Tag: Vote

Tribune Sale to Alden Faces Shareholder Vote

Post author By
Post date May 21, 2021

In the end, the hedge fund prevailed.

Tribune Publishing shareholders, whose titles include The Chicago Tribune, The Baltimore Sun and The New York Daily News, agreed on Friday to sell the company to Alden Global Capital, an investor with a reputation for cutting costs and jobs dismantle.

Alden’s offer, which already owns around 200 local newspapers, met with resistance: Journalists in Tribunes newspapers protested against the sale and publicly pleaded for another buyer. Stewart W. Bainum Jr., a Maryland hotel manager who had planned to buy The Baltimore Sun, offered a glimmer of hope when he showed up with a last-minute deal for the entire company. He was briefly supported by a Swiss billionaire.

However, the competing offer never came together in full, leaving Tribune shareholders a choice of approving or rejecting Alden’s offer. Tribune’s board of directors had recommended voting for the sale.

“The Tribune purchase confirms our commitment to the newspaper industry and our focus on getting publications to a place where they can function sustainably over the long term,” Alden president Heath Freeman said in a statement Friday to The Associated Press and the Chicago Tribune reported that the deal had been approved.

Friday’s vote had required the approval of two-thirds of the shares held by investors other than Alden, who hold a 32 percent stake in Tribune.

The company’s second largest shareholder, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, who owns a 24 percent stake in Tribune, did not cast a vote, his spokeswoman said on Friday.

“Over the past few years, Tribune Publishing has been a passive investment as it has continued to focus on the leadership roles it holds in its companies,” said the spokeswoman for Dr. Soon-Shiong in a statement emailed.

Alden began buying news agencies more than a decade ago and owns the MediaNews Group, the second largest newspaper group in the country, with titles like The Denver Post and The Boston Herald. While buying a newspaper in an era of shrinking print runs and advertising sounds like a questionable investment, Alden has found a way to make a profit by laying off workers, cutting costs, and selling real estate.

“Alden’s playbook is pretty simple: buy cheap, cut deeper,” said Jim Friedlich, executive director of the Lenfest Institute for Journalism, a nonprofit journalism organization owned by The Philadelphia Inquirer. “There is little reason to believe that Alden will approach full ownership of Tribune any differently than the other news properties.”

The hedge fund’s first priority would be to consolidate Tribune’s operations with those of its other newspapers, which would result in job losses and cost savings, predicted Friedlich, who acted as unpaid advisor to Mr Bainum.

“This is the strategic logic of the acquisition and one would hope – but not expect – that the savings from these synergies will be reinvested in local journalism and digital transformation,” he said.

Tribune agreed in February to sell to Alden, which owned it for years, a deal worth approximately $ 630 million to Alden.

In business today

Updated

May 21, 2021 at 8:22 p.m. ET

Mr Bainum emerged as a potential savior in February when he announced that he would be creating a nonprofit to buy The Baltimore Sun and other Maryland newspapers from Alden once the Tribune purchase was completed. However, his business with Alden soon ran aground when negotiations about the works agreements that would come into effect when the papers were handed over stalled.

As a result, Mr. Bainum made a full-company offer on March 16, surpassing Alden with an offer that valued the company at approximately $ 680 million. He was joined by Hansjörg Wyss, a Swiss billionaire who lives in Wyoming and who had expressed an interest in the Chicago Tribune property. Mr. Bainum would have raised $ 100 million, Mr. Wyss funded the rest.

Tribune agreed to look into the offer from the couple, who started a company called Newslight, and said on April 5 that it would begin negotiations because it had decided the deal could result in a “superior proposal.” Part of the discussion involved access to Tribune’s finances.

Mr. Wyss took himself out of the equation less than two weeks later and left the listing after his staff reviewed the books. One reason for his decision, according to those knowledgeable, was that his plans to convert the Chicago newspaper into a competitive national daily would be nearly impossible to implement.

Mr. Bainum told Tribune on April 30 that he would increase the amount of money he would personally use to fund the fund from $ 100 million to $ 300 million as he sought like-minded investors to replace Mr. Wyss. In addition to the need to fund the remainder of his $ 380 million offer, Mr. Bainum’s offer was contingent on finding someone to take responsibility for The Chicago Tribune, according to three people aware of the discussions.

In a statement on Friday, Mr. Bainum thanked “the journalists, readers and civic investors” who had supported his mission.

“Although our efforts to acquire the Tribune and its local newspapers have failed, the trip confirmed my belief that a better model for local news is both possible and necessary,” he said.

Mr Bainum said he has continued to focus on Baltimore, reviewing various options for locally-supported nonprofit newsrooms and will announce this in the coming days.

“Baltimore has a proud tradition of impactful journalism that resonates within and beyond its borders, and I look forward to working with those who are committed to writing the next chapter,” he said.

Tags Alden, Faces, Sale, shareholder, Tribune, Vote

World News

Skilled Panel to C.D.C. to Vote on Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Pause

Post author By
Post date April 14, 2021

Expert Panel to C.D.C. to Vote on Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Pause

An advisory committee from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discussed the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccination break during a Wednesday afternoon meeting while investigating a possible association with a small number of rare blood clots.

The emergency meeting follows Tuesday’s announcement by the Food and Drug Administration to investigate six cases of rare and severe blood clots in women aged 18 to 48, one of whom died. All of the women had received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine before developing the clot, although it is unclear whether the vaccine was responsible. As of Tuesday, more than seven million people in the United States had received the shot, and another 10 million cans had been shipped to the states, according to CDC data.

Following the call from federal health officials, all 50 states, Washington, DC and Puerto Rico on Tuesday quickly paused or advised vendors to stop administering the vaccine. The U.S. military, government-run vaccination centers, and a variety of private companies, including CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Walmart, and Publix, also paused the injections.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) is a panel of independent experts who advise the CDC on its vaccine policy. During the meeting, the experts will review and debate data from the rare blood clots, including a seventh case, and will later hear comments from the public before a possible vote on how to proceed. You could vote to recommend, for example, that the break continue, or to indicate that it should only apply to a specific age or gender.

Federal officials said Tuesday the hiatus could only last a few days, though it depends on what officials learned from the investigation. They said the break will give officials more time to alert doctors that patients with these rare blood clots should not be given the drug heparin, the standard treatment doctors give for typical blood clots, and that they also have time to to see if there are more cases.

The worrying coagulation disorder among vaccine recipients is different – and much less common – than the typical blood clots that occur in hundreds of thousands of people each year. In addition to having clots in the brain, the seven women also had remarkably low levels of platelets, parts of the blood that help make normal clots. The panel experts discussed the known background rates of each disease in the general population, but noted that insufficient data was available to accurately estimate how often they occur simultaneously.

“At the moment we believe these events are extremely rare, but we are also not sure we have heard of all possible cases as this syndrome may not be easily identified as being associated with the vaccine,” said Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the CDC director said at a White House press conference about the pandemic on Wednesday.

The US surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy reiterated Wednesday that the break in Johnson & Johnson’s vaccinations gives public health officials a chance to investigate the cases and discuss them with health professionals. He added that breaks are common when new vaccines and drugs are introduced.

“We are only doing the necessary care to ensure that everything is safe so that we can continue our vaccination efforts,” said Dr. Murthy on “CBS This Morning”.

The committee’s assessment will be of vital importance at a time when the nation is trying to vaccinate as many people as possible to curb the steady buildup of cases, especially when worrying variants become more prominent. Some public health experts were disappointed with the FDA’s recommendation to suspend the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, arguing that preventing these extremely rare side effects was not worth the compromise of slowing the vaccination campaign and potentially increasing public confidence in vaccines Generally undermine.

