Tag: Seek

Desperation as Afghans Search to Flee a Nation Retaken by the Taliban

Post author By
Post date August 22, 2021

On Saturday morning, a former interpreter for an American company in Kabul plunged into a mass of humanity outside a gate at the Kabul airport with her family in tow.

Even as she was jostled and elbowed by people in the throng, she pushed ahead, desperate to secure a flight out of the country for everyone accompanying her — her husband, 2-year-old daughter, disabled parents, three sisters and a cousin.

Then the crowd surged. The entire family was slammed to the ground. People trampled them where they lay, the woman recalled just hours later.

She remembered someone smashing her cellphone and someone else kicking her in the head. She couldn’t breathe, so she tried to tear off her abaya, a robe-like dress.

As she struggled to her feet, she said, she searched for her toddler. The girl was dead, trampled to death by the mob.

“I felt pure terror,” the woman said in a telephone interview from Kabul. “I couldn’t save her.”

In the six days since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, Afghans have negotiated a terrifying new reality after enduring 20 years of war and suicide bombings. Their world has been upended, and something as prosaic as a trip to the airport now inspires terror. Just stepping outside the front door can be jarring and disorienting.

With the situation increasingly chaotic, the U.S. embassy warned American citizens to stay away from the airport, citing “potential security threats outside the gates.”

Across the country, Afghans who served the American military effort in Afghanistan, or the American-backed former government, are in hiding, many of them threatened with death by the Taliban. Gunmen have gone door-to-door, searching for “collaborators” and threatening their family members, according to human rights groups.

A 39-year-old former interpreter for the U.S. military and Western aid groups was hiding Saturday inside a home in Kabul with his wife and two children. He said the Taliban had telephoned, telling him, “Face the consequences — we will kill you.”

The interpreter, whose identity was shielded like others in this article for safety concerns, said he had given up trying to secure a flight after a harrowing and ultimately futile attempt to force his way past Taliban gunmen and unruly mobs at the airport the day before. He has been spending his time calling and texting American soldiers and officers in the United States who are struggling to find ways to rescue him and his family.

“I’m losing hope,” he said by telephone. “I think maybe I will have to accept the consequences.”

Another former interpreter for the U.S. military was also in hiding in Kabul Saturday. He, too, said he had abandoned any hope of getting a flight for him, his wife and young son after two terrifying forays to the airport.

“I’ve lost hope,” he said. “I’ve lost trust in the U.S. government, which keeps saying, ‘We will evacuate our allies.’”

Updated

Aug. 22, 2021, 12:03 p.m. ET

“Evacuation is impossible,” he added.

Afghans who have been crowding airport gates tend to panic every time tear gas is released or shots are fired into the air to disperse the crowds, the former interpreter said.

“Your child could get trampled,” he said. “If the U.S. gives me the entire universe after I lose a child, it is worthless.”

To cope with the expected flood of Afghan refugees, the Biden administration wants to enlist commercial airlines to ferry those arriving in Gulf states from Kabul to transport them to countries willing to offer them resettlement.

In the Shar-e-Naw neighborhood of Kabul, a female Afghan journalist said she finally ventured outside after hiding indoors since last Sunday. Trying to obey randomly enforced Taliban strictures on women, she wore a full-body abaya.

“It was so heavy it made me feel sick,” she said. And in the street, she said, “There is no music, nothing. All you hear is the Taliban talking on TVs and radios.”

She said her sister-in-law appeared in front of male family members with her hair uncovered. Her brother-in-law gave her a vicious kick and told her, “Put your bloody scarf on!”

Understand the Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan

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Who are the Taliban? The Taliban arose in 1994 amid the turmoil that came after the withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989. They used brutal public punishments, including floggings, amputations and mass executions, to enforce their rules. Here’s more on their origin story and their record as rulers.

Who are the Taliban leaders? These are the top leaders of the Taliban, men who have spent years on the run, in hiding, in jail and dodging American drones. Little is known about them or how they plan to govern, including whether they will be as tolerant as they claim to be.

What happens to the women of Afghanistan? The last time the Taliban were in power, they barred women and girls from taking most jobs or going to school. Afghan women have made many gains since the Taliban were toppled, but now they fear that ground may be lost. Taliban officials are trying to reassure women that things will be different, but there are signs that, at least in some areas, they have begun to reimpose the old order.

Also in hiding was a former Interior Ministry police officer who had seen Taliban fighters ransack the ministry, combing through paperwork that contained detailed information about employees. He worried that they would come looking for him.

“Kabul has become a city of fear,” the officer said.

In Kunar Province in eastern Afghanistan, a journalist said he was hiding inside his home Saturday, afraid to show his face. He had reported on Taliban atrocities when the government controlled the province. Now the Taliban were in charge and on the prowl for journalists, he said.

“The Taliban will kill me and members of my family, just like they’ve killed my colleagues,” the journalist said.

In the eastern province of Khost, another journalist was also in hiding, moving between his home and the home of a family member. Taliban fighters were roaring through the province in American-supplied vehicles captured from Afghan security forces, he said. He feared they would find him soon.

“I’m out of hope,” he said. “Pray for me.”

In Kabul, the woman whose daughter was killed said the family was able to bring the girl’s body back for burial. She wept as she recalled how she would try to ease her daughter’s fears whenever gunshots rang out in their neighborhood: She had told her they were “crackers” — firecrackers.

“My baby was such a brave child,” she said. “When she heard the gunshots, she would just yell out, ‘Crackers!’”

