design, the front is the best place to add character to vehicles. People don’t buy the cars they forget. You may not like Picasso’s Cubism era, but you will know when you see it.

It might come as a surprise, but automakers aren’t necessarily trying to appeal to the broadest possible audience. Ask Domagoj Dukec, Head of BMW Design, what the brand stands for and he says: “Be stunning and make a difference.” Mission accomplished with the BMW 4 Series Coupé 2021. The current “it” car for maximum face, it takes the classic double kidney grille of the brand and turns the optics to 11. Maybe 12.

The design has drawn attention that money can’t buy – exactly what Mr. Dukec and his team were aiming for.

“Design is the emotional approach to every product experience,” he said. “It is of course very subjective. Not everyone will like it, but it has to have a personal and individual meaning to the customer. This can vary from product to product. A businessman would not want this bold face of the 4 Series in his 5 Series. “

Economy & Economy

Updated

Jan. 6, 2021, 1:10 p.m. ET

BMW is no stranger to the styling controversy. In a 10-year run that began in 1999, Chris Bangle highlighted designs that were so polarizing that there were backends commonly known as “Bangle Butts”. Now many see Mr. Bangles’ designs as groundbreaking.

Mr. Dukec understands that not everyone will like the 4’s large nostrils. But they convey the message.

“It’s very characteristic in our portfolio and clearly BMW,” he said. “Polarize, yes, but that’s very welcome because people want to show off.”

Another grill of the year contender can be found throughout the Genesis lineup. The so-called Crest Grille is an elongated version of the emblem between the wings of the brand badge. And it’s as big as Seoul.

Bold? Certainly. However, the scarcity of the brand’s new GV80 SUV suggests that the designers did something right.

“You could absolutely hate the grille,” said Jarred Pellat of Hyundai’s luxury brand, “and that’s what I love about the Genesis design. The designers aren’t afraid to make strong statements while building a brand from scratch. We don’t have the history of some of our German competitors – we can be innovative with design. The Crest Grille tells people this is a Genesis, like a second logo. “

Jeeps Wrangler’s round headlights and seven-slit grille are a real trademark of the brand (though the lights were square for a spell from the late ’80s). Jeep is defending it like a Rubicon scratching rough terrain suing General Motors’ Hummer division and most recently Indian automaker Mahindra.

Fun Fact: All Jeeps have a seven-slot grille, but “not all of them actually work,” said Mark Allen, Jeep Design Director. “It’s completely blocked on the compass, but it’s far from useless: they say this is a jeep.”

This robust American image helped the mark grow from 350,000 at the beginning of Mr. Allen’s tenure in 2009 to 1.5 million in sales. Jeep is the most successful American brand in what is known to be the closed Japanese market. It can’t hurt that the Wrangler is the most iconic vehicle in the world. Oh, and its grille is bloody big.

Andrew Smith, Executive Director of Cadillac Design, said, “Ultimately, design is about making the customer feel special so that they stand out from the crowd.” While the brand’s front signature is large vertical LED Chases are, few models, like the Escalade, have an acre face area.

“We don’t do a Russian doll design that has a small, medium, and large version of an SUV,” said Smith. “They’re all Cadillacs, but they’re different, and the grille wants to be proportional to the face of the vehicle.”

He added, “In the case of Escalade, the Giant Maw is functional. People haul it, it hauls a lot of people and cargo, so there needs to be an airflow to cool the engine. “The same goes for pickups.

Cadillac has announced it will accelerate the transition to electrification, starting with the Lyriq SUV in late 2021. Electric vehicles will challenge designers. Without a motor to cool down, the fronts still play a big role.

“Lyriq’s face will have complex lighting to make it look like a really luxurious vehicle,” said Smith. “We also have Super Cruise and new autonomous technologies with sensors that have to be in the front of the vehicle. We design surfaces that are flush and clean to place these sensors in such a way that they are invisible to the customer.

“The front will continue to give identity, like a kind of belt buckle,” he added.

BMW Mr. Dukec agrees. “Our upcoming iX electric vehicle has almost no openings in front of it,” he said. “The characteristic twin kidneys that announce that it is a BMW are closed because it is an electric vehicle. However, there are cameras and sensors in the kidneys that cannot see through color.”

And these kidneys? You guessed it, they are huge.

Categories
World News

After Fast Vaccine Success, Israel Faces New Virus Woes

After Quick Vaccine Success, Israel Faces New Virus Woes

JERUSALEM – Just last week, Israel was seen as a model coronavirus country, well ahead of the rest of the world in vaccinating its citizens.

But the virus had other ideas.

This week, Israel faces a tightened lockdown as infections surge to more than 8,000 new cases a day. Officials fear that the more transmissible variant of the virus, first identified in the UK, is spreading rapidly and Israel’s vaccine supplies are running low.

The prospect that Israel would have the virus under control by spring, which was once promising, now seems uncertain. Health officials say the vaccine campaign can’t compete with rising infection rates, at least in the short term.

And the Palestinian Authority, which operates its own health system in the occupied West Bank, has asked Israel for vaccines, which has sparked a debate about Israel’s responsibility to the Palestinians at a time when Israel’s vaccine supplies are dwindling.

“We are at the height of a global pandemic that is spreading at record speed with the UK mutation,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video statement late Tuesday, explaining the government’s decision to impose a full national lockdown that will Closing most schools and schools will all non-essential jobs for at least two weeks.

“With every hour that we delay, the virus is spreading faster and it will cost a very high price,” he added.

The lock decision was made after Prof. Eran Segal of the Weizmann Science Institute in Rehovot, Israel, presented the government with the dire prognosis that without such measures, Israel’s infection rate could rise to 46,000 new cases per day by February, an astonishing number Country with about 9 million inhabitants.