What You Need To Know About The Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Break In The United States

- On April 13, 2021, U.S. health officials called for an immediate halt to use of Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose Covid-19 vaccine after six recipients in the U.S. developed a rare blood clot disorder within one to three weeks of vaccination.
- All 50 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico have temporarily suspended use of the vaccine or suspended from recommended vendors. The U.S. military, government-run vaccination centers, and a variety of private companies, including CVS, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Walmart, and Publix, also paused the injections.
- Fewer than one in a million Johnson & Johnson vaccinations are currently being studied. If there is indeed a risk of blood clots from the vaccine – which has yet to be determined – the risk is extremely small. The risk of contracting Covid-19 in the United States is much higher.
- The hiatus could complicate the country’s vaccination efforts at a time when many states are facing spikes in new cases and are trying to address vaccine hesitation.
- Johnson & Johnson has also decided to delay the launch of its vaccine in Europe amid concerns about rare blood clots, which is taking another blow to the vaccine surge in Europe. South Africa, devastated by a contagious variant of the virus found there, also stopped using the vaccine. Australia announced that it would not buy cans.

Speaking at the press conference, Jeffrey D. Zients, the White House pandemic coordinator, said the hiatus would not disrupt the momentum of the country’s vaccination campaign in general.

“In the short term, we expect some impact on the daily average as Johnson & Johnson locations and dates move to Moderna and Pfizer vaccines,” he said. “We have more than enough Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to continue or even accelerate the current rate of vaccination.”

Noah Weiland, Denise Grady and Madeleine Ngo contributed to the coverage.

Tags CDC, expert, Johnson, Panel, Pause, Vaccine, Vote

Business

Amazon Vote Depend Outcomes: Dwell Updates

Post author By
Post date April 9, 2021

There were 3,215 ballots cast, according to the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, from 55 percent of the 5,805 eligible voters at the warehouse.

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Bob Miller for The New York Times

The counting of ballots in the closely watched unionization drive at the Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., is set to resume Friday at 8:30 a.m. Central time.

With about half the ballots counted late Thursday, votes against unionization had an advantage of more than 2-to-1 over those in favor, according to a live broadcast of the counting that was tallied by The New York Times. When the counting paused, there were 1,100 votes against unionization and 463 in support.

There were 3,215 ballots cast, according to the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, from 55 percent of the 5,805 eligible voters at the warehouse. The union must get support from more than half of the votes cast to prevail.

Unofficial Tally of Amazon Warehouse Unionization Votes

1,608 yes votes are needed for the union to win today.

The New York Times·As of 9:39 a.m. Hundreds of ballots have been contested, which could delay either side from reaching the threshold. One ballot was marked as void.

The ballots were being counted in random order in the National Labor Relations Board’s office in Birmingham, Ala., and the process was broadcast via Zoom to more than 200 journalists, lawyers and other observers.

The voting was conducted by mail from early February until the end of last month. A handful of workers from the labor board called out the results of each vote “Yes” for a union or “No” for nearly four hours on Thursday.

Amazon and the union had spent more than a week in closed sessions, reviewing the eligibility of each ballot cast with the labor board, the federal agency that conducts union elections. The union said several hundred ballots had been contested, largely by Amazon, and those ballots were set aside to be adjudicated and counted only if they were vital to determining an outcome. If Amazon’s large margin holds steady throughout the count, the contested ballots are likely to be moot.

The incomplete tally put Amazon on the cusp of defeating the most serious organized-labor threat in the company’s history. Running a prominent campaign since the fall, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union aimed to establish the first union at an Amazon warehouse in the United States. The result will have major implications not only for Amazon but also for organized labor and its allies.

Labor organizers have tapped into dissatisfaction with working conditions in the warehouse, saying Amazon’s pursuit of efficiency and profits makes the conditions harsh for workers. The company counters that its starting wage of $15 an hour exceeds what other employers in the area pay, and it has urged workers to vote against unionizing.

Amazon has always fought against unionizing by its workers. But the vote in Alabama comes at a perilous moment for the company. Lawmakers and regulators — not competitors — are some of its greatest threats, and it has spent significant time and money trying to keep the government away from its business.

The union drive has had the retailer doing a political balancing act: staying on the good side of Washington’s Democratic leaders while squashing an organizing effort that President Biden has signaled he supported.

Labor leaders and liberal Democrats have seized on the union drive, saying it shows how Amazon is not as friendly to workers as the company says it is. Some of the company’s critics are also using its resistance to the union push to argue that Amazon should not be trusted on other issues, like climate change and the federal minimum wage.

Sophia June contributed to this report.

Credit…Matt Mcknight/Reuters

Boeing said Friday it had notified 16 customers of a potential electrical issue with its troubled 737 Max plane and recommended that they temporarily stop flying some planes.

Boeing said airlines should verify that “that a sufficient ground path exists for a component of the electrical power system” on certain Max planes. The statement comes just months after airlines resumed flying the jet, which had been grounded for nearly two years because of a pair of accidents that killed nearly 350 people.

“We are working closely with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on this production issue,” Boeing said in a statement. “We are also informing our customers of specific tail numbers affected and we will provide direction on appropriate corrective actions.”

Southwest Airlines, one of the biggest customers of the plane, said that 30 of its 58 Max jets were affected by the notification and that it was swapping those planes out for now. The airline is only flying 15 or fewer Max jets each day.

“Southwest anticipates minimal disruption to our operation, and we appreciate the understanding of our customers and employees as safety is always our uncompromising priority,” it said in a statement.

The Max was banned from flying globally in March 2019 after the crashes. After a lengthy review, the F.A.A. allowed the Max to fly again in November, provided that Boeing and airlines make required changes to the jet, including updating its flight control software.

Since then, aviation regulators around the world have followed suit and the plane has been used on thousands of flights.

Credit…Amr Alfiky/The New York Times

The White House budget office will release the first fragments of President Biden’s budget proposals to Congress on Friday, providing a fresh sense of his priorities as lawmakers wait on his administration’s full budget.

Officials have stressed that the document — which will outline plans for discretionary spending within government agencies — is not a formal budget and will not include tax proposals or so-called mandatory spending in areas like Social Security. Instead, it will provide overall funding levels for agencies, like the Treasury and Defense Department, and some detail on proposed spending across the administration in areas like combating climate change.

The request will cover the 2022 fiscal year, which starts in October. White House officials had originally announced it would be released last week, before pushing back the timeline. The budget office does not have a confirmed director, after Mr. Biden’s first pick for the job, Neera Tanden, withdrew from consideration amid Republican opposition centered on her past statements on Twitter that were critical of conservatives.

Shalanda D. Young, who was confirmed by the Senate last month to be deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, is serving as Mr. Biden’s acting budget director.

Officials have promised that Mr. Biden’s full budget will be released later this spring. They have blamed delays on a lack of cooperation from outgoing members of the Trump administration.

“Well there’s no question, as we talked about during the transition, that we dealt with some impactful intransigence from the outgoing political appointees,” Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, told reporters this week.

“We had some cooperation from the career staff, but we didn’t have all of the information that we needed,” she added. “As you all know, we also don’t have a budget director. We have not had a budget director confirmed. We have now an acting budget director, which is an important step forward.”

Congress, which is responsible for approving government spending, is under no requirement to adhere to the White House budget, which is generally viewed as a political messaging document. In recent years, lawmakers rejected many of the Trump administration’s efforts to gut domestic programs.