She said she and her family were unlikely to return to the airport anytime soon. “I’d rather die a dignified death here at home than die in such an undignified way.”

Inside the Kabul house where the 39-year-old former interpreter was hiding, hope was fading. He said he was gratified by persistent attempts at assistance by the American soldiers he once served, but had concluded they could do nothing.

“If the Taliban kill me, OK, I can accept that,” he said. “I only ask them to spare my children.”

Jim Huylebroek, Sharif Hassan, Fahim Abed and Fatima Faizi contributed reporting.

Tags Afghans, Country, Desperation, flee, Retaken, Seek, Taliban

Health

Some in Missouri Search Covid-19 Photographs in Secret, Physician Says

Post author By
Post date August 2, 2021

Even as the more contagious Delta variant drives a surge in infections, the Covid-19 vaccination effort has become so polarized in Missouri that some people are trying to get shots in secret to avoid conflicts with friends and relatives, a doctor there said.

In a video circulated by her employer, Dr. Priscilla A. Frase, a hospitalist and the chief medical information officer at Ozarks Healthcare in West Plains, Mo., said this month that several people had pleaded for anonymity when they came in to be vaccinated, and that some appeared to have made an effort to disguise themselves.

“I work closely with our pharmacists who are leading our vaccine efforts through our organization,” she said, “and one of them told me the other day that they had several people come in to get vaccinated who have tried to sort of disguise their appearance and even went so far as to say, ‘Please, please please, don’t let anyone know that I got this vaccine.’”

It was not clear how many people had tried to alter their appearance to avoid recognition, or how they had done so. Dr. Frase, who wore a mask in the video, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Some people, she said in the video, were “very concerned about how their people that they love, within their family and within their friendship circles and their work circles, are going to react if they found out that they got the vaccine.”

Coronavirus Pandemic and U.S. Life Expectancy

“Nobody should have to feel that kind of pressure to get something that they want, you know,” she added. “We should all be able to be free to do what we want to do, and that includes people who don’t want to get the vaccine as well as people who do want to get the vaccine. But we’ve got to stop ridiculing people that do or don’t want to get the vaccine.”

The video was circulating online as public health officials in Missouri were confronting a resurgent outbreak, driven by the Delta variant and concentrated in the state’s south and southwest.

Updated

Aug. 1, 2021, 3:54 p.m. ET

The state’s vaccination rate lags that of most other states and the nation as a whole. According to a New York Times database, 41 percent of Missouri residents have been fully vaccinated against Covid-19, compared with more than 49 percent nationwide. In Howell County, Mo., where Ozarks Healthcare and Dr. Frase are based, only 20 percent of residents are fully vaccinated.

On Thursday, Missouri had a seven-day average of nearly 2,500 new cases of Covid-19 — an increase of 39 percent over the previous two weeks. Hospitalizations were up 38 percent over the same period.

Studies suggest that the approved vaccines remain effective against the Delta variant, but public health experts say Delta poses a serious threat to unvaccinated populations.

Understand the State of Vaccine Mandates in the U.S.

Despite that evidence, public health measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus, including vaccinations, have been politicized across much of the country. In some places, including in parts of Missouri, being unvaccinated has become a point of pride for some people. In a Politico report this week, few people who were interviewed at Lake of the Ozarks, a popular tourist destination, acknowledged that they had been vaccinated, and some said that they had been shamed by friends or relatives.

In the video, Dr. Frase said she was particularly troubled by the increased spread of misinformation about the vaccines.

“My fear is that people are getting information from the wrong sources and therefore actually making uninformed decisions rather than informed decisions,” she said.

“I want people to ask medical people,” she added, “or ask somebody that they trust who has good knowledge — not rely on the stuff that’s out there on social media, not rely on people who have opinions not based on facts.”

It was “disheartening,” she said, “to have gotten to that place where we, as health care providers, thought that maybe things were finally back to whatever our new normal is going to be after this pandemic.”

Tags Covid19, Doctor, Missouri, Secret, Seek, shots

Health

Mourning Households Search Solace From the ‘Grief Purgatory’ of Covid-19

Post author By
Post date July 31, 2021

“For us Native Americans we need to be together, eat, share stories, and pray so that our loved ones who are dead can reach out to the Creator,” said Robert Gill, a funeral director from Buffalo, Minnesota, and a resident of the Sisseton tribe of the Wahpeton Oyate.

Mr Gill said he kept some bodies for months to give people an opportunity to organize a larger funeral. When these gatherings finally take place, attendees will be served “liquor platters” – with ancestral favorite dishes such as fried ribs, aronia jam and fried buffalo.

Many families use the extended planning periods to create detailed reminders.

Frederick Harris, a Vietnam War veteran, loved Smirnoff vodka with grapefruit juice and Motown music, so daughter Nicole Elizabeth, 34, will serve and play at his memorial ceremony in Hadley, Massachusetts later that year.

“It’s daunting to plan because I want to be fun and be able to share memories with so many people,” she said. “But I hope it will bring me some peace, because for many of us it was just that limbo.”

About 60 people attended church in June to honor the father of Mrs. Zimmerman-Selvidge. Those present passed a microphone over the benches and exchanged memories of him.

Finally it was his daughter’s turn. Mrs. Zimmermann-Selvidge sighed. “He loved us all so much,” she said, then paused.

Her father’s urn was on a table in front of her. In her purse was a letter she had forced herself to receive after his death.