Government officials cited the variant discovered in the UK as one of the main reasons for imposing tighter restrictions. Mr Netanyahu said the line had “jumped forward”, although not at the same pace as the UK.

At least 30 cases of the variant have been identified in Israel through special samples spread across 14 different cities. However, officials and experts said these tests were aimed at identifying the presence of the variant, not quantifying it, and the actual number of cases was likely much higher.

Many scientists believe that the variant is more transmissible, which means that it can more easily spread from one person to another.

Professor Segal said the variant could be a factor in the rising rate of infection in Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. In the past four weeks, infections among the ultra-Orthodox have increased sixteen-fold.

He estimated that the variant now accounts for around 20 percent of morbidity in ultra-Orthodox cities and neighborhoods.

During the coronavirus crisis, there was constant tension between the ultra-Orthodox, who make up around 12.5 percent of the population, and the incumbent Israelis, especially because some ultra-Orthodox rabbis insisted on keeping their educational institutions open during the crisis, violating previous lockdowns and regulations generally disregarding the restrictions on large gatherings and social distancing.

Israel’s vaccine supplies cast another shadow over the tempting prospect of an early emergence from the crisis. Vaccine supplies were running low and officials said they may have to slow their widely touted vaccination program until mid-January if they can’t convince drug companies to ship more vaccines sooner than promised.

A few days ago, the Israelis celebrated the successful start of their vaccination campaign, which has surpassed the rest of the world. Approximately 1.5 million Israeli citizens, or more than 16 percent of the population, have received an initial dose of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine since the vaccination program began on December 20.

Updated

Jan. 7, 2021, 6:03 ET

The shortcoming, according to the authorities, could be due to the success of the program: the first phase of the program went faster than most thought possible.

Israel has not disclosed the number of vaccine doses received as the agreements with the pharmaceutical companies are confidential. The government has promised to reserve enough vaccines so that anyone who received a first dose can get their second dose as planned after about 21 days. This should include the majority of Israel’s high-risk population of health workers and citizens 60 and older.

Quiet negotiations are being held with the drug companies to improve their supplies, but the shortage could lead to delays in implementation. Mr Netanyahu, whose political future may depend on the success of the program, said he “continues to work around the clock to bring millions of vaccines to Israel”.

Mr. Netanyahu said Wednesday that a small initial shipment of Moderna vaccines should arrive on Thursday and that more would follow. Pharmaceutical companies now see Israel as an interesting test case for vaccination effectiveness and possibly the first country to be fully vaccinated. Officials and experts stated this, which gives him an advantage in securing additional shipments.

Israel has been criticized by human rights groups for failing to expand its vaccination program to most Israeli-controlled Palestinians, despite the fact that Israelis living in settlements in the West Bank have been vaccinated.

Palestinian officials have recorded hundreds of Covid-19 cases daily in the occupied West Bank and Hamas-led Gaza Strip, the overcrowded Palestinian coastal enclave whose borders are tightly controlled by Israel and Egypt, and health officials believe the real numbers are much higher . Palestinians in these areas have not yet received vaccines.

On Wednesday, two Palestinian officials said the Palestinian Authority had asked Israel for up to 10,000 doses of the vaccine to immunize Palestinian frontline workers.

Hussein al-Sheikh, the top Palestinian official in charge of coordination with the Israelis, said Israel refused.

An Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity for not having the authority to speak to the news media, said Israel secretly delivered “dozen” vaccines to the Palestinians this week but has not yet responded to the larger request. Several Palestinian officials denied having received vaccines from Israel.

The Oslo Accords, the provisional peace accords signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in the 1990s, commit both sides to work together to fight epidemics and provide each other with support in emergencies.

The Geneva Conventions also oblige an occupying power to ensure medical care for the local population and preventive measures to combat contagious diseases and epidemics.

Alan Baker, a former Israeli ambassador and international law expert who helped draft the Oslo Accords, said he believes this would “represent a commitment for Israel to provide vaccines to fight Covid 19 help “but that was it” a one-way street. “

Hamas, he said, holds Israeli hostages in Gaza and is obliged to release them by the same humanitarian standards.

Israel Health Minister Yuli Edelstein said last week it was in Israel’s best interest to contain the virus on the Palestinian side, but Israel’s first obligation was to its own citizens. (Palestinian citizens of Israel and residents of East Jerusalem receive vaccinations through the Israeli program.)

Dr. Ali Abed Rabbo, a senior official in the agency’s health department, said the Palestinians hope to receive two million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine in February. They also expect the Covax global vaccine-sharing system to deliver 60,000 doses in the first quarter of 2021 and nearly two million more later this year.

United Nations officials have asked Israel to provide the Palestinians with some vaccines to protect their medical workers, said Gerald Rockenschaub, head of the World Health Organization’s mission to the Palestinians.

But Israel advised United Nations officials that it cannot send vaccines to the Palestinians just yet because of a lack of shots for its own citizens, Rockenschaub said.

Categories
World News

Chipmaker SMIC inventory falls as co-CEO plans to resign, it faces MSCI elimination

Chipmaker SMIC stock falls as co-CEO plans to resign, it faces MSCI removal

A close-up of a CPU socket and motherboard lying on the table.

Narumon Bowonkitwanchai | Moment | Getty Images

China was on the way to becoming more independent in semiconductors. This move has accelerated in recent years as tensions with the US increased. SMIC is key to China’s ambitions.

However, Washington has tried to make it harder for Chinese industry to catch up. The US reportedly imposed sanctions on SMIC in September that made it difficult for it to acquire the American technology it needed. That month, SMIC was blacklisted as suspected Chinese military companies in the US.

Hong Kong-listed SMIC shares fell 4% at around 2:59 p.m. local time. The company’s Shanghai-listed shares fell around 5.5%.