Officials say the proposal that will be released on Friday will not reflect the details in Mr. Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan, which he introduced last week, or of a second plan he has yet to roll out, which will focus on what officials call “human infrastructure” like education and child care.

Credit…Kate Munsch/Reuters

After weeks of wading into the debate over how to regulate SPACS, the popular blank-check deals that provide companies a back door to public markets, the Securities and Exchange Commission is sending its first shot across the bow.

John Coates, the acting director of the corporate finance division at the S.E.C., issued a lengthy statement on Thursday about how securities laws apply to blank-check firms, the DealBook newsletter reports.

In particular, he is interested in a crucial (and controversial) difference between SPACs and traditional initial public offerings: blank-check firms are allowed to publish often-rosy financial forecasts when merging with an acquisition target, while companies going public in an I.P.O. are not.

“With the unprecedented surge has come unprecedented scrutiny,” Mr. Coates wrote of the recent boom in blank-check deals.

Investors raise money for SPACs via an I.P.O. of a shell company, and those funds are used to merge with an unspecified company within two years, which then also becomes a publicly traded company. Because the deal is technically a merger, it’s given the same “safe harbor” legal protections for its financial forecasts as a typical M.& A. deal.

With traditional I.P.O.s, companies can’t issue such projections to prospective investors, because regulators consider it too risky for firms as yet untested by the public markets. And that’s why there are flying-taxi companies with little revenue going public via a SPAC while promising billions in sales far in the future.

The S.E.C. thinks allowing financial forecasts for these deals might be a problem. They can be “untested, speculative, misleading or even fraudulent,” Mr. Coates wrote. And he concludes his statement by suggesting a major rethink of how the “full panoply” of securities laws applies to SPACs, which could upend the blank-check business model.

If the S.E.C. does not treat SPAC deals as the I.P.Os they effectively are, he writes, “potentially problematic forward-looking information may be disseminated without appropriate safeguards.”

The letter serves as a warning, but perhaps not much else — yet. Unless the S.E.C. issues new rules (as it did for penny stocks) or Congress passes legislation, SPAC projections will continue. But this strongly worded statement could moderate or even mute them.

“The S.E.C. has now put them on notice,” Lynn Turner, a former chief accountant of the agency, said.

Credit…Tom Jamieson for The New York Times

Before the pandemic, companies used to lure top talent with lavish perks like subsidized massages, Pilates classes and free gourmet meals. Now, the hottest enticement is permission to work not just from home, but from anywhere — even, say, from the French Alps or a Caribbean island.

Revolut, a banking start-up based in London, said Thursday that it would allow its more than 2,000 employees to work abroad for up to two months a year in response to requests to visit overseas family for longer periods.

“Our employees asked for flexibility, and that’s what we’re giving them as part of our ongoing focus on employee experience and choice,” said Jim MacDougall, Revolut’s vice president of human resources.

Georgia Pacquette-Bramble, a communications manager for Revolut, said she was planning to trade the winter in London for Spain or somewhere in the Caribbean. Other colleagues have talked about spending time with family abroad.

Revolut has been valued at $5.5 billion, making it one of Europe’s most valuable financial technology firms. It joins a number of companies that will allow more flexible working arrangements to continue after the pandemic ends. JPMorgan Chase, Salesforce, Ford Motor and Target have said they are giving up office space as they expect workers to spend less time in the office, and Spotify has told employees they can work from anywhere.

Not all companies, however, are shifting away from the office. Tech companies, including Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple, have added office space in New York over the last year. Amazon told employees it would “return to an office-centric culture as our baseline.”

Dr. Dan Wang, an associate professor at Columbia Business School, said he did not expect office-centric companies to lose top talent to companies that allow flexible working, in part because many employees prefer to work from the office.

Furthermore, when employees are not in the same space, there are fewer spontaneous interactions, and spontaneity is critical for developing ideas and collaborating, Dr. Wang said.

“There is a cost,” he said. “Yes, we can interact via email, via Slack, via Zoom — we’ve all gotten used to that. But part of it is that we’ve lowered our expectations for what social interaction actually entails.”

Revolut said it studied tax laws and regulations before introducing its policy, and that each request to work from abroad was subject to an internal review and approval process. But for some companies looking to put a similar policy in place, a hefty tax bill, or at least a complicated tax return, could be a drawback.

Online stores offering counterfeit or stolen vaccine cards have mushroomed in recent weeks, according to Saoud Khalifah, the founder of FakeSpot, which offers tools to detect fake listings and reviews online.

The efforts are far from hidden, with Facebook pages named “vax-cards” and eBay listings with “blank vaccine cards” openly hawking the items, Sheera Frenkel reports for The New York Times.

Last week, 45 state attorneys general banded together to call on Twitter, Shopify and eBay to stop the sale of false and stolen vaccine cards.

Facebook, Twitter, eBay, Shopify and Etsy said that the sale of fake vaccine cards violated their rules and that they were removing posts that advertised the items.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention introduced the vaccination cards in December, describing them as the “simplest” way to keep track of Covid-19 shots. By January, sales of false vaccine cards started picking up, Mr. Khalifah said. Many people found the cards were easy to forge from samples available online. Authentic cards were also stolen by pharmacists from their workplaces and put up for sale, he said.

Many people who bought the cards were opposed to the Covid-19 vaccines, Mr. Khalifah said. In some anti-vaccine groups on Facebook, people have publicly boasted about getting the cards.

Other buyers want to use the cards to trick pharmacists into giving them a vaccine, Mr. Khalifah said. Because some of the vaccines are two-shot regimens, people can enter a false date for a first inoculation on the card, which makes it appear as if they need a second dose soon. Some pharmacies and state vaccination sites have prioritized people due for their second shots.

Credit…George Etheredge for The New York Times

In only a year, the market value of office towers in Manhattan has plummeted 25 percent, according to city projections released on Wednesday.

Across the country, the vacancy rate for office buildings in city centers has steadily climbed over the past year to reach 16.4 percent, according to Cushman & Wakefield, the highest in about a decade. That number could climb further if companies keep giving up office space because of hybrid or fully remote work, Peter Eavis and Matthew Haag report for The New York Times.

So far, landlords like Boston Properties and SL Green have not suffered huge financial losses, having survived the past year by collecting rent from tenants locked into long leases — the average contract for office space runs about seven years.

But as leases come up for renewal, property owners could be left with scores of empty floors. At the same time, many new office buildings are under construction — 124 million square feet nationwide, or enough for roughly 700,000 workers. Those changes could drive down rents, which were touching new highs before the pandemic. And rents help determine assessments that are the basis for property tax bills.

Many big employers have already given notice to the owners of some prestigious buildings that they are leaving when their leases end. JPMorgan Chase, Ford Motor, Salesforce, Target and more are giving up expensive office space and others are considering doing so.

The stock prices of the big landlords, which are often structured as real estate investment trusts that pass almost all of their profit to investors, trade well below their previous highs. Shares of Boston Properties, one of the largest office landlords, are down 29 percent from the prepandemic high. SL Green, a major New York landlord, is 26 percent lower.

Credit…Rebecca Noble for The New York Times

U.S. stock futures rose on Friday along with government bond yields after the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, reiterated his intention to keep supporting the economic recovery until it is complete.
The rollout of vaccinations meant the United States economy could probably reopen soon, but the recovery was still “uneven and incomplete,” Mr. Powell said at the International Monetary Fund annual conference on Thursday.
He pointed out that the economic burden of the pandemic was falling most heavily on low-income service workers who were least able to bear it. “I really want to finish the job and get back to a great economy,” Mr. Powell said.
The yield on 10-year Treasury notes jumped 5 basis points, or 0.05 percentage point, to 1.67 percent. The yield on 10-year government bonds rose across Europe, too.