It started with words that were sometimes too painful to say out loud, “I miss you”.

Tags Covid19, Families, Grief, Mourning, Purgatory, Seek, Solace

Health

U.S. Authorities Search Paperwork From Troubled Covid Vaccine Producer

Post author By
Post date July 30, 2021

That decision does not mean the F.D.A. has broadly authorized Johnson & Johnson to distribute doses made by Emergent on an emergency basis. The F.D.A. signed off on previous batches of vaccine made at the Baltimore factory but with a warning that it could not guarantee the company had followed good manufacturing practices. The agency has cleared the equivalent of up to 75 million doses, but tens of millions remain in limbo.

In a conference call with investors on Thursday, Emergent executives announced a $41.5 million hit from being forced to discard doses the F.D.A. had deemed unusable, and said the company had spent another $12.4 million to address manufacturing issues in Baltimore.

The newly disclosed inquiries from federal and state agencies underscore a dramatic reversal of fortune for a company that has spent much of the last two decades effectively cornering the market for biodefense, becoming the government’s go-to contractor for products to protect against bioterrorism and infectious disease outbreaks.

For most of the last decade, the government has spent nearly half of the annual budget of the nation’s emergency medical reserve, the Strategic National Stockpile, on Emergent’s anthrax vaccine alone, crowding out investments in products such as masks that were in short supply during the pandemic, a New York Times investigation found.

Understand the State of Vaccine Mandates in the U.S.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit, the government turned to Emergent to produce vaccines and treatments. Thanks to a lucrative deal struck in May 2020, Emergent earned record profits and awarded executives record bonuses.

Out of public view, however, concern about the company’s ability to deliver was mounting, as The Times has reported. A series of audits by customers, federal officials and the company’s own evaluators found repeated shortcomings in efforts to disinfect and prevent contamination, and a top federal official warned that the company would have to be “monitored closely.”

After it was discovered in late March that a batch of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine had been cross-contaminated with material from the AstraZeneca vaccine, federal inspectors descended on the factory, and members of Congress launched an investigation into both the company’s Covid-19 manufacturing work and its contracts with the stockpile.

Tags authorities, Covid, documents, Manufacturer, Seek, Troubled, Vaccine

Health

As Mother and father Forbid Covid Photographs, Defiant Youngsters Search Methods to Get Them

Post author By
Post date June 26, 2021

She showed up anyway. At worst, she figured, the school would just turn her away.

Apparently, they took note only of her mother’s consent. Saying nothing, Elizabeth stuck out her arm.

Now she is in a pickle. The school is requiring students to be vaccinated for the fall semester and she says her father has begun warring with the administration over the issue. Elizabeth is afraid that if he learns how she was vaccinated, he will be furious and tell the school, which will discipline her for having deceived vaccinators, a stain on her record just as she is applying to college.

Gregory D. Zimet, a psychologist and professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, pointed out the irony of an adolescent being legally prevented from making a choice that was strenuously urged by public health officials.Developmentally, he said, adolescents at 14 and even younger are at least as good as adults at weighing the risks of a vaccine. “Which isn’t to say that adults are necessarily great at it,” he added.

In many states, young teenagers can make decisions around contraception and sexually transmitted infections, which are, he noted, “in many ways more complex and fraught than getting a vaccine.”

Pediatricians say that even parents who have themselves been vaccinated are wary for their children. Dr. Jay Lee, a family physician and chief medical officer of Share Our Selves, a community health network in Orange County, Calif., said parents say they would rather risk their child having Covid than get the new vaccine.

“I will validate their concerns,” Dr. Lee said, “but I point out that waiting to see if your child gets sick is not a good strategy. And that no, Covid is not just like the flu.”

Elise Yarnell, a senior clinic operations manager for the Portland, Ore., area at Providence, a large health care system, recalled a 16-year-old girl who showed up at a Covid vaccine clinic at her school in Yamhill County.

Tags Covid, Defiant, Forbid, Parents, Seek, shots, Teenagers, Ways

World News

Moderna says shot is 100% efficient in teenagers, plans to hunt FDA OK in June

Post author By
Post date May 25, 2021

A young man receives his Covid-19 vaccination in a vaccination clinic. People are receiving the Moderna vaccine in Milford, Pennsylvania.

Preston Ehrler | LightRocket | Getty Images

Moderna said Tuesday that its Covid-19 vaccine was 100% effective in a study in adolescents ages 12 to 17. This makes it the second attempt after Pfizer that has demonstrated a high level of effectiveness in younger age groups.

The company plans to ask the Food and Drug Administration to expand emergency use of its Covid-19 vaccine to teenagers early next month. If approved, it would likely dramatically increase the number of recordings available to middle and high school students before the next school year. Pfizer and German partner BioNTech were approved to use their vaccine for 12 to 15 year olds earlier this month.

“We are encouraged that mRNA-1273 is highly effective in preventing COVID-19 in adolescents,” said Stephane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, in a press release. “We continue to strive to do our part to end the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The two-dose vaccine, given four weeks apart, is already approved for adults.

The phase 2/3 study the company cited on Tuesday included more than 3,700 teenagers. No cases of Covid-19 were observed in participants who received two doses of the vaccine, while four cases were observed in the placebo group, according to the company.

No significant safety concerns have been identified to date, with side effects generally in line with a previous study in adults, the company said. The most common side effects after the second dose were headache, fatigue, muscle pain, and chills, Moderna said.

