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Health

5 U.S. states set new data for Covid circumstances as hospitalizations rise

Five U.S. states set new records for Covid cases as hospitalizations rise

Five states broke records for the average number of daily new Covid cases over the weekend as the delta variant strains hospital systems across the U.S. and forces many states to reinstate public health restrictions.

Florida, Louisiana, Hawaii, Oregon and Mississippi all reached new peaks in their seven-day average of new cases per day as of Sunday, according to a CNBC analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. On a per capita basis, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida are suffering from the three worst outbreaks in the country.

Daily new Covid cases per 100,000 residents

Note: Lines show seven-day average of daily new cases.

Source: Johns Hopkins University, CNBC analysis. As of August 15, 2021.

Daily new Covid cases per

100,000 residents

Note: Lines show seven-day average of daily

new cases.

Source: Johns Hopkins University, CNBC

analysis. As of August 15, 2021.

Daily new Covid cases per 100,000 residents

Note: Lines show seven-day average of daily new cases.

Source: Johns Hopkins University, CNBC analysis. As of August 15, 2021.

Louisiana recorded an average of 126 cases per 100,000 residents as of Sunday, more than three times the national average, while Mississippi and Florida averaged 110 and 101 cases per 100,000 residents, respectively, according to the data.

“We’re in the middle of the summer, people are gathering again with people, they’re in large groups, the vaccine has given a false sense of security in some ways to people, and they forget,” Dr. Perry Halkitis, dean of the Rutgers School of Public Health, told CNBC in an interview.

Louisiana

The surging delta variant has hit the Gulf Coast particularly hard, pushing hospitals to their limits. To try to curb the outbreak in Louisiana, officials in July recommended masks indoors for everyone, regardless of whether or not they were vaccinated. They reintroduced a statewide mask mandate on Aug. 2 after it was obvious that wasn’t working and cases kept climbing.

Everyone must now wear masks indoors regardless of their vaccination status, including all students from kindergarten through college.

Louisiana has the fifth-lowest vaccination rate of any state in the country, with 38.3% of its population fully immunized against the coronavirus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Louisiana reported a record-high seven-day average of more than 5,800 new Covid cases as of Sunday, an increase of nearly 27% from a week ago, according to Hopkins data.

Louisiana recorded a seven-day average of 44 Covid-related deaths as of Sunday, over 46% more than a week prior. Almost half of the state’s 882 reported intensive care unit beds were occupied by coronavirus patients as of Monday, compared with a nationwide average of 25%, according the Department of Health and Human Services.

Mississippi

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, pleaded Friday with residents to get vaccinated as the state scrambles to hire hundreds of temporary doctors, nurses and EMTs.

He’s also requested ventilators from the Strategic National Stockpile as the spread of the delta variant fills hospitals in the state with mostly unvaccinated patients. Almost 55% of Mississippi’s ICU beds were filled with Covid patients as of Monday, and the state’s seven-day average of nearly 3,300 new coronavirus cases as of Sunday jumped 57% from a week ago.

“When you look across the country, to a certain extent, this current wave is the pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Reeves said at a press conference. “We continue to see more and more data, and the data is becoming more and more clear. Those who received the vaccine are significantly less likely to contract the virus.”

Mississippi has the nation’s second-lowest coronavirus vaccination rate, with 35.8% of its population fully immunized as of Sunday. The state’s death toll also hit a seven-day average of 20, up almost 80% from a week ago.

Florida

Florida reported a record 151,764 new Covid cases for the week on Friday, reaching a new seven-day average of 21,681 cases per day — more than any other state. More than half of the ICU beds in the state are occupied by Covid patients, according to HHS data.

Florida’s surge in cases comes as Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to resist calls from the Biden administration and state advocacy groups to enforce mask mandates and other pandemic-related measures to help contain the massive outbreak. He signed an executive order and law in May that lifted all Covid restrictions across the state and permanently blocked local officials from enacting new ones starting July 1.

In late July, DeSantis issued a controversial executive order that blocked mask mandates in the state’s schools, overruling two counties that required face coverings for their students.

Oregon

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, is deploying up to 1,500 National Guard members to assist the state’s health systems as Covid hospitalizations set a new record three days in a row, standing at 733 on Friday. The state recorded 1,765 new cases on Friday, bringing its seven-day average to 1,652, according to the most recent data available.

The state reimplemented an indoor mask mandate on Friday for everyone, including fully vaccinated people, in response to the surge in hospitalizations.

Hawaii

Though Hawaii’s outbreak is relatively small compared with most mainland states, cases there have repeatedly been reaching new records since mid-July, hitting a seven-day average of 671 new cases per day on Sunday, according to Hopkins data.

That’s a more-than-sevenfold jump from 89 cases per day a month ago. The recent surge in cases has caught health officials by surprise and is starting to strain the state’s hospital systems. The total number of hospitalizations on the islands is 3,030, with 552 deaths recorded since the beginning of the pandemic.