Stocks, low volatility and oil prices

The S&P 500 index was set to open 0.1 percent higher and has risen 0.4 percent so far this week.
The relatively quiet week in the stock market has sent the VIX index, a measure of volatility, to its lowest level since February 2020. The index was at 17 points on Friday. In mid-March, as the pandemic shut down huge parts of the global economy, it spiked above 80.
European stock indexes were mixed on Friday, though the Stoxx Europe 600 was heading for its sixth straight week of gains. The DAX index in Germany rose 0.1 percent after data showed an unexpected drop in industrial production.
Oil prices rose slightly with futures of West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. crude benchmark, 0.2 percent higher to $59.70 a barrel.

Tags Amazon, Count, Live, results, Updates, Vote

Business

Counting of Ballots Begins in Amazon Union Vote: Reside Updates

Post author By
Post date March 30, 2021

Here’s what you need to know:

Credit…Charity Rachelle for The New York Times

The counting of votes that will determine whether to a union can form at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., begins Tuesday. But the results of the union election, one of the most consequential in recent memory, may not be known until later this week or early next week because the vote can often involve a painstaking process that will be closely scrutinized by representatives from the union and Amazon.

The ballots, which were mailed out to workers in early February, must be signed and had to be received by the National Labor Relations Board at its Birmingham office by the end of Monday.

First, a staff member at the labor board will read the names of the workers, without opening an inner envelope with the actual ballot. Representatives from the union and Amazon will be on a private video conference. As each name is read, they will check the workers’ names against a staff list, and if either side contests whether that worker was eligible to vote, that ballot will be set aside. A representative from each side is also expected to be there in person to observe the process.

After the two sides have had the opportunity to make their objections about eligibility, the N.L.R.B. will begin counting the uncontested ballots. After every 100 votes, the labor board will count those ballots again until all the votes are counted. This portion will be open to reporters on a video conference line.

A finding of more contested ballots than uncontested is likely to set off legal arguments by the Retail Warehouse and Department Store union, which has led the organizing drive, and Amazon over the eligibility of each contested ballot. Each side has about a week to make its case before N.L.R.B. certifies the vote.

Either side can contest whether the vote was conducted fairly. The union, for instance, could argue that the company took steps to improperly sway the vote, by potentially making workers fearful of reprisal if they supported organizing.

If the union prevails, workers fear that the company may shut down the warehouse. Amazon has backed away from locations that brought it headaches before.

But the company has committed more than $360 million in leases and equipment for the Bessemer warehouse, and shutting down the vote of a large Black work force could publicly backfire, said Marc Wulfraat, a logistics consultant who closely tracks the company.

Credit…Mohd Rasfan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

United States Customs and Border Protection has ordered port officials to seize disposable gloves made by the world’s largest rubber glove maker, a Malaysian company that the agency says uses forced labor in its factories.

Customs and Border Protection said in a statement on Monday that it had “sufficient information to believe” that the company, Top Glove, “uses forced labor in the production of disposable gloves.”

Last July, the agency issued an import ban on products from two Top Glove subsidiaries because they were suspected of using forced labor. On Monday, it said it had determined that rubber gloves produced by the company with forced, convict or indentured labor “are being, or are likely to be, imported into the United States.”

Based on that determination, the agency said in a notice, it had authorized U.S. port directors to seize the gloves and start forfeiture proceedings unless importers can produce evidence showing that the gloves were not produced with prohibited labor.

The notice was the result of a monthslong investigation “aimed at preventing goods made by modern slavery from entering U.S. commerce,” Troy Miller, the acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said in a statement.

The agency, he said, “will not tolerate foreign companies’ exploitation of vulnerable workers to sell cheap, unethically made goods to American consumers.” He added that the agency had “taken steps to ensure” that the enforcement action would not significantly affect total imports of disposable gloves into the United States.

After the import ban on Top Glove subsidiaries last summer, officials at the company said they were upgrading their worker dormitories and paying restitution to affected workers.

The company said in a statement on Tuesday that it was in touch with the U.S. agency and hoped to “resolve any ongoing areas of concern immediately.”

Top Glove also said it had engaged a independent labor consultancy from Britain since last July. That consultancy, Impactt Limited, said in a statement this month that its latest investigations had not turned up any “systemic forced labor” among the company’s direct employees.

But Andy Hall, a labor rights campaigner based in Nepal, said on Tuesday that Top Glove “remains an unethical company whose factories and supply chain continue to utilize forced labor,” and one that prioritizes profits and production efficiency over its workers’ basic rights.

Mr. Hall said he welcomed the Customs and Border Protection notice, and that the next step would be holding the company’s owners and investors to account.

Top Glove controls roughly a quarter of the global rubber glove market and has 21,000 employees. Many of them come from some of Asia’s poorest countries — including Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal — and live and work in crowded conditions.

The company has enjoyed record profits during the pandemic, even though thousands of its low-paid workers in Malaysia suffered from a large coronavirus outbreak last year.

Credit…Matt Slocum/Associated Press

Dapper Labs, the blockchain company that has pushed digital collectibles known as NFTs, for nonfungible tokens, said on Tuesday that it had raised $305 million in new funding.

The company, which has a partnership with the National Basketball Association, created an online marketplace called N.B.A. Top Shot in October where sports fans can buy, sell and collect digital “moments” — essentially, video clips of basketball players. But unlike most basketball highlights that can be found on YouTube or ESPN, these moments are on a blockchain, a digital ledger that records cryptocurrency transactions, which makes it possible for fans to buy, collect and exchange them like trading cards.

Top Shot has exploded in popularity, part of a larger frenzy for cryptocurrencies and NFTs that has driven up the value of Bitcoin and led to head-turning bids for digital artwork. There have been more than three million Top Shot transactions, Dapper Labs said, generating $500 million in sales. The company makes money through the sale of the digital moments and also collects a cut whenever a moment is resold.

The new funding values Dapper Labs, which is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, at $2.6 billion. It is the biggest financing for the company, which had previously raised $52.5 million.

Investors in the new funding include the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, the hedge fund Coatue Management and former and current N.B.A. stars including Michael Jordan, Kevin Durant, Kyle Lowry and Klay Thompson, as well as celebrities like Will Smith and Ashton Kutcher.

Roham Gharegozlou, the Dapper Labs founder and chief executive — who also created the 2017 blockchain game CryptoKitties — said Top Shot had “catalyzed” the excitement surrounding NFTs.

“I think N.B.A. Top Shot is proving that these platforms are ready for prime time,” he said.

Mr. Gharegozlou said the new funding would go toward partnerships with other sports leagues like the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the mixed martial arts organization. He said the company would also hire more employees and fund NFT ventures made by other start-ups.

Credit…Harvey B. Lindsley/Library of Congress, via Associated Press

On the first day of the Biden presidency, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said that the Treasury Department was “taking steps to resume efforts” to put the abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill. “It’s important that our money reflects the history and diversity of our country,” Ms. Psaki said.

But it will probably be years before we see the Underground Railroad conductor gracing U.S. currency, the DealBook newsletter reports.

The reason? The deadline for printing a new version of the $20 bill is 2030. It was set by an anti-counterfeiting committee in 2013, two years before Tubman won a campaign to replace President Andrew Jackson on the bill.