The new data comes less than three weeks after the company announced in an earnings report that early data showed the shot was 96% effective against Covid in teens ages 12-17. These data were based on those who had received at least one dose of the vaccine.

The company said Tuesday that the shot in the study was 93% effective after one dose. For this it used the definition of Covid-19 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which only requires one symptom and a positive Covid test.

US regulators are expected to approve Moderna’s application for teenage use. The approval process could take about a month, in time for some summer activities and fall Classes if Moderna submits the data by the beginning of June. Pfizer and BioNTech, for example, filed for expanded use of their shot in teenagers on April 9th and were approved by the FDA on May 10th.

Vaccinating children is seen as critical to ending the pandemic. The nation is unlikely to achieve herd immunity – if enough people in a given community have antibodies to a given disease – until children can be vaccinated, health officials and experts say.

According to the government, children make up around 20% of the total US population. According to medical experts, between 70% and 85% of the US population must be vaccinated against Covid to achieve herd immunity, and some adults may refuse to get the shots. Although now more experts say herd immunity becomes less likely as variants spread.

According to health experts, vaccinating children can also accelerate the return of personal learning and enable after-school activities such as sports, arts, and other personal activities after school.

Tags effective, FDA, June, Moderna, plans, Seek, shot, Teens

Business

Companies Search to Assist Feminine Caregivers Return to Workforce: Stay Updates

Post author By
Post date May 19, 2021

A homebound resident in the Bronx receives a dose of coronavirus vaccine. A new initiative is pushing for federally funded family and medical leave, and affordable child care and elder care.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…James Estrin/The New York Times

JPMorgan Chase, Spotify, Uber, McDonald’s and almost 200 other businesses have formed a coalition focused on ensuring that women are not held back in the labor force because they bear the brunt of caregiving in the United States.

The new Care Economy Business Council, the creation of which was announced on Wednesday, portrays the effort in stark economic terms, arguing that fixing the crumbling child and elder care systems is essential to the economic recovery.

Led by Time’s Up, the advocacy organization founded by powerful women in Hollywood, the council aims to bring executives together to share ways to improve workplace policies and to pressure Congress to pass policy changes that would help people — particularly women — get back to work. The council will push for federally funded family and medical leave, affordable child care and elder care, and elevated wages for caregiving workers.

“What I’m seeing now that I have not seen in the many years I’ve been working on this constellation of issues is a realization by employers that they have a stake in this,” Tina Tchen, the chief executive of Time’s Up, said.

The pandemic laid bare the faults in caregiving in the United States, particularly the problems with child care. Many child-care centers either shuttered or cut back on hours to save on costs, leaving parents without reliable and safe places for their children while they worked. The lack of child care support was a major reason that hundreds of thousands of women left the work force in the past year, bringing female labor participation rate to its lowest level since 1986.

Companies scrambled to cobble together solutions, from flexible work hours to additional child care stipends. But for many executives, the crisis made it clear that the entire system needed an overhaul.

The issue is “bigger than something we can solve on our own,” said Christy M. Pambianchi, the chief human resources officer at Verizon, which is part of the council.

President Biden’s two-part infrastructure plan proposes pumping $425 billion into expanding and strengthening child-care services and an additional $400 billion to help expand access for in-home care for older adults and those with disabilities. His plan also offers businesses a tax credit for building child-care centers in their workplaces.

Members of Congress have also introduced three separate but similar child-care bills.

Credit…Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters

Charities have an inherent interest in cryptocurrencies because, increasingly, their fates are intertwined. Nonprofit groups benefit from financial windfalls and people have recently been getting rich with crypto, the DealBook newsletter reports.

“There’s no question” that the price of cryptocurrency is linked to the volume of giving, said Joe Huston, the managing director of GiveDirectly, a global aid group. Crypto is volatile, especially in the past few days, but philanthropies have seen consistent growth in digital asset donations over time. (Bitcoin is still up 30 percent for the year, even after a torrid few trading sessions). Donations in crypto to Fidelity Charitable went from $13 million in 2019 to $28 million in 2020.

GiveDirectly has seen a “big uptick,” Mr. Huston said. The Twitter founder Jack Dorsey gave the group $12.8 million, the co-founder of the Ethereum platform Vitalik Buterin donated $4.8 million and Elon Musk of Tesla gave “some.” The cryptocurrency exchange FTX donates 1 percent of its fees and encourages traders to channel returns to charity.

But newfound riches donated in novel ways also raise questions. Mr. Buterin recently gave $1.2 billion to fund pandemic relief efforts in India. The gift was in SHIB, a crypto token named after a Shiba Inu dog that’s a derivative of the onetime joke crypto Dogecoin. These tokens were sent unbidden to Mr. Buterin to bolster their value. (To stop promoters from sending him free crypto with uncertain motives, he “burned” $6 billion worth of the tokens, taking them out of circulation permanently.)

His approach in donating tokens was “impressively lightweight and fast,” Mr. Huston said, showing how frictionless crypto-based philanthropy can be. Previously, it was unimaginable to transfer such an enormous sum without an institutional intermediary. This lack of friction also makes crypto giving prime territory for fraudsters.

“There are a lot of young people with stupid amounts of money,” said Austin Detwiler, a consultant at American Philanthropic, a consulting firm. Fund-raisers should make giving from this new generation easier, mindful that “it’s easy to start accepting crypto, but it’s volatile, so have a policy,” he said. Some donors place conditions on token gifts and some charities simply can’t tolerate the risk of holding assets that rise and fall so rapidly.