“We are on fire. When we have hospitals that are really worried about being able to take care of people, that’s a crisis,” Hawaii’s health director, Dr. Elizabeth Char, said at a press conference last week. “When we see this exponential growth in the amount of people that are getting infected with Covid-19 every day — 2,000 people in the last three days — that’s a crisis. And at the point at which we overwhelm our resources, that’s a disaster.”

Hospitalization rates in Hawaii and Oregon, however, aren’t as high as other states. Nationwide, less than 11% of all hospital beds are being used by Covid patients. In Oregon, it’s 11.4%, Hawaii is at 12.1%, followed by Louisiana at 20.4%, Mississippi at 18.7% and Florida at 28.2%, according to HHS data.

Hospital bed capacity correlates very closely with vaccination rates. The states with higher vaccination rates are seeing fewer Covid patients take up hospital beds. Oregon has fully vaccinated 56.8% of its residents, followed by Hawaii at 54.3%, Florida at 50.3%, Louisiana at 38.3% and Mississippi at 35.8%.

“That is why Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi are hurting with bed capacity and ascending death rates, while Oregon and Hawaii are hurting with explosive case rates, but with high vaccination and masking rates, may not ever be in the same precarious position,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at University of California in San Francisco.

As of Sunday, the national seven-day average of new cases stands at 130,710, an increase of 20% from the previous seven-day average, according to Hopkins data. The seven-day average for Covid deaths nationwide rose to 687, up 36% from the previous average.

“We know what the tools are, and now this comes down to policy and political decisionmakers’ value judgment to determine which tools they want to implement,” Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious disease expert at University of Toronto, told CNBC.

Correction: This article has been updated to reflect the correct percentages of fully vaccinated people in Oregon, Hawaii, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi.

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Health

Choose might unseal some psychological well being data in Elizabeth Holmes case

Judge may unseal some mental health records in Elizabeth Holmes case

Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes (center) and her lawyer are leaving the court on June 15, 2021. Holmes is due to stand trial later this year on wire fraud and other charges.

CNBC

The federal judge in the fraud case of former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes is considering unsealing details of her psychological assessment as part of a media request to make parts of her case public.

Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Wall Street Journal, petitioned the court to unseal documents in the Holmes case. Dow Jones attorneys said that around 40% of the documents in Holmes’ case are kept under lock and key.

“This is a very significant amount of material, as the court is painfully aware,” said John Cline, a Holmes attorney, during the hearing on Tuesday. “And Ms. Holmes’ view is that a significant portion of it can likely be unsealed at this point, but not all of it.”

The federal prosecutors support the motion to unseal parts of the case, stating that Holmes must be prepared if they are planning a mental health defense.

“The main thing we are dealing with is the continued sealing at the current level, including high-level issues including the defense of Ms. Holmes under Rule 12.2, and that hinders the preparation of the process by the government,” said Kelly Volkar, an assistant US attorney. Indication of a psychological defense. “The question is how far the seal will go.”

Prosecutors had Holmes examined by a psychological expert after defense lawyers announced that they were planning to hire a clinical psychologist to testify about a “mental illness or defect” related to the guilt issue.

Another set of documents that can potentially be unsealed is why Judge Edward Davila separated the trials of Holmes and her co-defendant Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani. Balwani was her business partner and served as COO at Theranos. The couple had a romantic relationship but never revealed it to their investors.

Holmes and Balwani’s relationship reportedly ended around the same time he left Theranos.

“I will reiterate that Mr. Balwani has never requested that any part of these trial files be filed under lock and key,” said Jeffrey Coopersmith, a Balwani attorney. “Dow Jones has had a sealed filing notification for a year and a half. You are filing this now. I think we understand why, they like to sell newspapers. It is on the eve of the trial of Ms. Holmes.”

Holmes and Balwani both face a dozen criminal wire fraud and conspiracies to bring wire fraud charges. Prosecutors say the two misled patients, doctors and investors about Theranos’ blood testing technology. Neither of them pleaded guilty.

In a July interview with CNBC, former Wall Street Journal reporter who exposed the Theranos scandal, John Carreyrou, said Holmes’ defense strategy may be blamed on her ex-boyfriend.

“A large part of her defense now seems to be blaming Sunny, basically telling the jury that Sunny kept her in his psychological grip,” said Carreyrou. “Your defense plans to take on the case that he was the older friend, 19 years older, who was really the puppeteer here, and she was the puppet. And obviously they’re going to see a psychologist to sort this out.”

Davila ordered Holmes and Balwani’s lawyers to look into which documents could be unsealed and redacted by the end of the week.

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World News

Inventory futures drop after S&P 500, Nasdaq notch recent data

Stock futures drop after S&P 500, Nasdaq notch fresh records

People walk by the New York Stock Exchange on April 15, 2021 in New York City.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

Futures contracts tied to the major U.S. stock indexes fell in early morning trading Thursday after both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite closed at records.

Dow futures dropped 369 points. Contracts tied to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 were both in negative territory.