“The primary reason currency is redesigned is for security against counterfeiting,” Lydia Washington, a representative for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, told DealBook. “The redesign timeline is driven by security feature development.”

The Obama administration said that a design “concept” would be unveiled by 2020, to coincide with the centennial of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. Extensive redesign work was reportedly done, but in 2019, President Donald J. Trump’s Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said the project would be delayed until at least 2026. (Insiders said they had always doubted that the 2020 deadline could be met).

It turns out that the complex design and testing process for currency cannot be hurried. “No final images have been selected,” Ms. Washington said. The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment.

Credit…Mahmoud Khaled/Getty Images

Wall Street opened lower on Tuesday, as bond yields jumped higher.
The S&P 500 was down 0.3 percent in morning trading, and the tech-focused Nasdaq Composite declined 0.7 percent.
In bond markets, attention was returning to the pace of the economic recovery in the United States as more details of President Biden’s clean energy and infrastructure spending plans emerged, including a huge expansion of offshore wind energy along the East Coast. A $3 trillion economic package is in the works, on the heels of the $1.9 trillion economic recovery bill.
Bond prices dropped, sending yields on 10-year bonds sharply higher. The yield on U.S. Treasury notes rose 5 basis points, or 0.05 percentage point, to 1.76 percent, the highest since January 2020. Faster economic growth is likely to lead to higher prices, which reduces the appeal of bonds.
Most European stock indexes rose, with the Stoxx Europe 600 up 0.5 percent. Data published on Tuesday showed an increase in inflation in Spain and Germany, while an index of economic confidence for the eurozone in March was at its highest level since before the pandemic.
Oil prices fell. Futures of West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. crude benchmark, fell 1.5 percent to $60.61 a barrel. With the Suez Canal now unblocked, focus shifted to the meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies beginning Thursday to decide on production quotas for May. In early March, OPEC decided to keep the tighter quotas the same for April.
“Much as the Suez Canal is seeing traffic return progressively to normal, it seems that bond markets are returning to pricing the economic recovery,” analysts at ING wrote, referring to the rise in bond yields. They also warned that traders and investors settling positions for the end of the first quarter would affect market prices this week.
Shares in the Swiss bank Credit Suisse and the Japanese bank Nomura extended their deep declines slightly from Monday, when the banks said they faced losses as they tried to exit positions tied to an American hedge fund, Archegos.
The British pound rose 0.2 percent against the euro to the strongest level in 13 months as England’s lockdown restrictions were eased slightly on Monday.

Credit…John Muggenborg for The New York Times

As company heads are once again planning for a return to the office, it is not only safety measures but also the new work arrangements that are driving discussions about the post-pandemic workplace. More than 80 percent of companies are embracing a hybrid model whereby employees will be in the office three days a week, according to a new survey by KayoCloud, a real estate technology platform.

Workplaces are being reimagined for activities benefiting from face-to-face interaction, including collaboration on projects, Jane Margolies reports for The New York Times.

Common areas will be increased and equipped with furniture that can be moved as needs change. Steelcase and Knoll, suppliers of office furniture, report strong interest in mobile tables, carts and partitions.

As the amount of space devoted to gathering expands, the fate of one’s own personal turf at the office — a desk decorated with family photos, a couple of file cabinets — hangs in the balance. In some cases, personal desks are being replaced with “hoteling” workstations, also called hot desks, which can be used by whoever needs a place to touch down for a day.

Conference rooms, too, are getting a reboot. Companies are puzzling over how to give remote workers the same ability to participate as those who are physically present. There are even early discussions about using artificial intelligence to conjure up holographic representations of employees who are off-site but could still take a seat at the table. And digital whiteboards are likely to become more popular, so workers at home can see what’s being written in real time.

Credit…Eze Amos for The New York Times

Retail and fast-food workers feel newly vulnerable in states like Mississippi and Texas, where governments have removed mask mandates before a majority of people have been vaccinated and while troubling new variants of the coronavirus are appearing.

It feels like a return to the early days of the pandemic, when businesses said customers must wear masks but there was no legal requirement and numerous shoppers simply refused, Sapna Maheshwari reports for The New York Times. Many workers say that their stores do not enforce the requirement, and that if they do approach customers, they risk verbal or physical altercations.

For many people who work in retail, especially grocery stores and big-box chains, the repeals of the mask mandates are another example of how little protection and appreciation they have received during the pandemic. They were praised as essential workers, but that rarely translated into extra pay on top of their low wages. Grocery employees were not initially given priority for vaccinations in most states, even as health experts cautioned the public to limit time in grocery stores because of the risk posed by new coronavirus variants. (Texas opened availability to everyone 16 and older on Monday.)

The differing state and business mandates have some workers worried about more confrontations. Refusing service to people without masks, or asking them to leave, has led to incidents in the past year like a cashier’s being punched in the face, a Target employee getting his arm broken and the fatal shooting of a Family Dollar security guard.

Emily Francois, a sales associate at a Walmart in Port Arthur, Texas, said that customers had been ignoring signs to wear masks and that Walmart had not been enforcing the policy.

“I see customers coming in without a mask and they’re coughing, sneezing, they’re not covering their mouths,” said Ms. Francois, who has worked at Walmart for 14 years and is a member of United for Respect, an advocacy group. “Customers coming in the store without masks make us feel like we aren’t worthy, we aren’t safe.”

Tags Amazon, Ballots, begins, Counting, Live, union, Updates, Vote

Business

United Airways buys 25 extra Boeing 737 Max jets in vote of confidence

Post author By
Post date March 1, 2021

United Airlines buys 25 more Boeing 737 Max jets in vote of confidence

A United Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft lands at San Francisco International Airport.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

United Airlines is buying 25 additional Boeing 737 Max planes and taking other orders ahead of schedule in preparation for a rebound in travel demand, the airline said on Monday.

“As we plan for the future and the return of demand, we have looked for ways to best position our fleet for recreation and to be able to best capitalize on people’s desire to travel,” said Andrew Nocella. Chief Commercial by United Officer said in a note to staff.

In addition to the 25 Boeing 737 Max planes slated for delivery in 2023, the Chicago-based airline has increased deliveries of 40 more Max jets by 2022 and five more by 2023. In total, United has firm commitments for 188 maxes, according to a securities filing on Monday.

The vote of confidence in the jetliner comes just months after the Federal Aviation Administration lifted its aircraft ban after two fatal crashes. United, which had 14 Boeing Max 9 jets in its fleet at the time of landing in March 2019, received the planes again in December from Boeing, the first airline to do so. Commercial flights were launched with these jets last month.

United lost more than $ 7 billion last year as it, like other airlines, struggled with the Covid-19 pandemic. The demand for travel is likely to remain weak in the first half of the year. United said in the filing that it expects its capacity to decrease by at least 51% in the first quarter from the same quarter of 2019.

But the airline is now preparing for a recovery as vaccine distribution increases.

“And as the end of the pandemic draws nearer and vaccines continue to expand, today’s fleet announcement will help us meet expected demand in 2022 and 2023 and enable us to offer our employees more opportunities in the future . ” “wrote Nocella.

Boeing stock rose 5.8% on Monday to close at $ 224.39 while United stock rose 1.2% to $ 53.31 during a broad stock market rally.

Tags Airlines, Boeing, buys, confidence, Jets, Max, United, Vote

Health

What to know earlier than key FDA panel vote

Post author By
Post date February 26, 2021

Vials of Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) vaccine candidate are shown in an undated photo during the Phase 3 ENSEMBLE trial.