Credit…Modern Fertility

Ro, the parent company of Roman, the brand that is best known for delivering erectile dysfunction and hair loss medication to consumers, announced on Wednesday that it would acquire Modern Fertility, a start-up that offers at-home fertility tests for women.

The deal is priced at more than $225 million, according to people with knowledge of the acquisition who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not public. It is one of the largest investments in the women’s health care technology space, known as femtech, which attracted $592 million in venture capital in 2019, according to an analysis by PitchBook.

Modern Fertility was founded in 2017 with its flagship product: a $159 finger prick test that can estimate how many eggs a woman may have left, which can help determine which fertility method might be best.

“We essentially took the same laboratory tests that women would take in an infertility clinic and made them available to women at a fraction of the cost,” said Afton Vechery, a founder and chief executive of Modern Fertility, noting that her own test at a clinic set her back $1,500.

The company now also sells an at-home test, available at Walmart, to help track ovulation, as well as standard pregnancy tests and prenatal vitamins.

Ro, which was founded in 2017 with a focus on men’s health and was valued in March at about $5 billion, has in recent years expanded into telehealth, including delivering generic drugs by mail. In December, Ro acquired Workpath, which connects patients with in-home care providers, like nurses.

The global digital health market, which includes telemedicine, online pharmacies and wearable devices, could reach $600 billion by 2024, according to the consulting firm McKinsey & Company. And yet, by one estimate, only 1.4 percent of the money that flows into health care goes to the femtech industry, mirroring a pattern in the medical industry, which has historically overlooked women’s health research.

“Gender bias in health care research methods and funding has really contributed to sexism in medicine and health care,” said Sonya Borrero, director of the Center for Women’s Health Research and Innovation at the University of Pittsburgh. “I think we’re seeing again — gender bias in the venture capital sector is going to exactly shape what gets developed.”

That underinvestment was part of the reasoning behind the acquisition, said Zachariah Reitano, Ro’s chief executive. The company developed a female-focused online service in 2019 called Rory.

“We’re going to continue to invest hundreds of millions of dollars over the next five years into women’s health,” Mr. Reitano said, “because ultimately I think women’s health has the potential to be much larger than men’s health.”

Credit…Mike Segar/Reuters

The major management shuffle announced Tuesday by JPMorgan Chase renewed chatter about who will succeed Jamie Dimon as chief executive.

Marianne Lake, the bank’s head of consumer lending, and Jennifer Piepszak, its chief financial officer, were made joint heads of the consumer and community bank. The promotions solidify both women’s positions as contenders for chief executive.

The new setup also creates an unusual situation in which two executives competing for the top job are sharing a leadership role. That may be tricky to navigate, management experts say, and whether it’s a good test of leadership skills is debatable.

In a 2012 paper, Ryan Krause of the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University, examined how sharing power affected the performance of public companies. Estimating the relative power of co-chief executives using proxies such as tenure and stock ownership, he and his co-authors concluded that executives who had more equal levels of power performed worse than those with disproportionate power.

“We interpret this as being evidence that, basically, having co-C.E.O.s really only works if they’re not really co-C.E.O.s,” Mr. Krause said. Co-leaders of a division, he said, may be more successful because they can more easily divide responsibilities instead of sharing authority. Such setups are not uncommon at JPMorgan.

It could highlight the ability to work collaboratively, said Steve Odland, the head of the Conference Board and the former chief executive of Office Depot and AutoZone.

“Whenever you’re in a C.E.O. successor position, it’s difficult because there are a lot of things that have to go right and you’re under the microscope,” Mr. Odland said. “But to do so with your competitor, and have to compete with your co-head, at the same time you’re making it work is especially stressful. Which is why it’s an interesting test, because the person who succeeds at this should be amply able to succeed in the C.E.O. role.”

But is it a good idea? Dan Ciampa, an adviser to chief executives and directors during leadership transitions, said that he generally would not recommend such a test.

“It may make sense to have co-division leaders or co-unit leaders and maybe even co-C.E.O.s,” Mr. Ciampa said. “But to use that as a way to determine who the next person should be to run the entire organization, to me it says that the board and the sitting C.E.O. and the head of H.R. have probably not done their homework.”

Credit…Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

The Biden administration’s efforts to provide $4 billion in debt relief to minority farmers is encountering stiff resistance from banks, which are complaining that the government initiative to pay off the loans of borrowers who have faced decades of financial discrimination will cut into their profits and hurt investors.

The debt relief was approved as part of the stimulus package that Congress passed in March and was intended to make amends for the discrimination that Black and other nonwhite farmers have faced from lenders and the Department of Agriculture over the years.

But no money has yet gone out the door.

Instead, the program has become mired in controversy and lawsuits. In April, white farmers who claim that they are victims of discrimination sued the U.S.D.A. over the initiative, writes The New York Times’s Alan Rappeport.

Now, three of the biggest banking groups are waging their own fight and complaining about the cost of being repaid early. Their argument stems from the way banks make money from loans and how they decide where to extend credit.

By allowing borrowers to repay their debts early, the lenders are being denied income they have long expected, they argue. The banks want the federal government to pay money beyond the outstanding loan amount so that banks and investors will not miss out on interest income that they were expecting or money that they would have made reselling the loans to other investors.

Bank lobbyists have been asking the Agriculture Department to make changes to the repayment program, a U.S.D.A. official said. They are pressing the U.S.D.A. to simply make the loan payments, rather than wipe out the debt all at once. And they are warning of other repercussions.