The moves in futures came after a positive regular session for U.S. markets on Wednesday.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3% to an all-time high of 4,358.13, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 104.42 points to 34,681.79. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed just above its own flatline to eke out a record close.

Popular internet and technology stocks again outperformed the broader market on Wednesday as investors bought equity in companies that prioritize growth instead of the reopening names in the energy and retail sectors that proved popular in the first half of the year.

Apple, Microsoft and Amazon — up 1.8%, 0.8% and 0.5% on Wednesday — are each up by double-digits over the last month. While traders have cited several reasons for the shift back into Big Tech, most mention a marked decline in bond yields when discussing the move.

The downshift in the benchmark 10-year Treasury note yield continued Wednesday, when the rate fell to 1.296%, its lowest level since February. Higher yields reduce the value of future earnings relative to current earnings, meaning that the appetite for growth stocks tends to rise when rates fall.

“The 40 basis point decline in the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note since late-March suggests that the global grab for yield remains a potent force, despite the Fed’s desire to let the economy run hot,” Steven Ricchiuto, U.S. chief economist at Mizuho Securities, wrote on Tuesday.

“A stronger currency, increased virus concerns oversea, and the associated demand for long-term Treasury notes and bonds implies reduced inflation expectations and increased risk of importing global deflation,” he added.

Looking ahead to Thursday’s session, investors will pore over the Labor Department’s latest jobless claims figures. The weekly update offers Wall Street regular insight into the pace of layoffs in the U.S. economy, which has been declining amid the Covid-19 vaccine rollout.

Economists expect to see 350,000 first-time applicants for unemployment benefits for the week ended July 3, according to Dow Jones.

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Business

U.S. Home lawmakers search Boeing, FAA data after manufacturing issues

U.S. House lawmakers seek Boeing, FAA records after production problems

A Boeing logo is on the fuselage of a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft manufactured by Boeing Co. on display ahead of the opening of the Farnborough International Airshow in Farnborough, UK on Sunday 13 July 2014.

Simon Dawson / Bloomberg

Two key House Democrats are soliciting records from Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration after discovering production problems with the company’s 737 Max and 787 Dreamliner aircraft.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., Chair of the Transportation Committee, and Rick Larsen, D-Wash., Chair of the Aviation Sub-Committee, requested a list and descriptions of FAA inspections at the 737 manufacturing facility in Renton, Wash., Since 2017 and the Dreamliner South Carolina factory since 2015, according to a letter they sent to Dave Calhoun, CEO of Boeing, Tuesday that has been audited by CNBC.

Among other things, they requested records of supervision, the results of audits and the number of Boeing employees assigned to perform supervisory tasks at each location.

“While it is important that Boeing continue to voluntarily report such issues to the FAA, we are concerned that even after the longest civil airliner establishment in history, persistence of quality control and manufacturing defects – in two different cases – aircraft programs – remain “wrote the legislature. “This naturally raises questions about whether the FAA adequately oversees Boeing’s commercial aircraft programs, as well as Boeing’s internal quality controls and safety culture.”

The request comes less than a year after a report by the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure informed Boeing about the design and development of the 737 Max and the FAA for oversight failures. Two of these planes crashed between October 2018 and March 2019, killing all 346 people on the flights.

Boeing said last year it found the wrong clearance in some areas of the 787 fuselage. After inspections and a five-month break, delivery of the wide-body aircraft resumed in March. Regardless, an electrical issue with Boeing’s best-selling 737 Max grounded more than 100 aircraft in April, despite the FAA approving a solution last week.

Legislators asked for replies by June 8, but said that “continued production of these records will be considered if you cannot fully complete your answer by that date”.

A Boeing spokesman said the company is looking into the request.

The FAA did not respond immediately.

The agency announced last month that it was reviewing Boeing’s process for minor design changes, as well as the causes of the electrical problem on the 737 Max. This problem is not related to the system involved in the two major crashes.

Categories
Politics

Justice Dept. Seizes Washington Publish’s Telephone Data

Justice Dept. Seizes Washington Post’s Phone Records

WASHINGTON – The Justice Department under President Donald J. Trump has secretly obtained the phone records for three Washington Post reporters from the early months of the Trump administration, the newspaper said on Friday.

Prosecutors searched for records of reporters’ work, home and cell phone numbers from April to July 2017 to find out who had spoken to them.

“We are deeply concerned about this use of governance to gain access to journalists’ communications,” said Cameron Barr, the Post’s acting editor-in-chief, in a statement. “The Justice Department should immediately clarify its reasons for interfering with the activities of reporters doing their job, an activity protected by the first amendment.”

The department’s decision to seek a court order for the records made in 2020 would have required the approval of Attorney General William P. Barr, a department official said.

The Justice Department, under the Trump administration, had also indicted a former Senate assistant over his contacts with three reporters in a case in which prosecutors secretly confiscated years’ worth of phone and email records from a New York Times reporter. This case signaled a continuation of the aggressive pursuit of leaks under the Obama administration.