Johnson & Johnson | via Reuters

A key advisory body to the Food and Drug Administration is due to vote on Friday on whether to recommend Johnson & Johnson’s emergency approval of the Covid-19 vaccine to pave the way for a third preventive treatment to be distributed in the United States

A positive vote by the Advisory Committee on Vaccines and Allied Biological Products will likely pave the way for the US agency to approve J & J’s emergency vaccine. The committee plays a pivotal role in getting vaccines approved in the U.S. and verifying that the shots are safe for public use. While the FDA does not need to follow the committee’s recommendation, it often does.

On similar inquiries from Pfizer and Moderna, the FDA approved these companies’ vaccinations the day after the committee of external medical advisors endorsed approval for the emergency. If J&J follows the pattern, a third vaccine could be approved on Saturday.

According to data from Johns Hopkins University, the US will need a range of drugs and vaccines to end the pandemic that has infected more than 28.3 million Americans and killed at least 505,899 people as of Thursday. Unlike Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines, which require two doses three to four weeks apart, J&J only requires one dose, which makes logistics easier for healthcare providers. J & J’s vaccine, unlike the other two vaccines, can also be stored at refrigerator temperature for months.

Here’s what you can expect:

1. When do you vote?

The meeting is expected to take place from 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Prior to voting, medical experts will evaluate J & J’s clinical trial data and provide their opinion on the vaccine, including whether the benefits outweigh the risks of being approved for emergency use. The company is asking the FDA to approve use of the vaccine in people 18 years and older. Pfizer’s has been approved for use in people aged 16 and over. The poor data in younger teenagers was a sticking point for the few advisory board members who voted against approval of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine in December.

2. What happens next?

The FDA will decide if J&J should clear the vaccine for emergency use. In the Pfizer and Moderna cases, the agency’s final decision came one day after the meeting.

Such approval by the FDA is not synonymous with full approval, which can usually take months longer. J&J, like Pfizer and Moderna, only submitted two months of safety data, but the agency typically takes six months for full approval

3. When will I get the vaccine?

Initially the doses would be limited. Jeff Zients, President Joe Biden’s Covid Tsar, told reporters Wednesday that the federal government expects to ship 3 to 4 million doses of J & J’s vaccine to states, pharmacies, and community health centers next week pending FDA approval .

The company expects to drop 20 million doses by the end of March, said Dr. Richard Nettles, vice president of medical affairs in the US, told the House legislature on Tuesday. J&J has signed a contract with the US government to supply 100 million doses of its vaccine by the end of June. Zients said the federal government will “do everything we can” to boost production.

4. Should I have the vaccine?

J & J’s vaccine provides 66% overall protection against Covid-19, compared to about 95% for Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccine. Some people have wondered if they should get the J&J vaccine because of the lower rate of effectiveness.

However, infectious disease experts point out that J & J’s results cannot be directly compared to the other two vaccines because it is a single dose and the company’s study was conducted when more infections emerged as well as new, more contagious variants .

The Chief Medical Officer of the White House, Dr. Anthony Fauci said Americans should take every approved vaccine they can get. He also notes that J & J’s vaccine prevented 100% of virus-related hospitalizations and deaths in its late-stage.

“The most important thing, more important than preventing someone from getting a pain and a sore throat, is preventing people from getting serious illnesses,” he told reporters when he called on Jan. 29. “This will relieve so much stress.” and human suffering and death in this epidemic. “

5. What are the side effects?

Analysis by age, race and comorbidity did not identify any specific safety concerns with the vaccine, according to an FDA report released on Wednesday.

Headache, fatigue, and muscle pain were some of the most common side effects in people who received the vaccination, the report said. There have also been reports of nausea, fever, and pain at the injection site. According to the report, there have been no reports of anaphylaxis, a severe and life-threatening allergic reaction.

The report identified a few cases of Bell’s palsy with half of your face drooping but “balanced” with the number commonly found in the general population. The FDA previously announced that the condition would be monitored in vaccine recipients after flagging it as a potential problem with Pfizer’s shots, and noted that this isn’t necessarily a side effect, but it is worth looking out for.

Medical experts say vaccine side effects are common and actually indicate that the shots are working as intended. The CDC recommends talking to a doctor about taking over-the-counter drugs if you experience pain or discomfort after the shot.

– CNBC’s Noah Higgins-Dunn contributed to this report.

Tags FDA, key, Panel, Vote

Politics

Richard Burr’s Vote to Convict Renews Speak of a Lara Trump Run in North Carolina

Post author By
Post date February 16, 2021

Richard Burr’s Vote to Convict Renews Talk of a Lara Trump Run in North Carolina

Senator Richard M. Burr’s decision to vote for the condemnation of former President Donald J. Trump on Saturday fueled speculation that Lara Trump, the daughter-in-law of Mr. Trump, will seek the seat of the North Carolina Senate Mr Burr will vacate in 2022.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a former Trump critic turned strong defender, predicted Sunday that Mr. Burr’s somewhat surprising dissent would spark a right-wing riot that would lead to the election of more pro-Trump candidates.

“My friend Richard Burr made Lara Trump almost a sure-fire candidate for the Senate seat in North Carolina to replace if she runs,” he said in an interview with Fox News.

Ms. Trump, 38, a former personal trainer and television producer who grew up on the coast in Wilmington, has been hovering as a potential Burr successor for months.

She did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A senior Republican official, aware of her plans, said the January 6 riot pissed her off at running, but Ms. Trump would decide over the next few months whether to run as part of a coordinated Trump family comeback.

Another Republican, former Representative Mark Walker, an ally of Trump, has already announced his candidacy, and Pat McCrory, a former Republican governor, is also a possible candidate. Mark Meadows, the former North Carolina representative and former Trump chief of staff, is also said to be there.

“We’re going to take a closer look at each candidate in comparison to some sort of coronation,” said Mark Brody, a member of the Republican National Committee from Union County outside Charlotte.

Doug Heye, a former RNC spokesman who previously worked for Mr. Burr, asked if Ms. Trump was ready to endure the hassle and boredom of running or serving. “A lot of people love speculation and attention, but being a senator is a lot of hard work,” he said.

Then there is the question of residence. Ms. Trump currently lives in the northern suburbs of New York City with her husband Eric and their children and would have to move back.

If she runs, the Trump family could be a liability on a battlefield that the former president only gained 1.3 percentage points in 2020 – or it could bring no benefit at all in 2022, depending on the political environment.

“There’s a myth that Trump voters will come out for Trump candidates or family members,” said John Anzalone, a Democratic pollster who has campaigned in the South. “Cult members only appear in full power for the cult leader.”

And Ms. Trump’s candidacy could help increase Democratic turnout, especially among the state’s large black population, and counter the typical decline in most mid-term elections.

But Ms. Trump’s boosters, led by Mr. Graham, hope that she can use the backlash in the party’s grassroots base to catapult her to the top of the field.

After Mr Burr’s vote, the North Carolina Republican Party reprimanded Mr Burr, calling his vote “shocking and disappointing”.

Representative Patrick T. McHenry, a Republican minority leader in the House, downplayed the importance of Mr Burr’s vote.

But he said Ms. Trump would be “the favorite” when she runs, adding, “Nobody comes closer.”