In a letter sent last month to the agriculture secretary, the banks suggested that they might be more reluctant to extend credit if the loans were quickly repaid, leaving minority farmers worse off in the long run. The intimation was viewed as a threat by some organizations that represent Black farmers.

The U.S.D.A. has shown no inclination to reverse course.

Stocks on Wall Street extended the week’s losses on Wednesday, following a slump in Europe, as traders weighed fresh data on inflation and concerns from central banks about the recovery.

The S&P 500 fell 1.2 percent in early trading, after dropping 0.9 percent on Tuesday. Technology stocks led the declines, with the Nasdaq composite falling more than 1.5 percent in early trading.

The Stoxx Europe 600 index was 1.8 percent lower, while the FTSE 100 in Britain lost 1.5 percent. Stock markets in Asia ended the day mainly lower, with the Nikkei in Japan down by 1.3 percent.

Volatility in stock markets lately has been driven by sentiment about inflation. Investors are nervous that a jump in prices — coming as global economies reopen and while the government continues to pump stimulus funds to spur growth — could push the Federal Reserve and other central banks to raise interest rates or take other measures to cool growth. That would be bad news for riskier investments like stocks.

The Fed and other central banks have said they see the recent increases as transitory caused partly by supply chain issues as economies revive from lockdowns, and that they have no plans to remove emergency support for the economy.

Bitcoin’s slump

Bitcoin has dropped more than 22 percent in 24 hours, to about $34,000, according to CoinDesk. The cryptocurrency was above $63,000 about a month ago.
One factor behind the decline was China’s announcement that it would ban banks and payment companies from providing services related to cryptocurrency transactions.
The drop has hit shares of companies in the cryptocurrency industry hard. Coinbase, the cryptocurrency exchange, fell 10 percent in early trading Wednesday, and Riot Blockchain slid more than 12 percent.
Tesla, the electric vehicle maker that recently invested $1.5 billion on bitcoin, was down 4 percent. But Tesla also recently reversed a decision to accept payment for its cars in Bitcoin, a decision that has helped fuel the cryptocurrency’s recent decline.

Inflation data

On Wednesday, Britain said its inflation rate more than doubled to an annual rate of 1.5 percent in April. Still the jump was in line with expectations, and reflects an adjustment from slumping prices a year ago.

The eurozone is also seeing higher prices. The annualized inflation rate in April was 1.6 percent among countries using the euro, up from a 1.3 percent rate the month before, Eurostat reported. Fuel costs were cited as the main driver.

The word from central banks

But the European Central Bank issued a warning on Wednesday that, although eurozone economies were improving, “the pandemic will leave a legacy of higher debt and weaker balance sheets, which — if unaddressed — could prompt sharp market corrections and financial stress or lead to a prolonged period of weak economic recovery.”
The bank, in its latest Financial Stability Review, also pointed to the “remarkable exuberance” in the stock markets as U.S. Treasury yields have risen amid inflation concerns. “The buoyancy of financial markets has stood in contrast to weaker economic fundamentals,” the report said. The bank called for continued support for hard-hit sectors that remain vulnerable, like hospitality, arts and entertainment.
Federal Reserve policymakers will release the minutes from their April meeting on Wednesday.

Amazon said Tuesday that it would indefinitely prohibit police departments from using its facial recognition tool, extending a moratorium the company announced last year during nationwide protests over racism and biased policing. When Amazon announced the pause in June, it did not cite a specific reason for the change. The company said it hoped a year was enough time for Congress to create legislation regulating the ethical use of facial recognition technology. Congress has not banned the technology, or issued any significant regulations on it, but some cities have.
Google held its I/O developer conference on Tuesday. And, as usual, it was a dizzying two-hour procession of new features, products and services across the company’s vast array of businesses, from its smartphone software to its artificial intelligence systems. Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google’s parent company Alphabet, revealed the company’s next so-called moonshot: Google aims to power the entire company using carbon-free energy by 2030. It will require using artificially intelligent software systems to allocate energy wisely as well as investments to tap into geothermal energy in addition to wind and solar.

Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York Times

Fox News Media, the Rupert Murdoch-controlled cable group, filed a motion on Tuesday to dismiss a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought against it in March by Dominion Voting Systems, an election technology company that accused Fox News of propagating lies that ruined its reputation after the 2020 presidential election.

The Dominion lawsuit and a similar defamation claim brought in February by another election company, Smartmatic, have been widely viewed as test cases in a growing legal effort to battle disinformation in the news media. And it is another byproduct of former President Donald J. Trump’s baseless attempts to undermine President Biden’s clear victory.

In a 61-page response filed in Delaware Superior Court, the Fox legal team argues that Dominion’s suit threatened the First Amendment powers of a news organization to chronicle and assess newsworthy claims in a high-stakes political contest.

“A free press must be able to report both sides of a story involving claims striking at the core of our democracy,” Fox says in the motion, “especially when those claims prompt numerous lawsuits, government investigations and election recounts.” The motion adds: “The American people deserved to know why President Trump refused to concede despite his apparent loss.”

Dominion’s lawsuit against Fox News presented the circumstances in a different light.

Dominion is among the largest manufacturers of voting machine equipment and its technology was used by more than two dozen states last year. Its lawsuit described the Fox News and Fox Business cable networks as active participants in spreading a false claim, pushed by Mr. Trump’s allies, that the company had covertly modified vote counts to manipulate results in favor of Mr. Biden. Lawyers for Mr. Trump shared those claims during televised interviews on Fox programs.