Marc Raimondi, a Justice Department spokesman, said on Friday in a statement regarding the seized postal records: “Although the department is rare, it follows the procedures set out in its media policy guidelines when looking for legal procedures to and not to telephone charges Email records of content received from media members as part of a criminal investigation into unauthorized disclosure of classified information. “

He added, “The targets of these investigations are not those who receive the news media, but rather those with access to the national defense information they made available to the media and therefore did not protect them as required by law.”

According to its guidelines, the Justice Department should exhaust other investigative steps before seeking permission to receive telephone recordings or e-mails from journalists from telecommunications companies. In addition, the division must “strike the right balance between a number of important interests”, it says in its guidelines, such as “Maintaining the essential role of the free press in promoting government accountability and an open society”.

Leak cases, as known in the Justice Department, are notoriously difficult to track and require FBI agents to devote significant time to cases that rarely lead to charges.

It wasn’t clear what caused the Justice Department to seize the Post’s records, but in July 2017 the newspaper published an article about Sergey I. Kislyak, the then Russian Ambassador to the United States, and Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General at the time the publication of the article.

The Post reported that the two men discussed the Trump campaign during the 2016 presidential election when Mr. Sessions was a Republican Senator from Alabama and a prominent supporter of Mr. Trump. The article referred to U.S. surveillance sections, which are highly ranked and among the government’s best kept secrets.

In addition to the phone records of the Post reporters – Ellen Nakashima, Greg Miller and Adam Entous who now work at The New Yorker – prosecutors have also received a court order to obtain metadata for the reporters’ email accounts, the company said Newspaper with.

The New York Times also reported in June 2017 that surveillance wiretaps suggested Mr Kislyak was discussing a private meeting with Mr Sessions at a Trump campaign event at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington. The Times has received no indication that their reporters’ records have been confiscated.

The media leaks enraged Mr Trump, who repeatedly railed against them, particularly those revealing details of the government’s efforts to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and whether any of his campaign aides had conspired with Russia.

In August 2017, as Attorney General, Mr. Sessions condemned the “dramatic increase in the number of unauthorized disclosures of classified national security information in recent months”.

Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department also aggressively prosecuted officials who provided sensitive information to reporters. In 2013, prosecutors obtained the phone recordings from reporters and editors from The Associated Press. In this case, law enforcement officers obtained the records for more than 20 phone lines from their offices and journalists, including their home and cell phone numbers.

In addition, the Justice Department confiscated the phone records of James Rosen, then a Fox News reporter, after one of his articles contained details of a secret United States report on North Korea. In an affidavit, Mr. Rosen was described as “at least as a helper, advocate and / or co-conspirator”.

The Justice Department’s decision to search the phone records was widely condemned in the news media.

In 2013, then Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. issued new guidelines that severely restricted the circumstances in which journalists’ records could be accessed, but did not prevent prosecutors from keeping phone records and emails for national security reasons to search.

In an email from July 2017, Sarah Isgur Flores, then a top Justice Department spokeswoman, tried to cast doubt that a meeting between Mr Kislyak and Mr Sessions had even taken place. She described the section as “exposed” and challenged its credibility when defending Mr. Sessions on the news media.

Ms. Isgur described the coverage as “serious leaks for our national security”. The email was received from reporter Jason Leopold of BuzzFeed News under the Freedom of Information Act.

Last year the Trump administration released confidential transcripts from Mr. Kislyak speaking with Mr. Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael T. Flynn. The documents also revealed extremely delicate capabilities of the FBI, showing that the office was able to monitor the phone line at the Russian Embassy in Washington even before a call from Mr. Kislyak connected to Mr. Flynn’s voicemail.

In his extensive investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, the special adviser, “found no evidence that Kislyak spoke or had the opportunity to speak to Trump or Sessions after the speech,” his office’s 2019 report said.

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World News

Inventory futures are flat after S&P 500 and Nasdaq shut at information, Tesla shares decline

Stock futures are flat after S&P 500 and Nasdaq close at records, Tesla shares decline

Stock futures were unchanged on Tuesday as investors braced themselves for a large amount of technical gains.

Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 30 points. The S&P 500 futures were flat. The Nasdaq 100 futures were also flat.

Tesla’s shares fell 3% in premarket trading even after the electric automaker posted a record $ 438 million profit. Tesla also significantly exceeded Wall Street’s earnings and earnings expectations, fueled by bitcoin sales and regulatory credit. Stocks have struggled this year, more than 18% from their record. Though the stock is still up 360% over the past 12 months.

The winning season for the first quarter starts in full swing on Tuesday. Major tech companies like Alphabet, Microsoft, and AMD are reporting after the bell.

So far, 84% of companies have had a positive earnings surprise, according to FactSet, as around a third of the S&P 500 have reported numbers. However, share movements were relatively subdued after the strong results as the market was at record levels with high valuations.

GameStop’s stock rose more than 8% in premarket trading after the video game retailer said it sold 3.5 million additional shares and raised $ 551 million to accelerate the company’s e-commerce transformation .