Tags Burrs, Carolina, convict, Lara, North, Renews, Richard, Run, Talk, Trump, Vote

Politics

McConnell will vote to acquit Trump as impeachment trial nears finish

Post author By
Post date February 13, 2021

McConnell will vote to acquit Trump as impeachment trial nears end

Senate Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell arrives at the U.S. Capitol on February 5 of the second impeachment trial of former U.S. President Donald Trump on February 13, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Almond Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

Mitch McConnell, chairman of the Senate minority, emailed his Republican counterparts on Saturday that he would release Donald Trump in the former president’s second impeachment.

“During a close conversation, I am convinced that impeachments are primarily an instrument of elimination and therefore we have no jurisdiction,” wrote McConnell. The Kentucky Senator also stated that criminal misconduct by a president during his tenure after he has left office can be prosecuted.

McConnell had refused to initiate impeachment proceedings before President Joe Biden was inaugurated, stating that there was insufficient time. McConnell said in his email that he still regards the verdict as a “vote of conscience”.

The final vote on Trump’s conviction was due to take place on Saturday afternoon, less than a week after the trial began and a month after the House indicted Trump on an article inciting the January 6 riot in the U.S. Capitol.

Senators initially voted 55-45 on Saturday morning to call witnesses to the trial, an unexpected development that would likely have delayed the verdict. The Senate then reversed course and will now move forward to end the trial without a witness.

Democrats need two-thirds of the Senate to vote for a conviction, which means that at least 17 Republicans would have to vote with all Democrats and Independents to convict Trump. Only six out of 50 Republican senators believed the trial should take place at all.

In this screenshot from a webcast by congress.gov, a roll-call vote is being held on a motion to summon witnesses on the fifth day of former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial at the U.S. Capitol on February 13, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Congress.gov | Getty Images

All Democratic Senators voted to hear witnesses along with five Republicans: Susan Collins from Maine, Lindsey Graham from South Carolina, Lisa Murkowski from Alaska, Mitt Romney from Utah, and Ben Sasse from Nebraska.

The call for testimony came after further details of an explosive dispute between House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy and Trump emerged on a phone call Friday night as the Capitol uprising unfolded in which Trump appears to be on the side of the United States Rioters stood and said they were more “angry” with the election results than McCarthy.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, DR.I. suggested that the process be halted to remove McCarthy and Senator Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala. Senator Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Supported Whitehouse’s call in a tweet on Saturday morning. Senator Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said he would also endorse witnesses if both sides ask.

“One way to clear it up? Suspend the process to oath McCarthy and Tuberville and get facts,” Whitehouse wrote in a tweet. “Ask intelligence to submit communications to the White House for review regarding VP Pence’s safety during the siege. What did Trump know and when did he know?”

In this screenshot from a webcast from congress.gov, Senior House Impeachment Head Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) speaks on the fifth day of former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial at the U.S. Capitol on February 13, 2021 in Washington, DC.

Congress.gov | Getty Images

During the trial, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., The chief impeachment manager called to subpoena Rep. Herrera Beutler, R-WA, to inform her of her testimony regarding her communication with McCarthy.

Trump attorney Michael van der Veen responded by saying “We should close this case today” and that the call for witnesses shows that the House has not properly investigated the riots.

Bruce Castor, one of Trump’s defense lawyers, said Saturday he would call “many” witnesses. The Senate is still working on the next steps, as dismissing witnesses can take days or even weeks.

The process was unprecedented in many ways. No president before Trump has ever been tried and tried twice, and a former president has never been tried in the Senate. If the process closes as expected this weekend, it will be the shortest impeachment process ever recorded.

It is also noteworthy that the senators serving as the jury in the trial are themselves witnesses to the events that, according to prosecutors, instigated Trump.

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA) questions Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta as he testifies during a House Appropriations Committee hearing on the fiscal year 2020 working budget on April 3, 2019 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

Al Drago | Getty Images

The break-in at the Capitol forced a joint session of Congress to vacate their chambers, ruining the process of confirming President Joe Biden’s electoral college victory. Five people, including a US Capitol police officer, died as a result of the attack.

Before the siege began, Trump held a rally in front of the White House calling on a crowd of his supporters to march to the Capitol to protest the election results and to pressure Republicans, including then Vice President Mike Pence, for them To question results.

“If you don’t fight like hell, you will have no more land,” Trump said at the rally, one of many statements before, during and after the uprising that the Democrats took as evidence of incitement.

Nine House Democrats selected as impeachment managers in the process argued that Trump has direct responsibility for the invasion. Led by Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., The executives presented within two days that Trump should be convicted and disqualified for ever holding federal office again.

Trump laid the groundwork for the attack over the months by relentlessly spreading the “big lie” that the 2020 elections were stolen by widespread electoral fraud. Managers said Trump set his “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 as the final stand to reverse the election result, then whipped his supporters and directed them to the Capitol.

“He had gathered thousands of violent people, people he knew to be violent, people he had considered violent,” property manager Madeleine Dean said at the trial. “And then he pointed to us, lit the fuse and sent an angry mob to fight the supposed enemy – his own Vice President and members of Congress – when we confirmed an election.”

Their presentation contained never-before-seen video and audio evidence, including security footage in the Capitol that showed lawmakers running to safety from the mob.

Trump’s lawyers denied that the former president had instigated the attack and placed particular emphasis on his use of the words “peaceful and patriotic” during his speech at the pre-insurrection rally. Trump’s rhetoric, they said, was a fully protected speech under the First Amendment and no worse than what Democrats have said in the past.

The urge to expel Trump from the future office amounts to a “culture of constitutional repeal,” said defense attorney Michael van der Veen.

The defense team also had problems with the legal process. They argued that the impeachment process itself was unconstitutional as Trump was a private citizen and no longer a president. They also said the process was rushed and Trump was deprived of procedural rights.

Van der Veen warned that the process would transform the impeachment power of Congress into a “mechanism for enforcing state control over which individuals can and cannot become president”.

They started their presentation on Friday noon; They finished less than three hours later, although they had up to 16 hours to represent their case.

Trump’s legal roster was released less than two weeks before the first day of the trial when the Senate met to review and vote on whether it had jurisdiction over the former president.

Castor received scathing reviews from Democrats and Republicans for making a tortuous, tangential argument. Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican who had previously voted to dismiss the trial on constitutional grounds, voted with the Democrats after listening to Trump’s lawyers.

In Trump’s first impeachment trial, only one GOP senator, Mitt Romney of Utah, voted to condemn Trump.

That process, in which the Senate examined articles on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in connection with Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate Biden and his son, took nearly three weeks – allegedly the shortest in US history.

If Trump’s second trial ends on Saturday, it will have lasted five days.

Tags acquit, Impeachment, McConnell, Nears, trial, Trump, Vote

Politics

Goats Don’t Vote – The New York Instances

Post author By
Post date February 5, 2021

In a moment, a herd of goats romps about and casually rummages in the shaggy grass. The next time her long ears twitch and her large golden eyes stare as they purposefully run away. They pick up speed while seemingly attentive to a specific destination. They exhibit behavior that scientists have long observed in herding, herding, and training animals from baboons to fish.

It almost looks as if the goats have cast their votes and decided together which way to go.

How creatures in the animal kingdom come together to a decision is a subject of constant interest. In some species, individuals weigh themselves. Meerkat troop members call and African wild dogs sneeze before the group moves and they will not leave until enough individuals have spoken.

It has even been suggested that African buffaloes vote in concert with their movements, with animals pointing out the path they want to go and the herd choosing the intersection of all their directions.

However, it is difficult for a human observer to tell the difference between forays through silent voting and those in which animals copy whatever their closest compatriots do, as school fish do. With collars fitted with GPS and other sensors, biologists observed a small herd of Namibian goats to see if their behavior suggested one tactic or another. In an article published Wednesday in the Royal Society Open Science magazine, they report that the goats don’t seem to be voting.