“Lies have consequences,” Dominion’s lawyers wrote in their initial complaint. “Fox sold a false story of election fraud in order to serve its own commercial purposes, severely injuring Dominion in the process.” The lawsuit cites instances where Fox hosts, including Lou Dobbs and Maria Bartiromo, uncritically repeated false claims about Dominion made by Mr. Trump’s lawyers Rudolph W. Giuliani and Sidney Powell.

A representative for Dominion, whose founder and employees received threatening messages after the negative coverage, did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday night.

Fox News Media has retained two prominent lawyers to lead its defense: Charles Babcock, who has a background in media law, and Scott Keller, a former chief counsel to Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas. Fox has also filed to dismiss the Smartmatic suit; that defense is being led by Paul D. Clement, a former solicitor general under President George W. Bush.

“There are two sides to every story,” Mr. Babcock and Mr. Keller wrote in a statement on Tuesday. “The press must remain free to cover both sides, or there will be a free press no more.”

The Fox motion on Tuesday argues that its networks “had a free-speech right to interview the president’s lawyers and surrogates even if their claims eventually turned out to be unsubstantiated.” It argues that the security of Dominion’s technology had been debated in prior legal claims and media coverage, and that the lawsuit did not meet the high legal standard of “actual malice,” a reckless disregard for the truth, on the part of Fox News and its hosts.

Media organizations, in general, enjoy strong protections under the First Amendment. Defamation suits are a novel tactic in the battle over disinformation, but proponents say the strategy has shown some early results. The conservative news outlet Newsmax apologized last month after a Dominion employee, in a separate legal case, accused the network of spreading baseless rumors about his role in the election. Fox Business canceled “Lou Dobbs Tonight” a day after Smartmatic sued Fox in February and named Mr. Dobbs as a co-defendant.

Jonah E. Bromwich contributed reporting.

Tags Businesses, Caregivers, Female, Live, return, Seek, Updates, workforce

Business

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

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Post date May 18, 2021

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.

Tags Boeing, FAA, House, lawmakers, Problems, production, records, Seek

Politics

Spy Businesses Search New Afghan Allies as U.S. Withdraws

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Post date May 14, 2021

Spy Agencies Seek New Afghan Allies as U.S. Withdraws

KABUL, Afghanistan – Western espionage agencies are evaluating and soliciting regional leaders outside the Afghan government who may be able to provide intelligence on terrorist threats long after US forces have withdrawn, according to current and former American, European and Afghan officials.

The effort marks a turning point in the war. Instead of one of the largest multinational military training missions of all time, informants and intelligence agencies are now being sought. Despite diplomats saying the Afghan government and its security forces will be able to hold their own, the move signals that Western intelligence agencies are focusing on the possible – or even probable – collapse of the central government and an inevitable return to civil war to prepare.

Court officials in Afghanistan recall the 1980s and 1990s when the country was controlled by the Soviets and then turned into a factional conflict between regional leaders. The West was often dependent on opposing warlords – and at times supported them financially through relationships that contradicted the Afghan people. As a result of these policies, the United States was often particularly indebted to brokers who had outrageously committed human rights abuses.

Candidates considered today for intelligence gathering include the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the famous Afghan fighter who led fighters against the Soviets in the 1980s and as head of the Northern Alliance against the Taliban for the following decade . The son – Ahmad Massoud, 32 – has tried in recent years to revive his father’s work by assembling a coalition of militias to defend northern Afghanistan.

Afghans, American and European officials say there is no formal cooperation between Mr Massoud and Western intelligence, although some have held preliminary meetings. While there is widespread agreement within the CIA and the French DGSE that it could provide information, opinions differ as to whether Mr Massoud, who has not been tested as a leader, would be able to command an effective resistance.

The appeal of developing relationships with Mr Massoud and other regional energy brokers is obvious: Western governments distrust the Taliban’s lukewarm commitments to keep terrorist groups out of the country in the years to come, and fear that if they don’t, the Afghan government could collapse Peace settlement is achieved. The Second Resistance, as Mr Massoud now calls his armed insurgent force, is a network that opposes the Taliban, Al-Qaeda or any extremist group that emerges from their shadow.

Senior CIA officials, including William J. Burns, the agency’s director, have confirmed that they will be looking for new ways to gather information in Afghanistan once American forces have withdrawn and that their ability to gather information about terrorist activity will increase collect is restricted.

But Mr Massoud’s organization is still in its infancy, desperate for support and legitimacy. It is supported by around a dozen militia commanders who have fought against the Taliban and the Soviets in the past, as well as several thousand fighters in the north. Mr Massoud says his ranks are occupied by those who have been insulted by the government and, like the Taliban, believes that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has exceeded his greeting.

“We are ready, even if it takes my own life,” said Massoud in an interview.

Even the symbols at Mr. Massoud’s events are reminiscent of the time of the Civil War: old flags of the Northern Alliance and the old national anthem.

But despite all the excitement of Mr Massoud at the recent rallies and ceremonies, the idea that the Northern Alliance could be renamed and that its former leaders – some of whom have now become ambassadors, vice-presidents and senior military commanders in the Afghan government – would follow someone who is half his age and has little experience with war on the battlefield seems unrealistic right now, security analysts have said.

Supporting any kind of insurgency or building a resistance movement presents real challenges today, said Lisa Maddox, a former CIA analyst who has done extensive work on Afghanistan.