The S&P 500 rose to another record high on Monday, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.9% to hit its first new record high since February 12.

“Strong action suggests stocks may have even more upside,” said Jeff Buchbinder, equity strategist at LPL Financial. “Although valuations are elevated, they still seem reasonable given interest rates and inflation.”

The Federal Reserve starts its two-day session on Tuesday. The central bank is not expected to take action, but economists expect it to defend its policies to keep inflation running hot.

Apple and Facebook wins will follow after the bell on Wednesday.

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Business

N.Y. Seeks Trump Insider’s Data, in Obvious Bid to Achieve Cooperation

N.Y. Seeks Trump Insider’s Records, in Apparent Bid to Gain Cooperation

Manhattan prosecutors investigating former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump Organization have cited the personal banking records of the company’s chief financial officer, questioning gifts he and his family received from Mr. Trump.

Over the past few weeks, prosecutors have trained their focus on the executive Allen H. Weisselberg in what appears to be a determined effort to win his collaboration. Accused of no wrongdoing, Mr Weisselberg has overseen the Trump organization’s finances for decades and could hold the key to a possible criminal case in New York against the former president and his family business.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. is investigating, among other things, whether Mr. Trump and the company falsely tampered with property values ​​for credit and tax breaks.

It is unclear whether Mr. Weisselberg would cooperate with the investigation and neither his attorney, Mary E. Mulligan, nor Mr. Vance’s office would comment. However, should a review of his personal finances reveal possible misconduct, prosecutors could use this information to urge Mr. Weisselberg to take them through the inner workings of the company. The 73-year-old accountant began his career with Mr. Trump’s father.

Regardless, prosecutors are demanding a new round of internal documents from the Trump Organization, including ledgers of several of its more than two dozen properties that the company failed to turn over in the past year, according to knowledgeable people. who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details.

The ledgers provide a line-by-line breakdown of each property’s financial health, including daily earnings, checks, and receipts. Prosecutors could compare this information with the information the company provided to its lenders and local tax authorities to determine if it fraudulently misled them.

Mr. Vance’s office has also cited records from several banks that Mr. Trump or his company had accounts with, including JPMorgan Chase and Capital One, according to people with knowledge of subpoenas issued at the banks.

The previously unreported developments underscore the escalation of the investigation after Mr Vance’s office received Mr Trump’s tax filings and other underlying financial documents in February. You were released on Mr. Trump’s objections after a protracted legal battle that culminated in a ruling by the United States Supreme Court.

The Trump organization declined to comment. In the past, Republican Trump has denied any wrongdoing and described the investigation as a longstanding and politically motivated “fishing expedition”. Mr Vance, a Democrat, recently announced that he was not seeking re-election.

The investigation focused on some of Mr. Trump’s best-known properties: the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, the Trump Hotels in New York and Chicago, and the Seven Springs Estate in Westchester County. In addition to potential tax and bank fraud, prosecutors are examining statements made by the Trump Organization to insurance companies about the value of various assets.

Prosecutors have cited documents from a company hired by Deutsche Bank, one of the former president’s main lenders, to assess the value of three Trump hotels on Deutsche Bank loans. The company was reviewing the operation of restaurants, bars and gift shops in the hotels, said one respondent.

Last year, prosecutors summoned Deutsche Bank itself and Mr Trump’s other major lender, Ladder Capital, who sold its loans to the Trump Organization years ago. Both banks work together with the prosecutors.

It is unclear whether the prosecution will ultimately bring charges. However, if a case were created against the Trump organization based on the loan records, the company’s lawyers could argue that Deutsche Bank and Ladder Capital are sophisticated financial institutions that have done their own analysis of Mr Trump’s real estate without themselves relying on the company’s internal reviews. The attorneys could also emphasize that it is customary and appropriate in the New York real estate industry to make different valuations of a property depending on the situation – for example, when applying for a loan or when challenging local property taxes – also because there are different methods of calculating Property values.

Your questions about Donald Trump’s taxes answered

Has Donald Trump implemented his taxes?What are investigators looking for?Will the public ever know what’s in Mr. Trump’s taxes?What’s next?

If the prosecutor were to indict Mr Trump – far from certain – the outcome would be the potential criminal case against a former president. For his part, Mr. Trump dismissed the investigation as a politically motivated “fishing expedition” and vowed to “keep fighting”.

External accountants also review the information provided to local tax authorities, which may reduce the likelihood of fraud. Mr Trump has argued that his tax returns were “filed by one of the largest and most prestigious law and accounting firms in the United States”.

In addition to the fraud investigation, Mr. Vance’s office remains focused on his original objective: the role of the Trump Organization in paying hush money during the 2016 presidential campaign to two women who said they did business with Mr. Trump.