If animals decide in advance which route to take, there should be a delay in when the majority will orient themselves in the direction of travel and when to head out, said Andrew King, who studies animal behavior at Swansea University in Wales and the author is the new paper. However, it can be difficult for researchers to pinpoint the crucial moments.

“If you were just sitting in the field with a notebook, you couldn’t do it because you didn’t know when to go,” he said.

Recognition…Lisa O’Bryan

He and his colleagues have developed collars that contain GPS devices as well as accelerometers and magnetometers that track which direction animals are moving, when they are moving together, and where they will eventually land. They put the collars on 16 domesticated goats in the Tsaobis Nature Park in Namibia and collected data while traveling for 10 days. With this information, they could trace back to just before the group left a certain location and determine when they turned towards their destination.

If there were to be a vote, the goats would orientate themselves before starting the movement. A majority could face the direction they are ultimately moving, or the direction could be an average of their positions. In any situation, there would be a delay before the goats responded to the decision.

Instead, the researchers saw that the goats did not face their destination until the moment they left. That meant that a goat would start moving, its closest neighbors would turn to follow, and their closest neighbors would do the same, behavior the researchers call copying. This meant that the orientation of the goats before a foray did not predict which direction they were going.

The researchers also built a computer model to simulate what the movement of the goats would look like if they were to vote or just copy. Some virtual herds of goats were programmed to copy their neighbors, while others voted with their positions. The researchers found that what the goats did in real life looked a lot more like the copycat herds, suggesting that the animals didn’t have to do anything other than mimic their companions to move around as a group.

Behavior that stems from very simple rules can be surprisingly complex. Goats may not have discussions – at least not what scientists saw in this study – but that doesn’t mean their way of moving together isn’t flexible or useful. If more research confirms that copying makes them move, it could suggest that mimicking neighbors can improve herd survival.

Dr. King said that if many unrelated species use this decision-making process instead of voting, “it likely means that it is a useful, adaptable method for making collective decisions.”

Tags Dont, Goats, Times, Vote, York

Politics

Home to vote Thursday to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene of committee roles, Hoyer says

Post author By
Post date February 4, 2021

House to vote Thursday to strip Marjorie Taylor Greene of committee roles, Hoyer says

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) yells at journalists as she goes through security outside the Chamber of the House on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on January 12, 2021.

Andrew Cabellero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images

The House will vote on Thursday on a resolution to deprive MP Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Of her committee duties, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said.

The move comes amid resounding criticism of Greene for a series of extreme remarks she made prior to winning her Congress seat and increasing pressure on Republican leaders to reprimand or condemn these comments.

The resolution ousting Greene from the Committee on Budgets and the Committee on Education and Labor was passed in the House Rules Committee on Wednesday afternoon.

Hoyer, D-Md., Said in a statement on Wednesday that the resolution will be voted on Thursday on the floor of the house.

“It is clear that there is no alternative to holding a vote on the decision to remove Rep. Greene from her committee duties,” Hoyer said, noting that he was speaking with Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., About Greene had spoken.

McCarthy had suggested to Hoyer that Republicans remove Greene from the education committee if she could stick to her budget committee mandate, a source knowledgeable told NBC News. Hoyer turned down this deal, which would have avoided a vote on the floor of the house.

Greene’s assignment to the Education Committee has proven more controversial amid reports that she mocked a survivor of the school shooting, suggesting that other shootings were jokes.

McCarthy met Greene in his Capitol office Tuesday night. After this discussion, he made no immediate comment.

But in a statement later Wednesday, McCarthy said he “unequivocally” condemns Greene’s many controversial remarks about “school shootings, political violence and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories”.

The Republican leader said he made it clear to Greene during their meeting that “it is our responsibility, as members of Congress, to keep ourselves to a higher standard” and that “her previous comments now have a much greater significance”.

“Marjorie recognized that in our conversation. I keep her word,” said McCarthy in his statement.

But Greene did not publicly apologize for her earlier remarks, only declaring on Wednesday that “we owe them no apology” and “we will never step down,” citing criticism from Democrats and the media.

McCarthy’s testimony stated that his offer to Hoyer was intended as a “way to bring the temperature down and remove those concerns” regarding Greene. But “Democrats are choosing to raise the temperature by taking the unprecedented move to fuel their partisan takeover of the other party’s committee duties,” McCarthy said.

Greene, who won her House seat after running unopposed in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, has long received extensive scrutiny and conviction for promoting an extensive list of conspiracy theories.

Greene has a history of support for the baseless QAnon conspiracy that alleges that former President Donald Trump was embroiled in a secret battle against a cabal of “deep state” political and media criminals. She also recently came under fire after a CNN report revealed she liked multiple comments on Facebook calling for the execution of prominent Democrats, including House spokeswoman Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Media also reported that Greene suspected in 2018 that forest fires in California might have been caused by laser beams.

At a House Rules Committee hearing on Wednesday, Chairman Jim McGovern, D-Mass., Tore up the “really sick stuff” Greene said.

“If a person is encouraged to talk about shooting a member in the head, they should lose the right to serve on a committee,” McGovern said. “If that’s not the bottom line, I don’t know where the hell the bottom line is.”

McCarthy “is unwilling or unable to do the right thing,” added McGovern.

McGovern also expressed hope that the regulatory body could come to a bipartisan agreement on the resolution.

“It’s not about turning down someone with a different political belief, it’s about accountability,” said McGovern. “This is not a debate about a difference in politics or even ideology. It is about what she said.”

Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole, the top Republican member of the committee, said at the hearing, “I find Congressman Greene’s comments deeply offensive.”

However, he considered the committee’s hearing “premature” and said the ethics committee should review the matter and make recommendations.

“I urge this committee to consider an alternative course of action before it’s too late.”

“I am very concerned about the precedent of another party that chooses to” ditch the duties of a membership committee, “said Cole.

Earlier this week, Senate Minority Chairman Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Condemned Greene’s “crazy lies and conspiracy theories” calling them “cancer for the Republican Party and our country.”

But many Republicans have remained silent about Greene or withheld judgment about her possible expulsion from the congressional committees.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, RS.C., tweeted earlier Wednesday that Greene’s “alleged comments on various topics” would be “worrying” if they accurately reflected her current views. But “the most important thing for me is to understand what Rep. Greene believes now and in the past,” tweeted Graham, urging her to correct the record “if it needs to be corrected.”

Meanwhile, Greene has attacked the media during the latest wave of harmful stories about her.

“If @SpeakerPelosi were the leader of the minority, she would use every identity ploy in the book to defend her member,” Greene claimed on Twitter on Wednesday. “White, woman, woman, mother, Christian, conservative, business owner […] Those are the reasons why they don’t want me at Ed & Labor. “

She previously warned that if Democrats attempt to excise them from House committees, “I can assure you that the precedent they are setting will be used extensively against members on their side once we regain a majority after the 2022 elections.” “

Some Republicans have already taken steps in this direction. Republican lawmakers tabled an amendment this week to oust Minnesota Democratic MP Ilhan Omar from their committees, accusing them of making anti-Semitic comments.

Omar, one of the first Muslim women to serve in Congress, said in a statement that these efforts are “a desperate smear based on racism, misogyny and Islamophobia”.

“Republicans will do everything possible to distract from the fact that they have not only admitted members of their own caucus but also increased those encouraging violence,” Omar said.

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