“The concern is what would the second resistance involve and what would our goals be?” She said. “I’m afraid people are proposing a new proxy war in Afghanistan. I think we learned that we can’t win. “

Even considering that an unproven militia leader for possible counter-terrorism assurances upon withdrawal of international forces is undermining the last two decades of state-building, security analysts say, practically turning the idea of an impending civil war into an expected reality by further strengthening anti-government forces . Such divisions are widespread for exploitation by the Taliban.

The United States had a close relationship with the Northern Alliance, which made it difficult to gather information in the country. The French and British both supported high-ranking Massoud in the 1980s, while the Americans instead focused primarily on groups associated with Pakistani intelligence. CIA links with Mr. Massoud and his group were limited until 1996 when the agency began providing logistical assistance in exchange for information about al-Qaeda.

One of the reasons the CIA kept Massoud at bay was his track record of unreliability, drug trafficking, and war atrocities in the early 1990s, when Mr. Massoud’s forces shot at Kabul and massacred civilians as other warlords did.

Now different allied governments and officials have different views on Mr. Massoud and the viability of his movement. The French, who were devoted supporters of his father, see his efforts as promising to put up real resistance to the control of the Taliban.

David Martinon, the French ambassador in Kabul, said he had been watching Mr Massoud closely for the past three years and nominated him for a trip to Paris to meet with French leaders, including the president. “He’s smart, passionate, and a man of integrity who is dedicated to his country,” said Martinon.

Washington is more divided, and some government analysts do not believe Mr Massoud would be able to build an effective coalition.

Eighteen months ago, Lisa Curtis, then a National Security Council official, met with Mr. Massoud, along with Zalmay Khalilzad, the leading US diplomat who led peace efforts with the Taliban. She described him as charismatic and said he spoke convincingly about the importance of democratic values. “He’s very clear and talks about the importance of maintaining the progress made over the past 20 years,” she said.

In Afghanistan, some are more skeptical of Mr Massoud’s power to influence a resistance.

“Practical experience has shown that no one can be like his father,” said Lieutenant General Mirza Mohammad Yarmand, a former deputy minister in the Ministry of the Interior. “His son lives in a different time and does not have the experience that his father matured.”

Other members of the Afghan government see Mr. Massoud as a nuisance, someone who has the potential to create problems for his own interests in the future.

While opinions differ on his organizational skills, there is broad consensus that Mr Massoud can help act as eyes and ears for the West – as his father did 20 years ago.

Mr Massoud, who was trained at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, UK, returned to Afghanistan in 2016. He spent the next three years quietly building support before becoming more public in 2019 through rallies and recruiting campaigns across the north.

In recent months, Mr Massoud’s rhetoric has grown tougher when he recently attacked Mr Ghani during a ceremony in Kabul and his efforts to secure international support became more aggressive. Not only has Mr. Massoud reached the US, UK and France, but also courted India, Iran and Russia, according to people familiar with his activities. Afghan intelligence documents show that Mr Massoud is buying weapons from Russia through an intermediary.

But Europe and the United States see him less as a bulwark against a rising Taliban than as a potentially important observer of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. A generation ago, Mr. Massoud’s father was open about the burgeoning terrorist threats in the country. And even if the son cannot command the same armed forces as his father, he may be able to issue similar warnings.

As a young diplomat, Mr Martinon recalls Massoud’s late warning to the world during his visit to France in April 2001.

“What he said was caution, caution,” recalled Mr. Martinon. “The Taliban are hosting Al-Qaeda and preparing something.”

Julian E. Barnes reported from Washington. Najim Rahim and Fatima Faizi reported from Kabul.

Tags Afghan, Agencies, Allies, Seek, Spy, Withdraws

Politics

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms Received’t Search Second Time period

Post author By
Post date May 7, 2021

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms Won’t Seek Second Term

The other challenger, Sharon Gay, a lawyer, also said she would make crime fighting a top priority.

Ms. Bottoms, 51, was expected to build a formidable defense. She has a loyal ally in President Biden, whom she endorsed early on and who repaid her loyalty with an appearance at a virtual fundraiser in March. Ms. Bottoms was briefly mentioned as a potential vice president and said she later turned down a cabinet position in the Biden administration.

Ms. Bottoms, who served as a judge and councilor before narrowly winning the 2017 mayor election, is also blessed with one voice – measured, compassionate, slightly hurt, and permeated by her experience as a black daughter and mother – that seemed uniquely calibrated too to address the challenges of the past year.

After the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Ms. Bottoms went on live television and became a national star speaking directly to protesters. Some of their demonstrations had fallen into lawlessness, with people smashing windows, spraying property and burning cars.

“When I saw the murder of George Floyd, I hurt like a mother hurt,” she said. She then scolded the protesters, insisting that they “go home” and study the rules of nonviolence as practiced by the leaders of the civil rights movement.

Mr Biden was one of several national figures who were noted. “We saw her stand and speak out in the summer full of protests and pain,” said the president at the fundraiser in March.

However, the challenges were numerous.

On June 12, shortly after Mr. Floyd’s death, a white Atlanta police officer shot and killed a black man, Rayshard Brooks, in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant. Protests and violence broke out, and the Bottoms administration fired officer Garrett Rolfe the day after the shooting. (This week, the city’s public services agency reinstated officer Rolfe, who was accused of murder, because the administration violated his procedural rights.)

Tags Atlanta, Bottoms, Keisha, Lance, mayor, Seek, Term, wont