Former Mr. Trump personal attorney and fixer Michael D. Cohen paid $ 130,000 to buy the silence of one of the women, Stephanie Clifford, the pornographic film actress who appeared as Stormy Daniels. The Trump Organization later made a refund to Mr. Cohen, and Mr. Vance’s office has verified that the company has properly recorded the $ 130,000 payment.

Mr Cohen, who pleaded guilty to collecting federal campaign funding fees in 2018 for his role in the hush-money system, has long implicated Mr Weisselberg, claiming that he helped develop a reimbursement masking strategy. The federal prosecutor who charged Mr. Cohen did not accuse Mr. Weisselberg of wrongdoing.

Mr Cohen is now cooperating with Mr Vance’s investigation and has met with prosecutors several times, including to review some of Mr Trump’s financial documents. Lanny Davis, an attorney for Mr. Cohen, declined to comment.

The prosecutor also questioned Mr. Weisselberg’s former daughter-in-law, Jennifer Weisselberg, she said. Ms. Weisselberg got involved in a bitter divorce from Mr. Weisselberg’s son Barry, who manages the Trump Wollman Rink in Central Park.

Ms. Weisselberg said in an interview that prosecutors asked her about a number of gifts Mr. Trump and his company gave to the Weisselberg family over the years. These include an apartment in Central Park South for Mrs. Weisselberg and her ex-husband, cars rented for several family members, and private schooling.

Examining the gifts appears to be part of an effort to paint a picture of Mr. Weisselberg’s financial life, as is common when prosecutors seek the cooperation of a potential witness. It is unclear whether prosecutors suspect wrongdoing related to the gifts.

James B. Stewart and Steve Eder contributed to the coverage. Susan C. Beachy contributed to the research.

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Business

Bhaskar Menon, Who Turned Capitol Information Round, Dies at 86

Bhaskar Menon, Who Turned Capitol Records Around, Dies at 86

In 1970, Capitol Records’ business was in trouble. The Beatles, the company’s top act, had passed away. Hits were rare in the remaining list. That year the company lost $ 8 million.

It needed a savior, and it found one in Bhaskar Menon, an Indian-born, Oxford-trained manager at EMI, the British conglomerate that owned the Capitol majority shareholder. He became the label’s new head in 1971 and quickly turned his finances around. In 1973 he achieved a gigantic hit with Pink Floyd’s album “The Dark Side of the Moon”. He later headed EMI’s global music business.

Mr. Menon, who was also the first Asian man to run a major Western record label, died on March 4th at his home in Beverly Hills, California. He was 86 years old.

The death was confirmed by his wife Sumitra Menon.

“Bhaskar Menon is committed to excellence and has made EMI a music powerhouse and one of our best-known global institutions,” said Lucian Grainge, general manager of Universal Music Group, which owns the Capitol label and EMI’s music recording business , in a statement following the death of Mr Menon.

Vijaya Bhaskar Menon was born on May 29, 1934 to a prominent family in Trivandrum, southern India (now Thiruvananthapuram). His father, KRK Menon, was the finance secretary under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru; The first one rupee notes issued after India gained independence from Great Britain bore his signature. Mr. Menon’s mother, Saraswathi, knew many of India’s leading classical musicians personally.

Mr. Menon studied at Doon School and St. Stephen’s College in India before obtaining a Masters degree from Christ Church, Oxford. His tutor at Oxford recommended him to Joseph Lockwood, chairman of EMI, and Mr. Menon began working there in 1956.

As a proud British institution, EMI controlled a vast musical empire with divisions in Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America. There, Mr. Menon assisted producer George Martin, who later became the Beatles’ chief collaborator.

In 1957, Mr. Menon joined the Gramophone Company of India, an EMI subsidiary. In 1965 he became managing director and 1969 chairman. Later in 1969 he was appointed Managing Director of EMI International.

Capitol, the Los Angeles label where Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra and Peggy Lee lived, has been hit by business missteps and declining sales, and EMI has appointed Mr. Menon as President and CEO. He has slashed Capitol’s list of artists, slashed budgets and pushed for more aggressive advertising for the label’s artists.

In 1972, Mr. Menon learned that Capitol was in danger of losing Pink Floyd’s next album, blaming the company for the poor sales of its previous albums in the United States. Mr Menon flew to the south of France, where Pink Floyd was performing, and after a nightly round of negotiations, they agreed on a deal. Mr. Menon thought of the terms on a cocktail napkin and brought it back to the Capitol Legal Department in Los Angeles, said Rupert Perry, a longtime manager at EMI and Capitol.

“The Dark Side of the Moon”, published by Capitol with a huge advertising campaign, was one of the biggest blockbusters in music history. It stayed on Billboard’s album list for 741 consecutive weeks and sold more than 15 million copies in the US alone.

Under the direction of Mr. Menon, Capitol continued to enjoy success with Bob Seger, Helen Reddy, Steve Miller, Linda Ronstadt, the Grand Funk Railroad, and others through the 1970s.

In 1978 EMI put its music departments under unified management as EMI Music Worldwide and appointed Mr. Menon as chairman and managing director. He stayed in this position until he left the music industry in 1990. From 2005 to 2016 he was a member of the board of directors of NDTV, an Indian news broadcaster. In 2011, a troubled EMI was sold to Sony, which bought its music publishing business, and Universal Music.

In a way, Mr. Menon was an outsider in the Southern California music scene.

“I was a very unusual and unlikely person who was sent here to take full command of Capitol under the circumstances,” Menon said in “Music Business History: The Mike Sigman Interviews,” 2016, citing industry magazine Hits collection.

Mr. Menon’s wife recalled in a telephone interview that Mr. Menon told her in 1972 when they were married, “There are only two Indians in LA: Ravi Shankar and me.” She told stories of the two men – old friends from India – who vainly searched the exclusive west side of the city for good Indian food.

In addition to his wife, two sons, Siddhartha and Vishnu, and a sister, Vasantha Menon, survive Mr. Menon.

Although known primarily as the manager of the business side of the labels he ran, Mr. Menon had the respect of many musicians. In the 2003 documentary, Pink Floyd: The Making of the Dark Side of the Moon, Nick Mason, the band’s drummer, recalled Mr. Menon’s efforts to promote the band’s breakthrough album and called him “absolutely great.”

“He decided he was going to do this job and get the American company to sell this record,” Mason said. “And he did.”

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Business

TSA information highest passenger screenings in almost a 12 months

TSA records highest passenger screenings in nearly a year

A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent wears a protective mask and stands behind a protective barrier while screening a traveler at Ronald Reagan National Airport (DCA) in Arlington, Virginia, United States on Tuesday, June 9, 2020.

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

TSA officials examined 1,357,111 people at airports on Friday, marking the highest number of passengers in a single day since March 15, 2020.

The milestone reflects that air travel is picking up again after a challenging year for airlines caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Air traffic in the US hit a low on April 14, 2020. Only 87,500 passengers passed the TSA checkpoints. According to TSA, travel for 2020 was down more than 60% year over year to 324 million passengers. The TSA screened passengers at 440 airports in the United States

The reduction in travel has hit airlines hard. US airlines combined lost more than $ 35 billion last year due to low passenger traffic. Airlines have been forced to cancel flights, lock seats and take security measures in response to the pandemic.

Airlines are hoping for a resurgence in travel in the coming months as new Covid-19 cases emerge across much of the country and more people are vaccinated. Thirteen percent of American adults have been fully vaccinated as of Friday.

Passengers on Friday were still 20% lower than the number of passengers on the same day last year, down almost 38% from 2019.

Categories
Politics

Supreme Court docket Denies Trump’s Bid to Conceal Taxes, Monetary Information

Supreme Court Denies Trump’s Bid to Conceal Taxes, Financial Records

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday denied a final attempt by former President Donald J. Trump to protect his financial records and issued a brief, unsigned order that ended Mr Trump’s fierce 18-month battle against the Manhattan prosecutor’s tax filings in investigating possible financial crimes.

The court order was a decisive defeat for Mr Trump, who went to extraordinary lengths to keep his tax returns and related documents confidential and took his case to the Supreme Court twice. No disagreements were found.

From the start, Mr. Trump’s struggle to keep his return under wraps had tested the scope and limits of the president’s power. Last summer, the judges rejected Mr. Trump’s argument that prosecutors cannot investigate a seated president and ruled that no citizen was above the “common duty to produce evidence.” This time, the court denied Mr. Trump’s urgency motion to block a subpoena on his records, effectively closing the case.

The ruling is also a huge victory for Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., a Democrat. He now has access to Mr. Trump’s eight years’ worth of personal and corporate tax returns, as well as other financial records that investigators believe Mr. Vance to be critical to their investigation into whether the former president and his company manipulated property values ​​in order to get them get bank loans and tax benefits.

“The work continues,” said Mr Vance in a statement.

In his own long statement, Mr. Trump commented on the Supreme Court decision and investigation. He characterized the investigation as a politically motivated attack by the New York Democrats and called it “a continuation of the greatest political witch hunt in our country’s history”. He also falsely reiterated that he won the 2020 election.

“The Supreme Court should never have allowed this ‘fishing expedition’, but they did,” Trump said. He added, “For more than two years, New York City has been reviewing almost every transaction I’ve ever conducted, including finding tax returns filed by the largest and most respected law and accounting firms in the United States.”

Prosecutors in Manhattan now face a monumental task. Dozens of investigators and forensic accountants go through millions of pages of financial documents. Mr. Vance brought in an outside consultancy and a former federal attorney with significant experience in white collar and organized crime cases to gain an insight into the arcana of commercial real estate and tax strategies.

The Supreme Court order set in motion a series of events that could lead to the terrifying possibility of criminal proceedings against a former US president. At the very least, the ruling removes Mr Trump’s control over his best-kept financial records and the power to decide when, if at all, they will be made available for public inspection.

The court’s decision concerned a grand jury subpoena issued by Mr. Vance’s office in August 2019 and sent to Mr. Trump’s accountants, Mazars USA. The company has announced that it will comply with the courts’ final decision, which means the grand jury should receive the documents in a short time. On Monday, Mazars issued a statement saying it “remains committed to all of our professional and legal obligations”.

The pivotal next phase of the Manhattan investigation will begin this week when investigators collect a huge amount of digital records from a law firm representing Mazars, according to people aware of the matter who spoke about the anonymity condition of the investigation because of the sensitivity of the investigation as well former prosecutors and others who described next steps.

Armed with the subpoena, investigators will go to the law firm’s Westchester County office outside of New York City and take away copies of tax returns, financial reports, and other tax records and notices from Mr. Trump and those of his companies.

The investigation, which began in 2018, first looked at hush money payments to two women who had said they had affairs with Mr Trump, relationships that the former president has denied. However, since then, potential crimes such as insurance, tax and banking fraud have emerged.

Even before the Supreme Court ruling, Mr. Vance’s investigation had intensified as his office had issued more than a dozen subpoenas and interviewed witnesses in the past few months, including employees of Deutsche Bank, one of Mr. Trump’s top lenders.

One focus of Mr. Vance’s investigation is whether Mr. Trump’s company, the Trump Organization, has increased the value of some of its signature properties in order to get the best possible credit while lowering values ​​to lower property taxes, those of the Knowing have said of the matter. The prosecution is also reviewing statements made by the Trump Organization to insurance companies about the value of various assets.

Mazars’ records – including tax returns, the business records on which they are based, and communications between the Trump Organization and its accountants – can allow investigators to get a more complete picture of possible discrepancies between what the company claims to its lenders and the company Get tax authorities said the people.

It remains unclear whether prosecutors will ultimately bring charges against Mr. Trump, the company, or any of its executives, including Mr. Trump’s two adult sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump.

The court order will not place Mr. Trump’s tax returns in the hands of Congress or automatically publish them. The grand jury’s nondisclosure laws keep the recordings private unless Mr. Vance’s office charges and brings the documents into evidence in a lawsuit.

The New York Times received tax return data for more than two decades for Mr. Trump and the hundreds of companies that make up his corporate organization, including detailed information from his first two years in office.

Last year, the Times published a series of research articles based on an analysis of the data that showed that Mr Trump had paid virtually no income tax for many years and that he is undergoing an audit where a negative decision could cost him more than $ 100 million. He and his companies file separate tax returns and employ complicated and sometimes aggressive tax strategies.

As a candidate in 2016, Mr. Trump promised to disclose his tax returns, but he never did, breaking White House tradition. Instead, for reasons that have been speculated about, he fought hard to keep the returns out of control.

In 2019, Mr Trump went to court to combat the subpoena, arguing that as the seated president he was safe from criminal investigation. The United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York ruled against this argument, and prosecutors may require third parties to produce a sitting president’s financial records for use in a grand jury investigation.

Mr Trump appealed to the Supreme Court. In July 2020, the judges firmly rejected Mr Trump’s central constitutional argument against the subpoena in a seminal judgment.

“No citizen, not even the President, is categorically above the general duty to produce evidence if requested in a criminal case,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote in favor of the majority in that decision.

Although Judges Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. disagree on other aspects of the decision, all nine judges agreed to the proposal. But the court gave Mr. Trump another opportunity to challenge the subpoena on more specific grounds.

Mr Trump did just that, arguing that the subpoena was too broad and constituted political harassment. These arguments were rejected by a trial judge and the New York federal appeals court. The appeals court found that the documents presented to the grand jury would not be published, undermining the argument that Mr Vance was trying to embarrass Mr Trump.

“There is nothing to indicate that these are anything but normal documents that are normally relevant to a grand jury investigation into possible financial or corporate misconduct,” the court said in an unsigned statement.

Mr. Trump’s attorneys then filed an “emergency motion” and asked the Supreme Court to stand up for him. They asked the court to block the appellate court’s decision while it decided whether to hear another appeal from Mr Trump, arguing that the president would suffer irreparable damage if the grand jury saw his financial records.

In response, Mr. Vance’s attorneys referred to the Times articles. The cat, they said, was out of the pocket. “With the details of his tax returns now being made public, the confidentiality interests alleged by the applicant have been severely weakened, if they survive at all,” said Vance.

In addition to combating the subpoena from Mr. Vance’s office in court, Mr. Trump sued the suspension of a Congressional subpoena for his return and successfully challenged a California law requiring presidential candidates to clear their return.

Legal experts said the court order effectively ended Mr Trump’s legal search and further attempts to thwart the subpoena could undermine his defense.

“Trump is not respected as a former president,” said Anne Milgram, a former Manhattan assistant district attorney who later served as attorney general in New Jersey and was critical of Mr. Trump. “Under the laws of New York State, he has the same rights as others in the state. Neither more nor less. “

Jonah E. Bromwich and Maggie Haberman contributed to the coverage. Kitty Bennett contributed to the research.